Extremes are dangerous.

To say that subjects in general are not proper judges (of the law) when their governors oppress them and play the tyrant, and when they defend their rights ...is as great a treason as ever a man uttered.

They are more properly ‘The Messengers of Satan to buffet us.’ No rulers are properly God’s ministers, but such as are ‘just, ruling in the fear of God.’ When once magistrates act contrary to their office, and the end of their institution when they rob and ruin the public, instead of being guardians of its peace … they immediately cease to be the ordinance and ministers of God, and no more deserve that glorious character than common pirates and highwaymen.

I now add, farther, that the apostles argument is so far from proving it to be the duty of people to obey, and submit to, such rulers as act in contradiction to the public good, and so to the design of their office, that it proves the direct contrary.

People are not usually deprived of their liberties all at once, but gradually, by one encroachment after another, as it is found they are disposed to bear them.

There are men who strike at liberty under the term licentiousness

Let us all learn to be free, and to be loyal