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	war_n	4,472	5	6.2395	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30775	The plagiary exposed, or, An old answer to a newly revived calumny against the memory of King Charles I being a reply to a book intitled King Charles's case, formerly written by John Cook of Grays Inn, Barrister, and since copied out under the title of Collonel Ludlow's letter / written by Mr. Butler, the author of Hudibras.	Butler, Samuel, 1612-1680.	1691 (1691)	Wing B6327; ESTC R2421	17,467	26

Causes 't is most just for us to place the cause of the War where we find the first Breach of the Peace Now that the King was cleared of this all indifferent Men who had the unhappiness to be acquainted with the method of their own undoing can very well testifie And if the Parliament should deny it their own Votes would contradict them as well as their Actions for when they first raised Horse and Arms they pretended to do so because it appeared the King seduced by wicked Counsel intended to make Wa● against the Parliament whereby they confess he had not then done it and they had so little ground to make it appear he ever would that they were fain to usurp the right of his Cause to justifie their own And they say took Arms for the Defence of the King which if we grant it must follow they first made War against him for no body else ever did against whom they could possibly defend Him nor did their Actions in offering the first violence less declare who began the War when having an Army ready to invade him before he set up his Standard they both followed and set upon him as they did at Edge Hill Go as far as you can you will still find the Scots whose Quarrel the Parliament took up at the second Hand as well as they followed their Examples were the first beginners of all This being granted how the King could afterwards do less than he did I cannot understand First he was bound by the Law of Nature which you say is Legislative and hath a Suspensive Power over all Humane Laws to defend himself Secondly by his Coronation Oath which he took to keep the Peace and how could he do that but by his raising Power to suppress those who had already broken it Thirdly by the Laws of the Land which you say trusted him with the Power of the Sword and how could he preserve that Trust if he had sate still and suffered others not only to take it from him but to use it against him But it is most probable that he never intended it else he was very unwise to let them be before-hand with him in seising upon his Castles Magazines and Ships for which there can be no reason imagin'd but that he was loth to give them any occasion in securing them to suspect he did but intend a War And by all this I doubt not but it appears plain enough to all Rational Men that he was so far from being the cause of the War that he rather fell into it by avoiding it and that he avoided it so long till he was fain to take Arms at so great a disadvantage as he had almost as good have sate still and suffered And in this you have used the King with the same Justice the Christians received from Nero who having set Rome on fire himself a Sacrifice to his own wicked Genius laid the Odium of it on the Christians and put them to death for it But this way you found too fair and open for your purpose and therefore declined it for having proved his Intentions by his Desires and his Actions by his Intentions you attempt a more preposterous way yet to prove both by what might have been his Intentions And to this purpose you have the Confidence in spight of Sense to make Contingencies the final cause of Things And impollitick Accidental possible Inconveniences which all the Wit of Man can never avoid the intended Reasons of State As when you will have the King fight for the Militia only to command the Purse of the People for a Power to make Judges only to wrest the Laws to grant Pardons that publick spirited Men as you call them may be made away and the Murderers pardoned c. All which being Creatures of your own Fansie and Malice and no part of his Quarrel you are so far from proving he fought for that when you have strained your Abillity all you can say is but this in your own sense That he fought for a Power to do that which he never would do when it was in his Power But if you take this Liberty I cannot but think how you would bestir you self if you could but get your God as you have done your King before such an impartial High Court of Justice as this how would you charge him with his mis-government in Nature for which by the very same Logick you may prove he made us all Slaves in causing the Weaker to hold his Life at the pleasure of the Stronger that he set up a Sun to dazle our Eyes that we might not see and to kindle Feavers in our Veins made Fire to burn us Water to drown us and Air to poison us and then demand Justice against him all which you may easily do now you have the trick on 't for the very same Reason will serve again and with much more probability for 't is easier to prove that Men have been Burnt and Drowned and died of the Plague than to make it appear the King ever used your finer device to remove publick spirited Men or can you without extream Injustice suppose he ever would for 't is so much as very well known he highly favoured and advanced his greatest Opposers for such you mean I know whom he found owners of any eminent desert as he did the Earl of Strafford and the Attorny General Noy and for other honest Men as you will have them whom Frenzy or Sedition set against him by your own confession he did not suffer those black Stars very Strange ones to slit their Noses and crop their Ears But now I think of these honest publick spirited Men certainly some of them have not so good an opinion of the honesty of your publick Proceedings but they would willingly venture not only their Ears again if they had them but their Heads too in defiance of your most comprehensive piece of Justice whose Cause while you take upon you to plead against their consent as you have done your Honourable Clients the People you deserve in reason to be thrown over the Bar by your own Party for you but confess your own injustice while you acknowledge the publick honesty of those that most oppose it How solid or pertinent those Arguments of yours have been let any Man that is sober judge but you are resolved right or wrong they shall pass to let us know how easily he that has the unhappiness to be judged by his Enemies is found guilty of any thing they please to lay to his Charge and therefore satisfied with your own Evidence you proceed to sentence and condemn the King with much formality by the fundamental Laws of this Kingdom by the general Law of all Nations and the unanimous consent of all Rational Men in the World for imploying the Power of the Sword to the destruction of the People with which they intrusted him for their own protection How you got the consent of Rational

