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 |
|
A41194
|
Whether the preserving the Protestant religion was the motive unto, or the end that was designed in the late revolution in a letter to a country gentleman as an answer to his first query.
|
Ferguson, Robert, d. 1714.
|
1695
(1695)
|
Wing F766; ESTC R35674
|
40,307
|
48
|
be accounted Arguments and held for Evidences of the Prince of Orange acting upon Motives of love unto and care for the Protestant Religion in the invading his Uncle's Kingdoms and usurping his Crown there are none else discoverable in the whole course of his Administration and they must be either more sottish than the Soldanians in Africk or more irreligious than the Cannibals in America who can conconclude from the foregoing Practices and from such other as stand in affinity with them That he has any Religion at all or that he acts for any End but the satisfying his Ambition or upon any Motives save Pride and Haughtiness To which let me add in the last Place That if his Errand hither had been to take care of the Protestant Religion he might have done it effectually without driving his Majesty out of his Dominions Seeing there was not that Security that could have been wished or desired in order thereunto but what the King was ready to have consented unto and that more from his own Choice and Goodness than from the Influence of the Condition he was in And as all Things of which his Enemies accused him and whereof they took Advantage into which he had been misled were rectified and redressed by Acts of his own Wisdom and Grace before ever the Prince of Orange came out of Holland so he had ordered the Issuing out Writs for calling a Parliament in which the Nation might in the Ancient and Legal way have made what Provisions they had pleased for the preserving and securing our Religion and Liberties Nor is there that Man in England who retains the least Measure of Reason and good Sense let his Malice to the King be never so furious and obstinate but he must acknowledge That if the Prince of Orange had come hither upon any other Design save that of dethroning the King and usurping his Crown he might have easily compassed all the Ends published in his Declaration either by way of a private Treaty with the King himself or by the Method of a Parliament freely and indifferently chosen and permitted to sit without an armed Power and military Force upon them And as this would have redounded to the Honour of the Prince and gained him the Admiration of his Enemies and the Praises and Benedictions of his Friends so it would both have prevented a great deal of Distress Calamity and Bloodshed in Europe and have left these Kingdoms more safe and opulent than they now are and without that heap of Guilt and Infamy upon them under which they are brought But instead of treading in those paths of Truth to Mankind Reputation to himself and Justice as well as Kindness to these Nations it is known with what Neglect and Scorn he received the Proposals carried from his Majesty to him by the Marquess of Hallifax the Earl of Nottingham and my Lord Godolphinâ— and how he put the Earl of Feversham under restraint and made him a Prisoner when he came to him at Windsor with a Message from the King Nor needs there more to discover how remote he was from Sincerity in all the Pretences upon which he came hither than that he would never hearken to any Overtures which might lie in a Tendency to the making one Word of them good Thus Sir I have with all the Brevity the Subject would allow endeavoured to answer your first Question and if the Stile in some Places be a little Piquant the Scriblers for the Usurper and Usurpation have set me the President and who have been Commended and Rewarded for treating both his Majesty and the King of France with Ribbauldry as well as below their Sovereign Qualities whereas there is nothing here Undecent though some Things may appear Sharp Nor would it have answered the Majesty and Justness of the Theme to have handled it Flatly and without a Warmth correspondent to the Injury done our holy Religion in making it a Cloak to so much Villany as hath been committed And it would have been an indecorous Thing to have looked grave upon Baboons or have hunted wild Boars without a Spear or Weapon Yea it were to frustrate the great End of Languages and Speech and to quarrel with the Rules of good Sence to ascribe Mildness to Tyrants Honesty to Robbers or Truth to Lyars Adieu I am SIR Yours April 18. 1695. FINIS
then as they superadd the Divine Sanction to human Legislative Authority thereby to oblige and enforce us in Conscience to yield all that Reverence Loyalty and Obedience to our Sovereigns which the lawful and just Laws of the Kindom do impose upon and exact from us And therefore and thence it is That the same Texts of Scripture do bind and oblige some Nations to yield a more universal unlimitted and unreserved Obedience to their Rulers 〈◊〉 they can be construed and applied to require those of other Countries to perform For those Places of the Holy Bible are designed to influence and operate upon Conscience in proportion to the different degrees of Prerogative and Sovereignty vested in Princes and according to the respective measures of Liberty preserved unto Subjects by the Rules and Laws of their several and various Constitutions The Scripture was not given and designed to teach us Politicks or to prescribe the Forms of Government and the several Limitations of them farther than that all Governments were to be for God and the good of Mankind and of Societies But all Relative to Civil Government in Scripture