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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	death_n	die_v	sin_n	7,620	5	5.8816	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A95890	A looking-glasse for malignants: or, Gods hand against God-haters. Containing a most terrible yet true relation of the many most fearefull personall examples (in these present times, since the yeere, 1640.) of Gods most evident and immediate wrath against our malevolent malignants. Together with a caveat for cowards and unworthy (either timorous or treacherous) newters. Collected for Gods honour, and the ungodlies horrour, by John Vicars. Imprimatur hic liber. Iohn White.	Vicars, John, 1579 or 80-1652.	1643 (1643)	Wing V317; Thomason E33_18; ESTC R19020	39,491	44

houre Immediately after Prayer the sicke party said He was now most happy since God and Man had forgiven him and told the Minister hee was certaine God pardoned him all his finnes The Minister answered It was well if his assurance were on good grounds He replied That he was sure of it for Christ had taken away all his sinnes which God had in his sicknesse set before his eyes yea and some such finnes as he did not know or beleeve formerly to have beene sinnes but now Christ had borne them all on his owne shoulders and eased him of all that heavy burthen with many other most heavenly and divine expressions And being neere his death even the night before he died he said Hee assuredly saw Christ in a vision appearing unto him and telling him that his sinnes were pardoned and that he had a Cause on earth and that the Parliament of England defended it and that in the yeere of our Lord Christ 1644. the Parliament should obtaine a great victory over the Kings Forces and that then there should bee none of those wicked Ministers that had mis-led Gods people left among them and that from that time the Parliament should prosper but in the meane season that the rod of the wicked should rest on the backs of his righteous ones And after this hee lay glorying and rejoycing in the forgivenesse of his sinnes and even triumphing over death till the time of his departure which was the next day This relation was testified both by the said learned reverend and religious Divine who was often with him in his said sicknesse and heard most of his expressions and also by another religious Gentleman who was also then present and heard what is here delivered as aforesaid Also one Thomas Clarke a ranke malignant young man and servant to one Master Travill a merchant of London 3. One Thomas Clarke also a merchants man in London a notable malignant his penitent confession on his death-bed in honour of the Parliament being in the yeere 1643 stricken with sicknesse of which he died about three dayes before his death one William Coote a neighbour of his comming to visit him in this his sicknesse and having sate a while with him as he was going away the sick party desired him to stay a little and told him that hee would now say more to him then he had done to any which was this I am now sayes hee strongly perswaded in my heart that the Parliament maintains a right cause and at last shall have victory over the Kings Forces for they he said fought for Antichrist and he confest withall that he had lived a very sinfull life and was most of all grieved that he had spoken so much against the Parliament for which he wished he could now weep teares of blood together with very many patheticall speeches to this purpose and shortly after it departed this life This I have also from very honest and religious hands and testimony who have faithfully informed me of the truth thereof as having been both eye and ear-witnesses of the same In September also 1643. one Master Whitleigh in Golding lane in London with his wife Mistresse Whitleigh both of them very religious Christians 4. A remarkable example of one Master Whitleigh and his wife who deserted the Cause of the Parliament and truly fearing the Lord came with their foure children not long before to London from Tewksbury in Gloucestershire principally desiring to remove thence because of the wicked conversation of the Cavaliers billeted where he lived And hee having formerly served in the Parliaments Army against the Kings Forces but being now at London and for about three moneths space void of imployment resolved to give over service in the wars as finding a timorous fearfulnesse in himselfe to adventure any more into the Parliaments Army thereupon at last he had some thoughts to goe into New-England and advising with his wife who also was most unw●l●ing hee should any more put himselfe into the Service of the Parliament but by all meanes began to strengthen his resolution to goe away for New-England Whereupon he peremptorily now resolving to depart thither with his wife and children presently laid out thirty pounds for their passage by Sea and as much more for provision of necessaries to the voyage But being ready to depart the Lord suddenly struck him very sicke and in his sicknesse he was very much troubled in his minde lamenting and crying out very much against the sinne of Cowardise and Fearfulnesse which hee conceived to bee the ground of his intended removall to New-England and therefore much distrusting his soules estate cryed out often That he had sinned against God in cowardly deserting his holy Cause yet earnestly praying the Lord to forgive him this sinne promising and protesting that if the Lord vouchsafed to restore him to health and strength againe he would resolutely goe on to spend every drop of the blood in his veines for the Parliaments Cause and afterward