Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	call_v	lord_n	sinner_n	2,337	5	7.5568	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A02029	The blinde-mans sermon: or confutation of the blinde Pharises. By Thomas Granger, preacher of the word, at Botterwike nere Boston in Lincolnshire	Granger, Thomas, b. 1578.	1616 (1616)	STC 12176; ESTC S112830	26,167	74

preserue all things therein for their sakes but for his owne children from whom they snatch and catch all that they can to dishonour God and his children therewith They are the children of Abaddon or Apollyon the destroyer that abuse all things to the dishonour of God the disgracing and harming of the godly and to their owne condemnation And this is the kingdome of the Deuill héere on earth Goe to now you cunning catchers you flouting politicians you proud and wanton damsells you lustfull and Epicurish Gluttons and thou muddy Mammonist on whom haue yee ieasted vpon whom haue ye gaped and thrust out you togue Are ye not rebellious children and a false seede Bastards and not Sonnes Are ye not witches children the seede of the Adulterer and the Whoore Esay 57. 3. 4. You boast your selues to be the children of God and the true members of Christ As for others you make mocks on them with your mouthes and you deuise terms for them to make them sectaries and hypocrites they are your gazing stocks and taunting Prouerbs But where is your Deuotion Where is your Zeale Where is your Feruency Sobriety Prayer Thanksgiuing Humility What fruits of the Spirit appeare in you What loue of God in the zealous exercises of Gods worship What contempt of the worlds pompe pride vanity in your moderate liuing and sober conuersation What regard of the afflictions of Ioseph Yea your bodies are your Idolls and your soules like drudges doe homage to your bodies This appeareth in your excessiue fare in your excessiue apparell in your excessiue varieties of fashions in your excessiue curiosity in the putting on thereof In these excesses ye compare one with another emulate one another and striue to goe beyond one another Your backes and bellies are grown to be so chargeable require so great maintenance like to the Idoll Bell as that the land is hardly able to beare you You grow so insupportable that the earth groneth vnder you I would ye knew but mockers pleasing themselues in their owne fancies will know nothing till they be made sober taught by iudgements that these are no fruits of the spirit but of a sensuall appetite they are no signes of Christianity but of a dissembling and proud heart and of lust that reigneth in your mortall and corruptible members It is to be feared that as God giueth you your hearts desires in all these things so some heauy iudgements hang ouer your heads to purge this shamelesse corruption and filthy rottennesse out of this land that hath had rest for many yeares It is a shame and an abhomination to sée what priding and decking there is of these corruptible carkasses how this earthly masse of mortality this lumpe of sinne and death doth magnifie and exalt it selfe It is a wonder to sée what pride in apparell what curiosity in the fashion and putting on of the same is to be séene on the Lords day a day of humility and denotion but such fleshly shewes and swaggering seruice the Lord abhorres For a penitent humble lowly and deuout heart doth not shew foorth it selfe in such flourishes Such were the conditions and practises of the Iewes in Esayes time Esay 3. and in Ezech. 33. 30. to the end They come to thee as the people vse to come and my people sit before thee and heare thy words but they will not do them for with their mouthes they make ieasts and their hearts goeth after their couetousnesse And loe thou art to them as a ieasting song of one that hath a pleasant voyce for they heare thy words but do them not Ciuility swallowes vp Christianity in this present age and pride deuoureth hospitality the very name whereof is worne out of mans memory Thirdly God granteth the withes desires enterprises and indeauours of the wicked as they are instruments of his iustice and rods of correction For by them as by asword a fire a rod the Lord doth chastise his children and punish the hypocrites Yea by their wickednes the Lord doth effect those things which may be for his owne glory and the good of his children they not knowing what they doe Fire naturally desireth nourishment or fuell wée giue it the same that we may do our works with it yet fire intendeth not the doing of our worke but the consuming of it Therefore wée call it a good seruant