Selected quad for the lemma: reason_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
reason_n	king_n	law_n	prerogative_n	2,572	5	10.8191	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77459	A briefe relation of the present troubles in England: vvritten from London the 22. of Ianuary 1644. to a minister of one of the reformed churches in France. VVherein, is clearely set downe who are the authours of them, and whereto the innovations both in church and state there doe tend. Faithfully translated out of the French.; Letter concerning the present troubles in England.	Tully, T. (Thomas), 1620-1676.	1645 (1645)	Wing B4630; Thomason E303_1; ESTC R200287	52,984	69

path 't is not out of any intention to joine and associate with them but rather to marre and undoe the worke which by their meanes was set on foote in the world And in truth Sir what can be hoped for from such a Rabble as this naturally so insolent and head-strong but the markes of Rebellion both against God and Man it being their sole employment to advance factions and fidings when ever the affaires either of Religion or Policy are brought into agitation So that if you abate hence all who have either out of haughtines and unbridlednesse of Spirit combined against their Prince or nourished the Schismes and ruptures of the Church in broaching their empty and wild Fancies I dare not promise that the residue shall afford you either a Body of Subjects or a Congregation of Christians I intend not to discourse of those of the King's Party wherein 't is true there be some apparently culpable but yet more of such as I may call really unfortunate those alone I meane that make up the greatest number of Reformed and Honest men in that Kingdome I shall confine my Discourse to those who beare the World in hand they are at oddes with nothing but Popery which in their jealous apprehensions was taking roote in England againe With this pretty cheate they have got the approbation of not a few Protestants who without sifting their designe are by this meanes engaged to applaude a pa●●icidiall attempt upon the Soveraigne Majesty and a villainous plot against the Sacred Overseers of the Church Either of which two crimes is doubtlesse one of the most essentiall notes of reprobation nor is it possible for him to make good the profession of Christianity who complies or holds any the least correspondence with such as are knowingly guilty of the same Your new-fangled Ministers of London are mostly involved in the equall guilt of both For who knowes not how at the very first rise of these troubles they preached openly to the People That Kings are not to be obeyed if once they assault their Liberties and Priviledges which in their construction is the first steppe to Tyranny or taking upon them to intermeddle in Church affaires they fall upon any absurd impious opinion Wherein they came nothing short of Cardinall Bellarmine who writes That if Princes shall once apply themselves to the protection of Heresy or exercise of Tyranny they are left to the mercy of the Pope and the Church who are first to excommunicate them then to absolve the Subjects from the Oath of Allegiance and they upon this discharge assoone as they can be provided of a competent strength are to employ it against them to expose them to punishment and by all meanes feisible to dethrone them A wonderfull thing that they who are such professed enemies to the Jesuites that use their persons when they seize them with so much inhumanity and for the continued revolution of so many yeares have exposed their bodies quartered to all passengers as a spectacle of horrour upon their most eminent Gates should notwithstanding shake hands with them in a point for the which at first they did so much abhorre them Would you not conclude that they are all alike the Disciples of Mariana and the Agents of a Boniface what affinity is there betwixt these Doctours and Saint Ambrose when this great Saint this reall Christian perceived that the Arians were about to possesse themselves of the Church in Milan with the approbation of the Emperour Valentinian he addressed himselfe unto that Prince in these tearmes Royall Sir we intreate we presume not to fight If the Prince will needs make use of his Supreame power I am ready to discharge the duty of a Prelate I shall stand upon my defence but 't is in the petitions of the poore I can ●emoane me I can weepe I can ●igh but against Armes against Souldiers against the Gothes my onely weapons are teares nor ought I to use any other manner of resistance whatsoever And in another place If the Kingdome shall lye panting under the pressures of Tyranny I am ready to suffer any kind of violence even Death it selfe Besides that universall injunction laid upon Christians to put up injuries with patience God having reserved unto himselfe the right of revenging by the power of his Justice as Saint Gregory upon Job speakes Man being uncapable of performing it but with a heart fraught with malice he knew I say besides this what David once sung to God against thee onely have I sinned upon which passage in the Apology he compiled for him he thus comments He was a King and so not within the reach of the Lawes Vi●●●lis delictorum liberi sunt