Selected quad for the lemma: power_n
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A41395
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Good and seasonable advice to the male-contents in England shewing that it is neither the duty, nor the interest of the people of England to re-call the late King.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing G1035A; ESTC R2519
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5,570
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4
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subverted and trampled under foot when the King would Govern no longer as a King of England then sure his Government ceased when the Father of our Country became the greatest Enemy of it when our Governour was turned our destroyer when our Bulwarks were our batteries and our Canons which should have pointed at our Enemies were levelled at our selves when our King deserted us without any just fear or danger leaving us to the mercy of a disbanded though not not a disarmed Army and chose rather to go off the Stage than comply with Justice and to decide the quarrel by a Battle rather than a Parliament alienating his Kingdom and putting himself under the conduct of a Foreign Prince who is the greatest Enemy to our Church and Nation when he resigned his Power and withdrew both his Person and his Seals that we might have no Government when he went about to Enslave and Sell us were we not obliged to look to our own safety and preservation though it was by ways and methods inconsistent with his Authority Nay farther did not he himself submit to our present King by offering to him his Palace by going under his Guards and disbanding his Army But to this you 'l say his desertion was involuntary and he did design to come again But to this I answer That the Proposals of our present King were so fair the perswasions of the Popish party so importunate that his force was from himself and he withdrew himself voluntarily but if he did design to return was it that he might settle and provide for the Nations safety did he design to return without borrowed Forces from France to ruin our Properties and Laws and destroy the Reformed Established Religion But we shall be better satisfied if we consider the nature of our English Monarchy which is not boundless but limited for our Charter is not our Princes Sword nor his Will our Law. Our King is not absolute and this appears because the Legislative power is not lodged in his hands our Government being a mixture of Monarchy in the King Aristocracy in the Peers and Democracy in the Commons 'T is no new thing that the Nobles and Commons of England should remove Kings from the Government when necessary to prevent a general Ruin otherwise inevitable for tho we must render to Caesar the things that are Caesars I hope the constitution of our Country are to determine what the things of Caesar are But some will Object and say That if the Kings Zeal for his Religion was so great that it made him uncapable of Governing a Protestant Kingdom according to the Laws why might not he still have retained the Title of KING and the Prince of Orange have been Regent To this I Answer First That a King without Power cannot be much at his ease and his struggle for it must end in destroying the Regency or the Regent or else he must have been imprisoned which how ungrateful it would have been to his nature we may easily imagine besides the fatal consequence which might attend it a Princes Prison not being many steps from his Grave Secondly The setting up a Regent would be as direct a violation of the Oath of Allegiance as a submission to the present settlement for we are bound to maintain his Prerogative as well as his Title Having now shewed that it is not our Duty to recall the Late King I shall now go on to shew that it is not our interest and shall address my self to those who at present seem the most disaffected in the Nation and the most desirous of it and because I am sure you are well affected to the Church of England I would desire to know what security you could propose to her in restoring the late King when you see what regardless trifles Oaths and Promises are when Popery is in the other Scale the King's Conscience is managed by a hot-brain'd Jesuit when you see how insignificant all limitations by Laws is when claim is laid to a Dispensing Power you cannot suppose he 'll grant himself to be stript of his Power and without that you can have no