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
A94081	An essay in defence of the good old cause, or A discourse concerning the rise and extent of the power of the civil magistrate in reference to spiritual affairs. With a præface concerning [brace] the name of the good old cause. An equal common-wealth. A co-ordinate synod. The holy common-wealth published lately by Mr. Richard Baxter. And a vindication of the honourable Sir Henry Vane from the false aspersions of Mr. Baxter. / By Henry Stubbe of Ch. Ch. in Oxon.	Stubbe, Henry, 1632-1676.; Stubbe, Henry, 1632-1676. Vindication of that prudent and honourable knight, Sir Henry Vane, from the lyes and calumnies of Mr. Richard Baxter, minister of Kidderminster.	1659 (1659)	Wing S6045; Thomason E1841_1; ESTC R209626	97,955	192

was not nor is now changed The Petition of right and other laws in being had already deposed Monarchy and we were onely to improve not create a Republick They who manage these objections had reduced us to that posture as a very little alteration in an invidious name and some other circumstances might secure the people in those Privile●ges and immunities from which they would not recede Whereas it is said further That the Soveraignty being mixed or distributed into the Hands of King Lords and Commons no part had Authority to change the Constitution I shall not aske these men How the Commons came to be admitted to share in that mixture of Government But to me it is indubitable that since the end of the establishing a King and Lords was the welfare of the people and Commons whatever distribution of Government may have been enacted yet it is the end that regulates the meanes and renders them useless and rejectaneous upon occasion and hereof either the Commons must be Judges who feele the Pressing inconveniences of the meanes controverted or else they who reape advantages by such deviations and grievances and who are too much interessed to determine aright If Pharaoah may judge he will say the Israelites are idle rather then oppressed with burdens If there be any yet so obstinately perverse as to explode the Title upon this account yet cannot any deny but that it is an Old as well as Good cause in opposition to the Instrument and that most non-sensicall paper called the petition and advise of such a juncto as must never be reputed of hereafter but with the infamy of Parlamentum indoctorum or a Parliament that lacked learning and wit or Honesty and it is so farre from impossibility that it is not abfur'd for the same thing in a different respect to be New and Old I shall illustrate this by something which if it be in it 's own nature lesse convincing yet it is not to be rejected by our most implacable Adversaries How often have our Parliaments declared this or that to be a fundamentall right and the birth-right of the subject which yet is not to be found established or bottomed upon any thing but that claim antecedent to our constituted laws whereunto Nature doth imbolden us That which the Parliament under the first acknowledged cause did avowe as the fundamentall constitution of this Kingdom that the Soveraignety thereof was mixed in a King and two Houses of Lords and Commons with severall other things of the like nature cannot be justifyed but by such a defence since the Monarchy is supposed to be founded at the Conquest or if we will rise higher yet will no enquiry direct us to a mixture of Soveraignety such as the Commons fundamentally share in there being no such order of Estates if I may so call it untill Henry the first and for their power it may be better disputed then proved by any other way then what will evince Our Cause to be Old as well as their priviledges c. Fundamentall I cannot informe my self of any other manner whereby to justify that Protestation of the Commons which is recorded by Dr. H●ylin in his Ad●e●t sement on the History of the Reigne of K. James And Rushworth in his collections The protestation of the Commons Jac. 19. 1621. THe Commons now assembled in Parliament being justly occasioned thereunto concerning sundry Liberties Franchises and Priviledges of Parliament among others here mentioned do make this Protestation following That the Liberties Franchises Priviledges and Jurisdiction of Parliament are the ancient and undoubted Birth-right and inheritance of the Subjects of England and that the arduous and urgent affaires concerning the King state and defense of the Realme and of the Church of England and the maintenance and making of Laws and redresse of mischief and grievances which daily happen within this Realme are proper subjects and matter of Counsell and debate in Parliament And that in the handling and proceeding of those businesses every member of Parliament hath and of right ought to have Freedom of Speech to propound treat reason and bring to conclusion the same And that the Commons in Parliament have likewise Liberty and Freedom to treat of the matters in such order as in their judgment shall seem fittest and that every member of the said house hath like Freedom from all impeachment imprisonment and molestation other then by censure of the House it self for or concerning any speaking reasoning or declaring any matter or matters touching the Parliament or Parliament businesse