Selected quad for the lemma: parliament_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A47819
|
The character of a papist in masquerade, supported by authority and experience in answer to The character of a popish successor / by Roger L'Estrange.
|
L'Estrange, Roger, Sir, 1616-1704.
|
1681
(1681)
|
Wing L1215; ESTC R21234
|
71,116
|
87
|
a Mental Reservation First We swear in this Oath as in all others to the Sense of the Authority that imposes it And can any body imagine that the Government impos'd this Test of Allegeance upon the People to leave them still at Liberty to play fast and loose with Reserves and Qualifications of their own And so to frustrate the main intent of the Oath by accommodating the Exposition of it for the serving of a Turn or a Faction The Oath binds them to Subjection and they absolve themselves of That Subjection by giving it the Name of Slavery And so every man is left at pleasure to take off his own Shackles But what if it were Slavery it self The Prince were to blame for straining his Authority but the Subjects nevertheless Criminal on the other side for withdrawing their Duty He has found a Loop-hole to evade This Oath by turning SVBIECTS into SLAVES But That will not do his business without turning a Lawful Successor to a Protestant Establisht and bounded Government into an arbitrary absolute Popish Tyrant In which supposition he holds forth This Doctrine to the People that in This Case there is a Forfeiture of the Government and that this is the very Case which we have now before us wherein contrary to Law Reason and the Fundamental Essentials of all Government he does as much as in him lyes authorize and incite the Multitude to a Sedition I answer that the Law is clearly against him for tho the Prerogative is bounded the Duty of the Subject is yet left unconditional there being no Law nor so much as the colour of any incase of the Kings passing his legal Limits to absolve the People of their Allegeance And it is not the Plea of Provocation or the exercise of a Tyrannical Power that will save the Subject from the Sentence oâ— the Law in case of any disloyal act of Assault or Resistance It is against Reason likewise that the Inferiour shall overrule the Superiour and invert the last Resort of Decision and Judgment from the Prince to the Subject It is lastly destructive of Government it self to suppose such a Reserve in a Political Constitution as carries the last Appreal to the People which is the case in this Proposition The King as a Trustee that abuses his power incurrs a Forfeiture as our Author will have it of that Trust and so all subordinate Trustees may incurr the like Forfeiture till all Communities are melted down again into the ridiculous conceit of the Original Soveraignty of the Multitude which is onely a Chaos of Anarchy and Confusion He is over again here with the Royal Constitution of the three free States of England which must be understood either of the Lords Spiritual Temporal and Commons or of the King Lords and Commons reckoning His Majesty to be one of the three Estates Take it the former way and instead of Your Majesty's Loyal Subjects the Lords and Commons in Parliament which was the style even of the last Rebellion it self the Petition should run t'other way and say The humble Petition of Charles the second to your Majesties the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons â—ssembled in Parliament Now take it as accounting the King to be one of the three Estates that Imaginary Câ—ordination leaves him at the mercy of the other two whensoever they please The Learned and the Right Reverened Bishop of Lincoln in his Discourse of Popery pag. 4. England says he is a Monarchy the Crown Impâ—rial and our Kings Supreme Governours and sole Supreme Governours of this Realm and all other their Dominions c. In our Oath of Supremacy we sweaâ— That the King is the Only Supreme Governour Supreme so none not the Pope above him and Only Supreme so none Coordinate or equal to him The Character brings in the Subjects Petition of Right for a further countenance to his pretension but what noise soever it makes in the cars of the people there is not one syllable in it that appears in his favour And yet once again upon the presumptions ascresaid he grounds this Assertion That in such a case neither is he the same King that we swore to nor we the same Subjects that took the Oath If this be not Rome against Rome and Popery against Popery I know not what is But at the worst it is but paraphrazing upon the Oath of Allegiance as they did upon the Covenant Give me leave now to retort the Argument His Popish Successâ—r will be a Tyrant he says for it is a Tyrannical Religion But after all the stress of â—rreverent Language upon his R. H. he cannot charge any thing in the worldupon him that looks that way in his inclination But yet here 's enough says he to conclude the Reason and the Necessity of his Seclusion The Compiler of this Character would take it ill now on the other side if a man should say that his very argument against the Duke holds as true against the Author of the Character For that Dominion is founded in Grace is the Principle both for which and by which he pretends to Supplant the Successor Now why may we not apprehend Sedition from the one as well as Tyranny from the other Nay and with more Justice too considering that there is but a bare Contemplation the One way and the Practice of an enflaming Discourse over and above that Contemplation the other Char. But alas says he that Bug-bear Passive obedeience is a Notion crept into the world and most Zealously and perhaps as ignorantly defended Fol. 20. This Period brings him well nigh to his Journeys end For till now he contented himself with only opposing the primitive Practices and the Common Principles of Christianity in justifying a Violence upon an Impulse of Religion But the making of Passive Obedience only a Bug-bear and the Defence of it an effect of Ignorance brings it home to the very person of our Saviour and to the Doctrine that was delivered by those Holy Lips So far says the Learned Prelate above mentioned Pag. 55. was St. Paul from believing those Popish Rebellious Principles Denying the Superiority of the Civil power and from Dissoyalty or Disobedience to that Imperial tho' Pagan Power under which he Lived that he publickly acknowledged and humbly submitted to it Nor was he only in his own Person Obedient and a Loyal Subject to the Emperor but writing to the Romans he did as an Apostle of Jesus Chrâ—st command them also to be Loyal and Obedient Let every Soul every man be Subject to the Higher the Supreme Powers c. And then he adds that they should render to them Tribute Custom Fear Honour and all their Duties By Supreme Power there he means men possessing Supreme power and the Supreme power under which He and the Romans then were was Nero a most Impious Pagan and Persecutor of Christ and Christians and yet every Soulq within his Empire even Peter as well as Paul was by the Law of
