Selected quad for the lemma: city_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
city_n	great_a	part_n	people_n	5,808	4	4.2401	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A97172	The preparative for London. Be mercifull to your selves. An hearty and friendly premonition to the City of London, before their meeting in a Common-Hall, which is now to be called, by the good providence of God, upon Saturday the 24. June. VVhereby they have, if they neglect it not, a gracious opportunity offered them to become the happy instruments of their owne safety, and the peace and preservation of these kingdoms. / By Thomas Warmestry. D. D.	Warmstry, Thomas, 1610-1665.	1648 (1648)	Wing W887; Thomason E449_26	11,417	16

THE PREPARATIVE FOR LONDON Be mercifull to your selves An hearty and friendly premonition to the City of London before their meeting in a Common-Hall which is now to be called by the good providence of God upon Saturday the 24. of June VVhereby they have if they neglect it not a gracious opportunity offered them to become the happy instruments of their owne safety and the peace and preservation of these Kingdoms By Thomas Warmestry D. D. MAT. 5.9 Blessed are the Peace-makers Printed in the Yeare 1648. The Preparative for London SHall the Sword devoure for ever 2 Sam. ● 26 Know ye not that it will be bitternesse in the latter end How long shall it be then ere ye bid the people return from following their brethren Oh let me beseech you to remember the Lord your God! And to take the wasted and bleeding condition of your poor distressed country into tender consideation Let the groanes and the sighes of the fatherlesse and the widdowes and the cries of the oppressed and consumed people of this Land and of poor distressed Ireland enter into your ears and pieree your hearts that you bring not the guilt of innocent blood upon your selves Provoke not the Almighty to give you the dregs of that Cup which hath been mingled in his fury against the sinnes of you and of these Nations because you have shewed no pitty upon your Brethren Hear their cries unto you that the Lord hear not their cries and the cry of that bloud that hath or shall be shed against you And let it be in your hearts now at length to lay aside all thoughts of division and self-seeking of strife and debate of opposition and contention And to put on bowels of mercy towards your fellow Christians and Country-men Yea to be so mercifull unto your selves to prevent that impendent ruine desolation that hangs over your City like a flaming Sword or dreadfull Comet and seemes every day to draw neerer and neerer unto you least when the fire is once kindled amongst you you cannot quench that with your fruitlesse tears which you would not prevent by your timely endeavours Consider that power that God of his great goodnesse of his great goodnesse to you in speciall if you neglect it not as well as to these Nations in generall hath yet left remaining in your hands and in your hands alone with his blessing and assistance which the Lord grant you to put yet an happy period unto the great miseries of these Kingdomes Consider the great and manifold inducements both heavenly and earthly both politique and oeconomicall Both publick and private Both in point of duty in point of piety in point of justice and mercy of honour of interest in the regards of safety of wealth of welfare and of very being and subsistence that do now exact it at your hands It is the duty that nature in self hath taught all men even the very heathens themselves and is much more cleerly commended unto us by the rules of Christian charity That all men ought to seek the good of that state and body of which themselves are members Piety commands us to seek the preservation of Gods Church and the recovery and establishment of true Religion amongst us Justice engageth us to employ our lawfull and Christian endeavours for restoring Law and Justice amongst us and of wronged and oppressed people unto their rights Mercy obligeth us to seek the preservation of our selves and brethren and to prevent the farther shedding of innocent blood That the poor people of this wasted Nation may be no longer worryed by those savage wolves and beares that have now for so long a time take their pleasure in the devouring of their brethren If regards of honour be of any force with us what an honour will it be unto this City to be the moderatours of so bloudy a quarrell and to procure a reconciliation between the King and His people which shall illustrate their names unto all posterity and endeare them to the hearts of the people as the repairers of the breaches of their Country and the preservers of their King and this whole Kingdome under God If your interest wealth and welfare or your very being and subsistence be considerable unto you all these hang upon the designes of peace and upon the restitution of Government amongst us without this your forraign traffique is like to be obstructed by the Navy and if this fail you the intestine trade is too shallow to feed the roots of so great a tree as is this of your City How many severall callings manufactures occupations that make