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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
hand_n	good_a	lord_n	way_n	4,350	5	4.5759	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89259	Protection proclaimed (through the loving kindness of God in the present government) to the three nations of England, Scotland, and Ireland: wherein the government established, in the Lord Protector and his council, is proved to be of divine institution; and the great stumbling-block of thousands of Christians (in regard of his title) removed; proving it to be none other than what hath been given to those whom God hath made instrumental for his peoples deliverance of old. / Written to satisfie unsatisfied consciences, by John Moore, a well-wisher to the peace of our English Jerusalem.	Moore, John, of Wechicombe, near Dunster, Somerset.	1655 (1655)	Wing M2562; Thomason E860_5; ESTC R206643	17,676	24

heart that he did animate the Captains that were with him to tread upon the necks of five Kings saying Come neer put your feet upon the necks of them And Joshua said unto them Fear not nor be dismayed be strong and of good courage for thus shall the Lord do to all your enemies against whom ye fight After the death of Joshua the people fell away from following the Lord and the Lord afflicted them by the hands of the Midianites And they cried unto the Lord who for his Names sake appointed Gideon to be their Protector from the spoil of the Midianites who being but of a mean Family in Israel spake thus unto the Angel of the Lord O my Lord wherewith shall I save Israel behold my Family is poor in Manasseth and I the least in my Father's house And the Lord said unto him Surely I will be with thee and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man After the death of Gideon in their distress he gave them Jephtha one of a small reckoning amongst them in their prosperity After Jephtha Sampson was given them to be their Deliverer from the hands of the Philistines Thus did God of old appoint men of his own chusing to be Head in the Government of his people and furnished them with parts suitable thereto and raised them from a low estate to honour and renown Thirdly is it the Title of Protector that thou stumblest at then consider that the Title of Protector was a Title given to the Governours of Israel long before they had a King to reign over them for I will ask thee this single Question What difference there is between a Protector and a Saviour I finde then in Scripture that this Title of Saviour God hath formerly conferr'd upon those Worthies that have been faithful Instruments in his hand to go in and out before his people against his and their Enemies which Title Nehemiah acknowledgeth chap. 9. 27. Therefore thou deliveredst them into the hands of their enemies who vexed them and in the time of their trouble they cried unto thee thou heardst them from heaven and according to thy manifold mercies thou gavest them a Saviour who saved them out of the hand of their enemies And this Title I clearly apprehend shall continue to those that shall be for the time to come instrumental in the hand of God for the safety of his people God having promised by the Prophet Isaiah That he will restore to his people Judges as at first and their Counsellors as at the beginning that Zion shall be redeemed with judgement and her converts with righteousness and the Title that they shall have at that time when such deliverance shall be wrought shall be Saviours or Protectors there being no difference as I know between Salvation and Protection and that this shall be the Title of honour which God will give to such a better name than that of Sons read the last Verse of the Prophet Obadiah where it is thus written And Saviours shall come up on Mount Zion to judge the Mount of Esau and the Kingdoms shall be the Lord's But because I have written somewhat more of my minde concerning these and other Scriptures of like nature in the ensuing Treatise I shall refer thee to it for thy further satisfaction desiring that thy judgment may not be blinded by thy own will which if it be not I hope thou wilt have as much satisfaction in reading it as I had in writing it which is the main desire of him who unfeignedly desireth the Peace and Welfare of his Country J. Moore A Word to the Servants of Christ in Covenant with him through Grace and in fellowship together under the Ordinances of the Gospel I Do wonder and admire that so few of you have given publick Testimony of your affection to the present Government established amongst us through the providence of the Almighty which makes me conceive it hath an ill savour amongst you or out of a tenderness of Conscience to the exaltation of Christ's Kingdom and longing for his reign you cannot fully close with it Now I beseech you Brethren from the tender love of my Soul to the Peace and Welfare of your Souls and Bodies that you will without prejudicate thoughts weigh these two or three Considerations in the balance of your Spirits First consider That the chiefest ground of all