Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
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A46956
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A letter from a freeholder, to the rest of the freeholders of England, and all others, who have votes in the choice of Parliament-men
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Johnson, Samuel, 1649-1703.
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1680
(1680)
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Wing J834; ESTC R2105
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9,303
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10
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were in their Power But how comes it to be Treason to speak against a Religion which is itself High Treason and is Proscribed by so many Laws Why their Medium is this That Popery is the King's Religion and therefore by an Innuendo what is said against that is meant against him But is there any Law of England that Popery shall be the King's Religion Or is it Declared by any Law that Popery either is or can be his Religion On the other hand we are enabled by an Act in this very Reign to Pronounce Popery to be a False Religion and to Assert the Religion which is now Professed in the Church of England and Established by the Laws of this Realm to be the True Christian Religion Act for Building St. Anne's Church p. 133. But these Gentlemen it seems are for Hanging men without Law or against Law or any how and therefore we thank them again for being thus plain with us before-hand Now if they be thus Insolent when they are so very Obnoxious themselves and have Halters about their own Necks with what a Rod of Iron will they Rule us when they are our Masters What havock will they then make of the Nation when we already see Magdalen-Colledge which was lately a Flourishing Society of Protestants now made a Den of Iesuites and that done too in such a way as shakes all the PROPERTY in England Or who can be safe after our Laws are Repealed when Endeavours have been lately used to extract Sedition even out of Prayers and Tears and the Bishops Humble Petition was threatned to be made a Treasonable Libel But here the Dissenters have a plausible Excuse for themselves For say they We have now an opportunity of getting the Laws which are against us Repealed which is clear Gain and as for our refusing to Repeal the Laws against Popery there is nothing gotten by that either to us or to any body else for they are already as good as Repealed by the Dispensing Power and therefore such Discourse as this only advises us to stand in our own light without doing any good to the Nation at all for there will be Popish Justices Sheriffs Judges and Juries whether we will or no for whatsoever we refuse to do the Dispensing Power will supply To which I Answer Do you keep your hands off from Repealing the Laws let who will Contravene or Transgress them for then you are free from the Bloud of all Men you have no share in the Guilt of those Mischiefs which befal your Country which would sooner or later be a heavy Burden and a dead Weight upon the Conscience of any Protestant But besides let the Laws alone and they will defend both themselves and us too For if the Law says That a Papist shall not nor cannot have an Office then he shall not nor cannot For who can speak Louder than the LAWS As for a Dispensing Power inherent in the King which can set aside as many of the Laws of the Land as he pleases and Suspend the Force and Obligation of them which has been lately held forth by many False and Unlawful Pamphlets the Dissenters know very well that there is no such thing but that no body may pretend Ignorance I shall here prove in very few words That by the Established Laws of the Land the King cannot have such a Dispensing Power unless Dispensing with the Laws and Executing the Laws be the same thing and unless both keeping the Laws himself and causing them to be kept by all others be the English of Dispensing with them For in the Statute of Provisors 25th Edw. 3. c. 25. we have this laid down for Law That the King is bound to Execute those Statutes which are Unrepealed and to cause them to be kept as the Law of the Realm the words are these speaking of a Statute made in the time of Edward the First Which Statute holdeth always his Force and was never Defeated or Annulled in any point And by somuch our Soveraign Lord the King is bound by his Oath to do the same to be kept as the Law of this Realm although by Sufferance and Negligence it hath since been attempted to the contrary So that the Coronation Oath and the Dispensing Power are here by King Edward the Third and his Parliament Declared to be utterly Inconsistent Now the Coronation Oath is a Fundamental Law of this Kingdom for it is antecedent to the Oath of Allegiance Accordingly if you look upon the Coronation Oath in the Parliament Rowl 1st Hen. 4th you shall there find that in the third Branch of it the King Grants and Promises upon his Oath That the Laws shall be Kept and Protected by him secundum Vires suas to the utmost of his Power and therefore he has no Power left him to Dispense withal By which it appears that those men are the wretched Enemies both of the King and Kingdom who would fain perswade the King that he has this Dispensing Power because therein they endeavour to perswade him that Perjury is his Prerogative Heretofore in Tresilian's time some of the Oracles of the Law were consulted Whether it could stand with the Law of the Kingdom that the King might Obviate and Withstand the Ordinances concerning the King and the Kingdom which were made in the last Parliament by the Peers and Commons of the Realm with the King's Assent though as the Courtiers said forced in that behalf And they made Answer That the King might Annul such Ordinances and Change them at his pleasure into a better fashion because he was above the Laws Knyghton Col. 2693. Now this was very False Law as those Judges found afterwards to their Cost and it was grounded on the worst Reason that could be For they must needs know from all their Books and from the Mirror in particular p. 282. That the first and Soveraign Abusion of the Law that is the chief Contrariety and Repugnancy to it is for the King to be above the Law whereas he ought to be Subject to it as is contained in his Oath Neither could they be ignorant of that Argument which the Peers used to shew the Absurdity of such a supposition it is Recorded in the Annals of Barton set forth as I take it by Mr. Obadiah Walker Si Rex est supra Legem tunc est extra Legem Num Rex Angliae est Exlex If the King be above the Law then he is without the Law. What! is the King of England an Outlaw And as for the words of Bracton they were too plain either to need a Comment or Translation Rex habet Superiorem Deum item Legem per quam factus est Rex item Curiam suam scil Comites Barones As likewise those other words of his Ubi Voluntas Imperat non Lex ibi non est Rex Where he makes it the very Essence of our King to Govern according to Law. Having therefore shewn that the Laws are always
