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	let_v	lord_n	2,934	5	3.6705	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B08186	The lamentations of Germany. Wherein, as in a glasse, we may behold her miserable condition, and reade the woefull effects of sinne. / Composed by an eye-witnesse thereof: and illustrated by pictures, the more to affect the reader. By Dr. Vincent. Theol..	Vincent, Philip, b. 1600.; Weckherlin, Georg Rodolf, 1584-1653.	1638 (1638)	STC 24760.5; ESTC S95680	21,484	88

a Sparrow fall not to the ground but according to the will of our heavenly Father much lesse are millions of men mowed downe with the sword but according to his righteousnesse in Iudgement It is also cleare out of Scripture that wee ought to lay to heart those Iudgemements of God which wee are acquainted with and especially his greater Iudgements God sends one place to consider of another Goe yee now unto my place which was in Shilo where I set my name at the beginning and see what I did to it for the wickednesse of my people Israel Ier. 7.12 saith God to the men of Ierusalem And who makes question but that those Churches Nations Persons and Places which have speciall relation one unto another sacred or civill in the bonds of Religion neighbourhood or commerce are more especially bound mutually to consider and bemoane one anothers conditions This likewise is evident that our Church and State and every member of the same ought upon speciall considerations to be cordially affected with the miseries of Germany They are of the same Religion with us Christians as wee are our peace is the weaker for want of theirs many of our owne have suffered with them But above all is the affliction of that Royall Lady our Gracious Soveraignes onely sister who hath suffered already in her Royall Person and may suffer yet more in her posterity but God forbid But what is it that wee must doe or learne from the state of things in Germany The particulars are severall in severall regards In relation to God to them and to our selves In regard of God Wee must acknowledge the infinitenesse of his Wisdome and unsearchablenesse of his Iudgements and take heede of rash assigning the cause Some lay all the blame upon the Protestants as if their divisions among themselves and unnecessary separation in their phrase from the Church of Rome were the roote of all But is it not more likely that Germany drinkes now of the cup of wrath because shee hath long drunke of the cup of sundry great abominations The generall cause which is sinne wee all acknowledge It were a happinesse to know the speciall according unto that Foelix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas But such a spirit of discerning God gives not unto all They themselves best know their owne waies case and state and therefore wee may leave it unto them to consider of the speciall causes whom it most concernes But who will not feare the Lord and glorifie his Name who onely is holy and whose judgements are made manifest Rev. 15.4 In respect of them first let us sympathize grieve with them that grieve Rom. 12.15 and weepe with them that weepe We are all members of one and the same mysticall body whereof Christ is head Our peace and security is in a great measure bound up in theirs their troubles may increase ours as they have already occasioned many feares cares and expences Witnesse the great levie of souldiers at some times and not a little chargeable Embassages from our King and State Next of all we are to pray for them that God would restore peace and make up all breaches Giving the Lord no rest untill hee make Ierusalem the praise of the earth Abraham interceded long for Sodome how much more ought we to do the like for them And yet further as we have ability and opportunity we ought to help and succour them ministring to their necessities receiving of their profugates and intertaining them into our bosomes when they fly from their owne to us Many of ours found among them a shelter from the storme in our Marian daies and doe still no doubt blesse God for our peace notwithstanding their owne warres In respect of our selves there be many instructions which we may learne from the Lecture of their calamities No privileges can finally secure a sinfull people for what have wee to glory in that they had not The seedes of all their evills are sowne in our fields There be likewise divers duties that wee should abound in the more In repentance lest we bring upon our selves the like In prayer that God would blesse our state and government that by the wisdome thereof we may be led along in such waies as may propagate our peace unto posterity In patience under those chastisments which we suffer Though the hand of God hath long beene upon many Cities and Townes and his Arme be stretched out still upon some of them yet is our misery happinesse