Means to prevent it Memory is a Natural Faculty of Great Use in all Humane Transactions but Especially in Government and that in the Lowest degrees of it For it is the duty of a Magistrate to Execute Laws not to make them and he is to have an Eye to the matter of Fact at the same time too now he that hath such a defect in that Faculty that he can neither remember the Law which is to Direct him nor the matter of Fact to which it is to be applied is certainly very unfit to be a judge and so in Proportion in all the intermediate degrees of it The Office of a Justice of the Peace is very diffused and comprehends in it a vast Number and Variety of things and it will consequently require a good Memory to tell presently whether any particular case be within his Jurisdiction or No. Mr. Lambard complained in his time and that is near a hundred years ago that there were Stacks of Statutes imposed upon them to take care of and the Number is now perhaps double to what it was then So that in this respect also it is Necessary that he who Undertakes this Office should be a Man of a good strong Memory If any man doubts the truth of this he will find upon trial that no humane Memory how great soever it be can perfectly comprehend all the particulars Exactly and that it will be Necessary to have frequent recourse to the Books Especially in Statute Cases without which many and great Errors must of Necessity be committed so that the Prudence of a Magistrate doth consist in a great degree in not Trusting too much to his Memory But then that shews a Necessity of having that useful Faculty to a good degree SECTION III. THere are three other Accidental qualifications which are of great use and would be considered A Competent Estate a good Reputation and a tolerable good Education and Learning The Justice of the Peace enters upon an imployment that will occasion him much loss of Time some Expence and many Enemies and after all will afford him little or nothing towards the bearing these inconveniences but a little unprofitable Honour attended with much envy and had therefore need before-hand be provided of a competent Estate at least to support him in that imployment or else he will suddainly repent what he indiscreetly undertook and it may be intail the Mischief upon his Family who will remember his honour with small complacency when they reflect upon his debts occasioned by it Nor will he and his Family be the only Sufferers the Country will and must bear a part in it too Men of small Estates are very often of Mean spirits and dare not do their Duties where they Expect opposition and have great and rich men to deal with and so betray Justice not for want of Skill or Honesty but of Courage to undertake and go thro with it Besides their Poverty will Expose them to great Temptations of Bribery and tho the profit that can come by it is very inconsiderable yet the mischief that will attend it is not so for the perverting Justice in the smallest instance is a great Dishonour and Damage to a Country and the meaner the cause the greater the infamy the Meaner the People are that are injured the greater the Clamour But of all men those that are much indebted are the least fit for that both the Creditor and his Friends must too often be gratified by the wretched man at the Expence of his Oath his Integrity his Honour and his Justice and all occasions must be sought for this too that the World may see how great a power the Rich Clown hath upon his Worship For these causes there was an Act of Parliament made some Ages since which is as followeth WHereas by Statutes made in the time of the Kings noble Progenitors it was Ordained That in every County of England Justices should be assigned of the most Worthy of the same Counties to keep the Peace and to do other things as in the same Statutes fully is Contained Which Statutes notwithstanding now of late in many Counties of England the greatest Number have beén Deputed and Assigned which before this were not wont to be whereof some be of small that is ill Behaviour by whom the People will not be governed nor ruled and some for their Necessity do great Extortion and Oppression upon the People whereof great inconveniences be likely to rise daily if the King thereof do not provide remedy The King willing against such inconveniences to provide remedy hath Ordained and Established by Authority aforesaid That no Justice of Peace within the Realm of England in any County shall be assigned or deputed if he have not Lands or Tenements to the Value of 20 l. by the year and if any be Ordained hereafter c. which have not Lands or Tenements to the Value aforesaid that he thereof shall give Knowledg to the Chancellor of England for the time being which shall put another sufficient in his place and if he give not the same knowledg as before within a Moneth after that he have notice of such Commission or if he sit or make any Warrant or Precept by force of such Commission he shall incur the penalty of 20 l. and nevertheless be put out of the Commission as before c. But this Act Extends not to Corporations and also Provided That if there be not sufficient persons having Lands and Tenements to the Value aforesaid Learned in the Law and of Good Governance within any such County That the Lord Chancellor of England for the time being shall have power to put other discreét Persons