Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
justice_n	according_a	law_n	power_n	2,633	5	4.9144	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88241	Rash oaths unwarrantable: and the breaking of them as inexcusable. Or, A discourse, shewing, that the two Houses of Parliament had little ground to make those oaths they have made, or lesse ground to take, or presse the taking of them, being it is easie to be apprehended, they never intended to keep them, but onely made them for snares, and cloaks for knavery, as it is clearly evinced by their constant arbitrary and tyranicall practices, no justice nor right being to be found amongst them; by meanes of which they have declaratorily, and visibly lost the very soule and essence of true magistracy, (which is, the doing of justice, judgement, equity ... In which is also a true and just declaration of the unspeakable evill of the delay of justice, and the extraordinary sufferings of Lievtenant Colonell John Lilburne, very much occasioned by M. Henry Martins unfriendly and unjust dealing with him, in not making his report to the House. All which with divers other things of very high concernment, are declared in the following discourse, being an epistle, / written by Lievtenant-Colonell John Lilburne, prerogative prisoner in the Tower of London, to Colonell Henry Marten, a member of the House of Commons of England ... May 1647.	Lilburne, John, 1614?-1657.	1647 (1647)	Wing L2167; Thomason E393_39; ESTC R201615	53,968	58

wish my Judges were not worse then the unrighteous Judge But Sir seeing it is to no purpose I can no longer now forbeare but must write you my mind to the purpose cost it what it will being now at present as carelesse of you as you are and have been of me and my long but I will not say unsupportable sufferings though I might truly say it if it were not that I had a full faithfull and soule-satisfying God to rest and rely upon and the distresses and hardly to be undergone portion of my wife and little infants But Sir I beseech you give me leave before I lansh into the deep a little mildly to expostulate with you in a friendly way before we fall out and to demand this question of you what I have said or done to you to give you any tolerable cause to deale thus with me as you have done as by your delay of your duty to destroy me and given me too just cause in reference to you to say with David Psal 55.12,13,14 For it was not an enemy that reproached me then I could have borne it neither was it he that hated me that did magnifie himself against me then I would have hid my self from him but it was thou ah man mine equall my guide and mine acqaintance we took sweet counsell together And truly Sir the evill doings of a friend are the most piercing and wounding and the least to be indured and the most odious to God and detestable amongst all rationall and gallant men Jer. 9.4 to the 9. Ch. 12.6 and Ch. 20.10,11,12 But Sir if you have nothing to lay to my charge in reference to your self I desire to know if you have any thing to accuse me of in reference to the publike have I deerted my interest or betraid the Liberties of my fellow Commons of England or have I been sluggish slothfull or cowardly in mannaging the businesse I have in hand or have I been impatient in my sufferings by my madness and folly destroyed my business or given grounded advantage to my adversaries If all or anie of these can be justly laid to my charge I desire not to be spared But Sir if you can say nothing against me by way of miscarriage to you in particular or the publike in generall then I pray you give me leave to demand of you this question What have you to say for your selfe that you have thus delayed to make my report and thereby over and over againe and againe have hazzarded my destruction and utter ruine contrary to law honesty justice reason and conscience If you should say it is not seasonable and that the temper of your House is such that to make it it would do me nor the Kingdome no good but rather a mischief in hazzarding the confirmation of the Lords tyranny towards me by a vote of your House whose spirits are extreamly exasperated against me above all men in England To answer which what do you else then hereby give me too just cause to say of your House in which so many that professe honesty sit though it bee but little demonstrative by their actions that you are a corrupted and degenerated generation of men that are fallen from doing of Justice to the executing of Tyranny and from maintaining defending and protecting according to your duty and the end of your sitting where you do the Lawes and Liberties of the Commons of England to the betraying subverting and destroying them and so have all of you forfeited your trust and your Parliamentary power which as you your selves say 1. par Book Decl. p. 150. was given you to provide for the Peoples weales but not for their woes and have thereby absolutely absolved and discharged the people from all subjection to you and given them cause that sent you to call you home and chuse honester men in your places to call you to a strict accompt for all your tyranny oppression and trechercy and know what you have done with all their money which they may justly by your own arguments against the King do See the second Edition