Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n
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A42492
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The religious & loyal protestation of John Gauden, Dr. in Divinity, against the present declared purposes and proceedings of the army and others about the trying and destroying our Soveraign Lord the King sent to a collonell to bee presented to the Lord Fairfax and his generall councell of officers, the fift of January 1648 [O.S.]
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Gauden, John, 1605-1662.
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1649
(1649)
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Wing G367; ESTC R18555
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7,799
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18
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which that is humane Justice I thinke to be fixed and immovable either as to those generall expresses which are in Gods written word or those setled Lawes of humane societies by which his Providence for the good of men hath in wayes of publique and Nationall consent cleerely brought forth that light of common and politick reason which but dimly shines in mans heart singly and apart the divine goodnesse confining by such publique and setled regulations those exorbitant varieties to which mens private Reason Will and Power are prone to breake forth in the fulfilling of their particular Lusts to the injury of their Neighbours and the detriment of the publique good I confesse I am not able to resolve my selfe by any thing yet set forth as to any grounds of God's or Man's Lawes or your own sometime declared Principles so as in the least kind to justify what you formerly or lately have done without and against the minde of the two Houses of Parliament yet I see much of Gods light in their and your darknesse of his Order and Glory in these Common Confusions But there are many Persons of abilities far beyond mine who in the point of their Priviledges are more Personally concerned to vindicate and assert them against the impressions by force upon them who were undoubtedly the fathers and fountaine of your Power as Soldiers and their Commission the Limitter as well as Licencer of your Military Actions What is past upon the Houses can only have such a remedy and reparation as Providence shall see meete to grant That which strikes my Soule with the greatest horror and astonishment is how to reconcile your declared purposes against the King either with the faire opinion I desire to retaine of your Persons or with that common tendernesse and duty which both you and my selfe ought to beare toward his Majesty The Justice you pretend to doe against him seemes to mee most questionable both for the matter or merit as also for the manner and forme of the doing it Since no power that I know hath or can under Heaven invest you with any Authority to doe what you seeme to intend The Lawes of this Kingdom I presume your selves confesse and others have evidently evinced are fully against you giving no Subjects in any Case Judiciall power over the life of their King or his Soveraigntie The Word of God so farre as he hath given me to understand it neither affords any Precept nor commends any example in this kinde to your imitation but in both is absolutely against you you cannot be ignorant of Davids both Conscientious and Generous respect to Sauls safety and life whom he leaves to Gods Justice by no usurpation of power successe or oportunities of revenge suffers himselfe to bee tempted to prevent the hand of God Never any man in the Church of God of any name for piety and holynesse are recorded to have done any such Act of violence against their lawfull Kings such as ours is confessed to be never did Christ or his Apostles by practice or precept give the least intimation of the will of his father as agreeing to what you declare to bee your purposes yea I am fully perswaded in my Soule that if my Saviour Jesus Christ were now living upon Earth he would bee utterly against your Councels and Actions in this point agreeable to whose most holy minde doctrine and example all Christians that have truly feared God have also honoured their Kings Such hath beene the violence of pretorian Souldiers Janisaries and Mamalukes such as have followed a Caesar or a Scilla or a Marius not knowing the minde of God in Christ But never of any Christian Souldiers living in the power of Godlinesse So that being thus wholy destitute of any support from God's word or Man's Lawes either for rule or example to game my approbation to what you meane to perpetrate in a way exposed to so many horrid aggravations Truly I should thinke it not only my infinite sinne to declare for you but even by my silence to betray you in other things so gallant men as much as in mee lies to so great and almost unexpiable a sinne where you being destitute of any cleere grounds must needs sin more against the cleere light which shines upon you and against your proceedings since to your Soules I owe and beare a great Charity next to the salvation of mine owne Furthermore by my silence I should faile of that poore remainder of duty which yet lies as the last point of my power to expresse to my Soveraigne Lord and King being one of his Subjects and upon whom the many Oâ—thes of God doe by obliegeing mee to desire and in all faire waies to promote His both Honour and Safety You seem to take the first and greatest rise for the justification of your proceedings from those advantages of meere natural or martiall power which are in your hands of which you can have no comfort as any token of Gods gracious and speciall favour to you though never so prosperous unlesse you have his feare before your eyes which teacheth you to refraine and depart from doing evill by keeping the exercise of your Power within those bounds of morall and politicall good to which God calls you by his Word the Lawes of the Land and most particularly by your owne derived Commission To all which not onely the prime ties of Conscience to God and Allegiance to the KING but those also of Honour Faithfulnesse Modesty and Limited Trust from the Parliament should oblige you as men of true worth and sober valour whose will should never be the measure of their Power as is in Pyrats and Robbers but their Power is and alwaies ought to be conteined in those Religious and Honourable bounds wherein Godly men alwaies keep their mortified and subdued wills as DAVID did when he had to the personall injuries offer'd to him the advantages added both of Power and Opportunity against King SAUL for that of Samuel's severity against AGAG you know that neither is the KING an Agag to you nor you as Samuel to Him Your next support seemes to be setled upon the Peoples Petitioning and seeming to Assent to what you intend to doe when as I am very confident and your selves cannot be ignorant of That if Free suffrages or Subscriptions of all the People were taken in the three Kingdomes you would find twenty to one against your Judgment and Proceedings and these of very grave sober and considerable men So that I cannot in order to my owne and others eternall peace with God but in all freedome yet with all meeknesse and due respects but exhibit to you as the chief Conusellours and Managers of the present Designes against the KING this my Loyall and Religious Protestation against it and earnest obtestation of you not to bring upon your souls and the Kingdome as much as in you lies the bloud of HIS MAJESTY the Lords Anointed That I may at least as Joseph
