you and your People no small Security and Comfort With such Laws as saith St. Thomas should all Mankind have been governed if in Paradise they had not transgressed God's Commandment With such Laws also was the Synagogue ruled while it was under God only as King who adopted the same to him for a peculiar Kingdom but at the last when at their request they had a Man-King set over them they were then under Royal Laws only brought very low Chap. 10. Then the Prince thus said How cometh it to pass good Chancellor that one King may govern his People by Power Royal only and that another King can have no such Power Seeing both these Kings are in Dignity equal I cannot chuse but much muse and marvel why in Power they should thus differ Of which Difference in Authority over their Subjects the Chancellor in the next Chapter promises to shew the Reason which is grounded upon the different Originals of those Kingdoms And accordingly chap. 12. he shews that an Absolute Monarchy is founded in the forced Consent of a subdued and inslaved People and chap. 13. That a Kingdom of Politick Governance is founded in the voluntary Consent of the Community And after he has illustrated the first Institution of a Politick Kingdom by shewing how it resembles the Formation of a natural Body he thus proceeds in the 13 th Chapter Now you understand most noble Prince the Form of Institution of a Kingdom Politick whereby you may measure the Power which the King thereof may exercise over the Law and Subjects of the same For such a King is made and ordained for the Defence of the Law of his Subjects and of their Bodies and Goods whereunto he receiveth Power of his People so that he cannot govern his People by any other Power Wherefore to satisfy your Request in that you desire to be certified how it cometh to pass that in the Power of Kings there is so great diversity Surely in mine Opinion the diversity of the Institutions or first Ordinances of those Dignities which I have now declared is the only Cause of this foresaid Difference as of the Premises by the Discourse of Reason you may easily gather For thus the Kingdom of England out of Brute's Retinue of the Trojans which he brought out of the Coasts of Italy and Greece first grew to a Politick and Regal Dominion Thus also Scotland which sometime was subject to England as a Dukedom thereof was advanced to a Politick and Royal Kingdom Many other Kingdoms also had thus their first beginning not only of Regal but also of Politick Government Wherefore Diodorus Siculus in his second Book of ancient History thus writeth of the Egyptians The Egyptian Kings lived at first not after the licentious manner of other Rulers whose Will and Pleasure is instead of Law but as it had been private Persons they were bound by the Law neither did they think much at it being persuaded that by obeying the Laws they should be happy For by such Rulers as followed their own Lusts they thought many Things were done whereby they should incur divers Harms and Perils And in his fourth Book thus he writeth The Ethiopian King as soon as he is created he ordereth his Life according to the Laws and doth all things after the Manner and Custom of his Country assigning neither Reward nor Punishment to any Man other than the Law made by his Predecessors appointeth He reporteth much the same of the King of Saba in Arabia Faelix and of certain other Kings which in old Time reigned happily Chap. 14. To whom the Prince thus answered You have good Chancellor with the clear Light of your Declaration dispelled the Clouds wherewith my Mind was darkned so that I do most evidently see that no Nation did ever of their own voluntary Mind incorporate themselves into a Kingdom for any other Intent but only to the end that they might enjoy their Lives and Fortunes which they were afraid of losing with greater Security than before And of this Intent should such a Nation be utterly defrauded if then their King might spoil them of their Goods which before was lawful for no Man to do And yet should such a People be much more injured if they should afterwards be governed by foreign and strange Laws yea and such as they peradventure deadly hated and abhorred And most of all if by those Laws their Substance should be diminished for the Safeguard whereof as also for the Security of their Persons they of their own accord submitted themselves to the Governance of a King. No such Power for certain could proceed from the People themselves and yet unless it had been from the People themselves such a King could have had no Power at all over them Now on the other side I perceive it to stand much otherwise with a Kingdom which is incorporate by the King 's sole Power and Authority because such a Nation is subject to him upon no other Terms but that this Nation which was made his Kingdom by his Will and Pleasure should obey and be governed by his Laws which are nothing else but the same Will and Pleasure Neither have I yet good Chancellor forgotten that which in your Treatise of the Nature of the Law of Nature you have learnedly proved that the Power of these two Kings is equal while the Power of the one whereby he is at liberty to deal wrongfully is not by such Liberty augmented as to have Power to decay and die is not Power but because of the Privations which are added to it is rather to be called Impotency and Want of Power because as Boetius saith Power is not but to Good. So that to be able to do Evil which the King who rules Regally is more at