And where the body of the people,
or any single man, is deprived of their right, or is under the
exercise of a power without right, and have no appeal on earth,
then they have a liberty to appeal to heaven, whenever they judge
the cause of sufficient moment. And therefore, though the people
cannot be judge, so as to have, by the constitution of that
society, any superior power, to determine and give effective
sentence in the case; yet they have, by a law antecedent and
paramount to all positive laws of men, reserved that ultimate
determination to themselves which belongs to all mankind, where
there lies no appeal on earth, viz. to judge, whether they have
just cause to make their appeal to heaven. And this judgment
they cannot part with, it being out of a man's power so to submit
himself to another, as to give him a liberty to destroy him; God
and nature never allowing a man so to abandon himself, as to
neglect his own preservation: and since he cannot take away his
own life, neither can he give another power to take it. Nor let
any one think, this lays a perpetual foundation for disorder; for
this operates not, till the inconveniency is so great, that the
majority feel it, and are weary of it, and find a necessity to
have it amended. But this the executive power, or wise princes,
never need come in the danger of: and it is the thing, of all
others, they have most need to avoid, as of all others the most
perilous.
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