Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	forgive_v	lord_n	sin_n	11,546	5	5.1796	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91779	Gemitus plebis: or A mournful complaint and supplication in behalf of the more weak and ignorant of the people of this nation. Drawn up for them by a friend, whose deep sense of his own ignorance and weakness, hath taught him to be compassionate towards all that labour under the same infirmities. / By C. Raie.	Raie, C.	1656 (1656)	Wing R137; Thomason E886_5; ESTC R203325	25,534	37

hardning nature and that long neglect of duty will dissolve the sense of obligation and we cannot but fear that if we be now neglected by you it may come to pass that our hearts may bee so hardned that if God should afterward raise up some Hezekiah who should call and invite us or ours to ingage our selves unto the Lord in these sacred Ordinances either we or ours should answer such gracious invitations after the same manner as the most of Israel did the summons of that holy King with scorn and contempt 2 Chron. 30. 20 O let this our imminent danger be weighed in your most advised thoughts you see how many have already turned their backs on Christ and all his Ordinances and are wholly gone after Satan and how industrious they are to draw others after them and then think what dangerous temptations you put us the weaker sort upon to revolt unto the enemy whilst you refuse to entertain us in the Camp of Christ Minde seriously we beseech you that great account that you must give to your and our Master the Lord Jesus Christ of your faithfulness in all your administrations in order to the souls of men and consider what answer you will make to him if you sleight or neglect so great a part of the purchase of his blood or what excuse you will finde when he shall arise to plead with you Did not I come from heaven and give my dearest life for the redemption of these poor souls Did not I with great endeavours even with the expence of the blood of many my holy Martyrs bring them under solemn bonds and ingagements to my self And when I saw them neglected by their former guides did not I by wondrous providences rescue them and deliver them over into your hands that you should feed and teach them And is this your faithfulness to me and mine to withhold the precious food that I provided for them to leave them to wander in the wilderness as sheep without a Shepherd yea to let loose many ravenous Wolves upon them to devour them and for an excuse of this your sloathfulness and treachery to deface my marks and badges which you found upon them that so you might plead they were none of mine Seemeth it a small thing to you O Rams and Hee-goats Ezek. 34 21. you fattest of the flock that you have taken the best of the pasture for your selves but that you have thrust with the shoulder and the side and pusht with the horns the weak and diseased of my flock till you have scattered them abroad O consider what answer you will make to the Lord Jesus when he shall arise and plead with you on our behalf and how sad your case will be if the blood of so many thousand souls perishing through your neglect and carelesness shall plead against you in the day of wrath We have indeed deserved from the Lord Jesus Christ by our unfruitfulness and many other sad miscarriages to be by him totally rejected and that his Gospel-sight should be wholly taken from us But what have we done to you that you should deal so hardly with us that you should be the instruments to bring this dreadful night of darkness on us Or that you should not rather endeavour our emendation and salvation What evil have you observed in us from which your joynt endeavours might not hope to rescue us Are wee blinde and ignorant Yet surely not so uncapable of instruction but that your joynt endeavours might even inforce the most ignorant of us to learn the fundamentals of Religion and so much as being practised would save our souls Are we wrapt and intangled in sinful lusts Surely your earnest and joynt endeavours might by the blessing of the Lord break these cords of sin and bring us by an holy violence to the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ we cannot but think that noble King Josiah had as ignorant and stubborn a people to deal withall as you and yet he not alone ingaged them to the Lord in that his solemn Passeover but made them serve the Lord all 2 Chron 34. 