Selected quad for the lemma: war_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
war_n	france_n	scotland_n	spain_n	3,662	5	10.5347	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41307	Observations concerning the original and various forms of government as described, viz. 1st. Upon Aristotles politiques. 2d. Mr. Hobbs's Laviathan. 3d. Mr. Milton against Salmatius. 4th. Hugo Grotius De jure bello. 5th. Mr. Hunton's Treatise of monarchy, or the nature of a limited or mixed monarchy / by the learned Sir R. Filmer, Barronet ; to which is added the power of kings ; with directions for obedience to government in dangerous and doubtful times.	Filmer, Robert, Sir, d. 1653.	1696 (1696)	Wing F920; ESTC R32803	252,891	546

Estates But to the contrary His Majesty thereby to be much the Greater and the more Honourable seeing all His People to acknowledge Him for their Soveraign We see the principal Point of Soveraign Majesty and Absolute Power to consist principally in giving Laws unto the Subjects without their Consent It behoveth that the Soveraign Prince should have the Laws in his Power to Change and Amend them according as Occasion shall require In a Monarchy every one in particular must swear to the Observation of the Laws and their Allegiance to One Soveraign Monarch who next unto God of whom he holds his Scepter and Power is bound to No Man For an Oath carrieth always with it Reverence unto whom and in whose Name it is made as still given to a Superiour and therefore the Vassal gives such Oath unto his Lord but receives None from Him again though they be mutually Bound the One of them to the Other Trajan swore to keep the Laws although he under the name of a Soveraign Prince was exempted but never any of the Emperours before him so sware Therefore Pliny the Younger in a Panegyrical Oration speaking of the Oath of Trajan gives out A great Novelty saith he and never before heard of He sweareth by whom we swear Of these two things the one must come to pass to wit the Prince that swears to keep the Laws of his Country must either not have the Soveraignty or else become a Perjur'd Man if he should Abrogate but one Law contrary to his Oath whereas it is not only Profitable that a Prince should sometimes Abrogate some such Laws but also Necessary for him to Alter or Correct them as the infinite Variety of Places Times and Persons shall require Or if we shall say the Prince to be still a Soveraign and yet nevertheless with such conditions that he can make no Law without the Advice of his Councel or People He must also be Dispensed with by his Subjects for the Oath which he hath made for the Observation of the Laws and the Subjects again which are obliged to the Laws have also need to be Dispensed withal by their Prince for fear they should be Perjur'd So shall it come to pass that the Majesty of the Commonweal enclining now to this side now to that side sometimes the Prince sometimes the People bearing sway shall have no Certainty to rest upon which are notable Absurdities and altogether incompatible with the Majesty of Absolute Soveraignty and contrary both to Law and Reason And yet we see many men that think they see more in the matter than others will maintain it to be most Necessary that Princes should be bound by Oath to keep the Laws and Customs of their Countreys In which doing they weaken and overthrow all the Rights of Soveraign Majesty which ought to be most Sacred and Holy and confound the Soveraignty of One Soveraign Monarch with an Aristocracy or Democracy Publication or Approbation of Laws in the Assembly of the Estates or Parliament is with us of great importance for the keeping of the Laws not that the Prince cannot of himself make a Law without the Consent of the Estates or People for even all his Declarations of War Treaties of Peace Valuations of the Coin Charters to enable Towns to send Burgesses to Parliament and his Writ of Summons to both Houses to Assemble are Laws though made without the Consent of the Estates or People but it is a Courteous part to do it by the good liking of the Senate What if a Prince by Law forbid to Kill or Steal is he not Bound to obey his own Laws I say that this Law is not His but the Law of God whereunto all Princes are more straitly bound than their Subjects God taketh a stricter account of Princes than others as Solomon a King hath said whereto agreeth Marcus Aurelius saying The Magistrates are Judges over private men Princes judge the Magistrates and God the Princes It is not only a Law of Nature but also oftentimes repeated among the Laws of God that we should be Obedient unto the Laws of such Princes as it hath pleased God to set to Rule and Reign over us if their Laws be not directly Repugnant unto the Laws of God whereunto all Princes are as well bound as their Subjects For as the Vassal oweth his Oath of Fidelity unto his Lord towards and against all men except his Soveraign Prince So the Subject oweth his Obedience to his Soveraign Prince towards and against all the Majesty of God excepted who is the Absolute Soveraign of All the Princes in the World To confound the state of Monarchy with the Popular or Aristocratical