Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	great_a	sin_n	transgression_n	3,082	5	10.1157	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44186	The father's new-years-gift to his son containing divers useful and necessary directions how to order himself both in respect to this life and that which is to come / written by the Right Honourable Sir Matthew Hale ; whereunto is added, divine poems upon Christmas-day.	Hale, Matthew, Sir, 1609-1676.	1685 (1685)	Wing H246; ESTC R40538	14,741	70

there before the Minister begin and stay till he hath done and all the while you are there carry your self Gravely and Reverently 10. After Evening Sermon go to your Closet and having read a chapter in the Bible examin what you have writ or recollect what you remember and afterwards if the Sermon be repeated either in your Fathers or in the Ministers House go to the repition thereof 11. In all your Speeches and Actions on that day let there be no lightness or vanity use no Running Leaping or Playing or Wrestling use no Jesting or telling Tales or foolish Stories nor talk about News or Worldly Business but let both your Actions and your Words be such as the Day is Serious and Sacred and tending either to instrust others or inform your selves in the great business of your Knowledge of God and of his Will and of your own Duty 12. After Supper and Prayers ended in your Fathers Family repare to your Closet and there upon your Bended Knees implore Pardon of God for what you have amiss and beg his Blessing upon what you have heard and his acceptance of all your Performances for the merits and satisfaction of Christ And lastly perform all this Chearfully and Heartily Uprightly and Honestly and account it not a burden to you for assure your self that you shall find a Blessing from God in so doing and remember it is your Father that tells you so who loves you and will not deceive you and which is more then that remember that the Eternal God hath Promised Isa 58. 13 14. If thou turn away thy Foot from the Sabbath from doing thy Pleasure on my Holy Daq and call the Sabbath a Delight the Holy of the Lord Honourable and shalt Honour him not doing thy own ways nor finding thine own Pleasure nor speaking thine own Words then shalt thou delight thy self in the Lord and I will cause thee to ride upon the High places of the Earth and feed thee with the Heritage of Jacob thy Father for the Mouth of the Lord hath spoken it ALmighty God when he had rais'd the Frame Of Heaven and Earth and furnished the same With Works of equal wonder framed then A piece of greater Excellence call'd Man Gave him a comprehensive Soul that soar'd Above the Creatures and beheld their Lord Inscrib'd him with his Image and did fill The Compass of his Intellect and Will With Truth and Good gave him the Custody Of his own Bliss and Immortality And justly now his Sovereign might Demand Subjection and Obedience at his Hand Were only Being given 't were but Right His Debt of Duty should be Infinite But here was more a Super-added dress Of Life Perfection and of Happiness Yet this Great King for an Experiment Of Mans deserv'd Allegiance is content To use an Easie Precept such as stood Both with his Creatures Duty and his Good Forbids one Fruit on Pain of Death and give Freely the rest which he might Eat and Live But Man Rebels and for one tast doth choose His Life his God his Innocence to lose And now Death stricken like a wounded Dear Strictly pursued by Guilt by Shame and Fear He seeks to lose himself from God he flies And takes a Wilderness of Miseries A Land of New Transgressions where his course Is closer bound his Nature growing worse And whil'st in this condition Mankind lay A Man would think his injured God should say There lies accursed Man and let him lye Intangled in that Webb of Misery Which his own Sin hath spun I must be True And Just Unthankful Man thou hast thy due But 't was not so though Man the Mastery With his Creators Power and Will dares try And being overmatcht will still disdain To seek a Pardon from his Sovereign The Great and Glorious God the Mighty King Of Heaven and Earth despis'd by such a thing As Man a Worm of his own making breaks The rules of Greatness and his Creator seeks His Froward Creature not in such a way As once he did in the Cool of the Day Wherein Man Sinn'd and hid such Majesty Had been too great for Mans Necessity But the Eternal Son of God the Word By which all things were made the Mighty Lord Assumes our Flesh and under that he laies And hides his Greatness and those Glorious Rayes Of Majesty which had been over bright And