Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	king_n	law_n	see_v	2,683	5	4.1564	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77694	A key to the Kings cabinet; or Animadversions upon the three printed speeches, of Mr Lisle, Mr Tate, and Mr Browne, spoken at a common-hall in London, 3. July, 1645. Detecting the malice and falshood of their blasphemous observations made upon the King and Queenes letters.	Browne, Thomas, 1604?-1673.	1645 (1645)	Wing B5181A; Thomason E297_10; ESTC R200224	40,321	55

you nothing but Men or Womens Faces but being turn'd the other way is as full of horned Beasts or Divells And then as touching the Kings Protestations which have been often made to maintaine the Lawes of this Kingdome for God's sake what of them If they meane That because the King protesteth to maintaine the Lawes of the Kingdome therefore he cannot repeale any one of those Lawes whom he hath protested to maintaine why then doe they presse him to repeale divers and sundry Laws made concerning Episcopacy and the Book of Common Prayer seeing they are Lawes which he is bound to maintaine by this Protestation But if the meaning of those wordes be That the King protesteth to maintaine the Law which is establisht for Law to be ruled by that Law and to doe nothing in an arbitrary way contrary to that Law as no doubt that is the meaning of his words then does not the repealing and abrogating of any Law thwart and crosse his Protestation of maintaining the Law because when it is Repealed it is no longer a Law And as the Divines use to say that our Saviour when he came and touched the dead mans Coffin offended not against the Law which holds such Persons uncleane because he purposed to restore him againe to life So does not the king offend against His Protestation of maintaining the Law of the Land if upon good occasion offered he should a little suspend the Execution of those Lawes made against Recusants for the present which hereafter a free Convention of Parliament will find as good occasion wholly to take away if their Assistance of the King in this his present exigence and necessity shall appeare to them so vigorous and hearty to deserve so great a Favour Mr Lisle The third thing Gentlemen that I shall observe to you is concerning the use and the ends that have been made which you may observe out of these Letters of a Treaty with the Parliament I shall read His Majesties words to you in a Letter of the fifteenth of Febr. 1645. a Letter to the Queene And be confident that in making Peace I shall ever shew my Constancy in adhering to Bishops and to all our Friends and not forget to put a short period to this perpetuall Parliament And in his Letter to the Queene of the ninth of Febr. 1644. there is this passage Be confident I will never quit Episcopacy nor the Sword We did all hope that the end of a Treaty had been to settle a happy Peace a firme and a well grounded Peace But now we see by the Kings Letter that his Resolutions are still to keep the Sword in his owne hands We did all hope that the end of a Treaty was to settle Church-Government according to the Protestation the Solemne Vow and Covenant which we have all taken But you see by the Kings Letters that he avowes to the Queene that he will never quit Episcopacy We did all hope that the end of a Treaty was rather to confirme the Parliament then to dissolve it But the King sayes in his owne Letter that he will not forget at this Treaty to put a short period to this perpetuall Parliament Animadversions Here is a very fine Rhetoricall Rainbow much is represented in shewe nought in substance Mr Lisle knew well enough to whom he spake to the common sort of People Qui frequentèr in hoc ipsum fallendi sunt ne errent as Quintilian speakes of them who are alwayes to be cousened and even for this very purpose often That they may not be deceiv'd For I dare say Mr Lisle is no more perswaded in himselfe of the truth of these particular Aspersions which are here cast upon the King then Theopompus when he changed cloathes with his wife and scaped out of prison could beleive himselfe a woman because he made the keepers to beleive it We will only divide a little between his Conclusions and his Clouds and then you will the more easily perceive it One of the Conclusions which he takes upon him to perswade and worke in the minds and affections of the people is this That the King never intended Peace in the last Treaty The Cloud which is cast about that Conclusion to cover it from their understandings is this Because his Resolutions are still to keep the Sword in his owne hands Now the People can doe no lesse then subscribe to this Proposition as being necessarily true He that is resolved to keep the Sword still in his hands is resolved not to have a Peace But the double acceptation of that notion the Sword would easily dispell this Cloud and spread it into nothing For the word Sword as well in Sacred as in Civill Writers as it sometimes implyeth the materiall Sword that Instrument of violence wherewith one private man smites and hurts another of which our Saviour Christ speaks in the Gospell when he saies unto S. Peter Put up thy Sword So doth it other whiles imply the Civill Sword or that power and administration of Iustice which resides in the Supreme Magistrate and inflicts severall punishments on severall persons according to their severall offences of which S. Paul speaks in his Epistle when he saies of Nero the Emperour that He beareth not the Sword in vain Now nothing can be playner then that the King useth that word Sword in this latter Acceptation and as by Episcopacy They cannot but acknowledg that the King understands that old Forme of Hierarchicall Government in the Church now establisht which he tells the Queene he will not quit for that of the Presbytery which is the new Fangle So they cannot deny without denying their reason that by the Sword which the King there joyneth with Episcopacy He meanes that Monarchicall Forme of Government in the State now establisht which He tells the Queene He will never quit for a Democracy which the Rebels labour so hard to superinduce upon him And then this horrid Conclusion having broken thus through the Cloud resolves into lesse then a mans Hand for it resolves into no more but this The King never intended to change the present Government of the Church or the present Government of the State Therefore the King in the last Treaty never intended Peace But what needed the Queenes Letters to be broken up for this Did not the King's Commissioners when they were at Vxbridge tell you the very same thing twenty dayes together that the King would not alter the Government of the Church or State unlesse there were better Reasons urged then your bare wills how comes this then halfe a yeare afterwards to be told the good Citizens of London for such newes Alas you must thinke They have brought up the men of London who by nature were never very fierce to such a tamenesse of understanding that they must needs think every thing a great Secret and of some mysterious Consequence in the Queenes Letters and therefore they care not at how deare a price of Inhumanity they purchase

