Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	judgement_n	sin_n	sinner_n	2,057	5	7.5058	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61555	Ecclesiastical cases relating to the duties and rights of the parochial clergy stated and resolved according to the principles of conscience and law / by the Right Reverend Father in God, Edward, Lord Bishop of Worcester.	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1698 (1698)	Wing S5593; ESTC R33861	132,761	428

grow more headstrong and insolent by the Indulgence which the Law gives them then observe whether they observe those Conditions on which the Law gives it to them For these are known Rules in Law That he forfeits his Privilege who goes beyond the Bounds of it That no Privileges are to be extended beyond the Bounds which the Laws give them for they ought to be observed as they are given I leave it to be considered whether all such who do not observe the Conditions of the Indulgence be not as liable to the Law as if they had none But there is a very profane Abuse of this Liberty among some as tho' it were an Indulgence not to serve God at all Such as these as they were never intended by the Law so they ought to enjoy no Benefit by it For this were to countenance Profaneness and Irreligion which I am afraid will grow too much upon us unless some effectual Care be taken to suppress it VII There is another Duty incumbent upon you which I must particularly recommend to your Care and that is of Visiting the Sick I do not mean barely to perform the Office prescribed which is of very good Use and ought not to be neglected but a particular Application of your selves to the State and Condition of the Persons you visit It is no hard matter to run over some Prayers and so take leave but this doth not come up to the Design of our Church in that Office For after the general Exhoratation and Profession of the Christian Faith our Church requires That the sick Person be moved to make special Confession of his Sins if he feel his Conscience troubled with any weighty matter and then if the sick Person humbly and heartily desires it he is to be absolved after this manner Our Lord Iesus Christ who hath left Power in his Church to absolve all Sinners who truly repent and believe in him c. Where the power of Absolution is grounded upon the Supposition of true Faith and Repentance and therefore when it is said afterwards And by his Authority committed to me I absolve thee from the same c. it must proceed on the same Supposition For the Church cannot absolve when God doth not So that all the real Comfort of the Absolution depends upon the Satisfaction of the person's Mind as to the Sincerity of his Repentance and Faith in Christ. Now here lies the great Difficulty of this Office how to give your selves and the wounded Conscience Satisfaction as to the Sincerity of those Acts I do not mean as to the Sincerity of his present Thoughts but as to the Acceptableness of his Faith and Repentance with God in order to Remission of Sins But what if you find the Persons so ignorant as not to understand what Faith and Repentance mean What if they have led such careless and secure lives in this World as hardly ever to have had one serious Thought of another Is nothing to be done but to come and pray by them and so dismiss them into their Eternal State Is this all the good you can or are bound to do them I confess it is a very uncomfortable thing to tell Men how they are to begin to live when they are liker to die than to live and the People generally have a strange superstitious Fear of sending for the Minister while there is any hope of Recovery But at last you are sent for and what a melancholy Work are you then to go about You are it may be to make a Man sensible of his Sins who never before considered what they were or against whom they were committed or what eternal Misery he deserves by committing them But I will suppose the best I can in this Case viz. That by your warm and serious Discourse you throughly awaken the Conscience of a long and habitual Sinner what are you then to do Will you presently apply all the Promises of Grace and Salvation to one whose Conscience is awakened only with the Fears of Death and the Terrors of a Day of Judgment This I confess is a hard Case on the one side we must not discourage good Beginnings in any we must not cast an awakened Sinner into Despair we must not limit the infinite Mercy of God But on the other side we must have a great care of incouraging presumptuous Sinners to put off their Repentance to the last because then upon Confession of their Sins they can so easily obtain the Churches Absolution which goes no farther than truly Repenting and Believing But here is the difficulty how we can satisfie our selves that these do truly Repent and Believe who are out of a Capacity of giving Proof of their Sincerity by Amendment of Life I do not question the Sincerity of their present Purposes but how often do we find those to come to nothing when they recover and fall into the former Temptations How then shall they know their own Sincerity till it be tried How can it be tried when they are going out of the State of Trial The most we can do is to encourage them to do the best they can in their present Condition and to shew as many of the Fruits of true Repentance as their Circumstances will allow and with the greatest Humility of Mind and most earnest Supplications to implore the infinite Mercy of God to their Souls But besides these there are many Cases of sick Persons which require very particular Advice and Spiritual Direction which you ought to be able to give them and it cannot be done without some good Measure of Skill and Experience in casuistical Divinity As How to satisfie a doubting Conscience as to its own Sincerity when so many Infirmities are mixed with our best Actions How a Sinner who hath relapsed after Repentance can be satisfied of the Truth of his Repentance when he doth not know but he may farther relapse upon fresh Temptations How he shall know what Failings are consistent with the State of Grace and the Hopes of Heaven and what not What Measure of Conviction and Power of Resistance is necessary to make Sins to be wilful and presumptuous What the just Measures of Restitution are in order to true Repentance in all such Injuries which are capable of it I might name many others but these I only mention to shew how necessary it is for you to apply your selves to Moral and Casuistical Divinity and not to content your selves barely with the Knowledge of what is called Positive and Controversial I am afraid there are too many who think they need to look after no more than what qualifies them for the Pulpit and I wish all did take sufficient care of that but if we would do our Duty as we ought we must inquire into and be able to resolve Cases of Conscience For the Priests Lips should keep this kind of Knowledge and the People should seek the Law at his Mouth for he is the Messenger of the