selves unto your own husbands." The same over a disciple of Christianity, and his who, ac. concise and absolute form of expression occurs knowledging the general authority of the state in all these precepts; the same silence as to any over all its subjects, doubts whether that auexceptions or distinctions: yet no one doubts thority be not, in some important branch of it, that the commands of masters, parents, and so ill constituted or abused, as to warrant the husbands, are often so immoderate, unjust, and endeavours of the people to bring about a reinconsistent with other obligations, that they formation by force. Nor can we judge what both may and ought to be resisted. In letters reply the apostles would have made to this seor dissertations written professedly upon sepa-cond question if it had been proposed to them, rate articles of morality, we might with more from any thing they have delivered upon the reason have looked for a precise delineation of first; any more than, in the two consultations our duty, and some degree of modern accuracy above described, it could be known beforehand in the rules which were laid down for our di- what I would say in the latter, from the anrection: but in those short collections of prac-swer which I gave the former. tical maxims which compose the conclusion, or The only defect to this account is, that neisome small portion, of a doctrinal or perhaps ther the Scriptures, nor any subsequent hiscontroversial epistle, we cannot be surprised tory of the early ages of the Church, furnish to find the author more solicitous to impress any direct attestation of the existence of such the duty, than curious to enumerate excep. disaffected sentiments amongst the primitive tions.

converts. They supply indeed some circumThe consideration of this distinction is alone stances which render probable the opinion, that sufficient to vindicate these passages of Scrip- extravagant notions of the political rights of ture from any explanation which may be put the Christian state were at that time enterupon them, in favour of an unlimited passive tained by many proselytes to the religion.obedience. But if we be permitted to assume From the question proposed unto Christ, "Is a supposition which many commentators pro- it lawful to give tribute to Cæsar ?" it may be ceed upon as a certainty, that the first Christians presumed that doubts had been started in the privately cherished an opinion, that their con- Jewish schools concerning the obligation, or version to Christianity entitled them to new even the lawfulness, of submission to the Roimmunities, to an exemption as of right (how-man yoke. The accounts delivered by Joseever they might give way to necessity,) from phus, of various insurrections of the Jews of the authority of the Roman sovereign; we that and the following age, excited by this are furnished with a still more apt and satis-principle, or upon this pretence, confirm the factory interpretation of the apostles' words. presumption. Now, as the Christians were The two passages apply with great propriety at first chiefly taken from the Jews, confounded to the refutation of this error: they teach the with them by the rest of the world, and, from Christian convert to obey the magistrate "for the affinity of the two religions, apt to interthe Lord's sake ;"- 66 not only for wrath, but mix the doctrines of both, it is not to be wonfor conscience sake;"-that there is no pow-dered at, that a tenet, so flattering to the selfer but of God;"-" that the powers that be," importance of those who embraced it, should even the present rulers of the Roman empire, have been communicated to the new instituthough heathens and usurpers, seeing they tion. Again, the teachers of Christianity, are in possession of the actual and necessary amongst the privileges which their religion authority of civil government, "are ordained conferred upon its professors, were wont to exof God;" and, consequently, entitled to re-tol the "liberty into which they were called," ceive obedience from those who profess them- "in which Christ had made them free." selves the peculiar servants of God, in a great- This liberty, which was intended of a deliverer (certainly not in a less) degree than from ance from the various servitude, in which they any others. They briefly describe the office had heretofore lived, to the domination of sinof "civil governors, the punishment of evil-ful passions, to the superstition of the Gentile doers, and the praise of them that do well;" idolatry, or the encumbered ritual of the Jew. from which description of the use of govern-ish dispensation, might by some be interpreted ment, they justly infer the duty of subjection; to signify an emancipation from all restraint which duty, being as extensive as the reason which was imposed by an authority merely huupon which it is founded, belongs to Christians, man. At least, they might be represented by no less than to the heathen members of the their enemies as maintaining notions of this community. If it be admitted, that the two dangerous tendency. To some error or calumapostles wrote with a view to this particular ny of this kind, the words of St. Peter seem question, it will be confessed, that their words to allude:-" For so is the will of God, that cannot be transferred to a question totally dif- with well-doing ye may put to silence the ig ferent from this, with any certainty of carry-norance of foolish men: as free, and not using ing along with us their authority and inten- your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness (i. e. tion. There exists no resemblance between sedition,) but as the servants of God." After the case of a primitive convert, who disputed all, if any one think this conjecture too feebly the jurisdiction of the Roman government supported by testimony, to be relied upon in