reges if I may borrow the attestation of so divine a pen. Now if David were not mistaken if Saint Ambrose spake reason in this point with Saint Chrysostome who assures us so punctually that Kings are above the Lawes What shall we thinke of our upstart Reformers that have placed Kings below their People and stirre up the People against their Kings It is a pregnant evidence they are swayed by that spirit of rebellion which heretofore animated the Gregories the Bonifaces the Mariana's the Bellarmines to attempt upon the Honour and life of Kings rather then by that spirit of wisedome and meekenesse which moved Solomon to leave this divine precept behind him equally obliging all that have not forfeited their reason never to divorce the respect due unto Kings from that which they owe unto God himselfe and in case they shall presume to do otherwise associating themselves with such Libertines as refuse to pay the tribute of obedience to be afraid their calamity doe not arise suddainly The Pulpits here are full of none but Preachers of discord and division betwixt the King and his Subjects In lieu of praises magnifying the name of God Invocation of the Holy Spirit Confession of Sinnes sighs and groanes for the commission thereof here is nothing to be heard but reproaches revilings and accusations Charity in all other places throwes her skirt over the Errours she discovers be they as great and numerous as can be 'T is charity here to lay them naked in the view of the world and if there be no reall ones to devise some that so they may never be destitute of a forgery wherewith to traduce their Prince His Person and Actions are both exposed to publique reproaches The Churches Ring of nothing but declamations against Him and if happily some small relickes of shame have ever slacked the heate of those bawling Predicants or railing Scriblers impudence makes others in compensation to double the Cry This yet is nothing in comparison of their usuall Execrations as if that Law pronounced by the mouth of God himselfe which forbids to curse the Prince of his People no not so much as in thought did not at all concerne them That detestable League which in the memory of our Fathers was attended with such tragique effects in

three or foure of our Kings raignes and against which our Protestants have alwaies so eagerly declaimed laying their grounds upon certaine proofes drawne from the corruption of Rome which gave life unto it had nothing in it of more venimous consequence then this we see here save that the Emissaries and Boute-feus of the English Confederacy have not as yet imbrued their hands in the bloud of their King And can it suite with their profession who talke so much of reducing Christian Religion to it's primitive purity and reviving the Innocence and Simplicity of the Apostolique times who call him their Master that reconciled the world to God and united men in the same mutuall affections who are not ignorant that Peace and Concord are the essentiall characters of a Christian and that such should never be the occasioners of warre to employ the sword in such a manner as this I cannot thinke there 's any man so credulous as to beleive that such courses can finde any welcome among those that are Protestants indeed they may with many who are such in shew onely of which sort are all the opposers not of monarchy alone but indefinitely of any secular authority whatsoever There were some in the infancy of the Church who strained Christian liberty so farre that they condemned it as unjust for the Enfranchised of God and such as were guided by his spirit to be subject to the command of any creature The Donatists sucked the same poison from them which afterwards diffused it selfe among the Anabaptists and in fine reached us also by meanes of some who gave a second birth to this Heresy which now walkes up and downe here in great bravery under pretences very specious in the apprehension of some shallow Judgements And though I conceive this will not be to the generall prejudice of the Reformed Churches in Europe by reason of that just jealousy which Princes ought to entertaine that they hold no intelligence amongst themselves and that they doe not all bandy togethr against the rights and prerogatives of their respective dominions Yet it must needs 〈◊〉 to their shame atleast if they doe not openly declare against the villany of their proceedings and the iniquity of their designes especially since they have had the impudence to invite them to an imitation of their example and to steppe in for the support of their faction I am not ignorant what grounds we goe upon and how little resemblance ours ●eare to theirs but the world will not passe sentence upon us by our positions but either by our actions or by our silence For if we be silent when they are bragging of 〈◊〉 with us and yet appearing in the field against their Soverai●● who will not be ready to conclude that had we the like power ●● our hands we would do as much every w●●it our selves ● but if 〈◊〉 the contrary we speake our mindes condemning the unlawfullnesse and horridnesse of their designe our actions suiting still with 〈◊〉 doctrine in stead of exasperating the secular powers we shall 〈◊〉 them for it cannot be but