Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A93506
|
Some observations upon occasion of the publishing their Majesties letters.
|
|
1645
(1645)
|
Wing S4538; Thomason E296_2; ESTC R200199
|
9,147
|
15
|
SOME OBSERVATIONS UPON OCCASION of the Publishing their MAJESTIES LETTERS OXFORD Printed by Leonard Lichfield Printer to the Vniversity 1645. SOME OBSERVATIONS Vpon Occasion of the publishing their Majesties LETTERS SVCH is the unhappy ingagement of many People in this Kingdome such the Nature of most men That what is written to detract from Princes or great men shall ever find an easier beleife then what is rationally offered to defend them against Aspersions So as it might seem a vaine thing to declare a private mans Opinion concerning the intercepted Letters of the King since the Preface saies He must be a Papist the worst of men or a Jesuit the falsest of Papists that would defend them Well! Let it find beliefe as it will He is neither Papist nor Jesuit that dares say If there be not forgery in some part of the King's Letters for a word or two varied or omitted may make a new matter yet the inferences on them are neither perspicuous nor modest The Letters not unworthy a Prince Defendor of the Faith against whom so dangerous and causelesse a Rebellion was then in it's height threatning both to his Government and to the Protestant Profession of the Christian Religion in this Kingdome an utter ruine I 'le say no more But we know the Spyder sucks a poysonous juice cut of the same flower a Bee doth Hony Inquire into thy owne nature as well as these Letters and see if thou had'st had either a Christian or a Morall Spirit whether these short Observations following were not more naturall out of those Letters then those publisht Look then upon these Letters as the truest Mirour of the King's mind Here you may say He was not drawne but He showed himselfe to the life So as the worst of men cannot but confesse here is the worst of the King And if it be so without any Flattery which Princes in an imbroyl'd condition are not much troubled with for they are usually commended or dispraised by Excesses see what is unworthy of Him in all that hath passed from Him Will you see Him in His Religion to Her who by all your former Declarations must be understood to have corrupted Him in that which He profest yet in Cipher it is Pag. 8th I need not tell thee what Secrecy this businesse requires yet this I will say that this is the greatest point of confidence I can expresse to thee for it is no thankes to me to trust thee in any thing else but in this which is the only thing of difference in opinion betwixt Vs What is the King so found a Protestant Surely we have much slandered his footsteps then And he is the Lord 's Annointed We know the nature of the Crime and such a Crime there is For how hainous is it now to flounder the pretended House of Commons or both Houses called the Parliament in this usurped Authority From the syncerity of my heart I professe it I conceive were the rest of the passages in the Letters as ill as they are descanted and paraphrazed upon this might wipe off much of the sully But let us examine whether it be the naturall coulor of the things or the ill humour in our sight that makes them of the ill dye and hue they are represented What is this great Secrecy le ts read the words It is presumption not piety so to trust to a good Cause as not to use all law full meanes to maintaine it what ver is proposed I find it is conceived law full I have thought of one meanes more to furnish thee with for my assistance then hither to thou hast had what not hitherto It is that I give thee power to promise in my name to whom thou thinkest fit that I will take away all the Penall Lawes against the Roman Catholick in England as soone as God shall enable me to do it So as by their meanes you see it 's a Bargain not a Favour or in their favours I may have so power full assistance as may deserve so great a favour and in able me to do it Here comes the great and popular Charge Here say the three Orations to my Lord Major c. And the Annotations Printed at the end of these Letters so Lawes shall be repealed by force The King who hath so often declared and protested against Papists now dispensing with them How agrees this with the title of Defendour of the Faith c. An ill Rhetorician to a misaffected and ignorant People may make this seem very odious But to rationall men and I am confident many that could not find out reason will understand it when it is laid before them I offer this that followes That true it is and would it were as received an Opinion as it is true That no man or body politick may commit a sinne for any good that may be pretended to be procured thereby So as if this Dispensation were in it selfe sinfull then for no end by the King to have been granted But this Dispensation of Penall Lawes is but a forbearance of punishment which certainly by all Learned men is granted Gro. de Iu. Bel. Pac. C. Princes may nay ought to doe when the exercising of Justice may be the breach of Charity and other Vertues that is when for punishing some Rebels strong and too well back'd He must wage a Warre that may be the destruction of many of His Loyall Subjects Thus you see Princes on whom Societies depend may be rather charitable to many then just on few So the State of the Question will be this A Prince in his Government is like to be undermined And the establisht Religion of the Kingdome He professeth and is resolved to maintaine for sure none will say now that the King is a Papist or Popishly affected is by the power of a Rebellious sort of men like to be altered A bloudy and sharp Warre being continued to effect this To preserve