Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A52330
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Reflections upon Coll. Sidney's Arcadia, the old cause being some observations upon his last paper, given to the sheriffs at his execution.
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Nalson, John, 1638?-1686.
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1684
(1684)
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Wing N114; ESTC R7343
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10,497
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16
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of Crowned Heads should indeavour to spread the Poyson wherewith his very Soul was infected and with his Expiring Words convey the Contagion unto others but like the Viper the most Noxious and Poysonous Animal whilest living there is an excellent Counterpoyson to be found in this Dying Speech For the very End Scope Aim and Drift of this odd Address to Men Brethren and Fathers Friends Country-men and Strangers is first an appeal ad Populum that Soveraign Tribunal of all People Kindreds Languages Tongues and Nations which his crazed Imagination had set up in his Fancy as the dernier resort the last High Court of Justice from which like that whereof he was a Member there was no Appeal being the ultimate Authority of Mankind in Nature 2 ly It is an Arraignment of the Justice of the Nation as pressing the Innocent and denying Justice which is in Effect a most severe Charge against the King who is the Fountain of Justice and a calling upon the People with the powerful Voyce of a dying Martyr for their Cause to re-asume their Soveraign Power of judging their Soveraign for the Breach of that Fundamental Contract which he wildly talks of Thirdly It is a magnifying of the Old Cause to make the People inclinable to it An Enthusiastick Incentive to a new Rebellion upon the Old score of Reformation And what is the Result of all this but to set us all together by the Ears to Embroyl these Nations again in all the Calamities of a Civil War and to reduce us to those deplorable Extremities of unavoidably falling either under Tyranny or Anarchy the two greatest Mischiefs that can possibly happen to any People Indeed he makes a mighty flutter about those Treasonable Papers found in his Study as being only some private things written in Answer to Sr. Robert Filmer's Book which yet remains unanswerable and lays down that wild Position of the Soveraignty of the People as the Foundation of all Governments which is not only in it's own Nature perfect Non-sense but destructive of all Government For it confounds the Relata of Governors and Governed making the Governors and Governed the same which is an Error contrary to the most easie and natural Logick For I may as well be said to be my own Father and my own Son too as that I or the Collective Body of People or Nations can be said to be at the same time the Sovereign Power and yet Subjects to that Soveraign Power And besides this lays an eternal Foundation for perpetual Changes and Alterations in Government for by this Position which how true a Protestant soever Mr. Sydney was is the perfect Spawn of Bellarmine and the Popish Doctors all Governments ought to be Elective and there can be no such thing as any Heriditary or successive Right to Crowns and Governments And then there will never fail to be as many Aspiring Pretenders to the Delegation of this Sovereign Power as there are Popular and Ambitious Men who will not have the Patience to attend the Regular and common Course of making a Vacancy in the Throne but will indeavour to remove the present Possessor by all ways per fas nefas to instate themselves in the Sovereign Authority This we see in the declining State of the Roman Empire when the Military men undertook this Sovereign Power of chusing and creating Emperors which is exactly the Case before us and in this Principle as in the very Materia Prima the Mother Cause is to be found the Root of all the Rebellions Plots Conspiracies Faction Sedition and Disorders with which this Anti-monarchical Faction have of those late Years so miserably distracted these three Kingdoms which if there were no other Arguments to confute it is certainly sufficient to render it detestable not only to Sober Wise and judicious Persons but to all Degrees Estates and Conditions of Men who must of necessity feel the Dismal Effects of this Horrid Principle wherever it prevails But after all this Popular flourish of Mr. Sidneys and tickling the People with their imaginary Sovereignty over their King after all his mighty Care for settling the Title of Kings upon the sure Basis of being the willing Nations and Peoples Trustees and Slaves to their Subjects and after all his Traversing his Ground and fencing off the Treason while he tells us that what was said in his Book of Nero Domitian c. That it was applyed to him by Invendo's he very fairly slurs his false Die upon the Credulous and tells us not a Word of what was proved upon him at his Tryal out of the same Papers and concerned the King without an Invendo viz. That the General revolt of a Nation from its own Magistrates is not Rebellion that the Power of calling and dissolving Parliaments is not in the King Tryal of Algernon Sidney Esq Pag. 26. Here 's the King dethron'd and no way to help himself for this Revolt of the People he says can never be called Rebellion here 's Treason by Whole-Sale without Inveâ—â—do's or Constructions at which he seems to be so much offended as contrary to the stat 25. Ed. 3. Sidneys Paper pag. 3. And if this be not plain down right Treason without any straining or Construing and Writing it an overt Act and far beyond Compassing or imagining which that Act makes Treason truly People may both do and say what they will break the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy without Perjury call Parliaments without the Kings Writ continue them against his Will and not dissolve them but at their own Pleasure they may shake off all Obligations of Obedience Associate Covenant Arm Fight against him Subdue him Dethrone and Murder him if they prosper in the Attempt and yet be no Rebels for all this is included in this Teeming Expression of Peoples Revolting from their Magistrates which he saith can never be called Rebellion and by consequence is no Crime but on the contrary Lawful and Commendable Nay this is not a Fiction a Story of a Possibility of such Consequences from this Principle but a Series of sad Truths all which were to the Everlasting Infamy of the Actors of which Mr. Sidney was no small one having from his Youth by his own Confession been ingaged in them Acted here in these Nations upon the late King and his Loyal Adherents by those Bloody Rebels Traitors and Regicides this Gentlemans Confederates and Accomplices in the late Execrable and dreadful Rebellion In the next place the Paper aims chiefly at his own Vindication which he indeavours by lessening the Reputation of the Witnesses the Jury and his Judges Now though the Printed Tryal is a sufficient Vindication of the whole proceeding which was Managed with much Coolness and Temper as any Tryal I have seen yet it is worth our while to observe that such as were Saints whilest Traytors and Conspirators become Devils and Perjured when once they become Discoverers and Witnesses and that Point of the Lord Howard so much