July 1810 1810 July 5 3 1

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Fallacies Fallacies Ch | | Jephtha's Vow

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2. Exposure

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' 2. Exposure.

If there be no sufficient reasonf for considering the whole legislature /entire sovereignty/ of a nation as having it at any one point of time in its power to divest /debar/ the entire sovereignty of any future time from exercising, much /still/ less can there be any sufficient reason for considering a portion of that same sovereignty as possessed of that same power of continuing to do /operate/ mischief without remedy and without end.

If to the ceremony of kissing a book called the Holy Gospels or any other book, accompanied with the pronountiation of the words So help me God, and with or without the pronountiation of the words I swear there be any such effect attached as that of causing /laying/ the Kings of future times under an obligation of exercising their preraogatives in a /any/ manner that by the people over whom they are reigning /whose concerns they are bearing a part in ther management of/ will be deemed repugnant to their interests and prejudicial /irksome/ to their happiness /feelings/, the performance of any such ceremony is /would be/ of the number of those acts to which the denomination and penalties of reason would be applicable with at least as much propriety as any other of the acts to which they have every been applied.