tutes them a party of malcontents, in opposition to the majority of the community, who are happy under, and therefore wish and intend to preserve the present form of their constitution and government.

Whoever views with perfect impartiality the prefent internal political ftate of this country, will, I am confident, readily admit, that it would be a fruitless attempt to fingle out one individual from the whole minority, who fides with that party, merely from the motives, which distinguished one of the old parties of this country from the other, at the time of their original formation.

I may, perhaps, be fingular, (this publication will prove how far I am warrantable) in attributing the formation, the continuance and the encrease of all fuch parties, as have at different times divided our country, to the inconfiderate and hafty, though, perhaps, well meant denial of true principles. It is no lefs fingular than true, that the churchman,

the royalist, and the tory, admitting and withing to preferve the true conftitutional form of the government in being, were fo blinded in their zeal, as to deny the truth of first principles, upon which the puritan, the independant, and the republican, unwarrantably engrafted the falfeft doctrines. Inftead of fhewing,

9

Greatest evils inconfiderate

arife from the

denial of true

principles.

fhewing, that these doctrines were not confequences deducible from the principles, (for every confequence is virtually contained in its premises), they denied abfolutely the principles, which were true, because they disap, proved of doctrines, which were falfe, and which, confequently, could not be fairly drawn from true principles. Thus, when the alterations and differences of the oppofite parties came to be publicly agitated, they feldom went further, than the truth or falfity of the principles themselves; in which contefts the strength of the argument was neceffarily with thofe, who contended for the principles; and whilst that party had the addrefs to keep up the controverfy upon this ground only, they were fure of making profelytes of all those, who had refolution or ability to form a judgment of their own.

The misfortunes, which have heretofore happened to our unhappy country, from the contefts of these oppofite parties, are of too ferious a nature not to rouze every true patriot to the exertion of his utmost efforts to prevent a repetition of them. Nothing can be more certain, than that a party of no inconfiderable number of malcontents does at this moment exift in this country; nothing more evident, than that the party will gain

or

or lofe ftrength in proportion to the acceffion or desertion of its numbers; and nothing fo attractive, as the plausibility and truth of the principles, which are supposed or represented to actuate and fupport the party. It is flattering to all men to judge in their own cause; it is the favourite maxim of modern politicians, to inculcate the right of every one to judge and act for himself; and it is artfully holden out by many, that whoever is not directed by his own opinion and judgment, is kept in darkness, and deprived of that freedom, which has been given to every indivi dual by an allwife Creator.

When I call to my recollection the effects of former attempts to deduce false doctrines from true principle, I am neceffitated to conclude, that if fome true principles now established and fupported by the minority, are denied by the majority, the daily defertions from the one to the other will very' quickly invert the present proportion of their refpective numbers; for undeniable truth will ever make its own way, and by degrees

gain over the multitude; amongst whom more will be, in the end, left to the unbiassed freedom of their own judgment, than to the dictates of interested power and influence. It was long ago faid, decipimur fpecie recti:

when

when depravity disposes to evil, the strongest incentive to the actual commiffion of it is a plaufible appearance of its rectitude. Much as I reprobate the modern doctrine of civil equalization, with all its tremendous train of deftructive concomitants, fo do I hold, that the denial of the truth of uncontrovertible principles must rather neceffitate, than provoke men into the adoption of any doctrine, which leaves them the liberty of a free affent to fuch felf-evident propofitions.

I am happy in being fanctioned in my principle of reafoning, by the great apostle of modern liberty. "The jefuits," fays he, "about two centuries ago, in order to vindicate their king-killing † principles, happened,

Priestley's Effays upon the First Principles of Government, p. 27, 28.

+ The works of Bufenbaum, a German jefuit, were burnt by the late parliament of Paris, for teaching thefe principles. It will be candid, and, perhaps, fatiffactory to the curious, to ftate the words, in which this king-killing doctrine is expreffed by this author; as the judgment upon it will vary according to the admiffibility of the doctrines of paffive obedience and nonrefiftance. "Ad defenfionem vitæ & integritatis membrorum, licet etiam filio, religiofo & fubdito fe tueri, fi opus fit, cum occifione, contra ipfum parentem, abbatem, principem; nifi forte propter mortem hujus fecutura effent nimis magna incommoda, ut bella, &c." lib. 3. pars 1. de Homicidio, art. viii." To defend one's life, or limbs, it is lawful for a

pened, among other arguments, to make use of this great and just principle, that all civil power is ultimately derived from the people; and their adverfaries, in England and elsewhere, instead of shewing how they abused and perverted that fundamental principle of all government, in the cafe in question, did what difputants, warmed with controverfy, are very apt to do; they denied the principle itself, and maintained that all civil power is derived from God; as if the Jewish theocracy had been established throughout the whole world."-And, *« The hiftory of this controverfy, about the doctrine of paffive obedience and non-refistance, affords a ftriking example of the danger of having recourse to false prin

child, a religious man or a fubject to defend himself against his parent, fuperior, or fovereign, if it be neceffary, even by killing the aggreffor; unless by killing him very great mischiefs indeed should happen, as wars, &c." To Englishmen, who sometimes foften their ver◄ dia by finding a fe defendendo, these principles may not feem more outrageous, than Dr. Priestley's own doctrines. "If it be afked, how far a people may lawfully go, in punishing their chief magiftrates, I anfwer, that if the enormity of the offence (which is of the fame extent as the injury done to the public) be confidered, any punishment is juftifiable, that a man can incur in human fociety." Effays on the First Principles of Government, p. 36.

• Priestley, ibid. p. 29.

ciples

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