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
acknowledged himself to be the Servant of the Commonwealth and the rather because 't is true and that he is placed in the Throne to that end Nothing is more essential and fundamental in the Constitutions of Kingdoms than that Diets Parliaments and Assemblies of Estates should see this perform'd 'T is not the King that gives them a right to judg of matters of War or Peace to grant Supplies of men and mony or to deny them and to make or abrogate Laws at their pleasure All the Powers rightly belonging to Kings or to them proceed from the same root The Northern Nations seeing what mischiess were generally brought upon the Eastern by referring too much to the irregular will of a man and what those who were more generous had suffer'd when one man by the force of a corrupt mercenary Soldiery had overthrown the Laws by which they lived feared they might fall into the same misery and therefore retained the greater part of the Power to be exercised by their General Assemblies or by Delegates when they grew so numerous that they could not meet These are the Kingdoms of which Grotius speaks where the King has his part and the Senat or People their part of the Supreme Authority and where the Law prescribes such limits that if the King attempt to seize that part which is not his he may justly be opposed Which is as much as to say that the Law upholds the Power it gives and turns against those who abuse it This Doctrin may be displeasing to Court-Parasites but no less profitable to such Kings as follow better Counsels than to the Nations that live under them the Wisdom and Virtue of the best is always fortified by the concurrence of those who are placed in part of the Power they always do what they will when they will nothing but that which is good and 't is a happy impotence in those who through ignorance or malice desire to do evil not to be able to effect it The weakness of such as by defects of Nature Sex Age or Education are not able of themselves to bear the weight of a Kingdom is thereby supported and they together with the People under them preserved from ruin the furious rashness of the Insolent is restrained the extravagance of those who are naturally lews is aw'd and the bestial madness of the most violently wicked and outragious suppress'd When the Law provides for these matters and prescribes ways by which they may be accomplished every man who receives or fears an Injury seeks a remedy in a legal way and vents his Passions in such a manner as brings no prejudice to the Common-wealth If his Complaints against a King may be heard and redressed by Courts of Justice Parliaments and Diets as well as against private men he is satisfied and looks no farther for a Remedy But if Kings like those of Israel will neither judg nor be judged and there be no Power orderly to redress private or publick Injuries every man has recourse to force as if he liv'd in a Wood where there is no Law and that force is always mortal to those who provoke it No Guards can preserve a hated Prince from the vengeance of one resolute hand and they as often sall by the Swords of their own Guards as of others Wrongs will be done and when they that do them cannot or will not be judged publickly the injur'd Persons become Judges in their own case and executioners of their own sentence If this be dangerous in matters of private Concernment 't is much more so in those relating to the publick The lewd extravagancies of Edward and Richard the Seconds whilst they acknowledged the power of the Law were gently reproved and restrained with the removal of some profligate Favourites but when they would admit of no other Law than their own Will no relief could be had but by their Deposition The lawful Spartan Kings who were obedient to the Laws of their Country liv'd in safety and died with glory whereas 't was a strange thing to see a lawless Tyrant die without such infamy and misery as held a just proportion with the wickedness of his Life They did as Plutarch says of Dionysius many mischiefs and suffer'd more This is confirmed by the examples of the Kingdom of Israel and of the Empires of Rome and Greece they who would submit to no Law were destroy'd without any I know not whether they thought themselves to be Gods as our Author says they were but I am sure the most part of them died like Dogs and had the burial of Asses rather than of Men. This is the happiness to which our Author would promote them all If a King admit a People to be his companions he ceaseth to be a King and the State becomes a Democracy And a little farther If in such Assemblies the King Nobility and People have equal shares in the Soveraignty then the King hath but one voice the Nobility likewise one and the People one and then any two of these voices should have power to overrule the third Thus the Nobility and Commons should have a power to make a Law to bridle the King which was never seen in any Kingdom We have heard of Nations that admitted a man to reign over them that is made him King but of no man that made a People The Hebrews made Saul David Jeroboam and other Kings when they returned from Captivity they conferred the same Title upon the Asmonean race as a reward of their Valour and Virtue the Romans chose Romulus Numa Hostilius and others to be their Kings the Spartans instituted two one of the Heraclidae the other of the AEacidae Other Nations set up one a few or more Magistrates to govern them and all the World agrees that Qui dat esse dat modum esse He that makes him to be makes him to be what he is and