repeale all the Lawes made against Recusants therefore the King is a Papist then it is to say the King will make no Lawes against the reading of the Alcaron therefore the King is a Turke The making or unmaking of Lawes of this nature having no naturall Influxe upon the Truth or Falshood of the Things or that conception which those men have of those things who make that Law but only upon the Conveniences or Inconveniences of Times The necessity then of those present times was the reason of the making of those Lawes the Queenes person was in danger from the Catholiques and that danger was so much the more because those Catholiques could not well be knowne To discover them and to defend her selfe were all those Lawes enacted and as God would have it they did that for which they were made they distinguisht Traytors from good Subjects they made her lov'd of the one and fear'd of the other and so between both she continued a long and prosperous Reigne amongst us But now the Tables are clean turn'd And the Kings Person is more in danger from a pestilent faction of Schismatiques then ever the Queen was from her Catholiques So that ceasing the reason of those Lawes there can be no great offence if the Lawes themselves now be made to cease and other Lawes establisht against those kind of men of whom the Person of the King is so notoriously knowne to be in great perill and danger Well the thing it selfe being thus clear'd that any Law made may be Repeal'd the King doth not erre in the Matter of his promise when He bidds the Queen promise in His name that he will take away all the Lawes in England made against Recusants provided they shall deserve so great a favour at His hands for he promises nothing but what may be performed without any breach of any known Law of the Kingdom whatsoever All the scruple is that he hath erred in the Manner of it and that in Mr Liste's opinion these two wayes first privatively by secluding those that have the right of Abrogation with him that is both His Houses of Parliament and assuming the power wholly to himselfe because the words of His Letter doe runne thus I will take away c. and so soon as God shall enable me to doe it And secondly Positively by superinducing those that have no right of abrogation either with him or without him and that is Force and Armes because he speaks in his Letter of some powerfull assistance which surely can be meant of nothing else but of Armes and Forces But the truth is it is neither so nor so For first concerning His excluding of the Parliament Is any man so simple as to think the King is bound to write every private Letter of Complement in that severe stile and clogging forme as if he were to write an Act of Parliament and to choake up every line with The Kings Majesty by the Advice of his Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled as often as occasion offereth him discourse of the Transaction of any Parliament affaires Nothing can be plainer then that the King in saying I will take away the penall Lawes implyes the Power of the Parliament as virtually comprehended in Him and meanes that He will doe it in a Free convention of Parliament and as it ought for to be done and therefore if you marke it he addes as soon as God shall enable me to doe it which words must referre to such a Convention or they have no meaning For if the King had a meaning to repeale these Lawes without his Parliament or could thinke that He could Lawfully so doe Certainly He might have done it long ere this God hath enabled Him with Power and Might answerable to the compasse of many such Designes and for my part if He should doe it to morrow though I am confident He never will yet cannot I see what the Rebells have to object against it For I would faine know why the King may not repeale the Lawes against Recusancy without the Parliament as well and as farre forth as the Parliament Repeales the Lawes for the Common-Prayer and for Episcopacy without the King But the Kings Power loveth Iustice as the Psalmist speakes and Psal 99. 4. he considereth not his Might so much as his Right and therefore knowing well enough that He cannot lawfully doe it but in Parliament He presumes so farre upon the affections and gratitude of all His true hearted Subjects as to promise the Catholique party that in their names out of a Parliament which he doubts not but the better eloquence of successe against this present Rebellion by meanes of their Assistance will make appeare reasonable in it to performe Nor does this any way crosse shinnes with those Declarations and Protestations which the King hath made if a reasonable man have the laying of them both together For what if the King have upon some occasions made a Declaration to put the Lawes in execution against Papists Surely their suspitions and jealousies owe him more thanks for that inanimation which no doubt procured it But did the King ever make a Declaration that upon no occasion whatsoever He would consent to the Repealing of those Lawes If He did not then certainly the King may Declare that the Lawes against Recusants should be put in execution for one Reason at one time and yet consent that those very Lawes should be repeal'd for another Reason at another time His Religion all this while being the same although his Reason be not For his reason for the one was but their suspition His reason for the other is his own safety which certainly is the better reason of the twaine in regard that the obligation which is upon the King to satisfy the suspition of a peevish sort of People as he did in the one is but a Temporall obligation but that which is upon the King to provide for His own safety and the safety of all his good Subjects as he did in the other is an eternall The King hath made Declarations in behalfe of the Starre-chamber and of the Common Prayer and yet the Rebells are well contented He should quite abrogate the one and at this instant are as angry with him that He will not abolish the other nay it is yet within the memory of Man since our deare brethren of Scotland were esteemed and accounted Rebels by a Declaration and yet these men never yet question'd or accus'd the King for Accepting and Treating with them afterwards like honest Subjects When they have a purpose to repeale the Lawes made concerning Episcopacy then every solemne Oath which the King hath made against it is esteemed but a Gnatt but when they have a purpose not to Repeale the Lawes made against Recusants then every Declaration made for executing of those Lawes becomes a Camell This is just the trick of the Jugglers books that so amazes Country People and Children which being turn'd one way shewes