Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n
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A63246
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The speech of Charles Trinder, recorder of Gloucester at his entrance upon that office, January the 8th, 1687/8.
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Trinder, Charles.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing T2283; ESTC R37902
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12,670
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19
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White-Hall January 21st 1687 / 8. This may be Printed SVNDERLAND P. THE SPEECH OF Charles Trinder Esq RECORDER OF GLOUCESTER AT HIS Entrance upon that Office JANVARY the 8th 1687 / 8. LONDON Printed and are to be Sold by Randal Taylor near Stationers-Hall 1687 / 8. THE SPEECH OF Charles Trinder Esq Gentlemen IT has pleased His Sacred Majesty to send His Royal Mandate hither in obedience to which I have had the Honour to be Elected Admitted and Sworn Recorder of this City Gentlemen I am very sensible of those many Defects which may seem to others as well as to my self to render me unqualified for so weighty an Office. But I shall not here loose time either in extenuating or excusing the same None here are ignorant of those many invincible Obstacles as to all sorts of Learning and Knowledge which have been laid in the way to Persons of my Character and Religion To mention no more then the very Oaths which we could not take and for the not taking of which till of late there was no Dispensation to be had These I say alone were a too sufficient cause of discouragement and hindrance from any close pursuit of Study or Conversation in such Knowledge and Practice as are requisit to an accomplish'd Lawyer But our Comfort is that in the present state of Affairs not so much profoundness of Skill as sincerity of Heart not the great Understanding but the good Will are the most indispensable Necessaries for His Majesty's Service not only in this but in most other Stations and Employments And for these I may without vanity challenge them to my self and I hope being no Stranger to most of you here present you will easily believe and acknowledge the same and that if on the one side you regard His Majesty's Affairs and on the other side the circumstances of my Life and Profession it would have been perhaps difficult to have found any One in this County more entirely at His Majesty's Service then my self And let this suffice to justifie His Majesty's Choice and notwithstanding my own avowed Defectiveness and Incapacity in other respects my submission to it Mean while I am not to be put in mind that even these beloved Oualities which I seem to glory in of Zeal and Fidelity in His Majesty's Service and which I plead as an Atonement for my other Unworthinesses that even these alone I say are enough to blast me in the Opinion of some men who will never hope for any good from One so disposed and declared The distractions and differences of Opinions have caused such disaffections of Heart that Mens Fancies are fill'd with Fears and Jealousies against the most innocent and laudable Purposes and Protestations of this nature even before they are reduced into Act. Hence it comes to pass that a Man can no sooner make profession of his Duty and Zeal to His Majesty's Service but some discontented and ill-affected Worldling who knows little and loves less besides what concerns his own self-interest represents him to himself and others as one of the Court-Party no Friend to his Country One ready to sacrifice his own and all other Mens Liberties and Properties to the Arbitrary Will and Pleasure of the Prince Neither does this happen in matters which relate to the Service of the King only or upon Temporal accounts alone but also in all Endeavours and good Desires for the welfare of our fellow-Subjects too and that in things which are Spiritual and concern the Conscience only Hence it comes to pass that a man cannot compassionate the heavy Sufferings of his innocent Neighbours for matters of meer Religion but he is presently maligned by some Bigot or other as an Enemy and Underminer of the Church of England as I my self was in this very place for this only cause in the late heats at the Quarter-Sessions for this County publickly traduced and branded as One that did more mischief then any other Man in the County But let such Worldlings and Bigots give me leave to tell them That they know not what Spirit they are of The first of them seem to trace back the Practices of those Times in which it was neither sufficient nor safe for a man to declare for the King but he must be for the King and Parliament too till at last he must upon his peril disclaim both King and Parliament Whereas in reality Loyalty to the King and Justice to the People are in their very Essence so united together that they are incapable of separation The second sort seem to have forgotten or even deserted the so-much boasted Principle of their own Church which they use to say is not of a Persecuting Genius or Spirit unless peradventure they mean by a Distinction that it is so in its Articles but not in its Members But Gentlemen that we may spare both these sorts of Spirits and calm them too I will say no more of either but only this That I am sent hither to serve a Prince who makes it His business to content both who to all His Subjects however affected is a Mirrour of Justice and Clemency And as I cannot serve so neither can I please Him better then by using my best endeavours as by God's Grace I ever shall in what-ever comes before me that the effects of these two God-like Attributes in Him may be equally distributed to all without regard to Fear or Favour But because I told you in the beginning of this Discourse that the cause of all these Jealousies and Disaffections was that great distraction in Opinion and Judgment wherewith this Age has been divided and perplex'd while each one endeavours to maintain and promote his own sometimes one prevailing and sometimes another and all equally labouring if not for Power at least for Ease and Security Give me leave to entertain you a little with the cause of those Distractions in Opinions which are the cause of these Disaffections I hope the Remarks which I shall make will prove no mis-expence of time either to you or me This great and famous Kingdom of England being many Ages past as again now at present highly blest with Kings enrich'd with a most sublime Wisdom as well as other Princely Vertues The Government of it was many hundred years since founded on such Rocks of Prudence and Justice as might in all humane prospect have secured it unshaken to the Worlds end It is that of Monarchy which has for its pattern the Great Monarch of Heaven and of all created Beings A Monarchy by Descent which secures us from all those dismal Factions and Wars which commonly attends the Election of Kings to the great weakning and oft-times final destruction of the Government and People A Monarchy wherein the King has all the Power the Nobility all the Honour and the People all the Security which the Hearts of men truly Rational can wish or aspire to How often and with what great Solemnity hath the great Charter of the
