Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	authority_n	power_n	supreme_a	1,645	5	8.3158	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52999	A new systeme of the Apocalypse, or, Plain and methodical illustrations of all the visions in the Revelation of St. Iohn written by a French minister in the year 1685. and finisht but two days before the dragoons plunderd him of all, except this treatise ; to which is added, this author's Defence of his illustrations, concerning the non-effusion of the vials, in answer to Mr. Jurieu ; faithfully Englished.	French minister.	1688 (1688)	Wing N780; ESTC R40048	187,478	388

well as most powerful Buttress of the Papal Empire Luther called them in this sense ultimus Diaboli crepitus Besides seeing of all the Fraternities that of the Iesuites hath had the greatest power to do hurt and have done the greatest damage to the Christian Religion we are not to doubt but that they are principally intended in this Prophecy concerning the Locusts Which nevertheless is so to be understood that the ruin of the Jesuites will draw along with it that of all the other Monks and Fryers For that measure of Evil which the whole Body of the Monks and Fryers hath done being consummated by those mischiefs which the Iesuites have added thereunto partly as Politicans in States whose councils they have animated partly in the Church under the quality of Doctors and Directors through corrupting the Consciences of men and infecting the Air of Religion by their damnable Morality it must needs be that the whole Monastick Body perish at one and the same time in respect of their power XVI ILLUSTRATION Of the sixth Trumpet The loosing of the four Angels in the River Euphrates REV. CHAP. 9. V. 13. And the sixth Angel sounded and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden Altar which is before God. V. 14. Saying to the sixth Angel which had the Trumpet loose the four Angels which are bound in the great River Euphrates V. 15. And the four Angels were loosed which were prepared for an hour and a day and a month and a year for to stay the third part of men V. 16. And the number of the Army of the Horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand and I heard the number of them V. 17. And thus I saw the Horses in the Vision and them that sat on them having Breast-plates of fire and of ●acinct and brimstone and the heads of the Horses were as the heads of Lions and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone V. 18. By these three was the third part of men killed by the fire and by the smoke and by the brimstone which issued out of their mouths V. 19. For their power is in their mouth and in their Tails for their Tails were like unto Serpents and had heads and with them they do hurt V. 20. And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands that they should not worship Devils and Idols of Gold and Silver and Brass and Stone and of Wood which neither can see nor hear nor walk V. 21. Neither repented they of their Murders nor of their Sorceries nor of their Fornication nor of their Thefis WE do here see the growth and progress of the Mahometan Religion which begun under the fourth Trumpet as we have seen under the fifth Trumpet the growth of Popery that begun under the third The River Euphrates the four Angels that are loosed the dreadful number of Horsemen the Breast-plates the Fire the Smoke the Brimstone the Heads the Tails the Progress the Murders and in a word all the particularities which appear under this sixth Trumpet do evidently shew that it is the Mahometan Religion and the Eastern Empire invaded by the Turks that are here intended And the reason also which is here assigned why that Empire fell into the hands of the Turks doth further confirm it 1. The Turks being setled in Persia they must cross Euphrates before they could make any conquests on this side or render themselves Masters of that of the Roman Empire whereof Constantinople was the Seat. 2. Their Armies appear here to be made up of none but of Horse Thus the name Perse signifies a Horse To which the Holy Spirit did doubtless allude As in the Visions of Daniel the King of Grecia is stiled a Goat because the Grecians were called Aegiades which is to say Wild Goats 'T is certain that the Holy Spirit does often make allusions to the names of persons and of people And in truth the Turks have often come into the Field with Armies of two or three hundred thousand Horse 3 The number of four is Mystical in the Mahometan Religion as the number seven is in the Revelation When the Turks had past Euphrates they established four Sultanies That of Cesarea in Cappadocia that of Aleppo that of Damascus and that of Antioch Mahomet boasted that he had four Councellors two from Heaven viz. Michael and Gabriel and two from the Earth namely Ebubeker and Othmar There were four false Teachers concurred to the making of the Alkoran Iohn of Antioch an Arian Barra of Persia a Iacobite Sergius a Nestorian Monk and Solam a Iew who was an Astroleger Mahomet left behind him four Successors whom he called the four cutting Swords of God to wit Ebubeker otherways called Abdalla Osman Othmar and Haly. Which four Successors begot four Sects in the Mahometan Religion There are four Religious Orders among the followers of that false Prophet the Gemaliers the Dervis the Calenders and the Torlaquis In a word the number four is to be found in their Fasts in their Ceremonies in their Testaments in their Marriages and almost in every thing Which so plainly answering to the four Angels loosed in the Euphrates leaves us no room to doubt but that the Holy Spirit had a design in this place to represent the Mahometan Religion and the Turkish Empire as possessing the place of the Oriental Roman Empire And forasmuch as both the name of fourth and that of Mahomet meet in the present Grand Seignior I do not know but that this Mystical number of his Religion may presage his Empire to be near an end and that he shall be the last Turkish Emperor The Breast-plates of Fire of Jacinct and of Brimstone denote the gross darkness and the loathsome silthiness of the Turkish Religion A Religion that can relish with none save such as are sunk into all sensuality and which could be invented by none but by those that were prophane and wicked The Tails like unto Serpents which had heads represent the Mahometan Teachers clothed with the power of being Judges In the 9. Chap. of Isaiah v. 15. the Head signifies a man of Authority and the Tail signifies a false Treacher Now the Turkish Doctors or Priests are the Supream Judges in all causes as well civil as Religious 'T is said Their power is in their mouth the better to discover these to be the Mahometans in that their power when they have to do with carnal and sensual Christians consists in the seducing vertu of their carnal Doctrine The Fire the Brimstone and the Smoke do questionless relate to Powder used in guns which the Turks made both use of sooner and after a more terrible manner than Christians generally did For a German Monk having invented it and it was an invention becoming the Cloister he discovered it to the Venetians and they communicated it to the Turks And the Turks being greedy to extend their Conquests made