estate is a thing impossible and in effect incompatible and such as cannot be imagined For Soveraignty being of it self Indivisible How can it at one and the same time be Divided betwixt One Prince the Nobility and the People in common The first Mark of Soveraign Majesty is to be of Power to give Laws and to Command over them unto the Subjects And who should those Subjects be that should yield their Obedience to the Law if they should have also Power to make the Laws Who should He be that could Give the Law being he himself constrain'd to Receive it of them unto whom he himself Gave it So that of necessity we must conclude that as no One in particular hath the Power to make the Law in such a State that there the State must needs be Popular Never any Commonwealth hath been made of an Aristocracy and Popular Estate much less of all the Three Estates of a Commonwealth Such States wherein the Right of Soveraignty is Divided are not rightly to be called Commonweals but rather the Corruption of Commonweals as Herodotus hath most briefly but truly written Commonweals which change their State the Soveraign Right and Power of them being Divided find no rest from Civil Wars If the Prince be an Absolute Soveraign as are the true Monarchs of France of Spain of England Scotland Turkey Muscovy Tartary Persia Aethiopia India and almost of all the Kingdoms of Africk and Asia where the Kings themselves have the Soveraignty without all doubt or question not Divided with their Subjects In this case it is not lawful for any One of the Subjects in particular or all of them in general to attempt any thing either by way of Fact or of Justice against the Honour Life or Dignity of the Soveraign albeit he had committed all the Wickedness Impiety and Cruelty that could be spoke For as to proceed against Him by way of Justice the Subject hath not such Jurisdiction over his Soveraign Prince of whom dependeth all Power to Command and who may not only Revoke all the Power of his Magistrates but even in whose Presence the Power of all Magistrates Corporations Estates and Communities cease Now if it be not lawful for the Subject by the way of Justice to proceed against a King How should it then be

they are necessitated to relinquish that Supreme Power which they think they exercise and to delegate it to a few There are two Parts of the Supreme Power the Legislative and the Executive neither of these can a great Assembly truly act If a new Law be to be made it may in the General receive the Proposal of it from one or more of the General Assembly but the forming penning or framing it into a Law is committed to a few because a great number of Persons cannot without tedious and dilatory Debates examine the Benefits and Mischiefs of a Law Thus in the very first Beginning the Intention of a General Assembly is frustrated then after a Law is penned or framed when it comes to be questioned whether it shall pass or nay though it be Voted in a full Assembly yet by the Rules of the Assembly they are all so tied up and barred from a free and full Debate that when any man hath given the Reasons of his Opinion if those Reasons be argued against he is not permitted to reply in Justification or Explanation of them but when he hath once spoken he must be heard no more which is a main Denial of that Freedom of Debate for which the great Assembly is alledged to be ordained in the high Point of Legislative Power The same may be said touching the Executive Power if a cause be brought before a great Assembly the first thing done is to refer or commit it to some few of the Assembly who are trusted with the examining the Proofs and Witnesses and to make Report to the General Assembly who upon the Report proceed to give their Judgments without any publick hearing or interrogating the Witnesses upon whose Testimonies diligently examined every man that will pass a conscientious Judgment is to rely Thus the Legislative and Executive Power are never truly practised in a great Assembly the true Reason whereof is if Freedom be given to Debate never any thing could be agreed upon without endless Disputes meer Necessity compels to refer main Transactions of Business to particular Congregations and Committees Those Governments that seem to be popular are kinds of petty Monarchies which may thus appear Government is a Relation between the Governours and the governed the one cannot be without the other mutuò se ponunt auferunt where a Command or Law proceeds from a major part there those individual Persons that concurred in the Vote are the Governours because the Law is only their Will in particular the Power of a major Part being a contingent or casual thing expires in the very Act it self of Voting which Power of a major Part is grounded upon a Supposition that they are the stronger Part when the Vote is past these Votes which are the major Part return again and are incorporated into the whole Assembly and are buried as it were in that Lump and no otherwise considered the Act or Law ordained by such a Vote loseth the Makers of it before it comes to be obeyed for when it comes to be put in Execution it becomes the Will of those who enjoyn