Selected quad for the lemma: prince_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
prince_n	great_a	king_n	orange_n	3,164	5	10.0228	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70573	The Earle of Melfort's letter to the Presbyterian-ministers in Scotland writ in His Majesty's name upon their address together with some remarks upon it.; Letter to the Presbyterian-ministers in Scotland	Melfort, John Drummond, Earl of, 1649-1715.; Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1687 (1687)	Wing M1641; ESTC R15002	4,996	6

THE EARLE of MELFORT's LETTER To the Presbyterian-Ministers IN SCOTLAND Writ in his Majesty's Name upon their Address Together with some Remarks upon it The Earle of Melfort's Letter Gentlemen I Am commanded by his Majesty to signify unto you his gracious acceptance of your Address that he is well satisfied with your Loyalty expressed therein for the which he resolves to perpetuate the favour not only during his own Reign but also to lay down Ways for its Continuance and that by appointing in the next ensuing Parliament the taking off all Penal Statutes contrary to the Liberty or Toleration granted by him His Majesty knows that Enemies to Him to You and this Toleration will be using all Endeavours to infringe the same but as ever the Happiness of his Subjects Standing in Liberty of Conscience and the Security of their Properties next the Glory of God hath been his Majesty's great end so he intends to continue if he have all sutable Encouragement and Concurrence from you in your Doctrine and Practice and therefore as he hath taken away the Protestant Penal Statutes lying on you and herein has walked contrary not only to other Catholick Kings but also in a way different from Protestant Kings who have gone before him whose Maxime was to undoe you by Fining Confining and taking away your Estates and to harrass you in your Persons Liberties and Priviledges so he expects a thankful acknowledgment from you by making your Doctrine tend to cause all his Subjects to walk obediently and by your Practice walking so as shall be most pleasing to his Majesty and the concurring with him for the removing these Penal Statutes and he further expects that you continue your Prayers to God for his long and happy Reign and for all Blessings on his Person and Government and likewise that you look well to your Doctrine and that your Example be influential all these are his Majesty's Commands Sic subs MELFORT REMARKS THe Secretary hand is known to al the Writing Masters of the Town but here is an Essay of the Secretary's Stile for the Masters of our Language This is an Age of Improvements and Men that come very young into Imployments make commonly a great progress therefore common things are not to be expected here it is true some Roughnesses in the Stile seem to intimate that the Writer could turn his Conscience more easily than he can do his Pen and that the one is a little stiffer and less compliant than the other He tells the Addressers that His Majesty is well satisfied with their Loyalty contained in their Address for the which he resolves to perpetuate the favour It appears that the Secretary Stile and the Notary Stile come nearer one another than was generally believed For the which here infringe the same afterwards are beauties borrowed from the Notary Stile the foresaid is not much courser The King 's perpetuating the Favour is no easy thing unless he could first perpetuate himself Now tho his Majesty's Fame will be certainly immortal yet to our great Regret his Person is mortal so it is hard to conceive how this perpetuity should be setled The Method here proposed is a new Figure of the Secretary Stile which is the Appointing in the next ensuing Parliament the taking off all Penal Laws All former Secretaries used the modest Words of proposing or recommending but he who in a former Essay of this Stile told us of his Majesty's Absolute Power to which all the Subjects are to obey without reserve furnishes us now with this new term of the King 's appointing what shal be done in Parliament But what if after all the Parliament proves so stubborn as not to comply with this Appointment I am afraid then the Perpetuity will be of a shrort continuance He in the next place mentions the Liberty or Toleration granted by the King. Liberty is not so hard a Word but that it might be understood without this Explanation or Toleration unless the Secretary Stile either approaches to the Notary Stile in some nauseous Repetitions or that he would intimate by this that all the Liberty that is left the Subjects is comprehended in this Toleration And indeed after Absolute Power was once asserted it was never fit to name Liberty without some restriction After this comes a stately Period The Enemies to him to you and to this Toleration Yet I should be sorry if it were true for I hope there are many Enemies to this Toleration who are neither Enemies to the King nor to these Addressers and that on the contrary they are Enemies to it because they are the best Friends that both the King and the People have It is now no secret that tho' both the Prince and Princess of Orange are great Enemies to Persecution and in particular to all Rigour against the Presbyterians yet they are not satisfied with the way in which this Toleration is granted But the reckoning of them as Enemies either to the King or the People is one of the Figures of this Stile that will hardly pass and some will not stick to say that the Writer of this Letter has with this dash of his Pen declared more Men Enemies to the King than ever he will be able to make Friends to him He tells them next that these Enemies will be using all endeavours to infringe the same This is also a strong Expression We know the use of the Noun Infraction but Infringe is borrowed from the Notaries yet the plain sense of this seems to be that those Enemies will disturb the Meetings of which I do not hear any of them have the least thought yet by a secret Figure of the Secretary Stile perhaps this belongs to all those who either think that the King cannot do it by Law or that will not give their Vote to confirm it in Parliament but I am not so well acquainted with all the Mysteries of this Stile as to know its full depth There comes next a long period of 50 words for I was at the pains to count them all which seemed a little too prolix for so short a letter especially in one that writes after the French pattern But as ever the Happiness of his Subjects Standing in Liberty of Conscience and the Security of their Properties next the Glory of God hath been his Majesty's great End So he Intends to continue if he have all suteable Encouragement and Concurrence from you in your Doctrine and Practice The putting ever at the beginning of the Period and at so great a Distance from that to which it belongs is a new beauty of Stile And the Standing of this Happiness makes me reflect on that which I hear a Scotch Preacher delivered in a Sermon that he doubted this Liberty would prove but like a Standing Drink The King 's receiving suteable Encouragement from his Subjects agrees ill with the height of Stile that went before of appointing what the Parliament must do Kings receive returns of

