Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	government_n	king_n	people_n	13,729	5	4.9406	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66712	Honest plain dealing, or, Meditations and advertisements offered to publick consideration by John Winter ...	Winter, John, 1621?-1698?	1663 (1663)	Wing W3080; ESTC R38147	25,168	35

forget our friends old acquaintance and their good offices I once knew I do not propound him for imitation a Gentleman Pensioner to that glorious Prince of ever blessed memory King Charles the First that good King had too many such servants who having been oft liberally entertained and adored by a simple honest Countrey-man as often professed binding himself with desperate oaths whereof he had alwayes a great stock at command to do him remarkable favours upon all occasions It fortuned that the Countrey man fell into an unhappy Law-suit which beyond his expectation led him to Westminster where casually meeting with his old Courtier who was every mans humble servant and no mans true friend he took the boldnesse to scrape acquaintance on him supposing that he had been the same man he formerly was in the Countrey But this Grand Seignior with an ugly look and a rough greet made his modest Gaius face about and revoke acquaintance and having so shaked him off he said to a person standing by Do you see this rude impertinent fellow This Hob-nail-slave said he is so ill bred that he is not able to disting uish between a Gentlemans words and his meaning God defend us from such nice distinctions unworthy actions narrow hearts and large consciences And in all Courts and places of Judicature conscience would do exceedingly well and might befriend many a man more than a peny in his purse Could we see the poor mans case defended we should be fully perswaded that there were such a thing as a Court of Equity and Conscience But he that sues in formâ pauperis seldome prevails contrà materiam divitis but keeps his old form it faring with him in his case as with man in his birth and death Naked he comes in and naked he goes out Yet we have an Advocate General with God the Father Jesus Christ the Righteous 1 Joh. 2. who ought to be imitated by all Advocates considering no man shall be able to plead his own case without him And he takes delight to help the helplesse and the oppressed and made himself poor to enrich his clyents I shall not descend into all particulars because Inferiours would think it honourable to be conscientious might they see conscience honoured by the practice of their Superiours Oh it is a precious thing to have a good conscience as once said a Member of a Court of high Injustice Indeed he was able to tell how good a thing it was by the want of it and he knew the price of it having parted with it upon terms felling himself to work wickedness Thus have I been too long and yet not enough upon this subject I hope good people will pardon my plainness It is a case of conscience and when I am in I love to speak my conscience Quarite Deum Seek God A Great task and a general Catholick for time place and person which whoso performes not doth nothing for the man that finds not God is lost for ever This duty must be exercised early earnestly constantly and rightly and where one of these circumstances fail the seeker is deficient in his duty 1. Early Early in the life early in the day Oh God Psal 63.1 Matth. 6.33 thou art my God early will I seek thee Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousnes But the worldlings rule is taken out of the Ethnick Poet O Cives Cives quaerenda pecunia primùm est virtus post nummos Oh Politicians Politicians seek ye money before all things and let virtue follow after pelf 2. Earnestly Thou shalt find him Deut. 4.29 if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul They who seek him by halfs find him not at all for as God is not divided so will he not be deluded 3. Constantly Seek the Lord and his strength Psal 105.4 seek his face evermore Not that we should be so ever seeking as never finding like those ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth But so ever seeking 2 Tim. 3.7 as ever finding some comfort and contentment and because ever finding therefore ever seeking For no man so well knows the Lord and his goodness but that he may and ought every day more and more grow into his knowledg favour and acquaintance 4. Rightly For God will not be found of them that seek him indirectly They that seek for glory and honour Rom. 2.7 and immortality their way is laid out unto them through patient continuance in well doing And at their journeys end is promised them that eternal life But they that seek a contrary way are there told they shall find a contrary thing Quaeram te Domine invocans te Cons invoeem te credens in te saith St Aug. Oh let me seek thee Lord calling upon thee and let me call upon thee believing in thee Indeed it is in vain for men to honour God with their lips when their hearts are far