第27章 Letter VIII(1)

Sir,The slavish principles of passive obedience and non-resistance,which had skulked perhaps in some old homily before King James the First,but were talked,written and preached into vogue in that inglorious reign,and in those of his three successors,were renounced at the Revolution by the last of the several parties who declared for them.Not only the laity,but the clergy embraced and co-operated in the deliverance which the Prince of Orange brought them.Some of our prelates joined to invite him over.Their brethren refused to sign an abhorrence of this invitation.The University of Oxford offered him their plate,and associated for him against their King.

In one word,the conduct of the Tories,at this crisis,was such as might have inclined a man to think they had never held resistance unlawful,but had only differed with the Whigs about the degree of oppression,or of danger,which it was necessary to wait,in order to sanctify resistance.Now,it may appear at first a little strange that these principles,which had always gone hand in hand with those of the divine,hereditary,indefeasible right of kings,that were just as well founded in reason,in support of which the example of the primitive Christians might be pompously cited,and to countenance which some texts to the Bible might be piously strained,should not keep their hold,and maintain their influence,as well as the others.

This attachment to hereditary right will appear the more strange,if we consider what regard was shown,at this time,to the difficulties they who had pawned themselves,as it were,for the principles,would be under,when they came to concur in establishing a settlement repugnant to it.That great and solemn resolution,about the abdication of King James,and the vacancy of the throne,might have been expressed in terms much stronger and plainer than it was.I have heard there were persons who had a mind it should be so,and who,more attached to the honour,that is,the humour of party,than to the national interest,in this great event,would have turned this resolution,as well as the declaration of the Prince of Orange,to a more express approbation of the Whig and a more express condemnation of the Tory tenets and conduct.

But a wiser and honester consideration prevailed.Instead of erecting the new government on the narrow foundations of party systems,the foundations of it were laid as wide,and made as comprehensible as they could be.No man,I believe,at this time thinks that the vote asserted too little;and surely there was no colour of reason,on the side of those who cavilled against it at that time,for asserting too much.

The disputes about the words abdicate,or desert,and about the vacancy of the throne,were indeed fitter for a school than a house of Parliament,and might have been expected in some assembly of pedants,where young students exercised themselves in disputation,but not in such an august assembly as that of the Lords and Commons,met in solemn conference upon the most important occasion.The truth is,that they who formed the opposition,were reduced to maintain strange paradoxes;stranger,in my opinion,than most of those which cast so much ridicule on the Stoics of old.Thus,for instance,they were forced to admit that an oppressed people might seek their remedy in resistance,for they had sought it there themselves;and yet they opposed making use of the only remedy,which could effectually secure them against returns of the same oppression,when resistance had put it in their power,as oppression had given them a right to use this remedy.Surely this must appear a paradox,and a very absurd one too,if we consider that resistance,in all such cases,is the mean,and future security the end;and that the former is impertinent,nay,wicked in the highest degree,if it be not employed to obtain the latter.Thus again,the same men declared themselves willing to secure the nation against the return of King James to that throne which he had abdicated,or,according to them,deserted:nay,some of them were ready,if we may credit the anecdotes of that time,to proceed to such extreme resolutions,as would have been more effectual than justifiable in the eyes of mankind;and yet they could not prevail on their scrupulous consciences to declare the throne vacant.They had concurred in the vote,that it was 'inconsistent with the laws,liberties and religion of England to have a papist rule over the kingdom'.King James had followed the pious example of Sigismond,who,not content to lose the crown of Sweden himself for his religion,had carried his son away,that he might be bred a papist,and lost it too;and yet they maintained,though they did not expressly name him,that if the throne was then,or should be at any time vacant of the father,it must be reputed instantaneously full of the son,upon the foundation of this silly axiom,that the king never dies.According to this law,and these politics,King James and his successors,to the twentieth generation,might have continued abroad,a race of royal exiles,preserving their indefeasible right to govern,but debarred from the exercise of it;whilst the nation continued,during all this time,from century to century,under the dominion of regents,with regal authority,but without any regal right:an excellent expedient,sure to keep the monarchy in an hereditary succession!But there remained none better,on the principles of these men,since the Prince of Orange had committed the fatal oversight of neglecting to conquer the nation.