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A65679
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The ignoramus justices being an answer to the order of sessions at Hick's-Hall, bearing the date the 13th of January, 1681, wherein it plainly appears the said order is against law : also a short account of all the acts that relate to Protestant dissenters at this day in force against them ... : and also an account of such acts as are in force against popish recusants ... : and hereunto is also added a brief account of the penalties and forfeitures of those acts ... / by Drawde Kekatihw.
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Whitaker, Edward.
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1681
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Wing W1702; ESTC R30190
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20,947
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therefore as a further mischief or kindness to the Publick by way of Caution they lay down the Evils that attend this dreadful thing of Excommunication which is viz. And to the end that all His Majesties Subjects may know what Inconveniences do attend that Punishment this Court thinks fit to publish That no Excommunicated Person may be a Witness or Returned upon Juries or to Sue for any Debts c. Really if this be so what a miserable condition shall His Majesties Subjects be in that go to Conventicles if they must both lose their Estates and then their Souls and be neither Jury-men Witnesses nor sue for Debts What shall they do then if this be true But as good Luck is the Justices have as little Law here to back them in these Assertions as they have Law for their Orders For with their good leave there is no Law to bar any Man that is Excommunicated from suing for his Debt Nor is there any Law that disables a Man from being a Jury-man that is Excommunicated unless he be taken upon the Writ and then indeed he cannot be a Jury-man until he be at Liberty No more can a Prisoner which is a Prisoner for Debt be a Jury-man until he have his Liberty to come out and with or without the leave of the Justices a Person Excommunicated may be as well a Witness as any other Person nay a Person Outlawed may be a Witness So that it appears this Order was made without Book as well as without Law There is another Passage in the Order which I cannot pass over and that is more Gall yet but before I take notice of that I must take leave to tell these worthy Justices of the Court that made this learned Order that they have implored help of those that are as Lame and Insufficient in Spiritual Jurisdiction as to Excommunication as they the Justices are in their Temporal Punishments for that in truth the Bishops in their Spirtual Courts or Courts Christian have no power by Law to Excommunicate any person let the Crime be what it will unless by the King's Authority and with His Commission under the Broad Seal â—ee Stat. 〈◊〉 Eliz. â—ee the â—ook calâ—â—d the Biâ—â—ops â—ourts â—issolved This will appear most plainly by the several Acts of Parliament that relate to Spiritual Jurisdiction a short Account thereof with the Arguments were published some time since in a Book Intituled The Bishops Court dissolved Printed in 1680. And see Mr. Hickeringill's Books one of their own Tribe But not to build upon those Books look into the several Statutes since the 21 of Henry VIII and you will find their whole coercive Power taken from them And if you compare the Statutes of Hen. 8. 1 Eliz. Edw. 6. and so all along to 16 Car. 1. and the 13 of this King you will find not only their whole Power taken from them as to their administring of Oaths but that all they have done and acted since the last Act of Indempnity is against Law and the Bishops and Judges of Spiritual Courts throughout England are all guilty of a Praemunire if the King of England shall question them for it and they are at this day liable to be Indicted or Sued by Action at the Suit of the Party grieved for Damages by all such as they have at any time Excommunicated in their Courts since the last Act of Grace But to leave the further discourse of this matter till another opportunity And since the Justices have desired my Lord Bishop of London to Excommunicate at his Pleasure or as his Wisdom shall think fit it may not be amiss for the Bishop to take notice of their unkind treating of him in their very next desire for as if they distrusted his understanding in the ways and methods of Excommunication they go on and lay down Rules for him to observe that is viz. That the Lord Bishop will direct that such Excommunications may be published in the Parish-Churches where the Excommunicated live Now what is this but to tell the Bishop they doubt he doth not understand his Trade so well as they which sure is a very great piece of Incivility to their Ghostly Fathers for the good Father well knows that no man can be fully Excommunicated but it must be read in the Parish-Church where the Excommunicated live But I doubt not but the Bishop will be pleased to forgive this their Sin of Ignorance in the Ecclesiastical Laws when they appear so ignorant in their own Trade of the Common or Statute Laws as to make such Orders as these But least we draw the anger of the next Sessions upon us we will mind but one thing more in their Order so resembling the King's Proclamation and that is so excellent a thing that it far surmounts all the rest for in the next place they tell you viz. And for the further promoting of the Vnion of all His Majesties Protestant Subjects Ay there it is it is Ordered by this Court That the Justices of the Peace in their several Divisions take care that the Statutes 1 Eliz. and 3 Jacobi be put in due Execution for levying One shilling upon those persons that do not come to their Parish or some other Church or Chapel c. which is to be applied for the Relief of the Poor c. It is hoped by this Court that this pious and charitable Work will not be neglected c. For Answer to this last Part we must consider both the Care Charity and Good-will of the Justices here towards the Protestants for till now you hear not a word of Protestant Subjects and if they had missed it here I cannot well tell how this Order could have escaped the sentence of a Popish Order but this clears the Point However for these Justices Order to advise one another to put the Laws of 1 Eliz. and 3 Jacobi in Execution against Conventiclers as if those Acts related to the Conventicle Act is something strange but I suppose we shall find they did this by guess too as all the rest of the Order hoping it may be they never read those Acts or at least it being so long since they have read them that they have totally forgot them for if they had remembred the substance of those 2 Acts they could not have been so mistaken as to bring them in play to punish Conventicles those Laws being only made against the Papist and none else as will appear by and by But first it will not be amiss to take notice how the Justices in this Order interweeve one Act with another and not only so but endeavor all the Punishments both that the Church and the State can inflict upon the Conventiclers double and treble Punishments and all is because but a few Subjects as they call them do differ from the Church of England in some Ceremonies not in Doctrine at all But that which I mean is this the Justices are not satisfied with a single
