Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	government_n	king_n	people_n	13,729	5	4.9406	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56182	The contra-replicant, his complaint to His Maiestie	Parker, Henry, 1604-1652.	1643 (1643)	Wing P400; ESTC R22502	28,940	31

they themselvss do require to be regulated by further Lawes No Nation can be free without a three-fold priviledge The first is in the framing and passing of Lawes The second is in declaring and interpreting Lawes And the third is in executing and preserving Lawes in force Where the King is sole Law-maker all things are subject to his meer discretion and a greater bondage then this never was nor can be the English lie not under such base servitude their King claimes but a part in the Leg●slative power and yet neverthelesse of late by discontinuing of Writs for the summoning of Parliaments and by the right of a Negative voyce in Parliaments and an untimely dissolving of Parliaments the peoples interest in this Legislative power has been much abridged and suspended In the like manner also if the sole power of declaring Lawes were so in the King as that he might himselfe give Judgement or create Judges at his pleasure without imposing Oathes of trust on them in behalfe of the people or should deny redresses upon Appeales from them our Legislative power would be vaine and uneffectuall to us For my part I hold it an equall thing whither just men make Lawes and unjust interpret them or unjust men make Lawes and just interpret them When it was just in the King of late to impose what taxes hee pleased and as often as he pleased upon us for the preparing of Armadoes all over England Our Nation was fallen into a most desperate thraldome yet the fault was not then in the Lawes but in the Judges and such as had a power over the Judges Lawes as they are deafe and by a strict inflexibility more righteous then living Judges so they are dumb also and by their want of Language more imperfect then the brests of men And indeed since the Lawes of God and Nature though knowne to all yet do not utter to all the same sense but remaine in many plaine points strangely controverted as to their intent and meaning how can we hope that any humane Lawes should satisfie all mens understanding in abstruse points without some living Key to open them the vast Pandects and digests of the Law sufficiently testifie that in the clearest Law which mankind could ever yet discover there are dark and endlesse Labyrinths wherein the weaker sort of lay men are presently lost the learnedst advocates are tediously perplext In the last place also if the sole power of inforcing and executing Lawes were so vested in the King as that he might use it to the cessation or perversion of all justice and the people were in such case remedilesse the interest in making and declaring of Law were invalid and frustrate in the people and the King might still inslave or destroy them at his pleasure The Replicant sayes That under a Monarchy much must be trusted to the King or else it will be debased into Democracie T is confessed much must but all must not be trusted the question then is how farre this much extends in a Monarchy of such a mixt nature as ours is in such times as ours now are In absolute Monarchies all is trusted to the King in absolute Democracies all is vested in the people in a mixt Monarchy more is trusted to the King then is reserved to the people and in a mixt Democracie more is reserved to the people then is derived to the Prince In all formes of Government the people passes by way of trust all that power which it retaines not and the difference of formes is only in degree and the degrees are almost as various as the severall states of the world are nay the same state admits of often changes many times sometimes the people gaines and sometimes looses sometimes to its prejudice sometimes not and sometimes injuriously sometimes not but the degrees of ordinary power consist in the making declaring and inforcing Law except when forraigne warre is and then it is expedient that a greater and more extraordinary trust be reposed in one and this we see in Holland the most exact Republicke and in England the most exact Monarchy in the world But it is a leud conceit of our Royalists now-adayes to attribute to our King an absolute power over the Militia of this Land at all times alike not distinguishing between Civill warres wherein he may be a party and suspected and between a forraigne warre where he is neither a party nor suspected for if our Kings will plead such a trust to our disadvantage 't is just that they produce some proofe for it and relye not upon meere Common use 't is true in case of Forraigne invasion 't is expedient that the King be farre trusted and yet even so if the King should conspire with forraigne forces or neglect to protect us against them contrary to the intent of his trust we might resume the common native Posse or Militia of the Land for our owne defence without his consent And much more reasonable is it in time of Peace or Civill warre if the King will deny his influences or withdraw his presence to obstruct Law or will by his Negative voyce or by force seeke to disable his highest Courts and Councels and reduce all to arbitrary government more reasonable is it that the people secure to themselves the Law their chiefest portion and best patrimony For as the King cannot by Law deny to the people their undoubted interest in passing of Lawes so neither can he defeat the same interest or destroy the benefit thereof by misinterpretations or by mis-executions of the same Lawes No Nation can injoy any freedome but by the right and share which it has in the Lawes and if that right and share doe not extend to the preservation of Lawes in their true vigour and meaning as well as to the Creation of them 't is emptie and defeasible at the Kings meere pleasure Much is to be trusted to the King true but all is not we see ●rusted some power we see is of Necessity to be reserved in free Nations such as the King allowes us to be and there is a difference also in the word Trust for there is an arbitrary and there is a necessary Trust and the one may be resumed the other not upon meere pleasure Without all question the wiser and juster Princes are esteemed the more the people ever trust them but this makes no difference in the Legall and fundamentall Trust of the Kingdome nor can infirme credulous and easie Princes pretend alwayes to the same degree of power as their Ancestors have held unlesse they can prescribe to their vertues also Queene Elizabeth might with safety and expedience be trusted further then King Iames even in those things where the Law did not trust her but this is the misery of subjects all goes from them but nothing must returne The Court of a Prince is like the Lions den in the Fable all the beasts leave prints and steps advorsum but none retrorsum But the

