Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	blood_n	body_n	great_a	2,100	5	2.8464	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A86800	A letter written to a gentleman in the country, touching the dissolution of the late Parliament, and the reasons therof.	Hall, John, 1627-1656.; Milton, John, 1608-1674,	1653 (1653)	Wing H352; Thomason E697_2; ESTC R207083	12,175	22

was weak and not of assurance enough to our purpose and if two inconveniences were to be run upon it were much better to run upon the lesse This is an Hypothesis I see not how it could be salved otherwise than by choosing such idoneous persons and that in such a number as might carry on the work for though multitude of Counsellors is strength and safety yet in distemper'd and turning States it is weaknesse and distraction And these such kind of men as are fit to have the reigns of a Nation in their hands and such as by a swift and due prosecution of Justice should satisfie the people what it is to be free This is a businesse either to be done by the Parliament by the People or by the Army The first like cunning Brokers would not do it The second like troublesome Ideots cannot do it and the third as wise Guardians must do it And therefore though this change may carry much in it as to appearance of fear and terror yet when a man will consider these two things that the Liberty of his Nation ought to be the dearest thing to him under Heaven and that without these men and means it cannot be preserved for take away the force that protects us all our enemies shall flow in upon us he must necessarily grant a submission to what they do For he that hath power to command hath also power to guide theone without the other being insignificant And therefore since we are in a Tempest let us come to this Rock to speak at the harshliest rather than perish For you cannot conceive but the worst Government in the world is infinitely better than none at all or to speak a little closelyer an ill Government well manag'd may be much better than a completer form of Government ill manag'd people still judging by their Safety or Liberty or Civill advantages the effects not only of their Government but Rulers For matter of change of Government lest you may be dissatisfied I have thus much briefly to say that considering the actions of the late Parliament and their dissolution we are to remember by what means they were called and for what end They were called at first by a Writ of the King and that by the ordinary summons of a Writ and that on the Kings part compulsively But God that hath a mind to do much out of little so prospered them that by an Act of the whole Parliament as then it stood they were enabled to sit till they should dissolve themselves T is a question worthy the resolution of a Lawyer whether these men sitting by that Authority were not tyed to follow exactly the Rules of it For certainly every Law or Commission ties according to the Intent They thought fit to throw out the Lords spirituall alias Bishops they manage a War against the King upon their own Authority and by vertue of that Act they were purg'd of Malignant or Ill-affected Members by the Army whose duty it was to interpose in so dangerous a time and at last declared and established a Common-wealth Thus did they act and that to the eternall Renown of the Nation for four years together But when dieases grew upon them as all sedentary Bodies are slow and unactive there appear'd such a lazinesse in the execution of that power such a Lethargy as to Act in the right of the Nation that these immortal persons whose blood had been stirr'd or spill'd in their Cause began to awake and remember for whom they had done so great things that is to say for the People And therefore they being as I have said Arbitrators men whose eys were open and Consciences not branded rise up and begun to look and consider in what condition the People was whereof they were a part and therefore when neither Addresses Reasons proposalls nor Petitions of a long time could prevaile it is not strange at all if they were forced to that of the Physician Vre Seca I know your Objection before hand that the action of the Lord Generall in the Dissolution was somewhat rough and Barbarous and I shall not trouble you with a long Answer That as to his Person as he hath in the Field declared himself one of the Noblest assertors of our Liberty and as great an enlarger of our Territories as ever was so as for any particular designs of his own in point of Government it must be a scrutiny greater than humane that can discover how he either intended to invade us or to make us a prey to any ambition of his And therefore if upon this grand Revolution he might appear to his enemies passionate yet considering the extremities that great minds fall into and the great trust committed to him it will appear nothing but the discharge of that duty that lay upon him To have done such a thing as a single Generall wants neither example nor president but I would not injure an argument in a Letter by the by which I could make good in a whole Treatise For you may remember that of Caesar to Metellus the Tribune Young man sayes he 't was easier for me to say this than to do it a speech sayes Sir Francis Bacon both the proudest and the mildest that ever came out of the mouth of Man For at that time he was breaking open the Sacred Treasury which by the Lawes was not to be broken open But it is otherwise here this was not a rash precipitate Act of his but a Trust and Result of those under him T was fit he that was the most eminent should appear and he as civilly without noise or disturbance did it And therefore Acting by their Votes and by their consents it was their action as well as his and it was no more his action than it is the action of the Head moved by Tendons and Muscles which are parts of the Body and without which the Head it self could not possibly at all move So that here it comes to a Question Whether it be better for us to be in Slavery under the name of Liberty or in Liberty under the effects of Slavery I have told my thoughts before in what condition I conceiv'd our Liberty was and I repeat it once again that I think this present is the better expedient For supposing that the severall Counties should withdraw their severall Members for I suppose they could not of late pretend to sit by VVrit certainly they would never have made a Quorum in Parliament and suppose they should call them to account where had one Authority without the consent of all the Counties or rather all People capable to demand it from them And if you will say that the Liberty of the People by this meanes is stifled I must tell you again it is only suspended 't is a Sword taken out of a Mad Mans hand till he recover his senses and therefore till we be S●lted Coagulated or Centred call it what you please it is Tantum non