Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	judge_n	king_n	law_n	5,155	5	5.2571	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91212	The Long Parliament tvvice defunct: or, An answer to a seditious pamphlet, intituled, The Long Parliament revived. Wherein the authors undeniable arguments are denied, examined, confuted: and the authority of this present Parliament asserted, vindicated. By a zealous yet moderate oppugner of the enemies of his prince and country.	Prynne, William, 1600-1669, attributed name.	1660 (1660)	Wing P4003; Thomason E1053_2; ESTC R203196	25,482	48

their proceedings and to give example to inferiour Courts I shall not mention the Books cited by Mr. Prynne which pertain hither but refer the Reader to his Book But to come nearer t is the Judgement of a whole Parliament in these words viz. It is declared by the Lords and Commons in full Parliament upon demand made of them on the behalf of the King That they could not assent to any thing in Parliament that tended to the disherison of the King and his Crown to which they were sworn And my Lord Cook saith That although it might be done i. e. de facto yet it is against the Law and Custom of Parliament Now the said Act of 17 Caroli according to the Authors Interpretation is expresly against the Prerogative of the Kings Successor to call his own Parliament and hath many other inconveniences which need not to be here again repeated and therefore in the words of the Parliament in Edward the 3d. his time They could not make an Act to bear such an Interpretation to the disherison of the King and his Crown c. Yet I will not deny but that the Kings Majesty might binde up his own hads and suspend his ordinary power from an actual dissolution of the Parliament morally by his promise or legally by an Act made for that purpose For a Parliament may bee dissolved either by an external principle which is accidental viz. the declaration of the Kings pleasure or by an internal principle which is natural viz. the want of entring their Continuances or the Kings death whereby the Kings writ which is the authority they have to convene together is determined Now the King as over his Subjects so he hath a soveraignty over his own Will and being obliged by his Royal assent to that Act he might and ought to stave off the accidental cause of their dissolution But for the aforesaid Reasons I doubt whether the Kings Majesty or his two Houses or altogether could legally change the substance of the Parliament and defend it against the natural Causes of its Dissolution This being understood under the limitations expressed in my first Thesis or Position But that which I will rely upon is this that admitting it be in the power of a Parliament with the Royal assent by their Act to make themselves a Legal Parliament after the Kings death by apt words Yet in the Act of 17. Caroli there are no such words as according to the rules of Law will bear any such construction For the words That this Parliament shall not be dissolved unless it be by Act of Parliament are a general negative which by a proper interpretation cannot extend to all the causes of dissolution but only to that which most often happened and which was the pretended grievance at that time viz. the dissolution by the Kings will and Pleasure For it belongs to the Judges to expound the general Statute Laws according to reason and the best convenience and to mould them to the truest and best use And in all times the Judges have excepted particular cases out of the general negative or affirmitive words of Statutes though such particular cases have come within the comprehension of the general words Where the letter of those Statutes in the largest extent of it doth intrench upon the Kings Prerogative or the nature of the thing or enforces to an inconvenience or an impossibility By the Satute of Magna Carta c. 11. 't is enacted That common pleas shall not follow or be sued in the Kings Court or Bench which is a general negative clause yet notwithstanding because 't is a maxime in Law that the King is present in every Court and cannot for that reason be non-suited It is clear Law and so holden that the King is not within these general words but may sue in his Bench or in any other Court at his pleasure In the Marquess of Winchesters Case though there was an Act of Parliament 28. H. 8. that the Lord Norris should forfeit all his rights c. Yet adjudged that a right of action being an inseparable incident to the person attainted could not by general words be made separable contrary to its nature and therefore were not given to the King by the generality of that Law So in Englefields Case though the Statute 33 H. 8. gives all conditions of persons attainted to the King which being a general word comprehends all sorts of conditions yet a condition of revocation of uses by any writing under the hand of the Duke of Bedford that was attainted being appropriated to his own personal act was not forfeited within that general Statute The Statute of Winchester is a general Statute that the Hundred c. shall make satisfaction for all Robberies and Felonies done within the Hundred Yet Resolved that the Hundreds shall make no satisfaction for the robberies of a house because the house was the Owners Castle and he might have defended himself and so t was inconvenient that the Hundred should be put to take care of him that had ability to preserve himself and his goods Nor for a robbery done in the night because it was the Travellers folly to travel by night and it was impossible that the Hundred who by intendment were in their beds should take notice of such a Robbery The Statutes of Marlebridge cap. 4. Westm. 