Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	bishop_n	king_n	law_n	6,341	5	4.8840	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51089	A modest apology for the suspended bishops with a brief vindication of the address which was signed in their favour by the Grand-Jury of the county of Gloucester, at the last Lent assizes / by a gentleman of the said Grand-Jury.	Gentleman of the said Grand-Jury.	1690 (1690)	Wing M2358; ESTC R38872	21,535	34

that therefore our Address ought rather to have been dedicated either to the Lords or Commons than to the King I must take the Liberty to assure the Managers of this bold but impertinent Cavil that they fail not of their usual Levity discovering as their gross Ignorance in the Customs of our Nation which entitle the King to be the Fountain of all Acts of Grace so likewise their profound Respects to his Majesty for by the Consequence of their Words they declare that the Duty and Intercourse between the Prince and People ought not to be reciprocal I need not tell them that neither of those honorable Houses had at that time given us the Cause I speak with respect to the first Dispatch and Draught of the general Pardon to return them those peculiar Thanks which made up the principal Frame of our Application to the King and that for this Reason they could not be the sutable and adequate Object of our Address but I answer that we addressed his Majesty in Parliament because he there challenges a supereminent Power and therefore if during the Session it is permitted to any private Person to petition either the Lords or Commons for a particular Redress shall it be accounted heynous that the Grand-jury who represented the Body of the County and faithfully delivered the true Sense and Desire of their Vicinage should make their humble Approaches to the King who is the Sovereign Head and supream Intendant of our Parliament This is in effect to declare that his Majesty hath a Chair of State placed in the House on no other account than that he may be curtail'd in Stature and appear less considerable than his many Servants who attend him Should any Dyet or Parliament in Christendom pursue the Latitude of this Doctrine and therefore refuse to attend a most Religious and Solemn Enterprize because the Prince doth first propose it to them they would be justly censured very positive and supercilious in their Determinations Examples of that Nature are very rare in well-disciplin'd Common-wealths and I know but one that doth exactly square to the Proceeding and this is related by * Euseb Histor Eccles. l. 2. c. 2. Eusebius out of an ancient Father of the Church and was a strange Violence against the standing Law of Moderation in great Councils the Story in short is to this effect After our Saviours Manifestation among the Sons of Men to whom by the exemplary Conduct of his triumphant Resurrection from the Dead he gave the most undeniable Proofs of his Divinity Tiberius in whose Time the Christian Name made its entry into the World communicated to the Senate an Account he had received out of Syria Palestine of this great Affair and having given his own Suffrage to Christ's Divinity he desired them to enact it into a Decree and to register him in the Catalogue of the Gods But the lofty Senate disdaining to be instructed in a Business which concerned the Exercise of their own Power rejected Caesar's Motion and would not place our Saviour in their Festival Calendar because they had not first approv'd the Matter before the Emperor perswaded them to it This you may say was a brisk Maintenance of Priviledge against the Torrent of Prerogative and I must I confess admit it but in a Sense that takes away the Authority not only from the Person but from the Doctrine of our Saviour and seems to render unto the People the things which are Caesar's and unto Sathan the things which are Gods and I hope the Example will have no tolerable Sway in the Christian World It is our Comfort that the English Parliament though they have a just Pretence to a great Power in conjunction with their Prince do not affect such an unseasonable Grandeur which would disappoint the Success of his Majesties Piety So that what Monsieur Talôn speaks in Flattery of the aspiring Lewis we may conclude most true of King William that to our August Monarch nothing is impossible especially when he endeavors the Intersts of Heaven I am sure his Favor to the Bishops will not lead him out of the way thither The Kings of England and this the express Words of their Coronation Oath contain are invested with a Power to execute Justice in Mercy and as they carry an High Court of Chancery in their Breasts so may they by their indulgent Grace and especial Favor abate some rigorous Extremities of the Law This has ever been one of the Flowers of their Prerogative to which no others can pretend and it is as truly annext to their Crown as the Royal Dignity to their Persons This Power hath been often exerted by them in a various manner when the Necessities of State or their own Royal Pleasure required it but it is then render'd more conspicuous when it is published for the common Benefit and Security of the Nation and does in order to the quieting the Minds of the Subjects dispense with the Frailties Errors and Miscarriages of the People Such an important Grant of Clemency is capable of a twofold Management for when the Prince doth design a general Amnesty he sometimes issues forth his gracious Declaration of Free Pardon or if he Judges it more necessary and expedient or more agreeable to some weighty Circumstances he recommends the Affair to the Consideration of his Parliament which in most submissive Terms doth either propose a Bill to his Royal Assent or else receives a Draught of Pardon from him with such Ceremony as is expressive of their Gratitude This latter Method hath been used by his present Majesty and by the whole Proceeding our Adversaries may be soon convinced what an Authority the Sovereign bears in the two Houses For when some Lords who were excepted in the Act of Grace did move in Parliament that they might be heard by their Council in order to give their Reasons why they should partake of the Benefit of the Act their Motion was not approv'd nor was their Request allow'd them I must not presume to render the Reasons which prevailed with the Honorable House to dismiss their Petition having not had the Oportunity to examine the Records but I suppose from the Information I have casually received from judicious Persons that those Noble Peers did not petition in the regular direct and customary Order for his Majesty who best understood his own Resolutions sent down his Pardon to the Lords House not to be alter'd or enlarged but to be passed into a Law so that the Petitioners ought in that case to have addressed the King who as he is the Life of Justice so is he the Fountain of Mercy I cannot therefore but pity the extream Weakness of their Judgments who pretend to maintain that our Grand jury did not pursue a right Course when they made their Application to the King in the Behalf of the Bishops for by this Assertion they seem to bare no Regard to the Authority of Presidents but speak against the Voice of