too resplendant for poor Mortals sight And under this Disguise the King of Kings The Message of his Fathers Mercy brings Solicites Mans Return pay's the Price Of his Transgression by the Sacrifice Of his own Soul and undertakes to Cure Their Sin their Peace and Pardon to Procure To conquer Death for him and more then this To settle him in Everlasting Bliss And now O Man could this access of Love Thy Thankfulness to such a height improve That it could fire thy Soul into a Flame Of Love To him alone that bought the same At such a rate yet still it were too small To recompence thy Saviours Love withal Once did he give thee Being from the Dust And for that only Being 't were but Just To pay thy utmost self But when once more Thy Being and thy Bliss he did restore By such a means as this if doth Bereave Thy Soul of hopes of Recompence and leaves Thy Soul insolvent twice to him this day Thou ow'st thy self yet but one self canst pay Another REader the Title of this Solemn Day And what it doth import doth bid thee stay And read and Wonder 't is that Mystery That Angels gaze upon Divinity Assuming Humane Flesh th' Eternal Son Of the Eternal God is Man become But why this strange assumption or what end Equivolent could make him to descend So far beneath himself and equalize The Miracle of such an Enterprise Yet stay and wonder Undeserved Love To Man to Sinful Man did only move This stood from Heaven to Earth and all to win And rescue Lost and Fallen Man from Sin And Guilt and Death and Hell and reinstall Him in that Happiness lost by his fall And greater everlastingly to dwell In Blessedness so that thou canst not tell Which of the two the greater Wonder prove Thy Saviour's Incarnation or his Love But both conclude thou dost not give but pay A Debt in the observation of this day Another WHen that great Lamp of Heaven the glorious Sun Had touched his Southern period and begun To leave the Winter Tropick and to climb The Zodiacks ascending Signs that Time The brighter Sun of Righteousness did choose His beams of Light and Glory to disclose To our dark lower World and by those Rayes To chace our Darkness and to clear our Days And lest the Glorious and Resplendant Light Of his Eternal Beam might be too bright For Mortals Eyes to gaye upon he shrouds And cloaths his fiery Pillar with the Clouds Of Humane Flesh that in that dress he may Converse with Men acquaint them with the way To Life and Glory shew his Fathers Mind Concerning them how bountiful and kind His Thoughts were to them what they might expect From him in the observation of neglect Of what he did require and then he Seal'd With his Dear Blood the Truth he had Reveal'd FINIS

into Covenant with God and to keep it by husbanding thy time for the promoting his Honour observing his Will and keeping his Laws that so thou may'st keep thy own Conscience always clean and thy Evidences for Heaven clear whereby the Malignity of Death will be cured the bitterness of it healed and the fear of it wholly removed And if thou canst but entertain it with such an appeal to Almighty God as once the good King Hezekiah made viz. Remember now O Lord I beseech thee how I have walked before thee with a perfect heart c. it will make the thoughts and the approach of Death no terrible business to thee at all 4. But that which will above all other things render Death easie to thee if thou makest it thy business to enter into a frequent consideration thereof is this That by the help of this consideration and the due improvement of it Death will become nothing to thee but only a Gate to give thee admittance into a better Life it will not be to thee so much the dissolution of thy present Life as it will be the changing of it for a far more glorious happy and immortal Life so that though thy Body die yet thou wilt not for thy Soul which is the most noble part of thee only makes transition from her life in the Body to her life in Heaven not so much as one moment of time intervening between her quitting the one and her entering into the enjoyment of the other And this is the great Priviledge which the Son of God hath obtained for us that by his Death he sanctified it to us and by his Life hath conquered it not only in himself but for us too It is true this passage through death is somewhat streight and painful to the Body which is left by the way but the Soul passes through without the least harm or any expence of time and in the very next moment acquires her estate of happiness and glory In the next place when you have received great Mercies from the hand of God be sure that you return Praise and