"It becomes an _indispensable_ duty upon us, who appear in the name and on the behalf of all the commons of Great Britain, not only to demand your Lordships' justice on such a criminal, [Dr. Sacheverell,] _but clearly and openly to assert our foundations_." [Sidenote: That the terms of our Constitution imply and express an original contract.] [Sidenote: That the contract is mutual consent, and binding at all times upon the parties.] [Sidenote: The mixed Constitution uniformly preserved for many ages, and is a proof of the contract.] "The nature of our Constitution is that of a _limited monarchy_, wherein the supreme power is communicated and divided between Queen, Lords, and Commons, though the executive power and administration be wholly in the crown. The terms of such a Constitution do not only suppose, but express, an original contract between the crown and the people, by which that supreme power was (by mutual consent, and not by accident) limited and lodged in more hands than one. And _the uniform preservation of such a Constitution for so many ages, without any fundamental change, demonstrates to your Lordships the continuance of the same contract_. [Sidenote: Laws the common measure to King and subject.] [Sidenote: Case of fundamental injury, and breach of original contract.] "The consequences of such a frame of government are obvious: That the _laws_ are the rule to both, the common measure of the power of the crown and of the obedience of the subject; and if the executive part endeavors the _subversion and total destruction of the government_, the original contract is thereby broke, and the right of allegiance ceases that part of the government thus _fundamentally_ injured hath a right to save or recover _that_ Constitution in which it had an original interest." [Sidenote: Words _necessary means_ selected with caution.] "_The necessary means_ (which is the phrase used by the Commons in their first article) words made choice of by them _with the greatest caution_. Those means are described (in the preamble to their charge) to be, that glorious enterprise which his late Majesty undertook, with an armed force, to deliver this kingdom from Popery and arbitrary power; the concurrence of many subjects of the realm, who came over with him in that enterprise, and of many others, of _all ranks and orders_, who appeared in arms in many parts of the kingdom in aid of that enterprise. "These were the _means_ that brought about the Revolution; and which the act that passed soon after, _declaring the rights and liberties of the subject, and settling the succession of the crown_, intends, when his late Majesty is therein called _the glorious instrument of delivering the kingdom_; and which the Commons, in the last part of their first article, express by the word _resistance_. [Sidenote: Regard of the Commons to their allegiance to the crown, and to the ancient Constitution.]