Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	ghost_n	holy_a	sinner_n	7,089	5	9.1918	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A09850	A looking-glasse for the soule, and a definition thereof. Written by Edward Popham Gentleman	Popham, Edward, gentleman.	1619 (1619)	STC 20115; ESTC S102083	11,412	70

maine crop to the diuell and set God to gleane the remainder of the haruest or gorge the diuell with the fairest fruits turne God to feede on the filthy scraps of his leauings How great a folly were it when a man pyneth away in perillous languor to prouide gorgious Apparell and take order for the rearing of stately buildings and neuer thinke of his owne recouery but let the disease take roote in him Chrysostome saith When mans Soule hath surfeited in all kinde of sinne and is drenched in manifold diseases they pamper the body with all possible delight Where as the Soule should haue the soueraignty and the body follow the sway of her directions but seruile sences and lawlesse appetites rule her as superiour and so make her as a Vassall or seruile in her owne dominions What is there saith S. Augustine in thy meanest necessaries that thou wouldest not haue good Thou wouldst haue a good house good furniture good apparell good fare good cattell and not so little as thy Hose and Shooes but thou wouldst haue it good onely thy Life and poore Soule thy principall charge of other things the most worthiest thou art content should be nought by cankering and rusting in all kinde of euill Oh vnspeakeable blindnes to preferre our shooes before our Soules refusing to weare an vnseemely shooe and not caring to carry an vgly Soule Alas let vs not set so light by that which God prized so high let vs not rate our selues at so base a worth being bought to so peerelesse a dignity The Soule is such that all the gold in the world nor any thing lesse worth then the body bloud and death of the Sonne of God was able to buy it If not all the treasures of the world nor any thing that wit can deuise but onely Gods owne pretious body was by him deemed a fit repast to feede it If not all the creatures of the world nor Millions of worlds if so many were created but onely the illimitable Maiesty and goodnesse of God can satisfie the desire and fill of the capacity of it who but one of lame iudgement or peruerse will yea who but of incredulous minde and pittilesse spirit could set more by his olde shoes then by his Soule and suffer so noble a Paragon so long time to be channelled in ordure and myred in sinne If wee see our seruant sicke wee allow him a Phisition if our Horse be diseased we send for a Leach nor our garment torne but we seeke to amend it and yet maligne our own Soule and let it dye for want of Cure and being mingled with so many vices neuer seek meanes to restore it to the former integritie If any should call vs Epicures Atheists or Rebells wee should take it a reproach and thinke it a most disgracefull and approbrious calumniation yea but to liue Epicures to finne like Atheists or like violent Rebells to scorne Gods commandements and daily with damnable wounds barbarously to stabbe in our vnfortunate Soules we account no contumelie but rather register it in the vaunt of our chiefe praises O yec sonnes of Men how long will you carry this carelesnesse of heart following Vanity and seeke after Lyes how long will Children loue the follies of Infancy and sinners run wilfully to their owne ruine and destruction You keepe your Chickens from the Kite your Lambs from the Wolfe you will not suffer a Spider in your bosome nay scarce in your house And yet nestle in your Soule so many Vipers as vices and suffer it to be long chewed with the poysoned Iawes and Tuskes of the Diuell And is your Soule so vaine a substance as to be had in so little estimation Had Christ made shipwracke of his wisedome Or was he but in a fit of passion when hee became a wandering Pilgrime exiling as it were himselfe from the comfort of his godhead and passing three and thirty yeares in paine penury for the behoofe of our Soules Or was he surprised with a distempered spirit when in the Tragedie of his Passion so grieuously in flicted patiently endured he made his body as a cloud to disolue into showers of most innocent blood and suffered the dearest vaines of his heart to be launced to giue full issue to the prize of our Soules redemption But if as indeed Christ did not ere or deeme amisse when it pleased him to redeeme vs with so excessiue a ransome Then what shall we deeme of our most monstrous abuses that sell our Soules to the Diuell for euery vaine delight and