Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	according_a	court_n	law_n	1,543	5	4.8094	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94411	To His Excellency the L. Generall Cromwell, and the rest of the Councell of the Army of the Comonwealth of England; the humble and faithfull advice of divers affectionate friends to the Parliament, Army and Commonwealth of England	Cromwell, Oliver, 1599-1658.	1653 (1653)	Wing T1352B; ESTC R203795	11,967	16

Statute Law Why when after judgment in the legall Courts the Chancery and Parliament had taken cognizance of the same Causes by way of appeale doth the amendment come and say hence forth after judgment in the legall Courts the parties shall be in quiet and free from being called either into Chancery or into Parliament according to the Law of the Land but in respect to the supremacy of Fundamentalls Why were Petitioners in former times so carefull not to insert the least syllable contrary to the Fundamentall Law but that they knew Parliaments were chiefly ordained for their preservation And it will not be throughly well in England till Parliaments make answer to Petitioners according to the Rule of the Fundamentall Law The late Worcestershire Petitioners for Tythes may then know what they may justly expect from them viz. that they are at liberty either to give or pay tythes or any other proportion of their incombs to such whom they will contract with for their labours in teaching divine things or any other kind of learning but those that ap prove not of paying are not to be enforced and thus in all things are the English free wherein their neighbour is not violated Had this rule been observed of late years it had e're this stopt the mouths of many Petitioners and be got a better understanding amongst the people who have been shattered into shwers for want of this principle to unite them every man stirring and contending as for life for his own opinion one will have the Parliament do this another that others gathering themselves together in knots and boasting how many hands they had to their petition a second sort of men to theirs and so of the rest how many friends they had in the House for this thing how many for that and thus like the builders of Babel they have been devided for want of knowledge and fixtnesse in and upon the Fundamentalls which only can give rest to the spirits of the English the goodnesse whereof having been once tasted would soon beget a reconcilement and doubtlesse this way or none must come the true and lasting peace amongst our selves and by this means only can we ever be made considerable either against obstinate corrupt interest at home or against foraign pretenders and enemies ahroad who otherwise observing us to be a floating unbalanced people and consequently divided and subdivided within our selves will never cease to disturb this Nation whereas were we once again bound and knit together with this just and pleasant ligament of fundamenthll Law divide and raign would not be so frequent in their vanquisht mouths which indeed is the main ground of the hopes Consider we beseech you how uncertain the rule of prudence and discretion is amongst the wisest and best of men how unstable that people were that should be every year to make their Laws or to stablish them have we not found the Proverb verified so many men so many minds this thing voted by one sort of men as most just and necessary yea mens estates and lives and consciences cast upon it and those the best of men when in short time after the same voted down as most unjust and pernicious infinite instances of this kind we doubt not will come to your remembrance and therefore not without good cause have our Predecessors given such dear respect to their Fundamentall Rights that unlesse mens understandings were even bewitched with the sallaries of corrupt interest they would choose rather to lose their lives then to part with one of them esteeming every man though born in England no more a true Englishman then as he maintained the Fundamentall Liberties of his Country To conclude none ever yet denied that we had Fundamentall standing Laws and such as against which no Statute Law ought to be obeyed but endeavours you will find have been in all ages for powers to establish themselves and govern by discretion upon a pretence of more easie and speedy dispatch of justice as the late King did when he by power brake up the short Parliament before this he publikely declared that he and his Lords would with more speed and better justice redresse the grievances of the people then the Parliament could do And though this hath been a disease incident to the strongest to give Laws and inforce them upon the people yet as it is manifestly against the Fundamentall Rights of the people of England which you have professedly fought to restore and not to destroy having conquered their enemies not their friends so have you by Declarations laid grounds against such temptations and as abhorring all such wicked and unjust intentions would not have any entertain any such suspition of you we have very great hopes that as you will carefully preserve your hands your strength and power from being defiled by