Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	john_n	spirit_n	true_a	4,495	5	5.7056	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89952	Reasons why the supreme authority of the three nations (for the time) is not in the Parliament, but in the new-established Councel of State, consisting of His Excellence the Lord General Cromvvel, and his honourable assessors. Written in answer to a letter sent from a gentleman in Scotland to a friend of his in London. To which is added the letter it self.	C. N.	1653 (1653)	Wing N6; Thomason E697_19; ESTC R202945	18,691	32

own for the reclaiming of such this straine to any judicious man will seem more moderate then that of the Presbyter whose ambition it was to have the Scotish Covenant tread underfoot all the other professions in the world Tell me I pray you were not all of you and that not long ago epidemically infected with the dease of believing that in the yeer of the last Iubilee the said covenant should be pompously set up in Saint Peters Church at Rome nay further was there any thing more commonly preached amongst you then the cursing of Meroz for not coming out to help the Lord against the mighty which text they applyed both for and against Monarchy whilst the enemy remained still one and the same so cunning they were in making a nose of wax of the Scriptures as likewise the cursing of those that did the work of the Lord negligently and withheld their hand from blood After this manner they stirred up you know the people there to be active in going about the designe of making an universal Kirk which if they would do promises were made to them of being Gods select and covenanted people of the driving of the Nations before them and their eating the fat and drinking the sweet all which had events so suitable to my apprehension though contrary to their predictions that now there is no more common saying then that your Ministers have been false Prophets from the beginning and men of doctrines inconsistent with any secular government being so much the more dangerous that they did always speak of God and accounted their cause to be his For had they been contented to have said in their Pulpits Gentlemen I am to tell you a story and a tale truly worthy your hearing although it might have been thought a kind of irreligious expression in a place of such reverence yet would it have been of less prejudice to the auditory and impiety in the speaker then to have expressed themselves after this fashion Thus saith God this is the meaning of his covenant even when what they spoke was upon contrivances of their own for the promoval of by ends destructive to many duties which God requireth of us Such as were not Presbyterians they aspersed with the name of Papist and would have continued still so if Providence had not put the power in the hands of those who though better Protestants then they do nevertheless acknowledge the Papal authority to be less tyrannical then theirs the effects whereof are so pernicious that it were better for you in that Country to be left to your selvs without any Government at all the meer common laws of Nature in such a case of Anarchy being able to retain you in those duties which being drunken with the dregs of a submission to Hierarchical Soveraignty whether in one or many you would otherwise be enforced to violate These and many other such reasons which any thing amply to deduce would require a Treatise apart do give sufficient evidence against Ecclesiastical supremacie whereof we stand in no great need seeing all divine Laws are naturally imprinted in the heart of every good man Covetousness expelled the Papists from amongst you Pride overthrew the Bishops Lying with both these is like to pull down your Ministers neither of all which qualifications whether joyntly or severally are any way beseeming men of a Legislative Jurisdiction Your Presbyterian Tenets like Scyrrus and Procrustes beds to which long men were equalled by curtaling and the short by racking out their limbs will have all manner of Consciences so adapted to them as to make the tenderest hearts shed innocent blood and bring the proudest Potentates to submit to their mas-Mas-Johns Delphian Oracle who possibly pretending to a Prophetical spirit leaveth almost no place untouched with his entousiastick bolts but that wherein is fixed the blank of Truth which he maketh shew to level at Thus without considering the various tempers of mindes they would befool all men alike and take the same course with the highest spirits which Numa Pompilius did with the Commons of Rome by means of his Nymph Agyria or Sertorius in Spain by his white Hinde with the inhabitants there so possess men with conceits of their infallibilities in the dispensations of providence even when they say no more but This will come to pass for so God hath decreed it Presbytery must rule for it is according to the Word it being more easie to say any thing then to give a good reason for it for to speak truely they never bring any reason but Testimony and that onely grounded upon their own bare interpretations flowing from worldly respects self-interests and private designes towards dignity profit or pleasure which for many yeers together hath run so impetuously in that country to the stirring up of choler and indignation in the auditory against those at whose professions or inclinations they had any dislike that as a clown who hath long fasted will with a little strong drink be quickly fudled those incendiary Churchmen do just so work upon the spirits of such as by a long abstinence from any nourishing doctrine are with their hot-waters of sedition apt to be inebriated there being no more several kinds of strong liquour then there is variety of operating upon such addle-brained heads There is hardly any judicious man but knoweth that it was neither learning piety nor patriotism that perswaded any of that Nation to Presbytery nor had they any of those three qualities in them that were the perswaders yet let us not think it strange for as a cup of good Sack will make one fight where Reason cannot prompt him to it when he is sober so will the