Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	death_n	lord_n	sinner_n	2,648	5	7.4070	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A01759	The epistle of Gildas, the most ancient British author who flourished in the yeere of our Lord, 546. And who by his great erudition, sanctitie, and wisedome, acquired the name of sapiens. Faithfully translated out of the originall Latine.; Liber querulus de excidio Britanniae. English	Gildas, 516?-570?; Abingdon, Thomas.; Marshall, William, fl. 1617-1650, engraver.	1638 (1638)	STC 11895; ESTC S103163	93,511	458

man adorned not given to wine no fighter but modest not contentius not covetous O lamentable change O horrible contempt of the heavenly Commandements And doe ye not continually use the force of your words and actions for the overthrowing or rather overwhelming of these for whose defence and confirmation if neede had required yee ought to have suffered paines yea and to have lost your very lives But let us see what followeth Well governing saith he his house having his children subjected with all chastity Imperfect therefore is the chastity of the Parents if the children be not also indued with the same But how shall it be where neither the father nor yet the sonne as depraved by the example of his evill parent is found to be chaste But if any one knoweth not how to rule over his owne house how shall hee imploy his care over the Church of God These are the words that with apparant effects shold be made good and approoved Deacons in like manner that they should be chast not double tongued not overgiven much to wine not followers of filthy gaine having the mystery of faith in a pure conscience and let these also be first approoved and so let them administer having no offence And now trembling truely to make any longer stay on these matters I can for a conclusion affirme one thing certainely which is that all these are changed into contrary actions in so much that Clarkes which not without griefe of heart I doe here confesse are shamelesse and deceitfull in their speeches given to drinking covetous of filthy commodity having faith or to say more truely unfaithfulnesse in an unpure conscience ministring not upon probation of their good workes but upon foreknowledge of their evill actions and being thus defiled with innumerable offences they are notwithstanding admitted unto the holy function ye have likewise heard on the same day wherin ye should with farre more right and reason have beene drawne to prison or punishment then preferred unto Priesthood when our Lord demanded whom his Disciples supposed him to be how Peter answered Thou art Christ the Sonne of the living God and our Lord in respect of such his confession said unto him Blessed art thou Simon Ba●jonas because flesh and blood hath not revealed unto thee but my Father who is in Heaven Peter therefore instructed by God the Father doth rightly confesse Christ but ye being taught by the devill your father doe with your lewd actions wickedly deny our Saviour It is said to the true Priest Thou art Peter and upon this rocke will I build my Church But ye are resembled unto the foolish man who hath builded his house upon the sand And verily it is to be noted that God joyneth not in workemanship with the unwise when they build their house upon the deceitfull uncertainty of the sands according unto that saying They have made Kings unto themselves and not by me Semblably that which followeth soundeth in like sort speaking thus And the Gates of hell whereby the infernall sins are to be understood shall not prevaile But of your fraile and deadly frame marke what is pronounced The floods came and the winds blew have mainely dashed upon that house and it sell and great was the ruine thereof To Peter and his successors our Lord doth say And I will give unto thee the Keyes of the Kingdome of Heaven But unto ye I know yee not depart from me ye workers of iniquity that being separated with the goates of the left hand ye may together with them go into eternall fire It is also promised unto every good Priest What soever thou shalt loose upon earth shall be likewise loosed in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt binde upon earth shall be in like sort bound in Heaven But how shall ye loose any thing that it may be loosed also in Heaven since your selves for your sins are severed from Heaven and hampred in the bands of your owne hainous offences As Solomon saith With the cords of his sins every one is tyed And with what reason shall ye binde any thing on this earth that above this world may be likewise bound unlesse it be your only selves who intangled in your iniquities are so detained on this earth as ye cannot ascend into Heaven but without your conversion unto our Lord in this life will fall downe into the miserable prison of hell Neither yet let any Priest flatter himselfe upon the knowledge of the particular cleannenesse of his owne body since their soules over whom he hath government shall in the day of Iudgement be required at his hands as the murtherer of them if any through his ignorance ●loth or fawning adulation have perished because the stroke of death is not lesse terrible