free governments, for the point of
their space, and the moment of their duration, have felt more confusion,
and committed more flagrant acts of tyranny, than the most perfect
despotic governments which we have ever known. Turn your eye next to the
labyrinth of the law, and the iniquity conceived in its intricate
recesses. Consider the ravages committed in the bowels of all
commonwealths by ambition, by avarice, envy, fraud, open injustice, and
pretended friendship; vices which could draw little support from a state
of nature, but which blossom and flourish in the rankness of political
society. Revolve our whole discourse; add to it all those reflections
which your own good understanding shall suggest, and make a strenuous
effort beyond the reach of vulgar philosophy, to confess that the cause
of artificial society is more defenceless even than that of artificial
religion; that it is as derogatory from the honor of the Creator, as
subversive of human reason, and productive of infinitely more mischief
to the human race.

If pretended revelations have caused wars where they were opposed, and
slavery where they were received, the pretended wise inventions of
politicians have done the same. But the slavery has been much heavier,
the wars far more bloody, and both more universal by many degrees. Show
me any mischief produced by the madness or wickedness of theologians,
and I will show you a hundred resulting from the ambition and villany of
conquerors and statesmen. Show me an absurdity in religion, and I will
undertake to show you a hundred for one in political laws and
institutions. If you say that natural religion is a sufficient guide
without the foreign aid of revelation, on what principle should
political laws become necessary? Is not the same reason available in
theology and in politics? If the laws of nature are the laws of God, is
it consistent with the Divine wisdom to prescribe rules to us, and leave
the enforcement of them to the folly of human institutions? Will you
follow truth but to a certain point?

We are indebted for all our miseries to our distrust of that guide which
Providence thought sufficient for our condition, our own natural reason,
which rejecting both in human and divine things, we have given our necks
to the yoke of political and theological slavery. We have renounced the
prerogative of man, and it is no wonder that we should be treated like
beasts. But our misery is much greater than theirs, as