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; the very evidence of our fenfes, the very teftimony of univer- . fal experience, the very feeing and feeling of all mankind." P. 10. The refult of Mr. W's reafoning on thefe topics is clearly and forcibly expreffed.

"Man comes into the world, man has always come, in the obedience of a child to a parent, in the fubmiflion of a fubject to a fovereign; and GoD would not fuffer even one flight loop-hole of difobedience to escape him, in the mixt, the feemingly equal, authority of husband and wife. He clofed up this very loop-hole by placing the wife below the hufband, and then made the children of both subject relatively to both, by the very neceffities of their nature. He even added in his fecond code of Revelation exprefsly, that "there is no power BUT OF GOD, the powers that be ARE ORDAINED OF GOD †. He thus declared, as with a voice from heaven, that every power, legal in its commencement, or not encroaching upon any legal right in its continuance, participates in the general appointment of providence, fhares in the general fanétions given by providence to government, and is entitled in the name of providence to the general obedience of its fubjects.” P. 14.

Having proved, from fuch incontrovertible authority, that government was not, in point of fact, originally founded on the will of man, Mr. W. next proceeds, and in a manner equally convincing, to fhow that it is impoffible that it ever can be fo founded. And here, what will appear extraordinary, he does not hesitate to refer the question to an authority, to which the advocates for the contrary fyftem will bow with reverence-even Mr. Locke himself.

"But on fuch a principle no government could poffibly exift. Every individual in the fociety must concur, to fabricate it at firft; and every individual must unite, to continue it afterwards. Such an union, and fuch a concurrence, we know to be both impoffible in themselves.

"They are actually acknowledged to be fo, by the very forgers of fuch fantastical polities. Thus, as fays one who is an oracle to the multitude upon this fubject, but who, like other oracles, had better have been dumb when he spoke, even LOCKE;" Men being by na ture all free, equal, and independent no one CAN BE PUT OUT OF

We must confefs that we feel fometimes ftartled at the strength of expreffion which this powerful writer allows himself to ufe; this is one inftance of it another occurs in p. 12. where he speaks of the fottifhnefs, imputed to God in fuppofing him not to have erected a form of polity for man. It feems being too daringly fure of an hypothefis, to pronounce that if God had not acted according to it he would have acted fottifhly. We know the intentional reverence and true piety of the writer, but we have not his courage. "Deus non dedit nobis fpiritum Lutheri."

+ 1 Rom. xiii. 1.

This limitation proves, what we intimated in the opening of this article, that the author does not mean to go the lengths of Sir Robert Filmer.

THIS

THIS ESTATE, and SUBJECTED TO THE POLITICAL POWER OF ANOTHER, WITHOUT HIS OWN CONSENT." This falfeft of all falfe pofitions I have fufficiently refuted already, and therefore LocKE himself thall now refute it for me. For, in order to continue the delufive vifion which he has thus raifed, he inftantly speaks in this contradictory ftrain, and fo makes the vifion to vanish immediately, " If the confent of the majority," he obferves," fhall not in reafon be received as the act of the whole, and conclude every individual; nothing, but the confent of every individual, can make any thing to be the act of the whole but SUCH A CONSENT IS NEXT TO IMPOSSIBLE TO BE HAD, if we confider the infirmities of health and avocations of bufinefs, which, in a number less than that of a commonwealth, will neceffarily keep many away from the publick affembly. To which if we add the variety of opinions and contrariety of interefts, which unavoidably happen in all collections of men; THE COMING INTO SOCIETY UPON SUCH TERMS, would be-only TO GO OUT AGAIN." Our author is thus forced by the fuggeftions of common fense, to deny that very confent of every individual to the continuance of the government, which he has made abfolutely neceffary to the creation of it; and, to the fhame of all confiftency, now pronounces it next to impoffible to be had." P. 18.