Learned in the Law in such Commissions tho they have not Lands or Tenements to the value aforesaid by his discretion The 18 H. 6. cap. 11. I have transcribed this Statute almost at large because it makes so lively a description of the inconveniences and takes so exact a care to prevent them and it is to be observed That xx l. by the Year at the making of this Statute was a Knights fee and that they would trust to Nothing but an Apparent Visible Estate for it must be in Lands or Tenements and yet was there not then the Hundredth part of that business committed to Justices then there is now and their Expences that were consequently much less and tho in case of Necessity some Lawyers of a less Estate were Admitted yet this was out of pure Necessity in those ignorant Times and then they were to be men of Good Governance that is of a Good Reputation for their Lives and Integrity and such men in those time might by their Professions be able to spend with men of good Estates But two inconveniences have arisen in our Times that were not in being then The first is That Men of great Estate do too commonly leave the Country and spend their times and Estates in London and other great Cities in perfect
Love of the People by Virtue and Extinguish these Factions by a severe and constant Execution of our Laws as I said before but however this they may be certain of the Enemies of the established Religion are their Irreconcileable and Sworn Enemies And this brings me to the third Thing necessary to be known viz. The several Factions we have amongst us and how to Govern them Which I reckon to be three the Popish the Puritan and the Common-wealth Party which is made up of Men of all Religions in pretence tho in the Bottom they may be suspected to have none Popery was once the Sole Religion of England Popery and altho they were well disposed to throw it off by the Exactions and Oppressions of the Court of Rome in the days of Henry the 2d and King John as appears by the Complaints made of them in the Reign of Richard the 2d and at other times in Parliament yet when Henry the 8th resolved to Extinguish the Pope's Supremacy by an Oath many stuck so heartily to it that they Suffered Death of whom Sir Thomas Moore was the Chief who had been Lord Chancellor of England and besides that Prince maintained the greatest part of the Popish Doctrine intire to his last breath Edward the 6th reformed the Doctrine too but he Lived not long and Queen Mary his Successor threw all things back again into their former state and reconciled her Self and the Nation to the Pope Queen Elizabeth on the other side fallowed the Example of her Brother and settled the Religion as now it stands but then these irregular Motions kept mens Minds in great Suspence so that they knew not what to think and some men had changed so often to Comply with their Princes that at last they were ashamed to change any more and so Continued Papists in Queen Elizabeths time tho they had been Protestants in the Reign of Edward the 6th Others imbraced the Protestant Religion then with a resolution to desert it again if the Times Changed but their Children became sincere and they died in that Profession when they never had any occasion to alter it with Safety And many thro Prejudice and Education and for Want of Means and Ability to Examine things Continued in the Popish Religion but yet the greatest part of the Nation took up an hearty Aversion for it out of a detestation of the Cruelty they had seen used in the Reigns of Henry the 8th and Queen Mary and of the Treacheries they had seen practised against Queen Elizabeth whom they infinitely Loved and Admired And indeed the Length and Prosperity of her Reign had in all Probability put an End to that Faction in England if two things had not kept up their hopes and revived it The first of which was their Expectation that Mary Queen of the Scots would have succeeded her in the Throne who was true to them and when this was Cut off by her death tho that was a long time after yet they still flattered themselves some other person of their Perswasion would inherit her Crown and put an end to their Sufferings And the truth is it is the Nature of Mankind to hope for Extraordinary assistances from God especially when they suffer for Religion and this is it that maketh it so difficult to Extirpate those Factions that are built upon that pretence The second thing that tended to uphold Popery in England was the Policy of Philip the 2d King of Spain who to revenge the Assistance the Queen lent his Subjects in Flanders then in a War with him built several Colledges at Doway and other places for such Priests and Jesuits as fled over to him out of England and endowed them with some small Revenues and these made it their business to draw over as many of the English Youth as they could especially of the Nobility and Gentry and there they bred them up in an invincible hatred of the Religion by Law Established and Others they sent over with Orders to preach up Popery as much as they durst and had it not been for this there had been very few Papists left at that Queens death who reigned 44 Years Tho King James were infinitely disobliged by this Faction at his first coming to the Crown by the Powder-Plot and so made Severer Laws against them than Queen Elizabeth did yet neither were they Carefully Executed in