Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	law_n	people_n	power_n	6,970	5	5.1237	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B03015	The ordinance and declaration of the Lords and Commons, for the assessing all such who have not contributed sufficiently for raising of money, plate, &c. with His Maiesties declaration to all his loving subjects upon occasion thereof.	England and Wales. Parliament.; England and Wales. Sovereign (1625-1649 : Charles I)	1642 (1642)	Wing E1771E; ESTC R221064	10,616	41

of the severall Counties of England are now Imprisoned without any objection against them but suspicion of their Loyalty how many of the gravest and most substantiall Citizens of London by whom the Government and Discipline of that City was preserved are disgraced robbed and imprisoned without any Processe of Law or colour of accusation but of obedience to the Law and Government of the Kingdom whilest Anabaptists and Brownists with the assistance of vicious and deboshed Persons of desperate Fortunes take upon them to break up and rifle houses as publike and avowed Ministers of a new invented Authority How many godly pious and painfull Divines whose Lives and Learning hath made them of reverend Estimation are now standered with inclination to Popery discountenanced and imprisoned for discharging their Consciences in instructing the People in the Christian duty of Religion and Obedience whilest Shismaticall Illiterate and Scandalous Preachers till the Pulpits and Churches with Blasphemy Irreverence and Treason and incite their Auditory to nothing but Murther and Rebellion We passe over the vulgar charm by which they have captivated such who have been contented to dispence with their Consciences for the preservation of their Estates and by which they perswade men cheerfully to part with this twentieth part of their Estate to the good work in hand for whoever will give what he hath may scape robbing They shall be repaid upon the Publike Faith as all other Moneys lent upon the Propositions of both Houses It may be so but men must be condemned to a strange unthriftinesse who will lend upon such Security The Publike Faith indeed is as great an earnest as the State can give and engages the Honour Reputation and Honesty of the Nation and is the Act of the Kingdom 't is the Security of the King the Lords and Commons which can never need an Executor can never dye never be Bankrupt and therefore We willingly consented to it for the Indemnity of Our good Subjects of Scotland who We hope will not thinke the worse of it for being so often so cheaply mentioned since But that a Vote of one or both Houses should be an engagement upon the Publike Faith is as impossible as that the Committee of the House of Commons for Examinations should be the High Court of Parliament And what is or can be said with the least shadow of reason to justifie these Extravagances We have not lately heard of the old fundamentall Laws which used to warrant the Innovations this needs a Refuge even below those foundations They will say they cannot mannage their great undertakings without such extraordinary wayes We think so too but that proves onely they have undertaken somewhat they ought not to undertake not that it is lawfull for them to do any thing that is convenient for those ends We remembred them long agoe and We cannot do it too often of that excellent Speech of M. Pyms The law is that which puts a difference betwixt good and evill betwixt just and unjust if you take away the Law all things will fall into a confusion every man will become a Law unto himself which in the depraved condition of humane nature must needs produce many great enormities Lust will become a Law and Envy will become a Law Covetousnesse and Ambition will become Laws and what Dictates what Decisions such Laws will produce may easi1y be discerned It may indeed by the sad Instances over the whole Kingdom But will Posterity beleeve that in the same Parliament this Doctrine was avowed with that Acclamation and these Instances after produced That in the same Parliament such care was taken that no man should be committed in what case soever without the cause of his Imprisonment expressed and that all men should be inmediately bayled in all Cases bayleable and during the same Parliament that Alderman Pennington or indeed any body else but the sworn Ministers of Iustice should imprison whom they would and for what they would and for as long time as they would That the King should be reproached with breach of Priviledge for accusing Sir Iohn Hotham of High Treason when with force of Arms he kept Him out of Hull and despised Him to His face because in no case a Member of either House might be committed or accused without leave of that House of which he is a Member and yet that during the same Parliament the same Alderman should commit the Earle of Middlesex a Peer of the Realm the Lord Buckhurst a Member of the House of Commons to the Counter without reprehension That to be a Traitor which is defined and every man understands should be no crime and to be called Malignant which no body knows the meaning of should be ground enough for close Imprisonment That a Law should be made That whosoever should presume to take Tunnage Poundage without an Act of Parliament should incur the penalty of a Premunire the same Parliament that the same imposition should be laid upon our Subjects taken by an Order of both houses without against Our consent Lastly that the same Parliament a Law should be made to declare the proceedings judgement upon Ship-money to be illegall and void and during that Parliament