Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	law_n	parliament_n	prerogative_n	2,334	5	9.9399	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96590	The discovery of mysteries: or, The plots and practices of a prevalent faction in this present Parliament. To overthrow the established religion, and the well setled government of this glorious Church, and to introduce a new framed discipline (not yet agreed upon by themselves what it shall be) to set up a new invented religion, patched together of Anabaptisticall and Brownisticall tenents, and many other new and old errors. And also, to subvert the fundamentall lawes of this famous kingdome, by devesting our King of his just rights, and unquestionable royall prerogatives, and depriving the subjects of the propriety of their goods, and the liberty of their persons; and under the name of the priviledge of Parliament, to exchange that excellent monarchicall government of this nation, into the tyrannicall government of a faction prevailing over the major part of their well-meaning brethren, to vote and order things full of all injustice, oppression and cruelty, as may appeare out of many, by these few subsequent collections of their proceedings. / By Gr. Williams L. Bishop of Ossory.	Williams, Gryffith, 1589?-1672.	1643 (1643)	Wing W2665; Thomason E60_1; Thomason E104_27; ESTC R23301	95,907	126

One of them uttered in a Taverne and God will avert it from his Servant That they would make the King as poor as Job Sober Sadnesse p. 22. unlesse he did comply with them 2. 2. Wrong If any man which they like not attend the Kings Person though he be his sworne servant or assist him in his just defence which he is bound to do by the Law of God and man yet he is presently voted and condemned for a Malignant popish disaffected evill Councellour and an enemie to the State and that is enough if he be catched to have him spoiled and imprisoned at their pleasure nay my selfe was told by some of that Faction that because I went to see the King I should be plundered and imprisoned if I were taken 3. 3. Wrong Though they do solemnly professe that his Majesties personall safetie and his royall honour and greatnesse are much dearer unto them than their own lives fortunes The Petition to his Majestie the 16. of July 1642. which they do most heartily dedicate shall most willingly imploy for the support maintenance thereof yet for all this hearty Protestation they had at that very time as the King most acourately observeth in his Answer directed the Earle of Warwicke to assist Sir John Hotham against him appointed thier Generals Non turpe est abeo vinci quē vincereest nesas neque ei inhonestè aliquē submitti quem ●e●… super omnes extulit Dictum Arme●… Pompeio and as Alderman Garroway testifieth raised ten thousand armed men out of London and the neighbour Countries before the King had seven hundred● and afterwards though the King sent from Nottingham a gratious Message and sollicitation for peace yet they supposing this proceeded from a diffidence of his own strength or being too confident of thier own force sleighted the Kings Grace and most barbarously proceeded in the most hostile manner waged war and gave battaile against the Kings Armie where they knew he was in his own Person and as one of their Preachers taught the Sunday before the Battaile that they might with a good conscience as well kill the King horresco dicere as any other man so according to Captain Blagues directions as Iudas taught the high Priests servants we know what Troopes and Regiments were most aimed at whereas they doe most ridiculously say they have for the defence of his person sent many a Canon bullet about his eares which he did with that Kingly courage and heroike magnanimity yea and that Christian resolution and dependance on Gods assistance passe through that it shall be recorded to his everlasting honour and their indeleble shame and reproach so long as the world endureth 4. 4. Wrong They have most disloyally and traiterously spoken both privately and publikely such things against his Majesty as would make the very Heathens teare them in peeces that should say the like of their tyrannous Kings and such as I could not believe they proceeded from the mouth of a Christian against so Christiana King but that I finde most of them were publikely uttered made knowne unto his Majesty and related by himselfe and those that were eare witnesses thereof as horresco referens that he was not worthy to be our King not fit to live Sober sadnesse P 3 The Viewer p. 4. His Majesties Declaration Trussell in the supplement to Daniels history that hee was the traitor that the Prince would governe better and that they dealt fairely with him they did not depose him as their fore-fathers had deposed Richard the second whom all the world knoweth to be most traiterously murdered and the whole progresse of that act whereby hee was deposed is nothing else but the scandall of that parliament and an horrid treason upon the fairest relation of any Chronicle and the good Bishop of Carlile was not then affraid in open house to tell