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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	king_n	lord_n	time_n	4,864	5	3.7091	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A95890	A looking-glasse for malignants: or, Gods hand against God-haters. Containing a most terrible yet true relation of the many most fearefull personall examples (in these present times, since the yeere, 1640.) of Gods most evident and immediate wrath against our malevolent malignants. Together with a caveat for cowards and unworthy (either timorous or treacherous) newters. Collected for Gods honour, and the ungodlies horrour, by John Vicars. Imprimatur hic liber. Iohn White.	Vicars, John, 1579 or 80-1652.	1643 (1643)	Wing V317; Thomason E33_18; ESTC R19020	39,491	44

renowned Towne of Manchester in Lancashire 5. One Master Standidge a Lancashire Gentleman deserting the Parliament suddenly slaine in the act of his defection in the yeere 1642. one M. Standidge a Gentleman of Lancashire who had formerly beene a man much ingaged in his affections for the Parliaments Cause and had oftentimes expressed so much both by his stiffe contendings with some that were very neere and deare unto him as also by his practice and assistance given to the said Cause But afterward by the slye insinuations and perswasions of some seeming friends neere about him but especially being at last overswaied and prevailed with as was strongly supposed by the Lord Strange then a great but blessed be God a most unsuccessefull stickler for the Kings party he being very intimate with the said Lord Strange This said Gentleman did at last so much crosse his owne former practice and good esteeme he had and held of the Worke and Cause of God in the Parliaments proceedings that he most unworthily quite deserted it yea so farre as to take up Armes against it and as he was in person in command and going against that honest famous and victorious Town of Manchester in the Lord Stranges Army the Lord God of Heaven in apparent displeasure met with him in this most disloyall Apostacie and going against God and his Cause For as he was going to take Horse upon some designe neere to the said Town of Manchester a bullet suddenly hit him and kil'd him presently not directly from the Towne but the bullet glancing upon a wall reached him with a gliding blow and so cut him short of his purpose and gave him the sad reward of his unhappy backsliding This I have from such unquestionable and religious testimony of a godly friend and neighbour of mine as I know to be without all just exception And is not here now one would thinke testimony enough for thee O incredulous Malignant yea even from the mouthes of two Converts formerly of thine owne ranke and rotten condition but now and that upon their death-beds and the words of dying men we know doe or ought to take deepe impression making ingenious confession of their and your folly and madnesse in so injuriously opposing the pious and just proceedings of the Parliament But now take one more to cleare these truths yet more abundantly 6. A most remarkable relation of Master Joseph Latch a Merchant his great misery for deserting the Parliament and his mercifull recovery yea one of no lesse moment and materiality then any of the former and most worthy serious notice and observation namely of one Master Ioseph Latch a Merchant in Bashingshall-street in London who having by Gods blessing upon his endeavours in his calling gotten a good estate and being a pious young Gentleman and well affected to the publike good of the Kingdome in the beginning of this Parliamentary warre and set forth two Horses for the said service at his owne proper charge but having some considerable goods at Bristoll which he desired to convey to Manchester by land in which land-passage a protection from the King was necessary for their safe convoy thorow Shrewsbury where lay a Garrison of the Kings Cormorants upon this occasion hee forced himselfe to goe to Oxford to procure such a protection Thus then he tooke his journey thither where he was no sooner arrived but it pleased the Lord it should so fall out that he was presently espied by one that had beene a Malignant neighbour of his in London a Lawyer by whose meanes he was presently apprehended as a Spie on which suspicion hee was instantly clapt up prisoner in the Castle and immediatly after was fetcht before the Councell-Table and in danger of his life But having there very good friends of the Kings party namely Sir George Binion Sir Nicholas Crispe and Mr. Bradborne his kinsman and others he was by the Kings owne Warrant set at liberty and entertained at Sir George Binious lodgings and yet againe for all this Smith that hellish Cerberus the Provost-marshall fetcht him out of Bynions lodgings at eleven of the clocke at night and carried him to prison againe Whereupon Bynion went againe to the King together with Mr. Bradborne told His Majesty of it who seemed much discontented thereat and presently sent a Squire of His body with a Commission to lay Smith by the heeles for his presumption and to enlarge Mr. Latch yea and that without taking the Oxford Protestation lest thereby his estate in London should have been seized on by the Parliament as the estate of a Swornemalignant yet with a private serious promise and engagement to Bynion that he would never hereafter put forth himselfe in any publique service for the Parliament So he at last returned safely home and in order to his promse was now growen very shy of serving with his Company according to the Ordinance of the Militia and shortly after through the ill-advice of