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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	apostle_n	reason_n	word_n	1,618	5	4.0680	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56250	A political essay, or, Summary review of the kings and government of England since the Norman Conquest by W. P---y, Esq.	Pudsey, William.; Petty, William, Sir, 1623-1687.	1698 (1698)	Wing P4172; ESTC R19673	81,441	212

Edify As to what relates to the Justification of this Government it may be thought this comes out but poorly at this Time of Day and is a sort of barbarous Triumph over the Silenc'd and Oppress'd But those who know how early I was engaged in this Revolution another Way as early almost as any Gentleman on this Side of the Water cannot entertain such Thoughts of me I can only say I have not advanc'd one Expression upon that Consideration and the Occasion given me now was only Reading over some Books which had been on both Sides Published but not with Satisfactory Arguments to me and not in so clear a Method on the Side of the Revolution as I wish'd and besides I do not find that Men are less apt to Talk against the Government now than they were Seven or Eight Years ago and therefore I suppose this Publication may not be unseasonable even under so Long and Prosperous a Success of this Establishment which can never be made too Secure in the Hearts and Affections of the People Your Humble Servant W. P. A Summary Review OF THE KINGS and GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND c. ' T IS somewhat wonderful and I know not by what Fate it comes to pass That those Nations which by Nature seem design'd to enjoy the most retired Repose and Tranquility as not being by Situation involv'd in the common Hurly-burly of the World should yet notwithstanding deny themselves that Happiness as it seems and run into equal Confusion and Trouble with the large Continents of Men. Whether it be that we ascribe too much or too little to the Powers above and assume to our selves too far in the Conduct of Human Affairs Or whether in truth we are not permitted to establish that settled Peace and Pleasure here below which Mortals in their Wisdom would fancy and pretend to prescribe to themselves Be it how it will Is it not certain that all States Civil and Ecclesiastical too when they have arriv'd to the Top of Grandeur by a sort of Necessity as it were dissolve into Luxury and by an unaccountable Weakness and Vanity dwindle into Disreputation lose their Edge and are disarm'd till another Encroachment steps up and takes the place Not that all New Establishments and Reformations have been always for the better but only to shew that all sublunary things are subject to change However That Government and some Form of Polity is necessary cannot be disputed though it may what sort is But admitting Monarchy to be the best constitution and with all the Compliments of Comparison and Advantages that the Church will have for that doth not pretend that it is the Only Form approved by God with exclusion to others yet we see the best Scheme of this whether Absolute Limited or Mixt Hereditary or Elective hath never yet been capable to establish and secure it in Peace and Prosperity long as it were to intimate That even the wisest Scheme if any such be of Policy will have its Defects and all Foundations of Government are planted in a changeable Soil and are transform'd even in Notion either through the Perverseness or Inconsideration of the Prince or People or both Nay when we have pray'd in Aid of Religion and taken that into our support what wretched work has Religion it self made in States and unhinged them as Learning has Religion Those very Means that should compose and settle have subverted and do still disorder the World What Mischiefs have not those two words Prerogative and Liberty introduced both in Law and Gospel Construction and those two Epithets of Obedience Active and Passive are sacrific'd to Forms more than Force and have been abus'd almost as much by Government as Anarchy In our best Form of Government as we call it when the Constitution comes to clash the sole Question is Which is to be preferred the Person and Will of a Prince or the Law of the Land Which is most sacred the Power or the Ordonnance Which is to be obey'd and maintain'd the King who invades the Law and Religion Establish'd for 't is certain such a Case hath happen'd or Religion and Law which establish'd them Whether Religion or the Humour of a King be to be obey'd even for the sake of Religion This it seems hath been made a Doubt and hath been a Theme more than sufficiently handled of late Years especially and managed with Artifice enough to say no worse on both sides Indeed if we were now under a Theocracy the extravagance of the Dispute would be on t'other hand and if God at this day could be suppos'd to govern our Governors as in the Jewish Oeconomy when Rulers Captains Priests Judges and Kings were immediately inspired and led by the Almighty to keep them from stumbling or swerving before that Kings were given for a Curse and when not made such Implicit Faith and Obedience must be then due But when God himself leaves us to the Rules of Human Laws as he plainly intimates and is confest by the most Learned Divines who are impartial 't is otherwise And I must confess in my poor Opinion God forgive me if I err and I err in good Company under the Gospel God seems not so much concern'd in Human Powers otherwise than Human Laws And our Saviour in his Sermon on the Mount hath not one word about Kingdoms only of another World After which the Texts of the Apostles are not to be taken in a general extended Sense for our Saviour himself who is and must be suppos'd to comprehend all necessary Instructions for a Christian when he insists on superlative Directions would no doubt have vouchsafed some Guide in obedience to the Powers on Earth if he had not concluded them by the Measures of their respective Constitutions and his Expression of rendring unto Cesar the things that are Cesar's c. sufficiently implies the force of that Argument and the Exempt reservation of Property c. No doubt the meaning of the Apostles has been strain'd too far by some Divines and besides it infers but little to us forasmuch as they do not nor ever did agree in their Interpretations 't will be to little purpose that the Apostles were inspired if we are not inspired also with an adequate degree of Apprehension But this only by the by This is not my Province and I shall have occasion to resume this Argument hereafter All that I shall say at present is That Arbitrary Power and Legal Right are Contradictions and cannot consist in Human Understandings Therefore I shall make bold to take Power in that sense which may consist with Reason and Rejecting the first tack the word Legal to it and shall wave or post-pone the Premisses from the absurdity of the Conclusion For if it be allow'd or may be suppos'd That a King can with his own breath blow away the Laws of the State or at second-hand remove the Land-mark or is to be told by any Metaphysical Pedant That no Law can

