12. That no Abilities should qualify a noted Knave to be employed in Business. A Knave can by none of his Dexterities make amends for the Scandal he bringeth upon the Crown.
13. That those who will not be bound by the Laws, rely upon Crimes: a third way was never found in the World to secure any Government.
14. That a Seaman be a Seaman; a Cabinet-Counsellor a Man of Business; an Officer, an Officer.
15. In corrupted Governments the Place is given for the sake of the Man; in good ones the Man is chosen for the sake of the Place.
16. That Crowds at Court are made up of such as would deceive: The real Worshippers are few.
17. That Salus Populi is the greatest of all Fundamentals, yet not altogether an immoveable one. It is a Fundamental for a Ship to ride at Anchor when it is in Port, but if a Storm cometh the Cable must be cut.
18. Property is not a fundamental Right in one Sense, because in the beginning of the World there was none, so that Property itself was an Innovation introduced by Laws.
Property is only secured by trusting it in the best Hands, and those are generally chosen who are least likely to deceive; but if they should, they have a legal Authority to abuse as well as use the Power with which they are trusted, and there is no Fundamental can stand in their way, or be allowed as an Exception to the Authority that was vested in them.
19. Magna Charta would fain be made to pass for a Fundamental; and Sir Edward Coke would have it, that the Grand Charter was for the most part declaratory of the principal Grounds of the fundamental Laws of England.
If that referreth to the Common Law, it must be made out that every thing in Magna Charta is always and at all times necessary in itself to be kept, or else the denying a subsequent Parliament the Right of repealing any Law doth by consequence deny the preceding Parliament the Right of making it. But they are fain to say it was only a declarative Law, which is very hard to be proved. Yet suppose it, you must either make the Common Law so stated a thing that all Men know it before-hand, or else universally acquiesce in it whenever it is alledged, from the Affinity it hath to the Law of Nature. Now I would fain know whether the Common Law is capable of being defined, and whether it doth not hover in the Clouds like the Prerogative, and bolteth out like Lightening to be made use of for some particular Occasion? If so, the Government of the World is left to a thing that cannot be defined; and if it cannot be defined, you know not what it is; so that the supream Appeal is, we know not what. We submit to God Almighty though he is incomprehensible, and yet He hath set down His Methods; but for this World, there can be no Government without a stated Rule, and a Supream Power not to be controled neither by the Dead nor the Living.