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	writ_n	3,273	5	9.6734	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88267	The upright mans vindication: or, An epistle writ by John Lilburn Gent. prisoner in Newgate, August 1. 1653. Unto his friends and late neighbors, and acquaintance at Theobalds in Hartford-shire, and thereabouts in the several towns adjoyning; occasioned by Major William Packers calumniating, and groundlesly reproaching the said Mr John Lilburn.	Lilburne, John, 1614?-1657.	1653 (1653)	Wing L2197; Thomason E708_22; ESTC R202736	33,340	35

printed papers about the Trial of the late King upon this very subject to make you now abominate of governing by Conquest or any other way like it especially that of the Officers of the Army of the 16 of Novemb. 16●8 dated at St. Albons and John Cook your Soliciter Generals stated Case of the King And as to the nature and extent of implied and tacid trusts read in the first part of the Parliaments book of Declarations pag. 150 151. And the Armies Declaration of the 14 of June 1647. made immediatly after their League Covenant and Contract made and signed at New market and Triplo heaths and printed in their Book of Declarations about pag. 44 45. And can any man be so irrationally brutish as to imapine and think that those that you account honest people in England whom I am sure with my individual self have adhered with lives and estates to this very day to their fundamental laws and liberties and to the primitivest and best of the Parliaments and Armies Declarations that ever they will be so fellonious to themselves as to assist and enable you with their own power with their own estates with their own lives and blouds to enable you to set up that that shall destroy them and all that 's near and dear unto them if you please and when you please but such a thing for any thing I can apprehend is that Parliament that you tell my Wise you intend speedily to set up which I cannot in the least discern is to be chosen and entrusted by the people or any part even of those that have in all things as firmly as any of your selves adhered unto this very day and ventured their lives and fortunes to maintain their fundamental laws and liberties published and declared in the best of the Parliament and Armies declaration But a Parliament picked and culled by your selves that have not with all the Officers of the Army the honest people of Englands payed and hired servants who therefore ought not by your owne principles and for quoted Declarations to act for their wo in the least but onely and alone for their weal and good any other pretence to set up such a Parl. but the right of Conquest which yet will be one of the most vildest assertions in the world for you to maintain against my self and thousands and ten thousands more that have assisted you and never acted against your declared and honest principles by which you ingaged to maintain our fundamental laws and liberties in reference to the free and secure injoyment of our lives liberties and properties which by your foresaid declared principles and declarations can be no other but a Parliament of force will and pleasure and thereby the perfect badge of Conquest and by consequence by your own acknowledgment onely fit to make lawes amongst Bears and Wolves but not amongst men and what justice or relief I may expect from such a Parliament is beyond my apprehension The third way of governing or way of administration of Government is by a Nation or company of peoples mutual agreement or contract or long setled well approved of and received customs there being not in the least in either of the Oldor New Testament any prescript form of Civil or earthly politick Government left by God to be binding and observed by all Nations and people in all ages and times men being born rational creatures are therefore left by God in or to the choice of their Civil Government to the principles of reason all which centers in general in these two viz. do as you would be done to and ye shall not do evil that good may come thereby and to chuse such a government as themselves or their chosen trustees please to impose upon themselves under which they may in a rational security live happily and comfortably which the very Charter of Nature doth intayl or intitles all men under all Civil government unto and such was our Government in England in a great measure under the establishment of Kings who as in your Declarations and the late Kings own confession it is justly avowed and truly acknowledged was to govern the people of England according to the known and declared fundamental laws and no otherwise made by common consent in Parliament or national common or supreme Councels and to grant such laws for the future as the folk or people for the good and benefit in National common Councels or Parliaments should chuse which I dare avow was with all its imperfections in the constitution of it the best rationalest and for the people of England most securest of declared and setled Governments now extant in the whole world our change for onely a nominal free State or Commonwealth hither toward I will maintain it upon my life in aboundance of particulars against the ablest man or men in England being as yet onely for the worse but not in the least to the generality of the people for the better the late Parliament of Lords and Commons being according to the declared law of England called and summoned by the Kings Writ in whose power by law it was at his pleasure to dissolve them till such time as in the year 1640. he past an Act of Parliament in full and free Parliament That they should sit during their own pleasure and not be dissolved but by their own consents all which ancient legal much approved of long setled government being absolutely and totally dissolved by you there can now according to your foresaid principles and the principles of nature and reason by no power or persons whatsoever in England be summoned called or chosen a new Parliament but by a new and rational contract and agreement of the people of England especially and at least upon your own foresaid principles made amongst those that have adhered with their lives and fortunes to their own fundamental declared laws and liberties according to the rational and just principles of the Parliament and Armies best of Declarations And therefore a Parliament called by you in any other way as you pretend now to be in a Commonwealth in my shallow apprehension can be no other but the perfect demonstration of absolute Conquest which is a title or government fit onely for Beares and Wolves but not for men much less for Englishmen by your own forementioned printed Confession and averment The constant effects of which can in reason and experience be nothing els but murther shedding of bloud war misery pover'y famine pestilence and utter desolation to now more then ever divided poor England from which good Lord deliver poor England my dear and entirely beloved Native Country for whose welfare and freedom as for many years by past to the best of my poor understanding I have been ready and I hope whilest I breath shall never cease to continue willing to become a sacrifice And I also beseech God to cause the eyes of the wise and judicious ordinary people and common souldiers thereof

