Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	heart_n	lord_n	way_n	4,954	5	4.7237	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96113	A scribe, pharisee, hypocrite; and his letters answered, separates churched, dippers sprinkled: or, A vindication of the church and universities of England, in many orthodox tenets & righteous practices. Whereunto is added a narration of a publick dipping, June 26. 1656. In a pond of much Leighes parish in Essex, with a censure thereupon. By Jeffry Watts B.D. and Rectour of Much-Leighes.	Watts, Geoffrey, d. 1663.	1657 (1657)	Wing W1154; Thomason E921_1; Thomason E921_2; ESTC R207543	280,939	342

vain and needless thing yet I say fear not for the Lord will not forsake his people for his great names sake because it hath pleased the Lord to make you his people nor will the Lord forget you his servant for his gracious Covenant sake which he hath also sealed to you in your Baptism because it hath pleased him to make you his servant Moreover as for me God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you but I will teach you the good and right way Onely fear the Lord and serve him in truth with all your heart Ver. 23 24. And Let my counsel be acceptable to you break off your sins by repentance and by righteousness and your iniquities by turning unto the Lord and calling for mercy upon your poor soul and by shewing mercy unto the poor people if it may be a lengthning of your tranquility Dan. 4.27 Sir without any ifs or ands do you so seriously and uprightly and it will be a lengthning of your tranquility and a stablishing of you in peace of your conscience notwithstanding your former breach of it and of the Covenant of Grace in your despising your Birth-right your Infant-baptism For Behold Gods hand is not shortned that it cannot save neither his ear heavy that it cannot hear though your iniquities might have made a perpetual separation 'twixt you and your God Esay 59.1 2. especially those iniquities of separation from Gods Church and Baptism His Covenant of Grace is an Everlasting Covenant the seal of it your Baptism though but once administred loseth not its strength and force and is yet of vertue and benefit for you if you will make use of it yea it will be of continual use and benefit to you if you will return to it and reflect upon it by your faith and lay hold upon the precious things and promises thereof In a word Though you have departed away from your Covenant by breaking of the Seal thereof and slighting your Baptism yet God is not gone from either but what he hath Covenanted and Sealed is and will be ever ready to make good Come therefore and return unto the Lord for you have torn and he will heal you have broken and he will binde up yea and he hath torn and he will heal he hath broken and he will binde up in all your sins and transgressions which are your breaches of the Law and the tearings of Gods Covenant in all his afflictions and chastisements which are his breaches upon you and his tearings of you in your estate nay in all your fears and doubts return unto the Lord and his Covenant of Grace and Mercy look back to your Seal of it your Baptism and lay hold on it by Faith even but now renew your Faith in the Promises therof renew also your Repentance for breach of Covenant and Promise on your part you shall find the effect of that you never saw and feel actual comfort even present benefit thereof Once more Have now recourse and go with all speed to your first Infant-baptism and remember and believe that God hath therein sealed up unto you his love and favour to you in Christ and that his everlasting Covenant of Grace and Peace and Reconciliation to be your God in Christ for ever and will never fail you seeking and having recourse to him his Covenant and Seal This will fill you full of heavenly comfort in the midst of sorrow and upon Repentance give you good assurance of the pardon of all your sins whatsoever even of this none of your least sins your causless Revolt and Separation from the Church Ministery and Baptism appointed and approved of God A Communion with which if you will truly re-enter into and seriously return unto pleading as you may even yet your Right and Interest in the Covenant of Grace sealed unto you in your first Infant-baptism once for ever you doing the Condition thereof God also will then remember his Covenant entred into with you then once for ever and will have compassion on you and run out and meet you fall on your neck and kiss you Luke 15.20 21. so that you shall not onely have a clear and full Remission of this and all other your sins washed away in the blood of Christ the substance of the Covenant but also enjoy the sweet and comfortable fruits and benefits of that your Baptism the Seal of such Covenant even an assurance of God his being ●our God and the God of your seed and that for ever and of your being one of his people and a member of Christ Jesus and that also for ever So that