where ever it fubfifts, verifies the Obfervation; For the Subjection of the People to fuch Authority is Supported only by Terrors, sudden and private Executions, and Imprisonments; and not as with happy Britons, by the Fudgment, in Cafes of Liberty and Property, of the Peers, and Neighbours of Men accused or profecuted. This abfolute Power in one Perfon, as it is gê. nerally exercifed, is not indeed Government, but at beft clandeftine Tyranny, Supported by the Confederates, or rather Favourite-Slaves of the Tyrant.

I was glad to find this natural Sense of Power confirmed in me by very great and good Men, who have made Government, and the Principles on which it is founded, their professed Study and Meditation.

A very celebrated Author has thefe Words;

The Cafe of Man's Nature standing as it does, fome kind of Regiment the Law of Nature doth require; yet the kinds thereof being many, Nature tieth not to any one, but leaveth the Choice as a thing arbitrary. At the first, when fome certain kind of Regiment was once approved, it may be that nothing was then further thought upon for the Manner of governing, but all permitted unto their Wildom and Difcretion which were to rule; 'till by Experience they found this for all Parts very inconvenient, fo as the thing which they had devised for a Remedy did indeed but increase the Sore which it should have cured. They faw that to live by one Man's Will became the Caufe of all Mens Mifery. This constrained them to come unto Laws, wherein all Men might fee their Duties before

hand,

hand, and know the Penalties of tranfgreffing them. Men always knew that when Force and Injury was offered, they might be Defenders of themfelves; they knew that howfoever Men might feek their own Commodi. ty, yet if this were done with Injury to others, it was not to be fuffered, but by all Men and by all good Means to be withstood.

Finally, They knew that no Man might in Reafon take upon him to determine his own Right, and according to his own Determination proceed in Maintenance thereof, inaf much as every Man is towards himfelf, and them whom he greatly affe&teth, partial; and therefore that Strifes and Troubles would be endlefs, except they have their common Confent all to be ordered by fome whom they fhould agree upon.

Mr. Stanhope, in Defence of Refiftance in Cafes of extream Neceffity, cites this memora· ble Paffage from Grotius;

If the King hath one Part of the Supream Power, and the other Part is in the Senate or People; when fuch a King fhall invade that Part that doth not belong to him, it fhall be lawful to oppose a just Force to him, because his Power doth not extend fo far: Which Pofition 1 hold to be true, even though the Power of making War fhould be vefted only in the King, which must be underftood to relate only to foreign War: For as for Home, it is impoffible for any to have a Share of the Supream Power, and not to have likewife a Right to defend that Share.

An

An eminent Divine, who deferves all Honour for the Obligations he has laid upon both Church and State by his Writings on the Subject of Government, argues against Unlimited Power thus;

The Question is, Whether the Power of the Civil Magiftrate be unlimited; that is, in other Words, Whether the Nature of his Of fice require it to be fo But what? Is it the End of that Office that one particular Perfon may do what he pleafeth without Reftraint? Or that Society fhould be made happy and fecure? Who will fay the former? And if the latter be the true End of it, a lefs Power than abfolute will answer it: Nay, an abfo. Lute Power is a Power to deftroy that End, and therefore inconfiftent with the End it felf.

Thefe Paffages I thought fit to produce by way of Preface to the following Difcourfe, as carry. ing in them the Reafon and Foundation of Government it self, and in Maintenance of what palled at the Revolution.

I fall only beg leave to add to them one very great Living Authority, the present Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain; who in a late famous Tryal, did openly before Queen, Lords and Commons, maintain the Lawfulness of the Revolution under the Notion of Refiftance, and affert before the most folemn and auguft Affembly of Europe, that there are extraordinary Cafes, Cafes of Neceffity, which are implyed, though not expreffed in the General Rule; that is, which are fo plain and fo open to the common Senfe of Mankind, that even whilst you are declaring Refiftance in all Cafes

to

to be unlawful, you are of neceffity understood to mean, that Refiftance in fome Cafes is lawful. I am pleafed to obferve, that no one ever put the Matter fo ftrongly, or carried it fo high as this great Man did upon that Critical Occafi on. At the fame time he was fo juft to his Country as to declare, That fuch a Cafe undoubtedly the Revolution was, when our late unhappy Sovereign then upon the Throne, mif led by evil Confellors, endeavoured to fub. vert and extirpate the Proteftant Religion, and the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom.

The

The CRISIS, &c.

I

'Tis every Man's Duty to correct the Extravagances of his Will, in order to enjoy Life as becomes a rational Being; but we cannot poffefs our Souls with Pleasure and Sa tisfaction, except we preferve to our felves that inestimable Bleffing which we call Liberty. By Liberty I defire to be understood to mean, the Happiness of Mens living under Laws of their own making by their perfonal Consent, or that of their Reprefentatives.

Without this, the Distinctions amongst Man⚫ kind are but gentler Degrees of Mifery; for as the true Life of Man confifts in conducting it according to his own juft Sentiments and innocent Inclinations, his Being is degraded below that of a free Agent, which Heaven has made him, when his Affections and Paffions are no longer governed by the Dictates ofhis own Mind, and the Interefts of Humane Society, but by the arbitrary unrestrained Will of another.

Without Liberty, even Health, and Strength, and all the Advantages beftowed on us by Nature and Providence, may at the Will of a Tyrant be employed to our own Ruin, and that of our Fellow Creatures.