but an euill master The Deuill and the wicked are as fire in their owne natures destroyers yet by accident as I may say they are builders and repayrers for such is the power wisedome and goodnesse of God as that hée doth his owne worke by contrary meanes In this respect the Lord calls Nabuchadnezzar his seruant in that by him he punished the rebellious Iewes Nabuchadnezzar did this out of his couetousnesse and pride of his heart magnifying himselfe against God and his people yet he executeth the Lords iudgements on the rebellious and mercy on the obedient But what was the reward of this his seruice what he did out of his own euil heart was one thing what the Lord did out of his power and wisedome is another thing His wages was according to his owne worke Esay 33. Woe to thee that spoylest and wast not spoyled and dost wickedly and they did not wickedly against thee when thou shalt cease to spoyle thou shalt be spoyled when thou shalt make an end of doing wickedly they shall doe wickedly against thee Esay 45. 1. In this respect is Cyrus called comparatiuely the annointed of the Lord. The Lord will by him execute iustice on Nabuchadnezzar for his tyranny pride couetousnes cruelty by him shew mercy on his people in their deliuerance out of their seauenty years captiuity Thus Iudas the high-Priests Pharises had their desires they were not disappointed of their wicked proiects crafty plots but the end and proofe thereof was the building of Christs kingdome which they thought to ouerthrow and the destruction of their owne kingdome which they sought to establish by this meanes Ioh. 11. 48. If we let him thus alone all men will beleeue in him and the Romaines will come and take away both our place and the nation The vse of this Hast thou power hast thou wisdome policy hast thou a iudicious contriuing plotting head hast thou a searching imagination strong memory hast thou learning and eloquence hast thou wealth and friends hast thou a healthfull and strong body these things are much desired admired of the world But consider what thou art not what thou hast How dost thou vse thy power to build the kingdome and Church of Christ therwith or to build vp thy selfe in the destruction thereof to thy power how little soeuer it be How dost thou vse thy poli●y and wisedome and wherein are these gifts exercised wherein art thou iudicious what is the ground and end of thy proiects what vse dost thou make of thy learning in what matter and what causes dost thou practise thy

THE Blinde-Mans Sermon OR Confutation of the blinde Pharises By THOMAS GRANGER Preacher of the Word at Botterwike nere Boston in Lincolnshire LONDON Printed by T. S. for Thomas Pauier and are to besold at his shop in Iuie-Lane 1616. TO THE WORshipful and my very good friend Mr. Charles Leuenthorpe Student in Christs Colledge in Cambridge SIR the duty that I owe vnto you on the one side and the consideration of your worthinesse on the other moued me first to send this small present vnto you desiring thereby to exhibite some testimony of my sincere affection towards you in the good opinion that I haue of you for your good choise and hope of your happy proceeding therein Trusting in the Lord that as you haue deuoted your selfe to Learning and intend to consecrate your selfe to the Church of God so the Lord will blesse you in all your studies and make you a powerfull instrument in the building and maintaining of his kingdome Your Worships in the Lord to command THOMAS GRANCER THE BLINDE-MANS Sermon IOHN 9. 31. Now wee know that God heareth not sinners but if any be a worshipper of God and doth his will him hee heareth THese are the words of one that was borne blinde to whom our Sauiour Christ had restored his sight And hée was occasioned héer eunto by the enuious and ignorant Pharisées who said in the verse 24. that they knew Christ to be a sinner And in the vers 29. that they knew not whence hée was that is whether his doctrine and miracles were of God or of Sathan In the verse 30. he closely reproueth their ignorance by way of admiration Doubtlesse this is a maruellous thing that you know not whence hee is c. Now in this verse hée goeth forward teaching them and prouing vnto them that Christ is not a sinner and that he is of God That Christ is not a sinner he proueth in this verse and thus he argueth God heareth not sinners But God hath heard this man Therefore this man is not a sinner The Assumption namely that GOD hath heard him he proueth in the vers 32. his argument being drawne from the effect of Gods power in him namely the wonderfull