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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	day_n	king_n	year_n	16,086	5	5.1009	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62698	Tam quam, or, A attaint brought in the supream court of the King of kings, upon the statutes, Exod. 20. 7, 16 and Levit. 19. 12 against those modern jurors, who have found any indictments upon the statutes of 23 Eliz., 29 Eliz., or 3 Jacobi, against Protestants, for monthly absence from church, without any confession of the parties, or oath of witness against them, or made any presentments of them : contrary to the express letter of their oaths taken in a Court of Judgment, the course of the law of England, or any right reason : wherein is discoursed, whether any Protetant be concerned in that part of those laws? : the contrary is proved : as also whether a grand-jury's finding and indictment, be any evidence to a petit-jury? : the absurdness, and most pernicious consequents of which are detected, and the vengeance of God agaisnt false-swearing is declared / by one who prosecutes, as well for his sovereign lord the King of kings, as for the lives, liberties, and properties of all the subjects of England.	One who persecutes as well for his sovereign lord the King of kings as for the lives, liberties, and properties of all the subjects of England.	1683 (1683)	Wing T133; ESTC R17	24,452	40

the Stat. 3 Jacobi and may be given to any Protestants None of which can be determined concludent in the Case after the fore-going part of a Statute hath declared the Reasons and Grounds for the making of that Law viz. The bringing in of Popish Bulls seducing People to the Romish Religion and determined such Persons guilty of Treason Crimes which no Protestant can be guilty of tho' it follows as a means to prevent these things that every Person that for a Month shall absent himself from his Parish-Church shall forfeit 20 l. Yet certainly it is a fair Interpretation of it to restrain that general Term to that sort of Persons which alone are mentioned in all the preceding part of the Act. Nor certainly in any just construction can general words whether Affirmative or Negative have more extent in one Statute than in another In the late Act for the Sabbath made for the keeping that Holy Day from prophanation and an higher end cannot be God having made it the 4th Commandment in the Decalogue and denominated all Religion from it Isa 56. 4. there is this clause Provided also That no Person or Persons upon the Lord's Day shall serve or execute or cause to be served or executed any Writ Process Warrant Order Judgment or Decree except in Cases of Treason Felony or breach of the Peace but that the service of every such Writ Process Warrant Order Judgment or Decree shall be void to all intents and purposes whatsoever And the Person or Persons so serving or executing the same shall be as liable to the Suit of the Party grieved and to answer Dammages to him for doing thereof as if he or they had done the same without any Writ Process Warrant Order Judgment or Decree Here are no less than three general terms nor is there one Line in the Act excluding Dissenters from the benefit of this Act nor more authorising the Service of Warrants upon them for Meetings than upon any others It is true the Act against Conventicles gives a further liberty but it hath always held a Rule in Law That latter Laws abrogate such as were before if contrary to them Neither doth this Act abrogate it further than concerneth the Lord's Day the better Sanctification of which was the design of the Act Besides were not the former Laws which gave Liberty to Arrest Men on any Days abrogated by this Act so far forth as concerned that Point Yet multitudes of Justices have so interpreted these general terms that Dissenters have no benefit by it in this point Warrants are yet executed on them and their Doors broken open by Warrants on these days So as it seems general words in Statutes shall comprehend dissenting Protestants where they will serve to do them mischief but not where they may do them kindness But this is a Question not yet decided that I have heard of by my Lords the Judges as having not come judicially before them and the Justices And others who have adventured thus far to make Blots may some of them live to see them hit General words are certainly every where of equal extent 2. Nor is the reference to the Statute of 1 Eliz. 2. a proof that all concerned in that Statute are also concerned in the Statute of 23 Eliz. for it is mentioned only as directive of the manner how Persons should go to Church and there behave themselves How doth it from thence follow that all who do not go should be punished by a like Punishment because all are obliged to go to Church in the same Order and to behave themselves there in the same decent manner Nor is the third Argument of more value for there is nothing more ordinary than to find heterogeneous things in the same Statute Law Nor will it follow That the Penalties for not coming to Church in the Statute 3 Jacobi concern Protestants because the Oath of Allegiance in it doth especially when most Clauses in that Act express Popish Recusants But the Clauses concerning that Oath expresly mention any Persons 18 Years of Age whether indicted or convicted of Recusancy or no. But those who make this Objection should also consider that it is by the Act 7 Jacobi 6. that the Oath of Allegiance in 3 Jac. is given to Protestants not by the Act. 3 Jac. 4. 