the Lords so to their faces and I would our parliament men would read his speech 5 They command their owne Orders 5. Wrong Ordinances and Declarations to be printed Cum privilegio and to be published in publike throughout the whole Kingdome and they are not a little punished that neglect it and whatsoever Message Answer Declaration or Proclamation commeth from the King to informe his subjects of the truth of things and to undeceive his much seduced people they streightly forbid those to bee printed and imprison if they can catch them all that publish them as they did many worthy Ministers in the City of London and in many other places of this Kingdome 6 They have publikely voted in their house and accordingly indeavoured by Messages to perswade our brethren of Scotland to ioyne in their assistance with these grand rebels 6. Wrong to rebell against their Soveraigne but I perswade my selfe as I said before that the Nobility and Gentry of Scotland are more religious in themselves more loyall to their liege Lord and indeed wiser in all their actions then while they may live quietly at home in a happy peace to undertake upon the perswasions of rebellious subiects such an unhappy warre abroad 7. It is remonstrated and related publikely that as if they had shaken off all subiection 7. Wrong and were become already a State independent they have treated by their agents with forraigne states and doe still proceed in that course which if true is such an usurpation upon Soveraignty as was never before attempted in this Kingdome and such a presumption as few men know the secret mischiefes that may lurke therein 8. They suffer and licence their Pamphleters Pryn 8. Wrong Goodewin Burges Marshall Sedgwicke and other emmissaries of wickednesse to publish such treasons and blasphemies and abominable aphorismes as that the negative vote of the King is no more then the dissent of one man the affirmative vote of the King makes not a law ergo the negative cannot destroy it and the like absurd and senslesse things that are in those aphorisms and in Prins booke of the Soveraigne power of Parliament whereby they would deny the kings power to hinder any act that both the Houses shall conclude and so taking away those iust prerogatives from him that are as hereditary to him as his kingdome compell him to assent to their conclusions Why the two ●… Spencers dyed for which things our histories tell us that other Parliaments have banished and upon their returnes they were hanged both the Spenters the father and the sonne for the like presumption as among other Articles for denying this Prerogative unto their king and affirming that if he neglected his duty and would not do what he ought Per asperte vid. Elismere post●…atip 99. for the good of the kingdom he might bee compelled by force to performe it which very thing divesteth the king of all Soveraignty overthroweth Monarchy and maketh our government a meer Aristocracy contrary to the constitution of our first kings and the iudgement of all ages

I have fully shewed and I would all Kings would read it in the Grand Rebellion But I see no reason why it may not and why it should not be retracted and annulled That the act should be annulled when the Houses shall be purged of that Anabaptisticall and Rebellious faction that contrived and procured the same to passe for these three speciall reasons 1. 1. Reason Because that contrary to all former precidents that Bill for their exclusion was as it is reported at the first refused and after a full bearing among the Lords it was by most votes by more then a dozen voices rejected and yet to shew unto the world that the factions maltee against the Bishops had no end their rage was still implacable at the same Session which is very considerable immediatly assoone as ever they understood it was rejected the House of Commons revived it and so pressed it unto the Lords that if I may have leave to speake the truth contrary to all right * For I conceave this to be an approved maxime that no light not proved forfitea by some of fence can be taken away wuhout wrong 2 Keasom In His Majesties answer to the Petition of the Lords and Commons 16 of July p. 8. it must be againe received and while the Bishops were in prison it was with what honour I know not strangely confirmed 2. Because this Bill had the Royall assent after that a most riotous tumult many thousands of men with all sorts of warlike weapons both on land and water most disloyally had driven His Majestie to fly from London that most Rebellious City not without feare for his owne safety even for the safety of his life as himselfe professeth and when they had so cunningly contrived their plot as to get some of the Kings servants and friends that were about him and imployed in the Queenes affaires to perswade Her Majesty to use all her power with the King for the passing of this Bill or else Her journey should be slaied as formerly they had altered her resolution for the Spaw and at Rochester she should understand the sense of the House to stop Her passage unto Holland whereas the passing of this Bill might make