Page:A Letter from a Person of Quality, to His Friend in the Country (1675).pdf/12

 That the King, if He would be firm to Himself, might settle what Religion He pleased, and carry the Government to what height He would; for if Men were assured in the Liberty of their Conscience, and undisturbed in their Properties, able and upright Judges made in Westminster-Hall to judg the Causes of Meum and Tuum, and if on the Other hand the Fort of Tilbury was finished to bridle the City, the Fort of Plymouth to secure the West, and Armes for 20000 in each of these, and in Hull'' for the Northern parts, with some addition, which might be easily and undiscernedly made to the Forces now on foot, there were none that would have either Will, Opportunity, or Power to resist. But he added withall, he was so sincere in the maintenance of Propriety, and Liberty of Conscience, that if he had his Will, though he should introduce a Bishop of Durham, (which was the Instance he then made, that See being then vacant) of another Religion, yet he would not disturb any of the Church beside, but suffer them to dye away, and not let his change (how hasty soever he was in it) overthrow either of those principles, and therefore desired he might be thought an honest Man as to his part of the Declaration, for he meant it really''. The L. Shaftsbury (with whom I had more freedom) I with great assurance, asked what he meant by the Declaration, for it seemed to me (as I then told him) that it assumed a Power to repeal and suspend all our Laws, to destroy the Church, to overthrow the Protestant Religion, and to tolerate Popery; He replyed half angry, That he wondered at my Objection, there being not one of these in the Case: For the King assumed no power of repealing Laws, or suspending them, contrary to the will of his Parliament, or People, and not to argue with me at that time the power of the King's Supremacy, which was of another nature then that he had in Civills, and had been exercised without exception in this very case by His Father, Grandfather, and Queen Elizabeth, under the Great Seal to Forreign Protestants, become subjects of England, nor to instance in the suspending the Execution of the two Acts of Navigation and Trade, during both this, and the last Dutch War in the same words, and upon the same necessity, and as yet, without Clamour that ever we heard; But, to pass by all that, this is certain, a Government could not be supposed whether Monarchical, or other of any sort, without a standing Supream Executive power, fully enabled to Mitigate, or wholly to suspend the Execution of any penal Law, in the Intervalls of the Legislative power, which when assembled, there was no doubt but wherever there lies a Negative in passing of a Law, there the address or sense known of either of them to the contrary, (as for instance of either of our two Houses of Parliament in England) ought to determine that Indulgence, and restore the Law to its full execution: For without this, the Laws were to no purpose made, if the Prince could annull them at pleasure; and so on the other Rh