_De Libertate retinenda, qua certe nihil est dulcius, tibi assentior._[2]
The apologies of the ancient Fathers are reckoned to have been the most
useful parts of their writings, and to have done greatest service to the
Christian religion, because they removed those misrepresentations which
had done it most injury. The methods these writers took, was openly and
freely to discover every point of their faith, to detect the falsehood of
their accusers, and to charge nothing upon their adversaries but what
they were sure to make good. This example has been ill followed of later
times; the Papists since the Reformation using all arts to palliate the
absurdities of their tenets, and loading the Reformers with a thousand
calumnies; the consequence of which has been only a more various, wide,
and inveterate separation. It is the same thing in civil schisms: a Whig
forms an image of a Tory, just after the thing he most abhors, and that
image serves to represent the whole body.
I am not sensible of any material difference there is between those who
call themselves the Old Whigs, and a great majority of the present
Tories; at least by all I could ever find, from examining several persons
of each denomination. But it must be confessed that the present body of
Whigs, as they now constitute that party, is a very odd mixture of
mankind, being forced to enlarge their bottom by taking in every
heterodox professor either in religion or government, whose opinions they
were obliged to encourage for fear of lessening their number; while the
bulk of the landed men and people were entirely of the old sentiments.
However, they still pretended a due regard to the monarchy and the
Church, even at the time when they were making the largest steps towards
the ruin of both: but not being able to wipe off the many accusations
laid to their charge, they endeavoured, by throwing of scandal, to make
the Tories appear blacker than themselves, that so the people might join
with _them_, as the smaller evil of the two.
But among all the reproaches which the Whigs have flung upon their
adversaries, there is none hath done them more service than that of
_passive obedience_, as they represent it, with the consequences of
non-resistance, arbitrary power, indefeasible right, tyranny, popery, and
what not? There is no accusation which has passed with more plausibility
than this, nor any that is supported with less justice. In order
therefore to undeceive those who have been misled by false
representations, I thought it would be no improper undertaking to set
this matter in a fair light, which I think has not yet been done. A Whig
asks whether you hold passive obedience? you affirm it: he then
immediately cries out, "You are a Jacobite, a friend of France and the
Pretender;" because he makes you answerable for the definition he has
formed of that term, however different it be from what you understand. I
will therefore give two descriptions of passive obedience; the first as
it is falsely charged by the Whigs; the other as it is really professed
by the Tories, at least by nineteen in twenty of all I ever conversed
with.
Passive Obedience as charged by the Whigs.
_The doctrine of passive obedience is to believe that a king, even in a
limited monarchy, holding his power only from God, is only answerable to
Him. That such a king is above all law, that the cruellest tyrant must be
submitted to in all things; and if his commands be ever so unlawful, you
must neither fly nor resist, nor use any other weapons than prayers and
tears. Though he should force your wife or daughter, murder your children
before your face, or cut off five hundred heads in a morning for his
diversion, you are still to wish him a long prosperous reign, and to be
patient under all his cruelties, with the same resignation as under a
plague or a famine; because to resist him would be to resist God in the
person of His vicegerent. If a king of England should go through the
streets of London, in order to murder every man he met, passive obedience
commands them to submit. All laws made to limit him signify nothing,
though passed by his own consent, if he thinks fit to break them. God
will indeed call him to a severe account, but the whole people, united to
a man, cannot presume to hold his hands, or offer him the least active
disobedience. The people were certainly created for him, and not he for
the people. His next heir, though worse than what I have described,
though a fool or a madman, has a divine undefeasible right to succeed
him, which no law can disannul; nay though he should kill his father upon
the throne, he is immediately king to all intents and purposes, the
possession of the crown wiping off all stains. But whosoever sits on the
throne without this title, though never so peaceably, and by consent of
former kings and parliaments, is an usurper, while there is any where in
the world another person who hath a nearer hereditary right, and the
whole kingdom lies under mortal sin till that heir be restored; because
he has a divine title which no human law can defeat._
This and a great deal more hath, in a thousand papers[3] and pamphlets,
been laid to that doctrine of passive obedience, which the Whigs are
pleased to charge upon us. This is what they perpetually are instilling
into the people to believe, as the undoubted principles by which the
present ministry, and a great majority in Parliament, do at this time
proceed. This is what they accuse the clergy of delivering from the
pulpits, and of preaching up as doctrines absolutely necessary to
salvation. And whoever affirms in general, that passive obedience is due
to the supreme power, he is presently loaden by our candid adversaries
with such consequences as these. Let us therefore see what this doctrine
is, when stripped of such misrepresentations, by describing it as really
taught and practised by the Tories, and then it will appear what grounds
our adversaries have to accuse us upon this article.
