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	people_n	power_n	4,914	5	5.4287	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89323	The Armies dutie; or, Faithfull advice to the souldiers: given in two letters written by severall honest men, unto the Lord Fleetwood Lieutenant-Generall of the Armie, and now published for the instruction of the whole Armie, and the good people of this Common-wealth.	H. M.; Fleetwood, Charles, d. 1692.	1659 (1659)	Wing M28; Thomason E980_12; ESTC R202841	20,242	29

reign and the people their tenants at will or at best for life upon conditions of service in war proportionable to the value af their farms whereby the Turk keeps an absolute power over his subject by their dependance upon his will for their bread and with his own proper revenue is able also to maintain an army of strangers to strengthen the other tie he hath upon his vassalls and upon this root of his property to the eye of humane reason his power has grown to that monstrous height Others kingdomes have been built upon the property in the lands which the Monarchs Peers have had joyntly with and under him so were these Western dominions after their conquest by the Northern people who divided a land when conquered into so many parcels as they had great Officers leaving the choice of the best and largest share to their Prince or leader he becoming their King and the chief Officers holding their large shares on him by some small acknowledgements became his Dukes Counts and Earls and the common souldiers who came indeed to seek a countrey to inhabit holding together with the poor natives some small parcels of land under those g eat-men upon such conditions as made them wholly dependant upon their Landlords and thus these Dukes and Earls paying homage and fealty and small acknowledgements to the Prince became princes in their own divisions and thus the interest of the King and his Peers over-weighed the properties of all other the Inhabitants whereupon the power of our ancient Monarchy was founded and the Kings chief Officers were the tenants and vassalls of his Peers to whom he sent upon occasion of trouble forreign or domestick to leavy arms who gathered their vassalls together and either assisted the King or fought against him as they l●ked the quarrell their souldiers never daring to dispute their Lords commands knowing no immediate Lord but them Thus was the Kings power lesse or greater as he agreed with his Peers they having been able as your Lord ship knows to make and unmake Kings of England as they pleased and if their propertie in the lands had so remained nothing could have shaken the Monarchs power if he had kept an union with them but the inferiour people grew by degrees to better their tenures and to make some of their estates hereditary upon easie fines at every change as our coppy-holders of inheritance and some to have their estates their own free hold and in fine they came to abolish in England the tenures of vassailage vill●uinage which is yet in practice amongst our neigh-bour natiōs whose Monarchies stand by so much the stronger and the people having got a better interest in the lands soon obtained some share in the government they were then thought fit to be summoned to the national meetings then called Gamont since a Parliament to consider what way to supply their King with money which was to come only from their purses and properties the nobles then as now in France payiny no Tax or Tollage and the sense they had of their own properties in the lands made them soon after challenge it as their right that their King could take no tax toll or tollage unlesse they were pleased to give it him in their Parliaments and then the peoples yoakes growing more easy their wealth increased and lands being commonly suffered to be alienated the multitude became the purchasers and some bought off their serviccs that still remained due to their Lords and others bought their Lords lands who proved prodigalls and as occasion was offered the Churches lands and this together with some Kings endeavours to abate the power of their Peers in their Countreys reduced the English Peerage to an empty name the greatest quantity of the lands and with those the power being fallen into the Commons hands before the Warr who being then sensible they neither depended upon the King nor his Peers for their Bread conceived themselves obliged to serve none but God and therefore ought not to be commanded or to have lawes imposed upon them by the King or his Peers judging it the right of a people whose property rendred them free and independent to chuse their own lawes and Magistrates being intended onely for the preservation of their own properties and liberties and thus did our House of Commons gradually grow to that power which in latter time proved formidable to the Kings there wanting nothing to the destructon of the Throne whose pillars were broken but an occasion for the people to feel the power they had this was the naturall cause of our late Kings projecting to have brought German Horse or an Irish Army into England a mercenary Army being the last refuge of a Monarch devested of his Nobility though that also will prove but a violent dead prop and soon rotten unlesse he can suddainly reassume a greater property give them root by an interest in the lands upon conditions of serving him And this was the cause of the Kings raising his Guard at York and leaving the VVarre being the last means to support his power therefore we may say that the dying pangs of a Monarchial power in England caused our VVarrs as his violent stranglings for life much rather then that the VVarre caused the destruction of Monarchiall power the Parliaments Army did indeed prevent a possibility of the resurrection of that power by a forcible changing the property in the lands and so reviving a new Monarchy but the old was dead by a kind of natural desolution before the Parlament voted it uselesse burdensome and dangerous for surely 't is neither of the three where and so long as it's single property in the lands or in union with his Nobility makes the people live upon him and them though 't is most certainly all the three where it must be fed upon the peoples properties like the Snake in the Rustick's house till it be able to oppresse them My Lord wee hope it will be clear to your Lordship that England is now become an unnatural soyl for a Monarch The Governor of the World by various providences hath so divided the land amongst the bulk of the people that they can live of themselves without serving and it is preposterous to impose a Monarch upon us as to make a law that the weaker shall alwaies binde the stronger we believe it no less impossible to establish a lasting Monarch in England without alteration of the interest the multitude hath in the lands and naturall power then it were to settle a firm lasting free State or Commonwealth in the Turkish Territories suffering the Ottoman to Family to remain the sole Landlord of the Territories as now he is and we suppose that obvious objection that England hath been a Monarchy for many hundred years is clearly answered from what we have said if you will take us as conquered as much by your Army as by the Normans and think to settle a Monarchy like theirs in a

