Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	church_n	order_n	power_n	6,856	5	5.1414	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47806	L'Estrange his appeal humbly submitted to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty and the three estates assembled in Parliament; Appeal humbly submitted to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty and the three estates assembled in Parliament	L'Estrange, Roger, Sir, 1616-1704.	1681 (1681)	Wing L1202; ESTC R13428	24,333	40

This Clause and no otherwise Nor is any man to blame for being of such or such a Principle that lyes under the force of an Invincible Perswasion and consequently under the necessity of a Suitable Inclination So much for This Poynt The Next is §. 5. My falling foul upon all the Petitioners The Fifth Exception is that I have Scandalously misrepresented all the Petitioners and Promoters of the late Petitions How far this Imputation is True or False and upon what grounds I support my Opinion shall be seen in what follows But may not men Petition you will say and Petition for a good thing Yes if the thing be Simply Good the Petitioners Competent Iudges of it and every man keep himself to his own Post I see no hurt in 't But for the Multitude to interpose in matters of State as in the Calling or Dissolving of Parliaments Regulation of Church-Government or in other like Cases of Doubtfull and Hazzardous Event wherein they have no Skill at all nor any Right of Intermeddling Why may not Twenty Thousand Plow-jobbers as well Subscribe a Petition to the Lord Mayor of London for the calling of a Common Councell Or as many Porters and Carr-men here in London put in for the better Government of the Herring-Trade in Yarmouth Seasonable Memorial Pag. 21. And then again Let the matter of the Petition be never so fair if it be a businesse out of the Petitioners Sphere and Capacity either to meddle in or to understand it is a Suspitious way of Proceeding Such were the Confederate Petitions of England and Scotland for a Parliament in 1641. which were but a Prologue to the Opening of the Subsequent Confederacy against the Government when the Petitions that follow'd sufficiently expounded the Meaning of the Former They Petition'd against Ecclesiastical Courts Ceremonies Scandalous Ministers Bishops Votes in Parliament and Episcopacy it self against Evill Councellors Monopolies Corruptions of State Courts of Oppression and innumerable Grievances And so for the Militia the Kings Towns and Forts till they brought the King to the Block Pag. 20. And after this manner have they proceeded now again The Petition was at first for the Meeting of the Parliament and then they came to twit the King with his Coronation-Oath and then Delinquents must be brought to punishment and then the Parliament was to sit as long as they pleas'd And at last every man must be mark'd for a Common Enemy that would not Subscribe to 't So that First they would have the Parliament Sit and Then they would cut them out their work and in Fine it was little other then a Petition against those that would not Petition The Late Kings Observations upon the Growth of Petitions of this kinde are very Pertinent Vpon the tumultuous Confluxes of mean and rude People who are taught first to Petition then to Protect then to Dictate at last to Command and Over awe the Parliament EIK. BAS upon TUMVLTS And the Practices of these people are excellently well set forth by his late Majesty also Ex. Coll. Pag. 536. Their Seditious Preachers says he and Agents are by them and their Special and particular directions sent into the Several Countys to infuse Fears and Iealousies into the minds of our good Subjects with Petitions ready drawn by Them for the People to Sign which were yet many times by them changed three or four times before the Delivery upon accidents or occasions of either or both Houses And when many of our poor deceived People of our several Countyes have come to the City of London with a Petition so fram'd alter'd and sign'd as aforesaid That Petition hath been Suppress'd and a New one ready drawn hath been put into their hands after their coming to Town inso much as few of the Company have known what they Petition'd for and hath been by them presented to one or both our Houses of Parliament as That of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire witnesse those Petitions and amongst the rest That of Hertfordshire which took notice of matters agreed on or dissented from the night before the Delivery which was hardly time enough to get so many thousand hands and to travel to London on that Errand So that I have very good Authority here for apprehending the danger of Popular Petitions And to shew now that I am not at all possess'd against Petitions in Generall or against ALL the Petitioners Truman says that to joyn in a Petition for the Meeting of a Parliament to bring Malefactors to a Tryall or to extirpate Popery is in the appearance of it not only Lawfull but Commendable But then it must be promoted by Lawfull Means and under Decent Circumstances Citt and Bum. Pag. 27. It is a good thing to execute Justice but yet a Private man must not invade the Judgment-Seat tho' it were to passe even the most Righteous Sentence Ibid. Pa. 28. And Moreover Truman acknowledges that he finds many honest and considerable men concern'd in these Petitions Ibid. Which is more Evidence then needed for the purging of my self from so grosse a Slander I come now to the Last Article of my Charge §. 6. My Writings they say create Misunderstandings and tend to the Embroyling of the Kingdome It it be so I have been extremely out in my Measures all this while to be still creating of Misunderstandings in the very Act of Endeavouring either to rectify or to prevent them And to be Endangering the Peace of the Kingdome in the Design of preserving it If to Assert the Law aud the Government against all Opposers If to lay open the Malice and Calumny of so many bold Libells against his Majesties Person Authority and Government if to maintain the Apostolical Order and the Constitutions of the Church against Schism and the Powers and Priviledges of the State against all Principles of Sedition If to inculcate Reverence and Obedience toward our Superiours If to recommend the Blessings and Duties of Vnity in a due Submission to the Provisions that are made for the Upholding of Order both in Church and State If the bending of all my thoughts and Applications to these Ends be to create Misunderstandings and breed Ill Blood in the Hearts of his Majesties Liege People Thus am I guilty of the matter charged upon me in This Article and no Otherwise I shall passe now in Order from the Particulars of my Charge to the Quality of the Libellers and the true Reason of their Rancour against me in despite of all their Pretensions to the Contrary As to the Quality of the Libellers a man may judge of the Meannesse of their Souls by the Condition of the Office which is the Part of the very Devill himself being only to Blacken and to Defame They have lickt up the Vomit of the Nation which they discharge again in their Writings partly upon my self and the rest upon the Government for I have still the Honour to suffer not

