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	lord_n	power_n	3,232	5	4.9654	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93714	Certain weighty considerations humbly tendered and submitted to the consideration of such of the members of the High Court of Justice for tryal of the King, as they shall be presented unto. There being onely one hundred of the copies appointed to be printed for that purpose By Josuah Sprigge.	Sprigg, Joshua, 1618-1684.	1649 (1649)	Wing S5071; Thomason E540_13; ESTC R203649	8,196	15

and issuing from one fountain even the Lord that we are his image and glory in all this variety and subordination of States and that all these are not so in themselves but that they are in each other as they are all in unity in their Original For certainly whatever unlikelihood and disappearance of this there is in what we have known of these subordinations as they have subsisted and acted in this dark corrupt and fleshly state yet I have so much faith to beleeve yea in the light of the thing I see it in God That King and People do subsist and have a glorious interest in each other and that it shall appear when the Creation that is now in pain is delivered that all the Majesty that dwels in the person of a King it is indeed the Peoples and all the peace and flourishing of a People it is the Kings and they shall possesse and be possessed each of other The King shall not have an envious eye against his people nor the people against the King each shall be satisfied with their own and each shall rejoyce in the others wealth The people shall cast glory upon their King and Kings shall throw love and riches upon their People and each shall think while the other hath it himself hath it and that they have not the lesse for the others having much Thus it is between the Lord and his Christ thus it is between Christ and his Church and thus shall it be between Kings and their People We have seen and convers'd with these Relations only in their weakness and so cannot beleeve this of them But the Lord hath a portion in these things He made them not in vain they shall be restored The Creature yea this Creature Magistracy or Polity shall be delivered into the glorious liberty of the sons of God and sure the day of its Redemption draws nigh For the Lord hath thrown it into the Furnace and the flames are hot about it Fire hath come out of Abimelech to consume the men of Sechem and fire is 〈◊〉 out of Sechem to destroy Abimelech And under this notion I confesse do I look upon this Tryall of the King and so I can freely acknowledge as the righteous Award and Judgement of the Lord under whose mighty hand we have suffered all these Wars For who gave Jacob to the spoil and Israel to the robbers did not the Lord against whom they had sinned But the end of the Lords judging is purifying not destroying and if the Lord have pleasure in you He may make you not only Tormentors but Judges he may bring you forth to act in the light and to be Instruments in the hand of God of that judgement upon the King that shall be saving even to pull him as a firebrand out of the fire of Tyranny over his people which hath throwen him into this fire of the wrath of his people For a Judge is not sufficiently accomplisht and instructed for his Office if he have not a power to release as well as to condemne to save as well as to destroy as Pilate could say to our Saviour Have not I power to Crucifie thee and power to release thee Otherwise ye answer not your Originall patterne the Lord who where there are two parts as flesh and spirit proceeds with that distinction as that while his left hand brings destruction to the flesh his right hand carries salvation to the spirit And if the day of the Lord be risen upon you and he have made you able to judge and discerne the hidden principles of things ye will exercise this discret●on between the lawfull Authority invested in the Person of the King and his unlawfull usurpation ye will damne this and save the other bringing it forth from all its drosse and flesh that hath made it not onely unprofitable but hurtfull as a vessell for the finer So shall ye be Repairers of our breaches indeed and Restorers of paths to dwell in And if ye doe this the Sword whereby ye must doe it is the Sword of Christs mouth The Spirit of the Lord If this Spirit have brought forth the Person of our Lord Jesus in you who is the true pattern of Government and of all things doe ye bring forth this pattern in your judgement Arraigne the King not at the barr of man but at the tribunall of Jesus Christ shew for who but a King can judge a King what the Spirit and the Government of Christ in union with Man is and compare the King and his government by this patterne in the mount and shew him his failings his narrownesse of Spirit and principle not comprehending his people in himselfe as Christ does not living in their wealth and prosperity as his owne as Christ does not bearing wi●h their weaknesses as Christ does not emptying himselfe to make them rich and happy as Christ does and save