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	lord_n	name_n	5,929	5	5.3421	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63938	An essay towards an history of all the remarkable providences which have happened in this present age As also of what is curious in the works of nature and art. With parallel instances from former ages. By William Turner, M.A. and Vicar of Walberton in Sussex. To be publish'd by way of subscription.	Turner, W. (William), fl. 1687-1701.	1695 (1695)	Wing T3345A; ESTC R222428	12,448	4

I retired my self from the noise and deceitful Vanities of the world I found no true comfort in any other Resolution than what I had from thence I commend the same from the bottom of my Heart to your I hope happy use Dear Sir Hugh let us be more generous than to believe we Die like Beasts that perish but with a Christian Manly brave Ambition let us look to what is Eternal I will not trouble you farther the only Great and Holy God Father Son and Holy Ghost direct you to an happy end of your Life and send us a joyful Resurrection So prays your dear Friend Marlbourgh Old James near the Coast of Holland 24th of April 1665. I beseech you commend my love to all my Acquaintance particularly I pray you that my Cozen Glassock may have a sight of this Letter and as many of my Friends beside as you will or any else that desireth it I pray grant this my Request To William Glascock Esq Dear Cozen May the 23. 1665. This Letter to Mr. Glascock was never printed before but is attested to be genuine in the following Specimen IN case I be called away by God in this present Employment I have recommended these few Lines to you first earnestly begging God Almighty his most merciful Pardon and yours for the very bad example and many provocations to sin I have given you Next I do most heartily desire you to make use of your Remaining Time in bestowing it upon his Service who only can be your Comfort at your latter end when all the former Pleasures of your Life shall only leave Anguish and Remorse If God had spared me Life instead of this Paper I would through his Grace have indeavoured to have been as assistful to you in minding you of true Piety as the care of mine own life could have inabled me do not think that melancholly Vapours cause this it is Gods great mercy that by this Employment hath made me know my self for which his Name be for ever Praised Lastly I Pray shew these few Lines to my Lord of Portland by which I in like manner and for the same cause crave his pardon wishing you both the blessed peace and content of a good Conscience towards God and a happy end of your Lives Your truly Loving Cozen. Marlbourgh My Lord Marlbourgh's Letter to Sir Hugh Pollard having been disperst throughout the Kingdom this Remarkable Penetence of his Lordship was the Subject of general Discourse for a long time after and 't is not doubted but that his Lordship's Letter to Mr. Glascock which was never printed but in this Specimen will be as well received and 't is hoped may have the same good Effect as the former had The Gentleman who hath communicated to us these Letters sent by the Earl of Marlbourgh to Sir Hugh Pollard and Mr. Glascock is a Person of Quality now living in London and if any one hath the curiosity to be satisfied from his own mouth about the perfect certainty of the matters therein Related if he repairs to Mr. Darker in Bull-head-Court near Cripplegate he will be always ready to bring any Gentleman to speak with him for further confirmation It must needs be obvious to every considering Reader that the same holy spirit who breath'd from the mouth of Solomon the wiseft of men That all things in this World are Vanity and Vexation of Spirit did make this Great Man sensible of the Truth thereof by his own Experience and to express it accordingly and how observable is it that that very Truth which he so ingenuously confesses himself to have neglected and despised did at last make an entire Conquest over him and force him to submit as if God would thereby let us see that though not many Noble and not many Wise are called yet he does not leave the Gospel without a Testimony even from such but obliges them to confess That the Wisdom of this World is meer Foolishness with God which will appear yet more by the following Instances It 's taken notice of that Sir * In Sir Alan Brodericks Funeral Sermon by Nathan Resbury Minister of Wandsworth Decemb. 3. 1680. Alan Broderick who was a Gentleman of Extraordinary Learning and Accomplishments did own with much Contrition that a Long Scene of his Life had been acted in the Sports and Follies of Sin that he had somtime pursued a Pagan and abandon'd way Septicism it self not excepted wherein the poinancy of his Wit and the strength of his Reasoning even in that very Argument the using of which proclaims a man in the Language of the Holy Scriptures a Fool may have been the occasion of a great deal of mischief towards some that are already gone to their Accounts Yet some years before his Death the bent and tendency of his Life and Actions was Devout and Religious and in his Private Conversation with his Minister he would always be Discoursing some Cases of Conscience about Retir'd Closet-prayer or the Nature and Necessity of True Religion and in his last Sickness he thought himself under a mighty Incumbency to Pray but was much harassed and anxious what to do because of his fear of not performing it with all becoming Reverence and Seriousness For look you saith he my Conscience is now as tender as wet Paper torn upon every apprehension of the least guilt before God And as he had much studied the Nature of Repentance he would frequently complain That he had a great jealousy upon himself lest he had not yet conceiv'd an horror answerable to his past Exorbitancies of Life and had not made those smart and pungent Reflections upon himself that might become one that had so long and in such Exalted Degrees violated the Laws of his Maker and made himself so Obnoxious to the Vengeance of his Judgment and that if the cutting off one of his hands with the other were but a proper or likely way through the anguish of such a wound to give him a just horror for his sins he would do that as willingly as he ever did any one Action that had given him the greatest pleasure of Life He also said that by the grace of God he had such a sense of the Conviction and folly and unreasonableness of Sin that no Argument no Tentation should prevail upon him to do the like again Having taken notice that all my Lord Rochesters Religious breathings were accounted by some the Raves and Delirancies of a sick Brain he did resolve to have given the World a publick Account of the sentiments he had of Religion both as to the Faith and Practise of it but was prevented Mr. Hobbs who was so much noted in the World for his Atheistical Writings insomuch that his Book intituled The Leviathan was condemned by the Parliament in their Bill against Atheism and Profaneness Octob. 1666. and both that and his book de Cive by the Convocation July 21. 1683. Yet the E. of Devon's * Ath. Oxon. part

