"Common Sense by Thomas Paine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Paine Thomas)

GOODLIEST YOUNG MEN AND YOUR ASSES, AND PUT THEM TO HIS WORK;
AND HE WILL TAKE THE TENTH OF YOUR SHEEP, AND YE SHALL BE HIS SERVANTS,
AND YE SHALL CRY OUT IN THAT DAY BECAUSE OF YOUR KING WHICH YE SHALL HAVE
CHOSEN, _AND THE LORD WILL NOT HEAR YOU IN THAT DAY._
This accounts for the continuation of monarchy;
neither do the characters of the few good kings which have lived since,
either sanctify the title, or blot out the sinfulness of the origin;
the high encomium given of David takes no notice of him
OFFICIALLY AS A KING, but only as a MAN after God's own heart.
NEVERTHELESS THE PEOPLE REFUSED TO OBEY THE VOICE OF SAMUEL,
AND THEY SAID, NAY, BUT WE WILL HAVE A KING OVER US,
THAT WE MAY BE LIKE ALL THE NATIONS, AND THAT OUR KING MAY JUDGE US,
AND GO OUT BEFORE US, AND FIGHT OUR BATTLES.
Samuel continued to reason with them, but to no purpose; he set before
them their ingratitude, but all would not avail; and seeing them fully
bent on their folly, he cried out, I WILL CALL UNTO THE LORD,
AND HE SHALL SEND THUNDER AND RAIN (which then was a punishment,
being in the time of wheat harvest) THAT YE MAY PERCEIVE AND SEE
THAT YOUR WICKEDNESS IS GREAT WHICH YE HAVE DONE IN THE SIGHT OF THE LORD,
AND THE LORD SENT THUNDER AND RAIN THAT DAY, AND ALL THE PEOPLE GREATLY
FEARED THE LORD AND SAMUEL. AND ALL THE PEOPLE SAID UNTO SAMUEL,
PRAY FOR THY SERVANTS UNTO THE LORD THY GOD THAT WE DIE NOT,
FOR _WE HAVE ADDED UNTO OUR SINS THIS EVIL, TO ASK A KING._
These portions of scripture are direct and positive.
They admit of no equivocal construction. That the Almighty
hath here entered his protest against monarchical government,
is true, or the scripture is false. And a man hath good reason
to believe that there is as much of kingcraft, as priestcraft,
in withholding the scripture from the public in Popish countries.
For monarchy in every instance is the Popery of government.

To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession;
and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves,
so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult
and an imposition on posterity. For all men being originally equals,
no ONE by BIRTH could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual
preference to all others for ever, and though himself might deserve SOME
decent degree of honours of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might
be far too unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest NATURAL proofs
of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it,
otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by
giving mankind an ASS FOR A LION.

Secondly, as no man at first could possess any other public honours
than were bestowed upon him, so the givers of those honours could have
no power to give away the right of posterity. And though they might
say, "We chooses you for OUR head," they could not, without manifest
injustice to their children, say, "that your children and your
children's children shall reign over OURS for ever." Because such
an unwise, unjust, unnatural compact might (perhaps) in the next