Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A96504
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Good advice before it be too late being a breviate for the convention : humbly represented to the Lords and Commons of England.
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Wildman, John, Sir, 1621?-1693.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing W2169; ESTC R43950
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6,613
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9
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Good Advice before it be too Late Being a BREVIATE for the CONVENTION Humbly Represented to the Lords and Commons of England WHereas we cannot but be made very apprehensive by those several efficacious Papers such as Dr. B's Mr. F's A Word to the Wise and another as close Four Questions Debated and the like which go about lest the swaying part of the Nation should be so much intent upon One Thlng as that Others be neglected or lest they be so taken up with putting the Crown upon an Head most deserving it as that they forget what is to be done first which is The Consideration of the Constitution of the Realm and the declaring that Constitution before any Person be admitted into actual Regiment it being common for those that look but on one Thing to be too sudden We therefore judg it meet That this ensuing Paper which was in a few Copies given to some Members of the Houses for preventing that Evil should also be made publick to go abroad with such Papers as those of the former Nature For as it is wise in a People when they make any Compact whether with their Rulers or others that though they believe the Party they deal with to be the best in the World to treat with him for all that and be as punctual upon the Terms to make all secure as if they were dealing with the worst So it is also honest for them in seeking the Good of their Country to deny Self-interest and to prefer the benefiting a Nation before the magnifying any single Person whatsoever The BREVIATE THE People of this Nation are by Birth a Free People who are born to a Liberty of Person and Propriety in their Goods and Lands and therefore England is rightly call'd a Free State. To understand the Government we must know that these two Things are always to be distinguished the Constitution and the Administration The Constitution of a Government does lie in the Original Agreement of the People which they make between themselves or with their intended Governour or Governours before the Government be set up whether there be none before or the Former at an end When the People are in such a State while there is no Order of Superiority or Inferiority introduced it is called a Community When a Ruler is chose so that there is a Ruling and Ruled Part it is a Society or called a Common-Wealth Let us suppose a Company of Families that having no dependance on one another nor any one having Power over the other yet living near each other do find it convenient to join together in a Society for mutual Defence against some Foreign Enemy or for the reaping several Advantages which they shall receive by it The Heads or Representatives of these Families assembled are to consider what is to be done in order to these Ends. Three Things more especially they must consâ—lt upon 1. What Government as to the Sort or Kind is best for them 2. Who shall be Governour or Governours 3. And by what Laws or Rules they shall govern who are entrusted with the Supreme Power And more particularly in relation to what Measure of it they will allow them to have over their Persons and Estates to use them as they have Occasion for the Publick Good. For when they are yet free in both the Governour can have Power so far but no farther than they at first consent Whatsoever Reservations of Liberty the People make in their Agreement these are to be look'd upon as their Rights by the Laws of the Constitution and essential thereunto and consequently inviolable by any of these Governours whom they set up for the Administration the very Laws of the Administration being void so far as they interfere with any of these of the Constitution The Constitution and Laws thereof being agreed upon and it being impossible for Humane Prudence to foresee all Accidents which must be provided for therefore as they arise the Administration necessarily must lie in these two Things The making farther Laws subordinate still to those fore-priz'd as occasion requires and seeing them executed that is in Legislation and Judgment The One is the Business of the Supreme Authority the Other of the Inferior Magistrates or Officers and Executioners of the same according to that Fundamental Agreement made by the People Our Government now as constituted in order to this Administration is we know a mixt Government A Government is known to be pure or mixt by the placing the Supreme Authority If the People place it singly in the King or singly in the Nobles or singly in the People then it is a pure Monarchy Aristocracy or Democracy But when it is placed in all Three it is a mixt Government as Ours is where there are no Laws in the Administration made but by King Lords and Commons These Things I pursue only so far as is necessary to the reaching my main Purpose and the leading me to a right discernment of the present Condition into which we are now brought in regard to this said Government The Supreme Power of the Nation being placed in a Parliament which is a Corporation of King Lords and Commons that is the Supreme Authority residing in King Lords and Commons as One Corporation there does appear at this Conjuncture a Dissolution of the Government A Dissolution manifestly as to the Exercise of it This Appearance does arise from the opening of the last Scene For the King being now gone gone from his People and departing from his Government that One Corporation we speak of is broke so that there remains now no subject for that supreme Authority It being evident