Ver. 33. "They shall not be sought for in public counsel, nor
sit high in the congregation: they shall not sit on the judge's
seat, nor understand the sentence of judgment; they cannot declare
justice and judgment, and they shall not be found where parables are
spoken".
Ver. 34. "But they will maintain the state of the world".
I do not determine whether this book be canonical, as the Gallican
church (till lately) has considered it, or apocryphal, as here it is
taken. I am sure it contains a great deal of sense and truth.
I do not, my dear Sir, conceive you to be of that sophistical,
captious spirit, or of that uncandid dulness, as to require, for every
general observation or sentiment, an explicit detail of the
correctives and exceptions which reason will presume to be included in
all the general propositions which come from reasonable men. You do
not imagine that I wish to confine power, authority, and distinction
to blood and names and titles. No, Sir. There is no qualification
for government but virtue and wisdom, actual or presumptive.
Wherever they are actually found, they have, in whatever state,
condition, profession, or trade, the passport of Heaven to human place
and honor. Woe to the country which would madly and impiously reject
the service of the talents and virtues, civil, military, or religious,
that are given to grace and to serve it, and would condemn to
obscurity everything formed to diffuse luster and glory around a
state.
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