it and force Obedience to it not by Virtue of any Power derived from the Makers of the Law No man can say that during the Reign of the late Queen Elizabeth that King Henry the Eighth or Edward the Sixth did govern although that many of the Laws that were made in those two former Princes times were observed and executed under her Government but those Laws though made by her Predecessours yet became the Laws of her present Government who willed and commanded the Execution of them and had the same Power to correct interpret or mitigate them which the first Makers of them had every Law must always have some present known Person in Being whose Will it must be to make it a Law for the Present this cannot be said of the major Part of any Assembly because that major part instantly ceaseth as soon as ever it hath voted an infallible Argument whereof is this that the same major part after the Vote given hath no Power to correct alter or mitigate it or to Cause it to be put in Execution so that he that shall act or cause that Law to be executed makes himself the Commander or willer of it which was originally the Will of others It is said by Mr. Hobs in his Leviathan page 141. Nothing is Law where the Legislator cannot be known for there must be manifest Signs that it proceedeth from the Will of the Sovereign there is requisite not only a Declaration of the Law but also sufficient Signs of the Author and the Authority That Senate or great Council wherein it is conceived the Supreme or Legislative Power doth rest consists of those Persons who are actually Subjects at the very same time wherein they exercise their Legislative Power and at the same instant may be guilty of breaking one Law whilst they are making another Law for it is not the whole and entire Will of every particular Person in the Assembly but that part only of his Will which accidentally falls out to concur with the Will of the greater part So that the Sharers of the Legislative Power have each of them perhaps not a hundredth part of the Legislative Power which in it self is indivisible and that not in Act but in Possibility only in one particular Point for that Moment whilst they give their Vote To close this Point which may seem strange and new to some I will produce the Judgment of Bodin in his sixth Book of a Commonweal and the fourth Chapter his words are The chief Point of a Commonweal which is the Right of Sovereignty cannot be nor insist to speak properly but in Monarchy for none can be Sovereign in a Commonweal but one alone if they be two or three or more no one is Sovereign for that no one of them can give or take a Law from his Companion and although we imagine a Body of many Lords or of a whole People to hold the Sovereignty yet hath it no true Ground nor Support if there be not a Head with absolute Power to unite them together which a simple Magistrate without Sovereign Authority cannot do And if it chance that the Lords or Tribes of the People be divided as it often falls out then must they fall to Arms one against another and although the greatest part be of one Opinion yet may it so happen as the lesser part having many Legions and making a Head may oppose it self against the greater Number and get the Victory We see the Difficulties which are and always have been in popular Estates whereas they hold contrary Parts and for divers Magistrates some demand Peace others War some will have this Law others that some will have one Commander others another some will treat a League with the King of France others with the King of Spain corrupted or drawn some one Way some another making open War as hath been

by any Rules of Reason or of State Examine his Actions without a distempered Judgment and you will not Condemn him to be exceeding either Insufficient or Evil weigh the Imputations that were objected against him and you shall find nothing either of any Truth or of great moment Hollingshed writeth That he was most Unthankfully used by his Subjects for although through the frailty of his Youth he demeaned himself more dissolutely than was agreeable to the Royalty of his Estate yet in no Kings Days were the Commons in greater Wealth the Nobility more honoured and the Clergy less wronged who notwithstanding in the Evil-guided Strength of their will took head against him to their own headlong destruction afterwards partly during the Reign of Henry his next Successor whose greatest Atchievements were against his own People in Executing those who Conspired with him against King Richard But more especially in succeeding times when upon occasion of this Disorder more English Blood was spent than was in all the Foreign Wars together which have been since the Conquest Twice hath this Kingdom been miserably wasted with Civil War but neither of them occasioned by the Tyranny of any Prince The Cause of the Barons Wars is by good Historians attributed to the stubbornness of the Nobility as the Bloody variance of the Houses of York and Lancaster and the late Rebellion sprung from the Wantonness of the People These three Unnatural Wars have dishonoured our Nation amongst Strangers so that in the Censures of Kingdoms the King of Spain is said to be the King of Men because of his Subjects willing Obedience the King of France King of Asses because of their infinite Taxes and Impositions but the King of England is said to be the King of Devils because of his Subjects often Insurrections against and Depositions of their Princes CHAP. III. Positive Laws do not infringe the Natural and Fatherly Power of Kings 1. REgal Authority not subject to the Positive Laws Kings before Laws the King of Judah and Israel not tyed to Laws 2. Of Samuel's description of a King 1 Sam. 8. 