Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
justice_n	king_n	law_n	right_n	3,390	5	7.1155	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40703	Agreement betwixt the present and the former government, or, A discourse of this monarchy, whether elective or hereditary? also of abdication, vacancy, interregnum, present possession of the crown, and the reputation of the Church of England ; with an answer to objections thence arising, against taking the new Oath of Allegiance, for the satisfaction of the scrupulous / by a divine of the Church of England, the author of a little tract entituled, Obedience due to the present King, nothwithstanding our oaths to the former.	Fullwood, Francis, d. 1693.	1689 (1689)	Wing F2495; ESTC R40983	47,690	74

Principle against Treason a faithful and loyal Mind keeping Treason out of its Seat which we know is not so much in our Actions as in the Mind and Imagination 2dly If Treason cannot be committed against the King that is out of Possession as he is not King according to Law so we cannot be thought to owe him our Allegiance that is Obedience according to Law for he is not King so as to rule or command us and then there is wanting the very Reason of Duty or of Fidelity to that Duty 5. It may not be unworthy our observation That if any one yet can be so weak or blind as to imagine that since the late King's Abdication the Crown is in Abatement and the Right lies somewhere else even in that case they say the Common Law favours the Abator and looks upon his Title to be good until the Right of the Heir be proved and the Matter of the Title be decided by Law and consequently all Duties in the mean time are to be paid by the Tenants to the Abator as if he had Right as well as Possession I need not apply it 6. However there is nothing in the Law of the Land or the Word of God that necessitates the Subject to trouble his Conscience with Scruples about the Titles of Princes or beyond the actual Possession and Administration of the Government 1. For the Word of God that supposeth Christians to be under the present Powers and strictly enjoins them peaceable and unscrupled Submission and Obedience to the Powers that are but this Argument hath been sufficiently enforc'd by others even to Demonstration 2. For the Law of the Land this justifies our Obedience to the present Power yea requires it and punisheth the contrary and will not endure any Scruples about the Right when the Possession of the Crown is once settled and terminates all Doubts of that kind in an Act of Parliament which is the publick Judgment and Sense of the Nation 'T was said by the Parliament of Richard the 3d after they had cleared his Title as grounded upon the ancient Laws and laudable Customs of the Realm according to the Judgment of all such Persons as were learned in those Laws and Customs they proceed and say Yet nevertheless forasmuch as it is considered that the most part of the People is not sufficiently learned in the aforesaid Laws and Customs whereby Truth and Right in this behalf of likelihood may be had and not clearly known to all People and thereupon put in doubt and question and over this how that the Court of Parliament is of such Authority that a Declaration made by the three Estates and by the Authority of the same maketh before all other things most faithful and certain quieting of Mens Minds and removeth the occasion of Doubts and seditious Language therefore they declare that he was the undoubted King. Whence 't is evident that the Reason of this Law supposeth that the Subjects in general are not capable of understanding the Laws and Customs upon which the Titles of our Kings depend and that the best Satisfaction that the Generality of the People can possibly have in those high Matters is the Sense and Judgment and Determination of the Kingdom by Act and Authority of Parliament wherein they should acquiesce for the preventing Sedition so much as in Language But to be short here the Law allows a King de facto the Name and Dignity and Authority and Defence of a King And doth it not require our Duty according to Law Was 't ever known the King being acknowledged to have the actual Government that the Subject was excused from Allegiance or an Oath of Fidelity as occasion required it Yea If Obedience according to Law be acknowledged due to the present Government as it now it seems is generally granted is not the Oath of Allegiance at this time required by Law as well as by the Relation of Subjects and so made a plain part of our Obedience according to Law Yet if the King in Possession be really our King do not our own Laws return upon us requiring Loyalty and Fealty forbidding Sedition and Scandalum Magnatum and all Endeavours to alter the Government that is at least by our peaceable and dutiful Carriage to acquiesce in the Work of Divine Providence in our late Revolution and the Acknowledgment of our Subjection due to William and Mary who as we have heard by the Laws of the Land heretofore made are our undoubted King and Queen because in possession of the Government their Right also is unquestionable by private Subjects being a Point determined according to the ancient Laws and laudable Customs of this Realm and their Right as well as Possession openly declared by the highest Authority of the Kingdom in Acts of the present Parliament Object But some are apt to say This is to prove that the Sun shines who denies