Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	judge_n	king_n	law_n	5,155	5	5.2571	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66771	The prisoners plea, humbly offered in a remonstrance with a petition annexed, to the commons of England in Parliament assembled / by George Wither ; falsely charged to have composed a lybel against the said commons, and therefore now prisoner in Nemgate ; it combineth also many interjections not to be defined, as	Wither, George, 1588-1667.	1661 (1661)	Wing W3180; ESTC R12459	31,803	62

have to ascertain it unto myself And to affirm this is neither blameable in me nor Scandal to this House For it is no dishonour to any Society to have it affirmed that some of them are corrupt or faulty The soundest Flock may have some rotten Sheep There is no natural body without a blemish nor any Politick Body or Civil Constitution without defects There was one Traytor among those 12. Apostles which were chosen by Christ himself and if there be one faithful one among 12. of those Prelates who in these later Ages as they are now Elected do claim to be their Successors many good People are deceived It were a Miracle if the People had not chosen some to sit here who are not such as they ought to be Though you have an Eloquent Tongue an undistempered Brain an intelligible common Sense if you have therewith some Organs of the External Senses maimed and other members defective without your default which is not impossible how can you help it or why should the whole Body be therefore blamed I am not ignorant how tender I ought to be of your Honour and to let you know how far I am from being a malitious prosecutor of any mans Personal Crimes One to me allied who in that respect craved my advice and assistannce brought me a Paper containing the effect of Articles by him intended to be exhibited against a Member of this House with confidence and probabilities of making unquestionable proof of the whole Charge which comprehended such unmanly unchristian impudent and Barbarous misdemeanours in words and deeds that the Crimes being proved as I think they might evidently have been you could not have waved his expulsion with preservation of your Honour yet for some good reasons I made a stop of that intended Prosecution and in hope to reclaim him immediately declared the whole matter to an Honourable Earl who to my knowledge had power over him desiring his endeavour to reform him by his Authority and advice for which Civility I had thanks returned and heartily wish the Gentleman may be so truely reclaimed that no further notice be taken of what is past to his dishonour For by my wilful default no man shall be Personally defamed if reformation may be otherwise effected There is without question in some degree a just occasion of every Fame wholly or in part whether good or evil true or false and a discreet taking notice thereof might be a means of rectifying somewhat which is or may be misdone to private or publick detriment If there were such misactings as Fame reports no great offence can be justly taken by the repetition thereof in my Poem For a verbal mention of Prevarications whether in general or particular terms is the least punishment due to Transgressors If reproofs be misapplyed to them who are not faulty or Scandalously to them that are guilty the misapplyer not the Writer is the Lybeller To prove that which is written to be a Lybel all these following particulars must be concomitant First it must be written and devulged with a malicious intent and the malice evidenced by some Circumstances Secondly it must be so published that neither the Authors name is expressed nor ought else whereby it may be discovered if reputed Scandalous Thirdly it must either Scandalize the Persons by Name or by such marks as can make it applyable to no other man or if it Scandalize Societies it must Scandalize them wholly for to say some of them did such foolish or wicked actions is no Scandal to them who never did them I mention no offences but such as are known to have been committed by some for to write against that whereof I knew not any one to have been guilty were to teach men new Sins by naming them which perhaps never came into their thoughts There are few things misdone by any one but such as many know others to have committed and if they make a Scandalous application be it at their own peril for it concerns not me To be debarr'd from a general reproving of such Enormities as are dayly found in Persons and Societies would be a paliating of Transgressors and an infringment of the Priviledges due to Justice and the Moral Vertues and therefore when all the Circumstances afore mentioned concur in a reproof to denominate it a Lybel it must be intirely and openly produced also to be judged of by those whom it may concern and not by fragments and then such onely are to pass Judgement thereupon who are Competent Judges thereof by being no parties and who have taken every part of it into consideration For it is a Prerogative due to God onely who is Justice it self to be judge in his own Cause and is I think a Priviledge Usurped by none else except Tyrants because I have observed that Just Kings and lawful