_P._ This law was made but for seven years, and never continued by any other Parliament, and the motive of this law was the great riots, extortions, oppressions, &c. used during the time of the insurrection of John Cade, and the indictments and condemnations wrongfully had by this usurped authority. And thereupon the Parliament ordained, that for seven years following no man should disobey any of the King’s writs under the Great Seal, or should refuse to appear upon proclamation before the King’s Council, or in the Chancery, to answer to riots, extortions, &c.; for the first time he should lose, &c. Wherein there is nothing at all concerning the jurisdiction of the Chancery or any other court, but an extraordinary power given to the Chancery, and to the King’s Privy Council, to determine of those crimes, which were not before that time triable but only by the King’s Bench or special commission. For the Act was made expressly for the punishment of a great multitude of crimes committed by those who had acted under the said Cade’s authority; to which Act the proviso was added which is here mentioned, that the proceedings in those Courts of Chancery, and of the King’s Council, should be such as should be used in the courts, to which the said causes, before this Act was made, do belong: that is to say, such causes as were criminal, should be after the order of the King’s Bench; and such causes as were not criminal, but only against equity, should be tried after the manner of the Chancery, or in some cases according to the proceedings in the Exchequer. I wonder why Sir Edward Coke should cite a statute, as this is, above two hundred years before expired, and other two petitions, as if they were statutes, when they were not passed by the King; unless he did it on purpose to diminish, as he endeavours to do throughout his Institutes, the King’s authority, or to insinuate his own opinions among the people for the law of the land; for that also he endeavours by inserting Latin sentences, both in his text and in the margin, as if they were principles of the law of reason, without any authority of ancient lawyers, or any certainty of reason in themselves, to make men believe they are the very grounds of the law of England. Now as to the authority you ascribe to custom, I deny that any custom of its own nature can amount to the authority of a law. For if the custom be unreasonable, you must, with all other lawyers, confess that it is no law, but ought to abolished; and if the custom be reasonable, it is not the custom, but the equity that makes it law. For what need is there to make reason law by any custom how long soever, when the law of reason is eternal? Besides, you cannot find it in any statute, though _lex et consuetudo_ be often mentioned as things to be followed by the judges in their judgments, that _consuetudines_, that is to say, customs or usages, did imply any long continuance of former time; but that it