affords either argument or objection applicable to any conclusions upon the subject, that are de duced from the law and religion of nature.

The only passages which have been seriously alleged in the controversy, or which it is necessary for us to state and examine, are the two following; the one extracted from St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, the other from the First General Epistle of St. Peter:

ROMANS xiii. 1-7.

"Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers: for there is no power but of God: the powers that be, are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist, shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same; for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if you do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake. For, for this cause pay ye tribute also; for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues; tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honour to whom honour."

Wherefore, as individual members of the state | are not permitted to pursue their emolument to the prejudice of the community, so is it equally a consequence of this rule, that no particular colony, province, town, or district, can justly concert measures for their separate interest, which shall appear at the same time to diminish the sum of prosperity. I do not mean, that it is necessary to the justice of a measure, that it profit each and every part of the community, (for, as the happiness of the whole may be increased, whilst that of some parts is diminished, it is possible that the conduct of one part of an empire may be detrimental to some other part, and yet just, provided one part gain more in happiness than the other part loses, so that the common weal be augmented by the change;) but what I affirm is, that these counsels can never be reconciled with the obligations resulting from civil union, which cause the whole happiness of the society to be impaired for the conveniency of a part. This conclusion is applicable to the question of right between Great Britain and her revoited colonies. Had I been an American, I should not have thought it enough to have had it even demonstrated, that a separation from the parent state would produce effects beneficial to America; my relation to that state imposed upon me a further inquiry, namely, whether the whole happiness of the empire was likely to be promoted by such a measure: not indeed the happiness of every part; that was not necessary, nor to be expected; but whether what Great Britian would lose by the separation, was likely to be compensated to the joint stock of hap piness, by the advantages which America would receive from it. The contested claims of sovereign states and their remote dependencies, may be submitted to the adjudication of this rule with mutual safety. A public advantage is measured by the advantage which each individual receives, and by the number of those who receive it. A public evil is compounded of the same proportions. Whilst, therefore, a colony is small, or a province thinly inhabited, if a competition of interests arises To comprehend the proper import of these inbetween the original country and their acquired structions, let the reader reflect, that upon the dominions, the former ought to be preferred; subject of civil obedience there are two questions: because it is fit that, if one must necessarily be the first, whether to obey government be a moral sacrificed, the less give place to the greater; but duty and obligation upon the conscience at all; when, by an increase of population, the interest the second, how far, and to what cases, that obeof the provinces begins to bear a considerable pro-dience ought to extend? that these two questions portion to the entire interest of the community, it is possible that they may suffer so much by their subjection, that not only theirs, but the whole happiness of the empire, may be obstructed by their union. The rule and principle of the calculation being still the same, the result is different and this difference begets a new situation, which entitles the subordinate parts of the states to more equal terms of confederation, and if these be refused, to independency.

1 PETER ii. 13-18.

"Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake; whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: as free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God."

are so distinguishable in the imagination, that it is possible to treat of the one, without any thought of the other; and lastly, that if expressions which relate to one of these questions be transferred and applied to the other, it is with great danger of giving them a signification very different from the author's meaning. This distinction is not only possible, but natural. If I met with a person who appeared to entertain doubts, whether civil obedience were a moral duty which ought to be voluntarily discharged, or whether it were not a mere submission to force, like that which we yield to a robber who holds a pistol to our breast, I should represent to him the use and offices of civil subjection; or, if I preferred a different theory, civil government, the end and the necessity of I should explain to him the social compact, urge We affirm that, as to the extent of our civil him with the obligation and the equity of his imrights and obligations, Christianity hath left us plied promise and tacit consent to be governed by where she found us; that she hath neither altered the laws of the state from which he received proit nor ascertained it; that the New Testament con-tection; or I should argue, perhaps, that Nature tains not one passage, which, fairly interpreted, herself dictated the law of subordination, when

CHAPTER IV.

