Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	act_n	king_n	power_n	5,492	5	5.0298	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30357	The ill effects of animosities among Protestants in England detected and the necessity of love unto, and confidence in one another, in order to withstand the designs of their common enemies, laid open and enforced.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1688 (1688)	Wing B5802; ESTC R11786	28,124	24

glory through an enlargement of the Terms of her Communion and what would have been to the praise of her Moderation and Charity through her being perswaded to bear with such as differed from her in little things and could not prevail with themselves to partake with her in all Ordinances Upon the whole it is both the prudence and safety of Dissenters as they would escape Extirpation themselves and have Religion conveyed down to Posterity to unite their strength and endeavours to those of the Church of England for the upholding her against the Assaults of Popish Enemies who pursue her Subversion As matters are now circumstanced and stated in England there is not an Affront or Injury offered or done unto her by the Court which do not at the same time reach and wound the Fanaticks 'T is not her being for Episcopacy Cerimonies and imposed set Forms of Worship the things about which she and the Nonconformists differ that she is maligned and struck at by the Man in power and his Popish Juncto but it is for being Protestant Reformed and Orthodox Crimes under the guilt whereof Dissenters are equally concerned and involved Being therefore in opposition to the common Cause of Religion that the late Court of Inquisition is erected over her Ecclesiasticks all Protestants ought jointly to resent the Wrongs which she sustains and not only to sympathise with those Dignified and lower Clergy which are called to suffer but to espouse their Quarrel with the same warmth that we would our own And as we are to look upon those of the Episcopal Communion to be the great Bulwark of the Protestant Religion and Reformed Interest in England so it is farther incumbent upon Dissenters towards them and a duty which they owe to God the Nation and themselves not to be accessary to any thing through which the legal Establishment of the Church of England may by any Act of pretended Regal Prerogative be weakned and supplanted I am not counselling the Fanaticks to renounce their Principles nor to participate with the Prelatical Church in all Ordinances on the Terms to which they have straitned and narrowed their Communion For while they remain unsatisfied of the lawfulness of those Terms and Conditions they cannot do it without offending God and contracting guilt upon their Souls nor will they of the Church of England in Charity Justice and Honesty expect it from them for whatsoever any man believeth to be in it is so to him and will by God be impured as such till he be otherwise englightned and convinced nor are the Fanaticks to be falie and cruel to themselves in order to be kind and friendly to them But that which I would advice them unto is that after the maintaining the highest measure of love to the consormable Congregations as Churches of Christ and the esteeming their Members as Christian Protestant Brethren notwithstanding the several things wherein they judge them to err and to be mistaken that they would not by any Act and Transaction of theirs betray them into the Despotical Power of this Popish King nor directly nor indirectly acknowledge his being vested with an Authority paramount unto and superceding the Laws by which the Church of England is established in its present form order and mode of Jurisdiction Discipline and external Worship Whatsoever ease arriveth to the Dissenters through the King 's suspending the execution of the Penal Laws without their Address and Application they may receive it with joy and humility in themselves and with thankfulness to God nor is there hereby any prejudice offered on their part to the Authority of the Law or offence or injury given or done to the Conformable Clergy Nor is without grief and regret that the Church-men are forced to behold the harassing spoiling and imprisonment of the Nonconformists while in the mean time the Papists are suffered to assemble to the celebration of their Idolatrous Worship without censure and controul And were it in their power to remedy it and give relief to their Protestant Brethren they would with delight and readiness embrace the occasion and opportunity of doing it But alas instead of having an advantage put into their hand of contributing to the relief of the Fanaticks which I dare say many of them ardently wish and desire they are compelled contrary to their Inclination as well as their Interest to become instrumental in persecuting and oppressing them Nor does the King covet a better and a more legal Advantage against the Conformists than that they would refuse to pursue Dissenters and decline molesting them with Ecclesiastical Censures and Civil Punishments so that their Condition is to be pitied and bewailed in that they are hindred from Acting against the Papists though both enjoined by Law and influenced thereunto by motives of Self-preservation as well as by ties of Conscience while in the mean time they are forced to prosecute their Fellow Protestants or else to be suspended and deposed and put out of their Offices and Employs And though I do believe that they would at last have more Peace in themselves and be better accepted with God in the great day of their account should they refuse to disturb and prosecute their Protestant Brethren and scorn to be any longer Court Tools for weakning and undermining the Reformed Cause and Interest yet I shall leave them to act in this as they shall be persuaded in themselves and as they shall judge most agreeable to Principles of Wisdom and Conscience In the interim the Fanaticks have all the reason in the World to believe that the Proceedings of the Clergy and Members of the Church of England at this season and juncture against them are not the Results of their Election and Choice but the effects of moral compulsion and necessity Not will any Dissenter that is prudent and discreet blame them for a matter which they cannot help but bear his misfortune and lot with patience in himself and with compassion and charity towards them and have his Indignation raised only against the Court which forceth them to be instrumental in their oppression and trouble And instead of being thereby provoked to petition the King to suspend the execution of the Penal Laws or that he would by an Act of his Prerogative dispense with their Meetings for religious Worship in defiance of them they ought to consider that is what the Court aims at by commanding their conformable Brethren to molest and pursue them For a power paramount and transcendent to the Law is what the King is usurping and which he would fain work his Subjects one way or another to acknowledge The Fanaticks cannot be so far void of sense as to think that the person now in the Throne bears them any good will but his drift is to screw himself into a Supremacy and Absoluteness over the Law and to get such an Authority confessed to be vested in him as when he pleaseth he may subvert the established Religion and set up

