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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bishop_n	church_n	time_n	3,239	5	3.7702	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89562	A copy of a letter written by Mr. Stephen Marshall to a friend of his in the city, for the necessary vindication of himself and his ministry, against that altogether groundlesse, most unjust, and ungodly aspersion cast upon him by certaine malignants in the city, and lately printed at Oxford, in their Mendacium Aulicum, otherwise called Mercurius Aulicus, and sent abroad into other nations to his perpetuall infamy. In which letter the accusation is fully answered. And together with that, the lawfulnesse of the Parliaments taking up defensive arms is briefly and learnedly asserted and demonstrated, texts of Scripture cleared, all objections to the contrary answered, to the full satisfaction of all those that desire to have their consciences informed in this great controversie.; Plea for defensive arms.	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1643 (1643)	Wing M750; Thomason E102_10; ESTC R21572	25,726	33

Judges of the Earth Secondly Although no such thing is in the Text That the people give no power to the Magistrate yet we will suppose it to be true what then will follow more then this That although they may not take from the Magistrate that power which God hath given him yet they may defend themselves against such unjust violences as God never gave the Magistrate power to commit A woman hath power to designe the person of her husband to her self but the authority of a husband is from God now though the wife may not take away the husbands just authority she may defend her self against oppression and injury Some alleadge Gods judgement upon the two hundred and fifty Princes Numb. 16. Answ. They were Rebells against their lawfull Governours ruling exactly according to the expresse will of God and may all those perish with them who will plead for such as they are Others alleadge 1 Sam. 8. 11. Where the people are let to understand how they shall be oppressed by their Kings yet for all that have no just cause of resistance for they shall have no other remedy left them but preces lachrimae crying to the Lord Vers 8. Answ. But saith the Text so Let us read the words a little and you shall cry out in that day because of the King which you have chosen and the Lord shall not hear in that day Is this to say they have no just cause of resistance nor no remedy left but complaining indeed if the Holy Ghost had said you shall not resist nor fight for your liberties c. There had been some shew of reason for such a deduction as some would extort from them but yet even then why might not the words have been a prediction of the curse of God upon the people giving them up to such a base degenerate ignoble spirit that they shall have no heart to stand up in the defence of their liberties and lives rather then a prohibition of such resistance The Lord foretells the people Ezek. 24. 21. Of calamitous times in which he tells them Vers 24 That they should not mourn or weep Will any man interpret this as if God made it unlawfull for them to mourn or to weep or was it not rather a prediction of their stupidity of spirit when they should pine away under these calamities so Jere. 27. God said they should put their necks under the yoke of the Kings of Babylon Will any man thence gather That other People are bound to put their necks under the yoke of a forraign enemy invading them In one word the plain meaning is That this people should dearly rue it for casting off the form of Government which God had chosen for them and when they should mourn under their own choice God would not take the yoke from off their necks and so it is a threatning of a judgement not an imposition of a dutie But David durst not lift up his hand against the Lords Anointed though he did tyrannically persecute him yea though it were sometimes in his power to have killed him Answ. No man pleads that any David should kill the Lords Anointed yet he may defend himself against his unjust violence as David here did Object But if they may not kill him who can be secured That in a battle as at Keynton field his bullet may not hit the Lords Anointed Answ. Is this their fault who have so often Petitioned His Majesty to withdraw Himself from such dangerous wayes as both the Parliament and his Excellencie hath done if their Petitions would have been received or rather theirs Who the worse subjects they and the more accursed they have led Him into these unnaturall Warres and do in a manner inforce His presence in them did they bear that affection to His Majestie as they pretend They would with Davids men Swear thou shalt no more go out with us to battle least thou quench the light of Israel 2 Sam. 21. 17. We have heard much of the Cavaliers swearing but I never yet heard that one of them had the honesty to swear this nay they are wronged in reports if some of them have not sworn the contrary Object But David would not fight against him Answ. Indeed he never did fight against him because his numbers never were considerable till towards the last but he would have fortified the City of Keilah against him and it had been a strange madnesse to have had 600 men with him if his conscience would have suffered him to have done nothing but flee sure one might more easily be hid then 600. But there is a plain Text assuring us that David and his men would have done more then run up and down if occasion had served 1 Chron. 12. 16. and so forward When divers of the children of Judah and Benjamin came to joyn with him David went out to meet them and said If ye be come to help me c. But if ye come to betray me to my enemies I being innocent the God of our fathers look upon it and rebuke it Now mark their answer the spirit came upon Amasa the chief Captain and he said Thine are we David and of thy side peace be to thee and peace to thy helpers then David received them and made them Captains of the band Can any man imagine their meaning was to run up and down the Countries with him if they were able to cope with any number that Saul should bring or send against them especially adding this to it That they fell to him from the severall Tribes day by day till his host was like an host of God Now by these mens arguiment if Davids host had been fourty thousand and Saul come against him but with five or six hundred they must all have fled from him and not have put it to a battell Credat Judaeus Appella non ego Object But the Fathers of the Primitive times knew no defence but preces lachrymae in all their unjust sufferings Answ 1. It follows not because they knew it not therefore we cannot know it there might be speciall reasons of Gods dispensations towards them 2. Their Liberties and Religion were not established by Law and this was the cause saith Abbot Bishop of Salisbury why the Christians in the Primitive times before their Religion was established by Law caedebantur non caedebant would rather be killed then kill But after the times of Constantine when Religion was established they shook off the yoke of persecution from the Church caedebant non caedebantur they did kill rather then be killed 3. Where did any of the Fathers ever oppose this opinion and condemn this practise that is declaring it unlawfull especially for a representative body to defend themselves against the unjust violence of their misled Princes I beleeve if any such testimonies were to be found the Parliament should have heard of them before this time 4. We

