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	just_a	law_n	2,761	5	4.7834	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91886	A short discourse between monarchical and aristocratical government. Or a sober perswasive of all true-hearted Englishmen, to a willing conjunction with the Parliament of England in setting up the government of a common-wealth. By a true Englishman, and well-wisher to the good of this nation.	Robinson, Henry, 1605?-1664?	1649 (1649)	Wing R1678; Thomason E575_31	16,476	20

the principles and spirits of men both in Parliament City and Country being altered by the subtle Insinuations of the King and his Agents and not only a first but second War levyed by the Kings Commission against the Parliament more dangerous then the former though miraculously past over It was now time to take the advantage of providence and make use of that honest power yet left to prosecute our first principles to the best end and go through with that which we did but dally with before and seeing that the King was the only cause of the first and second War and of corrupting all interests and spirits which ever came nigh him and that his evil Councel on whom all was formerly laid was sequestred from him and yet the same things and worse done by him could imagine no other Expedient to preserve the Nation but by removing the prime cause of their misery and seeing the disease was grown desperate to apply a remedy proportionable That if any thing have been acted that seems Heterodox to our first Intentions and Engagements it hath been but to follow the King who frustrated all our hopes and grew to be so dangerous and implacable an Enemy that he left us no other remedy but his death to give us any hope of recovery And now you see that we are like to attain our End Liberty and Justice though we could not at first see the way how and it 's brought about by other mediums then we first intended it neither is any disparagement to us that our Liberties are procured by such a Royal Sacrifice But it is in vain to repeat Those which stumble so much at that unparaleld and most glorious act of Justice done on the late King may be desired to consider what way else was left us to preserve the honest party of this Nation yea the whole Nation besides and to prefer the life of our grand Enemy before the good of a Nation is foolish pity indeed for that our Liberty and his life were grown to be incompetible and inconsistent is most demonstrative seeing he was not so much as sensible of any miscarriages nor repented of a drop of blood shed so plentifully by his Commission but grew so hardned that he would rather dye then consent to these absolute and just grounds of Liberty and Safety that the Parliament so often sent him in order to his advancement and the security of the Kingdom What ever had been done besides would have been but the skinning over the wound while it did inwardly fester and gangrene and have given our Enemies advantage to undo us by our own respects which they could not by their open hostility and force But I am sorry I have detained the Reader so long from a ready compliance with this present Government by repeating the miseries of the old But it 's good sometimes to look back that we may see what Mercies we enjoy at present For my part I cannot but think that Scaffold sacred and no other Sacrifice could have been so expiatory before God or men for that Blood which hath been shed in this Nation then His who was the onely cause of it And yet I cannot blame those that think him to be above Law should judg him to be above punishment And though unto some tender spirits it may seem hard and of ill consequence yet upon second thoughts they will see it necessary and just and the fruits answerable if our new discontexts as well as former pity and indulgence do not frustrate it And certainly our Ancestors were they alive would admire their Childrens fortunes and happiness who have had the opportunity to act that which they thought but durst not speak would be their greatest Mercy viz. To cast off that usurped Government which they felt the Tyranny and Oppression of so many years without hope of Remedy But if any thing of Conscience should be in that your dissent and non-acting may satisfie you and their acting against them who held their Judgments well informed and acted accordingly in that great and impartial work of Justice Let us therefore forget these things which are impossible to be helped and fall on to those things which are possible and necessary and labor to be as conscientious in avoyding ways of making new Divisions as we are in remembering former Miscarriages We are now through providence on a new Foundation and have time to consider our own good and want nothing to make us the happiest Nation under the Sun but the blessing of the Gospel which yet we have and are like to have it shine in greater splendor and a hearty and free compliance with the Government now set up by all honest and ingenuous men who mean to share in the fruits of Truth and Peace together And truly Prudence and Reason that teacheth men to make vertues of necessities may well make men ingenuous in improving advantages and conveniences I know there are many sorts of men to be delt with in this paranatick Some who can onely be perswaded by force and violence as Malignants and debauched spirits and we can onely secure their persons hardly ever gain their consents they have drank so deeply of that cup of delusion Yet the remembrance of their former Compositions may possibly aw them and scrue them into obedience I have better matter to deal withal in this Discourse viz. with honest hearts which are either miscarryed through deceitful pretences or discontented through mistaken apprehensions or have been at least disheartened through want of observance of Gods actings in these affairs and so sit at too great a distance from compliance with this present Government For it 's most true that as many men get their own ends through pretence of Religion so others weakly look on Religion through the disguizes of cunning Politicians which they converse withall And it hath been a great misery to our Cause That honest men have either in the actings of things consul●ed too much with flesh and blood or suffered themselves to be abused by the specious insinuations of those men who have had no reserve of honor and respect but what they could get by such stratagems I dare not undertake to plead for any person or party or to justifie men in any thing I am now pleading for a common good by a convenient Government though I know no reason why men should dis-affect good things out of any prejudice to parties and persons I can love Gold though in the Oar and prize Diamonds though unfiled and unset But to the thing It is not onely to be wished and desired but that which all honest men who love the Interest of England and desire to see but any comfortable issue of these late sad Distractions should be engaged in unanimously to close in with the present Overtures and promote by all means and faithfulness the Government set up by the Parliament and laying aside all particular animosities and waving lesser differences pass an Act