imposing Innovations or continuing such as have been brought upon us or yet by being instrumentall to such as would so we trust and earnestly intreat that you would lay the premises to heart and by wisdome and perseverance procure the antient good Laws of England to be re-established amongst us they being so just so mercifull so preservative to all peaceable minded people so unburthensome to the industrious so opposite to all self-interest so corrective of any manner of wrong so quick in dispatching so equall in the means so righteous in their judgements proportioning punishments to offenders so tender of the innocent so consonant to right reason and having no disproportion to all true Christian doctrine that the goodnesse of them as well as because they are the tyes the Bonds and Ligaments of the people and both your and our Rights and chiefe inheritance we trust will cause you like the true sons of your worthy and valiant Ancestor to be enamored of them and to be now much more of the same mind then when you professed that you esteemed neither life nor livelyhood nor your necrest relations a price but sufficient to the purchase of so rich a blessing that you and all the free-borne people of England might sit down in quiet under the glorious administration of justice and righteousnesse and in full possession of those Fundamentall Rights and Liberties without which we cannot be secure of any comfort of life or so much as life it self but at the pleasure of some men ruling meerly according to will and power And may the integrity of your hearts so appear in all your actions as may render you well pleasing in the sight of God who hath registred all your Vows of freeing this Nation from all kinds of bondages in the dayes of your distresse Keep therefore your hearts faithfull As Moses who when he was to lead the Israelites out of Aegypt would not leave a hoof in bondage and in so doing onely will you be the rejoycing of this Nation to all generations

of them out of all remembrance And therefore to find out what are truly Fundamentall Institutions you may please to look beyond Kings and as you passe them you will perceive that their originall was either by force from without or from confederacy within the Land that of their confederates they made Lords and Masters over the people created offices and made their creatures officers for life whereas the true mark of a Fundamentall Institution is only one years continuance in an office by which mark it is evident that neither Kings nor House of Lords are of Fundamentall Institution all true Fundamentall Institutions ordaining election to every office which is another mark and that by the Inhabitants of the place where the office is to be exercised and another speciall mark is that the main scope and intent of the office and businesse thereof is of equall concernment to the generall good of all the people and not pointed to make men great wealthy and powerfull all which undoubted marks exclude not only Kings and Lords and Bishops but many other interests of men in this long enslaved and deluded Nation So that in removing these uselesse burthensome and dangerous interests of Kings Lords and Bishops no violence at all hath been done to the Fundamentall Lawes and Liberties of England but they are so farre cleared and secured from innovation and many oppressions which attended them Nor is there ground for any to suppose that in restoring the true antient fundamentall Rights of England there will be a necessity of maintaining any the Courts in Westminster or their tedious burthensome or destructive way of proceeding in trial of Causes both Chancery and the rest being in all things except the use of Juries all of them of Regall institution except the Common Pleas which is so also as to its being seated in Westminster These have sometimes been strengthened by Laws made in Parliaments which were ever to give place to Fundamentals being indeed null and void wherein any particular they innovate upon or are contrary unto them All causes by the fundamentall Laws being to be decided and finally ended past all appeal in the Hundreds or County Courts where parties reside or where the complaint is made by Juries without more charge or time then is necessary so that untill the Norman Conquest the Nation never knew or felt the charge trouble or intanglements of Judges Lawyers Attorneys Solicitors Filors and the rest of that sort of men which get great estates by the too frequent ruines of industrious people which is another mark to know that all such are not of fundamentall institution but Regall and erected for the increase and defence of that interest As for those defects which are many times observed in Juries and some inconveniences which ensuc in some cases under other fundamentall Constitutions it is to be noted that there is not perfection to be expected in any Government in this world it being impossible for the wisest men that ever were to compose such Constitutions as should in every case warrant a just event Yet so carefull have our Forefathers been that the Laws of England are as preventive of evill and as effective for good as any Laws in the world And for Juries whatever just