Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	good_a	great_a	true_a	2,848	5	3.8360	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46957	Notes upon the Phœnix edition of the Pastoral letter Part I / by Samvel Johnson.	Johnson, Samuel, 1649-1703.	1694 (1694)	Wing J835; ESTC R11877	45,073	120

those Peaceable and sometimes Rusty Swords which Men wear by their Sides to prevent Injuries and to keep them off at a distance instead of going with their Hands tied behind them to invite them And the only way to preserve a Nation from Tyranny is to leave them their Hands as free as the Law has left them though they make no other use of them than a Dutchman does of his to put in his Pockets For when all is done Reputation is the Best sort of Power and Defends Men from Injuries without War and Bloodshed While Mens Hands are their own their Rights are their own and therefore all Tyrants use this Method in Destroying a Nation bind the Strong Man and then spoil his Goods first they employ their Passive Priests and then their Active Executioners So it was in France the Protestants were Dragoon'd by Passive and Slavish Principles long before St. Ruth came amongst them And so it was here this Nation was bound hand and foot by Passive Principles and laid upon the Wood and we all know that the Sacrificing Knife was always ready Armorum qu●edam sunt tuitionis Pacis c. says Bracton the People of England have Weapons for keeping the Peace but our peaceful Clergy knew a better way and beat all our Weapons into Plowshares and Pruning-hooks and when Mr. Hunt and I endeavoured to restore them to their former lawful Shape and Use they said we had been down at the Forges of the Philistins and dealt with Jesuites and Dr. Pelling could shew some Pages which Mr. Hunt had plundered out of Doleman though I do verily believe what he told me that he had never seen the Book But thus they went on both in and out of the Pulpit to cheat us of our Sheriffs and Charters and of the whole Strength of the Nation and to enslave the very Minds and Consciences of Men by bringing down every free English Thought to the Obedience of a Tyrant and by flashing Hell Fire and Damnation in the Faces of all those that knew they might Defend themselves against Tyranny And so this Mighty Nation which was never Conquered before was at last upon the point of being Conquered I am ashamed to say it by a very small Force not the ten Thousandth part of the Dutch Force even by Phantomes and Thebaean Legions But would not any Man who was a Lover of his Countrey venture his Life upon a Rescue in such a Case and indeavour to Unpinion Old England and assert his Countrey-men that Liberty to which they were Born No Man that understood the Pious Fraud though at the same time he understood his own Danger in discovering it could endure to see Chains and Fetters thus treacherously put upon his Countrey under pretence of Religion as they put them upon Men in the Inquisition for their Souls Health For if we are to love our Neighbour as our Self our Countrey is so great a Neighbour and has so many Millions of Neighbours in it that it ought be loved so many times better than one's self And if a Man should fall in such a Cause and lay down his Life for so great a Good seeing he must die sometime or another for nothing he makes Earnings of Mortality And though his Endeavours should want the desired Success provided he did his true Endeavour for I grant that wishing well in all Cases is no more than dreaming well it affords him greater Satisfaction than any thing in this World can For a Humane Soul is made so very large that nothing but the Love of God and of a Man's Country can fill it Thus far the very Reputation of Defending our Rights does Service to the Publick it checks and discourages Tyranny and is the Shore and Sea-dyke against Arbitrary Power and says to its proud Waves Hitherto shall ye come and no further There is no such Rule of Justice can be given to Mankind as to know their own for it makes other Men know it too But a Nation is lost when it is so Priestridden as to be preached out of all its Rights by the falsest Interpretations of Scripture that were ever yet put upon it since it was Penn'd and when they become so very Passive as the Addressing part of the Town of Northampton was who perjured themselves in surrendering their old Charter and prayed that in their new Charter they might not have the Choice of their own Magistrates because the King could chuse better for them than they could for themselves If I had been a Knave Minister of State at that time I would certainly have taken these Minors at their Word and part of their New Charter should have been to have Nurses sent them from above to have fed them with Spoons and held them out and turn'd them dry and treated them according to the State of Infancy which they professed and their Estates should have paid for it at the Year's end For the willing can have no Injury done them it 's all their own If Men bar their own Rights they are barr'd Well but must the Wise and Free and Great Men of a Nation be Slaves for Company with such Perfectionists in Church-Doctrine and lose all their Rights because the others give away theirs I think not Then is the time for all Honest Men to meditate the Actual Defence of their Rights when they see a Court and Church agreed to swallow them up For when they see Men murdered before their Faces there is nothing got by staying to be Eat last it is better to be eat First I know even by what I have found that that is the easier Death of the two And it was no Remote Case when my Lord Russell spoke of Defending Invaded Rights for he had survived all the Rights of the Nation long before he fell He saw that Parliaments were Libelled in all the Parish-Churches in England by the Declaration for the Dissolving the Oxford Parliament whereby we were plainly bid to take our Leave of Parliaments and so we did for that Reign He saw that the Choice of Sheriffs was ravished from the City of London and the True Sheriffs durst not Try their Cause but let it fall One of them is alive to witness what I say He saw plainly that this was intended for the Destruction of such Great Men as himself by pack'd Juries For the Papists and their wretched Adherents neither feared nor cared for Juries as to themselves being under the Protection of Noli Prosequi's and Affidavit-men but they thirsted for Blood This the State-Interpreter of those Times Sir Roger Lestrange told us openly in his Observators was the meaning of that Point of gaining the Sheriffs I know he will thank me for not quoting his words for they are Bloody ones That Great Man saw likewise a parcel of Traitorous Lords who under pretence of being Prisoners had taken the Tower and had raised so many Batteries against the City that the Lord Arundel of Warder wanted but one

