soly in the King We shall easily reconcile that apparition of contradiction if we consider that we use the word Parliament to divers senses and that in two senses wherein we use the word Parliament there is no Soveraignitie to be ascribed to it We sometimes use the word Parliament for the House of Lords onely As when upon Writs of Errour any Judgement in the Kings Bench is examined in the House of Lords and there affirmed or reversed the Judgement is said to be affirmed or reversed by Parliament And yet though in that sense the House of Lords is well enough called The Parliament yet is it not the high Court of Parliament which is the supreme Judgement power and Authoritie of the Kingdome and that we may easily see in this that though the Lords have power there to reverse the Judgements of their inferiour Courts yet have they not power to reverse their own Judgements nor to restore again any Judgement that they have reversed for they judging ministerially and not soveraignely do as well binde their own hands as the hands of their inferiours whereas the absolute soveraigne power doth not so but may reverse any judgement that they themselves have given and again restore the judgement that they themselves reversed for the absolute supreme Court having Juris dandi dictionem can never be at the last period of her jurisdiction but looking ever forward to the present occasion whatsoever passed before it pro re natâ legislatively judgeth maketh and declareth Law But the House of Lords though the most superiour of all Courts of ministeriall iurisdiction and all other inferiour Courts they having no other iurisdiction than onely juris dati dictionem in using their iurisdiction do consummate it and bring it to a period beyond which they cannot go Besides the House of Lords is nor universally to all occasions a iudicatorie and therefore not soveraigne but is the distinct Court of the Kings Barons of Parliament of particular and ministeriall iurisdiction in which the King though one of the three Voters in Parliament yet in those things which come by processe of Law to receive determination there onely hath no Vote at all no more than in all other Courts of ministeriall iurisdiction Sometime we use the word Parliament for the two Houses of Parliament onely and that in regard they are the grosse of the Bodie whereof the Parliament consists there wanting onely the Soveraigne Head to compleat it But the two Houses alone without the King are so farre from being the supreme and high Court of Parliament as that they are not at all a compleat Court neither can they so unite or conioyne as to be an entire Court of either soveraigne or ministeriall iurisdiction But are two distinct Courts if so be the House of Commons which cannot minister an Oath nor fine nor imprison any but their own Members may be called a Court then are they Courts not otherwise co-operating than by concurrence of Votes in their severall Houses for preparing matters in order to an Act of all the three Orders of the Parliament which when they have done their Votes are so farre from having any Legall Authoritie in the State as that in Law there is no stile nor forme of their joynt Acts nor doth the Law so much as take notice of them untill they have the royall assent which if the King refuses he yet doth no injurie to any for that every of the three Orders that are the formall parts of the high Court of Parliament that is the King the Peeres and Commons are every of them by Law trusted for their own respective interests to be the onely assured Conservatours of the rights that do belong unto them and may therefore every one of them freely dissent from the Votes of the other two nor is their any danger that it should be so but contrarily the most assured safetie that may be for the consequence of their not agreeing can be no worse than that their severall interests shall still remain in the condition that they were before untill such time as that they shall all three agree upon the state of alteration Now when the two Houses alone do no way make an entire Bodie House or Court and when their is no known stile nor forme of any Law or Edict by the Votes of them two onely nor any notice of them taken by the Law it is apparant there is no Soveraignitie in their two Votes alone To argue now as some do that the King must not deny His Vote for if by denying it He may frustrate the Votes of the two Houses by the same reason may He frustrate the Votes of all inferiour Courts and open a way to the most boundlesse tyrannie that ever was is a most perverse and absurde falsitie there being no affinitie nor resemblance of the course of those Courts with that of Parliament For in inferiour Courts the Judges sit and give Judgement for the King and not for themselves and the Law there authorises them to give the Kings Judgement and none but them and therefore the Kings Dissent or Countermand cannot frustrate their Judgements But in Parliament the Peeres and Commons neither sit nor Vote for the King but for themselves And the Law appoints