which a Frenchman is bound in conscience, as | mitted to the adjudication of this rule with mu. well as by coercion, to endure at the hands of tual safety. A public advantage is measured his prince, to which an Englishman would not by the advantage which each individual rebe obliged to submit: but we assert, that it is ceives, and by the number of those who receive for these two reasons alone: first, because the it. A public evil is compounded of the same same act of the prince is not the same griev-proportions. Whilst, therefore, a colony is ance, where it is agreeable to the constitution, small, or a province thinly inhabited, if a comand where it infringes it; secondly, because petition of interests arises between the original redress in the two cases is not equally attain-country and their acquired dominions, the forable. Resistance cannot be attempted with mer ought to be preferred; because it is fit equal hopes of success, or with the same pros-that, if one must necessarily be sacrificed, the pect of receiving support from others, where the people are reconciled to their sufferings, as where they are alarmed by innovation. In this way, and no otherwise, the subjects of different states possess different civil rights; the duty of obedience is defined by different boundaries; and the point of justifiable resistance placed at different parts of the scale of suffer-structed by their union. The rule and prining; all which is sufficiently intelligible without a social compact.

less give place to the greater; but when, by an increase of population, the interest of the provinces begins to bear a considerable proportion to the entire interest of the community, it is possible that they may suffer so much by their subjection, that not only theirs, but the whole happiness of the empire, may be ob

ciple of the calculation being still the same, the result is different: and this difference begets a new situation, which entitles the subordinate parts of the states to more equal terms of confederation, and if these be refused, to inde pendency.

CHAPTER IV.

IN THE CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES.

ther altered it nor ascertained it; that the New Testament contains not one passage, which, fairly interpreted, affords either argument or objection applicable to any conclusions upon the subject that are deduced from the law and religion of nature.

VII. "The interest of the whole society is binding upon every part of it. No rule, short of this, will provide for the stability of civil government, or for the peace and safety of social life. Wherefore, as individual members of the state are not permitted to pursue their emolument to the prejudice of the community, so is it equally a consequence of this rule, that no particular colony, province, town, or district, can justly concert measures for their THE DUTY OF CIVIL OBEDIENCE, AS STATED separate interest, which shall appear at the same time to diminish the sum of prosperity. I do not mean, that it is necessary to the jus- WE affirm that, as to the extent of our citice of a measure, that it profit each and eve-vil rights and obligations, Christianity hath ry part of the community, (for, as the happi-left us where she found us; that she hath neiness of the whole may be increased, whilst that of some parts is diminished, it is possible that the conduct of one part of an empire may be detrimental to some other part, and yet just, provided one part gain more in happiness than the other part loses, so that the common weal be augmented by the change;) but what I af. The only passages which have been seriousfirm is, that those counsels can never be re-ly alleged in the controversy, or which it is conciled with the obligations resulting from necessary for us to state and examine, are the civil union, which cause the whole happiness two following; the one extracted from St. of the society to be impaired for the conveni-Paul's Epistle to the Romans, the other from ency of a part. This conclusion is applicable the First General Epistle of St. Peter :to the question of right between Great Britain and her revolted colonies. Had I been an American, I should not have thought it en- "Let every soul be subject unto the higher ough to have had it even demonstrated, that powers: for there is no power but of God: a separation from the parent state would pro- the powers that be, are ordained of God. Who duce effects beneficial to America; my relation soever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth to that state imposed upon me a further inquiry, the ordinance of God; and they that resist, namely, whether the whole happiness of the shall receive to themselves damnation. For empire was likely to be promoted by such a rulers are not a terror to good works, but to measure: not indeed the happiness of every the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the part; that was not necessary, nor to be ex-power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt pected; but whether what Great Britain would have praise of the same: for he is the minister lose by the separation, was likely to be com- of God to thee for good. But if thou do that pensated to the joint stock of happiness, by the which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not advantages which America would receive from the sword in vain: for he is the minister of it. The contested claims of sovereign states God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him and their reinote dependencies, may be sub-that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs ba

ROMANS xiii. 1-7.

subject, not only for wrath, but also for con- and restrictions being superfluous, and foreign science sake. For, for this cause pay ye tri- to the doubts I was employed to remove. bute also; for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues; tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honour to whom honour."

