Selected quad for the lemma: end_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
end_n	king_n	people_n	safety_n	1,796	5	9.5781	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A81523	A discourse upon the questions in debate between the King and Parliament		1642 (1642)	Wing D1628A; ESTC R215130	14,194	16

things that it loves and if the resumption of such illegall power suggest not onely the sweetnesse of riches and Dominion but by false arguments comes apparelled with necessitie of the kingdomes preservation I know not whether naked words subject to so much varietie of construction will be of force to resist so great temptation Hazael being but a private person thought himselfe much injur'd when the Prophet made that cruell Character of his future behaviour Am I a dog yet he was so dogged and few perhaps that knew him would ever have thought it Therefore if his Majestie will have those promises beleev'd let him not apparantly go about to place himselfe in such a condition that he may breake them at his pleasure I know the Allegations for the manner of his Majesties present proceedings are first the just vindication of his royall Prerogative whereof it is pretended violation hath been made to the prejudice of himselfe and the people and wherewith he is trusted by God which trust he may not desert for Gods sake his owne and the peoples For the Prerogative of Princes so much talked of and so little knowne it may in briefe be said That all Princes have gain'd Dominion by force or by bargaine For to say that Adam if he had lived to this time had been King of the whole world and therefore the King is first in order before the people his naturall Vassals and production is an Assertion invented to flatter Princes for all men know that the multiplication of Colonies in Regions farre distant from the first roots of Nations must impell the necessitie of erecting many independent governments and the necessitie will be as great for the independencie as for the multiplicitie therefore by force or by contract they must commence Dominion got by force is kept by force and styl'd Tyrannie or else it dissolves into Governement by contract and so takes a lawfull for me Therefore of the nature and latitude of the Prerogative that rests in the hands of a Prince that comes in by agreement with the people is the now dispute It may be defined thus A power to see the Lawes put in execution and to doe that which is good for the people in cases to which the Lawes have not yet extended if there were no Lawes as perhaps there are not many in the first erection of a Monarchy but that all were trusted to the wisedome and goodnesse of the Prince yet by all the reason in the world the intendment of that trust was to enable him to doe good not to doe everything Now where the Lawes are positive the Prerogative claimes no jurisdiction The corruptions of Princes and the extravagancies of the people occasioned Lawes for bounds and limits to both and it is a thing out of all question that the first contract would have left no Prerogative at all if all future needs and inconveniencies of the Government could at one entire view have been presented to the people but that being impossible the discretion of all common-wealths meeting in their representative bodies have given a flop by Lawes to the progresse of any inconvenience as it hath been emergent His Maiestie complaines that he is divested of his legall prerogative That is he is denyed the power to execute the Lawes with his owne sence and exposition upon them And the Lords and Commons in Parliament pray to have reduced into a Law that Arbitrary power which he hath of custome exercised in things to which the Lawes doe not fully extend or to speake shorter they are not willing to trust him any longer with a power undefin'd which they have found imployed to their harme but desire to have it defined and limited that for the time to come it may be so no more And this they expect from his Maiestie as a dutie of his office to the people who if they are incapable of reason of state yet are not incompetent Judges of what is good for themselves unlesse we shall maintaine the Arguments of France in England and to the same end That the people are altogether ignorant of their own welfare That the King onely knowes it That it is best with an implicite faith to trust him and his Armie and Councell with the safetie of the Common-wealth and every mans life and estate That when France is free from feare of forraigne enemies the subiects shall be discharged of the oppressions In the mean time to make himselfe and his Mamalukes formidable to his neighbour Princes he hath transformed millions of Christian soules into beasts reducing them backe to the Elements whereof they were made yet they must not complaine nor defend their Lawes and Liberties lest they seeme to resist Authoritie Nor supplicate the supreme Magistrate to governe according to right reason and the Lawes of the Kingdome lest they seeme wiser than their teachers to be short I hope it will never be so in England And if the English Parliament be at sometime mistaken as it is not to be presum'd that they will be yet they are not so much hurt by the inconvenience of that mistake untill the next Parliament rectifie as they are if they shall be disabled from all competencie to Iudge in matters tending to their owne welfare For the other branch of his Majesties Allegation that the streightning of his Prerogative is prejudiciall to the people It is true a Prince of high and magnanimous endowments cannot dispense with that libertie and the influence of his excellent personall vertues if he be too much bound up by the dead letter of the law for the actions of some have beene transcendent to all Lawes or Examples and pittie it had been that they should have been confined And indeed the people doe lose willingly of their liberties to such good Princes which proves unhappie to them when worse make a title to the same libertie by such Examples And there is no surer a signe of a weake Prince than to contest with the people upon these Presidents rather seeking Examples for his purpose amongst the actions of his Predecessours than desirous to be himselfe an Example to posteritie However those Princes that have surmounted all Lawes in their glorious actions have been very rare a festivall that comes but once a yeere which if it came every quarter yet a good constant diet were much better It is strange to find how defective some are in the right understanding of the Mysteries they professe what is it that a Prince would have that affects not glorious vindications and conquests upon forraigne enemies to live safely plentifully and beloved of his people to dye lamented rich and of a blessed memorie this is all that can accrue to the best of the sonnes of men And if Princes did not preferre their wils before their profit if they did not shame lesse to pick lockes pockets and their subjects purses than to say I thanke you if they did not chuse rather by force to iustifie iniustice rapine and

