of Christian Burial or a power to make a last Will and Testament the Friborghs or Tubings in every County so obliged men to an obedience to the Laws the publick peace as every man of the Tubing or Freborgh were bound upon all occasions to bring each other to Justice the Nobility Gentry Masters of their numerous Families were to do the like for all that were de manu pastu or in their service the Lords of Mannors kept much of their demesnes in their own hands with great Stocks Herds of Cattel thereupon had their Bondmen and Bondwomen in their Families Villains Neifes regardant to their Mannors did let their other Lands for small Rents and much personal service as to plow their Land now their Grass make their Hey reap their Corn carry in their Harvest Wood do a great part of their Husbandry and sometimes ride with them 600 Abbies and Religious Houses with their numerous Monks Fryers Nuns and all their Dependants and Servants belonging to them lived out of the reach of Writs and Proces and all or most of them and the secular Clergy in above 9600. Parishes so formidable as they were as it were exempt from common Proces and no man durst lay violent hands upon them that many thousand Tenants in Capite and by Knight service and the Tenants which did hold their Lands of the Nobility Gentry either as free-hold or copy by Lease or at Will in the times of that great Hospitality Protection and Comfort which they receivedunder them and the great Veneration Awe and respects which they paid unto them could never find it to be either safe or convenient for them to commence or prosecute any Action or Suit in Law against them or any of their very numerous Dependants Friends Kindred or Alliances and there were many thousands which in the Reignes of King Henry the 1 Henry the 2 Richard the 1 King John Henry the 3 and Edward the first were Croysadoed for the wars in the Holy-land and at Jerusalem and thereby claimed and enjoyed a Freedom from any arrests or molestations concerning the paymentof their debts with the many necessary protections given unto such as were imployed in Servitio Regis which the said several Princes several of their successors whilst they had so many Provinces in France and wars for the defence of the same could not deny unto those whose service they made use of increase of people by reason of more than formerly frequent marriages of the laicks and the marriages of all our Clergy which before had been for some hundred of years forbidden could not but administer so many occasions to disuse the more slow way of the process of summons pone distringas and make use of that more expedite and quicker way of recovery of Debts or bringing men to justice when in so great a change as hath since happened in the alteration of the Estates Manners business and trade of the Nation not only at home but a broad inward and outward and that every man could not like a Snail carry his house upon his head or be sure always to be found in it there could not be a few very great and pressing necessities to call for it especially When if all the People of the Nation were numbred or put into Ranks there would be 1. Free-holders 2. Copy-holders Lease-holders and such as have an Estate only in Tythes Annuities or Rent Charges 3. Men of Estate only in Goods 4. Or of Trade and Credit only 5. Men whose Estates are only in Money at use or abroad in other mens hands 6. Or of no Estate but what they carry about with them or hope for by their Friends or their Industry or some future preferment 7. Such whose Estates depend upon their daily labours or profits arising thereby as mechanicks Artificers Servants Labourers and the like 8. Mariners and a sort of adventitious people who have little or no abode going or coming to or from beyond the Seas Merchants Strangers and the like Of all which several sorts of people the Free-holders and first Classis are the only men who are properly to be summoned or to be within this new proposed Law because they have lands Estates to be known and thereby summoned and are to be found with some certainty but are not the fortieth part of those which have not Of the second sort the Copy-hold Estates which being very near a fifth part of the Nation are not extendable or liable to debts nor can without manifest prejudice to the Lords of the Manors whose Predecessors or Ancestors did under certain Limitations permit them to enjoy them be made to be so Tithes are for the most part not distrainable and may be sold or compounded for before they be due Leases may be surrended or assigned so as none shall easily find the true Proprietor Annuities or Rent-Charges are not extendable The third and fourth sort may either convey away their Goods or have very little of them The Estate of the fifth either not to be found out or hardly to be come at And the experience of some Thousands of years past and the latter as well as the former Ages can and will bear witness and record of the usefulness and approbation of the Proces of Summons pone and Distress where the Defendants are Free-holders have a visible Estate and of Arrest in case of Contumacy and Contempt of Courts of Justice and suspition of Flight and Insolvencies CHAP. IV. The Ancient use as well as necessity of the Proces of Arrest and outlawry in this and other Nations FOr it may be evident to any who shall not too much be led by a causless prejudice or an humour of censuring that which they do not understand that an attachment upon Pones do cause a manucaption or Bail and that upon on a Distringas made thereupon a manucaption of the Defendants person is Returned as well as the issues or profits of his Lands or goods that the words of Attach or Capias used in the writs process and records of our Law are in many thiâ—gs Synonimous and of one and the same signification And that the procedings in law by process of Capias and Arrest may not at all seem to be unwarrantable cruel and unjust when precedents and approbation of the like and greater severities are to be found in the sacred and always to be believed records of holy Writ in the old and new Testament as the putting the man in ward that was found gathering of sticks upon the Sabbath whilst the Children of Isreal were in the wilderness because it was not declared what should be done unto him and if thy Brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor and sold unto thee thou shalt not compel him to serve as a Bond Servant and the selling of a debtor and taking his Children to be bondmen If thou be surety for thy friend thou art snared and taken with
of the Tribuns to step between and had wrought some of their own Brotherhood to do it who as soon as they saw the Wards or Tribes called forth by Licinius and Sextius to give their Suffrages would not suffer those Bills to be read or pass by the Commons whereupon when the Nobles began to choose the Tribuns Military L. Licinius and Sextius crossed them so as there was no election at all but of Aediles and Tribunes of the Commons for Licinius and Sextius being chosen Tribunes again suffered no Magistrates of the Chair or of State to be created After that other Wars ensue and with much ado an Army is levied Sextius and Licinius the publishers of those Laws were the eighth time made Tribunes of the Commons and Fabius also a Tribune Military five in eight of the Tribunes of the Commons ernestly and like men bestraught of their wits urge for to have those Laws enacted Sextius and Licinius with part of their Tribune Brethren and M. Fabius the Military Tribune being saith Livy their Craftes Maisters and knowing well enough by so many years experience how to manage the minds of the Commons demand of them how every one of the Senate and other Rich men could in equity hold the Land well near of three hundred Citizens and a Commoner have hardly ground enough to build him a House upon and to serve for a place to bury his Dead whether the Commoners oppressed with Usury should yield their Bodies to bear Irons and suffer Torments unless they pay the Interest before the principal and that daily they should in whole Companies be had away from the bar and condemned to thraldom and alledge that the Commons could never be relieved until they make one out of their body a Consul who might be equal in the Soveraign command and power