security can you think he will discard his old Friends who have stuck so close to him and for whose sakes he freely quitted his Kingdoms and if he does not what a pretty posture will you be in besides by what branch of your Oath are you empowered to make conditions with your King What assurance can you have that he will esteem your services if you do not go through stitch with him since you have many and fresh examples of those whose being only Protestants was enough to cancel all the obligations they could lay claim to and all the pleas of merit for their former services What if he did make guilded offers of Favour and Protection that is but natural for all men in Affliction to make to those by whom they expect to be relieved but the Point once gained they are seldom ever thought of but it is so far from this that the late King and his Adherents stick not to declare That if he regains his Kingdoms the whole Design of Popery and Arbitrary Government shall return upon us with more Fury than ever besides he dares trust none nor will he thank any if he rise to his Throne but his Catholick Subjects as he calls them Can you heartily fight for that Cause which if you are true Protestants you dare not wish success to I doubt not but the most of you look upon the pretended Prince of Wales to be a Sham and an Impostor and will you draw your Swords against the Lawful Heiress and Successor which is included too in the Oath of Allegiance for one whom you have all the Presumptions imaginable to believe is supposititions can you assist him in that Baâ—barous Act of depriving his own Children of the Hereditary Rights of Succession only because they were of your own Perswasion and ruine the Church of England and the happy Constitution of our English Government I am sure whatever severities our Religion requires you to suffer from Popery when in possession it does not oblige you to contribute to the bringing of it in Will you then voluntarily run into Confusion and put your Necks into the Yoke of Tyranny meerly for the sake of one who has done his utmost Endeavours to ruine and enslave us Do you think your selves obliged to enable him to crantch and tear in pieces as many as he pleases and execute all the direful Effects of his enraged Fury for he cannot return without destroying at least ten parts of his People and when that is done his Kingdom and Himself would be but a PREY to a more powerful Neighbour Sure we are no ways commanded to put Swords into Mad-mens hands as oft as we find them disarmed or enjoyned to hang our selves for the diversion and sport of Fools and Knaves and sure we must not choose Misery when we have the greatest Appearances possible that GOD by his Providence works effectually and miraculously for our Delivery In a word do not sacrifice your greatest Interests to an empty Formality do not desire the Storm to return heavier upon us do not court Slavery and Servitude and fall in Love with Fetters be not so misled with the narrow Notions of an unbounded Loyalty as to oppose and dislike our present Happy Settlement And now I address my self to the other Party who though they may not contribute to bring in the late King with their Swords will by their Divisions if not abated It was the Civil Discords of our Ancestors which brought our King and Country under the Subjection of the Roman Emperor and I am sure your violent Heats about Religion if continued will at last bring our Church under the Vassalage of the Roman Bishop It is now unseasonable for little Scruples to weigh so far with you as to break the Peace of the Church about them and endanger our whole Religion and that we should now be taking one another by the Throats for an hundred pence when our Common Adversary stands ready to clap on us an Action of a thousand Talents would you be content that rather than the Surplice should not be turned out Popery should again come in would you exchange our Liturgy for the Mass-Book and rather than receive the Sacrament kneeling swallow Transubstantiation Will you still continue to take Advice from those you know wish us no good and will you be their Instruments to do their Work for them whom you pretend the most you hate You may make as loud Pretensions as you will of your Hatred to Popery but while you continue these Fends and Animosities you only make a broad Gap for it to enter and so to make us once again Slaves and Miserable LONDON Printed and are to be Sold by Randal Taylor near Stationers-Hall 1689.
