Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	king_n	parliament_n	sovereign_a	3,527	5	9.3552	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38448	England's universal distraction in the years 1643, 1644, 1645 left to the vvorld by a judicious and conscientious author for the use of his friends, children, and grand-children, when they come to years of discretion : and may be very useful for all men to read and practice in these distracted times.		1659 (1659)	Wing E3068; ESTC R31431	12,405	25

the longer in cuting as having none of those humors spent which by distemper gave sovent and force to the approaching Malady So in Politick bodies when civill warre once seizeth upon a Country rich in the plenty of a long peace and full with the surfeits of a continuall ease it never leaves purging those superfluities till all be wasted and consumed quae alia res civiles furores peperit quam mini●a faelicitas the Sinnes of our Peace brought upon us the miseries of man and now we are denied the Blessing of Peace If a man disingaged and in his right wits shall seriously ponder the printed passages between King and Parlament and those hostile Proceedings and Plunderings Rapins and Ruines Distractions Destructions on both sides and then demand unde haec dementia his Genius cannot readily prompt him to find it out unlesse by a Divine Scrutiny for it is not to be found in this Embleme as some perhaps do dreame of a mad conceipt of some of old that a huge Gyant beares up the Earth with his Shoulders which he changeth every 30. yeares for ease And that such Removall causes Earthquakes which they also observē for an Embleme of Kings because the burthen of the whole world lies on the Shouldiers of Soveraigne Authority And then we marvalle if they cannot say with King David Ego sustinco calumnas ejas that we have such Earthquakes in their change as turnes our braines into this Universalem dementiam for some in this turning of their braines began to think in their fi●s that because by the Law of the land it is unlawfull for a King to give a way his Kingdom from his lawfull Heire so that for a King to give power to hold not for a year two or three but a perpetuall Parlament a power inseperably incident to his Crown had been inconsistent with Monarchy And albeit that suprema potestas seipsum dissolvere yet ligari non potest like as it is in the power of a man to kill a man but not in his power to make him alive and yet to restaine him from breathing But this new conceipt I hold as mad as that before mentioned O hers would have it in this that the Soveraigne was too blame too give and the Subject too bold to ask the perpetuall Custody of that key which shuts and opens the Cabinet of State wherein all the parts of the Republick are lockt up from the making too neer approches upon Royalty Solomon say they upon a jealousie far more forraigne could deny the suite of his own Mother for when Bathsheba desired a small petition of him although he answered he could not say her nay yet when she said Let Abisha the Shunamite be given to Adonia● his Brother to Wife he could not reply why dost thou ask Abisha the Shunamite for Adoniah ask for him the Kingdom also And our Saviour Christs answer to the Mother of Zebedees Children might say they have taught the King to have satisfied such a demand of his Subjects for she with her Sons coming to Christ and desiring a certain thing of him which was to grant that those her two Sons might sit the one at his right hand and the other at his left in his Kingdom they received this answer ye know not what ye a k. And it is observable that even in this Kingdom as the Soveraign hath seldome prospered that trampled down the subjects just liberties so the subjects as seldome prospered that climbed up to lop off the Kings just Prerogative for in Truth God so disposeth in Justice both of King and Subject that as that of the subjects liberties doth in his own hands breed a comfort to support him in his allegiance and loyalty to his King yet doth the same in the hands of the King breed a Canker to eat him out of the love and affection of his subjects So that if the Kings prerogative which in his own hands becomes a Scepter to protect us from ruine yet doth the same in the hands of a Subject become a Spade to Grave us to death The truth is that the best Princes being ever the least jealous have sometimes for a just satisfaction to their People been drawn to part with some of their Royal power to them and the People no doubt demanded the same of their Prince without any evil intent at first which nevertheless being once obtained through some after-error either in the end or in the means in the motion or in the moderation thereof have proved unto them little better then the stollen flesh from the Altar which by the 〈◊〉 that stuck unto it consumed both her self and the yong ones with the Nest it self We need not travel into aliena Republica being not without E●samples here at home of this kinde but now unseasonable either for recital or application We know that God gave unto the Israelites Quailes and Manna Angels food when they lusted in the Wildernesse yet withal sent leannesse into their souls and it came out again at their nostrils and was sowre unto some of them for they murmured against Moses their Prince And it was not to be doubted but that this Act for the continuance of the Parliament was by both Houses at the first generally intended for the soveraign antidote to cure all diseases of the Kingdom Yet observe its Omen in their Remonstrance of December 15. 1641. It is acknowledged that there seems to be in that Act some restraint of the Royal power in dissolving of Parliaments not to take it out of the Crown but to suspend the execution of it so then the power shall remain onely the exercise of it is taken away though some may object that Vdna est illa potentia qua nunquam venit in actum And it is also in that Remonstrance said that without that Act they must have lest the then both Armies to disorder and confusion and the whole Kingdom to Blood and Rapine whereas the event hath wofully shewed that upon confidence of that Act for without it they had never been are raised many more Armies which hath already brought to disorder and confusion to blood and rapine almost the whole Kingdom So that this Act intended to avoid civil war hath proved the ready means so to kindle it as that the flames thereof are like to consume us all ta●●● est haec universalis dementia This Royall Slip or Root of Monarchy became no sooner to be transplanted into a Popular soyl but from them have in a short time sprung forth all the feares and jealousies all the disturbances and tumults raised by factious and seditious spirits The dividing of the King from the two Houses of the Lords from the Lords and of the Commons from the Commons Remonstrances Declarations Protestations and Covenants on either part seizing on the Kings Forts Revenues Customes Ammunition and Navy the Tenth part Taxes Seisures Sequestrations Plunderings Excises raising of great Armies of Souldiers Milites Armati Milites