The boasted liberty of a state of nature ex

the interpretation of Scripture, he will then revert to the considerations alleged in the pre-ists only in a state of solitude. In every kind ceding part of this chapter.

and degree of union and intercourse with his After so copious an account of what we ap- species, it is possible that the liberty of the inprehend to be the general design and doctrine dividual may be augmented by the very laws of these much-agitated passages, little need be which restrain it; because he may gain more added in explanation of particular clauses. St. from the limitation of other men's freedom Paul has said, "Whosoever resisteth the pow-than he suffers by the diminution of his own. er, resisteth the ordinance of God." This Natural liberty is the right of common upon phrase," the ordinance of God," is by many a waste; civil liberty is the safe, exclusive, so interpreted as to authorise the most exalted unmolested enjoyment of a cultivated enclo and superstitious ideas of the regal character. sure. But surely, such interpreters have sacrificed The definition of civil liberty above laid truth to adulation. For, in the first place, the down, imports that the laws of a free people expression, as used by St. Paul, is just as ap-impose no restraints upon the private will of plicable to one kind of government, and to one the subject, which do not conduce in a greater kind of succession, as to another;-to the degree to the public happiness; by which it is elective magistrates of a pure republic, as to intimated, 1st, that restraint itself is an evil; an absolute hereditary monarch. In the next 2dly, that this evil ought to be overbalanced place, it is not affirmed of the supreme magis- by some public advantage; 3dly, that the proof trate exclusively, that he is the ordinance of of this advantage lies upon the legislature; God; the title, whatever it imports, belongs 4thly, that a law being found to produce no to every inferior officer of the state as much sensible good effects, is a sufficient reason for as to the highest. The divine right of kings repealing it, as adverse and injurious to the is, like the divine right of other magistrates. rights of a free citizen, without demanding -the law of the land, or even actual and quiet specific evidence of its bad effects. This possession of their office ;-a right ratified, we maxim might be remembered with advantage humbly presume, by the divine approbation, in a revision of many laws of this country; so long as obedience to their authority appears | especially of the game-laws; of the poor-laws, to be necessary or conducive to the common so far as they lay restrictions upon the poor welfare. Princes are ordained of God by vir- themselves; of the laws against Papists and tue only of that general decree by which he Dissenters: and, amongst people enamoured assents, and adds the sanction of his will, to to excess and jealous of their liberty, it seems every law of society which promotes his own a matter of surprise that this principle has purpose, the communication of human happi- been so imperfectly attended to. ness; according to which idea of their origin and constitution (and without any repugnancy to the words of St. Paul,) they are by St. Peter denominated the ordinance of man.

CHAPTER V.

OF CIVIL LIBERTY.

CIVIL LIBERTY is the not being restrained by any law, but what conduces in a greater degree to the public welfare.

To do what we will, is natural liberty: to do what we will, consistently with the interest of the community to which we belong, is civil liberty; that is to say, the only liberty to be desired in a state of civil society.

The degree of actual liberty always bearing, according to this account of it, a reversed proportion to the number and severity of the restrictions which are either useless, or the utili ty of which does not outweigh the evil of the restraint, it follows, that every nation possesses some, no nation perfect, liberty that this liberty may be enjoyed under every form of government: that it may be impaired indeed, or increased, but that it is neither gained, nor lost, nor recovered, by any single regulation, change, or event whatever: that consequently, those popular phrases which speak of a free people; of a nation of slaves; which call one revolution the era of liberty, or another the loss of it; with many expressions of a like absolute form; are intelligible only in a comparative sense.