they will take part with us and 〈◊〉 off such as make them so subordinate either to the people in gro●●● or to some select parcell of the whole body who let them talke what they will are no lesse Subjects then the rest In breife ● need but demand whether of the two are the better Christians those that wast so much bloud to subvert the right of Kings and to cherish a warre under counterfeit pretences for the suppression of all order and engaging the whole world to the same common confusion Or they of the Primitive times who maintained that to sh●● bloud was to violate Christianity to oppose Kings was to disobey God and to contest with Superiours was to fight against that Order which he established I beleeve they will hardly be swayed by examples lesse by reason nor that they put any great value upon the authority which the practise of the first ages may challenge over us If they do I would exhort such preachers of fire and sword to call to minde how the ancient disciplien of the Church denied their communion to such as had slaine an Enemy in a lawfull warre and that they would hence collect how those times stood affected to such as voluntarily embroyled themselves in an unlawfull and unjust one See Sir in part what I have to say to you upon this argument It will not be amisse if in the next place I acquaint you with the innovations they make in Religion and what fruits Christianity is like to reape from the labours of such doughty Reformers 'T is a truly impious designe to per●ue a Reformation in such manner as these men do and which tends onely to the subversion of an order established by God under a pretence of pulling downe one devised by man which they call Tyranny because indeed it is the onely meanes whereby to check them in that full ca●c●●● of unbridled licentiousnesse unto which they are naturally so much devo●●● Not but that there is alwayes matter enough for a reformation both in manners and government and that it is extreamely necessary to correct the evills and disorders of the present times and withall to prevent that corruption which may be feared from the future But who will be the fittest to go through with this taske will the Parliament no in as much as the Bishops that is the Clergy are no longer a part of it Will the Synod be able to supply this defect no not they because the whole body is composed of persons interessed besides that ignorance and blindenesse are there for the most part in their greatest exaltation● or if perhaps there be some knowing there is a great dearth of honest men most of them being possest with the spirit of division which hath drawne them into the by-paths of Hereticks as well ancient as moderne Well then shall the People beare the burthen this is altogether impossible unlesse first there be made an universall resignation of all sence and reason because of themselves they are uncapable of all manner of order and conduct Neither can the King assisted only by his Counsell and Magistrates be thought a ●it instrument to mannage the businesse for feare he make Religion waite upon his owne private interest and by consequent bring the spirit under the command of the Flesh The issue then will be to finde out a just and lawfull way for the advancing of this Reformation which in my opinion can be no other then that of a generall Assembly indicted by the Prince wherein the Boroughs shall have their Deputies whose voices are to be heard and their suffrages admitted The Church it's Bishops and Doctors The Parliament diverse of the Nobility which they may chuse out of their severall Houses and the King his principall Officers And to make the action more Authentique to establish in the Church that uniformity which ought to be in a body in which

of the Church or State have no portion amongst the faithfull nor the Saints of God and for this very reason I cannot be perswaded they have any favourers or Abettours amongst us or that any to whom God hath given the least graine of understanding or honesty will not condemne their designe and all their proceedings and having once advised them to quit such courses will not utterly detest them if they persevere You will say now that though they have put downe Episcopacy and undermined the power of the Nobility yet they are not any way disaffected to Royalty Can any man beleive this after so many thousand seditious Propositions which they daily publish both in Presse and Pulpit peruse them I beseech you for my sake though I know you cannot doe it without horrour and ever and anon turning your eyes from them so full of venime are they against all the Princes in the world so contrary to the doctrine and practice of Christians and so injuriuos to the name and profession of all true and sincere Protestants such are these Though the King be greater then any one of his Subjects in particular yet he is farre lesse then the body collective of all his Subjects The King is for the people and not the people for the King and by consequent the people are of more worth and value then he in as much as the meanes are alwaies subordinate to that end to which they are directed and from whence they derive their worth The power and authority of any usu●●ing Tyrant is as much from God as that of