Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	day_n	law_n	read_v	3,068	5	6.6616	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38407	Englands monarch, or, A conviction and refutation by the common law, of those false principles and insinuating flatteries of Albericus delivered by way of disputation, and after published, and dedicated to our dread soveraigne King James, in which he laboureth to prove by the civill law, our prince to be an absolute monarch and to have a free and arbitrary power over the lives and estates of his people : together with a generall confutation (and that grounded upon certaine principles taken by some of their owne profession) of all absolute monarchy.		1644 (1644)	Wing E2997; ESTC R10980	14,794	18

is bound by the Lawes of God God saies he is simply absolute not bound to any Law but the Prince onely absolute to some respects for though he be above the Civill Law yet he is under the Law of God of Nature and of Nations We will allow this absolute power that you speake of if you canevince us out of holy Writ to which Princes as well as people owe subjection that ever such power was communicated to any just Prince that he might dispose of the lives and estates of his Subjects at his owne will and pleasure what is this but Tyrranny and if God who only hath absolute power over his people did sometimes in his wrath for the sinnes of his people put a Tyrannicall King over them yet this is no warrant for others to be so God who is the only proprietor and free dispenser of all things and giveth what he pleaseth and to whom and when he pleaseth what he out of his bounty doth bestow upon his meanest servant he doth invest him in as pure and absolute a right as he doth the greatest Prince in his Monarchy and therefore it lies not in the power of his Prince to dispossesse him of it We have a most exact and perfect discription of a Tyrant in the word of God 1 Sam. 8. where when the people of Israel not contented with that Governement that God had appointed over them asked a King of Samuell God in his anger and as a judgement upon the people for their sin gave them a King to rule over them but such a one who according to the discription of Samuell would make his will his Law for saies Samuell to the people This will be the manner of the King that shall reigne over you he will take your sonnes and appoint them for himselfe for his Charets c. And he will appoint him Captaines over thousands c. And he will take your daughters to be confectioners c. And hee will take your fields and your vineyards and give them to his servants And he will take your servants and cattle and put them to worke c. Here you have a compleate delineation of a Tyrant For marke Samuell tells the people what he will doe not what he ought to doe thus and thus he will doe saith he and he will render no better reason for what he doth stat pro ratione voluntas his will is reason sufficient to deprive you of your substance and to inslave you and your postetity for ever This was the judgement of God and therefore not to be drawne in example or made a president for others And therefore let every unjust Prince take heede that whilest hee is made the Rod and scourge of God for his peoples sinnes hee himselfe be not at the last throwne into the fire But now you shall heare the duty of a good Prince set forth in Deut. 17 He shall not multiply horses to himselfe c. Neither shall he multiply wives nor silver and gold He shall write him a coppie of this Law in a Booke c. And it shall be with him and hee shall reade therein all the dayes of his life that hee may learne to feare the Lord his God to keepe all the words of this Law and these statutes to doe them Now marke what followes all That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren c. For my part I do not find here that the Kings will is a Law or that he hath power to open shut the purses of his Subjects at his pleasure A just Prince must not multiply silver gold why then doubtlesse he must not doe it upon the ruines of his Subjects Hee must keepe this law and I am sure this Law doth not make him lawlesse or justifie Tyranny And lastly his heart must not bee lifted up above his brethren that is he must not so exalt his owne power as to depresse and destroy his people Another Argument is this that the people did transferre this power to the King that by it they might be more commodiously governed Page 24. but this is not that supreame power sic volo sic jubeo but an ordinary power directed by law To this Albericus answers with his distinction before taken that there is an ordinary and an extraordinary power in the Prince and he saies that the people sometimes by this extraordinary power which is the supreame and absolute power may be governed more commodiously for he saies That people of indomitable and rigid spirits are better governed by this extraordinary then an ordinary power and those Subjects are to be governed by an Iron Rod that will not yeeld to the ferula Certainly Albericus when he wrote this booke thought he had been tutering of children I confesse that I have often read and heard that the government by Monarchy is much to be preferred and set before Oligarchy Democracy or Aristocracy‑ but I never heard that tyranny might be more apt commodious then a just and lawfull governement neither did I ever read of any people of so savedge and barbarous a nature who would not rather stoope to a just and legall then an unjust and tyrannicall dominion No question it is most commodious both for King and people that the one should have a certain positive rule by which he might governe and the other by which he might obey And that Prince who governs his people by the rule of justice shall find more faithfull and loyall Subjects then he that swayes them by the Scepter of an extraordinary and tyrannicall power But heare what Albericus doth determin to be tyranny That sayes he Pag. 25. is tyrannous which in a tyrant is wonted and ordinary in aiust Prince extraordinary and casuall To take away famous and excellent men to expell or drive away those that are wise to exterminate studies to have and countenance such about him as are envious private calumniators and accusers of others to follow delight in bloody warres these others of that kind he saies to be tyrannous How Albericus are these tyrannous I thought the supreame power had beene unlimitted why so it is for he saies that even these very actions which imediatly before he styles tyrannous Possunt aliquandoetiam esse justa may sometimes be just May tyrannous actions be just what a diametricall contradiction is this he may as well call darkenesse light or light darkenesse good evill or evill good In vaine doth he labour to make this good by strange and tyrannous actions as he would have them which are done by Princes for the good of the common wealth neither is this malum necessariun a necessary evill as he calls it for whatsoever is simply tyranous cannot be said to be just and whatsoever is done and in truth is so for the common good cannot beare the infamous scandall of tyrannous But this saying of Albericus savours more of Machavilians Politiques then of just and legall governement Pag. 27.