Hence also we are enabled to apprehend the I should wish, no doubt, to be allowed to distinction between personal and civil liberty. act in every instance as I pleased, but I reflect A citizen of the freest republic in the world that the rest also of mankind would then do may be imprisoned for his crimes; and though the same; in which state of universal inde- his personal freedom be restrained by bolts and pendence and self-direction, I should meet fetters, so long as his confinement is the effect with so many checks and obstacles to my own of a beneficial public law, his civil liberty is will, from the interference and opposition of not invaded. If this instance appear dubious, other men's, that not only my happiness, but the following will be plainer. A passenger my liberty, would be less, than whilst the from the Levant, who, upon his return to whole community were subject to the domi-England, should be conveyed to a lazaretto by nion of equal laws. an order of quarantine, with whatever impa

welfare and accommodation of the people would be as studiously, and as providently, consulted in the edicts of a despotic prince, as by the resolutions of a popular assembly, then would an absolute form of government be no less free than the purest democracy. The different degree of care and knowledge of the public interest, which may reasonably be expected from the different form and composi tion of the legislature, constitutes the distinction, in repect of liberty, as well between these two extremes, as between all the intermediate modifications of civil government.

tience he might desire his enlargement, and though he saw a guard placed at the door to oppose his escape, or even ready to destroy his life if he attempted it, would hardly accuse government of encroaching upon his civil freedom; nay, might, perhaps, be all the while congratulating himself that he had at length set his foot again in a land of liberty. The manifest expediency of the measure not only justifies it, but reconciles the most odious confinement with the perfect possession, and the loftiest notions, of civil liberty. And if this be true of the coercion of a prison, that it is compatible with a state of civil freedom, it can- The definitions which have been framed of not with reason be disputed of those more mo- civil liberty, and which have become the subderate constraints which the ordinary opera-ject of much unnecessary altercation, are most tion of government imposes upon the will of the individual. It is not the rigour, but the inexpediency of laws and acts of authority, which makes them tyrannical.

of them adapted to this idea. Thus one po litical writer makes the very essence of the subject's liberty to consist in his being governed by no laws but those to which he hath actually consented; another is satisfied with an indirect and virtual consent; another, again,

There is another idea of civil liberty, which, though neither so simple nor so accurate as the former, agrees better with the significa-places civil liberty in the separation of the letion, which the usage of common discourse, as gislative and executive offices of government; well as the example of many respectable writers another, in the being governed by law, that is, upon the subject, has affixed to the term. This by known, preconstituted, inflexible rules of idea places liberty in security; making it to action and adjudication; a fifth, in the exclu consist not merely in an actual exemption sive right of the people to tax themselves by from the constraint of useless and noxious laws their own representatives; a sixth, in the freeand acts of dominion, but in being free from dom and purity of elections of representatives; the danger of having such hereafter imposed a seventh, in the control which the democratic or exercised. Thus, speaking of the political party of the constitution possesses over the state of modern Europe, we are accustomed to military establishment. Concerning which, say of Sweden, that she hath lost her liberty and some other similar accounts of civil liberby the revolution which lately took place in ty, it may be observed, that they all labour un that country; and yet we are assured that the der one inaccuracy, viz. that they describe not people continue to be governed by the same so much liberty itself, as the safeguards and laws as before, or by others which are wiser, preservatives of liberty: for example, a man's milder, and more equitable. What then have being governed by no laws but those to which they lost? They have lost the power and he has given his consent, were it practicable, functions of their diet; the constitution of is no otherwise necessary to the enjoyment of their states and orders, whose deliberations civil liberty, than as it affords a probable seand concurrence were required in the forma-curity against the dictation of laws imposing tion and establishment of every public law; and thereby have parted with the security which they possessed against any attempts of the crown to harass its subjects, by oppressive and useless exertions of prerogative. The loss of this security we denominate the loss of liberty. They have changed, not their laws, but their legislature; not their enjoyment, but their safety; not their present burthens, but their prospects of future grievances; and this we pronounce a change from the condition of freemen to that of slaves. In like manner, in our own country, the act of parliament, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, which gave to the king's proclamation the force of law, has properly been called a complete and formal surrender of the liberty of the nation; and would have been so, although no proclamation were issued in pursuance of these new powers, or none but what was recommended by the highest wisdom and utility. The seourity was gone. Were it probable that the

superfluous restrictions upon his private will. This remark is applicable to the rest. The diversity of these definitions will not surprise us, when we consider that there is no contrariety or opposition amongst them whatever: for, by how many different provisions and precautions civil liberty is fenced and protected, so many different accounts of liberty itself, all sufficiently consistent with truth and with each other, may, according to this mode of explaining the term, be framed and adopted.

Truth cannot be offended by a definition, but propriety may. In which view, those definitions of liberty ought to be rejected, which, by making that essential to civil freedom which is unattainable in experience, inflame expectations that can never be gratified, and disturb the public content with complaints, which no wisdom or benevolence of government can remove.

