much esteemed for Valour and Wisdom God's peculiar People had a peculiar regard to that Wisdom and Valour which was accompanied with his Presence hoping for deliverance only from him The second is known by the name of the great Sanhedrin which being instituted by Moses according to the command of God continued till they were all save one slain by Herod And the third part which is the Assembly of the People was so common that none can be ignorant of it but such as never looked into the Scripture When the Tribes of Reuben Gad and half that of Manasseh had built an Altar on the side of Jordan The whole Congregation of the Children of Israel gathered together at Shiloh to go up to war against them and sent Phineas the Son of Eleazer and with him ten Princes c. This was the highest and most important action that could concern a People even War or Peace and that not with Strangers but their own Brethren Joshua was then alive The Elders never failed but this was not transacted by him or them but by the collected body of the People for They sent Phineas This Democratical Embassy was Democratically received It was not directed to one man but to all the Children of Reuben Gad and Manasseh and the answer was sent by them all which being pleasing to Phineas and the ten that were with him they made their report to the Congregation and all was quiet The last eminent Act performed by Joshua was the calling of a like Assembly to Sechem composed of Elders Heads of Families Judges Officers and all the People to whom he proposed and they agreeing made a Covenant before the Lord. Joshua being dead the Proceedings of every Tribe were grounded upon Counsels taken at such Assemblies among themselves for their own concernments as appears by the Actions of Judah Simeon c. against the Canaanites and when the Levite complained that his Wife had bin forced by those of Gibeah the whole Congregation of Israel met together at Mispeth from all parts even from Dan to Beersheba as one man and there resolved upon that terrible War which they made against the Tribe of Benjamin The like Assembly was gathered together for the Election of Saul every man was there and tho the Elders only are said to have asked a King of Samuel they seem to have bin deputed from the whole Congregation for God said Hearken to the voice of the People In the same manner the Tribe of Judah and after that the rest chose and anointed David to be their King After the death of Solomon all Israel met together to treat with Rehoboam and not receiving satisfaction from him ten of the Tribes abrogated his Kingdom If these Actions were considered singly by themselves Calvin might have given the name of a Democracy to the Hebrew Government as well as to that of Athens for without doubt they evidently manifest the supreme Power to have bin in the supreme manner in these General Assemblies but the Government as to its outward order consisting of those three parts which comprehend the three simple species tho in truth it was a Theocracy and no times having bin appointed nor occasions specified upon which Judges should be chosen or these Assemblies called whereas the Sanhedrim which was the Aristocratical part was permanent the whole might rightly be called an Aristocracy that part prevailing above the others and tho Josephus calls it a Theocracy by reason of God's presence with his People yet in relation to man he calls it an Aristocracy and says that Saul's first Sin by which he fell from the Kingdom was that Gubernationem optimatum sustulit which could not be if they were governed by a Monarch before he was chosen Our Author taking no notice of these matters first endeavours to prove the excellency of Monarchy from natural instinct and then begging the question says that God did always govern his People by Monarchy whereas he ought in the first place to have observed that this instinct if there be any such thing is only an irrational appetite attributed to Beasts that know not why they do any thing and is to be followed only by those men who being equally irrational live in the same ignorance and the second being proved to be absolutely false by the express words of the Scripture There was then no King in Israel several times repeated and the whole series of the History he hath no other evasion than to say That even then the Israelites were under the Kingly Government of the Fathers of particular Families It appears by the forementioned Text cited also by our Author that in the Assembly of the People gathered together to take counsel concerning the War against Benjamin were four hundred thousand Footmen that drew Sword They all arose together saying Not a man of us shall go to his Tent. So all the men of Israel were gathered together against the City This is repeated several times in the relation The Benjamites proceeded in the like manner in preparing for their defence and if all these who did so meet to consult and determine were Monarchs there were then in Israel and Benjamin four hundred and twenty six thousand seven hundred Monarchs or Kings tho the Scriptures say there was not one If yet our Author insist upon his notion of Kingly Government I desire to know who were the Subjects if all these were Kings for the text says that the whole Congregation was gathered together as one man from Dan to Beersheba If there can be so many Kings without one Subject what becomes of the Right of Abraham Isaac and Jacob that was to have bin devolved upon one man as Heir to them and thereby Lord of all If every man had an equal part in that inheritance and by virtue of it became a King why is not the same eternally subdivided to as many men as are in the World who are also Kings If this be their natural condition how comes it to be altered till they do unthrone themselves by consent to set up one or more to have a power over them all Why should they devest themselves of their natural Right to set up one above themselves unless in consideration of their own good If the 426700 Kings might retain the power in themselves or give it to one why might they not give it to any such number of men as should best please themselves or retain it in their own hands as they did till the days of Saul or frame limit and direct it according to their own pleasure If this be true God is the Author of Democracy and no assertor of human Liberty did ever claim more than the People of God did enjoy and exercise at the time when our Author says they were under the Kingly Government which Liberty being not granted by any peculiar concession or institution the same must belong to all Mankind 'T is in vain to say the 426700 men
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
to those by whom and for whom they are appointed SECT III. Implicit Faith belongs to Fools and Truth is comprehended by examining Principles WHilst Filmer's business is to overthrow Liberty and Truth he in his passage modestly professeth not to meddle with Mysteries of State or Arcana Imperii He renounces those inquiries through an implicit Faith which never enter'd into the head of any but Fools and such as through a carelesness of the point in question acted as if they were so This is the Foundation of the Papal Power and it can stand no longer than those that compose the Roman Church can be perswaded to submit their Consciences to the Word of the Priests and esteem themselves discharged from the necessity of searching the Scriptures in order to know whether the things that are told them are true or false This may shew whether our Author or those of Geneva do best agree with the Roman Doctrine But his Instanee is yet more sottish than his Profession An Implicit Faith says he is given to the meanest Artificer I wonder by whom Who will wear a Shoe that hurts him because the Shoe-maker tells him 't is well made or who will live in a House that yields no defence against the extremities of Weather because the Mason or Carpenter assures him 't is a very good House Such as have Reason Understanding or common Sense will and ought to make use of it in those things that concern themselves and their Posterity and suspect the Words of such as are interested in deceiving or perswading them not to see with their own eyes that they may be more easily deceived This Rule obliges us so far to search into matters of State as to examin the original principles of Government in general and of our own in particular We cannot distinguish Truth from Falshood Right from Wrong or know what obedience we owe to the Magistrate or what we may justly expect from him unless we know what he is why he is and by whom he is made to be what he is These perhaps may be called Mysteries of State and some would perswade us they are to be esteemed Arcana but whosoever confesses himself to be ignorant of them must acknowledg that he is uncapable of giving any judgment upon things relating to the Superstructure and in so doing evidently shews to others that they ought not at all to hearken to what he says His Argument to prove this is more admirable If an implicit Faith says he is given to the meanest Artificer in his Craft much more to a Prince in the profound Secrets of Government But where is the consequence If I trust to the judgment of an Artificer or one of a more ingenuous profession 't is not because he is of it but because I am perswaded he does well understand it and that he will be faithful to me in things relating to his Art I do not send for Lower or Micklethwait when I am sick nor ask the advice of Mainard or Jones in a Suit of Law because the first are Physicians and the other Lawyers but because I think them wise learned diligent and faithful there being a multitude of others who go under the same name whose opinion I would never ask Therefore if any conclusion can be drawn from thence in favour of Princes it must be of such as have all the qualities of Ability and Integrity that should create this confidence in me or it must be proved that all Princes in as much as they are Princes have such qualities No general conclusion can be drawn from the first Case because it must depend upon the circumstances which ought to be particularly proved And if the other be asserted I desire to know whether Caligula Claudius Nero Vitellius Domitian Commodus Heliogabalus and others not unlike to them had those admirable Endowments upon which an implicit Faith ought to have bin grounded how they came by them and whether we have any Promise from God that all Princes should for ever excel in those Vertues or whether we by experience find that they do so If they are or have bin wanting in any the whole falls to the ground for no man enjoys as a Prince that which is not common to all Princes And if every Prince have not wisdom to understand these prosound Secrets integrity to direct him according to what he knows to be good and a sufficient measure of Industry and Valour to protect me he is not the Artificer to whom the implicit Faith is due His eyes are as subject to dazle as my own But 't is a shame to insist on such a point as this We see Princes of all sorts they are born as other men The vilest Flatterer dares not deny that they are wise or foolish good or bad valiant or cowardly like other Men and the Crown doth neither bestow extraordinary Qualities ripen such as are found in Princes sooner than in the meanest nor preserve them from the decays of Age Sickness or other Accidents to which all men are subject And if the greatest King in the World fall into them he is an uncapable of that mysterious Knowledg and his Judgment is as little to be relied on as that of the poorest Peasant This matter is not mended by sending us to seek those Vertues in the Ministers which are wanting in the Prince The ill effects of Rehoboam's Folly could not be corrected by the Wisdom of Solomon's Counsellors He rejected them and such as are like to him will always do the same thing Nero advised with none but Musicians Players Chariot-drivers or the abominable Ministers of his Pleasures and Cruelties Arcadius his Senate was chiefly composed of Buffoons and Cooks influenced by an old rascally Eunuch And 't is an eternal Truth that a weak or wicked Prince can never have a wise Council nor receive any benefit by one that is imposed upon him unless they have a Power of acting without him which would render the Government in effect Aristocratical and would probably displease our Author as much as if it were so in name also Good and wise Counsellors do not grow up like Mushrooms great judgment is required in chusing and preparing them If a weak or vitious Prince should be so happy to find them chosen to his hand they would avail him nothing There will ever be variety of Opinions amongst them and he that is of a perverted judgment will always chuse the worst of those that are proposed and favour the worst men as most like to himself Therefore if this implicit Faith be grounded upon a supposition of profound Wisdom in the Prince the foundation is overthrown and it cannot stand for to repose confidence in the judgment and integrity of one that has none is the most brutish of all Follies So that if a Prince may have or want the Qualities upon which my Faith in him can be rationally grounded I cannot yield the obedience he requires unless I search into the
