Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A47818
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A caveat to the cavaliers, or, An antidote against mistaken cordials dedicated to the author of A cordial for the cavaliers.
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L'Estrange, Roger, Sir, 1616-1704.
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1661
(1661)
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Wing L1214; ESTC R230800
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18,489
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42
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before let us adde the Debt they left in Arriere both at Sea and Land together with what they have begg'd since in Mony Land and Office Truly all this put together one would think might satisfie a Reasonable sort of People Now to look a little the other way The King cannot but have contracted great Debts his Active Friends are Begger'd and Those whose Inclinations were but suspected Loyal have smarted sufficiently for it Come to the Generality ye shall not find quick Mony enough to keep Commerce alive all wanting and complaining Now let us Rationally consider Whither does this Condition of the Publique tend and whence does it proceed The Kings Debts must be Payd his Revenue setled his Guards maintained and beyond all This in common view a Forein war inevitable The Relief of his Majesties Friends is a thing but by the By that goes for nothing All this is necessary to be done but Where How Whence without a Mine who can imagine A General Imposition will hardly furnish it the Treasure of the Nation being drawn into so few hands and They too have the wit to keep it close for divers reasons as well to conceal their prodigious and most unconscionable Gettings as to secure their After-game which they are provident enough to expect To rayse these Necessary and Large Summes if common and formal wayes will not suffice Others lesse acceptable must be thought upon So that upon the whole either his Majesty cannot be supplyed even in those Exigencies which most concern the Honour and the Safety of the Nation or else the Generality must suffer exceedingly by the Pressure to which some further trouble may possibly arise even from the manner of Imposing it When Discontents come to this Ripenesse then is the time for the Old Patriots to put in again and mourn over the Oppressed They shall shew the People what is against Magna Charta and the Petition of Right the Law of the Land and the Liberty of the Subject Then shall they with all Dutyfull Reverence humbly declare to his Sacred Majesty that it is their Antient and Undoubted RIGHT c. In short Great Payments will certainly cause Great Disquiets and there are those will take advantage of them This is the Clear and natural tendencie of Affairs and it behoves us to provide and Arm our selves against the Malice of it which may be done by a sober Enquirie into the Grounds and Causes by whose Contrivance and Design the Publique lyes reduced to this Extreme Necessity The War occasioned our Destruction but who occasioned the War wee 'll only answer for our selves that the Cavaliers Cause was as good as the Kings Title to the Crown Briefly Those that have robb'd the Publique to Enrich themselves are the Cause why the Publique is not able to Support it self Forfeited Estates would have set All clear without taking in either the Army Officers or the Converted Cavaliers into the Reckoning Nay more they might have been left yet better then they began for they have been no ill Husbands of their Pillage But so was the State of the Nation represented to his Majestie and such was his Royal Goodnesse that he thought fit to remit all and 't is our Duty not to murmur at it only let us not forget when it comes to the Question by what hand we perish To conclude their Designs are frivolous if we our selves do not assist them either by Crediting against our Reason or by Ioyning with them against our Duty These are our Open and Known Adversaries if we can see or know any thing but there 's another sort which only time must unmasque and against whom this Caution for the present shall suffice Vaenalis hominum vita est licitatores capitum nostrorum publicè regnant Euphormio FINIS ERRATUM Page the 6th read Capons for Larkes c. Temporizing Friends Evill Counsellours A Corrupted Clergy The Commonalty to be obliged The Kings Old Friends more numerous than his New More Loyal Misunderstandings fomented betwixt the King and his Party Lib. 4 de Consc. cap. 15.
