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	part_n	3,256	5	4.2928	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91934	Jegar-Sahadvtha: an oyled pillar. Set up for posterity, against present wickednesses, hypocrisies, blasphemies, persecutions and cruelties of this serpent power (now up) in England (the out-street of the beast.) Or, A heart appeale to heaven and earth, broken out of bonds and banishment at last, in a relation of some part of the past and present sufferings of John Rogers in close prison and continued banishment, for the most blessed cause and testimony of Jesus; the sound of the seventh trumpet and the gospel of the seven thunders, or holy oracles (called rayling by them in power) sealed up to the time of the end. From Carisbrook Castle in the third year of my captivity, the fifth-prison, and the third in exile, having been hurried about from post to pillar, quia perdere nolo substantiam propter accidentia.	Rogers, John, 1627-1665?	1657 (1657)	Wing R1809; Thomason E919_9; ESTC R207526	168,327	179

have proved admit of any other King Lord Protector or Lawgiver to ravish us with their lusts God forbid Wherefore for Christs sake stand fast unmoveable and abounding in the work of the Lord 1 Cor. 15.58 and I do professe for my own part seeing the Lord hath honoured me hitherto with this Chain for this his Cause though I be a poore weake worm yet with his grace sufficient for me I will abide by it for as one of the Martyrs often used Vespasians saying Imperatorem decet stantem mori It becomes as that are Kings and Priests to God Rev. 5.10 to dye standing not stooping to the lust of any man especially now the day of Christ is come Therefore let us all fall in and on and stand to it with the Lamb and the twenty four Elders or the twenty four orders of the Levites about the throne in this Cause by which tribe of Levi are indeed to be understood the Generation Saints the first-born Heb. 12.23 first fruits Rev. 14.4 and therefore have they the precedency of other Saints as Generation Elders who like the Levites before under a curse Gen. 49.7 obtained the blessing for executing the judgment Exod. 32.27 28 29. with the sword on their brethren and spared not Now of these in Davids dayes were the twenty foure both Rulers Singers and Ministers 1 Chron. 29.25 So that such such Generation Saints the twenty foure shall joyn in one work and song with the Lamb and with all the living creatures about the Throne and with the holy Angels Rev. 4.9 10 11. and 5.11 and altogether in one Hallelujah Amen as Isa 52.7 8. which he waites for who is buried with the body of Jesus in this new Sepulchre where the souldiers seek to keep down his Resurrection and the hope of your Brother John Rogers Morning-beams OR The Vision of the Prison-Pathmos LIB I. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 CHAP. I. Hagah The Introduction with the Cause Accidental of the following Discourse upon the present Truth and Testimony IT is none of the least part of our Prison-Threnodies in the present Tragedie which the bloody BEAST by a new Guize hath acted again upon the Stage of Great Britanny The general Introduction by Lamentation the trampling under foot the present Truth and Testimony of Jesus in this last Scene of the holy Citie 's suffering as I may say for the fourty two months so as that scarce one Interpreter of a thousand durst entertain or own it simply which at best hath but a Pasport from Many and so is whip'd away from one to another from post to pillar till it come to the place where it was born but there it hath a being blessed be Jehovah else it is hardly handled according to the Court-Law for a Vagrant with Warrants like to Pope Engenius's hoc esse verum si ipse velit sed non aliter This or that is true if he his Holiness or Highness will have it so but not otherwise Who then can finde the faith or conrage to expose his life or at least his liberty and estate to so prodigal 2 Hazard as he must do who will fetch it from under the Beast's foot and feel the acrimony or cruelty of his sharp clunch claw or horn piercing him to the very heart O this is as hard a task in a sense as to rescue the Lamb from the claw of the Lion or paw of the Bear Therefore Isa 59.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is none that passeth his word for righteousness nor is there any judgement for the Truth O sad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what not one Well may our Prisons sound and resound with exaggerated Nightgroans for the Court and Country increase in lying and transgressing and falling backwards perpetrating iniquity at so high a rate as will suddenly fill up their measure this I see evidently from my Iron bars as v. 13 14 15 16. and yet None intercede for the Truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not one will run after it follow it meet it or to the face of All own it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O what a Lamentation is this If one doth like Wisdom's child a little justifie it yet where is he that doth according to the Hebrew intercedere intercedens for he that doth so as it is in the text exposes himself to be spoiled plundered imprisoned made a prey to the ravenous Beast that eats bones and all Zeph. 3.2 Yea although he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that departs from the evil of the Times is sure to suffer