the Parliament it Self must needs die and can continue no longer to act as a Parliament being by Law extinct and Dissolved This is the Sum of what the Faction alledges to destroy this Parliament Lord what a Thing is Pedantism in every Profession The shame and reproach of every Science and Sort of Learning especially of this of the Law and more especially of that part of it which concerns the Constitution of the Crown and Kingdom to the prejudice whereof no Construction of Law whatsoever ought to be made or will be made by any wise and weighty man But there are a sort of little Pedants whose shallow Brains want Line and Plummet to sound the depth of matters whose Skulls are too narrow to comprehend the utmost Scope of Law these are a sort of Creatures that are wont to be carried away with mere Sounds of words are too apt to be Captivated by Phansie and mistake it to be Understanding as 't is the manner of the profane Vulgar of this and every Profession and so not being fit to get Publike employment from a King are of little use but to torment the Law by wresting it for the service of such as are Factious and Seditious in his Kingdom But now for an Answer to their Argument take notice in the first place That in all the Books lately printed by this sort of men to pervert the People's opinion against the legal continuance of this Parliament they are very careful to tickle them with frequent mentions of ancient Laws the good old Laws and ancient Customs of England and the like Phrases which make a noise and great Noises usually take the weaker sort of people yea and engage them too they believing of course that where most Clamour is there must needs be most Right especially if it be thought that the wisdom of our Fore-fathers and their practice be concerned in the Case As for the Antiquity of Politick Constitutions I believe our Predecessors acted as far as they understood and perhaps they understood what was convenient in their time and state of affairs to be done but certainly they could not be so unwise as to do it eo animo with an intent to tie up Posterity to the same Rules as were then used it being utterly impossible in matters which relate to administration of Government because in the Torrent of Time there flow down innumerable Accidents both among our Selves and our Neighbour Nations which induce unavoidable Alterations in every Age and those must of necessity introduce new Counsels and Rules and Forms of managing a Government suitable to the Season that is to say to the present posture and condition of the People For as in the preservation of mens private bodies so this Verse following holds to be a Rule absolute in ordering the Publike Body Sic quoniam variant Morbi variabimus Artes. As new disorders in State arise and alter its former Temper so there must be variation in the method and means of Remedy or else all runs to Ruine And for this End Parliaments themselves were first ordained that Princes in such Cases might advise with them when they shall need their Advice about the making of new Laws or altering old Laws and Customs as they shall see occasion Secondly we find by old Records that our Forefathers in conformity to this Reason many times varied the Formalities of Parliament both as to its time of Meeting its Number its Manner of sitting and time of Continuance and other Circumstances yet we nowhere find them in any wise condemned for it it being to be supposed they did what in their times was for the then publike Convenience For both before and after the Conquest Parliaments were held Three times a year viz. at Easter Whitsuntide and Christmas but for continuance no longer than the space of Eight days for each time but that Custom continued not any considerable time after the Conquest but received many Variations all along to the time of King Edward the Third in whose days the fore-cited Statutes were made which give Occasion to our present Disputes The Book call'd The Mirrour of Justice saith Cap. 1. Sect. 3. that sometimes those Parliaments departed from that frequencie and were held Twice a yeer and in those days there was no such thing as a House of Commons as 't is noted in Print for that the Parliament consisted then onely of King and Lords so that it were better for our Admirers of old Statutes and Customs in some Cases to bury some of them rather than let their Brains run a madding up towards the Conquest and beyond to revive them to give Rules for us to proceed by Thus it was some time of old as to the quality of Parliament-members and then as to their manner of Sitting my Lord Coke Instit Par. 4. cap. 1. tells us that in Edw. the First 's Reign the Commons had no distinct House to sit in and no Speaker as it appears in the Treatise de Modo tenendi Parliamentum And in 6 of Edw. 3. in divers places it appeareth that the Lords and Commons sat together and had then no continual Speaker And then as to the nature of the Power of the Commons House it would tend to