the King himselfe to give His own Vote there which if the Peeres and Commons in His absence could have supplied the Statute 33. H. 8.21 needed not have provided that His Consent or Vote by His Letters under His Great Seale should be as effectuall as if He himselfe in Person had assented Besides the Judgement given by the Judges in inferiour Courts is compleat in Law without the assent of the King and therefore cannot be frustrate by the Kings dissent but the Votes of the two Houses are therefore to be frustrated for want of the Kings assent because without it they are not compleat nor perfect The high Court of Parliament therefore resembling a Chaire of three feet the two Houses make but two of the three which without the third is lame and uselesse as to making of Law but with the third becomes a firme and usefull seate and makes that sacred Tripos from whence the Civil Oracles of our Law are delivered When therefore we speake of the Soveraigne power and Authoritie of the Parliament that never is to be understood of the power of the two Houses onely nor any such Soveraigne power to be ascribed unto them Now in the last place we use the word Parliament for the three Orders of Parliament agreeing in their Votes then and then onely use we the word Parliament properly and in that sense onely is the Parliament the supreme Court the highest judicatorie and most soveraigne power and authoritie in the Kingdom But we must ever understand that it is not the most Soveraigne Court for any Soveraignitie placed in the two Houses and from them transferred or communicated to His Majestie by their joyning or consenting with him but it is therefore
the most soveraigne Court because every compleat and perfect Act of it is the Act of the personall will and power of the Soveraigne himselfe Standing in His highest Estate Royall and through the concurrence of those that are the instrumentals of His restraint more freely and absolutely working there than in any other time and place he can do For as a man that yeildeth himselfe to be bound by keepers hath the use of his strength taken from him but none of the naturall strength it selfe much lesse any of it transferred to them that bound him but whensoever they loose his bonds he again workes and acts by virtue of his own naturall strength and not by any received from them So the naturall right and interest of the Soveraignitie being soly in the King and the Peeres and Commons being onely interessed in the Office of restraining for the regular working of true legitimate Soveraignitie in whatsoever the Peeres and Commons by consenting remit the restraint the King in that willeth and worketh absolutely by the power of his own inherent Soveraignitie And whatsoever Act of the Court so passeth the hands of all the three Orders does in truth virtually proceed from the King as from the true and proper efficient thereof which does not obscurely nor rarely appear in our Acts of Parliament but plainly and frequently throughout the whole Bodie of our ancient Lawes The King Willeth the King Commandeth the King Ordaineth Provideth Establisheth Granteth c. And yet though properly they be the Acts of the King in Parliament yet are they also truly the Acts of the whole high Court of Parliament because that every of the three Estates contribute their power according to the diversitie of their office and interest the two Houses by remitting through the consenting the restraint and the King by using his then unrestrained power We are also to consider that though this high Court of the three Orders be the supreme Judicatorie of the Kingdome yet it hath not that superioritie of judgement ascribed to it for any soveraigne facultie it hath in discerning the true dictate and result of Law no more than of any other particular Science as of Divinitie Philosophie Physicke Mathematiques c. for the judgement of Sciences belongeth to the professours thereof and the judgement of Law as well as of other Sciences But the high Court of Parliament is the supreme judge for the great trust the Law reposeth in the concurrence of all the three Orders who have meanes to have the best information of Law that the whole profession doth afford and are supposed to use it and likewise for the great power they have to binde all other judgement and to make their sentence Law though as we have said it were not Law before But we are further to observe that in the point of making of Law the Law restraining thus the Soveraigne power to the consent of the Peeres and Commons the more that by this regulation it purged it from destructive exorbitances the more tender it grew of the just and legitimate rights thereof remaining and therefore considering the person of the Soveraigne to be single and his power counterpoised by the opposed wisedome of the two numerous Bodies of the two Houses it allowed unto the King power to sweare unto himselfe a Bodie of Councell of State which our Lawes sometime call His Grand Councell and to sweare unto him also Counsellours at Law even the Judges themselves and