Selected quad for the lemma: act_n
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A78247
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The Long Parliament is not revived by Tho. Philips. Or, An answer to Tho. Philips his Long Parliament revived. By R. C.
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R. C.
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1660
(1660)
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Wing C107; Thomason E1050_8; ESTC R208160
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5,306
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9
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THE Long Parliament IS NOT REVIVED by THO. PHILIPS OR An ANSWER to Tho. Philips his Long Parliament Revived By R. C. Novem 28 LONDON Printed for N.W. at the Kings-head in St. Paul's Church-yard 1660. Anno 17. Caroli Regis An Act to prevent Inconveniences which may happen by the untimely adjourning proroguing or dissolving of this present Parliament VVHereas great Sums of Money must of necessity be speedily advanced and provided for Relief of his MAJESTIES Army and People in the Northern parts of this Realm and for preventing the immanent danger this Kingdom is in and for supply of other his Majesties present and urgent occasions which cannot be so timely effected as is requisite without Credit for raising the said moneys Which Credit cannot be obtained untill such obstacles be first removed as are occasioned by fears jealousies and apprehensions of divers His Majesties Loyal Subjects that this present Parliament may be adjourned prorogued or dissolved before Iustice shall be duly executed upon Deliquents publike grievances redressed a firm Peace betwéen the two Nations of England and Scotland concluded and before sufficient provision be made for the repayment of the said moneys so to be raised All which the Commons in this present Parliament assembled having duely considered do therefore humblie beséech your most excellent Majesty that it may be declared and Enacted And be it Declared and Enacted by the King our Soveraign Lord with the assent of the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament assembled and by the Authority of the same that this present Parliament now assembled shall not be dissolved unless it be by Act of Parliament to be passed for that purpose Nor shall be at any time or times during the continuance thereof prorogued or adjourned unless it be by Act of Parliament to be likewise passed for that purpose And that the House of Péers shall not at any time or times during this present Parliament be adjourned unless it be by themselves or by their own Order And in like manner that the House of Commons shall not at any time or times during this present Parliament be adjourned unless it be by themselves or by their own Order And that all and every thing and things whatsoever done or to be done for the adjournment proroguing or dissolving of this present Parliament contrary to this Act shall be utterly void and of none effect THE Long Parliament IS NOT REVIVED THE Authors Introduction is in the first Paragraph an Apology for the Peace of the Nation upon a Lasting Foundation which in the next Paragraph he does not doubt but lies in Parliaments rightly constituted and in their just and lawfull Priviledges And this in the third Paragraph he saies must hold true in relation to the Long Parliament called by the late King CHARLES of blessed memory which being constituted legally and indissolvible but by Act of Parliament and not dissolved by Act of Parliament is yet in force to evidence which he brings in three Arguments 1. The Title or end of the Act viz. that it was an Act to prevent inconveniencies that may happen by the untimely Adjourning Proroguing or dissolving this present Parliament viz. want of credit to raise money to maintain his Majesties Army and people in the North c. The second is That this present Parliament shall not be dissolved but by Act of Parliament The third is That all and every thing and things whatsoever done or to be done for Adjourning Proroguing or dissolving this present Parliament contrary to this Act shall be utterly void and of none effect and therefore this Parliament wanting these Formalities is yet in being and no Parliament can be hereafter convened before this be thus formally dissolved or it must needs follow two Parliaments may be existent at the same time which he beleeves to be so absurd as none will aver There is an Answer to Mr. Prin and against the Authority of this Convention which his Majesty his owned a Parliament What the Authors disposition is to the Peace of this Nation upon a right foundation I know not what Peace he hopes to find by Reviving the Long Parliament few can tell but none have found That it does not follow that the Long Parliament is not Dissolved or Revived from any of his three Arguments we will shew For first his first Argument is drawn from the end or title of the Act to prevent the inconveniencies which may arise by the untimely Proroguing Adjourning or Dissolving the Parliament for want of money to maintain his Majesties Army and people in