that is given by a good man then which is inflicted by an evill person Otherwise would the Apostle never have said that which he left unto his successors as a fatherly Legacy I am cleare and cleane from the blood of all for I have not forborne to declare unto ye al the counsell of God Being therefore mightily drunken with the use and custome of sinnes and extreamely overwhelmed with the waves as it were of encreasing offences seek ye now forthwith the uttermost endeavours of your mindes after this your shipwrake that one borde of pennance which is onely left whereby ye may escape and swimme to the land of the living that from yee may be turned away the wrath of our Lord who saith I will not the death of a sinner but that he may bee converted and live And the same Almighty God of all consolation and mercy preserve his few good Pastors from all evill and the common enemy being overcome make them free inhabitants of the heavenly City of Ierusalem which is the congregation of all Saints grant this O Father Sonne and Holy Ghost to whom be honor and glory world without end Amen FINIS The cause why Gildas alledgeth almost only the Scriptures Gildas citeth Scriptures not after the vulgar Translation The reasons why Britaine was at this time so defiled with vices The excuse of the invective of Gildas against the Scottish and Irish. The excuse of his seveare censuring of the English How the Kings Majestie is descended of the blood royall of these three Nations How the Saxons and Britaines are united in this Realme How other Kingdomes have increased by Vnions How united nations have beene called by one generall name How conveniently the name of Britaine agreeth to the Kingdome of the whole Island The Conclusion * Moses Num. 20.12 * Levit. 10.1 * Num. 14.28 * Exod. 14.22 * Exod. 16.14 * Exod. 17.6 * Exod. 17.11 * Num. 21.6 * Num. 14.45 * Deut. 1.45 * Num. 11.1 * Iosu. 3.16 * Ios. 6.20 * Ios. 21.24 * 2 Sam. 21.1 * Ieremies foure Lamentations written with the order of the Hebrew Alphabet * Thren 1.1 * Thren

injustice can in the attempts of men either be or ever be committed then to deny God of that awful feare honest Countrymen of that charity and those who are placed in higher authority without impeachment of faith of that honour due unto them to breake alleageance to divine and humane reason and casting away all dread of Heaven and Earth to be ruled by their owne inventions and sensualities Omitting therfore those ancient errours common to all nations of the earth with the which before the comming of Christ in our flesh all mankinde was entangled and bound nor yet recounting up the monstrous Idols of our Country surpassing almost in number the very devilish devises themselves of Egypt of the which we behold as yet some both within and without the wals of their forsaken Temples with deformed portratures and terrible countenances after the accustomed manner now mouldring away neither yet crying out namely one after another on the mountaines themselves or hils or floods damnable sometimes as to the which divine honour by the people then blinded was yeelded though now truely profitable to the use of mankinde and letting passe in silence those old outworne ages of our detestable Tyrants who in other far remooved regions were infamous in so much as Porphyrie that outragious easterling dogge who barked against the Church hath in the stile of his madnesse and vanity also added this That Britaine is a fruitfull Province of Tyrants I will onely endeavour to set forth to the world those miseries which in the time of the Romane Emperours she suffered and likewise heaped on the heads of others as well her Countrymen as Strangers and not farther neverthelesse then I am well able to declare neither yet so much out of the Chronicles of our Country or the monuments of our owne Authors for why these truely if any such there have beene are either now devoured with the fires of our foes or being transported into forraigne Nations by the meanes of our banished Countrymen are quite vanished away as by the relation of outlandish writers which broken off with many interruptions doth not sufficiently appeare Thirdly for when the Rulers of Rome had obtained the Empire of the world and now having brought under their governement all their next neighbours Nations and Ilands had towards the East confirmed with the power of their encreasing renown the first peace of the Par●hians who confine on the Indians which being finished warres thenceased through out almost the whole earth the fury in a sort of this flame towards the West could no● with the blewish billows of the cold Ocean Seas be suppressed or extinguished but passing over without resistance drew our Iland to the lawes of obedience and subdued absolutely to their command the weake but unstable people not like other nations so much with sword fire and warlike engines as with threats or amazing their mindes with the superficious frownes of their countenances so deeply were their hearts inwardly dismayed Fourthly after whose returne unto Rome which for want of pay as they said was present suspecting nothing lesse then rebellion the subtil Lioness murthred the Rulers who were left