2d cap. 49. and 25 E. 3. cap. 16. are in the general Negative Yet the Judges have so expounded those Statutes that they extend not to many particular special cases which are within the general Comprehension of those words It were infinite to enumerate all of them Therfore to apply this Seeing it is agreed by the Author and otherwise proved That it is the nature of a Parliament ordinarily to be determined by the Kings death and the contrary is as I have proved against the liberty of the Subjects election and in prejudice of the Kings Successors prerogative of calling his own Parliament and this general Clause may be very fully satisfied by suspension of the Kings prerogative to dissolve them at his will and pleasure 'T is against all reason and president that it should be extended any further to change the essential nature of a Parliament abridge the subjects Liberty and shackle the prerogative royal withou● any special and expresse words to manifest certainly that the intention of the Lawmakers was such without any manner of Question For if they had intended to preserve themselves against discontinuance and the Kings death they would have added such special words as these viz. That this Parliament shall not be dissolved by the Kings Majesty nor by neglect of the due entring of Adjournments nor by his Majesties death but onely by Act of Parliament Which would have made their Intention manifest and in such Case they would never have been contented with general words which are uncertain and ambiguous And lastly if

Act they are a perpetual Parliament First because it is contrary to the end designed in the preamble Secondly because it is against the fundamental Constitution of the politick government of this Kingdom against all the presidents and books of Law which alwayes mention successive Parliaments Thirdly 't is against the Liberty of the Subject which a Parliament cannot alter in so principal a part especially seeing the Lawmakers may be intended reasonably to do it for their own benefit who in their own cases by the Law of Reason can be no co●petent Judges And that for many inconveniences In successive Parliaments the Country have every time power to chuse a new and 't is not often though sometimes seen that one man is chosen in many successive Parliaments which variation is necessary for several Reasons Sometimes because they would ehuse persons aptly qualified in parts or Affections or both to the Matters of State then in agitation Sometimes they elect persons having interests by their own greatnesse or alliance to procure some particular businesse of Consequence effected for the County or Corporation for which they serve So that to endeavour a perpetual Parliament would prejudice the people 's repeated election which is not to be allowed Besides this inconvenience would follow a perpetual Parliament that the persons chosen may be altered in Body Mind or Morals and so unfit for that service yet their authority would be continued For a Knight Citizen or Burgesse can make no proxie and Sicknesse c. is no cause of Removal And further if those persons should grow old in that power they would engrosse the offices of the kingdom into their own hands and by great means and friends and privilges overtop their Countrymen and make them meer Under-woods And if it be proved that this Act doth not establish this Long Parliament in an absolute perpetuity Then it is to be considered what is the time of their duration within the meaning of this Act for if it be construed that they have a continuance till they dissolve themselves without restraining their continuance to the time of the performance of those ends for which the said Act was made This is potentially a perpetuity and cannot be abridged but by 〈◊〉 own wills which would never militate as he phrases it against their own advantages So that then this exposition labours under the same Absurdities and Inconveniences with the former and therefore not to be supposed Therefore I conceive the most natural and genuine interpretation of this Act is to make the drift and purpose of this Act the limits of its continuance and this drift is the payment of the said debts And seeing by the rules of the Common Law which may be confirmed by Reason when an indefinite time is given for the performance of a voluntary Act possible to a third person the Act ought to be done within convenient time hence I infer that if the publique debts which were the end of the making of this Act be not satisfied by the Long Parliament yet because they have had time and power more than sufficient between the making of that Act and the Kings death to have raised and paid them off and did actually levy monies amounting to a far greater sum which were otherwise imployed The Gentlemen of that Parliament ought not to take advantage of their own neglect but having surpassed the time which by Law and Reason was sufficient to accomplish those ends they lost the advantage they gained by that Statute the Kings Prerogative and the ordinary course of Dissolution relapsed into its old Chanel and consequently the said Parliament was by the Kings death actually dissolved And so much is argued by way of Admission That