Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	lord_n	people_n	spare_v	2,606	5	9.3833	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26832	Vulgar errors in divinity removed	Battell, Ralph, 1649-1713.	1683 (1683)	Wing B1150; ESTC R10796	49,392	154

save men but they will not be saved So the year of Jubilee was a true Type of our deliverance by Christ whosoever was in bondage might then go out free wherefore I conclude as sure as we are lost by the first Adam so sure we are redeemed by the second Adam So sure as we are created by God the Father so sure we are redeemed by God the Son and Whoever will believe in him shall not perish but shall have everlasting life Vulgar Errors CONCERNING Praying by the SPIRIT Removed THere hath nothing of late years been more mistaken than those Scriptures which speak of praying by the Spirit or the Spirit helping our Infirmities and God's pouring out the Spirit of Prayer and Supplications upon his People Which places have been wrested against a set Form of Prayer as if it were nothing but cold breathings and Lip labour to use their own words and a man in praying such a Prayer could not be assisted by the Spirit of God Their first mistake lieth in this that they do not distinguish between the gift of Prayer and the Spirit of Prayer Many men have a very good gift of Prayer and a very fluent Tongue who yet may be very formal as to their hearts not every one that hath the best gift of Eloquence prays most by the Spirit nor he that hath the meanest gift of Elocution prays least with the Spirit We may instance in Moses and Aaron the one of a stammering tongue the other God gives him this testimony that he could speak well Yet in the famous fight between Israel and Ameleck God makes not choice of Eloquent Aaron but of slowspoken Moses to get the victory by Prayer Though Aaron speak better than Moses yet certainly he could not pray better than he Prayer is a great part of Gods Service and Worship and our blessed Saviour tells us God is a Spirit and must be worshipp'd in Spirit Yet when the Apostles desired him to teach them to pray he did not teach them to pray by the Spirit in their sense who think speaking extempore without premeditation whatever comes into their mind on a sudden is the only praying by the Spirit but he prescribes them a set Form saying When ye pray say Our Father which art in heaven c. So that a set Form certainly may be prayed by the Spirit else it had never been commanded to be used by our Saviour Christ If it be said the Lords Prayer is a pattern to frame our Prayers by rather than a Prayer it self My answer is As some Weights and Measures which are so exact in their kind being kept as Standards to make other Weights and Measures by do not lose the nature of Weights and Measures upon that account but rather are warranted in their kind So the Lords Prayer by being made a pattern for our Prayers doth not lose the nature of a Prayer but rather is thereby commended to us to be the most absolute Form of Prayer in the world In Numb 6.23 God bids Moses speak unto Aaron and his Sons saying on this wise ye shall bless the people the Lord bless thee and keep thee the Lord make his face shine favourably upon thee c. If any able of themselves to conceive a Prayer we may well suppose it should be the Priest whose Lips should preserve knowledge yet they are prescribed a set Form of blessing the People If it had been prescribed for the simple and ignorant sort it might have been objected They that have not gifts of their own are permitted to make use of other mens gifts but seeing it is prescribed the Priest himself nay even for Aaron the Eloquent High-Priest it strongly concludes for a set Form of Prayer and Benediction to be used in publick by the most able and eloquent Divine Moses a great Prophet who prayed so earnestly that God said Let me alone as if he tied Gods hands yet did he use one set Form of Prayer when the Ark set forward and when it rested Numb 10.35 When it set forward he said Arise O God let thine enemies be scattered let them also that hate thee flee before thee and when it rested he said constantly Return O Lord to the many thousands of Israel Let us not seek to seem better than he in new Forms every day whose gifts without question were unspeakably greater than ours The 92. Psalm was usually sung in the Church of the Jews every Sabbath day it was penned for that purpose as appeareth by the Title of it Seeing therefore a set Form of Prayer and Praise have been the practice of the ancient Church of God among the Jews and of Christian Churches to this very day let us give them the right hand of fellowship to have a Unity and Uniformity in Publick Worship Our blessed Saviour of whom it was said truly never man spake as he spake yet he useth three times together the same words in his Agony Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from me He wanted no variety of words yet he confines himself to the same words the Prophet Joel prescribes the Prayer for the Priest and bids them say Spare thy people good Lord c. St. Paul the great Doctor of the Gentiles used the same Salutation in the beginning of most of his Epistles Grace mercy and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ and the same Prayer at the end of them The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with you all Amen These examples plainly refute the error of those that are against the Liturgy or set Form of Prayer in the Church it is a ridiculous thing to think that as a nice and squeamish stomach is delighted with change of Dishes so God is delighted with variety of words and novelty of matter and method and that unless we have a new stile or a new trope or a new figure or a new flourish every time more than other we have not the Spirit of Prayer nor shall be excepted Every good Christian is not able to conceive a Prayer many have weak Capacities to conceive them want Order and Method to compose them yet even these if they meet with a Prayer framed to their hand can pray fervently and heartily A set Form must needs be a great help to those that are weak and yet willing to pray nay even they that are strong ought not to despise them for Prayers in publick are bounded by authority To pass over those bounds then must needs be offensive to that Authority that prescribed those bounds If any do they foment as it were a Worship distinct and apart from what is authorized by the Church but more reason that the spirit of a Minister should be regulated by the spirit of the Church representative than the spirits of the whole Congregation by the spirit of the Minister If he that was sick of the Palsie that was born of four