of the Sword and maintain and protect their liberty The next year the Legions being returned home the same Tribunes of the Commons are chosen and the same Laws again proposed the Senate when they saw the Tribes called and none of the Tribunes step forth to stop their proceedings began to be exceedingly afraid and choose a Dictator the Tribunes of the Commons call a Common Hall summon out the Wards to give their voices whereupon after the Laws were propounded and some of the Tribunes denyed them Camillus the Dictator their good old successful General formerly the Saviour of their Common-wealth against the Gaules a man of undoubted honour and integrity and the Darling of the Peoples sided with the gain-saying Tribuns and stickling to maintain their intercession and gain-saying authority sent his Lictors and Serjeants to command the Commons to depart threatning withal that if they proceeded thus like Conquerors to give Laws he would take a Military Oath of all the younger sort and presently lead an Army forth of the City which put them and their Captains and Ringleaders in so great a heat of contention as the Dictator terrified with some unlucky signs of the Birds gave up his office mean while in an Assembly of the Commons summoned by the Tribunes the Laws were passed concerning Lands and Usury howbeit shortly after it was found that Licinius had a great many more number of Acres of Land than his own Laws permitted After this another Dictator was chosen who nominated Licinius General of the Horse-men who with Sextius at the next Election day for the Tribunes of the Commons so demeaned themselves as seeming to be weary of the place they were the more eagerly desired by the Commons and alledged thereupon that the Commons themselves were they that hindred their own good who might presently if they would have their City their Common-Hall and places of Assemblies freed from those Creditors and their Lands recovered again from the unjust Landlords that it stood not with the modesty of the People of Rome to require to be eased themselves of Usury set in possession again of the Lands with-held from them and to leave those old Tribunes by whose means they had gained those commodities to shift for themselves without honour or hopes thereof and that if the Commons should not resolve to speak affirmatively to those Laws it would be to no purpose to choose any Tribunes neither would they accept of the Tribuneship neither should the Commons have those Laws ratified which were already granted But upon an Oration or Speech of Appius Claudius a Senator setting forth the inconveniences of what was propounded and that by what had been already wrested by the Tribunes All Credit in borrowing and lending and taking and putting forth of Money would be abolished to the destruction of all humane Society Commerce and enter-course whatsoever The matter was adjourned and the publication of those Acts cut off and deferred but the same Tribunes Sextius and Licinius being chosen again the Tenth time got a Law enacted that of the Decem viri for Church Ecclesiastical matters some should be elected of the Commons with which they were so well content as they laid aside the business of Tribunes Consular and gave way for the creating of Tribunes Military and the Venerable Camillus being almost fourscore years old is the fifth time chosen Dictator but after the Wars ended with the Gaules who had invaded them is welcomed home with a hotter Sedition in the City where after many sharp bickerings and contentions the Senate and Dictator were forced to accept of the Tribunes Laws and Sextius was created Consul out of the Commoners but by reason that the Nobles refused to give their consent that Camillus should leave his place of Dictator the Tribunes of the Commons as Camillus was set in his Chair in the Town-hall hearing of causes sent a Serjeant to him who commanded him to follow him and laid violent hands upon him to carry him away by force Which made an uproar saith Livy was never before seen in the Common-hall or Town-house Camillus Friends driving the Serjeant behind the Chair and the People crying out from beneath to the Serjeant to pull him out Notwithstanding all which he would not resign up his Office but taking with him those Senators which were about him went towards the place where the Senate was wont to be kept but before he could go in he returned back again to the Capitol and made his prayer to the Gods that it would please them to bring his Troubles again to a quiet and made a solemn vow and promise if those Troubles might be pacified to build a Temple to Concord And the matter coming after to be debated before the Senate there hapned such an hot contention and diversity of opinions as the easier way carried it which was to grant the Common Peoples desire that a Commoner should be chosen Consul with a Noble Man and it was agreed that the Common People should be content that the Nobles might out of the Patricii create a Praetor or Lord Chief Justice for Oyer and
a magis and minus and variatioe of Circumstances in such kind of Offences which may either lessen or heighten them Nor do those Rules which are given by Bracton for the reason of Arrests or Restraints of liberty in personal Actions before judgment that a Habeas Corpus which amounteth in effect to a Capias or Restraint of the person or his liberty is presently to be granted propter privilegium eruce signatorum mercatorum in respect or favour of those that were to go to the Holy War or were Merchants or propter causam sive necessitatem for some urgent cause or necessity of dispatch or in Trespas propter atrecitatem injuriae the horridness or evil of the Offence or propter personam contra quem injuriatum est ut si injuriatus sit Domino Regi vel Reginae vel eorum liberis vel Fratribus vel Sororibus vel eorum Parentibus Propinquis in respect of the Person against whom the wrong is done as the King Queen their Children Brothers Sisters or their Parents or Kindred come up to the Rules of Justice for urgency of Affairs necessities or occesions considerations or respect of Persons can of themselves be no cause of making Justice which is not to be a respecter of Persons to be Eccentrick or go a step out of her way or to do any thing in one case which should not or ought not to be done in other Cases having the like ground of reason and justice attended with the same circumstances neither can atrocitas facti vel injuriae the grandeur and oughliness of the offence be the sole cause or ground of Arrest in common or petty actions of Trespas or for words if there could properly be any atrocitas or hainousness in them or where it is done involuntarily as in Cases of Trespass or damage done by a mans Cattle for Trespass may be greater or lesser and if every Trespass could be understood to be of the greater size or magnitnde and so horrid and enormous yet there can be no reason to make the Caption or Arrest to be in part of Corporal punishment before the Judge or Magistrate be ascertained of the guilt of the Party or instructed how to keep the order which the Laws of God Nature and Nations and our Magna Carta have enjoyned that is to say to punish only secundum quantitatem delicti according to the nature of the offence And that supposed ground or reason given by Sir Edward Coke will be as deficient that the Common Law of England abhorring all force as the capital Enemy to it subjects the body to imprisonment until it hath made agreement with the Party and fined to the King bring any better reason with it For if the King shall as he conceiveth punish force by a Capias to Arrest the body before the party be permitted to defend him-or a Tryal had by Jury whether he be guilty or not that would be more against Magna Carta then any Process of Capias or Arrest in Debt can be dreamed or fancied to be and a Capias pro fine after a Tryal and finding guilty will either shew that it was not the arresting of the body in Trespass which was intended or inflicted for the punishment but the Capias pro fine and if both the Capias in Trespass before Judgement and the Capias pro fine after Judgement should be inflicted for one and the same offence They would not be secundum modum sive quantitatem delicti proportionate to the offence and the Capias to Arrest would