Of other
ministerial and subordinate powers in a commonwealth we need not
speak, they being so multiplied with infinite variety in the different
customs and constitutions of distinct commonwealths, that it is
impossible to give a particular account of them all. Only thus much
which is necessary to our present purpose we may take notice of
concerning them, that they have no manner of authority, any of them,
beyond what is by positive grant and commission delegated to them, and
are all of them accountable to some other power in the commonwealth.
153. It is not necessary- no, nor so much as convenient- that the
legislative should be always in being; but absolutely necessary that
the executive power should, because there is not always need of new
laws to be made, but always need of execution of the laws that are
made. When the legislative hath put the execution of the laws they
make into other hands, they have a power still to resume it out of
those hands when they find cause, and to punish for any
mal-administration against the laws. The same holds also in regard
of the federative power, that and the executive being both ministerial
and subordinate to the legislative, which, as has been shown, in a
constituted commonwealth is the supreme, the legislative also in
this case being supposed to consist of several persons; for if it be a
single person it cannot but be always in being, and so will, as
supreme, naturally have the supreme executive power, together with the
legislative, may assemble and exercise their legislative at the
times that either their original constitution or their own adjournment
appoints, or when they please, if neither of these hath appointed
any time, or there be no other way prescribed to convoke them.
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