Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
justice_n	baron_n	exchequer_n	king_n	4,096	5	3.9263	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52125	An account of the growth of popery and arbitrary government in England more particularly, from the long prorogation of November, 1675, ending the 15th of February, 1676, till the last meeting of Parliament, the 16th of July, 1677.	Marvell, Andrew, 1621-1678.	1677 (1677)	Wing M860; ESTC R22809	99,833	162

and distrusting all Parliamentary Advice to take Counsel from themselves from France and from Necessity And in the meane time they fomented all the Jealousies which they caused They continued to inculcate Forty and One in Court and Country Those that refused all the mony they demanded were to be the onely Recusants and all that asserted the Libertyes of the Nation were to be reckoned in the Classis of Presbyterians The 13th of October came and his Majesty now asked not only a Supply for his building of Ships as formerly but further to take off the Anticipation upon his Revenue The House of Commons took up again such Publick Bills as they had on foot in their former sitting and others that might either Remedy Present or Prevent Future Mischiefs The Bill for Habeas Corpus That against sending men Prisoners beyond Sea That against raising Mony without Consent of Parliament That against Papists sitting in either House Another Act for speedier convicting of Papists That for recalling his Mejestys Subjects out of the French service c And as to his Majestys supply they proceeded in their former Method of the two Bills One for raising 300000 l. and the other for Appropriating the Tunnage and Poundage to the use of the Navy And in the Lords House there was a good disposition toward things of Publick Interest But 300000 l. was so insipid a thing to those who had been continually regaled with Millions and that Act of Appropriation with some others went so much against stomack that there wanted only an opportunity to reject them and that which was readiest at hand was the late quarrel betwixt the House of Lords and the Commons The house of Commons did now more peremptorily then ever oppose the Lords Jurisdiction in Appeals The Lords on the otherside were resolved not to depart from so essentiall a Priviledge and Authority but to proceed in the Exercise of it So that this Dispute was raised to a greater Ardure and Contention then ever and there appeared no way of accomodation Hereupon the Lords were in consultation for an Addresse to his Majesty conteining many weighty Reasons for his Majestyes dissolving this Parliament deduced from the nature and behaviour of the present House of Commons But his Majesty although the transaction between the two Houses was at present become impracticable Judging that this House might at some other time be of use to him chose only to Prorogue the Parliament The blame of it was not onely laid but aggravated upon those in both Houses but especially on the Lords-House who had most vigorously opposed the French and Popish-Jnterest But those who were present at the Lords and observed the conduct of the Great Ministers there conceived of it otherwise And as to the House of Commons who in the heat of the Contest had Voted That vvhosoever shall Sollicity or prosecute any Appeal against any Commoner of England from any Court of Equity before the House of Lords shall be deemed and taken abetrayer of the Rights and Liberties of the Commons of England and shall be proceeded against accordingly Their Speaker going thorow VVestminster Hall to the House and looking down upon some of those Lawyers commanded his Mace to seize them and led them up Prisoners with him which it is presumed that he being of his Majesties Privie Councill would not have done but for what some men call his Majesties Service And yet it was the highest this of all the Provocations which the Lords had received in this Controversie But however this fault ought to be divided there was a greater committed in Proroguing the Parliament from the 22th of November 1675 unto the 15th of February 1676. And holding it after that dismission there being no Record of any such thing done since the being of Parliaments in England and the whole Reason of Law no lesse then the Practise and Custome holding Contrary This vast space betwixt the meetings of Parliament cannot more properly be filled up then with the coherence of those things abroad and at home that those that are intelligent may observe whether the Conspirators found any interruption or did not rather sute this event also to the Continuance of their Counsells The Earl of Northampton is not to be esteemed as one engaged in those Counsells being a person of too great Honour though the advanceing of him to be Constable of the Tovver was the first of our Domestick occurrents But if they could have any hand in it 't is more probable that lest he might perceive their Contrivances they apparelled him in so much Wall to have made him insensible However men conjectured even then by the Quality of the Keeper that he was not to be disparaged with any mean and vulgar Prisoners But another thing was all along