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	law_n	parliament_n	2,185	5	6.6353	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A78375	A discourse for a king and Parliament in four sections. Demonstrating I. The inconsistency of a free-state with the scituation of this countrey, and constitution of the people. II. Mischiefs incident to the continuance of their endeavours that act in order thereunto. III. The advantages probably attending a composure with the King of Scots. IV. Resolves to the grand objections that seeme to obstruct it. By a moderate and serious pen.	W. C.	1660 (1660)	Wing C151; Thomason E1021_12; ESTC R208444	21,619	32

live and he cannot by the aire Whence shall we acquire this vast Sum not less certainly can our constant charge be than two millions by the year besides the interest of the great debt which swells dayly we have the ill luck that none will Rebel that we may have Lands to Sequester none to fell Customs sink and so will the Excise All for the future if the Army continue must be extorted by contribution from the starveling Countries But I doubt as there is little Will to it so there is less ability Their patience has bin exercised to the height Take heed Nescit plebs jejunatimere as ambition has no bounds so necessity has no Barre 4. Pay How is it possible they should if Trade fails Our subsistence in the Country hangs sensibly on commerce in the City Observe it in one commodity How can the Gentleman expect his Rent when his Tenant cannot sell his Wool If wool be not sold how can the poor millions of poor be set on work If the poor be not set on work they must steal or starve If the Cloathyer can vent no Cloth how can he buy the Wool If the Merchant have not a free and well-ordered Trade how can he buy cloth The miscarriages of these times has spoyled the Trade of our Cloth beyond the seas so that unless we return into order and awe our Neighbours to a sutable correspondence 't is not recoverable For other trades how they sink may be evident from the dayly ruptures that are spoken of and more fully from the 2000. sail that we have lost fince the Spanish War Now the commodities we have thence we take in upon retaile from our Officious Neighbour who knows handsomly to foment the difference and reap the advantage Our gold walks beyond Sea more freely than in England Forraign Trade we pay for dear Home-commodities we sell cheap 'T is not possible but the wealth of England sinks in value considerably every year No Trade can be till there be a settlement No settlement while we dance every day to a new Whistle There are ten models in proposal and every faction is with blood ready to avow his way the best While we thus stagger we may shortly expect to be accosted with the same dilemna that a poor labourer put upon my Tenant the other day from whose fold week after week he had stoln a sheep he freely confest the Theft and told him work he had none nor could get any though he offered to labour at less value than he was wont worth he was no more than his earthen pot steal he must hang him he might but he his wife and five children would not starve while they had hands to take 5. Were it possible to keep down the spirit of the English which has been so imbitter'd by the violent instruments of our Statists what shall we think of Ireland who already Act in a sence altogether averse to our new model Nay what of Scotland a free people no way in Vassalage to us unless upon the account of our late Conquest Can we think those two Kingdomes will truckle under this Certainly they wait but opportunity and when it comes 't wil cost us dear Their interest undoubtedly is Kingship whereby they may possibly hope to have an influence upon the sweets of our Court While thus we are imbroyl'd with fears and Wars to subdue our tributaries our purses and blood must be at the expense and our enemies abroad will work their interests 6. Was not the maintenance of our fundamental Laws the pretence of our quarrel Found we not the spirit of the Nation rowz'd up upon the found of the Trumpet Popery was it not decry'd and Religion Protestant Religion adjudg'd to be in danger were we not call'd up to the Battel upon the account of Zeale with a Curse ye Meroz Now if we truck on in the search for a Free-state as for Religion so much of it as we may call Protestant must of necessity turn to Wantonness for our divisions are so great already that we dare not exasperate by advancing Discipline Nay indeed we cannot if we dar'd for the most active of our Statists if they have any Religion 't is that of the Sectary which they own as the maine supporter of their Model whose interest it is to give Licentiousnesse to all As for Laws those which we adored for the excellency and antiquity must of necessity be alter'd in our Freedomes of person and estate wherein true liberty is principally concern'd Thus if we have a free-state in the way of a House of Commons alwayes or a Council in the interval that Soveraign Court will take power to impose Taxes and to imprison persons Now by the Law of England no free-man could be taxed or imprest but by Act of Parliament solemnly and regularly past by the three estates and he intrusted the elected to consent only so far as by Common Council of the three estates should be agreed In passing whereof the Commons were as the Tribunes of the people as their Bulwark against high payments and impressures demanded by the Prince To whose occasions they would not contribute unless well satisfied of the necessity and disbursement which granted they had the same concernment therein with the whole people that is To pay and to be imprest Now when the Commons are grown Soveraign who shall we call upon to be our Tribunes for the same persons that have the power to raise have in effect the priviledge to disburse And how little will they value those small shares which they pay in their Rents when they shall assuredly receive large salaries by their imployments For believe it though every Statesman has not preferment yet the most considerable will be in pay and those are leaders to the rest Upon this account it is that while a Parliament sits we shall be in constant pay for the leaders will strain for a design rather than want a preferment And we the people may perhaps complain of the Reiterated burthen but to whom shall we appeal As for our persons by our known Lawes we could not be imprison'd but by a regular proceeding in a course of justice or a full Act of Parliament An arrest there ought to be and thereupon a Bayl unless the cause appear'd not baylable by the Warrant when the accused had freedome to make defence upon perusal of his charge if injustice or malice appear'd in that prosecution his reparation was ready and usual Otherwise than thus could not a House of Commons originally proceed unless possibly upon their own members which is disputable but an impeachment must be drawn and a trial had before the Lords as a Court of Justice Should the King or the Council commit an English man it was upbraided as an Act of Tyranny What becomes of this eminent freedom under a free-state when upon slight suggestions of a spightful Neighbor that is in power the Serjeant at Armes seizes us with his exorbitant