complaint lies against them it doth not relate to the Constitution it selfe which Kings have often attempted to destroy as the main fortresse of the peoples liberty but against such abuses in the packing and framing of Juries in their by assing or over-awing by the servile and partiall Officers about the Courts by the Kings Sheriff or under-Sheriff and other by wayes that others have found out all which abuses are matters of just complaint and require rectification and ought not to be made use of as a ground of Innovation or an argument against your fundamentall Constitution Others there are who finding the great importance of Juries to preserve the people's Liberties and that through the sense that the people have thereof it will be but a vain thing to attempt the totall taking them away have invented a strategem that will render them instead of being a fountain of equall Justice to the people the means only of advancing the rich and an awe upon the middle and meaner fort of men which they would do upon the common pretence of Prerogative that onely men of estate and quality ought to be entrusted with the determination and decision of causes and therefore have contrived that such only as are worth one hundred mark per annum should be capable of being chosen Jury men which if obtained we cannot from thence but make these conclusions 1. That the Fundamentall Constitution is thereby violated which gives equall respect to all men paying Scot and Lot in the places they inhabit 2. By the same liberty they alter the Constitution in this particular at this time they may at another time totally take it away 3. That it is a policy agreeable to that of Kings in reducing the power of Judgement into the hands of a few and the rich who may with much more case be corrupted then the generality It being also a bringing of this Nation to the condition of the French and making it consist only of Gentleman and Pesants You may be pleas'd in the next place to consider the particular of Pressing or forcing men to serve in the warres against their consents then which nothing is more contrary to fundamentall liberty the King did alwayes make use of it and such abroad whose government ha's not that goodnesse and freedome in it as to invite men voluntarily to its defence a good government cannot need it since in that it would be the interest of every man to hazard his life and fortunes for its conservation and therefore we desire that this antient liberty may be tenderly preserved For Tythes they may we conceive be taken away without violence to any fundamentall Law the institution there of being Popish at first and partly Regall afterwards thanged solely into the Regal Interest to maintain a numerous sort of ble Sophisters under pretence of being Ministers of Christ which they were not having no qualifications agreeable unto those which were so indeed to preach up the Regall Interest with their own Fundamentall institution imposeth no charge upon the people but for maintenance of the impotent and poor or for such as are restrained untill time of triall for want of Sureties All which the Neigabourhood is to levy or for publique defence against enemies which is referred by Fundamentall Constitution unto annual chosen Trustees in the Grand Councell of the people called from the Norman Parliament upon whom the continued labours and policies of the Conquerors successors have had great influence by whose endeavours this burthen of Tythes came to have the colour of Law set upon it though in this as in all things els Parliament Law was ever to give way to Fundamentall being null and void in it selfe where it innovates upon the

to the true state of antient right and the people thereby freed from abundance of torment and veration of Spirit All Monopolies at home and all restraint of trade abroad to distinct companies of men are all opposite to the antient rights of the people and may justly be reduced to a universall freedome to every Englishman which will make trade in time to flourish and wealth and plenty of all necessaries to abound especially if the way of raising money by custome and Excize were laid aside being utterly destructive to trade and rendring the lives of tradesmen tedious and irksome to them and hath no consistence with Fundamentall right for according to that rule no imposition ought to be laid upon trade but what moneys are at any time found needfull by Parliament ought to be levied by way of Subsidy or an equall proportion upon all mens estates reall and personall in which course the whole within two pence or three pence in the pound is brought into the publike treasury whereas in the other way vast sums go to the maintenance of Officers so as you perceive in this and all other particulars hitherto recited the most antient right is not only due but most for the case and good of the people you may perceive by what hath been expressed what are our antient rights and what how many and how great have been our almost as antient wrongs and oppressions Some of our antient rights remain alive to this day as Parliaments and Juries the first of which ought annually to be chosen which annnall choice hath for many years been intermitted