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A41868
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Great and weighty considerations relating to the D[uke of York] or successor of the crown humbly offer'd to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty and both Houses of Parliament / by a true patriot.
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True patriot.; Hunt, Thomas, 1627?-1688.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing G1660; ESTC R5871
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12,981
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12
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his Christian Subjects for being of a contrary profession no nor yet for his Tyrannical Persecutions For they well knew how God commanded them To submit themselves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake 1 Pet. 2.13 and to obey higher powers though Heathens as then they were beause there is no power but of God Rom. 13.1 By whom Kings do reign and Princes decree justice Prov. 8.15 True Christians were numerous in the days of Constantius and Valens the Arian Emperors and yet they never attempted to dis-inherit or depose these Princes notwithstanding their Blasphemous Heresies Many Christians well knew how Julian the Apostate notwithstanding his external profession of Christianity was a Heathen in his heart long before he came to the Empire and yet they never endeavoured to deprive him of his Birth-right but left all to the providence of God whom they assuredly knew alwayes potent and willing to protect his own inheritance the Catholick Church And to come nearer home when Queen Elizabeth of glorious memory came to the Crown of England the Protestants of this Kingdom were but a handful in respect of the Papists and though the Queen was already declared Illegitimate even by her own Father and this confirmed by an Act of Parliament yet the Papists endeavoured not to depose or debar her from her Right for being of a contrary Religion but publickly own'd her as their true and lawful Sovereign Shall we then shew our selves worse than the Papists or more mistrustful of God's mercy Is it not evident that our sins are the cause why your Majesty hath no lawful Issue Should not we then rather remove the cause by our serious repentance than preposterously endeavour to mend the matter by adding fuel to the flame heaping one sin upon another in robbing others of that which God and Nature has bestowed upon them Surely 't is a Motto better beseeming a Christian Ruat Coelum fiat Justitia than Faciamus mala ut eveniant bona And it is the best Religion that gives every one his due not that which cannot subsist without depriving others of their undoubted Right But what do we intend to do or shall we shake off all Conscience and neither regard our Loyalty to our Prince nor yet our Oathes to God Do not we remember how in taking the Oath of Allegiance we have called God to testifie our candour and sincerity in pronouncing the ensuing words I do swear from my heart that I will bear Faith and true Allegiance to his Majesty his Heirs and Successors and him and them will defend to the uttermost of my power against all Conspiracies and Attempts whatso-ever which shall be made against his or their Persons their Crown and Dignity by reason or colour of any such Sentence or Declaration or otherwise With what conscience then can we subscribe or consent to that unadvised Bill fram'd by some Members of the House of Commons against his Royal Highness after swearing so positively to bear Faith and true Allegiance not only to your Majesty but also to your Heirs and Successors nay to defend them to the uttermost of our power against all attempts whatsoever and swearing this with a Non-obstante to any Sentence or Declaration whether from the Pope or otherwise For surely the word otherwise excludes all other Sententences and Declarations as well as the Popes and consequently no less excludes this ill-digested Bill of the House of Commons than the roaring Bulls of the See of Rome For as St. Bernard saith Nihil excipitur ubi distinguitur nihil Oh! but our great Politicians have sound out a new Comment upon these words for in effect they tell us that by Heirs here we are to understand those that are created such not by God but by the Parliament And that although by Birth one might claim a right to succeed in the Government yet when the Parliament declares to the contrary and annulls this Claim he is no longer Heir to the Crown and consequently the People are discharged from their Oath of Allegiance to him A Commentum indeed and a Diabolical Fiction nay the worst of all Jesuitical Equivocations In the same Oath we call God to witness that we swear in the plain and common sense of the words without any Equivocation Mental Reservation or secret Evasion whatsoever And after swearing in this manner how dare we make use of this so palpable an Equivocation and secret Evasion which if practised should render all Oathes vain and ineffectual and this purposely to colour our own perfidious and perjurious dealings We cannot deny but that by Heir in the plain and vulgar or common sense of the Word we understand such as by Blood for Adoption is not usual amongst us have greatest right to succeed next in the Inheritance or to possess the same How then can we without grosly equivocating interpret it of Heirs made by Act of Parliament at least while the Natural Heir is alive when we know it is an undoubted Maxim of the Law Solus Deus Haeredem facere potest non homo Do not we see that the worst of Jesuits could at this rate take the Oath of Allegiance and glossing it after this new mode understand by your Majesties Heirs and Successors those that should be declared such