Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A28348
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The trial of the ladies Hide Park, May Day, or, The yellow books partner
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W. B. (William Blake), fl. 1650-1670.
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1657
(1657)
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Wing B3153C; ESTC R33222
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34,591
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50
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you go your way and take your lot and at the end of your dayes you shall stand up again Dan. 12. last And to all under you I give this advice study to be quiet and at peace in your own spirits Gods waies are in the deep and his designes take place in all ages yea they never slack nor stay Children obey your Parents Servants your Masters not with eye service but in singleness of heart as serving the Lord To all good married men I give this first to love your wives as Christ loved his Church if it were possible and in loving love their souls as much above their bodies as you do their bodies above their cloathes it will do the wife the husband good to think the soul is in Heaven smiling when absent here on earth or present in a coffin t is the condition of friends that is more than any thing the true cause of joy or grief if a friend be in prosperity you onely mourn for his absence but if in adversity you mourn double and truly there is a vast difference between a wife gone to Hell and a husband gone to Heaven or a wife gone to Heaven and an husband gone to Hell and so for any other friends now when we do what we can to go our selves and draw others we have done our duty but for you great ungodly Gentry you draw all almost to Hell that come near you and yet I think it is a greater comfort to bury two good wives than one bad who would have a side of his house or body burnt yea his bed-fellow go to Hell and yet most of you and your Children will go thither by reason of your examples Whither do you think the Lord such an one is gone that dyed lately nay in your conscience speak as judging by the rule of Gods Word and Mr. such an one that kept his brave Coach and six Horses and never went without but to your Children I give this advice first to read over the families they came of what sins they have been guilty and what judgements have fallen upon Father Grandfather and great Grandfather one broke his neck another his heart a third lost his head a fourth made a miserable end in his bed yea dyed suddenly and never said Lord have mercy on me it is good to observe these things and it is easier to love repent or begin to live to God before twelve or twenty years of age be past than after and so again before thirty than forty but if a man mis forty years before he begins to look to Christ it is an hundred to one but he goes to the Devill yet hundreds turn civill and morally honest and so go civilly to the pit there is four or five turnings before a man turns into the right way for Heaven and yet some hit on it at the first and that is by throwing themselves upon Gods love in Christ in a way of reall beleeving and that barely upon the account of the promise which is yea and amen without any qualification Rom. 4. 13. but some turn from wildness to sobriety and so from bravery to plainness from Papistry to Protestantism and yet are little the better and so back again without being much the worse and some turn from the ordinary protestants to be Professors and yet are ten fold more the child of the Devil than before Every turn is a turn from God if the heart be unturn'd to God and the white Devil is the worst and will carry a man to Hell when he thinks he is going to Heaven persecute another only for a Gospel spirit and a Gospel light without a Gospel life will certainly rise in judgement against any man in the world and so will all your Ladyships sins if you do not take heed in time Mouls see and Swans sing a little before they dye and it may be then most of you will be wise and till then few are so do you think Christ made you so fine and so handsome so rich and so noble for nothing yea do you think he made you Christians as you say and brought you forth in England the Garden of the world and in some sense you the Flowers of this Garden for nothing but to sing and dance make a French Courchy complement for a husband and height about with a Servant truly Christ will have little reason to damn heathens and save you t is true you are called by his name but that should teach you good manners and good lives I beleeve some would be ashamed if we should tell of a Cromwell that would not fight or a Fayrfax whose name I hope will never be forgotten and truly Christ will be ashamed of you that will not live to him as well as be baptized and if you were not baptized there is no man living but would take some of you to be the Devils children you are so wicked But the end of all things is at hand and that is your funeral text with which I shall conclude 2 Pet. 4. 7. But you will ask me what end not the end of Gods Mercy for there is no end thereof that is from everlasting to everlasting to them that fear him Psal. 103. 17. Nor is there any end of his love or the promises of his love for they are numbeâ—less from one end of the Bible to the other and so is his providence to his Children even from the womb to the grave yea that never leaves them till they come to Abrahams bosome and then God is all in all to them 1 Cor. 15. 19. But there is an end of your sinning and Saints sorrowing of your living and the Kingdomes of the world raigning yea there is an end of this suns shining the rains fulling the winds blowing and the spirits breathing yea that breaths where when and as long as it listeth take heed of grieving and resisting that for if ever that finally leave you and come no more to your consciences beds and elbowes saying go to Pelham go to Pelham go to God go to Christ look to God look to Heaven Hell mind both for all these bewitching things and fooling up and down or else thon art undone for ever Soul hast thou ever another if thou loosest this have a care of loosing all for a moments lust but there is an end of all this kind of breathings and your singing yea there will be no more May dayes after a few dayes more I think you had best take your solemne leave and weep over one anothers backs necks shoulders and say farewell Ladies farewel Lords farewel Coaches farewel bravery and brave delights birds fields hedges bed Sun Moon Saints and sinners farewel all for ever and farewel all for evermore for I must now be damn'd for ever or I go I know not whither as that great man said to his soul when he cryed soul soul whither art thou now going and then the fine fare and the good chear
