Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	evil_a	good_a	see_v	2,875	5	3.5208	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96744	A cordial confection, to strengthen their hearts whose courage begins to fail, by the armies late dissolving the Parliament. It is wrapt up in an epistolary discourse, occasionally written to Mr. Ro. Hamon, merchant, by Geo. Wither, Esq; about a week after the said Parliament was dissolved; and is thus communicated by a copy thereof, as very pertinent to these distracted times, and tending to preservation of the common-peace. for (other things of publick concernment, being inter-woven) it truly states the peoples cause (in plain expressions, suitable to the vulgar capacities) and frees it from many scandals. It contains an expedient, (hitherto not heeded, or neglected) whereby Charles Stuart may be settled in peace, if he please: whereby, we may have a better Parliament then we lost, or ever had: whereby, our armies may be kept constant to order, whilst they are needful, and in a short time quite disbanded: whereby, the peoples just freedoms may be recovered and perpetuated: whereby, not onely these nations, but all Christendome also, may be established in a righteous peace; and it hath neither destructive inlet, outlet, or false bottom.	Wither, George, 1588-1667.	1659 (1659)	Wing W3151; Thomason E763_13; ESTC R207097	68,046	43

many even of their best Friends to be jealous doubtful of their sincerity and constancy to that Cause which they have heretofore owned and vindicated which is true enough An Answer in part to that Objection may be implyed toward the Extenuation thereof by asking what other Party or Persons impowred to serve the Publick in Place and Affairs of high Trust hath not as much failed in like manner and receded from former Votes and Resolutions with connivence when either they who should have called them to an accompt for it were as much guilty or when it could not be done without hazarding the Common Peace in regard of the Delinquents power Whether also it be not more agreeable to Justice and a good Conscience to vary our Purposes or counter-act to our former Engagements then to prosecute them when we find they will destroy that end for which we first engaged And whether we have not more cause to confide in those without suspect who are changeable upon that score then in them who foolishly think it a point of honour wilfully to persevere in what they have promised right or wrong though it be destructive to them unto whom their promises were made yea and to the Popular safety against which no Promise or Engagement is obliging What persons intrusted have not been sometimes inforced to mutability either by emergent accidents or by disagreement among themselves or by the counter-actings of those to whom they were subordinate or with whom they were co-ordinate or by some other distinct power But though neither their Judgment nor their Conscience nor a real necessity inclined the Officers of the Army to what hath been lately done but that a Souldier-like Indignation onely provoked by the apprehension of some undeserved affront or disrespect had rashly transported them yet their and the publick interest are so complicated that they being considered as men in whom humane infirmities are to be expected and then at this time as Causa sine qua non the persons who have now the most visible power of this Commonwealth in their hands it would at such a Juncture of Affairs evidence more madness in my judgment then prudence not to comply with them in an amicable manner to secure that which IS rather then to destroy it by quarrelling about that which IS NOT and which was likely enough as in effect it did to have destroyed it Self the Army and many other if it had much longer continued I will not defend any mans arregular actings of whose Irregularities I know not the Motives nor will I absolutely condemn them For though it be my Principle not wilfully to act contrary to Rule because I never had Motive internally nor warrant externally so to do by any compulsive necessity or otherwise Nevertheless I know there have been heretofore and that possibly there may be now and hereafter when the people of GOD are in extraordinary streights such impulses of spirit inducing other men at some times to extraordinary Executions that I dare not judge them to be performed with an evil conscience or without Divine approbation because I am not privy to the secret passages which are or may be betwixt GOD and the Prosecutors and because also I finde that the Holy-Ghost hath justified many in undertakings of that nature as Phineas Rahab Jael and others remembred in Holy Scripture who were active so repugnantly to common Rules of just proceeding and to the literal sence of Laws morally and ordinarily obliging that I should have thought them worthy to have been condemned for Murther Treason Truce-breaking and barbarously infringing the Law of Hospitality if the Spirit of GOD had not by Sacred Writ informed me that those Prosecutions were effects of their Faith The example which many do take from these aforenamed to precipitate themselves into the like actings by a deluding Spirit working upon their Corruptions who read the Scriptures with an unsanctified heart is nevertheless to be carefully heeded and a voyded and there are many Symptomes and concemitant Circumstances observable some of which I have enumerated in one of my private Addresses heretofore made to Oliver late Protector upon occasion offered whereby every man may discern infallibly whether a good or an evil Spirit hath inclined him to such undertakings and I do believe that there have been in these latter days as well as heretofore good causes why GOD should vouchsafe extraordinary dispensations For I have been an Eye-witness and according to my understanding a diligent Observer of what GOD and Men