Judicatories presume to judge none in matters relating to themselves but by standing Laws justly constituted and their infringments by the Common Law of this Nation ought to be evidenced to the Consciences of twelve good and Lawful men as well as to the Judges before the party accused is Condemned to suffer In this Mode if I shall be found an offender I will patiently submit unto the Verdict be it right or wrong be sorry for my offence if I have committed any and make what other satisfaction I can as I will also do by whomsoever I shall be convicted of a Crime though I intended none For having been many wayes a transgressor to Godward I will not repine though he shall deliver me into the hands of Men even of those men who having been forgiven many Talents shall take me by the throat and cast me into Prison who trespassed against them to the value of a few pence onely Nevertheless I think it will not misbecome me to say that I have been somewhat over severely dealt withall in being upon a slight view of my imperfect Papers unpublished accused and committed without hearing to a destructive Imprisonment for but mentioning the Drunkenness Debaucheries Follies and other Exorbitancies of those who have not been ashamed to act them as well openly by day in the sight of the whole Country as by night to the occasioning of many disgraceful rumors whereof I thought to have made some good use And but that I presumed on the candor of this House and hoped that some Novices might have been improved for the better since their Election by sitting a while there as well as many have been heretofore made worse by sitting there over long I had not brought this Remonstrance hither but rather appealed to the King or House of Lords as my proper Judges in this Cause in regard none of them are Parties This Nation boasts of their great Charter and of other petty ones But how enjoy we the Priviledges by them confirmed when we are deprived of our Liberties unheard upon misapprehensions or the false accusation of beggarly and maliticious informers to the inriching

conscientiously to that which was most visible in being not questioning how it was obtained how justly or unjustly executed or whether it favoured or disfavoured me in my own Particular but continued in Active or Passive Obedience thereto whilst it could protect it self endeavouring such things onely as according to my understanding ought in my place to be done and which might best conduce to preserve the Government in Righteousness to Gods Glory and their welfare for whose sakes Powers and Governments were first given and Ordained for how mean soever their Places and Faculties are all men are obliged to serve in their Generations with such Talents as are bestowed upon them though they shall be Maligned and Persecuted for their labour In prosecuting this duty though performed with much negligence vanity God hath now preserved me about 50. years in being a Remembrancer to my self and others of such things after a Poetical mode as I conceived pertinent to our Publick or Private Welfares And Poesie though brought into contempt by being made a Bawd to Pride or Lust and for the most part rendred serviceable to the World the Flesh and the Devil was generally priviledged to dare any thing tending to depresse Vice and advance Vertue by plain or Enigmatical Expressions according to this Sentence Poetis Quid libet audendi semper fuit esq Potestas Which in effect may bear this Paraphrase Vice to reprove in whom soere The Poets Priviledged were Yea Divines Poets and Philosophers have been that great Counsel Table of the World by whom Pietie Morality and the Priviledges of the humane Nature have been preserved from Barbarisme in all Ages though many of them in the Times and among the Nations with whom they lived had not much respect nor so much Civil Authority as a Petty Constable I presumed on their Priviledges and in order to the discharging of my Duty lately designed a Poem called Vox Vulgi personating more Poetico the Counties Cities and Burroughs of this Nation reprehensorily expostolating a few particulars relating to what was then rumored touching the Deportment of some of their Trustees And I was thereto moved by the many murmurings secretly whispered or openly devulged by Common fame to the begetting or fomenting of dangerous Animosities though perhaps false and to the infringing of our Common Peace if true Those Rumors I endeavoured to expresse in such manner as they were spoken and with such Inferences as were made upon them by others or naturally resulted from them in my apprehension that having fixed and made visible by words those Notions which fluttered to and fro within me I might the better see what they amounted unto and make use of them to such good purposes as I found cause of And I confesse I made those whom I personated acting a Reprehensory part to speak as plainly as boldly and as Magisterially as I thought it became them because fearful reprovers make fearless offenders Therefore I conceive that which I did was neither a transgression against any Positive Law intrenchment upon good manners nor abuse of my Christian or natural Freedom Having almost finished what I intended