nothing can be more absurd than to say that he who has nothing but what is given can have more than is given to him If Saul and Romulus had no other title to be Kings than what the People conferred upon them they could be no otherwise Kings than as pleased the People They therefore did not admit the People to be partakers of the Government but the People who had all in themselves and could not have made a King if they had not had it bestow'd upon him what they thought fit and retained the rest in themselves If this were not so then instead of saying to the multitude Will ye have this man to reign they ought to say to the man Wilt thou have this multitude to be a People And whereas the Nobles of Arragon used to say to their new made King We who are as good as you make you our King on condition you keep and maintain our Rights and Liberties and if not not he should have said to them I who am better than you make you to be a People
Will and can he be offended with those who desire to live in a conformity to that Law Or could it justly be said The People had chosen that which is not good if nothing in Government be good but what they chose But as the worst men delight in the worst things and Fools are pleased with the most extreme absurdities he not only gives the highest praises to that which bears so many marks of God's hatred but after having said that Abraham Isaac Jacob and Moses were Kings he goes on and says The Israelites begged a King of Samuel which had bin impertinent if the Magistrates instituted by the Law were Kings and tho it might be a folly in them to ask what they had already it could be no sin to desire that which they enjoyed by the Ordinance of God If they were not Kings it follows that the only Government set up by God amongst men wanted the principal part even the Head and Foundation from whence all the other parts have their action and being that is God's Law is against God's Law and destroys it self But if God did neither by a general and perpetual Ordinance establish over all Nations the Monarchy which Samuel describes nor prescribe it to his own People by a particular Command it was purely the Peoples Creature the production of their own fancy conceived in wickedness and brought forth in iniquity an Idol set up by themselves to their own destruction in imitation of their accursed Neighbours and their Reward was no better than the concession of an impious Petition which is one of God's heaviest Judgments Samuel's words are acknowledged by all Interpreters who were not malicious or mad to be a disswasion from their wicked purpose not a description of what a King might justly do by virtue of his Office but what those who should be set up against God and his Law would do when they should have the power in their hands And I leave such as have the understandings of men and are not abandoned by God to judg what influence this ought to have upon other Nations either as to obligation or imitation SECT IV. No People can be obliged to suffer from their Kings what they have not a right to do OUR Author's next work is to tell us That the scope of Samuel was to teach the People a dutiful obedience to their King even in the things that they think mischievous or inconvenient For by telling them what the King would do he indeed instructs them what a Subject must suffer Yet not so that it is right for Kings to do injury but it is right for them to go unpunished by the People if they do it so that in this point it is all one whether Samuel describe a King or a Tyrant This is hard but the Conclusion is grounded upon nothing There is no relation between a Prediction that a thing shall be attempted or done to me and a Precept that I shall not defend my self or punish the person that attempts or dos it If a Prophet should say that a Thief lay in the way to kill me it might reasonably perswade me not to go or to go in such a manner as to be able to defend my self but can no way oblige me to submit to the violence that shall be offer'd or my Friends and Children not to avenge my death if I fall much less can other men be deprived of the natural right of defending themselves by my imprudence or obstinacy in not taking the warning given whereby I might have preserved my life For every man has a right of resisting some way or other that which ought not to be done to him and tho human Laws do not in all cases make men Judges and Avengers of the Injuries offer'd to them I think there is none that dos not justify the man who kills another that offers violence to him if it appear that the way prescribed by the Law for the preservation of the Innocent cannot be taken This is not only true in the case of outragious attempts to assassinate or rob upon the high way but in divers others of less moment I knew a man who being appointed to keep his Master's Park killed three men in one night that came to destroy his Deer and putting himself into the hands of the Magistrate and consessing the Fact both in matter and manner he was at the publick Assizes not only acquitted but commended for having done his duty and this in a time when 't is well known Justice was severely administred and little favour expected by him or his Master Nay all Laws must fall human Societies that subsist by them be dissolved and all innocent persons be exposed to the violence of the most wicked if men might not justly defend themselves against injustice by their own natural right when the ways prescribed by publick Authority cannot be taken Our Author may perhaps say this is true in all except the King And I desire to know why if it be