is to require and oblige Subjects under the Penalty of eternal Wrath to yield Obedience in proportion to the respective Terms upon which the Government is founded under which they live and according to the several Laws by which it is to be upheld and exerted And the same Divine and Revealed Commands which oblige us in England to submit to Monarchy and be obedient to the King according to the Municipal and Statute Laws of the Kingdom bind them at Venice to acquiesce in Aristocracy and be in subjection to that Authority and Power and to pay obedience to all the Laws of the Republick if they be not inconsistent with and contradictory to the Laws of God No Man will say That the same Things were Lawful for the Persians or Babylonians to do against their Kings which the Lacedemonians under the Protection and Authority of the Ephori might have done against theirs or which those of Arragon were heretofore empowered to do at the Command and under the Jurisdiction of a certain Person chosen and appointed to be the Custos and Guardian of their Rights and Privileges and who had Power by the Law and Constitution to controul and resist their Kings in case of their invading and going about to overthrow them Whereupon it is no Sin in the King of France to take upon him and assume the whole Legislation without the assent and concurrence of the Three Estates whereas it would be otherwise in a King of England whilst he stands limitted as he doth by the Laws of the Constitution and Government and restrained by his Coronation Oath The French Monarch is guilty of no Offence in exacting Taxes of his Subjects without a previous Gift and Grant of them by their Representatives But I cannot say that according to the present Form of our Government the King of Great Britain would be Innocent in the Sight and Esteem of the Supreme Sovereign should he Levy Mony of his People without their own antecedent Consent in Parliament So that I will affirm with the utmost Confidence as knowing I do it upon the greatest Certainty That every Declaration and Intimation in the Bible relative to the Subjection and Fealty we should pay to Sovereign Rulers are intended to bind and oblige us in Conscience and out of Fear of Divine Wrath to be obedient to them actively as far as is enacted and required by the Laws of our Country if those Laws do command nothing inconsistent with and repugnant to the Laws of God and to be passive in all Cases save in those in which the Rules of the Constitution and the Statutes of the Realms where we live give us Liberty Right and Authority to withstand and oppose them And I will presume to add with the fullest Assurance that Law and Reason can give me That in no Circumstances of Danger into which our Religion and Civil Liberties could be brought nor under any Hazards we could fall into of losing and having them supprest were we either permitted or empowered by the Fundamentals of our Government the Rules of our Constitution or by the Common or Statute Law of the Kingdom to rebel against the King or to dethrone or drive him away Nor did the having the Protestant Religion established and secured unto us by Law nor its being incorporated among our Franchises and made a part of our Birth-right to possess it peaceably and practise it openly authorize us to take Arms against the King divest him of his Sovereignty and banish him from his Dominions though we had been furnished with the most clear and indisputable Evidence that he was fully resolved to extirpate it For though the Laws give us a Title to it as our Heritage and a Right to claim the Exercise of it as our chiefest Blessing and most valuable Privilege yet no Law or Contract existent in the King's time had provided that we might fly to Arms to prevent its being supprest or for the securing the Continuance of it to us and our Posterity Yea instead of that there were divers express Statutes then in being by which it was made and declared to be Treason to take up Arms against him upon any Pretence whatsoever So that had the preserving the Protestant Religion been the real Motive and End of our raising War and of dethroning the King yet it was not a Lawful nor a Justifiable Inducement and Design for doing it Nor can it be thought so by any who seriously consider and look upon the Laws of the Land as the Standard and Measure of the Peoples Subjection and Obedience and that whatsoever the Municipal and Statute Laws of our Country restrain us from or confine us unto provided it interfere not with that which either the Laws of Nature or those of Revelation do indispensably require and exact that thereunto we stand bound limitted and obliged by the Laws of God and the Doctrines both of the Old and New Testaments and this upon no less penalty than Damnation Which let no Man upon the Testimony of a Flattering or Mercenary Priest or the Authority and Verdict of a Prophane and Atheistical Statesman think he will or can escape without unfeigned Repentance evidenced in sincere and hearty Endeavours to restore the King Nor are you to be surprised to hear this kind of Theology and Politicks from me seing that according to Dr. Sherlock's Phrase as no Man is forbid to grow wiser than he was so I blush not but glory to confess and have deeply bewailed it That I have been heretofore misled by false Notions and have entertained Hypotheses about Government neither reconcilable to our Laws nor to the Peace of Communities but errando discimus non errare And as the preserving the Protestant Religion could be no Lawful and Justifiable Motive to the late Revolution so there were no just and sufficient Grounds administered by the