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
A70894	The life of the Most Reverend Father in God, James Usher, late Lord Arch-Bishop of Armagh, primate and metropolitan of all Ireland with a Collection of three hundred letters between the said Lord Primate and most of the eminentest persons for piety and learning in his time ... / collected and published from original copies under their own hands, by Richard Parr ...	Parr, Richard, 1617-1691.; Ussher, James, 1581-1656. Collection of three hundred letters.	1686 (1686)	Wing P548; Wing U163; ESTC R1496	625,199	629

are to receive the Communion viz. Almighty God and heavenly Father c. have mercy upon you pardon you and deliver you from all your Sins c. Or else the first clause in the form of Absolution used at the Visitation of the Sick would have served the turn viz. Our Lord Jesus Christ who hath left Power to his Church to absolve all Sinners which truly repent and believe in him of his great Mercy forgive thee thine Offences And there could be no reason at all imaginable why the next clause should be superadded to this prayer viz. And by his Authority committed to me I absolve thee from all thy Sins c. if the Priest did not forgive Sins Authoritativè by such a delegated and commissionated power as before we spake of After all which tedious Charge of the Doctor 's against the Lord Primate which I have been forced to transcribe to let the impartial Reader see I shall not answer him by halves I doubt not but to prove that first the Doctor hath dealt very disingenuously with the Lord Primat's Book by him there cited out of which he hath culled some passages here and there on purpose to cavil and find fault For I shall shew you 1. that the Lord Primat doth there assert that whatsoever the Priest or Minister contributes in this great Work of Cleansing the Souls of Men they do it as God's Ministers and receiving a power from God so to do and that tho perhaps he does not make use of the Doctor 's distinction of authoritativè yet he speaks the same sence 2. That admit the Priest does absolve authoritativè Yet that this Absolution can only operate declarativè or optativè and not absolutely And 3dly That the Church of England in none of the three forms of Absolution above mentioned no not in the last which he so much insists upon does pretend to give any larger power to the Priest or Minister than this amounts to As for the first Head I have laid down I shall prove it from the Lord Primat's own words in the same Treatise before cited by the Doctor who agrees with the Lord Primat that the supream power of forgiving Sins is in God alone Next that the power given to the Priest is but a delegated power from God himself Now that the Lord Primat owns the Priest or Minister to be endowed with such a power I shall put down his own words in the said Book viz. Having thus reserved unto God his Prerogative Royal in Cleansing the Soul we give unto his under Officers their due when we account of them as of the Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the Mysteries of God Not as Lords that have power to dispose of Spiritual Graces as they please but as Servants that are tied to follow their Master's prescriptions therein and in following thereof do but bring their external Ministry for which it self also they are beholden to God's Mercy and Goodness God conferring the inward Blessing of his Spirit thereupon when and where he will Who then is Paul saith St. Paul himself and who is Apollos but Ministers by whom ye believed even as the Lord gave to every Man Therefore saith Optatus in all the Servants there is no Dominion but a Ministery Cui creditur ipse dat quod creditur non per quem creditur It is he who is believed that giveth the thing that is believed not he by whom we do believe Whereas our Saviour then saith unto his Apostles Joh. 20. Receive the holy Ghost Whose Sins ye forgive shall be forgiven St. Ambrose St. Augustine St. Chrysostom and St. Cyril make this Observation thereupon that this is not their work properly but the work of the holy Ghost who remitteth by them and therein performeth the works of the true God To forgive Sins therefore being thus proper to God only and to his Christ his Ministers must not be held to have this power communicated unto them but in an improper sence namely because God forgiveth by them and hath appointed them both to apply those means by which he useth to forgive Sins and to give notice unto Repentant Sinners of that Forgiveness For who can forgive Sins but God alone yet doth he forgive by them also unto whom he hath given power to forgive saith St. Ambrose And tho it be the proper work of God to remit Sins saith Ferus yet are the Apostles and their Successors said to remit also not simply but because they apply those means whereby God doth remit Sins After the Lord Primat had shewed in the pages before-going that the power of binding and loosing consists in exercising the Discipline of the Church in debarring or admitting Penitents from or to the Communion he proceeds thus That this Authority of loosing remaineth still in the Church we constantly maintain against the Heresie of the Montanists and Novations c. And after having confuted the uncharitableness of those Hereticks who denied that Penitents who had committed heinous Sins ought to be received into the Communion of the Church goes on thus That speech of his viz. St. Paul's