Selected quad for the lemma: war_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
war_n	high_a	king_n	treason_n	3,672	5	9.5249	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85885	An exercitation concerning usurped powers: wherein the difference betwixt civill authority and usurpation is stated. That the obedience due to lawfull magistrates, is not owing, or payable, to usurped powers, is maintained. The obligation of oaths, and other sanctions to the former, notwithstanding the antipolitie of the latter is asserted. And the arguments urged on the contrary part in divers late printed discourses are answered. Being modestly, and inoffensively managed: by one studious of truth and peace both in Church and state.	Hollingworth, Richard, 1607-1656.; Gee, Edward, 1613-1660, attributed name.	1650 (1650)	Wing G449; Thomason E585_2	84,100	90

that height as that he in person departs from them a war breaks out betwixt them the Kingdom is divided by partieship with them on the one side or the other the two Houses continue acting joyntly no onely in managing their military defence but in the other publick both religious and civill affairs of the Kingdom they petition remonstrate and declare for a necessitie of an association and conjunction of the King and the two Houses as the fundamentall constitution and government of the Kingdome they enter into and prescribe to the people Protestations Vows Oaths and Covenants for the upholding of the Authority and Power of both so constituted they professedly fight for that associated Power they proclaim them Enemies and Traitors they prosecute them with fire and sword sequestration of estates and other punishments that go about to divide them asunder or oppose the aforesaid Authority and all this they do and avow as the indispensably necessary discharge of their trust Suppose after all this the Army raised and imployed by the said two Houses in the aforesaid war confederating in their Leaders as by the immediate sequell manifestly appears with a small party in the Lower House Remonstrates to that House without any addresse to the other many high and strange things they would have done by them and amongst the rest that the King be proceeded against as for treason and other capitall crimes in like manner his two eldest Sons if they render not themselves within a day to be set them that it be declared that the peoples Representatives in the House of Commons shall have the supreme Power and all other shall be subject to them in which demands that House not being so obsequious to them as they expect but standing upon the collegueship of that Government which they with their associates the King and the House of Peers are intrusted with the Army forthwith marcheth up to the doores and by force of Arms seizeth on and shuts up in hold one sort of them and by a strong guard set at their doores shuts out another suffering onely a small number of them and such as please them to sit in the House Suppose lastly this little number left in the House shall approve of and second these proceedings of this Army and by their act or Vote confirm the seclusion of that greater number of the Members of that House and taking upon them to Act in the name of that House shall Enact or declare themselves to be the onely Supreame Authority in the Nation and by that pretended solitarinesse and supremacy of power shall take away and abolish the other House of Parliament destroy the life of the King deny and disanull the Title of his Heirs and Successors to the Crown and Kingdome abolish the office of a King and ordain and govern solitarily over the people as their onely supreame Power and require their obedience and subjection as to such The quaere in this case thus propounded is whether this said party as thus acting and as to this latitude of Authority be usurpers yea or no whether this their removing others from the Seat of Supreame Power and assuming it peculiarly to themselves be or be not Usurpation as Usurpation hath been before prescribed and that to the very apex or highest pinacle of it yea whether they be or be not guilty of a double Usurpation First in usurping the name and Authority of that House It may haply be said for this 1. That possibly they may make a quorum or as many in number as are required to act R But are they not supposed to be under actuall and present force which hath been without contradiction by any adjudged a ground of nullity to Parliamentary proceedings For though all are not required to be present yet the House must be free for all to come to that their acts may be free and authorative 2ly That perhaps they may be most willing voluntary and free in their acts and the force that hath taken away others may be no force but a security to them being of the same principles apprehensions and designes with them R But though they as men may be free yet taking upon them the name of the House are they free as an House the House includeth virtually every Member of it many whereof being violently excluded by those that guard the meeting place how free soever those persons are that sit how can the House be said to be free nay doth not their voluntarinesse and free complyance make the Usurpation compleater Could they be said to be enforc'd to declard and act such things we might by a favourable interpretation onely judge their Acts to be null but when their proceedings flow from their own wils and they so concur to the exclusion of others more then themselves from the exercise of the power they with them are intrusted with and assume to themselves a power never confirmed on them by the people but meerly of their own creation how can this be lesse then Usurpation to the life 2ly In usurping in the name of that House the sole supremacy of Power in the Nation It will be pleaded perhaps that the House of Commons in the supposed case is the onely Representative of the people to whom alone the Nation hath committed the Supreme Power R 1. That House is not a Representative of the whole Nation but onely of the Commons which though the bulk and far more numerous part yet cannot stand for the whole in choosing a Representative but onely for themselves 2. If it could be made good that to that House the whole Nation in the originall constitution of Government had committed the sole Power the quaere would easily be cast in the negative but how will that be proved The case at it is put presupposeth Antiquitie and by past practise and the actings of the present House of Commons untill brought under force to proclaim the quite contrary 3. If nothing ab origine can be shewed for that did the King that summoned this Parliament or the People that chose this House of Commons supposed in the Case passe over any such prerogative to them de novo If either of them did let us hear how 4. It is too grosse an absurdity to be charged upon the supposed present and all former Representatives that being intrustsed by the people with the sole Supremacy they have of themselves associated to them the King and the House of Peers it being beyond the power of the constituted and onely in the Constitutors to make such an alteration in the fundamentall Constitution as Representatives cannot make Representatives or Proxies so can they not take in Associates or advance others not impowered by them that impowered them into a Collegueship with them I leave it therefore to every Reader to determine the Case and passe Judgement Whether the sole supreme Power in the presupposed party be derived to them legitimately or be not a Self-created power and so a meer