have done in these latter times by being constrained to reside most part of my life where Affairs of publick Concernment were managed and was bound to that attendance which gave opportunity to be assured of what I have heard and seen as also to be thereupon moved to publish Remembrances bearing witness for this and for future Ages as I believe touching the Controversies which GOD had with these Islands during the Reigns of King Charles and his Father with Memorials of the Prevarications that then were of the Interchanges of Judgements and Mercies whereby GOD visited them with timely Fore-warnings of what hath since befallen that Family and these Nations in many particulars wherein GOD's Justice is evident with what mind soever it was prosecuted by the Executioners thereof I have likewise for the most part been continually Resident ever since the beginning of the Parliament last sitting and lately dissolved where I might and did take notice of their most signal Transactions not without being made sensible of some of them I was personally known to the greatest number of them as likewise to very many of the following onventions called Parliaments and had so many occasions to know them that few private persons of my degree hath had experimentally a more perfect cognizance of what they were or of what they did And I do profess in the fear of GOD that I conceived the few right-principled and conscientions men among them were able to do so little good and the rest to act so much evil that as I have sometimes publickly intimated I expected nothing from them but an encrease of Confusions likely to produce inevitable Destruction until the late Restoration of the first Parliament on whom I for a while hoped GOD's extraordinary Mercy to them vouchsafed might have so wrought that it would have produced extraordinary good effects But that miraculous Restoration was forgotten so quickly by too many of them that it produced little of that fruit which was expected though just prosecutions were as I believe seriously intented and endeavoured by some among them Their needless neglect of common Justice to distressed Suppliants ready to perish and their gross partiality was so apparent their time so wasted by impertinencies their proceedings otherwhile so slow and another while so rash the Notions of some so metaphysical and of othersome so meerly carnal their Results so wavering or contradictory interferings so frequent and their puzlings so many to

Those three Employments gave me opportunity to observe how our Parliaments our Protectors our Councils our Armies our Committees our Ministers and the People behaved themselves toward GOD and each other in the management of their Cause And to speak truth without lying for them or against them if I had been a stranger to their Cause and the Kings and must have judged whether had been most righteous by the manners and actings of the men I should have given judgement against the Peoples Cause For the Royal Party whom we call Cavaliers prosecuted their Evil Cause like men and like such men as they made shew to be But the Parliament Party some few excepted whose burthens and vexations were the greater and makes them worthy to be the more pitied and honoured managed their Good Cause like like like to tell you truly like I know not what for I can devise nothing under heaven and above ground whereto I may liken them and it is no wonder that so many thousands fall off dayly from them and that our Enemies judge of our Cause and of Us as I hear they do I should not have thought it possible that men professing and pretending so much good should have been so evil if GOD had permitted me to have lived so obscurely in a Country Village as I much desired where I should have known no more of the one Party or of the other then common Fame had informed to whose rumours I give little credit And knowing me so well as many of those men do if they had not been infatuated they would have done me Justice though not for Justice sake to have sent me thither being resolved to do as they have done where I should not have had means to be a witness against them for that injustice and partiality which I have observed I engaged for the Parliament out of conscience else I might have had as good means to know experimentally the manners of the Kings Party whereof I am informed but by report onely For being by some of them thought more considerable then I am by those to whom I voluntarily adhered I was invited to that side by two Letters from the Lord Butler which I think are yet among my papers who thereby engaged to settle immediately upon me half his Estate and that it should be but an earnest of a far greater gratitude in future from the King if I would come unto him then at Oxford yet I constantly adhered to the Parliament and do not repent it in this day of our confusion though in requital of my faithfulness in adventuring my Life Credit and all my Estate for it they have exposed me and my Family to scorn and poverty as well by other injuries done as by neglect of Justice and by not making good their Securities and Engagements which occasioned my Engagements to other men I mention these things that being some way brought to their Consideration it may prepare them to be capable of another extraordinary Mercy in this their greatest need and not out of revenge For I know Vengeance belongs to GOD and that I shall but burn my own Fingers by endeavouring to pull down hot Coals upon the heads of mine Oppressours Therefore my smitings are but friendly blows and my corroding Expressions applyed but to eat out the dead flesh which may hinder the operation of a healing Balsame and it is very needful for by all those Parties afore particularized and even by us who pretend to the best Cause many things have been acted or connived at which were so imprudent so unjust so unmerciful and indeed so