be before the King or his Courts of Justice could be ascertained that there was an offence Nor will that other cause or ground given by him in the Report of the said Sir William Herberts Case that the King may by the Common Law arrest the body of the Debtor for that Thesaurus Regis est vinoulum bellorum nervus The Money and Treasure of the King is the Bond of Peace and Sinuwes of War obtain the conclusion which he aims at For that were to make a King or supream Magistrate which ought to be Lex viva and Justice it self to destroy that which he was sworn to protect and give him licence to break Laws who is not in ordinary Cases against the Rules of Justice and right reason to give such a liberty to himself or any others or to do an act for an advantage or necessity which the even and adequate Rules of Justice common right or right reason cannot allow So as by the favour of so great an authoâ—â—ty in our Laws as Sir Edward Coke is and with as much reverence as is or can be due to so great a lover of the Laws of England and the veneration which he justly merits I must of necessity by what appears in the Cabinet and Treasury of time and Antiquity and what is clearly to be perceived in those pure streams which the Fountains of Justice and right reason have imparted unto Mankind assert what I have done and conclude that he was a man and hath as the best Authors may in their Books sometimes do which are not Scripture and Canonical erred in averring that there was no Process of arresting the body of a Debtor either before or after judgment until the Statute of 25 Ed. 3. which gave Process of Outlawry in Actions of Debt When in allowing Process of Arrest in debt in the Kings Case as he doth in Actions of Trespass he must acknowledge the same reason and necessity which is a just and rational coertion to appear before the Tribunals of Justice and of caution to be given to abide their judgments to be in Actions of Debt and other personal Actions And he himself in many of his Books and Writings hath as well as the Civil Law and our Common Law and the Law of Nations affirmed that the same Reason may claim the like Law For the reason that Joseph would have imprisoned his Brethren upon a suspition that they were come to espie the Land and kept Simeon a Prisoner until their words and denials were proved gives us the reason necessity and justice of arresting in personal Actions and Debt as well as Trespass until cause or caution be given of appearing in Courts of Justice and performing the judgments And that learned Judge could if he were now living very well remember that he hath often said as well as found that many of our Acts of Parliament are but declaratory of the Common Law and that which was long before used and understood to be as it was reasonable That the matter or thing excepted in an Act of Parliament is not included in any purvieu or provision of it but is out of the reach and gun-shot thereof and that when in the Statute of Magna Carta made in 9 H. 3. ca. 29. it is said That no Freeman shall be taken and imprisoned or be disseised of his Freehold or Liberties or free Customes or be outlawed or exiled
by discountenancing the present Laws to loosen the bonds of government to the end that all disorder and confusion might breake in upon him And in his answer to the above mentioned 19. propositions sent unto him by both houses of Parliament the 2. of June 1642. Declared unto them that those that had the conduct of that affair thought fit to remove a troublesome rub out of their way viz. the Law to the end they might undermine the very foundation of it Which every day after grew more and more visible when they being called together to council and advise him could not by their Votes which they would make as binding and obligatory as if they were Laws made and established by their Soveraign wrest and take from him the Militia or Sword wherewith he should protect and defend his people took it to be not a little advantagious to their purposes to ravel and dislocate the method and proceedings of his Laws and Justice By which his Throne was established that by overturning the long approved Laws and Customs of the Kingdom upon which the best Monarchy in the World was built they might open a passage to let in that gain and Anarchy which they aimed at which being once made known to their Emissaries and so much encouragement given by their members of that which was then untruly called a Parliament who rather then fail of Petitions unto them from the sons of Zerviah and Shimei out of every Countrey City Corporation and Market Town caused Printed Bills to be affixed upon the Posts and Corners of the Streets in London whose multitudes of Inhabitants in Masters Apprentizes Tapsters and other Illiterate and Vulgar kind of people could readily afford them good store of such as had been borne or lived in every County City and Corporation of England and Wales to give a meeting at a place appointed to some Members of Parliament for the framing of Petitions unto it And thus the Hounds being uncoupled and let loose to chase the Royal Hart and the Presbyterian Ministers like Huntsmen busied in the ha loo lo ho ha loo loo so ho. Whooping and following to cheer and set them on and busying themselves to remove all things that might hinder the pursuit of their Petitions for the presenting whereof Pulpit Granado men were employed to procure them to be brought with 100 or 200 or more of the factious on Horseback with the Petitions ready printed or Tackt to their Hats or Hatbands with Swords by their sides The London Porterswere set on to Petition against the Militia when they were only told it was against the Watermen for carrying Trunks and other Burdens by Water And a Schoolmaster at Stamford was so wickedly Ingenious as to make his Boyes subscribe a Petition to that Parliament against Episcopacy as if their Parents had actually done it In the mean time the Diurnals News Books and seditious Pamphlets the Stationers Arrowes and Artillery were day by day shot to wound him and incense the people against him and some of the Parliament men were heard to say That they could not do their work without them And the design was carried on so prosperously as too many thought their time best of all bestowed to pull down or take in pieces either all our old Laws or such a part of them as might not only undermine the frame and constitution of the Monarchy but innovate and introduce so much of their own Modells and Inventions as might either directly lead to a republique or some new devices of Anarchy A Book called the pollution of University Learning printed in 1642. Marched in the van together with another Book called the Observator and his Jesuitical principles Quod efficit tale est magis tale and that the King was singulis Major but universis Minor and those kind of Engines were greatly incouraged in their attempts by a Book of Junius Brutus his vindiciae contra Tirannos translated out of Latine into English to infect the people with Treasonable Doctrines And a Book intituled Maxims Vnfolded That the Election of the Kings of England ought to be by the consent of the people The Royal and politique power in all Causes and over all persons is properly the Parliament The Oath of Supremacy binds not in Conscience to the King against the Parliament but the Pope And another book written by Mr. William Prynn an utter Barrister of Lincolnes Inne Entituled the Soveraigne power of Parliaments and Kingdoms Printed at London in the year 1643. Wherein with heaped quotations and much Learning and reading the wrong way he was willing to invite his Readers to believe that the Court of Parliament had a lawful power to question the Kings Patents Charters Commissions Proclamations Grants Warrants Writts and Commandments whether they be legal and to Cancell and repeale them that be illegal or mischievous and onerous to the subject not only without but against his consent It is lawful for the people submitting themselves to prescribe the King and his successors what Laws they please the Sheriffs of every County were antiently elected by the Freeholders and had power to raise the Militia that the Navy Ammunition Armes and Revenue of the King though they be in his possession are the Kingdoms That Kings and their great