little edification to describe and measure it by the Report of Ancient Records Customs and Proceedings and the People would get nothing by it but this even a discovery of the slenderness of those Priviledges which they had of old in comparison of those that by the Favour and Indulgence of succeeding Kings they have enjoyed to this day But thirdly if Customs and Precedents of time past be of such esteem with this Author and the rest of his Fellow-Scriblers in their Printed Books then let them tell me a reason why a Prince may not in his time make use of a Precedent made by a former Prince in a Business of the same nature and for which that Prince was never found fault with after till this Captious quarrelsome Age that we now live in For this Author confesses that Queen Elizabeth in the Fifth yeer of her Reign Prorogued the Parliament from the second of October to the fifth of October of the yeer following which was three days above a yeer and in strictness of Law this Prorogation lately made Anno 1675. for Fifteen Months which is three Months above a year is as good and valid in Law as that they are his very words wherein he is so far in the right because three days or three months can as to point of Law make no difference in the Case either of them being a lapse of time beyond what this man and his Fellows do suppose as limited by those Statutes for a Parliament's sitting and consequently for its Proroguing because if a Parliament cannot legally sit longer than a yeer it cannot be Prorogued to a longer time than the Law gives it a Being But that a Parliament may sit and act with full force and vigor longer than a yeer
and Holding of another Parliament to the end there may be a frequent Calling Assembling and Holding of Parliaments once in Three yeers at the least What can be desired more than this Act hath provided for We have by it secured a Parliament every Three years after this is ended which is more than ever you had before And if you will not be contented with my Sence in expounding the Two Statutes of Edward the Third take here the sence and judgment of the whole Parliament They have Provided also for yeerly Parliaments or oftner in these words IF THERE BE OCCASION as fully as Edward the Third did by the words IF NEED BE in those ancient Statutes the Prerogative of the King being left here entire to judge whether there be OCCASION as it was in the former Statutes to judge whether there be NEED of Parliaments every yeer or not And so you see 't is the sence of this Parliament declared in their First days of Sitting many yeers ago that no more than this was meant by the Parliament of King Edward Behold also how great the Wisdom Concession and Tenderness of His Majestie hath been towards us in this Particular that to remove all Fears and Jealousies which Seditious men plant and nourish in the mindes of weak people about His possible Delaying of Parliaments long He did so graciously concur with his Parliament in the said Triennial Act to secure us in the Golden mean as I once before told you betwixt the having too frequent or too few Parliaments in time to come Most ungrateful then are they and most malicious and the Peoples greatest Enemies who by their dark desperate Contrivances have so many yeers been casting Rubs in the way of this Parliament to interrupt and impede the Noble Work of Settlement which is most likely to be done by them or by none and had not the Faction hindred it had been done long ago so that we might ere now have seen Parliaments in motion upon this fair Wheel of a well-ordered Succession Judge then I pray you how little cause this Clamorous unreasonable Dissolver hath to revile this most Loyal honourable House of Commons or impute to them a sacrificing of our Rights and Liberties which every days transaction shews when they are sitting they do most studiously maintain Whereas if he and his Fellow-Dissolvers might have their Ends to put an end to their Sitting before they have done their Work it would by experience be soon found the onely way to run us out into Anarchy and that they have been the onely Bank that kept out the great Floud of endless Contests and Confusions which unavoidably would follow a present Dissolution I could without the help of a spirit of Prophecie give an account of all beforehand had I time or room to tell you the Story But now 't is time to behold the DISSOLVER's Threatnings He tells the House The whole Nation will strictly observe every man among them that to sit a little longer doth sacrifice to the late Prorogation made in 1675. But this is not all He proceeds further in more plain terms as followeth page 10 and 16. DISSOLVER Do not think to salve your Authority by your own Vote for We that is the men of Shaftsbury the Faction must tell you that no Parliament which is not antecedently so can make it self a Parliament by Vote Do not think the People of England will do that indignity to their Laws that dishonour to the Finger of God