But he held that rulers, supreme as well as subordinate, were invested with authority for the public good; that obedience was not due to them in any thing contrary to the divine law, natural or revealed; that, in every free and well‑constituted government, the law of the land was superior to the will of the prince; that inferior magistrates and subjects might restrain the supreme magistrate from particular illegal acts, without throwing off their allegiance, or being guilty of rebellion; that no class of men have an original, inherent, and indefeasible right to rule over a people, independently of their will and consent; that every nation is entitled to provide and require that they shall be ruled by laws which are agreeable to the divine law, and calculated to promote their { 305} welfare; that there is a mutual compact, tacit and implied, if not formal and explicit, between rulers and their subjects; and, if the former shall flagrantly violate this, employ that power for the destruction of the commonwealth which was committed to them for its preservation and benefit, or, in one word, if they shall become habitual tyrants and notorious oppressors, that the people are absolved from allegiance, and have a right to resist them, formally to depose them from their place, and to elect others in their room.
The real power of the Scottish kings was, indeed, always limited, and there are in our history, previous to the era of the Reformation, many instances of resistance to their authority. But, though these were pleaded as precedents on this occasion, it must be confessed that we cannot trace them to the principles of genuine liberty. They were the effects of sudden resentment on account of some extraordinary act of male‑administration, or of the ambition of some powerful baron, or of the jealousy with which the feudal aristocracy watched over the privileges of their own order. The people who followed the standards of their chiefs had little interest in the struggle, and derived no benefit from the limitations which were imposed upon the sovereign. But, at this time, more just and enlarged sentiments were diffused through the nation, and the idea of a commonwealth, including the mass of the people as well as the privileged orders, began to be entertained. Our Reformer, whose notions of hereditary right, whether in kings or { 306} nobles, were not exalted, studied to repress the insolence and oppression of the nobility. He reminded them of the original equality of men, and the ends for which some were raised above others; and he taught the people that they had rights to preserve, as well as duties to perform. With respect to female government, he never moved any question among his countrymen, nor attempted to gain proselytes to his opinion.[458]