Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	law_n	moses_n	people_n	3,133	5	5.0838	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85229	Conscience satisfied. That there is no warrant for the armes now taken up by subjects. By way of reply unto severall answers made to a treatise formerly published for the resolving of conscience upon the case. Especially unto that which is entituled A fuller answer. By H. Ferne, D.D. &c.	Ferne, H. (Henry), 1602-1662.	1643 (1643)	Wing F791; Thomason E97_7; ESTC R212790	78,496	95

upon Jethero's advice pag. 4. How this of fes is pertinent though often hinted in this book I see not for Moses did not assume them as Counsellors about making of Lawes for neither he nor they nor both together could make any but as Officers to ease him in the execution or judging of the people according to those Laws they received from God As for the Commons in Parliament they being a representative body could not be chosen but by them they represent yet are they sent upon his command and have a trust upon them not onely from those that elected them but also from the King that sends for them to represent unto him the grievances of his people and faithfully to consult about the remedies accordingly it is in relation to his Majesty that they take the oaths of sup remacy allegiance at their admittance into the House and although they have there the power not onely of consulting but of consenting also and denying for the security of the people whom they represent yet who sees not by all this in what relation they stand to his Majesty For the Lords they are assumed by the King Bracton said above Reges associant sibi Comites Barones and we see the King calls by his Writ whom he pleases to that House nor doth it helpe that hee saith pag. 5. the Lords are Consiliarii nati born Counsellors to the State for though Nobility in some be Native yet was it at first Dative as they speake by the grace of the King We may adde here what he saith in the same place The very stile of Comites and Peers implies a Co-ordinate society with his Majesty in the Government they are in Parliament his Comites his Peers Yet Bracton tells us Rex non habet parem has no Peer gives us another reason of the stile Comites as he is cited by sir Edw Coke in Mag Charta quia sunt in Comitatu without relation to Parliament because they are either in the Traine of the King or because set in each county adregendum populum and so assumed by the King to the like end that Moses did his under Officers in ruling his people So that other place of Bracton cited by this Answerer pag. 4. Rex habet Superiorem Curiam suam viz Comites Barones is not meant of the Court of Parliament for ther 's no mention of the Commons but it follows in that place debent Regi fraenum imponere it is likely hee spoke this in favour of the Militia raised against Hen. 3. for then he wrote and might call that assembly of Earls and Barons then combined against the King curiam the higher Court or Councell But when he speaks like a Lawyer he saith plainly Rex in Regne parem habere non debet cùm par in parem non habeat poteflatem multo fortius non habeat superiorem which how it agrees with that above let this man or the skilfull in the Law judge Let us examine what reason will conclude by his argument from the style Comites it would follow thence That the Commons must be his Comites and Peers too for they are co-ordinate with his Majesty as well as the other and so this Answerer must set up three thrones one for the King another for the Lords and a third for the House of Commons I should not think any thing too honorable for the Houses of Parliament but only Majesty Now it is a rule in policy Majestas cum supremà potestate conjuncta est Majesty goes along with the supream power as in the popular State of Rome it was usually and properly said Maiestas populi Romani and so might it be said here too were this mans contrivement good but I know the honorable Houses of Parliament look not for it But we return to the beginning of pag. 5. In reading the first line of it I was in hope he would have blest us with some demonstration of this constitution to be such as he has borne us in hand it is how doth it appear that the constitution of this government is such I answer by the mutuall oath that the King people take to maintain the laws that have so constituted it Altogether inconsequent The King takes oath to maintain the Laws-therefore they are such as this man fansieth them it shews indeed an obligation on his Majesty to perform it does not shew such a co-ordination supply reserved power c. surely never any King swore to it in that sense or had reason to understand it so for he findes he is expresly bound by that oath to preserve the immuimmunities liberties of c. to protect c. which he should not be well able to do if his power might be taken from him at the pleasure of others So when he answers to that which I have said the King is King before he take the oath True but he is King but upon the same trust which his Predecessors swore to and the Oath which the Law provides for the King to take virtually bindes him before he takes it He Answers nothing unlesse he could shew that the trust which this Oath implies to be in the King was such a trust upon which the people in their first contrivement as he phansieth conditionally admitted the first King and that the Law which provided this oath was that first constitution or contrivement which would be absurd for the oath speaks the Language of later times and would not fit the Mouth of the first King in the first Coalition of Government for it binds Him to preserve the immunities of Holy Church which if it should be of an after addition to the Oath yet surely Leges and Consuetudines Angliae were in it from the beginning now those are customes of Government and customes must have some continuance of time past to make them so therefore the first King in the first Coalition of Government swore not this Oath what he shews indeed by this argument we admit that the King is bound to take the Oath is bound to perform the duty of it but this is nothing to prove such a first Constitution as he dreams of He brings a proof out of Fortescue Hanc potestatem a populo effluxam habet c. Principatu namque nedum Regali sed politico suo populo dominatur now the word Politico implies the Principat of many especially when opposed to Regali pa. 5. This place tells us what manner of power the King ha's does not tell us the two Houses of Parliament have such power as this man pretends We examined that Effluxam a populo above whether the power of the King was derived from the people by agreement in the first coalition of Government Here we grant the King ha's a limited power but not so limited as this Answerer would have it which he might have read in the words cited for he sees there the King ha's His Regalis potestas but