a very malignant companion of his made over his estate into Holland put off his house in Bashing shall-street and then withdrew his person also into Holland Thus our Engglish Jonas would have fled from Nineve to Tarshish but God raised a storme in his conscience which drove him backe to our London Nineve there to cry repentance intending there to have lived till these times might change and thus he quite deserted the Parliament But he had not beene there above three weekes or a moneth but that it pleased God he fell sicke there and had a great and restlesse desire to come backe againe into England and accordingly having a fit opportunity imbarked himselfe and was brought backe sicke to London that thus by the providence of God so ordering it he might manifest his repentance here where he had finned and be an example to others both of the horrour which arises out of a guilty conscience sensible of apostacy from a good Cause and also from our Parliamentary Protestation and Covenant to maintaine the same Thus then I say being come off the water on Munday Sept. 25. 1643. he went to a friends house of his one Mr. Lacey in Canon-street where he went sicke to bed and in two daies his sicknesse and corscience working together he much desired to speake with some godly Minister Whereupon one was sent for who accordingly came to him on the Wednesday night but knowing nothing of his defection from the Parliament and hearing a good report of his former honest conversation he onely questioned him about his faith in Christ whereunto receiving an apposite answer he held out unto him some promises of the Gospell wherein his soule might cleave unto the Lord and having commended him unto the grace of God departed for that time but Mr. Latch found such sweetnesse in those promises that he still would be asking when that Minister would come againe That Thursday and Friday past and the Minister not sent for but on the Saturday following he called very

remembrance of that most remarkable and memorable passage of Gods providence how in the beginning of these most uncivill Civill-warres and commotions among us 1. Gods hand against malignants in the strange behaviour of the souldiers in the first Army into the North against the Scots when by the prevalent power of the malignant Parricides on the Kings part an Army was first raised to goe into the North against our honest and harmlesse brethren of Scotland and that the Souldiers then pressed and provoked to goe forth to fight against them in their march thither-ward though they themselves were but prophane fellowes rude and irreligious young men and therefore one would have thought most fit instruments to promote such an irreligious worke and warre as that was how strangely the Lord over ruled their hearts and ordered their spirits making them to divert and turne all the edge of their sury and disaffection against the Malignant cause and quarrell and upon the malignant and popish party themselves that had set them on worke over-turning their Altars in all Churches and Chappels wheresoever they came and found them breaking in pieces and burning the railes about them plundering and terretying the scandalous Baals-priests and popish sonnes of Belial wheresoever they found any of them and not onely refusing to be led and commanded by popish Captaines and Commanders but flying in their faces and killing and wounding divers of them Which hand of God against them in the very same kind hath been also admirably seconded now againe lately in those 800 or 1000 Souldiers brought out of Ireland 2. Gods-hand against malignants in the Souldiers sent out of Ireland since the Cessation of armes there to fight against the Parliament since that accursed cessation of Armes there and landed at Bristol intended for that traiterous parricide Sir Ralph Hopton to fight against our most pious Parliament But I say how admirably the Lord turned their hearts suddenly from that most accursed cause and how that upon the tender of an oath unto them to fight against the Parliament they utterly refused it flew in the faces of their Commanders and made them fly away vowing and protesting with apparent expressions of great indignation that they would not fight for the popish party in England as they had not in Ireland and thereupon joyntly resolved to force their way as they most faithfully did from Bristol where they were first landed to Bathe so to Gloucester to fight on the Parliaments side under the command of that ever most highly to be honoured commander Colonell Massie who gave them most free and friendly entertainment 3. Also in the Westerne and Northern parts of the Kingdome notwithstanding their seeming successe there To which I might here most pertinently and pregnantly adde the yet more late defection of very many of their intended party both in the West to Lime Poole and Plimouth even then when they had beene ready armed for Hoptons service in the South In the North also divers both of the Gentry and Commons who have deserted New castle and in Wales and Cheshire also now later I say of the English-Irish Souldiers who would by no means fight against the Parliament 4. In many memorable plots also admirably discovered and crossed Together with the detection and discovery of many most mischievous plots and base designes of treachery most admirably and strangely discovered and so happily and timely frustrated even by the immediate mercy and good hand of God as that most bloody Plot against the Parliament Jan. 4. 