This is an inconvenience, I
confess, that attends all governments whatsoever, when the
governors have brought it to this pass, to be generally suspected
of their people; the most dangerous state which they can possibly
put themselves in. wherein they are the less to be pitied,
because it is so easy to be avoided; it being as impossible for a
governor, if he really means the good of his people, and the
preservation of them, and their laws together, not to make them
see and feel it, as it is for the father of a family, not to let
his children see he loves, and takes care of them.
Sec. 210. But if all the world shall observe pretences of
one kind, and actions of another; arts used to elude the law, and
the trust of prerogative (which is an arbitrary power in some
things left in the prince's hand to do good, not harm to the
people) employed contrary to the end for which it was given: if
the people shall find the ministers and subordinate magistrates
chosen suitable to such ends, and favoured, or laid by,
proportionably as they promote or oppose them: if they see
several experiments made of arbitrary power, and that religion
underhand favoured, (tho' publicly proclaimed against) which is
readiest to introduce it; and the operators in it supported, as
much as may be; and when that cannot be done, yet approved still,
and liked the better: if a long train of actions shew the
councils all tending that way; how can a man any more hinder
himself from being persuaded in his own mind, which way things
are going; or from casting about how to save himself, than he
could from believing the captain of the ship he was in, was
carrying him, and the rest of the company, to Algiers, when he
found him always steering that course, though cross winds, leaks
in his ship, and want of men and provisions did often force him
to turn his course another way for some time, which he steadily
returned to again, as soon as the wind, weather, and other
circumstances would let him?
CHAP.
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