The
municipal corporations of that universal kingdom are not morally at
liberty, at their pleasure, and on their speculations of a contingent
improvement, wholly to separate and tear asunder the bands of their
subordinate community, and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil,
unconnected chaos of elementary principles. It is the first and supreme
necessity only, a necessity that is not chosen, but chooses, a necessity
paramount to deliberation, that admits no discussion and demands no
evidence, which alone can justify a resort to anarchy. This necessity is
no exception to the rule; because this necessity itself is a part, too,
of that moral and physical disposition of things to which man must be
obedient by consent or force: but if that which is only submission to
necessity should be made the object of choice, the law is broken, Nature
is disobeyed, and the rebellious are outlawed, cast forth, and exiled,
from this world of reason, and order, and peace, and virtue, and
fruitful penitence, into the antagonist world of madness, discord, vice,
confusion, and unavailing sorrow.
These, my dear Sir, are, were, and, I think, long will be, the
sentiments of not the least learned and reflecting part of this kingdom.
They who are included in this description form their opinions on such
grounds as such persons ought to form them. The less inquiring receive
them from an authority which those whom Providence dooms to live on
trust need not be ashamed to rely on.
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