ſubſtance ſuch that both may ſtand together, here the latter does not repeal the former, but they ſhall both have a concurrent efficacy. If by a former law an offence be indictable at the quarter ſeſſions, and a latter law makes the ſame offence indictable at the aſſiſes; here the juriſdiction of the ſeſſions is not taken away, but both have a concurrent juriſdiction, and the offender may be proſecuted at either; unleſs the new ſtatute ſubjoins expreſs negative words, as, that the offence ſhall be indictable at the aſſiſes, and not elſewhere[1].
8. If a ſtatute, that repeals another, is itſelf repealed afterwards, the firſt ſtatute is hereby revived, without any formal words for that purpoſe. So when the ſtatutes of 26 and 35 Hen. VIII, declaring the king to be the ſupreme head of the church, were repealed by a ſtatute 1 & 2 Philip and Mary, and this latter ſtatute was afterwards repealed by an act of 1 Eliz. there needed not any expreſs words of revival in queen Elizabeth’s ſtatute, but theſe acts of king Henry were impliedly and virtually revived[2].
9. Acts of parliament derogatory from the power of ſubſequent parliaments bind not. So the ſtatute 11 Hen. VII. c. 1. which directs, that no perſon for aſſiſting a king de facto ſhall be attainted of treaſon by act of parliament or otherwiſe, is held to be good only as to common proſecutions for high treaſon; but will not reſtrain or clog any parliamentary attainder[3]. Becauſe the legiſlature, being in truth the ſovereign power, is always of equal, always of abſolute authority: it acknowleges no ſuperior upon earth, which the prior legiſlature muſt have been, if it’s ordinances could bind the preſent parliament. And upon the ſame principle Cicero, in his letters to Atticus, treats with a proper contempt theſe reſtraining clauſes which endeavour to tie up the hands of ſucceeding legiſlatures. “When you repeal the law it-