be advanced to the Throne before a great number of Families that come from the Daughters of the House of Valois Or what title those could have before the Daughters of the other Lines descended from Hugh Capet Pepin Meroveus or Pharamond I know not how such questions would be received but I am inclined to think that the wickedness and folly of those who should thereby endeavour to overthrow the most antient and most venerated Constitutions of the greatest Nations and by that means to involve them in the most inextricable difficulties would be requited only with Stones It cannot be denied that the most valiant wise learned and best polished Nations have always followed the same rule tho the weak and barbarous acted otherwise and no man ever heard of a Queen or a man deriving his title from a Female among the antient civilized Nations but if this be not enough the Law of God that wholly omits Females is sufficient to shew that Nature which is his Handmaid cannot advance them When God describes who should be the King of his People if they would have one and how he should govern no mention is made of Daughters The Israelites offer'd the Kingdom to Gideon and to his Sons God promised and gave it to Saul David Jeroboam Jehu and their Sons When all of them save David by their Crimes fell from the Kingdom the Males only were extirpated and the Females who had no part in the Promises did not fall under the Penalties or the Vengeance that was executed upon those Families and we do not in the Word of God or in the History of the Jews hear of any Feminin Reign except that which was usurped by Athaliah nor that any consideration was had of their Descendants in relation to the Kingdom which is enough to shew that it is not according to the Law of God nor to the Law of Nature which cannot differ from it So that Females or such as derive their right by inheritance from Females must have it from some other Law or they can have none at all But tho this question were authentically decided and concluded that Females might or might not succeed we should not be at the end of our contests for if they were excluded it would not from thence follow as in France that their Descendants should be so also for the Privilege which is denied to them because they cannot without receding from the modesty and gentleness of the Sex take upon them to execute all the Duties required may be transferred to their Children as Henry the second and Henry the seventh were admitted tho their Mothers were rejected If it be said that every Nation ought in this to follow their own Constitutions we are at an end of our Controversies for they ought not to be followed unless they are rightly made They cannot be rightly made if they are contrary to the universal Law of God and Nature If there be a general Rule 't is impossible but some of them being directly contrary to each other must be contrary to it If therefore all of them are to be followed there can be no general Law given to all but every People is by God and Nature left to the liberty of regulating these matters relating to themselves according to their own prudence or convenience and this seems to be so certainly true that whosoever does as our Author propose Doctrines to the contrary must either be thought rashly to utter that which he dos not understand or maliciously to cast balls of Division among all Nations whereby every man's Sword would be drawn against every man to the total subversion of all Order and Government SECT XIX Kings cannot confer the right of Father upon Princes nor Princes upon Kings LEst what has bin said before by our Author should not be sufficient to accomplish his design of bringing confusion upon Mankind and some may yet lie still for want of knowing at whose command he should cut his Brother's throat if he has not power or courage to set up a title for himself he has a new project that would certainly do his work if it were received Not content with the absurdities and untruths already uttered in giving the incommunicable right of Fathers not only to those who as is manifestly testified by sacred and prophane Histories did usurp a power over their Fathers or such as owed no manner of obedience to them and justifying those Usurpations which are most odious to God and all good men he now fancies a Kingdom so gotten may escheat for want of an Heir whereas there is no need of seeking any if Usurpation can confer a Right and that he who gets the Power into his hands ought to be reputed the right Heir of the first Progenitor for such a one will be seldom wanting if violence and fraud be justified by the command of God and Nations stand obliged to render obedience till a stronger or more successful Villain throws him from the Throne he had invaded But if it should come to pass that no man would step into the vacant place he has a new way of depriving the People of their Right to provide for the Government of themselves Because says he the dependency of antient Families is oft obscure and worn out of knowledg therefore the Wisdom of all or most Princes hath thought fit many times to adopt those for Heads of Families and Princes of Provinces whose merits abilities or fortunes have enobled them and made them fit and capable of such royal favours All such prime Heads and Fathers have power to consent to the uniting and conferring of their fatherly right and soveraignty on whom they please c. I may justly ask how any one or more Families come to be esteemed more antient than others if all are descended from one common Father as the Scriptures testify or to what purpose it were to enquire what Families were the most antient if there were any such when the youngest and most mean by usurpation gets an absolute right of Dominion over the eldest tho his own Progenitors as Nimrod did but I may certainly conclude That whatever the Right be that belongs to those antient Families it is inherent in them and cannot be conferred on any other by any human power for it proceeds from Nature only The Duty I owe to my Father dos not arise from an usurped or delegated Power but from my birth derived from him and 't is as impossible for any man to usurp or receive by the grant of another the right of a Father over me as for him to become or pretend to be made my Father by another who did not beget me But if he say true this right of Father dos not arise from Nature nor the obedience that I owe to him that begot from the benefits which I have received but is meerly an artificial thing depending upon the Will of another and that we may be sure there can be no error in
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
in his time and somewhat before for want of a Christian Spirit in the bitterness of his Soul says Nec unquam atrocioribus Populi Romani cladibus magisque justis indiciis probatum est non esse cure Deis securitatem nostram esse ultionem Some thought that no Punishments could be justly deserved by a People that had so much favour'd Virtue others that even the Gods they ador'd envied their Felicity and Glory but all confess'd they were fallen from the highest pitch of human Happiness into the lowest degree of Infamy and Misery And our Author being the first that ever found they had gained by the change we are to attribute the discovery of so great a Secret to the excellency of his Wisdom If suspending my Judgment in this point till it be proved by better Authority than his word I in the mean time follow the opinion of those who think Slavery doth naturally produce meanness of Spirit with its worst effect flattery which Tacitus calls foedum servitutis crimen I must believe that the impudence of carrying it to such a height as to commend nothing in the most glorious Liberty that made the most virtuous People in the world but the shortness of its continuance and to prefer the Tyranny of the basest of Men or worst of Monsters is peculiar to Filmer and that their wickedness which had never bin equalled is surpassed by him who recommends as the Ordinance of God the Principles that certainly produce them But says our Author tho Rome was for a while miraculously upheld in Glory by a greater prudence than its own yet in a short time after manifold Alterations she was ruined by her own hand But 't is absurd to say that the overthrow of a Government which had nothing of good in it can be a ruin or that the Glory in which it continued had nothing of good in it and most of all that it could be ruin'd by no hands but its own if that Glory had not bin gained and immediately or instrumentally supported by such virtue and strength as is worthily to be preferr'd before all other temporal Happiness and dos ever produce it This shews that Liars ought to have good memories But passing over such foolish Contradictions I desire to know how that prudence greater than its own which till I am better inform'd I must think to be inseparably united to Justice and Goodness came miraculously to support a Government which was not only evil in it self as contrary to the Laws of God and Nature but so perpetually bent against that Monarchy which he says is according to them as to hate all Monarchs despise all that would live under them destroy as many of them as came within their reach and make a Law by which any man was authorised to kill him who should endeavour to set up this Divine Power among them Moreover no human Prudence preserved the Roman Glory but their own the others directly set themselves to oppose it and the most eminent fell under it We know of no Prudence surpassing the human unless it be the Divine But the Divine Prudence did never miraculously exert it self except to bear witness to the Truth and to give Authority to those that announced it If therefore the glory of this Popular Government was miraculously supported by a more than human Prudence it was good in it self the Miracles done in favour of it did testify it and all that our Author says against it is false and abominable If I lay aside the word Miraculous as put in by chance 't will be hard to know how God who in the usual course of his Providence guides all things by such a gentle and undiscerned Power that they seem to go on of themselves should give such virtue to this popular Government and the Magistrates bred up under it that the greatest Monarchs of the Earth were as dust before them unless there had bin an excellency in their Discipline far surpassing that of their Enemies or how that can be called ill in its Principle and said to comprehend no good which God did so gloriously support and no man was ever able to resist This cannot be better answer'd than by our Author's Citation Suis ipsa Roma viribus ruit That City which had overthrown the greatest Powers of the World must in all appearance have lasted for ever if their Virtue and Discipline had not decay'd or their Forces bin turned against themselves If our Author therefore say true the greatest good that ever befel the Romans was the decay of their Virtue and Discipline and the turning of their own Arms against themselves was not their Ruin but their Preservation When they had brought the warlike Nations of Italy into subjection or association often repressed the fury of the Gauls Cimbri and Teutons overthrown the Wealth Power and Wit of Carthage supported by the Skill Industry and Valour of Hannibal and his brave Relations almost extirpated the valiant Spaniards who would no other way be subdued defeated Philip Perseus Antiochus Gentius Syphax and Jugurtha struck an aw into Ptolomy avoided the snares and poisons of Mithridates followed him in his Flights reveng'd his Treacheries and carried their victorious Arms beyond his conquer'd Kingdoms to the Banks of Tygris When neither the Revolt of their Italian Associates nor the Rebellion of their Slaves led by Spartacus who in skill seems to have bin equal to Hannibal and above him in Courage could put a stop to their Victories When Greece had been reduced to yield to a Virtue rather than a Power greater than their own we may well say that Government was supported by a more than human prudence which led them through Virtue to a height of Glory Power and Happiness that till that day had bin unknown to the World and could never have bin ruined if by the decay of that Virtue they had not turned their victorious Arms against themselves That City was a Giant that could die by no other hand than his own like Hercules poison'd and driven into madness after he had destroy'd Thieves Monsters and Tyrants and found nothing on the Earth able to resist him The wisest of men in antient times looking upon this as a point of more than human Perfection thought or feigned to think that he was descended from the Gods and at his death received into their number tho perhaps Filmer would prefer a weak base and effeminate Slave before him The matter will not be much different if we adhere to the foremention'd similitude of the Athletick Habit for the danger proceeds only from the perfection of it and he who dislikes it must commend that Weakness and Vice which may perish but can never be changed into any thing worse than it self as those that lie upon the ground can never fall However this Fall of the Romans which our Author speaking truth against his will calls their Ruin was into that which he recommends as the Ordinance of God Which is