behinde of purpose more fully to show or rather to confirme the enterprises of the Romane Empire Which being so done when the report thereof was declared unto the Senate and they with a speedy army made all haste to be revenged on the crafty foxes cubbs as they called them there appeared no warlike Navy on the Seas prepared valiantly to encounter for our Country nor yet a square mustered army neither the right wing of the battaile nor other order of fight to withstand on the shore but backes in place of sheilds were turned to the pursuing foes neckes subjected to the conquering swords cold feare invading all their limbs and supplyant hands stretched out wom●n-like to be bound so that it was bruted farre and neere as a proverbe and scornefull reproach that Britaine were neither valiant in warre nor faithfull in peace Fifthly many therefore of the rebellious being slaine and some of the inthralled for baser workes least the Land should be wholly brought to desolation left alive they sailed from our Country void of wine and oyle towards Italy leaving behinde them some of their Governors as scourges over our Countrymens shoulders yokes on their neckes who should engrave as it were on the very ground the name of their subjection to Rome and chastice not so much with warlike weapons as with reprochfull punishments the subtill people and if occasion so required should fashion them as they say to weare their naked swords by their sides so that now it was not reputed as Britania but Romania and what soever Brasse Silver and Gold it could possesse was stamped with the Image of Caesar. Sixthly in the meane while Christ the true Son of God spreading forth not onely from this temporall firmament but also from the Castell and Court of Heaven which exceedeth all times throughout the whole world his most glorious light especially as we know in the Raigne of Tiberius Caesar whereas in regard that the Emperour against the will of the Senate threatned death to the disturbers of the professors thereof Religion was most largely without any hinderance dispersed of his infinite mercy did first cast on this Iland starving with frozen cold and in a farre remote climate from the visible Sunne his gladsome beames to wit his most holy Lawes Seaventhly which although they were received of the inhabitans but with lukewarme mindes remained notwithstanding fully in the soules of some and in others lesse untill the nine yeares persecution of the Tyrant Dioclesian in which the Churches throughout the whole world were overthrowne to the ground all holy Scriptures that could be found burned in the streetes the chosen Priests of the flocke of our Lord together with the innocent Sheepe murthered to the end that not the least remembrance truely of Christian Religion if possibly it might be should in any place of the Provinces be left How foule the flights were then how great the slaughters what torments of sundry deaths what ruines of Apostataes what shining Crownes of glorious Martyrs what furious madnesse of the persecutors and on the contrary what singular patience of the Saints of God the Ecclesiasticall History declareth so as the whole Church in mighty thronging troopes leaving behind them all worldly darkenes hastened with speede to the pleasant Pallaces of Heaven as to their proper seats Eightly God therefore whose will is that all men should be saved and who calleth no lesse sinners then such as repute themselves just magnified his mercy with us who as wee conjecture of his gracious aforenamed goodnesse that Britaine should not be altogether overwhelmed with the black cloud of this dark some night lightned unto us in this time of persecution the most cleare lamps of his Holy Martyrs the tombes of whose bodies and places of passion were wee not

was now become a Lambe not much against thine owne will out of the fold of our Lord and made thee of a Lambe a wolfe like to himselfe againe Oh how great a joy would the conservation of thy salvation have beene to God the holy Father of all Saints had not the devill the miserable father of all castawaies as an Eagle of monstrous wings and claws carryed thee captive away against all right and reason to the unhappy roote of his children And to be short as great gladnes and sweetnesse did thy conversion to righteousnesse minister to heaven and earth as now thy detestable returne after the manner of a sicke mastive unto the horrible vomit againe breedeth griefe and lamentation which being done The members are now become the armours of iniquity for sinne and the devill which in right sence should have beene busily imployed as the armours of justice for God for now with thy listening eares are not heard the praises of God sweetly sounded forth by the pleasant voices of Christs Souldiers nor the Organs of ecclesiasticall melody but thine owne praises which are nothing rung out after the fashion of Bacchus giddy rout by the mouthes of thy villanous followers fulfilled with lies and also with foming malice to the utter overthrow of every one of their neighbours so as the vessell sometimes prepared for the service of God is now turned to a vessell of durt and what was once reputed worthy of Heavenly