Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
justice_n	authority_n	king_n	power_n	3,463	5	4.8127	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A25519	An Answer to a late pamphlet intituled, The judgement and doctrine of the clergy of the Church of England concerning one special branch of the King's prerogative, viz, in dispensing with the penal-laws shewing that this is not affected by the Most Reverend Fathers in God, the Lords Arch-Bishops, Bancroft, Laud and Usher ... the Lord Bishop Sanderson ... the Reverend Doctors, Dr. Hevlin, Dr. Barrow, Dr. Sherlock ... Dr. Hicks, Dr. Nalson, Dr. Puller, so far as appears from their words cited in this pamphlet : in a letter to a friend.		1687 (1687)	Wing A3309; ESTC R15256	30,429	41

Now I am not concern'd to enquire what Dr. Hicks believes about the Dispensing Power but what he has said and our Author has not produced one word out of his Book about it and therefore I suppose he could not for his own words had been a better Authority in this case than Sir Robert Pointz I am sure where he particularly states and enumerates the Rights of Soveraignty he takes no notice of it for as he reckons them up they are these Jovian or an Answer to Julian the Apostate chap. 10. p. 201. Ed. 1. 1. To be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 accountable to none except God 2. To have the sole Power and disposal of the Sword 3. To be free from all Coercive and vindicative Power 4. Not to be withstood or resisted by force upon any pretence whatsoever Lastly To have the Legislative Power that makes any form of words a Law The Soveraign Power may indeed be limited as to the exercise of this Power which may be confined to Bills and Writings prepared by others but still it is the Soveraign Authority who gives Life and Soul to the dead Letter of them Here is nothing at all about this Dispensing Power when there was a fair occasion for it Possibly this was an Omission which at that time he did not think of that not being the matter of Dispute or it may be he was not so well instructed and did not think this essential to the notion of all Soveraign Power as seems probable from his two sorts of Imperial Power either of which make an Imperial Soveraign such as is limited by the Laws of God and nature only or such as is limited by the Laws of God and nature and Civil Laws and Pactions too The Power in both sorts of Soveraigns is Imperial full perfect absolute and entire but the exercise of it is differently bounded and regulated one by the Laws of God and Nature and the other by human positive Laws and the latter limitation doth no more destroy the fulness and perfection and Supremacy of the Power than the former because the Soveraign who is under Political limitations as to the exercise of his Power hath his Power nevertheless as absolutely fully and entirely in himself as he that is only under the limitation of Divine and natural Laws De laudibus legum Angliae C. 9. Rex Angliae principatu nedum Regali sed Politico suo populo dominatur Regnum sic institui ut Rex non libere valeat populum tyrannide gubernare quod solum fit dum potestas regia lege politica cohibetur Thus the learned Chancellor Fortescue grants the King of England to have Regal or Imperial Power though it be under the restraint and regulation of the Power political as to the exercise thereof and as a Fountain that hath Channels and Pipes made for it within which its waters are bounded in their passage and through which they are to flow is nevertheless as perfect a Fountain and hath its waters as fully and entirely within it self as any other Fountain whose waters flow from it at liberty without any such regulation so a King whose Imperial Power is limited by human Constitutions in the exercise of it is nevertheless as compleat a Soveraign and hath the Soveraign Power as fully and entirely within himself as he who is at liberty to exercise his Authority as he will To be arbitrary is no more of the Essence of an Imperial Soveraign than to be free in the course of its waters is of the Essence of a Fountain but as the Fountain of an Aqueduct for example is as perfect in its kind and generally more beneficial and useful to mankind than a free flowing spring so limited Soveraigns are as perfect and essential Soveraigns as the purely arbitrary and despotick and generally more beneficial and salutary to the world A great deal more the Reader may find to this purpose in the same place which possibly may be the reason why he did not mention this absolute Dispensing Power among the Essential Rights of Soveraignty because he might imagine that this might not be essential to all Soveraigns not to those the exercise of whose Soveraign Power is regulated by Civil and Political Laws who yet are as perfect Soveraigns as the most arbitrary and despotick Princes But I do not love to guess at other mens thoughts nor shall I undertake to justifie or condemn this Notion of his but I think the Reader by this time sees what little reason there was to appeal to the Dean of Worcester to justifie the dispensing Power His next Authority is Arch-bishop Bancroft who it seems asserted That the Judges are but the Kings Delegates and that the King may take what causes he shall please to determine from the determination of the Judges and determine them himself which the Archbishop said was clear in Divinity that such Authority belongs to the King by the Word of God in Scripture Now I wonder this Writer would produce this and that for these two Reasons 1. Because at that very time in the Presence of King James my Lord Chief Justice Coke contradicted the Arch-bishop and told the King he could not do it and gave him his Reasons why he could not as the Ch. Justice himself reports it in that place to which this Writer refers 12 Co. Fol. 64. 