ividual for his defence, or for avoiding any injustice or loss, or
for obtaining any important advantage, without danger or mischief to any
other person, there equivocation is lawful." He held, as some do at the
present day, that "if the law be unjust, then is it, _ipso facto_, void
and of no force:" so that "the laws against recusants--are to be
esteemed as no laws by such as steadfastly believe these [Romish rites]
to be necessary observances of the true religion... That is no treason
at all which is made treason by an unjust law." In other words, the
subject is to be the judge of the justice of the law, and if in his eyes
it be unjust, he is released from the necessity of obeying it! This is
simply to do away with all law at once; for probably no law was ever
made which did not appear unjust to somebody: and it lays down the grand
and ancient principle that every man shall do what is right in his own
eyes. We have heard a good deal of this doctrine lately; it is of
Jesuit origin, and a distinct contradiction of that Book which teaches
that "the powers that be are ordained of God, and whosoever resisteth
the power, resisteth the ordinance of God." Those who set up such
claims, however they may disavow it, really hold that Christ's kingdom
_is_ of this world, since they place it in rivalry to the secular
authority. "If thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but
a judge." One great distinction of the Antichrist is that he is _ho
anomos_, the Lawless One. Even further than this, Garnet was prepared
to go, and did go at his last examination. "In all cases," he said,
"where simple equivocation is allowable, it is lawful if necessary to
confirm it by an oath. This I acknowledge to be according to my
opinion, and the opinion of the Schoolmen; and our reason is, for that
in cases of lawful equivocation, the speech by equivocation being saved
from a lie, the same speech may be without perjury confirmed by oath, or
by any other usual way, though it were by receiving the Sacrament, if
just necessity so require." (_Domestic State Papers_, James the First,
volume 20, article 218.) Garnet asserted that Catesby did him much
wrong, by saying that in Queen Elizabeth's time he had consulted him as
to the lawfulness of the "powder action," which was "most untrue;" but
after the preceding extracts, who could believe their writer on his
oath? Poor Anne Vaux, who undoubtedly meant to excuse and save him,
urged that