Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	great_a	heaven_n	sin_n	5,123	5	4.7201	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40042	An alarme for sinners containing the confession, prayers, letters, and last words of Robert Foulkes, late minister of Stanton-Lacy in the County of Salop, who was tryed, convicted and sentenced at the sessions in the Old Bayly, London, January 16th, 1678/9, and executed the 31st following : with an account of his life / published from the original written with his own hand, during his reprieve, and sent by him at his death to Doctor Lloyd ...	Foulkes, Robert, d. 1679.	1679 (1679)	Wing F1644; ESTC R14395	27,043	44

Parishioners It may seem to commence and bear no longer date but in my time but I know 't is much more Ancient almost Hereditary to some of them Cut off the Entail if you can and so having cleared the passage by removing their prejudices then apply your self to your work I will not presume to direct you but I desire you to make a work and not a play or jest of it you will find employment for both your hands for your utmost diligence There is no man so stirring and active but may admit of the Gentle Spur I am sure if you well consult it you will find that the very necessities of your People may serve to whet your endeavours I am so acquainted with their State that though it be contrary to my Resolution yet I can't forbear to offer my opinion take it I pray with the same Candor as it comes I suppose that either frequent I had almost said constant Catechizing or Catechistical Preaching is the most proper for them I am certain they are such as have more need of Milk than of strong Meat for though such points have been often inculcated upon them yet they have been such slow Proficients in the School of Christ that they have need to be taught again which are the very first Principles of the Oracles of God In the delivery whereof you are to be industriously plain St. Pauls aim was to speak words easie to be understood apta non alta which if you observe not after many years you will find you have frustrated your own design and besides beating the Air have done nothing at all and will be no otherwise than as a sounding Brass or a tinkling Cymbal 'T were easie to enlarge even to a Surfeit but I hope you have little need I am sure I have less time I have no more to add but my Prayers That you may be in that Place the Spiritual Father of a numerous Offspring by begetting many Sons and Daughters unto God and enjoy more Comfort and Tranquillity there than did Your Predecessour R. Foulkes To the Parishioners of Stanton-Lacy Dear Friends and late good Neighbours I Am now in view of Death and have my Grave in prospect I cannot therefore charitably be suspected in the few following and my last directions to be acted by any other motive but my Charity or to aim at any other end but your Good I have been of late amongst you the occasion of some Contention I hope to obtain my pardon of God and I believe you will not deny me yours as I do freely and heartily grant you mine I beseech you contribute vigorously to the sudden ending of that and all other differences and close with the first offer of your Minister in that happy and most necessary Work 'T is high time to lay aside Wrath and Clamour and Anger and evil speaking with all Malice and to be kindly Affectioned one to another tender Hearted Forgiving one another even as God for Christ his sake hath also Forgiven you My time grows shorter and shorter else I could easily enlarge and great need there is of some strong perswasion to this Duty Read and Meditate 1 Cor. 13. all over I will insert only one qualification you will find it Rom. 12. 9. Dear Friends there is abundance of that love that is from the Teeth outwards I pray let yours be Cordial and Hearty I must be abrupt and take my leave in two words 1. My Prayer for you is the conclusion of Moses his Blessing to the Twelve Tribes Deut. 33. 27. Let the Eternal God be your Refuge and underneath you be his everlasting Arms. 2. My advice to you I borrow of St. Paul 2 Cor. 13. 11. Finally my Brethren farewel be perfect be of good Comfort be of one Mind live in Peace and the God of Love and Peace shall be with you The Conclusion FRom both Minister and People and all that knew me or may hear of me and whose hands these papers shall reach especially the Clergy unto whom I have given too just and too great an occasion of offence and scandal I beg heartily beg their pardon and forgiveness and while I live I shall pray that you may be all delivered from the infectious influence of my vile and filthy practices and example and I charge you all as you love your Souls guard and defend your selves against them and take not the least encouragement from them let the instance of my shameful end effectually convince you that Vicious and Ungodly Courses however concealed or guilded over with Hypocrisie God will detect nay