It will not be thought extraordinary, that an idea, which occurs so much oftener as the

subject of panegyric and careless declamation, tical contentions; the preventing, by a known than of just reasoning or correct knowledge, rule of succession, of all competition for the sushould be attended with uncertainty and con-preme power; and thereby repressing the hopes,, fusion; or that it should be found impossible intrigues, and dangerous ambition of aspiring to contrive a definition, which may include the citizens. numerous, unsettled, and ever-varying significations, which the term is made to stand for, and at the same time accord with the condition and experience of social life.

The mischiefs, or rather the dangers, of Mo-NARCHY are, tyranny, expense, exaction, military domination: unnecessary wars, waged to gratify the passions of an individual; risk of the character of the reigning prince; ignorance, in the governors, of the interests and accom

Of the two ideas that have been stated of civil liberty, whichever we assume, and whatever reasoning we found upon them, concern-modation of the people, and a consequent de-. ing its extent, nature, value, and preservation, this is the conclusion;-that that people, government, and constitution, is the freest, which makes the best provision for the enacting of expedient and salutary laws.

CHAPTER VI.

OF DIFFERENT FORMS OF GOVERNMENT.

ficiency of salutary regulations; want of constancy and uniformity in the rules of government, and, proceeding from thence, insecurity of person and property.

The separate advantage of an ARISTOCRACY consists in the wisdom which may be expected from experience and education:-a permanent council naturally possesses experience; and the members who succeed to their places in it by. inheritance, will, probably, be trained and edu cated with a view to the stations which they are destined by their birth to occupy.

The mischiefs of an ARISTOCRACY are, dis

As a series of appeals must be finite, there necessarily exists in every government a pow-sensions in the ruling orders of the state, which, er from which the constitution has provided no appeal; and which power, for that reason, may be termed absolute, omnipotent, uncontrollable, arbitrary, despotic; and is alike so in all countries.

The person, or assembly, in whom this power resides, is called the sovereign, or the supreme power of the state.

Since to the same power universally appertains the office of establishing public laws, it is called also the legislature of the state.

A government receives its denomination from the form of the legislature; which form is likewise what we commonly mean by the constitution of a country.

from the want of a common superior, are lia ble to proceed to the most desperate extremities; oppression of the lower orders by the privileges of the higher, and by laws partial to the separate interest of the law-makers.

The advantages of a REPUBLIC are, liberty, or exemption from needless restrictions; equal laws; regulations adapted to the wants and circumstances of the people; public spirit, frugality, averseness to war; the opportunities which democratic assemblies afford to men of every description, of producing their abilities and counsels to public observation, and the ex citing thereby, and calling forth to the service of the commonwealth, the faculties of its best citizens.

Political writers enumerate three principal forms of government, which, however, are to The evils of a REPUBLIC are, dissension, tu. be regarded rather as the simple forms, by some mults, faction; the attempts of powerful citicombination and intermixture of which all ac-zens to possess themselves of the empire; the tual governments are composed, than as anywhere existing in a pure and elementary state, These forms are,

L Despotism, or absolute MONARCHY,where the legislature is in a single person.

II. An ARISTOCRACY, where the legislature is in a select assembly, the members of which either fill up by election the vacancies in their own body, or succeed to their places in it by inheritance, property, tenure of certain lands, or in respect of some personal right, or qualification.

III. A REPUBLIC, or democracy, where the people at large, either collectively or by representation, constitute the legislature.

confusion, rage, and clamour, which are the inevitable consequences of assembling multitudes, and of propounding questions of state to the discussion of the people; the delay and disclosure of public counsels and designs; and the imbecility of measures retarded by the necessity of obtaining the consent of numbers: lastly, the oppression of the provinces which are not admitted to a participation in the legislative power.

