"O Lord, we beseech thee, let thy continual pity cleanse and defend thy Church; and because it cannot continue in safety without thy succour, preserve it evermore, by thy help and goodness, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.'"

House of Lords.

THE SECOND DAY. Tuesday, Feb. 28.

Our sovereign lady the queen doth strictly charge and command all manner of persons to keep silence, upon pain of imprisonment.

subject: for such a one is dutiful and submissive to his prince, and true to the liberty of his country; but in this criminal your lordships will find virulent faction, and slavish submission.

Then another Proclamation was made: Henry Sacheverell, Doctor in Divinity, come forth, save thee and thy bail, else thou forfeitest thy recognizance.

The Doctor appearing at the bar accordingly, with his Counsel as before,

Lord Chancellor. Gentlemen of the House of Commons, you may proceed in your Evidence.

Sir Joseph Jekyll. My lords, yesterday your lordships heard the Articles against Dr. Sácheverell, his Answer, and the Commons' Replication, read; and the Charge being opened, your lordships likewise heard the Doctor's Sermon preached at St. Paul's, and the Dedication of his Derby Sermon; so that the case is now fully before your lordships.

That part which is assigned to me, and some other gentlemen, is to maintain the First Article of the Commons' Charge. The method I shall take will be, first, to shew the importance of this Article; secondly, to clear up and vindicate the justice of the Revolution; and, thirdly, to state the evidence or proof of this Article, which charges the Doctor with traducing and condemning the Revolution.

My lords, I must premise, that the Commons cannot but think it hard, that in this assembly of the British nation, they should now, after more than 20 years enjoyment of the benefits arising by the Revolution; they cannot but think it hard, I say, that in this place, and at this time, they should be forced to plead in vindication of the justice of that Revolution. But since we must give up our right to the

state matters; and is usurping an office that belongs to another profession, and to men of another character; and I should account it every whit as indecent in a clergyman to take upon him to deal in these points, as it would be for him to determine titles of land in the pulpit, which are in dispute in Westminster-hall."

My lords, as it is self-evident that the honour of her majesty's government stands upon the justice of the Revolution, so doth the peace and tranquillity of it depend upon that also. The Commons may appeal to your lordships, and the whole nation, in this matter: From what quarter is it, that all that opposition and obstruction to the administration of the late king, and her present majesty, have come? Has it not been from those who have questioned the lawfulness of the Resistance made use of in the Revolution? whose pursuit after power is indefatigable, and to obtain which they would make a willing sacrifice of the common liberty; whilst others who have a contrary principle, and are convinced of the justice of that proceeding, have acted a quite contrary, part. Have they not contributed every thing in their power to strengthen the government in her present majesty's hands, as well as the late king's; and that with a zeal and constancy through several changes, which nothing but a principle could inspire? How much is owing to this zeal in promoting the settlement of the Protestant Succession, and how little to the contrary principle, every one that remembers the state of things at the end of the late king's reign can tell. Upon the present question, therefore, my lords, depend our present happiness, and future hopes. Hath not this principle of unlimited Non-Resistance been revived by the professed and undisguised friends of the Pretender? Hath it not been prosecuted with an unusual warmth, since his attempt upon her majesty's crown? Can the

Pretender have any hopes, but from the keeping alive such notions? Or can the queen's title receive any advantage from them? Or can it be seasonable to preach this doctrine in the reign of the best of princes, which can be of Do use to any but the worst ?

In clearing up and vindicating the justice of the Revolution, which was the second thing proposed, it is far from the intent of the Commons to state the limits and bounds of the subject's submission to the sovereign. That which the law hath been wisely silent in, the Commons desire to be silent in too; nor will they put any case of a justifiable Resistance, but that of the Revolution only; and they persuade themselves that the doing right to that Resistance, will be so far from promoting popular licence or confusion, that it will have a contrary effect, and be a means of settling men's minds in the love of, and veneration for the laws; to rescue and secure which, was the only aim and intention of those concerned in that Resistance.

