Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A47256
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A letter from a student at Oxford to a friend in the country concerning the approaching Parliament, in vindication of His Majesty, the Church of England and University.
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Kennett, White, 1660-1728.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing K301; ESTC R39057
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15,480
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24
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A LETTER FROM A STUDENT AT OXFORD TO A FRIEND IN THE COUNTRY CONCERNING THE Approaching PARLIAMENT IN Vindication of His MAJESTY the Church of England and University LONDON Printed for John Seeres 1681. SIR THIS place being by the discretion of a Royal Umpire appointed for the Rendezvous of the approaching Parliament is at present look'd on as a Metropolis from whence that cried up Commodity of News is only to be had at the first hand and dispersed by retail to all remoter places Supposing it therefore probable that any New Coin report from hence may not only gain acceptance from its stamp of Novelty but credit from the reputation of its Mint I am willing so far to satisfie your curiosity as to set my weak abilities on the rack to extort some languishing description of our thoughts and conjectures on the intricacies of the present juncture of affairs We are sensible that His Majesties late putting a Dissolution to a Resolving Parliament and giving their great pretensions to discovery a Nonplus by a previous Prorogation even at that very time when their prophetic fears were contriving a longer Session did strangely disquiet those of the like occupation who had been told by popular Abettors that by their crafts they should get no small gain and at the same time so full of wrath that they would possibly have filled not only the whole City but the Realm with confusion had no◠His Majesties most admirable Wisdom diverted their thoughts by wholy busying them in fresh canvasing for new Representations This politic Whetstone turn'd the edge of their fury and it did somewhat abate the sorrow for their late demolished goddess to think it was in their power to erect a new one and for the quicker expedition as well as from a sence of gratitude for past services they resolve it shall be out of the same materials and chief Corner stones which were plucked from the former We confess to have no such vulgar thoughts as to give our approbation of the common humour herein since we suppose it was as much against the Interest as Honour of Elective Societies which being the Trading part of the Nation are much concern'd in the maintenance of undisturb'd Traffique but this being upheld chiefly by peace and satisfaction at home must needs be diminished by employing the disturbers of our setled Tranquility Again some of them were particularly concerned not to disoblige so good a Customer as His Majesty who they knew no doubt desired to see new faces when he dismissed the Old ones If they neglected Interest they might have consulted Honour and considered what a shame it would be that Counties and Corporations should be judg'd so barren of honest Gentlemen that the same only should be thought capable of undertaking so great a trust but alas they were so far biass'd with prejudice that they neither lean'd to the sober consideration of Profit or Fame nay these two inconsiderate Remora's put so little a stop to their Zeal as they rather promoted their violence they were told perhaps that Lex Talionis was a Limb of Magna Charta and thought it therefore a piece of priviledge in the Subject to quit scores with their Soveraign and since he had so oft denied their humble Petitions it were but reason for them to thwart his desires And as to the last they were loath to take New Adventurers in the good old cause supposing experienced Soldiers could best shoot at the same Mark How zealous their intentions how resolute and how effectual their endeavours have been to reduce the old dislocated Members to a reunited body the consequence best shews For our experience best tells us the Plastick vertue which was inherent in the Commonalty would operate on no other matter but the same as only capable of introducing the same form so that our dull Aristotle is now to be baffled while such Machins of nature can do more than nature her self a privatione ad habitum dare regressum Thus did the factious Metropolis lead the Van and set a noble Example for the rest to follow they first argue the case in Dialogues and Advices to Electors Wherein they plainly shew there was no way left of extirpating Popery accommodating differences securing Liberty and preventing Arbitrary power but by employing those they had already experienced to be such stout Champions in so commendable a quarrel and therefore well supposing they could not be more to the life represented when the time of Election comes and the same Gentlemen Nominated to serve them the unanimous Voters without the tedious ceremony of poling lift up their hands on high and extoll the name of all those their heated affections were so intent upon The Lord Mayor it is true was so grand a Patriot of their cause and zealous a promoter and defender of their right of Petitioning that it is more than probable they would not in civillity have denied him the Honour if he would have vouchsaf'd his acceptance but his modesty or policy declares himself no ways ambitious of it and so gives leave that the Compositum may result out of the same quaternion of Elements it consisted of before And thus Urbis ad exemplum totus componitur orbis For as far as our intelligence reaches we do