our Engagements Watchfulness Weariness Painfulness the shedding of our own and friends dearest Blood yea the Prayers and Tears that have been offered before the Lord in your several Congregations hath been for the full Enjoyment of Freedom and Liberty in the service of Christ from the coercive compulsions of bloody persecuting penal Statutes and now it is granted both from God and by Oath from his Highness the Lord Protector to the utmost of his power to be protected in it as if we were already weary of it we hate the Instrument by which it is confirmed Secondly consider the frame of your own Spirits at present with what they once were when such Freedom and Liberty was precious to you would you not once have owned almost any civil Government that would have granted that spiritual Freedom which we now enjoy I dare be bold that if the late King had proclaimed such Liberty to his Subjects he had been alive to this day except sickness had cut him off and that the people of God in England formerly called by the name of Puritans to whom such Freedom was precious would have laid their Bodies and Estates at his feet to manifest their affection And pray you what is the reason that we are so dull so dead and so void of our publick manifestation of affection to him that with the often hazarding his life hath been made instrumental in the hand of God to purchase it for us yea we are so far from declaring our affection that a great part of us swell with hatred towards him an evil requital for his labour of love towards us for if you well consider how many fell away to the Enemy and sought our destruction and others that had been admirable Instruments for a season threw up their Commissions refusing to act any further and how he I mean the Lord Protector that now is never refused to act for that Freedom we now enjoy but like another Joshua or Caleb followed the Lord fully in the work that he was called to and left us not till we had enjoyed that Liberty in the Gospel that we long looked for except we are blinde and can't see when good cometh I say If we consider these things we have not the least cause to manifest the least disaffection either to the Government or the Person to whom it is given but contrariwise hearty affection with all cheerfulness that we can Thirdly Measure the disposition of your Spirits with the Saints in the primitive times of the Gospel and you 'l finde that such peaceable Liberty which we enjoy under the present Government

Sword in Christendom since the time of Scanderbeg and that if it were against a Forrain Nation they would as faithfully and as cheerfully serve under his Command as under any one in the world And that at last the very name of him was such a terror to them that they could not force on their Men to fight if they knew he was in the Field A valiant and a couragious General strikes terror to the heart of an Enemy although the number on his party be but few The very name of Gideon struck terror into the hearts of the Midianites that lay as Grashoppers for multitude yea at the very report of the Sword of the Lord and of Gideon they fled and were discomfited though he had but three hundred men with him The Prowess and gallant Atchievments of the Army since he was their Head in chief in bringing to subjection a potent enemy in three Kingdoms and setling them in peace and quietness except a few hot-spurs that bit their tongues with the very anguish of their spirits against him and clandestinely making a pit for his life they fell into it themselves hath made all the Nations stand amazed with admiration His Understanding and Judgement both in religious and civil affairs is acute and sharp whereby he is able to judge the differences of the one and with wonderful policy to act in the other for the protection and safety in civil affairs of the three Nations Therefore laying aside all envy heart burnings dislike contempt hatred enmity meditations of division murmurings repinings grudgings at the Government and at the honourable Exaltation of the Person who in submission to God is dignified with the Titie of Lord Protector it behoves all the good people of the three Nations cheerfully and cordially to submit unto it and acknowledge it a Mercy that God hath placed such an one over them that hath been a chief instrument in his hand an invaluable Liberty to purchase for them and is tender and careful of the continuance of it for for my own part I look upon it as one of the greatest mercies that ever England enjoyed and that it behoves all the faithful in the three Nations to submit unto it let them consider these things First Seeing that if there must be a Government till Christ shall come let such a Government be acknowledg'd that comes nearest to Christ and truely for my part it is clear to me that this Government now established comes nearer to Christ for reasons before alledg'd then any that I have read of since Christs incarnation whose coming is prepared as the morning which breaketh forth clearer and clearer to the perfect day Let us not then be angry at the Sun