Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A89087
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The Bishop of Carlile's speech in parliament, concerning deposing of princes Thought seasonable to be published to this murmuring age.
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Merke, Thomas, d. 1409.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing M1827; ESTC R225562
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8,159
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and Revelation from God and are no more set down for our imitation than the robbing of the Ægyptians or any other particular and priviledged Commandement but in the general Precept which all Men must ordinarily follow not only our Actions but our Speeches also and our very thoughts are strictly charged with Duty and Obedience unto Princes whether they be good or evil the Law of God ordaineth That he which doth presumptiously against the Ruler of the Deut. 17. 12. people shall die And the Prophet David forbiddeth to touch the Lords Annointed Thou Psal 105. 15. shalt not saith the Lord rail upon the Judges neither speake evil against the Ruler of the Exod. 22. 28. People And the Apostles do demand further that even our thoughts and Souls be obedient Act. 23. 5. to higher Powers And least any should imagine that they meant of good Princes Rom. 13. 1. 13. only they spake generally of all and further to take away all doubt they make express Tit. 3. 1. mention of the evil For the Power and Authority of wicked Princes is the Ordinance 1. Pet. 2. 13 14 17. of God and therefore CHRIST told Pilate that the Power which he had was given 1 Tim. 2. 2. him from above and the Prophet Esay calleth Cyrus being a Prophane and Heathen Rom. 13. 2. Prince the Lords Annointed For God stirred up the Spirit even of wicked Princes to do John 19. 11. his will and as Jehosaphat said to his Rulers they Execute not the Judgment of Man Cap. 45. 1. but of the Lord In regard whereof David calleth them Gods because they have their 2 Chron. 36. 2. Rule and Authority immediately from God Which if they abuse they are not to be 2 Chron. 19. 6. adjudged by their Subjects for no Power within their Dominion is superior to theirs Psal 28. But God reserveth them to the forest Trial Horribly and sudainly saith the Wiseman Sap. 6. 5. will the Lord appear unto them and a hard Judgment shall they have The Law of God commandeth that the Child should be put to death for any contumely done unto the Parents But what if the Father be a Robber If a Murtherer If for all excess of Villanies odious and execrable both to God and Man Surely he deserveth the highest Degree of Punishment and yet must not the Son lift up his hand against him for no offence is so great as to be Punished by Parricide But our Countrey is dearer unto Quintil in declam Cic. offic lib. 1. us than our Parents and the Prince is Pater patriae the Father of our Countrey And therefore more sacred and dear unto us than our Parents by nature and must not be violated how imperious how impious so ever he be Doth he command or demand our Persons or our Purses we must not shun for the one nor shrink for the other For as Nehem. 9. 37. Nehemiah saith Kings have Dominion over the Bodies and over the Caettel of their Subjects at their pleasure Doth he enjoyn those actions which are contrary to the Laws of God We must neither wholly Obey nor violently Resist but with a constant Courage submit our selves to all manner of punishment and shew our subjection by enduring and not performing Yea the Church hath declared it to be an Heresie to hold that a Prince Alphons a cast in lib. de haeres in verb. Tiran Dom. Sot lib. 5. de just jur q. 1. artic 3. may be Slain or Deposed by his Subjects for any disorder or default either in Life or else in Government there will be faults so long as there are Men And as we endure with Patience a Barren Year if it happen and unseasonable Weather and such other defects of nature so must we tollerate the imperfections of Rulers and quietly expect either reformation or else a change But alas good King Richard what such Cruelty What such Impiety hath he ever committed Examine rightly those Imputations which are laid against him without any false Circumstance of aggravation and you shall find nothing objected either of any truth or of great Moment It may be that many errours and oversights have escaped him yet none so grievous to be termed Tyranny As proceeding rather from unexperienced Ignorance or corrupt Counsel than from any natural and willful Malice Oh how shall the World be pestered with Tyrants if