Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A51064
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The poor man's cup of cold-water ministred to the saints and sufferers for Christ in Scotland who are admidst the scorching flames of the fiery trial.
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McWard, Robert, 1633?-1687.
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1678
(1678)
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Wing M233; ESTC R25489
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71,723
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46
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The poor Man's Cup of cold Water Ministred To the Saints and Sufferers for Christ. IN SCOTLAND Who are admidst the scorching flames of the fiery Trial. I. JOH III 13. Marvel not my Brethren if the World hate you I. PET. IV 12 13. Behold think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as if some strange thing hapned unto you But rejoice c. II. THESS I 6. Seing it is a righteous thing with God to render tribulation to them that trouble you and to you who are troubled rest with us c. LUK. XVIII 7 I tel you that he will avenge them speedily PSAL. II 3 4 6 Let us breake their bands asunder He that sitteth in Heavens shall laugh Yet I have set my King upon my holy hill Zion PSAL. CXXXII 18. His Enemies will I clothe with shame But upon himself shall his Crown flourish Printed in the Year 1678. For the now truely honorable and really happy that little Flock and lovely Company in Scotland who are in great tribulation for the Word of God and for the Testimony of Iesus Christ and more particularly for his specially endeared Friends the Sufferers in the West OF SCOTLAND MUch honoured dearly beloved and longed for in our Lord Jesus Christ Grace from the God of all grace mercy from the Father of mercies who is rich in mercy peace from the God of peace whose it is to speake that peace and to give that peace which passeth all understanding together with joy in the Holy Ghost be multiplied upon you Though I am unable to do any thing for you or say any thing to you which can cannot to the equivalency of a releife now when you are overwhelmed with such an inundation and deludge of calamities as every one who looks on yea the very Authors and Instruments of these miseries and mischeifes must say if they speake their soul or sense you are pressed out of measure and beyond strength yet your sufferings are such for kinde and qualitie such for measure and weight such for substance and circumstances as might through a transport of griefe and compassion make the tongue of the dumb if he have bâ—t eyes or eares to break prison and cry out behold O Lord and consider to whom these things are done and for what and for whose sake I dare not Alas say that I fill up the just measure of that sorrow for you and that sympathy with you which is debt upon my part and an indispensible duty in this day of trouble and of treading down and of great perplexity by the Lord God of hosts in the valley of vision yet I desire to be amongst the company of those who doe not who dare not allow themselves to carry as inconcerned now when his precious interests lye a bleeding his poor remnant under their pressures as breathing out their last and such who endeavour to retain their integrity and to hold fall what they have that no man take their crown and to depart fâ—om that inquity which is the inquity of our time a departing from God and an opposition to Jesus Christ in nature and degree in height and hainousnesse of a tincture and elevation beyond and above what the departings from God and oppositions to his Son Jesus Christ have been or were capable of in former times make themselves a prey as is manifest in your case not to be paralleled if weighed in an even ballance I am so much straitned how to give my shallow and confused thoughts a vent while I essay to contribute my poor mite for alleying the bitternesse of your cup and mitigating the greatnesse of your griefe knowing well how little proportion what ever I am able to say keeps to the anguish of your soul because of what you are put to suffer as the sight of this indignation wherewith you are filled puts me to struggle with my inclination and staggers me in my resolution to speake as seeming rather to perswade me because of the heavienesse of his hand upon you to sit alone and keep silence then to open my mouth since the moving of my lips cannot asswage your griefe yet affection which easily procures a pardon when it misseth the marke it aimed to hit hath in the present clamant emergent emboldened me out of my poverty and penury to offer such as I have and besides I hope both from the conviction of duety and knowledge how much the depth of your distresse is beyond the supplies I can contribute for your ease and the supportings of my feeble feeklesse pen to acconnt it m mercy while you are in that Paroxisme agony of misery through the madnesse of such as are incensed against your Lord and Master to cry as I can on your behalfe Arise o Lord and rescue the soul of thy turtle from the rage of these men of cruelty and do not give up the beloved of thâ— soul into the hand of such an enemy whose way thy soul hateth You have often heard my deare and distressed friends and you have professed also to be in the faith of this That men may be more then conquerours when killed all the day long and that there is an hundred fold to be reaped in this life even with persecution Now set your selves when killed and crushed to put the crown upon your Profession now adorne that Doctrine of God the Saviour which you Professe by such a carriage as will witnesse you know in the midst of what flesh can do unto you how to be conforted in God how to endure the worlds hatred and harme as those whom no affliction can make miserable O that he may put you in case to seale from your own experience the sweetnesse of suffering for Christ And to say now we know there is a river that refresheth the whole City of God because he hath made us drink of this river of his pleasure whereof since we drank we have forgotten our Poverty remember our Misery no more now we can affirme from what we finde whereby our souls are fortified that as the sufferings of Christ have abounded in us so our consolation also hath abounded by Christ for whom we have suffered the loss of these things and in that loss are so great gainers as now we know what we have lost is but dung but what is left us or rather what we have found in these begun fruitions of Jesus Christ hath begun our heaven amidst all we suffer Yea I am hopeful it shall be with you in your huntings harassings and hideings as it was with Moses in the mount never so neer God as when at the remotest distance from all creature-converse and comfort And that even while you lye as among the pots and are black with the smoak of that fiery furnace heated seven times beyond what you or your Fathers have found or could have feared if Satan whose element is fire had not set the Instruments of your calamity on fire