that the present King and Queen are such de facto or that we ought to obey them Sol. 1. This is so far well But do we obey them without reserve for the late King Do we acknowledg that the Laws of the Land oblige us to give them our Obedience Or do we mean only that they have the Name of Soveraigns and a Power in their Hands to defend themselves against and to punish Disturbers of their Possession If it be so we do not take right Measures of their Authority or of our own Duty according to Law. 2. For they are really King and Queen by being in Possession and invested by the Laws with Regal Authority as well as Power otherwise they could not be within the purview of the Statute of Treason 3. Consequently all their Actions that are politick and for the matter agreable to Law are as valid and of as good Authority as the Acts of the most rightful Kings They have Authority and do effectually execute and make Laws while they are in Possession as they do protect us so they administer Justice dispose of Offices coin Mony make Peace and War punish all kind of Offences as well against the Subjects as the Government 4. And such Acts of a King de facto only without Right as concern and have Influence upon the Kingdom have ever been allow'd and reputed good and valid though the Title to the Crown hath been question'd and denied in after-Ages as we noted before 5. That very Parliament that condemned the Usurpations of Hen. 4 5 6. and all Acts that had entailed the Crown contrary to the course of Inheritance yet add these remarkable Words Howbeit that all other Acts and Ordinances made in the said Parliament since been good and sufficient against all other Persons I would infer hence that Obedience is due to the present King c. in his Authority by Law acknowledged as well as Power and therefore not only for Wrath but for Conscience sake Conscience I say not of their Title but of their Authority and our own plain Duty

be personally present Wherein we have two Propositions 1st That every particular Subject either in Person in the House of Peers or by Representation in the House of Commons are by the Laws of this Realm deemed personally present in Parliament 2dly That where the whole of the Realm are thus either in Person as Peers or by their Representatives upon their own free Elections present there is a Parliament 1. So that the Essence of a Parliament seems to consist in two things with respect to the two Houses The Presence of the Peers in their own Right and of the Representatives of the People by Virtue of their Election and to be entire without the Consideration of any previous Writs from the King. 2. Indeed we cannot well conceive that a Parliament properly so can be so without a King in being not for want of Writs to summon but for want of an occasion and reason of their being if the King be the Person with whom they are to parly caput Principium finis Parliament But seeing the Peers of the Realm and the Representatives of the Commons upon their own free Elections are assembled and the King in being allows approves and ratifies their Assembly to be a Parliament by his subsequent Assent as King to that manner of Summons which he before he was actually King invited them to and advises with them and makes use of them as his Parliament It is plain to me that they have the entire Substance of a lawful Parliament and that the King's Writs in such a case are but a separable Accident and that we should look upon our selves and the whole Body of the People as present there and acting or consenting to all the Laws made by the King and them 3. And lastly we are not without a plain and direct Precedent in the case upon King Charles the second 's happy Restauration as every one observes which is in terminis made the pattern by this King and Parliament in the late Act declaring themselves to be a Parliament though it wanted the previous Writs of Summons which could not be had And though 23 of the Statutes made by that Parliament were afterwards confirm'd 13 Car. 2. c. 7. yet the rest of the Acts made by them have been taken to be of as much force by the Judges though not so confirm'd And this of the 12 Car. 2. 1. is one of them as all other Laws made by our Kings whose Titles have been afterwards question'd with the Peoples Concurrence have been ever held valid Thus we have the Publique Judgment of two Kings and of the Body of the whole Kingdom in two Parliaments that such Writs of Summons before-hand are not necessary in all Cases and in particular in our Case to the Constitution of a true and Legal Parliament And who have most reason to understand and to judg and determine such publick and high Points concerning the Nature of Parliaments the King and Kingdom assembled together or Men of a single and private Capacity How far our Consent and Sense is concern'd in the Determination of those we have chosen and in some sort trusted with our politick Interest and in whom the Law lately mention'd saith We are deemed to be present I urge not but it may be worthy to be considered The Words of the Parliament being about to declare the Right of Richard the 3d. are these and I think them very pertinent The Parliament is of such Authority and the People of this Land of such a Nature and Disposition as Experience teacheth that Manifestation or Declaration of any Truth made by the three Estates of this Realm assembled in Parliament and by Authority of the same