Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	king_n	liberty_n	parliament_n	4,708	5	6.3048	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55555	A treatise of the antiquity, authority, vses and jurisdiction of the ancient Courts of Leet, or view of franck-pledge and of subordination of government derived from the institution of Moses, the first legislator and the first imitation of him in this island of Great Britaine, by King Alfred and continued ever since : together with additions and alterations of the moderne lawes and statutes inquirable at those courts, untill this present yeare, 1641 : with a large explication of the old oath of allegeance annexed.	Powell, Robert, fl. 1636-1652.	1641 (1641)	Wing P3066; ESTC R40659	102,251	241

not our Christian faith and legeance to our Saviour nor our naturall or civill Legeance to our Soveraign cannot bee interdicted to the poorest thoughts Sure I am this Court is so ancient and of such transcendent honour and justice as Plow com.fo 399. observeth that none ought to imagine any dishonourable thought of it and why It must be so esteemed ratione persone regis by reason of the kings sacred person who is there present and president of that great Assembly as also the laws there made are established by the generall consent and are obligatorie both to king and people The parliament being called with the advice and consent of the privie Councell what is the end of their meeting Sir Thomas Smith in his Common wealth of England l. 2. c. 2. shall speake for me The Parliament the Kings Royall assent being had Power of a parliament abrogateth old lawes and maketh new giveth order for things past and things after to be followed changeth the right and possessions of private men legitimateth bastards establisheth formes of religion giveth forme of succession to the Crowne defineth of doubtfull rights whereof no law is already made appointeth subsidies tayles taxes and impositions giveth most free pardons and absolutions restoreth in blood and name with many such preheminences In this great assembly no reviling nor nipping words must be used And if any speake unreverently or sediciously against the Prince or the privie Councell they have not noly beene interrupted but justly sent unto the Tower by the autho●●tie of the house those that be members of that bodie must come with a prepared heart to consult together to give counsell and advertisement what is good and necessarie for the common weale they must come with cheerefull resolutions to supply the prince his wants they must cast off all rancor spleene and private malignancie for locus facer est I will second it with the words of a great Judge Co. Inftit fo 110. a. The jurisdiction of this Court maketh inlargeth diminisheth abrogateth repealeth and reviveth laws Statutes Acts and Ordinances concerning matters Ecclesiasticall Capitall Criminall Common Civill Martiall Maritine and the rest What cannot a parliament doe as a great peere once told Queene Elizabeth Royall assent being had was it not then a hainous and inexcusable crime for any man intrusted with the lawes publikely to declare that the late imposition of Ship-money was a prerogative so inherent in the Crowne as that it could not be taken away by Act of parliament It is most repugnant not only to the workes and writings of the ancient heroes of the law Bracton Fritton Fortescue and others but also to the opinions of grave and learned moderne Writers and dead and living Judges But that opinion and all the proccedings upon the Shipwrits are in this present parliament condemned and disanulled 17. Car. cap. 14. and the petition of right in every particular confirmed To adde something more Bellarmine after many sharpe writings and vehement disceptations in defence of merits and workes of supererogation his age hastening his end now bethinks himselfe falls wholly from disputes of merits to pious meditations and therein presents unto the world Tutissimum est iter ad calum per merita Christi The safest way to heaven is by the merits of Christ An honourable peere as great in the policie of our English state as ever the other was in the Romish Church was formerly a great Zelote for the liberties and wellfare of the common people and an earnest prosecutor of the petition of right Afterwards in the highest of his eminent advancements relapsing and disaffecting the course of parliaments whose examination and try all his actions could not well endure mole tandem ruit sua is at length hurried downe with the weight of his owne greatnesse And not long before his death ingenuously confessed That the Parliaments of England were the happiest constitution that any kingdome did ever live under and under God the best meanes to make King and people happie And sowith his dying words omitting the numerous priviledges of that high Court I conclude this part THE KINGS Royall office OF PROTECTION I Shall proceed to the last of my Generalls that is The Royall office of the King for the protection of his people I have touched before his personall and politike capacity and the naturall Legeance and Subjection of the people to him and principally in the right of payment their dues and duties and the