Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	act_n	declare_v	parliament_n	2,752	5	7.0572	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88250	A second address directed to his Excellency the Lord Generall Cromwell, and the Right Honourable the Councell of State sitting at White-Hall being the humble petition of Lieutenant Colonell John Lilburne.	Lilburne, John, 1614?-1657.	1653 (1653)	Wing L2178; Thomason 669.f.17[20]; ESTC R211539	1,723	1

A Second Address directed to his Excellency the Lord Generall CROMWELL and the Right Honourable the Councell of State sitting at WHITE-HALL Being The humble Petition of Lieutenant Colonell John Lilburne SHEWETH THat your Petitioner hath long suffered a very hard exilement from his dearest Christian friends his nearest relations his estate imployments and native Country by vertue of an Act of the late Parliament And your Petitioner hath been a very gazing-stock beyond the Seas and in constant peril of his life only for his love to this Commonwealth and faithfulness to their service That the late Parliament being dissolved and the present care of the Government devolved upon your Honours who profess the fear of the Lord and the design of advancing Christs Kingdom your Petitioner believed that he should find mercy and impartial justice from you and a readiness to loose every heavy yoke and cut in sunder all wicked bonds the Lord having led you forth to break many of the bonds of men in order to those ends And in this confidence the Lord perswading your Petitioners heart that he had mercy for him and his poor ruined family in his own Country resolved to depend upon your Justice and goodness to protect him and to admit of a Legal examination of the late Parliaments sentence of Banishment against your Petitioner But having thus cast himself and his life at your feet he finds your Order to apprehend him and execute the said Sentence whereupon he is now a Prisoner That the authority of the late Parliament being taken from them for misgovernment your Petitioner hopes you will please to suspend at least the execution of any Acts made by them which shall not clearly and evidently appear to your spirits and consciences to have such Justice in them as God may be truly glorified in your execution of them And therefore he humbly offers to your considerations these things following concerning the Act made by them for his perpetual banishment 1. First that the Parliament in the said Act did not judge your Petitioner an Offender according to any Law in being and unless there were a Civil Law against what he had done he was no Offender in the least against the Laws of man 2. Secondly the said Act is a Law made after a fact is done to ordain a punishment for that fact which was never ordained or heard of before and if that practise be admitted the very foundations of all Government which are Laws are utterly overturned and every Man governing may destroy all or any of the governed at his will without possibility of account to man for that cannot be given or taken but by a Rule between the Governours and the governed 3. Thirdly That your Petitioner was not tryed with liberty of defence for or against any of the pretended crimes for which he was banished by the said Act for nothing was examined by the Committee of Parliament upon whose Report the said Act was made but the matter of Mr Primats Petition for whom your Petitioner appeared only as Councel and if that was scandal and your Petitioner concerned therein he conceives that he ought then to have been tryed legally for that crime at the Common Law and no where else 4. Fourthly that if your Petitioner were guilty of Scandal against Sir Arthur Haslerigg as the Parliament had judged yet that sentence of absolute Ruine to him and his whole Family is not a punishment proportionable to the Offence and the Laws of God and the Fundamentall Lawes of this Land require a proportion between Crimes and Punishments 5. Fifthly that if the said Act he admitted to be Just and to be drawn into President then no English-man whatsoever can justly or rationally claim from the Governors any Freedom Right benefit or Priviledg of being Tryed and Judged according to the Laws whether he offends or not or whether his Life Liberty or Estate shall be taken from him or preserved And your Petitioner further Offers to your Honors that he hath neither in the least offered nor intended any Contempt unto any Authority in coming into this Nation against the said Act he humbly conceiving That in this juncture of Time wherein the Parliament is dissolved and Right is declared to be universally done to all of this Nation he was capable of making his humble Addresse to those who have so Declared as a Party much grieved by the said Act of the late Parliament Therefore the whole Premises considered he humbly prays your protection and suspention of any proceedings against him upon the said Act untill the Justice of the same as to the matter and manner of it be legally examined That whatsoever he now suffers being to be under your Power your Consciences may be clearly satisfied that you do therein glorifie God and do evident good to the Common-wealth And he shall pray c. JOHN LILBURNE From Mr Sheriff Underwoods-House in Bucklers-Bury in London June 16. 1653. London Printed by Tho. Newcomb dwelling in Thamestreet over against Baynards Castle