Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	law_n	sin_n	transgression_n	7,400	5	10.9794	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96590	The discovery of mysteries: or, The plots and practices of a prevalent faction in this present Parliament. To overthrow the established religion, and the well setled government of this glorious Church, and to introduce a new framed discipline (not yet agreed upon by themselves what it shall be) to set up a new invented religion, patched together of Anabaptisticall and Brownisticall tenents, and many other new and old errors. And also, to subvert the fundamentall lawes of this famous kingdome, by devesting our King of his just rights, and unquestionable royall prerogatives, and depriving the subjects of the propriety of their goods, and the liberty of their persons; and under the name of the priviledge of Parliament, to exchange that excellent monarchicall government of this nation, into the tyrannicall government of a faction prevailing over the major part of their well-meaning brethren, to vote and order things full of all injustice, oppression and cruelty, as may appeare out of many, by these few subsequent collections of their proceedings. / By Gr. Williams L. Bishop of Ossory.	Williams, Gryffith, 1589?-1672.	1643 (1643)	Wing W2665; Thomason E60_1; Thomason E104_27; ESTC R23301	95,907	126

to the best of Gods Properties which though they be all equall in themselves summè perfectissimè yet are theynot so perceived by us but his mercy is over all his workes But you will say was this man so just that he was unjustly condemned to death did all men so untruly complaine against him and was he good notwithstanding all the evill that was proved against him I answer that I dare not and I doe not say that he was unjustly adjudged to death or that the Bill it selfe was unjust but this I assure my selfe The Earle's vertues that he was a very wise and understanding man and indued with many rare heroicke vertues and most excellent graces as among the rest with those two incomparable indowments that cannot easily be found among many of the Nobles of this world 1. Faithfulnesse to his Prince to whom as I conceive he shewed himselfe a true servant and most trusty in his greatest imployments save in what was and I know not that justly proved against him and I believe he would never have taken Armes as some others of the Lords doe now against his Soveraigne 2. Love unto the Church and Church men to whom though others thinke it their glory to oppresse them and a vertue to contemne them yet he was a true friend a most noble benefactor and most just unto his death as his very last speech unto his dearest Sonne doth sufficiently testifie unto all posterity which speech was to this effect and I would to God it were indelebly imprinted in the memory of all our Nobility that as he regarded his fathers blessing or expected a blessing from God upon what his father left him so he would be carefull never to take away or in any wise to diminish any part or parcell of the goods or patrimony of the Church which if he did would prove a canker to wast and consume all that he had Yet it may be he was which in truth I cannot imagine as the Philosopher saith of Marcus Antonius a man of that composition that his vices did equalize if not exceed his vertues and his-offences cloud all his graces and obscure all his glory and as the saving of one mans life cannot save him from suffering that doth unjustly put another man to death so the rarest vertues cannot justifie the man that committeth so many horrible offences How a malefactor may be unjustly condemned as his accusers conceived this man did to which it may be well replyed that a notorious malefactor though I apply not this to him may be unjustly condemned and so he may be justly condemned and unjustly executed as when he is not condemned for the fault committed or condemned not according to the Law which condemneth that fact for though a murderer deserveth death yet any one may not presently be the death of that murderer nor the Judge condemne him for robbery and though I should commit many offences worthy of death yet if the Law doth not condemne me I ought not to die for any of them for as the Apostle saith Where there is no law there is no sinne because sinne is the transgression of the law therefore the Earle of Strafford might be an evill man and doe many things that in the sight of God and good men were worthy of death yet if our Law made not those crimes capitall or if the Law made them capitall and not treason we ought not for treason to adjudge him unto death so in summe the result is this that he might justly deserve death and yet be very unjustly condemned to death And it seemed to some of his friends that so he was especially because they had no plaine unquestionable Law but were faine in some kind to make a Law to take off his head and when his head was off this new manner of proceeding should end and be no Law for any other that came after and a Declaration must be made that the course prosecuted for his punishment shall not afterwards be drawne into an example it must be produced for no patterne but for him alone and none other lest perhaps if the same course should be still practiced Complaint to the House of Commons p. 6. the contrivers of this plot might have the like payment to fall ere long upon their owne heads therefore some say this may well draw a suspicion upon the justice of the sentence though I will not censure any man for any injustice therein But as