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.]