blaming his wife for giving her consent and incouraging him therein he shortly after died yet before his departure he testified abundance of comfort and assurance of Gods favour and the pardon of his sin Immediately also after his death it so pleased the Lord that his wife fell so distracted that three or foure women could scarcely hold her downe in her bed and she taking no sustenance but what was forced into her mouth for many dayes she still in all this time of most sad perplexity crying out That she had sinned against God in counselling and incouraging her deceased husband to forsake Gods Cause and thereby she feare● she had beene the cause of his death And thus she lay divers dayes in much misery crying out of this her sinne and craving pardon of God for it And about the end of September aforesaid my godly friend from whom I had this relation comming occasionally to her house to see her found that her raging fits had left her but her spirits much spent and she lying speechlesse so that he knew not how to administer a word of comfort to her in that case wherefore being about to depart thence shee looked stedfastly on him reached out her hand to him which he tooke in his being as cold as clay and therewith spake many comfortable words unto her and ere he departed she manifested very much consolation in her soule both by words though faintly and gestures also and in a most happy and comfortable condition departed this life also the very next morning after his departure from her This relation I say I had from a very religious Citizen of London and faithfull servant of the Lord who himselfe was with Mistresse Whitleigh thus departing and whose own Sister lived close by these parties was well acquainted with them both in their lives and death and whose testimony I know to be without exception There was also about the time of the first victories of the famous and

bounds as not to breake out to do that mischiefe unto His which their malignant adversaries most desperately and divellishly intended to have done unto them Malignants are but Gods drudges and scull-boyes to his Church and children Nay wherein they are yet farre more miserable yea most miserable of all God most wisely and wonderfully makes them in this their intended malice and mischiefe to be but as it were the very drudges and scull-boyes of his Church and children and to doe them farre more good than hurt in scouring and refining them from their drosse and filth contracted from the rubbish of the world in this life yea and by their malignant plottings fighting and spighting Reverend and religious Mr. Marshall cursing swearing jesting and jeering at truth and holinesse they shall as a most holy and reverend Minister of the Lord said exceedingly helpe forward promote and advance Gods cause yea more many times than many of the choice friends thereof and yet which I say is the height or rather the depth of their misery when they have thus done Gods worke though they little thought it and never intended it they themselves like the blinde builders of Noahs Arke who were after it drowned in the Deluge shall be so farre from having any part or portion in the comfortable issue prosperity of his cause that they shal die in their sinne and be everlastlingly damned and perish for their paines therein if I say in the interim God in his infinite boundlesse rich mercy gives them not space and grace to repent What an unexpressible sad condition are ye then in O most miserable Malignants if you could but see this your wicked worke and this your wretched wages as aforesaid even with prophane Esau Hebr. 12. 16. 1 King 21. 20. thus to strive and struggle to sell away as 't was said of Ahab that he sold himselfe to worke wickednesse your blessed Birth-right of life and salvation I speake here the pure language of Canaan maugre the false and fl●shie conceits and whimsies of our impious Antinomians those slye and jugling underminers of Christian humiliation for sinne A just objurgation to Antinomians by way of a briefe digression and of all other holy duties under a colour of their either ignorant or perverse wresting and misapplying of Gods eternall decree of salvation and free grace to his children Yea I say of those unjust and injurious scandalizers of our venerable pious and most painfull Pastors falsly terming them Legall Preachers and pressers of performance of holy duties in our owne strength and abilities a most grosse scandall and aspersion audaciously cast on them by these Satans Seeds-men of sedition and division in point of Religion Pardon good Reader this glancing digression of zeale in me and now to go on to struggle I say with prophane Esau to sell your blessed Birth-right of life and salvation for a poore base and beggarly morsell of meat or messe of pottage of worldly pel●e carnall pleasure and pretended peace forsooth which shall all perish in the use of them and prove unto you nothing but meere vani●y and vexation of spirit Cease then I beseech you O most unholy and unhappy Malignants cease I say and that timely too thus to fret and fume to swear and swagger and to shew your selves such palpable and apparent fighters against God such banders and combiners against Christ in his precious and peculiar members whom though you doe in your life and healthy times scorne and contemne The esteeme that Malignants have of Round-heads in the times of their sicknesse and distresses yet in times of sicknesse or extreme straits and heavy pressures and conscience-distresses these are the onely men you fare the better for these are the men I say that you are often enforced even out of Conscience to send for in your sicknesse especially when you thinke 't is a sicknesse to death to pray for you counsell and comfort you yea and ofttimes in health too are constrained to confesse of them 1 Sam. 24. 