Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	let_v	lord_n	magnify_v	2,538	5	10.8447	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A14095	A discovery of D. Iacksons vanitie. Or A perspective glasse, wherby the admirers of D. Iacksons profound discourses, may see the vanitie and weaknesse of them, in sundry passages, and especially so farre as they tende to the undermining of the doctrine hitherto received. Written by William Twisse, Doctor of Divinitie, as they say, from whom the copie came to the presse	Twisse, William, 1578?-1646.	1631 (1631)	STC 24402; ESTC S118777	563,516	728

Ezek. 14. 23. They shall comfort you when you see their way and their enterprises and ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it saith the Lord God Secondly when God doth chastise not as parents for their owne pleasures but with an eye to the good of those whom hee chastiseth Rom. 12. 10. According thereto is that of Augustine Qui trucidat non considerat quemadmodum laniet sed qui curat considerat quemadmodum seret This is my answer following the course of your owne reading of the place whereas Piscator blames the vulgar translation in this place which you follow for saith hee in the Hebrew it is not I will not the death of a sinner but this I am not delighted in the death of a sinner But saith he A man may will that wherein he takes no delight as a ficke man may will to drinke a bitter potion wherein he takes no delight For he may will to take it not for it selfe but for something else to wit to recover his health And so God willeth the eternall death of reprobates for his owne glory to wit for the manifestation of his just wrath in punishing of their sinnes And Iunius reades it and translates it in like manner and with these accordeth our last English translation As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turne from his way and live Ezek. 33. 11. And the 18. of Ezekiel doth cleare the meaning of the Holy Ghost where the same phrase is used and in the same manner translated by our worthiest Divines and followed in our last translation vers 23. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should dye saith the Lord God and not that hee should returne from his waies and live and verse 32. I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth saith the Lord God wherefore turne your selves and live ye Now in this chapter the Lord justifieth himselfe against an imputation of harsh if not unjust dealing as if hee punished the children for the sinnes of their fathers which in a proverbiall manner was delivered thus The fathers have eaten sowre grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge which might occasion a desperate disposition in them and provoke them to cast off all care of amending their waies and turning to God by repentance because all was one whether they repented or repented not because the sowre grapes which their fathers had eaten were enough to set all their teeth on edge Against this the Lord made a solemne protestation that all soules were his even the soules of the children as well as the soules of the fathers and that the soule that sinned that should dye and hereupon expostulates with them thus Have I any pleasure in the death of a sinner to wit so as to bring death upon him notwithstanding his repentance because forsooth his father had eaten sowre grapes No no the Lord hath no delight in their death but if they returne and live hee delights in that and therefore concludes with exhorting them to returne unto the Lord that they may live Now when you forsake the translation of our Church and slicke unto the Vulgar corrupt translation to hold up your odde conceits doth it become you to make question whether they that oppose you in your extravagant tenents and proofes have subscribed to the booke of Common Prayer Piscator proceedeth further and saith that the meaning is not simply that God delights not in the death of the wicked but in case he ceaseth not from his iniquity as appeares saith he by comparing of it with that which goeth before and with that which commeth after for otherwise God takes delight in all his workes like as Lyra upon Ezech. 18. Punitio improbitatis bene est à Deo volita quia justa In Proverbs 1. 26. thus we reade I will laugh at your destruction and mocke when your feare commeth How are these places to bee reconciled Piscator answereth God is not delighted in the death of man as it is the destruction of the creature but is delighted therein as it is the just punishment of the creature which is as much as to say he delights in the execution of his owne Iustice like as wee reade Ier. 9. 