way for Her passage over and many other such frights and feares they put both upon the King and Queene to inforce him full sore against his will as we beleive to passe this harsh Bill for the exclusion of the spirituall Lords out of the House of Peeres and of all the Clergy from all Secular Judicature But Master Pym will tell us he did Ald. Gar. speech at Guild hall that it was the opinion of both Houses there was no occasion given by any tumults that might justly cause His Majesties departure To whom I answere with the words of Alderman Garroway if the Houses had declared that it had beene lawfull to beat the King out of Town I must have sate still with wonder though I should never beleive it but when they declare matters of fact which is equally within our own knowledge and wherein we cannot be deceived as in the things we have seene with our eyes if they dissent from truth they must give me leave to differ from them as if they should declare they have paied all the money that they owe unto the city or that there was * For now I understand it is pulled down no Crosse standing in Cheapside we shall hardly beleive them And therefore seeing we all remember when the alarme was given that there was an attempt from Whitehall upon the City how hardly it was appeased and how no babies thought the designe of those subtle beads that gave that false alarme was no lesse then to have caused Wite hall to be pulled downe and they that loved the King and saw the Army both by Land and water which accompanied the persons accused to Westminster the next day after His Majesties departure as if they had passed in a Roman triumph conceived the danger to be so great that I call Heaven to witnesse they blessed God that so gracioussly put it in the Kings heart rather to passe away over night though very late then hazard the danger that might have ensued the day following The meaning therefore of both Houses may be that there was nothing done which they confessed to be a tumult and no mervaile because they received incouragement as we beleeved from their defence and no reproofe that we found was made for this indignity offered unto the King but if I be constrained and in danger it is not enough for me that I am voted free and safe for if that which lookes as like a tumult as that did or as the representation of my face in the truest glasse is like my face doth come against me and incompasse me about though I may be perhaps in more safety yet I shall thinke my selfe in great feare and in no more security then His Majestie was at Edge-hill 3. 3 Reason p. 7 Because as the veiwer of the Observat hath very well exprest it no act of Parliament can prevaile to deprive the King of His right and authority as an attainder by Parliament could not barre the title to the Crowne from descending on King Hen. 7. nor was an act of Parliament disabling King Hen. 6. to re-assume the government of his people of any force but without any repeale in it selfe frustrate and void 7. rep 14. Calvins case an act of Parliament cannot take away the protection or the Subjects service which is due by the Law of nature 11. rep Sur de la Wares case William de la Ware although disabled by act of Patliament was neverthelesse called by Queene Elizabeth to sit as a peere in Parliament for that it seems the Queen could not be barred of the service and councell of any of Her Subjects 2. H. 7.6 a statute that the King by no non obstante shall dispence with it is void because it would take a necessary part of government out of the Kings hand and therefore I se not how this act can deprive the King of the service and councell of all his Bishops and clergy but that it is void of it selfe and needeth no repeale or if otherwise yet seeing that besides all this 13 of the Bishops were shut in prison when this act passed and their protestation was made long before this time and it was so unduly framed so illegally prosecuted and with such compulsive threats and terrours procured to be passed I hope the wisedome of the next Parliament together with their love and respect to the Church and Church-men will nullifie the same CHAP. VI. Sheweth the plots of the faction to gaine unto themselves the freindship and assistance of the Scotts and to what end they framed their new protestation how they provoked the Irish to rebell and what other things they gained thereby ANd thus the Sectaries of this Kingdome and the faction in

