Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	king_n	power_n	prerogative_n	9,316	5	10.1743	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33356	The case of Protestants in England under a popish prince if any shall happen to wear the imperial crown.	Clarkson, David, 1622-1686.	1681 (1681)	Wing C4569; ESTC R1246	26,207	36

tendency can in reason be expected from Parliaments without securing the Throne For if the Conspirators once gain that it may be they will have no Parliaments A Government more Arbitrary and Violent is more agreeable to their Principles and Designs It is apparent that Popery as it hath been by many occasions sublimated since the Reformation hath in a manner quite stifled the English Spirit in English Papists They are for another Government in which the Pope must be Supreme and to which our Kings must be subjected or kill'd And in Civils they are for an Vniversal Monarchy by which this and others must be swallowed up and so they are still ready to devote themselves to that Prince who bids fairest for it So they did to the Spaniard in Queen Elizabeths time and now upon that account are wheeled off to the French They have been forward upon all occasions to Sacrifice the Honour of the King and the Liberty of the Subject to the Roman Moloch they are much more his Subjects than the Kings and they are no more to be trusted as to the true English Interest than the Italians or Spaniards They pass for Natives indeed being born among us but are plainly Foreigners as to Government Principle Interest Affection and Design We may well believe on these accounts they are no Friends to Parliaments if they did not otherwise openly declare it But if the necessity of their affairs should require a Parliament there is no great question but they may get such a one as will serve their turn For so hath every of our former Princes in all the changes of Religion that have been amongst us So did Henry the 8th both when he was for Popery and when he was against it and when he was partly both for it and against it So did Edward the 6th when he was wholly Protestant So did Queen Mary when she was for burning them alive So did Queen Elizabeth when she run Counter to her Sister There are English-Papists enough already to furnish both Houses and there will be more if Popery were once enthron'd The strongest Arguments which divers have for their Religion are drawn from the Throne The indifferency which is visible in too many signifies that they will be determined by their interest and their Estates are like to out-weigh their Religion The warping of divers upon advancement and acting Counter to themselves when lower shews there is something higher in their hearts then that which should be Supreme The little concern they shew for Religion who in regard of their Station in the Church should have the greatest Zeal for it disappointing and astonishing those who esteemed them Protestants and great supports of that Profession The little sense of any danger when our Religion was never in such extreme hazard since we and our Fathers were born the obstructing in one or both Houses of all that is offered to secure us or hath the most probable tendency to it by those from whom it was least expected Those greater heats against true Protestants differing from us in some small things than against Papists when represented by this horrid Plot in their own Colours shews that Popery is no such formidable thing to many now under another profession as it is and will be to Hearty protestants and such as have effectually received the Love of the Truth However by the Laws which will be in force when the Throne is Papal All Protestants must be excluded from both Houses For all these must then pass under the notion of Hereticks and as such not only by the Constitutions of several Popes but by the Decree of a General Council received as obliging in Popish Countreys they are made uncapable of being admitted to any publick Counsels or of chusing any to sit there This is but a branch of one of the last Penalties we must then lye under and thus all hopes of any Relief by Parliaments under such a Successor are quite blasted As for Laws such as are or may be made before-hand for restraining Popery and securing our Religion under a Popish Soveraignty they will then be judged Nullities for they are no Laws which are against the common good but these will be counted mischievous Acts of a pernicious nature and tendency being for the support of Heresie against their Catholick Interest They will be null and void also without any formal repeal upon another account viz. because Enacted by an incompetent Authority For our Parliaments are now and have been long Constituted of such as they count Hereticks and these by the Decrees and Principles of their Church have no Jurisdiction at all much less that which is Soveraign and Legislative They have no right to proceed in Judgment upon Laws duly made so far are they from all just Power to make any And whereas no Laws can be made in these Realms without the concurrence of every of the Three States in Parliaments they will not own any of them to be in a capacity to concur therein The King being an Heretick is with them no King he is devested of all Prerogatives and Royalties hath no power to call Parliaments or pass any Bills there tendred He is no better with them then a private person nay in a worse capacity than a good Subject for by their Principles he may lawfully be killed by a private hand The Nobles being Hereticks their Blood is tainted by the highest Treason the Attainder good in Law that Law which will then be of most Soveraign Obligation they have lost all Priviledge of Peers they have no Titles to Baronies no rights to be Summoned by Writ if there were any that had right to Summon them They have forfeited what they had by Descent though from Popish Ancestors and what they had by Patent is null and void Since our Princes were Protestants they are no more Lords in the sense of the Romish Laws nor have more Right to sit as Peers in making Laws than Laws of Jack Straws creating This is manifest by the first Penaltie forementioned and awarded against Hereticks by the Laws of the Roman Church which takes effect from the first day of their supposed Heresie before Sentence of any Judge The Commons being Hereticks are no Proprietors and so have no Power no Priviledge doe to the Commons of England they are born to no Estates if they be the Issue of Protestants The Estates of their Fathers being confiscated before they were born and so is all they have acquired since by Purchase or otherwise So that they have no Right to be chosen nor have Protestants any Right to chuse them being no Freeholders nor having title to any Goods or Lands by any Tenure whatsoever In short By the Judgment and Sentence of their Church all Ranks among us are in a State of Vsurpation we have no right to Estate or Life as we are like to find when they have power much less any Authority to make Laws What our Parliaments have