5. Jac. Now methinks here he loses more than he gets for if he have got a great Church-man he has lost a very great Lawyer whose Judgment is more considerable in such matters for as the Arch-Bishop could tell him what hath been done in Scripture-times under the Jewish Common-wealth that Moses and David and Solomon and other Kings of Israel administred Justice in their own Persons So the Ch. Justice could tell him what the Constitutions of this Kingdom and the regular form of Law will admit which is more to our purpose 2. I wonder a little more how he can prove the dispensing Power from this The King may judg what causes he pleases himself Ergo He can dispense with all Laws when he pleases Does the Power of hearing and trying causes and expounding and interpreting Laws include in it a power of dispensing with Laws Then it seems every Judg is by his Office a Dispenser with Laws If the King have Power of determining causes in his own person must he judg with or without Law If he judg according to the Laws how does this prove his Power of Dispensing with Laws Surely this is a Power which can result only from a Supreme absolute and unlimited Soveraignty not from a mere power of hearing and judging causes according to the true meaning and interpretation of Laws so little does this Writer understand what he writes about and it is great pity there is no more care taken that the Kings Prerogative do not suffer by such unskilful Scriblers His next man is a very great one indeed not only an Archbishop but a Martyr for

and I cannot then guess how he should determine this point of the Dispensing Power But let us now consider what this Author alledges to prove That the Archbishop did teach that this Dispensing Power is an inherent and inseparable Right of the Imperial Crown And to set this matter in a clearer light I shall place his quotations in that natural Order they stand in in the Archbishops Book He having then searched into the ground of Soveraignty and by Reason and Witnesses of all sorts deduced the Original thereof from no lower an head than Heaven it self as he himself tells us The Power of Princes p. 66. Ed. 2. 1683. he proceeds to look a little into those Royal Prerogatives which are annexed to the eminent Estate of such supreme Governors And the principal thing he takes notice of is their exemption from Laws P. 68. as the Senate of Rome decreed to Vespasian That what Laws soever either of the Senate or People it was ordained that the Emperor's Predecessors were not tied to from those he should be loose also So that this freedom from Laws tho a Branch of the Imperial Power was decreed and confirmed by the Laws of the Empire and granted to the Emperor by the Roman Senate which indeed signified making him Emperor for without this he had not been an Imperial Prince But what is this exemption from Laws which belongs to the Imperial Crown And that he tells us from the Civilians That they are free from all Coactive Obedience to them and are held by none of the written Ordinances For the understanding of which he distinguishes between God's Law the Law of the King and that which is the Law of God and the King together As for God's Law which signifies the unwritten Law of Nature or the Written Word the greatest Prince in the World is as much bound to obey it as the meanest Subject But then he adds which is one of our Author's quotations By the Law of the King I understand such Ordinances as are meerly Civil and Positive the Coactive Power whereof being derived from him who is the supreme Law-giver under God on Earth he himself cannot be properly said to be tied thereby Which he proves from Grammarians Civilians and Schoolmen and by this good Argument As no man therefore is superior to himself so no man hath jurisdiction over himself because none can oblige a man against his Will but only his Superior and the jurisdiction over a mans self may be dissolved at pleasure Which only signifies that the King is not bound in his own person to observe the Laws as Subjects are because no body has any jurisdiction over him but himself and no man can command himself any longer than he pleases Right But suppose a Soveraign Prince has bound himself by Oath to God and his Country that he will observe the Laws is he not as much obliged then to observe the Civil and Positive Laws of his Country made and confirmed by his own Authority as he is to observe