Selected quad for the lemma: city_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
city_n	great_a	king_n	people_n	9,166	5	4.4099	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52586	An ansvver to a passage in Mr. Baxter's book, intituled, A key for Catholicks, beginning pag. 321, concerning the King's being put to death by John Nanfan, Esq.	Nanfan, John.	1660 (1660)	Wing N148; ESTC R3575	45,130	57

Powers of the Common-Wealth not above them for so presently they should perish having no power absolute to defend them so as we see directly it must be one or other either Subordination or Supremacy entire That must needs be a strange Government where the Soveraignty is divided and lying in divers Powers when they differ the people distracted in their obedience not knowing where to obey to but made to follow the lusts appetites and injustice of either party as it gains power and not certain to retain it Therefore there is a Law amongst our Statute Laws of England H. 7.11 y. C. 1. That the subject shall be secured to fight for the King in being This meerly from this reason of avoiding the mischief the Subject is put to by a divided commanding Power this Law though a gross one and against truth many times because Usurpers did possess the Throne yet for this reason preferred and not yet destroyed though the Sword was too hard for it as for all things else It is to be observed that there is no Government without a mixture which makes Rights in the People God himself doth not govern the World otherwise so but that he gives the People Laws both for their direction and conviction for it is in some sense that the Law makes the offence and besides otherwise all must flow from the King as Water continually renewed out of its Fountain and the People not know whom to obey nor subordinates how to act so as mixture in the Government makes no Argument it being of necessity to all Governments And as for taking up Arms and fighting for their Rights Right and right of defending holds not against Government absolutely His next Object If a Prince engage either hired Strangers or Fugitives or home-bred Delinquents or others to rise up against the Senate or People either it is lawful to defend themselvs by Arms or not if not especially if they have a share in the Soveraignty then is his Power absolute and unlimited and neither Laws or any thing below are any security against his Will to the common safety Answ The Ages that follow shall be very little beholden to Mr. Baxter to let them know the true state of a business of the highest and most horrid importance that ever befell England far excelling in accursedness the intestine War betwixt the two Houses of York and Lancaster because it hath destroyed our Form of Government and all Title to Govern which is an unhappiness upon a People above all evill whatsoever Usurpation being a continued source of evil I admire he can be so little serious in it This of his seems no more then that the King raiseth wicked Forces to destroy the Parliament and a Question meerly Whether or no they should defend themselvs There is a great Narrative and Historical part belongs to this to set it forth But it was not my end but only so far as to answer his and no farther In the first place the Parliament made alliance with the Scots disbanded the English Army to work their end upon the King The King was taken in a Toyl of his own making calling a Parliament the Scottish Army being in England and now both Interests clasped him that he had no means left him to get out of it but to break thorow it by force which he despaired of They draw up a Remonstrance to the three Nations to shame the King to the People and make him odious not the accidents of Government but are put upon the King's score as if any Government could be without faults and as if we should have been so much happier under them under whom we have found the little finger heavier than the Loyns of Kings and their whippings Scorpions to the other's Rods an Instance taken from Scripture and often applyed but never truer than in this of our condition and suffering under them The Parliament once in ruine was inevitable upon the King never after was any wisdom or means useful to him preservation is not always in our own Power we have but the offer of it which neglected or omitted commonly the means turns to another Interest and cannot be regained The King did now too late strive by all manner of concessions and compliance yet nothing would divert destructin that did fix upon him like the poysoned Shirt prepared by Dejanira for Hercules which once on though he did strive to tear it from him yet to no purpose the venom and poyson and fiery quality of it did penetrate into great Hercules and consume him The truth is the King was dispossessed before he durst appear in opposition all his Forces by Sea and Land City of London Hull and Port-Towns engaged against him his own Ordnance and Arms to fight against him He had nothing but the Interest of a King and the pity of those few that did compassionate him the People generally poysoned to raise up any party for him and fighting was but his meer necessity for as he said himself he was sure to be the loser because he had nothing but his own to oppose to in his own Kingdom and his own People his Enemies Yet further no Concessions would serve and Concessions were his fault and misfortune too it comes to be the case of the King not to be trusted and so the dispute grew upon the Militia a word introduced commonly treated as if an ordinary thing no less in it self than the being of a King who should have the Power I may very well give it off here because the case came to be Whether King or no King This being somewhat of the active part I shall speak now to the speculative part of his Objection That if a Prince engage either hired Strangers or Fugitives or home-bred Delinquents or others to rise up against the Senate or People either it is lawful to defend themselves by Arms or not if not especially if they have a share in the Soveraignty then saith he is the King's Power absolute and unlimited and neither Laws or any thing below are any security against his Will to the common safety Now in Answer to this first it supposeth a Case that never can be as a King to raise Forces to destroy his People or any party of them it can never be the case that is for a King to War upon his People in condition of Subjection therefore it is ever the People's War resisting the King in his governing Power It may be a case that the Parliament will not dissolve but defend themselvs by force and this is a making War upon the King Now this being directly the Nature of a War betwixt King and Subjects all the pretences to a defence are taken off and the Question comes simply to be Whether for other respects about the Government any party out of the King may raise War This must of necessity be resolved in the Negative because it is not possible to fancy governing power with a power in the

