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	people_n	power_n	1,463	5	4.9193	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A90246	A remonstrance of many thousand citizens, and other free-born people of England, to their own House of Commons. Occasioned through the illegall and barbarous imprisonment of that famous and worthy sufferer for his countries freedoms, Lievtenant Col. John Lilburne. Wherein their just demands in behalfe of themselves and the whole kingdome, concerning their publike safety, peace and freedome, is express'd; calling those their commissioners in Parliament, to an account, how they (since the beginning of their session, to this present) have discharged their duties to the vniversallity of the people, their soveraigne lord, from whom their power and strength is derived, and by whom (ad bene placitum,) it is continued.	Overton, Richard, fl. 1646.; Walwyn, William, 1600-1681.	1646 (1646)	Wing O632B; Thomason E343_11; ESTC R200951	15,088	21

accuse or prosecute any of you is become dangerous to the Prosecutors Yee have imprisonments as frequent for either Witnesses or Prosecutors as ever the Star-chamber had and yee are furnished with new devised Arguments to prove that yee onely may justly doe these grosse injustices which the Starre-Chamber High-Commission and Counsell-board might not doe And for doing whereof whil'st yee were untainted yee abolished them for yee now frequently commit mens Persons to Prison without shewing Caus Yee examine men upon In eroga●ories and Questions against themselves and Imprison them for refusing to answere And ye have Officious servile men that write and publish Sophisticall Arguments to justifie your so doing for which they are rewarded and countenanced as the Starre-Chamber and High-Commission-beagles lately were Whilst those that ventured their lives for your establishment are many of them vexed and molested and impoverished by them Yee have entertained to be your Committees servants those very prowling Varlets that were imployed by those unjust Courts who took pleasure to torment honest conscionable People yea vex and molest honest men for matters of Religion and difference with you and your Synod in judgement and take upon you to determine of Doctrine and Discipline approving this and reproaching that just like unto former ignora●● pollitick and superstitio●s Parliaments and Convocations And thereby have divided honest People amongst themselves by countenancing only those of the Presbitry and discountenancing all 〈◊〉 ●eparation Anabaprists and Independents And though it resteth in you to acquiet all differences in affection though not in judgement by permitting every one to be fully perswaded in their owne mindes commanding all Reproach to cease yet as yee also had admitted Machiavells Maxime Divide impera divide and prevaile yee countenance onely one open the Printing-presse onely unto one and that to the Presbytry and suffer them to raile and abuse and domineere over all the rest as if also ye had discovered and digested That without a powerfull compulsive Presbytry in the Church acompulsive mastership or Arristocraticall Government over the People in the State could never long be maintained Whereas truely wee are well assured neither you nor none else can have any into Power at all to conclude the People in matters that concerne the Worship of God for therein every one of us ought to be fully assured in our owne mindes and to be sure to Worship him according to our Consciences Yee may propose what Forme yee conceive best and most available for Information and well-being of the Nation and may perswade and invite thereunto but compell yee cannot justly for ye have no Power from Us so to doe nor could you have for wee could not conferre a Power that was not in our selves there being none of us that can without wil●ull sinne binde our selves to worship God after any other way then what to a title in our owne particular understandings wee approve to be just And therefore We could not referre our selves to you in things of this Nature and surely if We could not conferre this Power upon you yee cannot have it and so not exercise it justly Nay as we ought not to revile or reproach any man for his differing with us in judgement more then wee would be reviled or reproached for ours even so yea ought not to countenance any Reproachers or revilers or molesters for matters of Conscience But to protect and defend all that live peaceably in the Common-wealth of what judgement or way of Worship whatsoever and if ye would bend your mindes thereunto and leave your selves open to give eare and to consider such things as would be presented unto you a just way would be discovered for the Peace quiet of the land in generall and of every well-minded Person in particular But if you look up your selves from hearing all voices how is it possible you should my all things