Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	great_a	king_n	year_n	3,635	5	4.7641	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67049	A word of advertisement & advice to the godly in Scotland by a Scotch man, and a cordiall vvelwisher to the interests of the godly in Scotland, both in civils and spirituals.	Scotch man and a cordial wel-wisher to the interest of the godly in Scotland.	1651 (1651)	Wing W3553; ESTC R23487	15,778	24

A WORD OF Advertisement Advice TO THE GODLY IN SCOTLAND By a Scotch Man and a Cordiall VVelwisher to the Interest of the Godly in Scotland both in CIVILS and SPIRITUALS Words in season are like apples of gold in pictures of silver Open rebuke is better then secret love Faithfull are the wounds of a Friend but the kisses of an enemy are deceitfull Edinburgh Printed by Evan Tyler 1651. Dear Friends BEing desirous in this hour of Darkness and sad tryall and trouble to be usefull to you my dear Friends in the Lord being amazed and astonished to see you after twelve or fourteen years Remonstrating Petitioning and these backed with your sw rds in your hand against King Parliament and Committees and indeed the whole Authorities of the Land for your just freedome and Liberties in Spiritual and Civil things I say to see the result of such a business to be as it is this day Is that which should put all the People of God in this Land upon the tryall and enquiry after the causes of this I may say your being so strangely deserted of God And that I may as your Christian Friend be helpful to you in this I shall go back to the beginning of these great Transactions and shall go along with you in so much of the Progress of business to this day as I have either been a witness unto or can truly inform my self of at least so much of them as may make it appear what hath been your former practices and the principles and ends carrying you on in these and because the business is soweighty and you so much concern'd and I so unfit to meddle therewith I shall therefore beg of the Lord that where I may mistake matter of Fact or shall come short of the full representing thereof that ye who may be better acquainted with the whole of Affairs then my self may deal so ingenuously with your selves as to follow out your own knowledge and experiences in these And more to consider what I drive at than what I speak in particulars which I say is to be helpful to you in your search Dear Freind Ye may remember that in the beginning of this weighty business that which did engage you the people of God for to you onely I speak was your being oppressed in your consciences in spiritual things by the King and those employed by him and the connivance and concurrance of these that were the Representative of Church and State together with the Tyranny and Oppressions exercised over your Persons and Estates in several things to be freed of these the attaining establishing and increase of just Freedom in both these was that which chiefly did engage you in the Work There were many that did go on upon corrupt principles and ends whom the Lord made use of for the time and discovered many of them since and will more that they were not nor are suitable Instruments for carrying on of such a Work And though many of your selves did not distinctly and particularly conceive what was the interest of the business you were engaged for at first yet these who saw a far off knew much of it in the time And these who were the people of God indied found and held it forth as their duty to be carried on by the Providences of the Lord to many things in which they were matterially engaged that they did not at first clearly apprehend in particulars And so all along every new discovery of duty in the taking away of any thing that did appear to be inconsistant with the being or wel-being of that which ye had primarily engaged your selves unto or the establishing of any thing that might advance it did make manifest the rottenness of more or fewer mers principles in engaging therein by their falling off or becoming Enemies to it And how often have I heard it preached That this work would have none to follow it but such as were truly godly and that every corrupt man would fall off from it when the true interest of the work did not consist with his corrupt interest Dear Friends Be pleased to consider the rise of this great business Were not many of you panting after praying for it years before it came Were there not private persons in the beginning that did own it against the King and the Authorities of the Nation The state of the cause being as it was could any be friends to it but such as were truly godly Or could any first or last own it without a contradiction but such And hath not your experience all along made this evident unto you that both Persons and Interests which at first you thought might be sutable for the business and might consist with it have proved otherwise Have not they either left you or you them In the beginning it was thought by some that it was enough to be afraid of the Service-Book But how miserable had you stil bin if the Lord had suffered you to rest there or had inclined the Kings heart to grant it and how far short had it been of those farther degrees of just freedom the Lord hath since carried you out to the owning of and adventuring for let your consciences tell you And so all along adhering to this foundation to wit the freeing your selves from Oppressions in your Consciences Persons and Estates and the establishing and carrying on your just freedom in these not so much as Scots men as the people of God ye have been carried on in wayes ye have not knovvn nor foreseen looking alwayes upon it as your duty and practising it and for it abandoning or declaring against every person interest power or authority in less or more as they did prove inconsistant with the work or enemies to it or retarders thereof or insuitable instruments And I do appeal to your experience what ever thoughts you might have in the beginning if it be cosistant with that which is really and indeed the work of God either with its being or well being Not to be in the hands of sutable Instruments I mean such as are really Godly and mindes it upon that accompt And if so how much less can it be consistant with it to be managed by a number of men who are enemies to the Work haters of you and the power of godliness minding nothing but themselves and their own interest being underminers of the things they profess to maintain and cannot be otherways And indeed to my understanding that which hath bin the contest for some years by-gone hath much differed from or rather let me say exceeded what it was in the beginning at first the sum of your Petitioning was to be freed from the Service-Book and Book of Canons afterwards ye slew so high as to strike at the root Episcopacie and all that Roman Hierarchie and for a long time the supplicating against these the Coveranting against these the defending your selves against such as would continue these yokes upon you with some