the North If the force of the continuance of the Long Parliament be drawn from hence then must the Parliament be dissolved or at least dissolvable without Act of Parliament upon the payment of his Majesties Army and people in the North for cessante ratione legis cessat lex But it must needs be irrational and most absurd to aver that any Law can create a contrary or different obligation from the first reason and end of it viz. Because they might be a Parliament untill they had relieved his Majesties Army and people in the North therefore they might destroy his Majesties Army and people in the North. The second is That this present Parliament shall not be dissolved but by Act of Parliament If the Act had said the Parliament shall not be legally dissolved but by Act of Parliament then this Author might have disputed against the Legality of that Act which should otherwise have dissolved it but if this Author shall affirm this Parliament to be in being because not legally dissolved is all one as to say no man is killed or oppressed because Subjects ought to be preserved in their lives and estates by Laws and Acts of Parliament and this Parliament might as well have made an Act that none of their Members should dye but by Act of Parliament as that they should not be dissolved but by Act of Parliament The third is that all and every thing or things whatsoever done or to be done for the Adjourning Proroguing or dissolving of this present Parliament contrary to this Act shall be utterly voyd and of none effect Such was the omnipotency of these men in their beginning that they beleeved all things how impossible soever to be very sensible to establish their Greatness and Reign For things simply impossible are impossible even to God himself as that contradictions should be true or that any thing should be and not be at the same instant Yet such was the Omnipotency of these Members that contradictory and impossible things must not be repugnant but subsist in order to their perpetuity and greatness For if things be done they must necessarily be done and so cannot be voyd and of non-effect whatsoever they may be in Law I pray Reader take notice that the Author of this Pamphlet not only insists upon impossible things to prove the continuance of the Parliament but his very title is contradictory and absurd
which revives the Long Parliament and yet affirms it not dissolved whereas if it had not been dissolved it could never be revived and a man may as well dispute thus as our Author does No man ought to do violence upon or kill himself but by his own consent and that if a man does violate or kill himself or be violated or killed by another contrary hereunto such force shall be utterly voyd and of none effect therefore every man shall live though he kill himself or be killed by another which I think no man in his wits will affirm The LONG PARLIAMENT dissolved and dead never to be revived IT is not worth upon so mean an occasion to declare the Principles of Power from whence Humane Laws are derived and what creates them obligation Or whether effects or accidents of Power can create any alteration or obligation upon that Power As if Laws made be derogatory to the Power that made them For example if by an Act of Parliament the Crown of England were aliened against the Right of Succession or that it should hold of the Pope or any one else or that there be not sufficient Means left to the King to protect his Subjects for Salus Populi suprema Lex Neither will I dispute at what time Laws and Acts of Parliament take place But that Civil Lawes take not place alwaies is evident for inter Arma silent Leges Or who shall plead the benefit of them as whether any man can plead the benefit of Law for Treason Inst 3 9. Felony or Breach of Peace And whether since no Subject can levy Arms without Treason but by Authority of the King The Long Parliaments raising Arms against the King did not justly invalidate all benefit they could claim by vertue of this Act or any other Law I shall endeavour to shew three things 1. Whether the Long Parliament be totally dissolved 2. Whether in the ordinary nature of things it can be revived And lastly Whether the Members have any just cause to complain But that we do not lose our selves in obscurity as our Author does we will first define our terms and so set down our Notions as to be so understood as any man may reject or deny any thing herein First then A Parliament is a Politique Body compounded not of three States as our Author would of King Lords and Commons but of heterogenial or dissimular parts viz. the King the Principium Caput Finis of it and of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal one distinct House and of the House of Commons another distinct house both which houses are convened and created by the Kings Writ Inst 4. p. 1 4. Sir Edw. Coke cals them Conventus Sapientum Inst 4. p. 2. Now all Conventions and Assemblies whatsoever are either regular or irregular All regular Conventions and Assemblies do proceed from and may be reduced into one just and certain Principle which causes and creates those Assemblies but all other Conventions and