that it should be Treason for any Man to deny it What Offence it were to contravene this Act Sir Thomas More answered that he should offend if he said No because he was Bound by the Act but that this was Casus levis Whereupon Sir Thomas More said he would propose a higher Case suppose by Parliament it were enacted quod Deus non sit Deus and that it were Treason to contravene whether it were an Offence to say according to the said Act Richard Rich replied yea but said withal I will propose a middle Case because yours is too high The King you know is constitute Supream Head of the Church on Earth why should not you Master More accept him so as you would me if I were made King by the Supposition aforesaid Sir Thomas More Answer'd the Case was not the same because said he a Parliament can make a King and Depose him and that every Parliament-man may give his Consent thereunto but that a Subject cannot be bound so in the Case of Supremacy Quia Consensum ab eo ad Parlamentum praebere non potest Et quanquam Rex sic acceptus sit in Anglia plurimae tamen partes exterae idem non affirmant Because the Parliament-man cannot carry the Subject's Consent to Parliament in this Case that is to say no body but Christ could make his own Vicar and the Head in Heaven make the Head on Earth and although the King be held to be Head of the Church here in England yet the greatest part of the World abroad are of another mind Here Sir Thomas More stuck for I believe stick He did because he laid down his Life for it but you see that the undoubted unquestioned Law of the Land was this That a Parliament can make and Depose a King for it is the Foundation of their Arguing And it cannot be thought that a Learned Lord Chancellor and Sollicitor General should be both Ignorant in the First Principles of the Law Neither would Richard Rich have been made a Lord and the Head of a Noble Family of Earls if it had not been Current Law in those Days for such a Principle upon Record would have been as bad and hurt his Preferment as much as if he had been Stigmatized And therefore my Lord of Essex's Argument was more than Measure That if a Parliament could make and Depose a King and make Richard Rich King much more they might foreclose the Duke of York who was no King and more unqualified than Richard Rich and might make the Prince of Orange King an otherghess Man than Richard Rich. Thus that Great Man Argued but Care was taken that he should Argue for the Good of his Countrey no more and therefore we that are left behind partly to bewail the loss of such Great Men and partly to imitate them ought to uphold their Cause and as mean a Man as I am able to maintain these plain Truths against all the World Though indeed my Lord of Essex told me that his Adversaries in that Debate waved the Jargon of Divine Right and the Line of Succes●ion which had been inculcated in the Second Volume of the History of the Reformation and by the Heroe himself to whom it was Dedicated and at that time they betook themselves chiefly to Reasons of State They were got at the old Scarecrow Venient Romani the Foreign Catholick Princes would espouse the Duke of York's Quarrel the Ancient Kingdom of Scotland would admit him for Their King in opposition to our Act of Parliament and this would entail a Dangerous War upon the Nation That is I suppose the Navy Royal of Scotland would have given Law to the English Fleet They were likewise doubtful of Ireland and if these two Kingdoms were dismembred from us the solitary Kingdom of England would not make that Figure in the World as it used to do And therefore according to the Method of all hired Politicks they must make sure of sinking Three Kingdoms for fear of losing Two and Deliver up the Castle for fear the Suburbs should Revolt With such fitting Arguments was that Cause supported and if I have broke any Rules in repeating that Great Man's private Discourse now it is done I cannot help it But I say let his Integrity be known and speak as Loud as his Blood cries And I am sure they that would stifle that Man's Honour would stifle his Death But the Bill of Exclusion is of no Concernment at this Time though if we had then ventured our Lives for it we had done well and it had been good Husbandry for it had saved more than an Hundred Thousand Lives since which are all of a price and as dear to them as owned them as ours are to us I grant a True Statesman is of another Opinion and values being called his Grace or Noble Marquess more than a Million of Lives provided that in such a general Destruction he can but save one And to confirm themselves in their ill-gotten Honours they generally hatch Plots suborn Rebellions or any thing that they think may create Business keep themselves from being Questioned and thin Mankind whereby they lose so many of their Enemies which by their Oppression they have heaped up to themselves So I have been told a certain Person being asked why he Destroyed my Lord Russell said it was Self-preservation he did it in his own Defence because my Lord Russell would have Destroyed him A fit Answer for the Answerer because it is just the Excuse of a Highway-man who adds Murder to his Robbery and Wrong because otherwise the True-man might have pursued him and Hanged him for it But the Masterpiece of their Policy they have stoln from the Old Popes of Rome to send their Princes into the Holy Wars while they domineer'd and plaid their own Game at home I express'd my Fears as soon as he was Crown'd that our King would be so serv'd and that taking advantage of his Matchless Courage they would put him upon hazardous Expeditions for such Counsels are on Nature's Side and are soon hearkned to by a Cordelyon or an Edward the First who were all on fire for Crusadoes And it was easy to tell what Advices the Statesmen would give such to be sure as agreed with His Inclinations but were much more for their own Interest for if a Man but look into the Tyring-room and see the old Actors he knows what the Play will be without a Bill It is the Observation of the Learned Antiquary Selden that our Nation got nothing by those fruitless Voyages into the Holy Land after a vast Expence of Blood and Treasure but only the Sign of the Saracen's Head For after our People came home again worsted and with great loss they had no other way to save their Credit but to represent the Saracens as Giants and to picture them with Eyes like Saucers and a Mouth big enough to eat a Man And it is well if the English bring home any