the King a labour of recriminating you confesse to him you have beene in the darke too and not seeing the person a●d majesty of the Lord in him ye have not been in such a naturall and affectionate complyance with his honour and grea●nesse as the Memb●rs are with the Head But if ye are not able so to deale wi●h him Th●n turne him over to those that can and to ●he justice and mercy of the Nation and heare what that will speake for him And in behalfe of the life of the King we alleadge That this warr that h●th been upon us was by the judgement of the Lord the Lord did bid the Sword devour and Eate flesh A Kingdome is not so easily nor ordinarily set on flame by Civill Waris without the speciall hand of God the Causes are long a working and the matter was long a gathering If the Lord had not sent an evill Spirit universally among us it was not the Exorbitancy of the will of one man as ye say the King is that could have throwen us into these fl●mes The Lord used the King as an Instrument of his wrath towards us and us as Instruments to powre wrath upon him 2 That in the procuring this wrath had our share with the King wee was overcome of this evill Hee could have brought no evill upon us had not we had it in us Vnder the weight of our flesh aswell as his own did his Government groan and bow down the Kingdome and its policy neither King nor People stood in the Lord in that Union and glory in Spirit and so fell and withered was gathered and burnt Therefore now it concerns both him and us to humble our selves under the mighty hand of God till he exalt us in his due time and not to seek satisfaction on one another other then by being examples to each other of a better carriage grounded on a better principle and union for the future If we will doe justice as indeed we must and take revenge it must be on that King of Babylon that dark deviding principle that is

in both sides that devided us first f●om God our root and then from one another in subordination to the Lord. And we ought not to do any other justice upon him then we shall submit to be done by him upon us which is onely the just and equal settling of our distinct Interests we being both in the transgression that caused the war meritoriously for as for the immediate acting of it I look upon it rather as the judgement of God upon our sin then the sin it self which went long before 3 That the King being supposed in the Law to be an Infant and to act alwayes by his Instruments and Officers of State both in judging what is right and wrong and in executing if inquisition be made for the acting this war upon the People it seems much more equall to be made among those his evill Counsellours and Instruments without whom he could have decreed nothing as Right or Law nor have executed any purpose of war in his heart for his supposed rights And if by the liberty of Conferring honour and greatnesse on Subjects he hath been enabled to have such powerfull influence on them as to create evill Instruments for any purpose that power may be considered and deposited in safer custodie till the kingdom shall find their Princes worthy of it 4 Not onely did his Judges and Privie Counsellors and evill Instruments about him that were not of either House Parliament but also divers Lords and Members of both Houses of Parliament concur to the betraying of the Kings Conscience to the leavying and prosecuting the warre and if it was not the mercy of God to him to enable him to distinguish between these evill Counsellours and th●se that dissented He is the object of pitty in himselfe as he was th●reby the Actor of our misery 5. To execute the King for what he did in prosecuion of the War so undertaken wherein he h●zarded his Person and put his Cause to the decision of bat●ell and especially in a Treaty and after so many invitations to a composure is to shed the blood of War in Peace which is condemned by an authen●ick pen in the like case though the manner of the execution vary and seems no way consistent with the honour of the Faith of the Nation that was g●ven him in severall Treaties 9 That he being a Prisoner of warre and wholly in our power to regulate the exercise of his prerogative as may make it wholsom to the Nation we are upon all the advantage that may be desired to shew generosity and it seems both unsouldierly and unmanly not to be able to give him h●s life at least and a distrusting of God who if he shall despise this goodnes of the Lord towards him can goe beyond him again wherein he shall deal proudly 7 All the power of Arms being now in the hands of that party in the Kingdome that are commonly reputed more famous for their Religion and tendernesse O let him not be cryed down by you who should be able to bring forth the mercy of the great God to sinners if not you that have found mercy Let not your way wherin you walke in a difference from the more carelesse sort of professor be written to generations in this bloody Letter To this I shall adde that if God have appeared yet and come forth to you no otherwise then as upon Mount Sina there