1 10 CHARGE AGAINST DUELS. 



resolution, wherein I shall humbly crave your lord 

 ships aid and assistance. 



For the mischief itself, it may please your lord 

 ships to take into your consideration that when re 

 venge is once extorted out of the magistrates hands, 

 contrary to God s ordinance, &quot; Mihi vindicta, ego 

 &quot;retribuam,&quot; and every man shall bear the sword, not 

 to defend, but to assail ; and private men begin once 

 to presume to give law to themselves, and to right 

 their own wrongs, no man can foresee the danger 

 and inconveniences that may arise and multiply there 

 upon. It may cause sudden storms in court, to the 

 disturbance of his majesty, and unsafely of his 

 person : it may grow from quarrels to bandying, 

 and from bandying to trooping, and so to tumult 

 and commotion ; from particular persons to dissen 

 sion of families and alliances ; yea, to national quar 

 rels, according to the infinite variety of accidents, 

 which fall not under foresight : so that the state by 

 this means shall be like to a distempered and imper 

 fect body, continually subject to inflammations and 

 convulsions. 



Besides, certainly, both in divinity and in policy, 

 offences of presumption are the greatest. Other 

 offences yield and consent to the law that it is good, 

 not daring to make defence, or to justify themselves; 

 but this offence expressly gives the law an affront, 

 as if there were two laws, one a kind of gown-law, 

 and the other a law of reputation, as they term it ; 

 so that Paul s and Westminster, the pulpit and the 

 courts of justice, must give place to the law, as the 



