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tion of this Government, that if it were ſo, a great number of our preſent Lords and Commoners are Older than the Conſtitution, and were Born before it. But as I ſaid before, that Act was only a Cautionary Act, as a Town or Gate of a City is taken in Caution, for performance of Articles. This appears by the firſt thing which is Enacted in that Law, namely, That the Laws for a Parliament to he holden at leaſt once a Year, ſhall hereafter be duly Kept and Obſerved. Scobel’s Coll. 16. Car. 1. Cap. 1.
This Act was Gently drawn up, and had more of a Proſpect than a Retroſpect, and does not look back into thoſe Oppreſſions which King Charles himſelf in his large Declaration of Auguſt the 12th does acknowledge were Inſupportable; which were wholly owing to this long Intermiſſion of Parliaments: but it wiſely provides, that in caſe the two firſt Years Parliaments ſhould fail, then came a Peremptory Parliament, which the King and Keeper might call if they pleaſed; but if they did not, the Counties and Burroughs of England were forced to ſend. It is an Act that executes it ſelf, like our Act for Burying in Woollen; and he that will ſee the Wiſdom of it, may read it where I have quoted it.
