Selected quad for the lemma: enemy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
enemy_n	able_a	army_n	great_a	1,399	5	2.7165	3	true

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

whereof I have tendred the preceding Parallel to your consideration that neither all your experimental knowledge of Good and Evil nor your Historical Faith nor your Formal Devotions nor the rest of your supposed Virtues or Merits will effect so much as may make them acceptable if that be wanting in regard it is that without which they will be unsavoury and fruitless My Brethren it is LOVE and UNITY in and with Him who is the Fountain of that Love which must reconcile us to GOD and to each other that which must preserve us in safety and destroy our Adversaries who will else destroy us by our Divisions whose Unity will so divide the malignant City and Kingdom of Antichrist that they shall be instrumental for your deliverance by their own destruction whereas they have hitherto prolonged our miseries and hazarded our destruction by sowing and cherishing the seeds of division among us underhand and under colour of reconciling you to your true Mother sought to bring you by degrees back again to an acknowledging the Whore of Babylon to be the Spouse of Christ and your spiritual Mother Many also who have not that wicked Design are ignorantly contriving and prosecuting that which may be a furtherance thereto unless prevented If any National or Provincial Churches may warrantably arrogate that Infallibility which hath been denied to Popes or General Councils and which evidently appears they never had then possibly that whereto some drive might seem feazible But it is not our or their politick endeavourings to establish that which is called Conformity and Uniformity in externals that will settle a general Agreement in all Religious Concernments in the mode intended much lesse accomplish GOD's Work Unity in Essentials is necessary and ought to be prosecuted to the utmost of our ability Uniformity and Conformity also in Circumstantials might be expedients helpful toward an enjoyment of much outward peace if they could be attained unto But if it be an Unity in Errors or such a Conformity in things accidental or indifferent as is not every way homogent to and with the whole Mystical Body of Christ or not adequate to the true Original Paterns but intrenching upon the Christian Liberty in things indifferent temporary and mutable as occasion may require it would make that which is harmless in it self to be hurtful by consequences that which is bad to be worse and as it may be established prove a Confederacy and Conspiracy both against Christ and his Members and destructive to the Priviledges of Grace and Nature rather than a wholsom and lawful Constitution especially if they who take upon them the contriving an Uniformity in Religious Doctrines and Disciplines may be questionable as to their dependency to their Interest or to their calling to such a work by having crept in at a back-door or at a window for ambitious or covetous ends If such Edicts should be made and ratified as men so qualified are likely to contrive I know not what we had then to do save only to act and suffer as GOD and our Consciences will direct patiently and peaceably waiting on him until he provides a Remedy Unity is a virtue beautifying and securing comely and yet as terrible to the Adversaries thereof as an Army with Banners But Uniformity is neither absolutely a Virtue nor so beautiful nor so securing at all times as Variety and differing Forms if they be orderly united upon a Foundation capable of them and not unseasonably or contentiously affected He is an unskilful General who marches or fights always with his Army in one figure but he who puts it into several shapes according as place and occasion requires acteth like an able Commander A Phalonx will best endure the shock when opposed by numerous and furious Enemies but Batalias formed into Bodies much differing from each other will be most serviceable at sometimes Variety of Forms in Structures render them more beautiful more conveniently useful and more honourable to the Founders than those which are all of one shape as we see in those Palaces which consist of unequal Piles and Turrets of differing forms less and greater higher and lower round and square and of the several models of Architecture distinct and joyned mixt and interwoven The sweetest Musick is not an Unisone but a Harmony made up of differing Instruments Strings and Voices The World had not been properly called Kosmos but Akosmos not beautiful but deformed Nor man's body been termed a little World or Beauty if the various Creatures of the one or the Members of the other had not consisted of Dissimilitudes divers shapes and differing faculties knit together into one frame by a decent Simetry and made so to sympathize that they might be the more serviceable to their Maker and to each other which could not have been without variety of Forms and Qualifications If as St. Paul saith 1 Cor. 12. 18 19. All the Members were one Member or all alike in form where were then the Body But GOD hath made them all as it pleased him and many differing Members make one Body Even so also in the Catholick Church of Christ which is his Mystical Body there are many particular Churches true Members thereof which in some external and circumstantial things differ from each other There are diversities of Gifts Judgments Administrations and Dispensations but all of them are of the same LORD by the same Spirit and GOD is the more glorified by that variety To the consideration whereof I beseech that GOD so to direct and encline those with whom he hath intrusted the administration of Civil Powers and the dispensation of his holy Mysteries that they so intrench not upon the Priviledges of Christ's Evangelical Kingdom to establish an outward Peace in their Temporal Governments and Jurisdictions by humane Contrivements that at last there be neither external nor internal Peace among them If all our Judgments and Affections were the same and all men so alike temper'd that they were universally enclined to the same temporal objects in this estate wherein we now are it would occasion more quarrels and mischiefs than their disparity hath produced GOOD and EVIL could not have been so well known as they are Nor had we been reasonable Creatures but had then lived and acted by instinct only as Birds Beasts and other irrational Animals do and there had been little or no use of Love or of the other Vertues or Passions of the mind to the Glory of GOD at least not so much as hath been occasioned by the diversity of Judgments and Affections managed according to his Word and Natural Reason thereby sanctified nor indeed had we been more sinful or more righteous than brute Creatures as it will be manifested when Love the foundation of our Being and Well-being hath repair'd those defects and flaws which our Lusts ill governed and Satan's delusions have made in our will and understanding by separating us from GOD and from each other Schism is that which hath

