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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	day_n	sin_n	time_n	10,328	5	3.8145	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85388	The tyranny of Satan, discovered by the teares of a converted sinner, in a sermon preached in Paules Church, on the 28 of August, 1642. By Thomas Gage, formerly a Romish Priest, for the space of 38 yeares, and now truly reconciled to the Church of England.	Gage, Thomas, 1603?-1656.	1642 (1642)	Wing G116; Thomason E119_20; ESTC R3263	28,403	44

heavenly inspirations which God hath been pleased to send into my soule by my considered aberration from the true Church for which the waters of my teares and inward sobs from my heart have been also moved with the troubles of my soule So that I would many times full faine have stepped and entred into the true Church of England where all diseases of the soule are most surely healed But alas mine own impotency and weaknesse joyned with my long blindnesse hindred the execution of my good resolutions temporall respects and feares kept back my steps Many times I feared I should want a man and a friend as the cripple at Bethesda did to helpe me to encourage me and to further my good desires I feared the high Assembly of Parliament would rather mistrust him that so many years hath been an enemy to the State of this Kingdome than now in these times approve his penitency and contrition which might rather have seemed unto them a fained hypocrisie All these feares kept back for a time the forwardnesse of my will and heart Untill at last I resolved to disclose and discover unto Your Worship these troubles of my heart these diseases of my soule even the want of a man to help me God whom I sought too pleased with my request I found that assistance from you that I so earnestly desired for I found a man I found a friend I found a comforter I found an Advocate to plead for my pardon before that high Court now assembled For by Your meanes I have been quietly brought into the Church by Your meanes also I hope I shall be henceforth protected against all slanderers who will whet their tongues against me and seeke to trouble me and grudge at my good as the Jews excepted against the Cripple and impotent man who was cured by our Saviour I shall always be ready to render due thankes to God and next to You for Your blessed help towards my Conversion and first fruits of my Vocation which in this humble Work of mine I have endeavoured to make knowne to the World remitting my further expressions to better occasions And in the meane time praying to God that he will be pleased with his powerfull hand to supply to You and Yours what my heart can wish but never will be able to perform according to the full measure of so glorious a Worke which truely next to God the beginner and Author of all goodnesse by Your meanes hath been accomplished Your Worships humble and ever obliged servant in Christ THOMAS GAGE The Tyranny of Satan discovered by the teares of a converted Sinner In a Sermon Preached in Pauls Church on the 28 of August 1642. LUKE 22. 31 32. And the Lord said Simon Simon Behold Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat But I have prayed for thee that thy Faith faile not And when thou art Converted strengthen thy Brethren DEarely Beloved These words I have chosen to declare unto you this day as most fit to lay open before your eyes my own most wretched estate wherein I have continued almost 40 years the tyranny of Satan over my miserable and afflicted soule as also by the sight of so hideous a sinner as I have been and by the knowledge of the slavery wherein a sinner groanes under the power of the Devill to terrifie you all that here are present from yeelding to his crafty and subtile assaults And secondly to cherish and comfort all those that find themselvs seduced by this mortall enemy of all man kind with the mercies of a most loving and mercifull Father above who not desiring the eternall death and destruction of a sinner but rather that he may turne from his wickednesse and live when poorest we are and most in want then doth he shew and discover unto us the riches of his mercy for his great love wherewith he loveth us as Paul witnesseth in the 2 to the Ephes. 3 4. ver. When most dejected and comfortlesse we are then doth he comfort us and shew himselfe a God of Comfort as also Paul doth teach us in the 2 Cor. 4. Who finally when he seeth us most in darknesse and in the night of sinne than doth he dissolve those mists of blindnesse and ignorance from the eyes of our understanding an● shineth into our inward hearts with the rayes and light of his Grace and mercy Blessed and praised be thy name O Heavenly Father that hast vouchsafed this day to lighten me in the horrid darknesse of my sins that hast visited me in my Aegyptian slavery and hast brought me out of that thraldome of Popery into a land of Milke and Hony abounding with the sweetnes of thy Grace and Mercies Continue O Lord these thy favours towards me so that I may by my Conversion be an example to all sinners to forsake their wickednesse by laying open unto them this day two principall and essentiall points to wit the danger and horridnesse of sin and thy unspeakable mercies that thus I may perform what thou commandedst