A Second Packet OF ADVICES AND ANIMADVERSIONS Sent to the men of SHAFTSBURY.  
OCCASIONED By several Seditious PAMPHLETS Spread abroad to pervert the People, since the publication of the former Packet.  PLUTARCH. Inest omni Populo malignum quid, & querulum in Imperantes. 
Printed at London, and are to be sold by JONATHAN EDWIN, at the Three Roses in Ludgate-street. 1677.   

A SECOND PACKET OF ADVICES & ANIMADVERSIONS Sent to the men of SHAFTSBURY.  
London, May 7. 1677. SIRS,  
WE are here in a New world, a world of Quiet, as you say you are in the Country; and 'tis come about we know not how, unless it be that God, in kindness to these Kingdoms, and this City, was pleased to furnish his Majesty, and his Ministers, and his Parliament, with Wisdom extraordinary, to divert a Design that had been long a brewing, by some persons both in and out of Parliament; in the first place to embroil the Parliament within itself; and then, as the natural Consequence of that, the three Kingdoms also inevitably in another Civil War. I know every particular man of them will be ready to say to me, as Hazael did to the Prophet, Is thy servant a dog, that he should do such things? that he should design, in doing what he did, to bring on a Civil War? But let the Philosopher answer him with an old Axiom, Qui vult Media ad Finem, vult etiam & ipsum Finem, He who willeth the Means tending to the End, willeth also the End itself.  
If any one of the Projectors did such things, as have been observed, in all times, to induce a War, then without question that person meant the bringing on of a War, if he could not otherwise bring about his own Ends: and 'tis easy to believe also, that he drew in as many as he could to accomplish those Ends. If the same Opinions and Principles that brought on the First War, be now again abroach, have we not cause to believe they meant, or may mean a Second? If the same Faction be at work again that contrived the First War, and they as severe with the King as they were with his Father in disputing his Royalty; seminating Fears and Jealousies among the People, and new trimming the old Bridle and Saddle of Presbytery, to run down the Bishops, circumcise the Crown, set Christ in the Throne (as they ever most Hypocritically pretended, to the shame of Christianity) thereby to ride King and Lords, and out-rant the Kingdom: If these things were designed and transacted, the Party formed and ready instructed by Pamphlets spread in City and Country, and their hearts full of hope before the Session of Parliament in February last to have accomplished their work, shall we yet doubt of their Intent because they did not effect it? There is reason enough to inform our understanding, That they gave us the Premises, though they could not the Conclusion.  
If it be objected, that abundance of the engaged men, and most of those that seemed to favour the Faction, were never known to be affected for Presbytery, nor meant they any such thing: To this I answer, 'tis no matter whether they did affect and mean it, or no; we know what they must have done at last: For, if they once be drawn in to vote and act along with a Party, whose business hath been by Prints and otherwise, to cry down the National Church-Government of Bishops, they must of necessity, after they come to be throughly engaged, run along with them to overthrow it, and erect the other in its room; they two, viz. Episcopacy and Presbytery, being in the Protestant Churches the only Competitors for the National Form: and as long as our Nation is, and is ever like to be, for the having of some such Form, if the prime Leaders and Projectors lead you by the nose to the driving out the one Form, they are not such shallow Politicians, as not to understand that you, as well as they, will, of course, be necessitated to set up the other: And your Leaders also themselves, though perhaps they care for no Form nor Church, yet if they will hold the ground they may hap to get by your help; towards their own greatness and advantage, will be under the same necessity of setting it up, though they really never liked it, nor intended it before: yea, 'tis not improbable they may hap to come unto such a pass as to think well of the old Form again, after they by ruining it have obtained their own ambitious ends, provided it may serve them better than any other Form, towards the maintaining of them.  
A most pregnant Instance of such a probability we have in the late Game played by Cromwell; who was one of the first for pulling down Bishops, and effected it; and though he set up no Form Ecclesiastic in their stead, as long as he could carry on his Greatness without it; yet after he had gained his Protectorship, he began to think of such a Form to please the Nation; which not being to be done by an absolute Presbyterial One, it being under an equal abhorrence both amongst Royalists and Independents, I have been told, he cast about another way to accommodate the matter; and that having but one step higher to make, he meant, that once done, to have taken up a Church-form as like the Episcopal as might be, by mincing a Medley of Bishop and Presbyter together; so that after all, we should have had Bishops again; only they were to have had a new Name, Superintendents, as they are called in some other Reformed Churches: that is, in plain English, a Chairman to a Committee of Presbyters; that is to say, a Bishop in Shackles; and consequently, a Monarch in Bonds, under the Argier-Presbyterian Discipline.  (Sic idem jungat Vulpes, & mulgeat Hircos.) 
Which had he lived to effect, he would have gained as much by it, as he that designs the milking of He-goats, and going to blow with Foxes. For though his device might have served to please the ambition of some of his Committee of Clergie-Triers which then sat in Whitehal, by translating them to the Dignity of new-fashioned Bishops; yet it could never have agreed long with his own high Constitution, to have born such a Clog upon Government: So that he and they, after a little experience, would easily have agreed to part Stakes; the one to resume the old Name and Power of Bishop, the other of King; and so to have left all the Factions in the lurch, (so said my Author) as the likeliest way to have pleased the People, and themselves too. And it may very well serve to instruct our little world concerning the fair Issue of a foul Civil War; and teach them what may be expected from another, if ever we should be so fond as to believe our new Patriots, or be so mad after Change hereafter.  
In the mean while, 'tis very pleasant to look back as far as February, to contemplate the wisdom of the Projectors and their Party, and upon what fine subtle Suppositions they grounded their matchless Confidence.  
They supposed, and that most politicly, That a whole Nation had lost its memory of things past; the Parliament its Loyalty; the Court its Understanding; the King all care of his Crown and his People's Interest; the Clergy their care of the Church; the City their Prudence; the Country their Senses; and that one little Rook had run away with all the wisdom and honesty in the Land; and that downright Treacheries, petty Cunnings, and plain Knaveries, may pass in this Age, to entitle a man to the reputation of Politic Prudence, which ought to be reverenced as a glorious Beam of Divine wisdom, which never shines but in generous and faithful Spirits, and is never to be found but in the Temples of true Honour and Virtue.  
They supposed moreover very cunningly; That Monarchies which used of old to last about Five hundred years, could not live now above Twenty: And that one and the same People might in one and the same Age, be cheated with the same Tricks: And that to bring this about, three Kingdoms, with three or four gay Speeches turned into Printed Paper-kites, might be led in a string as the Boys are by theirs; and that no other Kite of the same Strain could be found to encounter 'em.  
They supposed likewise, That if a Lord or two would but turn Tenants in the City, and drive a Trade of Popularity upon the Old Exchange, their Lordships, being better metal than ordinary Citizens, might be less liable to Breaking: and that they could not choose but thrive, though every Body knew they were going to set up with no better Stock of Interest and Wit, than of those that had broken before 'em.  
They yet more wittily supposed; That whereas our old World was (as they thought) to have been drowned again, all their Creatures, though of different kinds, and enemies to each other, would most tamely and lovingly concur into the New Ark: Also that in the midst of this Flood, the City and Kingdom might be set on fire, provided it were by Parliament-Wildfire; and that then they might ring the Bells backward with a Rope of Sand; and that when the Combustion should be over, they might safely put in execution their pious Project of raising a new Fabric, as good and lasting as the former Republican, with the most elegant mixture of all manner of Sects; every jot as agreeable for building Castles in the air, as lays of Gingerbread and Marble, with untempered Mortar.  
And for a final Crowning of the whole work, they once more supposed; That for carrying on the World again after all this destruction, there might be a coupling of Beasts of Mortal Antipathies, to replenish the Land.  
So much for Drolling with our Politic Drolls; for this kind of Dress very well becomes 'em.  
Now in good earnest for Animadversion: And here I know not which end to begin at, the Subjects are so many: which is strange; for, I thought this kind of work would have been over; that the Faction would have been taken down by the late Correction. But behold incorrigible Malice against the whole Government, and new Attempts in Print, a swarm of Pamphlets, to revive their Design, and seduce the People: Some printed a little before, and one so late as since the time of the Battle of the Prince of Orange.  
You may remember, the business of the first PACKET was to strip the Faction out of all their Fine Pretences and Projects, which were delicately laid for Storming the Government; and the Lines of Circumvallation were drawn in Print, after the Model of their Master-Engineers in FORTY ONE; they began also to make their Approaches after the same manner. They first fell upon the Episcopal Quarter, and to that end they charged their Pamphlets here with all manner of Scandals against the Bishops, and sent them to their Friends in the Country. Next, they fell upon the King's Court, His Favourites, and the chief Officers of State, not sparing the King Himself; and then upon His High Court of Parliament, using all manner of Devices to embroil the two Houses, and so entangle Affairs, that one Session was frustrated after another; so that no Public Business could be dispatched, nor Supplies be had, to answer the most urgent Necessities of the King and Kingdom: by which means the present Parliament was made in a manner useless: and the Word was given out to the Multitude, to make an Outcry for a new One. All which Contrivances are to bear Date from the time of one small Statesman's being turned out of Service, as hath been already sufficiently manifested. He and his Complotters cut out all this work before this last February-Session; others that became troublesome after the Parliament than sat down, were but his Journeymen. For then, seeing he had failed in all the former Inventions, to screw on a New Parliament by breaking the neck of this, some Friends that had been pettifogging among Half-witted Lawyers, undertook to furnish him with Weapons; that is to say, Arguments drawn out of Old Statutes, which have lain Dormant some Hundreds of years without execution or notice, to prove this Parliament null or Dissolved, because they cannot bring it to their Bow; and that a lucky new one, so much longed for by the Faction, aught to be called forthwith; they being confident to carry away the Bell at new Elections, to create a House of Commons that shall do their Business one way, and the King's another, or not at all. In pursuance whereof, they have sent abroad other new Pamphlets, which I now shall make bold to encounter as they come in my way, though 'tis reported one or two of them were written by one Lord, and that by another Lord the rest were promoted to the Penning, and then to the Press in a private corner.  
The first remarkable Pamphlet sent abroad, with intent to break the Neck of this Parliament, is entitled, Some Considerations upon the Question, Whether the Parliament is dissolved by its Prorogation for Fifteen Months: And the Title-page further saith, that the two Statutes upon which this Question depends are,  4 EDW. 3. Cap. 14. Item, it is accorded, That a Parliament shall be holden every year once, and more often if need be. 36 EDW. 3. Cap. 10. Item, for maintenance of the said Articles and Statutes, and redress of divers Mischiefs and Grievances which daily happen, a Parliament shall be holden every year, as another time was ordained by Statute. 

