第34章 Letter IX(4)

I have often wished that some profound antiquary of much leisure,would write an elaborate treatise,to assert royal prerogative against the great charter,as well as hereditary right against the Revolution.I am persuaded that he would succeed alike in both.Why,indeed,should a charter,extorted by force,and therefore vicious in its principle,stand on a better foot,or have more regard paid to it,than a settlement made in opposition to a divine,and therefore indefeasible right?I say,and therefore indefeasible;because if it be not proved to be something more than human,it will hardly be proved indefeasible.But I quit this subject;upon which,perhaps,you may think I have spent my time as ill,as I should have done if I had preached against the Koran at Paul's.It is time to speak of the motives of interest,by which we are bound,as well as by the ties of duty,to support the present constitution.

Upon this head a few words will be sufficient,since I presume that no prejudices can be strong enough to create much diversity of opinion in a case so very clear,and capable of being stated so shortly.Whether the Revolution altered our old constitution for the better,or renewed it,and brought it back to the first principles,and nearer to the primitive institution,shall not be disputed here.I think the latter,and every man must think that one or the other was necessary,who considers,in the first place,how the majesty and authority of the prince began to swell above any pitch,proportionable to the rank of chief magistrate,or supreme head,in a free state;by how many arts the prerogative of the crown had been stretched,and how many precedents,little favourable to liberty,had been set,even before the accession of the Scottish line;and who considers,in the next place,the direct tendency,confirmed by experience,of those principles of government,so frequently mentioned,which composed an avowed system of tyranny and established slavery as a political,a moral,and a religious obligation,which King James the First was too successful in establishing,but neither he nor his descendants were able to pursue.What these considerations made necessary,was done at the Revolution,at least,so far as to put it into our power to do the rest.

A spirit of liberty,transmitted down from our Saxon ancestors,and the unknown ages of our government,preserved itself through one almost continual struggle,against the usurpations of our princes,and the vices of our people;and they,whom neither the Plantagenets nor the Tudors could enslave,were incapable of suffering their rights and privileges to be ravished from them by the Stuarts.They bore with the last king of this unhappy race,till it was shameful,as it must have been fatal,to bear any longer;and whilst they asserted their liberties,they refuted and anticipated,by their temper and their patience,all the objections which foreign and domestic abettors of tyranny are apt to make against the conduct of our nation towards their kings.Let us justify this conduct by persisting in it,and continue to ourselves the peculiar honour of maintaining the freedom of our Gothic institution of government,when so many other nations,who enjoyed the same,have lost theirs.

If a divine,indefeasible,hereditary right to govern a community be once acknowledged;a right independent of the community,and which vests in every successive prince immediately on the death of his predecessor,and previously to any engagement taken on his part towards the people;if the people once acknowledge themselves bound to such princes by the ties of passive obedience and nonresistance,by an allegiance unconditional,and not reciprocal to protection;if a kind of oral law,or mysterious cabbala,which pharisees of the black gown and the long robe are always at hand to report and interpret as a prince desires,be once added,like a supplemental code,to the known laws of the land;then,I say,such princes have the power,if not the right,given them,of commencing tyrants,and princes who have the power,are prone to think that they have the right.