Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	law_n	parliament_n	repeal_v	2,928	5	12.0628	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38251	An Eighth collection of papers relating to the present juncture of affairs in England		1689 (1689)	Wing E265B; ESTC R19509	28,615	37

Whereas the Law of God only required Forefold Restitution in those cases and in some Countries Stealing was not only lawfull but was encouraged as an Accomplishment But on the other hand in God's own Government Idolatrous Priests were to be put to death And by the Law of Nations in all Countries whatsoever Spies Deserters Adherents and Emissaries of a publick Enemy as by our Law the Pope is to us and by his Law all Hereticks are declared to be to him are all to be hanged up And then as for the Mass Priests being called the Priests of the living God I appeal to the senses and understanding of all mankind whether the Lord God the Maker the former and the Creator of a Mass Priest whom he carries in his Box and Worships be a living God or no Nay according to the School of the Eucharist I will be judged by the very Rats and Mice which often run away with him III. The next thing the Church or rather the State of England is charged with for it was a Parliament business at least thirteen Years is the Execution of Mary Q. of Scots for Treason against Q. Elizabeth Wherein if they did any thing contrary to Law and the Allegiance due to their then present Q. Elizabeth they are chargeable with disloyalty otherwise not And whereas this Author calls it a Barbarous Murther and an Execrable Fact I would desire him to speak low for if the Laws should over-hear him they would call this Arraigning the Justice of the Nation And in saying that this Fact was the first of the kind he betrays great Ignorance he might as well have said that the Emperour Licinius Colleague with Constantine the Great and Q. Joan of Naples are still living And as yet I have never read that what Constantine did in that case was to the scandal and reproach of Christianity or even of those Christians who lived under Licinius and joyned with Constantine the Great in that Affair But fourthly I find which is the Substance of the sixth and seventh Pages that the Church of England might have all her old scores cleared and all her former faults forgotten and might pass for Loyal still if she would now consent to the Repeal of the Sanguinary Penal Laws which were purposely enacted to maintain the Usurpation of Queen Elizabeth and the late impious Tests Which puts me in mind of the conditions of peace which the Wolves sent to the Sheep The main Article was that the Sheep should deliver up their Dogs which they kept for a Guard and which were the great hindrance to a firm and lasting Peace But every body knows how long the Peace lasted But to proceed If the Sanguinary Penal Laws were purposely enacted to maintain the Usurpation of Queen Elizabeth how came they to be enacted afresh in the first year of King James when that Usurpation was over How came they two years after 3 Jac. c. 1. to be called Religious and necessary Laws And how came more of these Religious and necessary Laws to be made in the same Parliament and in succeeding Parliaments As for the late impious Tests choice Epithets for the Laws of the Land they were made as appears by the Title of the Acts To prevent dangers which may happen from Popish Recusants Now the sheep might safely have parted with their Dogs if the Peaceable Wolves at the same time would have parted with their Fangs 5. In the last page he says As for the Tests themselves it is not my Province to shew the Absurdities of them in point of Doctrine It is well it is not for he must get abundance of help whenever he goes about that Work. However he offers at it in these words Though by the by I must hold it a great folly to say that Transubstantiation is not a probable opinion at the least considering the number and Learning of those who maintain it which is the best part of Christendom And if it be a probable opinion it must be a great Temerity in any man to swear there is no such thing I had always thought that a probable opinion must be made out by proofs and probable reasons and not by numbers and telling of Noses But it seems the cause of Transubstantiation runs very low when it must be maintained by such Arguments as hold much stronger for Paganism and for Diana of the Ephesians whom all the World worshipped The Religion of the Heathens was of a larger extent and of longer standing than Popery and was maintained by all the learning of Athens and of Ancient Rome and yet we dare be Sworn that it was a false Religion I think we do not renounce Transubstantiation upon Oath but only by publick Declaration and Subscription but if we did it would by no means be a rash Oath For may not I safely swear that there is no such Figure as a Square Circle when the thing involves manifold contradictions and it is plainly demonstrable that the properties of a Square and of a Circle are utterly Inconsistent Now we have a thousandfold more Evidence and are able to make as clear proof and demonstration of it a thousand times over that there never was nor is nor can be any such thing as Transubstantiation which is nothing else but a heap of Contradictions Absurdities and impossible Falshoods And therefore we have the same assurance that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation never came nor could come from God as we have of this clear and evident Truth That it is impossible for God to Lye. VI. And now we are come to the conclusion and upshot of the business which is in these words So that upon the whole matter the Loyal Church of England must either change her old Principles of Loyalty and take example by her Catholick Neighbours how to behave her self towards a Prince who is not of her perswasion or she must give his Majesty leave not to nourish a Snake in his own Bosome but rather to withdraw his Royal Protection which was promised upon the account of her constant Fidelity I wish this Author had been more express and particular in this Dilemma and difficulty to which he thinks he has reduced the Church of England either to turn over a new leaf and learn a new lesson of Loyalty from her Catholick Neighbours or else to do worse For he does not tell us which of our Catholick Neighbours we must take example by whether Mrs. Celier and Mr. Sclater who have both published to the World that they turned Papists that is have made themselves High-Traytors for the improvement of their Loyalty or whether we should take example by this Author himself to call Queen Elizabeth Bastard to ridicule an Infallible English Parliament as he calls it in Scorn to deprave and vilifie several Statutes which are and will be the standing Laws of the Land till such time as they are repealed by Act of Parliament And therefore he has not been so clear as he might have been

