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
Summons was never question'd nor could the Prorogation have been at all disputed but that the Faction would be so bold and mischievous as to do it and with how slight a colour of Reason you have already seen in these past Discourses And now their last Clamour is that the House of Peers hath condemned the four Lords to Prison for presuming to argue a Nullity of the Parliament And what follows The Dissolver told us in his Pamphlet that a New Parliament is to come that shall call this to account and leave a new precedent to the world That one Parliament may hang another And who knows but that this sort of Pen-men with their Patrons are continually of Counsel with the desperate FACTION The rest of this Writers Pamphlet contains nothing but a partial Relation of Circumstances and Ceremonies which passed in calling the Four Lords to the Bar and about the manner of their Commitment and then he closeth all with a few odious Reflections upon the Lords both Spiritual and Temporal and the House of Commons which here follow NARRATOR He next proceeds in a jeering manner to mention a new Triple League but who are they that are this Triple League He names Bishops Court-Lords and Popish Lords who had already broken through the ancient Rules and Practice of Parliament and all the Laws of England and now would go according to the new Court-word thorow-stitch The rest of the Lords he calls Allies of the Triple League who joyned in the Commitment ANIMADVERSION What a Petition in one hand and at the same time a Poniard in the other Must it be so carried a Petition to the King and the same time a Stab given to his Ministers great Officers Bishops and all the rest of the Nobility of the House of Peers that concurred with them to preserve the Government I would be loth to call the Four Lords and those few that concurred with them on the other side the Allies of the FACTION A New Triple League nor will I let other men think what they please This Jeer sounds like the Witticism of one of them that uses to take care to print all his witty Sayings and Jests as fast as he speaks them especially those against the Court and the Bishops and Ministers of State whom he always dresses with this kinde of Flowers to be offer'd in Sacrifice to his own New Parliament as the old Heathen Sacrificers were wont to dress their Beasts to be offer'd up to their Idols therefore if the word Thorow-stitch were the Word at Court what would become of him and his Triple League if this old Parliament should proceed as roundly as his intended New one would do if we believe the DISSOLVER Then for the Bishops in particular he proceeds thus NARRATOR He saith Vnder pretence of securing the Protestant Religion by Act of Parliament one of the designes of the Triple League is To declare it lawful for our Kings to be Papists As is done in a Bill lately sent down to the Commons from the Lords and I do not hear of any one Bishop but agreed to it ANIMADVERSION This is a Fire-ball with a witness made up of the most dangerous but falsest Ingredients why then should I be long in extinguishing it For the Bishops of England and their Doctrine Discipline and Government will be found the surest Fence against the coming in of Popery as well as against the Invasion of the FACTION and the Slavery of their Discipline Can a greater Provocation be given to the House of Peers and the Bishops The Forming of this Bill was committed to such a Committee of Lords and Bishops that all our world knows them to be Noble and true and as firm as a Rock against the Roman Religion and they took the greatest care that men in prudence possibly could do to secure us from it at present and in future And whatsoever the father of lyes may invent and the FACTION spread abroad to the contrary to exasperate and increase their own Party more could hardly be invented for our Religion's security Sure I am it was thought so by the Papists themselves and to be so severe that they dreaded nothing more than the Consequence of its passing both Houses insomuch that some Lords of that Religion opposed it what they could and spared not to say that after this they expected nothing but Fire and Fagot NARRATOR And that the House of Commons may have their share too of damnable Scandal he lets fly at them without mercy and thus he concludes that they are most of them either French or Court-pensioners Indigent or Out-law'd persons Children Fools or such as are superannuated persons ANIMADVERSION But why French Pensioners c. How then came the Major part to be for an Alliance with the Dutch as appeared by the late Votes and the Address thereupon to his Majesty May not then the other side with as much reason from thence make the like ungentile and unchristian Conclusion that there are Dutch Pensioners too 'T is a miserable pass the world is come to when men shall take up Scandals from Malice Phant'sie or Jealousie to dart at one another and at this rate there can be no end till we have railed our selves round before the eyes of all the Nations of the world and painted out our selves with the vilest Characters to become a subject for their Scorn and Derision It were again to scandalize those worthy Members of the Commons that he aims at for any man to undertake to vindicate them against the foul Imputations of a mad unconscionable sort of desperate Boutefeus 'T is to be hoped the Lords and Gentlemen of both Houses will take heed of these Spirits and by the severest ANIMADVERSIONS of Authority and Justice make their own Vindication FINIS
