Joseph Butler

“ Had licentiousness finished its work, and destroyed our constitution, power would not be wanting, from one quarter or another, sufficient to subdue us, and keep us in subjection. But government, as distinguished from mere power, free government, necessarily implies reverence in the subjects of it, for authority, or power, regulated by laws, and a habit of submission to the subordinations in civil life, throughout its several ranks; nor is a people capable of liberty without somewhat of this kind. ”

“ Yet, with unheard-of hypocrisy towards men, towards God, and their own consciences—for without such a complication of it their conduct is inexplicable—even this action, which so little admitted of any cloak, was, we know, contrived and carried into execution, under pretences of authority, religion, liberty, and by profaning the forms of justice in an arraignment and trial, like to what is used in regular legal procedures. No age, indeed, can show an example of hypocrisy parallel to this. ”

“ And therefore the love of liberty, which does not produce this effect—the love of liberty, which is not a real principle of dutiful behaviour towards authority—is as hypocritical as the religion which is not productive of a good life. Licentiousness is, in truth, such an excess of liberty, as is of the same nature with tyranny. ”

“ Thus the face and appearance which the world has in all times put on, for the ease and ornament of life, and in pursuit of further ends, is the justest satire upon what has in all times been carrying on under it, and ill men are destined, by the condition of their being as social creatures, always to bear about with them, and in different degrees, to profess, that law of virtue by which they shall finally be judged and condemned. ”

“ A people, then, must always be less free, in proportion as they are more licentious; licentiousness being not only different from liberty, but directly contrary to it—a direct breach upon it.
It is moreover of a growing nature, and of speedy growth too; and, with the culture which it has amongst us, needs no great length of time to get to such a height as no legal government will be able to restrain, or subsist under; which is the condition the historian describes, in saying they could neither bear their vices, nor the remedies of them. ”

“ Then there are very bad things, which human authority can scarce provide against at all, but by methods dangerous to liberty; nor fully but by such as would be fatal to it. These things show, that liberty, in the very nature of it, absolutely requires, and even supposes, that people be able to govern themselves in those respects in which they are free; otherwise their wickedness will be in proportion to their liberty, and this greatest of blessings will become a curse. ”

“ And an excess of liberty it is to the licentious themselves: but what is it to those who suffer by them, and who do not think that amends is at all made them by having it left in their power to retaliate safely? When by popular insurrections, or defamatory libels, or in any like way, the needy and the turbulent securely injure quiet people in their fortune or good name, so far quiet people are no more free than if a single tyrant used them thus. ”

“ It would be partiality to say, that no constitution of government can possibly be imagined more perfect than our own ; and ingenuous youth may be warmed with the idea of one against which nothing can be objected. ”

“ Now it is to be observed, that there is, in some respects or other, a very peculiar contrariety between those vices which consist in excess, and the virtues of which they are said to be the excess and the resemblance, and whose names they affect to bear; the excess of anything being always to its hurt, and tending to its destruction. In this manner licentiousness is, in its very nature, a present infringement upon liberty, and dangerous to it for the future. Yet it is treated by many persons with peculiar indulgence under this very notion, as being an excess of liberty. ”

“ But the history of all ages, and all countries, will show what has been really going forward over the face of the earth, to be very different from what has been always pretended; and that virtue has been everywhere professed much more than it has been anywhere practised; nor could society, from the very nature of its constitution, subsist without some general public profession of it. ”

“ For tyranny, and faction so friendly to it, and which is indeed tyranny out of power, and unjust wars, and persecution, by which the earth has been laid waste; all this has all along been carried on with pretences of truth, right, general good. So it is men cannot find in their heart to join in such things, without such honest words to be the bond of the union, though they know among themselves, that they are only words, and often though they know that everybody else knows it too. ”

“ Since men cannot live out of society, nor in it, without government, government is plainly a divine appointment; and consequently submission to it, a most evident duty of the law of nature. And we all know in how forcible a manner it is put upon our conscience in Scripture. ”

“ And they who are perpetually displaying the exceptions, though they do not indeed contradict the meaning of any particular text of Scripture, which surely intended to make no alteration in men's civil rights, yet they go against the general tenor of Scripture. For the Scripture, throughout the whole of it, commands submission; supposing men apt enough of themselves to make the exceptions, and not to need being continually reminded of them. Now if we are really under any obligations of duty at all to magistrates, honour and respect, in our behaviour towards them, must doubtless be their due. ”

