Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	justice_n	king_n	lord_n	2,858	5	3.8642	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56216	The oath of pacification, or, A forme of religious accomodation humbly proposed both to King and Parliament : thereby, to set an end to the present miseries and broyles of this discomposed, almost ship-wrackt state.	Parker, Henry, 1604-1652.; England and Wales. Sovereign (1625-1649 : Charles I). His Maiesties declaration to all his loving subjects, after his victories over the Lord Fairfax and Sr. William Waller.	1643 (1643)	Wing P410; ESTC R1447	17,333	32

his wife and his wife was over-ruled by her son but this kinde of bondage is commonly more Comicall At other times Princes stand ingaged to the factions and forces by which their Dominions were atchieved and must be supported and this kinde of engagement uses to be often very Tragicall as the old Stories of the Romane Emperours and the moderne Stories of the Turkish Sultans and of sundry other insolent usurpers in other nations do sufficiently testifie It behooves Princes therefore as well for their Subjects as their owne sakes to avoid either of these servile Conditions let them not impose too heavie a yoke upon their Subjects and they shall neither have cause nor disposition to receive any other yoke upon themselves But though these additionall causes are free from exception in themselves yet as the case now stands and as the Kings successe of late hath been some men may cavill perhaps and oppose the taking of this Oath at this time I shall reply little herein for it appears as I conceive that this Oath as it is now formed does but open and explain the same intention which the King had or ought to have had in the other and therefore without great imputation and suspicion this forme cannot be refused I shall onely supplicate his Majestie that he will please yet more solicitously and intentively to review and research the true state of this transcendent Case and to come to a more equall impartiall debate about it as well with other men as with his own conscience Let it be his Majesties care to hear whatsoever can be inforced by reason from any person whatsoever let him put the Case all maner of ways take a just consideration in what condition he remains if his Cause be just or if it be unjust or if it be dubious or partly just and partly unjust if he does not cast thus about in spight of all prejudice and take in all suppositions from all sides as the fatality of this controversie now stands no excuse will be large enough to cover him from the condemnation of God or man We will first suppose his Majesties Cause to be just that he has onely the defensive part and is necessitated to fight and that the Parliament as yet hath offered no terms of Accommodation to him but such as are more unjust then all the plagues of this calamitous war This so being supposed makes him innocent but yet most unfortunate it makes him the first man that ever Fortune pickt out to ingage in such a wretched destruction of men and treasure without blame Amongst all his Ancestors there will not appear upon search one of them who was just and maintained a just cause and yet met with such generall opposition from his Subjects much lesse from the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament How triviall soever the Kings side account this there was not ever a worse prodigie in the world to amaze any State then this is if it be true that the orderly presentative Body of this Nation has causlesly and unnaturally risen up against their righteous king to pursue him so far as ours now is It is not to be denied but that some Parliaments have done some unjust things when they have been wrought upon by the force or fraud of Princes but no example can be shewed that ever any Parliament did such an unjust thing as this contrary to all motives and influences of a gracious and religious Prince Some of the kings party have argued thus if Parliaments may erre when they are perfect having the concurrence of the Royall State with them much more may they erre when the Royall State recedes from them c. But this I hold a grand mistake for if I have any reason to make a right use of Story Parliaments are represented to me never lesse liable to error then when they receive least impressions from the king With what regret then ought the king to look upon this unprecedented dysaster Certainly if he look upon us with a naturall eye under such unparalleled sufferings or upon himselfe with a pious eye under such an unequalled affliction it cannot but administer thoughts of horrour to him Bonus Pastor ponit vitam pro ovibus so said that Prince of Peace in whom onely there was no sin and in whose flock joyntly and severally taken there was nothing else but ●in and yet his death sealed as much as his mouth affirmed Moses seemed to preferre the well-fare of the obstinate Jews not onely before all his temporall interests but also before his eternall diadem in heaven and