§. 242. If a controversy arise betwixt a prince and some of the people in a
matter where the law is silent or doubtful, and the thing be of great
consequence, I should think the proper umpire in such a case should be the body
of the people. For in such cases where the prince hath a trust reposed in him,
and is dispensed from the common, ordinary rules of the law, there, if any men
find themselves aggrieved, and think the prince acts contrary to, or beyond
that trust, who so proper to judge as the body of the people (who at first
lodged that trust in him) how far they meant it should extend? But if the
prince, or whoever they be in the administration, decline that way of
determination, the appeal then lies nowhere but to Heaven. Force between either
persons who have no known superior on earth or, which permits no appeal to a
judge on earth, being properly a state of war, wherein the appeal lies only to
heaven; and in that state the injured party must judge for himself when he will
think fit to make use of that appeal and put himself upon it.
