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
A67481	Some remarks upon a speech made to the grand jury for the county of Middlesex concerning the execution of penalties upon the churches of Christ, which worship God in meeting-houses, for their so doing : and may serve for an answer to part of the order of the justices, Jan. 13 to the same purpose : in a letter to Sir W.S. their speaker.	J. W.; Smith, William, Sir, 1616 or 17-1696.	1682 (1682)	Wing W69; ESTC R3500	12,116	16

Some REMARKS UPON A SPEECH MADE TO THE GRAND JURY For the County of MIDDLESEX CONCERNING THE Execution of PENALTIES UPON THE Churches of Christ Which worship God in MEETING-HOUSES For their so doing And may serve for an Answer to part of the Order of the JUSTICES Jan. 13. to the same purpose In a Letter to Sir W. S. their Speaker For all the Law is fulfilled in one word in this Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self But if ye bite and devour one another Take heed that you be not consumed one of another Gal. 5.14 15. But it is evident by the sad experience of Twelve Years that there is very little fruit of all those forceable courses many and frequent ways of coertion Kings Declaration March 15. 1672. LONDON Printed for Elea. Harris 1682. SIR SINCE Your Speech made at the Session of the Peace to the Grand Jury there is by your and the rest of the Justices Order Printed and Published I hope you will not take it ill that a private person gives his Opinion concerning it especially considering that your modesty has premised you should discover that weakness which by your silence might have been concealed Sir As for that worthy Character you give of your self your Generosity and Publick Spirit abstracted from all private considerations whatsoever Your proof and protestation of it I have this to say that you are to me much a stranger I am unwilling to make enquiry into your life and actions and therefore shall give as much credit to what you say as one can reasonably give to him that praiseth himself but could not vindicate himself in the Eyes of the Commons of England in Parliament Otherwise I should have wondred that a Gentleman who had approv'd himself to his Country by the experience of so great a number of years and in two Parliaments of such different qualifications wherein every Member was tryed oftner and more severely than the purest Gold of such excellent Integrity Parts and Vertues should be neglected in the Three late Parliaments The Country is not wont in these cases to cast of those that have done them eminent Services sure I am there was a very great number of the same persons in all these Parliaments and in the greatest honour and esteem by those that elected them and by others also In the next Paragraph you tell us This Kingdom is at present under very sad circumstances and upon enquiry into the cause you say and I think boldly enough we have lost the Jewel of Government I perceive Sir W.S. may say what he pleases but I doubt it would have been dangerous for a Grand Inquest to have writ Billa vera upon such a presentment What! His Majesty upon the Throne in Peace and yet the Government lost It is dreadful like Belshazzar's Hand writing upon the Wall Mene Mene God hath numbred thy Kingdom and finished it I hope Sir you are no skilful State Physician God forbid you should in this Diagnostick You may if you please see more to this matter in the Courant of Dec. 23. I expected next the proof of your Assertion but you defer that and tell us of our Princes mercy in the Act of Oblivion I suppose there 's no man in England that understands things to any purpose that is not sensible of His Majesties Grace in the Act of Oblivion wherein he had the councel of his Parliament but there are a sort of Men that labour much to turn the Act of Oblivion into an Act of Remembrance there 's no Act that ever the King Pass'd more grievous to them than that and the reason is not because the King has Pardoned His Enemies but because they cannot by his power wreck their malice upon their hated Neighbours I am perswaded Sir when you consider the sad state of the Kingdom better you will find that Mens envy at their Neighbours Liberty and Enjoyments and a strange ill will they foster against them is the great cause of our sad Divisions It is not because the Government is lost but because it is not lost that men rage as they do There are not a few who long for nothing more than the confusion of the Government for they reckon that the only way to effect their Revenge than which nothing would more rejoice their hearts Nay they could well be content to undergo the hazards of a Combustion in prospect of the Satisfaction they hope for in conclusion by the Ruine of their Maligned Neighbours and Countrymen And the true reason why they believe so little of the Popish Plot is because the Discovery of it justifies the fears of those they have so long scorn'd upon that account I must acknowledge the Papists and their dissembling Agents have wrought strongly upon these passions and have at length rais'd them to such a height that in my Opinion they cannot be allayed without a Parliament which I take to be a part of the Government But if a Popish Successor come first which God of his great mercy prevent I cannot think that those enraged People who have already made use of Subornations and Perjuries to shed bloud by will stick at a Parisian Bartholomew Feast if they can find no readier way of destroying those they hate You go on in setting forth the Goodness of His Majesties Government which is an odd way of shewing the Government to be lost He takes nothing from any man doth not oppress the meanest of His Subjects nor interposeth His Authority to obstruct Justice We joyfully grant all this and more concerning the King but we cannot excuse his Ministers your last long Parliament found cause to complain of divers Publick Grievances to provide Laws against some and to charge one Great Man with High Treason in many particulars Next you tell us the mischief of the loss of the Government but all your instances instead of proving we have no Government prove the quite contrary that we have a good Government For no man can take a pair of Shoes or any thing else out of a Shop without payment but he is punisht for it if he can be found out and no Government can punish those that are conceal'd Bene vixit qui bene latuit Nor can any man pass through Lombard Street and supply his Pockets without good consideration Indeed we have heard of some that took a great many Hundred Thousand Pounds out of Lombard Street upon good consideration which was afterwards made invalid but His Majesty was graciously pleased to grant an Equivalent but I read in some Publick Prints of obstructions in the issuing of that Equivalent which yet I am far from imputing to the King but know not how to defend all his Ministers In the beginning of your next Period you tell us that God Almighty knew this the calamities of being without Government when he created man and therefore gave him a Law by which he should live and govern himself and printed it in his heart called the Law

