Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	justice_n	sir_n	thomas_n	2,590	5	8.4692	4	false

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

which sence it hath in all Ages been used by all good Authors and which Bodin puts upon it when he speaks of the Government of France which he calls a Republick no good man will be asham'd of it Our own Authors The Mirror of Justice Bracton Fleta Fortescue and others in former times And of latter years Sir Thomas Smith Secretary of State in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth in his Discourses of the Commonwealth of England Sir Francis Bacon Cook and others take it in the same Sense And not only divers of our Statutes use the Word but even King James in his first Speech unto the Parliament acknowledgeth himself to be the Servant of the Commonwealth and King Charles the I. both before and in the time of the War never expresseth himself otherwise To be fond therefore of such Commonwealth Principles becomes every Englishman and the whole Kingdom did hope and were afterwards glad to find they had sent such Men to Parliament But if the Declaration would intimate that there had been any design of setting up a Democratial Government in Opposition to our legal Monarchy it is a Calumny just of a piece with the other things which the penners of this Declaration have vented in order to the laying upon others the blame of a design to overthrow the Government which only belongs unto themselves It is strange how this Word should so change its signification with us in the space of twenty years All Monarchies in the World that are not purely Barbarous and Tyrannical have ever been called Commonwealths Rome it self altered not that Name when it fell under the Sword of the Caesars The proudest and cruellest of Emperors disdained it not And in our days it doth not only belong to Venice Genoua Switzerland and the United Provinces of the Netherlands but to Germany Spain France Sweden Poland and all the Kingdoms of Europe May it not therefore be apprehended that our present Ministers who have so much decried this Word so well known to our Laws so often used by our best Writers and by all our Kings until this day are Enemies to the thing And that they who make it a brand of Infamy to be of Commonwealth Principles that is devoted to the good of the People do intend no other than the hurt and mischief of that People Can they in plainer terms declare their fondness of their beloved Arbitrary Power and their design to set it up by subverting our Ancient Legal Monarchy instituted for the benefit of the Commonwealth than by thus casting reproach upon those who endeavour to uphold it Let the Nation then to whom the Appeal is made judg who are the men that endeavour to Poison the People and who they are who are guilty of designing Innovations Bracton tells us that potestas Regis is potestas Legis It is from the Law that he hath his Power it is by the Law that he is King and for the good of the People by whose consent it is made The Liberty and welfare of a great Nation was of too much importance to be suffered to depend upon the will of one Man. The best and wisest might be transported by an excess of Power trusted with them and the experience of all times showeth that Princes as men are subject to Errors and might be misled Therefore as far as mans Wit could foresee our Constitution hath provided by annual Parliaments 36 Edw. 3. cap. 10. that the Commonwealth might receive no hurt and it is the Parliament that must from time to time correct the mischiefs which daily creep in upon us Let us then no longer wonder when we see such frequent Prorogations and Dissolutions of Parliaments nor stand amazed at this last unparallell'd effort of the Ministers by this Declaration to render two Parliaments odious unto the people They well know that Parliaments were ordain'd to prevent such mischiefs as they design'd and if they were suffered to pursue the ends of their Institution would endeavour to preserve all things in their due order To unite the King unto his People and the hearts of the People unto the King to keep the Regal Authority within the bounds of Law and perswade his Majesty to direct it to the publick Good which the Law intends But as this is repugnant to the introduction of Arbitrary Power and Popery they who delight in both cannot but hate it and choose rather to bring matters into such a state as may suit with their private Interests than suffer it to continue in its right Channel They love to fish in troubl'd Waters and they find all Disorders profitable unto themselves They can flatter the humor of a misguided Prince and increase their Fortunes by the excesses of a wastful Prodigal the frenzy of an imperious Woman is easily rendred propitious unto them and they can turn the Zeal of a violent Bigot to their advantage the Treacheries of false Allies agree with their own corruptions and as they fear nothing so much as that the King should return unto his People and keep all things quiet they almost-ever render themselves subservient to such as would disturb them And if these two last Parliaments according to their Duty and the Trust reposed in them have more steddily than any other before them persisted in the pious and just endeavours of easing the Nation of any of its Grievances the Authors of the Declaration found it was their best course by false colours put upon things and subtil misrepresentations of their actings to delude the People into an abhorrence of their own Representatives but with what candor and ingenuity they have attempted it is already sufficiently made known And if we look about us we shall find those who design a Change on either hand fomenting a misunderstanding between the King his Parliament and People whilst persons who love the legal Monarchy both out of choice and conscience are they who desire the frequent and successful meetings of the Great Council of the Nation As for the other sort of peevish men of whom the Declaration gives us warning who are angry at the disappointment of their ambitious Designs if these words are intended to reflect on those men of Honour and Conscience who being qualified for the highest employments of State have either left or refused or been removed from them because they would not accept or retain them at the price of selling their Country and Enslaving posterity And who are content to Sacrifice their safety as well as their interest for the publick and expose themselves to the malice of the men in power and to the daily Plots Perjuries and Subornations of the Papists I say if these be the ambitious men spoken of the people will have consideration for what they say and therefore it will be wisdom to give such men as these no occasion to say that they intend to lay aside the use of Parliaments In good earnest the behaviour of the Ministers of late gives but too just occasion

