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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	call_v	law_n	see_v	1,937	5	3.8813	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44187	A letter of a gentleman to his friend, shewing that the bishops are not to be judges in Parliament in cases capital	Holles, Denzil Holles, Baron, 1599-1680.	1679 (1679)	Wing H2461; ESTC R204379	41,325	145

words are these Lassemblie de ceux trois Estates c ' est assavoir Roy Nobilitie Commons qui sont le Corps del Realme est appel une Parlement lour decree un Act de Parlement car sans touts troys come si soit fait per Roy Seigniors mes rien parle del Commons nest ascun Act de Parlement The Assembly of the Three Estates that is to say King Nobles and Commons who are the Body of the Realm is called a Parliament and their Decree is an Act of Parliament for without all three as if it were done by the King and Lords and no mention of the Commons it is no Act of Parliament Can any thing be plainer You see now with how little appearance of truth the Writer of that Paper takes upon him to declare Bishops to be either Peers of the Land or one of the Three Estates and what ill Topicks he hath chosen to prove them to have right of Judicature in all Cases Criminal and Capital for that is his Assertion upon it For what he cites out of some year-Year-books that in some pleadings their Counsel calls them Peers will not make them so nay should the Judges themselves stile them Peers as perhaps they might complement the potent Clergy of those days it could not alter the Law of the Land which makes Commoners their Peers seeing they are to be tried by Commoners As for matter of Fact to prove that they have Judged in Capital Cases he cites the Protestation in the eleventh of R. 2. and then their making their Procurator and so Judging by Proxy in the 21 of R. 2. To which I need say nothing in this Postscript having so largely in my Letter treated of it Then he gives many Precedents of their voting in Bills of Attainder which is all Not to the purpose for that is not in Question Acts of Attainder are Laws and every Freeman is supposed to give his Consent to every Law either by his Representative or in Person if a Member of Parliament And Bishops being Members may I think claim to do it Personally So I have done with the Paper and come to the Printed Book stiled The Honours of the Lords Spiritual asserted And Six Chapters are taken up in blazoning their Honour which no body endeavours to take from them nor do I think it to be any part or degree of Honour to judge men to death It is certainly an employment which in my opinion no body will envy to any that hath it Then for those great Places which the Bishops enjoyed here in England mentioned in the fifth Chapter I no ways wonder at it we know that Popish Clergy had ambition enough to covet to have the whole rule and in those blind and superstitious times power enough to obtain what they had a mind to both Prince and People in a manner awed by them who yet sometimes would complain and break out a little as Scholars sometimes rise against their School-masters So 45 E. 3. The two Houses joyn Countes Barones Communes and represent to the King how the Government of the Kingdom had been a long time in the hands of the Clergy Per ent grant mischiefs dammages sont avenuz en temps passe pluis purroit eschier en temps avenir al disherison de la Coronne grant prejudice du Royalme Whereby great mischiefs and damages have happened in times past and more may fall out in time to come to the disherison of the Crown and great prejudice to the Realm And therefore they humbly pray the King that he would employ Laymen So 20 R. 2. The Commons complain That the King kept so many Bishops about him in his Court and advanced them and their followers Therefore you see it was not always pleasing to the Kingdom But all this is by the By though that Author takes a great deal of pains to enlarge himself upon this Subject which is not at all to our purpose nor deciding the point in question one way or other In his two last Chapters the seventh and the eighth only he toucheth upon it He first gives this for a Rule That it was the common usage and right of the Bishops in ancient times to sit and vote in Parliament in all Cases as well Criminal as otherwise either by themselves or their Proxies As for their Proxies as I have already said it was never done but in one Parliament which Parliament is repealed and all that was done in it of no signification And besides as I have already told you in my Letter if that Parliament had not been repealed yet that unparliamentary Nonsensical action of the whole Bench of Bishops and all the Clergy with them empowering one Man as they did Sir Thomas Percy to give one Vote for them all shews the manifest indispensable unlawfulness of their being Personally Present that rather than that should be such an Irrational Unprecedented thing should be admitted of which is my Answer to all that he saith and to the Precedent that he quotes out of the 21 of R. 2. Now let us examine what he saith of their being in Person present at such Trials He quotes Bromptons Chronicle reciting among the Laws of King Athelstan this concerning Bishops I will cite Brompton's words right as they are Episcopo jure pertinet omnem rectitudinem promovere Dei viz. seculi It appertains of right to a Bishop to promote that which is right both concerning God and the World A little after he saith Debet etiam sedulo pacem concordiam operari cum seculi Iudicibus He ought likewise diligently together with the secular Iudges to promote Peace and Concord After he saith Debent Episcopi cum seculi Iudicibus interesse Iudiciis ne permittant si possint ut aliqua pravitatum germina pullulaverint The Bishops ought to be present in Iudgments with the Secular Iudges not to suffer any buds of wickedness to sprout if they can hinder it Then he tells you what they must do in their Judgings see that every man have right that rich men do not oppress poor men nor Masters their Servants and the like and to look to Weights and Measures that there be no cozening nor cheating but that they may live like Christians Here is nothing of judging a Capital Crime far from it His next Authority is out of Sir Henry Spelmans Glossary upon the word Comes there it is Comes presidebat foro Comitatus non solus sed adjunctus Episcopo hic ut jus divinum alter ut humanum diceret alterque alteri auxilio esset consilio Presertim Episcopus Comiti Nam in hunc illi animadvertere sepe licuit errantem cohibere The Earl did preside in the County Court not alone but joyned with the Bishop He to deliver what was Gods Law the other what was Mans Law And that the one should help and counsel the other especially the Bishop to do it to the Earl for