Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	king_n	lord_n	parliament_n	20,596	5	6.9552	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85885	An exercitation concerning usurped powers: wherein the difference betwixt civill authority and usurpation is stated. That the obedience due to lawfull magistrates, is not owing, or payable, to usurped powers, is maintained. The obligation of oaths, and other sanctions to the former, notwithstanding the antipolitie of the latter is asserted. And the arguments urged on the contrary part in divers late printed discourses are answered. Being modestly, and inoffensively managed: by one studious of truth and peace both in Church and state.	Hollingworth, Richard, 1607-1656.; Gee, Edward, 1613-1660, attributed name.	1650 (1650)	Wing G449; Thomason E585_2	84,100	90

immediately succeeding each other have come to the Crown by true lineall succession Five Kings on a row the Conquerour being the first had no title at all by proximity of blood Hen the 7th by meer power came in was made King in and by an Army upon this foundation of military power he got himself crowned at Westminster and called a Parliament wherein the Crown was entailed upon him and his Heirs Those that came in thus the main body of this Nation did obey yea doth yeeld subjection unto their Laws to this day Not to stand to examine what he asserts in these premises 1. The mistake of this Argument is that because the Kings by him mentioned came not in by true succession or proximity of blood they therefore must needs be granted to have come in by force alone or otherwise unlawfully whereas though some of them entred by the Sword others by anticipation yet they all whose persons were and Laws now are obeyed had the concurrent or subsequent consent of the Lords and Commons in Parliament and that without their Houses being dismembred and a force set at their doores 2. The Laws made by those Princes were not made by them alone but by them with the Parliament and by them not as so entring but as received by Parliament and so legally invested 3. The three last Princes of this Realm did come in by an indubitate lineall succession and proximity of blood and the Son of the last is in being and claiming by that title It is observable then that this title should be denied and cut off when it was at the clearest state 4. No doubt there have been unjustifyable proceedings about the Crown by some of the former possessors of it which have been followed with remarkable punishments and publick calamities sufficiently pointing out their injustice and fore-warning others from making them their examples to practise by What hath been is no warrant to conscience that the same may be done 3ly He cites some Divines and Casuists as concurrent with him in his opinion Their words are too many for me to recite and the nature of this kinde of Argument exacteth no long Answer In a word therefore 1. Azorius his words allow obedience to Tyrants in regard of title with restriction and in some cases such as are granted by me Chap. 3d. But your part is to prove obedience to them in its full latitude as you have propounded your thesis without limitation and concluded though not validly by your first Argument 2. Alsted distinguisheth of Tyrannus titulo exercitio a Tyrant in regard of title and in regard of use and his words immediately before these alledged by you are spoken of the latter and so may therefore these be understood but the former onely is the subject of our question Besides within a few lines before he hath this passage A Tyrant without title who is an invader every private man may and ought to destroy for he is not a Prince but a private person r Alsted Theol cas cap. 17. reg 8. Which wil not stand with the words quoted by you if understood of a Tyrant in regard of title 3. Paraeus in your place speaks nothing pro or con of obedience to Usurpers but is explicating how the Apostle is to be taken in those words The powers that be are of God ordained of God and he distinguishes thus in the words brought in by you The power which is of God is one thing the getting and use of the power is another which is indifferent sometimes lawfull sometimes unlawfull ut in dublis ſ Aliud est potestas quae a Deo est aliud acquisitio usus potestatis quae indifferens alias legitima alias illegitima Par. in Rom. 13. Whither if you had followed him you should have found him answering the doubt about Nimrods power thus We must discern betwixt the power which is ever of God and betwixt the getting and usage of the power which as to men is often most unjust not of God but of mens lusts and Satans malice t Discernendū est inter potestatem quae ●emp●… d● Deo est inter acquisitionem us● pationem quae quoad hominessae potest iniustissima non a Deo sed ab hominum affectibus Satana malitia Ib. in Dub. 3. By which words it is evident you have but half quoted him as well as impertinently and if his Authority may sway with you unjustly gotten power is not of God in regard of the person or man owning it and consequently not to be obeyed by vertue of Rom. 13. 