compleat Examination of his Crime could be had no where but in Parliament But it seems somewhat strange that the delaying of a Trial and that against a professed Papist charged with Treason should be a matter so extremely sensible For might it not be well retorted by ●●e people That it had been long a matter extremely sensible to them that so many Prorogations so many Dissolutions so many other Arts had been used to delay the Trials which his Majesty had often desired and the Parliament prepared for against Five professed Popish Lords charged with Treasons of an extraordinary nature But above all that it was a matter extremely sensible to the whole Kingdom to see such Unparliamentary and mean sollicitations used to promote this pretended Rejection of the Commons Accusation as are not fit to be remembred 'T is there that the delay of the Trials is to be laid for had the Impeachment been proceeded upon and the Parliament suffered to sit Fitz-Harris had been long since Executed or deserved Mercy by a full Discovery of the secret Authors of these malicious Designs against the King and People For though the Declaration says a Trial was directed yet we are sure nothing was done in order to it till above a month after the Dissolution And it hath since raised such Questions as we may venture to say were never talk'd of before in Westminster-Hall Questions which touch the Judicature of the Lords and the Privileges of the Commons in such a degree that they will never be determined by the decision of any inferior Court but will assuredly at one time or other have a farther Examination We have seen now that the Commons did it not without some ground when they Voted the refusal of the Lords to proceed upon an Impeachment to be a denial of Justice and a violation of the Constitution of Parliaments and the second Vote was but an application of this Opinion to the present Case The third Vote made upon that occcasion was no more than what the King himself had allowed and all the Judges of England had agreed to be Law in the Case of the Five Impeached Lords who were only generally impeached and the Parliament dissolved before any Articles were sent up against them Yet they had been first indicted in an inferior Court and preparations made for their Trial but the Judges thought at that time that a Prosecution of all the Commons was enough to stop all Prosecutions of an inferior nature The Commons had not impeached Fitz-Harris but that they judged his Case required so publick an Examination and for any other Court to go about to Try and Condemn him tho' it should be granted to be for another Crime is as far as in them lies to stifle that Examination By this time every man will begin to question whether the Lords did Themselves or the Commons Righ●● 〈◊〉 the refusing to countenance such a Proceeding But one of the Penmen of this Declaration has done Himself and the Nation Right and has discovered himself by using his ordinary phrase upon this occasion The Person is well known without naming him who always tells men they have done themselves no Right when he is resolved to do them none As for the Commons nothing was carried on to extremity by them nothing done but what was Parliamentary They could not desire a Conference till they had first stated their own Case and asserted by Votes the matter which they were to maintain at a Conference And so far were those Votes from putting the Two Houses beyond a possibility of Reconciliation that they were made in order to it and there was no other way to attain it And so far was the House of Commons from thinking themselves to be out of a capacity of transacting with the Lords any farther that they were preparing to send a Message for a Conference to accomodate this Difference at the very instant that the Black Rod called them to their Dissolution If every difference in Opinion or Vote should be said to put the Two Houses out of capacity of transacting business together every Parliament almost must be dissolved as soon as called However our Ministers might know well enough that there was no possibility of reconciling the Two Houses because they had before resolved to put them out of a capacity of transacting together by a sudden Dissolution But that very thing justifies the Commons to the World who cannot but perceive that there was solemn and good ground for them to desire an enquiry into Fitz-Harris's Treason since they who influence our Affairs were so startl'd at it that in order to prevent it they first promoted this Difference between the Two Houses and then broke the Parliament left it should be composed There is another thing which must not be past over without Observation That the Ministers in this Paper take upon them to decide this great Dispute between the Two Houses and to give judgment on the side of the Lords We may well demand what person is by our Law constituted a Judge of their Privileges or hath Authority to censure the Votes of one House made with reference to matters wherein they were contesting with the other House as the greatest violation of the Constitution of Parliaments They ought certainly to have excepted the power which is here assumed of giving such a Judgment and publishing such a Charge as being not only the highest Violation of the Constitution but directly tending to the destruction of it This was the Case and a few days continuance being like to produce a good understanding between the Two Houses to the advancing all those great and publick ends for which the Nation hop'd they were called the Ministers found it necessary to put an end to that Parliament likewise We have followed the Writers of the Declaration through the several parts of it wherein the House of Commons are Reproached with any particular Miscarriages and now they come to speak more at large and to give Caution against two sorts of ill Men. One sort they say Are men fond of their old beloved Commonwealth Principles and others are angry at being disappointed in designs they had for accomplishing their own Ambition and Greatness Surely if they know any such Persons the only way to have prevented the mischiefs which they pretend to fear from them had been to have discovered them and suffered the Parliament to Sit to provide against the Evils they would bring upon the Nation by prosecuting of them But if they mean by these lovers of Commonwealth Principles men passionately devoted to the Publick good and to the common Service of their Country who believe that Kings were instituted for the good of the People and Government ordained for the sake of those that are to be governed and therefore complain or grieve when it is used to contrary ends every Wise and Honest man will be proud to be ranked in that number And if Commonwealth signifies the common Good in