Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A52330
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Reflections upon Coll. Sidney's Arcadia, the old cause being some observations upon his last paper, given to the sheriffs at his execution.
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Nalson, John, 1638?-1686.
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1684
(1684)
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Wing N114; ESTC R7343
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10,497
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16
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insisted upon both in this and the Lord Russel's Tryal and attested by so many Witnesses is so sufficiently answered by himself in the Lord Russel's Tryal and is so natural for any Person to conceal his own Guilt by Vouching the Innocency of his Accomplices that it looks like a very great Weakness in Mr. Sidney to repeat a thing which so easily brings its own Answer and is a greater Weakness or however wilfulness in those who will believe it lessens any thing of the Truth of the Lord Howard's Testimony For let any Person put himself under the Lord Howard's then Circumstances and his Heart will tell him he would have done the same thing in all Companies and not have run to the Earl of Bedford and before so many Witnesses have proclaimed his own Guilt when as yet he did not hear he was accused or his Name brought upon the Stage But Mr. Sidney forgot the most Material Witness against him which was himself his whole Life his Words his Actions his Writings evidence sufficiently his Guilt for 't is no wonder to see him in a Conspiracy who thinks a Revolt from the Magistrates cannot be called Rebellion and who hath Actually set in Judgment upon his Natural Liege Lord and Soveraign and helped to bring his Sacred Head to the impious Stroke of the Executioner And for the Bench which he saith was filled with such as were Blemishes to the Bar. I think the Tongue of Traytor not the least Slander and it is their Glory not their Shame that their Faith and Loyalty to their Prince and Country in opposing such as Mr. Sidney and his Common-wealth Faction when they began to be so Rampant as to be thinking of a Revolt from their Magistrates and hatching this Conspiracy are those Blemishes which Mr. Sidney is so much offended at and which have deservedly removed them from the Bar to the Bench. But that Period as before was intimated was intended through the Judges Coif to strike at the Crown For saith he lest the means of Destroying the best Protestants in England should fail the Bench must be filled c. Every Body knows who fills the Bench and 't is easie to Guess the meaning of this Malicious Paragraph but the barking of the Dogs does not hurt the Moon nor the Fools or Mad-man's throwing Dirt at it blacken the the Sun but returns upon the Face of him that throws it But if Mr. Sidney and such as he are the best Protestants bless me God! what a sort of People are the worst If Traitors Rebels and King-killers come to be the only Saints we are e'en in a fair way to set up the God of this World and the Moloch of the Old Cause for the Object of Religion for the Devil was the first Rebel against Monarchy and a Murderer from the beginning and truly the Old Cause is as like him as if She had been spit out of his Mouth And by the last Prayer of this Paper which is the third thing Considerable one would think this Idol of the Old Cause was the Object of Mr. Sidny's Religion for he may be a Turk a Jew or a Papist for any Account he here gives us of his Faith or Religion which is usual for dying men to do Protestant is a large Denomination for there are Presbyterian Independent Anabaptist Quaker and a matter of a hundred and fifty more sorts of People that call themselves so certainly he was not of the Church of England but it is to be supposed he was one of the best Protestants who were therefore as he tells you to be destroyed so that from hence we may infer that Traitors are Mr. Sidney's best Protestants which being as the Logicians say simply converted is that Mr. Sidney's best Protestants are Traitors Now let which of the dissenting Brethren like him upon these Terms take this Martyr for the Old Cause into the Calendar of their Church and much good may the Reputation they will get by it do them But because he prays so heartily for this Old Cause that he forgets to forgive or pray for this Enemies the King and Government as Christianity Commands and the true Martyrs always did Let us see the true Visage of this sweet Mistress of his Soul which he so Zealously recommends to God and the World praying God to defend his own Cause to defend those that defend it stir up such as are Faint direct those that are Willing confirm those that Waver And that we may take a short survey of it This Old Cause in which he was from his Youth ingaged was that Pretence of Reformation of Religion Defence of the Liberty of the Subject and Priviledge of Parliament which the Puritan Faction had been so long hamering in the latter end of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth the whole Reign of King Iames and which being accoutred with all her Formalities was set up in the Reign of King Charles the First like Nebuchadnezar's Golden Image in the Plain of Dura and all people Commanded to fall down and Worship 'T was this that taught the Scottish Presbyterians first to rebel or as they called it to Petition their King with Swords in their hands