Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	act_n	parliament_n	say_a	1,050	5	6.6432	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A86752	Confusion confounded: or, A firm way of settlement settled and confirmed. Wherein is considered the reasons of the resignation of the late Parlament, and the establishment of a Lord Protector.	Hall, John, 1627-1656.	1654 (1654)	Wing H343A; Thomason E726_11; ESTC R204693	16,845	22

adjudged him within the benefit of the said Articles the same party in the House prevailed to suspend the proceedings of that Court But that Parlament dissolving and the Court proceeding according to their duty the late Parlament made an Act to confirm their Purchases and that out of a very strange reason viz. that the former Parlament had ordered a stop and they did it but to quiet the possession to a sort of Godly Purchasers whereas they should have bethought themselves that if the former Parlament had done an Act of injustice it was their duty and profession to reverse it not to confirm it Nor indeed can a Parlament though a Supreme unlimitted Court enact any thing against right Reason or common Justice but it is ipso facto void they being trusted with the peoples safety not with their ruin Nor is that restitution in specie or value any thing for what Justice can there be to take away an Estate due unto a man and give him another not half so good and commodious or not half so much worth Justice is rigorous and extreme and will be fully satisfied or else she is not satisfied at all And though in her punishments she may sometimes turn to injury yet in distribution she loves to be full and exact There can be doubtless no one thing makes either a better way for conquest in winning a people not for securing of it by preserving their affections nothing that makes a Commander more honourable more assures and secretly blesses the Souldier than a faithful and an inviolate keeping of promise with an enemy This is it indeed that gives reputation to Armies makes them flourish while the hearts of the others tremble This is that indeed which as it is the ligament of humane amity so it is the bridle and restraint of their enmity lest it turn into rage and bestiality This all Nations from the most civil to the most barbarous have with all religion observed judgements and plagues upon the breach of it are frequent in all History and yet we that profess the high principles of Christianity must do things no body knows why which most Turks would scorn and detest If States will be awanting to perform the faith of their Armies they must either expect to be served by faithless men for what honest man will promise that which he shall not be in some hopes to perform or else breed scorn and despair in their enemies who having men accounted false to deal with will account it their greatest safety to expect none at their hands and thence choose rather to endure desperate and obstinate sieges which how dangerous and fatal they have been to many thriving warres cannot and need not be here exemplified Thirdly for the removall of the Chancery and total alteration of the Law c. Whether this were not ground enough had there been none else may be judged from a short consideration of the Nature of our Laws as they now stand and a due remembrance of what happiness and security our Predecessors enjoyed under them The Law of England as it now stands is either Statute Law Common Law or Custome Statute Law is but the edict of the Supreme Magistrate commanding or forbidding this or that thing This relates either to the Government of the State in general preventing or redressing particular crimes or making such due redresses as cannot be made by the ordinary constitution of Government The Common Law is recta ratio in the determination of Justum between parties holy and inviolable as the Laws of Nature and Reason and though running in a municipal chanel yet as old and venerable as Reason it self which it is onely reduced to practice and as unalterable since Reason under never so many shapes is still the same though in some circumstances and proceedings there may be just cause of alteration Custome is the particular usage in such a Liberty place or manner different not contrary from either subordinate to both How these men may contemplate a better establishment is a matter which as yet I see not any search satisfied with and till they produce a better I shall acquiesce in not raising objections against what I see not how I can rationally object But under this Law the forms whereof have altered according to the Constitutions of the several Governments have we flourished ever since we have been a people and some men of greater abilities and leisure have so amply made it appear as well to its constitution use and end that I shall not interpose with those excellent men but refer to their own mouths Now since it is the weakness or incapacity of men that they can provide no Law against all emergences and contingences and that the wickedness of humane nature is too subtil for the most cautious and severest preventive Justice there will follow a necessity in case of frauds concealments surprises cheats and the other effects of vulgar wickedness to appeal to the conscience of the Commonwealth Hence is it that in several particular cases there is occasion of relief yet such as by onely mitigating the rigour of the positive Law may relieve the subject without making a general Law for otherwise Laws would become innumerable And if we complain of the number of Laws at present and those made upon general resultances we should certainly find them insufferable if they once came to be formed out of particular cases Now this conscience of the Commonwealth as I may call it being as it were deposited with the Great Seal in the Chancery is not onely that which relieves and benefits the severity and rigour of the Common Law but is indeed the womb of all our Laws and Proceedings which must necessarily stop and suspend upon the taking away of that High Court Not but in the practice of the Court which being a Court of Equity cannot be so strictly bound up as the Common Law there may happen very many delaies and foul practices but it is a very great error in men to argue from the abuse of a thing against the being and constitution of the thing it self as if a man ought to be murthered because he hath a disease and should be put out of pain But the constitution of the Court though somewhat as to excess of Fees and corruption of practice might be remedied is such as without an invaluable damage to the greatest part of the subjects cannot be altered and some of late have so largely and particularly considered that I shall say no more of it in this place For the profession or the Law however it now become to be looked a squint at yet it is that which hath been not onely highly reverenced by our own Ancestors but was the common road of advancement and honour in Greece and Rome And if we observe in this Nation the Professors of it have found Gods blessing very eminently fall down upon them How many great and noble families are there that flourish to this