Passive Obedience, as professed and practised by the Tories.
_They think that in every government, whether monarchy or republic, there
is placed a supreme, absolute, unlimited power, to which passive
obedience is due. That wherever is entrusted the power of making laws,
that power is without all bounds, can repeal or enact at pleasure
whatever laws it thinks fit, and justly demands universal obedience and
non-resistance. That among us, as every body knows, this power is lodged
in the king or queen, together with the lords and commons of the kingdom;
and therefore all decrees whatsoever, made by that power, are to be
actively or passively obeyed. That the administration or executive part
of this power is in England solely entrusted with the prince, who in
administering those laws, ought to be no more resisted than the
legislative power itself. But they do not conceive the same absolute
passive obedience to be due to a limited prince's commands, when they are
directly contrary to the laws he has consented to, and sworn to maintain.
The crown may be sued as well as a private person; and if an arbitrary
king of England should send his officers to seize my lands or goods
against law, I can lawfully resist them. The ministers by whom he acts
are liable to prosecution and impeachment, though his own person be
sacred. But if he interposes his royal authority to support their
insolence, I see no remedy, till it grows a general grievance, or till
the body of the people have reason to apprehend it will be so; after
which it becomes a case of necessity, and then I suppose a free people
may assert their own rights, yet without any violation to the person or
lawful power of the prince. But although the Tories allow all this, and
did justify it by the share they had in the Revolution, yet they see no
reason for entering upon so ungrateful a subject, or raising controversies
upon it, as if we were in daily apprehensions of tyranny, under the reign
of so excellent a princess, and while we have so many laws[4] of late
years made to limit the prerogative; when according to the judgment of
those who know our constitution best, things rather seem to lean to the
other extreme, which is equally to be avoided. As to the succession; the
Tories think an hereditary right to be the best in its own nature, and
most agreeable to our old constitution; yet at the same time they allow
it to be defeasible by Act of Parliament, and so is_ Magna Charta _too,
if the legislature thinks fit; which is a truth so manifest, that no man
who understands the nature of government, can be in doubt concerning it._
These I take to be the sentiments of a great majority among the Tories,
with respect to passive obedience: and if the Whigs insist, from the
writings or common talk of warm and ignorant men, to form a judgment of
the whole body, according to the first account I have here given, I will
engage to produce as many of their side, who are utterly against passive
obedience even to the legislature; who will assert the last resort of
power to be in the people, against those whom they have chosen and
trusted as their representatives, with the prince at the head; and who
will put wild improbable cases to shew the reasonableness and necessity
of resisting the legislative power, in such imaginary junctures. Than
which however nothing can be more idle; for I dare undertake in any
system of government, either speculative or practic, that was ever yet in
the world, from Plato's "Republic" to Harrington's "Oceana,"[5] to put
such difficulties as cannot be answered.
All the other calumnies raised by the Whigs may be as easily wiped off;
and I have charity to wish they could as fully answer the just
accusations we have against them. Dodwell, Hicks, and Lesley,[6] are
gravely quoted, to prove that the Tories design to bring in the
Pretender; and if I should quote them to prove that the same thing is
intended by the Whigs, it would be full as reasonable, since I am sure
they have at least as much to do with Nonjurors as we. But our objections
against the Whigs are built upon their constant practice for many years,
whereof I have produced a hundred instances, against any single one of
which no answer hath yet been attempted, though I have been curious
enough to look into all the papers I could meet with that are writ
against the "Examiner"; such a task as I hope no man thinks I would
undergo for any other end, but that of finding an opportunity to own and
rectify my mistakes; as I would be ready to do upon call of the meanest
adversary. Upon which occasion, I shall take leave to add a few words.
