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	lord_n	people_n	4,203	5	4.5705	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A97308	A word to the officers of the army. Unto you who at first were raised up by a mighty spirit, to go forth with the sword in your hands, to recover some long lost liberties of the good people of England, from under the tyranical powers of Kings and Bishops; unto whom was truly given the title of the Lords Host, because you went forth in his name, and for his people, and therefore were crowned with wonderful successes, and victories, over your enemies, unto a perfect conquest, even unto you is this word of truth.	Zachary, Thomas, d. 1686.	1657 (1657)	Wing Z4; Thomason E929_4; ESTC R207621	5,358	8

you have quit your old Interest and lost the witnesse of God which is too too manifest among you that you are back sliders from the truth grown proud and lofty and swollen big with honours and greatnesse having drunk deep of the Spirit of this world which you once in your low estate witnessed against If I may compare you with the former power that you fought against will there appear much difference or will you in the least be gainers by it surely not but great lo●sers for to speak of the Nation in generall what the advantages are by your Conquest that is so plaine it needs not be mention'd that the burthens Taxes Excise and Customes extraordinary doe plainly render us in a far worse condition then in any late Kings reigne But that which might have made most for your advantage and would have been a sufficient return for all outward losses had you remained faithfull had been the procuring and setling the Spirituall Liberties of the People of God so far as they be externall under the severall administrations of the Spirit in their severall and different formes in Religion wherein they walk peaceably that no civill power might have mingled it selfe with the Kingdome of Christ for the bringing in any forceable Reformation therein and the subjecting of it to any outward and secular power and herein was a great price put into your hands to have been as a wall and Bulwark to the People of God and a protection from the violence of the w●●ked and profane People that so light and truth might have had a more free and easie entrance among us But since your declining and falling from your first love and zeale and that the Earth hath come over you and choaked your witnesse you have given up that power once in your hand and so lost the price having no heart thereto are grown carelesse and corrupt in judgement and so have suffered a great breach to be made upon Christian Liberty by your selves and by most in power in the Nation in permitting and causing so much Persecution of that poor despised and righteous people called Quakers which most Prisons in the Nation doe witnesse and it is not possible for you to set free your selves and the Nation from the guilt of their many and cruell sufferings and yet many of these were of you and from you and are your surviving witnesses that when and where you left they came forth not with your gallant words and lofty notions to please their hearers but with brokennesse of spirit in humility and selfe-denyall neglecting and quitting all the honours and profits of this world that would not consist with a Disciple of Christ a People just in their dealings among men deceiving none opp●essing none desiring no mans silver or bread for nought and yet even these findes as hard measure from you as they might from Turks And if inquiry be made of what Laws they have broken what is their trasgression the answer commonly is because they are Quakers and sometimes because they will not put off their hats sometimes for coming into your Churches and making some reply to the Minister for preaching false doctrine to the people which is their grand crime And for these and such like Offences as you judge them are they drag'd to Prison and there often are worse used then the common rogues so that if strangers should hear of their sufferings onely they might suppose them to be great plotters of mischiefe against the State and some notorious and wicked persons but for a sober strict quiet and conscientious people thus to suffer under you and those in power in the Nation doth plainly discover you that you have forgotten that liberty of conscience which once you professed and practised for how oft did many of you when you were in your zeal for truth go into Congregations and reprove the Ministers for hirelings and for the false doctrine they preached and enter their Pulpits and Preach your selves is it a crime now and was it not then or did the Ministers then onely preach errours and not now or doe you believe in your consciences that you were of more understanding to know truth and error then these people are or is it not a plain compliance with them to strengthen your Interest by them Pray consider I am sure of this that you would have accounted that Justice of Peace an enemy to the State and to the truth and a great Persecuter that should then have sent some of you to Prison or caused you to be whipt or put to hard labour for your so doing but the power was in your own hands that the pesecuting spirit in Justices which now acts did not then dare to appear and as all that zeal for truth in you is slaine by the God of this world so doth the persecuring spirit arise in those that have power in the Nation as well as your selves and you doe now by your apostacy give life and spirit to them who did not dare formerly to manifest themselves And now things are so turn'd about that a man may with much more safety and security go hear an Episcopall Minister and the old Common Prayer again then go to a meeting of these innocent People for unto one is safety but to the other perpetual danger either by the rude multitude or by corrupt Justices Further what strange provision is made to make these People transgressors by Acts of Parliament the one for disturbing publick Preachers as you esteem it the other to suppresse them as rogues and vagabonds what plottings and contrivings are there now to spread their nets to catch and undermine these righteous servants of God And this may be truly said that the number of these sufferers have been more under this present power then of all the Sectaries put together in the whole reigne of the late King And if some speciall power and providence of God doe not step in to stop and allay this Antichristian spirit that is full of enmity and big with persecutions O' England England thou art like to be stain'd with the bloud of the Innocent But doe not deceive your selves for though you revive Kings and Nobles Lawyers and Priests and summon these with the worst of the people to your assistance that you may hold up a rotten state of things yet notwithstanding the work of the Lord must go on and is carried on by a contemptible people whom you despise though not by might or power but by the Spirit of the Lord. Therefore Oh that you might be warned not to touch any of the Lords annoynted ones for whatsoever you doe against them will be found in his appearing to be against him and truly there is great cause to believe that if Christ himselfe should appear now in person you would deal as hardly with him as with other the Servants of God cast him out of your Synagogues hale him to Prison take him up as a rogue or vagabond to be whipt or set to hard labour for know that it is but the same spirit that would doe it to the least of his Disciples as to himselfe Therefore you who have the least tendernesse left and the least sence of your back slidings stand still and seriously consider what you are doing whose Interest you serve and you will then see your work ended or stuck in the mire that your locks are cut and strength is gone that the God of this world hath bribed you and hired you to his service that you are posting back again to serve him under Kings Princes Nobles and Bishops that they who hated you may shake hands with you and say Are you also become one with us Even thus are you departing and departed from your old Interest and marring your selves to a Harlot that will prove false to you and deceive you at last But notwithstanding the Confederacy Combinations Counsells and designes of all the powers on Earth to keep Christ out of his Throne yet will the Lord exalt his Son in the midst of us and the Scattered dust of Sion shall live and reigne with him in the midst of her Enemies T. Z. LONDON Printed for Giles Calvert at the Black-spread-Eagle near the West end of Pauls 1657.