Works of Mercy, or the several kinds of corporal Alms.
“The works of mercy are so many, as the affections of mercy have objects, or as the world hath kinds of misery. Men want meat, or drink, or clothes, or a house, or liberty, or attendance, or a grave. In proportion to these, seven works are usually assigned to mercy, and there are seven kinds of corporal alms reckoned.
1. To feed the hungry
2. To give drink to the thirsty.
3. Or clothes to the naked.
4. To redeem captives.
5. To visit the sick.
6. To entertain strangers.
To bury the dead
But many more may be added. Such as are:
8. To care for sick persons.
9. To bring cold and starved people to warmth and to the fire; for sometimes clothing will not do it; or this may be done when we cannot do the other.
10. To lead the blind in right ways.
11. To lend money.
12. To forgive debts.
13. To remit forfeitures.
14. To mend highways and bridges.
15. To reduce or guide wandering travellers.
16. To ease their labours by accommodating their work with apt instruments, or their journey with beasts of carriage.
17. To deliver the poor from their oppressors.
18. To die for my brother.
19. To pay maidens dowries, and to procure for them honest and chaste marriages.
Works of spiritual Alms and Mercy are:
1. To teach the ignorant.
2. To counsel doubting persons.
3. To admonish sinners diligently, prudently, seasonably, and charitably: To which also may be reduced, provoking and encouraging to good works
4. To comfort the afflicted.
5. To pardon offenders.
6. To succour and support the weak.
To pray for all estates of men, and for relief to all their necessities.
To which may be added:
8. To punish or correct refractoriness [resistance to authority].
9. To be gentle and charitable in censuring the actions of others.
10. To establish the scrupulous, wavering and inconstant spirits.
11. To confirm the strong.
12. Not to give scandal.
13. To quit a man of his fear.
14. To redeem maidens from prostitution.”
Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), Lord Bishop of Down, Connor, and Dromore in The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living and Dying (1651), London: Rivington, 1838 edition, 230-231.