Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A25574
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An Answer to the author of the Letter to a member of the convention
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Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707. Letter to a member of the convention.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing A3387; ESTC R163
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6,158
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6
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AN ANSWER To the AUTHOR of the LETTER TO A Member of the Convention Reverend Sir YOur Name your Quality your Religion and your Design in Publishing this Letter are wholly unknown to me but the confident Assertion pag. 3. § 16. That you are sure it can never be Answered sounds so like a Son or rather a Father of the Infallible Church that it has provoked me if not to answer yet at least to reflect upon some Passages in this Magisterial Composure § 2. Whatever becomes of other Arguments Interest is most likely to prevail You Sir suppose your Parliament Man in these words to be one who will regard no Arguments from Justice Reason Religion or the Laws of God or Man Interest is the only thing which is likely to prevail an excellent Complement to a Parliament Man but it goes higher yet and takes in the Majority of the States for no one Man shall ever determin these great things § 3. You tell him that All the threatning Dangers of Popery were not a more formidable Prospect to considering Men than the present Distractions and Divisions Now surely this is a very bold and daring stroke but that I am certain these pensive thoughtful Men are not either very numerous or very considerable otherwise the few of the Church of England that are over-thoughtful in this Point deserve much Compassion because they disquiet themselves and others out of pure tenderness of Conscience and an over-great Loyalty but then there is no danger to be apprehended from them and they will in time satisfie their own Scruples and in the interim I doubt not infinitely more Men dread the Dangers of Popery even to this day than all the Common-wealth Men Dissenters ambitious and revengeful Wretches which you have so artfully mustered up to fright the Country Esquire with can over-ballance Strange it is in the mean time that the Dangers of Popery which last October appeared so formidable should in so short a time vanish or rather dwindle into nothing But God by the Ministry of the Prince of Orange and his Friends has brought this about In the rest of that Section I agree with you and approve of it The two next Sections being only a representation of the different Parties of Men now upon the Stage I leave as I find them § 6. Tho the opinion of those who are for sending to the King and treating with him to return to his Government under such legal restraints as shall give security to the most jealous Persons for the preservation of their Laws Liberties and Religion is horribly decryed c. yet the only Reason against it is because it is vain Now Sir that Reason is so very good that it may perhaps justifie that dreadful Consequence you so shrink at for tho I do not doubt but you are a wonderful Legislator yet if Twenty wiser Men than you were joyned with you to frame these new Laws yet let but a Popish Prince have the Supreme Executive Power and the Legal Prerogatives and he will break through all your restrictions with wonderful facility as we have seen by experience But then if you leave him the Name and take away the Power of a King you set up a Common-wealth immediately which will not end with your Popish Prince but there will be stickling to keep all things in the same State in the following Reign of what Religion soever the Prince is which was the Reason why the limitations offered by Charles II. in 1679. were rejected Well but we would have thought our selves very secure if the King would have called a Free Parliament Yes Sir if he would have call'd it Freely so that it had been the production of his Will without Force but Sir it is notorious he was resolved the Parliament should either not be free or not meet and if your Memory will not serve you to re-call the virulent Reflection on the humble Petition presented by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal the 17th of November last in which the Author tells us That the summoning a Parliament now is so far from being the only way to preserve his Majesty and the Kingdom that it will be one of the principal causes of much Misery to the Kingdom c. and nothing would do then but driving the Prince of Orange out of the Kingdom with Force and Arms. Now I say Sir if you cannot remember this you shall never be trusted to frame Laws if I can help it There is another and a better reason to refuse a Treaty than the fearing the King should comply Suppose that he should grant all that you can ask bating White-hall the Revenue the Title of King and the Right of calling Parliaments and making Peace and War What security have we that he will acquiesce in this low restrained Estate Oaths Laws and Promises we had before but what