n a title-page: often-times, in reading
deleterious leading articles in wrong-sided newspapers, have I longed to
set before the world of faction

A MANUAL OF GOOD POLITICS,

which indeed has already been half-done, if decently begun be
synonymous. With this view has my author's mind heretofore thought over
many scriptural texts, characters, doctrines, and usages; yet, let me
freely confess the upshot of those efforts to be little satisfactory:
for I fear much, that though there be grounds enough to go upon for one
who is already fixed in right political principle, [orthodoxy being, as
is common among arguers, _my_ doxy,] there may not be sufficient so to
reason from as to convince the thousands, ready and willing to gainsay
them: and Locke's utter annihilation of poor ridiculous well-intentioned
Filmer, makes one wary, of taking up and defending a position so little
tenable, as, for instance, Adam's primary grant for the foundation of
absolute monarchy, or of attempting to nullify natural freedom by the
dubious succession of patriarchal power. At the same time, (competency
for so great a task being conceded--no small supposition, by the way,)
much remains to be done in this field of discourse; as, the fearful
example made of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, for conduct very analogous
with numberless instances of modern Liberalism; the rights of rulers, as
well as of the governed; of kings, as well as people; the connexion
subsisting now, as through all former ages, between church and
state--well indeed and deeply argued out already by such great minds as
Coleridge and Gladstone, but perhaps, for general usefulness, requiring
a more brief and popular discourse; the question of passive obedience;
the true though unfashionable doctrine of man's general depravity
invalidating the consignment of power to the masses; and so forth. There
are, however, if Scripture is to be held a constitutional guide, some
examples to a certain extent contrary to the argument: as, elective
monarchy in the case of Saul; non-legitimate succession in families even
where election is omitted, as in the case of Solomon; and, honestly to
say it, many other difficulties of a like nature. In fact, upon the
whole, this distinction might be drawn; that although the Bible at large
favours what we may, for shortness' sake, term Conservative politics,
still it would not be easy to deduce from its page as code of rules, so
necessarily of a social, temporary, an