his own Rights and maintaine the Religion by Law established The Question is Whether He may not dispence with Penall Lawes against another Sect or sort of His Subjects who by themselves or Freinds may procure Him an ayde to maintaine his Government and Religion Surely I may say yes For 1. If it be not to set up a false Religion but to lessen Penalties against it it is not sinfull specially since it was a necessitated Act in Him by the Rebellion of his other Subjects For he approves not of their Religion but dispences with freedom of Conscience And if this be an odious Tenent sure there be many think it so only in the King 2. I will not say which is most Politick but I beleeve I may say it is more Christian to let the Doctrine of Teachers and the good life of the Disciples convert men to the purity of Profession then the Coercive power 3. If a stranger be not procured to resist this Rebellion Then necessarily the King must be dethroned Religion established alter'd or
the Peace of Ireland least He should be preingaged Surely considering to whom the Warre of Ireland was designed and both for his owne Honour and this Kingdome of Englands good It were better that Realme depended on Him that is our King Then the Scots who have been our troublesome neighbours ever And if their hearts were look'd into though they have mett with an Age hath given them better beleife they have notwithstanding brought in but their old good will to this Nation The French paid them heretofore for disturbing our Peace the Houses at Westminster buy them in now to have such a footing as may lead them to pretend to more then they will hereafter spare them The Duke of Lorraine's Army is a great and a dangerous discovery The King of Denmarke being desired to assist The Prince of Aurange's ayde by shipping All speake the drawing in of Fortaigne Forces and this contrary to the many Quotations of the King's Declarations and Protestations They that slight the Answer know that it is a very substantiall one to say Doe but distinguish times and you accord all It will be hard to get beleife but known it is how backward the King was either to admitt Papists into his Army not but he knew he might justly make use of their service The Protestants of France serving the French King and the Hollanders imploying Papists in their Warrs or to call in Forraigne Forces But when He perceived your obstinacy How you could dispense with your owne imploying Walloon Regiments and diverse other Papists How you could have Collections in Holland Agents with Fortaigne Princes Committees in Scotland for the two States as you call them that sent you in a great Army Can you object this to Him and not thinke it concernes your Selves No you have too much reason to doe it If you found not that the Common People and your interessed Party have so submitted their reason to your Declarations that if an implicite beleife he rendred to the Chair-man at Rome you thinke it high disobedience to be denyed any of yours If I should in answer of the black Characters you put on your King in His Government desire you but to remember how when you procured a Law That contrary it was to the Liberty of the Subject they should be press'd to the Warre That notwithstanding immediately after Thousands were press'd by your Ordinances and how miserably many of them perished you know and see by their wretched Widows and Orphans How when for the Subjects Liberty Not the King not His Councell no Court of Iustice could imprison but the Subject must have cause shewen and his Habeas Corpus upon demand granted yet Thousands you restrained no cause shewen no admittance to Picad If I should mind you how Property was fenc'd by you That no Tax could be lay'd Nay Tonnage and Poundage must be limited for a few moneths by a new Law and yet in a moment forc'd from the Subjects without one As if you made Lawes not to preserve the Subjects Right but to shew your power to break them If I should remember you of your Murthering Ordinance that where no Law could deprived a Reverend Prelate of his Life Of your Repeale of Statutes in the businesse of the Common Prayer-Book by your Votes called an Ordinance Of your one day declaiming against an Excise and the next day setting it up and many more What fruit must I or any other honest Subject looke for by your Government How can you with any countenance question the King for not observing Lawes who thinke your selves bound by none Let the Soveraigne power reside where it will in one as in this and other Monarchies or in many as in Republiques Yet every where the Subject may take the benefit of the Law And so you may remember we were heretofore admitted to implead the King for ship-mony was not the time of Government happy when Subjects Pleas could be admitted Had the Law the same freedome now as then your Soveraignti's would soone be disproved and your Tyrannies made manifest Well all I shall say is you have your Iudge and He resides in Heaven The Lord is King be the People never so impatient You shall reckon for your disloyalty to your Soveraigne for your cruelty and oppression to your fellow Subjects for your slaundring the footsteps of Gods Annoynted Even for your Paraphrase upon these Letters whose stile and weight of Sense as well as Integrity and Honour they are lined with will rise more in Iudgement against you And I confesse were you as you ought to be were a better meanes to convert you then all that hath been so weakly but well-meaningly laid downe in these short notes which should have been drawn out longer but that it 's believed some Person of Iudgement will declare himselfe on this Subject as I have without ends my Duty and Affection to His Majesties Person and Cause FINIS