Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	miserable_a	redeemer_n	sinner_n	8,471	5	10.5180	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A76021	Unum necessarium, or, The great duty of a Christian in two tracts : the one, Of adhering to God, written in Latin, by Albertus Magnus, the other, Of the love of God, written in high- Dutch, by John Staupitz / both faithfully translated into English for the promoting of primitive Christianity.; De adhaerendo Deo. English. 1692	Albertus, Magnus, Saint, 1193?-1280.; Johannes von Kastl, 15th cent.; Staupitz, Johann von, d. 1524.	1692 (1692)	Wing A878; ESTC R42992	62,774	183

against it and lays hold only on the Cross trusting and confiding in that Fight and Combat which Christ without Sin maintained against the Sins of Men to exterminate the Diabolical Poyson and in the same came off a Conqueror and Triumphator And thus a Christian boasteth of Christ alone and wholly despairs of himself Wherefore it is much better for a Man to commit and resign himself wholly to God neither Praying for this or the other feeling or Perception of the Divine Love but that he would order all things according to his own good Pleasure When a Man comes to this State he enjoys a constant and abiding Peace Tranquility and Comfort founded and bottom'd on the unchangeable Love God bears towards us however Dead Barren or Heavy he may find himself But they who will not rest save in the highest degrees of Love and who do not believe God is with them when they do not feel in themselves the Sweetness of his Love or at least some Comfort and Solace of his Spirit such as these have no constant abiding Comfort here on Earth and are in Eminent Danger both as to Soul and Body CHAP. XVII That all things work together for the best of the Elect that Love God above all things ALL things and all Creatures are theirs who belong to Christ and are his as St. Paul saith 1 Cor. 3. v. 21 22 23. The Apostles the World Life Death Things present and things to come and in a Word all Creatures are his who himself is Christs and Christ without a mean is Gods but we are his through or by means of Christ Wherefore also the Elect Soul is by means of Christ so highly Seated in Gods favour that all Evil yea even Sin it self is not only not hurtful to her but also conducive and helpful in the hand of God her great Physitian to her best State Verily a true Christian is a Miraculous Creature of God with whom God from Eternity in the highest Love has so intimately United himself that tho' as David saith Psalm 89.30 31 32. He forsake the Divine Law and walks not in his Judgments tho he prophane his Statutes and keep not his Commandments yet God for all this will only Chastise him Temporally and not utterly take away his loving kindness from him So that even his Sin must be helpful to his Salvation For what God hath once determined can never fail and whatsoever he hath once promised must Eternally be true whom God Loves and Favours to him Heaven and Hell Good and Evil must be helpful and advantagious And for this Reason it is that we are very Subject to be mistaken and confounded in our Reflecting on the Works of other Men and find that we are not able in the least to pass a true Judgment or Estimate what is profitable or hurtful to Men forasmuch as we find by experience that God sometimes out of great and faithful Love permits him that stands to fall Who doubts but that Peters Fall wherein he denied his Lord and Master was far more profitable and advantagious for him than to have continued and persevered in his self-confidence Our Lord and God has a greater Interest and is more concerned to manifest and display the glory of his own Grace Mercy than to maintain and keep up our Righteousness His least suffering was sufficient to reconcile his Heavenly Father to us to Justifie to Preserve or make us persevere in Righteousness and to save us but this would not have been sufficient to hold forth the unmeasurableness of his Love or the unalterableness of his Mercy Therefore Paul tells us Rom. 11.32 That God hath concluded all under Vnbelief and Sin that he might have Mercy upon all If you take away Sin who then will be able clearly to understand that Gods Mercy is above and beyond all his Works or that Christ the true Son of God is the Redeemer of the World Which no other way could ever have been manifested but by his unalterable Love and by that great instance of his Transcendent Pity and Compassion to us miserable Sinners And therefore Gregory calls Sin Salutary or Saving because by Divine Mercy it procur'd us so glorious a Saviour and Redeemer Forasmuch then as God makes use of Sin for the advancement of his Divine Glory it is no longer any Wonder that he makes the same also advantagious to the Sinner But we must not argue from hence that if it be so we may therefore freely sin without Danger by no means but on the contrary it is our Duty at all times with our utmost Diligence and Strength to avoid Sin as we would the most deadly Poyson for to cover Sin with Mercy is the Work of God alone 'T is he only that can bring good out of Evil we can fall of our selves but not rise again of our selves this rests only in the gracious Mercifulness of God which excells and surmounts all his Works CHAP. XVIII Whosoever hath not received the Love of God above all things to him all the Temporal good things that God affords him are of no Profit ST Paul faith 1 Cor 13 1 2 3. Tho' I speak with the Tongues of Men and Angels and have not Love or Charity I am become like a sounding-Brass or a loud Cymbol and tho' I have the gift of Prophesie and understand all Mysteries and Knowledge and tho I have all Faith so that I could remove Mountains and have no Charity I am nothing Moreover tho I bestow all my Goods to feed the Poor and though I give my Body to be burned if I have not Charity it profiteth me nothing Yea what 's still more where Love is not it is to a persons Hurt and Loss that ever he was born a Man and the highest Gifts or Benefits God hath bestowed upon him serve only for his greater condemnation It had been better for Judas he had neverbeen born as Christ himself testifies that he had never been an Apostle that he had never wrought any Miracles that he had never seen or heard of Jesus and had never eaten the sweet Food with him at the same Table than that after such great and inestimable Favours received he should become his Betrayer sell him and deliver him to the Jews From whence we may take notice that our dearest Lord God bestows that often in his Wrath which he denies in his Love From whence also follows that the higher the Gifts are we receive from God the more they engage us to the Duty of loving God above all things tho they cannot make us to Love God so and therefore are rather Poyson than Gifts if Love does not come along with them neither can they certainly assure us of that love wherewith God loves us to Salvation Moreover these Gifts when they ate separate from Love are the cause of a puft up Spirit Pround Mind censorious judging arrogant Actions imprudent Behaviour and converse Self conceitedness Hypocrisie and Contempt of the simple

