THE SPEECH AND DECLARATION OF John James, A Weaver, in the Preſs-yard, At Newgate, on Sunday laſt, to the Fifth-Monarchy-Men, and others; Concerning His Sermon preached at a private Meeting in White-Chappel, taking his Text out of the Pſalms of David, whoſe words are here inſerted.
And The manner of his Tryal before the Lord Chief Juſtice Foster, at the Kings-Bench in Weſt minſter Hall; with the Sentence pronounced againſt him to be Drawn, Hanged, and Quartered, for preaching maliciouſly and traiterouſly againſt the life and ſafety of our Soveraign Lord the King, and againſt the Peace and Government of this Realm.
〈…〉powers. &c.
LONDON, Printed for George Horton, 1661.
VVHen the Chriſtians in the primitive Times had their private meetings, the Church was hidden, and it was death for any to profeſs Chriſt openly; then Cellars, Garrets, and Woods, were their places of Aſſembly; but who reigned then, Nero? Bleſſed be the Name of God for ever more, we have the word preached amongſt us faithfully, we need not go into Corners and Holes to hear the Word of our bleſſed Lord and Saviour taught; it abounds, through the great hand of Providence, in a moſt miraculous way, to all Leige and Loyal Subjects, and the Conduit-pipes of Heaven we ſee apparently opened, from whence deſcends the Fountain of Living Water, God in his great mercy continue the powerful influence thereof: And if there be ſome (as I ſuppoſe too many) that have a deſign to ſore high beyond their Capacities and undertakings, let them learn that good and Chriſtian Leſſon of the holy Apoſtles, Submit your ſelves to the Higher powers, &c. Blame me not therefore, I beſeech you, though I urge this with tenderneſs to tender Conſciences; for I verily2 believe Ananias the Button-maker, Plaſh the Cobler, or any others of that fraternity, never did more injury to poor Souls then the deluding Foxes of this Age; as is too manifeſt in theſe dayes, by the deluſion of a Generation of men, whom I dare not call Loyal Subjects; witneſs the actions of a people that walk and go under the name of Fifth-monarchy men, whoſe principles to Monarchy are both dangerous and pernicious, as appears by their reſults at their meeting places; touching which, in reference to the following Diſcourſe, the Reader may be pleaſed to take notice, that in one of their private Conventicles at White-Chappel, on Saturday October 19, 1661. John James a pretended Preacher to that Society, a Silk Weaver by Trade [mind that] took his Text out of the 8th. Pſalm and ſecond verſe; the words theſe, Out of the mouths of Babes and Sucklings haſt thou ordained ſtrength, becauſe of thine enemies, that thou mighteſt ſtill the enemy and the avenger. From whence he raiſed ſeveral Doctrines, which alluded to Seditions and Rebellions, as appeared by the teſtimony of ſome witneſſes, who being then preſent, departed the place, and acquainted the next Juſtice of Peace with it; upon which information, the ſaid Juſtice ſent for ſome Officers, and immediately came to the place where this Convinticle was, where they found the afore-named John James in the full heighth of his Seditions exerciſe; and making their approach near him, they commanded him to come down he boldly anſwered, he would not, unleſs they pulled him down; whereupon an Officer took hold of his Coat, forcing him to decline his ſtation; and was thereupon carried before the Right Worſhipful3 Sir Iohn Robinſon Lieutenant of the Tower of London, where was laid to his change many traiterous expreſſers, uttered in his private Conventicle againſt the preſent Power and Government; for which, the Lieutenant told him he would ſtretch for it: And in order thereunto his Mittimus was made to be ſent to Newgate, where he remained till the 19th of this inſtant Novem. being Wedneſday, from whence he was carried to the Kings Bar in Weſtminſter Hall, and there arraigned for preaching maliciouſly and traiterouſly againſt the life and ſafety of our Soveraign Lord the King, and againſt the peace and Government of the whole Realm, &c. But this is obſervable, that upon his coming to the Bar, and being commanded to hold up his hand, according to the ancient Law of England, he yielded obedience thereunto, but with his Glove on, which the Court perceiving, he was commanded to pull it off, ſaying, That he he•d up his hand as a teſtimony, that he was there preſent, to anſwer what that Honourable Court had to lay to his charge &c. But to evade circumſtances:
The Charge of High Treaſon being read, wherein he was accuſed, to Act, Plot, and Conſpire, againſt His Royal Majeſties Sacred perſon, to be inſtrumental of levying a New War, and that be ſhould ſay, That if ever they could get the Power into their own hands (which God forbid) that they would caſt of all Monarchy, and perfect the work formerly began throughly.
