Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	good_a	grace_n	work_n	6,662	5	5.6625	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28890	The light of the world a most true relation of a pilgrimess, M. Antonia Bourignon travelling towards eternity ... : divided into three parts ... / written originally in French, and faithfully translated into English ; to which is added, a preface to the English reader.; Lumiere du monde. English	Bourignon, Antoinette, 1616-1680.; Cort, Chrétien de, d. 1669.	1696 (1696)	Wing B3842; ESTC R36499	498,584	635

and if he would search narrowly his Conscience he will find that he has resisted and oppos'd grace Some say My grace is not strong enough to make me abstain from sin and another will say If God would give me his grace I should be holy All this is spoken to lay the blame on God of our sins and miseries and to excuse our selves and thus to make God pass for unjust and a partial respecter of those to whom he gives his grace and also cruel in denying it to whom he pleases Thus they look upon God as a person subject to diverse passions of love and hatred of good or ill will Truly Sir I bewail so great a blindness among men How can they make a right judgment of their own concupiscence or of their Neighbour when they make such unjust ones of God himself and notwithstanding think they judge rightly because the learned judge so yea they would even think they sinned or did evil in believing the contrary because this invisible Antichrist has instill'd these sentiments into the mind of the learned that they may never attain to the knowledge of the Righteousness Goodness and Mercy of God and that they may amuse themselves in disputing about questions which are not necessary to our Salvation but serve rather to offend him making our selves Judges of his works debating about his designs This is one of the reasons for which I blame all those studies in the Church of God being perswaded that they have brought many errors into it and wishing always that it had continu'd in the Gospel simplicity as in the times of the Apostles and Disciples of Jesus Christ The Eighth Conference Of the Grace of Ged how it is given us and of the Difficulty of Conversion HAving observ'd that she spoke of the matters of Grace concerning which there had arisen so many Controversies in the Church of which she had hinted something already in the former Conferences I ask'd her what she believ'd concerning Grace and if the opinion of St. Augustin and his Suecessors was not better in holding that all Grace comes from and depends upon God alone than the opinion of some others who hold that Man may have Grace as often as he desires it To which she reply'd I fear Sir I shall not say the things wnich are most agreeable to you for it seems to me you have some interest in this dispute But since I have promis'd to answer all your questions I shall do it truly and in simplicity according to my measure of light without respect of persons confiding in your goodness that you will pardon the freedom which I must use in this discourse As to the first Question Whether the opinion of St. Augustin and his Followers is better than that of his Adversaries in this matter I hold comparing the one with the other that that of St. Augustin is the better or to speak more properly the less dangerous because the design of it seems to be to perswade us that all grace comes immediately from God that we may presume nothing of our selves whereas the contrary opinion rather incites man to attribute grace to himself as if it depended on his own will which would not excite in us so much humility as the first perswasion which for this reason is less dangerous But I believe the minds of neither of these Doctors were sufficiently purifyd to perceive clearly the truth of this question and that their Understandings were not free of the Ideas of their acquired Learning for receiving of this Light of Grace which is not receiv'd but by the same Grace which is obseured when our own sense is in the least mixt with it It is necessary that all the faculties of our soul should be still that we may receive the pure light of the holy Spirit And to answer as to what I believe concerning Grace I will tell you Sir it comes immediately from God without any merit or co-operation of ours for we cannot merit nor co-operate before we have a being Nothing is not capable of being able to desire or co-operate with Grace It must needs be given us thro the sole mercy of God as it was in creating us and drawing us out of Nothing It was his will and pleasure to create us after his own Image and Likeness and to make us Deities depending upon him that he might take his delight with us The Center of our Soul being the place of his Residence He has adorned us with all the Graces that might make us love him and whereas Love cannot be perfect and accomplisht unless the beloved give their free consent to the Lover therefore he created us altogether free to consent to that Love for he would not have our consent thro force nor out of necessity but thro a pure desire of good will on his side Therefore he created us a kind of creatures wholly free and gave us all the graces requisite for his Love and this out of his sole goodness and mercy without any co-operation of ours But instead of applying so many graces so freely bestow'd upon us to love him we have made use of them to offend him Nevertheless this was not capable of making God change the Love which he bare to his creatures or to take from them the Graces which he had already bestow'd upon them He continues unchangeable in his benefits and could not repent of having adorn'd man with so many Graces which he continues to give even after his sin Seeing they were not bestow'd on him for his merits neither are they taken away from him for his demerits for God has no need of man if he be righteous or wicked it is for himself but God respecting always himself imparts still the influences of grace to the wicked as the Sun sends his Beams on the Dunghil as well as on the Diamond these different objects not being able to alter or change him Even so man receives always grace from God on his part but it is not always operative because of the hinderances which sin raises against it for if God did not continually give his grace to man he could not subsist We see by experience that the wicked has all things necessary for his life as well as the righteous tho the one employs them to bless God and the other to curse him The Sun shines upon the wicked as well as upon the good without exception of persons The grace of God is given to every one tho they use it differently Nevertheless we cannot attribute to God the want of his grace but to our own wickedness which opposes it Grace therefore comes immediately from God and nothing comes from man but sin only which hinders the operation of this grace and renders him unable to co-operate with it not being able to enjoy grace and sin both together I ask'd her If sinners might recover Grace as

