Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	common_a	court_n	judge_n	4,690	5	7.1911	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27232	The Quakers challenge made to the Norfolk clergy, or, A relation of a conference between some clergy-men of the Church of England and some Quakers held (on the 8th of December 1698 in West-Dereham Church) in the county of Norfolk : together with those letters which passed between them in order thereunto : to which is added a certificate relateing to the challenge.	Beckham, Edward, 1637 or 8-1714.; Meriton, Henry, d. 1707.; Topcliffe, Lancaster, 1646 or 7-1720.	1699 (1699)	Wing B1654; ESTC R27616	19,882	30

Justice of the Common Law in this Case much exceeds your pretence of Edification And this being denied by you we take it for granted your design is to Censure and pass Judgment on Persons unheard And if your Charge be to be drawn from Books it is as reasonable by the Common voice of Mankind that their Titles and Pages be given the Authors of which if living have an undoubted right to explain for themselves or if Dead such notice is reasonable for our due preparation to Answer Till which we shall only say that the Living labours of the Dead have this Justice due to them viz. that the whole be considered and the Scope and Intent of the Writer be taken and not rigidly much less falsly to pervert his words to a Sence contrary and repugnant to the Scope of the whole The refusal whereof will speak a design Partial Injurious and Precipitant but we hopeing on better Consideration you 'l do otherwise do expect as above to be sent us in such convenient time as we may examine them which cannot be in less time then Three weeks at least This demand its true you laugh at and call it a foolish generosity yet it being reasonable we insist on it For the frightful Apparitions which by opening our Books you say sent you to your Prayers c. we doubt your Frights or Fevers have been so great as to prevent your having any true Idea of Them or any loving concernment for Vs therein And not finding our selves haunted as you suggest we rather desire you to speak truth than offer false Sacrifice For conclusion to this and to try your Ingenuity whether your Method be to do as you would be done unto we put these following Questions I. Whether you are willing to be Charged out of all the Old and New Books Pamphlets and Sermons that your Brethren the Clergy have Wrote and Printed to stand and fall by them II. Are you willing we should Publickly Charge you with Errors or Mistakes out of any of the abovementioned and not beforehand give the Particular Instances to you For know ye that we expect Equal liberty with you to Charge as well as to be Charged III. Will you Personate all your Brethren as above both Dead and Living so as to be Charged out of their Books in their stead Your direct Answer we expect without any further Evasion Boast or Menace in the interim conclude Your abused because not sufficienly known Friends Richard Ashby John Hubbard Dan. Phillips Richard Case The Reply dated November the 16th 1698. Friends YOUR last does not a little astonish Us. 1 st That you should deny your Challenge which is as plain an one as Words in English can make it and truly very brave to all our Cloth that is to Nine or Ten thousand of us 2 ly That you affirm that we espoused Bugg's Cause when you or some of you cannot but know the contrary by one of us For when the last Summer you demanded of Hen. Meriton whether he would justify Bugg's Books written against you he Answer'd They contain'd Matters of Fact which he was not capable of judging of having not the Books to compare them with Francis Bugg's Writings yet told you that if his Citations were true you see then he made an If of it and therefore did not justify them he would justify such Expressions were Blasphemy But you are still offended at our unreasonable limitation of you as to the Place whence you are to fetch your Disputants But Friends did not you begin with us Did not you limit us when you rejected Francis Bugg and all others too that were not of our Cloth some of whom you know too well might have been very useful to us in this Service Nay did not you reject Francis Bugg for this reason because he had been Answer'd as you pretend over and over again and was unreasonable as if we had nothing to do but Actum agere Aud may not we say the same of your Hackny Disputants they have truged so long in that road and have been Spur'd and Gall'd by us enough already and therefore in reason we ought to turn them off awhile and give them rest till another occasion More plainly they have been Answered over and over already and are unreasonable Besides Your Church which you profess your selves so Zealous Members of have