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
A51058	A moderate and most proper reply to a declaration, printed and published under His Maiesties name, December 8 intended against an ordinance of Parliament for assessing, but indeed animating and encouraging the malignants, and delinquents, in their violent courses, for the maintenance of themselves, and their malignant army.	Prynne, William, 1600-1669.	1642 (1642)	Wing M2320A; ESTC R41506	9,253	8

A MODERATE AND MOST PROPER REPLY TO A DECLARATION PRINTED AND PVBLISHED under His MAIESTIES Name December 8. Intended against an Ordinance of Parliament for Assessing But indeed animating and encourageing the Malignants and Delinquents in their violent courses for the maintenance of themselves and their Malignant Army LONDON Printed 1642. A moderate and most proper Reply to a DECLARATION THE Pen that drops this Declaration lately set forth under His Majesties Name is a fellow to that tongue which cuts like a sharpe Rasor the Rasor is sharpe but it plainly appeares that malignancy is the whetstone and gives it the edge for so it cut it cares not though it mangles truth and goodnesse and so it cut those whom it hates it cares not though it cut also those whom it professeth to love For the maine worke of this Declaration is to condemne that in War which the favorits if not the framers of this Declaration have practised in peace yea to condemne that which in War the Parliament hath done for the preservation of the Kingdome being far lesse then that which themselves have done in this War for the ruine and destruction of it The great outcry of this Declaration seemes to be for the property of the Subject But doth not this cry come from the same shop from whence heretofore issued inforced Loanes Knighting Money benevolences and Ship-money And from whence more lately issue plunderings ransomes for not plundering monthly taxes of an high value and rate So that this cry seemes to be like that of the High-way man who having taken money from a passenger to put away the suspition of it raised an hue and cry against himselfe For is it in earnest to be thought that the destroyers of property are now suddenly become the Patrons of property or rather that by this assessement they are likely to be put from their old trade and therefore are offended For indeed this which they call taking away of property is the meanes of preserving property for ever Besides they have put upon the Parliament a necessity of assessements and that is their fault and yet this fault of theirs they cast on the Parliament Againe they know that the Houses have power to tax the whole Kingdome and the tax of the Commons of England ariseth onely from the House of Commons Against this they object only the want of the Kings assent which assent being withheld by themselves they againe cast their own fault upon the Parliament The * King without the two Houses layes taxes and gives warrants for plundering and this with their advice and assistance even to destroy the Parliament but the two Houses cannot have their leave to lay an assessement without the King for their owne preservation and the preservation of the Kingdome Yet is it well known that there are sundry Lawes which exclude the King from laying taxes without consent of Parliament but no Law that the Parliament or two Houses should not lay taxes when the King not only deserteth them but makes War against them In the Kings Infancy what assent of the King have the two Houses for the laying of taxes and it were to be wished that desertion of Parliament and War against the Parliament did not give greater cause and necessity of taxing without that assent then the former Briefly the Parliament is inforced to a War for it's owne defense This defense cannot be maintained without money and this is the anger that there is money gotten to maintaine it For if Justice in the way of raysing it were their quarrell the same Justice would make them to quarrell with themselves when they rob whole Townes not of the twentieth part but of twenty parts of twenty Where is this quarrell of Justice when they lay monthly Takes in Oxfordshire and other taxes in the West where was their Justice when they robbed in old Branford as well their friends as their opposers Had they the Kings consent or had they it not I thinke they will be asham'd to acknowledge either Howsoever certainly they had not the consent of the two Houses of Parliament and so it was without Law and wholy without this Justice which they now exact of the Parliament Shall we attribute this to an excessive charity that they love others above themselves and so would have others more just and honest then themselves or rather do they desire that other men may be just that they by injustice may destroy them They would not have men just but naked and undefended that so by armed injustice and violence they might subdue them into an everlasting bondage and misery But these men are still troubled with altering the property of Hull and will needs awake not a sleeping but a slaine and dead objection If they will be ever speaking of it they must ever heare That he that takes away a sword from one that would kill him