Saint Paul seemed to be rapt up with a species of the same zeale The passions of some heathen and hereticall Princes towards their liege Subjects have been almost above the pitch of humanity with what a strange kinde of hypochondriacall frenzie did Augustus Caesar cry out Redde mihi Legiones Vare If the bloud of his Subjects had been drawn forcibly out of his own dearest veins it could not have parted from him with a stronger resentment How did our Queen Mary even to the death deplore the losse of one Town in Picardie With what strange instruments did griefe make incision in her heart whilest it would in grave the name of Callice there The losse of all kings in all wars uses to be very dolorous but native kings in civil wars when they look upon such vast desolation as is now to be seen in England and Ireland must needs think that their own interest their own honour their own saftie is of lesse consequence We will now suppose the kings Cause to be unjust that the Parliament has had none but loyall intentions towards him and his Royall Dignity nor has attempted any thing but to defend Religion against the Papists the Lawes of the Land against Delinquents and the Priviledges of both Houses against Malignants and on the contrary we will suppose that that private Councell which the king has followed rather then his publike one has aimed at the Arbitrary rule of France and to effect the same has countenanced Popery and but pretended danger onely from the Parliament from the City of London and from the best affected of the whole Kingdom Qui supponit non ponit We will not assume but presume onely that the great Councell of the Land is in the right rather then the King and his clandestine Councell but see what will follow upon this supposition if it prove to be true as it is neither impossible nor improbable if this be true what a formidable day is that to be wherein the king shall render a strict account for all the English Protestant blood which ha's been issued out and is to be yet issued out in this wicked unnaturall quarrell Manasseh which filled Jerusalem with blood and made the kennells thereof flow with the precious blood of Saints could not contract so black a guilt as he that imbrues two large kingdomes with blood and that with the blood of

the best reformed Professors of our Saviours Gospell That blood of Protestants which has been shed by Papists as in the Parisian massacre that blood of Christians which has been shed by Infidells as in Turkie that blood of Saints which ha's been shed by Hereticks as in the Arian Emperors dayes that blood of strangers which ha's been shed by Conquering Usurpers as in Peru of late may admit of some colour or excuse as to some degree of hainousnesse and may plead for some kinde of expiation but this is beyond all thought or expression The goodly kingdom of Ireland is almost converted into a Golgotha and the more goodly kingdom of England is hasting to a worse point of desolation It must needs be therefore that he to whose cruelty and injustice so much confusion shal be imputed must be perpetually abominated as a plague of humane kinde more monstrous and portentuous then any age formerly had the strength to produce The ripping up of a mothers womb the firing of such a Metropolis as Rome was were but straines of vulgar narrow-hearted cruelty Antichrist himself may own the depopulation and vastation of our Brittish Ilands as acts worthy of his dying fury But it remaines now in the last place that we suppose some doubt to be in the case or some mixture of injustice in some circumstances as that though the King incline not at all to Popery himselfe yet he has favoured and enabled Papists too farre to do mischiefe and though he cannot with safety cast himselfe wholly upon the fidelity of the Parliament yet he has no cause utterly to reject their consent and approbation in the filling up of all places of publike power and trust as the emergent necessity of the times now is nor to persist in this all-consuming war rather then to condescend to an Accommodation of that nature if we lay down but this for supposed we must needs conclude that the King ha's not punctually and duly discharged his Office so as that he can clearly acquit and absolve himselfe before God of this lamentable effusion of Christian blood For there must not onely be a perspicuous justice in the Cause but an absolute necessity of the war when kings take up the sword against such a considerable number of their Subjects as our King now fights against Though the cause may be just yet the war is not lawfull where the miserable consequences of it do too far out-ballance the iniquity of the conditions offered and proposed by the assailed partie wherefore if the meere and cleere justice of a cause cannot alwayes wipe off guilt how shall he be purged from offence whose cause is not totally just nor undeniably evident in a war of this nature If the King does not apparently fight for Antichrist yet t is most apparent that Antichrist does