true in all except the King it should not be true in relation to him Is it possible that he who is instituted for the obtaining of Justice should claim the liberty of doing Injustice as a Privilege Were it not better for a people to be without Law than that a Power should be established by Law to commit all manner of violences with impunity Did not David resist those of Saul Did he not make himself head of the Tribe of Judah when they revolted against his Son and afterwards of the ten Tribes that rejected his Posterity Did not the Israelites stone Adoram who collected the Taxes revolt from the house of David set up Jeroboam and did not the Prophet say it was from the Lord If it was from the Lord was it not good If it was good then is it not so for ever Did good proceed from one root then and from another now If God had avenged the Blood of Naboth by fire from Heaven and destroyed the House of Ahab as he did the two Captains and their men who were sent to apprehend Elijah it might be said he reserv'd that vengeance to himself but he did it by the Sword of Jehu and the Army which was the People who had set him up for an Example to others But 't is good to examine what this dutiful Obedience is that our Author mentions Men usually owe no more than they receive 'T is hard to know what the Israelites owed to Saul David Jeroboam Ahab or any other King whether good or bad till they were made Kings And the Act of the People by which so great a dignity was conferr'd seems to have laid a duty upon them who did receive more than they had to give so that something must be due from them unless it were releas'd by virtue of a Covenant or Promise made and none could accrue to them from the people afterwards unless from the merit of the person in rightly executing his Office If a Covenant
of all were blessed with such Masters This way of expression was used by Lot's Daughters who said There was not a man in all the earth to come in to them because there was none in the neighborhood with whom it was thought fit they should accompany Now that the Eastern Nations were then and are still under the Government of those which all free People call Tyrants is evident to all men God therefore in giving them a Tyrant or rather a Government that would turn into Tyranny gave them what they asked under another name and without any blemish to the Mercy promised to their Fathers suffered them to bear the penalty of their wickedness and folly in rejecting him that he should not reign over them But tho the name of Tyrant was unknown to them yet in Greece from whence the word comes it signified no more than one who governed according to his own will distinguished from Kings that governed by Law and was not taken in an ill sense till those who had bin advanced for their Justice Wisdom and Valour or their Descendents were sound to depart from the ends of their Institution and to turn that Power to the oppression of the people which had bin given for their protection But by these means it grew odious and that kind of Government came to be thought only tolerable by the basest of men and those who destroy'd it were in all places esteemed to be the best If Monarchy had bin universally evil God had not in the 17 th of Deuteronomy given leave to the Israelites to set up a King and if that kind of King had bin asked he had not bin displeased and they could not have bin said to reject God if they had not asked that which was evil for nothing that is good is contrary or inconsistent with a peoples obedience to him The Monarchy they asked was displeasing to God it was therefore evil But a Tyrant is no more than an evil or corrupted Monarch The King therefore that they demanded was a Tyrant God in granting one who would prove a Tyrant gave them what they asked and that they might know what they did and what he would be he told them they rejected him and should cry by reason of the King they desired This denotes him to be a Tyrant for as the Government of a King ought to be gentle and easy tending to the good of the people resembling the tender care of a Father to his Family if he who is set up to be a King and to be like to that Father do lay a heavy Yoak upon the people and use them as Slaves and not as Children he must renounce all resemblance of a Father and be accounted an Enemy But says our Author whereas the peoples crying argues some tyrannical oppression we may remember that the peoples Cries are not always an Argument of their living under a Tyrant No man will say Solomon was a Tyrant yet all the Congregation complain'd that Solomon made their Yoak grievous 'T is strange that when Children nay when Whelps cry it should be accounted a mark that they are troubled and that the Cry of the whole people should be none Or that the Government which is erected for their ease should not be esteemed tyrannical if it prove grievous to those it should relieve But as I know no example of a People that did generally complain without cause our Adversaries must alledg some other than that of Solomon before I believe it of any We are to speak reverently of him He was excellent in Wisdom he built the Temple and God appeared twice to him But it must be confess'd that during a great part of his life he acted directly contrary to the Law given by God to Kings and that his ways were evil and oppressive to the people if those of God were good Kings were forbidden to multiply Horses Wives Silver and Gold But he brought together more Silver and Gold and provided more Horses Wives and Concubines than any man is known to have had And tho he did not actually