Liberty -- Early works to 1800; Political science -- Early works to 1800; Toleration -- Early works to 1800
relying on him for their ecclesiastical polity, are by a strange fate
carried to deny those principles upon which he builds it. Whether they
are herein made the tools of cunninger workmen, to pull down their own
fabric, they were best look. This I am sure, their civil policy is so
new, so dangerous, and so destructive to both rulers and people, that as
former ages never could bear the broaching of it; so it may be hoped,
those to come, redeemed from the impositions of these Egyptian
under-task-masters, will abhor the memory of such servile flatterers,
who, whilst it seemed to serve their turn, resolved all government into
absolute tyranny, and would have all men born to, what their mean souls
fitted them for, slavery.
Sect. 240. Here, it is like, the common question will be made, Who shall
be judge, whether the prince or legislative act contrary to their trust?
This, perhaps, ill-affected and factious men may spread amongst the
people, when the prince only makes use of his due prerogative. To this I
reply, The people shall be judge; for who shall be judge whether his
trustee or deputy acts well, and according to the trust reposed in him,
but he who deputes him, and must, by having deputed him, have still a
power to discard him, when he fails in his trust? If this be reasonable
in particular cases of private men, why should it be otherwise in that
of the greatest moment, where the welfare of millions is concerned, and
also where the evil, if not prevented, is greater, and the redress very
difficult, dear, and dangerous?
Sect. 241. But farther, this question, (Who shall be judge?) cannot
mean, that there is no judge at all: for where there is no judicature on
earth, to decide controversies amongst men, God in heaven is judge. He
alone, it is true, is judge of the right. But every man is judge for
himself, as in all other cases, so in this, whether another hath put
himself into a state of war with him, and whether he should appeal to
the Supreme Judge, as Jeptha did.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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