liberty to do than the King that has a Politick Dominion over his People is rather a Diminution than an Increase of his Power For the Holy Spirits which are now established in Glory and cannot sin do in Power far excell and pass us who have a delight and pleasure to run headlong into all kind of Wickedness It is plain to any attentive Reader that throughout this long Discourse Fortescue speaks but of two sorts of Kingdoms an absolute Monarchy and a limited Monarchy the latter of which he sometimes calls a Politick Government and sometimes he calls the very same Regal and Politick to distinguish it more expresly from an Aristocracy or Democracy But I will prove this beyond contradiction by some other Passages in Fortescue where he tells us that some of the former Kings of England would fain have changed the Laws of England for the Civil Law and did all they could to shake off this Politick Yoke of the Law of England that they also might rule or rather rage over their Subjects in Regal wise only and for this end endeavoured with might and main to cast away their Politick Government This is what our Author would have and
his Father's stead in Jerusalem Jehoahaz was the younger Brother and yet the People of the Land excluded his elder Brother to make him King. And tho he were the younger Brother by about two Years the Scripture approves the Title and Birth-right which the People of the Land gave him for it allows and records him to be the First-born 1 Chron. 3.15 And the Sons of Josiah were the First-born Johanan the second Jehojakim c. This Johanan is the same with Jehoahaz as all Commentators are agreed such variety of Names being very usual in Scripture for the same Person 2dly That the Government of the Succession in the Roman Empire was in the hands of the Emperor which is the reason that Gregory blames Constantius alone and neither Souldiery nor Senate for Julian's succeeding to the Crown And 3dly That in all Hereditary Kingdoms the Succession has been variously ordered and disposed upon occasion and that justly by those who had the Government of it And therefore Chlorus might do as was most fit to give his Empire to his eldest Son alone and yet Constantine do as well to divide his larger Empire amongst his three Sons Both which ways of inheriting according to the Fathers were still by Divine Right We have a plain Instance of this likewise in the Articles of Philip and Mary's Marriage in the united Kingdoms of those two Princes I shall add by way of Supererrogation that the Empire after Jovian's untimely and sudden Death went on again in a way of Hereditary Succession first in Valentinian's and afterwards in Theodosius's Family Gratian and Valentinian the younger succeeded Valentinian as his lawful Heirs So Symmachus Praefect of Rome expresses it Eum Religionis statum petimus qui divo parenti vestro culminis servavit Imperium qui fortunato Principi legitimos suffecit Haeredes One of them was Emperor when he was a Child but it was all one for that For as St. Ambrose says by Theodosius's young Sons Arcadius and Honorius who likewise succeeded their Father Nec moveat aetas Imperatoris perfecta aetas No-body is to mind their Age for an Emperor is always at Age. The Descent of the Imperial Crown took away all Defects And St. Ambrose exhorts the People and Army to pay the same Duty to these Minors as they would to Theodosius himself or rather more and tells them what Sacrilege it would be to violate their Rights Plus debetis defuncto quà m debuistis viventi Etenim si in liberis privatorum non sine gravi scelere minorum jura temerantur quanto magis in filiis Imperatoris In a word if the Empire were not Hereditary in that period of it which my Discourse led me to speak of and for a long time after the Christians as well as Heathens have not only imposed upon the World but which is far worse have mocked God in their Prayers Firmicus prays the great Sun and Stars together with the most High God to make the Government of Constantine and his Sons perpetual and grant says he that they may reign over our Posterity and the Posterity of our Posterity in a continued Series of infinite Ages Sozomen prays that God would transmit Theodosius's Kingdom to his Children's Children To which Prince Cyrill Archbishop of Alexandria says The Queen glorious in having Children by you gives hope of Perpetuity to the Empire Now from any one of these Expressions it is plain that the Empire was not Elective For every one knows that the present King's Children in an Elective Kingdom are farthest off from succeeding Whoever succeeds they shall not for fear they should alter the Constitution of the Kingdom and make it Hereditary It is indeed otherwise in the Empire of Germany but there is a peculiar Reason for it None but the House of Austria which has so large Hereditary Dominions and Countries and so scituate as to be a Bulwark against the Turk being capable of defending and preserving that Empire After all to shew how much our Author is mistaken in thinking the Stress of my Argument lies upon this Assertion That the Empire was Hereditary in Julian's time which nevertheless I desire him to confute if he can in fourscore Pages more I do assure him that the Conclusions which are drawn from his own Premises will serve my Turn as well Our Author says pag. 51. That the Caesarship only made a Man Candidate and Expectant of the Empire or as he expresses himself afterwards it was a Recommendation to the Augustus-ship Tho by the way Candidate