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	let_v	sinner_n	1,997	5	7.5506	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A76020	A treatise of adhering to God; written by Albert the Great, Bishop of Ratisbon. Put into English by Sir Kenelme Digby, Kt. Also a conference with a lady about choyce of religion.; De adhærendo Deo. English	Albertus, Magnus, Saint, 1193?-1280.; Digby, Kenelm, Sir, 1603-1665.	1653 (1653)	Wing A876; Thomason E1529_2; ESTC R25226	62,177	159

preserved secure in the middest of all difficulties dangers scandals schismes persecutions quarrels haeresies tribulations adversities and temptations whatsoever For God hath foreseen from all eternity the number of his elect and the last act of their lives that settleth them in the state of merit And nothing can change or shake his infallible prevision All things cooperate to their good as well the bad as the good adversity as prosperity as well what is without them as what is within them and dependeth immediately of themselves with onely this difference peradventure that out of adversity they come more refined and shine brighter Let us therefore securely and readily commit our selves and all things else to the divine providence who when it permitteth evill it is with a designe to draw good out of it And consequently it is good that such evils should be and that God should permit them Nor can they be otherwise or more then strictly what he alloweth For his knowledge fadommeth the extent of all things his power mastereth and limiteth them as he pleaseth and his will disposeth and turneth them to good For as all that is good proceedeth from his immediate operation so those evils that are permitted by him are turned into good by his goodnesse and power Out of which we may gather his omnipotency his infinite wisdome his clemency through Jesus Christ our Saviour and repayrer his mercy and justice the efficacy of grace and the disability of nature together with the beauty of the Universe resulting out of the comparing and harmony of contrarieties the chiefe of which are the vertue and reward of the good and the wickednesse and punishment of the bad Nor can wee look upon the course and oeconomy of Gods converting and saving of a sinner but with exceeding great comfort and joy On the sinners part the change of his heart his contrition for having offended God his confessing of his sinnes and his doing penance for them On Gods side his admirable meeknesse his mercy his charity and his infinite goodnesse are subjects for a man to meditate continually upon and to praise God everlastingly for But let him not grow too bold upon Gods mercies for his delivering a sinner by such admirable and secret pathes from the misery he was enfoulded in For such grace is not imparted to all offenders but the greatest number by farre perisheth alas in their dangerous and crooked wayes and as they are deprived of grace in this life so are they banished from glory in the next and condemned to eternal punishment and torment From which Jesus Christ of his mercy preserve us Amen FINIS A CONFERENCE With a Lady about choyce of RELIGION LONDON Printed for Henry Herringman at the Anchor in the New-Exchange 1654. MADAM MY being conscious to myself how confusedly and intricately I have delivered my conceptions unto your Ladyship upon the severall occasions of discourse we have had together concerning that important subject of what faith and religion is the true one to bring us to eternall happinesse wherein your Ladyship is so wisely and worthily inquisitive and sollicitous hath begotten this following writing in the which I will as nere as I can summe up the heads of those considerations I have sometimes discussed unto you in conversation And I will briefly and barely lay them before you without any long enlargement upon them as having a better opinion of the reflections that your Ladyships great understanding and strong reasoning soule will by your selfe make upon the naked object sincerely proposed then of any commentary I can frame upon it And indeed such discourses as these are deeper lookt into when they are pondered by a prudentiall judgement then when they are examined by scientificall speculations But with your leave I shall take the matter a little higher then where the chiefe difficulty seemeth to be at which your Ladyship sticketh conceiving that if we begin at the root and proceed on steppe by steppe we shall find our search the easier and the securer and our ascent to the conclusions we shall collect will be the more firme and vigorous We will therefore begin with considering why faith and religion is needfull to a man before we determine the meanes how to find out the right faith for that being once setled in the understanding we shall presently without further dispute reject what religion soever is but proposed that hath not those proprieties which are required to bring that to passe that Religion in its owne nature aymeth at And this must be done by taking a survey of some of the operations of a human soul and of the impressions made in it by the objects it is conversant withall 1. Your Ladyshipp may be pleased then to consider in the first place That it is by nature ingrafted in the soules of all mankind to desire beatitude By which word I meane an entire perfect and secure fruition of all such objects as one hath vehement affections unto without mixture of any thing one hath aversion from For the soule having a perpetuall activity in it must necessarily have something to entertaine it selfe about And according to the two chiefe powers of it which are the Vnderstanding the Will it employeth it selfe first in the search and investigation of what is true and good and then according to the judgment it maketh of it the Wil followeth and with affections graspeth at it which if it happen to seaze upon the soule is at content and at rest but if it misse it is unquiet laboureth with all vehemence to compas it and if any thing happen that is repugnant to the nature of it it useth all industry and efficacious meanes to overcome and banish it so that all the actions and motions of it tend to gaine contentment and beatitude 2. In the next place you may please to consider that this full beatitude which the soule thirsteth after cannot be enjoyed in this life For it is apparent that intellectuall goods as science contemplation and fruition of spirituall objects and contentments in their owne nature are the chiefe goods of the soul and affect her much more strongly and violently then corporal and sensual ones can doe for they are more agreeable to her nature and therefore move her more efficaciously when they are duely relished But such intellectuall goods cannot be perfectly relished and injoyed as long as the soul is immersed in the body by reason that the sensuall appetite maketh continual warre against the rational part of the soul and in most men mastereth it and in the perfectest this earthly habitation doth so draw down and clogge and benumme the noble inhabitant of it which would alwaies busie it selfe in sublime contemplations as it may be said to be but in a jayl whiles it resideth here And experience confirmeth unto us that the sparkes of knowledge we gaine here are not pure but have the nature of salt water that increaseth the thirst in them who drink most of

