Selected quad for the lemma: power_n
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A35899
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A dialogue between the Pope and a phanatick concerning affairs in England by a hearty lover of his prince and country.
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Hearty lover of his prince and country.
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1680
(1680)
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Wing D1333; ESTC R1953
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10,777
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20
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four and twenty hours we have rendred our selves Masters of Elections and thus by an immortal opposition betwixt King and Parliament we have rendred the Constitution unpracticable and reduced the Government to this Dilemma that either we must have a King without a Parliament which is an English impossibility or else a Parliament without a King and for that you know we have a Precedent and therefore the hopes and advantage lies on our side Pope If you could give these Elect Creatures of yours a fixed being or a Politick immortality all were done but the King perversly retains that Reprobating power of Prorogation and Dissolution and begins to learn how and when to use it Phan. This indeed is the greatest difficulty of our affairs but to master this we must use all imaginable Arts to distress the King for as we cannot have a Parliament without the King so he can have no money without us now to bring him into necessities we will invite our friends in Barbary to infest the Seas and our Protestant Neighbours have lately furnished them with Ammunition for that purpose You must by your Nuncio at Paris prevent the League with France and I do not question but my Friends and Interest to hinder an Alliance with the Dutch But if all these methods should be defeated I have one Stratagem left which must effect our designs and that is the Artifice of Petitioning and though I would not have the Nation agree in one common Form of Prayer to God Almighty yet I will persuade all the Counties of England to combine in one Petition to the King for the Session of a Parliament Now for Subjects to Petition their Prince seems at first sight such a plausible Right and so just a Liberty that it would be thought Tyranny to disgust it and I do not question but to court one Hundred Thousand Hands into a Subscription and thus I have listed a Formidable Army without beating of a Drum and if the Gentleman at white-Hall shall affront our leading Petitioners the whole association will be obliged to take the Field in Defence of Liberty Property and Petitions Pope I acknowledg your proceedings are brave and something hopeful but I think you did commit an error in Politicks by your too bold and open affronts upon the Throne for when you had a Parliament of your own Family you should have sweetly dissembled your designs and wrought the Mine under ground and not given such open defiance to Prerogative there was a time when the King cast himself into the Arms of his Parliament and then you might have Killed him with embraces you should have Worshipped him cloathed him with Purple and Pourted him with flattering Addresses but you should not have shewed him the Crown of Thorns till you had brought him to the Judgment-Hall for now your bare-faced affronteries have rendred him jealous of your designs and may put him upon some desperate Counsels to obviate your contrivances for your Plots against the Government are now more manifest than mine but this I will say if you can Ruin three Kingdoms twice in one Age you deserve the Triple Crown as well as I. Phan. Hold Sir Now use your Omnipotence of Transubstantiation vanish into Air transform your self into a Wafer for sure that is as easie as to change a Wafer into a Man or which is more into a God here comes an Unconverted Cavalier a Worshiper of Kings and Bishops and if he discovers my Company and Conrespondence with you we are undone Pope I see him and he is so far advanced already that he must have observed us and there is no remedy left but to delude him with the wonted Artifice of Railing upon each other and begin as soon and as loud as you can Phan. You Anti-Christ the Great the Spiritual Pasha of Mystical Babylon the great Hocus Pocus of Christendom Son of the Scarlet Whore the Incendiary and Deceiver of the Nations you man of sin and Pandor to the Devil Pope You Apocryphal Spawn of Bel and the Dragon you ill-looking ill-natured Phanatick the shame of Humanity the scandal of Christendom the Plague of Governments you are the Beast and the false Prophet and your Numbers are the Locusts that came out of the bottomless Pit you are the perfection of Impudence Impiety and Hypocrisie Cavalier Very fine in troth Do you think me to be so blind that nothing can restore my sight but a Miracle No you are mistaken I have a long time suspected your compliance but now both mine Eyes and mine Ears have assured me of your Confederacy I know which is the eldest