or Expectant is not the English of Spartianus's Latine which he there quotes for designed or appointed Heirs of the Imperial Majesty are more than Candidates and Eumenius who understood the Roman Empire and Language better than any modern Man opposes those two Words to one another Sacrum illud palatium non Candidatus Imperii sed designatus intrasti However to take the Character of a Caesar at the very lowest he was recommended to the Empire and stood fairest for it And because the Empire had generally gone that way he might plead Custom tho not a strict Right and at the least was next to the Chair Nevertheless the Christians were for setting aside one that had these Pretensions to the Empire of the Roman World meerly because he was not of their Religion they would not have a Heathen to reign over them Now I did not go to ask their Opinion concerning the 13 th of Elizabeth and half a dozen Acts of Parliament more or whether our King and Parliament have not equal power to exclude a Popish Successor as Constantius had to degrade a Pagan Caesar Of which I never doubted nor dare our Author deny it But my Enquiry was Whether Paganism was a sufficient Bar to hinder a Man from an Empire and whether it unqualified him from reigning over Christians And their Answer was as I have faithfully reported it that it was a great Sin in those who could prevent such a Person 's coming to the Crown if they did not do it And whether an Act of Parliament cannot govern the Norman Entail we will never ask the Fathers To conclude if my Comparison of Popery and Paganism hold true which this Author has been pleased to grace and fortify with his Approbation then the Case of Conscience is thus resolved by the Fathers That it is not only just to prevent a Popish Successor but that it is a very great Sin in those who can legally prevent him unless they do it Again If Julian's Title were not a Right of Inheritance but lay in the Choice of the Legions then Julian was already lawful Emperor while he was in France as well as Gordianus Philip Decius p. 37. and others in other places of our Author And yet Julian durst not then own himself a Pagan tho he had been so for ten Years but as Ammianus confesses went to Church a long time after to curry Favour with the
will prove him perjured Again he says As these are Protestant Oaths they bind us the more emphatically to assist and defend the King against the Vsurpation of the Pope who pretends to a Power of deposing Kings and of excluding Hereditary Princes from the Succession Answ We are bound emphatically to renounce all Power of the Pope and therefore this among the rest but we are bound to assert many Instances of that Power to the King which we deny to the Pope of which I have proved the Power of excluding a Popish Prince to be one Which if the Pope himself exercises upon Protestant Princes where he but pretends to be Supream he is a Wretch if he complains or any Body for him that the like is done by them who really are Supream This in short is your plain and honest Arguing We are sworn to deny the Pope's usurped Power Ergo we are sworn to deny the King 's just and lawful Power which by the same Oath we are bound to maintain In the next Paragraph our Author protests to all the World that he has sworn Allegiance and Supremacy to Subjects or to the unalterable Succession or to I know not what for he is not very clear But as for all others who have taken no such rash and unlawful Oath they need no Absolution from it and consequently there had not been such a World of Popery in the Bill of Exclusion upon that Score And therefore I desire our Author not to trouble his Head about it and he may speak to the Great Man whom he quotes for that notable Observation to do so too If he himself has been so forward as to swear before-hand to a Subject he has done it in his own Wrong and he knows how by Repentance to disengage himself from a rash void and unlawful Oath for he ought to have sworn only to our Sovereign Lord the King that now is and to his Highness Heirs and lawful Successors Kings or Queens of this Realm of England and other his Dominions depending on the same I never in my Life read any thing of that kind with greater pleasure than his Conclusion of this second Argument to see a Man bewildred and confounded and lost in his own Sophistry I took notice in my Preface of an Abuse in Common Speech where Men that are only in possibility of being Heirs are called Heirs next Heirs c. in which absurd and dangerous Sence some weak Men have taken the Heirs and Successors mentioned in the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and thereupon were against a Bill of Exclusion I then proved it and therefore had the confidence to call it a deceitful Prejudice and must now add that it is a very silly Prejudice because every Bill Bond Release and almost any other Writing that passes in common Intercourse among Men wherein Heirs are mentioned is sufficient to correct it for where Men are concerned to speak properly Heirs are always understood to be those who actually inherit Now as in a Covenant I promise to pay A. B. and to his Heirs the yearly Rent of c. without promising one Farthing to his eldest Son or without being bound that his eldest Son shall be his Heir after his Death or without being obliged not to express a desire that A. B. would disinherit his eldest Son if he have given manifest proof that he will utterly ruine the Estate and Family So it is in these Oaths with this difference