One example of this is to be found in the Scotch
Annals.
Sec. 239. In these cases Barclay, the great champion of
absolute monarchy, is forced to allow, that a king may be
resisted, and ceases to be a king. That is, in short, not to
multiply cases, in whatsoever he has no authority, there he is no
king, and may be resisted: for wheresoever the authority ceases,
the king ceases too, and becomes like other men who have no
authority. And these two cases he instances in, differ little
from those above mentioned, to be destructive to governments,
only that he has omitted the principle from which his doctrine
flows: and that is, the breach of trust, in not preserving the
form of government agreed on, and in not intending the end of
government itself, which is the public good and preservation of
property. When a king has dethroned himself, and put himself in
a state of war with his people, what shall hinder them from
prosecuting him who is no king, as they would any other man, who
has put himself into a state of war with them, Barclay, and those
of his opinion, would do well to tell us. This farther I desire
may be taken notice of out of Barclay, that he says, The mischief
that is designed them, the people may prevent before it be clone:
whereby he allows resistance when tyranny is but in design. Such
designs as these (says he) when any king harbours in his thoughts
and seriously promotes, he immediately gives up all care and
thought of the common-wealth; so that, according to him, the
neglect of the public good is to be taken as an evidence of such
design, or at least for a sufficient cause of resistance.
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