4. For the rest I have not their books to peruse but their sayings set down by you reach not the case at all This therefore I offer you produce any one or more Authors of any account amongst Protestants that allow obedience to an unlawfull Power in the full latitude of obedience to a Magistrate where there is a ●…e-ingagement of conscience pleaded by Law ancient inheritance and oaths sworn to another Power in being claiming and endeavouring to recover his right and I will by Gods assistance return you a particular Answer 4ly His next Reason is Either that authority which is thus taken by power must be obeyed or else all Authority and Government must fall to the ground and so confusion be admitted First why must this needs follow 1. May not Usurpation fall to the ground how strongly soever it be set up and lawfull Government be raised up again The experience of former times hath observed That no ill gotten power can be long lived u Nulla quaesita scelere potentia diuturna esse potest Q Curt. apud Lyps Poli● li. 2. c 4. Quamvis enim demersae sint leges alicujus opibus quamvis tremifacta libertas emergunt tamen haec aliquando nec vero ulla vis imperil tanta est quae premento metu possit esse diuturna Testis est Phalaris cuius est preter caeteros nobilitata crudelitas in quem universa Agrigentinorum multitudo impetum fecit Quid Macedones nonne Demetrium reliquerunt universique se ad Pyrrhum contulerunt Quid Lacedemonios in iuste imperantos nonne repente omnes fere socit deseruerunt spectatoresque se otiosos praebuerunt leuctricae calamitatis Cicero de officiis lib 2. Ad tempus fortasse insidiosa violenta valere possunt inventa hominum sed absque iuslitia aequitate prevalere non possunt diu quippe vana infirma sunt stratagemata civitatis quae columna virtutis non fulciuntur Boter Tractat. lib. 8. cap 6. Although saith Cicero Laws should be plunged over head and Liberties over-awed by the power of a party they will sometimes recover again There is no strength of any power so great that it can continue by keeping men in aw c. 2ly If Usurpation have a party to joyn with it that party will suffice to administer such justice as that Authority will afford if it have no party it

AN EXERCITATION CONCERNING USURPED POWERS WHEREIN The Difference betwixt Civill Authority and Usurpation is stated That the Obedience due to lawfull Magistrates is not owing or payable to USVRPED POWERS is maintained The Obligation of OATHS and other Sanctions to the former notwithstanding the Antipolitie of the latter is Asserted And the Arguments urged on the contrary part in divers late Printed Discourses are Answered Being modestly and inoffensively managed By one studious of Truth and Peace both in Church and State Tyrannus sine titulo ille est qui imperium ad se absque legitimâ ratione rapie huic quisque privatus resistat si possit è medio tollat Vide sacram Theologi per Dudleium Fennetum cap. 13. de pol●t civili pag. 80. Si Invasor impetitum arripuerit neque pactio u●la seq●…ta sic aut fides illi data sed sola vi retineatur possessio à quolibet privato jure potest interfici Grotius de jure pacis ac belli p 86. Luke 21.8 But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions or seditions be not terrified Printed in the Yeer 1650. ●…sper practise and destroy the mightie and holy people Dan. 8.24 25. This Authors zeal for the obligation of solemne Oaths Vows and Covenants may well be born with if it be a fault there is but little too little of it in England But the good man though he sweareth to his own hurt changeth not Psal 15.4 I will say no more but Tolle lege take up and read understand what thou readest Remember and practise what thou understandest to be the will and minde of God and pray for such whether of the Gentry Ministery or others as long and labour for thy information and reformation if thou wandrest and for thy confirmation and consolation if thou walkest aright The God of truth and peace be with thee Amen CHAP. I. Of Vsurpation what it is a Case propounded wherein it is not hard to determine whether Vsurpation be chargeable or not USurpation is an intrusion into the Seat of Authority a presuming to possesse and manage the place power thereof without a lawfull calling right or title thereunto A lawfull call or title to that rule and Government which is supreme of which I have to speak is derived or comes from God There is no power but of God saith the Apostle the powers that be are ordained of God Rom. 13.1 It were a sense too large and not to be defended to take these words absolutely and unlimitedly of all power in regard either of title or measure and use An unjust power in regard of Measure or the stretching of Power beyond its due bounds or the abuse of it is generally denyed to be of God by way of warrant and an unjust power in regard of title or an Authority set up and admitted against or without right God himself denyes to be of him They have set up Kings but not by me they have made Princes and I knew it not saith he Hosea 8.4 Which speech is by the current of a Zanchius Iunius Geneva interpret Pareus Diodate Anotations of Divines in Iocum Expositors applyed to Jeroboam and his successors coming in to be Kings of Israel in that manner as they did For although Jeroboam had a prediction yea suppose it a grant that he should be King of ten Tribes 1 King 11.29 yet the people at Solomons death had no command or direction from God to cast off Rehoboams government and make him their King it was therefore sedition and rebellion in them and both a manifest breach of the fifth Commandment Vide Paraeum in Hos 8.4 and of the positive Law of God Deut. 17.14 15. and Jeroboam was faulty in that though he had Gods