Selected quad for the lemma: war_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
war_n	great_a	king_n	scot_n	2,247	5	9.2324	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44581	The petition and argvment of Mr. Hotham, fellow of Peter-house in Cambridge, before the Committee for Reformation of the Universities, April 10, 1651 against the masters negative voice of that colledge, and for a remedy to be granted the colledge against the usurpations of Doctor Seaman the present master, agreeable to what was granted the colledge against the usurpations of Doctor Seaman the present master, agreeable to what was granted by Parliament to the city of London, an. Dom. 1648 for the better enabling them in case of need to act as a free body without their chief officers concurrence.	Hotham, Charles, 1615-1672?	1651 (1651)	Wing H2897; ESTC R26808	47,840	64

Act of Parliament but as I believ'd not the Statutes no further confirmation that I know of appearing more then by the same Commissioners who review'd our Colledg-Statutes which as far as I knew there was as good ground to believe were confirm'd by Parliament as those of the University He further added that that which I charg'd as a fault upon him viz. the relying upon his own wisdom I was chiefly guilty of it my self in preferring a Petition of my own head without first asking the advice and consent of the Fellows who did not appear any way to own it to all which allegations of his my answer directed to the Chairman of the Committee was as followes SIR I acknowledg it may to this grave Assembly seem strange perhaps something smelling of presumption that in a business wherein the good of the whole Colledg is pretended to one man onely should appear to own it he neither the first nor second Senior of the Colledge nor yet publickly employed by the Society for the making of such attempt But I hope if the high consequence of the matter presented and greatness of the person or rather interest to be opposed and how unwilling men of prudent and suffering spirits have always been to engage themselves in high contests and how loath modest men are to ask that which they think may probably be denied them be well considered this wonder will soon cease And to take away the imputation of presumption I have onely this to say that had I known of any man that would have taken upon him this task I should most willingly according to that mans directions either have sitten still or seconded him in the meanest of services tending to the advancement of this cause But I knew of none and besides had above the rest of the Society these speciall engagements obliging me to this endeavour 1. First at the time of my presenting the Petition I was one of the Deans of the Colledge an Officer intrusted by the Founder not onely as an assistant to the Master in the Colledge-Government but likewise as one of the Ephori of Sparta a Supervisor and Censor of his actions in some cases to admonish him if need were and in case of his obstinate standing out against admonitions to complain of him to a Superiour Justice Secondly our Colledge-statute requires every member of the Colledge even after his departure much more during his abode that in way of a grateful acknowledgment of that much good he hath received there he should endeavour the preservation of the Colledge-rights to the utmost of his power Now there having been one of my own name and Family the third or fourth successour to the Bishop of Ely that founded the Colledge a great Benefactor to it though the particulas wherein appear not and my self coming now in a more peculiar manner and by a strange cast of providence to partake of the good fruits of his bounty I held it a double obligation upon me to a performance of this clause of our Statute by endeavouring somewhat which posterity might reap the benefit of which being at present not in a capacity to do by gift of Lands or any considerable sum of Money all I had left within my power was ●●●ly to appear here as the Colledges servant in the vindication of our common-liberties then which ingenuous spirits know not a more precious treasure upon Earth Thirdly 'T is a thing well known to all I have ever converst with that I have ever since the first beginning of these civill wars and that in the most hazardous times when the generality even of the Parliaments party stood inclinable to a defection been to my poor ability and in my narrow sphere a zealous assertor of the Nations liberty against the prerogative of the supreme Officer of State then in War against us And therefore if upon the same principle I now shew my self more then ordinarily forward in asserting the liberties of our particular Common-wealth against a parallel tyranny I hope my boldness will find the easier pardon This I have been necessitated to premise in answer to those evill surmises which you hear have been rais'd and objected as of great consequence against the title of the Petition and more might be added but seeing this Committee hath been so just and honourable as waving all respect of persons to take the matter it self into your grave considerations I shall now wholly apply my self to the matter in hand The Petition is large but may in summe be reduc't to these two heads