"Wherefore if the king shall be guilty of immense and intolerable
cruelty not only against individuals but against the body of the
state, that it is the whole people, or any large part of the people,
in such a case indeed it is competent to the people to resist and
defend themselves from injury, but only to defend themselves, not to
attack the prince, and only to repair the injury they have received;
not to depart, on account of the injury received from the reverence
which they owe him. When the tyranny is intolerable (for we ought
always to submit to a tyranny in a moderate degree) the subject may
resist with reverence."

In commenting on this passage, Mr. Locke, mixes with his reasonings the
ridicule it deserves:--"'He (that is Barclay) says, it must be with
reverence.' How to resist force without striking again, or how to strike
with reverence, will need some skill to make intelligible. He that shall
oppose an assault only with a shield to receive the blow, or in any more
respectful posture without a sword in his hand, to abate the confidence
and force of the assailant will quickly be at the end of his resistance,
and will find such a defence serve only to draw on him the worse usage:
this is as ridiculous a way of resisting, as Juvenal thought of fighting,
'Ubi tu _pulsas_, ego _vapulo_ tantum,' and the result of the combat will
be unavoidably the same as he there describes it.

Libertas paupcris haec est.
_Pulsatus_ rogat, et _pugnis_ concisus adorat,
Ut _liceat_ paucis cum dentibus inde _reverti_.

"'This is the liberty of the slave: when beaten and bruised with blows,
he requests and implores as a favour to be allowed to depart with some
few of his teeth.' This will always be the event of such an imaginary
resistance, when men may not strike again. He, therefore, who may resist
must be allowed to strike. And then let our author, or anybody else,
join a knock on the head, or a cut on the face, with as much reverence
and respect as he thinks fit. He that can reconcile blows and reverence
may, for aught I know, deserve for his pains, a civil respectful
cudgeling whenever he can meet with it."

So much, gentlemen, for the doctrine of non-resistance. Therefore the
author of this paper in stating that there may be times when insurrection
may be called for, has done no more than a hundred other writers, and
among them Locke, have done before him.

Locke proceeding