24. Let him that glorieth glorie in this that he understandeth and knoweth me For I am the Lord which shew mercy and judgement and righteousnesse in the earth for in these things I delight saith the Lord. 4. Now as if you had made all sure on your side partly out of our authorized devotions wherein you make choice of three prayers whereof two are nothing to the purpose and the third at your uttermost straining of it doth but encourage you to conclude finally that God wils not the death but the life rather of them that of Infidels are made Christians and partly out of the Catechisme where you finde that Christ hath redeemed all mankinde which hath no coloutable extent further then all men and without manifest opposition to Austin you finde this phrase will not serve your turne whom yet you oppose so as without answering any one of his arguments one whereof was drawne from analogie of Scripture phrase another from manifest reason professing therewithall that your construction of this place contradicts the prime Article of the Creed And last of all driving the naile of your discourse home with a concludent proofe depending upon a translation of the text quite different from the most authentique translation of our Church which yet must be without prejudice to your conformity having a sound heart of your owne and therefore some peccadilies may bee well borne withall and you take liberty to question others your opposites whether they have subscribed or no to the booke of Common Prayer such is the height of your imperious cariage bearing downe all before you Now you come to enquire By what will God doth will they should be saved that are not saved and you demand whether God doth will their salvation by his revealed and not by his secret will As if this were our opinion whereas neither Calvin embraceth it nor Beza nor Piscator but all concurre upon that interpretation which Austin gave many hundred yeares agoe and which you impugne and how judiciously we have already considered Peter Martyr proposeth it amongst divers others but embraceth it not neither doe I know any Divine of ours that embraceth it Cajetan indeed embraceth it and Cornelius de Lapide and Aquinas amongst other interpretations As you doubt whether your opposites have subscribed to the booke of Common prayer so if you take a liberty to put upon us the opinions and accommodations of distinctions used by Papists you may in the next place make doubt whether wee have not subscribed to the Councell of Trent We plainly deny that God doth will the salvation of any but of his elect For to

judgement then invention though formally it is a quality of the will as all morall vertues are and not any habitt of the understanding But suppose he miscarry in all then a mans patience must needes bidd farewell to invention to support it and it is high time to relye upon judgement Yet I trust patience which must have her perfect worke Iam. 〈◊〉 may have course in this case allso though it be an hard matter you say to keepe from fowle play if the game whereat a man shootes be fayre and good and most of his stringes allready be broken It is good they say to have two stringes to a mans bowe A vertuous man hath more then two you suppose as much for you suppose many to be broken yet not all And surely vertue is not vertue if it keepe not from foule play The Stoickes mainteyned that a vertuous man might descend into Phalaris bull without the interrup●ion of his happines We Christians are taught and disciplined to rejoyce even in tribulation and marke well our bow stringes because tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed in our hearts by the Holy Ghost that is given unto us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayth S. Paule I am able to endure all thinges by the power of Christ that enables me and herupon he exhorts Timothy to be partaker of the affliction of the Gospell to witt by the power of God The power of Christ and the power of God are two such stringes to our blowe of patience as can never be broke We know his grace to be sufficient for us and when his power is made perfect in our weakenes we shall have cause to rejoyce in our infirmities For when we are weake then are we strong In a mans owne strength no man shall be strong But blessed art thou o people who art the saved of the Lord who is the sheild of thy strength and the sword of our glory He can make us to be as a Gyants sword and he is a wall of fire round about Ierusalem All that sight against it theyr fleshe shall consume away though they stand on theyr feete and theyr eyes shall consume in theyr holes and theyr tongues shall consume in their mouthes But to returne The contingency of the issue is within the horizon of our fore sight As for horizons of contrivances let such as fancy them make themselfes merry with them All this while the matter of your discourse being of Gods infinite wisedome and to that purpose preluding of the imperfect wisedom of man I have wondred what you meant to enter upon the consideration of patience unlesse it were to prepare your reader therby with a more willing entertaynment of your discourse But now I perceive you desire to gratify God with a commendation of his patience which that it might seeme the more congruous you pretend that the infinitenes of his wisedome carries him herunto And this patience consists in bearing with sinners which as you say every minute of theyr life 's violently thwart and crosse some particular meanes ordeyned for his glory and theyr good Gods patience in forbearing us and our sinnes in provoking him are greate enough in theyr