Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	according_a	people_n	power_n	4,952	5	4.8373	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33246	A defence of the present government under King William and Queen Mary shewing the miseries of England under the arbitrary reign of the late King James II, the reasonableness of the proceedings against him, and the happiness that will certainly follow a peaceable submission to, and standing by King William and Queen Mary / by a divine of the Church of England.	Claridge, Richard, 1649-1723.	1689 (1689)	Wing C4432; ESTC R35640	5,241	12

A DEFENCE OF THE Present Government UNDER King William Queen Mary SHEWING The Miseries of England under the Arbitrary Reign OF THE Late KING JAMES II. THE Reasonableness of the Proceedings against him and the Happiness that will certainly follow a peaceable Submission to and Standing by King William and Q. Mary By a Divine of the Church of England LONDON Printed for R. Baldwin in the Old-Bayly 1689. Licensed May 16. 1689. J. Phraser A DEFENCE OF THE Present Government WHat miserable Circumstances we lay under during the late arbitrary Reign by Rapes and Violences committed upon our Religion and Laws by the impudent Violation of the most sacred Oaths and Promises by the Invasion of Property and general Corruption of Justice is a thing so palpable and notorious that 't is allmost incredible any men but Papists should be in Love with it and yet by sad Experience we find there is a degenerous Race of Protestants among us that seem to be fond of their former Slavery and like the Children of Israel are hankering after the Flesh pots of Aegypt they are infatuated with the name of Divine Right of Monarchy and being carried headlong with that fallacious Notion fall into a Frenzy and Madness against the present Lawfull Authority Almighty God has no where determined in his Word a Model for our Civil Government but has left us as all other Nations to such a Form as shall be agreed upon by the People and where this Agreement is not 't is not properly Government but Tyranny for without it the Judicious Mr. Hooker says There is no reason why one man should take upon him to be Judge or Lord over another because for the Manifestation of this their Right and mens more peaceable Contentment on both sides the Assent of them who are to be governed seemeth necessary And a little after he says All publick Regiment of what kind soever seemeth evidently to have risen from deliberate Advice Consultation and Composition between men judging it convenient and behoovefull And what he says concerning the Power of Government he applies to the Power of Making of Laws whereby to govern and shews That the lawfull Power of making Laws to command whole politick Societies belongs so properly to the same entire Societies that for any Prince or Potentate of what kind soever upon Earth to exercise the same of himself and not either by express Commission Immediately and Personally received from God or else by Authority derived at first by their Consent upon whose Persons they impose Laws it is no better than mere Tyranny And he adds Laws they are not therefore which publick Approbation hath not made so The Judgment of this great Man I could back with very many good Authorities but there is no need he alone being Instar Omnium Equal to All whose Five first Books of Ecclesiastical Polity have been received as Oracles even by those very Persons who now differ from him When this Authour makes for them as he does abundantly in vindicating Church Ceremonies then he is the LEARNED JUDICIOUS Mr. HOOKER but when he goes against their Interest though not against the Truth then he is decried and branded with being Erroneous But t is not Mr. Hooker's Fate alone to be thus dealt with for they treat all Authours as ill that are against their Exotick and new fangled Notions of Sovereignty and Allegiance For when the Authour is not for them they resolve to be against the Authour though it should be against Reason The Jewish Theocrasie is no Precedent to the English Monarchy there God immediately governed he gave that Nation all their Laws Moral Judiciary and Ceremonial but we can make no pretence to such a Divine Conduct we must have recourse to the wholsome Laws and Customs of our Countrey for our Direction in Civil Proceedings Neither our Saviour nor his Apostles intermeddled with Civil Government but left that as they found it Christ's Kingdom was not of this World and therefore he and his Apostles meddled no farther with the Kingdoms of the World than to teach all their Duties in their respective Stations the Magistrates to rule and the People to obey in the Fear of God. I know not where they command a Passive Obedience to Illegal Violence if the Law be for a Man it cannot be Rebellion in him to defend himself by it but if the Law be against a man then he has a proper Reason for the exercise of Non-resistence The Apostle bids us be subiect to the Higher Powers because the Powers that be are ordained of God. Rom. 13 11. But he does not command us this without restraction for Rulers must not be Terrour to good Works but to the evil being appointed for the punishment of evil Doers and for the Praise of them that doe well 1 Pet. 2. 