Selected quad for the lemma: power_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
power_n	king_n	law_n	sovereignty_n	3,188	5	10.8087	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87904	Sir politique uncased, or, A sober answer to a juggling pamphlet, entituled, A letter intercepted printed for the use and benefit of the ingenuous reader: in which the two different forms of Monarchy, and popular government, are briefly controverted. The Common-wealth party are advised not to buy this. By N.D. gent. By D.N. gent.	L'Estrange, Roger, Sir, 1616-1704.	1660 (1660)	Wing L1308A; Thomason E1019_5; ESTC R208281	8,470	16

thank himself I would fain learn from whence we date our Freedom Who has ABSOLVED US of our OATHS and DVTIES of ALLEGEANCE Did we not swear to the Late King and to his Heirs And can a Government be Altered but by Consent of all the Parties to it This is too much said upon a Subject not properly my Business I 'll proceed and wait upon him to his next Enquiry and that 's concerning Regulated Monarchy but so Embroyled 't is infinitely harder to Understand than to confute Of Regulated Monarchies Ours here in England is beholden to him he likes That best and gives his Reason Thus The Excellency of that Monarchy WAS that the Monarch without his Counsel could do no considerable thing By his fair Leave the Excellency of the GOVERNMENT he would have said for 't is the Imperfection of the Monarchy But why WAS Is it not de Jure still the same He prosecutes this Trayn of Errors yet with more All things were to be done in conjunction with his Counsel either that Grand one his Parliament consisting of Nobles and Commons or his Lesser Counsel consisting of Nobles chiefly c. Our Author I perceive is willing to confound Counsel and Authority Whereas to represent is one thing 't is another thing to Judge It is the Counsell's duty to propose and Advise according to their Reason but still it is the Monarch's part to Act according to his own without that Freedom the Prince is bound to Act in many Cases against his Conscience and his Assistants are become his Governours Not to insist upon the Gentleman's mistake in asserting All things to be done in conjunction with his Counsel This is too evident to need a refutation He spends his Two next Pages in dilating upon the Desire of Absolute Power in the Monarch and the Reserves or Acquisitions of the People where he Dashes the Kings Prerogative and the Privileges of Parliament the One against the Other Whereas the King hath some Prerogatives without a Parliament but the Parliament hath not so much as any Being without the King he being an essential of it To passe over his False-fires I shall come now to his main strength And thus it runs The Monarch cannot Rationally be thought to have other Business or Study than to confirm and establish the Monarchy to himself To this First Hee 's Entitled to the Government That pro concesso Next hee 's Entrusted in Order to the Publique Welfare to Uphold it and That not only in the Form but to Himself 'T were to Betray his Trust should he do Lesse As to the Appetite of Rule which as our Popular Champion will have it transports the Monarch into a dangerous elevation above the People That Restless impotency is much more Hazzardous in any other Government than in that of Monarchy For the Monarch's upper most already and rationally Ambition seeks rather to Raise it self Above all Others than when 't is at that Height still to exceed it self 'T is but a Glorious Envy which aspires till it be highest and there determines As there is lesse temptation from without so must the inclination be much calmer Greatnesse is native and familiar to the Monarch or in case any eagerness of Spirit should enstame him It spends self upon his Neighbours liberties rather than upon his Peoples and 't is extent of Empire abroad not enlargement of Prerogative at home he covets This is not to exempt the Person of a Prince from the srailties of a Man he may be vitious But that too with lesse mischief to the Publique than to Himself He ha's no private Ayms but what proceed from Principles nearer ally'd to Kindnesse then to Malice Now to examine the likely Incidences to popular Government and to proceed upon his Postulatum that in all men there 's an in bred appetency of Power That granted what can we expect from Persons of mean Fortunes and extraction invested with a title to Dominion but Bondage and Oppression The short is there are many men earnestly intent upon the same end spurr'd on by keen and craving Desires to make themselves Rich Great and these design to rayse their Fortunes and Reputations upon the Publique stock of blood and treasure At last when they have skrewed themselves up to that pitch of Power by force and craft where divine providence by birth had placed the single Person when after a sharp long and chargeable contest they have brought us within view but of the counterfeit of what we quietly enjoy'd before Ready to seize the sum of their own wishes and the dear-purchas'd Fruit of all their Labours they find that point which supports Soveraignty too narrow for them all too large for any one of them and as they climb'd together so they fall crush'd by those Hands and Principles that rais'd them We need not look far Back for instances what ha's obstructed our long-look'd-for Settlement but Competitours for a personal rule even among the Salus-populi-men themselves 'T is nobler at the worst to yeeld our selves a prey to a single Lyon than to a Herd of Wolves and that 's the Difference upon experiment betwixt the tyranny of one and of a hundred old Oliver