for we know full well from the practise of all former parliaments that seeing the three States are subordinate unto the king p. 48 in making lawes wherein the chiefest power consisteth they may propound and consent but it is stil in the kings power to refuse or ratifie and I never read that any parliament man till now did ever say the contrary but that if there be no concurrence of the king in whom formally the power of making of any law resideth ut in subiecto to make the law the two Houses whose consent is but a requisite condition to compleat the kings power are but a livelesse convention like two cyphets without a figure that of themselves are of no value or power but ioyned unto their figures have the full strength of their places p 19 20 21 which is confirmed by the viewer of the Observations out of 11. Hen. 7.23 per Davers Polydore 185. Cowell inter Verbo prerog Sir Tho. Smith de republ Angl. l. 2. c. 3. Bodin l. 1. c. 8. for if the kings consent were not necessary for the perfecting of every act then certainly as another saith all those Bills that heretofore have passed both Houses The Letter to a Gentleman in Gloucester shite p 3 and for want of the Royall assent have slept and beene buried all this while would now rise up as so many lawes and statutes and would make as great confusion as these new orders and ordinances have done And as the Lawyers tell us that the necessity of the assent of all three states in Parliament Lamberts Archeion 271. Vid. he Viewes p. 21. is such as without any one of them the rest doe but loose their labour so Le Roy est assentus c●o faict un act de Parliament and as another saith Nihil ratum ha● betur nisi quod Rex comprobarit nothing is perfected but what the King confirmeth But here in the naming of the three States I must tell you that I find in most of our Writers about this new-borne question of the Kings power a very great omission that they are not particularly set downe that the whole Kingdome might know which is every one of them and upon this omission I conceive as great mistake in them that say the three States are 1. the King 2. the House of Peeres 3. Which hee the three States of England the House of Commons for I am informed by no meane Lawyer that you may find it upon the Rowles of Hen. 5. as I remember and I am sure you may find it in the first yeare of Rich. 3. where the three States are particularly named and the king is none of them for it is said that at the request Speed l 9 c 19 p. 712. Anno 1 Ric. 3 and by the assent of the three estates of this Realm that is to say the Lords Spirituall the Lords temporall and Commons of the Land assembled it is declared that our said Soveraign Lord the king is the very undoubted king of this realm wherein you may plainly see the king that is acknowledged their Soveraigne by all three can be none of the three but is the head of all three as the Deane is none of the Chapter but is caput cepituls and as in France and Spaine so in England I conceive the three estates to bee 1. the Lords Spirituall that are if not representing yet in loco in the behalte of all the Clergie of England that till these anabaptisticall tares have almost choaked all the Wheat in Gods field were thought so considerable a party as might deserve as well a representation in Parliament as old Sarum or the like Borough of scarce twenty Houses 2. The Lords Temporall in the right of their honour and their posterity 3. The Commons that are elected in the behalfe of the Countrey Cities and Burroughs and what these three States consult and conclude upon for the good of the Church and kingdome the king as the head of all was either to approve or reiect what he pleased and though we finde with some difficulty as the viewer of the Observations saith where the Parliament is said to be a body consisting of King Lords and Commons ergo without the king there is no Parliament yet herein the king is not said to be one of the three states but the first and most principall part that constitutes the body of the parliament p. 2● 25. H 8 21. but John Bodin that had very exactly learned the nature of our parliament both by his reading and conferring with our English Embassador as himselfe confesseth saith the States of England are never otherwise assembled no more then they are in the Realmes of France and Spaine then by parliament write and the states proceed not but by way of supplications and requests unto the king Bodin de repub l. 1. c. 8 and the states have no power of themselves to determine or decree any thing seeing they cannot so much as assemble themselves nor being assembled depart without expresse commandement from the king In all this and for all the search that I have made I finde not the king named to be one but rather by the consequence of the discourse to bee none of the three but as I said the head of all the three states for either the words of Bodin must bee understood of two states in all the three kingdomes which then had beene more properly termed as we call them either the two Houses or the Lords and Commons or else they must be very absurd because the three states if the king be one of them can not bee said to be called by parliament writs when as the king is called by no writ nor can hee be said to supplicate unto himselfe or to have no power to depart without leave that is of himself Therefore it must needs follow that this learned man who would speake neither absurdly nor improperly meant by the three states 1. The Lords Spirituall 2. The Lords Temporall 3. The Commons of the kingdome and the King as the head of all calling them consulting and concluding with them and dismissing them when he pleased And Will. Martyn saith King Hen 1 at the same time 1114. devised and ordained the manner and fashion of a Court in Parliament appointing it to consist of the three estates of which himselfe was the head so that his lawes being made by the consent of all were not disliked of any these are his words And I am informed by good Lawyers that you may finde it in the preambles of many of our Statutes and in the body of some other Statutes and in some Petitions especially one presented to Queene Elizabeth for the inlargement of one that was committed for a motion that he made for excluding the Bishops out of the House of peeres Such is the difference betwixt Queene Elizabeths time and our times the three states are thus particularized and the Lords Spirituall are nominated

