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	subject_n	4,008	5	6.9192	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A32848	The Petition of the most substantiall inhabitants of the citty of London, and the liberties thereof, to the Lords and Commons for peace together with the answer to the same, and the replye of the petitioners.	Chillingworth, William, 1602-1644. Reply of the London petitioners to the late answer to their petition for peace.; England and Wales. Parliament.	1642 (1642)	Wing C3881; ESTC R383	15,057	24

most considering part even of the people having long time in vaine expected proofes are now growne more stayd in their beleef then to be led away by a bare confidence and boldnesse of defaming Wee and the Kings party are so diametrically opposite in Religion and State that He cannot protect both The same justice may governe both if you will returne from whence you are swerved and submit to the common rule of Law which ought to be the measure of our actions We most earnestly beseech you that we may not perish while we are detained in generalls you would be pleased to tell us what Religion you would have If the publike forme of worship established already and sealed with the bloud of many Martyrs herein can be no ground of difference they professe and practise it and will become suitors to you that you will severely punish all persons whatsoever that transgresse against it If you meane some other Religion as you doe if there be any reall disagreement amongst us let us know what it is perhaps the Kingdome will renounce their old faith and like your Creed better However let not the people be blindly ingaged to fight against their King in defence of their owne and His Religion and to maintaine that which He and they approve off and only you dissent from If they are His friends we are His enemies if we are His friends they are questionlesse His enemies It becomes not us to decide who are His friends who His enemies nor to publish our thoughts which may perhaps be guided by that common notion to fight for or against to endeavour to preserve or destroy Friendship and enmity here are not to be taken for affections but for a civill vertue orvice and to be understood in a law notion They only are to be esteemed His friends who are obedient to Lawes transgressors His enemies So that a King is enemy to none as not punishing out of hatred but justice That some men have found more favour then others we may guesse at the cause of your discontents by this frequent complaint can be no just ground to disturbe a State The Kingdome will never be free from Rebellion if Subjects may be allowed to give law to the Princes courtesies Either they must judge us or we them no middle way can be safe The tryall of this Land is well known which is per judicium parium by verdict of Pears it being a way of proceeding equally indifferent to all where none have cause to feare wrested explications or obscure consequences verdicts being brought in in capitall causes according to evident and knowne law We make no question all uninterested persons will quickly be satisfied in the present difference in case of Treason which can be the only sub●ect of this debate and yet this seemes to be the maine ground of distance For certainly our Lawes have provided for the tryall of it and the House of Commons never heretofore challenging a power of judicature and the Lords not using to censure any in this nature under the degree of Baron therefore it undeniably appeares they are to be referred to the ordinary tryall of the Kings Bench They will not lay downe Armes before us nor ought wee before them Cleare satisfaction hath beene offered you by His Majesty in this point that the Armes should be returned to those hands in which they are by law intrusted The King is invested with the sole power of trayning arraying and mustering it being most consonant to reason as well as grounded on law that he which is bound to Protect should be enabled to compasse that end Little safety will be to us for our Religion and our profession will bind us truly to performe but theirs will bind them to betray us Of all men living we should least have expected you should make advantage of this argument the breach of Faith in your Souldiers being most infamously notorious Witnesse Farneham Castle where after hands shaken with two of your Captaines and time given upon the reputation of Gentlemen and Souldiers to draw up Propositions of surrender the Commanders being retired and the Souldiers forbid to shoot you brooke in upon them against the lawes of Truce tooke them all Prisoners and plundred them not affording any benefit of the former agreement witnesse Winchester where after composition set downe in writing you against it rob'd them stript them and kill'd many in coole bloud insomuch that some of your Commanders more sensible of honour openly exclaimed against your barbarous cruelty scarce to be paralell'd amongst the storyes of Germany witnesse Yorkeshire where after the Gentry had very prudently setled a peace and security in that County by mutuall covenant not to injure each other the Lord Fairefax is bitterly reproved for breaking your Priviledges by presuming to agree to the happinesse of His Country when the House or rather the Committee had resolved to ingage the whole Kingdome in misery and he is accordingly commanded not to regard his promise The truth is and you have declared it to the world in print that you might perswade him not to be honest you tell him plainly he was not wise and therefore injoyne him not to stand to that Covenant which was made with so much disadvantage witnesse Mr Marshall and Dr Downing The King in extraordinary mercy pardoned and dismissed 300 prisoners though guilty of high Treason and taken in actuall hostility against him onely taking security at least as he then thought it was having not yet learnt that the Religion of that party is not capable of laying any obligation against Interest for their future innocency by oath they swearing never after to beare Armes against His Majesty These being returned are satisfied in conscience they swore unlawfully as binding themselves not to advance the good cause and for this consideration as also it being taken in their owne defence their lives being endangered upon refusall so that being now safe they were againe free they are formally absolv'd from their Oath by these two City Popes and preached into new and perjurd Rebells Good God that these men in so short time should be guilty of so many publique violations of Faith one of which even amongst the ancient Heathen would have stained an age and yet that all the people are not yet undeceived It cannot be but all such as have any sense of true piety will upon full information detest these foule proceedings and abhorre that Religion which is made but an Art to dispense with honesty Certainly you cannot believe that you Religion binds you truly to performe men of such perswasions could not so grossely equivocate themselves into disloyalty and raise an Army to desttroy their King in His own defence If you preferre their cause and being before ours speake it out more plain●y We most humbly thank you and shall if necessity require it make use of this freedom The rule by which our liking will be guided is this we shall