because it is not in the height of the Firmment so soon as the day breakes but let 's wait upon God as he moves in exaltation for he that believes will not make haste learn what that means and be not like the Israelites of old who fell out with Moses because they did not presently enjoy the land of Canaan which he had promised them Secondly consider that there can be no breach made against this Government but by Civil discord and bloody division amongst our selves and except we delight in embruing our hands in one anothers blood we will not hearken to any Seditious Principle And I beseech you dear Friends and Country-men lay to heart the miserable desolation of Jerusalem who though they were exceeding strong and Victorious against an enemy whilest they were united yet what bloody slaughters and unheard-of massacres were wrought amongst them by the civil discord of Seditious Captains and their siding one against another truly my very heart hath bled within me to read of it What ruine and misery did the seditious discord of Corah Dathan and Abiram and those two hundred fifty Princes of the congregation that came to Moses and told him that he took too much upon him to rule over them the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up part of them and fourten thousand seven hundred were consumed by a noyson Plague which shews the great wrath of God revealed from heaven against seditious principles amongst his own people quarreling at that Government and Governour whom he had placed over them Now I beseech you if you would not have your Country made an Akeldama nor the channells of your Cities and Towns run down with blood if you would not see your Wives and Daughters ravish'd before your faces and the brains of your little ones dashed against the walls if you would not hear your children cry to you for a bit of bread when you have none to give them and your selves stagger and reel in the streets for want of bread to support you feeble bodies would you not be drag'd by the hair of the head from your several meetings in the worship of God would you not have your blood mixt with your Prayers would you not have the eyes of all your comforts put out would you not grinde in the mill of a cruel enemy if you love your lives and liberties or any thing that is dear if you value christian liberty at any price if you count it worth any thing let no principle of sedition against the present Government be entertained amongst you least you repent it when it is too late There is no other way left to the enemy for to break in upon us but our own sedition and divisions consider how forward the Devil hath been in all ages to blow with his mouth at such a coale and what unquenchable flames he hath blown them to 't is that the enemy stands gaping for you cannot do them a greater pleasure how do they laugh in their sleeves when they hear of such a thing 'T is Nuts for them you cannot offer them a greater present 't will make them more pastime then all the Play-houses in London Remember how the Lords of the Philistines sent for Sampson to make them sport the Nations that are round about us that are our enemies they hate us already with a bitter hatred and wait for an opportunity to do us any mischief they can this way they hope to breake in upon us even our disaffection to the Government and divisions amongst our selves if you think it cannot be why Jerusalem thought the same yea their enemies thought so too Jeremiah in his Lamentations breaks forth into these words The Kings of the earth and all the inhabitants of the world would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entred into the gates of Jerusalem Lam. 4. 12. Let us frustrate all their hopes then of bringing us into a two-fold slavery of conscience and body by a resolvedness of heart to submit unto that Government under which we enjoy unspeakable liberty considering that in the destruction of it lyeth our absolute ruine and misery For I must tell you whosoever you be that cannot see it and own it to be of God ye are

either as a common enemy possest with desperate envy or else as seeming friends with rash judgement of blind zeal But for my own part I am satisfied in this one thing that there have been very few in former ages if any at all whom God hath made choice of and by providence kept and preserved to Rule over his people but some of their friends have either enviously maglign'd them or else clandestinely sought their harm Joseph speaks to his brethren of God's exalting him above them and they presently conspire his death Moses although he had oftentimes endangered his life before Pharaoh for the Israelites and was instrumental in the hand of God for their freedom yet could scarcely get a good word from many of them they could ask him Who made him a Ruler and a Judge over them And Corah and his confederates could tell him to his face that he took too much upon him they were as good as he It is written of them in the Psalms that it did proceed from envie Psal 106.16 They envied Moses also in the Camp and Aaron the Saint of the