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	power_n	3,921	5	4.7466	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A83940	England anatomized: her disease discovered, and the remedy prescribed. In a speech by a Member of the (so called) Parliament.		1659 (1659)	Wing E2927; Thomason E993_12; ESTC R207779	5,248	8

ENGLAND ANATOMIZED Her Disease discovered and the Remedy prescribed In a Speech by a MEMBER of the so called PARLIAMENT Mr. SPEAKER I Am not I fear the onely person that comes hither hopelesse of doing any other good or good any other way than by opposing 〈◊〉 and endeavouring to hinder the designes of those who have brought the lives liberties and estates of the people of three Nations to have no other support than a Government without any basis or foundation Although I hope we have not any of us so naturaliz'd our selves in the devill 's dominions by our habituall crimes as not to return to the light of reason Sir I should willingly be silent could the voice and cries complaints and groans of the many thousands in these Nations that have felt and feel the weight of the oppressors be heard But whilst they are not heard or not regarded and others as unconcerned for them and too much for themselves pursue not the trust reposed at their Elections to sit here Nolo meam perdere I will not must not dare not stifle my reason barter my conscience nor lose any opportunity of declaring what I am and think others should be And when Religion and Law the two pillars of a Common-wealth have Sampson's shoulders the power of the Sword set to pull them down sit as a calm spectator You know well Sir that it is the part of such as are called to consult the concernments of the Republick Semper vigilare populorum suscipere curam according to that Encomium of Hector by Livie Nocturnu vigilans reipub providens c. But he that sleeping doth nothing is more commendable or rather lesse culpable than he that waking doth amisse Give me therefore liberty in discharge of my self and as concern'd for others to be your Remembrancer of the occasion and businesse for which we that now sit and others that for ought I know have as much right as our selves to sit here were at first convented And if it appear as questionlesse 't is too obvious that we have degenerated or deviated gon contrary to or at least walked out of the good road-way to the peace security and advantage of the three Nations I am unwilling to believe that any man out of a supposition that it is too late will yet longer deferr to return and experience to himself that Nihil est comodius vel tutius via Regia Mr. Speaker I shall not so much as question whether those sitting here are or are not a Parliament But sure I am that many usefull Members if it were such are wanting to compleat this Body and as sure that it were safest and best to joyne the Head to the Members The Constitution of Parliaments was to consult and advise with the King for the government of his Subjects To that purpose were we called hither And how far we have prosecuted that all Europe yea the whole World is made judge Let us make some retro-spection and take a short survey of the transactions by and amongst us since our first meeting We sat not long before our inconsiderate folly and arrogancy gave the King just cause to absent and to decline our actings It did not then to some but hath since to all appeared that there were two great designes of two sorts of persons sitting in the House one of which as in charity I do believe of many that were then Members was to purge the Councell of the King and to reclaim the insolence and over-haughtinesse of the Bishops and Clergy The other that which hath been since fatally effected the destruction of them all How to distinguish these persons yet I know not there being many Members doubtlesse still in beeing and some I hope sitting here than were then and 〈◊〉 continue hearty lovers of their King and Country But all or most of us without distinction are too guilty some by acting others by cowardly suffering that dismall Tragedy to be acted I need not prompt your Intellects in the nature of those horrid crimes we all have cause to mourn for I fear too many understood too well and acted deliberately and resolvedly what was intended to attain to what they proposed The sum of all is plain That out of pretensions to zeal for God love to Religion allegiance and duty to our King and care for our Country we caused so many thousands to be murdered so many families to be ruined the King whom we promised and protested we would make a glorious Prince to be betrayed and beheaded his Queen banisHed his Royall Children exposed to the mercy of Strangers Religion discountenanced the Church defaced the Laws violated mens persons imprisoned their estates confiscate and sold And all this to serve our own base ends to enrich our selves and to advance Libertinism Anabaptism Quakism and Papism Mr. Speaker I wish these were not undenyable truths but such we all know they are And yet such