First a Preamble consisting of a Concatenation of divers motives for enforcement of the Petition Secondly The Prayer of the Petition it self The Motives are many and of great weight You have in them First a generall Proposition of those great mischiefs which the common experience of all ages places and Nations teaches us do arise from the chief Officer of any Corporations being intrusted with a power distinct from and superior to that of the community 'T is both the true characteristicall badge of slavery and the chief fomenter of jealousies and contentions For wheresoever 't is so there 's alwayes a particular interest of the governing power set up distinct from and most what contrary to that of the publike then which nothing can be more destructive to the welfare of any Community the truth of which Maxime we have had a feeling proof in the sad series of those evills which have lately sprung up in this Nation from the claime and exercise of this power by the chief Officer of Englands great Corporation 'T was that which had like first to have plung'd us into the depth of slavery and did afterwards ingage us in a bloudy war the justice of which war can never be solidly maintained by the asserters of a Negative Voice For my own part this was to me the great convincing argument of the Scots apostasie from their first principles and from the cause they were with using ag'd in when I saw them in their Manifesto plead so openly for the upholding of this great branch or rather stock and bulk it self of the royall Prerogative 2. You have for confirmation of this truth the judgment of the whole Representative of England and those that have most cordially appear'd with them in this cause especially of the now governing power which hath always declared this power in the King of a most dangerous and destructive nature to the weale publike and inconsistent with the Nations freedom And the Army in particular when we were not yet attained to that wise and generous resolution of removing the Kingly Office as well as his Person did in their grand Remonstrance propound it as a necessary caution for the securement of our Liberties that whosoever should upon the removall of the late King be admitted though but by election to succeed him should before his admission disavow all claim to a Negative Voice 3. You have presented to your

Societies And if our Head had behav'd himself with the like candor and moderation in his trust you had not I think been troubled with these tedious disputes at this day but our Head though as you have heard denyed a negative voice by our Law-giver will yet usurp it propounding onely what he pleases himself and after the vote past following his own not the common prudence of the Society as shall be amply proved if need be in its proper place Besides we having in the general course of this mans Government observ'd nothing of a publike Spirit ayming at the common good but rather a constant tenor of close dissimulation and greedy intentiveness upon all advantages of not onely holding fast in every punctillo but advancing still further the grand interest of his power and profit and that as far as humane wit could guess of mans heart by its fruits the two great poles of his whole revolution were dominion and covetousness of which upon many sinister dealings of his there 's not three men of all our Society that have been the constant observers of his College-tranfactions this seaven years but have at one time or other exprest their deep resentment this is that has occasion'd this extraordinary petition for a just restraint of this exorbitancy of an assum'd power within those bounds our Law-givers wisdom had prescribed to it with some concurrent helps for the surer execution of his declared will Ex malis moribus ortae sunt bonae leges 'T is the greatest glory of good magistrates that they can in imitation of him whose image they bear bring forth good out of evil light out of darkness and like the Sun in the Firmament produce good Laws out of an equivocal brood of corrupt manners These things I thought it convenient by way of diversion to suggest not that the cause stands in need of it but onely to open your eys that you might see how this Antichristian mystery of the negative voice began its working betimes even neer the Apostolick dayes of Reformation For to the very letter of the Statute as it stands I am not without a very satisfactory answer For it says not positively that all Concessions Elections c. shall be Null which want the Prefects consent but that in all Elections Concessions c. the Prefects consent is necessarily to be required Now we know that that word is of the same nature with Postulo in Latin and so implies rather that the Prefects consent is to be required of him de jure as a right then begg'd as an act of grace as if the Societies consent without his Le Roy le veult were of no force And this answer in these times wherein all Statutes ought to be interpreted in favour of liberty as they were formerly in favour of Prerogative might alone suffice But I shall add another of more convincing evidence Which is this That granting the intent of this Statute was to make the Masters consent a necessary ingredient to the composition of each Election or