is specially noted and pressed against the Hereticks by St. Ambrose To whom ye forgive any thing I forgive also for if I forgave any thing to whom I forgave it for your sakes I forgave it in the Person of Christ. For as in the Name and by the Power of our Lord Jesus Christ such a one was delivered to Satan for God having given unto him Repentance to recover himself out of the snare of the Devil in the same Name and in the same Power was he to be restored again the Ministers of Reconciliation standing in Christ's stead and Christ himself being in the midst of them that are thus gathered together in his Name will bind or loose in Heaven whatsoever they according to his Commission shall bind or loose on Earth Then after he has shewn that the power of the Priest or Ministers of the Gospel is only ministerial and declarative like that of the Priests under the Law of Moses Where the Laws are set down that concern the Leprosie which was a type of the pollution of Sin we meet often with these speeches The Priest shall cleanse him and The Priest shall pollute him and in vers 44. of the same chapter The Priest with pollution shall pollute him as it is in the Original Not saith St. Hierom that he is the author of the pollution but that he declareth him to be polluted who before did seem unto many to have been clean Whereupon the Master of the Sentences following herein St. Hierom and being afterwards therein followed himself by many others observeth that in remitting or retaining Sins the Priests of the Gospel have that Right and Office which the Legal Priests had of old under the Law in curing of the Lepers These therefore saith he forgive Sins or retain them whiles they shew and declare that they are forgiven or

that perswasion and therefore it was thought to be enough to condemn Transubstantiation and to say that Christ was present after a spiritual manner and received by Faith And to say more as it was judged superfluous so it might occasion division Upon this these words were by common consent left out and in the next Convocation the Articles were subscribed without them This shews that the Doctrine of the Church then subscribed by the whole Convocation was at that time contrary to the belief of a Real and Corporal Presence in the Sacrament only it was not thought necessary or expedient to publish it Tho from this silence which flowed not from their Opinion but the Wisdom of that Time in leaving a liberty for different Speculations as to the manner of the Presence Some have since inferred that the chief Pastors of this Church did then disapprove of the Definition made in King Edward 's time and that they were for a Real Presence And that our Protestant Bishops that were martyr'd in Queen Mary's days were against this expression of a Real Presence of Christ as a Natural Body appears by those Questions which they disputed on solemnly at Oxford before their Martyrdom The first Question Whether the Natural Body of Christ was Really in the Sacrament The second Whether no other substance did remain but the Body and Blood of Christ Both which they held in the Negative So that since this expression of a Real Presence of Christ's Body was not maintained by our first Protestant Reformers nor used by the Church of England in her Articles I do not see of what use it can be now tho perhaps only meant in a spiritual sence by most that make use of it For the real presence of a Body and yet unbodily I suppose those that speak thus understand as little as I do unless that some Men love to come as near the Papists as may be in their expressions tho without any hopes now of ever making them approach the nearer to us and in the mean time giving matter of offence and scandal to divers ignorant and weak Christians of our own Religion The fifth Point that the Doctor taxes the Lord Primat with as held by him contrary to the Church of England is That she teaches that the Priest hath power to forgive Sins as may be easily proved by three several Arguments not very easie to be answered The first is from those solemn words used in the Ordination of the Priest or Presbyter that is to say Receive the Holy Ghost Whose Sins ye forgive they are forgiven and whose Sins ye retain they are retained Which were a gross prophanation of the words of our Lord and Saviour and a meer mockery of the Priest if no such power were given unto him as is there affirmed The second Argument is taken from one of the Exhortations before the Communion where we find the people are exhorted by the Priest that if they cannot quiet their Consciences they should come unto him or some other discreet Minister of God's Word and open their grief that they may receive such ghostly advice and comfort as their Consciences may be relieved and that by the Ministry of God's Word they may receive Comfort and the benefit of Absolution to the quieting of their Consciences and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness The third and most material Proof is the Form prescribed for the Visitation of the Sick In which it is required that after the sick Person hath made a Confession of his Faith and professed himself to be in Charity with all Men he shall then make a special Confession if he feel his Conscience troubled with any weighty matter And then it follows that after such Confession the Minister shall absolve him in this manner viz. Our Lord Jesus Christ who hath