It was now thought proper solemnly to relinquish the
violent pretensions of that parliament, and to acknowledge that neither
one house nor both houses, independent of the king, were possessed of
any military authority. The preamble to this statute went so far as to
renounce all right even of defensive arms against the king; and much
observation has been made with regard to a concession esteemed so
singular. Were these terms taken in their full literal sense, they imply
a total renunciation of limitations to monarchy, and of all privileges
in the subject, independent of the will of the sovereign. For as no
rights can subsist without some remedy, still less rights exposed to
so much invasion from tyranny, or even from ambition; if subjects must
never resist, it follows that every prince, without any effort, policy,
or violence, is at once rendered absolute and uncontrollable; the
sovereign needs only issue an edict abolishing every authority but his
own; and all liberty from that moment is in effect annihilated. But this
meaning it were absurd to impute to the present parliament, who, though
zealous royalists, showed in their measures that they had not cast off
all regard to national privileges. They were probably sensible, that
to suppose in the sovereign any such invasion of public liberty, is
entirely unconstitutional; and that therefore expressly to reserve, upon
that event, any right of resistance in the subject, must be liable to
the same objection.
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