Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	act_n	king_n	parliament_n	3,554	5	6.8839	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B01385	An answer by an Anabaptist to the three considerations proposed to Mr. William Penn, by a pretended Baptists, concerning a magna charta for liberty of conscience.		1688 (1688)	Wing A3275A; ESTC R224289	11,692	18

An Answer BY AN ANABAPTIST TO THE Three Considerations Proposed to Mr William Penn By a pretended BAPTIST CONCERNING A MAGNA CHARTA FOR Liberty of Conscience Allowed to be Published this 10th Day of September 1688. LONDON Printed and Sold by Andrew Sowle at the Three Keys in Nags-Head-Court in Grace-Church-Street over-against the Conduit 1688. An Answer BY AN ANABAPTIST TO THE Three Considerations c. YOU desire All your Dissenting Brethren to Consider and then Answer 〈◊〉 have Consider'd but I cannot tell ●ther you suppose all Dissenters are 〈◊〉 Brethren or that all are your ●●hren who dissent from you If first It seems probable to me you have been either Educated in ●ange Soyl or have forgotten 〈◊〉 Brothers Dialect so that I can●● discern that you are any other●● a Baptist then only in Masquerade therefore am shy of owning the ●●tion But if all that dissent 〈◊〉 you must therefore be reckon'd 〈◊〉 Brethren then I am in that ●●ber and because I think Mr Penn not have so much leisure as my at present to attend upon your ●●es I intend to be in the first Rank your Respondents I consider also that though you have proposed but Three Considerations yet you have bolted out a Mulitude of Questions which administer an occasion for as many more to be retorted To your first Question Then What Validity or Security can any pretended or designed future New Law or Charter have when we see so many of the present Laws we already have may be and are by the Dispensing Power Dispensed with So many of the present Laws The Grievance then with you may lie rather in the Number than in the Dispensing Power His Majesty might with your leave perhaps have dispensed with some Persons and some Penalties too but not with so many altogether One would think by that you would not have Quarrel'd at the Dispensing Fower tho the Act for levying Twelve Pence a Week had never been Prosecuted so as the Twenty Pound a Month had been Levied nor if the Conventicle Act had been Dispensed with so as the Thirty fifth of Queen Elizabeth had been rigorously Executed I cannot tell how many but all the Laws that are Dispensed with are Penal Laws of a like nature for matters Ecclesiastical Uniformity Sacraments Oaths and Tests are the Subject of them all If this be your Grief you must be either a Conforming Baptist or such a strange sort of a Baptist as in my Forty Years Conversation among them I have never met with But to come more close to your Question What Validity can a New Law have seeing so many of these we have already are Dispensed with I Answer with a like Interrogation I grant that the King may do what his Royal Pleasure is with his own Does it thereupon follow that He may do so likewise with what is mine If I acckowledge and thankfully accept His Dispensing with a Penalty to which I am Obnoxious because I take a Liberty in matters of meer Religion which I am not allowed by Statute Laws Is it of necessry consequence that I therein acknowledge He may also impose a Fine upon me for lawfully using a Liberty when granted to me by Law It s hoped the designed New Charter for Repeal of such Penal Laws as are inconsistant with the Doctrines of Christianity will according to His Majesties Declaration both maintain the National Religion as it is now 〈◊〉 stablished by Law and provides 〈◊〉 such a Christian Liberty as may s● Ease and Secure the Consciences P●●sons and Properties of all that 〈◊〉 Live Soberly Righteously and God in this present Age whether they 〈◊〉 Conformists or Non-conformists 〈◊〉 the National Religion And a G●●● remains valid tho a Penalty may 〈◊〉 dispensed with But what if the New Law 〈◊〉 have no more Validity or Sec●●● then these Old Ones that are D●●●sed with The Dissenters will 〈◊〉 be in so much a better Case by a New Law as that they will then be Se●●● by Law whereas till that be done 〈◊〉 are always subject to be Ruin'd 〈◊〉 colour of Law. But why are you Querulous at the Dispensing Po●● in this particular case wherein it Exercised The King declares his Opinion That Conscience ought not 〈◊〉 constrained nor People forced in m●●● of meer Religion This Principle the ground of his Dispensation H●● you not lately observed T●●t d●● Gentlemen who being in Comm●●● would not Execute these ●●r● L●●● and were therefore for a s●as●● 〈◊〉 aside are now returned again 〈◊〉 their former Stations with R●●●on and the Love of their ●●●bours Have you not Re●● the Ap●●logy for the Church of England 〈◊〉 relation to the Spirit of Pers●●●● for which she is accused How 〈◊〉 former Errors are ext●●●ed by 〈◊〉 stances pag. 4. That ●ho t●● 〈◊〉 Parliament of the Church of 〈◊〉 did not perform what 〈…〉 mised by some Leading M●●● ●●ters in procuring them a Bill of yet there was little or nothing against them for about Nine 〈◊〉 but they had their Meetings al●● as publickly as regularly as the ●●●h of England had their Churches ●●ou not remember a Vote of the 〈◊〉 of Commons in 1680. whereby it Resolved That the Prosecution of ●●stant Dissenters upon the Penal 〈◊〉 was at that time Grievous to the ●●●ct ●●all the Justices that did not Exe●●● these Laws gain Esteem by it the Church of England excuse her from the charge of Severity by not Executing these Laws for 〈◊〉 Years together Shall the Com●●● in Parliament Vote the Execution ●●em a Grievance And may not King extend his Compassion to●●ds his Dissenting Subjects and say shall not be Executed To make a signal Act of Grace the ground groundless Jealousie and cause Contention to say no worse of it ●●ghly Disingenuous and discovers ●●●ry froward and perverse Dispo●●n But let us consider your next 〈◊〉 of Questions Have we or can we have any higher ●●er here in England then King ●●ds and Commons in Parliament As●●led The Laws that are now Dispen●●● with and rendred useless were they made by that Power Can your New ●●rter be made by any higher or other ●●er Do you think there is any Tempo●● Spiritual Power here in England a●●● the Dispensing Power And can you 〈◊〉 it appear to us To these Questi●●● you desire Mr Penn would let his Brethren and you know his Mind honestly In his stead I Answer We have no Law Makers but King Lords and Commons in Parliament Assembled but yet we are in England as well as in other parts of the World under a Law to God and thereby each Man is obliged to preserve within his own Breast the Answer of a good Conscience from which no Law of King Lords and Commons can absolve him and hence it is that we have many Fundamental Maximes of Law grounded upon the Law of God and common Reason of Mankind as well respecting the Soveraigns Prerogative as the Right of the Subject not written in Acts of Parliament but in