far more rare less violent tending to and procuring the publick Good and therefore deserving praise The like having bin proved by the Examples of other Kingdoms and might be farther confirmed by many more which on account of brevity I omit is in my opinion sufficient to manifest that whilst the Foundation and Principle of a Government remains good the Superstructures may be changed according to occasions without any prejudice to it SECT XVIII Xenophon in blaming the Disorders of Democracies favours Aristocracies not Monarchies IN the next place our Author introduces Xenophon disallowing Popular Governments Cites Rome and Athens as places where the best Men thriv'd worst and the worst best and condemns the Romans for making it capital to pass Sentence of Death Banishment loss of Liberty or Stripes upon any Citizen of Rome But lest his Fraud in this should be detected he cites no precise Passage of any Author alledges few Examples and those mistaken never tells us what that Law was when made or where to be found whereas I hope to prove that he has upon the whole matter abominably prevaricated and advanced things that he knows to be either impertinent or false 1. To this end we are in the first place to consider whether Xenophon speaks of Popular Governments simply or comparatively if simply 't is confess'd that a pure Democracy can never be good unless for a small Town if comparatively we must examine to what he compares it We are sure it was not to Absolute Monarchy there was no such thing amongst the Greeks established by Law The little Tyrants who had enslaved their own Countries as Jason Phaereus Phalaris and the like had no pretence to it and were accounted as the worst of Beasts None but such as in all bestiality were like to them did ever speak or think well of them Xenophon's Opinion in this point may be easily found out by what pass'd between his Master Plato and the Sicilian Tyrant and the matter will not be mended by referring to his own experience He had seen the vast Monarchy of Persia torn in pieces by the fury of two Brothers and more than a million of men brought to fight upon their private quarrel Instead of that Order Stability and Strength which our Author ascribes to Absolute Monarchy as the effect of Wisdom and Justice he knew that by filling one man with pride and cruelty it brought unspeakable miseries upon all others and infected them with all the Vices that accompany Slavery Men lived like Fishes the great ones devour'd the small and as appeared by Tissaphernes Pharnabazus and others with whom he had to deal the worst and basest were made to be the greatest The Satrapes insulted over those of meaner rank with an insolence and cruelty that equal'd the depth of their servil submission to their proud Master Luxury and Avarice reigned in all many great Nations were made to live for the service of one man and to soment his Vices This produced weakness and cowardice no number of those Slaves were able to stand against a few free Grecians No man knew this better than Xenophon who after the death of Cyrus the younger and the treacherous murder of Clearchus and other Officers that commanded the Greeks who had served him made his retreat from Babylon to the Hellespont with ten thousand foot and passed over the bellies of all that dared to oppose him He would never have spent his life in exciting his Countrymen to attempt the Conquest of Asia nor perswaded Agesilaus to put himself at the head of the Enterprize if he had thought there was such admirable Order Stability and Strength in that Monarchy and in the Greeks nothing but giddiness of Spirit and so much Learning as made them seditious Nor could he being a wise Man and an excellent Captain have conceived such a design if he had not by experience found that Liberty inspir'd his Countrymen with such solid Virtue and produced such Stability good Order and Strength that with small numbers of them he might hope to overthrow the vain Pomp of the Barbarians and to possess himself of their Riches tho they could bring more than a hundred men to fight against one which Design being interrupted in his time by domestick Wars was soon after his death accomplished by Alexander But that Xenophon's meaning may be better understood 't is good to consider that he spoke of such Governments as were then in use among the Greeks which tho mixed yet took their denomination from the prevailing part so that the Dorians who placed the Power chiefly in the hands of a few chosen men were said to be governed Aristocratically and the Ionians giving more Power to the common People Democratically And he tho an Ionian either through friendship to Agesilaus conversation with the Spartans or for other reasons best known to himself preferr'd the Government of Sparta or some other which he thought he could frame and desir'd to introduce before that of Athens as Cimon Thucydides and many other excellent men of that City are said to have done And if I acknowledge they were in the right and that Athens was more subject to disorder and had less Stability than Sparta I think it will be of little advantage to Absolute Monarchy 2. The Athenians did banish some worthy men and put others to death but our Author like the Devil never speaking truth unless to turn it into a lie prevaricates in his report of them The temporary banishment which they called Ostracism was without hurt or dishonour never accounted as a Punishment nor intended for any other end than to put a stop to the too eminent greatness of a man that might prove dangerous to the City and some excellent Persons who fell under it were soon recalled and brought home with glory But I am not solicitous whether that reason be sufficient to justify it or not We are upon a general Thesis relating to the Laws of God and Nature and if the Athenians by a fancy of their own did make an imprudent use of their Liberty it cannot prejudice the publick Cause They who make the worst of it can only say that by such means they for a time deprived themselves of the benefits they might have received from the Virtues of some excellent men to the hurt of none but themselves and the application of it as an injustice done to Themistocles is absolutely false He was a man of great Wit Industry and Valour but of uncertain Faith too much addicted to his own Interest and held a most dangerous Correspondence with the Persians who then threatned the destruction of Greece Through envy and spite to Aristides and to increase his own Power he raised dangerous Factions in the City and being summoned to render an account of his Proceedings he declined the Judgment of his Country fled to their Enemies and justly deserved the Sentence pronounc'd against him Some among them were unjustly put to death and above all
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
and People came to be Master of so much of the Country as procured him the name of King of France killed his eldest Son on suspicion that he was excited against him by Brunehaud and his Second lest he should revenge the death of his Brother he married Fredegonde and was soon after kill'd by her Adulterer Landry The Kingdom continued in the same misery through the rage of the surviving Princes and found no relief tho most of them fell by the Sword and that Brunehaud who had bin a principal cause of those Tragedies was tied to the tails of four wild Horses and suffer'd a death as foul as her life These were Lions and Leopards They involved the Kingdom in desperate troubles but being men of valour and industry they kept up in some measure the Reputation and Power of the Nation and he who attain'd to the Crown defended it But they being fallen by the hands of each other the poisonous Root put forth another Plague more mortal than their Fury The vigour was spent and the Succession becoming more settled ten base and slothful Kings by the French called Les Roys faineans succeeded Some may say They who do nothing do no hurt but the rule is false in relation to Kings He that takes upon him the government of a People can do no greater evil than by doing nothing nor be guilty of a more unpardonable Crime than by Negligence Cowardice Voluptuousness and Sloth to desert his charge Virtue and Manhood perish under him good Discipline is forgotten Justice slighted the Laws perverted or rendred useless the People corrupted the publick Treasures exhausted and the Power of the Government always falling into the hands of Flatterers Whores Favorites Bawds and such base wretches as render it contemptible a way is laid open for all manner of disorders The greatest cruelty that has bin known in the world if accompanied with wit and courage never did so much hurt as this slothful bestiality or rather these slothful Beasts have ever bin most cruel The Reigns of Septimius Severus Mahomet the second or Selim the second were cruel and bloody but their fury was turned against Foreigners and some of their near Relations or against such as fell under the suspicion of making attempts against them The condition of the people was tolerable those who would be quiet might be safe the Laws kept their right course the Reputation of the Empire was maintained the Limits defended and the publick Peace preserved But when the Sword passed into the hands of lewd slothful foolish and cowardly Princes it was of no power against foreign Enemies or the disturbers of domestic Peace tho always sharp against the best of their own Subjects No man knew how to secure himself against them unless by raising civil Wars which will always be frequent when a Crown defended by a weak hand is proposed as a Prize to any that dare invade it This is a perpetual Spring of disorders and no Nation was ever quiet when the most eminent men found less danger in the most violent Attempts than in submitting patiently to the Will of a Prince that suffers his Power to be managed by vile Persons who get credit by flattering him in his Vices But this is not all such Princes naturally hate and fear those who excel them in Virtue and Reputation as much as they are inferior to them in Fortune and think their Persons cannot be secured nor their Authority enlarged except by their destruction 'T is ordinary for them inter scorta ganeas principibus viris perniciem machinare and to make Cruelty a cover to Ignorance and Cowardice Besides the Mischiefs brought upon the Publick by the loss of eminent Men who are the Pillars of every State such Reigns are always accompanied with Tumults and Civil Wars the great Men striving with no less violence who shall get the weak Prince into his power when such regard is had to succession that they think it not fit to devest him of the Title than when with less respect they contend for the Soveraignty it self And whilst this sort of Princes reigned France was not less afflicted with the Contests between Grimbauld Ebroin Grimoald and others for the Mayoralty of the Palace than they had bin before by the rage of those Princes who had contested for the Crown The Issue also was the same After many Revolutions Charles Martel gained the Power of the Kingdom which he had so bravely defended against the Saracens and having transmitted it to his Son Pepin the General Assembly of Estates with the approbation of Mankind conferred the Title also upon him This gave the Nation ease for the present but the deep-rooted Evil could not be so cured and the Kingdom that by the Wisdom Valour and Reputation of Pepin had bin preserved from civil Troubles during his life fell as deeply as ever into them so soon as he was dead His Sons Carloman and Charles divided the Dominions but in a little time each of them would have all Carloman fill'd the Kingdom with Tumult raised the Lombards and marched with a great Army against his Brother till his course was interrupted by death caused as is supposed by such helps as Princes liberally afford to their aspiring Relations Charles deprived his two Sons of their Inheritance put them in Prison and we hear no more of them His third Brother Griffon was not more quiet nor more successful and there could be no Peace in Gascony Italy or Germany till he was kill'd But all the Advantages which Charles by an extraordinary Virtue and Fortune had purchased for his Country ended with his life He left his Son Lewis the Gentle in possession of the Empire and Kingdom of France and his Grandson Bernard King of Italy But these two could not agree and Bernard falling into the hands of Lewis was deprived of his Eyes and some time after kill'd This was not enough to preserve the Peace Lothair Lewis and Pepin all three Sons to Lewis rebelled against him called a Council at Lions deposed him and divided the Empire amongst themselves After five years he escaped from the Monastery where he had bin kept renew'd the War and was again taken Prisoner by Lothair When he was dead the War broke out more fiercely than ever between his Children Lothair the Emperor assaulted Lewis King of Bavaria and Charles King of Rhetia was defeated by them and confined to a Monastery where he died New Quarrels arose between the two Brothers upon the division of the Countries taken from him and Lorrain only was left to his Son Lewis died soon after and Charles getting possession of the Empire and Kingdom ended an inglorious Reign in an unprosperous attempt to deprive Hermingrade Daughter to his Brother Lewis of the Kingdom of Arles and other places left to her by her Father Lewis his Son call'd the Stutterer reigned two years in much trouble and his only legitimate Son Charles the Simple came not to the