so yet for all that it is a Wonder to me how we can hold in to see what officious servants Charles Stuart this Court or any carnal Interest have to run and ride on their Errands to venture and engage life liberty limbs estates and all for them and their Interest but the Lord Jesus ah alas as if he were the worst Master of all can finde few faithful that will venture half so far for him and his suffering Cause at this day especially perpending the point of Time the progress of the Testimony the approach of the Period of the Beast's dominion in this street of the fourty two months and of the rise of the Witnesses with the little Stone or the remnant of the Womans seed who must strike the Image-Government of England all to pieces the terrible Earthquake which shall rend them up by the very roots Also when I advert the advantages of the Saints in this street above any other of all the great City or Beasts dominion the forwardness of the Work here the height of the Controversie already between the Lamb and the Beast precious blood of Saints having seal'd thereto and the Vials so lately pour'd out upon the King Lords Prelates and corrupt Powers of this Seat also our late zeal against Common-prayer Crosses Painted Windows Rails Surplices corrupt Ministers Magistrates and the like O! my soul even bleeds within me to behold the present apostacie of Spirit Principles and Persons not onely among Mercenary Professors but the Little Remnant whose Coldness Cowardliness and Carelesness is almost incredible at this time of Day too and were it not to fulfil the Word of God Rev. 11. that this present Death and Darkness is upon us for these three yeers and an half I should be so astonished at it as not to know what to make of it But when I am venting my burthen with these like words or passions Lord where is the Spirit of old yea the Spirit and faith and courage that we our selves had some ten twelve or fourteen years ago among the good old Puritans yea the spirit of English-men and rational men among us O! what a Change is this What sheepishness what sleepiness what deadness what darkness what timorousness and what tameness is now seized upon us The Light arising in Darkness doth put an end to such Reasonings and Syllogizings giving rest to my Spirit till the time of the end which is at

rather in Arten-house because of the incredible cruelty tiranny of this castle that I was brought hither So that the Lord my God saw it meet to bring my body under harder discipline for as Tertullian saies Nimis delicatus es Christiane c. Christian thou art too delicate for mee who must have thine ease thy peace thy pleasure and delight in this world and so in an other place de fugea in persec speaking against them that will shrink comply or fly for fear of harder persecution saies he ' non potest qui pati timet ejus esse qui passus est He that is afraid or runs away from sufferings can be none of his who hath suffered so much and indeed is hath been very teaching to me to set Christ upon his crosse before me Heb. 12.2.2.10 The Captain of our Salvation being made perfect through sufferings And can we think to be perfect without sufferi●gs for Christ No surely But to proceed In this pittifully distempered estate of Body I was sent for from tha● poore house 〈◊〉 the Commissary and some others being ready to convey mee with the foresaid Serjeant Corporal and Soldiers into the Castle and for my encouragement they told us the Moon was up but perceiving their resolution and importunity I desired liberty to prayer after which we were carried up into the Castle as I came in at the first Gate I made a stand resigning my selfe Soul and body into the hands of my most dear God and Father through Jesus Christ not knowing that ever I should come out alive I said aloud to them all in the name of the Lord do I enter here and for the sake of Jesus which they all witnessed unto as well enemies as others I was guarded thorough the Musketteres standing on both sides with Muskets peeces and matches light I was with my wife and two children put up into a very little poor smoaking cold Garret upon the top of all which was a common Soldiers room and although it was a little triall to my wife not having a Chair to sit on and so little that we could not readily turn or stir about businesse in it the bed-stead which was borrowed taking up the most part and the smoak of the chimney turning all into the Room at some times so as we could scarce see one another yet did much rejoice to be so pent up for the Son of man had not where to lay his head and in an upper Room too from the consideraton of our dear Lord Jesus his chusing an upper room to eat the passeover wich his Disciples in when his time was at hand that night I was so Exceedingly distemper'd and ill that I was forced to betake me to some rest in such lodging as we could get the next morning came my dear con-captives for this most noble and excellent Cause of the King of Saints to see mee Maj. Gen. Harrison and Mr. Courtney who were a long time kept up in this close Goal where now I was brought to be their companion some part of our time which was spent together was in praying instructing praising our God not omitting this his mercifull over-ruling sweet providence which had brought us together into one Goal as well as one Exile for one and the same Master the Lord Jesus and in one and the same Cause