The Duty of Civil Obedience, as stated in the
Christian Scriptures.

she planted within us an inclination to associate with our species, and framed us with capacities so various and unequal. From whatever principle I set out, I should labour to infer from it this conclusion, "That obedience to the state is to be numbered among the relative duties of human life, for the transgression of which we shall be accountable at the tribunal of Divine justice, whether the magistrate be able to punish us for it or not;" and being arrived at this conclusion, I should stop, having delivered the conclusion itself, and throughout the whole argument expressed the obedience, which I inculcated, in the most general and unqualified terms; all reservations and restrictions being superfluous, and foreign to the doubt I was employed to remove.

of wives to their husbands: "Servants, be subject to your masters.”—“Children, obey your parents in all things.”—“ Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands." The same concise and absolute form of expression occurs in all these precepts; the same silence as to any exceptions or distinctions: yet no one doubts that the commands of masters, parents, and husbands, are often so immoderate, unjust, and inconsistent with other obligations, that they both may and ought to be resisted. In letters or dissertations written professedly upon separate articles of morality, we might with more reason have looked for a precise delineation of our duty, and some degree of modern accuracy in the rules which were laid down for our direction: but in those short collections of practical maxims which compose the conclusion, or some small portion, of a doctrinal or perhaps controversial epistle, we cannot be surprised to find the author more solicitous to impress the duty, than curious to enumerate exceptions. The consideration of this distinction is alone sufficient to vindicate these passages of Scripture from any explanation which may be put upon them, in favour of an unlimited passive obedience. But if we be permitted to assume a supposition which many commentators proceed upon as a certainty, that the first Christians privately cherished an opinion, that their conversion to Christianity entitled them to new immunities, to an exemption as of right (however they might give way to necessity,) from the authority of the Roman sovereign; we are furnished with a still more apt and satisfactory interpretation of the apostles' words. The two passages apply with great propriety to the refutation of this error:

If, in a short time afterwards, I should be accosted by the same person, with complaints of public grievances, of exorbitant taxes, of acts of cruelty and oppression, of tyrannical encroachments upon the ancient or stipulated rights of the people, and should be consulted whether it were lawful to revolt, or justifiable to join in an attempt to shake off the yoke by open resistance; I should certainly consider myself as having a case and question before me very different from the former. I should now define and discriminate. I should reply, that if public expediency be the foundation, it is also the measure, of civil obedience: that the obligation of subjects and sovereigns is reciprocal; that the duty of allegiance, whether it be founded in utility or compact, is neither unlimited nor unconditional; that peace may be purchased too dearly; that patience becomes culpable pusillanimity, when it serves only to encourage our rulers to increase the weight of our burthen, or to bind it the faster; that the submission which sur-they teach the Christian convert to obey the marenders the liberty of a nation, and entails slavery gistrate "for the Lord's sake;"-" not only for upon future generations, is enjoined by no law of wrath, but for conscience' sake;"-"that there is no rational morality; finally, should instruct the power but of God;"-" that the powers that be," inquirer to compare the peril and expense of his even the present rulers of the Roman empire, enterprise with the effects it was expected to pro- though heathens and usurpers, seeing they are in duce, and to make choice of the alternative by possession of the actual and necessary authority which not his own present relief or profit, but the of civil government, "are ordained of God;" and, whole and permanent interest of the state, was consequently, entitled to receive obedience from likely to be best promoted. If any one who had those who profess themselves the peculiar serbeen present at both these conversations should vants of God, in a greater (certainly not in a less) upbraid me with change or inconsistency of degree than from any others. They briefly deopinion, should retort upon me the passive doc-scribe the office of "civil governors, the punishtrine which I before taught, the large and ab- ment of evil-doers, and the praise of them that do solute terms in which I then delivered lessons of well;" from which description of the use of governobedience and submission, I should account my-ment, they justly infer the duty of subjection; self unfairly dealt with. I should reply, that the only difference which the language of the two conversations presented was, that I added now many exceptions and limitations, which were omitted or unthought of then: that this difference arose naturally from the two occasions, such exceptions being as necessary to the subject of our present conference, as they would have been superfluous and unseasonable in the former.