up a great and the most flourishing part of your City will be utterly starved in so great a straite Besides that your trading at home doth daily and is like continually to decay by the banishing of a great part of the people from the City and by the impoverish-of many thousands more whereby they are disabled and others not suffered to exercise that commerce with you that should make for the mutuall supply and supportance of you and them and so your very being is in question when your livelihood and supportance is cut off Consider the great and providentiall conjuncture of affaires in the present state and condition of things that doth invite you to the undertaking of this work So great and considerable a part of the Kingdome going before you with flaming desires in the prosecution of the designe of Peace many whereof have opened the way unto you with their blood and many more waiting and expecting your example and encouragement no doubt that they may joyn hands with you in so happy an undertaking Consider the charge that is like to be your part if the Kingdom be engaged in another War And the poor supplies that are likely to come in in those abridgments which you are already under to enable you to nurce up such a daughter of the horse-leach that wil ever be crying unto you give give without regard either to your necessities or possibilities Vnde habeas quaeret nemo sed oportet habere When the Sword of the Souldier is once more made drunk with blond you will finde much ado to make it understand reason Non missura cutem nisi plena cruoris hirudo Will they leave sucking at your veines think you till they have drawn out your very life and heart blood Consider how bloudy and violent the prosecution you may guesse it by a late paroxisme in Essex how hazardous and uncertaine the event of another War will be How you your selves are like to be divided within your selves by the several parties which is likely to set you on fire amongst your selves that perhaps in a litterall sense when want and famine shall become the dismall nurce of fury and rage amongst you at the best it may expose you to a a City-war and what confusion is like to attend it Consider if you could be choosers of the success and in that you

upon together with so great a part of the whole Kingdome for the recovery of peace and the prevention of a totall and incurable desolation ready to fall upon themselvs and al the people of these nations only to secure unto themselves some unwarrantable Bargains and purchases that they have made with a flaming coale at the end of them apt to consume and wast all the rest of their possessions or to make the innocent blood of their brethren the security of those debts wherein the publick faith is engaged unto them Let me beseech them to be better minded lest it discover unto all the world that they are but usurpers of that holy title of Saints Christians which they take upon them when all is done he is the Christian that walkes according to the rules of Christianity and that is to be a publick man and not to buy our wealth with the destruction of mens lives and yet I have two questions to propose unto them The first whether when they have made all their obstructions sure whereby the work of peace is so industriously intercepted by them they can tell how to free themselves from as much or a greater hazard of fayling in those their selfe-ends that they aime at than if they should commit them to the calm gales of peace or whether their designes are clearly setled upon so found and unfaileable a botom that it is not possible that they and their hopes may sinke in those surges which they intend to hold up since they have not all the winds nor the tides at their command and those that they thinke they have most on their side and in their power may when they least dreame of it split them upon the Rocks They may remember that every Gust that they have sayled with hath not brought them faire weather My second Quaere is if they should be so much masters of their desires as to find a Haven unto themselves in every storme that they shall nourish or yet farther raise upon this poore tottered vessell whether all their gaine would countervaile the damage or that with all that they shall get thereby they shall be able to make satisfaction to the justice of God for one of those many lives that should be lost in that turbulent adventure that they shall yet farther ingage in or for one the smallest drop of that sea of blood that by their meanes shall yet againe overwhelme this poore selfe-deserted Kingdome If they cannot tell how to answer these questions I am fully assured they will be much more unable to answer some others that may be askt them at the day of judgement But though golden Asses have long eares yet they are commonly very dull of hearing But I hope this paper may find a more easie passage unto the hearts of those unto whom this is directed If it should be otherwise yet I despaire not of a remedy whilst I have so faire a promise from so many good affections that have shewed themselves amorous of the peace of this Kingdome in this Citie seconded with the happy presage of so generall a