Selected quad for the lemma: judgement_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
judgement_n	court_n	defendant_n	writ_n	2,324	5	9.1709	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A80408	Redintegratio amoris, or A union of hearts, between the Kings most excellent Majesty, the Right Honorable the Lords and Commons in Parliament, His Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax, and the Army under his command; the Assembly, and every honest man that desires a sound and durable peace, accompanied with speedy justice and piety. By way of respective apologies, so far as Scripture and reason may be judges. / By John Cook of Grayes-Inne, Barrester.	Cook, John, d. 1660.	1647 (1647)	Wing C6026; Thomason E404_29; ESTC R201862	78,816	92

for quick and cheap justice would do it abundantly that the poor may have justice for Gods sake and the rich for reasonable Considerations The favorites of state have always magnified the happiness of English men above all other nations in regard of the Assizes that twice a year Queen justice rides her Progress and Justice is sent them home to thier doors but I profess the Kingdom is a great looser by it 't is a meer spunge to suck away their moneys for little or no Consideration matters of the Crown only excepted and why more hast to hang a man for stealing a sheep then to help a poor man to his just Debt for what a charge is it to try a Nisi prius and when the matter of fact is tryed the party is never the neerer judgment is far of the Defendent may dye or elss writs of Error brought that a man is not beholding so much to the Law as to a good purse to obtain his right therefore this I would humbly beg of the Parliament for the present because to settle a Court of Judicature in every County wil require time and much wisdom to foresee and prevent subsequent inconveniences that the Reverent Judges may every Circuit if possibly to begin this Summer circuit be enabled by Commission to hear and determine besides the Nisi prises all private differences between party and party throughout the whole Kingdom the matter to be brought before them by Petition the Defendent to have timely notice in person or at his dwelling house by Affidavit of two witnesses in case he appear not both parties to bring their witnesses and evidences and the matter being heard to be speedily ended and execution by the Sherif accordingly unless it be very weighty and then to be adjourned to Westminster whereby a difference may be ended in a moneths time for 5. l. charge at the most which now costs 50 or 100. l. and is 3 years at the least in deciding and ends most commonly with the ruin of one party and the other gets such a blow that is long in recovering I know this wil be counted a dangerous design tending to overthrow the Law but it is only by such as fear rather the overthrow of their own profit more then they value the Law and the Prophets for I am sure they cry out for quick and cheap justice and I wil burn my books nay venture my life upon it that no man can render a reason nor frame an objection against this but that I can easily refute it if this be granted as a maxime of state that the Publique good and quiet of many is to be preserved before the private profit of a few say not that I shal hereby wrong my own profession 't is all one if I did in reference to the Publique good but this is a great mistake Lawyers would get more by speedy Justice for who had not rather give his Councel 40. s. to end his business in a day then attend many moneths and give him 10. s. a time for motion upon motion references and references besides no wise man wil go to Law for as matters are carryed the worst end by Arbitriments is better then the best can be expected by the Law all things computed unless in special cases and so what is lost in the hundred is found in the Shire pray do not say this wil prejudice the City and keep away Termers suppose it were so why should all the blood in the body be drawn into one veine When one member swels too much the body pines but that 's another mistake for men would bestow that in Cloaths and Commodities which they now spend in Law-suits but I hope time wil make us wise but then comes the old objection wil you have all things arbitrary and uncertain Nothing less but every Controversie to be ended according to reason and every former President and Judgment to be authentical and binding so far as there is reason for it and not otherwise the contrary practise is as dangerous to the state as implicite faith in matters of salvation for I would but ask this question If a Judg beleives in his Conscience that former Presidents were against reason whether if he observe them he doth not therein condemn himself but if he see reason for the Judgment then it is his own Judgment that leads him and not the bare Authority of his Predecessors but it wil be alledged that reason is malleable and one reason may be brought against another truly in matters of moral Justice t is hard to imagine any great difficulty that cause which at first is a bul-rush comes to be a Gyant differences for the most part are plain and very easie at the first beginning of the suit but when by motion upon motion the cause is put out of its course the matter grows so intricate that a poor Clyent can scarce get out of the Labyrinth but my meaning is not that every rational man should be able to understand the reason of a Law-case but that that cannot be given Law when there is a good reason to be given against it as put the case there is a verdict for a Just debt now whatsoever can be alleadged that such a process did not issue regularly yet reason says that the Debt ought to be presently paid and this can be no more called confusion then Mithridate deserves the name of Poyson And now if I should proceed Methodically I should argue whether the Parliament have sufficient grounds to raise Armies as they did but that is but to argue whether the Protestants or the Papists be of the true Religion and next I should lay down what those just grounds and Arguments were but that would savor of Presumption having been so fully and ungainsayingly declared by both Houses and might be unsafe if I should omit any and at the best prove tedious to the reader my desire being not to build upon any mans foundation nor to bring Arguments which have been exposed to Publique view already though I judg them better then my own yet 't is but a kind of cosenage to the reader to invite him to make several purchases of the same matter a trick more Common then Commendable in this Printing age yet something I must say concerning those matters which is this that the Arguments and motives which swayed me to adhere so cordially and constantly to the Parliament against the late Oxford party were rather Scripture grounds and reasons of state and self preservation then Law-cases and Printed authorities for I always conceived that the King was obliged to call Parliaments as often as the generallity of the people besought him and to disolve them til the Parliament said omnia bene was against his oath and that he was to consent to all such Laws as should humbly be presented to his Majesty by both Houses and when I find in our Law books that the King is a God upon earth as