the Act of 17 Car. did provide against all the Causes of Dissolution but not granting it for I doubt not but I shall prove the contrary afterwards in this Discourse But now we must hasten to the body of the Act His second Argument is drawn from the body of the Act the words whereof are these viz. That this Parliament be not dissolved unless by Act of Parliament to be passed for that purpose Whence he concludes that this negative Clause is exclusive of all the causes of Dissolution which I deny But before I give my reasons I shall observe That seeing this Act is derogatory in a matter of the highest nature to the Law and Custome of Parliament but especially to the Kings Prerogative which the Law supports and cherishes as a ballance to the two other Estates to preserve the perfect Crasis and equal Temper of the Politick Government The general words therof shall be expounded strictly in reference to the thing altered and beneficially as to the reviviscency of the Law and Custome of Parliament and of the Kings Prerogative which in obedience to some necessity was for a time laid afleep and suspended for 't is a rule that bonum necessarium extra terminos necessitatis non est bonum This being premised I doubt not but I shall give a full Answer to the Authors second Argument And therefore I make a Question whether an Act of Parliament by express and apposite words which is stronger than our Case can continue their own being after the death of the King in whose life it was summoned First because that after the death of the King if they be a Parliament they are either such by the Common law and custom of Parliament which is a principal and fundamental part of the Common law of the Land or by the special Statute so by both they cannot be a Parliament But they are not be a Parliament by either of those two wayes for the reasons hereafter alledged Not by the Common law and custom of Parliaments because as the learned Mr. Prynne hath proved in his said booke and the Author agreeth it and 't is not doubted by any man that hath any understanding in the Law That Parliament as it was a Parliament by the Common law naturally determined by the demise or death of the King Nor are they a Parliament by the especial Statute because then it would be another thing distinct from that Parliament which was summoned in the Kings life to which the power of Representation which was conferred upon the Members thereof by the people in their Election cannot extend for the Country being enabled to choose them by the Kings writ the persons elected received no power from them but according to the tenour of the Kings writ which determining with the Kings life the power of representing the people wbich they received at their Election was then likewise determined and by consequence they were no longer the peoples Representatives and therefore no Parliament Or to expresse it in plainer terms If they be a Parliament after the Kings death by the force of their own Act as I have proved they must be if they be a Parliament Then it would follow that a Parliament by their

his death And to the Authors application that a Parliament may be such though the Kings person be utterly withdrawn because his politick capacity lives and is present with them This is an out-worn and thredbare Distinction which the common story of the Knights being perjured in his politick and going to Hell in his natural Capacity sufficiently confutes For the politick capacity is a second Notion and cannot subsist but in the natural To which it is so strictly united that it is inseperable otherwise than by our understanding which cannot alter the nature of any thing The Murthering of his late Majesty as it was Treason was an offence against his politick capacity as he was a King though that horrid and shamelesse Butchery was committed against his natural person as he was a Man But that saying that the King is a part of the Parliament must be cautiously understood because a mistake in it hath been a great cause or pretence of all our late Civil Wars For hence some would infer a Coordination of power in the Parliament which cannot I conceive be made good by Reason or the Laws of this Nation For the King hath undoubted power to call and dissolve Parliaments which are properties inconsistent with a coordinate power The Stile of all Acts anciently was by way of Petition that it may be enacted which doth not smell of co-ordinate authority and the Act of 17 Car. was in like form The Members cannot consent upon condition which shewes that the binding power of an Act as it is a Law doth not passe from them for cujus est dare ejus est modificare but only a bare assent which is necessary to perfect the Act of another as in Atturnments The Members during the Continuance of Parliament may be committed and be punished for Treason which could not be if they were in a Coordination with the King And the Writs of Summons under favour notwithstanding my Lord Cooks marginal notes do confirm this assertion I shall conclude with the Testimony of the learned Grotius Jure Belli in these words Multum falluntur qui existimant cum Reges act a sua nolunt esse rata nisi a Senatu aut alio Coetu aliquo probentur partitionem fieri potestatis nam quae acta eum in modum rescinduntur intelligi debent rescindi Regis ipsius imperio qui eo modo sibi cavere voluit ne quid fallaciter impetratum pro vera ipsius voluntate haberetur And yet t is most true that in our