Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bear_v	truth_n	witness_n	3,073	5	8.6773	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A75431	An answer to the letter directed to the author of Jus Populi by a Friend of the authors.		1671 (1671)	Wing A3415; ESTC R231777	24,152	42

he threatned them that drew the sword well for him you dare not adde and against him is not doubted nay suppose it had been against Peter attempting his personal deliverance it had given you no advantage since he also rebuked him as Satan for desiring him to spare himself he blessed likewise the peace makers entituling them the children of God and our hearts desire is that God would raise up to us a true peace-maker to reduce you unto wisdome whose wayes are wayes of pleasantnesse and all her paths are peace The incendiaries of warre are indeed no where pronounced happie and the boutefeus of rebellion are certainly the children of him who was a murtherer from the begining but Sir is this fair dealing The question that you move and have to prove is that my friend is an incendiarie and boutefeu and behold without any reason offered you not onely conclude him but condemne him it were undoubtedly as easie and aboundantly just for me to inquire where perjurious persecuters are pronounced happie c but I will not so much as retort or retaliat with such expressions such as breath out warre and crueltie know not what spirit they are of and our prayer to God is that they who breathing out threatnings and slaughter against us terme just defence and necessarie resistance war and crueltie may at length have their eyes opened All in the Gospel-dispensation is truely gentle and peaceable and yet of all things in the world it hath been most reproached for tumult and sedition but the great consolation of all its followers is that its author the God of peace will one day make known all false pretenders and its Lord the Prince of Peace for their persecutions here will in the end blesse with everlasting peace all its true lovers when according to the excellent order of the Gospels rule of peace the Kingdome of God shall be fully revealed in righteousnesse first and then in peace and joy in the holy ghost But you say that all this viz a non-resistance of and submission to persecution was signally confirmed by our masters unexampled sufferings and yet you know so well that the free and voluntarie sufferings of our Lord are in themselves no lesse unexampled then unimitable and that it is the manner and not the matter thereof that we are to follow that I cannot but doubt your sinceritie Christ not onely refused the aide of the sword but came into the world willinglie went up to Ierusalem stedfastly exposed himself knowingly and lastly would not aske the assistance of legions of Angels readie at his desire that the Scriptures signifieing how that he ought to have suffered might be fulfilled and is it possible that you can think that these specifick acts are for our imitation But you say that he entailed perdition on these that should draw the sword to wit all these that are not warranted to doe it by the Magistrat How long will you love vanitie and seek after leesing Our Lord in that place doth most plainely for the averting of Peter's unseasonable zeal and the comforting of all his Disciples denounce that all these who take the sword unjustly shall perish by the sword and. Rev. 13.10 we have the parallel place more fully set downe he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword spoken of persecuting Magistrats aswel as others Here is the patience and the faith of the Saints And yet you have the confidence to smooth it over as if this sad doome had been pronounced not onely against Peter but all such as shall be by the force of oppression constrained to their owne defence You adde that he witnessed that good confession before Pilat that Caesar needed apprehend no hazard from his Kingdome since it not being of this world was not to be fought for And doe you indeed think that this is the emphasis of that good confession viz to satisfie Cesars unjust fears O perverse flatterie The excellent goodnesse of our Lords confession cannot but be sweetly relished by every serious Christian to lye in these words thou saiest that I am a King to this end was I borne and for this cause came I unto the world that I should beare witnesse unto the truth how then are you not ashamed not onely to wrest it unto the pitieful interest of Princes but to misconstrue the whole passage as if our Lord in purging himself by a voluntarie and free forbearance of the affectation of a worldly Kingdome did in effect disowne all defensive armes to the incouraging and strengthening of the most bloudie tyrans You think it strange that through the whole Gospel we should meet with repeated blessings on these that suffer but never one upon such as fight but if our Lord having declared that he came not to destroy the Law of righteousnesse did accommodat his incouragements to his Apostles unto the dispensation fo his providence under which for the greater glorie of the power of his free grace he thought good to gather and traine up his Church should you or any else be thereat stumbled for my part when I reflect upon both the sufferings and grace of the primitive times and how the Lord did order them I rather wonder at that admonition by you observed that they should sell their coats to buy swords but you say had the Disciples understood this of the material sword either their practises or writings should have had some vestiges of that sense by the which very argument a man may as easily deny that the Purse there spoken of is to be taken for a material one but seing the tenor of the context and relation made by the Lord to their former mission doe exhibit the meaning with that evidence as cannot be convelled for want of an unoccasioned confirmation I go on to examine the rest of your glosse upon the place and taking notice that the Disciples at the time by presenting two swords did shew that they understood the Lord to speake of a material sword you say that by his answer it is enough which cannot relate to the two swords produced no wise enough for eleven persons he corrects their error breaks off their purpose as if he had said enough of this or no more of it since he sawe they misunderstood his former words of a sword Thus rather then to assent to truth you would have our Lord by such a stop tacitly to acknowledge his own inadvertency but the passage is too obvious to be thus abused in asmuch as our Lord having before both signified and prepared for his owne imminent departure forewarnes them by the necessitie of a purse and a sword of the straits and dangers that would ensue whereupon they its like out of their blind and forward desire to have him delivered from the hand of the jewes lay hold on his words and shew him two swords probably with a confident remembrance of his former miracles and this their precipitancy our Lord according to

