Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	child_n	good_a	parent_n	8,441	5	9.0620	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66431	A vindication of A discourse concerning the unreasonableness of a new separation on account of the oaths from the exceptions made against it in a tract called, A brief answer to a late discourse, &c.	Williams, John, 1636?-1709.	1691 (1691)	Wing W2738; ESTC R7770	26,360	45

by which all ordinary Cases are to be determined and which are the settled measures of the Obedience we owe to Governours Such a Case was that in Poland when Henry of Valois in haste and with secrecy left the Throne vacant A Case extraordinary and which they had no Law to govern them in but they had that which is a Law to Law Necessity and the Preservation of the Nation that soon taught them what was to be done This brings me to consider 3. Who shall be the Judg that is Either who shall Judg when the Publick Good is invaded and when the Laws Customs and Constitutions are violated Or who shall judg what 's fit to de done in such a case by way of Remedy As to the former the Case before us is supposed to be notorious and what has an evident tendency to the Destruction of the Government Of which some things are of that Nature as they are destructive of Government where-ever they are as the Desertion of a Kingdom or the natural Incapacity of the Governour by Lunacy c. Other things there are which are destructive of the National Constitution and such amongst us has been thought to be an absolute and universal Power of dispensing with the Laws Now when the Cases are notorious this Author might as well have asked who shall be the Judg whether the Banks are broken down in an Inundation or whether there is a Breach in the Walls when they see the Enemy press through it or the City in the Power of the Enemy when they see the Fortifications of it dismantled But who shall be the Judg that is again by way of Remedy Here our Author thus puts the Case either that must be the Supream Governour or some other Man or Body of Men or the Mobile The former he chuses for himself the second he argues out of the way and the third he gives to his Adversary For thus he concludes After all the matter comes to the Mobile and every Man must judg for himself And have not we extreamly mended the matter by putting it into the Power of every Subject to depose his King or at least to endeavour it to his utmost in case he apprehends it will be for the publick Good p. 9. As to the first of these the Supreme Governour the case we are upon immediately concerns himself and then either there must be no Judg or he cannot be the Judg. For suppose the Controversy be about the Succession and Title suppose about an Incapacity a Desertion and Vacancy suppose it be about the Violation and Destruction of the Government and Constitution designed by him or the Nature and Obligation of the Oaths to him This is not only to make him a personal Judg in his own case which the Law permits net in Suits of Law betwixt Prince and Subject but to set him above himself and in our Author's Phrase to set a Supream above a Supream And then the Question should be put not who is the Judg but whether there is any Judg But I readily grant that the Supream Governour has no Supream and whatever has been done in a case extraordinary doth no more make a Convention or Parliament Judges properly so called than that the Parliament is equal to the King because he can make no Laws without them As for the Case of the People our Author writes as if he had never read his Adversary who after he had resolved the Point into the Common Good saith I do not hereby go about to set up the Power of the People over Kings which is in effect to overthrow Monarchy for then the whole Soveraignty would lie in the People and Kings would be but their Servants p. 18. And therefore there is the third case remaining which is that of a Body of M●n and thus the Question is put in the Discourse Whether the Law of our Nation doth not bind us to Allegiance to a King and Queen in actual Possession of the Throne by consent of the Three Estates of the Realm And whether such an Oath may not lawfully be taken notwithstanding any former Oath p. 8. This he undertakes to prove p. 13. as that 's no other than the Consent of the People whose true Representatives they are as he shews To this our Author has nothing to say but the Inquirer that he may seem to say somewhat took what served his turn and left out the rest to use his own Words For this Adversary having said p. 18. If there be a Rule the general Consent of the People joyned with the Common Good seems to have been that which our Ancestors pretended to he presently runs out upon this in a vehement Expostulation Where or how can all the People meet As if the Author he opposes thought of no less than the numbring of the People from Dan to Beersheba Or as if there was no way of taking the General Consent but by an Vniversal Assembling He that quoted what was just before and after could not miss the Explication there given The Consent of the People that is the Three Estates of the Realm c. p. 19. and elsewhere I might think here of closing the Discourse upon Publick Good when he himself grows weary of it but to give an Answer to what remains it 's fit with him to return to it The Author of the Discourse towards the beginning treating of the Nature and Measure of the Obligation of political Oaths shew'd 1. That the Obligation was not barely from the Oath but from somewhat antecedent to it p. 4. 2. That the Publick Good is that Antecedent the main End chiefly concerned in the Obligation and the Obligation to Magistrates is to be in Subordination to that end p. 5. 3. That an Antecedent and Superiour Obligation voids that which is subsequent and inferiour when they contradict each other So that if an Oath to the Person is truly inconsistent with the Welfare of the People the Obligation cannot continue That this is so in other cases he shews there being no Relation of Mankind one to another but there is some good Antecedent which is the just measure of that Obligation they stand in to each other Thus he describes it to be between Parents and Children 1. On the Childrens part to Parents insomuch that if a Vow to God which is as solemn a thing as an Oath hinders that Good which Children are bound to do to Parents it ceaseth to oblige as our Saviour declares To this our Author replies His Comparison of a Vow and an Oath is nothing to the purpose for whoever thought that either an Oath or a Vow bound a Man contrary to his real Duty The Sin in such a case is in making them not in breaking them p. 13. I answer The Instance is to the purpose for if the procuring and preserving the publick Good be a Duty and what a Person hath vowed or sworn be destructive of it then the Oath cannot oblige no more

