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religion conferred upon its profeffors, were wont to extol the "liberty into which they were cal"led,"—" in which Chrift had made them free." This liberty, which was intended of a deliverance from the various fervitude, in which they had heretofore lived, to the domination of finful paffions, to the fuperftition of the Gentile idolatry, or the incumbered ritual of the Jewish difpenfation, might by fome be interpreted to fignify 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 fome error or calumny of this kind, the words of St. Peter seem to allude; "For fo is the will of God, that with well-doing

ye may put to filence the ignorance of foolish "men: as free, and not using your liberty for

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a cloak of maliciousness (i. e. fedition), but as "the fervants of God." After all, if any one think this conjecture too feebly fupported by testimony, to be relied upon in the interpretation of fcripture, he will then revert to the confiderations alleged in the preceding part of this chap

ter.

After fo copious an account of what we apprehend to be the general defign and doctrine

VOL. II.

M

of

of these much agitated paffages, little need be added in explanation of particular claufes. St. Paul has faid, "Whofoever refifteth the power, "refifteth the ordinance of God." This phrafe, "the ordinance of God," is by many fo interpreted as to authorize the moft exalted and fuperftitious ideas of the regal character. But, furely, fuch interpreters have facrificed truth to adulation. For in the first place, the expreffion, as used by St Paul, is juft as applicable to one kind of government, and to one kind of fucceffion as to another-to the elective magiftrates of a pure republic, as to an absolute hereditary monarch. In the next place, it is not affirmed of the fupreme magiftrate exclusively, that he is the ordinance of God; the title, whatever it imports, belongs to every inferior officer of the state as much as to the higheft. The divine right of Kings is, like the divine right of Conftables, the law of the land, or even actual and quiet poffeffion of their office; a right, ratified, we humbly prefume, by the divine approbation, fo long as obedience to their authority appears to be neceffary or conducive to the common welfare. Princes are ordained of God by virtue only of that general decree, by which he affents, and adds the fanction of his

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will,

will, to every law of fociety, which promotes his own purpose, the communication of human happiness according to which idea of their origin and conftitution, and without any repugnancy to the words of St. Paul, they are by St, Peter denominated the ordinance of man.

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СНАР. V.

OF CIVIL LIBERT Y.

CIVI

IVIL Liberty is the not being reftrained 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, confiftently with the interest of the community to which we belong, is civil liberty; that is to say, the only liberty to be defired in a state of civil fociety.

I fhould wish, no doubt, to be allowed to act in every inftance as I pleased, but I reflect that the reft alfo of mankind would then do the fame; in which ftate of univerfal independence and felf-direction I should meet with fo many checks and obftacles to my own will, from the interference and opposition of other men's, that not only my happiness, but my liberty, would be lefs, than whilft the whole community were fubjected to the dominion of equal laws.

The boafted liberty of a state of nature exifts only

only in a state of folitude. In every kind and degree of union and intercourse with his fpecies, the liberty of the individual is augmented by the very laws which restrain it; because he gains more from the limitation of other men's freedom than he suffers by the diminution of his Natural liberty is the right of common upon a waste; civil liberty is the fafe, exclufive, unmolested enjoyment of a cultivated inclosure.

own.

The definition of civil liberty above laid down, imports that the laws of a free people impose no restraints upon the private will of the fubject, which do not conduce in a greater degree to the public happiness: by which it is intimated, ist, that restraint itself is an evil; 2dly, that this evil ought to be overbalanced by fome public advantage; 3dly, that the proof of this advantage lies upon the legiflature; 4thly, that a law being found to produce no fenfible good effects, is a fufficient reason for repealing it, as adverfe and injurious to the rights of a free citizen, without demanding specific evidence of its bad effects. This maxim might be remembered with advantage in a revision of many laws of this country; efpecially of the game lawsof the poor laws, fo far as they lay restrictions

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