which by so stupendious and over-ruling Providence hath Dissolved you or that disservice to their own Interest as ever to acknowledge you any more for their Representative And pag. 17. Wherefore unless you will stand upon Record as Oppressors of all the People of England c. And a little after he saith thus It is onely your single fear that the People will not chuse you again that can make you do so and so because you doubt they will credit you no more for opposing the Interest of the People is never the way to be chosen again And page 18. Pray you saith he remember the former long Parliament how the People unroosted them and took vengeance upon them their Lives their Liberties and the Fortunes of most of them And pag. 19. he addes Let not the vain perswasion delude you that no Precedent can be found that one English Parliament hath hang'd up another c. An unprecedented Crime calls for an unprecedented Punishment and we faithfully promise we will use our utmost endeavours when a new Parliament shall be called to chuse such as shall c. and so forth ANIMADVERSION Hold hold SIR what d' ye mean you 'll crack the Strings by and by which should hang Us. What shall we have next A Switzerland-Reformation Must the Nobility and Gentry of this Parliament all to the Pot when these Reformers can get a New one And for no other cause but sitting longer than those our New Masters that wou'd be would have ' em See how furiously the Faction would ride if they could get into the Saddle but they do well to tell us so before they have got a foot in the Stirrup Me thinks ye men of Shaftsbury I see in this Book a Print of the Noble hand that wrote it and of his heart too which plainly threatens that he would if he could furnish us with a Precedent to teach Posterity that One Parliament may hang another What then would a Parliament quickly do with such a DISSOLVER as this if they knew where to finde him out But the singer of God which he talks of may ere long point him out in a stupendious manner before he can bring about his brave intended DISSOLVTION In the rest of his Book to the very end he goes raving on at the like rate telling Stories of time past about the hanging of two Lord Chief Justices and a Lawyer that was one of the Kings learned Counsel and of three Judges and of forty Judges more and of Empson and Dudley in the Reigns of King Alfred Edward the Third Richard the Second and Henry the Eighth But to what end is all this reckon'd up unless it be to flush the Phantsies of the Rabble right or wrong against the good time of DISSOLVING which is as much long'd-for by the Faction as the Jews long for the day of their yet-expected Messiah At length he comes to conclude with an Exhortation to the People of Disobedience to the Acts of this Parliament That in the mean time they refuse to pay Taxes or obey any other of their Acts without first trying their validity by due process of Law And he exhorts also the Juries that upon Tryals they should not finde against their neighbours So here is the Trumpet blown outright for Rebellion But seeing he hath been so plentiful in Stories out of our Chronicles about Examples of Hanging he should have been also on the Peoples side so charitable as to inform them how we
Hereditarily invested with all the Rights of Government of which this sort of Judicatory power is a principal Wherefore the Reason of the ancient frequencie being out of date long since it was well done by this Parliament upon new Reason more suitable to the Condition and Temper of this Age to ascertain us of holding Parliaments in the future with frequencie more convenient for us However 't is worth the observation what his Master-ship doth grant that Non-user may antiquate Acts of Parliament and make them lose their Force if the Reason of them fail or if by change of time they become a Publike Mischief As for the Reason of King Edward's Act I have shewn already that his Parliament had nothing in their Reason of making them that savours of the Old Custom of yeerly frequencie otherwise than with Condition there shall be need nor do they contain any sence that gives us cause to plead that they are antiquated or to desire an antiquation of them because to Repeal them would be an Injury to the King But next let me adde this that in the two late Triennial Acts it is implied that in these days things are alter'd to such a pass that there was high Reason to be no longer bound to the ancient Custom of that Annual frequencie which his Mastership pleads for and thereby you have the Determination of two whole Parliaments the FORTY ONE Parliament and this Parliament that the Reason of the said Custom at Common law fails and that publike Inconveniences if not publike Mischief would follow if it were practised in our time or else 't is in reason to be supposed they never would have alter'd it Therefore seeing his Mastership doth admit what I have made evident in the foregoing part of this Discourse that there hath been a