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	void_a	3,949	5	9.2539	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30367	An enquiry into the present state of affairs and in particular, whether we owe allegiance to the King in these circumstances and whether we are bound to treat with him, and to call him back again, or not.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1689 (1689)	Wing B5812; ESTC R35456	9,042	12

plain after all that if the Oath of Allegiance binds us still it binds us to a great deal more than those that are for treating seem willing to allow 7. All the Schemes that may be offered of securing us by a Treaty with the King have such visible Defects in them that Men who are accustomed to examine things cannot be deceived by them We have had it given for Law of late too often to forget it that all Acts of Parliament that are to the Disherison of the Crown are null and void of themselves So here all the Securities that can be offered us are swept away at once We can have no legal Parliament without swearing first the Oath of Allegiance to the King and what a scorn is put on God and Religion if one swear this Oath to the King after he is reduced to that naked State to which these Treaters pretend to bring him Nor can the Nation have any Security by Law either for what is done or for what may remain yet to be done but by Acts that are past by King Lords and Commons Men are to be pardoned if they are uneasy till they have the utmost Security that the Constitution can give them And after all whosoever is the King for the time being he has the Law so intirely of his side that tho during the present Fermentation the force of this is not perceptible yet it is a Cruelty not to be easily forgiven to keep a Nation too long in so dangerous a Condition 8. But after all some Men plainly say the King can do no Wrong that his Ministers are only accountable for all the Ill he had done and that the Prince in his Declaration has laid the Blame of all that for which he engaged in this great Design on the evil Counsellors about the King on whom the Punishment ought to fall and not on the King himself whose Person is exempt from Censure To all which this is to be answered that the Maxim The King can do no Wrong is perverted to a sense very different from that which was at first intended by it for the meaning of it is only this That the King's Power cannot go so far as to support him in the doing of any Injustice or Wrong to any according to that Chapter in Magna Charta by which all Commissions granted against Law are declared to be null and void for this is the true meaning of that Maxime But there is no reason to carry this so far as that if Kings will strain their Authority visibly to do the highest Wrongs possible they were in no way accountable for it Whatsoever has been done in Parliament and has never been condemned by any subsequent one is a part of the Law of England since then two of our Kings Edward the 2d and Richard the 2d have been Judged in Parliament for their Mal-Administration and since these Judgements have never been vacated by any subsequent Parliaments those proceedings are a part of our Law. And though perhaps there have been more express Definitions made of late in Favour of the Crown than ever were in former times yet as long as those Proceedings remain upon Record it is plain that this great Right of the English Nation of preserving it self in cases of extream Necessity against the violent Invasions that the Crown may make upon it is still entire and in force But after all it will be readily yielded that at the Life of a Father is never to be attempted on by his Children how great soever their Provocations may be so the King being made the Political Father of the Country his person ought still to be sacred But when the Root of the King 's overturning our Laws is his being so entirely devoted to his Religion and to the Order of the Jesuits how decent soever it might be for the Prince to lay the Blame of all on his evil Counsellors yet it will be an unreasonable Piece of Tenderness in the Representative of the Kingdom not to lay the Blame of things where it ought to be laid 9. Either all thoughts of Treating with the King or all Enquiries into the Birth of the pretended Prince of VVales are to be laid aside The King has gone so far in what he has averred with relation to that matter that it is impossible to judge it an Imposture without giving him a large share in it and no Man can think that it is possible to maintain the common Decencies of Respect to the King if any steps are made in that matter for even an Enquiry into it is the calling his Honour into question in so sensible apoint that no Man that can make a Discovery is safe to make it nor are any safe who pretend to examine it as long as there are any thoughts of treating with him which will never be believed to be quite laid down as long as the Title of King is acknowledged to be still in him Men that condemn the Errors in Government committed by him may flatter themselves with the possibility of his pardoning them but there is no Mercy where the Matter is personal in which his Honour is so immediately concerned and where a Judgment against the Child casts so black and so indelible a stain on himself 10. If Articles are prepared to be offered to the King they will be either such as he will probably grant or such that it cannot in reason be expected that he should grant them The former is not to be supposed for such a stripping himself of Power as seems necessary to give us any tolerable Security is that which we ought not to imagine he will grant and it will appear to the World a triumphing over him in his Misfortunes if we make a shew of treating with him when it is visible before hand that the Demands which must be made him are such that he cannot in Honour grant them nor we in Reason expect them from him When Matters are brought to that pass at which they are at present it is more suitable to the Dignity and Wisdom of the Nation to act frankly and above-board than to think to varnish them over with some outward Appearances In such cases any other way of proceeding has not that Air of Greatness and Openness which is necessary upon such occasions A great deal of time will be lost in preparing the Propositions and a Treaty being once entertained many may be practised on and either be corrupted or destroyed And perhaps the half of the Articles will be drop'd in the Treaty or the whole will be given up by the King in less time than was imployed in preparing any one of the Articles The very talk of a Treaty will keep the Minds of many in Agitation and suspence Some that are now desperate with relation to the King may enter into a separate Treaty with him and an inconstant Multitude will be too much tempted to run as fast to him as ever they shewed

