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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A52600 Offices and places of trust not to be boucht [sic] or sold, or given to insufficient persons discovered in a sober and peaceable letter. E. N. 1660 (1660) Wing N15; ESTC R9696 11,233 16

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OFFICES AND PLACES OF TRUST NOT TO BE BOU●HT or SOLD OR GIVEN TO INSUFFICIENT PERSONS Discovered in a sober and Peaceable LETTER LONDON Printed for Richard Marriot and are to be sold at his shop in St. Dunstans Church-yard Fleetstreet 1660. The Publisher to the Reader READER THere are vitia temporis as well as vitia hominis Therefore the following Tetter coming casually to my hands and I conceiving it to be bent against crimes and peccancies which no time wants and not at all against persons high or low did resolve to endeavour to make it publick the rather because I perceive the Author cites Authority almost for every paragraph of it which thou mayst examine and believe or not believe as thou findest the quotations true or false I confidently presume I doe His Sacred Majesty service hereby for to have the Law duly executed will much conduce to His Majesties honour and stop the mouths of gainsayers and murmurers if any such should be against His Highness Government I really tell thee that I believe the Authors end to be honest and sincere and therefore it is that thou hast this trouble from me and for my part thou mayst assure thy self that I have no higher end in it then faithfully to serve His Majesty and his Realmes take it therefore in good part from Thy humble servant N. Y. 20. Sept. 1660. SIR BEfore I answer your Question I shall according to my best memory and skill within that little stint of time to which I am limited by you give you my judgement how the Law expects the qualifications of all those who are to be subordinate Magistrates Officers and Deputies under His Majesty in the managery of His Government and Administration of Justice to be and because I tell you what the Law expects they should be I do thereby omit to tell you what the Law of God saith they should be but refer you to the 17. Exod. 19. c. touching Jethroes Counsell to Moses and the 1 Deut. 9. c. which duely compared with our Law in this respect you shall find this to be the daughter if not the first-born of that attended with the auxiliary force of Divines Philosophers Moralists yea Pagans and Heathens in generall that retain any thing of the first pure impresses of nature upon them and are not quite immersed in forlorn and barren Rusticity and Barbarisme And because Cicero in his first book of Offices saith that every orderly discourse debet à definitione proficisci I shall begin with such definition or description that the Law only gives of an Office or subordinate Magistracy and then proceed according to my purpose * Plowd 380. Plowden a very learned Lawyer tells us That an Office is a thing to be exercised by the body of a Man Another † Finches Law fol. 162. But an Officer is described to be One who receiveth by publick Authority the Charge and over-sight of humane affaires belonging to the Common-wealth Lawyer of great esteem saith An Office is a duty of Attendance upon a Charge Sig de Jur. Rom. lib. 1. c. 20. This being the nature of an Office or Charge the Law tells us the person or persons that must attend it ought be Habiles idonei pares Negotiis As Co. lib. 8. f. 41. b. 1. They ought to be honest 2. Knowing and capable 3. Able 4. Diligent 12. R. 2. cap. 2. 2. They ought to come to their Imployments and Offices sine praemio sine precio sine prece c. 2 Instit f. 32. 3. They ought to be a grace to the place and not the place a grace to them Now the right choice of Officers and subordinate Ministers of State according to these qualifications will very much promote the happiness of the Kingdom for it will be the principle as well as the duty of such men to advance the Administration of Justice 14 Prov. 34. and Justice or Righteousness as the wise man saith exalteth a Nation And if these Praecognita be not observed in their choice but that either money or wry and warping affection shall sway in this Case each of which the Law accounts Turpis Consideratio for quilibet tonetur magis recompensare virtuoso quam Amico aut venundatori Then may it be said to us as once Ingurtha said to Rome Co. lit 234. Vade venalis Civitas mox peritura si emptorem invenias and it is observed by the Lord Coke out of Aerod fol. 353. Aerod 553. That nulla alia re magis Romana Respublica interiit quam quod Magistratus Officia venalia erant It is most true that if Offices and Places of Trust in any Nation should be given to men not qualified for them or sold as it were in the market for the utmost penny or for any money at all in truth this would be a bar to all generous endeavours for who would industriously and strenuously betake himself to any ingenious Art or Profession if money or squint-affection shall preponderate true worth friends or money then will do that which paines learning and long experience which is the Oracle of time and is indeed gotten by length of time and variety of occurrences shall never be able to compasse without them these are the fodder of the Bruitish or sensuall part of man but not his purest earthly nutriment much less his Heavenly one and it is the fate of wise men often to be poor and I cannot call it their fault to be modest they are poor they cannot buy they are modest they will not buy because they conceive merit over-weighs money or friendship in wise mens esteem And now give me leave to transpose the order I first began with and to bring instances from History and other Authorities before I come to give you the verdict of our Common and Statute Lawes of England in this Case and I pray pretermit my hasty faults of want of due order in what I offer and be pleased to heed the matter proposed and its weight above a regular School-method which I affect but have not time to observe nor in truth do I esteem it of pure necessity but among extreme Criticks if things be but clearly offered to the Readers understanding It is observed by an Historian Turkish History fol. 227 as an Excellent quality in Tamerlane the great and Commander of the Tartars That he bestowed his preferments not on those that ambitiously sought the same for such he deemed unworthy but on such as whose modesty and desert he thought worthy of those his great favours And the Historian observes further that the services of his servants he never forgot he kept a Catalogue of their Names and good Deserts and that day was lost with him wherein he had not GIVEN something to such This Noble Scythian for such he was by Nation not only observ'd but searched our desert kept a Catalogue of Deserving men perused it every day