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	king_n	law_n	5,822	5	4.7877	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62890	The rebels plea, or, Mr. Baxters judgment concerning the late wars in these particulars : viz. the originall of government, coordinate and legislative power in the two Houses, third estate, force upon the Houses in 1642, principles the Houses went by at the beginning, destructive to monarchy, covenant, reasons for submitting to the late government.	Tomkins, Thomas, 1637?-1675.	1660 (1660)	Wing T1838; ESTC R32811	35,816	50

mechanick Readers amused with that venerable name when in all these cases there is but one that looks toward the Sub●ect and that too upon the groundlesse fancy of divi●ion of Supremacy and with an exception that reaches the Case The Laws in England are above the King because not his Acts alone Whose Acts the Laws are hath been above discussed the consequences of this Proposition I understand not because he hath not done us the favour as to let us know its meaning if it is not more then the words signifie that the King ought to rule according to Law and cannot abrogate Laws at pleasure the King asserted it in all his Declarations In the exactest Monarchies I have shewed there were laws which the Kings were obliged by might they therefore be resisted if they broke them Let us blot then all the precepts of Obedience and Submission out of the Bible as things sit for that pusillanimous if not crafty age And let that patience of the Primitive Christians which made their persecutors admire and love be thought want of opportunity not desire of revenge The King was to execute judgement by his Iudges in his Court of Iustice and his Parliaments was his highest Court By the Parliament meaning the two Houses they are no Court of Judicature the House of Commons have nothing that looks like a Court of Judicature not the power of administring an Oath not the power of Imprisoning any but their own Members notwithstanding the contrary proceedings of those tender Gentlemen of the Liberty of the Subject the Members of the long-Parliament whose Committees could contrary to law imprison men and deny them their Habeas Corpus The House of Lord it is true is a Court of Judicature but that is as they are the Court of the Kings Barons whose judgment is but ministerial and not soveraign as appears in this that though they have power to reverse the Sentence of other Courts yet they cannot reverse their own judgment a clear argument their Authority is not sovera●gn whose judgement cannot be so far restrained no not by it self For the two Houses joyned together as the ingenious Author of the Case of our Affaires demonstrates they cannot so unite or conjoyn as to be an entire Court either of soveraign as ministeriall Jurisdict●on no otherwise cooperating then by concurrence of Votes in their severall Houses for preparing matters in order to an Act and his Argument is very good which when they have done they are so far from having any legall Authority in the State as that in law there is no stile or or form of their joynt acts nor doth the law so much as take notice of them untill they have the Royall Assent Should it be granted they were yet it is as evident there was a force upon the House then as there was in 1648. ●o that neither the House was full or free first for the Commons a very great number of persons fairly elected kept out upon pretence they had some Project Patent or Monoply and kept in Sr. Henry Mildmay Mr. Lawrence Whitaker the first the chief promoter and notoriously known to be so of the businesse of the gold and silver thred a Commission complained of viewed and examined the other as much employed in matters of that nature as any man but they voted as that party would have them Secondly Severall members of their party sate in the House against the consent of the Burroughs they pretended to serve for when such men were concerned and complaints made all the answer the honest elected Gentlemen could get was questions about Elections were of 〈◊〉 private a nature to be considered and would interrupt their proceedings too much If the Election of any such persons hath been heard at the Committee and they voted out of the House as unduely chosen that report must not be made whereby a good member may be lost as in the case of Mr. Nichols Mr. Pyms Nephew and others Thirdly The Scots Army was not suffered to disband that they might awe the King and dissenting members and Mr. Strode blushed not to say openly They could not yet spare them the sons of Zerviah were too hard for them Though the Bishops and Popish Lords had a Legal Right then at least to sit yet they invited tumults to cry No Bishops no popish Lords Nay made a stand at White-hall and said They would have 〈◊〉 more Porters lodge but would speake with the King when they pleased Proof was offered against that Captain who conducted the Rabble and sollicited them to come with Swords and Pistols yet he was not suffered to be brought to answer the intollerable violence upon the members of both Houses The Bishops were threatned to be pulled in pieces as they came from the House