Profession joyning with an Army of Papists under pretence of mantaining the Protestant Religion against a Protestant Parliament to fight themselves into popery so many unworthy Gentlemen fight to destroy a Parliament and thereby fight themselves and posterity into slavery so many Papists in Armes contrary to so many knowne Lawer and armed with Commission to disarme Protestants contrary to their knowne Liberties and the Protestants who exceed their number an hundred fold not to rise as one man to subdue them And who would have believed that he should have seen after all this an Army raysed by the Parliament in such an extremity for such an end having hazzarded their lives undergon all these hardships performed all these services and whose untimely disbanding may prove our irrecoverable ruine strai●…ed for want of pay while England is worth a groate Behold regard and wonder marvelously I relate a thing which many will not believe though it be told unto them Hab. 1. 5. But though the Worke be harder the case is still clearer both in regard of the intentions of the Parliament and also of their adversaries For the Parliament multitudes would not believe but that they had further aimes then their own and the publique safety that they intended it not to depose His Majesty yet by force of Armes to compell him to that which is not fit for a King to yeild to But now by their frequent petitioning of His Majesty especially by the reasonablenesse of their late Propositions and Instructions wherein they desire a present disbanding of all Armes even before any other bills were past and were willing to have the Ports Forts and Sh●●s c Of the Kingdome resigned up into His Majesties hands provided onely that in these times of danger they might Pro bac vice be put into the hands of such as the State might confide in The sincerity of their intentions are now so plaine that I think Malignity it self cannot but be convinced of them And the intentions of the contrary councells are as plaine their mask now falling off and their designe more then ever discovered to be the overthrow of Parliament liberty Lawes and Religion For at first we had Declarations to preserve all the just priviledges of Parliament but now we see men proclaimed Traytors for executing the Commands of the two Houses and the two Houses themselves if not in direct yet in equivalent tearmes proclaimed Traytors yea denyed to be a Parliament because His Majesty withdrawes himselfe and after multitudes of Petitions refuses to returne and because many of their Members have deserted them and are protected by His Majesty from the Houses who have sent for them Yea they are required to recall their Votes as illegall and that such as they have fined and imprisoned may bring their Habeas Corpus to be tried in an inferiour Court Yea people provoked to scorne them and thereupon multitudes not fearing to trample upon and cast as vile scorne and contemptunjustly upon that thrice-honorable Court as ever was cast justly upon the Commissaries Courts We have heretofore been assured that the knowne Lawes of the Land should be the onely rule of government but to name no other instances now we see the Commission of Array to be justified to be Law which the Parliament hath not only declared but demonstrated and the Countries where ever it hath prevailed found to be the utter destruction of all the Lawes made for the Subjects liberty Heretofore Proclamations were put out that no Papists should be entertained into His Majesties Army because the resolution was to maintaine the Protestant Religion But now we see them armed and armed with Commission and Protestant Doctors in their writings justifying it and being armed dare professe their Religion publiquely set up their masse in the second City of the Kingdome cutting 〈◊〉 pieces and burning Bibles and as multitudes of reports come from beyond the Seas and the supplies that come from thence confirme it all the Papists in Christendome contributing to this War as to the Catholique cause Heretofore the Liberty of the Subject seemed to be stood for yea defended against the Parliament as if it were possible the representative body should enslave it selfe and in the meane time while these things are promised hundreds yea thousands of his Majesties Subjects plundred with His Majesties Proclamations against plundering in the hands of diverse of the plunderers And their persons led away in Ropes and Chaines like Turkish Gallyslaves and many cast into Prisons and Dungeons only for detending themselves against robbers and murderers abusing His Majesties Name where their Jaylours use them worse then the Turkes doe their Christian slaves or one that hath any thing of man in him could use a dog And when all these things are now done the Parliament not only sitting but having so much strength in the Field what can we expect when these men have prevailed when at the putting on of their harnesse their usuall language is nothing but blasphemy against God not to be mentioned and against His people calling all that adhere to his and the Kingdoms Cause Parliament dogs and Parliament rogues what language will you expect to heare if once they come triumphantly to put it off If while the event is uncertaine they cut us out such kinde of Lawes Liberties and Parliament-priviledges as these are if God for our sinnes sell us into their hands thinke if you can what Lawes Liberties and Parliament-priviledges our posteritie shall finde Recorded in our bloud for our selves alas who shall live when God doth this nay who would desire to live I would rather with holy Austin make it my humble suite to that God whose are the issues of life and death that he would rather take mee from the Earth then let mee live to see His deare Church and my native Countrey delivered into the hands of such Blasphemous and barbarous Men So that in stead of repenting and withdrawing from the Worke I could wish that my voyce were able to reach into every corner of the Kingdome and that I could awaken all people to see the danger and misery that is flowing in upon them That every soule might be quickened up to make his owne and helpe to make Englands bleeding dying Englands peace with God and every one who hath any interest in Heaven to cry mightily unto that God in whose hand the hearts of Kings are and who rules in the Kingdomes of men that the power of our God might be great towards us in turning away these imminent calamities and turning the heart of our King towards His great and faithfull Councell and rescuing Him out of the hands of this Generation of men who delight in blood Our God hath nor yet sayd pray not for this people but if the Lord say he hath no delight in us Righteous art thou O Lord and just are all thy judgements onely let us not be accessary to our own destruction and the destruction of so flourishing a