book lately published, called the Groans of Old England, by a plain Dealer; and fhall now proceed to fhew, that all governments or monarchies are, or ought to be, hereditary; and that the English kingdom is, and always has been fuppofed to be, an hereditary monarchy; i. e. entailed on one family, and defcending fucceffively to the lineal heirs of it, and hath been govern ed fucceffively for many years, by the fame royal family; which, in point of anti quity, hath the advantage of any other in Europe, and probably in the world. For the present illuftrious family hadtheir right through the Stuarts, and we are now to reckon them one; and if the most antient hereditary family in the world hath not a true right of inheritance, if prescription of many years is nothing, there is furely no right of government at all.

fo

Coke

Coke fays, No human law can create a human right; nor is the right of fucceffion from divine pofitive laws only, but is observed as well where God's revelation of himself is not received as where it is: and if, according to the refolution of all the most learned and reverend judges, in Calvin's cafe, fubjection is from no human law, but the law of nature; for no man fupposeth fubjection, where he doth not prefuppofe power; and unless we will openly proclaim defiance unto all law, equity, and reason, we must acknowledge, that in kingdoms hereditary, as England, birth-right giveth right unto fovereign dominion; and the death of the predeceffor puts the fucceffor by blood in feifin. Accordingly we fee, that by the laws of this realm, there can be no interregnum in this kingdom; the next heir in blood by defcent, is immediately, completeVOL. II.

P

ly,

ly, and absolutely king, without any effential ceremonies.

The coronation is, as we have seen, only a regal ornament, and outward folemnization or teftification of the defcent, and of the inheritor's right, or belongs to the form of inducting him into

thing he hath a right to,

poffeffion of the 'Tis a ceremony

to fhew the king unto the people; that is to fay, coronation is only a ceremony, and fuch a ceremony as doth not any thing, but only declare what is done: the king was king before it, as much as he is after it, only by it he is declared to be what he was before, and what he fhould have been still, though he had not been fo declared.

If coronation were fufficient to make a title, no king should be counted an ufurper; but coronation, as it cannot make an ufurper a rightful king, fo the not being crowned, cannot prejudice a lawful king, fo as that the

right and prerogative royal don't as much belong to him before, as they do after the coronation is performed.

'Tis most certain he is king before he takes the coronation oath, feeing his kingdom is patrimonial, from which he cannot be excluded, though he never takes such an oath.

Moreover, every hereditary king's right begins from the day of his predeceffor's death, which is always before his coronation or inauguration; and the coronation is often delayed, and yet he is no lefs guilty of treason, who kills a king before his coronation, than he that does it after that folemnity is over; otherwife, what treafon could have been objected to Richard the 3d? Neither coronation nor coronation oaths were introduced from neceffity; but before their coronations, as I faid before, they are as much kings as they are after it; and the corona

tion with the oath is only declaratory, and an overt-act, with refpect to the public right, and no way effential to the being of a king.

But fome will have it, that a king at his coronation enters into a covenant with his people; and they are perfuaded, that in making a covenant fomething is to be performed on both parts, by mutual ftipulation. Both these propositions I deny. The king does not enter into a covenant with his people at his coronation; neither does it always happen, that in covenants fomething is to be performed by both parties: for we find that God made a covenant with Noah and his feed, with all the fowls and cattle, not to destroy the earth any more a flood. This covenant was to be kept on God's part; neither Noah, nor the fowls nor cattle, were to perform any thing by this covenant.

On