promote I may go a step farther and truly say that as such vast Powers cannot be generally granted to all who happen to succeed in any Families without evident danger of utter Destruction when they come to be executed by children women sools vicious incapable or wicked persons they can be reasonably granted to none because no man knows what any one will prove till he be tried and the importance of the Affair requires such a trial as can be made of no man till he be dead He that resists one Temptation may fall under the power of another and nothing is more common in the world than to see those men fail grosly in the last actions of their lives who had passed their former days without reproach Wise and good men will with Moses say of themselves I cannot bear the burden and every man who is concern'd for the publick Good ought to let fools know they are not fit to undergo it and by Law to restrain the fury of such as will not be guided by reason This could not be denied tho Governments were constituted for the good of the Governor 'T is good for him that the Law appoints helps for his Infirmities and restrains his Vices but all Nations ought to do it tho it were not so in as much as Kingdoms are not established for the good of one man but of the People and that King who seeks his own good before that of the People departs from the end of his Institution This is so plain that all Nations who have acted freely have some way or other endeavoured to supply the defects or restrain the vices of their supreme Magistrates and those among them deserve most praise who by appointing means adequate to so great a work have taken care that it might be easily and safely accomplished Such Nations have always flourished in Virtue Power Glory and Happiness whilst those who wanted their Wisdom have suffer'd all manner of Calamities by the weakness and injustice of their Princes or have had their hands perpetually in Blood to preserve themselves from their fury We need no better example of the first than that of the Spartans who by appointing such Limits to the power of their Kings as could hardly be transgress'd continued many Ages in great union with them and were never troubled with civil Tumults The like may be said of the Romans from the expulsion of the Tarquins till they overthrew their own Orders by continuing Marius for five years in the Consulat whereas the Laws did not permit a man to hold the same Office two years together and when that rule was broken their own Magistrates grew too strong for them and subverted the Commonwealth When this was done and the power came to be in the hands of one man all manner of evils and calamities broke in like a flood 'T is hard to judg whether the mischiefs he did or those he suffer'd were the greater he who set up himself to be Lord of the World was like to a Beast crowned for the slaughter and his greatness was the forerunner of his ruin By this means some of those who seem not to have bin naturally prone to evil were by their fears put upon such courses to preserve themselves as being rightly estimated were worse than the death they apprehended and the so much celebrated Constantine the Great died no less polluted with the Blood of his nearest Relations and Friends than Nero himself But no place can show a more lively picture of this than the Kingdoms of Granada and others possessed by the Moors in Spain where there being neither Senate nor Assemblies of the Nobility and People to restrain the violence and fury of their Kings they had no other way than to kill them when their vices became insupportable which happening for the most part they were almost all murder'd and things were brought to such extremity that no man would accept a Crown except he who had neither Birth nor Virtue to deserve it If it be said that Kings have now found out more easy ways of doing what they please and securing themselves I answer that they have not proved so to them all and it is not yet time for such as tread in the same steps to boast of their success many have fallen when they thought their designs accomplished and no man as long as he lives can reasonably assure himself the like shall not befal him But if in this corrupted Age the treachery and perjury of Princes be more common than formerly and the number of those who are brought to delight in the rewards of injustice be so increased that their parties are stronger than formerly this rather shows that the balance of Power is broken or hard to be kept up than that there ought to be none and 't is difficult for any man without the Spirit of Prophesy to tell what this will produce Whilst the antient Constitutions of our Northern Kingdoms remain'd intire such as contested with their Princes sought only to reform the Governments and by redressing what was amiss to reduce them to their first Principles but they may not perhaps be so modest when they see the very nature of their Government chang'd and the foundations overthrown I am not sure that they who were well pleased with a moderate Monarchy will submit to one that is absolute and 't is not improbable that when men see there is no Medium between Tyranny and Popularity they who would have bin contented with the reformation of their Government may proceed farther and have recourse to Force when there is no help in the Law This will be a hard work in those places where Virtue is wholly abolished but the difficulty will lie on the other side if any sparks of that remain if Vice and Corruption prevail Liberty cannot subsist but if Virtue have the advantage arbitrary Power cannot be established Those who boast of their Loyalty and think they give testimonies of it when they addict themselves to the will of one Man tho contrary to the Law from whence that quality is derived may consider that by putting their Masters upon illegal courses they certainly make them the worst of men and bring them into danger of being also the most miserable Few or no good Princes have fallen into disasters unless through an extremity of corruption introduced by the most wicked and cannot properly be called unhappy if they perished in their Innocence since the bitterness of Death is asswaged by the tears of a loving People the assurance of a glorious memory and the quiet of a well satisfied mind But of those who have abandoned themselves to all manner of Vice followed the impulse of their own fury and set themselves to destroy the best men for opposing their pernicious designs very few have died in peace Their Lives have bin miserable Death infamous and Memory detestable They therefore who place Kings within the power of the Law and the Law to
taking upon him to be King till the Tribe of Judah had chosen him that he often acknowledged Saul to be his Lord. When Baanah and Rechab brought the head of Ishbosheth to him he commanded them to be slain Because they had killed a righteous man upon his Bed in his own House which he could not have said if Ishbosheth had unjustly detained from him the ten Tribes and that he had a right to reign over them before they had chosen him The Word of God did not make him King but only foretold that he should be King and by such ways as he pleased prepared the hearts of the People to set him up and till the time designed by God for that work was accomplished he pretended to no other Authority than what the six hundred men who first followed him afterwards the Tribe of Judah and at last all the rest of the People conferred upon him I no way defend Absalom's revolt he was wicked and acted wickedly but after his death no man was ever blamed or questioned for siding with him and Amasa who commanded his Army is represented in Scripture as a good man even David saying that Joab by slaying Abner and Amasa had killed two men who were better than himself which could not have bin unless the People had a right of looking into matters of Government and of redressing abuses tho being deceived by Absalom they so far erred as to prefer him who was in all respects wicked before the man who except in the matter of Uriah is said to be after God's own heart This right was acknowledged by David himself when he commanded Hushai to say to Absalom I will be thy Servant O King and by Hushai in the following Chapter Nay but whom the Lord and his People and all the men of Israel chuse his will I be and with him will I abide which could have no sense in it unless the People had a right of chusing and that the choice in which they generally concurred was esteemed to be from God But if Saul who was made King by the whole People and anointed by the command of God might be lawfully resisted when he departed from the Law of his Institution it cannot be doubted that any other for the like reason may be resisted If David tho designed by God to be King and anointed by the hand of the Prophet was not King till the People had chosen him and he had made a Covenant with them it will if I mistake not be hard to find a man who can claim a right which is not originally from them And if the People of Israel could erect and pull down institute abrogate or transfer to other Persons or Families Kingdoms more firmly established than any we know the same right cannot be denied to other Nations SECT II. The Kings of Israel and Judah were under a Law not safely to be transgress'd OUR Author might be pardon'd if he only vented his own follies but he aggravates his own crime by imputing them to men of more Credit and tho I cannot look upon Sir Walter Raleigh as a very good Interpreter of Scripture he had too much understanding to say That if practice declare the greatness of Authority even the best Kings of Israel and Judah were not tied to any Law but they did whatsoever they pleased in the greatest matters for there is no sense in those words If practice declares the greatness of Authority even the best were tied to no Law signifies nothing for practice cannot declare the greatness of Authority Peter the Cruel of Castille and Christiern the 2d of Denmark kill'd whom they pleas'd but no man ever thought they had therefore a right to do so and if there was a Law all were tied by it and the best were less likely to break it than the worst But if Sir Walter Raleigh's opinion which he calls a conjecture be taken there was so great a difference between the Kings of Israel and Judah that as to their general proceedings in point of Power hardly any thing can be said which may rightly be applied to both and he there endeavours to show that the reason why the ten Tribes did not return to the house of David after the destruction of the houses of Jeroboam and Baasba was because they would not endure a Power so absolute as that which was exercised by the house of David If he has therefore any where said that the Kings did what they pleased it must be in the sense that Moses Maimonides says The Kings of Israel committed many extravagancies because they were insolent impious and despisers of the Law But whatsoever Sir Walter Raleigh may say for I do not remember his words and have not leisure to seek whether any such are found in his Books 't is most evident that they did not what they pleased The Tribes that did not submit to David nor crown him till they thought fit and then made a Covenant with him took care it might be observed whether he would or not Absalom's Rebellion follow'd by almost all Israel was a terrible check to his Will That of Sheba the Son of Bichri was like to have bin worse if it had not bin suppressed by Joab's diligence and David often confessed the Sons of Zerviah were too hard for him Solomon indeed overthrowing the Law given by Moses multiplying Gold and Silver Wives and Horses introducing Idolatry and lifting up his heart above his Brethren did what he pleased but Rehoboam paid for all the ten Tribes revolted from him by reason of the heavy burdens laid upon them stoned Adoram who was sent to levy the Tributes and set up Jeroboam who as Sir Walter Raleigh says in the place before cited had no other Title than the curtesy of the People and utterly rejected the house of David If practice therefore declares a right the practice of the People to avenge the injuries they suffered from their Kings as soon as they found a man fit to be their Leader shews they had a right of doing it 'T is true the best of the Kings with Moses Joshua and Samuel may in one sense be said to have done what they pleased because they desired to do that only which was good But this will hardly be brought to confer a right upon all Kings And I deny that even the Kings of Judah did what they pleased or that it were any thing to our question if they did Zedekiah professed to the great men that is to the Sanhedrin that without them he could do nothing When Amaziah by his folly had brought a great slaughter upon the Tribe of Judah they conspired against him in publick Council whereupon he fled to Lachish and they pursuing him thither killed him avowed the Fact and it was neither question'd nor blamed which examples agree with the paraphrase of Josephus on Deut. 17. He shall do nothing without the consent of the Sanhedrin and if
King is so also if he be and ought to enjoy the Rights belonging to the Father of the People And 't is not less ridiculous to say those who will have a King than it would be to say he that will have a Father for every one must have one whether he will or not But if the King be a Father as our Author from thence infers that all Laws are from him none can be imposed upon him and whatsoever the Subject enjoys is by his concessions 'T is absurd to speak of an Obligation lying upon the people to allow him Royal maintenance by providing Revenues since he has all in himself and they have nothing that is not from him and depending upon his Will For this reason a worthy Gentleman of the House of Commons in the year 1640. desired that the business of the Judges who in the Star-Chamber had given for their Opinion concerning Shipmony That in cases of Necessity the King might provide it by his own Authority and that he was Judg of that Necessity might be first examined that they might know whether they had any thing to give before they should speak of giving And as'tis certain that if the Sentence of those perjur'd Wretches had stood the Subjects of England by consequence would have bin found to have nothing to give 't is no less sure that if our Author's principle concerning the Paternal and Absolute Power of Kings be true it will by a more compendious way appear that it is not left to the choice of any Nation whether they will have a King or not for they must have him and can have nothing to allow him but must receive all from him But if those only who will have a King are bound to have one and to allow this Royal maintenance such as will not have a King are by one and the same act delivered from the necessity of having one and from providing Maintenance for him which utterly overthrows the magnificent Fabrick of Paternal Monarchy and the Kings who were lately represented by our Author placed on the Throne by God and Nature and endow'd with an absolute Power over all appear to be purely the Creatures of the People and to have nothing but what is received from them From hence it may be rationally inferred that he who makes a thing to be makes it to be only what he pleases This must hold in relation to Kings as well as other Magistrates and as they who made Consuls Dictators and Military Tribuns gave them only such Power and for such a time as best pleased themselves 't is impossible they should not have the same right in relation to Kings in making them what they please as well as not to make them unless they please except there be a Charm belonging to the Name or the Letters that compose it which cannot belong to all Nations for they are different in every one according to the several Languages But says our Author 't is for the Honor Profit and Safety of the People that the King should