left power to his Church to absolve all Sinners that truly repent and believe in him of his great Mercy forgive thee thine Offences And by his Authority committed to me I absolve thee from all thy Sins in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Ghost Amen Of the first of these three places deduced all of them from the best Monuments and Records of the Church of England the Lord Primat takes notice in his Answer to the Jesuit's Challenge p. 109. where he treateth purposely of the Priests power to forgive Sins but gives us such a Gloss upon it as utterly subverts as well the Doctrine of this Church in that particular as her purpose in it And of the second he takes notice p. 81. where he speaks purposely of Confession but gives us such a Gloss upon that also as he did upon the other But of the third which is more positive and material than the other two he is not pleased to take any notice at all as if no such Doctrine were either taught by the Church of England or no such Power had been ever exercised by the Ministers of it For in the canvassing of this Point he declares sometimes that the Priest doth forgive Sins only declarative by the way of declaration only when on the consideration of the true Faith and sincere Repentance of the Party penitent he doth declare unto him in the Name of God that his Sins are pardoned and sometimes that the Priest forgives Sins only optativè by the way of Prayers and Intercession when on the like consideration he makes his prayers unto God that the Sins of the Penitent may be pardoned Neither of which comes up unto the Doctrine of the Church of England which holdeth that the Priest forgiveth Sins authoritativè by virtue of a Power committed to him by our Lord and Saviour That the Supream power of forgiving Sins is in God alone against whose Divine Majesty all Sins of what sort soever may be truly said to be committed was never question'd by any who pretended to the Christian Faith The Power which is given to the Priest is but a delegated power such as is exercised by Judges under Soveraign Princes where they are not tied unto the Verdict of Twelve Men as with us in England who by the Power committed to them in their several Circuits and Divisions do actually absolve the party which is brought before them if on good proof they find him innocent of the Crimes he stands accused for and so discharge him of his Irons And such a power as this I say is both given to and exercised by the Priest or Presbyters in the Church of England For if they did forgive Sins only declarativè that form of Absolution which follows the general Confession in the beginning of the Common-prayer-Book would have been sufficient where the Absolution is put in the third person Or if he did forgive Sins only optativè in the way of prayers and intercession there could not be a better way of Absolution than that which is prescribed to be used by the Priest or Bishop after the general Confession made by such as

be made betwixt God and man The one respects God the party offended whose justice hath been in such sort violated by his base Vassals that it were unfit for his glorious Majesty to put up such an injury without a good satisfaction The other respects Man the party offending whose blindness stupidity and hardness of heart is such that he is neither sensible of his own wretchedness nor God's goodness that when God offers to be reconciled unto him there must be much intreaty to perswade him to be reconciled to God 2 Cor. 5. 20. In regard of the latter I acknowledge with the Apostle That the natural man receives not the things of the spirit for they are foolishness to him neither can he because spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2. 14. And this impediment is not taken away by Christ's Satisfaction which is a work of his Priestly Function but by the enlightening of the mind and softening the heart of the sinner which are effects issuing from the execution of the Prophetical and Kingly Office of our Redeemer When therefore I say That by Christ's satisfaction to his Father he made the Nature of Man a fit subject for mercy I mean thereby that the former impediment arising on God's part is taken away that if it were not for the other for the having whereof we can blame none but our selves and in the not removing whereof we cannot say God hath done us any wrong there were no let but all Men might be saved And if it pleased God to extend his mercy unto All as he keeps his freedom therein in having compassion on whom he will have mercy and leaving others in blindness natural hardness of their own heart yet the worth of Christ's satisfaction is so great that his Justice herein should be no loser But if this Justice you will say be satisfied how comes it to pass that God exacts payment again from any I Answer We must take heed we stretch not our similitudes beyond their just extent lest at last we drive the matter too far and be forced to say as some have done That we cannot see how satisfaction and forgiveness can stand together and so by denying Christ's Satisfaction be injurious to God's Justice or by denying remission of sins become injurious to God's mercy We are therefore to understand that the end of the satisfaction of God's Justice is to make way for God's free liberty in shewing mercy that so Mercy and Justice meeting and embracing one another God may be just and the justifier of him that believes in Jesus Rom. 3. 