Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	act_n	henry_n	king_n	2,829	5	3.8707	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89005	Ochlo-machia. Or The peoples war, examined according to the principles of Scripture & reason, in two of the most plausible pretences of it. In answer to a letter sent by a person of quality, who desired satisfaction. By Jasper Mayne, D.D. one of the students of Ch. Ch. Oxon.	Mayne, Jasper, 1604-1672.	1647 (1647)	Wing M1472; Thomason E398_19; ESTC R201695	27,844	40

only supposition And you now Sir what the Logician saies suppositie nihil p●nit in esse what ever may be supposed is not presently true If Calumny her selfe would turne Informer let her leave out Ship-money a greivance which being fairely laid a fleepe by an Act of Parliament deserved not to be awakened to beare a part in the present Tragedy of this almost ruined Kingdome she must confesse that the King through the whole course of His Raigne was so farre from the Invasion of His Subjects Rights that no King of England before Him unlesse it were Henry the first and King Iohn whom being Vsurpers it concern'd to comply with the People the one having supplanted his Eldest Brother Robers Duke of Normandy the other his Nephew Arthur Prince of Britaine ever imparted to them so many Rights of his owne To that Degree of Infranchisment that I may almost say He exchanged Liberties with them Witnesse the Petition of Right An Act of such Royall Grace that when He past that Bill He almost dealt with His people as Traian did with the Pratorian praefect put his sword into their Hands and bid them use it for Him if he ruled well if not against Him In short Sir Magna Charta was a Vine I confesse cast over the People but this Act enabled them to call the shade of it their owne An Act which if your friend will please to forget Ship mony being in no one particular violated so farre as to be instanced in by those whose present Ingagements would never suffer such Breaches of Priviledge to passe unclamour'd will oblige posterity to be gratefull as often as they remember themselves to be Freemen This then being so the next inquiry will be whether a bare Jealousy that the King would in time have recalled this Grace and would have invaded the Liberty of his Subjects by the change of the Fundamentall Lawes could be a just cause for such a preventive Warre as this To which I answere that such a Faire though built upon strong presumptions cannot possibly be a just cause for one Nation to make Warre upon another much lesse for Subjects to make Warre against their Prince The Reason is because nothing can legitimate such a Warre but either an Injury already offered or so visibly imminent that it may passe for the first Dart or Speare hurled Where the Injury or Invasion is only contingent and conjecturall and wrapt up in the wombe of darke Counsells no way discoverable but by their own revelation of themselves in some outward Acts of Hostility or usurpation to anticipate is to be first injurious and every Act of prevention which hath only Iealousie for its foundation will adde new justice to the enemies Cause who as He cannot in reason be pronounced guilty of anothers Feares so he will come into the Field with this great advantage on his side That his reall wrong will joyne Battle with the others weake suspition But alas Sir Time the best interpreter of Mens Intentions hath at length unsee'ld our eyes and taught us that this hath been a Warre of a quite opposite Nature The Gentleman who wrote the Defence of M. Chaloners Speech and M. Chaloner himselfe if you marke his Speech well will tell you that the quarrell hath not been whether the subject of England shall be Free but whether this Freedome shall not consist in being no longer Subject to the King If you marke Sir How the face of things hath alter'd with successe How the scene of things is shifted And in what a New stile they who called themselves the Invaded have spoken ever since their Victories have secured them against the power of any that shall invade If you consider what a politick use hath been made of those words of Inchantment Law Liberty and Propriety of the Subject by which the People have been musically enticed into their Thraldome If you yet farther consider the more then Decemvirall power which this Parliament hath assumed to it selfe by repealing old Lawes and making Ordinances passe for new If you yet farther will please to consider How much Heavyer that which some call Priviledge of Parliament hath been to the Subject then that which they so much complained of The Kings Prerogative so much heavyer that if one deserved to be called a Little finger the other hath swolne it selfe into a Loyne Lastly if you compare Ship mony with the Excise and the many other Taxes laid upon the Kingdome you will not onely find that a whippe then hath been heightned into a Scorpion now but you will perceive that as these are not the first Subjects who under pretence of Liberty have invaded their Princes Crowne so farre as the Cleaving of Him asunder by a State Distinction which separates the Power of the King from his Person so ours as long as he was able to lead an Army into the Field hath been the