It was the Old Cause which with the Hypocritical Promises of making him the most Glorious King in Christendom wrought upon the most excellent Temper of King Charles the First to pass the Act for perpetuating the Factious Parliament of November the 3 d. 1640. It was the Old Cause which by popular Tumults brought the Noble Earl of Strafford to the Block It was the Old Cause that inspired the Schismatical Rabble to those Insolencies and Tumults which first banished the King from the City of London It was this Cause that seized the Kings Navy Forts Magazines and the Militia of the Kingdom that wrested the Sword out of his hands and then turned the point of it against his Royal Breast It was the Cause that purged the two Houses of all their Loyal Members and that inspired the remaining Dregs of a Parliament to raise Arms Men and Money against the King It was the Cause that led those brutish Rebels into the Field where with flying Colours Drums beating Trumpets sounding Cannons roaring they fought with their Soveraign It was this Old Cause that taught these Rebels to enter into Protestations Vows Covenants Confederacies and Associations contrary to their repeated Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy It was the Cause that under Pretence of Reformation abolished the Apostolical Government of Episcopacy turned St. Paul's Cathedral into a Horse-Guard robbed and defaced Churches turned the Lawful Pastors out of Doors and Committed the poor Sheep to the Care and keeping of the Wolves of Sectaries Schismaticks and Hereticks It was this Cause that first brought up those Taxes Excise Monthly Weekly Assessments before wholly unknown to us and our Ancestors It was this Cause that set up the Bankrupt publick Faith to pick the Pockets of the Nation to maintain this Bloody and unnatural Rebellion It was this Cause that murdered the admirable Prelate the Archbishop of Canterbury and so many of the Nobility and Gentry and in Conclusion that Illustrious Martyr King Charles the First before the Gate of his own Royal Palace of White-Hall It was the Cause that sequestred plundred oppressed the whole Nation with free quarter Military and the most Arbitrary Government of the Sword that consumed Forty Millions of Treasure and above two Hundred Thousand Lives that subverted Monarchy and Parliaments Church and State that set up a Democratick Common-wealth that rolled us from that to the absolute Tyranny and Slavery under the Usurper Oliver whose Will was the only Magna Charta and Law of the three Nations It was this same Old Cause that banished our present Soveraign and the whole Royal Family that Bandied the Government from Pillar to Post till we were all in Confusion from which Providence rescued us by the Miraculous Restauration of his Sacred Majesty under whose Auspicious Raign how happy were we till this Old Cause began again about Coll. Sidney's return into England in the Year 1677 to Discompose the Peace and Tranquility both of Church and State and by this happily detected Conspiracy to indeavour the Ruin of them both In short this Old Cause of Mr. Sidneys is the Daughter of the old Serpent who was for a Reformation in Heaven made the first Conspiracy against the Almighty Monarch She is the Mother of Sedition Hypocrisie Perjury Rebellion Murder Rapine Sacriledge War Slaughter Tyranny Oppression Slavery Confusion and Ruin and if these Qualifications and all that can be said that is Wicked and Impious on this side Hell which may litterally to a tittle be Justified against Her be not sufficient to recommend this Old Beldam to the Eternal Detestation of all Mankind Lucifer Belzebub Satan and all the Infernal Crue may in due time hope too to be recommended to the World for certainly they are the Great Patriots of this Old Cause For let Men call themselves by what Names they please best Protestants or true Protestants or what other Titles of Reputation they can Coin to gain Popular Applause the Rule of the Eternal Son of God will be of perpetual Truth and Conviction which assures us from what Stem we ought to derive the Pettegree of all such vaâ—â— Pretenders to Sanctimony and this Old Cause That most infallibly they have the Devil for their father who do his Works FINIS
even with murdering his Vice-gerants in Pageantry and that it is dangerous jesting with the Mis-fortunes of innocent Majesty during the late execrable Rebellion when Justice was turned into Worm-wood and Loyalty was accounted the most Capital Offence one Mr. Wimpew an Orthodox Loyal Minister of the Church of England was as Thousands more of the Clergy then were sequestred and ejected from his Benefice of Totnam-High-Cross and one Lewis a Factious and Pragmatical Presbyterian intruded into his Living This Lewis being a notable Zealous stickler for the Cause was so high in Reputation with many great Men of the Rebellious Faction that they intrusted him with the Education and Principling of their Children and among others it was the unhappiness of the late Lord Russell to be trained up under his Care and Government and that vile Wretch that he might enter their tender and easie Minds with those Traiterous Impressions which were then esteemed those Truths which Mr. Sidney now saith pass for Treason to divert his Scholars he composed a Farce wherein he and they were all Actors there was all the Formalities of a High Court of Justice President Sollicitor Witnesses c. the Criminal was an Old Shock-Water-dog upon whom the impudent Villain bestowed the Name of Charles Stuart who was