to love God and to give him thanks to hate God is so intrinsically evil that it is impossible but that it should be forbid If it were possible for this not to be forbid it were possible for this to be lawful for where there is no Law there is no Transgression but it is utterly impossible it should be lawful therefore it must be granted there is an evil in order of nature before the prohibition of it and so some things must needs be good in their own nature as bearing a resemblance of the Image and goodness of God before any external Law pass upon them These things premised my answer is Although the Will of God be a rule of justice to us yet it is not a rule of justice to himself but his justice is rather a rule of his Works and of his Will and he works all things according to the Counsel of his Will and that Counsel adviseth nothing rashly or unmercifully unreasonably or unjustly but according to the greatest Equity and Chancery in the world and therefore cannot without the greatest violence to Reason and Religion be thought to make irrespective Decrees to torture for ever the greatest part of mankind chiesly for the pleasure of his Will Again they say Omnipotent Power authorizes all actions Now if God will make Vessels of wrath what hath any one to do with it May he not do what he pleases with his own Creatures My answer is we must not magnifie Gods Power so much as to eclipse his goodness or his truth which doth assure us that he is loving unto every man and that he delights not in the death of any sinner These men make God a Tyrant rather than a King and attribute such Prerogatives to God as are broadly inconsistent with his nature Acts of Power are not good in themselves but as they are accompanied with Justice and Mercy otherwise they are bad and lay a mans honour in the dust we must not so magnifie one Attribute in God as to justle out all the rest The Lord proclaimes his name to Moses Exod. 34.6 after this manner The Lord the Lord God merciful and gracious long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity transgression and sin Now Gods name is every ways agreeing to his nature which is rather than his Creature should perish to forgive iniquity transgression and sin and not to decree everlasting fire to it without the intuition of sin Let us not therefore entertain any hard thoughts of Almighty God Rev. 20.12 13. when the earth and the Sea gave up their dead they were all judged according to what was found in the Books and those Books were written only according to their works Conscience is one of those Books which shall be opened at the last day and it will acquit God of all hard dealing towards men that perish When Moses prayed thus Exod. 32.32 Either forgive this People or blot we out of the Book which thou hast written The Lord said Whosoever sins against me him will I blot out of my book Where you see sin only blots out of Gods Book and not any Fatal Decree If it should happen to men according to their Lots to be under such or such a Decree and not according to their Works there would nothing be remaining for us to do but only patiently to obey Fate for if an irrespective Decree do shut up the most of men under Condemnation can any one of those men by all his industry alter his Destiny Surely no unless he were stronger than he that made that Decree To what purpose then were all his endeavours or to what purpose should we beat the air and persuade him to impossiblities Yes to good purpose say the Abettors of such a Decree because no particular man knows under which Decree he is I confess this answer is the best they have to give but it nothing enervates the Argument for it is not the knowing of a Decree or the being ignorant of a Decree makes any thing to the altering of a Decree for neither if I know it will it be repealed neither if I be ignorant of it will it cease to be accomplished Now then although no particular man knows under which Decree he is yet he must needs know he is under one of them if there be such Decrees and under which soever he be he is bound with an Adamantine Chain unto it and his end is fixt by reason of it as unalterably as the Laws of the Medes and Persians Who then believing this can believe that his fasting weeping or mourning renting heart or garment can avail any thing to the altering of that Decree under which it was his Lot to be born So that he that hath imbibed this Doctrine hath cut the Sinews of all industry if he acts consequentially to what he himself doth believe Nay but the means are ordained as well as the end may some say True they are so But to the far greatest part of men if their opinion were true God should command them to seek his face in vain for those means could never attain the end for which men should use them namely the Salvation of their souls For never any man from the foundation of the world under that Decreo was sav'd neither indeed can be though Moses and Samuel should pray for him or an Angel from heaven preach unto him he could not believe To what purpose now was the means ordained to these or the use of them Nay to what purpose should God wish the conversion of such sinners send his Embassadors to intreat and beseech them expostulate the case with them Why will ye die swear unto them As I live I had rather you should live if in the mean while he hath decreed their death before they did good or evil and in order to that Decree was resolved never to afford them power to perform any one act of saving grace Now whether there be insincerity in these Expressions or in their Opinions judg ye Nay let God be true and every man a liar Let us heartily believe that every mans destruction is wholly from himself and not from any fatal Decree of God Lastly it is objected the seventeenth Article of the Church of England says God hath decreed before the foundations of the world were laid by his Counsel secret to us to deliver from Curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind From whence they thus argue Before the foundations of the world were laid no man could do good or evil but even then some were chosen and consequently some not therefore those that were not chosen were rejected before they had done good or evil To this I answer as some were chosen in Christ and consequently others not chosen before the foundations of the world were laid so known unto God were all things before the foundations of the world were laid He knew the first man would fall