Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	heaven_n	nation_n	shake_v	3,818	5	10.4067	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66765	Paralellogrammation an epistle to the three nations of England, Scotland, and Ireland, whereby their sins being parallel'd with those of Judah and Israel, they are forewarned, and exhorted to a timely repentance, lest they incur the like condempation : to render it the more effectual, some considerable notions are therein expressed touching ceremonies, and things indifferent, the Lords supper, the civil government, the taking of oaths, the mark of the beast, the library of conscience, the great Sabbath, and the two witnesses, with other particulars of concernment interwoven / written by Geo. Wither.	Wither, George, 1588-1667.	1662 (1662)	Wing W3176; ESTC R11575	78,735	140

Proclamation and afterwards a Covenant voluntarily and conscientiously made or was at least pretended by Prince Priests and People for the breach whereof Confiscation of Goods and Exclusion from the Congregation was menaced but how far forth it was put in execution it appears not no had any wrong been done thereby because that is no wrong which is done to a man by his own consent no nor that which is done against his will if it be purposed for his wel-being and cannot have any effect to his hurt nor fail of that good which is pretended which inforcing the Conscience can never produce but the contrary rather for GOD is never wel-pleased with any service unwillingly done though the performance be good in it self and is alwayes highly displeased with every one who for fear favour or for any other end whatsoever acteth or speaketh against his Conscience and no doubt as highly offended with all those who offer violence to the Consciences of other men in regard it is not only injurious to men but a presumptuous offence also against a Prerogative due and proper to Him alone If these Prevarications be found among us be it known that they are surer tokens of GOD's Indignation than those which we call Plague-tokens are of their near approaching deaths who are visited with the Pestilence yet we have lately had other signs and tokens which are both Presignificators of the General Judgment and of the National Calamities which will come upon particular Nations and Persons when their sins grow ripe according to what our Saviour Christ foretold Luke 21. 25. where it is said There shall be signs in the Sun the Moon and the Stars and upon the Earth distress of Nations with perplexity the Sea and the Waves voaring mens hearts failing in looking after those things which are coming upon the Earth for the Powers of Heaven shall be shaken c. We have seen these or such like signs whether taken in a metaphorical or a literal sense and the sign also of the Prophet Jonas mystically revived in some of the Saints of GOD whose Judgments are begun upon those of his own Houshold and his Justice and Mercy have been manifested upon many of them in our sight Moreover though we who believe his Word have therein sufficient manifestations and look for no other signs of what is approaching yet GOD hath vouchasafed to Unbelievers in these dayes what he denied to the like unbelieving and adulterous Generation heretofore if what hath been credibly reported may be credited For we have heard of more strange Prodigies dreadful Apparitions and unusual Visions in the Air upon the Waters and on the Earth within a few years than I have read recorded in all humane Stories since the coming of Christ in the flesh and they are the more to be considered in regard GOD hath been pleased to give us Signs of what he intends though as I said before he denied Signs to those who desired them and forasmuch as they made us no whit the better it implies an experimental verifying of this saying They who will not believe Moses and the Prophets will not believe one sent from the dead If the Signs and Wonders lately averred be true or but in part true as I am perswaded they are though I never saw any such then they are very considerable And no less considerable or significant are they if feigned or delusions seeing they declare this Generation to be presumptuously wicked beyond all before them as daring to make aver and publish Lies of that nature If they are true they are the Finger of GOD pointing to somewhat whereof they are Signs and which ought to be heeded yea though they are but delusions of the Fancy they are terrible Signs of affrighted and self-condemning Consciences Those Apparitions which we see or fear to see upon the Earth shew us from whence all our troubles come even from our Earthly-mindedness and the Signs which men see or think they see in the Heavens invite us to look up unto those Hills from whence cometh our Salvation We have yet other Signs of what is approaching and of what will certainly ensue if not prevented by Repentance and they are very significant and observable though very few heed them or think themselves therein concerned GOD foretold the obstinate Jews that he would provoke them by such as they reputed a foolish People and so have we been provoked by some among us whose persons words and actions appear unto the greatest number of us not only foolish and contemptible but impudent and wicked also Such were they and their Actings who came naked into our Publick