In this manner these things have been always considered by our ancestors. There are some, indeed, who have the art of turning the very acts of Parliament which were made for securing the hereditary succession in the present royal family, by rendering it penal to doubt of the validity of those acts of Parliament, into an instrument for defeating all their ends and purposes,—but upon grounds so very foolish that it is not worth while to take further notice of such sophistry.
To prevent any unnecessary subdivision, I shall here put together what may be necessary to show the perfect agreement of the Whigs with Mr. Burke in his assertions, that the Revolution made no "essential change in the constitution of the monarchy, or in any of its ancient, sound, and legal principles; that the succession was settled in the Hanover family, upon the idea and in the mode of an hereditary succession qualified with Protestantism; that it was not settled upon elective principles, in any sense of the word elective, or under any modification or description of election whatsoever; but, on the contrary, that the nation, after the Revolution, renewed by a fresh compact the spirit of the original compact of the state, binding itself, both in its existing members and all its posterity, to adhere to the settlement of an hereditary succession in the Protestant line, drawn from James the First, as the stock of inheritance."
Sir John Hawles.
Necessity of settling the right of the crown, and submission to the settlement."If he [Dr. Sacheverell] is of the opinion he pretends, I can't imagine how it comes to pass that he that pays that deference to the supreme power has preached so directly contrary to the determinations of the supreme power in this government, he very well knowing that the lawfulness of the Revolution, and of the means whereby it was brought about, has already been determined by the aforesaid acts of Parliament,—and do it in the worst manner that he could invent. For questioning the right to the crown here in England has procured the shedding of more blood and caused more slaughter than all the other matters tending to disturbances in the government put together. If, therefore, the doctrine which the Apostles had laid down was only to continue the peace of the world, as thinking the death of some few particular persons better to be borne with than a civil war, sure it is the highest breach of that law to question the first principles of this government."
"If the Doctor had been contented with the liberty he took of preaching up the duty of passive obedience in the most extensive manner he had thought fit, and would have stopped there, your Lordships would not have had the trouble in relation to him that you now have; but it is plain that he preached up his absolute and unconditional obedience, not to continue the peace and tranquillity of this nation, but to set the subjects at strife, and to raise a war in the bowels of this nation: and it is for this that he is now prosecuted; though he would fain have it believed that the prosecution was for preaching the peaceable doctrine of absolute obedience."
Sir Joseph Jekyl.
Whole frame of government restored unhurt, on the Revolution."The whole tenor of the administration then in being was agreed to by all to be a total departure from the Constitution. The nation was at that time united in that opinion, all but the criminal part of it. And as the nation joined in the judgment of their disease, so they did in the remedy. They saw there was no remedy left but the last; and when that remedy took place, the whole frame of the government was restored entire and unhurt.[17] This showed the excellent temper the nation was in at that time, that, after such provocations from an abuse of the regal power, and such a convulsion, no one part of the Constitution was altered, or suffered the least damage; but, on the contrary, the whole received new life and vigor."