Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	hear_v	lord_n	sin_n	15,720	5	5.7661	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43621	Gregory, Father-Greybeard, with his vizard off, or, News from the Cabal in some reflexions upon a late pamphlet entituled, The rehearsal transpros'd (after the fashion that now obtains) in a letter to our old friend, R.L. from E.H.	Hickeringill, Edmund, 1631-1708.	1673 (1673)	Wing H1808; ESTC R7617	145,178	344

will the juglers say this must not be suffered we must use some course speedily to blacken I say blacken the author and impair the value of his Letter or our trade is gone Join your forces up and be doing truth is strongest ye fight against your Saviour S. Peter and S. Paul to the Corinthians if you quarrel me for this come meddle then if you dare And if you do provoke me I will not only spoil the sale and market of your new-coin'd feigned words but I 'll cry down your market-day too on which you sell your empty sounds to fill your pockets Not that I am against preaching up charity and goodness and faith and hope too in order unto charity and upon the Lords day too if so be that preaching praying or worship hearing or faith doth not hinder better duties viz. works of mercy mercy to my own body to my beast to my family to my neighbour But if keeping any day of worship or performing any duties of worship hinder any of those greater duties then I sin in doing those duties of worship which hinder those greater duties of mercy Yet I say if I can do both both worship God and keep a holy day to him and also perform the greater duties of mercy then both is better God has join'd them together let not man put them asunder faith is a good grace and hope is good and charity good and preaching and prophesying knowledge and mysteries are all good it is a pity they should be parted but if we want charity we want the great accomplishment the greatest of these is charity And if any body think that I herein speak too slightly of keeping the Lords day let them know that if they think so they do but censure amiss and like the Hypocrites and Pharisees condemn me for that that was the very cause why our Saviour himself was accounted a sinner as you may see Jo. 9. 14. 16. 24. The Sabbath day and all other days were made as all things else and as all Commandments were made viz. only for the good of man not for his hurt and dammage if you will believe our Saviour The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath If my neighbours house be on fire as I am going to Church I ought to get my bucket and throw water and help to quench it for all going to a Sermon and God likes me better with my pail in my hand at that time than the Bible in my hand or a prayer in my mouth when charity to my neighbour supersedes my worship of God as being superiour to it as our Saviour tells the Pharisees upon the like occasion Mat. 12. 9. I will have mercy and not sacrifice that is not sacrifice when it hinders the greater duty of mercy And if a flood be coming down ready to flow my meadows when my Hay had need be carried away with my cart or else it will be carried away with the flood I should sin at that time if going to Church or any worship of God should prevent me from harnessing my horse and going to cart on the Lords day and my servants should sin grievously with going to Church when a work of mercy to my poor family and cattle called them another way And though our modern Pharisees and Hypocrites will condemn me herein yet they cannot tell how to confute it by Scripture nor reason and if they had known the true Religion or what this meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice they would not have condemned the guiltless I might give many other instances in making ready food in mercy to my body I mean not only necessary food to keep life and soul togethet as we vulgarly say but such food as is most convenient good hot victuals and good drink on the Lords day for watering a man's Horse and Ass on the Sabbath day is not necessary for life they will live as hunting horses often do a longer time without water but it is not convenient so to make them fast and being a work of mercy though but to your beast therefore does not every one of you think it lawful to do this convenient good on the Sabbath day That is supposing the fourth Commandment had the same force and efficacy that other Ceremonies and Types had in our Saviours time But alas the case is alter'd now those types and shadows are now of no more force than Circumcision and new Moons which in respect of Gospel discoveries are but weak and beggarly elements whereunto our modern Pharisees desire again to be in bondage and lest the hope of their gain should be gone they are wonderful zealous for the morality of the Sabbath and the morality of the fourth Commandment that yet are the most unmannerly sawcy peremptory people under the Heavens endeavouring to shew morality no where but in their market-day where they get much gain with as light frothy ware as ever was sold poor people are cheated and have a hard penny-worth of it as ever men had if they give a penny for these fictitious words such as this the ten moral Commandments and the morality of the fourth Commandment which all the art they have can never prove nor that there is since Christs death any more intrinsecal holiness in one day than another nor any more holiness in the Lords day than any other Holy-day mentioned in the Act of Parliament for that purpose wherein are these words These days shall be kept holy namely every Sunday in the year then follow all the Saints days and holy days to which the King and Parliament may adde more holy-days if they please and as they have done and as they are of humane institution can also take away some if they judge convenient Nor ought any man to keep the Lord's day in conscience or duty more than any other Holy-day And the ground of a man's keeping the Lords-day and all other Holy-days is in obedience to the fifth Commandment not the fourth Commandment Which if it were moral i. e. perpetual in their sence it is not in the power of the Church nor King nor Parliament to alter the day from the seventh to the first but all Sabbath days were like the new-moons and other Jewish festivals mere shadows of things to come but the body is Christ which being come the shadows vanish And those that zealously affect men with this Jewish conceit of keeping days c. do zèalously indeed affect men but not well nor honestly I know men are apt enough to take liberty to themselves in this licentious age to any prophaness but I deny that it is prophaness for me to dress convenient food for my self and family hot and good if I can get it on the Lords-day and Greg. does acknowledge himself and all that he knows of his party to be of this opinion herein in this one thing then we do agree and this is the first particular we have concurr'd in since we

