Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	according_a	law_n	parliament_n	2,488	5	6.5410	4	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

but of late much abused but then they are very often mistaken and if they be not what is Popular Praise but Words and they are nothing but Wind a cold Reward and as for their Love it is more fickle and unconstant than the Wind and less to be trusted to as they have found by sad experience in their distresses that have relied upon it and yet when all is done it is more often acquired by Justice and Truth than by a slavish Compliance and Flattery because they are naturally jealous of the extraordinary condescentions of their Superiors and look upon them as Designs The last hindrance of Justice I shall mention Lasiness is Lasiness or a dull Inactivity Men undertake the Publick Service without considering before-hand the difficulties that attend it and when they perceive it troublesome and laborious to go through with the Work and that they shall reap much ill Will Envy Reproach Hatred and Discontent for doing nothing but their Duties and no present Profit they sit down discouraged and like the weary Pilot commit the Boat to the Waves and the Winds and let her drive at Random Such men should consider that Perseverance to the end is that which God Crowns and that man is born to trouble as the Sparks fly upwards and that there is as many troubles at every mans heels as there is before him only if he goes on bravely and resolutely and conquer them that stand in his way the other shall never overtake him but if he yields he is sure to be crushed betwixt them and to be destroyed ingloriously and without pity Others look to nothing but the Credit Honour and Reputation they shall gain by it and if they can acquire the Title of Right Worshipful and have their Neighbours stand bare-headed to them they have their Designs Now this is such a pityful piece of Vanity and Folly that it were to be wished if there must be such that they might be as lazy as is possible that they may do the less mischief but then methinks the very fear of being thought such should rouse all that have but one Spark of true English Generosity and make them study their Duties diligently and then perform it industriously and thereby regain their Credits here and a more excellent Reward hereafter SECTION VII THe next thing requisite in a Justice of Peace is a competent knowledg of our Laws and Customes for by these he is to warrant his Proceedings and if in this part of my Discourse I happen to commit any Error I desire before-hand to bespeak the Readers Pardon for I never had the happiness and honour to be a Member of any of the Honourable Inns of Court My Reader then need not fear I will set him upon the Purchase or reading of all the Body of our Laws for tho it might be useful to a Justice of the Peace yet it is not of absolute necessity It is said of one of our States-men that his Learning was not great but useful and he did not know much but he practised what he knew diligently and this is an Excellent Character of a Justice of the Peace Much knowledg may puff a man up with a high Conceit of himself but when all is done Honesty and Industry are the Qualities that best befit a Magistrate The knowledg may be attained in a small time if a man will make it his business and there is three effectual means for it 1. Reading 2. Observation and Practice 3. Conversation and Discourse with Knowing and Experienced Men. Natural Sagacity and Reason may teach a Man many things but it is an ill thing to trust to it in point of Government the Commission of the Peace directs us to proceed Prout secundùm legem Consuetudinem Regni Nostri Angliae aut formam Ordinationum vel Statuorum Praedictorum fieri consuevit aut debuit that is as ought and hath been used to be done according to the Laws and Customes of England or the Form of the Ordinances and Statutes aforesaid and these are not to be known without some Study and Reading so that he that hath an Aversion for Books will never make a knowing Justice of the Peace tho he may stand as a Cypher to make the number greater Nor will he Act with any certainty or security to himself his business being to apply the Laws and not to make new ones and at one time or other he will meet with them who will make him sensible of his ignorance to his Cost if he commit any great Error and without doubt he will be Guilty of many It is a shame for an English Gentleman to be ignorant of our Laws tho he live never so privately they are the best part of our Inheritance the effects of our Ancestors Prudence the Charters of our Freedoms not from Subjection but Misery and Slavery under it they are at the same times the Monuments of the Favours of our Princes and strong Obligations to love and serve them and as occasion require to spend our Bloods and Estates in their Service for our Kings have not treated us like Vassals or Slaves but like their Children laid no grievous Burthens on us but such reasonable and just Commands as we either chose by our Representatives in Parliament or ought to have chosen for our own goods But certainly they do ill deserve this happiness who will take no pains to understand it when they might so easily do it being freed by their Estates from a necessity of Bodily Labour and furnished with Money to buy Books and leisure to read them which is too usually spent in Luxury with greater Expence and sometimes with the Ruines of their Lives and Fortunes besides for want of it they are the more subject to be wheadled into ill Practices against the State and exposed to the Craft and Rapacity of Lawyers who teach them the value of this knowledg by the price they pay for it But then Justices of the Peace are not only obliged as they are English-men and Gentlemen to this Study but as they have promised upon Oath to be Executors of the Laws and it betrayes a great stupidity of Mind or Irreligion to swear to do equal right to the Poor and to the Rich after their Cunning Wit and Power and after the Laws and Customes of the Realm and Statutes thereof made as the Form of the Oath is and then never concern themselves to know what those Laws and Customes are and to mind the Statutes of England no more then they do the Edicts of France And that which renders the thing the more inexcusable is the great pains and care many Learned Men have taken to make Collections of those things that are most necessary for the Justice of the Peace so that no man can want a Tutor if he have but a Will to learn and they are written too with that Variety of Method that they will fit any mans humour who is not given up to sloath