which duty, being as extensive as the reason upon which it is founded, belongs to Christians, no less than to the heathen members of the community. If it be admitted, that the two apostles wrote with a view to this particular question, it will be confessed, that their words cannot be transferred to a question totally different from this, with any certainty of carrying along with us their authority and intention. There exists no resemblance beNow the difference in these two conversations tween the case of a primitive convert, who disis precisely the distinction to be taken in inter-puted the jurisdiction of the Roman government preting those passages of Scripture, concerning which we are debating. They inculcate the duty, they do not describe the extent of it. They enforce the obligation by the proper sanctions of Christianity, without intending either to enlarge or contract, without considering, indeed, the limits by which it is bounded. This is also the method in which the same apostles enjoin the duty of servants to their masters, of children to their parents,

over a disciple of Christianity, and his who, acknowledging the general authority of the state over all its subjects, doubts whether that authority be not, in some important branch of it, so ill constituted or abused, as to warrant the endeavours of the people to bring about a reformation by force. Nor can we judge what reply the apostles would have made to this second question if it had been proposed to them, from any thing they have de

livered upon the first; any more than, in the two consultations abovo described, it could be known beforehand what I would say in the latter, from the answer which I gave the former.

highest. The divine right of kings is, like the divine right of other magistrates,-the law of the land, or even actual and quiet possession of their office; a right ratified, we humbly presume, by the divine approbation, so long as obedience to their authority appears to be necessary or condu

ed of God by virtue only of that general decree by which he assents, and adds the sanction of his will, to every law of society which promotes his own purpose, the communication of human happiness; according to which idea of their origin and constitution (and without any repugnancy to the words of St. Paul,) they are by St. Peter denominated the ordinance of man.

CHAPTER V.
Of Civil Liberty.

CIVIL LIBERTY is the not being restrained by any law, but what conduces in a greater degree to the public welfare.

To do what we will, is natural liberty: to do what we will, consistently with the interest of the community to which we belong, is civil liberty; that is to say, the only liberty to be desired in a state of civil society.

I should wish, no doubt, to be allowed to act in every instance as I pleased, but I reflect that the rest also of mankind would then do the same; in which state of universal independence and selfdirection, I should meet with so many checks and obstacles to my own will, from the interference and opposition of other men's, that not only my hap piness, but my liberty, would be less, than whilst the whole community were subject to the dominion of equal laws.

The only defect to this account is, that neither the Scriptures, nor any subsequent history of the early ages of the Church, furnish any direct at-cive to the common welfare. Princes are ordaintestation of the existence of such disaffected sentiments amongst the primitive converts. They supply indeed some circumstances which render probable the opinion, that extravagant notions of the political rights of the Christian state were at that time entertained by many proselytes to the religion. From the question proposed unto Christ, "Is it lawful to give tribute to Cæsar?" it may be presumed that doubts had been started in the Jewish schools concerning the obligation, or even the lawfulness, of submission to the Roman yoke. The accounts delivered by Josephus, of various insurrections of the Jews of that and the following age, excited by this principle, or upon this pretence, confirm the presumption. Now, as the Christians were at first chiefly taken from the Jews, confounded with them by the rest of the world, and, from the affinity of the two religions, apt to intermix the doctrines of both, it is not to be wondered at, that a tenet, so flattering to the self-importance of those who embraced it, should have been communicated to the new institution. Again, the teachers of Christianity, amongst the privileges which their religion conferred upon its professors, were wont to extol the "liberty into which they were called,"-"in which Christ had made them free." This liberty, which was intended of a deliverance from the various servitude, in which they had heretofore lived, to the domination of sinful passions, to the superstition of the Gentile idolatry, or the encumbered ritual of the Jewish dispensation, might by some be interpreted to signify an emancipation from all restraint which was imposed by an authority merely human. At least, they might be represented by their enemies as maintaining notions of this dangerous tendency. To some error or calumny of this kind, the words of St. Peter seem to allude:-" For so is the will of God, that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: as free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness (i. e. sedition,) but as the servants of God." After all, if any one think this conjecture too feebly supported by testimony, to be relied upon in the interpretation The definition of civil liberty above laid down, imof Scripture, he will then revert to the consider-ports that the laws of a free people impose no reations alleged in the preceding part of this chapter.straints upon the private will of the subject, which After so copious an account of what we appre- do not conduce in a greater degree to the public hend to be the general design and doctrine of happiness; by which it is intimated, 1st, that re these much-agitated passages, little need be added straint itself is an evil; 2dly, that this evil ought to an explanation of particular clauses. St. Paul be overbalanced by some public advantage; 3dly, has said, "Whosoever resisteth the power, re- that the proof of this advantage lies upon the lesisteth the ordinance of God." This phrase, "the gislature; 4thly, that a law being found to proordinance of God," is by many so interpreted as duce no sensible good effects, is a sufficient reason to authorise the most exalted and superstitious for repealing it, as adverse and injurious to the ideas of the regal character. But surely, such rights of a free citizen, without demanding speinterpreters have sacrificed truth to adulation. For, cifie evidence of its bad effects. This maxim in the first place, the expression, as used by might be remembered with advantage in a revision St. Paul, is just as applicable to one kind of of many laws of this country; especially of the government, and to one kind of succession, as to game-laws; of the poor-laws, so far as they lay another;-to the elective magistrates of a pure restrictions upon the poor themselves; of the laws republic, as to an absolute hereditary monarch. In against Papists and Dissenters: and, amongst the next place, it is not affirmed of the supreme people enamoured to excess and jealous of their magistrate exclusively, that he is the ordinance of liberty, it seems a matter of surprise that this God; the title, whatever it imports, belongs to principle has been so imperfectly attended to. every inferior officer of the state as much as to the