That it would be only the Absurdity and Inconvenience of paying my Rent twice over to take Heirs for possible Heirs in this lower and more familiar Instance of a Covenant whereas it would involve us in Treason to take Heirs in that Sence in the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy But this unconscionable Man will have them taken in both Sences in these Oaths Heirs and Successors in the very same place shall signify Subjects and not Subjects but Kings and Queens Heirs shall stand for those that actually inherit and not for them but for those that may and may not inherit and in case of Exclusion never shall And lawful Successors shall stand for such as lawfully succeed their Predecessors and in the self-same place shall stand for unlawful Successors a sort of Successors before their time In one word Heirs and lawful Successors in the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy must either signify Kings and Queens as the Oath of Allegiance at Common-Law expounds it self which the Lawyers call Benedicta expositio ex visceribus causae a blessed Exposition out of the Bowels of the Cause or else they must signify Subjects for it is contradictious and Transubstantiation-Non-sence to say they signify both If they signify Kings and Queens then we are no ways bound to any Person under that degree by those Oaths and they have been very unfairly as well as mischievously urged against a Bill of Exclusion If any Man say they signify Subjects then this grievous Inconvenience unavoidably follows That we have promised from henceforth that is from the Time we were sworn and so onwards to bear them Faith and true Allegiance which I suppose no Minister of London nor Minister of State in England will think fit to affirm III. And now comes his third Argument atttended with a marginal Superfaetation of little sucking Arguments such as Dei gratiâ Dieu Mon droit c. all equally concluding against a Bill of Exclusion The main Argument for which he quotes Cook upon Littleton of Tenures is this The Inheritance of our Lord the King is a direct Dominion of which none is the Author but God alone The King holds of none but God He has no superiour Lord as Cook explains himself in the same place the Crown is no Norman Fee Ergo the King cannot bind and limit the Succession I thought he could the sooner for that for what shall hinder him from disposing of his own for the Welfare and with the Consent of his Kingdom who have a greater Interest in their King than our Author is aware of From the aforesaid Principle he gives us to understand that the Wise and the Learned infer this Conclusion That it would be Vsurpation without a manifest Revelation from God to preclude any Person of the Royal Family from succeeding to the Crown The Learned may do much but I will go upon his Errand an hundred Miles an end who will shew any other Man how to infer that Conclusion from that Argument But for all that they shew themselves neither learned nor wise in calling for a manifest Revelation from God for a Bill of Exclusion because that may occasion others to demand a manifest Revelation for any Papist's Right to succeed in a Protestant Kingdom where by the Laws of that Kingdom if he be reconciled to the Church of Rome he has not a Right to live A manifest Revelation to shew why a Natural Fool or Mad-man who cannot help it may be put by the Succession as not
fit to govern but a Papist who is more dangerous and destructive to a Protestant Kingdom than both of them and that by his own Fault too may not be prevented In a Word a manifest Revelation to shew how a publick Enemy as every Person who is reconciled to the Church of Rome is in the Eye of the Law can possibly be the Fountain of Justice and Mercy which is the true Notion of an English King. These things do stand more in need of a manifest Revelation to clear them up than a Bill of Exclusion does which is as manifestly lawful as that the King and Parliament have power to make a just and necessary Law. Besides where was the Wisdom of our Author or his Friends in demanding a Revelation from God for a necessary Alteration of the Succession when they themselves cannot pretend to one for the Establishment of it Since it is an undeniable Maxime both in Law and Reason that Things are dissolved as they be contracted and an Obligation only by Word of Mouth needs not Hand and Seal to discharge it For by these unreasonable Demands which are contrary to the known Laws of the Kingdom they put Men upon Enquiries nice and unprofitable As how and for what cause the Monarchy of England came to be Hereditary And whether a Popish Prince does not perfectly overthrow that excellent Constitution and disinherit himself This is laid down for a known and acknowledged Truth in the Reasons of the House of Commons 14 Elizab. against Mary Queen of Scots Queen Elizabeth was contented to disable the Queen of Scots as a Person unworthy of any Hope or Title Preheminence or Dignity within this her Land and the Law so to run that if any should enterprise to deliver her out of Prison after her Disablement either in her Majesty's Life or after the same to be convicted immediatly of High-Treason and her self assenting thereunto to be likewise adjudged as a Traytor in Law. This the Commons in their large Answer represent both as needless and as insufficient Whereas it is said that it standeth to very good purpose to proceed only in disabling of the Scotish Queen for any Claim or Title to the Crown we take it by your