Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	pardon_v	sin_n	transgression_n	2,321	5	9.8948	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65465	The pious communicant rightly prepar'd, or, A discourse concerning the Blessed Sacrament wherein the nature of it is described, our obligation to frequent communion enforced, and directions given for due preparation for it, behaviour at, and after it, and profiting by it : with prayers and hymns, suited to the several parts of that holy office : to which is added, a short discourse of baptism / by Samuel Wesley ...	Wesley, Samuel, 1662-1735.	1700 (1700)	Wing W1376; ESTC R38528	120,677	302

Church accordingly tells us That to the End we should always remember the exceeding great Love of our Master and only Saviour Jesus Christ in dying for us he has instituted and ordained Holy Mysteries as Pledges of it And the actual and lively Consideration hereof of Christ's wonderful Love towards us miserable Sinners so ungrateful so unworthy so often guilty of broken Faith and broken Vows who have loved the World and our own Lusts more than him who have grieved him who have wounded him who have crucified him by our Sins and who continue to do so for there is no Man that lives and sins not and all this to him who still loves us and still offers us Peace and Pardon and Grace and Heaven and even his own blessed Body and Blood in this heavenly Feast Shall not all this prevail with us to give him our worthless Love again for the rest of our Lives To give it him without exception and without reserve It must it will it cannot fail of having this happy effect if we carefully regard every part of this sacred Action and intently consider our Saviour's Death as represented therein especially while the Minister is consecrating the Elements the whole Prayer of Consecration being made up of a lively and thankful Recognition of our Saviour's sufferings and of his instituting the Sacrament in memory of them We are therefore in order to the exercising and encreasing of our Love to Christ diligently at that time to regard the Minister with our Eye and Christ with our Hearts When we see the Bread broken and the Wine poured out then to consider with all the Agonies of our Souls and with Hearts pierced and melted with the Love of Jesus what Agonies he himself endured for us both in his Body and Mind Then to look on him whom we have pierced and mourn for him and delight in him and hate those Sins which were the cause of this and which can only divide us from his Love and especially when we actually receive Then are our Souls to be intimately united to his Divine Person Then are we to embrace him as the chiefest of Ten Thousands and fairer than all the Children of Men to adore his infinite Perfections to be lost in the contemplation and admiration of them and to be wholly ravished with his Love § XIII Which will mightily assist us in the exercise of the other branch of Charity Love to our Neighbour for this cannot but be easie to us when our Minds are raised to this happy Temper The Love of Christ will subdue the Enmity of our Natures towards each other that Pride which is the cause of almost all Quarrels that bitterness of Spirit and Rancor and Malice and Revenge and Anger Those obscene Birds will all fly away before the Beams of the blessed Sun of Righteousness as did the Devils of old from their Oracles All our Hatred will be against our Sins all our Indignation our Resentments our Revenge for neither were those in vain implanted in our Minds will be turned quite another way O how happy would the World be did but the Body of Christians frequently and worthily receive the Communion I am confident nothing could sooner heal the wide Wounds of Christendom as I believe the neglect of it has been the great Original of them as well as of all our own Factions and Divisions All good Men must love one another if they often met at this Holy Table They could not they dared not there retain or nourish any pique against each other They would Love much both Christ and his Members because they so often considered that much was forgiven them And tho' this may seem a Digression yet the Truth and Consequences thereof appear so plain and so considerable that I knew not how to omit it But to return Charity is here to be actually exercised towards all Christ's Members especially towards those with whom we communicate We are to knit our Hearts most closely and intimately to them with the Bands of Holy Love Poor and Rich without exception only loving those most that love God most We are to pray for them all and not only in the Offertory but on other occasions to do them all the Good we can by faithful Counsel by tender and prudent Reproof and by all lawful and possible means promoting the welfare of their Souls and Bodies And lastly by devout Prayer to God for them as we are directed That all who are partakers of this Holy Communion may be filled with his Grace and heavenly Benediction But tho' our Charity is to begin there we are not to confine the Exercise thereof to those only who then actually communicate with us for we are also directed by the excellent Spirit of our Church shewing it self in those Holy Confessors and Martyrs who composed her Liturgy humbly to beseech God to grant by the Merits and Death of his Son Jesus Christ and thro' Faith in his Blood that not only we but also his whole Church may obtain Remission of our Sins and all other Benefits of his Passion Which may he grant who has so dearly purchased it for us to whom with the Father and Holy Ghost be all Glory Honour and Dominion now and to Eternal Ages Amen! If there be any time between the Consecration and actual Receiving the Communicant may make use of these following Devotions An Act of Penitence O Infinite offended Goodness who art a consuming Fire to the obstinate Sinner but infinite to pardon those who confess and forsake their Sins I desire earnestly to repent of all my Misdeeds I will acknowledge my Transgressions before thee and mine Iniquities will I not hide I have sinned I have sinned O Father against Heaven and before thee Against thy Mercies and thy Judgments the Thunder of thy Law and the still small Voice of thy Gospel Against the clearest Manifestations of thy wonderful Love in sending thy Son to shed his Blood as an attonement for the Sins of the whole World which precious Blood of his I have too often trampled under Foot and crucified the Son of God afresh by my repeated Iniquities Not all his bitter Agonies have been so far able to pierce my hard Heart as to make me entirely forsake my Sins which were the Cause of them Tho' he sweat Drops of Blood in the Garden tho' his Soul was exceedingly sorrowful even unto Death tho' he endured the Contradiction of Sinners tho' he was mocked and buffeted and spit on and crowned with Thorns and scourged and fainted under his Cross and was nailed unto it and raised in the Air a spectacle to Men and Angels tho' he there groaned under the weight of our Guilt and of our Sins imputed unto him tho' he thirsted tho' he fainted tho' he cried out as if thou thy self couldst have forsaken him tho' he bowed his Head and gave up the Ghost O! shall all this nothing move me shall my Heart be as hard as the nether Milstone