they were faine to steale away for feare of their lives see Bishop Hall's Narrative before his last Work The Lords made an Order to suppresse the Tumults but the Commons would not concurr Severall speeches were made in their Justification They must not discourage their friends this being a time they must makeuse of all their friends Mr. Pym saying God forbid the house of Commons should proceed in any way to dishearten the people to obtain their just desire in such a way Were not the names of these Gentlemen that voted not according to the sence of the good members posted up their persons assaulted did not Alderman Pennington Captain Ven brings down armed multitudes to terrify the members when the worser party as they call it were like to prevaile That the liberty of the house of Peers was no better preserved the arguments are too numerous Mr. Pym could tell the Earle of Do●er if he looked for any preferment he must comply with them in their wayes Mr Hollu demanded publickly 〈◊〉 the Bar the names of those Lords who would not consent to some propositions concerning the Militia sent by the Commons they got multitudes to deliver Petitions to both houses and to desire leave that they might protest against those Lords-who would not agree to the Votes of the House of Commons as the Petition of Surrey Harfordshire In this Petition of the poor people about London against the Malignant faction it was desired that those worthies of the Upper house who concurred with them in their happy Votes might sit and Vote in the House of Commons as one entire house professing that unlesse obstructions were removed They should be enforced to lay hold on the next remedy which was at hand to remove the disturbers of the peace 5. The four next Sections amount to this Our Rights were evidently invaded Ship money the new Oath against Law men punished for preaching Lectures twice on the Lords day The Parliament remonstrated our danger we had reason to beleeve them there was a generall endeavour to change the face of things among us many new orders brought into the Church abundance of painfull though peacable preachers cast out ignorant scandalous readers

Parliament The Covenant is lyable to more exceptions then at present I am willing to take the very designe was extreamly scandalous and as great a blow to Religion I am perswaded as it ever recei●ed in the world as representing it to be the parent of the worst of vices rebellions sacriledge and perjury some men have adventured to teach that God is the author of all sin these men come very neer them that can do the worst of Villanies upon his score fear God and break his commandements and all upon the newly revealed Doctrine of Piety and Plunder Surely Humility Patience self-deniall taking up the Cross loving enemies praying for persecutors are things commended only to pusillanimous and morrall men Hath the spirit that came down upon Christ in the forme of a Dove appeared since in the shape of a Vulture or a Roman Eagle was it weaknesse not religion that kept the primitive Ch●●stians obedient must whatever they said about Rebelion be construed with this tacite reserve untill we have an opportunity We read in Scripture of a blessing laid up for those who in defence of Christ and his truth part with their Lands Houses or Life but not of any for those who upon that score invade other mens That there were no rewards appointed for those who killed Tyrants Buchanan esteemed it as a defect in policy and it is one in religion too He might as easily observed it to be an omission in the Law of God as man The quarrel was not then about Doctrine so much as discipline our articles were esteemed Orthodox our discipline not appostolick enough Their discipline in terminis in Scripture and as a command to introduce it with fire and sword in defiance of Prince and Laws are surely to be found in the same chapter These tender Consciences are very prety things that dare not conform to an indifferent Ceremony in obedience to all the authority the law of England takes notice Civill or Ecclesiasticall without an expresse command or example of Christ or his Apostles and yet without either can take up arms against their Soveraign plunder and slay all whose Consciences are not of the same size The Covenant not to mention upon what grounds they who at first Idolized it do now look upon it as an abominable Idoll lyes open to very just and very many material Ob●ections It being my businesse onely by the by I shall onely intimate those that are so obvious that they cannot escape a very ordinary observer First It is directly contrary to the Oath of Supremacy formerly taken wherein they swear the King to be the o●ely supream Governour in all Causes as well Ecclesiastical as Temporall which power they there swear to defend and by resolving to reform the Church without nay against his direct Command they now as absolutely with an Oath too deny it Secondly It is contrary to the Oaths of Canonical obedience to their Ordinary Bishops Chancellors c. which those of them which had entered into Orders took and conscienciously observed by swearing their utter exterpation a Government they