Peter and that my selfe being converted I may strengthen my Brethren calling them from sin and strongly settling them in the true ancient and Apostolique Faith Dearely Beloved The first point which is to be observed in the words of my Text is the tyranny which the Devill practizeth over a Christian soule contained in those words of Christ our Saviour spoken to Peter Behold Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat The desire of Satan is not any way to do us good but all the mischiefe he can As soon as he hath got us into his claws he produceth as far as lyeth in his power Sentence of damnation against us he prepareth us and putteth us in readinesse for the fire of hell The first preparation which hee maketh for our soules to burne everlastaingly is the same which shall happen unto every damned and cursed soule at the day of the last and dreadfull Iudgment when the Angels shall separate the wicked from the good as Christ our Saviour foretold us by S. Matthew in the 13 chap. in the Parable of the seed in the 41 ver. saying The Son of man shall send forth his Angels and they shall gather out of his Kingdome all things that offend and them which do iniquity As a so in the same Chap. of Mat●h we reade in the Parable of the net cast into the Sea and gathering of every kind which when it was full they drew to shore and sate downe and gathered the good into vessels but cast the bad away So saith our Saviour verse 49 shall it be at the end of the world The Angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from the just and shall cast them into the furnace of fire Behold how the nearest preparation for the fire of hell is the separation of the wicked from the just And after this followeth immediatly that dreadfull sentence of damnation which ye shall find in

my kinred and dearest friends Awake awake my soule and like Abraham leave now thy flesh and bloud that thou mayst become rich and great in the sight of thy Lord Away all feares away all humane and temporall respects away to much love of worldly pelse O Lord I for thy sake I hate and leave this day that meanes which hither to from Papists I have received O Lord I know they threaten my destruction but into thy hands do I this day commend my spirit O let that be safe I though here my body be mangled and torne into thousand pieces do thou protect me and I will feare no enemies do thou continue thy mercies to me and I with David will sing and teach them for ever Now dearely Beloved I have disclosed unto you the miseries of a wretched sinner the cruelty and unsatiable tyranny of Satan over those that he sifts away from the fruitfull granes of Christ's Church I have discovered unto you the heavy blows he giveth them and have made my self a President of so miserable and wretched an estate Now give eare I beseech you to the second poi●t of my Text where Christ having told Peter how Satan desired to have him that he might sift him as wheat Christ comforted him presently saying But I have prayed for thee that thy faith faile not For to teach us that though we be never so tyrannized by Satan never so abused and beaten never so dumb so blind and so deafe Yet the mercies of God are able to relieve us And God himselfe would not be mercifull and omnipotent if any miseries of ours how great soever should prevaile or exceed the power of his mercies Nay when by sin we are most wretched and most forlorn then doth God shew most the power of his sweet and comfortable mercies and forgetteth not 40 only but a 1000 yeares ill spent in sin and iniquity as David teacheth us Psalm 90. 3 4. saying Thou turnest man to destruction Again thou sayest Come again ye child en of men for a thousand yeares in thy sight are but as yesterday Behold though a man be turned to destruction though a soule be quite lost utterly defaced and spoyled Yet Come again ye children of men Let but these destroyed and forlorne soul●s turne again unto the Lord and a thousand years ill spent in sinnes and iniquities shall bee pardoned so easily that they shall seeme but as one day ill spent for God is mercifull and will make the least that may bee made of our sinnes if from our hearts wee turn unto him Nay when most we offend him then chiefly doth he strive with his mercies to allure us unto him By the greatnesse of his mercies he striveth to shew himselfe our God and Saviour as I have observed in that answer which he sent unto John in the 11 of Mat. where John sent two of his Disciples to know of him if he were the Messias and Saviour of the world whom they expected To which message our Saviour made no other answer but that of the 5 verse saying The blind receive their sight and the lame walke the lepers are cleansed and the deaf heare the dead are raised up and the poore have the Gospel preached unto them The only way to know that Christ is a Saviour is by seeing his works of mercy either Spirituall or Corporall for by the blind which he corporally and spiritually cureth by the leprous soules and bodies which he cleanseth by the deaf to whom he restoreth corporall and spirituall hearing by the dead in soule and body whom he raiseth up he is sufficiently known to be a true Messias a true Saviour a most loving and mercifull Father And much more by using these mercies when least we deserve them when furthest we are from him when most grievously we offend him for then it is that he striveth with the power of his mercy to prevaile against the power of Satan In the 12 Chap. of Matth. 