with Hereticks in what is lawful and honest but in no case otherwise and so never in case of Heresie So that the Faith of any Prince however engaged is so far from giving an Heretick any security as Heresie is far from being a thing lawful and honest Upon these principles by which it appears that Rome hath changed Faith with Carthage that being now worse than Fides Punica and is when she would be counted Christian far more Faithless than when Pagan their Doctors Jesuits and others have instigated Kings to endeavour seriously the rooting out of Hereticks Asserting that an Oath in favour of Hereticks is but Vinculum iniquitatis In Fine This is the sense of their best Authors and we must believe it to be so unless we will be deluded By their Laws and Principles they are always under an Obligation utterly to exterminate Protestants yet sometimes they are concerned in point of Interest to forbear and dissemble Pretending to engage their Faith when they do it not in the sense of those who relye on it as the Council of Constance deluded Jerome of Prague that they might as they did burn him or engaging their Faith when they intend not to keep it as our Queen Mary Charles the 9th of France and other Popish Princes abused the Protestants to make them secure that they might have the better advantage to ruine them and then that they may seem real they may promise or swear that they will not proceed against us yet notwithstanding when they have an opportunity to destroy us though they were bound by Ten thousand Oaths not to attempt it yet they Sin damnably if they endeavour it not to the utmost But if there were neither Law nor Conscience to hinder yet in point of Interest he must not shew favour to Hereticks nor grant any Indulgence for their Religion he cannot do it without apparent hazard both of Crown and Life For by shewing such favour he in their account deposeth himself and immediately loseth title to his Kingdoms An Emperour or a King saith Parsons if he shew favour to an Heretick for that he loseth his Kingdom The Jesuits have sufficient grounds for this Doctrine how extravagant soever it seems For the Council of Lateran which Bellarmine calls their greatest and most Famous Council decreeth that if a Prince upon a years warning doth not exterminate Hereticks his Subjects are discharged from Allegiance and his Dominions are to be seized on by other Catholicks He thereby draws upon himself the Curse and Excommunication of the Church he is excommunicate by Law that Council hath passed Sentence already and he is de facto Anathematized yearly by the Bull of the Supper the former is Excommunicatio Juris by the Law and this is Excommunicatio Hominis by the Judg as several of their Doctors will have it So that it takes effect presently Ipso Facto and is of no less force than if the person concerned were Excommunicated particularly and by name though the terms be general The Pope every year doth solemnly Excommunicate and Curse not only all Hereticks but every Favourer and Defender of them and from this Sentence none can Absolve any but the Pope himself for it is a reserved case and they generally declare him to be a Favourer of Hereticks who hinders the execution of the Laws made against them Conformably hereto their Doctors teach that Kings and Princes when they are negligent in rooting out Hereticks they are to be Excommunicated and deposed by the Pope So Becamus Another as I find him cited sets it out more elegantly in a Metaphor making Princes to be the Popes their Shepherds Dogs as they are wont to do out of great reverence and expresseth himself significantly to this purpose If a Prince be a dull Cur and fly not upon Hereticks he is to be beaten out and a Keener Dog must be got in his stead Others tell us he incurrs more grievous penalties than Excommunication as appears by the Breves of several Popes though to be deprived of Kingdom and Life to which this Sentence makes a Prince lyable one would think sufficiently grievous But there is no need to cite particular Doctors seeing by the Decrees of that Church the Fautors of Hereticks are lyable to the penalties which are to be inflicted on Hereticks themselves and their Church-Law determines again and again that they are to be taken for Fautors of Hereticks wh● omit what they ought to do for the punishing of Hereticks that they may cease from their errour And in this they all agree Ita docent omnes saith Suarez Sure he must have more Love for Protestants than any true Papist can have who will run such hazards to shew them Favour He must expect also to be burdened with the Hatred of Zealous Chatholicks and the effects thereof They detest such a Prince and damn that Political Prudence which forbears the severe execution of the Laws against Hereticks as being the way not only to ruine the Church but subvert a Kingdom They count none worthy the Crown who will not go through stitch with their design for extirpating Hereticks and promoting the Roman Interest with Fire and sword Nay they count such though they be Papists as bad as Hereticks worse than Turks and unworthy to live they will have a price set on their Heads and Assassinates hired to rid the World of them So Doctor Stapleton counted one of their greatest and most sober Divines And these are not only Points for Speculation they have been reduced to practice among those who have the repute of the most moderate Papists in Europe Henry 3d. and 4th two Kings of France were Assassinated on this account A suspicion that they favoured Protestants was the great inducement to Zealous Catholicks to get them stab'd The two Kings since indeed have escaped better no wonder for they never provoked the Catholick Assassinating Spirit They have given sufficient demonstration that they hate the Protestants for though they kill them not out-right yet have they reduced them to such Circumstances that their Mortal Enemies may to their satisfaction see them dye a Lingering Death And which more concernsus the Conspirators in all places having declared expresly that if RO. H. do not answer their expectation for rooting out of the Protestant Religion and Extirpating those that profess it Their design is to destroy him after they have killed his Brother So that whatsoever respect they have for him on the account of his Religion yet after they have served their turn on him a while he must expect nothing but Death unless he will give assurance that he will ruine the Protestants of these Nations Hereby we may judge what favour we may in reason promise our selves from the Temper or Interest of a Popish Successor But may not Parliaments secure us by Laws and Provisions restraining the Powers which endanger us There is nothing of this