I thought fit to offer it to the consideration of other men and before I would make it publick which whether I should have done or not neither I my self nor any other man certainly knowes I resolved that misconstruction might be prevented to offer those rumors which I had Collected together with such probable results as might arise from them to the private view and Censure of some discreet and Honourable Persons who were favoured by the King that if to them they appeared considerable their prudence might dispose of that composure as they thought fit And the Earl of Clarenden Lord Chancellor of England though to me a stranger being reputed of so much Honour and Integrity that the King judges him worthy to be intrusted with dispensing his Conscience in the chief Court of Equitie I resolving to present it to him in writing as soon as finished had prepared an Epigram to his Lordship which was inserted in the first draught of the said Poem and seized by a Doctor whom I think they call Master of the Faculties of what Faculty I know not except it be a Faculty of Plundring For without any Legal Warrant to me shown he in a hostile rather then in a Legal civil manner ransacked my Chamber Closset and Chests took away goods belonging to other men as well as mine carried away by a Porter a large Bagg-full of Books written by several Authors as also Papers Letters Bills Evidences Acquittances with whatsoever else he pleased which are all still detained save a very few to my damage and other mens some of them being of such consequence for ought I know that they might have undone me if I had not been undone before and though it cannot yet appear others may thereby suffer great detriment hereafter The last draught of the said Poem having many Alterations and Additions which made it differ from the former I purposed to make both agree in expressing my whole mind had it not been prevented by that seizure I added likewise a Post-script to the said Epigram of about four or six lines as I remember whereby I signified to the said Earl that forasmuch as in confidence on his Nobleness and Humanity these Papers were to him privately communicated I presumed and expected however they were by him relished that no use should he made of them to my disadvantage or words to that effect which evidently implies that I had no Lybellous intention The said Doctor hath perhaps so much candor that he will attest his seizure of the said Epigram with the said Books as also of his then taking special notice thereof but if not I can make forth what I affirm as well by a probable Demonstration as by other Testimony if need be though I was then in some things wanting to my self by that sudden surprizal For I was so much distempered to see my honest intention likely to be quite made void by taking away every line of what I had composed that I regarded not what might befall my Person thereby and should not have been so calmed as I now am and then was within a few Minutes but that something assured my heart the loss of those Papers in that manner would produce more advantages both to me and to what God hath determined then if it had succeeded otherwise and I have in part already so found it But for that mercy I owe nothing to the world for notwithstanding my cautiousness to avoid giving just cause of offence the said Poem being quite taken out of my hand so that I could not produce it for my Vindication it hath been so misrepresented by Fragments to his Majesties Privy Councill they not having leasure to peruse it all in so ragged a hand as mine that I was about six Months past committed to this Prison as a Lybeller against this House of Commons Before

Pestilence and Famines both Spiritual and Temporal Let us take heed of it And since Bloodshed is the principal crime for which the Judgement already begun is feared will increase and for the expiation whereof some satisfaction must be made to witness the truth of our Repentance though it be not in our Power to make satisfaction for the least Transgression let us all be so cautious to search into the whole matter and to find out every Circumstance of our Duties that we add not Sin to Sin Blood to Blood and suppose we do well when we have done more wickedly by an hypocritical misapplication or an ignorant search Or least in place of true Christian Oblations we offer up the abominations of the Heathen who sacrificed the Innocent Children of their Enemies to appease the Ghosts of their slaughtered Princes or do like them who offered the Fruits of their Body to Molech for the sins of their Souls Or lest we think as many have done we do God or our Country good service when we have oppressed or slain or banished those who worship him not as we do even those for whose sakes we are hitherto preserved by him in whose sight the Blood of the meanest of his Saints is more precious then the Blood of the greatest King who hath not aswell a Saintship as Kingship For the Expiation therefore of our Blood-guiltiness so far forth as it will be requirable to testifie the sincerity of our Contrition and Repentance plenary satisfaction as I said before not being in our Power we must effectually and speedily prosecute the means