ANIMADVERSION.  
From these Statutes the substance of what the Author argues is; That if the King be obliged by Law to hold a Parliament once every year, than he ought to call a new one every year. And if so, than he cannot Prorogue one Parliament above the Term of a year. But the last Prorogation of this present Parliament having been for Fifteen Months, which is Three Months beyond what the ancient Law and Custom allows for one Parliaments sitting: Therefore that Prorogation being contrary to those Statutes, the Parliament itself 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 alleges 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 Fancy, and mistake it to be Understanding, as 'tis the manner of the profane Vulgar of this and every Profession; and so not being fit to get Public 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 Forefathers, and their practice, be concerned in the Case. As for the Antiquity of Politic 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 ourselves 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 men's private bodies, so this Verse following holds to be a Rule absolute in ordering the Public 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 Ruin. 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 public 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 forecited Statutes were made which give Occasion to our present Disputes.  
The Book called The Mirror of Justice saith, Cap. 1. Sect. 3. that sometimes those Parliaments departed from that frequency, and were held Twice a year: and in those days there was no such thing as a House of Commons, as 'tis noted in Print, for that the Parliament consisted then only 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 Proceed; and the People would get nothing by it but this, even a discovery of the slenderness of those Privileges 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 year of her Reign Prorogued the Parliament from the second of October to the fifth of October of the year following, which was three days above a year, 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 year, 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 vigour longer than a year, there is no Law to be found that contradicts; and therefore 'tis to be supposed that an Argument drawn from those two Statutes of Edw. 3. being an Argument ex Consequenti, that is, an Argument grounded upon Consequence, the Consequence if good aught to be derived from a right interpretation of those Statutes. Now the decision of the matter rests only upon this, Which of the two Parties Judgements you will rely upon as most likely to make right interpretation of the Statutes; whether upon our Author's Judgement and his Fellows, who appear to be parties concerned in a present Factious design and season; or upon the Judgement of the Queen's Parliament, which sat in a more Happy Season, who doubtless could not be ignorant of those Statutes: but neither they, nor any Parliament or Person since that year of the Queen, ever found fault with her Prorogation as illegal; which, it's to be believed would have been done before this time, if that Parliament, or any succeeding Parliament, or Lawyer, or other person, before the time of the late Prorogation, had apprehended the Queen to be faulty in hers. Therefore 'tis to be supposed, that this Precedent of Prorogation made by that most excellent Princess is a good one; and that the Interpretation of those Statutes made by this Author and his Fellows, to serve a Faction, towards the ruin of this Parliament, is the wrong.  
Moreover, if the sense of those Statutes be taken as they would have it, viz. That no Parliament ought to sit above a year, but a new one to be called within the year, why were not those Statutes made use of before in Fifteen year's time, to condemn the sitting of this? It is strange that no notable Lawyer should in all that time affirm the illegality of it: But that only some few Scarabees of the Law should now, to bolster up a Faction, be scribbling their sense upon the Statutes, when the ablest have been, and are silent, is ridiculous.  
Besides, Fourthly, consider, that when his Majesty now Regnant did in the 16 year of his Reign, Enact, That the Triennial Act passed by his Royal Father in his 16th year, should be Repealed, for Reasons in that Act of Repeal expressed: yet upon the humble Supplication of the Lords and Commons He did Declare, That hereafter the sitting and holding of Parliaments shall not be intermitted or discontinued above three years at the most: And that within three years after the determination of this present Parliament, and so from time to time within three years after the determination of any other Parliament or Parliaments, or if there be occasion, more often, your Majesty, your Heirs and Successors, do issue out your Writs for calling, assembling, and holding of another Parliament, to the end there may be a frequent calling, assembling, and holding of Parliaments once in three years at the least. From which I collect these ensuing Particulars.  
1. That by the word Three years after the determination of this present Parliament, it is implied by the Act, that the duration of this Parliament shall not be comprehended within any determinate time; and there was reason for it, because they had a tedious work to do, to repair the Ruins of three Kingdoms wasted and unsettled by a long Civil War.  
2. This appears farther by the subsequent words, which show that the determinate Course of Parliaments set by the Act is meant only for the future after the Dissolution of this.  
3. The Parliament had been sitting four years when they formed this Act: and therefore though they in the Act made mention of the two old Statutes of Edward the Third for holding a Parliament every year, yet it seems they did not then in their virgin-days conceive themselves to be within the breach of those Statutes for sitting above a year, because they were upon the making of this Act: which doubtless so many learned men as are in these honourable Houses would never have presumed to do, if their Sitting had by Law been limited to but a years time, for than they could not but have apprehended that the Laws they made in the three years before, must have been null and void for want of legal power to make them, as well as all the Laws that they should make afterward till this day. And what must the miserable Consequence of that have been? even to demolish all the new Foundations which had been or were to be laid for the Restauration and Establishment of the Crown, Church, and State, in case the validity of their former Sitting and Acting had been questionable, as they would have been by such bold Interpreters of Law, as I shall further make them appear to be, who presume to advance their own Understandings above the Judgement of whole Bodies of Parliaments; which these men have done, and do, by Printed Books scattered like Wildfire about the three Nations to set all in Combustion.  
But Fifthly, what if it should appear a more considerable Question to be put, Whether those two Old Statutes of Edward the Third be not of most force for the King? And truly there appears good reason to conclude in the Affirmative. The two Statutes may stand as declarative Memorials of the Judgement of Parliament in time passed for the People's having a right to a frequency of Parliaments, if need require, and no farther; but it is not to be believed, that so Victorious and Potent a King as Edward the Third, ever would have passed those two Acts, if his Parliaments meaning had been to cut off that main Point of his Prerogative Royal, viz. the power of judging when 'tis fit or needful to call a Parliament, and when not: Nor is it at all likely that it was the Opinion of that Age, that the King had done so in passing those Acts; but 'tis rather to be supposed, that that Parliament meant no more than this, That those Statutes were intended to be declarative of the Common Law, and of the People's having Right by ancient Custom to Parliaments, and that as they had been, so they should also be yearly in the future, if judged necessary. For I would know of any man of an impartial Judgement, how it is possible to screw out of those Statutes any other Meaning, seeing the words [if need be] are words Hypothetical or Conditional, viz. supposing there be need, or upon Condition there be need. Hereby 'tis implied, that if in a years time there be no need, there is no obligation by Law from hence for the calling a Parliament always within the year. The Sum of all than is this; That if no need be, he need not call one. And who (I pray you) ought to be judge of this need, but the King, who is to Call? But what saith our Author of the Considerations to this? He hereupon turns Statute-Expositor and Objector, as followeth.   

CONSIDERATOR.  
He saith this meaning of the Law is but a Fancy; all our Properties, Rights, and Liberties, are bound up in those LAWS of Annual Parliaments; and 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 year once, OR more often if need be; by which words the King is left only Judge of the need of a Parliament oftener than once a year. But whether the King see need or no, he is absolutely and peremptorily bound to hold a Parliament once a year.  
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 only 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 Mankind, 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 itself 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 Public 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, public 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 writ, 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 Sense 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 People's Rights and Liberties being bound up in Annual Parliaments, 'tis 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 only way to preserve the Rights and Liberties was, to have a Parliament of length sufficient to sit and dispatch the Public affairs; that is to say, they who pretended themselves to be the great Patrons of the People's Rights, were so far from thinking those Rights were bound up in yearly Parliaments, that they would not be satisfied till they had an Act passed to empower them to sit as many years 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 yearly Parliaments had been to part with our Rights and Liberties. For it would then have savoured of too rank Hypocrisy before the Multitude, and have raised their Jealousy 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 offered to find fault with them: For when in the Sixteenth year of His now Majesty 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 show they were exceeding tender of our Rights and Liberties; yet determined the time of Parliamentary Meetings to once in three years: which 'tis 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 yearly Meetings. But now adays it is a small matter with our Factious Leguleian Scribblers 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 year once, AND oftener if need be; but he writes OR oftener if need be, in stead of AND. It is not out of any inclination I have to Pedantic Niceties, or that I think it becomes any man to mingle Points of philology with discourse about matters of Polity, 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. Busbie, 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 only 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 only, and therefore would by foisting in the Conjunction Disjunctive OR in stead of the Conjunction Copulative AND, disjoin 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 the King is Judge only whether a Parliament shall be held oftener than once a year; whereas the Conjunction [AND] couples and joins the sense of the words [IF NEED BE] to the former part of the sentence, and so the Statute speaks plain for the King's being Sole Judge, whether there be need of calling Parliaments once a year, as well as whether there be need of calling them oftener than once a year: So that 'tis evident the Noble King Edward the Third, and his Parliament, meant no such matter as the Considerator and his Fellows, and as some other Professors of the Law have hitherto misunderstood, contrary to the General sense of Law in that part of our Laws which concerns the Establishment of the Prerogative of our Kings, a very principal flower whereof is the Power of Calling and Dissolving Parliaments as often as they shall judge there is need: and the Practice of other Nations in all the World hath justified this, that it is the common Birthright of Hereditary Kings to be sole Judges of this Question, Whether there be need, or no need, at all times, of Calling or of Dismissing the Supreme Assemblies, unless they limit themselves; but (you see) here is reason absolute to conclude our King Edward did not intent to limit himself to yearly Parliaments, by the said Statutes.  
And to make further proof of this, see again what is said by the Considerator.   