be glorious powerful and abounding in Riches There is therefore no obligation upon them and they are to judg whether it be so or not The Scripture says plainly the contrary He shall not multiply Silver and Gold Wives and Horses he shall not lift up his heart above his Brethren He shall not therefore be glorious powerful or abounding in Riches Reason and Experience teach us the same thing If those Nations that have bin proud luxurious and vicious have desired by Pomp and Riches to foment the Vices of their Princes thereby to cherish their own such as have excelled in Virtue and good Discipline have abhorred it and except the immediate exercise of their Office have kept their supreme Magistrates to a manner of living little different from that of private men and it had bin impossible to maintain that frugality in which the integrity of their manners did chiefly consist if they had set up an Example directly contrary to it in him who was to be an Example to others or to provide for their own safety if they had overthrown that integrity of manners by which it could only be obtained and preserved There is a necessity incumbent upon every Nation that lives in the like Principle to put a stop to the entrance of those Vices that arise from the superfluity of Riches by keeping their Kings in that honest Poverty which is the Mother and Nurse of Modesty Sobriety and all manner of Virtue And no man can deny this to be well done unless he will affirm that Pride Luxury and Vice is more profitable to a Nation than the Virtues that are upheld by frugality There is another reason of no less importance to those Nations who tho they think fit to have Kings yet desire to preserve their Liberty which obliges them to set limits to the Glory Power and Riches of their Kings and that is That they can no otherwise be kept within the Rules of the Law Men are naturally propense to corruption and if he whose Will and Interest it is to corrupt them be furnished with the means he will never fail to do it Power Honors Riches and the Pleasures that attend them are the baits by which men are drawn to prefer a personal Interest before the publick Good and the number of those who covet them is so great that he who abounds in them will be able to gain so many to his service as shall be sufficient to subdue the rest 'T is hard to find a Tyranny in the world that has not bin introduced this way for no man by his own strength could ever subdue a multitude none could ever bring many to be subservient to his ill designs but by the rewards they received or hoped By this means Cesar accomplished his work and overthrew the Liberty of his Country and with it all that was then good in the world They who were corrupted in their minds desired to put all the Power and Riches into his hands that he might distribute them to such as served him And he who was nothing less than covetous in his own nature desired Riches that he might gain Followers and by the plunder of Gaul he corrupted those that betray'd Rome to him And tho I do not delight to speak of the Affairs of our own time I desire those who know the present State of France to tell me whether it were possible for the King to keep that Nation under servitude if a vast Revenue did not enable him to gain so many to his particular service as are sufficient to keep the rest in subjection and if this be not enough let them consider whether all the dangers that now threaten us at home do not proceed from the madness of those who gave such a Revenue as is utterly unproportionable to the Riches of the Nation unsutable to the modest behaviour expected from our Kings and which in time will render Parliaments unnecessary
ever were committed may pass for laudable and innocent But if Saul were not to be blamed for killing the Priests why was David blamed for the death of Uriah Why were the Dogs to lick the blood of Ahab and Jezebel if they did nothing more than Kings might do without blame Now if the slaughter of one man was so severely avenged upon the Authors and their Families none but such as Filmer can think that of so many innocent men with their Wives and Children could escape unreproved or unpunished But the whole series of the History of Saul shewing evidently that his Life and Reign were full of the most violent cruelty and madness we are to seek no other reason for the ruin threatned and brought upon him and his Family And as those Princes who are most barbarously savage against their own people are usually most gentle to the Enemies of their Country he could not give a more certain testimony of his hatred to those he ought to have protected than by preserving those Nations who were their most irreconcileable Enemies This is proved by reason as well as by experience for every man knows he cannot bear the hatred of all mankind Such as know they have Enemies abroad endeavour to get Friends at home Those who command powerful Nations and are beloved by them fear not to offend Strangers But if they have rendred their own people Enemies to them they cannot hope for help in a time of distress nor so much as a place of retreat or refuge unless from strangers nor from them unless they deserve it by favouring them to the prejudice of their own Country As no man can serve two Masters no man can pursue two contrary Interests Moses Joshua Gideon and Samuel were severe to the Amorites Midianites and Cananites but mild and gentle to the Hebrews Saul who was cruel to the Hebrews spared the Amalekites whose preservation was their destruction and whilst he destroyed those he should have saved and saved those that by a general and particular command of God he should have destroyed he lost his ill-govern'd Kingdom and left an example to posterity of the end that may be expected from pride folly and tyranny The matter would not be much alter'd if I should confess that in the time of Saul all Nations were governed by Tyrants tho it is not true for Greece did then flourish in Liberty and we have reason to believe that other Nations did so also for tho they might not think of a good Government at the first nothing can oblige men to continue under one that is bad when they discover the evils of it and know how to mend it They who trusted men that appeared to have great Virtues with such a power as might easily be turned into Tyranny might justly retract limit or abolish it when they found it to be abused And tho no condition had bin reserved the publick Good which is the end of all Government had bin sufficient to abrogate all that should tend to the contrary As the malice of Men and their Inventions to do mischief increase daily all would soon be brought under the power of the worst if care were not taken and opportunities embraced to find new ways of preventing it He that should make War at this day as the best Commanders did two hundred years past would be beaten by the meanest Souldier The Places then accounted impregnable are now slighted as indefensible and if the Arts of defending were not improved as well as those of affaulting none would be able to hold out a day Men were sent into the World rude and ignorant and if they might not have used their natural Faculties to find out that which is good for themselves all must have bin condemn'd to continue in the ignorance of our first Fathers and to make no use of their understanding to the ends for which it was given The bestial Barbarity in which many Nations especially of Africa America and Asia do now live shews what human Nature is if it be not improved by art and discipline and if the first errors committed through ignorance might not be corrected all would be obliged to continue in them and for any thing I know we must return to the Religion Manners and Policy that were found in our Country at Cesar's landing To affirm this is no less than to destroy all that is commendable in the world and to render the understanding given to men utterly useless But if it be lawful for us by the use of that understanding to build Houses Ships and Forts better than our Ancestors to make such Arms as are most fit for our defence and to invent Printing with an infinite number of other Arts beneficial to mankind why have we not the same right in matters of Government upon which all others do almost absolutely depend If men are not obliged to live in Caves and hollow Trees to eat Acorns and to go naked why should they be for ever obliged to continue under the same form of Government that their Ancestors happened to set up in the time of their ignorance Or if they were not so ignorant to set up one that was not good enough for the age in which they lived why it should not be altered when tricks are found out to turn that to the prejudice of Nations which was erected for their good From whence should malice and wickedness gain a privilege of putting new Inventions to do mischief every day into practice and who is it that so far protects them as to forbid good and innocent men to find new ways also of defending themselves from it If there be any that do this they must be such as live in the same principle who whilst they pretend to exercise Justice provide only for the indemnity of their own Crimes and the advancement of unjust designs They would have a right of attacking us with all the advantages of the Arms now in use and the Arts which by the practice of so many ages have bin wonderfully refined whilst we should be obliged to employ no others in our just defence than such as were known to our naked Ancestors when Cesar invaded them or to the Indians when they fell under the dominion of the Spaniards This would be a compendious way of placing uncontrol'd Iniquity in all the Kingdoms of the World and to overthrow all that deserves the name of Good by the introduction of such accursed Maxims But if no man dares to acknowledg any such except those whose acknowledgment is a discredit we ought not to suffer them to be obliquely obtruded upon us nor to think that God has so far abandoned us into the hands of our Enemies as not to leave us the liberty of using the same Arms in our defence as they do to offend and injure us We shall be told that Prayers and Tears were the only Arms of the first Christians and that Christ commanded his Disciples to pray
folly than we are to live in that wretched Barbarity in which the Romans found our Ancestors when they first entred this Island If any man say that Filmer dos not speak of Monsters nor of Children Women or Fools but of wise just and good Princes I answer that if there be a right inherent in Kings as Kings of doing what they please and in those who are next in blood to succeed them and inherit the same it must belong to all Kings and such as upon title of blood would be Kings And as there is no family that may not and dos not often produce such as I mentioned it must also be acknowledged in them and that power which is left to the wife just and good upon a supposition that they will not make an ill use of it must be devolved to those who will not or cannot make a good one but will either maliciously turn it to the destruction of those they ought to protect or through weakness suffer it to fall into the hands of those that govern them who are found by experience to be for the most part the worst of all most apt to use the basest arts and to flatter the humors and foment the vices that are most prevalent in weak and vicious Princes Germanicus Corbulo Valerius Asiaticus Thraseas Soranus Helvidius Priscus Julius Agricola and other excellent men lived in the times of Tiberius Caligula Claudius and Nero but the power was put into the hands of Sejanus Macro Tigellinus and other Villains like to them and I wish there were not too many modern examples to shew that weak and vicious Princes will never chuse such as shall preserve Nations from the mischiefs that would ensue upon their own incapacity or malice but that they must be imposed upon them by some other power or Nations be ruined for want of them This imposition must be by Law or by Force But as Laws are made to keep things in good order without the necessity of having recourse to force it would be a dangerous extravagance to arm that Prince with force which probably in a short time must be opposed by force and those who have bin guilty of this error as the Kingdoms of the East and the antient Roman Empire where no provision was made by Law against ill-governing Princes have found no other remedy than to kill them when by extreme sufferings they were driven beyond patience and this fell out so often that few of their Princes were observed to die by a common death But since the Empire was transmitted to Germany and the Emperors restrain'd by Laws that Nation has never bin brought to the odious extremities of suffering all manner of Indignities or revenging them upon the heads of Princes And if the Pope had not disturb'd them upon the account of Religion nor driven their Princes to disturb others they might have passed many ages without any civil Dissension and all their Emperors might have lived happily and died peaceably as most of them have done This might be sufficient to my purpose for if all Princes without distinction whether good or bad wise or foolish young or old sober or mad cannot be intrusted with an unlimited power and if the power they have ought to be limited by Law that Nations may not with danger to themselves as well as to the Prince have recourse to the last remedy this Law must be given to all and the good can be no otherwise distinguished from the bad and the wise from the foolish than by the observation or violation of it But I may justly go a step farther and affirm that this Law which by restraining the Lusts of the vicious and foolish frequently preserves them from the destruction they would bring upon themselves or people and sometimes upon both is an assistance and direction to the wisest and best so that they also as well as the Nations under them are gainers by it This will appear strange only to those who know not how difficult and insupportable