which are but two in chief The one is the washing away of wilful Bloodshed with the blood of malicious Murtherers by Executing Justice The other is by Mercy in pardoning those who have shed Blood causually ignorautly and without any apparant malice And this Justice and Mercy must be dispensed without partiality rashness malice or by-respect to our selves or to any other That we be not deceived in the Persons who are to be the Objects of this Justice and Mercy we must be very wary least we incur the curse pronounced against them who Justifie the wicked and condemn the Innocent so in stead of being rendred acceptable become abominable unto the Lord For the World is so full of deceitful Juglings that she can make that which is Righteous and Holy appear to be unrighteous and prophane wrap up Suparlative Impietie in such a Mystery that it shall seem the Perfection of Holiness make Traytors and Murtherers appear to be Saints and Martyrs true Saints and Martyrs to be reputed Murtherers and Traytors and bring them to the greatest outward shame and suffering Therefore to prevent these Falacies we must by the example of David seek of God to be rightly informed not onely as touching the true Cause of the Plagues that are feared or lie upon us but also for the Principal Offenders for if we seek but to men to humane Lawes and reason and to what our own hearts will Dictate there is so much falsehood in all these being usually swayed by Self-Intrests that we may easily be deceived If inquiry had been made in Davids time touching the Famine afore mentioned of that part of the People then of Sauls Faction who were the Murtherers for whose Bloodshed that Plague was inflicted they probably would have answered that it was for the bloodiness of Davids house and of his confederates who had Trayterously disinherited the true apparent Heir of the Kingdom Anoynted and made King by Gods own appointment with consent of all the People and that his Blood-guiltiness was manifest by a long Rebellious warfare against the house of Saul his Lawful Soveraign If the same question should have been then asked of Davids Party it is likely they would have said that Saul and his partakers were the Murtherers by shedding blood in opposing him to whom God had translated the Kingdom from Saul for his disobedience and conferred it on David by the same Anointing by the same Prophet who inaugurated Saul and in regard the Kingdom was also confirmed upon David by consent of the same People If the Priests in these dayes had been consulted with all they perhaps would have thought and said that it had been for the Blood of those Priests of the Lord which were barbarously Butchered by Saul rather then for the blood of the Gibeonites and it may be they and many other who usually Judge according to common appearances would have thought that Famine had been inflicted for the blood of Abner Ishbosheth Amasa Ammon Uriah and many other as well as for the blood of the said Priests But the Judgement came not forth at that time for any of these It was not absolutely for shedding of meer Innocent blood nor for Blood Royal or esteemed Sacred no not for the blood of a King but for Blood shed by a King and for no such precious blood as the blood of Israelites or Friends or Free Subjects but for the Blood of slaves of whom little account was made and for breach of an Oath and a Covenant to and with despised Persons though contracted Illegally yea contrary to Gods expresse command with a People whom they were to have destroyed and though it had been fraudulently and surreptiously procured which Exemplary Judgement was executed and left upon record to make it known to all Nations and Generations how abominable it is to God when men violate the Lawes of Humane Society though out of a pretended Zeal to the welfare of his own People and that he will sooner dispence with an Oath and Covenant made ignorantly contrary to his own expresse command then with violation thereof in such a case when it is once made and that neither length of time or Pious or Politick pretences can incline him to leave it unpunished This hints unto us that which will be very considerable at this present by you and by all this Nation as touching that Bloodshed into which God is making inquisition concerning which we are to make inquity of God himself by the Urim and Thummim of his Word as also by impartially examining our own Consciences lest the false Witnesses which the World self intrest may suborn corrupt our Judgements For if we ask of our meer Courtiers or Fawning Parasites who think there is more Divinity in the blood of Kings then of other men whose Bloodshed is at this time punishable by Famine they as I conceive will tell us that it is onely for the Blood of the late King which I believe not though there lies a blood-guiltiness for that on very many If we ask of the Prelates they peradventure will add thereto the blood of the late Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and the violence done to their Hyerachie If we ask the rest of the Clergy they wil cast in the blood of those Ministers of the Gospel who have been slain by the Sword are destroyed by Oppression The Peers will say it is