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
A86296	A letter from an officer in His Majesties army, to a gentleman in Glocester-shire. Upon occasion of certain querees scattered about that country.	Heylyn, Peter, 1600-1662.	1643 (1643)	Wing H1724; Thomason E101_25; ESTC R18322	12,609	17

A LETTER FROM AN OFFICER in His MAJESTIES Army to a Gentleman in Glocester-shire UPON OCCASION OF certain Querees scattered about that Country Printed in the Yeare 1643. A LETTER FROM AN OFFICER IN HIS MAJESTIES ARMY to a Gentleman in Glocester-shire Upon occasion of certain Quaerees scattered about that COUNTRY Sir I Have received your Letter and your Quaerees which you say makes a deep impression in many of whose honesty and publique Affections I have a very good esteem and that they are made by one who hath a great desire to receive case and satisfaction himselfe as being of a nature very undelighted and passive in these distractions The first how strange soever it seems to Reason I must beleive especially when I find your selfe whom I have often known very easily to master more difficult Contentions brought to some pause as it somewhat were said to you you could not well get from no doubt many other of lesse subtle understandings and it may be hurt by the necessary pressures and provoked by unwarrantable Insolencies of the Kings Souldiers are or seem to be really puzled But for the Author of those Quaerees you must pardon me if I do not beleive him to be a man of so innocent a nature as you would imply doubtlesse these scruples never sprung from a minde in labour to find out truth but are contrived by a Person very well able to answer his own Objections and having pretended Conscience against his own understanding hath found these little excuses to make a party amongst weaker men The first Scruple seems to be a tendernesse of the Act for continuance of this Parliament which that Gentleman would apprehend to be broken by His Majesties not consenting to all the Counsells now given Him by both Houses If I thought this Objection to be of moment to you I should give your understanding for lost and expect your cure only by that which misled you Successe but I must observe to you the uningenuity of your honest man who would make the People beleive that by His Majesties consenting to passe that Act that Assembly were authorized to command and His Maiesty obliged to obey whatever they prescribed when that Gentleman well knowes nothing is enacted by that law but that this Parliament shall not be dissolved but by Act of Parliament You well remember in what Condition things stood at the passing that Law two Armies in the Bowells of the Kingdome at 800001. the Moneth so much to be raised for the support of them and a much greater summe to Disband them all this Money was to be borrowed and upon such security as Money in those happy daies used to be lent for the new merry security of the publique faity by a Vote of both Houses was not then currant enough to be obtruded to the people the Credit of many worthy Persons was to be used for the procuring this supply and it seemed no unseasonable warinesse of those who exposed themselves and their fortunes to this hazard to desire that the body at whose instance they undertook those Engagements might not be dissolved before it had taken some course to secure such undertakings and provision should be made for the indempnity of those who had submitted to such burthens This Reason and this alone prevailed with His Majesty to agree that this Parliament should not be dissolved without their consent who seemed voluntarily to engage themselves for the Peace benefit of the Kingdom How this continuance of the Parliament should now give both Houses the Prerogative they have assumed I cannot understand and themselves have publiquely acknowledged in their Declarations that they were to blame if they undertook any thing which they would not undertake if it were in His Maiesties power to dissolve them to morrow Think now with your selfe if the King should argue with both Houses upon their own Grounds that the Trust being broken the power may be reassumed immediately into the hands which reposed that Trust might he not justly say that they had betrayed and forfeited that Trust by using the meanes which was given them to disburthen the Common-wealth of a debt which was then thought insupportable only to plunge it irrecoverably into a greater and to ruine the Kingdom to preferre halfe a score men And if the People should follow their Logique and be tryed only by the Equity of the Law might they not charge them with the breach of Trust in changing the whole frame of the Government of the Kingdom and subjecting them to so unlimited an Arbitrary power that no man can know at the sitting of the Houses what he shall be worth at their rising Did they intend when they let these men into that Assembly that they should shut the Door and keep those that sent them for ever from those Counsells Did the King intend that they should rob depose murther him And did the people intend that their fellowes and Companions should imprison plunder and destroy them and if the abused King and injured people should now declare this Act to be void and in it selfe against the Fundamentall Lawes of the Kingdom and so this Parliament to be dissolved would not your Principles and foundations beare them out You are one of the oldest Parliament men I know and however you may have since changed your mind have to me seemed the most scandalized at the Indignities offered to the very being of Parliament by the wildnesse and fury of this Did not you passionately reprehend the pert Burgesse of your own Town for arguing against the Kings negative voyce because then it may fall out that the Common-wealth might be ruined for want of a supplementall Law which the perversenesse of one man would not consent to Did you not then after you had shewed the impossibility and madnesse of such suppositions and that from the beginning of this Monarchy to this day no inconvenience had hapned of that kind say that you were perswaded in your Conscience that the Lawes of the Kingdome were so very compleat in order to the Government of the Kingdome that if there should never more be made so the old were faithfully observed the Kingdome would be at least without any diminution of its happinesse on the other side if the Kings Consent were not necessary you said all those Bills which had heretofore passed both Houses and for want of the Royall Assent had been layed by would now rise vp 〈◊〉 so many Lawes to as great a confusion as these Ordinances have made Did you not then say that when Parliaments left their modesty they would loose their Reputation and when they walked in any other Path then of their knowne Presidents and judged by any other Rule then the known Lawes they would advance a Tyranny more insupportable then ever Rome or Greece endured your Priviledges which are freedome of Speech and freedome from Imprisonment except where the Law sayes you may be imprisoned where are they how violated and by whom but

