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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A41391 Good advice to all the free-holders and corporations of England concerning the choice of their representatives to serve the ensuing parliament. 1690 (1690) Wing G1032; ESTC R30417 9,633 10

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Good Advice TO ALL THE FREE-HOLDERS AND Corporations of ENGLAND CONCERNING THE Choice of their REPRESENTATIVES To Serve in the Ensuing PARLIAMENT SINCE it hath pleased Almighty God in his All-wise Providence to make this our present King the Glorious Instrument of delivering this Nation from Popery and Arbitrary Power and since His Majesty hath been pleased by his Gracious Proclamation to declare That for divers Important and Weighty Considerations by and with the Advice of his Privy-Council he hath-Dissolved the present Parliament and yet that his Good Subjects may perceive the Confidence He hath in their good Affections and how desirous He is to meet his People and have their Advice in Parliament He hath thereby made known to his said Subjects that he hath given Directions to the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal for the Issuing out of Writs in due Form of Law for the Calling of New Parliament to begin and be holden on the 20th day of March next It will highly concern us all as to our present Interest and therein the future happiness of our Posterity to act at this time with all the Wisdom Courage and Integrity we can Our Work is Great very Great before us Our Care and Prudence therefore should be proportionable We ought by no means to trifle in such an Important Affair as this If we miscarry now it will be our own Fault and we shall have none to blame but our Selves The King hath given us an Opportunity now to shew our Selves his Friends by choosing such Men as will be Friends to Him and the true Interest of our Countrey He hath put it into our Own hands to make our Selves as happy as we can wish to be if we will but be wise in the Choice of our Representatives and take care to send up such Members to serve in this Parliament as we can assure our Selves are 1st Good English Men. 2d Well-affected to the present Government 3d. And of Ability and Courage faithfully to discharge that Great Trust which is to be reposed in them I shall not trouble you with things of a nice Consideration but such as are easie and obvious to every Man's notice my design is Brevity but yet I will not be obscure Consider what a powerful Influence a Parliament hath upon the Settlement or Ruine of the Nation and that both in our Religious and in our Civilconcerns Consider how that in all Ages there have been Ill Men and you have very good Reason to be sure that We are not without them now who being conscious to themselves of the Ill things they have formely done will endeavour by all the Ways and Artifices they can to thrust themselves into the House thereby if possible to cover themselves from the Publick Justice which the Nation requires and which is One proper Business and Duty of the Parliament to inflict upon them Prince of Oringe's Declaratior for all their open Violations of Law and for their Plots and Conspiracies against the Protestant Religion and the Lives and Liberties the Honours and Estures of the Subject I do not speak this out of a Rancorous or Revengeful Spirit for my Nature is not so inclined and I thank God likewise that I have received better Principles from my Education but as Every Man is concerned Every man may be allowed to speak his own Judgment and to differ from whom he pleases provided he do it with Modesty and due Respect I speak it by way of Caution to prevent Any of those from becoming now our Law-makers who have been so notoriously known in the Two last Reigns for Law-breakers I would not by any means if I could help it have Legicides to be turned into Legislators But that I may more immediately apply my self to the present Undertaking give me leave with all imaginable Deference to better Judgments to present You with my Opinion of what sort of Men You ought to choose for your Representatives Prince's Declarat if you design in earnest to promote the Peace Honour and Safety of the Nation so that there may be no more danger of the Nation 's falling at any time hereafter under Arbitrary Government If a considerable Person in our Church could think fit to bestow the following Compliment upon the late Vnfortunate and Abdicated King I hope I may be permitted to bestow it with more truth on our present Soveraign who hath shewed himself so Brave and so Great in delivering an Vngrateful Nation that the Character he hath thereby acquired in the World will perpetuate his Memory to all Generations Now we live says he under the Government of a King who discovers a Great and Princely Mind in all his Actions Dr. Sterl Serm. before H. of Commons 29. May 85. p. 28. and this secures us of as much happiness as we can expect under any Government But it is not meerly the wise Conduct of a Prince but the Governable Temper of Subjects too which is necessary to make a Nation Happy No Government neither of God nor Men can make those happy who will not be governed But let such consider and duly reflect upon the Powerful Argument St. Paul urges to perswade us to Subjection and Obedience viz. Rom. 13. There is no Power but of God The Powers that be are Ordained of God And certainly says the same Person in another Treatise he is no Christian who disputes Obedience to the Divine Ordinance and Constitution Again 11 Hen. 7. c. 1. let such consider that in Hen. 7. time all Subjects were bound by Act of Parliament to yield to the King for the time being Faithful Service and true Allegiance against every Power and Might reared against him and that through the whole Body of the Act that King is called The Soveraign Lord of the Land their Soveraign Lord and that this Statute has continued unrepealed about 200 years and has been so long approved by the whole nation and judged well consistent with the Duty of Allegiance owing to their Lawful Soveraign for the time being and therefore I hope we shall all gladly submit to the Rule of His Scepter who hath appeared as the Champion of Almighty God for the Rescue of these Kingdoms from the Deplorable Condition to which the Affairs both of Church and State were reduced and who hath met with such a successful Providence therein and is now in the quiet and peaceable possession of the Throne Let such lastly consider with themselves the danger of their Obstinacy and Refractoriness in disowning the Lawfulness of this present Government or the Rightful Title of their Sacred Majesties I hope this will concern but a few but let them consider that such a denying of the King de facto's Title to the Crown and saying that such a one was not Rightful King with Motives Rusn worth's Collection though not impliedly of Action against it hath been adjudged Treason Ay and a compassing of the King's Death too and how it was so