THE RELIGIOUS LOYAL PROTESTATION OF JOHN GAUDEN Dr. in Divinity Against the present Declared Purposes and Proceedings of the Army and others About the trying and destroying our Soveraign Lord the KING Sent to a Collonell to bee Presented to the Lord FAIRFAX And His Generall Councell of Officers the fift of January 1648. Imprimatur Ja Cranford LONDON Printed for RICHARD ROYSTON dwelling in Ivie Lane Anno Domini 1648. To the Reader NOt any vaâ—ty or ostentâ—tioâ— of â—old and uâ—eâ—oâ—able freedomes which are not worth the hazâ—â—â— or dâ—â—splâ—aâ—ures they may â—â—tract but onely duty and integâ—iâ—y â—ommâ—â—ndâ—â—ng me resolutely to looke at Gods glory and the diâ—charge of my owne Conscience both to God and Man 〈…〉 these ensuing Papers 〈…〉 which I lately with all â—umâ—lity and chaâ—ity presented by the hand of a Colonell my worthy friend to his 〈◊〉 and the rest of the Councell of Warre Indeed I am perswaâ—â—d that Goâ— requires and looks 〈◊〉 in the generall over-awings of mens spirits who behold the Army moâ—e with terrour than with love and charity which I doe not some men 〈◊〉 to assert both his righteousnesse and their owne uprightnesse amidst and against the crooked and perverse motions of others in this untoward Generation which is ready to father upon God and the Christian Reformed Religion one of the most adulierous deformed and prodigious issues that ever the corrupt hearts of the men of this world conceived their unbridled power brought forth or the Sun beheld Wherefore as not by my assent so neither by my silence must I have any hand in the midwifery of so monstrous productions which seeme to threaten the ruine of the King and the subverting the fundamentall constitutions of Parliament Lawes and Liberties Next to the betraying and killing of Christ was their sin who either denied or deserted Him The impetuous torrent of present power having broken all banks of Ancient Legall Formes affaires seeme now let out to such generall and popular diffusions that they admit no other restraints but those which the common Peoples assents or dissents mâ—y give to them It is hard if among such a multitude of men all our Oaths Protestations and Covenants sacred and civill ties will not obtaine so much of Loyall and religious Subjects as by a word or two both decently and seasonably to enterpose when as the Lord liveth there seems to be but a step between the life of our Soveraign Lord the King and some violent death Me thinks I heare His Majesty in His Agony solitude and expectation of an enforced death calling to me and all other His Subjects You that never believed My Life was sought after in the bottome of this Warre but My safety and Honour you that never fought for Me yet professed to abhorre the fighting destinately against Me or destroying of Me Cannot you dare not you now speak one word to save My Life and your own Soules shall your silence seem to encourage and make up their saffrages who therefore pretend they may and will destroy Me because it pleaseth you and the generality of My people For my owne part as I hope to have communion with God in Christ I dare not have any fellowship with so foule a sinne as the Killing of the King but rather I ought to reprove it and fairly contest against it whatever His sin may be yet I thinke Him not criminall or obnoxious to any Tribunall but that of God whose Deputation Authority or Commission they can in no sort that I see produce to any satisfaction of religious minds who at present undertake to be His Tryers Judges Condemners and Destroyers onely because the KING is in their power Whereas Gods Commission warranting such an Act ought to have not onely the stamp and image of prevalent power on one side which the most flagitious actions oft have but also the superscription of his word and the expresse signatures of his will in the municipall Lawes on the other side by all which power is derived limited and warranted to act with moderation and righteousnesse I beseech God to restrain power to soften hearts and to frustrate those purposes which to me seem to have so much of sinne Hell and horrour that if I hated the Actors the most of any men which God knowes I doe not but love and pity them and pray for them I could not shew my hatred more against them than by wishing them ingaged and suffering them to go on and thus to fill up the measure of their sinnes by destroying Him for whom I have alwaies been taught and now most of all to think it my duty to cry aloud GOD SAVE THE KING So clearly poynting that ambiguous Verse which most men are afraid to doe Regem occidere noli Timere bonum est TO His Excellency the Ld. FAIRFAX And his Generall Councell of Warre RIght-Honorable and Honored Gentlemen Your Power and Actions render you terrible but that candor and affability which you say you beare to all makes you accessible and invites Addresses to you even from those who differ from you I am one of the least considerable of many as to any contesting with you or obstructing your proceedings yet since some of you yesterday invited me or any man to a free declaring of our judgements in order to the great Affaires you are now upon wherein although your selves as principall are most concerned yet my selfe and others are like to be involved in the successe of your actions both as to my temporall and eternall well-fare if I either approve or dissent My humble Request to you is That without contracting your displeasure I may use that liberty which God and Reason hath allowed me and your selves have not yet forbiden to me or others in this way Happily I might with more safety in silence tremble before and humbly adore the Justice and Power of the great God which he hath â—y your meanes and yet may carry on further against the sins of this Nation yet I consider not you only but my selfe am highly responsible both to God and Man for what you doe and I seem to consent unto in matters so enormous of so vast and publique influence both to the present Age and Posteritie You are not ignorant that Successe is a great Bribe and Snare to the Judgement where the heart is not very watchfull over it selfe and much in Prayer to God for his wisedom and Grace which is most set forth in the using Successes humbly and honestly to the advantages of Piety and Charity Prosperous Power is loth to stop it selfe with moderate bounds or to suspect it selfe either to want or goe beyond the line and limits of Justice It is compassed about with many applauders and flatterers who easilie mistake the fact it selfe or the confidence of the Agents for the rule of Righteousnesse and interpret Gods permission of what may bee very wicked and un-just as his approbation and witnessing to their Justice The rule and standard of