by subsciption testified to be lawfull which judgement many of them were known never to change till it was their interest the late usuall season of conversion so to do And some think a good Bishoprick would seduce many of them to their old errour again Thirdly Ecclesiasticall affaires never were nor can be by the law of England which they broke even in this very act of Covenanting for the laws as they said consulted on in Parliament but onely to have the civill Sanction and that after the law is expresse they have been determined by the Clergy in Convocation See The Reformation of the Church of England Justified a whole book to that purpose Now whether the Assembly of Divines being not called by the King who alone hath power by the Law to do it nor elected by the Clergy who alone have power to send the true Convocation not dissolved may be called The Clergy in Convocation I will leave to any one to determine and onely observe that as in other illegall Acts the late Powers proceeded according to their example so in this particularly Their naming what members they pleased without Election of the Clergy to sit in the Assembly was a fit President for Oliver Cromwel to call whom he pleased without choice of the Country to sit in the little Parliament The State and Church was pulled down the same way Fourthly The Covenant could not be imposed according to the Doctrine of the long Parliament who Ex Col. p. 859. tels us Men are not to be compelled to be sworn without an Act of Parliament which certainly the Votes of the two Houses are not I shall not prosecute these things any further but observe some few particulars in the Covenant it self and onely wonder with what face not to say with what Conscience men the professed Champions of our Liberty and of no part so much as our Consciences in regard of Oaths imposed even by an unquestionable Authority could on the sudden use such barbarous rigour toward the freeborn people of England for not taking that Oath which themselves had according to the fore-cited Doctrine no power to impose and the others had the ●ommand of the Prince Law and unanswered Reason to refuse at least they could say what themselves once thought enough it was against their Consciences We shall now examine whether there is any amends made in the Materiall Cause for the faultinesse of the Efficient and there is a presumption that it is so sure such good men would not involve their Country in the miseries of a War resist their Prince but in an order to a thing that was very excellent if not necessary That assertion in the Preface which gives chief countenance to the undertaking is a most horrible falsity that it was according to the Commendable practise of these kingdomes in former times and the example of Gods people in other Nations England hath behaved her self so commendably that it is impossible to make it out to have been her practise whosoever swears it to have been untill he can produce his instances if he doth not meet with very charitable persons will be looked upon as one horribly Perjured The Churches of God if there were any before Presbytery Rebelled into a being whose examples may be Rules to us must be either the holy men before the law under the law or the Primitive Christians beofore Religion was made a Bawde to Interest He that thinks there can be a thing fetcht from their doings in favour of this league let him serve that cause so far as to attempt The History of Covenants and see how many examples he can produce of Fighters with their Prince for not introducing a form of Worship they better liked of than what was by law established The Covenants we read of in Scripture were not against the King but with the King nor when the Kings refused doe we

from his Chaplaines all which was done before the armies purge though they did all this yet they said and which is most rediculous some of them say so still they were for the King Quid verba audiam cum facta videam Their actions being such their loyall declarations shew them not more honest but more dissembling if they had too openly discovered they would never have compassed their intentions For example one of their first proposals without which there could be no peace was That all officers civill and military all honours should be conferred on such as were approved by the two houses of Parliament see 19. Prop. The People were willing to fight for so gay as they thought it a priviledge Had the English been a little plainer and it was if men had not been besorted plain enough viz Except all the wealth honour power of the Nation be shared among us and our friends neither King nor people shall be at quiet in these termes which differ little in expression and not at all in sense from the former the Nation would scarce have been fond of being undone in order to the procuring of it Some of their Declarations speak very fair as it was necessary they should and it is a great wonder how such wise and wary men suffered others to be so plaine wherein they palpably reduce to nothing the King and Peers To begin with the King see the Declaration of May 26. 