Association Papers..

CAUTIONS AGAINST REFORMERS.

By LORD BOLINGBROKE.

T may be faid that even the Friends of Liberty have fometimes different notions about it, and about the means of maintaining or promoting it; and therefore that even the British nation may poffibly, fome time or other, approve and concur in measures destructive of their Liberty, without any intention to give it up, and much more without changing from the character which they have hitherto borne among the focieties of mankind, to that infamous character I have juft now fuppofed, viz. become the moft corrupt, most profligate, the most fenfelefs, the most fervile nation of wretches that ever difgraced humanity; and who not only hold out their necks to receive, but help to put on the yoke of fervitu e. If this were true, it would only furnish more reafons to be always on our guard, to be jealous of every extraordinary demand, and to reject conftantly every propofition, though never fo fpecious, that had a tendency to weaken the barriers of Liberty, or to raise a ftrength fuperior to theirs. But I confefs I do not think we can be led blindfold fo far as the brink of the precipice. I know that all words, which are figns of complex ideas, furnish matter of mittake and cavil. We difpute about juftice, for instance, and fancy that we have different opinions about the fame thing; whilft, by fome little difference in the compofition of our ideas, it happens that we have only different opinions about different things, and thould be of the fame opinion about the fame thing. But this, I prefume, cannot happen in the cafe before us. difputes about liberty in this country, and at this time, must be disputes for and against the felf fame fixed and invariable fet of ideas, whatever the difputants on one fide of the question may pretend, in order to conceal what it is not yet very fafe to avow. No difputes can poffibly arife from different conceptions of any thing to clearly ftated, and fo precifely determined, as the fundamental principles are, on which our whole liberty refts.

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If liberty be that delicious and wholefome fruit on which the British nation has fed for fo many ages, and to which we owe our riches, our ftrength, and all the advantages we boaft of; the British Conftitution is the tree that bears this fruit, and will continue to bear it, as long as we are careful to fence it in, and trench it round, against the beafts of the field, and the infects of

order of things. No diftinction between subjects can be really more essential than the being or not being members of the legislative body, yet the rank of a Member of Parliament is known neither to the law nor to the eremonial of the country. Among untitled commoners indeed there is no diftinction of rank that can be exactly defined; and yet. a diftinction always fubfifts in public opinion, decided partly, and perhaps fometimes too much, by wealth, partly by confideraion given to birth, connections or character, which, upon the whole, perhaps more than under any other Government, preferves the subordination neceffary to the well-being of large focieties.

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the earth. To fpeak without a figure, our Conftitution is a fyftem of Government fuited to the genius of our nation, and even to our fituation. The experience of many hundred years hath fhewn that, by preferving this Conftitution inviolate, or by drawing it back to the principles on which it was originally founded, whenever it fhall be made to fwerve from them, we may fecure to ourselves, and to our lateft pofterity, the poffeffion of that liberty which we have long enjoyed. What would we more? What other liberty than this do we feek? And if we feek no other, is not this marked out in fuch characters, as he that runs may read? As our Conftitution therefore ought to be, what it feldom is, the rule of Government; fo let us make the conformity or repugnancy of things to this Conftitution the rule by which we accept them as lavourable, or reject them as dangerous to liberty. They who talk of liberty in Britain on any other principles than those of the British Constitution, talk impertinently at beft, and much charity is requifite to believe no worfe of them. But they who diftinguish between practicable and impracticable liberty, in order to infinuate what they mean (or they mean nothing), that the liberty established by the true fcheme of our Conftitution is of the impracticable kind; and they who endeavour, both in fpeculation and practice, to elude and pervert the forms, and to ridicule and explode the Constitution; thefe men are enemies, open and avowed enemies, to it, and by confequence to British liberty, which cannot be fupported on any other bottom.-Some men there are, the pefts of fociety I think them, who pretend a great regard to Religion in general, but who take every opportunity of declaiming publicly against that fyftem of Religion, or at leaft against that Church Eftablishment, which is received in Britain. Juft fo the men of whom I have been speaking, affect a great regard to Liberty in general, but they diflike fo much the fyftem of liberty established in Britain, that they are inceffant in their endeavours to puzzle the plaineft thing in the world, and to refine and diftinguish away the life and strength of our Constitution, in favour of the little prefent momentary turns which they are retained to ferve. What now would be the confequence if all these endeavours should fucceed? I am perfuaded that the great Philofophers, Divines, Lawyers, and Politicians, who exert them, have not yet prepared and agreed upon the plans of a new Religion, and of new Conftitutions in Church and State. We fhould find ourfelves therefore without any form of Religion, or Civil Government. The first fet of thefe Miffionaries would take off all the reftraints of Religion from the governed, and the latter fet would remove, or render ineffectual, all the limitations and controuls which liberty hath prefcribed to those that govern, and disjoint the whole frame of our Conftitution. Entire diffolution of manners, confufion, anarchy, or perhaps abfolute Monarchy, would follow; for it is poffible, nay probable, that in fuch a state as this, and amidst such a rout of lawlefs favages, men would chuse this Government, abfurd as it is, rather than have no Government at all. Differtation upon Parties.

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