Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	day_n	holy_a	lord_n	5,913	5	4.1120	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61540	A discourse concerning the idolatry practised in the Church of Rome and the danger of salvation in the communion of it in an answer to some papers of a revolted Protestant : wherein a particular account is given of the fanaticism and divisions of that church / by Edward Stilingfleet.	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1671 (1671)	Wing S5577; ESTC R28180	300,770	620

if a man confess his sins and but stumble into one of the 7. Churches it is a hard case if he doth not escape at least for one thousand years I need not reckon up what vast Pardons are to be had there at easie rates since they have been so kind at Rome to publish a Catalogue of them in several books an extract out of which is very lately set forth in our own language Those who have gone about to compute them have found that Indulgences for a million of years are to be had at Rome on no hard terms Bellarmin would seem to deny these pardons for so many years as far as he durst as though they were not delivered by Authentick writers but I desire no more than what Cnuphrius hath transcribed from the Archives of the Churches themselves and we may judge of the rest by what Caesar Rasponi a Canon of the Lateran Church and a present Cardinal hath written lately of that one Church in a book dedicated to Alexander 7. He tells us therefore there is so vast a bank of the Treasure of the Church laid up there that no one need goe any further to get full pardon of all his sins and that it is impossible for any one to reckon up the number of the benefits to be had there by it In the Feast of the Dedication of that Church at the first throw if a man be well confessed before he gets if he be a Roman a pardon of a 1000. years if a Tuscan 2000 but if he comes from beyond sea 3000. years this is well for the first time The like Lottery is again at that Church on C●ena Domini But Boniface 9. would never stand indenting with men for number of years but declares if men will come either for devotion or pilgrimage no matter which he shall be clear from all sin and what would a man have more But besides this there are other particular seasons of opening this Treasury and then one may take out as much as they can wish for As when the Image of our Saviour is shewn all that come thither have their sins pardoned infallibly and many other days in the year which the Author very punctually reckons up and are so many that a Canon of that Church may dispose of some thousands of years nay plenary remissions and yet escape Purgatory at last himself But besides what belongs to the Church it self there is a little Oratory or Chapple belonging to it called the Holy of Holies where it is impossible for any man to reckon up the number of Indulgences granted to it These vast numbers of years then are no fiction of Pardon-mongers as Bellarmin is sometimes ready to say unless he will have the Popes called by that name or charge the Holy Churches at Rome with so gross impostures § 6. But suppose it should be a mans fortune never to see Rome as it hath many a good mans must he be content to lye and rot in Purgatory or trust only to the kindness of his Friends no we that live at this distance have some comfort left there are sonne good prayers appointed for us to use which will help us at a need or else the book of the houres of the B. Virgin secundunm usum Sarum is strangely mistaken but herein I am likewise prevented by the autho●● of the preface lately mention'd but my edition being elder than either of those mention'd by him seems to have something peculiar to it or at last omitted by him As when it saith of the Prayer Obsecro te Domina Sancta Maria c. Tho all them that be in the state of Grace that daily say devowteli this prayer before owre blessed Lady of pity she wolle show● them her blessed vysage and warn them the day and owre of deth and in there last end the Angells of God shall yield there sowles to heaven and he shall obtayn 5 hundreth yeres and soo many Lenttis of pardon graunted by 5 holy Fathers Popes of Rome That is pretty well for one prayer But this is nothing to what follows to a much shorter prayer than that Our Holy Father Sixtus 4. Pope hath graunted to all them that devoutly say this prayer before the Image of our Lady in the sone eleven thousand years of pardon A prayer said to good purpose I confess I can hardly stoop now to those that have only dayes of pardon promised them yet for the sake of the procurer I will mention one Our Holy Father Pope Sixtus hath graunted at the Instance of the highmost and excellent Princesse Elizabeth late Quéen of Englond and wyfe to our Soveraign liege Lord King Henry the 7th God have mercy on her sweet soull and all Cristen soulls that every day in the morning after 3 tollinges of the Ave ●ell say 3 times the hole salutation of our Lady Ave Maria gratiâ that is to say at 6 the klock in the morning 3 Ave Maria att 12 of the klock at none 4 Ave Maria and att 6 a klock at even for every time so doing is graunted of the spiritual treasour of holy Church 3 hundreth dayes of parden totiens quotiens To which is annexed the pardon of the two Arch-bishops and nine Bishops forty dayes a piece three times a day which begun A. D. 1492. the seventh year of Henry 7. And the summ of the Indulgence and pardon for every Ave Maria is 800 days totiens quotiens But if a man thinks himself well provided already and hath a mind to help his Friends there is nothing like the 15 O. s of St. Brigitt Thys be the 15 O. Os. the which the holy Uirgin S. Brygytta was woente to say dayle before the holy rode in S. Pauls Church at Rome who soe says this a yere he schall deliver 15 soulles out of Purgatory of his next kyndred and convert other 15 sinners to gode lyf and other 15 righteous men of his kynd shall persevere in gode lyf And wat ye desyre of God ye schall have it if yt be to the salvation of your sowle Not long after we find a better endowment with number of years than any we have yet met with To all them that before this Image of pytie devoutly say 5 Pater Noster and 5 Aves a Credo pityously beholding these Armes of Crystys passion are graunted thirty two thousand seven hundred and fifty years of pardon and Sixtus the 4. Pope of Rome hath made the 4 and the 5 prayer and hath doubled his foresaid pardon The Prayer with Boniface 6. his Indulgence of ten thousand years pardon will hardly down with me now much less that niggardly grant of Iohn 22. of a hundred dayes pardon What customers doth he hope to find at such sordid rates Sixtus 4. for my money witness this Indulgence Our holy Father Sixtus 4. graunted to all them that beyn in state of Grace sayeing this prayer following ymmediately