he shield them from our justice he must expose us to their injustice either they must judge us or we them no middle way can be safe nor deserve the name of Accommodation it must prove inevitable confusion in the end Many yeares we have already strugled together and they have all the while found more favour from the Court then we but now we are more implacably exasperated by blood one against the other and they will not lay downe Armes before us nor ought we before them and if both lay downe Armes together yet little safety will be to us for our religion and profession will binde us truly to performe but theirs will bind them to betray us and since they are greater in the Kings favour and are loose from Oaths when we are discountenanced and our hands are tyed from defence what equality of Treaty is there We will speake now to you as we would to the whole body of England if you prefer their cause and being before ours speake it out more plainly if you wish better to us and thinke better of us be wary of such Accommodation as may render us upon unequall tearmes into their hands You will say we have received other Petitions with more favour when they have more concurred with us in their Votes we confesse and justifie it for when the people have encouraged us by Petitions answering to our Votes and have invited us to be more hardy in searching their wounds fearing our too much tendernesse in their owne case we could not but resent a better disposition and capacity of cure then now we take notice of in such contrary Petitions as seeme to expresse a distrust of us though indeed your professions be cleane contrary Yet to deale plainly with you and all other Petitioners we love not to be sollicited at all by the people in any case whatsoever except when we doe manifestly faile of our Duty either out of too much feare or too much presumption Howsoever for the present goe peaceably home and if you thinke us worthy of that trust which you have hitherto reposed in us leave to us to consider of this your Petition with all its circumstances and assure your selves we will condescend to the more hazzard and depart something the more from our owne due in our demands from His Majesty for your sakes And if you prefer your owne Iudgements before ours proceed to advertise us lovingly and fairely wherein we may doe you more good or how we may draw nearer to a prudent Accommodation and impart more particularly your open sence thereof Howsoever we desire you to addresse your selves to His Majesty in the same manner as you have done to us unlesse you condemne us as more indisposed to peace then His Majesty is and let your request be that in this valuation of His Party and His Parliament He would be equally pleased to condescend and depart from His former rigor of Tearmes as you expect from us or else we must pronounce you in this unequall And for the summe of all let your desired Accommodation be such as shall maintaine us to be the Kings legall Parliament and a legall Parliament to be the Kings highest Court of Iudicature and the highest Iudicature of the King fittest to determine all publike disputes and best disposed to mercy as well justice and policy as well as Law and without more adoe your wished Accommodation is perfected and agreed upon The REPLY of the London Petitioners to the late Answer to their PETITION WEE perceive those Arts which first caused are the fittest means to continue this common calamity If the People of honest affections generally but weak reason and so easily abused and made to advance private ends with a publique conscience yet at last faithfully instructed by the sense of miseries begin to grow wiser the great contrivers of these sad divisions evidently discerne the Kingdom is in danger to be restored to happinesse unlesse their long exercised malice can still prevaile under specious pretences to keep up that unfortunate misunderstanding between King and Subject No sooner had we being the most considerable persons in the Citty after too long patience and a most just apprehension of pressures howrely growing upon us so that of late every new Vote hath been looked upon as a new affliction taken such courage to our selves as humbly to expresse our unwillingnesse to be longer active in our own unhappinesse and to sue unto you for remedy being desirous to receive those great blessings of Peace and Plenty and true Religion established by Law from no other hand but presently under-agents are imployed to continue if it be possible the distractions of this Kingdom and stifle our honest intentions in the womb Alderman Penington seizes upon our Petition and commits one to Prison because it seems he was better affected to the quiet of his Country then was convenient for his ends notwithstanding not any thing in the matter of it was against any known law and the manner of it had been so often countenanced by both your Houses Out of these considerations we the Citizens animated by innocency and a necessary care to prevent our otherwise unavoidable destruction with sober courage and honest stoutnesse recover our Petition Next the Lecturers undertake the work and turne all the spirituall militia into weapons of the flesh exhorting us to fight against the King in the feare of God and under the mask of Religion preaching down peace and holinesse Yet these virulent declamations prevaile not with us who were more conscionably instructed then to believe we cannot expresse our love to God unlesse we maintain enmity with men and who by sad experience have found the bitter fruits of their so much cryed-up reformation wherein the sonnes of peace are become the loudest Trumpets of Warre This policy being now worn out and the journey-men-Rebells at a stand it concernes the maisters to take the ruine of the Common-wealth into their own managery An answer is cast out which seems to carry in it the authority of the House but presents really the subtilty of those who have hitherto craftily abused the Peoples affections into those miserable distempers Their words are softer then oyle but poyson of Aspes is under their lips for the designe of it is by a seeming meek complyance with us who from our soules desire and sue for peace to send us away contented to ingage our selves in a most unnaturall Warre It is full of Sophistry and such eloquence as is described in Catiline the fire-brand of his Country which was first to disturbe a state unable to compose and settle it We and our request is said to be Welcome Certainly both ought to be so really and deserve to be entertained with the greatest thanks and alacrity by all honest men as aiming at the publique interest and common good of the Kingdome What ever Astronomers faine of the Celestiall bodies 't is to be feared many inferior Orbes in a State