not to be justified by the morall Lawes The holie God directs his People only into the paths of Righteousnesse that is such Actions as agree with his Lawes 1 Iohn 3. 7 8 10. He that doth not Righteousness is not of God His Providences and his Lawes always speak the same things neither let any man deceive you with pretence of necessitie that constrains you to desert your old Principles for the People of Gods sake and to advance Christs Kingdome For 't is not possible there should be necessitie to transgresse a Divine naturall Law that is Eternall there may be cases of extream inevitable necessitie that may disoblige a man from some Divine positive Lawes because a Superior that is a Divine naturall Law may oblige him in that case Therefore in everie case of highest necessities the immutable Lawes of Nature ought to be Guides and Commanders of what is to be done And if your Lordship can make your Actions or Omissions consist with those neither God nor his People will blame you And in so doing onelie you can advance Christs Kingdome For then is he exalted when supream Reverence and absolute subjection is given to his Fathers Lawes in the deniall of our selves in all Countermands and Temptations and when the sword of the Spirit is used to increase the number of such Subjects For this Scepter Throne and Wars are of and in Righteousness Therefore we beseech your Lordship without hesitation or delay pursue the exaltation of Christ and his Kingdom in following in simplicity and integrity of heart after those righteous ends you proposed and declared in the late warre and unto which you have obliged your self by all the sacred Bonds of humane societie be not affrighted with some Parasites bugbears of Confusion if you shake the Diana by which they hope to subsist fear not assistance from every honest heart in England and though some pretenders to honesty may out of cowardise or ambition or covetousness cry ther 's a Beare and a Lion in the way yet even they shall run after you when they see you forward in your way And to avoid delayes let us beseech your Lordship first to examine your conscience presently what you can answer to the blood of any poor Saint shed that cries in your ears to settle that Libertie and Justice in his Countrie for which he shed his blood under your command Secondly what you can answer to the blood of Thousands of the enemies which are esteemed by God as murdered by you if the Iustifick cause of the war be not effectually prosecuted Will not their blood crie to God and say Lord this Fleetwood killed us upon pretence that we should have destroied the Liberties of the People of God in imposing Arbitrarie power upon them which we did ignorantlie And he hath done the same thing and made or suffered more heavie Yokes to be imposed Pray remember it The Scripture saith Thinkest thou O Man that judgest another and doest the same things thy selfe that thou shalt escape the iudgement of God Rev. 1. 3 4. Thirdly We beseech you to examine what Cause you now maintain with constant expence of blood and the Peoples Estates and how you can give an account to God for it Remember what are the causes for which God alloweth mens blood to be shed without blood-guiltinesse in him that causeth it and trie whether that be one to make a Nation greater slaves to Iohn a Styles and his Confederates then they would have been to Iohn a Nokes But we praie your Lordship if it be possible that anie pretence can be found for it state a justifick Cause of your present posture of Arms that thousands of tender consciences may be satisfied how to pray for you in any of your present designes if God should not honour you in the work which they now expect from You. Now My Lord if we would plead with you by worldly Arguments or motives that concern your self it were easie to evince that safetie honour and greatness to your self and familie can be certainlie compassed by no other means then by returning to the Principles from whence you are fallen your daily tenors that now attend you and your Counsells would soon vanish you might have above threescore thousand men of honest principles that would take themselves concern'd to be in armes at an houres warning to assist you and this without second charge and an armie of praiers 2. times as great indeed who would or could hurt you if you were a naked sincere follower of that which is good We appeal to your conscience whether you do not believ that your late Father was more safe with a Foot-boy onelie following him in the streets when he was believed to intend that good that your Lordship may if you please effect then he was afterwards when he was believed to intend his own ambition invironed with Guards and enclosed with locks and bolts without number Indeed the onelie meanes of safetie for such as will exercise great power over a people to the subjection of their liberties is a mercenarie Armie And if that consists of some of the same people their interest will change as often as they get estates that are of more value then their pay and then they will be readie to conspire with any of the people to provide libertie and securitie of their estate for their children and then the power of the Tirants shake And of how manie slaughters of the Kings of Israell do we read by their own service if mercenarie strangers be intended to be Guards for Rulers in England our Ancestors taught us the way when they were not so well instructed in their libertie to ridd our selves of them in a night But if your own person could be secure for a while what will be the portion of your familie if their persons and estates be left to the mercie of him that gets uppermost And if you expect greatnesse or honor consider whose names are delivered to us from former ages with reverence and esteem and who have been most admired honored and obeyed by their countrey and people Can a Dionysius compare command or fain with a Tymoleon was ever great Cyrus or Alexander obeyed like the poor young Fisher-boy Massinello in Naples whil'st the people imagin'd he sought a settlement of their libertie But we suppose the sense and remembrance of your dutie to God and his people should be of greater weight in your Lordships heart then all the conceits of the earth therefore we also forbear to mind you of the improbabilitie of setling this Nation according to the rules of pollicie upon anie other basis then their libertie the lands interests of this Nation being so dispersed with so much equalitie that whosoever shall attempt to invade our liberties will not find an interest able to overballance the peoples interest and therefore cannot long maintain a Dominion over them But we forbear to mention this Capital politick consideration