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[ 312] Ministers to be men of merciful dispositions.
THe Lord Ellesmer,* 1.1 sometimes Lord Chancellor of England, a great lover of mercy,* 1.2 was heard to professe, That if he had been a Preacher, this should have been his Text; A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast. A merciful man and a merciful Text well met; But oh the Prophetical incendiaries of the late fearful, un-natural, civil vvar▪ how far were they from this sweetness of disposition? how far from thoughts and bowels of mercy? how far from a desire to preach mercy? when it was a common course with them by Viperine glosses to eat out the bowels of a merciful Text;* 1.3 when nothing was more usual amongst them, than to alleadge the words of the Scripture against the meaning; than to wrong and wring the Scripture till it bled again, but they would misconstrue, and misapply it one way, or other, to stir and incite men to such actions as little became the profession of the Gospel.