nowhere in our Chronicle can finde a Rebelling against payment of Taxes but it always ended in Hanging the Jack Cades the Wat Tylers and Captain Mendals with all the like Predecessors of this Leading Dissolver But not a word of the Pudding He is so tender of the People that he will not fright 'em his Business being to draw in as many and as fast as he can Mutiny mutiny my dear Country-men said a Rebel in a Stage-play or else I shall be hang'd c. So there is an End of the DISSOLVER and his Threatnings The next Seditious Pamphlet that came abroad appeared with the Title of A Seasonable Question and an Vseful Answer c. I have view'd this Author very well but after a strict impartial Search of him all over I finde that as to matter of Law he writes little yea nothing at all but what hath been said in other words by the two foregoing Writers yet because he hath interwoven many subtil insinuations under pretence of Law and many Scandalous Additions I am constrained to take him also in pieces and more effectually dissolve him than he can the Parliament the designe of this Pamphleter being the same with his fellows And I am the more willing to tire my self out at this Work that His Majesties good Subjects may be throughly informed of all that the Faction is able to alledge against the Legal existence and duration of this present Parliament and then the better judge of the unreasonableness of these mens Suggestions which they scatter all over the Land to impoison the mindes of men and prepare them for the old pious work of Rebelling after the mode of FORTY ONE For as it was in the days of Solomon so all the Designes they are now upon do well agree with the Text There is nothing new under the sun You shall see the old Game of Covenanting Sequestring Slaughtering Plundering Committees increase of Taxes with all the shapes of Metamorphosis in Governments and miseries Acted over again if these men may prevail They are likely to give us nothing New but a New Parliament and that shall be a Swinger as the DISSOLVER hath promised us and told us he hath taken care for the New Elections so that the House shall appear New in its Out-side but in its In-side as like the Old one as one Nut is like another Here perhaps some captious man of malice may be willing to mistake me as if I did declaim against New Parliaments But that I may prevent those that lie at Catch let them know I plead not against them but the having of any other Parliament brought on by Factious Clamours and Outcries in Print or otherwise till this Parliament hath finish'd the Work now in their hands for Setling the Nation with sure Laws and Provisions against Renting and Tearing of it by manifold Factions But to proceed This Book which I am now to Dissect is grounded upon mere Fiction It supposeth a Letter from a person newly chosen to sit a Member of this Parliament one that before he would make so great a Journey to London desires a Friend of his a Bencher of the Temple because there hath been a great noise in the Country that by Law Parliaments are to be held once a yeer and that whereas this Parliament was Prorogued to three months above the term of a year the Prorogation being thereby illegal the Parliament must needs be null and in Law Dissolved And therefore he would be loth to come up two hundred miles to put his neck in a Noose by sitting here as a Member unless his friend the Bencher would satisfie him of the truth of the matter and advise him to come This is the sum of the Question and the Fable is so laid forsooth that the pretended Bencher undertakes to give him his Resolution upon the Point BENCHER This is a Question of the greatest moment that ever was moved in England viz. Whether this Parliament be actually Dissolved by the last Prorogation for fifteen months He that will answer it ought first to consider whether a Prorogation ordered and continued beyond a year can be made to agree with our Laws and the Statutes of the Realm particularly those two Statutes of Edward the third which were re-inforced by that Act of the sixteenth Caroli primi which was repealed by the Act of the sixteenth Caroli secundi wherein this Parliament acknowledged those Statutes of Edw. 3. to be still the Laws and Statutes of the Realm and they in this Act enacted no Clause that abates their force ANIMADVERSION It is indeed a Question of the greatest and withal of the slightest moment that ever was in England slight in the nature of it but greatest in the Consequence and I will shew you how That in its nature 't is but slight and idle appears most abundantly by what I have already given you in the former part of these Animadversions To which give me leave to adde also that it had never been brought under Question if one man in a corner had not failed in all other Tricks to bring about an untimely Dissolution of the Parliament For as soon as ever he was lifted out of the Court the former PACQVET shew'd how bravely he plaid his Game in Parliament by imbarquing both Houses in Disputes about Priviledges which raised so many Broils to hinder them from dispatch of Business that all good endeavours were made vain the Parliament it self became a while useless to the King and unable to do any thing to relieve the pressing Necessities of the Kingdom that so by tiring out the patience and expectations of Prince and people there might have follow'd a willingness on all sides to admit of an Argument for this Parliaments Dissolution and the calling of his Plotted New one But the effect of these his Artificial Contrivances having been prevented by the Wisdom of His Majestie and His Two Houses then he had recourse to this last Device of picking a Hole if possible in this point of the Prorogation which with the assistance of a few Disaffected Lawyers and others was presently done by false Expositions and Glosses upon old Statutes and from hence sprang the Original of this frivolous Question about the legality of this Parliament's longer Sitting which they with more Impudence than Conscience determine in the Negative as hath been manifested unto you so that whoever shall concur with them must obstinately offer violence to his own Reason and all the known Rules of Argument if after due Consideration he shall adhere to their Opinion Moreover though the Question in it self be but slight yet as to the Consequence I agree it may be of exceeding moment as the Devisers thereof intended it For they meant to delude the people into a misunderstanding of the Laws a Jealousie of their Liberties and a disposition to Tumults to the hazard of their Peace their Lives and Fortunes by new Commotions Their Designe is by raising the dust about this