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LETTER I.

ORIGIN, CHARACTER, AND DUTIES OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

Dear Sir,

DID the offering of a few remarks from me upon the subject of this letter require an apology, your request would furnish it. But none is called for. The subject occupies a prominent place in every system of morals; in it every citizen has a deep concern, and to it our attention is called for a purpose very different from that which engages the mere political partisan.

You do not need, nor does the occasion require, that any remark should be made on the several forms of government which have obtained among the nations. You and I perfectly accord in the preference of our own well regulated rperesentative Democracy, to either the oligarchy or the monarchy ; or any modification of these, such as we find in the British empire. All you require, and all I shall give, will be a mere outline of what occurs to me at the moment, upon the subject. You will take the following positions as containing the principles of my political creed, considered abstractly from any existing government; and I flatter myself, when some unhappy prejudices now existing shall have passed away, and when party conflict shall have been forgotten, they will be found in accordance with the views of most, if not of all, reflecting christians and enlightened statesmen.

POSITION I-Civil government is the ordinance of God, as the Creator and Governor of the world, for good to man, founded in the moral law of our social nature, the principles of which law are the standard of its actual constitution and administration.

The social nature of man and his social interests are too clearly seen and felt, to require any argument in proof of

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their existence and importance. The constitution of human nature evinces man to be a subject of moral government.— Between him and his Creator a relation, deeply interesting and of extensive bearing, exists. It is out of this relation the law of our nature arises. That law is stamped with the authority of God. There is no faculty of the soul of man which does not connect him with his Maker; and there is no attribute of Deity, known to us, which does not connect him with his rational creature. God gave to man this constitution, and thereby expressed his will, that its various principles should · be brought into action. The law of our nature is the result of this constitution, related as it is to him who made us, and to those beings with whom he has connected us in life. Its requisition is, that we should act suitably to our relations, in the employment of the faculties of that constitution given us by the Creator. Thus it appears evident, that, our nature being moral, the law of that nature must likewise be moral. Morality cannot be excluded from it in its social aspects, and, consequently, the law of social man is God's moral law.

This law is common to man. Wherever you find man you find this law extending its authority over him, and demanding of him a conduct corresponding with its requisitions. The social principle of our common nature urges to enter the social state, and our necessities and dangers come forward, powerfully to second its demands. In these the voice of the law of our nature is heard distinctly speaking, and whilst it presses to the same end, it demands that its principles be duly regarded. Thus civil society and its order are founded in the law of nature, which is common to man, and by the principles of that law, as the immediate rule of action, in the constitution and administration of civil government, must man be regulated.

Man's intellectual, as well as his other powers, have greatly suffered by the fall. He has lost his way to heaven, nor can he find it by any exertion of his own. The world by wisdom knew not God. As regards the affairs of the present life, its relations, its obligations, and pursuits; together with a sense of his amenability to God for his conduct, man is neither in the condition of the insensible stock, nor in the state of the irrational tribes of creation. God, in mercy to our world, has preserved on the tablets of the human heart,

notwithstanding its depravity, many important fragments of that law whose inscription upon it was once so full and fair. These having not the law, supernaturally revealed, are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law written in their hearts. This inscription is read in the light of nature, and to it the world owes many a magnificent display of valour, patriotism, and generous actings. Upon the subject of political rights and order, it speaks with peculiar distinctness. "There is nothing of which natural men are better judges, than of the common rights with which humanity has been endowed by its bountiful author."* The voice of nature, speaking in nature's law, confesses God as ordaining civil society, and appointing civil authority to be the guardian of its rights. The Bible in many a page sanctions the declaration. There is no authority except it be of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. By me kings reign and princes decree justice,—even all the judges of the earth. The atheist alone will be found attempting to separate civil government and its operations from God; and it is the fanatic alone, who will endeavour to settle it upon another foundation, than the common law of our com

mon nature.

POSITION II.-Political and Ecclesiastical society are essentially different from each other, in their nature, government, and immediate ends.

