whether we have contributed any thing to facilitate the removal of this last obstruction to a state of sober and perfect liberty, is submitted to the judgment of the Public. THE CONCLUSION, CHAP. V. IN WHICH THE REMAINING OBJECTIONS OF BOTH PARTIES ARE CONSIDEred. THE wild Indians, amidst their uncultivated wastes, see the beauty and use of every thing around them; and are not such fools as to complain for want of better accommodations than what they find provided to their hands. Yet as important as this truth is to them, they are little solicitous to enquire from whence all this order and harmony arises: they have received it from their ancestors, that the earth was supported on the back of a huge tortoise; and they do not take it well to have their tortoise disturbed or laughed at. The friends of our happy establishment have, many of them, a little of this Indian taste.-In their fear of shaking foundations, they are unwilling that the weight of the constitution should be removed from the tortoise of old opinion, to rest upon a theory which they think does not exactly tally with fact, as few theories do. This may be thought a notable objection. But on what mistaken principle it stands, I shall now endeavour to shew. The word THEORY has been appro-. priated (as it were) to the explanation of a natural. system. Now as such theories are good only in proportion to their agreement with fact; and as nature nature so much withdraws herself from our inquiry; it is no wonder that it should have grown into an observation, that few theories agree with fact; and that this should be esteemed, what it really is, an objection to theories of this kind. But our theory is an explanation of an artificial, not a natural system: in which measures very different from the latter are to be followed. For truth being the end of all kinds of theories, a right theory of nature is to be obtained only by pursuing fact; for God is the author of that system: but in a theory of politics, which is an artificial system, to follow fact is no certain way to truth, because man is the author of that system. Abstract ideas, and their general relations, are the guides to lead us into truth; and fact hath, with good reason, but a subsidiary use. As therefore the method to be pursued is different, so should the judgment be, which is passed upon it: the goodness of this theory being estimated, not according to its agreement with fact, but right reason. In the former case, the theory should be regulated by the fact in the latter, the fact by the theory. But still, fact, as we say, hath even here its subsidiary use. For as this theory must be founded on the principles of right reason to render it just; so, to satisfy us that it is real, that it is practicable, and no fanciful Utopia, it must be supported by fact: that is, it must be shewn that the policy, explained and justified in the theory, hath been practised to the common benefit of all. This is the use, and the only use, of consulting fact in these kinds of theories. And this, I presume, will be enough to recommend the theory of this ALLIANCE: which was written with no other view, than to furnish every lover of his counVOL. VII. - U try try with reasonable principles, to oppose to the destructive fancies of the enemies of our happy establishment. Not to reform the fundamental constitutions of the state; but to shew they needed no reforming: an attempt, I should think, neither irrational, nor unseasonable. An example, used before, will illustrate what we have been now saying. The theory of civil society, founded on the original compact, when it was first urged against the advocates for arbitrary government, had the fortune to fall into ill hands, the enemies of their country; who inforced it, not to defend the liberties we enjoyed, but to alter the nature of the constitution: the consequence was, that the authors being justly obnoxious, the principles were suspected, and then rejected. Afterwards they fell into more temperate hands; and being then employed to justify the subjects' rights under our limited monarchy, they were in a little time generally received; and men were brought to found their liberties on those principles; which liberties, till then, they chose to claim on the precarious grants of ancient monarchs, or the illiberal tenure of more ancient custom. As to our adversaries, if they thought that the few cant terms of Natural Rights, Civil Liberty, Priestcraft, and Persecution, curiously varied by a jargon of sophistical logic, would be sufficient to undo what the wisdom of all ages and people has concurred to establish, many of them have lived to see themselves mistaken. But if reason be what they require, and that they think they have a right to expect a reason for every thing, we have here endeavoured to satisfy them. If they like, as it is probable they will, their own reasons better, better, it will then come to be a dispute about taste. I have given them corn. They chuse to stick by their acorn-husks. Much good may do them. Nothing remains but to remove an argument ad invidiam, the only logic hitherto employed against this theory, and which would persuade the reader that it MAKES RELIGION A TOOL OF POLITICS, If by this they mean, that I believe there is a political use of religion, whereby it may be made to advance the good of civil society; and that therefore I have endeavoured to make this use of it; they do me no wrong. I not only believe so, but I have shewn* that we have not a more illustrious instance of the wisdom and goodness of God, than in his thus closely uniting our present and our future happiness. I believe what the BEST GOOD MAN of our order was not ashamed to own be fore me. "A politique use of religion (says het) "there is. Men fearing God are thereby a great "deal more effectually than by positive laws restrained "from doing evil, inasmuch as those laws have no "further power than over our outward actions only, "whereas unto mens inward cogitations, unto the privie intents and motions of their hearts, religion "serveth for a bridle. What more savage, wilde, "and cruell, than man, if he see himselfe able, "either by fraude to over-reach, or by power to "overbeare, the laws whereunto he should be subject? Wherefore in so great boldness to offend, it "behoveth that the world should be held in awe, not by a vaine surmise, but a true apprehension of "somewhat, which no man may thinke himselfe able to withstand. THIS IS THE POLITIQUE USE OF "RELIGION." Thus the admirable Hooker, where * See The Divine Legation of Moses, Books I. II. III, he takes notice how certain atheists of his time, by observing this use of religion, were fortified in their folly, in thinking it was invented by statesmen to keep men in awe. An idle vision, which I have so thoroughly confuted in another place *, that, I persuade myself, it shall, for the future, be only thought fit to go in rank with the tales of nurses, and the dreams of Freethinkers. But if they mean, that I have endeavoured to make religion a convenient engine to ambitious and intriguing politicians to work the clergy, as the tools of power, in a separate interest from the community, this is a very gross calumny. I have expressly declared, that where I speak of religion's serving the state, I always mean, by the state, a legitimate government, or civil policy founded on the natural rights and liberties of mankind. And, so far is this plan of alliance from contributing to those mischiefs, that it effectually prevents them and, what is more, is the only scheme of an ESTABLISHMENT which can prevent them. To conclude all, We live in an age when the principles of public liberty are well understood: and, as corrupt as the age is, we must needs imagine, there are many real lovers of their country. But then a certain licentiousness (which is the spirit of the times) is as fatally apt to delude honest men in their ideas of public good, as to infect corrupt men in their pursuit of private satisfactions. Now, as such are always apt to embrace with warmth any project which hath the face of advancing public interests, I do not wonder they should be drawn in, to think favourably of an attempt which professes only to vindicate the COMMON RIGHTS OF SUBJECTS; or that they should be * Divine Legation of Moses, B. III. Sect. 6. inclined |