Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	wonderful_a	work_n	world_n	19	3	3.5549	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A84228	An examination of the Seasonable and necessarie warning concerning present dangers and duties, emitted from the commissioners of the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland, unto all the members of that Kirk. June 25 1650. Which was printed at Edinburgh by Evan Tyler, by a servant of the Common wealth of England, and a lover of the armie.	Servant of the Common wealth of England, and a lover of the armie.; Church of Scotland. General Assembly. Seasonable and necessary warning and declaration.	1650 (1650)	Wing E3729; Thomason E608_13; ESTC R201955	37,035	48

AN EXAMINATION Of the Seasonable and Necessarie WARNING Concerning present DANGERS and DUTIES Emitted from the COMMISSIONERS Of the GENERAL ASSEMBLY Of the KIRK of Scotland unto all the MEMBERS of that KIRK June 25 1650. Which was Printed at Edinburgh by Evan Tyler By a Servant of the Common-wealth of England and a Lover of the ARMIE LONDON Printed by William Du-gard Anno 1650. 25 Junii 1650. Post meridiem A seasonable and necessarie Warning concerning present dangers and duties from the Commissioners of the General Assemblie unto all the Members of this Kirk 1 IF the eminencie of the danger and the necessitie of the dutie did not constrain us wee had rather chose to bee silent then to emit anie publick warning to the land within so few daies of the meeting of the General Assemblie but wee should not onely run the hazard of just blame from them but also bee conscious to guiltiness in our selvs if wee did not in a time of so great streight give warning to the Lords people both of their danger and of their dude 1 If you had well considered your danger before it was imminent and how necessarie it was for you to have prevented it by an ingenuous acknowledgment of your National guilt and just demerit by your perfidious and unprovoked Invasion of England against all the Treaties which were then in force but thereby dissolved and by a just satisfaction for the spoils and devastations your own Armie made where it came until it was destroyed and for the charge this Nation was at by occasion of it You might perhaps have now been silent and wee at quiet How just our War against you is and how clearly wee are necessitated to it the Parlament hath sufficiently evidenced in their Declaration And though wee cannot exspect you should acknowledg it it beeing not usual with you to speak truth to your own disadvantage yet the evidence is such as must needs convince you as wee are confident it will satisfie all others And if the conscientiousness you speak of bee a tenderness resulting from a cleer and pure light not tinctured with the dye and mixture of an Interest working a prejudice it might have put your reflections upon an other guilt and you might have thought your selvs worthie of blame that you had not given warning to your Parlament and People of somthing els to bee don besides your condemning men to the stool of hypocrisie that might have given the Common-wealth of England a better satisfaction and fuller reparation for and of the effects of your perfidie then that was like to do and might have proved a more effectual means to have prevented that danger which your own injustice and wickedness have involved you in 2 The insolent and strange actings of that prevailing partie of Sectaries in England these yeers past Warning in reference to Religion and Government are so well known and have been so often and fully laid open in the former Warnings Remonstrances and Declarations of this Kirk that wee need not now take up much time in representing the same Albeit the Reformation of the Church of England and the advancing of the work of uniformitie there in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government was the great dutie that the Lord called that Land unto and which all the people of God in these three Kingdoms did ingage themselvs in Covenant to endeavor to the utmost of their power yet doth that work so much desired and longed for by all the lovers of Sion in these Nations and all that concern's Religion lie in the dust altogether forgotten and despised by those men and in stead of the beautie and order that should bee in the hous of God a vast toleration of manie gross errors is allowed whereby so manie and so monstrous blasphemies and strange opinions in Religion have been broached and are vented in England as the like hath not been heard of almost in anie generation And though Monarchie and the power of Parlaments was the ancient and long continued Government of that Kingdom yet have those men usurped above the Parlament whose servants they were and by open violence driven away manie and imprisoned som of the Members thereof and have not onely taken away the Hous of Lords and destroyed the late King but also subverted Monarchie it self and turned the Foundations upside down and labor to wreath the yoke of their oppression upon the necks of our brethren in England not onely in regard of that which concern's their bodies and estates but also in regard of that which concern's their souls and consciences whereof