Page:A Declaration of the People's Natural Right to a Share in the Legislature (1775) (IA declarationofpeo00shar).djvu/39

 I had intended also to have added to this Declaration a little Tract on “the Law Eternal, which limits Legislature, and forms the Basis of the Subjects Rights;" but the fame Reason, which obliged me to postpone the Third Part of the Declaration already mentioned, obliges me to defer this also for the present: Nevertheless, as my Declaration is founded on many of the principles and maxims of that same "eternal Law,” I shall beg leave to add to this Preface a short quotation from the said Tract, concerning the weight, use, and manner, of applying the maxims, or rules, of eternal Reason: which is the more necessary at this time, because I find there are great numbers of people who are so ill informed of these matters as to talk of “the omnipotence of Parliament” as if they conceived, that every thing whatsoever, that is ordained by Parliament, must be Law, whether it be good or evil, right or wrong! — A most pernicious and baneful Doctrine this ! — A kind of Popery in Politics, (if I may use such an expression) which is dangerous to the eternal as well as temporal happiness of mankind! ‘The