Selected quad for the lemma: judgement_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
judgement_n	world_n	worthy_a	year_n	58	3	4.2750	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61076	Reason against rage being some animadversions upon a late scurrilous libel, prefix'd to a sermon preach'd nine and thirty years ago; and dedicated in these words, (viz.) to Mr. Serj. Powlett, recorder of the City of Bristol, and Mr. Robert Yate, mercht. Together with an occasional discussion of some particulars relating to persecution, and liberty of conscience. To which is subjoyn'd, a brief application, made by way of advice, humbly offered to all the inhabitants of the City aforesaid. By Thomas Speed.	Speed, Thomas, b. 1622 or 3.	1691 (1691)	Wing S4906; ESTC R220758	23,658	33

openly to violate and trample under foot a Law made upon such weighty reasons and for such great ends as that Act was 2. Your design in reprinting the Sermon must needs be to smuch me and draw a black line of reproach over me thereby to render me if possible odious in the sight and raise a prejudice against me in the breasts of all that should read it To which end I have understood your Emissaries have been very industriously active to disperse it abroad among those that know me both within and without the City that so as much as in you lies ye might stab my Reputation in every corner But Sirs are you sure that by this method ye shall gain your point upon me among any but your own credulous Followers who live more by implicit faith than by any rule they find right by due inquiry If any moderate standers by should ask you this question Are you certain that Thomas Speed doth retain the same judgment now touching all things mentioned in that Sermon which he seemed to have of them in the Year One thousand six hundred fifty and one If for answer ye should say We know not for we never ask'd him It answers our end if we can but expose him and represent him in the shape of some monstrous Creature For we have envious Proselites enough as bad as our selves who stand full fraited with a sufficient stock of Malice to reproach and revile him Would not these men of moderation reply upon you and say This is a method of proceeding neither Christian nor Ingenuous For that you seem to manage him not so much by the conduct of right reason as revenge because he offended you by his voting And in our judgments you have not so much sullied his reputation by reprinting his Sermon as you have raised it by that worthy Character you now give of him in your own Epistle acknowledging mark Reader that he hath for many years last past sequestred himself from the world and concernments thereof to a religious and strict life within the compass of his own family Than which we know not what more you could have said to proclaim him to the World to be a good Christian a good Subject and a good Citizen And now my nameless Adversaries to confirm the Testimony you have given to the World of my Christian manner of life For many years last past in which you have though unawares I doubt done me right I am come to let you know that you have in reprinting that Sermon levelled it at me as your principal Dart by a wrong aim and so have miss'd your mark and are wholly mistaken in the man For that with equal truth and boldness I tell you I am not the same Thomas Speed that I was Nine and thirty Years ago not boastingly but with inward praises to that God that made me and hath shewed me mercy I speak it I am not the same that then I was but another man Many things that were then glorious in my eyes are now with me of low esteem and others which I lightly esteem'd I do now highly prize I once thought little strains of wit to be great ornaments and to be able to charm the ears of the hearer with the enticing words of man's wisdom to be a desirable attainment But now I do really judge one Drachm of the true knowledge of God in Christ Jesus infinitely to exceed in value the highest degree of the wisdom of man by which the world * 1 Cor. 1.21 never did nor ever shall know the true and living God I may say with the Apostle Paul † 1 Cor. 13.11 When I was a Child I understood as a Child I thought as a Child and therefore I spake as a Child And while I was under these circumstances my youthful years were attended with an inward affectation of popular applause and by it doubtless was prompted to intermeddle with things that concern'd me not and to give my Judgment of things I understood not And what then What can you infer thence at this time of the day You do manifestly enough intimate by some Expressions in your Libel what you design Fain you would intitle the two Candidates and those that voted for them to the Contents of that Sermon in which they are no way concern'd it being if reprinted as spoken not theirs but mine And it 's probable that many of the Voters were either in their childhood or not born when that Sermon was publish'd unless you would by a new-found method of Logick argue thus Viz. The same Judgment that Thomas Speed is of the two Candidates and all that voted for them are of also But Thomas Speed is in his Judgment for Government by a Common-wealth c. Therefore c. How is your Minor proved Why thus The same Judgment that Thomas Speed was of 39 Years ago he is of now But 39 Years ago he spake much in favour of Government by a Common-wealth Therefore he is in his Judgment the same now Your Major being denied as notoriously false as presently shall be made appear your whole Argument becomes a rope of Sand and falls to the ground as having in it neither right reason good sense or one Drachm of honesty I would not do you wrong as bad as you are but if you would fasten any thing of reproach upon them from what I either was in my judgment then or now am your Argument must run so That you would if possible wound them through my sides is manifest by your insinuating to the Reader in your frothy Epistle as if they had an expectation of a new-born Common-wealth which is in truth no other than a new-born Chimaera of your own brains begotten of the fiery vapours that ascended from the boiling rage that lodg'd in your own breasts It 's out of all doubt that the Candidates and they that voted for them at the time of the Election no more thought of a Government by a Common-wealth than you thought of confirming the Act of Liberty of Conscience to the Dissenters As to my self I would have you and your Complices and indeed all men know that from the time that it pleased the God of my life to direct my steps into the path of Peace and to give me a measure of the knowledge of my Christian duty I have constantly judg'd it to be out of my Province to concern my self about the Choice or the Change of outward Governments esteeming it to be my duty not to dispute but to be subject to and live peaceably under that Government which his Providence who rules in the Kingdoms of men doth set over me The highest expectation that I have from any Government is but that I may enjoy the liberty of my Conscience and pass the remainder of my days in the Land of my Nativity in the peaceable exercise thereof without molestation I intend not hereby a liberty to Libertinism and Licentiousness No God forbid