in comparison of theirs If a gentle plague alone have affrighted us all What would Sword and Famine with it doe There be also some sinnes in speciall which wee ought to repent of as drunkennesse prophanation of the Lords Day and other holy festivalls rash oathes quickely made and as quickly broken together with Sacriledge all which are most notorious not among them alone but among our selves also This we should doe but what doe wee Wee put farre away the evill day and cause the seat of violence to come neere We drinke wine in bowles and anoint our selves with the chiefe ointments but are not grieved for the afflictions of Ioseph Amos 6.3 6. This is no small sinne and if once the day of our visitation come a small chastisement on Gods part will not be all Oh that wee would consider the Vialls of Gods wrath are pouring forth as well on his owne Churches for correction as on their adversaries unto destruction Who knows how fast the day may passe round Gods arrowes are all fleet The curse of God goeth forth over the face of the whole earth Zacch 5.3 If the sinnes of Sodome be found in Samaria and the sinnes of Samaria in Ierusalem they shall all pledge each other for God is no respecter of persons Are there no drunkards but in Germany Or doth God hate sinne in them alone What are we that God should alwaies spare us Many cry Peace Peace and I with the Prophet Ieremy say Amen The Lord doe so the Lord performe the words of them which prophesie of nothing but good Ier. 28.6 But it s good to remember that of the Apostle when they cry Peace Peace c. Gloss ordin in Ier. 7.12 Quicquid illi populo fecit Deus timeamus cum nos similia faciamus Yet no such clouds blessed be God arise over our heads as those wherewith her horizon is darkened But stormes arise suddenly God creates good and evill brings both when there is no appearance or cause of suspicion Not to feare is cause enough to be affraid if wee could so reflect upon our selves As God brings light out of darknesse so darknesse out of light How faire rose the Sunne upon Sodome that day it rained fire and brimstone How poore a thing was a cloud like a mans hand to prognosticate abundance of raine by But I must manum de tabula Well then reade on reade and spare not reade and consider reade and weepe imagine the Booke to be Germany

THE LAMENTATIONS OF GERMANY WHEREIN As in a Glasse we may behold her miserable condition and reade the woefull effects of sinne Composed by an eye-witnesse thereof and illustrated by Pictures the more to affect the Reader By Dr. VINCENT Theol. LAMENT 1.12 Is it nothing to you all ye that passe by Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger LONDON Printed by E. G. for Iohn Rothwell and are to be sold at the signe of the Sunne in St. Pauls Church-yard 1638. To the Reader BEhold here as in a Glasse the mournefull face of a sister Nation now drunke with misery according to what God threatned by the Prophet Ieremy Should I endeavour by all the memorable particulars which might be accumulated to amplifie this sad theme the third part would bee sufficient to weary thee or blinde thy eyes with teares if thy heart were not adamantine I record but a small portion of what I have seene what I have had from sufficient testimonies Gall and Wormewood are tasted in a drop and so may the great Ocean Onely the thing I desire is to move thy Christian heart to compassionate the estate of thy poore brethren so lamentable and almost desperate that thou mayest at least by the vials of thy prayers poured out in their behalfe helpe to appease this wrath of Heaven which is upon them Remembring withall that as wee know not what hangeth over our owne heads so we are not ignorant of our owne indeserts Our Native Countrey did sometimes suffer in like manner if not measure as in the civill wars and other times Now we are free and live in peace every man under his owne Vine under his owne Fig-tree Let us not forget to bee thankfull for this unto the God of peace and withall to shunne those provocations for which hee maketh a fertile land barren a populous Land desolate even the iniquity of them that dwell therein Thine P. Vincent A Preface exhortatory Touching the use which is to be made of the ensuing Narration Men and Brethren HEre followes according to the Title A true representation of the miserable estate of Germany A most grave serious and waighty subject And above all other most necessary for us to peruse and ponder We for the present have Halcion daies Sitting as the people under Salomon Every man under his owne Vine and Figge-tree No complaining in our streetes no carrying into Captivity For which all honour and praise be to him whose mercy it is that we are not consumed And yet there may bee a lengthning of our tranquillity if wee would walke worthy of those mercies which wee doe enjoy and learne righteousnesse