Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	king_n	law_n	prince_n	3,191	5	5.6737	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67688	Religious loyalty, or, Old allegiance to the new king a sermon, preached on the eighth of February 1684 ... / by Erasmus Warren ...	Warren, Erasmus.	1685 (1685)	Wing W968; ESTC R15670	26,631	34

to hear let him hear First If we would Fear the KING aright we must LOVE him Cordially The Christian Law doth bind us indispensably to love our Neighbours and our veriest Enemies But must it not in reason then lay more hold on our Affections in reference to our SOVEREIGN Though the truth is there would be little need of any Law in the case were we but throughly sensible of the great Obligations of Nature and Interest For so hath the Wise and Mighty GOVERNOUR of the World ordered the matter betwixt the KING and his People that they can in no degree slight and disaffect Him but in the same degree they must be unkind and unnatural to themselves For as we are members of the State He is Essential to our welfare and that full out as much as the breath of our Nostrils is to the life of our Bodies So we are taught by a great Prophet and I hope you 'l grant he knew very well and will therefore believe him The BREATH OF OVR NOSTRILS was taken in their pits said Jeremiah of a KING Lam. 4.20 And impossible it is that there should be any thing of Complement or Flattery in the Phrase For it was not only spoken by that holy Man but in the depths of his affliction and pious anguish when he was deploring a conquered and broken People and condoling a captivated and undone Prince Whom then to have caressed or sooth'd up in the least with any gay unbecoming or undue Titles would have been unreasonable vanity on all accounts I and gross and damnable hypocrisie too considering to whom he made his complaints For GOD and he were now alone let me say and he poured out his bitter doleful Lamentations unto none but the ALMIGHTY's Ears Yet in these heavy mournful solemn circumstances where nothing of sneaking clawing Courtship nothing of fawning parasitical Assentation could possibly creep in and mingle with it We see what a Character he gives the KING and so what his Relation to his People was I need not make it out to be true and just forasmuch as we know it came down from above and to this very day stands upon Record amongst the Oracles of Heaven For many among us God in mercy disabuse and rectifie their crooked Judgments are meanly and basely opinion'd of a KING They deem him no better than a meer superfluity an overgrown Wen or monstrous Excrescency rather than the Head of the Body Politic. But O! that these Men would keep Jeremiah's Description of a KING in their Eyes that they would but revolve it in their thoughts and in their minds but seriously consider it Then I hope they would see and be asham'd of their impious Errour I 'm sure they would have cause enough to be so For that holy Man speaking by the MOST HOLY SPIRIT of GOD faithfully informs them that their lawful Prince though wicked and unfortunate as Zedekiah was is no spare or supernumerary Piece of the State no useless redundance or needless appendage but as Breath is to Mortals a vital of the Nation And if ever we should chance to be depriv'd of KINGS which GOD forbid we are sure to die for 't if not to Nature yet to Order even to the best sort of Rule or Government and the best expedient of Happy Society And when our KING is so necessary to our well-being in the World can we chuse but cherish dear Affections towards him Who would not be chary and infinitely tender of their Breath and Life Why our KiNG is no less in a Political sense For in that sense we are unable to live or breath without him Indeed we might be able Spirare to breath without a KING But then it must be as Saul did minas caedas threatning and slaughters against one another But how should we be able Respirare to rest and breath together in peace much less conspirare rest and breath together in Amity Let all good Subjects remember this and they will not fail to act accordingly As we are bound to Love our KING upon other great and numberless accounts so even by the Laws of Nature and Interest in point of affection or kindness to our selves Secondly if we would fear the KING aright we must Honour him greatly Which Honour though it be to be exhibited in outward carriage upon all occasions yet it must spring up from an inward value and esteem And to such as enquire for a RULE of Estimate as willing to know how they must rise in the intrinsic value of our KING which is the root of external Honour and Deference a fit one is tendred by the brave Commanders of David's Forces or by his Soldiers in general 2 Sam. 18.3 For when Absolom his Son was up in Arms and engag'd in open Rebellion against him they would by no means have David take the field in person But when he resolv'd to go forth in the dangerous Expedition they humbly address'd in dissuasion of his Majesty Thou shalt not go forth for thou art worth ten thousand of us A meet Standard whereby to measure out the value of our KING Of all things in the World we prize our selves most and think we have very good cause to do so But if we be stamp'd with the impress of true LOYALTY we shall rate our SOVEREIGN much above our selves and reckon as indeed we rightly may that He is worth many hundreds and thousands of us And the same Heroes or others like them have left another RULE upon Record in their exemplary carriage toward the same Monarch For when in a terrible fight between Israel and the Philistines he had like to have been slain by the Giant Ishbibenob they solemnly sware that He should go no more out to Battel with them And their reason was That Thou quench not the light of Israel So that they esteemed their KING as the light that they enjoyed without which there could have been nothing of Ornament nothing of splendor or delight amongst them His violent and untimely end would have been to them like quenching the Day or putting out the Sun or like a total Eclipse of that most Comfortable and glorious Luminary But O inhumane Traitors then and Monsters Wicked beyond all Epithets that once hurled Midnight over three great Nations and shut them all up in black Confusion That wretched and ignominious Crew had none of this esteem for KINGS I speak of but were sunk as low in unworthy contempt of them as on the contrary they should have risen in generous Admiration Let their hateful Degeneracy move us to aspire I mean to that due estimation of our SOVEREIGN of which they were destitute And let us never cease aspiring till we find we are arriv'd at such noble Heighths as may be equally signal with their leud Declensions The Mark we see is fairly set up for us in Scripture and fly above it we may as far as we can but we must be sure to take our aim so high

