Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	body_n	great_a	know_v	1,518	5	3.5656	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A83948	Englands apology, for its late change: or, A sober persvvasive, of all disaffected or dissenting persons, to a seasonable engagement, for the settlement of this common-vvealth. Drawne from the workings of providence. The state of affaires. The danger of division.		1651 (1651)	Wing E2943; Thomason E623_12; ESTC R201917	29,152	43

one question why I put so much right on this It 's answered that there is nothing more cleer that where his People are engaged in several parties some by mistakes and ignorance of Gods mind others out of Truth and they both pray to him God will alwaies hear th●se prayers which are most according to his mind and give forth issues answerable for all our prayers are no farther to be expected to be answered then they are according to Gods Will and that Will of God doth manifest the truth of our prayers when prayers clash in heaven it is the same with opinions and judgements of Saints on earth concerning Gods mind which have but one truth to rule them and according to the consonancy of apprehensions to that God owns or dis-owns all their actings It is most sad and dangerous to do any publique act wherein any which are godly shall dissent much more that which any of them shall pray against and this very consideration hath made this Parliament and the Army to make so many pausings in their actings as fearing themselves and their own mistakes when so many good men seem to be against them yet it is as sad and should be much weighed that God should continually answer one sort of prayers and quite neglect the other when they come both from godly persons whom God loves What one petition hath God ever seemed to receive as made by his own Spirit against these proceedings but hath cleerly demonstrated that at least he is angry with the dissenting Prayers of his own people I leave these things on mens Consciences how they can interpret Gods actings against their prayers and how they can digest Gods hearing of these they judge their enemies at the same time and work out contrary issues All these considerations put together may suffice to work us to a meditation at least of what God hath done and to parley with our own hearts why we should yet refuse our full consent to the establishment of this Common-wealth shall any that professeth the name of Christ maintain secret war and malice against his actings or think to prosper by helping the common enemy But if nothing yet said will move us to have better thoughts of these Transactions let us once again consider in what times these things are dore against whom and by whom First all these workings have been in the latter days when God is throwing down the old heavens and earth and hath his notable designs to effect and all these mysteries of Prophesies to open which have lain hid for many ages and seemed formerly quite buryed in the prosperity of the Kings and Princes of this world Secondly against whom hath God appeared but against those persons both in Church and State who hath adorned this Nation with the raggs of Popery and Antichristianisme or with Tyrannie and Oppression and as they have raised themselves God hath discovered them and as they have shifted their Quarters God hath followed them with his just displeasure and indignation against any complyers with them Thirdly however God may permit for a long while his enemies to tryumph yet when ever he begins he will make an end and these principles which seem general and easie at the first God will improve and hath done beyond all our intentions for it was hardly possible in the multitude of these overtures to lay any deep plot before-hand of them new and unexpected emergencies of their designes and Gods providence alwayes on a sudden breaking fo●th which were not only difficult to fore-see but sinful to withstand And truly those that think of plots deeply laid before-hand to bring out these great things may as well suspect the Providences by which they have been necessitously led into them Fourthly for however we may make little account of providences yet they are the most exact comments on divine prophesies of any other and are the special visible key whereby God opens all those seals that are in that book and what ever special inspirations we may have from heaven to guess at Gods intent yet the words are so dark wherein God hath written his mind of these affairs and so blurred by Antichrist that until God come to open them by his actings we know not how to interpret them with safety or comfort hence it hath come to pass that many pages must now be blotted out of many worthy and learned and in most things cleer Comments on Daniel and the Apocalypse because every day God acts beyond their present thoughts and gives occasion of reforming their own confident apprehensions of the nature and issue of those prophesies so that if Gods providences compared with his words of prophesie be not looked into we must still be in the dark as to the understanding of these great mysteries by what can we hope that God is about to fulfil his word concerning the destruction of Antichrist but by his keen and severe prosecution of every limb and member of that body yea and beginning first among his own people that the enemies may not have cause to reflect and tell God to reform first at home how can we know that God is pouring out the via●s of his wrath and upon whom but as God discovers it by his terrible actings among the sons of men by which he cals on all men to hear and obey not to murmure or dissent But if the manifestation of God notwithstanding all this seem uncleer and unperswasive to dissenters to gain their full consent to this Common-wealth let our own interest prevail upon us and if heaven be too light let earth be added to it to weigh down our judgements God hath given us an opportunity against our wills to make our selves the freest and happyest Nation on this earth and we are the first of so large a Continent that God hath advantaged with such a blessing our Ancestors for these 500. yeers have bin strugling to get but the name of freedom and liberty and have for this end deposed one King and set up another who had commonly a worse title and reign but God hath given us our choice whether royal bondage or English liberty were we ever so nigh the regaining our conquer'd priviledges as now what is there but a name between us and a Free-State and nothing wanting to perfect all besides Gods assistance to prosecute what is begun and direct what is not done but our own election of what may make us happy which happiness if we imagine consists only in the title of a king among us let us remember what we have spent on that name already of our measure of bloud and how God hath made it contemptible We may all now see how Gods great design is to bring to nought the Princes of this world and hath his principal quarrel with them because they have bin the greatest shedders of the bloud of Saints that cr●es under the Altar and the only mighty upholders of the throne of the Beast and are still

