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CH A P. VI.

OF THE EFFECTS OF DENYING TRUE PRIN

CIPLES.

T has been usual for most writers both ancient and modern, in difcuffing the fubject of our constitution, to endeavour to trace its origin from the earliest antiquity, and to identify its form and fubftance through all the various modifications, changes, reformations, and revolutions, which it has undergone fince the first establishment of fociety, or of a community in this country. I beg the liberty of following a very different courfe. I eftablish a principle, which, if it ever existed, muft now exift, and if it now exift, must have always exifted; for what gives existence to a principle, is its universal and invariable truth, which, if it exift in one moment, muft effentially have existed from all eternity; I need not, therefore, feek for its importation into this island by the Trojan prince Brutus; nor enquire whether it were borrowed by our British ancestors from their Gallic neighbours; nor whether it were the peculiar growth of our native foil; whether it grew out of the hedge-rowed towns or encampments of our warlike ancef

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Principle the

true fource and

origin of our

conftitution.

Principles true from all eter

nity.

tors, or iffued out of the fanctuaries of their myfterious Druids; whether it were impofed upon them by heathen Rome, or infufed into them by Christian Rome; whether it were tranfplanted from Germany with our Saxon conquerors and progenitors, nor whether it attended the defpotism of the Norman conqueror; nor, in a word, whether it flourished with vigour and luxuriancy, or withered in apparent decay, under the feveral houses of Tudor, Stuart, Naffau, and Brunswick.

At this moment, this principle, the fovereignty of power ever did, and now does, unalienably refide in the people, exifts, because it is univerfally and invariably true; and it must for ever have exifted with the fame force and efficacy, that it now does; for univerfal truth excludes all degrees. From this invariable and ever operative principle have arisen all the various changes, innovations, and improvements, which have at different times been effected in our conftitution and government, by the means of reformation and revolution. The coercive introduction or impofition of new laws by the force of arms, can never make a part of the conftitution and government of a free people, till they have been voluntarily fubmitted to, recognized, accepted, or confirmed by the act of the commu

nity. I fhall hereafter have occafion, and, indeed, be under the neceffity of confidering more minutely the application of this principle to what we commonly call the reformation and the revolution.

party,

Unfortunately for this country, the different occurrences, which have from time to time brought these political topics into difcuffion, have been productive of fo much acrimony, venom, and heat, that the cool voice of reafon has been seldom heard by either and confequently, conviction of the mind has rarely followed the difcuffion. For it is very certain, that few or none of the political writers of those days of animofity, either could or would separate, on one fide, the principle, "that a fupreme power refides in the people" from rebellion and treafon; or, on the other fide, diftinguish between the legal prerogative of a lawful monarch, and the unwarrantable defpotifm of an ufurping tyrant. It is the frequent boast of most modern writers, and of all modern theorists, that we live in an age enlightened beyond all others, and confequently, that our prefent existence exalts us, in ability and information, far above the level

"Laws they are not, therefore, which public approbation hath not made fo." Hooker's Eccl. Pol. I. i. fect. 10.

Heat of party has prevented cool difcuffion.

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of our ancestors and predeceffors. I have already declared myself to be little flattered with the advantage, though I will not diffemble, that the prepoffeffion of fuch a conviction muft, in a great measure, counteract the pernicious, though frequent, effects of hereditary and systematical prejudices. The learned bishop of Worcester, in talking of the impotent threats and attempts of the fee of Rome to depose our fovereigns, fays, that the Papists used all their ingenuity to justify and establish it; and that "one of their contrivances was, by fearching into the origin of civil power, which they brought rightly, though for this wicked purpose, from the people; for they concluded, that if the regal power could be to corrupt mo fhewn to have no divine right, but to be of

The maintenance of true principles unfairly attributed

tives.

human and even popular inftitution, the liberty, which the pope took in depofing kings, would be lefs invidious." The maintenance of this doctrine cannot, I think, be fairly attributed to any such motive; for when the popes of Rome fo foolishly affumed the right of depofing temporal fovereigns, they evidently founded their idle pretenfions upon the Spiritual fupremacy, which they claimed over all Chriftians; they must confe

* Dr. Hurd's Moral and Political Dialogues, vol. ii. p. 300.

quently

For

quently have conceived a better, and might
have fet up a right more plausible in those
days, in quality of Chrift's vice-gerents upon
earth, to dispose of rights holden by this fpi-
ritual jure divino tenure, than of fuch as were
merely of a fecular or temporal nature.
the popes have always been allowed, by all
Roman catholics, a power to dispense, in cer-
tain cafes, with spiritual obligations, such as
vows or promises made by individuals imme-
diately to Almighty God; but never to dispense
with, or annul a civil or moral obligation of
one individual to another, fo as to weaken or
defeat the rights of a third person. The learned
prelate, however, very fairly accounts for the
former prevalence of the oppofite doctrine
throughout this nation. * "The proteftant
divines went into the other extreme; and to

.

fave the perfon of their fovereign, preached

up the doctrine of divine right. Hooker, fuperior to every prejudice, followed the truth; but the rest of the reforming and reformed divines ftuck to the other opinion, which, as appears from the homilies, the Inftitution of a Christian Man, and the general stream of writings in those days, became the opinion of the church, and was, indeed, the received pro

* Dr. Hurd's Moral and Political Dialogues, vol. ii. p. 301.

The mainte

nance of falfe

principles attri

buted to a lau

dable motive.

K 3

teftant

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