rather venture the hazard thereof then the silly pittance of worldly pelfe Oh that a creature of so incomparable a price should be in the demaine of so vnnaturall keepers and that which in it selfe is so gratious and amiable that the Angels and Saints delight to behold it alas if the care of our owne Soule moue vs no more but that we remaine negligent of the better portion of our selues let vs at least feare to doe iniury to an other very careful iealous ouer it who will neuer indure so deepe an impeachment of his interest to passe vnreuenged Wee must remember that our Soule is not onely a part of vs but also the Temple the Paradice and Spouse of Almighty God by him in Baptisme garnished stored and endowed with most gratious ornaments And how thinke ye he can brooke to see his Temple prophaned and turned into a den of Diuels his Paradice displanted changed into a wildernesse of Serpents his Spouse defloured and become an Adulteresse to his vtter Enemie If Man offering such vsage to one of meane estate for feare of the law and popular shame forbeareth to effect the same shall not then the reuerend Maiesty of God and the vnabated iustice of his angry sword terrifie vs from offring the like to his owne Spouse shall wee thinke God either so impotent that hee cannot or so base and sottish that hee will not or so weake witted that hee knoweth not how for to wreake himselfe on such daring offenders Will he so neglect and loose his honour which of all things hee claimeth as his chiefe peculiar Will he that for the Soules sake keepeth a reckoning of our very haires which are but the excrements of our earthly weed see himselfe so much wronged in the principall passe by it without demonstration of his iust indignation Oh let vs remember that the Scripture termeth it a fearefull thing to fall into the hands and iustice of God who is able to crush the proud spirit of the obstinate and make his enemies his foote-stoole Let vs then wrastle no longer with the cries of our owne conscience and the forcible inspirations of the Holy Ghost Let vs I say embrace his mercy before the time of rigour and like penitent children returne to the obedience of his will lest hee debarre vs of his Kingdome And as the members of one body wherof Christ is the head let vs liue in humble obedience of the Church millitant heere on earth that wee may atchieue to the Church triumphant in Heauen knowing that wee haue beene long aliants in the Tabernacles of sinners and

when stripped out of our mortall weede and turned out of the seruice house-roome of this world we were forced to enter into vncouth and strange pathes and with vnknowne strange and ougly company be convented before a most seuere Iudge carrying in our consciences our iudgement written and a perfect register of our misdeeds when wee should see him prepared to passe sentence vpon vs against whom wee haue grieuously transgressed and the same to be our Vmper whom by many offences we haue vrged to be our aduersary when not onely the Diuells but Angels should plead against vs and our selues maugre our wills should be our sharpest appeachers What should we doe in these dreadful exigents when we saw that gastly Dungeon and huge gulfe of Hell breaking out with most dreadfull flames when wee should see the weeping howling and gnashing of teeth the rage of hellish Monsters the horrour of the place the rigour of the paine the terrour of the company and eternity of the punishment wee would not thinke it time to delay such weighty matters and idly to play away the time allotted to preuent those intollerable punishments And would we then thinke it secure to nurse in our bosomes as many Serpents as sinnes or to foster in our Soules so many malitious accusers as mortall faults would we not thinke one life too little to doe pennance for so many Sinnes Why then doe we not deuote thesmall remnant of our time and surplussage of our daies to make Attonement with God by the blood of Iesus Christ What haue wee gotten by being so long a customer to the world but false ware sutable to the shoppe of such a Marchant whose trafficke is toyle wealth is trash and whose gaine is misery What interest haue we got that may equal our detrements in grace and vertue Or what could wee finde in a Vale of teares proportionable to the fauour of God with the losse whereof we were contented to buy it Let vs not still be inueagled with the passions of youth which make a partial estimate of things setting no difference betweene currant and counterfeit But let such passions either now be worne out of force by tract of time or fall into reproofe by