Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	church_n	england_n	king_n	3,792	5	4.0738	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44134	The peoples happinesse a sermon preached in St. Maries in Cambridge, upon Sunday the 27 of March, being the day of His Majesties happy inauguration / by Ri. Holdsworth ...	Holdsworth, Richard, 1590-1649.	1642 (1642)	Wing H2396; ESTC R22516	27,766	54

Councell even the second time to prepare with all speed such Acts as shall be for the establishment of their priviledges the free and quiet enjoying their estates and fortunes the liberties of their persons the securitie of the true Religion now professed in the Church of England What now shall we say to these things Is not that of Solomon made good unto us Prov. 16.10 A Divine sentence is in the lips of the King Have we not good cause to take up Ezra's benediction Ezr. 7.27 Blessed be the Lord which hath put such things as these into the Kings heart Such things as these we were not so ambitious as to hope for I trust we shall not be so unworthy as to forget For my self I could wish that according to the dutie of this day I could set them forth as they deserve But they need no varnish of Oratorie neither was it my intendment to use them further then for the proof of the proposition in hand to shew you how this highest excellency of Princes in the care of their peoples happinesse is radiant in our Gracious Sovereign Yet you may remember also that I told you The point needs not so much proofs as retributions It cals aloud upon us for all dutifull returns of honour love obedience loyalty and thankfull acknowledgements into that Royall bosome the first mover and originall under God of our happinesse In the sphere of Nature there is none of us ignorant how willing the members are to make return to the head for the government and influence they receive from thence they will undergo hardship expose themselves to danger recede from things convenient nay necessary they will not grudge at any plentie or honour which is bestowed upon the head knowing by instinct that from the head the benefit of all redounds to them It is likewise obvious in the Regiment of families which are as States epitomized that both honour and dutie belong to the Paterfamiliâs not onely for the right he hath in the house but for the provision and support and comfort which all receive from him Now Kings by way of excellencie are Fathers who look upon all their subjects as so many children and with that noble Emperour account equally as daughters Rempublicam Juliam The very Heathen which saw onely the outside or Civill part reputed them as Fathers but the Prophet Isaiah when he speaks of the Church goes further and calls them Nursing Fathers Isai 49.23 a word which in propriety of speech might seem incoagruous because they have no more of the nurse then the bosome nothing at all of the breasts if what is wanting in the sex were not supplied by their tendernesse Benignitie and clemency and sweetnesse of disposition and facilitie of accesse and compassion toward the distressed these are their breasts more breasts then two the same both their breasts and their bowels which day by day they open to thousands severally and to all at once for the suckling and fostering of the publick Therefore it behoves us to think of returns By this word Christ read us the lesson Matth. 22.21 Render or Return unto Cesar the things which are Cesars or the things which are from Cesar The protection of lives and fortunes and worldly comforts let him have these back again in the honour love fear obedience supplies which belong to the Sovereigne Head and Parent of a beloved people that his throne may be established by your loyalty his reign still prosperous by your prayers blessings his life lenghthened by years taken forth of your own that so he may long rejoyce to say with David Happy are the people So I have done with the second step of the Gradation the speciall part of the argument here handled It is De felicitate Populi The third is yet more speciall It is not onely De felicitate Populi but De felicitate Populari that is De Hac felicitate Populi or De hoc Genere felicitatis Beatus cui SIC Happy they who are in SUCH A CASE or CONDITION What that condition is you may see in the former words in which there are severall blessings mentioned and all of them temporall Plenty is one in those words That our garners may be filled with all manner of store our oxen strong to labour our sheep bring forth thousands Peace is another in these words That there be no leading into captivitie no complaining in our streets Multitude of people especially such as are vertuous a third in those That our sonnes may grow up as the young plants our daughters may be as the polished corners of the temple The safetie and prosperitie of David their King a fourth or rather a first for it is first mentioned He giveth salvation or victorie to Kings and delivereth David his servant from the peril of the sword Of all these civill threeds the Psalmist twists this wreath of Happinesse Happy they who are in such a case Now hence ariseth the scruple Why David a man of so heavenly a temper and of so good a judgement in things which concern salvation that he is said to be A man after Gods own heart 1 Sam. 13.14 should place felicitie in these temporalls Devout S. Paul who of all others came nearest to Davids spirit had these outward things in no better esteem then as drosse Phil. 3.8 or dung and our blessed Saviour in his first Sermon Matth. 5. thought good to begin the chain of happinesse from povertie and to second it from hunger and to continue it from suffering persecution Non dixit BEATI DIVITES sed BEATI PAUPERES as S. Ambrose observeth In this I say is the scruple That Christ should begin blessednesse from povertie and David place it in abundance that things earthly should be as drosse to Paul and as happinesse to David This scruple wrought so farre with some Interpreters that they conceived it to be a defective or imperfect sentence and that the Psalmist uttered it in the person of a worldly man like that of Solomon Eccles 2.24 There is nothing better for a man then to eat and drink c. Therefore to take off the suspicion of a paradox they interpose Dixerunt BEATUM dixerunt POPULUM CUI HAEC SUNT Men usually say HAPPY ARE THE PEOPLE IN SUCH A CASE But we need not flee to this refuge It is neither a defective nor a paradox but a full and true proposition agreeable both to the tenour of other Scriptures and also to the analogie of faith For first the Psalmist speaks not here as in other places of the happinesse of a man but of the happinesse of a people it is not Beatus homo but Beatus populus In some other places where he treats of the happinesse of a man he circumscribes it alwayes with things spirituall a Psal 32.2 Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth no sinne and in whose spirit there is no guile b Psal 1 12.1 Blessed is the man