of the Outcries of oppressed Commons p. 4 5 6 7 14 15 16 17 18. And in case of disobedience from you to your trusters and impowers the severall Shires Countreyes and Corporations that choose you what do you else then thereby give them cause to look upon you as you have this foure or five years looked upon the King and deale by you as you have dealt with the King even to wage war against you for betrayers of your trust which they and the whole Kingdome reposed in you who are now degenerated from a just House of Parliament the end of calling of which by the Law is to redresse mischiefs and grievances that daily happen 36. E. 3.10 but not to augment and wholly increase them into a conspiracy and consederacy of lawlesse unlimited and unbounded men that have actually destroyed the Lawes and Liberties of England and that will have no rule to walke by but their owne corrupted and bloody wills and thereby have set up the highest Tyranny that can be set up in the world against which by your owne principles the Kingdome may justly rise up in Armes as one man and destroy all the fore-said conspirators without mercy or compassion as a company of devouring Lions ravening Wolves and crafty Foxes that would destroy the poore flocks of lambs and sheep of this distressed Kingdome the people and Inhabitants thereof for take away Law as the Parliament in a transcendent measure hath done and deny us justice and right as is constantly in a great measure done unto us by the Parliament And what are we now better then the brute beasts of the field the weakest of which are torne in pieces devoured and destroyed by the strongest for remedie● 〈◊〉 which the Parliament against the King took up Armes and when they h●d no Law of the Kingdome to warrant them in so doing they make use of the law of nature and reason and tell the King Book Dec. 1 part pag. 207. That this Law is as old as the Kingdome that the Kingdome must not be without a meanes to preserve it selfe but in which of our Statutes this is writ I never yet could heare see nor read of and am very sure it is no where but in their own Declarations and ingraven in the heart of man as a principle of nature and reason which as they very well and justly say teacheth a man or Kingdome to preserve its selfe 1 part Book Dec. pag. ●4 93 94. 112 123. 202. 465. 466. 726 728. see 2. Edition of the Outcries pag. 12 13. And if this Doctrine be true as you avouch it is then it will much more serve against your selves then the King because the King is so fenced about with the Lawes of the Kingdome that it is impossible for a man or Magistrate to bee more and if you are but a betrusted power impowered protempore by the

They doe declare their high dislike of that Petition their approbation and esteem of their good Service who first discovered it and of all such Officers and Soldiers as have refused to joyne in it and that for such as have been abused and by the parswasion of others drawn to subscribe it if they shall for the future manifest their dislike of what they have done by forbearing to proceed any further in it it shall not be looked upon as any caus to take away the remembrance sence the houses have of the good service they have formerly done but they shall still be retained in their good opinion and shall be cared for with the rest of the Army in all things necessary and fitting for the satisfaction of persons that have done so good and faithfull service and as may be expected from a Parliament so carefull to performe all things appertaining to honour and justice as on the other side it is declared that all those who shall continue in their distempered condition and goe on in advancing and promoting that petition shall be looked upon and proceeded against as enemies to the State and d●sturbers of the publique peace Die Martis 30. Martii 1647. Ordered by the Lords assembled in parliament that this Declaration be forthwith printed and published John Brown Cler. Parliamentorum Now Sir to conclude the tyrannicall house of Lords having most illegally barbarously tirannically and unjustly committed me to prison and sentenced me under wh●se tyranny you are willing to suffer me to perish and then by your and their whifling and buking Curs to bespatter and reproach me in print thereby strongly indeavouring to m●ke me as odiou● in the eyes of the sons of men as Job was in all his botches and alasse pocre I must be kept in pri●… 〈…〉 without pen or inke accesse of friends or any 〈…〉 and so deprived of all means to vindicate my 〈…〉 ●…ce write in my owne behalfe and set my name to wi●… 〈◊〉 ●…ing alwayes ready to owne and iustifie my lines and to seale then with my 〈◊〉 blood yet my wife must be made a prisoner and fetched up to your arbitrary Committees for dispersing of my bookes and the book women in Westminster Hall that sell them must have then shops and houses searched and rob'd of all my bookes by your Catch poules and if you suspect any for printing of them they must be sure to be dealt worse wi●h then if they were Traytors and enemies to their Country and have their houses rob'd and spoyled of their goods and presses with which they earne bread for them and their families and carried away by force before any legall tryall or conviction of any crime contrary to the lawes of the land which possitively declares that no free man of England forfeits his lands goods or livelyhoods tell he be convicted of a crime 1 R. 3.3 Cookes 2. part institutes chap 103. fol. 228. 