Selected quad for the lemma: state_n
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A81694
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The Dovvnfal of Dagon: or, Certain signes of the sudden and unavoidable ruine of this Parliament and Army. With a caveat to the City of London.
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1653
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Wing D2085; Thomason E804_20; ESTC R207373
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6,580
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8
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France and divers other parts of Euâ—ope how hath it flourished for the many excellent Laws in it established and blessed I may say for the light of the Gospel which it enjoyed when other neighbour-kingdoms wandered in the darkness of Popish Errours But now O England how is thy former glory vanished away how contemptible art thou become to all round about thee a scorn to all Nations This is fallen upon us by suffering a base mercenary Army and a few men that carried the name of a Parliament to murther our lawful King that so they mâ—ght establish a Government that the like was never heard of before but now when they had murthered the King they immediately leap up into the saddle and spur out the very heart and blood of the people by their Oppressions The first thing they do is to make us a Free State that is our estates purses and persons must be free at their disposing Then next we must sit down like silly Asses and let them load us with Excise of all things Contribution Free-Quarter Taxes Vexations and what else they please to lay upon us And yet Ship-money that was a tyrannical illegal Tax although the King did it out of a pure necessity his Neighburs at that time he being so weak at Sea offered him many affronts denying to strike Sayl to his ships as the custom of the Sea is when they came in the Narrow between France and England His Guard of shâ—ps being then so slender that our Neighbours had them in contempt Yet for all this the King was so unwilling to impose any new Tax that first he would have the advice of his Councel then of his Judges that so he might not go contrary to the Laws of the Land They all agreed that it was warrantable and produced divers Records how that many of his Progenitors had done the like before in case of necessity The King being thus convinced of the lawfulness of it he then commanded that it should be levied but in such a manner that it should be employed to the same end and purpose that it was levied for and not to run in by-Chanels into any private mens purses nor to the enriching of himself or any of his Court but for the good of his subjects and the honour of the Nation Compare Ship money to those many Taxes that we lie groaning under and judge who have been the greatest Tyrants and Oppressors of the People either the late King or as you call it the Parliament We will begin first with Excise that insensible devourer of the Poor and impoverisher of the Rich you see our Curs our Powdering-Tubs our Washing-Bowls our Kettles our Hats Doublets Breeches Stockings Shooes and nothing we eat or drink or wear is free from being devoured by these men that thus complained of the King for that inconsiderable Tax of Ship-money Sequestration that is another way they use to gull men of estates How many thousand families in this Nation have they utterly beggered by Sequestration Most of the Nobility and Gentry if they have had out the least spark of honesty in them they have brought into as great a Want and Poverty as some of them were in when they waited on the Drays with the Slings on their backs or with the Tallies by their sides But now they have killed and have also took possession the King 's Queens and Prince's Lands the Lands of the Nobility and Gentry they have shared amongst themselves and yet all this and much more is too little to satisfie their insatiable appetites And for all this our mouthes must be buttoned up so that we are not suffered that filly comfort of venting our griefs by way of complaint but upon every light word a man is in danger to be made an offender to the utter ruine of him and his posterity O London these are thy golden Calves that thou hast set up and dost worship these be the Idols to whom you have sacrificed your sons and servants to maintain their Oppressions over you Excise and Sequestrations are too little to quench their insatiable covetousness but they have another way to drain the Treasury of the Nation and that is by Contribution These Monsters of men that like Vipers eat out the bowels of their mother having no regard at all to the groans of the poor nor the miserable slavery that we lie under worse then the Israelites under their Egyptian Task-masters do persist in their abhorrible practices to suck the blood of the people and will at last inforce us to sell our wives and children for to satisfie their greedy desires You may see plainly that they are fully bent to strip us naked of all that we have by that late Act of theirs for the raising the Tax thirty thousand pounds a month more then ever it was before I shall say nothing of Free-Quarter and many more exorbitancies and outrages committed in the Country by the Souldiery But now we see by woful experience the difference between the milde Government of our late Soveraign King CHARLES and the destructive domineering of our new-fangled State They cried out on him for his Oppressions and have themselves gone beyond him and all others that our Modern Histories ever make mention of But who have been the main causers of all our sorrow even this rebellious City of London a most ungrateful City the King making it his Royal Seat and place of abode whenas he might as well have removed his Court to York or some other place for the more commodious addresses of his people of Scotland and Ireland unto him and all to make it famous and flourishing but in requital they have been the onely stirrers up of Sedition and Rebellion against his person and at last have made themselves infamous by being accessary to the murther of their King But now behold the just judgement of God that ere long will undoubtedly fall upon them for their unparallel'd wickedness I may very well pronounce this judgement against it which was once pronounced against Jerusalem in Ezekiel the twenty fourth and the sixth Wherefore thus saith the Lord God wo to the bloody city to the pot whose scum is therein and whose scum is not gone out of it Bring it out piece by piece let no lot fall upon it And in the two and twentieth Chapter the Prophet giveth a reason for the Wo he had pronounced against it For saith he thou art become guilty in the blood that thou hast shed and hast defiled thy self in the idols which thou hast made And thou hast caused thy days to draw neer and art come even unto thy yeers Wherefore I have made thee a reproach unto the Heathen and a mocking unto all countries Without question the judgements of God will suddenly fall upon this City and Gods Justice will the more manâ—festly appear in causing those Idols that they have set up the Parliament that they so much adore to be the main causers of the