not hear but that the same Persons have carried it in most Elections to the great Charges and disappointment of all their Competitors Particularly this City which Ass like does always kick against that indulgent dam which lets her suck from her so plentiful a livelyhood does so industriously I mean ex industriâ oppose whoever in such cases the University recommends to them that scorning in their own Rhetorick to have it said the University should choose them a Parliament Man they have refus'd a neer Neighbour and Loyal Gentleman for being too much a Scholar and pick'd out the two former Cocks of the game though they both rise from the dunghill to fight out the prize they are so deeply engaged for It would have been unmannerly indeed for the Citizens not to hearken to their noble Chancellour who not only interceded by friends but appear'd himself in Person though for the same thing he formerly received a just check from His Majesty to promote the interest and encrease the partie of his two friends To this end His Grace upon timely notice arrives here to exert the Priviledge of his freedom and let the World know he had a City as well as a House Vote And though he was so violently engaged against the Court partie he turns Courtier in flattering the People and in the sensless noise of the Tumultuous croud he waves his Tongue and Hat in crying up a Whorwood a Whorwood in this manner for all his pretended hatred to Popery he walks in procession through the streets and scrapes cringes and complements to all the Cloak'd fraternitie though if I am not misinform'd his own Porter once took the chief of them but for Fidlers As he
much question therefore their true intentions who would confine the subject of a Sermon to Grace Faith spiritual illuminations beatifick visions and other transporting Topicks while they censure as Eccentrical and impertinent all Pulpit discourses of subjection obedience and non-resistance Again we suppose that Kings Prerogatives ought not to be encroached on by a pretence of preserving the Peoples liberty and believe Subjects have no privilege to question their Soveraigns authority We think it a great solecisme in good manners for People to challenge a coordinate power with him who is set over them and therefore must be above them all We understand the name of Monarch to emply a soleship of Government and they who to Monarchy would add the epithete of mixt make but a contradictio in adjecto if by mixt they mean a Division of power among divers We know the People had first from the grant of one of their Kings the privilege of sending up their Representatives to consult of the weighty affairs of the Kingdom we have read they were first designed to balance the unweildy power of the Barons lately abused and in whatever privileges they have since encreased by the permission of Princes we are sure their power at utmost extends no farther then barely to propound and advise unto while it is the Kings unquestioned right to refuse or ratifie their Motions We imagin therefore that for bare Votes to be accounted as Acts is as great an encroachment on nonsence as for a House of Commons to challenge the Name of Parliament we think the first a miserable Catachresis and know the last to be an insufferable Synechdoche We judge it convenient that private Persons should not be such intermedlers in public affairs as to notifie to Princes their errors in Government and supplicate for a redress of grievances when there is no appearance of any but in the imaginary draughts of their own timorous fancies when Subjects surpass the limits of modesty in such extravagant addresses it is but Wisdom in Princes to disencourage their attempts since the granting of some things would but give a fresh provocation to endless demands Petitioners being like dropsical fish-natur'd sippers who by constant bibbing Metamorphose their stomacks into lime-pits where moisture produces so contrary an effect that the more they drink the more they burn We look upon the Oath of Allegiance as made not only to bind Papists but Protestants to obedience We hold it nonsense that Major singulis should be said to be Minor universis at the same time a Soveraign and yet a Subject of all his Subjects And we think it as miserable a fallacy to divide the Prince into a Personal and Politic capacity and so usher in a pretence of fighting for the King when the Sword is drawn against him Ours being no Elective Monarchy we look upon the Crown as an inheritance entailed upon the lawful Heir of which he ought not to be dispossessed by Persons that have no authority to take away the privilege os his Birth-right And to this we farther add it is somewhat disingenuous for People forcibly to divert all natural affection and compel a Prince to sacrifice to the humour of the vulgar one of the nearest of his own Bloud We had rather other methods of securing the Protestant Religion so freely offered by His Majesty might be accepted of and when all courses are taken which can lawfully be used the event must be left to God alone whose Providence determins the success of all intentions Sir the design at first proposed of giving this cursory essay of our Religion and Loyalty was to intimate how the proceedings of the late Parliament in many things were very far from obtaining of our approbation how extravagantly soever magnified and extolled by the applauding vulgar For first they run contrary to our sentiments in Religion Did they not use all the Spades and Mattocks of Seditious contrivances to undermine the Foundation of our well establisht Church-Government Did they not envy us the support of our chief Pillars the Bishops whom they would first have made weaker and then pulled down Would they not have let in many beasts