you may say as the Spouse of Christ for so the ●oul is contracted unto Christ by the Covenant and it is espoused or the espousals are solemnized and ratified in Baptism I am my Beloveds and my Beloved is mine Cant. 6.3 And now Sir am I become your enemy because I have told you and others the Truth and shewed unto you the good even the good old Way If so then the God of Truth who set me a work be my friend as Abrahams and deliver me out of your hands and the hands of all mine enemies and if God and the Truth be on my side I care not much who be against me nor do I fear what man and error on the contrary side can do Magis amica veritas maximè amicus Christus qui est ipsa veritas vita But Sir by that time you have sadly thought upon and considered what I have said fully digested ruminated that over which I have written you and they but you especially I aim at will see me a real cordial soul-friend of yours as who have endeavored to come unto you as a Pillar of fire rather then a cloud not to darken you with obscure discourses but to enlighten you with clear evidences so to lead you out of your by-wayes of Errors into the plain Path of Truth and rather to Convert you then confound you I say your soul-friend for seeing once your soul also belonged to my Curam Animarum and you were formerly one of the sheep of my Pastor-fold one of the souls that were numbred into my Pastoral charge you see I count you so still though you have broke loose and separated your self from my flock and feed yet I have not let you so go nor have I released to you though you have remised to me nor have I discharged you though you have dismissed me yea you may see me your soul-friend yet farther in that I have not run away or lien hid in a corner as the Hireling but as a loving Pastor have followed after the Wolf and the Fox running away with you like as also David did go after the Lion and the Bear taking a Lamb out of his fold yea and when the Wolf also turned head against me and came upon me as the Lion did arise and ramp upon David I caught him

Ministery your new Dipping and Re-baptizing with arenouncing of your old If you or any of you shall question farther why the Grace of God by my Ministery did not pluck you out before and sooner divers years ago before this last fatal one out of your wicked wayes c. it is answered Because there was the Grace of God in it which is free to work as I said and as where and by whom so when it pleaseth for Paul plants onely and Apollos onely watereth but God giveth the increase some increase I have shewed you God gave but the full increase which is the Harvest doth not presently come up after sowing For so is the Kingdom of God as if a man should cast seed into the ground and the seed should spring and grow up he knoweth not how saith St. Mark For the Earth bringeth forth the fruit of her self first the blade then the ear after that the full corn in the ear Mark 4.26 27 28. Conversion in some cometh as lightning from Heaven and is done suddenly in a moment at once so to Saul and Zacheus but to others as the seed before mentioned it comes up slowly and by degrees in time as to Nicodemus and the Prodigal and this is your case Now it is not the last stroak with the Axe that must baer the name of cutting down the great Oak from the stump and root but all the blows from the first to the last nor is it the sowing of the last handful of seed must go away with the title of bringing forth the whole rop Hosea 6.5 Mat. 3.10 God hath been hewing you these many years by the Axe of my Ministery which hath been sharpened at times in reproofs and admonitions to you both in the matter fitted for you and in my thoughts fixed upon you in the publick and so laid to the Roots of the Trees to your evil wayes saying Bring forth fruits worthy or meet for Repentance else you must be hewen down and cast into the fire So for the same purpose God and his Grace by my Ministery hath been seeding you with the good and principal Wheat the pure and precious Word of God for these many years and now shall the men of yesterday your new Seeds-men and Heads-men your last Teachers and Dippers who have wrought but one hour be made equal to me Mat. 20.12 yea be preferred before me who have born the burthen and heat of the day if God will have it so let it be so It is lawful for him to do whatsoever he will with his own and mineeye shall not be evi because God is good Herein also is and will be that saying true One soweth another reapeth John 4.37 38. They in the mean time reap that they bestowed no labour upon I laboured with you and they entered into my labours and have gotten you out of my hands though to no good praise and commendation for themselves and it may so fail out they may finde no great Crop or purchase of you and neither may repay their craft more then their charge especially it you will do as you ought Return and own the first Grace of God appearing to you and plucking you out from