TREATISE IV.

TWO

ENQUIRIES.

I. Concerning PROPERTY, wherein is confidered Liberty of Confcience.

II. Concerning SIN, in which is confidered Original Sin.

A N

ENQUIRY

CONCERNING

PROPERTY.

B

EFORE I enter upon this enquiry, I think it proper to premife, that as magiftracy, or the exercife of a regular government in human fociety is the ordinance of God; fo the great and main end of government, is the good and happiness of the Jociety in which it is exercised, by being a fecurity to every one's property, and a keeping every one in the quiet poffeffion of his own; confequently, magiftrates or governours can have no right to invade that which the nature and end of their office oblige them to fecure. This being premised, I obferve, that property is originally God's peculiar, because God hath a fole property in every thing which he is the original fupreme caufe of, and that is every thing without himself; so that we have no property, with refpect to God, whatever we are, and whatever we have derived from, and dependent upon him: and therefore when I fpeak of property, I mean that right and property which creatures have, with relation to one another. Property, with refpect to men, is either natural or obtained. By natural I mean fuch property as we are born into, and which takes place with our very being, which is founded in the nature and reafon of things, and fo is independent of the will of all creatures. Thus, for example, every man has a natural right to life, till the giver thereof fhall be pleafed to take it from him. Now this is a property which is independent of the will of all creatures, being founded in the nature and reafon of things, and takes place with our very being. We no fooner begin to live, but we have a natural right to enjoy our life, fo long as God, the giver, fhall be pleafed to continue it to us, except we forfeit that right. And whofoever invades this natural property, is guilty of a great injuftice. Obtained property, is fuch as is not founded in nature, but depends upon industry, mutual contract, free gift, or fome other like cause. Thus, for example, if a man fhould agree with a fervant to have his labour for a year, the fervant's labour, for that time, becomes the master's property; not from any natural right that he hath to another man's labour, but

from

from that compact and agreement between the mafter and the fervant, in which compact, he that had the natural right to that labour conveyed it to him whofe fervant he hath put himself to be.

And as property is thus diftinguished into forts, viz. original, natural, and obtained, so I think the degrees of property in these (if I may fo fpeak) are in one greater than another; that is, the original property which God hath in all things, is greater than that natural or obtained property, which creatures have in any thing they are poffeffed of; and the natural property which any creature hath in any thing, is greater than any obtained property whatever: confequently, it must be a greater crime in any one to invade the natural than the obtained property of another, and it must be yet a much greater crime to invade the original property of God than the natural or obtained

any creature.

property of

Again, the fubject of property may be greater or lefs, tho the property itfelf, or right to enjoy it, may be equally the fame. Thus, a man may have two eftates, one of twenty pounds per annum, and the other of an hundred; and his title or right to enjoy may be equally the fame, as to both. He has as great a right, and as juft a title (and fo in that refpect as great a property) in the leffer as in the greater eftate; and yet it would be a much greater wrong to him, and confequently a much greater crime to have his property invaded in the greater than in the leffer, because of the much greater advantage he reaps by it, tho his right to enjoy them is equally the fame.

Seeing then the great end of government is the good and happiness of the fociety in which it is exercifed, by fecuring to every one his property, and keeping every one in the quiet poffeffion of his own, it will follow from hence, first, that the non-provifion for the fecurity of any property in any government, is a defect in that government; and the greater that property, is (whether with refpect to itself, or with refpect to its fubject) which is non-fecured, the greater is the defect and imperfection of that government. Secondly, if any government fhould be fo far from defending any property, whether natural or obtained, as that it actually invades that property which it should secure, this would be a crime in that government; and the greater that property is which is invaded (whether with refpect to itself, or with refpect to its fubject) the greater and more heinous would the crime of that government be. Thus, for example, it hath pleafed God to make man a free accountable creature, by planting in him an understanding heart, in the ufe and exercise of which he is made capable of examining and judging of the agreement or difagreement, of the fitnefs or unfitnefs, of the good or evil, and of the truth or falfeness of things, and of determining and directing his practice accordingly. Man being placed in fuch a state, it is not only his duty to examine and judge what is truth, and what is error, in all thofe cafes wherein any branch of his duty or intereft is concerned, and to determine his practice accordingly; I fay, it is not only his duty thus to do, but it is alfo his just right and natural property in all cafes whatever, fo far as he is capable of fuch an examination and judgment, except his liberty is reftrained by the principles of natural or revealed

re

religion, fuch as the examining and judging of other men's faults. And as it is every man's natural right to examine and judge for himself, in all those cafes wherein he is capable of fo doing, and not to be determined in his judgment by the examination and judgment of other men; fo it is the duty and business government not only to permit and tolerate the fociety committed to its care, in the ufe and exercife of this their undoubted right, but alfo to defend and guard them from the infults and reproaches, the injuries and wrongs that any should attempt to afflict them with upon this account, and to fecure them in the enjoyment of this their natural property. But if governours should be fo far from fecuring, or even tolerating the fociety in the enjoyment of the aforefaid natural property, that on the contrary they fet up a scheme of principles and opinions as the ftandard of the fociety's judgment, and require the members of that fociety to fubmit their judgments to that ftandard, forbidding them to embrace any principle or opinion which is contrary thereunto, and fo prevent every one from examining and judging for himself, and perfecute thofe that do; this is fuch a notorious invafion of the property of the fociety as is highly criminal in any government, and has been as fatal in its confequences as the invafion of any property whatsoever, as fad experience hath made manifeft. Governours invading this particular natural right of men's examining and judging for themselves, has been the original Spring and fountain from whence have flowed all thofe cruel and lamentable barbarities of imprisonment and banishment, burnings and maffacres, wars and bloodshed, confifcating of goods, laying cities and countries wafte, and all the miferies that attend it: I fay, all these that have been practifed by the chriftian world, upon the account of religion, have been caused by governours invading the aforefaid natural property of their people.

If it should be objected, that the allowing all men a liberty to examine and judge for themselves, as aforefaid, has a tendency to pervert men's minds, by opening a door to all forts of errors and herefies; and therefore fuch a liberty ought to be restrained, by obliging all focieties to submit their judgments to the judgment of those to whofe care and government they are committed, who are fuppofed to be better qualified to examine and judge for them, than they are for themselves.

Anfwer, first, that governours are better qualified to examine and judge what is truth, and what is error, than those focieties committed to their care, is not always true in fact; but fuppofing it were, yet ftill every man must examine and judge for himself, because every man is accountable for himself, and must anfwer for his own opinions and actions at the day of judgment; no man being there fubftituted to anfwer, or to be punished or rewarded for another man's actions, any farther than he hath been an acceffory in those actions; and in that cafe he answers only for that part which he was an acceffory in, and the acter himself muft give an account for all the part he bore in those acts.

Anfwer, fecondly, that men's enjoying their right and property, in examining and judging for themselves, has a tendency to pervert men's minds, is not true; because examination is a friend and not an enemy to truth. Error and falfhood

are