the Government of great Nations is and how unable the best man is to bear it And if it surpass the strength of the best it may easily be determined how ordinary men will behave themselves under it or what use the worst will make of it I know there have bin wise and good Kings but they had not an absolute Power nor would have accepted it tho it had bin offer'd much less can I believe that any of them would have transmitted such a power to their posterity when none of them could know any more than Solomon whether his Son would be a wise man or a fool But if the best might have desired and had bin able to bear it tho Moses by his own confession was not that could be no reason why it should be given to the worst and weakest or those who probably will be so Since the assurance that it will not be abused during the life of one man is nothing to the constitution of a State which aims at perpetuity And no man knowing what men will be especially if they come to the power by succession which may properly enough be called by chance 't is reasonably to be feared they will be bad and consequently necessary so to limit their power that if they prove to be so the Commonwealth may not be destroy'd which they were instituted to preserve The Law provides for this in leaving to the King a full and ample power of doing as much good as his heart can wish and in restraining his power so that if he should depart from the duty of his Office the Nation may not perish This is a help to those who are wise and good by directing them what they are to do more certainly than any one mans personal judgment can do and no prejudice at all since no such man did ever complain he was not suffer'd to do the evil which he would abhor if it were in his power and is a most necessary curb to the sury of bad Princes preventing them from bringing destruction upon the people Men are so subject to vices and passions that they stand in need of some restraint in every condition but most especially when they are in power The rage of a private man may be pernicious to one or a few of his Neighbours but the fury of an unlimited Prince would drive whole Nations into ruin And those very men who have lived modestly when they had little power have often proved the most savage of all Monsters when they thought nothing able to resist their rage 'T is said of Caligula that no man ever knew a better Servant nor a worse Master The want of restraint made him a Beast who might have continued to be a Man And tho I cannot say that our Law necessarily admits the next in Blood to the Succession for the contrary is proved yet the facility of our Ancestors in receiving children women or such men as were not more
No man has yet observed the Moderation of Gideon to have bin in Abimelech the Piety of Eli in Hophni and Phineas the Purity and Integrity of Samuel in Joel and Abiah nor the Wisdom of Solomon in Rehoboam And if there was so vast a difference between them and their Children who doubtless were instructed by those excellent men in the ways of Wisdom and Justice as well by Precept as Example were it not madness to be confident that they who have neither precept nor good example to guide them but on the contrary are educated in an utter ignorance or abhorrence of all virtue will always be just and good or to put the whole power into the hands of every man woman or child that shall be born in governing Families upon a supposition that a thing will happen which never did or that the weakest and worst will perform all that can be hoped and was seldom accomplished by the wisest and best exposing whole Nations to be destroy'd without remedy if they do it not And if this be madness in all extremity 't is to be presumed that Nations never intended any such thing unless our Author prove that all Nations have bin mad from the beginning and must always continue to be so To cure this he says They degenerate into Tyrants and if he meant as he speaks it would be enough For a King cannot degenerate into a Tyrant by departing from that Law which is only the product of his own will But if he do degenerate it must be by departing from that which dos not depend upon his will and is a rule prescribed by a power that is above him This indeed is the Doctrine of Bracton who having said that the Power of the King is the Power of the Law because the Law makes him King adds That if he do injustice he ceases to be King degenerates into a Tyrant and becomes the Vicegerent of the Devil But I hope this must be understood with temperament and a due consideration of human frailty so as to mean only those injuries that are extreme for otherwise he would terribly shake all the Crowns of the World But lest our Author should be thought once in his life to have dealt sincerely and spoken truth the next lines shew the fraud of his last Assertion by giving to the Prince a power of mitigating or interpreting the Laws that he sees to be rigorous or doubtful But as he cannot degenerate into a Tyrant by departing from the Law which proceeds from his own will so he cannot mitigate or interpret that which proceeds from a superior Power unless the right of mitigating or interpreting be conferred upon him by the same For as all wise men confess that none can abrogate but those who may institute and that all mitigation and interpretation varying from the true sense is an alteration that alteration is an abrogation for whatsoever is changed is dissolved and therefore the power of mitigating is inseparable from that of instituting This is sufficiently evidenced by Henry the Eighth's Answer to the Speech made to him by the Speaker of the House of Commons 1545 in which he tho one of the most violent Princes we ever had confesses the Parliament to be the Law-makers and that an obligation lay upon him rightly to use the power with which he was entrusted The right therefore of altering being inseparable from that of making Laws the one being in the Parliament the other must be so also Fortescue says plainly the King cannot change any Law Magna Charta casts all upon the Laws of the Land and Customs of England but to say that the King can by his will make that to be a Custom or an antient Law which is not or that not to be so which is is most absurd He must therefore take the Laws and Customs as he finds them and can neither detract from nor add any thing to them The ways are prescribed as well as the end Judgments are given by equals per Pares The Judges who may be assisting to those are sworn to proceed according to Law and not to regard the King's Letters or Commands The doubtful Cases are reserved and to be referred to the Parliament as in the Statute of 35 Edw. 3d concerning Treasons but never to the King The Law intending that these Parliaments should be annual and leaving to the King a power of calling them more often if occasion require takes away all pretence of a necessity that there should be any other power to interpret or mitigate Laws For 't is not to be imagined that there should be such a pestilent evil in any antient Law Custom or later Act of Parliament which being on the sudden discover'd may not without any great prejudice continue for forty days till a Parliament may be called whereas the force and essence of all Laws would be subverted if under colour of mitigating and interpreting the power of altering were allow'd to Kings who often want the inclination and sor the most part the capacity of doing it rightly 'T is not therefore upon the uncertain will or understanding of a Prince that the safety of a Nation ought to depend He is sometimes a child and sometimes overburden'd with years Some are weak negligent slothful foolish or vicious others who may have something of rectitude in their intentions and naturally are not uncapable of doing well are drawn out of the right way by the subtilty of ill men who gain credit with them That rule must always be uncertain and subject to be distorted which depends upon the fancy of such a man He always fluctuates and every passion that arises in his mind or is infused by others disorders him The good of a People ought to be established upon a more solid foundation For this reason the Law is established which no passion can disturb 'T is void of desire and fear lust and anger 'T is Mens sine affectu written reason retaining some measure of the Divine Perfection It dos not enjoin that which pleases a weak frail man but without any regard to persons commands that which is good and punishes evil in all whether rich or poor high or low 'T is deaf inexorable inflexible By this means every man knows when he is safe or in danger because he knows whether he has done good or evil But if all depended upon the will of a man the worst would be often the most safe and the best in the greatest hazard Slaves would be often advanced the good and the brave scorn'd and neglected The most generous Nations have above all things sought to avoid this evil and the virtue wisdom and generosity of each may be discern'd by the right fixing of the rule that must be the guide of every mans life and so constituting their Magistracy that it may be duly observed Such as have attained to this perfection have always flourished in virtue and happiness They are as Aristotle
except such as are like Filmer who by bidding defiance to the Laws of God and Man seems to declare war against both whom I would not trust to determine whether a People that can never fall into Nonage or Dotage and can never fail of having men of Wisdom and Virtue amongst them be not more fit to judg in their own Persons or by Representatives what conduces to their own good than one who at a venture may be born in a certain Family and who besides his own Infirmities Passions Vices or Interests is continually surrounded by such as endeavour to divert him from the ways of Truth and Justice And if no reasonable man dare prefer the latter before the former we must rely upon the Laws made by our Forefathers and interpreted by the Nation and not upon the will of a man 'T is in vain to say that a wise and good Council may supply the defects or correct the Vices of a young foolish or ill disposed King For Filmer denies that a King whatever he be without exception for he attributes profound wisdom to all is obliged to follow the advice of his Council and even he would hardly have had the impudence to say That good Counsel given to a foolish or wicked Prince were of any value unless he were obliged to follow it This Council must be chosen by him or imposed upon him if it be imposed upon him it must be by a power that is above him which he says cannot be If chosen by him who is weak foolish or wicked it can never be good because such virtue and wisdom is requir'd to discern and chuse a few good and wise men from a multitude of foolish and bad as he has not And it will generally fall out that he will take for his Counsellors rather those he believes to be addicted to his Person or Interests than such as are fitly qualified to perform the duty of their places But if he should by chance or contrary to his intentions make choice of some good and wise men the matter would not be much mended for they will certainly differ in opinion from the worst And tho the Prince should intend well of which there is no assurance nor any reason to put so great a power into his hands if there be none 't is almost impossible for him to avoid the snares that will be laid ro seduce him I know not how to put a better face upon this matter for if I examine rather what is probable than possible foolish or ill Princes will never chuse such as are wise and good but favouring those who are most like to themselves will prefer such as second their vices humours and personal Interests and by so doing will rather fortify and rivet the evils that are brought upon the Nation through their defects than cure them This was evident in Rehoboam he had good Counsel but he would not hearken to it We know too many of the same sort and tho it were not impossible as Macchiavelli says it is for a weak Prince to receive any benefit from a good Council we may certainly conclude that a People can never expect any good from a Council chosen by one who is weak or vicious If a Council be imposed upon him and he be obliged to follow their advice it must be imposed by a Power that is above him his Will therefore is not a Law but must be regulated by the Law the Monarchy is not above the Law and if we will believe our Author 't is no Monarchy because the Monarch has not his will and perhaps he says true For if that be not an Aristocracy where those that are or are reputed to be the best do govern then that is certainly a mixed State in which the will of one man dos not prevail But if Princes are not obliged by the Law all that is founded upon that supposition falls to the ground They will always sollow their own humours or the suggestions of those who second them Tiberius hearkned to none but Chaldeans or the ministers of his impurities and cruelties Claudius was governed by Slaves and the profligate Strumpets his Wives There were many wise and good men in the Senate during the reigns of Caligula Nero and Domitian but instead of following their Counsel they endeavour'd to destroy them all lest they should head the People against them and such Princes as resemble them will always follow the like courses If I often repeat these hateful names 't is not for want of sresher examples of the same nature but I chuse such as Mankind has universally condemn'd against whom I can have no other cause of hatred than what is common to all those who have any love to virtue and which can have no other relation to the Controversies of later Ages than what may flow from the similitude of their causes rather than such as are too well known to us and which every man according to the measure of his experience may call to mind in reading these I may also add that as nothing is to be received as a general Maxim which is not generally true I need no more to overthrow such as Filmer proposes than to prove how frequently they have bin found false and what desperate mischiefs have bin brought upon the World as often as they have bin practised and excessive Powers put into the hands of such as had neither inclination nor ability to make a good use of them 1. But if the safety of Nations be the end for which Governments are instituted such as take upon them to govern by what Title soever are by the Law of Nature bound to procure it and in order to this to preserve the Lives Lands Liberties and Goods of every one of their Subjects and he that upon any title whatsoever pretends assumes or exercises a power of disposing of them according to his will violates the Laws of Nature in the highest degree 2. If all Princes are obliged by the Law of Nature to preserve the Lands Goods Lives and Liberties of their Subjects those Subjects have by the Law of Nature a right to their Liberties Lands Goods c. and cannot depend upon the will of any man for that dependence destroys Liberty c. 3. Ill men will not and weak men cannot provide for the safety of the People nay the work is of such extreme difficulty that the greatest and wisest men that have bin in the world are not able by themselves to perform it and the assistance of Counsel is of no use unless Princes are obliged to follow it There must be therefore a power in every State to restrain the ill and to instruct weak Princes by obliging them to follow the Counsels given else the ends of Government cannot be accomplished nor the rights of Nations preserved All this being no more than is said by our Author or necessarily to be deduced from his Propositions one would think he were become as good
