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	repeal_v	2,928	5	12.0628	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62698	Tam quam, or, A attaint brought in the supream court of the King of kings, upon the statutes, Exod. 20. 7, 16 and Levit. 19. 12 against those modern jurors, who have found any indictments upon the statutes of 23 Eliz., 29 Eliz., or 3 Jacobi, against Protestants, for monthly absence from church, without any confession of the parties, or oath of witness against them, or made any presentments of them : contrary to the express letter of their oaths taken in a Court of Judgment, the course of the law of England, or any right reason : wherein is discoursed, whether any Protetant be concerned in that part of those laws? : the contrary is proved : as also whether a grand-jury's finding and indictment, be any evidence to a petit-jury? : the absurdness, and most pernicious consequents of which are detected, and the vengeance of God agaisnt false-swearing is declared / by one who prosecutes, as well for his sovereign lord the King of kings, as for the lives, liberties, and properties of all the subjects of England.	One who persecutes as well for his sovereign lord the King of kings as for the lives, liberties, and properties of all the subjects of England.	1683 (1683)	Wing T133; ESTC R17	24,452	40

them against the Queen The Act 3 Jacobi came forth upon the Powder-Plot I appeal to any Man of ordinary sense whether he can think that the Parliaments of those Times ever intended to put Protestants into a far worse condition than Papists which they apparently are if these Statutes equally concern them as well as Papists and they then were liable to the Act 35 Eliz. out of which Papists are expresly excepted 4. Further yet I do very well know that Votes of Parliament repeal no Laws much less have the force of Laws in them nor are to be mentioned in legal Pleas But the Question here is not whether these Acts be of force or no It is on all hands granted that they are but what is the true sense and meaning of them And as to that under correction I think a great deference is to be given to the Parliaments Judgment declared in them the far greater part of all the gravest and most famous Lawyers of England being generally in every Convention or Session of Parliament It was as I remember either in the latter end of the Year 1677 or the beginning of the Year 1678 that upon the Petition of the Quakers the Parliament at that time sitting first took notice That the Laws made principally against Papists were executed princially upon Protestants and appointed a Committee who spent a great deal of time in examining the Returns of Convictions made upon those Statutes into the Office and applied themselves to his Majesty for favour to his Protestant Subjects as to those Laws About the middle of the Year 1678 the horrid Popish Plot was discovered from Michaelmas that Year till Decemb. 30. the Parliament had enough to do to search into the Popish Plot and they had made but little progress in it when they were Prorogued which was Decemb. 30. and soon after Dissolved The next Parliament began March 6. 1678 9 and sat until May 27.1679 their whole time was also spent in a further discovery of that Hellish Plot. All this while I met with no Declarations of the Parliament's mind or sense in the case of those Acts Nor as I believe were there any complaints of any prosecutions of Protestant Dissenters upon any of those Statutes The next Parliament began Octob. 21. and held unto Jan. 10. 1680. By this time the Popish Party had a little recovered their Courage and began to defame the very Report of a Popish Plot. They had eight months before began to sham it tho' with very ill success But before this time they had began to divert the prosecution of it by obtaining of their Friends who would be thought Protestants every where to prosecute Dissenters upon those Statutes The Parliament that sat down Octob. 21.1680 had intelligence of it The Term before Estreats were given out upon all Convictions upon those Statutes but with express Instructions from the Commissioners of the Treasury to leavy the Forfeitures upon none but known Popish Recusants which 't is likely that in many Counties the Sheriffs observed In others 't is certain they did not but levied them equally if not principally upon Protestants but were inforced to refund some of them and for a great while after this upon a Certificate into the Exchequer that the Persons were Protestants and had taken the Test proceedings against them by order out of the Exchequer were staid This is supposed to have proceeded from his Majesty's Goodness complying with the desires of his Parliament in the Case of the Quakers The House of Commons which sat in the Westminster Parliament Octob. 21. 1680. had sat but a Month and two or three odd days before they came to this Vote without one Man's contradiction in Nov. 1680. Resolved nemine contradicente That it is the Opinion of this House that the Acts of Parliament made in the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James against Popish Recusants ought not to be extended to Protestant Dissenters Accordingly they made their Application to his Majesty by the Members of their House which were of his Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council beseeching him That all the Protestant Dissenters prosecuted upon those Acts might be discharged without paying any Fees and that he would recommend this Business to the Judges Upon the 26th of Novemb. 