smaller things which had relation to Civill Priviledges seemed chiefly if not wholly to be the state of the quarrell Afterwards you were carried on further and further in owning what was necessary for advancing the great business you were engaged into and dis-owning what you saw destructive to it as the Kings Negative Vote in Parliament and Generall Assemblies the uncertainty of the calling of Parliaments and establishing a Committee of Estates in the Intervales of Parliament c. But after all these were obtained by a wonderfull Series of Providence carrying you along and countenance you being freed from the Service-Book Episcopacy and the rest your Enemies being vanquished the powers of the Nation in appearance friendly to you and countenancing the busines the King the great opposer thereof made in a manner to approve you in all you had done by his ratifying all in Parliament so that you could desire nothing of him outwardly but you had it Ordinances in purity none to manage the business but such as were professed Friends to the work yet for all this were you not stil at a loss all you had gotten every day ready to be betrayed every farther degree of freedom opposed Dear Friend consider I conceive the stresse of the matter lyes here that which has bin your hurt hinderance all along hath been not so much open enemies as dissembling prophane men among you haters of godlines and the Godly and of any appearance of God in discovering of duties in order to the carrying on of the great Work or in abandoning what was discovered to be inconsistent or incongruous therwith engaged in the busines upon corrupt accompts ready alway to betray it into the hands of enemies and while avowing themselves and continuing professed Friends opposing and retarding good motions raising Factions against you and the true interest of the cause and by these great pretences and professions of being for the Covenant and Work of God becoming so numerous in Judicatories that they have carryed all before them I shall instance the year 1648. Did not that Parliament then become so highly Malignant that many if not all that were Godly in the Parliament though I do not say that all who went along with them in the Protestation did it upon a right accompt as has appeared since were forced to protest and leave the House and yet all the while none pretending more for the Cause of God and Covenant then they while they were carrying on their Malignant Designes and persecuting all the Godly in Scotland who did not go along with them And indeed can you say but all along though sometimes you have been more at one in carrying forward some outward thing there has been reall and visible distances and heart burnings betwixt you the Godly and such as were engaged in the businesse upon a wrong accompt they sometimes whispering that good motions coming from you did smell of Sectarisme and new light or by raising Factions against you to the dividing of Judicatories and so at best clogging you in the way and making the Work halt to the sadding of the Spirits of all honest men that were looking on So that I say the great contest of late and that which hath had a great influence upon all the late transactions these five or six years hath been by whose hands that so generally professed should be managed and who could justly and rightly claim an Interest in it as Friends or sutable instruments thereto and who were enemies I appeal to your own experience what was in this before the year 1648. how honest men were under-mined by a Faction that partly had engaged with them in the beginning and partly had crept in by professing themselves to go along with them in the Work by taking the Covenant which by the way I desire you to take notice whether it has not been to large a rule in so searching a busines did they not see themselves undermined a long time before it came to so direct a breach as afterwards it did and yet they professing themselves Friends to the Covenant and Work they could not be rid of them till themselves were shuffled to the door And though these that did then protest seemed to be unanimous in what they did in their ends moving them to it and their principles carrying them on in it all that did follow therupon yet I dare appeal to such of you as were then acquainted with busines if many of these that did protest were not in their judgements for an engagement at that same time and that their searing from it was their seeing it chiefly carried on by such as they judged to be enemies to their ruling of matters though professed friends to the Work the power of managing businesses being likely to be established in their hands This I can averre from some of the Protesters themselves that at a close Committee of the chief of the Protesters it was resolved to possesse Berwick and Carlile long e're it was surprised by Duke Hamilton and that party And though the way you were then necessitated to you owning your selves at first but as private men and the party in Scotland risen in Armes and standing for the Covenant and interest of the people of God was an extraordinary remedy you being expresly tied in the Covenant to maintain the Priviledges of Parliament yet under that notion and upon that accompt that you were the People of God and them that had onely the true interest to profess your selves Friends to the Cause Covenant and interest of the People of God and such as only could rightly challenge a priviledge to manage these and places of trust in the Kingdom and yet all this while you were nothing but private men there being a Committee of Estates appointed that you could not say but they were lawfully constituted they having established the foresaid Committee as the Authority of the Kingdom in the interval of the Parliament upon the foresaid accompt of their evil managing of business through their becoming enemies to the Work and people of God as you then thought you did rise in Arms against them and did not onely oppose their Authority but did break them so as to be no. Authority at all and moreover did constrain them to condescend that you should be a Committee of Estates Being thus a Committee you did set down Rules for calling a new Parliament you did contrary to the Fundamental Laws of Scotland whereby every Freeholder having a Forty shilling Land holden of the King hath the priviledge to vote in choosing Commissioners and to be chosen debar any from voting in Elections or being Elected that had voted in Parliament to the Engagement 1648. or in the Committee of Estates had taken the Oath for carrying on thereof or had subscribed the Bond for promoving the same or had taken the Oath in Committees of shires for the advancing of it or had given obedience in an active way to the