Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
justice_n	good_a	king_n	people_n	3,603	5	4.8197	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41193	Whether the Parliament be not in law dissolved by the death of the Princess of Orange? and how the subjects ought, and are to behave themselves in relation to those papers emitted since by the stile and title of Acts : with a brief account of the government of England : in a letter to a country gentleman, as an answer to his second question.	Ferguson, Robert, d. 1714.	1695 (1695)	Wing F765; ESTC R7434	52,609	60

from the Life of any other though of one then vested with the Sovereignty if he was not sole and alone Sovereign But to advance to my second Answer to the forementioned Objection I do say that at some Times and upon some Occasions the executive Power of the Government hath been by Acts of Parliament transferred unto and settled upon those who had no Share or Portion in the Sovereignty and Regal Dignity I will not enquire whether it was done either wisely or legally it being enough for my purpose that it has been done and that oftner than once Of which the first Instance and Example I will assign is that of the 10th Year of Rich. 2. and the 20th Year of his Age For a Parliament being then held and having found that during his Minority there had through the ill Council and Advice of some Persons that were much in his Favour and Confidence been many and great Miscarriages in the Government they thereupon prepared a Bill which upon their obtaining the Royal Assent unto it became an Act or Statute wherein they awarded a Commission to Twelve several Peers and others of great Wisdom and Fidelity giving them Power and Authority in all Things concerning the King's Houshold Courts of Iustice Revenue and every thing else that concerned the good of the Realm to put in execution and finally determine for the Honour of the King Relief of the People and the better Government of the Peace and Laws of the Realm and this Commission to remain in force for a Year at the end whereof the King would be of Age. Now I suppose that no Man will have the Folly as well as the Impudence to say that the Sovereign and Regal Power was vested and inherent in those Commissioners and yet they were possessed of and had thereby given unto them the whole executive Power of the Government So that how much soever this was or at least looks like a Derogation of the Crown an Usurpation upon the Royal Power and a Disherison of the King yet we find it hath been awarded authorised and enacted by a Parliament which demonstratively sheweth That the executive Power of the Government has not only been thought separable but has been actually separated from the Sovereignty and Regal Dignity And consequently that the Prince of Orange's having the full and the sole Exercises of the Regal Power given unto him by the Act of Settlement and his having in the virtue thereof issued out the Writs for the calling of this Parliament doth not entitle it to a Continuance or a Right to sit after the Death of the late Princess there being now a Change and Alteration in the Sovereignty of what it was at the time of calling the said Parliament and before the Death of Mary Forasmuch as the Regal Dignity which was then incorporated in two natural Persons though only one political is now become vested in one single Individual one But the second Instance which I shall mention is yet both more plain and more directly home to the Matter and Subject which I am upon and that is the Statute of the 17 Car. 1. for the calling and holding Triennial Parliaments in which it was ordained and enacted That if the King did not by such a time as was there expressed issue out his Writs for the calling and assembling of a Parliament that then upon such a Failure of the King 's in the executive Part of the Government the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper for the time being and so onwards to others till in case of the Neglect of all those whom they there mention and do both empower and require to do it they give Authority to the Freeholders themselves to meet at or before such a day and to chuse and elect Members Now it will not be denied but that as the Right of calling Parliaments is one of the most noble inherent and essential Prerogatives of the Crown so the exertion of this Sovereign Royal Power in the sending forth of Writs for the actual chusing and assembling of one is one of the most eminent and illustrious Acts and Exercises of the executive Power of Government And here by a Statute introductive of a new Law which had no Foundation in the Common Law and which was besides very derogatory to the Crown was there a Power of issuing out Writs for the calling and assembling of a Parliament transferred unto and devolved upon such as had nothing of the Sovereignty and Regal Dignity Now if through the King 's failing to call a Parliament within the time which was prefixed and limitted by that Act the Lord Chancellor or any of those that were empowered to call it upon the King's neglect to do it should have issued out Writs in persuance of the said Act for the calling and assembling of one all which in fact might very well have been seeing we are to suppose nothing in Statutes to have been idle and impertinent Yet any such Parliament and so called would have been as much and as really dissolved by the Death of the King as if the Writs for the calling of it had been issued out by himself and by his own Personal Authority and Command For through their being called by an Exertion of the King 's Regal and Sovereign Power though applied and exercised by one distinct from him and through the Writs being issued forth in his Name whosoever were the Issuers of them and through the Members being chosen in the Virtue and Persuance of those Writs and through their coming together entrusted by the Electors to confer with the King about the quadam ardua Regni such a Parliament upon the Death of the King in whose Name and Time it was chosen could not escape the being dissolved So that nothing can be more alien to the Matter under debate as well as weak in it self then to pretend because the Prince of Orange is yet Living in whom the Exercise of the Government was at the time of the issuing forth of those Writs by which this Parliament was called that therefore the Parliament it self remains still in Being and is in Law indissolved Seeing in this Case it is not in whom the Right and Power resided to put forth exercise and apply the Sovereignty that the Duration Continuance and Existence of a Parliament does bear and depend but in whom the full and entire Sovereignty and Regal Dignity was then vested and settled preclusive of all others And I am sure that no Man who stands not a Candidate for a Preferment in Bedlam will say That the whole and full Sovereignty was then in William to the barring and excluding of Mary But to add a third Answer to the foregoing Objection I do say That the very placing of the Exercise of the Royal Power in the Prince of Orange in the manner it was done by the Convention and as it stands expressed in the Act of Settlement and is confirmed by this Parliament does beyond all contradiction

