glican theologians had, during the years which immediately
followed the Restoration, laboured to prove their favourite tenet. They
had attempted to show that, even if revelation had been silent, reason
would have taught wise men the folly and wickedness of all resistance to
established government. It was universally admitted that such resistance
was, except in extreme cases, unjustifiable. And who would undertake to
draw the line between extreme cases and ordinary cases? Was there any
government in the world under which there were not to be found some
discontented and factious men who would say, and perhaps think, that
their grievances constituted an extreme case? If, indeed, it were
possible to lay down a clear and accurate rule which might forbid men
to rebel against Trajan, and yet leave them at liberty to rebel against
Caligula, such a rule might be highly beneficial. But no such rule had
even been, or ever would be, framed. To say that rebellion was
lawful under some circumstances, without accurately defining those
circumstances, was to say that every man might rebel whenever he thought
fit; and a society in which every man rebelled whenever he thought fit
would be more miserable than a society governed by the most cruel and
licentious despot. It was therefore necessary to maintain the great
principle of nonresistance in all its integrity. Particular cases might
doubtless be put in which resistance would benefit a community: but it
was, on the whole, better that the people should patiently endure a bad
government than that they should relieve themselves by violating a law
on which the security of all government depended.

Such reasoning easily convinced a dominant and prosperous party, but
could ill bear the scrutiny of minds strongly excited by royal injustice
and ingratitude. It is true that to trace the exact boundary between
rightful and wrongful resistance is impossible: but this impossibility
arises from the nature of right and wrong, and is found in almost every
part of ethical science. A good action is not distinguished from a bad
action by marks so plain as those which distinguish a hexagon from a
square. There is a frontier where virtue and vice fade into each other.
Who has ever been able to define the exact boundary between courage and
rashness, between prudence and cowardice, between frugality and avarice,
between liberality and prodigality? Who has ever been able to say how
far mercy to offenders ought