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noife and wrath will not always pass for zeal What other inftances of zeal hath this gentleman, or the rest of his party, been able to produce? if clamour be noife, it it is but opening our ears to know from what fide it comes; and, if fedition, fcurrility, flander, and calumny, be the fruit of wrath, read the pamphlets and papers iffuing from the zealots of that faction, or vifit their clubs and coffee-houses, in order to form a judgment of the three.

When Mr. Steele tells us, we have religion, that wants no fupport from the enlargement of fecular power, but is well supported by the wisdom and piety of its preachers, and its own native truth; it would be good to know what religion he professeth for the clergy, to whom he speaks, will never allow him a member of the church of England. They cannot agree, that the truth of the gofpel, and the piety and wisdom of its preachers, are a fufficient support, in an evil age, against infidelity, faction, and vice, without the affiftance of fecular power; unlefs God would please to confer the gift of miracles on thofe who wait at the altar. I believe they venture to go a little further, and think, that, upon fome occafions, they want a little enlargement of affiftance from the fecular power, against Atheists, Deifts, Socinians, and other heretics. Every first Sunday in Lent, a part of the Liturgy is read to the people; in the preface to which, the church declares her wishes for the reftoring of that difcipline fhe formerly had, and which, for fome years paft, hath been more

wanted

wanted than ever. But of this no more, left it might infinuate jealoufies between the clergy and laity; which, the author tells us, is the policy of vain ambitious men among the former, in hopes to derive from their order a veneration they cannot deferve from their virtue. If this be their method for procuring veneration, it is the moft fingular that ever was thought on; and the clergy would then indeed have no more to do with politics of any fort, than Mr. Steele, or his faction, will allow them.

Having thus toiled through his dedication; I proceed to confider his preface, which, half confifting of quotation, will be fo much the fooner got through. It is a very unfair thing in any writer, to employ his ignorance and malice together; because it gives his answerer double work: it is like the fort of fophiftry that the logicians call two mediums, which are never allowed in the fame fyllogifm. A writer with a weak head, and a corrupt heart, is an over-match for any fingle pen; like a hireling jade, dull and vicious, hardly able to ftir, yet offering at every turn to kick.

He begins his preface with fuch an account of the original of power, and the nature of civil inftitutions, as, I am confident, was never once imagined by any writer upon government, from Plato to Mr. Locke. Give me leave to transcribe his first paragraph. I never faw an unruly crowd of people cool by degrees into temper, but it gave me an idea of the original of power, and the nature of civil inftitutions. One particular man has ufually,

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in thofe cafes, from the dignity of his appearance, or other qualities known or imagined by the multitude, been received into fudden favour and authority; the occafion of their difference has been represented to him, and the matter referred to his decifion.

I have known a poet, who was never out of England, introduce a fact by way of fimile, which 'could probably no where happen nearer than in the plains of Lybia; and begin with, fo have I feen*. Such a fiction, I suppose, may be justified by poetical licence; yet Virgil is much more modeft. This paragraph of Mr. Steele's, which he fets down as an observation of his own, is a miferable mangled translation of fix verses out of that famous poet, who speaks after this manner: As when a fedition arifes in a great multitude, &c. then if they fee a wife, grave man, &c. Virgil, who lived but a little after the ruin of the Roman republic, where feditions often happened, and the force of oratory was great among the people, made use of a fimile, which Mr. Steele turns into a fact, after fuch a manner, as if he had feen it an hundred times; and builds upon it a system of the origin of government. When the vulgar here in England affemble in a riotous manner (which is not very frequent of late years) the prince takes a much more effectual way than that of fending orators to appease them but Mr. Steele imagines fuch a crowd of people as this, where there is no government at all; their unruFinefs quelled, and their paffions cooled by a particular

See chap. 5. of the epi Batus, vol. VE

:

cular man, whose great qualities they had known before. Such an affembly muft have rifen fuddenly from the earth, and the man of Authority dropt from the clouds; for, without fome previous form of government, no such crowd did ever yet affemble, or could poffibly be acquainted with the merits and dignity of any particular man among them. But, to pursue his scheme: This man of authority, who cools the crowd by degrees, and to whom they all appeal, must of neceffity prove either an open or clandeftine tyrant. A clandeftine

tyrant, I take to be a king of Brentford, who keeps his army in disguise; and whenever he happens either to die naturally, be knock'd on the head, or depofed, the people calmly take further measures and improve upon what was begun under his unlimited power. All this, our author tells us, with extreme propriety, is what seems reasonable to common fenfe; that is, in other words, it feems reafonable to reafon. This is what he calls giving an idea of the originai of power, and the nature of civil inftitutions. To which I anfwer, with great phlegm, that I defy any man alive to fhew me, in double the number of lines, although writ by the fame author, fuch a complicated ignorance. in hiftory, human nature, or politics, as well as in the ordinary proprieties of thought or of style.

But it feems thefe profound fpeculations were only premifed to introduce fome quotations in favour of refiftance. What hath refiftance to do with the fucceffion of the houfe of Hanover, that the whig writers fhould perpetually affect to tag

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them together? I can conceive nothing elfe, but that their hatred to the QUEEN and miniftry, puts them upon thoughts of introducing the fucceffor by another revolution. Are cafes of extreme neceffity to be produced as common maxims, by which we are always to proceed? Should not these gentlemen fometimes inculcate the general rule of obedience, and not always the exception of refistance? fince the former hath been the perpetual dictate of all laws both divine and civil, and the latter is ftill in difpute.

I fhall meddle with none of the paffages he cites, to prove the lawfulnefs of refifting princes, except that from the prefent Lord Chancellor's fpeech, in defence of Dr. Sacheverel : That there are extraordinary cafes, cafes of neceffity, which are implied, although not expreffed, in the general rule [of obedience.] These words, véry clear in themfelves, Mr. Steele explains into nonfenfe; which, in any other author, I fhould fufpect to have been intended us a reflection upon as great a person as ever filled or adorned that high station: but I am fo well acquainted with his pen, that I much more wonder how it can trace out a true quotation, than a false comment. To see him treat my Lord Harcourt with fo much civility, looks indeed a little fufpicious, and as if he had malice in his heart. He calls his Lordship a ̈very great mani,

and

*Sir Simon Harcourt, who, at the time of Sacheverel's trial, had refigned his place of Attorney-General, which he afterwards accepted again; upon the change of the ministry, he was made Lord-keeper, and in 1711 created a Baron. Hawkef.

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