multo minus bello ubi legibus agi possit And the mildest Character I can fasten upon our two Revolutional Parliaments abstracting from their Disloyalty and Treason is that they have been graviores remediis quam delicta erant they have almost ruined and destroyed the Nation on pretence of redressing Trifles Nor indeed was it any Thing he either had done or designed to do that threw us into that brutal and disloyal Rage but he was a Catholick and the Demagogues and Indendiaries had taught the weak and bigotted part of Protestants to hate him for his Religion invis● semel Principe seu bene seu male facta premunt When a Prince is once wormed out of the Love of his People whatsoever he then doth though it be never so much for the Benefit of his Subjects it will be misinterpreted as done to their hurt Nor will it ever cease to be an Aggravation of the Guilt of our Rebellion that we feared his Majesty's redressing what we had gotten represented unto and believed by the Nation to have been illegal grievous and arbitrary For most Men do now know That if the Submission which they of Magdalen College sent up to my Lord S to be laid before the King had come to his hands it would immediately have stopt all Proceedings against them and have restored them fully to his Favour and Grace But that Submission was concealed from his Majesty not only out of Treachery to him but out of Design to serve the Prince of Orange in keeping on foot one of the great Designs of his Invasion And although the King gave large and uncontroulable Proofs of having Royal Inclinations beyond what any King ever had that sat upon the Throne of this Kingdom of retracting and redressing all those Things which he came to be convinced of to have been done amiss and illegally yet that would not allay the Furious and Rebellious heats of those who had a mind to enrich themselves with the Spoils of the Crown and Kingdom And therefore when all Things were restored to the State and Condition which his most peevish Enemies would have wished or desired to have had them yet the traiterous Ferment was kept up still in the former height Nor doth any Thing better demonstrate how imprudently as well as wickedly we abdicated the King than that Four parts of Five of the Kingdom would be glad to have him here again upon the Terms he offered before we drove him away and very many would think themselves happy and account it a good Bargain to have him here upon any How little does the King's employing a few Catholicks in Civil and Military Trusts weigh and amount unto when laid in one Scale against all the Blood that has been spilt and all the Losses that have been sustained and all the Treasure that hath been consumed for supporting of this Rebellion when they are laid in the other Scale And the Exchange we have made so infinitely for the worse sheweth both our Folly and is a just Punishment of our Sin in making of it Nor wanted there Truth or good Sense in the Reply which a plain Country Farmer made to his Neighbour who was complaining of the grievous insupportable Taxes and of the many other Losses Pressures and Oppressions under which the Nation groaneth viz. That these were the Blessings and Advantages which we had gotten and obtained by swopping of Kings For this Man 's little Finger is much heavier than the King's Loins were His Majesty loved his People and would have been contented to have made them happy at the Expence of his own Prerogative and with some diminution of his Sovereign Rights But this Intruder into the Throne hates both Country and People and only useth us in the Service of his own ambitious Ends and to gratify the Rapacity and Covetousness of his beloved Dutch And in the same manner that Solomon distinguished the true Mother from the false namely by the compassionate tender yearning Bowels of the one and the inhuman barbarous Cruelty of the other may we distinguish our Rightful King from the Usurper and learn which of them we are in Duty to chuse and obey I might add as a further Aggravation of the Folly of those two Parliaments in what they have done That by their violating the Constitution to the Injury of the King they have set a Pattern as well as given Provocation to some brave and daring Prince that may hereafter sit upon the Throne to do the like in prejudice of the Subject For it is the same Injustice abstracting from Treason in the People to rob the King of his Crown and Royal Dignity as it would be in a King to invade the Liberties and Properties of his People Nor is it more unlawful for the one to overthrow the Constitution and change the Government than it is for the other to do it Not that such a Thing is to be feared though we have deserved it For though some Subjects may grow Rich by spoiling the Crown yet no King of England can ever become Great or Opulent by breaking in upon the Privileges of the People And therefore he will forbear it out of Interest if he should not out of Duty And he will keep to the Terms of the Constitution upon Motives of Wisdom should he not be inclined to do it upon Inducements of Justice For whensoever a King of Great Brittain insults over his People he immediately sinks himself into a Condition of being contemned and despised by all the World I might also Sir lay before you how that Parliaments are not only in the Exercises of their Parliamentary Power under the Direction and Confinement of the Essential and Fundamental Rules and Measures of the Constitution but how they are under the Regulations Limitations and Restrictions both of our Common and Statute Laws For as their being is a legal Being their Capacities under which they sit and act legal Capacities their Business and Employment a legal Employment and the Ends they come together for legal Ends So they are in all these and in all the Concernments they assemble consult or act about under the Influences Direction Conduct and Restriction of the Laws Though there be a Provision made in the Constitution that at Times and Seasons and upon necessary Exigencies and Occasions and for needful and indisputable Ends there should be Parliaments and that it is the Right and Due of the People of England to have them yet they do receive their actual Existence and come into Being by the Fiat of Sovereign Authority and by the King's Writs that raise and assemble them And they would according to the Common Law be a riotous and tumultuous Rout and not a Parliament or a legal Assembly should they meet without being called and raised into their Existence by the creative Writs of the King And suppose that those Laws of Ed. 3. were yet in force for our having Parliaments once a Year or oftner if there be