Subjects may Rebel upon every pretence of Tyranny How many good Princes shall dayly be suppressed by those by whom they ought to be supported If they leavy a Subsidy or any other Taxation it shall be claimed oppression If they put any to death for Trayterous Attempts against their Persons it shall be exclaimed Cruelty If they do any thing against the Lust and liking of the People it shall be proclaimed Tyranny But let it be that without Authority in us or desert in him King Richard must be deposed Yet what right had the Duke of Lancaster to the Crown Or what reason have we without his right to give it to him If he make Title as Heir unto King Richard then must he yet stay until King Richards death For no Man can succeed as Heir to one that liveth But it is well know to all Men who are not either wilfully Blind or grosly Ignorant that there are some now alive Lineally descended from Lionel Duke of Clarence whose Off-spring was by Judgment of the High Court of Parliament holden the eight Year of the Raign of King Richard declared next Successor to the Crown in case King Richard should die without Issue Concerning the Title from Edmund Chrouchback I will pass it over seeing the Authors thereof are become ashamed of so absurd abuse both of their own knowledge and our Credulity and therefore all the claim is now made by right of Conquest by the Session and grant of King Richard and by the general consent of all the people It is a bad Wooll that can take no colour But what Conquest can a Subject pretend against his Soveraign where the War is insurrection and the Victory high and Heinous Treason As for the resignation which King Richard made being a pent Prisoner for the same cause it is an act exacted by force And therefore of no force and validity to bind him And seeing that by the Laws of this Land the King alone cannot alienate the Ancient Jewels and Ornaments partaining to the Crown surely he cannot give away the Crown it self and therewithal the Kingdome Neither have we any custome that the people at pleasure should elect their King But they are always bound unto him who by right of Blood is right Successour much less can they confirm and make good that Title which is before by violence usurped For nothing can then be freely done when liberty is once restrained by fear So did Scylla by terrour of his Legions obtain the Law of Vellia to be made whereby he was created
THE BISHOP of CARLILE's SPEECH IN PARLIAMENT Concerning Deposing of PRINCES Thought Seasonable to be Published to this Murmuring Age. Nutrum modo mas modo Vulgus LONDON Printed in the Year 1679. THE BISHOP of CARLILE's SPEECH IN PARLIAMENT Concerning Deposing of PRINCES THis question Right Honourable Lords concerneth a matter of great Consequence and Weight The determining whereof will assuredly procure either Safe Quiet or dangerous disturbance both to our particular Consciences and also to the common State Therefore before you resolve upon it I pray you call to your considerations these two things First whether King Richard be sufficiently deposed or no Secondly whether King Henry be with good Judgement or Justice chosen in his place For the first point we are first to examine whether a King being lawfully and fully instituted by any Just Title may upon impution either of Negligence or of Tyranny be deposed by his Subjects Secondly what King Richard hath omitted in the one or committed in the other for which he should deserve so heavy Judgment I will not spake what may be done in a Popular State or in a Consular in which although one beareth the Name and Honour of a Prince yet he hath not Supreme Power of Majesty but in the one the people have the highest Empire in the other the Nobility and chief Men of Estate in neither the Prince Of the first sort was the Common-Wealth of the Lacedaemonians who after the form of Government which Lycurgus framed oftentimes Tranquil in Caligula Tacitus in Proaemio Fined oftentimes Fettered their Kings and sometimes Condemned them to Death Such were also in Caesars time the petty Kings of every Citty in France who were many times Arraigned upon life and death and as Ambiorix Prince of the Leodienses consessed had no greater Power over the People than the People had over them Of the second condition were the Roman Emperours at first of whom some namely Nero and Maximinus were openly Condemned others were suddenly surprized by Judgment and Authority of the Senate and such are now the Emperors of Germany whom the other Princes by their Aristocratical Power do not only restrain but sometimes also remove from their Imperial State such are