Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A41868
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Great and weighty considerations relating to the D[uke of York] or successor of the crown humbly offer'd to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty and both Houses of Parliament / by a true patriot.
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True patriot.; Hunt, Thomas, 1627?-1688.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing G1660; ESTC R5871
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12,981
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12
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Great and Weighty CONSIDERATIONS Relating to the D or Successor of the Crown Humbly offer'd to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty AND Both Houses of Parliament By a True Patriot May it please Your Majesty HE is undoubtedly to be reputed the best Friend to his King and Countrey whom neither the Fear of any Worldly Powers can deter or hinder to speak nor the love of any Temporal advantages can induce to dissemble the Truth especially in such serious and weighty matters as mainly concern the welfare both of Church and State For whosoever lays aside all the alluring Considerations of Self-Interest and chooses rather to expose himself to the displeasure of a prevailing Faction than see the Truth oppress'd by any feign'd pretences though never so specious or plausible he sufficiently demonstrates by the sincerity of his intentions how Faithful he is to God and how Loyal to his Prince This plain and undoubted verity most Gracious Sovereign encourageth me at present to offer unto your most Excellent Majesty this my humble Address briefly comprising such Reasons as perswade me so much to mislike many particulars of our present proceedings whereby most preposterously we endeavour to establish the true Reformed Religion in this Kingdom by overthrowing the chiefest Principle and Maxim thereof which is fulln epitomiz'd in this excellent Precept Give every one his due I cannot indeed but highly extol the rare constancy of our Leading Men in the true Protestant Religion and their fervent zeal to maintain and establish the same for ever as also their extraordinary care and diligence to suppress Popery and all Fanatical Leven But I find their Zeal doth so far transport many of them beyond the limits of Justice and Equity that unless they steer their course more conformably to the Divine Cynosura of all Humane Actions the Word and Will of God I am afraid we shall have ere long as much reason to blame them for the one as praise them for the other To establish firmly the true Protestant Religion is undoubtedly a great and glorious action but to establish it upon the Quicksands of Humane Policy or upon grounds repugnant to the Laws both of God and Nature is a thing whereof neither I nor I hope any faithful Christian will ever approve Hypocrites indeed and some factious Spirits of the Phanatical Leven who make a Cloak of Religion to palliate their black Designs by their seditious Pamphlets do daily labour to perswade the World that nothing can be so Sacred which must not be sacrific'd to their pretended Religion And upon this ground as the Rump-Parliament has Sacrific'd the best of Kings so some fiery Zealots now endeavour to Sacrifice the best of Princes your Majesties onely Brother But the best and most conscientious Protestants do utterly abhor and detest such Antichristian attempts as being wholly repugnant to the Ordnance of God and to the fundamental Laws of this Kingdom Neither did they ever approve of that Anarchical Bill lately fram'd by some turbulent Zealots of the House of Commons against his Royal Highness wherein they peremptorily assume to themselves a Sovereign and Despotical Power of Deposing Princes and disposing of Kingdoms as their spirit moves them and withal most impudently affirm that this has been the ancient custom of Parliaments Whereas it's evident to all the World that the Imperial Crown of England has always been Hereditary and never depending on the Votes or Suffrages of the Subject Nay it is undeniable that the succession of the Crown was always hitherto held so Sacred and inviolable that no Crime whatsoever no attainder of Treason could debar the next Heir of Blood from succeeding in the Government as Coke upon Littleton Sect. 8. page 16. testifieth in these words If the right Heir of the Crown be attainted of Treason yet the Crown shall descend to him eo instante without any other reversal the attainder is utterly avoided as it fell out in the Case of Henry the Seventh But these cunning Politicians now will have a new model of Government that so all the world may acknowledge our Omnipotent Parliament i e. themselves to have an Absolute and Independent power not only over mean Subjects but also over the Royal Family nay over the King himself and to have power to degrade or depose them as they please For they are sure that by whatsoever Law Power or pretence the Parliament can dis-inherit or depose the Heir by the same they may likewise depose the Possessor of the Crown as the Rump Parliament de facto has done To what purpose then should any true Protestant or any man of sense that loves either King or Country approve of such an extravagant Bill which Gilded over like poisoned Pills with the specious pretence of establishing the true Protestant Religion is like to destroy the very root and life of our Government Or what in Gods name do we mean by this pretence of Religion Do we intend to out-reach the Divine Providence or do we despair either of the justness of our cause or of the goodness of God Do not we remember how the Apostle tells us that evil is not to be done that good may come of it Or do not we know that whatsoever God affects in goodness he doth effect by good means and doth not want our wickedness to fulfil his holy will Is there no other way of establishing the true Protestant Religion but by robbing those we should honour and obey and depriving them of that which God and Nature has bestowed upon them I mean their Birthright Far be it from the heart of a Christian especially a Protestant to think so ill of the all-seeing Providence of the Almighty For what is this but exactly to follow the footsteps of that monster of ingratitude the wicked Jeroboam who after God of his infinite goodness had raised him from nothing and established him Monarch of the ten Tribes of Israel yet was he so mistrustful of Gods power in preserving his Kingdom for the future that he thought nothing could secure it but his own accursed Policy 1 King 12.26 27. Was not the true Protestant Religion settled in this Nation by the same mighty hand of God that established Jeroboam in the Kingdom of Israel Shall we then like that wicked King so far despair of Gods Providence in preserving the work of his own hands as never to think it secure unless it be establish'd upon the quick-sands of our own wicked inventions Should not we rather be terrified at that dreadful woe pronounced by the Prophet Jeremy Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness or his Chambers by wrong Jer. 22.13 O insensati Galatae as the Apostle speaketh Gal. 3.1 O foolish and timerous Country-men who hath bewitched you that you should be of so little Faith as to believe that a king of England though the most zealous of Papists can ever subvert the true Protestant Religion or the present Government of this Kingdom while we know