 as I am of my Being, that had You or I been in the Case and Place of
Adam,
we should have fallen in like Manner. He had an old and
a very subtile Adversary to deal with. He felt himself powerful, glorious and happy. He had no Notion that his present State could change for the worse. He was yet a Novice in Existence. He could form no Conception of the Depravity, Pains, and Mortality that afterward ensued. And he was strongly tempted by sensual Objects from without, and by the Emotions of his creaturely Nature within him. But, of this I am assured,
Harry,
that, if he was the greatest Sinner, he was also the greatest and most contrite Penitent that ever existed; as the Comparison of his first, with his latter State, must have given him the most poignant and bitter Compunctions, and must have caused him, with tenfold Energy, to cling to that Rock, from which he was hewn, but from whence he had fallen.
I have already shewn you,
Harry,
that every Man has a Right in his Person and Property, and that this Right is natural, inheritable, and indefeasable. No Consent of Parties, no Institution can make any Change in this great and fundamental Law of Right; it is universal, invariable, and unalienable to any Man or System of Men. It is only defeasable in particular Cases, as where one Man, by assailing the Safety of Another, justly forfeits the Title which he had to his own Safety.
If human Nature had never fallen into a State of inordinate Appetence, all Laws and legal Restraints would have been as needless and impertinent as the Study and Practice of Physic, in a Country exempted from Mortality and Disease. But, for as much as all Men are Tyrants by Nature, All prone to covet and grasp at the Rights of Others; the great Law of SAFETY TO ALL can no otherwise be assured, than BY THE RESTRAINT OF EACH FROM DOING INJURY TO ANY.
On this lamentable Occasion, on this sad Necessity of Man's calling for Help against Man, is founded every Intention and End of civil Government. All Laws that do not branch from this Stem are cankered or rotten. All political Edifices that are not built and sustained upon this Foundation,
of defending the Weak against the Oppressor,
must tumble into a Tyranny even worse than that Anarchy which is called the State of Nature, where Individuals are unconnected by any social Band. But, if such a System could be framed, whereby
Wrong
should not be permitted or dispensed with in any