I flattered myself last Thursday, from the nature of my subject, and the
inoffensive manner I handled it, that I should have one week's respite
from those merciless pens, whose severity will some time break my heart;
but I am deceived, and find them more violent than ever. They charge me
with two lies and a blunder. The first lie is a truth, that Guiscard was
invited over:[7] but it is of no consequence; I do not tax it as a fault;
such sort of men have often been serviceable: I only blamed the
indiscretion of raising a profligate abbot, at the first step, to a
lieutenant-general and colonel of a regiment of horse, without staying
some reasonable time, as is usual in such cases, till he had given some
proofs of his fidelity, as well as of that interest and credit he
pretended to have in his country: But that is said to be another lie, for
he was a Papist, and could not have a regiment. However this other lie is
a truth too; for a regiment he had, and paid by us, to his agent Monsieur
Le Bas, for his use. The third is a blunder, that I say Guiscard's design
was against Mr. Secretary St. John, and yet my reasonings upon it, are,
as if it were personal against Mr. Harley. But I say no such thing, and
my reasonings are just; I relate only what Guiscard said in Newgate,
because it was a particularity the reader might be curious to know (and
accordingly it lies in a paragraph by itself, after my reflections)[8]
but I never meant to be answerable for what Guiscard said, or thought it
of weight enough for me to draw conclusions from thence, when I had the
Address of both Houses to direct me better; where it is expressly
said,[9] "That Mr. Harley's fidelity to her Majesty, and zeal for her
service, have drawn upon him the hatred of all the abettors of Popery and
faction."[10] This is what I believe, and what I shall stick to.
But alas, these are not the passages which have raised so much fury
against me. One or two mistakes in facts of no importance, or a single
blunder, would not have provoked them; they are not so tender of my
reputation as a writer. All their outrage is occasioned by those passages
in that paper, which they do not in the least pretend to answer, and with
the utmost reluctancy are forced to mention. They take abundance of pains
to clear Guiscard from a design against Mr. Harley's life, but offer not
one argument to clear their other friends, who in the business of Gregg,
were equally guilty of the same design against the same person; whose
tongues were very swords, and whose penknives were axes.
[Footnote 1: No. 33 in the reprint. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 2: Cicero, "Ep. ad Att.," xv. 13. "As to the maintenance of
liberty--surely the most precious thing in the world--I agree with
you."--E.S. SHUCKBURGH.]
[Footnote 3: The following pamphlets may be instanced:--"Julian the
Apostate," [by S. Johnson], 1682; "[Passive Obedience] A Sermon preached
before the ... Lord Mayor," etc., by B. Calamy, 1683; "Passive Obedience
Stated and Asserted," by T. Pomfret, 1683; "The Doctrine of
Non-Resistance," [by E. Bohun], 1689; "History of Passive Obedience," [by
A. Seller], 1689; "A Discourse concerning the Unreasonableness," etc. [by
E. Stillingfleet], 1689; "Christianity, a Doctrine of the Cross," [by J.
Kettlewell], 1691; and "The Measures of Submission," by B. Hoadly, 1706.
[T.S.]]
[Footnote 4: The Act declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject
(1 Will. and Mary, Sess. 2, c. 2), and the Act for the Further Limitation
of the Crown (12 and 13 Will. III. c. 2), limited the power of the Crown
in various respects. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 5: "The Commonwealth of Oceana," by James Harrington, 1656.
[T.S.]]
[Footnote 6: Henry Dodwell (1641-1711), non-juror, and author of "An
Admonitory Discourse ... Schism" (1704), "Occasional Communion" (1705),
etc.
George Hickes (1642-1715), non-juror. Dean of Worcester (1683-91), and
author of "The Pretences of the Prince of Wales Examined, and Rejected"
(1701).