the triall of folly If this carnal security be but an vngrounded presumption of the mercy of God and the flattring hope of his assistance at the last plunge but the ordinary Lure of the Diuell to reclaime Sinners from the pursuite of vertue as it is with many it were too palpable a collusion to mislead sound sensible people howsoeuer it preuaile with sicke and infected Iudgements For who would relye eternal affaires vpon the gliding slipperinesse and running streame of our vncertain life Or who but of distempered wits would offer fraud to the decipherer of al thoughts With whom dissemble wee may to our costs but to deceiue him it is vnpossiible Shal wee esteeme it cunning to rob the time from him bestow it on his enemies who keepeth a talle of the lest minutes of our life and will examine in the end how each moment hath beene imployed It is a preposterous pollicy in any wise conceit to fight against God till our weapons be blunted our forces consumed our limbs impotent and our best time spent and when we fall for faintnes and haue fought our selues almost dead to presume of his mercie The wounds of his sacred Bodie so often rubbed and renued by our sinnes and euery parcell of our owne so sundry wayes abused being so many whetstones to edge and exasperate his reuenge against vs why should we then presume of mercy It were a strange peece of Art and a very exorbitant course while the Ship is sound the Pylot well the Sailers strong and the Gale forcible to lye idly at Roade burning so seasonable weather and when the Ship leaketh the Pylot is sick the Marriners faint the storme boysterous and the Sea a turmoile of outragious surges to hoise vp sailes and set out for a farre voyage into a strange Countrey Such is the skill of these euening Repenters who though in the soundnesse of health and perfect vse of reason they cannot endeauour to cut the Cables and weigh the Anchors that withhold them from God Neuertheles they feed themselues with a strong perswasion that when their senses are astonied their wits distracted their vnderstanding dusked and both body and mind racked tormented with the throbs and gripes of a mortall sicknesse Then forsooth they will thinke of the weightiest matters and become sodaine Saints when they are scarce able to behaue themselues like reasonable creatures If neither the Cannon Ciuill nor Common Law alloweth that a man perisht in iudgement shall make any Testament or bequest of his temporall substance being then thoughtto belesse then a man How can he that is turmoiled with inward garboiles of an vnsetled Conscience distrained with the wringing fits of his dying flesh maimed in all his abilities and circled in with so strange incumbrances bethought of due discretion to dispose of his chiefest treasure which is his Soule and to dispatch the whole mannaging of eternity and the treasures of heauen in so short a space of time No no they that loiter in seed time and beginne onely to sowe when others reape they that will ryot out their health and cast their accounts when they can scarce speake they that doe slumber out the day and enter their iourney when the light doth faile them let them thanke their owne folly if they dye in debt and eternall beggary and fall headlong into the lapse of euerlasting perdition Let such hearken vnto S. Cyprians lesson who saith Let the grieuousnes of our sinne be the measure of our sorrow let a deepe wound haue a diligent cure let no mans contrition be lesse then his crime Thinke wee that our Lord can so soone be appeased whom with perditious words we haue offended No wee must fall prostrate on the ground humbling our seiues in Sackclothe and Ashes and hauing forced our stomackes with the surfet of the Diuell wee must now desire to fast from all earthly foode applying our selues to good works instead of offences and in singlenesse of heart effect our Christian duties to auoide the death of our Soules that Christ may receiue that which the persecuter would haue spoyled Euery short sigh will not be a sufficient satisfaction nor euery knocke a warrant to get in many cry Lord Lord and are not accepted the foolish Virgins knocked and were not admitted Iudas had some sorrow and yet died desperate forslowe not the time saith the Holy Ghost to be conuerted to God linger not off from day to day for sodainely will his wrath come and in his reuenge hee will destroy thee Let vs not soiourne long in sinnefull security nor passe ouer Repentance till feare inforce vs to it let vs frame our premises as wee would finde our conclusion and indeauor to liue as wee desire to dye Shall we offer the