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	sin_n	sinner_n	3,410	5	7.5691	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36557	A pleasant and profitable treatise of Hell. Written by Hieremy Drexelius. S.J.; Infernus damnatorum carcer et rogus æternitatis. English.	Drexel, Jeremias, 1581-1638.	1668 (1668)	Wing D2184A; ESTC R212863	150,577	394

miserable wretches shall fry in eternal flames for Eternity and longer In body they shall be tormented by fire and in spirit by the worm of Conscience There shall be pain intollerable horrible fear and stink incomparable death both of soul and body without hope either of pardon or mercy And yet shall they so dye as that they shall alwaies live and so live as that they shall ever dye Thus the soul of a sinner is either in hell tormented for sins or for good works placed in Paradise Now therefore let us choose one of the two either to be for ever tormented with the wicked or to rejoyce with Saints perpetually For good and evil life and death are set before us that we may stretch forth our hand to which we choose If pains do not terrify us at least let rewards invite us These things we are tought by Faith which yet as we declared before we either permit to degenerate into drowsness and sloath or wholly to perish Peter Barocius Lib. 2. de ratione bene moriendi Bishop of Padua recounts how a certain man famous for learning appeared after death to one of his intimate friends and spoke to him in this manner At the hour of Death in matters of Faith I was shamefully deceived by the Devil In which condition death found me carried me away and presented me to the judge by whom I was commanded to depart into flames Which though they be excessive yet should I deem them tollerable if after a thousand thousand years they were to have an end But they are eternal and so sharp as the like was never seen in this world Accursed be that knowledge which threw me headlong into so great misery After he had spoken thus he disappeared but his surviveing friend astonisht at the relation and especially strook with his friends eternal damnation consulted with his best friends what advice were most profitable for him in this case He became a new man and dyed holily The Conclusion THerefore St. Psal 68. Austin discoursed well Who saith he would not drink off a cup of temporal tribulation for fear of hell fire And who would not despise the sweetness of worldly pleasure out of love to the delights of everlasting life a greater fear makes us contemn smaller matters and a greater longing after Eternity makes us loath all temporal things As much saith St. Chrysostome as a grain of Sand Tom. 4. hom 11 in ep ad titum or a drop comes short of the immense abiss so far doth this present life differ from eternal and never ending treasures The things we have we do not truly possess we only make use of them and that improperly too T is vertue alone which will bear us company in our journey hence T is vertue alone which hath admittance into everlasting life Let us then at length open our eyes and quite extinguish all appetite to worldly wealth that all our desire may be placed on eternal But alas how great want of consideration is to be found amongst men how great blindness we wrangle for a half penny and make a laughter and jest on 't to lose Heaven Thus we are infected with the ordinary contagion of madness and take pleasure to perish for company Dost thou not blush saith St. Chrysostome to be so wedded to things present When wilt thou part with thy youth toyes and lay a side thy wonted folly What ever is here troublesome is of small continuance what is delightful there is everlasting Remove therefore thy mind from transitory and fading goods and settle it on better and eternal eagerly thirst after Heaven that thou maiest enjoy delights to come Is not reward of force to invite thee at least let fear of torment keep thee in awe Those punishments therefore saith Valerianus ought to have the first place in our thoughts where man lives while the pain lasts where neither pains are wanting to the body nor the body to pains To the like intent writes St. Chrysostome If the Ninivites had not been afraid of destruction Tom. 2. in epist 1. ad Thess they had bin destroyed If in the time of Noe they had feared the deluge they had not been drowned If the Sodomites had dreaded the fire they had not been burned It is a great misery to contemn menaces Nothing is so profitable as frequently to treat of hell speak of it every day that you may never fall into it A soul solicitous to escape hell cannot easily commit sin None of those who have a lively remembrance of hell will fall into it as none who sleight hell will escape it A certain man as Iohn Moscus relates came to Alexander Prat. spur c. 