also the Kings of Denmark and Sweedland who are many times by the Nobility dejected either into Prison or into Exile Such likewise are the Dukes of Venice and of some other free States in Italy and the chiefest cause for which Lewes Earl of Flanders was lately expelled from his place was for drawing to himself cognisance in matters of Life and Death which high Power never pertained to his Dignity In these and such like Governments the Prince hath not regall Rights but is himself subject to that Power which is greater than his whether it be in the Nobility or in the Common People But if the Soveraign Majesty be in the Prince as it was in the three first Empires and in the Kingdom of Judea and Israel and is now in the Kingdoms of England France Spain Scotland Muscovia Turky Tartaria Persia Ethiopia and almost all the Kingdomes of Asia and Africke Although for his Vites he be unprofitable to the Subjects yea Hurtful yea Intollerable Yet can they lawfully neither harm his Person nor hazard his Power whether by Judgment or else by Force For neither one nor all Magistrates have any Authority over the Prince from whom all Authority is derived and whose only presence doth silence and suspend all inferiour Jurisdiction and Power As for Force what Subject can Attempt or Assist or Counsel or Conceal Violence against his Prince and not incurr the high and Henious Crime of Treason It is a common saying thought is free Free indeed from Punishment of secular Laws except by Word or Deed it break forth into action Yet the secret thoughts against the sacred Majesty of a Prince without attempt without endeavour have been adjudged worthy of death And some who in auricular Confession have discovered their Treacherous Devises against the Person of their Prince have afterwards been Executed for the same All Laws do exempt a Mad Man from Punishment Because their Actions are not governed by their will and purpose And the will of Man being set aside all his doings are indifferent neither can the Body offend without a Corrupt or Erroneous mind Yet if a Mad Man draw his Sword upon his King it hath been adjudged to deserve Death And left any Man should surmise that Princes for the maintenance of their own safety and Soveraignty are the only Authors of these Judgments Let us a little consider the Patterns and Precepts of Holy Scripture Nebuchadnezzar King of Assyria wasted all Palestine with Fire and Sword oppugned Hierusalem a long time and at the last expugned it Slew the King Burnt the Temple Took away the Holy Vessels and Treasure The rest he permitted to the Cruelty and Spoyl of his unmerciful Souldiers Who defiled all places with Rape and Slaughter and ruinated to the ground that flourishing Citie After the Glut of this bloody Butchery the people which remained he led Captive into Chaldaea And there erected his Golden Image and commanded that they which refused to Worship it should be cast into a fiery Furnace What Cruelty what Injustice what Impiety is comparable to this And yet God calleth Nebuchadnezzar his Servant and promiseth Heir and Wages for his Service And the Prophets Jeremiah and Baruch did Write unto the Jews to pray for the life of him and of Baltazar his Son that their days might be upon Earth as the days of Heaven And Ezechiel with bitter terms abhorreth the disloyalty of Zedechia because he revolted from Nebuchadnezzar whose Homager and Tributary he was What shall we say of Saul Did he not put all the Priests to Execution because one of them did revile Holy and harmless David Did he not violently Persecute that his most Faithful Servant and Dutiful Son in Law During which pursuit he sell twice into the Power of David who did not only spare but also protect the King and reproved the Pretorian Souldiers for their negligent Watch and was touched in Heart for cutting away the Lap of his Garment And afterwards caused the Messenger to be Slain who upon Request and for Pitty had lent his hand as he said to help forward the voluntary Death of that Sacred King As for the contrary Examples As that of * So did Domitian put to death Epaphroditus Neroes libertine because he helped Nero although in love to kill himself So did Serverus kill all the killers of Pertinax his Predecessour and likewise Vitellius did put to death all the Murtherers of Galba Theophilus Emperour of Greciae caused all those to be Slain who had made his Father Emperour by killing Leo Armanius And Alexander the great put to cruel Execution those that had Slain Darius his Mighty and Mortal Enemy Jehu who Slew Jehoram and Ahazia Kings of Israel and Juda They were done by express Oracle