Sons of Vespasian and Constantine inherited the Roman Empire tho their Fathers had no such title but gaining the Empire by violence which Hooker says is meer Tyranny that can create no right they could devolve none to their Children The Kings of France of the three races have inherited the Crown but Meroveus Pepin and Hugh Capet could neither pretend title nor conquest or any other Right than what was conferred upon them by the Clergy Nobility and People and consequently whatsoever is inherited from them can have no other Original for that is the gift of the People which is bestowed upon the first under whom the Successors claim as if it had bin by a peculiar Act given to every one of them It will be more hard to shew how the Crown of England is become hereditary unless it be by the Will of the People for tho it were granted that some of the Saxon Kings came in by inheritance which I do not having as I think proved them to have bin absolutely elective yet William the Norman did not for he was a Bastard and could inherit nothing William Rufus and Henry did not for their elder Brother Robert by right of inheritance ought to have bin preferred before them Stephen and Henry the second did not for Maud the only Heiress of Henry the first was living when both were crowned Richard John and those who followed did not for they were Bastards born in adultery They must therefore have received their Right from the People or they could have none at all and their Successors fall under the same condition Moreover I find great variety in the deduction of this hereditary Right In Sparta there were two Kings of different Families endowed with an equal power If the Heraclidae did reign as Fathers of the People the AEacidae did not if the right was in the AEacidae the Heraclidae could have none for 't is equally impossible to have two Fathers as two thousand 'T is in vain to say that two Families joined and agreed to reign jointly for 't is evident the Spartans had Kings before the time of Hercules or Achilles who were the Fathers of the two Races If it be said that the regal power with which they were invested did entitle them to the right of Fathers it must in like manner have belonged to the Roman Consuls Military Tribunes Dictators and Pretors for they had more Power than the Spartan Kings and that glorious Nation might change their Fathers every year and multiply or diminish the number of them as they pleased If this be most ridiculous and absurd 't is certain that the Name and Office of King Consul Dictator or the like dos not confer any determined Right upon the Person that hath it Every one has a right to that which is allotted to him by the Laws of the Country by which he is created As the Persians Spartans Romans or Germans might make such Magistrates and under such names as best pleased themselves and accordingly enlarge or diminish their Power the same Right belongs to all Nations and the Rights due unto as well as the Duties incumbent upon every one are to be known only by the Laws of that place This may seem strange to those who know neither Books nor Things Histories nor Laws but is well explain'd by Grotius who denying the Soveraign Power to be annexed to any Man speaks of divers Magistrates under several names that had and others that under the same names had it not and distinguishes those who have the Summum Imperium summo modo from those who have it modo non summo and tho probably he looked upon the first sort as a thing meerly speculative if by that summo modo a right of doing what one pleases be understood yet he gives many Examples of the other and among those who had liberrimum imperium if any had it he names the Kings of the Sabeans who nevertheless were under such a condition that tho they were as Agatharchidas reports obeyed in all things whilst they continued within the Walls of their Palace might be stoned by any that met them without it He finds also another obstacle to the Absolute power Cum Rex partem habeat summi Imperii partem Senatus sive Populus which parts are proportioned according to the Laws of each Kingdom whether Hereditary or Elective both being equally regulated by them The Law that gives and measures the Power prescribes Rules how it should be transmitted In some places the supreme Magistrates are annually elected in others their Power is for life in some they are meerly elective in others hereditary under certain Rules or Limitations The antient Kingdoms and Lordships of Spain were hereditary but the Succession went ordinarily to the eldest of the reigning Family not to the nearest in Blood This was the ground of the Quarrel between Corbis the Brother and Orsua the Son of the last Prince decided by Combat before Scipio I know not whether the Goths brought that custom with them when they conquered Spain or whether they learnt it from the Inhabitants but certain it is that keeping themselves to the Families of the Balthei and Amalthei they had more regard to Age than Proximity and almost ever preferred the Brother or eldest Kinsman of the last King before his Son The like custom was in use among the Moors in Spain and Africa who according to the several Changes that happened among the Families of Almohades Almoranides and Benemerini did always take one of the reigning Blood but in the choice of him had most respect to Age and Capacity This is usually called the Law of Thanestry and as in many other places prevailed also in Ireland till that Country fell under the English Government In France and Turky the Male that is nearest in Blood succeeds and I do not know of any deviation from that Rule in France since Henry the First was preferred before Robert his elder Brother Grandchild to Hugh Capet but notwithstanding the great veneration they have for the Royal Blood they utterly exclude Females lest the Crown should fall to a Stranger or a Woman that is seldom able to govern her self should come to govern so great a People Some Nations admit Females either simply as well as Males or under a condition of not marrying out of their Country or without the consent of the Estates with an absolute exclusion of them and their Children if they do according to which Law now in force among the Swedes Charles Gustavus was chosen King upon the resignation of Queen Christina as having no Title and the Crown setled upon the Heirs of his Body to the utter exclusion of his Brother Adolphus their Mother having married a German Tho divers Nations have differently disposed their Affairs all those that are not naturally Slaves and like to Beasts have preferred their own Good before the personal Interests of him that expects the Crown so as upon no pretence
to their Country I say that all Nations amongst whom Virtue has bin esteemed have had a great regard to them and their Posterity And tho Kings when they were made have bin intrusted by the Saxons and other Nations with a Power of ennobling those who by services render'd to their Country might deserve that Honor yet the body of the Nobility was more antient than such for it had bin equally impossible to take Kings according to Tacitus out of the Nobility if there had bin no Nobility as to take Captains for their Virtue if there had bin no Virtue and Princes could not without breach of that trust confer Honors upon those that did not deserve them which is so true that this practice was objected as the greatest crime against Vortigern the last and the worst of the British Kings and tho he might pretend according to such cavils as are usual in our time that the judgment of those matters was reserred to him yet the world judged of his Crimes and when he had render'd himself odious to God and men by them he perished in them and brought destruction upon his Country that had suffer'd them too long As among the Turks and most of the Eastern Tyrannies there is no Nobility and no man has any considerable advantage above the common People unless by the immediate favour of the Prince so in all the legal Kingdoms of the North the strength of the Government has always bin placed in the Nobility and no better defence has bin found against the encroachments of ill Kings than by setting up an Order of men who by holding large Territories and having great numbers of Tenants and Dependents might be able to restrain the exorbitances that either the Kings or the Commons might run into For this end Spain Germany France Poland Denmark Sweeden Scotland and England were almost wholly divided into Lordships under several names by which every particular Possessor owed Allegiance that is such an Obedience as the Law requires to the King and he reciprocally swore to perform that which the same Law exacted from him When these Nations were converted to the Christian Religion they had a great veneration for the Clergy and not doubting that the men whom they esteemed holy would be just thought their Liberties could not be better secured than by joining those who had the direction of their Consciences to the Noblemen who had the command of their Forces This succeeded so well in relation to the defence of the publick Rights that in all the forementioned States the Bishops Abbots c. were no less zealous or bold in defending the publick Liberty than the best and greatest of the Lords And if it were true that things being thus established the Commons did neither personally nor by their Representatives enter into the General Assemblies it could be of no advantage to Kings for such a Power as is above-mentioned is equally inconsistent with the absolute Sovereignty of Kings if placed in the Nobility and Clergy as if the Commons had a part If the King has all no other man nor number of men can have any If the Nobility and Clergy have the power the Commons may have their share also But I affirm that those whom we now call Commons have always had a part in the Government and their place in the Councils that managed it for if there was a distinction it must have bin by Patent Birth or Tenure As for Patents we know they began long after the coming of the Normans and those that now have them cannot pretend to any advantage on account of Birth or Tenure beyond many of those who have them not Nay besides the several Branches of the Families that now enjoy the most antient Honors which consequently are as noble as they and some of them of the elder Houses we know many that are now called Commoners who in antiquity and eminency are no way inferior to the chief of the titular Nobility and nothing can be more absurd than to give a prerogative of Birth to Cr-v-n T-ft-n H-ae B-nn-t Osb-rn and others before the Cliftons Hampdens Courtneys Pelhams St. Johns Baintons Wilbrahams Hungerfords and many others And if the Tenures of their Estates be consider'd they have the same and as antient as any of those who go under the names of Duke or Marquess I forbear to mention the sordid ways of attaining to Titles in our days but whoever will take the pains to examine them shall find that they rather defile than ennoble the possessors And whereas men are truly ennobled only by Virtue and respect is due to such as are descended from those who have bravely serv'd their Country because it is presumed till they shew the contrary that they will resemble their Ancestors these modern Courtiers by their Names and Titles frequently oblige us to call to mind such things as are not to be mentioned without blushing Whatever the antient Noblemen of England were we are sure they were not such as these And tho it should be confess'd that no others than Dukes Marquesses Earls Viscounts and Barons had their places in the Councils mentioned by Cesar and Tacitus or in the great Assemblies of the Saxons it could be of no advantage to such as now are called by those names They were the titles of Offices conserred upon those who did and could best conduct the people in time of War give Counsel to the King administer Justice and perform other publick duties but were never made hereditary except by abuse much less were they sold for money or given as recompences of the vilest services If the antient order be totally inverted and the ends of its institution perverted they who from thence pretend to be distinguished from other men must build their claim upon something very different from Antiquity This being sufficient if I mistake not to make it appear that the antient Councils of our Nation did not consist of such as we now call Noblemen it may be worth our pains to examine of what sort of men they did consist And tho I cannot much rely upon the credit of Camden which he has forfeited by a great number of untruths I will begin with him because he is cited by our Author If we will believe him That which the Saxons called Wittenagemot we may justly name Parliament which has the supreme and most sacred Authority of making abrogating and interpreting Laws and generally of all things relating to the safety of the Commonwealth This Wittenagemot was according to William of Malmsbury The general meeting of the Senat and People and Sir Harry Spelman calls it The General Council of the Clergy and People In the Assembly at Calcuth it was decreed by the Archbishops Bishops Abbots Dukes Senators and the People of the Land Populo terrae that the Kings should be elected by the Priests and Elders of the People By these Offa Ina and others were made Kings and Alfred
destroyed the Kingdoms of Asia Egypt Macedon Numidia and a multitude of others was made a Prey to unknown barbarous Nations and rent into as many pieces as it had bin composed of when it enjoy'd the Stability that accompanies Divine and Absolute Monarchy The like may be said of all the Kingdoms in the World they may have their ebbings and flowings according to the Vertues or Vices of Princes or their Favorites but can never have any Stability because there is and can be none in them Or if any Exception may be brought against this Rule it must be of those Monarchies only which are mixed and regulated by Laws where Diets Parliaments Assemblies of Estates or Senats may supply the defects of a Prince restrain him if he prove extravagant and reject such as are found to be unworthy of their Office which are as odious to our Author and his Followers as the most popular Governments and can be of no advantage to his cause There is another ground of perpetual Fluctuation in Absolute Monarchies or such as are grown so strong that they cannot be restrained by Law tho according to their Institution they ought to be distinct from but in some measure relating to the Inclinations of the Monarch that is the impulse of Ministers Favorites Wives or Whores who frequently govern all things according to their own Passions or Interests And tho we cannot say who were the Favorites of every one of the Assyrian or Egyptian Kings yet the Examples before-mentioned of the different method follow'd in Egypt before and after the death of Joseph and in Persia whilst the idolatrous Princes and Haman or Daniel Esther and Mordecai were in credit the violent Changes happening thereupon give us reason to believe the like were in the times of other Kings and if we examine the Histories of later Ages and the Lives of Princes that are more exactly known we shall find that Kingdoms are more frequently swayed by those who have Power with the Prince than by his own Judgment So that whosoever hath to deal with Princes concerning Foreign or Domestick Affairs is obliged more to regard the humour of those Persons than the most important Interests of a Prince or People I might draw too much envy upon my self if I should take upon me to cite all the Examples of this kind that are found in modern Histories or the Memoirs that do more precisely shew the Temper of Princes and the secret Springs by which they were moved But as those who have well observed the management of Affairs in France during the Reigns of Francis the First Henry the Second Francis the Second Charles the Ninth Henry the Third Henry the Fourth and Lewis the Thirteenth will confess that the Interests of the Dukes of Montmorency and Guise Queen Katherine de Medicis the Duke of Epernon La Fosseuse Madame de Guiche de Gabriele d' Entragues the Marechal d' Ancre the Constable de Luines and the Cardinal de Richelieu were more to be consider'd by those who had any private or publick Business to treat at Court than the Opinions of those Princes or the most weighty Concernments of the State so it cannot be denied that other Kingdoms where Princes legally have or wrongfully usurp the like Power are governed in the like manner or if it be there is hardly any Prince's Reign that will not furnish abundant proof of what I have asserted I agree with our Author that good Order and Stability produce Strength If Monarchy therefore excel in them Absolute Monarchies should be of more strength than those that are limited according to the proportion of their Riches extent of Territory and number of People that they govern and those limited Monarchies in the like proportion more strong than popular Governments or Commonwealths If this be so I wonder how a few of those giddy Greeks who according to our Author had learning enough only to make them seditious came to overthrow those vast Armies of the Persians as often as they met with them and seldom found any other difficulty than what did arise from their own Countrymen who sometimes sided with the Barbarians Seditions are often raised by a little prating but when one Man was to fight against fifty or a hundred as at the Battels of Salamine Platea Marathon and others then Industry Wisdom Skill and Valour was required and if their Learning had not made them to excel in those Vertues they must have bin overwhelmed by the prodigious multitudes of their Enemies This was so well known to the Persians that when Cyrus the younger prepar'd to invade his Brother Artaxerxes he brought together indeed a vast Army of Asiaticks but chiefly relied upon the Counsel and Valour of ten thousand Grecians whom he had engaged to serve him These giddy heads accompanied with good hands in the great Battel near Babylon found no resistance from Artaxerxes his Army and when Cyrus was killed by accident in the pursuit of the Victory they had gained and their own Officers treacherously murder'd they made good their retreat into Greece under the conduct of Xenophon in despite of above four hundred thousand Horse and Foot who endeavour'd to oppose them They were destitute of Horse Mony Provisions Friends and all other help except what their Wisdom and Valour furnished them and thereupon relying they passed over the Bellies of all the Enemies that ventur'd to appear against them in a march of a thousand miles These things were performed in the weakness of popular confusion but Agesilaus not being sensible of so great defects accompanied only with six and thirty Spartans and such other Forces as he could raife upon his personal credit adventured without Authority or Mony to undertake a War against that great King Artaxerxes and having often beaten Pharnabazus and Tissaphernes his Lieutenants was preparing to assault him in the heart of his Kingdom when he was commanded by the Ephori to return for the defence of his own Country It may in like manner appear strange that Alexander with the Forces of Greece much diminished by the Phocean Peloponnesian Theban and other intestine Wars could overthrow all the powers of the East and conquer more Provinces than any other Army ever saw if so much order and stability were to be found in absolute Monarchies and if the Liberty in which the Grecians were educated did only fit them for Seditions and it would seem no less astonishing that Rome and Greece whilst they were free should furnish such numbers of men excelling in all moral Vertues to the admiration of all succeeding Ages and thereby become so powerful that no Monarchs were able to resist them and that the same Countries since the loss of their Liberty have always bin weak base cowardly and vicious if the same Liberty had not bin the Mother and Nurse of their Vertue as well as the root of their Power It cannot be said that Alexander was a Monarch in our Author's sense for the power