The dovvnfal of Dagon OR CERTAIN SIGNES OF The Sudden and Unavoidable Ruine Of this PARLIAMENT And ARMY With ACAVEAT To the City of LONDON Printed at LONDON 1653. Feb 16 1652 The DOWNFAL OF DAGON I Having in a former Treatise laid open the rise growth and some of the practices of this everlasting Parliament and Army I shall now enlarge my self a little farther to shew you the Fate that is hanging over their heads and the unavoidableness of their fall with some signes that the present Government is in a declining state I shall first lay before you their breaking Covenants and sweating their souls to the devil to promote their wicked ambitious ends having raised themselves from the very scum of the people to Lord it over their Superiours and all by an Arbitrary power being backed on by a few Coblers and Shoo-makers and a company of Desperado's As for their Perjury Swearing they regard not nor Forswearing so it conduce to their profit and in that they imitate their elder brother the Turk who holds that there are no Oathes to be kept with Christians any longer then they serve for their advantages Nay these Independents go beyond the Turks for they are Heathens but these are Atheists these acknowledge not Christ many of them witness that blasphemous Book intituled THE THREE GRAND IMPOSTORS written by an Honourable Member forsooth and printed for Giles Calvert dwellâ—ng neer the west-end of Pauls at the signe of the black Spread-Eagle that pure Saint who if he had had his desert should have been hanged long since for the many blasphemous Pieces by him dispersed And now my hand is in pray take notice of another Book by him lately printed in English called The Racovian Catechism This Book full fraught with damnable doctrines denies the Divinity of Jesus Christ O horrid Blasphemy One of these I bought of Calvert and he told me That in that Book there was contained more sound Divinity then in any book that over was printed O England whâ—t a pass art thou brought unto In stead of a pure Reformation and a propagating of the Gospel with an establishment of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ here is nothing but holding forth Confusion as their Ranting spirit moves them Nay I must needs say they are very zealous for the Cause of Christ as they pretend when they make a Laughing-stock of the holy Scripture denying the Holy Ghost to be God and taking away the Divinity of Jesus Christ and withal terming the Sacrament of the Lords Supper a holy Fiction You may plainly perceive what temper our Sword men are of when lately there came forth a small Pamphlet intituled A Beacon fired humbly petitioning these Saints for a suppressing of Popish Books which lately are come forth without controul whereupon Colonel Pride takes up the Buckler against the Petitioners and stands in defence of Popish Books which made the Petitioners at first much to admire seeing him write so contrary to the Principles that he had always seemed to profess so that upon good considerations they answered him so effectually that they have stopt his mouth with a Non obstante Here you may plainly see that the Turks are better Christians then these men for they acknowledge Christ for a great Prophet sent from God but these Saints in their Book as I mentioned before called The three grand Impostors the main scope whereof is to prove Christ Moses and Mahomet to be Impostors have the impudence to do their endeavour to prove Christ an Impostor These are the men that do stand up in the Cause of Christ to pull down Antiâ—hrist while they set up the Devil But what will not these men stick to do that have by a base Arbitrary power and an unheard-of Barbarism after they had sworn Allegiance to their King and taken a solemn Oath in the presence of God to bring him home to his two Houses of Parliament and make him the most glorious Prince that ever reigned over Great Britain and yet CROMWEL with his Minions hurried him into the Isle of Wighl and kept him a close prisoner but then these Cameleons that can turn themselves into any colour began to shew themselves in their right hue And first Cromwel in the House of Commons standeth up with his nose flaming like some prodigious Comet that threatneth devastation to some Kingdom and with his hands laid upon hss hypocritical brest told the Speaker that it was unsafe to trust the King a man of Blood one that had betrayed that Trust which the people had reposed in him and therefore he desired them that he might be brought to a strict account for all the blood that had been shed in this Nation in the late War I shall insist no longer upon their perfidious and barbarous dealing about the King seeing it is so notoriously known all the world over No sooner had they murdered the King contrary to their Oathes of Allegiance and solemn League and Covenant the many Imprecations whereby God hath been called to witness that they never intended any harm to the Kings Person but now you may see what force an Oath is of to binde these Miscreants that rather then they will miss of their ambitious ends will damn their souls With what face can these men appear before God at the last day having their hands imbrned in the blood of their native Prince to give an account of all their diabolical actions They have not onely stretched out their hands against the King God's Vice-roy but also against the Mâ—nâ—stery by sending some to heaven where I am very sure none of them will ever come imprisoning of others and sequestring their estates These are pure Saints that thus do tyrannize over the Church persecuting Christ in his Members and in as much as in them lieth endeavour the utter subversion of the true Protestant Religion by tolerating of all manner of Heresies and Blasphemies advancing Schismatical persons both in Church and State their main end being to bring in Atheism and Confusion And thus they do like Julian the Apostate by taking away the maintenance of the Ministery that so by Poverty they may of necessity beforc'd to leave their Callâ—ngs and betake themselves to some other employment to keep their wives and children from starving And thus Julian the Apostate as we read when his persecuting Sword prevailed on the Christians but little took this course to make them leave Christ and follow his wicked example But there can be no men let them be never so infamous for wickedness but these men will as nigh as they can tread in their steps O what a miserable thing it is to see Great Britain that hath been the most free and flourishing Monarchie upon the face of the earth that hath been famous for the many Expeditions this English Nation hath made both by Sea and Land to vindicate its honour against its forraign enemies and by Land how many Trophies of their Victories have they erected in