229. See the Petition of Right yea and their bodies imprisoned most tyrannicall and illegally without baile or maineprize although there be no collour in law for the pretended cause of their commitment nor no power in law for any Committee of your house to commit a printer or any other free man in England to prison See the law authorities mentioned in Judge Jenkins late printed papers And when the prisoner according to the law of the Kingdome sues for a Habias Corpus which legally cannot be denyed to any prisoner whatsoever and by vertue thereof be brought before the present Judges of the Kings bench Justice Bacon and Justice Rowles yet contrary to law and their owne oathes which oaths are before mentioned they refuse to deliver the prisoner so uniustly imprisoned or to take baile for his forthcomming but returne him back to prison againe there contrary to law and iustice to be kept without bail or maineprize Oh horrible tyrannie oppression and iniustice and yet as I am certainly informed this was the case of Mr. Thomas Paine a Printer the last tearme Nay your Catchpoules by their owne power can and have forceably entered and felloniously and illegally carried away my proper and truly com'd by goods to a large value for which though I complained to your Committee yet could I not obtaine from their hands one dram of Justice See my examination before them called the resolved mans resolution pag. 12. Nay this is not all for when your members and the Lords and their catchpoules creatures have sufficient railed at me and reproached me and tyed up my hands by depriving me of all meanes as they thought to publish any thing for my owne defence then they as I conce●ve ioyne together and git some lying Presbyter assemblie man or other for the Author concealing his name and I not able to find it out I apprehend and iustly conceive I have iust cause to lay it to them it being so sutable to the constant meanes they and their Creatures use to set up their new reformed Kingdome to frame contrive and publish to the view of the world a Recantation in my name that J my selfe though my name be to it had not the least finger in or knowledge of thereby to render me odious to the purpose and to declare me a weather cock follow and as fass●l and easie in changing my former avowed just principles as the Lords and Commons and assembly men at Westminster are to change theirs But Sir if God permit I shall take a more fi●t oppertunity to anotomize that grosse peice of Pa●l●…mentary assembly knavery And therefore I must plainly tell you seeing the Lords and Commons at Westm●nster have dealt so ●arb rously and illegally with 〈◊〉 as they have done * And not with me but also with M. Over●on his wife and brother and Mr. Larners man and maid who are all yet in person and can have nor obtain any iustice from either of your houses and are worse then the unrighteous Iudge that upon no importunity will doe me Justice I am now in good sober resolved earnest determined to appeale to the whole Kingdome and Army against them and it may be thereby come quittance with them and measure unto them as they have measured to me and doubt not but to make it evident that though some of your members call the Army Rebells and Traitors for contesting with those that gave them their power and authority that they themselves a●e reall Rebells and Traitors to the trust reposed in them by the free people of England their Empero●rs Lords and Masters And that the Army are really and truly a company of Rogues Knaves and traiterous Villains to themselves and their native Country if they should disband upon any tearmes in the world till they have brought them to examplary Justice and made them vomit up the vast sums of the publiques money that they have swallowed down into their devowring canniball mawes and firmly setled the peace and iustice of the Kingdome which that they may faithfully and cordially doe is and shall be the daily prayer of him that hath been and will be againe your true friend if you will repent of your remissenesse and slacknesse and manifest your selfe to be more firme active and valourous for the good of your Country Iohn Lilburn From my uniust Captivitie in the Tower of London for the visably almost destroyed Lawes and Liberties of England which condition I more highly prize though in misery enough outwardly then the visiblest condition of any member whatsoever that sits in either or both houses being all and every of them apparently palpably and transendently forsworne having all of them taken Oaths upon Oathes to mainetaine the lawes liberties and freedome of the land and yet in their dayly practice overthrow and destroy them of which sin and wickednesse they are all of them guilty in regard you all sit there in silence and doe not publiquely and avowedly to the whole Kingdome according to your duty manfully protest against and declare your dislike of their crooked uniust and Englands destroying wayes this 31. of May 1647. John Lilburne FINIS