others learned in the Law faithfully to advise him in his Government that he may neither do nor receive wrong especially not in Parliament where the wrong may be perpetuall And if upon a generall pretence of evill counsell without any instance in what his Majestie be deprived of the use and assistance of and assistance of any of his sworne Counsell especially in Parliament time when the Soveraignitie may be so easily overmatched it will make such a breach of the priviledge of the first of the three Orders in Parliament as will destroy the true frame of Parliaments diminish the power of the Crown and bring the settled estate of the Kingdome into the calamitous innovation of an unsettled and ever changing Forme of Government and so into all manner of miserie and confusion The Soveraignitie in the King alone is so clearly acknowledged by our Law as that unlesse we would reiect the iudgement and recognition of all our Parliament and especially of all our most sincere and unquestioned Parliaments all the time of Queen Elizabeth and ever since all which do not onely affirme but sweare it it would be idle to go about to make praise of it But when the incredible perversenesse of some and in particular of him that writes The treacherie and disloyaltie of Papists c. does not onely affirme the contrary but would pretend to prove it It cannot be a digression in a word or two to give some answer to his reasonings I shall passe over Minshaw's Dictionarie Speed Stowe Vowell Foxe and others whose authoritie he is not ashamed to cite for determining matter in Law and which if indeed it were a question were of the greatest consequence that ever was stirred in Law And because he so much insists upon Bracton I shall briefly examine Bracton and the Authours integritie in citing him and others And first that all men may know how little authoritie in Law Bracton either now hath or anciently hath had Our yeare-bookes tell us that in the 35. H. 6. It was declared by the whole Court that Bracton was never held an Authour in our Law and then it is not materiall what is the opinion of one that is of no authoritie But if he were yet those words in Bracton so much insisted on Rex habet superiorem Deum Legem item Curiam suam c. are not indeed Bractons assertion For Bracton speaking of the Kings Deeds and Charters and affirming which we would be loath should be Law at this day that Neither the Iustices nor private men may dispute the Kings Deed but that if there be doubt of his Deed or Charter the resolution must come from the Kings own interpretation and will c. Then goes he on thus But some may say saith he that the King may do justice and well and if so he may by the same reason do ill and so put a necessitie upon him that he mend the injurie least both King and Iustices fall into the judgement of the living God for the injurie The King hath a Superiour to wit God also the Law by which he is made King also His Court to wit the Earles and Barons c. Now whosoever considers the place it is all a reasoning which Bracton supposes some other to make and no affirmation of his own and that is also plain by his words in another place where speaking of the King If Iustice saith he be demanded of him seing no Writ lies against him one must petition that
example is that of David Saul was a wicked apostate King from whom The Spirit of God the inward anointing was departed Saul reiected from raigning over Israel So by God himselfe declared David in his stead by God provided to be King and to that end by Gods command anointed by all which David's priviledge then was more above the priviledge of all Subjects now than Saul's priviledge of that time was above the priviledge of Kings at this day and yet David for all those circumstances so much authorising him and dis-authorising Saul did not know Who could lay his hands upon the Lords Anointed and be guiltlesse Nay he did but lay his hand upon Saul's garment to cut off the lap for a testimonie of his loyaltie and innocent intention toward Saul and yet even for that saith the Text his heart smote him that he cried out The Lord forbid I should do that thing to my Master to lay mine hand upon the Lords Anointed his reason we may know in the other words of his The Lord shall smite him or his day shall come to die or he shall descend into battaile and perish the Lord keep me from laying mine hand upon him plainly inferring that to call Princes to account belongs onely to God that God hath time and wayes of his own to do it in and will do it and that therefore man must not meddle with the doing of it for if anointed David might not intermeddle with rejected Saul much lesse may common Subjects meddle with their unrejected Soveraignes Sufficiently therefore do these examples shew the heinousnesse of Subiects lifting up themselves and resisting the person of their Soveraigne upon what pretence soever Now while the severitie of these examples and other passages of Scripture iustly striking terrour into every soule does make us wonder what great straight of humane affaires