tween the diffenting parties, appears to me to arise in great measure from the generality of the propofitions, about which they differ. * In a fubject, where truth and error lie fo near to each other, divided by a line in many cafes not to be difcerned without care and attention, and where preingagements of intereft to one fide or the other are apt to bend and corrupt the judgment, it is no wonder to find great perplexity in men's notions and disputes, or that thofe, who lie in wait to deceive or embroil mankind, should choose a field of controverfy, in which there is fuch room for all the arts of fophiftry. While they keep in generalities, (as fuch difputants always do) fome truth will be in their affertions, for the fake of which they cannot abfolutely be denied. To this they retreat for cover whenever they are preffed. By a little aggravation of the conclufions they oppose, they can easily represent them as exceffes, with popular topics for declamation and invective. While the minds of men are thus amused with generalities, and by artificial terrors of one extreme driven towards the other, the real point of truth is easily kept out of sight, and the difpute between liberty and authority

Dr. Roger's Vindication of the Civil Eftablishment of Religion, printed in 1728, p. 2 and 3.

The danger of

arguing upon fitions.

extreme propo

How certain propofitions

commonly fup

pofed contra

dictory are re

concileable.

may on these terms be carried on for ever; but if we can fix the proper limits of each, we fhall foon make them friends, and put an end to all confufion about them.".

It is much to be lamented, that most of the writers upon thefe political fubjects have fet out, and continued through their whole career, upon the treacherous extremities of their respective doctrines. Under this exceffive tenfion, the different partizans view their antagonists in the loweft degree of depravity, and represent them in the groffeft terms of degradation. Thus this political maxim, falus populi fuprema lex, "the welfare of the people is the first of all laws," is oppofed by one party to another maxim, omnis poteftas a Deo, "all power is from God;" and the abettors of each, from mifconceiving or mifapplying them, run into the oppofite extremes, of attributing to individuals a jure divino indefeasible right to power, and of denying the existence of any monarchical right or power upon earth. Whereas if these two principles are but fairly reprefented, and rightly understood, they are not only confiftent with each other, but one effentially flows from the other; for as I have before observed, society is effential to the phyfical nature of man; and

power and

govern

ment

ment are effential to the fubfiftence of fociety: thefe, therefore, like our existence, proceed immediately from God. In this generical and original fenfe of power, no one, I apprehend, will deny that the existence of all temporal or civil power proceeds from God; and in this fenfe I may cite the authority of the Apoftle; There is no power, but of God, and avail myself of the deduction, which Milton and others draw from it, that the inftitution of magiftracy is jure divino. But as our benevolent Creator has conftituted us free agents in this world, fo what particular form of government each nation fhould live under, and what persons should be entrusted with the magiftracy, without doubt, was left to the choice of each nation. But ftill each particular form of government, adopted by different focieties or nations, must all tend ultimately to one and the fame end.

* «The great end of men's entering into fociety being the enjoyment of their properties in peace and safety, and the great inftrument and means of that being the laws eftablished in that fociety, the firft and fundamental pofitive law of all commonwealths is the establishing of the legislative power; as

* Locke of Civil Government, . xi. p. 204.

Sovereignty of

power neceifary for the prefer

vation of the fociety.

the firft and fundamental natural law, which is to govern even the legislative itself, is the prefervation of the fociety, and (as far as will confift with the public good) of every perfon in it. This legislative is not only the fupreme power of the commonwealth, but facred and unalterable in the hands where the community

have once placed it; nor can any edict of any body else, in what form foever conceived, or by what power foever backed, have the force and obligation of a law, which has not its fanction from that legislative, which the public has chofen and appointed. For without this, the law could not have that, which is abfolutely neceffary to its being a law, confent of the fociety, over whom nobody can have a power to make laws, but by their own confent, and by authority received from them; and therefore all the obedience, which by the moft folemn ties, any one can be obliged to pay, ultimately terminates in this fupreme power and is directed by thofe laws, which it enacts; nor can any oaths to any foreign power whatsoever, or any domeftic fubordinate power discharge any member of the fociety from his obedience to the legislative, acting pursuant to their truft, nor oblige him to any obedience contrary to the laws fo enacted, or farther than they do allow; it being ridiculous

ridiculous to imagine one can be tied ultimately to obey any power in the fociety, which is not the fupreme."

Inattention to what, in fact, conftitutes the supreme power in the fociety, has been the fatal cause of all rebellions, that have ever been raised against lawful governments. The cry of the rights of the people is the hackneyed warhoop, by which both ancient and modern traitors have excited and fomented distur

bances in all ftates. * "A term (the people) which they are far from accurately defining, but by which, from many circumstances, 'tis plain enough they mean their own faction, if they should grow by early arming, by treachery or violence, into the prevailing force." The rights of the people are the most sacred rights, that can be claimed, and ought to be the most religiously preserved; but they are alfo liable to the most ferious and alarming abuses, corruptio optimi peffima. Our own history fatally superabounds with tragical abuses of these most precious rights; and the frequent abuses of them have forced from one of the greatest ornaments of the age, an opinion, perhaps more loyal in its tendency, than

• Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, p. 56, 57.

Inattention to

what is the fu

preme power rebellion.

ufual caufe of