Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A47854
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The free-born subject, or, The Englishmans birthright asserted against all tyrannical vsurpations either in church or state
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L'Estrange, Roger, Sir, 1616-1704.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing L1248; ESTC R16045
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23,037
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38
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Formal Trials Arrest my Bookseller as an Invader of their Propriety and Threaten him most wonderfully into the Bargain He puts in Bail to the Action and there the Squabble rests They do not complain of any Imitation of their Copy but take upon them as if no man else were to write upon That Subject At this rate we shall have all Sermons forfeited to the Kings Printers for Descanting upon Their Bibles and all Books whatsoever to the Company of Stationers because they are made out of the Four and Twenty Letters and the ABC is Their Copy What a Scandal is this to the Commonwealth of Letters What a Cramp to Learning and Industry That if I have a mind to Compile a History I must go to Forty little Fellows for leave forsooth to Write the Narrative of the Proceedings upon our Blessed King and Martyr the Brave Earl of Strafford Archbishop of Canterbury with a hundred more Instances of the like nature because some or other of them has lurched perhaps a Copy of Their Trials What if a man should write the Battle of Worcester and the Kings miraculous Escape after the Defeat must he not mention the Thousand Pound that was set upon his Majesties Head without leave of the Printer that had the Propriety of the Proclamation that offered it Or if a Body would draw up a Systeme of Treason and Sedition must he go to the Publisher of Bacons Government for a License I am the larger because it is a Publick Case And take notice First that the whole Story is drawn into less than a Sixth part of Their Volume Secondly That there is not so much as One Material Clause omitted in it Thirdly That it is incomparably Plainer and more Intelligible then the other beside the many Corrections in it Fourthly That it is Eleven Shillings saved Theirs being rated at Thirteen and Six pence at the Lowest Penny and This onely at Half a Crown And so much for this I come now to an Examination of Two Libels the most Audacious and Virulent that have yet passed the Press The One of them Entitled Omnia Comesta à Bello Or Bel hath devoured all The Other is called My Lord Lucas's Speech But take notice that my Exception lies to the Supplement or Appendix not concerning my self at all with the Speech The Former of these Papers is an Allusion to the Story of Bel and the Dragon where the Priests and their Wives came in at a Back-dore and consume what was offered to the Idol It is Printed BELLO in stead of BELO and the Mistake is a great deal Righter then the Meaning For it was in Truth the WAR that Devoured all and the Good Old Cause which was the Foundation of That War was in effect no better than a CHRISTIAN IDOL It comes forth as an Answer to the First of Five Pretended Questions which he sets down at Length and we will speak of them in Order as far as shall be needful Quaery 1. Whether the Great Cause of Impoverishing the Nation Ruine of Trade and General Consumption of Comfort Settlement and Content which hath brought the Land to a meer Anatomy be not the Pomp Pride Luxury Exaction and Oppression of the Prelates Pag. 3. He Concludes in the Affirmative And Pag. 4. The Trading Stock of the Nation he says is devoured in this Prelatical Gulph But are we so Miserable then And is the Hierarchy the Cause of all our Miseries Let us compare the Times a little when we had Bishops and when we had None For there is no Trial of the Truth and Reason of Things like Experience From 1558. when Q. Elizabeth came to the Crown to 1641. we had a Continued Succession of a Protestant or rather a Reformed Prelacy And so from 1660. to this present 1679. which is upward of a hundred Years And all this while the Government stood firm upon its Ancient Basis. The Gospel flourished and the Subject enjoyed their Legal Liberties under a Legal Administration both in Church and State From 1641 to 1660. Episcopacy was Out of Dores Do but observe now what Havock was made in the State both Ecclesiastical and Civil in matter of our Religion Liberties and Properties in That Interval of onely Nineteen Years when an Ordinance was of more force then an Act of Parliament And our Lives Freedoms and Estates lay at the