Crown till after the death of his two Bastards Lewis and Carloman Charles le Gros and Eudes Duke of Anjou Charles le Gros was deposed from the Empire and Kingdom strip'd of his goods and left to perish through poverty in an obscure Village Charles the Simple and the Nations under him thrived no better Robert Duke of Anjou raised War against him and was crown'd at Rheims but was himself slain soon after in a bloody battel near Soissons His Son-in-law Hebert Earl of Vermandois gathered up the remains of his scatter'd party got Charles into his power and called a General Assembly of Estates who deposed him and gave the Crown to Raoul Duke of Burgundy tho he was no otherwise related to the Royal Blood than by his Mother which in France is nothing at all He being dead Lewis Son to the deposed Charles was made King but his Reign was as inglorious to him as miserable to his Subjects This is the Peace which the French enjoy'd for the space of five or six Ages under their Monarchy and 't is hard to determine whether they suffer'd most by the Violence of those who possessed or the Ambition of others who aspired to the Crown and whether the fury of active or the baseness of slothful Princes was most pernicious to them But upon the whole matter through the defects of those of the latter sort they lost all that they had gained by sweat and blood under the conduct of the former Henry and Otho of Saxony by a Virtue like that of Charlemagne deprived them of the Empire and settled it in Germany leaving France only to Lewis sirnamed Outremer and his Son Lothair These seemed to be equally composed of Treachery Cruelty Ambition and Baseness They were always mutinous and always beaten Their frantick Passions put them always upon unjust Designs and were such plagues to their Subjects and Neighbours that they became equally detested and despised These things extinguished the veneration due to the memory of Pepin and Charles and obliged the whole Nation rather to seek relief from a Stranger than to be ruin'd by their worthless Descendents They had tried all ways that were in their power deposed four crowned Kings within the space of a hundred and fifty years crowned five who had no other Title than the People conferred upon them and restored the Descendents of those they had rejected but all was in vain Their Vices were incorrigible the Mischiefs produc'd by them intolerable they never ceased from murdering one another in battel or by treachery and bringing the Nation into Civil Wars upon their wicked or foolish quarrels till the whole Race was rejected and the Crown placed upon the head of Hugh Capet These mischiefs raged not in the same extremity under him and his Descendents but the abatement proceeded from a cause no way advantagious to Absolute Monarchy The French were by their Calamities taught more strictly to limit the Regal Power and by turning the Dukedoms and Earldoms into Patrimonies which had bin Offices gave an Authority to the chief of the Nobility by which that of Kings was curbed and tho by this means the Commonalty was exposed to some Pressures yet they were small in comparison of what they had suffer'd in former times When many great men had Estates of their own that did not depend upon the Will of Kings they grew to love their Country and tho they chearfully served the Crown in all cases of publick concernment they were not easily engaged in the personal quarrels of those who possessed it or had a mind to gain it To preserve themselves in this condition they were obliged to use their Vassals gently and this continuing in some measure till within the last fifty years the Monarchy was less tumultuous than when the King 's Will had bin less restrained Nevertheless they had not much reason to boast there was a Root still remaining that from time to time produced poisonous Fruit Civil Wars were frequent among them tho not carried on with such desperate madness as formerly and many of them upon the account of disputes between Competitors for the Crown All the Wars with England since Edward II. married Isabella Daughter and as he pretended Heir of Philip Le Bel were of this nature The defeats of Crecy Poitiers and Agincourt with the slaughters and devastations suffer'd from Edward III. the black Prince and Henry V. were merely upon Contests for the Crown and for want of an Interpreter of the Law of Succession who might determine the question between the Heir Male and the Heir General The Factions of Orleans and Burgundy Orleans and Armignac proceeded from the same Spring and the Murders that seem to have bin the immediate causes of those Quarrels were only the effects of the hatred growing from their competition The more odious tho less bloody Contests between Lewis the 11 th and his Father Charles the 7 th with the jealousy of the former against his Son Charles the 8 th arose from the same Principle Charles of Bourbon prepared to fill France with Fire and Blood upon the like quarrel when his designs were overthrown by his death in the assault of Rome If the Dukes of Guise had bin more fortunate they had soon turned the cause of Religion into a claim to the Crown and repair'd the Injury done as they pretended to Pepin's Race by destroying that of Capet And Henry the third thinking to prevent this by the slaughter of Henry le Balafré and his Brother the Cardinal de Guise brought ruin upon himself and cast the Kingdom into a most horrid confusion Our own Age furnishes us with more than one attempt of the same kind attended with the like success The Duke of Orleans was several times in arms against Lewis the 13 th his Brother the Queen-mother drew the Spaniards to favour him Montmorency perished in his Quarrel Fontrailles reviv'd it by a Treaty with Spain which struck at the King's head as well as the Cardinal 's and was suppress'd by the death of Cinq Mars and de Thou Those who understand the Affairs of that Kingdom make no doubt that the Count de Soissons would have set up for himself and bin follow'd by the best part of France if he had not bin kill'd in the pursuit of his Victory at the Battel of Sedan Since that time the Kingdom has suffer'd such Disturbances as show that more was intended than the removal of Mazarin And the Marechal de Turenne was often told that the check he gave to the Prince of Condé at Gien after he had defeated Hocquincourt had preserved the Crown upon the King's head And to testify the Stability good Order and domestick Peace that accompanies Absolute Monarchy we have in our own days seen the House of Bourbon often divided within it self the Duke of Orleans the Count de Soissons the Princes of Condé and Conti in war against the King the Dukes of Angoulesme Vendome Longueville the Count
and will govern you as I please But I doubt whether he would have succeeded till that Kingdom was joined to others of far greater strength from whence a power might be drawn to force them out of their usual method That which has bin said of the Governments of England France and other Countries shows them to be of the same nature and if they do not deserve the name of Kingdoms and that their Princes will by our Author's Arguments be perswaded to leave them those Nations perhaps will be so humble to content themselves without that magnificent Title rather than resign their own Liberties to purchase it and if this will not please him he may seek his glorious soveraign Monarchy among the wild Arabs or in the Island of Ceylon for it will not be found among civiliz'd Nations However more ignorance cannot be express'd than by giving the name of Democracy to those Governments that are composed of the three simple species as we have proved that all the good ones have ever bin for in a strict sense it can only sute with those where the People retain to themselves the administration of the supreme Power and more largely when the popular part as in Athens greatly overbalances the other two and that the denomination is taken from the prevailing part But our Author if I mistake not is the first that ever took the antient Governments of Israel Sparta and Rome or those of England France Germany and Spain to be Democracies only because every one of them had Senats and Assemblies of the People who in their Persons or by their Deputies did join with their chief Magistrates in the exercise of the supreme Power That of Israel to the time of Saul is called by Josephus an Aristocracy The same name is given to that of Sparta by all the Greek Authors and the great contest in the Peloponnesian War was between the two kinds of Government the Cities that were governed Aristocratically or desired to be so following the Lacedemonians and such as delighted in Democracy taking part with the Athenians In like manner Rome England and France were said to be under Monarchies not that their Kings might do what they pleased but because one man had a preheminence above any other Yet if the Romans could take Romulus the Son of a man that was never known Numa a Sabin Hostilius and Aneus Martius private men and Tarquinius Priscus the Son of a banished Corinthian who had no Title to a preference before others till it was bestowed upon them 't is ridiculous to think that they who gave them what they had could not set what limits they pleased to their own gift But says our Author The Nobility will then have one Voice and the People another and they joining may overrule the third which was never seen in any Kingdom This may perhaps be a way of regulating the Monarchical Power but it is not necessary nor the only one There may be a Senate tho the People be excluded that Senate may be composed of men chosen for their Virtue as well as for the Nobility of their Birth The Government may consist of King and People without a Senate or the Senate may be composed only of the Peoples Delegates But if I should grant his assertion to be true the reasonableness of such a Constitution cannot be destroy'd by the consequences he endeavours to draw from it for he who would instruct the world in matters of State must show what is or ought to be not what he fancies may thereupon ensue Besides it dos not follow that where there are three equal Votes Laws should be always made by the plurality for the consent of all the three is in many places required and 't is certain that in England and other parts the King and one of the Estates cannot make a Law without the concurrence of the other But to please Filmer I will avow that where the Nobles and Commons have an equal Vote they may join and over-rule or limit the power of the King and I leave any reasonable man to judg whether it be more safe and fit that those two Estates comprehending the whole body of the Nation in their Persons or by Representation should have a right to over-rule or limit the power of that man woman or child who sits in the Throne or that he or she young or old wise or foolish good or bad should over-rule them and by their vices weakness folly impertinence incapacity or malice put a stop to their proceedings and whether the chief concernments of a Nation may more fasely and prudently be made to depend upon the votes of so many eminent Persons amongst whom many wise and good men will always be found if there be any in the Nation and who in all respects have the same interest with them or upon the will of one who may be and often is as vile ignorant and wretched as the meanest Slave and either has or is for the most part made to believe he has an interest so contrary to them that their suppression is his Advancement Common sense so naturally leads us to the decision of this Question that I should not think it possible for Mankind to have mistaken tho we had no examples of it in History and 't is in vain to say that all Princes are not such as I represent for if a right were annexed to the being of a Prince and that his single judgment should over-balance that of a whole Nation it must belong to him as a Prince and be enjoy'd by the worst and basest as well as by the wisest and best which would inevitably draw on the absurdities above-mention'd But that many are and have bin such no man can deny or reasonably hope that they will not often prove to be such as long as any preference is granted to those who have nothing to recommend them but the Families from whence they derive a continual succession of those who excel in virtue wisdom and experience being promised to none nor reasonably to be expected from any Such a Right therefore cannot be claimed by all and if not by all then not by any unless it proceed from a particular grant in consideration of personal Virtue Ability and Integrity which must be proved and when any one goes about to do it I will either acknowledg him to be in the right or give the reasons of my denial However this is nothing to the general Proposition nay if a man were to be found who had more of the qualities requir'd for making a right judgment in matters of the greatest importance than a whole Nation or an Assembly of the best men chosen out of it which I have never heard to have bin unless in the Persons of Moses Joshua or Samuel who had the Spirit of God for their guide it would be nothing to our purpose for even he might be biassed by his personal Interests which Governments are not established principally to
no Power but what is given by the Laws If this be not the case I desire to know who made the Laws to which they and their Predecessors have sworn and whether they can according to their own will abrogate those antient Laws by which they are made to be what they are and by which we enjoy what we have or whether they can make new Laws by their own Power If no man but our Author have impudence enough to assert any such thing and if all the Kings we ever had except Richard the second did renounce it we may conclude that Austin's words have no relation to our dispute and that 't were to no purpose to examine whether the Fathers mention any reservation of Power to the Laws of the Land or to the People it being as lawful for all Nations if they think fit to frame Governments different from those that were then in being as to build Bastions Halfmoons Hornworks Ravelins or Counterscarps or to make use of Muskets Cannon Mortars Carabines or Pistols which were unknown to them What Solomon says of the Hebrew Kings dos as little concern us We have already proved their Power not to have bin absolute tho greater than that which the Law allows to ours It might upon occasion be a prudent advice to private persons living under such Governments as were usual in the Eastern Countries to keep the King's Commandments and not to say What dost thou because where the Word of a King is there is Power and all that he pleaseth he will do But all these words are not his and those that are must not be taken in a general sense for tho his Son was a King yet in his words there was no power He could not do what he pleased nor hinder others from doing what they pleased He would have added weight to the Yoak that lay upon the necks of the Israelites but he could not and we do not find him to have bin master of much more than his own Tongue to speak as many foolish things as he pleased In other things whether he had to deal with his own people or with strangers he was weak and impotent and the wretches who flatter'd him in his follies could be of no help to him The like has befallen many others Those who are wise virtuous valiant just and lovers of their People have and ought to have Power but such as are lewd vicious foolish and haters of their People ought to have none and are often deprived of all This was well known to Solomon who says That a wise Child is better than an old and foolish King that will not be advised When Nabuchodonosor set himself in the place of God his Kingdom was taken from him and he was driven from the society of men to herd with beasts There was Power for a time in the word of Nero he murdered many excellent men but he was call'd to account and the World abandon'd the Monster it had too long endur'd He found none to defend him nor any better help when he desir'd to die than the hand of a Slave Besides this some Kings by their Institution have little Power some have bin deprived of what they had for abusing or rendring themselves unworthy of it and Histories afford us innumerable examples of both sorts But tho I should confess that there is always Power in the word of a King it would be nothing to us who dispute concerning Right and have no regard to that Power which is void of it A Thief or a Pyrat may have Power but that avails him not when as often befel the Cesars he meets with one who has more and is always unsafe since having no effect upon the Consciences of men every one may destroy him that can And I leave it to Kings to consider how much they stand obliged to those who placing their Rights upon the same foot expose their Persons to the same dangers But if Kings desire that in their Word there should be power let them take care that it be always accompanied with Truth and Justice Let them seek the good of their People and the hands of all good men will be with them Let them not exalt themselves insolently and every one will desire to exalt them Let them acknowledg themselves to be the Servants of the Publick and all men will be theirs Let such as are most addicted to them talk no more of Cesars nor the Tributes due to them We have nothing to do with the name of Cesar. They who at this day live under it reject the Prerogatives antiently usurped by those that had it and are govern'd by no other Laws than their own We know no Law to which we owe obedience but that of God and our selves Asiatick Slaves usually pay such Tributes as are imposed upon them and whilst braver Nations lay under the Roman Tyranny they were forced to submit to the same burdens But even those Tributes were paid for maintaining Armies Fleets and Garisons without which the poor and abject life they led could not have bin preserved We owe none but what we freely give None is or can be imposed upon us unless by our selves We measure our Grants according to our own Will or the present occasions for our own safety Our Ancestors were born free and as the best provision they could make for us they left us that Liberty intire with the best Laws they could devise to defend it 'T is no way impair'd by the Opinions of the Fathers The words of Solomon do rather confirm it The happiness of those who enjoy the like and the shameful misery they lie under who have suffer'd themselves to be forced or cheated out of it may perswade and the justice of the Cause encourage us to think nothing too dear to be hazarded in the defence of it SECT IX Our own Laws confirm to us the enjoyment of our native Rights IF that which our Author calls Divinity did reach the things in dispute between us or that the Opinions of the Fathers which he alledges related to them he might have spared the pains of examining our Laws for a municipal Sanction were of little force to confirm a perpetual and universal Law given by God to mankind and of no value against it since man cannot abrogate what God hath instituted nor one Nation free it self from a Law that is given to all But having abused the Scriptures and the Writings of the Fathers whose Opinions are to be valued only so far as they rightly interpret them he seems desirous to try whether he can as well put a false sense upon our Law and has fully compassed his design Aocording to his custom he takes pieces of passages from good Books and turns them directly against the plain meaning of the Authors expressed in the whole scope and design of their Writings To show that he intends to spare none he is not ashamed to cite Bracton who of all our antient Law-writers is
in his Will acknowledged his Crown from them Edgar was elected by all the People and not long after deposed by them and again restored in a General Assembly These things being sometimes said to be done by the assent of the Barons of the Kingdom Camden says That under the name of the Baronage all the Orders of the Kingdom are in a manner comprehended and it cannot be otherwise understood if we consider that those called Noblemen or the Nobility of England are often by the Historians said to be infinita multitudo an infinite multitude If any man ask how the Nobility came to be so numerous I answer That the Northern Nations who were perpetually in Arms put a high esteem upon Military Valour sought by conquest to acquire better Countries than their own valu'd themselves according to the numbers of men they could bring into the field and to distinguish them from Villains called those Noblemen who nobly defended and enlarged their Dominions by War and for a reward of their Services in the division of Lands gained by conquest they distributed to them Freeholds under the obligation of continuing the same Service to their Country This appears by the name of Knights Service a Knight being no more than a Soldier and a Knight's Fee no more than was sufficient to maintain one 'T is plain that Knighthood was always esteemed Nobility so that no man of what quality soever thought a Knight inferior to him and those of the highest birth could not act as Noblemen till they were knighted Among the Goths in Spain the cutting off the Hair which being long was the mark of Knighthood was accounted a degrading and looked upon to be so great a mark of Infamy that he who had suffer'd it could never bear any honor or office in the Commonwealth and there was no dignity so high but every Knight was capable of it There was no distinction of men above it and even to this day Baron or Varon in their Language signifies no more than Vir in Latin which is not properly given to any man unless he be free The like was in France till the coming in of the third race of Kings in which time the 12 Peers of whom 6 only were Laymen were raised to a higher dignity and the Commands annexed made hereditary but the honour of Knighthood was thereby no way diminished Tho there were Dukes Earls Marquesses and Barons in the time of Froissart yet he usually calls them Knights And Philip de Commines speaking of the most eminent men of his time calls them good wise or valiant Knights Even to this day the name of Gentleman comprehends all that is raised above the common people Henry the fourth usually called himself the first Gentleman in France and 't is an ordinary phrase among them when they speak of a Gentleman of good Birth to say Il est noble comme le Roy He is as noble as the King In their General Assembly of Estates The Chamber of the Noblesse which is one of Three is composed of the Deputies sent by the Gentry of every Province and in the inquiry made about the Year 1668 concerning Nobility no notice was taken of such as had assumed the Titles of Earl Marquess Viscount or Baron but only of those who called themselves Gentlemen and if they could prove that name to belong to them they were left to use the other Titles as they pleased When Duels were in fashion as all know they were lately no man except the Princes of the Blood and Marechals of France could with honour refuse a Challenge from any Gentleman The first because it was thought unfit that he who might be King should fight with a Subject to the danger of the Commonwealth which might by that means be deprived of its Head The others being by their Office Commanders of the Nobility and Judges of all the Controversies relating to Honour that happen amongst them cannot reasonably be brought into private Contests with any In Denmark Nobleman and Gentleman is the same thing and till the year 1660 they had the principal part of the Government in their hands When Charles Guslavus King of Sweden invaded Poland in the year 1655 't is said that there were above three hundred thousand Gentlemen in Arms to resist him This is the Nobility of that Country Kings are chosen by them Every one of them will say as in France He is noble as the King The last King was a private man among them not thought to have had more than four hundred pounds a year He who now reigns was not at all above him in birth or estate till he had raised himself by great services done for his Country in many wars and there was not one Gentleman in the Nation who might not have bin chosen as well as he if it had pleased the Assembly that did it This being the Nobility of the Northern Nations and the true Baronage of England 't is no wonder that they were called Nobiles the most eminent among them Magnates Principes Proceres and so numerous that they were esteemed to be Multitudo infinita One place was hardly able to contain them and the inconveniences of calling them all together appeared to be so great that they in time chose rather to meet by Representatives than every one in his own person The power therefore remaining in them it matters not what method they observed in the execution They who had the substance in their hands might give it what form they pleased Our Author sufficiently manifests his ignorance in saying there could be no Knights of the Shires in the time of the Saxons because there were no Shires for the very word is Saxon and we find the names of Barkshire Wiltshire Devonshire Dorsetshire and others most frequently in the writings of those times and Dukes Earls Thanes or Aldermen appointed to command the forces and look to the distribution of Justice in them Selden cites Ingulphus for saying that Alfred was the first that changed the Provinces c. into Counties but refutes him and proves that the distinction of the Land into Shires or Counties for Shire signified no more than the share or part committed to the care of the Earl or Comes was far more antient Whether the first divisions by the Saxons were greater or lesser than the Shires or Counties now are is nothing to the question they who made them to be as they were could have made them greater or lesser as they pleased And whether they did immediately or some ages after that distinction cease to come to their great Assemblies and rather chuse to send their Deputies or whether such Deputies were chosen by Counties Cities and Boroughs as in our days or in any other manner can be of no advantage or prejudice to the Cause that I maintain If the power of the Nation when it was divided into seven Kingdoms or united under one did reside in the Micklegemots
