Selected quad for the lemma: end_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
end_n	peace_n	perfect_a	upright_a	1,494	5	10.7491	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28565	The justice of peace, his calling and qualifications by Edmund Bohun, Esq.	Bohun, Edmund, 1645-1699.	1693 (1693)	Wing B3458; ESTC R18572	84,020	203

the two first but I hope by placing them in the Conclusion they will Leave the stronger impression on the Mind of the Reader Courage is so necessary a Qualification in Magistrates Courage that God himself never omits it in his Charges to them and there is good cause for it For they are sometimes to deal with Men Equal to themselves in all things and at others with their Superiors and as the Nature of Mankind stands may justly fear hard usage for doing but their Duty And yet we have another difficulty that will try the most daring we live in a factious Age and a Divided Nation and a Magistrate must sometimes disoblige not only single persons but great Bodies of Men united for the carrying on ill designs And we have before our Eyes instances of many great Families that have been ruine or impoverished within the Memory of Man for their Loyalty and Honesty and too many have Considered the same may happen again and this hath made the difficulty the greater by les'ning the Number of them that should have overcome it But yet would men consider Seriously of it this will never justify their Pusilanimity who have refused to serve the Publick or not performed their Duty out of Cowardise For God himself hath promised to stand by them and protect them in the discharge of their Duty Ye shall not Respect persons in judgment but you shall hear the Small as well as the Great you shall not be afraid of the face of Man for the judgment is Gods Deut. 1. 17. So he is pleased to own the Act and is bound to protect his own Minister and he may securely rely upon him that he will for he hath ingaged his Veracity for it whose Power no Faction how formidable soever can Master And yet if he should Suffer a man to be persecuted for doing his Duty Even that is no such dismal thing as is represented by fancy and delusion but this subject hath been so Excellently treated of by the Author of Jovian in his Conclusion that for brevity sake I will refer the Reader to it Of Evils the least is to be chosen and in the state things are we must submit our Selves and Families as Eternal Slaves to these Factions or defend the Government against them by a Couragious Execution of our Laws We have tryed their Mercy and Clemency and found Solomon's Observation true The tender Mercies of the Wicked are Cruel We have felt the Smart of being Loyal and if we were so treated for being obedient to the Laws of God and Man we may Expect as much Mercy in other instances as we please We have tried what could be done by fair Courses and Concessions and our Experience tells us nothing but an intire submission at discretion will satisfie these insolent Men and this hath inspired some Besieged Starved Places with a resolution to perish bravely but blessed be God we are not upon such terms yet with them But then this reproacheth our faint-hearted Gallants who dare not do their Duty whilest they have the Advantage Clearly on their Side The thing is indeed not only possible but easie for all Combinations against an Established Government besides the Providence of God have the United Forces of all good men against them they are lyable to many hazards have no Authority to Unite them are and ever will be distrustful each of other and faithless too as occasion serves and one Passion prevails upon another So that it is not Prudence which makes men timorous but want of Considering the Nature of things together with Infidelity Distrust of God and Cowardize and if any man will aspire to these Titles of Honour and tamely purchase them with Slavery and Beggery much good may his bargain do him and let no man envy his happiness And as to the rest let them pluck up their spirits and with the Rosolution of English Men and Christians bring under this Hydra this Many-headed Monster and they may be assured the Event will answer their Desires and will find that the strength of our Factions lies more in our want of Wit and Will to Suppress them than in their own Ability to defend themselves much less to bring under and ruine us But not only Combinations of Men but single persons have sometimes over-awed Magistrates and made them not dare to do their Duties and here the fault is so much the greater as the Temptation is less For why should a Justice of the Peace under the Protection of God and the Laws fear a Wealthy Clown or a Ruffling Gentleman Let him be but once sure what the Law and the Matter of Fact is and he need not fear any man But 't is a great disgrace to the Magistrate and a great dishonour to Justice to have the Laws take none but the poor helpless offenders whose very Innocence may be easily trodden under foot and the great and insolent Offenders escape without any Chastisement It were great reason rather to take the latter than the former and tends more to the terror of ill men It is true that sometimes these great and rich Malefactors do find means by their Wealth and Friends to trouble a Justice of the Peace on some other pretence but this doth not often happen God in his Providence preventing it and when it doth ought to be born as other Calamities which God sends for Causes best known to himself and which for the most part end very well for the Minister of Justice But on the Other Side when a man hath purchased their good will at the loss of his Reputation by denying Justice or doing injury he hath but rendred himself more obnoxious to their injuries by shewing his fear of them which makes them yet more insolent and he hath made God and good men his Enemies to boot So that he is then become really miserable and yet must Expect no bodies Pity or Assistance So that all things Considered it is better to trust God and rely on the Protection of the Laws and so to proceed to do our Duty without the least Consideration Whether the Party Complained of be a Poor man or a rich man but according to Gods Commandment and Our Oath to do equal Right to both which in all probability will be as safe and much more honourable and at last bring a man to peace according to that of the Psalmist Mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the End of that Man is Peace Psal 37. v. 37. There is another Fault which is just the opposite to this and doth not so often happen yet sometimes may out of too much Pity and Compassion ill Placed and Worse Expressed and that is when more regard is taken to the Poverty than Innocence of a man contrary to the Command of God Thou shalt not Countenance a poor man in his Cause Exod. 23. 3. That is any further than there is Right and Reason for it I might perhaps not have mentioned this