Lord. Gideon found but small kindeness at their hands for all his service done for their safety So that Ephraim chid him very sharply the like requitall had Jephtha from Epbraim because he did not acquaint them with his proceedings they threatned to burn his house over his head Sampsons friends for his service could binde him and deliver him to the Philistines how often was Sauls Javelin cast at David enviously because the Lord was with him and had exalted him into the peoples affection and love So that it s no marvail though he whom God hath made instrumental for the peace and tranquillity of his people in England do meet with the like ingratitude from some of them I have observed this for a real truth that if envy do fancy evil in a good man it will both write and speak against him as if he were the vilest man alive because it is both blind and is such a passion that will have no pacification Did ever any Generall in this world engage for a people and obtain Victory but he was made Ruler over them Would not a Virgin if she be forcibly ravished against her will and should be delivered out of the ravishers hand by some other man Would she not all the dayes of her life love and honour and respect the rescuer sure I think she would or else she were very ungrateful Is not the conscience more pure then the body the defilement of the body is nothing to the pollution of the conscience the ravishment of the body is nothing to the forcing of the conscience If then he hath stood up faithfully and stoutly to rescue us from the bloody penall persecuting Lawes of Tyranny over the conscience if we do not all the dayes of our lives love honour and respect him we are as ungrateful a people both to God and to him the instrument in chief as ever were in the world and cannot in conscience desire any good from him But the reasons as I apprehened why so many Christians zealously professing Christ are unsatisfied in their conscience at the establishment of the Government are these First the suddain appearance of it contrary to their thoughts and expectations because their thoughts and mindes were contented and satisfied in the Government of a Parliament not thinking in the least that God would have established any other Government in the Nation the appearance of such a Government which was directly contrary to their faith and premeditation of heart startles their Spirits and fills them not onely with doubt whether it be of God or no but with absolute perswasions that it was not of God Now then my dear Friends I would ask you this single Question If God will restore to his people Judges as at the first and Counsellors as at the beginning then whether or no that the ancient Commonwealth of Israel was not governed by Moses as a Protector who also had Counsellors with him by Joshua Gideon Jephtha and the rest before either Kings or Parliaments So that I cleerly see in the establishment of this Government the beginning of God's work in fulfilling his promise of primitive restitution of Judges and Counsellors as at the beginning before they were governed either by Kings or Parliaments All the Promises of God are yea and Amen Heaven and Earth shall pass away but not one jot or tittle of the promises of the Lord till all of them be fulfilled And I am sure that 's one Let us take heed then of murmuring at the appearance of the fulfilling of God's promises lest God hide it from us again as he did from the Children of Israel in Egypt God having told Abraham above four hundred yeers before That they should be Strangers in a Land that was not theirs and that they should be afflicted four hundred yeers and that afterwards he would bring them forth of it the time being come that God would accomplish his promise in his own secret will and determinate counsel he did purpose to make it good by the hand of Moses who when he was full forty yeers old God put it into his heart to visit his Brethren the Children of Israel and seeing one of them suffer wrong he defended him and avenged him that was oppressed and smote the Egyptian for he supposed that his Brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them but they understood it not And when he would have made peace betwixt two of his Brethren that were at strife one of them asked him Who made thee a Ruler and a Judge over us at this saying Moses fled And forty yeers more affliction did God continue unto them for this one Murmurer Let our English Israelites consider this and take heed of murmuring and repining at the good hand of God in giving us a faithful and a careful Governour of his peoples Liberty lest God withdraw his hand and leave us and our children to a farther trial of Bondage The second I apprehend was and is this they did not wait upon the Lord nor seek unto him by prayer to know his minde and will in such a sudden Change so that in stead of waiting upon God and seeking unto him by prayer to know his minde and will therein supposing it not to be of God because it was contradictory to their thoughts and expectation they rather bent their mindes and studies to