Selected quad for the lemma: power_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
power_n	king_n	law_n	limit_v	3,744	5	10.3160	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85862	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 Councell of Warre, this fift of January 1648.	Gauden, John, 1605-1662.; Fairfax, Thomas Fairfax, Baron, 1612-1671.	1649 (1649)	Wing G368; Thomason E538_11; ESTC R204232	7,729	15

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 Councell of Warre this fift of January 1648. Jan 15th London Printed in the Yeare 1648. C R HONI SOIT QVI MAL Y PENSE To the Reader NOt any vanity or ostentation of bold and unseasonable freedomes which are not worth the hazards and displeasures they may contract but onely duty and integrity commanding me resolutely to looke at Gods glory and the discharge of my owne Conscience both to God and Man hath made these ensuing Papers become publique which I lately with all humility and charity presented by the hand of a Colonell my worthy friend to his Excellency and the rest of the Councell of Warre Indeed I am perswaded that God requires and looks for in the generall over-awings of mens spirits who behold the Army more with terrour than with love and charity which I doe not some men speedily 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 adulterous 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 may give to them It is hard if among such a multitude of men all our Oaths Protestation 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 suffrages 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 signature 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 right eousnesse 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 honour 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 Jan 10. 1648. JOHN GAUDEN 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 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 by 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 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 time 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 beard 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 suffer 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 Casar 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 gaine 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 awe and beare a great Charity next to the salvation of mine owne Furthermore by 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 Oathes of God doe by obliegeing mee to desire and in all faire wayes to promote his hoth honour and safety You seeme to take the first and greatest rise for the justification of your proceedings from those advantages of meere naturall or martiall power which are in your hands of which you can have no comfort as any token of God's 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 only the prime ties of Conscience to God and Allegeance to the King but those also of Honour Faithfulnesse Modesty and limited Trust from the Parliament should obliege you as men of true worth and sober valour whose will should never bee the measure of their Power as is in Pyrats and Robbers but their Power is and alwaies ought to bee conteined in those Religious and Honourable bounds wherein Godly men allwaies keepe their mortified and subdued wills as David did when hee had to the personall in juries offer'd to him the advantages added both of Power and Oportunity 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 bee 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 this of very grave sober and considerable men So that I cannot in oder to my owne and others eternall peace with God but in all freedome yet with all meekenesse and due respects but exhibit to you as the chiese Councellors Mannagers of eht present designes against the King this my Loyall and Religious protestation against it and earnest obtestation of you not to bring upon your soules and the Kingdome as much as in you lyes the blood of His Majesty the Lords Anoynted

That I may at least as Joseph of Aremathea keepe my selfe unspotted from it whose voice cannot but cry as much louder then any other mans unjustly shed as the blood of Adam would have done if Cain had slaine him being his father instead of Abel his brother You know the Caveat of the wise King Solomon given and repeated There is a way which seemeth right unto a man but the end thereof are the wayes of Death Prov. 14.12 16.25 I beseech you therefore in the name of God and for the love of Jesus Christ let not your being advanced so farre be any hindrance to your penitent and just retreat to which I thinke God cals you as by many others worthier and ablet then my selfe so by this my humble Remonstrance in which my unfeigned charity to your soules eternall good as well as the Kings and Kingdomes temporall welfare may and will with men that have any touches of Gods Spirit in them plead my excuse for my thus presuming to contradict your Councells or intercept your proceedings Matters of so high a nature should either not be attempted or publiquely argued with the greatest calmenesse clearnesse and freedome the last of which you have so obstructed that most of those Lords and Gentlemen who are as much related to the King and interessed in the Affaires of the Kingdome as your selves are denyed to use or injoy it I beseech you to remember what mercies you proclaime to the world God hath already shewed you what mercies you may yet stand in need of what pretentions and assurances of Moderation and Loyalty you sometimes made to the King O let not the World find in the event that your pretended mercies were intended cruelties After so long and so hard a restraint which the King hath suffered with so much patience after so many Concessions to his own diminutions in order to the satisfaction of the Parliament the Kingdomes and the Armies Interest both joynt and severall how can you in coole bloud without any colour