1641. The Plot of the Scots Army at their former coming in among us to have beene sent against the Parliament and City of London The late Plot against Hull by Sir Iohn Hotham and his sonne And the severall most dangerous Plots under pretence of Treaties for peace forsooth against the most renowned and famous City of London as that dangerous Plot by Waller Challenor Tomkins c. And that more lately now of Sir Bazil Bro●k Violet or rather Varlet and hypocriticall Riley with very many other of these kindes almost all over the whole Kingdome all too well knowne and too tedious here to relate and which I have most fully and particularly related in my Parliamentary Chronicle intituled God in the Mount Together also with the Lords most admirable discountenancing yea cursing and blasting all the wicked designes in the Kings party ever since that hideous and hellish cessation of Armes in Ireland with those most barbarous bloody and damnable Irish Rogues 5. In Gods most justly discountenancing and making odious even to Malignants themselves that horrid cessation of Armes in Ireland which was most impiously plotted by the wicked malignant Councellors on the Kings side for their falsly hoped mighty advantage in the advancement of their bloody cause but which hath by Gods marvellous wisdome mercy and good providence proved one of the most ominous and eminently odious meanes of the ruinating and overthrowing of their most accursed cause and wicked courses even their malignants themselves being judges and which our good God hath clearly ratified I say againe by the extreme ill successe they have had ever since in all their wicked undertakings and contrariwise 6. And their extreme ill successe ever since in the great and good successe our God hath given to us ever since especially ever since our most holy and happy entring into a Covenant with our God and blessed League with our honest and religious Brethren of Scotland 7. Our good successe ever since the Covenant with Scotland witnesse our happy victories in Lincolnshire York●shire Lime Poole Plimouth Newport-Pannell Aulton Grafton-House Bewley-House Holts-House and Arundell-Castle with others in which places some reckon the Enemy hath lost besides exceeding much Armes and Ammunition and besides the brave and rich ship taken at Arundell-Castle a most admirable providence betweene three and foure thousand 8. The admirable breaking out of the Swedes against Denmarke but we may justly reckon a farre greater number Besides the admirable providence of God in stirring up beside the whole Nation of our loyall brethren of Scotland the whole Kingdome of Swethland to fall furiously and fortunately on the Kingdome of Denmarke a most admirable providentiall piece mightily to crosse and curbe our English Malignants hopes and designes against us But to come more particularly and personally neere to our intended purpose in this first branch of our Looking-glasse of Gods hand against our Malignants especially I say because personall particularities come neerer and closer then generalities I shall here therefore instance first in the strange hand of God personally manifested against them in that most admirable overture and alteration of the course of things to the shame and sorrow of our unluckey Lordly Prelates to live to see their voluptuous princely Palaces as Winchester house and Ely house turned into prisons but especially the spacious and specious palace of that Arch-adversary of Christ and his Cause among

themselves at that time they brought him home with them with no little adoe by the way who being thus brought home continued so distracted and besotted in his senses that he neither regarded what any said or did to him and wholly neglected his calling as being unfit to doe ought therein and shortly after hee fell sicke for a season and still continued so distracted that at last it was held fit to have him away to Bedlem yet for some credit sake his friends so prevailed that he was not put into the common condition of the Madmen there but was kept private in the house of one that endeavours the cure of such persons and there he was continued but could not be cured of this his miserable and distracted estate And was not here a most evident and remarkable hand of God upon them all three to the terrour one would thinke of all such desperate and incorrigible Malignants All which relation I have received from such honest and credible testimony of the truth thereof even of such as knew the three parties very well as is without all just exception therein And thus now I have as I suppose sufficienly made good my word and performed my promise in the two former parts of this my Looking-glasse namely in most clearly representing and setting forth to the eyes and understanding of every one of any one that is compos mentis and is not starke mad with malice and mischief both Gods hand most eminently against our Anti-Parliament arians or Malignants and also Gods evident heavy hand upon those our Malignants persons even immediately in the very acting of their malignancy Enough one would thinke to fright and terrifie them from such impious and audacious flouting ●ff●onting and maligning of Gods honest and harmlesse servants were not their Consciences cauterized with the hot iron of gracelesse impenetrable obstinacy and their hearts more hardned against pure and innocent Truth and Holinesse than the impenetrable Tortice shell and they thereby even given over by God to a reprobate sense to their irrecoverable ruine and perdition But now to goe on to my Third promised part or representation in this our Looking-glasse 3. A Caveat for Cowards and Neutrall-Deserters of the Parliaments Cause namely the Caveat for Cowards and faint-hearted