ought I perceive every Dissenting Party is and will be Judge in his own Cause whomsoever else it concerns And we are all I confess even the best of us somewhat over-byassed as to Self-Interest Princes and their Councils will be sole Judges of that which they think concerns the Peace of their Kingdoms and Self-Interest Prelates and their appurtenat Officers will be Judges of that which they conceive pertains to the Discipline of their own Church and their temporary Dignities and Conscientious men suppose themselves as competent Judges next under GOD of what belongs to the peace of their Consciences as either of the former and resolve to act according to their own judgements or to suffer what shall be imposed upon them For as their Persecutors may peradventure say as the Jews did when they Crucified Christ that they have a Law by which these ought to suffer So they may say that GOD and Nature have Laws by which it ought to be otherwise and to those Laws they may and I do for my part appeal Let therefore if it be so these three Nations seek unto GOD as one man and humbly Petition the King in his own Person that to establish his Throne in Righteousness all Publick and Private Grievances may be impartially and effectually considered hereafter and not slighted as heretofore That in things relating to GOD and the Conscience men may be governed according to his divine Law only and in all Civil Matters by such humane Laws as the People have chosen and shall chuse agreeable to the Word of GOD and the Law of Nature Which Exhortation I propose not to ingratiate my self either with the People or the present Government to any self end For the Restraints and Sufferings which have been imposed on me have been more advantagious than all the Liberties or Preferments they can confer and were I put to chuse whether I would enjoy the greatest earthly Glory or be exposed to the greatest earthly Torments for a good Conscience I would as soon chuse the later as the first if GOD might be more glorified thereby Indeed I would chuse neither of them because I know not in which of those estates I should most honour God but leave it absolutely unto him to dispose of me as he pleaseth and will not desire muchless attempt any thing for my personal security or for enjoyment of my Conscience by any unjustifiable act It hath been said That the Kingdom of Heaven must be taken by violence yet let us now be cautious that we seek not to make passage into it by a Carnal violence and by the Temporal Sword which Sword belongs principally to the Kingdoms of this World lest we perish by that Sword as many have done Our Saviour said to Peter when he smote off the ear of Malchus in his defence Put up the Sword for in truth it was not then in season nor is so now Had either a natural or a supernatural Resistance been then seasonable our blessed Saviour as he at that time said could have prayed to his Father and have had more than twelve Legions of Angels immediately sent unto him for his Rescue Those Angels when the time appointed comes will appear under the Conduct of Michael their Arch-Angel to do that execution upon the Usurpers of Christ's Kingdom which hath been long since foretold and which we daily pray for The Weapons of our Warfare are not Carnal nor shall the Conquest which we expect be obtained by any other Sword in the hands of the Saints but that Two-edged Sword proceeding out of his Mouth whom John saw standing between the seven golden Candlesticks sharpned by the Faith Hope Love Patience Prayers and Constancy of the LAMB's followers which Conquest at or about the end of the last of those six dayes aforesaid of a 1000 years a piece or at the shortning of that day and at the beginning of the great Sabbath which GOD sanctified at the Creation will be accomplished Till that time the Saints are patiently to wait upon GOD and permit his Enemies to enjoy their time without grudging or fretting at their prosperity as David counsels in his 37 Psalm In order to their final Destruction some proceedings will every year be made whilst the sixth Vial is pouring out and which is already in a great measure diffused and probably a signal progression in some evident particular will be vouchsafed betwixt this and the end of 1666 years after the birth of Christ and be compleated at or about the end as I have before declared of the thousand six hundred sixty and sixth year after his Passion if the Foundation of my Calculations fail not The Planets in their Courses are moving toward those Constellations and Influences which will shortly demonstrate they are fighting for the People of GOD against their Enemies as they fought against Sisera and his Army and when GOD destroyed the Host of five Kings with hailstones who Warred against the Gibeonites whilst they went under the Protection of Joshua But we have a surer Word to trust unto than the Book of the Creatures whose Characters our Folly hath now made obscure even GOD's written Word and Spirit and the Prophesies in that Word contained will shortly be fulfilled and then the knowledge of Good and Evil as to all sublunary things being experimentally known in full such an end will be put to all their strugglings for the Victory that our Scoffers will from thenceforth no more say or think that all things are to continue as they are but they who now insolently persecute the Saints will miserably affrighted sneak into Dens and Caverns of the Earth wishing the falling Mountains might cover them from his Presence whom they have persecuted and despised GOD's White Banner hath been displayed among us a long time heretofore to invite us by fair means to come in and make our peace His Red Colours are now hung forth and though it hath already cost us much blood and treasure we return not unto him and if we delay it until his Black Flagg be set up it will be then too late to Retreat without a mischief for they who are to come upon the black and pale Horses will immediately follow to do execution It is high time to look about us and take heed what this Spirit saith unto the Churches typified by the seven Churches in Asia wherein the state of the most eminent Congregations which are Members of the Catholick Church in all Ages are concerned as is also that Universal Church in all the Contents of St. John's Apocalyps throughout her several Ages until the end of the Mystery of Iniquity The sixth Trumpet as I believe hath sounded and is yet sounding The third great Wo will come forth A Mystical Earthquake hath already shaken down a Tenth part of the malignant City The Nations being both affrighted and angry are labouring to repair the Breaches and have partly skinned over some of their putrifying Wounds with Patches and