Officers Counsellors and Justices were at the first created and elected by the people that the King hath an absolute Negative voice in the passing of Bills of common right and Justice for the publique good that the Parliaments present necessary defensive war is just and lawfull both in point of Law Divinity and Conscience and no Treason or Rebellion the Parliament hath a right and Jurisdiction to impose Taxes and Contributions upon the subjects for defence of the King in case of the King his wilfull absence or Arming against them Seconded by a Book entituled Lex Rex written as believed by one Rutherford a Scottish Divine Printed at London by John Field and published in the year 1644. By the then usurped authority wherein he falsly endeavoured to maintaine against all the grounds and fundamentals of Law and Religion That Kings and their Families have no calling to the Crown but only by the people Royalty is not transmitted from Father to Son if the people may limit the King they give him the power who is the servant of the people both objectively and subjectively and is inferiour unto them who cannot make away their power but do retain the fountain power of making a King that to swear non self preservation and to swear self Murther is all one The King is a Fiduciary Life-Renter not a Lord or Heritor the conscience of the people is immediately subordinate to God not to the King mediatly or immediately the Judges are the immediate Vicars of God not of the King The Parliament hath more power then the King The Crown is the Patrimony of the Kingdom not of him who is King or of his Father The Parliament
are not Judges by derivation from the King Who cannot make or unmake Judges Inferior Judges are more necessary than a King Parliaments may conveen and Judge without a King Are co-ordinate Judges with him not advisers only Subordination of the King to the Parliament and Co-ordination are both consistent The King transgressing in a hainous manner is under the coaction of Law Defensive Wars are lawful And there may be a distinction betwixt the Kings person and his Royal power The Physical act of taking away the life of offending persons when commanded by the Law of self-defence is no Murther Wars raised by the Subjects and Estates for their own just defence against the Kings bloody Emissaries are lawfull Parliament power is a fountain power above the King Who is but a noble Vassal of the Kingdom Is not head of the Church The people in some Cases may convene without the King Subsidies are the Kingdoms due rather then the Kings And thus provided and the scaling ladders made ready to storm the Laws which were the Forts and Bulwarks of the King and Government and heretofore made it their business to give help or shelter to the King the Deformers rather then Reformers do hasten one another to be up and doing And therefore in a Pamphlet entituled Liberty vindicated against Slavery Printed in the year 1645. the Author declared that Imprisonment for Debts is against the foundamental Laws of England Propositions were shortly after made unto that company of Monarchy underminers called the Parliament for the laying aside the six Clarks in Chancery and the imploying their under Clarks at Cheaper Rates In the year 1646. Mr. John Cooke of Grayes Inne who sufficiently deserved to be hanged drawn and quartered as he was afterwards as a Traytor in a Book dedicated to the most high and most honourable Court of Parliament the supreme as he calls it Judicatory of the Kingdom saith that the alteration of fundamental Laws as Sir Edward Coke saith produces many inconveniencies as in that statute of imprisoning mens bodies for Debt And there must needs be good work in that their sport of pulling down and setting up when it hath been as truly said as verified that the Kings Parliament began in 1640. and continued with some freedom of Votes untill December 1641. From thence it was governed by the City of London and their Tumults Propositions and Petitions unto December 1643. And from thence by the Scots and their rebellious League and Covenant unto the Month of June 1647. When the Presbyterians had the ascendant and predominancy and that was not unjustly called the Apprentises Parliament And after that Sir Thomas Fairfax his Parliament which was governed by his Army and their Addresses Declarations and Proposals wherein the Independant party were Superior and ought to be called the Agitators Parliament The King in the mean time in his great desire of peace with those whose wicked designes never intended it not making that right use which he otherwise might have done of the successes which God had given him in the just defence of himself and his Loyal Subjects and the Laws Liberties and Religion of his People tired with the treachery of those that too often betrayed and sold his just advantages and overpowered with an Army of Covenanting Scots who came to assist their brother Rebells of England and believing himself to be somthing safe in their Oaths and Promises and flying to them for Succour was by a party of them contrary to the Laws of God and Nations sold to the English Rebells for two hundred thousand Pounds Sterling Too great a summe of Money to be restored again as Judas did the thirty pence the wages of his sin for the betraying of our Lord and Saviour and by tricks and devices carried Prisoner from place to place untill he was barbarously Murthered And the Heire and Royal Issue driven out of their Inheritance and then every Mechanick head was set on worke to frame a new Government in which there were as many diversities of opinions as there were Ignorances and Sinister ends to advance their particular ambitions or advantages and a mart being kept of Whimsies some being much in love with the Balletting box used at Venice others with the Rota and Mr. Harringtons Oceana and all or too many thus busied Sedition and Ignorance sat in their Triumphal Chariots with the Laws Learning and Religion of the Nation like so many Captive Kings in Chains attending all which did not fully correspond with the Votes and expectation of the Presbyterians when as Cromwell the gâ—â—at Encourager of the Independents or Fanatick party then the more numerous feeling his own strength and having a prospect of a better design of establishing himself did so delay and trifle with the Parliament his Masters in their desires of disbanding the Armies as the Presbyterian Souldiers in the mean time selling their Debenturs the wages of their Rebellion and wickedness at 16 d. or 18 d. a pound with a long Interest to the Independents who were thereby easily enabled to buy King Queen and Princes the Bishops and Dean and Chapters Nobility and Delinquents Lands as they mis-called them and that party being so well gratified were not afterwards unwilling to Lacquey after his hypocrisie and permit him to frame and make his own Instrument and method of a more arbitrary Government then our Laws permitted or any of our Kings or Princes exercised and to be as a single person Protector of all the Knaves and Fools in England Scotland Ireland and Wales withall their fancied and supposed Liberties which as they used them were but to hunt and chase all that were loyal and honest and thought they might do any thing to the Amorites Moab and Amalek and that all the Scripture was contained in Gain being as they supposed Sanctified into a pretence and outward semblance of Godliness In the later end of the year 1648. some thousands of Well-affected as their Sedition perswaded them inhabiting the Cities of London and Westminster Borough of Southwark and Hamlets supposing the Time to smile upon their purposes did Petition that which when the King was murthered was no Parliament that they would consider the many thousands that were ruined by perpetual imprisonment for Debt and provide for their enlargement In the year 1649. one Thomas Faldoe of Grays-Inne Esq was so loth to have his Conceipts and Opinions lag behind as in a Pamphlet entituled Reformation of Proceedings at Law published on the behalf of himself and the Commonwealth of England he complained That the Law of Property was depressed and useless by the colour of the Statute of Imprisonment and sacrificed to all the Birds of prey even to Covetousness the mother of Cruelty in the several Offices and Instruments of Justice And in the same year came out a Representation of divers as they called themselves Well-affected persons in or about the City of London petitioning the Parliament That all tenures in Capite and all inferiour