of the Forrest to our Vineyard by making a breach in our fence in taking out three stakes from our hedge of the 39 Articles Would they not have given encouragement to divisions by granting liberty to dissent and by removing of penalties have invited many to transgress Did they not take up at the second hand many old artifices of innovating a change as crying out against the unreasonableness of Pluralities the inconvenience of Non-residence and affirming the necessity of a redress of both And finally did they not use all methods of irritating the vulgar to vilify the Clergy because they were the chief opposers of Sedition and perswaders to Allegiance and uniformity Then in opposition to Loyalty How arbitrary and magisterial were their own proceedings while they pretended to be doing nothing else but preventing the Arbitrary power of another How many Honest and Loyal Gentlemen did they force to do the penance of falling down and worshipping them for speaking blasphemy against their authority while Treason against a higher power past unquestioned How crosly and resolutely did they always deny His Majesties just demands though they were to be employed for the Nations security And at last how saucily would they have cried down the King by debarring him of the privilege of the meanest Subject making it unlawful for any one to turn his Creditor though on never so good security This is not the moiety of what might be said but perhaps in this case 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I hope all former miscarriages may be obliterated in the ashes of oblivion and rak't up in the embers of an ardent and mutual affection between the King and his two Houses I wish the same Gentlemen may be sensible of their errors and so become Achillean Physicians to cure the wounds which they themselves have made in our Church and state Then will there be some encouragement for us Academics to make a diligent progress in our Studies while there remain rewards suitable to our labours But if preferments must be taken away if Benefices must be monopoliz'd and an equal maintenance allowed to the industrious and sluggish it will invite us to take up some more advantagious employment This puts me in mind of a passage in a late vindication of the Clergy intimating that if Church-men were turned out of their livelyhoods they would rather than starve adventure to turn Soldiers to recover them That is rather then the tribe of Levi would be couchant as Issachar under the burden of poverty they would become so many Judah's Sword-bearers to avenge themselves of their enemies I may add if ever the persecutions of the rabble reduce them to this extremity which God avert we who are the Sons of the Prophets and bred in their Schools should gather to our Fathers and be intituled to the Church militant and dying Martyrs in so good a cause should be in hopes of being transplanted to the triumphant SIR I abruptly remain Your humble Servant Academiae Filius POSTSCRIPT THE HUMBLE ADDRESS OF AN Academick Muse TO HIS MAJESTY HAil Mighty Charles the Atlas of our State Greater than Poets fancies can create Whose laded brows no other Garland bears Then th'heavy burden of three Kingdoms cares And yet whose stooping would endanger all He does support to totter or to fall Hail Sacred Prince We all Congratulate Thy Prudence for averting that dire fate Which lately did impend however meant Upon our well establisht Government When Cockatricng States-men would have sate And hatcht Rebellion to its Birth but that Thy interposing pow'r when grown too proud Soon dissipates the representing croud And yet to shew how much you really prize Your Subjects misabused Liberties By gracious Writs you soon give power unto Mechanick tools to frame the House anew And then least it might grow infectious By City Plagues remove it here to Us Where th' dross refin'd Air does mortify Contagious venoms by Antipathy So may it be while here all Subjects learn Past errors by reflection to discern And th'knowlege of a fault 's one great degree Unto th' amendment of deficiency But if their fixed obstinacy blind Their hoodwinkt reason so as not to mind Th' impulses of their duty but run on To th' jarring Chaos of Confusion Curb Royal Charioteer the hotspur'd rout Keep in the reins and tire their fury out Thou the true Phoebus art ordain'd to guide They but fond Phaetons whose giddy pride Is still ambitious of mounting higher Till want of skill sets all the World on Fire Thy prudence yet unparalell'd knows how Best way to make such stifneck'd Rebels bow But when thy pow'r has forc'd them to advance Back to their bounds of firm Allégiance For to prevent Relapses which attend New cures a bashful Muse makes bold to send This short advice Recall that Liberty Extorted from your Royal Clemency Whence none within their bounds of duty stay But plead a License for to disobey If criticizing Conscience may resist And peevish baggage do but what she list There never will want scruples to withstand The plainest orders of supreme command Nor is there hope the best contriv'd dispute Should such like wilful errors e're confute Plain arguing but few Converts will afford No Rhet'rick will suffice but that of th' Sword Their biass'd humours never will comply Till force reduce them to their Loyalty And only then they 're fitted to agree When backs as tender as their conscience be Take up then British Jove thy Thunderbolts Of vengeance and strike down such stupid dolts To hotter Regions where their sense may feel What 't is indeed to burn with ardent Zeal And if their conscience ben't consum'd in Hell But still has force to prompt them to Rebell They 'le learn from grim Belsebub's Tyranny That Hell it self admits of MONARCHY Gloria Deo Regique Salus