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
A92231	Three great questions concerning the succession and the dangers of popery fully examin'd in a letter to a Member of this present Parliament.	M. R.	1681 (1681)	Wing R50; ESTC R229912	34,686	24

they were rejected the usages of their own Countrey and the effects of their Princes will in their stead imposed upon the people who Stomaching their being thus enslaved after long grumblings and often calling to be ruled by the Laws of holy Edward they had by firs the restoration of them in great measure especially in the first Harry's days the better to secure his Usurpation But that not continuing at length a Rebellion broke forth produced the confirmation of them in the great Charter or Magna Charta which in the main as the best Lawyers will tel you is nothing else but the repetition or examplification of their old Ordinances and ever since have been the foundation of all our Statutes According to these the people were to be Governed Liberty and Property secured against the incroachments of invaders and Justice to be distributed in the several Shares or Shires of England as in Germany where Tacitus tells us Jura per pagos reddebant For to make their conditions most easie the controversies were to be determined in their own Voisinage by the Hundreder or Lord of the Mannor from whom they might appeal to the Comes or Lord of the Countie who with the assistance of several Aldermanni or Hundreders pronounced sentence Upon this Custom is founded our Judges of Assizes and the several Justices of the Peace their Assessors From this Countie Court the last final Appeal was to the Great Council after the Conquest called by the name of Parliament and composed of the great Lords Spiritual and Temporal assembled in the presence of the King when and where he was pleased to summon them To this general meeting came from all the parts of the Kingdom as manie as were aggrieved either by themselves or their Attorneys or Lawyers And hence it is that we so often find it mentioned not only in Spelman but in Hoveden Malmsbury Marthew Paris and the rest of the Monkish Writers that to this Curia Magna did resort the Princes Lords and Chief men and Causidici ab omni parte Regni From whence arose the mistake in after Ages as if those Lawyers who were only the Attournies and Pleaders of their Clients Causes made any part of the great Council unto which the Commons whatsoever Mr. Bacon Petit or any former Writers can say of their Jurisdiction were not admitted till the latter end of Henrie 3. raign when he observing the difficulties under which his Father had long struggled wisely allow'd them such a constitution and particular Priviledges of their own as might serve to Counterballance the Power of the Lords grown so exorbitant that without due poising and equal Liberation no otherwise to be done It must of necessity endanger the overthrow of the Monarchie and the disturbance of the whole Nation He is therefore to be accounted the first Author of our present Parliamentary usages and after his prescript they to this day receive their Summons and their beeing and yet if we narrowly look into the matter we shall finde they are more altered in Fashion than in substance notwithstanding their often gaining both upon the Crown and the Lords by the Kings first allowance of their management of the purse-string of the Kingdom for the Lords House alone was made and still continues the Court of Judicature the ultimate decider of Appeals where according to their first institution no original Cause was to take place to the house of Commons he has left the first motions of Grants Aids or Subsidies who represent the People now as the Lawyers did before and cannot in Propriety of speech as well as of Justice be called by other name nor allowed greater Power than of Attorneys The write sayes plainly The Lords are to advise and deliberate with the King upon certain weighty affairs of state the Commons to consent do what in such cases the King shal thereupon enact whence it clearly follows that their Power depends wholly upon the Princes pleasure and reaches ex instituto no further than to the matters by him propounded and therefore could not intermeddle with any thing else without his Permission The Commons then were called together to represent the peoples grievances to pray and receive redress as the King with the advice of the Lords should ordain and to signifie so much to the several places for which they serve Printing not being then found out and promulgation being of absolute necessitie to the obligation of all positive constitution To this Council the people flock'd as their business or their humour led them in confus'd multitudes representing by petition their grievances the Lords appointing a Select number of their own first to consider whither they were fit to be propounded to the rest the ground of our present Committees The Commons attending bare-headed for the Resolutions consented to them as do Plaintiffs and Defendants to the Judges decisions in the Courts of Westminster-Hall Hen. 3. as was said before to lessen the power of the Lords and bring a confused Assembly to a Regular meeting ordained everie Shire City and Burrough to send two Knights and two Burgesses as Attorneys for the others yet till sometime after they had no constant Speaker nor those priviledges of which length of time and concessions of Kings have given them possession But as neither nor both Houses have any original Right or Power but as all Creatures do upon the Almighty so their Lives depend upon the Breath of the Princes Nostrils and with his Call or Command come into or go out of the World so has the King on the other side condescended and promised That he will not without their Consents and Approbations repeal old nor make any new Statutes but more particularly in thirty three Parliaments he has confirmed the Foundation of all Magna Charta the boundaries of their Libertie and his Prerogative and in three declar'd it so much unalterable that any Act of Parliament or Judgement made or given contrary to it shall be and is hereby made ipso facto null and void And that with good reason for this being the Summary of all ancient Laws and Customs and the exact Rule and Measure of Right and Wrong as well between the King and his Subjects as between one another made or confirmed anew by the unanimous consent of every individual Person of full years at the first coming into the Kingdom and submitting to the Government of Hengist and his Successors and conformable to the Laws of Nature of Nations Quod tibi non vis fieri alteri non feceris ought without dispute to remain sacred and inviolable and to be imprinted in the minds of all free-born Subjects and carried about with them in their understandings as the Phylacteries of old in the Garments of the Jews By all which 't is plain that as the Kings Image and Inscription makes the Coin so his Approbation or Fiat makes the Laws current and consequently the supreme Legislative Power is solely vested in him

