Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	authority_n	king_n	parliament_n	1,836	5	6.6012	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47295	The duty of allegiance settled upon its true grounds, according to Scripture, reason, and the opinion of the Church in answer to a late book of Dr. William Sherlock, master of the Temple, entituled, The case of the allegiance due to sovereign powers, stated, and resolved, according to Scripture, &c. : with a more particular respect to the oath lately injoyn'd.	Kettlewell, John, 1653-1695.	1691 (1691)	Wing K366; ESTC R13840	111,563	86

And this Churches Authority he says Is a venerable Authority and thinks there is good Argument in it when p. 3. c. he seeks to confirm his own Opinion from Bishop Overal ' s Convocation Book But a great Pr●judice he says p. 46. the received Sense and Censure of those Usurpations is to his Right of Providence And very well it may upon many Accounts For a King in his Notion p. 12. ●s removed and disauthorized by God when Providence thrusts him from the Throne and ●akes the Government that is actual Government out of his hand And another King or Commonwealth for the Case is the same under any Form is set up and cloathed with God's Authority when Providence advances them to his Throne and puts the actual Government into their hand Now when King Charles 〈◊〉 stood arraigned before the High Court of Justice Providence had thrust him out of his Throne and taken the actual Government out of his hand and put it in the hand of the Rump Parliament Then had he none of God's Authority nor any Allegiance due to him Then his Tryal was no Tryal of the real but only nominal King God having first removed that Authority and actual Government from him which made him King and Allegiance due to him Then were his Judges no Traytors and his Murder no Treason Which is quite against the received Opinion of Church of England Men. Again as to his Son King Charles II. after his Death when he came into England with an Army at Worcester Fight the R●mp Parliament were Providentially possessed of all the Power and Exercise of Government and had been for two years and an half which is a longer time than has passed hitherto for the Possession of the same or Settlement of the present Government If then God's Authority goes with such Exercise and Possession they had God's Authority here and he had it not Then if he came as an Englishman he could be nothing here but a Subject Then was his leading an A●my through England and Attempts to raise one in it against the Rump Parliament a Rebellious Arming against God's Authority and Ordinance and he and all his Adherents were Rebels against the Common-Wealth And all that stir'd in his Cause afterwards were Guilty of the Scriptural Resisting of Authority or higher Powers and their Sufferings were just Executions They deserved to dye for it here and without Repentance were in danger to be eternally condemn'd for it hereafter All which are likewise very cross to the Church of England received Opinions yea and to the Opinion of this Reverend Person who is far enough from charging these things upon them And his Endeavour in this point is to exempt his Principle of Providential Right from authorizing the Usurpers of that time or aspersing the Loyal Adherents of the Legal Right with the foregoing Imputation There is Difference he says p. 46. betwixt these two Cases and he instances in many particulars The only Question is Whether any of the Points of Difference assigned make a Difference in the Possessors Authority and Subjects Allegiance If not theirs was God's Authority by his Providential Right for all the Differences And the King and all the Loyalists resisting God's Authority would therein have been rebellious as is before alledged For what is the Ground of all Conscionable Allegiance God's Authority as he rightly observes p. 15. 34. and nothing else And what makes any Person or Body of Men to be God's Authority or Ordinance Is it coming well by their Power without Villanies or Murder of preceding Sovereigns Or is it good use of those they have Providentially got under their Power especially of such of them as had bore Arms in the opposite Cause and stand still well affected to it Is it their keeping up Bishops and Episcopal Cler●y and Church Revenues Or retaining Fundamental Laws and Constitutions yea or even Monarchy it self or Legal Parliaments all which are the Particulars of Difference assigned by him in this point p. 46. 47. No none of these makes any to be God's Authority or Ordinance according to his Principles but being set up by Providence in Possession of Power and act●al Administration of Government This makes both the Change of F●rm and Government or the new Degenerate Forms of Government as he tells us p. 4. 5. from the Convaeation Book to be God's Ordinance And therefore as such we must own them when actually administring whether they be Monarchy or Commonwealth whether all Estates or only Commons whether a full House or a few Persons And also the Change of Persons ib. p. 34. how villanously soever the Change was brought about whether by the Injustice of Ambitious Neighbours or by the Treason and Rebellion of Disloyal Subjects Then for all the Villanies of those Usurpers and the Murder of K. Charles and their barbarous usage of his Friends and pulling down Bishops and Bishops Lands and turning out malignant Clergy and changing Monarchy to Common-wealth and a full Representative of the Nation to a Rump Parliament For all these I say since Providence had put them into Possession and Administration of Government God had put them into his Authority by this Principle and they were as truly a Power of his making and his Ordinance by this Plea as the present Power or any other Providential Power and Possessor is And having thus got into God's Authority What can make them lose it Will continuance of the same villanous Practices against the murder'd King's legal Heir or his Friends or the Church and Bishops No but only like Dispossession again by Providence Whilst in this Possession then they were God's Ordinance And for what Cause may Subjects Arm against God's Ordinance May they do it for their pulling down the Church of England or the King's Friends out of an abhorrence they have of past or for the Oppressions they feel by present Villanies No For what then would become of the D●ctrine of Non-resistance And if they could not with a good Conscience be resisted for these What is like to become of those Rising Or Who can bring them off from being as Damnable a Resistance as any other Rebellions But he adds p. 47. lastly That their Government was never settled being frequently changed and having no National Consent As to Settlement by these Principles I do not see that Settlement in Possession should first give Right or Authority but only that it should settle and continue them for Possession gives Authority by his Account p. 15. 23. 25. 32. 36. Possession of Government must needs give actual Government and actual Government gives Right to Allegiance as his Discourse still asserts p. 26 27. 32. Yea all the Scripture Texts for Obedience as he thinks p. 21. require it to be paid only to him that Exercises Government And claiming Allegiance it must imply and carry Authority since Allegiance is only due to Authority as he also says pag. 15. 34. He then who has got Possession

