§. 168. The old question will be asked in this matter of prerogative,
"But who shall be judge when this power is made a right use of?" I
answer: Between an executive power in being, with such a prerogative, and a
legislative that depends upon his will for their convening, there can be no
judge on earth. As there can be none between the legislative and the people,
should either the executive or the legislative, when they have got the power in
their hands, design, or go about to enslave or destroy them, the people have no
other remedy in this, as in all other cases where they have no judge on earth,
but to appeal to Heaven; for the rulers in such attempts, exercising a power
the people never put into their hands, who can never be supposed to consent
that anybody should rule over them for their harm, do that which they have not
a right to do. And where the body of the people, or any single man, are
deprived of their right, or are under the exercise of a power without right,
having no appeal on earth 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
reserved that ultimate determination to themselves which belongs to all
mankind, where there lies no appeal on earth, by a law antecedent and paramount
to all positive laws of men, whether they have just cause to make their appeal
to Heaven. And this judgement 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 inconvenience is so
great that the majority feel it, and are weary of it, and find a necessity to
have it amended. And 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.