CONSIDERATOR.  
That the Kings of England have not duly nor constantly observed those Statutes ever since their making, doth not render them of the less Force; because 'tis an Offence in the King not to fulfil a Law.  
ANIMADVERSION.  
Here he is pleased to acknowledge what cannot be denied, that the Kings of England have not observed those Statutes ever since their making: which shows, that our succeeding Kings never thought themselves obliged by them, or that King Edward intended it so, unless they should see need, or at any time judge it necessary to call a Parliament. Besides, we do not read of any Parliamentary Complaint about the omitting of YEERLY Parliaments, till our Presbyterian Masters of the Faction in their Grand Remonstrance 1641. charged it as a fault upon his Majesty's Father, under pretence of those Statutes. And doubtless some of the foregoing Parliaments would have made complaint about Yeerly Omission, had they believed Kings bound to Yeerly Parliaments: But that King Edward and his Parliament which passed the Law, never intended or understood it in the Considerator's sense, is to be concluded from this most undeniably; That from the Fifth year of the said King to the Eighth year, no Parliament was called; the reason was, because he judged there was no need. Nor doth it appear that he did afterward observe any such certain Puncto of time in calling his Parliaments: but doubtless 'tis in reason to be thought he would have been so tender of his own Law as to have observed it within the fifth or sixth year, and not so soon have broken it, if he had thought himself obliged absolutely to a year, because it was but in the fourth year that he passed it.   

CONSIDERATOR.  
But (saith the Considerator) the King is the only person that is meant or can be bound: For he it is that is to Summon or Hold Parliaments, and therefore the Statutes intent to oblige Him, or else they intent nothing, and the Laws for Parliaments that secure our Religion, Properties, and Liberties, are become only Advices and Counsels to the King, with no obligation further than the Kings present thoughts of their expedience.  
ANIMADVERSION.  
That the Obligation to a Yeerly Parliament lies no further upon the King than if in prudence he see there be need, is already proved from a Right Construction of the words of the Statutes; and that this prudential power and part of the King's Prerogative in Judging the expedience of calling Parliaments at this or that time, as Affairs shall in His Judgement require, did remain undiminished by the said Statutes: And they intended only this, which was enough, That seeing the People had an ancient Right by Custom to have frequent Parliaments, the King accordingly should oblige himself to call Parliaments so often as every year, or oftener if there should be need: Whereupon it is observable, that seeing in the interval of Parliament there neither ought nor can be any Judge of the necessity but the King, these two Laws left the power of judging it in the Prerogative-Royal as they found it; and the then▪ Parliament gained this great Advantage for the People, that whereas they before had a Right by Custom and Common Law, they now obtain a right by Statute-Law too: which certainly so wise a King as Edw. 3. would never have granted without a Salvo put in for his Prerogative, by the words IF NEED BE.  
Moreover consider, if those Statutes should be otherwise understood, viz. that the King ex debito were bound every year to call a Parliament, whether it would not have been a great Mischief rather than Benefit to the People: For in those days they that served Members in Parliament were wont to take Wages for their Service; and that would have lain heavy upon every poor Burrow to have been bound to pay Wages due once a year, sometimes oftener, to their Burgesses, it being recoverable by Law against them; which peradventure would amount to more than their share of payment of Subsidies. Again consider, as this would empty their Purses, so it would lad them with innumerable Laws, which are as grievous almost as to have none, as it hath been found in many Nations by experience; and therefore it is that Justinian hath been everywhere praised for so excellent an Emperor, because when all the Nations under the Roman Empire were even over-laid with multitudes of Laws, and groaned more under this Yoke than that of Taxes & Tributes, he took care how to deliver the people from that vexatious Burden, by cutting off the major unnecessary part of the Imperial Statutes, and Digesting the rest into a tolerable Body. Therefore should such yearly Parliaments be imposed on us by Law, the Statutes would soon swell to the like intolerable pass, and tyre the people out of fondness after so frequent Meetings as these Writers plead for, and would force Us to admit even against all Sense and Reason. Therefore we have abundant cause to praise the Wisdom of His Majesty and this His Parliament, that in the 16th year of his Reign they framed that most prudent Triennial Law, which placeth a golden Mediocrity betwixt the having too frequent Parliaments, and too long delay of them; and I must needs say His Majesty hath therein appeared, by limiting himself to call Parliaments hereafter, at Three year's time after the determination of this, and after the determination of every succeeding Parliament, to be beyond all our Kings, and most gracious in condescending, and Indulgence towards his people; that as the Faction, which set on work this Considerator and his Fellows to delude the Subjects, and beget in them an Opinion as if His Majesty intended to deprive them of their Old Laws and Rights to Parliaments, do appear now to be most ungrateful towards Him: so I suppose their mouths will henceforth be stopped, seeing they are secured by that new Triennial Act, in which they ought to bury all such Disputes for the future: which they must needs do, if they will cast an eye upon the said Act before they fall to disputing, and perverting His Subjects.  
One Objection more give me leave to answer, because it will be but in short; 'tis this: That though the words [if need be] be in the first Statute, yet they are not expressed in the Second, which being passed Thirty two years after, must be understood therefore to be absolute. But this I say, though the words be not there in terminis, yet other words are there which make those to be necessarily understood; and they are these: [AS ANOTHER TIME WAS ORDAINED BY STATUTE.] The Statute meant here is the former of the two, which is of the Fourth of Edward the Third. The Issue than is this: That this later Statute, which is of the 36 of Edward the Third, referring, (as by the word AS appears) to the former Statute, nothing more is Ordained here, but what was, and AS it was Ordained in the former; and so it can bear no other Interpretation than what is proper to the former, and is only a Second Confirmation by Statute-Law of the Right by ancient Custom which the People had before to Parliaments, as often as they should be needful; as it is intended by the first of the said Statutes.  
So I have done with the Considerator: His Fellows, who do but steal out of him, shall be handled in the next place. One of them entitles his Book, THE LONG PARLIAMENT DISSOLVED: But under that Title he means this Parliament, because they have sat Fourteen or Fifteen years, by reason of the world of work they have had before them, to repair the large Breaches made within these Nations by a tedious Civil War: which they might have finished before now, had not many impediments been cast upon them by the Malice and Cunning of a restless implacable Faction; whose glory it would be, above all other things attainable in the World, if they could any way dissolve this Parliament, or contrive how to make it End with disgrace, re infectâ, that they may not have the honour of finishing that glorious Establishment of Church and State which they design; but that themselves (viz. the Faction) and the Forlorn Hope of their Party, might once more have the opportunity to play the Game they have prepared against the good time of trying their Fortune at New Elections. In the mean while, their Plot is laid every way to backbite this present House of Commons, and by odious Reflections upon the King and House of Peers, to make as many of the People as they can out of love with our ancient Monarchical Constitution of Parliaments, that they may introduce the New Model of their own. For this is certain, the Spiritual Drivers which they make use of, and must, will neither go nor drive (as the Proverb saith) unless the whole Civil Frame be formed to a cleverly comportment with the Geneva-Patern; but will rather fly off and curse them, in stead of Meroz, and all their Undertake, as the Scotch General Assembly did Duke Hamilton, when by an Authority of Parliament there, he presumed, without their Blessing, to enter England, Anno 1648. to have restored His majesty's Father.  
No Temporal Lordships must look to thrive by trinkling with them, unless they will truckle to 'em too, and comply with their eternal Pride and Ambition in all Senatical as well as Classical Concernments; as those unhappy Lords and leading Commons who stayed in the Houses to act along with them, were fain to do in the years 1644, 1645, 1646. 'Tis worth the remembering how the Spiritual Assembly sat and dictated Decrees to the Secular, which the poor Senate always very tamely obeyed, and shaped into Ordinances as fast as might be, to be hanged about the necks of the People, who had e'en as good have been hanged out of the way, as to have suffered the Intailment of such a Slavery upon their Posterity; the End whereof must have been, and, if we look not now about us, may, and must be again, to bring King and Parliament to the same truckling condition; which King James once most sadly experienced in Scotland, and in his wisdom saw, after he came to the Crown of England, would certainly return upon Him and His People here, if ever that Faction got afoot again, or a horseback; forasmuch as 'tis the only Faction that cannot be mended or put into a consistence with Monarchy. By which you may see what is to be gotten by crying down Bishops; which their Opposites of late have most studiously done, both in Prints and by long Speeches: and what those few Lords and others must bring upon us at last, though perhaps they intent it not, if ever to compass their own Ends they make use of that Malignant Faction: And know, that use them they must, and be ruled by 'em too, if they weaken the Reputation, legal Power, and Reverence due to Bishops; the doing whereof will necessarily make way for the other, and give them the opportunities, for which they have, above these hundred years, been sowing of Tares, and planting and watering them in England and Scotland. Oh, that I had leisure in this place to give a particular Account of them, what a Thorn they have been in the sides of Princes and People in both the Kingdoms! The prevention of the like is to be expected only from His Majesty, and this present Parliament, who are sure to Him and the Government by Law established: And that is the reason why this Dissolving Pamphleter, and his Fellows, are so hot for a Dissolution of them, having set their Dice to make us undergo Haphazard by a New one; which must needs have less Ability, Experience, and Knowledge, than these that have been long practised, to promote and manage what is proper Parliamentary work in this difficult season, to heal our Breaches, secure the Government, compose and ease the People. But a new raw one (quoth the Faction) would be more fit for us to practise upon and tutor.  
The Author of this Book may be called the Dissolver, because he would Dissolve all immediately: But having little of a Lawyer in him, he goes another way to work, and in stead of Reasoning, he chief betakes himself to Oratory, to try what that will do among the People, with the help of fine Flashes of Wit. Therefore I shall make but short work in dispatching him, as he does to dispatch this Parliament out of the way.   

