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	parliament_n	power_n	1,452	5	5.0027	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77431	A brief discourse of the present miseries of the kingdome: declaring by what practises the people of England have been deluded, and seduced into slavery, and how they have been continued therein, and by what meanes they may shake off that bondage, they are now enthraled under. / Written by a lover of his country, for the good of all such who are not contented to be slaves, but desire to live free-men.	Lover of his country.	1648 (1648)	Wing B4583; Thomason E467_24; ESTC R205268	21,615	31

course it might onely produce a Reformation but that was not the Parliaments aime for they indeavoured to throw the whole Kingdom into combustion especially the Church Government that must be destroyed that so they may therein frame a new Vtopian government agreeing with their phanatique zeale The people greedy of novelties willingly embrace entertaine these changes and with an easie credulity beleeve all scandalous reports that are by these mens factors and abettors raised to calumniate the Church they doubt not if these men tell them so but that there lurkes Idolatry in a Tipet or a Surplice and if these men incite the madde multitde thereunto they will presently disroable their Ministers of their decent vestments and for no other cause then that they are conformable to the established Government of the Church of England they will assist to drive them from their Cures and without any legall authority to divest them of what they are possest of by the Lawes of God and the Realme if any Inhabitant within those Parishes where these enormities were committed was so conscientious as that he would not adhere to these exorbitant courses he was sure to be presently branded with the name of Papist or at least Popishly affected and that alone was sufficient to declare that he was disaffected to the Parliament proceedings and must be presently new Christened by his Parliament god-fathers with the nick-name of Malignant and Delinquent And if this new named creature doth not forthwith seale up his lips and not dare to speake or mutter against those who prosecute these illicit acts a Messenger shal be ready to fetch him to the Parliament where in custody he shall attend at an extraordinary charge their honours leisure who by reason of the high and weighty affaires of the Kingdome cannot admit to hear so petty a complaint untill this poor Malignants purse growes empty and the Messenger hath sufficiently drained his pockets and then peradventure he will carry him before a Committee where he shall be examined upon captions gueres whereby he may entrap himselfe he shall neither know his accuser nor his accusation but he shall be told in generall that he is a notable opposer of the Parliament and for that he shall be sure to be committed to some Prison that so his example of punishment may terrifie others from daring presuming to be honest men With this manner of proceeding the most rationall men who discovered and disliked these practises were deterr'd from opposing them and those of the vulgar and ordinary ranke of people were perswaded by other arguments which were more prevalent on their understandings which was impunity and profit for they were informed that they should neither pay Tithes nor be be subject to Ecclesiasticall Courts by this they were engaged to take part with these new Reformers But as yet the Parliament durst not declare against the Common-Praier Booke for they thought the people were too well inclined to that forme of Worship to be suddenly deprived thereof And therefore they declare that they intend not to abolish the Booke of Common-Prayer but by authority confirme the use of it throughout the Kingdome and withall they tell the people that it is a scandall raised by the Malignant party to make them odious to report that they intended any such thing as to take away the Common-Prayer Booke onely there may be some things in it that may be fit to be reform'd which hereafter with the advice of an Assembly of Reverend Divines they meane to performe Yet at the same time they connive at such Ministers as leave it off and suffer scandalous pamphleteers to traduce that Sacred Lyturgie abstracted from the Scripture Composed by the most Reverend Learned and pious Divines and sealed by the bloud of Martyres By these Instruments they first undermine it and afterward when they have occasion to make use of their Scotch Brethren to Conquer the Kingdome then they are fitted with a packt Assembly that must declare against the Booke of Common-Prayer as Popish and Superstitious that so they may introduce a thing called a Directory that may bring them to a conformity with their Brethren in Doctrine Worship and Discipline Now give me leave to tell you by the way that these men who have so universally changed and altered the setled and professed Protestant Religion within this Kingdome abused the people with telling them that His Majesty by the advice of His evill Councellors and assistance of the Bishops meant to change and alter Religion by throwing a supposed infamy on His Majesty which they really intended afterwards to effect themselves as is manifest by the sequell for they have absolutely changed our Religion and His Majesty remaines a constant perseverer in the maintenance of the old established forme both of Doctrine Worship and Discipline and I will be bold to affirm that the Kingdome is almost if not altogether the unparallel'd president that have Rebelled against their King and fought and destroyed the Nobility and Gentry of their Kingdome because they will not consent to introduce the Religion and Laws of another Nation and of such a Nation as Scotland whose people for the most part are not yet civilized and for their rudenesse and poverty are the scorne and contempt of all Christendome This could not be that the gallant English should be so deluded but that for their sins God hath infatuated them to be seekers of their owne destruction This much by way of digression The Parliament now finding the people so apt to beleeve all that they suggest they begin to decline not onely against His Majesty in relation to Religion but also accuse Him of misgovernment in Civill affaires but like the rest they will not strike point-blanke at His Majesty but wound Him through His Ministers sides telling the people that He hath been misled by evill Councellors and thereupon they frame a Remonstrance which I may call an appeale to the people whereby they asperse and traduce His Majesty by enumerating all the pressures and supposed grievances wherewith the Subjects have been burthened since His Majesty came to the Crowne and they therein proceed so far as to accuse His Majesties intentions saying that He intended to put an Excise upon his people Every man imagined that they did this to declare to the world what Taxes the Subjects groaned under and no man could suppose that the Parliament would multiply and encrease these grievances and that they would impose an Excise upon the people and so would induce that into Act which they pretend onely was intentionally in His Majesty but time shewes us otherwise for now the little fingers of these Councellors are weightier in oppressing the Subjects then the loynes of His Majesties Councellors The Free-borne Subject must be imprisoned disseised of his Estate and no Legall cause shewne Taxes imposed all things managed by Arbitrary power and no appeale but to them that do the injustice this is part of the present misery we