1680. we find it thus in the Votes under the Speaker's Hand Mr. Secretary Jenkins acquainteth the House that his Majesty had been attended by the Members of his most Honourable Privy Council with an Address concerning Protestant Dissenters And that his Majesty's Answer is That they should be discharged and that without Fees as far as might be done according to Law and they shall be recommended to the Judges The Parliament which then sat hath the repute to have been short of none who ever sat within those Walls for Men of Honour Wisdom and Estates Here was plainly their Judgments declared That these Acts concern not nor ought to be extended to Protestant Dissenters After which certainly that single Country Justice or Lawyer who dareth to say they do must arrogate much more to himself than he ought to do considering how many of the greatest Lawyers of England unanimously concurred in that Vote which did not repeal those Laws nor stop or supersede the execution of them but only declared the sense of them If any Person after all this will affirm they do concern them as well as others I have nothing more to say against it but only wish That the Question might be determined by my Lords the Judges and not left to the various determinations of puny Lawyers and many Justices of the Peace who were never bred to the Studies nor exercised in the practice of our Laws This whole Discourse is but a Digression from my proper Theme for admit those Statutes do concern Protestants it is another Question Whether Grand-Juries finding such Indictments be Evidence to a Petit-Jury in the Case The Affirmative part of which I never look to find determined by Judges what-ever be determined as to the other Question CHAP. IV. A Pathetical Conclusion to Jurors to consider what they have done to repent and to their Ability to make satisfaction avoiding the like enormous practices for the future And to such as are Commissioners of the Peace not to be any Temptation to them to bring such Guilt upon themselves their Families and Country WHat can remain further but that as an Orator for the Great God of Heaven and Earth I should admonish all my Country-men who have been deluded by their own Lusts and Passions or over-awed by any others to make any such Presentments of things whereof they had no knowledg or which they could not do in Truth or to find any such Indictments without any Evidence and this after that in Judgment they had called God to Witness that they would present nothing but the Truth and what came to their knowledg and true Deliverance make according to their Evidence And after they had sealed this their

the Stat. 3 Jacobi and may be given to any Protestants None of which can be determined concludent in the Case after the fore-going part of a Statute hath declared the Reasons and Grounds for the making of that Law viz. The bringing in of Popish Bulls seducing People to the Romish Religion and determined such Persons guilty of Treason Crimes which no Protestant can be guilty of tho' it follows as a means to prevent these things that every Person that for a Month shall absent himself from his Parish-Church shall forfeit 20 l. Yet certainly it is a fair Interpretation of it to restrain that general Term to that sort of Persons which alone are mentioned in all the preceding part of the Act. Nor certainly in any just construction can general words whether Affirmative or Negative have more extent in one Statute than in another In the late Act for the Sabbath made for the keeping that Holy Day from prophanation and an higher end cannot be God having made it the 4th Commandment in the Decalogue and denominated all Religion from it Isa 56. 4. there is this clause Provided also That no Person or Persons upon the Lord's Day shall serve or execute or cause to be served or executed any Writ Process Warrant Order Judgment or Decree except in Cases of Treason Felony or breach of the Peace but that the service of every such Writ Process Warrant Order Judgment or Decree shall be void to all intents and purposes whatsoever And the Person or Persons so serving or executing the same shall be as liable to the Suit of the Party grieved and to answer Dammages to him for doing thereof as if he or they had done the same without any Writ Process Warrant Order Judgment or Decree Here are no less than three general terms nor is there one Line in the Act excluding Dissenters from the benefit of this Act nor more authorising the Service of Warrants upon them for Meetings than upon any others It is true the Act against Conventicles gives a further liberty but it hath always held a Rule in Law That latter Laws abrogate such as were before if contrary to them Neither doth this Act abrogate it further than concerneth the Lord's Day the better Sanctification of which was the design of the Act Besides were not the former Laws which gave Liberty to Arrest Men on any Days abrogated by this Act so far forth as concerned that Point Yet multitudes of Justices have so interpreted these general terms that Dissenters have no benefit by it in this point Warrants are yet executed on them and their Doors broken open by Warrants on these days So as it seems general words in