Selected quad for the lemma: city_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
city_n	great_a	king_n	people_n	9,166	5	4.4099	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50955	The tenure of kings and magistrates proving that it is lawfull, and hath been held so through all ages, for any who have the power, to call to account a tyrant, or wicked king, and after due conviction, to depose and put the author, J.M.	Milton, John, 1608-1674.	1649 (1649)	Wing M2181; ESTC R21202	25,266	46

enthrone him why may not the peoples act of rejection be as well pleaded by the people as the act of God and the most just reason to depose him So that we see the title and just right of reigning or deposing in reference to God is found in Scripture to be all one visible onely in the people and depending meerly upon justice and demerit Thus farr hath bin considerd briefly the power of Kings and Magistrates how it was and is originally the peoples and by them conferrd in trust onely to bee imployd to the common peace and benefit with libertie therfore and right remaining in them to reassume it to themselves if by Kings or Magistrats it be abus'd or to dispose of it by any alteration as they shall judge most conducing to the public good Wee may from hence with more ease and force of argument determin what a Tyrant is and what the people may doe against him A Tyrant whether by wrong or by right comming to the Crowne is he who regarding neither Law nor the common good reigns onely for himself and his faction Thus St. Basil among others defines him And because his power is great his will boundless and exorbitant the fulfilling whereof is for the most part accompanied with innumerable wrongs and oppressions of the people murders massacres rapes adulteries desolation and subversion of Citties and whole provinces look how great a good and happiness a just King is so great a mischeife is a Tyrant as hee the public Father of his Countrie so this the common enemie Against whom what the people lawfully may doe as against a common pest and destroyer of mankinde I suppose no man of cleare judgement need goe surder to be guided then by the very principles of nature in him But because it is the vulgar folly of men to desert thir owne reason and shutting thir eyes to think they see best with other mens I shall shew by such examples as ought to have most waight with us what hath bin don is this case heretofore The Greeks and Romans as thir prime Authors witness held it not onely lawfull but a glorious and Heroic deed rewarded publicly with Statues and Garlands to kill an infamous Tyrant at any time without tryal and but reason that he who trod down all Law should not bee voutsaf'd the benefit of Law Insomuch that Seneca the Tragedian brings in Hercules the grand suppressor of Tyrants thus speaking Victima haud ulla amplior Potest magisque opima mactari Jovi Quam Rex iniquus There can be slaine No sacrifice to God more accetable Then an unjust and wicked King But of these I name no more lest it bee objected they were Heathen and come to produce another sort of men that had the knowledge of true Religion Among the Jews this custome of tyrant-killing was not unusual First Ehud a man whom God had raysd to deliver Israel from Eglon King of Moab who had conquerd and rul'd over them eighteene yeares being sent to him as an Ambassador with a present slew him in his owne house But hee was a forren Prince an enemie and Ehud besides had special warrant from God To the first I answer it imports not whether forren or native For no Prince so native but professes to hold by Law which when he himselfe overturnes breaking all the Covnants and Oaths that gave him title to his dignity and were the bond and alliance between him and his people what differs he from an outlandish King or from an enemie For looke how much right the King of Spaine hath to govern us at all so much right hath the King of England to govern us tyrannically If he though not bound to us by any league comming from Spaine in person to subdue us or to destroy us might lawfully by the people of England either bee slaine in fight or put to death in captivity what hath a native King to plead bound by so many Covnants benefits and honours to the welfare of his people why he through the contempt of all Laws and Parlaments the onely tie of our obedience to him for his owne wills sake and a boasted praerogative unaccountable after sev'n years warring and destroying of his best subjects overcom and yeilded prisoner should think to scape unquestionable as a thing divine in respect of whom so many thousand Christians destroy'd should lye unaccounted for polluting with thir slaughterd carcasses all the Land over and crying for vengeance against the living that should have righted them Who knows not that there is a mutual bond of amity and brotherhood between man and man over all the World neither is it the English Sea that can sever us from that duty and relation a straiter bond yet there is between fellow-subjects neighbours and friends But when any of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to another so as hostility 〈…〉 doth the Law decree less against them then oepn enemies and invaders or if the Law be not present or too weake what doth it warrant us to less then single defence or civil warr and from that time forward the Law of civill defensive Warr differs nothing from the Law of forren hostility Nor is it distance of place that makes enmitie but enmity that makes distance He therefore that keeps peace with me neer or remote of whatsoever Nation is to mee as farr as all civil and human offices an Englishman and a nighbour but if an Englishman forgetting all Laws human civil and religious offend against life and libertie to him offended and to the Law in his behalf though born in the same womb he is no better then a Turk a Sarasin a Heathen This is Gospel and this was ever Law among equals how much rather then in force against any King whatsoever who in respect of the people is coufessd inferior and not equal to distinguish therfore of a Tyrant by outlandish or domestic is a weak evasion To the second that he was an enemie I answer what Tyrant is not yet Eglon by the Jewes had bin acknowledgd as thir Sovran they had servd him eighteen yeares as long almost as wee our VVilliam the Conqueror in all which time he could not be so unwise a Statesman but to have tak'n of them Oaths of Fealty and Allegeance by which they made themselves his proper subjects as thir homage and present sent by Ehud testifyd To the third that he had special warrant to kill Eglon in that manner it cannot bee granted because not expressd t is plain that he was raysd by God to be a Deliverer and went on just principles such as were then and ever held allowable to deale so by a Tyrant that could no otherwise be dealt with Neither did Samuell though a Profet with his owne hand abstain from Agag a forren enemie no doubt but mark the reason As thy Sword hath made women childless a cause that by the sentence of Law it selfe nullifies all relations And as the Law is between Brother and Brother