proper colours they neede no inconsiderate amplification to bombast them by saying that every minute of life we violently crosse them For surely eyther you must suppose man every minute of his life to be waking or els you delivered this as it were slumbering But to touch upon something more materiall I pray remember that you treate of the wisedome of God as exercised in intending a right end and prosecuting a right choyse of meanes for the effecting of it Now would you be so good as to consider what is the end that God aymes at in this and particularly whether it be all one in bearing thus with all and that of an ambiguous nature thus that in case they doe at length repent and turne unto God he may magnify his mercy in theyr salvation if still they stand out and dye in impenitency he may magnify himselfe in theyr just condemnation And withall I pray consider whether this be the course of any wisedom finite or infinite in God or man to intend ends after this ambiguous manner I mention no other end of Gods patience and long suffering because I know no other end agreable to your opinion That which followeth tendes rather to the commendation of the goodnes of Gods will then the wisedome of his understanding therfore so much the more heterogeneall and extravagant as when you say out of the Apostle that He is light and in him is no darknes and that He distingvisheth the fruites of light from fruits of darknes before they are even before he gave them possibility of being An amplification partly idle partly unsound For God must eyther distinguish them before they are or not at all For there is no change in his understanding unsound in saying God gives them possibility of being The being of things is from the gift of God but not the possibility of being But you proceede in the same stringe As impossible it is for his will to decline from that which he disernes truly good as for his infinite essence to shrinke in being God indeede cannot shrinke for he is indivisible and you well know what thereupon you have wrought for the amplification of his power in the former chapter But I would you had told us what is that truly good discerned by God from which you say his will cannot decline I cannot be satisfied with your concealments in this particular What I pray is more truly good then the setting forth of Gods glory eyther in his patience and long suffering or in ought else whatsoever And is it impossible thinke you for Gods will to decline this If so then it were impossible that God should decline the making of the World Is not this a faite way to Atheisme Many thinges you say may and every thing that is evill doth fall out against Gods will but nothing without his knowledge or besides his expectation In Scripture phrase we find that many thinges fall out not onely besides but contrary to Gods expectation as Esa. 5. where God complayneth of the house of Israel that while he looked for grapes they brought forth wilde grapes And Arminius urgeth this as if it were spoken in a proper speeche By the proposition in this place it must be sayde that God expects sowre grapes as well as sweete for otherwise they shoulde fall out besides his expectation which you here deny So then God did expect that Shimei should rayle on David that Absolon should defloure his Fathers Concubines that Iudas should betray his Master that David should defile his neighbours wife and cause hir husband to be slayne by the sword of children of Ammon and that the Iewes should crucify the Holy Sonne

Iohn and Christ damneth the contemners of God and such as willingly continue in sinne and will not repent Those the Scripture excludeth from the generall promise of grace It may seeme that The contemners of God and such as willingly continue in sinne and will not repent in master Hoopers phrase are the same in your judgement with those whom you account to have filled up the measure of iniquity But what ground have you for that Master Hooper saith not that all such whom he accounts contemners of God and such as willingly continue and sinne and will not repent have hereupon filled up the measure of their iniquitie or that hereupon all possibility of amendment is taken from them these are your assertions they are not master Hoopers Again all contemners of God and such as willingly continue in sinne and will not repent master Hooper saith the Scripture excludes from the generall promise of grace and this he utters without any distinction as well he may to wit for the present and so long as they continue in this their contempt and hardnesse of hart For as much as the promise of grace both for the pardon of sinne and salvation of our soules belongs to none but such as breake off their sinfull courses by faith and repentance But you distinguish betweene such contemners of God and presumptuous sinners and tell us that some of them have arived to the full measure of their iniquity and that there is no possibility of their amendment such as Pharaoh was after the seventh plague others though contemners of God c. yet in this their course of contempt have not filled up the measure of their iniquity