barbarous that we are a plague to each other and a laughing-stock to all our Neighbours round about us and instead of repenting and endeavouring to amend what is amiss in a rational and possible way we behave our selves like Whores in a City-Alley They first fall to scolding railing belying impeaching and abusing each other by all opprobrious words then to tear and scratch and at last to grow so mad that they set each others houses on fire to the undoing of themselves and their neighbours We and our Enemies instead of looking to our own ways and prosecuting that which might deliver us out of those confusions and streights whereinto our sins and follies have brought us do spend much of our time in sowing seeds of discord and in scandalous Imputations as if that justified our several Causes It is written that Michael the Arch-Angel when he contended with the Devil as bad as the Devil was durst not bring a railing Accusation against him but said onely The LORD rebuke thee Such Accusations I confess were even these of mine as were not allowable if they were untrue and no better though they be true if I intended them maliciously to bring any one to destruction or shame and not in true Charity to save men from shame and destruction by repentance We on both sides cannot be contented to object matter of Fact so far as we know or believe it to be true in justification of our Causes but endeavour also to make it seem good by doing that which is evil and affirming that which is untrue or so doubtful that it ought not to be peremptorily averred yea we sometimes make bold to intrude into GOD's secret Judgements to disparage our Adversaries Cause or to justifie our own thereby and often-abusively mis-apply GOD's Word to our own wicked purpose Our Antagonists think to justifie their Cause by an Argument drawn from our unstableness boasting that they have not been so fickle and disobedient to their Governour or Government as we have been to ours but that they have in all his and in their own dangers and troubles continued constant both to their first Principles and to their King which is partly true to our shame but not much to their honour and no whit to the justifying of their Cause For mans corruption makes him to adhere more firmly to that which is evil then to that which is good And it is not so much their vertue as their necessity perhaps which keeps them constant They have no other means of safety and subsistence for the most part else as many of them have done who had another Resuge they it may be who brag of their Constancy would have deserted him also ere this day Moreover many of them are the persons whose evil Counsels was the undoing of their King and of his Father and of themselves They had gotten thereby great Estates and Titles of honour which they could not else have obtained and which being now lost cannot be re-possessed but by adherence unto him until his condition grows desperate or until they can be better provided for so their faithfulness and perseverance doth probably proceed rather from self-respects then from love to their King or from the justness of his Cause But indeed the greatest stumbling-block and stone of offence which will obstruct my Expedient in taking good effect among the Common

take notice of that Grievance and seeing it more likely to be enlarged then removed or made less one sin shall be punished by another Or the Officers of the Army fearing perhaps that the disbanding or disablement of their Brigades and Regiments was intended by some in Parliament for their better carrying on of Designes advantageous to their own Persons or Factions to the publick detriment in which practice it is thought some of them can hardly be over-gone or peradventure they perceive that timely provision to secure this Republick from the Common Enemy was neglected and that not onely their Estates Families and Persons might therewith be ruined but that the dishonour likewise of all the evil Consequences thereof would at last be imputed to them upon these or on some other Considerations have resolved to assume the management of the peoples Cause into their own hands for the future and so to proceed in the Course hitherto neglected that they may clear their besported Reputations by using the Military Sword to establish the Civil as others at first should have done and then to sheath it up again and lay it aside which I pray GOD may be the worst part of their Designe and that whatsoever be designed by them he will be pleased graciously to make use of it for the good of these Nations and pardon what was well intended though irregularly acted For I hope whether their former proceedings have been justifiable or not they are not persons of so little Conscience and Humanity that they will persevere in what is amiss done when they are convinced of their errour and that the Power which the people by their Representative first gave them which is yet maintained at their cost and which GOD hath at this time permitted to reside in them onely and is no where else visible shall not be wilfully employed to the destruction of those who trusted them though it be a while exercised contrary to order and their good liking from whom they received it For such an Ingratitude will be answerably avenged and they would thereby become the most infamous Army that ever was in the world because they have pretended to more Piety and Justice then ever any Army did heretofore The Falshood and Perfidiousness of other Armies was but the Falshood and Perfidiousness of Heathens Turks or de baunched Christians and it made them infamous as meer carnal men onely But this being an Army consisting of persons not onely professing Christianity but having the repute of Saints also their perfidiousness will render them as abominable as Devils and even they who to their own advantage make use of their persons will hate them in their