first King that ever took up Armes for the Liberty of his Subjects Vpon all which premises Sir I hope you will not think it false Logicke if I build this Conclusion so agreeable to the Lawes of the Kingdome as well as the Lawes of God That supoosing the Parliament all this while to have fought as was at first pretended for the Defence of their assayled Liberty yet fighting against the King whose Subjects they are it can never before a Christian Judge make their Armies passe for just But being no way necessitated to make such a Defence their Liberty having in no one particular been assaulted which hath not been redrest if S. Paul were now on earth againe and were the Iudge of this Controversy between them and their Lawfull Soveraigne I feare he would call their Defence by a Name which we in our Moderne Cases of Conscience doe call Rebellion And thus Sir having as compendiously as the Lawes of a Letter will permit given you I hope some satisfaction concerning the first part of your zealous Friends dispute with you which was whether the Two Houses which he calls the Parliament have not a Legall power in Defence of their Liberty to take up Armes against the King I will with the like brevity proceed as well as I can to give you satisfaction in the second part of his Dispute also which was whether Religion may not be a just Cause for a Warre The Termes of which Question being very generall and not restrained to any kind of Religion or any kind of Warre whether offensive or defensive or whether of one Nation against another or of a Prince against his Subjects or of the Subjects back again against their Prince allow me a very large space to walk in In which least I be thought to wander and not to prove It will first be necessary that I define to you what Religion in generall is And next that I examine whether every Religion which falls within the Truth of that Definition may for the propagation of it selfe be a just cause of a Warre and so

deluded fancy they must at length confesse unlesse with their Faith they have cast off their Charity too Let your Friend Sir read over any one of His Majesties Declarations and what sacred Thing is there by which he hath not freely and uncompelled obliged and bound Himselfe to live and dye a Protestant By what one Act have these many Vowes been broken Who made that Court Faction which would have miscounselled him to bring in Popery Or let your Friend if he can name who those Miterd Prelates were who lodged a Papist under their Rotchet If he cannot let him forbeare to hold an Opinion of his Prince and Clergy which Time the mother of Truth hath so demonstratively confuted And let him no longer suffer himselfe to be seduced by the malitious writings of those who for so many years and from so many Pulpits have breathed Rebellion and Slander with such an uncontrouled Boldnesse and Sting that I cannot compare them to any thing so fitly as to the Locusts in the * Revel 9. Revelation which crept forth of the Bottomlesse pit every one of which wore the Crowne of a King and had the Tayle of a Scorpion In short Sir If he have not so deeply drunke of the Inchanted cuppe as to forget himselfe to be a Subject let him no longer endanger himselfe to tast of their Ruine too who for so many years have dealt with the best King that this Nation ever had as Witches are said to deale with those whom they would by peece meale destroy first shap't to themselves his Image in waxe then pricks and stab'd it with needles striving by their many Reproaches of his Government and Defamations of the Bishops to reduce his Honour by degrees to a consumption and to make it Languish and pine and wither away in the Hatred and Disaffection of his People But perhaps Sir your Friend and I are not well agreed upon our Termes If therefore he doe once more strive to perswade you that notwithstanding all this which I have said to the contrary the King would if he had not been hindered have destroyed the Protestant Religion pray desire him to let me know what he mean by the Religion which he calls Protestant Doth he mean that Religion which succeeded Popery at the Reformation and hath ever since distinguisht us from the Church of Rome Doth he meane that Religion which so many Holy Martyrs seal'd with their Blood that for which Queene Mary is so odious and Queene Elizabeth so pretious to our memories Lastly Doth he meane that Religion which is comprised in the 39. Articles and confest to be Protestant by an Act of Parliament If these be the Markes these the Characters of it let him tell me whether this be not the Religion which the King in one of his * Cabinet Opened Letters to the Queene calls the only Thing of difference between Him and Her that 's dearest to Him whether this also be not the Religion in which if there be yet any of the old Ore and Drosse from whence 't was extracted Any thing either essentially or accidentally evill which requires yet more sifting or a more through Reformation Any thing of Doctrine to offend the strong or of Discipline or Ceremony to offend the wenke His Majesty have not long since offered to have it passe the fiery Tryall and Disputes of a Synod legally called To all which questions 'till He and his Com presbyters