NOBLES or WHITE ONES Eccles 10.17 So that what may we not with humble Confidence look for that it is fit a good Prince should do for his Subjects For those Subjects of His who as they think and own that they are bound in Conscience to serve Him with their lives so I trust will always be ready at His first command faithfully to perform what they heartily profess You therefore that hear me this day as you tender your RELIGION be not defective in this piece of LOYALTY which is a part thereof TRUST your KING and trust Him BOLDLY as it becomes ingenuous and honest Subjects Banish all unreasonable Doubts down with all Ill-natur'd Fears cast off all unbecoming Jealousies and let no vainly diffident surmises boil up in your hearts or sloat in your minds Our RELIGION and our LAWS our LIBERTIES and our PROPERTIES are things most Dear and Pretious to us Believe therefore that he will take due care of them that he will graciously patronize and protect them It was the Greek Orator's saying of the KING of Macedon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Demost Olynth 2. I should verily think Philip to be formidable and wonderful if so be I could see he grew great by just proceedings Question not but we have a KING who will keep and encrease his Grandeur by his Justice and that at such a Rate as to become a meet Object both of Dread and Admiration I will venture to speak but one word more Never fear but he will answer or come up to that most true Character or Definition of a KING which the learned Father has rightly drawn up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. 〈◊〉 St●om Lib. 1. HE is A KING WHO RULES ACCORDING TO LAWS So none shall have cause Just cause to complain either of the Weight or Crookedness of his Scepter Lastly If we would fear the KING aright we must obey him readily Kings and Rulers are said in Scripture to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Powers and as they have power to command and make Laws so we that are under them must execute and fulfill them with all humble and faithful readiness and obsequiousness And here to smooth our way to this important Work I shall endeavour to remove one grand Impediment or considerable Stumbling-block which Prejudice or Mistake is apt to throw before many I mean a conceit that Submission to the penalties of good Laws is Equivalent to Obedience So have I heard some stifly argue and I have seen their practice correspond to their reasonings For they have made light of violating most wholesom Laws upon this presumption that they could salve the violations they wilfully ran upon by undergoing such punishments as those Laws inflicted which in their Opinion would be tantamount to punctual observing them But this is a weak and groundless imagination and a fansie most wild and monstrously nonsensical To hold th●t suffering Penalties is a proper Supplement of totally absent or deficient Obedience is as much as to assert that cutting down Trees or stubbing them up for Barrenness is the same thing with their Fruitfulness There is no such miraculous virtue in these sufferings as to rectifie Obliquities into Obedience or to work so strange a transmutation in them as to render them like it or equipollent to it Let none therefore venture to infringe Penal Laws upon this vain persuasion that the smart they shall endure be it either in corporal or pecuniary Penalties may be surrogated into the place of real Obedience and by an adequate vicariousness so exactly fill up the room thereof as to be in any measure as good as that It cannot be so for these gross absurdities which thereupon would ensue First It would change the use and utterly invert the Influence of Penalties They are applied as Sanctions to establish those Laws whereunto they are annexed And not only so but to inforce the direct observance of them But were suffering of Penalties equal to Obedience they would not only fail of this use or end but produce an effect clean contrary to it For then instead of ratifying and inforcing the respective Laws to which they are appendent they would justifie Delinquents in their most malitious contempts and violations of the same For let them break these Laws as heinously as they please it is but their undergoing the appointed punishments and then 't is all one as if they had never broke them as if they had faithfully kept them And so Penalties which are intended for the defence and conservation of Laws and Government would effectually work the subversion of both by making way for disorders inconsistent with either Secondly Suffering of Penalties cannot possibly be equivalent to Obedience because it doth not answer the Obligation of the Law and is by no means fully commensurate thereunto Even slight Consideration will make any Man sensible that penal Laws have a double force or virtue in them The one preceptive or directive which binds to Duty The other punitive and inflictive which ties to Penance in case the Duty imposed be wilfully neglected Whence it is evident that they who suffer by such Laws cannot reckon their sufferings equivalent to obeying them Inasmuch as their sufferings imply such a failure as leaves the best part of these Laws unsatisfied and eluded For therefore do they fall under their punitive because they slighted their preceptive force Which we must own to be far the best as containing the noblest Obligation an Obligation to duty To which if they had come up or regularly conformed they could never have been attaqued by the punitive strength or power thereof And that Penal Laws do primarily and chiefly oblige to Obedience which I justly call their noblest obligation and so that Penalties affixed to them do onely inforce the Obligation is clear from hence in that the same Laws were they made to be not penal but purely imperative would still bind the Conscience as firmly as ever Thirdly Suffering of Penalties cannot be ranked with performing Obedience because it answers not the scope and fulfils not the design of the Law The intent of the Law is to make Men Cives bonos good Subjects But good Subjects we cannot be unless we obey those good Laws under which we live But then who can think they are obedient who break wholsom Laws and are punished for it Much less who can think this is real Obedience or equivalent to it Lastly Suffering Penalties can hold no just proportion with Obedience or be in any measure like it or comparable to it because it does not excuse before GOD. A Law is a Law because it is Obligatory And therefore it is called Lex say some à ligando from binding But the reason why Laws do bind is because they are made and promulgated by rightful Ligislators who have curam communitatis the charge of the People over whom they preside at least in the work of Legislation But whoever are placed in this capacity of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