Emergencies if a Free Parliament saw cause they might add a supply by the old way of Subsidie or Contribution if it seem more equal which being but once paid and in a moderate proportion and assent by a Free Parliament and when Trade is free and excise banisht would be rather a sport than a burthen in comparison of the monthly Tax Now for the Crown-Lands I can instance several Parliaments wherein they have in re-assum'd as not alienable when a profuse Prince has bin misled by his Court-Parasites and finding his mistake has given them up to the fury of the people for indeed those Lands are in the Kings hands by way of trust wherein his Subjects have a kind of interest as well for safety as for honour which may intimate the weakness of their Title who purchased the same from the remainders only of the House of Commons Yet for the sake of peace why may they not come to a discount and being re-imburst their real purchase-money with damages discounting the mean profits willingly yield up that broken inheritance wherein I and all true Englishmen may pretend some interest Something of the like nature may be offer'd for the recovery of those we call Delinquents Lands The late Treaty between France and Spaine gives a fair president where the contrary parties whose estates were Sequestred and sold were re-instated in the just condition as the Lands then were at the promulgation of the peace without any account for the mean profits These Crown-Lands being thus re-assumed will supply the Court and those dependances and for their re-purchase why may not the monyes raised from the purchasers of Bishops Lands be imploy'd that way or part of it which will suffice When the King wants more let him be endear'd to his people for a supply and that indeed was the good old way to redress our grievances when we bought it by our purses and the bargain was no burthen Object III. 'T is argued That Religion will be in hazard upon a closure with the King His Mother is of the Romish party He is now trained up amongst them nor can he do lesse than gratifie the Popish with a toleration Answ Nothing doubtless is of more concernment than the security of Religion and for that part of it which is Protestant this closure seems the only way to secure it But we are not to hearken to such as cry up Religion and design Faction that cry out Zeale for the Lord of Hosts when they intend self-interest To keep up a party or an affected way or to be the ipse dixit of a Country Religion has not at all prosper'd by undue practices to advance it 'T is piety meeknesse patience humility and those graces of the Spirit that convince and convert when rigidness censuring and the sword exasperate and harden But have we not a Parliament of Protestants and the Militia in their hands to secure their Religion Has not Gods power or truth evidence to secure it self Certainly the education of this Prince among that party is not of choice and shall our compulsion be term'd his crime How averse he has bin to the documents of his Mother fame has sufficiently made clear Inquisitions there have bin and by him that was most concern'd and kept intelligence abundant as well into his Counsels as his life and never was he yet reproach't with debauchery in Religion or converse Nay to a miracle as if design'd by God for some great work has he bin preserv'd in person and kept uncorrupt in Opinion against the sword on the one hand and temptation on the other A change of his Religion would doubtless have engag'd him a powerful assistance from the Romish interest which hitherto has seem'd rather to tyre out his constancy by sufferance than to resent his misery The Jesuite neither speaks nor acts indifferently as to his person and you finde not many of the Romish way that give him much applause which argues a strong fear in them of not much complacency in Him It has bin their project to crumble our Religion into Sects upon hopes that men finding no steddiness in those sandy foundations which are built on the giddiness of busie spirits and false lights may at last fall off to their way of Popery which seems more United upon account of their severe discipline And now that God after so many years contrivance should blowe off on a sudden their whole designes and restore things by strange providence to their first principles and some likelihood of good Order in the Church and peace in the State they seem confounded and 't is thought will endeavour nothing more than the confusion of the Prince whose conjunction will secure it to posterity For well they know how he has bin lectured by his Royal Father as well as tutoured by experience which may enable him as to be the wisest so the most Religious Prince You may read it thus I do require and entreat you as your Father and your King that you never suffer your heart to receive the least check against or disaffection from the true Religion establish't in the Church of England I tell you I have tryed it and after much search and many disputes have concluded it to be the best in the world not only in the community Christian but also in the special notion as reformed keeping the middle-way between the pomp of superstitious Tyranny and the meanness of fantastick Anarchie Not but that some lines as in very good figures may happily need some sweetning and polishing which might here have easily bin done by a safe and gentle hand c. To this sence spake he when he had no more to speak Now how in matters of consequence this King has pursued elsewhere His Fathers documents is sensible to him that reads and observes And here in this is as manifest as the Sun and he that disputes it has more prejudice than reason and such singular Opinionists are not worth that satisfaction As for his Mother she has had too much experience of the English spirits and their averseness to her way as to engage her Son upon that account to his ruine If that way she cannot now manage Him how can she nay how dare she here Nor indeed have her Relations in France bin so propitious to Him as to endear Him to Her Witness His expulsion thence Object IV. 'T is argued That the Royal Family and that party have bin so highly disoblig'd that no Act of Oblivion can secure the opposites against revenge What refuge is there against the anger of an inrag'd Prince when he is once in power Answ I grant that there have bin provocations to the height shall we therefore continue to provoke because we have begun 'T is a Rule indeed That he that does wrong never forgives but he that has wrong may The interest of revenge is passionate but the interest of profit arises from a passion that prevails more He 's foolish that anteposes