Replicant further assures us That t is very easie to assigne the bounds of these severall trusts for the Lawes and Customes of the Land determine both nor will his Maiestie he saies require any new trust to himselfe or deny any old trust to us Our great D●vines were to bee admi●ed for their profound knowledge in the mysteries of Law were they not Courtiers but now the King is presum'd to comprehend omnia jura in scrinio Pectoris and so they by their residence at Court discerne all the secrets of Law and State in speculo Imperii just as our heavenly Saints doe read all things else in speculo Trinitatis Our gravest Sages of the Law are much divided in points of lesse moment and intricacie and as for the precise metes and bounds where Soveraignty and Liberty are sever'd and the direct degrees of publike trust in all cases and at all times they looke upon them as grand difficulties scarce fit to be debated but in the sacred Court of Parliament and yet Clergie-men think them but the first rudiments of all knowledge obvious to very A. B. C-Darians C-Darians They alwayes boast of the knowne Lawes of the Kingdome in all disputes they referre us to the knowne Lawes and Customes of the Land as if Judges were things utterly needlesse and the study of Law meerely superfluous The Tresha●lt Court of Parliament of whose determination our learnedst Judges will not thinke dishonourably cannot pierce into these known obvious Lawes and yet every Sophister can the Fountaines of Justice are now exhausted and yet the Cisternes remaine full But saies the Replicant If you seeke further security then the knowne Lawes the people will see that under the name of free subiects you take upon you the power of Kings Sir we desire to have our Lawes themselves secured to us which you may turne like our owne Canons against our selves if righteous and prudent Iudges be not granted us and all over-awing violence so prevented as that the fruit of their Iudgements be clearely and intirely conveyed to us And such securance is not incompatible with Monarchy for it is no more impeachment to Monarchy that the people should injoy th●n make lawes that they should be sharers in the power of declaring and executing then in the power of passing framing lawes but it is on the contrary an evident impeachment to liberty if an equality of these three Priviledges be not at least shared with the people 3. As for the diametricall opposition in Religion and State betwixt us and our irreconciliable enemies of the Kings party The Replicant maintaines divers things and of the Papists and Delinquents he sayes That we have nothing against them but State Calumnies That the same justice may governe both if wee will submit to Law He beseeches us to tell what Religion we would have if that which the Martyrs sealed with their blood our Adversaries practise it and desire severe punishment upon all such as transgresse it he imputes to us a new Creed he sayes the King is to look upon friends or enemies in a Law notion only that Subjects must not give Lawes to Princes courtesies That our enemies if they be Traytors are to be tried at the Kings Bench the house of Commons having no right of Judicature The major part of our enemies are certainly either Papists or else such as are either over-awed or outwitted by Papists T is true some part of our enemies knowes the truth of the Protestant Religion and the desperate antipathy of Papistry yet having in them the true power of no Religion but serving Mammon only for their worldly interests sake with which severity of Parliaments will not square they adhere to Papists little regarding what Religion stands or what falls Another part out of meere ignorance is carried away with the name King and the Professions of the King not at all looking into reason of State nor being able to judge of the same but the last sort of men are not so considerable either for their number or power or malice and therefore I shall not insist upon them The maine Engineers in this Civill Warre are Papists the most poysonous serpentine Iesuited Papists of the world All the Papists in Europe either pray for the prosperity of this designe or have contributed some other influence and assistance to it This warre was not the production of these two last yeares nor was England alone the field wherein the Dragons teeth were sowd Scotland was first attempted but the Protestant party there was too strong for the Papists and such of the English as joyned with them The conspiracies next broke out in Ireland where the Popish party being too strong for the Protestants the Tragedy has been beseeming Papists it has proved beyond all paralell bloody and if shipping were not wanting they might spare some aids for their fellow Conspirators here in England England is now in its agony bleeding and sweating under the sad conflict of two parties equally almost poized in force and courage The Papists themselves in England amount not to the twentieth arithmeticall part of Protestants and yet one papist in geometricall proportion may stand against twenty Protestants considering the papists with together with their adherents and considering also what they are that act over them and who they are that act under them What power the Romish Vice-god has in the Queen is known what power the Queen has in the King and what power the King and Queen have in the prelaticall Clergy and the Clergy in them reciprocally and what power the King Queen and Clergy have on a great number of irreligious or luke-warm protestants now made Delinquents and so further engaged as also upon all papists how all these have interests divided intwined how restlesly active they al are in pursuing their interests is not unkown Besides Ireland is a weakness Scotland is no strength to us all popish countries France Spain c. are likely to annoy us and the protestants in Denmark Holland c. have not power to restrain their Princes from combining further against us In this deplorable condition we have no friends to complain to and yet this Replicant tels us we have no enemies to complain of our very condoling against papists and delinquents he tearms State calumnies and slanders that have lost their credit by time and are confuted by experience O thou black mouth more black then thy coat hast thou no more remorse for all that pretestant blood which delinquents have enabled papists to shed in Ireland and for all that protestant blood which armies of papists and delinquents are now ready to shed in England if all this blood finde no pity in thee yet is it an offence to thee that it extorts teares and lamentations from us O thou unbowelled sanguinary wretch if God be the God of protestants he will judge these cruelties of papists and their abettors and if he be the God of papists