of the King but instantly by the descent of the Crown to the right Heir he is King This his and more there exprest And indeed no worldly Power can dispose alien or transfer the right of the Crown King Edward the sixth before his death would have setled the Crown upon his nearest Kinswoman the Lady Jane Gray Wife to the Lord Dudly his Sister Mary being of the Roman Church and the Council and Peers swore to this in his presence and he dyed Now what the effect Only to make them all Traytors and no other right in it Parliaments have declared for Titles but never can make any nor deprive Right It is true divers Usurpers have had Parliament Test for their Warrant for those have most need of it but still it was acted under power enforcing and so it was nothing but mearly so long as the Power lasted Usurpation doth not come into possession without power and it draggs Parliaments after it and deprives all reality but meer Hypocrisy in all that is acted or pretended to by Parliament or People I have no more now to consider of than of the Right of Kings having spoken of their Original Cause Power c. Now this first is generally from the great end of it that is Government which as Government is ever good good as Government though it may be an evil Government nor can any failings in the particularities so over-rule the common good of it but still it hath good of Government in it But this comes not to the Question of Right in the person which we are to inquire Certainly it cannot be Conquest which is only a great Riot and multiplying of Rapines and Man-slaughters it is all Wickedness which is only distinguished from common wickedness as it transcends all other actings of wickedness and such is the nature of Conquest by excess of wicedness to make it self above offending and punishment Then it cannot be in submission of the People to it being first conquered still before they consent and if they partly resist and gain conditions yet it is in respect of the power which is cause of all the following of what nature soever it be And it is not possible that any one can receive a Right from his doing wrong Some suppose upon the future settlement and equability of the Government established Title may result yet still all this is after the power and cannot imply in any kind a not Being of it being first supposed absolute at least not their condition to resist it Besides in the Case of a former Right the Peoples consent cannot evacuate a right in the former Prince outed or his posterity Now that it appears directly that none of these things make right or are of any force to it it is cleared by this that if the outed Prince can recover and regain Power these things vanish as unlawful and as wicked consentings and compliance and so long as the old Right can possibly retain its self in memory add but power to it and it is ever unquestionable One instance with us in England of sixty years discontinuance yet when it recovered power to act all the Usurpation went for nothing and the old came in as Right not as Conquest Where yet shall we find it Nothing but the Old extinguishing by long continuance of the latter and that becoming natural and consent goes with Nature so hard it is to the Titles of Princes and so precious to the People to retain them and so dangerous to lose them And all the Intervals filled and taken up with the uncertainty of Government and all the accidents that attend want of Title Therefore since only time and long time makes unquestionable Right to Princes it is of all Rights or Titles the hardest to be attained to and must be most absolute since nothing but User can give in its Authority therefore it is most unquestionable venerable unchangable independent of any other Cause and so under no other power and never falls but with the ruine of the People And this is a high perfection of Kingly Government since no other Form of Government can have this precious thing Title in it that is Right in the Person which is the Cement of Government and half the means of it and consent goes along with it whereby all the People act subordinately and this makes it easy and without force because of this tacite consent of the People to it for all operation of the Soul is but consent consent is the genius of the Government by which it acts and all the People and all common Interest doth center in the Right of it and find their rest And now I have done with the Argument I have only something of Observation from the natural effects of Rebellion and destroying rightful Government as we see it in ours Now the Work is done and all in the Power of the destroyers What comes of it Two very natural and great effects the one is Wickedness all manner of wickedness impieties false Religions Cruelty of manners and actings multiplicity of Tyrants having destroyed the great Tyrant-Government under a King as they called it all persons that get Power act as Tyrants Multitude of Tyrants out of the People themselves acting wickedly in all parts Cities and Towns where most Interest of the People lies strange Principles in profession and opinion and despising rancks and degrees of persons and of Kings and Supreams and bringing all into a contempt and baseness against order of nature and nature of Government which consists in difference and degrees and subordination To follow this subject of our present condition what a Monster England is become no such Copy of it in the World It must be all written and taken out of it self the strange infinite forms of Wickedness both in Faith and manners base horrible Conceptions monstrous Notions all hatched and have their production from the putrified matter of standing in condition of Rebellion and loosed from the rightful governing Power and running loose into parties and into their own sense having cast off the right Power which keeps to Order and Unity all Order and Unity being the effect of Government and the Monstrousness and Infiniteness that enters in the vacancy or deficiency of it for Errors in their nature are infinite whereas all true Beings have but their natural proportions and definitions The other is unsettledness which is the Curse of Usurpation and of destroying rightful Government that it cannot resolve it self into any thing of certainty or Being to the People under the power of it As we see these persons to perpetuate their Wickedness can make nothing of it The King 's Right and the wrong they do doth shine out of darkness it self out of that rubbish of confusion and destruction they would bury it under We see they can make nothing of all the Power having the whole it being the King's Power and the King 's Right they are confounded with it do but toss and tumble this Power over and over it can no where settle to make a Government but monstrous violence grows out of it and this is all they can create from it which doth admirably confirm the King 's right and that only in that doth consist the People's Interest and what a strange spirit and principle is in it that though troden down and debased reviled scandalized and kept out yet it riseth against all Power not in nature left or possible to make a settlement or Justice or Safety to the People without it the People undone by the usurping it so dangerous is a King 's Right when devested and displaced and so precious to preserve in its true place My last I will conclude withal which may reflect upon the whole is that I conceive the best way of calling Parliaments is frequently and never by necessity for when a King hath most need it proves most dangerous therefore it is never to be used as the last remedy Kings ought to have something in reserve to help them off that again if it grow averse and incline to danger And it was the total ruine of the King that he was so much a loser before he came to play this Game When all was distempered and disordered round about the out-Nations up in Arms and the home-People poysoned discontented then he calls a Parliament when no thing totally and mainly could have destroyed him but that for every grievance and every misery and every distress of the King 's served them for matter against the King and so turned the cause of putting himself upon them for help to be the means of their depressing him and destroying him It is like that our Saviour saith putting a new piece of Cloth into an old Garment it makes the rent worse so all the parts so fear and unsound as nothing to bear the searching severe remedy of a Parliament and apt to grow wicked with their Power FINIS