Popery for by the same power that he can dispense with the Penal Statutes against the Nonconformists he may also dispense with those against the Roman Catholicks and whosoever owneth that he hath a Right to do the first doth in effect own that he hath a Right to do the last for if he be allowed a Power for the superceding some Laws made in reference to matters of Religion he may challenge the like Power for the superceding others of the same kind and then by the same Authority that he can suspend the Laws against Popery he may also suspend those for Protestancy and by the same Power that he can in defiance of Law indulge the Papists the exercise of their Religion in Houses he may establish them in the publick celebration of their Idolatry in Churches and Cathedrals Yea whereas the Laws that relate to Religion are enacted by no less Authority than those that are made for the preservation of our Civil Rights should the King be admitted to have an Arbitrary Power over the one it is very like that by the Logick of Whitehall he will challenge the same absoluteness over the other Nor do I doubt but that the eleven Iudges who have gratified him with a Despoticalness over the former will when required grant him the same over the latter I know the Dissenters are under no small Temptations both by reason of being hindred from enjoying the Ordinances of the Gospel and because of many grievous Calamities which they daily suffer for their Nonconformity of making Applications to the King for some relief by his suspending the execution of the Laws but they must give me leave to add that they ought not for the obtaining of a little ease to betray the Kingdom and sacrifice the legal Constitution of the Government to the Lust and Pleasure of a Popish Prince whom nothing less will serve than being Absolute and Despotical And were he once in the quiet Possession of an Authority to dispense with the Penal Laws the Fanaticks would not long enjoy the benefit of it Nor can they deny him a Power of reviving the execution of the Law which is part of the Trust deposited with him as supreme Magistrate who have granted him a Power of suspending the Laws which the Rules of the Government preclude him from And as he may whensoever he pleaseth cause the Laws to which they are obnoxious to be executed upon them so by virtue of having an Authority acknowledged in him of superceding the Laws he may deprive them of the Liberty of meeting together to the number of Five a Grace which the Parliament thought fit to allow them under all the other Severities to which they were subjected Nor needs there any further evidence that the Prince's challenging such a Power is an Usurpation and that the Subjects making any Application by which it seems allowed to him is a betraying of the ancient Legal Government of the Kingdom than to consider that the most obsequious and servile Parliament to the Court that ever England knew not only denied this Prerogative to the late King but made him renounce it by revoking his Declaration of Indulgence which he had emitted Anno 1672. And as it will be to the perpetual Honor of the Dissenters to have chosen rather to suffer the Severities which the Laws make them liable unto than by any Act and Transaction of theirs to undermine and weaken either the Church or the State so it will be a means both of endearing them to future Parliaments and of bringing them and the Conformists into an union of Counsels and endeavours against Popery and Tyranny which is at this season a thing so indispensably necessary for their common preservation especially when though a new and more threatning Alliance and Confederacy with France than that in 72 the King hath not only engaged to act by and observe the same measures towards Protestants in England which that Monarch hath vouchsafed the World a Pattern and Copy of in his carriage towards those of the Reformed Religion in France but hath promised to disturb the Peace and Repose of his Neighbors and to commence a War in conjunction with that Prince against Foreign Protestants For as the Kings giving Liberty and Protection to the Algerines to frequent his Havens and sell the Prizes which they take from the Dutch is both a most infamous Action for a Prince pretending to be a Christian and a direct violation of his Alliance with the States General so nothing can be more evident than that he thereby seeks to render them the weaker for him to assault and that he is resolved if some unforeseen and extraordinary Providence doth not interpose and prevent to declare War against them the next Summer in order whereunto great Remises of Mony are already ordered him from the French Court. So that the Indulgence which he pretends to be inclinable to afford the Dissenters is not an effect of kindness and good Will but an Artifice whereby to oblige their Assistance in destroying those abroad of the same Religion with themselves Which if he can compass it is easie to foresee what Fate both the Fanaticks and they of the Communion of the Church of England are to expect Who as they will not then know whither to retreat for shelter so they will be destitute of Comfort in themselves and deprived of Pity from others not only for having through their Divisions made themselves a Prey to the Papists at home but for having been accessary to the ruine of a Reformed State abroad and which was the Asilum and Sanctuary of all those that were elsewhere oppressed and persecuted for Religion FINIS