1642. Where they declare that they have power to depose the King and the King had deserved they should do so We should not want either modesty or duty should we follow the highest presid●nts of former Parliaments See exact collection of all Remonstrances c. published by order of the house of Commons p. 265. Now Parliaments have deposed Kings as Edw 2. Rich. 2. and that the authors of that Declaration had a particular eye upon those monstrous proceedings is evident by the following words All the world knows what they put in act In the same Declaration they deny the King his Negative Vote so that he hath no Vote at all in making or repealing laws which the meanest Burgesse hath nay the meanest Commoner hath at least one that represents him so that the King is the onely man in the Nation except I may now reckon the Clergy too that is in so high a degree of slavery as to be bound by laws he in no sence concurrs to the making of So farr was he in 1642. from being a King that he was not so much as one of the free-borne people of England This new Doctrine they can prove as what could not the two houses do in those dayes from the very forme used by the King to those bills he fancied not Le Roy Saviserà which say they is a suspension rather then a refusall of assent A suspension if it must be called so was ever heretofore a thing of that validity that during it they are not able to quote one law ever reputed in force If they thought the law to be otherwise they might have done very well to have declared all the bills dashed for so many ages for want of the royall assent to be obliging laws But alas that forme intimates another thing not so pleasing viz. That notwithstanding the two Houses are the Kings great councill and have presented their advice in their concurring Votes yet le Roy Savisera the King may advise with other men as it is notorious in all Chronicles to have been the practise and take their advice if he like it better How little of a king they intended to leave him see nineteen Propositions sent the second of June in 1642 it is to be observed what I cite the Parliament in its purity as the phrase is Ex. Col. p. 307. the summe of all which are That all Peers Iudges Councellers Officers civill and military may be approved by themselves all Ecclesiasticall affairs Forts Castles Pardons Censures New Oaths The Mariage Government of his own Children may be at the disposall of the two houses After the forementioned declaration of May 26. the ordinance concerning the Militia these Propositions I would willingly know in what consists the authority of the King which Mr. B. saies he and they swore and fought to defend Certainly they could not call him Soveraign without a jeere If the houses have once this Power let them be sworne to defend us and no longer let us mock God the King and the world with giving an oath to a man to do that we our selves have rendred it as impossible for him to do as the Chaire in his Presence Chamber The King complaines in severall of his Declarations particularly that of August the 12. 1642. of severall insolent speeches which passed in the house of Commons unreproved as of Mr. Martin That the Kings Office was forfeitable that the happinesse of this Kingdome did not depend upon him nor any of the royall branches of that stock and of Sr. Henry Ludlow That he was not worthy to be King of England p. 550. Ex. Coll. He tells them plainly in his answer to their Declaration of May 26. 1642. That of that monstrous language by the help of God and the Law he must have some examination Ex Coll. p 28. But it may be said these things were done in the height of passion when the sence of those grievances they lately fancied they felt was fresh upon them Afterwards they were more moderate as I have shewed how the Parliament went at the very beginning of the Warr upon those principles their freinds now would be thought to detest I will briefly demonstrate they went by the same when the Warr was ended even whilst it continued Presbyterian for I shall not once mention what was done after the seclusion of Members by the Army and shall quote no Historian but him who wrote alwayes for the Parliament Mr May who in his Historiae Parl. Breviatium p. 146 tells us that on the fiftteenth of July 1646. there were propositions sent by the hands of some Lords and commons and Commissioners for the Scots The King looked upon those proposals as derogatory to his Crown injurious to his people as inconsistent with the quiet of the Nation as of his own conscience and therefore demurred upon them The Earle of Lounden tells the King in a trim Oration that unlesse he will agree to those propositions which himself acknowledges very hard ones it is to be feared he would be deposed and the nation setle in another way of Government without him or any of his Posterity The King resolved he would not give them his Crown they must take it forcibly if they would have it after that he was their Prisoner now he was from his evill Councill one would have thought they would have desired him at least not have denyed him to come nere his Parliament His usage was various sometimes their malice made him know what it was to be confined other times more