26. Now the general satisfaction of Christ which was the first act of his Priestly Office prepares the way for God's mercy by making the sins of all mankind pardonable the interposition of any bar from God's Justice notwithstanding and so puts the Sons of Men only in a possibility of being justified a thing denied to the nature of fallen Angels which the Son was not pleased to assume But the special Application of this Satisfaction vouchsafed by Christ unto those persons only whom his Father hath given him out of the World which is an appendant or appertaineth to the second Act of his Priest-hood viz. his Intercession produceth this potentia in Actum i. e. procureth an actual discharge from God's anger and maketh Justification which before was a part of our possibility to be a part of our present Possession If it be said It is a great derogation to the dignity of Christ's death to make the sins of mankind only pardonable and brings in a bare possibility of Justification I Answer It is a most unchristian imagination to suppose the merit of Christ's death being particularly applied to the Soul of a sinner produceth no further effect than this Saint Paul teacheth us that we be not only justifiable but justified by his blood Rom. 5. 9. yet not simply as offered on the Cross but through faith in his blood Rom. 3. 25. that is through his blood applyed by faith The blood of Jesus Christ his Son saith Saint John 1 John 1. 17. cleanseth us from all sins yet cleanse it doth not by being prepared but by being applyed prepared it was when he poured it out once upon the Cross applyed it is when he washeth us from our sins therein Rev. 1. 5. It is one thing therefore to speak of Christ's satisfaction in the general absolutely considered and another thing as it is applyed to every one in particular The consideration of things as they are in their Causes is one thing and as they have an actual Existence is another thing Things as they are in their Causes are no otherwise considerable but as they have a possibility to be The application of the Agent to the Patient with all circumstances necessarily required is it that gives to the thing an actual Being That Disease is curable for which a Soveraign Medicine may be found but cured it is not till the Medicine be applyed to the Patient and if it so fall out that the Medicine being not applied the party miscarries We say He was lost not because his sickness was incurable but because there wanted a care to apply that to him that might have helped him All Adam's Sons have taken a mortal sickness from their Father which if it be not remedied will without fail bring them to the second death No Medicine under Heaven can heal this Disease but only a potion confected of the blood of the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the World which as Prosper truly notes habet quidem in se ut omnibus profit sed si non bibitur non medetur The virtue thereof is such that if all did take it all without doubt should be recovered but without taking it there is no recovery In the former respect it may be truly said That no man's state is so desperate but by this means it is recoverable and this is the first comfortable news that the Gospel brings to the distressed Soul but here it resteth not nor feedeth a man with such a possibility that he should say in his heart Who shall ascend into Heaven to bring Christ from above but it brings the word of comfort nigh unto him even to his mouth and heart and presents him with the Medicine at hand and desireth him to take it which being done accordingly the cure is actually performed LETTER XXIV A Letter from Sir Henry Bourgchier afterwards Earl of Bath to Dr. James Usher afterwards Arch-Bishop of Armagh Worthy Sir VVERE my Invention able to find Words to express the greatness of my Error I would fill this Sheet of Paper with Phrases Apologetical and Reasons of Excuse for my long Silence but when I consider the Goodness of your Disposition and mine own Confidence of the Interest I have heretofore had in your Love they diminish Despair in me and perswade strongly to conceive Hope of Pardon at your Hands I should have been very glad in this time of

by way of Catechism long ago which a Neighbour-Minister having afterwards gotten from some of my Hearers he wrote those Doubts which follow in the Book the better to inform either himself or me Whereupon as I could get any time in the midst of other continual Employments too heavy for me I wrote to him the Discourse following the more fully to acquaint him with the grounds of my Judgment as knowing well his sufficiency to object fully if he found himself unsatisfied in any Passage thereof The Style I confess is unmeet for you to read as being plain and popular and therefore too large and withal empty of variety of reading which store of other Occurrences in my Calling here inforceth me too often to intermit Thus much let me humbly intreat at your Lordship's hands by the honour which you owe to Christ and by the Love you bare to his poorest Servants stick not I beseech you to advertise me freely of any such tenent herein as you shall think less safe I trust you shall find me conscious of mine own Slenderness and glad to r●●●ive such Light as God shall be pleased to impart to me by you Yet this one thing more let me also add Tho I yield some degree of Efficacy in Christ's Death unto all yet I conceive it far short both of Impetration and Application of that gracious Atonement which is thereby wrought to the Elect of God whence also it is that I dare not preach the Gospel indifferently unto all before the Law nor the worth of Christ before the need of Christ. Childrens Bread is not meet for Whelps and full Souls will despise Hony-Combes I see John Baptist was sent to humble before Christ to heal and Christ himself preached Repentance before Faith in the Promises Mark 1. 