lawfull Kings The Power of Princes those especially which by inheritance are such flowes from the people and consequently is more deeply rooted and eminently seated in them then it is in the Person of the Prince because Quod efficit tale est magis tale I am forced to make use of their owne barbarous tearmes that I may the better expresse the barbarousnesse of their conceptions As Kings receive their power from the people so they may be divested of it by them either in the body collective of all or in the body representative in Parliament or by the major part of either In case the King shall falsifie the Oath he takes at his Coronation the people are thereupon discharged a●d freed from their alleagiance to him Positions so much the more absurd because the Lawes of that Land have provided to the contrary and that all the world have acknowledged it as a maxime that the King of England never dyes that without all distinction of time as well before as after his Coronation he receives all such homages and services as are due to the Crowne that he is not King upon condition as if by violation thereof he should fall from his Right to the Kingdome but upon bare promises the non performance of which is enough to denominate him unjust but not to depose him They proceed No sonne may with more equity binde the hand of his distracted father no marriner more justly remove a Pilot from the Sterne who would wracke the ship either out of ignorance or malice then Subjects may by force of armes dethrone their Prince if he shall once apparently hearken to any counsels pernicious to the State and that the Common●wealth either by his weakenesse or negligence be in danger of ruine Saint Paul doth not command but barely exhort a●ery soule to be subject to the higher powers This was but a prudentiall counsell of one that was to rule a People at such a time as they had neither strength nor meanes to doe otherwise and that to thinke the contrary were to put such a yoake upon the conscience as he never dreamed of By the higher powers Saint Paul speakes of we are not to understand the Person of a King but his charge and office as it is represented in his Courts and in the Parliament insomuch that the Subjects of England according to this doctrine may beare armes against CHARLES STEVVART residing at Oxford and yet still observe that alleagiance which is due to the King in his Parliament at Lond. Which is as much of a true body to make an idle phantasme of a King a Chimera as some have done of Christ himselfe transubstantiating him from a true man to an imaginary senselesse and absurd I know not what The Authors of these pernicious opinions might learne a little more wisedome were they but capable of weighing as they ought the rules of that State which informe us that every treason respects either mediately or immediately the person of the King There can none of them be ignorant how that before these fatall distractions all the Judges were of opinion and have so determined the case that the Subjects of England are clearely and absolutely bound to obey their Prince even in his naturall capacity that is the person of CHARLES STEVVART and not onely in his politique capacity as he is I know not what imaginary and Platonicke King Besides they need not be informed how this very doctrine which the Parliamenteers at this day publish to the world and upon which they ground all their severall acts of violence is both in the Magna Charta and those acts concerning the banisHment of Hugh Spencer condemned in full Parliament and rejected as a principle of Treason fraud and Rebellion They proceed yet further and tell us That the Parliament may in case of necessity ordaine lawes for peace and warre in spight of the Prince which shall equally oblige every member of the State And in case the King refuse to confirme them the same Parliament is to be the sole arbitratour and judge of that necessity and of the time how long it ought or can continue That the King is bound to ratifie all presented to him by the Parliament notwithstanding all the objections which either his Counsell or his owne reason and Conscience shall suggest unto Him That the Civill Government ought alwaies to give place to the Ecclesiasticall Were it so that the government of the Church here were partly Democraticall as the Brownists would have it or partly Aristocraticall and partly Democraticall as it is amongst the Presbyterians it is easy to inferre what would become of the Civill Magistrate These are the holy maximes and pious Doctrines of those that pretend to purity of life and talke of restoring the Lawes and Ordinances framed by our first Reformers to that vigour and Authority which the Tyrants of the Conscience and enemies of all secular power have wrested from them I am sure neither Christ nor Moses nor Paul nor Peter taught them any such lesson but Maria●● Bellarmine Bourchier Brutus Buchanan and the rest of those Hellish finebrands employed by the Devill to disturbe that Order which the Eternall providence of Heaven had set up in the World Let me hereunto adde that notable demonstration of their Affection towards their Queene They have expressely prohibited all prayers both publique and private for Her Conversion A