Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n
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A42267
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Seasonable advice to the citizens, burgesses, and free-holders of England concerning parliaments, and the present elections / by a divine of the Church of England.
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Grove, Robert, 1634-1696.
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1685
(1685)
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Wing G2158; ESTC R2863
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21,459
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42
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Claret and other good Liquor that was spent at Elections had never been paid for it had been one of the greatest Grievances the Nation ever groaned under since the Conquest But this is not the worst Mischief that might have followed Suppose the People had been generally overawed by this Vote and an Invincible Armado had appeared on our Coasts with a potent Army ready to be put a Shoar What a Case had this poor Nation been in No Money no Men no Ammunition sufficient to oppose the Invader We had been made an easie Prey to a Foreign Enemy We must have tamely yielded our Throats to the Sword of the Conqueror Every Penny of Money we had every Foot of Land we possessed had been at his Disposal the whole Kingdom might have been suddenly surpriz'd and inslav'd And who had been the Betrayers of the Liberties of the Subject then I believe the greatest and soberest part of the Nation was something startled at such Proceedings as these that by Degrees might have made us perfect Vassals to our Fellow Subjects that would have quite disarmed the King and Kingdom and exposed our Lives and all that we had to any growing Power that had but the Confidence and Ambition to invade us But to imagine that we are therefore Enemies to Parliaments is a very great mistake And to convince you of this I shall shew you the Excellent use and publick Advantages of Parliaments What it is that too frequently hinders the good Effects they might otherwise have and What are the pernicious Consequences of that And then desire you to accept the most Hearty and Seasonable Advice I am able to give concerning your present Elections As to the Excellent Use and many publick Advantages of Parliaments I must here profess and I think I speak the Sense of a great many more that I really esteem it my greatest Temporal Happiness that I was born in a Land where the Government is so admirably Tempered that the King has all the Power that is requisite to inable him to execute Justice and protect his People and which may be enough by the Blessing of God to make him Great and Victorious And his Subjects injoy so much Liberty under him as is abundantly sufficient to make their lives pleasant and easie And as the power of our Kings has not been known to degenerate into Tyranny so I wish and hope that the Liberty of the People will never be turned into a froward petulancy and contempt of the Royal Authority The Parliamentary way of consulting for the publick good has been a very Antient usage in all these parts of Europe and some Foot-steps of it are still remaining in most of our Neighbouring Nations But the Freedom and Dignity of those Noble Assemblies has been no where so entirely preserved as it is in this And the Benefits we might all receive from it if not prevented by our own Folly are exceeding Great I shall name a few that seem very apparent And one is That it tends directly to the increase of that Love and care which ought to be betwixt a King and his People for it gives them both the fairest opportunity of knowing and understanding one another which is always the Original Ground and first occasion of all good will and kind inclination And this being once produced by the intercourse of Parliaments between the Sovereign and his Subjects will be easily preserved in the Breast of the King and may quickly be propagated by the respective Members through every Town and County in the whole Kingdom The ordinary Method of proceeding in those Honourable Assemblies seems purposely contrived for the most happy procurement of this good effect For when all the Nobility and many of the principal Gentry meet together from every quarter they must needs be intimately acquainted with the State and concerns of all and every part of the Nation And after they have considered and agreed upon Bills for the Publick good and Interest these cannot pass into Acts till they be strengthened by the Royal aslent which being granted is the most generous expression of the King's Grace and Favour to his People when he gives them Laws to be Governed by which were proposed and advised for their particular advantage by their own Representatives On the other side when the necessities of the Government have been intimated to the Parliament and they freely consent to the raising such Summs as the occasion requires what might indeed be esteemed but a Duty may be received as a kindness And here is the best Foundation imaginable for a mutual indearment When the King lays the highest Obligations upon his People by consenting to such Laws as make for their ease and prosperity and the People return their thanks for these Royal Favours by begging his acceptance of such supplyes as may be sufficient to maintain the Dignity and Power of the King The advantages of such a reciprocal Love and affection are so very great and manifest that it will not be necessary to mention more but there are some which Spring from the same root which may be a further evidence of the excellency and wisdom of our established Constitution It gives the greatest security that can be had that the Publick Treasure shall not be mispent Not only because the misapplication of what had been raised is the only pretence that can be made use of for any backwardness to a further supply but because it is inconsistent with the generosity of a great Prince to lavish away the best expressions of his Peoples Gratitude for the Liberties and Protection they injoy under him It affords the best incouragement to every man's private Industry to make what improvement he can of his Estate when he is assured that whatever he gains is his own Property and that not one Farthing shall be demanded of him without the Consent of prudent and worthy Persons freely chosen and intrusted by the Body of the Nation And Industry increases Wealth and Wealth brings content and satisfaction to them that injoy it and preserves the People in a prosperous and flourishing condition Besides our most excellent Constitution might if any thing can ingage the minds of all men to an unconstrained and chearful Obedience to the Laws Since our submission is required to nothing else but what has been seriously weighed and deliberately resolved by Legal Representatives impowered to do it by our own choice And there can be no possible excuse for the man that will not be bound by his own Act that refuses Subjection to what has been at least implicitly consented to by every Free-holder in the Kingdom And now let any Man judge what an admirable Constitution it is where the Prince and the Subject are strongly ingaged to Love one another where the Publick Treasure is guarded by Loyalty and Honour where Industry is incouraged as much as is possible and where a chearful and voluntary Obedience cannot be denyed Let other Nations call themselves Free