Neutrall-Deserters of the Parliaments cause and therein I say most clearly Gods cause As also hereby to speake to all unsetled and unresolved weake Christians whom in this case we must pitty pardon and pray for as being our selves subject to like failings and errours should not grace prevent and support us to shew them the great danger and hard hazards they put themselves on both in soule and body too in so unworthily fearing or refusing to owne Gods Cause A briefe premised Preamble to the subsequent examples of this Caveat though not out of treachery yet if it be but of base timidity or feare God herein shewing his wrath and indignation and causing his jealousie to breake out against these also letting them see how dangerous it is to jest or dally with such sharp edg'd tooles as these to the undoing of their soules and bodies too I say if in his owne free grace and meere mercy he did not in the midst of justice remember to intermix mercy and to looke backe as it were on their sinking soules as he did on Peter in such a case if at least they belong to Christ as Peter did teaching them thereby to know the price of denying their Master or his Cause before men if not I say prevented by true and timely repentance All which I shall make most evident and cleare by these foure or five Examples all of them fallen out lately in these our probationall times which by Gods providence have come to my hands and knowledge and which for the glory of God and honour of our most precious Parliaments Cause I could not conceale but set forth most faithfully as I have received them from most indubitable and unquestionable Testimonies of the truth of them all even I say by those who were both Eye and Ear-witnesses of the truth of them And here now in the first place I might instance in a learned and reverend Minister of Lincolnshire 1. A Doctor in Divinity of Lincolnshire fell mad upon the taking of the Oxonian Protestation against the Parliament a Doctor in Divinity who being taken by the Kings Cormorants and carried prisoner to Newarke and there enforced to take the Oxonian Protestation or Covenant against the Parliament which it seemes out of servile feare and unworthy pusillanimity he did immediately after it out or remorse of Conscience fell mad and fearfully distracted in his senses and so continued for almost the space of halfe a yeere this being done by him about the midst of the last Summer 1643. but being since at liberty among his Parliamentary friends is in good measure recovered and a hearty Penitent for it But it being desired his name should bee concealed I cease to say any more therein save onely this That I have this briefe relation from such unquestionable and credible testimony as most strongly confirmes the truth thereof unto me And might we not here now thinke this one single example sufficient to deter our cowardly Newters from so vicious and pernicious prejudicating and deserting the Parliaments pious proceedings Yes certainly had they but any small sparkes of ingenuity left alive in them but since I know that they yea and Gods owne people too must have line upon line as the Prophet sayes and example upon example and all too too little till Gods Spirit of Grace awakens their dead and drousie Consciences I shall now give them another Example which comes more close unto them and most worthy their deep and serious observation and consideration which briefly is this Upon the second day of May 1643. one Thomas Bretton a young man 2. One Thomas Bretton a most bitter and active Malignant against the Parliament remarkably converted on his death-bed and most bitter and active Malignant against the Parliament late servant to Alderman Cullum in Gracious street in London falling very sick which indeed shortly after proved a sicknesse unto death desired most earnestly to speake with a reverend and religious Minister of the City whom he had formerly heard preach and could not be quiet till he was sent for The Minister being sent unto and intreated to come unto him accordingly very willingly came of whom so soone as the sicke party saw him he most heartily desired his pardon and forgivenesse The Minister answered That he knew not any thing wherein the sick party had injured or offended him But Bretton replied That he had done him wrong in jeering and scoffing at him though he knew not of it and told him the particulars thereof Whereupon this pious Minister told him He freely forgave him Then he desired the Minister to pray with him which he also did for the space of about halfe an

bounds as not to breake out to do that mischiefe unto His which their malignant adversaries most desperately and divellishly intended to have done unto them Malignants are but Gods drudges and scull-boyes to his Church and children Nay wherein they are yet farre more miserable yea most miserable of all God most wisely and wonderfully makes them in this their intended malice and mischiefe to be but as it were the very drudges and scull-boyes of his Church and children and to doe them farre more good than hurt in scouring and refining them from their drosse and filth contracted from the rubbish of the world in this life yea and by their malignant plottings fighting and spighting Reverend and religious Mr. Marshall cursing swearing jesting and jeering at truth and holinesse they shall as a most holy and reverend Minister of the Lord said exceedingly helpe forward promote and advance Gods cause yea more many times than many of the choice friends thereof and yet which I say is the height or rather the depth of their misery when they have thus done Gods worke though they little thought it and never intended it they themselves like the blinde builders of Noahs Arke who were after it drowned in the Deluge shall be so farre from having any part or portion in the comfortable issue prosperity of his cause that they shal die in their sinne and be everlastlingly damned and perish for their paines therein if I say in the interim God in his infinite boundlesse rich mercy gives them not space and grace to repent What an unexpressible sad condition are ye then in O most miserable Malignants if you could but see this your wicked worke and this your wretched wages as aforesaid even with prophane Esau Hebr. 12. 