as some notwithstanding can add to their confidence in committing the impudence of justifying and defending them asserting their right and authority by their power and violence Though it be as ridiculous to wise men to maintain an Authority in the subject of dethroning and deposing their Soveraign as 't is prophane and damnable to intrench upon the prerogative of Heaven And if the King be Sicut Vicarius Dei Minister in terra How dare any but the great Emperour and Deputer of that Vice-roy undertake or designe his removall It was Sir no doubt just cause of sadnesse upon the spirits of all honest persons that had been too eminent in the prosecution of what received so ill successe to have that little power or possibility they had of retriving what before the murder of our late King seemed possible to be recovered wrested from them by the force and violence of the then and now pretenders to reformation having no other warrant then their rebellious swords which hath been the onely Corrilium they have used like the unskilfull Physitian Omnium occulos sanare And when afterwards some were left sitting that were seriously sensible of their miscarriages and endeavoured to evidence their remorce by re-setling and reducing what they found wholly out of frame then for some few self-interessed irreligious sacralegious persons by meer supremacy of power to enforce their dissolution and give way to the succession of a corrupt Anabaptisticall Jesuiticall sect of people to introduce an absolute arbitrary Government without Rule or Law save onely that of the wills of the Legislators that altered as their occasions and advantages prompted What must it then be to us if there be any hear as God forbid the contrary that dare be honest to see the Tragedy continued acting and acted for so many years together and when we now pretend an Authority and have thereby opportunity to become men again having hitherto appeared to the universal spectators as Beasts Woolvs Tigers and a meer Antropophagi devouring and causing one another to be devoured

and to demonstrate how fully sensible we are of our fat all and damnable errors to find the people ready to be intangled in another Labyrinth out of which 't is evident to all rationall capacities there is no clue to conduct us but that threed of Government which hath been rashly cut in sunder Mr. Speaker I must not waste your time nor need not I think speak much of this subject all of us having too great testimony in our selves of the sad truths I mention But Sir I beseech you let us not amidst our ills be so desperate as to believe our selves altogether unsafe without attempting greater No let us rather take up the Nunquam sera and whilst some possibility remains of such a compensatory restitution as may render us capable of mercy do something may procure it I cannot boast the Art whereto some here pretend of Preaching although I may more justly now assert a legall Call to preach Repentance evidencing my own by a free confession than they to ascend the Pulpit and become Umpires of Scripture without other warrant than what they collect by abuse of that part on 't which reacheth them to provide for those of their own houshold which they have done so successfully that they have inverted the Text and are worse than Infidells But Mr. Speaker I shall beg your consideration onely of two things First Of the condition wherein we and the three Nations now are and if I may speak my own thoughts freely I hope I shall speak some of yours too in them 'T is not unknown that we were sometimes the wonder of the world famous for Good though now for Evill and our Nation so Glorious and happily enriched with Fruitfulnesse Peace and Plenty and Governed by such wholsome Laws that those in League with us loved and honoured us and our enemies envied and admired us And now we are become so hatefully ridiculous that we are past the benefit of love or pitty and are and must be lookt on by all save such as by-respects seduceth as a People without a Government or Governours and what consequence may be from thence expected is easily inferred from the fatall dissentions and generall misfortunes of those people we read of When there was no King in Israel I may Sir challenge the best and most criticall Etymologist to give the Government we now are under if we have any a significant Christian name I am confident none or very few here can think what ever it may be expedient for us at present to say or declare that it is a Parliamentary Government every man rationall having so much naturall Logick about him to evince the contrary Parliaments were never heard of before Kings nor never made legally called or constituted but by the King If then there be no King what followes Cessante causa cessat etiam effectus But suppose an Impossibility that there was a Parliament in England which did survive the King that caused it yet was it not dissolv'd and legally too notwithstanding the Act we dore on that it should not be dissolv'd but by Act of