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
A34948	A serious expostulation with that party in Scotland, commonly known by the name of Whigs wherein is modestly and plainly laid open the inconsistency of their practices I. With the safety of humane society, II. With the nature of the Christian religion, III. Their two covenants are historically related, and prov'd to be no sufficient warrant for what they do, IV. Their new doctrine of a pretended forfeiture, is prov'd to be groundless.	Craufurd, James, 17th cent.	1682 (1682)	Wing C6865; ESTC R4965	39,666	64

World may easily seign a Warrant from God and so set up in Opposition to Authority That very Resolution of adhering to their Covenant which made them fiercely oppose the King's and reject his Act of Grace prompted them to join with his Motion for a General Assembly because from thence they were sure to draw some Advantage and tho the King might justly have refused to make good his Proffers when they had so undutifully rejected the greatest Part of them yet being willing to gratify his Subjects in every Thing the Commissioner had Order to appoint the Time and Place No sooner were they sure of an Assembly at Glasgow the 21st of November 1638. but Engines were set on work to dispose Things for the Advancement of the Cause The Marquess of Hamilton being to preside there for his Majesty proposed some Preliminaries to regulate Elections and to prevent such Disorders and Disputes as were like to arise if they observed not one and the same Method every where these the Tables would not hear of alledging that nothing of this kind could be done without encroaching upon the Liberties of Christ and of his Church While at the same Time that the King's Commissioners Preliminaries were rejected they themselves durst adventure to agree upon eight Articles or Directions to Presbyteries wherein they determin'd the Members that were to be chosen the Matters that were to be handled and the Manner they were to proceed in the Assembly in every one of which all indifferent Persons thought the Tables guilty of a more open Encroachment upon Christ and the Liberties of his Church than could be charg'd upon the Marquess for his modest and reasonable Proposals Amongst other unwarrantable Methods none was more remarkable than their directing Lay-elders from every Parish to be present at the several Presbyteries to vote in the Election of Members for the Assembly Nor could these ruling Elders fail to carry the Elections as they pleased if we consider that six Ministers being declared Candidates in every Presbytery were obliged to retire as having no Vote in choosing or rejecting themselves and then the remaining Ministers being lessen'd after this Manner in Number were plainly out-voted everywhere by the Elders Surely this was the first Time that ever Secular Men had the naming an Ecclesiastical Assembly nor needed they have questioned the Success where the Business was to be manag'd by no other than their own Creatures yet contrary to the Practice of former Assemblies in Scotland contrary to the Practice of all Churches and Ages they took upon them to go and sit Members themselves in the Assembly not only to advise in Matters of Discipline for which they might perhaps have brought a President but also to decide controverted Points in Divinity for which to say no worse many of them were very ill qualified by their Education And now let the whole World judge if it were not an Act of Partiality not to be paralell'd for them to cry out upon Bishops and Clergy-men's medling in Secular Affairs and do now raise such an outery against the King's Supremacy pretending that it is inconsistent with the Nature of Spiritual Things to bring them under the Government of the Secular Power When they themselves who were Secular Persons did so manifestly invade the most undoubted Prerogative of the Ministry heavy Complaints were given in of the insupportable Yoke of Prelacy but in truth that of Secular Men lording it then over God's Inheritance was much more grievous than the former Nor were the wiser Sort of Ministers among them insensible of this Usurpation only they were asham'd to complain much of the Uneasiness of those Chains wherewith they had help'd to fetter themselves If the brevity which I propose would allow me it might be suitable enough with my Design to give a full Account of what past in that memorable Assembly and shew how they confirm'd the Covenant there by the same Methods by which it was at first set on foot and had hitherto been carried on But it is sufficient at present to observe that the certain Prospect of a fatal Issue both to King and Government if not timely prevented obliged the King's Commissioner to dissolve the Assembly within a few Days after their Meeting And when he expected Compliance he found them ready with a Protestation to continue their Sessions till such Time as they had finished the glorious Work for which they met however their refusing to obey the King's Commands signified to them by his Commissioner was perfectly inconsistent with what the most eminent among them had said some days before at the opening the Assembly for then they exprest in several Harangues their Sense of the King's Bounty and Tenderness in bringing them thither and who can deny but he who only had Authority to call them could also dissolve them at Pleasure and tho both are equally Royal Prerogatives yet undoubtedly our Princes have Reason to set the highest Value upon their Power of Dissolving which has been useful to them upon many Occasions nor did ever the Crown receive so deep a Wound as when our late Soveraign parted with this choice Prerogative and so lay at the Mercy of a Parliament which