very remarkable That during this Inter-Parliament there were five Judges places either fell or were made vacant for it was some while before that Sir Francis North had been created Lord Cheif Justice of the Common Pleas the five that succeeded were Sir Richard Rainsford Lord Chief Justice of the Kings Bench. Mountagne Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer Vere Bartie Barrister at Law one of the Barrons of the Exchequer Sir William Scroggs one of the Justices of the Common Pleas. And Sir Thomas Jones one of the Justices of the Kings Bench. Concerning all whom there it somthing too much to be said and it is not out of a figure of speech but for meer reverence of their Profession that I thus passe it over considering also humane infirmity and that they are all by their Pattens Durante Bene Placito bound as it were to the Good Behaviour And it is a shame to think what triviall and to say the best of them obscure persons have and do stand next in prospect to come and sit by them Justice Atknis also by Warping too far towards the Laws was in danger upon another pretense to have made way for some of them but upon true Repentance and Contrition with some Almes Deeds was admitted to Mercy And all the rest of the Benches will doubtlesse have profited much by his and some other example Alas the Wisdom and Probity of the Law went of for the most part with good Sir Mathevv Hales and Justice is made a meere property This poysonous Arrow strikes to the very heart of Government and could come from no Quiver but that of the Conspirators What French Counsell what standing Forces what Parliamentary Bribes what National Oaths and all the other Machinations of wicked men have not yet been able to effect may be more compendiously Acted by twelve Judges in Scarlet The next thing considerable that appeared preparatory for the next session was a Book that came out by publick Authority Intitled Considerations touching the true vvay to suppresse Popery c. A very good design and writ I beleive by a very good man but under some mistakes which are not to be passed over One in the Preface wherein he

An Account of the GROWTH OF POPERY AND Arbitrary Government IN ENGLAND More Particularly from the Long Prorogation of November 1675 Ending the 15th of February 1676 till the Last Meeting of Parliament the 16th of July 1677. AMSTERDAM Printed in the Year 1677. An account of the Growth of POPERY and Arbitrary Government in England c. THere has now for diverse Years a design been carried on to change the Lawfull Government of England into an Absolute Tyranny and to convert the established Protestant Religion into down-right Popery than both which nothing can be more destructive or contrary to the Interest and Happinesse to the Constitution and Being of the King and Kingdom For if first we consider the State the Kings of England Rule not upon the same terms with those of our neighbour Nations who having by force or by adresse usurped that due share which their People had in the Government are now for some Ages in possession of an Arbitrary Power which yet no Presciption can make Legall and exercise it over their persons and estates in a most Tyrannical manner But here the Subjects retain their proportion in the Legislature the very meanest Commoner of England is represented in Parliament and is a party to those Laws by which the Prince is sworn to Govern himself and his people No Mony is to be levied but by the common consent No than is for Life Limb Goods or Liberty at the Soveraigns discretion but we have the same Right modestly understood in our Propriety that the Prince hath in his Regality and in all Cases where the King is concerned we have our just remedy as against any private person of the neighbourhood in the Courts of Westminster Hall or in the High Court of Parliament His very Prerogative is no more then what the Law has determined His Broad Seal which is the Legitimate stamp of his pleasure yet is no longer currant than upon the Trial it is found to be Legal He cannot commit any person by his particular warrant He cannot himself be witnesse in any cause the Ballance of Publick Justice being so dellicate that not the hand only but even the breath of the Prince would turn the scale Nothing is left to the Kings will but all is subjected to his Authority by which means it follows that he can do no wrong nor can he receive wrong and a King of England keeping to these measures may without arrogance be said to remain the onely Intelligent Ruler over a Rational People In recompense therefore and acknowledgment of so good a Government under his influence his Person is most sacred and inviolable and whatsoever excesses are committed against so high a trust nothing of them is imputed to him as being free from the necessity or temptation but his Ministers only are accountable for all and must answer it at their perills He hath a vast Revenue constantly arising from the Hearth of the Housholder the Sweat of the Laboures the Rent of the Farmer the Industry of the Merchant and consequently out of the Estate of the Gentleman a larg competence to defray the ordinary expense of the Crown and maintain its