and the Rump Methinks 't is a strange Confidence to Argue for a Cause confuted by the losse of so many Lives and Millions For these twelve years last past we have been Slaves to Tyrants Divided in design to supplant one another but still united to destroy the Nation under the gay amusement of a Free-state But I grow tedious The next thing I take notice of is very remarkable i. e. Our Author 's in the right he saies that From the Soveraignty there lies no appeal But then he follows that where a People will be ruled by a King they must give that King absolute Power to Govern No need of that sure neither the Soveraignty is in the King tho' in a Limited Monarchy which so attemper'd as that the People may not Rule in any Case nor the King singly by himself in All secures all Interests I must fix one note here before I passe Although our Author tells us that Absolute Monarchy is Unlawful and Regulated Dangerous neverthelesse he rather advises the former than the latter That which he terms Disconsonant to the Laws of God than the Other which he pronounces only Dangerous as related to the civil Good and Utility of the People This is the Method of the whole Party they decry first the Form it self as being too Tyrannical yet they condemn the Limited of Insufficience as to the Exercise of Government and the Absolute of Exorbitancy as to the end of it One has too much Liberty the Other too Little What is 't they offer in Exchange a Free-State of a Model ten times more Arbitrary and Pernicious When they have spent their Powder upon the Government for 't is but Powder their Shot is still directed to the Person Hinc ille Lacrymae

How have they courted the General whose Honesty is as Invincible as his courage to Accept of what these Paper-Kites so much disclaim against Our Grave Philosophising Monsieur he makes one too and tells us that Providence hath cast the Lot upon the Peoples side and the Monarch has lost if the people will exclude him Alas Good man the Congregation 's Holy every one of them Pretious Beagles to ascribe that to Providence which they owe to Perjury and Sacrilege Where 's your Prescription where 's your Title Enform the People by what Power they are Absolved from all their tyes of Conscience Honour Thankfulnesse and Piety Shew them the Laws their Fathers Purchased with their Bloods Preach to them out of Magna Charta There 's the Foundation of the Peoples Freedoms But Sir I ask you pardon The King 's a Woolf you say and all th' abjuring Saints are Lambs I warrant ye But by your leave once more you are absolutely of Opinion then not to admit the King by any manner of means Indeed you should do well not to Anticipate the Parliament it spoyls the project to play the Tyrant while you argue for the People Pray let the King come in if the next Parliament pleases I must be now a little serious for your next Paragraph has a spice of Conscience●●● the word I mean you would perswade the world that if the King comes in 't is neither Faith nor Honor nor Humanity nor all together can tye up his Revenge None so bold as blind Bayard does it hit you or not It would become you now to tell the People where ere he brake his Faith Nay I 'll content my self if you 'll shew me where ever your Phanatiques kept an Oath or Promise if they might gain the least by Breaking of it The Conversation of the Person you inveigh against is beyond all Exception Honorable and 't is in vain to misenform against an evident and contrary assurance Many of those very men that sought against him will witnesse for him both for his Courage and his Clemency His Prudence and his Piety are manifest in This that in despight of all Distresses and Temptations he stands Firm to his Temper and to his Conscience A Better Friend there lives not nor a Better Nature And this is He at last our Guilty Pamphleter bestows his Gall upon I am no stickler for Prerogative my Patience will hold out till the next Session but to see Majesty Invaded by a Private Hand the people Poyson'd by the same Instruments that destroyed the Prince all I can say is we 're tame Fools to suffer it But though his passion may be Troublesome our Author gives us some Diversion in his Argument and Kinder still he proves best company at last Kingly Government if not absolute he saies is Lame If absolute Destructive to the people Very good Help the Defect if that be all of the One or at least do not Impose upon us in another shape the possible Mischiefs of the Other Pray what 's the Difference as to our Security the Supreme Authority under a Popular Form or the same power under a Monarchique You 'll have your Popular Assembly the Judge Unquestionable of all Expediences and Dangers why not a Single person as well You say He may abuse that power and I say so may They For instance suppose they judge it fit to change the very Form what Hinders them or if they rather chuse to entayl the Government upon their own Families and to perpetuate themselves what Remedy It any they 're not Absolute if none we 're worse Here than Before The King cannot Betray the People's Trust these may What signifies your telling us that the King absolute is not bound to the Laws he shall make and by and by that contrary to the Monarchy this meaning Democracy makes not any one Law to which every individual person in the Assembly is not subject the whole Assembly indeed as it is the Soveraign power is unquestionable you say 'T is not the Persons but the Power we 're to consider Conjunctim they 're as litttle subject as the single Tyrant and possibly they 'll ne're dis-joyn they that can make what Laws they please will doubtlesse