from VVicked men and Devils what Emphasis is there in Nebuchadnezzars Acknowledgement that the most high doth according to his will in the Army of Heav'n and among the Inhabitants of the Earth and none can stay his hand or say unto him what dost thou Dan. 6.35 And tho our blessed Saviour disdain'd such a Testimony yet the Power and Majesty of God was mightily seen in that Confession which we find so often extorted from the Devils in the Gospel that he was the Holy one of God and the Son of the most High and when we Consider those passages and that Divine Air which sounds in the declaration of the false prophet Balaam Num. 24. I shall see him but not now I shall behold him but not nigh there shall come a Star out of Jacob and a Scepter shall rise out of Israel We have no reason to doubt but that the Lofty Rapture of the Oracle of Delphos may be true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which I find thus Ingeniously translated into Latin and English Me puer Hebraeus Divos Deus ipse Gubernans Cedere sede jubet triftemque redire sub orcum Aris ergo dehinc tacitis abscedito nostris An Hebrew Child whom the blest Gods adore Hath bid me leave these shrines and pack to Hell So that of Oracles I can no more In silence leave our Altar and farewel Upon the return of which Answer from that Oracle the Emperor Augustus caused an Altar to be Erected in the Capitol with this Inscription haec est ara primogeniti Dei And the famous Acknowledgment of Julian the Apostate when mortally wounded by an Arrow Julian the Apostate dies acknowledging the Truth of the Christian Religion Vicisti tandem Galilee is another remarkable instance of the power of God in extorting a Confession of the Truth of Christianity from one of its most implacable Enemies This we think sufficient as a Taste of what may be produced as to Confessions of God and Christ which have been extorted by Remarkable Providences in preceeding Ages and we have reason to bless his Holy Name that he hath not left us without Observable Attestations of the same Nature in this present Age. The first we shall mention are the Earl of Marlbourgh's Letters from on Board the Fleet. April 24. 1665. The Earl of Marlbourgh whose two most Devout and Penitential Letters are herewith Publish'd was a person of great understanding and wit The Scene of his Life lay chiefly in Voyages and expeditions by Sea whereby he made many laborious attempts to repair the Collapsed Estate of his Ancestors but it pleased not God to give him the Success he hoped for therein It is wholly unfit for any Writer to touch upon any irreligious principles or practises that were as stains in his Life since he hath by his own Noble Pen in the following Letters acknowledged them and by his most exemplary Repentance washed them off Mr. Roger Coke in the second Volume of his Detection p. 142 mentions That the Fight wherein the Duke of York beat the Dutch and Opdam was blown up was the 3d of June 1665. and that in this Fight the English lost the Renown'd Earl of Marlbourgh who tho Admiral in K. Charles the firsts time died here a private Captain But it pleased God in that Naval Expedition to work in him such a sense of his Sins as did infinitely make amends for the former disappointments he met with by Sea or Land The Date of his first Letter being the 24th of April and that of the Second the 23d of May following will satisfy any candid Reader that the New Birth in him was accompanied with may pangs and efforts of great consideration during the firmness of his bodily Health and much transcending the low Nature of poor Death-bed Repentances which are so justly suspected by our Practical Divines of all perswasions And here it is necessary to acquaint the Reader that these two Letters of distant Dates were sent by his Lordship from the Royal Navy inclosed in other Letters to Mr. Tredewy his Lordship's Agent in London with a particular Instruction both as to that to Sir Hugh Pollard and that to Mr. Glascock that each of them was to be delivered when Mr. Tredewy was credibly inform'd of his Lordships Death His design being that his Pen should Preach Repentance to the World in case he lived not to be a personal Adviser thereof himself The Publisher hereof assures the Reader that both the Letters had a happy influence on the Lives of the two persons to whom they were directed and that Sir Hugh Pollard having lent the Original Letter which was sent to him to Sir W. Davenant to shew it to whom he pleased Sir VVilliam shew'd it to the Publisher among many others And that Mr. Glascock permitted the Publisher to take a Copy of that Letter directed to him The Reader may then awaken his most serious Thoughts to consider the two following Letters A Letter from the right Honourable James Earl of Marlbourgh a little before his Death in the Battle at Sea on the Coast of Holland 1665 To the right Honourable Sir Hugh Pollard Comptroller of His Majesties House-hold Sir See Dr. Lloyd's fair warning to a careless world for a Copy of this Letter of the Earl of Marlebourgh to Sir Hugh Pollard I Believe the goodness of your Nature and the Friendship you have always born me will receive with kindness this last Office of your Friend I am in Health enough of Body and through the mercy of God in Jesus Christ well disposed in mind This I premise that you may be satisfied that what I write proceeds not from any Phantastick Terror of mind but from a sober Resolution of what concerns my self and earnest desire to do you more good after my Death than mine Example God of his mercy pardon the badness of it in my Life-time may have done you harm I will not speak ought of the Vanity of this World your own Age and Experience will save that Labour but there is a certain thing that goes up and down in the World call'd Religion Drest and Presented Phantastically and to purposes bad enough which yet by such evil Dealing loseth not its Being The great and good God hath not left it without a Witness more or lefs sooner or later in every mans bosom to direct us in the pursuit of it and for the avoiding of those Inextricable difficulties and intanglements our own frail Reason would perplex us withal God in his infinite mercy has given us his Holy word in which as there are many things hard to be Understood so there is enough plain and easy to be understood to quiet our minds and direct us concerning our future being I confess to God and you I have been a great neglecter and I fear despiser of it God of his infinite mercy pardon me that dreadful Fault but when