Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	good_a	speak_v	treasure_n	5,167	5	10.0843	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87933	A letter from a person in the countrey to his friend in the city: giving his judgement upon a book entituled A healing question.	Person in the countrey.	1656 (1656)	Wing L1420; Thomason E885_8; ESTC R202810	21,671	24

I wish that what is his saying of Heaven had been his own practice upon Earth Many of our enemies then had been ignorant of that he accuses the Government of and I freed from the trouble of answering such his Accusation I must clearly confess what he sayes in that particular is so far from being in my Apprehension a truth that it is a high mistake And possibly I might not erre in saying that the providence of the Lord hath hardly been more active for good in some ages past than in but a part of that time in which he sayes the Lord hath stood still and been but a looker on to evince which consider I beseech you ere this government began how unsettled perplexed was our own nation Scotland Ireland large parts of this Common-wealth all in a flame we engaged in a bloody war by sea with the Datch the French the Spaniards the Portugal the Swede and the Dane at best no friend if not actual enemies But as soone as it was established wherein they saw wee were come to a hopefull consistency as the first effects and fruits of it part of them paid for their peace and all the rest implored it Our Internall warres forthwith were quenched so that in effect when our enemies saw us become wise they became so to And the Terror of the Lord was upon all those who before had sought our Ruine which might be an effect of his gracious promise When a Mans wayes please the Lord he maketh even his Enemies to be at peace with him If a Sparrow falls not without a Providence doubtlesse such considerable Changes and Events are not signes that God hath stood still and been a Looker on but rather that they are the products of his care and tendernesse towards his people who may provoke his highest Judgement by their so meanly esteeming of his highest Mercies 'T is true indeed we are now engaged in the War with Spain but it is as true that the Provocations and Causes of it were too Great any longer to protract it which is so clearly set down in the printed state of that War as to receive satisfaction therein one need but to Read that t is confest that hitherto this War hath not proved so promising and successful as many were confident it would which I feare may have in part occasioned it But who ever observes the usual Method of Gods Dispensations towards us he will find even this it selfe is proportionate to most others Our Losses in the beginning being but to try our Faith And as this hath been parallel to many others in the first part of it so I trust it will be the like in its Conclusion and Event I am certaine it is not so considerable as only upon its own account to give the Author a R●se to believe that God hath been pleased for three years last past to stand still and be a Looker on To which there is but one thing else that I can call to mind as a pretence to authorize this his Belief and that is the Protectors and the last Parliaments not Closing which truly was a cause of sadness to all Honest Hearts but t is hoped that the unhappinesse thereof will be by experience so set home upon all concerned that it will the more strongly incline affections to an union the next which is called and therby though it did not prove our Blessing then yet it may prove the cause of it in the future Our Author sayes in his ninth Page One Mark or Qualification of the Good People was their standing by the Army in maintaining of their Cause I wish that Mark and Qualification may yet continne and as the Armies of the three Nations have by expresse Addresses fortified the hands of the Government by their owning and Declaring for it so that our Author and All the other Honest People would fortifie their Hands also in doing the like that as Union hath hither to been the evincement of our good affections so now that it might be of our wisdome Let our Author allow towards the settlement of this Government but some of that growing Light he commended in pulling down the former and all may do well Actions unconsonant to Laws and Constitutions of Government are much more tolerable for building up peace than for Dissolving it Methinks it may serve to quiet the Mind of the Author and Others to Consider that what we have is much more than we deserve and that by repining at having no more we may provoke the Eyes of Gods Glory and invite him to make us feel we have too much Let us mend our inward Condition and then our outward one will follow Let us seeke first the kingdome of God and his Righteousness and all such things shall be added unto us If this Government be not of God let man endeavour what he will to support it it will fall And if it be of God let man endeavour what he will to suppress it and it will stand Let us therefore with patience expect what Issue he will be pleased to give it For God is the Judge who in Governments as well as persons putteth down one and setteth up another That good Advice Meddle not with those which are given to Change is as pertinent for our Times as possibly for Any since 't was first spoken There is a Scripture much upon my Heart and with that I shall Conclude which containes what every one is to doe then what All are to expect and what to avoid I will hear what God the Lord will speake he will speake Peace unto his People and to his Saints but let them not turn again to Folly which that They may not is the earnest and Hearty prayer of June 14. 1656. Yours in the Best and surest Bond.

