Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	believe_v	good_a	great_a	1,387	5	2.5396	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A97110	A vvhisper in the eare of Mr. Thomas Edwards minister. By VVilliam VValwyn marchant. Occasioned by his mentioning of him reproachfully, in his late pernitious booke, justly entituled the Gangræna.	Walwyn, William, 1600-1681.	1646 (1646)	Wing W694; Thomason E328_2; ESTC R200666	12,778	17

what would you have understood by this Would you have your disciples stand aloof and not dare to hold discourse with me lest I should open your designes and make it appeare how much it concerns your corrupt interrest to keep their heads in ignorance and a superstitious weaknesse is it because I know whose maxim this is Rustica gens optima Flens pessima ridens Is it because my hearing is so good as not to bee perverted by Glosing doctrines or because my smelling serves my turne to smell a Fox or Wolfe though in Sheeps clothing or is my seeing so strong that it dispels the magick mists of sophisticated art or is it because my taste discerneth the brackishnesse of flattery from the pure sweetnesse of plain dealing or do you mean head strong because I am not likely nor could ever be drawn to dance after your Pipe Doubtlesse these are the causes that any strong head troubles you neverthelesse as strong as it is you see a small knock from your hard hand hath so opened it that I can hardly shut it again but I le shut it presently onely thus much I cannot see how authority can passe over this unparaleld use of the presse which you have taken to name in publike so many of their faithfull adherents in so reproachfull a manner to tax their proceedings in the proceedings of their Committees to affirme and declare to all the world that the victorious successes of the Parliaments forces is but the increase of errors and herisies that sectaries of all sorts get places of profit and power and be the men all in request for offices and employments in the which you make your self the iudge of what is error and hersie and who is a sectary in all which you are as likely to be mistaken as any man for none are such in your calender but such as at first I told you who stand twixt you and your profit glory and domination so as a man may be a reall good Christian and a most cordiall friend to the Parliament and neverthelesse be exploded by you for a sectary or an heretick one thing more you and such as you are if you be not changed since you wrote your Gangraena as I heartily wish you were doe extreamly abuse this Nation in laying the main weight of the reformation intended upon the reduceing of mens judgements and practice in Religion to union and uniformity whereas the main weight of all resteth in extirpating the popish prelaticall spirit of persecution and molestation for conscience as the main thing that oppressed all sorts of conscientious people before the Parliament and since and that which cannot fail to disturbe and vex any nation where it remaineth but the truth is without it you cannot keep your self alost without it you cannot compell a maintenance distinguish a Clergy nor have power over mens persons by their consciences but grant you the power you desire and you are master of all and then see who dares open his mouth or move his pen in this argument your present confidence proceeds from the mist you have raised but it is not yet thick enough nor will our english braynes prove so muddy as to afford matter for thickning I beleeve and hope it is now at thickest and when your hopes are greatest you will find your self in a fogge to hold men in ignorance or bondage is not a work either for honest men or good-Christians but abhorred by both and beleeve it truth is become too strong to admit of either in this age and we trust the honourable Parliament that are chosen to preserve us from both will not fail to preserve us though you should do the worst you can and whereas you commend them to the love of God and his truth and the hating of all sects and schismes I in all humility and true love to all that honour God and desire the welfare of England do most heartily pray that they may hate all persecuting sects with a perfect hatred all enforcing and compulsive schismaticks as the onely cause of all trouble and distraction To conclude If you be so ill as your word and bring forth such evill fruit once every month and that we whose names you have blasted can find a licencer as we hope we shall that will do but so much for Christ as yours hath done for B. We shall I doubt not find a new way of innocculation and produce grapes out of your thorns and figges out of your thistles and fetch abundance of good out of your evil but more happy will it be for you if you repent once a month shall I say once every houre and in token thereof use your uttermost indeavour to promote this or the like petition to the honourable Parliament whereby you will make some amends for the evill you have done by this your book Humbly sheweth THat as with all thankfulnes we acknowledge your unwearied labours to