Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	body_n	natural_a	reason_n	1,505	5	4.9161	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85914	A copy of a letter from an officer of the Army in Ireland, to his Highness the Lord Protector, concerning his changing of the government.	Goodgroom, Richard.	1656 (1656)	Wing G53A; Thomason E881_3; ESTC R202908	17,611	23

a long time collecting was the height of the Commons and the meanness of the Lords and the King who had by this time sold and given away all his revenues and this too will appear to have been the original of these civil wars for although the last action which drove us into it will ever be acknowledged to have been the Kings misgovernment yet as we are apt to say in Malignant fevers that the last excesse we made drove us into it though the bodie had been gathering that pestilential Mass many years before so in this case the essentiall and natural cause of this State disease was much longer in collecting then the Ship-money or the Loan and this is clear for that the people did support much more then those from their Prince and Landlords too whilst they were poor and never did stomack to be governed even arbitrarilie by those upon whom they were necessarilie to depend in point of estate and subsistance it being then my Lord so clear and evident That the riches of the people in general is the natural cause of destruction to all Regal States I desire to bring this to our present discourse and will beg leave to ask your Highness leave whether the Commonaltie of England be grown poorer then they were when this was began or rather whether they are not become so much more rich as the Lands and Mannours of King Bishops Dean and Chapters and of all the great Delinquent Lords together with Free-farm Rents could make them if this be granted it must be then concluded that we are farther off from a capacitie of being governed by Monarchy again then when we first began this quarrell so that you see that it is so far from being true that the Nation of England is not fit at all to be a Commonwealth that indeed it is wholly impossible to make it any other without an excessive force and violence so that my Lord if your Highness shall yet resolve to detain from us our liberties with which you were intrusted you will not onlie offend against your owne Oaths and Principles against common right and justice but even against God and nature too for that it will be impossible for you to mend this frame where it first brake except you can take from the people their estates and confer them upon old or new Lords which will be hardlie safe for you to attempt it hath been my unhappiness to make this discourse somewhat too long for a letter but I have been forc'd to rove too far into the nature of Government in generall before I could shew the principles of a Free-State and how neer we are to it if you please so neer that the Cavaliers themselves in their hatred to the Parliament and now to your self do fully manifest that they abhor all Superiours and are impatient to be governed by others and this verie humor in them is a secret impulse towards a Commonwealth which although they do not now understand to be so yet they would soon do it if they had what they immediatelie desire for I am fullie perswaded if their Darling Charles Stewart could be brought in by them and all his opposers whollie rooted out he would not be able without a standing Armie to maintain the old Government even amongst his own partie so much is the case altered now and so strong and natural the motives which draw towards Liberty I must confess these speculations were no part of the cause which induced me first to take up armes first for the Parliament but did come into my thoughts since by discourse what I did originallie look at was the justness and honestie of the cause the excellencie of libertie the glorie of advancing and promoting the interest of mankind the making my Nation more wise valiant happie and honest then before as well as more free which I cannot yet dispair of whilst I see you alive whose noble and unwearied endeavours to that end can never be forgotten when the King the Scots and half the Parliament combin'd against us you could not be daunted when your own Grandees would have perswaded you out of those principles you would not be circumvented but did often say that towards the attaining of a just and upright Government an ounce of honesty and resolution was worth a pound of sneaking policie Oh let not those men who have suffered for your enemies get that upon you by soothing your ambition which they could never doe by opposing your reason let not those instruments who have deserted the cause of libertie be now made use of to destroy it and by advising you to purge the Armic make those Janizaries whose glorie it was once they would not acknowledg themselves to be Mercenaries put not your self upon the discretion of those whose love is not to you but to Monarchy and when they shall have made you a while the instrument of their ambition and avarice will in the least adversitie look back to the old line again which they scarce ever yet offended and when that shall be understood by Charles Stewart and his Hectors and that there shall be nothing standing in their way hither but your life the antient asserters of libertie being laid by with shame and those who were once outed for opposing it stept into their places in how hazardous and desperate a condition is that life of yours like to be which hath been hitherto so precious to all the honest partie in these Nations Consider therefore that those Grandees are like fire and water good servants but verie dangerous masters let them do your drudgery but let them not steer your counsels trust this Nation with their freedome posterity with your fame and God for a reward we know we cannot be free without your help till we have undergone a thousand confusions in the way our factions will not suffer us to agree in any thing except you lead us into that frame which will fit us and to make which you may find persons enough to assist you if you please to seek them and who knows but that the wise providence of God seeing the failings of the Parliament hath permitted you to assume this great power to that end do not offend that God whom you have so often called to witness of the integrity of your heart Consider that if you will not build us up that fabrique of a Free State you must be the first to lose your own libertie do but weigh the feares and the uncertainties you will be in whilst you live and the almost inevitable necessitie that your posterity must be destroyed when you are gone as well as ours or let this prevaile with you at least to make us a Commonwealth because you can make us nothing else if you believe your selfe not safe without this power pray consider how many plots and designs there were against you when you were our General and how many nights sleep you brake then in examinations nay remember if during

