Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	heaven_n	holy_a	redeemer_n	2,054	5	10.3077	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A79784	Fiat lux or, a general conduct to a right understanding in the great combustions and broils about religion here in England. Betwixt Papist and Protestant, Presbyterian & independent to the end that moderation and quietnes may at length hapily ensue after so various tumults in the kingdom. / By Mr. JVC. a friend to men of all religions.	J. V. C. (John Vincent Canes), d. 1672.	1661 (1661)	Wing C429; Thomason E2266_1; ESTC R210152	178,951	376

head and half pourtraict Christians used upon their altars even as they do at this day amongst other things of his great simplicity and ignorance Some will haply say if this were all that is done to saints to keep the pictur and read the lives of such renowned personages who consecrated themselvs to Gods glory and service for the incitement of our affections unto the like virtuous atchievements I should not much blame it But papists over and above this do pray to saints too and that is no wayes excusable Give me leav to reply to this That which you now say you cannot much blame has been made so odious that never a Catholick in England durst for this hundred years so much as let a Crucifix hang in his chamber lest both he and it should be torn asunder by us And what you judg in excusable their praying to saints which I have so often heard and read in our protestant Churches and books objected so eagerly and constantly against them when I found it other-wayes than we in England conceiv it to be I was glad both for their sakes and ours too I did therfor curiously examin and turn over the whole Roman Breviary and Missal which is the devotion of the Catholick Church and contains almost a fourth part of it a commemoration of several Saints according to the daies of the year wherin they flitted hence into a better life And I did not meet with so much as any one prayer addressed to any saint or angel of heaven no not upon those dayes wherin commemoration of them is made but directed all of them from the very first prayer to the last unto God the father by Jesus Christ in the unity of the holy ghost either exprest or implied And their practis herin is conform to antient tradition confirmed by their own law in a councel at Carthage under Pope Siricius an 397. wherin it was declared and ordained that all publick prayers of the Church should be made directly unto God the Father And Catholicks even upon a saints day making their prayer to God beg only of him amongst other their requests that the good works of such a saint in whom he glorified himself may speak better things for them than they can themselvs deserv For example upon St. Bennets day Intercessio nos quaesumus Domine Benedicti Abbatis commendet ut quod nostris meritis non valemus ejus patrocinio assequamur Upon the feast of St. Francis O God who by the merits of St. Francis doest inlarge thy Church with a new off-spring grant unto us by the imitation of him to despise earthly things and enjoy celestial And so run all the other praiers of the Church wherin any invocation of saints is made directed ever unto almighty God by his son Jesus Christ And this is no more than what was ever don in the Hebrew Church both befor and after Christianity was in the world as the works of ancient Rabbies can witnes and no less holy writ it self when it makes almighty God sooner as it were condescending to the peoples petition by the mediation of the merits of glorious patriarchs whom he singularly favoured and his wrath and displeasur against the Jews then at a height when he refuses to hear those saints in their behalf If Moyses and Samuel saith the sacred text Jer. 15. should stand before me yet is not my soul unto this people that is to say he would not in the behalf of such desperate wicked people accept of the praiers even of those saints that were most dear unto him and this was spoken by the prophet long after Moses and Samuel was dead Long before this the Patriarch Jacob does most plainly insinuate this custom of saints invocation as ordinary and familiar among the Hebrews when being to bless his two nephews Ephraim and Manasseh he speaks thus The angel who brought me out of all my evils bless these children and upon them be invocated my name and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac Gen. 48. And ther is a formal prayer to that purpose Exod. 32. which expresses as much invocation of saints as any or all the praiers of the Christian Church do ever use Remember saith Moses remember O God Abraham Isaac and Israel thy servants unto whom thou hast sworn by thy self saying I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven Which prayer was after imitated by Daniel c. 3. Withdraw not O Lord thy mercy from us for Abraham thy beloved Isaac thy servant and Israel thy holy one And if Daniel and Moses praied to saints well may we do it and if that of theirs was not a praying to saints but only to almighty God by the concurrence of their merits then is the Catholick Church to be not excused only but commended for she does the like in those prayers of hers she makes any mention either of saint or angel and no otherwise In their letanies indeed and short ejaculations Catholicks seem to invocate saints directly when in one part of them they say Holy Mary pray for us St. Peter pray for us c. But this though in words and sound it seems direct yet in sense and purpose it is indirect so that sancta Maria ora pro nobis omnes sancti Dei intercedite pro nobis is in sense but this Sancta Maria omnes sancti intercedant pro nobis ad Dominum ut nos mereamur c. And if we ponder it right it must needs be so for when I pray any one to pray for me considering the object and matter of my desire which both of us must joyn in I do not properly speaking pray to him but by him and only desire in my good affection that the prayers he makes for all may be available unto me And this is the more apparent becaus the letanies are directed unto God beginning continuing and ending with him Lord have mercy Christ have mercy Lord have mercy Father of heaven God Have mercy on us O Son redeemer of the world God Have mercy on us c. Holy Mary pray for us St. Michael pray for us c. Be propitious spare us O Lord. From all evil Deliver us O Lord c. By the mystery of thy incarnation Deliver us O Lord. By thy nativity Deliver us O Lord c. We sinners Beseech thee to hear us That thou grant us peace We beseech thee to hear us c. Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world spare us O Lord c. Lord have mercy Christ have mercy Lord have mercy Our Father c. Thus the letanies run and he that directs continues and ends his letany or praier to God must needs pray to him and objectively to none but him So that the interposition of any intercessour must needs be indirect in sense however it be exprest in words and can signifie no more but this that God would gratiously accept of the prayers they make in our behalf For

