Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	great_a	law_n	time_n	2,905	5	3.2500	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38463	The Englishman, or, A letter from a universal friend, perswading all sober Protestants to hearty and sincere love of one another, and a unanimous claim of their antient and undoubted rights, according to the law of the land, as the best means of their safety with some observations upon the late act against conventicles.	Universal friend.	1670 (1670)	Wing E3097; ESTC R11893	11,137	15

as him that suffers and the stealing away the shoulder from this common burthen hath been that that hath most encouraged Persecuting Spirits in all times rendred the load more heavy on the backs of some and continued it longer upon all You see how excellent the Commands of God are and that in keeping of them there is great reward even safety and security here but lest there should be any that mind neither the Lord nor his Commands I will add for our farther encouragement That the Fundamental Law of the Land will bear us out in our oebdience to the Fundamental Law of the Gospel And if we are defended in our Duty both by Law and Gospel surely Persecuting Spirits will have enough to do to break through both and may at the end peradventure see That no attempts against Gods People shall prosper And truly it is our happiness that the Providence of God hath cast our lot to live in a Land where the Fundamental Laws thereof run right with and just to the Fundamental Laws of our Religion and that in standing faithful to the one we stand faithful and are justified by the other also so that none can object against us that they are incoherent or we so in our standing for them For I beseech you Friends consider We hold by one common Tenure all the Humane Interest that we have and the only Security we have for the holding thereof is the Fundamental Law If this Secucurity be violated upon any one our Lives Liberties and Properties are Invaded by that violation as well as his to whom the violation is done For he had the same Fence to secure his Freedom as we and that fence being broken we have no more security than him Our keeping up therefore this Fundamental Law as the Fence or Bank against the Sea is the alone and only way to preserve the whole or otherwise through the Breach thereof my Right though seeming more remote will be destroyed as well as his that lyeth next it and I cannot keep up this Fence but by defending the right of him that is violated as my own and my defending his Right as my own is my Loving my Neighbour as my self And as it was good for us that we had such forefathees as laid for as such foundations of Liberty as cannot be shaken or removed for if they could experience tells that long ago we might have been made instead of free-born English men as slaves in Turkey So it were good we would value prize and be so tenacious of these Fundamentals that have preserved our Lives Liberties and Properties to us as we may deliver them entire to our Posterities as that which is their only Security of their Earthly All. For This is the strong man armed that keepeth not only the house and goods but the good man himself and all he hath from spoiling For our Fundamental Laws are not only Laws themselves but the Rule and Standard of all future Laws and that which is the Judge of Laws in order to the securing our Liberties and Freedoms or else where were our Foundation For if an Act of Parliament could pull it up it had never lain to this day That this is clear you may see in the Case of Dudley and Empson For Dudley and Empson had an Act of Parliament to justifie their proceedings yet could not that Act of Parliament justifie either them or it self for that being made as this Act against Conventicles directly against our Fundamental Laws and our English Rights by impowring Dudly and Empson as this Act doth the Justices of Peace to Examine and determine English-men without Legal Process and Judgment of their Peers which is one of our great Fundamentals they not only Condemned Dudley and Empson but the Act it self as Illegal and good Reason for how otherwise could Dudley and Empson ere have been hanged since they had a Law of King Lords and Commons to defend them unless the Law it self pardon the manner of speaking had been Illegal And how could a Law of King Lords and Commons be Illegal if there were not a Measure and Standard of the very Laws themselves that made and judged it so and what Standard could that be could so judge it but our Fundamentals against which it was made But that I may not seem to beg so Great a Question upon which no less than all we have as English-men depends I will give you one clear Proof which may very well serve for many for it is the acknowledgment of King Lords and People upon the very point I am upon and in that very sence I urge it that you may see that this is no Novelty but was the declared Opinion of all England for above four hundred years ago which at that time as the Lord Cooke and others was but in affirmance of our then most Antient Fundamental Laws and it is the Anathema administred in the great Hall at Westminster at the Restoring and Confirmation of Magna Charta the third of May in the Year of our Lord 1253 King Lords and People being present consenting to it The words are these We Excommunicate Accurse and from the Benefit of Holy Church Sequester all that secretly or openly by Déed Wordor Counsel do make Statutes pray mark or observe Them being made or that bring in Customs or that kéep Them being brought in against the said Liberties of MAGNA CHARTA the Writers Lawmakers observe I beseech you Councellors and the Executors of them and all those that shall presume to Iudge against them These are not dark nor mysterious terms that will admit of divers Constructions but plain sound Words not subject to mistakes or doubtings By which you see what I affirmed First that our Fundamentalls are the Standard and Touchstone of all Laws Secondly That the Legislative Power it self is tied up under a dreadful Curse from making any Statute or Law against them Thirdly If they should adventure to do it the People are obliged by the same Curse to disobey the Laws they make and to give obedience to Magna Charta as if that Law had never been made And what were this but to oblige the People to an impossibility Nay to destroy themselves if any Law could be made by any whomsoever to Null it Hereby you may see the Value our Ancestors put upon our English Liberty how jealous they were of it That for fear we should be deprived of the true enjoyment thereof they would not trust their very Parliaments no not under so solemn an Obligation with the keeping of them any further forth than if they kept them not it should be lawful for the People to disobey their Laws and rather choose to make every individual person thus the Judge of his Liberty than to lodge it in the absolute power of any to dispoyl them of it Knowing that that Liberty could but bring upon their Posterity little tumults and confusions for a season but the other would imbondage enslave and

