Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	argument_n	court_n	great_a	56	3	2.1254	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66820	The high court of justice. Or Cromwells new slaughter-house in England With the authoritie that constituted and ordained it, arraigned, convicted, and condemned; for usurpation, treason, tyrannie, theft, and murder. Being the III. part of the Historie of independencie: written by the same author.; High court of justice	Walker, Clement, 1595-1651.; Andrews, Eusebius, d. 1650.	1651 (1651)	Wing W324D; ESTC R203985	41,776	78

Souldiers were not so wicked as their Masters Yet we daily see many good Families in England despoiled of their Estates for want of protection of the laws brought to miserable beggery rather than they will wrong their consciences by subscribing this damnable Engagement contrary to the Protestation and Covenant imposed by this Parliament contrary to the known law of this land which this Parliament hath declared to observe and keep in all things concerning the lives liberties and properties of the people with all things incident thereto contrary to this Parliaments reiterated votes that they would not change the Ancient Government by a King Lords and Commons And contrary to the Oathes of Allegeance Obedience and Supremacy whereby and by the Stat. of Recognition 1. Jac. our Allegeance is tied onely to the King his Heires and Lawfull Successers from which no power on earth can absolve us and so much we attest in the Oath of Supremacy Politicus Interpreter to our new State-Puppet play Numb. 19. from Sept. 19. to Sept. 26. out of the dictates of his Masters tells us that in Answer to the Kings Act of oblivion granted the Parliament intends to passe an Act of Generall pardon for which they expect in future a Generall obedience submission to the government you see though they will not be the Kings subjects they will be his Apes and in the beginning of the said Pamphlet Politicus saith That Protection implies obedience otherwise they may be handled as publike Enemies and outlawes and ought to be destroyed as Traitors Here you have the end to which this generall pardon is intended it is but a shooing-horn to draw on the utmost penalty upon Non-engagers appointed by the said pretended Act 2. Ian. 1649. to weed them out of this good Land that the Saints only may enjoy the earth and the fullness thereof to which purpose all their new coyned Acts and Lawes are directed The Scripture points forth these kind of men when it saith The Mercies of the wicked are cruell The sum of all is If we will not acknowledge Allegeance to these Mush-romes we shall be Traitors without Alleageance a Treason never yet heard of in any Law If we will acknowledge Allegeance we put our selves in a capacity to be Traitors when they shall please to make us such But let them know That we are all Englishmen Free-born alike under the Protection of an antient legall Monarchy to which we owe Alleageance and how we come to forfeit that legall Protection our setled laws and Government and be subjected to a New unknowne Protection obtruded upon us by a Company of upstarts Mushromes of Majesty so meane in birth and breeding for the most part that the place of a Constable equalls the highest of their education imposing what Lawes and conditions upon us they please I would be glad to heare without being hindered by Guns Drums High Courts of Iustice and other Instruments of violence Murder But the greatest Mistery in this cheat is That our Self-created Supremists having voted the originall power to be in the people and but a derivative Authority to be in themselves as the Representative of the people should notwithstanding so yoake their Soveraigne Lord the people and make them pay Allegeance to their own Delegates the 8. part of a House of Commons under the penalty unless they subscribe as the far major part have not of outlawing and depriving all the people of this Land of all benefit of the Lawes they were born to and consequently of annihilating and making them no longer a Nation or people As if they were meer Salvages newly conquered collected and formed into a Politike body or Commonwealth and endowed with Laws newly invented by these Novice Statists But the unlawfullness of the said Engagement with the Injustice of the Self-created power that obtrudeth it hath been handled by many good pens especially by the Cheshire and Lancashire Ministers in their Plea for Non-Subcribers Therfore I passe on to my principall scope The second Engine appointed to root out all such as are of a different Party The High Court of Iustice A formidable Monster upon which no pen that I know of hath yet adventured 