his or his Sons times yet this Faction sensibly decreased and a great part of those that remained were ruined by the War and the late Plot in this King's time hath proved very effectual to bring off many more from that Opinion so that by one means or other it is become one of the most despicable Factions in this Nation and if the Blow had been well followed might perhaps have been intirely ruined Had Queen Elizabeths Methods been well pursued by all her Successors they must in likelyhood have been Extinguished but there was an Odd sort of Policy taken up which was to Slacken the Execution of the Laws against them that they might be a Counter-ballance to the Puritan Faction which produced two great Evils First They were so far from lending us any Assistance against the Dissenters that their Priests encreased the Number of them by Preaching up their Opinions and Adding to them as appears by a small Pamphlet called Foxes and Firebrands which proved they were the Fathers of Extemporary Prayers in Publick assemblies And by several other such Stratagems which they imployed against us Secondly These Dissenters made it their great business to inculcate into the Heads of the Rabble an Opinion That all the Lenity that was used towards the Papists proceeded from a Love to Popery which both made more Puritanes than there would otherwise have been and made them better thought of by the Rabble so that instead of Diminishing or Weakning that Faction it encreased it and added reputation to it and the Papists made the same use of it and drew over some Weak and Unsteady Souls to joyn with them so that our Enemies encreased on both sides but especially the Dissenters and this was all we ever did or can get by that Extravagant piece of Policy Besides all this the People will ever entertain jealous thoughts and be discontented at all those that ever so little favour the Papists and so long as there is any Number of them amongst us besides all the disquiet they give us the Factious Dissenters will take hold of that pretence to do us a mischief as time and opportunity serve So I conclude it is the Interest and Duty of all Magistrates to put the Laws against them Constantly and Vigorously in Execution and especially those against sending their Children beyond Sea to be bred in the Seminaries and Jesuites Colledges where they learn more Malice and more Skill than they could do in England And because this is a work of time it is their Duty in the interim to shew the People two things First That
these reliques of Popery are not in any Capacity of doing us any great mischief if we do not contribute to it by our own folly they being few in Number and generally hated Secondly That the Dissenters are never a Whit better than the Papists in many of their Opinions or Practices especially those that relate to Government and that tho they have ever declaimed most furiously against Popery yet they have always maintained under-hand a Correspondence with them and they have mutually helped one another to destroy us And even when the Dissenters knew it not have they been influenced by Popish Emissaries in disguise who inflamed their fiery Spirits during our late Rebellion and drove them to that height of Fury that they Murthered their Prince and an hundred thousand of their fellow Subjects with unheard of Barbarity and yet in the mean time little thought whose Agents they were and now the Secret is discovered they pursue the same design and lay all that is past to these Papists tho not one of a Thousand was so as all the World knows It were more ingenuous to Confess their Error and forsake all those Courses and Principles which gave the Jesuits opportunity and encouragement to push them on to such Lewd and Wicked Practices Before I was aware of it The Puritane Faction I am fallen upon the second Faction which is the Puritane this was at first all of a piece and all Pure Presbyterians but in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth began to subdivide and in the Late Rebellion they Crumbled into so many that they have now no common Ligament to Unite them but their hatred to the Religion by Law Established and Presbytery which gave them all life is now one of the smallest and most Contemptible amongst them The Rise of this was owing to the Marian Persecution for many of our Country-men especially the Clergy were by the fury of it forced to flee into Germany where some of them settled at Geneva Zurick and other Places which had imbraced Calvin's Method of Discipline and so became in Love with the Novelty of it others stuck to that which had been setled here in England in the Reign of Edward the 6th and this Caused a sharp Bickering betwixt them at Franckford in the Year 1554 in which they that stood for the English Liturgy at last prevailed Queen Mary dying soon after these too got the start of the Genevists in their return and the Queen who understood her own Interest very well Settled the Religion as now it stands Knowing that Presbytery was Calculated for Common-Wealths and destructive of the Rights of Soveraignity and Monarchy Yet She Advanced many of these men to Deanaries and inferior Dignities in the Church and they again so far Complyed with the Religion Established as not to make any open separation from it tho they were ever and anon Complaining of Ceremonies and humane Impositions The