malignancy and comply with the royall party though they had the Temple of the Lord written in their foreheads and the Covenant on the palmes of their hands and used it as their Phylacteries yet opposing this designe which God hath put into the Parliament to prosecute by their Armie how hath God owned them in the face of their chiefe despisers I am not now in kindling fire of diffention miserable man is he that le ts fall a sparke willingly to contribute to this fire but to lay before honest and inquiring men what reason wee have to stand and pause upon Gods actings and mollifie our hearts by these continuall droppings God knowes with what heart that Expedition was undertaken and with what little provision of outward advantages it was managed on our side for after our March into the North with so much leisure and delay to see what overture might bee offered from heaven to prevent us which was passionately longed for by the Generall and his Officers when wee came to the borders and marcht thorough Berwicke wee had not three dayes provision nay not one day neither could there either for love or money be obtained a present necessary supply as if wee were rather going to visit our friends and to helpe them then to fight and yet if all circumstances be duely weighed Gods actings by this Army in Scotland are farther and more glorious progresses of his wisdome and power in the same principle and a clearer demonstration of Gods owning this Cause then any which have been yet Let us consider first whom God appeared against not the Irish rebells nor the absolute malignant party but those who profest to walke under the shaddow and protection of the Covenant who were thought by all diffenters not onely to be Patrons but principalls of all reformation a people who had onely profest opposition to this Parliament and Army and that for the most part in spirituall pretences these who had first invented the names of shame and odium on the Army as Sectaries yea who had annihilated this Parliament and its Authoritie and set a King over them and this Nation in the exactest idea to which if wee adde the state of our Army among them with their height and confidence all the world must see that no power but of the Almighties could have done it for us For our Army though they have had more opportunitie of action which they delighted in yet were they never brought to such extremities to so low an ebbe by both want of victualls and all necessaries neither have any former example of Gods appearing with them in England after such a manner for though they were oftentimes fewer in number then their enemies yet never reduced to such a disproportion as at Dunbarre In England yea and Ireland they fought against Forts and Bulwarkes stout and perfect enemies but there they fought against hunger and cold sicknesse and diseases and lost their naturall spirits and strength when they should have had most use of them None can expresse the low condition they were in their men falling sicke and dying like rotten sheepe their Horses hardly able to carry their riders and yet were their beasts provided for better then themselves the most part of their worke all the while they were in Scotland untill the battell was but a continuall march from Mussleborough and Penclan hils unto Dunbar for necessary provisions But that God who hath still done all for us might exalt his owne name and give a demonstrative testimony not onely of his continuall presence with them but a sign for unbeli●f he brought them as low as it was ordinarily imaginable and the enemy as high and confident as flesh and bloud could make them all relations of our necessities at that instant with the circumstances of it can be but as the painting of hungry and starved men with a few open mouths and pin'd faces and on the contrary as the enemy had by all the policy and stratagems of war endeavoured to being them into this condition by waving to fight them so they then thought they had their end and the blessed opportunity was instant nothing else was expected but to have them all devoured at one morsell and that they might not faile in their assurance they made the covenant their word then as formerly their pretence as the infallible earnest of a full victory and some of their eminent Officers cal'd in scorne to some of our men that now was the day come the Covenant should be avenged of the Sectaries and that their name should be blotted out from the earth thus did they triumph through the covenant and play with that sacred bond But that all good people may see at what a height of confidence not onely the Army but Kirk were attained unto and how God appeared both against Ecclesiasticall prophecies and civill designes I shall relate a story of as great credit as wonder on the same day this glorious mercy was wrought for us at Dunbar one of the Ministers of Edenburgh I take it his name was Hagoe was preaching to a great congregation in that City rayling on our Parliament and Army raising the expectations of th people for to expect some more then ordinary vengeance and that from Heaven on them and like a false Prophet told them to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord and whereas he and his fellow Ministers had often told them of this Army and of their wickednesse and denounced the judgement of God on them they should now see and that it may be ere they went from that place that God would confirme the words which he had so often spoken by the mouth of his Ministers to them concerning this cause for he knew in what straits we were and what their hopes were that day but he knew not the counsels of the Lord Immediately as he had finished his prophecy or at least ere he had done his worke God sends in some men that came from the battel all bloody and with sad countenances which was seconded by fresh witnesses all the congregation is amazed the Minister silenc'd by his own mouth and so trembling that he could not hold the Bible in his hand and though there were some children to be baptized yet he could not doe it and thus abruptly left the Congregation with horror for his false prophecy against Gods people This relation hath its confirmation from the Scots themselves and multitude of hearers in Edenburgh and it may well be believed without witnesse if we knew the temper of most of the Scots Ministers and how much given they are to such a method of prophecy But the Gentleman might have considered that they had not the Kings malignant or Hamiltons false Army to excommunicate but an Army I may say formed I and helped by the Lord. What shall we say to these things If God be for us who can be against us It s dangerous medling with those whom God ownes Shall