latter is the share of the sonnes of Adam who how admirable soever they be in the rare productions of their Dedalean witts yet they must sit still and their Art must remaine buried in them if bounteous nature did not furnish them with materialls and subjects to worke upon In the same manner Nature her self would fall to nothing were it not for a continuall emanation of being into every individuall plant of hers from him that is the author of all being For as art presupposeth the productions of Nature without which shee cannot exercise her skill so the individualls of nature doe presuppose the operation of God almighty creating conserving ordering and governing them without which they would presently run into confusion into their originall nothing And in the whole course of them in the oeconomy of them we may reade his infinite power wisedome goodnesse essentiall mercy justice truth charity and unchangeable eternity and immensity For nothing can subsist and work by its owne virtue and power it oweth that entirely to God and to him onely as being the first mover the originall principall and the Cause of all action in every agent whatsoever He provideth immediately for every thing cutteth out their shares even to the least inconsiderablest creature he hath made From the highest to the lowest none of them escapeth his providence or swarveth from the line he hath traced out to them whether it be in the ordinary course of nature or in theirs that depend of voluntary and free agents or in theirs that seeme to be hatched out of the casuall concurrence of severall causes without any precedent designe in those that immediatly produce them This all-seeing and all-governing eye of Gods providence reacheth not onely to all that is in nature but even to all that God himselfe can doe For since he can doe nothing but according to the rules of wisdome and that a wise agent disposeth all things that are in his power by order and foresight it is necessary that all he doth must fall under the order of his providence So that it extendeth to all things and to all actions even to the reclusest thoughts of mans heart Therefore Saint Peter hath reason to advise us to abandon ourselves wholly to his all-sufficient providence without having any anxiety for what may befall us when he saith that we ought to cast all our sollicitude upon him for that he hath care of us 1 Pet. 1. As also the royall Prophet in these words Pitch your thoughts upon the Lord and he will feed you Ps 54. And the like you will find in Ecclesiasticus in these words Look about you children of men and know that no man ever hoped and was confounded nor remained under his commandements and was forsaken by him Eccle. 2. And our Lord himselfe warneth us that we be not sollicitous saying what shall we eat Matt. 6. Without doubt there is no blessing so great that we can hope for at Gods hands but we shall receive it of his liberality and mercy if we rely on him with due confidence according to his promise in the Deuteronomy what place soever your foot shall tread upon shall be yours Deut. 11. For the measure of a mans receiving shall be the largnesse of his heart in desiring and his possession shall reach as far as he hath reached out the foot of his confidence which hath moved Saint Bernard to say God the creator and disposer of all things aboundeth with the bowels of so great mercy that how great favour and grace soever wee can raise our confidence to begge of him so great we shall certainly receive at his hands And therefore our saviour biddeth us in S. Marke that whatsoever we aske for in our prayers we should believe that it will be granted us and the effect will ensue accordingly And most certainly the more strong and the more pressing that our confidence shall be in God and the more violent assault it shall give him with humility and reverence the more securely the more abundantly and the more speedily wee shall impetrate and obtain what wee hoped for The great impediment of such noble confidence that keepeth it down from soaring to this high and efficacious pitch is the wieght of sinne Where that aboundeth a soul is lasy and benummed and unable to raise it selfe up with confidence to God For redresse of this mischiefe let him whose heart is in earnest turned from the world and converted to God consider the infinite power of God Almighty Let him remember how all things are possible to him and what his Will once determineth must of necessity be crowned with its effect and that what he gainsayeth hath an impossibility of ever coming to passe And therefore it is as easy to him if he pleaseth to remitt and cancell an innumerable multitude of sins be they never so enormous as to forgive one single one And from the least single one a sinner is not of himselfe able to rise and deliver himselfe no more then from the greatest load of innumerable ones For of our selves we are not able so much as to think much lesse to do any good thing 2 Cor. 3. All that is of that nature proceedeth from God onely who worketh it in us and to him onely we must referre and acknowledge it Therefore our deliverance from sinne belonging not to our selves upon our own score but being entirely the work of God Almighty his power and mercy and all things being alike easie to him wee may with confidence commit our selves into his fatherly armes and promise our selves from him a plenary abolition of all our misdemeanours be they never so many and never so great Yet let us beware that a wrong application or a mistaking of this consideration draw us not into presumption or into a foolish security For it is also most certain that looking upon the condition as the case standeth on his part it is farre more dangerous for him to be involved in many sinnes then to be under the weight of one only sinne For it is an inevitable decree that no evil action can escape unpunished and to every mortal sinne an infinite punishment is due If this were not Gods Justice would suffer thereby since every such sinne is an injury in a direct line done to God himselfe who is of infinite Dignity Honour and Reverence But this is so evident a truth that I need put no more weight on this side the scale Whosoever shall look upon his own unworthyness is out of danger of falling into presumption He is in greater of being kept back by pusillanimity from those blessings that by a vertuous confidence hee may obtain Therefore for his comfort and advantage let us adde to what wee have already sayd how God as the Apostle telleth us hath a certain and infallible knowledge and keepeth an exact account of those who are his and that it is impossible for any of these to miscarry They will be