be that there were none and they forthwith disbanded But before I proceed farther permit me I beseech you to observe one expression more in the same page viz The good peoples Army raised by them wherein he doth sure allude to what should be if his Utopla tooke place consequently that a new Army should be raised or else why is it said raised by them Continued by them had been more significant clear if his sense had not been such as I understand it to be and indeed all his expressions are so full of strength and light in what he doth set down that this expression makes me the more confident I have hit upon his intentions in those his words which if I have many genuine Inferences may be thereby collected which may well manifest the designe our Author drives at but indeed are too voluminous for a Letter But I cannot omit one passage of his in his 11. page towards the midst of it viz The Army putting themselves with their fellow Adherents to the cause under the Rule and Authority of their own supream Judicature they lose not their Power or soveraignty but by becomming one civil or Politique incorporation with the whole party of honest men they doe keep the soveraignty as originally seated in themselves and part with it only but as by deputation and representation of themselves when it is brought into an orderly way of exercise by being put into the hands of Persons chosen and intrusted by themselves to that purpose By which words he would infuse into the people that the Army believe they have acquired the soveraignty over all which if true might justly render us worthy of the hatred even of our friends and brethren nay by his words he not only makes us enslavers of the people in this age but may possibly make us the like in ages to come for if the original right is in us as the Army and we part with it but by deputation we may as well recall our right from those to whom we shall depute it Whereby the Army shall become indeed the supreame Authority and as our Author hath designed it the Army shall alwaies be We are the Lord knows but too ill of our selves and need no such Painters who through designe or ignorance draw us worse than through mercy we are or I trust ever shall be he sayes we are lovely in those clothes he hath Clad us with but makes all others to be monsters which shall weare the like Having now I hope evinced unto you that by the government we are now through providence under the people enjoy true freedome in matters of conscience their just right in civil things those to be conveyed to them by their Representatives duely chosen and not fettered or manacled as our Author would have them I shall now proceed to what remaines He tells us in his first and 2 pages That this cause hath still the same goodnesse in it as ever and is as much as ever in the Hearts of the good people who have adhered unto it that it is not lesse to be valued now than when neither blood nor treasure were thought too dear to carry it on that the persons engaged in it are stil the same as before with the advantage of being more tryed more inured to danger hardship c. All which being granted methinks doth clearely infer that the good people by their continuing quiet do evidently confesse they have got what they chiefly contended for or that what remaines unacquired is not worthy to be solicited by engaging in new warres or hazarding what through mercy they now possess possibly we have not all we aimed at and possibly it is well for us as well as others that we have not There are many things men would endeavour to obtain when a war is made which they wil not make a war to obtain besides it is likely we are but too positive in not acquiescing in any thing short of all we drove at which may have justly provoked the Lord to have denied us our hearts wish that we might have more of dependency upon his good wil less of estimation for our own designs resolutions Our Authour tels us that if a supreame representative were constituted as aforesaid hardly afterwards any new thing would stick as to the forme of administration and descends to a standing councill of state settled for life whose orders should bebinding in the intervalls of national assemblies as far as they were consonant to the settled Lawes the vacancy or death of any of which to be supplied by the vote of the Major partof themselves but herein the people are more beholding to the government than to our Authour for by it the people in their Representatives choose such counsellors and do not permit them to choose themselves which if allowed might entaile both them Faction upon the people Nay he continues would there beany just exception to be taken if it should be agreed as another part of the fundamentall constitution of the government to place the branch of soveraignty which chiefly respects the execution of the Lawes in the hands of one single Person and for the greater strength and honour unto this office that the execution of all Lawes and orders that are binding may goe forth in his name and all disobedience thereunto and contempt thereof be taken as done to the peoples soveraignty whereof he bears the Image or representation c. And then again in the same 18 page Would such an office as this thus stated carry in it any inconsistency with a free state Nay if it be well considered would it not be found of excellent use to the well-being of Magistracy founded upon this righteous bottome that such a Lieuetenancy of the peoples soveraignty in these three Nations may alwaies reside in some one or some more persons in whose administration that which is reward and punishment may shine forth By all which Sir you may evidently perceive he is so far from being against those main hinges and Pillars upon which our Government moves and by which it is supported that he gives pregnant and strong arguments for them only he would have the people doe it and I say they have done it already even in the choice of their last Parliament and in the Parliament it selfe nay I dare averre that never any Government in the three Nations was more fully and explicitely owned by the people than this now in exercise hath been neither ever yet was any forme of Government more clearly exposed to the peoples judgements nor received by them than this hath been I am certain that Common-wealth was not which we so lately have extricated our selves out of and which possibly our Author may not be undesirous to have us revert unto for that mutation was made only by the remnant of a Representative in which too many of the people had none to speake or act for them But this forme of