that Ingagement that is now pressed in England is a present and publick testimonie being a sore bondage under which manie in that land now groan whose case and sufferings for the work of God wee desire not onely to remember daily before the Lord in our praiers and supplications but in everie thing to regard it as if it were our own being confident that such as love the truth and cleav to the Covenant in these Lands shall obtein mercie of God to bee faithfull in the midst of temptations and that the Lord will not suffer them to bee tempted above that they are able to bear but will give unto them the issue with the temptation 2 The wonderful and even miraculous goings forth of the most wise and merciful providence of our good God towards us in England Answer for these divers years past in this great work of delivering us from Tyrannie and setling us in a just Libertie notwithstanding all those strong fetters in which wee were imprisoned under it have been evidently written with the verie beams of the sun and exposed to the view of the world that there are scarce anie that have not acknowledged it is his work And for our parts wee desire to observ those glorious actings of his and with all humilitie to rejoyce in them God see 's not as man see 's and therefore act 's not as man act's nor rule 's the determinations of his wisdom nor the efficiencie of his power by anie of the conceptions or apprehensions of men That which you call The insolent and strange actings of the prevailing partie of Sectaries c might better perhaps bee called his work his strange work And though perhaps manie in this age whose particular concernments have been touched by this just hand of God the flowings of whose gall by their rebellious struglings under their chastizements hath disabled their Icterical eyes to see clearly his hand may as you do blaspheme that Providence and asscribe its glorious and harmonious working to the anomalous extravagancies of whom you pleas yet when the pangs of this birth shall bee over and the distempered humors com again to a just ballance even you as well as others shall see that it is his doing And after-ages will saie concerning these times What bath God wrought Wee cannot denie but you have been verie frequent in your Warnings and Remonstrances

as Carolus or Jacobus Dei gratiâ and as effective of peace and justice Is there anie thing in it like your Covenant there is nothing in the declare's a judgment there is onely a promise of practice of what is in the power of the partie promising and hee that will not promise to bee true and faithfull to the power under which hee live's will not bee extremely persecuted if hee bee denied the benefit of that Autoritie which hee will not acknowledg But let us ask whether your Covenant was not a greater imposition was there nothing in that which came neer conscience Wee have not time to enlarge onely let us enquire as to Estates what the sweet and meek proceedings amongst us were upon that thing the Covenant worthie to bee had in everlasting detestation wherein the great Name of God who is goodness and sweetness and love must usher in an ugly persecution How manie were turn'd out of Fellowships in the Universitie of Cambridg and out of Livings in the Countrie for no other fault but refusing the Covenant men of great learning and unreprovable life were removed and men of signal duncerie and ignorance and som sufficiently debauched put in denie not this for your friends sakes least I give you a Catalogue both of them and who prefer'd them whom at present I will spare It was put on by your Commissioners when here and pressed by them on all occasions as earnestly as the mark of the Beast no man might have command here nor in Ireland might keep anie Office exercise anie Magistracie unless hee had subscribed that Covenant of a far other nature both in regard of its doubtfulness and its tendencie then this Engagement And certainly with such violence was this thing carried on that had not the good providence of God discovered to our good Patriots here the foul hypocrisie of the Scots Commissioners and their designs to the execution whereof they went furiously on under the veil of this stalking-hors the Covenant it had been imposed with as much Autoritie as the said mark of the Beast that no man should either buy or sell or live who had not taken the Covenant and 't is a mercie worth all it cost that their Invasion delivered us out of that snare And yet these hypocrites complain of offering the Engagement compare them and see the difference And once again remember Thou hypocrite to pull out the beam out of thine own eie c. And for a close of this Paragraph bee persuaded to remember daily before the Lord in your praiers that hee would deliver you from the fascinations of Interest that hee would give you single hearts and fill them with candor and free you from this gross hypocrisie and from those temptations that are suggested to you from the pride of your own spirits and impotent desires of Domination that hee would discover to you the extreme ignorance and darkness you lie under and that hee would give you hearts to love the truth and embrace it by whatsoever means it bee offered to your