be permitted to affume a fuppofition, which many commentators proceed upon as a certainty, that the firft Chriftians privately cherifhed an opinion, that their converfion to Chriftianity entitled them to new immunities, to an exemption as of right (however they might give way to neceflity) from the authority of the Roman fovereign, we are furnished with a ftill more apt and fatisfactory interpretation of the Apoftles' words. The two paffages apply with great propriety to the refutation of this error; they teach the Chriftian convert to obey the magiftrate "for the Lord's fake,"—" not only for wrath, but for confcience fake;"" that there is no power but of God;"-"that the powers that be," even the prefent rulers of the Roman empire, though heathens and ufurpers, feeing they are in poffeffion of the actual and neceffary authority of civil government, "are ordained of God," and, confequently, entitled to receive obedience from thofe who profefs themselves the peculiar fervants of God, in a greater (certainly. not in a lefs) degree, than from any others. They briefly defcribe the office of civil governors, "the punishment of evil doers, and the praife of them that do well;" from which defcription of the ufe of gov ernment, they juftly infer the duty of fubjection, which duty, being as extenfive as the reafon upon which it is founded, belongs to Chriftians no lefs than to the heathen members of the community. If it be admitted, that the two Apoftles wrote with a view to this particular queftion, it will be confessed, that their words cannot be transferred to a question totally different from this, with any certainty of carrying along with us their authority and intention. There exifts no refemblance between the cafe of a primitive convert, who difputed the jurifdiction of the Roman government over a disciple of Christianity, and his, who, acknowledging the general authority of the fate over all its fubjects, doubts, whether that authority be not, in fome important branch of it, fo ill conftituted or abufed, as to warrant the endeavours of the people to bring about a reformation

by force; nor can we judge what reply the Apoftles would have made to this fecond queftion, if it had been propofed to them, from any thing they have delivered upon the firft; any more than in the two confultations above defcribed, it could be known beforehand, what I would fay in the latter, from the anfwer which I gave to the former.

The only defect in this account is, that neither the fcriptures, nor any fubfequent hiftory of the early ages of the church, furnish any direct atteftation of the existence of fuch difaffected fentiments amongst the primitive converts. They fupply indeed fome circumftances, which render probable the opinion, that extravagant notions of the political rights of the Christian state were at that time entertained by many profelytes to the religion. From the question proposed to Chrift, "Is it lawful to give tribute unto Cæfar ?" it may be prefumed that doubts had been started in the Jewish schools concerning the obligation, or even the lawfulness, of fubmiffion to the Roman yoke. The accounts delivered by Jofephus, of various infurrections of the Jews of that and the following age, excited by this principle, or upon this pretence, confirm the prefumption. Now, as the Chriftians were at first chiefly taken from the Jews, confounded with them by the reft of the world, and, from the affinity of the two religions, apt to intermix the doctrines of both, it is not to be wondered at, that a tenet, fo flattering to the felf-importance of those who embraced it, fhould have been communicated to the new inftitution. Again, the teachers of Christianity, amongst the privileges which their religion conferred upon its profeffors, were wont to extol the "liberty into which they were called"—" in which Chrift had made them free." This liberty, .which was intended of a deliverance from the vari ous fervitude, in which they had heretofore lived, to the domination of finful paffions, to the fuperfition of the Gentile idolatry, or the incumbered ritual of the Jewish difpenfation, might by fome beinterpreted to fignify an emancipation from all re

ftraint, which was impofed by an authority merely human. At least they might be represented by their enemies as maintaining notions of this dangerous tendency. To fome error or calumny of this kind, the words of St. Peter feem to allude: "For fo is the will of God, that with well-doing ye may put to filence the ignorance of foolish men: as free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, (i. e. fedition) but as the fervants of God." After all, if any one think this conjecture too feebly fupported by teftimony, to be relied upon in the interpretation of fcripture, he will then revert to the confiderations alleged in the preceding part of this Chapter.

