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	people_n	tyranny_n	2,786	5	9.5807	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A81460	The difference between an usurper and a lawfull prince, explained in their several characters, for the satisfaction of all men.		1657 (1657)	Wing D1418; Thomason E902_2; ESTC R206755	5,485	13

be to a whole Nation we may conclude that it cannot be the interest of any lawful Prince that makes a Nation miserable but onely the necessities of him that must alwayes maintain thousands of as bad people as himself to seize upon the Persons and Sequester the Estates of whomsoever their interest leads them to seem to be affraid of for the disturbance of their ill-gotten power And if we consider the education of hereditary Princes we shall find them put into the best Masters hands that can be found to infuse Wisdome Learning Piety and an high sence of honour into them with so great a care that they must be natural fools or persons of extraordinary abilities And Machiavil himself teacheth them to be no more wicked then needs must and therefore his Rules are more appliable to an Usurper then a lawful Prince who having a great reverence and power legally invested in him hath more interest then any other person in the preservation of those mutual Laws between him and his people in a regulated and mixt government and we finde in our Civil Wars of England that they flowed more from usurpation then any other cause though those Usurpers could not be so cruel who had but one or two Competitors as he must be who hath thousands And to speak a little of the excellent constitution of our Laws we finde they did almost provide for all hazards for though the Militia were solely in a single person for the more ready common defence yet the armes were in the Countrey-mens hands by the name of Trained bands who were not obliged to any duty out of their own Countrey that there might be almost an impossibility of drawing a power together to enslave the People without their consents especially since these Trained bands were commanded neither by Courtiers nor necessitous strangers but Lord Lieutenants and Deputy Lieutenants of their own Countrey who were men of too great fortunes and interest in their Countrey to contribute to the enslaving of it and their own posterity together And the Civil parts of our Government appear no less excellent then the Military for as the liberty of our Persons and Estates are provided for by frequent and Free Parliaments who onely could dispose of our purses as appears by Magna Charta and other excellent Laws so lest Parliaments themselves should usurp a perpetual and unlimited power of a many-headed and immortal Tyrannie which they are as naturally apt to grow to as Kings as they are men a negative power was alwayes thought necessary to remaine in the worst of our Kings when the people had them at the greatest advantages lest a faction of subtle and ambitious ill people should delude a Parliament with their premeditated speeches or by the help of force procure suddain and destructive Votes to all our Laws and Liberties for the advancement of their own Autority For our Ancestors knew they had so well provided for our lives liberties and properties that it was more our own concernment to preserve our good old Laws already established then the making of any new ones could be to us and though Parliaments are the best Conservators of Liberty yet all grant unlimited Councells are subject to decline into Factions and confusion which is he worst of Tyrannies for we will suppose what we have formerly seen is like to be so again and to go no farther for an example the late long Parliament before it had quite subdued the King was divided into a Presbyterian and Independent Faction and had not the Army proved all Independent we had seen those sparks of a war which were then kindled grow to a great flame And were there a free and absolute Independent Parliament experience hath taught us that we are to expect no less animosity between the Independents and Anabaptists and other subdivisions of Sects who would take part with the weaker Faction for the pulling down of the stronger as all those did that sheltred themselves under the name of Independents against the Presbyterians and as they had formerly done against the Episcopal party And it must be alwayes thus for interest will make use of zeal to drive on Confederacies and if one Faction have the major part in a Vote one day the other will find opportunities to unvote it another day either by a new state of the Question or getting earlier into the House or by corrupting of some or watching the absence of others of their adversaries till their animosities grow from contradictory Votes to Declarations Proscriptions Seisures and at last to blows with the miseries that attend them And thus we see how our Laws Liberties and Peace it self may be voted from us in a tumultuary hast if there be not a negative to this absolute power which is so much the worse the more avaritious interests it consists of though it were onely for the oppression without danger of confusion which our Ancestors knew to be so much the worst of all evils that they preferred the worst of hereditary