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
A46942	An argument proving, that the abrogation of King James by the people of England from the regal throne, and the promotion of the Prince of Orange, one of the royal family, to throne of the kingdom in his stead, was according to the constitution of the English government, and prescribed by it in opposition to all the false and treacherous hypotheses, of usurpation, conquest, desertion, and of taking the powers that are upon content / by Samuel Johnson.	Johnson, Samuel, 1649-1703.	1692 (1692)	Wing J821; ESTC R2049	28,065	64

right at the Hague But the first Declaration being thus spoiled it gave the Prince the trouble of an Additional Declaration partly to expose and lay open the Fraud of these pretended Remedies and partly to meet with a dangerous Suggestion which was then started of his intending a Conquest His excellent Words concerning the last are these We are confident that no Persons can have such hard Thoughts of us as to imagine that we have any other Design in this Undertaking than to procure a Settlement of the Religion and of the Liberties and Properties of the Subjects upon so sure a Foundation that there may be no danger of the Nations Relapsing into the like Miseries at any time hereafter And as the Forces we have brought along with us are utterly disproportioned to that wicked Design of Conquering the Nation if we were capable of intending it So the great Numbers of the Principal Nobility and Gentry that are Men of eminent Quality and Estates and Persons of known Integrity and Zeal both for the Religion and Government of England many of them being also distinguished by their Constant Fidelity to the Crown who do both accompany Us in this Expedition and have earnestly sollicited Us to it will cover Us from all such Malicious Insinuations For it is not to be imagined that either those that have Invited Us or those that are already come to Assist us can join in a Wicked Attempt of Couquest to make void their own Lawful Titles to their Honours Estates and Interests Conquering and Enslaving the Nation which are equivalent Words and both put together in this Declaration was so wicked a Design that his Majesty was not capable of Intending it and disclaims it with Abhorrence How then come his Priests to tell him and the whole Nation besides that this is God's way of disposing Kingdoms and that in this Divine way he came by his Kingdom and holds it by that Tenure Is not this as I said spoiling the Second Declaration But I will presently joyn Issue with this Conquering Bishop for I have not been afraid of a Conqueror these eighteen Years For so long since I used to walk by the New-Exchange Gate where stood an overgrown Porter with his Gown and Staff which gave him a Semblance of Authority whose Business it was to regulate the Coachmen before the Entrance and would make nothing of lifting a Coachman off his Box and beating him and throwing him into his Box again I have several times look'd up at this tall Mastering Fellow and put the Case Suppose this Conqueror should take me up under his Arm like a Gizzard and run away with me am I his Subject No thought I I am my own Man and not his And having thus invaded me if I could not otherwise rescue my self from him I would smite him under the fifth Rib. From that time I have had a clear Idea of Conquest and no Conquerour in the World with all his Power can have any more Right to me than that Fellow Yea says the Bishop but though the Porter had no clear Right to you by being Soveraign of the Exchange Gate and Conquering you yet he had you in Possession And therefore according to the common Saying which is most true in this case He had Eleven Points of the Law Now I say give me but the One Point of Right and I will dispute the Eleven Points of Possession with any Man whatsoever and do no more mind them than all the variable Points of a Divinity-Compass But did ever any Man in a Pulpit talk in behalf of the Eleven Points of Law and maintain Wrong against Right Why does he not quote another common Saying which is most true in the same Case That Right and Wrong is nothing but Weak and Strong Such Men by God's Iudgment are left us in the World to unteach us the difference of Good and Evil. But the Man is quite out of his Story and must begin again For Conquest even in his Notion is justling a Man out of his Seat and sitting down in his Place and this is done in an instant as one Nail drives out another But this is quite contrary to the Matter of Fact in relation to our two Kings For King William was not King upon King James's first Flight nor upon his second Flight nor during the long Vacancy which was no fault of mine that it was not shortned nor till such time as Our People made him King And we have an Act of Parliament in this Reign which declares the Realm of England to have been Soveraign during that time by ordering all Indictments from the time of King James's withdrawing till the 13th of Febr. to run in their Name And he that was not King till the 13th of Febr. could not have been so then if his English Friends had not made him so By the Doctrine of an Usurper set up by God you have nothing left you For a Kingdom of God's giving is Nebuchadnezzar's Kingdom Dan. 5. 