preconcession of a Kingdom over ten Tribes yet having had no order from him about the time manner or the particular ten which they should be he did not seek and tarry for a further direction and calling from God as David did in the like case b 2 Sam. 2.1 And although the Lord when it was done testified that the thing was from him c 1 King 12.24 yet we must understand it to have been so by his permissive counsell and generall concourse or providence onely as all actions as they are actions and all events that are evils of punishment and as they are such are though the actors among men that bring them be never so sinfull in them but not by his approbation appointment or constitution the event was from God but not the sinfull means by which it was accomplished he ordered the evil carriage of men to that effect but he gave them no order for that evil carriage so that though in a sense it was of him yet in regard of authorizing it was without and against him and in the Apostles sense none of Gods ordinance But of this we shall have occasion to speak again hereafter God giveth a calling or invests with a right to Soveraignty either immediately by making and declaring the choice and designing the person himself or mediately by committing it to the people to elect and constitute both their form of Government and the persons that are to sway it over them which he hath done to all Nations yet with a reservation to himself of power to interpose with his own immediate designation when he pleaseth and when he doth not so the vote of the people is the voice of God ordinarily and they passing their consent when a Magistrate is to be set over them that power so constituted is of God as his ordinance And this may be the reason why that which in one place is called the ordinance of God is in another called the ordinance of man or an humane creature 1 Pet. 2.13 By the former way the Judges and Kings of Israel had or ought to have had their admission to rule d Deut. 17.14 and that was extraordinary and peculiar to that people the latter is the onely ordinary lawfull and warrantable way of creating a right and title to the helme of Magistracy in other Nations And as in the former the call of God was sometimes personall or of one single person as was that of Moses Joshua Samuel Saul and others and again sometimes lineall or of a whole race as was that of David and his seed e 2 Sam 7.12 So it is in the latter f Prin● 〈◊〉 ●in mu●● appe●unt nec boni ipsi nec boni fine quos repress●● tamen mos sive le● Gentium repagulo duplici Elect onis lu●cessionis c. Iusti Lipsi polit l. 2. c 4. the peoples constitution of their Governors may either be individuall or intransient as in those kingdoms or States which are called in a strict acception Elective or it may be continuated and successive as in those Kingdoms or Principalities which are called hereditary and possessed by descent both wayes Princes are by the peoples Election and Consent and the

latter is preferred by many wise Statists before the former g Minore discrimine sumi principem qu●m quaeti Tacit. Hist l. 2 I shall not insist on the distinctions that might be observed touching the manner of the peoples passing their consent nor determine which of them is sufficient and which not to make this right or title whether it must be antecedent to possession or may be consequent expresse or tacite collective or representative absolute or conditionated free or enforced revocable or irrevocable The consideration of these is not materiall to the resolution of what is in question it sufficeth that it be yeelded that the peoples consent is besides that which is by commission immediately sent and signed from heaven the onely derivation of a lawfull call or claim to Government h Quirtum ver● regalis Monarchiae genus est quae iam temporibus Heroicis voluntate civium patriis legibus atque institutis approbata est Aristot politic li 3. num 8● Luk. 12.13 14 When our Saviour Christ who being such an extraordinary person might have warrant to do what would have been presumption in any other was appealed to in a cause that appertained to the civill Magistrates decision he refused to deal in it with these words Who made me a Judge or a divider over you according to which words of him who was the truth he that may rule must be placed in that office by some body and may not undertake it of himself no man may take this honour to himself or be his own advancer to the Throne but he must be installed by another and what other creature besides the Nation it self can challenge a power to appoint over it its Rulers is not to me imaginable Angels are not of this Oeconomie do not intermeddle in this businesse and for other people or forrein States they are but in an equalitie and have no partnership in this matter they have no more to do to impose Governors over their neighbours then they have reciprocally over them and to whichsoever may attempt it towards the other by the analogy of our Saviours words it may be said Luk. 12.13 14. Who made thee a Judge or Rule maker over me A calling from the people who are to be subject being so necessary and essentiall to a humanely constituted Magistracie it is easie to discern what is Usurpation viz that which is opposite to it or privative thereof which is a snatching hold of the Scepter and wresting it out of the hands of those who are to dispose of it or have it committed