ruling part, many wrong and inconvenient laws, and all the flips of human frailty will be borne by the people without mutiny or mur mur." p. 341. Not if they were thoroughly perfuaded, that all power was originally in them, and they might change the legiflative as often as they pleased, but what wrong and inconvenient laws had Moses made, or of what flips of human frailty had he been guilty, when Dathan and Abiram afferted a defign to fubvert the conftitution, and to make himself arbitrary, was so plain, that the people muft fee it, unless he put out their eyes!" Numb. xvi. 13, 14.

To those who object the confufion, civil wars, &c. that mu follow from Mr. Locke's principle, he answers, by comparing a ruler, who violates the constitution, to a robber, a pirate, a wolf, a polyphemus (p. 343); and is very witty on a fuppofition that Ulyffes, as a prudent man, for the fake of peace, preached paffive obedience to his companions in the den, &c. But the cafes are not parallel, as none of his worthies are invested with any authority of any kind, to which obedience is due. And, by the comparisons, one would really think nothing was more common than for kings to cut or tear the throats of their subjects, and fuck the blood, as it ran warm from the jugulars.

He who places all power in the people, fays Mr. Locke, makes the best fence against rebellion. P. 341. How fo? Why, because the ruler who breaks his truft, is properly the rebel; he does rebellaire, bring back that war, force, or violence, which it was the defign of the original compact to drive and to keep away: for rebellion is not against persons, but against the authority lodged in the conftitution and the laws. But can authority exist without a person to exist in? or can the laws execute themselves? We have an equal right to take away from the other fide the perfons of rebels then may we leave rebellion and authority, in the abstract, to settle the matter by themselves: there will be no bloodshed between them. Prerogative and privilege, confidered in the fame way, without a crown and a parliament, that is, without any subject to inhere in, may be the two feconds; and that the combatants may have room enough, let them fight in infinite fpace. If the right of government be not inherent in the perfons of governors, there can be no fuch thing as government upon earth *.

* This distinction between perfons and authority is plainly calculated to produce changes of government by insurrections and rebellions. For if authority be not refident in perfons, then may any perfon seize upon it without offence against any other perfon. It was actually fo applied in the laft century. It is the old distinction that raised the

To Mr. Locke's fcheme of founding government upon com pact among peers in a state of nature, it had been objected, that men never were in such a state. Mr. Locke is so obliging as to favour us with fome inftances of men in that state. As firft, the Floridans, Brafilians, and Cheroquees in America, who it seems have no kings, but chufe leaders as they want them in time of war. (p. 242.) It is probable that they may. But men at the beginning were not placed by their maker in fo miferable a ftate. It is a ftate, to which, by the lofs of revelation, and other knowledge, through the divine judgments upon them, fome generations of men have been reduced to run wild, like brutes, in the woods. This is not a state of nature, but the most unnatural state in the world, for creatures made in the image of God. And does a polite philofopher, in these enlightened days, send us to study politics under Cherokee tutors!

A second inftance is the company that left Sparta, under the conduct of Palantus, whom by a free and equal vote they chose for their leader. The perfons here alluded to were an extraordinary breed of baftards, begotten on the women of Sparta by certain young men fent home to cohabit with them promifcuoufly, from the Spartan army, detained at the fiege of Meffena, under a vow not to return till the city was taken. When the iffue of this promifcuous concubinage came to years of maturity, partly having grace enough to be ashamed of their mothers, and partly afraid of being ftarved for want of an inheritance from their fa thers, they chofe Palantus, the pious author of the advice, for their general, feized upon Tarentum, drove out the original inha bitants, fettled, grew feditious, and at last banished for ever that fame Palantus, the cause of their birth, and the guide of their peregrinations. How many happy circumstances must concur to bring our pofterity into this fame Spartan state of nature, in order to erect a free and equal government? I fay, our pofterity; because we ourselves, having the misfortune to be already born of honeft parents, must despair of fo great a bleffing*. Two other

rebellion against Charles I. and has been exprefsly condemned by the laws, which have obliged both clergy, corporations, and militia to "abhor that traitorous pofition of taking arms by the king's authority against his person, or against those that are commiffioned by him."

The narrative here referred to is very fingular, and worth a farther inquiry. The hero of the tale is also called Phalanthus, and the fpurious race are called Parthenii, because they were born of unmarried women. They were engaged in a plot with the Helots for cutting off the inhabitants of Sparta, and taking poffeffion for themselves; but the Helots betrayed them, and the mifcarrying of this design occafioned their emigration.

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inftances produced by Mr. Locke are the founders of Rome and Venice. The former were a gang of robbers; the latter were the inhabitants of Padua, Aquileia, and other cities on the continent of Italy, driven thence by the Goths in the fifth century; consequently obliged to fhift as they could, and chufe governors in their diftrefs, when they were deprived of their natural ones, in the places where they lived before. There is no question but fome men have been, and some may again, either bring themselves, or be brought by others, into this state of anarchy; in which cafe, they must get out of it as well as they can. But all Mr. Locke's inftances are of men in an unnatural state; to which they were reduced by breaking or being forced away from civil government, which was in the world long before any of these instances happened. "From the beginning it was not fo."