4This and much more was made apparent and atteſted by ſeveral Witneſſes; amongſt whom, Mr. Tipler a Tobacco-pipe maker, made Oath, That he heard the ſaid John James publickly declare at his private Conventicle in white-chapple, That the Cup of Iniquity was filled more fuller by the blood of the Saints at Cherring-Croſs a twelve moneth laſt, and by the blood of the Saints in Scotland, to wit, the Covenanters, then it had in many years before, and that a ſudden ruine and deſtruction would befal the Authors thereof.
Thus did this ſad Soul juſtifie thoſe Bloody Murtherers, who for their horrid impieties were executed for their moſt notorious and wicked Treaſons, and ſeemed to juſtifie himſelf, pleading innocency: But this, and much more being fully proved by ſeveral Witneſſes, before the Lord Chief Juſtice Foſter, and the reſt of the Juſtices of that Court, he was brought in Guilty of High Treaſon, which he ſeemed very obſtinately to evade; for when it was demanded by the Honourable Court, Who he would be tried by. He anſwered, By the Lawes of God. The Lord Chief Juſtice told him, He muſt anſwer according to Law, otherwiſe he muſt be recorded for a Mute. The Clerk then telling him, he muſt anſwer, By God and his Countrey, he deſired to know what the meaning of that was; it was anſwered, That by God was meant the Lawes of the Land, and by Country, twelve Middleſex men for his Jury, honeſt, and juſt, to deal impartially between the Kings moſt excellent Majeſty and the charge againſt the Priſoner at the Bar. whereupon he〈◊〉, that he was ſatisfied: And the Jury going out,〈◊〉them to be tender of ſpilling of Innocent word but finding the evidence of the Witneſs ſo clear5 and apparent, he was brought in Guilty of High Treaſon, and ſoon after received Sentence to be Drawn. Hanged, and Quartered. In order wherunto he was ſent back to Newgate where on Sunday morning laſt, divers of his Acquaintance came to ſee him in the Preſs-yard, condoling his ſad condition; but he ſeemed not at all to be daunted, declaring, That what he ſpake in the meeting, the Spirit of the Lord was upon his heart to reveal it: And being taxed in his Charge touching ſome particulars concerning that notorious Regicide and wicked Uſurper Oliver Cromwel, he ſaid, That he was as much against his power, as he was again this preſent Government.
The truth is, he fancied no decency in the Church, without order or form, and as much as in him lay, would have eclipſed the Glory thereof, and laid its ſplendor in the Duſt, which all the Reformed Churches in the Chriſtian World have formerly ſtood amazed at the Government thereof: The Lord in his mercy open the hearts of our Gracious Soveraign, Parliament, and Council, to reform theſe things both in Church and Kingdoms, that God may have his both in ſetled in peace and quiet, and his people may come to his Temple with joy and gladneſs.
(EEBO-TCP ; phase 2, no. A87497)
Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 154007)
Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English books, 1641-1700 ; 2393:15)
Created by converting TCP files to TEI P5 using tcp2tei.xsl, TEI @ Oxford.
EEBO-TCP is a partnership between the Universities of Michigan and Oxford and the publisher ProQuest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by ProQuest via their Early English Books Online (EEBO) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). The general aim of EEBO-TCP is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic English-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in EEBO.
EEBO-TCP aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the Text Encoding Initiative (http://www.tei-c.org).
The EEBO-TCP project was divided into two phases. The 25,363 texts created during Phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 January 2015. Anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source.
Users should be aware of the process of creating the TCP texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data.
Text selection was based on the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (NCBEL). If an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in NCBEL, then their works are eligible for inclusion. Selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. In general, first editions of a works in English were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably Latin and Welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so.
Image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. Quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in Oxford and Michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet QA standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. After proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. Any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. Understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of TCP data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. Users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a TCP editor.
The texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the TEI in Libraries guidelines.
Copies of the texts have been issued variously as SGML (TCP schema; ASCII text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable XML (TCP schema; characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless XML (TEI P5, characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or TEI g elements).
Keying and markup guidelines are available at the Text Creation Partnership web site.
This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. Searching, reading, printing, or downloading EEBO-TCP texts is reserved for the authorized users of these project partner institutions. Permission must be granted for subsequent distribution, in print or electronically, of this EEBO-TCP Phase II text, in whole or in part.