3. The Power ascribed unto Kings in the New Testament 4. Whether Laws were invented to bridle Tyrants 5. The Benefit of Laws 6. Kings keep the Laws though not bound by the Laws 7. Of the Oaths of Kings 8. Of the Benefit of the King's Prerogative over Laws 9. the King the Author the Interpreter and Corrector of the Common Laws 10. The King Judge in all Causes both before the Conquest and since 11. The King and his Council have anciently determined Causes in the Star-Chamber 12. Of Parliaments 13. When the People were first called to Parliament 14. The Liberty of Parliaments not from Nature but from Grace of the Princes 15. The King alone makes Laws in Parliament 16. Governs both Houses as Head by himself 17. By his Council 18. By his Judges 1. HItherto I have endeavoured to shew the Natural Institution of Regal Authority and to free it from Subjection to an Arbitrary Election of the People It is necessary also to enquire whether Humane Laws have a Superiority over Princes because those that maintain the Acquisition of Royal Jurisdiction from the People do subject the Exercise of it to Positive Laws But in this also they err for as Kingly Power is by the Law of God so it hath no inferiour Law to limit it The Father of a Family governs by no other Law than by his own Will not by the Laws and Wills of his Sons or Servants There is no Nation that allows Children any Action or Remedy for being unjustly Governed and yet for all this every Father is bound by the Law of Nature to do his best for the preservation of his Family but much more is a King always tyed by the same Law of Nature to keep this general Ground That the safety of the Kingdom be his Chief Law He must remember That the Profit of every Man in particular and of all together in general is not always one and the same and that the Publick is to be preferred before the Private And that the force of Laws must not be so great as natural Equity it self which cannot fully be comprised in any Laws whatsoever but is to be left to the Religious Atchievement of those who know how to manage the Affairs of State and wisely to Ballance the particular Profit with the Counterpoize of the Publick according to the infinite variety of Times Places Persons a Proof unanswerable for the superiority of Princes above Laws is this That there were Kings long before there were any Laws For a long time the Word of a King was the only Law and if Practice as saith Sir Walter Raleigh declare the Greatness of Authority even the best Kings of Judah and Israel were not tied to any Law but they did whatsoever they pleased in the greatest Matters 2. The Unlimited Jurisdiction of Kings is so amply described by Samuel that it hath given Occasion to some to imagine that it was but either a Plot or Trick of Samuel to keep the Government himself and Family by frighting the Israelites with the Mischiefs in Monarchy or else a prophetical Description only of the future ill Government of Saul But the Vanity of these Conjectures are judiciously discovered in that Majestical Discourse of the true Law of free Monarchy wherein it is evidently shewed that the Scope of Samuel was to teach the People a dutiful Obedience to their King even in those things which themselves did esteem Mischievous and Inconvenient for by telling them what a King would do he indeed instructs them what a Subject must suffer yet not so that it is Right for Kings to do Injury but it is Right for them to go Unpunished by the People if they do it So that in this Point it is all one whether Samuel describe a King or a Tyrant for Patient Obedience is due to both no Remedy in the Text against Tyrants but in crying and praying unto God in that Day But howsoever in a Rigorous Construction Samuel's description be applyed to a Tyrant yet the Words by a Benigne Interpretation may agree with the manners of a Just King and the Scope and Coherence of the Text doth best imply the more Moderate or Qualified Sense of the Words for as Sir W. Raleigh confesses all those Inconveniences and Miseries which are reckoned by Samuel as belonging to Kingly Government were not Intollerable but such as have been born and are still born by free Consent of Subjects towards their Princes Nay at this day and in this Land many Tenants by their Tenures and Services are tyed to the same Subjection even to Subordinate and Inferiour Lords To serve the King in his Wars and to till his Ground is not only agreeable to the Nature of Subjects but much desired by them according to their several Births and Conditions The like may be said for the Offices of Women-Servants Confectioners Cooks and Bakers for