omnium sapientum seniorum populorum totius regni per praeceptum regis Inae and in the second Charter of King Edward the Confessour granted to the Church of Saint Peter in Westminster How former times respected the Clergie it is said to be Cum concilio decreto Archiepiscoporum Episcoporum Comitum aliorumque suorum optimatum with the councell and decree of the Archbishops Bishops Earles and other Potentates And so not onely the Saxon Kings but the Norman also ever since the Conquest had the Bishops in the like or greater esteem that they never held Parliament or Counsell without them And surely these Princes were no Babes that made this choice of them neither was the Common wealth neglected nor justice prejudiced by these Governours And whosoever shall reade mores gentium or the pilgrimage of Master Purchas Livie Plutarch Appian and the rest of the Greek and Latine Histories I dare assure him he shall finde greater honour given and farre lesse contempt cast upon the Priests and Flamins the Prophets of the Sybils then we finde of this faction left to the Servants of the living God who are now dealt withall worse than Pharach dealt with the Israelites that took away their straw and yet required their full tale of brickes for these men would rob us of all our meanes and take away all our Lands and all our rights and yet require not only the full tale of Sermons and Service as was used by our Predecessours but to double our files to multiplie our paines How the Clergie are now used and to treble the Sermons and Service that they used to have of our forefathers more than ever was done in any Age since the first Plantation of the Gospell and when we have done with John Baptist the utmost of our endeavours like a shining and a burning lampe that doth waste and consume it selfe to nothing while it giveth light to others they onely deal with us as Cartiers use to do with their packe horses hang bels at their eares to make a melodious noise but with little provander lay heavie loades upon their backes and when they can bear no more burdens take away their bels withdraw their praises call them Jades exclaim against their lazinesse and then at last turne them out to feed upon the commons and to die in a ditch and thus we have now made the Ministers of Christ to be the emblems of all miserie and in pretending to make them more glorious in the sight of God we have made them most base in the eyes of all men And therefore the consequence of this Act is like to prove most lamentable when the people considering how that hereby we are left naked of all comfort and subject to all kinde of scorne and distresse and how that this being effected is but the praeludium of a farre greater mischiefe they will rather with no great cost make their children of some good Trade and their children will choose so to be than with such great costland more care and yet little hope to bring them up to worse condition than the meanest of all Trades The Clargie alone are deprived of Magna Charta or the lowest degree of all rustickes when as they can challenge and it shall not be denied them to have the priviledges of the Law and a propertie in their goods which without their own consent yielded in their persons or their representours cannot be taken from them and the Clergie onely of all the people in this Kingdom shall be deprived of the right and benefit of our great Charter which so many famous Kings and pious Princes have confirmed unto us and when we have laboured all the dayes of our lives with great paines and more diligence to instruct our people and to attain to some competencie of meanes to maintain our selves and our families we shall be in the power of these men at their pleasure under the pretence of Religion contrarie to all justice to be deprived of any part of our freehold when we shall have not one man of our own calling to speak a word in our behalfe on no Seat of Justice throughout the whole Kingdom O terque quaterque beati queis ante ora patrum contigit oppetere O most miserable and lamentable condition of Gods Ministers I must needs speak it though I should die for it and if some did not speak it I thinke the stones would crie against it and proclaim it better for the Clergie were their hope onely in this world never to have been borne or at least never to have seen a book then to fall into the hands and to be put under the censure of these men that do thus love Christ This Act more