Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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B21136
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The advantages of the present settlement, and the great danger of a relapse
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Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing D827B
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28,552
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40
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to run so far back as the unhappy Wars in his Father's time of ever Blessed and Glorious Memory when the Church of England was ruined and a great many of the Members of it of all degrees and conditions exposed to the greatest miseries for their firm adherence to the Interest of the Crown Nor yet to speak of his Late Majesty King Charles the Second's happy Restauration it 's enough only to reflect upon our dutiful behaviour to King James himself both when Duke and King. Who were the great opposers of the Bill of Exclusion in Parliament both in the House of Lords and Commons and out of Parliament all the Kingdom over and preferred their standing fast to the Duke's Interest at that time to all their own Interest in the World What Reproaches Disgraces Insolencies nay Threats were cast upon and used towards us we very well remember Was there ever any King received by his People or proclaimed in all Places with greater Satisfaction Joy and Acclamations than he was For who then doubted of the Sincerity of King James the Just Who were they that so readily setled the Revenue of the Crown and gave larger supplies than the necessity of Affairs required Who were they that stood the Shock and ventured their Lives in suppressing of that dangerous Rebellion of Monmouth Were they not all Members of the Church of England who preserved the Crown for King James before he came to the possession of it by opposing the Bill of Exclusion and kept it upon his Head when he was possessed of it by suppressing Monmouth's Rebellion And this brings to my mind an Expression in the Oxford Reasons against signing the Address of their Bishop Dr. Parker for being told that their refusal of the Address would exasperate the King and move him to take rougher Methods against the Church their Answer was That if the remembrance of the Services of the Church to the Crown in those two Affairs of the Bill of Exclusion and Monmouth's Rebellion were not sufficient to secure the King's kindness to and protection of the Church of England and its Members the signing of such insignificant Addresses would never do it and truly I cannot tell what else could do it But the truth of it is the Papists have all along upon all occasions so ill requited the Fidelity of the Protestants to their Popish Princes as if they had a mind never more to be obliged in that nature I need not speak of the obligations put upon Queen Mary the Daughter of Henry the Eighth and the barbarous usage shewed them in a very little while after nor of former dealings of that kind in France the present King of France hath demonstrated this to the full he ows his possession of the Crown of France and consequently all his Glory he so proudly boasts of to the firm adherence of his Protestant Subjects to his Interest He hath several times publickly owned this and yet his Cruelty to them hath far surpassed all Heathen Barbarity And now I am very sorry that such a hearty Endeavour to subvert the Religion established in this Church which could not be without the ruine of those to whom the late King JAMES was so highly obliged hath given such another fresh Instance that Popery will not suffer Kings so much as to be grateful to their Subjects for by this means they have more than satisfied the World that it 's utterly unsafe for a Protestant Kingdom to be under the Government of a Popish Prince But since all men have neither that knowledge of nor that zeal for their Religion that it were heartily to be wished they had yet every man is very sensible when their Liberties and Properties and the Laws by which they are secured are invaded and lest the Endeavours to subvert Religion should not have been sufficient to have provoked the Nation there was added to this a plain Invasion of the Rights of the Subject and of the Laws upon which they are grounded to let the World know that there was no mistake in those men who affirmed that Popery could never be introduced into this Kingdom unless Slavery ushered it in It were endless to make instances of this the Master and Fellows of Magdalen Colledge are a sufficient proof of this who were deprived of their Freeholds by a most arbitrary Sentence of a Court that in the whole constitution of it was utterly illegal and in an Affair of this nature a Judge altogether incompetent where the Persons concerned were admitted to no legal Tryal before the competent Judges by a Jury of the Vicinage as in those Cases is the Law of the Nation but were removed by Persons who had no more right to disposess them of their Freeholds than the Persons receiving such an injurious Sentence had to dispossess their very Judges of theirs And it was no wonder that the general Cry of the Nation following that unjust and Arbitrary Sentence was All our Freeholds and Estates shake by this Sentence Another proof of this Invasion of our Rights and Estates was the most exorbitant and extravagant Fines put upon persons by the plain Arbitrary Will of the Judges as if they would declare to the World their design was rather to ruine the Delinquent than punish the Delinquency This was so frequent that every Term shewed how easily for very small faults men might be ruined in their Fortunes in a trice The invading the Rights of Corporations was more than sufficient proof that our Liberties Estates and Laws were in the greatest hazard The despoiling them of all their Ancient Privileges struck at the very Foundation of the Government it self the altering all the Ancient Prescriptions in choosing of persons for Representatives in Parliament struck at the very Fountain of our Laws both in being and to be made But above all things tending to the ruine of all our Security in our Laws Liberties and Properties none is more worthy of our serious consideration than that Hellow of Dispensing Power that would have devoured all at a morsel and swallowed all at one draught if need had been there was no Law no Privilege able to stand in the way of this Leviathan This was such a Power that once being yielded to in the full latitude it was claimed would have rendered all Laws in England not only uncertain and insecure but utterly needless nay altogether ridiculous For to what purpose should the Nation be put to so much trouble and charge to elect Representatives for the House of Commons or why should Persons who have either a natural Right as Noblemen or a deputed Right as Commoners go from all parts of the Kingdom to enact Laws for the good and profit of the Realm if the Sovereign Power can dispense with them whenever their backs are turned To what purpose is all this wast Or why should the Nation be fooled with Laws which when made promise us the greatest security in all things that are most valuable when in the