great question de modo reddendi As Legeance is due from the Subject to the King before the Oath be taken and the Oath is but a visible demonstration of it So there is a Protection due from the king to the people before the oath administred to him at his Coronation and that oath is but a politicall expression of what by the law of God and nature and the lawes of our nation appertaines to his Kingly office It is observed upon the sift Commandement Vbi sanciuntnr officia inferiorum erga superiores And. Rivet in 5. Praec Decal ibidem etiam superiorum ergainferiores sanciri where subjection is jojoyned there protection is implyed As the Subjects must bee true and faithfull to the King of life member and terrene honour So the King must be as true to them in the protecting of all these and their libertie and proprietiein all these viz. the libertie of their lives of their religion of their persons and the propertie and right of their lively hood and estates in their lands and goods all which may be comprehended under this one word libertie dulce nomen and res dulcis B●t what is libertie What liberty is It is a freedome or free and quiet enjoying of a man his spiritual and temporall estate his bona animi or animae and his bona fortunae from rapine expilation and all unjust incroachments restrains confinements imprisonments and oppressions whatsoever and that part of our Law which concernes the Subjects libertie is commonly called in the Law bookes Lex terrae Liberty is the only preserveresse of a Christian Common wealth in incolumitie and stabilitie And as one saith Rebus omnibus humanis Anteponenda pro illiusque incolumitate integritate totis viribus opibus dimicandum It is to bee preferred before all humane affaires and the safery and entirement of it to be prop●gned and defended with all manner of strength and power But liberty must have its modum mensuram It must be with an It a tamen cum justitia dignitate praesidio reliquis reipulbl●cae ornamentis sit conjuncta It is and must be joyned with lustice Honour ayd and the rest of the Ornaments of a Common-wealth That is true liberty which is joyned or affianced with uptight reason And he is a true Free-man which hath such reason for his guide in all his actions Reason is radius divini luminis the lustre of a divine illumination It is the stampe of Gods Image

nations may manifestly appeare by that which followes King Alfred who began to raigne in this Island Anno Christi 872. the best lettered Prince that was in those times began his lawes with Loquutus est Dominus ad Mosem hos sermones dicens Ego sum Dominus Deus tuus c. And so recites the 10. Commandements given by Almighty God upon Mount Sinai And then proceeds with the most materiall lawes mentioned in the 21.22 and 23 Chap. of Exodus which hee thought to be most apt and competible for the government of his kingdome closing it up with Haec easunt jura quae rerum omnium praepotens Deus ipse Mosi custodienda proposuit c. And then concludes with Has ego Aluredus Rex Sanctiones in unum collegi a●que easdem literis mandavi Quarum bonam certe partem Majores nostri religiosè coluerunt Multa etiam mihi digna v. dentur quae a nobis hac etiam aetate pari religione obscrventur Nonnullatamen torum ex consulto Patrum partim antiquanda partim renovanda curavimus c. I King Alfred have collected these lawes into one body and have caused them to be written whereof truly a good part our Ancestors did religiously regard or obey And many of them doe seeme worthy unto mee That they should be with the like religion in this age or time observed yet some of them by the advice of our grave men our Fathers wee have taken care partly to antiquate and partly to revive or renew Which in the language of succeeding times was as much as if he had said Some of them by the advice of our Parliament wee have thought good partly to repeale and partly to coptinue After this the good young King doubtlesse Non sine consulto Patrum doth proceed and culles out and confirmes certaine lawes and sanctions of King Inas Offa the King of the Mercians and Ethelbert the first King that ever received Baptisme here in England The first division of this kingdome by Alfred into Counties Hundreds and Tythings THis blessed Prince the division of his kingdome being confounded by meanes of the then late distracted Heptarchy having made league with Guthrunus the Dane and thereby possessed himselfe of the entierty of the Realme and being sole Monarch thereof did in imitation of Iethro his Counsell to Moses subdivide and distribute the government of the land into severall partes And did first reduce it into Satrapias which we now cal shires or Counties Centurias now called hundreds Decurias now lalled tythings which at that time in the infancy of of this sub rdination consisted only often men But in succeeding ages grew more populous and are not confined in number of persons though it still retaine the same appellation Of those ten persons proscribed to their decurie or tythings Every one was to be a fidejussor or pledge one for another And if any one received losse the rest were to make recompence for it Hence it was that nine of them were called ingenui fidejussores which we in the