people for no other end in the world but to provide for their weale and happinesse and to redresse their mischiefs and grievances unfortified at all by the established knowne and declared Law of the Kingdome degenerate from your trust destroy their Liberties and trades overthrow their Lawes and the Bounds that establish meum tuum and tyrannize over their persons ten times worse then ever the King did or his wicked and evill Ministers of Justice the Judges and Patentee Monopolizers especially all of whom you cannot deny but he at the beginning of your Session surrendred up to you to be punished by you according to Law Justice which in them you extreamely perverted and tooke bribes for the acquitting the capitallest of them and otherwise made use of them to do more mischiefe since to the Common-wealth then ever they had done before by assuring any thing for Law that you would propound to them by meanes of which you with your wicked and unbounded Priviledges have dared to exercise the absolutest and grandest tyranny over the lives liberties trades properties and estates of the Freemen of England that ever was I dare positively aver it since it was a Nation governed by an established and declared Law to your eternall and everlasting shame I speake it so that truly if the Freemen of England seriously look upon all your late publike and to us visible actions and compare them with their former enjoyments they may justly take up Miach's lamentation and say with him to you The good man is perished out of the earth and there is none upright amongst you men they or you all lie in waite for blood they or you hunt every man his brother with a net that they or you may do evill with both hands earnestly the Prince asketh and the Judge asketh for a reward and the great man he uttereth his mischievous desire so they wrap it up therefore woe unto the Parliament for the best of them is as a briar the most upright is sharper then a thorne hedge the day of thy watchmen and thy visitation cometh now with a vengeance shall bee their perplexity therefore O all ye understanding Commons of England in reference to your Parliament Trustees trust ye not in a friend put ye no confidence in a guide for your enemies are the men of your owne House Micah 7.2,3,4,5,6 Therefore M. Martin I professe it before you and all the world that were I rationally able I would make no scruple of conscience to help forward with my sword in my hand the distruction of every lawlesse tyrannicall treacherous man amongst you that I should groundedly know to be a ring-leader in the fore-said transcendent vilenesse then I should to help to destroy so many rats or devouring vermin and by your owne fore-mentioned Principles Declarations Protestations Oathes Actions and doings it will undeniably be justified to be lawfull for all the Commons of Englands to do the same towards you But now Sir let us come to some particulars in the first place the 29. Chap and the most excellent Petition of right which I call the English-mans legall treasure doth clearly condemne all the pract●ses amongst you for they expressely say that no Freeman shall be taken and imprisoned or be disseized of his freehold or liberties or free-customes or be out-lawed or exiled or any otherwise destroyed nor we will not passe upon him nor condemne him but by lawfull judgement of his Peers that is to say equalls or men of his owne condition or by the Law of the Land We will sell to no man we will not deny or defer to any man either iustice or right and that no man be imprisoned without cause shewed or expressed in his Warrant of Commitment nor no man refused Habeas Corpus's for any cause whatever nor no man taken by Petition nor suggestion made to our Lord the King nor his Counsell unlesse it be by Indictment or Presentment of his good and lawfull People of the same neighbourhood where such deeds be done 25. E. 3.4 in due manner or by Processe made by Writ Originall at the common Law nor that none be put out of his Franchises nor of hi● Free-holds unlesse he be duly brought in to answer and fore-judged of the same by th● course of the Law and that no man hereafter be compelled to make or yeeld any guift bond benevolence taxe or such like charge without common consent by Act of Parliament Now compare your daily and hourly actions to those good just and unrepealed Laws and blush for shame But to wipe all this off you will it may be say the same that is said in your Declaration of the 17 of Aprill 1645 Booke Decl. 2 part pag. 879. That the end of the Primitive institution of all government is the safty and weale of the people which is above all Lawes and therefore the Kingdome being imbroyled in warre necessitated nacessitie compells you to doe many actions contrary to the knowne Lawes of the Land without the doing of which actions wanting the puntillo of the Kings consent you could not save your selves nor the kingdome will admit all this for a truth I pray then why doe you impose such illegall devilsh impossible to be kept contradicting Oaths and Covenants upon all the Freemen of England upon such sever penalties that all men must be disfranchised or destroyed that will not take them and in them without any provisoes eautions limitations or declared exceptions and reservation tye them to maintaine the Law of the Land and the lawful● rightes and liberties of the Subjects of England is not this to force men to sweare to contradict and