Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	act_n	great_a	parliament_n	3,586	5	6.2777	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

Means to prevent it Memory is a Natural Faculty of Great Use in all Humane Transactions but Especially in Government and that in the Lowest degrees of it For it is the duty of a Magistrate to Execute Laws not to make them and he is to have an Eye to the matter of Fact at the same time too now he that hath such a defect in that Faculty that he can neither remember the Law which is to Direct him nor the matter of Fact to which it is to be applied is certainly very unfit to be a judge and so in Proportion in all the intermediate degrees of it The Office of a Justice of the Peace is very diffused and comprehends in it a vast Number and Variety of things and it will consequently require a good Memory to tell presently whether any particular case be within his Jurisdiction or No. Mr. Lambard complained in his time and that is near a hundred years ago that there were Stacks of Statutes imposed upon them to take care of and the Number is now perhaps double to what it was then So that in this respect also it is Necessary that he who Undertakes this Office should be a Man of a good strong Memory If any man doubts the truth of this he will find upon trial that no humane Memory how great soever it be can perfectly comprehend all the particulars Exactly and that it will be Necessary to have frequent recourse to the Books Especially in Statute Cases without which many and great Errors must of Necessity be committed so that the Prudence of a Magistrate doth consist in a great degree in not Trusting too much to his Memory But then that shews a Necessity of having that useful Faculty to a good degree SECTION III. THere are three other Accidental qualifications which are of great use and would be considered A Competent Estate a good Reputation and a tolerable good Education and Learning The Justice of the Peace enters upon an imployment that will occasion him much loss of Time some Expence and many Enemies and after all will afford him little or nothing towards the bearing these inconveniences but a little unprofitable Honour attended with much envy and had therefore need before-hand be provided of a competent Estate at least to support him in that imployment or else he will suddainly repent what he indiscreetly undertook and it may be intail the Mischief upon his Family who will remember his honour with small complacency when they reflect upon his debts occasioned by it Nor will he and his Family be the only Sufferers the Country will and must bear a part in it too Men of small Estates are very often of Mean spirits and dare not do their Duties where they Expect opposition and have great and rich men to deal with and so betray Justice not for want of Skill or Honesty but of Courage to undertake and go thro with it Besides their Poverty will Expose them to great Temptations of Bribery and tho the profit that can come by it is very inconsiderable yet the mischief that will attend it is not so for the perverting Justice in the smallest instance is a great Dishonour and Damage to a Country and the meaner the cause the greater the infamy the Meaner the People are that are injured the greater the Clamour But of all men those that are much indebted are the least fit for that both the Creditor and his Friends must too often be gratified by the wretched man at the Expence of his Oath his Integrity his Honour and his Justice and all occasions must be sought for this too that the World may see how great a power the Rich Clown hath upon his Worship For these causes there was an Act of Parliament made some Ages since which is as followeth WHereas by Statutes made in the time of the Kings noble Progenitors it was Ordained That in every County of England Justices should be assigned of the most Worthy of the same Counties to keep the Peace and to do other things as in the same Statutes fully is Contained Which Statutes notwithstanding now of late in many Counties of England the greatest Number have beén Deputed and Assigned which before this were not wont to be whereof some be of small that is ill Behaviour by whom the People will not be governed nor ruled and some for their Necessity do great Extortion and Oppression upon the People whereof great inconveniences be likely to rise daily if the King thereof do not provide remedy The King willing against such inconveniences to provide remedy hath Ordained and Established by Authority aforesaid That no Justice of Peace within the Realm of England in any County shall be assigned or deputed if he have not Lands or Tenements to the Value of 20 l. by the year and if any be Ordained hereafter c. which have not Lands or Tenements to the Value aforesaid that he thereof shall give Knowledg to the Chancellor of England for the time being which shall put another sufficient in his place and if he give not the same knowledg as before within a Moneth after that he have notice of such Commission or if he sit or make any Warrant or Precept by force of such Commission he shall incur the penalty of 20 l. and nevertheless be put out of the Commission as before c. But this Act Extends not to Corporations and also Provided That if there be not sufficient persons having Lands and Tenements to the Value aforesaid Learned in the Law and of Good Governance within any such County That the Lord Chancellor of England for the time being shall have power to put other discreét Persons Learned in the Law in such Commissions tho they have not Lands or Tenements to the value aforesaid by his discretion The 18 H. 6. cap. 11. I have transcribed this Statute almost at large because it makes so lively a description of the inconveniences and takes so exact a care to prevent them and it is to be observed That xx l. by the Year at the making of this Statute was a Knights fee and that they would trust to Nothing but an Apparent Visible Estate for it must be in Lands or Tenements and yet was there not then the Hundredth part of that business committed to Justices then there is now and their Expences that were consequently much less and tho in case of Necessity some Lawyers of a less Estate were Admitted yet this was out of pure Necessity in those ignorant Times and then they were to be men of Good Governance that is of a Good Reputation for their Lives and Integrity and such men in those time might by their Professions be able to spend with men of good Estates But two inconveniences have arisen in our Times that were not in being then The first is That Men of great Estate do too commonly leave the Country and spend their times and Estates in London and other great Cities in perfect

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