ception or restriction; it will follow that men can have no authority of their own, no reserve of right to themselves; and consequently, neither can they duly convey any; or in other words, they can have no right to act or choose or constitute without Christ their Lord. And because they can duly convey no authority but with their Lord, and by virtue of his licence, this authority by the Lord's licence conveyed may be justly called the Lord's, and not the people's, authority. But it is certain, that the Lord authorizes every association or imbodied people to choose and approve of their own temporal officers, so far as this may be done consistently with the good of others, with whom they are justly allied by a prior contract; which has been religiously and inviolably observed. Power is singly the Lord's preroga tive; therefore, as it were injurious to him, to consult concerning the conveying or investing this without him, it were also insolence to presume upon a choice wherein to vest it unwarranted by his justice. Yet this choice being duly and equitably made, by virtue of the authority given of God, and according to the rules of his justice; the officers themselves so chosen, may not only be justly said to have their authority from him, but to be his people's officers by his ordinance or appointment. fore is to deny the perfections and realities of God, which is diabolical, and imports a rebellion against God, as well as truth. In evidence of the soundness of his reasoning, we have several precedents and declaratious transmitted to us upon Scripture record. Thus, although it is beyond all question, that the elders of the primitive churches were chosen altogether by the suffrages of the whole church or people, yet are they notwithstanding said to be made their overseers or elders by the Holy Ghost; Acts xx. 28: "Take heed therefore unto your selves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost has made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood." Having then shewn that by mighty men we are to understand the chiefs or elders of the people, and that these derive their due authority from God, and by his consent from his people, it will follow, that being related to both in the authority they bear, they are answerable to both for the due exercise of this authority; to the people, as constituting them, or as, (1 Pet. ii. 13,) andgunivy xliois, an human constitution, and to God as approving and ratifying his people's choice. And this authority being an authority only to do the people good, where this purpose of good is not answered, this authority ends, it ends with it-especially in the eyes of God, who authorizes no one to act contrary to, or beyond his gracious will; or, in other words, who gives no one authority to act contrary to, or beyoud his given authority. And if it be true, that this authority of free choice is from God, it is an impiety to deny it. Truths have their foundation in God, the images of whose perfections and realities they are; to deny these there And here again I am bold to assert, that if these mighty men preside over the people as with an authority worthy of God, they are and may be inculpably mighty. And whereas, Acts x. 35: "In every nation he who feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him;" it is not to be doubted but that, if these mighty men, as faithful trustees for their brethren, are jealous for their native rights, interests and prerogatives, and animated with an industrious zeal to secure them, and resign them with their dying breath intire, sound and indebilitated; and that if with singleness of heart they seek, not their own, but the good of mankind, and are studious of an humble, modest, disinterested and generous discharge of their trust; they will surely find mercy in their degree, and so far as they are ready to receive it, from the throne of God; and shall not be destined to be mightily tormented on account of their might. But if they betray their trust; if by gradu lencroachments, through favour of a popular connivance or inattention, or by specious and plausible names and pretences, they seek to usurp an authority which they have not by derivation; if they make use of their authority in trust to deprive their brethren of those rights and prerogatives, for the preservation of which they were intrusted with their authority; and, by the artful abuse thereof, are studious to render themselves, as far as possible ALMIGHTY, the sources of wealth, power and diguity, seating themselves in the throne of Christ; if instead of watching over their charge with piety, selfabasement and devotion for good, they watch for opportunities to ensnare, impoverish, debase and subdue their brethren; THEN, and in such, case only, will they, as mighty men, be mightily tormented; for their portion will be with that great oppressor and deceiver, the common enemy of mankind, whose condemned dominion is now no longer by authority, but by permission and delay, and is the effect of craft and force as yet undefeated, and animated by appetite, despair and impudence. The mighty are set up to public view by their brethren, and by God, as examples of temperance, frugality, moderation, continence, humanity, justice, benevolence, godliness, and of whatsoever thing is holy, of whatsoever thing is just, pure or virtuous: if therefore by their example, connivance, countenance, pusillanimity, or for profit, and a desire to serve themselves, they promote or encourage