to something that is better For as all good things are done by his Operation so by his Permission all Evil things are made good And by this means are manifested his Power Wisdom and Clemency through our Saviour Christ his Mercy and Justice the Virtue and Strength of his Grace and the weakness and failure of Nature the Beauty of the Universe which springs from the contraposition of opposites the Praise of the Good and the Wickedness and Punishment of Reprobates So likewise in a Sinner converted are manifested Contrition Confession and Repentance as well as the Meekness and long Suffering of God his Kindness and Charity his Praise and Goodness Not that it always tends to their Good that do Wickedly for most commonly indeed It doth precipitate them into great Danger and the worst of Evils viz. the loss of Grace and Glory and obnoxiousness to Guilt and Punishment and sometimes of that which is Eternal from which the Lord Jesus Christ of his Mercy preserve us Amen Two ancient Spiritual Treatises OF Dr. John of Staupitz Abbot of St. Peters at Saltsburg in Germany CONCERNING The Sweet Love of God And our Holy Christian Faith Faithfully Translated out of High-Dutch into English LONDON Printed for R. Baldwin near the Oxford-Arms-Inn in Warwick-Lane 1692. CHAP. I. God is Lovely above all Things IF any one enquire how it can be made out that God is Lovely above all Things He may answer himself by considering that God is God and consequently not only full of all Perfections but Perfection it self in whom by whom and from whom all Perfection consists flows and proceeds As likewise that he is Love it self than which nothing can be found or imagin'd more Lovely as being that very Love which makes all things Lovely it lights upon if it lights on an hateful Enemy it changeth him into a Lovely Friend if it lights on horrid Darkness it becomes immediately changed into pleasant Light if it falls upon nothing the nothing immediately is made something and something that is good too For it is impossible but that all whatsoever God Loves must needs be Lovely And every one easily conceives that without or besides this Love nothing is or can be Lovely and that nothing that is unlovely can flow from it because it is the self-subsisting essential Love whose goodness is in and of it self Our Love receives the measure or proportion of its goodness from the goodness of the beloved Object and is then only good when it Loves some thing that is good and better when it Loves something that is better and best of all when it Loves the highest good and on the other hand becomes evil when it Loves that which is not good Nay whatsoever Object it lights upon whether Good or Evil yet to Love is always sweet and lovely in it self Wherefore also it makes all things not only tolerable but easie and delightful which without it would be difficult to endure if not altogether intollerable How then is it possible that the highest best unalterable constant Faithfulness and eternal Love which is God himself should be loveless harsh or unpleasant CHAP. II. God must be Loved above all things THou shalt Love the Lord thy God saith Moses and our Lord Jesus Christ with all thy heart with all thy Soul Matth. 22.37 Deut. 6.5 with all thy Mind and with all Strength above things This is what all of us are bound to do by Vertue of his Command and the Obedience we we owe him and this because he is our God to whom out of Love we are to return and give up again all that we are and all that we have our Heart Soul Mind Strength and Power House ad Goods Lands and Possessions Wife and Children Brothers and Sisters Father and Mother and in a word nothing excepted even our selves also to be disposed of as he pleases for Death or for Life for Heaven or for Hell These are indeed very hard works which notwithstanding a superlative lovely Love is able to make Light sweet and easy Forasmuch then as God will have all this Performed by us and will not accept of it as it proceeds from a sorrowful but chearful Mind therefore it is that he worketh in us his Love above all things that we may be able to perform his will herein CHAP. III. Where God is not loved above all Things there he is not Glorified as God ALL Men are Created to this end That they might praise and honor God and magnifie and glorifie him in themselves with Hearts Words and Works Now there is no other way whereby the Heart and Will may give to God his peculiar and highest Honour than by resting in his Love and by loving him only for himself with all the Heart Soul and Mind being altogether satiated and satisfied with his Divine Perfections and wholly emptied of all other Love beside For whosoever loves God for his own advantage or any thing that is Outward or Temporal he prefers the Creature before the Creator and Robs God of his Glory and highest Honour and makes that to be his God which is not God For that which the Heart loves most the same it Honours as God whatsoever the Mouth may say to the contrary Who knows not that if a Christian should now a days say that his Wife was his God or his Children or his Goods he would be condemn'd for a Blasphemer if he persisted therein and yet who is there of us who doth not see in the daily practice and Actions of Men that Temporal Goods Pleasure and Honour are preferred before God and his Love to that degree that it is matter of just Lamentation We will by no means endure the reproach of being Idolaters tho indeed we are so really and in Truth no less than others were of Old At this very day O gracious God! Many in Christendome Worship Cows Horses Gold Silver Wood and the Goods of this World as the Heathens did thousand years ago notwithstanding they say with their Mouths Our Father which art in Heaven for true Adoration consists in Loving and not in Speaking He prays well who loves much and he who loves not neither does nor can pray tho he should repeat a thousand Psalms or Prayers He who loves God serves him but he who doth not love him neither doth nor can serve him how great Works soever he may outwardly perform Wherefore nothing can be more useful and advantageous to Men than to excite draw and perswade them to the love of God especially in this miserable state we are in where we are oft hindred from loving by want of necessaries which we cannot be without by outward profit which we can hardly deny our selves in and by our inborn infirmity which no body of himself can rid himself of to which we may likewise add the Pomp Luxury and Vanity of this World and the Cunning Malice and Tyranny of our grand Enemy the Devil CHAP. IV. To love God above all