three things I could not tell what to think of First that both in the Churches of the city and university and countrey whatever the text might be still pope and popery was brought in Secondly that never any good thing was said of it but all evil Thirdly that contradictory opinions and practises were generally put upon that way and yet our ministers who could not but see it did not so much as regard it at all but equally flourished all of them in whatever they said against it without the dislike or check of any or so much as the exception of him who had spoke of it aforetime even contrary things in the same place If Popery thought I be so bad let it passe what a Gods name should we talk so much of a thing that is past and gone and buried with my grandfather and no man sees or is like to be troubled with it any more How coms this nois so frequent in all places about a poor busines as if it were don by design of defamation Are our ministers afraid we should turn Papists who know not but by their report what Papist means nor can no more understand what they be than we can tell what complexion Julius Caesar was of We know this way is every where spoken against and much evil is said of it but that has been don afore now to the best things and a general decrying defamation seems rather a conspiracy of interest than any deserved reproach And to what purpos since it is dead and gon should we speak of it at all much less evil and so much evil too We ought to speak well of the dead at least not ill for dead men do not bite and ghosts afright none but babes and to speak ill of another as it argues a fear we have they may be able to hurt us and a desire by our defamation to disable them from so doing so doth it fill our hearts with rancour which if the party be dead is wholy useles But it is a strang thing that popery or any religion upon earth should be such a fardell of trumpery sin and villany without any good at all in it Such a thing one would think were impossible to be found And it is yet more strang that noble persons should voluntarily lose their estates honours dignities in court and esteem among their neighbours who were it not for that obstacle would dearly love them and somtimes their lives too for a thing hath no goodnes at all in it The old Pagan religion contained in it many good things but this Popery is a hous of Judas all stench and rottennes for our ministers and the word of God must be beleeved And yet again let Popery be what it will if it signifie any one religion it is the strangest thing in the world it should be evil in both extreams that be contradictory and exclude one another Ministers speak ill of it that may easily pass and the highest ill I cannot gainsay it yea and nothing but ill they may have a reason for it But contradictory ills and so many of them and so tangible apparent ones 't is a wonder of wonders that one and the same faith and profession should be able to exhibite And yet I have never heard let a minister say what he will against popery that the byshop ever calls him to an account for it as it is don in other things even of less importance insomuch that Prynnes book against stage-plaies is now questioned Against Popery and only Popery all goes currant No man if he speak but ill enough can speak amiss of it and only here two evil extreams are not opposite One preacher saies that the Papists worship stocks and stones to which they are superstitiously addicted night and day another that all their religion is to worship a piece of bread One that their consciences are so daily tortured and afrighted with the fire of purgatory and doomsday and pennances for their sins that they never have quiet life another that they carry their top and top gallant so high that they will go to heaven without Christ and get eternall glory of themselves without any god-a mercy to him One that murders adulteries lies blasphemies and all sin make up the bulk of popery another that papists are so wholly given to good works that they place in them excessive confidence One that the Pope himself and all his papists fall down to pictures and commit idolatry with them another that the Pope is so far from falling down to any thing that he exalts himself above all that is called God and is very Antichrist himself He that hates and would destroy my person will not surely worship my picture One that they wallow without any conscience or fear of God in their excesses another that they nothing but torture their carcasses with disciplines and fastings as if men could not go to heaven in a whole skin One that in respect of chastity they villifie matrimony which the apostle calls honourable another that by a superesteem of their own they make matrimony a sacrament thereby equalling it with baptisme One that the ignorance of papist priests is so gross and palpable that generally they can hardly read latine another that the little ones which profess the gospel had by their simplicity prevailed over all the vast learning of the subtil popish clergy One that popery began in the twelfth age of the Church another in the ninth another in the sixt another in the fourth another in the very primitive times of the aposstles I cannot now call to minde the numberles contradictories I observed put upon the papists Nor could I ever determine of my grand Sires religion by such reports Wherefor after a year or two I put my self to travel all alone and solitary to make my long intended discovery Humansy speaking it was rashly done of me and I several times thought so when I met afterwards with troubles I did not then foresee that were even ready to sink me For in all my sufferings which were many and frequent I could not but think of my many dear friends whose weeping tears in that my humour I had neglected I beleev to this honour that somthing went before me to provide my entertainment and provoke people againstime for coming to spy the land for as loon as I set my foot on the other shore and ever since afflictions have still accompanied me Nor yet was I ever so much offended with any mans abuse as therefor to think ill of the religion which I knew him to transgress It is not to be expected that all the men of a kingdom should equally imbibe the religion of the place It may well be pardoned if only one in four follow pure sensual nature as they received it from the womb even amongst the best professions Religion is superadded to nature as salt and is several wayes imbibed by men Som drink it in as water and with a little