Statutes shall comprehend dissenting Protestants where they will serve to do them mischief but not where they may do them kindness But this is a Question not yet decided that I have heard of by my Lords the Judges as having not come judicially before them and the Justices And others who have adventured thus far to make Blots may some of them live to see them hit General words are certainly every where of equal extent 2. Nor is the reference to the Statute of 1 Eliz. 2. a proof that all concerned in that Statute are also concerned in the Statute of 23 Eliz. for it is mentioned only as directive of the manner how Persons should go to Church and there behave themselves How doth it from thence follow that all who do not go should be punished by a like Punishment because all are obliged to go to Church in the same Order and to behave themselves there in the same decent manner Nor is the third Argument of more value for there is nothing more ordinary than to find heterogeneous things in the same Statute Law Nor will it follow That the Penalties for not coming to Church in the Statute 3 Jacobi concern Protestants because the Oath of Allegiance in it doth especially when most Clauses in that Act express Popish Recusants But the Clauses concerning that Oath expresly mention any Persons 18 Years of Age whether indicted or convicted of Recusancy or no. But those who make this Objection should also consider that it is by the Act 7 Jacobi 6. that the Oath of Allegiance in 3 Jac. is given to Protestants not by the Act. 3 Jac. 4. 3. The Arguments being no stronger for Protestants Concernment in those Acts let us see what can be said to prove they are not concerned in them I do not pretend to so good an acquaintance with Records But if it doth appear 1. that for threescore Years after the making the Act 23 Eliz. it was never put in Execution upon any but known and professed Popish Recusants it is certain a greater Argument to prove that Protestants are not within it in any due Constructions than any can bring to prove they are 2. I am sure if Protestants though Dissenters be within those Acts they are by the Statute Law of England in a far worse case and exposed to much higher Penalties for not going to Church and going to Meetings than professed Papists are for besides they are in all points made equal with them as to the Stat. 23 Eliz. 29 Eliz. and 3 Jacobi They are further in danger of the Stat. 35 Eliz. out of which Papists are in terms excepted According to which Statute Protestants and none but they for these Crimes may be forced to abjure the Realm or to die like Felons I would gladly understand from any Man of sense to what purpose the Parliament 35 Eliz. should make so severe a Law against Protestant Dissenters upon that little freak the effect of a melancholick Deliration only of Hacket Coppinger and Arthington if they had thought they had been included in the Acts of 23 Eliz. made but twelve Years before or of 29 Eliz. made but six Years before Was not the losing 260 l. a Year a sufficient Punishment for any thing they had shewed themselves guilty of Or was it judged punishment enough for Papists for the Papists who had attempted to poison to stab the Queen to invade her by an invincible Armado to raise up Rebellion in the Nation and not enough for Protestants Can we judg that any English Parliament in those days could so judge The Act of 23 Eliz. was made upon the Papists filling the Land with Priests and Jesuits from the English Seminaries at Doway Rhemes and Rome their publishing of Books to stir up Rebellion in England declaring that the Pope and the King of Spain had conspired that England should be made a Prey And the woful stir then made by those active Jesuits Campian and Parsons Campian Sherwin Kerby and Briant were taken the Year before Anno 1581. This Act passed 1582. The 29 Eliz. was 1588 when we were invaded by the King of Spain 's invincible Armado and six Years before Campian the Head of that Faction had openly declared that in case of such an Invasion he would take part with

Statute-Law unless it be malicious and in a Case betwixt Party and Party The Law of God maketh no such distinction false-swearing is the Crime which the Divine Law denounceth the Judgment of God against And he that readeth my Lord Cook 's Chapter of Perjury in his Pleas of the Crown will find that according to the old Law of England though one sware what was Truth but not what he could know to be true was not punishable in other Courts yet he was punishable in the Star-Chamber of which he gives us an Instance in that Chapter And without doubt so it ought to be for I cannot truly swear that Thing to be or to have been done which I do not know is or hath been done In Palmer's Reports is an Instance of one indicted and punished for swearing a Thing so and so which indeed was so because he did not know it to be so Guide to Juries p. 33. 7. It is not my design to discourse this Theme in the latitude but only so far as concerneth Jurors in the Courts of Assizes and Sessions and that only with respect to Criminal Cases Our Law was not so confident of twelve or 24 Men in a Grand Jury or a Petit-Jury but that it hath provided against false-swearing in them by two Acts of Attaint by the one 11 Hen. 7.21 provision is only made for the City of London by the other for the whole Nation 23 Hen. 8. 