To acknowledge them and to bewail our manifold Sins and Wickedness since we can by no means hide them from the Eye of Heaven and they are the truest and justest Causes of Lamentation and Sorrow Nor are we to rest in generals but here again to call to mind the greatest and most hainous Sins whereof on our former Examination we have found our selves guilty whether in Thought Word or outward Action These we are to acknowledge we have most grievously committed which may imply the hainous aggravation of them for which we must own that we have provoked most justly God's Wrath and Indignation against us that we have deserved his Anger and all the dreadful Consequences thereof in the Punishments both of this and another World § V. And having thus confest and acknowledged our Sins their number continuance extent and aggravation we are directed to proceed to the formal Act of Repentance for them to profess that we do earnestly repent and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings and woe to him who tho' he joyns in this solemn protestation with all good Christians yet does not truly and earnestly repent of his Sins nor is heartily sorry for them which how can he be thought to be when he falls into them again on the next Temptation whereas if we do truly repent of them the Remembrance of them will be indeed grievous unto us and their Burthen intolerable We shall know how evil and bitter a thing it is to depart from the Living God and be weary and heavy laden and fly to Christ to give us rest Which Repentance and abhorrence of our Sins ought to be raised to the greatest heighth at the time of Consecration when we see Christ's Sacramental Body broken and his Blood poured out for us and just at the time of receiving when we ought with an Holy Indignation to bring our Sins and nail them to the Cross of Christ to kill those Murderers as Benaiah did Ioab at the Horns of the Altar to sacrifice them there and hew them in pieces before the Lord in short to be deeply afflicted for them and to make firm Resolves to forsake them § VI. In order to which we must in the third place ask mercy for Christ's sake and pardon for all our Sins as the Church teaches us in those moving and tender Expressions Have mercy upon us Have mercy upon us most merciful Father For thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ's sake forgive us all that is past And this we have need to pray for since without Forgiveness the past Guilt remains as well as the Punishment due for our Sins tho' we should no more commit them But both are remitted in this Sacrament to the worthy Receiver not by Virtue of our own Merits or any Preparation Examination or Repentance or even of the very Act of outward receiving but merely for Christ's sake on account of his Merits and Intercession and by the Virtue which flows from his wounded Side his spiritual Flesh and Blood inwardly received by the Faithful in this Ordinance § VII Now we are taught to conclude this Confession with praying that God would grant us that we may ever hereafter serve and please him in newness of Life without which all that 's past is in vain nor is there any that 's so perfectly renewed that he has not still need to purge out something of the old Leaven And tho' God will give such Grace to those who worthily partake of this Sacrament yet has he appointed Prayer as the means to obtain it and of our perseverance in well-doing and daily encreasing in Goodness which Prayer does virtually contain a Promise to use our own utmost endeavors to amend our Lives that Resolution of better Obedience which seems to be the very Act wherein we renew our Covenant with God and engage to fulfil our part of it which if we do faithfully perform he will never be wanting to his § VIII Thus much for Repentance The second Grace to be exercised at the Sacrament is Faith which we are to reduce into Act when the Minister declares in the Absolution That Almighty God has promised forgivenness of Sins to all them that with hearty Repentance and true Faith turn unto him further praying ' That God would have mercy upon us pardon and deliver us from all our Sins confirm and strengthen us in all Goodness and bring us to Everlasting Life Which Absolution we are humbly to receive upon our Knees as an authoritative Declaration from one commissioned by Christ himself to bind and loose and to remit and retain Sins to which we are to add a hearty and faithful Amen as being fully assured that God will perform what he has promised by his Son if we neglect not our parts in the Covenant Faith is here more eminently necessary as well with respect to all the Promises of the Gospel as to the particular Benefits of this Sacrament and the application of them to our selves For our Lord has said He that eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood hath eternal Life and I will raise him up at the last Day The faithful Receiver eats and drinks Salvation this Sacrament shall eminently conduce unto it He is thereby united to Christ one with Christ and Christ with him and by virtue of that indissoluble union sealed in this Holy Ordinance he receives a Principle of Immortality whereby he shall be not only raised from the Death of sin in this World but at length raised from the Grave and live in endless Happiness which also seems to be the meaning of the Prayer in the very delivery of the Elements The Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve the Body and Soul to Everlasting Life to which most devout Christians add their private Amen as being fully perswaded that it shall have that happy efficacy to every worthy Receiver And the same Act of Faith they are to exert when they hear the Minister read those comfortable Words which our Saviour saith by himself and his Apostles to all that truly turn unto him Come unto me all that travel and are heavy laden and I will refresh you c. To which the devout Soul will be ready to answer Draw me and we will run after thee or with St. Peter To whom should we go but to thee thou hast the Words of eternal Life And so in the rest of the Sentences applying them to himself by a particular Act of Faith and saying Lord I believe help my unbelief And this Faith will be mightily advanced by our actual advertence to Christ's spiritual presence in this Holy Ordinance more eminently graciously and peculiarly than in any other And the highest Act of it is to be exercised at the very instant of receiving § IX Devotion is in the third place highly necessary to a Worthy Communicant at the time of Celebration and in all the parts of that Holy Office By which Devotion is meant the intense abstraction or withdrawing of