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A64566 The regulating of law-suits, evidences, and pleadings an assize-sermon preach't at Carmarthen, March the 16th, 1656 / by William Thomas ... Thomas, William, 1613-1689. 1657 (1657) Wing T981; ESTC R1308 25,954 42

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to vile gaines to mean inconsiderable advantages to raise your fortunes temporally on the ruines of your selves eternally The getting of treasures by a lying tongue is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death The glosse on the words applyes them to the injustice of pleading It is a dismall aphorisme and it should not have dropt from my mouth had it not proceeded from the Holy Ghost Spira the disconsolate example of despair first maintained false causes in Law afterwards renounced true tenets in Religion To be a corrupt Advocate was his first step towards hell I shall not recommend * Tertul lian for a pattern whose quitting his profession of an Advocate upon his conversion to Christianity was a very unnecessary rigour But beware of Tertullus stamp whose eloquence dispenced with his conscience Let not the lustre of your Rhetorick abate the light of your Religion Let not any exquisite ability in the law prepare a fucus a paint for oppression or malice let not so sweet an oyntment be spilt upon an unsavoury cause to be ingeniously ungracious accurately irreligious It is an uncomfortable commendation an unhappy elogy to be a better lawyer then a Christian to be more acute then upright to plead well in ill causes It is a perfume to the fame of Ivo that he pleaded onely for the afflicted vindicated the oppressed being entitled the Advocate of the poor and canonized for a Saint Give not cause to present or succeeding ages to apply to any of you that character of Coelius an Advocate which sticks a slurre a taint to his name unto this day for to be reputed worthy of a better mind of an honester soul for to be the pearl of Advocates in the French style and yet not to appertain to Gods cabinet in the day that he shall sort make up his jewels To conclude this caveat Let not your counsells your pleadings be tempered with more grains of the Serpent then the Dove Let not your profits exceed eclipse your graces The fees of just causes onely can entayl blessings to your families and assure comforts to your souls With melting bowells I tender this unwelcome meditation to your candid censures to your retired mortifyed thoughts which lay upon my own being call'd to this place like a weight of lead untill I utter'd it I have freely discharged my conscience in the presence of God and this Congregation and should now proceed from the injustice of the Pleading to the injustice of the Verdict of the Decree of the Record But the time hath trod upon my heels like a wearied traveller I must take up my rest before I have scarce finisht half my journey and like Issachar must stoop betwixt two burdens I have the rather enlarged my meditation on the three first rounds of Injustice because Courts are like Elements the corruptions the distempers above take their rise from exhalations from below Unjust causes indirect evidences and pleadings are the source and bane of all judiciary proceedings Well we may juggle with men on earth we cannot play the Sophisters with heaven and put a cheat on our God As for all sorts and degrees here present When you hear the trumpet sound let it be an alarm to your soules to rowze you to an apprehension of the generall Sessions of the great judgement of the world when we shall all appear before the judgement-seat of Christ not onely appear but become transparent like Drusus fancyed house of glasse Our minds shall be as clearly seen as conspicuous as our faces Then all the Iudges of the earth shall stand at the Bar. The Counsellors must plead for themselves render an account for every idle word If for every light frivolous pro otioso much more pro odioso for every false scandalous plea Then the books of records our own consciences shall be unclasped to be manifest evidences of our secret sinnes in the sight of God of Angells and men No unjust causes no corrupt evidences or pleadings can taint this judgement no demurror can shift it off no quirk or subtlety reverse no power or authority repeal it Let us be awfully prepared conscientiously qualifyed at this great Sessions that at the approach of a farre greater we may be graciously summon'd and acquitted by the dreadfull Iudge of men and Angells that we may be refresht ravisht with the joy and solace of that sentence Come you blessed inherit the kingdome prepared for you from the foundation of the world Wherein God of his infinite mercy estate us for the merits of his Son and our alone Saviour Iesus Christ to whom and the Holy Ghost be glory honour power majesty and dominion ascribed this day and for evermore Amen Amen FINIS Tul. de leg. l. 3. Iust. Iur. Civ. l. 1. ● 2. Aquin. 1● 2ae q. 91. a. 4. Rom. 2. 14. Iustit Iur. Civ. l. 1. tit. 1. Matth. 7. 12. Mufculus Rom. 3. 4. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Ioh. P. de Fer. in proct For. jur Test. Omni homini proximus omnis homo S. Aug. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Iudg. 19. 29. Deus faciat tam commodum quam accommodum S. Aug. 1 Kings 18. vers. 44. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Rom. 13. 4. Same v. 4. Camer. in Or. pro Flacco 1 Corinth 6. 7. Melan in 1 Cor. 6. Levit. 19. 18. Matth. 5. 38. Exod. 21. 24 25. Arist. 5. Eth. Gell. At. N. l. 20. Justin. l. 4. tit. 4. de injuriis Matt. 5. 39. Dr. Hamm in his Annotat. 1. 1 Cor. 6. 8. Socrates Godw. Rom. Ant. l. 3. s. 4. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} In Arist. Vesp. Schol. 2. 1 Cor. 6. 7. Matth. 5. 39. Isid. Pel. l. 2. ep. 6. Vers. 40. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Is. Casaub. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Deut. 1. 15. Car. Sig. de Rep Heb. l. 7. 6. 7. Sigon de Rep. Atheniensi 3. 1 Cor. 13. S. Iames 3. 16. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Luke 12. 15. August in Ser. 196. Omnia videntus prius tentanda esse quam ad judicia disceda mus P. Mart. in L. Com. cl 4. Heb. 12. 14. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Genes 13. 8. 1 Cor. 6. 5. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Hom. Iliad {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Theoph. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Amm. Marcel Hist. l. 18. Prov. 25. 18. Bernard Decret. tit. de test Mat. 18. 16. Alex. Al. S. Th. p. 3. qu. 43. Aqu. 2a. 2ae qu. 70. Art 3. Greg. dist. 2. q. 1. Aquin. ib. can dist. 32. q. 5. Car. Sig. de R. Heb. l. 6. c. 6. Aquin. ib. Non idonei testes quibus imperari potest ut testes fiant Can. dist. 4. q. 3. Ne inopes sint Greg. dist. 2. q. 1. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}