Thanksgiving to him especially if it be a recovery from some sore and desperate Disease wherein Almighty God brings you down to the very Gates and shews you the Terrors of Death and yet after he hath shown you the Spectacle of your own Mortality wonderfully rescues and delivers you from that danger and gives you a new life as it were from the dead Resolve therefore to live that Life to his Glory that you have received from his Goodness and in order to your doing so I would have you always remember 1. That Affliction comes not forth of the Dust nor doth Trouble spring out of the Ground but from the Wise and Over-ruling Providence of God whose Prerogative alone it is to bring down to the Grave and raise up again 2. That Almighty God being of most Infinite Wisdom Justice and Mercy he hath Wife and Excellent Ends in all the Dispensations of his Providence and that therefore he never sends an affliction but it brings a Message with it his Rod has a Voice a Voice commanding us to search and try our Ways repent of our Sins humble our selves under his mighty Hand and turn to him that strikes us which Voice be sure that you hear and obey 3. How uncertain and frail a creature man is even in his seeming strongest age and constitution of health For even then a Pestilential Air some ill Humour in the Blood the Obstruction it may be of a small Vein or Artery a little Meat ill digested and a Thousand other Accidents may upon a sudden without giving him the least warning plunge a man into a desperate and mortal Sickness and bring him to the Grave 4. That your condition can never be so low but that God hath power to deliver you and you ought to trust in him nor is your condition ever so safe and secure but you are within the reach of his Power also to bring you down and therefore think not that now your turn is served you shall have no more need of him and that therefore you my live as you list 5. That Sickness as well as Death undeceive men and shews where their true wisdom lies When a Young Man especially is in the career of his Vanity and Pleasure he thinks Religion the fear of God and the practice of Piety to be but pitiful foolish low mean and inconsiderable Matters and that those who practice them are a sort of silly brain-sick melancholy and unintelligent Persons that want Wit or Breeding and understand not themselves or the World But on the other side they think themselves to be the only Men that live bravely and splendidly in regard they can Drink and Roar Whore and Swear and Blaspheme without the least fear But so soon as ever a fit of Sickness seizes him death looks him in the Face and tells him he must die that his Glass is almost out and hath only a few Sands left to run then his judgment of things is altered and he cries out of his former Follies and Intemperance as Madness Vexation and Torment and tells you That he now sees plainly that to be truly religious is mans greatest happiness to which he adds many Solemn Promises of Amendment and Reformation if God will be pleased to spare him Be sure therefore that you always keep this in your mind and make conscience of performing your sick-bed Protestattons 6. How pitiful and inconsiderable a thing the Body of Man is and how soon the strength of it is turned to saintness and weakness its beauty to ugliness and deformity and its whole consistence to putrifaction and rottenness and then remember how foolish a thing it is to be proud of such a Carkass and spend all or the greatest part of thy time in trimming and adorning of it or in pampering and pleasing thy Appetite and yet this is the chief business of most young Men in this Age but let it not be thine 7. To avoid intemperance and sinful Lust for although Sickness Diseases and Death are by the Laws and Constitutions of our Nature incident to all Mankind yet Intemperance Whoring Vncleanness and Disorder bring more Diseases and destroy more strong and healthy young Men than the Plague or any other natural or accidental Distempers for they weaken the Brain corrupt the Blood decay and distemper the Spirits disorder and putrifie the Humours and fills every part of the Body with putrifaction And those Diseases that are not occasioned but these Vices yet they are rendred far more sharp lasting malignant and incurable by that stock of corrupted Matter which those Vices lodge in the Body to feed those Diseases and by rendring Nature impotent and not able to resist them 8. That you ought every Morning and Evening upon your Knees with all reverence to acknowledge the goodness of God in his Mercy to you and return him hearty Thanks for it