3. Which Statute alloweth the Person wronged by an untrue Verdict to bring an Attaint against the Persons giving such Verdict if it amounted to the value of forty Pounds and recover of every one of them twenty Pounds ten for the King ten for himself but this must be only in Cases betwixt Party and Party It seemeth a defect in our Law that if the King be a Party the Jury shall not be attainted for every one will apprehend it very unreasonable that Jurors should be attainted and their Verdicts again be examined by 24 Men in an Attaint where the Subject is a loser forty Pounds or upwards and that they should be liable to no punishment for an untrue Verdict where the Dammage amounteth to much more I remember in a parallel Case of Perjury in a Witness where the Law determineth no Indictment on the Statute shall lie because the Statute is restrained to Oaths between Party and Party My Lord Cook determineth that though no Indictment upon the Stat. 5 Eliz. will lie in the Case yet an Indictment shall lie at Common Law and that hath been often experienced and that great Oracle of the Law gives an unanswerable Reason for it Because it is not reasonable that the King's Name who is the Fountain of Justice should patronize Injustice Whether an Attaint at the Common Law doth not lie against Jurors bringing in false Verdicts which indeed is nonsense though they find for the King deserves the study of Lawyers Sure I am my Lord Cook in his Chapter of Perjury gives us an account That by the old Law of England Jurors bringing in untrue Verdicts were most severely punish'd by Imprisonment seisure of all their Estates turning out their Wives and Children pulling down their Houses and being made infamous their Oaths never more to be admitted in any Court This Law is surely not so extinguished but some punishment yet remains for all such Persons if once we could hit upon the Methods that shall bring them to it 8. But my business is only to shew them that there lies an Attaint against them in the Court of Heaven the punishment of which is not only the eternal damnation of their Souls according to their own desire in the Oath they take but the Curse of God entring into their Houses and abiding in them until it hath consumed the Timber thereof and the Stones thereof Nor shall I meddle with all their Verdicts only such as they have brought in against dissenting Protestants upon the Statutes 23 Eliz. and 29 Eliz. and 3 Jacobi This is the only Point I design to put in Issue being assured That if the Conviction of these Men upon those Statutes prove to be upon their false-swearing it hath in it all the aggravations almost imaginable being done in a Court of Justice and issuing in the ruin of so many thousand Persons and Families Hoping also that if it so proves those who have urged instructed and taught them so to do will reflect upon themselves in time and consider whether they are not like to come under our Saviour's Censure of being the least in the Kingdom of God for teaching if not forcing ignorant Souls to break the Commandment of God and that in Matters where his Glory as well as the Good of their Neighbours are most eminently concerned CHAP. II. The Forms of the Oaths administred to Grand-Jurors Petit-Jurors and Witnesses at the Assizes or General Quarter-Sessions The Presentments of Grand-Juries upon the aforesaid Statutes with the Form of the Indictments found either by them or Petit-Juries Their Method in proceeding Grand-Jurors by their Oath can present nothing but what they know to be Truth either of their own Knowledg or the Oaths of credible Persons but they must be forsworn Petit-Jurors are forsworn if they find without Evidence The Law no where casts the Proof upon the Party accused but in this Case directs other Evidence expresly Grand-Juries finding an Indictment no Evidence to the Petit-Jury of the Truth of it proved by six Arguments The pernicious Consequents of the allowing them to be Evidence as a Grand-Jury It confounds Accusers and Evidence in some Cases Judges and Evidence in other Cases The Law allows it in no Case Nor can Petit-Jurors without being forsworn find an Indictment upon no other Evidence 1. THis Issue cannot be better tried than by an enquiry into the Oaths taken by all Jury-Men and then into the Indictment upon these Statutes and lastly into the Evidence brought before them of the Fact The Oath which every Person of Grand-Juries takes is in this Form You shall diligently inquire and true Presentment make of all such Things and Matters as shall be given you in Charge or shall come to your knowledg concerning this present Service The King's Counsel and your Own and your Fellows you shall well and truly keep secret You shall present nothing for Malice Lucre Ill-will nor leave any thing unpresented for Love Favour or Affection Reward or any hopes thereof but in all things that concern this present Service you shall present the Truth the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth So help you God This every one of them promiseth and testifieth his Promise by kissing the Book of God I desire it may be observed that the Oath saith not You shall true Presentment make of such things as you think or suspect or presume but that shall come to your Knowledg You shall present the Truth not your Fancies or Surmises and what you have no knowledg of either from your personal certain