Selected quad for the lemma: law_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A50102
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The case of allegiance in our present circumstances consider'd in a letter from a minister in the city to a minister in the country.
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Masters, Samuel, 1645 or 6-1693.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing M1067; ESTC R7622
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29,404
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42
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transgressing a Divine Institution This being a matter of great importance and of common continual concernment to mankind we may reasonably expect that if God hath made any such Law it is somewhere promulg'd to the World with sufficient evidence and certainty but tho many have been for some years most sollicitously seeking after it yet they are not agreed among themselves in the discovery nor can direct us where we may certainly meet with it I know but of two sort of Laws which God hath given to mankind Either Moral impress'd on the human Nature or Positive reveal'd in the Holy Scriptures but the jus divinum in dispute is a stranger to both God hath indeed by both instituted Government or Civil Authority for the welfare and security of men in their Civil Societies He hath also commanded that Superiors govern justly and mercifully and that Inferiors honour them with duty and submission But I no where find that God hath commanded all Nations or ours in particular to be under that form of Government which in contradistinction to other forms is called Monarchy or under some particular Person or Family in contradistinction to all others The Law of Nature doth indeed erect a Monarchy in Families over those who are naturally descended from him that is to Govern but there being not the same natural reason in our Civil Societies there is not the same Law of Nature to prescribe the same Government And if some plead a likeness or analogie between them That can serve only for a rhetorical illustration but not for any Logical proof such as the present case requires From the Holy Scriptures we learn that God did once institute a Monarchy for the people of Israel and appointed particularly that David should be their King and also intail'd the Crown upon his Posterity but as God had particular Reasons for that institution respecting the Messiah so we have no Reason to think that God intended by that institution to oblige any other Nation but the Jews only In the New Testament we find Civil Government suppos'd and the moral Duties to be discharg'd both by superiors and inferiors describ'd and inforc'd beyond what they are in any other institutions but we no where find Christ and his Apostles prescribing the particular form of Civil Government or preferring Monarchy or condemning an Aristocratic or Democratic state and much less determining the particular persons or families on whom the Regal Dignity shall descend Some indeed have inferr'd from St. Paul's assertions Rom. 13.1 that the particular forms of Government and the particular persons which administer it are by a Divine Institution but however they countenance this mistake from our English translation which says There is no power but of God the powers that are are ordained of God yet the Text is incapable of such a sense if we read and render it exactly according to the Original St. Paul's words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in an exact Translation would run thus There is no Authority if not of God and the Authorities which are of God's Institution are ordered under God. The plain Doctrine of which Text can be only this That no man can have an Authority over other men who are his Fellow-creatures except it be derived to him from God who is the Lord of all and that whatever Power is derived to any Superiors over Inferiors it must be subordinated to God from whom it was derived And as the Apostle doth infer from the former Assertion That Every soul should be subject to and not resist this Authority even for Conscience-sake because derived from God so he infers from the latter That the Superior who useth this Authority must administer it as the Minister of God for the good of men in protecting Virtue and discouraging Vice because his Authority is subordinated to God the Supreme and Absolute Lord of all Mankind And that the Apostle doth speak of Authority according to its general nature and institution and not the particular persons by whom or forms in which it was then exercis'd is evident from the excellent properties and ends of this Authority which he enumerates which do belong indeed to that Authority which God hath instituted but cannot certainly be ascribed to the Government of Nero the present and the worst of Emperors And to make this more plain and unquestionable it may be observ'd that as Saint Paul speaking of Authority in the general calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Ordinance of God so Saint Peter speaking of the persons by whom this Authority is administred calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Ornance of man 1 Pet. 2.13 14. whether it be the King as supreme or inferior Magistrates commission'd by him After all I am ready to acknowledg that the Law of God doth secure Princes yea and the meanest of their Subjects in the quiet possession of those Rights which they have justly acquir'd but the Rights themselves are not founded on a Divine but Humane Constitution for tho the Law of God doth prohibit us to defraud a private person of any part of his just possessions yet we do not think that any Law of God did antecedently entitle him to such a possession or doth necessarily intail it on his Family but that his Right is grounded on the Laws and Constitutions of the Country in which he lives So tho Kings have the Law of God to maintain and protect them in the use of that Authority to which they have a just Right yet that Right is not to be measured by any Law of God but the Constitutions of the Realm and may be acquired or alienated without committing any sin against God as they who assert a Jus Divinum would pretend 2. Another false principle to be dismissed is a wide mistake of the Nature of that Government under which we live which asserts the English Monarchy to be absolute and unlimited at least that in its Original and Essential Constitution it is so and cannot be otherwise We cannot but reflect on the ill design or ill conduct of some who in their Discourses on this Subject have transcribed out of their common places all the great things which any Princes have asserted to themselves or have been ascrib'd to them by ambitions flatterers or have been acquir'd by them in overreaching Compacts or by a violent force and have without any restriction or exception applied them to the Monarch of our Island as if there could be but one sort of Government in the world or that ours did eminently include all the Prerogatives that can be conceiv'd in speculation or can be found to be ascrib'd to any King or Emperor in any Part or Age of the World. Upon this Principle they have exalted the English Monarch into as Absolute and Arbitrary a Sovereign as any Emperour of Rome or Constantineple they make his Will the sole spring of our Government from which it is originally deriv'd and into which it must be
