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The second thing, which," he said, "would be a great help and advantage to a casuist, was a convenient knowledge of the nature and obligation of laws in general: to know what a law is; what a natural and a positive law; what's required to the 'latio, dispensato, derogatio, vel abrogalio legis; what promulgation is antecedently required to the obligation of any positive law; what ignorance takes off the obligation of a law, or does excuse, diminish, or aggravate the transgression: For every case of conscience being only this 'Is this lawful for me, or is it not? and the law the only rule and measure by which I must judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of any action; it evidently follows, that he who, in these, knows not the nature and obligation of laws, never can be a good casuist, or rationally assure himself or others, of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of actions in particular."
If a man or party should go about proclaiming the unlawfulness, in a religious sense, of property, and agitating for that doctrine amongst the lower classes by appropriate arguments it would soon be found necessary to check them, and the sanctity of property would soon be felt to merit civil support.
It is to be compared to an athlete's training, not to the self- mutilation of a fakir. There is in Christianity no doctrine of the unlawfulness of bodily pleasures in themselves. "The Son of Man came eating and drinking." For Christianity every creature of GOD in itself is good, and a man's bodily impulses are God-given endowments of his nature.
It is true that he had sworn at his coronation to maintain the laws of Bohemia, and that the Majesty-Letter and the Compromise were part of the laws. But when were doctors ever wanting to prove the unlawfulness of law which interferes with the purposes of a despot and the convictions of the bigot?
Adams's opinion of this irreligious republican is not favorable: "That part of 'Common Sense' which relates to independence is clearly written, but I am bold enough to say there is not a fact nor a reason stated in it which has not been frequently urged in Congress," while "his arguments from the Old Testament to prove the unlawfulness of monarchy are ridiculous."
Objection to the foregoing statement, that the idolatry, which was then connected with the military service, and not the unlawfulness of war, was the reason why Christians declined it Idolatry admitted to be a cause Instance in Marinus But the belief of the unlawfulness of fighting was another, and an equally powerful cause Instances in Maximilian Marcellus Cassian Marlin The one scruple as much then a part of the Christian religion as the other.
And considering that, besides the unlawfulness of the Publick Actings during the troubles, most of the Acts in all and every of the Meetings of these pretended Parliaments, do highly encroach upon, and are destructive of that Sovereign Power, Authority, Prerogative, and Right of Government, which by the law of GOD, and the ancient Laws and Constitutions of this Kingdom, doth reside in, and belong unto, the Kings Majestie, and do reflect upon the honour, loyaltie, and reputation of this Kingdom; or are expired, and serve only as testimonies of disloyaltie and reproach upon the Kingdom, and are unfit to be any longer upon Record.
There are thousands of religious men, with consciences as tender as any of their brethren at the North, who do not see the unlawfulness of slavery; and there are more thousands, perhaps, that, whatsoever they may think of it in its origin, and as a matter depending upon natural right, yet take things as they are, and, finding slavery to be an established relation of the society in which they live, can see no way in which, let their opinions on the abstract question be what they may, it is in the power of the present generation to relieve themselves from this relation.
Yet we deal more liberally with our opposites, for if we prove not the unlawfulness of the ceremonies, both by God’s word and sound reason, let us then be bound to use them for ordinance’ sake. His comparisons are far wide. They are so far from running upon four feet, that they have indeed no feet at all, whether we consider the commandments, or the breach of them, he is altogether extravagant.
And there is no doubt, that the unlawfulness of fighting was as much a principle of religion in the early times of Christianity, as the refusal of sacrifice to the Heathen gods; and that they operated equally to prevent men from entering into the army, and to drive them out of it on their conversion.
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