the Earle said at his death The Earle's words at his death which he undertooke like a good Christian full of charity and no lesse piety it was an ill omen to this Nation that they should write the frontispiece of this Parliament with letters of bloud which if unjustly done or unduly prosecuted I feare may with Abels bloud cry for vengeance in the cares of God against the contrivers of this mischiefe to produce our miseries and the God of Heaven doth onely know how much of the bloud of this Kingdome must be squeezed out to expiate all the mis-proceedings and the fearefull projects of our people God Almighty turne his anger from us and let not the righteous perish with the wicked not the sinnes of some few be laid upon us all This was the first impediment that was to be removed before they could proceed any further in this Tragedy and thus it was most artificially acted and I say he was a great and a very great impediment of their designe which made me the larger in the prosecution thereof because he was a person of that great ability and so great fidelity both to the Church and State and the taking off of his head made a very wide gap for our enemies to enter into the vineyard of Christ and a large breach into the Citie of God to deface the Church and to destroy this Kingdome CHAP. III. Sheweth how they stopped the free judgement of the Iudges procured the perpetuity of the Parliament the consequences thereof and the subtle device of Semiramis 2. The second impediment of their designe THe next let that might hinder their designe was the great learning long experience and free judgement of the grave Judges to declare what is truth and what is law in every point for these men being skilfull in the Lawes and Statutes of our Land knew how contrary to the same and how repugnant to the fundamentall Constitutions of our government the erecting of a new Church and the framing of a new Common wealth would be and their judgement being to be inquired in any emergent doubt might prove very prejudiciall unto their plots and a hinderance of their designe except it were diverted by some course Therefore to stop this streame How they stopped the free judgement of the Judges to put a gagge in their mouthes to imprison all truths that might make against them and to make these Judges yeild to whatsoever they doe or at least not to contradict any

the eager prosecution of our Sectaries to take off the Earle of Straffords head how he answered for himselfe the Bishops right of voting in his cause his excellent vertues and his death 1. 1. Impediment THey get Master Pym the grand father of all the purer sort and a fit instrument for this designe in the name of the House of Commons and thereby of all the Commonalty of England The Earle his charge to charge Thomas Earle of Strafford of High-Treason a high charge indeed and yet no lesse a crime could serve the turne to turne him out of their way because nothing else could subdue that spirit by which he was so well able to discover the plots and to frustrate the practices of all the faction of Sectaries for as the Jewes were no wayes sufficient to answer Saint Stevens arguments but onely with stones so these men saw themselves unable to confute his reasons and to subdue his power but onely by putting him to death and cutting off his head for that fault which Pym alleadged he had committed But then I demand how this great charge of high Treason shall be made good against him It is answered How sought to be proved that England Scotland and Ireland and every corner of these three Kingdomes must be searched and all discontented persons that had at any time any sentence though never so justly pronounced against them by him that was so great a Judge Yet conceited to be otherwise by themselves must now be incouraged and countenanced by the faction and most likely by this grand accuser to say all that they know and perhaps more then was true against him for what will not envy and malice say or what beast will not trample upon the Lion when they see him groveling and gasping for life in an unevitable pit and it may be compassed with so many mastife dogs I meane his enemies and discontented witnesses as were able to teare more then one Lion all to peices so by this meanes they are enabled to frame neare thirty Articles against him ut cum non prosint singula multajuvent that the number might amnze the people and thinke him a strange creature that was so full of haynous offences and so compassed with transgressions But si satis accusasse quis innocens The Earle his answer if accusations were sufficient to create offenders not a righteous man could escape on earth therefore the Law condemneth no man before he be heard what he can answer for himselfe and the Earle of Strafford comming to his answer made all things so cleare in the Judgment of the common hearers and answered to every article so well that his enemies being Judges they much applauded his abilities and admired at his Dexterity whereby he had so finely untied those Gordian knots that were so fouly contrived against him and as his friends conceived had fairely escaped all those iron nets which his adversaries had so cunningly laid my popular countreyman with the rest of the more learned Lawyers had so vehemently prosecuted to insnare him in the linkes and traps of guiltinesse and in breife the Lords who as yet were unpoysoned by the leavened subtilty of this bitter faction could finde not any one of all those articles to be Treason by any Law that was yet established in this Land sic