Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	lord_n	soul_n	time_n	6,068	5	3.8390	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65392	A short story of the rise, reign, and ruin of the Antinomians, Familists, and libertines that infected the churches of New-England and how they were confuted by the assembly of ministers there as also of the magistrates proceedings in court against them : together with God's strange remarkable judgements from heaven upon some of the chief fomenters of these opinions : and the lamentable death of Mrs. Hutchison : very fit for these times, here being the same errors amongst us, and acted by the same spirit : published at the instant request of sundry, by one that was an eye and ear-witness of the carriage of matters there.	Winthrop, John, 1588-1649.; Weld, Thomas, 1590?-1662.	1692 (1692)	Wing W1270; ESTC R6157	84,225	86

by them delivered and to maintain their own way Now might one have frequently heard both in Court and Church-meetings where they were dealt withal about their opinions and exorbitant carriages such bold and menacing expressions as these This I hold and will hold to my death and will maintain it with my blood And if I cannot be heard here I must be forced to take some other course They said moreover what they would do against us biting their words in when such and such opportunities should be offered to them as they daily expected Insomuch that we had great cause to have feared the extremity of danger from them in case power had been in their hands Now you might have heard one of them Preaching a most dangerous Sermon in a great Assembly when he divided the whole Country into two ranks some that were of his opinion under a Covenant of Grace and those were friends to Christ others under a Covenant of Works whom they might know by this if they evidence their good estate by their Sanctification those were said he enemies to Christ Herods Pilates Scribes and Pharisees yea Antichrists and advised all under a Covenant of Grace to look upon them as such and did with great zeal stimulate them to deal with them as they would with such And withal alledging the Story of Moses that killed the Egyptian barely left it so I mention not this or any thing in the least degree to reflect upon this Man or any other for God hath long since opened his eyes I hope But to shew what racket these opinions did make there and will any where else where they get an head Now might you have seen open contempt cast upon the face of the whole general Court in subtile words to this very effect That the Magistrates were Ahabs Amaziahs Scribes and Pharisees Enemies to Christ led by Satan that old Enemy of Free-Grace and that it were better that a Milstone were hung about their necks and they were drowned in the Sea than they should censure one of their Iudgment which they were now about to do Another of them you might have seen so audaciously insolent and high-flown in Spirit and Speech that she bad the Court of Magistrates when they were about to censure her for her pernicious carriages Take heed what they did to her for she knew by an infallible revelation that for this act which they were about to pass against her God would ruin them their Posterity and that whole Common-wealth By a little taste of a few passages instead of multitudes here presented you may see what an heighth they were grown unto in a short time and what a spirit of Pride Insolency contempt of Authority Division Sedition they were acted by It was a wonder of mercy that they had not set our Common-wealth and Churches on a fire and consumed us all therein They being mounted to this heighth and carried with such a strong hand as you have heard and seeing a spirit of Pride Subtilty Malice and Contempt of all men that were not of their minds breathing in them our hearts sadded and our spirits tyred we sighed and groaned to Heaven we humbled our Souls by Prayer and Fasting that the Lord would find out and bless some means and ways for the cure of this sore and deliver his Truth and our selves from this heavy bondage Which when his own time was come he hearkned unto and in infinite Mercy looked upon our Sorrows and did in a wonderful manner beyond all Expectation free us by these means following 1. He stirred up all the Ministers Spirits in the Country to preach against those Errors and Practices that so much pestered the Country to inform to confute to rebuke c. thereby to cure those that were diseased already and to give Antidotes to the rest to preserve them from infection And tho' this Ordinance went not without its appointed effect in the latter respect yet we found it not so effectual for the driving away of this infection as we desired for they most of them hardned their faces and bent their wits how to oppose and confirm themselves in their way 2. We spent much Time and Strength in conference with them sometimes in private before the Elders only sometimes in our publick Congregation for all comers many very many hours and half days together we spent therein to see if any means might prevail we gave them free leave with all lenity and patience to lay down what they could say for their Opinions and answered them from point to point and then brought clear arguments from evident Scriptures against them and put them to answer us even until they were oftentimes brought to be either silent or driven to deny common Principles or shuffle off plain Scripture and yet such was their pride and hardness of heart that they would not yield to the Truth but did tell us they would take time to consider of our Arguments and in the mean space meeting with some of their Abetters strengthened themselves again in their old way that when we dealt with them next time we found them further off than before so that our hopes began to languish of reducing them by private means 3. Then we had an Assembly of all the Ministers and learned Men in the whole Country which held for three weeks together at Cambridge then called New-Town Mr. Hooker and Mr. Bulkley alias Buckley being chosen Moderators or Prolocutors the Magistrates sitting present all that time as hearers and speakers also when they saw fit a liberty also was given to any of the Country to come in and hear it being appointed in great part for the satisfaction of the people and a place was appointed for all the Opinionists to come in and take liberty of Speech only due order observed as much as any of our selves had and as freely The first week we spent in confuting the loose Opinions that we gathered up in the Country the summ of which is set down pag. 1. c. The other fortnight we spent in a plain Syllogistical Dispute ad vulgus as much as might be gathered up nine of the chiefest Points on which the rest depended and disputed of them all in order pro con In the forenoons we framed our arguments and in the afternoons produced them in publick and next day the Adversary gave in their Answers and produced also their arguments on the same questions then we answered them and replyed also upon them the next day These Disputes are not mentioned at all in the following Discourse happily because of the swelling of the book God was much present with his Servants Truth began to get ground and the adverse party to be at a stand but after discourse amongst themselves still they hardned one another yet the work of the Assembly through Gods blessing gained much on the hearers that were indifferent to strengthen them and on many wavering to settle them the Error of the Opinions

