n our _natural_ liberties, than is expedient for the
maintenance of our _civil_.

[Footnote a: chap. 1. page 137.]

THERE cannot be a stronger proof of that genuine freedom, which is the
boast of this age and country, than the power of discussing and
examining, with decency and respect, the limits of the king's
prerogative. A topic, that in some former ages was thought too
delicate and sacred to be profaned by the pen of a subject. It was
ranked among the _arcana imperii_; and, like the mysteries of the
_bona dea_, was not suffered to be pried into by any but such as were
initiated in it's service: because perhaps the exertion of the one,
like the solemnities of the other, would not bear the inspexion of a
rational and sober enquiry. The glorious queen Elizabeth herself made
no scruple to direct her parliaments to abstain from discoursing of
matters of state[b]; and it was the constant language of this favorite
princess and her ministers, that even that august assembly "ought not
to deal, to judge, or to meddle, with her majesty's prerogative
royal[c]." And her successor, king James the first, who had imbibed
high notions of the divinity of regal sway, more than once laid it
down in his speeches, that "as it is atheism and blasphemy in a
creature to dispute what the deity may do, so it is presumption and
sedition in a subject to dispute what a king may do in the height of
his power: good christians, he adds, will be content with God's will,
revealed in his word; and good subjects will rest in the king's will,
revealed in _his_ law[d]."

[Footnote b: Dewes. 479.]

[Footnote c: _Ibid._ 645.]

[Footnote d: King James's works. 557, 531.]

BUT, whatever might be the sentiments of some of our princes, this was
never the language of our antient constitution and laws. The
limitation of the regal authority was a first and essential principle
in all the Gothic systems of government established in Europe; though
gradually driven out and overborne, by violence and chicane, in most
of the kingdoms on the continent. We have seen, in the preceding
chapter, the sentiments of Bracton and Fortescue, at the distance of
two centuries from each other. And sir Henry Finch, under Charles the
first, after the lapse of two centuries more, though he lays down the
law of prerogative in very strong and emphatical terms, yet qualifies
it with a general restriction, in regard to the liberties of the
people. "The king hath a prerogative in al