than a Vow not to feed or maintain a Parent and the Jurant is discharged of the Obligation And whereas he saith The Sin is in making them c. That is true where the matter is unlawful in it self as when the Jews bound themselves to kill St. Paul But the Case may happen so that it may be not only lawful but a Duty to break that Vow or Oath which was lawful in its own Nature or rather the Obligation comes to cease because by change of Circumstances or of the original reason of that Oath that which was lawful may become unlawful Thus it was in things sacred and dedicated to the Service of God and which could not be alienated from it without Sacriledg and yet it was lawful to apply them otherwise in case of Necessity as our Saviour's case of the Shew-bread proves And so it may happen in the case before us when that which was before for the Publick Good and which it was lawful to swear to maintain may afterwards come to be plainly destructive of it and so the same reason that there was for swearing to maintain it may be for the setting it aside The want of this Consideration led this Author into a Mistake when he saith Let our Author speak out and tell me that taking an Oath of Allegiance to a lawful Prince is contrary to my Duty and then c. For it might be lawful and his Duty to take an Oath to a lawful Prince but it follows not that no case could ever happen in which the Obligation of such an Oath ceases It was lawful for Jaddus the High-Priest and the rest of the Jews to swear Allegiance to Darius as long as he lived And yet when Alexander came with a powerful Army against them and Darius was in no Capacity of defending them it was lawful and as they thought their Duty for the Preservation of their Country and themselves to go out to meet him and to transfer their Allegiance to him and certainly they thought themselves discharged from their former Oath to the one when they took it to the other So true is that which the Author of the Discourse observes That the Resolution of Conscience in this case doth not depend upon the Will and Pleasure of the Person to whom the former Oath was made but upon the Grounds on which it was made and from which it had its force to oblige And if those cease the Obligation of the Oath ceases together with them p. 13. 2. It is so on the Parents part to Children as the same Author shews So that if Parents instead of regarding the Good of their Children do openly design their Ruin none will say but that they are bound to take care of their own Welfare c. To this our Author replies 1. I know not what a Madman may do but none will suppose that a Parent in his right Wits will do thus as it is both unnatural and unreasonable to think that a King should contrive the Destruction of his Subjects without whom he hath none to reign over or assist him This I grant is unnatural and unreasonable in it self but not unreasonable to think for the World too often finds that the Passions and Lusts and Interests of Men make them do things unreasonable and unnatural And our Saviour tells us how far the Hatred Persons have to the true Religion may transport them when the Fathers shall betray and deliver their Children to Death And if it is so on the part of a Natural it may be as well supposed on the part of a Political Parent That he saith is unreasonable to suppose because a King by the Destruction of his Subjects leaves himself none to reign over or assist him But whoever was so mad as to mean this when he puts the case of a Prince's destroying his Nation for then he must come to do it with his own hand and his Nation must in Caligula's way have little more than one Neck to serve his Barbarity But they thereby mean his Design to destroy the Government and to destroy those that will not comply with or oppose such a Design He choosing rather to have no Subjects than what shall not be his Slaves or in the modish way of a neighbouring Prince that will not be of the same Religion with himself 2. He saith The Author should have told us that the Children in such a Case might have taken away all the Father's Subsistence and done their utmost endeavour to starve him or cut his Throat and no doubt but this had been an excellent Comment on the Fifth Commandment But why should that Author be obliged thus to have told us For suppose the Father would alienate the Estate from his Children which is entail'd upon them and designs to adopt a Stranger into that Relation and substitute him in their Place Suppose again that a Father has several Tenants that hold of him by ancient Tenures and by which Tenures and performing the Conditions belonging to them their Lands are as much their Propriety as the Land of Inheritance is their Lord's and that he notwithstanding seeks to destroy their Tenures because they oppose him in his Designs against his Children or in that absolute Power over them which he aims at Suppose again that rather than not compass his Designs he seeks the destruction of his Children and of the Tenants that adhere to them for their own mutual Preservation and Security Is there no Mean to be found but either to let the Father out and starve his Children or that the Children must take away all the Father 's Subsistance and do their utmost to starve him No Mean but to let the Father cut the Throat of his Children or that the Children must cut the Throat of their Father And may not a Son withdraw from his Parents immediate Care as the Discourse saith and forsake his House when he cannot stay there but upon the hard terms of being destroyed or of resigning up the Title of his Inheritance to a supposititious Heir Or may not the Son take possession of his Father's House and the Estate of Inheritance which the Father abandoned rather than he would oblige himself to continue the Estate in his Family and suffer the Tenants to hold their Lands by any other Tenure than that of during Pleasure May he not I say then enter upon the Estate rather than suffer the House to fall and the Lands to be wasted and the Tenants undone for want of a Supervisor and Possessor And may he not keep the Possession against his Parent in his own his Families and Tenants Right when he comes with an armed Force of Rapperies to enslave his Children and Tenants and exercise an absolute Power over them or else destroy them And may not all this be done and the Fifth Commandment stand in its full force If not we must burn our Law-Books and take new Measures from these Gentlemen that despise and reproaeh the Common