3. The Arguments being no stronger for Protestants Concernment in those Acts let us see what can be said to prove they are not concerned in them I do not pretend to so good an acquaintance with Records But if it doth appear 1. that for threescore Years after the making the Act 23 Eliz. it was never put in Execution upon any but known and professed Popish Recusants it is certain a greater Argument to prove that Protestants are not within it in any due Constructions than any can bring to prove they are 2. I am sure if Protestants though Dissenters be within those Acts they are by the Statute Law of England in a far worse case and exposed to much higher Penalties for not going to Church and going to Meetings than professed Papists are for besides they are in all points made equal with them as to the Stat. 23 Eliz. 29 Eliz. and 3 Jacobi They are further in danger of the Stat. 35 Eliz. out of which Papists are in terms excepted According to which Statute Protestants and none but they for these Crimes may be forced to abjure the Realm or to die like Felons I would gladly understand from any Man of sense to what purpose the Parliament 35 Eliz. should make so severe a Law against Protestant Dissenters upon that little freak the effect of a melancholick Deliration only of Hacket Coppinger and Arthington if they had thought they had been included in the Acts of 23 Eliz. made but twelve Years before or of 29 Eliz. made but six Years before Was not the losing 260 l. a Year a sufficient Punishment for any thing they had shewed themselves guilty of Or was it judged punishment enough for Papists for the Papists who had attempted to poison to stab the Queen to invade her by an invincible Armado to raise up Rebellion in the Nation and not enough for Protestants Can we judg that any English Parliament in those days could so judge The Act of 23 Eliz. was made upon the Papists filling the Land with Priests and Jesuits from the English Seminaries at Doway Rhemes and Rome their publishing of Books to stir up Rebellion in England declaring that the Pope and the King of Spain had conspired that England should be made a Prey And the woful stir then made by those active Jesuits Campian and Parsons Campian Sherwin Kerby and Briant were taken the Year before Anno 1581. This Act passed 1582. The 29 Eliz. was 1588 when we were invaded by the King of Spain 's invincible Armado and six Years before Campian the Head of that Faction had openly declared that in case of such an Invasion he would take part with

Knowledg or by the Oaths of credible Persons and nothing but the Truth that is what shall come to your knowledg either by the Oaths of credible Persons or from your own sight or observation for nothing else can appear to a Grand-Jury-Man as Truth in Judgment Every Member of a Petit-Jury takes this Oath You shall well and truly try and true deliverance make between our Sovereign Lord the King and the Prisoner or Person at the Bar according to your Evidence So help you God The Witnesses swear They will speak the Truth the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth c. Every Jury-Man and Witness in testimony of his taking that Promisory Oath kisseth the Book thereby only testifying that he calleth God to Witness that he will do that thing which is propounded to him without Malice or Favour and desiring God that he may receive no Mercy from him nor benefit from his Gospel if he doth otherwise 2. The Grand-Jury's Presentment according to these Statutes must be That such a Person for the space of one or more Months being of the Age of sixteen Years and upward did not repair to some Church Ghappel or usual place of Common-Prayer but did forbear the same having no lawful Let nor Impediment contrary to the Statute made in the first Year of her Majesty's Reign They commonly run in a shorter Form but they declare to the Clerk of the Assizes or Sessions that they desire they might be drawn up according to Form Which is done by him nothing material being omitted in the Form mentioned nor added thereunto This is found by the Grand-Jury at the next Assizes or Sessions and being found by them is without alteration transmitted to the Petit-Jury and by them found or rejected without any alteration 3. I grant it possible that there are several cases wherein Jury-Men may find such an Inditement without false swearing Admit they know that such a Person were all those days in his own House or in some Neighbours Houses at an Ale-House or at an Vnlawful Meeting or walking idly in the Fields c. Or that any such thing be sworn before them they may undoubtedly yea and by their Oath are obliged to present him or indict him But if they know no such thing from their own sight or observation nor from the Oath of Persons whom they judg credible That they who have called God to Witness that they will present the Truth and nothing but the Truth that is come to their Knowledg may present any upon that Statute or upon their Oaths aver the Truth of any such Indictment is what no Learned and Sober Divine in the World dare assert Never yet did any Divine assert that it was no forswearing a Man's self for him to affirm upon Oath what he did not know either from his own sight or observation or the credible Testimony of others asserting it upon their Oaths for no Jury ought to hear or regard any other Information How impossible it is that any Grand-Jury-Man should know that A. B. was neither at his Parish-Church nor any other any Sunday or Holy-Day for one or more Months unless he knew that all such Days he was at another place is obvious to the meanest Understanding If he doth not know it he