vice, idleness, vanity, luxury, delicacy, perfidiousness, debauchery, wantonness, gambling, ungodliness, reprobatism, ignorance, stupidity, effeminacy, falsehood, injustice, treachery, rapiue, wildness, tyranny, unreasonableness, servility, pomp, glitter, knavery, audaciousness, extravagance, riot, revelling, profaneness, profligacy, drunkenness, bribery, venality, perjury, and such like; they therein more than participate with the corrupted. But if they associate with them, and, presuming falsely upon the connivance of the divine justice, accept the wages of unrighteousness, notwithstanding they are taught that this eateth, or corrodeth like fire: or if they in any-wise contribute towards the extinguishing their brethren's fear of God, or the sensibility and remonstrances of their consciences, or their gospel light, or their graciously in-born dread of wickedness: THEN will their guilt accumulate indeed, proportionably with their mightiness, and they will hardly escape the judgment of Satan, and of his chief angels, and ministering tools to corruption; namely, the being, together with them, mightily tormented. The corruption and ruin of mankind, and the populating the infernal regions, is effected principally by example, and most of all by the example of the mighty. These reflections are by no means to be considered as novelties and nostrums of my own, but as principles advanced by the best authors, and occasionally introduced by me to illustrate the point in hand. He must be a man of very little reading who knows not that Mr. Locke has long since maintained that, AS TO PROPERTY, It being the command of God to all men that they should subdue, or cultivate, the earth, the improver, in doing so, annexes thereto his labour, which being his own natural property, no other man can have any title to.-This labour, annexed to lands before unoccupied, that is unappropriated, gives him an appropriating title to them, on condition only that he leave as much to others, as they can make use of.—Labour therefore is the just ground of every man's title to property, the son inheriting the fruits of his father's toils. For every man, being naturally master of himself, and proprietor of his own labours, will thus have, even within himself, this ground of property-the products of his labours being as it were his creatures, and to which no other man, or body of men, but himself and his offspring only, can have any claim or pretence at all; the exclusive right thereto, and enjoyment thereof, becomes the just foundation of all wealth, or opulency, constituting the difference between a rich man, the son of the industrious, and the poor man, the son of the idler.Riches then, acquired in righteousness by industry, are the natural reward of industry, either in ourselves or ancestors; and justly so, because, whereas he who cultivates ten acres will thereon produce more fruits than one thousand uncultivated acres will produce, such a cultivator may be said to give nine hundred and ninety That, AS TO NATURAL RIGHT, Every man's child, being the work, manship of his God, to whom we are all infinitely indebted, has a right to his parent's protection during his minority. The father is only the child's guardian, and as such guardianship, when no longer needed, ceases, the father's power, and right of prescribing, ceases with it. When grown up to manhood, (the state which made his father free,) the son has the same natural right belonging to him, as his father had originally.-Therefore a man's posterity cannot be bound by the compact of his father; for no act of the father can give away the son's natural right, his independence, his liberty, his power of creating, possessing, judging, &c. Every man, when at the age of maturity, has a right to choose what country or government he pleases; he is to choose for himself as an independent creature, born no man's subject, obnoxious to no man. That, AS TO LIBERTY, All men are by nature equal and independent, and have equally a right to dispose of their actions, their properties and their persons, as they like, with innocence and justice. It is every man's duty to protect and secure these natural rights and the enjoyment thereof as piously, as steadily and as industriously, to his brethren, as to himself, Exod. ii. 11, 12, and to transmit the same down to posterity unembarrassed.. -Licentiousness, which is the greatest enemy to liberty, paying no regard to the natural equality and independence of man, but acting as though power, quà power, gave a right to every thing, talks as follows, In armis jus fero, omnia fortium sunt virorum ; who shall forbid me to appropriate to my own use the fruits of diligence; to lay my iron yoke upon the necks of others; to harness them into my service; to force them to do drudgery? God regardeth it not. In other words, it denies the inseparable relation between nature and liberty, and renounces the principles of humanity, equity and truth; yea it denies the providence of God, dis VOL. XII. my claims his impartial benevolence to. wards all his creatures, tramples upon his rule of right, defies his omniscience, challenges his vindictive Satan triumphant. *—And, being an justice, and is the very kingdom of intolerable incendiary among man kind, the peaceable friends of liberty form themselves into an association against it, and lay their restraints upon it, professing that the right of resisting is always equal to the right of commanding among equals. That, AS TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT, This is a community incorporated to prevent the evils arising from