An Efay on the Conflitution of England, 1 s. 6 d. 8vo. Becket, &c.

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HERE is fcarce a word in the English language fo fre quently ufed, and fo little understood as the word Conftitution. If nothing more is intended by it than to express the feveral component parts of Government, or, as the Poli-. ticians phrase it, the feveral orders of the ftate, all men must agree about its fignification: but if we take into the idea, the feveral powers vested in those orders, it will then be difficult to define it. Indeed taking the word as including the latter idea, it does not admit of a precife and permanent definition; for as those powers are liable to fluctuate from a variety of adventitious circumstances, which make the political scale at different times preponderate in favour of different parties, what is called the Conftitution muft neceffarily vary with every accidental change.

The fenfible Author of the Effay before us feems to be thoroughly apprized of thefe difficulties, and has treated this important fubject on very juft and comprehenfive principles. It may be observed however, without derogating from his merit, that the principles on which he grounds his oblervations, are in fubftance no other than what Harrington has established in his Oceana. But our Effayift has illuftrated thefe principles with fo much ingenuity, and has given them fuch a new turn, that they wear the appearance of originality.

In the beginning he very properly obferves that every Government is or fhould be defpotic, and that every chief magiftrate is, or fhould be an Autocrator for the time being. The man, fays he, who is defirous of effectually governing any nation, fhould fet himself diligently to find out in what fet of hands the power of that nation happens at the time to be lodged, And having made the difcovery, to use the proper means of perfuading them to constitute him their head and reprefentative. From an exact knowlege of thefe conftituents, he continues, arifes an exact knowlege of the Conftitution of each country, and the just application of all the general maxims of Government, which, however wife they may be in themselves, may, by mifapplication, produce the very reverse of what is expected from them.

Thefe principles he illuftrates in the following manner. There is no maxim, fays he, more univerfally received than this, that the well being of the people is the fupreme law, and when well understood there is none more true nor more useful for the prefervation of the order and happiness of a ftate. But then he

adds

adds it must be understood by the word people, that part only which is conflituent of the fupreme magiftrate, and to whofe interefts and opinions he muft ever pay a religious regard. He concludes this paffage with remarking that the advantages of good Government, by which he means fimply that which is able to procure to itself perfect obedience, extend, without any particular attention of the rulers, to those who are not, as well as to those who are, their constituents.

To this conclufion, however, we can by no means fubfcribe; for though what our Author calls good Government, may, in Turkey for inftance, be for the advantage of the Major vis, or conftituent powers, that is of the Janizaries, yet we are far from thinking that the connection between man and man is fo clofe, that fuch advantage will neceffarily extend, in due proportion, to the fubordinate claffes.

Our Author, in the next place, proceeds to apply these principles to the Hiftory of England, and fhews that the disorders of our Government have been owing to a want of due attention to them. This he particularly exemplifies in a short account of the memorable Reign of Charles the First at the fame time he confeffes that the caufe affigned is in no degree adequate to the effect. And we. muft, fays he, have recourse to fome other, to account for the violence, outrage and cruelty with which this oppofition was conducted and finished.

The rich, who in the houfe of Commons began this oppofition, had for its pretext what they efteemed illegal methods of levying money; a fubject, on either fide of which, laws, cuftoms and precedents might have been urged without end, and the opponents might have grumbled long enough without a drop of blood being pilt. Remonftrances might have been voted, and answers given; parliaments diffolved and others called, with much effufion of words only. In the courfe of those civil wranglings, the King would probably have found out that, by communicating to a few of the leading men amongst the new conftituents, a certain fhare of the emoluments of government, out of which they might again retail to their conftituents that fhare which in juftice belonged to them, he might have been fupplied with money from fome more plentiful fource than tonnage, poundage or fhip-money. Neither, had the new powers been willing to come to blows, were they a match for their King. The people in the country were ftill much influenced by the old gentry, moft of which were attached to the Crown. The Scots, to whom tonnage and poundage was heathen Greek, would have followed their natural inclinations for royalty, and taken up arms in its defence on the first figual. It was in the

city of London alone, (not the most warlike part of the kingdom) that there was a poffibility of finding fuch a band of difaffection as would dare to attempt any thing violent against the perfon of the King and his minifters.

On the other hand, the King was not engaged in any foreign war, and his occafions for money were not fo great but that he might have found means of fupplying them, without calling parliaments, till fuch time as he found out the proper methods of rendering them more tractable; and the executive power being still in his hands, and ftill acknowledged by all to belong to him, it is not eafy to conceive from what quarter a rebellion could arife, which he could not have eafily quafhed, with the ruin of thofe who fet it on foot.

Things were in this fickly, but not mortal ftate, when the unhappy King fet a project on foot, fo much the reverse of what is useful and prudent, that he must have forfeited with pofterity, all pretenfions to the character of a man of sense, had not his fentiments and conduct in this refpect been countenanced by thofe of all the Princes of his age. Having been religiously educated, he had been taught by those who had taken upon them the care of his early education, particularly by his father, that a national Church, with all its rites, doctrines and form of go vernment, was fo infeparably a part of the ftate, that they muft both ftand and fall together; an opinion founded upon the most fhallow and fallacious reafoning, in opposition to the moft univerfal experience.. But Charles had long believed it to be just, and having ftill a regard for his old teachers, was eafily brought to believe, that the new and uncommon oppofition he met with, was owing to the encrease of puritanism, whereas it is probable that the increafe of puritanism was the confequence, rather than the caufe of oppofition. Be that as it will, he was refolved to Atrengthen himself, and what he apprehended to be the conftitution of his country, by exerting an extraordinary zeal for the Church of England, efpécially for thofe circumftances in which it was moft diftinguished from that of the prefbyterians and other diffenters whom he meant, at the fame time, to weaken and diminish, by all manner of difcouragements.