Majesty's favour that such an especial disabling of the Scotish Queen is in effect a special Confirmation of a Right that she should have had Quia privatio praesupponit habitum And further we do take it for a known Truth that by the Laws and Statutes of this Land now in force she is already disabled and therefore it is to small purpose rem actam agere And now I have done with our Author's Arguments as they are his for as they are Scotch or Newmarket Positions I have nothing to say to them Only it would be worth our Author's Pains and he may get the Addressing Part of the University to help him to reconcile this Scotch Act which makes such a brave shew in his Preface with the History of Succession in Scotland lest while he is so industrious to serve the Interest of a Popish Successor he be found overthrowing the Titles of all the Kings of Scotland for these three hundred Years not excepting his present Majesty's Title to that Kingdom no nor the Expectations of that very Person to whom he is so much devoted The History in short is this Robert Stuart the hundredth King of Scotland and first of the Family of the Stuarts had a Concubine named Elizabeth More the Daughter of Sir Adam More by whom he had three Sons and two Daughters and himself marrying Eufemia the Daughter of the Earl of Ross took care to marry Elizabeth More to one Giffard a Noble-Man in the County of Louthien By Eufemia he had Issue Walter and David Earls of Athol and Strathern and Eufemia who was afterwards married to James Duglass Son to the Earl of that Name The Queen Eufemia dying and Giffard the Husband of Elizabeth More dying much about the same time the King marries Elizabeth More his former Concubine and presently ennobles the Sons which he had by her creating John Earl of Carrike Robert Earl of Menteith and Alexander Earl of Bucquhane Nor was he content with doing so much for them but he also obtained from a Parliament at Scone that the Children which he had by Eufemia being past by these should come to the Crown in their Course No Man will offer to say that the Children of Elizabeth More were made inheritable by that After-Marriage for besides the apparent Insufficiency of it for that purpose what need was there then of obtaining an Act of Parliament to make them so and to set by the Children of Eufemia Now if no Law or Act of Parliament made or to be made can alter or divert the Right of Succession according to the known Degrees of Proximity in Blood what then becomes of the Scone Act But if an Act made at Scone can set aside three Persons at once with all their numerous Descendents for no Fault nor Forfeiture at all why might not an Act made at Westminster have done as much for one single Person alone especially when that Westminster Act would have been in some respects as favourable as an Act of Grace If our Author can tell why he shall be a greater Oracle to me than the great Apollo There is nothing betwixt this and the End of the Preface worth answering which has not already been answered unless it be that Passage where he withdraws his general Approbation of what I had written against Popery as rashly given because I seem to deny that the Church of Rome is a true Church of Christ I desire our Author to make but one Business of it and at the same time to withdraw his hearty Subscription to the Homilies which do more than seem to deny it especially in the second part of the Homily for Whit-Sunday for that whole Sermon is spent in shewing first what the true Church of Christ is and then in conferring the Church of Rome therewith to discern how well they agree together and lastly in concluding that because the Church of Rome is not the true Church of Christ and the Bishops of Rome and their Adherents are not in the Church therefore they have not the Holy-Ghost tho they have for a long time made a sore Challenge thereunto but by their Practices make it plain to all the World that they have the Spirit of the Devil It affirms and which is more proves That the Church of Rome is not a true Church nor has been these nine hundred Years and odd So that our Author must go a great way back to seek his true Church of England in his true Church of Rome I wonder in my Heart what those Gentlemen mean who pretend to be the only Sons of the Church of England and yet make nothing of blowing up whole Homilies at once and are continually disgracing all the Protestant Principles of our glorious
Liege People of England contrary to the Political Laws that is the Common and Statute-Laws which declare the Fundamental Propriety that the People of England have in their Lives Liberties and Estates those Forces may not be resisted for they who in their own Defence do resist them with Arms may be legally hanged for it in this World and without Repentance will be damned for it in that which is to come And yet this Author pag. 274. asserts That the Laws of all Governments allow every Man to defend his Life against an illegal Assassin and he that doth not so when he can dies not like a Martyr but a Fool. Now Forces thus employed are no other than illegal Assassins But it may be the Damnableness of resisting lies in resisting them with Arms No it is not that for our Author in the same place says Contra Sicarium quilibet homo est miles Any Man is a lawful Souldier against a Cut-Throat that is may use a Sword against him and not only a Switch Neither is it their being called the King's or Sovereign's Forces which makes them irresistible for p. 280 he allows