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This argument is purfued, in a train of clofe reasoning. urged with peculiar energy, to a masterly conclufion, which completely overthrows the fanciful fyltem of Locke, and tends to create furprife, that a system so radically defective, thould fo long have continued to command refpect; fhould fo long have eluded the attacks of reason, and the test of examination. Mr. W. next shows, that MONARCHY is the original and lawful form of government for man, and that a REPUBLIC is only the fpurious and illegitimate offspring of human vanity and human weakness. The keen genius of Attica led the Athenians first to invert the pyramid of government, in forming a Republic. The example of Athens was followed by all the ftates of Greece, which, in various modifications of a republican form of government, vainly fought after that hapPinefs which they had expected to derive from the erection of their new political fyftems.

Though the wretchedness which had been introduced among the Greeks, by the dangerous fpirit of innovation, was extreme, yet fuch was their infatuation, that they preferred the adoption of a stupid policy, which only led to an exchange of calamities, to the effectual cure refulting from the application of the axe to the root of the evil. They liftened to the plaufible fophiftry of political Empirics, considered vain profellions of

Locke's Works. 11, Treatife of Civil Government, B. 2. Ch. 8. P. 185.

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BRIT, CRIT. VOL. V. APRIL, 1795.

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attachment to the caufe of freedom, as affording a valid title to their confidence, and hailed as their friend and deliverer every factious declaimer on reform. "Thefe declared," fays Plutarch himself at a particular period of their Sicilian Hiftory, "that the end of their coming was to introduce liberty and depofe monarchs; but they did fo tyrannize themselves, that the reign of the tyrants feemed A GOLDEN AGE, compared with the rule of thefe deliverers; which made the Sicilians to esteem thofe more happy who had expired in flavery, than they who furvived to fee SUCH A FREEDOM*. On the entry of Timoleon into Syracufe, their capital, he found the market-place overgrown with grafs, and the whole city exhibited the moft unequivocal fymptoms of depopulation and diftrefs: "He, therefore, invited the emigrants to come back, and re-inhabit their defolated city;" few, however, came, "fo much," adds the hiftorian in a ftrain remarkably appofite to modern times, "did they DREAD and ABHOR the very NAME of those COMMUNITIES, and MUNICIPALITIES, and TRIBUNALS, which had PRODUCED THE GREATEST PART OF THEIR TYRANTSt." After tracing the effects of republicanifm in Rome, our author adverts to the establishment of a commonwealth in our own country, in contradiction to the general fentiments of the people.

"The great mafs of the nation, as far as we can judge of national maffes upon fuch occafions, was averfe to a Republick and attached to a Monarchy. But the patrons of liberty, and the leaders of rebellion, whatever they may fay in order to become leaders and patrons, never think of majorities when they can fecure power, and never caft one eye back upon the people, by whom they have been raised into authority." P. 34.

This remark is juftified by the general conduct of popular demagogues, in all ages, and in all nations. Nor have the following obfervations upon Republics lefs truth in them, though they have more originality.

"A Republick indeed bears generally three fignatures of its own illegitimacy upon its forehead. A king poffeffes a crown as an inheritance, it is a family-eftate to him, he is to tranfmit it to his fon, and he can have no intereft fuperior to what he has in his kingdom. But a Republick opens the gate to general avarice, by calling up men into government from the lower ranks of life, by prefenting temptations to their felfifhnefs fuperior to their flate in the fociety, and fo inviting an univerfal fcramble of peculation." P. 35.

Mr. W, in confirmation of this reafoning, adduces the conduct of the English government, during the reign of Cromwell:

*Plutarch. Vit. Timol. p. 115, Edit. Lond. 4to. 1723.

+ Ibid.

This commonwealth, it has been found upon calculation, coft the nation more money in the taxes, levies, and peculations of only ten or twelve years, than had been poffeffed by all our kings combined, in all the fix hundred years from the conqueft before." P. 38.

The fecond prominent feature in the complexion of a Republick, he tells us, is ingratitude,

"Which runs through all its conduct, and difgraces all its annals. This is particularly apparent in the agitated hiftories of Rome and Athens. Scarcely one man rofe up in either, to maintain the cause of his country, to give it fuccefs over its enemies, and to carry its triumphs into other countries, but he foon became envied, hated, and dreaded among the people." P. 39..