Duty and Obedience from their Subjects but hitherto Encouragement was a word used among Equals the applying it to the King is a new figure A man not versed in the Secretary Stile would have expressed this matter thus His Majesty has ever made the Happiness of his Subjects which consists in Liberty of Conscience and the Security of Property his great end next to the Glory of God and he intends to do so still if he receives all suteable returns from you in your Doctrine and practice I have marked this the more particularly to make the difference between the Common and the Secretary Stile the more sensible But what need is there of the Concurrence of the Addressers with the King if he appoints the next Parliament to take off all the Penal Laws Must we likewise believe that His Majesty's Zeal for the Happiness of his Subjects depends on the Behaviour of These Addressers and on the Encouragement that he receives from them so that he will not continue it unless they Encourage him in it This is but an Incertain tenure and not like to be perpetual But after all the Secretary Stile is not the Royal Stile so notwithstanding this beautiful Period we hope our Happiness is more steady than to turn upon the Encouragings of a few Men otherwise if it is a standing Happiness yet it is a very tottering one The Protestant Penal Statutes is another of his Elegancies for since all the Penal Laws as well those against Papists as those against Dissenters were made by Protestant Parliaments one does not see how fitly this Epithete comes in here another would have worded this thus the Penal Statutes made against Protestants But the new Stile has figures peculiar to it self that pass in the Common Stile for Improprieties This Noble Lord is not contented to raise His Majesty's Glory above all other Catholick Kings in this grant of Liberty or Toleration in which there is no competition to be made for tho the Most Christian King who is the Eldest son of that Church has indeed executed her Orders in their full extent of severity yet His Majesty who is but the Cadet in that Churche's Catalogue of honour it seems does not think that he is yet so much beholding to his Mother as to gratify her by the Destruction of his People yet I say as if this were too little the King's Glory is here carried farther even above the Protestant Kings who have gone before him whose Maxime was to undo you by Fining Confining and taking away your Estates and to harrass you in your Persons Liberties and Priviledges Here is an honour that is done the King's Ancestors by one of his Secretaries which is indeed new and of his own Invention the Protestant Kings can be no other than the Kings Brother his Father and his Grand father Kings shut out Q. Elisabeth who might have been brought in if the more general term of Crowned heads had been made use of but as the Writer has ordered it the satyr falls singly on the King's Progenitors for the Papers that were found in the Strong Box will go near to put the late King out of the list of Protestant Kings so that this Reproach lies wholly on the King's Father and his Grand-father It is a little surprising after all the Eloquence that has been Imployed to raise the Character of the late Martyr to so high a pitch that one of his Sons Secretaries should set it under his hand in a letter that he pretends is written by the King's Commands that he made it a Maxime to undo his People The Writer of this Letter should have avoided the mentioning of fines since it is not so long since both He and his Brother valued themselves on a point that they carried in the Council of Scotland that Husbands should be fined for their Wives not going to Church tho it was not founded on any Law. And of all Men living he ought to be the last that should speak of the taking away Estates who got a very fair one during the present Reign by an Act of Parliament that Attainted a Gentleman in a Method as new as his Stile is Upon this ground that two Privy Councellours declared they believed him guilty He will hardly find among all the Maximes of those Protestant Persecuting Kings any one that will Justify this It seems the New Stile is not very Copious in Words since Doctrine is three times repeated in so short a Letter He tells them that their Doctrine must tend to cause all the subjects to walk obediently now by obediently in this Stile is to obey the Absolute Power Without reserve for to obey according to Law would pass now for a Crime this being then his meaning it is probable that the Encouragements which are necessary to make His Majesty continue the happiness of his Subjects will not be so very great as to Merit the perpetuating this favour There is with this a heavy charge laid upon them as to their practice that it must be such as shall be most pleasing to His Majesty for certainly that can only be by their turning Papists since a Prince that is so zealous for his Religion as His Majesty is cannot be so well pleased with any other thing as with this Their concurring with the King to remove the Penal Laws comes over again for tho Repetitions are Impertinencies in the Common Stile they are Flowers in the new one In Conclusion he tells them that the King expects that they will continue their prayers for him yet this does not agree too well with a Catholick Zeal for the prayers of Damned Hereticks cannot be worth the asking for the third time he tells them to look well to their Doctrine now this is a little ambiguous for it may either signify that they should study the Controversies well so as to be able to defend their Doctrine solidly or that they should so mince it that nothing may fall from them in their Sermons against Popery this will be indeed a looking to their Doctrine but I do not know whether it will be thought a looking well to it or not He adds that their Example be Influential I confess this hard new Word frighted me I suppose the meaning of it is that their practice may be such as that it may have an Influence on others yet there are both good and bad Influences a good Influence will be the animating the people to a Zeal for their Religion and a bad one will be the slackning and sofning of that Zeal A little more Clearness here had not been amiss As for the last Words of this Letter that all these are his Majesty's Commands it is very hard for me to bring my self to believe them For certainly he has more Piety for the Memory of the late Martyr and more regard both to himself to his children and to his people than to have ever given any such commands In order to the communicating this Piece of Elegance to the World I wish the Translating it into French were recommended to Mr. d'Albeville that it may appear whether the Secretary Stile will look better in his Irish French than it does now in the Scotch English of him who penned it FINIS