oppose to the death all your actions and to destory you for doing those actions because they are contrary to the Law and Liberties of England O yee forsworne men for so I may call you all that have taken these illegall damnable hellish and soule insnaring Oaths because ye do your selves and suffer to be done daily such things as tends to the absolute distruction of the Lawes and the lawfull Liberties of the freemen of England which by all these Oaths you have sworne to maintaine and defend with all your might and yet there is not one just nor righteous man amongst you that dare avowedly and publiquely to the whole Kingdom protest against all the rest but by parsilent patient and constant seting there owne approve of all their actions O ye unworthy forsworne men in the highest degree for this may too justly be the stile and title of all and every one of you without exceptions in the condition of the visablest best of whom for Millions of Gold I would not be for if perjuries swearings and false swearings be so odious abominable and detestable unto God as in Scripture he declares they are read Exod 20.7 Lev. 19.11.12 Num. 30.2 Deut. 23.21.22.23 Psal 15.4 Eccl. 5.4.5 Ezek. 17.13.14.15.16.17.18.19 Jer. 24.10 Zek. 5.3.4.9.8.16.17 Then woe wee and vengance upon earth is your vadoubted

may be returned to the custody and disposing of those persons of whose faithfullnesse and wisedome in managing thereof you have had great experience and that none may be put out of Command in the Trained Bands or Auxiliaries who have been and are of known good affection to the Common wealth All which we humbly intreat may be speedily and effectually accomplished according to the great necessity and exigency of these distracted times and as in duty bound we shall pray c. And having presented it in writing a day two or three after they presented it publiquely in print to the members of the House the issue of which as I have it out of your own Diurnall was thus Die Mercuris 2 Junii 1647 A Petition stiled the humble Petition of many thousands of well affected people was this day read The question being put whether an answer shall be given to this Petition at this present the house was devided the yeas went forth Sir John Evelin of Wilts Sir Michael Levisay tellers for the yea with the yea 112. Mr. Hollis Sir William Luis tellers for the no with the no●s 128 so that the qu●stion past with the negative But the Petitioners going up s●me few dayes after for an answer to their petition and being extreamly in base provoking and insufferable language abused by that worshipfull Gentleman Major Generall Massie c. which provoked divers of them to send in a paper to Mr. Speaker as their last farewell the copy of which thus followeth Mr Speaker divers Citizens have been here attending for an answer of a Petition delivered by Sir William Waller on Wednesday last their desire is that the house may be acquainted that the petitioners have seen the Vote of the House and have discharged themselves from further attendance for the present and will notwithstanding still seeke just and equitable meanes for to ease the grievances of this poore distracted Kingdome and comfortably put an end to the groanings of this miserable distressed nation And having sent it in away they came and now in my apprehension have no other course to take but to remonstrate and justly to declare to all the Commons of England and the Army the unpartaleld illegall and tyrannicall dealing of the House of Commons with them and to presse them by force of Armes to root up and destroy these tyrants which without any scruple of conscience they may doe if it were lawfull for the two Houses to levie warre against the King for tyranny declared by them seeing I am sure there is a hundred times greater and more visibler and if it be true as Sir Simon Synod and the John of all Sir Johns now cryes out and sayes that it is not lawfull in any case to fight against the legall Magistrate then I am sure Sir John and Sir Simon are a company of grand Traytors and ought principally to be hanged for being the chiefe Incendiaries in their Pulpets c. to the by past warres against the King who I will justifie it upon the losse of my life by the established law of England the declared government thereof is a thousand times more fenced about and secured so farre as Law can secure then the unjust law and liberty destroying Lords and Commons assembled at Westminster are And secondly I will justifie it that if the principalls or law of reason and nature for preservation take be a sufficient ground to take up Armes against the King and his party as the H●… Parliament have declared they are then the Kingdome and Arm have much more true grounds to take up Armes against them for tyranny visibly avowedly and professedly acted a hundred times more higher and transendent then ever he did that is yet declared And a most reall difference there is betwixt the action of them two in this particular I clearly find by all that J can yet read of either side published to the view of the Kingdome and J thinke that I have read and wayed almost all that is extant that the King by the law of his will did not impose Monopolies and Ship money c. vpon the free men of England but was made to beleeve by his Judges and Counsell at Law being those helpes or assistance that the law of the Kingdom had appointed him to be counselled by out of Parliament that he might impose those things by right or force of the Law of the Kingdome See the dispute in Mr. Hamdens case of Ship-money in the latter end of Judge Huttons Judge Crookes arguments against Ship money pag. 2 3. 