Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	court_n	justice_n	law_n	3,065	5	4.7299	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88064	The Leveller: or, The principles & maxims concerning government and religion, vvhich are asserted by those that are commonly called Levellers.		1659 (1659)	Wing L1799; Thomason E968_3; ESTC R202722	10,678	16

THE LEVELLER OR THE Principles Maxims CONCERNING GOVERNMENT AND RELIGION Which are Asserted by those that are commonly called LEVELLERS LONDON Printed for Thomas Brewster at the Three Bibles at the West-End of Pauls 1659. 8 THE LEVELLER OR The Principles and Maxims concerning Government and Religion which are Asserted by those that are commonly called LEVELLERS WHen the Sect of the Christians first arose the Tyrants wrapped them in Beasts skins to provoke the Wild Beasts to rend them in pieces and when Christ their Lord descended to Earth the Priests and Pharisees finding his Doctrine and Holiness against their Intrest cast upon him all the dirt of Blasphemy Drunkenness and Confederacy with the worst of Sinners and to make sure of his life they rendred him an Enemy to Government and told Pilate that he was no friend to Caesar if he let him go It hath been the common practice of all Tyrants to cover the face of honesty with the mask of scandal and reproach lest the People should be enamoured with its beauty 't is a Master-piece in their Politicks to perswade the People that their best friends are their worst enemies and that whosoever asserts their rights and liberties is factious and seditious and a disturber of their peace did not the Grachi in Rome by such policy perish by the Peoples hands whose liberties they sought to vindicate And do not some English men now suffer deeply upon the same account from the Peoples hands for whose sakes they have prodigally hazarded their estates and lives are not some lovers of their country defamed and esteemed prodigious monsters being branded with the name of Levellers whilst those that reproach and hate them neither know their principles or opinions concerning Government nor the good they intend to their very enemies those that have designed to prey upon the Peoples estates and liberties have put the frightful vizard of Levelling upon those mens faces and most People are agast at them like children at Raw-head and Bloody-bones and dare not ask who they are or peep under their vizard to see their true faces Principles and designs doubtless if the People durst but look behind them upon the Bug-bear from which they fly they would be ashamed of their own childish fear of the Levellers Designs to make all mens estates to be equal and to devide the land by telling Noses they would easily discern if they durst consider it that no number of men out of Bedlum could resolve upon a thing so impossible that every hour would alter by the birth of some child if it were possible once to make out equal shares nor upon a thing so brutish and distructive to all Ingenuity and Industry as to put the idle useless Droan into as good condition as the laborious useful Bee Neither could the people think that any number of men fit to be feared rather then scorned and pittied could gain by Levelling estates for they can never have power and interest enough to disquiet the nation unless their estates be much greater than they can be possible upon an equal devision and surely 't is a Bugbear fit for none but children to fear any mans designs to reduce their own estates to little better than nothing for so it would be if all the land were distributed like a threepenny-dole But to satisfie such as desire to know what they are who are now for destruction sake though formerly by their enemies scandalously called Levellers and what their designs are I shall tell you their Fundamental Doctrins or Maximes concerning our Government and from thence you may make a true Judgment of all their Plots and either fear them or favour them accordindly I. First they Assert it as Fundamental that the Government of England ought to be by Laws and not by Men they say the Laws ought to be the Protectors and preservers under God of all our persons and estates and that every man may challenge that protection as his right without a ticket from a Major General and live under that protection and safely without fear of a Red-coat or a Pursevant from White-Hall They say that English men ought to fear nothing but God and the breach of the Laws not to depend upon the will of a Court and their Council for the security of themselves and their estates They say the Laws ought to Judge of all offences and offenders and all penalties and punishments to be Inflicted upon Criminals and that the pleasure of his Highness or his Council ought not to make whom they please offenders and punish and imprison whom they please and during their pleasure They say also that the Laws ought to decide all Controversies and repair every mans injuries and that the rod of the peoples supream Judicature ought to be over the Magistrates to prevent their corruption or turning a side from the Laws but that the Magistrates for executing the Laws should not hold their offices at the pleasure of a King or Protector lest the fear of displeasing him perverts Justice In their opinions 't is highly criminal that a King or Protector or Court should presume to interpose by letters threats or promises to obstruct the due course of the Laws or countenance and abet or discountenance and brow-beat any mans cause whatsoever In fine they say the Laws that are incapable of partiallity interest or passion ought so to govern as no man should be subject to the crooked will or corrupt affections of any man II. The Levellers second Maxime or Principle about Government is that all the Laws Levies of Monies War and Peace ought to be made by the peoples deputies in Parliament to be chosen by them successively at certain periods of time and that no Council Table Orders or Ordinances or Court proclamations to bind the peoples persons or estates 't is the first principle of a Peoples liberty that they shal not be bound but by their own consent and this our Ancestors left to England as its undoubled right that no Laws to bind our persons or estates could be imposed upon us against our wills and they challenged it as their native right not to be controuled in making such Laws as concerned their common right and intrests as may appear by the Parliaments Records in the time of Edward the 2d and Richard the 2d The Levellers say that those whose intrests are in all things one with the whole Peoples are the only proper unintrested Judges of what Laws are most fit to preserve and provide for that common interest such are the People in Parliament rightly constituted and methodized and they may be depended upon to provide remedies for the Peoples grievances because they themselves are sharers in every common grievance and they will be naturally led to study the common good because they shall share in it but if a Monarchs pleasure should controul the Peoples Deputies in their Parliaments the Laws must be fitted for the interest of the Monarch and his family to