The boasted liberty of a state of nature exists only in a state of solitude. In every kind and degree of union and intercourse with his species, it is possible that the liberty of the individual may be augmented by the very laws which restrain it; because he may gain more from the limitation of other men's freedom than he suffers by the diminution of his own. Natural liberty is the right of common upon a waste; civil liberty is the safe, exclusive, unmolested enjoyment of a cultivated enclosure.

The degree of actual liberty always bearing,

according to this account of it, a reversed propor- | their legislature; not their enjoyment, but their tion to the number and severity of the restrictions safety; not their present burthens, but their pros which are either useless, or the utility of which pects of future grievances; and this we pronounce does not outweigh the evil of the restraint, it fol- a change from the condition of freemen to that lows, that every nation possesses some, no nation of slaves. In like manner, in our own country, the perfect, liberty: that this liberty may be enjoyed act of parliament, in the reign of Henry the under every form of government: that it may be Eighth, which gave to the king's proclamation impaired indeed, or increased, but that it is neither the force of law, has properly been called a comgained, nor lost, nor recovered, by any single re-plete and formal surrender of the liberty of the gulation, change, or event whatever: that conse- nation; and would have been so, although no quently, those popular phrases which speak of a proclamation were issued in pursuance of these free people; of a nation of slaves; which call one new powers, or none but what was recommended revolution the era of liberty, or another the loss by the highest wisdom and utility. The security of it; with many expressions of a like absolute was gone. Were it probable that the welfare form; are intelligible only in a comparative sense. and accommodation of the people would be as stuHence also we are enabled to apprehend the diously, and as providently, consulted in the edicts distinction between personal and civil liberty. of a despotic prince, as by the resolutions of a A citizen of the freest republic in the world may popular assembly, then would an absolute form of be imprisoned for his crimes; and though his per- government be no less free than the purest demosonal freedom be restrained by bolts and fetters, so cracy. The different degree of care and knowlong as his confinement is the effect of a benefi- ledge of the public interest, which may reasonably cial public law, his civil liberty is not invaded. If be expected from the different form and composithis instance appear dubious, the following will be tion of the legislature, constitutes the distinction, plainer. A passenger from the Levant, who, upon in respect of liberty, as well between these two his return to England, should be conveyed to a extremes, as between all the intermediate modifilazaretto by an order of quarantine, with what- cations of civil government. ever impatience he might desire his enlargement, and though he saw a guard placed at the door to oppose his escape, or even ready to destroy his life if he attempted it, would hardly accuse government of encroaching upon his civil freedom; nay, might, perhaps, be all the while congratulating himself that he had at length set his foot again in a land of liberty. The manifest expediency of the measure not only justifies it, but reconciles the most odious confinement with the perfect possession, and the loftiest notions, of civil liberty. And if this be true of the coercion of a prison, that it is compatible with a state of civil freedom, it cannot with reason be disputed of those more moderate constraints which the ordinary operation of government imposes upon the will of the individual. It is not the rigour, but the inexpediency of laws and acts of authority, which makes them tyrannical. There is another idea of civil liberty, which, though neither so simple nor so accurate as the former, agrees better with the signification, which the usage of common discourse, as well as the example of many respectable writers upon the sub-safeguards and preservatives of liberty: for examject, has affixed to the term. This idea places liberty in security; making it to consist not merely in an actual exemption from the constraint of useless and noxious laws and acts of dominion, but in being free from the danger of having such hereafter imposed or exercised. Thus, speaking of the political state of modern Europe, we are accustomed to say of Sweden, that she hath lost her liberty by the revolution which lately took place in that country; and yet we are assured that the people continue to be governed by the same laws as before, or by others which are wiser, milder, and more equitable. What then have they lost? They have lost the power and functions of their diet; the constitution of their states and orders, whose deliberations and concurrence were required in the formation and establishment of every public law; and thereby have parted with the security which they possessed against any attempts of the crown to harass its subjects, by oppressive and useless exertions of prerogative. The loss of this security we denominate the loss of liberty. They have changed, not their laws, but