your very sins will find you out and expose you to certain vengeance Oh that it had Recoiled on my self what I often urged upon others Tarditatem supplium gravitate compensat The slowness of the blow God will make up by the heaviness of it when it comes You see I am crushed all to pieces with it take warning by me it will else prove the Aggravation both of your Sins and Punishments Mine you see are great exceeding great scarcely to be parallel'd but yours will surmount even mine should you venture on them after such loud warning What were it but a Challenge to Divine Justice and a Defiance of his Omnipotency Beware therefore of such dangerous paths for if after such signal instances of Gods Wrath and Displeasure you should dash against the same Rocks they will certainly grind you to Powder Let your own Meditatition make up the Conclusion St. Paul will furnish you with a subject very proper for your thoughts to well and enlarge upon 1 Cor. 10. 6 7 8 9 10 11. there I leave you the Lord direct and assist you Amen A Prayer frequently used by me during my Reprieve O Most Holy and Righteous Judge of the whole World give a sinful and miserable Wretch leave to prostrate himself before the Throne of thy Grace and implore that Mercy which I have formerly despised and abused I am not worthy I confess to lift up my eyes towards Heaven and it becomes me in the greatest dejection of Spirit to sigh and groan under the load of my sins which have been so great and many so bold so presumptuous and shameless that when with an awakened Mind I reflect upon them I am ready to sink into Hell and despair of any Mercy O God how have I hated instruction and my heart despised reproof and have not obeyed the voice of my Teachers nor inclined mine ear to them that admonished me How swift have my feet been to run into evil and how backward and averse have I been to any thing that is good O the injuries which I have done my Neighbours the abuse of my Wife and Children my self and thy good Creatures the prophane neglect nay contempt of thee and the Duties of thy Worship and Service The remembrance of all this is dreadful the burden is intolerable How shall I appear before Thee at whose rebuke the mountains quake

and to deliver me over to Judicial hardness that seeing I might see and not perceive and hearing I might hear and not understand I have served divers Lusts and Pleasures My Eyes and Heart were full of Adultery so that I could not cease from Sin Nor have I sinned alone O Lord for I have drawn many with me into the snare of the Devil so that my Sins are Innumerable and Aggravated by many Circumstances but most of all that I was called by thy Name so that thy Enemies do blaspheme it upon my account I have to all this added that Execrable Sin of shedding Innocent Blood and done what I could to stifle the motions of thy Good Spirit But now my Sins and thy Righteous Judgments have found me out I acknowledge this is in great Mercy to my Soul that I might not lye and perish in my Sins I am Confounded and Ashamed I Abhor my self in dust and ashes I Confess I do not only deserve to die this Infamous death but to be cast out of thy sight into Outer-darkness for thou art of purer Eyes then to behold Iniquity and the Deceitful and Blood-Thirsty man thy Soul abhorreth so that I may justly fear my Prayers are Abomination to thee yet whither shall I flye from thy Presence thy Hand hath overtaken me and I am now to appear at thy Judgment Seat My Soul is full of Terrour and I am afraid of thy Judgments The Remembrance of my Sins is Grievous to me the Burden of them is Intolerable Yet my only Hope is that thou art Gracious and Merciful Slow to Anger Ready to Forgive and thy Son gave Himself to die and bore our Sins on his own Body He ever lives and maketh Intercession for Sinners and is able to save to the uttermost all that come to thee O God by Him I confess I come at the last Moment when I have nothing else left me and so thou mayst justly reject me Yet O most Merciful God take pity on the Work of thine own Hands Beget in me for Christ his sake a deeper Sense of my Sin and Guilt that I may Tremble for fear of thy Judgments and Cry to thee Night and Day Let none of this little time that is given me to Repent be lost For thy Name sake pardon mine Iniquity for it is great And deliver me from Blood-guiltiness O God thou that art the God of my Salvation Open my Heart and Lips that my Mouth may shew forth thy praise That Sinners seeing thy Judgments and my Repentance may be Converted unto thee That I who by my vitious Life have so much Dishonoured Thee may by my Death Glorifie Thee O hear and have Mercy on me Pity and Pardon O most Merciful Redeemer wash my defiled Soul with thy most Pretious Blood and for the Glory of thy Mercy send down upon me thy free Spirit to Convince me of Sin and of Righteousness and of Judgment And Grant me a Wretched and Forlorn Sinner some of those Comforts that