title of our Leets call Franciplegii And the Tenth was called Decurio which continues in the west-terne parts by the name of tething man in other places called vadem primarium et praecipium in Kent called Borsholder that is to say a cheife pledge in Yorkshire called Tenteutale The appointment of Officers and making Lawes for the better ordering of the Kingdome THis mirrour of Princes having thus ordered his Kingdome did set over every Shire a Senator and a Greve which the Normans afterwards called Comes and Vicecomes and our later ages an Earle and Sheriffe Over every Century an officer called a Constable and every Decury a chiefe pledge or tethingman And did decree that every man of free condition liber homo should bee of a certaine Handred or Tything out of which hee was not to remove without securitie After hee had thus ordained a law for the locall setling of his Subjects that they might bee knowne and called to account by the certaintie of their abode upon all occasions of suspicion or accusation for any crime or misdemeanour Then he provided good and wholesome lawes for the better avoiding of rapines thefts murthers or any crimes whatsoever as also for the securing of the persons and estates of his Subjects and for the better rule and governement of them in the place of their resiance amongst which I finde one Law cited by that noble and ever memorable Antiquarie Cambd. 〈◊〉 fo 57. Quod si quis delicti alicujus insimularetur statim ex centuria decima exhiberet qui eum vadarentur● Sin istiusmodi vadem non repereret legum severitatem horreret Si quis verò reus ante vadationem velpost transfugeret Omnes ex Centuria decima Regis mulctam incurrerent If a man were accused of any offence hee should presently out of the Hundred and tything tender such as should be pledges or baile for him but if hee could not finde such baile hee should then dread the severity of the Law which I conceive to be according to the moderne law Imprisonment But if any person accused either before pledges or after should flye away all the men and inhabitants of the tything and hundred should incur the Kings mulct that is be amerced to be in misericordiam Regis at the Kings mercy The fruit and effect of this law is worth observation what good redounded to the Common weale in those times For saith the Author Hoc commento pacem infudit provinciae ut per publicos aggeres ubi semitae per quadrivium finduntur armillas aureas juberet suspendi Quae viantium aviditatem rideret dum non esset qui eas abriperet By this devise he made such peace in the whole Country that he caused certaine golden bracelets to be hanged upon publike batches or hillocks at every crosse way which might as it were deride the aviditie of passengers sithence there were none that durst take them away It is no doubt but this Law or Ordinance doth not only in part retaine a vigor and being at the common Law but hath given light to many statutes to win force of great consequence As to that of the Statute of Winton 23 Adward 1. inquirable at Leets by which it was enacted That cries should be solemnly made in all Counties Hundreds Markets Faires and all other places where great resort of people is so that none should excuse himselfe of ignorance that from thence forth every country be so well kept that immediately upon such robberies and felonies committed fresh suite be made from towne to towne and from countrey to countrey c. And after that the felony or robberie be done the countrey shall have no longer space than fortie dayes within which it shall behoove them to agree for the robberie or offence or else that they will ans wer for the bodies of the offenders But albeit the Statute be generall and no mention made

De ●odo●reddendi according to the true meaning of this ancient oath of Legeance is the difficult question S. Pet. 1.6 2. v. 13. giveth this monition Submit your selves to every ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether is be to the King as supreme vers 14. or unto governours as unto them that are sent by him c. Though by the rule of S. Paul the substance of every princes power is the ordinance of God yet the specification of the circumstances thereto belonging as in regard of places persons Jurisdiction subordination and the rest is an humane ordinance introduced by custome or positive law Hence I will deduce this generall position That all subjects are bound by dutie and legeance to their princes to render to them civill obedience and their dues and duties according to the laws and customes of that kingdome wherein they live then by consequence the subjects of great Britain to their gracious Soveraign according to the Lawes and customes of our Nation To capitulate here all the casuall dues and duties annexed to his prerogative as forfeitures escheates confiscations or such like or wardships mariages primer seisin and many more at large recited and declared by the statute intituled Prarogativa Regis published in the 17 yeare of Ed. 2. Or to make particular rehersall of other ordinary dues as customes aide and such like were cleerly out of the scope of my intention But faithfully to deliver by what ways and means the king may require any extraordinarie aid