Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	act_n	king_n	law_n	1,107	5	5.0480	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41165	The design of enslaving England discovered in the incroachments upon the powers and privileges of Parliament by K. Charles II being a new corrected impression of that excellent piece intituled, A just and modest vindication of the proceedings of the two last Parliaments of King Charles the Second.	Jones, William, Sir, 1631-1682.; Ferguson, Robert, d. 1714.	1689 (1689)	Wing F734; ESTC R5506	42,396	53

that the King cannot supply his most pressing Necessities either by Loans or by the Benevolence of his Subjects which by the express words of the Statute are damned and annulled for ever But the House of Commons were so cautious of giving any just occasion of Cavil that they restrain'd their Votes much more than they needed to have done For they extended them only to three Branches of the Revenue all which were by several Acts of Parliament given to his present Majesty And surely every one will agree that when the King receives a Gift from his People he takes it under such Conditions and ought to imploy it in such a manner and for such purposes as they direct We must therefore consult the several Acts by which those Branches were setled if we would judge rightly whether the Commons had not particular Reasons for what they did The Statute 12 Car. 2. c. 4. says That the Commons reposing Trust in his Majesty for guarding the Seas against all Persons intending the Disturbance of Trade and the invading of the Realm to that intent do give him the Tonnage and Poundage c. This is as direct an Appropriation as Words can make and therefore as it is manifest wrong to the Subject to divert any part of this Branch to other uses so for the King to anticipate it is plainly to disable himself to perform the Trust reposed in Him. And the late long Parliament thought this matter so clear that about two years before their Dissolution they passed a Vote with Relation to the Customs in almost the same Words The Parliament which gave the Excise were so far from thinking that the King had power to charge or dispose of it as his own that by a special Clause in the Act whereby they give it they were careful to impower him to dispose of it or any part of it by way of Farm and to Enact that such Contracts shall be effectual in Law so as they be not for a longer time than three years The Act whereby the Hearth-money was given declares that it was done to the end that the publick Revenue might be proportioned to the publick Charge and 't is impossible that should ever be whilst it is liable to be pre-ingaged and anticipated And the Parliament were so careful to preserve this Tax always clear and uncharg'd that they made it penal for any one so much as to accept of any Pension or Grant for years or any other Estate or any Summ of Money out of the Revenue arising by vertue of that Act from the King his Heirs or Successors Surely if the Penners of this Declaration had not been altogether ignorant of our own Laws and of the Policy of all other Countries and Ages they would never have printed those Votes in hopes thereby to have exposed the Commons to the World. They would not have had the face to say that thereby the King was exposed to Danger deprived of a possibility of supporting the Government and reduc'd to a more helpless Condition than the meanest of His Subjects This we are sure of that the inviolable observing of these Statutes will be so far from reducing His Majesty to a more helpless Condition than the meanest of his Subjects that it will still leave him in a better condition than the richest and greatest of his Ancestors none of which were ever Masters of such a Revenue The H. of Commons are in the next place accused of a very high Crime the assuming to themselves a power of suspending Acts of Parliament because they declared that it was their opinion That the Prosecution of Protestant Dissenters upon the Penal Laws is at this time grievous to the Subject a weakning of the Protestant Interest an Incouragement to Popery and dangerous to the Peace of the Kingdom The Ministers remembred that not many years ago the whole Nation was justly alarm'd upon the assuming an Arbitrary Power of suspending Penal Laws and therefore they thought it would be very popular to accuse the Commons of such an attempt But how they could possible misinterpret a Vote at that rate how they could say the Commons pretended to a Power of repealing Laws when they only declare their Opinion of the inconveniency of them will never be understood till the Authors of this are pleased to shew their Causes and Reasons for it in a second Declaration Every impartial man will own that the Commons had reason for this Opinion of theirs They had with great anxiety observed that the present design of the Papists was not against any one sort of Protestants but universal and for extirpating the Reform'd Religion They saw what advantages these Enemies made of our Divisions and how cunningly they diverted us from prosecuting them by fomenting our jealousies of one another They saw the strength and nearness of the King of France and judged of his Inclinations by his usage of his own Protestant Subjects They consider'd the number and the bloody Principles of the Irish and what Conspiracies were form'd there and even ripe for Execution and that Scotland was already delivered into the hands of a Prince the known head of the Papists in these Kingdoms and the occasion of all their Plots and Insolencies as more than one Parliament had declared They could not but take notice into what hands the most considerable Trusts both Civil and Military were put and that notwithstanding all Addresses and all Proclamations for a strict Execution of the Penal Laws against Papists yet their Faction so far prevailed that they were eluded and only the dissenting Protestants smarted under the edge of them In the midst of such Circumstances was there not cause to think an Union of all Protestants necessary and could they have any just ground to believe that the Dissenters whilst they lay under the Pressures of severe Laws should with such Alacrity and Courage as was requisite undertake the defence of a Country where they were so ill treated A long and sad Experience had shew'd how vain the Endeavours of former Parliaments had been to force us to be all of one Opinion and therefore the House of Commons resolv'd to take a sure way to make us of one Affection They knew that some busie men would be striking whilst there were Weapons at hand and therefore to make us live at peace they meant to take away all occasions of provoking or being provoked In order to a general Repeal of these Laws they first came to a Vote declaring the necessity of it to which there was not one Negative in the House A Vote of this nature does for the most part precede the bringing in of a Bill for the Repeal of any General Law. And it had been a great presumption in a particular Member to have asked leave to have brought in a Bill for repealing so many Laws together till the House had first declar'd that in their opinion they were grievous and inconvenient No English man