off so of late Citt. The very Question that I put 'tother day my self and 't was Answer'd Thus That the Nation could not be Happy but in the Preservation of the Government as it is Establisht by Law For the tearing of the Law to Pieces must needs distract the People when they have no Rule to walk by That a great many Worthy Persons were disappointed in the Elections by being Misrepresented to the People That by these Practises diverse Persons were obtruded upon the Nation of remarkable Disaffections both to Church and State And that Therefore I suppose they might be put off to the end that some other Distempers might be Compos'd before their Meeting Bum. And what Return didst thou make him Citt. I told him he smelt of the Court and that he had a Pope in 's belly and so I would have no more to do with him For the better Clearing of this Passage I shall set forth in the First place the true Occasion and Intent of my Two Dialogues Upon the Reading of a Venemous if not a Treasonous Libell call'd An Appeal from the Countrey to the City I found it to be a direct Encouragement to a Rebellion and yet recommended to the World as the Sense and Act of the whole Nation Now to vindicate the Sober and Loyall Part both of the Country and City from This Audacious Scandal I thought I could not do better then to expose the Conspirators under the Character of a Couple of mean factious ignorant and busy Knaves and under the Reproachfull names of Citt and Bumpkin who are here Introduc'd in a Discourse upon Matters of State and Ironically poynted at in the very Margin for meddling with Affairs which they did not understand Passing from one thing to Another What dost think says Bumpkin was the Reason c Now This is not a Question put in such a manner as either to require or to draw on an Assertory Resolution upon the true Reason but a Question accommodated to the Character of the Person that Asks it It being the Constant Practise of those People upon all Prorogations or Dissolutions to Write and to Print their Thoughts upon the poynt and effectually to call his Majesty to an Account upon the whole matter And beside as it is a Question Congruous to the Humour of the Person So has it no regard at all to an Answer upon the matter of Fact What dost Think says Bumpkin was the Reason c. The very Question says Citt that I put t'other day my self And Then without delivering his own Thoughts he tells what another sayd to Him upon the same Question And Citt does not lay any stresse upon That Answer neither but brings in the Respondent speaking only upon a bare supposal By This and by what follows it will plainly appear that This Intervening Clause was only made usc of for Connexion-Sake and as a Clause of Transition for the carrying on of the Character out of One Impertinence into Another For without coming to any Conclusion at all upon the Poynt Citt betakes himself immediately to the Ordinary Refuge of the Party of making two or three Answers serve to all manner of purposes and questions I told him says he that he smelt of the Court and had a Pope in his belly I make no doubt but This Apology will satisfy any man that has not my Person in his Eye rather then my Errors I remember Boccalini's Laconique Senate that pass'd so grievous a Sentence upon a Letterato for making use of Three Words when Two would have done his businesse But the Question is Here whether or no I have Sayd any thing that was Ill meant and not whether that which I have Deliver'd might have been Spoken better After This Demonstration of the Innocent Intention and Application of the matter in Exception it may seem Superfluous to speak any thing to the Sense and Wording of it And yet I must needs say further that I cannot find any one Syllable in This Passage that will so much as bear an Ill Construction without forcing it beyond the Measures of Common Charity and Acceptation For First the Position is True that the Preservation of the Law is the Security of the Government and Secondly the Fact is True that Several Worthy Persons were disappointed in their Elections by being Misrepresented to the People As in the Notorious Instance of Essex and other places where so many Eminent Persons as well of the Layity as of the Clergy were run down by the Multitude by the Names of Courtiers Pentioners Papists Baals-Priests Iesuitical Dumb Doggs the Black Regiment of Hell and the like to the Scandal of Christianity as well as of Common Iustice and Good Manners Now if the Exception be taken to the Expression of obtruding upon the Nation some Persons of Remarkable Disaffections c. Here is First no Reflection upon any Particulars nor is there any more signifi'd by the word OBTRUDED then what we find verify'd in all Elections when upon Double Returns the House of Commons pronounces the Person rejected to have been unduly Chosen and effectually obtruded upon the Nation It is again to be consider'd that the Tenses WAS and HAVE BEEN have a regard to what is past and that the Word Parliaments in the Plural Number cannot be understood of That which is now in Being Which was not neither at the time when This was Written in the Exercise of its Power And moreover If the stresse be layd upon the Word DISAFFECTIONS I do not see in Propriety of Speaking how That word should arise to a Scandal having only a respect to a Diversity of Opinion without any Relation at all to an Evill Practice or Design And it amounts to no more then a Disinclination which Imports only a different Liking of any thing upon a different Perswasion of or about it and I never yet heard it imputed to any man for a fault to think otherwise of any thing then Another man does or to frame his Inclinations to his Opinions For such a Dissent fairly Interpreted is no Other then an Insuperable Diversity of Iudgment which is both Warrantable and Honest so far as it keeps it self within Compasse and without breaking forth into Contumacy and Action And there is not the least Colour given for such a Construction in This place But still as there neither is nor can be sayd to be any thing Unlawfull in such a Disagreement it were neverthelesse a thing highly to be wish'd that the Several Members of all great Councells might be previously Vnited in the Fundamentals of the main Subject of their Debate Upon the Upshot DISAFFECTED Sounds no more in This place then a Non-Conformist and whosoever Scruples the Order and the Authority of Bishops and doubts of the Kings Power in Ecclesiastical Matters and over Ecclesiastical Persons is in such manner Disaffected to the Church and State as to answer the Literal meaning of