Thus far that great advocate of monarchical power allows of resistance.
It is true, he has annexed two limitations to it, to no purpose.
First, He says, it must be with reverence.
Secondly, It must be without retribution, or punishment; and the reason he gives is, “Because an inferior cannot punish a superior.”
First, How to resist force without striking again, or how to strike with reverence, will need some skill to make intelligible. He that shall oppose an assault only with a shield to receive the blows, or in any more respectful posture, without a sword in his hand, to abate the confidence and force of the assailant, will quickly be at an end of his resistance, and will find such a defence serve only to draw on himself the worse usage. This is as ridiculous a way of resisting, as Juvenal thought it of fighting; “ ubi tu pulsas, ego vapulo tantum. ” And the success of the combat will be unavoidably the same he there describes it:
“Libertas pauperis haec est: Pulsatus rogat, et pugnis concisus, adorat, Ut liceat paucis cum dentibus inde reverti.”
This will always be the event of such an imaginary resistance, where men may not strike again. He therefore who may resist, must be allowed to strike. And then let our author, or anybody else, join a knock on the head, or a cut on the face, with as much reverence and respect as he thinks fit. He that can reconcile blows and reverence, may, for aught I know, deserve for his pains a civil, respectful cudgelling, wherever he can meet with it.
Secondly, as to his second, “An inferior cannot punish a superior”; that is true, generally speaking, whilst he is his superior. But to resist force with