those Penal Laws by which either her self or Successors have endeavour'd to maintain the Church of England by depressing all others Twelve Pence a Sunday is a mere Trifle in the eye of a thoughtless rich man who perhaps is in no danger of paying it But how supportable to a poor Labourer perhaps lame too or blind old or sick and with a Family to maintain and at last for his dissent alone excluded from the relief even of a morsel of Bread from the Parish The Twenty Pound a Month is no great matter from men of large Estates But how impossible to be paid by him that has less and yet Body Lands and Goods must all go to make it out The two Thirds of a Dissenter's Lands must indeed needs pinch close even upon the greatest for men of Estates are Educated to suitable Expences and are generally under as great difficulties to keep within their bounds as those of smaller Fortunes How then can they subsist after two Thirds are lopt off But all this thô tending to the ruine and famishing not onely of the Offender but of his innocent Wife Children and Posterity yet you may say it breaks no bones nor extends to life But the end is not yet No man doubts but that a Roman Catholic is a Christian and also a Member of the True Church thô he as also every one is Erroneous in the opinion of every man that differs from him Yet by a Statute of 13 Eliz. If any man shall reconcile another or be reconciled himself to the Church of Rome both Reconciler and Reconciled shall be punished as Traytors and that without any regard whether the person Reconciled were before Pagan Turk Jew or Atheist No Man denies that a Priest of the Roman Church is rightly Ordained for the Exercise of Spiritual Functions Yet if any such being a Subject of this Kingdom do but set his foot on English Ground his Native Country without other Offence he shall suffer as a Traytor 27 Eliz. chap. 2. It is known that the Exercise of the Roman Catholick Religion cannot be without the help of Priests yet if any Entertain or but Relieve any such he shall be punisht with Death as a Felon 27 Eliz. chap. 2. Many about us have felt the smart of the Laws against Conventicles But by the Statute of 35 of Q. Eliz. we find that if any absenting from Church a Month shall afterward resort to a Conventicle he shall be committed to Prison and if he Conform not within three Months he shall abjure the Realm or suffer as a Felon without Benefit of Clergy These one would think were somewhat severe and that any tolerable degree of Truth thus guarded might be of sufficient force to resist the Batteries of all Opposers And yet in so dreadful a manner has this unhappy Land been ever since haunted with Panick and Imaginary Fears that notwithstanding all this and whatever more the Wit and Art of Man have been able to do or invent for the securing of their Church they have been always calling for more as oft as there is a Sessions of Parliament Out of which Fear have at last sprung up their Two Darling Acts The first of the 25th of the late King Entituled An Act to prevent the Danger arising from Popish Recusants And thereby All that shall not take the Sacraments Swear and Declare as is therein required are Excluded His Majesty's Service The other in the 30th of the late King Entituled An Act for the more effectual Preservation of the King's Person and Government And this Excludes from Parliament All and from the King's presence Many that shall not Swear and Declare as is therein required As these are Acts of Parliament they ought to be Treated with Respect and Understood in such a Sence as may Consist with Loyalty and the Being of Government that is that That Great and Wise Body had no other intent then what the Title and Preamble of those Acts seem to import viz. The King's Security from the Danger of Admitting into his Service Council or Presence by Surprize or Inadvertency such as they then conceived not likely to be faithful to him Yet not meaning to thrust from him any of whose Truth and Abilities he himself should be assured and as occasion required should call and by his Royal Dispensation enable to serve him But in the Sence to which These Acts have been since Commonly I may say Andaciously Wrested that is so to Tye up the King's hands that he shall by no Means nor on any Extremity be capable of receiving Aid Succour and Service from so many Thousands of his Subjects how Faithful or Able soever as shall believe it either not lawful to Swear at all or not to Do Swear and Declare as is required or whatever their Judgments be shall neglect to do it when required This were to raise up the Acts into a Mortal War against themselves and to pervert The more effectual Means of the King's Preservation and Government Pretended into a more Real and Certain Ruin and Destruction of Both Intended And surely it were but a sorry Compliment to so many Great Men as were concern'd in the Passing of these Acts to tell them at this time that this was indeed their very Meaning We all know Gentlemen that by the Act of the 25th of Edw. 3. To Compass or Imagin the Death of the King is High Treason But this Compassing is not restrained to the narrow Compass of Designing â—â—â—sent Execution by Poyson Dagger Screwed Guns and Chewed Silver Bullets only No our Laws interpret this Compassing to a far more extended sence Sir Edw. Cook tho' then no friend to the Prerogative tells us that he that declares by Overt act to Depose the King does enough to prove he Compasses the King's Death And so it is to Imprison or Take the King into his Power For there is but a small distance between Deposing or Imprisoning the King and his Death So that whosoever Compasseth the one virtually and obliquely thô not directly Compasses the other also In the Case of the R. Reverend Father Dr. Plunket Lord Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland who fell one of the Victims to the late celebrated Plot An Intention to raise Rebellion was by my late Lord Chief Justice Pemberton declared Treason because Rebellion does include an Intention of the King's Death So in the late Lord Russel's Case an Intention of Seizing the King's Guards was adjudged Treason because Depriving the King of his Defence does imply a Compassing of his Death So to detain the King's Fortresses or Ships of War is a Compassing the King's Death because so considerable a part of that strength which is to defend his Life is withheld from him And I my self have heard our present King most admirably and rightly observe that that Monstrous Treason and Rebellion here in England against his late Glorious Father began not in 42 as is vulgarly supposed but long before by the