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	soul_n	6,288	5	5.4233	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67467	The life of Dr. Sanderson, late Bishop of Lincoln written by Izaak Walton ; to which is added, some short tracts or cases of conscience written by the said Bishop.	Walton, Izaak, 1593-1683.; Sanderson, Robert, 1587-1663. Judgment concerning submission to usurpers.; Sanderson, Robert, 1587-1663. Pax ecclesiae.; Hooker, Richard, 1553 or 4-1600. Sermon of Richard Hooker, author of those learned books of Ecclesiastical politie.; Sanderson, Robert, 1587-1663. Judgment in one view for the settlement of the church.; Sanderson, Robert, 1587-1663. Judicium Universitatis Oxoniensis. English.	1678 (1678)	Wing W667; ESTC R8226	137,878	542

the love of obedience the sense and feeling of thy necessity the eye of singleness and sincere meaning guide thy footsteps and thou canst not slide You see what it is to ask and seek the next is Knock. There is always in every good thing which we ask and which we seek some main wall some barr'd gate some strong impediment or other objecting it self in the way between us and home for removal whereof the help of stronger hands than our own is necessary As therefore asking hath relation to the want of good things desired and seeking to the natural ordinary means of attainment thereunto so knocking is required in regard of hindrances lets or impediments which are doors shut up against us till such time as it please the goodness of Almighty God to set them open In the mean while our duty here required is to knock Many are well contented to ask and not unwilling to undertake some pains in seeking but when once they see impediments which flesh and blood doth judge invincible their hearts are broken Israel in Egypt subject to miseries of intolerable servitude craved with sighs and tears deliverance from that estate which then they were fully perswaded they could not possibly change but it must needs be for the better Being set at liberty to seek the Land which God hath promised unto their Fathers did not seem tedious or irksome unto them This labour and travel they undertook with great alacrity never troubled with any doubt nor dismayed with any fear till at the length they came to knock at those brazen gates the barrs whereof as they have no means so they had no hopes to break asunder Mountains on this hand and the roaring Sea before their faces then all the forces that Egypt could make coming with as much rage and fury as could possess the heart of a proud potent and cruel Tyrant In these straits at this instant Oh that we had been so happy as to die where before we lived a life though toylsom yet free from such extremities as now we are fallen into Is this the milk and honey that hath been so spoken of Is this the Paradise in description whereof so much glosing and deceiving eloquence hath been spent have we after four hundred and thirty years left Egypt to come to this While they are in the midst of their mutinous cogitations Moses with all instancy beateth and God with the hand of his Omnipotency casteth open the gates before them maugre even their own both infidelity and despair It was not strange then nor that they afterward stood in like repining terms for till they came to the very brink of the River Iordan the least cross accident which lay at any time in their way was evermore unto them a cause of present recidivation and relapse They having the Land in their possession being seated in the heart thereof and all their hardest encounters past Ioshua and the better sort of their Governours who saw the wonders which God had wrought for the good of that people had no sooner ended their days but first one Tribe than another in the end all delighted in ease fearful to hazard themselves in following the conduct of God weary of passing so many strait and narrow gates condescended to ignominious conditions of peace joyned hands with Infidels forsook him which had been always the Rock of their Salvation and so had none to open unto them although their occasions of knocking were great afterward moe and greater than before Concerning Issachar the words of Iacob the Father of all the Patriarchs were these Issachar though bonny and strong enough unto any labour doth couch notwithstanding as an Ass under all burthens He shall think with himself that rest is good and the Land pleasant he shall in these considerations rather endure the burthen and yoke of tribute than cast himself into hazard of war Gen. 49. We are for the most part all of Issachar's disposition we account ease cheap howsoever we buy it And although we can happily frame our selves sometimes to ask or endure for a while to seek yet loth we are to follow a course of life which shall too often hem us about with those perplexities the dangers whereof are manifestly great But of the Duties here prescribed of asking seeking knocking thus much may suffice The Promises follow which God hath made 2. Ask and receive seek and find knock and it shall be opened unto you Promises are made of good things to come and such while they are in