Selected quad for the lemma: law_n
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A48245
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A letter written out of the countrey to a Parliament-man, in answer to a quære by him made, how the people generally stood inclined to the proceedings against the King, and the intended change of government
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1649
(1649)
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Wing L1767; ESTC R4717
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7,284
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12
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Treaty that the Army suspected their kingdom almost at an end and with sadnesse foresaw that they must return into their former condition this made them look upon the Petitioners as their onely Enemies and assault and slay them accordingly which must either divert them from their desires of Peace or animate them to revenge and so make them lawfull Enemies either of which would conduce to their ends So now that the Counties are forced to lay aside their Petitions and all men betake themselves to their private groans under the continuance of an unsettled Government these plausible pretenders to severity against the occasioners of War will arraign the King and murder him thereby to perpetuate the divisions of the three Kingdoms and so continue all power in their own hands which is all that I can perceive of the necessity of a change As for the lawfulnesse thereof by your enquiry into the inclinations of the people you seem to expect the decision of right from them and the subject of your curiosity is unjust and you appeal to an incompetent Judge for the people joyntly taken have no power to determine matters of that nature nor taken individually have they understanding your quaere therefore is preposterous in matter and form and you might have saved your self and me a labour if you had made your application to the proper Oracles the Scripture and the Laws for information I suppose then you desire not herein to know what you ought to do but what may carry applause whether well or ill done and so seek not to please God but men Not to leave you therefore unsatisfied in this I must tell you that many Jesuiticall attempts have been made in this and all the neighbour Counties first by false suggestions and scandalous imputations to detract from the honour of the King and represent him to the abused multitude unworthy of the Government and then the hands of some vagabonds have been by the sollicitation of factious Ministers affixed to Petitions and tendred at the publick Sessions to be countenanced as the generall Act of the County But although it be an error in Politicks to suppose any appeal ought to be made to a people once subjected to government I dare presume if any such unjust way of tryall were practised in this part of the Kingdom an hundred voices for one if not awed by force would appear for a peaceable settlement under our former Government rather then to embroyl the Kingdom in a perpetuall War for the secret ambitious ends of some few particular persons nowise qualified nor authorised to make a change As for your self and the rest of the Members now sitting whilest you were two Houses and those entire the People although generally unsatisfied with your proceedings yet reverenced the name of Parliament and therein was your security but now that the Lords House hath deserted you except some few inconsiderable persons notorious either for their pusillanimity folly or ingratitude and the greatest part of your own Members either banished imprisoned terrified or prudently forbearing to receive the Law from their mercenaries and bind the Kingdom with their Enthusiasmes that an handfull of you should sit and not onely call your selves a Parliament but exclude the King and Lords and usurp to your selves the legislative power and therefore beleeve it properly your own because you have so Voted it is a frensy that I once thought could not have entred within those wais Your arguments are in brief these That You represent the People and That all Power is originally in the People and thence you raise your dangerous superstructures The misunderstanding or mis-application at least of that vulgar and true saying Salus populi suprema lex hath led you and others into error from whence I am sure you have capacity enough to be rescued Know therefore that Populus fignifieth the whole State that is the King and Lords as well as the common People Now as the word People fignifieth the whole body of the Common-wealth the King is properly the sole Representative of the people and all their power is placed in him as to make War or Peace to raise Moneys for the maintenance of War to execute the Laws to treat with forraign Princes and the like The Members of Parliament are Representatives of the People for particular matters as to present new Laws to be made or old to be repealed by the King which plainly sheweth where the legislative Power resideth to represent the aggrievances of the people or prefer their desires and in short to appear for the people of the respective Counties and Corporations summoned by the King to consult upon matters of publick concernment These Counties and Corporations they have not that power which you pretend for that were to make the government Anarchicall under a Monarch nor can they derive more to you then themselves have Again suppose the power were as you pretend in the People it must be understood in the major part of the people and consequently in the major part of the Representatives but with what colour of equity can an inferior number of factious men invite an Army to seclude their fellow-Members and in their absence not onely make Laws to binde the whole Kingdom but alter the Government already established and referre us to the wandring expectation of some others to be revealed hereafter in a dream It hath been the prudent care of our forefathers so to respect the proper end of Government which is The peace and safety of a people as to make choice of Monarchy the best of Governments because least subject to division and confusion Now because there cannot be that form of Government found out which by reason of the inseparable corruption of mans nature is not subject to abuse and the abuse of Regall power is tyranny they have therefore to secure their posterity from the arbitrary power of Princes erected that high Court of Parliament which is so happily composed that we are thereby protected from all excesse for as the King cannot Enact or Repeal any Law without the consent of the two Houses which preventeth all tyrannicall attempts so neither can the Houses without the King which secureth us from Anarchy and confusion for if the legislative power were singly in either it might be misapplyed to the disadvantage of the other which would consequently discompose the peaceable constitution of our Kingdom so then if the Regall Power encroach upon our right we have redresse by way of complaint in Parliament But if you usurp the supreme Power to your selves and either you or your Army tyrannise over us from whom shall we expect relief Which seadeth me to the next Consideration of the advantage which can hereby accrew to the generality of the Commons of England and wherein that can consist I confesse ingeniously I am not wise enough to understand Our Religion shall either be imposed at the will of the prevailing party and consequently be alterable