Testimony and Truth and this too by those very men that not long before would not let mee come near this Castle least I should once have seen these servants of the Lord but upon the walls Upon the Lords-days I preach'd in my room as I used to do and who of the Soldiers would had liberty to hear mee for two or three daies yea Bull himselfe the grand keeper hereof which did indeed refresh the hearts of some p●o ● soules who got in also to hear me but this liberty at first was to finde out matter against mee for a collour of their preintended future Tr●gedy tyranny and intrenchment I was also soon after removed into better rooms which Mr. Bull now braggs of where I now am but the be doing we had in the Garret was taken from us and we forced to some want therein untill some at Newport sent some in unto us for which with what we hire we blesse the Lord notwithstanding I told Bull that I was well contented to ly on straw or else if they would not allow me straw on the bare boards only I pittied my wife being not well but for all their cruelty to us our kinde Father provided for us Some honest people of the Country did desire me to minister to them some light of the kingdome of Christ of his Second coming so that we kept every fifth day in the after-noons for that purpose and poore people came in a pac● many miles about to hear mee who with tears prayers and blessings of God expressed great affection refreshing and rejoycing thereat saying O Sir O not you not you but we are the Prisoners c. yea some Prestbiterians who came out of novelty or with no good will when they once came brought others with them the next day so that the noise was great round the Island and the Priests raged it is reported least their Offices should be left unto them desolate Mat. 23.16 John 7.33 34. Many of the people believed in Christ and his Doctrine and his good report began to ring in their ears the chiefe Priests sent Officers to take him so these it seems could not rest to see the people to flock after and believe this doctrine of the Reign of Christ and therefore some Officers came to hear with a purpose to catch matter of accusation against mee but went away with approbation as ver 46. blessed be the Lord therefore for thus was the Sonne glorified in their eyes by his Spirit which spake and shewed them of the things to come John 16.13 14. Yet the enemy could not rest thus but finding nothing which they could six upon against mee and the people encreasing upon the twenty seventh day of the tenth moneth Bull went forth of feasting and left men of most bruitsh spirits to mannage his new plot and orders in his absence setting Centinels upon my doore driving away the people who came to hear the Gospell though the enemy had nothing to say why so no not one word so much as against their Government but even what they say they allow as the pure Gospell of Christ in us and of the power of godlinesse though they could not ●ow bear it I preaching such points as the godly people and their Teacher Mr. S. proposed for satisfaction in and light upon some poore people got in and stood under my prison-window the Herodian-Soldiers not suffering them to come into the room saying they had orders to keep all from comming to mee and they must obey orders but we asked them if they meant all Orders of men good or bad they said yea● for if

videmus sapientiae vestrae hane stultitiam malumus hanc amplectimur c. go on scorn deride and flout us as long as you list for this our foolishnesse profits us and we envy not your wisedome or principles of policy but had rather have this foolishnesse still and so for all your other reproaches which are chiefest riches Heb. 11.26 wherein we rejoyce and make a jest of them and of all they can do unto us and if so be I should give no offence to a more serious spirit in so good and serious a Cause as ours is me thinks I might put this Bull who is so busie in lying railing and slandering of us in mind of the Majors answer to the people who complained of the ugly looks of the Rood Fox vol. 3. p. 107. Go you home saies he look on it and if it will not serve for a God make no more ado but clap a pair of Horns on his Head and so he will make an excellent Divill for I am perswaded if the Divil be truly called Accuser Slanderer Calumniator a little matter more will make him one I would not have used this liberty now had not Grynaeus an Orthodox as we say said true and seriously that Pontifici Romano Erasmum plus nocuisse jocando quam Lutherum stomachando Erasmus did the enemy more mischief by jesting than Luther did by his angry stomachfull and yet more solid resisting of him 6. It appeareth a plain designe to starve us or reduce us to such extremity as might make us to stoop and so to betray our consciences and our Christ in this Cause as appeared by their imposing of conditions upon us and the servants for the meat we must eat if they went out to fetch us in any besides as to my own particular I confesse their conditions were most hard to me and my Family in the passive part though my gracious Father made them easie and sweet to be born but they knowing I lived by providence having no means Land house or estate to live upon kept back not onely all people but all letters from coming or ministring unto me notwithstanding our Lord Jesus was ministred unto Luke 8.3 Joanna the wife of Chuza Herods Steward and Susanua and many