It is not for you to assume a Power to controule and force Religion or a way of Church Government upon the People because former Parliaments have so done yee are first to prove that yee could have such a Power justly entrusted unto you by the People that trusted you which you see you have not we may happily he answered that the Kings Wri● that summons a Parliament and directs the People to choose Knights and Burgesses implyes the Establishment of Religion To which wee answere that if Kings would prove themselves Lawfull Magistrates they must prove themselves to be so by a lawfull derivation of their Authority which must be from the voluntary trust of the People and then the case is the same with them as between the Peopl you they as you being possessed of no more Power then what is in the People justly to intrust and then all implications in the Writer of the Establishment of Religion sheweth that in that particular as many other we remain under the Norman yoke of an unlawfull Power from which wee ought to free our selves and which yee ought not to maintains upon us but to abrogate But ye have lisraed to any Counsells rather then to the voice of us that trusted you Why is it that you have stopt the Presse but that you would have nothing but pleasing slattering Discourses and go on to make your selves partakers of the Lordship over us without hearing any thing to the contrary yea your Lords 〈◊〉 Clergy long to have us in the same condition with our deluded brethren the Commons of Scotland where their understandings are so captivated with a Reverend opinion of their Presbytsy that they really beleeve them to be by Divine Authority and are as zealous therein as ever the poore deceived Papists were As much they live in feare of their thunder-bolts of Excommunication and good cause they have poor soules for those Excommunications are so followed with the civill Sanction or secular Power that they are able to crush any opposer or dissenter to dust ta undoe or ruins any mans so absolute a Power hath their new Clergy already gained over the poore People there and earnestly labour to bring us into the same condition because if wee should live in greater Freedome in this Nation it would they know in time be observed by their People whose understandings would be thereby informed and then they would grow impatient of their thraldome and shake off their yoake They are also in no lesse bondage in things Civill the Lords and great Men over-rule all as they please the People are scare free in any thing Friends these are knowne Truths And hence it is that in their Counsells here they adhere to those that maintaine their owne greatnesse and usurped rule over us left if wee should here possesse greater liberty then their vassalls the People in Scotland they might in short time observe the same and discha●ge themselves of their Oppressions It is from the mystery of iniquity that yee have never made that use of the People of this Nation in your wa●re

THE LIBERTY of THE FREEBORNE ENGLISH-MAN Conferred on him by the house of lords Iune 1646. IOHN LILBURNE AETAT SVA 23 An o 1641 G Glo fecit Gaze not vpon this shaddow that is vaine But rather raise thy thoughts a higher staine To GOD I meane who set this young-man free And in like straits can oke deliver thee Yea though the lords have him in bonds againe 〈◊〉 LORD of lords will his Just cause maintaine A REMONSTRANCE OF Many Thousand Citizens and other Free-born PEOPLE OF ENGLAND To their owne House of COMMONS Occasioned through the Illegall and Barbarous Imprisonment of that Famous and Worthy Sufferer for his Countries Freedoms Lievtenant Col. JOHN LILBURNE Wherein their just Demands in behalfe of themselves and the whole Kingdome concerning their Publike Safety Peace and Freedome is Express'd calling those their Commissioners in Parliament to an Account how they since the beginning of their Session to this present have discharged their Duties to the Universallity of the People their Soveraigne LORD from whom their Power and Strength is derived and by whom ad bene placitum it is continued Printed in the Yeer 1646. A REMONSTRANCE OF Many Thousand Citizens and other Free-borne People of England to their owne House of COMMONS WEE are well assured yet cannot forget that the cause of our choosing you to be Parliament-men was to deliver us from all kind of Bondage and to preserve the Common-wealth in Peace and Happinesse For effecting whereof we possessed you with the same Power that was in our selves to have done the same For wee might justly have done it our selves without you if we had thought it convenient choosing you as Persons whom wee thought fitly quallified and Faithfull for avoiding some inconveniences But ye are to remember this was only of us but a Power of ●●ust which is ever revokable and cannot be otherwise and to be imployed to no other end then our owne well-being Nor did wee choose