protecting of Delinquents If we cannot recover Law againe for Gods sake let us have sense restored to us and not grow Beasts in our understanding as well as in our Liberty it will make us love mankind the worse to see men with sad browes as if they believed themselves seriously urge things in publique which in private would make friends quarrell for the scorne and Indignity offered to reason such is all your discourse of Priviledges and Delinquents But you have at last found a pretty obligation upon your selves to Rebell against Law and Reason your late Protestation requires all this at your hands in the behalfe of the Priviledges of Parliament which by that you are bound to defend and so you rescue your selves from the duty of Allegiance to which you have regularly and legally sworn by a voluntary Protestation to doe somewhat you doe not understand If there be any thing by that Protestation enjoyned to be done which was unlawfull to be done before the Protestation was taken 't is no more to be justified by that Act then any other unlawfull thing is by a rash and wicked Vow entred into by a Person who desires to doe mischiefe If there be nothing in it but what before was the duty of every man there needs no Argument from the Protestation The truth is though I like not the use hath been made of it to poyson and mislead simple people nor the irregularity to call it no worse of compelling men to take it when no Law requires it I know nothing promised or undertaken in that Protestation which every honest man doth not and alwaies did hold absolutely to be his duty no man being obliged by it to doe any thing but as farre as Lawfully he may And would not a stander by think a man mad that should swear to defend the Kings Person and to maintain the Priviledges of Parliament and immediatly draw His sword upon the King whose Person he knew in the behalfe of somewhat he is told is Priviledge of Parliament we are gotten again into the old circle of folly and madnesse Your last Scruple I will be serious with you in 't is that however thrown among the people malitiously and indeed against the Conscience of the Contrivers which I know startles many well meaning and well wishing men you are afraid of the Papists and that if the King prevailes that Religion will have too great a countenance and growth to the scandall of ours Indeed if this fear were well grounded you would have so many partners with you in your trouble that you would even be satisfied in your company and by that think your selfe secure against your fears what makes you doubt this an Inclination in the King Himselfe Let His life be examined His continued publique Acts of Devotion examples indeed for a through Reformation His understanding the differences between the Church of Rome and us and so not only utterly dissenting from them but knowing why he doth so and He will be found above the reach of Envy or Malice and indeed above your own feares and jealousies Take a list and survey of His Servants and Counsellors who are suspected to have the least interest in His favours and inclinations you will not find a man under the least taint that way and most of them till your dishonest uncharitable distinction of Popish and Popishly affected was thrown among the people thought eminent advancers of the true Protestant Religion established And let me tell you if there should be a breach made upon that Religion these men would stand in the Gap when halfe your Zelots would submit to an Alteration if it brought any satisfaction to their worldly Ambition But you say the Queene is of that Religion and Shee hath a great influence and power over His affections and you think it an unkingly thing to be a good Husband and whilest your selves are guided and swayed by other mens Wives for 't is not Women you are angry with you allow them whole sharers with you in your mischiefes you cannot endure He should so much as advise with His own indeed I cannot blame you to desire to keep Him from any Conversation with one you have used so ill But how comes this Melancholy upon you now Is Shee more a Catholique now then She was fifteen years since Why did not these Fears and Iealousies break out into Rebellion when He was first Married before the Nation knew any thing of Her but Her Religion After the experience of so many yeares after the enriching the Kingdom with so hopefull and numerous an Issue after the obliging all sorts of People with Her favours without disobliging any body that I have heard of after fifteen years living here with great expressions of Love and Affection to the English Nation without any other activity in Religion then to live well and wish well to Her owne with equall esteem of those who are not of the same Profession to desire to break and interrupt that excellent Harmony in Affections is an ingratitude an impiety worthy the contrivers of these bloody distempers Look into the Persons who have received the greatest testimonies evidence of Her favours you will not find them to be Popish or Popishly affected but in the list of your own Religious Men and Godly Women If you will convert Her let your Charity and Humility the principles of true Religion let your Obedience and Loyalty the effects of true Religion be an Evidence to Her that yours is the right the course you take will rather fright good People from any then invite them to yours She is a Lady too well understands Her own share and Her own adventure in the publique distractions not to endeavour with Her soule a reconciliation of them I would your Ladies were like Her She is as farre from revenge of Injuries and Indignities as from deserving them You have the advantage in your Provocations you have met with tempers as apt to forgive as you are to offend who are as unlimited in their mercy as their enemies are in their insolencies make good use of it set your hearts upon Peace and you will easily find the way to it be once ingenious and you will be quickly safe But oh the great Army of Papists if that were disbanded your feares and jealousies would infinitely abate that 's well pray observe how these Papists come together Remember Nottingham when you had a formed Army of 10000. men and His Majesty not 800. Muskets at His command in all His dominions if you had then fallen upon Him and destroyed Him as if Your Pride had not been greater then your Loyalty you had done you meant to strip Him by Votes and Ordinances of all Succors and Assistance that He should be compelled to put Himselfe into your hands for Protection and so confesse your Army to be raised for His defence Would not now all Christian Princes have thought His Majesty guilty of His own undoing who would