of Oblivion for all former miscarriages whether real or supposed and take the advantage of advancing our good by the present opportunity having cause to fear that if we neglect this we shall never enjoy the like advantage for Truth and Liberty And least men might pretend Conscience or Reason to countenance their dis-affection to this Government of a Commonwealth I shall humbly entreat honest men to consider That there is no such supernatural stamp or Jus Divinum set on Monarchical Government which should engage mens hearts unto it so peculiarly more then on any other excepting onely such a State which hath not form and order in it What ever mens affections may be to one Government more then another I know not but there is no Divine Character of respect more on one then other But God who is a God of Order hath ordained Governments and delights to see his Creatures made happy by them and therefore hath left them to choose what they think may be most fit for that end and to call it by what name they please and that Government which is in one place called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Ordinance of God is in another called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a creature or institution of man the power it self being from God the distinction and personal administration from man and if it were not so no Government but one could be lawful or to be obeyed by any people as an Ordinance of God And by consequence if Monarchy have this impression onely from Heaven no Government but that is to be accounted lawful or obedience to it from any spiritual rule but force and necessity which not any that hath his veins never so full of royal blood will maintain Those that take the divinity of Regal power from its similitude and likeness it hath unto God and his Supremacy and oneness in the Government of the World plead rather for the Turkish or Russian Monarchy then for Englands they holding for a more exact likeness to God in their sence ruling all by their own wills independently from any whereas onely that Government hath Gods heart in it specially which is founded in Righteousness and propagated by Justice and doth most bless a Nation with Truth and Peace But if men will refer the judgment of Monarchy to what God says of it when it was first mentioned to him by his own People as desirous to be under it it 's most observable though I would not make it an argument That no distinct Order of Government had ever such a signal blur and stamp of dislike from God as Monarchy nor did ever any people receive a publique check from Heaven for choosing any Government but King-ship and it stands on record to this day that God was displeased but at the motion of the children of Israel to have a King as the Heathens they being not content with the wisdom of God who chose another Government for them as better and more fit for honest and godly men he gave them a King but in wrath And if God were so displeased with them but for asking a King after the manner of the Heathens which King God himself should have a vote in the choyce of how will he be with us who will have a King which God hath rejected But though many good hearts may think the jus divinum to be alike yet they may finde many Obligations to Kingly Government in England which are sacred and may lie on their Consciences as an impediment to a full closing with this Government which they may in Reason be convinced is fit and necessary I confess there is nothing of more reverence in the eyes of any serious spirit then solemn Oaths and Covenants whereby men are obliged to God as well as men and have their Consciences to answer as well as Reason Yet there may be too scruplous a Conscience and many times Conscience is made too great a pretence and covert for inward malignity and dislike of things themselves Yet what ever pretence men may make of their Obligation by Oath to another Government such Oaths cannot be binding now when not onely the persons but the Government it self is removed the very Commands of God which are affirmative binde not ad semper to all times and particular movements and I hope no godly man thinks any other Covenant to be everlasting but the Covenant of Grace We all grant that no Oath bindes me when I am dead neither can any Oath binde me to dead persons or things not in being and what ever Oaths men have taken relating to the person of the late King or that Government cannot be in force but must needs be out of date and unobliging when the person is dead and the Government it self necessarily altered especially when the matter about which the Oath made is civil and changeable and made not absolutely but conditionally as the late Covenant was we binding our selves to preserve his Majesties person c. in the Preservation of Religion and Liberty which we have found absolutely contrary and inconsistent together And let me say it were to be wished that this tenderness of Conscience were in some of the scruplers about this Government formerly when the Covenant and Ecclesiastical Government was first urged the matters of which were sacred as well as the Oath it self and yet nothing would then serve but force and violence banishment with many such threats to those that would not submit to it the matter and manner of which belonged properly to Conscience and was controverted by the best and ablest men and yet a rational dissent by one side entred and the thing it self hardly determinable in some points But I am for union and may not open old sores It 's well the Cause is changed and the Tryal come about to others that they may know what Conscience means Yet it 's still to be desired that men would consider what sin against any mans Conscience it can be to joyn in with a Government which is not onely most lawful in it self but most necessary at present or how they can in Conscience without some other Reason maintain their engagements to a non-entity or how they can discharge their Conscience from one sin by doing another or make an atonement for present disobedience to an Ordinance of God as every Government in it self is by former pretended Obligation to that which they have not at present or it may be never shall have opportunity to perform I know the Parliament will have regard to tender Consciences and lay nothing which may be a burthen on them But it will be very sad and ominous that all mens malignity and state-distempers should have such a plausible disguize as Conscience or that necessary and civil affairs which are but reductively and secondarily belonging to Conscience should be simple and absolutely destroyed by such a plea which is common to one as well as another But I doubt not but that the justness and