are some standing and walking amongst you daily that have seen him upon Mount Sion and have found such mercy that they are able to shew as great mercy as this that is now askt for the King and if you have it not you must give them leave to say That might their Votes be heard No man should fall in Israel this day for doe we not now know that the Lord Jesus hath obtained the Kingdome this day in their hearts and is bringing forth his new Heavens and his new Earth wherein righteousnesse shall dwell yea they see his footsteps taking hold of the world to set up a new Administration of Justice and every thing for with the sword of his mouth ●ill he slay the wicked he is so comming in his People as shall cloath them with terrour to their enemies that they shall not need the Sword of man to defend them but the majestie and brightnesse of the Lord cloa●hing their Persons shall judge and reprove the world ei●her into love and union with them or in●o subjection under them To this administration that is holy pure and gracious and not in letter but in spirit not in forme but in power have all former dark and earthly administrations hitherto served and till th●s we groan and are afflicted under the manifold and wofull miscarriages of all Administrators in the dark and in the letter onely And in the in●erest of ●he glory of this Image and appearance of God to be made forth among men in this first hands●ll of saving the King as well as out of tend●rnesse to ●he justice of the thing doe I plead thus I have not spoken all this as forgetting or unsensible of the great and high provocations of the King in the late horrid War as well as his former miscarriages in Government if the Lord intend mercy to his soule He will accuse and judge himself more then I can or is meet to detain you by and the world shall hear of his unfaigned sorrow and repentance as it hath been fild with the story of his sins but this I know through the Lords mercy and confesse I am one with him that is my flesh is in al the wickednes he hath done and out of my own heart must I coppy forth my accusation against him and so let every one think that judges another 1 If it be objected this plea may be against all Execution of justice though for the horridst facts as murther c. I answer no the Case is farre different between the Exercise of an unlawfull act by no authority as in the case of Theeves and murderers by the high way and the abuse of a lawfull authority as the King did in his misdeeds This latter Crime is aggravated towards God but not so lyable to the stroake of man Or if a divorse may be made between that person and the exercise of that authority he hath so abused which I leave to others to judge it s not so clear that it should be expiated with the losse of life because the person offended not but the King and not the King but his instruments I speak not as to the Lord. 2 If it be objected that blood is required by the law of God for blood I answer first for blood shed in war we finde no account exacted in the case of Abner 2 Sam. 3. but Abners blood avenged on Joah by Davids appointment after Solomon had the Kingdome 2 Nor for bloodshed in Peace is there an indispensable necessitie of making expiation by blood for though I am not of their minde that think it not lawfull or Christian like to shed blood in any Case for any Crime yet I think it not to be indispensably charged upon the maigstrate to shed blood for blood but there may be divers causes to over rule it The execution of Justice being for the Comonwealth and not the Common-wealth for the execution of Justice and therefore the Magistrate hath power to save and remit capitall Crimes as well as to punish them when it is for the Common-wealth Nay thirdly I conceive that whensoever blood may be spared that is those evils may be avoided and those advantages obtained without shedding of blood it ought to be spared And that the Kingdome cannot be settled and the like mischiefes prevented so farre as in man for the future without shedding of the Kings blood doth not appear to me nor I dare say to many more as the probability of as great evils to ensue from home from abroad which God prevent by taking away the Kings life able to ballance the security we promise our selves thereby is evident to all men Therefore pollicie cals not for this piece of Justice And for that conceit of a Sacrifice to God it is legall and Jewish having nothing in it of the light and grace of the Gospel much lesse suitable to the elevation of these times it s to deny the sacrifice of Christ then which there is no other but the sacrifice of praise and of a broken and contrite Spirit which is also his May wee beg the life of the King wee may be thought to run a great hazard should he come again to be a scourge to the Kingdome but the love of God that comes forth in us to save him will provide better things in him Wee have travaild of him once already by our Prayers it may be we must travaile of him a second time Wee are content He that is without sin let him throw the first stone Finis