Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	gracious_a	lord_n	merciful_a	6,562	5	8.9295	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61980	Nine cases of conscience occasionally determined by Robert Sanderson.	Sanderson, Robert, 1587-1663.	1678 (1678)	Wing S618; ESTC R25114	76,581	200

to bethink my self of such a course to be thenceforward held in the public worship in my own Parish as might be likeliest neither to bring danger to my self by the use nor to bring scandal to my Brethren by the disuse of the established Liturgy And the course was this to which I have held me ever since I begin the Service with a Preface of Scripture and an exhortation inferred thence to make Confession of sins which Exhortation I have framed out of the Exhortation and Absolution in the Book contracted and put together and expressed for the most part in the very same words and phrases but purposely here and there transplaced that it might appear not to be and yet be the same Then followeth the Confession it self in the same Order it was inlarged only with the addition of some words whereby it is rather explained than altered the whole Form whereof both for your fuller satisfaction in that particular and that you may partly conjecture what manner of addition or change I have made proportionably hereunto yet none so large in other parts of the holy Office I have here under-written O Almighty God and merciful Father we thy unworthy servants do with shame and sorrow confess that we have all our life long gone astray out of thy ways like lost Sheep and that by following too much the devices and desires of our own hearts We have grievously offended against thy holy Laws both in thought word and deed We have many times left undone those good things which we might and ought to have done and we have many times done those evils when we might have avoided them which we ought not to have done we confess O Lord that there is no health at all in us nor help in any Creature to relieve us But all our hope is in thy mercy whose justice we have by our sins so far provoked Have mercy upon us therefore O Lord have mercy upon us miserable offenders Spare us Good Lord which confess our faults that we perish not But according to thy gracious promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord Restore us upon our true Repentance to thy grace and favour And grant O most merciful Father for his sake that we may henceforth study to serve and please thee by leading a godly righteous and sober life to the glory of thy holy Name and the eternal comfort of our own souls through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen After this Confession the Lords Prayer with the Versicles and Gloria Patri and then the Psalms for the day and the first Lesson after which in the Afternoon sometimes Te Deum but then only when I think the Auditory will bear it and sometimes an Hymn of my own composing gathered out of the Psalms and the Church Collects as a general Form of thanks-giving which I did the rather because some have noted the want of such a Form as the only thing wherein our Liturgy seemed to be defective and in the Afternoon after the first Lesson the 98 or the 67 Psalm Then the second Lesson with Benedictus or Jubilate after it in the Forenoon and in the Afternoon a singing Psalm then followeth the Creed with Dominus Vobiscum and sometimes the Versicles in the end of the Litany From our Enemies defend us c. If I like my Auditory otherwise I omit these Versicles After the Creed c. instead of the Letany and the other Prayers appointed in the Book I have taken the substance of the Prayer I was wont to use before Sermon and disposed it into several Collects or Prayers some longer and some shorter but new modelled into the Language of the Common-Prayer-Book much more than it was before And in the Pulpit before Sermon I use only a short Prayer in reference to the hearing of the Word and no more so that upon the matter in these Prayers I do but the same thing I did before save that what before I spake without Book and in a continued Form and in the Pulpit I now read out of a written Book broken into parcels and in the reading Desk or Pew Between which Prayers and the singing Psalm before the Sermon I do also daily use one other Collect of which sort I have for the purpose composed sundry made up as the former for the most part out of the Church Collects with some little inlargement or variation as namely Collects Adventual Quadragesimal Paschal and Pentecostal for their proper seasons and at other times Collects of a more general nature as for Pardon Repentance Grace c. And after one or more of them in the forenoon I usually repeat the ten Commandments with a short Collect after for Grace to enable us to keep them This hath been my practice and is like still to be unless some happy change of affairs restore us the liberty of using the old way again or it be made appear to my understanding by some able charitable Friend that I have therein done otherwise than I ought to have done for I may say truly I have not yet met with any thing in discourse either with my own reason or with others of sufficient strength to convince me that I have herein done any thing but what may stand with the Principles as well of Christian Simplicity as Prudence There are but three things that I know of that are of consideration opposed viz. 1. The Obligation of the Laws 2. The Scandal of the Example 3. An unseemly symbolizing at least with Schismaticks if not partaking with them in the Schism 1. Law Object I. The first and strongest Objection which I shall therefore propose to the most advantage of the Objector is that which is grounded upon the Laws and the obligation for it may be objected That every humane Law rightly established so long as it continueth a Law obligeth the Subject and that for Conscience sake to the observation thereof in such manner and form as in the said Law is prescribed and according to the true intention and meaning of the Law-giver therein That a Law is then understood to be rightly established when it containeth nothing but what is honest and lawful and is enacted by such person or persons as have full and sufficient authority to make Laws That a Law so established continueth a Law and is in force till it be either repealed by as good and full authority as that by which it was made or else antiquated by a long continued uninforced disuse with the tacite or presumed consent of the Law-giver That the Act printed before the Common Prayer-Book and entituled An Act for the Uniformity c. was such a Law being it was established in a full and free Parliament and in peaceable times and ratified by the Royal Assent That it still continueth in force being not yet repealed but by such persons as at least in the Opinion of those who maintain the Dispute for want of the Royal Assent have not a sufficient right