lustre And if any extraordinary occasion happen or be but with any probable decency pretended the whole Land at whatsoever season of the year does yield him a plentifull Harvest So forward are his Peoples affections to give even to superfluity that a Forainer or English man that hath been long abroad would think they could neither will nor chuse but that the asking of a supply were a meer formality it is so readily granted He is the Fountain of all Honours and has moreover the distribution of so many profitable Offices of the Houshold of the Revenue of State of Law of Religion of the Navy and since his persent Majesties time of the Army that it seems as if the Nation could scarse furnish honest men enow to supply all those imployments So that the Kings of England are in nothing inferiour to other Princes save in being more abridged from injuring their own subjects But have as large a field as any of external felicity wherein to exercise their own Virtue and so reward and incourage it in others In short there is nothing that comes nearer in Government to the Divine Perfection then where the Monarch as with us injoys a capacity of doing all the good imaginable to mankind under a disability to all that is evil And as we are thus happy in the Constitution of our State so are we yet more blessed in that of our Church being free from that Romish Yoak which so great a part of Christendome do yet draw and labour under That Popery is such a thing as cannot but for want of a word to express it be called a Religion nor is it to be mentioned with that civility which is otherwise decent to be used in speaking of the differences of humane opinion about Divine Matters Were it either open Judaisine or plain Turkery or honest Paganisme there is yet a certain Bona fides in the most extravagant Belief and the sincerity of an erroneous Profession may render it more pardonable but this is a compound of all the three an extract of whatsoever is most ridiculous and impious in them incorporated with more peculiar absurdityes of its own in which those were deficient and all this deliberately contrived knowingly carried on by the bold imposture of Priests under the name of Christianity The wisdom of this fifth Religion this last and insolentest attempt uppon the credulity of mankind seems to me though not ignorant otherwise of the times degrees and methods of its progresse principally to have consisted in their owning the Scriptures to be the word of God and the Rule of Faith and Manners but in prohibiting of the same time their common use or the reading of them in publick Churches but in a Latine translation to the vulgar there being no better or more rational way to frustrate the very design of the great Institutor of Christianity who first planted it by the extraordinary gift of Tongues then to forbid the use even of the ordinary languages For having thus a book which is universally avowed to be of Divine Authority but sequestring it only into such hands as were intrusted in the cheat they had the opportunity to vitiate suppresse or interpret to their own profit those Records by which the poor People hold their salvation And this necessary point being once gained there was thence forward nothing so monstrous to reason so abhorring from morality or so contrary to scripture which they might not in prudence adventure on The Idolatry for alas it is neither better nor worse of adoring and praying to Saints and Angels of worshipping Pictures Images and Reliques Incredible Miracles and plapable Fables to promote that veneration The whole Liturgy and Worship of the Blessed Virgin The saying of Pater Nosters and Creeds to the honour of Saints and of Ave Mary's too not

so they might have a Rase Campagne of Religion Government and Propriety or they hoped at least by this means to fright the one party and incourage the other to give hence forward Money at pleasure and that money on what title soever granted with what stamp coyned might be melted down for any other service or uses But there could not have been a greater affront and indignity offerred to those Gentlemen and the best did so resent it then whether these hopes were reall to think them men that might be hired to any base action or whether as hitherto but imaginary that by erecting the late Kings Statue that whole Party might be rewarded in Effigie While these things were upon the Anvill the tenth of November was come for the Parliaments sitting but that was put of till the 13th of April 1675. And in the mean time which fell out most opportune for the Conspirators these Counsells were matured and something further to be contrived that was yet wanting The Parliament accordingly meeting and the House of Lords as well as that of the Commons being in deliberation of severall wholesome Bills such as the present state of the Nation required the great Design came out in a Bill unexpectedly offered one morning in the House of Lords whereby all such as injoyed any beneficiall Office or Imployment Ecclesiastical Civill or Military to which was added Privy Counsellours Justices of the Peace and Members of Parliament were under a Penalty to take the Oath and make