4. The Mercifulness of God, must cause his servants to imitate him in a Love of mercy: Be merciful, for your heavenly Father is merciful. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy, Matth. 5. 7. Be merciful in your Censures: Be merciful in your retributions: You are none of Gods Children, if you Love not your Enemies, and pray not for them that curse you, and do not good to them that hate and persecute you (according to your power) Matth. 5. 44, 45. If you forgive not men their trespasses, but take your Brother by the throat, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you your Trespasses, Matth. 6. 14, 15. Mark, that even while he is called [your heavenly Father] yet he will not forgive, if you forgive not. Unmerciful men are too unlike to God, to claim any interest in his saving mercy, in the hour of their extremest misery. Men of cruelty, blood and violence he abhorreth: And usually they do not live out half their days: But they that bite and devour one another, are devoured one of another, Gal. 5. 15. The last judgement will pass much according to mens works of mercy, to the members of Christ, Matth. 25. He shall have judgement without mercy, that hath showed no mercy: and mercy rejoiceth against judgement, James 2. 13. Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the Fatherless and Widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted in the world, James 1. 27. He that having this worlds goods, seeth his Brother in need, and shutteth up the bowels of his compassion from him, how dwelleth the Love of God in him? But above all cruelty, there is none more devilish than cruelty to souls. And in those that undertake the place of Pastors, cruelty to mens souls is a far greater sin than in any others. To starve those that they undertake to feed; and to seduce those whom they undertake to Guide, and be Wolves to those whose Shepherds they pretend to be, and to prefer their worldly honours, and commodity, and ease, before the souls of many thousands, to be so cruel to souls, when Christ hath been so merciful to them, as to come down on earth to seek and save them, and to give his life a ransom for them;
4. The Mercifulness of God, must cause his servants to imitate him in a Love of mercy: Be merciful, for your heavenly Father is merciful. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy, Matth. 5. 7. Be merciful in your Censures: Be merciful in your retributions: You are none of Gods Children, if you Love not your Enemies, and pray not for them that curse you, and do not good to them that hate and persecute you (according to your power) Matth. 5. 44, 45. If you forgive not men their trespasses, but take your Brother by the throat, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you your Trespasses, Matth. 6. 14, 15. Mark, that even while he is called [your heavenly Father] yet he will not forgive, if you forgive not. Unmerciful men are too unlike to God, to claim any interest in his saving mercy, in the hour of their extremest misery. Men of cruelty, blood and violence he abhorreth: And usually they do not live out half their daies: But they that bite and devour one another, are devoured one of another, Gal. 5. 15. The last judgement will pass much according to mens works of mercy, to the members of Christ, Matth. 25. He shall have judgement without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy: and mercy rejoyceth against judgement, James 2. 13. Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the Fatherless and Widdows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted in the world, James 1. 27. He that having this worlds goods, seeth his Brother in need, and shutteth up the bowels of his compassion from him, how dwelleth the Love of God in him? But above all cruelty, there is none more devilish than cruelty to souls. And in those that undertake the place of Pastors, cruelty to mens souls is a far greater sin than in any others. To starve those that they undertake to feed; and to seduce those whom they undertake to Guide, and be Wolves to those whose Shepherds they pretend to be, and to prefer their worldly honours, and commodity, and ease, before the souls of many thousands, to be so cruel to souls, when Christ hath been so merciful to them, as to come down on earth to seek and save them, and to give his life a ransome for them;
