Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	great_a	sin_n	transgression_n	3,082	5	10.1157	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61618	A sermon preached at White-Hall, February the 19th, 1685/6 being the first Friday in Lent / by Edw. Stillingfleet ...	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1681 (1681)	Wing S5658; ESTC R18636	15,433	36

their Refuge onely at a day of Extremity but not their Choice when their Conditions please them But when the Prodigal Son had so slighted his Father broken his Commands despised the advantages he had at home and was so hardly brought to think of returning thither how came he now to be so incouraged in his Mind to arise and go to his Father and confess his fault with hopes of being forgiven after all this We find no other Account here given but that he was his Father however he had offended him and therefore he was resolved he would arise and go to his Father as though there were charms and force enough in that word to answer all Discouragements Which being an Argument taken from the Bowels of Pity and Compassion which a Father hath towards a relenting Child we must enquire how far this will hold with Respect to God who is so infinitely above all the fond Passions of Humane Nature that it is a diminution to his Glory and Majesty to be thought like to Mankind And therefore his thoughts and ways are said to be as far above ours as the Heavens are above the Earth To clear this we are to consider not onely that our Blessed Saviour doth here lay the force and weight of the Parable upon the tenderness of a Father to his Son but that he elsewhere argues from it in such a manner as to convince us that God hath far greater Pity and Compassion towards Mankind when they make due Applications to him than Fathers can have towards their Children even when they ask for necessary sustenance What Man is there of you whom if his Son ask bread will he give him a stone Or if he ask a fish will he give him a serpent If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your Children How much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give good things to them that ask him There have been Philosophers so severe against the Passions of humane Nature that they would not allow any Pity or Commiseration towards others whatever their Condition or Relation were but onely acting according to Reason in supplying their Wants But the Christian Religion doth far more reasonably allow such Passions in Mankind as dispose them to doe good to others by fixing such an impression on their minds of others Misery as doth excite them to doe what is fitting for their Ease and Support And Compassion is not as some imagine such a mean and selfish Passion as doth arise onely from the apprehension that we may suffer the same things our selves which we pity others for but it is a generous Sense of what others feel joined with a Readiness to help them according to our Power And in this Sense our Saviour not onely allows it in Fathers towards Children but looks on it as necessary in humane Nature in order to the good and advantage of Mankind and therefore himself taking our Nature upon him is said to be touched with the feeling of our Infirmities and to have compassion on the Ignorant and on them that are out of the Way But although this be allowable in humane Nature how can such a thing as Compassion be attributed to the Divine Nature which is uncapable of such impressions and motions which we are subject to And yet the Scripture is very full and clear in attributing Pity and Compassion to Almighty God with Respect to his Creatures The Psalmist saith The Lord is full of Compassion and Mercy long-suffering and of great Goodness St. James saith He is very Pitifull and of tender Mercy And in that wonderfull Appearance to Moses when God himself declared his own Attributes the greatest part consists of his Kindness and Mercy towards Mankind The Lord God mercifull and gratious long-suffering and abundant in goodness and Truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity transgression and sin And the Psalmist useth the very same similitude of a Father's Pity to his Children Like as a Father pitieth his Children so the Lord pitieth them that fear him And when the Prophet speaks of God's thoughts and ways being so much above Man's it is for this end to prove thereby that God may shew more pity to Mankind than they find in their hearts to shew to one another Let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon For my thoughts are not your thoughts c. But setting aside all this the whole Scheme of the Gospel is drawn upon the Supposition of God's Pity and Compassion towards Penitent Sinners which is the Reason our Saviour insists so much on the Proof of it in this whole Chapter Wherein we not onely reade of Joy in Heaven at the Repentance of a Sinner but the Compassion of God Almighty towards a Penitent Sinner is set forth with all the tenderness of an Indulgent Father running into the embraces of his Son when he saw him at a distance coming towards him What now is the meaning of all this Are we to conceive of God as one like to our selves who either do not see faults in those we love or do not hate them as we should do or are too apt to pass them over or are at first it may be apt to be angry upon a slight provocation and then as easily made Friends upon as little Reason as we were made Angry But none of these things ought to enter into our Minds concerning God with respect to the Follies of Mankind And in this Case if we will form in our Minds right and true Conceptions of the Divine Nature as we ought to doe we must have a great Care lest we attribute any thing to God which looks like Weakness and Imperfection as the Motions and Changes of Passions do therefore to understand his Pity and Compassion and Reconciliation to Penitent Sinners we must first know what his Anger and Displeasure against Sinners mean Some think that Epicurus did in earnest believe a God but he was therefore forced to deny Providence because he could not conceive that the Government of the World could be managed without such resentments as were inconsistent with the complete happiness of the Divne Being and therefore he rather chose to make him Careless and Easie than Active and liable to Passion The Stoicks attributed to God all that was Good and Kind and Obliging but would by no means endure that ever he should be said to be Angry or Displeased which Doctrine did in effect overthrow Providence with Respect to Moral Actions as much as the Epicureans For if God did not regard the difference of Mens Actions but was equally kind to them whether they did Good or Evil such a Providence would have as little Influence on Mens Lives as if there were none at all We must then suppose if we would uphold Religion and Morality in the World not onely that there is a Providence

