Wesley Corpus

I may now venture to “pronounce, that the principles on which you have argued, are incompatible with practice,” even the universal practice of mankind, as well as with sound reason; and it is no wonder “that they are not approved by our Governors,” considering their natural tendency, which is, to unhinge all Government, and to plunge every nation into total anarchy. This, in truth, is the tendency of the whole book; a few passages of which I shall now recite, begging leave to make a few remarks upon them. But I must ask the reader’s pardon, if I frequently say the same thing more than once; for, otherwise, I could not follow the author. 33. “All the members of a state” (which necessarily include all the men, women, and children) “may intrust the powers of legislation with any number of delegates, subject to such restrictions as they think necessary.” (Page 8.) This is “incompatible with practice:” It never was done from the beginning of the world; it never can; it is flatly impossible in the nature of the thing. “And thus, all the individuals that compose a great state partake of the powers of legislation and government.” All the individuals | Mere Quixotism ! Where does that state exist? Not under the canopy of heaven. “In this case, a state is still free,” (but this case has no being,) “if the representatives are chosen by the umbiassed voices of the majority.” Hold ! this is quite another case; you now shuffle in a new term: The majority we were not talking of, but all the members of a state. The majority are not all the individuals that compose it; and pray, how came the minority to be deprived of those rights, which you say are “unalienable from human nature?”-- “But we disguise slavery, keeping up the form of liberty, when the reality is lost.” It is not lost; I now enjoy all the real liberty I can desire, civil as well as religious. The liberty you talk of was never found; it never existed yet. But what does all this lead to, but to stir up all the inhabit ants of Great Britain against the Government? 34.