and supply out of each subjects particular estate or terrene honour hic labor hoc opus est Some not well affected to the constant government of this kingdome The payments of dues and duties most proper by Parliamentary gift would have the kings necessities supplyed by impositions and taxes to bee raised and levied by the kings meer and absolute power without any commitiall consent of peeres and commons others more orthodox if I may so terme it to the happinesse of his Majestie and tranquillitie of the State doe hold and so it hath been declared by ancient modern parliaments that a parliamentarie gift subsidie or supply bee it of what name soever from the subject to the King is most proper and competible with the ancient rule and government of our kingdome The very name of parliament is sacrum quoddam and the nature of it most sublime and so long as the members are in unitie with the head most absolute and illimited The kingdome of England is a most ancient Monarchie under the rule and government of a Supreme Leige Soveraign conform and according to the peculiar lawes and customes of the nation confirmed by severall Parliaments and whereas all other nations as Bracton faith Lib. 1. Cap. 1. were governed by written lawes Sola Anglia usa est in suis finibus jure non scripto consuetudine in en quidem ex non seripto jus venit quod usus comprobavit Sed absurdum non erit leges Anglicanas licet non scriptas leges appellare cum legis vigorem habeat quicquid de consilio consensu magnatum reipublicae communi sponsione authoritate Regis sive principis praecadente juctè fuerit definitum approbatum England only is ruled by a law not written and by custom which by usage hath beene approved and it were absurd because not written not to call them lawes inasmuch as whatsoever by the counsell and consent of the Peers and commons and by the kings royall authoritie shall bee determined and allowed hath the power and vertue of a law Herein we may observe an authentike description of a parliament I cannot passe by the word Quicquid there is some remarkable energie in the generalitie of it that must not goe without a Quisquid Some would have religion and Ecclesiastike persons and do not stick to murmur loudly of it exempt from all parliament power All persons causes subject to Parliament but our Author who wrote in the later time of Hen. 2. well nigh 380 years agone not long after King Iohn had coactedly delivered over his royall Crowne into the hands of the Popes Legat and thereby admitted papall incroachments of jurisdiction in this kingdome although with the common errors of those times he seemed to advance pontisiciall power in Ecclesiasticall causes here cui scil Papae alioqui invictissimi etiam Imperatores Reges cesserunt as it is said in the prologue to Bracton yet he brings all jurisdictions and matters whatsoever with his Quicquid within the cognizance and power of parliament A parliament is the supremest Court of Justice in this kingdome Parliament the supremest court of justice an assembly of the King the Lords and peeres and the Commons of the Realme The word Parliament is a French word and signifies originally as much as colloquium a conference or treatie betweene the King and his Subjects I●●is great Court the kings of England have ever had authoritatem praecedentem as Bracton notes before aswell in regard of their naturall persons having supremacy and preeminent precedencie over and above all persons as of their politike capacitie and have the sole and only power to call and convene parliaments and to do all other kingly offices And they had and ever have potectatem subsequentem a power to ratifie and confirme such acts and lawes and Statutes whatsoever as are treated and agreed upon by the peeres and commons The king as learned Cambden observes and hath it from Bracton supremam potestatem merum imperium apud nos habet nec in imperii clientela est nec in vestituram ab alio quovis accipit nee prater Deum superiorem agnoscit In short the king is supreme over and above all persons and owneth no superiour but God The parliament is called by writs of summons directed to each peere of the land The calling of the parliament and by writs of summons directed to the Sheriffes of each severall countie And it is called by the advice and consent of the kings councell but note the king of England is armed with divers Councels One which is necessarieto be explained called Commune Concilium in all writs and proceedings and that is the high Court of parliament A second which is grande or magnum concilium which is sometime applyed to the upper house of parliament sometimes out of parliament to the peeres of the realme Lords of parliament Thirdly he hath his legale concilium his judges of the law for law matters The Fourth and last and not the least is the kings privatum concilium his privie Councellors of State The king hath as all the kings of England ever had his sacros and secretos consiliarios his sacred guard of privie Councellors Majorum et sapientissimorum è regno Amongst whom he fitteth in person and moderates their consultations in imitation of the precepts and presidents recorded in holy Scripture Where no counsell is the people fall but