Publick Conventicles were not then thought so destructive to the Peace and Safety of the Kingdom And I know nothing the Dissenters are guilty of but a strong desire and earnest endeavour to keep out Popery which they think cannot be done if a Popish Successor be let in and in this they follow the Judgment of three several Houses of Commons in Parliament And now I am speaking of the Declaration for Indulgence I pray Sir what shall hinder a Popish Successor from setting forth such another Edict with more ample graces to the Roman Catholicks whereby they shall not only have the liberty of Publick Meetings but also access to Parish Churches and all this by virtue of That Supream Power in Ecclesiastical matters which is not only inherent in him but hath been declar'd and recogniz'd to be so by several Statutes and Acts of Parliament as in the said Declaration what tho His present Majesty was graciously pleas'd to recal his Declaration do you think the Popish Successor would do so And if he should command such an Indulgence I am perswaded never a Justice of Middlesex would dare as Sir James Hales in Queen Maries days to put the Laws in execution against them Poor Sir James who had merited highly of the Queen yet suffer'd deeply for his Legal Zeal and I doubt is too sad an example to be followed however zealous men are now against Protestants It follows in your Speech these publick conventicles are not suffer'd in any Country or Kingdoms as I know of I have no measure of your knowledge but there was not long since publisht in English a piece entituled The Religion of the Dutch the Author pretends himself a Protestant what credit is to be given him I know not but I know that in many things he gives a very exact and true account He says p. 14. There is an express prohibition of allowing any other Religion then the Reformed in the Provinces and yet saith he we there find the publick exercise of another Religions so he is pleas'd to call different meetings of those that differ in some opinions besides the Reformed there are Roman Catholicks Lutherans Brownists Independants Arminians Anabaptists Socinians Arrians Enthusiasts Quakers Borelists Armenians Muscovites Libertins and others I suppose you will scarce find so many sorts of publick meetings here in England Having thus shewed the weakness of these reasons upon which you built your discourse there appears no cause why you should so patheticaly adjure men for Gods sake and their own to lay aside these publick Conventicles c. Neither that you should say They are one cause and a great one of our present troubles or that you should invite the Bench and Grand Jury kindly to agree together in the remedy of this evil Moreover If according to the 9th Article of the Church of England these Conventicles or some of them be Congregations of faithful men in which the pure word of God is preached and the Sacraments duly administred according to Christs Ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same then are they visible Churches of Christ and they that punish them for so doing do unkindly agree in persecuting the Churches of Christ which Christians ought to be very wary of Take heed Sir you are not infallible The next thing you recommend is the Consideration of Juries and the Statute of 3. Hen. VIII An Act of Reformation of Impannels for the King Touching which I shall leave you to the consideration of a paper set out some Moneths ago in an answer to a Speech of yours also printed upon this Subject The subtility and mighty endeavours of the Papists to divert People from the prosecution of themselves have rais'd a great enmity in a party or faction against the body of the people represented in 3 Parliaments The City of London which hath the choice of Sheriffs for London and Middlesex are careful to chuse such Sheriffs as they can trust and that are not of that party whereas the Justices of Middlesex or some of them by their Abhorring Addressing and the like actions appear to be too favourable to that faction and therefore the Citizens had rather by much the choice of Juries should be in the Sheriffs than in the partial Justices especially at this time when their Liberties Lives and Religion are in such eminent danger from Sham-plots Subornations and Perjuries the preservation of all which concerns we owe under God and his Majesty to our honest Sheriffs It looks strangely that out of about 50 persons of the Pannel against one man of which the Justices cannot object any thing that may argue untrue demeanor in the Sheriff in his return the Justices should not find 13 to make a Grand Jury without putting in other of their own nomination I appeal to the next Parliament whether the security and liberty of the People of England be not at this time more in danger by the Justices than by the Sheriffs I might observe upon other parts of your Speech but I presume I have done enough already to shew the weakness of your reasoning I hope you will please to consider things over again and to pardon the freedom taken by one that has due respects for you and has learn'd to pass by the errors of men being conscious of his own fallibility but would gladly have malice and ill will rooted out SIR Your very Humble Servant J. W. POSTSCRIPT ALL considering People will now see that Conventiclers are not punished and ruin'd for holding Conventicles but for being zealous for the Protestant Religion and Government by advice of Parliament against Popery and Clandestine Arbitrary Councels Their Prosecutors know it to be so I fear there are some Justices of the Peace and others who either by their ill management or otherwise in the late unhappy Warrs suffer'd themselves and party to fall into the hands of their enemies which would now under colour of Law and after oblivion take revenge upon those few of them that survive by ruining the whole party of Non-conformists They like Haman think it below them to crush Mordecai alone except they involve the whole people of the Jews in that destruction But let them remember there is a God that judgeth the earth His Kingdom ruleth over all in spight of them He can deliver and if he will not they suffer in a very good cause for a good conscience toward God and for what has been declared to be reasonable by the King and by the Commons of England in Parliament FINIS Octo. 31. 1673. Witness Doctor Fowler Gregory Prebends of Gloucester Tempora mutantur But you would have call'd it hypocrisie in a Presbiterian to alter his voice thus the reasons remaining the same