hearts be always distrustful of them and not onely scatter them assoon as possibly they can but expose them also to such a condition as may disable them to be further mischievous hereafter and to be justly abhorred of all men wheresoever they live But as that experience afore-mentioned which I have of some in this Army makes me presume they will not wilfully deceive our hopes of them So their Knowledge of the many occasions which have been given to make Them and Others justly jealous of the Common Safety inclines me to think it possible that what they have lately and heretofore done contrary to order may as to some of them deserve more then an excuse For when I consider GOD's Dispensations of old with such undertakings as have been prosecuted when his honour and the safety of his people required them and how the one is blasphemed and the other endangered at this time I conceive that it may proceed partly from a Divine Impulse whereof though I cannot be so assured they who have been Leading Actors therein may be ascertained by what Spirit they were moved Whilst I was writing this I cast mine eyes upon a Copy of those Papers aforementioned then lying before me which I presented to the first Protector and wherein are expressed those Concomitant Circumstances which be requisite to warrantize an irregular Act Therefore I will here insert them word for word as they are there because perhaps it may come to the knowledge of some who will now need those Cautions as much as the Protector did heretofore They are these ten First there must be an unfeigned and an apparent necessity of deviating from Rule and Order at least such a necessity as is apparent to the Actor and which may or might have been apparent to others who had like means to be informed thereof Secondly it must be for preservation of a nobler Interest Authority or Command then that which is thereby violated Thirdly it must be practised in Faith without any self-end or by-respect to private Interests such onely excepted as are so naturally therewith wrapt up that they cannot be separated Fourthly there must be warrantable Example in holy Scripture of like practises in like cases Fifthly there must be an outward calling thereto by the Office of the undertaker either Spiritual Civil or Military or an extraordinary calling evidenced by some gift or qualification proper to that undertaking or by an appearance of GOD's presence with him by some evident work of Providence not common Sixthly there must be a visible power in some measure enabling the Prosecutor in probability at least to begin continue and finish his part of the enterprize Seventhly it must be done in Charity without Envy Hatred Malice or a Revengeful mind Eighthly there must be an internal Energie of the Spirit of GOD witnessing to his Conscience that he aims onely or at least chiefly at His Glory and strengthning him to suffer undauntedly contentedly and modestly with submission to GOD's Will if the Enterprize miscarry and not with that dejectedness impatience or desperateness which is in Impostors and Malefactors Ninthly he must not willingly permit any other to bear the outward penalty due by the Law for his irregularity but rather offer his own person to those who are to preserve order and depend on GOD onely for the reward of his undertaking seeing men cannot take notice of GOD's secret dispensations for it is sin against the outward Rule to do evil that good may come thereof as well-meaning men sometimes do though it be a greater sin to do good that evil purposes may take effect as Hypocrites often do Lastly He that acts to the Breach of at Law by a Divine impulse will nevertheless finde in his heart such a respect to Order that he will unfainedly be industrious to reduce all things to their pristine orderly Course assoon as the necessity which constrained his irregularity is so evidently removed that it may be safely done except it shall so come to pass that Providence from thenceforward shall change the old Foundations and order all things anew as sometimes it is pleased to do Without these afore-written Concomitants the Prosecutors of irregular actings though their intentions may possibly be good and their attempts be permitted by Divine Justice to prepare her

are Enemies to themselves The Good Old Cause and this being duly considered Charles Stuart hath in my understanding no more Legal Right to these Islands then I have to France and Spain He cannot justly be admitted hither but on such terms as may preserve the Peoples Interest unless GOD in wrath admit him for a punishment of our sins and to be a plague to those who desire it in contempt of his dispensations which otherwise neither our present divisions or the power of all his Confederates beyond the Seas would be able to effect notwithstanding the Superlative sottishness of some among us who seem fit to be governed by none but a Tyrant and by whom Charles Stuart himself would be sufficiently plagued whether he be tyrannically inclined or not if the Government of them should be on him imposed For though some desire his coming it is not in love for his own sake but in hope to enjoy under him a licentious Freedom and upon the least failing of their expectations in that hope they would cry Crucifie him the next day after they cryed Hosanna and wish for those again whom they now revile For many of them are the same persons who opposed reviled and pursued his Father even to his death and against him who should rule over them piously and righteously they would be much more exasperated This is not a rash censure founded upon passion or conjectures but a probable conclusion on that long experience which I have had of the giddiness malice and bruitish condition of that inconsiderate Rabble which makes the loudest Clamours and who are transported with the greatest madness No private interest makes me a verse to