your selves were either always Children or are now become so Will you intrust those with your Lives Liberties Estates and Religion whom the Law will not trust to dispose of any thing they have of their own Will you inable such to give away all the Securities you enjoy as Englishmen whose Bond in the account of the Law will not be taken for Forty shillings It is in it self an unbecoming thing that they should have any power of laying Taxes upon other Men who cannot lay themselves under any Obligations to their Creditors by reason of their Minority In Q. Eliz. time as Sir Rob. Naunton Master of the Court of Wards Sir Robert Naunton's Fragments Regalia pag. 13. observes in his Account of her Times and Favourites says he I do not find that the House was at any time weakned and pestered with the Admission of too many Young Heads as it hath been of later times which remembers me of Recorder Martin's Speech about the Tenth of our late Soveraign Lord King James viz. 1st when there were Accounts taken of 40. Gentlemen not above 20. and some not exceeding 16 which moved him to say that it was the ancient Custom for Old Men to make Laws for Young ones but that he saw the Case altered Vid. Mr. Prynn's Minor no Senator and that there were Children Elected unto the Great Council of the Kingdom which came to invade and invert Nature and to Enact Laws to govern their Fathers 7thly Chuse such as you are sure will stedfastly adhere to the Ancient and most Excellent Constitution of this Kingdom who will neither be for turning the Government into a Common-wealth nor for advancing the Monarchy as of late into a French Tyranny By the One we shall have nothing but Faction and Sedition Tumults Licentiousness and all Confusion and by the other nothing but Force a Violation of all Laws Dragoons and Standing mercenary Armies and every thing else carried on by Absolute Despotical Unbounded Will and Pleasure But we have sufficiently found already the mischievous effects of both these extreams so as I hope we shall never run into the like again since that would be a Total Subversion of the Fundamental Laws and Laudable Establishments of this Kingdom which hath made this Nation so many Years both Famous and Happy to a great degree of Envy 8thly Make it your great Care to Elect such as you know will do all that lies in their power to redress your Grievances and to assert and maintain your undoubted Rights and call to Account those Kings Speech 1908. 89. who as the King hath most admirably express'd it have so visibly discovered their Designs of destroying your Religion and Liberties That these have been manifestly invaded you all will readily own that a High Commission Ecclesiastical hath been set up contrary to most express Laws that a Power of Dispensing and Suspending of Laws without Consent of Parliament hath been openly declared in Westminster-Hall as a Right belonging to the Crown that Seven Reverend Bishops were committed and prosecuted as heinous Criminals only for offering to the late King an Humble Petition in terms full of Dutiful Respect and not exceeding the Number limited by Law Prince's Declatat that the Charters of most of those Towns that have a Right to be Represented by their Burgesses in Parliament have been either unwarily surrendred or seized on and to omit several other things that undue Return of Juries have been made by illegal Sheriffs and a great deal of Blood hath been shed in many places of the Kingdom by Judges governed by the Direction from Above and not by their own Consdiences against all the Rules and Forms of Law you cannot for shame deny since the Redemption of You from these intolerable Grievances was the Cause of His present Majesty's Espousing your Interest as he was earnestly sollicited by a great many Lords Prince of O. Declaration both Spiritual and Temporal and by many Gentlemen and Subjects of all Ranks therefore is it not your Interest to chuse now such Men to represent you in Parliament as will with a true brave and noble English Resolution endeavour to prevent such great and insufferable Oppressions for the future Establish your just and ancient Rights so as none may dare to invade them hereafter and bring to publick Justice some of the greatest longest and most Notorious Offenders I am not for promoting you to glut your Revenge upon all those Bold Contemners of our Law but certainly to make a few Victims for the Atonement of so much I had like to have said irreparable Mischief as was committed and so much Innocent Blood as was poured out in the two last Reigns would be for the Honour of an English Parliament and a great Justification both of the King and Kingdom I have but one word more to leave with you and that is concerning your Elections 2. Instit 169. 4. Instit 10. where I pray you to remember that it is an Ancient Law and Liberty of England that Elections should be freely and indifferently made notwithstanding any Prayer or Commandment to the contrary 1. Sine prece without any Prayer or Gift and sine praecepto without Commandment of the King by Writ or otherwise or of any other You are Free-men act not as though you were bound Let neither Force nor Menaces nor Malice frame you to make Election of Men unworthy or not Eligible Take this Conclusion with you which His Highness the Prince of Orange our now present Soveraign whom God Almighty long preserve amongst us delivered in his Declaration That according to the Constitution of the English Government and Immemorial Custom all Elections of Parliament-Men ought to be made with an Entire Liberty without any sort of Force or the requiring the Electors to choose such Persons as shall be named to them and the Persons thus freely Elected ought to give their Opinions freely upon all Matters that are brought before them having the Good of the Nation ever before their Eyes and following in all things the Dictates of their Conscience And thus I wish you happy Success in your Elections and a Blessed Issue upon the Unanimous Councils of your REPRESENTATIVES FINIS LONDON Printed for Richard Baldwin near the Black Bull in the Old-Baily 1690.