honour is now worthily cast into the bottomelesse pit of hell Neither yet is thy sensuall mind which is overcome by the excesse of folly any whit abated or debarred of his course with committing so great sinnes but hot and prone like a young colt that coveteth every pleasant pasture runneth headlong forward with irrecoverable fury through the large fields of offences in heaping new wickednesse on the head of the old For the former marriage of thy first wife although after thy violated vow of Religion she were not lawfully thine yet being sometimes thine was now despised another the wife of a man then living and hee no stranger but thine own brothers sonne being in her place beloved Vpon which occasion that stiffe necke of thine being already laden with many burthens of sinnes is now moreover with two monstrous murthers the one of thy aforesaid Nevew the other of her who sometimes was thy marryed wife as with the outragious extremity of thy sacriledge from low to lower and from bad to worser bowed bended and depressed downe Afterwards also didst thou accept her by whose deceit and suggestion such mighty matter of offences was undergone publickely and as the flattring tongues of thy parasites with faigned but not faithfull words pronounce lawfully as a widdow but as we say most wickedly to be thine owne in wedlocke And therefore what holy man is there whose bowels being mooved with the narration of such an history would not presently break out into weeping and lamentations What Priest whose heart lyeth open unto God would not instantly upon the hearing of this with marveilous mourning cry out that saying of the Prophet Who shall give water to my head and to mine eyes a fountaine of teares and I will day and night bewaile those of my people who are slaughtered For why full little alas hast thou with thine eares once heard that reprehension of the Prophet speaking in this wise Woe be unto yee O wicked men who have left the Law of the most holy God and if ye shall be borne your portion shall be to malediction and if ye die into malediction shall be your portion al things that are from the earth to the earth shall bee converted againe so shall the wicked from malediction passe to perdition but ever supposed if they returne not unto our Lord receiving especially this admonition Sonne thou hast offended adde no farther offence thereunto but withall doe thou pray for the forgivenesse of the former And againe Forslow not to be converted unto our Lord neither yet doe thou put of the same from day to day for his wrath doth come suddenly Because as the Scripture saith When the King heareth the unjust word all under his dominion become wicked And The just King according to the Prophet raiseth up his Region But warnings truely are not wanting to thee since thou hast for thine instructor the most eloquent Master of almost all Britaine Take heed therefore lest that which Solomon noteth befalleth not to thee which is Even as he who stirreth up a sleeping man out of his heavy sleepe so is that person who declareth wisdom unto a foole for in the end of his speech will he say What hast thou first spoken Wash thine heart as it is written from malice Oh Ierusalem that thou maist be saved Despise not I beseech thee the unspeakeable mercy of God calling by his Prophet the wicked in this sort from their offences I will on the suddvine speake to the Nation and to the Kingdome that I may roote out and dispearse and destroy and overthrow As for the sinner hee doth in this wise exhort him vehemently to pennance And if the same people shall do pennance from their offence I will also doe pennance upon the evil which I have said that I would doe against them And againe Who will give them such an heart as they may heare me and keepe my Commandements and that it may be well with them all the daies of their lives And also in the Canticle of Deuteronomy A people without counsell and prudence I wish they would be wise and understand and foresee the last of all how one pursueth a thousand and two put to flight ten thousands And againe our Lord in the Gospell Come unto me all yee who doe labour and are burthened and I will make ye rest Take up my yoake upon you and learne of me because I am meeke and humble of heart and yee shall finde repose in your soules For if thou dost hearken to these admonitions but with deafe eares if thou contemnest the Prophets if thou despisest Christ and although most base we are makest no account of us so long as with sincere pietie and puritie of minde we observe the same of the Prophet that we may not bee found Dumbe dogges not able to barke howsoever I for mine own particular am not of that singular fortitude in the spirit and vertue of our Lord as to declare To the house of Iacob their sins and the house of Israel their offences and so long as wee shall remember that of Salomon Who so termeth the wicked to be just shall be accursed among the people and odious to nations for they who reproove shall have better hopes And againe Respect not with reverence thy neighbour in his ruine nor spare thou to speake in time of Salvation And as long also as wee forget not this Withdraw them away by force who are