1 PETER ii. 13-18.

If, in a short time afterwards, I should be accosted by the same person, with complaints of public grievances, of exorbitant taxes, of acts of cruelty and oppression, of tyrannical encroachments upon the ancient or stipulated rights of the people, and should be consulted whether it were lawful to revolt, or justifiable "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of to join in an attempt to shake off the yoke by man, for the Lord's sake; whether it be to open resistance; I should certainly consider the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as myself as having a case and question before me unto them that are sent by him for the punish- very different from the former. I should now ment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them define and discriminate. I should reply, that that do well. For so is the will of God, that if public expediency be the foundation, it is alwith well-doing ye may put to silence the ig- so the measure, of civil obedience: that the norance of foolish men: as free, and not using obligation of subjects and sovereigns is reciyour liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but procal; that the duty of allegiance, whether it as the servants of God." be founded in utility or compact, is neither unTo comprehend the proper import of these limited nor unconditional; that peace may be instructions, let the reader reflect, that upon purchased too dearly; that patience becomes the subject of civil obedience there are two culpable pusillanimity, when it serves only to questions: the first, whether to obey govern- encourage our rulers to increase the weight of ment be a moral duty and obligation upon the our burthen, or to bind it the faster; that the conscience at all; the second, how far, and to submission which surrenders the liberty of a what cases, that obedience ought to extend? nation, and entails slavery upon future genethat these two questions are so distinguishable rations, is enjoined by no law of rational moin the imagination, that it is possible to treat rality; finally, I should instruct the inquirer of the one, without any thought of the other; to compare the peril and expense of his enterand lastly, that if expressions which relate to prise with the effects it was expected to proone of these questions be transferred and ap- duce, and to make choice of the alternative by plied to the other, it is with great danger of which not his own present relief or profit, but giving them a signification very different from the whole and permanent interest of the state, the author's meaning. This distinction is not was likely to be best promoted. If any one ony possible, but natural. If I met with a who had been present at both these conversaperson who appeared to entertain doubts, whe- tions should upbraid me with change or inconther civil obedience were a moral duty which sistency of opinion, should retort upon me the ought to be voluntarily discharged, or whether passive doctrine which I before taught, the large it were not a mere submission to force, like and absolute terms in which I then delivered that which we yield to a robber who holds a lessons of obedience and submission, I should pistol to our breast, I should represent to him account myself unfairly dealt with. I should the use and offices of civil government, the end reply, that the only difference which the lanand the necessity of civil subjection; or, if I guage of the two conversations presented was, preferred a different theory, I should explain that I added now many exceptions and limitato him the social compact, urge him with the tions, which were omitted or unthought of obligation and the equity of his implied pro- then that this difference arose naturally from mise and tacit consent to be governed by the the two occasions, such exceptions being as nelaws of the state from which he received pro-cessary to the subject of our present conference, tection; or I should argue, perhaps, that Na- as they would have been superfluous and unture herself dictated the law of subordination, seasonable in the former. when she planted within us an inclination to Now the difference in these two conversaassociate with our species, and framed us with tions is precisely the distinction to be taken in capacities so various and unequal. From what- interpreting those passages of Scripture, conever principle I set out, I should labour to in-cerning which we are debating. They inculfer from it this conclusion, "That obedience cate the duty, they do not describe the extent to the state is to be numbered among the re- of it. They enforce the obligation by the prolative duties of human life, for the transgres-per sanctions of Christianity, without intendsion of which we shall be accountable at the ing either to enlarge or contract, without contribunal of Divine justice, whether the ma- sidering, indeed, the limits by which it is gistrate be able to punish us for it or not ;" and bounded. This is also the method in which being arrived at this conclusion, I should stop, the same apostles enjoin the duty of servants having delivered the conclusion itself, and to their masters, of children to their parents, throughout the whole argument expressed the of wives to their husbands: "Servants, be subobedience, which I inculcated, in the most ge-ject to your masters."- "Children, obey your neral and unqualified terms; all reservations parents in all things."—"Wives, submit your

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. both may and ought to be resisted. In letters reply the apostles would have made to this seNor can we judge what or 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 prác-swer which I gave the former. tical maxims which compose the conclusion, or some small portion, of a doctrinal or perhaps ther the Scriptures, nor any subsequent hisThe only defect to this account is, that neicontroversial 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. The consideration of this distinction is alone stances which render probable the opinion, that converts. They supply indeed some circumsufficient 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, 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 Ro immunities, 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 ;"-" 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."

"Is

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 Jewfrom 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. no less than to the heathen members of the their enemies as maintaining notions of this At least, they might be represented by 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 interpretation of Scripture, he will then

The boasted liberty of a state of nature exrevert 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

dividual may be augmented by the very laws which restrain it; because he may gain more from the limitation of other men's freedom than he suffers by the diminution of his own. Natural liberty is the right of common upon a waste; civil liberty is the safe, exclusive, unmolested enjoyment of a cultivated enclosure.

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 of these much-agitated passages, little need be added in explanation of particular clauses. St. Paul has said, "Whosoever resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God." This phrase," the ordinance of God," is by many so interpreted as to authorise the most exalted and superstitious ideas of the regal character. 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 nc 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. 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.

This

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 utility 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 æra 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

110

different degree of care and knowledge of the public interest, which may reasonably be expected from the different form and composition 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 welfare and accommodation of the people though he saw a guard placed at the door to would be as studiously, and as providently, oppose his escape, or even ready to destroy his consulted in the edicts of a despotic prince, as life if he attempted it, would hardly accuse by the resolutions of a popular assembly, then government of encroaching upon his civil free-would an absolute form of government be no dom; nay, might, perhaps, be all the while less free than the purest democracy. The 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 cannot with reason be disputed of those more moderate 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.

The definitions which have been framed of civil liberty, and which have become the sub

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 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 excluconsist 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 unthat 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 The 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. 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 explain. this we pronounce a change from the condi-ing the term, be framed and adopted. Truth cannot be offended by a definition, tion of freemen to that of slaves. In like manner, in our own country, the act of parliament, but propriety may. In which view, those defi in the reign of Henry the Eighth, which gave nitions of liberty ought to be rejected, which, to the king's proclamation the force of law, by making that essential to civil freedom which has properly been called a complete and for- is unattainable in experience, inflame expectamal surrender of the liberty of the nation;tions that can never be gratified, and disturb and would have been so, although no procla- the public content with complaints, which no mation were issued in pursuance of these new wisdom or benevolence of government can repowers, or none but what was recommended move. by the highest wisdom and utility. The se curity was gone. Were it probable that the

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