Selected quad for the lemma: word_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A54412
|
The six secondary causes of the spinning out of this vnnaturall warre by D.P.P.
|
D. P. P.
|
1644
(1644)
|
Wing P16; ESTC R210030
|
65,302
|
100
|
the true and faithfull Messengers of God that are among us might then be bold to propound to the people in their Sermons and publike Exhortations as r Elijah did to the People of Israel this Quaerie If the Lord be God follow him If Baal follow him for we cannot halt any longer between two opinions Moreover this Galimafrey of Sects and Religions and the licentious profane and impious men that shelter themselves in our Armies in the Citie and Counties are the very s Achans that are the cause of all our disgraces for they foment the contentions that arise between our Commanders in Chiefe betweene their Officers between the Lievtenants and the Committees of our Counties Nay they dare presume to foment them in our Senate Assembly between the Magistrates in our Militia Hals Citie and between the Citizens and Common People to the end they may subsist and fish in the muddy waters of these Civill distractions And therefore there is no likelihood that a true Reformation may be procured before these Sectaries and licentious persons be banished into the unknowne Islands that the venome of their contagious tenents may not infect no more any of the simple or ignorant souls of these three Kingdomes I am not ignorant that the Honourable Houses were very fervent at the beginning of this Parliament to give the precedencie of this intended Generall Reformation to the affaires of the Church and to the restoring of the Puritie of the Service and Worship of God and withall to have cleansed the Kingdom of this vermine of Sectaries and accursed thing of licentious and impious men as a most proper and peculiar work for such wise and pious Senators But alas our sins were the cause that this fervour was quenched and that holy resolution retarded by the cunning of Satan and the deluding insinuations of his agents I meane of the Prelacie and Jesuiticall faction which under the colour of the publike good infused the venome of these contagious positions into the hearts of men That there was neither Wisdome nor Policy to establish so speedily the Presbyterial Discipline in the Church of England because it would deprive the Parliament of the great contributions that might be collected out of the multitudes of these Sectaries that would rather goe beyond the Seas or side with the enemy then to submit or conforme themselves to that Discipline and that it were safer to delay till these differences were nearer to an Accommodation Wise and carnall men but blind and ignorant in spirituall things this Counsell being like to prove as fatall unto them as the counsel that t Ahithophel gave to Absalom to enter into his Fathers Concubines at noone day that he might make him uncapable of reconciliation with his father was to himselfe for it was as pernicious in a two-fold manner 1. That the Contributions of these Sectaries might prove among the Contributions of the Children of God as the mothers that breed or come in a piece of rich cloth that consume and spoile the same in a short time 2. That by the conniving at these Sectaries against the speciall Word of God we might be made irreconcileable with our gracious and heavenly Father And for to make this pernicious Counsell more plausible they said it was the Policy of the Hollanders that doe indeed give a free Toleration to all sorts of Religions because they are of all the Nations of Christendome the most addicted to the Laodicean Temper and will doe any thing for gain But this carnall Policy of theirs is like to prove fatall unto them for this Toleration of Religions hath already fomented so many divisions and contentions among them that will in all probabilitie be the cause of their ruine if they prevent it not by a speedy and a cordiall repentance for a Kingdome or a Common-weale divided within it selfe cannot u subsist And it is a wonder and a great mercy of God that we are not already consumed for never was a Kingdome more rent with divisions and contentions then England is Now it stands not with the Honour wisedome and pious inclination of the honourable Houses of Parliament to prefer carnall Counsels before the good of the Church of God They may be as prudent as serpents and as simple as doves but to allow of or connive at a small evill to avoide a greater it is not convenient to the Zerubbabels and the Nehemiahs of our times they are rather to say Should such a x man as I slee or should such men as we displease God in conniving for a time at Sectaries for their Contributions Alas these contributions are vanished away like the chaffe that is driven away by a whirle wind such a blow as we have had of late in the West would swallow three yeares of their Contributions and who can tell if it were not for their Toleration that it was given us and that these warres might have been ended two yeares agoe but for them But I am sure that y Achan was to be stoned before the Army of Israel could overcome Ai And that z Ionah was to be cast over-board into the sea before the ship and the Marriners could obtaine a calme Nay the erectors of our New Jerusalem are to be like Moses that rejected the honours riches and the pleasures of Egypt to suffer reproach and affliction with his brethren the Children of God And like Zerubbabel and Nehemiah that forsooke the great preferments that they had at the Court of Cyrus and of Artaxerxes the two great Kings of Persia for to erect the second Temple and restore the puritie of the ancient Service of the Jewes Now so much more as the building of this New Jerusalem doth exceed in worth and infatigable labour the reedifying of the old and as much as the restauration of the puritie of the Service and of the true Worship of God doth exceed the ancient Service of the Jewes So much should the Zerubbabels and the Nehemiahs of our daies endeavour to exceed in courage fervour and zeale in this great worke and acceptable Service of the Lord I meane in perfecting this true Reformation in hand But because they are but men and subject to the like passions and infirmities as we are we are all bound in generall and every one in particular to addresse our fervent prayers to the Throne of Grace That God will be pleased to indue them with all such abilities of courage resolution wisedome and unitie that they may speedily erect the foundations of this so long hoped for Jerusalem upon the Rock of the true Word of God that it may stand like Mount Sion for ever immoveable notwithstanding all oppositions whatsoever of the roaring waves of the swelling billowes and of the inraged seas of these Civill distractions to the great Glory of God to the everlasting Consolation of his Children and to the immortall honour of the Erectours The second Secondary Cause is The Delay of Iustice THe Heathen
