Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	according_a	law_n	power_n	3,809	5	5.0020	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A32848	The Petition of the most substantiall inhabitants of the citty of London, and the liberties thereof, to the Lords and Commons for peace together with the answer to the same, and the replye of the petitioners.	Chillingworth, William, 1602-1644. Reply of the London petitioners to the late answer to their petition for peace.; England and Wales. Parliament.	1642 (1642)	Wing C3881; ESTC R383	15,057	24

Commons and by the same Logicke that the King is denyed His Rights the Lords may loose theirs and this might breed an under-civill Warre betweene Your two Houses The trust committed to you by the people who are the third estate cannot give any power to entrench upon the other two or either of them The performance of this trust is to be regulated according to the Lawes so that if You doe any thing against Law you are accomptable for such actions and the people is no way concerned in it as having no legall authority in such a case It is not possible the People should give unto you what they had not in themselves a Priviledge to breake the Lawes You are but a part of London and London but a part of the Kingdome It is very true so the Porters were but a part the women were but a part and the beggers were but a part all which had the happinesse to thinke as you did and so deserved thankes for it We challenge no greater Priviledge then was allowed to them to present our desires to approve or disallow belongs unto you according as the greatest reason shall direct Yet thus much we shall take the boldnesse to say though you chance to affect warre you must give us leave to love and pray for peace and not to engage our Estates or Persons for such right in this case the Law gives us if we conceive it an unreasonable warre for we shall be unwilling to contribute a part only that we may bring the whole in danger And it may be necessary to tell you we are much the best part of London and London much the most considerable part of the Kingdome and we have great reason to presume that the most to be valued in other parts also will second our desire though you perhaps may have different apprehensions of their affections For indeed the causes of liking and disliking warre are not the same in you and the rest of the Kingdome You sit in the midst of us encompassed with safety whereas others are exposed to the hazard Their Hay their Corne their Household-stuffe their flocks of Sheep and heards of Cattell and Horses are subject to the plunder which makes them disrellish those distractions It is no marveile if the active men amongst you find in warre a more pleasing tast since they have put themselves into good preferment by severall commands and the Kingdomes misery is become their patrimony So while their trade flourishes they have no deep sense of the universall decay of ours in severall callings We doe not much wonder if men that stand upon the shore delight in tempests as often as the wrack is to be shared amongst them But it may be that you see more then the whole Kingdome This is a pretty kind of Rhetoricke to endeavour to baffle our reason by pressing on our modesty We compare not with others though we might tell you in some things we that are standers by might perhaps see more clearly then you who are playing your game whether in this cause our understanding be weaker or not it concernes not us to determine since this we know we are bound to practise according as that informes us in our duty and that God however some undervalue the spilling of Christian blood will call us to a severe accompt and most miserable is he who shall be found guilty of shedding the blood of his brethren unjustly You shall soone find how deare and precious the face the very name or sound of Peace is to us Many dayes are not passed over since the name would not be entertained with patience You know who said I like not dawbing and that other expression I hate the name of Accommodation Certainly it was lesse cunningly carryed But it seemes it was beleeved the people was irrecoverably mad and that they would never be weary of misery or at least that they were so much in your power that he which should dare to mention Peace should suffer the injuries of warre This part would have beene better acted then It would have given much more satisfaction if you had embraced the name of Peace with all cheerfulnesse and broken of the thing by perplexed disputes and sending unreasonable propositions Now it will be a worke of greater difficulty to over-rule our understandings since we have evident grounds to suspect your affections We heartily wish we may prove false Prophets but we cannot command our feares which worke naturally and make judgement of the future by what is past from presaging you will keep up the warre still but in a more plausible way and under a seeming desire of Peace having perceived the disadvantage of your open error use unfit meanes to effect it by proposing unreasonable conditions so hoping to avoyd the envy and yet preserve to your selves the benefits of these divisions The sense of the following discourse is this No Accommodation can be because something must be left to the King upon trust and something to you It will be very easie to assigne the bounds of these severall trusts It is done to our hand for His Majesty requires no new trust to himselfe nor will He deny an old trust to you the Lawes and Customes of this Land determine both But He must not be trusted because he is not utterly disingaged from all parties Here is a plaine Declaration what the issue is likely to be As long as the King hath any power left so long you will suspect his Faith and the people must be miserable so long as you please to be fearefull Certainly the meanest understanding can quickly apprehend this to be a most seditious principle and all true lovers of their Country will looke upon it as the seed-plot of Rebellion to all ages For all men cannot be prefer'd and pretences will never be wanting of a King's engagement to a party as often as ambitious persons who thinke they have equall deserts find they have not equall preferment Such men commonly when they cannot attaine to great offices in the discharge whereof they promise to the people some extraordinary good they out of indignation manifest their abilities in hurting the State You object to the King He hath a party Alas this is His unhappinesse and your fault He desires and ought to have the whole But if you will obstinately persist in this lay-Schisme and admit of no condition of Reconciliation except He will remove those servants which in His afflictions He hath found honest and faithfull to Him and preferre you in their places He hath small encouragement to bestow such favours not yet deserved by you and cannot satisfie His conscience in such an ill requitall of their tryed Loyaltie The next is a stale calumny against Papists and Delinquents Though reason be not lesse concluding because old and often repeated yet slanders loose their credit by time because most men can confute them by experience His Majesty hath fully satisfied the world in this point and the