4. In treating of the High Court of Iustice I must consider 1. By what Persons and Authority this new erected unpresidented Court is constituted 2. Of what Persons it is constituted 3. The way and manner of their proceedings What formalities and Lawes they observe therein How sutable to the known Laws of the Land and the Parliaments Declarations Protestations and Covenant they are 4. To what end this Court is constituted 1. The Persons constituting this extrajudiciall Court are the present pretended Parliament consisting of 40 or 50 thriving Commons only who conspired with Cromwell and the Army to expell 7. parts of 8. of their follow-Members without any cause showne abolished the House of Peers erected this High Court of Iustice in nature of a Court Martiall to murder the King abolished Kingly Government Turned it into a thing they call a Free-State disinherited the Royall Family and now usurp to themselves without any calling from God or the People more then a Regall Legall or Parliamentary Authority wherewith they have subverted the Fundamentall Government Religion Laws Liberties and Property of the Nation and envassallised enslaved them to their Arbitrary Domination the Authority by which they erect this extrajudiciall Court is The usurped Legislative power By colour of which they passed an Act dated 26. March 1650. establishing the said High Court of Iustice Yet their own creature Master St. Johns in his Argument against the E. of Strafford in a Book called Speeches and Passages of this great happy Parliament printed by William Cook 1641. pag. 24. saith The Parliament is the Representative of the whole Kingdom wherin the King as head The Lords as the more Noble the Commons the other Members are knit together as one body Politick The Lawes are the Arteries Ligaments that hold the body together And a little after Its Treason to embesell a Judiciall Record Strafford swept them all away It s Treason to counterfeit a 20s peece here is a counterfeiting of Law so in these counterfeit new Acts we can call neither the counterfeit nor true one our own It s Treason to counterfeit the great Seale for an acre of Land no property hereby is left to any Land at all no more is there by the votes practise of our new Supremists thus far Master St. Iohns But that the Parliament doth necessarily consist of the King the two Houses assembled by his Writ can passe no Act without their joint consent See the Praeambles of all our Statutes all our Parliament Records all our Law Books Modus tenendi Parliamentum Hackwells manner of passing Bills Sr. Tho. Smith de Repub. Anglorum Cambdeni Britannia All our Historians Polititians and the uninterrupted practise of all Ages That it is now lately otherwise practised is

not by any Law of the Land but by the will of lawlesse power and Rebellion that hath cancelled all our Lawes Liberties and Properties and subverted our Fundamentall Government and disfranchised and disinherited the whole Nation Yet Master St. Iohns in his said Argument against Strafford p. 38. was then of opinion That to subvert the Lawes and Government and make a Kingdom no Kingdom was Treason at the Common Law This Act 26. Mar. 1650 is a new modelled Commission of Oier and Terminer And all the people of the Land are by the consequence thereof disfranchised and proscribed The illegality and tyranny thereof they have introduced who in this Parliament so zealously complained against the Court of the President Counsel of York or of the North as an intolerable grievance notwithstanding it had been of as long continuance as from 31. H. 8 as appears by a worthy Members speech or Argument against it in the said Book of Speeches Passages p. 409. made by order of the House of Commons in April 1649. I find not one Exception there made against the Court of York to which this upstart high Court is not more liable then it 1. The Commissioners of this high Court are not appointed to inquire per Sacramentum proborum legalium hominum that is by Iuries as by Magna Charta and above 30. Statutes confirming it all Commissions ought to run 2. They are not appointed nor sworn to heare determine Secundùm Leges Angliae according to the known Lawes as they ought to be but according to certain Articles powers given in the said Act 26. March 1650. 