And that if any of the said Members be complained of and questioned for any thing done or said in Parliament the same is to be shewed to the King by the Advise and assent of all the Commons assembled in Parliament before the King give credence to any priv●te Information This and many other Parliamentary expressions though True In the Civil Law he wh● was mode compleatly fere and one of the ingenui though his Mother had been and were a Servant or bond-woman and his birth Servile yet upon such his enfranchisement he was said natalibus restitui to be restored to his BIRTH-RIGHT that is not to such as he was borne to by his immediate parentage but such as appertained to him by descendence from Adam L. 2. D. de natalib restituend as it is cited by Selden de jur natur l. 2. c. 4. p. 163. just and equitable in former and later days can in my judgment be no better verifyed then the Old cause when most disadvantageously looked upon as being no otherwise Laws Priviledges and undoubted Birth-rights then that they should and ought to be so But to proceed I often communing with my own soul in private use to parallell our bondage under the Norman yoak and our deliverance there from to the continuance of the children of Israell in Egypt and their escape at last from that sla●ish condition and as the severall providences attending them in their journey into the land of promise have created in me thoughts of resembling mercies and distractions that have befallen us in our progresse to Freedom so particularly the late dispute about the Good Old cause did cause in me some reflexions upon the course which Moses tooke to disengage the people of the Lord in those days from their servitude God tells Moses that he would bring the Israelites out of the affliction of Egypt unto the land of the Can●anites to dwell there Exod. 3. v. 10 16 17 18. And this Message he was to impart unto the Elders of Israel Yet withall as Philo Judeus saith and the circumstances of the text render it certain he is commanded he and the Elders of Israel to say unto the King of Egypt the Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us and now let us go we beseech thee three days journey into the wildernesse that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God Exod. 4. v. 29. So Moses gathered together all the Elders of

invests them with whether they can diminish it what we say now is their duty will be but an Act of grace and all our rights will be changed into priviledges It is then clear that the People are the Efficient cause of Magistracy and that all true power is derived from them Who those People are I must referr you for brevity sake to a consideration of the Erection of the Common-wealth in Israel There is no Government now but hath its originall from the consent of some people which people if they were before ligued with any other number besides themselves are tyed by their mutuall promises and compacts to them and their common Magistrate so as not to erect any new one in opposition to him unlesse there be a violation of fundamentall agreements and all satisfaction for what is past together with reall security for the future be denyed or to be despayred of If the Magistrate alone injure them they may with the common or in case that cannot be had thorough the circumstances of affayres which is the default of the Governors not governed with an interpretative Consent call him to an accompt If the others dissent and defend him then are they free from all precedent obligations not onely towards their Magistrate but one another Since in conditionall pacts if the one party faile the other is at liberty If their quondam Magistrate with his partisans invade them then are they free to defend themselves or prevent such dangers as are threatned any way from him or them yea and so to manage their own safety which is the onely cause of a just war and the End of Government in general that they may at Length totally subdue and subject them To all that are by conquest thus subjected the new erected Magistrate of the conquering people is not properly a Magistrate but a provinciall Governour And if they gave just cause of fear to the conquerours at first their Conquest is just if otherwise then not And so long their subjecting is legitimate whilest that security is gained which the conquerours designed in the beginning and expect as the product of war This Magistrate hath no absolute power over the conquered but such as is derived from them in whose strength and for whose safety he doth act and to them he is accomptable for such his demeanour as is not founded upon the Rule of Self-preservation As in the Common-wealth of Israel when they were to choose a King that King was obliged to have a booke of the fundamental laws written in his own hand and to read herein all the days of his life that he might observe the said statutes and do them that so his heart might not be lifted up above his brethren and that he should not turne from the commandement to the right hand or to the left Deut. 17. v. 18.20 So it behoves such a people as impowers any for Magistracy upon severall cases to make them recognise their Authority from whom they have it and for whose sake it is that they rule not only over them but over new accquests they ought