in their acknowledgment Many after this came unto us who before flew from us with such desires as those in Act. 2. Men and Brethren what shall we do and did willingly take shame to themselves in the open Assemblies by confessing some of them with many tears how they had given offence to the Lord and his People by departing from the Truth and being led by a Spirit of Error their alienation from their brethren in their affections and their crooked and perverse walking in contempt of Authority slighting the Churches and despising the Counsel of their godly Teachers Now they would freely discover the slights the Adversaries had used to undermine them by and steal away their Eyes from the Truth and their Brethren which before whilst their Eyes were seal'd they could not see And the fruit of this was great Praise to the Lord who had thus wonderfully wrought matters about Gladness in all our Hearts and Faces and Expressions of our renewed Affections by receiving them again into our Bosoms and from that time untill now have walked according to their renewed Covenants humbly and lovingly amongst us holding forth Truth and Peace with Power But for the rest which notwithstanding all these means of Conviction from Heaven and Earth and the Example of their seduced Brethrens return yet stood obdurate yea more hardned us we had cause to fear than before we convented those of them that were Members before the Churches and yet laboured once and again to convince them not only of their Errors but also of sundry exorbitant Practices which they had fallen into as manifest Pride contempt of Authority neglecting to hear the Church and lying c. but after no means prevailed we were driven with sad hearts to give them up to Satan Yet not simply for their Opinions for which I find we have been slanderously traduced but the chiefest cause of their Censure was their Miscarriages as have been said persisted in with great obstinacy The persons cast out of the Churches were about nine or ten as far as I can remember who for a space continued very hard and impenitent but afterward some of them were received into fellowship again upon their Repentance These persons cast out and the rest of the Ring-leaders that had received sentence of Banishment with many others infected by them that were neither censured in Court nor in Churches went all together out of our Iurisdiction and Precinct into an Island called Read-Island sirnamed by some the Island of Errors and there they live to this day most of them but in great strife and contention in the civil Estate and otherwise hatching and multiplying new Opinions and cannot agree but are miserably divided into sundry Sects and Factions But Mistress Hutchison being weary of the Island or rather the Island weary of her departed from thence with all her Family her Daughter and her Children to live under the Dutch near a place called by Sea-men and in the Map Hell-Gate And now I am come to the last Act of her Tragedy a most heavy stroak upon her self and hers as I received it very lately from a godly Hand in New-England There the Indians set upon them and slew her and all her family her Daughter and her Daughters Husband and all their Children save one that escaped her own Husband being dead before a dreadful Blow Some write that the Indians did burn her to death with fire her House and all the rest named that belonged to her but I am not able to affirm by what kind of death they slew her but slain it seems she is according to all Reports I never heard that the Indians in those parts did ever before this commit the like Outrage upon any one family or families and therefore Gods hand is the more apparently seen herein to pick out this woful woman to make her and those belonging to her an unheard-of heavy Example of their Cruelty above others Thus the Lord heard our Groans to Heaven and freed us from this great and sore Affliction which first was small like Elias's Cloud but after spread the Heavens and hath through great Mercy given the Churches rest from this disturbance ever since that we know none that lifts up his head to disturb our sweet Peace in any of the Churches of Christ among us blessed for ever be his Name I bow my knees to the God of Truth and Peace to grant these Churches as full a riddance from the same or like Opinions which do destroy his Truth and disturb their Peace A POSTSCRIPT I think it fit to add a comfortable Passage of News from those parts written to me very lately by a faithful hand which as it affected mine own Heart so it may do many others viz. That two Sagamores or Indian Princes with all their Men Women and Children have voluntarily submitted themselves to the Will and Law of our God with expressed desires to be taught the same and have for that end put themselves under our Government and Protection even in the same manner as any of the English are which morning-peep of Mercy to them saith he is a great means to awaken the Spirit of Prayer and Faith for them in all the Churches T. Welde A Catalogue of such Erroneous Opinions as were found to have been brought into New-England and spread under hand there as they were condemned by an Assembly of the Churches at New-Town Aug. 30. 1637. The Errors 1. IN the Conversion of a sinner which is saving and gracious the Faculties of the Soul and Workings thereof in things pertaining to God are destroyed and made to cease The Confutation 1. This is contrary to the Scripture which speaketh of the Faculties of the Soul as the Understanding and the Will not as destroyed in Conversion but as changed Luke 24 45. Christ is said to have opened their Understandings Ioh. 21. 18. Peter is said to be led whither he would not therefore he had a Will Again to destroy the Faculties of the Soul is to destroy the Immortality of the Soul Error 2. Instead of them the Holy Ghost doth come and take place and doth all the works of those natures as the faculties of the human nature of Christ do Confutation 2. This is contrary to Scripture which speaketh of God as sanctifying our Souls and Spirits 1 Thess. 5. 23. purging our Consciences Heb. 9. 14. refreshing our Memories Ioh. 14. 26. Error 3. That the love which is said to remain when Faith and Hope cease is the Holy Ghost Confutation 3. This is contrary to the Scriptures which put an express difference between the Holy Ghost and Love 2 Cor. 6. 6. And if our love were the Holy Ghost we cannot be said to love God at all or if we did it was because we were personally united to the Holy Ghost Error 4 5. That those that be in Christ are not under the Law and commands of the word as the rule of Life Alias that the Will of God in