DISSOLVER.  
Our Ancestors had a glorious value and kindness for our English Liberties; therefore that they might have a perpetual Assurance that their Liberties should continue, it was Ordained, 36 EDW. 3. cap. 10. That for the maintenance of those Liberties, and remedy of Mischiefs and Grievances that daily happen, a Parliament should be held once every year.  
ANIMADVERSION.  
I cannot but note this Dissolver to be a mere Shifter. He shifts that Statute of 4 Edw. 3. out of the way, as a thing too hot for him to handle, because of the words IF NEED BE. And as he lays that aside; so next he turns Statute-clipper, cuts off the main Clause, which qualisies the Sense of the Second Statute of the 36 of Edw. 3. The words of the Clause are, As at another time WAS ORDAINED BY STATUTE: Now that other Statute here mentioned is the first Statute of Edw. 3. which ordained, that Parliaments shall be holden once a year if need be, and more often if need be; that is to say, we shall have frequent Parliaments, and as frequent as heart can wish, IF NEED require. Just so much and no more was Ordained by the former Statute. But who shall be Judge of this need, or who can be but the King, in whom the Law hath trusted the Calling of Parliaments? Therefore 'tis in Law to be supposed it may be inconvenient for Him to call a Parliament so often as every year, when in his Judgement He concludes it not needful so to do. So much for Clipping the Statute; a Crime as bad as Clipping the King's Coin, if not worse. But any thing must be done to serve the turn of Dissolution.   

DISSOLVER.  
The reason (he saith) is because this Parliament hath sat so many years, till they are not the Representatives of one half of the People of England: And the Gentry, who think themselves born to have their share in Ruling, as well as being Ruled, judge it a very hard thing upon them to be secluded from their hopes of having the honour to serve their King and Country in Parliament.  
ANIMADVERSION.  
A Share of Ruling as well as being Ruled! 'Tis very fine (ye men of Shaftsbury) this is so like the language of the Old Levellers, who were all for Ruling by Turns, that one might almost swear a small Friend of yours was at the Penning it. He is always for Up and Ride, and Rule, and Rule alone, and so is the whole Faction; and that is the Reason why they are for a Tumbling-Cast to the present Rulers of Church and State. But what Gentry are those who hanker after Rule? If to sit and serve in Parliament be to Rule, this the Law never understood in England; and the Writ of Summons to Parliament saith no such thing; the Rule and Empire being vested in the King and those that are by Law deputed under Him for that purpose. It was never otherwise understood till that fatal Parliament in FORTY ONE, when they wrested the Rule out of the hand of the King and His inferior Magistrates. There were then such a Sort of Gentry got into the House, though but few in comparison of the whole number, that in order to the gaining of all Rule into their own hands, from their Fellow-Members as well as the King, first placed it in the hands of London-Prentices, till by Tumults and Tumultuous Voting they drove away the rest of the Gentry as well as the King and the majority of the Lords, and never left till themselves became the only Lords of Misrule. Such Gentry as those were, are they that now reckon of Ruling in Parliament one day or other, if they can but be rid of this, and persuade the People to choose 'em, having to that end a great confidence in the strength of the Tongues and Lungs of their Ambulatory Chaplains. The rest of the Gentry understand them well enough and all their Wind, and do very well know and are satisfied, that here is a full Parliament, all places of Members having been filled up by Election of new ones as fast as they were vacant; and that a convenient duration of this Assembly of the People's Representatives (as he calls them) is the only Expedient to prevent the Design of that restless Faction, in whose Service this Dissolver and his Scribbling Companions are listed. And now to do the Feat, he ventures at matter of Law too: and his Arguments are all summed up in what follows.   

DISSOLVER.  
By the Statute of 4 EDW. 3. cap. 10. and 36 EDW. 3. cap. 14. and by other Statutes, a Parliament is to meet once within a year. But directly contrary to those Statutes, this last Prorogation Ordered the Parliament not to meet within a year, but some months after: and therefore either the Prorogation is null and void in Law, and consequently the Sitting and Acting as a Parliament is at an end; or else by your Sitting and Acting you will admit and justify, that a particular Order of the King is to be obeyed, though contrary to an Act of Parliament, and thereby subvert the Government of England by Law. So also the King's Order is to be obeyed against Magna Charta, Petition of Right, etc. and we have neither life nor liberty secured unto us.  
Then the Dissolver, by virtue of the foregoing Lines, goes on to spend four or five pages in setting forth the great hazard of our Laws, Liberties, and Properties, as if all were true he said, and concludes all are gone, if the Prorogation beyond twelve months were a good one; but he saith 'tis null, and the Parliament nulled therewith.  
ANIMADVERSION.  
Such small Faggots of Argumentation as these are now bound up in Books to fire the Nation if it be possible! They first make false Constructions of the two Statutes of Edw. 3. telling the world the King is by them bound to hold a Parliament once within every year; and if we could grant that to be the Statutes meaning, than they might have some shadow of Reason to make Conclusions to their own minds. But I have already made evident, that they either misunderstand the Statutes, or craftily wrest the sense of them: There is no intent in the Statutes, that Parliaments be called yearly ex absoluto, but they contain a clear Hypothesis, as a Salvo for the undoubted legal Prerogative of the King, in the words IF NEED BE; so that 'tis supposed in the Statutes the King hath, by his Prerogative-Royal, a Right of Judging the time when it is needful to call a Parliament, because He, and none but He can Call. Therefore 'tis to be admired there should so many words be made about so plain a business: For, were I never so much a Conspirator in forming Devices for the Destruction of this Parliament, I would find out some more solid Basis to build my Arguments upon than a manifest Contradiction, or else certainly I would for shame be silent: The two Statutes say, we shall have frequent Parliaments, and so frequent as once a year if there be need: But the Factious Dissolver maintains the sense of them to be, that we shall have Parliaments once a year though there be no need; so that you see upon what a wretched Bottom he and the rest of them do build their Argumentations, and the highflown flourishes of discourse which they so diligently Print and spread abroad, to deceive the weaker unwary People, and intoxicate them with disaffection to this Parliament, and to the lawful Prerogative and Government of His Majesty. But if they can make no better Squibs than this to blow up a Parliament, they had best give it over: for, the King not being bound up by Law within a year, he is at liberty to Prorogue beyond the limit of a year, and so the Fifteen months' Prorogation was and is good, though it hath been seldom that there have been so long Prorogations: For, that is no Argument against the Wisdom and Power of the King to exceed some days or months, if He seethe in prudence it be pro bono Publico, and that urgent Reasons of State do require it: and there is nothing in all our Law that speaks a syllable to the contrary, if rightly considered.  
Therefore to unwind the Bottom which the Dissolver hath entangled, let me with assurance determine this Point, which is the Standard by which you may measure all that they have said or can say. If those two Statutes did not confine the Parliament's sitting to Twelve months, than the Kings Proroguing His Parliament to Fifteen months was no violation of the said Statutes: If no Statute be thereby violated, than the Prorogation was and is good. If so, than the Parliament is as firm in Being as ever any Prorogued Parliament was or can be, and consequently the Laws which they have made or shall make after the Prorogation are as perfect and obligatory upon us as any other Laws that ever were made in this Nation: And 'tis (no question) a Crime little less than an endeavour at the Subversion of Parliament, for any persons by Speeches or Prints, in or out of the Houses, to carry on a Design of arguing a Dissolution of this, thereby to persuade the People against Obedience and Submission to it. Nor can this Assertion of mine be construed, as if I maintained any thing in derogation of that Freedom of speech which ought to be had in Parliament, and which I count absolutely necessary for the Debate and the Dispatch of the Grand Affairs. But then that freedom of speech ought to be qualified with so much Modesty and Reverence, as not to run to such licentious discourse as the Laws make Criminal: for, next to downright Treasonous discourse, none can be worse than that which tends to the Violent Dissolution of a Parliament; that is to say, without the King's consent, or against His will. What then do they deserve who have been such busy Speech-makers both in and out of Parliament, to bring that End about against the King's consent, and against the Laws? Or that shall presume to do it hereafter; seeing the two Houses have given their Judgement in the Case, contrary to the interpretation of all Factious Penmen and Talkers?  
But the Dissolver goes further than this, and takes upon himself the person of the People of England, and in their Name falls to downright threatening of both Houses of Parliament, in the following words.   

