Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	just_a	king_n	law_n	2,604	5	4.7027	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46964	Remarks upon Dr. Sherlock's book, intituled, The case of the allegiance due to soveraign princes, stated and resolved, &c.	Johnson, Samuel, 1649-1703.	1690 (1690)	Wing J842; ESTC R220008	13,889	15

is a force and a force gives no right let the Doctor tell us to the world's end of All things being equally rightful with respect to God men that are under a force have a Right from Self-preservation which is a Law of Nature and consequently of God to rid themselves of that force it they can Conquests end when the Conquerors and Conquered come to mutual Pacts and Agreements which are the Laws by which they agree to rule and be ruled for the future Till such subsequent Pacts intervene the Conquered People shift for themselves as well as they can But where there is no pretence nor appearance of any Conquest where the Laws of a Nation which are the publick Agreement of all the nation for their mutual defence and security retain their force they cannot be good subjects who set up any other rule of conscience in matters of civil Right Property or power for that other rule is either agreeable with the Law and then we need it not or it is contrary to it and then they that advance it are enemies to the Constitution I know little difference betwixt assuming an authority to govern the State and setting up other rules then that of the Law to guide men's Consciences by in matters of Allegiance and Obedience to the civil Magistrates Our Saviour's argument relies wholly on possession of power whose Image pag. 21. and superscription hath it If such a possession as having the Coynage of Mony requires Allegiance the Doctor ought to have taken the Oaths when the new money came out If not then our Saviour's argument does not justifie him now We have no directions in Scripture about restoring a dispossessed Prince to his Throne again But if the dispossessed Prince retain a Legal right then we are pag. 22. directed to restore him Rom cap. 13. v. 7. Render unto all their dues tribute to whom tribute is due custom to whom custom fear to whom fear honour to whom honour If the late King have a legal right to the Crown he has a legal right to the Excise the Customs and Hearth money c. And if he has a legal right to them they are due to him And if they are due to him we are commanded to render them to him And that the late King may yet have a legal right to the Crown the Doctor agrees The Providence of God removes Kings and sets up Kings but alters no legal Rights We are commanded to do as we would be done by and none of us would be deprived our selves of our own legal Rights If the late Kings have a legal Right yet then no English subjects can have a legal Right to oppose him unless a man can have a legal Right to an Estate and at the same time another have a legal Right to with-hold it from him which is to make the Law a contradiction to it self and yet these are necessary consequences of the Doctors Positions That one Prince is at present placed in the Throne and the other removed out of it does not divest the dispossessed Prince of his legal right and claim nor pag. 26. forbid him to endeavour to recover his Throne nor sobid those who are under no obligation to the Prince in possession to assist the dispossessed Prince to recover his legal Right A Legal and successive Right bars all other Humane Claims so that the dispossessed Prince has a just cause of War against the Prince in possession for the recovery of his Legal Right And they that are under no obligation to the Prince in possession are not forbid to assist him Who these are that are supposed to be under no obligation c. I know not I hope if the Prince in possession be throughly settled he has God's Authority and then all that are his Subjects are under some obligation to him or else God's Authority stands for nothing But if foreign Princes are meant by those who are under no obligation then at least the King of France has a just cause of War upon us to restore King James And then at whose Doors must the Blood lie that is spilt in the War If the late King have a legal Right he has a Right by our Laws and then in opposing his Title we fight against our own Laws and Government If the late King have a Legal Right to the Crown then a man must be very learned indeed to be of opinion that the obligation of our Oaths of Allegiance to him ceases It is not enough for the Doctor to say That it was necessary for him to reason upon the suspicion of unjust Usurpations and illegal Revolutions c. and that he was far from intending to reflect upon the present Government With Reverence be it spoken is a common laying with some when they are going to speak blasphemy His standing out so long the grounds of his present compliance his avowed Principles in his Book of Non-Resistance which he here justifies excepting in one punctilio shew undenyably that the Doctor acknowledges no other Right in Their Present Majesties but an Authority from God of his own inventing and that their only firm security because only satisfactory to the Consciences of their Subjects that of a Legal Right which indeed is God's Authority and we acknowledge no other in these matters is by this Writer as far as in him lyes quite blown up The duty of Subjects is to obey their Prince whilst in possession but Kings pag. 27. must take care to preserve their Crowns by good Government For if they notoriously violate their Subjects Rights c. it is too much to venture their lives and Fortunes to keep them in the Throne to oppress them But why should not Subjects be obliged in Conscience to defend such an injurious Prince He has a Legal Title Possesssion a Settlement he has God's Authority he is irresistible and has the Soveraign Power And is it no part of Soveraign Power to command the service of his Subjects No he is entituled only to a legal defence the Militia and the Posse Com. Thus when men are at pag. 30. a pinch they seek refuge where they can When their Doctrine of Non-resistance and a thousand other ascriptions to the power of the Prince turns upon them they shelter themselves under the Law of the Realm Which when things go as they would have them go they subject to the Prince's pleasure And to excuse their taking shelter under what they have so basely betrayed they tell us tho' they taught Non-Resistance they may practice Non-Assistance without forgoing that Doctrine So they may suffer the Lord 's Anointed the light of their Eyes and the breath of their Nostrils to be taken in the pits of wicked Men when he does not serve their turn and be good Loyalists good Church of England men good King's men for all that Quo teneam vultus mutantem Protea nodo This Doctrine of Obedience and Allegiance to the present powers is