18 19. Whom he would he slew and whom he would he kept alive and whom he would he set up and whom he would he put down So that it is the World●s End with any or all of you whenever the Court sends for your Lives Liberties or Estates Such an Usurper is a God upon Earth which it is easie for some sort of Men to make For so Calyban made Stephano his God and offered to lick his Foot but it was for what he could get by him And therefore it was Trinculo's Opinion and it is also mine That if his God were asleep he would rob his Bottle Who shall set Bounds to a Divine Authority He himself that has it from God cannot part with an Inch of it much less can that Herd which they call the People either limit or dispute it His part is to Command and theirs to Obey without Reserve Humane Laws are Sacrilegious waste Paper where there is a God amongst them and a Nation is wholly at Discretion No say they he is Accountable to God What is that to us We may be destroyed or laid in gore Blood for all that I not the French King accountable to God And yet what Reparation is that to the many millions of Souls which he has destroyed or what Remedy against the Destruction of as many more I hate that Phrase for the English Law has provided better than to make their King only Accountable to God there 's always Mischief in that Saying I know a Kingdom where an Arbitrary King had exercised his People with intolerable Oppressions for above twelve Years together by his own Confession and after that engaged them in a bloody War and after some respite but before their Wounds were well healed though he were a Prisoner himself he caused a new War to break loose upon them and was wholly secure because he insisted mightily upon it that he was Accountable only to God Whereupon though with a Regret of a great part of

rather to be made an Example than a Secretary But I humbly take my leave You Represent the Body of the Brave English Nation you have my Prayers and long since had my Heart AN ARGUMENT PROVING That the Abrogation of King Iames by the People of England from the Regal Throne and the Promotion of the Prince of Orange one of the Royal Family to the Throne of the Kingdom in his stead was according to the Constitution of the English Government and Prescribed by it THE Argument IN this ensuing Argument which will be very short I have but these two Points to clear The one of Fact The other of Right First That the People of England did actually Abrogate or Dethrone King James the Second for Misgovernment and promoted the Prince of Orange in his stead Secondly That this Proceeding of theirs was according to the English Constitution and prescribed by it First This Matter of Fact being so fresh in our Memory needs not to be so industriously proved The Act 1 o William and Mary declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and settling the Succession of the Crown recites the very Instrument of Conveyance of the Crown to the Prince and Princess which begins in these words Whereas the late King James the Second by the Assistance of divers Evil Counsellors Iudges and Ministers imployed by him did endeavour to Subvert and Extirpate the Protestant Religion and the Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom which is there made out by an enumeration of sundry Particulars And not long after there are these words And whereas the late King James the Second having Abdicated the Government and the Throne being thereby Vacant the two Houses of Parliament do thereupon invest the Prince and Princess of Orange with the Crown King Iames endeavoured to subvert the Government as they favourably word it or rather he had long before wholly subverted and overthrown the Government as the Prince of Orange's Declaration speaks which this very Act has annex'd and made parcel of the Crown and expresses to be the only Means of Redressing that Mischief There is but one doubtful Word in all that I have recited which some People make a hard Word and that is King Iames's Abdicating the Government which no Man would stumble at who had read Tully in his third Philippick who says thus concerning Mark Anthony that for his offering a Crown to Caesar Eo die non modo Consulatu sed etiam Libertate se Abdicavit esset enim ipsi certè statim serviendum si Caesar ab eo Regni insigne accipere voluisset At that time he not only Abdicated his Consulship but his Liberty for if Caesar would have accepted the Crown Mark Anthony must presently have turned Slave Now Mark Anthony by this Action did not expresly renounce his Consulship or Liberty or run away from both of them but he did that which was inconsistent with them both HE FORFEITED THEM BOTH which is the true import of that Phrase The second thing is the Point of Right That this Proceeding of the People of England was agreeable to the