prejudiciall to to the future times than now by hating his Ministers who as I said before by this one Act are made liable to undergo all kinde of evils which shall not onely fall upon the present Clergie for were it so our patience should teach us to be silent but also to the increase of all prejudices to the Gospell more than my foresight can expresse in all succeeding Ages And therefore I may well say with Jeremie Jer. 5.9.29 Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this And we need not wonder that such plagues calamities and distresses have so much encreased in this Kingdom ever since the passing of this Act and yet the anger of the Lord is not turned away but his hand is stretched out still and I fear his wrath will not be appeased till we have blotted this and wiped away all other our great sinnes and transgressions with the truest teares of unfained repentance These are like to be the consequences of this Act and yet our good King who we know loved our Nation and built us a Synagogue and was as I assure my selfe most unwilling to passe it was notwithstanding over-perswaded considering where thirteen of the Bishops were even in prison and in what condition all the rest of them stood in question whether all they should stand or be cut down root and branch to yield his assent unto the Act though if the case in truth were rightly weighed not much lesse prejudiciall to his Majestie than injurious to us to be thus deprived of our right How the King hath been used ever since this Act passed and exposed to all miseries by excluding us from all Civill Judicature and I would to God the King and all the Kingdom did continually consider how his Majestie was used ever since the confirmation of this Act for they no sooner had excluded the Bishops and Clergie out of their right but presently they proceeded and prosecuted the designe ever since to thrust out the King from all those just rights and prerogatives which God and nature and the Lawes of our Land have put into his hands for the government of this Kingdome neither was it likely to succeede any other wise as

and can hardly believe the Christian world in any age no not under the Gothes and Vandales can parallel it with an example of like abominable and atheisticall villanies yet to this day uncensured and I am heartily sorry that it should be told in Gath or Ascalon in any forraigne Nation that our English People should have any such Sect amongst them so void of all humanitie so destitute of all thoughts of a Deitie and so full of all incredible impieties And therefore I must use the words of the Prophet Jeremie Ier. 5.9.29 Shall I not visit for these things saith the Lord or shall not my soule be avenged on such a Nation as this or is it any wonder that there are such Warres such bloody Warres such barbarous rapines and that these miseries do still continue amongst us when we not onely proceed to commit but also to defend and justifie these and the like abominable wickednesse Rom. 1.32 Heb. 10.31 and have pleasure in them that doe them for it is a fearfull thing to fall into the hands of the living God 5. 5. Branded the true Protestants and advanced Anabaptists Under the colour of advancing the true Protestant Religion they have branded the best Protestants even those that have most learnedly both preached and written against the Church of Rome and all her erroneous tenets and were not long since registred in the classe of Puritanes and for that cause kept under water for Papists and superstitiously Popish and so Malignants and opposers of the true to be established Religion and they have encouraged and promoted to the Livings and Livelihoods of the most Orthodox and Canonicall men Anabaptists and Brownists and other Sectaries of most desperate opinions that as Saint Bernard saith of the like Multiplicati sunt super numerum as the Caterpillers overspread all the Land of Egypt so these are multiplied in every corner without number and these tares have almost choaked all the Wheat in Gods field and do preach most desperate Doctrines destructive both to themselves their proselytes and all the truest Protestants throughout all this Kingdom when as Sedition and rebellion besides their other damnable Doctrines condemned by the Church must ever be at one end of their Sermons and published in their Pamphlets as for instance you may finde in the bloody bookes and firie writings of the darling Secretaries of thered Dragon that warreth against the Saints Stephen Marshall Master Bridges Jo. Goodwin Burroughes and the rest of the Locusts * Qua glomerantur in unum innumera pestes Erebi Claud. that are sent out of the bottomlesse pit to seduce the People of God and to lead them headlong unto perdition But let me advise the Servants of Christ to remember their Saviours words To beware of false Prophets Matth. 