vapouring words of fiery preachers oftentimes intoxicate a giddy-headed populass when sound and solid instructions are able to make no impression But that all Scotland comprehending all the degrees of its inhabitants should have been brought under that yoak is in my opinion the onely miracle that was performed by Presbytery and one I think never a whit lesser then any mentioned in the Romish Legend had that people of late been endowed with spirits equal to those of their predecessors This degenerate deviation hath made most of the Nations of Christendom if not all look asquint upon them When the Presbyterians of Scotland prevailed against the King's party they intituled themselves The people of God because of their victories which appellation for such a reason is every whit as due to the Great Turk by having subjugated to his Scepter all the Christians of Greece and Armenia They likewise prove in Scotland the same conclusion by their being afflicted which title should it require no other cause might as properly have been applied to the Canaanites and Gibeonites After such a manner of reasoning we may infer all things to be precious and sweet that are of the colour of Gold and Honey we may very well know that affirmatively to attribute one general thing to two

is a thing rather to be wisht for then expected by you the soveraigne of the Planets hath removed his beams the further from you and N●ptune fettered you with his watry shekels that you may not harbour in your mind such ambitious thoughts it is much if the whole Isle unanimously joyned perform such magnanimous atchievements Now for your further information in this particular I have thought it not unexpedient to send you with this Letter another of that worthy gentleman N. LL. written to a gentleman in the country touching the dissolution of the late Parliament and the reasons thereof wherein is shown you how providence many times by several invisible degrees brings forth her proposed intendments with those instruments which seem to do the contrary how many of the Parliament-men were content to self-center and lay little designes for their own greatness as if they had been called to the house to make up private breaches and not publike ones how private interests were carryed on by way of exchange how incredibly long their delayes were in granting of the most just petitions how they did spin out the time in the tossing of a feather even whilst they suffered the weightiest mattes of any to sink how unjust they were in the courses taken for paying of Souldiers Debenters and in their emitting of Surveyors for overvaluing and undervaluing of lands to their own private advantage and palpable prejudice to the Commonwealth and how by such means men of inconsiderable fortunes before they were memberfied had afterwards raised themselves to huge and vast estates He shews us also in in the same Letter how God hath singularly owned my Lord GENERAL and his ARMY in crowning them by very remarkable successes and how without the Army the Parliament had been exposed to the affronts of the multitude as when by the Apprentices they were shut up within doors he tells us how the liberty of the people being recovered by the sword the Army ought to be the supervisor of those liberties that no incroachment be permitted to be made thereupon and that he who hath power to command hath also power to guide the one without the other being insignificant he expresseth likewise how the formerly-mentioned defects and abuses were to be redressed and remedied either by the Parliament People or Army the first were so cunning they would not the second so unskilful that they could not and that therefore it was incumbent to the third like wise guardians to do it and thus as arbitrators taking into their most serious consideration the safety of the people whereof themselves were a part after they had perceived that neither addresses reasons proposals nor petitions could prevaile any thing they were forced to have recourse to that of the Physician ure seca furthermore he shews to the end we startle not at the change of the Supream Authority from the name of Parliament to that of Counsel that it is of as little effect and signifieth no more then if a King or State should make some alteration in the titles of their credentials being pleased hereto to subjoyn this Question Whether it be better to be in slavery under the name of Liberty or in liberty under the effects of slavery All which with many more you in the said letter may peruse at leisure without omitting that passage of his where he sayeth that the Presbyterian is a Jesuite in a Geneva-cloak onely some what more insupportable Here without Latin Greek or any other language then plain English have I delivered my mind unto you and that barely without searching so much as one testimony or citing any place in either sacred or humane writings for that the truth seeks neither corners nor embellishments and that it is true which I have written it is my firme opinion in which I intend to continue till with stronger arguments I be convinced then as yet I have mentioned or shall be able to produce in asserting my Lord Generals proceedings and vindication of his Excellency and honourable Councel of Officers These things I hope you will take in the better part that they have proceeded from me who you know was never nor am a Papist who am not nor ever will be a Presbyterian and who affects no Sectarianism but loves to be such a sincere professors of the name of Christ as to lay hold on faith in him and accordingly regulate the whole course of my life thereby and who besides those adjuncts will not decline this other one that I am a compatriot of yours and such a one which I speak without either flattery or self-love as hath ever from his yeers of discretion upwards studyed the promoval of the honour of his native country and prosecuted it to the outmost of his endeavours This Tusday the 17. May 1653. Your humble servant FINIS In the title Page next line but one before the imprinted for added read premised Pag. 2. line 21. Read Prolixity whereof page 2. lin 25. read all which