finde out something of corruption in it that might make it appear not to be of God and finding something in it which their Spirits did not disrelish they could not be satisfied that it was of God whereas I am confident if they had waited upon God and sought unto him by Prayer to know his minde and will in such an extraordinary change they had been satisfied and could not but have seen it to be of God A third Reason was they were afraid lest way would have been made by it for the induction and bringing in of such false worships as would embondage the free Spirits of the zealously godly people in the three Nations whereas provision is made to the contrary and their protection vowed yea and we shall enjoy it if we do not wilfully deprive our selves of it and by our own divisions make ourselves a prey to our enemies for that Proverb is certain true Whilest the Bore and Lion strives The Eagle waits for both their lives The meaning is whilst Friends contend Their Foes will spoil them in the end A fourth Reason was Because they were not made acquainted with it and so like Ephraim against Jephtha they were displeased with him though he had deserved no such thing at their hands Fifthly being formerly their equal they took it ill many of them that he should be exalted to rule over them therefore many of them thought and do still think that he hath taken too much upon him Corah and his Accomplices told Moses as much but the Holy Ghost commandeth us to rejoyce when a Brother of low degree is exalted for such a one is most fit for it especially being endowed with sutable qualifications as none alive I think can deny but that our present Lord Protector is and as prudent Counsellors for his Assistants So that in such a Government and such Governours to manage it let all the wel-affected people of the three Nations rejoyce Amen FINIS

Protection proclaimed through the loving kindness of God in the present Government to the three Nations of England Scotland and Ireland WHEREIN The GOVERNMENT Established in the Lord Protector and his Council Is proved to be of DIVINE INSTITUTION AND The great Stumbling-block of thousands of Christians in regard of his Title removed proving it to be none other than what hath been given to those whom God hath made instrumental for his Peoples Deliverance of old Written to satisfie unsatisfied Consciences By JOHN MOORE a well-wisher to the peace of our English Jerusalem Pray for the peace of Jerusalem Peace be within thy walls For my brethren and companions sake I will now say Peace be within thee Thus saith the Lord I will restore unto thee Judges as at first and Counsellors as at the beginning London Printed by J. C. for Henry Fletcher at the three Cups in Paul's Church-yard neer the West-end 1656. The Author's Address to God before he put Pen to Paper to write the ensuing Lines GReat God of heav'n thou God of Truth do thou my thoughts direct That I may write but what is right of Him who doth protect Subordinately to thy self this Land wherein I live A spirit of Discerning Lord do thou unto me give That I may clearly apprehend thy minde in this great Change And from thy minde and will therein let not my spirit range Let no contempt of him that rules harbour within my brest Since under him through providence tranquillity and rest And peace for tender Conscience is ratifi'd by Law A priviledge of Liberty which England scarce ere saw Let every tender Conscience be satisfi'd likewise Yea such a Liberty Lord grant that all of us may prize And from our very hearts and mindes acknowledge 't from above And own it as a special Pledge and Emblem of thy love That thou hast giv'n us one to rule whose soul desires the good Of all thy servants in this Land who for the Truth have stood To his Highness OLIVER By the Providence of God Lord Protector of England Scotland and Ireland and Dominions thereunto belonging J. M. wisheth length of days with Peace and Safety here and eternal Life with Christ in glory hereafter My Lord WIth the poor widow I have put in my Mite into the Publike Treasury of acknowledging the Lawfulness of submitting to the present Government in which the Eternal God hath invested Your Highness at this day I have taken the boldness to present it to Your Highness for these Reasons First because of all men you are most concerned in it Secondly because of all men it belongs most to you to patronize and protect the weak acknowledgements of submissive affectionate Obedience Thirdly that you may know that God is still owning you and working for you not onely by his Providence in protecting your Person against the secret Combinations of a common Enemy but by the more immediate working of his Spirit to the satisfying of the Consciences of many unsatisfied servants of Christ whether the present Government with its endowments be of God or no in which my own soul was very lately unsatisfied Fourthly that under your Protection and Patronization it may bring forth some fruit of Satisfaction to the Consciences of some others though never so few that are yet at enmity in their