be made In the seventeenth year of the Reign of King Edward the second a nihil habet being returned by a Sheriff upon a Distringas in wast a Capias was awarded by the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas against the defendant And that if a Sheriff return upon a pone a Tarde that the VVrit came so late unto him as he could not execute it and it be averred that the VVrit came time enough or that the Party was present and might be attached the Sheriff was to be amerced Personal Actions saith the Mirrour of Justice so much admired by Sir Edward Coke have their introductions by Attachments of their Bodies real by Summons and mixt actions By Summons and after by Attachment in personal Action And in the same Kings Reign if a Religious man Professed had forsaken the house and become vagrant a VVrit upon a Certificate of the Abbot or Prior issued out of the Chancery to the Sheriff to take him In the eight year of the Reign of King Edward the third presentatio facta fuit apud Lincolne contra Thomam de Carleton sub Vicecomitem Indictatum de extorsionibus aliis malefactis inter alia quod mittit homines arrestatos pro debitis in ergastulum strictum fetidum inter latrones quousque finem fecerint cum illo pro deliberatione sua extra c. Contra formam statuti plurima alia pro quibus fecit finem cum Rege postea pardonatur per breve domini Regis eo quod invenit Regi in guerra sua Scotiae tres homines armatos duos Hobelarios Thomas de Carleton under Sheriff of the county of Lincolne was indicted at Lincoln for several Extortions and Misdemeanors and amongst other things for that he did put such as were Prisoners and arrested for Debt in a close and loathsom Prison amongst Theeves until they gave him mony for their better accomodation against the form of the Statute and did commit many other Misdemeanours for which he paid a Fine to the King and was pardoned for that he furnished the King in his VVars in Scotland with three armed men and two Hoblers or common Soldiers By an Act of Parliament made in the 18 year of the Reign of the same King a Capias is to be awarded against such as not having wherewithal to live do refuse to serve 22. Ed. 3. It was held for Law that upon a Judgment obtained for Debt or Damages the Body of the Defendant might be taken in execution and by the opinion of Thorpe and Basset Judges where conusance of Pleas is granted there are also granted all things necessary unto it as to proceed by way of Capias Distresse c. And it was in those times agreed to be Law that the Judges have Power by Word of Mouth to command a Defendant to be Attached and that he that Bailed a man might by the Law without Process Arrest or take the partie Bailed and bring him into the Court. All which put together and brought to a due consideration with the small or no difference which is betwixt a Pone and a Capias as to the Attaching and Compelling of Defendants to appear in the Tenor and antiently practised and yet intended use of it may be enough to Rescue us from the imputation of Error or presumption if pace tanti viri we shall take that which hath been said in Sir Will. Herberts case by Sir Edward Coke in his third Reports that the Body of a Defendant in an Action of debt was not subject or lyable to an execution before the Statute made in the 25th year of the Reign of King Edward the third to be no more than an opinion built upon a great mistake for that Statute was not made only to give Process of Arrest by Capias upon a nihil habet or non est Inventus upon a Pone or a nihil habet or non est Inventus returned upon a Distringas by a Sheriff because it was so before by the Common Law of England it being altogether improbable that those who had Lands or any visible Estate in Goods or Chattels were before the making of that Statute always Resident or did never hide or absent themselves for Debt or some other Actions to avoid a Summons or some Arrest or compulsory way to bring them into Courts of Justice to answer and give satisfaction unto such as had cause to complain of them or that those who had no Lands or Goods were always to be free and exempted from any restraint or arrest of their Bodys upon actions of Debt or for any other matters commenced against them But was intended only to have Process to the Exigend and Utlary which could not be without a Write of Capias in Actions of Debt detinue of Chattels and taking of Beasts per Capias Exigend selon retourne du vicecount come home use en breifs daccompt by Capias and Exigenâ— according to the return of the Sheriff as was used in Writs of accompt and being at the petition of the Commons in Parliament priont les Commons the King as the record it self witnesseth did answer I l plese ou Roy que ainsi soit quil soit mys en Estatut it pleaseth the King that it should be so and that it be put or formed into a Statute And the reason of that petition of the Commons in Parliament to the King which introduced and procured that Act of Parliament many Acts of Parliament and good Laws in the former Ages being usher'd in and obtained by the Petitions of the Commons in Parliament to their King and Sovereign may in all probability seem to be for that they did not think either the former Process of the Law by Summons Pone Distringas or Capias to be severe or sufficiently coercive or so powerful to bring a Defendant to Justice as the fear of an Utlary which in the Saxons times were so Terrible as he that was outlawed was accompted to be a Friendless or Lawless man and was afterwards so formidable to those that by the contempt of the Laws incurred in the forfeiture of their Liberties Goods Chattels Profits of their Lands and Benifits of the Laws as it might well be believed every man would be careful to avoid so great a danger and trouble And therefore in the eighteenth year of the Reign of that King being but seven years before the making of that Statute it was deemed to be for the good of the People to have it declared by Act of Parliament in what cases process of Exigend and Utlary should be that is to say against such as received the Kings Wool or Mony and detained it such as transported Wool not Cocquetted or without Custom against Conspirators and Confederates of quarrels such as commited Ryots and brought in false mony if they could not be found or brought in by Attachment or Distress and not
carried away to Prison Manlius cryes out O ye Gods and Goddesses that inhabit the Capitol suffer ye thus your Knight and Defender to be misused by his Adversaries But saith Livy though every man that saw it was greatly moved the City as most patient of all other Cities to abide any just and lawful Commandment of the Magistrat so contained her self as neither the Tribuns of the Commons nor the Commons themselves durst intermeddle in it though many of them did put themselves in mourning let their heads and beards grow in their grief and mourning for it and with sad and heavy chear kept commonly about the Goal-door but after a while threatned to break the Prison continued or rather increased their Sedition and never left till the Senate released him Whereby the Mutiny was never the more ended but rather a Captain given them to maintain it the People hope to be rid of Usury Manlius calls them home to his House exhorts them to maintain their Liberty and to hinder and cry down Dictatorship and Consulship and Proces and Course of Law for Actions of Debt the Senat and Tribuns in Consuls Authority and the Tribuns of the Commons also seeing that in the loss of the publick liberty their own power likewise would come to an end being much troubled at it by advice of the Senat resolve to Arrest him and thereupon send and serve Proces upon him to answer at a day appointed which being come he produceth four hundred men for whom he had laid out Money gratis saved their Goods from Port-sale and kept them from the Bondage of their Creditors after they were condemned reckoned and shewed openly the Spoils of Enemies by him slain or disarmed to the number of thirty gifts bestowed on him by Generals to the