remove the grievances and dangers of the Common wealth so are we exceedingly grieved to observe the manifold unexpected difficulties which at severall times have obstructed your proceedings amongst which we conceive the differences in Religion to be the greatest and of most importance In your considerations whereof being an affair of so tender a nature so apt to be mis-understood and such as hath miscarried in all former Parliaments to the great disturbance of this Nation and to the great affliction of conscientious people we humbly conceive you have not in any thing shewed greater regard to the glory of God or greater care of the welfare of the people then in proceeding therein with so cautious and advised a deliberation giving time and opportunity to your wisedoms rightly to understand the word of God in that point which most concerneth tender consciences to hear try and examine all that can or may be said or writ thereof and we trust you will in the end produce that which shall be agreeable to the will and mind of God and to the quiet of all wel-affected people And although your progresse therein hath not been with so much speed or such sev●rity towards tender Consciences as some importunely have desired yet have we good cause to beleeve that you have been guided thoreinby the good hand of God who in due time will we doubt not bring you to such an issue as neither your selves nor any others well minded shall have cause to repent or ever to alter And therefore we most earnestly intreat that you will not through any importunity be induced to hasten your proceedings in this weighty cause wherein the least error may prove very prejudiciall beyond what upon your mature deliberation shall appeare to be just and necessary there being as we humbly conceive no greater breach of the priviledge or abatement of the power of Parliament then for any to do more then humbly to informe or advise you in this or any other negotiation Blessed be God though the differences are many in point of judgement throughout your quarters as they have been alwaies throughout the world and will be so long as knowledge is imperfect yet being amongst conscionable quiet well affected people they are not properly to be called divisions And though we cannot but fear there are some wicked Polititians that endeavour by all means to make them such and thereby to distemper and distract all your undertakings and to make the same advantagious to their unjust ends yet are we confident through Gods protection their endeavours shall be fruitlesse except to draw confusion on themselves God having blessed the people in generall with a cooler spirit and greater wisdom then by dividing among themselves or not adhering unto you to become a prey to any enemy and hath produced universally in them as in us your humble Petitioners a resolution to defend the just power and priviledge of this honourable House against all delusion or opposition whatsoever to the last penny of our estates or last drop of our bloods beseeching you to go on with the same caution and godly resolution to perfect those just works you have undertaken according as God shall direct you both for the manner and the season for his way is best and his time most seasonable And as in duty bound we shall ever pray c. To conclude if you shall do this conscionably and effectually I am confident henceforward you will not be able to do any thing against the truth but for the truth which is the unfeigned desire of him who cannot but earnestly desire your reformation and eternall happinesse William Walwyn FINJS

love suffereth long and is kind boasteth not it self is not puffed up doth not behave it selfe unseemly seeketh not her owne is not provoked to anger it thinketh not evil it rejoyceth not in iniquity but reioyceth in the truth beareth all things beleeveth all things hopeth all things endureth all things this is that I would ever whisper in your ear this being a balsame that often and well rub'd in may Cure your Gangraen and though at first your distermper may cause you to loath it yet take a little and a little of it use inwardly and outwardly constantly and you will find your disposition to alter and change from one degree unto another until you come to be a strong and healthfull Christian of Saul a persecutor you will become Paul a preacher of peace and reconciliation by Jesus Christ and bee able to lay down your life for those Brethren you have so much dispised then will you do as you would be done unto and in all things disputable allow every one to be fully perswaded in their own minds and then you will bee sencible that whatsoever is not of faith is sinne you will acknowledge it is God only that can perswade the heart and doing your duty patiently waite his leisure for the conversion of your Brethren the same mind and meeknes will bee in you as was in Christ Jesus and you will be mercifull as our heavenly Father is mercifull you will not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoaking flax then you will see what pure religion and undefiled before God even the Father