4 5 printed by authority of this present Parliament and the Declarations of both sides 1. and 2. part Col. Decl. And indeed to speake according to the declared Law of England the Iudges and his counsell at Law were principally to be blamed and not the King See your own Remonstrance of the 19 May 1642. 1. part book Decl. pag. 199. 304. and the reason in Law is because the Law commands the Judges and Justices of peace and all the rest of the Administrators of it not to delay or disturb common Iustice and right for any command from the King for any other signified by the Great Seale or privie Seale or any other wayes and though such commands doe come the Iudges and Iustices shall not therefore leave to doe right in any point but shall doe common right according to the common Law as though never any such command had been see the 29 chap of Magna Charta and 2. E. 3 8. and 14. E. 3.14 and 11. R. 2.10 And to performe this in every particular every Iudge and Iustice of peace is sworne as appeares by their oathes recorded in Poultons book of Statutes folio 144. and made in the 18. yeare of Edward 3. Anno 1344. which also you may verbatum read in the 29 pag. of a late printed book called Rega● tyranny And it was the duty by law that this Parliament ought to the whole Kingdome to have made all those false and wicked Ship-money Judges examples of terror to future generations As King Alfred before the conquest did for as Andrew Horne in his miror of Iustice pag. 296. saith that Iudges and their Ministers who destroy men by false judgement ought to be destroyed as other murtherers which King Alfred did who hanged in one yeare 44. Iudges as murtherers for their false judg●ments against the Law whose particular crimes and names he specifieth pag. 296. 297 298 299 300. c. But to your everlasting shame be it spoken you took bribes of some of them after the King had surrendred them up to your justice and after that you had impeached them of high Treason and imprisoned them you set them at liberty to sit upon the seat of justice * Which if they had bin made examples of terror you would have got no Iudges to have executed your arbitrary illegall and tirannicall commands to passe sentence upon the lives liberties and properties of the free-men

of England and if I mistake not one of them continues a Judge in your Commission to this very day by meanes of which base and wicked practises of yours I meane the two Houses this poore Kingdome under the pretence of Law hath bin by you fild ●th more oppression injustice then ever it underwent in so short a time since the Norman Conquest there being neither pure Iustice nor Right to be had according to law at the hands either of your Iudges or Iustices of peace being in every particular as corrupt as either the House of Lords or Commons Tyburne or at least to row at Oares as slaves being the fittest portion for the most part of them there being never such out-cryes in the Kings time against has Judges and Justices as you●s denying dayly the benefit of Magna Charta and the Petition of Right to any free-man that a knavish Parliament man appears against as I could easily enumerate divers instances if it were seasonable but I will keep it in banke for a representation for the Army or the next Parliament where I hope they will take speciall care what ever they doe with the present base Judges and Iustices of peace to provide an act of Parliament that we may have our lawes where they a●e ambigues and doubtfull made as plaine as can be made and all our proceedings in law in English briefe and short in plain English words and quick●y to be discided And that it shall be treason in any Iudge or Iustices by vertue of any command whatsoever to pervert the Common law and the Common Iustice of the Kingdome and without such a law and an Annuall Parliament to see it executed the constitution of which in point of Elections had extraordinary need to be amended for now some Counties chusing about 50. As Cornewell and others none as the County of Durham and their corporations many times made by bribes given to corrupt Courtiers to obtaine the Kings Letters patents which meerly flowes from his will to inable them to chuse two Burgesses for Parliament in divers of which petty and paultery Corporations throughout the Kingdome any base fellow for 20. or 30 I may by so many voices as will make him a Burgesse of Parliament and divers of th●se corporations consisting for a great part of Inns and Ale houses will be sure to chuse no other Parliament men but such as are given to deposednesse expensivenesse wickednesse and drinking or at least some Ninnie and Grose wrictor by a great man that as Dr. Bastwick saith hath no more wit in him then will reach from his nose to his mouth And this is the true reason why our Parliament men in all ages have so little regard to the Common and iust liberties of the Kingdome or to the iustice and equity of the lawes they make And therefore as I said in the 54. pag. of Londons Liberties so I say now to you that it would be more rationall and a great deale fuller of justice and equity to destroy all these illegall Corporations and fix upon them the certain number of Parliament men be they 600. 