English Constitution and prescribed by it To make this out I need only recite the Declaration of the Lords and Commons 10 th Rich. 2. in their Message to the King then at Eltham Knyghton pag. 2683. Domine Rex SET unum aliud de nuncio nostro superest Nobis ex parte Populi vestri Vobis intimare Habent enim ex antiquo Statuto de facto non longe retroactis temporibus experienter quod dolendum est habito Si Rex maligno consilio quocunque vel inepta contumacia aut contemptu seu proterva voluntate singulari aut quovis modo irregulari se alienaverit à Populo suo nec voluerit per Jura Regni Statuta laudabiles Ordinationes cum salubri Consilio Dominorum Procerum Regni gubernari regulari set capitose in suis insanis Consiliis propriam voluntatem suam singularem proterve exercere Ex tunc licitum est eis cum Communi assensu consensu Populi Regni ipsum Regem de regali Solio abrogare ET PROPINQUIOREM ALIQUEM DE STIRPE REGIA LOC● EJUS IN REGNI SOLIO SUBLIMARE Our Lord the King BUT there is moreover one part of our Message still left to acquaint you withall in the Name of your People They have it by ancient Statute and by a late doleful Instance that in case the King shall alienate himself from his People by any bad Advice whatsoever or foolish Contumacy or Contempt or Self-will or any other irregular Way and will not be govern'd and ruled by the Laws Statutes and laudable Ordinances of the Realm with the wholesom Advice of the Lords and Peers of the Realm but in a Head-strong way will exercise his own Self-will From thence-forward it is lawful for them with the common Assent and Consent of the People of the Realm to Depose the King from the Regal Throne and to promote some K insman of his of the Royal Family to the Throne of the Kingdom in his stead Here the Parliament laid down the Law before the King and gave him fair Warning thirteen Years before they thought of putting it in Execution for this was in the Tenth of his Reign and he reigned three and twenty Years And as for the Statute they quote it must needs be a very ancient Statute because the Deposing of Edw. 2. who was his Great-Grandfather in comparison of that is represented but as of Yesterday This Declaration of the Lords and Commons the King could not gain-say and they gained their Point upon him by it to bring him to Parliament And it is not to be believed that the Parliament of England would affirm they had such an Ancient Statute when they had not It remains therefore to consider how we come by this Record seeing it is not upon the Rolls in the Tower but 't is no strange thing it should not be there because it is the four and twentieth Article in the Charge against Richard the Second afterwards in the three and twentieth Year of his Reign Et praeterea Rotulos Recordorum Statum gubernationem Regni sui tangentium praedictus Rex deleri abradi fecit in magnum praejudicium Populi exhaeredationem Coronae Regni praedicti ut verisimiliter creditur in favorem sustentationem sui mali Regiminis And besides the said King caused the Rolls of the Records touching the State and Government of his Realm to be defac'd and razed to the great prejudice of his People and disherison of the Crown of the said Realm and as is credibly thought in favour and support of his Male-Administration The only means left us in such a Case where the Records of the Tower fail us is to have recourse to the undoubted History of that Age which was written upon the Spot Such is Knyghton's Authority whose History was both written and finished and closed up in that

AN ARGUMENT PROVING That the Abrogation of King Iames by the People of England from the Regal Throne and the Promotion of the Prince of Orange one of the Royal Family to the Throne of the Kingdom in his stead was according to the Constitution of the English Government and Prescribed by it In Opposition to all the false and treacherous Hypotheses of Usurpation Conquest Desertion and of taking the Powers that Are upon Content By SAMVEL IOHNSON Nec Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus Inciderit Horat. LONDON Printed for the Author 1692. TO THE COMMONS of ENGLAND in Parliament Assembled THE favourable Acceptance which my Bounden Services to my Country as I ever accounted them though they were always difficult and upon the Forlorn have heretofore found in your Honourable House hath caused me to bring you this small Offering In former Days an Appeal to the Parliament was a removal of the Cause from White-Hall but it is our peculiar Happiness in this Reign that we live under a Prince who had no other Business here but to restore the Constitution which as his Declaration speaks was wholly overturned in the former Reigns and who lay under a happy Necessisty of assisting the People to assert their Rights before he could secure His own Right and Remainder in the Crown This Subversion and Overturning of the best Frame of Government in the World was very artificially managed and began at your House which has been run down as an Innovation and no Essential Part of Parliament a