that an Order of both Houses shall upon pretence of necessity inable four men to take away the twentieth part of their Estates from all their Neighbours according to their discretion But Our good Subjects will no longer looke upon these and the like Results as upon the Counsells and conclusions of both Our Houses of Parliament though all the world knows even that Authority can never justifie things unwarrantable by the Law they well know how few of the Persons trusted by them are present at their Consultations of above 500 not 80. and of the House of Peers not a fifth part That they who are present enjoy not the Priviledge and Freedom of Parliament but are besieged by an Army and awed by the same Tumults which drave Vs and their fellow Members from thence to consent to what some few Seditious Schismaticall Persons amongst them do propose These are the men who joyning with the Anabaptists Brownists of London first changed the Government and Discipline of that City and now by the pride and power of that City would undoe the Kingdom whilst their Lord Major a Person accused and known to be guilty of high Treason by a new Legislative Power of his own suppresses and reviles the Book of Common-Prayer robbs and imprisons whom he thinks fit and with the rabble of his Faction gives Laws to both Houses of Parliament tells them They will have no Accommodation whilest the Members sent and entrusted by their Countreys are expelled the House or committed for refusing to take the Oath of Association to live and dye with the Earle of Essex as very lately Sir Sidney Mountague These are the men who have presumed to send Embassadors and to enter into Treaties with Forraign States in their own behalfs having at this time an Agent of their own with the States of Holland to negociate for them upon private Instructions These are the men who not thinking they have yet brought mischief enough upon this Kingdom at this time invite and sollicite Our Subjects of Scotland to enter this Land with an Army against Vs In a word these are the men who have made this last devouring Ordinance to take away all Law Liberty and Property from Our People and have by it really acted that upon Our People which with infinite malice and no colour or ground was laboured to be infused into them to have been Our Intention by the Commissions of Array We have done What Power and Authority these men have or will have We know not for Our Self We challenge none such We looke upon the Pressures and Inconveniences Our good Subjects bear even by Vs and Our Army which the Army first raised by them enforced Vs to levy in Our defence and their refusall of all offers and desires of Treaty enforceth Vs to keep with very much sadnesse of heart We are so farre from requiring a Twentieth part of their Estates though for their own visible preservation that as We have already sold or pawned Our own Iewells and coyned Our own Plate so We are willing to sell all Our own Land and Houses for their relief Yet We do not doubt but Our good Subjects will seriously consider Our Condition and their own Duties and think Our readinesse to protect them with the utmost hazard of Our Life deserves their readinesse to assist Vs with some part of their Fortunes and whilest other men give a Twentieth part of their Estates to enables them to forfeit the other Nineteen that they will extend themselves to Vs in a liberall and free proportion for the preservation of the rest and for the maintenance of Gods true Religion the laws of the Land the Liberty of the Subject and the safety and very being of Parliaments and this Kingdom for if all these ever were or can be in manifest danger t is now in this present Rebellion against Vs Lastly We will and require all Our loving Subjects of what degree or quality soever as they will answer it to God to Vs and to Posterity by their Oathes of Allegiance and Supremacy as they would not be looked upon now and remembred hereafter as Betrayers of the Laws and Liberty they were born to that they in no degree submit to this wilde pretended Ordinance and that they presume not give any encouragement or assistance to the Army now in Rebellion against Vs which if notwithstanding they shall do they must expect from Vs the severest punishment the Law can inflict and a perpetuall Infamy with all good men FINIS

THE ORDINANCE AND DECLARATION of the Lords and Commons for the Assessing all such who have not contributed sufficiently for raising of Money Plate c. WITH HIS MAIESTIES DECLARATION TO ALL His loving Subjects upon occasion thereof Charles R. OUr expresse pleasure is That this Our Declaration be published in all Churches and Chappels within Our Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales by the Parsons Vicars or Curates of the same SHREWSBURY Printed by ROBERT BARKER Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majestie And by the Assignes of JOHN BILL 1642. An Ordinance and Declaration of the Lords and Commons in Parliament WHereas the King seduced by wicked Counsell hath raised an Army and levied War against the Parliament and great number of Forces are daily raised under the commands of Papists and other ill affected persons by Commissions from His Majestie And whereas divers Delinquents are protected from publike Justice by His Majesties Army and sundry outrages and rapines are daily committed by the Souldiers of the said Army who have no respect to the Laws of God or the Land but burn and plunder the Houses seize and destroy the persons and goods of dive●s His Majesties good Subjects And whereas for the maintenance of the said Army divers Assessements