Assemblies and by what spirit soever they were thereto moved were Signs which I believe GOD permitted to signifie that he will openly discover our Shame and strip us naked from all those Fig-leaves which we have patched together to hide it and take from us all those things which we have made our chief delight pride and ornament And I am perswaded those signal Actings of that nature which were personated by some of the Prophets were in their times reputed as ridiculous and scandalous as the extravagancies which have been seen in our dayes They likewise whom ye term Quakers and who with much resolution and patience do sustain the Persecutions whereby they are prosecuted in all places Even they as I believe are instrumental by a Divine Dispensation signally to foreshew that Contempt which GOD will bring upon our false Worship false Honour vain Complements Hypocrisies Superstitions Formalities in Piety counterfeit Morality and Dissimulations with GOD and Men. Many take great offence at them and I do believe because it hath been averred unto me by conscientious men that some so called have professed and taught erroneous and scandalous Doctrines for there is no Dispensation whereinto the Devil hath not screwed many of his Instruments to disparage and hinder what was thereby intended but I do profess that none among all them of whose Principles and Conversation I have had opportunity to take notice hath appeared otherwise to me than a truly honest and pious man and though their language and manners are offensive to many they are not so to me because if they be not taken up with an affectation to singularity whereof I cannot judge unless I could see their hearts they seem to me such as are essential to their Dispensation and had GOD fitted me for the same work I should have done as some of them do though I will not justifie all that some of them do Habakkuk in his mode and at such a time as this was a Quaker So likewise was Ezekiel the Prophet and a sign to the Jews by GOD's Dispensation in his time as appears Ezek. 12. 17. The Word of the LORD came unto me saying Son of man eat thy bread with quaking and drink thy water with trembling and carefulness and say unto the People of the Land thus saith the LORD GOD of the Inhabitants of Jerusalem

Plaisters and like the old Egyptians their true types encrease the works of Bondage and Slavery to the suppressing of GOD's People within their Jurisdictions because they perceive them endeavouring to separate from them But the time is near wherein the true Israelites and their Oppressors will receive the Rewards respectively prepared and due unto them by GOD's Judgments promenced against the one and his gracious Promises to the other though his Enemies struggle yet against him like Pharoah and his Armies in the Red Sea when their Chariot-wheels were taken off and while the waves on either side stood heaped up ready to swallow them The Grand City being divided into three parts will ere long fall with every subordinate Power Kingdom City and Society thereto belonging and wo to all them who have not separated from her by repentance Her abominations are come into remembrance before GOD Her sins are almost full ripe and she is become an habitation of Devils and a receptacle for every unclean bird all Nations have drunk the Cup of her Fornications and are besotted and bewitched with her Sorceries and Inchantments The Merchants of the Earth are enriched by the abundance of her carnal Delicacies and by her Traffick in spiritual and temporal Merchandizes for they have traded together not only for Gold Silver Pretious Stones Pearls fine Linnen Silks Purple Scarlet Vessels of Brass Iron Wood and Marble Spices Odours Oyntments Oyl Wine Wheat Beasts and Chariots but also for the Bodies and Souls of men according to what was prophesied pretending to settle upon their Chapmen Possessions in Heaven that they might cheat them and their Heirs of their Inheritances upon Earth Their Formal Devotions being of the same nature and value with such as were in use among the old Heathen Idolaters and for the most part borrowed from their Idol Temples will not avail them in the day of their Visitation but be cast out as unholy things fit for nothing but to be trampled under foot and destroyed with all those Trumperies which the Founders of the Mystery of Iniquity have raked together out of Judaism and Gentilism to trim up a will-Worship They who dote on them shall perish with them and GOD's People whom they now oppress and reproach shall be delivered from their scorns and oppressions If they with whom GOD hath intrusted the Civil Power shall joyn with her in oppressing his People he himself will deliver them from all their oppressive Actings and Constitutions who by a corrupt exercise of their Authority are more or less at enmity with his Kingdom and persecutors of his Saints as turbulent and seditious Persons for professing their Consciences and not complying with them in their Abominations and vain Inventions repugnant to the dictates of his Word and Spirit who is their Soveraign Paramount Yea so many of the Civil Governors and Magistrates as in their publick or personal actings adhere finally to Antichristianism in the essentials thereof shall be therewith destroyed But they who Conform to the Kingdom and Government of Christ shall be