Privileges

“ Unless I misconstrue all signs, they will never again be deprived of the privileges which they have at the present day. On the contrary, such privileges will become larger and more comprehensive until they are upon an absolute equality in every walk of life with man. ”

“ But when in our persons we trust we have given no cause why to lose that privilege, we beseech your Grace of your goodness and absolute power to set such orders in this behalf as we may enjoy our privileges lawfully admitted so long. ”

“ Which would produce the greatest good to man, to give him his agency, and draw a vail over him, or, to give him certain blessings and privileges, let him live in a certain degree of light, and enjoy a certain glory, and take his agency from him, compelling him to remain in that position, without any possible chance of progress? ”

“ We will now ascertain the scholastic meaning of these terms; and we shall see that they are in precise accordance with the definition of the Council.
You need not be reminded, Reverend and dear Brethren, of the terminology of Canonists in treating the subject of privileges.
A privilege is a right, or faculty bestowed upon persons, places, or things.
Privileges therefore are of three kinds, personal, real, and mixed. [18]
A personal privilege is that which attaches to the person as such. ”

“ The precious benefits and privileges which flow from justification are such as should quicken us all to give diligence to make it sure to ourselves that we are justified, and then to take the comfort it renders to us, and to do the duty it calls for from us. ”

“ After a moment's thought, he went on—"We hear a good deal in our day about Church privileges; and none can value such privileges more highly than I do. Still, one ought not to forget that the greater a man's privileges are, the greater must be his responsibility." ”

“ Tell them that you insist upon their being absolutely under your direction and control, that you expect to grant them all reasonable privileges, but that they must be regarded as privileges, and not as rights. ”

“ The more we can do, so much the better; for it is our duty, nothing more,—it is our privilege, nothing less. And it is one of the greatest privileges that has ever been extended to the children of men. That privilege is a blessing which should be appreciated, and which I have often found was not sufficiently so, by some portions of the people. I have known people applying for inducements to dwell among this community, asking, "Can I get a living, in case I obey the truth? ”

“ To claim a right of thinking for yourself in one instance, ends by claiming that right in many; and when the habit of examination is once introduced, the folly of any exclusive privilege is soon manifest; for most privileges have commenced in some necessity of the time, and a positive benefit has accrued from their exercise to the many as well as to the individual. ”

“ Then think of your privileges, you can follow any religion, you can practise any profession, you can acquire any property, you can publish your, opinions on any subject, you can dwell where you please, come and go as you like, in a word shape your lives exactly as seems good to you, without let or hindrance. ”

“ The claim of a privilege seems rather, ex vi termini, to imply a superior power: for to talk of the privileges of a state or of a person who has no superior is hardly any better than speaking nonsense. ”

“ The degree of privilege to which each class of aliens was entitled was different, but the claim of each to the privileges annexed by law to his class, was equally well established; and the one could no more, with justice, or by law, be deprived of his inferior privileges, than the other could of his more extensive ones. ”

“ Should any rich man be minded to plead with himself that his wealth was, in itself, any evidence that its owner was entitled to special privileges in the next world corresponding to his special privileges in this world, this parable would meet him with its needed corrective. ”

“ Whatever their good qualities may be, the only three things which might have induced them to abandon their privileges without irresistible necessity are just those which they are most deficient in—a just regard for the rights of others, a correct appreciation of the spirit and tendency of this age and common-sense generally. ”

“ They realize, when making it, that they are exercising one of the highest and most important privileges society has granted to the individual—the right to speak and order as to the disposition of his effects and property after he has ceased to live. ”

“ You who are starving, be thankful that you can breathe; God could deprive you of air as well as food. You who are sick, be grateful that you are not dead: God is very merciful to let you live at all. Under all times and circumstances take what you can get, and be thankful." These are the beneficences, the privileges, given by Authority.
Note the difference between a right and a privilege. A right, in the abstract, is a fact; it is not a thing to be given, established, or conferred; it is. Of the exercise of a right power may deprive me; of the right itself, never. ”

“ The circumstances must be very exceptional indeed under which I would counsel any man, holding a fair position in society and endowed with the duties and privileges of a landed proprietor as you we, to defy the opinion of society, and to turn his back on those duties and privileges. ”

“ Note, The greater the privileges we enjoy the greater is our danger if we do not improve them and live up to them. ”

“ It was to be expected that these privileges, though so scanty, and which were highly prized, should produce in their minds an earnest and growing desire for the increase of the means of grace to themselves, and also for the benefit of those around them, especially of their own flesh and blood, as many would from family and other circumstances be prevented availing themselves of the public ordinances which they enjoyed. ”

“ This latter consists of the different privileges, which some men enjoy to the prejudice of others; such as that of being more rich, more honoured, more powerful or even in a position to exact obedience. ”

“ Each and every one of these, being a human act, requires a development of mind and body proportioned to the free and voluntary acceptance of these gifts and privileges, also an adequate knowledge of, and capability for, the duties and obligations attached. ”

“ They become quarrelsome, headstrong, and insubordinate, and, after exhibiting these qualifications for a higher rank in life, they become candidates for admission into the rights and privileges of manhood. ”

“ Skill, strength, and knowledge enjoy the advantage of superior power in the form of manifold privileges, but the expediency of “keeping contracts” naturally recommends itself as the only safe basis of social intercourse. ”

