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	power_n	supreme_a	1,645	5	8.3158	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50955	The tenure of kings and magistrates proving that it is lawfull, and hath been held so through all ages, for any who have the power, to call to account a tyrant, or wicked king, and after due conviction, to depose and put the author, J.M.	Milton, John, 1608-1674.	1649 (1649)	Wing M2181; ESTC R21202	25,266	46

will bless us and be propitious to us who reject a King to make him onely our leader and supreme governour in the conformity as neer as may be of his own ancient government if we have at least but so much worth in us to entertaine the sense of our future happiness and the courage to receave what God voutsafes us wherin we have the honour to precede other Nations who are now labouring to be our followers For as to this question in hand what the people by thir just right may doe in change of government or of governour we see it cleerd sufsiciently besides other ample autority eev'n from the mouths of Princes themselves And surely they that shall boast as we doe to be a free Nation and not have in themselves the power to remove or to abolish any governour supreme or subordinate with the government it self upon urgent causes may please thir fancy with a ridiculous and painted freedom fit to coz'n babies but are indeed under tyranny and servitude as wanting that power which is the root and sourse of all liberty to dispose and oeconomize in the Land which God hath giv'n them as Maisters of Family in thir own house and free inheritance Without which natural and essential power of a free Nation though bearing high thir heads they can in due esteem be thought no better then slaves and vassals born in the tenure and occupation of another inheriting Lord Whose government though not illegal or intolerable hangs over them as a Lotdly scourge not as a free goverment and therfore to be abrogated How much more justly then may they fling off tyranny or tyrants who being once depos'd can be no more then privat men as subject to the reach of Justice and arraignment as any other transgressors And certainly if men not to speak of Heathen both wise and Religious have don justice upon Tyrants what way they could soonest how much more mild and human then is it to give them faire and op'n tryall To teach lawless Kings and all that so much adore them that not mortal man or his imperious will but Justice is the onely true sovran and supreme Majesty upon earth Let men cease therfore out of faction and hypocrisie to make outcrys horrid things of things so just and honorable And if the Parlament and Military Councel do what they doe without president if it appeare thir duty it argues the more wisdom vertue and magnanimity that they know themselves able to be a president to others Who perhaps in future ages if they prove not too degenerat will look up with honour and aspire toward these exemplary and matchless deeds of thir Ancestors as to the highest top of thir civil glory and emulation Which heretofore in the persuance of fame and forren dominion spent it self vain-gloriously abroad but henceforth may learn a better fortitude to dare execute highest Justice on them that shall by force of Armes endeavour the oppressing and bereaving ofReligion and thir liberty at home that no unbridl'd Potentate or Tyrant but to his sorrow for the future may presume such high and irresponsible licence over mankind to havock and turn upside-down whole Kingdoms of men as though they were no more in respect of his perverse will then a Nation of Pismires As for the party calld Presbyterian of whom I beleive very many to be good faithful Christians though misled by som of turbulent spirit I wish them earnestly and calmly not to fall off from thir first principles nor to affect rigor and superiority over men not under them not to compell unforcible things in Religion especially which if not voluntary becomes a sin nor to assist the clamor and malicious drifts of men whom they themselves have judg'd to be the worst of men the obdurat enemies of God and his Church nor to dart against the actions of thir brethren for want of other argument those wrested Lawes and Scriptures thrown by Prelats and Malignants against thir own sides which though they hurt not otherwise yet tak'n up by them to the condemnation of thir owne doings give scandal to all men and discover in themselves either extreame passion or apostacy Let them not oppose thir best friends and associats who molest them not at all infringe not the least of thir liberties unless they call it thir liberty to bind other mens consciences but are still secking to live at peace with them and brotherly accord Let them beware an old and perfet enemy who though he hope by sowing discord to make them his instruments yet cannot forbeare a minute the op'n threatning of his destind revenge upon them when they have servd his purposes Let them feare therefore if they bee wise rather what they have don already then what remaines to doe and be warn'd in time they put no confidence in Princes whom they have provokd lest they be added to the examples of those that miserably have tasted the event Stories can inform them how Christiern the second King of Denmark not much above a hundred yeares past driv'n out by his Subjects and receavd againe upon new Oaths and conditions broke through them all to his most bloody revenge slaying his chief opposers when he saw his time both them and thir children invited to a feast for that purpose How Maximilian dealt with those of Bruges though by mediation of the German Princes reconcil'd to them by solem and public writings drawn and seald How the massacre at Paris was the effect of that credulous peace which the French Protestants made with Charles the ninth thir King and that the main visible cause which to this day hath sav'd the Netherlands from utter ruine was thir finall not belei●ing the perfidious cruelty which as a constant maxim of State hath bin us'd by the Spanish Kings on thir Subjects that have tak'n armes and after trusted them as no later age but can testifie heretofore in Belgia it self and this very yeare in Naples And to conclude with one past exception though farr more ancient David after once hee had tak'n armes never after that trusted Saul though with tears and much relenting he twise promis'd not to hurt him These instances few of many might admonish them both English and Scotch not to let thir owne ends and the driving on of a faction betray them blindly into the snare of those enemies whose revenge looks on them as the men who first begun fomented and carri'd on beyond the cure of any sonnd or safe accommodation all the evil which hath since unavoidably befall'n them and thir King I have something also to the Divines though brief to what were needfull not to be disturbers of the civil affairs being in hands better able and more belonging to manage them but to study harder and to attend the office of good Pastors knowing that he whose flock is least among them hath a dreadfull charge not performd by mounting twise into the chair with a formal preachment huddl'd up at the od hours of a whole lazy week but by incessant pains and watching in season and out of season from house to house over the soules of whom they have to feed Which if they ever well considerd how little leasure would they find to be the most pragmatical Sidesmen of every popular tumult and Sedition And all this while are to learne what the true end and reason is of the Gospel which they teach and what a world it differs from the censorious and supercilious lording over conscience It would be good also they liv'd so as might perswade the people they hated covetousness which worse then heresie is idolatry hated pluralities and all kind of Simony left rambling from Benefice to Benefice iike ravnous Wolves seeking where they may devour the biggest Of which if som well and warmely seated from the beginning be not guilty t were good they held not conversation with such as are let them be sorry that being call'd to assemble about reforming the Church they fell to progging and solliciting the Parlament though they had renouncd the name of Priests for a new setling of thir Tithes and Oblations and double lin'd themselves with spiritual places of commoditie beyond the possible discharge of thir duty Let them assemble in Consistory with thir Elders and Deacons according to ancient Ecclesiastical rule to the preserving of Church discipline each in his several charge and not a pack of Clergie men by themselves to belly cheare in thir presumptuous Sion or to promote designes abuse and gull the simple Laity and stirr up tumult as the Prelats did for the maintenance of thir pride and avarice These things if they observe and waite with patience no doubt but all things will goe well without their importunities or exclamations and the Printed letters which they send subscrib'd with the ostentation of great Characters and little moment would be more considerable then now they are But if they be the Ministers of Mammon instead of Christ and scandalize his Church with the filty love of gaine aspiring also to sit the closest and the heaviest of all Tyrants upon the conscience and fall notoriously into the same sins whereof so lately and so loud they accus'd the Prelates as God rooted out those immediately before so will he root out them thir imitators and to vindicate his own glory and Religion will uncover thir hypocrisie to the open world and visit upon thir own heads that curse ye Meroz the very Motto of thir Pulpits wherwith so frequently not as Meroz but more like Atheists they have mock'd the vengeance of God and the zeale of his people The End Jer. 48. 10. Prov. 12. 10.

