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Show I! I ‘mum I I W" ll I ‘ m its) <35) wholefome and necellhry rei‘traints of goVern~ «\ 'T‘T-"‘" I ‘u a ment. May God rebuke them for, and forgive them this wrong i Let none fufpeét that, becaufe I thus urge the duty of cultivating a clofe harmony witn our mother» country, and a dutiful hibnnllion to the King and it'arliament, our chief grievances being redrelibd, l mean to dillwade people Fro n havrng a jul'l; concern {or their own rights, or legal, con- {iitutional iiiririlegcs. Iliilory, one. may prelume to fay, ail‘ords no example or" any nation, coun~ try or people long Free, who did not take fome care of themlclves; and endeavour to guard and fecurc their own liberties. Power is of a grafp- ing, encroaching nature, in all beings, exceptin IFl may be indulged here in laying a few Words more, refpeé‘ting my norions of liberty in general, fuch as they are, it (hall be as Follows. Having been initiated, in youth, in the doctrines of civil liberty, as they were taught by fuch men as Plato, Demolihenes, Cicero and other renowned perfons among the ancients ; and fuch as Sidney and Milton, Locke and Hoad» lcy, among the modems; Iliked them; they feemed rational. Having, earlier {till learnt from the holy feriptures, that wife, brave and vertuous men were always friends to liberty; that God gave the Ifraelires a King [or abflalute Monarch] in his anger, becaufe they had not Ride HIM, to whom it emphatically " belongeth ; and virtue enough to like a Free common-wealth, and to have himfelf for their King; that the Son and who is the only King that, in a religious or ofGod came. down from heaven,- to make us moral (chic, "can do no wrong." Power aims at "" free indeed"; and that "where the Spirit ot‘the extending; itfelt‘, and operating according to mererwifi, whcreevcr it meets with no ballance, check, Lord is, there is liberty"; this made me conclude, that freedom was a great blclling. Having, alfo, conttoul or oppofition of any kind. For which reafon it will always be necellary, as was faid from my childhood up, by the kind providence or" my God, and the tender care or a good pa~ before, for thofe who would preferve and per» rent now at rcfi with Him, been educated to the petuare their liberties, to guard them with a love of~ liberty, tho' not oflicentioulhefs ; which challe and virtuous paflion was {till increalied in wakeful attention; and in all righteous, juli and prudent ways. to oppofe the firll encroachments on them. " Ohlla principiis." After a while it will be too late. Forin the flares and kingdoms relinquifh the fair object of my youthful tattle of this world, it happens as it does in the field tions, LI B ERTY ; whole charms, inflead of~ de~ or church, according to the well-known parable, caying with time in my eyes, have daily capri» vated me more and more. Iwas, accordingly, me, as I advanced towards, and into, manhood ; I would not, I cannot now, tho' palt middle age, to this purpofe; That while menfleq), than the enemy comet/2 and flay/ell) fares, which cannot be penetrated with the molt fenfible grief, when, rooted out again till the end (3/ tbs world, with- ‘ about the jig/z? gf Armeméer [ivy/E, that day film]:- out rooting out the "retreat with them. If W 14 1‘ 7 . A7 .‘.,._: L |