Political society is secular, conversant in its constitution and administration with what is external, and not to be permitted by any means, to come within the sanctuary of God. Ecclesiastical society is spiritual, having to do with the consciences of men, for their spiritual advantage; and in the economy which it employs, not going out to mingle in the affairs of state. A careful inquiry into the subject will show the government of the commonwealth and that of the church, to differ in their origin, object, form, end, effect, subject, distinct exercise, and immediate rule. An explanation of these several points would carry us beyond our present purpose. You can find them amply discussed in the books. In the CXI Propositions of the Church of Scotland, upon this subject, in A. D. 1645, a distinct, and, in general, lucid statement of

*Rights of God and Man.

them will be found. It is sufficient to refer simply to their origin, to perceive the difference between civil and ecclesiastical power: the former is natural, the latter is supernatural. "Political or civil power is grounded upon the law of nature itself; and for that cause it is common to infidels with christians: the power ecclesiastical dependeth immediately upon the positive laws of Christ alone."*

It ought, however, to be noted, that the Church of God, having in her hand the Bible, in which so much is found respecting the duties of social man, cannot disregard civil society, its order and duty, in her administrations; nor can a state, where the Church of God exists, act irrespective of her, in its administrations. The aims and the actings of both are too deeply interesting to be disregarded by either. Yet neither of them may pass its own limits. Without imminent danger to both they cannot be confounded, in any of the particulars in which they are distinct. Both acting, each in its appropriate sphere, as co-ordinate branches of the great society of man, may greatly subserve the interests of one another, without, on either side, the assumption of superiority or invasion of any peculiar rights. The great means of moral reformation are in the possession of the Church; the application of these means to the attainment of their end, is greatly promoted by the removal of obstacles and the conservation of order and peace, by the civil power. For this service the Church renders an abundant compensation to the state, in the illumination of the public conscience, and in promoting its sensibility. This is but carrying out into public relations what every good man well understands in domestic life, and in personal character and conduct. He knows the difference between his character, as it is devotional and moral, and his prudent management of his secular affairs, while he sees their connexion and experiences their mutual influence, in giving aid to each other.

POSITION III.—It is not the mere fact of the existence of a political power, but the possession by it of those attributes which fit it to answer the ends of its institution, that makes it the moral ordinance of God.

*Prop. 44.

Usurpers have obtained power over states. Tyrants have reigned and employed their power in oppressing the people. Neither of these is the ordinance of God. With the throne of iniquity God has no fellowship. To take the simple existence of a power as evidence of its right to rule, evinces the heart of the veriest slave. But whatever unguarded assertions may escape the lips, in the conflict of party, no man ever seriously believed the slavish opinion. The voice of nature revolts against it. Our own United States, more than half a century since, furnished the world with an august exemplification of the principle which we vindicate. The spirit of revolution, now so extensively abroad among the nations, is the voice of God, speaking through outraged humanity, in favour of my position. In this respect the maxim is true, vox populi vox Dei, the voice of the people is the voice of God. So long as there is a difference between right and wrong, between truth and falsehood, my ground shall be tenable. In the ordinance of God, wherever it is, we shall find the matter of the authority moral; those invested with the authority, from the possession of intellectual and moral endowments, competent to its exercise; the mode of investiture legitimate; and its exercise constitutional.— From all this it follows, that the maintenance of a false principle, or the doing of an immoral act, may neither be imposed, as a term of political fellowship, nor yielded to, in order to the enjoyment of civil advantages. Sin against God is a price too high for any benefit that society can confer. We may not do evil that good may come.

POSITION IV.-With national society, even when morally constituted, no man may, in any ordinary case, be compelled to incorporate.

Civil society is a voluntary association. It is formed by compact. Peaceable and orderly deportment is all it can justly exact from any man, unless he choose fully to enter into its communion, as a member of the body politic. I will not be understood, in these assertions, as affirming any thing respecting the duty of the individual. It may be his duty so to incorporate with the society, and in not doing it he may sin; but to compel that duty is a task to which society is not competent. It is like another ordinance of the law of nature, -marriage to enter into the matrimonial relation may be a

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