licentiousness, its individuals uniting their power, and contributing of their property, for the good of the whole, and to preserve and enlarge their freedom, and to protect each other from unnatural restraint. Hence tribute is due to the just purposes of government, though to the unjust purposes of it, none is due. Whereas no man can transfer to others more power than he has in himself; these associations can only give a power to preserve, and cannot give any power to destroy, enslave, or impoverish individuals. sanctions be good or valid against the Neither can any human Milton, though I cannot find the passage, It is somewhere observed by Mr. that "Ignorant and wicked men are naturally lovers of licentiousness, and haters that the impetuous zeal of ignorant mobs is of true liberty." From hence I couclude, always to be suspected; while ignorant and wicked, whatever their cry may be, the spirit of violence, oppression and injustice will infallibly prove their conducting principle; they can never be cordially long as impiety, which is the very root of affected in favour of truth and liberty, so servility and meanness, thrives in their hearts: semper sola libera est virtus. Cic. Virtue only is ever free. And it is therecan but debauch a man's morals, you make fore a Machiavelian maxim, that If you sure of him as a slave. I must however believe that righteous, pious, well-taught mobs (and such mobs will most certainly exist in every righteous, pious, well-taught country) would be able to sustain the character of true majesty, and the revedignity sufficient to confound the most rence of a multitude, with an awe and violent efforts of oppression: tantum in virtute et fide fiduciæ atque auctoritatis inest! welfare of mankind; the provision for which is the true and just end of all government. Lib. ii. Ch. xi. Absolute power made licentious by impunity, being inconsistent with a society's free exercise of her united and associated force, cannot be justly called a form of government.—Since whatever tends naturally to the good of society, must naturally justify itself; whatever tends naturally to the harm, or to the enfeebling, or to the inconvenience of society, must be as naturally self-condemned. Hence arises the old proverbs, Summum jus est summa injuria; salus populi suprema lex. [Law (human) in its ri. gour, is rigorous injury. The wel. fare of the people is the greatest law.] That therefore, pretended privileges and customs, when the reason of them ceases, should likewise cease, as being no longer reasonable. For that arguments from what has been to what should be of right can have no force; -and that otherwise it may happen that men, by entering into a society, may lose those very benefits for which they entered; and be in a worse condition than before they entered, having thereby contributed to, and armed their trustees with their own power, to their own injury. That, AS TO HUMAN AUTHORITY, It being impossible for any society to give a right (which it has not itself) to do its members harm, authority abused is no authority at all. -A man may indeed be commissioned to act unjustly, but this argues nothing; for it is not commission, but authority which gives the right of acting; and since no man, or body of men, can have in themselves any right to act unjustly, neither can they transfer such right, or authorize laws under pretence thereof, or as made in pursuance thereto, or vest any such right in any other person or persons whatsoever. * According to these and other like propositions of Mr. Locke, a legislature must be a body constituted by a people to specify and determine, in particular cases, circumstances and occurrences, what is the law and will of God, (for God alone has an absolute right to our obedience) and what rules and customs are conformable or repugnant to the divine truth, In defiance of their commission and presumption, the right will still continue to every man to act, as freely as ever, in whatsoever is innocent, kind, justice, and universal charity, these being the standards or common measures, whereby right and wrong are always to be decided. For this purpose and service were the elders or earls among the Jews. Exod. xxiv. 1-10. xii. 16. iv. 29. They were neither Priests nor Levites, but civil, and, in modern phrase, lay-members of the and equity, and dignified by public voice community, men of property, learning for their known worth and abilities, to decide, as their earls, elders, or inferior magistrates, in all their civil controversies, and terminate the common differences of the people. And out of their number was chosen the Sanhedrim, which consisted of seventy-three Senators, six out of each tribe, Num. xi. 16, to bear the burden of the people as making one body, and their Nasi or President, who was also not the high priest, but a civil member only. The power of this court was so supreme, that they not only decided in such causes as were brought before them, by way of appeal, from the inferior courts, but even their kings, high priests and prophets, were under their jurisdiction. See in Calmet's Dictionary the word Sanhedrim, paragraph the 5th. They presided to provide, that all their civil laws and usages might be reduced and accommodated, in all points, to the divine law; and it cannot be disputed but this must also be the business of all legislatures. There is indeed strictly, (James iv. 12. Isa. xxxiii. 