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	mutual_a	parent_n	1,913	5	9.2702	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43135	The right of succession asserted against the false reasonings and seditious insinuations of R. Dolman alias Parsons and others by ... Sir John Hayward ... ; dedicated to the King ; and now reprinted for the satisfaction of the zealous promoters of the bill of exclusion.	Hayward, John, Sir, 1564?-1627.	1683 (1683)	Wing H1233; ESTC R11039	98,336	190

in popular Governmens there is nothing but sedition trouble tumults outrages and injustices upon every light occasion and then we shall perceive first that you want the art of a wise deceiver not to be entangled in your tale Secondly that this is mere poyson which the Devil hath dropt out of your Pen to infect Christian Countries with disobedience and disorder In a word to the contrary of this your impudent untruth our Laws do acknowledge supreme authority in the Prince within the Realm and Dominions of England neither can Subjects bear themselves either superiour or equal to their Soveraign or attempt violence either against his person or estate but as well the Civil Law as the particular Laws and Customs of all Countries do adjudge it high and hainous Treason I will speak now without passion What reason have we to accept your idle talk for a kind of authority against the Judgment and Laws of most Nations in the world You proceed that the power of a Prince is given to him by the Commonwealth with such conditions and exceptions as if the same be not kept the people stand free That the Prince receiveth his power under plain conditions you go about to prove afterward now you hold on that in all mutual contracts if one side recede from promise the other remaineth not obliged And this you prove by two Rules of the Law The first is He doth in vain require promise to be kept of another man to whom he refuseth to perform that which he promised The other is A man is not bound to perform his Oath if on the other part that be not performed in respect whereof he did swear Poor fellow had you been as conversant in the light of Law and clear course of Justice as you are in the smoak and dust of some corner of a Colledge you would never have concluded so generally so confidently upon any of the Rules of Law which are subject for the most part unto many exceptions Alexander Felinus do assign five fallencies unto these Rules Socinus giveth the contrary Rule To him that breaketh his faith or oath faith ought to be kept and then restraineth it with seven limitations But all affirm that in those offices which are mutual between any persons by the Law of Nature or of God as between the Father and the Child the Husband and the Wife the Master and Servant the Prince and the Subject although the same be further assured by Promise or by Oath the breach of duty in the one is no discharge unto the other And therefore if the Father performeth not his duty towards his Children they are not thereby acquitted both of the obedience and care which God and Nature exacteth of them howsoever Solon in his Laws discharged Children from nourishing their Parents if they did not train them in some Trade whereby they might acquire their living Much less are Subjects exempted from Obedience if the Prince either erre or be defective in Government because the like respect is not due unto Parents as unto Princes as I have somewhat touched before insomuch as a Son that beareth authority hath right both to command and compel the Father This was declared among the Romans by that which Plutarch Livie Valerius and Gellius do report of Q. Fabius to whom being Consul when Fabius Maximus his Father who had been Consul the year before did approach sitting upon his Horse the Son commanded him by a Sergeant to alight the Father not onely obeyed but highly commended both the Courage and Judgment of his Son in maintaining the Majesty which he did bear and in preferring a publick both Duty and Authority before private Upon those examples Paulus the Lawyer did write that publick discipline was in higher estimation among the Roman Parents than the love of Children After an impertinent discourse that upon divers considerations an Oath ought not to be performed you annex another cause wherefore Subjects may withdraw their Allegeance and that is when it should turn to the notable damage of the Commonwealth And both these you affirm to be touched in the deprivation of Childerick King of France But I regard not what was touched in the deprivation of Childeric I have answered to that in the Chapter next before I require either Arguments or Authority of more tough temper Well then let us turn back the leaf and there we shall find a Rule of the Law because by Rules only you will only beat down Rule In evil promises it is not expedient to keep faith Which is also confirmed by a sentence of Isid●rus In evil promises break your word in a dishonest oath change your purpose Well fare your wits good soul Do you account the promise of obedience evil not so I suppose you will say but it turneth to be evil when it turneth to the notable detriment of the Commonwealth It is one of your peculiar gifts the further you go the more impious you declare your self For if you take the word evil in no higher sence than for detriment and dammage it would follow upon your rule that a man were no further tied to his promise than the performance thereof were advantageable unto him You would enforce also that if the Father doth dissipate his patrimonial Estate and run a course to ruine his Family the Children and the Wife may thereupon disavow their duties But if we take a true touch of this point we shall find that the vices of any Prince are not sufficient of themselves to overthrow a State except thereupon Rebellions be raised which will draw all things into confusion For there is no Prince which either hath lived or can almost be imagined to live in so little sence of humanity but generally he both favoureth and maintaineth some order of Justice only against particular persons some of them have violently been carried by the tempest of their passion whereby notwithstanding the inordinate desires of one man cannot possibly reach to the ruine of all So saith Suetonius that under Domitian the provinces were well governed only certain private men at Rome felt the evil of his cruelty and other vices But when the people do break into tumult then all course of Justice is stopped then is either assistance made or resistance weakned for forain Invasion then is every one raised into hope who cannot fly but with other mens Feathers then as when a fierce Horse hath cast his Rider the Reins are loosed to those insolencies which a dissolute people nothing restrained either by honesty or ●●ar do usually commit For as it is the nature of men when they come ou● of one extremity wherein they have been holden by force to run with a swift course into another without staying in the midst so the people breaking out of Tyranny if they be not hold back will run headlong into unbridled liberty and the harder