to the Stronger So his Power carrying Right throws all into a State of War as much I conceive as Mr. Hobbs's Power giving it and adds the grant of God to boot as if in this way of getting all by War and the Stronger taking from the Weaker they all the while kept to that course of Right which God has given them to walk by Nay if at last by breaking the Strength of rightful Opposers in this way of power they come peaceably to enjoy such Gettings yet is not that the Peace which God intends which is a Peace with Justice or for every Man peaceably to enjoy his own not for one Man to live at Peace in possessing another Man's Rights and Properties which God all the while calls upon him to restore to him to whom of Right they do belong To this effect of its destroying all Obligation of Right and Wrong among Kings I add 2. Secondly That this Notion of Providential Right would confirm and authorize all illegal Invasions of Kings upon their own Subjects The Reason is because when he invades either their Liberties or Properties and grasps at more Authority or Possessions among them than doth by Right and Law belong to him all the Success he has is by Providence And these unjust Attempts upon his own Subjects have like Scripture Declarations as other unjust Attempts on any Neighbour Kings Let the Evil of the City be Arbitrariness and Oppression shall there be any Evil in the City saith the Prophet and the Lord hath not done it Am. 36. Do the Israelites labour under the heaviest Servitude and Oppressions whilst Subject to the King of Egypt God turned their Hearts to hate his People and deal subtilly with his Servants says David Ps. 105. 25. Doth Rehobeam's Heart devise Tyranical Rigours and Oppressions and his rough Answer threaten the people to Chastise them with Scorpions The Scripture tells us the Cause was from the Lord 1 King 12. 13. 14. 15. Unrighteous Ravenous and Oppressive Kings whom God calls his Rod and Staff and Battle Ax and the like are as much so when turned upon their own Subjects as when upon foreign Princes And whatever are the Counsels of the King's heart whether against Subjects or Strangers the Scripture declares in general That the King's heart is in God's hand and that he turns it whithersoever he will Prov. 21. 1. So that in their Domestick Invasions Kings have as good Plea of Providence and as good Scripture Declarations of God's turning their Hearts and causing and doing and acting by them therein as in any others And in Reason methinks if they were to get Right by any Invasion of Rights it should be most especially in invading the Rights and Liberties of their own Subjects The Consideration of their being Subjects may give more pretence and embolden him to take greater Liberties and bind them to more patient Sufferance than when the like is done to other Kings that stand with him upon even Terms and are no ways Subject to him at all But now 't is plain Kings do not get Right by such mere unrighteous Invasions without other Title of Subjects Rights and Properties As Abab did not by unjustly possessing himself of Naboth's Vineyard Nor Iehojakim by having his eyes and heart only for shedding innocent Blood and Oppression and Violence and by building his House by Unrighteousness and his Chambers by Wrong whom God did not look upon as having any Right therein but denounces a Woe upon him Jer. 22. 13. 17. And if this must be the Consequence of this Right of Providence to give as good Authority and Confirmation to any Invasions our Kings shall make upon our Rights as to any that other Princes shall make upon theirs I think neither Prince nor Subjects have any great Cause to be fond thereof 3. Thirdly It confirms the unjust Possessions and Invasions one private Subject shall make upon the Properties of another If Robbers or Pyrates possess themselves of other Mens Money or Goods by this Principle they have a better Right thereto than the legal Owners For their Possession is by Providence that delivered the Sufferers into their hands And it is as much authorized as the other by Scripture Expressions The Lord hath taken away saith Iob when the Sabean and Chaldean Robbers had taken and carried away his Substance Iob 1. 21. And 't is what the Lord hath sent is the Reflection of all serious persons upon these Misfortunes So there is as much Providence and as much said of it in private as in publick Robberies Both then have equally the Right of Providence And that says he is better than any Right the Legal Owners had by human Laws So that as it ousts Kings of their Crowns it will oust private Persons of their Purses and make all private Robbers as well as publick Usurpers to hold their Purchase by the best and most rightful Titles To this he says p. 34. That the Dispute is not about human or legal Right in either Case 'T is not I grant whether either Usurpers or Robbers have a legal Right to what they have got which no Man that understands what he talks of will Dispute but 't is whether they have not another Right viz. Providential Right which shall set aside both the Dispossessed Prince's and Private Owner's legal Rights And if Providence and the foresaid Scripture Declarations made such Providential Right 't is plain they are as much on the side of a private Robber as of an Usurper and so would give that Right to both if they did to either But the Dispute adds he ibid. is about Authority and no Man will pretend that Thieves and Pyrates have God's Authority which the Persons robbed are bound to submit to But who puts the Objection so What the Thief pretends to is the Purse which is matter of Property and what the Usurper claims is the Crown which is matter of Authority And Right is necessary to both in their respective pretences if they would hold them righteously This can be no legal Right which rests still with the dispossessed Prince and private Sufferers But the Author has found a Providential Right better than the Legal to give the Usurper the best Right to the Authority And that will serve as well for the Thief or Pyrate and give him the best Right to the Property And if he can hold his stolen Goods by as good Right as Usurpers may their Usurped Crowns by this Principle in the Eyes of God he may all the time be very Righteous For God is no respecter of Persons and so when he justifies one he will not condemn the other when he can make the same Plea and acts upon the very same Grounds If this Right of Providence is the best Right it will be the best for every thing that is to go by Right and then it will be the best Title to Property as well as to Authority Yea Goods and Properties are expresly mentioned in those