The definitions which have been framed of civil liberty, and which have become the subject of much unnecessary altercation, are most of them adapted to this idea. Thus one political writer makes the very essence of the subject's liberty to consist in his being governed by no laws but those to which he hath actually consented; another is satisfied with an indirect and virtual consent; another, again, places civil liberty in the separation of the legislative and executive offices of government; another, in the being governed by law; that is, by known, preconstituted, inflexible rules of action and adjudication; a fifth, in the exclusive right of the people to tax themselves by their own representatives; a sixth, in the freedom and purity of elections of representatives; a seventh, in the control which the democratic party of the constitution possesses over the military establishment. Concerning which, and some other similar accounts of civil liberty, it may be observed, that they all labour under one inaccuracy, viz. that they describe not so much liberty itself, as the

ple, a man's being governed by no laws but those to which he has given his consent, were it practicable, is no otherwise necessary to the enjoyment of civil liberty, than as it affords a probable security against the dictation of laws imposing superfluous restrictions upon his private will. This remark is applicable to the rest. The diversity of these definitions will not surprise us, when we consider that there is no contrariety or opposition amongst them whatever: for, by how many different provisions and precautions civil liberty is fenced and protected, so many different accounts of liberty itself, all sufficiently consistent with truth and with each other, may, according to this mode of explaining the term, be framed and adopted.

Truth cannot be offended by a definition, but propriety may. In which view, those definitions of liberty ought to be rejected, which, by making that essential to civil freedom which is unattainable in experience, inflame expectations that can never be gratified, and disturb the public content with complaints, which no wisdom or benevolence of government can remove.

ARISTOCRACY

It will not be thought extraordinary, that an | vernors, of the interests and accommodation of the idea, which occurs so much oftener as the subject people, and a consequent deficiency of salutary of panegyric and careless declamation, than of just regulations; want of constancy and uniformity in reasoning or correct knowledge, should be attend- the rules of government, and, proceeding from ed with uncertainty and confusion; or that it thence, insecurity of person and property. should be found impossible to contrive a definition, The separate advantage of an which may include the numerous, unsettled, and consists in the wisdom which may be expected from ever-varying significations, which the term is made experience and education:-a permanent council to stand for, and at the same time accord with the naturally possesses experience; and the members condition and experience of social life. who succeed to their places in it by inheritance, will, probably, be trained and educated with a view to the stations which they are destined by their birth to occupy.

