§. 206. Secondly. But this privilege, belonging only to the king's person,
hinders not but they may be questioned, opposed, and resisted, who use unjust
force, though they pretend a commission from him which the law authorises not;
as is plain in the case of him that has the king's writ to arrest a man which
is a full commission from the king, and yet he that has it cannot break open a
man's house to do it, nor execute this command of the king upon certain days
nor in certain places, though this commission have no such exception in it; but
they are the limitations of the law, which, if any one transgress, the king's
commission excuses him not. For the king's authority being given him only by
the law, he cannot empower any one to act against the law, or justify him by
his commission in so doing. The commission or command of any magistrate where
he has no authority, being as void and insignificant as that of any private
man, the difference between the one and the other being that the magistrate has
some authority so far and to such ends, and the private man has none at all;
for it is not the commission but the authority that gives the right of acting,
and against the laws there can be no authority. But notwithstanding such
resistance, the king's person and authority are still both secured, and so no
danger to governor or government.