and takes it onely that hee may not kill him takes not away the property but the mischiefe He doth not meane to profite himselfe by the value of it but to save himselfe from the cutting of it And if nothing else will convert the Penman of this Declaration this perchance would serve the turne if he had no other meanes of livelyhood and maintenance but the revenues and profits which the Parliament receiveth from Hull As for the Army of the Earle of Essex raysed to destroy the King for so the Declaration will have it it is such another truth as if when the Earle of Essex his Souldiers fought at Branford to defend themselves and some of their owne friends and fellowes formerly taken by the malignant Army were set in the forefront it were sayd That the Earle of Essex his Souldiers did fight against their owne fellowes to destroy them These be the men that goe about to destroy the King that by Armies of their owne enforcing the Parliament to raise an Army to defend it selfe bring the King betweene two Armies and so into the danger of that destruction which themselves both cause and object They are the men that seeke His destruction that cause his presence there where destruction is and cause his absence there where His safety is But certainly the Parliament wisheth His absence from the Army wherelies the danger and his presence in Parliament where is His assured safety But here followes another wonder that those men who plunder without giving any warning should finde fault with Sir Edward Bayntons warrant which as themselves say gave warning to men that they might escape plundering * But if he had plundered them without warning they had nothing to object against him but their owne fault A Declaration succeeds in prayse of property which being indeed so pretious gives a strong exhortation to the Parliament to rayse so much Money as may safely defend it In the Parliament lies the roote of property and to pull up Parliaments is to pull up property by the rootes Therefore to defend property the Parliament

must be defended and to defend the Parliament money must be raysed So to take part of mens goods to defend the Parliament is to defend property even in the roote of it if the branches be cropt to preserve the roote the branches may againe he supplyed and renewed by the roote but if the roote be pull'd up which these men endeavor the branches perish for ever And this is their griefe that this roote of property is preserved And can they take a care of the branches of property who would pull up property by the roote which being pull'd up not onely the twentieth part which is their complaint but the other nineteene are utterly lost But neither doth this Ordinance enjoyne the taking of the twentieth part that number being named to set a bound to the Taxe which the Assessors may not passe They may take the fourtieth part if they thinke fit And it had beene a deed of charity if these men that finde fault with the taking of the twentieth had left the twentieth at Branford and the places which they have ransackt and spoyl'd And now comes the Committee of examinations it selfe to be examined The Questions are why so called and how such power Surely it should not seeme strange to any that knowes Parliaments to call a Committee by the name of the worke of it no more then to call a man that makes shoes a Shoomaker And except there were a resolution to be angry at all that the Parliament does is it impossible to deny a power in the two Houses to imprison And not to dispute the power of the House of Commons alone or a Committee of that House which those men unseasonably at this time do question the power of imprisoning is from the Ordinances of both Houses and by the same the Committee is to name the place and time So the naming of the time and place is not by the power of a Committee but of the Ordinance of Parliament And it cannot be unknown that there is in Parliament a power not only of liberty and imprisonment but of life and death And if it must be called a slavery to be subject to this power upon this occasion surely it is first thus farre a voluntary slavery that they may free their persons if they will by a voluntary contribution Secondly the end of this imprisonment thus term'd slavery is to fright them from a perpetuall slavery But that any Members of the House of Commons should be excluded from being present at the Counsells of the Committee of eximinations is an untruth so notorious and corpulent that it is to be wondred how the Scribe of this Declaration should have an ignorance or malice bigge enough to conceive and bring it forth Especially since so many malignants from which he might have had better intelligence have past through that Committee who waiting at the doore while Counsells were taking of their Causes might well know and observe that the Members of the House were not excluded from being present at those Counsells And yet upon this fained accusation is grounded a tragicall and dolefull exclamation As if all Parliaments were utterly destroyed because a Committee doth exclude the members of the House of Commons which indeed are not excluded Neither doth it follow as a necessary truth that because men