Selected quad for the lemma: state_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
state_n	government_n	king_n	people_n	3,798	5	4.6583	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38466	The Englishman's complaint If Kings were as wise and good as their office requires them to be, monarchy, certainly, would be the happiest form of government in the world; ...		1689 (1689)	Wing E3099A; ESTC R219551	5,534	2

The English Man's Complaint IF Kings were as wise and good as their Office requires them to be Monarchy certainly would be the happiest Form of Government in the World but since experience tells us they are like us in all things Kingship excepted and are for the most part but the worse for That it has been the Wisdom of all Nations to take the best caution and security of them for their freedoms that they could get This I and many more expected at the hands of our Senators after not only the harms of others but our own might have taught them how to make use of so happy an oppertunity but as less then a years time has shown us the vanity of our hopes in them I presume they are not less instructed of the vanity of their own in him it being visible to all the thinking World that he is not able to support himself three Months longer upon the measures he takes between King James and a Common-wealth for one of them will be quickly too hard for him and only one of them can prevent the other And because no man has had a greater Sence of this Providence then my self and that I have been perticularly conversant with those that went into this abdicating Interest I find my self touch'd in duty and honour to be early and free with them upon the Jealousies that fill my Heart and the Hearts of many good Men about the present state of our affaires They have been guilty of sins both of Omission and Commission They have neglected the main things they ought to have made the Object and advantage of this change and they have visibly acted the quite contrary And last of all several things have happened both at home and abroad that render the continuance of our present Goverment impractable therefore we must not only suffer but seek another state or change and that speedily The faults of Omission are these they have made a King but have not made it impossible for that King to be like the Kings that went before him he having the same power over the Rights of the People and they lying as open to the mercy and stroke of ambition and arbitrary Power as before which is only changing of Hands and not Things Men and not Measures and Securities That this is the case let it be considered he is unaccountable which contradicts their Principles they chose him upon He has the same Power over Parliaments that his Predecessors had which are accounted the true Conservators of the Peoples freedoms Their Elections are as insecure as ever Their Meetings as uncertain being neither Yearly Duenneally nor Triennially Neither are they Masters of their own Sessions to Adjourn and Prorogue as they please And if they have prepared the most useful or necessary Law in the World as the case now stands he may refuse to pass it by Proroguing or Dissolving them which renders the whole Constitution of Parliaments precarious and at his Will and Pleasure Much less does the Parliament nominate his Council or is he oblig'd to act in the Intervals of Parliaments by the Advice and Approbation of a Council but on the contrary to these Rights and Securities he can call prorogue and dissolve Parliaments at pleasure whose very Elections lie as open to Fraud Violence as ever Charters Corporations being in no better condition then they were He picks and chuses his Council He Names all the great Officers of the State Navy Army and Church as well as of his Houshold and he absolutely commands the Malitia as yet which is having the whole in his Power for thereby he has a Mortgage upon every man the Gain or Honour of his Office being a Bribe to byass him to the pleasure of the Prince That already they have not been able to keep themselves from the distinction of Court and Country party who the other day objected it to their Enemies as a Vice in Government This has something in it very absurd and it reproaches the honesty or understanding of some People that when they say they can make Kings they either can't or won't take care to limit and regulate them to our Safety by which means the King that is made by the People may rule without them instead of ruling for them and govern jure divino though he be created jure humano which renders his execution Independent of his Commission and himself in all things impunible We have herein left the Principles that lead us to leave King James and changed the very measures upon which we changed the Government We made use of Republican Reasons for our alteration and for ought I see we go upon Tory methods to establish it This renders our case much worse then it was in the time of King Charles and King James in that then we had Kings that were suspected to be sure not belov'd and the first not feared from his humour and the last at last as little apprehended from his Interest But this Gentleman enters upon the Reputation of Protestancy and has our own choice Religion both to blind us bind us Being then more popular and not more limited we are not more safe but our Liberties more exposed And unless such a King has irresistable Grace or stronger tyes upon him the Reasons of our preferring him may be the Instances of our danger Let those serve as brief hints of the pernitious Omissions we have made about the Constitution of our Government and give me leave now to point at our Sins of Commission Of this sort the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus act will challange the preference It is what can never be answer'd by us Whiggs to stab such a Law nay our own Law three times successively In this the Toryes out-witted us for they have humoured us into a contradiction of our own Principles Next it has been a dangerous Error that so many Members of both Houses have so fast and so firmly got into Places of Profit This is a Scandal to the Cause our old Clamours and Pretentions considered and all the World sees the Influence it has had to stifle this Reformation in its very birth Suffering so many Foreign Troops that are the Mercinaries of this Prince to continue amongst us and more come in upon us when there are so many moderate Church-men and Dissenters of unquestionable valour and sincerity ready to serve in their Station purely for the sake of the Protestant Religion and a National Interest is both unjust unwise and unsafe It was likewise a fatal Error to be busie in sending ten or twelve Thousand men into Holland before we sent twelve Hundred into Ireland which shows some Body's heart is as Foreign as his Birth Just so we have done by Sea been busie about a Fleet and careless of our Trade that as a witty Member of the House of Commons said The Dutch have run away with our Trade and the French with our Ships notwithstanding our Fleet.