Non-user of King Edward's two Statutes in any such sence as he and his fellows do impose they having never been so put in practice by Edward himself or by any succeeding King to this day we with all assurance conclude that a pleading of Non-user is a good Plea against the two Statute's being in force for such an absolute yeerly frequencie as the Faction doth insinuate into the mindes of the people Especially when two Parliaments before-nam'd have judged that Reason of publike Good and Convenience now lies against having them so frequent as within a yeer and that the time of Three yeers is soon enough unless there be need Nothing then but a spirit of Sedition or Treason would have fixed such a Construction as these men have lately made upon the said Statutes with a mighty Clamour as if Noise would carry it among reasonable men But their Construction being every way proved naught all the Arguments founded upon that Bottom do necessarily fall and Master Bencher and the rest of the Disputants ought to be tried before a Bench of Academian Sophisters that they may be brought under Correction for that wretched Beggery A Begging of the Question A way then with the Questions with which he stuffs up all the rest of his Book because they are grounded upon the same sad account of Petitio Principii and so are altogether impertinent to the Point in hand till they can better prove their own Construction of the two Statutes to be a right one or that those Statutes were at any time since their making put in use and practice upon supposal of any such absolute Meaning as he and his Fellow-writers would fasten upon them His Questions follow BENCHER 1. Whether the Statutes for yeerly Parliaments may be dispensed with by the King 's Soveraign Power and Prerogative being as some say onely Counsels and Advices to the King not obligatory ANIMADVERSION Who are those some that say so If any did they talkt as idly as Master Bencher writes and as little to the purpose for his Mastership hereupon starts up an invidious Question Whether the King may dispence with Laws and Statutes I rather suppose the SOME that say so never were men of God's making but mere men of straw set up by Master Bencher for a Tryal of his own Skill in Confutation and Conquest and to entertain his Majesties subjects with Supposals that there is strange Doctrine at Court in matter of Law that so himself may take occasion to lug in a long discourse to prove the Negative that his Majestie cannot dispence But know once for all that there is none under heaven who can be more tender of the currencie of Law and Legal Constitutions than the King Himself is especially such as are Parliamentary and it would be the joy of the Faction if they could really finde Him otherwise or if they could by any Tricks of State such as were shewn in several Sessions of Parliament before last February-Session play in upon Him the necessity of having recourse to that Supreme Law the Idol of the FORTY ONE Parliament Salus Populi suprema lex to save Himself and his People from such Confusions and Destructions as the Counsels of the Faction if they proceed will bring upon us I may well call it the Idol of that Parliament considering how they abused that Maxime in a causless using it against his Majesties Father perfidiously pleading the Safety of the People to justifie whatsoever they did as confidently as if the People could have been saved no other way if they had kept within the Bounds of Ordinary law But the ordinary path of Law is that which his Majestie desires to walk in and to prove the Truth of this we need onely to recollect the past Provocations given Him by the late extravagances of some men which would have provoked any Prince less patient to other Courses than he hath taken to secure Himself his Affairs his Friends and the Interest of his Crown And as to that point of the Prorogation he did not thereby assume to Himself any power to dispence with the Laws relating to the Course of Parliament but kept within the bound of Law as is abundantly proved Therefore the dragging in this Question of yours must needs be very impertinent as well as maliciously meant good Master Bencher and so are all the vile Inferences that you have made thereupon to catch the People BENCHER 2. His Second Point under question is Whether the Kings dismission of the Parliament without any day set for their return and their continuing so beyond a yeer be a Dissolution or whether such a failer in Time onely may by Act of Law dissolve a Parliament even against the Will of the King ANIMADVERSION So so All is out now The main Point they drive at is to Dissolve the Parliament against the Will of the King but what pretence hath the Bencher for declaring it Dissolved Not a tittle more than what was alledged by the DISSOLVER He said Dismission of a Parliament sine Die amounts to a Dissolution But how comes it that the Fifteenth of February the day to which the Parliament was prorogued or dismissed