Selected quad for the lemma: friend_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
friend_n	army_n	king_n	time_n	955	5	3.4241	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67049	A word of advertisement & advice to the godly in Scotland by a Scotch man, and a cordiall vvelwisher to the interests of the godly in Scotland, both in civils and spirituals.	Scotch man and a cordial wel-wisher to the interest of the godly in Scotland.	1651 (1651)	Wing W3553; ESTC R23487	15,778	24

deceiving of themselves and all honest men for the State seeing their way in preaching and declaring against them to tend much to the weakning of their Authority and Designs did study how to carry on their Designs with the fairest outside that might be I shall give one particular instance which is this their forcing of the King to subscribe passing all their former and late proceedings with him and with the State that Declaration wherein he declares all the freinds of the Covenant to be his freinds and the enemies thereof to be his What a strange way that was for them to draw up a Declaration of that nature and to compel him to subscribe it by a Declaration of abandoning his interest if he should refuse to do it I leave to the serious consideration of all godly Ministers and Professors and what hath been the sad consequencies of proceedings in this kinde and I hope it will not be understood as if I spoke against good men whom I honor or against the Ministry my desire being onely to take notice of those things whereby they have wronged themselves and the people of God My dear Friends It doth more then evidently appear that upon all the considerations spoken of you must either abandon your own Interest and all you have been fighting wrestling and praying for or else you must as the people of God and only upon that accompt owne what is your own Interest and the true Interest of that which is the Work indeed in following the Lamb in his quarrell against the Beast in crushing opposing dashing in pieces laying aside and treading upon every thing that stands in the way of his exalting in the midst of his People or would uphold false Christs in more or lesse the power of the Beast whether it be King or Kingness or Parliaments or Interests of Nations or Governments or be it what it will Oh if you were once joyned together upon this accompt how should you be made to revive and your reproach taken away let it not be a stumbling-block in your way that thus did the Sectaries so called in England I do not question but the Lord in his present dispensations is letting you see your sin and error in condemning your Brethren in England for that which materially at least was and is your Dutie what better was their condition there or in probability would have been then yours had not the Lord raised up their Spirits to the consideration of the continual hazard they were exposed to by suffering their Interest to be managed by a number of men who minded not the Interest of the People of God nor the true Interest of the Nation and were upon the closing of a Treatie wherein they were to give up the Interest of the Godly and what they had been fighting for to the will and power of him who was the greatest Delinquent in the three Kingdomes till I say the Lord raised up their Spirits to be instrumentall in laying aside those unsuitable dangerous Instruments and to persecute all that has follow'd upon 't wherein how they have been countenanced and carryed through is obvious And truly I am perswaded that ill the Lord shall be pleased to open your eyes as I hope he will to see it your dutie to take the like course and to see yours and their Interest to be one and your Enemies one though your differences in some things should continue till something of both these ye shall be haunted with sorrowes and distresses and disappointments and disasters one after another let me say this without offence I am far from justifying those in England in al the circumstances either of their way there or of their coming into Scotland and shall not say but that there has been not onely an offence taken by you but also an offence given especially in the way of their coming into Scotland though they have this to say for themselves First that a Treatie was denyed unlesse they would deny the capacitie they stood into and the resolved desperate carrying on the Treatie with the King notwithstanding all the discoveries of him and of his designes and our example eleven years ago who entered England with an Army for matters meerly concerning Scotland without any call from any Publique Judicatories and yet were owned by the Godly in England and that during the time of the Treatie an about and after the close of it Prince Rupert was at Sea robbing their Ships destroying their Trade by vertue of this Kings Commissions Ormond in Ireland in the Head of the Popish Army and severall Commissions issued forth to severals in England Dear Friends If you can look upon them as Brethren as I am sure they are at least the generalitie of the leading counselling Partie and such as are Godly that adhere to them It is your dutie to forgive and forget though they have done you an Injury They say you have wronged them and yet they professe themselves not only willing to forgive you but to follow you with all kindness and respect and to be usefull to you though it were by laying their Bones in the dust for you If there be Differences amongst you can there be no mids but to destroy one another this seemes to be a strange Paradox and device of Sathan that you think you cannot stand except they fall they do not think so they professe themselves not onely willing but desirous that your interest as the Godly in Scotland should stand though you should differ in judgement from them Can Christ's Kingdom be divided against it self truely it is nothing of Christ that would labour to divide his People in affections and will plead their destroying one of another Dear Friends remember their professions of love to you when they came into this Nation and what a bitter return was made to them in your name what a Christian reply from them what a meeting from you and how unwilling they were the Busines should be decided by blood and how blood-thirsty you were bear the expression none more earnest upon fighting then you notwithstanding all their continuing their professions of love and their moderate carrying of themselves in the Countrey and their returning in their way towards England how eager were even you the Godly in their pursuit how did you long for their ruine whose preservation I dare say as Instruments was and is yours and did conclude them all men ruined and broken whom the Lord would in an outward way own no more after the Lord had made you flee before them they being necessitated to fight being environ'd upon All hands yet notwithstanding all the advantage they had did they not follow you as much as ever and ra her more And the Lord having in a singular way separated you from that Crew ye were intangled vvith and ye beginning to see the errors of former vvays in some things at least and being in a Capacitie to owne your Interest and dis-satisfied in vvhat had formerly bin the state of the Quarrel and vvith the State and the Treatie at Breda and your Brethren in the English Army having renevved their Professions of love to you and their desire to confer vvith you and to have a cessation of Armes and to some of you having gone a great length in particulars to evidence the realitie of their Professions of Love and after the State and Kirk had in such a way declared against your Remonstrance and though in it you had taken away that which was positively and unquestionably the state of the Quarrell and had to my nderstanding put nothing in the room of it yet your desire to fight with them was so great notwithstanding of all these that before you should miss an opportunity ye would rather fall in upon their Quarters upon the Lords day morning And how strangely ye were broken and what were the particular remarkable passages they know best that were there onely it is generally remarked that at Musleburgh at Dunbar and at Hamilton the honest men got the saddest blows However they continue their professions of Love to you even to this day notwithstanding of all they have met with from you then and I dare say from knowledge that since Hamilton if it had pleased the Lord to have opened your eyes to have known what was truly your interest your duty it might have been in the power of the Godly of Scotland not onely to have preserved their own interest but the interest of the Nation and if it should yet please the Lord to open your eyes I am very confident it should not only tend to your good but to the good of the Land and to the rectifying and composing present differences and distances and perhaps the Lords designe is to make each of you usefull in convincing one another in the extreams that either of you it may be hath been inclining to if ye were once together as Brethren Conferring Exhorting Reproving and Watching over each other and Forbearing Forgiving and Loving each other and not as Enemies reproaching contemning smiting taking advantage raising and fomenting prejudices one against another Dear Friends I hope you will not be offended with my Freedom which is not to lay open your nakedness but to shew the kindness tendernss of these whom ye have looked upon as your Enemies that ye maybe perswaded to meet them with the like Sure I am it is the Designe of God to have his People one to cause them follow him together with one heart at least it is his promise it shall be so And that the Whore that sits upon the many waters shall be destroyed and that the Kingdoms of the world shall become the Kingdoms of his Son and I hope he will not loose you even to make you instrumentall in this great Work he is about for it is his time to build up Zion not to destroy her nor no part of her and if it were not for this I should have been laid by from medling into any business so weighty as this is I know it is such a way as the wayfaring man though a fool cannot erre therein FINIS