Selected quad for the lemma: end_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
end_n	law_n	people_n	safety_n	1,280	5	9.1725	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89890	A plea for the King, and kingdome; by way of answer to the late remonstrance of the Army, presented to the House of Commons on Monday Novemb. 20. Proving, that it tends to subvert the lawes, and fundamentall constitutions of this kingdom, and demolish the very foundations of government in generall.	Nedham, Marchamont, 1620-1678.	1648 (1648)	Wing N402; Thomason E474_2; ESTC R202961	27,530	32

A PLEA for THE KING AND KINGDOME By way of Answer to the late Remonstrance of the Army Presented to the House of Commons on Monday Novemb. 20. Proving that it tends to subvert the Lawes and fundamentall Constitutions of this Kingdom and demolish the very Foundations of Government in generall Seneca Prosperum ac faelix Scelus virtus vocatur Ius est in Armis Merc. Prag Now prosp'rous mischief makes it good Against both LAVV and REASON Not to spill ROYALL-LOYALL Blood But to be Conquer'd's TREASON Printed in the Yeere 1648. To the Commons assembled in Parliament Gentlemen SInce the Abettors of this Remonstrance have had the confidence to addresse themselves and prescribe Rules to you in such peremptory language give me leave under your favour and connivence to publish an Answer thereunto by Pen since for ought I see you dare not give it your selves by word of mouth because if you should declare a sense contrary to theirs as in honor and conscience you must they have as good as told you in plain termes that they will make your House too hot to hold you I observe their Remonstrance is founded upon these principles that their own Faction whom alone they call the well-affected and the honest men excluding all others are the People Secondly that their Interest is the only Interest of the People Thirdly that the Safety of the People is to be respected before any Kings or Governers or Governments whatsoever Lastly that themselves are the only competent Judges of the Peoples Safety and so by consequence may drive on their Designe against all Powers and Forms of Government and Law whatsoever upon pretence of that old Aphorisme Salus Populi suprema Lex the safety of the People is the soveraigne Law which hath been the fruitfull mother of Rebellions in all ages to serve the corrupt ends of ambitious persons who usually fisht in troubled waters to attain those ends which they could not hope for in a setled State of Commonweales and Kingdoms And such now it is apparent to all the world were some of you in the beginning of this Parliament from whose plea and practices this upstart Faction have learned to rebell against your selves upon the very same principles and pretences that you first bandied against his Maiesty I need not repeat here how they have terrified and quell'd you from time to time as often as you durst but offer to speak your consciences in the behalf of the Publike against their corrupt and private Interest But all that is past is nothing to what they have presented to you now wherwith they have affronted you to your very faces in this Remonstrance Do they not challenge you as inconstant to your own Votes and Resolutions perfidious to that trust reposed in you and such as will not or know not which way to settle the just Rights and Liberties of the People And therefore they undertake to new-mold the fundamentall Constitutions of the Kingdom and conjure you to comply with them and renounce your King or any Agreement with him and settlement by him or otherwise they say they shall be constrained to set a period to your Authority and provide themselves of another Parliament which shall be elected of persons of their humor and so establish themselves in a kind of legall Tyrannie by the Law of their own wills and the Sword It is high time Sirs then to look about you and vindicate the Lawes of the Land the Priviledges and Freedom of Parliament and the just Rights of the People thus impiously invaded Acquit your selves like men and if you must perish it will be your glory and Crowne in the midst of calamity that you suffer in defence of the Liberties of your Country Proceed to an happy Accommodation with his Majesty He hath granted more than ever the world supposed you would have demanded then let not those Differences which he by his Concessions hath brought into so narrow a Compasse hinder a Peace any longer but meet him now at length with an honorable Complyance and leave the successe to God who will scatter those that delight in War and to this end how small soever the meanes be at present yet ere long you shall have the hearts hands and Purses of Thousands to assist you I am not ignorant that your Debates and Resolutions are extremely stagger'd by a pack of Sectaries which have crept into the House to that purpose by undue elections and that you feare if you should declare against the designe of this Remonstrance they should take this occasion to purge you out of the House and make use of the same way of unjust elections to put others in your Places But howsoever put it to the venture and do your duty As for me I should reckon it the greatest glory I could be born unto to be accounted worthy to suffer in so noble a Cause and since they are arrived to this height of Impiety to tread all Authority under foot as well yours as the King s do you but agree with his Majesty upon just and equall Termes then whatever I have been heretofore I shall list my selfe henceforth For King and Parliament Mercurius Pragmaticus Novem. 27. 1648. A Plea for the King and Kingdom by way of Answer to the late Remonstrance of the Army THe Contexture of this tedious Remonstrance is much like that of the new Government which they aime at having neither forme nor fashion in it and is so replenished with confused Repetitions that it brings more trouble to recollect the scattered Fancies into some orderly Frame than to blast them with a Confutation No lesse than 60. Pages are spent in a Preamble before they come to the things intended and all to win the world quorum magn apars capitur Ambagibus with a world of smooth Pretences the vanity whereof I shall indeavour to demonstrate in a few sheetes which they have wrap't up in so many that when the Monster appeares without disguise it may become abominable in the eyes of all good men In the first place they insinuate their tender Regard to the Priviledges and freedom of Parliament in not interposing in their Councells and determinations c. For the falshood of this I shall give you two Instances of famous or rather in famous memory The first is taken out of their Remonstrance dated June 23. 1647. at S. Albans wherein they threatned to march up against the Parliament in case the 11. Members were not suspended the House by a short certain day and their desires not granted The second may be collected out of the prodigious carriage of the Army and their Creatures in the Houses when the Ordinance was debated for nulling and making void all things whatsoever done in the absence of the two Renegado Speakers when they ran to the Army This Ordinance was set forward by the Army-party and had been debated five or six severall times and still rejected in the Negative yet they brought it in play