REMARKS UPON Dr. SHERLOCK'S BOOK Intituled The CASE OF THE ALLEGIANCE DUE TO SOVERAIGN PRINCES Stated and Resolved c. The Second Edition Printed at London and Re-printed in Edinburgh Anno Dom. 1691. REMARKS UPON D R. SHERLOCK'S CASE of ALLEGIANCE c. HAVING lately Perused Dr. Sherlock's Reasons as the Books is commonly called I cannot forbear imparting to you some very few Observations upon them not to Pref. p. 3. shew my Skill but to perform my Promise I observe in the First place That the Doctor thinks it necessary to convince all sober Christians That men may pref p. 4. swear Allegiance to King William and Queen Mary without renouncing any Principles of the Church of England But I hope we were not in such a condition as that All Sober Christians stood in need of such a Conviction And God forbid the Principles of the Church of England should be such as not only to create in all sober Christians a doubt whether they might swear Allegiance to the Present King and Queen but should be so obscure in the matter as that so Learned a Man the Doctor is reputed and so Wise a Man as he would be thought for he never gave any just occasion to the world to mark him out for a fool should be at almost Two Years Pains to make a Reconciliation betwixt Them and the Duty of Swearing Allegiance Pref. p. 1. to this present Government upon the continuance of which the Doctor does more than once or twice acknowledge the Liberties and Religion of the Nation to depend He confesses he stuck and should have stuck to this day had he not been relieved by Bishop Overal's Convocation-Book and had the Venerable Authority Pref. p. 5. of a Convocation given him greater Freedom and Liberty of Thinking which the apprehensions of Novelty and Singularity had cramp'd before How mean are we Laymen in the eyes of these Gentlemen Nothing that was done said or writ at and after the Revolution to justifie the Lawfulness thereof by the Laws of God and of this Realm had any influence upon this Clergy man's Judgment or Conscience till he met with a new upstart Convocation-Book Nay his very Thoughts were in Chains till the Veneable Authority of a Convocation gave him Liberty to Think What the Lords and Commons did the Consent of a Nation the Approbation of all Protestants abroad the Interest of Religion and the Publick Weal were not considerable enough to give this man a liberty to think his liberty of Thinking was cramp'd till the Venerable Authority of a Convocation came and set him at liberty I wonder the less to find him in his Book enslaving his Life and Liberty to what in a mistaken Notion he calls God's Authority since I perceive his very Thoughts are slaves to an Assembly of Ecclesiastiks He waves the matter of Right is not concerned in the Legality of the late Revolution * But I hope all Subjects that believe it may and ought to assert it And upon occasion would if they did believe it else they lye on the lurch to dispute she Right of Princes is a thing which no Government can permit to be a question amongst their Subjects such Disputes are needless in this Cause and serve only to confound it by carrying men into such dark Labyrinths of Law and History c. as very few know how to find their way out again To judge truly of the legality of the late Revolution requires such a perfect skill in Law and History and the Constitution of the English Government that few men are capable of making so plain and certain a judgment of it as to be a clear and safe Rule of Conscience Laymen think Laws and Constitutions of Governments to be safe Rules of Conscience in these Cases and no such dark Labyrinths as the Mysteries of the Holy Trinity and Incarnation the Satisfaction of our Saviour the Judge of Controversies c. which yet are all as plain to the Doctor as a Pike-staff the Scripture and Reason are admirably clear in all these things but the Laws of a Nation and the Constitution of its Government are a dark Labyrinth None are so blind as they that will not see Till some Proud Ambitious Clergy-men and Flattering Courtiers either really or pretendedly ignorant of our Laws and Constitutions set their own and other Mercenary Heads and Pens at work to represent our Government in quite other than its own native Colours out of a base Compliance with a Court that left no stone unturn'd to overthrow it till then I say the Constitution of our Government was so well understood by our Fore-fathers that they supported and asserted it from time to time at a vast Expence of Blood and Treasure and transmitted it down to their Posterity as they had received it from their Ancestors confirmed with all the Sanctions that the nature of the thing was capable of nor were ever beholden to a Foreign Prince to preserve it till now nor needed to have had recourse to the Prince of Orange to assert their Liberties if the overflowing of such Bigottry as this Gentleman is infected with had not almost unmann'd the Nation and prepar'd them for Slavery And two ways were taken to effect it the one by perswading us That we are Slaves by the Law of God and the other by representing our Government as being absolute in its Original Constitution and that whatever Liberties the People claim a Right to are either Concessions from the Crown or Usurpations upon it And because some ignorant People have been imposed upon by the misapplication of Scripture by the Clergy and by mis-understanding and mis-applying our Ancient Histories and Records and not thoroughly searching them neither our Constitution and Fundamental Laws must now be represented as not clear nor a safe Rule for Conscience and therefore another must be set up in stead of them invented by a Clergy-man in his Study directed in his Enquiry by a few of his own Profession either ignorant of our Constitution or prosessed Enemies to it or both and this Rule of Conscience not so clear neither but that our Spiritual Guides are together by the ears about it and the Learned Dr. Sherlock has been all this while finding it out But found it he has The Mountains have been in Labour and behold the Mouse God when he sees fit and can better serve the Ends of his Providence by pag. 2. 3. it sets up Kings without any regard to Legal Right or Human Laws Kings thus set up by God are invested with God's Authority Subjects are bound to Obey and to Pay and Swear Allegiance if it be required to those Princes whom God hath placed and settled in the Throne when they are invested with God Authority This is no new Invention of the Doctor 's nor does he pretend to it he had it it seems from Bishop Overal's Convocation-Book But Sir Robert Filmer broached it before that Book came out