Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	great_a	king_n	lord_n	6,936	5	3.8165	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A81054	Conscience-oppression: or, A complaint of wrong done to the people's rights, being a vvord necessary and seasonable to all pious christians in England, whether in or out of church-way; and to all sober minded and rational men, that yet know how to value law and christian liberty. / By I. Croope, a subject of Christ's kingdome, and of England's common-wealth.	Croope, J.	1657 (1657)	Wing C7236; Thomason E903_8; ESTC R207425	46,102	63

what were propounded The famous Monks of Bangor reported much for Industry and holiness were principally eyed it is like in this Assembly The head of their fraternity refusing still to subject themselves by such Courses receive the interminating prophesie of this great Prelate or rather the promulging of his pollicy Pag. 106. Cum aliis locis Si pacem cum fratribus accipere nolent bellum ad Hostibus forent accepturi if they would not entertain peace with their Brethren they should have war from their enemies And not long after it fell out accordingly for Austine now was great with Ethelbert this King in Austines Cause provokes the King of Northumberland to fall upon the Brittains he enters Leicester willing to please the King of Kent and there findes a number of these poor praying Bangorites and slaughters 1200. of them with cruel butchery Austine is doubted in this business by Mr. Speed and others to have wrought more by pride and bloody pollicy then by the spirit of prophesie The action is so much unlike that spirit which once lived in men The Answer of these harmless Monkes was good and very fair without a merit of such wages as was after payed them Pag. 108. And for the piety thereof I shall transcribe it here from Sir Henry Spelman to such as have him not by them Be it known and without doubt to you that we all are obedient subjects to the Church of God and to the Pope of Rome and to every godly Christian a practise now grown absolute with most to love every one in his degree in perfect Charity and to help every one of them by word and deed to be the children of God and other obedience saith the Abbot in the person of the rest I do not know due to him whom you name to be POPE Nor to be the father of fathers to be claimed or to be demanded And this obedience we are ready to pay to him and to every Christian continually Besides we are under the Government of the Bishop of Caerleon upon Uske who is to oversee under God over us to cause us to keep the the way spiritual This was their answer that we are yet it seems unaccustomed to any bruitish impositions and one would think it not deserving so heavy a censure from the Romish Monk nor so bloody an execution by his Abbettors but thus they perisht And thus commonly it goes with them that make the sword the Ruler and the Judge over men in Cases spirituall that do relate to conscience And here it is to be noted by the way as it may be guest at by the answer that these faing Brittains make no mention of any humane statute or Parliament decree that did contain the parts and points of their Religion by which they were to be guided under pain of life or liberty for had there been any such thing in being and had these Monks and Brittains known it as they must needs if there had been such a thing it would without question have been urged upon this great division and remembered to us as well as other things But I will hasten on You may by this perceive Romans Praelates and their power to have set their Iron feet of cruelty upon the neck of Brittish Christians and their Christian liberty Twelve hundred slain in cold blood in the midst of their devotions found unarmed saith the story too because they would not bow their knees to Romes great power and decrees and all occasioned by the whorish compliance of the Civil power and with its listening to those religious Incendiaries and also that the Kings of this fair famous Island began to sip betimes at the whores cup of fornication she was willing to ride and the powers of the earth must help her up or else she cannot and that they may the better do it they must be drunken since which time they have swilled themselves with full draughts of her poysonous liquor and all Nations have been thereby astonished befooled and made to live upon the senseless laws and notions of the beast and false Prophet proceeding from them in this plunged estate for they have lain down together in the wanton bed of worldly lust and glory and thence have been conceived and born those hellish-hideous monsters that have devoured and swallowed up the bodies and the souls of men in Christendome Brittain with a witness The spirit saith that the Ten Kings shall give up their power to the Beast this of England is concluded to be one To give their power to the Beast is to serve its lust and execute its laws according to pleasure and command since the aforesaid Austine displayed the colours of the Romish power in the field of this Nation it is wonderfull to consider how the secular and the Ecclesiastick interest hath combined together and grown up in mutuall claspings and imbraces They have been so mysterially twined and interwoven that it is feared their separation will not be effected the work is so tender and difficult until he come in power and spirit whose the Kingdome is The former persecutions we may call violent Irruptions or breakings in of power upon liberty without the form of Law now the scale is turning and the practise assumes another garb to appear under the Prelates mount the chair of state and are taken in to consult the affairs of the Commonwealth now they have liberty indeed to plot their own designe and to get their wills and sanctions stamped with the Images of law and authority they sit in Parliament and have a considerable stroke with the Laick Nobles and Gentlemen so that they can easily serve their own interest and obtain their desire upon all If there arise any principle of light and truth like to do their Kingdome wrong and to discover the darkness thereof they are at hand to quash them presently by bowing or breaking the fomenters thereof they 'le make them stoop or stagger to the grave and they can do it easily either by laying open the Jus Divinum of their holy Church whose Canons are so sacred they must not be touched or by insinuating into the Magistrates breast Clavis Apocalyp pag. 98. which hath been commonly open enough to entertain that inthralling Maxime of the reason of state and then present a subject to imploy it upon as the keeping up of our interest abroad with forraign Princes or the like from this unhappy marriage of these two fair Interests that we have mentioned have proceeded all those statute Laws by which they have taken cognizance of and undertaken to determine what is heresie and error with the severall Punishments for such as shall thereby be made or found guilty Herein they have but served the designe of the great mysterie Babylon The Mother of Harlots and abominations of the earth for the rules were framed within her whorish heart they did but creep out at the mouths of our English Kings and Parliaments