fight for the King the whole Hierarchy ha's declared their ingagement by publishing Bulls by sending supplies into Ireland England out of severall Popish Countries On the other side if the Earl of Essex does not apparently fight for Christ yet it seems very probable that Christ fights for him for our great Armies within the circle of this last year have four times met and stil the Kings side hath gone off with losse and disadvantage Redding being begirt with his Excellencies forces all his Majesties power could not relieve it yet Glocester being begirt by his Majesties forces his Excellency found meanes to relieve it And as for Edge-hill and Newbery though neither side was totally routed yet the mastery of the field was left to his Excellency and had not fraud done better service to the King then force scarce any other encounters in other parts had been prosperous to his Popish Armies These things seem to make the kings Cause at least dubious for it were strange if in these latter dayes Christ and Antichrist should be so far reconciled in any one cause as to unite their battailes in the same expedition or to pitch their tents in the same field and grant any doubt in this case and the king can never be capable of justification in prosecuting it so far with fire and sword for the king has already sworne to uphold and preserve in their intire vigor the Lawes of the Land and the Priviledges of Parliament and we cannot deny but even this doubt might be decided by the Lawes in Parliament or by some other Judicatory out of Parliament if the king would referre it to such a decision if the king will admit of no Judicatory to determine this matter what are all our Laws and Priviledges worth If he will admit of one but doubts what it is and will not be resolved by his Parliament in that doubt what will all his oathes profit us what will all his deep professions of favour to our Laws and Priviledges stand us in stead All those suppositions severally or joyntly make it manifest that this war if it can be ended by a just oath on the kings side not at all departing from the sense and intent of his former Oaths or from the nature of his kingly office will charge all these inexpiable mischiefes upon him if it be refused Nay when the king is not certaine of Victory and yet hath by so many dreadfull oathes debarred himself from all advantages by victory if this devouring war wherein so much losse is and no gaine at all to countervaile it be still protracted and preferred before a composition of this nature future ages must needs suspect that love of ruine and distraction and a perfect hatred to the very nature and being of man was the execrable cause of it To recommend this Methode of Pacification to the king I shall say no more and to recommend it now to the Parliament very little will be fit to be said in regard that kings are more devoyd of Counsaile then Parliaments I shall thus onely contract my selfe If we have respect to Almighty God an appeale to him by Oath is not lesse beseeming Christianity then an appeale by sword for ought I can understand this is rather a way of ingaging divine Justice then of disingaging it if we may be permitted to use such a word If we have respect to the king no course can better save his honour or oblige his justice then this If we have respect to the Parliament no other argument can more clearly vindicate their innocency and loyalty then this If we have respect to Precedents this is a transaction of State exceeding ancient If we have respect to the present occasion our affaires are now in a condition so good that fear cannot be upbraided to us and the Summer is so far spent and our successe hath hitherto been so equilibrious that we have no reason to presume If we have respect to the future as the Armies may disband without turmoile so we may all meet and incorporate again by this meanes upon more equall and friendly termes then by any other The old word of Command As you were will reduce us to that Posture in which the beginning of this Parliament found us and then if the King observe this oath he will incline to favour a due reformation and consequently decline those rocks upon which he ha's of late unpolitickly both cast himself and the State if he observe it not no new advantage will accrue to him by this disbanding of both Armies but perhaps disadvantages rather and certainly he will neither ingratiate himselfe with God nor man by temerating such a Sacred Paction The cause of all our miseries is meer obstruction of justice and such obstruction as nothing could worke but the utmost power of a king Now for the opening of obstructions this oath if it be kept unviolated is as effectuall as any other expedient whatsoever and we may hope that it will be kept But soft I crave pardon for saying so much or insisting upon any inducements at all for I know both Scots and English are now interessed herein and I represent these things to the supreame wisdom of two the most religious Kingdomes in the world FINIS