owned and approved of those Books we intend to quote and your selves have been known to admire and almost adore them and their Authors And therefore till you disclaim them you are as much concern'd to Vindicate them as the Authors themselves for by owning them you become joynt Authors and your Plea for them will be the Plea of Parties and not of Proxies But now When the Court of Equity will not relieve you you fly to Common Law but if yon give us no better proof of your skill in it then in this instance we shall have little reason to take your Counsel in Law Business Friends 'T is matter of Fact we Charge you with that we find such and such Blasphemous Expressions in your Books For matter of Right whether such Expressions are to be esteemed Blasphemy we shall leave it to the Judgment of the Auditory The matters of Fact your Authors have already owned them at least so much as will make good our Charge And for matter of Right whether such Expressions are Blasphemous or no we think the Common Law will not allow the accused Malefactor when he 's convicted of the Fact a right to Judge of the Law or whether his Fact hath been a breach of it Suppose we had Charged some of your Friends with Common Swearing by their Maker and they should not deny matter of Fact that they have said such words only they excuse them with a great deal of Artifice that they were spoken in Passion that they dropt from them rashly or their minds did a little run out or truly they do not affect such Speeches or they may see Cause otherwise to word them is there any Law or Equity such Men should be admitted in any Court in the World to Plead and Apologize for Common Swearing If matter of Fact be Prov'd or Own'd may not the Judge turn such Men out of the Court and pass the Definitive upon them The fact is own'd by their Men themselves that such Expressions are in their Books so much at leastwise as will prove the Charge and let the Auditory whom we appeal to as Judges in this Case determine whether Blasphemy or no. We dare affirm it will be easier for the People to Judge that such and such words are Blasphemy then such words are Swearing And we are Sorry to see you so Zealous for such Authors only to give them an opportunity to excuse Blasphemy At last you direct us to that Golden Rule in Divinity to do as we would be done by and think you have Gravell'd us with three Questions which you suppose we cannot Answer

Words of those several Blasphemies Your direct Answer to those particulars 3dly We think it not worth while to follow you thro all the Parts of your Letter it being a great part of it Rattle and Noise besides our present business 4thly You evade our Instance of the Common Law We distinguish between matter of Fact and a Right to Judge You have Charged us with matter of fact We demand a Copy of our Charge that we may prepare our Answer to make as a point of Justice allowed by the Common Law to Male factors We deny your having any Jurisdiction over us as Judges and before we submit we will have full proof of your Commission Temporal Judges you are not and to be Spiritually qualified you must prove before we acknowledge you as such 5thly Seeing you resolutely refuse our just demand we do not look upon our selves obliged to Meet you under the limitation of your Terms We stand to our former offer and by the Terms we have offered to qualify yours and if you refuse it shews for all your pretence of Friendship a contrary design upon us we cannot look upon your Resolution to Friendship any thing else but an empty pretence until as a proof that it is otherwise you give us the instances of your Charge in Form and Manner aforesaid which is not as you say to send us your Arguments before-hand but the matter of fact you Charge us with This as a point of Justice from you we seek not your mercy make your Arguments as strong as you will But while you thus put us off we look upon it no other then a shift and Evasion on your Parts and a design to over-rule us We leave it with you as a Test upon your resoluet Friendship Give us our just demand of Author Title Book and Page with convenient time as set forth in our last to you to prepare to make Answer which if you still deny we look upon your pretence of Friendship to be a meer Complement and Decoy and a Design of much evil to us Couch'd under 't Notwithstanding we are your Friends and desire you would mind the witness of God in your Consciences that admits of no deceit and will if minded lead you to deal plainly To which you must stand or fall one day Richard Ashby John Hubbard Dan. Phillips Richard Case c. P. S. SEeing you have rejected our Terms as aforesaid and we have refused to be imposed upon by some of your Limitations we therefore shall take our Liberty either to Meet or