Liberty be and are here by repealed a●d made void If the Protector were in the framing this draught of Agreement how is it that that Ordinance on which Mr. Biddles Indictment was grounded could not be declared null and void when it was so honestly and submissively desired by so many godly men Is that which was lawful yea necessary to be done by the agreement become now unlawful by this Government Nay doth not the Government speake the same thing in the same words Art 36 37 38. with but little omission Methinks those whose hands have been in such works as this that do now make it conscience to persecute for Opinion as it is said should by ten thousand degrees make it their conscience not to persecute in such cases but to protect according to their former Agreement and Declarations and if such a Liberty be not hitherto eyed let all the world judge and make sense of what is past if it be not meant that matters of Religion only should not come at any hand into the sphere of the civil Magistrate but be reserv'd and kept intirely and distinct without any the least dependance as such upon the Powers of the world however they may be from time to time distinguish'd or dignified of what nature and concernment this branch in the Agreement about Religion was then judged to be besides what appears in the latter end of their Remonstrance is easie to be collected from their Petition presixt before and presented to the House of Commons with the Agreement it self where pag. 1. they say speaking of the draught That we meaning the Army are not Apt in any wise to insist upon circumstantial things or ought that is not evidently fundamental to the publike Interest for which you and we have declared and engaged And further Whether it shall be approved by you and received by the people as it now stands or not we desire it may yet remain upon record before you a perpetual witness of our real intentions and utmost endeavours for a sound and equal Settlement And in their Declaration concerning that Agreement pag. 30. of that Book they say speaking to the Nation in a tender thereof We shall not otherwise commend it then to say it contains the best and most hopeful foundations for the peace and future well-Government of this Nation that we can devise or think on within the line of humane Power c. with many other Arguments and Insinuations whereby to get a good Opinion in the Nation of their good intentions to publike Liberty and Settlement these passages are so plain they need no paraphrase and so pregnant to this end to guesse at the Armies and so the Protectors sense about the businesse of Religion that I shall mention no more of that kinde for evidence onely let it be remembred that some are still apt to think that tyranny is tyranny wheresoever itbe in Kings or whomsoever but I must complain and not much argue Yet secondly let us consider the Protector singly in his judgement Protectors Speech to the Parl. without the concurrence of others for the Verdict and I 'le only touch upon those passages for the purpose in his Speech to the Parliament at their dissolution although there might be much collected from the two former pag. 11. God hath spoken very loud on the behalf of his people by the judging their Enemies and restoring them a Liberty to worship with the freedom of their consciences and freedom in their Estates and persons when they do so And this he after calls the cause of God manifested by the works of God against which whosoever falls splits and suffers Ship-wrack and I hope this cause of God will never be lost or if at any time it should so happen the Lord will soon finde it again with a witnesse But further see pag. 17 18. Religion was not the thing at the first contested for but God brought it to that issue at last and gave it to u● by way of redundancie and at last it proved to be that which was most clear to us and wherein consisted this more then in obtaining that Liberty from the Tyrannie of the Bishops to all species of Protestants to worship God according to their own Light and Consciences then not according the forms or impositions of any other And speaking of such who once beggd Liberty 't is queried Is it ingenuous to ask liberty and not to give it what greater hypocri●e then for those who were opprest by the Bishops to become the greatest oppressors themselves so soon as their yoke was removec I could wish that those who call for Liberty now also had not too much of that Liber●y-Spirit if the Power were in their hands How can this be interpreted otherwise then coming from a minde resolved to maintain the freedom of conscience entire and uncurtaild especially seeing there is so fair a rule given to measure such a sense in it by that which follows As for prophane persons Blasphemers such as preach Sedition the contentious Raylers punishment from the Civil Magistrate ought to meet with them for their lives b●ing open make them the sub●ects of the Magistrates sword So much hath the Protector singly spoken and if that old saying be true Index est animi serm● Who can forbear to say That it hath been the Judgement of the present Power that all things singly relating to conscience are out of the way of the Magistrates Cognisance yet who compares these things thus though but a little opened with the Interpretations put upon the Instrument about Liberty mentioned before together with the tart and fiery sayings of many about Toleration and can refrain himself from wonder and astonishment to see such forgetfulness to say no more on 't falling upon mens memories of such things which they themselves have most solemnly profest and publisht to the worlds view to be of an absolute necessity to the general settlement of the common Interest and Peace of the Nation What meaning to put upon these Transactions as they thus stand I think the wisest or most subtile head will never be able to invent except it be That men are resolved with him in the Poet to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To have Tunes for all times and like Fidlers to sing that Song that fits the humors of the greatest in the company however it go with the rest Thus have we taken a little view of what the thoughts and workings of great men have been concerning Liberty and what they now appear to us to be Next for the Instrument of Government our new Charter it self whether that doth not give Liberty to all Dissenters in matters of Conscience excepting its own exceptions Shall or can I turne Common-Lawyer or the Law I shall not assume to my self that Task yet it being given for men to square themselves by I may endeavour to know it and for that end make a search into it To the