Wesley Corpus

It was the Convention, and none else. “Who were the Convention?” They were a few hundred Lords and gentlemen, who, observing the desperate state of public affairs, met together on that important occasion. So that still we have no single instance in above seven hundred years of the people of England’s con veying the supreme power either to one or more persons. 19. Indeed I remember in all history, both ancient and modern, but one instance of supreme power conferred by the people; if we mean thereby, though not all the people, yet a great majority of them. This celebrated instance occurred at Naples, in the middle of the last century; where the people, properly speaking, that is, men, women, and children, claimed and exerted their natural right in favour of Thomas Aniello, (vulgarly called Masanello,) a young fisherman. But will any one say, he was the only Governor for these thousand years, who has had a proper right to the supreme power? I believe not; nor, I apprehend, does any one desire that the people should take the same steps in London. 20. So much both for reason and matter of fact. But one single consideration, if we dwell a little upon it, will bring the question to a short issue. It is allowed, no man can dispose of another's life but by his own consent. I add, No, nor with his consent; for no man has a right to dispose of his own life. The Creator of man has the sole right to take the life which he gave. Now, it is an indisputable truth, Nihil dat quod non habet, “none gives what he has not.” It plainly follows, that no man can give to another a right which he never had himself; a right which only the Governor of the world has, even the wiser Heathens being judges; but which no man upon the face of the earth either has or can have. No man therefore can give the power of the sword, any such power as implies a right to take away life. Wherever it is, it must descend from God alone, the sole disposer of life and death. 21. The supposition, then, that the people are the origin. of power, is every way indefensible.