maketh before all other things most faithful and certain quieting of Mens Minds and removeth the Occasion of Doubts and seditious Language Which God grant CHAP. VIII Arguing from the Possession of the Crown I Have now finished the greatest part of my Undertaking and how I have vindicated the late Revolution and reconciled our present State to our ancient Constitution as an Hereditary Monarchy and admitting no Interregnum my Reader will be my Judg. As also of what I have said touching Abdication and Vacancy in the Throne of the Convention and their just and regular Proceedings in their Invitation of King William and Queen Mary to take upon them the Government of these Kingdoms and lastly of the Legality of the present Parliament and thereby obviated or answered the Objections made against the present Government From any or all of these as I intended I submit to his serious Consideration and candid Censure 2. But if all that I have hitherto said fail of my end in giving full satisfaction to such as scruple the taking the new Oaths of Allegiance to all the Arguments that have been so well inlarged upon by others I shall only resume that that hath been often insisted on taken from the Possession of the present King and Queen with the easy and just consequence of it If the Body of the Kingdom as represented by the Lords and Commons duly chosen or scattered over the Kingdom by their open uninterrupted and general Recognitions and Proclamations and their Coronations with all the Methods and Formalities of Law can give or can own and approve the Possession of the Throne and declare and manifest William and Mary King and Queen as no body can doubt they are certainly and must be acknowledged to be our King and Queen de facto Now hence it follows 1. Then we owe them Obedience due by Law for then we are their Subjects And we cannot conceive of Soveraignty without Authority nor of Subjection without Obedience This the Statute of Hen. 7. plainly supposeth due to the King in being and consequently that such an one is not a King in Name only but in Dignity and Power And the Subject may obey him fight for him and consequently take the military Oath an Oath to be faithful in that highest Act of his Service and doth assoil him from any Crime in so doing in Reason Law and Conscience 2. Hereupon the learned Lord Coke and Judg Hales affirm without Hesitancy That a King de facto and not de jure is within the great and ancient Statute of Treason 25 Edw. 3. 3. Now if we enquire why Treason may according to Law be committed against a King de facto the Reason is obvious namely because the Law looks upon him as really our King. As Treason they say cannot be committed against a King by Right only and hath not Possession which must be upon the like Reason because the Law doth not regard one out of Possession and cannot protect us or administer Justice to us as King of England 4. Hence it seems to follow first If the Subject may be guilty of Treason against the King in being it implies he owes the Duty that is contrary to Treason to the same King and what is that but Fealty or Fidelity that is a

at least for Conscience sake with respect to the publick Good to take the Oath of Allegiance which is part of our Obedience it being required by Law and therefore our Duty Obj. Your arguing seems to perswade us only to Obedience which we do not much scruple in the sense you explicate it The Swearing to bear true Allegiance is that which troubles us not knowing well the intended sense or meaning of it Sol. The Government hath given us reasonable Satisfaction in this Particular though not so clear as may be wish'd the very Title of the Oath even in this new Law is the Oath of Allegiance or Obedience Now if Allegiance in the sense of the Law as explained by the Law-makers be nothing but Obedience and Obedience in England is to be measured by the Laws what can Allegiance import more than Obedience according to Law which you say you are willing to yield and why now should you refuse to add this Sign and Security of such your Obedience by taking your Oath to do so 2. Moreover you find the Government insists not upon the Word Allegiance nor intends any strange or obscure Obligation upon us by it for in the Declaration they require of Quakers who refuse to swear they express Faith and Allegiance by those plainer Words I will be true and faithful to King William and Queen Mary 3. And as one lately hath very well observed the Parliament have avoided all occasion of Offence in wording this Oath that might consist with the Security of the Government for by omittting the assertory part of the former 't is evident they do not require us by this Oath to assert the Title but to secure the Possession and Peace of the Crown in King William and Queen Mary by our Obedience according to Law. Indeed we may perceive in the whole Proceeding of our late wonderful Revolution so much Sweetness Tenderness and Condescension to the Prejudices that the former state of things might leave in us both with respect to our late King and our own Obligations as if the Government had industriously studied to avoid all occasion of Offence as much as the nature of the Change suffer'd to be possible I have I think noted before that the Convention did not depose the late King did not declare the Crown forfeited did not require him to make a Resignation of it and tho they justly charge him with many intolerable