groane under but more of this in its due place The Parliament finding an inclination in His Majesty to reform all that is amisse and willing to comply with His Parliament in all that they can propose for the good of the people they grow fearfull that if His Majesty be suffered to comply with them so fast all that is amisse in the Common-wealth will be reform'd too soone and then there will be no worke for them but they must returne home and become private men againe which is contrary to their intentions for they resolve to Lord it over their fellow Subjects perpetually which they cannot doe unlesse they devolve the Kingdome into greater miseries and distractions by contriving a Civill War within the bowels thereof for the effecting of which they use all their art and industry to inslave the people by pretending that there is a Malignant party in the Kingdome of Papists and such as are Popishly affected who are machinating treacherous plots against them by destroying of this glorious Parliament which intends so much good to the Common-wealth and in the ruine of this Parliament to bury all hopes of future redresse of our grievances These feares and jealousies are fomented amongst the people by their active instruments who are especially those of the Clergy and these by their pretended sanctity of life easily gained credit amongst their simple auditors besides such as are divulgers of these reports are directed to insinuate that His Majesty hath a hand in these contrivances by which obliquity He must be represented as the object of the peoples fear who ought to be the protector of them and their Lawes and they the security of His Power and Person By this distrust of His Majesty being begotten and nourisht amongst the people His Majesties Person together with His Royall Consort and Children are exposed to all calumnie and reproach that so they may become contemptible Yet notwithstanding all these practises which were the contrivances of particular plotters in both Houses yet there was a party of honest able Gentlemen in the House of Commons and the Bishops and some Noble Lords in the House of Peeres that crost and thwarted the proceedings of this violent party How to remove these was now the great endeavour and the Bishops they must first be thrust out of the House of Lords and the better to effect this the people they must be stirr'd up to Petition the House of Commons that the Prelates who by their Votes in Parliament hindred the intended Reformation might by an Act of Parliament be excluded out of the House and their Votes taken away And to the end that these people might not erre in the forme or manner of Petitioning they had good friends in the Parliament that could penne their Petitions according to the sense of the House these Petitioners were commonly attended by a tumultuous rabble of the City and Suburbes who were summoned to meet together for that purpose and although they came together and flockt to the Houses more like an unlawfull assembly of riotous and mutinous persons who imperiously demanded rather then humbly Petitioned for what they desired and therefore for their manner of comming rather deserved to be reprehended then cherisht yet they were welcomed and thankt for their great care of the Common-wealth and encourag'd to draw together in such unlawfull assemblies The Bill being now formed for the excluding the Bishops out of the House they presse His Majesty to sign it and that they may worke Him thereunto they make use of all those Instruments about Him who are either afraid to be lasht by their exorbitant power or else are desirous to partake with them in their wayes and these who are truely the evill Councellors obtaine of His Majesty to passe this Bill I wish with my soule His Majesty had never been betrayed by these evil Instruments to doe so ill an act as to deprive the Church of that power next under Him should govern and protect it and by their consent to wholsome Lawes in Parliament preserve their flocks from the ravenous Wolves that have since devoured them I am no Lawyer to determine how essentiall a part of the Parliament the Bishops were but I believe they were one of the Estates that made up that great body and this I am sure is consonant to reason for if each Member of the Common-wealth be obliged to obey the Lawes made in that Convention because they consent unto them by those who are present at the making of those Lawes as being Persons chosen by them by whose Votes they oblige themselves I know no reason that the Clergy who are so eminent a part of the Common-wealth should not have fit persons by them chosen to sit and Vote likewise in the House by whom their consent unto all Lawes might be included And it will appear a strange irregular course in the opinion of foraine Nations and that which will be a dishonour and a disparagement unto this Kingdome that the doctrine and discipline of our Church is subverted and that we have in a manner a new Religion framed and no Clergy-man hath either an affirmative or a negative Vote in the composure an Assembly of Divines being pickt out and packt together by no lawfull authority and onely made use of to colour out and countenance the acts of those who are altogether Lay-men It will seem strange hereafter when these proceedings shall be maturely heard and debated that it should appear that a businesse of so high a nature as the dispossessing the Bishops of their just rights should be transacted and that those who are parties should be made their Judges to condemn without hearing those who are so eminently their Superiours both in degree and dignity but it is now too apparent to all the world what it was that provoked this violent and irregular prosecution the end being that these Reformers might rob the Church of that patrimony which the piety of their Auncestors had invested the Bishops withall And it will be well if the legislative power which these men exercise can secure them from being guilty of sacriledge and quit them at the dreadfull Tribunall from horrid impiety Those honest and able Noblemen and Gentlemen who were chosen and trusted by their Countries and whose tender consciences scrupled at these injurious and impious proceedings and according to the dictate of their reasons dissented from these unjust and irregular actions these were traduced amongst the people as members Popishly affected and not fit to continue in the Houses And to deter them the more the rabble scum of the people were brought down often to Westminster and there were taught to know those men that opposed their Faction and to revile them with scurilous and opprobrious language and so to menace them as they thought it not safe for them to stay longer in the Houses especially after they had with the like Tumults driven away His Majesty from White-hall the Protectour of them and