Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
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A33249
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A second defense of the present government under K. William and Q. Mary delivered in a sermon preached October the 6th 1689 at St. Swithin's in Worcester ... by R. Claridge.
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Claridge, Richard, 1649-1723.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing C4435; ESTC R37670
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18,377
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36
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his Actions do not answer his Pretences he is in this particular worse than the Papist who is what he pretends The Papist is our open Enemy but he is our secret one and his Wound like that of a Friend is of all the most deadly He is angry with every thing that is done because not done after his Humour The Breaking of the Original Contract smells too much in his Nostrils of Forty One The names of Convention and Parliament go down with him like Chopt-Hay and so cannot tell which to dislike most the Taxes or Toleration He greatly admired the Penal Laws because they gave him Power to scourge when he pleased but being Repealed he crys he is undone He has a great many Fears upon him but his chiefest is that Ceremonies will be abolish'd and the Cleak be equalized to the Surplice for he dreads Presbytery more than Popery But he will do well to consider that Ceremonies are in their own nature Indisserent and Alterable that there is no Sanctity now in Vestments and that the Doctrine of the Church of England and the Assemblys Catechism are not at such Odds but that they may meet together in a Friendly Union were it not for his Pride Interest or Prejudice His Notions of the Divine Right of Monarchy of the Supreme Power lodg'd solely in the Person of the King of an Vnconditional Soveraign are proper enough for the Grand Seignior's Plat-form but unfitly calculated for our Meridian wherein the King though God's Minister is yet the People's Trustee His distinction of a King De Facto and De Jure is very good if both Fact and Right be applied to K. WILLIAM and Q. MARY But to grant them the possession only and give the Right to another makes them to be nothing else but Prosperous Vsurpers till he and his Faction can get strength enough to Depose them But having by the consent of Peers and People Assembled in Parliament in which lies the Essence of our Constitution receiv'd the Crown which purgeth all Defects the Right must be as unquestionably theirs as the Possession is His Discourse of a Regency by which he thought he could have salv'd his Old Oaths is all Banter for a Regent must have had all the Power and the late King but the bare Title and Allegiance must have been sworn to the Regent to assist and defend him in the Regency so that if the late King should during the Regency have raised an Army as now and sought by force to recover the Soveraign Power were not the Subjects that swore Allegiance to the Regent bound to assist him against the King if they did not assist him they were perjur'd if they did 't is clear their former Oaths were laid aside And here I cannot but by the way acquaint though without any Design to Reflect upon those Reverend and Learned Gentlemen who refuse Taking of the New Oaths that I fear their Refusal contributes too much to our Dissettlement and the Restrengthning the Papal Interest which latter would certainly sink were it not thus collaterally supported and that it is guilty of great Pride and Uncharitableness when they shall not only not quietly sit down and enjoy their private Opinion to themselves but shall print it under the Name of The History of Passive Obedience which has been requited with one of Self Defence and oppose it to the publick Sense of the Kingdom and thereby condemn so many Wise Learned Judicious and conscientious Men both of the Clergy and Laity that have taken the New Oaths of Lying and Perjury the most infamous Crimes that can be fastned upon a Nation and therefore I would entreat those Gentlemen either to a peaceable Acquiescence in their private Opinions or submit them to the united Judgment of the Kingdom 'T is confest we must not follow a Multitude to do Evil but in our Case wherein we have the Concurrence of Wise Learned Holy and Vnbyass'd Men and the Thing enjoyn'd contains no Moral Evil in it we may lawfully follow such a Multitude And as their own Mr. Dodwell affirms That the publick Interest is to be preferr'd before the private of any Person whatsoever so I should be apt to suspect my particular Sentiments when they go apparently against Truth Peace and Charity The Objections of these Gentlemen to the present Establishment have been so often and fully Answered by Others that I should but actum agere put my self to a needless trouble to offer any Solution of mine yet seeing they forbear not to appear in a baffled Cause and with repeated noise attempt to supply the Defects of Reason give me leave to set before you some of their Assertions and then shew the invalidity of them Their Assertions may be reduced to these 4 Heads 1. That this Monarchy is Hereditary 2. That the King is unaccountable to any humane Power 3. That he is irresistable and unopposeable 4. That the Old Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy are indissoluble To the First of these Assertions that this Monarchy is Hereditary it may be answered 1. That this Monarchy is not a bare Inheritance but an Inheritance accompanying an Office of Trust so that if a Man's Defects render him uncapable of the Trust he also hath forfeited the Inheritance 2. This Monarchy is an Inheritance settled by the Common Law of England Now whatever Notions that Authour may have of the Common Law of England some understand by it the Common consent of England and if so what is settled by Common consent may be altered by it because the same or an equal Power may doubtless alter what it made 2. Their Second Assertion That the King is unaccountable to any humane Power is merely precarious for if he be limited in the use and exercise of his Power by humane positive Laws either those Laws can call him to an Account or they do not limit him for to be unaccountable and yet to be under legal Limitation or Restraint are inconsistent Again The Authour of Jovian confesses That the King is a Soveraign doubly limited by the Laws of God and the Civil Laws of his Kingdom and then why not doubly accountable to God for breaking the Divine Laws and to the Kingdom for transgressing the Civil For if as he quotes Bracton the King be sub Lege quia Lex facit Regem under the Law because the Law makes the King doth it not follow that the King hath a Superiour to wit the Law for that which makes must be Superiour to what is made and so according to this Authour 's Reasoning the King is accountable and to be so is no Injury to the Royal Authority for as the Fountain of an Aquaeduct is more beneficial and usefull to Mankind than a free flowing Spring so a Limited Soveraign is more beneficial and salutary to the World than the purely Arbitrary or Despotick This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Regal unaccountableness is an Opinion