the Fears of Dissolution could only have bridled and kept them within some Compass But to return to the Assembly When so great a Contempt was put upon the King they went on in a most violent and illegal Manner to excommunicate some of the Bishops and to depose all the rest many Acts of Parliament were rescinded the Determinations of forty Years Assemblies were declared void all Persons were enjoin'd to take the Covenant under pain of Excommunication and to give the World a lasting Instance of their Modesty they concluded with a Letter to his Majesty justifying their whole Procedure and entreating him that he would look upon them as good and dutiful Subjects and be satisfied with what they had done No wonder if Provocations of so high a Nature did beget suitable Resentments in the King who after so much abus'd Indulgence had no Way left to maintain his Right but by Arms nor did the Covenanters decline a Breach having made early Preparation for it so that before the King came to any Act of Hostility they seized upon his Castles levied Troops impos'd Taxes and cast off all manner of Allegiance and even when his Majestie 's Aversion from shedding his Subjects Blood made him upon the Head of a brave and numerous Army yield to terms of as great Condescension as Necessity could have extorted and send them home gratified in all their Demands without fighting yet new Grievances arm'd them again and whereas at first they stop'd on the Borders now most boldly they march into England force their Passage at Newburn and refuse to return until the King agreed to come into Scotland there to pass all his Concessions into Acts of Parliament His Majesty failed not to make good what he promised and having purchas'd their Allegiance

Covenant is a new Thing never heard of by his Majestie 's Royal Ancestors who did all take an Oath at their Instalment and as his Title to the Crown differ'd in nothing from his Father's and his Grandfather's so ought his Coronation Oath to have been likewise the same But if we took upon us to alter it or to add the Covenant as a new Clause no wonder if his Majesty question'd what we did without Authority and refus'd to confirm since what was extorted from him during the Rebellion This is certain that had our Representatives in Parliament considered the Covenant either as a part of his Majestie 's Coronation Oath or as an Oath lawful in it self and lawfully impos'd upon the King and his Subjects they would never have order'd it to be abjur'd nor have declar'd that there lay no Obligation either upon Prince or People to observe it Secondly a Forfeiture of the Crown doth not follow upon a Breach of the Coronation Oath because as I already observ'd the King has his Crown by Inheritance not by Election and his Right being of a more ancient Date can never depend upon what followed The King was oblig'd to be a just Prince and we to be dutiful Subjects before that pretended Agreement at his Coronation and if he should have fail'd in his part yet we were bound to make good ours even before we swore any Oath of Allegiance I confess the King's Oath is a further Confirmation of his Duty and if he were guilty of any such Breach it would much aggravate his Sin but God before whose Tribunal he must stand can only call him to an Account for it He is the Minister of God acts by his immediate Commission and he alone can cancel it To God he forfeits his Crown if he should be found to manage it ill and in this Case we were patiently to wait till Heaven thought fit to remove him remembring that the greatest Injury and Breach of Trust was to God who employ'd him But supposing a Forfeiture how come the People to claim the Benefit of it or to pretend themselves his Heirs In some extraordinary Cases such as Frenzy or the like the Safety of the Kingdom may require an extraordinary Remedy as at present in Portugal yet even where the King's insufficiency makes him unable to govern Subjects are not freed from their Allegiance if there remain any that have Right to govern as Administrators in his Name their Station is still the same no personal Fault nor Defect in the Prince can dissolve the Government nor leave People to an entire Liberty of choosing whom they will obey Now after all we are as little able to prove a Breach upon the King's Part as we are able thence to infer a Forfeiture His Majesty did swear to govern according to the fundamental Laws of the Kingdom nor can we shew where ever he has broken them Has he not in Matters of Difficulty vouchsafed to recur to his Great Council has he not suffer'd the Laws to have their free course has he ever invaded any Man's Property or deny'd any Man Justice has he ever delighted in Bloodshed or given us one Instance of his Cruelty So far has he been from giving Occasion to these cursed Aspersions of Tyranny and Oppression which the Enemies of our Peace do with equal Malice and Falsehood cast upon his Government that if without Breach of Duty we durst complain of our Prince it should be of his too great Indulgence which has hurt both himself and us for 't is plain that factious Spirits have adventur'd to disturb our quiet out of hopes of Impunity But he has arrogated to himself say some King Jesus's Right in offering to meddle with Spiritual Affairs After this manner did Gregory the seventh charge the Emperour Henry the fourth when he only maintain'd the Prerogatives of his Crown Has he meddled more with Spiritual Affairs than other Princes have done Eusebius thought it for the Honour of Constantine to set down his Words in an Assembly of Bishops where he called himself a Bishop appointed by God to see to the outward Settlement of the Church and must it be an Encroachment upon Christ in his