enlarged his Rvenue above what any of his Predecessors had enjoyed gave him vaster Sums of Money in twenty years than had been bestowed upon all the Kings since William the first should he after all this deliver them up to be ruin'd by his Brother It cannot be said that he had therein more regard unto the Government than to the Person seeing it is evident the Bill of Exclusion had no ways prejudiced the legal Monarchy which his Majesty doth now enioy with all the Rights and Powers which his wise and brave Ancestors did ever claim because many Acts of the like nature have passed heretofore upon less necessary occasions The preservation of every Government depends upon an exact adherence unto its Principles and the essential Principle of the English Monarchy being that well proportioned distribution of Powers whereby the Law doth at once provide for the greatness of the King and the safety of the People the Government can subsist no longer than whilst the Monarch enjoying the Power which the Law doth give him is enabled to perform the part it allows unto him and the People are duly protected in their Rights and Liberties For this reason our Ancestors have been always more careful to preserve the Government inviolable than to favour any personal Pretences and have therein conformed themselves to the practice of all other Nations whose examples deserve to be followed Nay we know of none so slavishly addicted unto any Person or Family as for any reason whatsoever to admit of a Prince who openly professed a Religion contrary to that which was established amongst them It were easie to alledge multitude of Examples of those who have rejected Princes for reasons of far less weight than difference in Religion as Robert of Normandy Charles of Lorrain Alphonso a Desperadado of Spain but those of a latter date against whom there was no other exception than for their Religion suteth better with our occasion Among whom it is needless to name Henry of Bourbon who though accomplished in all the vertues required in a Prince was by the general Assembly of the Estate at Blois declared uncapable of Succession to the Crown of France for being a Protestant And notwithstanding his Valour Industry Reputation and Power increased by gaining four great Battels yet he could never be admitted King till he had renounced the Religion that was his obstacle And Sigismund Son of John of Sweden King of that Country by Inheritance and of Poland by Election was deprived of his Hereditary Crown and his Children disinherited only for being a Papist and acting conformably to the Principles of that Religion though in all other respects he deserved to be a King and was most acceptable unto the Nation But if ever this Maxim deserved to be considered surely it was in the case of the Duke of York The violence of his natural temper is sufficiently known His vehemency in exalting the Prerogative in his Brothers time beyond its due bounds and the Principles of his Religion which carry him to all imaginable excesses of cruelty have convinced all mankind that he must be excluded or the Name of King being left unto him the power put into the hands of another The Parliament therefore considering this and observing the Precedents of former Ages did wisely chuse rather to exclude him than to leave him the Name and place the Power in a Regent For they could not but look upon it as Folly to expect that one of his temper bred up in such Principles in Politicks as made him in love with Arbitrary Power and bigotted in that Religion which always propagates it self by Blood would patiently bear these shackles which would be very disgustful unto a Prince of the most meek disposition And would he not thereby have been provok'd to the utmost Fury and Revenge against those who ●id them upon him This would certainly have bred a Contest and these limitations of Power proposed to keep up the Government must unavoidably have destroyed it or the Nation which necessity would have forced into a War in its own natural defence must have perished either by it or with it The Success of such Controversies are in the hand of God but they are undertaken upon too unequal terms when the People by Victory can gain no more than what without hazard may be done by Law and would be ruin'd if it should fall out otherwise The Duke with Papists might then make such a Peace as the Romans are said to have made once in our desolated Country by the slaughter of all the Inhabitants able to make War ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant This is the happy state they present unto us who condemn the Parliament for bringing in a Bill of Exclusion This is the way to have such a Peace as the Spaniards for the propagation of the Gospel made in the West-Indies at the instigation of the Jesuits who govern'd their Councils And seeing they have the Duke no less under their power and directions we may easily believe they would put him upon the same Methods But as it is not to be imagined that any Nation that hath vertue courage and strength equal unto the English will so tamely expect their ruine so the passing a Bill to exclude him may avoid but cannot as the Declaration phraseth it establish a War. But if there must be a War let it be under the Authority of Law let it be against a banished excluded Pretender There is no fear of the consequence of such a War No true Englishman can join with him or countenance his Usurpation after this Act and for his Popish and foreign Adherents they will neither be more provok'd nor more powerful by the passing of it Nor will his Exclusion make it at all necessary to maintain a standing Force for preserving the Government and the Peace of the Kingdom The whole People will be an Army for that purpose and every Heart and Hand will be prepared to maintain that so necessary so much desired Law A Law for which three Parliaments have been so earnest with his Majesty not only in pursuance of their own Judgments but by the direction of those that sent them It was the universal opinion of the Papists that Mary Queen of Scots was excluded only by an Act of Parliament and yet we see Queen Elizabeth reigned gloriously and peaceably forty years without any standing force But our Ministers do but dissemble with us when they pretend to be so much afraid of a standing Army We know how eagerly they have desired and how often they attempted to establish one We have seen two Armies raised with no other design as has been since undeniably proved and one of those they were so loth to part with that more than one Act of Parliament was necessary to get it disbanded And since that they have increased the Guards to such a degree that they are become a formidable standing Force A thing so odious to