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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
power_n	king_n	law_n	positive_a	3,676	5	11.2679	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51089	A modest apology for the suspended bishops with a brief vindication of the address which was signed in their favour by the Grand-Jury of the county of Gloucester, at the last Lent assizes / by a gentleman of the said Grand-Jury.	Gentleman of the said Grand-Jury.	1690 (1690)	Wing M2358; ESTC R38872	21,535	34

and Men were so fully perswaded Nor are the Archives of our Senate destitute of Examples which being nearer ally'd to our Case are beyond Exception Among these that I may omit the dispensation which was lately afforded to the Quakers we have a proper instance in the Reign of the last King Charles when notwithstanding all the Tests Oaths and declaratory Provisions which were in true Prudence enjoyn'd in order to our Security against the encroachments of the Court of Rome and the design of her busie Emissaries Mr. John Huddleston for one approved act of Loyalty was excused the Obligation and discharg'd the Penalties of the Statute And therefore since in this World there is no exact perfection in the greatest Councils the most important Affairs of State being sometimes perform'd in such Rapid and Critical haste that 't is impossible to consult every particular Circumstance we readily acknowledge that if the Convention had among their many other serious and mature Performances copyed out any thing in favour to the Bishops as they would have introduced no new Custom so had we not been at the Labour of an Address I could add more but I choose rather to take up with the Rule prescribed by a great Casuist another learned Prelate of the Church * Bishop Taylors Rule and Exercise of holy Living Ch. p. 3.5.10 who tells us That we must not be too easie in examining the Prudence and Unreasonableness of human Laws for althô we are not bound to believe them all to be the wisest yet if by enquiring into the lawfulness of them or by any other Instrument we find them to fail of that Wisdom with which some others are ordained yet we must never make use of it to disparage the Persons of the Law-giver or to countenance any Mans disobedience I am sure our Holy Fathers the Bishops are of the same Opinion I shall therefore endeavour to apply our Proceedings and our Address to the same Topick The Address in few words was no other then the return of our Thanks to His Majesty for his repeated Assurances to maintain our Religion as by Law Established and for his Gracious Resolution to Grant to all his Subjects except such as in his Princely Wisdom he should distinguish from the rest his Gracious Pardon And we humbly prayed that the like favour might be extended to our Pious Bishops particularly our Diocesan that the incapacity they were then under by not taking the Oaths might no longer disable them from serving Their Majesties in their several Provinces It contain'd great deference to the Kings Royal Person Charity to the distressed Malice against none much less can it be arraign'd as a breach of the Law or deserve the Character that some hot Spirits have fix'd upon it as the product of a Papistical and factious Zeal In the discovery of this Truth I do appeal from the lofty Tribunal of our rash Criticks and bespeak the sober Judgment of the honest and impartial Reader We therefore in the first place own that we gave the public testimony of our Thanks to the King for his support of that Religion in the defence of which Cranmer and the other mitred Martyrs spent their precious Blood to which a Virgin Queen was solemnly espoused and of which our Suffering Bishops have made a good Confession Sure I am the Church of Rome hath the only cause to be sensibly touch'd and tormented at this Reflection nor can I judge but that the moderate Dissenters do in some measure congratulate with us For though many of our home-bred Pharisees did stifly presume that after the Ruine of our Establishment they should flourish under the Popes Influence and gain strange Advantages to the Protestant Faith from their new Patron yet their golden Hopes had put a notorious Cheat upon them Those Temporizers would have obtained no better Lot than what befel the crooked Camel in the Fable who being Heavens Favorite petitioned the Gods for Horns but Jupiter deriding his Pretence croped his Ears and made him ever after bare the Mark of his Presumption in a sanctified Dress The Moral is obvious and needs no Explanation We thought it also not unbecoming the Exercise of our Duty to thank his Majesty for a Pardon he design'd his Subjects yea we did not exclude the trimming Latitudinarians of the last Reign for we suppose their Consciences have sufficiently chastised their evil Extravagance Neither did we except against the other violent and brutish Addressors from whom King James received the like Homage which was paid to Mercury by the Heathen Sleepers viz. a Sacrifice of the Tongues of Beasts We insulted no Faction but calmly considered the Favor of our Prince and since an Amnesty was so seasonably tender'd by him we conceiv'd it would not have been construed in a vile Sense to desire his Majesty to include our Diocesan in the same Grace and to render some of the best Men in the World capable of his Service But in the Progress I now take I must be so just as to satisfie the most plausible Objection that thwarts our Proceeding Our Adversaries contend that for as much as our Case was already concluded by a positive Law a Statute having past a legal Disability and Suspension upon the Bishops the King must not be perswaded to break through the Obligation of an Act of Parliament the Consequence of which would be destructive of our Liberties and again exalt the exploded Idol of Arbitrary Power To this specious Offer we answer in the following Terms First We do observe that our Address was penned in the Session of Parliament and therefore it cannot with reason be supposed we would incur the Displeasure of that August Body In the next Place it is apparent that we design'd to thank his Majesty for no other Pardon than what he himself intended and prepared And was it not proposed by him to the two Houses with an Assurance they would pass it and that it should derive a just Solemnity from their Consent On this Account our Address was the irreprovable Witness of our Sincerity for after the King had discovered his gracious Intentions to them we paid our Tribute of Gratitude to the Royal Favor and desired him to extend the common Priviledge of his Mercy to our pious though suffering Bishops Certainly if this be Criminal or destructive either of Gods Honor or the Liberties of Human Society there is neither Justice on Earth nor Truth in Heaven for Vertue and Vice have lost their Names If our Adversaries are not yet satisfied but in the Burthen of their irreconcileable Animosity against our Prelates still say as I have often heard them maintain that it would have been more agreeable to the Usage of Parliament if one or both the Houses had first prepar'd and passed a Bill in Favor of the Bishops than that such an important Repeal should begin with his Majesty and descend to their Consideration as from the Authority and Force of his Will and