14. 15 verses this may casily be observed where it is said Then the Pharisees went out and held a Councell against him how they might destroy him Behold here wretched sinners the instruments of the Devill united and confederate against our Saviour What doth he unto them Doth he destroy them Doth he poure down fiery darts upon them No What then doth he Read forward the 15. verse and ye shall see what he doth And when Jesus knew it he withdrew himselfe from thence and great multitudes followed him and he healed them all When most they strive against him to offend him then both he cure and heale their infirmities for to reach us that he is so mercifull a Father that he holdeth it a disparagement to his great goodnesse that our wickednesse should be greater than his mercies that when most we offend him than doth he most mercifully cure and heale the lepers and diseases of our afflicted soules So in the 32 of Exodus you shall find the mercies of God striving with the wickednesse of men for whilest the Israelites withdraw themselves from God at the foot of the mountain worshiping a golden Calf●… God on the top of the mountaine is ordering a Law for them to bring them to righteousnesse and to the port of true Salvation In the 9 Chap. of the Acts there also ye shall find a strong encounter between the malice of a wicked finner and the kindne●…e and mercy of God for whilest Saul breathing out threatnings and slaughter against the Disciples of the Lord goeth to the high Priest and desireth of him letters to Damascus to the Synagogues that if he sound any followers of Christ men or women he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem Then at that very time strives God with his mercies for the upper hand as you may read in the 3 verse And suddainely there shined round about him a light from heaven And Gods mercies prevailing against Sauls stubbornes from a wicked sinner from a wicked Persecutor he was made an Apostle and a chosen vessell to beare the name of the Lord before the Gentiles the Kings and the Children of Israel O how doth the Prophet Hosea in the 2 Chap. of his Prophecies in the 13 and 14 ver. teach the truth of this doctrin saying And I will visite upon her the dayes of Baal●m wherein she burnt incense to them and she decked her self with her carrings and her jewels and she went after her lovers and forgate me saith the Lord Behold here a Harlot a soule most abommable given to idolatry burning incense before her Idols following her pleasures the vanities of the world decking and trimming up her selfe to entice and allure her gallants following her gallants and lovers and quite forgetting her Lord and God But what will God do now with this lewd harlot with this abominable soule Will he d●stroy her Will he shew the strength and power of his justice against her O no! Heare what followeth in the 14 verse Therfore Behold

glory of Angels appearing and one descending in a cloud Somtimes you shall see from under the Stage ascend a smoak of Fire and Brimstone and a Devill leap up in such a shape as may suffice to terrifie you At all this you laugh you hold it but a fable The King you see come out you respect not because you know he is none The other that is wounded and all bloudy you pity not because you know that bloud is not true but painted bloud The glory you see and the Angels in it do no way entice you to it because you know it is but fained The Fire and Brimstone and ugly sight of Devils that come upon the Stage do nothing terrifie you Why Because you know all is salfe that there is no Hell nor any true Devill but only a representation of it So that you sport and laugh at all Now then let us apply these words and this similitude of Clement Alexandrinus to those deafe sinners who as Paul saith Turn away their eares from the truth and are turned unto Fables These when they come to heare the word of the Lord will not heare it with their hearts but make a play sport of it When they heare the Preacher set forth the might and power of that King of Kings and Creator of all things who will glorifie his elect servants with everlasting blisse and happinesse Like Atheists they laugh at it and iudge of this eternall King as of a King in a play When they heare the Preacher teach how Iesus Christ was whipped reviled stroken smitten and crowned with thornes nayled with nailes pierced with a speare for their sins their hearts will not heare it they make sport of it they are not moved to love so loving a Saviour and Mediator who with the price of his own bloud made an aboundant and copious satisfaction for our sins When they heare the Preacher teach the glory of Heaven the Quires of Angels there that everlasting rest without any sob or teares without any cold hunger or thirst they will not heare it to beleeve they judge of it as of the glory in a play upon a Stage and like Epicureans eate drink and riot saying Post mortem nulla voluptas They think that their soules after death like Beasts shall be dissolved into the aire to nothing When they heare a Preacher bring out upon the Stage in the Pulpit and set before a great assembly the