Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	king_n	law_n	prerogative_n	3,673	5	10.4433	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70102	A brief justification of the Prince of Orange's descent into England, and of the kingdoms late recourse to arms with a modest disquisition of what may become the wisdom and justice of the ensuing convention in their disposal of the crown.	Ferguson, Robert, d. 1714.	1689 (1689)	Wing F733; ESTC R228036	25,801	42

that are necessary for Peace Preservation and Prosperity so herein lies our signal advantage and felicity that what we become interested in by a positive and Statute Law it doth thereby and from thence become a part of our Right and Property and not to be wrested again from us but by our own consent For as Bracton saith lib. 1. c. 2. though it be also one of the first dictates of Reason and common Sense Leges non possunt mutari nec destrui fine communi consensu confilio eorum omnium quorum confilio consensu fuerunt promulgatae Laws can neither be altered nor vacated save by the consent and concurrence of the same Authority by which they were made and Enacted 'T is true that the Executive part of the Government is both by our Common and Statute Laws conveyed unto and vested in the King but at the same time there is sufficient provision made both in the Terms of our Constitution and in our Parliamentary Acts to prevent this from being hurtful unto us unless our Soveraigns become guilty both of the highest Treachery and withal make an invasion upon and endeavour the Subversion of the whole Government A Right of overseeing the Execution of the Laws being a Prerogative inseparable from the Office of the Supream Magistrate because the very Ends unto which he is cloathed with Rectoral Authority and for which he is designed and established are the conservation of the publick peace and the administration of Justice towards and among the Members of the Body Politick all to be expected from the wisdom of the Society or practicable by them either upon the first erection of and submission to Civil Government or upon their future improvements and farther regulations of it was to direct limit and restrain this Executive power committed unto the Soveraign and to make him and his Subordinate Ministers accountable in case they should deny delay or pervert Justice or be found chargeable with Mal-administration of the Laws Nor was ever a people more provident as to all these than our Predecessors and Ancestors have been For as they have left nothing to the Kings private discretion much less to his Arbitrary Will but have assigned him the Laws as the Rules and Measures he is to Govern by so they not only delegated it unto him as a Trust which he is to Swear faithfully to perform but they always reserved a liberty right and power unto themselves of inspecting his Administration making him responsable for it and of abdicating him from the Soveraignty upon universal and egregious faileurs in the Trust that had been credited and consigned unto him Of this we have indisputable Evidence in the Articles advanced in Parliament against Richard the Second when he was Deposed from the Throne and had the Scepter taken out of his hand Yea to prevent all dangers which might befal the Subject through the Kings being trusted with the Executive power of the Government he is not by our Constitution and Laws allowed to do any thing in his own Person nay not so much as to draw and seal the Commission of those that are to act in his name and under him And as nothing is accounted in our Government a Commission but what the Law Authoriseth and warrants so he is liable to be proceeded against as the highest Criminal that presumeth to Act in the virtue of any other An illegal Commission is so far from conveying a power unto any man to Act that it is a greater Crime to do any thing upon the Authority of it than it would be to commit the same fact without all colour and pretence of power and warrant Seeing the injury in the one case doth only affect and terminate in him that receives it whereas in the other it affects both the King the Government and the whole Body of the People And as if it were not enough to preserve us harmless from the Executive power lodged in the King that all the Commissions issuable from him are to be Legal or otherwise to be accounted null even they who stand warranted and empowered to Act by Legal Commissions are not only to be Sworn to execute them Legally but are obnoxious to be punished for every thing they do upon them that deviates from the Measures of the Law. And as 't is the Duty and hath been the Practice of those who have been faithful to the Trust reposed in them regardful of their own Honor and Just to the Kingdom to punish their Officers and Ministers for Malversation and for departing in their Administration from the Rules of our Common and Statute Laws Witness King Alfred who caused forty four Justices to be hanged in one year for illegal false and corrupt Judgments so it belongeth unto our Parliaments as being one of the great Ends as well as Reasons for which they ought to be frequently called and Assembled to inquire into and to punish the Crimes of Judges and of all others employed by and under the King in the Executive part of the Government From hence it is that as the House of Commons among other capacities in which they sit and Act are by the Constitution to be the great Inquest of the Kingdom to search into all the Oppressions and Injustices of the King's Ministers so the House of Lords among their several other Rights and Priviledges stand cloathed with the Power and Authority of the High Court of Judicature of the Nation who are to punish those who have misbehaved themselves in all other Courts as well as those whom Inferiour Courts have either connived at or have been so wicked as unrighteously to justify Of this all Ages afford us Presidents and nothing but the supiness of this in not making so frequent and signal Examples of Parliamentary Justice among the Ministerial Dispensers of our Laws and among the Officers of our late Kings as our Ancestors used to do hath rendered our withdrawn Prince's being trusted with the Executive part of the Government so mischievous unto the Kingdom and the Abuse of it so Fatal at last unto himself Having with all imaginable brevity declared the Nature and stated the Boundaries of our Government both in what is entrusted with the King as well as in what is reserved unto the People that which in the next place I am to Address my self unto is to inquire whether a King of England can so misbehave himself in his Office as that according to the Rules of our Constitution and the Measures of Justice he may be either Resisted in his Arbitrary and Illegal Exercise of it or Degraded and Deposed from his Regal Dignity And it ought to have no small Influence upon our Understandings towards our assenting unto and embracing the Affirmative that our Predecessors not only managed open War with a Nolumus Leges Angliae mutari upon their Banners against King John and Henry the Third for Usurpation upon their Laws and Liberties but that within the same compass of