sweareth falsly in presenting the Person for it upon that Oath which he hath taken to present the Truth and nothing but the Truth What he knoweth not can be to him no Truth much less can it be a thing come to his Knowledg And I am sure it is nothing given him in charge None ever in his Wits yet said that a thing which one only presumes suspects or thinks is come to his Knowledg or what he can aver to be Truth 4. It is true sometimes Grand-Juries only offer Constables Presentments upon their Oaths in which case much is to be said in the Excuse of Grand-Juries It is then come to their knowledg upon the Oaths of those whom the Law judgeth credible Persons but such Presentmens use not to be of Persons for not coming to their Parish-Church nor any other they only can speak for their Parish-Church Nor can any Grand-Jury bring in any such Presentments but for absence from their Parish-Church If they add nor to any other they make the Act their own or if it be added by any other who draws such Indictment into Form the next Grand-Jury cannot without false-swearing find it unless they personally know it or it be made good to them by one or more credible Oaths If they do they notoriously violate the Oath they have taken to present nothing but the Truth and what cometh to their Knowledg whatsoever is added to the first Presentment can be said in no sense to come to their Knowledg if they do not know it personally without new Oaths to confirm it 5. These things considered it will pose the subtillest Divines in the World to excuse Persons serving upon Grand-Juries from false-swearing in these Presentments or Indictments who do not personally know the thing to be true which they present or at least know it from the Oaths of others taken before them of whom also it is their Duty according to their Oath diligently to enquire upon what grounds they swear such a thing before they can true Presentment make These things are so obvious that it may justly amaze any understanding Person that any should have any other apprehensions Nor certainly is it possible they should if Mens common Learning in their ordinary Discourse had not banished out of the World all fear and Religion of an Oath 6. For the Petit-Jury they swear to make a true Deliverance according to their Evidence So as the Truth or Falshood of their Oath dependeth upon the Evidence they have It will pose any Person to think what Evidence twelve Men can have that another for all the Sundays and Holy-days in a Month or more hath not been at some Church or Chappel where Divine Service hath been and having no lawful Let or Impediment This every Member of a Petit-Jury who findeth any Indictments of this Nature doth and must affirm or there could be no Conviction And he affirmeth it after his solemn calling God to Witness that in this case he will affirm Truth and that according to his Evidence What Evidence is it possible such a Jury should have but Confession of the Party or the Oath of some Person who hath been with him all those days in other Places any reasonable Person may judg and we shall see anon that in this very Case of Absence from Church the Law of England alloweth no other Proof And every Petit-Jury-Man doth affirm this to be Truth upon no less than his Salvation and desireth that the God of Mercy and his Holy Gospel may so help him as he hath acted truly not according to his Suspicions Fears or Belief but according to his Evidence in saying he is Guilty Hath not think we the Clerk of the Court

reason to part with these Juries after such Verdicts with the same Prayer or Complement that he doth sometime part with condemned Prisoners with and the Lord have Mercy upon your Souls For not one Indictment of many hundreds of this nature are found upon any such Evidence or indeed upon any Evidence at all which is either such in its own Nature or according to the Law of England in all other Cases as also in this very Case 7. Proofs ought to be clear and perspicuous saith my Lord Cook and it is impossible any thing should be an Evidence which doth not make the Thing clear and evident Indeed none that useth to speak Sense will call any thing less Evidence Now what is there can be imagined in Nature to make a matter of Fact evident to others but either the confession of the Party or the Oath of Witness or the personal knowledg of the Truth of it to the Persons to whom it is so to be made evident Those that serve upon Grand-Juries may according to their Oaths look upon the last as an Evidence for them sufficient to present upon that a Petit-Jury may I never heard affirm'd none of them can be Witnesses because they are Judges in the Matter of Fact The Law of England indeed alloweth another conviction in this Case viz. In case a Person presented indicted and proclaimed doth not appear in Person at the next Sessions or Assizes and put himself upon his Traverse The Reason is because the Law takes such a Person to confess the Fact And it may be this is righteous enough provided that such persons have Summons to appear truly served upon them But if they have not it is the highest Vnrighteousness imaginable For though the Law supposeth all his Majesties Subjects to be present at Assizes and Sessions yet every one knows how impossible a thing it is that all Men and Women above sixteen years of age should so appear and know what is done Upon which account our Law ordereth Summons of the Party upon every Presentment and if the Party be not summoned to proceed against him can be no Righteousness for our Law condemneth none before the Executioners of it have