Princes before the best new elected person or form of Government that must be maintained with an oppressing force and many successive Quarrels And now I shall desire all men to consider the obligation that every honest man hath to any particular contract with his Neighbour and how much greater that must be to all men of honour Religion or Morall honesty which involves all interests as certainly that implicite reciprocall contract between a People and their lawful Governour or Governours doth which is or ought to be confirmed by the solemnity of mutual Oathes since there can be no security or protection of all interests where subjects are not obliged to an active as well as a passive obedience of their Superiours For the office of Governours is to protect the lives liberties and estates of all their subjects against any forreign or domestick power that would usurpe upon them But if every particular person will judge when it is fit to obey or assist his Governour according to the rule of his own interest the whole government can be but a mockery and men can have no more security or property then beasts where the stronger prey upon the weaker at their pleasure And our Laws which are grounded upon Religion and reason do give us a clear evidence of this in case of murder where any man that hinders not a single murther is made an accessary and how much greater must the obligation be in case of Treason that comprehends so many murthers rapines and miseries of all sorts that the same Laws do ruine the posterity of Traytors for their offences and with very great reason for they that attempt to dissolve a legally established Government by force though they were sure they intended a better form are still the worst of men For since mens reasons are weak and various and all forms of government disputable in themselves and that men do naturally oppose any thing they are unjustly compelled to how reasonable soever in it self such Usurpers can hope for nothing but to entail distractions with their many consequent calamities upon their Countrey for many ages till the memory of the security and liberty they have lost be quite worn out of the Nation And if the possession of any such ill-gotten power shall be pretended to make it lawful it is such an incouragement to the highest of all sorts of villanies that no real Christian can have the impudence to argue a thing so destructive to the property of all good men And to conclude let every man examine how positively the word of God obligeth us to obey the higher powers and whether Saul a wicked King and Cyrus a heathen were not called his anointed Let us know that we are not to dissolve all bonds of humane safety at our pleasure by making our selves judges of those whom we have consented to be our Judges when and how we ought to obey them for our publick defence though God did never intend those texts for the protection of the immediate subverters of the lawfull authority they are subject to which all men of Conscience and honour are as much bound with their lives and fortunes to obey out of possession as in it since that can less alter a publick right then any other claime And since God who could have planted the Christian Religion by the Sword declined this way it is evident that he is called the Lord of such Hosts as are for the defence of common right and the protection of innocents against their oppressors and onely such souldiers are men of an universal charity and the true men of honour for all the rest are monstrous Thieves Murderers betrayers of their Countrey and enemies of man kind whosoever neglects a seasonable opposition of such opposers and betrayers of their Countreys trust are accessaries to all its Bloud Rapine and Slavery FINIS

THE DIFFERENCE Between AN USURPER And a LAWFULL PRINCE EXPLAINED In their several Characters for the satisfaction of all men Printed in the year 1657. THE CHARACTER OF AN USURPER That hath no Title at all AN Usurper without any Title is one that necessitates himself to be alwayes a Tyrant For as a Thief after some few notorious detected Robberies knows he must alwayes remaine an Out-law so he that usurpes a power with a Faction or part of the people to dispose of the Lives Liberties and Fortunes of a whole Nation at his pleasure knows himself to be so publick a Robber and exasperater of all interests that he is necessitated to hate the Laws that would punish him and by consequence those people most who are most zealous for their preservation That is to say all people that have Fortunes to be prey'd upon and all who have reputation and interest in their Countrey to disturb him and all who conscienciously adhere to former rules contracts protestations oathes and agreements for liberty of their fortunes persons or Consciences For self-preservation will as necessarily teach him to hate as to fear all these though perhaps they are too many to feel the effects of his displeasure all at once But to oppose all these enemies he must fortifie himself with people of as contrary tempers principles and interests that is with such as have no reputation fortunes or religious principles that they may neither care nor fear to seize on the persons or fortunes of any honest men or cut