overseen; because it is agreed by the learned, that there is but a very narrow step from atheism, to the other extreme, superstition. So that upon the whole, whether the whigs had any real design of bringing in popery or not, it is very plain that they took the most effectual step toward it; and if the jesuits had been their immediate directors, they could not have taught them better, nor have found apter scholars.
Their second accusation is, that we encourage and maintain arbitrary power in princes; and promote enslaving doctrines among the people. This they go about to prove by instances; producing the particular opinions of certain divines in king Charles II's reign, a decree of Oxford university, and some few writers since the revolution. What they mean is the principle of passive obedience and nonresistance, which those who affirm, did I believe never intend should include arbitrary power. However, although I am sensible that it is not reckoned prudent in a dispute to make any concessions, without the last necessity; yet I do agree, that in my own private opinion, some writers did carry that tenet of passive obedience to a height, which seemed hardly consistent with the liberties of a country, whose laws can neither be enacted nor repealed, without the consent of the whole people: I mean not those, who affirm it due in general, as it certainly is, to the legislature; but such as fix it entirely in the prince's person. This last has, I believe, been done by a very few; but when the whigs quote authors to prove it upon us, they bring in all who mention it as a duty in general, without applying it to princes abstracted from their senate.