Of the two ideas that have been stated of civil liberty, whichever we assume, and whatever rea soning we found upon them, concerning its extent, nature, value, and preservation, this is the conclusion; that that people, government, and constitution, is the freest, which makes the best provision for the enacting of expedient and salutary laws.

CHAPTER VI.

Of different Forms of Government.

As a series of appeals must be finite, there necessarily exists in every government a power from which the constitution has provided no appeal; and which power, for that reason, may be termed absolute, omnipotent, uncontrollable, arbitrary, despotic; and is alike so in all countries.

The person, or assembly, in whom this power resides, is called the sovereign, or the supreme power of the state.

Since to the same power universally appertains the office of establishing public laws, it is called also the legislature of the state.

A government receives its denomination from the form of the legislature; which form is likewise what we commonly mean by the constitution of a country.

The mischiefs of an ARISTOCRACY are, dissensions in the ruling orders of the state, which, from the want of a common superior, are liable to proceed to the most desperate extremities; oppression of the lower orders by the privileges of the higher, and by laws partial to the separate interest of the lawmakers.

The advantages of a REPUBLIC are, liberty, or exemption from needless restrictions; equal laws; regulations adapted to the wants and circumstances of the people; public spirit, frugality, averseness to war; the opportunities which democratic assemblies afford to men of every description, of producing their abilities and counsels to public observation, and the exciting thereby, and calling forth to the service of the commonwealth, the faculties of its best citizens.

The evils of a REPUBLIC are, dissension, tumults, faction; the attempts of powerful citizens to possess themselves of the empire; the confusion, rage, and clamour, which are the inevitable consequences of assembling multitudes, and of propounding questions of state to the discussion of the people; the delay and disclosure of public counsels and designs; and the imbecility of measures retarded by the necessity of obtaining the consent of numbers: lastly, the oppression of the provinces which are not adPolitical writers enumerate three principal mitted to a participation in the legislative power. forms of government, which, however, are to be A mixed government is composed by the comregarded rather as the simple forms, by some combination of two or more of the simple forms of gobination and intermixture of which all actual government above described:-and in whatever provernments are composed, than as any where ex-portion each form enters into the constitution of a isting in a pure and elementary state. These forms

are,

I. Despotism, or absolute MONARCHY, where the legislature is in a single person.

government, in the same proportion may both the advantages and evils, which we have attributed to that form, be expected: that is, those are the uses to be maintained and cultivated in each part of the II. An ARISTOCRACY, where the legislature is constitution, and these are the dangers to be proin a select assembly, the members of which either vided against in each. Thus, if secrecy and defill up by election the vacancies in their own body,spatch be truly enumerated amongst the separate or succeed to their places in it by inheritance, property, tenure of certain lands, or in respect of some personal right, or qualification.

excellencies of regal government, then a mixed government, which retains monarchy in one part of its constitution, should be careful that the other III. A REPUBLIC, or democracy, where the peo-estates of the empire do not, by an officious and ple at large, either collectively or by representation, constitute the legislature.

inquisitive interference with the executive functions, which are, or ought to be, reserved to the The separate advantages of MONARCHY, are, administration of the prince, interpose delays, or unity of counsel, activity, decision, secrecy, de- divulge what it is expedient to conceal. On the spatch; the military strength and energy which other hand, if profusion, exaction, military domiresult from these qualities of government; the ex-nation, and needless wars, be justly accounted natuclusion of popular and aristrocratical contentions; ral properties of monarchy, in its simple unqualified the preventing, by a known rule of succession, of form; then are these the objects to which, in a all competition for the supreme power; and there-mixed government, the aristrocratic and popular by repressing the hopes, intrigues, and dangerous ambition of aspiring citizens.

The mischiefs, or rather the dangers, of MoNARCHY are, tyranny, expense, exaction, military domination: unnecessary wars, waged to gratify the passions of an individual; risk of the character of the reigning prince; ignorance, in the go

part of the constitution ought to direct their vigilance; the dangers against which they should raise and fortify their barriers; these are departments of sovereignty, over which a power of inspection and control ought to be deposited with the people.

The same observation may be repeated of all the other advantages and inconveniences which have