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duty_n according_a good_a law_n 1,316 5 4.6145 4 true
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A46956 A letter from a freeholder, to the rest of the freeholders of England, and all others, who have votes in the choice of Parliament-men Johnson, Samuel, 1649-1703. 1680 (1680) Wing J834; ESTC R2105 9,303 10

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A Letter from a Freeholder to the rest of the Freeholders of ENGLAND and all Others who have Votes in the Choice of Parliament-Men THE Power of Parliaments when they are duly Elected and rightly Convened is so very Great that every man who has any share in the Choice of them has the weight of his whole Country lying upon him For it is possible for my single Vote to determine the Election of that Parliament-Man whose single Vote in the Parliament-House may either save or sink the Nation And therefore it behoves men who thus dispose both of themselves and their Posterity and of their whole Country at once to see that they put all these into safe hands and to be as well advis'd as much in earnest when they chuse Persons to serve in Parliament as they usually are when they make their last Will and Testament And if this is to be done at all times certainly a much greater proportion of Care is to be taken at this Time when endeavours have been used not only to forestal the Freedom of Elections but even the Freedom of Voting in the Parliament-House and when the Counties of England have been practised upon to be made Repealers both within doors and without They have been Catechised whether if they were Parliament-Men they would Repeal the Penal Laws and Tests or if they were not Chosen themselves whether they would Chuse such as would And as for the Boroughs they have been all of them Sifted to the very Bran nay some Persons have been wrought upon to enter into Engagements before-hand in their Addresses But I suppose those that have been so very forward to promise themselves to serve a Turn will never be thought worthy to serve in Parliament And at the same time others have made it their business to render these Laws very odious to the People and to hoot them out of the World they have been Arraign'd and Condemn'd as Draconicks as Bloudy and Canibal Laws as Vngodly Laws and contrary to the Divine Principle of Liberty of CONSCIENCE without the common Justice of ever being Heard For the Preambles of these Laws which shew the Justice and Equity of them and the reasonableness both of their Birth and Continuance have been industriously suppressed This indeed has been a very bold Adventure for I am apt to think there is much truth in my Lord Chief Justice Coke's Observation That never any Subject Wrestled a Fall with the Laws of England but they always broke his Neck And therefore according to the Courtesie of England I shall wish Friend William Pen and his Fellow-Gamesters a good Deliverance But while they have taken the liberty to say their Pleasure of these Laws which are now in as full Force as the day they were made I shall take leave according to the Duty of a Loyal Subject with whom the Laws of the Land are a Principle and who must always own the Majesty and Authority of them till such time as they are lawfully Repealed to offer a few words in their behalf which shall be dictated by nothing but Law Truth and Justice and if every word that I say do not appear to be such I am content to have this whole Paper go for nothing and be as if it had never been written And to proceed the more clearly and distinctly I shall 1st consider the Penal Laws as they are called against the Papists and the two Tests And 2dly the Penal Laws against the Dissenters In the Statute 3 o Iacobi c. 1. which is read every Fifth of November in our Churches the Laws made against the Papists in Queen Elizabeth's time and the Confirmation of them 1 o Iacobi against which the great Out-cry is now made and for the sake of which they then attempted to blow up both the King and Parliament are called Necessary and Religious Laws And if I prove them to be undoubtedly such I hope the good People of England will look upon them an hundred times before they part with them once First The Laws against the Papists are Religious Laws they are Laws made for the high Honour of GOD as well as for the common Profit of the Realm which is the old Title of all our Laws and is the right End to which all Laws ought to be directed But why are they called Penal Laws for have not all Laws a Penalty annexed to them Perhaps they mean that these are Laws which interpose in Matters indifferent such as is the eating of Flesh on Fridays But is not Popery Malum in se Is Idolatry an Evil only by chance and by happening to be prohibited Is not the Worship of a Wafer God an Onion God or a Red-cloth God an unspeakable Dishonour to the GOD of Heaven in all places in every season of the Year every day of the Week and all hours of the Day Is it not eternally Evil The Laws of the Land found Idolatry prohibited to their hands by the written Law of GOD and even antecedently to that it was prohibited by the Law of Nature and no Municipal Laws in the World need desire a better Warrant And therefore to Repeal the Laws made against the Idol of the Mass Agnus Dei's Blocks Almighty and the infinite Idolatry which is interwoven with Popery is neither more nor less than to undertake to Repeal the Laws of GOD. 2dly The Laws made against the Seminary Priests and Romish Missioners are Religious Laws because they are made in pursuance of St. Iohn's Precept 2 Epist. 10. 11. If there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine receive him not into your house neither bid him God-speed For he that biddeth him God-speed is partaker of his evil deeds But do the Seminaries come and bring us the true Doctrine of Christ Do they not bring us another Gospel As Dr. Sherlock has Unanswerably proved upon them in the Second Part of his Preservative against POPERY And therefore as every private man is bound to shut his Doors against these Deceivers and Seducers by the same reason every Community is bound to expel and drive them out of the Nation And I think there never were such errant Cheats and Impostors as these are for they by their Masses can fetch Souls out of Purgatory of their own putting in they can forgive Sins in the Sacrament of Confession they can drive away the Devil with Crosses and Holy Water and they can make their God in the Sacrament They make a God! they make a Pudding Again 2ly The Laws against the Papists are called Necessary Laws and so they were to the very Being of the Kingdom In the first of Elizabeth the Oath of Supremacy was absolutely necessary to throw off the Romish Yoke and that intollerable Usurpation and Tyranny of the Pope under which both the Crown and Kingdom were perfect Slaves And af●●●wards was it not time to look after the Pope's Chaplains when they had raised a Rebellion in the North and he himself had sent a