17. and to say with wicked Saul to holy David Thou art more righteous than I for thou hast rewarded me good whereas I have rewarded thee evill And therefore truly friends in these like cases I may greatly and most justly feare and I beseech you marke well what I now shall say unto you and feare and tremble at it too that most of the Grandees and Cosmopolites of these our abominably back sliding and apostatizing times most of them I say for I beleeve that they doe not all fight against God upon one and the same principle especially our learned knowing Courtiers Marke this O our learned and knowing Malignants Prelates scandalous Priests and intelligent Protestants at large I greatly feare I say that they come as neere to that sinne that terrible and unpardonable sinne against the holy Ghost and are as deeply plunged into it as ever any Apostate before them which sinne if I mistake not is wilfully The sinne against the holy Ghost knowingly maliciously and perseveringly to persecute and prosecute with all spight and bitternesse of spirit the Truth and true Professors thereof eo nomine because it is and they know it is the Truth of God and therefore they cannot abide it because their owne workes being darknesse they love darknesse more than light 2 Thes 2. 10. 11 12. And that there are such to be found the Apostle Paul testifies and their desperate condition too and I make no doubt but some of them have or will bee enforced ere they dye to acknowledge and cry out I have credibly heard that a some of the Kings Cormorants or Cavaliers have in our late wars cryed out Let us be gon for God fights against us as Serjeant-Major-Generall Basset a Royalist who at the dissolution of the siege at Plimouth spake the very words to one of our Commanders in our works at his going away if not true penitence yet in damnable despaire with that accursed Apostate Julian the heathenish Emperour Vicisti Galilae vicisti So these You have overcome us O Puritans and Round heads you have overcome us for Gods judgements have overtaken us in contending against you And therefore I may and must say unto you all who ever you be in this case and persist therein as Simon Peter said to Simon Magnus You are certainly in the gall of bitternesse in thus abusing the Spirit of grace and his peculiar and precious jewels pray therefore O yet pray if peradventure this sinne may be forgiven you which indeed is the ultimum refugium the last and best refuge and hope you have yet most unlikely to helpe you if not serious and seasonable For he that turnes away his eare from hearing the Law that is from loving God and goodnesse his Cause his Saints and Servants even his very prayers are an abomination to the Lord. And then you may with wicked Esau begge the blessing you so

remembrance of that most remarkable and memorable passage of Gods providence how in the beginning of these most uncivill Civill-warres and commotions among us 1. Gods hand against malignants in the strange behaviour of the souldiers in the first Army into the North against the Scots when by the prevalent power of the malignant Parricides on the Kings part an Army was first raised to goe into the North against our honest and harmlesse brethren of Scotland and that the Souldiers then pressed and provoked to goe forth to fight against them in their march thither-ward though they themselves were but prophane fellowes rude and irreligious young men and therefore one would have thought most fit instruments to promote such an irreligious worke and warre as that was how strangely the Lord over ruled their hearts and ordered their spirits making them to divert and turne all the edge of their sury and disaffection against the Malignant cause and quarrell and upon the malignant and popish party themselves that had set them on worke over-turning their Altars in all Churches and Chappels wheresoever they came and found them breaking in pieces and burning the railes about them plundering and terretying the scandalous Baals-priests and popish sonnes of Belial wheresoever they found any of them and not onely refusing to be led and commanded by popish Captaines and Commanders but flying in their faces and killing and wounding divers of them Which hand of God against them in the very same kind hath been also admirably seconded now againe lately in those 800 or 1000 Souldiers brought out of Ireland 2. Gods-hand against malignants in the Souldiers sent out of Ireland since the Cessation of armes there to fight against the Parliament since that accursed cessation of Armes there and landed at Bristol intended for that traiterous parricide Sir Ralph Hopton to fight against our most pious Parliament But I say how admirably the Lord turned their hearts suddenly from that most accursed cause and how that upon the tender of an oath unto them to fight against the Parliament they utterly refused it flew in the faces of their Commanders and made them fly away vowing and protesting with apparent expressions of great indignation that they would not fight for the popish party in England as they had not in Ireland and thereupon joyntly resolved to force their way as they most faithfully did from Bristol where they were first landed to Bathe so to Gloucester to fight on the Parliaments side under the command of that ever most highly to be honoured commander Colonell Massie who gave them most free and friendly entertainment 3. Also in the Westerne and