Selected quad for the lemma: war_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
war_n	battle_n	great_a	king_n	4,169	5	3.5753	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39716	The idea of His Highness Oliver, late Lord Protector, &c. with certain brief reflexions on his life / by Richard Fleckno, Esq.	Flecknoe, Richard, d. 1678?	1659 (1659)	Wing F1226; ESTC R6875	19,504	84

with either shews the excellencie of their Tempers and Constitutions But now the more he endeavoured to serve his Side he hazarded his person less considering it thereafter more the Publiques then his own and more detriment to the publick then himself the loss of it 'T is a great errour in those who command in chief to hazard their persons and expose their lives on every slight occasion as if t were more glorious to fight then to command whereas that is only the vertue of a Common soldier this of the Leader whose principal Talent lies more in direction then execution more in the brain then hand It goes ill with an Army when the General is enforc't to fight in whose person not only the safety of the Army but often the safety of the State it self lies all at stake Mean time not only all the hopes but even certainties of Victory the battel once joynd depended on him and his Brigade so ●●r from ever losing battel as he often gaind and recoverd it when it was lost So as that might well be said of him what was anciently said of another that he had done many brave things without others but others never any without him One thing that made his Brigade so invincible was his arming them so well as whilst they assur'd themselves they could not be overcome it assur'd them to overcome the enemy The well Arm'd have the same advantage of the ill Arm'd in fight as the warm cloath'd have in winter of those but coldly clad and t' on goes altogether as disheartned to expose himself to danger as tother to expose himself to the bleak winter air But the main cause of all was his excellent Conduct For having experienc't how others spirits furious at first onset dissolv'd in sweat and tyr'd and languish't by degrees he alwayes kept a fresh Reserve until the last to give a turn to the fortune of the day that being the precise minute on which Victory as on hinges did depend which depainted hovering betwixt the Armies when first the battels joyn is alwayes allur'd unto that Generals side who garnishes his Lure with greatest diligence This made a certain modern Leader say that Fortune did nothing in the wars only the Generals skill and diligence did all But he should have rather said that it was the providence of Almighty God In confidence of whose providence he never enter'd battel but by the port of Prayer Prayer has this resemblance with rain that just as that first ascends from Earth to Heaven and afterwards comes showring down from Heaven to Earth again so those prayers which by Gods grace we send up to him he ever pours down agen in blessings on our head 'T is the great Artillery that violences Heaven which must be rendred exorable by prayer ere Armies can be rendred happy by victory And in vain the Israelites lift up their hands in fight if Moses first lift not up his hands in prayer Thus entring battel in confidence of the God of battel he alwayes came off with victory his soldiers alwayes imagining a certain Divinity in him who never did any thing without first imploring the aid of the Divinity It has been the policy of divers falsly to perswade the people that they had a certain familiarity with Almighty God and consequently a kind of omnipotency in all they did But it has been the Religion of more really to seek a familiarity with him by prayer and unite all their Actions with his omnipotence Neither dos this their dependency on Heaven any wayes slacken their obligations to their duties here on Earth but rather renders the tye more firm and strong and themselves more active and diligent To do all things himself as if he had expected nothing from God and then expect all from God as if he had done nothing himself was the way a certain holy person took to arrive to perfection So after the Apostle had said he could do nothing of himself he presently adds Omnia possum in eo qui me confortat that he could do all things in God who strengthened him In imitation of whom another holy person was wont to say God and I can do all things and if it seem presumption in him to name himself with God certainty a greater presumption 't is for man even to name himself without him This gain'd him a high reputation with the godly party in the House and to maintain a fair correspondency with all never any place was taken nor battail wone but He was first who gave intelligence of it to the House by which he gained at once the good opinion both of the Parliament and General attributing in His Letters more honour to the one then he with modesty could do unto himself and writing his own Actions in such modest tearms to tother as they always imagin'd him more worthy honour the lesse he attributed unto himself These were his Arts whilst Lieutenant General by which he purchast so great a name in war as Essex and all those great and glorious names were swallowed up in his just as great Rivers are swallowed up by the Ocean I pass over in silence those dangerous passages of State about this time because he past them over so lightly as he scarce left the print of his footsteps behind whilst in all the rest none ever left more glorious marks then he Whatsoever they were they goe rather on the times accompt then his for a wise States-man may often opine the best and yet follow the worst opinion nor is this weakness but judgement and necessity there being no greater weaknesse then to follow ones private opinion against the publique vote or in a generality to be particular How he came afterwards to be General all circumstances considered is most remarkable there having past a vote i th' House that no member of it should bear Office or Command i' th Army he notwithstanding by common vote of all was presently chosen Generall so useful or rather necessary he was esteemed for that high charge and the service of the Common wealth Useful instruments are often laid aside but necessary we still retain in hand and can as little be without them as our hands themselves Whosoever then would be always imployd i th' State must render themselves necessary for the service of the State else such is their desire of change and variety as they will often change them onely for the pleasure which they take in change although for others no more useful them themselves Some will say If no Member of the House was to command the Army why was not he included amongst the rest if any why was he excluded who commanded it for fortune valour diligence and fidelity assuredly inferiour unto none But beside the foresaid Reason this answer may be easily made by this Act they intended onely to exclude the Lords who now they were resolv'd to cast aside as unnecessary utencils of State as superstitious Reliques