deepe pits of Hell the Legions of fierce and cruell Divels there the always burning fire and Brimstone the everlasting broiling there the horrid gnashing of teeth the paines and torments due to their sins if they turne not to God Alas they will not heare it with their heart they thinke it is but a Hell of a Play they are turned unto Fables they make a sport of all they make an Act or Play of God they think all fained they heare it with their corporall eares but with the cares of their soule they will not hearken unto it they make themselves the Actors of the fooles part in this sport and play which they make of God and Heaven Why Because the Devill hath made them deafe This is his chiefe way he knoweth though it be damb or blind yet by hearing the Word of the Lord with a well dis●●sed heart it may receive some seed of a fruitfull Faith as S. Paul taught the Romanes in the 10 Chap. and 17 Vers saying So then Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God This is the Devils feare and therefore he shutteth up their eares that no maintenance that way no succour no reliefe may come unto the soule With this he maketh them groan under his yoke with this he maketh them slaves unto him In Deut. 15. 12. you shall find that God gave a Command of release saying And if thy Brother an Hebrew man or an Hebrew woman be sold unto thee and serve thee six years then in the seventh yeare thou shalt let him go free from thee And lower 16 17. v. God commanded thus And it shall be if he say unto thee I will not go away from thee because he loveth thee and thine house because he is well with thee Then shalt thou take an Aule and thrust it thorough his eare unto the doore and he shall be thy servant for ever In a morall and spirituall sense Learn here Deare Brethren how as God commanded a release for debts and for servants so doubtlesse he expecteth that thy Soule shall not be always under any other master but himself If therfore the Devill have been thy Master for some time thinke for a release think of releasing thy self from him do not say deare soule unto the Devill I will not go away from thee because I love thee because I am well with thee which if thou doest then will Satan make use of this Law of God for himselfe and for his own en●s then will he marke thee in the eares for a perpetuall slave with an Aule he will boare thine eares thorow and fasten them to a wall to that wall which thy iniquities have put between thee and God he will keep thee for his slave if ever he marke thee in thy eares he will take thy hearing from thee that thou mayest not heare any goodnesse nor make good use of any O what misery is a sinner in when he commeth to lose his hearing Abhorre from sin dearely beloved least ye fall thus into slavery under the tyranny of Satan if ye have not found your selves so far gone nor so far ensnared by the Devill as he doth ensnare others renounce him at his first assaults least he encroach upon the mouth of your heart and soule upon the eyes and eares of it making yee dumb deaf and blind O take example by me who have had experience of these 3 blows who have been flailed beaten and thrashed by this cruell enemy with one blow I have been left speechlesse and dumb almost 40 years I have not had a tongue till this day to confesse before God my iniquities my idolatries my superstitions my disloyalties to my King the Lords Annoynted O I have been blind wilfully blind and would not see my errors the errors of the Whore of Babylon True it is many years ago by reading Authors and the grounds of our true Protestant Religion I did see the light of it the truth of it the sincere pure and candid doctrine of it but yet with the eyes of my Soule I would not see it I was like a foule and ugly Monky who when he chanceth to see his foule shape his deformed feet in a pure and Cristall Looking-glasse rageth and flingeth at the glasse and teareth it in pieces because it representes unto him his own deformity Even so have I done dearely Beloved these many yeares When I read the pure and Christall doctrine of our Church which teacheth even what Christ taught Peter and his Disciples to acknowledge a Supremacy next

to God to Caesar by taking mony out of a fishes belly and sending it for trib te to Caesar a lesson for all Subjects yea for the Popes themselves who can be no better than Christ and Peter to acknowledge their duty and Allegiance next to God unto their Kings and Princes But when I saw by this cleare doctrine my ugly shape of a disloyall disobedient and trecherous monster nourished with the venemous and poysoned milk of the Whore of Babylon which teacheth her Popes to be above all Temporall Princes and no wayes bound to pay them tribute O how would I fly and fling like a Monky at the Christall glasse of the Protestant doctrin that thus represented unto me mine own monstrous shape O when I used to read study the grounds of the Popish Transubstantiation and found them groundlesse saying that one body may be in 2 places nay in a 1000. And upon that salfe ground proving that Christs body may be really present in the Sacrament in a thousand places at one time at the same time also in Heaven How clearely did I see the contrary in the Christall glasse of our Churches doctrine For if Christs body being a naturall and physicall