and that inherent right withheld which should have some special thing for its excuse and happy were the people and doubtlesse happy would it be for this present Parliament also that it may truly be said they held the Parliamentary power so long that they might restore the people to their antient native rights the Fundamentall Laws to their full force and power for which end it was as you declared that you reserved these when you excluded the rest and therefore surely in this and many more respects you are obliged to persevere in putting them in mind thereof and if you find that they are not able to agree in the performance of this the proper work of Parliaments then to move them in some short time to order a new Parliament to be chosen that they may take place of them it being in no wife safe for the Parliament to dissolve untill the new immediately ready to sit when they rise nor would we for any thing in the world that Parliaments should be accustomed to be forced nothing being of more dangerous consequence to Government it self Which endeavours and desires we shall be ready to second you in and we trust you will not omit to do it by way of Petition with all possible speed that the desires of good men may be satisfied in seeing this Parliament yet honour themselves and blesse the Nation with the proper fruit of their so many years labour hardship and misery the re-injoyment of their birth-right Or if that cannot be obtained you and your friends desiring it they will not defer to give up their trust into the hands of another Parliament which when you understand we shall then desire you to acquaint the people what their antient rights are and how and by what interests of men they have been withheld from them that so they may at length beware and not chuse such men to make them free whose interest advantage and way of living binds to keep them in perpetuall bondage And to inform them likewise that it is not Statute Law nor the opinion of Judges and book-cases nor the Prerogative of Princes Lords and great ones nor any thing but their Fundamentall Rights that can render them free or happy and to perswade them no longer to give ear to such charming as hath been to their bondage and misery And that you will be as strongly provided against all motions of Innovation as against the worst of enemies though they should assail you with seeming arguments from Scripture the Scripture giving no particular rules for the Government of Nations the Government of the Israelites being only intended for them and either binds not or els it binds in all and every part so as those who require tythes by that Law or punish some offences according to that Law are bound also to circumcise and to offer Sacrifice and indeed to fulfill the whole Law none having power to make choice of one part and refuse another If they urge from the Gospell that indeed gives most blessed rules for faith and conversation but as to Government it is apparant from those words of our Saviour who made me a divider of inheritances that the Gospel intends not so much earthly as heavenly things but both old and new Covenants agree in this that all just agreements and contracts amongst men such are our Fundamentall Lawes ought inviolably to be kept and observed The sense of the Law of God is cieare in this that it is a cursed thing to remove the land-marks of forefathers nor are any more highly approved of by God himself then the Rechabites for walking stedfastly in the laws and constitutions of their forefathers Nor can any thing be more destructive to Government or human Society then for men to admit that they are not obliged to observe the Fundamentall just Institutions of the countrey wherein they were born there being nothing that tendeth so readily to the shaking of a well-bounded society of men into anarchy and confusion For what is it that gives any man propriety in what he hath but Fundamentall Law What is it els that defends propriety but Fundamentall Legall Power Why have you and we and thousands more so cried out upon such as pretended a Prerogative above Fundamentall Law and above Parliaments but that it was in subversion thereof Why did our Forefathers and all their posterity down to our selves so heavily complain against the with-holding of Parliaments and against triall of Causes by any other way but by Juries but that they are both Fundamentall Why was it alwayes noted as a mark of regall prevalencie in Parliaments when any thing passed there contrary to those ancient Rules Why upon all complaints of oppression are the amendments alwayes made by that Rule as that when Parliaments had been deferred and complaint made the remedy runs thus For remedy of grievances and mischiefs which daily happen a Parliament shall be chosen once every years according to Law where it is evident the Law was more an cient then the Act of Parliament or amendment Also after abuse and innovation in triall of Causes the amendment comes and sayes That no man shall be attached fixed imprisoned exiled or deprived of life limb liberty or estate but by Iuries according to the Law of the Land Which shewes the Fundamentall Law to have been time out of mind before Magna Charta or any