the Laws of God for tho by making a Law he does not immediately oblige himself yet by his Oath he may The Archbishop only considered what was the Right of Soveraign Power without any Super-induced obligation not what a Soveraign Prince might oblige himself to by Sacred and Solemn Oaths And yet I wonder this Writer should have no more regard to the Sacred Majesty of Princes than to found their Rights upon such a Power as the wisest and best Princes have not thought fit to use As he might have learnt in the same place had he thought fit to have read on For there the Archbishop quotes the saying of Valentinian the younger p. 74. It is in truth a greater thing than the Empire to submit the Princed●m it self unto the Laws And that of Alexander Severus Although the Law of the Empire hath freed the Emperor from the Solemnities of the Law yet nothing is so proper for Empire as to live by the Laws And that which Severus and Antoninus set down so oft in their Prescripts Altho we be loosed from the Laws yet we live by the Laws Whereunto also we may add that commendation which Plutarch giveth to Alexander the Great That he conceived he ought to be thought Superior to all Men yet subject to Justice That is to be obliged to observe all the Laws of Justice not to be subiect to any Coercive Power And Pliny to Trajan He thinks himself to be one of us and so much the more excellent and eminent he is that he so thinketh and no less remembreth that he is a Man than that he is a Ruler of Men. For he who hath nothing left to increase his height hath but this one way to grow by if he submit himself being secure of his Greatness And in his direct Speech to the Emperor himself Thou esteemest us the same and thy self the same and in this only greater than the rest that thou art better than they And Thou hast made thy self-subject to the Laws O Caesar which were not written to restrain the Prince by but Thou wilt have nothing more lawful to Thee than is to Vs Now when this has been the Sense and Practice of the wisest and best Heathen Princes that it is an Imperial Vertue and Dignity tho they are free from Laws yet to submit themselves to the observance of Laws I should think it no great Complement to a Christian Prince to found any part of his Imperial Power upon such Exemptions as Soveraign Power must have but yet which Soveraign Princes think it their greatest Glory not to use For if the Exercise of such a Liberty be inglorious that Power which is founded on it cannot be glorious And here comes in the first Citation of this Writer who I think has not mended the Arch-Bishop's Sense by altering his Method The Power of the Prince P. 76. For such positive Laws as these being as the other works of Men are imperfect and not free from many discommodities if the strict Observation thereof should be perused in every particular it is sit the Supream Governour should not himself only be excepted from subjection thereunto which shows that before he had only spoke of the personal exemption of the Prince from the necessity of obeying his own Laws and that he now enters upon a new Prerogative of the Crown in the Words that follow but also be so far Lord over them that where he seeth cause he may abate or totally remit the Penalty incurred by the breach of them dispense with others for not observing them at all and generally suspend the execution of them when by experience he shall find the imconveniencies to be greater than the profit that was expected should redound thereby to the Common-wealth Plutarch sctteth this down as a chief point of that natural skill which Philopaemen had in Government that he did not only rule according to the Laws but over-ruled the Laws

it foll ws That the being of Soveraign Power is independent on Laws That is As a Soveraign Prince does not receive his Power from the Law so should he violate the Laws by which he is bound to Govern yet he does not forfeit his Power H● breaks his Faith to God and to his Country but he is a Soveraign Prince st●ll And in this sense the Dr. affirmed That Soveraign Power is inseparable from the Person of a Soveraign Prince 4. Hence it plainly appears that every illegal Act the King does is not an Inauthoritative Act but lays an Obligation on Subjects to yield if not an Active yet a Passive Obedience For the King receives not his Soveraign Authority from the Law nor does he for●…t his Authority by breaking the Law and therefore he is a Soveraign Prince still and his most illegal Acts though they have not the Authority of the Law yet they have the Authority of Soveraign Power which is irresist●ble and unaccountable Now this shows in what sense the Doctor immediately adds It does not become any Man who can think three consequences off to talk of the Authority of Laws in derogation to the Authority of the Soveraign Power Which does not signifie that the Law cannot abridge the Kings dispensing Power nor have the Authority of a Rule to him which he does not meddle with but that no Law can have such Authority over a Soveraign Prince as to un-king him or deprive him of his Soveraign Authority and make all his illegal Acts inauthoritative if he breaks it For that is the direct answer to the Objection and he seems to have looked no further and indeed to speak the truth his Argument holds no further for it does not follow that the King is not bound to keep the Laws but he is a King still and cannot forfeit his Sovereign and irresistable Authority though he breaks them But if this Doctors Judgment be of any force we may learn what his Opinion was if he be not now better informed by his answer to the fourth Objection though possibly he will not thank me for my pains in transcribing it P. 207. 