Legal Monarchy the King cannot make or alter any Law without the assent of his Peers and Commons in Parliament So that upon the whole it appears That the King is so a part as he is the head of the Parliament and Nation and though it be true that totum est dignius sua parte yet the head must be a part of this totum or else that Maxime is untrue and fallacious To Mr. Pryns fifth Objection he chops in again the distinction of the Kings politick and natural capacity which my former confutation hath rendred toothlesse But he sayes the dissolution of the Parliament by the Kings death might prove dangerous and pernicious to the Kingdom I answer he that intends to be believed must not affirm things in general terms which do nihil ponere and to which no certain answer can be given Again 't is presumption in the Author to think himself wiser then all the ages that liv'd before him who finding no inconvenience have derived the custom down to our times and 't is a known good Rule Oportet neminem esse sapientiorem Legibus To his answer to the sixth Objection affirming That the Parliament was not dissolved by the Act passed lately upon the Admission of the Secluded Members for their dissolution because it was but an Act of the House of Commons only which is no Act of Parliament I answer that it is most true That it was no Act of Parliament according to Law But by the Authors favour those very men that were the greatest part of the Commons of the Long Parliament then living ought not themselves nor their advocate to say that they were no Parliament for they imposed an Assessement upon the Nation and stiled their Instruments Acts of a Parliament so that those men shall never in reason averre any thing in disability of their own Acts though they were otherwise not agreeing with the rules of Parliamentary proceedings Besides that Act at least amounts to a Declaration of their Judgement that they were dissolved and it was true for they were long before dissolved by the Kings death To his answer to the seventh Objection That this Act 17 Car. is not void although the Bishops who were outed before this Act passed did not assent to it I shall say obiter That 't is the hope of the greatest part of the Learned Loyal and Moderate party of this Nation that this present Parliament if the necessity of other more important affairs would permit or some other Parliament will out of their zeal to Common Justice and the honour and safety of the Kingdom take the Case of the Reverend Bishops into consideration and restore unto them their ancient honours and privileges of sitting in the House of Peers Their undoubted and very ancient right and the necessity of their Re-establishment in order to the preservation of the ancient policy of this Nation for the better support of the Royal Authority for the ballancing of the other two Estates for the benefit of the Clergy of this Nation who have no Representatives in Parliament for the preservation of the rights and privileges of the Church and for the better establishment of the integrity of Orthodox Religion being strong and important advocates for their so just Restitution After which short digression I answer That if an Act of Parliament that divests so many Members of the same Parliament of their rightfull and ancient privileges and lawfull inheritance without any crime committed or alleged or without being called to answer in any judicial way of proceeding be good and valid then the Authors position is true and not to be denyed But if such an Act be against natural justice and equity and against the law and custom of Parliament for I shall desire the liberty to be sceptical in this particular then on the otherside it will appear that the Bishops were excluded against their Wills and they being so great a part of the House of Peers that their voices if they had been present might by joyning with other Lords of the same opinion have carried the Act of 17 Caroli in the Negative It follows that the Seclusion of the Bishops rendred that Act and all other Acts made after their Seclusion void and of none effect And this case of the Bishops hath no similitude with the point in Mr. Bagshaws reading lately printed because there the Bishops are supposed voluntarily to absent themselves

own Act may only create another Parliament to exist after they themselves so constituted are dissolved and the consequence of this would be that the people should be bound by the Laws of that other Parliament to which the people never consented being made by persons that were not chosen by them to be their immediate Representatives which is absurd There is nothing materially to be objected to this in my opinion but that the people are parties by representation to the Act that constituted the second Parlrament and so the second Parliament might sit by their mediate though not by their immediate choyce and election To which I answer That the power that the people gave to their Representatives at their Election was limited and confined to their persons in that quality and is not transferrible either to other persons or to themselves in another quality because all Authorities are confidences in the persons authorized to some certain end and therefore are personally and strictly taken and cannot be communicated to others or themselves in another manner than they were at first given As for ample If I submit my self to the arbitration of a Stranger to stand and fall by his