is the safety of every State as deare and heare to it selfe as This and for any thing you have shewn for it any State may pretend such a Reservation as well as This for you have not proved such a Reservation and the generall argument your Party useth is from selfe preservation which is common to all Then to the Argument of the Churches safety under pretence of which the Pope challenges a power upon the failing of the Civill Magistate as the people now upon the refusall of their Prince you say The Church is not a State by it selfe so also M. Burrowes and M. Bridge It is not indeed the whole State comprehending the Civill State too yet is the good Estate thereof of as great consequence as any Concernment of the body Politique But the Church is not of its own Constitution but of Christs What then therefore it must be preserved by the laws instituted by Christ true so must the Civill State by its established lawes we desire no more yet will you not give Him leave to be as carefull for the good Estate of His Church in providing meanes of preservation for it in case the Civill Magistrate faile in his trust as you are to provide or reserve this power of resistance upon the Kings refusall But he did not provide such forceable meanes as are challenged by the Bishop of Rome under that pretence and these meanes of a reserved power for resistance are as unreasonable on your part if both of you should be put to prove your Traditions He for his Excommunicating or deposing of Kings in order to the Churches safety and you for your reserved power of resistance in order to the States preservation Conscience would find as little satisfaction in the one as in the other As for the matter of the Church we turn saith M. Bridge pag. 33. the Doctors argument upon himselfe thus If the Church cannot be preserved where the officer is an Heretick unlesse it has power to reject him neither can a Kingdome when the officer is unfaithfull unlesse it has power to reject him neither can a Kingdome when the Officer is unfaithfull unlesse it has power either to depose Him or to looke to it selfe It was not my argument I did but shew how the Papists use the like argument for the Churches safety as you doe for the States and if you back again wil gather strength for your assertion from their reasons be as like as you will one to the other I cannot helpe it but I am forry for you at least for the Religion you professe that you are put to such shi●ts But the Church hath Excommunication granted to it by Christ for its own preservation from Evills and Errors and the Body Naturall hath power to deliver it selfe from its burden therefore the Common wealth also cannot preserve it self unlesse it have power to deliver it selfe from its burden ibid. Then has this Church a Power of Excommunication still so it should be indeed and the power cannot be taken away by any mortal authority but since the Act which tooke away the High Commission and as the party you plead for would have it interpreted all Ecclesiasticall Censure too where doth the Exercise of that power rest upon whom now is the Argument turned The Body Naturall has power to disburden it self so has the Common-wealth too but wil you have the naturall body disburden it self of the Head or worke without it and say I have no neede of thee Or will you use letting of blood for the disburdning of the Natural body when sweating or gentle purges may doe it So in the Body Politick when a calme Reformation may purge out noxious humors will you put the sword into the rough hand of the people which in stead of opening a veine will cut the Arteries and Sinewes of the Common-wealth Ye are too desperate Physitians and that is plainly seene by the Consumption and languishing Estate of this Kingdom It was urged in the former Treatise as a reason against these meanes of safety by this power of resistance If the representative body of the people upon the Kings sailing in His trust may take this power then may the multitude by the like rule upon the failing of their representatives in the discharge of the trust they were chosen for take the power to themselves for it is claimed by them the Fuller Answerer replies They cannot doe it for the people have not resorved any power to themselves from themselves in Parliament pag. 25. But it will be as hard for him to make them believe they have power no otherwise as to make it appeare to us there was any such power reserved at all for when the people come to be spoiled in their Estates and Liberties they will think it most unreasonable that they should entrust themselves and all they have to such Arbitrary disposing of their own Representatives especially having been taught by this rule so easily to disclaime the Trust of their Soveraigne He that wrote the book called Plain English saith expresly that if the Representative body cannot or will not discharge their trust to the satisfaction of reason in the people they may resume if ever yet they parted with a power to their manifest undoing and use their power so far as conduceth to their owne safety and M. Bridge though here he brings reasons against the peoples recalling their Trust given to their representative body yet by his argument of selfe preservation at the beginning of his book has taught them to say It is naturall for them to provide for themselves and the act of Trust given to their Representative body is but by positive Law and cannot destroy the Naturall But forgetting what he said of the Naturall Law of selfe preservation he gives us reasons why the people should not take the power in such a case 1. Because they cannot be so ready to think the Parliament that is the two Houses neglect their trust pag. 36. not think so but if by Ordinances thence issuing they be spoiled of their property and liberty which is supposed in the Case they will quickly feele it is so 2. Because there is not that actuall designing and election af the Prince to the present affairs of the Commonweal as there is of the Parliament men chosen for these particular businesses This is bold and sets aside both King and house of Lords putting all upon the Sentence of those that are chosen by the people for the present affaires of the Kingdom those are his words and unto their sentence the people bind themselves to stand as parties disagreeing to doe the sentence of an Vmpire or Arbitrator that is his similitude What can be said more to the dissolving of the temper of three Estates in Parliament and to the overthrow of this Government 3. Because if the people upon such surmises should call in their trust and their power they would leave themselves naked of all authority and be private