are made upon severall Counties and His Majesties Subjects are compelled by the Souldiers to pay the same which said Army if it should continue would soon ruine and waste the whole Kingdom and overthrow Religion Law and Liberty For suppressing of which said Army and ill-affected persons there is no probable way under God but by the Army raised by Authority of the Parliament which said Army so raised cannot be maintained without great summes of Money yet for raising such summes by reason of His Majesties withdrawing himself from the advice of the Parliament there can be no Act of Parliament passed with His Majesties assent albeit there is great justice that the said Moneys should be raised The Lords and Commons in Parliament having taken the same into their serious consideration and knowing that the said Army so raised by them hath been hitherto for the most part maintained by the voluntary contribution of divers well-affected persons who have freely contributed according to their abilities But considering there are divers others within the Cities of London and Westminster and the Suburbs of the same and also within the Borough of Southwark that have not contributed at all towards the maintenance of the said Army or if they have yet not answerable to their Estates who notwithstanding receive benefit and protection by the same Army as well as any others and therefore it 's most just that they should as well as others be charged to contribute to the maintenance thereof Be it therefore Ordained by the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled by Authority thereof That Isaac Pennington Lord Major of the City of London Sir Iohn Wollaston Knight and Aderman Alderman Towes Alderman Warner Alderman Andrewes Alderman Chambers Alderman Fowkes Sir Thomas Seham Knight and Alderman Samuel Vassell Iohn Ven Morries Thompson Richard Warrin Citizens or any four of them shall hereby have power and Authority to nominate and appoint in every Ward within the City of London six such Persons as they or any four of them shall think fit which said six so nominated or any four of them shall hereby have power to enquire of any that shall remain or be within the said severall Wards that have not contributed upon the Propositions of both Houses of Parliament concerning the raising of Money Plate Horse Horsemen and Arms for defence of the King and both Houses of Parliament also of such as are able men that have contributed yet not according to their Estates and Abilities And the said six persons so nominated or any four of them within their severall and respective wards and limits shall have power to assesse such person or persons as are of ability and have not contributed and also such as have contributed yet not according to their ability to pay such sum or sums of Money according to their Estates as the said Assessors or any four of them shal think fit and reasonable so as the same exceed not the twentieth part of their Estates and to nominate and appoint fit persons for the collection thereof And if any person so assessed shall refuse to pay the Money assessed upon him it shall be lawfull to and for the said Assessors and Collectors or any of them to levy the said summe so assessed by way of distresse and sale of the goods of the person so assessed and refusing And if any person so distrained shall make resistance it shall be lawfull to and for the respective Assessors and Collectors or any of them to call to their assistance any the Trained bands of the said City of London or any other His Majesties Subjects who are hereby required to be ayding and assisting to the said Assessors and Collectors in the premisses And it is hereby further ordained That the respective Burgesses of Westminster and Southwark together with the severall Committees appointed for the subscriptions of Money Plate Horse Horsemen and Arms within the said City and Borough shall respectively have power hereby to nominate Sessors for the same City and Borough in such manner as the Lord Major c. hath for the City of London and the said Assessors or any four of them to name Collectors as aforesaid which said Assessors and Collectors shall have the same power respectively within their respective limits as those to be nominated within the said City of London have hereby limited to them And for the Suburbs of London and Westminster the respective Knights of the Shires where the said Suburbs are shall have hereby the like power to name Assessors and they so named or any four of them and the Collectors by them to be nominated or any of them within their respective limits shall have the like power respectively as the Assessors and Collectors for London have by vertue of this Ordinance And be it ordained that the summes so assessed and levied as aforesaid shall be paid in at Guild Hall London to the hands of Sir Iohn Wollastone Knight Iohn Warner Iohn Towes and Thomas Andrewes Aldermen or any two of them And the Assessors and Collectors to be nominated by vertue hereof shall weekly report to the Committee of the House of Commons for the propositions aforesaid what summes of money have been assessed and what summes have been levied weekly according to the purport hereof and the said Moneys so levied and paid in shalt be issued forth in such sort as the other Moneys raised upon the propositions aforesaid and not otherwise Die Martis 29. Novemb. 1642 WHereas a late Ordinance is passed by both Houses of Parliament for the Reasons therein declared for the Assessing of all such persons within the Cities of London and Westminster and the Suburbs thereof with the Borough of Southwark