judgement and decree though I am bound to stand to his sentence yet if he transfer over the power I gave him to another I am not obliged by the award of the 3d person So if there be Arbitrators which are limited to make their arbitration during the life of a third man If they award within that time that what award they themselves shall make after the death of the third person shall be good and binding to the parties concerned Such award would be voyd because they are not arbitrators after the death of the third person by the choyce and submission of the parties concerned but by their own award which was beyond the intention of the parties that gave them power and if they could hand over their authority beyond the date of the first limitation of its continuance they might do the same thing infinitely which is absurd and inconvenient and against the nature of an Authoritie Secondly I conceive it will be a hard a matter for the Author to prove that a Parliament hath a legal power ordinarily as a Parliament to alter the Fundamental laws which are so concorporate with the essence of Government that one cannot subsist and be the same without the other unlesse it be in a case of great invincible necessity which dispences with the punctilio's of all Laws or by the peoples consent specially signified and the implyed consent by their ordinary Election shall not be suffiicient And 't is not a general sentence cited by the Author out of the 3d Institutes will evince the contrary Which position I prove First because the Author might have found in his beloved third Institutes That it is the course for the Members of Parliament to desire leave to consult with their Counties before they consent to any new Law of extraordinary and important alteration Secondly it being the Root and foundation of all the Liberties of the Subject not to be bound by any new Law to which they are not parties by their imdiate Representatives and to make successive Elections It will not be reasonably intended That the people did intrust them with their authority to those ends viz. to change the Government or to deprive them of their fundamental privileges as I have before shewed is done by this Act according to the Authors interpretation Thirdly the Lawes of England are of two sorts either they concern the being or the well-being of the Policy of this Nation Those of the last kinde are the proper work and object of Parliamentarie power these may be enacted repealed revived corrected expounded and as to them a Parliament hath unlimited jurisdiction as by the particular examples cited by my Lord Cooke appears But those Lawes that concern the Being of the Kingdom as 't is a Government are inalterable except in the special cases of Necessity or the peoples special Consent Because first those first and fundamental Lawes are the foundation and the Measure of the usefulnesse or disadvantage of all the other Lawes which are collateral to the Essence of Government All Lawes being fitted to the nature of Government as a garment is shaped to the body and therefore those Laws ought to be as Standards to support and regulate all the rest Secondly because an Error in such alteration would be fatal and next door to an Impossibility to be redressed If the Walls or the Roof of a building be altered there is no great danger but to move a stone in the foundatiō threatens the whole structure with a certain downfall I may say of it as my Lord Burleigh to his Son in another case To attempt a change in the essentials of Government is like a Stratagem in War wherein to faile once is to be undone for ever And that the limits of the natural duration of a Parliament is part of the Fundamental Laws of this Nation is so clear and common a Truth that it needs no further proof Fourthly every Statute hath the formality of a Law by the Law and Custom of Parliament because a Constitution agreed on by persons chosen by the people with the Royal Assent without the material Circumstances required by the Law and Custom of Parliament is ordinarily no binding Law which proves that the Law and Custom of Parliament gives the essence formality of every possitive Law as t is a Law and therefore it cannot be altered in the substantial part of it except in the cases before excepted For all the power and force which a Statute hath to command obedience as it is a Law being derived from the Law and Custom of Parliament if this Law might be altered by a Statute it would then follow That the force and effect of one and the same Law could be bent against it self and have an efficiency to its own destruction which is repugnant and unnatural and not to be imagined And for a further proof of the premisses I do affirm That there be several things which a Parliament cannot do by their Act de jure though de facto sometime it be done as to make a Law that a man shall be Judge in his own cause or any other thing which is against natural equity the Act is void quia jura naturae sunt immutabilia So if an Act be made to Condemn and Attaint a man of Treason without hearing him in the way of a legal Tryal although my Lord Cook saith that the attainder standeth of force because there is no higher Court to controul it yet he addeth this clause to shew it is not good de jure viz. Auferat oblivio si potest si non utcunque silentium tegat for saith he the more High and Honourable the Jurisdiction of the Court is the more Just and Honourable ought they to be in