The poorest man in the nation has a foul to be faved as well as the richest, and, confequently, no tax, no impoft, no excita can be so univerfally odious as that which is laid upon confciens ces. It may be, therefore, eafily believed that the rich and ambitious commoners, hitherto baffled in their attempts to reduce the Crown to terms more favourable to themfelves, would be v ry active in fomenting the difcontents which this ifl advifed peafure

füre occafioned; and that a zeal, firft feigned, afterwards real, would encrease the number of the puritans, who, in theit turn, would enter no lefs heartily into the ftate interefts of those who fo warmly ftood by them in their fpiritual. Thus every patriot took to the finging of Pfalms, with all his might; and every pfalm-finging cobler joined his voice to baul against state grievances, from the feeling of which, the meanness of his condition had entirely exempted him.

But Charles did not ftop here. If he had, his church politics 'would have, perhaps, been only attended with a flow encrease of that difaffection which had been nurfed under his father's reign, by the like principles and conduct, and he might have gone to the grave, cadavere toto, and without feeling, to any great degree, the bad effects of it. But not contented with making the epifcopal government and rites univerfal in Eng land, where they were already the legal eftablishment, his illcouncelled zeal hurried him to attempt the fame in Scotland, where the prefbyterian was the national worship, and zealously profeffed by the greatest number of the people. Hereupon a tumult, begun, as ufual, by the lowest of the populace, was followed by affociations of thofe of middle rank, and headed by fome of the principal nobility; who were glad of an opportu nity of exercifing their turbulent and ambitious fpirits, on a lar ger theatre than their own country afforded.

Thefe dogs of war being once let loofe, it was eafy for their more cautious and more difperft brethren in England to join in the fray, and to bring the unhappy King into that train of difficulties, from whence his courage was unable to extricate him ; but, on the contrary, obliged those who had been moft forward im oppofition, to feek their own fafety in his deftruction.'

Our Author from hence is led to confider the effects of reli→ gious animofities. In difcuffing this fubject, he refers to the ftate of Religion among the ancient Romans, which he juftly obferves, was the religion of the magistrate. [

On the other hand, the Chriftian religion, defigned in a peculiar manner for the establishment of peace and good-will amongst men, was ushered into the world without the concurrence of the civil magiftrate, and disclaiming all pretensions itfelf to wordly power. During the life of its great Founder, and of thofe Apoftles to whom he delegated his divine power, it ap eared in this amiable fhape only; but foon after, falling unde the management of mere men, it became fubject to all the corruptions and inconveniences to which human affairs are liable.

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The communion of goods amongst thofe who received the doctrines of Chrift, an inftitution feemingly fo well adapted to the benevolent fpirit of them, was the great and obvious caufe of this corruption; and while it operated rapidly in increasing the number of those who received thefe doctrines, operated no lefs rapidly in counteracting the good effects of them. For the care of managing and diftributing this public money being committed to certain officers, chofen by all the members of this corporation out of their body; they, when the ftock increased to a certain degree, found their office fo agreeable, that they fpared no pains in order to get themselves elected into it. Every means that avarice or ambition could fuggeft was deemed lawful, and and all the arts of loquacious fophiftry employed by bustling men, to draw the multitude from one another; till the plain, pure and useful doctrines of Chrift were drowned in an ocean of metaphyfical quibbles, in nowife calculated to improve the understandings, any more than the morals, of thofe to whom they were addreffed.

In the mean time, the various advantages, spiritual and temporal, attending the being members of fuch a corporation, produced one in every town; and these being united by the fame name and intereft, kept up a reciprocal correfpondence and asfiftance from town to town throughout the vaft Roman Empire.'

By degrees however, he obferves, thefe good people under the notion of religion and brotherly charity, were in reality raifing a formidable republic, an imperium in imperio, united by the two ftrongest ties, religion and worldly intereft, and which did not acknowlege the authority of the civil magiftrate. But at length, he adds, fome of the Popes own legionaries, in a fit of difcontent mutinied, and appealed to the Chriftian people; difcovering to them that charter of their antient rights, the Bible, which the established hierarchy, in the fullness of their Security, had neglected to deftroy.

- He next takes into confideration the influence which religious profeffions had over the contending parties diftinguished by the names of Whig and Torie. The Tories, he obferves, having been long used to profefs a particular zeal for the established Church, contrived certain religious tefts, which, like fieves, fuffered only thofe of their own caliber to pass through into places of truft and profit; while the Whigs in their turn, taking advantage of certain particularities in the newly eftablished Government, contrived political creeds, which the Tories, who had long profeffed an adherence to the doctrines of hereditary indefcafible right, were not able to fwallow.

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