Selected quad for the lemma: judgement_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
judgement_n	judge_n	judge_v	king_n	3,732	5	4.5671	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A80453	A Copy of a letter concerning the election of a Lord Protector. Written to a member of Parliament.		1654 (1654)	Wing C6113; Thomason E818_20; ESTC R207400	26,756	39

to the sancied way of Coordination the Soveraignty were partly in the Electors and partly in the Third Order then must both agree in the election or else it will come to nothing And this they will doubtless do in case they be friends and of one interest and opinion or else are afraid of each others power In which case as Coordination will at best prove fruitless because they are as like to comply in an ill choice as a good so again if they be enemies that Commonwealth must run these two most certain perils not only through their contention to be deprived of a good choice when it is made but be drawn into the most dangerous condition of Civil war as being wholly engaged in two contraty parties For do greatness soveraign power use to be slighted and unregarded as that those that have it should be more ready to resign then increase it Do men rather chuse subjection then principality to be in the condition of beggers for favors then be able to do them Have we not seen a Parliament designing to make themselvs everlasting and may we not hereafter fear that a Councel may doe so too And therefore it must needs be that upon the death of every Elected Prince the whole State and Government and every mans fortune therein must be left in tottering condition whilst during that inter-regnum Every man may doe what seems good in his own eyes and so be as in a state of Anarchy The which unhappy condition we finde attributed to the Israelites before they had the Scepter hereditarily setled as was promised in the Tribe of Judah but were subject to the like Chasmes in government And if any would know how it can be imagined that every man could be permitted to doe what was right in his own eyes or be in a state of Anarchy where there is a standing Law for direction what to doe and standing Judges and Officers to see it done and where lastly there is a standing high Court or Councell above all So that the Israelites having at that time all these that is the Law of Moses the Priests and Levites and other ordinary Judges and having also their Sanhedrim or great Councell of Elders and prime men of their Tribes we must therefore conceive that by every mans doing what seemed good in his own eyes is not meant that every individuall person did so to every man else but the heads and leaders in these severall Tribes whereof the Sanhedrim consisted being divided amongst themselves by faction and consequently drawing all those of their Tribe and party severally after them it thereupon came to pass that every man being thus divided from every man as under these separate associations they did every man unto every man what seemed good in their own eyes And this befell them because there was no King or Judge in those dayes to judge between blood and blood and plea and plea that is such matters as happened to fall out between the Elders and great ones and so too hard in judgment to be determined in the ordinary Courts or reconciled in that higher Court either since these Elders were both judges and parties therein And therefore Sir if there be so muce danger of division and Civill war dependant on Elective principalities even because they are Elective what may we more justly fear to be the event of such things in this Nation where now more then ever every man stands from every man so much divided in Civill interest but much more in matters of Religion If there were one man Micha found amongst them setting up a Teraphim and a Priest to himself while there was no King there what think we of our selves that have lately had so many Micha's setting up their severall Teraphims in every corner and that with such extravagant affectation of dissent from what is established that they perswade themselves that to be heterodox is to be orthodox Will it not in this case highly concern us as we love our peace and quiet to keep constant to one person and family of most moderate principles and which is well known to carry a tender and universall regard to all and so most likely in good time to bring us to a happy union again then after his decease to cast the Commonwealth into the danger of a new storm and shipwrack by awaking the hopes of all that be heads and leaders in those severall sects and factions that be among us to be putting in for themselves or some great favorer of their party for if we finde such packing and siding for election of Parlament men or the like what stirs may we look for at the choice of a Protector Out of which contest and dispute suppose we should be so happy as to winde our selves without open War and have one person at last chosen and agreed upon by the Major part of the appointed Electors and suppose yet farther that the present Army shall therein consent too or else rest quiet why yet since that person chosen must himself be of some party or another and could not therefore come in by a joynt or universall consent will it not hence come to pass as beforesaid that he being now in power shall be naturally provoked to acts of punishment and revenge towards such as have opposed or have not to his content and expectation taken part with him Whereupon all that are of different parties from him must expect to live as in a state of persecution or endanger a new civill War by joyning in opposition So that if we be not actually broken one against another yet advantage will be hereby still offered and encreased and the whole Nation continually espoused into severall feuds and factions to the overthrow of all charity and brotherly love And if to avoid this mischief some way of restraint should be thought upon by having a third Estate like that in Poland to bear a controule over their Kings actions this although it might at some times and for a while keep the sore from breaking out yet would it but encrease the swelling and distemper against a fit opportunity by that encrease of Opinions which should follow this generall freedom and toleration as the experience of those many more Religions and Opinions in the same Poland then elswhere doe witness to be the fruits of Elective and much limited Princes Which is a course that cannot at all allay the discontents of those that live under his Government and stand divided in interest or opinion For since he must yet have some power left him to Rule with he will still be as subject to be accused by those that finde themselves crossed for having transcended his limits in that little Trust as if he had had more The which jealousie will be also increased as well from that insolence which doth usually accompany persons newly preferred as also from that degree of impatience which useth again to be cast towards such as were lately