from him And now we cannot but sadly remember how this Nation hath been abused with a mock-seeking of God upon all evill occasions and wicked enterprizes We cannot forget what fastings prayers and humiliations we had appointed and all to seek God that the poor silly people might be amazed at the sound of inchanting words and made believe that God by the mouth of mercinary false prophets as by an infallible oracle did speak clearly in favour of the most pernicious practices and high impieties that ever were acted amongst a Christian people It was not enough to abuse me but they must needs put tricks upon the Almighty and intitle him to all manner of villany For the erecting of arbitrary power and cutting asunder the sinews of Laws and Government which are the safety of a people for the pillaging of the subject and stripping him of goods and liberty for the murdering of the innocent and loyall for the destruction of King and people for the subversion of the Church for all and every of these designes still the word was given out such a day ye must seek the Lord. I know not unto what to liken this kind of language proceeding out of such mealy mouths and hollow hearts but to the canting of Gypsies and Cutpurses who when they go about to pick mens pockets have a dialect by themselves to abuse the common people and evade justice And as the Dunce that his Father put out to Schoole made Latine for every thing in bombast ending in bus and bas and orum and arum so these men made these two words Seek God serve to signifie every thing that the Devil and themselves projected and acted When Saul sought his fathers asses he found not them but he found a kingdom 1 Sam. 9. beyond his expectation and the asses were found by another hand These men had something of Sauls success for they found a kingdom though they enjoyed it but a little time No more did he But he had a better title for they had neither Gods nor Samuels word for it notwithstanding all their seeking And therefore it is be feared they lost a better kingdom in pursuit of this And this must be confessed other mens folly advanced their craft raised their esteem for wise men and therewith their dignity For had not the Asses been found and brought to their hand they had never gotten the kingdom I hope the whole Land hereafter will beware of such seekers and avoid such seeking And what shall I more say of them they sought Christ Matth. 2. as Herod did with his men of war in hypocrisie and malice and not finding him they murthered and massacred the innocent They sought God as the mad fellow in the Fable sought his Wife that fell into the River and was drowned He sought and sought and raked and groped but he went such a way that he was sure never to find her for he went up the River and so alwayes sought quite against the stream so these men sought God against the stream and current of Scriptures Commandments Laws and Customes Canons Councils and Fathers and against the practice of all Primitive and Modern Christians Oh seek not death in the error of your life Wisd 1.12 nor pull upon your selves destruction by the works of your own hands THe height of impudence the depth of maliciousness the length of wilfullness and the breadth of licentiousness are the four Dimensions of a Fanatick body which hath neither right side nor right end FINIS

is no power or jurisdiction above it but that of God himself Conscience is the Jury of life and death and there is small hope that the Judge will save them whom conscience smally casteth off Joh. 3.20 If our heart condemn us God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things If our heart condemn us not then have we confidence towards God doing those things that are pleasing in his sight Now there being nothing in this world better than a good conscience and nothing worse than a bad one it will be a mans great business to know how a good conscience is gotten and how kept Every one by nature and in the state of corruption hath an evill a deadly and a filthy conscience And therefore primarily a good conscience and a pure and lively is obtained by the bloud of Jesus Christ and by faith in his merits The bloud of Jesus Christ who through the eternal Spirit Heb. 9.14 offered himself without spot to God doth purge a mans conscience from dead works to serve the living God And these words To serve the living God as they denote the true end wherefore Christ by his bloud did make our consciences pure and good so they shew us the right means of keeping and preserving a pure and a good conscience namely by serving the living God His service is perfect freedome and his service is taught us in the Moral Law the Ten Commandments which set forth our duty towards God and towards man And beyond this holy Rule or contrary to it there cannot be any such thing as Christian liberty or liberty of conscience Herein did the Apostle exercise himself Act. 24.16 to Have alwayes a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men