Northern parts of the Kingdome notwithstanding their seeming successe there To which I might here most pertinently and pregnantly adde the yet more late defection of very many of their intended party both in the West to Lime Poole and Plimouth even then when they had beene ready armed for Hoptons service in the South In the North also divers both of the Gentry and Commons who have deserted New castle and in Wales and Cheshire also now later I say of the English-Irish Souldiers who would by no means fight against the Parliament 4. In many memorable plots also admirably discovered and crossed Together with the detection and discovery of many most mischievous plots and base designes of treachery most admirably and strangely discovered and so happily and timely frustrated even by the immediate mercy and good hand of God as that most bloody Plot against the Parliament Jan. 4. 1641. The Plot of the Scots Army at their former coming in among us to have beene sent against the Parliament and City of London The late Plot against Hull by Sir Iohn Hotham and his sonne And the severall most dangerous Plots under pretence of Treaties for peace forsooth against the most renowned and famous City of London as that dangerous Plot by Waller Challenor Tomkins c. And that more lately now of Sir Bazil Bro●k Violet or rather Varlet and hypocriticall Riley with very many other of these kindes almost all over the whole Kingdome all too well knowne and too tedious here to relate and which I have most fully and particularly related in my Parliamentary Chronicle intituled God in the Mount Together also with the Lords most admirable discountenancing yea cursing and blasting all the wicked designes in the Kings party ever since that hideous and hellish cessation of Armes in Ireland with those most barbarous bloody and damnable Irish Rogues 5. In Gods most justly discountenancing and making odious even to Malignants themselves that horrid cessation of Armes in Ireland which was most impiously plotted by the wicked malignant Councellors on the Kings side for their falsly hoped mighty advantage in the advancement of their bloody cause but which hath by Gods marvellous wisdome mercy and good providence proved one of the most ominous and eminently odious meanes of the ruinating and overthrowing of their most accursed cause and wicked courses even their malignants themselves being judges and which our good God hath clearly ratified I say againe by the extreme ill successe they have had ever since in all their wicked undertakings and contrariwise 6. And their extreme ill successe ever since in the great and good successe our God hath given to us ever since especially ever since our most holy and happy entring into a Covenant with our God and blessed League with our honest and religious Brethren of Scotland 7. Our good successe ever since the Covenant with Scotland witnesse our happy victories in Lincolnshire York●shire Lime Poole Plimouth Newport-Pannell Aulton Grafton-House Bewley-House Holts-House and Arundell-Castle with others in which places some reckon the Enemy hath lost besides exceeding much Armes and Ammunition and besides the brave and rich ship taken at Arundell-Castle a most admirable providence betweene three and foure thousand 8. The admirable breaking out of the Swedes against Denmarke but we may justly reckon a farre greater number Besides the admirable providence of God in stirring up beside the whole Nation of our loyall brethren of Scotland the whole Kingdome of Swethland to fall furiously and fortunately on the Kingdome of Denmarke a most admirable providentiall piece mightily to crosse and curbe our English Malignants hopes and designes against us But to come more particularly and personally neere to our intended purpose in this first branch of our Looking-glasse of Gods hand against our Malignants especially I say because personall particularities come neerer and closer then generalities I shall here therefore instance first in the strange hand of God personally manifested against them in that most admirable overture and alteration of the course of things to the shame and sorrow of our unluckey Lordly Prelates to live to see their voluptuous princely Palaces as Winchester house and Ely house turned into prisons but especially the spacious and specious palace of that Arch-adversary of Christ and his Cause among

us that grand Ringleader and accursed contriver of all these our present mischiefes and miseries next to our sinnes yea the very head and heart of Clergy and Laick-Malignants according to their owne Popish distinction I meane the Arch-Prelate of Canterbury on whom it most neerly and closely fell out by divine providence so strangely and even admirably ordering it 9. Gods hand against Malignants in Doctor Laighton made master Lambeth house now converted from a Palace to a Prison Namely that that honest and religious Gentleman Doctor Laighton that great and grievous Sufferer for the cause of Christ under the cruell tyranny of that foresaid popish Persecuter should not onely live to see himselfe delivered out of the snare but his old grand Adversary himselfe to come into it in his stead and that the said Arch-Prelate should be fast lockt up as a traiterous prisoner in the Tower of London whiles this good Doctor is made Lord and Master of the Prelates Palace at Lambeth and this said pompous or rather popish palace where so many precious Saints and servants of the Lord had beene most wickedly arraigned and condemned to prison should now be turned into a prison to lock up most loose and prophane Malignants a most strange and admirable hand of God