To make out the justice of the Revolution, it may be laid down, that as the law is the only measure of the prince's authority, and the people's subjection, so the law derives its being and efficacy from common consent: And to place it on any other foundation than common consent, is to take away the obligation this notion of common consent puts both prince and people under to observe the laws. And upon this solid and rational foundation, the lawyers in all ages have placed that obligation, as appears by all our law-books. But instead of this, of later times, patriarchical and other fantastical schemes have been framed, to rest the authority of the law upon; and so questions of divinity have been blended with questions of law; when it is plain, that religion hath nothing to do to extend the authority of the prince, or the submission of the subject, but only to secure the legal authority of the one, and enforce the due submission of the other, from the consideration of higher rewards and heavier punishments. And if this distinction were attended to, it might serve to bury the useless labours (to say no worse of them) of several divines, and others, on these subjects, in utter oblivion.

My lords, nothing is plainer, than that the people have a right to the laws and the constitution. This right the nation bath asserted, and recovered out of the hands of those who bad uispossessed them of it at several times. There are of this two famous instances in the knowledge of the present age; I mean that of the Restoration, and that of the Revolution; in both these great events were the regal power and the rights of the people recovered. And it is hard to say in which the people have the greatest interest; for the Commons are sensible, that there is not one legal power belonging to the crown, but they have an interest in it; and I doubt not, but they will always be as careful to support the rights of the crown, as their own prinleges. VOL. XV.

My lords, that the constitution was wholly lost before, and recovered by the Restoration, is known to all; and before the Revolution, it is known how Popery and absolute power had invaded the constitution. The regal supremacy, of such absolute necessity to preserve the peace of the kingdom, was disclaimed, and the papal supremacy, by a solemn embassy to Rome, owned and acknowledged, and no footsteps left of the regal supremacy but that which was worse than naught, an illegal High Commission Court: and at that time the popular rights, in almost all the species of them, were invaded, that great privilege of the people, on which all others depend, that of giving their consent to the making new, or repealing old laws, was invaded; and a Dispensing Power, such as rendered all our laws precarious, and at the will of the prince, was exercised. These, and a great many other acts of absolute power, are mentioned in that act of parliament, called The Bill of Rights. It would be to mis-spend your lordships' time, to mention all the instances there given: for, my lords, the whole tenor of the administration then in being, was agreed 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 unburt. This shewed 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 vigour.

My lords, as that doctrine of unlimited NonResistance was implicitly renounced by the whole nation in the Revolution, so divers acts of parliament afterwards passed, expressing that renunciation. I beg leave to read a few passages out of the laws that were then made. In the first of king William and queen Mary, was the Act for abrogating the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, and appointing other oaths. By that act, the Declaration injoined to be taken by several acts, in the time of king Charles 2, to this purpose, That it is not lawful, on any pretence whatsoever, to take up arms against the king, was taken away. Then in the second session of that parliament, was the Act for declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject: in that act notice is taken, that the late king James did endeavour to subvert and extirpate the Protestant Religion, and the laws and liberties of the kingdom; and the particular instances of male administration are set forth: then it declares, That that unhappy prince had abdicated the government, and the throne was thereby vacant; and that it had pleased Almighty God to make the prince of Orange the glorious instrument of delivering the kingdom from Popery and Arbitrary Power H

Solicitor General, (Sir Rob. Eyre). My lords, It falls to my share, to state to your lordships the several passages in the Sermon preached at St. Paul's, which the Commons rely upon as a proof of the first Article; and to shew the particular weakness and insufficiency of the Answer given to this Charge.

