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	know_v	see_v	5,670	5	3.0830	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A31728	The Character of an ill-court-favourite representing the mischiefs that flow from ministers of state when they are more great than good ... / translated out of French.		1681 (1681)	Wing C2010; ESTC R35809	18,199	20

Innocent of the miscarriages His Ignorance is not Unblameable his Patience herein is not Virtue and the Disorders which either he knows not of or which he Suffers are imputed to him before God even as if himself had done them and therefore that Prince who was according to Gods own heart in express terms desires him and that in the fervency of his most ardent Prayers that he would Cleanse him from seret faults and acquit him from the sins of others which last word Intimates that Kings ought not to content themselves with a personal Innocency that it is not enough for them to be Just if they lose themselves and destroy their people by the Injustice of their Ministers which becomes their own because they tolerate it and Countenance it by Conniving and not punishing it with soverity Qui non prohibet quum potest Jubet Not to multiply Examples Can King Ahasuerus be justified who in a moment abandoned to the Vengeance of a pernicious Haman so many thousand innocent Lives and those too of the Solect people of God without inquiring into their Crimes or making any Reflection on what he granted He had doubtless no bloody design nor any Imagination whither that inhumane Commission he so readily delivered with his Royal Signet would tend and his ordinary idleness or over conceit of the Justice and Prudence of his Favourite suffered him not to take any further Cognizance of it which rendred him doubly Culpable to permit so many Murthers and yet to be ignorant of it For so no less wittily than judiciously Seneca brings in Claudius in the other World and some men Reproaching him with abundance of Murthers done under his Name who pleaded not Guilty and protested he did not so much as know what they meant nor ever heard of those sufferers Names before upon which the Ghost of Augustius rose up and said Thou Miscreant we talk not here of the slaghters thou hast committed but of those thou hast not known For it is a more shameful thing to a King to be Ignorant of the Evil that passes in his Kingdom than to act it Turpius ignorasti quam occidisti Great Events are not always produced by great Causes The Springs are hid which move these vast Machines of State that externally appear and when those Springs happen to be truly discovered we are astonisht to see them so small and so weak and half ashamed of the high opinion we had before conceived of them A fit of Jealousie in an amorous Intrigue between two particular persons hath more than once been the cause of a general War A little reflective Joak uttered in a gay Humour an Affront to a Page a Whisper and a Nod a Tale told at the Kings going to Bed is in appearance nothing and yet this nothing hath been the beginning of Tragedies wherein a Sea of Blood hath been shed and an hundred heads made fly 'T is but a Cloud which passes a small stain in the corner of the Air which vanishes rather than abides and yet'tis this light Vapour this almost imperceptible Cloud which raiseth the most fatal Tempests which shake almost the foundations of the Earth The people when ever War is proclaimed think it their Soveraignes Interest that 't is to Revenge some insufferable Affronts or have Reparations of vast damages sustained that 't is to prevent an Invasion or secure their Tranquility to encrease Traffick or force by Arms the necessary Conveniences of Peace When in truth perhaps all this Bussle and hazard this Blood and Treasure consum'd proceeds only from the Capricio's of two or three Pensionary Courtiers that are content to hazard the Ruin of their own Master and Country to advance the designs of some powerful Neighbour that underhand feeds them with Gold Or from some other unthought of whim if not altogether so base more Ridiculous I doubt not but the mighty Zerxes made most specious pretences to justifie his Arms when he made his Inroad upon Greece and his Manif●ste's told wonders of his Intentions he had received I 'le warrant you Injuries which he was bound to Chastise and had a Right which he was obliged to assert so that he could not without diminution to his Glory refrain the Expedition he forgot not to tell them that he laboured for the Repose of the World and to unite Europe with Asia that he the mighty Monarch of the East came to Chastise the petty Tyrants and that he came purely out of Compassion to the people and offered them a rich Glorious Liberty instead of a poor and shameful Servitude There is no doubt but he Falsified his design several ways and perhaps swore that it was immediately Inspir'd him from the Immortal Gods and that the Sun himself was the Author of his March Yet not withstanding all this Parade and colours of Justice and Religion the bottom of the business was in truth only this a Greck Physician the Queens Domestick having a mind to review the Port of Pyraeum and taste the figs of Athens put this fancy of War into his Mistresse's head and got her to engage her Husband in the Attempt So that the King of Kings the Puissant Redoubtable Zerxes rai●ed an Army