number of forty whereof there were two mural Garlands for scaling of Walls and 8 Civick Coronets for saving the lives of Citizens in danger presented many in person whom he had rescued out of the Enemies hands nominated Servilius at that instant General of the Hosse-men stript his breast bare shewed the scars received in the Wars looked towards the Capirol and praid to the Gods to give the People the same mind to help him as he had to help them but the People notwithstanding being called out by the Tribuns and drawn out by Centuries or Wards into a place where they might not behold the Capitol for otherwise it was thought impossible for them to get leave of their love and pity to him to find the Indictment against him And the accusation prevailing more then compassion he was condemned for Sedition holding Conventicles with the multitude and his over much largess to be thrown down the Rock Tarpeja where himself had won so great glory by defending the Capitol his own Kindred making also a Decree that none of that Race should after bear the name of Marcus Manlius The Tribunes after that complain that the Senate sought to avoid the exhibiting of publick Records and Books which gave testimony of the valuation of every mans substance to the worth because they would not have the Sums of Debts to be seen or shewn which might shew that the one part of the People were eaten up and devoured by the other and that if the Commons would call to remembrance their Ancestors liberty they would not suffer any Citizen of Rome to be awarded to Bondage for Debt nor any musters to be taken until a view were made and just accompt had of every mans Debts that each man might know what he had of other mens Goods what remanied of his own whether his body were left free or at the mercy of his Creditor to lye in cold Iron or baleful Prison on the other side the Censors alledged that the Debtors cautelously would not then keep their Credit and make payment Which hire and salary or reward of Sedition saith Livy shortly after stirred up a mutiny for that when many were adjudged to be kept bound by their Creditors the Tribunes would not suffer those that were condemned to be led to Prison nor the younger sort of the Commons enter their Names in the Muster-masters Book Howsoever the Wars coming on they leave their mutinies but after the Wars ended Tribunes Military with Consular Authority were equally chosen from out of the Nobility and Commons And the year following begins with Discords Seditions and Broils for no better were they then termed concerning Debts for the true Inquisition whereof and to know to what Sums they amounted Sp. Servilius Priscus and Q. Claelius Siculus were made Censors but stopped by occasion of an Invasion of the Volscians notwithstanding the fear and terror whereof so little were the Civil Discords appeased as the Tribunes of the Commons extended their power with more violence to hinder the leavy of Souldiers until they had indented and capitulated with the Senate that so long as the Wars lasted no man should contribute or be charged with any Impost or be sued in any Action of Debt whereupon the Commons are content to muster two new Legions were levied and enrolled and to War they go with the Volscians their Neighbours but as soon as all was quiet from Enemies abroad they began a fresh to be sued and troubled by their Creditors at home and having small hope to be released of their old Usury fell into a new Sedition by reason of a Contribution imposed by the Censors for making of a Well which they had set out to be made of square Ashler stone but being forced to yield thereunto and to go to War against the Volscians and Latines after several Victories obtained and the Armies returned to Rome the calamities of the Commons grew every day more and more for they wanted means and were not able to pay for the Interest that needs must be paid and when nothing was to be had to make satisfaction out of their Goods were adjudged and awarded to satisfie their Creditors in their Bodies Which gave occasion to M. Fabius Ambustus a man of much repute with the Commons upon the proud discontent of a younger Daughter not being married so well as her elder Sister whose Husband was a Tribune Military plots with his unpreferred Son in Law and L. Sextius who hoping to compass some alteration in the State by reason of the excessive Debts that men were grown into got themselves made Tribunes of the Commons upon which advantage C. Licinius the Son in Law of M. Fabius Ambustus and L. Sextius propose Laws touching Debts that when so much was defalked and deducted out of the Principal as had been paid for the use and Interest the residue should be paid by even portions in three years that no man should hold in possession above five hundred Acers of Land and that there should be no election of Tribunes Military but of Consular with which the Senate being much troubled could find no other remedy but the negative voice of some
not receive satisfaction of their Debts and charges or more then a Peny or were not the better for it for the Defendant where there is any ability to answer and pay them do most commonly bear the burden of them and that the Defendants Charges in a year do amount to a Million of Money Sterling or any such vast Sums of Money as his monstrous and incredibile guess bewixt sleeping and waking hath calculated it and will be as wide of any truth or probability as if he had said That he had in a Forreign Country seen two Phaenixes rosted and brought to eat in a dish and had been in a colder Climat where the extremity of cold was so great as the words spoken over night did freeze and were legibly to be read in the Air the next Morning And those Sons of Rapine who are so given to change and doe make it their business to hunt our Laws like the Ermyns for the booty of their skins may better employ their time in a sad and serious repentance of that dirt and many scandals which they have most injuriously flung upon them in throwing amongst the People those though foolish yet infectious tales and opinions that There are now ten thousand Men in Prison for Debt and that the Proces of Outlawry have done more mischief to the People of England then the Writs of Capias which neither he nor any other can ever prove to have been primarily or causally and per se guilty of it or then the Bills of Middlesex or Writs of latitat which must either be done in his humour or natural of telling rampant or impossible tales or on purpose to cast those legal Process and proceedings into an Odium or hatred and will appear to be as much misled by his ignorance as he was before in his overhasty Arithmeticque when he adventures to say that a noble Man by being outlawed is made incapable to sit in the house of Peers a Clergy-man may forfeit his Benefice or a Lawyer be made incapable of pleading at the Bar when our Laws do remember no such matters and a Noble man and Peer of Parliament cannot in any Civil action or ordinary Trespas by our Laws be outlawed and although some other Persons may by abuse or error happen to be outlawed when they should not be outlawed and by some evil accident never be able to find the Plaintiff or his Attorney whereby to recover his damages yet it is so seldom as it is very rare and our Laws as they did never undertake to prophesie or to have a prescience or certain knowledge of things to come so they never provided against raro contingentia things seldom happening or of little consequence neither can our or any other Laws be able at all times to prevent all the tricks and evil actions which the deceitfulness of mens hearts do too often put in practise And that nameless Author may upon his better acquaintance with our Laws inform himself and those for whom he so much busieth himself that if an Outlawry should as he surmiseth be indirectly gained the Court out of which it proceedeth do when discovered never fail severely to punish such an Offender and give what remedies they can unto those that do suffer by it and that there is a Statute which was made in the Tenth year of the Reign of King Henry the Sixth and renewed in the 18th year of the said Kings Reign yet unrepealed to prevent and remedy it And is as much out of the way when he saith That Tenures in Villenage were repealed by