DISSOLVER.  
Pages 9 and 10. This we say not, gentlemans, by way of acknowledgement, that you are in a Legal capacity now, to do us either good or hurt; for your day is done, and your power expired; but that you may not like a Snuff smell ill after you are out. For, the reason why we more particularly direct ourselves to you is, because of the Character you have born, that therefore you should not seem so much as to give Prerogative the upper hand of the Law. That so however you have lived, yet all may say and witness for you, that you died well, and made a worthy End. If not, we hope the whole Nation will strictly observe every man among you, that to sit a little longer yet, would sacrifice to this Prorogation the very best of Laws, and in them all the Laws and Liberties of England. The two Statutes of EDW. 3. were declared to be in force by yourselves, in the Sixteenth year of the King, in the new Triennial Act then passed; and we are sure there hath been no new Parliament since to Repeal them.  
ANIMADVERSION.  
What need this frantic impertinent Clause here at last, seeing that no man affirms those two Statutes to be Repealed? Let them stand for ever as Laws, to show that as we had and have a Right to a frequency of Parliaments, so also that the King hath a Right of Prerogative to judge whether there be need of having them so often as every year. And thus much is to be understood also by the tenor of the new Triennial Act, passed by this Parliament, to prevent Inconveniences happening by the long intermission of Parliaments; for they name the two Statutes of Edward the Third, but make no mention of a Right to Parliaments once every year, the words of the Act referring to those Statutes, being these only [because by them Parliaments are to be held very often] which is the very same that I grant and affirm to be the meaning of the said Statutes: and their not affirming a jot more than I do, implieth, that they understood them not otherwise than I do, in general terms for a Declarative Frequency; but whether within a year or oftener, they say not a word: touching which it is to be presumed they would not have been silent, if they had understood it to be the Right of the People to have had certain Parliaments yearly, whenas the Statutes declare not absolutely, but only with condition IF NEED BE.  
And because all mouths should be stopped, and no room left for an Objection which ill-minded heads, or jealous, may make, and is made use of by these our Factious Book-makers, viz. that our having of Parliaments is by this means left to the King's pleasure, when he please to judge them needful; behold, there is no reason for such objecting, because the nature of His power to judge I maintain not to be absolute, whether we shall have Parliaments or not; but whether it be needful to have one, or more, so oft as within every year. Therefore the high Wisdom of this present Parliament is to be magnisied in contriving that new Triennial Act in such a manner, as prevents all the frivolous Objections that may be made by any other persons. For in the later end of the Act, they pray in these words: [That it may be Declared and Enacted, And be it Declared and Enacted by the Authority aforesaid, That hereafter the Sitting and Holding of Parliaments shall not be intermitted or discontinued above Three years at the most; but that within Three years after the determination of this present Parliament, and so from time to time within Three years after the determination of any other Parliament or Parliaments, OR IF THERE BE OCCASION MORE OFTEN, your Majesty, your Heirs and Successors, do issue out your Writs for Calling, Assembling, and Holding of another Parliament; to the end there may be a frequent Calling, Assembling, and Holding of Parliaments, once in Three years 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 Sense in expounding the Two Statutes of Edward the Third, take here the sense and judgement of the whole Parliament; They have Provided also for yearly Parliaments or oftener, 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 year or not: And so you see 'tis the sense of this Parliament declared in their First days of Sitting many years 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 Majesty hath been towards us in this Particular, that to remove all Fears and Jealousies which Seditious men plant and nourish in the minds 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 People's greatest Enemies, who by their dark desperate Contrivances, have so many years 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 hindered, 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 shows, 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 only way to run us out into Anarchy, and that they have been the only Bank that kept out the great Flood of endless Contests and Confusions which unavoidably would follow a present Dissolution. I could, without the help of a spirit of Prophecy, give an account of all beforehand, had I time or room to tell you the Story.  
But now 'tis time to behold the DISSOLVER's Threaten. 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 itself 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 overruling 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, etc. And a little after he saith thus: It is only your single fear that the People will not choose 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 adds, Let not the vain persuasion delude you, that no Precedent can be found that one English Parliament hath hanged up another, etc. 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 choose such as shall, etc. 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 would 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 find 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 DISSOLUTION.  
In the rest of his Book to the very end, he goes raving on at the like rate, telling Stories of time passed about the hanging of two Lord Chief Justices, and a Lawyer that was one of the King's 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 reckoned up, unless it be to flush the Phantsies of the Rabble, right or wrong, against the good time of DISSOLVING, which is as much longed-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 Trials they should not find 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 People's side so charitable, as to inform them, how we nowhere in our Chronicle can find a Rebelling against payment of Taxes, but it always ended in Hanging the Jack Cades, the Wat Tilers, 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 Countrymen, (said a Rebel in a Stage-play) or else I shall be hanged, etc. So there is an End of the DISSOLVER, and his Threaten.  
The next Seditious Pamphlet that came abroad, appeared with the Title of A Seasonable Question and an Useful Answer, etc. I have viewed this Author very well: but after a strict impartial Search of him all over, I find 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 subtle 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 design of this Pamphleter being the same with his fellows.  
And I am the more willing to tyre myself out at this Work, that His Majesty's good Subjects may be throughly informed of all that the Faction is able to allege against the Legal existence and duration of this present Parliament; and then the better judge of the unreasonableness of these men's Suggestions, which they scatter all over the Land to impoison the minds 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 Designs 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, Sequestering, 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 Outside; but in its Inside 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 finished the Work now in their hands, for Settling 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 year, 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 loath 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 satisfy 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 reinforced 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 show you how. That in its nature 'tis 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 add 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 showed how bravely he played his Game in Parliament, by embarking both Houses in Disputes about Privileges, which raised so many Broils to hinder them from dispatch of Business, that all good endeavours were made vain, the Parliament itself 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 followed 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 Majesty and His Two Houses, than 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 itself 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 Jealousy of their Liberties, and a disposition to Tumults, to the hazard of their Peace, their Lives and Fortunes, by new Commotions. Their Design is, by raising the dust about this 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 uproar, 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 Governors; 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 Fool's 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 Spurred, 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 Quàm 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 yearly to redress delays in Suits, and to end such Cases as the Judge's 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 year do summon his high Court of Parliament, as you may read in Grafton.  
ANIMADVERSION.  
First, you have only Grafton's word that the Duke of Gloucester said so. And suppose the Duke did say so, you have only 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 yearly 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 sense is clearly implied in the very words of the first of the two Statutes, as I have shown 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; only 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 yearly 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 kind 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 yearly to end such Lawsuits. Nor are such difficult Suits as pass the skill of the Judges, or so many of them, happening constantly in a years time, as to need a Parliament to end them.   