14. This is the End of their Government and the reason of our Obedience When they govern as according to the Laws of our Countrey and discourage Vice by Punishing it and encourage Vertue by Rewards Resistence is then Rebellion with a Witness but when Rulers fail in all this and of Nuysing Fathers which they should be degenerate into bloody Murtherers of their Countrey which they ought not to be Resistence is not Rebellion but a just and lawfull Defence against unjust and unlawfull Oppression The Standard then of our Civil Goverment is the Law of the Land It is superiour to all Orders and Banks of Men and looks with an equal Aspect upon the Prince and People According to this Law we ought to be governed and when contrary to this Law we are invaded as we were in the late King's time in every thing that was near and dear to us we may justly defend our selves against such illegal Doings at home and join with a Stranger that will take upon him to protect us against the Cruelties of an Arbitrary Power In such a Case as this we may take the best means we can for our Safety Must the Lives of Innocent Millions be endangered to gratifie One Man's Arbitrary Lust Must Popery be set up contrary to our Laws and Oaths as well as Scripture and the best Antiquity Must we deny our Senses and Reason to become Christians Must we be forc'd to embrace a Religion that has not so much Charity in it as Mahometanism and much less moral Justice and Honesty And must we be content to wear the Chains and Fetters of Ecclesiastical and Civil Slavery when we may enjoy a Gospel Service which is perfect Freedom and live under the easiest and best of Governments Should we consent to all this as it cannot be avoided if the late King's Interests must be advanced Bedlam or Bridewell were the fittest place for us There has nothing been done saving some enormities of the Mobile in this great and wonderfull Revolution but is justifiable before God and the World from Scripture from Reason and the Constitution and Practice of this Kingdom Let us go according to

the Apostle's Advice Stand fast in the Liberty wherewith Christ hath by his Glorious Instrument made us free and be not entangled again with the Yoke of the Roman bondage Gal. 5. 1. Let the Scruples of those which refuse to take the Oath of Allegiance to K. William and Q. Mary weigh nothing with us For doubtless we are discharged of our Obligation to the late King James and among others for these Reasons his Arbitrariness breach of Contract withdrawing his Protection selling us for Slaves to a Foreign Prince and State and conspiring against us in a hostile manner And the Crown being now K. W's and Q. M's by Right and Fact being settled upon them by a Parliament lawfully called lawfully chosen and lawfully proceeding notwithstanding all the factious and slanderous Pamphlets The Dissertion discussed The History of the Convention or New-Christened Parliament c. We are obliged in Conscience to bear Faith and true Allegiance to their Majesties and when required to swear the same They are our lawfull Governours We live under their Protection and therefore they deserve our Allegiance There are some Laymen as well as Divines that lodg the supreme Power solely in the Person of the King and make him anuputheros unaccountable to any but God. They farther say He can doe no Wrong and the whole guilt of Male-Administration lies upon his Ministers but He is Innocent But these are Maxims that were first invented by Court Parasites and Flatterers raised by the Prince's Favour and live by his Bread and have ever since been maintained by a Generation of the same Stamp Were our Government an absolute Monarchy an Exception would not lie but being limitted the King is accountable to the Kingdom represented in Parliament for all the Outrages and Oppressions committed by his means otherwise Laws and Parliaments would be useless Liberty and Property empty Names And whereas say they the King can doe no Wrong unless it be understood with this limitation He acting by and according to Law He may no doubt be altogether as Arbitrary as the Grand Seignior These are pernicious Positions and advance the English Monarchy too high because they infer an Inerribility in the King which is as dangerous to the State as Infallibility to the Church Let then every true Patriot and Englishman fix here That the King is intrusted with the Executive power of the Law for the good of the People and the People are to obey and assist him in the Execution of this high Trust but if he abuses this Power as the Disserter did to the monifest Oppression of his People the People represented in Parliament may take that Trust from him and give it to another who will govern them in Justice and Clemency and defend them in their Religious and Civil Rights And now methinks 't is strange that any who are called Protestants should declare Love for the Reformed Religion and yet say they cannot in Conscience Renounce the late