concurrence of the severall countries where they are not countermanded by the force of opposites And though it may put both you and them unto some cost yet the dearest purchase that shall be made of peace as it is a farre better Merchandize in all probability will be as easily bought as another warre is likely to be maintained though all the blood that is to be spilt should be left out of the reckoning and the layings out will have a farre more pleasant returne This busines is mainely yours and now it is as it were put into your hands if you let it goe you let loose a whole flood of mischiefes an ocean and deluge of calamities upon your selves and countrey This poore weakned Kingdome is now falling into a relapse and that may be as dangerous to the body politick as to the naturall The disease indeed was never perfectly cured and now it is broken forth againe upon us and the bloody issue runs afresh amongst us and seemes to be like a raging fit after a troublesome and unquiet slumber which without a remedy may be the Prodromus of death you if any under Heaven may be the Physicians with Gods blessing to resist the beginnings of those recoyling evils That you may doe it give mee leave here humbly to offer my poore advice not to prescribe unto your judgements but to submit it to the corrections of such better thoughts which the Lord shall suggest unto your reasons if they prove not as wife as they are honest and hearty yet the very folly and failings in them may perhaps administer unto you better apprehensions many good things are brought sometimes into our thoughts by those errors of other men which we are engaged to correct 1. That God may be in the whole businesse let me desire you to apply your selves unto him by earnest prayer and supplication for his speciall influence upon you in these your proceedings for which purpose you have a mite offered into your treasuryes in a forme of prayer set forth for that purpose 2. Let nothing prevaile with you to relinguish the benefit of a Common-hall which is now due unto you of course if I mistake not is so needful of so great moment at this time as you have bin well advised by another hand which together with the sense of your great concernment therein may I hope save me the labour of pressing it upon you 3. That in the next place as that which must give life and authority to all your resolutions You desire the liberty of speedy addresse unto his Majesty to be made by some of those whole wisedome and moderation shall present them to you as the fittest for such an employment that you may both communicate your resolutions unto him and receive his approbation of them which will no doubt remove many feares and scruples which are in the hearts of some among you by such ample satisfaction which his meekenesse and mercy and the longing desire that lives in him after the good of you and all the rest of his good Subject would its like long agoe have given you had he not bin deprived of the freedome of expression of himselfe unto you and that his Majesty may come to Hampton Court or some other place neere your City to that end and that he may have a Personall Treaty with the Houses 4. That some course may be thought on with his Majesties consent by the joynt concurrence of the City and Kingdome for the paying of the debts of the publike faith and for the reimbursing unto the purchasers that money that they have layd out in the purchase of Bishops-Lands or of the Church Revenues any other such like which may be done by the contiunance of a moderate excise by the Customes of exportation and importation and by a publike yearly contribution both of the Laity Clergy

of evacuation then nourishment that I say no more that like the spleene in the body maintaine their growth by the consumption of the whole Body The particular motions and inclinations of natural agents maintaine themselves in their utmost force whilst their currents run toward the. Ocean and comply with the universall good But as the Tide of the Sea carries back the Rivers so when these naturall agents receive a prohibition or supersedeas from the superiour Court of the generall safety Then Xanthe retro properat versaeque recurrere lymphae Incipiunt Then those streames do loose their force And do retreat from wonted course The particular element of water will forget its fluidity and without any bonds of a frost or ice will be consistent as waxe to preserve the integrity of the universe and upon the same termes it wil remove its descensive motion ascend upward and the ayre will take leave of its lightness and descend downward for the prevention of a vacuum offering the tribute of their single natures as it were an homage due unto the security and supportance of the whole Body of the world This is the Policy that God hath set up in the creatures The whole world is a great Corporation and this is the great and inviolable law whereunto God hath engaged all the parts of that Body which is the great ligament of the entirenesse thereof and keeps out schisme from that great Congregation There is a publike spirit I was about to say a kinde of spirit of naturall martyredome and self-denyall