nied. Mr. Burke, with his ufual outrage, abuses the Declaration of the rights of Man, published by the National Affembly of France as the bafis on which the conftitution of France is built. This he calls" paltry and blurred fheets of paper about the rights of man."-Does Mr. Burke mean to deny that man has any rights? If he does, then he must mean that there are no fuch things as rights any where, and that he has none himfelf; for who is there in the world but man? But if Mr. Burke means to admit that man has rights, the queftion then will be, What are those rights, and how came man by them originally? The error of those who reafon by precedents drawn from antiquity, refpecting the rights of man, is, that they do not go far enough into antiquity. They do not go the whole way. They ftop in fome of the intermediate ftages of an hundred or a thousand years, and produce what was then done as a rule for the prefent day. This is no authority at all. If we travel ftill farther into antiquity, we fhall find a direct contrary opinion and practice prevailing; and if antiquity is to be authority, a thousand fuch authorities may be produced, fucceffively contradicting each other: But if we proceed on, we fhall at laft come out right; we fhall come to the time when man came from the hand of his Maker. Man. Man What was he then? was his high and only title, and a higher cannot, be given him.But of titles I fhall fpeak hereafter. We are now got at the the origin of his rights. origin of man, and at As to the manner in which which the world has been governed from that day to this, it is no farther any concern of ours than to make a proper use of the errors or the improvements which the history of it presents. Those who lived a hundred or a thousand years ago, were then moderns as we are now. They had their ancients, and those ancients had others, and we also fhall be ancients in our turn. If the mere name of antiquity is to govern in the affairs of life, the people who are to live an hundred or a thousand years hence, may as well take us for a precedent, as we make a precedent of those who lived an hundred or a thousand years ago. The fact is, that portions of antiquity, by proving every thing, establish nothing. It is authority against authority all the way, till we come to the divine origin of the rights of man at the creation. Here our enquiries find a refting-place, and our reafon finds a home. If a dispute about the rights of man had arose at the distance of an hundred years from the creation, it is to this fource of authority they must have referred, and it is to the fame fource of authority that we must now refer. Though I mean not to touch upon any fectarian principle of religion, yet it may be worth obferving, that the genealogy of Chrift is traced to Adam. Why then not trace the rights of man to the creation of man? I will answer the question. Because there have been an upftart of governments, thrusting themselves between, and prefumptuously working to un-make man. If any generation of men ever poffeffed the right of dictating the mode by which the world should G be be governed for ever, it was the first generation that exifted; and if that generation did not do it, no fucceeding generation can fhew any authority for doing it, nor fet any up. The illuminating and divine principle of the equal rights of man, (for it has its origin from the Maker of man) relates, not only to the living individuals, but to generations of men fucceeding each other. Every generation is equal in rights to the generations which preceded it, by the fame rule that every individual is born equal in rights with his cotemporary. Every history of the creation, and every traditionary account, whether from the lettered or unlettered world, however they may vary in their opinion or belief of certain particulars, all agree in establishing one point, the unity of man; by which I mean that man is all of one degree, and confequently that all men are born equal, and with equal natural rights, in the fame manner as if posterity had been continued by creation inftead of generation, the latter being only the mode by which the former is carried forward; and confequently, every child born into the world must be confidered as deriving its existence from God. The world is as new to him as it was to the firft man that existed, and his natural right in it is of the fame kind. The Mofaic account of the creation, whether taken as divine authority, or merely historical, is fully up to this point, the unity or equality of man. The expreffions admit of no controversy. "And "God faid, Let us make man in our own image. "In the image of God created he him; male and "female female created he them." The diftinction of fexes is pointed out, but no other diftinction is even implied. If this be not divine authority, it is at least historical authority, and fhews that the equality of man, fo far from being a modern doc. trine, is the oldest upon record. It is alfo to be obferved, that all the religions known in the world are founded, fo far as they relate to man, on the unity of man, as being all of one degree, Whether in heaven or in hell, or in whatever state man may be fuppofed to exift here. after, the good and the bad are the only diftinctions. Nay, even the laws of governments are obliged to flide into this principle, by making de grees to consist in crimes, and not in perfons. It is one of the greatest of all truths, and of the highest advantage to cultivate. By confidering man in this light, and by inftructing him to confider himself in this light, it places him in a clofe connection with all his duties, whether to his Creator, or to the creation, of which he is a part; and it is only when he forgets his origin, or, to ufe a more fashionable phrase, his birth and family, that he becomes diffolute. It is not among the leaft of the evils of the prefent exifting governments in all parts of Europe, that man, confidered as man, is thrown back to a vast distance from his Maker, and the artificial chaẩm filled up by a fucceffion of barriers, or a fort of turnpike gates, through which he has to pass. I will quote Mr. Burke's catalogue of barriers that he has fet up between man and his Maker. Putting himself in the character of a herald, he fays" We fear God-we look with awe ཝཱ "to kings with affection to parliaments-with 66 duty to magistrates with reverence to priests, "and with refpect to nobility." Mr. Burke has forgot to put in " chivalry." He has also forgot to put in Peter. The duty of man is not a wilderness of turnpike gates, through which he is to pass by tickets from one to the other. It is plain and fimple, and confifts but of two points. His duty to God, which every man must feel; and with refpect to his neighbour, to do as he would be done by. If those to whom power is delegated do well, they will be refpected; if not, they will be defpifed: and with regard to thofe to whom no power is delegated, but who affume it, the rational world can know nothing of them. Hitherto we have spoken only (and that but in part) of the natural rights of man. We have now to confider the civil rights of man, and to fhew how the one originates out of the other. Man did not enter into fociety to become worse than he was before, nor to have less rights than he had before, but to have those rights better secured. His natu. ral rights are the foundation of all his civil rights. But in order to purfue this diftinction with more precision, it will be neceffary to mark the different qualities of natural and civil rights. A few words will explain this. Natural rights are those which appertain to man in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and alfo all thofe rights of acting as an individual for his own comfort and happinefs, which are not injurious to the natural rights of |