Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	death_n	good_a	life_n	4,509	5	4.8259	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94429	To his Highness the Lord Protector, &c. and our general. The humble petition of several colonels of the army.	Saunders, Thomas, Colonel.; Okey, John, d. 1662.; Alured, Mathew.	1654 (1654)	Wing T1369A; Thomason 669.f.19[21]; ESTC R205535	4,759	1

To his Highness the LORD PROTECTOR c. and our GENERAL The humble Petition of several Colonels of the Army SHEWETH THat as Members of the Army we have solemnly declared not without Appeals to God for our sincerity therein that we did engage in judgment and conscience for See the Decl. of June 14. 1647. the just Rights and Liberties of our Country and not as a Mercenary Army Yet our high estimation and tender regard of and great confidence in your Highness who hath engaged with us in the same Quarrel hath made us attend in silence your Councels and Determinations to the utmost extremity But finding you to have been of late upon transactions of highest moment whereupon the life or death of a good cause and the Publike Interest of the Commonwealth doth depend and that the price of our blood is brought to the utmost Crisis of danger we hold our selves obliged in conscience and duty to God our Country and your self to testifie to your Highness the integrity of our hearts in adhering to that old cause mentioned in our Publike Declarations and Engagements to the Parliament and People and humbly to minde your Highness of the Tyranny against which we engaged and of the Fundamental Rights and Freedomes we intended to redeem out of the Tyrants hands with the price of our blood And in this we shall confine our selves to that whereunto the whole Army by their General Councel agreed not only before but also after that high exemplary Justice done upon the late King for his Tyranny and Oppression And in order to bring him to Justice we then declared his Tyranny to consist in his opposition of the Supreme Trust of Parliaments concerning the Peoples safety in their See the Remonstrance from S. Albons Novem 16. 1648. p. 14 15 16 17 18 19. absolute command of the Militia when they judged it necessary and of their purses to raise moneys and of their Power to call all Officers of Justice and Ministers of State to accompt he pretending that none of these Powers might be exercised without him and that the Peoples chosen Trustees in Parliament could not provide for the peoples safety and welfare but at and according to his pleasure and that whatsoever he did either with the Militia which he challenged or whatsoever mischiefs against the people neither Parliaments or any Power on earth could call to an accompt attach or meddle with his Sacred Person And we then also declared that the Publike Interest of Right and Freedome originally contended for by us were constant successive Parliaments to be freely and equally P. 14 19. chosen by the People as their Representors for all matters of Supreme Trust and concernment both for safety and welfare and that those Parliaments should have the Supreme Power and Trust in all civil things whatsoever in making Laws Constitutions and Offices and removing of any publike grievances and in giving final judgment concerning War or Peace and the whole safety and welfare of the People And that nothing should be imposed upon or taken from the People but by their Parliaments and if any attempts be made otherwise that the People should not See p. 8. be bound thereby but free And that no person whatsoever should be exempt from accompt unto or punishment by the Peoples Parliaments That principle of the Kings unaccomptableness being the grand root of Tyranny and declared by us to be begotten by the blasphemous arrogancy of Tyrants upon their servile Parasites Now our Consciences bearing us witness that we have dipt our hands in blood in this cause and that the blood of many thousands hath been therein shed by our means we tremble and fear before the Lord in the sence of that accompt we must render for all that precious blood if we should by silence give away the freedome purchased for our Country at so dear a rate or be instruments to subject the people unto the same or the like kinde of thraldome from which God hath delivered then by so many signal providences little less then Miracles We having therefore seriously and sadly considered the present great transactions and the Government in the settlement whereof our assistance is required and are pressed in our Consciences to declare to your Highness in all humbleness and soberness of minde that we sadly resent the dangerous consequences of establishing that Supreme Trust of the Militia at least for the space of two years and an ha●f of every three years in a single Person and a Councel of his own whom he may controul by a Negative voice at his pleasure And also that during the Session of Parliaments the single Persons interest therein shall be paramount to the interest of Parliaments and this Power to be over such a Militia as the late King durst not claim that is to say A standing Army which may in a short tract of time by the policy of any Single Person that shall succeed be made wholly Mercenary and be made use of to destroy at his pleasure the being of Parliaments and render all the blood and treasure expended in this cause not only fruitless but us and our Posterities under an absolute Tyranny and Vassallage both in our consciences persons and estates the danger being beyond comparison higher if any such single person be corrupt then it could have been to have allowed the late Kings Claim to that Aneient Militia which was to command the Country to Array the Arms being in the Countryes own custody and themselves or men of their own chusing to bear them who had no particular interest to oblige them to obey any of the Kings illegal commands against themselves and their Country whereas a standing Army under a single person which in time cannot rationally be supposed to be otherwise then Mercenary will have an interest of subsistance and preferment in opposition to the Commonwealths Interest to oblige them to his commands And many late examples have evidenced to the whole world That such a commander of the Militia will at his pleasure be Master of all Parliaments Freedomes and resolutions and of all our Birth-Rights now purchased by our blood especially considering that according to that which is imposed upon the present Parliament no Parliaments shall ever dare to propose any thing against a single persons Command of the Militia if he should refuse during their Session to dispose the same as they shall advise So that whatsoever provisions are seemingly made either for just liberty of conscience or for securing the property of our persons or estates they are all made void secretly in this and subjected only to the mercy and will of any succeeding single person whose heart may be corrupted with ambition covetousness lust pride or desire of Domination And upon the same accompt we are sensible that the next greatest Part of the Publike Interest engaged for which is the Legislative Power in Parliaments to make or repeal Lawes constitute Offices and to make