apprehension And if you will do this and do it with humilitie and resignation The Lord who is long suffering and verie ready to forgive full of goodness and mercie and love and that wait's that hee may bee gracious may pardon the Errors of your blinde zeal and all those things that you have don in ignorance and unbelief and deliver you from these temptations of darkness The Warning 3 This partie after that they have acted such things in England and also sore afflicted and oppressed our brethren in Ireland now conceiving that they cannot bee established and that they cannot eat the fruit of their own devices without contradiction as long as the Kirk and Kingdom of Scotland stand's in their waie threaten us with a War by drawing their Forces Northward and sending them in smal parties towards the Border that it may the less bee discerned what they intend to do And if the Lord in his righteous and wise dispensation shall suffer them to invade this Land as it is to bee feared that the Gangrene of their errors may take hold upon men of ignorant and unstable mindes who have not received the love of Truth so may wee if they prevail look for confusion and desolation and that the Pillars both of Religion and Government shall bee ruined and razed in this as well as in our neighbor-land It doth therefore in the first place concern all the Inhabitants of this Nation to draw near to God and to mourn for their own iniquities and for all the ignorance and prophanitie and backsliding that is in the land and to studie to make peace with God in Jesus Christ The continuance and increase of many of those sins for which formerly wee seemed to have been humbled doth doutless greiv the spirit of God and may if they bee not speedily and sincerely repented of and forsaken provoke him to give us over to the lust of our adversaries Our King our Princes our Nobles our Pastors teachers and people have sinned Let us therefore search and trie our waies and turn again to the Lord Let us lift up our hearts with our hands to God in the heavens that hee may spare and save his people that they bee not a prey to the enemie The Answer 3 What the things are that wee have acted in England wee hold out to all the world and with humilitie rejoice that God hath owned us in them and given success to our endeavors and made us the Instrument in his hand even as a threshing Instrument having teeth whereby hee hath cast down Tyrannie and established to us the just libertie of the Sons of Adam And hath shewed us so far his face and favor in it as wee are confident that hee will not onely not pull down what hee hath begun to build but given therein a specimen of that libertie which his goodness will bless the world withall as a fit state wherein that Justice and Righteousnes shall excuse it self which shall bee set up as a triumphal Arch through which the King of glorie and the King of peace shall enter into The administrations of the Kingdoms of the world which wee exspect shall becom the Lords and his Christs in the which hee shall reign while the earth shall bee full of the knowledg of the Lord as the waters cover the Sea while you object those things wee glorie in them and shall wear them as our Crown As for the affliction and oppression of their Brethren in Ireland wee know of no such oppression Wee have indeed endeavored to reduce that Island as having a just claim to it and to chastize the Irish Rebels whom wee think they will not call Brethren And wee have also made som of the Scottish Rebels to taste of the fruit of their doings in rebelling against this Common-wealth in whose pay some of them were at the instigation of their wofully ignorant and petulant Presbyterie at

the partie which now prevail's in that land The Kirk and Kingdom of Scotland were then so compassionate of their bretbrens condition that they were willing to join in a League and Covenant with them which both Kingdoms even manie of those who are now in the Armie did solemnly swear and subscribe In prosecution of the ends thereof this Kingdom did send into England a considerable Armie by whose assistance the power of the Malignant Partie was broken and brought low and the Parlament and Armie of England put into such a condition that they needed no more fear the strength of their enemies This League and Covenant which was the foundation of England's and the Armies deliverance and safetie the Armie hath now forgotten and trodden under foot and walk in all their proceedings no less contrarie thereto then darkness is unto light Neither doth it satisfie them to do so in their own Land but they threaten us also with war for no other reason but because wee cleav to our dutie in these things to which England stand's no less obliged unto by Covenant before the Lord then wee do Wee may confidently assert and profess before the world that the Lord's people in this Land are not conscious to themselvs of anie wrong don to that prevailing partie in England The engagement in the year I648 was no less abhorred and testified against by the Kirk of Scotland and by these that are how in place and power in the State and by all the godly in the land then it was by that partie themselvs Which did so far convince the Hous of Commons