only to the good and gentle but also to the froward so that if a King in the administration of his Government should be too sparnig in his Rewards and over severe in his Justice if too hard to be pleas'd and as hard to be propitiated I must be contented if he injure me in my private interests I must rather submit than oppose a private to a publick good or if the publick Affairs of the Kingdom sustain any detriment or mischief from his Male-administration yet if it be such as will consist with the being of the Government and the Safety of the People it should rather be born patiently than redressed by a violent opposition I acknowledge also that in all cases not certain and notorious the Subject ought to presume the Right to be rather on his Prince's side than on his own and never to think any oppressions intolerable till they are evidently such or to call for a violent redress till they appear otherwise irremediable I must acknowledge also that I can see no Right the Subject hath from the Law of God or Man to use any other resistance against a King than what is defensive or to proceed judicially against him or to inflict any punishment on his Person for any defaults of Government because there can be no Authority in our Kingdom superior to that with which the King is invested Yet after all these concessions it must be confess'd that the Regal Power being in its Constitution limited and in its Exercise liable to be abus'd there may such cases happen wherein a defensive resistance may be not only lawful but a necessary Duty And if we may not lie for God much less may we do it in flattery to any Man and if Subjects may not be defrauded of their Estates no more should they be of their Liberties to prevent their abuse of them Wherefore to speak out plainly and honestly in a case wherein Conscience is so much concern'd I must add that we are not bound in Conscience to yield Passive Obedience to the King any farther than that Regal Authority extends which the Constitutions of this Kingdom have invested him with and that those Constitutions do not impower him to treat his Subjects according to his own private Will but according to the publick rule of the Law and by consequence whatever grievance is without or contrary to Law the Subject is not bound in Conscience to bear it with respect to the King who had no authority to impose it though he may be sometimes with respect to the publick Peace and if Officers be appointed by the King to oppress his Subjects contrary to Law their Commissions being illegal must be without authority and therefore the Subject is not bound in Conscience to submit to them but may resist their injust assaults if he cannot otherwise evade them and do not disturb the Publick Peace by the defence of his private Interests And if we may suppose a case so sad as that a King through ill counsel or some strong temptation should be changed from a Father into the Enemy of his Country and should with an immoveable obstinacy ingage himself in such illegal designs as plainly and inevitably tend to the Subversion of the Government and the Destruction of the People his Subjects in such unhappy circumstances will be excusable before God if they use so much defensive resistance as he hath made necessary for preserving the Government and themselves For if in Nature a People is presupposed to Government and Rulers are intended by God for the welfare of a People and not a People for the pleasure of their Rulers it will be most reasonable to infer that when the End and the Means become inconsistent the End should be preferr'd and those Means prevented or rejected which would destroy the End they should promote But these things are so easily anticipated by the common sense and reason of mankind that there needs no long discourse about them and they are indeed too irksom to an ingenuous mind to dwell long upon them and though our extraordinary case at present hath made it necessary to say so much yet I hope a like case will never happen again to give occasion to Subjects to consider so minutely the limits of the Regal Power and of their own submission 2. Having now rescued our Consciences from the prejudices of the foregoing Errors we may be capable of making an impartial judgment of the case propounded Whether we can with a good Conscience transfer our Allegiance from the late to the present King Allegiance in its primary general sense signifies being obliged or bound in its political sense it imports that kind of relation which refers a Subject to his Prince and by consequence it connotes the duties which result from that relation And taking the word in its fullest latitude there will arise these two difficulties to be distinctly resolved 1. Whether our Consciences are discharged from Allegiance to the late King 2. Whether we can with a good Conscience transfer our Allegiance to the present King though not the immediate Heir of the Crown 1. In resolving the former enquiry it will be necessary to premise that our Allegiance to James the Second was not to his Person absolutely but respectlively as he sustain'd the Character of King and therefore as we ow'd no Allegiance to him before he was King so neither can we owe him any now if he cease to be so and I think it too plain to need any proof that it is possible that a person may cease to be King though he still survive and that a relation ceaseth when one of its Terms is lost If therefore it appears That James the Second doth cease to be our King though he be still alive our Allegiance to him will be sufficiently discharged and that he doth cease to be our King may I suppose be evinc'd from the following Considerations 1. If James the Second did with an immoveable obstinacy ingage himself in such illegal and pernicious designs as were notoriously subversive of the Government and destructive of the People he did thereby cease de jure to be our King and our Allegiance to him is by consequence discharg'd The Title of King includes both an Office to be discharg'd and an Estate to be injoy'd but the latter is an appendant to the former when therefore he ceaseth to govern and protect his People according to the Laws of this Kingdom his Right must so far cease to that Power Dignity or Revenue which were assigned to him for that end except we can imagine some things to have a moral power of subsisting when the reason of them is gone And as the Office of the King is directed by the publick rule of the Law so the right which any person can have to the Regal Estate must be founded on the Constitutions of the Realm and these Constitutions must either invest him with an absolute Right irrespective to his Office and then