destroy them for ever Keep we therefore to them as to the Common Safety and let them that run upon us by virtue of any Law made in in prejudice of them consider with themselves though as Empson and Dudley they may flatter for a time our Fundamental Laws will be too strong for them at last For it would nonplus any person to bring an Instance of any man out of War especially that ever brake our Fundamental Laws but that first or last it brake his Neck for the breach he made upon them On the contrary we read nothing more frequent in our English Annals than the cutting off Offenders for but endeavouring to subvert them and how could that be in all Ages unless we have some Fundamental Laws That it it is the highest Treason in any to so much as but endeavour to subvert and how soon would those Foundations be destroyed were it in the power of any to subvert them and what need would there be of such dilligence in allogenerations to preserve them from Subversion if the Publick Weal and Liberty of the whole were not concerned in them Where by the way you may observe how excellently the English Law words the Charge of High Treason in this Case in putting it in these Tearms Endeavouring to Subvert them For there is no such thing in Nature as the Real Subversion of them For our Fundamentals were not made by our Representatives but by the People themselves and our Representatives themselves limited by them which it were good that Parliaments as well as People would observe and be faithful to For no Derivative Power can Null what their Primetive Power hath Establish And as if our Forefathers thought they could never take too much care to deliver these Laws safely down to their Successors That although all persons concerned in the executive part of the Law are sosemnly and strictly sworn to its due Observance and all persons that shall make any Laws contrary to our Fundamental Laws or any that shall yeeld Obedience or Observe them being made heavily Cursed yet as if they thought they could never too sufficiently Secure them to us do further appoint and order That the Charter be delivered to every Sheriffe of England to be Read four times in the Year before the People in the full County And likewise to all Cathedrals there to remain to be Read to the People twice every Year So that if we have any regard to our own Safety or the Security and Happiness of Posterity we ought to have the same tender care and esteem thereof as they had The Law of England abhorreth nothing more than the Selling Denying or Delaying of Justice and Right and as much as possible removes all lyableness to any of these not leaving any thing of Life Liberty or Property to the Brests of Judge or Justices but all to be determined by the Judgment of our Peers or Equals against whom in all Cases there are Legal Exceptions and if wronged there lyeth an Attaint and whatever Practice or Practices though never so often or of long continuance may have made Encroachments and Violations hereupon and so are called Presidents and urged for Law We say with the Lord Chief Justice Bramston We are not to stand upon Presidents but upon the Fundamental Laws and though Presidents look the one way or the other they are to be brought back unto the Laws For that is the Standard to try whether they be right or counterfeit and all such being weighed in the Ballance of our Fundamental Laws will be found too Light Nor is their Objection against Fundamentals that urge its Nullity from the Disuse thereof of any more Reason than if I should plead the payment of a Bond from the forbearance of my Creditor We must look therefore to the Fundamental Laws of the Land as to the Inheritance our Fathers left us without which all our other Inheritances are nothing worth The Magistrates therefore ought to look not so much whether they act Regularly according to the late Act against Conventicles as whether the Act it self be Regular and according to the Fundamental Laws one of which expresly saith We cannot be Disseised of our Liberties Properties or any otherwise injured or destroyed but by the Lawful Iudgement of our Peers Wherefore let all Mayors Justices Constables Overseers Churchwardens and all other Officers that shall pull or hale away any part of our Liberties Goods or Properties by virtue of this Act that hath no virtue in it know not by way of threat but admonition that though we are willing to forgive them as Christians yet as English-men we cannot forgive them Nor will it be admitted for any Plea that they should have been fined themselves for the very Fines themselves in this Act are as irregular as the Act it self And to say truth all Laws that have need of such Fines and Mu●cts annexed unto them do carry in their very Front a suspition they are false and differing from our Fundamentals For good Laws and such as agree with our Foundations carry such Self-evidence and Conviction of the Publick utility of the whole that they need not the Spur of any Penalty to quicken the Execution of them Now to conclude It doth behove us to lay aside our little Differences and agree in some common Medium what can be found more effectually leading to this end than that of our Natural and Fundamental Rights contained in Magna Charta and other Monuments and Records of our Liberties wherein every person hath an equal Interest the one as the other So that though we cannot accord in all things as Christians yet we may agree as men and our agreement as Men will be a fair Step towards our accord as Christians For he sees but little that sees not that our breach of Humanity is one great cause of the breach of Christianity amongst us And as an incentive hereto permit me to add That if I have my Liberty as an English-man I will give any one leave to take away my Liberty as a Christian if he can because it is an utter impossiblity For if I have the Freedom of my Person to go where I will and do what I will so it be not against the Publick Peace nor to the Injury of others which is the Liberty of an Englishman I can hear and joyn in Worship with whom and where and when I will The enjoyment therefore of our English Rights is the broadest best and safest way to secure our Christian Rights whereas if we are deprived of those we cannot enjoy the freedom of these Since therefore we have so blessed a Medium as will secure the Interest of our inward as well as our outward man of our Christian as well as our English Rights and that to every one as well as to our selves and thereby making us truly capable of fulfilling the great and glorious Law of God of loving our Neighbours as our selves Let us be found my