spirits against the Title and Dignity of the Government I have presented it to publike view for this Reason That the world may know that I am neither afraid nor asham'd to own acknowledge and confess the good hand and providence of the God of heaven and earth in exalting your Person to that Honour and Dignity and placing you as his hitherto undaunted and unwearied Servant in subordination to himself to sit at the Helm of Government as at this day Where sitting to govern it is the unfeigned desire of my soul for You and those Honourable men in Counsel with You That the Spirit of Christ may be your Guide the Power of Christ your Life-guard the Laws and Ordinances of Christ the Basis and Foundation of yours the Glory of Christ your greatest Aim the Advancement of the Gospel your greatest Glory the Flourishing of it your chiefest Joy That you neglect no oportunity of doing good when Christ commands it to be done and in your power to do it That in all your Undertakings and Counsels you may lay your selves open to the all-seeing eye of God that so you may escape that Curse which the Prophet Isaiah pronounceth against those that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord and their works are in the dark and they say Who seeth us and who knoweth us Isai 29.15 That your Body may possess as resolved a heart to keep touch with God in performing Vows and Promises made to him as there was in Jephthah who was once a General and a subordinate Protector in the hand of God of his people Israel from the hand of the children of Ammon who having opened his mouth unto the Lord was so careful of his promise that he parted with the dearest thing he had in the world his onely childe for beside her he had neither Son nor daughter Judg. 11.30 31 34 35. The further desire of my soul for your Highness is That God would give you not onely a spirit of discerning to see where injustice and iniquity doth yet remain and continue amongst the people but also a free and resolved spirit to improve such power as God hath put into your hand for the speedy reforming and purging of it out That your Council-chamber may be free from evil Counsels and false-hearted dissembling Counsellors That both your Highness and your Council may be of one heart and one minde free from all manner of dissention and discord because that Concordiâ parvae res crescunt Discordiâ magnae dilabuntur That your Courtly Attendants may be men of upright and faithful hearts fearing God and hating Vice That all other inferiour Officers in their several places subject to the Power by which they act may discharge their duties with care and conscience void of Dissimulation and Hypocrisie not from Fear but Affection to the Government which they seem to own That the Army and Navie may be at peace in themselves free from the least Mutiny That all unsatisfied Consciences touching the Legality of the Government may be satisfied That all heart-burnings of the People against it may be quenched through their causless complainings in the streets of Tyranny and Oppression And lastly That the God of heaven would more and more enrich your Valiant heart with all such endowments of Grace Wisdom and Vertue as becomes the minde and person of a Christian Potentate is and shall be the continual prayer of Your Highness most affectionate Servant upon all just Commands John Moore The Epistle to the Readers My Friends if I may call you so I Dare be bold many of you will admire and wonder especially those of you to whom I am known

at this my publike Testimony of affectionate Loyalty to the present Government having hitherto scarcely given the least solid Testimony of it for I must confess at the first appearance of it I was as many thousands beside troubled in my minde and unsatisfied in my conscience concerning it and the reason why as I now apprehend was because according to the determinate counsel of God who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will it was brought forth and established before it was so much as thought of so that the sudden appearance of it did startle many thousands of tender-hearted Christians lest Christ thereby should lose his honour and glory out of which tenderness to the honour of Christ many dear servants of God without deliberate consideration or without waiting to know the minde of God in such a Change did presently rashly and in my apprehension unadvisedly give publike testimony of the dislike of their spirits to the Government and the enmity of their hearts to the Person to whom God hath given it Whereupon the Common Enemy although before utterly vanquished in the Field seeing his dear Friends and Companions declare their open enmity against him and their dislike of the Government do take to themselves fresh Courage and re-animate themselves to plot and contrive his death who had so many times jeoparded his life for the peace and safety of his new declared * Discontented Friends Enemies nor is it unknown to England that at length it brake forth into an open Hostile Insurrection which if it had taken effect what could those