Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bring_v	great_a	king_n	3,018	5	3.5536	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48867	A second letter to a dissenter, upon occasion of His Majesties late gracious Declaration of indulgence	Lobb, Stephen, d. 1699.; Halifax, George Savile, Marquis of, 1633-1695, attributed name.	1687 (1687)	Wing L2729A; ESTC R202494	11,541	20

A Second Letter TO A DISSENTER Upon Occasion of His Majesties Late Gracious DECLARATION OF Indulgence LONDON Printed for Iohn Harris at the Harrow against the Church in the Poultrey 1687. A Second Letter to a Dissenter c. WE are subject to nothing more than forgetfulness of Blessings unthankfulness for Mercies or to abuse or misuse them When Israel was delivered from Egyptian Slavery they sang Gods Praise but soon forgot his great Goodness to them in their distress they cried unto God but when he delivered them from their Oppressors and Oppressions they kicked against him when beyond their Faith or Hope they were freed from their Captive state in Babylon most of them contemned that Mercy and chose to continue under Servitude and only a few embraced that Liberty I hope none of you will be found to imitate them in that ungrateful Obstinacy That the Obligations God by his late merciful Providence of the like kind hath laid upon you and the sence thereof and of the Blessing you have received by his Majesties most Gracious Declaration may remain upon you and that you may consider what your Sufferings were and what you are delivered from this seasonable Advice is given to you by one of your own Number that now is and for about forty years hath been a Member of a Congregational Church and purposeth so to continue unto his death Your Deliverance was from the Jaws of Destruction you are brought from Slavery to a state of Liberty the Shackles of Conscience and Bolts of your Prisons are knocked off and you left free to Worship God in Truth without Fear your Houses are no more rifled nor your Goods plundered seized or sold nor your Persons Wives Children Relations and Friends crowded into nasty Goals on the Perjuries and false Informations of the Dregs of the People such who by Debaucheries violated all Bonds of Conscience and whose Trade it was to spoil you Men as compassionate as Ravenous Wolves to whose insatiate Avarice there were no bounds You were not suffered to plead your own Cause the Press being shut against you a favour Heathens always allowed you were forced to bear all Injuries though innocent If you complained it increased your Punishment if silent you were sullen condemned fined and imprisoned without being heard or knowing your Accusers and that too many times for supposed Crimes you were not guilty of ruined banished and destroyed because you were unwilling to be damned for violating your Consciences your worshipping of God as you judged according to his own appointment was accounted a greater Iniquity than Adultery Perjury Atheism or Blasphemy These were easily expiated but no Attonement for Non Conformity or for not coming to Church though in many Parishes in and about London the Churches would not hold one third part of the Parishioners These Proceedings were accounted Legal and your not conforming reckoned Obstinacy and such as deserved no pity nothing would evince the contrary or that Conscience was concerned therein loss of all the Comforts of this Life would not do it and further Evidence you could not give This was your State and Condition as to your Sufferings and Persecutions from which your Deliverance was extraordinary and unexpected whereby you are at once engaged under many Obligations which if you fail to answer will lie as a Brand of Infamy upon you 1. You are therefore to bless and adore God for this his great goodness and deliverance the effect only of his merciful bounty to whom the praise is due and to be exprest in a godly peaceable meek circumspect humble and fruitful conversation That will bring Glory not only to his Name and Truth but also to your Profession and establish in the Consciences of your Oppressors a Conviction That without any cause they unjustly persecuted you be not therefore wanting herein least you provoke the Lord thereby again to take this Blessing from you 2. Thankfully to acknowledge the Kings Benignity and Compassion his Grace was free and that too after many great provocations nor were there wanting those that so Misrepresented His Majesty which you too readily credited as if he had been another Nero or Caligula that nothing but Blood and Cruelty was in his Nature and designed by him and at the same time you were Represented as his most Implacable and Irreconcileable Enemies drest up in Bears Skins to be baited and yet under these Circumstances without Petition or Intreaty of his own Innate Goodness and Clemency he both pardoned and freed you from Merciless Oppressors and from those Cruel Laws the Engins made use of to debauch your Consciences deprieve you of your Communion with God and to make your Lives bitter a more seasonable mercy could not be given and if you are wanting in Thankfulness Love and Subjection to His Majesty you will justly be branded as the most ungratefull and perfidious 3. 'T is Incumbent on you also as men and Christians to use your utmost Endeavours by all Lawful Ways and Means to Extirpate all those Laws and Tests that deprieve you of this Freedom or lay any Restraint on Conscience in matters of Religion you accounted it your duty as Daniel did to break these Laws when their keenest edge was turned against you judging it better to obey God then Men and shall there now be the least hesitation in your minds as to the vacating of them Can you desire again to be in bondage even whilst your Wounds are bleeding fresh and your Backs soar with the Lashes you received from them Will not all men brand your folly that when you have an opportunity to be free and nothing but your own remiss Inadvertancy can continue or renew your bondage you should be wanting to your selves herein Who will then pity you if your Bonds are again repeated and can you expect otherwise so long as these Laws and Tests are in force for they have not lost their Sting nor your Persecutors their Malice Prejudice and Revenge are they not the Children of their Fathers that formerly drove Thousands into the American Wilderness for their Consciences are your Sufferings the first persecution by these Laws what then means the many Petitions and Apologies against them made by Dissenters in each Kings Reign since they were first Enacted Were there no Ministers Silenced nor persons Executed Banished or Imprisoned before your days and if so by what Laws and who were the Authors or Actors therein And will you suppose they will do so no more and that too when those very men whose pleasure was in your Ruine do still rage like a Bear bereaved of her Whelps and curse you with bitter Execrations because restrained from their Cruelty and deprieved of their Felicity which with their debauchery issued in your destruction whose wrath is so boyled into Envie that they cannot forbear their Threats but set their Tongues on mischief even to the most undecent expressions of His Majesty himself for his Fatherly Compassions to you 4. Consider that