Manners and better enabled them to frame Laws for the preservation of their Liberty but no way diminished their love to it and tho the Normans might desire to get the Lands of those who had joined with Harold and of others into their hands yet when they were settled in the Country and by marriages united to the antient Inhabitants they became true Englishmen and no less lovers of Liberty and resolute defenders of it than the Saxons had bin There was then neither conquering Norman nor conquered Saxon but a great and brave People composed of both united in blood and interest in the defence of their common Rights which they so well maintained that no Prince since that time has too violently encroached upon them who as the reward of his folly has not lived miserably and died shamefully Such actions of our Ancestors do not as I suppose savour much of the submission which patrimonial slaves do usually render to the will of their Lord. On the contrary whatsoever they did was by a power inherent in themselves to defend that Liberty in which they were born All their Kings were created upon the same condition and for the same ends Alfred acknowledged he found and left them perfectly free and the confession of Offa that they had not made him King for his own merits but for the defence of their Liberty comprehends all that were before and after him They well knew how great the honour was to be made head of a great People and rigorously exacted the performance of the ends for which such a one was elevated severely punishing those who basely and wickedly betray'd the trust reposed in them and violated all that is most sacred among men which could not have bin unless they were naturally free for the Liberty that has no being cannot be defended SECT XXXIV No Veneration paid or Honor conferr'd upon a just and lawful Magistrate can diminish the Liberty of a Nation SOME have supposed that tho the people be naturally free and Magistrates created by them they do by such creations deprive themselves of that natural liberty and that the names of King Sovereign Lord and Dread Sovereign being no way consistent with Liberty they who give such Titles do renounce it Our Author carries this very far and lays great weight upon the submissive Language used by the people when they humbly crave that his Majesty would be pleased to grant their accustomed freedom of speech and access to his Person and give the name of Supplications and Petitions to the Addresses made to him Whereas he answers in the haughty Language of Le Roy le veut Le Roy s'avisera and the like But they who talk at this rate shew that they neither understand the nature of Magistracy nor the practice of Nations Those who have lived in the highest exercise of their Liberty and have bin most tenacious of it have thought no Honor too great for such Magistrates as were eminent in the defence of their Rights and were set up for that end The name of Dread Sovereign might justly have bin given to a Roman Dictator or Consul for they had the Sovereign Authority in their hands and power sufficient for its execution Whilst their Magistracy continued they were a terror to the same men whose Axes and Rods had bin a terror to them the year or month before and might be so again the next The Romans thought they could not be guilty of excess in carrying the power and veneration due to their Dictator to the highest And Livy tells us that his Edicts were esteemed sacred I have already shewn that this haughty People who might have commanded condescended to join with their Tribuns in a Petition to the Dictator Papirius for the life of Quintus Fabius who had fought a battel in his absence and without his order tho he had gained a great and memorable Victory The same Fabius when Consul was commended by his Father Q. Fabius Maximus for obliging him by his Lictors to dismount from his Horse and to pay him the same respect that was due from others The Tribuns of the People whe were instituted for the preservation of Liberty were also esteemed sacred and inviolable as appears by that phrase Sacrosancta Tribunorum potest as so common in their antient Writers No man I presume thinks any Monarchy more limited or more clearly derived from a delegated Power than that of the German Emperors and yet Sacra Caesarea Majest as is the publick stile Nay the Hollanders at this day call their Burgermasters tho they see them selling Herring or Tar High and Mighty Lords as soon as they are advanced to be of the 36 42 or 48 Magistrates of a small Town 'T is no wonder therefore if a great Nation should think it conducing to their own glory to give magnificent Titles and use submissive language to that one man whom they set up to be their Head most especially if we consider that they came from a Country where such Titles and Language were principally invented Among the Romans and Grecians we hear nothing of Majesty Highness Serenity and Excellence appropriated to a single Person but receive them from Germany and other Northern Countries We find Majestas Populi Romani and Majestas Imperii in their best Authors but no man speaking to Julius or Augustus or even to the vainest of their Successors ever used those empty Titles nor took upon themselves the name of Servants as we do to every fellow we meet in the streets When such ways of speaking are once introduced they must needs swell to a more than ordinary height in all transactions with Princes Most of them naturally delight in vanity and Courtiers never speak more truth than when they most extol their Masters and assume to themselves the names that best express the most abject slavery These being brought into mode like all ill customs increase by use and then no man can omit them without bringing that hatred and danger upon himself which few will undergo except for something that is evidently of great importance Matters of ceremony and title at the first seem not to be so and being for some time neglected they acquire such strength as not to be easily removed From private Usage they pass into publick Acts and those Flatterers who gave a beginning to them proposing them in publick Councils where too many of that sort have always insinuated themselves gain credit enough to make them pass This work was farther advanced by the Church of Rome according to their custom of favouring that most which is most vain and corrupt and it has bin usual with the Popes and their adherents liberally to gratify Princes for Services render'd to the Church with Titles that tended only to the prejudice of the people These poisonous Plants having taken root grew up so fast that the Titles which within the space of a hundred years were thought sufficient for the Kings and Queens of England have
set limits to them but all reasonable men confessing that they are instituted for the good of Nations they only can deserve praise who above all things endeavour to procure it and appoint means proportioned to that end The great variety of Governments which we see in the world is nothing but the effect of this care and all Nations have bin and are more or less happy as they or their Ancestors have had vigour of Spirit integrity of Manners and wisdom to invent and establish such Orders as have better or worse provided for this common Good which was sought by all But as no rule can be so exact to make provision against all contestations and all disputes about Right do naturally end in force when Justice is denied ill men never willingly submitting to any decision that is contrary to their passions and interests the best Constitutions are of no value if there be not a power to support them This power first exerts it self in the execution of justice by the ordinary Officers But no Nation having bin so happy as not sometimes to produce such Princes as Edward and Richard the Seconds and such Ministers as Gaveston Spencer and Tresilian the ordinary Officers of Justice often want the will and always the power to restrain them So that the Rights and Liberties of a Nation must be utterly subverted and abolished if the power of the whole may not be employed to assert them or punish the violation of them But as it is the fundamental Right of every Nation to be governed by such Laws in such manner and by such persons as they think most conducing to their own good they cannot be accountable to any but themselves for what they do in that most important affair SECT XXXVII The English Government was not ill constituted the defects more lately observed proceeding from the change of manners and corruption of the times I Am not ignorant that many honest and good men acknowledging these Rights and the care of our Ancestors to preserve them think they wanted wisdom rightly to proportionate the means to the end 'T is not enough say they for the General of an Army to desire Victory he only can deserve praise who has skill industry and courage to take the best measures of obtaining it Neither is it enough for wise Legislators to preserve Liberty and to erect such a Government as may stand for a time but to set such clear Rules to those who are to put it in execution that every man may know when they transgress and appoint such means for restraining or punishing them as may be used speedily surely and effectually without danger to the Publick Sparta being thus constituted we hardly find that for more than eight hundred years any King presumed to pass the limits prescribed by the Law If any Roman Consul grew insolent he might be reduced to order without blood or danger to the Publick and no Dictator ever usurped a power over Liberty till the time of Sylla when all things in the City were so changed that the antient foundations were become too narrow In Venice the power of the Duke is so circumscribed that in 1300 years no one except Falerio and Tiepoli have dared to attempt any thing against the Laws and they were immediately suppressed with little commotion in the City On the other side our Law is so ambiguous perplext and intricate that 't is hard to know when 't is broken In all the publick contests we have had men of good judgment and integrity have follow'd both parties The means of transgressing and procuring Partizans to make good by force the most notorious violations of Liberty have bin so easy that no Prince who has endeavoured it ever failed to get great numbers of followers and to do infinite mischiefs before he could be removed The Nation has bin brought to fight against those they had made to be what they were upon the unequal terms of hazarding all against nothing If they had success they gained no more than was their own before and which the Law ought to have secured whereas 't is evident that if at any one time the contrary had happened the Nation had bin utterly enslaved and no victory was ever gained without the loss of much noble and innocent blood To this I answer that no right judgment can be given of human things without a particular regard to the time in which they passed We esteem Scipio Hannibal Pyrrhus Alexander Epaminondas and Cesar to have bin admirable Commanders in War because they had in a most eminent degree all the qualities that could make them so and knew best how to employ the Arms then in use according to the discipline of their times and yet no man doubts that if the most skilful of them could be raised from the Grave restored to the utmost vigour of mind and body set at the head of the best Armies he ever commanded and placed upon the Frontiers of France or Flanders he would not know how to advance or retreat nor by what means to take any of the places in those parts as they are now fortified and defended bnt would most certainly be beaten by any insignificant fellow with a small number of men furnished with such Arms as are now in use and following the methods now practised Nay the manner of marching encamping besieging attacking defending and fighting is so much altered within the last threescore years that no man observing the discipline that was then thought to be the best could possibly defend himself against that which has bin since found out tho the terms are still the same And if it be consider'd that political matters are subject to the same mutations as certainly they are it will be sufficient to excuse our Ancestors who suting their Government to the Ages in which they lived could neither soresee the changes that might happen in future Generations nor appoint remedies for the mischiefs they did not soresee They knew that the Kings of several Nations had bin kept within the limits of the Law by the virtue and power of a great and brave Nobility and that no other way of supporting a mix'd Monarchy had ever bin known in the world than by putting the balance into the hands of those who had the greatest interest in Nations and who by birth and estate enjoy'd greater advantages than Kings could confer upon them for rewards of betraying their Country They knew that when the Nobility was so great as not easily to be number'd the little that was left to the King's disposal was not sufficient to corrupt many and if some might fall under the temptation those who continued in their integrity would easily be able to chastise them for deserting the publick Cause and by that means deter Kings srom endeavouring to seduce them from their duty Whilst things continued in this posture Kings might safely be trusted with the advice of their Council to confer the commands of the Militia in
Life and the Equality properly belonging to Brethren 'T is not easy to determine whether Shem or Japhet were the Elder but Ham is declared to be the younger and Noah's Blessing to Shem seems to be purely Prophetical and Spiritual of what should be accomplished in his Posterity with which Japhet should be perswaded to join If it had bin worldly the whole Earth must have bin brought under him and have for ever continued in his Race which never was accomplished otherwise than in the Spiritual Kingdom of Christ which relates not to our Author's Lord Paramount As to earthly Kings the first of them was Nimrod the sixth Son of Chush the Son of Ham Noah's younger and accursed Son This Kingdom was set up about a hundred and thirty Years after the Flood whilst Chush Ham Shem and Noah were yet living whereas if there were any thing of Truth in our Author's Proposition all Mankind must have continued under the Government of Noah whilst he lived and that Power must have bin transmitted to Shem who lived about three hundred and seventy Years after the erection of Nimrod's Kingdom and must have come to Japhet if he was the Elder but could never come to Cham who is declared to have bin certainly the Younger and condemned to be a Servant to them both much less to the younger Son of his Son whilst he and those to whom he and his Posterity were to be Subjects were still living This Rule therefore which the Partizans of Absolute Monarchy fancy to be universal and perpetual falling out in its first beginning directly contrary to what they assert and being never known to have bin recovered were enough to silence them if they had any thing of modesty or regard to Truth But the Matter may be carried farther For the Scripture doth not only testify that this Kingdom of Nimrod was an Usurpation void of all Right proceeding from the most violent and mischievous Vices but exercised with the utmost fury that the most wicked Man of the accursed Race who set himself up against God and all that is good could be capable of The progress of this Kingdom was sutable to its Institution that which was begun in wickedness was carried on with madness and produced Confusion The mighty Hunter whom the best Interpreters call a cruel Tyrant receding from the simplicity and innocence of the Patriarchs who were Husbandmen or Shepherds arrogating to himself a Dominion over Shem to whom he and his Fathers were to be Servants did thereby so peculiarly become the Heir of God's Curse that whatsoever hath bin said to this day of the Power that did most directly set it self against God and his People hath related literally to the Babel that he built or figuratively to that which resembles it in Pride Cruelty Injustice and Madness But the shameless rage of some of these Writers is such that they rather chuse to ascribe the beginning of their Idol to this odious Violence than to own it from the consent of a willing People as if they thought that as all Action must be sutable to its Principle so that which is unjust in its practice ought to scorn to be derived from that which is not detestable in its principle 'T is hardly worth our pains to examin whether the Nations that went from Babel after the confusion of Languages were more or less than seventy two for they seem not to have gone according to Families but every one to have associated himself to those that understood his Speech and the chief of the Fathers as Noah and his Sons were not there or wore subject to Nimrod each of which Points doth destroy even in the Root all pretence to Paternal Government Besides 't is evident in Scripture that Noah lived three hundred and fifty Years after the Flood Shem five hundred Abraham was born about two hundred and ninety Years after the Flood and lived one hundred seventy five Years He was therefore born under the Government of Noah and died under that of Shem He could not therefore exercise a Regal Power whilst he lived for that was in Shem So that in leaving his Country and setting up a Family for himself that never acknowledged any Superior and never pretending to reign over any other he fully shewed he thought himself free and to owe subjection to none And being as far from arrogating to himself any Power upon the Title of Paternity as from acknowledging it in any other left every one to the same liberty The punctual enumeration of the Years that the Fathers of the holy Seed lived gives us ground of making a more than probable conjecture that they of the collateral Lines were in number of days not unequal to them and if that be true Ham and Chush were alive when Nimrod set himself up to be King He must therefore have usurped this Power over his Father Grandfather and great Grandfather or which is more probable he turned into violence and oppression the Power given to him by a multitude which like a Flock without a Shepherd not knowing whom to obey set him up to be their Chief I leave to our Author the liberty of chusing which of these two doth best sute with his Paternal Monarchy but as far as I can understand the first is directly against it as well as against the Laws of God and Man the other being from the consent of the Multitude cannot be extended farther than they would have it nor turned to their prejudice without the most abominable ingratitude and treachery from whence no Right can be derived nor any justifiable Example taken Nevertheless if our Author resolve that Abraham was also a King he must presume that Shem did emancipate him before he went to seek his Fortune This was not a Kingly posture but I will not contradict him if 1 may know over whom he reigned Paternal Monarchy is exercised by the Father of the Family over his Descendants or such as had bin under the dominion of him whose Heir he is But Abraham had neither of these Those of his nearest Kindred continued in Mesopotamia as appears by what is said of Bethuel and Laban He had only Lot with him over whom he pretended no right He had no Children till he was a hundred years old that is to say he was a King without a Subject and then he had but one I have heard that Soveraigns do impatiently bear Competitors but now I find Subjection also doth admit of none Abraham's Kingdom was too great when he had two Children and to disburthen it Ishmael must be expelled soon after the birth of Isaac He observed the same method after the death of Sarah He had Children by Keturah but he gave them Gifts and sent them away leaving Isaac like a Stoical King reigning in and over himself without any other Subject till the birth of Jacob and Esau. But his Kingdom was not to be of a larger extent than that of his Father
assert that which is agreeable to divine or human Story as to matter of fact and as little conformable to common sense It does not only appear contrary to his general Proposition That all Governments have not begun with the Paternal power but we do not find that any ever did They who according to his rules should have bin Lords of the whole Earth lived and died private men whilst the wildest and most boisterous of their Children commanded the greatest part of the then inhabited World not excepting even those Countries where they spent and ended their days and instead of entring upon the Government by the right of Fathers or managing it as Fathers they did by the most outragious injustice usurp a violent Domination over their Brethren and Fathers It may easily be imagined what the Right is that could be thus acquired and transmitted to their Successors Nevertheless our Author says All Kings either are or ought to be reputed next Heirs c. But why reputed if they were not How could any of the accursed race of Ham be reputed Father of Noah or Shem to whom he was to be a Servant How could Nimrod and Ninus be reputed Fathers of Ham and of those whom they ought to have obeyed Can reason oblige me to believe that which I know to be false Can a Lie that is hateful to God and good men not only be excused but enjoyned when as he will perhaps say it is for the King's Service Can I serve two Masters or without the most unpardonable injustice repute him to be my Father who is not my Father and pay the obedience that is due to him who did beget and educate me to one from whom I never received any good If this be so absurd that no man dares affirm it in the person of any 't is as preposterous in relation to his Heirs For Nimrod the first King could be Heir to no man as King and could transmit to no man a Right which he had not If it was ridiculous and abominable to say that he was Father of Chush Ham Shem and Noah 't is as ridiculous to say he had the Right of Father if he was not their Father or that his Successors inherited it from him if he never had it If there be any way through this it must have accrued to him by the extirpation of all his Elders and their Races so as he who will assert this pretended Right to have been in the Babylonian Kings must assert that Noah Shem Japhet Ham Chush and all Nimrod's elder Brothers with all their Descendents were utterly extirpated before he began to reign and all Mankind to be descended from him This must be if Nimrod as the Scripture says was the first that became mighty in the Earth unless men might be Kings without having more Power than others for Chush Ham and Noah were his Elders and Progenitors in the direct Line and all the Sons of Shem and Japhet and their Descendents in the Collaterals were to be preferred before him and he could have no Right at all that was not directly contrary to those Principles which our Author says are grounded upon the eternal and indispensable Laws of God and Nature The like may be said of the seventy two Heads of Colonies which following as I suppose Sir Walter Raleigh he says went out to people the Earth and whom he calls Kings for according to the same Rule Noah Shem and Japhet with their Descendents could not be of the number so that neither Nimrod nor the others that established the Kingdoms of the World and from whence he thinks all the rest to be derived could have any thing of Justice in them unless it were from a Root altogether inconsistent with his Principles They are therefore false or the Establishments before mentioned could have no Right If they had none they cannot be reputed to have any for no man can think that to be true which he knows to be false having none they could transmit none to their Heirs and Successors And if we are to believe that all the Kingdoms of the Earth are established upon this Paternal Right it must be proved that all those who in birth ought to have bin preferred before Nimrod and the seventy two were extirpated or that the first and true Heir of Noah did afterwards abolish all these unjust Usurpations and making himself Master of the whole left it to his Heirs in whom it continues to this day When this is done I will acknowledg the Foundation to be well laid and admit of all that can be rightly built upon it but if this fails all fails The poison of the Root continues in the Branches If the right Heir be not in possession he is not the right who is in possession If the true Heir be known he ought to be restored to his Right If he be not known the Right must perish That cannot be said to belong to any man if no man knows to whom it belongs and can have no more effect than if it were not This conclusion will continue unmoveable tho the division into seventy two Kingdoms were allowed which cannot be without destroying the Paternal Power or subjecting it to be subdivided into as many parcels as there are men which destroys Regality for the same thing may be required in every one of the distinct Kingdoms and others derived from them We must know who was that true Heir of Noah that recovered all How when and to whom he gave the several Portions and that every one of them do continue in the possession of those who by this prerogative of birth are raised above the rest of mankind and if they are not 't is an impious folly to repute them so to the prejudice of those that are and if they do not appear to the prejudice of all mankind who being equal are thereby made subject to them For as Truth is the Rule of Justice there can be none when he is reputed superior to all who is certainly inferior to In this place two Pages are wanting in the Original Manuscript degenerated from that Reason which distinguisheth men from beasts Tho it may be fit to use some Ceremonies before a man be admitted to practise Physick or set up a Trade 't is his own skill that makes him a Doctor or an Artificer and others do but declare it An Ass will not leave his stupidity tho he be covered with Scarlet and he that is by nature a Slave will be so still tho a Crown be put upon his Head and 't is hard to imagine a more violent inversion of the Laws of God and Nature than to raise him to the Throne whom Nature intended for the Chain or to make them Slaves to Slaves whom God hath endowed with the Vertues required in Kings Nothing can be more preposterous than to impute to God the frantick Domination which is often exercised by wicked foolish and vile Persons over the wise valiant just
