Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/175

N° 33. 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 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 think 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 show the reasonableness and necessity of resisting the Rh