BENCHER.  
The ancient Britain's (as Dunwallo writes) held Annual Parliaments four hundred years before Christ; and the Mirror of Justice saith, King Alfred ordained parliaments twice in the year, or oftener; and William the Conqueror did the like.  
ANIMADVERSION.  
Here learned Mr. Bencher shows his Reading. So the old Britain's went naked before Christ's time, and many odd fashions came up in the times of the Saxons, the Danes, and Normans, both in clothes and Government. Doth this oblige us to the like now? To what end then is this old threadbare 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, etc. I suppose we should be loath 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 mouths, that they have been Declared by two Parliaments, within forty years last passed, 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 Majesty 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 shown, that the sense 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 year's time two Parliaments have confirmed their Frequency, and so frequent as every year, or oftener, if his Majesty 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 public Mischief, etc.  
ANIMADVERSION.  
It seems the Reason for having constant yearly 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 frequency, 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 frequency 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 frequency more convenient for us.  
However, 'tis worth the observation what his Mastership 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 Public Mischief. As for the Reason of King Edward's Act, I have shown already that his Parliament had nothing in their Reason of making them, that savours of the Old Custom of yearly frequency, otherwise than with Condition there shall be need: nor do they contain any sense 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 add this, that in the two late Triennial Acts it is implied, that in these days things are altered to such a pass, that there was high Reason to be no longer bound to the ancient Custom of that Annual frequency 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 public Inconveniences, if not public Mischief, would follow, if it were practised in our time, or else 'tis in reason to be supposed they never would have altered 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 sense 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 yearly frequency, as the Faction doth insinuate into the minds of the people: Especially when two Parliaments beforenamed have judged, that Reason of public Good and Convenience now lies against having them so frequent as within a year, and that the time of Three years 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 Beggary, 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 yearly Parliaments may be dispensed with by the King's Sovereign Power and Prerogative, being (as some say) only Counsels and Advices to the King, not obligatory.  
ANIMADVERSION.  
Who are those some that say so? If any did, they talked 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 dispense 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 Trial of his own Skill in Confutation and Conquest, and to entertain his Majesty's 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 Majesty cannot dispense. 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 find Him otherwise; or if they could by any Tricks of State, (such as were shown 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 Maxim in a causeless using it against his Majesty's Father, perfidiously pleading the Safety of the People to justify 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 Majesty desires to walk in; and to prove the Truth of this, we need only to recollect the past Provocations given Him by the late extravagances of some men, which would have provoked any Prince less patiented, 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 dispense 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 King's dismission of the Parliament without any day set for their return, and their continuing so beyond a year, be a Dissolution? or whether such a failer in Time only 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 alleged 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, is reckoned to be No day? They prove this as fast as Hops, because it is to be reckoned No day in construction of Law, in regard it exceeded three months beyond the term of Twelve, and beyond Twelve no Parliament can by Law live; and dying at the years end, it cannot be made alive again by Prorogation. This is a very fine and quick dispatch: but 'tis to be answered too as fast as Hops now, that King Edward and his Statutes meant no such quick Births and sudden Deaths of Parliaments as these men would persuade us: so that notwithstanding all the Clouds that some persons raised about it, the 15th of February appeared a fair day in Law, and to all other intents and purposes; and it gave us daylight enough to discern the vanity and folly of the Faction, and its chiefest Advocates, with their matchless Confidence, grounded upon the Construction of no better Lawyers than Master Bencher himself and his fellows appear to be, viz. pitiful Logicians, Lack-learning Lawyers: for, they are his own words, which in pag. 22. he frankly bestows upon all Gentlemen of the long Robe, that are of less malice and more understanding. Therefore his Friend the new-elected Member may come up to Town if he please; for the Body to which he belongs is yet alive, and like to continue in good Health, notwithstanding all the endeavours that have been used to put it out of temper.  
Thus far I have been giving you the utmost that hath been argued by all the Three books which the Projecting Faction have hitherto proclaimed to be unanswerable: But now you see, a very little Learning in Law, they having no Law on their side, goes a great way with them: They are better at Vp-cry, and Outcry, and Down-cry, and just so much Construction of Law and Gospel as will serve to beat up Drums in the Pulpit; for, that is the way of doing their work, without Wit or Reason. And therefore I was willing to spend the more time about those Books, that I might not omit any one thing in them that is considerable; that so the World may see how small cause they have for all their Clamour; and that the Parliament did Justice, when they condemned so many of these Prints as came to their hands, to be fired by the hand of the Hangman.  
The next Pamphlet that comes to hand is a Thing that pretends to little of Argument, but takes occasion from the Imprisonment of the Four Lords to rail at and revile and scandalise the whole Government most sufficiently, especially the Parliament in the most odious terms that could be invented.  
It is Entitled, A Narrative of the cause and manner of the Imprisonment of the Lords, now close Prisoners in the Tower of London. And it is intended to walk abroad among the People, to persuade them that their Lordships suffer Martyrdom for maintaining the Nation's Rights and Liberties: whereas the very Truth is, they are but one man's Martyrs, being misled by him. 'Tis a little leven that leveneth the whole lump. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindles! Can a man take fire into his bosom and not be burnt? Nay, though it be but a small Squib, it will do the Feat if it be not well put out, especially on the return of Gunpowder-Treason-days. Therefore I will be so charitable, as not to think that all the Four Lords had a hand in this malicious work. My reason is, It can hardly consist with a Man of Honour, unless he be one that hath often forfeited it, to be petitioning his Prince, and at the same time to be plotting a Libel against Him. It was about the time that the Petition was delivered to the King at Newmarket in April last, that this Printed Narrative came to my hand; and after perusal, finding it was full fraught with Revenges and Falsities, it proved the occasion of my now taking Pen in hand, to cure all the Tetters of State that are to be cured with Ink; of which none is so virulent and Corrosive as this. We expect to see it more openly published, as soon as the Faction shall find the lucky day they hope for: but in the mean while the Books are kept in and ready dormant all, except those which they craftily convey in private, to inflame their Party in City and Country against this Parliament. It gins thus.   

NARRATIVE.  
On Thursday the 15th of February, the Parliament (as they call themselves) or the Convention (as I hear others generally call them) met. And at the same time, a vast number of people filled Westminster-Hall, the Court of Requests, the Painted Chamber, the Lobbies, and all places near the Parliament-house; that the like was never seen upon the Meeting of this, or of any other Parliament in our memory. They did earnestly desire and expect they would declare themselves to be No Parliament.  
ANIMADVERSION.  
There was little difference betwixt the number of people at the opening of that February-Session, and the number that went to be at the Opening of other Sessions of Parliament. But how weak soever this Narrator's Memory be, I and Thousands more can remember, and the City of London can, and will remember, what they got by it, when it began to be Flowing water of Rebellion with the same Faction in 1641, what a mighty Inundation of the Multitude they sent down to Westminster to fill that Hall, and besides the Lobbies, Court of Requests, Court of Wards, and Painted Chamber, that whole City, Whitehall, the Strand and All, was filled with a Mad Crew, crying out upon King, Evil Counsellors, Bishops, French and English Popery, Fears, Jealousies, and Grievances. And as Cats are let blood in the Ear many times by old women to cure the Shingles, so the whole Posse of Sermoning Matrons (the chief Garrison of the Presbyterian Clergy) made a Sally out o'th' City, and went down also to bleed Strafford and Canterbury, as the only means to cure all our Evils.  
I should not mention these things, but that I am forced with grief of heart to it, now that I see the same Humours would be preached about anew by the same impenitent restless Faction, if they could but cheat the Old men again, who saw and cannot forget these things so easily; but the Faction now delude the Younger men, who never saw yet a Bleeding, nor the sport of Bear-baiting the King's Ministers and Privy Counsellors, in whom lies all His Safety at such a season. I remember what some of the Leaders then said, Have we got him to part with Strafford? Then he must deny us nothing; the rest at Court, being frighted, will fall in with us to save themselves: and so it proved too true of too many of them, that for their children's sakes I forbear the naming. But by this means those Leaders got the Football before 'em, and the King was fain to run for it, but could never recover it.  
And then what got the Nation by it? I think we all know: but that the young men of the City may have an Account of the Gains of their Predecessors, take it as follows, it having been drawn up by one that was in those days a Member of Parliament. Some concern the City alone, and some were charged upon both City and Country.  
1. A Tax called the Royal Subsidy of Three hundred thousand pounds. (I think it was the Tax they got the King to pass, to pay the Scotch Presbyterian Army, which themselves had brought a little before into this Kingdom to compass their Ends.)  
2. Poll-money.  
3. The Free Loans and Contributions upon the Public Faith, of Money, Plate, Thimbles, Bodkins, Horse, Arms, etc. amounting to a vast incredible sum. (I remember, and mine eyes saw at Guildhall, Plate brought in out of the Citizen's houses, and heaped up like huge Wood-piles.)  
4. The Irish Adventure money (most out of this City) for purchase of lands in Ireland (which the King's Father called a dividing of the Bear's skin before they had conquered him.)  
5. The Weekly Meal-money; (that is to say, the Citizens spared a Meal out of their own bellies, converting the value of it into Cash, to be presented after their Plate.)  
6. The City loan, after the rate of fifty Subsidies.  
7. The Assessment of Money to bring on a Presbyterian Army of Scots a second time.  
8. The Fifth and Twentieth part of men's estates.  
9 The Weekly Assessment for the Lord General Essex his Army.  
10. The Weekly (or Monthly) Assessment for Sir Thomas Fairfax 's Army.  
11. The Weekly Assessment for the second Scotch Presbyterian Army after it had entered England.  
12. The Weekly Assessment for the British Army in Ireland.  
13. The Weekly Assessment for my Lord of Manchester 's Army.  
14. Free Quarter connived at by the Rulers.  
15. Sequestrations of the King's, Queen's, and Prince's Revenue.  
16. Sequestrations and Plunders by Committees.  
17. Excise upon all things.  
Whereupon the Gentleman who drew up this Account wrote thus: [By these several Ways and Taxes, about Forty Millions in Money and Money's worth were milked out of the Nation, the most part out of this City; and that Parliament (as the Pope did once) might well have called England Puteum inexhaustum. A vast Treasure it was! such a one as nothing but a long Peace could have imported; and nothing but pious Frauds, many Follies, and a Mad War could dissipate. And yet all this prodigious Sum was drained away and spent before the year 1647. in but six years; so that we do not reckon the vast Sums fetched out of the City and Kingdom, to carry on the succeeding Wars which sprang out of this, in England, Scotland, and Ireland, betwixt 1647 and 1654. amounting to another vast Sum of Moneys, of which I am not able to give any Account.  
I might reckon also the many Tuns of Tears and Blood that were drawn out of the eyes and sides of these three Nations, which the Presbyterian Faction can never wash off without Tears of Repentance. But let it not be the Repentance of Judas; such a one as they made in 1648. when they saw the Ball of Empire caught out of their hands into the hands of Cromwell; and mourned for that, not for the completed Ruin of the King and his Family; which themselves first began, and carried on as far as they could. And they must look to have it mentioned, till they leave off reviving their old Tricks of undermining the Government, and embroiling the Nation. But this may serve at present, to let the Young men as well as the old see what the City and Kingdom got by being led by the Nose to Westminster for a Crying down and shifting of Governors and State-Ministers under the King; of whose Faults they knew nothing but what they took up upon the Credit of pretended Patriots, but really crafty designing public Enemies, as they afterwards appeared to be.  
And you perceive also how false this Narrator is, when he tells you, that in the memory of man there never was before February last, such a flocking of people to Westminster at the opening of a Session of Parliament.  
But what went the people out to see? They went to see a Reed shaken with the wind. But the Wind brought on a Storm upon those that would have shaken the Foundation of both Houses; which seeing they could not do, a Resolution is resolved on in mere spite, that 'tis now no Parliament, but a Convention; which certainly deserves a severe Animadversion of State upon such as would turn up the Foundation upon which we stand.   