latter is preferred by many wise Statists before the former g Minore discrimine sumi principem qu●m quaeti Tacit. Hist l. 2 I shall not insist on the distinctions that might be observed touching the manner of the peoples passing their consent nor determine which of them is sufficient and which not to make this right or title whether it must be antecedent to possession or may be consequent expresse or tacite collective or representative absolute or conditionated free or enforced revocable or irrevocable The consideration of these is not materiall to the resolution of what is in question it sufficeth that it be yeelded that the peoples consent is besides that which is by commission immediately sent and signed from heaven the onely derivation of a lawfull call or claim to Government h Quirtum ver● regalis Monarchiae genus est quae iam temporibus Heroicis voluntate civium patriis legibus atque institutis approbata est Aristot politic li 3. num 8● Luk. 12.13 14 When our Saviour Christ who being such an extraordinary person might have warrant to do what would have been presumption in any other was appealed to in a cause that appertained to the civill Magistrates decision he refused to deal in it with these words Who made me a Judge or a divider over you according to which words of him who was the truth he that may rule must be placed in that office by some body and may not undertake it of himself no man may take this honour to himself or be his own advancer to the Throne but he must be installed by another and what other creature besides the Nation it self can challenge a power to appoint over it its Rulers is not to me imaginable Angels are not of this Oeconomie do not intermeddle in this businesse and for other people or forrein States they are but in an equalitie and have no partnership in this matter they have no more to do to impose Governors over their neighbours then they have reciprocally over them and to whichsoever may attempt it towards the other by the analogy of our Saviours words it may be said Luk. 12.13 14. Who made thee a Judge or Rule maker over me A calling from the people who are to be subject being so necessary and essentiall to a humanely constituted Magistracie it is easie to discern what is Usurpation viz that which is opposite to it or privative thereof which is a snatching hold of the Scepter and wresting it out of the hands of those who are to dispose of it or have it committed to them it is ordinarily termed a tyrannie in regard of title or without title The distinction betwixt lawfull Magistrates and Tyrants is thus given by Aristotle h Reges enim non solum secundum legem sed etiam volentibus Tyranni autem invitis imperant Aristot polit l. 3. num 87. Etenim si nolentibus imperatur regnum protinus esse desinit Tyrannis efficitur quae vi dominatur Verum regnum est imperium voluntate civium delatum at si quis vel fraude vel violentia dominatur manifest● Tyrannis est idem li. 5. num 112. Kings do reign not onely according to the Law but over them that consent to them Tyrants rule over men against their wils If any govern against the minde of the governed it ceaseth to be a Kingdom and becometh a Tyrannie which ruleth by force All lawfull power then is founded upon the wils of those over whom it is set Contrariwise Usurpation is built upon the will and power of them that hold the Government it is a self-created or self authorised Power such was that of i Deinde Cinna Carbo s●se sine comi●iis consules creabant in biennium Chro. Carion li. 2. Cinna and Carbo who made themselves Consuls without any Court-election in the time of the Romane sociall war betwixt Sylla and Marius and that of k Ex Dictatore Consulem se cum P. Servilio ipse facit Cluver Hist li 7. pag. 235. Julius Caesar who made himself Consul together with Publius Servilius such was that of the Chaldeans over the Jews Hab. 1.7 Their judgement and their dignity shall proceed of themselves saith the Prophet that is as Deodate expounds it they received no Law nor assistance from any their right consists in their will and the execution in their power Usurpation being defined we may proceed to distinguish of it according to severall heights or degrees it is capable of as 1. It is either where the Throne is vacant and undisposed of which may happen sundry wayes as when a Common-wealth is new erected or the possessors of the Government resigne or are extinct and none left to lay claim to it or where it is full and possessed de jure and the Rulers are onely violently extruded and kept out 2. Usurpation is either meerly in point of Title and administration of a received and settled Government or by way of innovating in the Government it self over-turning the constitution of it and forming it a new 3. It may come to be acted either from those without viz Forreiners and strangers to the State or by Natives and naturall Subjects of the Kingdome 4. It is done by these either against the single tye and duty of obedience and Allegiance owed to the present lawfull Authority or against Allegiance bound with Oaths and sacred Covenants All the sorts of each of these distinctions are direct and formall usurpations but the latter of each far surpasseth the other respectively and a conspiration of them all makes an Usurpation of a meridian altitude when a party owing obedience and subjection to a long continued and undoubted lawfull power and solemnly sworn to submit too and support that Government shall rise up and presume to thrust out the possessors and invest it self yea and not onely seize on the Power but of its own minde and will or by its force alone abolish the settled and set up a new mould of government this is Usurpation to the culmen or height of it Having thus found out what Usurpation and what the Zenith of it is we may put a case wherein it will be easie to give a Judgement cleerly Suppose a Nation in America whose fundamentall government is and hath been anciently and confessedly constituted and placed in a King an House of Peers and an House of Commons sitting in a collaterall or coordinate rank in regard of supremacy of power the King being the supreme in order unto whom in such an association Oaths of Allegiance and supremacy are generally sworn next to him the Peers as the Upper and the Commons as the Lower House of Parliament Suppose also the King according to his place summoning them and they conformably assembling together in Parliament and he and they personally concurring to act in the highest affairs of government in the processe whereof differences arise betwixt the King and the said two Houses which grow to