“ He had sprung from a rigid Puritan stock, and had been brought up to think much more intently of the duties of this life than of its privileges and pleasures. ”

“ While this description of the civil rights of the citizens of the States has been quoted with approval, [18] it has come to be the settled view that Article IV, Section 2, does not import that a citizen of one state carries with him into another fundamental privileges and immunities which come to him necessarily by the mere fact of his citizenship in the state first mentioned, but, on the contrary, that in any state every citizen of any other state is to have the same privileges and immunities which the citizens of that state enjoy. ”

“ No more grave and important issue can be brought to this Court than that of freedom of speech and assembly, which the due process clause guarantees to all persons regardless of their citizenship, but which the privileges and immunities clause secures only to citizens, and then only to the limited extent that their relationship to the national government is affected. ”

“ Out of rights grow duties; the first of which is to live an honest, truthful, self-loyal life, acting and speaking always and everywhere in accordance with the laws of our being, as revealed in our own physical and mental organization. It is by the light of this fact that we must look upon all social requirements, whether in dress, manners, or morals. All that is fundamental and genuine in these will be found to harmonize with universal principles, and consequently with our primary duty in reference to ourselves. ”

“ The same observations are applicable when we would estimate the moral excellence of an individual, his worth in a private or a public capacity, his character as a subject or a governor,—as the framer, or the guardian, or the administrator of the laws. ”

“ Of acts of other men, which are useful to us, a great number can be bought by wealth, or commanded by power, or elicited by dignity. The mode of the operation of those causes has already been explained, and the motives into the composition of which they enter, form a different class. The acts of beneficence, of justice, of fortitude, and of prudence, performed by other men in our behalf, are, to a vast extent, such as can neither be bought, nor commanded. ”

“ Oh, the rebellious pride of choosing our own self-will, and our own way, when the privilege may be ours of becoming the obedient and loving children of God—of receiving from Him the willing and the obedient heart which we may offer up to Him again, and which He will accept! ”

“ All notions of propriety, decency, chastity, politeness, order, duty, right, rights, discipline, respect, reverence, coöperation, and fellowship, especially all things in regard to which good and ill depend entirely on the point at which the line is drawn, are in the mores. The mores can make things seem right and good to one group or one age which to another seem antagonistic to every instinct of human nature. ”

“ But whatever may be thought or said of my motives or desires, I have the proud consciousness of leaving this scene of my severe and anxious toil with clean hands, and the satisfactory conviction that He who can penetrate the inmost recesses of the heart, and read its secret thoughts, will approve my purposes and acts. In the discharge of my executive functions, I have invariably sought to do equal and exact justice to all men, however humble or exalted. ”

“ Think of your duties,—not of your imaginary duties as a landowner to your estate, of a merchant to your capital, of an emperor, minister, official to the state,—but of those real duties of yours, which result from your real condition of existence, which is called into life and is endowed with reason and love. ”

“ Their election is to service—high service, hard battle, stern endurance. First in honour, they must be first in perils, pains, temptations, and toils. Privilege is a word of abundant meaning in the book of God's dispensations; but it means privilege to be first—to lead the van, to clear the way, to open new paths for progress through the jungle of ignorance and night. Privilege to belong to a privileged class, to special advantage and certain success; privilege to run the race of life, light and trim against weighted competitors, is part of the devil's gospel, not of God's. ”

“ Another point of true esprit de corps concerns those who have power—whether as prefect, or VI. form, or head of a form, or through being popular. Power was given you that you might do more work for others—you are made a chief in order that you may be as he that serveth; privilege means responsibility—not enjoyment. There is nothing so mean as to take the loaves and fishes of any post, and not to do its duties; to order others about, and to be lax with yourselves. ”

“ Among laymen, a deep responsibility would appear to rest on those particularly, whose profession leads them most directly to consider the boundaries of the various rights and duties, which fill the space of civilized Society. ”

“ It is enough to observe here that it is impossible to define the duties of the few, of the rich, of the powerful, of the highly gifted, and to secure that these duties shall be performed by them, unless we first understand the extent of the functions which they inevitably perform, and admit frankly the indefeasible character of their rights. ”

“ In deciding the rules of our conduct, therefore, we are ever to bear in mind, that the developement of the nobler principles, and the subjugation of inferior propensities to them, is to be the main object of effort, both for ourselves and for others. And, in conformity with this, in all our plans, we are to place religious and moral interests as first in estimation, our social and intellectual interests, next, and our physical gratifications, as subordinate to all. ”

“ Reason back far enough on the privilege line of argument and you soon come to that fetish of tradition, the divine right of kings. So if you cannot put your claim on any better ground than privilege you would better not go on. ... Being a right, it is also a duty. He who has a right to maintain has a duty to perform. ”

“ Of the first kind are the rights of thinking, speaking, forming and giving opinions, and perhaps are those which can be fully exercised by the individual without the aid of exterior assistance; or in other words, rights of personal competency. Of the second kind are those of personal protection, of acquiring and possessing property, in the exercise of which the individual natural power is less than the natural right. ”

“ We believe that if we could have a complete record of a man's conduct in every department of life and at every stage in life—through childhood, youth, manhood, and old age, as son, brother, husband, and father, as an inferior, superior, and equal, in friendship and enmity, at work and play, in prosperity and adversity, as a citizen of a State and a member of a Church—we should have a complete expression of his character. We assume that all his actions have been produced by his character. ”