to them it is ordinarily termed a tyrannie in regard of title or without title The distinction betwixt lawfull Magistrates and Tyrants is thus given by Aristotle h Reges enim non solum secundum legem sed etiam volentibus Tyranni autem invitis imperant Aristot polit l. 3. num 87. Etenim si nolentibus imperatur regnum protinus esse desinit Tyrannis efficitur quae vi dominatur Verum regnum est imperium voluntate civium delatum at si quis vel fraude vel violentia dominatur manifest● Tyrannis est idem li. 5. num 112. Kings do reign not onely according to the Law but over them that consent to them Tyrants rule over men against their wils If any govern against the minde of the governed it ceaseth to be a Kingdom and becometh a Tyrannie which ruleth by force All lawfull power then is founded upon the wils of those over whom it is set Contrariwise Usurpation is built upon the will and power of them that hold the Government it is a self-created or self authorised Power such was that of i Deinde Cinna Carbo s●se sine comi●iis consules creabant in biennium Chro. Carion li. 2. Cinna and Carbo who made themselves Consuls without any Court-election in the time of the Romane sociall war betwixt Sylla and Marius and that of k Ex Dictatore Consulem se cum P. Servilio ipse facit Cluver Hist li 7. pag. 235. Julius Caesar who made himself Consul together with Publius Servilius such was that of the Chaldeans over the Jews Hab. 1.7 Their judgement and their dignity shall proceed of themselves saith the Prophet that is as Deodate expounds it they received no Law nor assistance from any their right consists in their will and the execution in their power Usurpation being defined we may proceed to distinguish of it according to severall heights or degrees it is capable of as 1. It is either where the Throne is vacant and undisposed of which may happen sundry wayes as when a Common-wealth is new erected or the possessors of the Government resigne or are extinct and none left to lay claim to it or where it is full and possessed de jure and the Rulers are onely violently extruded and kept out 2. Usurpation is either meerly in point of Title and administration of a received and settled Government or by way of innovating in the Government it self over-turning the constitution of it and forming it a new 3. It may come to be acted either from those without viz Forreiners and strangers to the State or by Natives and naturall Subjects of the Kingdome 4. It is done by these either against the single tye and duty of obedience and Allegiance owed to the present lawfull Authority or against Allegiance bound with Oaths and sacred Covenants All the sorts of each of these distinctions are direct and formall usurpations but the latter of each far surpasseth the other respectively and a conspiration of them all makes an Usurpation of a meridian altitude when a party owing obedience and subjection to a long continued and undoubted lawfull power and solemnly sworn to submit too and support that Government shall rise up and presume to thrust out the possessors and invest it self yea and not onely seize on the Power but of its own minde and will or by its force alone abolish the settled and set up a new mould of government this is Usurpation to the culmen or height of it Having thus found out what Usurpation and what the Zenith of it is we may put a case wherein it will be easie to give a Judgement cleerly Suppose a Nation in America whose fundamentall government is and hath been anciently and confessedly constituted and placed in a King an House of Peers and an House of Commons sitting in a collaterall or coordinate rank in regard of supremacy of power the King being the supreme in order unto whom in such an association Oaths of Allegiance and supremacy are generally sworn next to him the Peers as the Upper and the Commons as the Lower House of Parliament Suppose also the King according to his place summoning them and they conformably assembling together in Parliament and he and they personally concurring to act in the highest affairs of government in the processe whereof differences arise betwixt the King and the said two Houses which grow to

in M. Anton Philip 2 ae Prov 14.34.16.12 Nay Religion will dictate to us in the words of the wisest earthly King That righteousnesse exalteth a Nation and The throne is establisht by righteousnesse Under Usurpation then we can expect no settlement and to submit to it is to help to fasten that which is certain to fall and to fall with the greater confraction by how much it is more favoured Commotion and tumultuousnesse is sure in reason to follow violent domination Let Israels many and turbulent changes of their Kings after their departure from the house of David be a president for it of whose kings for their speedie and fatall ends it may be said as it was of many of the Romane Caesars that they rather seemed to be kings in a Scene or personated on the Stage then reall Authorities The standing off from obedience is but like to speed the Commotions and make them easier To perswade men to couch down under Usurpation when it is gotten up to ●ave troubles is as if a man that is got into the briars should stick therein because he may rake himself in offering to get out or he that hath a festered sore or grown disease in his body should let it alone and go on because it will stir the humours and cost him some pain to