Selected quad for the lemma: law_n
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A62487
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Three letters of publick concernment as to the present affairs ... as also concerning the late publication of the covenant in all churches / by a person of quality and of a publick spirit.
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Person of quality and of a publick spirit.
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1660
(1660)
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Wing T1097; ESTC R38805
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11,970
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30
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as all our Laws and PARLIAMENTS have declared Thirdly That King CHARLES the son of his late glorious Father and our Soveraign hath de jure the same and cannot without Rebellion a sin as high as that of witch craft be denied him Fourthly That EPISCOPACY is of divine institution an order deduced through all ages of Christs Church and continued to us by lawfull and undoubted ordination Fifthly That Bishops have in all ages had Reverence payed them as the Pillers supporters of Christianity by their pious learned and painfull labours when living and propagating it when dead by their bloud shed in Martyrdome when one dying man made many living Saints Sixthly That it was not the Calling but exorbitancies in it not the Tree but the Luxurious branches these times at first complained of and desired to prune not dig up Seventhly That it was a Government admired and approved by all the Reformed Churches abroad as essential to the bene esse of a Church and by many learned Divines ancient and modern to the esse the very being of a Church Eighthly That Presbytery as propounded by our Synod of Divines is of a bastard extraction and a late birth being a stranger to antiquity and an alien lately legitimated amongst us a thing so far from being countenanced as it was never known in the Christian Church Yet waving all these and infinite more considerations I could offer humbly casting my self upon your mercy for a pardon of this deviation I shall not so much reflect upon your LORD-SHIPS reasons against introducing MONARCHY and EPISCOPACY as to shew you they were never taken away by any just power admit it were in the late PARLIAMENT when Full and Free for untill severall forces and violences were acted upon them and the Secluded Members denied their Votes There was no Regicide no murthering of the Heirs that the Vineyard might be ours no Votes for altering our ancient and BEST FABRICATED Government in the world but on the contrary ALL the PARLIAMENTS Protestations Declarations Actions and Covenants were for KING and PARLIAMENT Conjunctim not divisim and were so intended to be adhered to by our Confessours though not Martyrs the lately restored Members and onely surviving honourable mention of that expired Parliament Nor did the people of this Nation ever voluntarily contribute either of their persons or purses to other ends then the Parliament had declared even a confining of arbitrary power and keeping all things in their own bounds and channels a reforming a mending the the Watch not the taking it in pieces So as the peoples Interests in this are safe but cannot be entituled to the endeavours of the changes you mention without a just forfeiture of all they enjoy a maintaining of perpetuall divisions at home and inviting War from the injured persons and their now powerfull united confederates abroad having no Free nor Full Parliament to countenance them in such actings And that this was the sense the Covenant was taken in and of the Kingdome now in General I desire may be submitted to their Votes in the FREE REPRESENTATIVE to be called or that they may have a Ballut for it and then they will appear a hundred for one to make it good Nor is the glory of the City and opening of Trade at home and abroad to be boyed up by any other Engine than what the name of KING actuates It being the splendor of Courts encrease of Nobility Amities abroad and Peace at home that loads the Vine with Clusters and makes the Wine-presse to overflow as Londons experience evincingly may prove if we compare their now withering and formerly sprouting and flourishing condition together so as a COMMON-WEALTH in those and many other respects would rather prove a heightning to the disease than a remedy And for the Government of the Church so far as it is prudential it ought to be submitted to the Parliament and a Convocation of Divines justly called but what is of Divine Right in it ought to be preserved and preferred before our Lives and Liberties And therefore I most humbly contend for EPISCOPACY as an order at least if not to maintain it in its primitive glory and in that none can be sure there is a good Ordination without it unlesse in case extraordinary and that all doe agree the Ordination by BISHOPS lawfull we ought to chuse a safe before a doubtfull way as all Casuists agree However having fully as I conceive undermin'd the grounds and satisfied the reasons your LORDSHIP laid and urged for a Common-wealth I shall proceed no further upon this head since you have made my Conclusion That EPISCOPACY holds best proportion and symmetry to MONARCHICALL GOVERNMENT and that I have made it appear there neither is nor can be any other form justly introduced into this Nation Yet to take in all Interests and concenter them in a consciencious obedience the sinew of Government I wish both may be so moderated in their exercise of power as there may be no more leading into captivity nor complaining in our streets But that the KING with his PARLIAMENT and the BISHOPS with their Presbyters may joyn to make the close of our Harmony most melodious For thus our KING will have an inexhaustible treasure in the affections of his People and they best secure their Liberties in becoming their SOVERAIGNES Favourites which happy Espousalls I will yet hope to see YOU solemnize in a Concurrence with the whole nation whose desire it is as well as the prayers of Your EXCELLENCIES most humble Servant The third Letter Concerning the just placing of the Legislative Power and its Influence upon Ecclesiastical Laws and Persons Sir MVch is due to you for your many repeated favours but more for your Freedome in communicating your judgment upon the late actings of the men of these times which seem to be troubled with the vertigo in the brain by their giddy and suddain turnings of the man his reason out of himself and us out of all our dearest Liberties and rights Yet the Obligation swells highest by your humble descent in desiring from me any thing that might either convince or confirme you in your opinion concerning the Just placing of the Legislative Power and its influence upon Ecclesiasticall laws and Persons when I can but bring a Spark to your Flame However since your commands are to be submiited to by me not disputed I shall reflect my apprehension of it to you in a very contracted way in this surprise of time and be ready to support both by reason divine and humane Authority if it be required what I shall positively assert And to the first I affirme First That as God is the Spring and Fountain of all power it being essentiall in him and derivative only to us none can have any just propriety in the Legislative but such who are Commissioned for it according to Gods revealed Will by a Divine as well as Civill right Secondly That who otherwise takes or uses the
