the King 's Dispensing with them cannot take place with any man that considers the First of those two Statutes viz. That a Parliament shall be holden every yeer once OR more often if need be by which words the King is left onely Judge of the need of a Parliament oftner than once a yeer But whether the King see need or no he is absolutely and peremptorily bound to hold a Parliament once a yeer ANIMADVERSION This sort of men are always up with a great Noise about Property Right and Liberty of the People because most men are wont to be taken with the mention of those matters wherein their Good and well-being is concerned and the Projecting Faction would be supposed to be the onely Advocates for them but alas this is the Faction's old main Engine to catch Proselytes among the injudicious part of the World which are always much the major Part of Mankinde who in the mean time are not able to judge whether Discourses be made rationally or not till the Sophisms or Cheats of such Crafty Writers be discovered And verily I believe this Penman himself if he had pleased might have saved me the labour of discovery for he writes more like a Lawyer than any of his Fellows And therefore he could have told you that the Law of England is as careful for the Prerogative of the King as it is for the Liberty of the Subject and whereas the Government of England hath in all Times even from utmost Antiquity been for a Monarchy the Laws have not left it destitute of Powers to preserve it Self in that Condition and the People ought to be as zealous for the Conservation of it by maintaining the Rights of the Crown as they are for their own because those also were Ordained for Publike good and are as necessary as the other and accordingly the eye of the Law hath been as tender of them as of the other because our Ancestors in framing the Constitution of this Kingdom conceived the end of Government which is Peace publike Convenience and Safety could not well be attained without it Therefore that in this the wisdom of the Law was great of old and ought greatly to be admired is most evident because by late Experience we have found since 1641 that in pulling the Feathers of Monarchy the People did put none in their own Caps but what made them look like Bedlams and become really such by running at last into Anarchy mere Confusion It were endless to bring in here a citation of manifold Provisions made by Law to preserve the Prerogative for they are known to all men that have studied the Law and to most men that have not And therefore in making Interpretations of Law about Government we are when we write to carry an even hand betwixt what is Right for the King and what is Right for the Subject and not draw Conclusions on one side out of literal Expressions and particular Sentences but rather to derive them from the general Sence and Scope of all our Laws on both sides compared one with another and so should this Considerator and his Fellows have done if they had honest Intentions Next as to what he saith of the Peoples Rights and Liberties being bound up in Annual Parliaments 't is so ridiculous that his Masters of the Faction in 1641 would not understand it so They before all things proclaimed to the World that the onely way to preserve the Rights and Liberties was to have a Parliament of length sufficient to sit and dispatch the Publike affairs that is to say they who pretended themselves to be the great Patrons of the Peoples Rights were so far from thinking those Rights were bound up in yeerly Parliaments that they would not be satisfied till they had an Act passed to impower them to sit as many yeers as they pleased which they never could with any face have demanded if the opinion of Lawyers or of the People of that time had been that all our Rights had been so bound up in those two Statutes that to part with yeerly Parliaments had been to part with our Rights and Liberties For it would then have savoured of too rank Hypocrisie before the Multitude and have raised their Jealousie against them had they imagined or should any body have told them that their Rights and Liberties were at Stake by such proceeding of their Patrons Moreover consider this present Parliament's proceeding in those days when but few men offer'd to finde fault with them For when in the Sixteenth yeer of His now Majestie they passed that Act to prevent long intermission of Parliaments it is plain that they were of another opinion than the Considerator and his Fellows For the words and scope of the Act shew they were exceeding tender of our Rights and Liberties yet determined the time of Parliamentary Meetings to once in three yeers which 't is reason to believe they never would have done if they had not understood our Rights and Liberties would have been better provided for by their Triennial than by yeerly Meetings But now adays it is a small matter with our Factious Leguleian Scriblers to form up Opinions upon forged Interpretations of Law and prefer them before the Opinions of whole Parliamentary Bodies whose Wisdom ought to be reverenced as and as it is the Wisdom of the whole Nation In the next place consider how slily the Considerator shuffles in his transcribing one of the two controverted Statutes The first saith a Parliament shall be holden every yeer once AND oftner if need be but he writes OR oftner if need be in stead of AND. It is not out of any inclination I have to Pedantick Niceties or that I think it becomes any man to mingle Points of Philologie with discourse about matters of Politie that I now begin to play the Grammaticaster but when I perceive there is a crafty purpose in altering such a small Particle when one is placed in a sentence in stead of the other I suppose it becomes me not to neglect it especially when it perverts the whole meaning of a Law I dare appeal to the Ferula of Dr. Busby the Prince of Grammarians whether there be not a material difference in signification betwixt AND and OR the former being a Copulative the later a Disjunctive Now the present Dispute betwixt the Considerator and me being this Whether the words IF NEED BE do refer onely to the later part of the Sentence or to the whole Sentence as he a few lines after expresseth and would have those words to refer to the later part onely and therefore would by foisting in the Conjunction Disjunctive OR in stead of the Conjunction Copulative AND dis-joyn the said words IF NEED BE from the first part of the Sentence give me leave to say that he hereby would put upon us a most partial Artifice of Delusion and mere Juggle for by the word OR there may be some colour for his Construction of the Law that
