Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	lord_n	people_n	word_n	7,267	5	4.0951	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87933	A letter from a person in the countrey to his friend in the city: giving his judgement upon a book entituled A healing question.	Person in the countrey.	1656 (1656)	Wing L1420; Thomason E885_8; ESTC R202810	21,671	24

Parliament The King had or assumed a Negative Voice to al● Bills presented to him by the Parliament Or at least denye● them with a French complement Le Roy S'avisera The Protector hath but twenty dayes Deliberation and then if not by common consent altered they pass without him The King in the intervals of Parliament was not yoaked with any council which had a Negative upon him The Protector is The King chose all his Council The Protector excepting the now Council which could not be a avoided in effect chooses no more but the people doe it in their Representatives for they nominate All that are to be chosen though the Protector out of such so nominated does at last choose And for the Council that now are what can Parliaments desire more than if they Govern well to have the people enjoy the Benefit If ill themselves to avoid the Blame to act the redresse and to impose the Punishment Had a Parliament nominated the Council they could have had but the satisfaction of their own opinions that the Council would have acted as they ought and the opinion of an Assembly never made a man other than he is But the Punitive power being ever in their Hands they are as safe as a thing of that nature can admit No authority can prevent a mans being evil it can but punish him for hi● having been so The King made all his great Officers in the three Nations without the Knowledge or Consent of the Parliament The Protector can make none without both The King commanded the Militia absolutely and by our desiring it from him even when our Prisoner we implicitely owned that right was in him the Protector can doe nothing with the Militia a Parliament setting without their consent and in their intervals without the councill who are a kind of representative of the people The King not only as such but by vertue of the Laws had thereby so ensnared the consciences of good men that without being Rebels they could not shun being Martyrs if they continued in this Commonwealth the Protector by the government hath taken off those Inquisition-like and severe Lawes and not only doth admit but protects all such as professe faith in God by Jesus Christ though differing in judgement from the doctrine worship and discipline publiquely held forth so that they abuse not this liberty to the civill injury of others nor to the actuall disturbance of the publique peace and do not under this profession hold forth and practice licenciousnesse provided that liberty extend not to Popery A wholesome provision which our Authors liberty hath quite left out or forgot These besides many others are the rich and high fruits of those victories which the Lord in Mercy hath given his people which are such that if any things are capable to compensate the expence of so much time treasure and precious blood these are and indeed wee seem hardly to want any thing but gratefull quiet spirits under what we possesse By all which it is evident that the peoples just rights in civil things which our Author makes chiefely if not only to consist in free national assemblies are not only comprehended in the government but so explicitely set down that he which runs may read which makes mee hardly abstaine from repining at any man that shall endeavour to loose this knot and cast away our present certainties only to try new experiments and conclusions but possibly our Author wil not be satisfied unlesse things of a civil nature be left at as much uncertainty as those of a spiritual for towards the latter end of his 20 page he hath these expressions viz the people represented in their highest state of Soveraignty as they have the Sword in their hands unsubjected unto the rules of civill government but what themselves assembled to that purpose do think fit to make By which he seems to inferre that by our successe we have fought our selves into nothing but what hereafter shall be established I thinke very few men when the war began did engage in it upon that account and for that end for my part I did not though in prayers in counsel in person and in Purse I have been of it from the first day till this houre the Parliament by their declaration stating the grounds of their taking up Armes which invited all the good people thereunto mentioned no such thing but on the contrary enumerated those rights which were denied to them and those wrongs which had been obtruded on them the first of which they sought to obtaine and the last to repaire and vindicate and indeed to my poor capacity it would seem a kinde of enchantment thatthings prosecuted should be real certaine when they were fought for and should turne into shadowes notions when acquired by the defeat of him who denied them It would doubelesse extenuate the crime of the common enemy in doing what they did had they known we designed what our Author doth no doubtlesse we had a known right to fight for before Armes were taken up which by victoriously defending and regaining we have not lost but perhaps some may say our Author ascribes this boundless power to what the people duely assembled in their Representatives may act but I finde what he speakes is not of what they may doe as an effect of their Authority but what is done as an effect of Conquest Our Author prosecutes his treatise in telling us first the qualifications of the persons which have adhered to this cause secondly the capacity wherein they have been found from time to time carrying it on As to the first he sayes they have constantly shewed their forwardnesse in it in Purse Person or counsell as the cause is truly stated in the two branches thereof already spoken unto as it is more largely expressed from the midst of his 8 page to the midst of his 9 page only I am to observe that one marke of their qualifications hath been that in order to those ends they have stood by the Army in defence and support thereof against all opposition whatever that is not only against the common enemy but against the Parliament it selfe first when one of its two estates did not their duty and also when the other sailed in theirs And the Author doth give you an excellent reason for their having so done viz As those that by the growing light of these times have been taught led forth in their experiences to look above and beyond the Letter Form and outward Circumstances of Government into the outward Reason and Spirit thereof therein only to fix and terminate to the leaving behind all empty shadowes that would obtrude themselves into the place of true Freedome Which words are expressed about the midst of his ninth page And I believe are set down by him not only to justifie what is past but to authorize what may be acted in the future for if it be allowable in preceding times it may in parallel