Parliaments would bind and limit one another, and enact that such and such things shall not be made _Precedents_. There is not a word of Sense in this Language, which yet is to be understood the Sense of the Nation, and is printed as solemnly as if it was Sense. _Of_ PARTIES. The best Party is but a kind of a Conspiracy against the rest of the Nation. They put every body else out of their Protection. Like the _Jews_ to the _Gentiles_, all others are the Offscowrings of the World. Men value themselves upon their Principles, so as to neglect Practice, Abilities, Industry, _&c._ Party cutteth off one half of the World from the other, so that the mutual Improvement of Mens Understanding by conversing, _&c._ is lost, and Men are half undone, when they lose the advantage of knowing what their Enemies think of them. It is like Faith without Works; They take it for a Dispensation from all other Duties, which is the worst kind of _dispensing Power_. It groweth to be the Master Thought; the Eagerness against one another at home, being a nearer Object, extinguisheth that which we ought to have against our foreign Enemies; and few Mens Understandings can get above overvaluing the Danger that is nearest, in comparison of that more remote. It turneth all Thought into talking instead of doing. Men get a habit of being unuseful to the Publick by turning in a Circle of Wrangling and Railing, which they cannot get out of: And it may be remarked, that a _speculative_ Coxcomb is not only unuseful, but mischievous: A _practical_ Coxcomb under discipline may be made use of. It maketh a Man thrust his Understanding into a Corner, and confine it till by degrees he destroys it. Party is generally an Effect of Wantonness, Peace, and Plenty, which beget Humour, Pride, _&c._ and that is called Zeal and publick Spirit. They forget insensibly that there is any body in the World but themselves, by keeping no other Company; so they miscalculate cruelly. And thus Parties mistake their Strength by the same reason that private Men overvalue themselves; for we by finding fault with others, build up a partial Esteem of ourselves upon the Foundation of their Mistakes: So Men in Parties find faults with those in the Administration, not without reason, but forget that they would be exposed to the same Objections, and perhaps greater, if it was their Adversary's turn to have the fault-finding part. There are Men who shine in a Faction, and make a Figure by Opposition, who would stand in a worse light, if they had the Preferments they struggle for. It looketh so like _Courage_ (but nothing that is like is the same) to go to the _Extream_, that Men are carried away with it, and blown up out of their Senses by the wind of popular Applause.