141. a venerable person who governed the Monastery of Abbot Gerasimus and said unto him Father I have a design to flit from my old habitation because the unpleasant situation of it is irksome to me To whom the good old man spoke in this manner Son this is a manifest sign you never consider with attention either the joyes of heaven or the pains of hell for if you did seriously weigh these things in your mind beleive me you would find no fault with your old habitation This was an Oracle of truth for who ever meditates attentively on heaven or hell either is not sensible of difficulty though never so great or if he be he makes his benefit of it and is most ready to undergo greater hardships so he may avoid eternal pains Of this temper was Abbot Olympius as Clymacus testifies who being asked how he could abide to live in such a Cave how he could endure such excessive heats or pass so many daies amongst whole swarms of gnats and flies he returned this answer I suffer these things willingly that I may be freed from future torments I am content to be bitten with gnats because I am afraid of the worm that never dyes heat is welcome to me in regard I stand in fear of fire everlasting for those sufferings pass away with time and will quickly have an end but these are without end and continue for eternity Wherefore these things deserve our dayly consideration and ought to be ruminated when our thoughts are most active As Physick is taken by way of prevention even when the body is well in health so likewise must our soul be prepared with these considerations to withstand vice I confess these thoughts are somewhat bitter but they are wholesome too they do not become familiar upon a suddain but by degrees time place and practise will nourish and bring them to maturity All idleness is a sworn enemy unto them which as it is pernitious to vertue so it opens an easy passage to let in all kind of vices Go too then c. 27. ver 4. who ever thou be and provide in time for thy own salvation Give ear to the Prophesy of Ecclesiasticus If thou hold not thy self instantly in the fear of our Lord thy house shall quickly be subverted It is now in thy choice whether thou wilt reign or perish A soft bed seldome makes a Souldier more valiant remember that beatitude is a daughter of labour and vertue Let none saith St. Tom. 10 ser 60. de tem Austin he ashamed to do pennance who was not ashamed to commit sin but let him strive without delay to renew himself by good works that he may be owned for a child by his father least being excluded from the Wedding feast and shut out from eternal bliss he have his hands and feet bound and be cast into exteriour darkness Excellently said Turtullian The ceasing from sin is the root of pardon the meditation of hell is the begining of salvation seeing hell abounds with all evil it wants chiefly that good which is the best amidst evils an end of Torment An End of this Treatise But where art thou O end of eternal Torments

That herd of Goats shall then be of more loathsome scent the more immoderately they have here sought after Perfumes Some of your odoriferous smells are incentives to Gluttony some to Lust and certainly an eager desire of them is an argument of incontinency But to make short this kind of allurements which are perceived by the ears eyes and nostrils are either marks of Levity or Lasciviousness To become a slave to sensual delight above measure is no less then vanity or impurity Perfumes and pretious Oyntments have been prejudicial and destructive to many Muleasses King of Tuny's faught against his Son Amida for the recovery of his Kingdome but being worsted in the encounter and seeking by flight to save himself all besmeared with blood and dust was discovered by his persumes and brought into Captivity where his son with a hot penknife cut out both the Apples of his Eyes and blinded him A young Gallant richly annoynted went to render thanks to Vespatian the Emperour for a curtesy he had lately done him But the Emperour being sensible of the sweet scent he breathed began to be angry and frowning on him spoke sharply saying I would rather thou hadst stunk of Garlick Thus Caesar recalled his grant and the Gallant after a sound check was cashiered of his pretended Honour C. Plotinus Plancus being sent into banishment and for fear of death lying privately at Salernum was betrayed by his costly odours and so lost his life and furnisht his adversaries with an excuse for their cruel proceeding So true it is that perfumes are disgraceful and dangerous Here by the way we may please to observe that many things which we beleive to be mere trifles are lookt upon by God with a rigorous eye ch 3.24 Therefore as Esay foretold For sweet savour there shall be stink Forget not I pray this