Grievances yet they did not call the King to an Account for them Nay they did not so much as declare that the King is accountable so that the Minds of such as boast of excessive Loyalty have ease as to all these things that bear so hard a Contradiction to their Principles and as for our selves we have noted some Kindness and Condescension with respect to the Oath required thereby it it is neither required that we should abjure the Title of the late King nor assert the Title of the present God forbid therefore that there should be left any Prejudice in us from the hard Proceeding of the Government in either kind if it should it is plainly as false in its ground as 't is like to be evil in its Consequence especially if we stiffen our Disloyalty with the Continuance of a scandalous Impeachment of our Rulers and Legislators for Severity intended against the Church and a designed Alteration or Change of the ancient Constitution of this Hereditary Monarchy the one I hope is as true as the other Obj. The Statute of Hen. 7. so much depended on was made by a King that had no Title to the Crown himself Answ What then Doth it follow that the Statute is not of force Upon that ground we must blot out a great part of our Statute-Book which is full of Laws made by such Kings and the best of our Laws have no force if the Observation hath any truth that the worst Kings made the best Laws Object But 't is a Law mischievous to the Right of our Kings Answ It is much this Mischief hath not been discovered by our former Kings or Parliaments that so mischievous a Law should continue through so long a tract of time unrepealed 't is confess'd it may be inconvenient and prejudice the Interest of a King de jure but we ought in reason to set this against it that it is a Law at all times convenient and serving the Ease Quiet and Safety of the Kingdom for whose sake Kings themselves are 't is hereupon that the Lord Bacon tells us that the Spirit of this Law was wonderfully pious and noble upon this ground as one saith well because they who had no hand in the Sin should bear no share in the Punishment And the Lord Bacon adds That this wanted not Prudence and deep Foresight for it did the better take away occasion for the People to busy themselves to pry into the King's Titles for that however it fell their Safety was already provided for And as the late Author that cites my Lord Bacon for these Words adds very well The meanest Capacity will not be wanting for a Rule of that Subjection which every Soul owes to the higher Powers but if the Subject ought first to satisfy himself touching the Right of his Prince especially in such a time of contest as there was many Years betwixt York and Lancaster certainly every Soul could hardly be so well satisfied as to be subject for Conscience sake CHAP. VIII Whether a King can make Laws limiting the Crown Obj. THough it be acknowledged that a King de facto hath Power to make other Laws viz. Laws for Peace and Justice yet it is a Doubt whether a King that hath no right to the Crown can make Laws for limiting the Succession of the Crown as is now to be done Answ It is confess'd that when it was pleaded against the Title and Claim of the Duke of York that there were divers Entails made to the Heirs Males of Hen. 4. It was answered There had been none made by any Parliament heretofore as it is surmised but only in the seventh Year of K. Henry the Fourth But that Act taketh no place against him that is right Inheritor c. Howbeit all other Acts made in the said Parliament since have been and are sufficient against all other Persons Upon this Law the foresaid Distinction seems grounded but I think very weakly for these Reasons 1. Because this very Law mentions Henry the Fourth with the Addition and Title of King without any Diminution as appears in the Words cited 2. The ground upon which that Entail was declared Null was not a want of Power in King and Parliament to make a Law about the Succession but as they declare in the Dukes first Answer That no Oath being the Law of Man ought to be performed when the same is against the Truth and the Law of God implying as afterwards they speak out it was a Law though of Man it faileth not for want of Authority

it and that by a real as well as by a formal Abdication as before explain'd Government according to Law is essential to our Government otherwise our Lawyers are much out that generally tell us our Government is a Legal Regal or as Fortescue a Political Government in opposition to Despotical Absolute Arbitrary or Tyrannical Government Now though a King do not intend absolutely to abandon all kind of Government yet when he leaves the proper Government and assumes another kind of Government abhor'd by our Constitution he plainly ceaseth to be our Governour in any sense he refuseth to govern politically he would bring in another Species of Government that is destructive of our Constitution and begins in many odious Instances the Execution of Tyranny contrary not only to the Laws that make and limit our Government but contrary to the ends of all Government and instead of protecting destroys his People what can be plainer than that this is to abdicate the Government as King of England A King may kill himself and not intend it To this purpose we have several notable Collections made by others I shall note a few of them Among the Laws of K. Edward C. 17. de Regis Officio the Liberties of the People being mention'd it is said that the King is constituted for the Preservation of them which if he do not nec nomen Regis in eo constabit he doth not retain the Name of a King. Bracton says l. 2. c. 24. Est enim Corona Regis facere Justitiam Judicium pacem tenere sine quibus consistere potest nec tenere i. e. The Crown of the King is to do Justice and Judgment and to preserve Peace without which he cannot subsist But above all the Words of K. James to his Parliament March 21. 