Act of Parliament when in the Parliament of the fifth year of the Reign of King Richard the Second the Manumissions of Villaines which had been extorted from that Kingby Wat Tiler and his rout of Rebels were declared to be void and the wearing out of that Tenure in the many Intestine Wars and Troubles of the Nation and the favour and indulgence of our later Kings and Princes and the Nobility and Gentry of this Kingdom is to be ascribed more thereunto and a desuetude length of time then unto any thing else which hath so washed many a jolly Gentleman that would be and Men of great Estates whose Extractions and Originals were at the first lodged in those Tenures in the Waters of Lethe and Oblivion as there are now very few or none to be found of them And is as little to be excused when he saith That the Mortmaines of Abbies were taken away by Acts of Parliament unless that he means by the total dissolution of them which hapned long after those Mortmaines and is as wide from the mark in his impertinent Accompt of the Money or profits of the Bishops Courts as he is of any proof or certainty that they are a burden and can hardly instance any one Attorney but certainly not many that hath in one Writ of Priviledge named or sued one hundred Defendants and held them to special Bail whereas such a vexation would have been remedied by an Appeal unto any Judge of the Court out of which such Writ issued who had by the Law a power in his discretion to order whether any special Bail should be given as the case required CHAP. XIV That the Nation hath not been base or slavish ever since the making of the said Act of Parliament of 25 E. 3. ca. 17. ANd is to prove when he can that many Men have languished to death for fear of an imprisonment for some one or few melancholick Persons may in their retirements sad apprehensions or multiplied fears have indangered their healths which makes not the Justice or Laws of the Nation to be any more guilty or cause of it or deserve to be abrogated Then the sacred Scripture is to be blamed for that some Persons have by the reading of it or hearing of it preached been so disturbed with an affright of conscience as they have been distracted or laid violent hands upon themselves Or that His late Majesty of glorious Memory if not mis-informed by the concealed Author of such frivolous feigned and false complaints or by some of his Proselites had so deep a sense of his Subjects sufferings by such Writs and Process as he intended the inlargement of Prisoners for Debt and the abolishing of all Arrests and Outlawries for the future by the then Parliament if he could have received any recompence for the remitting of all forfeitures and other profits arising to His Crown nor doth give us any evidence for such wild imaginations nor ever will be able to do it or that the Nation hath been base and slavish since the said Act of Parliament of 25 E. 3. ca. 17. and other Acts of Parliament since made which our Laws Records and Histories will abundantly confute and our Neighbour Nations envying our Glory Freedom Peace and Plenty may decry as an ingrateful and horrid falsity deserving to be had in everlasting detestation Unto which bundle of untruths and feaverish
general execution of the Laws as it is now practised is an oppression to the whole Nation that trivial and impertinent Suits are brought out of the Countries to Westminster and thereby all inferiour Courts are destroyed and proposed a publick Registry to be in every County of all Entails Mortgages and Statutes that before any cause or Action â—e entred in any Court or come before the Judges peace he offered by the Plaintiffs and that wise men be appointed to take up Controversies that all the Tithes and Glebe Lands with other things called Church-duties may be sold and a competent means provided for the Ministers of the Gospel In a Book entituled Englands safety in the Laws Supremacy and published in the year 1659 it was amongst other things required as a Law including the peopleâ— Liberties that no man be imprisoned for Debt but that all Estates real and personal be liable for discharge of Debts In the same year in a Pamphlet entituled the humble desires of a Free Subject it was desired that not any of the free people of the three Nations and Territories thereunto belonging should not be molested or imprisoned or have any violence offered to their persons but shall have full power and liberty to seek for their redress unto the Law and the Courts of Justice according to the ancient constitutions of the Laws of the three Nations In another owned by one Mr. James Freez entituled the outcry and just Appeal of the enslaved people of England to be delivered from the insupportable oppression of lawless yokes of misery it complains that thousands of people are ruined and robbed in their Estates Liberties and Lives by Arrests and Outlaries and prayeth that the Writs of Capias may be abolished and the imprisoned set free which would work the total downfall of Satans throne of Injustice cruelty and oppression even of the four Fairs kept in Westminster-hall by the ingrossers of pretended Justice where and by whom men are daily bought and sold in their Estates Rights and Liberties Some of the Inhabitants of Hull did petition that the Laws by which the Common-wealth is to be governed may be those holy just and righteous Laws of the great and wise God and declaring that the Nobility are the Pillars and Buttresses of Monarchy and Citadels of Pride and Tyranny ought to be only during life that the Divines the Lawyers and hereditary Nobility are irreconcilable Antagonists to a Free-State adviseth an Agrarian Law that the proportion of Lands be stinted and a rotation of all Offices and imployments that those which are capable may tast of rule as well as subjection In a Book called A Rod for the Lawyers they are called the grand robbers and deceivers of the Nation greedily devouring many millions of the peoples money and it alledgeth that there are in England Wales of Judges Lawyers Officers Clarks Attorneys and Solicitors above 30000 a quarter of that number at the largest reckoning being not to be found of them which admitting that each of them do get 250 l. per annum very many of them not getting 100 l. per annum many not 50 l. per annum and many not 10 l. per annum or so much as the Rag-gatherers in London-streets do who take it to be an ill week that yields them not 10 s. it will saith that Calculator amount unto seven millions and an half per annum besides the charges of riding to and from London whereas if ever there were such a number to be proved there are greater numbers of Carpenters and Smiths who do yearly gain as much as the smaller sort of the Law Profession do by their as necessary labours In a Declaration and Proclamation of the Army as they called themselves of God published in the same year they did declare and resolve by the help of God that there should be liberty of Conscience but not of Sin Godly Laws to be enthroned but not the Jews Judges to be in every City but not imposed Prison doors should be set open to let out Debtors to labour towards the payment of their Debts and look'd upon it as the voice of God calling upon them and giving them an opportunity and therefore desiring assistance in so great an enterprize by as many persons of note and ability as God hath made willing and able together with themselves to put in sufficient security for the performance thereof did intreat them to send in their names to Mr. Livewell Chapman Book-seller in Popes-head-alley by the Exchange who hath promised to keep them secret untill by sober and frequent meetings the matters may be digested fit to be presented to the Parliament and chief Officers of the Army Where if the Propositions do prove acceptable there will be a sum of 500000 l. ready towards performance of the same And in the Plea called the Armies Plea it is alledged that the peoples safety is the chief Soveraignty of all Laws Statutes Acts and Ordinances Covenants Engagements Promises Subscriptions Vows Oaths and all manner of obligations and expressions thereof and are only binding to the Publique safety and not to the persons of the Governours or forms of Government but with reference thereunto and as principles of truth and right reason