to follow like a slave the Triumphant Chariot of Paulus Aemilius his Conquerour And yet it is not to be doubted but this King had wise Counsellours and Politicians about him but God had decreed that the Kingdome of Macedonia should be of the number of those Kingdomes that should exalt the Romane Monarchy 4. The omission of the opportunity that h Antiochus the great had to proclaime warre against the Romanes when their forces were busied in Macedonia was the cause that he was defeated in divers battels constrained to make a dishonourable peace with the Romanes and that Armenia the great was presently after brought under the Romane yoke by Lucullus and Pompeius neither did this great Monarch want great Politicians and experienced Commanders for Hannibal attended at his Court but God had decreed that his large Dominions should increase the Romane Empire 5. The omission of the opportunitie that Mounsieur the i Lautrec Generall of the French in the Kingdome of Naples had to take the Citie of Naples if he had pursued the Prince of Orange as the rules of warre required after he had routed his Army was the cause of this valiant Commanders death and the losse of the whole Kingdome of Naples 6. The omission of the opportunity of an houres time that Henry the fourth k King of France had to defeat the Duke of Parme and all his Army at a strait passage leading to the ford of a small River three small Leagues from Paris where he had purposed to fall upon him was the cause he was constrained to raise his siege and to see before his face that great City relieved that was then reduced to extreme Misery by want of Provisions This slip of opportunity proceeding certainly from the secret will of God that decreed that Paris should be yeelded presently after to the will and obedience of her lawfull Prince without the shedding of a drop of bloud for Henry the fourth was one of the most active and experienced Commanders of that Age Now I come to prove by Instances out of the Word of God that all opportunities are guided and directed by the speciall providence of God 1. The favourable opportunity of l Rebekah comming the first of all the Virgins to the well according to the request of Abrahams servant cannot be said to be accidentall for the circumstances doe so clearly manifest that it was guided by a speciall Providence of God 2. The gracious opportunity of the m Ishmaelites comming by presently after Josephs brethren had cast him into a Pit that he might be sold and led into Egypt to become the preserver of all his fathers family came not casually but by a speciall and gracious providence of God proceeding from the love and care he hath of his Children 3. The blessed opportunity of n Pharaohs daughter comming down to wash her selfe at the River Nylus was not accidentall but directed by an admirable Providence of God to save Moses that he might be instructed in all the Sciences of the Egyptians to be more able to discharge the great and honourable charge the Lord had appointed him unto viz. to be the deliverer of his elected people of Israel that groaned under the cruell bondage of the Egyptians 4. The favourable opportunity for o Saul of the losse of the Asses of Kish his father came not accidentally but by a speciall Providence of God that Saul might be privately anointed King of Israel according to the will and pleasure of the Lord neither did those signes that the Prophet Samuel told him he should meet withall upon the way as he returned homeward happen casually but by the speciall Providence of God that the words he had spoken by his Prophet concerning the election of Saul to the Crowne of Israel might be confirmed 5. The gracious opportunity that p Hushat tooke by the fore-lock to overthrow the wise Counsell of Ahithophel came not accidentally but by an admirable Providence of God that Ahithophel might for his former impious Counsell concerning King Davids concubines runne head-long to confusion notwithstanding his worldly wisdome and that Absalom should receive the just reward of his persidious and abhorred rebellion against so loving a Father 6. The blessed opportunity that q Hezekiah King of Judah tooke upon the blasphemies of Rabshakeh against God and the Temple of Jerusalem to goe up into the House of the Lord and there rehearsed all the words of Rabshakeh and rent his clothes and humbled himselfe greatly was the cause that the Lord hearkened to his prayer and sent one of his Angels into the Camp of the Assyrians and smote one hundred and fourescore thousand of his men and caused Sennacherib to returne the same way he came 7. The gracious opportunity that r Nehemiah tooke upon the King Artaxerxes notice of his dejected countenance for his extraordinary humiliation because of the desolation of Jerusalem was the cause that he obtained a Commission from the King to erect again the Temple of Jerusalem and to restore there the true worship of God and to deliver from Captivity many thousands of the Jewes 8. The blessed opportunity that Queene s Esther took by the fore-lock to petition to the King Ahasuerus when he was invited to her banket for the preservation of herself and of her people was the cause of one of the greatest blessings that ever happened to the Church of the Jewes for it was the cause of the preservation of all the Nation of the Jewes and of the House and Family of King David from which our blessed Saviour according to the flesh was to descend and therefore an incomparable blessing By these and the former Instances we may see that the observations or omissions of all Spirituall Civill and Military opportunities depend upon the speciall Providence of God and that they are guided and directed by it to that end that God in his wisedome knowes to be most convenient to conduce to the greater advancement of his glory and the good of his Church And that we are to addresse our humble supplications to him alone if we intend for the future to prevent the slips of such opportunities as he shall be pleased to afford unto us againe or be able to embrace them as so many gracious mercies of his favour to us in Christ And that we are also to humble ourselves before our gracious God for having hitherto so carelesly omitted ten speciall opportunities that might greatly have conduced to obtaine a blessed peace and to procure a happy Period to this Unnaturall Warre if he had been pleased to have given us the grace to have embraced them by which omission of ours and by as many more faire opportunities omitted by the other party by the like Providence of his we may be perswaded upon a sure ground since it is his pleasure to poise in the balance of his divine Justice the events of this Unnaturall Warre so equally that our Humiliation