1609. are remarkable The King is bound by a double Oath to preserve the Laws tacitly as being King and expresly by his Coronation-Oath So as every just King is bound to observe the Paction made with his People by his Laws framing the Government thereunto and a King leaves to be King and degenerates into a Tyrant as soon as he leaves off to govern by Law in which case the King's Conscience may speak to him as the poor Woman to Philip of Macedon Either govern according to Law or cease to be King. Answerable hereunto is the Civilians Maxim Tyranni in Exarcitie decidunt Jure sue Haereditario i. e. Tyrants by their Tyranny lose their Hereditary Right of Government for the Ill of Monarchy is Tyranny K. Charles's Answ to 19. Prop. From what hath been said it seems plain that a King by relinquishing the Legal and usurping an Arbitrary or Tyrannical Government does as effectually abdicate the Government as King as a Merchant that turns Pirate abdicates his Trade or a Husbandman that leaves off his Husbandry and resolves to cast the fortune of his Life upon robbing on the High-way abdicates his Plough Lastly 't is so evident in those that give us the sense of the word that there is a real Abdication as we have considered it in distinction to a formal that no body that will take the pains to examine can doubt it Not only Grotius de Jure Belli Pac. lib. 2. c. 4. s 4. Non tantum verbis sed re potest but Calvin in his Lexic Jurisd tells us Generum abdicat qui Sponsam repudiat he that divorces his Wife doth abdicate his Son. So Homo liber qui seipsum vendit abdicat se statu suo saith Brissonius de verb. sign that is he which sells himself abdicates himself from his former state And Budaeus Comment de Origine Juris Abdicare se Magistratu est idem quod abire penitus Magistratu 1. For the Application of the Word so explained And to all that had been said to prove the late King's Abdication compleat and undeniable it ought to be remembred that in the very times of Popery here a submitting to Papal Usurpations and Authority contrary to our Laws was deem'd a Disinherison of the Crown What shall we say of the late King 's voluntary studied and deliberate invading his own Authority and subjecting the whole Ecclesiastical State to a forreign Power to the utter Extirpation of our Reformed Constitution so firmly settled in the special Laws of the Land to that purpose Considering also how this in a little time must inevitably ruin the Civil State which is intimately inter woven with the Ecclesiastical in their just Liberties and true Religion their very Consciences and Lives not being safe from the Snares and Inquisitions and even Massacres of the most cruel tyrannical and barbarous Religion in the World. 2. This in conjunction with the late King's Proceedings in civil Matters needs no Aggravation The Crown of England is glorious in a threefold Excellency the Legislative Executive and Military Power Now sor one of our own Kings to do that industriously and by many designed deliberate Acts which is rank Treason against the King and Kingdom which at least hath a tendency to destroy the King with respect to his Crown and Dignity what is this but to destroy himself For a King to divest himself of the Legislative Power by the use of all Artifices of Fraud and Force to destroy the fundamental Priviledges of Election and consequently the very Being of a legal Parliament his executive Power by refusing to govern by Law and setting up an arbitrary tyrannical Government Lastly his legal standing military Power laying aside the Militia and resolving to stick to an illegal Army what is this but to relinquish the Government of England to throw away all Regal Authority to violate break in pieces and trample upon the Crown to declare to all the World he will be King no longer and to abandon the Authority which he had to govern by Law according to the Constitution of the Kingdom his Duty to his People as King and the special Bond upon his Soul in his solemn Coronation-Oath 3. But at last to crown all when the Noise of the Prince's Coming had brought him a little to himself and he begins to feel the danger that his late daring Pranks of Tyranny had brought him into he adviseth with his wise Council what to do Should he trust his People in Parliament No Should he trust his melting Army No Should he trust his dreadful Son in Law No. What then as the evil Spirit rent and tore the Body when he was forc'd to leave it so he did all the mischief he could by calling in his Writs for a Parliament dismissing his Judges carrying away the Broad Seal and putting an end to all kind of Government among us as before and then leaves us in absolute Anarchy and a way of Confusion upon a necessity apprehended of his own creating of dispossessing us he flies to his trusty and wel-beloved the French King thus at once delivering his Person and in consequence directly betraying his Kingdom into the Power of