500. or 400. or more or lesse as by the common consent shall be thought most fit and equally to proportion to every Country to chuse a proportionable number sutable to the rates that each County by their bookes of rates are assessed to pay towards the defraying of the publique charge of the Kingdome and then each County equally and proportionably by the common consent of the people thereof to divide it selfe into Divisions Hundreds or Weapontacks that so all the people without confusion or tumult may meet together in their severall divisions and every free man of England as well poore as rich whose life estate c. is to be taken away by the law may have a Vote in chusing those that are to make the law it being a maxim in nature that no man iustly can be bound without his own consent and care taken that this may be once every yeare without faile and to hold for a certain number of dayes without which this Kingdome will never be free from warres misery and commotions but from this present Parliament I neither looke for good to my particular selfe or the Kingdome in generall the constant and uninterrupted serious of all your visible actions being a visible and cleare demonstartion to the eyes of every unbiosed impartiall and rationall man in England of an absolute violation of the lawes and liberties of England and setting up a perfect tyranny declaring thereby both in the sight of God and man that you have sold and given up your selves to worke and act all manner of wickednesse and impietie admitting no other rule either of reason law or justice to square your actions by but your own perverse and crooked wills being an absolute kind of monsters of the Divells but not of Gods creation who never made any man lawlesse as you avowedly professe your selves to be robbing and poling the poore Kingdome by all manner of illegall taxations Excise c. and then sharing it amongst your selves making nothing of fifty thousand pounds at one breakfast in one morning for ten of your owne Members viz. Mr Denzel Hollis Mr Walter Long c. and for all your Hypocriticall cheating and selfe denying Ordinance within a little while after as I am informed in state Mr. Long as I am told worth five thousand pounds per Annum viz. the Register of the Chancery and make the two Speakers both of whom have been impeched if not of treason yet of high misdemeanors were never yet iustly cleared and acquitted keepers of the great Seale of England to raise up their justly lost repute with the people thereby declaring that it is your study and delight to make use of the corruptest and basest of men amongst you to tyrannize over the people and yet the worst amongst you are so pure and holy that you must not be touched questioned or called to an account for any thing that you say or doe so that your pretence to all our liberties estates trades proprieties and lives is not the law of the kingdome * For Col. Burch a Member of the House of Commons before another Member and the Lieutenant of the Tower did aver before them the other day to iudge Ienkins when he questioned the legality of their proceedings that they did not stand upon the Law nor warrant their actions thereby but saith he we have conquered you by the Sword and by the Sword we will hold it Therefore looke about you Free men of England give the Tyrants their deserts but your owne inherent corrupt lusts and unbounded wills so that the d●fference betwixt you and the King is visible enough and that we have got by our exchange of our former government for your tirannicall domination for I never read not heard that the King in the worst of his raign within it selfe simply considered was I thinke bad enough

Parliament they are esteemed and made by you of no more worth and strength then Samsons green withes with which he was bound which at his pleasure he brook as a thred of tow is broken when it toucheth the fire Iudg. 16.9 As for instance by the 1. Eliz. cap. 2. it is inacted That whosoever shall not diligently and faithfully having no lawfull or reasonable excuse to be absent indeavouring themselves to resort to their Parish-Churches or Chappels accustomed or upon reasonable let thereof to some usuall place where Common Prayer and such service of God marke it well shall be used shal be dealt with as is contained in the foresaid Statute which Statute is confirmed by the stat of the 23 Eliz cap. 1. and the penalty increased as th●re you may read which Statutes are also c●…firmed by 29. Eliz. 6 35. Eliz. 1.3 Jam. 4. Now Sir I pray you take notice that these and the like laws doth not say He that will not come to Church to hear Sermons or Directory but he that doth not come to some usuall place where Common Prayer and such marke that service of God shall be used shall be punished so and so as in 1. Eliz chap. 2 and by the 23. Eliz. chap 1. He that doth not repaire to some Church Chappell or usuall place of Common-Prayer shall forfeit 20 l. a moneth and be bound to his good behaviour c. And the other Statutes all refer still to the place where Common-prayer is used see the Statute of Conventicles being the 35 Eliz. chap. 1. Now Sir the present Parliament having taken away the Common-Prayer and set up a Directory which these lawes never knew nor mention the sting of these Lawes are gone in that particular for how can I in Iustice be Indited for not comming to heare Common-Prayer when the Parliament that now exerciseth an absolute law-making and regall power will not suffer it under severe penalties to be read or remain in being in Parish Churches And that the Parliament hath taken away Common prayer appears by their printed Ordinance of the third of January 1644. and by their Ordinance of the twenty three of August 1645. Booke Declaration 2 Part Folio 715. 