is if not unjust yet what differeth very little there-from the extremity of rigid Justice that any offender much less a Son or Daughter should for any offence not deserving Death be by a kind of fatal peremptory decree put into an incapacity of receiving relief from such persons as otherwise ought to have relieved the said offender without any reservation either of the case of extreme necessity or of the case of serious repentance 11. However it be for the point of Justice yet so apparent is the repugnancy of the matter of this Vow with the Precepts of Christian Charity and Mercy that if all I have hitherto said were of no force this repugnancy alone were enough without other evidence to prove the unlawfulness and consequently the invalidity or inobligality thereof It is not an Evangelical Counsel but the express peremptory precept of Christ that we should be merciful even as our heavenly Father is merciful And inasmuch as not in that passage only but for the most part wheresoever else the duty of mercy is pressed upon us in the Gospel from the example of God God is represented to us by the Name and under the notion of a Father although I may not lay much weight upon it as a demonstrative proof yet I conceive I may commend it as a rational Topick for all that are Fathers to consider of whether it do not import that mercy is to be expected from a father as much as if not rather much more than from any other man and that the want of mercy in a Father is more unkindly more unseemly more unnatural than in another man But this by the way from the Precept of Christ we learn that as there is in God a two-fold mercy a giving mercy in doing us good though we deserve it not and a forgiving mercy in pardoning us when we have done amiss so there ought to be in every good Christian man a readiness after the example of God to shew forth the fruits of mercy to others in both kinds upon all proper and meet occasions So that if any person of what quality or condition soever shall upon any provocation whatsoever Vow that he will never do any thing for such or such a man or that he will never forgive such or such a man every such Vow being contra bonos more 's and contra officium hominis Christiani is unlawful and bindeth not 12. The offices of mercy in the former of those two branches viz. of doing good and affording relief to those that are in necessity are themselves of so great necessity as the case may be that common humanity would exact the performance of them from the hand not of a strangeronly but even of an enemy If a stranger or an enemies Beast lie weltring in a Ditch a helping hand must be lent to draw it out The Samaritans compassion to the wounded Traveller in the Parable Luke 10. There being a feud and that grounded upon Religion which commonly of all others is the most deadly feud between the two Nations is commended to our example to the great reproach of the Priest and Levite for their want of Bowels to their poor Brother of the same Nation and Religion with themselves For the nearer the Relation is between the Parties the stronger is the obligation of shewing mercy either to other And there is scarce any relation nearer and more obliging than that of Parents and Children Our Saviour who in Matth. 15. sharply reproved such Vows though made with an intention to advance the Service of God by inriching his Treasury as hindred Children from relieving their Parents will not certainly approve of such vows made without any other intenion then to gratifie rage and impatience as hinder Parents from relieving their Children 13. If to avoid the force of this argument it shall be alledged that the Daughters disobedience in a business of so high concernment might justly deserve to be thus severely punished and that it were but equal that she who had so little regard to her Father when the time was should be as little regarded by him afterwards All this granted cometh not yet up to the point of shewing Mercy according to the example of God No Childs disobedience can be so great to an earthly Parent as ours is to our heavenly Father Yet doth he notwithstanding all our ill deservings continually do us good communicating to our necessities and causing his Sun to shine and his Rain to fall and infinite benefits in all kinds to descend upon mankind not excluding the most thankless and disobedient and rebellious from having a share therein 14. And as for that other branch of mercy in pardoning Offences God giveth a rich example to all men of their duty in that kind and to Fathers particularly by his great readiness to pardon the greatest offenders if they sincerely seek to him for it If the Father in the Parable Luke 15. had proceeded with such severity against his riotousSon as to have vowed never to have received him again he had been a very improper exemplar whereby to shadow out the mercy of God to repentant sinners Concerning the grreat importance of this duty which is so frequently inculcated by Christ and his Apostles and so peremptorily enjoyned as not any other duty more See Matt. 6. 4 15. Matt. 18. 21. 35. Eph. 4. 32. Col. 3. 13. James 2. 13. See also Sirac 28 1 c. I shall not need to say much only as to the present Case it would be considered how perverse a course it is and contradictory to it self for a man to think himself obliged by one inconsiderate act never to forgive his Daughter when as yet he cannot beg pardon of his own sins at the hands of God as he ought in his daily Prayer to do without an express condition of forgiving every body and an implicit imprecation upon himself if he do not 15. But shall the Daughter that hath thus grieved the spirit of her Father thus escape unpunished and be in as good a condition as if she had never offended And will not others be incouraged by her impunity to despise their Parents after her example There is much reason in this objection and therefore what I have hitherto written ought not to be understood as if thereby were intended such a plenary indulgence for the daughter as should restore her in integrum but only that she should be made capable of receiving such relief from her Father from time to time as in relation to her necessities and after-carriage from time to time should seem reasonable and that his Vow ought not to hinder him from affording her such relief But by what degrees and in what proportion the Father should thus receive his daughter into his fatherly affection and relieve her must be left to discretion and the exigence of circumstances Only I should advise in order to the objection viz. for examples sake and that the Daughter might be made even