to weede out of both houses those factious members that insist so obstinately upon a trust reposed in them to distill out of the delinquent Citie of London much cordiall water to save the labour charge and hazards of warre to save the purses persons and horses of the willing Gentrie who labour for those fetters such is the understanding of this time that their fathers sweate to be rid from For if armes be raised onely against a small malignant party a faction of a few Parliament men The Major number would quickly deliver them up and what place could afford safetie for them against the Ire of his Majestie and both houses of Parliament To such as put these Questions What is the power and priviledge of Parliament by what Law doe they impose Orders upon the people without the Kings Assent they seeme to me like them that dispute how legally the next houses are pull'd downe when the flame and winds make cruell vastation in the beautifull buildings of a populous Citie They are honest men and would faine be thought wise but I doubt it is not in the orbe of their understanding to comprehend what power resides in the vast bodie of the people and how unlimitedly that power operates when it is animated by danger for preservation of it selfe A man may make the same observation upon them that is made upon Cato who pleaded the Lawes and usages of peaceable times when the libertie of that Common-wealth was at the last Gaspe and would not be drove off it till it was too late his argument was this in effect that the Authors of lawes for preservation of the Common-wealth may not preserve it but by their own Creature This was Cato's error and is so confessed by all men yet I take it he was a better statesman then these disputants The King was admitted Judge of the danger of the Common-wealth before the Parliament and it was apparant for no other reason but the better to leavy money shal the Parliament sitting be a lesse competent Judge As though a Physitian that saith you are not wel though you do not perceive it give me 5. or 10. peeces I 'le cure you shall be better beleev'd then the man that hath been wasted with a Quotidian Fever 16 yeres together They talk what the Parliament may do what not as though this were the Parliament that made an Act for pavement of an high way and had little other worke Truly if regulation of a Trade or creation of a Tenure or Erection of a Corporation were the Question in a peaceable time it were easily resolved that the Kings demurre should stand for a deniall but to say the Kingdome may not defend and secure it self who ever saith to the contrary is to fight against the oldest and best knowne Law in nature the Center of all Lawes and the inseparable right of all Kingdomes Corporations and Creatures But they say the Kingdome is in no such danger who is a better Judge then the representative bodie of the Kingdome it selfe not those that say so Who like a man that standing upon the beach at Dover will not beleeve that the Sea hath any shore towards France untill he bee brought to the top of the Hill It is not within their view to tell better then the Parliament whether there be danger or not His Majestie indeed hath the most eminent place to observe what Collection of Clouds are in any quarter of the Heaven and what weather it will be but his calculations suppos'd to be made by others from a lower ground are therefore not so well beleeved But be it in danger or none it matters not much the Lawes have been in danger none will deny and were recover'd by another danger or had been lost If it be now peace as these men say it is the better time to secure them if it be not peace it is well to save the Common-wealth by any means whatsoever and if the King concurre not so speedily as the occasion requires the blame is not theirs that goe before for his preservation and their own To make an end I wish an union of the three Kingdomes under the same Government Ecclesiasticall and Civill if it bee possible that this Crowne having three such supporters and surrounded with the salt waters at Unitie at Libertie at Peace in it selfe may not seare the whole forces of the disjoynted continent of Europe That his Majestie would understand his Interest to be to unite not to divide his Subjects and to remember with what manner of Tropheyes the magnanimous Princes of former times have adorned their Funerals and Fame That he will chuse rather to fight in the head of the Brittish Armies for restitution of his Nephews to their lost Inheritance than imploy them here to pillage and destroy his own subjects That hee will first command the hearts then the persons then the Estates of his Subjects and not begin at the wrong end That in the Parliament may reside a Spirit of that Latitude and Noblenesse which ought to dwell in an Assembly of so much Honour and Gravitie That just things be done for justice sake without bowing lesse or more for the raging of popular surges in the South or for the cold winds that blow from the North That the conditions of peace may not be enhansed by any prosperous successe but like the Noble Romane before and after the victorie the same That his Majestie may be convinced of the Errour of his private Councels by finding in the Grand Councell a quiet repose and a stable foundation of peace and plentie to his Royall Person and Familie And lastly since his Majestie and his people thus divided cannot bee happie that with all convenient Expedition such as have studied this division between the Head and the Body may have their heads divided from their bodies So farewell FINIS