JAMES THE SECOND.

211

truth before a judge. Yet the lawfulness of defensive war,and of judicial oaths, was disputed only by a few obscuresectaries, and was positively affirmed in the articles of theChurch of England. All the arguments, which showed thatthe Quaker, who refused to bear arms, or to kiss the Gospels,was unreasonable and perverse, might be turned against thosewho denied to subjects the right of resisting extreme tyrannyby force. If it was contended that the texts which prohibitedhomicide, and the texts which prohibited swearing, thoughgenerally expressed, must be construed in subordination tothe great commandment by which every man is enjoined topromote the welfare of his neighbours, and would, when soconstrued, be found not to apply to cases in which homicideot swearing might be absolutely necessary to protect thedearest interests of society, it was not easy to deny that thetexts which prohibited resistance ought to be construed in thesame manner. If the ancient people of God had been directedsometimes to destroy human life, and sometimes to bind them-selves by oaths, they had also been directed sometimes to resistwicked princes. If early fathers of the Church had occasionallyused language which seemed to imply that they disapproved ofall resistance, they had also occasionally used language whichseemed to imply that they disapproved of all war and of alloaths. In truth the doctrine of passive obedience, as taughtat Oxford in the reign of Charles the Second, can be deducedfrom the Bible only by a mode of interpretation which wouldirresistibly lead us to the conclusions of Barclay and Penn.

It was not merely by arguments drawn from the letter ofScripture that the Anglican theologians had, during the yearswhich immediately followed the Restoration, laboured toprove their favourite tenet. They had attempted to showthat, even if revelation had been silent, reason would havetaught wise men the folly and wickedness of all resistance toestablished government. It was universally admitted thatsucli resistance was, except in extreme cases, unjustifiable.And who would undertake to draw the line between extremecases and ordinary cases? Was there any government in theworld under which there were not to be found some discon-

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CHAP.

IX..

1688 .