this our Author attributes it to the wisdom of Princes But before this comes to be authentick we must at the least be sure that all Princes have this great and profound Wisdom which our Author acknowledges to be in them and which is certainly necessary for the doing of such great things if they were referred to them They seem to us to be born like other men and to be generally no wiser than other men We are not obliged to believe that Nebuchadnezzar was wise till God had given him the heart of a man or that his Grandson Belshazzar who being laid in the balance was found too light had any such profound Wisdom Ahasuerus shewed it not in appointing all the People of God to be slain upon a Lie told to him by a Rascal and the matter was not very much mended when being informed of the truth he gave them leave to kill as many of their Enemies as they pleased The hardness of Pharaoh's heart and the overthrow thereby brought upon himself and People dos not argue so profound a Judgment as our Author presumes every Prince must have And 't is not probable that Samuel would have told Saul He had done foolishly if Kings had always bin so exceeding wise Nay if Wisdom had bin annexed to the Character Solomon might have spared the pains of asking it from God and Rehoboam must have had it Not to multiply examples out of Scripture 't is believed that Xerxes had not inflicted Stripes upon the Sea for breaking his Navy in pieces if he had bin so very wise Caligula for the same reason might have saved the labour of making love to the Moon or have chosen a fitter Subject to advance to the Consulat than his Horse Incitatus Nero had not endeavoured to make a Woman of a Man nor married a Man as a Woman Many other Examples might be alledged to shew that Kings are not always wise and not only the Roman Satyrist who says Quicquid delirant Reges c. shews that he did not believe them to be generally wiser than other men but Solomon himself judges them to be as liable to infirmities when he prefers a wise Child before an old and foolish King If therefore the strength of our Author's Argument lies in the certainty of the Wisdom of Kings it can be of no value till he proves it to be more universal in them than History or Experience will permit us to believe Nay if there be Truth or Wisdom in the Scripture which frequently represents the wicked Man as a Fool we cannot think that all Kings are wise unless it be proved that none of them have bin wicked and when this is performed by Filmer's Disciples I shall confess my error Men give testimony of their Wisdom when they undertake that which they ought to do and rightly perform that which they undertake both which points do utterly fail in the subject of our Discourse We have often heard of such as have adopted those to be their Sons who were not so and some Civil Laws approve it This signifies no more than that such a man either through affection to one who is not his Son or to his Parents or for some other reason takes him into his Family and shews kindness to him as to his Son but the adoption of Fathers is a whimsical piece of nonsense If this be capable of an aggravation I think none can be greater than not to leave it to my own discretion who having no Father may resolve to pay the Duty I owed to my Father to one who may have shewed Kindness to me but for another to impose a Father upon a Man or a People composed of Fathers or such as have Fathers whereby they should be deprived of that natural Honour and Right which he makes the foundation of his Discourse is the utmost of all absurdities If any Prince therefore have ever undertaken to appoint Fathers of his People he cannot be accounted a man of profound Wisdom but a Fool or a Madman and his acts can be of no value But if the thing were consonant to Nature and referred to the will of Princes which I absolutely deny the frequent Extravagancies committed by them in the elevation of their Favourites shews that they intend not to make them Fathers of the People or know not what they do when they do it To chuse or institute a Father is nonsense in the very term but if any were to be chosen to perform the Office of Fathers to such as have none and are not of age to provide for themselves as men do Tutors or Guardians for Orphans none could be capable of being elected but such as in kindness to the person they were to take under their care did most resemble his true Father and had the vertues and abilities required rightly to provide for his good If this fails all Right ceases and such a corruption is introduced as we saw in our Court of Wards which the Nation could not bear when the Institution was perverted and the King who ought to have taken a tender care of the Wards and their Estates delivered them as a prey to those whom he favoured Our Author ridiculously attributes the Title and Authority of Father to the word Prince for it hath none in it and signifies no more than a Man who in some kind is more eminent than the Vulgar In this sense Mutius Scaevola told Porsenna that Three hundred Princes of the Roman Youth had conspired against him by which he could not mean that three hundred Fathers of the Roman Youth but three hundred Roman young men had conspired and they could not be Fathers of the City unless they had bin Fathers of their own Fathers Princeps Senatus was understood in the same sense and T. Sempronius the Censor chusing Q. Fabius Maximus to that Honour gave for a reason Se lectarum Q. Fabium Maximum quem tum Principem Romanae Civitatis esse vel Annibale judice dicturus esset which could not be understood that Hannibal thought him to be the Father or Lord of the City for he knew he was not but the Man who for Wisdom and Valour was the most eminent in it The like are and ought to be the Princes of every Nation and tho something of Honour may justly be attributed to the Descendents of such as have done great Services to their Country yet they who degenerate from them cannot be esteemed Princes much less can such Honours or Rights be conferred upon Court-creatures or Favourites Tiberius Caligula Claudius Nero Galba and others could advance Macro Pallas Narcissus Tigellinus Vinnius Laco and the like to the highest degrees of Riches and Power but they still continued to be Villains and so they died No wise or good Man ever thought otherwise of those who through the folly of Princes have bin advanced to the highest places in several Countries The madness of attributing to them a paternal power seems to
as much as to say that they were ruin'd when they fell from their own unnatural Inventions to follow the Law of God and of Nature that Luxury also through which they fell was the product of their Felicity and that the Nations that had bin subdued by them had no other way of avenging their Defeats than by alluring their Masters to their own Vices This was the Root of their Civil Wars When that proud City found no more resistance it grew wanton Saevior armis Luxuria incubuit victumque ulciscitur orbem Lucan Honest Poverty became uneasy when Honours were given to ill-gotten Riches This was so Monarchical that a People infected with such a Custom must needs fall by it They who by Vice had exhausted their Fortunes could repair them only by bringing their Country under a Government that would give impunity to Rapine and such as had not Virtues to deserve Advancement from the Senate and People would always endeavour to set up a Man that would bestow the Honours that were due to Virtue upon those who would be most abjectly subservient to his Will and Interests When mens minds are filled with this Fury they sacrifice the common Good to the advancement of their private Concernments This was the temper of Catiline expressed by Sallust Luxuria principi gravis paupertas vix à privato toleranda and this put him upon that desperate extremity to say Incendium meum ruinâ extinguam Others in the same manner being filled with the same rage he could not want Companions in his most villanous Designs 'T is not long since a Person of the highest Quality and no less famous for Learning and Wit having observed the State of England as it stood not many years ago and that to which it has bin reduc'd since the year sixty as is thought very much by the Advice and Example of France said That they now were taking a most cruel vengeance upon us for all the Overthrows received from our Ancestors by introducing their most damnable Maxims and teaching us the worst of their Vices 'T is not for me to determine whether this Judgment was rightly made or not for I intend not to speak of our Affairs but all Historians agreeing that the change of the Roman Government was wrought by such means as I have mentioned and our Author acknowledging that change to have bin their ruin as in truth it was I may justly conclude that the overthrow of that Government could not have bin a ruin to them but good for them unless it had bin good and that the Power which did ruin it and was set up in the room of it cannot have bin according to the Laws of God or Nature for they confer only that which is good and destroy nothing that is so but must have bin most contrary to that good which was overthrown by it SECT XVI The best Governments of the World have bin composed of Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy OUR Author's cavils concerning I know not what vulgar Opinions that Democracies were introduc'd to curb Tyranny deserve no answer for our question is Whether one form of Government be prescribed to us by God and Nature or we are left according to our own understanding to constitute such as seem best to our selves As for Democracy he may say what pleases him of it and I believe it can sute only with the convenience of a small Town accompanied with such Circumstances as are seldom found But this no way obliges men to run into the other extream in as much as the variety of forms between meer Democracy and Absolute Monarchy is almost infinite And if I should undertake to say there never was a good Government in the world that did not consist of the three simple Species of Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy I think I might make it good This at the least is certain that the Government of the Hebrews instituted by God had a Judg the great Sanhedrin and General Assemblies of the People Sparta had two Kings a Senate of twenty eight chosen Men and the like Assemblies All the Dorian Cities had a chief Magistrate a Senate and occasional Assemblies The Ionian Athens and others had an Archon the Areopagi and all Judgments concerning matters of the greatest importance as well as the Election of Magistrates were referr'd to the People Rome in the beginning had a King and a Senate whilst the Election of Kings and Judgments upon Appeals remained in the People afterwards Consuls representing Kings and vested with equal Power a more numerous Senate and more frequent meetings of the People Venice has at this day a Duke the Senate of the Pregadi and the Great Assembly of the Nobility which is the whole City the rest of the Inhabitants being only Incolae not Cives and those of the other Cities or Countries are their Subjects and do not participate of the Government Genoa is governed in like manner Luca not unlike to them Germany is at this day governed by an Emperor the Princes or great Lords in their several Precincts the Cities by their own Magistrates and by general Diets in which the whole power of the Nation resides and where the Emperor Princes Nobility and Cities have their places in person or by their Deputies All the Northern Nations which upon the dissolution of the Roman Empire possessed the best Provinces that had composed it were under that form which is usually called the Gothick Polity They had King Lords Commons Diets Assemblies of Estates Cortez and Parliaments in which the Sovereign Powers of those Nations did reside and by which they were exercised The like was practised in Hungary Bohemia Sweden Denmark Poland and if things are changed in some of these places within few years they must give better proofs of having gained by the change than are yet seen in the World before I think my self obliged to change my opinion Some Nations not liking the name of King have given such a power as Kings enjoy'd in other places to one or more Magistrates either limited to a certain time or left to be perpetual as best pleased themselves Others approving the name made the Dignity purely elective Some have in their Elections principally regarded one Family as long as it lasted Others consider'd nothing but the fitness of the Person and reserved to themselves a liberty of taking where they pleased Some have permitted the Crown to be hereditary as to its ordinary course but restrained the Power and instituted Officers to inspect the Proceedings of Kings and to take care that the Laws were not violated Of this sort were the Ephori of Sparta the Maires du Palais and afterwards the Constable of France the Justicia in Arragon Rijckshofmeister in Denmark the High Steward in England and in all places such Assemblies as are before-mentioned under several names who had the Power of the whole Nation Some have continued long and it may be always in the same form others have changed
Nature sutable to their Original all Tyrannies have had their beginnings from corruption The Histories of Greece Sicily and Italy shew that all those who made themselves Tyrants in several places did it by the help of the worst and the slaughter of the best Men could not be made subservient to their Lusts whilst they continued in their integrity so as their business was to destroy those who would not be corrupted They must therefore endeavour to maintain or increase the corruption by which they attain their greatness If they fail in this point they must fall as Tarquin Pisistratus and others have done but if they succeed so far that the vicious part do much prevail the Government is secure tho the Prince may be in danger And the same thing doth in a great measure accidentally conduce to the safety of his Person For they who for the most part are the Authors of great Revolutions not being so much led by a particular hatred to the man as by a desire to do good to the publick seldom set themselves to conspire against the Tyrant unless he be altogether detestable and intolerable if they do not hope to overthrow the Tyranny The contrary is seen in all popular and well-mixed Governments they are ever established by wise and good men and can never be upheld otherwise than by Virtue The worst men always conspiring against them they must fall if the best have not power to preserve them Wheresoever therefore a People is so governed the Magistrates will obviate afar off the introduction of Vices which tend as much to the ruin of their Persons and Government as to the preservation of the Prince and his This is evidenced by experience 'T is not easy to name a Monarch that had so many good qualities as Julius Cesar till they were extinguished by his ambition which was inconsistent with them He knew that his strength lay in the corruption of the People and that he could not accomplish his designs without increasing it He did not seek good men but such as would be for him and thought none sufficiently addicted to his Interests but such as stuck at the performance of no wickedness that he commanded he was a Souldier according to Cesar's heart who said Pectore si fratris gladium juguloque parentis Condere me jubeas gravidaeve in viscera partu Conjugis invita peragam tamen omnia dextra Lucan And lest such as were devoted to him should grow faint in Villany he industriously inflamed their fury Vult omniâ— Caesar A se saeva peti vult praemia Martis amari Ib. Having spread this Poison amongst the Souldiers his next work was by corrupting the Tribuns to turn the Power to the destruction of the People which had bin erected for their preservation and pouring the Treasures he had gained by rapine in Gaul into the bosom of Curio made him an instrument of mischief who had bin a most eminent Supporter of the Laws Tho he was thought to have affected the glory of sparing Cato and with trouble to have found that he despised life when it was to be accounted his gift yet in suspecting Brutus and Cassius he shew'd he could not believe that virtuous men who loved their Country could be his Friends Such as carry on the like designs with less Valour Wit and Generosity of Spirit will always be more bitterly bent to destroy all that are good knowing that the deformity of their own Vices is rendred most manifest when they are compared with the good qualities of those who are most unlike them and that they can never defend themselves against the scorn and hatred they incur by their Vices unless such a number can be infected with the same and made to delight in the recompences of iniquity that foment them as may be able to keep the rest of the People in subjection The same thing happens even when the Usurpation is not so violent as that of Agathocles Dionysius or the last King of Denmark who in one day by the strength of a mercenary Souldiery overthrew all the Laws of his Country and a lawfully created Magistrate is forced to follow the same ways as soon as he begins to affect a power which the Laws do not confer upon him I wish I could say there were few of these but experience shews that such a proportion of Wisdom moderation of Spirit and Justice is requir'd in a supreme Magistrate to render him content with a limited Power as is seldom found Man is of an aspiring nature and apt to put too high a value upon himself they who are raised above their Brethren tho but a little desire to go farther and if they gain the name of King they think themselves wronged and degraded when they are not suffer'd to do what they please Sanctitas pietas fides Privata bona sunt Qua juvat reges eant In these things they never want Masters and the nearer they come to a power that is not easily restrained by Law the more passionately they desire to abolish all that opposes it and when their Hearts are filled with this fury they never fail to chuse such Ministers as will be subservient to their Will and this is so well known that those only approach them who resolve to be so Their interests as well as their inclinations incite them to diffuse their own manners as far as they can which is no less than to bring those who are under their power to all that wickedness of which the nature of man is capable and no greater testimony can be given of the efficacy of these means towards the utter corruption of Nations than the accursed effects we see of them in our own and the neighbouring Countries It may be said that some Princes are so full of Virtue and Goodness as not to desire more power than the Laws allow and are not obliged to chuse ill men because they desire nothing but what the best are willing to do This may be and sometimes is the Nation is happy that has such a King but he is hard to find and more than a human power is required to keep him in so good a way The strength of his own affections will ever be against him Wives Children and Servants will always join with those Enemies that arise in his own breast to pervert him if he has any weak side any Lust unsubdued they will gain the victory He has not search'd into the nature of man who thinks that any one can resist when he is thus on all sides assaulted Nothing but the wonderful and immediate power of God's Spirit can preserve him and to alledg it will be nothing to the purpose unless it can be proved that all Princes are blessed with such an assistance or that God hath promised it to them and their Successors for ever by what means soever they came to the Crowns they enjoy Nothing is farther from my intention than to speak irreverently of Kings and
