Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	see_v	write_v	year_n	3,146	5	4.6224	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89578	A sacred record to be made of Gods mercies to Zion: a thanksgiving sermon preached to the two Houses of Parliament, the Lord Major, Court of Aldermen, and Common-Councell of the city of London, at Christ-Church, June 19. 1645. Being the day of their publike thanksgiving to almighty God for the great and glorious victory obtained by the Parliaments army under the conduct of Sir Thomas Fairfax in Naseby-field. /	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1645 (1645)	Wing M773; Thomason E288_36; ESTC R200112	25,316	41

Leicester taken in againe and other tydings are come out of other parts of the Kingdome some mercies about Taunton others about Chester hath our God cast them in that this day might be as a day of Jubilee to us Shall not God have glory for all this shall not our hearts bee lifted up to give him praise Would God have a Chronicle written that the ages to come may stand amazed at it and shall we that see these things and enjoy them thus unexpectedly confine and pen up our praises to one day of Thanksgiving and not have our whole heart and our whole life filled with studies and endeavours to exalt him let this be our first Use if we should write them in a Book to provoke others then surely we should write them in our hearts to provoke our selves to praise him The other Use I would make of it is this That seeing the Lord would have his wonderfull Works written for the Generations to come Let the Honourable Houses of Parliament looke upon it as a duty they owe unto God and to the present and future age to provide that these glorious and admirable works which God hath done for England and Scotland since the beginning of our troubles may faithfully bee transmitted to posterity you hear God hath appointed it for a law and an Ordinance that the generations to come should know his wonderfull Workes and it 's both due and expected by one age from another it hath been the received Opinion of wise men that the World is more beholding to them who write Histories then to any men living except onely those that did the excellent Works which the others writ Tully tells you that History is the witnesse of time the light of truth the life of memory the school-Mistris of ourlife c. When yet alasse all their Histories were written with ignorance vanity passion partiality and gave very little help to our main businesse to teach us the administrations of God and the way hee hath taken in carrying on his Church which is the Kingdome of our Lord Jesus Christ But now by the true and faithfull setting forth to the World what the Lord hath done for us you should honour God and advantage his Church as much as in any thing that you can possibly doe unlesse it be the building of the Church it self Never could more excellent things tending to advance the goodnesse wisdome power and mercy of God bee manifested to the world then this story of our times would afford The Jews have a saying That when God destroyed all the World there was a Copy of all kept in the Arke with Noah and after the Floud was gone this Copy was re-printed and spread over all the world The meaning was that the Creatures that were kept there did fill all the world with Creatures of the same nature that the World had before Truly I have often thought that were all the Copies in the world lost of Gods admirable dealing with an unworthy people except only those mentioned in the Scripture there might be a re-impression of them out of the admirable things that God hath done for us since these publike caelamities came upon us and all the world might learn sufficient out of our Story what a God our God is and learn to know and trust and fear him forever give me leave onely to name some Capita rerum some heads of things which is fit the World should read and know They should read of a Parliament called together by a strange providence and when they were called God dealt with them as hee commanded Ezekiel to deale with his own haire Ezekiel 5. one third part of it to be thrown away into the wind another to be burnt in the City and another to be againe purged and refined and kept in the skirt of his garment They should read of 4 or 500 Commons and multitude of Peeres some of them passing through the fire some scattered into all the corners of the land seeking to destroy the Nation that had entrusted them and a remnant left behind fined and refined and humbled again and again and kept to do wonderfull things for the Lords glory and his peoples good They should likewise read of Army after Army and fight after fight which wee have had with our Enemies of every one whereof they should be able to say what my Noble Lord said immediately after Kynton fight That there was never any thing wherein there was lesse of man and more of God They should acknowledge in all wee have done there was little of man and much of God There they should likewise read how this famous City and all the Countries where the Gospel had prevailed have faithfully stood to God and his cause even to their owne exhausting in the midst of infinite discouragements and how the rest that were nursed up under Popery and superstition both Lords and Commons and Gentlemen and whole Counties did endeavour to fight themselves into slavery and labour to destroy the Parliament that is themselves and all that is theirs There they should read how God broke all our crutches we leaned upon our Counsels our Treasuries our Armies and never prospered us really till he had deeply humbled and made us to look to himself onely for help how he brought the two Nations into a Covenant with him and set them upon a work of Reformation of Religion and carryed on that work in a troublesome time in a time of Warre better then in likelihood it would have been in a time of Peace There they should read the fruits and effects of Prayer how he suffered his Almighty hand to be as it were directed by it They should see what strange Plots were discovered prevented detected how God made some of our strong Holds to be easily delivered and others of no strength little lesse then miraculously preserved against all the Force of the enemy how usually God made our losses to bee our gaine and did us most good by undoing us compelling us often to say Perissemus nisi perissemus wee had been undone if we had not been undone and how our enemies that rose against us evermore found their gaine to prove their losse and that which raised them up highest instantly laid them lowest What shall I say they shall in a thousand particulars read in this Story our folly and Gods wisdome our weaknes and Gods strength our divisions and confusions and Gods ordering them all to serve his holy ends They should read such things as I am confident no History in the world is able to hold out the like Now I beseech you is it not pity that these things should be lost shall we deprive the world posterity of these things Serimus arbores we plant Trees which may beare fruit to after ages and shall we not doe this which like Nebuchadnezzars tree would beare fruit to all the world or shall wee hazard them to bee written by a lying or unskilfull