A mixed government is composed by the combination of two or more of the simple forms of government above described:-and in whatever proportion each form enters into the constitution of a government, in the same proportion The separate advantages of MONARCHY are, may both the advantages and evils, which we unity of counsel, activity, decision, secrecy, have attributed to that form, be expected: that despatch; the military strength and energy is, those are the uses to be maintained and culwhich result from these qualities of govern- tivated in each part of the constitution, and ment; the exclusion of popular and aristocra- these are the dangers to be provided against in

welfare and accommodation of the people: would be as studiously, and as providently, consulted in the edicts of a despotic prince, as by the resolutions of a popular assembly, then would an absolute form of government be noless free than the purest democracy. The different degree of care and knowledge of the public interest, which may reasonably be expected from the different form and composi tion of the legislature, constitutes the distinc tion, in repect of liberty, as well between these two extremes, as between all the intermediate modifications of civil government.

tience he might desire his enlargement, and though he saw a guard placed at the door to oppose his escape, or even ready to destroy his life if he attempted it, would hardly accuse government of encroaching upon his civil freedom; nay, might, perhaps, be all the while congratulating himself that he had at length set his foot again in a land of liberty. The manifest expediency of the measure not only justifies it, but reconciles the most odious confinement with the perfect possession, and the loftiest notions, of civil liberty. And if this be true of the coercion of a prison, that it is compatible with a state of civil freedom, it can- The definitions which have been framed of not with reason be disputed of those more mo- civil liberty, and which have become the subderate constraints which the ordinary opera-ject of much unnecessary altercation, are most tion of government imposes upon the will of the individual. It is not the rigour, but the inexpediency of laws and acts of authority, which makes them tyrannical.

of them adapted to this idea. Thus one political writer makes the very essence of the subject's liberty to consist in his being governed by no laws but those to which he hath acThere is another idea of civil liberty, which, tually consented; another is satisfied with an though neither so simple nor so accurate as indirect and virtual consent; another, again, the former, agrees better with the significa- places civil liberty in the separation of the le tion, which the usage of common discourse, as gislative and executive offices of government; well as the example of many respectable writers another, in the being governed by law, that is, upon the subject, has affixed to the term. This by known, preconstituted, inflexible rules of idea places liberty in security; making it to action and adjudication; a fifth, in the exclu consist not merely in an actual exemption sive right of the people to tax themselves by from the constraint of useless and noxious laws their own representatives; a sixth, in the freeand acts of dominion, but in being free from dom and purity of elections of representatives; the danger of having such hereafter imposed a seventh, in the control which the democratic or exercised. Thus, speaking of the political party of the constitution possesses over the state of modern Europe, we are accustomed to military establishment. Concerning which, say of Sweden, that she hath lost her liberty and some other similar accounts of civil liber. by the revolution which lately took place in ty, it may be observed, that they all labour un that country; and yet we are assured that the der one inaccuracy, viz. that they describe not people continue to be governed by the same so much liberty itself, as the safeguards and laws as before, or by others which are wiser, preservatives of liberty: for example, a man's milder, and more equitable. What then have being governed by no laws but those to which they lost? They have lost the power and he has given his consent, were it practicable, functions of their diet; the constitution of is no otherwise necessary to the enjoyment of their states and orders, whose deliberations civil liberty, than as it affords a probable seand concurrence were required in the forma-curity against the dictation of laws imposing tion and establishment of every public law; superfluous restrictions upon his private will. and thereby have parted with the security This remark is applicable to the rest. The which they possessed against any attempts of diversity of these definitions will not surprise the crown to harass its subjects, by oppressive us, when we consider that there is no conand useless exertions of prerogative. The loss trariety or opposition amongst them whatever': of this security we denominate the loss of li- for, by how many different provisions and preberty. They have changed, not their laws, cautions civil liberty is fenced and protected, but their legislature; not their enjoyment, so many different accounts of liberty itself, all but their safety; not their present burthens, sufficiently consistent with truth and with each but their prospects of future grievances; and other, may, according to this mode of explainthis we pronounce a change from the condi-ing the term, be framed and adopted. tion of freemen to that of slaves. In like man- Truth cannot be offended by a definition, ner, in our own country, the act of parliament, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, which gave to the king's proclamation the force of law, has properly been called a complete and formal surrender of the liberty of the nation; and would have been so, although no proclamation were issued in pursuance of these new powers, or none but what was recommended by the highest wisdom and utility. The seourity was gone. Were it probable that the

but propriety may. In which view, those definitions of liberty ought to be rejected, which, by making that essential to civil freedom which is unattainable in experience, inflame expectations that can never be gratified, and disturb the public content with complaints, which no wisdom or benevolence of government can remove.

It will not be thought extraordinary, that an idea, which occurs so much oftener as the