with that restriction_; but it
was repealed because it might be interpreted in _an unconfined sense,
and exclusive of that restriction_, and, being so understood, would
reflect on the justice of the Revolution: and this the legislature had
at heart, and were very jealous of, and by this repeal of that
declaration gave a Parliamentary or legislative admonition against
asserting this doctrine of non-resistance _in an unlimited sense_."
[Sidenote: General doctrine of non-resistance godly and wholesome; not
bound to state _explicitly_ the exceptions.]
"Though the general doctrine of non-resistance, the doctrine of the
Church of England, as stated in her Homilies, or elsewhere delivered, by
which the general duty of subjects to the higher powers is taught, be
owned to be, as unquestionably it is, _a godly and wholesome
doctrine_,--though this general doctrine has been constantly inculcated
by the reverend fathers of the Church, dead and living, and preached by
them as a preservative against the Popish doctrine of deposing princes,
and as the ordinary rule of obedience,--and though the same doctrine has
been preached, maintained, and avowed by our most orthodox and able
divines from the time of the Reformation,--and how _innocent a man_
soever Dr. Sacheverell had been, if, _with an honest and well-meant_
zeal, he had preached the same doctrine in the same general terms in
which he found it delivered by the Apostles of Christ, as taught by the
Homilies and the reverend fathers of our Church, and, in imitation of
those great examples, had only pressed the general duty of obedience,
and the illegality of resistance, without taking notice of any
exception," &c.
* * * * *
Another of the managers for the House of Commons, Sir John Holland, was
not less careful in guarding against a confusion of the principles of
the Revolution with any loose, general doctrines of a right in the
individual, or even in the people, to undertake for themselves, on any
prevalent, temporary opinions of convenience or improvement, any
fundamental change in the Constitution, or to fabricate a new
government for themselves, and thereby to disturb the public peace, and
to unsettle the ancient Constitution of this kingdom.
* * * * *
_Sir John Holland_.
[Sidenote: Submission to the sovereign a conscientious duty, except in
cases of necessity.]
"The Commons would not be understood a
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