Page:Thoughts on civil liberty, on licentiousness and faction.djvu/93

 of upright Manners and Principles could have effected.

The religious Principle of Protestant Christianity seems to have taken the Lead, even of the Love of civil Freedom. The Dread of Popery was, at least, equal to That of arbitrary Power: The national Honour and Conscience (on the whole) coincided with, and confirmed the Christian Principle: These three united Powers raised Liberty to the brightest Throne she ever sat on: A Throne which nothing but their Contraries can shake.

Yet notwithstanding the unrivaled Excellence of this civil and religious Establishment, there could be little Hope of its immediate and perfect Efficacy. Declaimers may express their Wonder, that a System so perfect should not at once attain its End: But they who take a nearer View of the Manners and Principles of those Times, will rather say, that the Tumults and Dissentions which instantly arose, were in their own Nature inevitable.