reason of their Compliance was because they had no great Party in England to back them and the Reasons why the Queen bore with them were the Want of Learned men to supply those Places their Zealous Preaching against Popery which was then the only Faction that was feared and the hopes many men had that in time they might become wiser In the first 9. Years of the Queens Reign the Papists as well as the Dissenters frequented our Churches and Liturgy and they began the Separation both at once and it is now apparent that Hallingham Coleman and Benson three of the first Puritan Separatists were Roman Priests in disguise As is undeniably proved by Dr. Stillingfleet in his Preface to the Vnreasonableness of Separation c. from that Pamphlet I lately mentioned called Foxes and Firebrands which was Published by Dr. Nalson and is in his First Voll of Historical Collections reprinted so that it is probable if these Romish Priests had not pushed things forward of Purpose to ruine us by Divisions this Faction might have expired with those men that brought it out of Germany But however there were two things recommended it The design of Extirpating Episcopacy made all those men favour it who had a mind to the Bishops Lands and had any hopes to possess themselves of them which were then Courtiers under the Queen and some Country Gentlemen Secondly The inferior Clergy who were ambitious and well conceited of their own ability were highly pleased to be infranchised from the Jurisdiction of the Bishops and with the Assistance of two Lay Brothers to govern all at their discretion and many of the Laity had a mighty conceit to be tampering with Church Discipline which the less they understood the better they thought they could manage it And Scotland Reforming at the same time the Queen who preferred any Religion before Popery suffered Presbytery to be settled there tho she might perhaps have prevented it at first And the intercourse that from thenceforward was betwixt the Scots and Us increased very much the Number of Our English Dissenters Having thus won Over in time a Considerable Number of the English to joyn with them and finding there was no probability to perswade that Queen to unsettle the Church again to introduce their Discipline and Perceiving they got small Advantages by Preaching they fell a Printing Libels against the Bishops and Church-Government and Ceremonies insolent Petitions to the Parliament and in Clandestine manner held great Meetings of their Party and in them resolved to set up their Discipline without Law and against the Queens Will and some of them attempted to raise Insurrections in London and were hanged for it and the rest prosecuted in the High Commission and other Ecclesiastical Courts So they got small Advantage during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth and not much more in King James his time his Majesty being perfectly well instructed in their Principles Practises and Tempers in Scotland by the Experience of what he and his Mother had suffered by them so dispairing of Prevailing by Art upon the Crown they Moulded themselves into a State Faction and by recommending their disciples and favorers to the People for Good-Commonwealth-men hoped in time to Force the Crown to vail to the Scepter of Jesus Christ as they Blasphemously call'd their Discipline by getting them into the House of Commons by which means they plagued King James and at last ruined his Son But these Good-Common-wealth-men when they had got what they aimed at had no more mind to submit to Presbytery than the King before them and there were such a powerful Quantity of Under-Suckers sprung up that it was not safe in the Uncertainty they were then in to disgust them so Presbytery was laid aside first and then persecuted in England and totally ruined in Scotland and Independency reaped the Crop of Advantage which Presbytery had sown in blood and by the Help of a general Toleration there was as great a Swarm of several Religions in England as there was of Lice and Frogs in Egypt till at last
is no new thing as long as the Grecians and Romans were poor and weak they lived contentedly under Kings but when they grew Rich and Powerful they threw off that Government and set up Common-wealths Two things afforded them great opportunities if not Temptations to it The first was the Poverty of the Crown The Old Revenues were much impaired by the Liberality or Necessities of our Princes and no relief could be had but in Parliament and there they knew so well how to truck that no Prerogative no Money They would not freely give but sell the King Supplyes for Liberty and they took care too to increase that Necessity by engaging the King in Wars and then denying him Money to carry them on and to discontent the People at the same time at the Unprosperous Events of them Thus the Crown grew every day poorer and the People Richer Another thing was the Factions in Religion which howsoever they were Managed one Party or other were dissatisfied and thereby disposed to Wreak their Malice on the Crown by Electing such Men to serve in Parliaments as were ill disposed to it Whereas before when England was all of one Religion it was scarce possible to pretend any thing in which the whole Body of the People were Concern'd So that these Animosities in Religion ended in a Civil Faction and many Ambitious Men