by the judgements of God which are made manifest One especiall meanes effectually tending hereunto is to be acquainted with the passages of Gods providence abroad and to make such use of his dreadfull judgements as he himselfe in Scripture directs us to For our information in the state of things abroad these ensuing schedules may helpe such as have no better intelligence Wherein such passages are related as may make both our eares tingle to heare them The heads insisted on are the Arrowes of the Almighty Sword Famine and Pestilence together with their pale and grisly attendants Extortion Rapine salvage cruelty desolations deaths of all kinde A sad and dismall troope The subject on which all these evils light is Germany a neighbouring countrey well knowne The Throne of Europes Empire This is now the Stage whereon most direfull Tragedies are acted And therein as well the Protestants the more the pity as the Papists no difference for religions sake nor any respect of persons ages sexes or conditions The Fowles of the ayre may therein eate the flesh of Kings Captaines and mighty men The flesh of horses and them that sit on them Yea the flesh of all men both free and bond both small and great Rev. 19.18 The instances and particulars which are here recorded are such as may seem incredible and cause wondring unto astonishment yet is there nothing but what may well be counted probable a few things considered As first what God threatens in this kinde for breach of his Law Deut. 28.53 c. Thou shalt eate the fruite or thine owne body the flesh of thy sonnes and daughters The man that is tender among you and very delicate his eyes shall be evill toward his brother and toward the wife of his bosome and towards the remnant of children which he shall leave so that he will not give to any of them the flesh of his children whom he shall eate c. Then what particular instances we have of like things upon like occasions in Scripture as in the siege of Samaria 2 King 6.28 29. The certainety of the generals is beyond all exception among those that will believe any thing more than they see with their eyes and feele with their hands The time and space that the wars have endured addes much to the probability of all effects avoucht The current yeere making up full twenty since the beginning During all which Germany hath beene Acheldama a field of blood Vnder this word warre more evill and mischiefe is comprehended than can be uttered Weigh all things duly the severall kinds of warre forraigne and domesticke by invasions by insurrections the same persons and places being to day Conquerours and to morrow conquered over and over againe and all things every day worse and worse we may well conclude the one halfe hath not beene told us I hope none among us are so prophane as to say what is this to us bee it all bee true and few so ignorant as not to know what God requireth of us in this regard Yet it 's too manifest that most are so carelesse that they neede a Monitor to twit them by the eare I have therefore partly upon intreatie and chiefly for affection unto the thing it selfe endevoured briefly to speake something unto that end The Lyon hath roared who will not feare The Lord hath spoken who can but prophecie Amos 3.8 Salvian in his time tooke great paines to prove there was a providence when the then supposed barbarous Goths and Vandalls broke in upon the Empire as the Sea doth sometimes over-flow the bankes But mee thinkes that alone was enough to manifest the finger of God which bred the doubt in men Atheisticall How exceeding full is the Scripture for the proofe of this That God is Authour of all Judgements and therefore in all wee ought to looke up unto him All Captaines and their armies are but Sergeants under the Lord of hosts that man of warre and God of battell The Assyrian is the rod of Gods anger the staffe in their hand is Gods indignation Isay 10.5 There is no evill in a City but he doth it Behold saith the Psalmist what desolations the Lord hath made in the earth Psal 46.8 If

their sufferings as being their enemies in religion But it fell out with thē as with Edom in Obadiah v. 15. that mocked Iacob in his distresse The Winter following 1634. the pestilence so raged among the Tridentines that we were forbidden to come that way for the sicke and sound were mixed together and that City not great buried above 30000. Besieged in the Castle of Heidleberg I visited every day divers sicke of the Plague and like diseases But in neither of these two great plagues in London nor in any other that I have beene in did I ever finde the cause so virulent the symptomes so incorrigible the disease so incurable Some died raging others were killed with their carbuncles when the venome seemed to bee expelled from the inward parts others were swollen and discoloured as though they had taken