NARRATIVE.  
When the King was come, the Commons were sent for up to the Lords House, where I made a shift to crowd in and hear. The King and Lord Chancellor each of them made a Speech worthy your consideration, Copies whereof I have here sent you.  
ANIMADVERSION.  
But he is as false here also, as he was before in the other: for I find neither of those Speeches enclosed in this Print. He will be wary enough of printing them, because they are worthy to be often read and considered by all the people, in order to their satisfaction touching the justice, prudence and candour of his majesty's Government: therefore I must needs give you short Heads of the King's Speech, that the sinister intents and boisterous invective discourses of some men may be the better understood.  
The King in his Speech of the 15 of February told his Lords, and the Gentlemen of the House of Commons: That he had called them together again after a long Prorogation, that they might have an opportunity to repair the Misfortunes of the foregoing Session, and to recover and restore the right use and end of Parliaments.  
That he was resolved to let the World see, that it should not be his fault if they be not made happy by their Consultations in Parliament.  
That he plainly declared he came prepared to give them all satisfaction and security in the great concerns of the Protestant Religion, as it is established in the Church of England, that can consist with reason and Christian prudence.  
And that he declared as freely, that he is ready to grant a further securing of our Liberties and Properties, by as many good Laws as they shall propose, and can consist with the Government; without which there will be neither Liberty nor Property left to any man.  
That he would have all men judge, who is most for Arbitrary Government, they that foment such differences as tend to dissolve all Parliaments, or He, that would preserve this and all Parliaments from being made useless by such Dissensions.  
That if these good Ends should happen to be disappointed, He calls God and men to witness, that the misfortune of that disappointment shall not lie at his door.  
What can be more desired from a gracious King? But 'tis not the mode, nor agreeable to the temper and business of some men in the world, to rest as men satisfied with Reason, though perhaps they be. These are they at whose door the guilt of Parliamentary Constitutions must lie, if ever God for our sins should permit them to proceed. For, they of the Faction cannot fish in the waters of Monarchy; they would have a Senate with Oligarches over it, in stead of a Monarch. For the Narrator saith we ought not to use the word Parliament now; but the word Convention is better.  
Nor is it any part of the Faction's business to be content with the Established Religion, or Liberty and Property; these are words which they know how to make use of, by sprinkling them as flowers of Rhetoric in all their Writings and Discourses: they work upon the People with them, as Witches do with Charms, Characters, and Spells, to bewitch the Multitude with an opinion against the Court, and that all is in danger that way, and that themselves are the only Patrons and Patriots, when in the mean time they only tickle them like Trout with these things, to catch them, and enslave them to their own designs and humours, for pulling the Government in pieces; which is the only Bulwark of Religion, Liberty, and Property: For, as the King well saith before, without this there will be neither Religion, Liberty, Property nor Safety left to any man. The Truth whereof we found by woeful experience, which ensued after the very same Witchcrafts had bereft the people of their Senses in FORTY ONE to run headlong into Civil Wars, which lasted so long, till Twenty years Suffering under loss of Religion, Liberty, Property, Safety, Government, and all, made them long and sigh after their Sovereign Lord again as the only Restorer.  
Look back then once again upon those short Heads of His Majesty's Speech with an impartial eye, and you have in view so many demonstrations of Wisdom, Moderation, Tenderness for this Parliament, and the future being of Parliaments in their ancient Legal state; as also of Love and Kindness towards his People, that more cannot be uttered by Man to cast out the devil of Jealousy, and keep it from haunting the Houses of this people any more.  
His Majesty in one of the Heads saith to this effect; That without keeping within the compass of the Government, as the Laws have stated every part of it, viz. in a delicate Medium betwixt the Regal Prerogative and the Parliamentary Right and Liberty of the people, so as both may be preserved entire, unto Kings and unto Parliaments, in their several Stations, neither Religion, Liberty, Property, nor Safety, nor Parliaments, can be maintained. The Reason is plain, because the Law of the land, which is the Band that ties all together, being once broken by any one of the Parties, they immediately fall asunder, and will easily be cleft into a thousand pieces, and the Parliamentary Constitution not easily be restored, as it appeared upon the FORTY ONE Divisions, for Twenty years together. Experience (saith the Proverb) is the Mistress of Fools. Must we always then be Fooling for new Experiments of our old Foolery? One would think we should have been wiser by this time, than to suffer the same Faction to inchant us any more.  
But because a better Description of Kingly and Parliamentary Interest of Government cannot be had than what was described by the Pen of His Majesty's Royal Father, in His Answer to the Nineteen Propositions, presented to him by that Parliament of the Faction, anno 1642. June 2. let me here set it down, in regard it will be the best Informer of posterity what to do in like Cases, to prevent future Troubles that may arise again, through men's acting old Cheats over and over. His words are these: [There being Three kinds of Government among men; Absolute Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy, and all these having particular inconveniences, the experience and wisdom of our Ancestors hath so moulded our Government in England, out of a Mixture of all Three, as to give this Kingdom (so far as Humane wisdom can provide) the Conveniencies of the Three, without the Inconveniencies of any One, as long as the Balance hangs even between the Three Estates, and while they run jointly on in their proper Channels, (begetting verdure and fertility in the Meadows on both sides) and while there is no overflowing of either on either side, to raise a Deluge or Inundation.  
In this Kingdom the Laws are jointly made by a King, by a House of Peers, and by a House of Commons chosen by the People, all having free Votes and particular Privileges. The Government according to our Laws, is trusted to the King, with power of Treaties of War and Peace, of making Peers, of choosing Officers and Counsellors for State, Judges for Law, Commanders for Forts and Castles, giving Commissions for raising men to make War abroad, or to provide against Invasions or Insurrections at home, Benefit of Confiscations, power of Pardoning, and some more of the like kind, are placed in the King. And this Monarchy thus regulated, having this power to preserve that Authority without which it would be disabled to preserve the Laws in their force, and the Subjects in their Liberties and Properties, is intended to draw to him such a Respect and Relation from the Great Ones, as may hinder the Ills of Division and Faction, and procure such a Fear and Reverence from the People, as may hinder Tumults, Violence, and Licentiousness.  
Again, that the Prince may not make use of this high and perpetual Power to the hurt of those for whose good he hath it, and make use of the name of Public Necessity for the gain of his private Favourites and Followers, to the detriment of his People, the House of Commons (an excellent Conserver of Liberty, but never intended for any Share in the Government, or for the choosing of them that should govern) is solely entrusted with the first Proposition concerning levies of Moneys, which are the sinews of Peace as well as War, and with the Impeaching of those, who for their own ends, though countenanced by any surreptitiously gotten Command of the King, have violated that Law, which he is bound (when he knoweth it) to protect, and to the protection of which they were bound to Advise him, at least not to serve him in the contrary. And the Lords being trusted with a Judiciary power, are an excellent Screen and Bank between the Prince and the People, to assist each against any Encroachments of the other, and by just Judgements to preserve that law, which ought to be the Rule of every one of the Three.]  
I would not have transcribed this, but that I conceive it impossible to make a more excellent Delineation of the several Concerns of the King and his Subjects in the Constitution of our English Government, that every one may understand what is their due by Law, and how Monstrous the Demands were in those Nineteen Propositions, the first of which was: [That those Lords and others of your Majesty's Privy Council, and such great Officers and Ministers of State, either at home or beyond the Seas, may be put from your Privy Council, and from those Offices and Employments, excepting such as shall be approved of by both Houses of Parliament, etc.] The rest of the Demands were agreeable to this. But what answered the King to these things? [These (said he) being passed, We may be waited on bareheaded, We may have Our hand kissed; the Style of Majesty continued to Us; and the King's Authority declared by both Houses of Parliament may be still the Style of your Commands: We may have Swords and Maces carried before Us, and please ourselves with the sight of a Sword and Sceptre, (and yet even these Twigs would not long flourish, after the Stock upon which they grew becomes dead) but as to true and real Power We should remain but the outside, but the Picture, but the Sign of a King. We were ever willing that Our Parliament should debate, resolve and transact such matters as are proper for them, as far as they are proper for them, and We hearty wish that they would be careful, not to extend their Debates and Resolutions beyond what is proper to them, etc.] But alas, instead of harkening to this, they without reason carried all before them like a mighty Stream, and so the fatal Wars came on, because the King would not be unking'd, by giving away the Flowers of his Crown: If he would not part with 'em by such fair means, they resolved to have 'em by foul. But remember this, that God suffered not any of the first Hotspurs and Beginners, to reap any Comfort by the Business: which (as all Histories will show us) is the common Fate of such Undertakers. And it were well, if I had room here to make a Stand, to give you a Relation of ours here in England. But 'tis time now to return to the Narrator, and tell him, all this kind of do was at Westminster within the memory of man.   

