like beasts of prey, they sought subsistence

by rapine.

Nor did one dictate of revealed religion attempt to counteract the first law of nature, self-preservation, or to prevent the weak and the just from forming themselves into societies, and framing regulations, to protect themselves from the injuries of the strong and the unjust. Regulations, framed with coolness, deliberation, and caution at the first, established by consent of the majority of wise and good men, and by long experience of their utility, are called laws: nor are these necessary to the good alone, but also to the bad.

Without an adherence to some laws, not even thieves can preserve society: bands of robbers have found it necessary to be invincibly true one to another, and just in the distribution of their plunder; if not, the band is broken, and their attacks, by being

single

single and unsupported, are rendered but the more dangerous to themselves; not to mention the angry passions and treacheries that ever arise from disappointed confidence, which must dissolve societies, whether good or bad. These, therefore, pretend to submit to laws of HONOUR even in deeds of DISHONOUR, and find the necessity of JUSTICE in the very commission of INJUSTIce.

Mankind are no longer to be considered in an individual state; all find the necessity of uniting to supply their mutual wants, and to have their mutual weaknesses protected. For protection, they are bound to repay obedience; and those writers who would bring them back to a state of nature, are certainly deceived themselves, or have some selfish end in deceiving others, and should be treated, not as the friends, but as the enemies of liberty. Unqualified liberty is contrary to reason and justice, for the enjoyment of our

own

66

own rights is qualified with this proviso, that we do not infringe the rights of others. According to the design of the Creator of the Universe, property is acquired by skill or labour, and lost by weakness or indolence; and, according to human reason, and natural justice, property fairly acquired, must be quietly possessed, may be disposed of according to the will of the possessor, and when acquired by the father, must not be wrested from the son. Every individual feels "that he has an exclusive right to possess "or to alienate whatever he has acquired by "his own labour and dexterity,"* for none would endeavour to gain property, if they could not both possess it absolutely, and dispose of it at pleasure. The peasant is concerned in the confirmation of this truth, in like manner as the prince, for in a new and arbitrary distribution of property, he might, by a parity of argument, be obliged to share the

* Robertson.

little

little he has with the indolent and lawless who have nothing. None of the gainers in this case would deserve what they got, and all the losers would be absolutely robbed; for what can robbery be defined, but the act of taking away, by force, contrary to the will of another, and without giving an equivalent, his property.* From this concise and primary view of the natural necessity of laws, let us consider the excellency of those which the Almighty gave to the Jews by his servant Moses, and of those which his infinite goodness was pleased further to bestow upon mankind by his Son Jesus Christ.

* Men are not even born equal; they are unequal in bo dily strength; and if they were to depend upon the merc cultivation of the earth for subsistence, the stronger would soon become possessed of greater property than the weaker.

Every man is anxious to be protected in the rights appropriate to his station; and not only bodily possessions, but those of learning and rank, upon wbich the possessor sets his own value, should not be torn from him, for in this case we contradict flatly the law of Christ: "Do unto all (6 men as ye would they should do unto you." We say, we will enjoy our rights, but you shall not enjoy yours.

The

The detail of truth so uniformly observed in that authentic book, the Bible, rendered

it necessary to represent the Jews as they really were, rebellious and ungrateful; though they were the people of God, the nation wherein idolatry was the least practised, they were fallen men; and if we find these bad qualities still existing among Christians of the present day, we ought the less to wonder at perceiving them among those, who had not yet the benefit of that grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ. Strange as it may appear, scarce delivered as the Jews were from the most cruel slavery, with all the wonders of Almighty God fresh in their minds, they paid their adoration to a senseless image, the work of their own hands: in aggravation of such absurd impiety, it was the very idol of their unjust tyrants, the golden calf being nothing less than the representation of the Egyptian God (Apis, Se