Page:A Discourse of Constancy in Two Books Chiefly containing Consolations Against Publick Evils.pdf/81

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60
A Diſcourſe
Book I.

deed unto every particular Citizen, a true right as to those things, nor do they farther differ from private posessions than in this, that they are not the propriety of any Person alone. Now that Community doth express (as it were) a kind of forme and face of a new State, which we call a Common-wealth, and the same thing (properly) our Country. In which when Men did understand how much of moment there was in reference to the safety of every particular Person, there were then also Lawes made concerning the improvement and defence of it, or at least a Custome derived from our Ancestours, which hath the force of a Law. Hence it comes to pass, that we rejoyce in its advantages, and grieve in its Calamities: Forasmuch as in very deed our private substance is safe, in the safety of it, and perishes in the devastations of it. Hence is charity or Love towards it, which our An-

cestours