Punishment for one and the same Fact but that they shall be prosecuted by them first and then Excommunicated and then pay 12 d. a week all at a time To shew their Error and better inform their Judgments if they please to consider all Laws made for or concerning any such Church-matters do provide That if the Parties offending be once punished by the Civil Magistrate or once punished by the Church-Censures the Party so punished by either of them shall plead to the other Court that he was Sued or Prosecuted before in another Court for the same thing which Plea shall abate the Action or Libel To prove this you will find it Enacted in the very Statute the Order mentions 1 Eliz. Cap. 2. Sect. 24. And since we are now upon this Act as a farther Confirmation of what has been before touched on That the Justices as a Court of Sessions have no Power to act upon the Conventicle Act there being in that Act no power given them in that Act aforesaid so to do as in other Acts there is to confirm it further in this Act of 1 Eliz. there is a Clause on purpose That the Justices of Oyer and Terminer and Gaol-Delivery and Sessions of the Peace shall have power in their Sessions to hear and determine all Offences committed against that Act. And if those Justices of Middlesex can find such a Clause in the Conventicle-Act then undoubtedly they are right and their Orders of Sessions and General Warrants of Sessions good but unless they can produce such a power in that Act I am sure their Orders and Warrants are Illegal and Arbitrary But as to the Union mentioned hereof the Protestants and the Charity they intend to the Poor by gathering the Forfeitures of the Act to be given to the Poor Was it ever known before that Force and Prosecution of Penal Laws against one another was a way to Union Doth not Natural Reason tell us That English-men are to be dealt with by Lenity Persuasion and strong Arguments Force did never yet work upon English-men but Flattery hath And doth these Justices think That because they are intrusted with the Peace of Middlesex they are intrusted with the Souls Minds and Consciences of Men Now if they have that Trust too then I confess all is well and an Union will be had by their forcing without doubt otherwise not But I have this reason to believe that an Union cannot be had this way by prosecuting Men because I well know that if their Commissions were as large again as they are yet they cannot force Love and Union nor they cannot make a Man believe by Force though they may make a Man for Fear say he believes And as to their Charity and Good-works as they call it of prosecuting the Conventiclers for not coming to Church it cannot sink into any reasonable Mans brains that the Poor will be much the better for that Charity which comes by Blood that is the forcing of Mens Consciences methinks it looks like strange Charity But as to the two Acts mentioned that of 1 Eliz. and 3 Jacobi and all other Acts that are made against Popish Recusants which are now by these Justices and divers others designed to serve a turn against Dissenting Protestants from the Church of England in defiance of the thing called Parliaments for they have declared the Laws before-mentioned and all others made against Popish Recusants ought not to be put in Execution against the Protestant Dissenters and to be farther assured of that see the Vote viz. Sabbati sexto die Novembris 1680. Resolved Nemine Contradicente That it is the Opinion of this House That the Acts of Parliament made in the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James against Popish Recusants ought not to be extended against Protestant Dissenters But we must have a care too that the naming of Parliament Votes especially the House of Commons do not make worse for the Protestant Cause for in Truth the House of Commons have been so run down that for any one now to but speak of them or their good Votes and Intentions is to be stigmatized for a down-right Disloyal Person Well then since those Laws are threatned to be turned against Protestant Dissenters from the Church of England which Church was made by an Act of Parliament called the Act of Uniformity in the 13th and 14th of this King it may not be amiss to understand them what they are and how many they are See St … 13 and Car. 2. and the occasion of making them against the Papist that so the Protestants may make the better Defence against them if those Justices or any other shall make use of them as this Order seems to drive at We will begin with the first which is that mentioned in the Order viz. 1 Eliz. cap. 2. c. This Act was made immediately after the Queens coming to the Crown when she found nothing but Papists and Protestants in general for the word Puritan in those days was not known the light was not then so clear but she being a good Protestant and resolved to support that Religion with her wise Council cast about how to do it that the indifferent and moderate sort of Papists might not be disgusted and frightned from a closing with the Protestant Religion and therefore on mature deliberation it was concluded to go on gently as to the Reformation and not throw off all the Superstitious Ceremonies at once and therefore having a Pattern of Protestant Discipline made in King Edwards time she follows those Steps as near as may be in the beginning grafting upon King Ed. 6 Stock or rather Foundation which he by his wise and honest Councel layd and therefore the first Act she passed was to take off the Jurisdiction of the See of Rome and all coercive Power whatsoever from Ecclesiastical Persons and all was annext to the Imperial Crown of England so the Act 1 Eliz. cap. 1. The Title of that Act is viz. An Act to restore to the Crown the Antient Jurisdiction over the Estate Ecclesiastical and Spiritual and abolishing all Forreign Powers Repugnant to the same And in this Act power is given to the Queen to grant Commissions under the Broad Seal of England to such Bishops and Laymen as she should appoint to hold Ecclesiastical Courts and none might do it without upon pain of a Premunire see more of this Sect 15 16 17 18. and by this Act was repealed all Laws made in the time of Queen Mary for setling the Popes Authority in England The next Act was that mentioned in the Order which is called viz. An Act of Vniformity and Common Prayer and Service in the Church and Administration of the Sacraments Now this Common Prayer Book was composed and taken out of the Mass used before Ed. 6. Time and the way that was then taken to bring the Papists over to conform to it was to tell them as in truth it was but the Mass turned