and safe 2. That 't is good as well for the Magistrate as the People so to constitute the Government that the Remedies may be easy and safe 3. That how dangerous and difficult soever they may be through the defects of the first Constitution they must be tried To the first 'T is most evident that in well-regulated Governments these Remedies have bin found to be easy and safe The Kings of Sparta were not suffer'd in the least to deviate from the rule of the Law And Theopompus one of those Kings in whose time the Ephori were created and the regal Power much restrained doubted not to affirm that it was by that means become more lasting and more secure Pausanias had not the name of King but commanded in the War against Xerxes with more than regal Power nevertheless being grown insolent he was without any trouble to that State banished and afterwards put to death Leontidas Father of Cleomenes was in the like manner banished The second Agis was most unjustly put to death by the Ephori for he was a brave and a good Prince but there was neither danger nor difficulty in the action Many of the Roman Magistrates after the expulsion of the Kings seem to have been desirous to extend their Power beyond the bounds of the Law and perhaps some others as well as the Decemviri may have designed an absolute Tyranny but the first were restrained and the others without much difficulty suppressed Nay even the Kings were so well kept in order that no man ever pretended to the Crown unless he were chosen nor made any other use of his Power than the Law permitted except the last Tarquin who by his insolence avarice and cruelty brought ruin upon himself and his family I have already mentioned one or two Dukes of Venice who were not less ambitious but their crimes returned upon their own heads and they perished without any other danger to the State than what had passed before their Treasons were discovered Infinite examples of the like nature may be alledged and if matters have not at all times and in all places succeeded in the same manner it has bin because the same courses were not every where taken for all things do so far follow their causes that being order'd in the same manner they will always produce the same effects 2. To the second Such a regulation of the magistratical Power is not at all grievous to a good Magistrate He who never desires to do any thing but what he ought cannot desire a Power of doing what he ought not nor be troubled to find he cannot do that which he would not do if he could This inability is also advantageous to those who are evil or unwise that since they cannot govern themselves a Law may be imposed upon them lest by following their own irregular will they bring destruction upon themselves their families and people as many have done If Apollo in the Fable had not bin too indulgent to Phaeton in granting his ill-conceiv'd request the furious Youth had not brought a necessity upon Jupiter either of destroying him or suffering the world to be destroy'd by him Besides good and wise men know the weight of Sovereign Power and misdoubt their own strength Sacred and human Histories furnish us with many examples of those who have feared the lustre of a Crown Men that find in themselves no delight in doing mischief know not what thoughts may insinuate into their minds when they are raised too much above their Sphere They who were able to bear adversity have bin precipitated into ruin by prosperity When the Prophet told Hazael the Villanies he would commit he answer'd Is thy Servant a dog that I should do these things but yet he did them I know not where to find an example of a man more excellently qualified than Alexander of Macedon but he fell under the weight of his own fortune and grew to exceed those in vice whom he had conquer'd by his virtue The nature of man can hardly suffer such violent changes without being disorder'd by them and every one ought to enter into a just diffidence of himself and fear the temptations that have destroy'd so many If any man be so happily born so carefully educated so established in virtue that no storm can shake him nor any poison corrupt him yet he will consider he is mortal and knowing no more than Solomon whether his Son shall be a wise man or a fool he will always fear to take upon him a power which must prove a most pestilent evil both to the person that has it and to those that are under it as soon as it shall fall into the hands of one who either knows not how to use it or may be easily drawn to abuse it Supreme Magistrates always walk in obscure and flippery places but when they are advanced so high that no one is near enough to support direct or restrain them their fall is inevitable and mortal And those Nations that have wanted the prudence dence rightly to balance the powers of their Magistrates have bin frequently obliged to have recourse to the most violent remedies and with much difficulty danger and blood to punish the crimes which they might have prevented On the other side such as have bin more wise in the constitution of their Governments have always had regard to the frailty of human nature and the corruption reigning in the hearts of men and being less liberal of the power over their lives and liberties have reserved to themselves so much as might keep their Magistrates within the limits of the Law and oblige them to perform the ends of their institution And as the Law which denounces severe penalties for crimes is indeed merciful both to ill men who are by that means deterred from committing them and to the good who otherwise would be destroy'd so those Nations that have kept the reins in their hands have by the same act provided as well for the safety of their Princes as for their own They who know the Law is well defended seldom attempt to subvert it they are not easily tempted to run into excesses when such bounds are set as may not safely be transgressed and whilst they are by this means render'd more moderate in the exercise of their Power the people is exempted from the odious necessity of suffering all manner of indignities and miseries or by their destruction to prevent or avenge them 3. To the third If these rules have not bin well observed in the first constitution or from the changes of times corruption of manners insensible encroachments or violent usurpations of Princes have bin render'd ineffectual and the people exposed to all the calamities that may be brought upon them by the weakness vices and malice of the Prince or those who govern him I confess the remedies are more difficult and dangerous but even in those cases they must be tried Nothing can be fear'd that is worse
the same we must have bin deprived of it either by such unjustifiable means or by our own consent But thanks be to God we know no People who have a better right to Liberty or have better defended it than our own Nation And if we do not degenerate from the Virtue of our Ancestors we may hope to transmit it intire to our Posterity We always may and often do give Instructions to our Delegates but the less we fetter them the more we manifest our own Rights for those who have only a limited Power must limit that which they give but he that can give an unlimited Power must necessarily have it in himself The great Treasurer Burleigh said the Parliament could do any thing but turn a Man into a Woman Sir Thomas Moor when Rich Sollicitor to K. Henry the 8 th asked him if the Parliament might not make R. Rich King said that was casus levis taking it for granted that they might make or unmake whom they pleased The first part of this which includes the other is asserted by the Statute of the 13th of Q. Elizabeth denouncing the most grievous punishments against all such as should dare to contradict it But if it be in the Parliament it must be in those who give to Parliament-men the powers by which they act for before they are chosen they have none and can never have any if those that send them had it not in themselves They cannot receive it from the Magistrate for that power which he has is derived from the same spring The power of making and unmaking him cannot be from himself for he that is not can do nothing and when he is made can have no other power than is conferred upon him by those that make him He who departs from his duty desires to avoid the punishment the power therefore of punishing him is not from himself It cannot be from the House of Peers as it is constituted for they act for themselves and are chosen by Kings and 't is absurd to think that Kings who generally abhor all restriction of their Power should give that to others by which they might be unmade If one or more Princes relying upon their own Virtue and Resolutions to do good had given such a Power against themselves as Trajan did when he commanded the Prefect to use the Sword for him if he governed well and against him if he governed ill it would soon have bin rescinded by their Successors If our Edward the first had made such a Law his lewd Son would have abolished it before he would have suffered himself to be imprisoned and deposed by it He would never have acknowledged his unworthiness to reign if he had bin tied to no other Law than his own will for he could not transgress that nor have owned the mercy of the Parliament in sparing his Life if they had acted only by a power which he had conferred upon them This Power must therefore be in those who act by a delegated Power and none can give it to their Delegates but they who have it in themselves The most certain testimony that can be given of their unlimited power is that they rely upon the wisdom and fidelity of their Deputies so as to lay no restrictions upon them they may do what they please if they take care ne quid detrimenti Respublica accipiat that the Commonwealth receive no detriment This is a Commission fit to be granted by wise and good men to those they chuse through an opinion that they are so also and that they cannot bring any prejudice upon the Nation that will not fall upon themselves and their posterity This is also fit to be received by those who seeking nothing but that which is just in it self and profitable to their Country cannot foresee what will be proposed when they are altogether much less resolve how to vote till they hear the reasons on both sides The Electors must necessarily be in the same ignorance and the Law which should oblige them to give particular orders to their Knights and Burgesses in relation to every vote would make the decision of the most important Affairs to depend upon the judgment of those who know nothing of the matters in question and by that means cast the Nation into the utmost danger of the most inextricable confusion This can never be the intention of that Law which is Sanctio recta and seeks only the good of those that live under it The foresight therefore of such a mischief can never impair the Liberties of the Nation but establish them SECT XLV The Legislative Power is always Arbitrary and not to be trusted in the hands of any who are not bound to obey the Laws they make IF it be objected that I am a defender of Arbitrary Powers I confess I cannot comprehend how any Society can be established or subsist without them for the establishment of Government is an arbitrary Act wholly depending upon the will of men The particular Forms and Constitutions the whole Series of the Magistracy together with the measure of Power given to every one and the rules by which they are to exercise their charge are so also Magna Charta which comprehends our antient Laws and all the subsequent Statutes were not sent from Heaven but made according to the will of men If no men could have a power of making Laws none could ever have bin made for all that are or have bin in the world except those given by God to the Israelites were made by them that is they have exercised an Arbitrary Power in making that to be Law which was not or annulling that which was The various Laws and Governments that are or have bin in several ages and places are the product of various opinions in those who had the power of making them This must necessarily be unless a general rule be set to all for the judgments of men will vary if they are left to their liberty and the variety that is found among them shews they are subject to no rule but that of their own reason by which they see what is fit to be embraced or avoided according to the several circumstances under which they live The Authority that judges of these circumstances is arbitrary and the Legislators shew themselves to be more or less wise and good as they do rightly or not rightly exercise this Power The difference therefore between good and ill Governments is not that those of one sort have an Arbitrary Power which the others have not for they all have it but that those which are well constituted place this Power so as it may be beneficial to the people and set such rules as are hardly to be transgressed whilst those of the other sort fail in one or both these points Some also through want of courage fortune or strength may have bin oppressed by the violence of Strangers or suffer'd a corrupt Party to rise up within themselves and by