“ For part which has, at first sight, this appearance, is in reality that other hypocrisy before mentioned; that self-deceit of which the Scripture so remarkably takes notice. There are indeed persons, who live "without God in the world," Eph. ii. 12; and some appear so hardened, as to keep no measures with themselves. But as very ill men may have a real and strong sense of virtue and religion, in proportion as this is the case with any, they cannot be easy within themselves but by deluding their consciences. ”

“ But the immorality of it increases, in proportion to the integrity and superior rank of the persons thus treated. It is therefore in the highest degree immoral, when it extends to the supreme authority in the person of a prince, from whom our liberties are in no imaginable danger, whatever they may be from ourselves; and whose mild, and strictly legal government, could not but make any virtuous people happy. ”

“ Reasonable men, therefore, will look upon the general plan of our constitution, transmitted down to us by our ancestors, as sacred, and content themselves with calmly doing what their station requires towards rectifying the particular things which they think amiss, and supplying the particular things which they think deficient in it, so far as is practicable, without endangering the whole. ”

“ They do it, not only as social creatures under civil government, but also as moral agents under the government of God: in one case, to make a proper figure in the world, and delude their fellow-creatures; in the other, to keep peace within themselves, and delude their own consciences. And the delusion in hoth cases being voluntary, is, in Scripture, called by one name, and spoken against in the same manner; though, doubtless, they are much more explicit with themselves, and more distinctly conscious of what they are about in one case than in the other. ”

“ The fundamental laws of all governments are virtuous ones, prohibiting treachery, injustice, cruelty; and the law of reputation enforces those civil laws, by rendering these vices everywhere infamous, and the contrary virtues honourable, and of good report. ”

“ And whoever will thoroughly consider, in what degree mankind are really influenced by reason, and in what degree by custom, may, I think, be convinced, that the state of human aflairs does not even admit of an equivalent for the mischief of setting things afloat, and the danger of parting with those securities of liberty, which arise from regulations of those prescription and ancient usage ”

“ But, in Scripture, which treats chiefly of our behaviour towards God and our own consciences, it signifies not only the endeavour to delude our fellow-creatures, but likewise insincerity towards Him, and towards ourselves. And, therefore, according to the whole analogy of scriptural language, "to use liberty as a cloak of maliciousness," [1] must be understood to mean, not only endeavouring to impose upon others, by indulging wayward passions, or carrying on indirect designs, under pretences of it ”

“ And though they should, in great measure, get over their religion, yet this will not do. For as long as they carry about with them any such sense of things as makes them condemn what is wrong in others, they could not but condemn the same in themselves, and dislike and be disgusted with their own character and conduct, if they would consider them distinctly, and in a full light. ”

“ Lastly, The consideration that we are the servants of God, reminds us that we are accountable to him for our behaviour in those respects, in which it is out of the reach of all human authority, and is the strongest enforcement of sincerity ”

“ But it must be observed, and less surely cannot be observed, this reverence and submission will, at best, be very precarious, if it be not founded upon a sense of authority being God's ordinance, and the subordinations in life a providential appointment of things. Now, let it be considered, for surely it is not duly considered, what is really the short amount of those representations which persons of superior rank give, and encourage to be given of each other, and which are spread over the nation? ”

“ Yet as the worst answer these ends in some measure, the best can do it very imperfectly. Civil government can by no means take cognizance of every work, which is good or evil: many things are done in secret ”

“ They try appearances upon themselves as well as upon the worlds and with at least as much success; and choose to manage so as to make their own minds easy with their faults, which can scarce be without management, rather than to mend them. ”

“ But whether from men's deluding themselves, or from their intending to delude the world, it is evident, scarce anything wrong in public has ever been accomplished, or even attempted, but under false colours ”

“ Prov. xi. 3, guides even a man's judgment, so wickedness may distort it to such a degree, as that he may "call evil good, and good evil: put darkness for light, and light for darkness," Isa. v. 20; and "think wickedly, that God is such an one as himself," Psa. 1. 21. Even the better sort of men are, in some degree, liable to disguise and palliate their filings to themselves; but perhaps there are few men, who go on calmly in a course of very bad things, without somewhat of the kind now described in a very high degree. ”

“ And they who refuse to pay them this small and easy regard, who "despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities," Jude 8, should seriously ask themselves, what restrains them from any other instance whatever of undutifulness? ”

“ For it is to be observed, that they are often made without any formal intention to have them believed, or to have it thought that there is any reality under these pretences. Many examples occur of verbal professions of fidelity, justice, public regards, in cases where there could be no imagination of their being believed. ”