their throats for their Masters or their own advantage who is to raise himself and them to greatness out of other mens ruines he must have so great an Army of such impious desperate persons to secure his ill-gotten Power that they are seldom to be found in any one Nation but he must at last be forced after the raising of one Militia and then finding most of them unfitting for his ends to raise new Guards for the securing of his interest and in conclusion by continuance of his dis-satisfaction in the people of all principles and by consequence of the far greater part of the whole Nation he is forced at last to rely upon forreign Guards for the securing of an interest so contrary to that of the whole Nation and so because his Countrey hath not Rogues enough to surpress it the rest of the world must be raked to find them out And this is so consequent a calamity that no Usurper can avoid it though he would encline to moderation for he that hath once acted against the affections and interest of a Nation must have a National power to defend him and he must maintain this power with a heavy burden to the Nation And all this power is so far from securing the people where it is that it rather entails quarrels upon them For there is no Tyrannie like the insolent government of a great Army which will as much irritate the people against them as the necessity of a recovering their ancient rights And though part of the people would acquiesce under the burden of the great Taxes that must maintain his great power yet still there will be a contentious and necessitous party that will be ready to give the Nation a purge and letting bloud to recover it of the languishing consumption of its oppression and slavery rather then to expose it to those perpetual distempers that will flow from the endeavours of the legal excluded government which hath reason to make use of any forreign assistance for the recovery of its own and the Nations Rights and will never desist though after many repulses from renewing the quarrel till the Nation grows unanimous against usurpation with the bitter fruits of distraction and oppression that so necessarily attend it And I conceive nothing to be more evident then that such an Usurper can never with his safety quit his Tyranny though he would but must proceeed from one injury to another till he arrive at the highest extreame For besides the unlimitted power that he must exercise himself for the security and maintenance of his authority with his fellow Thieves and Murderers against his honest enemies he must transfer the same unlimited power in every Province into as ill hands as his own upon the same pretence of safrey and they cannot chuse but multiply their injuries by the same rules that he doth for beside their charge of maintaining their particular Power and unsatiable avarice and their having the same quarrel that he hath to all free minded and conscientious persons they will fall more particular heavy upon some out of malice and others as they are more eminent and popular and by consequence where any one family is excessively opprest they think they must needs be hated by all its kindred and alliance and so evere single injury begets a necessary offering of many more according to their Maximes of illegally punishing all whom they shall think they have cause enough to suspect and by consequence to hate and suppress by which it is evident that no man can scape this many-headed Monster with so sharp teeth but those who will make themselves subordinate beasts of prey THE CHARACTER Of a Lawfull PRINCE Tied to Rules by the Peoples consent A Well-regulated Prince established by the universal consent of the People of one or many ages without any ambiguity in his Title whether it be Successive or Elective is a felicity best known to those who have felt the Calamity of an Usurper for he is established in so secure and high a prosperity that he must be guilty of as much folly as injustice to hazard that eminent happiness for any thing which he doth not want and that no necessity can oblige him to a constant continued course of oppression is so evident that it is more against his interest to offer at it then it would be of some extravagant person that had twenty thousand pounds per annum to spend hiss whole time in robberies with the perpetual hazard of his life and so great a fortune together with infamy And this hath been so manifest in the worst of our weak and wicked Kings in England since the Conquest that though they have sometimes raised forces and moneys too unjustly yet none of them went about to establish the first for the maintenance of their latter injustice but when they have had their present wills they have without any continuance of bloud and oppression fallen into their old Channels again with but few examples of their Cruelty because they had but few or no Competitors to make them fear so much as to be cruel unless they would make the People so by the folly of their continued pressures to the hazard of their own well established interests which all of them were so counselled if not so wise to avoid And if we consider how little charge the avarice of profuseness of one family with half a dozen favorites and their dependants can