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	tyranny_n	2,707	5	9.6492	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48245	A letter written out of the countrey to a Parliament-man, in answer to a quære by him made, how the people generally stood inclined to the proceedings against the King, and the intended change of government		1649 (1649)	Wing L1767; ESTC R4717	7,284	12

Treaty that the Army suspected their kingdom almost at an end and with sadnesse foresaw that they must return into their former condition this made them look upon the Petitioners as their onely Enemies and assault and slay them accordingly which must either divert them from their desires of Peace or animate them to revenge and so make them lawfull Enemies either of which would conduce to their ends So now that the Counties are forced to lay aside their Petitions and all men betake themselves to their private groans under the continuance of an unsettled Government these plausible pretenders to severity against the occasioners of War will arraign the King and murder him thereby to perpetuate the divisions of the three Kingdoms and so continue all power in their own hands which is all that I can perceive of the necessity of a change As for the lawfulnesse thereof by your enquiry into the inclinations of the people you seem to expect the decision of right from them and the subject of your curiosity is unjust and you appeal to an incompetent Judge for the people joyntly taken have no power to determine matters of that nature nor taken individually have they understanding your quaere therefore is preposterous in matter and form and you might have saved your self and me a labour if you had made your application to the proper Oracles the Scripture and the Laws for information I suppose then you desire not herein to know what you ought to do but what may carry applause whether well or ill done and so seek not to please God but men Not to leave you therefore unsatisfied in this I must tell you that many Jesuiticall attempts have been made in this and all the neighbour Counties first by false suggestions and scandalous imputations to detract from the honour of the King and represent him to the abused multitude unworthy of the Government and then the hands of some vagabonds have been by the sollicitation of factious Ministers affixed to Petitions and tendred at the publick Sessions to be countenanced as the generall Act of the County But although it be an error in Politicks to suppose any appeal ought to be made to a people once subjected to government I dare presume if any such unjust way of tryall were practised in this part of the Kingdom an hundred voices for one if not awed by force would appear for a peaceable settlement under our former Government rather then to embroyl the Kingdom in a perpetuall War for the secret ambitious ends of some few particular persons nowise qualified nor authorised to make a change As for your self and the rest of the Members now sitting whilest you were two Houses and those entire the People although generally unsatisfied with your proceedings yet reverenced the name of Parliament and therein was your security but now that the Lords House hath deserted you except some few inconsiderable persons notorious either for their pusillanimity folly or ingratitude and the greatest part of your own Members either banished imprisoned terrified or prudently forbearing to receive the Law from their mercenaries and bind the Kingdom with their Enthusiasmes that an handfull of you should sit and not onely call your selves a Parliament but exclude the King and Lords and usurp to your selves the legislative power and therefore beleeve it properly your own because you have so Voted it is a frensy that I once thought could not have entred within those wais Your arguments are in brief these That You represent the People and That all Power is originally in the People and thence you raise your dangerous superstructures The misunderstanding or mis-application at least of that vulgar and true saying Salus populi suprema lex hath led you and others into error from whence I am sure you have capacity enough to be rescued Know therefore that Populus fignifieth the whole State that is the King and Lords as well as the common People Now as the word People fignifieth the whole body of the Common-wealth the King is properly the sole Representative of the people and all their power is placed in him as to make War or Peace to raise Moneys for the maintenance of War to execute the Laws to treat with forraign Princes and the like The Members of Parliament are Representatives of the People for particular matters as to present new Laws to be made or old to be repealed by the King which plainly sheweth where the legislative Power resideth to represent the aggrievances of the people or prefer their desires and in short to appear for the people of the respective Counties and Corporations summoned by the King to consult upon matters of publick concernment These Counties and Corporations they have not that power which you pretend for that were to make the government Anarchicall under a Monarch nor can they derive more to you then themselves have Again suppose the power were as you pretend in the People it must be understood in the major part of the people and consequently in the major part of the Representatives but with what colour of equity can an inferior number of factious men invite an Army to seclude their fellow-Members and in their absence not onely make Laws to binde the whole Kingdom but alter the Government already established and referre us to the wandring expectation of some others to be revealed hereafter in a dream It hath been the prudent care of our forefathers so to respect the proper end of Government which is The peace and safety of a people as to make choice of Monarchy the best of Governments because least subject to division and confusion Now because there cannot be that form of Government found out which by reason of the inseparable corruption of mans nature is not subject to abuse and the abuse of Regall power is tyranny they have therefore to secure their posterity from the arbitrary power of Princes erected that high Court of Parliament which is so happily composed that we are thereby protected from all excesse for as the King cannot Enact or Repeal any Law without the consent of the two Houses which preventeth all tyrannicall attempts so neither can the Houses without the King which secureth us from Anarchy and confusion for if the legislative power were singly in either it might be misapplyed to the disadvantage of the other which would consequently discompose the peaceable constitution of our Kingdom so then if the Regall Power encroach upon our right we have redresse by way of complaint in Parliament But if you usurp the supreme Power to your selves and either you or your Army tyrannise over us from whom shall we expect relief Which seadeth me to the next Consideration of the advantage which can hereby accrew to the generality of the Commons of England and wherein that can consist I confesse ingeniously I am not wise enough to understand Our Religion shall either be imposed at the will of the prevailing party and consequently be alterable