may Support me under those Agonies that are so terrible O Visit me with thy Salvation Speak Comfortably to me say to my Soul Thy Sins are forgiven thee Lord deliver me from the fears of Death and be with me in my last passage Give me some Glimpse of Hope that I may die with Assurance of thy Favour and Pardon I humbly submit to thy Justice in my Death but I most Fa●nestly pray that I may be delivered from Eternal Death and Everlasting Burnings and when my Soul is departed from this vile Body Let it be brought into thy Presence that I may Bless and Glorifie thy Name Eternally for the Riches of thy Grace and Mercy which has so Abounded towards me And for thy Names sake role away the Reproach from thine Heritage and thine own Tribe which I have brought upon it Preserve thy Church Let her Priests be Clothed with Righteousness and let her Saints sing with Joyfulness Be Gracious to the Nursing Father of it our Dread Soveraign Lord the King 's Most Excellent Majesty Protect his Person Prosper his Affairs As for his Enemies Cloth them with shame but upon Himself let his Crown flourish Grant that he knowing whose Minister he is may above all things seek thy Honour and Glory And that all his Subjects duly Considering whose Authority he hath may faithfully serve honour and humbly obey him in Thee and for Thee according to thy Blessed Word and Ordinance Be Merciful O Lord be Merciful to my Afflicted Family Comfort my Desolate Wife according to the Evil that I have caused her to see Teach my Poor Children by my Example not to sin against thee Give true Repentance to all whom I have tempted to Sin in particular to that miserable person who was my Partner in so much wickedness thou hast given her time to repent Lord give her grace to do it lest a worse thing befall her Provide a faithful Pastor for that Flock I have scandalized that may build up what I have pulled down And now into thy hands I commit my Soul and Conclude in his words who taught me when I pray to say Our Father c. Having thus shaken hands with the World I am too deeply Concerned to take a particular leave of my Friends especially my Dear tho distressed Relations I have done them little Good in my Life They may Live to Reap Benefit and Advantage from these my Dying Directions To my Good Wife Dear Wife IT is too late to make wishes that I had admitted of thy Counsels But 't is not too late nor unprofitable to Observe That thy Comminations have proved too Prophetical The God of Heaven is a Just and Righteous God and has clearly discovered which was in the right and which in the wrong Thee or I Dear Heart I am not now to Confess my Sins against thee Nor am I now to receive thy pardon and forgiveness I Rejoyce in the Entireness of thy Affection which all the cold Water I threw upon it could not quench The Constancy of it especially in this Extremity has given me the Comfort and thee the Character of being one of the best of Wives In order of Nature I might have longer enjoyed the happiness of thy Affections and I was resolved to have made it my only Happiness in that sense but my Sins and God's righteous Judgments hurry me hence yet before we part I will leave with thee a few Directions which is all the Legacy my vicious Courses have left me power to bequeath they proceed from entire though too late love to thee Therefore lay them up and peruse them now and then First For thy self thy constant course of private Devotion Reading the Scriptures according to the direction of the Church Fasting and Meditation before the blessed Sacrament save me the labour of any further or other Advice save that of the Apostle Be not weary of well-doing c. Only now thou must be sure to add to thy private Devotion what I too

since I could not think of appearing before an earthly Judge without shame and affrightment of spirit O Lord work in me a greater dread of thee with a greater shame and confusion of face now that I am in thy presence for which end be pleased to represent unto me effectually the wickedness and baseness and vileness of all my evil doings as well as the guilt and just desert of them O that I could hate and abhor them more than that death which I expect very shortly to suffer for them Bestow on me O Lord that ingenuous and godly sorrow which worketh repentance and unfeigned purposes of Amendment of life They come too late indeed I may justly think to find Acceptance with thee and therefore not without fear and trembling and a great sense of my undeservings I look up unto thee acknowledging thy infinite goodness if thou wilt vouchsafe me but the smallest hope of mercy Mercy mercy good Lord cast me not quite out of thy sight for Jesus Christ his sake who gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity It is the beginning of some mercy and an Earnest I hope of more that thou hast made me sensible of mine offences and that thou hast wrought in me a resolution to forsake them and some love to a godly