of due Authority from God or Man destroy your and our King who cast himself into His Subjects Armes and was received with all assurances of safety and Honour If His Majesty erred in His Judgment or Councell which put Him and He thought upon the necessary vindication of His just Rights against those whom He was jealous went about to deprive Him of them yet can no lesse revenge serve Subjects upon their King or Sons towards their mistaken Parent then after long and many heavy Afflictions utterly to destroy Him and His Forget not as I hope you doe not the common Errours to which all men are subject and those notorious ones with which mutuall re-criminations have aspersed both Parliament and Army and with which we have all cause to fear the most just Judge of Heaven and Earth will charge the most presuming Innocence of us all O do not stain the Renown of your valour by so mercilesse an Act as the destroying your King Renowned even by some of you selves for the greatnesse of His understanding and many other Princely vertues and incomparable endowments You are Gentlemen that pretend to walk by the rule of a good Conscience before God Man which must needs fail you when God hath not given you either any Scripturall command or any Magistratick power over or against the King nay you cannot but feel I think many checks and scruples if not strict ties to the contrary upon you as well as other Subjects by no failings of the King or any earthly Power to be dispensed with The presage of that deluge of miseries likely to follow the ruine of the King in these miserable Kingdomes doth not so much terrifie me as those sins which have deserved and brought upon us so vast Judgments To all which the Addition of this both grand Sin and Judgment of destroying the King against all Lawes of God and Man of Warre and Peace of Valour and Honour must needs become so far the Heavier as it becomes the more Nationall by drawing with it the consent of others Wherefore I thought it my duty being exempted through the love of God and Charity to your Souses from that spirit of Bondage which makes too many servilely fear your power of so great a Sin and stand in the gap both against the Sin and ensuing Judgments Having no other end in these sudden lines but to witnesse to the Truth of God as I conceive it to the Honour of the true Christian Religion to my particular Duty and Oaths of Allegiance as also to that Charity and Respect I bear to the welfare of my Country and your own Persons I had rather you should see and prevent you sins in such glasses of free and fair Remonstrances then hear of them too late by the Clamours Curses and bitter reproaches of others or in the fearfull Ecchoes of your own most troubled and terrified Consciences and the just wrath of God upon you and the Kingdome I earnestly beseech God the most wise and just disposer of all things whose executive power wicked men oft unjustly usurp but gracious men never either invade or execute without an orderly Authority derived either immediately from God or mediately from those politick Lawes and fetled Magistracies which are Gods Ordinances among men Him I beseech to look upon you in mercy whose sin with successe will make you infinitely more miserable then the King or any man can be under the greatest wordly sufferings which I hope God hath and will further sanctifie to him That great God and King will I hope incline your hearts to those wayes which are clearly his will not as to private imaginations which are various falacious and dangerous but as to those publick and infallible Declarations of his Oracles and Providence viz. the Scriptures and our Lawes With regard to both which most clear and constant lights that which you call Justice against the King seemes to me the greatest and most unparallel'd Injustice What I humbly present to you in a way of a most just and at least a mercifull tendernesse towards your Soveraign and your Soules is not more your duty then it will be both your Comfort and Commendation for ever When the world shall see your power bounded with Loyalty sanctified with Piety and sweetned with Pitty not foolish and feminine which I would have below you but masculine Heroick truly Christian and Divine which commands you to adde to your many other Victories this Crown of our rejoycing and your triumphs the Conquest of your selves by over-comming what you conceive evill and blameable in another with such unquestionable goodnesse in your selves Wherein I humbly entreat the God of mercies to make you to abound over-powering all passions and frailties in you as men and perfecting all graces in you as true Christian Subjects to a Christian King This I write and pray as Your faithfull Monitor and Servant according to the Will of God John Gauden Janu. 5. 1648. To Colonell W. Sir Your friendlinesse and great Civility hath given me some encouragement to entreat you that by your hand these enclosed papers may be presented with my due and Christian respects to his Excellency and the Counsell of Warre when they next meet my Motives to them and the contents of them you will best understand when you shall please to communicate them as they are directed I shall not I hope seeme when you hear or read them to have made any sinister or uncomely use of your favour in offering to you and by our mediation to them such considerations as carry with them the weight not only of temporall but eternall lives and the Concernment of many Souls as well as Bodies Sir I doubt not of your faithfulnesse in fulfilling my request to you nor yet of your Candour in not mis-interpreting that modest freedome I have taken for which as I have the greatest compulsions from within so I had no small invitations from your self and others of your Company yesterday when by your wonted and Commendable Courtesie you added many obligations to those which you formerly had upon Your most faithfull friend and servant in the Lord J. G. Jan. 5.1648 FINIS