return to Egypt yet he introduced their abominable Idolatry and so far raised his heart above his Brethren that he made them subservient to his Pomp and Glory The People might probably be pleased with a great part of this but when the Yoak became grievous and his foolish Son would not render it more easy they threw it off and the thing being from the Lord it was good unless he be evil But as just Governments are established for the good of the governed and the Israelites desir'd a King that it might be well with them not with him who was not yet known to them that which exalts one to the prejudice of those that made him must always be evil and the People that suffers the prejudice must needs know it better than any other He that denies this may think the state of France might have bin best known from Bulion the late Treasurer who finding Lewis the Thirteenth to be troubled at the peoples misery told him they were too happy since they were not reduced to eat grass But if words are to be understood as they are ordinarily used and we have no other than that of Tyranny to express a Monarchy that is either evil in the institution or fallen into corruption we may justly call that Tyranny which the Scripture calls a grievous Yoak and which neither the old nor the new Counsellors of Rehoboam could deny to be so for tho the first advised him to promise amendment and the others to do worse yet all agreed that what the people said was true This Yoak is always odious to such as are not by natural stupidity and baseness fitted for it but those who are so never complain An Ass will bear a multitude of blows patiently but the least of them drives a Lion into rage He that said the rod is made for the back of fools confessed that oppression will make a wise man mad And the most unnatural of all oppressions is to use Lions like Asses and to lay that Yoak upon a generous Nation which only the basest can deserve and for want of a better word we call this Tyranny Our Author is not contented to vindicate Solomon only but extends his Indulgence to Saul His custom is to patronize all that is detestable and no better testimony could be given of it It is true says he Saul lost his Kingdom but not for being too cruel or tyrannical unto his Subjects but for being too merciful unto his Enemies But he alledges no other reason than that the slaughter of the Priests is not blamed not observing that the Writers of the Scripture in relating those things that are known to be abominable by the Light of Nature frequently say no more of them And if this be not so Lot's drunkenness and incest Ruben's pollution of his Father's bed Abimelec's slaughter of his seventy Brothers and many of the most wicked Acts that
most opposite to his Maxims He lived says he in Henry the third's time since Parliaments were instituted as if there had bin a time when England had wanted them or that the establishment of our Liberty had bin made by the Normans who if we will believe our Author came in by force of Arms and oppressed us But we have already proved the Essence of Parliaments to be as antient as our Nation and that there was no time in which there were not such Councils or Assemblies of the People as had the power of the whole and made or unmade such Laws as best pleased themselves We have indeed a French word from a People that came from France but the Power was always in our selves and the Norman Kings were obliged to swear they would govern according to the Laws that had bin made by those Assemblies It imports little vvhether Bracton lived before or after they came amongst us His vvords are Omnes sub eo ipse sub nullo sed tantum sub Deo All are under him and he under none but God only If he offend since no Writ can go out against him their Remedy is by petitioning him to amend his Faults which if he will not do it is punishment enough for him to expect God as an avenger Let none presume to look into his Deeds much less to oppose him Here is a mixture of Sense and Nonsense Truth and Falshood the vvords of Bracton vvith our Author's foolish Inferences from them Bracton spoke of the politick capacity of the King vvhen no Law had forbidden him to divide it from his natural He gave the name of King to the sovereign Power of the Nation as Jacob called that of his Descendents The Scepter vvhich he said should not depart from Judah till Shiloh came tho all men know that his Race did not reign the third part of that time over his own Tribe nor full fourscore years over the whole Nation The same manner of speech is used in all parts of the world Tertullian under the name of Cesar comprehended all magistratical Power and imputed to him the Acts of which in his person he never had any knowledg The French say their King is always present sur son lit de justice in all the Sovereign Courts of the Kingdom which are not easily numbred and that Maxim could have in it neither sense nor truth if by it they meant a Man who can be but in one place at one time and is always comprehended within the Dimensions of his own Skin These things could not be unknown to Bracton the like being in use amongst us and he thought it no offence so far to follow the dictates of Reason prohibited by no Law as to make a difference between the invisible and omnipresent King who never dies and the Person that wears the Crown whom no man without the guilt of Treason may endeavour to kill since there is an Act of Parliament in the case I will not determine whether he spoke properly or no as to England but if he did not all that he said being upon a false supposition is nothing to our