Selected quad for the lemma: power_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
power_n	government_n	king_n	monarchy_n	2,757	5	9.5091	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56182	The contra-replicant, his complaint to His Maiestie	Parker, Henry, 1604-1652.	1643 (1643)	Wing P400; ESTC R22502	28,940	31

they themselvss do require to be regulated by further Lawes No Nation can be free without a three-fold priviledge The first is in the framing and passing of Lawes The second is in declaring and interpreting Lawes And the third is in executing and preserving Lawes in force Where the King is sole Law-maker all things are subject to his meer discretion and a greater bondage then this never was nor can be the English lie not under such base servitude their King claimes but a part in the Leg●slative power and yet neverthelesse of late by discontinuing of Writs for the summoning of Parliaments and by the right of a Negative voyce in Parliaments and an untimely dissolving of Parliaments the peoples interest in this Legislative power has been much abridged and suspended In the like manner also if the sole power of declaring Lawes were so in the King as that he might himselfe give Judgement or create Judges at his pleasure without imposing Oathes of trust on them in behalfe of the people or should deny redresses upon Appeales from them our Legislative power would be vaine and uneffectuall to us For my part I hold it an equall thing whither just men make Lawes and unjust interpret them or unjust men make Lawes and just interpret them When it was just in the King of late to impose what taxes hee pleased and as often as he pleased upon us for the preparing of Armadoes all over England Our Nation was fallen into a most desperate thraldome yet the fault was not then in the Lawes but in the Judges and such as had a power over the Judges Lawes as they are deafe and by a strict inflexibility more righteous then living Judges so they are dumb also and by their want of Language more imperfect then the brests of men And indeed since the Lawes of God and Nature though knowne to all yet do not utter to all the same sense but remaine in many plaine points strangely controverted as to their intent and meaning how can we hope that any humane Lawes should satisfie all mens understanding in abstruse points without some living Key to open them the vast Pandects and digests of the Law sufficiently testifie that in the clearest Law which mankind could ever yet discover there are dark and endlesse Labyrinths wherein the weaker sort of lay men are presently lost the learnedst advocates are tediously perplext In the last place also if the sole power of inforcing and executing Lawes were so vested in the King as that he might use it to the cessation or perversion of all justice and the people were in such case remedilesse the interest in making and declaring of Law were invalid and frustrate in the people and the King might still inslave or destroy them at his pleasure The Replicant sayes That under a Monarchy much must be trusted to the King or else it will be debased into Democracie T is confessed much must but all must not be trusted the question then is how farre this much extends in a Monarchy of such a mixt nature as ours is in such times as ours now are In absolute Monarchies all is trusted to the King in absolute Democracies all is vested in the people in a mixt Monarchy more is trusted to the King then is reserved to the people and in a mixt Democracie more is reserved to the people then is derived to the Prince In all formes of Government the people passes by way of trust all that power which it retaines not and the difference of formes is only in degree and the degrees are almost as various as the severall states of the world are nay the same state admits of often changes many times sometimes the people gaines and sometimes looses sometimes to its prejudice sometimes not and sometimes injuriously sometimes not but the degrees of ordinary power consist in the making declaring and inforcing Law except when forraigne warre is and then it is expedient that a greater and more extraordinary trust be reposed in one and this we see in Holland the most exact Republicke and in England the most exact Monarchy in the world But it is a leud conceit of our Royalists now-adayes to attribute to our King an absolute power over the Militia of this Land at all times alike not distinguishing between Civill warres wherein he may be a party and suspected and between a forraigne warre where he is neither a party nor suspected for if our Kings will plead such a trust to our disadvantage 't is just that they produce some proofe for it and relye not upon meere Common use 't is true in case of Forraigne invasion 't is expedient that the King be farre trusted and yet even so if the King should conspire with forraigne forces or neglect to protect us against them contrary to the intent of his trust we might resume the common native Posse or Militia of the Land for our owne defence without his consent And much more reasonable is it in time of Peace or Civill warre if the King will deny his influences or withdraw his presence to obstruct Law or will by his Negative voyce or by force seeke to disable his highest Courts and Councels and reduce all to arbitrary government more reasonable is it that the people secure to themselves the Law their chiefest portion and best patrimony For as the King cannot by Law deny to the people their undoubted interest in passing of Lawes so neither can he defeat the same interest or destroy the benefit thereof by misinterpretations or by mis-executions of the same Lawes No Nation can injoy any freedome but by the right and share which it has in the Lawes and if that right and share doe not extend to the preservation of Lawes in their true vigour and meaning as well as to the Creation of them 't is emptie and defeasible at the Kings meere pleasure Much is to be trusted to the King true but all is not we see ●rusted some power we see is of Necessity to be reserved in free Nations such as the King allowes us to be and there is a difference also in the word Trust for there is an arbitrary and there is a necessary Trust and the one may be resumed the other not upon meere pleasure Without all question the wiser and juster Princes are esteemed the more the people ever trust them but this makes no difference in the Legall and fundamentall Trust of the Kingdome nor can infirme credulous and easie Princes pretend alwayes to the same degree of power as their Ancestors have held unlesse they can prescribe to their vertues also Queene Elizabeth might with safety and expedience be trusted further then King Iames even in those things where the Law did not trust her but this is the misery of subjects all goes from them but nothing must returne The Court of a Prince is like the Lions den in the Fable all the beasts leave prints and steps advorsum but none retrorsum But the