7.15 they shall deceive many and many love to be deceived by them those whom God hath given up That they should believe a lye 2 Thess 2.10 Qui infatuati seducuntur seducti judicabuntur but you that desire to escape their snares may know them by their fruits The Authours advice which are Rebellion against their King and rayling against their Governours Perjurie against God by the breaches of those Oathes which in the face of the Church they have taken both to the King and to their Superiours Three notes by which we may know the false Apostles and a wilfull perverting of the sacred Scriptures to the perdition of their Proselytes besides many other bitter fruites that worse than any Aconite are able to poyson any Christian soul that do but taste of their Philtra's or if you will believe these Apples of Sodom to be as sweet as they seem fair then remember by what markes the Prophets and Apostles tell us that we may know them 1. 1. Note Jer. 23.21 Such as run before they be sent as Weavers Tailors and the like that never had any calling or Authoritie to enter upon this sacred Function 2. They went from us but are not of us 2. Note 1 Iohn 2.19 such as were called but then forsook their first love and apostated from the Church and like ungracious children did throw dirt in their mothers face or like the brood of Vipers do labour to gnaw out her bowels and here let the world judge whether we went from them or they from us whether we or they apostated from that Oath and profession which all and every one of us did make when we entered into holy Orders 3. These false Prophets saith the Apostle 3. Note 2 Tim. 3 6 Gen. 3.1.6 do lead simple or silly women captives just as their Master first seduced Eve and she Adam so do these and because they have lesse worth than can attain to the height of their ambition you may see most of them by women raised to great fortunes and their pride disdaineth to be obedient or if they fail of such wives yer are they swelled with envie which is as rebellious in these as pride is in the other 6. Under the pretence of making our Clergie more spirituall and Apostolike 6. Ordered to take away all the revenues of the most worthy Clergie they have voted away most of our temporall estate the Lands and Lordships of the Bishops Deanes and Prebends and the Pluralities of those persons that possessed double Benefices and made their Order that no man should pay any rent or any dues unto any of the fore-named persons And by this taking away the free-hold of the Clergie now in present which they hold with as good right and by the same Law as the best Lord in England holdeth his Inheritance and this discouragement of Learning for the time to come they thought to make our Clergie Angelicall but have proved themselves I will not say diabolicall but most injurious unto the Church of Christ by committing an Act of as great injustice and as prejudiciall to the Common-wealth as can be found among the Pagans for what can be more unjust or more inhumane than to take away my Livelihood which is my very life in mine old age without any offence of mine for which I had laboured all the dayes of my life And what consequence can this produce than that which succeeded in the like case in Jeroboams time Sublatis studiorum praemiu ipsa studia pereunt C. Tacit. 1 R●g 12.31 Matth. 15.14 when he robbed the Priests and Levites of their inheritance ignorance and barbaritie and the basest of the people to be the Preachers of Gods Word whereby the blinde do leade the blinde untill both do fall into the ditch as I can testifie some of our greatest Nobilitie intended to make their sonnes Priests and Bishops while the glorie of Israel and the beautie of our Church remained un-obscured and now contempt and povertie being enacted and ordered to be their portion those resolutions are vanished and the Vniversities can bear me witnesse the lowest Gentrie are not so

seemes they did unto Master Pym when an Order passed under his sole teste for taking away the Rayles from the Communion Table for this is a course we never heard of in former times 9. 9. The multiplying of their Priviledges When their Priviledges are so infinitely grown and inlarged more than ever they were in former Parliaments and so swelled that they have now swallowed up almost all the priviledges of other men so that they alone must do what they please and where they will in all Cities and in all Courts because they have the Priviledge of Paliament 10. When according to the great libertie of language 10. Their speaking and s●…ing in other Courts which we deny them not within their own wall they take the Priviledge to speak what they list in other places and to governe other Courts as they please where as they did in Dublin and do commonly in London they sit as Assistants with them that are priviledged by their Charters to be freed from such Controllers 11. When above all that hath been or can be spoken 11. Their close Committee they have made a close Committee of safetie as they call it which in the apprehension of all wise and honest men is not onely a course most absurd and illegall but also most destructive to all true Priviledges and contrary to the equitable practice of all publique meetings that any one should be excluded from that which concerneth him as well as any of the rest and this Committee onely which consisteth of a very few