Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	bring_v	king_n	people_n	2,504	5	4.4291	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35809	Reasons for His Majesties passing the bill of exclusion in a letter to a friend.	Devonshire, William Cavendish, Duke of, 1640-1707.	1681 (1681)	Wing D1233; ESTC R253	6,671	10

enslav'd by degrees and so being at last forc'd to submit when 't was too late to oppose I have insisted the longer upon this Argument because another depends upon it which comes nearer the present Question for if no Reason of Government can be assign'd but the Safety and Protection of the People it follows naturally that the Succession of Princes in Hereditary Monarchies cannot be binding nor ought to be admitted where it proves manifestly inconsistent with those ends I need not instance in all the cases that incapacitate a Prince to perform the Office of a Chief Governour but I can think of no disability so strong or so undeniable as his being of a different Religion from that which is generally own'd by the People Religion consider'd only in a Politick Sense is one of the chief Supports of Civil Government for the fear of corporal Punishments nay of Death itself would often prove insufficient to deter men from refusing Obedience to their Superiours or from breaking their Laws without those stronger tyes of Hope of Reward and Fear of Punishment in another Life The Romans of a fierce and rude people were made tractable by Numa and submitted to such Laws and Customs as he thought fit to introduce not so much by their being convinc'd of the reasonableness of those Laws as by the finding a way to perswade them that all his new Constitutions were the Dictates of a Divinity with whom he pretended daily to converse This sense of Religion rais'd that People afterwards to that incredible exactness of Order and Discipline and the belief they had the Gods of their side made them run so intrepidly upon Dangers that Cicero observes that though some Nations excell'd them in Learning and Arts others equall'd if not exceeded them in Valour and Strength 't was to Religion and their respect to Divine Mysteries that they ow'd their Conquest of the World But this very Religion that is the Bond of Union between a Prince and his People when both profess the same must of necessity produce the contrary Effects and be the seed of the most fatal Disorders nay of the Dissolution of Governments where they differ The same Conscience that tyes the Peoples Affections fastest to the Prince in the first case dissolves all manner of Trust all bonds of Obedience in the second It is impossible that a Prince should signifie any thing towards the support of the People's Religion being himself of another nor would it ever be believed if he could And how can that Government subsist where the People are unanimously possest with a belief that the Prince is incapable of protecting them in that which for the most part they value above all other considerations I know no instance can be given in this Northern part of the World even in those Kingdoms that have varied from their Original Constitution and are become Absolute that a Prince of a different Religion from the People was ever admitted to the Crown Queen Mary here in England met with some opposition yet she could not be said to be of a different Religion from the People for Popery was so far from being extirpated in her days that she found a Parliament that joyn'd with her in the restoring that Religion But in France when the King of Navarre a Protestant was presumptive Heir to the Crown the States assembled at Blois as all Historians of that Time agree had certainly Excluded him and the rest of that Branch that were Protestants from the Succession if they had not parted abruptly upon the Death of the Duke of Guise and his Brother Nay some affirm that the King himself though of the Establish'd Religion was not out of danger of being Depos'd upon a Suspicion of his favouring too much the Protestant Faction in opposition to the League After the Kings Death the Hereditary Right was without Dispute in the King of Navarre but he found none to assist him in the making good his Title but the Protestant Party of whom he was the Head and some Creatures of his Predecessour that took his part more out of Hatred to the League than Affection to him This Prince was at last indeed admitted to the Crown upon his Conversion to the Church of Rome But that would not have sufficed nor would the Generality of the People who were extremely zealous for their Religion ever have trusted one that had been of another had he not happen'd to be a Prince of incomparable Courage and Conduct who through Seas of Blood and after many Victories forcing his Entrance into the Capital City made his way to the Throne by Conquest rather than by a voluntary Admission of the People It is observable by the way that the Bishops and Clergy of France were so far from setting up a Divine Right of Succession above the Religion establish'd that most of them opposed him even after his Conversion all of them before and the Pulpits rung with such bitter Invectives against him only upon the account of Religion as perhaps no Age can parallel This I should think might serve for Instruction to some Bishops that I could name who by maintaining that nothing ought to over-rule the Hereditary Right of Succession must either confess that their Religion deserves not so much to be defended as the Romish doth or that they themselves are not so zealous in the defence of it as they ought to be Let these Assertors of Divine Right tell me if in France at this day the most Absolute Monarchy in Europe and where the Succession is held most Sacred a Protestant Prince would be admitted to the Crown And here in England besides the consideration of Religion that of Property is not to be neglected since what security can be given that Abbey-Lands in which most Landed men in the Kingdom have a share would not be restor'd to the Church under the Reign of a Popish Prince The Objection that a Prince may be of the Church of Rome and yet not change the Establisht Religion is frivolous For though there may be a possibility of his not attempting it deterr'd perhaps by the peoples universal detestation of Popery or discourag'd by the ill success of former Attempts this amounts to no more than that he will not bring Popery in because he cannot But is this all that a King of England is obliged to do by the Oath which he takes at his Coronation An Oath not only a Crime for him to take if he be a Papist but impossible for him to keep For can a Papist defend that Religion to the utmost of his power which cannot be fully secured but by the suppression of his own Can he be a fit Head of the Protestant Interest abroad who while he continues of the Church of Rome must wish there were never a Protestant left in the world If he be incapable of doing this that is if the ends of Government cannot be obtained in the ordinary course of Succession the State must of