Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	abide_v	lord_n	zion_n	61	3	9.1660	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77759	Midnights meditations of death: with pious and profitable observations, and consolations : perused by Francis Quarles a little before his death. / Published by E.B.; A buckler against the fear of death.	Buckler, Edward, 1610-1706.; Benlowes, Edward, 1603?-1676, attributed name.; Quarles, Francis, 1592-1644.	1646 (1646)	Wing B5350; Thomason E1164_3; ESTC R208713	41,632	130

That thirstie drie and barren land did yawn And gape to heav'n-ward for a draught of drink Just so whene'r Gods favour is withdrawn From a soul it doth distresse her Ne'r earth thirsted more for rain Then doth she for God again To relieve her and refresh her Have you not seen a mothers wofull tears Embalm the carcase of her onely sonne How to all comfort she stops both her eares Wrings both her hands and makes a bitter moan Fain in sorrow would she swim Or be drown'd it is so deep She hath heart enough to weep Heaven full up to the brim But this is nothing to that matchlesse anguish That breaks in pieces ev'rie pious heart And makes the soul with darkest sadnesse languish If from 't a sense of Gods good will depart O how strangely David 's troubled When God hid away his face Though but for a little space See how his complaints are doubled How long for ever Lord wilt thou forget me How long wilt thou thy gratious visage hide How long be angrie wilt thou never let me Enjoy thy face again shall I abide Thus for evermore bereft Of all comfort joy and peace Shall my soul ne'r dwell at ease Hast thou Lord no mercy left O once again be pleas'd to turn and give My soul a relish of thy wonted grace There 's nothing can my sadded heart relieve If thou dost hide thy comfortable face Thou in tears thy servant drown'st Thou dost fill my cheeks with furrows And my soul with ghastly sorrows Whensoever Lord thou frown'st The world doth value at a precious rate Things here below Some highly prize their sport Some jewels some a plentifull estate And some preferments in a Princes court But for life we so esteem it Above whatsoe'r is best That with losse of all the rest We are ready to redeem it But none of these Gods children do regard So much as Gods love by a thousand parts Feel they but this to entertein 't is spar'd The best and highest room in all their hearts They affect no wordly pelf In comparison of this Kindnesse yea to them it is Better farre then life it self Have they no reason for this eager thirst After Gods love and friendship sure they see Gods favour and his kindnesse is the first And chiefest good all other friendships be Most deceitfull trustlesse vain When the pangs of Death do seise us Mortall favours cannot ease us God can rid us of our pain But grant he do not yet these pains shall send Our souls to him that loves us to enjoy A painlesse life that ne'r shall see an end He whom God loves can on a death-bed say I know my Redeemer liveth For me there 's laid up a crown When this clay-built house is down God a better mansion giveth I 'll never woo the smile of man whose breath Is in his nostrils by sinister wayes 'T will not advantage at the houre of Death All my supportment on these carnall stayes At the length will but deceive me 'T is to have a friend above 'T is Gods favour and his love Or else nothing must relieve me Lord make thy graces in my soul appear My heart from ev'rie lothsome blemish cleanse That I may clearly see thine image there For that 's an undeceived evidence Of thy favour which when I Once am certain to obtein I 'll not faint for any pain Nor will care how soon I die Sect. 5. Youth cannot protect us from the stroke of Death A Young man may die but an old man must This may die quickly that cannot live long Often are graves fill'd full with youthfull dust Though youth be jocund lustie merrie strong Yet is it subject unto Death-bed-pains 'T is mortall bloud that runnes along their veins In all appearance old mens halting feet are Mov'd to the grave-ward with the greatest speed Like that disciples which did outrunne Peter But sometimes younger men step in indeed And peradventure twentie years or more Sooner then those that looked in before Graves gape for ev'rie sort The butcher 's seen Often to kill the youngest of the flock Some long to pluck those apples that are green Death crops the branches and forbears the stock Children are wrapp'd up in their winding-sheets And aged parents mourn about the streets Jobs children di'd before himself for after The death of ten he liv'd to get ten other We sigh out Ah my sonne or Ah my daughter As oft as Ah my father or my mother The first that ever di'd resign'd his breath Nine hundred yeares before his fathers death Yea many times Deaths gripings are so crucl Before the groning mothers child-birth-pain Is past the infant 's buri'd like a jewel But shewn and presently shut up again Perhaps within a minute after birth Is forthwith sent to cradle in the earth Perhaps he is not born at all yet dies And dies a verie thriftie Death to save Fun'rall expenses he in 's mother lies Entombed both lodg'd in a single grave And with him lies in one poore narrow room His swadling-clouts nurse mother cradle tomb Meditation 1. SOme sinnes there be as holy writ doth teach That interrupt the current of our dayes He that 's found gultie of them cannot reach That length of life which he that 's free enjoyes Sinne you know and Death are twins Or Death is Sinnes progeny Many of us if we die In our youth may thank our sinnes One sinne is disobedience to that pair Which did beget us If I shall despise My parents lawfull precepts if my care Be not to do what 's pleasing in their eyes If I willingly neglect Any thing which I do know Is a duty that I ow I may Death betimes expect Another sinne is unprepar'd receiving That blessed Supper which doth feed and heal And in and to a soul that is believing A full release of sinnes doth freely seal Where that body and that bloud Is presented on the table Which are infinitely able To do hungri'st sinners good If I come hither an unworthie guest Or if before my heart I do not prove Or if I come as to a common feast Or come without Thanks Knowledge Faith and Love If I carrie any crime Thither with me unlamented Or go ere I have repented Death may take me hence betime Another is Bloud-thirstinesse when we To do a mischief are so strongly bent That we sleep not unlesse our projects be Contrived to insnare the innocent When we are so like the Devil Everie way satanicall That tongue brains heart hands and all Are imploy'd in what is evil These sinnes and others like them do procure Untimely Deaths Lord purifie my heart From everie sinne but chiefly Lord secure My soul from these that I may not depart Hence too soon Lord my desire Is not to live long but I Onely pray that I may die In thy favour not thine ire Meditation 2. THere is a sinne that seldome doth escape A rich mans heir yet 't is a foul transgression For

