Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
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A58376
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Reflections upon our late and present proceedings in England
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1689
(1689)
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Wing R722; ESTC R32278
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10,305
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16
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not to be pass'd over without some Animadversion The Sheet which I mean is that which is call'd Advice before it be too late or A Breviate for the Convention This Paper bespeaks its Author to be of the same Complexion and Principles with him who writ The word to the Wise and The four Questions debated They do all of 'em suppose that the Government is fall'n to its Centre or Root from whence it sprang that is to the People as the word to the Wise expresses our present case I know not what can be a more effectual Answer to these Pamphlets and take away the Foundation upon which they argue than that Maxim in our Law received by all honest and learned Lawyers The King of England never dies For if so how is the Government laps'd And if it be not laps'd how can the Throne be said to be vacant And if the Throne be not vacant we are still a Body Politick consisting of Head and Members though much distemper'd and out of order by reason of the Infirmities of the Head. We still live though we are not in good health and our Case doth not require the Sexton to make our Grave but calls for the Physician to apply proper Remedies to cure our Disease If the King can dye 't is such a defect in our Government as doth strangely disparage it and further supposes that which hitherto we are all to learn the Crown is not Successive Now if it be successive it cannot be disposed of by the Will of the People but only by the Will of God who in that very moment calls the Lawful Heir to the Crown wherein he is pleased to put a Period to the Life of his Predecessor If it be said that the Voice of the People is the Voice of God I believe that should this be granted it will not do their business for I doubt not but that if the Pole was taken and the Question put to all People who are of Years of Discretion the Answer would be That they have still a King and that they are as willing to keep him as they are desirous to exclude Popery for ever that which hath made both him and them so unhappy This I do not much question would be the Answer if we should appeal to the sense of the People in general who yet if the Government be fall'n to them must be allowed to have a Right of Suffrage and a Liberty to speak their Minds as freely as other Commoners in this great Convention Further still If the King never dies by our Law How can he be lawfully depos'd For by Deposition the Throne necessarily becomes void for some time There must be some Interstice some space of time before they who depos'd a King can set up another and till the King in Designation be actually invested with the Regal Office there must of necessity be an Interregnum that is The King contrary to the mind of our Law may dye The Government of England always supposes a Monarch regulated by Law and therefore 't is presumed that he can do no wrong that is Though he may err as well as other Mortals yet the Law of which he is the Guardian brings no Accusation against him but only against his evil Ministers If therefore the King hath err'd as doubtless he hath very much in God's Name let his Ministers be called to an account but why must the Government be dissolved and the King arraign'd condemn'd and depos'd to make way for any new Scheme of Government whatsoever whether French Italian or Dutch Our History indeed affords two Examples since William the First 's time that of Edward the Second and the other of Richard the Second but they did both of them actually resign and besides what they did or was done to them ought to preclude the Right of no succeeding Prince These Examples ought no more to be urged than the Stabbing King Henry the Fourth of France or the Murthering King CHARLES the First of England The Historian in the Life of Richard the Second gives no very good Character of that Parliament which pass'd the Vote for this Deposition The Noblemen says he partly corrupted by Favor partly aw'd by Fear gave their Voices and the Commons commonly are like a flock of Cranes as the first fly all the followers do the like Continuat Dan. Hist p. 46. Let it be here observed that I do not dispute whether the King together with his Parliament may not regulate and entail the Succession as shall by them be thought fit but only whether whilst the King lives whether the Throne can be vacant and the Government be truly said to be laps'd This we deny But however supposing that these things may be so who can make so fair a Claim and so generally satisfactory to the People as the next Heir by proximity of Blood I mean if the Prince of Wales be proved supposititious that incomparable Lady the Princess of Orange These Reflections I have thought fit to make upon some new Notions of our present States-Men by which we guess what they would be at In my opinion I think it is but too evident that they are taking advantage of our present Fears and Distractions to run us into those extremes which the State as well as the Church of England hath always carefully avoided and taken particular care to provide against 4. In this Design can we in Honor and Conscience go along with them whom yet we cannot but highly esteem and value for their Learning and Parts and more especially for their happy and successful Labors in rescuing us from those gross Corruptions of Christian Religion and Human Nature Popery and Slavery But shall we run into Popery and perhaps Slavery too when we have been so long striving against both and are now thanks be to God in a great measure freed from the Danger of either And is not the Deposing a Popish Doctrin And is it not as Antichristian for any Assembly to put it into practice as it was for the Council of Lateran at first to establish it And as for Slavery must not a standing Army be necessarily kept up to maintain a Title founded only upon the consent of the fickle and uncertain People granting that the major part of them are willing And in such a Case must we not be beholden to the Goodness of the Prince rather than the Protection of our Laws if an Arbitrary and Despotick Power be not again introduced We have as yet no Law which wholly disables and excludes a Popish Successor from the Throne and till we have one which I question not but we shall have soon I do not see how we can disanul the King's Title or vacate his Regal Capacity howsoever his Power may be restrained Innovations without fâ—rmer precedent are always dangerous especially those of this nature It will be much more wise as well as safe to bear with some Inconveniencies than bring upon our selves those Mischiefs
