Page:A Declaration of the People's Natural Right to a Share in the Legislature (1775) (IA declarationofpeo00shar).djvu/228

put to death for their time-serving, yet it appears, by this account of Lord Coke, that, when they presumed to dispense with the interposition of Juries, they acted by the express Authority of a Statute, or Act of Parliament; and, though they were Time-servers, so far as to acquiesce (contrary to their Duty, as Judges) in enforcing that wicked and unconstitutional Statute, (which exceeded the due bounds to which the English Legislature is necessarily limited,) yet, it seems, they adjudged no penalties, in consequence thereof, but such as “the Statutes, not repealed, imposed.” And it is plain, therefore, that the crime of those two Judges (against which Lord Coke mentioned “the FEARFUL END of those two time-servers,” as a warning to all future Judges) consisted in allowing the force of Law to a wicked unconstitutional Act of Parliament, by which “a FUNDAMENTAL LAW of this realm” (