of three hundred thousand Combatants levell'd the Mountains drank up Rivers and overburden'd the Sea c. only to bring back a Mountebank into his own Countrey Surely surely the Quack might have gone the Journey with less expence and a smaller Equipage The Greek History affords us another notable Example in the Kingdom of Macedonia Long before the Birth of King Philip there happen'd a famous Conspiracy which of one State made two and divided the Court the Towns and the Families upon the most trivial occasion imaginable One Maleagar Governour of a frontier-Town and General of the Cavalry having an handsome Wife and withall so good Natur'd as seldom suffer'd any of her Lovers to die of despair The King hearing of her Beauty and Gallantry had a mind to give her a visit in private but finding her no such exquisite Beauty as Fame had represented her to his fancy he at first sight betrayed his Disgust and presently went away in a Huff which Affront our stately Dame who had no ill opinion of her own Merit resented so briskly that from that very hour she vow'd Revenge And not being able to effect it better than by corrupting her Husbands fidelity and debauching him from the service of his Master she imployed all her Charms to that purpose till at last by the continual Croakings of this Night-Raven the poor man had lost his Reason and forgot his Duty and by this bosome Cockatrice became so Impoison'd that he quitted the service of his King and imbark'd himself in the party of a Tyrant without knowing truly what motion drove him nor what passion he Reveng'd He acted a part he understood not and was but his Wives Soldier when he thought he was the head of the Revolt 'T is undoubtedly a truth

a Prey to a Foreign Invader than they themselves brought to an Account before an Impartial Tribunal since in the first Case they hope to shift amongst the Croud but in the second can expect nothing but certain Ruin for their Conscious fears presage what will happen they know well enough the ills they have done must be defended with greater and if the Law live they must die wherefore these being their Courses and that the Plague causes not so great a desolation as one of these accursed Favourites it might be wisht that this Prayer might be added to all the publick Litanies of Christians Lord turn away from all States an Evil which is the cause of so many other Evils Deny not Soveraign Princes the Spirit of Conduct which is fit for them to Govern by Give them understanding enough to Council themselves well and to Chuse their Counsellors as they ought To Conclude As the first advances of Ill Court-Favourites are commonly base and shameful their progress Vile wicked and destructive their short Continuances attended with Hazards and Anxieties so their Eclipses are ever more fatal and their falls desperate they are Generally surprized with Ruin and their defeat is like that of Forlorn Troops cut in peices before they can Rally or be reinforc'd Private men oftimes fall upon their Leggs and find Friends to releive at least to Commiserate them and Bankrupt Merchants are daily seen to rise again like Phoenixes out of their own dust but with Courtiers and Satesmen there are no degrees of Misfortune Those Ladders they clamber'd up with so much Sweat address and difficulty upon the smallest miss-step serve but to render their precipitation more notorious when they are hurl'd down from all those bubled Glories their best comfort is not to Survive their destiny and their greatest misery is when they outlive themselves to see their Families Buried in their Ruins and all the advantages of their Honour and Fortune turn'd against them like an Army dissipated with the fury of its own Cannon Then too late they find themselves forsaken of all those Alliances which they had with so much subtilty contracted vainly Imagining to have laid a Foundation of everlasting Greatness Their Cobweb policies are unravel'd in a moment for no sooner do they begin to decline but their most obliged Creatures shun them most and like Haman's Wife are the first Harbingers of their Ruin Those that were raised by their Countenance not daring to own any Love or Honour to their persons lest they should be involv'd in their Ruin by being at least suspected as concern'd in their Crimes their own Servants conclude it but Justice as well as Prudence to expose their faults Their Enemies triumph over them and even their Friends think it Charity enough to afford them an insulting Pity and the people who with reason universally hated but feared them before are now priviledg'd to Curse them nay the Prince himself in whose service perhaps they wounded their Consciences and for whose pleasures they Bleed uses them but as the skreen of Envy and hoping with their Ruin to gratify many and please all gives them up when he cannot in prudence longer support them as a propitiatory Sacrifice to the enraged Multitude and becomes as inexorable to their Petitions as they had been formerly to the more just Requests of others in distress In fine having long since forfeited their Innocency the sweet retreat of oppressed Virtue they at last find no Sanctuary sufficient to protect them but are precipitated out of the World loaded with Guilt and shame and the Ruins of Nations and the destruction of their Masters and the Execrations of all Mankind FINIS