poyson and some that died were so spotted as I never saw the like If any souldier were but sleightly wounded presently it became a maligne ulcer though all good inward and outward meanes were used If the infection got into a kindred it killed parents children and almost all the blood that were present Whence I perswade my selfe that Hippocrates his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the divine hand and finger of God was more conspicuous in this than in any other visitation I had seene though I doubt not but our foode with the aire might also helpe to empoyson our bodies extraordinarily Toward the end of the siege wee had made an hospitall in the roofe of the house But packing out of the Castle wee left there our sicke some dying some crying out at the windowes not to be left to their sicknesse famine and death and which was worse than the enemy of whom how they were used wee may imagine In the Towne they were much visited before we were shut up which could not but be augmented by the multitudes of the enemie In the siege of Hanaw were buried most of the plague above 22000 people and had not God sent that sicknesse to diminish their numbers they had yeelded the towne through want of victuals In the same siege Souldiers that went to the guard seeing and well came off strucken starke blind thirty at a time Afterwards the disease falling into their legges the most of them recovered In Bauier men not left to bury the dead but Rattes and mice devoured there carcasses Haue pittey vpon me haue pittey vpon me o yee my frends for the hand of the Lord hath touched me CHAP. XIII Of sicknesse and diseases THe yeare 1635 almost whole Germany felt this punishment in most grievous wise In Swaben the Countrey of Tyroll all along the Rhine and the Maine it was so furiously hot that all places were alike safe The King of Hungary was faine to dissolve his Court and send them away into divers Cities for their safer abode In Swaben the inhabitants of Memingen Campden and Isuen were utterly consumed and none left In the Countrey thereabout in which were more than thirty thousand men heretofore were not foure hundred soules to be found In the confines of Bavier the living were nothing neere able to bury the dead But Rats and Mice devoured their carcasses most horrible to behold The low Countries smarted sore also The University of Leyden buried thirty thousand The Countrey Villages and the Hague where I was shut up my selfe were miserably afflicted The Infant Cardinall was forced to remove from Bruxels and Antwerp the sicknesse did so encrease in those places Nimegen Emerike Rees Guelders with other places neere were not onely visited therewith whereof the Marquesse of Aytona the Spanish Generall and other Commanders died but new contagious diseases among which were strange Fluxes and a kinde of pox unheard of The Emperours Army dispersing all over for want of resistance did also scatter the contagion from their quarters at Haylbrun through the Land of Wirtenberg that many places hereby became utterly depopulated But since Gallas his taking in the Townes upon the Rhine such an infection happened through the stinch of the dead unburied bodies that in the Bishopricke of Meniz alone there died of this and hunger twenty foure thousand people In Saxony Brandenburg Pomeren Mecklenburg c. this yeare the pestilence with like diseases have beene so universall that these and the sword seeme to strive which shall be the greatest destroyer The retraite of the Swedes in which they did not onely evade but cut in pieces many of the enemies troopes is not so famous as these calamities The very plague consumed in Saxony the other day in the space of two moneths no lesse than sixteene thousand soules Insomuch that the King of Hungary hath given command that none shall come from thence to Prague or the Cities of Bohemia As by the print of Hercules his foot you might guesse at his stature so by these few particulars of the miseries of some places there wee may guesse at the lamentable estate of the whole The warre having every where caught and raged hath left such wounds as will not in haste be recured and perhaps posterity for some generations will see the skars Thus is the Virgine daughter of that people destroyed with a great destruction and with a sore and grievous plague Goe into the field Ier. 14.17 behold the slaine with the sword Enter into the City behold them that are sicke for hunger also So are they smitten but are not healed They looke for peace but there is no good for the time of health but behold trouble FINIS Relinquens Theologica quae praeterea hâc in speculâ occurrunt viris Reverendissimis penes quos ea censendi est auctoritas cognoscenda infandas lamentabilis Germaniae calamitates haudquaquam reticendas sed piâ mente memorandas censeo Novemb. 12. 1637. G. Rodolphus Weckherlin