their greatest darlings have in their governments proved to them most fatal and on the contrary such as they have been most afraid of and have submitted unto only as out of sense of duty have proved most fortunate As it were on purpose to instruct and advise us that the most high God and disposer of Kings and Kingdoms will as he sees good make them instrumental for infliction of his wrath or of his blessing to any people and by that usual deception of ours in the judging of such as be either good or bad doth thereby teach us neither to trust in these things to the arm of flesh and our own judgment and contrivances nor to cast so much distrust towards him and his care of us as to refuse those persons he hath by his providence and usual way of dispensation in that kind set over us For as he did never set up any government but Monarchy nor did ever give that or any setled office to any person but he did withall give it to his posterity so is it to be left to him alone to find out the means to change the same from family to family as he shall really know the deserts both of the one and the other and not leave it to us to contrive and set up elective Monarchies upon any such fond suppositions For if such a consideration had been valuable to have made places of supreme trust and power elective then certainly the High-Priesthood requiring far more personal execution and that in more divine affairs then that of King who was the first established Officer in Civil affairs should not also have been entailed to a single family In which kind notwithstanding it was still setled and so to continue till God by himself or by his Vicegerent saw just cause for alteration thereof In which case as there were others ready still to supply those defects which childhood or other insufficiencie might occasionally make in the high Priesthood so may there be in the Civil Magistracie also without running into danger of civil war through the abdication of a family of known desert and still be but at the same hazard for goodness or sufficiencie in the choice of another If we appeal from discourse and argument to matter of experience and practice in this question of the benefit of Election we shall also find things to fall out quite contrary to their imagination and promises and that upon examination of foreign stories and comparing the vertues and good government of such as have ruled in places elective with the vertues and good rule of such as reigned in places hereditary we shall truly find the people in a much happier condition under the last then under the first For where shall we pick out any instance for a succession of Princes so notoriously wicked and in so great a number as was in the Roman Empire after the Souldiery and Senate would there take upon them to make that Government elective and neglect that more direct line of succession and that hereditary right which belonged to the issue of their brave and victorious Chieftain Caesar What think we of Caligula Nero Otho Vitellius Caracalla Heliogabalus and other unmatchable examples both for ill life and ill government And when we have pitcht upon the best of them it will not be any encouraging example for Christians to set up their Governor by election since on their score we may justly lay the greatest part of those most bloody persecutions made against them which until the time of Constantine the Great who with his Christianity did again establish an hereditary succession and so somewhat more increase and settle the glory of that Empire the poor Christians found little joy or intermission So easie and usual a thing it is for dissimulation force or bribery to prevail in this kind And if you will imploy your thoughts upon the collection of such Princes as have been highly illustrious and eminent either in sacred or prophane story I do not think you will find any one that came in by election only in sacred story I am sure you will not that deserves to be put either in the first or second rate No those Princes that were so glorious in conquests as to establish the three first Monarchies of the world were all of them such as were hereditary Nay that which we call the fourth Monarchy because it was longest a Monarchy and under that government it was longest and had under it both rise and perfection being from the Creation but 480 years a Common-wealth doth owe unto hereditary Monarchy its chief and fundamental laws and also that warlike discipline by means whereof it became so great and victorious afterwards For all which Sir there is a reason at hand Even because the foundation and atchievement of greatness and empire requiring a foregoing design and councel and that which is made upon experience also and requiring a foregoing stock of Treasure Navy and other warlike ammunition and preparations together with a well disciplined and obedient Amry lastly requiring a good proportion of time for the prosecution and finishing thereof it is not to be supposed that the life of any one person can be sufficient both to continue and perfect things of such length and difficulty but rather upon these considerations it is to be conceived that every elective Prince will be discouraged from such attempts not only because of danger and hardship but also because he shall venture and labour for what shall not accrue to his family and it may be that the glory and profit of all his works may come to be enjoyed by such a successor as is his enemy And so again in case any such enterprise should have been set on foot it is as vain a thing to suppose that the emulation that doth usually attend Princes of this condition and those that are best of them too will let the successor contribute towards the accomplishment of any work begun by another but rather to contrive one of his own and that contrary also to the increase of his own glory by the others disgrace So that it being probable that his predecessor was not allied to him but of another party or faction those that were Enemies to the other are but so much the more likely to expect favour and protection in stead of war and conquest from him And it is farther considerable that it will also require a good space of time for every new elected Prince to understand the state of his own affairs and both to settle them and secure himself against those of other parties and factions which he mistrusts and have opposed him at home before he can have time and opportunity to think of and make provision for conquests abroad which then also must be supposed the more short for that Princes are not elected young So that we are then only to expect such glorious and great acts to be atchieved by any one such person as a