after the elevation of the body of our Lord clene remission of all their sins perpetually enduring And also Iohn the 3 Pope of Rome at the request of the Quéen of England hath graunted unto all them that devoutly say this prayer before the Image of our Lord Crucified as many days of pardon as there were wounds in the body of our Lord in the tyme of his bitter passion the which were 5365. It is well Sixtus came after him or else his market had been spoyled the other so much out-bid him Next to clean pardon Iohn 22. offers fair only the task is somewhat harder it being for three Prayers Thys 3 prayers be wrytton in the Chappelle of the holy crosse in Rome otherwise called S●cellum sanctae Crucis 7 Romanorum whoo that devoutly say them shall obtayn 90000 years of pardon for dedly sins graunted by our holie Father Iohn 22. Pope of Rome Methinks he should have come to a full hundred thousand when his hand was in But there is one odd condition implyed in some of these prayers called being in a state of Grace the want of which may hinder the effect of them but although due confession with absolution will at any time put a man into it yet is there no remedy without it we will try once more for that and end these Indulgences And I think the prayer of S. Bernardine of Siena will relieve us Thys most devoutly prayer sayd the holy Father S. Bernardine daylie kneeling in the worship of the most holy name Iesus And yt is well to believe that through the invocation of that most excellent name of Iesu S. Bernard obtayned a singular reward of perpetual consolation of our Lord Iesu Christ. And thys prayer is written in a Table that hangeth at Rome in S. Peters Church nere to the high awter there as our holy Father the Pope duely is wonte to say the office of the Masse And hoo that devoutly with a contrite heart dayly say this Oryson yf he be that day in the state of eternal damnation than this eternal payne shall be chaunged him in temporal payne of Purgatory than yf he hath deserved the payne of Purgatory yt shall be forgotten and forgiven thorow the infinite mercy of God This is enough of all reason And so much shall serve to set forth what the practice of Indulgences hath been in the Church of Rome and what is expressed in them § 7. 2. I now come to give account what opinion hath been had of these Indulgences in their own Church wherein some have freely confessed they have no Foundation in Scripture or Antiquity others that they are only pious frauds and those who have gone about to defend them have been driven to miserable shifts in the defence of them 1. Some have confessed that they have no foundation in Scripture or Antiquity Durandus saith that very little can be affirmed with any certainty concerning Indulgences because neither the Scripture speaks expresly of them and the Fathers Ambrose Hilary August Hierome speak not all of them and therefore he hath no more to say but that the common opinion is to be followed herein The same is said by another School-man who addes this that though it be a Negative argument yet it is of force because in the time of those Fathers they were very much skilled in the Scriptures and it were very strange if Indulgences were to be found there that they did not find them This is likewise affirmed by Cajetan Dominicus Soto and all those who assert that the use of Indulgences came into the Church upon the relaxing the severity of the primitive discipline which they say continued in use for a 1000 years after Christ. But the most express testimonies in this case are of Bishop Fisher who saith that the use of Indulgences came very late into the Church and of Polydore Virgil following his words and of Alphonsus à Castro who ingenuously confesseth that among all the controversies he writes of there is none which the Scripture or Fathers speak less of than this but however he saith though the use of them seem to have come very late into the Church they ought not to be contemned because many things are known to latter ages which the ancient writers were wholly ignorant of for which he instanceth in Transubstantiation procession from the Son and Purgatory But he ought to have remembred what himself had said before in a chapter of finding out heresies that the novelty of any doctrine makes it of it self to be suspected because Christ and his Apostles did give sufficient instructions for attaining eternal life and after the Law given by Christ no other Law is to be expected because his Testament is eternal Let this be applyed to his own confession of these doctrines and the consequence is easily discerned And it is an excellent saying of Bellarmin that in things which depend on the will of God nothing ought to be affirmed unless God hath revealed it in the H. Scriptures Therefore according to the opinion of these persons who assert the doctrine of Indulgences to have no Foundation in Scripture or Antiquity it can be no other than a notorious Cheat. 2. Some in the Church of Rome have called them pious frauds This appears by the Controversies which arose upon Indulgences at the same time when they began to grow common For Aquinas and Bonaventure tell us that there were some in the Church who said that the intention of the Church in Indulgences was only by a pious fraud to draw men to charitable acts which otherwise they would not have done as a mother which promiseth her Child an apple to run abroad which she never gives him when she hath brought him to it Which is the very instance they used as Gregory de Valentiâ confesseth But this Aquinas rejects as a very dangerous opinion because this is in plain terms to make the Church guilty of a notorious Cheat and as he saith from St. Augustine if any falshood be found in Scripture it takes away the authority of the whole so if the Church be guilty of a cheat in one thing she will be suspected in all the rest This saith Bonaventure is to make the Church to lye and deceive and Indulgences to be vain and childish toyes But for all these hard words they had a great deal of reason on their side for the Indulgences were express for the remission of the sins of those who did such and such things as the giving a small summ of money towards the building of a Church or an Hospital they therefore asked whether the Indulgences were to be taken as they were given or no if they were then all those had full remission of sins on very easie terms if not then what is this else but fraud and cheating and can be only called pious because the work was good which they did This put the