Question to put it in your eyes that you may not discern Right from Wrong Their Business is to get themselves by the help of a Popular Vproar into a Governing posture and to this end they compass Sea and Land to make Proselytes to carry on a general Crucifixion of the present Governours Cares and Sorrows that is a Crown of Thorns they prepare for the head of the King Scandals for his Ministers a Level for the Nobility a Pitfal for the Bishops a Yoke for the Gentry and a Fools Coat for all the Commons that they can seduce into their Party in which they have leisure to repent and once more pay Taxes to fellow-Subjects who as ye may remember do know how to ride you being ready Booted and Spurr'd if you please once more to set them on horseback till you sigh and confess what a Poet said of old Nec enim Libert as gratior extat Quà m Domino servire bono As for the two Statutes of Edward the third you know I have granted that the Triennial Act of Charles the second doth not at all infringe their force and I have told you I wish they may for ever stand to preserve the Right of the King in calling frequent Parliaments when he judgeth them necessary as well as to maintain the Rights of the People in having them BENCHER He talks next of a Statute made in Richard the second 's Reign That Parliaments be held yeerly to redress delays in Suits and to end such Cases as the Judges doubt Also that in the Ninth of Richard the second the Duke of Gloucester told the King That one old Statute and laudable Custom is approved that the King once a yeer do summon his high Court of Parliament as you may read in Grafton ANIMADVERSION First you have onely Grafton's word that the Duke of Gloucester said so And suppose the Duke did say so you have onely the Duke's saying for it and he doth not name the time of that old Statute's making for no such Statute was in being till the time of Richard's Grandfather viz. King Edward the third and then that short succession of time from him could not make any such Statute an old one But I grant there had been an ancient Custom of yeerly Parliaments till at length the people grew weary of it which no doubt was the reason why the House of Commons in Edward the third's time agreed to pass those Statutes not to have them so frequent unless the King should see need For this sence is clearly implied in the very words of the first of the two Statutes as I have shewn before Besides I once again assure you No such Statute is to be found that saith any thing about the matter in the times elder than Edward onely there had been a Custom which the people held as laudable till they saw reason to alter it in that King Edward's days As for yeerly Parliaments to redress delays in Suits of Law and end difficult Cases there is no such Statute which he mentions to be found nor is it likely that the Commons should be called to such kinde of work of determining such Suits they having never had jurisdiction so to do Nor could it have been a Parliament after the manner of the Parliamentary Constitution then in being if the Lords had assembled alone to end Suits Therefore it is in no wise likely that there ever was any Intention to make such a Statute about the Calling of Parliaments yeerly to end such Law-suits Nor are such difficult Suits as pass the skill of the Judges or so many of them happening constantly in a yeers time as to need a Parliament to end them BENCHER The ancient Britains as Dunwallo writes held Annual Parliaments four hundred yeers before Christ and the Mirrour of Justice saith King Alfred ordained parliaments twice in the yeer or oftner and William the Conqueror did the like ANIMADVERSION Here learned Mr. Bencher shews his Reading So the old Britains went naked before Christ's time and many odd fashions came up in the times of the Saxons the Danes and Normans both in Cloaths and Government Doth this oblige us to the like now To what end then is this old thred-bare stuff brought hither to stuff his Pamphlet I have granted over and over that Parliaments of old were so frequent as he saith but I suppose it would do the people of England little service to tell them what a sort of Parliaments they were and how composed of Lords Spiritual and Temporal c. I suppose we should be loth to have such Parliaments now And yet according to Mr. Bencher's learned way of Arguing if we be obliged to one Circumstance of Example we are also as much bound to observe the other If to the timing of Parliaments as of old then also to the form and manner of them But Time and Law having provided better things for the people his Worship's way of arguing Us into old Fashions again is as pertinent as if he would prove John a Nokes should be bound to make all good that was devised by his sixteen hundred and tenth great-great-great-Grandfather whose name was John-a-Stiles if the Writings of the Devise were to be found in Dunwallo BENCHER I must tell you there are those that affirm the Laws for Annual Parliaments to be Musty obsolete Statutes whose strength and life are devoured by Time But it is enough to stop their mouthes that they have been Declared by two Parliaments within forty yeers last past to be the Laws of our Realm ANIMADVERSION Who are they that are so weak-headed as to say they are Musty and Obsolete Neither his Majestie nor his Parliament will give 'em thanks for saying so nor doth the Prorogation need such an Allegation to maintain it good I have sufficiently shewn that the sence of the two Statutes if entirely taken makes fully for the Right of the King to judge whether Parliaments Annually be needful or not and that within Forty yeers time two Parliaments have confirm'd their Frequencie and so frequent as every yeer or oftner if his Majestie see Occasion shall require their Assembling so often Therefore he hath much more reason to defend them than the Faction hath to make such ado about them unless they could get more Credit to their own Cause by a Rational Construction of them BENCHER My Lord Coke saith Instit part 1. page 81. That no Act of Parliament can lose its force or be antiquated by Non-user unless the Reason of it fail and by change of time it become a publike Mischief c. ANIMADVERSION It seems the Reason for having constant yeerly Parliaments did fail in Edward the Third's time or else his Parliament had never devised those two Statutes and put in the words IF NEED BE so far to change the ancient Custom of their frequencie as not to hold them so often unless Need require and of that Necessity who can be a Judge but the King whom our Laws have
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