te servavit Apollo so God delivered him as he thought and his friends hoped out of all these troubles Yet as a rivelet stopped will at last prove the more violent The nature of malice viresque acquirit ibidem and recollect a greater strength in the same place so rage and malice hindered of their revengefull desires will turne to be the more implacable quia malitia eorum excaecavit eos because the malice of men bewitcheth them and hath no end till it makes an end of its hated foe therefore those men that hated and maligned the Earle like the Jewes that because their tongues could make no reply to the just defence of the holy Martyr Act. 7.51 guashed upon him with their teeth and stopping their eares ran upon him with one accord all at once because they had no Law nor learning to make those articles treason they say with the Poet hac non successit aliâ aggrediemur viâ seeing we failed herein we will attempt another way and to that end they frame a Bill of attainder against him and this if it passe by the major part of both Houses and have the royall assent will bring him to his iust deserved death and herein I will not say they shewed themselves worse then the Iewes because that when their malice was at the hichest pitch against Christ they said we have a Law and by our Law he ought to dy and these haters of the Earle seeing they had no Law will have a Law to be made that shall bring him unto his death because the House might have reasons which my sence cannot conceive Yet some of his friends have said that after a former prosecution according to Law to make a new Law where there was none before to take away a mans life is almost as bad as the Romance Law The rubs of the Bill how taken away that I read of to hang him first and then judge him afterward to whom I assented not and not many lesse then 60 worthy Members of the House of Commons would never yeild to passe that Bill it had a greater rub among the Lords where it is not thought upon any slight conjectures it had never passed but that this rub must be taken away by a new device for that the faction judging some of them might be more timorous then malicious and remembring that primus in orbe Deos fecit timor feare is a powerfull passion that produceth many strange effects the Apprentices and Porters Water men and Car-men and all the rascall rout of the ragged Regiment were gathered together by some Chedorlaomer came as they did against Christ with swords and staves without order with great impudency to awe them and to cry for Iustice against him and this was done and done againe and againe untill the businesse that they came for was done a course not prevented that may undoe all Justice and bring us all to be undone And yet all this will not do this deed untill the King passeth His assent The Kings great paines to search out the truth for as yet the new Law of orders and ordinances without the King was not hatched and the good King having so graciously so indefatigably taken such care and such paines in his owne person every day to heare and see all that could be laid unto his charge and how he had answered each particular was so just and of such tender and religious conscience that he was not satisfied as men conceived with the weight of those reasons that were produced to passe the same therefore here I finde another Stratageme used such as

Hannibal could not invent to effect this hard talke what to perswade mildnesse to become severe or to cause a just and most clement Prince so full of mercy so prone to pardon where there is a fault and so loth to punish but where he must by the Law of Justice the greatest fault to yeeld to put him to death that was in many things so excellent in his life the taske was to procure his assent to passe this Bill and how shall this be done as the Man of God could not be perswaded by any man but by a Man of God a Prophet by a Prophet so now the Bishops that were good men men of conscience and set apart by God to resolve and satisfie weake and tender consciences are thought fit to be sent unto this good King to perswade him as men supposed that to prevent a greater mischiefe he might justly passe this Bill and either 6. or 4. of the prime Prelates are requested by the Lords to goe unto the King to assay how far they can prevaile with him herein and so they went and how they dealt with His Majestie I do not fully understand but am informed by some that went that they assured him he ought to satisfie himselfe in point of Law by his Judges and of State by his Councell how they did any otherwise in any other thing rectify his Conscience in point of divinitie which belonged unto themselves I cannot tell But though I thinke no man can justly lay the least tittle of blame upon the just King no not the Earle himselfe as himselfe professed for yeelding to such and so earnest perswasions of I know not how many reverend Bishops wise Counsellours grave Judges and the flower of all his people to passe that Bill whatsoever it was Yet to say what I conceive with their favour The Bishops right to vote in any cause of my brethren the Bishops in the prosecution of this cause I am perswaded that they had no reason to withdraw themselves from the House and to desert their owne right when the Bill or the Iudgment was to passe against the Earle upon this slight pretence alleaged against them by the haters of the Earle and no lovers of the Bishops that a Clergie-man ought not to have any vote or to be present at the handling of the cause of bloud or death for they might know full well when