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The intent of toryifm was to enforce fubordination.

Failure in the means.

community by external force or any fort of
compulfion, the fubmiffion to it cannot be
expected to furvive the compulfive exactions
of this tyrannical power, to which no free
affent is given; and where there is no free
affent in the governed to fubmit, there can
exist no right in the governors to rule, as is
evident; for all lawful government is a com-
pact between the governors and governed,
which neceffarily involves the freedom of
the contracting parties.

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The chief end, which the high-flying zealots for kingly power in the zenith of toryism had in view, in deducing it immediately from Almighty God, was, I prefume, the more ftrongly to enforce the obligation of fubmitting to it. Much praise is due to them for their wishes and intentions to establish subordination to the powers in being; but little credit can be allowed them for the felection of the means, which they applied to the end. For, in the first place, it was an immediate provocation to their opponents to call for their divine commiffion, which I have as yet never found made out to any earthly fovereign fince the immediate divine appointments of fome theocratic rulers of Ifrael. This primary defect of title in those, who refted the right upon this ground, ne

ceffarily

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ceffarily encreased the unwillingness of their opponents to fubmit to it.

The ordinances binding, whe

of God equally

ther mediately

or immediately

communicated

In the next place, it was highly injudicious in them to hold out the precious pearl of divine authority to thofe, who either did not know its value, or would not acknowledge its virtue and efficacy; for to a perfon, who fubmits with unreserved fincerity to the indifpenfable obligations of the divine ordinances, it can matter but little, whether the obligation to us. be impofed upon him mediately or immediately by Almighty God. So in the cafe of this question of difference, one party submitted to the obligation of the divine ordinance to obey our rulers, because they held that Almighty God had delegated his power to them immediately; the other party held, *« that the inftitution of magiftracy is jurė divino, and the end of it is, that mankind might live under certain laws, and be governed by them; but what particular form of government each nation would live under, and what perfons fhould be entrusted with the magiftracy, without doubt, was left to the choice of each nation." Little therefore did it matter, fince both parties agreed, that magiftrates or rulers were to be obeyed and fubmitted to by the divine ordinance, or jure divino, whether that power, to which we were

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The part which

each individual

has in the legif

lature, enforces the obligation of fubmiffion.

fo commanded to fubmit, were vested in them by the immediate appointment of God, or by the intermediate appointment of the people, to whom God had given the power and right to chufe what perfons should be entrusted with the magistracy.

No one, who allows any binding force to divine authority upon earth will pretend, that the commandments of the old law, or the evangelical precepts of the new, lose any degree of their binding obligation, because they were imposed upon mankind through the intermediation of Mofes and the apoftles. We fee from too fatal experience of our own history, how ineffectual the jure divino inftitution of magiftracy was to protect the facred person of the first magistrate appointed and acknowledged by the people, against the rebellious and murderous hands of that party, whofe avowed champion the

affertor of this very doctrine was. If therefore we are to feek an authority or power upon earth, to which all fuch persons would actually fubmit, we must derive it from the people or community, of which they are a part; for no man can confiftently refuse fubjection to the power, which he has himself given, recognized, and established; because this gift of power or authority by the people

* Milton.

to

to the political magiftracy or legislative authority of the state, is in fact nothing more nor lefs, than the actual agreement of the majority of the community, which binds each individual unexceptionably to fubmit unto it; no one therefore can invalidate or do away his own act, which confers a right upon others; and magiftrates have rights as well as duties. In fact, the whole community has by this affent of the majority, a collective right to the fubjection of each individual of its members. Thus, if the right to civil power be established upon its true bafis, the obligation of fubmitting to it will become. indifpenfably binding upon all men, whether they be impelled to it by their moral duty to their Creator, or by the mere civil effects of the focial contract, by which they remain members of the community.

Before I enter immediately upon the confideration of each separate branch of the legislature, I cannot fupprefs a general conclufion, which arifes out of what has been already offered; for it is peculiarly incumbent upon me to prove to the conviction of my readers, that the fovereignty of all power not only originated from the people, but continues unalienably to refide with them. Since the first inftitution of civil or political government

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upon earth, there never exifted, in my opinion, an instance, in which the transcendency of this fovereign right in the people was fo clearly demonftrated, as in our revolution of 1688. For in that temporary diffolution of the. government, which was occafioned by the abandonment or dereliction of it by the executive power, the people in reality and practice, carried their rights to an extent far beyond the fpeculative allowances of the moft unconfined theorists. So well fatisfied were they of the general tenor of the conftitution and government, that to fuch parts, as they did not think fit to change and alter, they very wifely endeavoured to add ftrength, vigour, and authority. But imagination cannot conceive a greater ftretch of human ble cafe of the power, than to make the king's choice of his own religion (a right which every man pof-feffes independently of the community) the immediate caufe of his deprivation of all those benefits and advantages, which the community had fettled upon him, and which he and his ancestors exercifing that fame, religion, had for many centuries enjoyed in. confequence of such settlement; nay, even to fuch extent did they carry their power, that they excluded the whole line of his immediate fucceffors, not for their actual exercise.

The changes made at the revolution the

ftrongeft poffi

power of the

people to change their government.

of

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