certainly against them Yea and I might here againe remember them of that most remarkable overture of things among us in these later times namely how it most admirably pleased the Lord to bring it so to passe by his all overpowring hand of providence that the Arch-Prelate of Canterbury being imprisoned in the Tower of London as an Arch-Traitor to our Church and State the Parliament should be pleased to cause the said Arch-Prelates lodgings in the Tower to be searched for dangerous traiterterous Papers Books and VVritings and who must be the man fixed on for the performance of this service but that most famous and faithfull 10. Gods hand against Malignants in Master William Prynnes formerly a great sufferer by the Arch Prelate of Canterbury being sent to search the said Arch-Prelates lodging in the Tower pious and patient Saint and Sufferer for Christ and his Cause Master William Prynne who coming into the said Arch-Prelates bed-chamber betimes in the morning with a guard of Souldiers to secure the businesse and approaching the Prelates bedside before he was u● the Prelate asked him who he was This precious and sweet Gentleman answered my name is Prynne VVhat sayes the Prelate are you he that suffered Yea sayes Master Prynne I am he whom you most unjustly and injuriously persecuted Just as good Joseph said to his brethren at the time of his discovering and making himselfe knowne unto them I am Joseph whom ye sold into Egypt O what a stab to the heart should this have bin to this persecuting Prelate at that word I am that Prynne whom you caused so grievo●sly and so unjustly to suffer had not his heart bin more hard ad●mantine then a nether mil-stone Gen. 45. 4. and most extremly cauterized yea stigmatized with the hottest iron of most desperate impenitency and that then Master Prynne proceeding to the due execution of the charge and trust reposed in him by the Parliament should justissimâ illâ coelesti Lege-Talionis most justly Justissima coelestis Lex-Talionis I say search the Pockets of the Prelates wearing clothes before he would suffer him to put them on and rise out of his bed directly as he and some of his popishly affected Confederates had formerly dealt with some most eminent Members of a Parliam●nt formerly dissolved and as he had caused Master Prynnes owne Chamber and Study and many others also to be often most violently broken into and searched to the deeply indangering of their precious lives which undoubtedly he greedily hunted after if it might have beene As was done to reverend Master Henry Burtons house and study but therein praised be the Lord God gave this curst Cow according to the Proverbe or rather raging fat Bull of Bashan short hornes the Lords good providence and their owne innocence happily preventing this bloody designe of theirs And might not here now this Arch-Prelate on the serious consideration of these Premises in just remorse of Conscience have cryed out against himselfe like that heathenish King Adonibezeck Judges 17. had he not had as I toucht before a more then heathenish obdurate and impenitent heart Thus and thus have I done to others and now am I thus justly served by them onely with this difference That I am used farre more mercifully then I used them I might here also adde and copiously commemorate unto our mole-eyed Malignants Gods admirable providence in so strangely ordering and disposing of things by this present most memorable Parliament 11. Gods hand against the Malignant party in the Trienniall Parliament not onely to contrive a most free and spontaneous or voluntary consent of all the three Estates in Parliament to the setling of a Trienniall Parliament for the future rectifying of things amisse in Church and State and the more prudent and provident moderation and government of all sorts of State-affairs but also I say that both King Peers and Commons even both Houses of Parliament with his Majesty should so admirably and unanimously make it indissoluble and but by the sword like Alexanders Gordian knot which now the Kings Popish and Atheisticall Army is impiously and I trust fruitlesly labouring to do irrevocable Act That this present Parliament should not bee dissolved nor broken up 12. And especially in a perpetuated Parliament but by the joynt and unanimous consent of both Houses of Peers and Commons Which Act of theirs as it were perpetuating this Parliament by I say a most strange providence of God what a most admirable Block it hath laid in all the wicked wayes of that viperous generation of Atheists Papists and Malignants mightily thwarting crossing and crushing their most desperate and deepest designes I am not able I acknowledge to expresse it and onely Time is able to make it manifest to the glory of God and wonder-striking astonishment in the hearts of both Good and Bad. And though in the last yet not in least place I might here put our Malignants in remembrance for they are as we all see too willing to forget and slight both Gods hand against them and his great mercies towards us how by meanes of this present most pious Parliament 13. Gods hand against the Malignants cause in Church-government and matters of Religion Gods hand hath beene most admirably bent against them and their most impious Cause both in the expulsion and I trust in the Lord utter extirpation of that most Antichristian and tyrannicall Hierarchie of popish Prelates and that most especially by their owne proud practises and desperate designes even against the Parliament it selfe witnesse their Petition to the King that spoiled their sitting in Parliament Arminian Doctors and most scandalous Priests those sonnes of