you to continue our Trust 's longer then the knowne established constitution of this Commonly-wealth will justly permit and that could be but for one yeere at the most for by our Law a Parliament is to be called once every yeere and oftner if need be as ye well know Wee are your Principalls and you our Agents it is a Truthe ●he you cannot but acknowledge For if you or any other shall assume or exercise any Power that is not derived from our Trust and choice thereunto that Power is no lesse then usurpation and an Oppression from which wee expect to be sreed in whomsoever we finde it it being altogether inconsistent with the nature of just Freedome which yee also very well understand The History of our Fort-fathers since they were Conquered by the Normans doth manifest that this Nation hath been held in bondage all along ever since by the policies and force of the Officers of Trust in the Common-wealth amongst whom wee always esteemed Kings the chiefest and what in much of the former-time was done by warre and by impoverishing of the People to make them slaves and to hold them in bondage our latter Princes have endeavoured to effect by giving ease and wealth unto the People but withall corrupting their understanding by insusing false Principles concerning Kings and Government and Parliaments and Freedoms and also using all meanes to corrupt and vitiate the manners of the youth and strongest prop and support of the People the Gentry It is wonderfull that the failings of former Kings to bring our Fore-fathers into bondage together with the trouble and danger that some of them drew upon themselves and their Posterity by those their unjust endevours had not wrought in our latter Kings a resolution to rely on and trust only to Justice and square dealing with the the People especially considering the unaprnesse of the Nation to beare much especially from those that pretend to love them and unto whom they expressed so much hearty affection as any People in the world ever did as in the qulet admission of King James from Scotland sufficient if any Obligation would worke Kings to Reason to have endeared both him and his sonne King Charles to an inviolable love and hearty affection to the English Nation but it would not doe They choose rather to trust unto their Policies and Court Arts to King-waste and delusion then to Justice and plaine dealing and did effect many things tending to our enslaving as in your First Remonstrance you shew skill 〈…〉 manifest the same to all the World and this Nation having been by their delusive Arts and a long continued Peace much softened and debased in judgement and Spirit did beare far beyond its usuall temper or any example of our Fore-Fathers which to our shame wee acknowledge But in conclusion longer they would not beare and then yee were chosen to worke our deliverance and to Estate us in naturall and just libertie agreeable to Reason and common equitie for whatever our Fore-fathers were or what ever they did or suffered or were enforced to yeeld unto we are the men of the present age and ought to be absolutely free from all kindes of exorbitancies molestations or Arbitrary Power and you wee choose to free us from all without exception or limitation either in respect of Persons Officers Degrees or things and we were full of confidence that ye also would have dealt impartially on our behalf and made us the most absolute free People in the world But how ye have dealt with us wee shall now let you know and let the Righteom GOD judge between you and us the continuall Oppressours of the Nation have been Kings which is so evident that you cannot denie it and ye your selves have told the King whom yet you owne That his whole 16. Yeeres reigne was one continued act of the breach of the Law You snewed him That you understood his under-working with Ireland his endeavour to enforce the Parliament by the Army raised against Scotland yee were eye-witnesses of his violent attempt about the Five Members Yee saw evidently his purpose of raising Warre yee have seen him engaged and with obstinate violence persisting in the most bloody Warre that ever this Nation knew to the wasting and destruction of multitudes of honest and Religious People Yee have experience that none but a King could doe so great introllerable mischiefes the very name of King proving a sufficient charme to delude many of our Brethren in Wales Ireland England and Scotland too so farre as to fight against their own Liberties which you know no man under heaven could ever have done And yet as if you were of Counsell with him and were resolved to hold up his reputation thereby to enable him to goe on in mischief you maintaine The King can doe no wrong and apply all his Oppressions to Evill Counsellors begging and intreating him in such submissive language to returne to his Kingly Office and Parliament as if you were resolved to make us beleeve