of the most pragmatical Members of their House must have all intelligences and privie counsels received and reserved among themselves and what they conclude upon must be reported to the House which must take all that they deliver upon trust and with an implicite Roman faith believe all that they say and assent to all that they do onely because these forsooth are men to be confided in upon their bare word The greatnesse of this abuse when their House hath no power to administer an Oath unto any man in the greatest affaires happinesse or destruction of the whole Kingdom for this is in a manner to make these men Kings more than the Roman Consuls and so as great a breach of Priviledge and abuse of Parliament as derogatory to his Majestie that called them to consult together and as injurious to all the people as can be named or imagined CHAP. XIV Sheweth how they have transgressed the publike lawes of the Land three wayes and of foure miserable consequences of their wicked doings 2. 2. Against the publike laws of the land FOr those publike written and better known laws of this Land they have no lesse violated and transgressed the same than the other and that aswell in their execution and exposition as in their composition for 1. 1. In the execution of the old lawes When they had caused the Archbishop of Canterbury to be committed to the Tower Judge Berkeley to the Sheriffe of London sir George Ratcliffe to the Gate-house for no lesse crimes than high Treason and many other men to some other prisons for some other faults yet all the world seeth how long most of them have beene kept in prison some a yeare some two some almost three and God onely knoweth when these men intend to bring them to their legall tryall which delay of iustice is not only an intolerable abuse to the present subiects of this kingdome to be so long deprived of their liberty upon a bare surmise but also a far greater iniury to all posterity when this president shall be produced to be imitated by the succeeding Parliaments and to iustifie the delayes of all inferiour Iudges 2. 2 In expounding the lawes Whereas wee believe what judge Bracton saith and Judge Britton likewise which lived in the time of Edward the first Si disputatio oriatur justiciarii non possunt eam interpretari sed in dubiis obscuris Domini regis erit expectanda interpretatio voluntas cum ejus sit interpretari cujus est condere Citatur a Domino Elism in post-nati p. 108 if any dispute doth arise the Judges can not interpret the same but in all obscure and doubtfull questions the interpretation and the will of the King is to be expected when as he that makes the law is to bee the expounder and interpreter of the law yet they have challenged and assumed to themselves such a power that their bare Vote without an act of Parliament may expound or alter a knowne law which if it were so they might make the law as Pighius saith of the Scripture like a nose of wax that may bee fashioned and bended as they pleased but we doe constantly maintaine that the House of Commons hath no power to adjudge of any point or matter but to informe the Lords what they conceive and the House of Peeres hath the power of Iudicature which they are bound to doe according to the rules of the knowne established lawes and to that end they have the Judges to informe them of those cases and to explaine those lawes wherein themselves are not so well experienced though now they sit in the House for cyphers even as some Clergie did many times in the Convocation and if any former Statute be so intricate and obscure that the Iudges cannot well agree upon the right interpretation thereof then as in explaining Poynings Act and the like either in England or Ireland the makers of the Act that is the King and the major part of both Houses must explaine the same 3. 3. In composeing and setting forth new laws Whereas we never knew that the House had any power to make Orders and Ordinances to bind any besides their own members to observe them as lawes yet they compell us to obey their orders in a stricter manner than usually we are injoyned by Law and this course to make such binding ordinances as they doe to carry the force though not the name of an Act of Parliament or a Law is a mighty abuse of our lawes and liberties for Sir Edward Cooke tels us plainly that as the constitution of our Government now standeth neither the House of Commons and the King L. Cooke in the preface of the Stat. of Westminster the second Lamberts Archeton 27.1 can make any binding law when the Peeres dissent nor the Lords and King when the Commonalty dissenteth nor yet both Houses without the Kings consent but all three King Peeres and Commons must agree before any coactive law can be composed Nay more it is sufficiently proved that dare jus populo or the legislative power being one principall end of regall authority was in Kings by the law of nature while they governed the people by naturall equity long before municipall lawes or Parliaments had any being for as the Poet saith Remo cum fratre Quirinus jura dabat Virgilius Hoc Priami gestamen erat cum jura