Bull to Depose the Queen and to Absolve her Subjects from their Allegiance I do not mention the continual Minings of the Queen of Scots in which the Popish Party always joyned with her and besides had drawn in several deluded Protestants which made a great Jest to the Papists That Protestants should be so infatuated as to assist the Queen of Scots to their own Destruction as is to be seen in Sir Francis Walsingham's Letter written from Paris still extant in the Cabala of Letters In short it appears by the Preambles of all those Statutes in that Reign that the Kingdom made every one of them in their own Defence and to Preserve themselves from Popish Attempts and that the Nation had utterly perished without them And then in Kings Iames's time Did not the Papists digg under the very Pillars of the Kingdom and make them shake when they laid so many Barrels of Gunpowder under the Parliament-House And was it not high time to tye their hands by the Acts which followed by more closely confining them to their Houses by banishing them ten Miles from London by disabling them not only from all Offices but from being in any publick Employment and by thorowly disarming them so much as from wearing a Sword. And was it not time in the late King's Reign to put new life into the Disabling Acts by the addition of a Test when several Papists had gotten the greatest Offices of the Kingdom into their hands And then as for the Parliament-Test that the Papists may not be our Law-givers besides the perpetual Necessity of such a Law the Occasion of it is still upon Record both in Mens Minds and very largely in the Iournal of the House of Lords and in other inferiour Courts of Record And if these were all of them Necessary Laws when they were made they are become ten times more Necessary since for now Popery has Beset us and and Hemmed us in on every side We have an Army of Priests and Jesuites the true Fore-runners of Antichrist in the Bowels of the Kingdom nay the Pope himself who by several Laws is declared to be the publick Enemy of the Kingdom has arrived some time since in his Nuncio and is now Compassing the Land in his Four Apostolick Uicars And therefore to talk of Repealing Laws when we want the strictest Execution of them is talk only fit for Bedlam and that Nation which Repeals Necessary Laws when it has the greatest Necessity for them must be concluded to be weary of its own Life and is Felo de se Secondly I come now to the Penal Laws against the Dissenters concerning which I shall say the less because GOD's time for the Repealing of those Laws is not yet come For if they cannot be Repealed in this juncture of time unless the Dissenters put forth their hands to the setting up of Idolatry then they cannot be Repealed and therefore what cannot be now done without manifest Impiety must even be let alone till it can be done with a good Conscience As for the good Disposition which is in the Conformists to Repeal those Laws with the first Opportunity that is always to be measured by Actions rather than Words and therefore I shall give them an Instance of it in the Bill for Repealing the 25th of Elizabeth which passed both Houses of a Church of England Parliament thô the Dissenters lost the Benefit of that Pledge and Earnest of their Good will and are not Ignorant which way it was lost But in the mean time if our Dissenting Brethren should endeavour to get these Laws Repealed by parting on their side with the Laws against Popery then I begg of them to minde the plain English of such Conditions It is as if the Dissenters should say thus to the Papist Do you help us to set up Meeting-Houses and we will do as much for your Mass-Houses let but the pure Worship of GOD be established without Ceremonies and we are content that Idolatry itself shall go share and share like in the same Establishment to make a Magna Charta which shall be equal let CHRIST have his part in it and Antichrist shall be sure to have his our business is to receive the Sacrament without Kneeling and upon that Condition we will joyn in the making of Laws which shall Authorize the Deifying a bit of Bread the Worshipping of it for a God the Praying to it Idolatry Blasphemy any thing in the World for them that like it Now is not this a very fair Speech and does it not well become the mouths of Protestants I would fain press this home upon the Consciences both of those Dissenters who are hired and of those who are not hired to labour the Repeal of our Laws Do you fear the Informers more than GOD Will you for the sake of your little Conveniencies do the greatest Evils which you know to be such You know in your very Hearts that the Worship of Images Crosses and of a Wafer is abominable Idolatry that the half Communion is Sacriledge and that many other Points of Popery are Blasphemous Fables And will you set up this for one of your Religions as by Law established Will you do all that hands can do to entail Idolatry upon the Nation not only Removendo prohibens as Divines destinguish by pulling down the Laws which hinder it but also Promovendo adjuvans and by making a perpetual Magna Charta for it The Laws and Constitution of a Country do denominate that Country if Atheism were here Authorized by Law this would be an Atheistical Nation and if Idolatry be set up by Law it is an Idolatrous Nation and all that have any hand in it make it the Sin of the Nation as well as their own Think therefore of these things in time before you have involved both yourselves and your Country in a miserable Estate and remember poor Francis Spira who went against Light. But 2ly there is just as much Prudence as Conscience in these Proceedings For by Repealing the Laws against Popery you Reverse the Outlawry and take off those legal Disabilities which the Papists now lie under and which have hitherto tied their hands from Destroying Hereticks When Papists shall be Right Justices and Sheriffs and not Counterfeits when they shall be Probi legales homines and pass Muster in Law when they shall be both our Legal Judges and our Lawful Juries and when Protestants come to be Tryed by their Country that is to say by their Twelve Popish Godfathers they may easily know what sort of Blessing they are to expect The Papists want nothing but these Advantages to make a fair riddance of all Protestants for we see by several of their late Pamphlets that if any thing be said against Popery they have a great dexterity in laying it Treason Now this is a civil way of Answering Arguments for which we are bound to thank them because it so plainly discovers what they would be at if it