a good conscience fight against them both By these fore going Passages then it appeares plainly to the shame of this R●monstrance First that the Army first sought to the King and not he to them Secondly that their dealings with the King were pretended as high and absolute for his Interest as ever were the indeavours of his own party And lastly That their only aim in all this was to give advantage to suppresse the Presbyterian party and advance their own and then to cast off the King and domineer over him and his People This last Particular will be more cleare by that saying of Cromwell's in his Chamber at Kingston when he had plaid all his Prankes and brought his design to perfection That he knew nothing to the contrary but that himself was as able to govern the Kingdom as Hollis and Stapleton did before him So that you see Dominion and Rule was the only end of this unparallel'd Hypocrisie he and his Son Ireton being both apt Schollars of Machiavell and follow his rules who counsells those that meane to effect great matters to make small reckoning of keeping their words and to know by their craft to turn and wind men about Also that such men ought not to keep their faith given when the observance there of turnes to the disadvantage of their designes and the occasions that made them promise are once past Likewise that it is advantagious to seeme pittifull faithfull mild religions and of integrity and indeed to be so Provided they be of such a composition that if need require them to use the contrary they can and know how to apply themselves thereto and now and then to doe contrary to faith charity humanity and religion and to have a mind so disposed as to turn and take the advantage of all winds and fortunes These are Maximes which the godly ones of our Age have thriven by this is the Gospel which our new Saints have practised to attaine unto this height of Tyrannys And now nothing will satisfie but the destruction of that gracious Prince to whom they made such high promises Hee must be brought to the Block to secure their Ambition or else have at the Parliament For it is a professed Maxim of their own as Maior Huntington hath discovered That it is lawfull to passe through any formes of Government for the accomplishing of their ends and therefore either to purge the Houses and support the remaining Party by power everlastingly or put a period to them by Force Nor doth Maior Huntington only discover this but themselves do as good as declare thus pag. 45. when they make another Argument against the safety of an Accommodation with his Maiesty because say they if the King return and this Parli●ment continue long and unlimited he will be able to make a party among them Nay say they he hath bid fair for it among the Commons already the Lords are his own out of question therfore we dare not trust the King among them which is as much as to say that if they close with the King they shal not sit any longer but be dissolved by Force which must be looked for at last it being a necessary preparative to that devilish design of bringing al under the military power that is the Power of themselves and their Creatures And therefore it is that they declare for a dissolution of this Parliament after a certaine time and they will so order the matter that the next Parliament ensuing shall be altered from the fundamentall Forme to be meerly popular and none but those of their own Faction to be elected and then farewel for ever the glory of the kingdom But more of this by and by when I come to examine the severall Propositions in the close of their Remonstrance Their last Argument against the safety of an Accommodation by this Treaty is because no Provision is made by the Houses against the Impunity of Kings in time to come so as that they may remaine accountable for their Actions and lyable to Iustice or against the Impunity of this King in particular which they conceive would be the only meanes of security to themselves and the publique and here they take occasion to inveigh against those maxims of our Law that say the King can doe no wrong which were founded upon the same equitable Considerations of Policie in our own as in other Kingdoms it having been presumed ever by all Legislators That Kings who are the common Fathers of the people cannot be so unnaturall as to doe any thing willingly to their preiudice and that if by accident they did yet for the reverence due to royall Maiesty it should rather be imputed to the ill Councell of those about them than their own Inclination forasmuch as if a Soveraign Prince should be left lyable to Accompt in a Criminall way it would introduce confusions in government and the putting it once in execution would bring more dammage and Inconveniences upon the Common-wealth than all the Enormities and Tyrannies he could commit throughout his whole Reigne Upon which considerations it is that all wise Statesmen of our own and other Nations have reckoned Impunity as a part of the Princes Prerogative and inseparable from his Crown and Dignity And therefore away with the vanity of these puny Politicians whom nothing will satisfie but that transcendent piece of Treason on which the Jesuits themselves durst never venture to bring the sacred persons of Kings to publique tryall and Execution Having heitherto driven on the designe of their Remonstrance not upon matter of equity but Iealousies concerning their own security and prosecuted it so farre as that to save themselves from supposed afterclaps of Revenge they make it lawfull to destroy their Prince they in the next place proceed to answer what may be obiected against this Course from the Covenant which binds all that have taken it to the preservation of the Kings person and Authority This they say is not to be understood absolutly but in a way subordinate to Religion and the publique Interest which were the principall and supreme matters ingaged for by Covenant as appeares by that Clause viz. In the preservation of the true Religion and liberties of the kingdoms It hath been alwayes feared that some such use would be made one time or other of that clause of the Covenant And therefore it was that many learned and pious men refused the taking of it witnesse those incomparable Reasons of the Vniversity of Oxford against it among which this is one that they knew not what construction might be put upon that large clause to the preiudice of his Maiesties royall person and authority But though they indeavour to make a nose of wax of it and turne it any way by interpretations most suitable to their Antimonarchicall principles and Designs yet they cannot found any pretence thereupon to subvert the Lawes of the Land and Fundamentall constitutions of the Kingdome the Covenant obliging in