neighbours in exacting of them that, for which you have given them no equivalent, will it be sufficient at the great day of judgment to say, that you had an Act of Parliament for doing it? [Familiar Letters addressed to the Inhabitants of Birmingham-page 66, paragraph 3, line 3-published in 1790. Will an Act of Parliament excuse you in the sight of God, for exacting of any man more than in the eye of reason and equity he ought to pay? If an Act of Parliament will not justify the taking inen's lives, neither will it justify the taking their money. [The same paragraph-line 13. II. UPON RESISTANCE TO GOVERNMENT. IF government, though legal and constitutional, has not made sufficient provision for the happiness of the people, no other property, or title by which it may dignified, ought to shelter it from the generous attack of the noble and daring patriot. [Essay on the First Principles of Government, Sect. II. of Political Liberty-page 35, paragraph 2, line 9, to page 36-published in 1791. Governors will never be awed by the voice of the people, so long as it is a mere voice, without overt acts. [Ibid. page 46, 47, paragraph 3, line 24. III. UPON LIBERTY, CIVIL AND POLITICAL. CIVIL liberty extends no farther than to a man's own conduct, and signifies the right he has to be exempt from the controul of the society, or its agents. [Ibid. Sect. I. of the First Principles of Government and the different kinds of Liberty-p. 9, parag. 2, line 7. In countries where a man by his birth or fortune is ex cluded cluded from the supreme offices, or from a power of voting for proper persons to fill them, that man, whatever may be the form of the government, or whatever civil liberty or power over his own actions he may have, has no power over those of another, and therefore has no political liberty at all. Nay, his own conduct, as far as the society does interfere, is in all cases directed by others. It may be said, that no society upon earth was ever formed in the manner represented above.—I answer, it is true, because all governments whatever have been, in some measure, compulsory, tyrannical, and oppressive in their origin; but the method I have described, must be allowed to be the only free, and equitable method of forming a society; and since every man retains, and can never be deprived of his natural right of relieving himself from all oppression, that is, from every thing that has been imposed upon him without his consent; this must be the only true, and proper foundation of all the governments subsisting in the world, and that, to which the people who compose them, have an unalienable right to bring them back. [Ibid. Sect. II. page 11, line 7, to page 12, and IV. OF LEGAL RESTRAINT UPON HUMAN IN truth, the greater part of human actions are of such a nature, that more inconvenience would follow from their being fixed by laws, than from their being left to every man's arbitrary will. [Ibid. Sect. III. of Civil Liberty-p. 52, paragraph 2, line 9. V. OF LEGAL RESTRAINT ON OPINION. IF a man commit murder, let him be punished as a murderer, and let no regard be paid to his plea of conscience for committing the action; but let not the opinions which lead to the action be meddled with. [Ibid. page 113, line 8. VOL. XII. G G VI. RELIGION VI. RELIGION IN GENERAL. BESIDES, though RELIGION, or the belief of a God, a Providence, and a future state, have its use with respect to society, it is not absolutely NECESSARY for that purpose. [Familiar Letters addressed to the Inhabitants of Birmingham-page 55, paragraph 2, line 1. VII. THE BISHOPS AND THE INFERIOR CLERGY. AS to the Clergy, we make ourselves pèrfectly easy about them; for should the Court once more smile upon us, and should the Minister of the day only give a single nod, opposition will vanish as by a charm. [Ibid. page 36, line 10. The Bishops of this reign would in such a case instantly become as those of the last; and as to the inferior Clergy, they would wheel about as quickly as soldiers on a parade, when the word of command is given them in the presence of the King in St. James's Park. [Ibid. line 21. We are the sheep, and (the Clergy) our accusers are the wolves, and say what we will, we must be guilty. [Ibid. page 21, paragraph 2, line 18. VIII. THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. We are now in the situation of the primitive Christians, as the friends of reformation have nothing to expect from power or general favour, but must look for every species of abuse and persecution that the spirit of the times will admit of. If even burning alive was a sight that the country would now bear, there exists a spirit that would inflict that horrid punishment, and with as much cool indifference, and savage exultation as in any preceding ages of the world. [Extract from a SERMON preached for the benefit of Hackney College, and quoted by Dr. Priestley in his Appeal to the Public on the Riots at Bir"mingham." page 23, paragraph 3, line 1, to page 24, line 12. IX. THE IX. THE KING. WHAT has been the return for this unquestionable proof of our loyalty and zeal?-Has it secured to us the gratitude of the King? [Familiar Letters addressed to the Inhabitants of Birmingham-page 15, paragraph 3, line 1. Now it has unfortunately happened, that " another King is arisen who knoweth not Joseph*,” or the obligations that his family are under. [Ibid. page 14. Should THE KING, like Ahasuerus in the book of Esther, vi. 1. not be able to sleep, and call upon one of the Lords of his bed-chamber to read to him out of the book of the records of the Chronicles of the Kings of England, and should there find who had been the most zealous for the revolution under King William-for the accession of the House of Hanover for the suppression of the rebellions in 1715 and 1745-and who took His part in a late change of administration; and then enquire what honour and dignity (ch. vi. 6.) had been done to his friends, and the friends of his family; and learn, that instead of any thing being done to reward, much had been done to mortify, and punish · them; that to this very day they had been persecuted by lies, and calumnies, as men whose laws were diverse from those of all other people, and who do not keep the King's laws, and therefore say, that it is not for the KING's profit to suffer them (ch. iii. 8.): poor despised Mordecai may be advanced, and some other use be made of the gallows that was erected for him. [Ibid. page 36, paragraph 2, line 1. X. THE AMERICAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT. THE Americans ventured to do a great deal more than our ancestors at the Revolution, and set a glorious example to France and the whole world. GG 2 This passage is taken from Scripture. They "Now there arose up "a new King over Egypt, which knew not Joseph." That new King was Pharaob-of all tyrants the most impious and cruel. They formed a completely new government on the principles of equal liberty and the rights of men (as Dr. Price expressively and happily said)" WITHOUT NOBLES"WITHOUT BISHOPS-and WITHOUT A KING." [Letters to Mr. Burke-page 40, line 3— published in 1791. XI. THE LATE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. BY means of national debts the wheels of several European governments are already so much clogged, that it is impossible they should go on much longer. The very Peace Establishment of France could not be kept up any longer; and the same must soon be the situation of other countries. All the causes which have operated to the augmentation of these debts, continue to operate; so that our approach to THIS GREAT CRISIS in our affairs is not equable, but accelerated. [Letters to Mr. Burke-page 153, paragraph 2, line 1. If the condition of other nations be as much bettered, as that of France probably will be by her improved system of government, that GREAT CRISIS, dreadful as it appears in prospect, will be a consummation devoutly to be wished. [Ibid. 154, paragraph 2, line 1. I rejoice to see the warmth with which the cause of orthodoxy, that is, long established opinions, however erroneous, and that of the hierarchy is now taken up by its friends-because, if their system be not well founded, they are only accelerating its destruction. In fact, they are assisting me in the proper disposal of those trains of gunpowder which have been some time accumulating, and at which they have taken so great an alarm, and which will certainly blow it up at length as suddenly as unexpectedly, and as completely as the overthrow of the late arbitrary government in France. [Preface to the Letters to Mr. Burn-page 207 and 208, in the same volume that contains the Familiar.Letters to the Inhabitants of Birmingham. What |