more gross than to talk of fighting for Religion or to pretend to the maintaining of that by Arms that is not liable to Violence Did ever any Man hear of a Religion that was either shot or cut Nor can there be any Confederacy or Association purely upon the score of Religion for how shall People agree to defend they know not what which is the very case when one Man undertakes for the Religion of another If our Religion be assaulted by Argument we may assert it by Redargution But when the Opposition advances into any over act the case is no longer Religion but Political Safety Beside that Government is Gods Ordinance for the common benefit of Human Society and of Pagans as well as of Christians without any regard to this or that Religion for Bedies Politique have no Consciences but every particular indeed stands or falls to his own Master I cannot but observe through what degrees the Character has advanced the Popish Successor First From the possibility of a good Man and then from bad to worse till he has made him fol. 14. a Corrupted Leprous Branch of Royalty and at next word a downright Traitor upon the Statutes of 23 and 13 of Queen Eliz. and another of Hen. 8. Fol. 15. This matter being as I am informed at present coram Judice I shall say no more to it than this that there are two Provisoes in the 5th of the Queen that make the Case somewhat different from what he has stated it As for Instance Provided alway that forasmuch as the Queens Majesty is otherwise sufficiently assured of the Faith and Loyalty of the Temporal Lords of Her High Court of Parliament Therefore this Act nor any thing therein contained shall not extend to compel any Temporal Person of or above the degree of a Baron of this Realm to take or pronounce the Oath abovesaid viz. of Supremacy nor to incur any Penalty limited by this Act for not taking or refusing the same c. II. Provided also that if any Peer of this Realm shall hereafter offend contrary to this Act or any Branch or Article thereof that in that and all such Case and Cases they shall be try'd by their Péers in such manner and form as in other Cases of Treasons they have used to be Tryed and by no other means It would be well if every Man that presses with this un-precedented rigour upon the Person here in question would lay his hand upon his heart and say if the King has pardoned me Teâ— Thousand times more than this comes to with what Reason or Conscience can I importune His Majesty thus bitterly against His Brother After all these Clamours about a Popish Successor I would fain know how it is possible for any Man to be other than a Papist in our present condition of Affairs A Church-of England-Man is a Papist to the Dissenters a Presbyterian and an Independent so one to another a Quaker to both and among the Eight Score several Sects of Heretiques and Schismatiques that Paget and others have reckoned up since Liberty of Conscience came in Fashion there are just so many sorts of Papists among them in the Opinion of one Sect or another He has a Paragraph fol. 15. where under the People of England he expounds himself to mean their Representatives which is a point I am not to touch upon Only I must confess he has drawn the Arrow to the Head in one expression in it Why should not they saith he the House of Commons be as active and vigorous for their own Royal Inheritance and Sacred Succession of Power as a King for His. What he means by this Royal inheritance and Sacred Succession of Power I shall remit to the Consideration of the Learned Bradshaw indeed pass'd a Sentence upon the Late King as a Traytor to the ROYALTY of the People But the strongest Argument for himself that I find in the whole Book is five or six Lines lower If ever a Papist mâ—unts this Throne says he then all their Murmurs their Petitions Protesting and Associating-Votes will be remembered to the purpose Now what can be a greater indignity to the Justice and Resolution of that Illustrious Body than to imagine that so narrow a thought could any way influence the Candour and Solemnity of their Debates He spends his sixteenth Page upon Instances out of Hen. VIII to prove the Succession of the English Crown to be wholly subjected to the Disposal Determinations and Limitations of Parliament How far his Assertion is right or wrong I shall not concern my self But however as he has ordered the matter it makes nothing at all for his purpose The Parliament he says 25 Hen. 8. settled the Crown upon the Heirs of that Kings body by Queen Ann and in the 28th Repealed that Act and Entailed the Succession upon the Heirs of his body by Queen Jane Mary and Elizabeth being declared Illegitimate And in Case he Died without Issue then the Parliament empowered him by the same Act to dispose of the Succession by his own Letters Patents or his Last Will. In the 35th Year of his Reign the Parliament granted the Succession to Edward and for want of Heirs of his Body to the Lady Mary and the Heirs of her body and for want of such Heirs to the Lady Elizabeth under certain Limitations and Conditions contained in that Act. From hence he infers that a Parliament may order and dispose of the Succession But whether they may or not here 's little or nothing prov'd from these Citations First under the ambiguity of the Word Parliament he would have this thought to be the single Act of the Lords and Commons when the Enacting Authority of it was solely in the King And yet he says expresly that Henry 8. was so far from submitting to Parliaments that he would never have complemented them with a power that was not their due If that power did belong to the Parliament what needed they the King's authority for the making of it good or to divest themselves of that power by transferring it to the King to dispose of the Reversion or Remainder of the Crown by his Will or Letters Patents to such person as he pleas'd Secondly These Statutes do not so properly transfer a Right as declare and notifie the persons for the prevention of disputes and competitions as appears by the Preamble to that of the 28th Wherefore We your most humble and obedient Subjects in this present Parliament Assembled calling to Our Remembrance the great Divisions which in Times past have been in this Realm by reason of several Titles pretended to the Imperial Crown of this Realm which some times and for the most part ensued by occasion of ambiguity and doubts then not so perfectly declared but that men might upon froward intents expound them to every mans sinister appetite and affection and posterity of the Lawful kings and Emperours of this Realm whereof hath ensued great effusion and destruction of Mans