the Prince hereby affected the person is both tyed and touched in honour the authority ceaseth not if performances do fail Of this sort was that which you report of Trajan who in delivering the Sword to his Governors would say If I reign justly then use it for me if otherwise then use it against me But where you adde that these are the very same words in effect which Princes do use at their Coronations pardon me for it is fit I should be moved you will find it to be a very base lye Of this nature was that also which the same Trajan did to encourage his Subjects to do the like in taking an Oath to observe the Laws which Pliny the younger did account so strange as the like before had not been seen But afterward Theodoric did follow that fact whereupon Cassiodorus saith Ecce Trajani nostri clarum seculis reparamus exemplum jurat vobis per quem juratis We repair the famous example of Trajan he sweareth to you by whom you swear So when King Henry the Fifth was accepted for Successor to the Crown of France he made promise to maintain the Parliament in the liberties thereof And likewise divers Princes do give their faith to maintain the priviledges of the Church and not to change the Laws of the Realm which Oath is interpreted by Baldus Panormitane and Alexander to extend no further than when the Laws shall be both profitable and just because Justice and the common benefit of Subjects is the principal point both of the Oath and Duty of a Prince whereto all other clauses must be referred And now to your Examples First because in all the rank of the Hebrew Kings you cannot find either Condition or Oath not in the ancient Empires and Kingdoms of the world not usually in the flourishing time of the Roman State both under Heathen and Christian Emperours because these times are too pure for your purpose you fumble forth a dull Conjecture That forsomuch as the first Kings were elected by the People it is like that they did it upon conditions and assurances for themselves That the first Kings received not their Authority from the people I have manifested before and yet your inference hereupon is no other than if you should sue in some Court for a Legacy alleadging nothing for your intent but that it is like the Testator should leave you something in which case it is like I suppose that your Plea would be answered with a silent scorn After a few loose Speeches which no man would stoop to gather together you bring in the example of Anastasius the first Emperour of Constantinople of whom the Patriarch Euphemius required before his Coronation a Confession of the Faith in writing wherein he should promise to innovate nothing And further he promised to take away certain Oppressions and to give Offices without money Let us take things as they are and not speak upon idle imagination but agreeable to sence What either Condition or Restraint do you find in these words Condition they do not form because in case of failance they do not make the Authority void neither do they make Restraint because they contain no point whereunto the Law of God did not restrain him All this he was bound to perform without an Oath and if he were a thousand times sworn he was no more but bound to perform it even as if a Father should give his word to cloath and feed his Child or the Husband to love his Wife or any man to discharge that duty which God and Nature doth require It is true that Anastasius was both a wicked man and justly punished by God for the breach of his Faith but his Subjects did never challenge to be free therefore from their Allegiance The same Answer may be given to the Promise which Michael the first gave to Nicephorus the Patriarch That he would not violate the Ordinances of the Church nor embrue his hands with innocent bloud especially if you take the word Ordinances for matters necessary to be believed but if you take it in a larger sence then have I also declared in the beginning of this Chapter how far the Promise doth extend Your next Example is of the Empire of Almain from whence all that you object doth fall within this circle After the death of Charles the Great the Empire was held by Right of Succession until his Line was determined in Conrade the First After whose death it became Elective first in Henry Duke of Saxony then in Otho his son and afterwards in the rest from whom notwithstanding no other promise was wrested but the discharge of that duty which they were informed or rather threatned that God would severely exact at their hands But as in all Elective States it usually happeneth at every new change and choice the Emperour was deplumed of some of his Feathers until in the end he was made naked of Authority the Princes having drawn all power to themselves So by degrees the Empire was changed from a Monarchy to a pure Aristocracy the Emperour bearing the Title thereof but the Majesty and Puissance remaining in the States During which weakness of the Emperour some points were added to his Oath which seemed to derogate from the soveraignty of his estate But what is this to those Princes who have retained their dignity without any diminution either of Authority or of Honour The like may be said of Polonia which not many hundred years since was erected into a Kingdom and although the States did challenge therein a right of Election yet did it always pass according to propinquity of bloud and was esteemed a soveraign Monarchy until after the death of Casimire the Great when Lodovicus his Nephew King of Hungary rather greedy than desirous to be King also of Polonia did much abase the Majesty thereof Yet falling afterward into the Line of Iagello who married one of the daughters of Lodowiek it recovered the ancient both dignity and strength But when that Line also failed in Sigismond Augustus the last Male of that Family the States elected Henry Duke of Anjou for their King with this clause irritant That if he did violate any point of his Oath the people should owe him no Allegiance But whereas you report this as the usual Oath of the Kings of Polonia you deserve to hear the plainest term of untruth In the Kingdom of Spain you distinguish two times one before the Conquest thereof by the Moors the other after it was recovered again by the Christians I acknowledge a difference in these two times for that in the one the Right of the Kingdom was Elective in the other it hath always remained Successive insomuch as Peter Belluga a diligent Writer of the Rights of Arragon doth affirm that the people have no power in elect●on of the King except in case the Line should fail Concerning the matter in controversie you affirm that the Kings did swear