which we cannot doubt of my Lord General MONCKS concurrence he is in all opinions a person of so intire a worth though yet abused by the specious pretences of a ruling faction when he findes the greatest part by much if not all of the Kingdome desire it as the onely means to compose us at home and secure us from many now united and powerfull enemies abroad especially if he will but consider how often this pretended RUMP of a Parliament that poysons all with their Hellish Fumes hath been dissolved as 1. By the Kings death as all great Lawyers will agree who was the most essentiall part of it his Assent onely giving a being and animation to all Laws 2. As the BILL it self by which they pretend to disinherit the Primo-Geniture of the Trienniall Act Refers to the Parliament as then composed of three Estates when one dissenting no Act could pass 3. By their several Dissolutions and Submissions to other called Parliaments and by most of their sittings as members in them 4. By the Counties new Elections which was an actuall revocation of their Trust and Power 5. By the forfeiture of their rights to sit as a HOUSE OF COMMONS in the forcible expulsion of the best part of their members 6. By their breach of Trust their Commissions as delegated by their Elections being onely to advise with the KING in rebus arduis weighty affairs not to destroy him as appears by the Writs of Summons And all this with the violation of their faith both to God and man wilfull breaches of their Declarations Oaths and Covenants So as a person of General MONCKS worth and honour can never upon digested thoughts espouse their Cause and Crimes by his protecting them however he is a person of too much piety and prudence to engage us in a Civil and forreign War at once where so faire and just an expedient as a FREE and FULL PARLIAMENT to be called by the Triennial Act is proposed for the skirts and rag of an expired Parliament which would botch up a garment onely for their own wearing leaving us stript and naked by depriving us of all our Rights and all this for the maintaining their guilt and Interest who care not to prevent the rack of our Ship of State wherein all are imbarked if they may but stand upon land themselves And therefore be not discouraged by what hath yet appeared but let us do our duties and leave the event to God which is the resolution of Your lately converted Servant The Second LETTER to the Lord Generall MONCK In behalf of MONARCHY AND EPISCOPACY Upon the Readmission of the formerly Secluded MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT London Printed 1660. The second Letter to the Lord General Monck upon the readmission of the formerly Secluded Members My HONOVRED LORD THough vertuous inclinations in their Infancy Cradle are best Nursed up with the Milk of Flattery and seeming Courtships your full grown virtues which like Saul amongst the people make you more eminent than others and the eyes of our Israel to look upon you as their Deliverer will bear a more ingenious freedome which makes me presume though none more truly honours your Prudence Piety and PERSON than my self as I am here intrusted to receive the corresponding intelligence from most Counties that have concentred their Hopes and Addresses in your LORDSHIP you will Pardon me if as the burning-glasse that collects the scattered and loose beams of the Sun to give them a more powerfull and vigorous operation I reflect the united sense of ALL to you in relation to your Words and Actings The last of which have been so prudent in Conduct so daring yet modest in the approaches to your proposed ends and so successfull in the great late changes we look upon as in lets to a settlement of the peace and happinesse of this KINGDOME as you stand yet unequalled by any in the opinions and affections of the people even above men and onely below GOD himself OUR rightfull KING who hath wrought so great wonders by you And we hope will set fast the bars of our gates and establish peace in our borders by so glorious an Instrument and in it record your memory to all posterity as the deliverer of this Nation from the high Vsurpation and severe Tyranny we have long laboured under But my LORD in relation to your words and Declared desires to the late restored Members of PARLIAMENT there are few satisfied but such as hope that with Frederick Duke of Austria you went abroad in a disguise to hear what others judments were by them and their reasons if convincing yours to shape your future proceedings or if it were your judgement that you did declare and enforce it with all the advantage Oratory or Arguments could contribute to its support that in the confutation of them all persons of those mistaken principles might be reduced by your example who espouses no interest but in order to Gods glory and the publick good nor impose your opinion upon but submit it to the dispassionate Debates and Resolutions of a FREE PARLIAMENT which humility and self denial is the crown and glory of all your other noble Actions and that which sets you up a Scepter in the hearts of ALL but Factions and Fanatick people and gives you a Command of our Persons and Purses Yet give me leave as the Eccho of the KINGDOMES voice to tell your Lordship it neither is or ever was for the alteration of our MONARCHICALL GOVERNMENT into Common-wealth foundations which are inconsistent with our ancient FUNDAMENTALL LAWS and the humour of the people of this Nation who comparing the long happy and flourishing condition it hath for many hundred years enjoyed under their KINGS and Reverent Episcopacy with the tragicall effects of our late changes cannot be in love with their Irons and shackles nor be willing to submit to Papall-Presbyterial Tyranny for such is rigid Presbytery that have been acquainted with the gentler Yoke the Fathers of our Church laid upon us And though I might make it appear to your Lordship by clear proofs and undisputed authorities from Reason Nature Scripture and Authority First That as all power is GODS so there is no exercise of it from divine Commission but paternal what is seated in the person of one man originally and derivatively onely from him as the spring and source into the lesser streames of subordinate administrations which Adam was vested in the state of innocency and that all men are borne to this naturall subordination for the orderly support of humane societies families being the epitomes of Kingdomes wherein the person to whome the SUPREAME POWER belongs is onely accountable to God for his Actions KINGS being subject onely to the direction not coaction of humane Laws Secondly That our KINGS had this right justly conveyed to them by the grace of God not gift of man and by it have a just title to our allegiance and obedience both by divine and civill right