must take heed they did not soil That comely outside with deformititie Within to have an inside foul would spoil The choicest beautie that their symmetry Just proportion of parts And their comlinesse of face Was not worth a jote if grace Did not beautifie their hearts And that deformed ones should have a care That vertuous endowments of the soul Might recompense those blemishes that were By nature plac'd to make the bodie foul That the mind and nothing else Makes us either foul or fair Out-side beauties nothing are To a mind where vertue dwells Of any age their youth is fitt'st to take The print of vice or vertue 't is a clean Unwritten table where a man may make What characters he will If e'r you mean To make straight a crooked tree You must do 't while 't is a twig When your children are grown big They will not reformed be Sometimes if need require you shall do well To use the rod if duly you correct them 'T may be a means to whip their souls from hell From many sinnes may prudent stripes protect them No such physick as the rod There 's health in a loving scourge It will childrens manners purge And will make them fit for God But whensoe'r you fasten any blows Let sinnes against the holy name of God Be first corrected for a child that knows To give his due to heav'n on him the rod Will prevail with little labour To correct him how to live Civilly and how to give What he ows unto his neighbour And yet you must be moderate in strokes You may not make a trade of chastisements A parent that corrects too much provokes His child to wrath so pious documents Will be cast away in vain Too much mercie is not fit Neither too much rigour yet Mercie 's better of the twain That high and great Jehovah whom we find Adorn'd with mercie goodnesse justice wrath Is evermore to mercie most inclin'd Of all the rest that most employment hath He that suffered near mount Sion And whatever he did hallow By his practice we should follow Was a Lamb as well 's a Lion And e'r you strike observe their dispositions Those foure complexions in mans grosser part Are but a few the finer part 's conditions Are many more Some at a look will start Others will but make a mock At the lash it self and never Will expresse the least endevour To amend with many a knock The Nat'ralists can tell you of a stone Extremely hard which bloud or milk will soften But with the strongest hammer there is none Can do it though he beat it ne'r so often The sea yields a certain weed Which if gently grip'd will flie Roughly will yield presently Rigour such stout natures need Some childrens dispositions are like nettles The gentl'er you do handle them they sting The more fair means in them no vertue settles Some are like thorns the harder you do wring The more deeply will they pierce Mark their natures and you shall By due chastisements recall Both the gentle and the fierce But it must be 'bove all your chiefest care To shine before your children by the light Of good example for examples are Of most prevailing natures What the sight Can be master of appears To be more convincing farre Then all other truths that are Onely objects of the ears A high perfection did the heathen deem it To imitate their Jove were it but in His close adulteries they did esteem it A commendable passage not a sinne In a wrong way or a right Samplers lead I know not how If King Alexander bow Not a courtier stands upright If Cyrus nose be bad or if a scarre Chance to disfigure his imperiall face If Plato 's learned shoulders be too square One 's subjects th' others scholars are so base As to draw 't into a fashion And if Aristotle stammer All his boyes will lisp and hammer Out their words in imitation If cruel Dionysius tyrannize Each man grows fierce and if Antiochus Be lustfull he is not accounted wise That will not be effeminate and thus Ptolemeus Philadelph Loving letters by example Egypt underfoot did trample Ignorance as did himself With scholars like himself Augustus fill'd The Romane Empire and Tiberius he Stor'd it with such as were exactly skill'd In fair dissimulation and could be Leaders in the hatefull train Of those monsters who by heart Had learn'd perfectly the art To dissemble lie and feigne Good Constantine's example fill'd the land With Christians like himself and Julian's did Beget a troup of Atheists such command Examples have In holy writ we reade That examples either way For God or against him for Great Jehovah's worship or Baalim's did the people sway If Israel's or Judah 's King were good The people presently destroy'd their groves Scarce in the land a graven image stood High places owls did rest in each man loves At the least in shew that Jealous God that in the desert fed them And from Egypt 's bondage led them For him onely are they zealous If Israel's or Judah 's King were bad So were the people Altars straight were rear'd To senselesse Idoles not a house but had Their graven Images and no man fear'd Unto Baal to bend his knee Men live by similitude More then law and most conclude Upon what their Princes be If Nebuchadnezzar the mightie King Be pleas'd to fall down to a golden image Thither with speed do their devotions bring People of ev'rie kingdome tongue and linage Three excepted all adore him There 's not one enough precise To refuse it doth suffice That the King did so before him Thou art a King if thou a parent art Each family 's a pettie kingdome and The parents Monarch 't were a kingly part To make thy little subjects understand How in vertue to excell By thy practice that 's a skill 'Bove all other children will No way else be taught so well Look how the primum mobile doth move Accordingly do move the other spheres As in a Jack the wheel that is above With its first mover just proportion bears In a familie 't is so Look what way the parents take That the rest their rule will make Chiefly there the children go Not any godly precept so exact is Which you shall teach your children to obey But that if you shall thwart it by your practice Thus will your junior houshold-members say At least they will whisper thus If vertue be good then why Do not you live vertuously If not why d' ye presse 't on us If by these wayes you strive to educate Whom God hath blest with fruitfull progenies Your children well their early Death or late Shall not a jote augment your miseries A childs death is not a rod To afflict a parents heart He that dies well doth depart Hence that he may live with God Lord if thou make my wife a fruitfull vine Make it withall my chiefest care to dresse The branches well the glorie shall be thine