care of his Hens The Monarchy of France must have perished under the base Kings they call Les Roys faineants if the Scepter had not bin wrested out of their unworthy hands The World is full of Examples in this kind and when it pleases God to bestow a just wise and valiant King as a blessing upon a Nation 't is only a momentary help his Virtues end with him and there being neither any divine Promise nor human Reason moving us to believe that they shall always be renewed and continued in his Successors men cannot rely upon it and to alledg a possibility of such a thing is nothing to the purpose On the other side in a popular or mixed Government every man is concerned Every one has a part according to his quality or merit all changes are prejudicial to all whatsoever any man conceives to be for the publick good he may propose it in the Magistracy or to the Magistrate the body of the People is the publick defence and every man is arm'd and disciplin'd The advantages of good success are communicated to all and every one bears a part in the losses This makes men generous and industrious and fills their hearts with love to their Country This and the desire of that praise which is the reward of Virtue raised the Romans above the rest of Mankind and wheresoever the same ways are taken they will in a great measure have the same effects By this means they had as many Soldiers to fight for their Country as there were Freemen in it Whilst they had to deal with the free Nations of Italy Greece Africa or Spain they never conquer'd a Country till the Inhabitants were exhausted But when they came to fight against Kings the success of a Battel was enough to bring a Kingdom under their power Antiochus upon a rufflle received from Acilius at Thermipolae left all that he possessed in Greece and being defeated by Scipio Nasica he quitted all the Kingdoms and Territories of Asia on this side Taurus Paulus Emilius became Master of Macedon by one prosperous fight against Perseus Syphax Gentius Tigranes Ptolomy and others were more easily subdued The mercenary Armies on which they relied being broken the Cities and Countries not caring for their Masters submitted to those who had more virtue and better fortune If the Roman Power had not bin built upon a more sure soundation they could not have subsisted Notwithstanding their Valour they were osten beaten but their losses were immediately repair'd by the excellence of their Discipline When Hannibal had gained the Battels of Trebia Ticinum Thrasimene and Cannae defeated the Romans in many other Encounters and slain above two hundred thousand of their Men with Paulus Emilius C. Servilius Sempronius Gracchus Quintius Marcellus and many other excellent Commanders When about the same time the two brave Scipio's had bin cut off with their Armies in Spain and many great losses had bin sustain'd in Sicily and by Sea one would have thought it impossible for the City to have resisted But their Virtue Love to their Country and good Government was a strength that increased under all their Calamities and in the end overcame all The nearer Hannibal came to the Walls the more obstinate was their resistance Tho he had kill'd more great Captains than any Kingdom ever had others daily stepp'd up in their place who excell'd them in all manner of Virtue I know not if at any time that conquering City could glory in a greater number of men fit for the highest Enterprises than at the end of that cruel War which had consumed so many of them but I think that the finishing Victories by them obtained are but ill prooss of our Author's assertion that they thought basely of the common good and sought only to save themselves We know of none except Cecilius Metellus who after the Battel of Cannae had so base a thought as to design the withdrawing himself from the publick ruin but Scipio asterwards sirnamed Africanus threatning death to those who would not swear never to abandon their Country forced him to leave it This may in general be imputed to good Government and Discipline with which all were so seasoned from their infancy that no affection was so rooted in them as an ardent love to their Country and a resolution to die for it or with it but the means by which they accomplished their great ends so as after their defeats to have such men as carried on their noblest designs with more glory than ever was their annual Elections of Magistrates many being thereby advanc'd to the supreme Commands and every one by the Honours they enjoy'd fill'd with a desire of rendring himself worthy of them I should not much insist upon these things if they had bin seen only in Rome but tho their Discipline seems to have bin more perfect better observed and to have produc'd a Virtue that surpassed all others the like has bin found tho perhaps not in the same degree in all Nations that have enjoyed their Liberty and were admitted to such a part of the Government as might give them a love to it This was evident in all the Nations of Italy The Sabins Volsci AEqui Tuscans Samnites and others were never conquer'd till they had no men lest The Samnites alone inhabiting a small and barren Province suffer'd more defeats before they were subdued than all the Kingdoms of Numidia AEgypt Macedon and Asia and as 't is exprest in their Embassy to Hannibal never yielded till they who had brought vast numbers of men into the Field and by them defeated some of the Roman Armies were reduced to such weakness that they could not resist one Legion We hear of few Spartans who did not willingly expose their Lives for the service of their Country and the Women themselves were so far inflamed with the same affection that they refused to mourn for their Children and Husbands who died in the defence of it When the brave Brasidas was slain some eminent men went to comfort his Mother upon the news of his death and telling her he was the most valiant man in the City she answer'd that he was indeed a valiant man and died as he ought to do but that through the goodness of the Gods many others were lest as valiant as he When Xerxes invaded Greece there was not a Citizen of Athens able to bear Arms who did not leave his Wife and Children to shift for themselves in the neighbouring Cities and their Houses to be burnt when they imbarked with Themistocles and never thought of either till they had defeated the Barbarians at Salamine by Sea and at Platea by Land When men are thus spirited some will ever prove excellent and as none did ever surpass those who were bred under this discipline in all moral military and civil Virtues those very Countries where they flourished most have not produced any eminent men since they lost that Liberty which was the
the Spaniards till their Kingdom was overthrown by the Moors These things and others of the like nature being weighed many have doubted whether it were better to constitute a Commonwealth for War or for Trade and of such as intend War whether those are most to be praised who prepare for defence only or those who design by conquest to enlarge their Dominions Or if they admit of Trade whether they should propose the acquisition of Riches for their ultimate end and depend upon foreign or mercenary Forces to defend them or to be as helps to enable their own People to carry on those Wars in which they may be frequently engaged These Questions might perhaps be easily decided if Mankind were of a temper to suffer those to live in peace who offer no injury to any or that men who have Money to hire Soldiers when they stand in need of them could find such as would valiantly and faithfully defend them whilst they apply themselves to their Trades But experience teaching us that those only can be safe who are strong and that no People was ever well defended but those who sought for themselves the best Judges of these matters have always given the preference to those Constitutions that principally intend War and make use of Trade as assisting to that end and think it better to aim at conquest rather than simply to stand upon their own defence since he that loses all if he be overcome fights upon very unequal terms and if he obtain the Victory gains no other advantage than for the present to repel the danger that threatned him These Opinions are confirmed by the examples of the Romans who prosper'd much more than the Spartans And the Carthaginians who made use of Trade as a help to War raised their City to be one of the most potent that ever was in the World Whereas the Venetians having relied on Trade and mercenary Soldiers are always forced too much to depend upon foreign Potentates very often to buy Peace with ignominious and prejudicial conditions and sometimes to fear the infidelity of their own Commanders no less than the violence of their Enemies But that which ought to be valued above all in point of Wisdom as well as Justice is the Government given by God to the Hebrews which chiefly fitted them for War and to make Conquests Moses divided them under several Captains into thousands hundreds fifties and tens This was a perpetual Ordinance amongst them In numbring them those only were counted who were able to bear arms Every man was obliged to go out to War except such as had married a Wife or upon other special occasions were for a time excused and the whole series of the sacred History shews that there were always as many Soldiers to fight for their Country as there were men able to fight And if this be taken for a Picture of a many-headed Beast delighting in Blood begotten by Sedition and nourished by Crimes God himself was the drawer of it In this variety of Constitutions and Effects proceeding from them I can see nothing more justly and generally to be attributed to them all than that love to their Country which our Author impudently affirms to be wanting in all In other matters their proceedings are not only different but contrary to each other yet it cannot be said that any Nations have enjoyed so much Peace as some Republicks The Venetians too great inclination to Peace is accounted to be a mortal error in their Constitution and they have not bin less free from domestick Seditions than foreign Wars the Conspiracies of the Falerii and Tiepoli were extinguished by their punishment and that of La Cueva crushed before it was ripe Genoa has not bin altogether so happy the factions of the Guelphs and Ghibelins that spread themselves over all Italy infected that City and the malice of the Spaniards and French raised others under the Fregosi and Adorni but they being composed they have for more than a hundred and fifty years rested in quiet There is another sort of Commonwealth composed of many Cities associated together and living aequo jure every one retaining and exercising a Soveraign Power within it self except in some cases expressed in the Act of Union or League made between them These I confess are more hardly preserved in Peace Disputes may arise among them concerning Limits Jurisdiction and the like They cannot always be equally concerned in the same things The injuries offer'd to one do not equally affect all Their Neighbours will sow divisions among them and not having a Mother City to decide their Controversies by her authority they may be apt to fall into quarrels especially if they prosess Christianity which having bin split into variety of opinions ever since it was preached and the Papists by their cruelty to such as dissent from them shewing to all that there is no other way of defending themselves against them than by using the same almost every man is come to think he ought as far as in him lies to impose his belief on others and that he can give no better testimony of his Zeal than the excess of his violence on that account Nevertheless the Cantons of the Switzers tho accompanied with all the most dangerous circumstances that can be imagined being thirteen in number independent on each other governed in a high degree popularly professing Christianity differing in most important points eight of them much influenced by the Jesuits and perpetually excited to War against their Brethren by the powerful Crowns of Spain and France have ever since they cast off the insupportable Yoak of the Earls of Hapsburg enjoy'd more peace than any other State of Europe and from the most inconsiderable people are grown to such a Power that the greatest Monarchs do most sollicitously seek their Friendship and none have dared to invade them since Charles Duke of Burgundy did it to his ruin and he who for a long time had bin a terror to the great dangerous and subtil King of France gave by the loss of three Armies and his own life a lasting testimony of his temerity in assaulting a free and valiant tho a poor people fighting in their own quarrel Commines well relates that War but a vast heap of Bones remaining to this day at Muret with this inscription Caroli fortissimi Burgundiorum Ducis exercitus Muretum obsidens ab Helvetiis caesus hoc sui Monumentum reliquit best shews the success of it Since that time their greatest Wars have bin for the defence of Milan or such as they have undertaken for pay under the ensigns of France or Spain that by the use of Arms they may keep up that Courage Reputation and Experience which is requir'd for the defence of their own Country No Government was ever more free from popular Seditions the revolts of their Subjects have bin few weak and easily suppressed the dissension raised by the Jesuits between the Cantons of Zurich and Lucern
the worst are the most ignorant unfaithful slothful or cowardly and our Author to make good his proposition must prove that when the People of Rome Carthage Athens and other States had the power of chusing whom they pleased they did chuse Camillus Corvinus Torquatus Fabius Rullus Scipio Amiloar Hannibal Asdrubal Pelopidas Epaminondas Pericles Aristides Themistocles Phocion Alcibiades and others like to them for their Ignorance Infidelity Sloth and Cowardice and on account of those Vices most like to those who chose them But if these were the worst I desire to know what wit or eloquence can describe or comprehend the excellency of the best or of the Discipline that brings whole Nations to such perfection that worse than these could not be found among them And if they were not so but such as all succeeding Ages have justly admir'd for their Wisdom Virtue Industry and Valour the impudence of so wicked and false an Assertion ought to be rejected with scorn and hatred But if all Governments whether Monarchical or Popular absolute or limited deserve praise or blame as they are well or ill constituted for making War and that the attainment of this end do entirely depend upon the qualifications of the Commanders and the Strength Courage Number Affection and temper of the People out of which the Armies are drawn those Governments must necessarily be the best which take the best care that those Armies may be well commanded and so provide for the good of the People that they may daily increase in Number Courage and Strength and be so satisfied with the present state of things as to fear a change and fight for the preservation or advancement of the publick Interest as of their own We have already found that in Hereditary Monarchies no care at all is taken of the Commander He is not chosen but comes by chance and dos not only frequently prove defective but for the most part utterly uncapable of performing any part of his duty whereas in Popular Governments excellent men are generally chosen and there are so many of them that if one or more perish others are ready to supply their places And this Discourse having if I mistake not in the whole series shewn that the advantages of popular Governments in relation to the increase of Courage Number and Strength in a People out of which Armies are to be formed and bringing them to such a temper as prepares them bravely to perform their duty are as much above those of Monarchies as the prudence of choice surpasses the accidents of birth it cannot be denied that in both respects the part which relates to War is much better perform'd in Popular Governments than in Monarchies That which we are by reason led to believe is confirmed to us by experience We every where see the difference between the Courage of men fighting for themselves and their posterity and those that serve a Master who by good success is often render'd insupportable This is of such efficacy that no King could ever boast to have overthrown any considerable Commonwealth unless it were divided within it self or weakned by Wars made with such as were also free which was the case of the Grecian Commonwealths when the Macedonians fell in upon them Whereas the greatest Kingdoms have bin easily destroy'd by Commonwealths and these also have lost all Strength Valour and Spirit after the change of their Government The Power and Virtue of the Italians grew up decayed and perished with their Liberty When they were divided into many Common-wealths every one of them was able to send out great Armies and to suffer many Defeats before they were subdued so that their Cities were delivered up by the old Men Women and Children when all those who were able to bear arms had bin slain And when they were all brought under the Romans either as Associates or Subjects they made the greatest Strength that ever was in the World Alexander of Epirus was in Valour thought equal and in Power little inferior to Alexander of Macedon but having the fortune to attack those who had bin brought up in Liberty taught to hazard or suffer all things for it and to think that God has given to men Hands and Swords only to defend it he perished in his attempt whilst the other encountring slavish Nations under the conduct of proud cruel and for the most part unwarlike Tyrants became Master of Asia Pyrrhus seems to have bin equal to either of them but the Victories he obtain'd by an admirable Valour and Conduct cost him so dear that he desir'd Peace with those Enemies who might be defeated not subdued Hannibal wanting the prudence of Pyrrhus lost the fruits of all his Victories and being torn out of Italy where he had nested himself fell under the Sword of those whose Fathers he had defeated or slain and died a banish'd man from his ruin'd Country The Gauls did once bring Rome when it was small to the brink of Destruction but they left their Carcases to pay for the mischiefs they had done and in succeeding times their Invasions were mention'd as Tumults rather than Wars The Germans did perhaps surpass them in numbers and strength and were equal to them in fortune as long as Rome was free They often enter'd Italy but they continued not long there unless under the weight of their Chains Whereas the same Nations and others like to them assaulting that Country or other Provinces under the Emperors found no other difficulty than what did arise upon contests among themselves who should be Master of them No manly Virtue or Discipline remain'd among the Italians Those who govern'd them relied upon tricks and shifts they who could not defend themselves hired some of those Nations to undertake their Quarrels against others These trinklings could not last The Goths scorning to depend upon those who in Valour and Strength were much inferior to themselves seized upon the City that had commanded the World whilst Honorius was so busy in providing for his Hens that he could not think of defending it Arcadius had the luck not to lose his principal City but passing his time among Fidlers Players Eunuchs Cooks Dancers and Buffoons the Provinces were securely plunder'd and ransack'd by Nations that are known only from their Victories against him 'T is in vain to say that this proceeded from the fatal corruption of that Age for that corruption proceeded from the Government and the ensuing desolation was the effect of it And as the like disorder in Government has bin ever since in Greece and the greatest part of Italy those Countries which for Extent Riches convenience of Situation and numbers of men are equal to the best in the world and for the Wit Courage and Industry of the Natives perhaps justly preferable to any have since that time bin always exposed as a prey to the first Invader Charles the Eighth of France is by Guicciardin and other Writers represented as a Prince equally weak in
in Commonwealths have never produced such slaughters as were brought upon the Empires of Maecedon and Rome or the Kingdoms of Israel Judah France Spain Scotland or England by contests between several Competitors for those Crowns if Tumult War and Slaughter be the point in question those are the worst of all Governments where they have bin most frequent and cruel But tho these are terrible Scourges I deny that Government to be simply the worst that has most of them 'T is ill that men should kill one another in Seditions Tumults and Wars but 't is worse to bring Nations to such misery weakness and baseness as to have neither strength nor courage to contend for any thing to have nothing left worth defending and to give the name of Peace to desolation I take Greece to have bin happy and glorious when it was full of populous Cities flourishing in all the Arts that deserve praise among men When they were courted and feared by the greatest Kings and never assaulted by any but to his own loss and confusion When Babylon and Susa trembled at the motion of their Arms and their valour exercised in these Wars and Tumults which our Author looks upon as the greatest Evils was raised to such a power that nothing upon Earth was found able to resist them and I think it now miserable when Peace reigns within their empty walls and the poor remains of those exhausted Nations sheltering themselves under the ruins of the desolated Cities have neither any thing that deserves to be disputed amongst them nor spirit or force to repel the Injuries they daily suffer from a proud and insupportable Master The like may be said of Italy Whilst it was inhabited by Nations governing themselves by their own Will they fell sometimes into domestick Seditions and had frequent Wars with their Neighbours When they were free they loved their Country and were always ready to fight in its defence Such as succeeded well increased in vigor and power and even those that were the most unfortunate in one Age found means to repair their greatest losses if their Government continued Whilst they had a propriety in their goods they would not suffer the Country to be invaded since they knew they could have none if it were lost This gave occasion to Wars and Tumults but it sharpned their Courage kept up a good Discipline and the Nations that were most exercised by them always increased in power and number so that no Country seems ever to have bin of greater strength than Italy was when Hannibal invaded it and after his defeat the rest of the World was not able to resist their Valour and Power They sometimes killed one another but their Enemies never got any thing but burying-places within their Territories All things are now brought into a very different method by the blessed Governments they are under The fatherly care of the King of Spain the Pope and other Princes has established Peace amongst them We have not in many Ages heard of any Sedition among the Latins Sabins Volsci Equi Samnits or others The thin half-starv'd Inhabitants of Walls supported by Ivy fear neither popular Tumults nor foreign Alarms and their sleep is only interrupted by Hunger the cries of their Children or the howling of Wolves Instead of many turbulent contentious Cities they have a few scatter'd silent Cottages and the fierceness of those Nations is so temper'd that every rafcally Collector of Taxes extorts without fear from every man that which should be the nourishment of his Family And if any of those Countries are free from that pernicious Vermin 't is through the extremity of their Poverty Even in Rome a man may be circumvented by the fraud of a Priest or poison'd by one who would have his Estate Wife Whore or Child but nothing is done that looks like Tumult or Violence The Governors do as little fear Gracchus as Hannibal and instead of wearying their Subjects in Wars they only seek by perverted Laws corrupt Judges false Witnesses and vexatious Suits to cheat them of their Mony and Inheritance This is the best part of their condition Where these Arts are used there are men and they have something to lose but for the most part the Lands lie waste and they who were formerly troubled with the disorders incident to populous Cities now enjoy the quiet and peaceable estate of a Wilderness Again there is a way of killing worse than that of the Sword for as Tertullian says upon a different occasion prohibere nasci est occidere those Governments are in the highest degree guilty of Blood which by taking from men the means of living bring some to perish through want drive others out of the Country and generally disswade men from marriage by taking from them all ways of subsisting their Families Notwithstanding all the Seditions of Florence and other Cities of Tuscany the horrid Factions of Guelphs and Ghibelins Neri and Bianchi Nobles and Commons they continued populous strong and exceeding rich but in the space of less than a hundred and fifty years the peaceable Reign of the Medices is thought to have destroyed nine parts in ten of the people of that Province Amongst other things 't is remarkable that when Philip the second of Spain gave Sienna to the Duke of Florence his Ambassador then at Rome sent him word that he had given away more than six hundred and fifty thousand Subjects and 't is not believ'd there are now twenty thousand Souls inhabiting that City and Territory Pisa Pistoia Arezzo Cortona and other Towns that were then good and populous are in the like proportion diminished and Florence more than any When that City had bin long troubled with Seditions Tumults and Wars for the most part unprosperous they still retain'd such strength that when Charles the eighth of France being admitted as a Friend with his whole Army which soon after conquer'd the Kingdom of Naples thought to master them the people taking Arms struck such a terror into him that he was glad to depart upon such conditions as they thought fit to impose Machiavel reports that in that time Florence alone with the Val d'Arno a small Territory belonging to that City could in a few hours by the sound of a Bell bring together a hundred and thirty five thousand well arm'd men whereas now that City with all the others in that Province are brought to such despicable weakness emptiness poverty and baseness that they can neither resist the oppressions of their own Prince nor defend him or themselves if they were assaulted by a foreign Enemy The People are dispers'd or destroy'd and the best Families sent to seek Habitations in Venice Genoa Rome Naples and Lucca This is not the effect of War or Pestilence they enjoy a perfect peace and suffer no other plague than the Government they are under But he who has thus cured them of Disorders and Tumults dos in my opinion deserve no greater praise than a
