§. 208. Fourthly. But if the unlawful acts done by the magistrate be
maintained (by the power he has got), and the remedy, which is due by law, be
by the same power obstructed, yet the right of resisting, even in such manifest
acts of tyranny, will not suddenly, or on slight occasions, disturb the
government. For if it reach no farther than some private men's cases, though
they have a right to defend themselves, and to recover by force what by
unlawful force is taken from them, yet the right to do so will not easily
engage them in a contest wherein they are sure to perish; it being as
impossible for one or a few oppressed men to disturb the government where the
body of the people do not think themselves concerned in it, as for a raving
madman or heady malcontent to overturn a well-settled state, the people being
as little apt to follow the one as the other.
