Whom unawares the shepherd spies, and draws
The bleating lamb from out his ravenous jaws :
The shepherd fain himself would he assail,
But fear above his hunger does prevail,

He knows his foe too strong, and must be gone:

He grins, as he looks back, and howls, as he goes on.

SEVERAL DISCOURSES,

BY WAY OF ESSAYS,

IN VERSE AND PROSE.

1.

OF LIBERTY.

THE liberty of a people consists in being governed by laws which they have made themselves, under whatsoever form it be of government: the liberty of a private man, in being master of his own time and actions, as far as may consist with the laws of God, and of his countrey. Of this latter, only, we are here to discourse, and to enquire what estate of life does best seat us in the possession of it. This liberty of our own actions is such a fundamental privilege of human nature, that God himself, notwithstanding all his infinite power and right over us, permits us to enjoy it, and that too after a forfeiture made by the rebellion of Adam. He takes so much care for the intire preservation of it to us, that he suffers neither his providence nor eternal decree to break or infringe it. Now for our time, the same God, to whom we are but tenants-at-will for the whole, requires but the seventh part to be paid to him as a small quitrent in acknowledgement of his title. It is man only that has the impudence to demand our whole time,