And
the reason of all, he gives in these words, Because he betrayed
or forced his people, whose liberty he ought carefully to have
preserved. What he adds, into the power and dominion of a
foreign nation, signifies nothing, the fault and forfeiture lying
in the loss of their liberty, which he ought to have preserved,
and not in any distinction of the persons to whose dominion they
were subjected. The peoples right is equally invaded, and their
liberty lost, whether they are made slaves to any of their own,
or a foreign nation; and in this lies the injury, and against
this only have they the right of defence. And there are
instances to be found in all countries, which shew, that it is
not the change of nations in the persons of their governors, but
the change of government, that gives the offence. Bilson, a
bishop of our church, and a great stickler for the power and
prerogative of princes, does, if I mistake not, in his treatise
of Christian subjection, acknowledge, that princes may forfeit
their power, and their title to the obedience of their subjects;
and if there needed authority in a case where reason is so plain,
I could send my reader to Bracton, Fortescue, and the author of
the Mirrour, and others, writers that cannot be suspected to be
ignorant of our government, or enemies to it. But I thought
Hooker alone might be enough to satisfy those men, who relying on
him for their ecclesiastical polity, are by a strange fate
carried to deny those principles upon which he builds it.
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