Majesty to do what was so much commended in that great Emperour Did his Majesty arrogate to himself Christ's Right in rejecting that Form of Government which was brought in by Rebellion or in restoring that Order and Decency which were then banish'd did he arrogate too much to himself in being zealous to perform his martyr'd Fathers Will or to suppress Schism In these Things sure he acted rather in the quality of a nursing Father and discharg'd no small Part of his Trust for what more acceptable Service could he have done to Christ than to interpose his Royal Authority in promoting a blessed Uniformity amongst us There remains yet one strange Article against his Majesty such an one as I 'm confident the World has not hitherto been acquainted with and that is the Sentence of Deposition lastly past upon him in a pretended Convention of Estates as we learn from the Lanrick Declaration But seeing we have so lame an Account of this Business I hope they will be pleased to tell us when where and by what Authority that Assembly was call'd of whom it consisted what Lords Spiritual and Temporal sate there for without them in our Government there can be no Convention of Estates who presided there in his Majestie 's Name it being also necessary that he should have had his Representative In the mean Time before an Answer be returned to these Enquiries we are fully satisfied that as they met without the King's Authority and upon a most wicked Design so their Rebellious Conventicle must not be called a Convention of Estates It was a second high Court of Justice and another Bradshaw no doubt was their President this arraign'd the King as the former did his Father nor could he have escap'd their barbarous Cruelty had he been within their Reach The extravagant Proceedings at Westminster against our late Royal Martyr have neither been so much for the Glory of our Neighbours nor for our own Interest as to tempt any among us to follow their black Example and act the second Part of a Tragedy which nothing in Modern nor Ancient History can parallel and upon which it was hop'd Posterity would have look'd back with Horrour But the Members of the late mock-Convention among us have to their eternal Infamy approv'd of what was done in the high Court of Justice by their attempting to renew it and when all true Protestants and good Subjects would be willing to buy off the Guilt and Ignominy of that atrocious Crime at any rate these Men would help to transfer it upon us or at least would have us engag'd in a Villany of the same kind Our own History furnishes us already with too many Instances of Kings either assassinated poison'd or kill'd in open Rebellion but never till of late were we known to put off all Sense of Modesty as well as Duty and in Contempt of Divine and Human Laws to trample upon the Throne arraign our Soveraign before us as a Criminal and by a sacrilegious Usurpation of God's Right pass Sentence of Deposition upon him What Apprehensions must the moderate Protestants abroad have of our Zeal when they hear of this dreadful Sentence of Deposition and that of Excommunication issu'd out by Cargil in the Name of the true Presbyterian Kirk of Scotland the former forbidding us to obey the King and the latter to pray for him With what Amazement will it strike them when they see the utmost Extent of these Sentences which begin with the King but bring in the best Part of the Kingdom all Officers of the Crown Privy Councellors Judges Magistrates Officers of the Army Guards and other Souldiers who are more immediately mark'd out for Destruction as being either Persons in trust or Adherers to the Government Nor are the Orthodox Clergy men everywhere sacred by their Profession to be here exempted with them they have begun and shew'd in the Person of our late most reverend Metropolitan what the rest may expect if the Malice of that Party be once arm'd with Power so that before these Sentences be executed according to their full extent we are like to be in the lamentable Condition of the Egyptians we shall not have an House without some one or other dead in it only in this we differ the Angel of the Lord destroy'd their First-born whereas we are design'd to destroy one another It is really strange how Men that have thus shaken off all the Ties of Religion and Nature and own such bloody and desperate Principles are not sometimes afraid lest our Neighbours when these Things are published abroad should take the Alarm and join with those in danger at home to cut them off as avow'd Enemies to their Native Prince their Country and their Friends and consequently to all Mankind But as they appear yet to be only Persons of mean Quality and not very numerous in respect of the rest of the Kingdom so the Pitch of extravagance which they are now arriv'd at secures them in a great Measure from Vengeance and makes them the Objects of Pity as Persons distemper'd with a violent Phrenzy and who for the publick Safety are to be kept in Chains rather than destroy'd and treated as brainsick Persons till they recover And truly it may be worth our Governours Time to consider whether any so proper Method has been yet thought of for such as to remove them from Prisons to Houses of Correction not to do them the Honour to bring them before Judicatures to revile the higher Powers nor to Pillories nor Scaffolds to confirm the rest of their Party by their obstinate Sufferings not to condemn them to dy as Martyrs but to continue under severe Task-masters till Time hard Labour and the seasonable Discourses of discreet Persons appointed for this Purpose may by God's Blessing prove the effectual Means to cool their Heats remove their Scruples and restore them again to their right Wits FINIS