that runs through all the particles of this great fabrique that makes each parcell thereof ready to sacrifice it selfe its appetite its force its kind of life it s very being unto the safeguard of the totall compact men I am sure should be of an higher schoole The Philosopher tells us man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A politique living creature not made then for himselfe but for publike Benefit God hath ordained the good of mankind to hang as it were upon the societie of mankind and hath forbidden man to be happy alone that he might engage him to seek after the common securitie Therefore it is we may well conceive that God hath made him the most inermous of all the creatures and the most necessitous of all the creatures almost That the very love of himselfe might bind him to love the publike before himselfe as it were as without whose felicity himselfe would be but a kind of damage and burden to himself This as dark as it was in the now defaced records of nature yet it was legible enough unto the very heathens and produced these savings among them Homo sum nihil humanum à me alienum puto I am a man and reckon my selfe to be no stranger unto any thing within the bounds of humanity And again Dulce decorum est pro patria mori Sweet is the damage though 't be great yea 't is a noble gain To part with life that Countries good thereby we may maintain And answerable to these sayings was the practice of many of them as you may reade in the stories of those heathen Heroes Curtius Regulus and others which however it was perhaps sophisticated with vain-glory and came short of the true value of genuine and native vertue for want of the inward soule and life of it and of the true guide which is the knowledge of the true God yet they may shame too many that pretend to have better eyes about them Christianity is the repairer and purifier of that corrupt and drossie humanity which we have received from our degenerated Ancestours This refines mankind again and sets us higher than the meere pitch of humane affection It doth clear and rectifie this publike spirit files it and fourbisheth it from the dross of vain-glory and establisheth it firm upon the right foundation it doth set again the dis-joynted bones of humane societie which were broken and dislocated by the fell of Adam and fastens them together with a stronger ligament than mean humane regards even with that great sinew of Christian charity This teacheth us that we are all fellow-members of one another and that therefore as the particular members will dispense with their private good for the benefit and preservation of the whole so ought we to behave cur selves in the body of the Church and State The Gangrened member refuseth not to be cut off that it may secure the life of the rest of the frame The arme will not my its own integrity by exposing the head unto a mortall blow but will interpose it selfe to receive that wound which might otherwise be the destruction of all by the maime of a more noble part upon whole entirenesse and safety the safety and welfare of the whole fabrique doth depend And to this purpose are those sacred lawes of the Christian Common-wealth binding us to account every man our neighbour to love our neighbour as our selves which leaves no roome for a meere private affection but breakes open all enclosures from about the heart of a Christian and makes is to be of a publike interest teacheth us that no man ought to seeke his owne 1 Cor. 10.24 but every man a wealth to have our prayers in common Our Father which art in Heaven c. our wealth in common though not in Anabaptisticall sence not to the destruction of propriety but the Christian disposing of it He that hath this worlds good and seeth his brother have need and shutteth up his compassion from him how dwelleth the love of God in him nay to hold our lives in common too we ought to lay downe our lives for the brethren 1 Ioh. 3.16 A true Christian is to reckon of himselfe and of his life and of all his riches commodities and advantages as none of his owne but the publick interest 1 Cor. 6.19 Yee are not your owne faith the Apostle for you are bought with a price If we had any right in our selves any private right Christ hath bought it and hath given it as it were unto the Church and to the publicke unto pious uses for the benefit of all A true Christian is the best Politician in the world And Christs common-wealth is far better than Platoes And is it not strange then that against all these rules of nature of humanity and of Christianity men that would be accounted Christians and the chiefe and only Christians should yet stand upon their private concernments and advantages where the ruine of a whole City of a whole Church and Kingdom nay of three Kingdoms is in the question to secure themselvs from those losses which they have wilfully that I say not wickedly exposed themselves unto by the hazard of a totall destruction and desolation That they should employ their wits to interrupt and delay those seasonable remedies which the pious and Christian inclinations of so many in your Citie have through the goodnesse of God set their hearts