forbearance and hope of his amendment and he after that shall doe me tenfould injury and mischief to what hee had don when I so Covnanted and stil be plotting what may tend to my destruction I question not but that his after actions release me nor know I Covnant so sacred that withholds mee from demanding Justice on him Howbeit had not thir distrust in a good cause and the fast and loos of our prevaricating Divines oversway'd it had bin doubtless better not to have inserted in a Covnant unnecessary obligations and words not works of a supererogating Allegeance to thir enemy no way advantageous to themselves had the King prevail'd as to thir cost many would have felt but full of snare and distraction to our friends usefull onely as we now find to our adversaries who under such a latitude and shelter of ambiguous interpretation have ever since been plotting and contriving new opportunities to trouble all againe How much better had it bin and more becomming an undaunted vertue to have declard op'nly and boldly whom and what power the people were to hold Supreme as on the like occasion Protestants have don before and many conscientious men now in these times have more then once besought the Parlament to doe that they might go on upon a sure foundation and not with a ridling Covnant in thir mouthes seeming to sweare counter almost in the same breath Allegeance and no Allegeance which doubtless had drawn off all the minds of sincere men from siding with them had they not discern'd thir actions farr more deposing him then thir words upholding him which words made now the subject of cavillous interpretations stood ever in the Covnant by judgement of the more discerning sort an evidence of thir feare not of thir fidelity What should I return to speak on of those attempts for which the King himself hath oft'n charg'd the Presbyterians of seeking his life whenas in the due estimation of things they might without a fallacy be sayd to have don the deed outright Who knows not that the King is a name of dignity and office not of person Who therfore kils a King must kill him while he is a King Then they certainly who by deposing him have long since tak'n from him the life of a King his office and his dignity they in the truest sence may bee said to have killd the King nor onely by thir deposing and waging Warr against him which besides the danger to his personal life set him in the fardest opposite point from any vital function of a King but by thir holding him in prison vanquishd and yeilded into thir absolute and despotic power which brought him to the lowest degradement and incapacity of the regal name I say not whose matchless valour next under God lest the story of thir ingratitude thereupon carry me from the purpose in hand which is to convince them that they which I repeat againe were the men who in the truest sense killd the King not onely as is provd before but by depressing him thir King farr below the rank of a subject to the condition of a Captive without intention to restore him as the Chancellour of Scotland in a speech told him plainly at Newcastle unless hee granted fully all thir demands which they knew he never meant Nor did they Treat or think of Treating with him till thir hatred to the Army that deliverd them not thir love or duty to the King joyn'd them secretly with men sentencd so oft for Reprobates in thir owne mouthes by whose suttle inspiring they grew madd upon a most tardy and improper Treaty Whereas if the whole bent of thir actions had not bin against the King himselfe but against his evill Councel as they faind and publishd wherefore did they not restore him all that while to the true life of a King his Office Crown and Dignity when he was in thir power and they themselves his neerest Counselers The truth therefore is both that they would not and that indeed they could not without thir own certaine destruction having reduc'd him to such a final pass as was the very death and burial of all in him rhat was regal and from whence never King of England yet revivd but by the new re inforcement of his own party which was a kind of resurrection to him Thus having quitc extinguisht all that could be in him of a King and from a total privation clad him over like another specifical thing with formes and habitudes destructive to the former they left in his person dead as to Law and all the civil right either of King or Subject the life onely of a Prilner a Captive and a Malefactor Whom the equal and impartial hand of justice finding was no more to spare then another ordnary man not onely made obnoxious to the doome of Law by a charge more then once drawn up against him and his owne confession to the first Article at Newport but summond and arraignd in the sight of God and his people cutst and devoted to perdition worse then any Ahab or Antiochus with exhortation to curse all those in the name of God that made not Warr against him as bitterly as Meroz was to be curs'd that went not out against a Canaanitish King almost in all the Sermons Prayers and Fulminations that have bin utterd this sev'n yeares by those clov'n tongues of falshood and dissention who now to the stirring up of new discord acquitt him and against thir owne discipline which they boast to be the throne and scepter of Christ absolve him unconfound him though unconverted unrepentant unsensible of all thir pretious Saints and Martyrs whose blood they have so oft layd upon his head and now againe with a new sovran anointment can wash it all off as if it were as vile and no more to be reckn'd for then the blood of so many Dogs in a time of Pestilence giving the most opprobrious lye to all the acted zeale that for these many yeares hath filld thir bellies and fed them fatt upon the foolish people Ministers of sedition not of the Gospell who while they saw it manifestly tend to civil Warr and bloodshed never ceasd exasperating the people against him and now that they see it likely to breed new commotion cease not to incite others against the people that have savd them from him as if sedition were thir onely aime whether against him or for him But God as we have cause to trust wil put other thoughts into the people and turn them from looking after these firebrands of whose fury and sals prophecies we have anough experience and from the murmurs of new discord will incline them to heark'n rather with erected minds to the voice of our supreme Magistracy calling us to liberty and the flourishing deeds of a reformed Common-wealth with this hope that as God was heretofore angry with the Jews who rejected him and his forme of Government to choose a King so that he