Good and Seasonable ADVICE TO THE Male-Contents in England SHEWING That it is neither the Duty nor the Interest of the People of England to Re-call the Late King. Licensed June 28th 1689. AMong the many Revolutions that have been there was never any more Miraculous Cheap and Easy and some Months ago less thought of than the late Deliverance of this poor Bleeding Kingdom and yet no Blessing has ever been less thankfully received by those who have had the greatest share in the benefit of it So great have been the manifold Blessings from time to time conferred on this undeserving Nation that nothing can be more Miraculous but our Ingratitude and one would think it should be no hard task to recommend that Duty to men which is so inter-woven in their Natures that without offering great violence to them they cannot but embrace and there are few but must think it strange that it should be necessary for any Pens to be imployed to let the Nation know that she is now happy when her Prosperity is as discernible as the recovery of a Mans health and strength is after a long and irksome disease But before I proceed I shall say two or three things which may remove prejudices and First I declare I am a passionate Lover both of Monarchy and the Church of England whose Interests are so mixt together that whatsoever strikes at one must be fatal to the other Secondly I have no secret disgust to the Person of the late King to alienate my affections from him but do heartily pity him and condole those misfortunes he has taken such pains to draw himself into I am neither conscious of any angry resentments of the unjust sufferings of the Members of my Communion nor have the losses I have sustained on his account bred in me any discontent with my present Circumstances Nor Thirdly Have I any ambitious designs any time serving-ends to bend my Inclinations to a concurrence with the present happy Revolution First then let us descant a little on the Doctrine of Passive-Obedience and Non-Resistance that there is such a Duty as Passive-Obedience which may have its use in several Cases is most certain for if not then there can be no Rebellion in Nature and men are to submit to many tolerable inconveniences to the publick and intolerable prejudices to their own private Interests rather than retract their submission to the Supream Authority or disturb the Government but that Passive-Obedience taken in its largest Sense without any restriction is a Duty incumbent on us I deny Religion obliges no man to pay another more than he owes him and therefore why should we extend our Allegiance further than the Law carries it were this Doctrine true our Lives Religion Liberties and Properties are trivial precarious things we only enjoy at the Kings Discretion and during his Pleasure and so a whole Nation is by it offered as a Sacrifice to the lust and fury of one man who is either ill disposed himself or has evil Counsellors about him the KING and a few Villains about him may cut all the Throats and engross the whole Wealth of the Kingdom Had our practises continued sutable to what was dreaded was our Principles in all probability we had been by this no Church or Nation for we are not to expect God should work Miracles for our deliverance How can we defend our selves against any exorbitant Acts of the Kings private Will or a fatal Subvertion of the Government if we are disarmed and fettered by the Doctrine of Passive-Obedience and Non-Resistance What may not a King do and a People suffer if no Resistance may be used are we not justly accountable to God if we throw away that being which he hath given us when we might have preserved it by all Just and Lawful ways In short 't is a Doctrine to be found in no Church whatever being against the Law of Nature the Law of God and the Law of this Land. In the infancy of our Church there was no such thing heard of not till the Barbarous Murder of a good King made men run into the other extream and then it was abetted and maintained by some Court-Divines in order to magnify the Prerogative and made by our Enemies an Engine to settle Popery the easier and shorten the work of our Enemies I grant we are not to turn Monarchies upside down to make whole Kingdoms swim in Blood and by force of Arms to introduce our Religion in a State or Kingdom where it is not Settled and this was the Case of the Primitive Christians who suffered where the Laws of the Empire were in Force against them and Paganism by Law Established they valued not their Lives or Estates they had no Liberty and desired no Property but betwixt them and us there is no parallel we have Estates and desire to entail them on Posterity we are in a Kingdom wherein our Religion is become our Property and is as firmly Established as Laws can make it and we should have been the greatest villains in the World should we either have thrown away the Legal Security it had or not have interposed as far as we were able when the Subversion of it was attempted Secondly Let us see how far the Oath of Allegiance obliges us to Re-call the late King and as to this part tho' I would have all men to be sollicitous to satisfy and quiet their consciences yet I would not have them to be too scrupulous and squeamish for can we think that an Oath can cancel all former obligations and that God will so punctually insist on the obligation of it when at the same time it interferes with the great Duties we owe to Him to our Religion and our Country and if of two evils we must choose the least is it not better to preserve our Religion than to assist to root it out for the sake of an Oath which in the opinion of all men not prejudiced must seem unlawful and better broken than kept since we cannot be just to it and to our Religion too If the Oath was to be taken in the utmost extent the Words would bear there would appear manifest contradictions that would lye in a mans Duty If Protection and Allegiance are reciprocal and the one failing wholly the other falls along with it Then since the late King is neither able nor ever was willing to Protect us our obligation ceases for the Oath the King swears to the People at his Coronation is the Foundation of that the People afterwards swear to the King and if the King doth not keep his Oath neither are the Subjects bound to keep theirs for it is conditional and limited and has Tacit Exceptions in it there being Duties to be performed on the one side as well as the other When then the constitution we swore to was dissolved when the compact on which Government is founded was broken when the Laws which gave him his Being and Power were