expectation have a kind of painfulness with them but when the time of performance and of present fruition cometh it bringeth joy Abraham did somewhat rejoyce in that which he saw would come although knowing that many Ages Generations must first pass Their exultation far greater who beheld with their eys and imbraced in their arms him which had been before the hope of the whole world We have found that Messias have seen the salvation Behold here the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world These are speeches of men not comforted with the hope of that they desire but rap'd with admiration at the view of enjoyed bliss As oft therefore as our case is the same with the Prophet Davids or that experience of God's abundant mercy towards us doth wrest from our mouths the same acknowledgments which it did from his I called on the Name of the Lord and he hath rescued his servant I was in misery and he saved me Thou Lord hast delivered my soul from death mine eyes from tears and my feet from falling I have ask'd and received sought and found knock'd and it hath been oopened unto me Can there less be expected at our hands than to take the Cup of Salvation and bless magnifie and extoll the mercies heaped upon the heads of the sons of men Ps. 116. Are we in the case of them who as yet do any ask and have not received It is but attendance a small time we shall rejoyce then but how we shall find but where it shall be opened but with what hand To all which demands I must Answer Use the words of our Saviour Christ quid hoc ad te what are these things unto us Is it for us to be made acquainted with the way he hath to bring his counsel purposes about God will not have great things brought to pass either altogether without means or by those means altogether which are to our seeming probable and likely Not without means lest under colour of repose in God we should nourish at any time in in our selves idleness not by the meer hability of means gathered together through our own providence lest prevailing by helps which the common course of nature yieldeth we should offer the Sacrifice of Thanksgiving for whatsoever prey we take to the Nets which our singers did weave than which there cannot be to him more intolerable injury offered Vere absque dubio saith St. Bernard

poor dejected Neighbour that complain'd he had taken a Meadow the Rent of which was 9 l. a year and when the Hay was made ready to be carried into his Barn several days constant rain had so raised the water that a sudden Flood carried all away and his rich Landlord would bate him no rent and that unless he had half abated he and seven children were utterly undone It may be noted That in this Age there are a sort of people so unlike the God of mercy so void of the bowels of pity that they love only themselves and children love them so as not to be concern'd whether the rest of mankind waste their days in sorrow or shame People that are curst with riches and a mistake that nothing but riches can make them and theirs happy But 't was not so with Dr. Sanderson for he was concern'd and spoke comfortably to the poor dejected man bade him go home and pray and not load himself with sorrow for he would go to his Landlord next morning and if his Landlord would not abate what he desired he and a Friend would pay it for him To the Landlord he went the next day and in a conference the Doctor presented to him the sad condition of his poor dejected Tenant telling him how much God is pleas'd when men compassionate the poor and told him That though God loves Sacrifice yet he loves Mercy so much better that he is pleas'd when call'd the God of mercy And told him the riches he was possest of were given him by that God of mercy who would not be pleas'd if he that had so much given yea and forgiven him too should prove like the rich Steward in the Gospel that took his fellow servant by the throat to make him pay the utmost farthing This he told him And told him That the Law of this Nation by which Law he claims his Rent does not undertake to make men honest or merciful but does what it can to restrain men from being dishonest or unmerciful and yet was defective in both and that taking any Rent from his poor Tenant for what God suffered him not to enjoy though the Law allowed him to do so yet if he did so he was too like that rich Steward which he had mentioned to him and told him that riches so gotten and added to his great Estate would as Iob says prove like gravel in his teeth would in time so corrode his Conscience or become so nauseous when he lay upon his Death-bed that he would then labour to vomit it up and not be able and therefore advis'd him being very rich to make Friends of his unrighteous Mammon before that evil day come upon him But however neither for his own sake nor for God's sake to take any Rent of his poor dejected sad Tenant for that were to gain a temporal and lose his eternal happiness These and other such reasons were urg'd with so grave and so compassionate an earnestness that the Landlord forgave his Tenant the whole Rent The Reader will easily believe that Dr. Sanderson who was