Parliament However others may truly expound that Act of force a wrong we are estopped by our assent to say it was illegal Was the standing at the Parliament-House dore before the late King's death and with violence denying entrance to men duly chosen by their Country imprisoning their persons and appointing a certain number of their own to sit and directing them to enact what they had designed and nothing else Was that lawfull Were those persons then left a compleat Parliament and were the rest lawfully secluded And is it not as lawfull for the same persons by the same power when those sitting begun or were feared to be too honest for their purposes utterly to annihilate and dissolve them I beseech you Sir let us not befool our selves into an opinion of cheating the eyes of the world with a mask that every one may see through But finding now our constitution and the state of our maladies let our next consideration be how with the skilfull Physitian to restore our own and the peoples health so manifestly impaired and become almost incurable To which purpose Sir it will not be amisse to consult whether many yea most now that undertake to prescribe remedies are fit persons to administer this kind of Physick It is a rule most consonant to reason in all Tryalls at Law or Equity that persons concerned in any cause depending shall not have power to assert by their own testimony their right or interest much lesse to adjudge their own properties And how much more unreasonable and unjust is it that those persons who are become purchasers and possessed of the Estates and Inheritances of the Person whose Title upon no other ground is oppugned to be judges of his right and interest and to give Laws by no other authority than what is founded upon Rebellion and Treasons And what justice can be expected from men that have no rule but their carnall and diabolicall principles to guide their partiall agitations to their own present advantages Mr. Speaker I could wish that more of us than I fear there are were of Menanders judgment and could be perswaded that Honestius tutius est pauperem esse quàm injuste divitem and that sure would deter us from adventuring upon temporall gain by an eternall losse and from digging into the Mines of other mens treasure by murders thefts rapines treasons and rebellions which must inevitably determine in our own and the peoples destruction Let us cast our thoughts a little upon the fate of Ziba Achitophel Absolon Adonijah Adoram Judas and others amongst the many Traitors in Holy Writ of Persons Grac●hus Cataline Decius-Brutus Trebonius Milo Caepio Marcus Lollius Bessus and others in History abroad and Straw Cade Tiler Cromwell and others at home And let us not dare to pursue their hellish stratagems unlesse we would willingly suffer the same destiny We have Sir by sad experience at too dear a rate bought and learned the knowledge of our errors and how unsuitable the Government we pretend to is unto the constitution of these Nations having introduced nothing but confusion and opened the gap to all licentiousnesse confirming that for truth which others heretofore have found that Multos Imperitare malum Sir I shall instantly make an end for this time of speaking and heartily desire we all would now begin some seasonable acting And by way of prevention lest too soon it become too late to do what now we may and that be forced from us which now by making a vertue of the necessity incumbent on us we may with advantage offer speedily lay by our private interests and re-assume the publick spirits befitting us re-call our King re-settle the Government under him bear that durus sermo freely to surrender what any of us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from him and joyne together with him in a firm establisHment of the Church and State Law and Religion that the Land may once more flourish and the honour plenty and prosperity of the people be again revived And that we now should be perswaded thus to do I find no reason to dispair having such violent inducements by the opportunities abroad and at home now tendered us The sickly reign of Treason in all probability whether we will or not comming near its period Can we Mr. Speaker be so sottish or bewitched in our security so much as to believe our scarlet sins have not ere this reached Heaven and that the great Avenger of blood will not soon over-take us unlesse we fly to the Sanctuary of Penitentiall Expiation No Sir be we assured if men concerned should cease to act their duties Heaven it self by some miracle would create a way to such an eminent Justice It is for want of this the Nations mourn for this the silent sighs of the immured prisoners the longing wishes of our unjustly banished Country-men the afflicted mothers lamentations for their murdered sons the pittied wants of the innocent unsuspecting Infants of their undone Parents do invoke Heaven In fine the voice of GOD commands and all good men desire it let none therefore dare to contradict it FINIS