8£CT. i; TUE RIGHT OF RESISTANCE. $1

with prudence^ leave the power of the sword altogether
in the hands of the adverse party.** *

I think so too ; and if prudence^ how to obtain an
end, is to determine the character of that end, and
convert wickedness into virtue, the Commons were
virtuous and right. It is obvious also that the same
prudence would then make them equally virtuous
and equally right, not merely in not leaving the
sword in the hands of the king, but in usurping it
themselves ; but according to this, prudence, by
turning crime into virtue, will justify any violence or
breach of law. A robber, seeing the object he is
about to attack, armed, shoots him from an ambush.
Foreseeing a contest, " he could not, consistently with
prudence," leave him the power of defending himself,
or annoying the assailant. But the accounts of all
who advocate the cause of the parlimentary leaders
affirm their distrust of the king's sincerity in all the
concessions he had made.
The irrefragable proofs of their own insincerity I
have already given; but the discussion of this question
would lead us too far, though by no means irrelevant,
and would exceed the bounds I have prescribed to
myself.
Some of them, however, ought to be touched
upon.
They are chiefly founded upon two events, cer-
tainly of considerable consequence; but. whether they
amount even to a proof of insincerity on the part of

• Hist, of Janes II. p. 10.
62 mi^TOI^ICAl, ESSAY. SECT. I.
Charles, much more whether it can justify the usurp-
ation of the power of the sword, in my mind is no
qisestiou.