sea for water and for tendernesse softer not onely then water but then oyl To lay down as it were his own royall neck under the sword of the Angell when he saw it hanging over him by a lesse thrid then that of Damocles To open his own religious breast to receive the blow that he might ward it from the people To value the peoples safety so farre aboue his own as to interpose himself betwixt the sword and the slaughter O how farre doth he here renounce himself and recede not onely from royalty but from life it self It is much which is mentioned in the text that he should name the people first to the happinesse more that he should offer himself first to the punishment very much that he should put the people betwixt himself and the blessing farre more that he should place himself betwixt the people and the curse He made himself in this SPECULUM PRINCIPUM the mirrour of Princes a mirrour into which as we may well presume our Gracious Sovereigne King CHARLES hath made frequent and usefull inspections for it is manifest by many passages of his reign and happy government that the tendernesse of his love towards his people if it doth not fully reach yet it comes close up to the recessions of David It is the more remarkable for that he hath this virtue as it were in proper and by himself he is almost the sole possessour of it The most of ordinary men as living more by will then reason are all for holding so stiffe and inflexible so tenacious and unyielding even in matters of small moment that they will not stirre a hair-breadth Entreat them persuade them convince them still they keep to this principle and 't is none of the best Obtein all Yield nothing It is a nobler spirit that resides in the breast of our Sovereign as appears by his manifold yieldings and recessions Of such recessions we have many instances in the course of his Majesties government I might go as farre back as his first coming to the Crown when he receded from his own profit in taking upon him the payment of his Fathers debts which were great and but small supplies to be expected from an empty Exchequer yet the love of justice and his peoples emolument overswayed him and armed him with Epaminondas his resolution Totius orbis divitias despicere prae patriae charitate Having but glanced at that I might draw a little nearer to the third of his reign when in that Parliament of Tertio he was pleased to signe the so much desired Petition of Right a Title which I confesse takes me much both because it speaks the d●●ifulnesse of the subject in petitioning although for right and the great goodnesse of a Gracious Prince who knows how to recede from power and in some case even from prerogative when besought by prayers and rejoyceth not to sell his favours but to give them For I have heard some wise men say That that single grant was equivalent to twenty subsidies But the time will not give me leave to dwell as I should upon particulars therefore I will call you nearer to the transient remembrance and but the transient for it is no pleasure to revive it of the commotions in the North. The eyes of the whole world were upon that action and they all are witnesses what pains and travell were taken what clemencie and indulgence was used what yieldings and condescentions both in point of hononr and power to purchase as it were by a price paid out of himself the peace and tranquillity of both kingdomes Whereby he made all men understand how much more pleasing it was to his Princely disposition with Cyrus in Xenophon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and to conquer not by might but by clemency By clemency I say the word which I named before and I cannot name it too often It is the virtue God most delights in to exercise himself and 't is the copie also which he sets us to write after It is the virtue which draws both eyes and hearts unto it in that it maketh Royalty it self which is so farre above to become beneficiall and sovereign It corrects the brightnesse of Majestie calmes the strictnesse of Justice lightens the weight of Power attemperates whatsoever might cause terrour to our mind and liking If we never had known it before yet the onely time of this Parliament would teach us sufficiently how much we ow to the King's clemencie The laws and statutes which have been made this last year are lasting and speaking monuments of these royall recessions as well to posteritie as to our selves Surely if the true picture and resemblance of a Prince be in his laws it cannot be denied that in the acts for trienniall Parliaments for the continuation of the Parliament now being for the regulating of impositions pressing of souldiers courts of Judicature and others not a few of the like nature are the lineaments and expressions to the life of the perfect pourtraiture of a Benigne and Gracious Prince who seems resolved of a new way and hitherto unheard of by wholesome laws to enlarge his subjects and to confine himself Yet it may be said It is not his onely hand which is in these laws the proposall of them is from others although the ratification be in him Be it so But the ratification is ten-fold to the proposall nay it is the life and essence of a law So we ow the laws themselves to his goodnesse Nay and if it be granted that the proposall of such laws comes from others let us then look to the many gracious messages which occasionally have been sent at severall times to that great Assemblie In these he speaks onely by himself and in so gracious a manner that to read some passages would ravish a loyall heart as well as endear it In some of them we may see how he puts the happinesse of his people into the same proximitie with his own in others how he neglects his own for our accommodation In that of January the 20 you have these golden words That he will rather lay by any particular respect of his Own dignity then lose time for the Publick good That out of his Fatherly care of his people he will be ready both to equall and to exceed the greatest examples of the most Indulgent Princes in their Acts of Grace and Favour to their people Again in that of the 28 of January there is yet more tendernesse He calls God to witnesse and with him the attestation of that sacred name is very religious that the preservation of the publick peace the law and the libertie of the subject is and shall alwayes be as much his care and industrie as the safety of his own life or the lives of his dearest children Lastly in the other of the 15 of March there is more then yieldings and concessions a gracious prevention of our desires for he is pleased to excite and call upon that Great