the Declaration and Abhorrence insuing I A. B. Do declare That it is not Lavvful upon any pretence vvhatsoever to take up Armes against the King and that I do abhorre that Traiterous position of taking Armes by his Authority against his Person or against those that are Commissioned by him in Pursuance of such Commission And I do svvear that I vvill not at any time Indeavour the Alteration of the Government either in Church or State So help me God This same Oath had been brought into the House of Commons in the Plague year at Oxford to have been imposed upon the Nation but there by the assistance of those very same persons that now introduce it t was thrown out for fear of a General Infection of the Vitales of this Kingdome And though it passed then in a particular Bill Known by the name of the Five-mile Act because it only concerned the Non-conformist Preachers yet even in that it was throughly opposed by the late Earle of Southampton whose Judgement might well have been reckoned for the Standard of Prudence and Loyalty It was indeed happily said by the Lord Keeper in the opening of this Session No Influences of the Starrs no Configuration of the Heavens are to be feared so long as these tvvo Houses stand in a Good Disposition to each other and both of them in a happy Conjunction vvith their Lord and Soveraign But if he had so early this Act in his prospect the same Astrology might have taught him that there is nothing more portentous and of worse Omen then when such an Oath hangs over a Nation like a New Comet forboding the Alteration of Religion or Government Such was the Holy League in France in the Reigne of Henry the third Such in the time of Philip the second the Oath in the Netherlands And so the Oaths in our late Kings time taught the Fanaticks because they could not swear yet to Covenant Such things therefore are if ever not needlessely thought for good fortune sake only to be attempted and when was there any thing lesse necessary No King of England had ever so great a Treasure of this Peoples Affections except what those ill men have as they have done all the rest consumed whom but out of an excesse of Love to his Person the Kingdome would never for it never did formerly so long have suffered The Old Acts of Allegiance and Supremacy were still in their full Vigour unlesse against the Papists and even against them too of late whensoever the way was to be smoothed for a liberall Session of Parliament And moreover to put the Crown in full security this Parliament had by an Act of theirs determined a Question which the wisdome of their Ancestors had never decided that the King hath the sole power of the Militia And therefore my Lord Keeper did by his patronizing this Oath too grossely prevaricate against two very good State Maximes in his Harangue to the Parliament for which he had consulted not the Astrologer but the Historian advising them first That they should not Quieta movere that is said he vvhen men stirre those things or Questions vvhich are and ought to be in peace And secondly That they should not Res parvas magnis motibus agere That is saith he againe vvhen as much vveight is laid upon a nevv and not alvvays necessary Proposition as if the vvhole summe of affaires depended upon it And this Oath it seems was the little thing he meant of being forsooth but a Moderate Security to the Church and Crovvn as he called it but which he and his party layd so much vveight on as if the vvhole sum of Affaires did depend upon it But as to the Quieta movere or stirring of those things or Questions which are and ought to be in Peace was not this so of taking Armes against the King upon any pretence whatsoever And was not that also in Peace of the Trayterous Position of taking Armes by his Authority against his Person Had not the three Acts of Corporations of Militia and the Five Miles sufficiently quieted it Why was it further stirred But being stirred it raises in mens thoughts many things more some les others more to the purpose Sir Walter Tirrells Arrow grazed upon the Deer it was shot at but by that chance kill'd King William Rufus Yet so far was it that Sir Walter should for that chance shot be adjudged of Treason that we do not perceive he underwent any other Tryal like that of Manslaughter But which is more to the point it were difficult to instance a Law either in this or other Country but that a private Man if any king in Christendom assault him may having retreated to the Wall stand upon his Guard and therefore if this matter as to a particular man be dubious it was not so prudent to stirre it in the General being so well setled And as to all other things though since Lord Chancellour he havein his Speech of the 15 of Feb. One thousand six hundred seveny six said to testify his own abhorrency Avvay vvith that ill meant distinstion betvveen the Natural and the Politique Capacity He is too well read to be ignorant that without that Distinction there would be no Law nor Reason of Law left in England To which end it was and to put all out of doubt that it is also required in this Test to declare mens abhorrency as of a Traitorous Position to take Armes against those that