Assemblies which do not proceed from one certain just Principle are rather Commotions or Routs than Assemblies These regular Conventions and Assemblies are so either potentially or actually potentially two waies either when a rightful power constitutes any company of men to meet at time and place these men thus impowered have by right a power of convention and assembling at such time and place or else after they be convened either by the power which first convened or by themselves they adjourn or prorogue to some certain time or place and for want of such proroguing adjourning or covening all such Conventions are totally dissolved because their Conventions did not proceed from a certain and just Principle which might create them Or actually when such regular Assemblies are actually convened by vertue of a just authority impowering them the two Houses therefore being the Convention and Assembly which united to the King the Head of them rightly convened by vertue of the Kings Writ and after prorogued or adjourned either by the King or themselves to meet at a certain time and place do continue such Conventions otherwise they may meet in Riots and Routs in regular Assemblies they cannot 1. Now would I fain know when the two worthy Speakers deserted their Speakerships and run from the House to the Army and joyned with them against the remaining part of the Members they did prorogue to a certain time and place wherein they did convene by vertue of such Adjournment Or whether there were then two Parliaments in being which our Author so abominates one at Westminster another in the Army and whether when the Lower House retained nothing but the Rump and having turned the remaining part of the Lords who had before excluded by like means 3 times the number of themselves who had as good Title as themselves to sit there four times their own number out of themselves were a rightful Assembly duely convened in time and place if they were then may a part be equal to the whole and the Speaker joyned with Henry Martin and Titchbourn and his Majesties Sergeants Glin and Maynard since Knighted may yet be a rightful Parliament But if it be true that Formae rerum sicut numeri consistunt indivisibili and that the aggregate body of a Parliament consists of both Houses duly convened in time and place then if either be not rightly Assembled actually or potentially the whole is utterly dissolved much more when neither are so as the case now stands with us 2. The Houses thus dissolved I would now know what power can revive them it must be either they themselves or the King If it be themselves what hinders them from convening yet I believe our Author will hardly perswade the Speaker and Lord St John to make two if they the world be satisfied such Convention be just and regular If it be by the King it must be either Legally or Arbitrarily If Legally the King must revive it by vertue of some Act of Parliament or by Common Law If by Act of Parliament it must be revived let our Author or any one else shew it If by Common Law then let him or any one else shew any President for a Kings reviving a Parliament and I will presently yield the cause So I am quit with him for his Answer to Mr. Prin's first Objection But if the King do it and yet neither by Act of Parliament nor Common Law then must it be done by an Arbitrary Power which is every whit as dangerous as his Conclusion King Charles upon the death of King James asked Sir Edw. Coke whether he might not continue or rather revive the Parliament dissolved by his Fathers death he answered negatively because Parliaments could not be convened but by the ancient and usual Form which this was not 3. But because it is objected that though the Houses be dissolved yet are they not legally dissolved and so violently done And great Crime this I pray who did or who may complain Did not the Members all but the first persecuted from their first beginning abuse all the Kings Grants and Favours to his own and Loyal Subjects prejudice Did not they themselves turn out one another from the Contents unto the end of the Chapter until there was scarce any of either House none of the Lords to turn out And if no Fool or Mad man shall in Law complain against his own Act for volenti non fit injuria then the Members have no reason to complain of their usage to one another and of dissolving of themselves and the Nation is so far from complaining that I believe with a bitter sense they wish they had never been But suppose the King might revive them yet if he might do it then he might not and might chuse whether he would or not And can any man in his wits believe the bitter sense of his Fathers death and his own his Mothers and Brothers and Sisters suffering by them would not divert him from such an intention unless he did desire to have the Tragedy revived again upon himself and Family and all his Loyal Subjects who after so many storms of their unjust suffering for their Conscience may reasonably hope through Gods Blessing for the future to be protected by his Majesties peaceable Government from them which upon the reviving of the Long Parliament they could not reasonably hope FINIS