body can be at one time in severall places then at one time also it may be subject to severall and contrary accidents it may bee hot and cold at once for it may bee in a hot and cold place at one time it may bee also stabbed in one place as the Papists confesse it hath been by Jews and in another place at the same time it may not be stabbed so then 2 contradictories simul semel are true and truly verified of the same body It is stabbed and it is not stabbed Also in one place it may bee be gnawn and devoured by vermin mice or worms and in another place at the same time it may not be gnawn As my self can witnes who saying Masse one day in the West Indias in a town called Portabel 6 years ago after I had consecrated the Bread or Wafer host upon the Altar making a short mentall prayer with mine eyes shut which they call the Memento for the Dead suddainly came upon the Altar a Mouse and stole away the Sacrament I opening mine eyes and missing it before me began to be troubled and looking about on one side I saw the vermin running away with the Bread I stirred up the people of the Church who running to me caused candles to be lighted and with another Priest searched all the holes that were in the wall behind the Altar and at last found the Sacrament gnawn and halfe eaten up The halfe part of it the Priest tooke out and carrying it to the Altar in Procession lifted it up to be adored with knocking of breasts by the common people Behold here according to the damnable doctrin of the Papists Christ's body is gnawn by a creature and it is not gnawn for they say that the body of Christ is truly and really tetus in toto totus in qualibet parte all in all and all and whole in every little part Then if this be true Christ was whole and entire in that part which was devoured and he was also whole and entire in the part which was left so he was eaten and gnawne and he was not eaten and gnawne Here are two contradictories truly verified at one time against the light of reason and phylosophy Besides the absurdity which followeth that Christ should leave his body to be so devoured by vermin and dumb beasts All these absurdities and monstruous shapes of Popish doctrin I well perceived and viewe● in the pure christall glasse of our Protestant doctrin And yet like a beast I would fling at this cleere glasse that thus represented my Popish errorus unto me I would spitefully oppose the true sense and figurative meaning of our Saviour when he said This is my body Yea comming into England with a purpose to conforme my selfe to the truth having met here with a learned Treatise of one Master Stephen Vassall against this damnable doctrin of Transubstantiation which he directed to one Mistris Bury a Gentlewoman seduced and blinded by a Popish Priest I took upon me for some worldly and temporall respects to some friends to answer his learned grounds and reasons against mine own conscience And though in his cleare doctrine I well perceived the ugly and monstruous shape of mine own idolatrous and defiled soule Yet did I fling and fly at the glasse like a Monky Why Because I was blinded by Satan the window of my soule was rammed up by the Devil that no light might enter into it I have been that false and disobedient Priest Balaam so blind that I would not see the dangers of my soule neere 40 yeares But though the sword of Gods Iustice hath-beene drawne against me though his bow hath been bent to kill me and many instruments of death prepared against me yet would I wilfully run on my ways to curse the good and elect People of the Lord to oppose the true ancient and Apostolike Church of England True it is I have heard much good doctrin preached repre●enting unto me these dangers which my soule was in I have heard that if wilfully I should have died in that wretched estate my soule would have been plunged into the deepest and bottomlesse pits of Hell I have heard much pre●ching of the me cies of God of the glory of Heaven of the paines of Hell Yet all this I have heard as a Play and sport of pastime not hearing it with my soule inwardly but only with my outward eares I have heard that for God we must leave all in the world both kindred father mother preferments and wealth yet I would not heare this to any purpose I was loath to forsake all my kin●ed who are Papists I was loath to forsake that meanes which I have had from them and now must lose it I was loath to see my selfe in want and poverty O I knew my kinred and best friends would cry out shame upon me and would threaten to kill me All these worldly and temporall respects shut up my eares and made me deafe against the truth which teacheth that it is better to live here in want and poverty than to broyle for ever in Hell that it is better to forsake here and abandon all flesh and blood Brothers Sisters and Kinred than to go with them to everlasting paines and torment Christ himselfe teacheth us that we must not feare them that can hurt out bodies but can do no harme at all unto our soules and that we must feare only him that can cast our soules into the fire of Hell This it is O Lord which now maketh me feare thy might thy power and wrath I feare My soule it is that hencef●rth I will tender for this Iewell I for sake this day all the world for my Soule 's sake I take my leave this day of all