Mushroom sprung up in the 49th of H. 3. and founded in Rebellion as if You had no deeper Root in the Government than Corn has upon the House top This scurvy Pedigree of the Commons in Parliament drawn up by Dr. Brady was so well liked by the Loyal Clergy and particularly he was so applauded by Jovian that Mr. Petyt found the Tide so strong against him as not to venture on a Reply though to my knowledg he was furnished with a very good one But that is not so material when you began as what you are and of the two it is better to be an Upstart Authority than a silly Cypher and thus you have been represented to all the degrees of Insignificancy Your Precarious Being was told you by a wonderful Statesman who did not spare to inform you That as the King had Created the House of Commons by his Power so he would Preserve it by his Goodness but then come some of the Clergy and say what little Creatures both you and the House of Lords are Dr. Hicks lodges in the King the whole Legislative or the Power that makes any form of Words a Law He says The Sovereign Power may indeed be limited as to the Exercise of this Legislative Power which may be confined to Bills and Writings prepared by others but still it is the Soveraign Authority who gives Life and Soul to the dead Letter of them Now this is so contrary to the Constitution as nothing can be more For not only King Charles the First acknowledged that the Laws were jointly made by the King Lords and Commons though the Houses insisted upon more but also in every Act of Parliament that is made it is expresly said in the Enacting part that it is made by the Authority of them all whereas by this Doctrine the two Houses have only a Ministerial Office of preparing a Form of Words and furnishing Bills and Writings as the King's Printers use to do you with Pen Ink and Paper And in short the King alone makes Laws and the two Houses only find Stuff Now if this sort of Paradox had been advanced concerning the Parish-Chest of Barking where the Parson has one Key and each of the Church-wardens one they could soon have Mathematically shewn him that his Key had but one Third of the Chest-opening-Power and such a Mistake would only have made a Iest But in a Case of more Consequence than all the Land in the Nation if it were now to be sold is worth such false Positions are very Dangerous For if the Legislative were once contracted in one single Hand it were as absurd to say it could be limited in the Exercise of it as it is to say that your House has not Power over your own Orders to recal and alter them as you think fit What shall hinder the whole Legislative At this rate the Saying of which my Lord Lauderdale has had the Honour would have been true that he hoped to see the King's Edicts to be Laws and above the Laws for all New Laws are always too hard for the old ones And the Arbitrary Proclamation to forbid the Nation to Petition for a Parliament had been a Law if the whole Legislative Authority was in it for the L. C. I. North found it very easy to supply the place of both Houses in drawing up the Form of Words However this is very civil Usage to what you have had from other Hands for in this way you have still left you the Honour of being Clerks and of drawing up a Form of Words But Dr. Womack in his Short Way to a lasting Settlement printed by Robert Clavel the chief Design of which was to out the two Houses from having any share or Authoritative Hand as he calls it in making the Laws and was shortly after made a Bishop for the Service has this very insolent Expression The Houses you say have a hand in the Legislation So hath the Beggar in my Almes As soon as I saw this Odious Comparison I knew it was falsly applied for even the Coronation-Oath acknowledges that the Laws of England are of the Folks choosing and it is certain that Beggars are no Choosers But I humbly beseech both Houses upon this Occasion to have a special care how they suffer this sort of Men to have the Ascendant who treat them in this manner because we have a very harsh English Proverb concerning Beggars In the Year of Jovian 83. wherein these Doctrines were published and rung all over the Nation some of the Honourable Beggars that were for a Bill of Exclusion of the Duke of York in his First Desertion and were for keeping him out when he was out after their Lives had been long hunted by these Men fell into their Nets Which Bill had given us this happy Reign several Years sooner and had saved the Lives of more than an Hundred thousand Men whose Blood lies at their Door but it was then their Hour and the Power of Darkness Let that Year be blotted out of Chronology These Doctrines I conceive are Destructive to the Nation because they undermine the Power and Authority of Parliaments who represent the Nation and are the Conservers of our Liberties if we had any but those are all taken away by another of their new-adopted Church-Doctrines of Passive-Obedience which I therefore look upon as the worst of them because it lays waste all your Laws after you have made