that in their Letter to the General Assemblie of this Kirk in the same year they profess that they are assured that these impious and unwarrantable actions cannot bee don with the approbation and assent of the religious and well-affected people of the Kingdom of Scotland and that they do understand that there are verie few amongst these who were in the engagement against them that first engaged with them in the Covenant and Caus but such as are professed enemies to them however they were then content to proceed thereunto that they might the better deceiv the people of England And that therefore they are unwilling to impute such evils to this Nation in general It is known how manie fervent praiers and supplications were poured out in this Land before the Lord against that engagement and wee think wee may without boasting say that those praiers had as much influence upon the defeat thereof as all the power of that Armie And since that time that engagement hath been publickly disavowed disclaimed and repealed by the Parlament of this Kingdom Neither hath that partie anie thing to challenge us concerning Malignants both Kirk and State having constantly followed and beeing still about their duties against them without conniving at or complying with them in their courses It is true that this Kingdom and Kirk have protested and testified against the proceedings of Sectaries in reference to Religion and Government Which wee could not but do unless wee had forgotten our dutie and the Christian mutual ties that lie upon us not onely as sister-Churches but as covenanted Churches and so make our selvs partakers of their sins and expose our selvs to the hazard of their plagues Wee in this Land beeing therefore conscious to our selvs of nothing but dutie If they shall invade us for following the same shall not God look upon it and avenge it 8 If wee shall answer this Paragraph at large Answer wee shall draw out this Paper to such a length as maie swell it beyond the price of som and the leisure of others wee shall therefore let it here keep proportion and in another tract which is begun give the world a full and true representation and character of all their candor and fair dealing in all the transactions and affairs that have been between the Nations since these last troubles which shall proceed as fast as leisure will serv and give but som touches the while The Sectaries do verie well consider and remember too that England was verie low brought under the foot of the popish and prelatical partie which were the Armies which that late King used to subdue us whose quarrel you espoused notwithstanding the Covenant and pleaded his caus and whom you would have brought in again upon such terms as had not providence prevented the effect of your endeavors you had ruined your selvs and us too And wee remember also that though you were as much concerned as wee in the danger and priviledged onely with one stop of a greater remotion yet wee were inforc'd verie much to solicite you by the parties you mention whom God hath since made verie instrumental for the good of this Land before wee could prevail with the Kirk and Kingdom of Scotland notwithstanding our great need and their own evident danger either to compassionate us or bee careful of themselvs until they had brought us into the snare of a Covenant of which the designing Church knew they should bee afterward able to make som other good uses besides the Reformation of Religion and however our dangers were imminent yet they would not com in to our assistance till wee had furnished them with 50000 l. a sum of no small difficultie for us to rais at that time when our quarters were so streight and our occasions so multiplied but yet when they had a minde to invade us under Hamilton they could do it without anie Levie-monie advanced What assistance they gave and how much they contributed to the bringing us to that condition wherein wee needed not to fear the strength of our enemies wee shall more fully set out in that other mentioned Tract Onely now they proved a broken reed from whom wee had but a weak support but it ran into our hands and pierced us sufficiently as all places where they came can bear sensible witness and which the world shall shortly know Briefly they took our money and helped us little being specially careful to keep out of the waie of danger they did like right mercinaries pursue their own interest which was verie opposite to ours wee desired to end the war and they to lengthen it that they might lengthen their emploiment hoping they should never bee necessitated again to return to their own poor Countrie Yet this advantage wee had that while they took our paie for a great while they did not take our Enemies part and our monie produced with them as good effect as the worship of that Numen at Calecut doth there you know who and what The League and Covenant you say was the foundation of England's and the Armies deliverance Wee that know better denie it and say 't was a foundation upon which was endeavored to bee built our ruine if God had not mercifully prevented the bringing forth and hatching of that Cockatrice egg which your Cabals and conspiracies had laid among us wee shall not now