Charles Stuarts admittance neither have I any disaffection to his person for I never received in jury by him But my averseness is meerly in relation to my Country which in my understanding cannot enjoy a happy Peace together with his person as affairs now stand in relation to Him to his Confederates and to this Commonwealth I desire nothing by endeavouring to bar him or any other from that which he or they ought in Justice to possess and though I may suspect that my Actings against him for preservation of the Common Liberties will render me liable to his fury and to the rage of his Party I shall be no more afraid of him though re-admitted to morrow then he is now of me though he should come both with an unrestrained Power and a revengeful Mind because I have discharged a good Conscience even in doing that which may most offend him Nay upon Considerations of another nature I shall have no cause to fear him or to think I shall be more cruelly dealt withal by him then I have been by those in power among whom I now live though he should take away my Life For though I have served the late Powers faithfully with my Estate Person and Credit yet by their long neglect of Justice in some things and by their actual Injustice in some other things they have so exposed me to contempt and so nigh ruined me both in my Estate and Credit without which Life is little worth that Charles Stuart cannot be so unmerciful to me as they have been except when I am quite deprived of my Livelyhood and Reputation he should suffer me to live until I saw likewise the destruction of my Family and the Commonwealth whose welfare is to me more precious then Life though for all my Contributions and Services to the endangering of my Life Estate and Credit I could not obtain so much favor toward the relief of my Oppressions as to have one Petition read in her Grand Assemblies during above nine years continual Sollicitations In brief as in relation to my self I have no reason to respect any one of the former Powers more then the other for as the Porter said Whosoever were King he should be but a Porter so I may say if they who shall come hereafter be not more righteous then they who ruled heretofore I am sure to have but little Favour and much Mischief and as for Charles Stuart in particular if he comes hither by that passage which we are likely to make for him at this time and shall walk in ways no better then his Progenitors and our late Governours have trod I cannot have so much cause to dread him as he will have to be afraid of himself and I shall do him better service perhaps if I live to see him here in power then any one of them who most desire his coming For as I did to his Father and his Successours I will make bold though with as little thanks or belief to tell him plainly and truly what will befal him and his Posterity and then I think my work will be at an end and I shall leave the Stage Now I have done with Charles Stuart unless GOD's indignation sends him thither and then I must endure the Storm as well as GOD shall enable me which will issue from that Mountain and I verily believe that will be well enough because though I affect them not I am usually safest in Storms and thrive best by GOD's mercy when my greatest Enemies think they shall irrecoverably undo me I perceive that neither such peaceable Gales as many expect are likely to proceed thence nor such dreadful Tempests as are by some feared if we make them not great by our own defaults and therefore I will turn toward the next Mountain the late dissolved Parliament if I know where to finde it which will he a very hard matter for the Father of it is dead the Mother upon which it was begotten knows not whither it is departed and in the place where it was born lived and acted I find here and there a Limb but of so many united as may make them a Parliament I cannot hear any news no nor so much as a Paper from any one Member laying claim to their lost power All I hear of it is but Ecchoes which signifie little or some raging sounds implying that wrathful indignation which will never accomplish the will of GOD or else scurrilous Invectives scattered by we know not whom without names and raised perhaps from private Suppositions conducing onely to an inlargement of the late Breach as if designed by the Common Adversary to that end and by such as are accessary to that endeavour GOD who raised up Lazarus when he was dead buried stunk may if he please once again restore it and what he will do no man knows but in common Reason we can have little hope of it or of having any Deliverance from our hazards by that whereto we can make no Address and which had not power enough to save it self when it had a visible Authority The Horses which drew their Chariot like those in the Fable of Hippolitus being frighted hath overthrown it dasht it into pieces and so scattered their Members that should Aesculapius undertake the cure he could not set

People are those Events which have ensued upon mis-understanding our Cause and upon our mis-proceeding therein and those obstructive Objections are cast in and raised partly by the Royalists and partly by some ignorant and malevolent persons among our selves who perceive not from whence those Events do more naturally proceed To make the Peoples Cause appear unjust and therefore their prosecutions thereof unpleasing to GOD and to make the vulgar sort think the Kings claim to be righteous they object that therefore we can settle upon no Government without him and that we have no good and lawful Foundation to build upon and that therefore GOD blasteth all our endeavours from time to time whereas that issues not from the evilness of our Cause but from the imprudence or self-mindedness of the Prosecutors To fright ignorant persons into a belief or suspition of the goodness or lawfulness of our Claim they tell them of one Parliament-man that