sober and righteous life Help me O Lord to manifest the sincerity and uprightness of my Soul in these resolutions as much as I am able by giving thee hearty thanks that the hand of Justice has overtaken and laid hold upon me and put a stop to the further mischief which I might have committed and by making a free and open Confession of my Crimes and taking the shame which belongs to me before others and by acknowledging that I am unworthy to live and by earnest Admonishments to all to be warned by my Example and to cease betimes to do evil and learn to do well O God that I could glorifie thee a little in my latter end after this manner and till I come to receive my deserved punishment help me to spend my time in bewailing my sins in humbling my self before thee for them in setting my heart against them in studying and admiring with the greatest affection the Holy life of the Lord Jesus in calling other Offenders to Repentance and exhorting them thereby to give thee Glory Deny me not Grace I beseech thee to enable me thus to employ my self that I may have some taste of thy Mercy and the fear of death may be abated by some hope that when my Soul shall be parted from the body thou O blessed Jesus wilt receive it though so unworthy into some of the Heavenly Mansions Amen Amen Amen FINIS His LAST WORDS spoken at the place of Execution Good Christian People I Intend not and I hope you will not expect any long Discourse at this time but I have taken care that my Confession wherein as I shall by and by answer to the God of Truth you will finde nothing but the truth shall be published more fully and to your better advantage than I could possibly make it here It a few words therefore You may in me see what sin is and what it will end in you may in me see the lamentable and irreparable mischiefs of Vncleanness and Hypocrisie in particular and what it is for one who was the Member of Christ to make himself the Member of a Harlot It is a sin that seldome goes single and alone it is the Mother-sin to abundance more and they more ugly and deformed than it self I have found it by sad and woful experience It led me to Lying to Oaths and Execrations to conceal and defend it Nay I went further to advise contrive and assist in what might procure Abortions which certainly in the sight of God was Murther in intention Nor stopt it there but went forward to murther in Act and Execution for which crying sin I am come hither to satisfie the Law of man and do acknowledge the Justice of that Sentence And Oh that all you may fear and tremble at God's holy and righteous Judgments which have overtaken me and that they may make you take warning to avoid the Snares of a whorish woman and especially to keep the Married bed undefiled Beware of hypocritical pretences to Religion of coming to the Holy Sacrament while you live in those filthy practices Do not grieve or quench the Holy Spirit of God nor stifle the Convictions of your own Consciences lest God leave you as he did me to work all Vncleanness with greediness and lest at last you be brought to this most miserable condition to which he has most justly brought me to whose most righteous Judgment I do submit I forgive all the world as I desire to finde mercy at God's hands through Jesus Christ I do earnestly desire you by me to take warning not to continue in sin for in the end it will finde you out As to my sin I have but two things to say one I have cause exceedingly to lament and that is the great Scandal I have thereby brought upon Religion and the holy Function of the Ministery The great disparagement which reflects on these I look upon as the most hainous Aggravation of my loose and licentious life Therefore I pray you take up no prejudices against them upon my Account they are holy and good and grant no Licenses at all to such wicked and ungodly practices as I have been guilty of The other I have some reason to rejoyce in 'T is true my sin has exposed the whole Nation to Judgment for through Blood the Land is defiled but this is my comfort that God by this punishment makes me expiate that Guilt for the Judgment falls upon my own pate but I hope through the mercy of God and merit of Christ will proceed no further than my body I desire all that hear me to take warning not to continue in sin but betimes to cease to do evil and learn to do well Now the Lord be with you all and have mercy upon my poor Soul for which I desire you to pray with me and for me to the last moment of my life * Dr. Lloyd Psal 23. 2. Ver. 5. Deut. 6. 11 12. 8. 10 11 12. Prov. 3. 6. Hier. in Epist ad Tit. * Qua libertate peccantem corripere potest cum tacitus ille sibi respondet eadem sé admisisse quae corripit Hier. ubi sup 1 Tim. 4. 12. Tit. 2. 7. 1 Pet. 5. 3. Ambr. de Dig Sacerd. Levit. 4. 3 13 23 28. Aquinas Non ex Gradu a●t Mersura fidei et poenitentiae dependet Justificatio sed ex veritati Psal 146. 9. Heb. 5. 13. 1 Cor. 14. 9. 1 Cor. 13. 1.

