OCR Text |
Show [1' 17 becomes me not to fay, What partieuian form of government is belt {or a community, whether a pure democracy, ariflocracy, monar- E 23 J HAVING thus flrewn the nature, end and chy, or a mixture of all the three iimple forms. They allhave their advantages 8; difadvantages ; and when they are properly adminillred, may any of them anfwer the defign of civil govern« ment tolerably well. Permit me however to fay, that an unlimited abiolute monarchy, and. and an arifiocracy not fubjeet to the controul of the people, are two of the moft exceptions able forms of government. ., Ill. BECAUSE in neither of them is there a. proper reprefentation of the people, and, itchy. BECAuSE each of them being entirely ideiign ofe‘ivil government, and pointed out the reaions, why lubjeets are bound to obey Ina-~ giitrates, viz. becaufe in fo doing, they both confult their own happincls as individuals, and alto promote the public good, and the fafety of the itate : I proceed, IN the next place to fhew, That the fame principles that oblige us to l‘ubmit to civil government, do alfo equally oblige us, where we have: power and ability, to relift and oppole tyranny; and that where tyranny begins, government ends. For if magilhates have no authority" but what they derive from the people, if they are properly of human creation ; if the whole independent otthe people, they are very apt to end and delign of their inilitution is to pro- degenerate into tyranny. However, in this mote the general good, and to fecure to men imperfect fiate, we cannot expect to have go. their jult rights, it will follow, that when they vernment formed upon fuch a bafis, but that it; maybe perverted by bad men to evil purpofcso at}: contrary to the end and delign of their creation, they ceaie being magiftrates, and the A wrie and good man would be very loth to people, which gave them their authority, have Undermine a conilitution, that was once fixed and efiablifhed, altho' he might difcover ma- a right to take it from them again. ny imperfoétions in it; and nothing; {hort of the molt urgent neceflity would evler induce him to content to it ; became the unhinging a people from a form ol goverment to which they had been long ateuilomed, might throw This is a very plain dictate of common tent-3, which uni4 verfally obtains in all {imilar cafes : for who is there, that having employ'd a number ofinen to do a particular piece of work for him, but what would judge that he had a right to dif- mifs them from his l‘crvice, when he found, them into inch a hate of anarchy and confufh on :8 might terminate in their defiruélion, or that they went directly contrary to his orders; pernaps in the end {abject than to the worft he had fetthem about, they would inlhllibly land of tyranny. ruin and dellroy it. If then men in the com~ mon affairs of life always judge, that they‘have. Havmc and that infiead of aceompliihing the bulinelh a right to difmiis from their ilrvice Inch per011‘ |