king. You must needs, fays St. Paul, be fubjet to rulers, not only for wrath (that is, from the fear of fuffering the penalties annexed to the breach of the laws), but for confcience fake. For rulers are minifters of God, and revengers for executing wrath on all that do evil." Were the whole tenor of Doctor Price's difcourfe conformable with this part of it, no other than the most defirable effects could have been produced by it; and in the encreasing duty and fubmiffion of his flock to the powers placed over them, would the fruits of their loyal paftor's addrefs be discovered.

Mr. Locke, in the preface to his Treatife upon Civil Government, fays; "he allows its juft weight to this reflection, that there cannot be done a greater mischief to prince and people, than the propagating wrong notions concerning government, that so at laft, all times might not have reason to complain of the drum ecclefiaftic." Now, if the congregation affembled at the Old Jewry understood and felt, as well as their pastor, that by the words, our own and ourselves, were meant and intended the whole community, completely reprefented by the king, lords, and commons, the first and third part of this

The true poli

tical fenfe of

Dr. Price's propofitions.

laft affertion, viz. the right to chufe our own governors, and to frame a government for our-. felves, are certainly true, and it would be treafonable to deny them openly. The fecond part of the affertion cannot be said to be falfe, though, from the improbability of its taking effect, it becomes childifhly abfurd. It certainly is within phyfical poffibility, though without moral probability, that a king of England fhould give the royal affent to an act of parliament for cafhiering himself for mifconduct; for in the present constitution of our government, there can be no act of the people, which is not an act of parliament; nor any act of the parliament, which is not the act of the people. Now, although in this proper true political fenfe the doctrine of Dr. Price be strictly true, yet, from the manner, in which the truth appears to have been conveyed, or reprefented to his congregation, I cannot help concluding, that most of them carne from the Old Jewry fully satisfied (as indeed they probably went thither), that thefe boasted rights were poffeffed, and might at all times be exercised by thofe particularly, who diffented from our ecclefiaftical, and were difcontented with our prefent civil establishcomm inity re- ment. It was rather infidious, to foothe them with this flattering difplay of rights, and not

Rights of the

prelented init

diontly, is the rights of every

at

at the fame time inform them, that they never could be exercised, but by the act of the majority of that community, of which they were avowedly a very decided minority; and that they were moreover amenable, collectively and individually, to the full rigour of the laws, for refifting or oppofing in any manner the acts of the majority; any idea, therefore, of a perfonal enjoyment of these rights, in confequence of our own judgments, was delufive and mifchievous in the extreme; and the idea of cashiering our governors for misconduct, which in moft minds would implant the previous idea of a right of perfonal condemnation, fuperadds to the delufion and mifchief a fenfe of indelicacy, little congenial with the deference and refpect, which our constitution enjoins every one to pay to the fupreme governor of the ftate. I perhaps understand these three affertions of Dr. Price differently from the generality of his congregation; but, probably, not differently, from himfelf; for he exprefsly and truly fays, * « Were it not true, that liberty of confcience is a facred right; that power abused justifies refiftance; and that civil authority is a delegation from the people, the revolution

would have been, not an assertion, but an invafion of rights; not a revolution, but a rebellion."

There is one more paffage in this much canvaffed fermon, which has given the highest offence to Mr. Burke. † "All things in this fulminating bull are not of fo innoxious a tendency. His doctrines affect our conftitution in the moft vital parts. He tells the revolution fociety in this political fermon, that his majesty is almoft the only lawful king in the world, because the only one, who owes his crown to the choice of his people. This doctrine, (he fays), affirms a moft unfounded, dangerous, illegal, and unconstitutional pofiThe true caufe tion." I think it clear, that Dr. Price, by

of the king's

owing his

crown to the choice of his people.

the words, owes his crown to the choice of his

people, did not mean, that he owed his high office to any form of popular election, as Mr. Burke infinuates, which would have been notoriously false; but that our fovereign owes his crown and station to the free affent of the people, which is the efficient cause of every free conftitution; and this I take to be true, found, and genuine revolution doctrine; and as fuch was it exprefsly delivered by Mr. Locke, immediately after the revolution had

+ Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 16.

taken

taken effect. «Thefe which remain, I hope, are fufficient to establish the throne of our great restorer, our prefent King William; to make good his title in the confent of the people; which being the only one of all lawful governments, he has more fully and clearly, than any prince in Christendom; and to justify to the world the people of England, whofe love of their juft and natural rights, with their refolution to preferve them, faved the nation." In this fenfe, I profess to fee little or no difference between the compliment paid to King William by Mr. Locke, a very great philofopher and an old whig, and that paid to King George the Third by Dr. Price, who by many was efteemed a very great philofopher and a modern whig. And it is very certain, that by far the greatest part of the people of England do now believe and maintain, that both his prefent majesty and the late king William became entitled to the fovereignty of this community upon those principles, which, from the days of King William have been called revolution principles; not that they were formed, given, or even established by the revolution, but that the revolution was effected by them; fo that the

ment.

Locke's Preface to his Treatife on Civil Govern

M 4

deno