give a satisfying Answer however they may think to hide themselves under their old Tortoise-shell and cry out Templum Domini the Temple of the Lord They must not take it ill if I aske them one question more and desire them to tell me whether this be not the Religion which they long since compelled to take flight with the King and which hath scarce been to be found in this Kingdome ever since the time it was deprived of the Sanctuary it had taken under the Kings Standard This then being so hath your Friend or his fellow Assemblers yet a purer or more primitive Notion of the Protestant Religion which compared with the Religion which we and our Fathers have been of will prove it to be Idolatrous and no better then a hundred years superstition Let them in Charity as they are bound not to let us perish in our Ignorance shew us their Modell If it be more agreeable to the Scripture then Ours have more of the white Robe and not of the new invention we may perhaps be their Converts And their Righteousnesse meeting with out Peace may mutually Kisse each other In the mean time Sir I hope they will not define the Protestant Religion so by Negatives as to make it consist wholly in No Bishops No Liturgy or No Common-Prayer Booke These we not yet convinced to the contrary doe hold to be good Conservatives but not Essentialls of that which we call the Pretostant Religion of our Side Their Negation then can be no true Essentiall Constituent of the same Religion on theirs There is but One positive Notion more in all the world under which I can possibly understand Them when They say They have all this while Fought for the Defence of the Protestant Religion That is that by the Defence of the Protestant Religion if they meane any Thing or if this have not bin the Disguise to a more dangerous secret They meane the Defence of their New Directory and their at length concluded Government of the Church by Presbyters If this be their Meaning And truely if I should rack my Invention I cannot make it find another The Second part of that most Holy and Glorious Cause which hath drawne the eyes of Europe upon it and renderd the Name of a Protestant a Proverbe to expresse Disloyalty by That Pure Chast Virgin without spott or wrinkle-Cause which like the Scythian Diana hath been fed with so many Humane Sacrifices And to which as to another Moloch so many Men as well as Children have been compell'd to passe through the Fire resolves it selfe into this Vnchristian Bloudy conclusion That an Assembly of profest Protestant Divines have advised the Two Parliaments of England and Scotland confest Subjects to take up Armes against the King their Lawfull Soveraigne Have thereby set Three Kingdoms in a Flame been the Authors of more Protestants slaine in a Civill then would have served to recover the Palatinate by a Forraigne Warre for nothing but this vnnecessary novell accidentall Consideration That the King vnlesse compell'd by Forces would never consent 〈◊〉 indeed without Perjury could to the Change of an Ancient Primitive Apostolike Vniversally received Government of this Church by Bishops for a new vpstart Mushrome Calvinisticall Government by a Motley Presbytery of Spirituall Lay-Elders Which being As I have hither to by Principles taken both from Reason and Scripture proved to you in the most favourable sense a Resistance if not an Jnvasion of the Higher Power that Higher Power being * Rom. 13.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gods Ordinance must needs be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Warre made against God Himselfe And the Authors of it unlesle they repent and betake themselves to a timely returne to their Obedience in danger to draw upon themselves this other sad tragicall irresistible Conclusion which St * V. 2. Paul tels us is the inevitable Catastrophe of Disobedience which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you may English it swift Destruction And thus Sir Though all weake Defences have something of the Nature of prevarication in them and he may in part be thought to betray a Cause who feebly argues for it I have return'd you a large Answere to the two Quere's in your sh●●● Letter which if you shall you 〈◊〉 to call Satisfaction you will very much assist my 〈◊〉 which will not suffer me to thinke that I in this 〈◊〉 have said more then Others Only being so fairely invited by you to say something to have remain'd silent had been to have confest my selfe convinced And my Negligence in a Time so seasonable to speak Truth in might perhaps in the Opinion of the Gentleman your Friend have seemed to take part with those of his side against whose Cause though not their Persons I have thus freely armed my Pen. Sir I should think my selfe fortunate if Any Thinge which I have said in this Letter might make him a Proselyte But this being rather my wish then my Hope all the Successe which this Paper aspires to is this that you will accept it as a Creature borne at your Command And that you will place it among your other Records as a Testimony how much greater my Desires then my Abilities are to deserve the stile of being thought worthy to be From my Chamber June 7. 1647. Your affectionate servant JASPER MAYNE