The Collected Prose Works of John Milton (Extended Annotated Edition) by John Milton

Author:John Milton [Milton, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Klassiker
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
Published: 2013-10-14T00:00:00+00:00

But what law in any trial or dispute enjoins a freeman to rest quieted, though not satisfied with the will and reason of his superior! It were a mad law that would subject reason to superiority of place. And if our highest consultations and purposed laws must be terminated by the king’s will, then is the will of one man our law, and no subtlety of dispute can redeem the parliament and nation from being slaves: neither can any tyrant require more than that his will or reason, though not satisfying, should yet be rested in, and determine all things. We may conclude therefore, that when the parliament petitioned the king, it was but merely form, let it be as “foolish and absurd” as he pleases. It cannot certainly be so absurd as what he requires, that the parliament should confine their own and all the kingdom’s reason to the will of one man, because it was his hap to succeed his father. For neither God nor the laws have subjected us to his will, nor set his reason to be our sovereign above law, (which must needs be, if he can strangle it in the birth,) but set his person over us in the sovereign execution of such laws as the parliament establish. The parliament therefore, without any usurpation, hath had it always in their power to limit and confine the exorbitancy of kings, whether they call it their will, their reason, or their conscience.

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