incumbent duties of individuals and of the community, of which I have before spoken, will when candidly viewed, I hope, fufficiently justify, and for ever establish the principles, upon which our ancestors effected the revolution, and their pofterity to this day cherish and support it in its confequences and effects.

I fhall close this preliminary digreffion by a reflection, that arifes naturally out of the combination of what I have already said. All thofe of the prefent diffenting minority, who have hitherto avowed their fentiments either by word or writing, acknowledge the neceffity of fome civil or political government, though they may with the government of this country very different from what at prefent it is. Now no civil nor political government can fubfift without fome efficient and coercive civil or political authority; but all civil or political authority is proportionably efficient and coercive, as the members of the fociety are compellable to fubmit to it; and the members of any fociety will be more or lefs amenable and fubmiffive to their magiftrates, according to the degree of right, which they allow to their jurifdiction. If the power or authority of the magistracy has been impofed upon the O community

Efficient coergovernment.

cive power of

The intent of

enforce fubor

dination.

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 compact between the governors and governed, which neceffarily involves the freedom of the contracting parties.

The chief end, which the high-flying zeatoryiím was to lots 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 eftablish fubordination 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

Failure in the meaus.

ceffarily

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 jure 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 magistracy, 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

• Milton, ubi fupra.

The part which

each individual

has in the legif

Jature, 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 magiftracy.

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 firft 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 perfons would actually submit, we must derive it from the people or community, of which they are a part; for no man can confistently refuse subjection 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 legiflature, I cannot fupprefs a general conclufion, which arifes out of what has been already offered; for it is peculiarly incum

bent

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