living in such a time you should not have witnessed agâ—inst these high and hainous wickednesses Would you want the share of the commendation and the glorious reward that shall be given his witnesses What if you should weep yea and die in prisons Besides that there you may enjoy the glorious libertie of the Sons of God and be feasted in your fetters with the fruition of himself and have your darke dungeons hung if I may say so with the very Arras of heaven which is the presence of God that can make these nastie and noisome holes wherein you are as buried alive preferable inâ—ompaâ—ably to all the Palaces of those who persecute you O there is no comparison â—esides this I say which is the hundred fold ten thousand times told out of these your prisons you shall be brought to reigne and have all your teares wiped away and your prison rags taken off and your rich robs wherein for ever you shall reign put on Nay what if you should be slaine for the word of God and put to swime in to eternitie in a sea of your own blood what have you to feare Though I walk thorow the valley of the shadow of death I will feare no ill saith the Psalmist for thou art with me O the presence of God with you in that hour will make it a sweet and short passage would you not rather choise if you durst make a choice to enter eternitie at this passage and go and take up your place amongst the souls of your brethren under the Altar there to cry with them How long O Lord God holy and true c. than to be found in the croud and company of these Kings Captains and Councellours c. who shall be made to cry to the mountains and to the rocks to fall on them and hide them from the face of him that sitteth upon the Throne and from the wrath of the Lamb O the wrath of the Lamb in that day falling upon those his now stated and stout-hearted enemies will make them change their note The haughtie mockers at the prerogative of this exalted Prince Jesus who then shall judge these jesters the menacerâ— of his Subjects and the persecuters of his Saints for not complying with their God-dishonouring Christ-dethroning courses and contrivances shall then know what it is to have lifâ—ed up their head against heaven and their heel against his poor people whom they trod under foot O the yelloch that will be amongst Kings and Captains and Counsellours when he shall speake to them in his wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure for having said and essayed it too let us burst their bâ—nds asunder c. I shall not here trouble you with the observation of the tremenduous â—udgements of God whereby some that have been active in these cursed courses have been hurried out of the world nor with an account of the anguish and agonies under which others of them have died nor yet of the raâ—e Testimonies which some who obtained mercy and grace to repent gave against this wicked course wherein they had concurred and for that cause which they had persecuted though he who regairds not these works of the Lord nor considers these operations of his hand hath and bewrayeth sad symptoms of blindnesse and obduration neither shall I here further then hint to the end you may for your establishment take notieâ— of it how wickednesse hath abounded amongst and had a dominion over those who have broken his Covenant As if all former restraints being taken off he had said henceforth my spirit shall no more strive with them for Alas iniquitie of all sorts haâ—h so aboundedâ— since the Nations enacted revolt from God as the way of the generalitie O that they whose feet go down to death and whose steps take hold on hell may consider it and be reclaimed if the word of the Lord be true that without holinessâ— no man shall see the Lord and that heaven is such a place as there shall in no wise enter therein any thing that defileth neither whosoever worketh abomination c. hath everlasting seclusion from the presence of his glory written on it so that he who would be saved must save himself from this generation who rejoyce to do evil and delight in the frowardnesse of the wicked Since we broke our Covenant made with God binding us to nothing but an abiding with him and walking before him in our respective capacities Satan hath got leave to open very sluce of hell and drown Brittan with such a deludge of profanitie that the multitude yea and they who are chiefe in these rebellions against God are chiefe in all these other provocations are carried down the current swiming and singing in this impure pudle of all impietie against God never considering that this streame will at last sweep them down and swallow them up in the lake of fire and brimston All these put together may make you feare to fall in with their way leâ—t you fall with them in the hands of the living God If they cannot give you securitie against this and that is impossible for the redemption of their own soul must cease for ever if they both cease not to go on and sorrow not for what they have done Feare you not therefore their fear onely feare to forsake God as you would not be forsaken of him Nay let your fortitude in refusing their blâ—ke â—onds whereby as the binder binds himself to an opposition to Christ and the coming of his Kingdâ—me so 〈◊〉 binds over himself to the curse of a broken Covenant either fright them into a forbearance or put them under the dreadful apprehensions of what they may expect for opposing his Christ persecuting the Gospel and using his servants so who dare not in running with them to these excesses of wickednesse run upon the bosses of the Almightie his backler but rather did choise to suffer any thing that they might be found upright and innocent from these great transgressions and so escape that wâ—â—th of the living God whâ—rewith all the contrivers all the pressers of these bonds of iniquitie all the persecuters for not complying with that decreed wickednesse all the pleaders for it all the palâ—iaters of this impietie all the Instruments made use of to help foreward the affliction of his poor people for their refusal all the rejoycers at his peoples calamitie and connivers at these courses yea and all who according to their place station and as they are called do not faithfully witnesse against this course of iniquitie shall be certainly pursued if repentance prevent it not overtaken and so perish eternally there is no Law-borrowes against the written vengeance for the peâ—sons of these practices But that which I would more particularly point at to fortiâ—ie your hearts against the feare of what you may be put to suffer even though it should come to the laying down of your lives is the refreshful and reviving remembrance of his