“Different origins: Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness ; the former promotes our happiness positively, by uniting our affections ; the latter negatively, by restraining our vices. The One encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil ; in its worst, an intolerable one.” -(QUOTED FROM THIS BOOK 1776)

“The quiet rural lives of the first Patriarchs hath a happy something in them, which vanishes away when we come to the history of JEWISH royalty. Government by Kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. The Heathens paid divine honors to their deceased Kings, & the Christian world hath improved on the plan, by doing the same to their living ones. All Anti-Monarchical parts of scripture have been very smoothly glossed over in Monarchical governments…

Near three thousand years passed away from the Mosaic account of the creation, till the Jews, under a national delusion, requested a King. Till then, their form of government (except in extraordinary. cases where the Almighty interposed) was a kind of Republic, administered by a judge & the elders of the tribe. Monarchy is ranked in scripture as one of the sins of the Jews, for which a curse in reserve is denounced against them.. ‘The history of that transaction is worth attending to…” -(QUOTED FROM THIS BOOK 1776)

COMMON SENSE:

ADDRESSED TO THE

INHABITANTS

OF

AMERICA,

On the following interesting

SUBJECTS: