They tell us, that what it concerns protestants to do in that case, enough has been heard by us in parliament debates.

I answer, that debates coming not by an act to any issue, conclude, that there is nothing to be done against a law established, and fundamental of the monarchy.  They dare not infer a right of taking up arms, by virtue of a debate or vote, and yet they tacitly insinuate this.  I ask them, what it does concern protestants to do in this case, and whether they mean anything by that expression?  They have hampered themselves before they were aware; for they proceed in the very next lines to tell us, they believe “the crown of England being hereditary, the next in blood have an undoubted right to succeed, unless God make them, or they make themselves uncapable of reigning.”  So that according to them, if either of those two impediments shall happen, then it concerns the protestants of England to do that something, which, if they had spoken out, had been direct treason.  Here is fine legerdemain amongst them:  they have acknowledged a vote to be no more than the opinion of an house, and yet from a debate, which was abortive before it quickened into a vote, they argue after the old song, “that there is something more to be done, which you cannot chuse but guess.”  In the next place, there is no such thing as incapacity to be supposed, in the immediate successor of the crown.  That is, the rightful heir cannot be made uncapable on any account whatsoever to succeed.  It may please God, that he may be inhabilis, or inidoneus ad gerendam rempublicam,—­unfit or unable to govern the kingdom; but this is no impediment to his right of reigning:  he cannot either be excluded or deposed for such imperfection; for the laws which have provided for private men in this case, have also made provision for the sovereign, and for the public; and the council of state, or the next of blood, is to administer the kingdom for him.  Charles the Sixth of France, (for I think we have no English examples which will reach it) forfeited not his kingdom by his lunacy, though a victorious king of England was then knocking at his gates; but all things under his name, and by his authority were managed.  The case is the same, betwixt a king non compos mentis, and one who is nondum compos mentis; a distracted or an infant-king.  Then the people cannot incapacitate the king, because he derives not his right from them, but from God only; neither can any action, much less opinion of a sovereign, render him uncapable, for the same reason; excepting only a voluntary resignation to his immediate heir, as in the case of Charles the Fifth:  for that of our Richard the Second was invalid, because forced, and not made to the next successor.