Mercy of the Tyrants of Athens in a Derby-house Committee But let us yet come closer to the Business I would fain know what these men would be at that are so desperately unsatisfied with the Condition they are in Would they be in the days of Queen Elizabeth again or of King Iames or of the Late King If nothing of This will content them there is no other choice left but That of Rebellion For whosoever Traces the History of these Male-contents will find Deadness of Trade and Persecution to have been their Constant Complaint from the Reformation it self to this day After the Passing of a General Sentence upon the Bishops as the Authors of all our Calamities he takes the whole to pieces Treating First of the Revenues Pomp and State of Prelates And there he tells us of Two Provincial Arch-bishops with their Princely Retinue Domestique Chaplains Officers of Temporal Tithes Spiritual Officers Vicar General Guardian of the Spiritualities Dean of the Arches with all their Vnder-Officers and Attendants To be as brief as possible First Where is the Crime or the Iniquity of all This Pomp and State Or why should not an Ecclesiastical Body have its Dignities and Dependences as well as a Civil Community There is no body envies my Lord Maior his Sword-bearer his Mace-bearer or any other Servant or Ensign of his Preeminence and Office For beside that the very Splendor and Magnificence creates and preserves a Reverence for Authority This Multiplicity and Subordination of Officers is of absolute Necessity also as subservient to Order and to the very Discharge of his Function The Second Question is Are these Officers established by Law or not If by Law This clamour is an Arraignment of King Lords and Commons Thirdly It is not onely a Legal Establishment but an Establishment of many Ages and continued without Interruption till both Church and Kingdom fell together And then in Lieu of Bishops we had a Motly Synod of State-Pensioners Hirelings to poison the Pulpits and the People and to decoy the silly Multitude out of their Lives Fortunes Liberties Duties and Religions Men kept in Pay to preach Thanksgiving Sermons and to help out at a Dead Lift towards the bringing of their Soveraign to the Scaffold When they had preached and prayed the Kingdom into Bloud and Disobedience and held the Rabble several Years agog and gaping after the Blessed Reformation so graciously promised them Out comes at last the False Conception of their Directory A kind of Spiritual Moon-Calf But by this time the King was as good as Lost and so they fell presently to sharing of the
the Reader observe the Pharisaical and Vnmannerly Opposition betwixt his Ejected Ministers and those that were Introduced and then let him consider the Right and the Condition both of the One and of the Other This was the very Character the Schismatiques gave our Learned Pious and Canonical Divines when they turned them out of their Livings by Hundreds contrary to Law Honesty and Humanity it self and the same Character with the Other did They take upon Themselves that turned them out The Incumbent Legally Invested in the Benefice and the Other an Oppressing and Injurious Vsurper And what came of it The Shepherds were destroyed and Wolves set to look to the Flock The Vnity and Simplicity of Evangelical Truth was lost and confounded in a Compound of Carnal Policy and Schism We had as many Religions as Pulpits and the Doctrine of Rebellion Delivered in them in stead of the Doctrine of Salvation He goes on Damning all the Churchwardens for Persecutors of the Gospel if they Present according to their Oaths and for Perjury if they do not If a Minister Preach without his Canonical Garment If any man goes from his Own Parish Church to hear a Sermon c. or work upon a Romish Holyday If he does not stand up at the Creed nor Bow at the Name of Jesus Or does not keep off his Hat all the while he is Presentable Well and what of all this There is neither Life nor Limb in the Case if a man be Presented Here is for Decency sake an Order and That Order is supported by Authority and Obedience in Lawful Matters deriving from a Lawful Authority is an Essential Duty both of a Subject and a Christian. He seems onely to have Talked Idle all this while but now he grows directly Outragious We have gotten saith he most of the sober Trading part of the Nation discouraged by Citations Excommunications Writs to take them Excommunicated Imprisonments upon Ecclesiastical Accompts By this means Thousands of Families are already ruined and many Hundreds are ready to leave the Land and remove into some other Country where they may have Liberty of Conscience and Freedom from these devouring