him leave to do; and was therein mightily overseen; because it is agreed by the learned, that there is but a very narrow step from atheism, to the other extreme, superstition.  So that upon the whole, whether the Whigs had any real design of bringing in Popery or no, it is very plain, that they took the most effectual step towards it; and if the Jesuits had been their immediate directors, they could not have taught them better, nor have found apter scholars.

Their second accusation is, That we encourage and maintain arbitrary power in princes, and promote enslaving doctrines among the people.  This they go about to prove by instances, producing the particular opinions of certain divines in King Charles the Second’s reign; a decree of Oxford University,[5] and some few writers since the Revolution.  What they mean, is the principle of passive obedience and non-resistance, which those who affirm, did, I believe, never intend should include arbitrary power.  However, though I am sensible that it is not reckoned prudent in a dispute, to make any concessions without the last necessity; yet I do agree, that in my own private opinion, some writers did carry that tenet of passive obedience to a height, which seemed hardly consistent with the liberties of a country, whose laws can be neither enacted nor repealed, without the consent of the whole people.  I mean not those who affirm it due in general, as it certainly is to the Legislature, but such as fix it entirely in the prince’s person.  This last has, I believe, been done by a very few; but when the Whigs quote authors to prove it upon us, they bring in all who mention it as a duty in general, without applying it to princes, abstracted from their senate.

By thus freely declaring my own sentiments of passive obedience, it will at least appear, that I do not write for a party:  neither do I, upon any occasion, pretend to speak their sentiments, but my own.  The majority of the two Houses, and the present ministry (if those be a party) seem to me in all their proceedings, to pursue the real interest of Church and State:  and if I shall happen to differ from particular persons among them, in a single notion about government, I suppose they will not, upon that account, explode me and my paper.  However, as an answer once for all, to the tedious scurrilities of those idle people, who affirm, I am hired and directed what to write;[6] I must here inform them, that their censure is an effect of their principles:  The present m[inistr]y are under no necessity of employing prostitute pens; they have no dark designs to promote, by advancing heterodox opinions.

But (to return) suppose two or three private divines, under King Charles the Second, did a little overstrain the doctrine of passive obedience to princes; some allowance might be given to the memory of that unnatural rebellion against his father, and the dismal consequences of resistance.  It is plain, by the proceedings of the Churchmen before and at the Revolution, that this doctrine was never designed to introduce arbitrary power.[7]