your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth But fourthly Is this all Sir that you new Teachers and Converters have done for you and is this all the Grace that hath appeared to you for to pluck you out of your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth Nay they have not done all this for they have not brought you to the knowledge of the Truth but of their Errors they have pulled you from knowledge to ignorance and from the truth to falsities and lyes as the Scripture phraseth such and I will tell you presently the particulars but suppose it a while they have pluckt you to the knowledge of the Truth that 's enough to prove you a true Convert by them for Judas was pulled up so far as to the knowledge of the Truth yet proved an Apostate at last for all that and was an Hypocrite in the mean time if you be not plucked up farther yet namely to the love of the Truth God may send you as in present he doth strong delusions that you shall believe a lye and be damned 2 Thess 2.11 12. Yea and yet farther to the obedience and practice of the Truth else you may miss to be blessed in the end for If ye know these things blessed are ye if ye do them John 13.17 Many shall say unto me saith Christ in that day Lord Lord have we not prophesied in thy Name yea and in thy Name cast out devils to whom he will profess even to such Professors I never knew you depart from me ye workers of iniquities Mat. 7.22 23. Oh but you are also plucked out of your wicked wayes too Oh but Grace of God hath appeared in that also But neither is that sufficint to shew your Conversion by them for Ahab humbled himself and went softly and abstained selling himself unto sin a while at the rebukes of Elias 1 King 21.29 and Herod reformed somewhat and did many things at the preaching of John and heard him gladly Mark 6.20 and Esau mourned for his loss and sale of his birth-right and sought the blessing again and that carefully with tears Heb. 12.17 If you ask what more would I require what lacketh yet I answer to you as our Saviour Christ did to the young-man Mat. 19.20 for neither are you too old if you be not too cold to learn saying much as you do All these things do I now keep though not from my youth up the Grace of God hath now in my elder years appeared plucking me from my wicked wayes One thing is lacking and if you wilt be a perfect Convert find the way to change your minde as the Author to the Hebrews addeth and not onely to alter your course and turn to the Lord with all your heart and so order that your soul and spirit may be washed from evil lusts and not onely the body and cloathes dipt from wicked works But you add The day will discover and God will judge between us and you whether you own the Truth to which and whom therefore I leave you § I proceed to a sit thing which is this That whatsoever good thing is wrought in you seriously and unfeignedly I concongratulate it whatsoever it be and would be instrumental unto the growth and increase thereof in the way of the Word of Truth let the Grace of God that hath appeared to you have the glory of it not unto them not unto them your new Land Teachers and new Pond Dippers but unto the name and Grace of God give the glory of whatsoever Conversion is wrought in you If you do not then with David I will say Not unto us O Lord not unto us but unto thy Name give glory for thy Mercy and Truths sake Psal 115.1 They have pluckt you onely from the

good old Way into a new by and bad path from the publick Ministery or Steeple-houses be it so to private mysteries or smokeries rather of their Chimney-houses from your first true Baptism at a Font. to a second vain Dippism in a Pond They have been rather instrumental to your Confusion then your Conversion Yea I say further God doth not use them the Anabaptists as Anabaptists andtheir doctrine as any ordinary means or instruments of his to the Converting fouls to the Faith and Truth I promised to give you a Particular of them and their Doctrines and this it is wherein they differ from us and have forsaken the Truth of our Church and the Word of God and which doth denominate and constitute an Anabaptist They reject all Infant-baptism renouncing their own Baptism they took in Infancy and therefore Re-baptize themselves and others and keep their children from Baptism till years of discretion and ability of profession and so in a manner deny the Seal of the Covenant of Grace to Infants with whom also God hath entred into it saying I will be thy God and the God of thy seed They hold all stinted and set forms of prayer unlawful to be used in Church or House and even so also the Lords prayer That there is no distinction betwixt Clergy and Laity That the taking of Oaths before or by the Authority of a Magistrate is unlawful That the office of a Magistrate is neither lawful nor necessary with abundance more for why should I stir the whole dunghil to infect the Air of coherent and coincident Errors and Lyes as the Prophetical