Liberties with a seeming justice nothing but this can Iull asleep so many Patriots who have been often awakened with Drums and Trumpets to adventure their lives against a Tyrant neither indeed could any other thing then the just and happy Reign of Augustus Caesar have given the last defeat to the Roman liberty or made way for those Monsters who succeeded You see then my Lord what a businesse you have undertaken when you have made it the interest of honest men to wish that you may commit all Excesses and use more violence break more Laws and ties in carrying on this arbitrary Soveraignty then you have done in the assuming of it My Lord I beseech your Highnesse to pardon the length of this Letter which could not well have been made shorter for that the intention thereof is to evince first that to continue this present government upon us or any thing like it would be most injurious in you not onely because it is most contrary to your own trust and Oathes but even against common right and justice and in the next place that there is no necessity of a new erected Royalty the nature and Condition of those Nations being so proportionable to a Commonwealth that we are no way fit to receive any other form but by an outward force and violence besides that we have spent our blood and fortunes for it and in the last place to shew that we are not easily deluded into a belief that either the next assembly or any expediencies that arise from thence have any right or likelihood to mend our conditions I shall next give your Highnesse a short account of my self and then humbly take my leave I took up Armes with the first in the quarrel of the Parliament not as a mercinary as not having before my eyes the temptation of my Masters pay or the spoile of their enemies but purely and solely out of a conscientious desire to free my Nation from slavery and oppression and having confirmed my judgement in this I did examine my zeal and resolution and believed it had enough of both to hazard my self for such a cause in which expectation I thank the Lord I have not yet found my self deceived How I have behaved my self since I came under your command it would seem vanity for me to relate if my former and present usage did not make it necessary for me to say that for my Justification which I should never have said for boasting this excuse makes me bold to lay before you some of my services as wel as my personal discouragements your Highness may please to Remember here some particulars are left out which would detect the person who wrote the letter notwithstanding all which I am yet satisfied to go on with my imployment here and to be faithful in it as being for the advancement of the Common Cause and against the Common Enemy and yet if I were assured that you did intend to perpetuate upon us this slavery after you had disolved the Parliament for an imputation of endeavoring to perpetuate themselves I should have many scruples against serving you in Scotland whither we are very lyable to be transported for what Reason is there that we should not give them leaves to be Governed by their Native King and whom they had received by their Parliament and at the same time seeke to impose upon them by force another Prince of our Nation whom we had chosen for them or rather had chosen himself what can you think my Lord the just God who hath been used to deside upon appeales would do in this quarrel if they should have recourse to him with faith and prayer Alas my Lord you do not consider how much these thoughts do weaken the hands and hearts of those poor righteous and precious souls who are yet left in the Army and who poure forth their tears and prayers daily before the Lord on your behalf that you may find mercy in this day of your temptation that so they may not be traduced to have slain so many men as Bravoes to your designes and that you would make use of the Great power you are now possest of to settle and transmit to succeeding ages a state of Lasting freedome which a small trouble and force would accomplish whereas this Government must be eternally supported by violence no unnaturall things being permanent without it or if this cannot be their prayers and desires are that you would summon a free unlimitted Parliament consisting of such that have not forfeited their liberties not bound or fettered by Indentures and devesting your selfe of all power and Command you would leave the whole sway Government to them and swear the Army to obey them by this means the Nation would either enjoy their liberty or have the choice imposition of their own yoak nor is there any Reason except you will do one of these upon which you can excuse the dismission of the Parliament for that it was within their power and design to make Indentures in the behalf of Liberty which would have had an unquestionable Authority as well as a more Noble end then those you have compelled for the Contrary If you shall wholly refuse all things of this kinde and obstinately resolve to goe forward in your way you now take you will want the hands hearts and prayers of all Gods people in these Nations and though the principles of some of them may not give leave as private men to make you any further opposition yet they will wash their own hands and deliver their own Souls and beseech the just God of Heaven and earth who hath appeared so visibly and Miraculously for this Cause of freedom and whom no hypocrosie can deceive no false Oathes nor teares prevaile upon to judge between you and these poor oppressed and deluded people but if yet you shall Answer their hungry expectations of Liberty you will give Glory to God increase to his Church flock and Religion which hath been grievously dishonoured by those actions Immortall fame to your self safty to your Posterity happiness to mankinde and will have the lives of many thousands intirely at your service and Command and amongst the rest that of Waterford this 24 Iune 1654. Your most humble and most faithful Servant R. G. POSTSCRIPT REader that this letter should not be exposed to publique view so long after the date thereof I hope will not possess thee with any prejudice against it the honesty and reason of the tract and faithfulnesse of the Author to that good old principle of common justice equity and liberty secured in the most noble form of government viz. The peoples representative may commend it to thee indeed that hath been the Axletree of the cause which God so signally blessed us in and since it was broken although upon pretence of going faster on in the obtaining of our liberties hath blasted us wherein that saying is verified Melius in via claudicare quam extra viam currere It was the design of the old so it is of the new Court to estrange the people from and work them out of love with Parliaments many honest well meaning men being too much led away with that mistake The Author mentioneth his fear of the last Representative not of their judgement in affection to the publique cause of liberty but by reason of that restriction in the indenture framed to serve the intrest of the present Protector But indeed the Gentlemen deserve an honourable esteem from all English men who though they could not do the good desired by us and doubtlesse intended by them yet would not do us the evil which a powerful party endeavoured to court and threaten them unto in perpetuating by any act of theirs our vassalage to the present Grandees or revoke those acts which maketh it treason for any single person to assume the supream Magistracy I shall only adde this as the earnestly desire of myself and of many who are friends to the good old cause that the Lord would be pleased to guide us in the attayning of a free Representative which may assert our liberties and secure them to posterity which will be a glorious answer to the faith prayer expence of blood and treasure both of the godly and likewise of the rest of the freeborn people of England who have been faithful to the common cause of justice and liberty FINIS