4. The next objection against the Doctrine of Non-resistance is this That it destroys the difference between an absolute and limited Monarchy between a Prince whose Will is his Law and a Prince who is bound to govern by Law which undermines the Fundamental Constitutions of the English Government To this he answers The difference between an absolute and limited Monarchy is not that Resistance is lawful in one case and unlawful in the other for a Monarch the exercise of whose Power is limited and regulated by Laws is as irresistable as the most absolute Monarch whose Will is his Law and if he were not I would venture to say that the most absolute and despotick Government is more for the publick good than a limited Monarchy But the difference lies in this that an absolute Monarch where by absolute it is plain he means a despotick Prince for otherwise a limited Monarchy may be called and often is an absolute Sovereignty is under the Government of no Law but his own Will He can make and repeal Laws at his pleasure without asking the consent of any of his Subjects he can impose what Taxes he pleases and is not tied up to strict Rules and Formalities of Law in the execution of Justice But it is quite contrary in a limited Monarchy where the exercise of the Soveraign Power is regulated by known and standing Laws which the Prince can neither make nor repeal without the consent of the People c. No you will say the case is just the same For what do Laws signifie when a Prince must not be resisted though he break these Laws and govern by an arbitrary and lawless Will He may make himself as absolute as the Great Turk or the Mogul when ever he pleases For what should hinder him when all mens hands are tied by this Doctrine of Non-resistance now it must be acknowledged that there is a possibility for such a Prince to govern arbitrarily and to trample upon all Laws And yet the difference between an absolute and limited Monarchy is vastly great 1. For this Prince though he may make his Will a Law to himself and the only Rule of his Government yet he cannot make it the Law of the Land He may break Laws but he cannot make nor repeal them and therefore he can never alter the Frame and Constitution of the Government though he may at present interrupt the regular administration of it And this is a great security to Posterity and a present restraint upon himself 2. For it is a mighty uneasie thing to any Prince to govern contrary to known Laws He offers as great and constant violence to himself as he does to his Subjects The breach of his Oath to God and his promises and engagements to his Subjects makes the exercise of such an arbitrary Power very troublesom And though his Subjects are bound not to resist him yet his own guilty fears will not suffer him to be secure And arbitrary Power is not so luscious a thing as to tempt Men to forfeit all the ease and pleasure and security of Government for the sake of it 3. Though Subjects must not resist such a Prince who violates the Laws of his Kingdom yet they are not bound to obey him and serve him in his Vsurpations Subjects are bound to yield an active obedience only according to Law though they are bound not to resist when they suffer against Law Now it is a mighty uneasy thing to the greatest Tyrant to govern always by force And no Prince in a limited Monarchy can make himself absolute unless his own Subjects assist him to do so 4. And yet it is very dangerous for any Subject to serve his Prince contrary to Law though the Prince himself is unaccountable and irresistible yet his Ministers may be called to an account and be punisht for it and the Prince may think fit to look on qu●…tly and see it done or if they escape at pre●ent it may be time enough to suffer for it under the ●ext Prince which we see by experience makes all Men wary how they serve their Prince against ●…aw None but Persons of desperate Fortunes will do this ●…ated and these are not always to be met with and 〈◊〉 ●eldom fit to be e●…pl●…d 5. And therefore 〈◊〉 may observe that by the ●undamental Laws of our Government 〈…〉 Prince 〈◊〉 govern 〈…〉 so he is irresistible 〈◊〉 shews that our wise Law-makers d●d n●t think that Non resistance was destructive of al●…ited M●…y Not long since this was ●…gh 〈…〉 D●ctri● and I am sure it is very necessary to keep Pe●…e 〈…〉 Prince 〈◊〉 for which reason I 〈…〉 though it doth not reach the height 〈…〉 And now I find our Author begins to run ●ow when 〈◊〉 ●akes up with Doctor N●lson who says In the Kings Power it is to remit