are to be imprisoned by the Committee therefore they shall be separated from their Wives and Children For though these are to be removed from London and Westminster the Subburbs and Counties adjacent yet the husbands being sent to prisons remote from London and Westminster the Suburbs and Counties adjacent they may all very well meete And certainly it may well be thought that the Parliament hath at least as great cause to remove far the malignants and there Families the disease of malignancy commonly in this case most affecting the Head and thence flowing into the body of the Family But be it for ever reserved by speciall priviledge to Arch prelaticall Tyrany to banish men into remote Ilands and by Parliament commands to teare their friends Wives and children from them And here againe flowes from this Writer a huge tide of passion But as tides use to turne may not this tide thus returne upon him Is there now any liberty left but to those that would destroy the Parliament and there with peace liberty property and Religion Is not a violence offered to mens Consciences when they are terrifyed by Proclamations of Treason extremities of Warre for keeping their Protestation whereby they have vowed to defend the priviledges of Parliament and those that defend them And is it any way contrary to the Oaths of Supremacy Allegiance or the Protestation tö defend the Parliament against those that would destroy it or by force to bring Delinquents to Parliamentary Justice and to leade captive those that leade His Majesty captive and strive to separate the Head from the body to the ruine of both How many persons of Honour Quality and Reputation of the severall Counties of England have beene turned out of their Offices places houses goods and lives how many are now in prison onely for their faithfulnesse to the parliament and Kingdome How many substantiall Citizens of London have beene seduced to set hands to petitions of dangerous consequence and to withdraw their hands from assisting the defence of Parliament and Kingdome How many papists blasphemers and men of dersperate fortunes are met in the Armies that fight against the Parliament yea how many papists in these times of Warre are authorized against Law by his Majesties Commission to buy and take up Armes when as the Protestants in divers Counties have beene totally disarmed and their Armes taken away notwithstanding their property in them How many godly pious and painfull Divines are now robbed and plundered their bookes and writings spoyl'd and defac'd and themselves driven to London as to a City of refuge And withall how many of those Ministers that preach against the Parliament are found to be the same that were heretofore questioned by the Parliament for scandalous vitious and abominable lives And not to put from London over hastily is there not a cause to secure dangerous persons in London and that those of London should be forced to defend London when as neare as London was to Branford so neare in cleare probabilities was London to the state of Brainford For is it to be thought that the Cavaliers would have changed their minds in the riding of eight miles and that cruelty at Branford would have turned into mercy in London would they have spared the substantiall Citizens at London who did not spare the very Beggers at Branford would they have asked the Rich men at London whether they were for the King who made no such question to the Beggers at Branford Surely it is most likely that as now London may be seene in Brainford so then Brainford would have beene seene in London Neither is it unworthy of the Name of publike

Faith that is given by those that represent the publike Body of the Kingdome And whatsoever leave will be given to the Word publike it is enough for the security if the Faith be sound and sufficient for repayment And to speake onely of the House of Commons It is certaine that house is trusted with the whole estate of the Commons of England And I hope the Commons of England will have enough to pay the debts contracted for the defense of the Commons But in the meane time what Faith is given for the Taskes and monethly payments imposed on Oxfordshire and the Westerne parts under the Dominion of Sir Ralph Hopton And even this Declaration hereafter acknowledgeth that the King has parted from his Jewells and Plate which it is pitty should have beene turned into the price of the bloud of his subjects so that evill Councellors have reduced him to that Lownesse that whensoever he returnes to a state lustre of Majesty and Glory by a right that is a Parliamentary way it must be by their faithfulnesse and supply whose Faith is now thus slighted and despised And it is easily believed that our Brethren of Scotland will not be displeased with the Word of publike Faith and I wish it were as fit to be believed that they have not cause to be displeased with those that by a War raysed against the Parliament endeavour to make the reality of that Word lesse if not wholly ineffectuall Neither is it for want of speaking but of hearing that these men heare nothing of fundamentall Lawes If hath beene sayd that it is most fundamentall to a state to preserve it selfe And