they fear which are the principal Arguments that perswade men to expose themselves to labours or dangers 'T is a folly to say that the vigilance and wisdom of the Monarch supplies the desect of care in others for we know that no men under the Sun were ever more void of both and all manner of virtue requir'd to such a work than very many Monarchs have bin And which is yet worse the strength and happiness of the People being frequently dangerous to them they have not so much as the will to promote it nay sometimes set themselves to destroy it Antient Monarchies afford us frequent examples of this kind and if we consider those of France and Turky which seem most to flourish in our Age the People will appear to be so miserable under both that they cannot sear any change of Governor or Government and all except a few Ministers are kept so far from the knowledg of or power in the management of Affairs that if any of them should fancy a possibility of something that might befal them worse than what they suffer or hope for that which might alleviate their misery they could do nothing towards the advancement of the one or prevention of the other Tacitus observes that in his time no man was able to write what passed Inscitia Reipublicae ut alienae They neglected the publick Affairs in which they had no part In the same Age it was said that the People who whilst they fought for their own Interests had bin invincible being enslaved were grown sordid idle base running after Stage-plays and Shows so as the whole strength of the Roman Armies consisted of Strangers When their Spirits were depressed by servitude they had neither courage to defend themselves nor will to fight for their wicked Masters and least of all to increase their Power which was destructive to themselves The same thing is found in all places Tho the Turk commands many vast Provinces that naturally produce as good Soldiers as any yet his greatest strength is in Children that do not know their Fathers who not being very many in number may perish in one Battel and the Empire by that means be lost the miserable Nations that groan under That Tyranny having neither courage power nor will to defend it This was the fate of the Mamalukes They had for the space of almost two hundred years domineer'd in Egypt and a great part of Asia but the people under them being weak and disaffected they could never recover the Defeat they received from Selim near Tripoli who pursuing his Victory in a few months utterly abolished their Kingdom Notwithstanding the present pride of France the numbers and warlike Inclinations of that People the bravery of the Nobility extent of Dominion convenience of Situation and the vast Revenues of their King his greatest Advantages have bin gained by the mistaken Counsels of England the valour of our Soldiers unhappily sent to serve him and the Strangers of whom the strength of his Armies consists which is so unsteady a support that many who are well versed in Affairs of this nature incline to think he subsists rather by little Arts and corrupting Ministers in Foreign Courts than by the Power of his own Armies and that some reformation in the Counsels of his Neighbours might prove sufficient to overthrow that Greatness which is grown formidable to Europe the same misery to which he has reduced his People rendring them as unable to defend him upon any change of Fortune as to defend their own Rights against him This proceeds not from any particular defect in the French Government but that which is common to all Absolute Monarchies And no State can be said to stand upon a steady Foundation except those whose strength is in their own Soldiery and the body of their own People Such as serve for Wages often betray their Masters in distress and always want the courage and industry which is found in those who fight for their own Interests and are to have a part in the Victory The business of Mercenaries is so to perform their duty as to keep their Employments and to draw profit from them but that is not enough to support the Spirits of men in extream dangers The Shepherd who is a hireling flies when the Thief comes and this adventitious help failing all that a Prince can reasonably expect from a disaffected and oppressed People is that they should bear the Yoak patiently in the time of his Prosperity but upon the change of his Fortune they leave him to shift for himself or join with his Enemies to avenge the Injuries they had received Thus did Alphonso and Ferdinand Kings of Naples and Lodovico Sforza Duke of Milan fall in the times of Charles the Eighth and Louis the Twelfth Kings of France The two first had bin false violent and cruel nothing within their Kingdom could oppose their fury but when they were invaded by a Foreign Power they lost all as Guicciardin says without breaking one Lance and Sforza was by his own mercenary Soldiers delivered into the hands of his Enemies I think it may be hard to find Examples of such as proceeding in the same way have had better Success But if it should so fall out that a People living under an Absolute Monarchy should through custom or fear of something worse if that can be not only suffer patiently but desire to uphold the Government neither the Nobility nor Commonalty can do any thing towards it They are strangers to all publick Concernments All things are govern'd by one or a few men and others know nothing either of Action or Counsel Filmer will tell us 't is no matter the profound Wisdom of the Prince provides for all But what if this Prince be a Child a Fool a superannuated Dotard or a Madman Or if he dos not fall under any of these extremities and possesses such a proportion of Wit Industry and Courage as is ordinarily seen in men how shall he supply the Office that indeed requires profound Wisdom and an equal measure of Experience and Valour 'T is to no purpose to say a good Council may supply his defects for it dos not appear how he should come by this Council nor who should oblige him to follow their advice If he be left to his own will to do what he pleases tho good advice be given to him yet his judgment being perverted he will always incline to the worst If a necessity be imposed upon him of acting according to the advice of his Council he is not that absolute Monarch of whom we speak nor the Government Monarchical but Aristocratical These are imperfect Fig-leave coverings of Nakedness It was in vain to give good counsel to Sardanapalus and none could defend the Assyrian Empire when he lay wallowing amongst his Whores without any other thought than of his Lusts. None could preserve Rome when Domitian's chief business was to kill Flies and that of Honorius to take
turning his lawful Power into Tyranny disobeying the word of the Prophet slaying the Priests sparing the Amalekites and oppressing the Innocent overthrew his own Right and God declared the Kingdom which had bin given him under a conditional promise of perpetuity to be intirely abrogated This did not only give a right to the whole people of opposing him but to every particular man and upon this account David did not only fly from his fury but resisted it He made himself head of all the discontented persons that would follow him he had at first four and afterwards six hundred men he kept these in Arms against Saul and lived upon the Country and resolved to destroy Nabal with all his House only for refusing to send Provisions for his men Finding himself weak and unsafe he went to Achish the Philistin and offer'd his service even against Israel This was never reputed a sin in David or in those that follow'd him by any except the wicked Court-flatterer Doeg the Edomite and the drunken fool Nabal who is said to have bin a man of Belial If it be objected That this was rather a Flight than a War in as much as he neither killed Saul nor his men or that he made war as a King anointed by Samuel I answer that he who had six hundred men and entertain'd as many as came to him sufficiently shewed his intention rather to resist than to fly And no other reason can be given why he did not farther pursue that intention than that he had no greater power and he who arms six hundred men against his Prince when he can have no more can no more be said to obey patiently than if he had so many hundreds of thousands This holds tho he kill no man for that is not the War but the manner of making it and 't were as absurd to say David made no War because he killed no men as that Charles the eighth made no War in Italy because Guicciardin says he conquer'd Naples without breaking a Lance. But as David's strength increased he grew to be less sparing of Blood Those who say Kings never die but that the right is immediatly transfer'd to the next Heirs cannot deny that Ishbosheth inherited the right of Saul and that David had no other right of making war against him than against Saul unless it were conferred upon him by the Tribe of Judah that made him King If this be true it must be confessed that not only a whole People but a part of them may at their own pleasure abrogate a Kingdom tho never so well established by common consent for none was ever more solemnly instituted than that of Saul and few Subjects have more strongly obliged themselves to be obedient If it be not true the example of Nabal is to be follow'd and David tho guided by the Spirit of God deserves to be condemned as a fellow that rose up against his Master If to elude this it be said That God instituted and abrogated Saul's Kingdom and that David to whom the right was transmitted might therefore proceed against him and his Heirs as privat men I answer that if the obedience due to Saul proceeded from God's Institution it can extend to none but those who are so peculiarly instituted and anointed by his Command and the hand of his Prophet which will be of little advantage to the Kings that can give no testimony of such an Institution or Unction and an indisputable right will remain to every Nation of abrogating the Kingdoms which are instituted by and for themselves But as David did resist the Authority of Saul and Ishbosbeth without assuming the Power of a King tho designed by God and anointed by the Prophet till he was made King of Judah by that Tribe or arrogating to himself a Power over the other Tribes till he was made King by them and had enter'd into a Covenant with them 't is much more certain that the Persons and Authority of ill Kings who have no title to the Privileges due to Saul by virtue of his institution may be justly resisted which is as much as is necessary to my purpose Object But David's Heart smote him when he had cut off the skirt of Saul's Garment and he would not suffer Abishai to kill him This might be of some force if it were pretended that every man was obliged to kill an ill King whensoever he could do it which I think no man ever did say and no man having ever affirmed it no more can be concluded than is confessed by all But how is it possible that a man of a generous Spirit like to David could see a great and valiant King chosen from amongst all the Tribes of Israel anointed by the command of God and the hand of the Prophet famous for victories obtained against the enemies of Israel and a wonderful deliverance thereby purchased to that People cast at his feet to receive Life or Death from the hand of one whom he had so furiously persecuted and from whom he least deserved and could least expect mercy without extraordinary commotion of mind most especially when Abishai who saw all that he did and thereby ought best to have known his thoughts expressed so great a readiness to kill him This could not but make him reflect upon the instability of all that seemed to be most glorious in men and shew him that if Saul who had bin named even among the Prophets and assisted in an extraordinary manner to accomplish such great things was so abandoned and given over to fury misery and shame he that seemed to be most firmly established ought to take care lest he should fall Surely these things are neither to be thought strange in relation to Saul who was God's Anointed nor communicable to such as are not Some may suppose he was King by virtue of God's unction tho if that were true he had never bin chosen and made King by the People but it were madness to think he became God's Anointed by being King for if that were so the same Right and Title would belong to every King even to those who by his command were accursed and destroyed by his Servants Moses Joshua and Samuel The same men at the same time and in the same sense would be both his anointed and accursed loved and detested by him and the most sacred Privileges made to extend to the worst of his enemies Again the War made by David was not upon the account of being King as anointed by Samuel but upon the common natural right of defending himself against the violence and fury of a wicked man he trusted to the promise that he should be King but knew that as yet he was not so and when Saul found he had spared his Life he said I now know well that thou shalt surely be King and that the Kingdom of Israel shall surely be established in thy hand not that it was already Nay David himself was so far from