to them On the other hand the poverty and simplicity of the Spartan Kings was no less safe and profitable to the People than truly glorious to them Agesilaus denied that Artaxerxes was greater than he unless he were more temperate or more valiant and he made good his words so well that without any other assistance than what his Wisdom and Valour did afford he struck such a terror into that great rich powerful and absolute Monarch that he did not think himself safe in Babylon or Ecbatane till the poor Spartan was by a Captain of as great valour and greater poverty obliged to return from Asia to the defence of his own Country This was not peculiar to the severe Laconic Discipline When the Roman Kings were expelled a few Carts were prepared to transport their goods and their Lands which were consecrated to Mars and now go under the name of Campus Martius hardly contain ten Acres of ground Nay the Kings of Israel who led such vast Armies into the field that is were followed by all the people who were able to bear Arms seem to have possessed little Ahab one of the most powerful was so fond of Naboth's Vineyard which being the Inheritance of his Fathers according to their equal division of Lands could not be above two Acres that he grew sick when it was refused But if an allowance be to be made to every King it must be either according to a universal Rule or Standard or must depend upon the Judgment of Nations If the first they who have it may do well to produce it if the other every Nation proceeding according to the measure of their own discretion is free from blame It may also be worth observation whether the Revenue given to a King be in such manner committed to his care that he is obliged to employ it for the publick Service without the power of Alienation or whether it be granted as a Propriety to be spent as he thinks fit When some of the antient Jews and Christians scrupled the paiment of Tribute to the Emperors the reasons alledged to perswade them to a compliance seem to be grounded upon a supposition of the first for said they the defence of the State lies upon them which cannot be perform'd without Armies and Garisons these cannot be maintained without pay nor mony raised to pay them without Tributes and Customs This carries a face of reason with it especially in those Countries which are perpetually or frequently subject to Invasions but this will not content our Author He speaks of employing the revenue in keeping his House and looks upon it as a propriety to be spent as he thinks convenient which is no less than to cast it into a Pit of which no man ever knew the bottom That which is given one day is squandred away the next The people is always oppress'd with Impositions to foment the Vices of the Court These daily increasing they grow insatiable and the miserable Nations are compelled to hard labour in order to satiate those Lusts that tend to their own ruin It may be consider'd that the virtuous Pagans by the light of Nature discovered the truth of this Poverty grew odious in Rome when great men by desiring Riches put a value upon them and introduced that pomp and luxury which could not be born by men of small Fortunes From thence all furies and mischiefs seem'd to break loose The base slavish and so often subdued Asia by the basest of men revenged the defeats they had received from the bravest and by infusing into them a delight in pomp and luxury in a short time rendred the strongest and bravest of Nations the weakest and basest I wish our own experience did not too plainly manifest that these Evils were never more prevalent than in our days when the luxury majestick pomp and absolute power of a neighbouring King must be supported by an abundance of Riches torn out of the bowels of his Subjects which renders them in the best Country of the World and at a time when the Crown most flourishes the poorest and most miserable of all the Nations under the Sun We too well know who are most apt to learn from them and by what means and steps they endeavour to lead us into the like misery But the Bird is safe when the Snare is discover'd and if we are not abandoned by God to destruction we shall never be brought to consent to the settling of that Pomp which is against the practice of all virtuous people and has brought all the Nations that have bin taken with it into the ruin that is intended for us S E C T. VII When the Israelites asked for such a King as the Nations about them had they asked for a Tyrant tho they did not call him so NOW that Saul was no Tyrant says our Author note that the people asked a King as all Nations had God answers and bids Samuel to hear the voice of the People in all things which they spake and appoint them a King They did not ask a Tyrant and to give them a Tyrant when they asked a King had not bin to hear their voice in all things but rather when they asked an Egg to have given them a Scorpion unless we will say that all Nations had Tyrants But before he drew such a Conclusion he should have observed that God did not give them a Scorpion when they asked an Egg but told them that was a Scorpion which they called an Egg They would have a King to judg them to go out before them and to fight their Battels but God in effect told them he would overthrow all Justice and turn the Power that was given him to the ruin of them and their Posterity But since they would have it so he commanded Samuel to hearken to their Voice and for the punishment of their sin and folly to give them such a King as they asked that is one who would turn to his own profit and their misery the Power with which he should be entrusted and this truly denominates a Tyrant Aristotle makes no other distinction between a King and a Tyrant than that the King governs for the good of the People the Tyrant for his own pleasure or profit and they who asked such a one asked a Tyrant tho they called him a King This is all could be done in their Language for as they who are skilled in the Oriental Tongues assure me there is no name for a Tyrant in any of them or any other way of expressing the thing than by circumlocution and adding proud insolent lustful cruel violent or the like Epithets to the word Lord or King They did in effect ask a Tyrant They would not have such a King as God had ordain'd but such a one as the Nations had Not that all Nations had Tyrants but those who were round about them of whom they had knowledg and which in their manner of speaking went under the name
Kings of Spain France and Sweden so well to understand the meaning of it as to decide extraordinary cases The wisdom of Nations has provided more assured helps and none could have bin so brutish and negligent of the publick Concernments to suffer the Succession to fall to women children c. if they had not reserved a power in themselves to prefer others before the nearest in blood if reason require and prescribed such rules as might preserve the publick from ruin notwithstanding their infirmities and vices These helps provided by our Laws are principally by grand and petit Juries who are not only Judges of matters of fact as whether a man be kill'd but whether he be kill'd criminally These men are upon their Oaths and may be indicted of Perjury if they prevaricate The Judges are present not only to be a check upon them but to explain such points of the Law as may seem difficult And tho these Judges may be said in some sense to be chosen by the King he is not understood to do it otherwise than by the advice of his Council who cannot perform their duty unless they propose such as in their consciences they think most worthy of the Office and most capable of performing the duty rightly nor he accomplish the Oath of his Coronation unless he admit those who upon deliberation seem to be the best The Judges being thus chosen are so far from depending upon the will of the King that they swear faithfully to serve the People as well as the King and to do justice to every man according to the Law of the Land notwithstanding any Writs Letters or Commands received from him and in default thereof they are to forfeit their bodies lands and goods as in cases of Treason These Laws have bin so often and so severely executed that it concerns all Judges well to consider them and the Cases of Tresilian Empson Dudley and others shew that neither the King 's preceding command nor subsequent pardon could preserve them from the punishment they deserved All men knew that what they did was agreeable to the King's pleasure for Tresilian advanced the Prerogative of Edward the 2d and Empson brought great Treasures into the Coffers of Henry the 7th Nevertheless they were charged with Treason for subverting the Laws of the Land and executed as Traitors Tho England ought never to forget the happy Reign of Q. Elizabeth yet it must be acknowledged that she as well as others had her failings She was full of love to the People just in her nature sincere in her intentions but could not so perfectly discover the snares that were laid for her or resist the importunity of the Persons she most trusted as not sometimes to be brought to attempt things against Law She and her Counsellors pressed the Judges very hardly to obey the Patent under her Great Seal in the case of Cavendish but they answered That both she and they had taken an Oath to keep the Law and if they should obey her commands the Law would not warrant them c. And besides the offence against God their Country and the Commonwealth they alledged the example of Empson and Dudley whereby they said they were deterred from obeying her illegal Commands They who had sworn to keep the Law notwithstanding the King's Writs knew that the Law depended not upon his will and the same Oath that obliged them not to regard any command they should receive from him shewed that they were not to expect indemnity by it and not only that the King had neither the power of making altering mitigating or interpreting the Law but that he was not at all to be heard in general or particular matters otherwise than as he speaks in the common course of Justice by the Courts legally established which say the same thing whether he be young or old ignorant or wise wicked or good and nothing dos better evidence the wisdom and care of our Ancestors in framing the Laws and Government we live under than that the People did not suffer extremities by the vices or infirmities of Kings till an Age more full of malice than those in which they lived had found tricks to pervert the rule and frustrate their honest intentions It was not safe for the Kings to violate their Oaths by an undue interposition of their Authority but the Ministers who served them in those violations have seldom escaped punishment This is to be understood when the deviations from Justice are extreme and mischievous for something must always be allow'd to human frailty The best have their defects and none could stand if a too exact scrutiny were made of all their actions Edward the third about the twentieth year of his Reign acknowledged his own in Parliament and as well for the ease of his Conscience as the satisfaction of his People promoted an Act Commanding all Judges to do Justice notwithstanding any Writs Letters or Commands from himself and forbidding those that belonged to the King Queen and Prince to intermeddle in those matters But if the best and wisest of our Princes in the strength and maturity of their years had their failings and every act proceeding from them that tended to the interruption of Justice was a failing how can it be said that the King in his personal capacity directly or indirectly may enter into the discussion of these matters much less to determine them according to his will But says our Author the Law is no better than a Tyrant general Pardons at the Coronation and in Parliament are but the bounty of the Prerogative c. There may be hard cases and citing some perverted pieces from Aristotle's Ethicks and Politicsk adds That when something falls out besides the general rule then it is fit that what the Lawmaker hath omitted or where he hath erred by speaking generally it should be corrected and supplied as if the Lawmaker were present that ordained it The Governor whether he be one man or more ought to be Lord of these things whereof it was impossible that the Law should speak exactly These things are in part true but our Author makes use of them as the Devil dos of Scripture to subvert the truth There may be something of rigour in the Law that in some cases may be mitigated and the Law it self in relation to England dos so far acknowledg it as to refer much to the consciences of Juries and those who are appointed to assist them and the most difficult Cases are referred to the Parliament as the only judges that are able to determine them Thus the Statute of the 35 Edw. 3d enumerating the crimes then declared to be Treason leaves to suture Parliaments to judg what other facts equivalent to them may deserve the same punishment and 't is a general rule in the Law which the Judges are sworn to observe that difficult Cases should be reserved till the Parliament meet who are only able to decide them and
person or a few were delegated by many For they who have a right inherent in themselves may resign it to others and they who can give a Power to others may exercise it themselves unless they recede from it by their own act for it is only matter of convenience of which they alone can be the Judges because 't is for themselves only that they judg If this were not so it would be very prejudicial to Kings for 't is certain that Cassivellaunus Caractatus Arviragus Galgacus Hengist Horsa and others amongst the Britans and Saxons what name soever may have bin abusively given to them were only temporary Magistrates chosen upon occasion of present Wars but we know of no time in which the Britans had not their Great Council to determine their most important Affairs and the Saxons in their own Country had their Councils where all were present and in which Tacitus assures us they dispatched their greatest business These were the same with the Micklegemots which they afterwards held here and might have bin called by the same name if Tacitus had spoken Dutch If a People therefore have not a power to create at any time a Magistracy which they had not before none could be created at all for no Magistracy is eternal And if for the validity of the Constitution it be necessary that the beginning must be unknown or that no other could have bin before it the Monarchy amongst us cannot be established upon any right for tho our Ancestors had their Councils and Magistrates as well here as in Germany they had no Monarchs This appears plainly by the testimony of Cesar and Tacitus and our later Histories show that as soon as the Saxons came into this Country they had their Micklegemots which were general Assemblies of the Noble and Free men who had in themselves the Power of the Nation and tho when they increased in numbers they erected seven Kingdoms yet every one retained the same usage within it self These Assemblies were evidently the same in power with our Parliaments and tho they differ'd in name or form it matters not for they who could act in the one could not but have a power of instituting the other that is the same people that could meet together in their own persons and according to their own pleasure order all matters relating to themselves whilst three of four Counties only were under one Government and their numbers were not so great or their habitation so far distant that they might not meet altogether without inconvenience with the same right might depute others to represent them when being joined in one no place was capable of receiving so great a multitude and that the Frontiers would have bin exposed to the danger of foreign Invasions if any such thing had bin practised But if the Authority of Parliaments for many Ages representing the whole Nation were less to be valued as our Author insinuates because they could not represent the whole when it was not joined in one body that of Kings must come to nothing for there could be no one King over all when the Nation was divided into seven distinct Governments And 't is most absurd to think that the Nation which had seven great Councils or Micklegemots at the same time they had seven Kingdoms could not as well unite the seven Councils as the seven Kingdoms into one 'T is to as little purpose to say that the Nation did not unite it self but the several parcels came to be inherited by one for that one could inherit no more from the others than what they had and the seven being only Magistrates set up by the Micklegemots c. the one must be so also And 't is neither reasonable to imagine nor possible to prove that a fierce Nation jealous of Liberty and who had obstinately defended it in Germany against all Invaders should conquer this Country to enslave themselves and purchase nothing by their valour but that servitude which they abhorred or be less free when they were united into one state than they had bin when they were divided into seven and least of all that one man could first subdue his own People and then all the rest when by endeavouring to subdue his own he had broken the trust reposed in him and lost the right conferred upon him and without them had not power to subdue any But as it is my fate almost ever to dissent from our Author I affirm that the variety of Government which is observed to have bin amongst the Saxons who in some Ages were divided in others united sometimes under Captains in other times under Kings sometimes meeting personally in the Micklegemots sometimes by their Delegates in the Wittenagemots dos evidently testify that they ordered all things according to their own pleasure which being the utmost Act of Liberty it remained inviolable under all those changes as we have already proved by the confession of Offa Ina Alfred Canutus Edward and other particular as well as universal Kings And we may be sure those of the Norman Race can have no more power since they came in by same way and swore to govern by the same Laws 2. I am no way concerned in our Author's doubt Whether Parliaments did in those days consist of Nobility and Clergy or whether the Commons were also called For if it were true as he asserts that according to the eternal Law of God and Nature there can be no Government in the World but that of an absolute Monarch whose Sovereign Majesty can be diminished by no Law or Custom there could be no Parliaments or other Magistracies that did not derive their power and being from his Will But having proved that the Saxons had their general Councils and Assemblies when they had no Kings that by them Kings were made and the greatest Affairs determined whether they had Kings or not it can be of no importance whether in one or more Ages the Commons had a part in the Government or not For the same Power that instituted a Parliament without them might when they thought fit receive them into it or rather if they who had the Government in their hands did for reasons known to themselves recede from the exercise of it they might resume it when they pleased Nevertheless it may be worth our pains to enquire what our Author means by Nobility If such as at this day by means of Patents obtained for mony or by favour without any regard to merit in the persons or their Ancestors are called Dukes Marquesses c. I give him leave to impute as late and base an Original to them as he pleases without fearing that the Rights of our Nation can thereby be impaired and am content that if the King do not think fit to support the Dignity of his own Creatures they may fall to the ground But if by Noblemen we are to understand such as have bin ennobled by the virtues of their Ancestors manifested in services done