his discontented friends have expected but the utter ruine of themselves and their Families and the absolute undoing yea beggery of all their innocent friends in England for their dislike of the present Government would not have quit them of their former enmity against the Royal party of the Kings Army unless they would as others had done before them return to their vomit But by this time me thinks I hear some Reader say that I have wrote this Testimony of my affection to the Government established in the Protector and his Council for some by-ends and self-respects and not from a real satisfaction of Conscience I do therefore give such to know that I take God to witness who knows the secrets of all hearts and as I believe I shall one day stand before the Judgement-seat of Christ to give an account of my faith and all deeds done in the flesh from thence That it is from a fully-satisfied Conscience of the lawfulness of submitting to it and from a full resolution to the utmost of my power to own it so far as it hath hitherto declared it self yea though it be to the laying down of my life which with his Higness to whom God hath given the Power I have heretofore been free and willing to do having still as I have alwayes had since I had the least knowledge of the worth of Christian Liberty this Motto upon the Shield of my minde Praestat emori per Virtutem quam per Dedecus vivere Esteeming it a thousand times better to resign my Heart-blood for the Testimony of my Conscience at the feet of an Enemy than to live in contempt and disgrace in obedience to his will The same resolution I finde to be in Sampson although I am a worm and nothing in comparison of him who rather than he would live in disgrace to the Philistines whose professed Enemy he had formerly been and be a laughing stock to them he desired of God that he might die with them a remarkable pattern and worthy of a serious survey of all English godly men and else that have openly engaged against the late King and his party that if we through our own divisions and dissatisfaction one towards another should suffer a vanquished Enemy to break in upon us it would fare full as evil with us as it did with Sampson all that we have would soon be taken from us the eyes of our comfort would soon be put out and we should see that Freedom and Liberty that we have in the Gospel no more our consciences bound to all their impositions with brazen Fetters and be forced to grinde in the Mill of their cruelty not a bit of bread should we eat but with sorrow of heart our lives would be bitter to us yea our lives would be a heavy burthen to us every one of us from the highest to the lowest would be a Sampson to make them sport and pastime and the main Petition of our Prayer to God would be for death So that there is no way left us visibly appearing to escape these things but to retain the strength of affection to the present Government under which we sit down under our Vines and Fig-trees of spiritual freedom and none to make us afraid Now Reader whoever thou art that hast formerly engaged with him whom God hath exalted to the Supreme place of Civil Government in subjection to himself over the three Nations of England Scotland and Ireland and yet canst not fully close with him in it nor art satisfied in thy conscience whether thou mayest lawfully do it If the Testimony of the Word of God recorded in Scripture especially or if Reason will satisfie thee I have here presented thee with both by which I my self was convinced and my conscience satisfied If it be the change of the Government it self consider that such an extraordinary and unheard-of change of Government in a Christian Nation could not have been but by the special hand and determinate counsel of God who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will Secondly is it the exaltation of his person from a low estate to such a height of greatness and honour that is a stumbling in thy way of affection consider what the Scripture saith Psalm 75.6.7 Promotion comes neither from the East nor from the West nor from the South but God is the Judge he putteth down one and setteth up another Compared with 1 Sam. 2. 7 8. The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich he bringeth low and lifteth up he raiseth up the poor out of the dust and lifteth up the begger from the dung-hill to set them among Princes and to make them inherit the Throne of Glory for the pillars of the earth are the Lord's and he hath set the world upon them But I pray thee without prejudice of Spirit or hatred of Heart to his person whom God hath exalted amongst us Consider the persons whom God hath of old exalted over his people for their protection and safety What honour and glory did God exalt Joseph to whose Father Jacob was but a Shepherd Moses was a poor Shepherd yet chosen of God to be a Governour of his own people Joshua the Son of a poor Israelite and a Servant of Moses after his death had the command of Government over the people because he followed the Lord fully and the Lord emboldned him with a couragious