his Majesty give his Royal Assent to all such Laws that both Houses shal present unto him Put the case then that the Lords and Commons in England present an Act for the free exercise of the Protestant Religion in this Kingdom and the Lords and Commons in Ireland present an Act to his Majesty for the establishing of Popery in that Kingdom what should his Majesty do in such a case Must not his Maiesty see by his own eys and make use of his own Iudgment and discretion what is fittest to be done therein Are not the sinews of the Leviathan perplexed as Iob speaks is not this a ground to scruple the verity of that doctrine that his Maiesty ought by his oath to ratifie such Laws as shal by both Houses be agreed upon I have known many Clyents reconciled after tedious suites and long endeavoring the ruine of one another but it hath been upon this ground that they have verily beleeved that nothing was done by either of them maliciously but in order to the obtaining of their several rights and that by Gods blessing hath been an expedient not only to tye their hands but to unite their hearts that it may be so between the King and Parliament is my dayly prayer til it be so this Kingdom wil not be setled in peace and tranquillity The very truth is that by the Letter of Scripture and some Law cases the King had a Colour to do what he did as Gods Ordinance having an undoubted right to the Crown by descent as his proper inheritance which no other Court in the Kingdom could have the least shadow of reason to do if they should break trust with the people I have but one stair more to mount before I come to the Army and that is how far the Kingdom is to be obedient to the King and Parliament in all cases And herein I desire to be carefully observed because the Kingdom cannot be convened in it's diffusive body therefore it is formed into an artificial body in the high Court of Parliament which without all question is the Supream Court from which there is no appeal to any other concerning positive Laws for the deciding and determining of the arduous and most difficult affairs of the Kingdom both for titles of land when they please and all the great turnings and windings of state it being most proper to determine the greatest matters in the highest Court in which cases though the judgment of Parliament be not unerrable because the members not impeccable yet it is Inevitable for the Publique judgment of state resides there and it is the wil of God that for the preventing of wars and bloodshed that there should in every nation be some supream Court to whose determinations every private man is to submit as it is in Deut. Deut. 17.11 possibly many of the Iews might conceive that the ju●gment of the Iudg●s Levites was not always right yet it must stand to prevent a greater evil I am not of opinion with learned M Jenkins that acts of Parliament which carry a seem●ng repugnancy are voyd or that the Judges have power to controle acts of Parliament and construe them to be void for this is to erect a higher tribunal the Judges are obliged to expound the Statute according to the intent of the makers otherwise they that are at the Oars should row against them that sit at the stern The intent of the Legislators is the Empress and Qeen Regent which the Judges are strictly to observe and the●efore that objection of a repugnancy in the countenance of this Pa●liament for how can ther● be a Parliament every 3 year if this continue 7 years is but a flourish for in all acts grants and wils such an Exposition is to be made that every word may have its weight and be of force the meaning is pla●n that after this Parliament the●e shal be a Triennial Parliament some incongruity no more then when a man makes a Lease for 7 years after from year to year and no ac● shal be construed to be voyd when by any reasonable intendments it may be made good the Judges being Assistants in the upper House cannot but know the meaning of the statute if it should be penned obscurely and by the same reason they ought as wel to take notice of every private act as those which are general and not to hazard the right of the Subiect upon a nicity of Pleading which is so fatal to many mens rights but it behoves Mr. Jenkins to hold that Iudges may expound acts of Parliament to be void when himself being a Iudg in Wales nullified Ordinances of Parliament made for the liberty of the Subiect which he ought to look upon as an Ordinance of God not to be disputed but obeyed but this is the fruit of his studying Law upon the Sabbath days whereof he was wont so much to glory that he gained one year in 7 in his study but all the hurt I wish him is that he would now study the Law of God which is the only touchstone of all humane Actions and the Archetype of all Governments and what is against it is pure innovation But this I agree that a statute against the law of God or nature is void for man having no hand in making the laws of God or nature they may not intermeddle in the Changing or repealing of them but any positive law made by man may be altered by the same Authority and therefore the meaning of that in Dan. like the Laws of the Medes and Persians which are unchangeable is to be intended either that those Laws were only a ratification of the Law of God or nature a● the Counsel of Trent that gave Authority to the holy Scripture or else that they might not be altered by the Emperor without the peoples consent In the next place I conceive that no fundamental law of this Kingdom can be altered by the King and Parliament but my meaning is that nothing is fundamental but what is for the safety and happyness of the people that which was no Law before it was written that may be altered but the happiness of the people was a Law before all written Laws Magna Charta was Law before it was written and collected but for easier Conservation being for the peoples happyness and that statute in 42. E. 3. that every Law made against Magna Charta shal be void is no more then the voice of Reason for the Foundation cannot be removed so long as the building stands It troubles me to hear when I am saying that Lawyers ought not to make the trouble and disquiet of poor men the Basis of their Grandor And that it were happy for the Kingdom if the Parliament would device some expedient for summary justice what saies one wil you destroy all and change the fundamental Constitutions of the Kingdom As if the ease and welfare of the people should be their destruction I look upon it