thereunto admitted and therewith honoured Be wise therefore O ye Kings and learn what ye are to do you that are Judges of the People Let not the Kings and Rulers of the Earth bind themselves together in their Counsels against the LORD and his Anointed nor the murmuring People imagine vain things For GOD who sits in Heaven derides their attempts and maugre all their opposition will set his King upon the holy Hill of Sion Psal 2. Amen These things considered our future Repentance and Reformation will not alone consist in forsaking our Transgressions against the moral Law and the impudent prophaness whereof we are guilty by meer carnal sins but in timely disserting also every spiritual wickedness by coming out of Babylon and desisting from complying with her and especially by razing out the Mark of the Beast if we have in any mode received it which is not to be performed by a local departure or separation but by a relinquishment of their Superstitions and Idolatries and by avoiding the mark of the Beast both in the hand and forehead which I conceive not to be any thing forcibly imposed upon men against their wills as Oaths Stigmatizings or Conformity with them in things indifferent But I judge that Mark to be a voluntary approving the Power of the Beast and an adhering to him or his Image by justifying their tyrannies professing their Idolatries and by openly or secretly persecuting the followers of the LAMB For these Qualifications knit together with an c will make such a perfect Character whereby to distinguish them from the Disciples of Christ that they shall be priviledged to buy and sell or to enjoy any place of Power Honour or Profit within his usurped Jurisdiction which he exerciseth at several times and under various Notions For I conceive that the first and second Beast mentioned in the Revelation as also the Image of the Beast The Skarlet Whore with her Cup of Fornications The Red Dragon The False Prophet the seven Heads the ten Horns the smoke which ascended out of the Bottomless Pit and the Locusts proceeding out of that smoak do all together make up but one Mystical Body of Iniquity as it was by degrees produced active and manifested in several times according to the true nature thereof in every particular part The first Beast being the fourth and last humane tyranny described by Daniel in the last of the four Beasts whereof he had a Vision in the Raign of Belshazer is that Monster out of which all the Appurtenances of the said Mystery successively branched The second Beast is that mixture of temporal and spiritual Oppressions and Wickednesses which sprouted up from the first by Sa●anical Delusions and fleshly Impostures It is called the Image of the Beast because of the manifold resemblances which it retains of heathenish Romes Cruelties Pride and Superstitions and their forming of it into that Image was partly as I judge to colour and countenance their Novelties and wicked Impostures with an appearance of venerable Antiquity and with a successive Authority which is one of their chief boasts and it was partly to share also among themselves the Dignities and Profits which were formerly enjoyed by the Flamines Arch-Flamines and other Priests among the Gentiles who had large Priviledges and Possessions It is expressed by a Red Dragon in respect of the bloody Persecutions thereby raised in the Primitive Church It is called a Whore arrayed in Scarlet with a golden cup of Fornications in her hand to signifie the carnal Pompe and Pleasures whereby it should infatuate and bewitch the great men of the World It is likened to a False Prophet to intimate the counterfeit Sanctity and Gravity whereby it should delude foolish Kings and Nations The Smoke ascending out of the bottomless Pit implies the Jugglings and Sophistications whereby they should becloud the Truth and darken mens understandings with fictitious Glosses and false Interpretations The

be otherwhile added by us though many who do therein as it were Tithe Mint and Annis are offended at such additions ignorantly supposing them to be Oaths Nevertheless I am so tender of offending their Consciences who scruple at such Niceties that I deny my self liberty even in many such indifferent things except I causually slip into them through inadvertency and I judge not uncharitably of those who dare not Swear at all because they have a written Word inducing them to be of that Judgment James 5. 12. where it is said Above all things Swear not neither by Heaven nor by Earth nor by any other Oath but let your Yea be Yea and your Nay Nay which seems to be a Caution against all Oaths whatsoever in the understanding of some but not in mine nor do I think this Scripture is to be limitted as some have thought to Promissary Oaths in regard there is no word in the Text or Context to warrant such an Interpretation Perhaps that which is offensive in Oaths consists more in the Circumstances or Formalities than in what is by them essentially intended I think therefore it would be a Provision worthy a Christian Government and would be more satisfactory to those whom it concerns than the Testimony of a Peer upon his Honour Conscientious men deserving at least as much Credit and Priviledge upon their bare word as the other by an empty Title if for an Expedient in this case a Law were enacted whereby the Testimony of