Literarii Milites Clerici the whole Army marching in their several postures First the Milites Literarii with their distinctions between Monarchy absolute and limited limited and mixed between a Power Radically limited and not onely in the use and exercise of it between a Moral Power to resist and an authoritative and civil power between resistance of the King himself and of his Agents and Officers between Resistance positive and active negative and passive between Jus Regiminis Usurpationis according to Gods Law and Mans Law Also the resistance in such case is not a resistance of Power but of his Will not fighting against the Magistrate but against the Man And the King not performing his duty the Subjects are released from theirs with many more ejusdem farinae which they interpret is to fear God and honour the King Nex● to them do march Milites Clerici many of them armed with F●rebrands Tongues of Sedition having their very Pulpits made chaires of Juglers entertaining the people with shameless Pasquils and Discourses grounded upon the malice of the time and stuft with Schismes Heresies and Tyrannie and they also becoming Trumpets to sound forth Quaerelas ambigu●s de Principe Sermones quaeque alia turbamenta vulgi having weekly to follow them that no excrement be lost that may averse and bring in odium Majesty and Government the mendatious Mercuries and Pamphlets of the time And in the last rank do march the Milites armati who as the Sabeans and Chaldaeans did with Iob have taken away our Oxen plowing and Asses and Camells feeding and have slain our Servants with the edge of the sword And as the Prophet complains have spoyled our Houses ravished our Wives Burned our Cities Desolated our Countrey and scattered abroad the inhabitants thereof and still continue their battels with confused noise and garments rowled in blood non est haec universalis Dementia But thou O God be merciful unto us under the shadow of thy wings shall be our refuge untill this tyrannie be over-past and before the morning they are not this is the portion of those that rob us But let no man think that the Parliament hath caused all these things no surely for I am confident the not being of Parliaments might perhaps bring the Monarch more power but less glory more Lords but few Nobles more slaves but fewer subjects and might perhaps make his Signiories more ample but less royal and himself in all of them less prosperous and happy whereas on the contrary it cannot be denied by any honest English heart that Englands Parliaments are unto her her Philosophers stone which turneth all it toucheth into gold with which it cureth not onely the Disease of the Kings-evil but also all other diseases as well in Church as State it cures Schismes Heresies Exhorbitances of Prelacie and maintains the true and Orthodox Doctrine and wholsom Discipline in the Church It cures Tyrannie and Oppression and maintains Uunity and Strength in the Monarchy it cures Factions and Divisions and maintains just Liberty and Respect of the common good in the Democracy Our Parliaments are the Hercules pillars to every one of our Herculesses and Princes and the ne plus amplius both to Aristocracy and Democracy And in all either their Excesses or Defects reduceth them to their Golden Moderation and just Temper and such was this present Parliament in its first beginning Nay the President of all former Parliaments fall much short of what this then brought forth for the Soveraign in point of Grace and Favour to his people to whom he denied nothing which they challenge by Law But it is thought by some that some former Parliaments having been unfortunately blasted that thereupon the Crown had invaded both upon the Subjects liberty and property and that albeit they had then a little before obtained a Triennial Parliament and other Acts to redresse all their grievances so to prevent the like pressures in the time to come yet that they finding that the King to be then under a cloud with the people they the better to pay the debts of the Kingdom and to discharge the then Armies before the Parliament should be either prorogued or dissolved pressed for the Act of Continuance by which as a Member of the Assembly of Divines in his Sermon Martii 27. 1644. imprinted by their order and intituled A Prospective-Glass for England 's Case tells and assures them they are become fastened as Nail in a sure place But yet hath it not wrought so kindly as both Parliament and People did expect and as by the fruits before mentioned which it so plentifully and suddenly produced appeareth for then as if some few new Statists or reserved Polititians who Honores quos quieta Republica desperant perturbata consequise posse arbritrantur and who are not alwayes the best servants either to King or Kingdom but are in Novandis quam in Gerendis rebus aptiores had designed this perpetual Parliament to bear the name of that which wrought wonders in King Richard the second 's time And in case that failed then to bear the name of the mad Parliament as a King Henry the thirds time and to that end had introduced certain new Ordinances and strains of Law pretended Parliamentary not understood of the people in this Age and in truth Lex nostra Parliamenti est ab omnibus quaerenda à multis Ignorantia à paucis Cognita And yet some conceive it had been much better for those Statists and Engineers if any such be Nescire Centrum quam non tenere Circulum and thus to run in Meanders and Mazes into this universalem dementiam whereby as some think they have sought to make the cause of the King and who sai h Iob will say unto the King thou art wicked And as Ecclesiasticus Who shall say unto him what dost thou And as Solomon He that provoketh him to anger sinneth against his own soul To moralize with that of the lion who having lost his power and strength then the Wolf pincheth him and the Bull goar 's him and the very Asse kicks at him Nam Principis nomen habere non est esse Princeps and whereby some also think they have made the cause of the people whose disease was thought to have been a consumption of their properties and liberties First for care of properties to let them blood and purge them of their estates And next for cure of their liberties to open another vein either by imprisonment or banishment of their persons from their Wives and Children and their own habitations to let out a certain Malignant blood still remaining in them for that they will not pay more then they are able and so impossibilities in this reforming generation non est haec universlis dementia But admit this perpetuity of Parliaments hath wrought any such change or excesses yet it is for Reformation in case of Religion Et summa est Ratio qua pro Religione facit