Queen of Scots is made Queen of England upon the Hypothesis of the Paternal Right when upon that Hypothesis she was disinherited and foreclosed from the Crown of England by two successive Patriarchs Henry the 8th and Edward the 6th I should think for that very reason that the Hypothesis of the Laws had been a much better Hypothesis In the opening a little and shewing these Absurdities I suppose I shall meet with all that is remarkable in that Paper 1. The Articles and Canons of the Church of England are set aside and some few Addresses in this present Reign are made the standard of the Doctrine of the Church of England p. 3. and 5. Is this arguing from the Church of England's Own Principles which he says is the design of his Paper p. 6. Is it the Principle of any one Clergyman in England that the Doctrine of the Church of England is to be sought for and found out in Addresses Or in any thing but the Liturgy and Homilies the Articles and Canons of the Church which have the publick Sanction and the Universal consent of the whole Clergy If he had found materials out of any of these to make good his charge of disloyalty he had done like a Man and the Church of England had been condemned out of her own mouth but if he cannot do this at present we will have patience to stay till he can and in the mean time he had done wiselier to have said nothing 2. The Bishops aad Clergy of several Convocations who have been dead these hundred years are rendred disloyal for not governing themselves by these Addresses two years ago which they knew not of This is a great hardship indeed that men shall be tryed and condemned by Laws which were not promulged till an hundred years after their death The present Church of England has a very great Reverence for those Bishops and Clergy who were the Restorers of the Protestant Religion to this Kingdom and who had formerly hazarded their lives for it and will be very loth to see them pass under the Character of Traytors and Rebels And when we demand what Laws of the Land or what Principles of the Church of England they had transgressed we are in effect told that they were Rebels against some chosen expressions in very modern Addresses The instance which he gives is the Church of England's behaviour towards Mary Queen of Scots above an hundred years ago now mark his words p. 5. But yet because I am about to give a notorious instance of their Receding from this Principle namely the Divine Right of Succession when the practice of it thwarted their Interest it will not be amiss to observe that they have acknowledged in their several Addresses to his present Majesty upon his Accession to the Crown the Unalterable and Inherent Right of Succession Now this is the Reasoning which as I said before would make a Man stand upon his Head. Besides How could they Recede or go back from a Principle which they never came to and were never nearer it than at an Hundred years Distance For their Opinion or Principle call it what you will was this as appears by the 27. Eliz. That in case an Heir in Remainder killed the present lawfull Possessor of the Crown that person had not a Divine Right of Succession And that neither God nor the Laws ever meant to Reward the falshood of Treason and the bloody Usurpation of a Crown with so much the Earlier possession of it My business is not to concern my self about either of these Principles or Opinions but only to shew the absurd Reasoning of this Writer 3. Mary Queen of Scots is made Queen of England by such an Argument as makes her no Queen of Scots and by giving her another's Kingdom takes away her own The Argument is this That Queen Elizabeth being Illegitimate and only an Act-of-Parliament-Queen could not interpose betwixt the Crown of England and Mary Queen of Scots who was Heir by Inherent Birth-right Now does not all the World know That all the Title that Mary Queen of Scots had to the Kingdom of Scotland was an Act of Parliament made at Scone in the time of Robert the First whereby his Issue by Elizabeth Moore his Concubine whom he never Married but who was afterwards Married to one Giffard a Gentleman of Louthien were made Inheritable to the Crown and at the same time all his legitimate Children by his lawfull Queen Eupheme were set aside These men take just the same measures as their Father Garnet did in the Gun powder Treason who Resolved That in order to blow up the Hereticks they might lawfully blow up their Catholick Friends too Nay all that this Instancer says against Queen Elizabeth admitting it to be True which we do not bears much harder upon the Title of Mary Queen of Scots Was Queen Anns Marriage with Hen. 8. naught But in Elizabeth Moores Case there was no Marriage at all Or was King Edward set aside to make way for Illegitimate Elizabeth But so it was done by the Act at Scone Every body understands the English of Queen Ann Bolens Precontract when they remember That King Henry the 8th was Married again to the Lady Jane Seymour within Three days after the Beheading of that Queen 4. Mary Queen of Scots is made Queen of England upon the Hypothesis of the Paternal Right p. 3. and 5. when upon that Hypothesis she was disinherited and foreclosed from the Crown of England by two Successive Patriarchs Henry the 8th and Edward the 6th Henry the 8th by his last Will and Testament excluded the House of Scotland and Edward the 6th by his Will excluded both that and his own Sisters likewise But as the Bishop of Ross argued against the first Will that it was not subscribed by his Graces own hand-writing as was directed by the Act of Parliament but only signed with a stamp of his Name so King Edward was never enabled by an Act of Parliament to dispose of the Crown at all And so neither of these Wills signified any thing because the Prince has no Power but what the Law gives him Whereas if these foresaid Princes had been Patriarchs and full of Inherent Paternal Power they could have Disinherited without an Act of Parliament For if a Father cannot Disinherit much less has he Power of Life and Death It were endless to reckon up all the awkerd and wilfull mistakes which fill up that Sheet of Paper As where he insinuates p. 7. That the 3th of Elizabeth was owing to the Queens Consciousness of the Insufficiency of her Title It is nothing so But it was made for the Preservation of her Person and that no body presuming upon an Unalterable and Unforfeitable Title in Reversion might immediately destroy her An Act it is which is Law to this day and was recited 13 Caroli 2. and there Expresly made a Pattern for the 13th of his Reign And whereas he says p. 8. That before