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	son_n	spare_v	2,140	5	9.5336	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65319	A lawyer's advice to the devil's agents: or, Some strokes at the unfruitful works of darkness, tending to their destruction made with a weapon taken out of the armory of the Most High. By William Watson, student in law.	Watson, William, student in law.	1693 (1693)	Wing W1150A; ESTC R220895	26,435	71

'll rather continue in them and presume upon the Mercies of God for pardon but the Mercies of God are conditional and you have no right to them unless you perform the Condition The wicked must forsake his way and the unrighteous Man his thoughts and return unto the Lord if he will have mercy and pardon ontherwise he cannot have it for Christ came not into the World to maintain people in sin but upon their Faith and Repentance to forgive them their Sins this is the only way in which he will be a Saviour unto you as you may learn from hes own Words Luke the 7th Chapter at the last Verse This you 'll say you know very well and that you must part with your sins or lose Heaven but you vainly think it's time enough yet and so defer it from Day to Day from Week to Week and form Year to Year 'till you are habituated to wickedness and so make it the more difficult to cast it off and what if by deferring it thus from time to time you should be suddenly as many are taken out of the World where are you then I shall not speak my thoughts but leave you to judge what your place and your Portion must be for ever very miserable I fear For I must tell you 't is a great presumption and very dangerous for any one to think of doing that in time to come which God bids him do presently 't is as if he knew better when it were to be done than God And if God says To day if you will hear his Voice harden not your Hearts and tells you That this is the day in which you should begin to seek after Salvation 2 Cor. 6.2 Behold now is the accepted time behold now is the day of Salvation How dare you defer seeking after it 'till to Morrow much less for a longer time as hereafter as you call it Is to this the ready way to provoke God to anger and to make him Swear in his Wrath as he did to 〈…〉 stubborn Israelites Psalm the 95th at the last Verse That you shall not enter into his Rest And then you are undone to all Eternity For although God's Mercies are great yet we must not carelesly and wilfully forget his Commands and rely so much upon his Mercy as to forget his Justice for as he is merciful so he is just and a Man may run on in Wickedness so long till he becomes merciless and then God's Justice will take hold on him and destroy him Jer. 13.14 And I 'll dash them one against another even the Fathers and the Sons together says the Lord I will not pity nor spare nor have mercy but destroy them And if you will prevent the passing of this dreadful Sentence upon you now is the time Seek ye the Lord whilst he may be found call ye upon him whilst he is nigh Consider you have a whole Eternity to labour for and you have many of you lost a great deal of time already therefore make the better use of what is to come it may be shorter than you are aware of Ask Forgiveness forthwith under all the Circumstances of Humility on your bended knees for all the Sins you have hitherto been shamefully guilty of for those Knees which are now too strong to ply in God's Service will be too weak one day to stand in his Presence and keep a strict Account of all your Thoughts Words and Actions for the time to come and every Night before you compose your selves to sleep bestow a little time in considering how you have spent the day and see what evil you have committed and what good you have omitted that you may certainly and sincerely crave Forgiveness for it which is the properest and most likely method for getting into a Habit of Vertue and Goodness especially if you are careful to return Thanks to God in the Morning for preserving of you from the perils of the Night and earnestly desire that his Favour and Blessing may attend you throughout the whole Day and that he would prevent your evil Actions and bring your good ones to perfection And not adventure to lie down in the Sins not only of that Day but of many Years as too many careless People do 't is much to be feared lest you should sleep the sleep of Death spoken of in Psalm 13.3 and the Wrath of God should seize upon you and cast you into the dismal place of eternal misery But immediately fix your Resolutions for the glorious Kingdom of everlasting Happiness and let Piety be your continual practice which is the certain way of attaining of it Cease to do evil learn to do well and be not weary of it but be diligent Followers of them that through Faith and Patience inherit the Promises and in due season you shall reap your Reward and be owned by Christ when he comes in the Glory of the Father with the Holy Angels and appears to those that look for him the second time without sin unto Salvation FINIS