with every variety of fortune or else we shall be left every one to the latitude of his own conscience which will be apt to lean and by as toward ambition lust and avarice as by the sad experience of these times we are too well taught Our Laws you say shall be purged and digested into a new Modell but to what end I discern not unlesse it be that our ancient Laws as likewise our ancient Religion are diametrically opposite to your usurpations for the same cause it is thought fit to destroy our flourishing Universities to expose them to the Visitation of illiterate men to root out those hopefull Plants of Divine and Humaine Sciences and in their places to nourish spirits of ignorance and faction hereby you endeavour as much as in you lyeth to captivate the very understandings of us and our posterity This peece of Reformation you borrowed from Jack Cade and Watt Tyler whose wisdom thought it not fit to suffer any pen and inkhorn-men to live Wherein then shall this change of Government appear beneficiall to us is it that you will have a greater care of our protection indeed Absolon promised as fair if he were king and we are pretty well acquainted with your performances But to clear the matter we are not ignorant That Government is to be maintained by the same means by which is acquired if then you usurp it from the successe of your Army you must keep a constant Army on foot to defend your possession and then the benefit of the people is in short no other then this a perpetuall Impofition upon their estates to maintain this Army a lasting War with Scotland and Ireland who being not concluded by your Votes will doubtlesse submit to their lawfull Prince a defyance of all the power of Christendom which as it was wont to unite by Croysades against the Turke will without doubt look upon you as the greater usurpers and the more dangerous disturbers of all fundamentall Government in as much as you make way to these your designes by the height of Rebellion Perjury and forfeiture of Trust and finally an unavoidable danger to their persons and estates if they resist your assumed power and a contracting to themselves your guilt and the punishment due to it in this world and the next if they tamely submit But you presume that the head City will be a leading case to the rest of the Kingdom yet this may possibly deceive you for we cannot see why they should so readily contribute Commissioners to sit upon the ●ife of their Soveraign and thereby perpetrate to the Kingdome an exhausting Civil Warre whose change of fortune may by the tryall of one single battell subject them to the implacable fury of a revengefull Successor who will punish their exemplary defection with fire and sword unlesse they had some assurance given them of exemption from future disbursements or at least the leading men a share of the spoil if they will act the coy Duck to betray the rest of the Kingdom into slavery Thus if we look upon their blindnesse we cannot think them fit for our example or if upon their self ends we shall not trust them But you have the Law in your hands you have an Army that hath wonit by the Sword and shall inforce it I will not bestow the pains to shew you how improper it is for a Kingdom to subdue it self how ungodly it is for an Army although composed of Saints to plead victory over the power that raised them how impossible it is to conquer those that fought not against you such is my case and I dare affirm the same of one half of the Kingdom If for all this you are not to be turned from your purposes consider at least as rationall men with what difficulties you are to encounter in the compassing of those ends which you propose Your first obstacle is the Kings life but over that you plead a right because a power God hath given him into your hands and your illuminations direct you to destroy him Yet he delivered Saul into the hands of David you know the rest of the story is it not possible that the spirit which thus familiarly converseth with you may be a spirit of revenge a spirit of ambition aspirit of madnesse The safest way to try the spirit is by Gods Word he never gave that Authority to the Israelites his own people with whom he conversed face to face nay the hand that cut off although a wicked King never yet went unpunished and if an Angel from heaven should teach a Doctrine contrary to the revealed Word we are commanded to account him accursed If the impiety of the act deferre you not yet as men who would seem to represent the Nation be more tender of its honour remember that the putting of the Q. of Seots to death in Q. Elizabeth's time although for Treason pretended against her Majesties Person layed the foulest ignominy upon this Nation that ever it sustained because therein was violated the Law of Nations but how shall we stink in the nostrils of all the world if contrary to the direct precepts manicipall the nationall the morall and the Divine Law we shall attempt such a horrid and barbarous impiety There is nothing I suppose doth more precipitate you into the gulf of desperation then that Machavillian rule of securing your former ills from punishment by attempting greater you think as well you may that you have offended beyond forgivenesse I easily grant that your forfeitures have been great but whether it is not more probable that His Majestie who I am confident hath made his peace with God a principall step whereunto is forgivenesse should pardon and forget your insults past then that the Prince who is tyed in honour to vindicate a Fathers death should let you escape unpunished I leave to your own judgement If your prosperity hath swelled you above all these respects yet consider you must propose some way of engaging the affections of your Nation fast to you for forced obedience will deceive you It is not probable that the Prince and His Alleys will sit as idle spectators of these your extravagancies that the Nobilitie of England will tamely suffer themselves to be prostituted to parity with the unqualified rable or that the Commons will be fond of any new Majesties under whom they can hope for no improvement of condition From these you can have no other imaginable security but by oath which being imposed by force and terror will peradventure be observed as long as that force is over them but whensoever an Army shall appear in the behalf of the King and his posterity you will finde your selves deserted and all men return to their originall duty and engagements and then you may be humbled to your former conditions and perish unpitied Thus in observance of your command I have delivered my minde freely I hope you will make use of it to your good and not to the prejudice of Your faithfull Friend FINIS