my Lords grace of Yorke did most clearely manifest this truth that the first inhibition of the Clergy to be present and assistant in causa sanguinis or judicio mortis in the Canon of Innocent the third as I remember for I am driven to fly without my bookes was most unjust onely to tie the Bishops to his blinde obedience to the apparent prejudice of all Christian Princes by denying this their service unto them and it is no wayes obligatory to binde us that are by the Lawes of our Land not onely freed but also injoyned to abandon all the unjust Canons that are repugnant to our Lawes and derogatory to our Kings and to renounce all the usurped authority of the Pope for I would faine know what Scripture or what reason Pope Innocent can alleadge to exclude them from doing that good service both to God and their King which in all reason they can or should be better able to do then most others and I am sure that neither in the old nor in the new Testament nor yet in the Primitive Church untill these subtle Popes began thus to incroach upon the rights of Princes to take away the prerogatives of Kings and to domineer over the consciences of men this exclusion of them from the highest act of Justice was never found The Prophets and Apostles judged in the case of life and death for did not Moses Joshua Samuel Eliah Elizaus Jehoida and others of the Priests and Prophets of the Old Testament and S. Peter also the Prince of the Apostles in the New Testament judge in the case of bloud and pronounced the sentence of death against Malefactors as when Ananias and Sapphira were suddenly brought unto their end by the judgement of the Apostle and if they be able and fit to judge of any thing then why not of this If you say Ob. because they are the advocates of mercy the procurers of pardon the preachers of repentance and men that are made to save life and not to put any one to death or to bring any man unto his end I answer Sol. that they are therefore the fittest men to be the Judges both of life and death for who can better and more justly judge me to death then he that doth most love my life It is certaine he will not condemne me without just cause even as God that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the father of mercies and even mercy it selfe is the fittest and most righteous Judge that can be found both of death and damnation because his mercy and goodnesse towards his creatures will not permit his severity against sinne though never so detestable to his purity Clergy how fit to be Judges to doe the least injustice to their persons so our love of mercy and pitty will not suffer us to doe any thing that shall transcend the rules of justice and equity and as our inclination to mercy prohibits us to condemne the innocent so our love to justice and our charge to preserve it will not permit us to justifie the wicked for the Scripture teacheth us that he which justifieth the wicked and he that condemneth the innocent that calleth the evill good and the good evill that spareth Agag and killeth Naboth are both alike abominable unto the Lord. And therefore notwithstanding this unjust Canon I never finde in any of our Histories that the Bishops did ever withdraw themselves and quit their votes in this case either before or after save onely from the 10th yeare of Richard the 2d unto the 21th yeare of the raigne of the same unfortunate King which they did not because they could not justly be present but because they had just reasons to be absent as you may finde it in the Annales of his time therefore I know not how to palliate their facility of yeilding way to those Non-Canonicall Lords to produce those non-obliging Canons Non Canonicall Lords which they abhorred in all that made not for the furtherance of their designe to exclude them from doing this which was one of their chiefest duties for who knoweth not the Lord Say and Lord Brooke and others of the Lords to hate all Canons even the old Canons of the Apostles as inconsistent with their new rules of independent government and yet herein to exclude the Bishops votes in the judgement of this man and the passing of this Bill which being admitted might perhaps have turned the scales they will take hold of the unjustest Law and alleadge one of the worst of Canons a Canon against reason and most repugnant

prosecute against the law of God and man Rev. 2.10 because the Lord commandeth us to feare none of those things that we shall suffer but to stand in our integrity unto death and we shall be crowned with the crowne of life 3. They have discharged the Apprentises and servants from their Masters services 3. How they discharged the apprentices and compell them to fight and have either compelled or perswaded them to serve in their army against the King and that without the consent and against the will of their masters and dames yea sometimes against the commands of their owne parents which I speake from their owne mouthes 4. 