his Family Fourscore and five whereof are the People called Quakers who are unreasonably throng'd together filling all the Rooms in the Goal fit for lodging except where the Felons are with four five six seven and nine Beds in a Room besides divers little corners filled with three in a Bed Notwithstanding all which many of these People are necessitated to lye on the ground and spreading their Mats on the ground they lye at a miserable rate that it was a grief to us to behold viz. some athwart the Room some under the Table being a Kennel where the Dogs were wont to lye some upon the Tables and some in Hammocks over the Table which necessarily endangers their lives A Certificate of the like Contents was given in under the Hands of four publickly known Physicians inhabitants of the City who are yet living who say among other things That great numbers of the People called Quakers were throng'd in a miserable manner into the noisom Goal of Newgate and are destitute of room for rest which hath a ready tendency to the destroying them and to the indangering of the lives not only of the said Prisoners but of the many Inhabitants of this great and populous City Notwithstanding which the Bonds of the Prisoners were not loosed nor the Prison doors opened that the sick might have the benefit of the open air to breath in in order to their recovery although large security was tendred for their return again into Prison either alive if recovered or their Bodies in case of death but this was rejected so that they were still continued under their merciless confinement and cruel usage the particulars of which I shall forbear to mention until it pleased the Lord to deliver five of them from the hands of their oppressors by death in the Prison and a sixth that was removed out of the Prison but too late soon died and was returned back and buried thence Upon one of which six being a woman of known honesty and of good reputation in the City was exercised a piece of cruelty exceeding if possible that of Pagans who after she had long languish'd under the severities of the Goal being at the point of death desired the company of some of her Friends and fellow Prisoners with whom she would have had some converse before her departure out of the world a thing granted to Traytors and Felons before their Execution but was denied to this dying woman and instead thereof many of her friends she desired might come to her were barbarously lockt up in their respective Rooms and Holes to prevent their gratifying the request of their dying Friend With what astonishment will the next Protestant Age be surprized When as they shall find upon record such Cruelties exercised by Christians upon Christians and by Protestants upon Protestants especially when by inquiry they shall be satisfied that the crimes charg'd against the sufferers were of no deeper dye than the peaceable exercise of their consciences towards God and their worshipping him in that way which they did believe to be most acceptable to him without doing the least civil injury to their Neighbour I mention not these Cruelties God is my witness with the least desire or design to provoke the living sufferers to so much as a thought of revenge or maliciously to expose the persons of their oppressors No far be it from me I hope there is not one of those that patiently bore the fierce heat of that day of their Afflictors wrath but what hath so well learned the Christian Doctrin as to be able truly to say with the Apostle Paul * 1 Cor. 4.12 Being reviled we bless being persecnted we suffer it And I doubt not but that had they who died in the Prison been ask'd one by one at their dying hour what revenge they would desire upon those through whose severities they were then drawing their last breath they would heartily have cryed out with that holy Martyr Stephen † Acts 7.60 Lord lay not this sin to their charge It 's for the sake of those that are yet living who were either Actors or Abettors of any of these Dismal Tragedies that I mention these things for whom I do make it my hearty supplication unto the God of all Mercies that he would shew them mercy in giving them a true sight and sense of their unchristian practices before they go off the stage of this World that they may with contrite hearts turn to the Lord their Maker against whom they have been striving before they go down to their Graves in which there will be found no place for repentance It will not avail the guilty in the day of God's righteous judgment to plead for their justification that they had a Law and by that Law they made havoke of the Goods cruelly imprisoned the Persons and brought sore Distress upon the Families of their dissenting but peaceable-living Neighbours against whom they could find no occasion but as they of old against Daniel ‖ Dan. 6.5 concerning the Law of their God This was the last and strongest Plea that the Chief-Priests and stiff-necked Jews made against Christ before Pilate saying * John 19.7 We have a Law and by our Law he ought to die But how little this prevail'd for their impunity with the Judge of the whole Earth the continued series of the severity of his hand upon that despised and scattered People for many generations pass'd even unto this day doth sufficiently demonstrate Those religious Men and Women that sealed their Testimony with their Blood and offered up their Bodies in the Flames for the Name of their God in the Reign of Queen Mary died by a Law But were either their Tormentors thereby the more justified or those holy Martyrs the more justly condemned in the sight of the just God I have made this Digression on this Subject for the sake of those in whom with pity to them I write it that Unchristian Spirit of Persecution is yet alive and ready to re-act over those barbarous Cruelties upon those who never did them the least harm but are as to them-wards innocent Livers in the Land of their Nativity And that I may not seem to impose my Sentiments in this matter upon the Judgments of any Men otherwise than by reason and not knowing whether ever I may have the like opportunity whilst on this side the grave to dear my Conscience on this Subject I shall take Liberty fairly and calmly in the Spirit of Meekness to debate this Point with all those who either through a fiery misguided Zeal are ready to call for Fire from Heaven to consume those whose Consciences are not exactly of the same square with theirs or who through want of true Judgment may be of the Number of those of whom Christ foretold *⁎* John 16.2 who think they do God service in killing those who worship him not in the same way with themselves And I am not without hope but