for each. By the laws of most nations, multitudes, as it has been elsewhere said, have not where to lay their heads (v. 10.) If, then, these laws are in accordance with the divine law-God can be neither wise, powerful, nor benevolent, -as he is the prime Author of obliging men viciously to associate; thereby consigning multitudes to a state of irremediable ignorance! and slavery! and poverty! and misery! and vice! Thus, shipwreck is made of their temporal well-being, and their eternal happiness is greatly endangered ;-and, in addition, multitudes of human beings who would arise under a different constitution of things, are prevented from being called into existence.Should these pages fall into the hands of any of the faithful servants of Heaven, they may perhaps consider some apology due for this language. None is however, offered, as the fault is not with the author, but with those who render any language, however powerful, mere inanity, compared with their inconceivable iniquity: i. e., the makers of the laws to which allusion has been made. (5-14 to 20.)

21. No want of wisdom, power, or benevolence, can be ascribed to the Most High; as is evident from the constitution of human nature and the revelation he has been pleased to make of his will; both these evincing, in language impossible to be misunderstood, by those who use their faculties properly, that the rights of men are as they have been stated. (5-177.)

22. We thus obtain satisfactory answers to two most important questions, namely,-what are the rights of every man that comes into the world?-and what are the legitimate functions of government? And the reader will not fail to observe, that as the rights of men accrue to them by the Law of Nature which is older than the creation, and the Law of Revelation communicated to mankind upwards of 1800 years since; such rights emanate to every man immediately from God, irrespective of, and antecedent to, the formation, not only of governments, but of the entire nations also; whence alone governments can lawfully emanate.-We may thus perceive, that TO DETERMINE THE RIGHTS OF MEN IS THE PREROGATIVE OF GOD ALONE.

TO PRESERVE THOSE RIGHTS INVIOLATE, IT IS INCUMBENT ON

A NATION TO APPOINT A LAWFUL GOVERNMENT.

FAITHFULLY TO EXECUTE THIS GREAT TRUST IS THE PROVINCE OF SUCH GOVERNMENT.

23. The determination of what the rights of men are, must, therefore, not be confounded with the securing of them. Both the determination and the mode by which they are secured, are declared in the divine law. The determination is the act of God, irrespective of all human influence. The securing them is the act of men conforming to the rule given them by God. 24 The only lawful province of government being to secure

men's rights,-whatever these rights are, must be irrespective of all government. If men did not infringe the rights of each other, they would want no government. And when one is established, it must be by consent or force. If some by force exclusively appropriate the political right to themselves (in establishing or maintaining a government), they obviously do that to others they would not have done to themselves, and thus violate the divine law. How can men love others as themselves if they take from them their liberty, or the property in the land, irrespective of the formation of governments?--How can men love others as themselves, if, in forming and maintaining governments, they abstract from them their equal share of the political right,-this being the only means they have of securing their other rights;-without which they are liable to the evils just mentioned. (16, 17, 20)? This matter may be otherwise shewn as follows:-If the nature and functions of governments have not been rightly stated, one, or more than one person in a nation, must have the right to make and execute the laws, or, what is equivalent to this, appoint those that shall make and execute the laws; whilst others would be bound only to yield obedience to laws so made and executed: and, if so, it must refer to one, or more than one nation; and to one, or more than one of its generations; but, that it can never apply to any person or persons, in any nation or age whatever, is thus evident. As to those who have to yield obedience only to laws made and executed by others, in whose appointment they have had no voice, the divine law is, as we have just said, utterly contravened. And this refers both to those who appoint others to make and execute the laws, and the persons so appointed; these two classes of persons obviously doing to others what they would not have done unto themselves. If any person or persons in any country or age can exact such obedience, any others may do the same, and consequently all others, in all nations and ages. On which supposition, the whole human race may become governors, though they would, of course, be without any to govern: or rather, a human goverment could not be appointed at all. But this is not to be supposed. All which will appear yet more evident, by reference to the third and fourth Canons of the divine law. (i. 39, 40). We thus see that men's rights are precisely the same either with or without the existence of governments. This must be evident, from considering that the sole legitimate function of government is to prevent the abstraction of all right from any.

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25. There is,' says Paul, no power but of God.' The Most High having assigned rights to men, has afforded them the power of preserving them inviolate, by giving to all nearly equal portions of bodily energy; and the whole powers of a nation, uniting for the establishment and support of a lawful

government, are, under the divine blessing, fully able to preserve their rights from violation either by their own countrymen or foreigners. The acquisition of property necessarily infers the protection of it; as that which is open to every lawless invader, is so little deserving the name of property, that it is not worth the trouble of retaining. If one were to sow, but not reap; tread the olives but not anoint with oil; and make wine, but not drink it: nothing more miserable could be imagined, -slavery, or death itself, would be preferable. We find in the Mosaic code the following malediction:- Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's landmark. And all the people shall say amen.' We also find Solomon giving this caution:- Enter not into the fields of the fatherless, for their Redeemer is mighty; he shall plead their cause with thee.' It was therefore indispensable, that landmarks should be set up,-or how would the fields of the fatherless or any other be known; or how any ascertain, whether they were trespassing on the laws either of God or man? It is then abundantly evident, that every thing relating to the rights of men can be declared only by the legislative and executive of any nation, through the laws which they promulgate. Suppose a man had 'violently taken away an house which he builded not,'-the man thus ousted, to have regained possession, must either have resorted to a court of law or to force; but the latter could never be permitted, because, though the man dispossessed would have had just grounds for endeavouring to regain his right, he could not be allowed to do so in this manner: as some neighbour might resort to the same means on another occasion to redress what he considered an injury, but which might be so only in his imagination. Interminable confusion would therefore obviously arise, if, to use a common expression, every man might "take the law into his own hauds;"-not to urge, that the weak, even in a righteous cause, would not be able to prevail against the strong. The laws, and the laws alone, therefore, protect the rights of any and all.