Scriptures call them Are such Teachers and Tenets like to pluck you out of your wicked wayes and to bring you to the knowledge of the Truth whether private or publick who hang so fast in the Bushes and Thickets of Errors and stick so deep in the Bushes and Thickets of Erros and stick so deep in the mire of Vices dipt in both up to the chin and mouth yea over head and ears especially seeing such were never called or sent about the work of Converting souls to either For my part I am of Paul and I am of Jeremiah and so should you be of both too the Apostle and the Prophet But first I am of Paul the Apostle who saith indeed Faith cometh by hearing for how shall they believe in whom they have not heard But it is hearing of a Preacher for how shall they hear without a Preacher And it is of a Preacher sent for how shall they preach except they be sent The Apostle is clear of the opinion that onely sent Preachers who have Mission and Commission from God can bring hearers to the Faith and seems to wonder at those in his vehement and frequent Interrogatories who say or think otherwise This Text I may call Faiths Clymax or Ladder with its steps and gradations which none of your Lay-brethren could ever yet climbe up to or come down by if they begin at the lower end as they ought being the ground and foundation of the work and so offer to go and climbe up they m●ss of their first step and footing because they are not sent and so must climbe no farther or higher for want of Mission they cannot go up the Ladder in the Right way of preaching and begetting faith in the Hearers or your self And if they begin at the upper end and top of this Ladder as indeed presumptuously they use to do and heap to themselves at first a multitude of Hearers and so come down along to their preaching yet they fall off the Ladder at the lower staffe or step again because still they be not sent and so can do no missive or ministerial good upon their Hearers nor your self as to Faith It is Gods great mercy to them and you that they cast not themselves down head-long or that they are not cast down by him that took them up into the Pulpit and set them on that Pinnacle of the Temple to the breaking of their necks as well as making shipwrack of Faith for they tempt the Lord their God and are not in their wayes which words must not be left out by you as they are left out by the devils citing of that Text and therefore God hath given his Angels no charge over them being out of their wayes to bear them in their armes or hands that they dash not their foot against the stones Yea they do dash not onely their feer but their tongues also against the stone the Head-stone of the corner which these builders refuse in ascending Pulpits or stepping into chairs and preaching without his sending or Commissioning them according to his Prerogative given unto him of which this is a part All power is given me in Heaven and in Earth as my Father hath sent me so send I you Mat. 28.18 19. John 20.2 So also I am of Jeremiah who is so frequent and fervent in the point that I shall onely name the Texts and make the proofs out of all together Jer. 14.14 23.32 21. 27.14 28.8 9. where I observe that six or seven times the Lord by the Prophet saith that he sent them not and thereupon it 's said thrice they prophesied lyes once otherwise then the word is once deceits and dreams once their Errors and lightness false visions and divinations things of naught and the deceits of their own hearts enough one would think to keep off people from hearing of them and yet in plain terms therefore they are forbidden thrice to hearken to them or their words And if for all this they will be hearing of them as they have now very itching ears and give themselves much to hearing new men as news-men the Prophet tells and foretels them more plainly They shall do no good on it at the 32. verse of the 23. Chapter I sent them not nor commanded them Therefore they shall not profit this people at all saith the Lord. Hear you this Sir and hearken to this all ye separate people of England those of God unsent uncommanded Preachers false Teachers of the Anabaptistical separation for are they not so that teach you the Doctrines and Practices I have particularized but even now and now may assimilate unto the lyes dreams deceits vain visions of those false Prophets those false Teachers of the Anabaptisticall separation I say nay saith the Lord shall not profit you at all therefore they have not nor any Grace of God appearing in by or from them for God doth not give Converting ministerial Grace to them whom he doth not send nor Commission them plucked you or any of our people nor shall pluck them or you from your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth for this is and will be a great deal of profit they have not turned and converted you or any of our people nor shall unto the Faith and unto God for this is and will be the greatest profit of all that can be You