After fo copious an account of what we apprehend to be the general defign and doctrine of thefe much agitated paffages, little need be added in explanation of particular claufes. St. Paul has faid, "Whofoever refifteth the power, refifteth the ordinance of God." This phrase, "the ordinance of God," is by many fo interpreted, as to authorize the most exalted and fuperftitious ideas of the regal character. But, furely, fuch interpreters have facrificed truth to adulation. For, in the first place, the expreffion, as used by St. Paul, is juft as applicable to one kind of government, and to one kind of fucceffion, as to another-to the elective magiftrates of a pure republic, as to an absolute hereditary monarch. In the next place, it is not affirmed of the fupreme magiftrate exclufively, that he is the ordinance of God; the title, whatever it imports, belongs to every inferior officer of the ftate as much as to the higheft. The divine right of kings is, like the divine right of other magiftratesthe law of the land, or even actual and quiet poffef fion of their office; a right ratified, we humbly prefume, by the divine approbation, fo long as obedience to their authority appears to be neceflary or conducive to the common welfare. Princes are ordainel of God by virtue only of that general decree, by which he affents, and adds the fanction of his will, to every law of fociety, which promotes his own pur

pofe, the communication of human happiness: according to which idea of their origin and conftitution, (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, confiftently with the intereft of the community to which we belong, is civil liberty; that is to fay, the only liberty to be desired in a state of civil fociety. I should with, no doubt, to be allowed to act in ev-. ery inftance as I pleafed; but I reflect that the reft alfo of mankind would then do the fame; in which ftate of univerfal independence and felf-direction, I fhould meet with fo many checks and obftacles to my own will, from the interference and oppofition of other men's, that not only my happiness, but my liberty, would be lefs, than whilft the whole community were fubject to the dominion of equal laws.

The boafted liberty of a ftate of nature exifts only in a state of folitude. In every kind and degree of union and intercourfe with his fpecies, it is poffible that the liberty of the individual may be augmented by the very laws which reftrain it because he may gain more from the limitation of other men's freedom than he fuffers by the diminution of his own. Natural liberty is the right of common upon a wafte; civil liberty is the fafe, exclufive, unmolefted enjoyment of a cultivated inclofure.

The definition of civil liberty above laid down, imports that the laws of a free people impofe no restraint upon the private will of the fubject, which do not conduce in a greater degree to the public happiness:

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by which it is intimated, 1. that reftraint itself is an evil; 2. that this evil ought to be overbalanced by fome public advantage; 3. that the proof of this advantage lies upon the legislature; 4. that a law being found to produce no fenfible good effects, is a fufficient reafon for repealing it, as adverfe and injurious to the rights of a free citizen, without demanding fpecific evidence of its bad effects. This maxim might be remembered with advantage in a revifion of many laws of this country; efpecially of the game laws; of the poor laws, fo far as they lay reftrictions upon the poor themfelves-of the laws againft papifts and diffenters: and, amongst people enamoured to excefs and jealous of their liberty, it seems a matter of furprife that this principle has been fo imperfectly attended to.

The degree of actual liberty always bearing, according to this account of it, a reverfed proportion to the number and feverity of the reftrictions which are either useless, or the utility of which does not outweigh the evil of the reftraint; it follows that every nation poffeffes fome, 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 loft, nor recovered, by any fingle regulation, change, or event whatever; that, confequently, thofe popular phrafes which speak of a free people; of a nation of flaves; which call one revolution the era of liberty; or another the lofs of it; with many expreffions of a like abfolute form, are intelligible only in a comparative fenfe.

Hence alfo we are enabled to apprehend the diftinction between perfonal and civil liberty. A citizen of the freeft republic in the world may be imprifoned for his crimes; and though his perfonal freedom be reftrained by bolts and fetters, fo long as his confinement is the effect of a beneficial public law, his civil liberty is not invaded. If this inftance appear dubious, the following will be plainer. A paflenger from the Levant, who, upon his return to England,