In the latter we find another system similar in many respects to the former; which, although it was originally formed perhaps for the necessary defence of a barbarous people, against the inroads and invasions of her neighbouring nations; yet, for the same purposes of tyranny, cruelty and lust, which had dictated the _canon_ law, it was soon adopted by almost all the Princes of Europe, and wrought into the constitutions of their government.--It was originally a code of laws, for a vast army in a perpetual encampment.--The general was invested with the sovereign propriety of all the lands within the territory.--Of him, his servants and vassals, the first rank of his great officers held the lands; and in the same manner, the other subordinate officers held of them; and all ranks and degrees, held their lands, by a variety of duties and services, all tending to bind the chains the faster, on every order of mankind. In this manner, the common people were holden together, in herds and clans, in a state of servile dependance on their Lords; bound, even by the tenure of their lands to follow them, whenever they commanded, to their wars; and in a state of total ignorance of every thing divine and human, excepting the use of arms, and the culture of their lands. But, another event still more calamitous to human liberty, was a wicked confederacy, between the two systems of tyranny above described.--It seems to have been even stipulated between them, that the temporal grandees should contribute every thing in their power to maintain the ascendency of the priesthood; and that the spiritual grandees, in, their turn, should employ that ascendency over the consciences of the people, in impressing on their minds, a blind, implicit obedience to civil magistracy.-- Thus, as long as this confederacy lasted, and the people were held in ignorance; Liberty, and with her, knowledge, and virtue too, seem to have deserted the earth; and one age of darkness succeeded another, till GOD, in his benign Providence, raised up the champions, who began and conducted the Reformation.--From the time of the Reformation, to the first settlement of America, knowledge gradually spread in Europe, but especially in England; and in proportion as that increased and spread among the people, ecclesiastical and civil tyranny, which I use as synonymous expressions, for the _canon_ and _feudal_ laws, seem to have lost their strength and weight. The people grew more and more sensible of the wrong that was done them, by these systems; more and more impatient under it; and determined at all hazards to rid themselves of it; till, at last, under the execrable race of the Stuarts, the struggle between the people and the confederacy aforesaid of temporal and spiritual tyranny, became formidable, violent and bloody.----