not by King and Parliament but by the Pope and See of Rome Nay could not he further alledge in our Grand Machivilians new Dialect that although a King of England had right till then to Rule and Govern the Kingdom yet when the Pope declares to the contrary and annuls this Right he is no longer lawful King of England and consequently the People are eo ipso absolved from their Oath of Allegiance to him What can our cunning Politicians alledge against this or can they shew where the disparity lies since 't is undeniable that the Words of the Oath can as well bear this Jesuitical Comment as their own new-found Glosses How then dare they deny the one and use the other Moreover this at least must be granted Whosoever is by Blood next Heir to the Crown we are by our Oath obliged before God to bear him Faith and true Allegiance nay to defend him against all attempts until he is dis-inherited by Act of Parliament Whatsoever therefore we do against him before this Act be fully established is a violation of our Oath And since it is manifest that this unnatural and abortive Embrio unluckily hatchâ—d by some over-active members of the House of Commons is directly against him who by Blood is at present the next Heir to the Imperial Crown of England it necessarily ensueth that the very attempt of Voting and passing this unparallelled Bill makes the Actors and Abberters thereof perjurers before God and the World To this perhaps our grand Politicians will answer that the Duke is not Heir but onely Heir Apparent to the Crown because as Coke observed none is Heir before the death of his Ancestor but only Heir Apparent upon
it to their undoubted Prince Certainly if God was so much incensed against Esau for selling his Birth right to his Brother Jacob as the Apostle tells us Heb. 12.17 how much think we shall his fury be kindled against our proceedings where not an ordinary man as Esau looseth his Birth-right but a most illustrious Prince by Birth and Lineal Descent of so many Glorious Kings and looseth not a Birth-right to a small Inheritance but to several Kingdoms and that not made away by himself but contrary to his will and all justice is robb'd thereof by a prevailing Faction of his Inferiours But if neither the unlawfulness of this desperate attempt nor the heinous guilt of perjury thereupon necessarily ensuing can move or deter us from it yet let both our private and publick dangers and the sad effects inevitably consequential thereunto withdraw us from such violent proceedings If it be God's pleasure that his Royal Highness shall survive your Sacred Majesty without having any Lawful Issue we need not doubt but he will endeavour to recover his Right by force if by fair means he cannot And in this case we may consider how these three Kingdoms are most strangely divided into a numberless number both of Religions and Interests and it is a true saying Omne Regnum in se divisum desolabitur And the strength of Protestants abroad is not very great and their will to help us if need require I am afraid is less But the Papists are very strong and we may be sure the Pope will prevail with most of them to help a Catholick Prince deprived of his Right for his Religion and no doubt will not be backward himself in the Expedition The French King likewise who is now in a manner at peace with all the World and yet must of necessity be somewhere in action to give vent to the fiery Spirits of his busie Subjects will undoubtedly be glad of the opportunity and will hold it a glorious pretence to assist though I am afraid most for his own ends a Catholick Prince excluded from his Kingdom for the Catholick Faith And without all peradventure his Royal Highness shall find enough even in these three Kingdoms not onely of Papists and other Male-contents but also of the best and most conscientious Protestants as in duty bound ready to take his part in so just a quarrel How then shall we defend our selves neither united at home nor assisted from abroad or shall we expect to be miraculously delivered by God of whose protection and providence we shew our selves now so mistrustful Truely I am afraid we shall rather be miraculously punished like Sodom or Gomorrah for our hainous sins and daily multiplyed transgressions than any wayes delivered from the just judgments of God unless we refrain in time from our desperate proceedings and no more endeavour with such manifest injustice to hinder the order of Gods Providence or debar our Prince because of a different perswasion from his undoubted Birthright For nothing doth so much exasperate the divine patience and longanimity as to establish injustice by publick authority and to make that seem lawful which the Law of God declares abominable By what means then can we expect to escape his vengeance if the great Representative of the whole Nation which should reform and redress all transgressions of Gods Law do attempt contrary to the express word of God and all justice to rob their Prince of his undoubted right and to make the Imperial Crown of England which since the beginning of Monarchy in this Island was never got but by Conquest or Inheritance now to go by Election and the greatest Vote in the House of Commons thereby making the King himself for all ensuing Ages to be Tenant at will to every prevailing Faction in Parliament I say Tenant at will for nothing is more certain than that by whatsoever power or pretence the Parliament can depose the presumptive Heir by the same they may depose the actual possessor of the Crown as the Rump Parliament well understood For the fundamental Reason why a presumptive Heir to the Crown may be dis-inherited or deposed either by King Parliament or both together is because whatsoever is suspected to tend to the Subversion of the Government