Harpies And then he tell us of our Surplices Copes Tippets Cringings out of the Romish Rituals and a Service collected out of the Romish Books the Maess Breviary c. Was not This the very Stile of the Petitions and Admonitions to Q. Elizabeth and so down to this Instant Pray what did we get by it when to be cased of This insupportable Tyranny the Nation was at the charge of 114000 l. a Moneth to an Army Hist. Indep 66. Above One half of the Revenue of the Kingdom under Sequestration 300000 l. a Year openly divided by the Faction among Themselves beside Private Iobs and above 20 Millions that they never accompted for 110000 l. a Year in Wages to Themselves 100000 l. a Year more in Gratuities Beside Free Quarter at pleasure Taxes Innumerable and all Vnder-hand Corruptions Above a Million and a half levied by Compositions and then so cheap and despicable Slaves in our Persons that Welsh Prisoners were sold into Plantations at 2 pence a head For the Truth of all This I refer my self to Mr. Walker in his History of Independency a Knowing and a Well-read Person in the whole Transaction and a man of Credit As to the Pamphletters Liberty of Conscience He would have the World believe this Vniformity and Rule of Discipline to be New and Singular and the Work onely of the present Age and Bishops Whereas whosoever will consult the History of our Government will find This Law to be a Moderation which they call a Persecution Especially at a time when the strictness is not executed Under Edward the VI. the very Depraving of the Common Prayer or Procuring the Vse of any other in Open Prayer was 10 l. to his Majesty for the First Offence 20 l. for the Second And a Forfeiture of all Goods and Chattels with Imprisonment during Life for the Third And in the Fifth of the same King there was Authorized an Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction in these Cases Q. Mary repealed this Act and in the First of Q. Elizabeth Q. Maries Act was Repealed and the Former Act Confirmed which was afterwards in the Five and Thirtieth of That Queens Reign Enforced with more Rigour to which She was necessitated by the Turbulence of that Spirit of Schism which still to This day is a working King Iames handed it down to the late King and he continued it till by a Torrent of Popular Violence the King himself and the Government were Both over-born We have gotten saith he a Swarm of Ecclesiastical Officers which the Scriptures never knew nor Reformed Churches ever owned A sort of Proud Prelats And all manner of Misery to Soul and Body Plague Fire Sword Vniversal Beggery and without Seasonable Mercy the Total Ruine of the whole Kingdom I am sorry to hear that we have any Officers which the Reformed Churches never owned For these which we have in This Government at present we have had for several Ages and when we had these Officers no longer we had no longer any Government And Then it was that all his Plagues befel us We have made but One Trial of another way of Government and it cost us Dear Upon a supposed Question over again concerning the Rise of our Miseries the Libellers Answer is that the manifold Provoking Sins of the Land as Adultery Blasphemy Swearing Idolatry Perjury and contempt of God and Godliness do pull hard with Heaven to bring down desolating Iudgments But the nearest Cause of our Impoverishments ariseth from the Particulars afore mentioned He should have done well to have put in Rebellion too which hath all other Sins in the Belly of it But That is a Thing these people do not love to touch upon To the rest I have spoken more then enough already and that which follows is onely an Impertinent Citation of Reflections upon Ill Bishops whence he would draw an Inference that we are to have None at all The Second of the Five Quaeries before mentioned is This Whether since all other Reformed Churches in Europe did upon the First Reformation and Departure from Popery cast out all Diocesan Bishops Name and Thing Root and Branch as an Office altogether Popish together with all their Hierarchical Appurtenances and do this day esteem them no otherwise why did not or doth not England also do the like So that by Hook or by Crook it seems the Bishops must down either for Oppression or for Popery after the Example of all other Reformed Churches We may see by This what kind of Reformation we are to expect from Those People that account the Church of England to be Popish We should be presently a tearing down Altars again demolishing of Churches Rifling of Colleges and Murthering of Iesus Christ over again in Essigie which is no way to be effected but by another Rebellion The Model of the best Reformed Churches