716. yea in the last recited Ordinance the Parliament ordaines that the said Booke of Common-Prayer should not remaine or be henceforth used in any Church Chappel or place of publick Worship within the Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales and that the Directory for publick Worship should be from thenceforth use pursued and observed And is further ordained there That if any Person or Persons whatsoever shall at any time or times hereafter use or cause the aforesaid Book of Common-Prayer to be used in any Church Chappell or in any other publick place of Worship or in any other private place or Family whatsoever within the Kingdome of England and Dominion of Wales that then every s●o● Person offending therein shall for the first offence for fit the sum of 5. l. for the second offence the sum of ten pound and for the third offence shall suffer one whole yeares imprisonment without baile or main prise And is it therefurther ordained that all Common-Prayer Bookes remaining in Churches or Chappell 's shall within a moneth after the pulishing of this Ordinance be by the Church-Wardens c. under the penalty of forty shilling carried unto the Committes of the respective Countries where they shall be found to be disposed of as the Parliament shall direct And besides the Parliament by Order and Ordinance hath not as yet to this day appointed any punishment at all for men that doe not come to their parish Churches or Chapples to heare sermons or the Directory or that meet in privat houses commonly called Convinticles Therefore though I stay seven yeares from Church and constantly meet in private houses there is by the Parliaments principalls neither Law nor Ordinance in force for any Judge or Justices of the Peace to indict me or any other or any otherwise to molest or troub●e me And as for the Ordinance of the 26 of Aprill 1645 and the Order of the House of Commons the 31 of December 1646 they onely declare they dislike and their intentions to proceed against all such persons as shall take upon them to preach or expound the Scriptures in any Church or Chappell or any other publike place except they be ordained either here or in some other reformed Churches c. but it saith not a word to any of those that heare them or any that comes not to their parish Churches but meet in privat houses neither doth it authorise any Judges Justices of peace or any other persons whatsoever to punish those unordained preaching persons but reserves the power of punishment to themselves without declaring as yet what it is And yet notwithstanding all this That all men that use the Common-Prayer are liabell to the punishments before recited multitudes of honest godly consciencious persons well-affected men to the Parliament who have ventred al they have for its preservation are continually indicted and punished by the Parliaments Judges and Justices of peace for not comming to there Parish Churches to heare common prayer for there are no other Statutes to authorise them to punish any for not comming to their parish Churches but those very Common prayer Statutes O brave Parliament Justice what is this else but perfect ingling or playing at Hocus po●us Sir I beseech you let me aske you this question if an Ordinance of Parliament be not as strongly valievd and as forciable to take away a Law as coutrary to the Law to create and impower a Judge or Justice to execute a Law in force and whether or no that Judge that is made by Ordinance of Parliament be not an absolute Murtherer and a Contemner of the Parliaments authoritie in the opinion of all that hold the present Parliaments principalls if he shall take away a mans life or otherwise punish him for transgressing of a Law which the Parliament by Ordinance hath taken away and I said a sever penalty upon any man that shall obserue or doe the thing injoyned and commanded by that Law how can a Judge in tru●h and righteousnesse sweare to execute the Law when hee hat● not al w●… power in him but is made by a power opposet to the Law see the 27. Hen. 8.24 In the second place by the Statutes of 1 Edw. 6 chap. 12. 39. Eliz. chap. 15. the stealing of Horses Geldings or Mares and the fellonous taking away in the day time as well as the night of any money goods or cattle being of the value of five shillings or upwards in any dwelling house or houses or any part thereof or any out-house or out-houses be longing and used to and with any dwelling house or houses although no person shall be in the said house or out-houses at the time of such fellonie committed shall in both cases loose the benifit of their Clergy