The Judicial History of Individual Liberty. Sacheverell (15 St. Tr. i) developed the strength of this adverse feeling and discred ited the party which had thus magnified its importance. Henry Sacheverell, rector of St. Saviour's, Southwark, a high church writer of some prominence, but of small ability and even less character, was im peached by Parliament for two sermons in which he had inculcated the doctrine of un limited passive obedience, inveighed against
319
speeches for the prosecution on the trial have always been accepted as an authorita tive statement of the principles of the Revolu tion. Revolution, they maintained, can only be justified where the social compact has been broken, where the sovereign has vio lated the laws and endeavored to subvert the plan of government established by King, Lords and Commons. But in normal times —unless there be such a distinct violation
LORD GEORGE GORDON.
toleration, and insinuated that the Qiurch was in "peril from false brethren," meaning, of course, ministers of the government. Swift described this trial as "a general muster of both parties. Certainly both parties ex erted their utmost powers, and as a debate upon the fundamental conceptions of social government the controversy was conducted with signal ability. The Whigs seem to have had the best of the argument, and the
of the fundamental law—obedience is a sacred duty; the instability of a government exposed in its essential parts to perpetual re vision at every fluctuation of public caprice, is wholly foreign to the spirit of the English Constitution. On the other hand Sachever ell prostituted his cause by calling God to witness, in opposition to the plain meaning of his sermon, that he had neither suggested, nor did in his conscience believe that the
