The bill of rights contained only one clause extending rather beyond the propositions laid down in the declaration. This relates to the dispensing power, which the Lords had been unwilling absolutely to condemn. They softened the general assertion of its illegality sent up from the other house, by inserting the words "as it has been exercised of late."[154] In the bill of rights therefore a clause was introduced, that no dispensation by non obstante to any statute should be allowed, except in such cases as should be specially provided for by a bill to be passed during the present session. This reservation went to satisfy the scruples of the Lords, who did not agree without difficulty to the complete abolition of a prerogative, so long recognised, and in many cases so convenient.[155] But the palpable danger of permitting it to exist in its indefinite state, subject to the interpretation of time-serving judges, prevailed with the Commons over this consideration of conveniency; and though in the next parliament the judges were ordered by the House of Lords to draw a bill for the king's dispensing in such cases wherein they should find it necessary, and for abrogating such laws as had been usually dispensed with and were become useless, the subject seems to have received no further attention.[156] Except in this article of the dispensing prerogative, we cannot say, on comparing the bill of rights with what is proved to be the law by statutes, or generally esteemed to be such on the authority of our best writers, that it took away any legal power of the Crown, or enlarged the limits of popular and parliamentary privilege. The most questionable proposition, though at the same time one of the most important, was that which asserts the illegality of a standing army in time of peace, unless with consent of parliament. It seems difficult to perceive in what respect this infringed on any private man's right, or by what clear reason (for no statute could be pretended) the king was debarred from enlisting soldiers by voluntary contract for the defence of his dominions, especially after an express law had declared the sole power over the militia, without giving any definition of that word, to reside in the Crown. This had never been expressly maintained by Charles II.'s parliaments; though the general repugnance of the nation to what was certainly an innovation might have provoked a body of men, who did not always measure their words, to declare its illegality.[157] It was however at least unconstitutional, by which, as distinguished from illegal, I mean a novelty of much importance, tending to endanger the established laws. And it is manifest that the king could never inflict penalties by martial law, or generally by any other course, on his troops, nor quarter them on the inhabitants, nor cause them to interfere with the civil authorities; so that, even if the proposition so absolutely expressed may be somewhat too wide, it