make this one of the number that their own Members shall be only tryable by their Peers and by that device they make themselves both Partyes and Judges To grant more than is needful be it that in a State of Quiet and Universal liberty such a Form might be admitted as our Contriver thrusts upon us but to attempt to force a Government that excludes nineteen parts of twenty of the people from the exercise of it and this upon a Nation pre-engaged by Oath and by a sad experience interessed against it How practicable or how prudent such a Proposal may appear to others I cannot say To me it wears the Face of a Design promoted by a factious guilty Party to sacrifice the Nation to their private interests and despayres And yet such is the charity of our Author he reckons all the miscarriages of these late years in Government but as foul way upon a Journey and bids us not conclude against our Inne at Night because the Passage was dirty This is according to his wonted tenderness Now to my Phansy it looks rather thus We have been hitherto misled our very Guides have robb'd us and yet they bid us follow them still they 'll bring us into Paradise at last whither they 'll carry us we know not wee 're in the Bryars at present we know the way home again what have we then to do but to return Our Authors little Reasonings concerning Trade are trivial I shall refer him to the Merchants for his Answer They are the fittest Judges in the Case They have try'd war and peace Monarchy and Popular Government let them say which they like best His Pen begins to run a little muddy and what I do not understand I 'm not oblig'd to answer Something he talks of Peace abroad and of the Motives to it which he pronounces to be Advantage and no Body denies it This does not hinder because the Reasons of the Peace betwixt the Crowns of France and Spain might properly result from a Particular Conveniency of State betwixt them that therefore the effects of that Agreement cannot referr to Vs They 're more at Leisure now nay there 's a high necessity incumbent upon them to send abroad those Forces which otherwise would be both Expensive and Dangerous at Home not to presse other arguments of themselves obvious to hasten our Composure even for that very Cause that they 're Agreed I presume not to direct as our Imperious Common-wealths-man does but as one Private Person I pretend to Reason the Opinions of another submitting still my Judgment to any Legal Determination or Rational Conviction Touching the King of Spain's Design to Propagate the Romish Religion we 're the securer for that very desigu if wee unite upon the Basis of the English Law The meer Antiperistasis preferves us whereas If we compell that Person who by divine Assignment and Civil Right is our undoubted Soveraign to employ Foreign Succours to recover his Dominions It may be feared and 't is but Reason that Spain will Article for some concessions in Favour of the Catholiques more than otherwise would possibly be granted to them where the Fault lies in case of this extremity let the People Judge ' Blesse us what a Fit of Piety has taken our Friend now of a sodain he calls in the Ministers for his Compurgators and desires them to declare what Government hee 'l feed their Flocks in the mean while Indeed these Pulpit-Politiques are not amisse The Priests shall tell us what Government fits their Reformation Pray Sir let me help you out a Closs upon the Covenant does your Businesse 't is but to tell the people that in the Holy Tongue KING signifies COMMONWEALTH and the work is done The Gentleman begins now to Rumble and Talke Idle and in effect he 's drawing home But first he recommends the Nurcery and Education of his Brat-project even unto any Kinde and Powerful hand that will promote it From hence he passes into a Quaint Resemblance of the state of the Nation to a man in a Feavour and the People in Grosse to a Restive Horse with a Galled Back and so commiting the issue to the Lord the man Departs His thoughts and mine do not agree what ere the matter is His Conceit is this The Nation 's mad and Prompted by false appetite covets things Mischievous that is Monarchy the Wise and Charitable Physitian that is the Commonwealths-man hee forces upon it what he knows to be more proper for the Cure and this is a Free-State Now here 's our difference I 'm of opinion that the Physitians are mad the Nation sober we 've try'd their Physick for some dozen years together and every day we 're worse then other upon it although we finde upon Experiment that they prescribe us Poison instead of Remedies and that they are but Mountebanks they Live by Killing us Our Former Diet agreed much better with our Constitution we have no way left but to fall to That again But to conclude his conceit of a Jadish People with a Gall'd Back That 's his Master-piece He tells us it will neither suffer a Rider nor a Dressing till it be overcome by force and then a Child may up and Ride it These are somewhat broad signes Now by your favour Sir the Faults not in the Horse but rather in the Rider and the Saddle the Nation ha's been Ridden these 12. years together at Switch and Spur and in a Commonwealth-Saddle That must needs pinch the Back of a Monarchical people Nor will it be yet so Tame as you imagine Change but the SADDLE and the RIDER and you shall see the Nation will do well without a Horsleech FINIS Pag. 2. Ibid. Ibid. Ior. 27. 1 Sam. 24. Pag. 2. Pag. 3. Pag. 3. Ibid. Pag. 4. Pag. 5. Page 6 Page 7. Nota. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Page 8. Ibid. Pag 9. Ibid. Ibid. P. 10. P. 11. Ibid. P. 12. Pag. 12. Ibid. Pag. 13.