heard him speak or at least given him an opportunity that if it be not his own fault they may hear him speak for himself Yet multitudes are thus Presented and Convicted and great portions of their Estates seized who never so much as knew they were Presented or Accused till the Sheriff and Bayliffs come and make a Seisure of their Estates which certainly is in the Officers an Iniquity to be punished by the Judge and an Act of Vnrighteousness from which every one ought to be relieved for tho the person 's not appearing if he be summoned and proclaimed and hath notice of such Proclamation may be a ground of a Righteous Conviction yet if he hath no such Summons or notice of such Proclamation no such Conviction can be righteous For it is the condemning a Person before they have heard him speak or given him a liberty to speak for himself a thing abhorred by the Heathens who had no more than the Light of Nature to guide them in the things which they ought to do and avoid But this is a digression from my Argument 8. There are some so absurd in this case as to affirm there needeth no Evidence it is a thing which cannot be proved And if the Person presented and indicted cannot prove that within the time for which he is so presented and endicted he was at some Church or Chappel and that during the time and the whole time of Common Prayer or had some lawful impediment the Petit-Jury ought to find such Indictment The Absurdities of this Assertion are so many that it is not easie to number all of them I will hint at some few 1. If the Oath administred to the Petit-Jury were You shall well and truly try and true deliverance make betwixt our Sovereign Lord the King and the Person at the Bar without any Evidence Though it would be a strange Oath for any to administer or take yet it might excuse the Petit-Jury from the infamous crime of false swearing though they found such Indictments But their Oath being to find according to their Evidence it is impossible to excuse them finding without any Evidence for none ever called Silence Evidence nor yet the extorted Confession of the Party The Law of England requireth no Man to speak any thing to accuse himself nor to prove himself guiltless unless some Attempts have been first made to prove him guilty which he can disprove 2. Again This Assertion obligeth every Subject of England to have Witnesses ready to prove he was at Church at least one time within every 28 days throughout the year if not he may it seems be Presented Indicted and ought to be found guilty The Statute gives twelve months time to prosecute upon these Statutes Suppose persons presented and indicted for absence the first 28 days in that year how many thousand of innocent persons may not be able to bring Proof of their presence at Church after eleven months any one day within that month 3. There is no such Proceeding allowed in any other Criminal Cause Is the Man indicted for Robbery or Murder bound to prove he was at another place in another company at that time when the Murder or Robbery was done before it be first proved to the Jury upon Oath that he was at that time in that place where such a fact was committed I cannot understand but by these Mens Law the very same Persons found guilty of this Crime may when they please be found guilty of Murder robbing by the High Way or any other Capital Crime if this be sufficient Evidence to the Petit-Jury that the Party accused having no Evidence against him yet shall not acquit himself by proving the Place where he was at that Time which after nine or ten Months who is able to do And these very Jury-men who are so liberal of their Souls as to find without Evidence in these Cases may one day by God's righteous Retaliation find themselves thus dealt with Nec Lex est justior ulla Quàm necis artifices arte perire suâ To allow Persons guilty of a Crime without any other Evidence but because they will not or perhaps cannot acquit themselves by proving Circumstances of Time and Place where they were after 3 5 6 10 Months time having no prospect of such an Accusation is a thing which may prove of most fatal Consequence to every Mother's Child in the Nation 4. Yet if the Law of England which alloweth it in no other Case did by any Clauses in it allow this to be a sufficient Evidence in this something might be said The Civil Power may be allowed when themselves create a Crime to set down what shall be Evidence of that Crime But doth any of the Statutes made in this Case ordain any such

them against the Queen The Act 3 Jacobi came forth upon the Powder-Plot I appeal to any Man of ordinary sense whether he can think that the Parliaments of those Times ever intended to put Protestants into a far worse condition than Papists which they apparently are if these Statutes equally concern them as well as Papists and they then were liable to the Act 35 Eliz. out of which Papists are expresly excepted 4. Further yet I do very well know that Votes of Parliament repeal no Laws much less have the force of Laws in them nor are to be mentioned in legal Pleas But the Question here is not whether these Acts be of force or no It is on all hands granted that they are but what is the true sense and meaning of them And as to that under correction I think a great deference is to be given to the Parliaments Judgment declared in them the far greater part of all the gravest and most famous Lawyers of England being generally in every Convention or Session of Parliament It was as I remember either in the latter end of the Year 1677 or the beginning of the Year 1678 that upon the Petition of the Quakers the Parliament at that time sitting first took notice That the Laws made principally against Papists were executed princially upon Protestants and appointed a Committee who spent a great deal of time in examining the Returns of Convictions made upon those Statutes into the Office and applied themselves to his Majesty for favour to his Protestant Subjects as to those Laws About the middle of the Year 1678 the horrid Popish Plot was discovered from Michaelmas that Year till Decemb. 