admonition of the Prophet Micheas I will shew thee O man what is good ch 6.8 And what our Lord requireth of thee verily to do judgement and to love mercy and to walk solicitous with thy God The fifth Torment is fire OF this fire admirably speaks Isidorus Pelusiota Epist 47 You may be pleased to take notice my friend that none can lye hid from that All-seeing and watchful eye no not in the most secret retreat if you do any thing amiss For all things are naked and open to him though they seem to be never so private and out of sight Wherefore such as sin and do not true pennance shall be plunged in certain perpetual floods boyling with dreadful fire whose streams are no other then flames prepared for torment Let us therefore fear the Majesty of God This fire alas may not with any revolution of years nor as St. Gregory Nazianzen speaks with any numberless number of ages be extinguisht What way soever you turn all is Fire Pitch Brimstone Anger and Wrath of our Lord. Where you may note amongst our fires a main difference that of the Thunderbolt being more active then our usual fire and that eternal devouring fire of hell more powerful then either Now let me demand with Esay c. 33.14 Which of you can dwell with devouring fire which of you shall dwell with everlasting heats What fiery Salt-Sea though it be hot night and day yet in the year it hath its intermission from heat several dayes when it remains quiet and free from burning In Hell after an hundred a thousand yea ten thousand years are past Tom. 9. trac 5. de met not one day nor minute of respite will be allowed He saith St. Austin who hath a sound consideration and beleives what God hath revealed fears more eternal fire then the Sword of any Tyrant though never so barbarous He dreads more perpetual death then any death here whatever How many houres then how many moneths or years must those Traitours to God abide in that fire Neither hours dayes nor years may be numbred the hours shall be eternal the dayes and moneth eternal the years and fire shall be eternal Why will God reject for ever Psa 76. He will reject for ever The triumpher in Israel will not spare 1. Kings 15.29 and he will not be turned with repentance He that is afraid of these things saith St. Bernard bewares of them he that sleights them slips into them The like advice is instilled by Climacus Let the memory of eternal fire sleep with thee every night Grad 7. The sixth Torment is the Worm of Conscience A Guilty Conscience though but for a day good Lord what a punishment is it What then will it be when it lasts for ever The conscience of the damned is throughly wounded which makes it ever afflicted alwaies in despair without comfort Pathetically writes St. Lib. 5. de Isid ch 12. Bernard of this point Amongst so great a multitude of spectators no ones eye will be more troublesome then every one 's to himself There is no sight either in Heaven or Earth which the dark some conscience would rather avoid but cannot Darkness is not covered from its self it beholds it self that can discover nothing else The works of darkness follow them they can hide themselves no where from darkness no not in darkness it self This is the worm that dyeth not the remembrance of things past which being once cast into or rather bred in the soul by sin sticks so fast that henceforth it can never be pluckt away It doth not cease to gnaw the conscience wherewith being fed as with inconsumptive food it preserves its life perpetually Here the truth of those words will experimentally appear I will reprove thee and set it against thy face In Hell are no Clocks Psal 49 nor Stars to guide Clocks by no Almanacks nor Kalendars no means there to know any difference of times Ecclesiastes affirms Neither work nor reason nor wisdome nor knowledge shall be in Hell ch 9. ver 10. whither thou dost hasten Here only the Clock of Conscience is heard but much out of order It is irksome to one that is sick and cannot sleep to hear no Clock nor to be able to know how the time passeth Hence one quarter seems as long as an hour and an hour as long as a whole night and yet after six or seven hours are gone the little birds with chirping melody welcome in the morning the Sun by degrees rises out of his dayly tomb the feaverish heat remits and a gentle slumber seises on the temples all things that by approaching night grew worse by this time are become more mild Anon some will come in to ask how the sick man doth and will not only cheer him up with comfortable words but also with other necessaries Nothing of all these O my God! is to be found in Hell no Day no Sun no Dew no Morning no Birds but Devils no refreshment not so much as a drop of water there is perpetual darkness everlasting dolours and butchery of Conscience without end