enabled to serve his real Interest They hoped by this means to deliver him from his evil Counsellors and secure both him and his Subjects from the evil and pernicious Practices of some wicked and unreasonable Men. 3. These and such like were the Inducements which prevailed with all well-affected and honest Men to withdraw from his Majesty and suspend the actual exercise of their Allegiance for the present that they might afterwards exert it according to the fix'd and stated Rules of Law Conscience and right Reason But now how contrary is this to those New Models which some politick Architects are proposing to or rather imposing upon the Nation What is it they would be at And what are the Ends they are driving on Are they just and good Are they generous and honorable Or are they not rather such as would undermine the Government both in Church and State and reduce us to a state of Nature wherein the People are at liberty to agree upon any Government or none at all Plainly they would reduce us to the Dutch or some other foreign Measures which how well soever they may agree with that Country where they are setled and confirmed partly by Custom and partly by the peculiar Necessity of their Affairs can never be well received in England till an Act be passed to abolish Monarchy Episcopacy and all the Fundamental Laws establish'd by Magna Charta and all succeeding Parliaments ever since The Enquiry into the Measures of Submission to the Supreme Authority is a Treatise calculated for the Times but surely it is not written according to the Principles and Practice of the Church of England in the time of the Renowned Queen Elizabeth I am apt to think that some regard was then had to the Passages which we find in the Scriptures especially the Old Testament relating to the Measures of Submission But these Examples weigh nothing with our Author because they are not for his purpose pag. 5 6. I am also apt to suspect that Queen Elizabeth would not have thanked any Politician for vending this as a certain and fundamental Principle That in all Disputes between Power and Liberty Power must always be proved but Liberty proves it self the one being founded only upon a positive Law and the other upon the Law of Nature pag. 4. She I persuade my self on the contrary would have challenged any such Statesman to have prov'd his Liberty as for her Power she would have answered it was ready to prove it self against all who should presume to question it But what 's the meaning of Power being founded only on a positive Law and Liberty upon the Law of Nature Is not a Father's Power founded as he grants upon the Law of Nature and is not all Power even of the greatest Princes as far as it is just and honest and for the benefit of the Subject derived from this Paternal Authority of the Father over his Son Besides Doth not the Law of Nature prescribe the necessity of putting Power into the hands of one or more for the benefit of the whole which otherwise would be in danger of destroying it self by intestine Divisions In short If Liberty be founded upon the Law of Nature so is all just and lawful Power since the end of it is only to regulate our Liberty and in truth to make us more free Liberty in general is a Right to use our Faculties according to right Reason and the Law in particular tells us which are those Rules of right Reason by which we must govern our selves And what is Law but the Commands of the Supreme Power where-ever it is lodg'd in the hands of the Prince the Senate or the People or of all of them together ordering what we are to do or avoid under the sanction of particular Penalties I beg the Learned Author's Pardon for questioning his Measures in my judgment they are not taken from the English Standard and therefore I hope I may without offence use my Liberty in refusing them a Right which proves it self till he can prove his Power to impose them The Enquiry into the present State of Affairs is a Discourse which seems by its bold strokes to resemble the former I will say no more of it but this If what he there lays down for a certain Truth be really so then all that follows must be granted as reasonable Deductions from this fundamental Principle but if this be false all that he hath said falls to the ground for want of a firm and solid Foundation to support it Now the Position which like a first Principle in Mathematicks he takes for granted is this It is certain says he pag. 1. that the reciprocal Duties in Civil Societies are Protection and Allegiance and wheresoever the one fails wholly the other falls with it This is his Doctrine which I have mentioned before but shall now consider a little more particularly 'T is indeed most fit and reasonable that Protection and Allegiance should always go together and accompany one another but that they do not do so is but too plain in the present case of England but doth it follow that because the King is not in a capacity to protect his Subjects therefore he is no longer to be look'd upon as a King And if he be a King doth not this suppose that he hath some Subjects And if so I would gladly know what kind of Subjects they are who owe no Allegiance But let this Question be rul'd by his own Instance The Duty betwixt Father and Son. Suppose my Father to be so destitute that he cannot and so perverse that he will not protect and sustain me suppose him as churlish as Cain and as poor as Job yet still he is my Father and I am his Son that is he still retains all that Power which by the Law of Nature as Father ought to have over his Child still the Relation holds betwixt us and whilst it doth so the Father's Faults or Necessities cannot evacuate the Duty of a Son which is founded not in the Fathers good Will or Abilities to defend him though it must be confess'd they are chiefly consider'd but in that fix'd and immutable Relation which God and Nature have establish'd betwixt them not to be dissolv'd but by Death So that if this Learned Author will yield as he seems to do that Kingly Power is nothing else but the Paternal confign'd by the common consent of the Fathers of Families to one Person upon such and such conditions specified in the Contract I cannot see how this Relation betwixt King and Subject can any more be utterly dissolved than that betwixt a Father and his Son. I shall say no more to this Discourse and if what I have already said do offend either against the Principles of Reason or the Law of England I am willing to be corrected and acknowledge my Error There is another little Paper which yet gives such a great stroke to the Government that it ought