4. How they imprisoned out men without cause They have imprisoned very many hundreds of most able and most honest men even so many that the Prisons are not able to containe them but they are faine to consecrate the greatest houses in London to become Prisons as the Bishop of Londons house Ely house Winchester House Lambeth house Cresby house the Savoy and the like And this they doe for none other cause but either for performing the duties of their places and dischargeing their obedience to his Majesty as the last Lord Maior Gurney which deserved rather to be commended than committed if we believe many that were present at his tryall or petitioning unto them as Sir George Bynion Copmplaint p. 8 and Captaine Richard Lovelace and Sir William Boteler of Kent because they did not therein flatter and approve their present wicked courses or intending to petition unto the King for reliefe of these lamentable distresses as those Gentlemen of Hertford-shire and Westminster or for being as they conceived disaffected unto their disloyall orders A strange thing and iustice beyond president not the like to be found among the Pagans that where no law can condemne a man for his affections when no action is committed against law men shall bee robbed of their estates and adjudged for malignants which is also a crime most generall and without the compasse of any Statute and then for this now created sinne to bee condemned and imprisoned and therein to remaine without tryall of his offence perhaps as long as the Archbishop of Canterbury And this wonder is the rather to bee wondered at because it is the sence of both Houses M. Pym in his Speech at the Guild-hall if wee may believe Master Pym that it is against the rules of iustice that any man should be imprisoned upon a generall charge when no particulars are proved against him for never charge can be more generall than to be all affected or a malignant or a man not to be confided in where of you finde ten thousand in the City of London and many hundred thousands in the Kingdome and therefore when we finde so many persons of honour and reputation imprisoned only upon this surmise without any other particular charge so much as once suggested against them as was the Lord of Middlesex the Lord of Portland and abundance more and detained in prison because they were ill affected in that they have not contributed to the maintenance of this warre we see how insensibly they have accused themselves to have laid this insupportable punishment beyond the desert of the transgressors and against the rules of all iustice and how they have forgotten their protestation and exceedingly infringed the liberty of the Subiects whereof they promised to bee such faithfull procurators CHAP. XIII Sheweth the proceedings of this faction against the Lawes of the Land the Priviledges of Parliament transgressed eleven speciall wayes 3. 1. Their proceedings against the lawes FOr the Lawes of our land which are either private as those chiefly which belong unto the Parliament and are called the Priviledges of Parliament or publike which are the inheritance of every Subiect you shall find how they have invaded and violated each one of these for 1. 1. Against the priviledges Parliament Touching the Priviledges of Parliament we confesse that former Kings have graciously yeelded many iust priviledges unto them for the freedome of their persons and the liberty of their speeches so they be free from blasphemy or treason of the like unpardonable offence but such a freedome as they challenge though for my selfe I confesse my skill in Law to be unable to distinguish the Legitimate from the usurped yet in these subsequent particulars I find wise men utterly denying it them as 1. When they forbid us to dispute of their Priviledges 1. Denying us to dispute of them L. Elismer in post nati and say that themselves alone are the sole Judges of them when as in former ages they have been adjudged by the Lawes of the Kingdom when Thorpe the Speaker of the House of Commons hath been committed and detained Prisoner upon an Execution and the House confirmed that fact 2. 2. Committing and putting out their Members Complaint p. 11. When the Members of the House of whose elections and transgressions against the House or any of their fellow Members or the like the House is the proper Judge which ought to have as free libertie as any of the rest upon any emergent occasion are committed as Master Palmer and others were or put out of the House as Sir Edward Deering the Lord Faulkland Sir John Culpepper Sir John Strang wayes and others have been voted hand over head for speaking more reason than the more violent partie could answer or in very deed for speaking their mindes freely against the sense of the House or rather against some of the prevalent Faction of the House which we say is no Priviledge but the pravitie of the House to denie this just Priviledge unto those Members that were thus committed or expelled for hereby it doth manifestly appear that contrary to the practice of all former Parliaments and contrary to the honour of any Parliament things were herein debated and carried not by strength of argument but by the most voyces and the greater number were so farre from understanding the validitie of the alleaged reasons that after the Votes passed they scarce conceived the state of the question but thought it enough to be Clerkes to Master Pym 3. Denying their Members to be legally tried for any capitall crime Vide Dyer p. 59.60 Crompton 8. b. 9 10 11. Elism post nats 20 21. The viewer p. 43. and to say Amen to Master Hampden by an implicite faith 3. When they deny the Members of their House or any other imployed by them in this horrid Rebellion should be questioned for felonie treason murder or the like capitall crimes but onely in Parliament or at least by the leave of that House whereof they are Members or which doth imploy them for by this meanes any Member of their House may be a Traitor or a Murderer or a Robber whensoever he please and may easily escape before the partie wronged or complainant can obtain this leave of the House of Commons and therefore this is