Selected quad for the lemma: love_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
love_n	affection_n	good_a	will_n	3,330	5	5.9191	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A97098	The fountain of slaunder discovered. By William Walwyn, merchant. With some passages concerning his present imprisonment in the Tower of London. Published for satisfaction of friends and enemies.	Walwyn, William, 1600-1681.	1649 (1649)	Wing W682; Thomason E557_4; ESTC R204437	31,569	29

that I am a Pentioner to some forraign State which indeed is most falle and is invented for the end as all the rest are to make me odious And truly if men were not grown past all shame or care of what they said or heard of me it would be impossible to get belief for which way doth it appear I think nay am sure that in my house no man bred in that plenty I was ever contented himself with lesse which is easily known and for the apparell of my self my Wife and Children if it exceed in any thing it is in the plainesse where with we are very well satisfied and so in houshold stuff and all other expenses and for my charge upon publique voluntary occasions I rather merit a charitable construction from those I have accompanied with then any thanks or praise for any extraordinary disbursments and I am sure I go on soot many times from my house to Westminster when as I see many inferiour to me in birth and breeding only the favorites of the times on their stately horses and in their coaches and when I have been amongst my Friends in the Army as many times I have had occasion I must ever acknowledge that I have received amongst them ten kindnesses for one and yet not to wrong my self I think nay am sure there is not a man in the world that is of a more free or thankfull heart and have nothing else to bear me up against what good and worthy men whom I have seen in great necessities might conjecture of me when as I have administred nothing to relieve them when was the time and where the place I gave dinners or suppers or other gifts For shame thou black-mouth'd slander hide thy head till the light of these knowing times be out all that thou canst do is not sufficient to blast me amongst those with whom I converse or who have experience of my constancy in affection endeavour to the generall good of all men but to thy greater torment vexation know this they that entirely love me for the same are exceedingly increased and many whom thou hadst deceived return daily manifesting their greater love to me and the publique as willing to recompence the losse of that time thou deceivedst them And this imprisonment which thou hast procured me for my greater and irrecoverable reproach amongst good men thy poyson'd heart would burst to see how it hath wrought the contrary so far as I never had so clear a manifestation of love and approbation in my life from sincere single-hearted people as now to my exceeding joy I find And possibly for time to come these notorious falshoods with which the slanderous tongue hath pursued me may have the same effect upon these weak people thou makest thy instruments which they have had upon me and that is That I am the most backward to receive a report concerning any mans reputation to his prejudice of any man in the world and account it a basenesse to pry into mens actions or to listen to mens discourses or to report what I judge they would not have known as not beseeming a man of good and honest breeding or that understands what belongs to civil society But leaving these things which I wish I had had no occasion to insist upon it will concern me to consider the condition I am in for though I know nothing of crime or guilt in my self worthy my care yet considering how and in what an hostile manner I was sent for out of my bed and house from my dear Wife and Children the sense of that force and authors of my present imprisonment shewing so little a sencibility or fellow-feeling of the evils that might follow upon me and them by their so doing it will not be a misse for me to view it in the worst cullers it can bear As for the booke called The second part of Englands new chaines discovered for which Lieut. Col. John L●lburn Mr Prince Mr Overton and my self are all questioned it concernes me nothing at all farther then as the matter therein contained agreeth or disagreeth with my judgement and my judgement will work on any thing I read in spight of my heart I cannot judge what I please but it will judge according to its owne pe●ceverance And to speake my conscience having read the same before the Declaration of Parliament was abroad I must professe I did not discerne it to deserve a censure of those evils which that Declaration doth import but rather conceived the maine scope and drift thereof tended to the avoiding of all those evils and when I had seen and read the Declaration I wished with all my heart the Parliament had been pleased for satisfaction of all those their faithfull friends who were concerned therein and of the whole Nation in generall To have expresly applied each part of the bo●k to each censure upon it as to have shewed in what part it was false scandalous and reproachfull in what seditious and destructive to the present Government especially since both Parliament and A●m● and all wel affected people have approved of the way of settlement of our Government by an Agreement of the People Also that they had pleased to have shewed what part sentence or matter therein tended to division and mutiny in the Army and the raising of a new War in the Common-wealth or wherein to hinder the relief of Ireland and continuing of Free quarter for certainly it would conduce very much to a contentfull satisfaction to deal gently with such as have been friends in all extremities and in such cases as these to condescend to a fair corespondency as being willing to give reasons in all things to any part of the people there being not the least or most inconsiderable part of men that deserve so much respect as to have reason given them by those they trust and not possitively to conclude any upon mee●e votes and resolutions and in my poor opinion had this course been taken all along from the beginning of the Parliament to this day many of the greatest evils that have besalne had been avoided the Land ere this time had been in a happy and prosperous condition There being nothing that maintaines love unity and friendship in families Societies Citties Countries Authorities Nations so much as a condescention to the giving and hearing and debating of reason And without this what advantage is it for the people to be and to be vot●d the Supreme power it being impossible for all the people to meet together to speak with or d●bate things with th●ir Representative and then if no part be considerable but only the whole or if any men shall be reckoned slightly of in respect of opinions estates poverty cloathes and then one sort shall either be heard before another or none shall have reasons given them except they present things pleasing the Supreme power the People is a pittifull mear helplesse thing as under School-masters being in