worse and more dangerous Jesuits as their Doctrines are in English openly maintained whilst the other publickly disavow what they are accus'd of Those all with one voice say Dominion is jure divino the others say 't is founded in Grace and deriv'd from the People in trust who upon male administration may resume their first Grant dethrone and murder their Sovereign in spite of all the obligations of Oaths and Promises of Faith and Allegiance Now though it 's possible both Parties may be mistaken yet I am sure the Papists Errour is on the safest side for Princes Consider Sir seriously and tell me if you find not of the two the Jesuits of Glascow and Geneva more pernicious to Peace and Government than those of Rome or St. Omers Compare their Pract●…es and their Principles and try whether the Paris Massacre of 40000 by D'avila and as is plain in Story a politick Stratagem be not seventy times exceeded by the Warr of that Country and Germany to name no more upon the score of Reformation Whether the much-nois'd Numbers slain in Ireland computed by the Ingenious and Learned Sir William Petry on both sides during the whole Rebellion not above 36000 in a conquer'd Country set on foot for their Liberty and Estates not for Religion be not far outdone by the late Rebellion of England contriv'd and carried on by the Godly party This was not Christ's Method of planting the Gospel 't is the Sword of the Spirit and not that of the flesh that must propagate Religion yet excepting our own Country where it came not in dry-shod have not the Reformers every where waded deep in Blood in opposition to popery I need not instance the Countries are obvious and 't is an undeniable Truth that there has been ten times more War and Bloud shed on the score of Religion since Luther and Calvin's time then was in all the parts of Europ before while popery was at the highest But besides all this the Vote of the late House of Commons has most certainly secured on that side all danger to the King 's Sacred Person Whom God long preserve for if now any should be so mad as to be Authors of so great an Impiety considering the vast inequalities of their Numbers they could not expect less then the loss of their own Lives and of the whole party therefore by that Vote they are not only charmed into Loyalty if otherwise disposed but qualified to guard the King's Person if admitted from the attempts of any other Conspirators so that their mutual safeties depend upon each other And therefore it were adviseable since other acts forbid their access to Court for all the Papists to quit their Country or their Religion lest they might hereafter smart for the Act of Nature or the wickedness of any other Faction if not likely at least not impossible Sacred and profane story furnishes us with many instances of plots made by one and father'd on another party And the beast in the Apologue with a Lump of Flesh on his Fore-head was not imprudent in quitting the Forrest upon the Lyons proclamation That all horned Beasts should at their peril depart for when he was asked why he ran away he answered If the Lyon said the Lump was a Horn it would be in vain for him to contend or after hope an escape And really I see no security in the change of Religon since people are so imposed upon to swallow Gudgeons in believing if that indeed they do what they so loudly speak that after all Oaths Tests and Sacraments they are still Papists in Masquerade and have Bulls and Dispensations for dissembling and perjury a Supposition not only idiculous but reflective upon the Wisdom of the Parliament for if no mark of discrimination nor scent can be found to discover the blown Deer and separate them from the rest of the Herd 't is in vain to hunt and the Parliament have taken great pains to find out papists but to no purpose a censure no less severe upon them than 't would be folly in the Pope to expect Obedience from those he absolved from all Obligations For the Oaths do not only allow them to swear Fealty and Homage to one Prince but bind them to renounce all others and being so taken in the plain literal Sence and Acceptation of the Words there can be no reserve For however the Jesuits are accused to allow Equivocation and mental Reservation they are not yet arrived to that impudence of owning to the World so monstrous an Impiety And therefore I hope the new Sheriffs of London re abused by their Friend who publishes their having taken the Oathes and Abjurations in their own meanings and tell us that how contrary soever that may be to the plain Words yet 't is conformable to the Sense and Intention of the Imposers the Parliament A new Doctrine I confess and very expressive of a tender Conscience For if you examine it aright you will find it turns the design of Oaths into Folly leaving them no force nor Men under any Obligation For it is all one to swear and not to swear at all if the taker of the Oath may do it in his own and not in the Imposers Sense it reconciles extreams makes a narrow half-pynt City Conscience and one as large and wide as the great Tun of Heidelberg the same Here will be no longer stumbling at straws nor leaping over Blocks straining at a Gnat and swallowing a Camel will be a Jest all will go down with equal ease and all tyes between King and Subjects will cease the Oaths of Coronation and Allegiance are Fopperies Chaff to cath the credulous neither will be perjured if the one prove a Tyrant or the other a Rebel So monstrous a Tenet ought not to scape publick Animadversion And I do as verily believe a Jesuit sham'd that Pamphlet upon the Sheriffs as that the Papists made Venner's plot and the two following of 1662 and 1666. altho in their stead the poor innocent Fifth Monarchy men and Phanaticks paid the reckoning at Tyburn But if indeed there were Dispensations to he had is it supposable by Men Fools may take a Wind-Mill for an inchanted Castle and Don Quixor like fight against the wind that any would forfet Liberty Fortune or Country much more Life it self as is notorious many have done rather than take these Oaths There is then no cause to fear the Papists will be undiscoverable or that they can be terrible considering the smallness of their Number tho the D. of Y. should come to govern For besides that it would not be in his Power nor for his Interest as is already shewn to innovate the Constitutions of Church and State nothing like it can be dreaded from his Character which all knowing and disinterested Persons will thus give you That he is a Prince of so many admirable Endowments and excellent Qualifications both by Nature by Art as make it a question to