absolut politick Empire that can be lawfully set up by men is lyable to these implyed yea indispensable conditions and exceptions which in the case of an insupportable perversion doe certainely warrant the peoples necessar resistance to which if you judge the inquirie into the rise of Magistracie the nature of a compact betwixt a King and his subjects and the precedents of these two absolut Kingdomes of Iudah and Israel recorded and approven in Scripture to be impertinent I confesse your reasons are above my reach I graunt therefore that the subjects of Scotland are obliged to acknowledge with all due obedience and submission the soveraigne authoritie of King and Parliament and that this is the onely supreme authority known amongst us but as the consent contract and trust by which this authoritie is constitute are by their expresse end and the supposed superior rules of reason most certainly qualified both as to the point of obedience which is by all acknowledged and also as to that of submission by none disowned in its constraining exigence so I plainly affirme that not onely there was never a surrender made by any people in terminis disclaiming the lawfulnesse of resistance in every case and though the pressures should be the most injust and violent but that a surrender of that nature were in it self utterly unlawful and no wayes obligatorie for seing it were unquestionably contrair to the law of God for any people in the certaine imminency of visible destruction to betray themselves and their posteritie in their lives religion or liberties by a wilful and explicit acquiescence it must necessarly follow that either the controverted general surrender by reason of the tacit exceptions pleaded hath not the same import or that in this respect it is equally sinful But to this you object that if such submission be unlawful then they are self murderers who suffer willingly when they are in a capacity to resist and this you second with an affected Alas for the aspersion that thence would ensue upon the glorious martyrs as self murtherers It s answered that he who from the meere sense of such a promised submission suffers himself in a cleare capacity to resist to be killed is either a malicious or stupid self murtherer I nothing doubt but seing that to renounce a priviledge and to forebeare its excercise are things so vastly different that oftentimes the contradiction of the former is the latters greatest praise the causes and motives which induced these glorious witnesses into quiet forbearing and their voluntary and cheerful sufferings are so noble and conspicuous that I will not so much as call in question their capacity though for the most part by providence wisely overruled either to vindicat their immortall fame or releive my selfe of your pitieful sophistry But here you think that my friend will looke to escape by the distinction of religion when it becomes a right setled by law from what was before it was so established But seing it is evident that he onely makes Law an accession to that liberty which we have by God and natures original graunt your delusive self-conceit that suggested unto you this apprehension and your weak opinion that a right righteously and necessarily established by Law can as easily by a contrary Law be renversed are equally contemptible In the next place after a preface of your religious preferring of Gods commandments to the Kings Lawes you fall upon an inference which you say my friend doth thence draw viz. because when the Magistrat commands what is contrary to Gods Law we are not bound to obey him therefore when he punisheth contrary to that same Law we are not bound to suffer And for this indeed you treat him as Magisterially as if he were really that schoole boy to whom you do dully resemble him but sparing to inquire where it is that you do finde him barely delivering this consequence and not being permitted in this place to explaine how that regard to the Prince his place character and the general ends thereof and how that many considerations of prudence charity and patience may in lighter occasions perswade to subjection where its proper and formal reason hath no immediat force I shall onely say that the comparing of the limitation of our obedience with the case of our suffering is of excellent use in as much as it sheweth first that as a peoples indefinit surrender though chiefly respecting their obedience doth neverthelesse imply its tacit exceptions so the seeming generality of the same surrender is no argument to exclude all conditions in the point of subjection next that seing a discretive judgement is allowed to the people in the matter of obedience there can be no reason wherefore in the matter of suffering a thing far more obvious and dignoscible the same should by the men of your way be so much decryed Thirdly since it is certaine that subjection to suffering was directly commanded by God and consented to by the people onely for the securing of our obedience it may well be concluded that as in inferiour unjust sufferings our resistance is mostly restricted not by vertue of our formal obligation to subjection but by the forementioned influences so when by notorious and insufferable perversions all these are cut off and both the place is plainly forefeited prudence befooled charitie rendred desperat and patience turned into stupiditie the libertie of resistance must of necessitie be conceded As for the reason of disparitie by you adduced viz. That in the case of the Kings sinful command Gods countermand of our obedience is supposed to be cleare whereas our sufferings are not countermanded though he punish unjustly I shall not reply to you that in the case of a stupid casting away of life or libertie even sufferings aswel as sinful obedience are certainly countermanded but the thing I would have you to advert to is that seeing it is not so much the obligation as the right and liberty of defence which we plead for and seeing in the case of intollerable sufferings the same is no lesse clearly warranted then sinful suffering appears to be countermanded the difference by you asserted is but claudicant and insufficient But now you are wearie of tracing my friends politicks and truely considering how samely you have done it I wonder you have traced them so far onely let me tell you that if you shall be pleased to give me any further provocation upon this subject I here offer to make good all that my friend hath asserted in maintenance of the Peoples rights and liberties to the most critick if impartial of your adherents You adde that it is your chiefe designe to prove that matters of Religion are not to be decided by the sword Pray Sir speak plainly you know and are perswaded that we are neither for the propagation of Religion nor determining in its matters by the sword all that we maintaine is that in the case of unjust suffering for the sake of