16. 1 King 21. 20. thus to strive and struggle to sell away as 't was said of Ahab that he sold himselfe to worke wickednesse your blessed Birth-right of life and salvation I speake here the pure language of Canaan maugre the false and fl●shie conceits and whimsies of our impious Antinomians those slye and jugling underminers of Christian humiliation for sinne A just objurgation to Antinomians by way of a briefe digression and of all other holy duties under a colour of their either ignorant or perverse wresting and misapplying of Gods eternall decree of salvation and free grace to his children Yea I say of those unjust and injurious scandalizers of our venerable pious and most painfull Pastors falsly terming them Legall Preachers and pressers of performance of holy duties in our owne strength and abilities a most grosse scandall and aspersion audaciously cast on them by these Satans Seeds-men of sedition and division in point of Religion Pardon good Reader this glancing digression of zeale in me and now to go on to struggle I say with prophane Esau to sell your blessed Birth-right of life and salvation for a poore base and beggarly morsell of meat or messe of pottage of worldly pel●e carnall pleasure and pretended peace forsooth which shall all perish in the use of them and prove unto you nothing but meere vani●y and vexation of spirit Cease then I beseech you O most unholy and unhappy Malignants cease I say and that timely too thus to fret and fume to swear and swagger and to shew your selves such palpable and apparent fighters against God such banders and combiners against Christ in his precious and peculiar members whom though you doe in your life and healthy times scorne and contemne The esteeme that Malignants have of Round-heads in the times of their sicknesse and distresses yet in times of sicknesse or extreme straits and heavy pressures and conscience-distresses these are the onely men you fare the better for these are the men I say that you are often enforced even out of Conscience to send for in your sicknesse especially when you thinke 't is a sicknesse to death to pray for you counsell and comfort you yea and ofttimes in health too are constrained to confesse of them 1 Sam. 24. 17. and to say with wicked Saul to holy David Thou art more righteous than I for thou hast rewarded me good whereas I have rewarded thee evill And therefore truly friends in these like cases I may greatly and most justly feare and I beseech you marke well what I now shall say unto you and feare and tremble at it too that most of the Grandees and Cosmopolites of these our abominably back sliding and apostatizing times most of them I say for I beleeve that they doe not all fight against God upon one and the same principle especially our learned knowing Courtiers Marke this O our learned and knowing Malignants Prelates scandalous Priests and intelligent Protestants at large I greatly feare I say that they come as neere to that sinne that terrible and unpardonable sinne against the holy Ghost and are as deeply plunged into it as ever any Apostate before them which sinne if I mistake not is wilfully The sinne against the holy Ghost knowingly maliciously and perseveringly to persecute and prosecute with all spight and bitternesse of spirit the Truth and true Professors thereof eo nomine because it is and they know it is the Truth of God and therefore they cannot abide it because their owne workes being darknesse they love darknesse more than light 2 Thes 2. 10. 11 12. And that there are such to be found the Apostle Paul testifies and their desperate condition too and I make no doubt but some of them have or will bee enforced ere they dye to acknowledge and cry out I have credibly heard that a some of the Kings Cormorants or Cavaliers have in our late wars cryed out Let us be gon for God fights against us as Serjeant-Major-Generall Basset a Royalist who at the dissolution of the siege at Plimouth spake the very words to one of our Commanders in our works at his going away if not true penitence yet in damnable despaire with that accursed Apostate Julian the heathenish Emperour Vicisti Galilae vicisti So these You have overcome us O Puritans and Round heads you have overcome us for Gods judgements have overtaken us in contending against you And therefore I may and must say unto you all who ever you be in this case and persist therein as Simon Peter said to Simon Magnus You are certainly in the gall of bitternesse in thus abusing the Spirit of grace and his peculiar and precious jewels pray therefore O yet pray if peradventure this sinne may be forgiven you which indeed is the ultimum refugium the last and best refuge and hope you have yet most unlikely to helpe you if not serious and seasonable For he that turnes away his eare from hearing the Law that is from loving God and goodnesse his Cause his Saints and Servants even his very prayers are an abomination to the Lord. And then you may with wicked Esau begge the blessing you so