that the Allegiance tho it still remains yet is under a suspension as in the Case of an Infant or a Mad-man in which a Guardian may be necessary for the Administration of the Government tho the Right and Dignity is still in the Person of the King and that therefore tho the King 's misguided Zeal may have rendred him unfit to Govern yet the Title and Dignity of a King ought still to be preserved even when the Regency may be put in other hands To this it is to be opposed That in case of Infancy or Lunacy the incapacity to govern is transient in the one and so pitiable in the other that this will not afford an Argument in favour of an Incapacity that is affected and culpable Besides in those Cases there is no danger to the Government by any struggle between the King and the Regent which cannot be avoided where a King is of Age and under no other distemper but that which is the effect of his Religion In this Case a Contest is inevitable A King without Power cannot be much at his ease and his struggle for it must either end in the overthrowing the Regency if not in the Assassinating the Regent or in the Imprisonment of the King which must needs have such fatal consequences that it is not to be imagined that any of the King's Children in whom Piety and Nature work can ever engage into a state of Life that gives them so melancholly a Prospect Besides that the Name and Title of KING carry a sound with them that strikes the People And if now after all the provocation that the Nation is under at present it is yet thought fit to let the Title and Dignity remain in the King it will be natural for all men when that sharpness is over to soften and to think that things have been carried too far And since no Government is secure from Accidents and free from all the subjects of discontent it is not unreasonable to foresee that the leaving any Root in the ground may occasion a new Spring at some distance of time when past Errors may be forgot and the present Accidents may give another turn to mens thoughts We are likewise as much bound by the Oath of Allegiance to maintain the King's State and all his Prerogatives as his Title and Dignity It will look like the condemning our own Actions to allow him the Honour and to take from him the Power of a King so that if the Oath may be slackened in one Point I do not see why it must of necessity bind us in another In a word we do either too little or too much if we allow him to be King and do not likewise vest him with the whole extent of the Royal Authority 5. In all Settlements it is very natural for men to look for good Security especially for those who being newly come out of a Storm have the terror of it still on their thoughts now what Security can be proposed in any Treaty with the King We see what insignificant things Promises and Oaths are when Popery is in the other Scale and to trust any more is too impudent a Proposition to apprehend that any one should insist upon it As for all Limitation by Laws when that for the test-Test-Act which was penn'd with all possible Caution has been broke through by a pretended Dispensing Power it is a vain thing to trust such Remedies against an ungovern'd Zeal which when whetted with Resentment must act with so much the more Rigor and Fury We have also many Instances in our own time to shew us how little regard is to be had to all the Offers that are made in general Terms in order to the gaining of a great Point which being once gained those Offers are no more thought of To make way for the late King's Restauration nothing was so much talked of as the Terms on which he should be restored but the Point was no sooner gain'd than the Terms were not only forgot but all things were carried higher than before And a few years ago when the Nation was set on the Bill of Exclusion all those who opposed it were framing Schemes of limiting a Popish Successor but that Storm was no sooner weather'd than a Party was form'd that carried their Victory so far that in stead of Limitations all the chief Securities and Fences of our Government were thought the only proper Sacrifice to atone for the guilt of attempting the Exclusion So if a Treaty were once opened and the King were to be brought back again on what terms soever it might be we should probably see the whole design of Popery and Arbitrary Government return upon us with more fury than ever and we should find our selves in no possibility of resisting it or being redeemed from it for this Deliverance was no such easy Performance as to make us think that such another could ever be compassed or that God will work new Miracles for our Preservation after we had thrown our selves back into that miserable Condition out of which he has rescued us 6. If it be insisted on that the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance are conceived in such terms that there is no breaking thro' them and that we have sworn that we shall never take Arms against the King that we have renounced the Position as traiterous of making a distinction between the King's Person and his Power in short that we are under the most express ties that can be put in words never to rebel against the King nor to shake off his Authority To all this it is to be answered that the end and design of those Oaths was to secure us against the danger of Popery as any one may see in the Acts by which they were Imposed And tho all these Oaths are still to the King yet that is to a Prince who subsists upon Law and rules by Law and therefore if the King ceases to be King by subverting our Constitution first and deserting us nixt then all our Oaths fall to the ground as the Matrimonial Oath tho made for term of Life yet is capable of being dissolved when that which is the Essence of the Bond is broke And if the King ceases to be a King then the next Heir becomes the only lawful and rightful King and if the next is a Femme Covert then by the Law of Nations which creates a Communication of all the Rights of the Wife to the Husband this is likewise communicated so that here we may have still a lawful and rightful King. And after all it is plain that if any diminution of the Regal Authority be imposed on the King as the condition upon which only he can be admitted this very Imposition is as real a breach of the Oath as a total shaking him off This makes a vast difference between the King's Person and his Power tho that is a Point expresly renounc'd in the Oaths that we swear so that it is