3. The said Act 26. March leaves a dangerous latitude to the interpretation and discretion of the Commissioners contrary to what is done in the Act 25. Ed. 3. chap. 2. namely It hath one Clause enabling them to inflict upon Offenders such punishment either by death or otherwise corporally as the said Commissioners or the major part of them present shall judge to apperteine to Justice This leaves it in the brests of the Commissioners without any Law or rule to walk by to inflict what torments and ignominious punishments they please although not used in our Nation and arbitrary corporall paines are proper to slaves not to Subjects Here after the losse of all but their bodies the people may see their bodies subject to the lawless wills of our Grandees And by another clause this Act impowreth the Commissioners To examine witnesses upon oath or otherwise if need be This word or otherwise c. gives them power to examine witnesses without oath if they cannot procure witnesses so far the sons of Belial and cauterised in conscience as to adventure upon an oath even in case of life and death and mutilation of members contrary to the current of all our Lawes and practice of all our Courts of Law and of all Nations See Stat. 1. Ed. VI chap. 12. 5 Ed. VI chap. 11. Cooks 3. Inst. pag. 24 25 26. Deut. 17. 6. Ex ore duorum vel trium peribit qui-occidetur Deut. 17. 6. Matth. 18. 16. John 18. 23. 2 Cor. 13. 1. Heb. 10. 28. This is the most arbitrary destroying liberty that ever was given to Iudges And such as none but professed theeves and murderers will accept or make use of The Scripture saith An oath is the end of controversy between man man How then can they end and determine a controversy without oath But the end of all controversies before this Butcher-row of Iudges is cutting of throats and confiscation of estates And by the same clause of the said Act To examine witnesses They may and I heare do examine witnesses clandestinely and proceed upon bare Depositions read in Court whereas they ought to produce the witnesses face to face in open Court and there sweare them that the Party accused may interrogate them and examine the circumstances and whether they contradict themselves or one another for cleering the Evidence And whether they be lawfull witnesses or no Nay I hear they do privately suborn and engage witnesses without oath And then produce them to swear what they have formerly related only and if they scruple at an oath punish them for misinforming the State 4. That I may make some more use of the aforesaid Members words Whether the King or a prevailing Party usurping his Kingly power may canton out a part of his Kingdom or cull mark out for slaughter some principall men deny them the benefit of law in order thereto as these Judges do to be tried by speciall Commission since the whole Kingdom is under the known lawes Courts established at Westminster It should seem by this Parliaments eager complaint against the speciall Commission of York this Parliament hath determined this question in the negative allready whatsoever their present practise to carry on their Designe is See Stat. 17. Car 1. against the Star Chamber To what purpose serve those Statutes of Magna Charta and the Petition of Right if men may be fined and imprisoned nay murdered without Law according to the discretion of Commissioners This discretion is the quick-sand that hath swallowed our Properties and Liberties but is now ready to swallow our carkasses Thus far that Gentleman Whose words then carried the Parliamentary stamp upon them Let me add some more exceptions of my own against this high Court of Injustice 5. Soldiers of the Army are appointed by the Act 26. March to be assistant to the Commissioners contrary to the peaceable proceedings of the Law which never makes use of any but civill Magistrates and Officers of the Law See Stat. 7. Ed. l. 2. Ed. III. chap. 3. 7. R. II. chap. 13. 6. And contrary to the old oath which all Judges ought to take in these words You shall sweare well lawfully to serve the King people in the Office of Justice c. And that to what estate condition they be come before you in the Sessions with force and armes against the peace against the Statute thereof made to disturbe the Execution of the Common Lawes or to menace the people that you arrest their bodies c. Stat. 18. Ed. III. in An. Dom. 1344. p. 144. Poultons Book of Stat. at large But the oath appointed for these Commissioners to take is not penned in termes of Indifferency Nor doth any waies oblige them to the people 26. Mar. 1550. viz You shall sweare well and truly according to the best of your skill and knowledge to execute the severall powers given you by this Act not well lawfully to serve the people Besides they swear to execute the severall powers given not to do Justice according to the Lawes Now the Lawes are the only Rules of Iustice by which we distinguish crooked from streight true from false right from wrong This is not the work these Iudges are packed for but to execute Acts of power and will But powers are often usurped tyrannicall illegall