For if it reach no farther than
some private men's cases, though they have a right to defend
themselves, and to recover by force what by unlawful force is taken
from them, yet the right to do so will not easily engage them in a
contest wherein they are sure to perish; it being as impossible for
one or a few oppressed men to disturb the government where the body of
the people do not think themselves concerned in it, as for a raving
madman or heady malcontent to overturn a well-settled state, the
people being as little apt to follow the one as the other.
209. But if either these illegal acts have extended to the
majority of the people, or if the mischief and oppression has light
only on some few, but in such cases as the precedent and
consequences seem to threaten all, and they are persuaded in their
consciences that their laws, and with them, their estates,
liberties, and lives are in danger, and perhaps their religion too,
how they will be hindered from resisting illegal force used against
them I cannot tell. This is an inconvenience, I confess, that
attends all governments whatsoever, when the governors have brought it
to this pass, to be generally suspected of their people, the most
dangerous state they can possibly put themselves in; wherein they
are the less to be pitied, because it is so easy to be avoided.
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