but 't is not easie to determine who is the greatest Knave of you two You Mr. Pope damn me for a Heretick and your Brother Phanatick Blasphemes me for a Papist but though the next Successor to the Crown should come from Rome or Leyden I would never be a Rebel nor should all the Power or Prerogative upon Earth ever oblige me to be a Papist or Presbyterian I am of the same Church and Religion with Polycarpus St. Ignatius St. Gregory Nazianzen and Nyssen St. Basil St. Chrysostom and St. Cyprian Who were Friends to Bishops and Liturgies Decent Rites and Ceremonies in Publick Worship and yet were neither Papal nor Phanatical and I hope it will not be long before all the Princes of Christendom will see it their Interest to be Enemies to you both As for your present Intrigue of Petitioning you have told the people in plausible Cant that it is one of the excellencies of the King of Kings to hear the Prayers of them who are but Dust and Ashes and that the King would but resemble a Deity in a Gracious Receiving and Granting Petitions but like your old Friend that tempted our Saviour you conceal the most material part of the Divinity for sure according to the due restrictions of Religion and Allegiance we are obliged to ask nothing from God or the King but what is essentially Good and Just and agreeable to their declared Will and Pleasure but for men or subjects to confine Providence or Prerogative to the Modes and Measures of their private humors is neither Devotion to God nor good Manners to the King And if Popular Petitions be so just a Right of the Subject I would fain know why we might not as lawfully Petition the King for the Dissolving of this Parliament as you do for the Sitting of it I am sure we have as much Reason and Liberty as you only we have more Manners and Submission and think it not Dutiful in Subjects to impose upon their Sovereign with Impudent and Tumultuous Suggestions By this Method of Petitioning you would render His Majesties Government Precarious in the most literal sense and when he has granted your Petitions it will not be long before you requite his Grace with a Vote of non-Addresses I confess your Factious Conspiracies have rendred our happy Constitution Unpracticable and brought the Government into such a Dilemma that there is no Medium to be fancied betwixt Empire and Common-wealth and the King must either resolve to take up the Imperial Crown or prepare to lay down his Head for he must either suffer the eternal affronts of ill humored Parliaments or by his Supream wisdom contrive some more quiet or safer method of Elections I have seen an Oration made by Mecaenas to one of the Popes Pagan Predecessors Augustus Caesar wherein he advised him to assume the Monarchy but wisely suggested to him that he should not make his sudden passions and single will the Laws and Edicts of his Empire but to provide a Graver Senate that should be his Grand Council in the important affairs of Government a Consulting with whom would add Weight and Solemnity to his Imperial Sanctions but then he added this Politick caution that he should never grant the people that dangerous favour to Elect the Members of this Senate for then says he your Empire will be exposed to Popular Factions and Tumults every Election will ferment the humors of the Populacy and occasion such Convulsions in the State that you will never be secure of any safety at home or Glory abroad and therefore to prevent those fatal mischiefs it was his Counsel to Caesar that he should by the strictest enquiry search in all parts of his Dominions for men of the greatest Wisdom Integrity and Merit who could not be supposed to be Friends either to Tyranny or Anarchy and by his Imperial Authority to constitute these his great Council without any noise or ruffle to his Empire You know I am a Member of the Un-rebelling Church of England and if your amusing prospects of Futurity can suppose such a Monstrosity in Government as a Prince should use his Prerogative to destroy his Peaceable Subjects yet I would rather be ruined by the Diviner hand of a Monarch than be worried by the baser Tyranny of a Phanatick Common wealth Now since you have made Covenants and Associations to Ruin the Government of Church and State we are resolved to unite in the defence of both It is evident enough by your Plots and Petitions that you design another War and seeing nothing can be expected from another Triumphant Phanatick Army but the utter extirpation of the Monarchy and all the Loyal Nobility Clergy and Gentry we do therefore declare that we will speedily surnish our selves with Arms and Ammunition for us and our dependants and upon the first notice of a Rebellion we will repair to the Royal Standard resolving to make a short end of the Controversie and either to die in the Field and not to behold the Second Ruin of Church and State or else by a final Conquest to Purchase to this Nation an everlasting freedom from Phanatick insolence and disturbance and may that hand be held up at the Bar of an High-Court of Justice that will not subscribe this Union and Resolution FINIS