such as Pharaoh was before the seventh plague who undoubtedly was a contemner of God before that time and one that willingly continued in sinne and would not repent and of all such you professe that God doth unfainedly love them Now there are no tracks or footsteps of such strange assertions as either of these to be found in Bishop Hooper Of all contemners of God he professeth according unto Scripture that they are excluded from all promise of grace to wit for the present he doth not say God unfainedly loves any of them but as for the time to come he doth not affirme that all possibility of amendment is taken from them Had hee thought so then he should acknowledge them to bee in a desperate condition But hee is so farre from this that hee accounts Desperation to bee a principall let and impediment unto godlinesse chap. 18. fol. 90. The first let saith hee or impediment is desperation when as men thinke they cannot be saved but are excluded from all mercy and a little after Of the contrary nature to presumption is desperation it taketh from God his mercy For when they offend and continue in sinne they thinke there is no mercy left for them and that as in the next sentence he sheweth specially because of custome and long continuance in sinne Then he proceeds saying This discourse and progresse in that knowledge of sinne beareth him in hand that it is impossible to returne unto God This is as much as in your phrase to affirme that all possibility of amendment is taken from him But doth Mr. Hooper justifie this Nothing lesse for this is a maine let or impediment to repentance which he desires to remove out of the way of sinners and to that hee proceeds in this manner Moses saith he like a good Physitian teacheth a remedie against this dangerous disease and sheweth the way unto God declareth that God is full of mercy and ready to forgive and beginneth his oration in this manner unto such as bee afflicted and oppressed with sinne When there commeth upon thee all those things when God hath afflicted thee for thy sinnes and thou returnest unto him with all thy heart he shall deliver thee from captivity and receive thee to his mercy againe Of the which text learne this doctrine that God will alwaies forgive how many and how horrible soever the sinnes bee and learne to feare presumption and to beware of desperation So that hoe acknowledgeth no just cause of desperation no not in respect of custome and long continuance in sinne The next sentence in Mr. Hooper transcribed by you in this eighth Section of yours conteines no more then that which wee all acknowledge Thou seest saith he by the places before rehearsed that though wee cannot believe in God as undoubtedly as is required by reason of this our naturall sicknesse and disease yet for Christ sake in the judgement of God wee are accounted as faithfull believers for whose sake this naturall disease and sicknesse is pardoned by what name soever Saint Paul calleth the naturall infirmity and originall sinne in man This is something concerning the nature of originall sinne in the opinion of Mr. Hooper nothing at all touching a certaine state of sinne wherein all possibility of amendment is taken from a man to which purpose Mr. Hooper is alledged by you in this place Yet because I doe not know what reaches you have in this also I answer that Mr. Hooper speakes of originall sinne as it is found in the regenerate and as it is in them hee calls it onely A naturall sicknesse and disease And indeed when wee are once regenerate wee are no longer dead in sinne no longer estranged from the life of God But herehence it followeth not that Mr. Hooper was of opinion that originall sinne was even in the unregenerate to bee accounted onely A naturall sicknesse and disease and not rather a death in sinne especially considering that the holy Apostle acknowledgeth A law in his members rebelling against the law of his minde and leading him captive to the law of sinne and calleth it A body of death crying out against it and saying Who shall deliver me from this body of death Rom. 7. 1. The last clause as I take it makes more for your present purpose as when hee saith And this imperfection and naturall sicknesse taken of Adam excludeth not the person from the promise of God in Christ except wee transgresse the limits and bounds of originall sinne by our owne folly and malice and either of a contempt or hate of Gods word wee fall into sinne and transforme ourselves into the image of the devill Then wee exclude by this meanes ourselves from the promises and merits of Christ who onely received our infirmities and originall disease and not the contempt of him and his law This passage I confesse is somewhat strange and of my knowledge hath troubled some conc●iving it as an assertion of yours and not so much as dreaming that it was delivered by Mr. Hooper I answer therefore First of all that this serves not your turne for the present that in two respects First you distinguish the contempt of Godsword and of his law according to different degrees eithersuch as was in Pharaoh before the seventh plague or such as was in