Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	jesus_n	sin_n	sinner_n	3,659	5	7.4408	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62243	A view of the soul, in several tracts ... by a person of quality.	Saunders, Richard, 1613-1675.; Saunders, Richard, 1613-1675. Several epistles to the Reverend Dr. Tillotson.	1682 (1682)	Wing S757; ESTC R7956	321,830	374

so that again doth give perfection to them and without which they are in St. Paul's phrase but as sounding Brass or a tinckling Cymbal that whatever noise they may make are of no benefit to us Thus the Apostle speaking of the abiding here of Faith Hope and Charity tells us the greatest of these is Charity of which reversing his method and order in placing of them I shall say thus much in short 't is Charity must guide and direct us 't is Hope must relieve and support us and 't is Faith by which we must enter into rest that must be the Key that must open to us and let us in after all our travails and if Faith do ever become a Crown and Hope an Helmet we must have before Charity for our Breast-plate badge or cognizance which we must always wear and never put off lest we be left open to divers and various assaults here and notwithstanding any Armour we think we have got on notwithstanding any allegation of prophecying in Christ's name or casting out Devils or doing other wonderful works if we be found to be without this Livery we shall be disowned and receive that sentence I never knew you depart from me ye c. from which Good Lord deliver us The Conclusion IN my entrance upon this subject I said how I had a desire to take some view of my Soul and see its operations and now this here is become its weak product perhaps more unfit for the World than that of my Body yet this I can say 't is not spurious and if my Brain has been the Father of it and gave it Being my Heart has been the Mother and lodged it and brought it forth without any other aim or design desire or affection whatsoever than the easing quieting or calming of her self unless that she desires or hopes it may through God's Grace have some mollifying or sanative quality towards some others I have not upon my own view of it so far transgressed as to fall in love with it I am conscious of its mis-shapes and deformities and doubtful nay very fearful of its defects and errors in many particulars and so have little reason to desire it should live long to my shame and disgrace But if man will not wink at those errors nor pass them over with charity I trust and hope that he who made me subject to errors and knows them best and their causes will pardon them which hope is to any man a sufficient Cordial against the fear or trouble of others censure I pretend to no supernatural Revelation in any of my thoughts and he who is free from error in them must necessarily have somewhat more than a pretence to it Let the World judge of me what they please I have been before-hand with them and I am sure no man can have meaner or more contemptible thoughts of me than I have sometimes had of my self and if there be any thing of true and unfeigned humility in man he can be as well content others should think meanly of him as he of himself but they are not always so proper Judges and I think that question What man knoweth the things of a man but the Spirit of man which is in him may not be altogether improperly applicable to the present purpose and for prevention of rash judging of other mens Spirits since we have been told by one who well knew We know not our own or of what Spirit we are I have lived to see often the vanity of my first thoughts from my second and may live to see the errors of these if I do I will acknowledge and amend them I have groaped in the dark to find out the easiest plain way towards content and quietness and rest even while I am a Traveller but I desire not to become an Ignis fatuus to lead other men out of their way and if this Hand point not right I beseech God any man who sees it may hear that gracious word behind him This is the way walk ye in it Search the Scriptures they are they which testifie of the God of power the God of peace and the God of consolation That Sacred Word has already received so clear an Humane rational vindication of its truth and excellency so plain a demonstration of its virtue and efficacy towards the health of Souls and such excellent methods have been lately prescribed towards the application and use thereof as there wants no additional assistance of so weak a Soul as mine I must confess and acknowledge I do believe it may and does often cause strange inflamations in many Souls and renders them not only painful and dangerous but malignant and infectious for want of a good digestion and all that I am able to advise any one further in the reading thereof is that he first observe the temper of that man according to God's own heart in the Old Testament who found that very Word Moses Law a lamp unto his feet and a light unto his path became wiser than his Enemies by it took comfort and delight in it and gives so large an Encomium of it in that most excellent Psalm as is not to be parallel'd wherein it has been observed there is mention made of it almost every line or verse that he do not exercise himself in things which are too high for him but refrain his Soul and keep it low like as a child that is weaned from his mother If he can but obtain that which certainly a man might do from the reflexion of the very light of Reason in beholding his own weakness I presume to say after he has read and seriously considered our Saviour's Precepts in the New Testament he will be at peace and in charity with all men and so by consequence within himself More I cannot say but that I beseech Almighty God the Lord and giver of Life in whom we live and move and have our Being the provident Ruler and Governour of all things one Eternal infinite wise power that Ens or Essence of it self that first cause that which we are in no wise able to comprehend that he would enlighten and purifie our understandings direct all our thoughts regulate the vain wandrings of our imaginations strengthen our memories so far as they may be retentive of all good make our Wills obedient and tractable allure and draw away all our affections from the vanities and false appearances of the World actuate and enliven them towards the pursuit of all good and the detestation of all evil that we may possess our Souls in patience and with one mind and one Soul glorifie God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and out of the abundance of his mercy forgive us all the errors of our ways that he would not be extreme to mark what we have done amiss that as our sins and follies have abounded and do abound his Grace may superabound more especially to me