Concession c. yet it absolves them not from that obliging power which lies upon them by any of their local Statutes to consent to what is advis'd by the major part of their Societies but that by refusal of such consent they incur the guilt of perjury and breach of trust or such other penalty as their Founders providence hath allotted for the establishment of that Law and therefore this obligation to consent remaining still in full force supposes in the major part the Prefects consent legally involv'd and included As to compare the greater with our smaller controversies the Kings consent was always suppos'd to be legally included in the major vote even of the most petit Tribunal much more of the grand Judicatory of the whole Nation though never so much personally dissenting which principle hath been always esteem'd one of the main pillars of our cause upon which alone we might lay the whole stress of not onely the justice and lawfulness but even legality of our war But this man who no doubt hath more then once with our once-Brethren of Scotland voted the King a man of blood and guilty of all the bloodshed of this war for endeavouring but to assert this power to himself though far more favoured by the the standing Laws of the Kingdom at that time then with us by our Statute yet hath not scrupled to do the same thing himself both in his particular practice in the Colledge and by his appearance here with all his interest and wit to maintain this prerogative But to return to the point This point having been fully clear'd up to you out of our local Statute that our Master is bound to consent to the vote of the major part that expression of the University-Statute will now I hope create no prejudice And this answer may likewise satisfie another argument for the negative voice which may possibly be drawn from our Statute of Elections which requires Consensum Magistri major is part is sociorum and some others running in the same strain For the true sence of that Statute de ardius being now fully clear'd makes it apparent that in the consent of the major part of the Society the Masters consent always is or ought to be included And now having I hope removed all doubts and objections I shall now desire leave to speak a word to my sixth motive for granting my Petition viz. the danger lest this root of corruption left among us should hence spread it self again to infect the whole Nation This I confess may seem at first sight but a meer flourish of Rhetorick or far-fetcht strain of melancholy but I shall make it appear there 's much of reality in the assertion 'T is an humour you all know the most of mankind are much incident to to labour the promotion and propagation of the forms opinions and customes of those places where they live especially where they have been train'd up in their younger years and therefore it was the policy of the contrivers of our former Government as knowing that that Government could never be durable which had not its image stampt upon the peoples affections to set up the image of that universal Government of the State in every petty combination of men Hence as a reflected image of the then-present Government by King and Councel King and Lords or King and Parliament was set up that Government of Corporations by Maior and Aldermen Dean Chapter Master and Fellows and in Corporations Masters and Wardens of particular Companies all which were nothing but the general frame of the State-Government contracted as to the matter onely into a narrower compass and this was that that fixt the love of Monarchy so fast in the affections of most Corporations that had it not been that the King had displeased some of the greatest of them by hard impositions upon them in way of their Trade and withall let loose his Bishops to

exercise their tyranny in trampling upon the faces of their reverenc'd Ministers they had never been brought off to draw sword against their Prototype and after they had done it its observable how prone the great ones among them were often to defection and how zealous in shewing their distaste at the removall of that great Idol of all which the King was very sagaciously sensible in the beginning of these wars when in a proposal of his to part with the Militia upon some provisoes yet would by no means consent to take the Militia's of Corporations out of their own hands yet were not the Chiefs of those Corporations such perfect images of Monarchy as ours either for power or durance those were indeed but shadows of it but ours in regard of their continuance in trust during the term of their lives were its living images wanting nothing but an establishment of it in their posterity which yet they bid fair for too when in that new Elizabeth-Reformation wherein they did in a positive inhibition of Fellows from Marriage handsomely imply a leave indulg'd to themselves But it may be some will look at this Argument as a great Mallet lifted up to kill a Fly Our Corporations you will say are small and inconsiderable a meer Synedrion of young Youths or handfulls of poor contemplative men systeem'd up for Orders sake into the form of a Corporation what good or ill can redound from these to the whole Nation But I shall easily make this appear to be a misprision