Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	affliction_n	great_a	sin_n	1,620	5	5.2580	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85584	Great Britans [sic] vote: or, God save King Charles. A treatise seasonably published this 27th. day of March, the happy inauguration of his sacred (though now despised and imprisoned) Maiesty. Wherein is proved by many plaine texts of Scripture, that the resisting, imprisoning, or deposing our King, under what specious pretences soever couched, is not onely unlawfull but damnable.		1648 (1648)	Wing G1670; Thomason E431_26; ESTC R202345	36,900	55

that particular we cannot but inferre that all that you want of evidence against him lyeth against your selves and doth convince you to have committed as high an offence against the duty of Subjects as against the candour of Christians But secondly in case it could be proved and so fully so demonstratively proved as is requisite to overcome that larg portion of Charity which is due unto a King above all other sorts of men and to him for ought wee know above all other Kings much the more for the sad condition wherein you keep him proved so clearly as to bee victorious over so many and so disswasive improbabilities that present themselves in array against it we should indeed even then admit it with great reluctancy as a truth that it might bee thought a kind of impiety to understand wee should then when we must needs looke upon it as a sad and great affliction unto our Nation and as a great cause of humiliation not of triumph or insulting unto us That God should suffer our King to fall into such a depth of impiety for the sins of the Magistrate as of the Minister are usually the iudgements of a people for their sins But yet neverthelesse we should hold it our duty even in that case to cry out with the holy Prophet Micha 7.9 We will beare the indignation of the Lord because wee ha e sinned against him c. And to set our selves to the duties of Fasting and Prayers and Fears for the lamentation and expiation of so horrid an iniquity from his Maiesty and the Kingdome But we could not be perswaded that it were a Christian course for us to make his iniquity the countenance or excuse of ours or admit it as a supersedeas or discharge of the bond of our allegeance though it should render it indeed much discomfortable unto us for as a child owes his filiall honour and obedience not to a good father but to a father be he good or bad as servants owe subjection with all feare not to a good master but to a master be he good or froward 1 Pet 2.18 if that be scriptu e with them and wives subjection n●t to a believing husband but to a husband he be a beleever or an unbeleever 1 Pet 3.1 compared with 1 Cor 7 13. So subjects owe their allegiance not to a good King but to a King And though wee deny not but Potentates may forfeit their Crownes by their impieties yet the holy Word of God leades us to beleeve that none is thereby enabled to take that forfeiture but God Saul forf●ited his Crown by his Sacrilegious intrusion into the Office and Function of the Priesthood 1 Sam. 13.8 c. and doubled that forfeiture by his disobedience unto the command of God concerning Agag and the spoyle 1 Sam. 15.9 c. And God both times proceeds to sentence against him but yet none must take the forfeiture nor put the sentence in execution till God himselfe was pleased to do it And therefore notwithstanding all that David durst not lift up his hand against him 1 Sam. 24 26. David himselfe afterwards though an holy man yet was so far left unto himselfe for a time by God that hee fell into two horrid and unworthy sinnes base in the eyes of men as well as hainous in the sight of God First committing adultery with Bathsheba at such a time when her husband whom hee so vilely wronged therein was imployed in the hazarding of his life to doe his service and then to cover that treacherously contriving and procuring his murther and yet this was no good plea to justifie Absalom or the sonne of Bichr● in their rebellions no nor yet Shimei in his foule-mouthed railing against him for it But all of them in their times were overtaken with their rewards and David yet ended his dayes in peace being reconciled to God by his repentance Nero was as it were a Devil incarnate so bad that his wickednesse added glory to the persecutions of those that suffered by him And Tertullian useth it as an argument to prove Christianity to be good because Nero opposed it He made it his sport to see his owne Imperiall City set on fire before his face and when he had done caused it most falsly and wickedly to be laid upon the Christians And embrued his hands in the blood of his own Mother and yet it is observed this very Nero was then Emperour and Governour of the Romanes at that very time when Saint Paul wrote unto them to be subject unto the higher powers and tels them withall that whoever resists shall receive to himselfe damnation Let not any think that in this we plead for the wickednes of Kings but for their impunity from men for the preservation of Government the good of the people Nor would we wish any to imagine that we think these patterns of wickednesse have any such paralells in his sacred Majestyes story if it may be truly set downe as some would perswade but only to shew the unforciblenesse of such kind of deductions as our dayes have produced and if it may be to prevent the like hereafter And to satisfie all men who will be satisfied that for all your conclusions that you draw so hard for that you have even broken your Geeres we are yet to seek for a sound reason why the King should be secluded from his Government or from the addresse of a Parliament unto him but only upon your bare averrements Si satis est accusasse quis tandem innocens God himselfe should not be innocnt if to be accused were to be convicted we hold it therefore most unjust and unreasonable for us to admit any of those aspersions which you have laid upon his Majesty into our beleife or to make any results at all upon them in the least degree prejudiciall to his Majesty in our opinions untill we shall see as well what his Majesty can answer as what you have objected against him for since it is a justice not to bee denied to the meanest of Subjects nay to the greatest slaves that they have liberty to speake for themselves before iudgement be given upon their accusation we must tell you that we hold it a thing against all equity and right for you to take the freedome to say what you please against his Maiesty and in the mean time to keepe him in that restraint that hee can neither know what you have objected nor hath liberty to make his answer thereunto All which and much more that might be said proves substantially that the resisting not a good King but a King be he good or bad though by the Ordinance of them who call themselves a Parliament is a resisting the Ordinance of God that the imprisoning of King under what specious pretences soever couched is unlawfull and the deposing him and disposing his kingdome without him damnable according to the law of God what they are according to the law of this land