26. That whatever government is established or maintained in any nation or age must be precisely that which the majority chooses, is apparent from considering, that with such majority the power by which alone obedience to laws can be enforced must necessarily reside. That the majority in any nation in any age does not maintain a lawful government, arises only from their allowing themselves to be misruled, contrary to the divine will. Man, says Paine, acquires a knowledge of his rights by attending justly to his interest; and discovers in the event, that the strength and powers of despotism consist wholly in the fear of resisting it; and that, in order to be free, it is sufficient that he wills it.-(Rights of Man.)

27. For the Divine Being to have assigned to men certain rights, and not have afforded each the fullest power of securing

them, would have been only tantalizing the holders of such rights, and worse than affording them only limited ones. But this is not to be supposed.

28. To deny what has been affirmed, is to say, that though God has given men rights and the power of defending them, yet they have no authority from him to exercise that power. This would be equivalent to their not having the rights. And thus the power men possess would be rendered impotent as far as its chief end was concerned. And where the less power and the less rights are, (of men to the unrestricted use of their faculties and property in the land,) i. e. in part of a nation, God will have assigned greater political rights; and where the greater power and greater rights are, i. e. in the whole nation, God will have assigned less political rights. But this again is not to be supposed.

29. The subtracting, on the part of Heaven, the political right of any, makes them less powerful individually, and necessarily therefore makes the association less powerful in the aggregate; a nation being but an aggregate of individuals. And whilst it weakens the nation, it adds in no degree to the power of such as are not excluded from the political right. It only enables these to act by the power of those remaining dormant. But as God does nothing in vain, the putting this supposition for any other purpose than to evince its absurdity, would be a gross reflection on the wisdom and goodness of the Most High; i. e. to imagine that he has given the greater power with the less rights, and necessarily, therefore, the less power with the greater rights; as such a disposition of things would produce the evils already mentioned. (16-20.)

30. The only form of government lawful in the sight of the Lord God Almighty, in any country or age, therefore, is a pure democracy. In all other forms, his most holy law is violated, towards all that are excluded from their share of the political right. (24.)

31. That the political right flows to every man from God, is evident from considering, that it is a man's only means of securing his other rights. God would neither have been wise, powerful, nor benevolent; to have given men certain rights, without affording them also the fullest means of preserving them inviolate. And this can only be done by the democratic form of government.

32. The instant a man enters the world, he acquires immediately from God an exact equality of right with every other man of his nation, by virtue of his being a man. (19.)

33. The instant he arrives at years of maturity, he is entitled to the exercise of that right which he acquired at his birth.

34. The right is a sacred trust committed to him by God, for

the benefit of himself, and in a less or greater degree the whole world throughout its generations. (16 & 18.)

35. And all the obligations and rights of men emanating from the divine law, (i. 23.) no shadow of imperfection can attach to a rule which has God for its Author, or any subordinate laws emanating from such rule. These laws are therefore obviously best adapted to enable men most compendiously to promote their temporal and eternal welfare; as Infinite Wisdom must have best known how, Infinite Power been best able, and Infinite Love been most willing, to promote these great ends. And we have seen, in reference to the productive powers of men, they are attained in the exact ratio, that the practice of men conforms with the law given them by their Great Creator.

36. The divine law is therefore wholly irrespective of time, or place, or number. What contravenes it at one time or place, does so at all times and in all places. What contravenes it from one or more, to another or others, whether of the same or different countries; contravenes it from all men to all men, whether of the same or different nations: this applying to all that have arisen, do now exist, or shall hereafter arise, throughout the whole earth. If constitutions and codes in all countries conformed to the divine law as they ought, what was by human laws illegal in one country, would be exactly the same in the other. As it is illegal for the men of one nation to abstract from those of another, their equal share of the political right, it is equally so for men of the same nation to do it to their countrymen; because, as the laws of all nations should be the same, what they would not tolerate from foreigners towards natives, they of course would not from natives to natives; the divine law, whence all righteous laws emanate, recognizing no distinctions of natives and foreigners, but commanding every man of the whole human race, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' The same proposition strikes different minds with various degrees of force;-to us, that every man that cometh into the world, has a right to an equal share of the political right with the rest of his countrymen; or, as it may be otherwise put, that all the members of the same primary association must have equal rights, appears an intuitive truth; one that it would be as rational to question, as that two and two make four, that the sun shines at noon-day,-that a man is not a tree, that a whole tree is more than half a tree, or any similar truths. As men's obligation to obey the divine law is unchangeable, the means of fulfilling it should be; and, conse quently, the laws in any nation by which those means are se cured to every man. For it is not to be imagined, Infinite Wisdom, Power, and Benevolence, has so constituted human association, as for men, who are always under the same obliga