30. the Parliament had enough to do to search into the Popish Plot and they had made but little progress in it when they were Prorogued which was Decemb. 30. and soon after Dissolved The next Parliament began March 6. 1678 9 and sat until May 27.1679 their whole time was also spent in a further discovery of that Hellish Plot. All this while I met with no Declarations of the Parliament's mind or sense in the case of those Acts Nor as I believe were there any complaints of any prosecutions of Protestant Dissenters upon any of those Statutes The next Parliament began Octob. 21. and held unto Jan. 10. 1680. By this time the Popish Party had a little recovered their Courage and began to defame the very Report of a Popish Plot. They had eight months before began to sham it tho' with very ill success But before this time they had began to divert the prosecution of it by obtaining of their Friends who would be thought Protestants every where to prosecute Dissenters upon those Statutes The Parliament that sat down Octob. 21.1680 had intelligence of it The Term before Estreats were given out upon all Convictions upon those Statutes but with express Instructions from the Commissioners of the Treasury to leavy the Forfeitures upon none but known Popish Recusants which 't is likely that in many Counties the Sheriffs observed In others 't is certain they did not but levied them equally if not principally upon Protestants but were inforced to refund some of them and for a great while after this upon a Certificate into the Exchequer that the Persons were Protestants and had taken the Test proceedings against them by order out of the Exchequer were staid This is supposed to have proceeded from his Majesty's Goodness complying with the desires of his Parliament in the Case of the Quakers The House of Commons which sat in the Westminster Parliament Octob. 21. 1680. had sat but a Month and two or three odd days before they came to this Vote without one Man's contradiction in Nov. 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 to Protestant Dissenters Accordingly they made their Application to his Majesty by the Members of their House which were of his Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council beseeching him That all the Protestant Dissenters prosecuted upon those Acts might be discharged without paying any Fees and that he would recommend this Business to the Judges Upon the 26th of Novemb. 1680. we find it thus in the Votes under the Speaker's Hand Mr. Secretary Jenkins acquainteth the House that his Majesty had been attended by the Members of his most Honourable Privy Council with an Address concerning Protestant Dissenters And that his Majesty's Answer is That they should be discharged and that without Fees as far as might be done according to Law and they shall be recommended to the Judges The Parliament which then sat hath the repute to have been short of none who ever sat within those Walls for Men of Honour Wisdom and Estates Here was plainly their Judgments declared That these Acts concern not nor ought to be extended to Protestant Dissenters After which certainly that single Country Justice or Lawyer who dareth to say they do must arrogate much more to himself than he ought to do considering how many of the greatest Lawyers of England unanimously concurred in that Vote which did not repeal those Laws nor stop or supersede the execution of them but only declared the sense of them If any Person after all this will affirm they do concern them as well as others I have nothing more to say against it but only wish That the Question might be determined by my Lords the Judges and not left to the various determinations of puny Lawyers and many Justices of the Peace who were never bred to the Studies nor exercised in the practice of our Laws This whole Discourse is but a Digression from my proper Theme for admit those Statutes do concern Protestants it is another Question Whether Grand-Juries finding such Indictments be Evidence to a Petit-Jury in the Case The Affirmative part of which I never look to find determined by Judges what-ever be determined as to the other Question CHAP. IV. A Pathetical Conclusion to Jurors to consider what they have done to repent and to their Ability to make satisfaction avoiding the like enormous practices for the future And to such as are Commissioners of the Peace not to be any Temptation to them to bring such Guilt upon themselves their Families and Country WHat can remain further but that as an Orator for the Great God of Heaven and Earth I should admonish all my Country-men who have been deluded by their own Lusts and Passions or over-awed by any others to make any such Presentments of things whereof they had no knowledg or which they could not do in Truth or to find any such Indictments without any Evidence and this after that in Judgment they had called God to Witness that they would present nothing but the Truth and what came to their knowledg and true Deliverance make according to their Evidence And after they had sealed this their