Miracle that hée wrought in restoring him to his sight which he amplifieth by the comparison of all times Since the world began it was neuer heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was borne blind The greatnes of the Miracle appeareth héerein that being borne blind he had no eyes therfore it must néeds follow that hée made him new eyes and hée that can make eyes can also create a man which none can doe except God alone and hée to whom God giueth power to doe it The Proposition is a doctrine which he first confirmeth by the ground that is the common knowledge and consent of all men in the first words We know Secondly he illustrateth the same by the contrary But if any man be a worshipper of God and doth his will him hee heareth Heerein therefore thrée things are to be handled First the ground of the Doctrine Secondly the Doctrine it selfe Thirdly the illustration thereof I. Wee know Which is as much as if hée had said all men learned and vnlearned Iew and Gentile euen all men by the light of Nature know that God heareth not sinners And héerein we are to obserue that whereas he saith wee hée alludeth to that proud and ignorant spéech of theirs in the verse 24. closely deriding their ignorance As if hée had said you Pharises that are puft vp with pride and vaine-glory whose hearts Satan hath filled with couetousnes whose minds the poyson of blacke enuy hath blinded whose iudgments worldly lusts haue corrupted that you neyther will nor can discern the truth nor iudge righteous iudgment you know this man to be a sinner Because this man conuinceth you of open rebellion against GOD laying open the foule corruptions of your hearts which with your subtle delusions of Almes Fasting and Prayer you kéepe secret and close within your selues from the eyes of the poore Commons and because he glorifieth not your persons neither any whit respecteth you in the sight of the people which would be honoured and called Rabbi of euery man but contrarily reprooueth your pride couetousnesse cruelty in deuouring widdowes houses and hypocrisie whereby you thinke your selues greatly disgraced therfore are you incensed in malice enuy and hatred against him deuising plotting against him séeking to insnare and intangle him in his spéeches if by any meanes colour or pretence you might bring him within the compasse of treason or danger of Law Hence it is that euen contrary to your owne knowledge you say that you know him to be a sinner But I that haue béene afflicted euer since I was borne that haue euer till now borne this heauy crosse of blindnesse now at length haue obtained mercy that not onely bodily eyes should be giuen mée to behold this comfortable light of the Sun but the eyes of my mind should be opened to behold the son of God I and such as I euen we know that this man is not a sinner whatsoeuer it pleaseth you to know and iudge of him Héere wée obseruc and sée a poore and vnlearned man teaching the learned Pharises profest Doctors of the Law and Prophets and yet are they so ignorant in both as that a common man must teach them yea they are so dull as that they cannot learne which maketh the man to maruell at them Surely indéede it is a maruellous thing that plaine simple and vnlearned men should teach learned Clerks the wise and prudent yet so it is for the Gospell is a Mystery it is all wonder for it is not grounded on any principle in nature therfore it is as great a wonder also that any man should beléeue it but that it should be rather to the Iew a stumbling block to the Gentiles foolishnes In Mat. 11. Our Sauiour Christ had preached the Gospel to thrée great populous cities Corazim Bethsaida and Capernaum whereof Capernaum was euen lifted vp to Heauen with the wealth pompe and pride of this world In this city there were many rich Merchants that had knowledge enough by their traffique to encrease their substance In it were learned men and great Schollers In it were prudent and politicke gouernours yet for all this when Christ preached the Gospell among them there is none that repenteth none that beléeueth none that vnderstandech They flockt about him to heare newes for so his doctrine was accounted and to sée wonders and when they had sufficed themselues with nouelties there is no more repenting beléeuing remorse for sinne than if they had béene at a play but they returned backe againe like the Dog to his vomit and the Sow to her wallowing in the mire Héereupon hee declareth the causes héereof by way of thanksgiuing for the instruction of his Disciples then present ver 25. I thanke thee O Father