Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A58376
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Reflections upon our late and present proceedings in England
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1689
(1689)
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Wing R722; ESTC R32278
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10,305
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16
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enabled to serve his real Interest They hoped by this means to deliver him from his evil Counsellors and secure both him and his Subjects from the evil and pernicious Practices of some wicked and unreasonable Men. 3. These and such like were the Inducements which prevailed with all well-affected and honest Men to withdraw from his Majesty and suspend the actual exercise of their Allegiance for the present that they might afterwards exert it according to the fix'd and stated Rules of Law Conscience and right Reason But now how contrary is this to those New Models which some politick Architects are proposing to or rather imposing upon the Nation What is it they would be at And what are the Ends they are driving on Are they just and good Are they generous and honorable Or are they not rather such as would undermine the Government both in Church and State and reduce us to a state of Nature wherein the People are at liberty to agree upon any Government or none at all Plainly they would reduce us to the Dutch or some other foreign Measures which how well soever they may agree with that Country where they are setled and confirmed partly by Custom and partly by the peculiar Necessity of their Affairs can never be well received in England till an Act be passed to abolish Monarchy Episcopacy and all the Fundamental Laws establish'd by Magna Charta and all succeeding Parliaments ever since The Enquiry into the Measures of Submission to the Supreme Authority is a Treatise calculated for the Times but surely it is not written according to the Principles and Practice of the Church of England in the time of the Renowned Queen Elizabeth I am apt to think that some regard was then had to the Passages which we find in the Scriptures especially the Old Testament relating to the Measures of Submission But these Examples weigh nothing with our Author because they are not for his purpose pag. 5 6. I am also apt to suspect that Queen Elizabeth would not have thanked any Politician for vending this as a certain and fundamental Principle That in all Disputes between Power and Liberty Power must always be proved but Liberty proves it self the one being founded only upon a positive Law and the other upon the Law of Nature pag. 4. She I persuade my self on the contrary would have challenged any such Statesman to have prov'd his Liberty as for her Power she would have answered it was ready to prove it self against all who should presume to question it But what 's the meaning of Power being founded only on a positive Law and Liberty upon the Law of Nature Is not a Father's Power founded as he grants upon the Law of Nature and is not all Power even of the greatest Princes as far as it is just and honest and for the benefit of the Subject derived from this Paternal Authority of the Father over his Son Besides Doth not the Law of Nature prescribe the necessity of putting Power into the hands of one or more for the benefit of the whole which otherwise would be in danger of destroying it self by intestine Divisions In short If Liberty be founded upon the Law of Nature so is all just and lawful Power since the end of it is only to regulate our Liberty and in truth to make us more free Liberty in general is a Right to use our Faculties according to right Reason and the Law in particular tells us which are those Rules of right Reason by which we must govern our selves And what is Law but the Commands of the Supreme Power where-ever it is lodg'd in the hands of the Prince the Senate or the People or of all of them together ordering what we are to do or avoid under the sanction of particular Penalties I beg the Learned Author's Pardon for questioning his Measures in my judgment they are not taken from the English Standard and therefore I hope I may without offence use my Liberty in refusing them a Right which proves it self till he can prove his Power to impose them The Enquiry into the present State of Affairs is a Discourse which seems by its bold strokes to resemble the former I will say no more of it but this If what he there lays down for a certain Truth be really so then all that follows must be granted as reasonable Deductions from this fundamental Principle but if this be false all that he hath said falls to the ground for want of a firm and solid Foundation to support it Now the Position which like a first Principle in Mathematicks he takes for granted is this It is certain says he pag. 1. that the reciprocal Duties in Civil Societies are Protection and Allegiance and wheresoever the one fails wholly the other falls with it This is his Doctrine which I have mentioned before but shall now consider a little more particularly 'T is indeed most fit and reasonable that Protection and Allegiance should always go together and accompany one another but that they do not do so is but too plain in the present case of England but doth it follow that because the King is not in a capacity to protect his Subjects therefore he is no longer to be look'd upon as a King And if he be a King doth not this suppose that he hath some Subjects And if so I would gladly know what kind of Subjects they are who owe no Allegiance But let this Question be rul'd by his own Instance The Duty betwixt Father and Son. Suppose my Father to be so destitute that he cannot and so perverse that he will not protect and sustain me suppose him as churlish as Cain and as poor as Job yet still he is my Father and I am his Son that is he still retains all that Power which by the Law of Nature as Father ought to have over his Child still the Relation holds betwixt us and whilst it doth so the Father's Faults or Necessities cannot evacuate the Duty of a Son which is founded not in the Fathers good Will or Abilities to defend him though it must be confess'd they are chiefly consider'd but in that fix'd and immutable Relation which God and Nature have establish'd betwixt them not to be dissolv'd but by Death So that if this Learned Author will yield as he seems to do that Kingly Power is nothing else but the Paternal confign'd by the common consent of the Fathers of Families to one Person upon such and such conditions specified in the Contract I cannot see how this Relation betwixt King and Subject can any more be utterly dissolved than that betwixt a Father and his Son. I shall say no more to this Discourse and if what I have already said do offend either against the Principles of Reason or the Law of England I am willing to be corrected and acknowledge my Error There is another little Paper which yet gives such a great stroke to the Government that it ought