33 his dayes We know the donation of life supernatural lieth not in your power but it lieth in your power to acquaint us with the waies of life to cause us to attend upon the means of grace to restrain us from the outward acts of sin yea to set and keep us in such waies of worship and obedience unto Christ as that you might comfortably hope by Gods blessing on your Christian endeavours to behold us as the Crown of your labour at the great day Now consider we beseech you in your serious thoughts whether a general reformation of the body of the people of this Nation a re-ingaging them in Covenant and keeping them at the least in an external obedience unto Christ will not be more for the honour of him to whom the Nations are promised for an inheritance more agrecable to your own former Vowes and Covenants and a more likely way to make you a blessing to the people and them to you than to leave the main bulk of the people to be overgrown with thorns and briars to degenerate into an howling wilderness whilst all your care is laid out upon the culture of some few small inclosures What comfort can it be to you O Magistrates to have the bonds between Christ Jesus and this Nation continued through the revolutions of so many hundred years dissolved in your dayes Or to you O Ministers to have the foundations of Religion which you found laid in the hearts of the generality of the people of this Nation quite demolished under your administrations Or to you that call your selves the godly party to have the Christian Religion which formerly did over-spread the whole surface of this Nation now abridged to your few separate Congregations Or what heart that is not altogether stupid can behold the great endeavours and high professions for Religion found in the beginning of these times and in a sad revolt of so great a part of the Nation back again to heathenism or the like abominations and not bewail it with a flood of tears We have thus spread our mournful case before you hoping that the God of all grace and mercy in whose hand are the hearts and wayes of all the sons of men will incline your hearts to pity our sad condition and more compassionately to apply your selves unto our help for which purpose we now make our humble addresses unto him who gave his pretious blood a ransome for us O Glorious Prince and Saviour Jesus Christ the faithful and merciful high Priest of our Profession who didst for our sakes suffer and wert tempted that thou mightest be touched with the feeling of our infirmities and know experimentally to pity us in our temptations have mercy upon us have mercy upon us O blessed Saviour and grant that these our mournful complaints and supplications may pierce the ears and hearts of thy Vicegerents and Ambassadors with all the more eminent of thy pretious servants amongst us that our eternal welfare may be more cordially regarded by them that they may more faithfully and diligently lay out themselves and al their abilities for the salvation of those souls whom thou hast bought with thy pretious blood Let our Magistrates inherit the zeal of Hezekiah Josiah and other famous nursing Fathers of thy Church of old Let our Ministers as thy dear Apostle Paul be willing to spend and be spent for our salvation Let the impressions of thy tender mercies be upon all the more knowing of thy servants that they may compassionately imploy all their abilities for our emendation and salvation O thou that wept over thy Jerusalem when they would not own thee Let us who though unworthy are called by thy Name and have taken hold of thy Covenant taste of thy tender compassions Look down from heaven the habitation of thine holiness Where is thy zeal and thy strength and the sounding of thy bowels towards us Doubtless thou art our Redeemer though our Fathers be ignorant of us and our Elders will not own us thou art our Redeemer and thy name from everlasting O do not suffer us to erre from thy wayes do not harden our hearts from thy fear Wee cannot expect the like compassions from sinful man as from thee O blessed Immanuel who felt the pains of our redemption not Paul but thou O Christ wert crucified for us we cannot repose in any other arms but thine who carriest the feeble lambs in the bosome of thy love Though the Priest and Levite pass by on the other side yet thou the good Samaritan have compassion on us and poure thine oyl and wine into our wounds and the more we are neglected by men the more forcible and alluring let the cords of thy love be to us though the hearts of men melt not over our misery yet let thy bowels of compassion yern upon us and let us not lose our hold of thy Covenant but still be refreshed with thy protection and rejoyce under the shadow of all thine Ordinances Look down from heaven and behold this Vineyard and the Vine which thy right hand hath planted in this Nation make up the hedge of thy providence about it and let not the Boar of the Forrest continue to waste it or the wilde beast of the field to devour it Return O Lord and let it repent thee concerning thy servants and let not the evil that is already come upon us appear little before thee Heal thou the dreadful breaches and distractions which the cruel enemy hath caused amongst us repair the ruined walls of thy Jerusalem Grant the spirit of unity and charity to thy people of this Nation that thy family here may be truly a family of love and on their doors engraven Here is no strife for we are brethren O Lord hear O Lord forgive and heal our desolations remember not against us former iniquities let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us wee are brought very low Help us O God of our salvation for the glory of thy name deliver us and purge away our sins for thy names sake So we thy people and sheep of thy pasture shall give thee thanks for ever and teach our children to celebrate thy praise to all Generations FINIS