himself so meek merciful did suddenly and gladly carry this comfortable news to the dejected Tenant and will believe that at the telling of it there was a mutual rejoycing 'T was one of Iob's boasts That he had seen none perish for want of clothing and that he had often made the heart of the widow to rejoyce And doubtless Dr. Sanderson might have made the same religious boast of this and very many like occasions But since he did not I rejoyce that I have this just occasion to do it for him and that I can tell the Reader I might tire my self and him in telling how like the whole course of Dr. Sanderson's life was to this which I have now related Thus he went on in an obscure and quiet privacy doing good daily both by word and by deed as often as any occasion offer'd it self yet not so obscurely but that his very great learning prudence and piety were much noted and valued by the Bishop of his Diocese and by most of the Nobility and Gentrey of that Country By the first of which he was often summon'd to preach many Visitation Sermons and by the latter at many Assizes Which Sermons though they were much esteemed by them that procur'd and were fit to judge them yet they were the less valued because he read them which he was forc'd to do for though he had an extraordinary memory even the Art of it yet he had such an inmate invincible fear and bashfulness that his memory was wholly useless as to the repetition of his Sermons as he had writ them which gave occasion to say when they were first printed and expos'd to censure which was in the year 1632 That the best Sermons that were ever read were never preach'd In this contented obscurity he continued till the learned and good Archbishop Laud who knew him well in Oxford for he was his contemporary there told the King 't was the knowing and conscientious King Charles the I. that there was one Mr. Sanderson an obscure Countrey Minister that was of such sincerity and so excellent in all Casuistical learning that he desir'd his Majesty would make him his Chaplain The King granted it most willingly gave the Bishop charge to hasten it for he long'd to discourse with a man that had dedicated his Studies to that useful part of learning The Bishop forgot not the King's desire and Mr. Sanderson was made his Chaplain in Ordinary in November following 1631. And when they became known to each other the King did put many Cases of Conscience to him and receiv'd from him such deliberate safe and clear solutions as gave him great content in conversing with him so that at the end of his months attendance the King told him He should long for the next November for he resolv'd to have a more inward acquaintance with him when that month and he return'd And when the month and he did return the good King was never absent from his Sermons and would usually say I carry my ears to hear other Preachers but I carry my conscience to hear Mr. Sanderson and to act accordingly And this ought not to be conceal'd from Posterity That the King thought what he spake For he took him to be his Adviser in that quiet part of his life and he prov'd to be his Comforter in those days of his affliction when he apprehended himself to be in danger of Death or Deposing Of which more hereafter In the first Parliament of this good King which was 1625. he was chosen to be a Clerk of the Convocation for the Diocese of Lincoln which I here mention because about that time did arise many disputes about Predestination and the many Critical Points that depend upon or are interwoven in it occasioned as was said by a disquisition of new Principles of Mr. Calvin's though others say they were before his time

was That he declin'd reading many but what he did read were well chosen and read so often that he became very familiar with them and said they were chiefly three Aristotle's Rhetorick Aquinas's Secunda Secundae and Tully but chiefly his Offices which he had not read over less than 20 times and could at this Age say without Book And told him also the learned Civilian Doctor Zouch who died lately had writ Elementa jurisprudentiae which was a Book that he could also say without Book and that no wise man could read it too often or love or commend too much and told him these had been his toyl But for himself he always had a natural love to Genealogies and Heraldry and that when his thoughts were harassed with any perplext Studies he left off and turned to them as a recreation and that his very recreation had made him so perfect in them that he could in a very short time give an account of the Descent Arms Antiquity of any Family of the Nobility or Gentry of this Nation Before I give an account of Dr. Sanderson's last sickness I desire to tell the Reader that he was of a healthful constitution chearful and mild of an even temper very moderate in his diet and had had little sickness till some few years before his death but was then every Winter punish'd with a Diarrhea which left him not till warm weather return'd and remov'd it And this distemper did as he grew elder seize him oftner and continue longer with him But though it weakned him yet it made him rather