is you will feed the hungry cloath the naked visit the sick relieve the prisoner deliver the captive and set the oppressed free especially the oppressed for Conscience sake you will then see error in judgement or misapprehension in worship to bee but a mote in your brothers eye compared to a persecuting or molesting or the reproaching beame in your owne in a word would you seriously set your selfe to the studdy and practice of love you would againe fill your Churches and without the help of Jewish Tythes or any unchristian or forced maintenance preaching the Gospel would live comfortably of the Gospel and draw all men after you As for those blemishes you labour by your Gangreen to stick upon mee I beleeve your labour will be lost except in the opinion of such as know me not but to acquit my selfe farther and to free them from prejudice to what I have said I add thus much more In your 96. page you have me in these uncharitable expressions one Mr. Walwyn a seeker and a dangerous man a strong head truely in the mind you were in when you wrote this Gangreen I am heartily glad I appeared not worthy of your Commendations certainly you have been extreamly covetous of informations you seeme to have suckt them in with greedinesse and swallowed them without chewing t is pi●…y an evil intent should be better served your informations to my knowledge of many particulars as that of Mr. Lilburnes and others and my self have been such to you as if they had been made of purpose to shame you to all the world I a seeker good now whos 's your author Am I one because I know many and have been amongst them often that I might know them fully so have I been with all other judgements but I carry with mee in all places a Touch-stone that tryeth all things and labours to hold nothing but what upon plain grounds appeareth good and usefull I abandon all nicities and uselesse things my manner is in all disputes reasonings and discourses to enquire what is the use and if I find it not very materiall I abandon it there are plain usefull doctrines sufficient to give peace to my mind direction and comfort to my life and to draw all men to a consideration of things evidently usefull hath been a speciall cause that I have applyed my selfe in a friendly manner unto all but hence it is that some have said I am a great Annabaptist others upon as good ground a great Antinomian and you a seeker mistake me not I do not esteeme these as names of reproach no more then to be called Presbyterian or Independent nor doe J take upon me peremptorily to determine what is truth and what is error amongst any of them all have a possibility of error I judge all Conscienscious and to hold their severall judgements upon grounds of scripture to them appearing and so long cannot but hold them and why any should controule another I cannot discerne had I all the power or strength in the World at my disposing in cases of religion I conceive I should sinne if I should do more then in a loving way offer my argument and gently perswade to what I conceive is both evidently true and really usefull and thus have I done amongst those my loving friends whom you judge seekers for though I do fully assent with them that now in these times there is no such ministry as the Apostles were endowed with immediate power from on high by imposition of whose hands the Holy Ghost was conferred enabling to speak with tongues and do miracles in a most wonderfull manner and to speake to all men the infallible word of God and that convincingly to the Consciences of gain sayers yet am I not thereby of opinion that we may not make use of those things they have left unto us in the scriptures of the mind and will of God or that it is not profitable to follow their examples so far as we are able in all things for what though the effects are now weake in comparison of theirs yet are they such as bring great satisfaction with them I have often perswaded with them that they should not reject what they may with much comfort make use of because they cannot find what they seek for ought I know are not like to find in this world see now what a seeker you have found of me I once heard you at Christ-Church which few seekers will do but never but once for I was not so blind a seeker as to seek for Grapes of thornes or Figgs of thistles and why I pray you a dangerous man indeed by some reall dangerous men I have been accounted so some whereof are falne into the snare they laid for all the well affected in this City but that ever I was accounted so by any that conversed with me that was a knowing well-affected man I do not beleeve and I beleeve I could produce thousands of knowing well-affected persons that if they heare I am engaged and doe appeare in any publick businesse though they know no tittle thereof will adventure odds it is both just and necessary and therefore you incline me to beleeve that you labour for beliefe onely amongst the weake ignorant rash or ill affected people with whom Credit and repute is not worth the having well your last appellation you bestow upon me is a strong head and