glorifie him if our present mercies shall bee the wonderment of the world in after ages how ill would it become us who receive them to passe them over unregarded or put them into oblivion what a catalogue should every one of us have how full should all our memories and records bee who receive them thus by heapes upon heapes how excellent and comely a thing were it if every one wee meet with in the streets and fields could bee able to tell us the Story of Gods dealing for England these three or foure or five yeeres beleeve it it is our shame that wee are not able to doe it What a shame and unworthy thing is it to lay up in our memories trash and vanities write downe in our Books our passions toyes and fooleries and have no records of these glorious VVorks of God how shall wee lift up our heads before God when he shall reckon with us for this ingratitude O that every one of us could endeavour to have our records of these mercies as perfect as Gods are he observes and keeps account of all let us doe so likewise let our books and memories be treasuries of these works and wayes of God let our tongues talk of them let us be all good Historians at least of these latter yeares since the beginning of this Parliament be able to count all our journeys and pitching places our deliverances and Victories from Kynton unto this day yea and when wee think or speake of them let it bee with admiration which is the individuus comes the inseparable companion of praising God wee never can duly tender his praises for these mercies unlesse our understanding see it selfe conquered by that which it contemplates and be compelled with David againe and againe to cry out O Lord our God how excellent is thy Name how wonderfull are thy workes Doe these things daily but doe them this day more carefully this day is separated for his praise and glory but in a more peculiar manner let him have the glory of this la●e great and unexpected Victory and let us consider seriously what kind of mercy it is which wee this day come to blesse the Lord for I shall not goe about by ostentation of words and hyperbolicall expressions to elevate it above its height had I Rhetorick and words to doe it this Assembly would not be taken with such kind of language but simply and plainly bee pleased to behold this great work of God both for the substance and circumstances of it for the thing it self for the substance of it Granted it is to bee one of the greatest Victories that ever the Lord bestowed upon us since the beginning of our troubles wherein all the enemies Foot all their Carriages all their Ammunition so many of their Horse were taken in the field But there are foure Circumstances accompany it which maks this mercy most wonderfull First the Time when this mercy was bestowed upon us Secondly the Place where it was bestowed upon us Thirdly the Persons by whom it was wrought for us And Fourthly the Manner how God did it for us First the Time when it was done truly when we were very low exceeding low in our Spirits low in our Counsels low in our Treasures low in our Arms low through our mutual Divisions jealousies wondrous low I think as we have been almost at any time since the beginning of our troubles at a time when the Enemy was extream high high in their Spirits high in their confidence high in their scorn high in their resolutions so high as if they had already swallowed all boasting that our Armies were crumbled to nothing and wondering we were so foolish as not to resign up all Yea done in a time when we had newly prayed and sought God when the Honourable Houses had called the City and the Assembly of Divines to lie in tears and dust before God to wrestle with him this was the time when the Lord remembred us agreeing with that of the Psalmist Who remembred us in our low estate for his mercy endureth for ever I may adde one more concerning the time it was in the rising of the yeare almost in the Spring when yet we have foure or five moneths before there be any necessity of winter Quarters in which time if God give us wisedome to follow it and himself please to goe on with us who knows what a blessed period our troubles may have Secondly and the place where is remarkable Where was it done truly in that part of the Land where the Enemy had lately wrought outragious villanies I speake not of taking a Town in a hostile way but of murdering of women of ravishing wives and maidens where the Commanders could boast what liberty they had given to their Souldiers though not to murder the women yet to ravish as many of them as they could where the Country groaned under the blasphemies and outrages that they wrought that the Lord should have it so ordered that where they had plundred and spoiled themselves should be plundred and spoiled that thither they should ●●y with shame hardly daring to look in where all these cruelties and insolencies had been wrought by them Thirdly and take in the Persons by whom Of whom I will say two things which you will all grant to bee true They were an Army despised by our Enemies and little lesse then despaired of by our Friends as men from whom little was to bee looked for Gods glory is the more conspicuous this is according to his own manner of working Who delights by weak things to confound the mighty and by things which are despised and things which are not to bring to nought things that are that no flesh might glory in his presence This is the Lords doing let it be wonderfull in our eyes Fourthly and the manner how is very remarkable how God did it truly so that the men should doe what men can doe that they might have the praise of Instruments giving them valour courage wisdome and faithfulnesse and yet withall letting them be so overborn one wing in a manner broken and many of the Foot routed and all in danger to be lost that it might appeare as hath been in the rest of our Victories that the thing was wrought by God Now can you looke upon all these things together not with admiration cry out This is the Lords doing this is wonderfull in our eyes Non nobis Domine non nobis Not unto us Lord but unto thy Name give the praise and glory Overmuch to extoll men God would not have you they would not have you doe it you would wrong them and your selves and your God if you should looke upon them otherwise then as instruments But O that you could admire this mercy that God hath given in that you could see all the mercies that are in the wombe of this mercy how many have already sprung from it