also to be very cautious of mixing their government with that of the provincials and such as do not close with them in their originall Constitutions of their Magistrate for their proper interest may be eaten out and their Magistrate become established upon the base of such articles as the conquered will assent unto for the bettering of their present condition no lesse then ruine of their conquerours Severall Kingdomes in Spain having permitted their Kings by marryage to unite different Kingdoms retaining different loves and qualified with discrepant principles of Government have now lost their priviledges and fundamentall rights each contributing to the others overthrow by the subtill counsells of their Magistrate If the People Are the Authors of Magistracy and he their creature Then it will follow that He is erected and established for the compassing of their good and that this is the End for which he was set up For since man in his actings is supposed to act voluntarily and the object of his will is some good either reall or apparently so it must likewise be supposed that in the constituting of Magistracy all did aime at something that might be an universall good it being not imagined how all should conspire for the procuring of any good of a particular man or number of men to their own detriment and disadvantage self-love is not onely the dictate of Nature but recommended by our Saviour as the rule and measure of such love as we are to bear towards our neighbour The Ends of Nations in the erecting severall fabricks of Government are as different as they themselves there being no thing universally good or universally approved of And as their intendments are discrepant so they disagree in the ways for attaining their purposes which variety arises from the various prejudices and capacityes they are born and educated to in different climates with difference of naturall tempers difference of dyet and customs c. The most obvious and universall end is the upholding society and entercourse by securing each in their property and manage of commerce betwixt one another for mutuall supply of things necessary After that the World grew populous and that men began to straiten in their plantations they formed severall petit Governments each Town being a principality upon the end specified That they did not erect them for nor impower them to determine of the word or worship of God seems manifest from Scripture Before Enos there were Cityes and communityes for Cain built one Gen. 4. v. 17. yet the Text saith positively after Enos was born unto Seth Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord. Gen. 4. v. 26. After that when Abraham travailed up and down into Egypt the land of Gerar c. he erected an altar at Bethell and worshipped his God who was not the acknowledged God of the nations amongst which he sojourned without a plea for toleration in summe the whole story of the Saints under the old Testament seems to evidence this truth that their Magistrates were purely civill and that though they might have a Nationall religion as in Egypt and possibly Salem yet did they not entermeddle with the particular religion of their subjects or them that sojourned amongst them It was Haman's counsell to King Ahasuerus to destroy the Jews for that their laws were different from all people neither kept they the Kings laws viz. concerning Religion for if they had been otherwise criminall they could not have escaped unpunished Esther 3. v. 8. It is the Opinion of Bellarmine in his booke de Laicis that the Heathens did grant an universall liberty in the worship of God which assertion is for the most part true for though they had peculiar Gods for their nations yet privately and publiquely they which worshipped a God whosoever or whatsoever it was were permitted though Diagoras and Protagoras the one doubting of

the other denying any God were not tolerated in Grece But at Rome I find a law out of the twelve tables Separatim nemo habessit deos neve novos sed nec advenas nisi publicè adscitos privatim colunto Let none have any particular Gods to himself nor let any worship privately either new or forreign Gods but upon a publique reception of them But notwithstanding this law a great latitude of religions was allowed at Rome as History tells us But the religion of these times consisted rather in outward ceremonies then inward opinions about God more then that he was and that he was a rewarder of well or ill-doers according to their demerits which too was in part denyed by Epicurus who had a numerous company of followers in Greece and Rome The Jews had a toleration every where amongst the Heathen as Mr. Selden observes yet were they not idle but endeavoured to imbue others with their principles and to draw them over to the law of Moses terming such proselitos justitiae This others and Rutilius in his Itinerary takes notice of wishing Jury had never bin subdued so many did they convert to their religion Atque utinam nunquam Judaea victa fuisset Pompeii bellis imperióque Titi. Latiùs excisae pestes contagia Serpunt Victorésque suos ratio victa premit From whence we may observe that it was the sense of Nations that is nature it self Humani juris naturalis potesea t is est unicuique quod putaverit colere nec alii