be cured 2. The same Author proceeds And whether it to wit any clause in any Oath or Covenant forbids obedience to the present Authority more then to Laws that have been formerly enacted by those which came into Authority meerly by Power 1. You have not yet produced any former Princes that had any hand in the making of a Law that came into the regall Authority meerly by power for although some of them got possession by the Sword yet to omit the alledging of other title they were confirmed by the Kingdoms consent in Parliament before they concurred in Enacting Laws for the Kingdom 2. The Laws you reflect on were not meerly made by those Princes whom you pretend to have come in meerly by Power but were constituted by Parliamentary Enacting And for any former Parliaments coming into the Authority meerly by force you neither do nor can alledge any thing 3. He urgeth further If it be said that in the Oath of Allegiance allegiance is sworn to the King his heirs and successors if his heirs be not his successors how doth that Oath binde Either the word successors must be superflu●us or it must binde to successors as well as to heirs and if it binde not to a successor that is not an heir how can it binde to an heir that is not a successor And if you will know the common and usuall sense which should be the meaning of an Oath of the word Successors you need not so much ask of Lawyers and learned persons as of men of ordinary knowledge and demand of them who was the successor of William the Conquerour and see whether they will not say W Rufus and who succeeded Rich the 3d and whether they will not say Hen the 7th and yet neither of them was hei● so in ordinary acception the word Successor is taken for him that actually succeeds in Government and not for him that is actually excluded This Author in these lines raiseth much dust that it may serve him for a double end 1. To obscure the genuine sense of this clause of the Oath that it may not seem to make against him as indeed it doth and then to detort and wrest it to the advantage of his Usurpers interest 1. He would cast a mist upon the words of the Oath to over cloud its true sense and this he attempts in the fore-cited Discourse untill you come to this mark ‖ he endeavours it by placing an ambiguity in the word Successors and setting it at odds with the word Heirs whereas this clause of the Oath is clear enough in it self and far enough from the use he would make of it and firm enough to the sense which he opposeth Which that I may evince I desire the Reader to observe these two things 1. That the Oath intends by Heirs and Successors the same persons which may evidently appear 1. By the manifest drift of the Oath and intention of the Authority that prescribed it which is the continuance and assurance of the Crown upon concession of his then Majesties just title to his Heirs in succession after him and one another lineally and the defence of them therein against all other corrivals or opposers this I cannot see which way will be gainsayed and being so it will inforce us to grant the Oath and Oath-giver could not mean by successors any other then heirs 2. In that the words heirs and successors are joyned by the copulative and whereas if they should have intended different parties the discretive or should in true syntaxis have been put betwixt them 3. In that his heirs and successors are immediately in the Oath denoted by the same pronounce them and again by the same possessive their in those words and him and them will defend to the uttermost of my power against all conspiracies and attempts whatsoever which shall be made against his or their persons their Crown or dignity but if they be not the same persons how come they to be thus particled together especially how can they immediately after his Majestie be instituted to the same Allegiance and defence therein in relation to the same Crown and dignity admit them divers and the Oath will import a contradiction and will any man imagine so irrationall a thing as that Authority hath so long imposed and the Kingdome especially the most intelligent persons in it have universally taken an Oath so irreconcileable to it self 4. The Law of the Land unto which this Oath must needs be yeelded to be consonant ordains his Heirs to be his Successors 2. That the Oath understands by Successors those onely that are so de jure and not any others that contrary to right may intrude into the royall Seat and injuriously make themselves successors onely de facto For 1. In the Oath we swear Allegiance and defence to Successors now what man of conscience would ever impose or take an Oath of this nature to any but in his intention a just party for to such a one alone could he swear in righteousnesse according to Jer. 4.2 2. The Oath appropriates the Crown and dignity to Successors as theirs in these words their Crown and dignity now theirs and their right are all one 3. The Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy must needs accord and this may be the best Explanatorie of that now this viz the Oath of Supremacy prefixeth the word lawfull to Successors and confineth our allegiance to his lawfull Successors in these words The Kings highnesse his Heirs and lawfull Successors which epithite will not permit the word Successors either in that or in the Oath of Allegiance unlesse you will unreasonably make them jarring to be carried to