towards him as to design to reduce him from his Evil Ways And this every Father finds in himself towards a disobedient Son while he hates his evil Courses yet he would make use of the best Methods to bring him to himself and to his Duty And upon this is grounded that Love and Kindness of God towards Mankind in sending his Son to be our Saviour and all the Promises and Invitations which are made to Sinners in the Doctrine of the Gospel 3. It is very agreeable to Infinite Wisdom and Goodness for God to shew himself full of Pity and Compassion towards Penitent Sinners i. e. so as to forgive them their former Sins and to receive them into his Favour For Pity and Compassion in God is to be judged not according to the inward Motions we find in our selves but according to these Two things 1. A readiness to doe Good to his Creatures according to their Necessities Which being in general is his Bounty and Goodness but considered with Respect to the Persons of Sinners it is his Clemency or readiness to forgive and with Respect to the Punishment they deserve by their Sins it is his Mercy and Pity Which in us is Aegritudo ex Miseriâ alterius and therefore called Misericordia because the Heart is touched with the Sense of another's Misery but we are not so to apprehend it in God but that such is the Goodness of God towards Repenting Sinners that he is as willing to shew Mercy as they are to Repent 2. God's Pity and Compassion lies in the proper Effects of it which here in the Case of the Prodigal were passing by his former Extravagances and receiving him into as much Favour as if he had not gone astray This is my Son was dead and is alive again was lost and is found Those who think they stand not in need of so much Pardoning Mercy as others do are apt to repine at the Favour shew'd to great Sinners when they Repent And therefore the Elder Brother could not bear the expressing so much kindness towards such a disobedient Son though now a Penitent But that there is nothing disagreeing to Infinite Wisdom and Goodness in such Compassion towards Penitent Sinners will more fully appear if we consider 1. That God is not bound to deal with Sinners according to the utmost Rigour and Severity of his Justice Because he is under no fatal Necessity no Superiour Law and therefore may act freely in the forgiving Offenders as seems best to his Infinite Wisdom The whole Race of Mankind is a perpetual Evidence that God doth not Act according to the Strictness of his Justice for if he had dealt with them after their Sins or rewarded them according to their Iniquities their Spirits would have failed before him and the Souls which he had made they had been long since destroy'd from the face of the Earth and not suffer'd to continue in their Provocations But God hath not onely forborn Sinners long when he might justly have punished them but he gives them many real Blessings and Comforts of Life freely and bountifully Now if God deal so Mercifully with Sinners while they continue such is there not greater Reason to suppose he will be far more so when they cease to be such 2. A Penitent Sinner doth what in him lies to vindicate God's Honour I do not say he can make satisfaction to Divine Justice for that is impossible for him to doe and God hath provided for that by his own Son whom he hath made a Propitiation for the Sins of the World But a true Penitent takes all the Shame and Dishonour to himself he clears the Justice of God's Government and the Equity of his Laws and owns himself guilty of unspeakable Folly in his Disobedience O how justly saith he might God have taken me away in the midst of my Sins when my Conscience checked me for my Sins and yet I had no heart to repent of them When I could not but see my danger and yet was unwilling to come out of it I can never be sufficiently thankfull for so great a Mercy as his bringing me to my Self hath been I had gon on in the same secure stupid senseless condition that others lie in if he had not throughly awaken'd me and roused me out of my Impenitent State How dreadfull had my Condition for ever been if my first awakening had been in the Flames of Hell Nothing but Infinite Goodness and Patience would have waited so long for the Repentance of such an Offender as I have been I have sinned so often that I am ashamed to think of the Number of my Transgressions so deeply that I am confounded at the thoughts of them so foolishly that I am unworthy to be called thy Son who have acted so unlike thy Children so the Prodigal Son here speaks to his Father And if thou wouldst admit me but to the meanest Condition of thy Servants I shall ever esteem it as the greatest privilege of my Life and endeavour to serve Thee for the future though in the lowest Capacity Thus the Repenting Prodigal goes on v. 19. And in a sutable manner every true Penitent behaves himself towards God with great Humility and a deep Sense of his own unworthiness and is thereby rendred more capable of Divine favour For God resisteth the proud but giveth grace to the humble And therefore it is very agreeable to Infinite Wisdom and Goodness to shew pity towards a truly Humble and Penitent Sinner For a broken and contrite heart he will not despise 3. If God were not so full of Compassion to Penitent Sinners there would have been no lncouragement for Sinners to Repent but they must have sunk into everlasting Despair For if God should forgive none that sin then all Mankind must be condemned to Eternal Misery for all have sinned and there is not a Just Man upon Earth who sinneth not and so the best and worst and all sorts of Sinners must here suffer together which would have taken away all the Notion of any such thing as Mercy and Clemency in God towards Mankind But if we set bounds to it as to some particular kinds and degrees of sinning we limit that which is Infinite we determine what we know not viz. how far God's Mercy doth extend we destroy the Power of Divine Grace in Changing and Reforming the Worst of Men. But the Scripture hath recorded some remarkable Instances of great Sinners who have been great Penitents and upon that have been pardon'd such as Manasses and some others that no Penitent Sinner might be discouraged in the Work of Repentance For a True Penitent searching to the bottom and setting all his Sins before him with their several Aggravations can be kept from Despair by nothing less than the Infinite Mercy of God to those who truly Repent 4. Because there is nothing so provoking in Sin as obstinate Impenitency and Continuance in it It is true God hates all