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A58389 Reflections upon two books, the one entituled, the case of allegiance to a King in possession the other, an answer to Dr. Sherlock's Case of allegiance to sovereign powers, in defence of the case of allegiance to a King in possession, on those parts especially wherein the author endeavours to shew his opinion to be agreeable to the laws of this land. In a letter to a friend. 1691 (1691) Wing R734; ESTC R200522 45,353 73

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REFLECTIONS Upon Two BOOKS The One Entituled The Case of Allegiance TO A KING in POSSESSION The Other AN ANSWER TO Dr. SHERLOCK'S Case of Allegiance to Sovereign Powers IN Defence of the CASE of ALLEGIANCE to a King in Possession On those Parts especially wherein the Author endeavours to shew his Opinion to be agreeable to the Laws of this LAND In a Letter to a Friend London Printed for W. Kogers at the Sun over-against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet MDCXCI REFLECTIONS ON The CASE of ALLEGIANCE to a King in Possession and The Defence of it SIR IF I could be uneasy under any of your Commands this you may be assured would be the time of my shewing it It is an hard task you have laid upon me The Books of which you require my thoughts are long and speak the Author whoever he is to be a Man of great Learning and Reason one who can argue to the best advantage his Subject will bear And the Collections he has made plainly shew that he has taken great pains and bent all his thoughts for some time to the maintenance of that Cause to which some Prejudice has unhappily determined him I Sir to your knowledg never saw the Books till within these very few days and I fear you will have too much reason from what I write to believe me when I tell you That the reading the Books once over and that with frequent Interruptions too wasted almost half the time I have been able to allow my thoughts upon the Subject This has prevented my consulting any Books written in favour of Submission to a King in Possession nay of reading Dr. Sherlock's Book which the Defence pretends to Answer You must not therefore be suprized if you happen to meet here with what others have said on the same Subject without any acknowledgment that I received it from them or which I more fear if you should find Opinions differing from those of very great Men who have undertaken this Controversy They were my Thoughts Sir which you required and I have taken a course to give them to you free neither biassed nor over-ruled by the Opinions or Authority of others The Question as 't is stated by the Author of the Case is put very cautiously and strongly in favour of the Cause he proposes to himself to maintain he has fenced it in with such Restrictions in the stating and the Exposition of the Terms that it would be a very unnecessary thing to undertake an Answer to him if his Book did not offer at the proof of more than the first Question under his Limitations does require from him No one I suppose who has submitted to Their Majesties Government who thinks it too the Duty of all English Men to do the same and to pay Faith and Allegiance to them will therefore believe himself at all concerned to maintain that If a Person who has no manner of Right by force exclude or depose a King whose Right to the Crown is clear and undoubted and thereby gets the Exercise of the Government into his hands the Regal Authority and undoubted Right remaining still in the excluded Prince the People ought to pay a full and entire Submission and Obedience to this King in Possession so as never to attempt any thing against him but stand by and defend him against the dispossessed Prince with his Life and Fortune This is a Case of our Author 's own making and bears no Resemblance to the present State of this Nation Nay on the contrary if I may take the liberty to reduce the general Question to our particular Case I think the two things agreed by him as Preliminaries will sufficiently justify any English Man in his swearing Allegiance and paying the Duty Case f. 2. of a Subject to Their present Majesties For the first of them agrees That a bare Possession tho purely by Vsurpation will carry a Right to the Subjects Allegiance in an Hereditary Monarchy where the whole Royal Line is extinct to prevent the Bloodshed and Confusion which might follow upon the Peoples attempting to set up another Person or Government This prudential Reason and a Submission upon it he lays down to be a sufficient Title to the Usurper and that it makes him from thenceforth King de Jure one to whom all Faith and Allegiance becomes due 'T is so obvious of it self that I might spare the observing That he frames his Case upon a Supposition of the whole Royal Lines being extinct for no other purpose than to restrain it so as to extend only to Cases where there is no other Person in being who has a just Title to the Crown and whose Right is invaded by that Possession The second agrees That where there are divers pretenders and it is not clear who has the true Right or Title the Subjects Allegiance is to follow the Possession If therefore the late King by the assuming to himself an Authority to suspend and by general and unlimited Dispensations to repeal Laws without Parliament by the entrusting almost the whole Power Military and Civil in the hands of such Persons only as would undertake with their endeavours to support him in those Excesses By the putting those few Laws which he found it his interest to observe in Execution by such generally as were by Law made incapable of all Trust and Rule By the constant aim and tendency that every one of his Actions had to enslave us at home not to omit the Bonds prepared for us by his immoveable Adherence to the Interests of the French King from which as a chargeable Experience teaches us the utmost effort we can make and that assisted with very great and powerful Alliances will scarce rescue us If his unwearied endeavours to destroy the Reformed Religion with a thousand other Male-Administrations that struck at the very Being and Foundation of the Constitution it self and the Laws and Liberties of the People of England did declare that he would not govern by our Laws or Act by an Authority limited by them If upon the Parliaments humble and modest Representation to him according to their Duty of the unwarrantableness of such Proceedings and the Alarm that the People took at his great Violations of their Rights and Breaches upon the Government he broke them up in Anger and thereby shewed an obstinate and setled Resolution to assert that unlimited Power to himself and govern according to it If having by these Arbitrary Proceedings drawn great Difficulties upon himself instead of taking proper Courses to secure his People against such Excesses for the future he held to the same Counsels still and by their Advice quitted the Kingdom then in the utmost Confusion without making any Provision for the Administration of the Government and voluntarily put himself into the hands of its avowed perpetual Enemy If all these things put together will amount either to a renouncing and disclaiming his Title to a Government limited by Laws or a disabling