22,) but one lawgiver, who is Christ. Others therefore must be his deputies. And they must be deputed to provide, 1st, That the laws of God be not violated, and 2dly, That they be so extended and particular. ized to the several occasions and condito them in equity. The law of God is indispensable, therefore all human laws must be made to consist with it. And whereas the natural rights and prerogatives which God has given man, import bis revealed will towards man; it becomes a divine law to all men, to secure to every individual among them these native rights and prerogatives unhurt. These must be supported and vindicated as God's free gift and bounty, as claims and immunities against the free and full enjoyment of which no law may be made, or being made, be suffered to operate so as to defeat or invalidate them. The good-will of God to man speaks as his law for him, and, farther than this, as a law quæ non tum denique incepit Lex esse, cum scripta fuit, sed tum cum orta fuit, orta autem tions of their constituents, as to answer and just; neither can any one be commissioned to defeat this native freedom; neither will any human decree whatsoever alter the natural equality among men, or make man other than he is;-and since to ordain a thing repugnant to truth is the simul est cum mente divina. Cic. which begun not then only to exist when revealed as such, but from the very time when the divine bounty first begun to exert itself towards him; and this begun at one and the same time with the decreed beneficence of God to the sons of Adam. To this you object, that "a man may part with his natural rights, because such natural rights are every man's own, and no other's property." I reply that this proposition has never yet been proved; but if it were even true, that every man's natural rights are his own property, and such as he may relinquish personally, and for himself, yet he cannot relinquish them for posterity; and to relinquish them at all is in effect, at least as far as we are able, to give away what belongs to posterity; and experience and history shew us, that, by tame surrenders of this kind, posterity is usually enslaved; and where otherwise, that we may however embarrass and distress posterity with such difficulties in the recovery of their native rights and prerogatives, by us so sordidly conceded, as import the highest degree of injustice done them. It may be presumed, that to part with the prerogatives given us by God, is an act injurious to his divine bounty, affrontive to his majesty, and such as may obstruct his great, generous and secret purposes in us; but it is known that, in condescending thus, we hurt posterity as superlatively as we possibly can, for the natural gifts of God are more valuable than all other goods, potior metallis libertas. Hor. Liberty is preferable to riches. Also, posterity being daily born, such injury becomes daily multiplied, repeated, diffused, exaggerated. In short, (for this point is only a corollary in my dispute with you, I can no longer dwell upon it) unjust laws continued, being a continued act of injustice, must amass vast guilt by continuance, and prove a crying curse in the court of heaven, not only against those who instituted them, but also against those whose duty it is to have them abolished. And every legislature must be blind who sees not this truth so evidently as to be animated with all zeal, indignation, expedition and resolution, to erase such laws at all events and hazards, as abhorrent to the will of God, (which is the one true law throughout the universe) and detestable in his sight. same thing as to ordain that what is true shall be false, and vice versâ, such absurdity must denote an extreme blindness and brutality in nowise better than a disqualifying madness. Also, intrusted power and property, are only fiduciary, or to act for certain ends; therefore whenever the end is manifestly opposed, or defeated, the trust is forfeited, void and insignificant. In this case, the power devolves into the hands that gave it; for, the law of self-preservation being unalienable, no one can have any right, even by donation, to defeat it. So soon as persons intrusted with power act against that trust, and by and according to their private wills and interests, they thereby degrade themselves, perhaps into debtors and criminals, at least into without single, private persons, power, without command, and without any right to obedience: the members of a society owing no obedience immediately to any other than the public will of the society. Lib. II. Ch. xiii. That, AS TO RESISTANCE, Every intrusted power, when found to be no longer a remedy against the evils it was given to redress, but to be vainly increased without effecting its business, ought to be suppressed by wise and good men. But much more ought every man's power to be suppressed who seeks his commodity with the injury of others, and is found to be aiming at interests separate from those of the individuals or members, who are his constituents. If it be a part of civil society to prevent their much constituents being injured, more is it so to prevent their being devoured. Therefore when men in trust have quitted their reason, aud renounced the way of peace which this teaches, they have revolted, from their own kind, to that of beasts, by making force to be their rule of right; and are as liable to be destroyed as are other wild beasts, or noxious brutes, with whom mankind can have neither society nor security. Lib. II. Ch. xv. That, AS TO WAR AND CON QUEST, As voluntary agreement gives a political power, and constitutes the condition of a free people, so a just forfeiture, by a state of war unjustly |