brought to light by the late Parliament And one being willing to come on as fast as he could and keep company with those goodly assertions saith that it is not lopping the branches or cutting off the Top branch of Monarchy that will deliver a Nation from bondage unless the Axe be laid to the root thereof to the evil root of bitterness whence springs all our misery to the root of every usurping and domineering Interest whether in things Civil or Divine The number of Freeholders being much increased hath had a natural and strong tendency towards a Commonwealth no Government can be fix'd in this Nation but according to the Ballance of Land that Prince that is not able neither by his own or the publique Revenue in some measure to counterpoise if not over-ballance the greater part of the people must necessarily be Tenant at will Another in his Arguments and fancied Reasons against the office and title of Kingship published in the year aforesaid saith that the Office of a King makes way for an Act of resumption and the unsetling of mens Estates that the abolishing of Episcopacy and Peerage and the establishing of Liberty for Tender consciences were not the ground of the Wars for nothing appeared at the first but the Militia the Negative voice and the removing of Evil Counsel the other things were brought into the quarrel in the progress of the contest by an higher hand of providence then mans purpose One of the same company and School of contrivances desired publickly that no man should be imprisoned for Debt except such as are doubted to be running away and then not above three days and to be maintained by the Plaintiff at 3 s. a day in the mean time In a
at once in a Common persons case whereby to have Damages twice recovered against him After an Elegit although the Sheriff return that he hath neither Lands or Goods the plaintiff shall not have an Execution against the Body a Capias ad satisfaciendum doth not lie after a Fieri Facias until a Nulla bona returned nor a Fieri Facias or Elegit after Imprisonment of the Defendants body A Writ of Annuity purchased pending another was abated where two brought Writs of Quare Impedit one against the other returnable at one and the same day the one was discontinued and they pleaded upon the other in the Case between Bery and Heard in the Seventh Year of the Reign of King Charles the Martyr it was in the Court of Kings Bench adjudged that where a man had his Election to seek his Remedy by the Commou Law or by the Statute of Glocester that gave an Action of Wastâ— he could not do it by the one way and the other for our Laws and Courts of Justice would never allow a Plaintiff to have two Actions or Remedies for one and the same thing at the same time but were so careful to hinder it as they suffered discontinuance of Process and Pleas in Abatements where one Action was brought depending another for the same matter And Bracton saith that where a man hath an Action depending and bringeth another for the same thing Cadit breve posterius the later is to be quashed agreeable whereunto at this day in Chancery where a man hath an Action depending at the Common Law and seeks relief in Chancery upon the same Account he is put to make his Election in which Court he will proceed And therefore if such an Arbitrary Act of Parliament should be made to give the Plaintiffs their Election to proceed by the way of the new contrived way of peremptory Summons the former wayes of Summons Pone and Distrainings or Capias not being prohibited the proceeding by process of peremptory Summons ought to be entred in a Court of Record and entred may be more prejudicial to the Plaintiffs then they expected for if they cannot resort or return again to the former better wayes of proceedings they may find cause enough to repent of their being so fond of a new way when the old will appear to have been much better which to reverse or discontinue cannot be for the Interest of the King or his people when it shall have no better reason or foundation for it For if the Proposers could give unto themselves or any of their fellow Subjects any assurance that it will be probably for their good and benefit yet if the King who is supreme and superiour to all the Judges in his Dominions were but a subordinate Judge he would as the Civil Law declareth transgress the rules of Justice and Right reason if he should follow opinionem probabilem relicta rejecta probabiliori an opinion that is but probable when there is an opinion to the contrary more probable and S. D. and his then Confederates might have considered that a Process against the Goods and Chattcls of a Defendant is of a different nature from that which is against his Body that duo contradictoria non sint nec possunt esse simul vera contradictions neither do or can at one and the same time agree and that Practica sunt speculativis praeferenda what is in speculation of a possibility not at all experimented is to give place to that which with an universal or major part of a consent hath been long practised CHAP. XXI That it will not be for the Interest of the King or his Subjects to give way to that Design which may open a passage to other Innovations and Designes as much if not more inconvenient and prejudicial FOr that all his good people by the sad and inexpressible calamities and miseries which they have lately endured by the Wars and Tumults unjustly raised against thc King and his Laws are not now to learn what a deep dyed hypocrisie and pretences for Reformation would have or to believe the evil consequences which have risen from a too much yielding to those popular humors which as that Royal Martyr hath in his Solitudes and Sufferings declared served to give life and strength to the almost infinite activity of those men who studied with all diligence and policy to improve their Innovating designes how dangerous the permitting of Innovations would be how careful all Princes and wise men have heretofore been to avoid them so that if there were nothing else to make the world out of love with them the never to be satisfied inquietude of many of that sort of people in the matter of Religion and Church-government and the swearing liking and shortly after disliking and hating the Solemn League and Covenant the by too many as it may be feared intended standing Rule of Rebellion and their unfixedness in every thing but their unwearied malice and ill designes against Monarchy and the present Government do and will abundantly proclaim that whatever hath been condiscended unto and by that a measure may be taken of the Future in giving them a liberty to play the Fools with the Sacred Scriptures hath but like the thirst and alwayes craving of an Hydropick sick person increased and provoked a desire of having more Wherefore they that built upon such wicked principles of overturning the State and Regal Government are if they had any reason or were ever likely to have any for their demands to be content to be denyed until they shall have renounced those pernicious ends and dangerous Tenents and positions they began their works and deeds of darkness withall and shall have proved that Justice ought to have no Sword to defend and protect her self and others that Courts of Justice can be to any purpose without a certain power constraining punishing Authority that the process of Arrest and Utlary are not incidents thereof and to be necessary Attendants thereupon that the Eternal and Almighty Law giver did not allow of that which the Greeks Romans those great Ingrossers of wisdom after the many very many commotions of their people for their more severe way of enforcing the paymcnt of Debts performance of Contracts preservation of the publick Faith and one man unto another which Tully held to be so very necessary as he was of opinion that nulla res vehementius rempublicam continet quam fides that nothing more concerns a Common-wealth then the keeping of Faith Credit therefore adviseth it by all meanes to be preserved and kept have acknowledged to be the best and most contenting Expedient for an obedience to Judges and Courts of Justice and the Civil Magistrates and that all the Essaies of an Indulgence to liberty made use of by some other Nations could never yet so far prevail as to make the most of the civilized Nations of the