And he that is so exercised hath a tender conscience And whatsoever is not repugnant unto some part of the Law of God contained in the Ten Commandments though perhaps it may go against mens humours and fancies cannot be said to be against conscience and so neither against Christian liberty because the divine Commandment is a perfect Law of liberty Ja. 1.25 No question it is a great sin to tyrannize over poor souls and to impose upon mens consciences things to make them stumble to weaken their faith Rom. 14.21 1 Cor. 8.9 and to corrupt their judgements and manners And God forbid that any should do so But all persons pretending conscience before they profess publick dissent from the Injunctions Canons and Constitutions of Authority should do well to be of a sure ground that the things they dissent from their brethren in are demonstratively of such a nature otherwise their liberty will appear to be but a cloak of maliciousness and that they preferre their own private conceits and perverse humours before either the peace of the Church or Gods honour And surely as all sinne defiles the conscience so none more than a schismaticall uncharitablenesse I could never yet see nor any other man I believe by what analogy or rationall argumentation the discourse of St Paul to the Romanes perswading to indulge the weak brethren about dayes and meats or that of his to the Corinthians about eating things offered to idols could be made as many would have it a common place against all order and discipline in the Christian Churches For the Apostle in the one dealt about Judaisme and in the other concerning Gentilisme and Paganish Idolatry And either of those bear as little reference or likeness to our Worship of God and Orders in the Church as there is concord between Christ and Belial or as there is coherence in our adversaries discourses There were in those Churches Jews and Gentiles mixed and many of the new converts of the Jews did still retain some of the Mosaicall observations and could not suddenly be weaned from them and some of the Gentile converts also had some smacks and sentiments of their old superstitions And the Apostle advised and enjoyned the more perfect and well grounded Christians to favour the others as much as lawfully they might and not to be bitter against them for their infirmities But the Apostle dealt not so with Hymeneus and Alexander 1 Tim. 1. v. last Tit. 1.11 nor yet doth he advise Titus to deal so gently with the seducers in Crete who subverted whole houses And surely a gentler hand is to be carried toward new converts than to inveterate refractarians and wilfull Apostatas Let conscience in the Name of God have its liberty But then let that liberty have a conscience Men make much talk of tender consciences but it is for the most part but a talk Jacobs voice and Esaus hands Quid verba audio cùm facta video Men shew their conscience as well as their faith by their works I believe Abraham had a tender conscience Gen. 13. because for peace-sake he gave way to his inferiour But I cannot think so of Corah and his party Numb 16. because they opposed their betters Abrahams conscience could not vary from his oath to take from the King of Sodom Gen. 14. so much as a threed or a shoe-latchet But I remember who sware and forced others to swear hand over head by vertue of which oath they scarce left the King or his loyall Subjects the worth of a threed or a shoe-latchet I believe David had a tender conscience 1 Sam. 24.5 because his heart smote him for cutting off Sauls skirt But I dare say Baanah and Rechab had not so because they slew Ishbosheth and cut off his head at his own house 2 Sam. 4.4 I am fully perswaded Josiah had a tender heart and a good conscience 2 Chron. 34. Chap. 35. because be restored the worship of God wept at the reading of the Law and set the Priests and Levites in their places and charges But I am sure Jeroboam had an evil heart and a bad conscience because he corrupted the worship of God and made Priests of the basest of the people 1 King 13.33 The conscience of the Saints in Davids time led them to worship fall down and kneel before the Lord their maker Ps 95. Many tell us now their conscience will not suffer them to do so Then their conscience did prompt them unanimously to go up together into the house of the Lord Ps 122. Now conscience is pleaded against coming thither In St Pauls dayes conscience taught men to be subject to Magistrates Rom. 13.5 Tit. 3.1 1 Pet. 2.13 Heb. 13.17 and to be ready to every good work to submit themselves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake and to obey them that had the spiritual rule over them and watched for their souls Now conscience is only named by a great many to shift off all duty and to affront all Authority What an Antidote against Caesar Shall we have conscience against conscience Conscience against God Conscience against Godlinesse Conscience against publick worship Conscience against