was a bold affront done to your High Court of Justice for if it were potential Tyranny as you will have it in the King to have but a design to indure the Judges to give Sentence against the Law which you say brings the People the very next step to Slavery what is it in those who presume to give Sentence themselves not only contrary to Law but the declared Opinion of all the Judges and those of their choosing too And I beseech you whither by your own Doctrine does this bring the People that submit to it Certainly if you that can accuse the King of this had been a Jew heretofore you would not only have stoned your Fellows but your Saviour too But if all your Arguments should miscarry you have a reserve left that does as you say irrefragably prove the design what 's that is he restless to destroy Parliament or make them useless Believe me this is right Ignotum per ignotius excellent consequence to prove his Design by his Desires you should have proved his Desires first if you would prove his Thoughts by his Thoughts for certainly if ever he designed it he desired it first You had better have concluded plainly he did it because he designed it for that is all one in Sence But if I might be but half so bold with your Designs I should with more reason guess you have one to make us believe your familiar Acquaintance with the secret Counsels of God which you so often pretended to else certainly he has given the desires of Man so private a Lodging that without his own discovery which you can give us no account of you have no other way to know them You do well and if I may advise you you shall give over this unlucky thing called Reason and betake your self wholly to Revelations How these Arguments might prevail with your High Court of Justice I cannot tell but in my opinion they had little reason to thank you for this last for while you make the King a Traytor and prove his meer desire to destroy the Parliament or make it useless a purpose to subvert the Laws you do but tell them what they are that have already done it and the People what a deal of Law they are to expect hereafter All you can justly in your own sence accuse the King of is but Discontinuance or untimely dissolution of Parliaments which I wonder with what sense you can interpret a Design to destroy the Parliaments since all the World knows when he parted with his Power to dissolve the Parliament too But see how doubly unjust you are you accuse him for not calling Parliaments so often as he was bound to do by the Law once a Year as you say or oftner but never consider how that is impossible to be done without dissolving them as often for doing which notwithstanding with so much Clamor you condemn him Thus you charge him with inconsistencies and may with much more reason accuse him for calling Parliaments because if he had not called them he could never have dissolved them which is very like your way of Argument But much better than you commonly use for your next to remove an Objection out of your way is thus managed The King and not the Judges and evil Counsellors ought to be accountable for the Male Administrations Injustices and oppressions of the Parliament your Reasons are because he made such wicked and corrupt Judges were they not his own Creatures and ought not every Man to be acountable for the Work of his own Hands believe me this were something if you could prove he made them wicked as well as Judges But if this Plea hold you have argued well for your honourable Clients the People for if they made the King as you say they did you have cleared him of all such horrid Crimes Murders and Massacres which you take so much pains to no purpose to accuse him of and like a right Man of Law have undone your Clients upon whose score you set them Your next Business will be to prove God Guilty of the Sins of Wicked Men for they are his Creatures and the Work of his Hands I take it But this is your perpetual method of doing him right to make him sole Author and Owner of all his ill ordered or unhappy Actions and not allow him a share in any good Deed or act of Grace And these are the Fundamentals of the Charge only suppositions of Intentions and Designs which how far you have proved just or profitable any Man but your self judge The Course you take afterwards is much worse in my Opinion for you make your own Grounds and either not prove them at all or which is worse prove them upon their own bottom as when you take upon you to state the Ground of your Wars and prove the King to be the cause of it you do it thus The King you say set up his Standard of War for the advancement and upholding of his Personal Interest Power and pretended Prerogative against the Publick Interest of Common Right Peace and Safety How do you prove this Because he fought for the Militia for a Power to call and dissolve Parliaments a negative Voice to make Judges confer Honours grant Pardons make Corporations inhance or debase Money and avoid his own Grants These you call his Personal Interest Power and Prerogative which you say he fought for now put the Position and Proof together and see what sence it will make truly none but this That he made War for his Prerogative because he fought for his Prerogative is not this fine Logick but suppose it were sence how do you prove he fought for his Prerogative to this you have not one Word to say and why then should we rather take your Word than the Kings who protested he took Arms in defence of the Protestant Religion the Liberty of the Subject Privileges of Parliament and Laws of England Certainly there is no Man in his Wits but would rather believe his Words than your Arguments if he does but consider that the most improbable part of all he protested to fight for the defence of the Privileges of Parliaments is found by experience to be no Paradox how true the rest is time will instruct you But yet I cannot see why we should not rather believe them than the pretences of the Parliament which were more to fight in defence of his Person and their own Privileges which how they have performed your self can tell but all this while you have mistaken your own Question which was not the right of Cause but the Cause or as you have it the occasion of the War and if you had a purpose to know that Actions had been the only guide of your Inquiry for Intentions and Words are uncertain and if they make no Assaults in private Quarrels I know not why they should in publick and therefore since we can never agree about the Truth of more remote