King. The Protestant and Popish Intrest are as contrary as Fire and Water and a Popish Head upon a Protestant Body is like committing a Flock of harmless Sheep to the Custody of a Ravenous Wolf They shall be kept but it is only for Prey and Destruction We cannot have a Popish King without a Popish Religion either tolerated or authorized in this Nation Tolerated it may be for a time as 't was in the late violent Reign but that Toleration was purely to get strength enough to it till it was able to weather all Opposition and then to have given it the Protection of a Law so that the Adherence to and Espousing of the late King's Cause can signifie no less in the natural tendency and construction of it than an Affection for Popery and the miserable consequences thereof the Loss of English Liberty and Property seeing the one cannot be had without the other It is now farther made apparent that His Interest and the French King 's are linked together their Counsels and Designs the same Both conspiring in one great Plot to extirpate the Protestant Religion in General What Friends then his Favourers are to the Reformed Religion may be seen plain enough without the help of Spectacles Whereas we ought to Oppose him as a publick Enemy even with our Lives and Fortunes and as a Branch of our just Allegiance to their present Majesties discover all Treasonable Attempts and Practices against them and vigorously support their Crown and Dignity against the blasphemous Harangues and seditious Libels that are too frequently vented among us But alas how soon have some men forgot both the Day and the glorious Instrument of our Deliverance What Murmuring and Discontent what false Fears and Jealousies what unkind Returns and Prejudices would if it were possible darken the Son of the most Heroick Prince and pervent the Ends of the most christianly generous Enterprize in the World Were we not appointed as Sheep for the Slaughter But God sent him to interpose between the Knife and the Sacrifice When the great Tree of our Government was in a manner quite cut down by the Romish Axes he came and secured it from falling and made it grow again even to a Miracle If ever a Deliverer was worthy of the chief Seat in our Affections it must be this Incomparable Prince Trophies and Statues and Panegyrical Orations are fit for those Ambitious Monarchs who have no Real and Intrinsick Worth but the Unparallel'd Vertues of our Excellent Deliverer as they are far above such poor perishing Pageantry so his Merits will be get him a more lasting Monument of Love Loyalty and Gratitude in the Hearts of his People In a word We are under God indebted to Him for all that we have for our Religion our Laws our Lives our Liberties and Estates What an Infamy then will it bring upon us and our Memories to be ungratefull I would therefore advise all those who go under the Denomination of Protestants and yet appear sticklers for the late King's Interest to make timely Retractation and endeavour to compensate the Disservice they have done the Protestant Cause by a chearfull and hearty compliance with the present Government and by paying hence forward a consciencious Obedience to their gracious Majesties K. William and Q. Mary And particularly let those of the Clergie whose past Obstinacy has been a constant Lecture of Rebellion to the People change their Text and let their future good Example be a Sermon of Obedience Let them doe their Duty as Divines and leaving civil Things to the civil Powers approve themselves the Ambassadours of Christ by preaching those Healing Doctrines of Humility Peace and Love and by speaking all the same thing And that they may not frustrate one of the most glorious Ends of his Majesties Declaration Decl. p. 13. printed at the Hague Octob. 8. 1688. the Establishing of a good Agreement between the Church of England and all Protestant Dissenters Let them whether Fathers or Sons of the Church be intreated to lay down all Anger and Dissention about Indifferent Things and that Spirit of Persecution which by Estranging our Brethren and hindering their Union hath formerly too much weakened our own and strengthened the Roman Party Consider our Saviour hath recommended to us the Spirit of Love Meekness and Moderation and the Apostle hath commanded us to have no Divisioms but to keep the Unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace and in righteousness of life What a monstrous Folly and Madness is it to differ about Indifferent Things and not at all necessary to Salvation To quarrel about the Bark about the Shell and Carkass of Religion Remember we have strove so long already about Rites and Accidents that we had almost lost the very Substance of true Religion God in his Mercy has delivered us let us sin no more lest we provoke him still to scourge us If this passionate but modest Address may prevail to influence those for whom it is writ then shall the Hopes and Designs of Rome and France de defeated our Fears shall vanish our Religion and our Laws shall triumph and the Golden Age be restored to these Kingdoms FINIS Eccl. Pol. l. 1. c. 10. p. 86.