Agreement betwixt the present and the former government, or, A discourse of this monarchy, whether elective or hereditary? also of abdication, vacancy, interregnum, present possession of the crown, and the reputation of the Church of England ; with an answer to objections thence arising, against taking the new Oath of Allegiance, for the satisfaction of the scrupulous / by a divine of the Church of England, the author of a little tract entituled, Obedience due to the present King, nothwithstanding our oaths to the former.

CHAP IV. Of Vacancy, and the supposed Interregnum thereupon, by the late King's Abdication.

WE are thus led to the second great Exception, which is this, It is delared by the Lords and Commons in the Convention, that the late K. James the Second having abdicated the Government, the Throne there∣by was vacant; consequently an Interregnum was ad∣mitted or supposed, contrary to the ancient and known Maxim, That in the Government of this Kingdom there is no Interregnum.

For Answer hereunto, I hold my self obliged to do two things: first, to consider how and in what sense the late King abdicated the Government; this may justify the filling the Throne with the the present King and Queen. 2dly. To shew that there hath been nothing said or done by the Convention, as such, that hath declared a Vacancy in the Throne in that full and absolute sense, as might in∣fer an Interregnum in the true meaning of the Word. And thus the present Government will be vindicated and reconciled with the ancient, and this great Exception I hope fully satisfied: and this methinks I am strictly tied to, by my last Discourse of Hereditary Monarchy, as will presently appear more plainly.