The Charge is, That the gentleman at the bar doth suggest and maintain, that the necessary means used to bring about the late happy Revolution, were odious and unjustifiable; that his late majesty, in his Declaration, disclaimed the least imputation of Resistance; and, that to impute Resistance to the Revolution, is to cast black and odious colours upon his late majesty and the said Revolution.

jesty was so far from disclaiming Resistance, that be arowed it, and invited the subjects of this kingdom to join in that Resistance; for in bis Answer, he cites that passage in his Declaration, wherein his majesty takes notice, that he carried a force with him, sufficient, by the blessing of God, to defend him from the violence of evil counsellors; and that he designed that expedition to oblige king James to call a free parliament: and by his quotation of another passage in the Prince of Orange's Declaration, it appears his late majesty was, by divers subjects of king James's, invited to, and assisted in that expedition; which being an expedition by force, to oblige that king to call a free parliament, doth it not carry in it a plain and manifest avowing of Resistance? My lords, as to what he says in relation to the parliament's disowning any Resistance at the Revolution, by asserting, that they set the crown on the king's head on no other title than that of the vacancy of the throne, that appears to be directly otherwise from the several passages in divers Acts of Parliament which I have before mentioned: to which I only add, that in the Conference between the two Houses, previous to the settling the crown on the king's head, the word Abdicated' was insisted upon and carried; for that it included in it the maleadministration of king James, which the word Deserted' (desired to be used instead of it) did not: and this appears by the Journal. He therefore knowing that there was Resistance at the Revolution, and that the late king and the parliament avowed that Resistance; and be pretending to defend it only by denying those facts, hath (by a necessary implication) asserted, that that Resistance was not an exception to his general rule, but stands condemned by it.

My lords, I shall not enter upon the consideration of the Doctor's Answer to this Article, because I do not know whether his counsel will think fit to abide by it; nor would I meddle with any thing that is proper for the Reply.

The sum of the whole proof is this: the Doctor lays down a doctrine, condemning Resistance in all cases whatsoever: he makes those who deny this doctrine, asserters of antimonarchical principles: he takes notice of the Revolution, only to give it up: he admits, that if there were Resistance in that case, that it was as unlawful as any other Resistance. He asserts that to be true, which every one knows to be false: he says, the late king disclaimed the least imputation of Resistance; the parliament disowned it; and they who say there was any Resistance in it, cast black and odious colours on the late king and the Revolution; and consequently, be condemns the Resistance used to bring about the Revolution, which is the matter of the first Article.

This, my lords, is what the Commons rely pon, to maintain and make out the first Article of their Charge against the criminal at the bar; and they refer the consideration of it to your lordships' wisdom and justice.

The passages upon which this first Article is founded, are in the eleventh and twelfth pages of this Sermon; where Dr. Sacheverell having first asserted, "That the grand security of our government, and the very pillar upon which it stands, is founded upon the steady belief of the subjects' obligation to an absolute and unconditional obedience to the supreme power in all things lawful, and the utter illegality of Resistance upon any pretence whatsoever, which, he says, has been lately exploded and ridiculed," goes on in these words:

"Our adversaries think they effectually stop our mouths, and have us sure and unanswerable on this point, when they urge the Revolution of this day in their defence; but certainly they are the greatest enemies of that, and his late majesty, and the most ungrateful for the deliverance, who endeavour to cast such black and odious colours upon both. How often must they be told, that the king himself solemnly disclaimed the least imputation of Resistance in his Declaration? And that the parliament declared, that they set the crown on his head upon no other title but that of the vacancy of the throne? And did they not unanimously condemn to the flames that infamous libel, that would have pleaded the title of conquest, by which Resistance was supposed?

These words the Commons apprehend to be a full proof of the assertions charged in the first Article; for Resistance was the necessary means used to bring about the Revolution."

And the Doctor expressly affirms in this place, that the king disclaimed the least imputation of Resistance; he asserts it as a thing notorious, which nobody could be a stranger to: He says, the king disclaimed it soleninly; he disclaimed it in his Declaration.

And he as plainly affirms, that to impute Resistance to the Revolution, is to cast black and odious colours upon his late majesty and the Revolution; for he first lays down the utter illegality of Resistance upon any pretence whatsoever, as a fundamental doctrine; and then acquaints his auditory, that his adversaries though they could effectually stop his mouth, and had him sure and unanswerable on this point, when they urged the Revolution in their defence; but that they were the greatest enemies to the king and to the Revolution, who