hast given me And now what a strange pass are the people of this Impious Generation come to that they 'll rather obey the Devil that never did any thing for them but always acts against them as in their first Parents so ever since and continually endeavours their ruine than they will God who created them and redeemed them from that dreadful and everlasting Punishment they were rendered obnoxious to by the Fall by the most ignominious Death of his dear Son and continually protects them with his preserving mercy without which they would long ago have been consumed and swallowed up in the Gulph of Destruction Psal 124.1 2 3. If it had not been the Lord who was on our side now may Israel say If it had not been the Lord who was on our side when Men rose up against us Then they had swallowed us up quick when their wrath was kindled against us And yet the Alinrements of a Woman that makes Profession of Obscenity or the Incitement of a Companion in wickedness shall sooner draw a man into Adultery Drunkenness prophaning of the Lord's Day and other horrid Vices than the most tender and bleeding Disswasives of a Crucisied Jesus shall keep him from them and with their foolish Mirth and vain Discourses they drown the Voice of God crying Oh that there were such an hearth in them that they would fear me and keep all my Commandments always that it might be well with them and with their Children for ever Deut. 5.29 But if this calm soft and requesting Language from God will not prevail with them to turn them from their Iniquities they must expect to hear him speaking to them in another strain and that very terrible Mal. 3.5 And I 'll come near to you to Judgment and I 'll be a swift witness against the Sorcerers and against the Adulterers and against false Swearers and against those that oppress or defraud the Hireling in his wages the Widow and the Fatherless and that turn aside the Stranger from his right and fear not me says the Lord of Hosts God will not always wait though he does with many obstinate Sinners a long time with the offers of Mercy if they will not accept it in that time and manner that he thinks fit to bestow it upon them for a Man may defer making his Reconciliation to God so long 'till he may withdraw his assisting Grace from him and let angry Justice take place of abused Mercy and then it can never be done but he must be content to be amongst those whose end is Destruction and may sadly apply that Saying of our Saviour Luk. 19.42 to his own particular case If thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy Day the things which belong unto thy Peace But now they are his from thine eyes And you may see an Example of it in wicked Esau who could find no place of Repentance though he sought it carefully with Tears Heb. 12.17 And if a Man did but seriously consider to what a prodigious height of wickedness the World 〈◊〉 now grown he may have just cause to admire at the great patience of the Almighty in bearing with such gross Impieties and no drawing the Sword of his Justice and cutting the prophane Committers of them from the Face of the Earth for they are grown more impious than the Idolatrous Ancient of the House of Israel for they did their wickedness in the dark every Man in the Chambers of his Imagery for they say The Lord sees us not the Lord has forsaken the Earth and so endeavoured to conceal it at least they fansied it would not be take so much notice of by the Almighty Ez 8.12 but these are more impudent and commit the most heinous sins in the face of the whole World and are so far from being ashamed that they glory in it and think it an addition to their Reputation which they foolishly imagine is highly increased by approving themselves men of greater Abilities in Acts of Debauchery than other men Otherwise why do our immoderate Drinkers take such pleasure and so applaud themselves in that they are able to drink down others of more infirm Bodies and weaker Brains and not only triumph over them for the present but frequently report it afterwards as if it tended to their credit with a kind of rejoycing But let them know themselves to be wicked in so doing and that the rejoycing of the wicked is not good and sure I am that when Men thus rejoyce and glory in their sin they glory in their shame as the Apostle says Philip. 3.19 And as they thus deal with God in wickedness so must they expect he will deal with them in fury Ez. 8. at the last Verse Therefore will I also deal in fury mine eye shall not spare neither will I have pity and though they cry in mine Ears with a loud voice yet will I not hear them But have not those whose profession obliges them to be the most earnest and careful Reprovers of Sin been defective in it and so permitted this Flood of Wickedness to flow in upon us with greater violence than otherwise it would We will see what their Office is and how they discharge it and we shall soon be resolved They are set as Watchmen to the People and are to cry aloud and spare not and to lift up their voice like Trumpets and shew the people their Transgressions and the House of Jacob that is the whole Family of Believers their sins Isa 58.1 And this they do in alarming Sinners though with too much coldness and indifferency some of them from the Pulpit but this is not all they ought to do for if they find that sin grows so strong amongst their Auditors that publick Preaching will not suppress it they might do well to speak unto them by dissuasive Letters if they are capable of reading and understanding of them but if they are of so perverse and reprobate a mind that they will not do then let them try the last Remedy and have frequent personal conference with them and not suffer sin the Devil's Standard bearer to display his triumphant Banners in the hearts of their people without controul But ease and idleness will soon frame excuses for them and tell them this is the ready way to be accounted busie impertinent persons and become the common objects of contempt and derision amongst their hearers and what is this but under colour of being afraid of offending their Hearers being unwilling to be too buhe for God and the good of their Souls and disobeying the command of the Apostle who bids them be instant in season out of season reprove rebuke exhort with all long suffering and doctrine 2 Tim. 4.2 For I would fain know how that Minister keeps a diligent watch over the Souls of his Congregation as he that must give an Account when he knows any one of them to live in a continual course of Swearing Drunkenness and other