that a Parliament wherein an Essential point of our Constitution does consist cannot now be Assembled And the Providence of God it self hath extraordinarily determin'd our Case If a King dies he hath a Successor and the Right devolves upon Him but whilst the King lives he hath no Successor and the Right remaining in Him and no Other and he being divided from his Lords and Commons the Subject of the Supreme Power or this One Corporation whereof the King is a Chief Essential and Constituent Part does perfectly cease and must necessarily cause a Dissolution I choose not to found this upon what does more convince Others which comes to this Account The King by his frequent Malversation in the Government and rooted Design of subverting our Religious and Civil Rights for the Introduction of Arbitrary Power and Popery which being aggravated by such an Endeavour as the destroying that Share in the Government which every Commoner hath that hath Right to choose his Representative in Parliament by his Garbling Corporations and so evacuating this Liberty in effect and by such an endeavour also as the exterminating his Protestant Subjects seeing that Religion which he would have introduced is such as by the Principles of it if it comes into Domination must do so to all Hereticks and thereupon may he be look'd on no
King alone may refuse to pass it If he be obstinate this is a great Evil and might really make one think it would be better therefore for the preventing this Inconvenience to place the Supream Power in Lords and Commons only without a Controler Unto which may be added the Power of Calling and Dissolving Parliaments at pleasure by virtue whereof our Kings hitherto have pretended a Power predominant over them But forasmuch as these Prerogatives may be disputed and the Negative Voice hath been deny'd by many Judicious Men who have pleaded the Obligation of former Princes to confirm those Laws quas vulgus elegerit it is to be hoped that the Wisdom of the Nation will be able to find out some Expedient or Salve for this Difficulty and for more than that also so long as they have the Golden Opportunity to bring a Crown in one Hand with their Terms or Conditions in the other As for the several Grievances that need Redress and many good Things that are wanting to compleat the Happiness of our Kingdom there may be some Foundation laid happily or Preparations made in order thereunto by this Convention but as belonging to the Administration and being Matters of long Debate they are the Work more properly of an ensuing Parliament Only let not the Members of this present Great Assembly forget that they having so unlimited a Power and the Nation such an Opportunity which as the Secular Games they are never like to see but once they are more strictly therefore bound in Conscience and in Duty to their Country to neglect no kind of thing which they judg absolutely necessary to the publick Good. I care not if I commend three or four such Particulars against the time to Consultation which shall be these A Regulation of Westminster-Hall A Provision against buying or selling of Offices A Register of Estates A Freedom from Persecution by a Bill for Comprehension and Indulgence in the business of Religion A Redemption of the Chimny Mony which bringing the King to be Lord of every Man's House is against Property and an over-Ballance in the Revenue is against the Interest of the Nation THE Breviate bing ended we cannot but reflect upon the King there being so much Concern in the Minds of many about their Allegiance to Him though He be gone But such Persons as these should look a little more to the Bottom That a People is not made for the King but the King for the Peole And though He be greater than them in some Respects yet quoad finem the People are always greater than Him That is If the Good of the one and the other stand in Competition there is no Comparison but a Nation is to be preferr'd before one Man. As appears by the Opinion of King James the First hereto annexed If the Being of them be inconsistent one with another there is no doubt but it is better that a King cease than that a whole Nation should perish And upon such a Supposition as this all Obligation as to Duty must cease likewise There are some tacit Conditions in all Oaths as the best Casuists tell us such as Rebus sic stantibus for one that we must steer our Consciences by in these Cases He is the Minister of God for our Good says the Scripture And if any Prince therefore be under those Circumstances as that it cannot be for the Peoples Good that he should rule over them we do look upon such a Ruler to be bound in Conscience to give up his Government as being no Minister of God upon that Account And so having no Authority from God for that Office the Peoples Obligation to be subject to Him is at an end with it If they obey him longer it is for Wrath not for Conscience sake If his Majesty now of Great Britain out of some deep Sense that he being a Roman Catholick cannot rule and be true to his Religion which he may suppose does oblige him to an Establishment thereof by all the ways and means of his Church though never so destructive to ours but it will be to the Hurt not Good of us who are Protestants hath been pleased to withdraw himself from his Government to make us more quiet and happy We are in all Gratitude to acknowledg his Piety Goodness and Condescention to be so much as very few of his Subjects could ever have suspected But if it be out of another Mind he hath done it We have still more Reason to bless Almighty God who does often serve his Providence by Mens Improvidence and cutting off Mens Ends from their Means he uses their Means to his own Ends when he is pleased to work Deliverance for a People as he hath at this Season so graciously and wonderfully done for Us that there is nothing more needful even to the most scrupulous Conscience than an humble and awful Acquiescence in the Divine Counsel to give Satisfaction in this Matter