is no new thing as long as the Grecians and Romans were poor and weak they lived contentedly under Kings but when they grew Rich and Powerful they threw off that Government and set up Common-wealths Two things afforded them great opportunities if not Temptations to it The first was the Poverty of the Crown The Old Revenues were much impaired by the Liberality or Necessities of our Princes and no relief could be had but in Parliament and there they knew so well how to truck that no Prerogative no Money They would not freely give but sell the King Supplyes for Liberty and they took care too to increase that Necessity by engaging the King in Wars and then denying him Money to carry them on and to discontent the People at the same time at the Unprosperous Events of them Thus the Crown grew every day poorer and the People Richer Another thing was the Factions in Religion which howsoever they were Managed one Party or other were dissatisfied and thereby disposed to Wreak their Malice on the Crown by Electing such Men to serve in Parliaments as were ill disposed to it Whereas before when England was all of one Religion it was scarce possible to pretend any thing in which the whole Body of the People were Concern'd So that these Animosities in Religion ended in a Civil Faction and many Ambitious Men who cared for No Religion did yet make use of them as tools to Work their Ends upon the Crown Two other things Contributed very much to the effecting their designs First Scotland led the Dance and Rebelled upon pretence of Religion and altho the King might easily have Conquered them by a Battel or Blocking up their Harbours yet being a Tender Prince and unwilling to shed the Blood of his own Traiterous Subjects he rather chose to end the Controversy by a Treaty which gave them time to Concert their Affairs with the English of the same Faction and that furnished them with means to raise another Army and enter England which necessitated the Calling of that Fatal Parliament which had like to have ruined the Monarchy and Nation both at once Secondly the Irish Papists Rebelled at the same time and rising suddenly Massacred 100000 English which so depopulated Ireland that the King could have no Assistance from it the remaining English being hardly able to Subsist and the Parliament made another Advantage of it by perswading the English to believe the King had Procured this desolation there The City of London lent the Parliament Money furnished them with Tumults to Drive the King out of it first and then with Armies to force him back again and too many of the Gentry were Lazy and would not stir timerous and durst not discontented and willing the Crown should be reduced tho not ruined But when they came to put the Project in Execution and after the ruine of the King's Forces to erect their Common-wealth of England there were other difficulties that could not be overcome their own Army that had done their Drudgery would not be Disbanded and they could not force them They had rid their hands of one of the Three Estates that Constitute our Parliament the Spiritual Lords at first And there was a parcel of Lords Temporal who for a long time Acted with them but at Last being not able to digest the Insolence of the Commons stood off upon which they Voted them Vseless and laid them by too So that all was then in the hands of the Commons They could not or would not Dissolve themselves in the state things then were for then the whole Power would have been in the Army and Officers who might easily have prevented the Meeting of another Parliament and the whole Nation was dissatisfied to see them divide the spoil and profit amongst themselves without any hope that any but they and their Relations should partake with them in the reward as they had in the danger the Gentry were generally known to have Wished well to the King and the Rabble were to be pleased by suffering them to insult over their Old Masters and the Royal Party tho Conquered were not dejected and the Godly Party were fallen in Sunder and the Independents were persecuting their Sire Presbytery The Commons were a Body constituted of two Knights for every Shire and two Burg●sses for each Corporation and the Latter exceeded vastly the former in Number and tho this inequality had not been much regarded Under the Monarchy yet now the House of Commons was to be made the Standing Senate of the Nation the Counties Would not indure it if the People had suffered any Grievance under the Monarchy they Complained in Parliament and had redress But Now they had no body to complain to but the Commons and they when the Case became their own Answered them with Blows and Death So that what looked so prettily and easy to be affected at a distance when i● came to be tryed was found impracticable and the most insufferable Slavery in Nature and one fell to devise one Remedy and another another but none would do and the Commons were not to be dispossest of what had cost them so many Lives to purchase it so the Sword determined the Controversy here too and to the general joy of the whole Nation the General and Army-Saints sent them packing to Consider what they had done and what they deserved but the Wealth they had got by Villany did yet afford them some Consolation in this World As I said before I have been as short as possibly I could and I have purposely omitted many things which should otherwise have been spoken that I might be so and now with the Readers Patience I shall enquire whether the design of extinguishing the Monarchy be really and totally laid aside at this day to which I answer No. For first all the Principal Causes do still subsist We have the same Religions which then we had and they have the same Principles and Dispositions and follow the same Methods they then did they Educate their Children in the same Places and recommend the same sort of Men to the People they did before But there are some things that stand in their way which did not then 1. His Majesty hath a better Revenue then his Father had and this is a great Block in their way but they hope it will end with his Life and in the mean time we know what hath been done to Curb him in that particular 2. His Majesty hath a strong Guard alwayes in Pay so that Tumults are not so safe especially at White-hall Gates as heretofore they were and this is the cause the Nation have been told that they are Papists and dangerous to the Liberty and Property of the Subjects 3. The Militia of the City of London and the rest of the Nation is in Trusty hands and no Rebellion can for the present be safely begun and therefore the Chief Officers are Traduced to the People as Men of Arbitrary