Mr. Locke fays only (p. 250) it is probable men were naturally free, and by their own confent fubmitted to the government of their father, and of his eldest son after him, finding the easiness and equality of it. Here the fact is allowed, and the compact, it seems, made by the tacit confent of the children. Só faith Bishop Hoadley: "If Adam's monarchy were founded upon, and supported by the tacit confent of his defcendants, this amounts to fuch a compact as I am defending." See Finishing Stroke, p. 19. Confounding confent of duty with confent of authority. This did for the golden age but afterwards when governors grew naughty, "men found it neceffary to examine more carefully the original and rights of government, (p. 252) and find out ways to restrain, &c." So that this was only a fecondary affair, and the original compact between peers in an independent state of nature is given up; only we must not fay the patria poteßas was by divine right, but by the tacit confent of the children; which was certainly given, unless trying could be interpreted into a diffent *.

Mr. Locke's great argument against the patriarchal scheme

It is curious to obferve how fornication and fedition here go hand in hand, and how both together furnish Mr. Locke with an example which fuits with his opinion on the origin of government.

It was argued, that if government were the ordinance of God, and there could be no authority of government but from the confent of the governed, it would then follow, that the authority of God himself must be founded upon the confent of the people. And the advocates for compact did ftill perfift, and went fo far as to affert, that God became the God of the Hebrews in virtue of a contract which the people made with him at Horeb; that is, because the people chofe him. Thus a consent of duty is turned into a confent of authority.

proceeds on a fuppofition, that its patrons held an universal mo#archy in a right line from Adam, and defires to be fhewn who that monarch now is. But this God never intended. Adam was ruler in his own family; but if a colony went off to a distance under one of his fons, he was the ruler there, and fo on which is fufficient to fhew there could be no independent ftate of nature from the beginning. Afterwards, when conqueft and ufurpation made confufion, the general rule for the preservation of peace and order in the world could only be this, that the poffeffor had the right, if nobody could fhew a better. And people at this day must be guided by the conftitution and laws of their own country, obeying the fupreme power, wherever it is placed, for confcience fake.

But after all, there can be no fuch thing as any permanent authority in any kind of government; if it be true, as Mr. Lockę afferts (p. 255) that a man born under government, is as free as one dropped in the woods; because though his father, by compact, had paffed over his liberty, he could do it only for himself, not for his children *, who, it feems, are free, and confequently under no obligation to obey God, when he commands them to be fubject to the powers that be, till they have given their own confent, by compact with those powers. The man, who, when he comes of age, fhould act upon this principle, and plead an authority to tranfgrefs the laws becaufe he had never confented to them, would either receive punishment, or be put into confinement as a perfon out of his wits,

A NOTE BY THE EDITOR.

[If a father have promised for his fon, that he fhall obey the law of God, we are fure that fon can never be releafed from the obligation by any authority of his own. For the moral government of God is as wide as the world; and where the laws of God are known, every man is born fubject to them and he will be judged by thofe laws at laft. Every civil government is erected in aid to this moral government of God; and thus the peace and fecurity of the world is preserved, though the value of government to mankind be fometimes not known till it is loft; as

This is a contradiction to what Mr. Locke had before afferted, concerning a fațit confent of the children.

men do not know the bleffing of health till they have been fick. Authors argue about government, without remembering that they are under revelation. This has been the occafion of all our difputes and we have seen from an event universally known, that when the principles which human philofophy has invented are realized, and brought to effect, they are found to have fo little religion in them, that it is doubted whether they will conlift with the being of a God.

It seems to have been the defign of all Mr. Locke's arguments, not to obtain from history and reafon the true original of government, nor to teach us how and why it is to be maintained in the world; but, in a supposed state of nature, the power of the populace, and the obligation of an imaginary compact, to lay a plausible foundation for infurrections and diffolutions. For this purpose, t his principles were taken up and circulated. Price and Priestley wrote for them; and all their followers defend them. In the beginning of the present revolution in France, one of their friends, who visited them from England, reported of them in a news-paper, that they were wonderfully enlightened, and talked like men who had read Locke. It is probable they might; though Locke was tranfmitted to their reading through the writings of Voltaire. If what they have acted, hath been in confequence of what they had read, then is the merit of Mr. Locke's principles brought to an iffue, which is very short, and level to every capacity: "By their fruits ye fhall know them."

If the reader wishes to fee natural right, natural liberty, and natural equality, farther expofed, we refer him to an excellent difquifition of Soame Jenyns, Efq; one of the best pieces which the present times have produced.]

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