that a Man may defend himself against an Assassin sent by the King's Order because says he the King's Law which is his most Authoritative Command allows us as I suppose that Benefit And therefore it remains that the Damnableness of resisting them lies in this that they are Forces and murther in Troops So that tho any Man is a lawful Souldier against a Cut-Throat yet no Man is a lawful Souldier against Cut-Throats and indeed this last Particular is the only Thing wherein our Author has not been pleased to answer himself Now in opposition to our Author I hold That if the Sovereign cannot authorize one single Person to do an Act of illegal Violence much less can he authorize Forces or great Numbers of Men to do such illegal Acts And that there is just the same Reason Law and Conscience a thousand times over to resist a thousand Murtherers that there is to resist one His Conclusions I confess are very terrible to Flesh and Blood but I take comfort when I look back upon the Principles from whence he infers them which are absurdly false and so far from supporting that Battery which he raises upon them that they fall with their own Weakness Rottenness and Incoherency His Principles are an unlimited boundless Soveraign Power two Tables of Laws which break one another some Preambles of Statutes which he stifles and will not suffer to speak out and a false Pretence of the Soveraign's Honour First He begins with the Notion of a Soveraign p. 200. by which all the World may see that he no more understands what an English Soveraign is than I know what Prester John is Does not every Body know that the very same Titles of Power and Office have a several Notion in several Countries As to compare great Things with small a Constable in England is conceived under another Notion than a Constable in France And so tho an Assyrian King were conceived under the Notion of Absoluteness whom he would he slew and whom he would he made alive whom he would he set up and whom he would he pulled down and his Will did all Yet this is quite contrary to the Notion of an English King as Bracton tells us Non est enim Rex ubi dominatur Voluntas non Lex Where Will governs and not the Law the Notion of a King is lost Nay the Laws of King Edward confirmed by William the Conqueror and sworn to be kept by all succeeding Kings in their Coronation-Oath have these Words Rex autem quia Vicarius summi Regis est ad hoc est constitutus ut regnum terrenum populum Domini regat ab injuriosis defendat c. Quod nisi fecerit nec nomen Regis in eo constabit verùm nomen Regis perdit These I hope are better Authorities in this Matter than Sam. Bochart our Author's French Oracle who like a Forreigner as he was fetch'd his Notions of our Government from the Motto of the King's Arms Dieu mon droit I need not trouble my self in examining our Author's Scheme of Soveraign Power or the Rights of the Soveraign which is full of Equivocation and Fallacy witness the last particular of it where he attributes to the Soveraign the whole Legislative Power Which methinks he might have left out as well as he has done another main Branch of the Soveraign Power which Writers of Government call Vniversale eminens Dominium or a Power of laying Taxes upon the Subject But therein our Author had Reason for if he had but mentioned that Right of Soveraignty every English-man who had ever read a Subsidy-Act or Money-Bill would immediatly have discovered the fraudulent Contrivance of that whole Discourse And because our Author writes as if he were better studied in the modern French Monarchy than in the ancient equal happy well-poised and never enough to be commended Constitution of this Kingdom as King Charles the First calls it I shall take this occasion to set down these few Words of that wise Prince concerning it There being three Kinds of Government amongst Men absolute Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy and all these having their particular Conveniencies and Inconveniencies the Experience and Wisdom of your Ancestors haâ—h so moulded this out of a mixture of thâ—se as to give to this Kingdom as far as humane Prudence can provide the Conveniencies of all three without the Inconveniencies of any one But we have some little People risen up amongst us who with a Dash of their Pen will new-mould the Government endeavouring as much as in them is to dissolve this excellent Frame and to change it into an absolute Monarchy The establish'd Constitution does not agree with the new Models they have seen abroad nor with the new Notions they have got by the end and therefore tho it be the Product of the long Experience of the deepest Insight and of the united Wisdom of a whole Nation yet it must give place to new Inventions and submit to be regulated by an Epistle of a French Author The two Houses of Parliament which have a joint Authority in making Laws as the King expresly says In this Kingdom the Laws are jointly made by a King by a House of Peers and by a House of Commons as also every Act that is made in the very enacting of it tells us shall by the new common Laws of Soveraignty only perform a Ministerial part of preparing Bills and Writings and finding a Form of Words for the Soveraign alone to enact And so likewise the Prerogatives of the King which are built upon the same Law of the Land upon which is built the Propriety and Liberty of the Subject and which is the most firm and stable Bottom in the World shall in this new and treacherous way be founded upon a floating