way to Heaven fill their poor heads with nothing but sound and noise and whining and feigned words and partly do they continue unconvinc'd and unconverted by reason they think they are converted already yet have as little reason to think so as if they were Turks Jews or Heathens nay I 'le maintain it and avouch to be true before God and men that I have by my own experience found more goodness more kindness more truth more honesty more sincerity among man-eaters or Cannibals in India and Turks in Arabia than amongst the best of these Professors Read Jam. 2. 14 15 16 17 20 21 22 24. Mat. 16. 27. Eph. 2. 10. Tit. 3. 8 Phil. 1. 27. Nay put in their Preachers and all into a sack together and the first that comes out shall have incomparably more pride malice wrath lying slandering and evil speaking and rejoycing in iniquity when they can hear of any faults or judgments with which any are overtaken that are not of their gang than any Turk Jew or Indian Man-eater that ever I converst with and I have converst with thousands and if these be the people of God the Lord in his mercy deliver me from them and the evil way they walk in by Companies running headlong to the bottom and end of that way eternal destruction and striving who should first come there and run the fastest as if they were afraid they should not come at the Divel in good time Whereas my Religion namely this of my Saviour in Mat. 7. 12. like the Sun in his full strength and light carryes its own evidence and speaks sufficiently for it self leading men into unerring paths bringing quietness and peace and light to mankind nor can any man walk in darkness or do any thing of the works of darkness that walks by this rule but peace must be upon them as upon the only true Israel of God no canting no hypocrisie no feigned words needs here but Righteousness and Peace embrace each other both here and to Eternity In which Religion I doubt not by Gods grace to continue all the dayes of my life for of all the Idols of the Heathens there is but one true God and of all Religions there is but one true one one Christ one way one truth one life one light and this is it Would God think you leave men a way to Heaven revealed by his Son if it were not to be found without a great many Fathers decrees of Councils Glosses Homilies Sermons infinite and as large and of as little purpose the most of them as the writings of Mr. Prin Whereas this way of Christ is soon found soon got my heart easily remembred readily applyed And if no other Text had been preacht upon this 30 years and practised England had seen no warrs nor bloodshed ruine nor rapine murder and rebellion that had almost quite destroyed us neither had the war been carryed on with a few canting words and misapplyed scriptures prating and praying seeking of God as Cromwel called it when he went to prayer with the Officers of the Army to seek God and know his mind whether he should murder the King or no whereas he had resolv'd it long before like Jezabel seeking God by prayer and fasting when the bottom and design of all is nothing but rapine and covetousness to take Naboth's life that thereby she might get the better footing in Naboth's vineyard But if this little Rule be practis'd down goes Diana of the Ephesians and the Idols fictions and imaginations of the heart of man No man could steal nor covet nor be a rebel nor disobedient to his superiors if he keep to this Rule Why because he would be loth to be so serv'd himself loth men should take away his goods his servant his daughter his wife or his lands or good name No man would be a rebel or disobedient to his superiors that is of this Religion Why because he would not endure that his servants his children and family should be disobedient unto him there would be no living no keeping house with them if they did not obey for if he command one son in seed-time to go plow and another to sow and his son or servant say nay but it is better to thrash or fan and more needful this disobedience will make them all smart for it in a little time a house thus divided cannot stand long Nay in spiritual things the master of the family calling his servants children to prayers in the morning at noon or night he will not permit a servant or a child to be hallowing and playing abroad whilst he is praying nor to lie lolling upon a couch or chair laughing and jearing with his hat on whilst he is praying and kneeling or singing of Psalms there is not a Phanatick in England will suffer this but will reprove rebuke exhort and chastise such a jearing irreverent son or servant thinks God requires it at his hands and would send judgements upon him and his family with a grievous curse if when his sons are vile he restrain them not though they tell him it is their conscience to be vile and irreverent And tell them moreover how God punish'd old Eli for neglecting to restrain his sons let them pretend what conscience they will he will likewise have the liberty of his own conscience which tells him if it be their conscience to be thus disorderly vile irreverent and disobedient it is also his conscience to restrain their vileness irreverence and disobedience and will further ask them if they were in his condition and were masters of a family whether they would be content that their servants and sons should do what they list and what was right in their own eyes and whether it is possible a house so divided can stand long This every Phanatick in England pleads to his family and brings the fifth Commandment to confirm and warrant all that he saith to them adding that it is the first Commandment with promise as the Apostle calls it that is with promise of present reward in this life even length of days whereas men by disobedience to their natural fathers or spiritual or temporal fathers in Church or State shorten their lives as the rebels Baanah and Rechab Achitophel Absalom Sheba and the rest of them in all ages Now apply this that I have said examine thine own heart call it to account seriously before thou come before Gods Tribunal to receive thine eternal Doom when it is too late to amend and try in any particular where thou disobeyest thy superiours in Church or State whether thou wouldst suffer such disobedience in thine own family First as to Ceremonies which are but the outskirts the suburbs of true Religion this one true Religion I am speaking of yet it is a sign that thou art an enemy to the City of God and holy hill of Sion if thou burn plunder or pull down the Suburbs not because the Suburbs are the City or