NARRATIVE.  
As soon as the Speeches were made, and the Commons were withdrawn, a Bill was offered to be read. But the Duke of Buckingham desired to be heard first. Well then, what said the Duke? It was clear to him the Parliament was Dissolved: for which opinion he gave his Reasons; which because they are the sum of all that was said to prove though dissolution, I shall give you as good and as brief an account of them as I can.  
ANIMADVERSION.  
The sum of that Speech (as the Narrator hath printed it) amounts but to two pages: I have a written Copy of it by me, and could Animadvert upon it; but I would not strip one of the finest Courtiers of the world for leaping aside out of his proper Element. I am tender of him in many Respects; but 'tis both my trouble and my wonder, that the Narrator prints him among the Martyrs that suffer for the sake of a FACTION; who persecuted the Illustrious Duke his Lordship's father, both in and out of Parliament, till he fell their Sacrifice by the hand of Felton, and left him the Inheriter of all those Honours and Fortunes, which flowed from the Bounty of our Kings. Return, return, Noble Lord, (if it may be) by the way of Penitence, and take Noble Salisbury along with you well prepared, whose wise Grandfather was the great Instrument, in making way for that happy Succession, which united both these Kingdoms under the old name of Great Britain. I have here (my Lord Duke) taken some pains to convince you and all the World; and I hope I have done it. If any thing more could be done for you, I would do it, in hope of your Penitence: and I hope I do not in vain persuade you, because I think your Conscience is not made of the same metal with a man's, that (as St. Paul saith) hath been seared with a red-hot Iron. Think not that I court you; or that I think your fault (as Circumstances were when you committed it) hath left you capable of pardon from any but the most merciful of Kings, and the extreme commiseration of your Peers, unless I could think the Destruction of such a Parliament as this a small matter, (for, this a quick Dissolution would in probability amount to). I would not have a tittle to say for you, if I did not believe who it was that drew you in to the Business: which whether REASON of STATE can excuse, is a weighty Question. If there were any thing in the Arguments of your Speech, more than what was said in other words by the Considerator, and the Dissolver, I would give you the satisfaction of handling it; but it seems to me to be but a mere REHEARSAL, which hath in it only more of Wit, and of a Gentleman, than of the Reason of Law and a Lawyer.   

NARRATIVE.  
No sooner had the Duke ended his Speech, but my Lord Fretchvil moved to have him called to the Bar, etc.  
ANIMADVERSION.  
This Narrator presumes to name many more Lords that spoke pro, and some few con, that is, against the opinion of the Dissolution. But he saith the Lord Chancellor at length undertook to answer all the Arguments that were or should be for a Dissolution. If so, than it was no wonder that the House was soon satisfied, and concluded (as the Narrator saith) that the Question should be laid aside.  
But I would have told you before, that he saith the Earl of Shaftsbury, upon the Motion of calling the Duke to the Bar, said, that it would be the taking away all freedom of speech in Parliament. That would be troublesome indeed to his Lordship, who hath been a very free speaker in Parliament, if we may believe the printed Letter to a friend in the Country, and those Speeches that went abroad in print under his name. But no more of that. I would have somewhat in me now of the Lion, and do pass him by. His Lordship may see by these Animadversions how little reason he had in Law for so great Confidence in the Speech which the Narrator saith he made also upon the Statutes of Edw. 3. about yearly Parliaments. I hope he did not sit a Dictator in the Council of these Printed dissolver's. If he did, 'tis but reason the FACTION, or somebody else, should pay him his Fees.  
But before I part with his Lordship, I must needs show him his Error about the point of freedom of speech in Parliament: and 'tis absolutely necessary that I do it, because 'tis become a villainous Insinuation used by the Narrator, and the rest of the scandalous Faction round the Town, that the Imprisonment of the four Lords is done contrary to the ancient Privilege of Parliament, which is to have a liberty of speech in all Debates. As for this Lord, he need not complain; he had enough given him, or rather he took it, if the Speeches printed, with his name to them, be his. Doth freedom of speech extend so far as to make odious Insinuations and Reflections upon the King, upon the Crown and its Rights, upon the Succession of it, upon the Honour of the House of Peers, upon the Bishops, upon the whole Church, with the Canons, the Homilies, the 39 Articles, and her Doctrine, as it relates either to God, Religion, or the Civil obedience due to the King, and the whole Government of State, and the Security of all these by an Oath of Allegiance? If his Lordship thought that the Law allowed either Peers or Commons such a liberty of speech, why did he bustle so diligently and briskly (as I have been told) to promote a Bill, not long since, against the ancient way of Trial of Peers? Every body than smelled a Rat in the Case, and smiled at his Lordship's wise Providence, and his secret intent of speaking and acting beyond Compass upon the open Stage: and therefore I did not wonder, when I did read afterwards in the Pamphlet entitled, Debates and Arguments for Dissolving this Parliament, etc. (which was reported to be his) that his Lordship was very angry at the House of Commons for throwing out the said Bill of Trial when it was sent down to them; and tells the Commons, p. 6. They certainly were grown very high in their own opinion, and had a very low esteem for the Lords, when they neglected their best friends in the House of Peers, and did almost with scorn refuse that Bill, entitled, For the more fair and equal Trial of Peers. I never saw the Bill yet, therefore can say nothing more of it; only I cannot but take notice, that in the same page, and in many other parts of that Print, a through-revenge is plentifully bestowed upon the Honour of the House of Commons. Nothing would then serve the Turn but they must be turned out of doors, Dissolved, and a new one presently called; an instance clear enough for discovery out of whose Quiver this Arrow of Dissolution was first shot, and of great probability who set on the Writers since against the Prorogation, to break the neck of this Parliament, and in it all the hopes of the Loyal part of the Nation. And if that aforenamed were the Print of his Lordship, I might reckon up out of it, and another Print stitched to the tail of it, the most virulent Scandals that could be raked together to prepare that House for the rage of the Rabble. But the Narrator having summed up in few words the sense of the Author, I leave him here, because the Narrative itself will give the House that short Cut by and by.  
In the mean while, if freedom of speaking in Parliament, and after that, of Printing All and more than All; that is, of more perhaps than was spoken, be to be construed and extended at this rate, know that the old Customs and Laws Parliamentary in England know no such matter. A freedom of speech in Debate is that which every Speaker by ancient Custom, after the House of Commons hath chosen him, and presented him to the King, doth petition for to the King on the behalf of all the Members of that House; and it was never yet denied by any of our Kings. The Lords also in their House do claim it by Birthright: for, to what end do they meet, if they may not freely debate matters, without which 'tis impossible to come to any Resolution about them? May his hand rot off then that shall write a word against it. But withal we are to understand, there are Bounds, Rules and Laws of speaking in either House of Parliament: for, the Law of Parliaments ever supposeth, that the Members ought to keep within the compass of those Bounds, and observe those Rules, both as to the matter spoken and the manner of speaking. Every Member hath a Right to be heard, and heard out what he hath to say; but then when he hath done, the House to which he belongs hath power to judge, whether he hath spoken ill or not; and if ill, than they are the proper Judges to dispose of him to punishment according to his desert: And this the Law supposeth they will always do, they being interested and entrusted with such Necessary Power and Privilege, for the good of the King and Kingdom.  
Now this is the Case of the most Noble House of Peers. They have as to the committing of the Four Lords to the Tower, not done it because they spoke; (for they heard out with great patience what they had to say) but because they judged what their Lordships had spoken against the Being of this Parliament, was of most pernicious Consequence, against the Safety and Good of the King and Kingdom. And to say no more of this, the House was so unanimous in concurring to their Commitment, after a debate and consideration of the matter (as will appear upon search of the Books of that House) that it was with great odds of number carried by the Temporal Lords alone, without reckoning in the Bishops, or the number of Proxies. And the Narrator himself confesseth this was agreed on after a full Hearing of all that could be said by the four Lords themselves, or their few Friends; only he mingles many ill-favoured Reflections and false Insinuations in his Relation.   

NARRATIVE.  
It had been (he saith) moved also by the Duke of Buckingham, that the Opinion of the Judges might be declared in the Point.  
ANIMADVERSION.  
All Reverence be given to the Judges in due time and place. This was an arduous Point of a Superlative Nature, touching the very Life and Being of a Parliament, in a conspiring Factious Season, infinitely above those ordinary points of Law, touching which that House is wont sometimes to consult my Lords the Judges, when their Lordships conceive they have need to consult them. But this was so plain a Case to their Lordships, that having the Judicatory right and power in their own hands, and in so transcendent an Occasion, it had been a strange thing to have yielded to such a Motion, merely to gratify those whom they had judged Offenders. Nor was it to be supposed, that the Judges would have undertaken to opinionate about so Supreme a Question, wherein the Safety of all the Concerns of Crown and State were involved, fit only for the Supreme Judicature to consider.   

NARRATIVE.  
It was the next day urged by some Lords, in the behalf of the Four Lords, that three several times, viz. 1 Hen. 7. 1 Qu. Marry. 1 Qu. Eliz. the very same Debate was in Parliament, yet no man questioned for moving it.  
ANIMADVERSION.  
Whether those Debates were the same or not, let the world judge, when as the Narrator himself confesses, it was only about the Forms of the Writs that summoned the Parliament that the Question in those days was: But this Question made now was, about the validity of a Prorogation, and the very being of a Parliament after it. I do not find in my Lord Cook's Treatise about the High Court of Parliament, that the length of a Prorogation beyond a Years time can dissolve it; or that a small flaw in the Form of the Writ of Summons can invalidate a Parliament. But if it were so that it could, yet that is not within the Case of this Parliament, whose Writ of Summons was never questioned; 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 Penmen, 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 joined 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 loath 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 Say 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 kind of Flowers, to be offered in Sacrifice to his own New Parliament, as the old Heathen Sacrificers were wont to dress their Beasts to be offered 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, Under pretence of securing the Protestant Religion by Act of Parliament, one of the designs 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 Fireball 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 lies 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 Faggot.   

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 Outlawed 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? 'Tis a miserable pass the world is come to, when men shall take up Scandals from Malice, Phantasy, or Jealousy, to dart at one another; and at this rate there can be no end, till we have railed ourselves round before the eyes of all the Nations of the world, and painted out ourselves with the vilest Characters, to become a subject for their Scorn and Derision.  
It were again to scandalise 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'. 'Tis 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.