Englishmen remember That we now have an Act of Parliament of our side which Asserts the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and hath Establish'd the Settlement of the Crown and which incapacitates any Papist or Person Marrying a Papist from having and enjoying it which Act is only Defective in this That it is not Order'd to be Read in the Churches twice at least every Year and upon Penalty of Deprivation If such a Law had been made in Edward the VIth's Time it might have sav'd some Blood and Trouble since the Reformation WILLIAM III. THE Lord Chancellor Notttingham in the Case of the Duke of Norfolk and Charles Howard Esquire c. hath in my Mind a notable Expression viz. Pray let us so Resolve Cases here that they may stand with the Reason of Mankind when they are Debated abroad Shall that be Reason here that is not Reason in any part of the World besides In truth we are apt to be peculiarly Artificial in our Thoughts and way of Argument and our Reasonings are too Municipal Thus every little Pedant can Settle and Establish the Affairs of Religion and Government and can Resolve all the great Mysteries of Church and State as he thinks in his narrow Study But if a Man looks Abroad and takes a general survey of the World and reflects upon the Universal Notions and Customs of Mankind his Soul will become more enlarged and will not determine so Magisterially upon the Principles of any particular Sect or Society The Case of King WILLIAM in it self is perhaps the most Glorious and Generous Cause that hath appeared upon the Stage of Human Actions yet hath been sullied by dire Representations by poor-spirited and precarious Arguments which have been brought in for its support His Title to the Crown of Great Britain stands Firm and is justifiable upon Natural and Sound foundations of Reason without Props But hath been so oddly maintained by the manner of its Defence that it hath been the Justification only that hath Disgrac'd the Revolution Doctrina facit Difficultatem We have been running out of the way to fetch in Aids from Art and Learning whilst Nature presents us with obvious and undefiled Principles of Reason Thus the King's Accession to the Throne hath been introduced by shuffling between Providential Settlement Conquest Desertion Abdication and topping Protections of Power whilst Men of Honour and People of Honest Plain Understandings stand Amazed instead of being Convinced and hang back when Allegiance comes to be explained and a Recognition demanded an Association proposed frights us as a thing strange and impious which shews our Allegiance was not rightly founded but looks like a thing of Fancy built upon a forc'd and fictitious bottom All these ungrateful Terms have been ingeniously exposed by Mr Johnson except only Abdication which with submission is also too Artificial a Word not to be found in the Alphabet of Spelman a Civil Law Term used almost in Fifty several Senses and therefore an uncouth Expression of the Common Laws of this Realm to speak in The Word Forfaulture seems to have a plainer Signification to our common Understanding This as Forisfacere Forisfactum Forisfactura and Forfacere Forfactum Forfactura c. we find in Spelman and it signifies Rem suam ex delicto amittere sibi quasi extraneum facere Rem culpâ abdicere alterique Puta Regi Magistratui Domino abjudicare Forisfacere pro Delinquere peccare transgredi Injuriam inferre LL. Edw. Confess cap. 32. ut Codex noster MS. legit Aliqui stulti improbi gratis nimis consuetè erga vicinos suos foris facebant This agrees with the Sense of King James the I st his Speech to his Parliament viz. A settled King is bound to observe the Paction made to his People by his Laws in framing his Government agreeable thereunto And a King Governing in a settled Kingdom leaves to be a King and degenerates into a Tyrant as soon as he leaves off Governing according to the Laws In which Case the King's Conscience may speak to him as the Poor Widow said to Philip of Macedon Either Govern according to your Law aut ne sis Rex And if a Subject's Conscience may not speak the same thing King James's Words signify nothing The other Words carry an Odious or suspected Construction in them the First in the Convocationstyle implies Guilt and at best creates but a Transylvanian Allegiance the Second is a Jest and false in Fact besides 't is what the King himself disowns the Third is an idle Sham as stated and the Fourth is also a little strain'd as I concieve and we might for ought I see as well have call'd it a Cession especially if King James was a Spiritual Person of the Society of Jesuits as hath been said But what need we any Term of Art Let the matter express it self by Periphrasis in its own genuine Phrase It is fairly stated in the Prince's Declaration And our Case is no more nor less than this A King contrary to his Coronation-Oath dispenses with and breaks through all the Established Laws of the Land Invades and Subverts the Rights Liberties and Properties of the People which he Swore to maintain inviolably and Dissolves the Constitution of Church and State in an Arbitrary Tyrannical manner the People therefore in Defence of their Laws Rights and Religion and the necessary Preservation of them Oppose the violent proceedings of such a Prince I put the Case at the worst and also apply themselves to a Neighbouring Prince who hath an Expectation of a Right to the Crown and pray in Aid of him to assist them in the Maintaining and Defending their Legal Rights together with his own Title to the Succession who in his own Words makes Preparation to Assist the People against the Subverters of their Religion and Laws and also Invites and Requires all Persons whatsoever All the Peers of the Realm Spiritual and Temporal and all Gentlemen Citizens and other Commons of all Ranks to come and assist him in order to the Execution of this Design against all such as shall endeavour to Oppose them to prevent all those Miseries which must needs fall upon the Nations being kept under Arbitrary Government and Slavery and that all the Violences and Disorders which have overturn'd the whole Constitution of the English Government may be fully Redressed in a Free and Legal Parliament to secure the Nation from relapsing into the Miseries of Arbitrary Government any more Upon which appearance of mutual Defence for Self-preservation the Conscious King Retires first leaves his Army which no Man I will be bold to say would do without Guilt or Cowardice and I 'm sure a Prince that had been Brave or acted upon Principles of Honour would have Fought it out with but Ten Regiments or with One at his Heels which was Richard the IIId's Case in the first sence though not in the later and after leaves the Realm for Reasons best known to