thee to use the contrary thou canst and knowest how to apply thy self thereto And therefore for a great man but especially for one newly attained to his greatnesse it beboves him saith he to have a mind so disposed as to turn and take the advantage of all winds and fortunes and as formerly I said not for sake the good while he can but to know how to make use of the evil upon necessity And therefore let him saith he seem to him that sees and hears him all pitty all faith all integrity all religion but there is not any thing more necessary for him to seem to have saith he then this last quality viz to seem to be religious because all men in generall judge thereof rather by the sight then by the touch for every man can come to see what thou seemest to be but few men come to perceive and understand what thou art indeed and reality For saith he if great men can feign and dissemble throughly other men are so simple and yeeld so much to the present necessities that he that hath a mind to deceive shall alwaies find another that will be deceived it being natural common to the vulgar to be over-taken with the apprehension and event of a thing seldome or never rightly and truly weighing and examining the righteousnesse and Justice of the way and means that great men use to attain to their ends And at the same time when I seriously considered the high pretences of the Major Generals Lambert and Harrison to Justice and Righteousnesse in its purity and height and the seeming contrariety of intrests betwixt them and their General it made me seriously to think of what I have with a great deal of observation read in those most excellent and famous Roman and Greek Historians Titus Livius and Plutark of the Triumvery of Rome consisting of Lepidus Anthony and Augustus Caesar whose intrests the said Authors plentifully shews in many things were as inoonsistent with each other as light is with darknesse yet they all could agree in the main viz. to make a sacrifice of each others choicest and dearest friends that each other of them hated or that they knew were or had bin great lovers of the liberties freedoms of Rome which some 100 of years before then had been one of the most famousest most splendidest and gloriousest Common-wealths in the whole world by means of which they not onely brought into their native Country and City most horrible and bloudy massacres and wars but also totally subdued the liberties of their famous Common wealth the people whereof could never regain them again to this day although it be above 1600 years ago and in conclusion the two eldest Triumveries viz. Lepidus and Anthony were cheated and outed of their Government and one or both of them of their lives and the youngest viz. Augustus Caesar carried the bell away of the whole and thereby made himself Emperour of the world then in subjection to Rome and the grounds and reasons of all these and many more considerations of my then perplexed conceptions arise from your foresaid answer and speeches to my wife c. for can there be any difficulty or danger or dishonour in it if you were willing at all to let me come into England to break a particular Act of Parliament in my particular case of so high and palpable injustice when you have accounted it no difficulty danger nor dishonour unto your to break or at least all of you to approve of the breaking and dissolving of that Parliament by force of arms that made the said particular unjust and unrighteous Act that were setled in their power and secured in the continuance of it by so many Acts of Parliament divers of which made it Treason for any English man or men so much as to go about or but attempt or indeavour to dissolve them without their own free consents and which some of your very selves had been formerly active upon most strict penalties even of losing the benefit of all Law and being esteemed no Englishmen to force the people to take an oath or ingagement to be true to them to maintain preserve them so that I confess this piece of your answer was then such a riddle to me as I could then no otherwise unfold it then as is alredy before declared In the second place as for that part of your Answer that tels her there will speedily be a new Parliament that will relieve me which very thing is a greater mystery to me then the former because that in all the readings that ever I read in my life in divine or humane Authors I reade but of three wayes of governing the world or the poople thereof the First is immediately by inspiration and visible or evident command from God himself and such was Moses Government and the Judges of Israel But I beleeve all of you nor none of you will so much as pretend to so immediate and evident conversing with God as Moses and several of the Judges of Israel did in your governing the people of England if you do I hope you will shew the people of England at least those that you judge honest and have no more upon your own declared principles forfeited their hereditary birth rights of injoyment of their fundamental lawes liberties and freedoms then any one of you have done your commission And also carry them where they shall evidently hear the voyce of God speaking unto you thereby infallibly guiding and directing you after which if then they will not beleeve your special assignation from God to be Englands Law givers and Rulers you will shew them your signes and wonders that by the power of God therein and thereby you will confound and destroy as Moses did grand unbeleevers and rebellers For without all these things all your pretences to walk in Moses and the Judges arbitrary steps in giving a law unto and by will and pleasure governing the people of England will be but meer impostorisms for which you can expect from God and the people of England no other recompence but what Impostors received in Moses time The second kinde of Government or way of administration of Government is by Conquest and such was Nimrods the mighty Hunter which is so mightily condemned even by the declarations of your own selves for a beastly inhumane and unnatural government as nothing can be more and therefore although at present I have not your printed papers or declarations at Calis by me yet by the strength of my memory I dare avow that in one of your printed papers published by you to justifie your late proceedings against the late executed King Conquest is called a title or government fit to be amongst Bears and Woolves but not amongst men and say I much less Christians but much less of all other amongst the pretended refined'st of Christians as you would have men judge you to be Reade but your late Acts Declarations and