Wesley Corpus

Who will be so hardy as to affirm it? Did the people of England, or but fifty thousand of them, choose Queen Mary, or Queen Elizabeth? To come nearer to our own times, did they choose King James the First? Perhaps you will say, “But if the people did not give King Charles the supreme power, at least they took it away from him. Surely, you will not deny this.” Indeed I will; I deny it utterly. The people of England no more took away his power, than they cut off his head. “Yes, the Parliament did, and they are the people.” No; the Parliament did not. The lower House, the House of Com mons, is not the Parliament, any more than it is the nation. Neither were those who then sat the House of Commons; no; nor one quarter of them. But suppose they had been the whole House of Commons, yea, or the whole Parliament; by what rule of logic will you prove that seven or eight hundred persons are the people of England? “Why, they are the delegates of the people; they are chosen by them.” No; not by one half, not by a quarter, not by a tenth part, of them. So that the people, in the only proper sense of the word, were innocent of the whole affair. 18. “But you will allow, the people gave the supreme power to King Charles the Second at the Restoration.” I will allow no such thing; unless by the people you mean General Monk and fifteen thousand soldiers. “However, you will not deny that the people gave the power to King William at the Revolution.” Nay, truly, I must deny this too. I cannot possibly allow it. Although I will not say that William the Third obtained the royal power as William the First did; although he did not claim it by right of conquest, which would have been an odious title; yet certain it is, that he 52 THOUGHTS CONCERNING THE Olt IGIN OF POWER. did not receive it by any act or deed of the people. Their consent was neither obtained nor asked; they were never consulted in the matter. It was not therefore the people that gave him the power; no, nor even the Parliament. It was the Convention, and none else.