Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	act_n	power_n	will_n	1,439	5	6.6180	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93135	Mr. St. Johns speech, or argument in Parliament; shewing, whether a man may be a judge, and a witnesse in the same cause. By way of preface, I shall return a distinction between a doubtfull and a scrupulous conscience.	St. John, Oliver, 1598?-1673.	1642 (1642)	Wing S328; Thomason E200_41; ESTC R12900	2,380	9

Mr. St. JOHNS SPEECH OR ARGVMENT IN PARLIAMENT Shewing whether a man may be a Judge and a Witnesse in the same CAUSE By way of Preface I shall return a distinction between a doubtfull and a scrupulous CONSCIENCE Mr. St. JOHNS ARGVMENT IN PARLIAMENT shewing whether a man may be a Iudge and a Witnesse in the same Cause THe former assents to neither of the two opinions wherewith it is distracted and by his means suspends the action The latter enclines to one of the two opinions and goeth on to the performance of the Action but neither so cheerfully and roundly as it ought to do but with some reluctancie in regard of that consideration it still retaineth of the contrary opinion As a man that hath a little stone or some gravell got into his shoes which is a scruple in the proper grāatical sence maks a shift to get hōe to his house though not without som pain and molestation these scruples if we cannot cast them out by reason and better information Casuists advise us to forget them if it be possible or how ever to passe them over and fall to the Action notwithstanding their jogging and interruption of us in the cheerfull performance of the same Amesius de Consc li. 1. cap. 6. regularly and in ordinarie proceeding one and the same man in one and the same cause may be excepted against for being both Iudge and Witnesse For Deut. 17. 16. which I take to be the ground whereon the Resolution of this question is to be erected the Iudges in the gate and the two witnesses are not the same but severall and distinct persons And Testatus his opinion that under the old Testament one and the same man in one and the same Cause might be a Iudge and a Witnesse As the two Elders were against Susanna 6. 34. verse is as Apochryphall as the Book it self from whence it is quoted For they are not the Iudges or Elders but the Assemblie which pronounce the sentence so the 41. verse And we live under the new Testament where it is not permitted that a Man shall be a Iudge and a Witnesse against me saith the same Testatus in 23. Exod. Where he quotes for his opinion Greg. 9. in his Decretals Lib. 5. de verborum signific cap. forus And of this opinion the Civill Lawyers gives these reasons 1. First because this were for one man to usurp two functions which ought to be several and distinct as that of a Iudge and that of a Witnesse Jelinus Auferius in Hut Aemilius his tractate de testibus pag. 208. 2. Because by this means the same Agent might act and operate upon it self by becoming both the Iudge imposing and the Witnesse receiving the oath to deliver the whole truth which is not convenient saith Albericus de Rosate Tract Doctor Wol. 1. pag. 260. And Pawfrancus ab Arrad Tract Doc. Vob 4. pa. 157. 3. Because this were for a man to judge as God say the Schoolmen that is out of his own private knowledge Whereas saith Cajetan Man ought not to be judge as God but as God would have him to judge that is secundum Allegata probata and by a publike not a private knowledge The Act of judging is a publike Act and must arise from publique Causes a publique person a publique power a publique knowledge from others and not from himself and a publique will and this cannot be when a man judgeth upon that which he onely knoweth himself as a private person Cajestan in 22. De. 4. 67. Act. 2. And it is the conclusion of all the Doctors that a Iudge non potest testeficare coram se can give himself no convincing evidence Alber. de Rosate in Tract Doctor Vob 1. pag. 260. Testatus gives a reason hereof because no man can do as God doth that is infuse into the Prisoner at the Barre Cogitationem memorem omnium factorum A glimpse or thought that shall cause all the Actions of his whole life to appeare before him when he beholds the Iudge in the face nor unto the hearers probations cogitations a clear and naked evidence of all the proofes in the Cause This God onely can do of himself other Iudges cannot without the help of witnesses Tract in Math. cap. 25. quaest 334. 4. That old observation of the Cannonists and of St. Augustine would fail if a man could be a Iudge and a Witnesse that a false witnesse is injurious to all these three to God to the Iudge to the partie which would faile if the Iudge himself might be a witnesse Lastly as they exclude him that hath been a Counceller in the Cause because he is like to make good his own Plea so do they conceive the Witnesse to be excluded with much more reason lest he should be too much wedded to his former disposition These are the reasons why Regularly and in ordinarie proceedings a Witnesse may be excepted against from being in the same Cause But I doe not find in any Lawyer or Casuists that a man is bound in Conscience to except against himselfe for being a Judge in that cause wherein hee had been produced in a Witnesse And I find rather the contrary opinion in good Authors And that if both parties be content and take no exception to it a Witnesse may bee a judge in the same Cause It is the opinion of that great Jurisconsultum Felinus but quoted by Hutor Aemilius Tract de Testibus page 213. And this without al question to be made therof if he have Contestes that is some Witnesses more besides himselfe that concurr in the Evidence Hut Emilius de testib pag. 200. Provided alwayes that when he comes to giv● Judgement He must never ground his sentence upon any private knowledge of his owne but upon what is alleadged and proved before him by the Testimonies and depositions of other witnesses that is as the Schoole-men speake it he must not sentence out of his private but out of his publique knowledge acquired generally from the Municipall lawes of that Country wherein he lives and more particularly from matters of Record Writings and depositions of Witnesses Aquni 22. de quest 67. act 2. For the Jury of the voisinage I doe under favour conceive them no Judges at all they are to inquire out and to finde a fact They are not to applie the generall Law unto a particular fact which properly is to judge and determine it Whether the Lord Cobham was first produced as a Witnesse and afterwards sommuned as a Peere in the Tryall of the Lord Gray I know not nor ever heard of it before this time But I doe beleeve that upon the Rolls of 50. of Edw. 3. it will appeare that Iohn Duke of Lancaster was Accuser Witnesse and Judge in the Tryall of Alice Peirs which many alter the Rules of the Law in Parliamentary proceedings 23. of March 1641. FINIS