those Persons who are Conscientiously afraid of Swearing may be taken for a legal witnessing of the Truth by an attestation upon their word only evidenced by some such action as the lifting up of the Hand without the usual Formalities of an Oath upon the same Penalties which our Laws inflict on persur'd Persons who deserve at least the same Pains or Mulcts which may befall to other men by their Falshood This I suppose will displease no reasonable or conscientious man in regard none ought to think that they are not in conscience oblig'd to Assert the Truth in Controversies between man and man or in matters relating to publick Justice or common Safety when it tends not to an Accusing of themselves And I have this charitable belief of the greatest number of them who make Conscience of Swearing as aforesaid out of meer Conscientiousness that they will be more trusty in their Assertions and more Loyal to the Supream Power though it favour'd them not upon their bare verbal Engagements than the greatest part of them will be who voluntarily take or impose Oaths by Compulsion on other men I am assured also that GOD will not hold them guiltless who by Threatnings or by Oaths or by Imprisonments or Tortures enforce men to act against their Consciences or to accuse themselves or other Innocents in their distempers and torments St. Agustine in his City of God inveighs against it as an abominable oppressive Cruelty practised till then by none but Heathenish Tyrants and afterward by the Beast who sprung from them to enforce Innocents against the Laws of GOD and Nature unjustly to accuse themselves and those whom they intended to destroy whereas both Divine and Humane Justice directs to other means of discovering Truths and vindicating of suspected Persons The Holy Ghost wills that every man before he suffers should be tryed and Convicted by the mouth of two or three Witnesses upon which Precept the Law of our Nation called the Great Charter is founded And as it is exemplified in the Case of Achan wherein the safety of a whole Nation was concerned and indangered by his private sin no man is to be interrogated as touching things which may tend to the accusing of himself until there be either an Accuser produced or a previous probability in some degree evidencing that he is guilty as Achan appeared to be upon a providential discovery first made out by five Lots before it came to a personal Examination and even then Joshua proceeded not rigorously or by menacings but meekly and by a Fatherly compellatur said unto him My Son give I pray thee glory to the GOD of Israel and tell me what hast thou done Whereupon he Conscientiously confessed his Crime In this temper of Spirit it becometh all Christians to search out doubtful matters and not by a tyrannous violence in what hazard soever the Publick may appear by the concealment thereof This is my Judgment whereto I will add what shall deserve to be well heeded at this time to wit That not only those Confessions or Accusations which are extorted by threatnings or tortures are no proofs at all of what is Confessed against themselves or others but that all these Informations and Accusations likewise which Condemned or Guilty men are allured tempted or bribed unto by hopes or fears promises of pardon favour or reward and not conscientiously declared ought not to be regarded as a valid Evidence further than they concur with other Circumstances and unquestionable proofs For they who are corrupted or distempered by covetousness hopes fears enforced necessities or long and hard durance will for the most part say any thing to escape a present misery as by sad experiments it hath been often seen Even at this day as I am credibly informed there is a man living who being thought murdered a poor innocent man was hanged lately in chains as principal in the fact and his Mother and Brother executed as Accessaries upon the said man's Confession when he was distempered to a degree of distraction by hard durance by the threatnings of the Prosecutors and by his own fears and frailties which were perhaps thought to be effects and evidences of his guiltiness But who can help this or how or when will it be better whilst Oaths are forcibly imposed and whilst they who have no conscience are more indulged than the most conscientious men I would to GOD that our Publick and Private Peace and Safety were no more endangered by false Witnesses Suborners of Perjury Trapanners Ignorant or corrupt Jurors and by some of them who impose Oaths against men's Consciences than by them who make Conscience of Swearing I may seem perhaps to make tedious Digressions impertinent to my first Design but they are not such if well considered for I being like a Beggar who is never out of his way might add much more collatrally at least tending to my first purpose which I omit partly because it cannot now be born partly for that I am not in such a capacity to express it as assures me it is part of my work at this present Therefore I will proceed with what I am certain so to be lest I be prevented as aforesaid by what I expect may shortly happen to the depriving me of those Tools and Opportunities which I have at this time and place in my fruition And I conceive that what I purpose next to treat of will be so necessary toward the performance of those duties for promoting