perfect and natural Heir to his Fathers Quarrel and Design as to his Crown and Dignity But the great thing to be wondred at is That any which love Presbyterial Government should dote on Monarchy especially after the Raign of such a person and stand out against this Government which the Parliament have now set up Aristocracy in Church and Monarchy in State do not run so paralel in the expressions what ever they may do in the sence Kingly Government hath never been yet very propitious or benign to Presbytery the most favour it hath got in any Kingdom is but to have a Toleration as in France and in this Nation it 's hardly a probationer but Episcopacy hath been that ancient Government which hath been bred up with Monarchy and hath of late been its greatest Darling to maintain which much of the Royal Interest hath been engaged the late King making one of the grounds of his War to be the taking away of that Government which he thought to be so fundamental and sacred that all Religion was wrapt up in it and to confirm his love unto it dyed with a Bishop in his arms And such inseparable union is between Monarchy and Episcopacy that King James himself as soon as ever he came out of Scotland into England and found himself to be a King made this State Maxime No Bishop no King which is to this day unrepealed and by experience confirmed for they have both dyed together as Twins in the bosom of each other and if we do but look a little back we shall find that Presbyterial Government never thrived well no not in Scotland the most fertile soil and natural climate wherein it flourisheth most until the King was removed at such a distance and yet what attempts have both King James and Charls made but to overthrow it in Scotland as being most unsuitable to Kingly Government and they have little cause to think that their Charls the Second will forget his Grand-fathers and Fathers Legacy And now we have begun to mention Scotland it may be some may bring in them as a president to us as formerly to the Church so now to the State who notwithstanding all their inconveniencies which they have found by Monarchy yet have thought fit to continue it and that in the right line of Succession It 's well known the Scots love the Name but care little for the Company or Power of a King Neither is it much to be admired that they should proclaim King whom they never intend shall rule over them for they well know how to make use of the Name though they mean not to subject to the Power The Scots are not a Nation of as much state and riches as other Kingdoms but of as much design as any and they well fore-see that whose King soever he be England must maintain him and bear the greatest burthen while they enjoy his small Revenue in Scotland and get places and pensions from him in England so that he must be their King but our Tyrant All that understand the Affairs of Scotland know that were it not for the name of the King the factions of their Nobility and Gentry are so great that Peace could never be kept among themselves and yet if they had a King really among them it would impoverish both Gentry and Nobility who must contribute to maintain him who in England by pensions and places hath set up them But I would not too much open the nakedness of that Nation but wish them much good with their King and his hideous train of Malignants which must necessarily follow him where ever he himself is entertained with any respect or honor Onely they should have given him title to their own Nation and have left our Parliament to have chosen for us who are come to sufficient years of discretion and have learnt to understand both their King and them but it seems it would profit them little to have him King of Scotland if he were not also of Great Britain It is for us to consult our own concernments and not trouble our selves with examples If we chance to differ from other States it 's because they have not the same advantages nor we the same causes and grounds of following them All that is proposed by the Parliament is to reduce us into a Commonwealth and if the name do not offend I know not why should the thing And as to that reverent plea of the Antiquity of Monarchy in this Nation we may answer with grief it hath been too long and we have had time enough to try and feel the sad effects of it and Kingship may very well after so long a personal reign and advancement of it self give way to a Commonwealth that the Nation may get some good and enjoy some Liberty after their long servitude to it Antiquity is an argument for nothing but truth and goodness else error and usurpation will plead its gray hairs and make a demonstration of its divinity with the best advantage And wheras many wise men object the danger of changes in States and Governments the unknown consequences which may follow it 's confest and therefore the Parliament hath took time and deliberation and tryed all expedients and made the best essays for security of the Nation without it But that change cannot be dangerous where the continuation of a former Government in such persons hath proved and is inevitably mischievous as it is in our cause and yet we have not changed our Laws or the Fundamentals of the former Government but onely the persons and mal-administrators of it that it 's but a change of persons and names which have acted and are like to act to our destruction and so hinder mischief from running in a blood And if we will with seriousness and observance look about us we may discern a bright Star of Providence leading us directly to it and a harmony of wonders and mercies accompanying it and blessing on the Parliaments proceedings in it that men which shal oppose it may wel be said to fight against the very arm of the Almighty and slight many a glorious work which God hath done by weak and ordinary instruments And whereas many men nourish their discontents against it by the present distempers they finde in the Nation and are apt to think and be made beleeve That our condition is worse then it was in the time of the late King by reason of Taxes and Oppressions They should consider the cause may be in themselves who give no better ground of security to the Parliament of an honest and faithful compliance but by their new discontents keep up our fears which makes them keep up an Army and had they been wise men who thus object they would have considered that we are not onely framing a new Government but changing the old and that we are not in in Republica Platonis but in face Romuli It 's easie to frame an Idea of a new Government