obest aut prodest alterius religio Sed nec religionis ese cogere religionem quae sponte suscipi debet non vi Tertullian ad Scapul how the civil Magistrate had nothing to do in matters of Religion in those dayes and whatever their laws were upon some occasions in an uncontrolled practise they did allow of this principle It is true there are recorded in Sacred Writ examples of Kings amongst the Jews and other Nations that did entermeddle in religious worship which I shall a little instance in because if what was of old written was written for our instruction certainly those transactions seem registred that we might not be ignorant of the deplorable and detestable effects of an Absolute Monarchy I would faine know of Mr. Wren whether these Monarchs did proceed so deliberately as he imagines they must in all reason do Monarch assert p. 11. and whether a thousand such like cappuches may not be instanced in out of absolute Monarchyes which may show that a single person doth not put on that excellent temper and frame of spirit in enacting laws which he talks of One day Darius makes a Law and establisheth a royall statute that for thirty dayes none should make any request or prayer except to the King upon penalty of being cast into the Lyons den and in complyance with this Law of the supream judge of true and false religion Daniel is cast into the Lions den he being not devoured his accusers with their innocent wifes and children are cast in to be devoured then is a decree made unto all people Nations and Languages that dwelled in all the Earth that they fear the God of Daniel Dan. 6. The same Daniel had not only felt but seen before the capricios of an Absolute Monarch in Nebuchadnessor who made a Golden Image and ordained that all people should at the sound of Musique fall down and worship it or be burned in the fiery furnace Shadrach Meshach and Abednego regarded not him nor served his Gods nor worshipped the Image But they being miraculously delivered out of the fire then he blessed the God of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego and makes a decree that every Nation People and Language which spake any thing amiss against their God should be cut in peeces and their houses be made a dung-hill because no other God could deliver in that sort Dan. 3. These are inconveniences of this Arbitrary Magistrate visible not onely amongst the Gentiles but people of God who chose a King to judge them like all the Nations Jeroboam made Israel to sin by an irrevocable idolatry Manasseh ensnared High-places Asa left the latter and removed only the former So did Jehohash in the time of Jehojada he did what was right in the sight of the Lord but the High-places were not taken away the people stil sacrificed did burn incense thereon In the Roman Empire Caligula no sooner ●nacted that himself should be worshiped as God but as Philo tells us All the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all adored him except the Jews How things stood during Christian Kings and Emperours I shall give some account anon give me leave now to tell you that I will not dispute here what power was of old attributed to Kings nor of their absolute exemption either from Law or Punishment nor will I enlarge upon the power they exercised in matters religious nor debate whither they could conferre rationally such a power as made their Elect Emperour possessour of more then their Enemies would take from them I shall limit my discourse to the present posture of our affairs and omitting what might serve for ostentation I shall enquire into what is of particular concern to the good people of our Nation I have shewed how all power now is from the people as it 's efficient I have shewed that the general end men aim at in the erecting Magistracy is the preserving Society and that Magistrates are constituted for their good and not they for the advantages of Magistrates Whether they may give absolutely themselves up to his Will upon their own accord as in Tartary or upon some contract as the Egyptians did to Pharaoh for Victuals I shall not at present handle Where there is no such peremptory resignation there the People are Supream the Trust is fiduciary and limited so as where the Magistrate hath no authority to command if the circumstances correspond it is no sin to disobey Which saying I think will be valid amongst our Northern men until a generation arise that shall say it is just and prudential that those whom God hath made men should render themselves brutes that God did ill to endow us with reason which ought to have no further use in us than that we quit it in its principal exercise and only practise it in purchasing Rattles and Hobby-Horses I am not now to speak of people qualified with resembling endowments nor whose Religion is only Nature without the Accessional of extraordinary Revelation who having not the Law were a Law unto themselves and not to be judged by that Light in which we walk I come now to speak of Jacob unto whom God hath shewed his word and of Israel to whom he hath declared his statutes and his judgments He hath not dealt so with any Nation of those I have instanced in We are now as it were come out of Egypt disfranchised from the yoke of Pharaoh delivered from a Government established upon no