So many examples of this kind muft occur to all who are converfant in the hiftories of ancient Republics, that, we deem it unneceffary to lay before our readers any of those which are produced by our author.

One ftriking effect of a Republican form of government, is ftrongly marked in the following paffage, which alfo contains the portrait of a Republican, evidently drawn by the hand of a master, accustomed to study nature with attention, and to copy her with fuccefs.

"Yet there is one more fignature of a commonwealth. A court has always been an inftrument of polishing a nation, introducing a fofter refinement of civility into the higher ranks of life, and fo fpreading a fmoother glofs of manners fucceflively through all. But a Republick has juft a contrary effect. A furly felf-confidence of mind, appears to be the grand characteristick of a Republican. Conceited of his natural rights as a man, conceited of his particular privileges as a commonwealth's man, he becomes in his own imagination a little fovereign, "he alone the king of him t" and the lord of all around him. The fpirit of liberty in general is the effence of tyranny itself, being liberty only as it operates upward, and being rank tyranny as it operates downward. The bravoes of liberty, therefore, have in all ages proved the worst of tyrants. And experience fhows us in the humbler annals of domestick life, that the unkindest brother, the sternest husband, the molt imperious wife, and the moft defpotic father, is commonly a violent partifan for liberty. But when this tyrannical genius of liberty comes to actuate the populace, it works up fuch a ferment of fulky ferocioufnels, from the habits of their minds and

"So directly in the face of fact did Milton talk, when he noticed the frugality of a republican government, when he faid the very trappings of royalty would fet up an ordinary commonwealth! poor man! He knew not the hiftory of his own commonwealth. He knew not, that it had been expenfive to the nation, beyond all the expen fiveness of royalty for fix ages before."

"I alone a king of me." Dryden.

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from the contagion of their numbers; as brutalizes the foul, and barharizes the conduct." P. 41.

From the contemplation of ancient Republics, our author is naturally led to transfer his attention to the modern Republic of France, the fatal confequences of which he justly confiders as affording an apt completion of the hiftory of Republicanifm. After exhibiting a flight but animated sketch of the deftructive progrefs of the new Gallic principles, he prefents us with a true, though bold and difguftful picture of Gallic free

dom.

"We have now beheld LIBERTY marching across the realm of France, in the guife and attitude of an ancient fury; her dagger dyed with blood up to the very hilt, her robe trailing in a stream of blood, and her teeth favagely gnawing the heart of a noble. Clofe behind her we have seen REPUBLICANISM, that Caliban of man's own creation, stalking with a grin of ghattly fatisfaction over a murdered King, a murdered Queen, a murdered Princefs the Sifter of both; and fixing its throne of Equality forfooth! upon myriads of butchered fubjects. We have feen INFIDELITY coming behind them, advancing at first with the mask of Proteftantifm upon his face, then changing it for the mask of General Toleration and Equal Encouragement, but finally cafting off both with the impudence of confeffed hypocrify, throwing his own features in their full deformity to the eye, fcaring all Christendom with the frightful view, and, while angels looked down undoubtedly with horror, ftamping with his cloven foot upon the Cross of Chrift. At the clofe of all we have feen even ATHEISM, that twin-brother to Infidelity, ftill more a monfter in form than Infidelity itself, rearing his forehead fcarred with the thunders of heaven, yet madly rearing it as in defiance of them, but, on hearing them begin to mutter, fhrinking away from view, and hiding himself again under the garments of Infidelity; ready to come forth a fecond time from them, and a fecond time blaft the face of the creation with his appearance." P. 48.

Mr. W. obferves, that if the conduct of the French had only affected themfelves, however we might have deplored the fatal infatuation, we could, at leaft, have viewed the horrid fcene with more compofure. But their attempts to propagate "their own ftupid principles of nature, to violate all the principles of national property, to level all the barriers of national faith, to tear down all the pillars of national obedience; to make

"One fpirit of the first-born Cain
Reign in all bofoms;

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And to fweep away the religion of the Gospel, the very worthip of God, from the face of all the earth;" gave just grounds of offence to furrounding nations, while their hoftile attacks on independent flates rendered active oppofition a matter of

neceflity.

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