the shame in the world with Christ and what a shame is this that you should be too fine for poor Christ when poor Christ makes you rich and gives the best of riches to you yea durable riches See page 11. of the yellow Book or the last May dayes Letter But take my word if you do not take Christ the Devil will take you and tear you worse than poor Cocks are torn or Bears bated yea you shall tear your selves in a thousand pieces if it were possible and yet not destroy your selves great Malefactors are hang'd alive in Hell and their misery is they cannot die nor get the fire out Mat. 25. 41. This shall be done to the man whom God will honour he shall live with God and reigne as it were with Christ in the eternity of God but all you that hate the Lord shall be consumed as the fat of Lambs Psal. 37. 20. yea let them all be consumed and confounded together that will not marry Christ or ever hear of being the servants of Christ there is such a deal of service among you but pray what have you done for Christ any of you genteel heathenish sinners yea or any of you professing Saints truly you that have done most have done nothing to any purpose and you that have done nothing have done enough to have damn'd you in your best action that ever you did if you were to be tryed by the Law or the purity of Gods Justice out of Christ but the business is who almost doth any thing or doth not at all mind every thing and no man minds the things of Christ Phil. 2. 21. Truly Christ hath a great many enemies and a great many friends and a great many lookers on some men look which way the tide runs and some which way the gain comes but godliness with content is great gain 1 Tim. 6. 6. and still I say the great stain of godliness is they are so greedy after it but greedy lovers of profits and greedy lovers of pleasures are little better than greedy doggs both and will be shut out of the new Jerusalem that cometh down from God or is above with God Revel. 21. 2. And now if some of you Ladies after all this brave dressing of your selves should be shut out of Hide-Park and made to stand in the ditch whil'st all the Nobles and rest of the Gallants were admitted in to take their fill of pleasures and the pleasures of the day it would be a great vexation but if thousands of you should be shut out of Heaven and the Kingdome of Heaven as Christ speaks Luke 13. 27. for minding nothing but pleasure the pleasures of the day and the pastimes of the night how will you then weep when you your selves shall see Abraham Isaack and Iacob with thousands more sitting down there but you your selves shut out ver. 28. Christ wept bitterly for Jerusalem Luke 13. 34. and if he were on earth I think he would weep for you for you are the most to be pittied for all your laughing and your singing one unto another of any people yea of any creatures in the world yea I in my conscience do verily think so for a man to sing to a bird and catch him in a net or hearken to a Syrryan as they say and be catched by a song is a misery and a cheaty misery none gets so much by gaming as the Devill does by playing his cards in some of your laps and truly you frequently commit adultery when you look so lustfully as you do Mat. 5. 25. on one anothers faces yea you make your selves Whores and Harlots by your talk many times Christian talk and Christian name with Christian life and conversation would do well together and if Christ be your Master let him be your Copy for I will not give a farthing for that Christian that is little better than an old common Protestant an old Protestant and an old Papish will agree better than either can with an honest Roundhead and yet the old Religion is the true ask for the good old way and follow that saies the Prophet Ier. 6. 16. and not these new lights and fangles and now I am resolved to be half a Quaker to a hair but not a whole one for a thousand worlds I resolve to be less complementall less a flatterer more an inward and an outward Christian yea a circumspect Christian in all things but to deny Jerusalems Christ Gods exalted dear and onely Son who is God over all blessed for evermore Rom. 9. 5. that hath washed me in his own blood Revel. 1. 5. saved my soul from Hell and reconciled me unto God for a whimsey I never will nor shall they ever pick my comforts by a many new words forced humility or reformation that ariseth out of self and leads man to rest on self a broken Reed a muddy Cestern and all that do so will lie down in sorrow yea this is all you shall have at my hands saith the Lord yea all you that compass your selves about by your own sparks Isa. 50. 11. for other foundations can no man lay than what is laid Christ Jesus 1 Cor. 3. 11. O foundation foundation time and age outlasting foundation Heaven Earth Saint and Angell burying foundation how art thou neglected by Generations of self righteous men on the one side doggs careless sinners loose Christians and despisers on the other and yet thou art all in all in life death and eternity Col. 3. 11. yea thou art Gods all in all and our all in all who have all our hopes helps and mercies in and from thee yea in thee and in thee alone is all our justification sanctification and hopes of glorification and yet how little do we live unto thee do or speak for thee our dearest dear before the Sons of men but O Christs time will come and certainly come that we shall wish a thousand times that the best of us all had said more and done more a thousand times for thee than the best of us all have done And therefore to you the powers of this Nation I humbly give this advice knowing good men in prosperity may easily forget the vowes in adversity that you remember as long as you live the cause for which so many tuns of blood were spilt and millions of souls sent to Hell sooner than ordinary yea the cause of our ever blessed dear and glorious Redeemer and what ever men say he certainly once had and still has a cause and controversie to plead with the Natitions however he will erre long certainly come and call all men to account and then you the dry skuls heads and bones of the Caviliers shall rise together yea with their dead bodies shall you arise or they with yours as the Prophet speaks in another case Isa. 26. 19. In the mean time know the night is at hand wherein no man can work Iohn 9. 3. And as Owner said of Ireton so I say to all