or Wittenagemots if these consisted of the Nobility and People who were sometimes so numerous that no one place could well contain them and if the preference given to the chief among them was on account of the Offices they executed either in relation to war or justice which no man can deny I have as much as serves for my purpose 'T is indifferent to me whether they were called Earls Dukes Aldermen Herotoghs or Thanes for 't is certain that the titular Nobility now in mode amongst us has no resemblance to this antient Nobility of England The novelty therefore is on the other side and that of the worst sort because by giving the name of Noblemen which antiently belonged to such as had the greatest interests in Nations and were the supporters of their Liberty to Court-creatures who often have none and either acquire their Honours by mony or are preferr'd for servile and sometimes impure services render'd to the person that reigns or else for mischiefs done to their Country the Constitution has bin wholly inverted and the trust reposed in the Kings who in some measure had the disposal of Offices and Honours misemploy'd This is farther aggravated by appropriating the name of Noblemen solely to them whereas the Nation having bin antiently divided only into Freemen or Noblemen who were the same and Villains the first were as Tacitus says of their Ancestors the Germans exempted from burdens and contributions and reserved like arms for the uses of war whilst the others were little better than slaves appointed to cultivate the Lands or to other servile Offices And I leave any reasonable man to judg whether the latter condition be that of those we now call Commoners Nevertheless he that will believe the title of Noblemen still to belong to those only who are so by Patent may guess how well our wars would be managed if they were left solely to such as are so by that title If this be approved his Majesty may do well with his hundred and fifty Noblemen eminent in valour and military experience as they are known to be to make such wars as may fall upon him and leave the despised Commons under the name of Villains to provide for themselves if the success do not answer his expectations But if the Commons are as free as the Nobles many of them in birth equal to the Patentees in Estate superior to most of them and that it is not only expected they should assist him in wars with their Persons and Purses but acknowledged by all that the strength and virtue of the Nation is in them it must be confess'd that they are true Noblemen of England and that all the privileges antiently enjoy'd by such must necessarily belong to them since they perform the Offices to which they were annexed This shews how the Nobility were justly said to be almost infinite in number so that no one place was able to contain them The Saxon Armies that came over into this Country to a wholsom and generative climat might well increase in four or five ages to those vast numbers as the Francks Goths and others had done in Spain France Italy and other parts and when they were grown so numerous they found themselves necessarily obliged to put the power into the hands of Representatives chosen by themselves which they had before exercised in their own persons But these two ways differing rather in form than essentially the one tending to Democracy the other to Aristocracy they are equally opposite to the absolute dominion of one man reigning for himself and governing the Nation as his Patrimony and equally assert the rights of the People to put the Government into such a form as best pleases themselves This was sutable to what they had practised in their own Country De minoribus consultant Principes de majoribus omnes Nay even these smaller matters cannot be said properly to relate to the King for he is but one and the word Principes is in the plural number and can only signify such principal men as the same Author says were chosen by the General Assemblies to do justice c. and to each of them one hundred Comites joined not only to give advice but authority to their actions The word Omnes spoken by a Roman must likewise be understood as it was used by them and imports all the Citizens or such as made up the body of the Commonwealth If he had spoken of Rome or Athens whilst they remained free he must have used the same word because all those of whom the City consisted had votes how great soever the number of slaves or strangers might have bin The Spartans are rightly said to have gained lost and recovered the Lordship or Principality of Greece They were all Lords in relation to their Helots and so were the Dorians in relation to that sort of men which under several names they kept as the Saxons did their Villians for the performance of the Offices which they thought too mean for those who were ennobled by Liberty and the use of Arms by which the Commonwealth was defended and enlarged Tho the Romans scorned to give the title of Lord to those who had usurped a power over their Lives and Fortunes yet every one of them was a Lord in relation to his own Servants and altogether are often called Lords of the world the like is seen almost every where The Government of Venice having continued for many ages in the same Families has ennobled them all No phrase is more common in Switzerland than the Lords of Bern or the Lords of Zurich and other places tho perhaps there is not a man amongst them who pretends to be a Gentleman according to the modern sense put upon that word The States of the United Provinces are called High and Mighty Lords and the same title is given to each of them in particular Nay the word Heer which signifies Lord both in high and low Dutch is as common as Monsieur in France Signor in Italy or Sennor in Spain and is given to every one who is not of a sordid condition but especially to Soldiers and tho a common Soldier be now a much meaner thing than it was antiently no man speaking to a company of Soldiers in Italian uses any other stile than Signori Soldati and the like is done in other Languages 'T is not therefore to be thought strange if the Saxons who in their own Country had scorned any other employment than that of the Sword should think themselves farther ennobled when by their Arms they had acquired a great and rich Country and driven out or subdued the former inhabitants They might well distinguish themselves from the Villains they brought with them or the Britans they had enslaved They might well be called Magnates Proceres regni Nobiles Angliae Nobilitas Barones and the Assemblies of them justly called Concilium Regni Generale Vniversitas totius Angliae Nobilium Vniversitas Baronagii
Philippi Munda and Actium the destruction of two thirds of the People with the slaughter of all the most eminent men among them was for their advantage The Proscriptions were wholsom Remedies Tacitus did not understand the state of his own Country when he seems to be ashamed to write the History of it Nobis in arcto inglorias labor when instead of such glorious things as had bin atchiev'd by the Romans whilst either the Senate or the Common People prevailed he had nothing left to relate but saeva jussa continuas accusationes fallaces amicitias perniciem innocentium They enjoy'd nothing that was good from the expulsion of the Tarquins to the reestablishment of Divine absolute Monarchy in the Persons of those pious Fathers of the People Tiberius Caligula Claudius Nero Galba Otho Vitellius c. There was no vertue in the Junii Horatii Cornelii Quintii Decii Manlii but the generous and tender-hearted Princes before mentioned were perfect examples of it Whilst annual Magistrates governed there was no stability Sejanus Macro and Tigellinus introduced good order Vertue was not esteemed by the antient Senate and People Messalina Agrippina Poppaea Narcissus Pallas Vinnius and Laco knew how to put a just value upon it The irregularities of popular Assemblies and want of Prudence in the Senate was repaired by the temperate proceedings of the German Pannonian and Eastern Armies or the modest discretion of the Pretorian Bands The City was delivered by them from the burden of governing the World and for its own good frequently plunder'd fired and at last with the rest of desolated Italy and the noblest Provinces of Europe Asia and Africa brought under the yoak of the most barbarous and cruel Nations By the same light we may see that those who endeavour'd to perpetuate the misery of Liberty to Rome or lost their lives in the defence of it were the worst or the most foolish of men and that they were the best who did overthrow it This rectifies all our errors and if the highest Praises are due to him that did the work the next are well deserved by those who perished in attempting it and if the Sons of Brutus with their Companions the Vitellii and Aquilii Claudius Appius the Decemvir those that would have betrayed the City to Porsenna Spurius Melius Spur. Cassius Manlius Capitolinus Saturninus Catiline Cethegus Lentulus had bin as fortunate as Julius Caesar they might as well have deserved an Apotheosis But if all this be false absurd bestial and abominable the principles that necessarily lead us to such conclusions are so also which is enough to shew that the Strength Vertue Glory Wealth Power and Happiness of Rome proceeding from Liberty did rise grow and perish with it SECT XIII There is no disorder or prejudice in changing the name or number of Magistrates whilst the root and principle of their Power continues intire IN the next place our Author would perswade us that the Romans were inconstant because of their changes from annual Consuls to Military Tribunes Decemviri and Dictators and gives the name of Sedition to the complaints made against Usury or the contests concerning Marriages or Magistracy but I affirm 1. That no change of Magistracy as to the name number or form doth testify irregularity or bring any manner of prejudice as long as it is done by those who have a right of doing it and he or they who are created continue within the power of the Law to accomplish the end of their institution many forms being in themselves equally good and may be used as well one as another according to times and other circumstances 2. In the second place 't is a rare thing for a City at the first to be rightly constituted Men can hardly at once foresee all that may happen in many ages and the changes that accompany them ought to be provided for Rome in its foundation was subject to these defects and the inconveniences arising from them were by degrees discover'd and remedi'd They did not think of regulating Usury till they saw the mischiefs proceeding from the cruelty of Usurers or setting limits to the proportion of Land that one man might enjoy till the avarice of a few had so far succeeded that their Riches were grown formidable and many by the poverty to which they were reduced became useless to the City It was not time to make a Law that the Plebeians might marry with the Patricians till the distinction had raised the Patricians to such Pride as to look upon themselves to have something of divine and the others to be Inauspitati or prophane and brought the City into danger by that division nor to make the Plebeians capable of being elected to the chief Magistracies till they had men able to perform the duties of them But these things being observed remedies were seasonably applied without any bloodshed or mischief tho not without noise and wrangling 3. All human Constitutions are subject to corruption and must perish unless they are timely renewed and reduced to their first principles This was chiefly done by means of those Tumults which our Author ignorantly blames The whole People by whom the Magistracy had bin at first created executed their power in those things which comprehend Soveraignty in the highest degree and brought every one to acknowledg it There was nothing that they could not do who first conferr'd the supreme honours upon the Patricians and then made the Plebeians equal to them Yet their Modesty was not less than their Power or Courage to defend it and therefore when by the Law they might have made a Plebeian Consul they did not chuse one in forty years and when they did make use of their Right in advancing men of their own Order they were so prudent that they cannot be said to have bin mistaken in their Elections three times whilst their Votes were free whereas of all the Emperors that came in by Usurpation pretence of Blood from those who had usurped or that were set up by the Souldiers or a few Electors hardly three can be named who deserved that Honour and most of them were such as seemed to be born for plagues to Mankind 4. He manifests his fraud or ignorance in attributing the Legislative power sometimes to the Senate and sometimes to the People for the Senate never had it The stile of Senatus censuit Populus jussit was never alter'd but the right of Advising continuing in the Senate that of Enacting ever continued in the People 5. An occasion of commending absolute Power in order to the establishment of Hereditary Monarchy is absurdly drawn from their Custom of creating a Dictator in time of danger for no man was ever created but such as seemed able to bear so great a burden which in hereditary Governments is wholly left to chance Tho his Power was great it did arise from the Law and being confin'd to six months 't was almost impossible for any man to abuse it or to corrupt
so many of those who had enjoy'd the same honour or might aspire to it as to bring them for his pleasure to betray their Country and as no man was ever chosen who had not given great testimonies of his Vertues so no one did ever forfeit the good opinion conceived of him Vertue was then honour'd and thought so necessarily to comprehend a sincere love and fidelity to the Commonwealth that without it the most eminent qualities were reputed vile and odious and the memory of former Services could no way expiate the guilt of conspiring against it This seeming Severity was in truth the greatest Clemency for tho our Author has the impudence to say that during the Roman Liberty the best men thrived worst and the worst best he cannot alledg one example of any eminent Roman put to death except Manlius Capitolinus from the expulsion of the Tarquins to the time of the Gracchi and the Civil Wars not long after ensuing and of very few who were banished By these means Crimes were prevented and the temptations to evil being removed Treachery was destroy'd in the root and such as might be naturally ambitious were made to see there was no other way to Honour and Power than by acting virtuously But lest this should not be sufficient to restrain aspiring men what Power soever was granted to any Magistrate the Soveraignty still remained in the People and all without exception were subject to them This may seem strange to those who think the Dictators were absolute because they are said to have bin sine provocatione but that is to be only understood in relation to other Magistrates and not to the People as is clearly proved in the case of Q. Fabius whom Papirius the Dictator would have put to death Tribunos Plebis appello says Fabius Maximus his Father provoco ad Populum eumque tibi fugienti exercitus tui fugienti Senatus judicium Judicem fero qui certe unus plusquam tua dictatura potest polletque videro cessurusne sis provocationi cui Tullus Hostilius cessit And tho the People did rather interceed for Fabius than command his deliverance that modesty did evidently proceed from an opinion that Papirius was in the right and tho they desired to save Fabius who seems to have bin one of the greatest and best men that ever the City produced they would not enervate that military Discipline to which they owed not only their greatness but their subsistence most especially when their Soveraign Authority was acknowledged by all and the Dictator himself had submitted This right of Appeals to the People was the foundation of the Roman Commonwealth laid in the days of Romulus submitted to by Hostilius in the case of Horatius and never violated till the Laws and the Liberty which they supported were overthrown by the power of the Sword This is confirmed by the speech of Metellus the Tribune who in the time of the second Carthaginian War causelesly disliking the Proceedings of Q. Fabius Maximus then Dictator in a publick Assembly of the People said Quod si antiquus animus Plebi Romanae esset se audacter laturum de abrogando Q. Fabii Imperio nunc modicam rogationem promulgaturum de aequando Magistri Equitum Dictatoris jure which was done and that Action which had no precedent shews that the People needed none and that their Power being eminently above that of all Magistrates was obliged to no other rule than that of their own Will Tho I do therefore grant that a Power like to the Dictatorian limited in time circumscribed by Law and kept perpetually under the supreme Authority of the People may by vertuous and well-disciplin'd Nations upon some occasions be prudently granted to a vertuous man it can have no relation to our Author's Monarch whose Power is in himself subject to no Law perpetually exercised by himself and for his own sake whether he have any of the abilities required for the due performance of so great a work or be intirely destitute of them nothing being more unreasonable than to deduce consequences from cases which in substance and circumstances are altogether unlike but to the contrary these examples shewing that the Romans even in the time of such Magistrates as seemed to be most absolute did retain and exercise the Soveraign Power do most evidently prove that the Government was ever the same remaining in the People who without prejudice might give the Administration to one or more men as best pleased themselves and the success shews that they did it prudently SECT XIV No Sedition was hurtful to Rome till through their Prosperity some men gained a Power above the Laws LIttle pains is required to confute our Author who imputes much bloodshed to the popular Government of Rome for he cannot prove that one man was unjustly put to death or slain in any Sedition before Publius Gracchus The Foundations of the Common-wealth were then so shaken that the Laws could not be executed and whatsoever did then fall out ought to be attributed to the Monarchy for which the great men began to contend Whilst they had no other Wars than with neighbouring Nations they had a strict eye upon their Commanders and could preserve Discipline among the Soldiers but when by the excellence of their Valour and Conduct the greatest Powers of the World were subdued and for the better carrying on of foreign Wars Armies were suffered to continue in the same hands longer than the Law did direct Soldiery came to be accounted a Trade and those who had the worst designs against the Commonwealth began to favour all manner of Licentiousness and Rapine that they might gain the favour of the Legions who by that means became unruly and seditious 't was hard if not impossible to preserve a Civil equality when the Spoils of the greatest Kingdoms were brought to adorn the Houses of private men and they who had the greatest Cities and Nations to be their Dependents and Clients were apt to scorn the power of the Law This was a most dangerous Disease like those to which human Bodies are subject when they are arrived to that which Physicians call the Athletick habit proceeding from the highest perfection of Health Activity and Strength that the best Constitution by Diet and Exercise can attain Whosoever falls into them shews that he had attain'd that perfection and he who blames that which brings a State into the like condition condemns that which is most perfect among men Whilst the Romans were in the way to this no Sedition did them any hurt they were composed without Blood and those that seemed to be the most dangerous produced the best Laws But when they were arrived to that condition no Order could do them good the fatal period set to human things was come they could go no higher Summisque negatum Stare diu and all that our Author blames is not to be imputed to their Constitution but their departing from
orderly chosen by a willing People were the true Shepherds who came in by the gate of the Sheepfold and might justly be called the Ministers of God so long as they performed their duty in providing for the good of the Nations committed to their charge SECT XVII Good Governments admit of Changes in the Superstructures whilst the Foundations remain unchangeable IF I go a step farther and confess the Romans made some changes in the outward Form of their Government I may safely say they did well in it and prosper'd by it After the Expulsion of the Kings the Power was chiefly in the Nobility who had bin Leaders of the People but it was necessary to humble them when they began to presume too much upon the advantages of their Birth and the City could never have been great unless the Plebeians who were the Body of it and the main strength of their Armies had bin admitted to a participation of Honours This could not be done at the first They who had bin so vilely opprest by Tarquin and harass'd with making or cleansing Sinks were not then fit for Magistracies or the Command of Armies but they could not justly be excluded from them when they had men who in courage and conduct were equal to the best of the Patricians and it had bin absurd for any man to think it a disparagement to him to marry the Daughter of one whom he had obey'd as Dictator or Consul and perhaps follow'd in his Triumph Rome that was constituted for War and sought its Grandeur by that means could never have arriv'd to any considerable height if the People had not bin exercised in Arms and their Spirits raised to delight in Conquests and willing to expose themselves to the greatest fatigues and dangers to accomplish them Such men as these were not to be used like Slaves or opprest by the unmerciful hand of Usurers They who by their sweat and blood were to defend and enlarge the Territories of the State were to be convinced they fought for themselves and they had reason to demand a Magistracy of their own vested with a Power that none might offend to maintain their Rights and to protect their Families whilst they were abroad in the Armies These were the Tribunes of the People made as they called it Sacrosancti or inviolable and the creation of them was the most considerable Change that happened till the time of Marius who brought all into disorder The creation or abolition of Military Tribunes with Consular Power ought to be accounted as nothing for it imported little whether that Authority were exercised by two or by five That of the Decemviri was as little to be regarded they were intended only for a Year and tho new ones were created for another on pretence that the Laws they were to frame could not be brought to perfection in so short a time yet they were soon thrown down from the Power they usurped and endeavoured to retain contrary to Law The creation of Dictators was no novelty they were made occasionally from the beginning and never otherwise than occasionally till Julius Cesar subverted all order and invading that supreme Magistracy by force usurped the Right which belong'd to all This indeed was a mortal Change even in root and principle All other Magistrates had bin created by the People for the publick good and always were within the power of those that had created them But Cesar coming in by force sought only the satisfaction of his own raging Ambition or that of the Soldiers whom he had corrupted to destroy their Country and his Successors governing for themselves by the help of the like Raskals perpetually exposed the Empire to be ravaged by them But whatever opinion any man may have of the other Changes I dare affirm there are few or no Monarchies whose Histories are so well known to us as that of Rome which have not suffer'd Changes incomparably greater and more mischievous than those of Rome whilst it was free The Macedonian Monarchy fell into pieces immediately after the death of Alexander 'T is thought he perished by Poison His Wives Children and Mother were destroyed by his own Captains The best of those who had escaped his fury fell by the Sword of each other When the famous Argyraspides might have expected some reward of their labours and a little rest in old age they were maliciously sent into the East by Antigonus to perish by hunger and misery after he had corrupted them to betray Eumenes No better fate attended the rest all was in confusion every one follow'd whom he pleased and all of them seemed to be filled with such a rage that they never ceased from mutual slaughters till they were consumed and their Kingdoms continued in perpetual Wars against each other till they all fell under the Roman Power The fortune of Rome was the same after it became a Monarchy Treachery Murder and Fury reigned in every part there was no Law but Force he that could corrupt an Army thought he had a sufficient Title to the Empire by this means there were frequently three or four and at one time thirty several Pretenders who called themselves Emperors of which number he only reigned that had the happiness to destroy all his Competitors and he himself continued no longer than till another durst attempt the destruction of him and his Posterity In this state they remained till the wasted and bloodless Provinces were possess'd by a multitude of barbarous Nations The Kingdoms established by them enjoy'd as little Peace or Justice that of France was frequently divided into as many parts as the Kings of Meroveus or Pepin's Race had Children under the names of the Kingdoms of Paris Orleans Soissons Arles Burgundy Austrasia and others These were perpetually vexed by the unnatural fury of Brothers or nearest Relations whilst the miserable Nobility and People were obliged to fight upon their foolish Quarrels till all fell under the power of the strongest This mischief was in some measure cured by a Law made in the time of Hugh Capet that the Kingdom should no more be divided But the Appannages as they call them granted to the King's Brothers with the several Dukedoms and Earldoms erected to please them and other great Lords produced frequently almost as bad effects This is testified by the desperate and mortal Factions that went under the names of Burgundy and Orleans Armagnac and Orleans Montmorency and Guise These were followed by those of the League and the Wars of the Huguenots They were no sooner finish'd by the taking of Rochel but new ones began by the Intrigues of the Duke of Orleans Brother to Lewis the 13th and his Mother and pursued with that animosity by them that they put themselves under the protection of Spain To which may be added that the Houses of Condé Soissons Montmorency Guise Vendosme Angouleme Bouillon Rohan Longueville Rochfocault Epernon and I think I may say every one that is of great