hanged himself how these and these came to such and such Tragical ends and what befel to some other eminent persons who were Patrons thereof as if that proved the Cause which they owned to be unquestionably evil all which are but Childish Bug-bears and Fanatick Hob-Goblins which are easily charmed into nothing What a ridiculous Argument is it to prove the unjustness of a Cause to alledge that one of the Prosecutors thereof hanged himself There were but twelve Apostles and one of them hanged himself doth that any whit disparage the Apostolick Faith perhaps as these do the malitious Jews made use of it to the like purpose though by his own confession they knew that Judgement fell upon Judas not because he was one of Christs Followers but for that he was a Traitor to his Master and had betrayed an Innocent into their hands There were above 400 Parliament-men of which but one made away himself and we knowing not upon what secret Motive what can be thereupon inferred Indeed if all the 400 or so many of them as owned the peoples Cause had banged themselves except one we might have concluded as our Adversaries do The Conjurers up of those delusive Apparations do not remember that those 18 persons upon whom the Tower fell and they whose blood-Pilat mingled with their Sacrifices were no greater sinners then other men and that they who conceived hardly of them should also perish unless they repented nor do they take notice that the like ends have happened to as many or to more of their own party and that it would be as valid an Argument against their Cause as against ours Nor do they know or else will not know as we do who have observed their actings deportments that most if not all of them on our side who have been particularized as men pursued by Divine Vengeance suffered not by the hand of Common Justice or by a secret Judgment in outward probability for their deserting the Kings Cause or for being instrumental in removing him but for that they were Traytors to them by whom they were trusted and false to the peoples Cause which they seemingly owned and either betrayed it or would have betrayed it if they had not been timely cut off And whereas the many extravagancies relating both to Religion and the depravation of Manners in these times are objected as effects of our evil Cause it is to be considered that those are the usual products in times of War of that licentiousness which is in men of corrupt minds and principles who then discover that pravity which lay hid in them formerly and not from the Cause in Controversie For my part I am not a whit out of heart by the present distractions by the scandalizing of our Cause by the Obstructions it hath met withal by the hazards it is now in by the multitude of powerful Adversaries or by the failings of those that manage it Nor do I judge the goodness of any mans Cause to be more or less by Events whether prosperous or unprosperous at the first lest as David said I may condemn the Generation of the Righteous or justifie the Wicked nor do I judge of any thing by the outward pomp or base aspect which it hath in the eye of the world nor by the continuance which it can plead by Prescription For Tyranny hath been ever since Nimrods raign The Mahumetans Impostures which is an usurped Antichristian power without the Pale of the Church hath tyrannized almost a thousand years The Roman Hierarchy which is the Antichrist in the visible Church of Christ hath persecuted above six hundred years our Norman bondage hath continued above five hundred The Children of Israel when they were brought out of Aegypt where they had been enslaved above three hundred years and then advanced in hope to be made Possessors of a Country inhabited by powerful Nations were doubtless as much derided for that Attempt as we are by our Neighbours and by some among our selves who in derision and scorn call our The Good Old Cause They had as many longings and lookings back toward Aegypt as the greatest part of this people hath at this day to return to their old Task-masters to their Garlick Onyons Flesh-pots and such other Carnal Accommodations as those which we prefer before our Birth-rights and value less then a Mess of Porrage They tempted GOD and provoked him by their Idolatries Fornications Murmurings Rebellions Avarice Backslidings and Self-seekings as we do So they mutined against their Superiors so they discouraged each other by mis-reporting that Good Land to which GOD was carrying them by representing formidably the strength of the high-walled Cities and the mighty Giants who were therein and those discouragements proceeded from some of the most eminent persons among them even from no less then six to one of those who were chosen to spy out the Land so also were they for their unfaithfulness and other sins wasted and delayed as we have been even forty years in the Desarts as we have been almost twenty years already as it were in a Wilderness of Confusions for our prevarications and mis-belief and our Faith and Patience is at this present exercised with many Fears Doubts Wants Troubles and Powerful Adversaries in the Passage toward the recovery of our long-lost Freedoms and yet as theirs was our Cause is nevertheless that Good Old Cause of which we should neither be ashamed or distrustful If we may censure the Righteousness of a Cause by the mean beginning by the outward despicableness by the tedious and difficult progressions by the contemptibleness of the Prosecutors or by the unprosperous successes during many years no Cause in the world might be so●lyable to mis censure as our Christian profession which for many Ages together was the scorn not of the base and foolish but also of the noblest and wisest persons in the Worlds esteem The Professors of it were no better thought of then as Fanatick Dreamers at best and as Vagabonds hunted through all Nations and Countries by ten