Evil if there were any sharpness of Expression I attribute it to their Zeal against my Crimes and not to any prejudice against my person The day after my Sentence there came to visit the Prisoners one Mr. Smith the Ordinary of Newgate He was pleased to tell me but in Private that he observed me at my Tryal Gazing about the Court and the Galleries where Sate several Gentlewomen I confess I was formerly too apt to delight in such sights and let in abundance of Sin at those windows of my Soul but at that time I had other thoughts and Apprehensions the cause of that diversion was to spy out some Witnesses I thought Material which though they were in Court I could not find and so lost their Evidence This 't is very probable may have been the observation of others as well as Mr. Smith therefore I insert this just Apology My Partner in the Guilt and Tryal though not in the Condemnation was pleased to load me with several Calumnies I will only Note those that the Court insisted on and I hear are yet discoursed to my prejudice in the City First it was Alledged that she was committed to my Charge and Government by her Father in her Minority and Childhood This Report is so generally spread and indeed sounds so ill that several since my Tryal have discoursed it as a great Aggravation to commit so foul a thing against so Great a Trust and some have repaired to me for Satisfaction to whom I then gave as I do now the World this Account That Her Father was a Gentleman whom I never saw or had the least Intercourse with There are two more Accusations which I would not so much as name but that I found them the only Ingredients that Imbittered my Cup both at my Trial and at my Sentence The one was That I should attempt and endeavour to vitiate her at Nine years old The other That I had for that purpose corrupted her Judgment and misinformed her Conscience to believe Polygamy lawful Impeachments highly Criminal against the Law of God and as I am told Capital against the Laws of Man I confess I have Sins that exceed them yet I never was guilty of either of these and in the midst of abundance of Guilt I find a little Comfort in this That I never prostituted the Word or any Ordinance of God to serve the turn of Lusts There is some offence taken as I hear at my Charging her with what she denied at our Trial she did indeed say That she knew Nothing of the Fact for which we were Questioned which she demonstrated by Arguments that could not modestly be spoken in that place without such unsavoury and noisom demonstrations I affirm Upon the word of a dying Man That both her Eyes did see and her Hands did Act in all that was done I am dead in Law and I know my sayings are no Evidence against her but the next time we meet at the Bar which we shall infallibly do and two thousand Witnesses shall be produced against us that is Her Conscience and Mine these things will be found to be true and as such I assert them as I shall suddenly answer it before the All-seeing and Heart-searching God Thus I have satisfied the desires of some of my Friends done my self Right without doing her or any person in the world wrong As to the World after excusing my self of things with which I am unjustly charged I shall charge my self with one thing which every one does not consider It is indeed a great Aggravation of my Sin against that poor Infant That I whose concern it was to provide for its safety in all Respects should in all deprive it as far as in me lay For by that barbarous Act upon its Body I have done what in me lay to Murther its Soul by depriving it of the ordinary means which God had ordained for its Salvation The Sacrament of Baptism Though I am not of his Opinion who for his severity in this Case was called Durus Pater Infantum yet by the judgment of my own Conscience I find my self to be Durus Pater that I never once so much as considered this so that the poor innocent and harmless Babe is only beholding to the Mercy of its Heavenly and not at all to that of its Earthly Parent for the Happiness I hope it now enjoys I have done with the World of which I have no more part and I praise God that he has chosen this way to take me out of it I ought not to let so great a Mercy pass without a due acknowledgment If God had not by this severe Course opened my Eyes and alarum'd me to Repent and given me time considerable and great Assistances to perform it I might have been surprised with some sudden Death and infallibly sunk headlong into Hell from which I have good hopes to be preserved through the Mercy of God and the Merits of my blessed Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Christ who I hope does graciously accept of the Truth and Reality though weak degrees of Faith and Repentance which his Holy Spirit hath wrought in my Soul Though this Mercy was handed to me in a very sharp and bitter Providence yet I read a great deal of the Wisdom and Goodness of God in it His Wisdom foresaw that more gentle Applications would not work upon a Disease grown so headstrong and inveterate his Goodness which makes Correction a foreign work to him for he goes out of his place to punish his People has prevailed with him to apply this Corrosive rather than suffer his Creature eternally to perish Therefore his glorious Name be eternally praised And now to him I turn in Prayer A PRAYER relating to the foregoing Confession O Lord The Great and Dreadful God the Impartial Judge of all Men I blush to lift up my Face to thee my God Righteousness belongeth to thee for thou art Just and Holy in all thy Wayes But I am a Vile and Miserable Sinner the Reproach of men and therefore nothing belongs to me but Shame and Confusion of face Thou O Lord hast dealt Mercifully and exceeding Bountifully with me I was Early taught to seek and serve thee I felt the motions of thy Grace and the Powers of the World to come to awaken my Conscience Thou didst call me to thy Service to stand and minister at thy Altar and thou didst give me such a measure of the good things of this life as was not only beyond my Deserts but Expectations But I have forsaken thee and rebelled against thee I waxed wanton in my plenty and kicked against that light and Easie Yoke which I should have taught Others to bear I drew near to thee with my lips but my heart was far from thee and with my polluted hands I have presumed to compass thine Altar and to touch the holy things thereof therefore it was just with thee to give me up to my own Hearts Lusts