19. _Magna Charta_ would fain be made to pass for a Fundamental; and Sir _Edward Coke_ would have it, that the Grand Charter was for the most part declaratory of the principal Grounds of the fundamental Laws of _England_. If that referreth to the Common Law, it must be made out that every thing in _Magna Charta_ is always and at all times necessary in itself to be kept, or else the denying a subsequent Parliament the Right of repealing any Law doth by consequence deny the preceding Parliament the Right of making it. But they are fain to say it was only a declarative Law, which is very hard to be proved. Yet suppose it, you must either make the Common Law so stated a thing that all Men know it before-hand, or else universally acquiesce in it whenever it is alledged, from the Affinity it hath to the Law of Nature. Now I would fain know whether the Common Law is capable of being defined, and whether it doth not hover in the Clouds like the Prerogative, and bolteth out like Lightening to be made use of for some particular Occasion? If so, the Government of the World is left to a thing that cannot be defined; and if it cannot be defined, you know not what it is; so that the supream Appeal is, we know not what. We submit to God Almighty though he is incomprehensible, and yet He hath set down His Methods; but for this World, there can be no Government without a stated Rule, and a Supream Power not to be controled neither by the Dead nor the Living. The Laws under the Protection of the King govern in the ordinary Administration; the extraordinary Power is in Acts of Parliament, from whence there can be no Appeal but to the same Power at another time. To say a Power is Supream, and not Arbitrary, is not Sense. It is acknowledg'd Supream, and therefore, _&c._ If the Common Law is Supream, then those are so who judge what is the Common Law; and if none but the Parliament can judge so, there is an end of the Controversy; there is no _Fundamental_; for the Parliament may judge as they please, that is, they have the Authority, but they may judge against Right, their Power is good, though their Act is ill; no good Man will outwardly resist the one, or inwardly approve the other. There is then no other Fundamental, but that _every Supream Power must be Arbitrary_. Fundamental is a Word used by the Laity, as the Word Sacred is by the Clergy, to fix every thing to themselves they have a mind to keep; that nobody else may touch it. _Of_ PRINCES. A Prince who will not undergo the Difficulty of Understanding, must undergo the Danger of Trusting. A wise Prince may gain such an Influence, that his Countenance would be the last Appeal. Where it is not so in some degree, his Authority is precarious. A Prince must keep up the Power of his Countenance, which is not the least of his Prerogatives. The Conscience, as well as the Prerogative of a King, must be restrained or loosened as is best for his People.