Godlinesse with which they stalked so securely becomes a badge of their reproach The Scribes and Pharisees and Herod and Pilat had their time but are their names now any other but a by word and doth not the Doctrine of Luther shine in despite of all his mighty opposers What gained the Bishops by bespeaking the Presbyter of so much errous and madnesse but their own down-fall what got the Courtiers by accusing Parliaments of intending Anarchy and Community but their own ruine and have not these Presbyters brought themselves to shame by their bitter invective Sermons and writings against the Independent and Sectaries 3. And are all these forementioned acquitted of the aspersions cast upon them and am I and my friends guilty why must these scandalous des●mations be truer of us then of them in their severall times there were beleeved to be true of them and its time onely and successe that hath cleared them and should perswade men to forbear censuring us of evil unlesse the just things w● have proposed and Petitioned for be granted and if we content not our selves within the bounds of just Government let us then be blamed and not before but what sayes the polititian if somebody be not asperst Mischief cannot prosper if these men be believed and credited downe goes our profit And truely that enemies to the common freedome of this Nation or enemies to a just Parliamentary Government enemies to the Army or men of persecuting principles and practises should either divide or scatter these false aspersions against me I did never wonder at beleiving these to be but as clouds that would soon vanish upon the rising of the friends of the Common wealth and prevailing of the Army And so it came to passe and for a season continued but no sooner did I and my friends in behalf of the Common-wealth manifest our expectation of that freedome so long desired so seriously promised them in the power of friends to give and grow importunate in pursuit thereof but out flies these hornets againe about our ears as if kept ●ame of purpose to vex and sting to death those that would not rest satisfied with lesse then a well grounded freedome and since we have been a fresh more violently ●yled at then ever as if all the corrupt interests in England must downe except we were reproach● to purpose And certainly there was never so fair an opportunity to free this Nation from all kinds of oppression and usurpation as now if some had hearts to do their endeavour that strongly pretended to do their utmost and what hinders is as yet somewhat in a mistery but time will reveal all and then it will appear more particularly then will yet be permitted to be discovered from what corrupt fountaine though sweetned with flowers of Religion these undeserved clamours have issued against me and my friends But I shame to thinke how readily the most irrationall sencelesse aspersions cast upon me are credited by many whom I esteemed sincere in their way of Religion and that most uncharitably against the long experience they have had of me and most unthankfully too against the many services I have done them in standing for their liberties and animating others so to do when they were most in danger and most exposed never yet failing though in my own particular I were not then concerned to manifest as great a tendernesse of their welfare as mine owne But in patience I possesse my self such as the tree is such I perceive will be the fruit and as I see a man is no farther a man then as he clearly understands so also I perceive a Christian is no farther a Christian then as he stands clear from errour and superstition with both which were not most men extreamly tainted such rash and harish censures could never have past upon me such evil fruits springing not from true Religion wherein as full of zeal as the times seeme to be most men are far to seek every man almost differs from his neighbour yet every man is confident who then is right in judgement and if the judgement direct to practice as no doubt it ought no marvell we see so much weaknesse so much emptinesse vanity and to speak softly so much unchristianity so many meer Nationall and verball so few practicall and reall Christians but busie-bodies tale bearers serviceable not to God in the preservation of the life or good name of their neighbours but unto polititians in blasting and defaming and so in ruining of their brother If I now amidst so great variety of judgements and practises as there are should go a particular way Charity and Christianity would forbear to censure me of evill and would give me leave to follow mine owne understanding of the Scriptures even as I freely allow unto others Admit then my Conscience have been necessitated to break through all kinds of Superstition as finding no peace but distraction and instability therein and have found out t●ue uncorrupt Religion and plac●● my joy and contentment therein admit I find it so brief and plaine as to be understood in a very short time by the meane● capacity so sweet and delectable as cannot but be embraced so certain as cannot be doubted so powerfull to dissolve man into love and to set me on work to do the will of him that loved me how exceedingly then are weak superstitious people mistaken in me That I beleive a God and Scriptures and understand my self concerning both those small things I have occastionally written and published are testimonies more then sufficient as my Whisper in the eare of Mr. Thomas Edwards My Antidote against his poyson My prediction of his conversion and recantation My parable or consultation of Physitians upon him and My still and soft voice expresly written though needlesse after the rest for my vindication herein all which I intreat may be read and considered and surely if any that accuse and backbite me had done but half so much they would and might justly take it very ill not to be believed But when I consider the small thanks and ill rewards I had from some of Mr. Edward's his opposers upon my publishing those Treatises I have cause to beleive they are fraught with some such unusuall truths that have spoiled the markets of some of the more refined Demetrius's and crafts-men I must confesse I have been very apt to blunt out such truths as I had well digested to be needfull amongst men wherein my conscience is much delighted not much regarding the displeasure of any whilst I but performe my duty And in all that I have written my judgement concerning Civil Government is so evident as if men were men indeed and were not altogether devo●d of Conscience might acquit me from such vanities as I am accused of but for this besides those I have named I shall refer the Reader to my Word in Season published in a time of no small need and to that large Petition that was burnt by