of a Religion they had abolished and superfluous Pillars of a Royal Pallace they had overthrown mean while they by conspiring against the King did just as if the Starres should conspire against the Sun who gives them light or streams to dry up the fountain whecne they flow'd whence consequently every Glow-worm out shin'd them now and their swoln greatness which every one feared before was now at so low an ebbe as all fearlesly strid over them This I speak not with reflexion on them all for many did what their honours obliged them to and many what in conscience they imagined the best but though all were not equally in fault all were equally involv'd i th punishment and 't is a kind of original sin in the Nobility whose stain will never out of their posterity Now General he was not like those Images which lessen with their height but the higher he was advanc't the greater still he shewed and honours were to him but as fewel is to fire the more you cast on it you inflame it but the more and more vigorous and bravely active it becomes Expect not from me here the narration of all his military Actions as his conquering Ireland his subduing Scotland nor the many Battails he fought and wone till his finishing the war in England a field so great as travelling it or'e might well weary the longest winded History much more so short a breath'd Pamphlet as mine I 'le only briefly touch his Military vertues the soul that informed all those actions of his Every common Sergeant can set his men in ranke and file and every Sergeant of Battalia can order a Battalion but every one who knows to set the men knowes not to play the Mate to know his advantages and disadvantages in War how to improve his own and enervate the enemies force how dexterously to prevail himself of their weakness and to elude their strengths to know when they find them yielding how to presse them to an overthrow and then never permit them to rise again nor unite in one body having once routed them but scatter them as the wind does dust before its face These are the Arts of an expert General and all these he had unto perfection Now overcoming his enemies with celerity when there was danger in delay and now delaying againe when there was danger in celerity Who have always one manner of making war like Fencers who have alwayes one ward or play give main advantage to their enemies and teach them as well to offend them as defend themselves but who intervary the manner of their conduct still alwayes amuse perplex and dismay the enemy and put them quite beyond their skill and prevention Some times again he would set upon the foe and overcome them with half the numbers they brought to field and at other times bring double their numbers to over-power them When presumption renders an enemy negligent he with few forces may be overcome but when despair makes them valiant then greater forces are requisite to gain the victory Mean time this is a general rule in war to enterprize easie things as difficult and difficult as easie better to avoid too much despair or negligence in themselves It is the prudent observation of a moderne Writer that the ballancing our forces just with the enemies has been the losse of many battails they might have gained onely by putting more into the scale occasions and difficulties in war still growing like our bodies and childrens coats will soon become too little for them unless we make them bigger then their measures are at first But let us pass from the field unto the town and take the prospect of the Parliament on which the eyes and attentions of all were fixt and attent the war now finished They fancying a prescription perhaps as well against the Kingdom as the King thought of nothing but perpetuating their reign and were become by this time so imperious as one might sadly say of them what pleasantly was said of them in former times that England now had four hundred Kings in lieu of one As there is no greater Liberty for the Subject then the moderate Government of one so there is no greater Tiranny then the immoderate Government of many none knowing whom to obey where every one commands nor who to please when every one is displeased with what he commands not they always disagreeing amongst themselves to free us from which Tiranny the Army was as necessary now as were Parliaments to free us from the Tiranny of Kings before In brief thus stood the case that cittadel and fortresse of the peoples Liberty being in manner fortified against them now by those whom they had intrusted with its custody what should he the peoples General do but take it in and eject and cast them out far from any intention to demolish it but only to man it with others more faithfully to the peoples trust When strait with joyfull acclamations of all he was proclaimed their Protector and Governour not to leave the Commonwealth as monstrous now without a head as 't had been with so many heads before And who indeed could better deserve that title then he who not onely protected us from our forraign and domestick enemies but also from our selves the greatest and dangeroust enemies of all when passion rises in rebellion against Reason the multitude whose liberty is madnesse never imagining that they are free so long as reason rules and governs them in which case even their dearest friends use constraint and force to hinder them from mischieving others and themselves and for this end chiefly the Army was still kept on foot Though there wanted not other Reasons the war still continuing which the Parliament had ingaged us in against the Hollander which he so happily concluded and brought to end as 't is hard to say whether the war or peace he made was more honourable or advantagious to the English Nation our maritine forces rendred by it formidable unto all we absolute and sole masters of the Sea and every where soveraign Arbiters of peace and war For the Spanish war which next succeeded this on what motives so ever underta'n the enterprize certainly was great and glorious though the event every where answer'd not our expectation When Princes through distance of place are forc't to hear and see with others ears and eyes and act with others hands and fortunes they never can be so truly inform'd of things nor carry on the war so vigorously and fortunately as when they see and hear and fight themselves However though in the Spanish Indies we fail'd of that success was hoped for yet if that Artificer was highly praised for the greatnesse of his mind who would have contriv'd mount Athos reaching from Earth to Heaven into one intire Statue of Alexander the Great to shew the mightiness of his actions what praises does he deserve of England who intended the erecting of the whole Indies