life certain it is that admit any man without protection of what he at preseut enjoies unless it come to be determined by Law which is but the regulation of the force of a Country and either his next or strongest neighbour if not punishable shall dispossess him and consequently there shall be nothing but warr and confusion in that place Now if men in the state of Nature find Propriety a thing so sacred so useful what shall we think of Commonwealths whose great design it is to better men that is to say to lead them to that civil happiness jointly which they could not arrive at singly how ought they to be careful in this point for it the wisest States have been so careful that even in Taxes which are necessary to be paied for the due preservation of the whole such a due Modetation hath been used as that no more should issue out of the purse of the subject than should meerly conduce to that End and Rome it self after the conquest of Perseus by Paulus Aemilius out of the Treasury then gotten freed the people for many years as not thinking fit the Publick should command a private purse without eminent necessity and danger It holds à fortiori that taking away particular proprieties is matter of more injustice and unsafety in a Politique Body Thirdly how unfitting is it for a Common wealth without any consideration or other provision at all to dispossess any persons of their particular lively-hood whether it be by office or profession and that without any provision at all made for the setting up somewhat else in the stead thereof or to say better reforming of the old Certainly a mans office or profession provided alwayes it consists with the publick welfare and be not oppressive to the people is as much propriety as any other whatsoever Having promised thus much I shall now descend to the particular instances of the Narrator which when we have perused we shall confront with somewhat necessary to be mentioned about the late change As to the Souldiery whose pay they would have stopt by hindring the passing of the Bill for Assessments the Narrator saies it was moved indeed nay it was highly urged in order to the abatement of the Tax and in regard of their great estates and little hazard and pains that the chief Officers would serve the Commonwealth freely as the Parliament did But that this was a meer design to disunite the Army and break them in pieces and make them odious to the people by Free-quarter may easily appear by their endeavours and discourses of changing Commanders in the Army or to say more properly advancing men of their own principles which how dangerous it is to the very being of the three Nations cannot but be acknowledged when it is considered what a number of Enemies we have to deal with and that our protection under God lies in their hands which by this means would be weakned But as it happens in all civil debate that sly and ambitious factions discover not the main at first but endeavour to creep in by insinuations and plausible pretences so these people would under the pretence of inequality of Taxes absolutely stop the Bill whereas reformation if any such needed might be made in convenient time and the Souldier not be forced at the present to starve plunder or disband As to what they object of the small pains and great Estates gotten by Commanders though some have not gotten so great Estates as they might have done as may be instanced were it without offence it seems they are very apt to forget the hazards and toyles that these men have undergone for that pay and that even in the midst of their perils and action how little they received or pursed and now when the Lord hath honoured them with Triumphs they must in a manner be laid aside and debarred of their pay which hath put on a man would think the nature of a reward now rather than an entertainment Some shadow of reason indeed there had been for this motion if they had trifled and delayed a warr as is commonly seen beyond Seas and was at first practised by their Predecessors here in England the better to salve their own avarice and to keep their employments a foot But they behaved themselves otherwise their courages surmounted the difficulties and rigours of the coldest winters and in midst of the bitterest frosts and sharpest tempests they were seen besieging skirmishing pursuing and doing all those actions which might be expected in a campagne so that their victories were thick and the fury of the warres in our bowels soon blown over Their memorable things in Scotland and Ireland are such as they have done more than our Monarchs could do in many Centuries of years and yet these men after all these merits notwithstanding their pay at the present is reduced to the lowest it reasonably can and holds no proportion with the rates established abroad that which remains must be taken from them But it seems the Gentlemen that made that objection concerning their great estates did not look upon that part of the wallet which hanged behind their backs for rhere were many members there who had estates very different from what they had had 15. years since and not a few of them had either one or more offices that might well amount to the pay of a Collonel But these men that are Moles when they are to consider themselves see as sharp as Eagles when they come to survey others But perhaps they may have somewhat of the nature of the Cockatrice and coming to be made see their own visages abhorre them and burst We have seen how well the Narrator hath acquitted himself of the first particular we shall come now to his second which is the taking up of the Cavaliers Interest in the Case of Sir John Stowel which is very disingenuously and maliciously interpreted to be a complyance with that party For Sir Johns part though he were an eager and severe pursuer of the Kings Interest yet if we shall look upon his sinnes and torments they will not be found very disproportionable He hath been several times brought to the Bar for his life and he lay many years in prison he hath lost the profit of a very fair estate for many years together though he were comprized in the Articles of Exceter upon which the High Court of Justice would not take away his life and ought to have been permitted to compound which he did also endeavour but could never obtain Certainly there were some Ahabs at that time that had a mind to his Vineyard for otherwise he could never have found such strange and dishonourable opposition Nay even at last when the Court of Articles whom the Parliament made in a manner Judges of themselves as to relieve in particular cases where there might be occasion by the rigour of some general Act after hearing the full and large debate of the whole matter