15. Neither do I remember in the Gospel any Promise of Grace pardoning Sin nor any Commandment to believe Sin pardoned but to the broken the bruised the poor the weary the thirsty or the like Faith in the Promises before the Heart be changed from Stoniness to Brokenness I fear is no better than the Temporary Faith which is found in the stony Soil Luke 8. 13. But I cease your Lordship 's further Trouble Now the Lord Jesus who hath delighted in you to fill your Heart with the Riches of his manifold precious Graces be pleased to enlarge you to the Employment of them to his best advantage guide all your Ways in his Faithfulness and Wisdom and sustain you with his Mercy and Power unto the end So I humbly take leave and rest Earnestly desirous to be directed by your Lordship or confirmed in the Truth John Cotton Boston May 31. 1626. LETTER XCV A Letter from the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh to Dr. Samuel Ward Salutem in Christo Jesu SIR I Am very sorry to hear of your Distractions there but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to whose Guidance we must refer both this and ipsam rerum summam quae in summo jam si quid videmus versatur discrimine When the Collaters have finished the Acts I could wish they collated the Epistles with the Text which is inserted into the Commentaries of Photius and Oecumenius Manuscripts in the University Library where there are some varieties of readings also as I remember noted in the Margent in the brief Scholies that are written in red Letters Remember me to Mr. Chancy and learn of him what he hath done for Mr. Broughton's Books intreat him also to look into the Manuscript Psalter in Hebrew and Latin in Trinity Colledg-Library and thence transcribe for me the last Verse save one of the 52 Psalm which is wanting in our printed Hebrew Bibles the Latin of that Verse if I forget not beginneth Consilium Mosis c. I would willingly also hear how far he hath proceeded in the Samaritan Bible and what Mr. Boys hath done in the transcribing of the Greek Manuscript which I left with him Wish Mr. Green to send me Lucian in Greek and Latin Your assured Friend J. Ar. LETTER XCVI A Letter from Dr. Ward to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Most Reverend and my very good Lord I Received your Lordship's Letter and that which I signified to your Lordship in my last Letter was almost really effected The night before the choice of our new Chancellor I was very ill so as without hazard of my Health I could not be at the choice and so was absent The Duke carried it not above three or four Voices from the Earl of Berkshire and had not neither carried it but that the King's Pleasure was signified for the Duke both by Message and Letter Quod vis summam rerum in summo versari discrimine timeo doleo I acquainted Mr. White with your Pleasure and wished him to impart it to the rest of the Collators as touching the Collation of the Text in the Comments of Photius and Oecumenius I send you inclosed the Hebrew Verse you writ for They are in Denteronomy in the Samaritan Pentateuch I have not as yet spoken with Mr. Boyse I received the Books you mention and sent two of them to Mr. Austine Mr. Green will send you the two Books Lucian Graeco Lat. and N. Testam Syrlacum-Latin to Mr. Burnets Mr. White sendeth up unto you the Variae Lectiónes upon the Psalms The divers Readings of Prosper shall be sent you Dr. Goad sent me two sheets of my Latin Sermon printed But I hear not whether our Suffrage be reprinted I would know whether Nicetus his Orthodoxus Thesaurus be extant in Greek I suppose it is in Latin at least in the New Bibliotheca He is said to interpret Greg. Nyssen his Opinion of the Conversion which is made in the Eucharist mentioned c. 37 Catechet I cannot tell what to pronounce touching that discourse His discourse is somewhat plausible till he come to the conversion made in the Eucharist by Christ's words and then he doth faulter I pray you let me know where the Manuscript Copies of the Saxon Annals are to be had Mr. Mede and Mr. Whalley are both in good health I am right sorry that your Lordship should so soon go from us I am now in business in Disputations in our Schools I shall forget many things which I should have enquired of And so with my best Service remembred to your Lordship and Mrs. Usher I commend you to the gracious Protection of the highest Majesty and so rest Your Lordship 's in all Observance Samuel Ward Sidney-College June 6. 1626. There is good Agreement God be thanked in King's College LETTER XCVII A Letter from Dr. Ward to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Most Reverend and my very good Lord I Have sent you here enclosed the diverse Readings of the Continuation of Eusebius's Chronicle by Hierom and both the Prospers Mr. Elmar will bring your Lordship the Concio ad Clerum which against my mind is set forth without those other things