Selected quad for the lemma: friend_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
friend_n	authority_n	great_a	king_n	814	5	3.6971	3	false

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

A WORD OF Advertisement Advice TO THE GODLY IN SCOTLAND By a Scotch Man and a Cordiall VVelwisher to the Interest of the Godly in Scotland both in CIVILS and SPIRITUALS Words in season are like apples of gold in pictures of silver Open rebuke is better then secret love Faithfull are the wounds of a Friend but the kisses of an enemy are deceitfull Edinburgh Printed by Evan Tyler 1651. Dear Friends BEing desirous in this hour of Darkness and sad tryall and trouble to be usefull to you my dear Friends in the Lord being amazed and astonished to see you after twelve or fourteen years Remonstrating Petitioning and these backed with your sw rds in your hand against King Parliament and Committees and indeed the whole Authorities of the Land for your just freedome and Liberties in Spiritual and Civil things I say to see the result of such a business to be as it is this day Is that which should put all the People of God in this Land upon the tryall and enquiry after the causes of this I may say your being so strangely deserted of God And that I may as your Christian Friend be helpful to you in this I shall go back to the beginning of these great Transactions and shall go along with you in so much of the Progress of business to this day as I have either been a witness unto or can truly inform my self of at least so much of them as may make it appear what hath been your former practices and the principles and ends carrying you on in these and because the business is soweighty and you so much concern'd and I so unfit to meddle therewith I shall therefore beg of the Lord that where I may mistake matter of Fact or shall come short of the full representing thereof that ye who may be better acquainted with the whole of Affairs then my self may deal so ingenuously with your selves as to follow out your own knowledge and experiences in these And more to consider what I drive at than what I speak in particulars which I say is to be helpful to you in your search Dear Freind Ye may remember that in the beginning of this weighty business that which did engage you the people of God for to you onely I speak was your being oppressed in your consciences in spiritual things by the King and those employed by him and the connivance and concurrance of these that were the Representative of Church and State together with the Tyranny and Oppressions exercised over your Persons and Estates in several things to be freed of these the attaining establishing and increase of just Freedom in both these was that which chiefly did engage you in the Work There were many that did go on upon corrupt principles and ends whom the Lord made use of for the time and discovered many of them since and will more that they were not nor are suitable Instruments for carrying on of such a Work And though many of your selves did not distinctly and particularly conceive what was the interest of the business you were engaged for at first yet these who saw a far off knew much of it in the time And these who were the people of God indied found and held it forth as their duty to be carried on by the Providences of the Lord to many things in which they were matterially engaged that they did not at first clearly apprehend in particulars And so all along every new discovery of duty in the taking away of any thing that did appear to be inconsistant with the being or wel-being of that which ye had primarily engaged your selves unto or the establishing of any thing that might advance it did make manifest the rottenness of more or fewer mers principles in engaging therein by their falling off or becoming Enemies to it And how often have I heard it preached That this work would have none to follow it but such as were truly godly and that every corrupt man would fall off from it when the true interest of the work did not consist with his corrupt interest Dear Friends Be pleased to consider the rise of this great business Were not many of you panting after praying for it years before it came Were there not private persons in the beginning that did own it against the King and the Authorities of the Nation The state of the cause being as it was could any be friends to it but such as were truly godly Or could any first or last own it without a contradiction but such And hath not your experience all along made this evident unto you that both Persons and Interests which at first you thought might be sutable for the business and might consist with it have proved otherwise Have not they either left you or you them In the beginning it was thought by some that it was enough to be afraid of the Service-Book But how miserable had you stil bin if the Lord had suffered you to rest there or had inclined the Kings heart to grant it and how far short had it been of those farther degrees of just freedom the Lord hath since carried you out to the owning of and adventuring for let your consciences tell you And so all along adhering to this foundation to wit the freeing your selves from Oppressions in your Consciences Persons and Estates and the establishing and carrying on your just freedom in these not so much as Scots men as the people of God ye have been carried on in wayes ye have not knovvn nor foreseen looking alwayes upon it as your duty and practising it and for it abandoning or declaring against every person interest power or authority in less or more as they did prove inconsistant with the work or enemies to it or retarders thereof or insuitable instruments And I do appeal to your experience what ever thoughts you might have in the beginning if it be cosistant with that which is really and indeed the work of God either with its being or well being Not to be in the hands of sutable Instruments I mean such as are really Godly and mindes it upon that accompt And if so how much less can it be consistant with it to be managed by a number of men who are enemies to the Work haters of you and the power of godliness minding nothing but themselves and their own interest being underminers of the things they profess to maintain and cannot be otherways And indeed to my understanding that which hath bin the contest for some years by-gone hath much differed from or rather let me say exceeded what it was in the beginning at first the sum of your Petitioning was to be freed from the Service-Book and Book of Canons afterwards ye slew so high as to strike at the root Episcopacie and all that Roman Hierarchie and for a long time the supplicating against these the Coveranting against these the defending your selves against such as would continue these yokes upon you with some