who cared for No Religion did yet make use of them as tools to Work their Ends upon the Crown Two other things Contributed very much to the effecting their designs First Scotland led the Dance and Rebelled upon pretence of Religion and altho the King might easily have Conquered them by a Battel or Blocking up their Harbours yet being a Tender Prince and unwilling to shed the Blood of his own Traiterous Subjects he rather chose to end the Controversy by a Treaty which gave them time to Concert their Affairs with the English of the same Faction and that furnished them with means to raise another Army and enter England which necessitated the Calling of that Fatal Parliament which had like to have ruined the Monarchy and Nation both at once Secondly the Irish Papists Rebelled at the same time and rising suddenly Massacred 100000 English which so depopulated Ireland that the King could have no Assistance from it the remaining English being hardly able to Subsist and the Parliament made another Advantage of it by perswading the English to believe the King had Procured this desolation there The City of London lent the Parliament Money furnished them with Tumults to Drive the King out of it first and then with Armies to force him back again and too many of the Gentry were Lazy and would not stir timerous and durst not discontented and willing the Crown should be reduced tho not ruined But when they came to put the Project in Execution and after the ruine of the King's Forces to erect their Common-wealth of England there were other difficulties that could not be overcome their own Army that had done their Drudgery would not be Disbanded and they could not force them They had rid their hands of one of the Three Estates that Constitute our Parliament the Spiritual Lords at first And there was a parcel of Lords Temporal who for a long time Acted with them but at Last being not able to digest the Insolence of the Commons stood off upon which they Voted them Vseless and laid them by too So that all was then in the hands of the Commons They could not or would not Dissolve themselves in the state things then were for then the whole Power would have been in the Army and Officers who might easily have prevented the Meeting of another Parliament and the whole Nation was dissatisfied to see them divide the spoil and profit amongst themselves without any hope that any but they and their Relations should partake with them in the reward as they had in the danger the Gentry were generally known to have Wished well to the King and the Rabble were to be pleased by suffering them to insult over their Old Masters and the Royal Party tho Conquered were not dejected and the Godly Party were fallen in Sunder and the Independents were persecuting their Sire Presbytery The Commons were a Body constituted of two Knights for every Shire and two Burgâ—sses for each Corporation and the Latter exceeded vastly the former in Number and tho this inequality had not been much regarded Under the Monarchy yet now the House of Commons was to be made the Standing Senate of the Nation the Counties Would not indure it if the People had suffered any Grievance under the Monarchy they Complained in Parliament and had redress But Now they had no body to complain to but the Commons and they when the Case became their own Answered them with Blows and Death So that what looked so prettily and easy to be affected at a distance when iâ— came to be tryed was found impracticable and the most insufferable Slavery in Nature and one fell to devise one Remedy and another another but none would do and the Commons were not to be dispossest of what had cost them so many Lives to purchase it so the Sword determined the Controversy here too and to the general joy of the whole Nation the General and Army-Saints sent them packing to Consider what they had done and what they deserved but the Wealth they had got by Villany did yet afford them some Consolation in this World As I said before I have been as short as possibly I could and I have purposely omitted many things which should otherwise have been spoken that I might be so and now with the Readers Patience I shall enquire whether the design of extinguishing the Monarchy be really and totally laid aside at this day to which I answer No. For first all the Principal Causes do still subsist We have the same Religions which then we had and they have the same Principles and Dispositions and follow the same Methods they then did they Educate their Children in the same Places and recommend the same sort of Men to the People they did before But there are some things that stand in their way which did not then 1. His Majesty hath a better Revenue then his Father had and this is a great Block in their way but they hope it will end with his Life and in the mean time we know what hath been done to Curb him in that particular 2. His Majesty hath a strong Guard alwayes in Pay so that Tumults are not so safe especially at White-hall Gates as heretofore they were and this is the cause the Nation have been told that they are Papists and dangerous to the Liberty and Property of the Subjects 3. The Militia of the City of London and the rest of the Nation is in Trusty hands and no Rebellion can for the present be safely begun and therefore the Chief Officers are Traduced to the People as Men of Arbitrary