A LETTER Written out of the COUNTREY TO A PARLIAMENT-MAN In ANSWER to a Quaere by him made How the People generally stood inclined to the proceedings against the KING and the intended Change of GOVERNMENT LONDON Printed in the Yeer 1649. SIR I Suppose you have made choice of me to satisfie you in these great particulars as a man who having in the late divisions of the Kingdom steered in so equall a way betwixt the King and Parliament may be more willing and able impartially to discover the disposition and inclination of all parties and consequently of the Kingdom in generall then any other who hath appeared more concerned then my self You have moved a question I confesse wherein I conceive my self bound to endeavour a satisfaction not onely to your self but to the whole House whereof you are a Member and all others who plead the necessity of a change of Government and if you still think me worthy of the credit which you have heretofore given to my opinion in other matters I dare without much arrogance take upon me to give you as clear light herein as most men can having ever since the publishing of the Armies Remonstrance made it my businesse to feel the pulse and from thence conjecture the temper of all men with whom I could gain free discourse and that chiefly because the Army in that Declaration usurpeth the name of the People of England But before I proceed to satisfie you give me leave to undeceive you concerning the way of neutrality which I have hitherto professed I call God to witnesse before whom we must all one day give a just account of our actions when the unhappy and fatall occasions of discord betwixt the King and His two Houses were first I determine not by whom given and those by the fiery spirits of some on both sides soon kindled into a War my duty and allegiance to my Prince and my naturall love to my Countrey and it's liberty suspended so the operation of my will that like Buridan's Asse placed equedistautly betwixt two bottles of Hay my hunger carried me so strongly to both that I had not power to make choice of either I was taught by the Word of God and Laws of the Realm not to lift up my hand against my Soveraign in any case and it was equally imprinted in me by the Law of Nature that I ought not to contribute to my own thraldome Whether the Parliament had just grounds or not to suspect any tyrannicall designes in the King or whether jealousies and fears were hereby pretended to engage the people in rebellion whether to remove the King from his evill Counsellors signified to take away his life or His Majesties withdrawing from the tumults of the City was an offensive warre upon the Parliament it was not within my private cognisance both were pretended and whilest the truth of each was equally uncertain I chose rather to suffer the insults reproaches and plunders of both parties then to engage with either as supposing patience the safest way for a Christian where action on either side might have involved me in treason to my Prince or treachery to my Countrey This was the true ground of my neutrality and had the Parliament continued their solemn Protestations to God and man wherein they assertained to us the integrity of their intentions that they aymed at nothing but the glory of God the purity of Religion the greatnesse of the King the honour and freedome of Parliament and happinesse of the People who was there amongst us that did not bid you ride on prosperously But since by sad experience we find that all this shew of holinesse is put on to disguise self ends that the glory of God is as much as in you lyeth turned into shame by intitling him to all your impieties as so many acts of his Providence Religion is profaned by every frantick brain that can pretend the Spirit and instead of the purity of the Gospel you have revived all the exploded Heresies of former Ages As for the King let us behold his greatnesse it is almost three yeers since you have kept him close prisoner in which time to satisfie the cry of the people you have thrice entred into a Treaty of Peace with him but intending surely nothing lesse for your Demands have ever been so unbecoming the duty and modestie of Subjects as if your sole ayme was to obtain a denyall and then to lay the breach on his side for when His Majestie hath been upon the point of condescending to all you have thrice suffered nay invited inferiourpersons in the Army audaciously to snatch him from your Commissioners and now are readie to sacrifice his life to your great Idoll for raising warre against his people were you not once ashamed to acknowledge that you intended any hurt to his Royall Person when he was your Enemy in the Field and can you now legally try him for the same thing But the inspired tell you this must be done lest Samuel rise up and reprove you as he did Saul for sparing the Amalekites Is this the honour and freedome of Parliaments to sit and Vote the results of a Councell of Warre to suffer your Members to be torn from the House by your own Servants It was the Kings great crime which made you pretend the War lawfull on your side and meerly defensive that He demanded five of your Members to Answer the Law for matters of high Treason and shall five parts of six of the House of Commons be banished imprisoned or affrighted from thence and a handfull of you continue the Session and call your selves a Parliament if you can interpret the shaking of a Sword hilt freedome of Vote what freedome liberty or property shall the Subjects of England expect but such as a licentious usurping Army shall afford them I beleeve Sir by this time you perceive what account you are likely to have from me concerning the inclinations of the people but if your superstition leadeth you to enquire farther in them by way of Augury as the Romanes did by inspection into the entrails of their beasts it will be requisite for you to clear 3. things before you can gain their approbation the necessity the lawfulnesse and advantage of a change The necessity of this change is urged by the Army which cannot pretend to be so much concerned in the Government as the least Corporation of England and it is grounded upon the equity of bringing offendors to Justice by those who have not the legall power of a petty Constable The offence which calleth for justice is leavying war against the Kingdom now not to question the jurisdiction and power which are so ridiculously assumed we enquire if the Army are such severe chastisers of waging warre why are they themselves such Enemies to Peace This will be best cleared if we observe how squint-eyed they are in all their actions The Counties petitioned so earnestly the last yeer for a Personall