t. In the mean time the ears of their congregations would be
gradually habituated to it, as if it were a first principle admitted
without dispute. For the present it would only operate as a theory,
pickled in the preserving juices of pulpit eloquence, and laid by for
future use. _Condo et compono quae mox depromere passim_. By this policy,
whilst our government is soothed with a reservation in its favor, to
which it has no claim, the security which it has in common with all
governments, so far as opinion is security, is taken away.

Thus these politicians proceed, whilst little notice is taken of their
doctrines; but when they come to be examined upon the plain meaning of
their words and the direct tendency of their doctrines, then
equivocations and slippery constructions come into play. When they say
the king owes his crown to the choice of his people, and is therefore
the only lawful sovereign in the world, they will perhaps tell us they
mean to say no more than that some of the king's predecessors have been
called to the throne by some sort of choice, and therefore he owes his
crown to the choice of his people. Thus, by a miserable subterfuge, they
hope to render their proposition safe by rendering it nugatory. They are
welcome to the asylum they seek for their offence, since they take
refuge in their folly. For, if you admit this interpretation, how does
their idea of election differ from our idea of inheritance? And how does
the settlement of the crown in the Brunswick line, derived from James
the First, come to legalize our monarchy rather than that of any of the
neighboring countries? At some time or other, to be sure, all the
beginners of dynasties were chosen by those who called them to govern.
There is ground enough for the opinion that all the kingdoms of Europe
were at a remote period elective, with more or fewer limitations in the
objects of choice. But whatever kings might have been here or elsewhere
a thousand years ago, or in whatever manner the ruling dynasties of
England or France may have begun, the king of Great Britain is at this
day king by a fixed rule of succession, according to the laws of his
country; and whilst the legal conditions of the compact of sovereignty
are performed by him, (as they are performed,) he holds his crown in
contempt of the choice of the Revolution Society, who have not a single
vote for a king amongst them, either individually or collectively:
though I make no doubt they w