could be so violent an impulsive with us as to make Christian Subiects contrary to sworne Faith to Law and to Religion not onely disobey their Soveraigne but resist invade the soveraigne rights and imploy their Soveraignes Militia Shippes Forts Armes Treasure yea and his own sworne Subiects too against Him truly all that the most searching thought can finde to secure his conscience with against the horrour of so foule a guilt is that otherwise we feare or pretend to feare that His Maiestie seduced by evill Counsellours by popishly affected Prelates Courtiers and Cavaliers should destroy our Law our Parliaments our established Forme of Government and change them into tyrannnie and the true Protestant Religion into Poperie This this Feare or pretence of Fear alone is all the warrant we can finde for our unparallelled proceedings against our Soveraigne And if this before the Tribunall of God and of our own Lawes be not sufficient for our excuse then have we nothing to discharge us of the guilt of publique violence robberie murder periurie treason resistance of the Ordinance of God and of forcing others against their consciences by act or aid to resist with us Now all these evils are universally committed all over the Kingdome and all these evils upon no other warrant done than that the good of Reformation as is pretended may come thereon So make we the Word of God of none effect while we entertain and preferre the Jesuitique tradition before it and maintain that what is for the good of the Church must be done notwithstanding any bonds of dutie of Faith or Oath whatsoever to the contrary And if we examine the grounds of this Feare and what iust suspition and probabilitie of such an innovation as is pretended to be feared is given We see for our assurance to the contrary that His Maiestie after once He was truly informed of our grievances condescended not onely to give us ease of them but to make His Acts of Grace in them at once exceed the Acts of all His Predecessours since the granting of our Magna Charta and did not onely in present relieve our sufferings but often invoking the Sacred Maiestie of God as a severe Witnesse of His purpose for the time to come tie Himselfe for ever to settle matters of Religion according to the purest times of the Protestant Church of England with such ease for tender Consciences as by a lawfull iudgement of the Clergie should be iudged fit and to governe according to the known Lawes of the Land Here is little signe of one led by evill counsaile or of a minde that would subdue Law Religion to the satisfaction of His private will This shewes our Fear to be both groundles and wicked and indeed after this if iealousie it selfe could yet make scruple of any thing how easie were it for the wisdome of the Bodie Representative by preparing a Law of severitie against the instruments of innovation exposing their persons and fortunes to certain ruine nullifying the innovations themselves and discharging the Subiect from all obedience and conformitie unto them to have secured the Kingdom against all manner of fear in that kinde when as His Majestie freely offers His Gracious assent to any Act that should in that behalfe be necessary But if what cause what ground what reason of dutie soever we finde though constantly and universally received for true both by the judgement of our Law and by the authoritie of our Religion we must notwithstanding reject all to believe the all concluding judgement of the Bodie Representative whom we never knew to have such Supremacie of iudgement till it selfe bearing witnesse of it selfe did tell us so it cannot yet but make much to the satisfaction of the conscience to examine how well the two Houses now sitting do attain the condition of a full and free Assemblie of the two Houses of Parliament that pretend to have such iudgement And first it is known that the House of Commons now sitting however elected was never yet perfected by a right determination of Elections but that some set as Members there that ought not to have been returned and some are not received that yet were rightly chosen some are excluded for having hands in Monopolies and proiects and others as much interessed in them for their assured affection reteined the greatest part of both Houses by meanes of popular menacings tumults poasting up of names branding men with the name of Malignants things never known before in Parliaments and again undeserved expellings from the House or imprisonings have been so over-awed that they have been forced to suppresse their Votes to give them contrary to their iudgements to hide themselves or to flie from the Houses the residue of both Houses and among them the Knights and Burgesses which the Countries sent to reside in Parliament that there the whole Representative advising together might with the more safetie Vote and consent for us they make over their Countries trust to a few Committees of their own and wholly betake themselves to martiall Offices and imployments exercising in them a new found arbitrary power over