that the Lords and Commons in Parliament may defend themselves and their priviledges against Delinquents Malignants and their adherents that seeke to destroy them That the Commons are entrusted with the estates of the Commons and the Lords of the Lords and both joyning togethether in disposing them if the King withhold His assent which should be given for the preservation of the Kingdome shall the Kingdome perish for want of this assent much lesse should it be turn'd into an objection against the Lords and Commons as a fault of theirs That the King will not assent But if this be neither spoken nor heard are these men fit to demand fundamentall Lawes for the Parliaments disposing of a twentieth part who can alleage themselves no shadow of any Law for exacting two and twenty parts out of twenty For such a monster both of Arithm●tick and oppression have these men lately engendred Not to speake of breaking the fundamentall Lawes in taking his goods in whom the House of Commons is in some sort contracted and represented what fundamentall Law have they for laying a Taxe of foure pound a weeke on ninescore pounds yearely rent of the Speaker of the House of Commons What have these men to do to talke of fundamentall Lawes that by a Lawlesse and senslesse oppression undermine and dig up estates even below their foundations and like Aegiptian Taskemasters will enforce the Brick to be made beyond the straw And if extraordinary meanes of maintaining an undertaking prove it unlawfull what an extremity of unlawfulnesse is there in their undertakings who by these super-extremities of exaction maintaine their undertakings As for Master Pi●s speech which they call excellent it would make them excellent too if they would follow it For it is too manifest that following the Lawes of Lust Ambition and the like vices have brought us to this present confusion Neither is it so strange that in a time of Warre against the Parliament dangerous persons should be more safely secured from maintaning this Warre nor that Members of either House giving cause of suspition by viewing Workes of defence or otherwise should be committed with the consent or approbation of either house not so strange by much As that five Members of a house should be drawne forth from the house to prison and death as it seemes by the charge by force and violence And for Hull the present good use of New-Castle to admit Armes and Souldiers for the maintenance of this unnaturall Warre speakes aloud to justify Sir John Hothams keeping of Hull by order of Parliament Neither is Tonnage or Poundage imposed by Parliament and is not Tonnage and Poundage payd to the complainants at New-Castle But the Parliament is the great Eye-sore and therefore when they could not destroy it by pulling away five first and how many fives after no man knowes nor by an Army at Branford now it must be overthrowne by paper-Bullets and by untruetelling of Twenties But certainly their Act of numbring fayles as well as their vertue of truth and sincerity For even in this moneth of December when the Lord Major was in the House of Commons at prayer whereof a part is a part of Common Prayer by which token he may be knowne not to be a Brownist nor a reviler of Common Prayer it is certainly reported there were eight score in the House and not many lesse the same weeke when the house consider'd the propositions for peace And these men cannot but know that fourty do make a House of Commons so that their owne number acknowledgeth it to be more then an house of necessity requires Yet there are also computed about an hundred absent in the Army son defence of the Parliament or in the defence of their owne Counties in Ireland or for some speciall occasions of their owne And those that are present and such others as are thus absent complayning of no feare it is a worke of supererogatory charity that these Enditers should make or faine a fearfull complaint for them True it is that there are about three score cast out of the House of Commons for fighting against the House or some other great offences neither needes any one to be afrayd of comming to the house but those whom their owne guilt makes affray'd of censure and punishment Neither are those that are present awed with an Army or Tumults but defended and secured by an Army and the goods of the City and Suburbs and it might passe for a speciall peece of craft if these men could make the Parliament so foolishly credulous as to be afrayd of their owne security It were to be wished That his Majesty were as free from cause of feare from his Army and Cavaliers who are much wrong'd by reports if they have not put threats upon him and upon his going from them to his Parliament And next to the Parliament they are angry with the City of London for being a wall of defence to the Parliament And whereas this paper is so often spotted with the scandall of Anabaptists and Brownists for their power in the Government or actions of that City if they believe themselves it were good they did make others to believe them also by naming some particular Anabaptists and Brownists that exercise this power as the Parliament hath nam'd the papists which command in the Kings Army