that therefore our Address ought rather to have been dedicated either to the Lords or Commons than to the King I must take the Liberty to assure the Managers of this bold but impertinent Cavil that they fail not of their usual Levity discovering as their gross Ignorance in the Customs of our Nation which entitle the King to be the Fountain of all Acts of Grace so likewise their profound Respects to his Majesty for by the Consequence of their Words they declare that the Duty and Intercourse between the Prince and People ought not to be reciprocal I need not tell them that neither of those honorable Houses had at that time given us the Cause I speak with respect to the first Dispatch and Draught of the general Pardon to return them those peculiar Thanks which made up the principal Frame of our Application to the King and that for this Reason they could not be the sutable and adequate Object of our Address but I answer that we addressed his Majesty in Parliament because he there challenges a supereminent Power and therefore if during the Session it is permitted to any private Person to petition either the Lords or Commons for a particular Redress shall it be accounted heynous that the Grand-jury who represented the Body of the County and faithfully delivered the true Sense and Desire of their Vicinage should make their humble Approaches to the King who is the Sovereign Head and supream Intendant of our Parliament This is in effect to declare that his Majesty hath a Chair of State placed in the House on no other account than that he may be curtail'd in Stature and appear less considerable than his many Servants who attend him Should any Dyet or Parliament in Christendom pursue the Latitude of this Doctrine and therefore refuse to attend a most Religious and Solemn Enterprize because the Prince doth first propose it to them they would be justly censured very positive and supercilious in their Determinations Examples of that Nature are very rare in well-disciplin'd Common-wealths and I know but one that doth exactly square to the Proceeding and this is related by * Euseb Histor Eccles. l. 2. c. 2. Eusebius out of an ancient Father of the Church and was a strange Violence against the standing Law of Moderation in great Councils the Story in short is to this effect After our Saviours Manifestation among the Sons of Men to whom by the exemplary Conduct of his triumphant Resurrection from the Dead he gave the most undeniable Proofs of his Divinity Tiberius in whose Time the Christian Name made its entry into the World communicated to the Senate an Account he had received out of Syria Palestine of this great Affair and having given his own Suffrage to Christ's Divinity he desired them to enact it into a Decree and to register him in the Catalogue of the Gods But the lofty Senate disdaining to be instructed in a Business which concerned the Exercise of their own Power rejected Caesar's Motion and would not place our Saviour in their Festival Calendar because they had not first approv'd the Matter before the Emperor perswaded them to it This you may say was a brisk Maintenance of Priviledge against the Torrent of Prerogative and I must I confess admit it but in a Sense that takes away the Authority not only from the Person but from the Doctrine of our Saviour and seems to render unto the People the things which are Caesar's and unto Sathan the things which are Gods and I hope the Example will have no tolerable Sway in the Christian World It is our Comfort that the English Parliament though they have a just Pretence to a great Power in conjunction with their Prince do not affect such an unseasonable Grandeur which would disappoint the Success of his Majesties Piety So that what Monsieur Talôn speaks in Flattery of the aspiring Lewis we may conclude most true of King William that to our August Monarch nothing is impossible especially when he endeavors the Intersts of Heaven I am sure his Favor to the Bishops will not lead him out of the way thither The Kings of England and this the express Words of their Coronation Oath contain are invested with a Power to execute Justice in Mercy and as they carry an High Court of Chancery in their Breasts so may they by their indulgent Grace and especial Favor abate some rigorous Extremities of the Law This has ever been one of the Flowers of their Prerogative to which no others can pretend and it is as truly annext to their Crown as the Royal Dignity to their Persons This Power hath been often exerted by them in a various manner when the Necessities of State or their own Royal Pleasure required it but it is then render'd more conspicuous when it is published for the common Benefit and Security of the Nation and does in order to the quieting the Minds of the Subjects dispense with the Frailties Errors and Miscarriages of the People Such an important Grant of Clemency is capable of a twofold Management for when the Prince doth design a general Amnesty he sometimes issues forth his gracious Declaration of Free Pardon or if he Judges it more necessary and expedient or more agreeable to some weighty Circumstances he recommends the Affair to the Consideration of his Parliament which in most submissive Terms doth either propose a Bill to his Royal Assent or else receives a Draught of Pardon from him with such Ceremony as is expressive of their Gratitude This latter Method hath been used by his present Majesty and by the whole Proceeding our Adversaries may be soon convinced what an Authority the Sovereign bears in the two Houses For when some Lords who were excepted in the Act of Grace did move in Parliament that they might be heard by their Council in order to give their Reasons why they should partake of the Benefit of the Act their Motion was not approv'd nor was their Request allow'd them I must not presume to render the Reasons which prevailed with the Honorable House to dismiss their Petition having not had the Oportunity to examine the Records but I suppose from the Information I have casually received from judicious Persons that those Noble Peers did not petition in the regular direct and customary Order for his Majesty who best understood his own Resolutions sent down his Pardon to the Lords House not to be alter'd or enlarged but to be passed into a Law so that the Petitioners ought in that case to have addressed the King who as he is the Life of Justice so is he the Fountain of Mercy I cannot therefore but pity the extream Weakness of their Judgments who pretend to maintain that our Grand jury did not pursue a right Course when they made their Application to the King in the Behalf of the Bishops for by this Assertion they seem to bare no Regard to the Authority of Presidents but speak against the Voice of