notwithstanding be somewhere in the World though she were but in one only Soul Because the Works of God can never perish He has made this Alliance with the Soul of Man and he will never retract it There have been in all Times some who have been his True Spouses and resigned to him but at present they are very rare Strive Sir so to do as that yours may be so and then you shall not need to seek the Church without you For as soon as your Will is resigned to God he unites it to himself and makes your Soul his Spouse Whether others whom you know be so or not concerns you little And though all the Souls of Men were God's Spouse if yours be not you lose all I asked her Whether God had not had a True Spouse still since the Creation of Adam and if the People of Israel the Jews or the Christians were not his Spouse She said Sir There have been in all Times some Souls among these People who were resigned to the Will of God These in particular were the True Church but not all that People Though indeed they all called themselves the People of God yet nevertheless they were not so For it is said somewhere If you were the Children of Abraham you would do the Works of Abraham To shew that all God's Children are not his Church or his Spouse but those only who do the Works of the Spouse That is to say who are joyned by a Resignation of their Will to that of God Those are the only Spouses of the same God This Alliance of God with Man was first of all made when Man was created The Soul of Adam made an Alliance with God and became his Spouse But being afterwards in the Earthly Paradise the Soul of Adam though Divine falsified its Faith to its Husband and instead of taking its delight only with its God for whom it was created it joyned it self in affection to the Creatures and did eat of a Fruit of which God had forbidden him to eat But as a good Husband does not still put away his Wife for One Fault that she has committed so also God the Fountain of all Goodness does not cast off the Soul of his Alliance though she had but too much merited it On the contrary he seeks Her and calls upon Her to make her return to his Friendship He cries Adam where art thou As if he had said Wherefore hast thou forsaken me He shews him also that he lov'd him by covering him with a Garment to lessen his Confusion● and seeing he was ashamed and repented God forgives him his Fault and enjoynes him only a short Penance to wit That he should be deprived of his Presence during this Life during which he must labour for his Bread But he does not at all break the Alliance he had made with him His Soul remains still the Spouse of God except that it is deprived for a certain time of its wonted sight of Him being restored as to other things into his Grace and Friendship For God will never destroy the Works that he has made And the Alliance he made with the Soul of Man was not broken off by his Sin Because the Mercy of God surpasses all his other Qualities His Justice might have condemn'd Man and his Goodness ordains him only Penitence for his Sin In which he shews the Excesse of his Mercie and the Love he bears to Souls leaving them all in Adam free to be his Spouses none excepted For he could not forgive Adam without forgiving all his Posterity Because he held the Wills of all Men in his And being yet but one Man only and one Will only he could not pardon one without another For neither the Body nor Will of Adam were divided that one part might be pardoned and another reprobated I spoke to you of this already Sir but it seems you did not sufficiently conceive it Therefore I cursorily repeat it that I may the better shew you how God has always had a Spouse or Church For if he had not forgiven Adam none could have been the Spouse of God Because all were become his Enemies by his sin Which if they had continued to be he would not have been so unjust as to thrust Man out of the Earthly Paradise and oblige him to so hard a Penitence only to damn him at last as Men now affirm That God Reprobated some after the Sin of Adam If this were true he would certainly have confined them to Hell from the Moment of their Reprobation instead of sending them yet into this World to produce a perverse and reprobate Generation God could not be good nor just in doing this But really cruel and partial towards those Reprobates who might justly murmure against him with more reason than the Labourers who received no more for the Work of a whole Day than they who had wrought but for One Two or Three Hours For they had no reason because they received what was due to them and what they had agreed for but these Reprobated have Laboured as much as those Elect since they have all equally performed the Penitence enjoyned to Adam And if the Father of the Family gives as much to the Last Comers as to the First it is not that he is partial or that he savours one more than another but that he exercises his Goodness towards the Last because they had been no sooner called to Work of which they themselves complain saying Lord No body has employed us So that God exercises towards them both Goodness and Justice But if out of the Masse of Adam he had fore-ordained some Elect and others Reprobate he should have done against both the one and the other of these Qualities Which he cannot do And the Goodness and Mercy of God spreading themselves alwayes over all his Works he did assuredly Elect and Pardon all Men in general in Adam So that after him all they who will resign their Free-will to his are all his Spouses and his Church Therefore in all Times and in all Ages he has still had a Church upon Earth and will have till all Evil be at an end Since Adam many Souls have been resigned to the Will of God as he himself was after his Sin having never more re-taken their own Free-will but left it still to be governed by God subjecting themselves voluntarily to the Penitence that was enjoyn'd him These have been the Church and the Spouses of God Adam Eve and their Children until they had the use of their Reason were the First Church and afterwards Abel Enoch Noah and others who in like manner resigned their Will to God were at that Time the Second Church and thus going on from Time to Time this Church has always continued either of many Souls united to the Will of God or of few This makes nothing to the first Design that God had to Ally himself with the Soul of Man It is