indispos'd than sick and did no way disable him from studying indeed too much In this decay of his strength but not of his memory or reason for this distemper works not upon the understanding he made his last Will of which I shall give some account for confirmation of what hath been said and what I think convenient to be known before I declare his death and burial He did in his last Will give an account of his Faith and Perswasion in point of Religion and Church Government in these very words I Robert Sanderson Dr. of Divinity an unworthy Minister of Iesus Christ and by the providence of God Bishop of Lincoln being by the long continuance of an habitual distemper brought to a great bodily weakness and faintness of spirits but by the great mercy of God without any bodily pain otherwise or decay of understanding do make this my Will and Testament written all with my own hand revoking all former Wills by me heretofore made if any such shall be found First I commend my Soul into the hands of Almighty God as of a faithful Creator which I humbly beseech him mercifully to accept looking upon it not as it is in it self infinitely polluted with sin but as it is redeemed and purged with the precious blood of his only beloved Son and my most sweet Saviour Iesus Christ in confidence of whose merits and mediation alone it is that I cast my self upon the mercy of God for the pardon of my sins and the hopes of eternal life And here I do profess that as I have lived so I desire and by the grace of God resolve to dye in the Communion of the Catholick Church of Christ and a true Son of the Church of England which as it stands by Law established to be both in Doctrine and Worship agreeable to the Word of God and in the most and most material Points of both conformable to the faith and practice of the godly Churches of Christ in the primitive and purer times I do firmly believe led so to do not so much from the force of custom and education to which the greatest part of mankind owe their particular different perswasions in point of Religion as upon the clear evidence of truth and reason after a serious and unpartial examination of the grounds as well of Popery as Puritanism according to that measure of understanding and those opportunities which God hath afforded me and herein I am abundantly satisfied that the Schism which the Papists on the one hand and the Superstition which the Puritan on the other hand lay to our charge are very justly chargeable upon themselves respectively Wherefore I humbly beseech Almighty God the Father of Mercies to preserve the Church by his power and providence in peace truth and godliness evermore to the worlds end which doubtless he will do if the wickedness and security of a sinful people and particularly those sins that are so rise and seem daily to increase among us of Unthankfulness Riot and Sacriledge do not tempt his patience to the contrary And I also farther humbly beseech him that it would please him to give unto our gracious Sovereign the Reverend Bishops and the Parliament timely to consider the great danger that visibly threatens this Church in point of Religion by the late great increase of Popery and in point of Revenue by sacrilegious enclosures and to provide such wholesome and effectual remedies as may prevent the same before it be too late And for a further manifestation of his humble thoughts and desires they may appear to the Reader by another part of his Will which follows As for my corruptible Body I bequeath it to the Earth whence it was taken to be decently buried in the Parish Church of Bugden towards the upper end of the Chancel upon the second or at the farthest the third day after my decease and that with as little noise pomp and charge as may be without the invitation of any person how near soever related unto me other than the Inhabitants of Bugden without the unnecessary expence of Escocheons Gloves Ribons c. and without any Blacks to be hung any where in or about the House or Church other than a Pulpit Cloth a Hearse Cloth and a Mourning Gown for the Preacher whereof the former after my Body shall be interred to be given to the Preacher of the Funeral Sermon and the latter to the Curat of the Parish for the time being And my will further is That the Funeral Sermon be preached by my own Houshold Chaplain containing some wholesome discourse concerning Mortality the Resurrection of the Dead and the last Iudgment and that he shall have for his pains 5 l. upon condition that he speak nothing at all concerning my person either good or ill other than I my self shall direct only signifying to the Auditory that it was my express will to have it so And it is my will that no costly Monument be erected for my memory but only a fair flot Marble stone to be laid over me with this Inscription in legible Roman Characters Depositum Roberti Sanderson nuper Lin●●lniencis Episcopi qui obiit Anno Domini MDCLXII aetatis suae septuagesimo sexto Hic requiescit in spe beatae resurrectionis This manner of burial although I cannot but foresee it will prove unsatisfactory to sundry my nearest Friends and Relations and be