others ministred unto him of their substance and so we finde the Heathens suffered this in Acts 24.23 He commanded a Centurian to keep Paul and to let him have liberty and that he should forbid none of his acquaintance to minister or come unto him But yet this was and is a sweet time unto me for me thinks I am fasting and sometimes filling and eating many a time with my Lord Jesus of his broiled fish and barley bread blessed be his Name who for our sakes became poor 2 Cor. 8 9. that through his poverty we might be made rich I also was made the more sensible of the primitive sufferings as I said before and was as one with them in my spirit insomuch as I chose rather to be in such a condition even unto death and to want bread all my dayes I have sometimes thought than to have been out of it so sweet the Lord hath made unto me by his teaching presence as I cannot expresse and besides what eminent Servants of the Lord have been forgotten by their Brethren as our blessed Jesus his own Disciples all left him at the Crosse yea aad were brought to poverty as buried alive almost so Musculus his poverty was such as drove him to day labour and to lye in straw but I had neither and Pareus begged in his way as he went to the Palatinate but what was this to thousands of the Saints of old besides of late Hooper Cranmer c. all this upon me being onely because I would not perdere substantiam propter accidentia loose my Christ for a Crown nor Conscience for Coin which doubtlesse I might have had enough in my own Countrey if I had sought or accepted of a desire to O. C. for his grace to remove me near to my Acquaintance and Friends at Londan which my poverty in the world might call for more than any others who would not have suffered me to want which notwithstanding the Lord of his mercy prevented by the help of my honoured Con-captivated Co-exiles and other waies and of his great grace gave unto me in this dispensation least I should seek a carnall Kingdome or have such things in mine eyes whiles the Kingdome of Christ yea none but Christ is our continuall cry I remember Lots wife lyes at the entry of such temptations 5. In that he that bids us c●st our care upon him 1 Pet. 5.7 and take no thought for our life what we should eat or what we should drink or what we should put on Mat. 6.25 hath done it for no by such speciall providences in our greatest emergencies and extremities yea and over and above ministred so much inward comfort unto us from himself the whole Creation that for want of other outward company he makes the very flyes that swarm in the ayre and are an offence to others and as in Aegypt so now in Jamica such a plague unto them poor hearts a refreshing unto us which I am glad to see I confesse and to have the company in this close prison-exile but besides these there be some other particular experiences as teaching to me 1. In that I am all along so clearly and constantly under the Beasts rage as if I were I think more than others particularly aimed at for their goaring gushing horning worrying and grievous persecuting from one Prison to an other both in my Native Countrey and in Exile especially since I have been hurried about in this Island and put to Bulls and Boremans who obey the Orders of the Beast but especially in the first 's very bruitish and indeed barbarous unreasonabl● pushing sharp horns so that it is evident I am thus used by the Beasts Dominion spirit I have indeed declared to the Court-creatures more mercy to be in any Dungeon in England I remember that Purchase in his Pilg. ch 10. tells us of one that did write of the first Creation of the Chaos and first confusion before the world was created in which lived monstrous creatures having two or more formes like Centaures some Bulls too that were headed like men and doggs with divers bodies but I leave such fancies to the Adamites onely I dare affirm in this Chaos and confusion which precedes the new-creation of new heaven and earth men are very monstrous in their principles and actions and wild Bulls do bear the faces of men to flatter with in this serpent-estate of the old world whose hired men are like Bullocks Jer. 46.21 but as Jer. 50.27 Slay all her Bulls let them go down to the slaughter wo unto them for their day is come the time of their visitation O Lord rebuke the company of spear-men the multitude of the bulls with the calves of the people till

he made a scoff at what I said and turnd away in great fury then I said wel the LORD wil look down and see all these things at which he turn'd and said pish the LORD what do you tel us the LORD who is the L you are not the LORD a●e you and so went on raging and blaspheming and the rest scoffing for company as ful of fury as they could hold who indeed have not the patience to hear the Lords name so much as mention unless at Alehouses and in sin so sadly prophane are they and indeed how can they be otherwise when men with wicked and idle courses have spent al their meanes and cannot or wil not work they get into these Garrisons to drink and guzzle their Pay out before their pay-day comes and for other misdemeanours deserving to be chashiered can find no way to secure their places but by their brutish premeditated and barbarous cruelty to us wherein they merit most that are monstrous and these things I declare as in the sight of the God of truth to be true having read over again and again