the greatest vilest miserablest and most deformed of sinners and the most defaced Image of his goodness that he would again restore that Image here in some measure give me a Fountain of tears to wash away all its blots and wilful sullies direct me by his Grace here towards his Glory increase my weak Faith that it become an assurance convert my fearful hopes into a full perswasion and certain expectation of that glorious Vision be with me comfort me and strengthen me at the hour of death And when this wearied tossed and turmoil'd Soul that can find no settled rest here shall leave its polluted and sinful habitation purified by Repentance and Faith receive it into Glory And this for the merits and mediation of his Son Iesus Christ our ever blessed Saviour and Redeemer to whom be glory and honour and praise now and for ever Amen SEVERAL EPISTLES To the Reverend Dr. TILLOTSON DEAN of CANTERBURY WHEREIN The Nature the Immortality the Operations and the Happiness of the SOUL of MAN Are further Considered and Illustrated And the Divine Providence over it in a particular manner Asserted By the aforesaid Author LONDON Printed for George Downs The Author's Apology for his Writing To the Reverend John Tillotson D. D. DEAN of CANTERBURY EPIST. I. Wherein the Author after some Apology for the not making publick his said Treatises De Dolore De Anima makes some reflexion on Atheism and blames the unnecessary and extravagant disputes and writings against such as seem tainted or infected with that opinion SIR HAVING reduced my sometimes sad solitary or serious considerations at all times and upon all occasions very inept weak and imperfect ones God knows into some kind of Method and made them legible in paper I took upon me the boldness altogether unknown to you and without so much as discovering my name to approach you before all others and begg the favour of your perusal And this I did not only from a hearsay of your clear judgement and courteous disposition to all men as well strangers as familiars but from a singular opinion I had of you my self That you were a person of a frank and open discourse and one who would plainly and roundly tell me of my faults and my follies discover your real opinion of what lay before you and not permit and suffer me a meer stranger for want of admonition to cherish an imperfect or deformed Embryo and such as might casually hereafter be born into the world to my disgrace but rather while I lived and had the power over it to smother and consume it in the flames The most favourable censure I expected from you was a reprieve of it for some season not a present enfranchisement of it or making it free of the world in my life time and by consequence a kind of confinement of my future thoughts if they should vary from or disagree with these And yet the latter I met withall from you and find that you are pleased to move me not only to allow it present life and future birth but to afford it instant liberty and freedom to walk abroad I might seem ill natur'd not presently to grant his request who so readily condescended unto mine had I no just cause to alledge for a demurr at least if not for a denial and such as may work upon you to desist from any such motion as much as on me for a denial For I must tell you If I hereafter suffer therein I shall readily transfer the blame on you and some perhaps will give you the precedency therein when they come to know the person who perused these papers and blame your oversight beyond my weak and feeble inspect Your universal Charity may so far abound as to overlook many deformities if not errors occasioned perhaps from my immoderate affection Which kind of Charity is a thing not to be expected from other men at least from all Indeed if any man receive good from these Papers he will find greater cause to thank you next under God than me who never at first intended them as a Legacy to the world nor durst nor dare yet own them under any name I trust they would hurt or prejudice no man if publick further than the spending of his time in vain in reading them and surely that 's a sufficient damage or loss to any ingenuous spirit There is enough good seed already sown more than any man can reap in his life time 't were well if the tares of this nature were gathered together in bundles to be burnt from which fate I I know not how to exempt mine I have given you my opinion already in discourse from which I know not well how to recede That if some Judicious person were of power to do it and should banish out of the world and cause to be buried in utter oblivion many thousand volumes now extant he would merit more of the world and perform a far more acceptable service to the wise and learned thereof than he who added one though of never so great use or excellency There is enough said about the soul of man already more perhaps than is or ever will be understood and too much I fear of a higher-subject Every age in each single Nation has afforded or rather introduced some subject matter or other whereabout the Souls of men have more peculiarly busied themselves by way of disputation and made the canvasing of particular opinions a thing in mode and fashion for a certain time and season That which at this instant seems to imploy and busy the tongue the pen or the Press except seditious Pamphlets and the like from the spirit of contradiction or an overweening conceit of ones self never out of fashion most or above all other is the different opinion of men about the original of all things under the notion names or titles of Theism and Atheism wherefore we had some little discourse together occasioned by some short passages of mine in my aforesaid Treatise And for as much as all those Atheistical Tenets now more than ordinarily vented do seem to strike at the very root of religious worship and are wholly derogatory of the glorious Attributes of that God we serve and adore I perceive you are not only to your praise a strong oppugner thereof your self but take pleasure in them also who do the same Now truly I must here tell you That which has fell from me in relation to that subject was rather accidental upon my weak search into the nature operation and faculties of the Soul than of any designed purpose to convince any man of the falshood of those Atheistical opinions Because I am not yet fully convinced in my thoughts of the necessity of any such endeavour but do rather believe all those men we term or hold for professed Atheists would yet gladly receive and imbrace a full perswasion and conviction from others of what they themselves maintain in words and not seldom some of