might be defended no justice executed Whilst God brands and sorbids a false testimony he allowes injoyns a true My Text explodes a false testimony expresly at the first blush that is pernicious but secondarily consequently a false testimony that is officious also An Evidence is not to be byast by favour but truth It is taynted not by the damage which accrewes to another but the falshood which the Witnesse himselfutters As the expression of the Act so of the Object challengeth our consideration recommended by a propriety of relation Thy neighbour There is much emphaticall Divinity in Pronounes The relation it self is presented in the widest latitude of sense though the softest dresse for language Reang a friend a neighbour A name that is a charme of truth This expression endeares but restraines not A Neighbour not for nearnesse of place of situation but of nature of constitution According to the Fathers glosse Every man is a neighbour to every man I have thus broken the shell the better to discern the kernell in my Text I shall not critically enlarge any nicetyes of observations on the words lest I be censur'd like Antoninus Pius to be a cutter of cummin-seed or to deal with my Text as the Levite did with his Concubine to divide it in pieces But I shall humbly conduct your attention from the manner of the expression to the matter of the Prohibition The offence forbidden is a false testimony which is brancht out to be extrajudiciall or judiciall I shall entirely wave an extrajudiciall false testimony in discourse without the pale of justice and shall confine my meditation to a judiciall false testimony as most sutable to the occasion of this present assembly God grant the meditation may be as profitable as it is seasonable This judiciall false testimony at the first view is not unlike the little cloud ken'd by Eliah's servant but it will spread like that cloud which quickly darkened the heaven This will eclipse the whole Orbe the Court of judicature and showre down drops of guilt to every corner of it it extends to the injustice of the Cause to the injustice of the Evidence to the injustice of the Pleading to the injustice of the Verdict to the injustice of the Decree to the injustice of the Record As many of these parts as the time will conveniently permit are the boundaries of my present meditations This is a varyed gradation of transgression a Climax a ladder of sinne not like Iacob's that reacht from earth to heaven for blessed Angells ascending and descending but a ladder it is that reacheth from earth to hell for lewd men descending in their corruptions for damned Spirits ascending in their temptations The first Round in this ladder is the injustice of the cause A Generation of men there is who with more grains of zeal then knowledge disallow all Courts of judicature all suits of Law without distinction without moderation Whose inconsiderate tenet is like a desperate Chymicall pill that worketh not on the humors but the spirits that purgeth out of the body politick not corrupt manners but precious lawes It were piety exhaled refined to phrensy holynesse strained to madnesse This were to sacrifice sheep to wolves to invite those wolves to worry them to open a gap to prophanenesse to licentiousnesse to encourage to tempt all exorbitancies of tumults of rapines of murders to leave the innocent in the eye of man without defence or redresse and the violent without check or controll It is truly alleadged Vengeance is Gods prerogative and it is as truely replyed that he executes it not onely immediately by himself but mediately also by his Vice gerent the Magistrate supreme and subordinate He is Gods Deacon to officiate for him in the administration of justice the fort of good men to secure them from the assaults and outrages of the evil He bears not the sword in vain the sword being the emblem the rhetorick of greater punishments as the rod of lesse to which end both were carryed before the Roman Consuls In the one and the other the Ordinance is Divine but the exercise humane God onely can empower man may execute it But not to scrue this string too far Though the lawfullnesse of Magistrates and Tribunalls may clearly abundantly be vindicated demonstratively maintained yet law-suits are not indefinitely and peremptorily to be justifyed unlesse we will run counter with the Apostle There is utterly a fault among you that you go to law one with another The scandall of the Church at that time the reflection upon Christian religion in exposing it by law-suits to the censure of unbelievers is recited in the former verse as Theophylact observes but in this 7. v. the Apostle condemns the action it self being not rightly qualifyed displayes it's guilt in the fullest dimensions Some Divines start a Criticisme to mince it That it is not exprest {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a default but {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a defect a diminution a lessening of Christian perfection an impotency a frailty whereas both Greek words appear in the same uncomely hue in the same unholy strain Rom. 11. 12. There is an enhancing aggravation prefixed by the Apostle It is utterly a fault An errour according to the Arabick a sin according to the Syriac Translation The softnesse of the Greek word savours of the sweetnings of the Apostles style not of the abating of the sin at Corinth If we render this {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a defect it is a want of humility of charity in most men This defect will amount to a full default This diminutive this lessening of grace without speciall caution will administer fewell to the increasing of sinne This impotency this spice of weaknesse will quickly be heightned to impiety to a strain of wickednesse to be subdued by a mans own passions to be a captive to a solemn revenge Moses entirely cancell'd private revenge but Christ warily restrains the publick You have heard it hath been said An eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth The law talionis of returning like for like wherein the sinne was made a pattern for the doom a law establisht among the Iewes approved by the twelve Tables eminently reputed anciently practised by many nations did not allow the parties themseves to carve out their own reparation but the Magistrates onely But our blessed Saviour pronounces a repeal to this judiciall Iudaicall redresse as to the formality of it not without a check to our fierce rancor to our eager desire and pursuit of such rigour But I say unto you Resist not evil not {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} according to the Septuagints use of the word forbids the forwardnesse to prosecute in Law to implead in judgement I shall not too confidently presse this sense However it is unquestionably the excellency of Christianity to overcome evil