had expressed the sufferings that were past For the Martyrs having demanded how long Lord ere thou avenge our Blood It was answered unto them that they should yet rest for a little season until their fellow Servants also and their Bretheren that should be killed as they were should be fulfilled So that as the complaint of the Martyrs expresseth the persecutions of the Church under the Pagan Emperors the answer is a prediction of the sufferings which the Church was to undergo under the Papal Antichristian Kingdom Moreover we may here observe who it is that is a true Martyr They are those who are slain for the Word of God. So that this Title cannot be denyed to Protestants because it is only out of hatred to their Religion that they are killed Nor are they put to death for any other cause but for the Word of God and for the holding that their Religion is certain supported by a Soveraign and Divine Authority full and sufficient for Salvation And is not the maintaining the rights and perfections of Gods Word a maintaining of Gods cause Is it not to die for Jesus Christ to suffer death because they will not consent to the injuries which the Papists do to his Gospel V. 12. And I beheld when he had opened the sixth Seal and lo there was a great Earth-quake and the Sun became black as sackcloth of Hair and the Moon became as Blood. V. 13. And the Stars of Heaven fell unto the Earth even as a Fig tree casteth her untimely Figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind V. 14. And the Heaven departed as a Scrowl when it is rolled together and every Mountain and Island were moved out of their places V. 15. And the Kings of the Earth and the great men and the rich men and the chief Captains and the mighty men and every Bondman and every Freeman hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the Mountains V. 16. And said to the Mountains and Rocks fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the Throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. V. 17. For the great day of his wrath is come and who shall be able to stand There appeareth not here any Horseman nor any living Creature no more than there did at the opening of the fifth Seal and the reason is because what is concealed under this Seal extendeth not through the whole course of the History of the Roman Empire and of the Church of God. Seeing that which is comprehended under this Seal is only one of the Revolutions that was to befall the Roman Empire There were three changes to overtake it By the first it was to pass from Paganism to pure and uncorrupted Christianity By the second it was to pass from pure and simple Christianity to a Christianity mixed and corrupted which is no other thing but Antichristianism or Popery And by the third it is to pass and return from Christianity corrupted and from Popery to a Christianity that is pure and freed from all the Errors and Superstitions of Antichrist This last change will be under and upon the effusion of the Vials and the Reformation that was made the last Age is a sample and earnest of it The Second was to appear under the Trumpets And the first was that which came to pass under this sixth Seal In all the changes there is spoken of the Heaven of the Sun of the Moon of the Stars of the Sea of Earthquakes of the removing of Mountains because it is the stile of the Prophets to express Revolutions which fall out in the world with reference to Religion in terms that agree to a change in the whole Universe Thus the Apostle St. Peter Act. 2. 14. c. applyeth the Prophecy of Ioel to the establishment which God begun to give unto the Christian Religion by the pouring forth of the Holy Ghost In that day I will pour out of my Spirit upon all Flesh and on my Servants and on my Handmaidens and they shall prophesy and I will shew wonders in Heaven above and signs in the Earth beneath Blood and Fire and Vapours of Smoak the Sun shall be turned into darkness and the Moon into Blood. 'T is not probable that the Holy Spirit should omit that memorable change which befel the Empire when the Emperors were no more Heathen Persecutors but Christian Favourers of the Gospel which if it be not comprehended under this Seal there is not the Footstep or mention of it in the whole Revelation And withal that Event doth accord the best of the World with this Vision For if the Enemies of Christs name appear here astonished desperate hiding themselves in the Mountains and crying to the Rocks fall on us and hide us from the Wrath of the Lamb all this accordeth admirably with the Event For History recounts unto us how the Judgments of God fell after a terrible manner upon the five last Heathen Emperors who had persecuted the Christians with an unbridled rage Diocletian and Maximian voluntarily laid down the Imperial Dignity being pressed to it by the sole remorse of their Consciences which gave them no quiet Maxentius was thrown headlong from the Milvian Bridg into the Tyber and in that very place where he had laid an Ambush for Constantin Maximin who had pulled out the Eyes of Christians lost his own Eyes by a disease that was as loathsome as it was painful and Lieinius was murthered by the Garrison of Thessalonica After that Constantin was arrived at the Empire all the Edicts against the Christians were repealed the Christian Religion was established by publick Authority the Idolatrous Temples were either pulled down or consecrated to the service of the true God their Altars were overthrown and the Heathens being stript of all Honors were sent into the Villages from whence they came to be stiled Pagans that is Inhabitants of the Villages a Title by which the Christians had been denominated before V. ILLUSTRATION Of the four Angels that withheld the four Winds and of the Angel that had the Seal of the living God. REV. CHAP. 7. V. 1. After these things I saw four Angels standing on the four corners of the Earth holding the four Winds of the Earth that the Wind should not blow on the Earth nor on the Sea nor on any Tree V. 2. And I saw another Angel ascending from the East having the Seal of the living God and he cried with a loud voice to the four Angels to whom it was given to hurt the Earth and the Sea. V. 3. Hurt not the Earth neither the Sea nor the Trees till we have sealed the Servants of our God in their foreheads IF those four Angels be good Angels then the withholding the four Winds must be something likewise that is good And that they are good Angels appeareth from thence because the Angel that had the Seal of the living God spake unto them as Angels of God. Hurt not says