Great Ministers of State and Great Men of the Nation are a part of them and are named in all the Commssiions yet the persons who reside in the several Counties and do actually execute the Office are for the most part Noble-men and Lay-Gentlemen or Lawyers whose Education hath not generally necessitated them to those Studies that are requisite to fit them for such Moral Reflections and those that are best acquainted with them will yet be pleased perhaps to see this discourse ready laid together to their hands and I am not without all hopes that some or other may be so far displeased with what what I have done as to do it better for I will not deny that the Subject deserves a better Head and Pen than mine and it would please me to see the use of this superseeded by a better But till this is done I have only one Request to make to my Reader That he would candidly interpret what I have written not out of a design to find fault and instruct my Betters but kindly to represent to them the loveliness of Virtue and the baseness and turpitude of Vice that so my Reader may from thence take occasion to reform himself in what is amiss and to give God hearty thanks for preserving him from the rest of those Crimes which have not yet touched him And as for those who may take exceptions I do assure them I never intended to reflect personally upon any one man in the World and I fear there is no one passage in the whole Book but what may too pertinently be applyed to too great a Number of Men I wish it were otherwise But then this may be added to the other Reasons I have given why I have concealed my Name to prevent the Rabble from making application of several of the worst parts of my discourse to persons for whom they were never intended and if they can once find out one they will presently pretend they have found out all the rest and this was meant of this man and that of the other and so I shall become accountable for all their wild Surmizes There is one other Exception which may lie against the whole and that is that by telling the World what sort of men Magistrates should be I have given their Inferiours who are also Naturally inclin'd to be more inquisitive into the faults of their Superiours then into that which is their own duty too great a temptation to consider what they are or have been and consequently to undervalue and despise them but this is in their own power in great part to prevent by reforming what would have betrayed them to the scorn of the Many tho I had never been born for Virtue and Vice were well understood before this little piece was thought of and men ever were and always will be accordingly esteemed The late Lord Chancellor Clarendon in a Circular Letter to all the Justices of the Peace in England bearing date the 30th of March 1665 tells them I assure you the King hath so great a sense of the service you do or can do for him that He frequently says He takes himself to be particularly beholding to every good Justice of the Peace who is Chearful and Active in his Place and that if in truth the Justices of the Peace in the several Divisions be as careful as they ought to be in keeping the Watches and in other parts of their Office the keeping up their Monthly Meetings and suppressing Conventicles c. the Peace of the Kingdom can hardly be interrupted within and the Hopes and Imaginations of Seditious Persons would be quickly broken and all men would study to be quiet and injoy those many blessings God hath given the Nation under this happy Government All this is certainly true and tho the times were then as they are now very unquiet and there was a formidable Conspiracy then set on foot by the Republicans and Dissenters of the Nation yet the sole Vigilance and Care of the Justices of the Peace disappointed it and made it end in Smoke to the Eternal Reproach and Dishonour of the Conspirators which shews the excellence and usefulness of this Order of men Yet give me leave to say that those good Justices of the Peace who are most Active and Chearful in their Places are not always either the Richest and Greatest or the best beloved and most favoured by the rest And for this Sir Thomas Egerton Lord-Keeper of the Great Seal in the 44th of Elizabeth in a Speech made the 13th of February 1601. in the Star-Chamber by her Maiesty's express Command and Printed in the end of the Historical Collections of the four last Parliaments of her Reign shall be my witness who thus complained Is there any more fervent than others in the business of the Common-wealth he streight hath given him the Epithite of a busie Jack but I know there be many good and I wish their number were increased but who be they Even the poorer and meanner Justices by one of which more good cometh to the Common-wealth than by a Hundred of greater condition and degree I wish this complaint were superannuated and that our times were quite otherwise but alas such Justices of the Peace must not only be content to hear worse Language than this but there is too frequently Combinations made amongst the rest to cross and quash whatever they shall propose be it never so just and reasonable and nothing alledged for it but that they are mean proud busie people and will perk up too much above their Betters if they be not thus mortified and kept under this is the worst sort of Respect of Persons that can be thought of and most mischievous and irrational that whereas Envy ever riseth by Nature here it descendeth and the Superiour who should love and cherish the Industry and Vigilance of his Inferiour envieth and hateth him for being more serviceable than he need perhaps to have been But let it be considered who reaps the Advantage of all their Industry and Activity but the King and Kingdom and these very men that thus severely treat them if there were none such the Nation must needs in a small time be ruined for as the Lord Chancellor Clarendon takes notice in the above Cited Letter So much Artifice so much Industry and so much dexterity as this People the Enemies of the Government are possessed with cannot be disappointed by a Supine Negligence or Laziness in those who are invested with the Kings Authority or indeed without an equal industry dexterity and combination between Good Men for the Preservation of the Peace of the Kingdom and for the suppressing of the Enemies thereof Now if instead of this the Justices of the Peace combine in Parties one against another and the Great men will neither do the duties of their Places themselves nor suffer the meaner but more active to do it for them what can be the event in the end but this That like