did they signifie who shall be Garantee what shall we do if he break out again In short quis custodiet Custodes So that the many who desire a Treaty are desired to read the Enquiry into the present State of Affairs that they may not come into the Discipline of the severe Lady who has taught the Protestants in France and Piedmont a Lesson which England too must have gone through with if God and H. W. P. O. had not saved us But if the Convention should refuse to treat and Depose the King it would act without a legal Power § 8. Why Sir here is no occasion to talk of a Deposition the King is gone of his own accord freely and they are only to consider whether we shall perish in a State of Anarchy recall him and suffer over again all that is past and all that was intended but prevented or whether they shall recognize the next immediate Heir and enquire who that is Well but the next Heir it seems shall have small joy of it his whole Authority depending on a Convention that has no Authority In good time Will the Authority of this Prince when acknowledged depend on the Authority of the Convention Did Queen Elizabeth or King Iames I. owe all their Authority to the Parliaments which recognized their respective Rights But no Man will think himself bound in Conscience to obey this Heir Have you Sir the keeping of all Mens Consciences or the knowledg of their Thoughts I can assure you mine is not in your custody § 9. All those who think themselves bound still by their Oath of Allegiance to defend the Kings Person his Crown and Dignity c. will be greatly discontented Why Sir then they may go over into France and be admitted into his Guards and perhaps the generous Allowance given him by the French King will maintain them if their Heresie do not over-ballance their Loyalty and turn it into a Crime as it happened to the Hugonots Well but they will never own any other whilst their own King lives Assuredly this is a wonderful Man if he could but as certainly
have stood for a Licinius against a Constantine Well if the King comes in a Conqueror we shall wish we had treated truly I shall not I had rather be forced than deceived for then I know what I shall have to trust to and I would not willingly be accessary to my own Ruine Well suppose all this unanswerable stuff is over-voted § 17. We are to bring good proof the Prince of Wales is an Imposture or else we had better let it alone Very good the Negative is to be proved we may guess by this what kind of Laws you Sir would frame Well but if this be not done the discontented Men will have a plausible pretence to quarrel what the conscientious Men will do we must guess but in all probability they will not be better qualited What if the Princess of Orange be a Lady of that eminent Virtue that she should scruple to sit upon her Fathers Throne whilst he lives Well his Majesty has deserted his Throne and Kingdom when he needed not except he had pleased and some body must sit upon his Throne though he is yet alive Now if it be her Right after his death Why not now Our Author is at his Prayers that God would give her Grace to resist the Temptation and I at mine that the Author may never be one of her Chaplains till he is better inform'd The rest of that Section is not unanswerable but not worth answering He has all along supposed the Prince of Orange Crown'd yet in the 19th Section he proves he can have no Right to it neither by Descent nor Gift and truly I am of the same mind for many Reasons and especially for the sake of the Three alledged by him § 20 21 22. and for some others too of as great weight which may be found in the Lord Virulam's History of Henry VII And yet our Cafe now before us has three Difficulties that had not 1. A King living 2. A Prince of Wales true or false 3. A Nation divided in Religion to which I might perhaps add the Excessive Power of France and the Excessive Zeal of this Generation to preserve the Descent of the Crown in the Right Line and in the Legal Steps and Degrees And this being done I am persuaded nothing can divide the English Nation or lessen their Zeal and Affection to the Prince of Orange who has deserved the Crown if it were ours to give him The Postscript which is an Huy and Cry after the French League to cut our Throats I leave to the Convention and if I durst be so bold as to ask a favour of them it should be to enquire what the Ro. Ca. meant by that Threat of theirs so frequently printed and spoken by them If fair means would not obtain the Repeal of our Penal Laws and Tests foul should Now for a Conclusion I would desire you Sir to propose your method of restoring the King and securing our Laws and Religion and it shall go hard but I will shew you it is impracticable or impossible that it will never be granted or if it be never observed and if you please to bless the World with a receipt of an Obligation that will bind the Conscience of any Ro Ca. so fast that neither Iesuit nor Pope can break or untie it I assure you I will joyn with you in a Petition to the Convention for a Treaty forthwith without any other terms to be proposed than the giving us that Security whatever it is And in the Interim I am Ian. 24. 167â—â— SIR YOURS