The Names of Whig and Tory will, I am afraid, last as long among us, as those of Guelf and Ghibelline did in Italy.  I am sorry for it:  but to some they become necessary for Distinction Sake; not so much for the Principles formerly adapted to each Name, as for particular and worse Reasons.  For there has been such chopping and changing both of Names and Principles, that we scarce know who is who.  I think it therefore necessary, in order to appear in my own Colours, to make a publick Profession of my Political Faith; not doubting but it may agree in several Particulars with that of many worthy Persons, who are as undeservedly aspers’d as I am.

My Notion of a Whig, I mean of a real Whig (for the Nominal are worse than any Sort of Men) is, That he is one who is exactly for keeping up to the Strictness of the true old Gothick Constitution, under the Three Estates of King (or Queen) Lords and Commons; the Legislature being seated in all Three together, the Executive entrusted with the first, but accountable to the whole Body of the People, in Case of Male Administration.

A true Whig is of Opinion, that the Executive Power has as just a Title to the Allegiance and Obedience of the Subject, according to the Rules of known Laws enacted by the Legislative, as the Subject has to Protection, Liberty and Property:  And so on the contrary.

A true Whig is not afraid of the Name of a Commonwealthsman, because so many foolish People, who know not what it means, run it down:  The Anarchy and Confusion which these Nations fell into near Sixty Years ago, and which was falsly called a Commonwealth, frightning them out of the true Construction of the Word.  But Queen Elizabeth, and many other of our best Princes, were not scrupulous of calling our Government a Commonwealth, even in their solemn Speeches to Parliament.  And indeed if it be not one, I cannot tell by what Name properly to call it:  For where in the very Frame of the Constitution, the Good of the Whole is taken care of by the Whole (as ’tis in our Case) the having a King or Queen at the Head of it, alters not the Case; and the softning of it by calling it a Limited Monarchy, seems a Kind of Contradiction in Terms, invented to please some weak and doubting Persons.

And because some of our Princes in this last Age, did their utmost Endeavour to destroy this Union and Harmony of the Three Estates, and to be arbitrary or independent, they ought to be looked upon as the Aggressors upon our Constitution.

This drove the other Two Estates (for the Sake of the publick Preservation) into the fatal Necessity of providing for themselves; and when once the Wheel was set a running, ’twas not in the Power of Man to stop it just where it ought to have stopp’d.  This is so ordinary in all violent Motions, whether mechanick or political, that no body can wonder at it.