eminency in that Kingdom with the Cities of Paris Bourdeaux and many others in the space of these last fifty years have sided with the perpetual Enemies of their own Country Again other great Alterations have happened within the same Kingdom The Races of Kings four times wholly changed Five Kings deposed in less than 150 Years after the death of Charles the Great The Offices of Maire du Palais and Constable erected and laid aside The great Dukedoms and Earldoms little inferior to Soveraign Principalities establish'd and suppress'd The decision of all Causes and the execution of the Laws placed absolutely in the hands of the Nobility their Deputies Seneschals or Vice-Seneschals and taken from them again Parliaments set up to receive Appeals from the other Courts and to judg soveraignly in all cases expresly to curb them The Power of these Parliaments after they had crushed the Nobility brought so low that within the last twenty years they are made to register and give the Power of Laws to Edicts of which the Titles only are read to them and the General Assemblies of Estates that from the time of Pepin had the Power of the Nation in their hands are now brought to nothing and almost forgotten Tho I mention these things 't is not with a design of blaming them for some of them deserve it not and it ought to be consider'd that the Wisdom of man is imperfect and unable to foresee the Effects that may proceed from an infinite variety of Accidents which according to Emergencies necessarily require new Constitutions to prevent or cure the mischiefs arising from them or to advance a good that at the first was not thought on And as the noblest work in which the Wit of man can be exercised were if it could be done to constitute a Government that should last for ever the next to that is to sute Laws to present Exigencies and so much as is in the power of man to foresee And he that should resolve to persist obstinately in the way he first entered upon or to blame those who go out of that in which their Fathers had walked when they find it necessary dos as far as in him lies render the worst of Errors perpetual Changes therefore are unavoidable and the Wit of man can go no farther than to institute such as in relation to the Forces Manners Nature Religion or Interests of a People and their Neighbours are sutable and adequate to what is seen or apprehended to be seen And he who would oblige all Nations at all times to take the same course would prove as foolish as a Physician who should apply the same Medicine to all Distempers or an Architect that would build the same kind of House for all Persons without considering their Estates Dignities the number of their Children or Servants the Time or Climate in which they live and many other Circumstances or which is if possible more sottish a General who should obstinately resolve always to make War in the same way and to draw up his Army in the same form without examining the nature number and strength of his own and his Enemies Forces or the advantages and disadvantages of the Ground But as there may be some universal Rules in Physick Architecture and Military Discipline from which men ought never to depart so there are some in Politicks also which ought always to be observed and wise Legislators adhering to them only will be ready to change all others as occasion may require in order to the publick Good This we may learn from Moses who laying the Foundation of the Law given to the Israelites in that Justice Charity and Truth which having its root in God is subject to no change left them the liberty of having Judges or no Judges Kings or no Kings or to give the Soveraign Power to High Priests or Captains as best pleased themselves and the Mischiefs they afterwards suffer'd proceeded not simply from changing but changing for the worse The like judgment may be made of the Alterations that have happen'd in other places They who aim at the publick Good and wisely institute Means proportionable and adequate to the attainment of it deserve praise and those only are to be dislik'd who either foolishly or maliciously set up a corrupt private Interest in one or a few men Whosoever therefore would judg of the Roman Changes may see that in expelling the Tarquins creating Consuls abating the violence of Usurers admitting Plebeians to marry with the Patricians rendring them capable of Magistracies deducing Colonies dividing Lands gained from their Enemies erecting Tribunes to defend the Rights of the Commons appointing the Decemviri to regulate the Law and abrogating their Power when they abused it creating Dictators and Military Tribunes with a Consular Power as occasions requir'd they acted in the face of the Sun for the good of the Publick and such Acts having always produced Effects sutable to the rectitude of their Intentions they consequently deserve praise But when another Principle began to govern all things were changed in a very different manner Evil Designs tending only to the advancement of private Interests were carried on in the dark by means as wicked as the end If Tarquin when he had a mind to be King poison'd his first Wife and his Brother contracted an incestuous Marriage with his second by the death of her first Husband murder'd her Father and the best men in Rome yet Cesar did worse He favour'd Catiline and his villanous Associates brided and corrupted Magistrates conspir'd with Crassus and Pompey continued in the Command of an Army beyond the time prescribed by Law and turned the Arms with which he had bin entrusted for the service of the Commonwealth to the destruction of it which was rightly represented by his Dream that he had constuprated his Mother In the like manner when Octavius Antonius and Lepidus divided the Empire and then quarrelled among themselves and when Galba Otho Vitellius and Vespasian set up Parties in several Provinces all was managed with Treachery Fraud and Cruelty nothing was intended but the advancement of one Man and the Recompence of the Villains that served him And when the Empire had suffered infinite Calamities by pulling down or rejecting one and setting up another it was for the most part difficult to determine who was the worst of the two or whether the prevailing side had gained or lost by their Victory The question therefore upon which a Judgment may be made to the praise or dispraise of the Roman Government before or after the loss of their Liberty ought not to be Whether either were subject to changes for neither they nor any thing under the Sun was ever exempted from them but whether the Changes that happened after the establishment of Absolute Power in the Emperors did not solely proceed from Ambition and tend to the publick Ruin whereas those Alterations related by our Author concerning Consuls Dictators Decemviri Tribuns and Laws were
that is nothing to the present Question For if it was ill done to drive Nero to despair or to throw Vitellius into the common Shore it was not because they were the Ministers of God for their Lives were no way conformable to the character which the Apostle gives to those who deserve that Sacred Name If those only are to be feared who have the Power there was a time when they were not to be feared for they had none and if those Princes are not obliged by the Law who are not under the coercive Power it gave no exemption to those for they fell under it and as we know not what will befal others who walk in their steps till they are dead we cannot till then know whether they are free from it or not SECT XII The Right and Power of a Magistrate depends upon his Institution not upon his Name 'T IS usual with Impostors to obtrude their deceits upon men by putting false names upon things by which they may perplex mens minds and from thence deduce false Conclusions But the points above mention'd being settled it imports little whether the Governors to whom Peter enjoins obedience were only Kings and such as are employ'd by them or all such Magistrates as are the Ministers of God for he informs us of their Works that we may know them and accordingly yield obedience to them This is that therefore which distinguishes the Magistrate to whom obedience is due from him to whom none is due and not the name that he either assumes or others put upon him But if there be any virtue in the word King and that the admirable Prerogatives of which our Author dreams were annexed to that name they could not be applied to the Roman Emperors nor their substituted Officers for they had it not 'T is true Mark Anthony in a drunken fit at the celebration of the impure Lupercalia did offer a Diadem to Julius Cesar which some flatterers pressed him to accept as our great Lawyers did Cromwel but he durst not think of putting it upon his Head Caligula's affectation of that title and the ensigns of Royalty he wore were taken for the most evident marks of his madness and tho the greatest and bravest of their men had fallen by the Wars or Proscriptions tho the best part of the Senate had perished in Thessaly tho the great City was exhausted and Italy brought to desolation yet they were not reduced so low as to endure a King Piso was sufficiently addicted to Tiberius yet he could not suffer that Germanicus should be treated as the Son of a King Principis Romani non Parthorum regis filio has epulas dari And whoever understands the Latin Tongue and the History of those times will easily perceive that the word Princeps signified no more than a principal or eminent man as has bin already proved and the words of Piso could have no other meaning than that the Son of a Roman ought not to be distinguished from others as the Sons of the Parthian Kings were This is verified by his Letter to Tiberius under the name of Friend and the answer of Tiberius promising to him whatsoever one friend could do for another Here was no mention of Majesty or Soveraign Lord nor the base subscriptions of Servant Subject or Creature And I fear that as the last of those words was introduced amongst us by our Bishops the rest of them had bin also invented by such Christians as were too much addicted to the Asiatick Slavery However the name of King was never solemnly assumed by nor conferred upon those Emperors and could have conferred no right if it had They exercised as they pleased or as they durst the power that had bin gained by violence or fraud The exorbitances they committed could not have bin justified by a Title any more than those of a Pyrat who should take the same It was no otherwise given to them than by way of assimilation when they were guilty of the greatest Crimes and Tacitus describing the detestable Lust of Tiberius says Quibus adeo indomitis exarserat ut more Regio pubem ingenuam stupris pollueret nec formam tantum decora corporis sed in his modestam pueritiam in aliis majorum imagines incitamentum cupiditatis habebat He also informs us that Nero took his time to put Bareas Soranus to death who was one of the most virtuous men of that age when Tiridates King of Armenia was at Rome That he might shew the Imperial Grandeur by the slaughter of the most illustrious men which he accounted a Royal Action I leave it to the judgment of all wise men whether it be probable that the Apostles should distinguish such as these from other Magistrates and dignify those only with the Title of God's Ministers who distinguished themselves by such ways or that the succeeding Emperors should be ennobled with the same Prerogative who had no other Title to the name than by resembling those that had it in such things as these If this be too absurd and abominable to enter into the heart of a man it must be concluded that their intention was only to divert the poor People to whom they preached from involving themselves in the care of Civil matters to which they had no call And the Counsel would have bin good as things stood with them if they had bin under the power of a Pyrat or any other villain substituted by him But tho the Apostles had looked upon the Officers set over the Provinces belonging to the Roman Empire as sent by Kings I desire to know whether it can be imagined that they could think the subordinate Governors to be sent by Kings in the Countries that had no Kings or that obedience became due to the Magistrates in Greece Italy or other Provinces under the jurisdiction of Rome only after they had Emperors and that none was due to them before The Germans had then no King The brave Arminius had bin lately kill'd for aiming at a Crown When he had blemish'd all his Virtues by that attempt they forgot his former Services They never consider'd how many Roman Legions he had cut in pieces nor how many thousands of their Allies he had destroy'd His Valour was a crime deserving death when he sought to make a Prey of his Country which he had so bravely defended and to enslave those who with him had fought for the publick Liberty But if the Apostles were to be understood to give the name of God's Ministers only to Kings and those who are employ'd by them and that obedience is due to no other a domestick Tyrant had bin their greatest Benefactor He had set up the only Government that is authorized by God and to which a conscientious obedience is due Agathocles Dionysius Phalaris Phereus Pisistratus Nabis Machanidas and an infinite number of the most detestable Villains that the world has ever produced did confer the same benefits upon the
Countries they enslaved But if this be equally false sottish absurd and execrable all those Epithets belong to our Author and his Doctrine for attempting to depress all modest and regular Magistracies and endeavouring to corrupt the Scripture to patronize the greatest of Crimes No man therefore who does not delight in error can think that the Apostle designed precisely to determin such questions as might arise concerning any one mans right or in the least degree to prefer any one form of Government before another In acknowledging the Magistrate to be Man's Ordinance he declares that Man who makes him to be may make him to be what he pleaseth and tho there is found more prudence and virtue in one Nation than in another that Magistracy which is established in any one ought to be obeyed till they who made the establishment think fit to alter it All therefore whilst they continue are to be look'd upon with the same respect Every Nation acting freely has an equal right to frame their own Government and to employ such Officers as they please The Authority Right and Power of these must be regulated by the judgment right and power of those who appoint them without any relation at all to the name that is given for that is no way essential to the thing The same name is frequently given to those who differ exceedingly in right and power and the same right and power is as osten annexed to Magistracies that differ in name The same power which had bin in the Roman Kings was given to the Consuls and that which had bin legally in the Dictators for a time not exceeding six months was asterwards usurped by the Cesars and made perpetual The supreme Power which some pretend belongs to all Kings has bin and is enjoy'd in the fullest extent by such as never had the name and no Magistracy was ever more restrain'd than those that had the name of Kings in Sparta Arragon England Poland and other places They therefore that did thus institute regulate and restrain create Magistracies and give them names and powers as seemed best to them could not but have in themselves the coercive as well as the directive over them for the regulation and restriction is coercion but most of all the institution by which they could make them to be or not to be As to the exterior force 't is sometimes on the side of the Magistrate and sometimes on that of the People and as Magistrates under several names have the same work incumbent upon them and the same Power to perform it the same Duty is to be exacted from them and rendred to them which being distinctly proportion'd by the Laws of every Country I may conclude that all Magistratical Power being the Ordinance of Man in pursuance of the Ordinance of God receives its being and measure from the Legislative Power of every Nation And whether the power be placed simply in one a few or many men or in one body composed of the three simple Species whether the single Person be called King Duke Marquess Emperor Sultan Mogol or Grand Signor or the number go under the name of Senat Council Pregadi Diet Assembly of Estates and the like 't is the same thing The same obedience is equally due to all whilst according to the Precept of the Apostle they do the work of God for our good and if they depart from it no one of them has a better Title than the other to our obedience SECT XIII Laws were made to direct and instruct Magistrates and if they will not be directed to restrain them I Know not who they are that our Author introduces to say that the first invention of Laws was to bridle or moderate the overgreat Power of Kings and unless they give some better proof of their judgment in other things shall little esteem them They should have considered that there are Laws in many places where there are no Kings that there were Laws in many before there were Kings as in Israel the Law was given three hundred years before they had any but most especially that as no man can be a rightful King except by Law nor have any just Power but from the Law if that Power be found to be overgreat the Law that gave it must have bin before that which was to moderate or restrain it for that could not be moderated which was not in being Leaving therefore our Author to fight with these Adversaries if he please when he finds them I shall proceed to examin his own Positions The truth is says he the Original of Laws was for the keeping of the Multitude in order Popular Estates could not subsist at all without Laws whereas Kingdoms were govern'd many Ages without them The People of Athens as soon as they gave over Kings were forced to give power to Draco first then to Solon to make them Laws If we will believe him therefore wheresoever there is a King or a man who by having power in his hands is in the place of a King there is no need of Law He takes them all to be so wise just and good that they are Laws to themselves Leges viventes This was certainly verified by the whole succession of the Cesars the ten last Kings of Pharamond's Race all the Successors of Charles the Great and others that I am not willing to name but referring my self to History I desire all reasonable men to consider whether the piety and tender care that was natural to Caligula Nero or Domitian was such a security to the Nations that lived under them as without Law to be sufficient for their preservation for if the contrary appear to be true and that their Government was a perpetual exercise of rage malice and madness by which the worst of men were armed with power to destroy the best so that the Empire could only be saved by their destruction 't is most certain that mankind can never fall into a condition which stands more in need of Laws to protect the innocent than when such Monsters reign who endeavour their extirpation and are too well furnished with means to accomplish their detestable designs Without any prejudice therefore to the Cause that I defend I might confess that all Nations were at the first governed by Kings and that no Laws were imposed upon those Kings till they or the Successors of those who had bin advanced for their virtues by falling into Vice and Corruption did manifestly discover the inconveniences of depending upon their will Besides these there are also children women and fools that often come to the succession of Kingdoms whose weakness and ignorance stands in as great need of support and direction as the desperate fury of the others can do of restriction And if some Nations had bin so sottish not to foresee the mischief of leaving them to their will others or the same in succeeding Ages discovering them could no more be obliged to continue in so pernicious a