Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A66763
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Mr. Geo. Withers revived, or, His prophesie of our present calamity, and (except we repent) future misery written by him in the year 1628.
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Wither, George, 1588-1667.
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1683
(1683)
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Wing W3173; ESTC R11628
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7,993
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4
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thing that was a blessing to thee Shall turn to be a curse and help undo thee And when thy sin is fully ripe in thee Thy Prince and People then alike shall be Thou shalt have Babes to be thy Kings or worse Those Tyrants who by cruelty and force Shall take away thy ancient freedoms quite From all their Subjects yea themselves delight In their vexations and all those that are Made slaves thereby shall murmur yet not dare To stir against them By degrees they shall Deprive thee of thy Patrimonials all Compel thee as in other Lands this day For thine own meat and thine own drink to pay And at the last began to exercise Upon thy Sons all heathenish tyrannies As just Prerogatives To these intents Thy Nobles shall become their instruments For they who had their birth from Noble races Shall some and some be brought into disgraces From Offices they shall excluded stand And all their vertuous off-spring from their Land Shall quite be worn Instead of whom shall rise A brood advanced by impieties That seek how they more great and strong may grow By compassing the publick overthrow They shall abuse thy Kings with Tales and Lies With seeming love and servile flatteries They shall perswade them they have power to make Their Wills their Law and as they please to take Their Peoples goods their children and their lives Ev'n by their just and due Prerogatives When thus much they have made them to believe Then they shall teach them practises to grieve Their Subjects by and instruments become To help the scruing up by some and some Of Monarchies to Tyrannies They shall Abuse Religion Honesty and all To compass their Designs They shall devise Strange Projects and with impudence and lies Proceed in setling them They shall forget Those reverent usages which do befit The Majesty of State and rail and storm When they pretend disorders to reform In their high Counsels and where men should have Kind admonitions and proving grave When they offend they shall be threatned there Or scoft or taunted though no cause appear Whatever from thy people they can tear Or borrow they shall keep as if it were A prize which had been taken from the foe And they shall make no conscience what they do To prejudice Posterity For they To gain their lust but for the present day Shall with such love unto themselves endeavour That though they know it would undo for ever Their own posterity it shall not make The Monsters any better course to take Nay God shall give them for their offences To such uncomely reprobated senses And blind them so that when the Axe they see Ev'n hewing at the root of thine own tree By their own handy-strokes they shall not grieve For their approaching fall no nor believe Their fall approacheth nor assume that heed Which might prevent it till they fall indeed Mark well Oh Britain what I now shall say And do not slightly pass these words away But be assured that when God begins To bring that vengeance on thee for thy sins Which hazard will thy total overthrow Thy Prophets and thy Priests shall sliely sow The seeds of that dissention and sedition Which time will ripen for thy said perdition But not unless the Priests thereto consent For in those days shall few men innocent Be grieved through any quarter of the Land In which thy Clergy shall not have some hand If ever in thy fields as God forbid The blood of thine own children shall be shed By civil discord they shall blow thy flame That will become thy ruin and thy shame And thus it will be kindled when the times Are nigh at worst and thy increasing crimes Almost compleat the Devil shall begin To bring strange Crotchets and opinions in Among thy Teachers which will breed disunion And interrupt the visible Communion Of thy establish't Church And in the stead Of zealous Pastors who Gods Flock did feed There shall arise within thee by degrees A Clergy that shall more desire to fleece Than feed the Flock A Clergy it shall be Divided in it self and they shall thee Divide among them into several factions Which rend thee will and fill thee with distractions They all in outward-seeming shall pretend God's Glory and to have a pious end But under colour of sincere devotion Their study shall be temporal promotion Which will among themselves strong quarrels make Wherein thy other Children shall partake As to the Persons or the cause they stand Affected ev'n quite throughout the Land One part of these will for preferment strive By lifting up the King's Prerogative Above it self They will perswade him to Much more than Law or Conscience bids him do And say God warrants it His holy Laws They shall alledge to justifie their Cause And impudently wrest to prove their ends What God for better purposes intends They shall not blush to say that ev'ry King May do like Solomon in every thing As if they had his Warrant and shall dare Ascribe to Monarchs rights that proper are To none but Christ and mix their flatteries With no less gross and wicked blasphemies Than Heathens did yea make their King believe That whomsoever they oppress or grieve It is no wrong nor fit for men oppressed To seek by their own Laws to be redressed Nay further to their wicked ends they shall Apply the sacred Story or what ever May seem to further their unjust endeavour Ev'n what the Son of Hannah told the Jews Should be their scourge because they did refuse The Sov'raignty of God and were so vain To ask a King which over them might Raign As Heathen Princes did that curse they shall Affirm to be a Law Monarchical Which God himself established to stand Throughout all Ages and in every Land Which is as good Divinity as they Have also taught who do not blush to say That Kings may have both Wives and Corcubines And by that Rule whereby these great Divines Shall prove their Tenet I dare undertake If sound it hold that I like proof will make Of any Jewish Custom and devise Authority for all absurdities But false it is for might all Kings at pleasure As by the right of Royalty make seisure Of any mans possessions why I pray Did Ahab grieve that Naboth said him nay Why made he not this answer thereunto If what the Prophet said some Kings would do Were justly to be done thy Vineyard's mine And at my pleasure Naboth all that 's thine Assume I may why like a Turky-Chick Did he so foolishly grow sullen-sick And get possession by a wicked fast Of what might have been his by Royal Act If such Divinity as this were true The Queen should not have needed to pursue Poor Naboth as she did or so contrive His Death since by the King's Prerogative She might have got his Vineyard Nor would God Have scourg'd that Murther with so keen a rod On Ahab had he asked but his due For he did