what I have written and do not know one line I have written too large the Lord knows whatever some may think but in many that I have written too little rather intending hereby to give but hints to the Saints of the continued and multiplied Series of our sufferings especially to such at London as through their ignoance and our forced silence say it is but a flea biting that we suffer and not worth speaking of but it is a sign they have not a fellow feeling for as the Lord said to Ezek 2.46 They are impudent and stiff necked but be not afraid of them though BRIARS AND THORNS be with thee and thou art among SCORPIONS and therefore it is we are so torn and stung every day and indeed in a sense it is a suffering worse then Death as slight as men make it It is true in reproach to us the Soldiers after they have beaten and abused us bid us to complain if we wil and if we do not like it help it knowing that the cure is worse then the Disease to us and that we have none to complain unto but the Lord who surely wil hear us and save us at last before they have wearied us out and broken our very heart-strings and which doubtless they designe in one kind or other before they have done with us But matters of greater moment I must refer to a fitter season and blesse Jehovah with us O ye upright ones that sympathy with us for he hath yet lined us with a good conscience within and a good cause without and we trust We shal not fear what flesh can do unto us and pray for us yet more abundantly I had thought long ere this to have been at an END and that this Persecution would have added or imposed a Quietus est to my body by death out of the continuance of their cruelty but it pleases the Father that I should yet live as one alwaies dying under their immanity and now since that of the poor Maids sufferings by their so immodest dragging her al at length in the yard before mentioned I am intreated by friends to inlarge this sad History which I write with no great delight though I hope I suffer it with joy a little further but I had rather a thousand times to set it before the Lord my God then once to make mention of it to any below yet by reason of Friends importunity to whom I must not be ungrateful I shal give you a short view of this new link added to my chain since that of Joseph in his round Caines-brook-Castle or Tower too Gen 3.20 running much in my mind for the Lord was with him and although I never read of such rigor in his bonds as are in mine renewed often yet of him the Holy G saith Psal 105.18 19. Whose FEET they hurt with fetters he was laid in Iron VNTIL the time that his Word came the word of the Lord TRYED him yea not only my feet have they hurt but my back bones and whole body hath been hurt beaten bruised and are aking every day with these heavy fetters and furies Since the Maids such monstrous usage without any cause and being last out at the gate with her clothes rent and torn where besides that she lay on the ground lame like Lazarus at the gate six or seven hours the next day for admittance and at last was let in again with no little stir and threatning I had liberty to go in to my dear Co-Exiles chamber not knowing of any design they had upon me which it seems they watched for and had Orders from BULL as they say to observe when I did so being now resolved to take their rage from the lame Creature having little credit of their cruelty to her and to wreak it upon me and my poor weak Wife which they did at present thus but O Lord let the remainder of their Wrath PRAISE thee Upon a sudden after my fellow prisoner had invited me into his Chamber four or six Musketeirs with Swords Guns and light Matches were set upon me there and soon after more followed them they set also Soldiers upon my weak Wife and Family yea into the very room raging which frighted her for the suddenness of it she being as ignorant as I of the meaning of this new piece of tyranny and so keeping us asunder that we could not come at one another see or hear so as to know of each others condition or what the matter was which made it look like a bad business as bad as if forthwith they had intended to murther me at least my Wives sickness subjecting her withal to very frightful fancies feares and apprehensions wondring vvhat would become of me stil asking after me and what was become of me or what they had done with me and besides to make it a through piece of a monstrous matter to her they set within her chamber the most uncivil drunken raging wretches stamping threatning grinding their teeth calling Jade Quean Carrion with a many such obscene names bending their fists striking tearing thumping rai●ing with their staggering if any offered to go in the room not suffering them to stir for necessaries within the rooms offering and drawing the naked sword upon them with asseverations several times vvithout any provocation given them in Word or deed and soon after followed ten or twelve more as they inform me and filled the room vvith such rude creatures and doings vvithout any regard at all to Sex sickness or condition As they vvere at this inhumane sport persecuting my Wife and Family those armed Soldiers with me were not wanting with great violence and fury to execute their Orders as they called it for I offering to go to the door with desire to see my Wife being fearful of some mischeif to her though I knew not of this cruel usage of