to the Sworn Patrons of the Cause Smectymnuus themselves what will an Act of Indempnity avail in Plea before the Great Tribunal So many Parents made Childlesse by Thy Sword so many Children Fatherlesse the Bloud of so many thousand Loyal Subjects spilt like water Common and Noble and at last the KINGS and all this in a Cause where every Thought Word Action of Agreement was a Murther Why shouldest not thou be Damn'd Lord saies he MURTHERS are Pardoned by the Act of INDEMPNITY So many Plunders Robberies Sequestrations Decimations Confiscations to the undoing of many thousand rich Families and twenty times as many of the poorer sort that depended upon them What Sorrow Acknowledgement Reparation for all these Injuries what token of Repentance why therefore should'st not thou be Damn'd Hee pleads the Indempnity too So many Grave Divines poyson'd in Winchester house so many honest men of all sorts and qualities destroy'd by all varieties of misery Smother'd Famish'd sold for Slaves because they would not fight against their Prince nor swear against their Consciences Why should not ye that did all this be Damn'd The Act of Indempnity still Go to your Rabbi Busy's now your three-pil'd goodly Levites that when ye did all This call'd you a Holy Covenanting People bid them look over their whole stock of Shifts and Popular Distinctions and shew ye the least shadow of a Comfort Which if they do they must overthrow this Assertion Without REPENTANCE there can be no SALVATION and without RESTITUTION no REPENTANCE If it be so this were a Theme much fitter for a Pulpit-Zeal then Lawn Sleeves or the Crosse in Baptism but in this point our Gospel Ministers are as mute as Fishes which manifestly shews the Core of the Faction How can these people sleep with all this weight upon their Consciences unlesse by virtue of One of these Two Causes The Former a Reprobated and unfeeling hardnesse the Other a good opinion of their first Engagement he One way they are our Enemies upon a Principle of Iudgement and the other way upon a score of boundlesse faithlesse wickednesse The use we are to make of All is onely to look to our selves and to commit nothing to Hazzard that may be secured by Prudence Which cautionary Prudence must not yet carry us beyond the line of Duty For tho' as Christians they are not absolved by the Act of Indempnity yet as Subjects Wee are Obliged by it nor shall we start an Inch from the Literal strictnesse of it It is an Act of Free and General Pardon Indempnity and Oblivion granted upon such Reasons and Conditions with such Provisoes and Limitations as are therein expressed extending from Ianuary 1. 1637. to Iune 24. 1660. As it is a Pardon we complain not Nor doe we pretend any Legal Right to what we have Lost in questioning their Consciencious Right to what they have Taken If They will do what they ought not to doe Keep it We shall however doe what we ought to do Sit down with Submission and Patience so that the Indemnity is safe too Nor do we at all entrench upon it as an Act of Oblivion which forbids the MALICIOUS Revival of past differences and directs to the burying of all Seeds of Future Discords and Remembrance of the Former c. If the same things are now done over again by the same Party where lyes the MALICE of saying Have a care of the same hand again This is a hint of Caution not of Animosity a means to Prevent Mischief not to Cause it Nor do Wee charge Particulars for beyond doubt there are True Converts divers that even in the Counsells of the Kings Enemies did his Majesty service We professe further that we have no Unkindnesse for such as have not shewd themselves against us since they received their Pardon but touching the Rest we are at Liberty to speak our Thoughts Let us not be too Credulous then and gape after empty Hopes that will deceive us VVe never Lost any thing by suspecting them we never gayned by Trusting them In short Hee that will doe his Prince and Country a good Office let him but get a List of the Instruments and Officers they have put upon us whereof the King knows nothing and present it to his Majesty There will need no other proof of their Combination Onely one word now IIII. That we divide not among our selves UNder this notion OUR SELVES we understand all persons that are well-affected to the established Government which must expect to be dealt with by the Factious Rest variously according to the Reason of the Design and the Humour of the Party to be wrought upon It will require not only Constancie but Skill so to demean our selves as to scape Oversights and yet not dash upon Distemper for we are to encounter both artificial Flatteries and sharp Provocations and so in danger to miscarry either upon Facility or Passion Some are 〈◊〉 sighted and Those they startle into Fears and Iealousies concerning Religion Privileges the Fundamental Lawes c. Matters which being little understood and much esteemed are of great effect with the Common people Not to be over-strict Some they Seduce Others they Corrupt and betwixt such as want either Braynes or Honesty they make up their Party Machiavell and Experience are two great Masters and they have learn'd from Both that to Destroy a Prince the surest way is to begin with the generality of the People whom if they can but once possess with an Opinion that the King designes upon the Freedome of their Estates and Consciences the work 's half done To which end they themselves contrive necessitate nay and Impose tho' privily those very Grievances whereof they likewise prove the first Complainers charging upon his Majesty what was done onely by their own Procurement and for Their Benefit They handle the Rabble as they do Elephants they digg the Pit Themselves and when they have entrapped them Another must be employed to strike and to enrage the Beast They forsooth out of Zeale and Pity to the poor Creature Interpose take the Elephants part and by appearing to remove the Injuryes they Caused Winn and Reclayme the Beast But in the end the Elephant serves Them not They the Elephant Let us a little observe how they have already strew'd the way to their Design With Reverence to the Authority of the Act of Indemnity and with submission to the Force and Reason of it wee 'l begin There and understand it as a mixture of Mercy and Expedience granted on their behalfe whose Lives and Fortunes were forfeited to the Law This Act makes them Masters in effect of the Booty of Three Nations bating Crown and Church-Lands and all they have gotten by a Griping Rebellion and Usurpation of allmost twenty years Continuance they may now call their Owne those People that Contested to preserve the Law being by these Penitents abandoned to the Comfort of an irreparable but an Honourable ruine To what they had gotten