SEASONABLE ADVICE TO THE Citizens Burgesses and Free-holders OF ENGLAND Concerning PARLIAMENTS AND THE Present Elections By a Divine of the Church of ENGLAND LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-yard 1685. SEASONABLE ADVICE TO THE Citizens Burgesses and Free-holders OF ENGLAND Dear Countrey-men WHEN it seem'd good to the Divine Providence to remove our Late King of happy Memory from the Cares of an Earthly Crown to the Joyes and Rest of his Heavenly Kingdom he left the World entirely beloved and generally lamented by all his Loyal Subjects and the deep Sense of having so wise so just so good a Prince almost unexpectedly snatch'd away from us was enough to drown the whole Nation in perpetual Sadness and Tears But to support us under that inestimable Loss our Most Gracious Sovereign that now is has by the Assistance of the same Almighty Goodness been peaceably established on the Throne of his Ancestors in spight of all the desperate Attempts and restless Endeavours of a few turbulent Spirits to deprive him of his most undoubted Right of Inheritance A Prince of mature Age and great Experience and so admirably qualified for Government that if it had not been his by unquestionable Succession his own personal Worth might have been thought enough to have preferred him to a Crown And to quiet the Minds of his People and silence all the imaginable jealousies any of them might have been possibly seduced into by the false and malicious Suggestions of Factious Men the First thing he did after his coming to the Crown was to confirm the hearty Professions he had often made before To preserve this Government both in Church and State as it is now by Law established For this he has already received publick Thanks in several of the Addresses that have been presented unto him and though it be not expresly set down in some yet we may reasonably suppose it is implyed in all otherwise whatever Protestations they may make it will not be believed that they can have any true Zeal for God or Respect for their King that think so gracious a Promise so frequently repeated does not really deserve their most grateful and solemn Acknowledgments But this and the rest of His Majesty's Expressions of a very great Care and Tenderness for His People had that good Influence that the Suspicions of the most timorous did immediately vanish His Advancement to the Throne gave present Ease and Satisfaction and was attended with the most universal Acclamations of Joy from every part of the Nation And certainly now it must be confessed to be the Duty and Interest too of every English-man indeed to do whatever lies in his power for the Continuance of our present Happiness And because the Welfare of the publick may very much depend on the Issue of this first Parliament It will highly concern all those whom the Law has intrusted with the priviledge of Electing to make Choice of persons of approved Prudence and Integrity that may be able to assert the known Liberties of the People without intrenching upon the Dignity of the Crown For we must needs be involved in endless Miseries and Confusion unless the Prerogative of the King be as carefully preserved as the Property of the Subject These two must mutually support the one the other or else they will be both in danger of a Fall But we may chance to meet this Argument again before we have done In the mean time it is like enough to be objected That to undertake to give Advice in these Cases is a very improper Work for a professed Divine I know indeed that of late Years if we did but preach Obedience to Magistrates or reflect though but gently upon the most horrid and unnatural Sin of Rebellion we were presently condemned for going beyond the Bounds of our Calling and being too forward to intermeddle with Matters of State And at Elections of Members to serve in Parliament we could not appear in some places without undergoing some publick Affront Attempts were made to raise a general prejudice against us and all those that had any Respect and Kindness for us It was sometimes esteemed Exception enough against Gentlemen of very great Worth if they stood but fair in the Opinion of the Clergy But it was then easily perceived and since plainly discovered which way the Stream was running and by what sort of Men and upon what Occasion all that Noise and Clamour was raised The Clergy were generally firm to the established Government and professed Enemies to the designs that were then setting on Foot And it was but necessary for those that were indeavouring to subvert the Government both in Church and State under pretence of reforming abuses to make the multitude jealous of them and blacken them as much as possibly they could in the eyes of the People And they wanted neither cunning nor malice to do it But to return some answer to what has been objected If the things I have mentioned may be called Intermeddling with matters of State they are no more than what may be very well justified When we were made Ministers we did not cease to be men and the Church being as it were incorporated with the State He that has an Interest in the one must not be wholly unconcerned for the other The Laws allow us a Vote in Elections and without immodesty we think our selves as capable of Judging who may be fitly qualified to be made our Representatives as other Ordinary Free-holders are And it would be very unjust in those that talk so loud of Liberty and Property to blame us for desireing the concurrence of our Friends much more to Abridge us of the Freedom of our Voices in the choice of a Knight of the Shire Besides it is the indispensable Duty of every Minister of the Gospel to exhort the People to Fear God and Honour the King to Preach Subjection to the Higher Powers not only for wrath but Conscience sake And this they are obliged to by an express Divine Command by the Canons of the Church by the common Laws of Humanity and the respect they ought to bear to true Piety and Holiness of Life That they may contribute what they can to the preventing the Miseries of Civil as well as Foreign Wars and the great increase of profaneness and irreligion which unavoidably follows all popular Tumults and Insurrections when the Commands of Almighty God concerning Obedience especially are quite forgotten or distinguished into nothing the Laws of the Land insolently trampled under Foot and all reverence to Authority wholly laid aside And because it is well known what a Powerful influence a Parliament may have upon the Settlement or ruin of the Nation no less in our Religious than Civil concerns this consideration alone may be sufficient to excuse a Clergy-man if he shall undertake to Advise the Choice of such Worthy Gentlemen as to him seem the most likely to promote the