Selected quad for the lemma: city_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
city_n	esquire_n	sir_n	thomas_n	19,213	5	10.5501	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57598	Londons resurrection, or, The rebuilding of London encouraged, directed and improved in fifty discourses : together with a preface, giving some account both of the author and work / by Samuel Rolls.	Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678.	1668 (1668)	Wing R1879; ESTC R28808	254,198	404

Londons Resurrection OR THE REBUILDING OF LONDON Encouraged Directed and Improved In Fifty Discourses Together with a Preface giving some account both of the Authour and Work By Samuel Rolls Minister of the Gospel and sometime Fellow of Trinity Colledg in Cambridg LONDON Printed by W. R. for Thomas Parkhurst at the Sign of the Golden Bible on London-Bridge under the Gate 1668. To the Right Worshipful Sr John Langham Knight and Baronet And Sir James Langham his Son KNIGHT To the Right Worshipful Sir Thomas Player Chamberlain of the City of LONDON And Sir Thomas Player his Son KNIGHTS And to the Right Worshipful Sir Francis Rolle Sir Stephen White KNIGHTS To the Worshipful Francis Warner Nathaniel Barnardiston Thomas Bewly Henry Spurstow Robert Welden and Henry Ashurst ESQUIRES S. R. Humbly dedicateth all the insuing Discourses in testimony of his unfained respects as mean and unworthy as they are wishing to all and every of you his much honoured friends all needful blessings both for the Life that is and that which is to come THE PREFACE Christian Reader IF thou hast an affection for London or any particular concern in the rebuilding of it as very many have the title of this book and I will assure thee the drift and purport of it is such as the Title pretendeth to may invite thee to spend a few hours in the perusal of it and to cover a multitude of infirmities in the Author and this his work with respect to the goodness and usefulness of his design I know no secular design now on foot in this part of the world that is or seemeth to be of greater importance and that to thousands of families than is the rebuilding of London and yet no one English pen so far as I know hath been imployed in the directing and incouraging of it till the unworthy Author of this poor Treatise like Elihu who had waited for the words of others and did not answer to Job till his betters seemed resolved to be silent made bold to break the Ice and did redeem what time he could from a thousand cares and perplexities to signifie his great compassion and high respects to that once famous but now ruinous City in which he drew his first breath I dare not to speak in any such language as Deborah did Judg. 5.7 They ceased in Israel till I Deborah arose c. I shall not presume to compare with her though but a woman but rather confess my self to be as a worm and no man What the Apostle saith of himself 1 Cor. 2.3 I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling and the expressions he useth concerning himself Acts 20.19 Serving the Lord with all humility of mind and with many tears and temptations which befel me I say those expressions have been much what applicable to my case as they that have known my circumstances do understand I have been at the most but a bruised reed and smoking flax let the world judg of me as it pleaseth yet have I broke through all distractions and discouragements which have even laid me level with the City or that part of it which lieth in ashes to do what service I could for the place of my nativity to blot out the name of Icabod and to retrieve and recall that glory of England which for the present is departed Yet let me not affright my reader by what I have said with the expectation of a melancholy peice upon so joyful a subject as is the restauration of London for in treating thereof I have rather comported with the nature and quality of the subject which is pleasant and chearily than with the complexion of my own mind and those sad and dolorous resentments of things both my own and others which I have too much conversed with One had wont to say that he did love to drink his wine with his friends but to eat his vinegar by himself meaning to impart his joyes rather than his sorrows and as to that I am much of his mind I will rather hang my harp upon the willowes than play those doleful tunes to others which I do sometimes listen to my self What if now and then I say within my self that the age we live in is an unkind and an ill-natured age that all men now adaies do seek their own things and not the things of others that interest carrieth all before it and whatsoever is worthy and far more worthy than it self signifieth nothing in comparison of it so that they who are too honest to comply with this or that interest farther than they understand it to comport with religion and reason shall have leave to starve whilst they who boggle at nothing that is in pursuance of that interest they have fallen in with but follow it as if interest were the lamb spoken of Rev. 14.4 whithersoever it goeth though that their dishonest self-love for so it is be all they have to commend them shall ride upon the high places of the earth and have more than heart can wish I may sometimes think of it with regret that persons in no authority at all do usually take upon them to prescribe and give law to others in those things in and as to which they should only be a law to themselves I mean left to their own judgments and consciences and so it is that they who command the purse do seem to think that the consciences of men should be in subjection to them themselves assuming or challenging that power of imposing and that dominion over the faith of other men though really their equals which they condemn in others who are legally their superiours It goeth near to me sometimes to think how full of snares and temptations the present time is both on the right hand and on the left as if all the Devils in Hell were not tempters enough nor the wiles and methods of Satan sufficient to try us or as if to grapple not only with flesh and blood but also with principalities and powers and spiritual wickednesses in high places and with the rulers of the darkness of this world were not as much as one of us could well turn our hands to unless men turned Divels too tempters I mean and went about like roaring Lions seeking whom they could devour I freely confess I have had many black and gloomy thoughts upon the consideration of those things such as if others had been conscious to they might have expected I should have done like the madman spoken of Prov. 26.18 viz. have cast about firebrands arrowes and death but instead thereof I have been pleasant with my reader at several turnes yea oftner so than sowr and melancholy though there be something of both kinds wherewith to entertain those that are of different humours I have frequently piped to those that have a mind to dance alluding to Mat. 11.17 and elsewhere mourned unto them that are more disposed to lament as having been under various tempers