148 TWO CHAPTERS ILLUSTRATIVE OF 



cough, as not knowing how you will be this night, you are not yet 

 able to appoint them a day of hearing ; but I will forbear to tell 

 them, that notwithstanding your cold, you were able to speak with 

 the king of Spain's instruments, though not with your own sub- 

 jects."* 



It has been lately said of James by a celebrated writer, " that he 

 was one of those kings whom God seems to send for the express 

 purpose of hastening revolutions." If we are to listen, however, to 

 our homily on wilful rebellion, we shall there find it to be sinful 

 " to rebel even against undiscreet or evil princes ;" and very favour- 

 able to this position are the words of Lord Bacon : — " Allegiance is 

 of greater extent and dimension, than laws or kingdoms, and cannot 

 consist by the laws merely, because it began before laws, it conti- 

 nueth after laws, and it is in vigour when laws are suspended and 

 have not had their force."t 



But it would appear that Bishop Hoadly, like Gallio, cared for 

 none of these things, and thought by a sort of specious acuteness he 

 could cut this knotty point at once, by affirming " that we are only 

 forbidden to resist good governors" in open defiance of the orthodox 

 opinion (for in a bishop we must not suppose it ignorance or forget- 

 fulness,) that the doctrine of non-resistance is promulgated in the 

 clearest and most unequivocal manner by the scriptures. We pro- 

 fess to enter no further upon this deep and dangerous question, than 

 by saying, that we shall be ranked among the most offending, if it 

 be sinful to think, that those high Tory writers who have glossed 

 over the black crimes of James with the gentle epithets of failings 

 or infirmities, thus turning stains into spots, and spots into specks, 

 betray as great a disregard of historical justice, as that minister of 

 religion would of his high calling who should be afraid to call vice, 

 vice ; and infamy, infamy. A more striking illustration of this re- 

 mark cannot be evinced than in Hume's declaration, " that in all 

 history it would be difficult to find a reign more unspotted and un- 

 blemished than that of James." :£ 



Why, if an unquestioning submission " to the powers that be," 

 had not been classed among his religious and political duties, no en- 

 lightened Englishman of that day would have scarcely endured the 

 wantonness of his despotism. At all events, it is impossible, but that 

 he must have felt an inward loathing against a government, whose 



* See Hardwicke, Stale Papas, vol. i. p. 4G0. 



+ Winwood, vol. iii, p. 239, and Coke's Detection, p. (J5. 



';. History of England, vol. vi, p. 153. 