not Meet you And if we Meet you to have others of our Friends present with us who are not Inhabitants within this Diocess if we see Cause and if they have freedom thereto A Certificate of several Principal Inhabitants within the Parishes of West-Dereham and of other adjacent Parishes to obviate the false Reports given out by the Quakers wherewith they endeavour to make the World believe that the late Norfolke Challenge was not made by them to the Clergy of the Church of England THE Parish of West-Dereham in Norfolke having in it several Divisions and Sectaries and but an Exceeding small Sallary for a Minister discouraged most Men from supplying the Cure By reason whereof it was seldom well Supplyed for any long time together and the greatest part of the People in danger of falling to the Quakers who seldom fail of making their Markets in such dark Corners until the present Minister thereof undertook it at the request of some Principal Men of the Parish and entred upon that Cure in June 1691. and very laboriously and constantly has continued till this present time Against whom the Quakers have been in a continual rage for being disappointed of their Prey Which displeasure of theirs they could not forbear to Express by many undecent Acts becoming a People of such pernicious Principles and rugged behaviour as they Such Instances whereof as at present occur to our minds are these The Wife of one Becket a Quaker gave her self the trouble of going three Miles to the Ministers House on purpose to vex him with Quakerly Questions in a Quibling way upon Aseension day Morning 1695. His Family can Witness the truth of this as also Mrs. Bishop a Principal Person of the Town of Barton who happened to be with the Minister then We of this Parish and divers other Persons of Neighbouring Parishes too do very well remember the time that Becket the Husband himself watcht our Minister in a Lane not far from the Church lin'd on both sides with People to Dispute him when his Spirits were exhausted with Preaching and his Strength weakened by performing the Duty of the Day One Phillips a Quaker went to disturb our Minister at his own House one Munday in May last to Challenge and Provoke him to Dispute with the Quakers at a Meeting at Stoak that was to be held on the Morrow as himself confessed after he came Home And he and his Friends set abroad the Report some days before to call the Country together and then gave it out that the Priests promised but durst not come both which we believe to be false This Phillips together with one Mason and Beket by speaking Profanely of the Ordinances of Christ and setting up a Conventicle contrary to Law in an unlicenc'd Barn where there never had been one before and their restless Importunities to make Men go to their Meetings and by Villifying our Minister for no other Cause but preserving his Sheep from being devoured by the Wolves gave our Minister and us great occasion to dread an Apostacy of the People from the Christian Faith This and nothing but this made us and our Minister willing to permit Mr. Bugg to come among 'em to try if he could conjure down this busy Spirit which possesses the Quakers and is so troublesom to us having heard that he had thrown that unclean and Blaspheming Legion out of some other Places before We and our Minister accompanied him to one Quakers House and sent one of his Printed Charges in a Letter to Sam. Cater a Speaker Further than which we believe our Minister was not concerned And it was his great desire of saving Souls and a quiet life that made him ingage so far For he was always averse that either he or his Brethren should ingage in a Publick Dispute He to our knowledge was ever so far from giving a Challenge as that he never would accept it when it was offer'd till now For many Provocations and Challenges has he had One above all the rest we cannot forget which was given him in Writing when he was in the Pulpit by one Lilly in sight of the whole Congregation Which besides many more he evaded as well as he could till this last bold Challenge came on which was to all the Clergy of England as well as to his Brethren and him So that whatsoever the Quakers may pretend to the contrary we verily believe They are the Challengers and none but they But we hope it has done much good and had the Ministers been permitted to make out their Charge which was Artificially drowned in Noise Quakerism in these Parts would have received a Mortal Stroke The truth of all this is Certified by us whose Names are here Subscribed William Fenn William Young Richard Taylor Geo. Archer John Smith John Wright Tho. Wade Tho. Complin John Goddard Tho. Ward Tho. Hubbard William Prick Caleb Mayor Grace Lamson Mary Parke Barth Ramsey Sam. Chicco VVil. Sargison FINIS