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essity of agreement to to make Laws valid, he has asserted also, “that neither the divine positive Laws, nor the Laws of Nature, had their rise from the agreement of men,” &c. Book I. c. 6. §. z.
Now his observation is certainly true as far as it relates to the rise or origin of such Laws; for the Laws, being divine, must necessarily have “had their rise” from God; but yet this does not set aside “the
because the studying of his Works (I am informed) is at this rime considered as a material part of Education in our Universities; so that the rising Generation of the very best Families in this Kingdom are liable to imbibe (as it were with the Milk of Instruction) these poisonous Doctrines, which thereby become fixed and engrafted in their tender minds as a foundation for their future political Principles!
Thus a most dangerous source of unconstitutional notions has been opened, and seems already to have flowed throughout the Kingdom; so that we need not wonder at the modern partiality for increasing the number as well as the powers of Courts of Admiralty, and other seminaries or the Civil-Law, though the very existence of British Liberty depends on duly restraining and limiting the Civil-Law Courts within those bounds of jurisdiction which have been allowed them by the ancient Constitution of this Kingdom: And therefore I hope my Readers will excuse my having exceeded the usual form of publications, in making so long a Preface so short a Work, since it was absolutely necessary to guard against these dangerous and inveterate errors of the Civil-Law, before I could safely proceed to my Declaration in favour of popular Assent.