and that there will be more and greater danger from neglect to remedy this evil in our smaller bodies then from the most populous City of the whole Nation For our Corporations though but small in bulk are like those grains of Mustard-seed our Saviour speaks of of a vast comprehensive and multiplying capacity The members of those great Corporations are men it 's true of abler purses and stronger bodies for the present State-service but their abilities are confin'd all within the narrow bounds of their own territory but ours are Seminaries of able wits which are sent to us from all parts of the Nation in the very nick of their first emersion from the slavery of the Ferula into a state of liberty at the first putting on of their considering caps they being as yet abrase tabula smooth tables prepar'd to receive of us those tinctures of good or bad principles with which impressions stampt upon them they afterwards spread themselves into every corner and quarter to leaven the whole Nation No man educated among us but goes away instructed for some publike trust but is in capacity to be an Abraham a Father of many Nations Therefore it concerns you very-deeply who desire not by arms only but by principles to root up Regality and mold the Nation into a true Commonwealth-frame to pull down by taking away its destructive power this image of it in those Fountains of Youths education lest the youth of the Nation coming in their souls choicest pregnancy to drink of our waters enamour'd of that idoll conceive and bring forth its Antitype as heir male to their strongest affections and endeavors to be promoted again to its lost inheritance when time and opportunity shall serve And for the same reason does it deeply concern you to take special care of the Society of Colledges and not give away Fellowships being you see places though of small profit yet of high trust to every begger that comes to you with a formal Certificate much less to confer these high trusts upon Samaritans and meer slavish compliers but especially to tender their precious liberties as the apple of your eye to which nothing can be more inconsistent then a negative voyce plac'd in any one man for let any of the Society approve himself never so active and industrious in promoting the Colledge good and with his utmost pains and skill train up his Pupils to the most eminent proficiency in piety and learning yet if he will not flatter and fawn crowch and cringe and comply with this one great Monarch even to a betraying of the common Freedome to his corrupt ends of pride or covetousness he lives an unserviceable man and all those educated under his charge are put into an impossibility of ever attaining that preferment their deserts shall make them capable of Though the whole community or far greater part judge them worthy of it one mans non placet shall blast all and how great a temptation this will be even to some not dis-ingenuous men being not willing to expose those under their trust to contempt and beggery to worship the Image of that great beast I leave to your wisdoms to judge as likewise whether such an impression of slavery fixt upon the spirits of Fellows of Colledges be not like to impress its counterfeit upon those educated under their trust and by their means upon the greatest part of the Nation Another motive giue me leave to present you with which though omitted in my Petition is of great consequence being drawn from the principles of universal reason which will say that every particular mans interest of the Society being every way equal to that of the Master nay in some respects far greater for the Master is but one single person but every Fellow having pupils under his charge is a kind of Corporation by himself 't is a thing contrary to common sense that his one voyce should be laid in the balance to oversway the major part of the Society There was once a custome in some Corporations of which our selves have yet in our Colledge some shadows left that not the Warden or Master onely but every single man of the Society had a negative voyce which upon this very ground as contrary to the common Law of the Land i.e. to common Reason was taken away by an Act of Parliament 33. H. 8. onely I conceive in tenderness to the Prerogatives of Monarchy much favour'd throughout the whole body of our Laws the Statute was so pen'd that the Maior Master or Warden had his Negative left him but now we have no Monarchy whose priviledges we ought to be tender of and there 's every way the same reason nay far more for devesting the single Warden of his Negative then for taking it away from so many members conjunctive as may amount to neer the half of the Society One word more I desire to add as an inforcement of my Petition that of all Masters of Colledges in the Town there 's least reason the Master of our Colledge should claim to himself this grand Prerogative of a Negative voyce for the whole burden of the Colledge-government hath for all these seven years layed wholly upon the shoulders of the President and Fellows The Master hath held his place now for about seven years yet he hath never once that I know of resided among us for six weeks nay not one moneth seldome above a fortnight together at one time hath seldome or