or of the true Religion here established by Law is necessarily to be removed to secure the good and welfare of the people according to the Ancient saying Salus populi suprema lex esto But that this reason has no less force against the Actual Possessor than against the Presumptive Heir of the Crown is a thing in it self so evident that I think no man in his wits especially acquainted with the late intestine troubles and present temper of our blind Zealots can call it into question For what if the King himself be at any time thus suspected to endeavour the Subversion of the Government is there no remedy to be expected Undoubtly their is say our great Politicians and a good one too For our Omnipotent Parliament i. e. themselves only and their Emissaries whose Religion is the Bellowes of Rebellion the grand Jury of the whole Nation and the publick Inquest of all Grievances is authorized by God when the King fails to use their absolute Power against all manner of persons of what degree or condition soever they be to secure the good and welfare of the people because as before said Salus populi suprema lex esto And thus our grand Principle as it is the fundamental Reason of deposing a presumptive Heir to the Crown so it is the ground work of all Anarchy and Rebellion It is the spring and source of all our last intestine troubles which overflow'd the three Kingdoms with a deluge of crimson streames nay it was the chief foundation whereon the bloody Rumpers chiefly insisted in Sacrificing our Royal Martyr as a Tyrant Subverting the Government and true Protestant Religion But if a Prince so mild so just and so Religious be thus Cruelly Butcher'd upon these grounds by a prevailing Faction of his Subjects it is inconceivable to me how can any King of England judge himself otherwise than Tenant at will to every prevailing Faction in Parliament or at least think himself secure while such principles are maintained by his Subjects especially if they be established by Law as in effect they would have been had that abortive Embrio of the House of Commons received life which I hope will never happen through the influence of Your Majesties Royal Assent Truly our greatest comfort in this desperate juncture of Affairs after the unlimitted mercy of our gracious Saviour is the assured confidence we always repose in Your Majesties Princely Wisdom and Courage and in the Grave and Mature Deliberations of the House of Lords and of Your most Honourable Privy-Council whose tryed Loyalty both to Your Sacred Majesty and to Your Royal Father assures us that neither the pretence of establishing the true Protestat Religion which of it self is sufficiently upheld by the mighty hand of God nor any consideration of Temporal gain or Worldly interest can induce them to decline in the least from their Sworn Allegiance and Fidelity to the Royal Blood of your Glorious Father who so magnanimously deposed his life in defence of his Subjects Lives and Liberties against the Anarchial encroachments of the Factious Members of the House of Commons in the Rump Parliament whose footsteps some I am afraid no less Factious Members of this present House of Commons seem exactly to follow pretending as the former did to secure and establish the true Protestant Religion according to that Machiavilian maxime Quoties vis fallere plebem finge Deum Whereas it is apparent they do no more regard the establishing thereof than the Rump Parliament did in Oliver's dayes Yet this I say not no nor any thing else I have hitherto misliked or reprehended of the whole House of Commons much less of the whole Parliament God forbid I should think so ill of that Grave and Reverend Senate I know there are many true and well-meaning Loyalists in that Honourable House who bear the Faith and Allegiance as well as the name and power of the Commons of England And I am of Opinion that as the Faithful and Orthodox Bishops at the Councel of Arimine through their over zealous desire of procuring the peace and unity of Christs Church were by the specious Arguments of the Arians inclined unawares to make a decree against the true Faith and Doctrine of Christ which unadvised decree themselves upon second thoughts and more mature deliberations seeing the unexpected advantages their Adversaries took by their well intended condescension immediatly recalled and publickly protested against it So these Loyal and well meaning Members of the House of Commons through their excessive zeal of establishing the true Protestant Religion were by the plausible pretences of some overactive Spirits induced unwittingly to Vote against that Allegiance and Fidelity they Swore not only to your Majesty but also to your Heirs and Successors which over zealous Votes I am fully perswaded these same members after due reflection perceiving the fatal consequences inevitably consequential to such proceedings would have recalled had they sate longer or will at their next Sessions recall them as being wholly repugnant not only to their Sworn Allegiance and Fidelity but also to Gods revealed will But as to this time will best discover the reality of all their intentions and therefore I leave it to your Majesties further consideration humbly submitting what I have said hitherto to your most Excellent Majesty and to your most Honourable Privy Council by whom I hope these my Reasons and Arguments shall be interpreted with that candour and sincerity wherewith I here present them unto your most Excellent Majesty And so begging of the Almighty to direct your Sacred Majesty in what is most advantageous to the Glory of God and to the Spirritual and temporal welfare of your Loyal Subjects I conclude this last of June with my everlasting Prayer Vivat Regnet in aeternum ultra Carolus Secundus nemini Secundus