there Arraigned Tryed Condemned and Executed by cutting off his Head The Profligate Wretch thereby with the highest Degree of contempt instilling the deadly Poyson of the Lawfulness of Deposing and Murdering Soveraign Princes and inspiring those tender Minds with mean contemptable Thoughts of Majesty the most sacred thing on Earth as of the Murdering a King were no more then the cutting off a Dogs Neck I confess I am not much addicted to that Presbyterian Humour of making every Extraordinary accident that happens to any Person a Judgment and presently according to their Proud Familiarity with Eternal Decrees and Purposes Assigning Reasons for the strange Dispensations of the Omnipotent Will but yet I cannot but make some such Reflections as the foregoing when there appears such a Resemblance between the Crimes and Punishments And however since we live in such an Incredulous Age wherein Men can very difficultly be persuaded to believe even their own Eyes and Ears especially the Factious and Dissenting Party who live like Moles continually working under Ground to undermine the Government but have no Eyes to see the brightest Beams of Truth I think it is a fair Presumption to introduce the Belief of Mens future Actions when it makes it apparent that they bear an exact Conformity to their very almost innate Principles for it is a most rational Inference that if Mr. Sidney by his own Confession was from his Youth ingaged for that Old Cause which was the most damnable Conspiracy that ever was formed not only against the Person of the King then Reigning but against the very Monarchy and the Fundamental Constitution of the Government and Mr. Sidney is known to Persist in and obstinately adhere to the very same Principles I say it makes it more then probable that he should be ready upon the first opportunity to ingage himself in the very same Counsels and with such Confederates as in his opinion might again remount that Old Cause into the Triumphant Chariot of Government which could never be Effected but by the Rush of the King and Monarchy And if my Lord Russel was so early taught the Doctrine of Contempt and Murdering Kings and hath in the following Course of his Life ever since he Writ Man and entred upon Publique Affairs Associated himself with those who were Notoriously disaffected to his Majesties Person and the Government both in Church and State if he made himself one of the Popular Patrons of the Discontented Factious and Disaffected Party if in all things of Publique concern he set himself in the Front of those who for these late Years have opposed the King and by giving Countenance to the Dissenters the known Enemies of the King and Government indeavoured the Subversion of it no Rational Man can look upon it as strange or unaccountable upon the detecting of a Conspiracy against the King and Government to find him ingaged in it I confess it is much more Surprizing to me that after the clearest Evidence in the World of this wicked and damnable conspiracy so fortified with the falling in of so many Circumstances known to the whole Nation there should be found any unbelievers so Audacious as not only to doubt but to endeavour to perswade others to a disbelief of it And truly they who do of which there are too many have a greater Proportion by far of Malice then either of Honesty or Policy for certainly whoever indeavours to perswade the Nation that this Conspiracy is false or those who have fallen by the Stroke of Justice dyed Innocent declares himself an open and avowed Enemy to the Kings Life Person and Government all which were at Stake and to Ridicule this Plot as a Sham and Forgery is the best way they can possibly contrive to cover another and to prepare the People for it by perswading them into the worst Opinion that can possibly be entertained of any King or Government viz. That they are so far from preserving that they lay Trains to destroy the best of their Subjects But let these confident Traiterous Bigots for the Old Cause be assured that they do but lay Snares for themselves and that one time or another their busie Tongues will be their Ruin for Kings have long Hands and the Justice of God and Men will certainly find out and punish these Common Enemies of our Peace the Tranquility of the Nation and the Safety of the best Government under the Sun But there is nothing in the World more remarkable in my opinion nor more Convictive then that the Conspirators themselves have every Man of them given Evidence of the Truth of it in their last and dying words Nay even those Papers which have been written with a perfect design to put a Fucus and Varnish over the ugly Face of that deformed Hag the Old Cause have yet contrary to their Intention given the clearest Proof of the Truth of this Execrable Conspiracy insomuch that there needs little more to manifest their Guilt and the Justice of their Sufferings then those very Papers which were by them intended as a Vindication of their pretended Innocence Much of this Nature hath been made appear by several Hands both upon the Speech of the late Lord Russel and this Paper of Mr. Sidney's I shall not therefore take it in Pieces and Examine every Period but rather indeavour to shew what the main Scope and Design of the Writer was and truly this is to be said of him that his Life and Death were all of a Piece for he Lived a Rebel and a Regicide and 't is no wonder to find a Person that is such out of Principle dye a Traytor in Fact nor is it strange that he who breathed nothing but Hatred