purpose The same Bracton says the King doth no wrong in as much as he doth nothing but by Law The Power of the King is the Power of the Law a power of right not of wrong Again If the King dos injustice he is not King In another place he has these words The King therefore ought to exercise the Power of the Law as becomes the Vicar and Minister of God upon Earth because that Power is the Power of God alone but the Power of doing wrong is the Power of the Devil and not of God And the King is his Minister whose Work he dos Whilst he dos Justice he is the Vicar of the Eternal King but if he deflect from it to act unjustly he is the Minister of the Devil He also says that the King is singulis major universis minor and that he who is in justitia exequenda omnibus major in justitia recipienda cuilibet ex plebe fit aequalis I shall not say Bracton is in the right when he speaks in this manner but 't is a strange impudence in Filmer to cite him as a Patron of the absolute Power of Kings who dos so extremely depress them But the grossest of his follies is yet more pardonable than his detestable fraud in falsifying Bracton's words and leaving out such as are not for his purpose which shew his meaning to be directly contrary to the sense put upon them That this may appear I shall set down the words as they are found in Bracton Ipse autem Rex non debet esse sub homine sed sub Deo sub Lege quia Lex facit Regem Attribuat ergo Rex Legi quod Lex attribuit ei id est dominationem potestatem Non est enim Rex ubi dominatur volunt as non Lex quod sub Lege esse debeat cum sit Dei vicarius evidenter apparet If Bracton therefore be a competent Judg the King is under the Law and he is not a King nor God's Vicegerent unless he be so and we all know how to proceed with those who being under the Law offend against it For the Law is not made in vain In this case something more is to be done than petitioning and 't is ridiculous to say that if he will not amend 't is punishment enough for him to expect God an Avenger for the same may be said of all Malefactors God can sufficiently punish Thieves and Murderers but the future Judgment of which perhaps they have no belief is not sufficient to restrain them from committing more Crimes nor to deter others from following their example God was always able to punish Murderers but yet by his Law he commands man to shed the blood of him who should shed man's blood and declares that the Land cannot be purged of the Guilt by any other means He had Judgments in store for Jeroboam Ahab and those that were like them but yet he commanded that according to that Law their Houses should be destroy'd from the earth The dogs lick'd up the blood of Ahab where they had licked that of Naboth and eat Jezebel who had contrived his murder But says our Author we must not look into his deeds much less oppose them Must not David look into Saul's deeds nor oppose them Why did he then bring together as many men as he could to oppose and make foreign Alliances against him even with the Moabites and the accursed Philistins Why did Jehu not only destroy Ahab's house but kill the King of Judah and his forty Brothers only for going to visit his Children Our Author may perhaps say because God commanded them But if God commanded them to do so he did not command them and all mankind not to do so and if he did not forbid they have nothing to restrain them from
resolved upon by another Power The Jewish Doctors generally agree that the Kings of Judah could make no Law because there was a curse denounced against those who should add to or detract from that which God had given by the hand of Moses that they might sit in Judgment with the High Priest and Sanhedrin but could not judg by themselves unless the Sanhedrin did plainly fail of performing their duty Upon this account Maimonides excuses David for commanding Solomon not to suffer the grey hairs of Joab to go down to the grave in peace and Solomon for appointing him to be kill'd at the soot of the Altar for he having killed Abner and Amasa and by those actions shed the blood of war in time of peace the Sanhedrin should have punished him but being protected by favour or power and even David himself fearing him Solomon was put in mind of his duty which he performed tho Joab laid hold upon the horns of the Altar which by the express words of the Law gave no protection to wilful Murderers The use of the military Sword amongst them was also moderated Their Kings might make War upon the seven accursed Nations that they were commanded to destroy and so might any other man for no peace was to be made with them but not against any other Nation without the assent of the Sanhedrin And when Amaziah contrary to that Law had foolishly made war upon Joash King of Israel and thereby brought a great slaughter upon Judah the Princes that is the Sanhedrin combined against him pursued him to Lachish and killed him there The Legislative Power of Sparta was evidently in the People The Laws that go under the name of Lycurgus were proposed by him to the general Assembly of the People and from them received their Authority But the discipline they contained was of such efficacy for framing the minds of men to virtue and by banishing Silver and Gold they so far banished all manner of Crimes that from the institution of those Laws to the times of their Corruption which was more than eight hundred years we hardly find that three men were put to death of whom two were Kings so that it seems difficult to determine where the power of judging did reside tho 't is most probable considering the nature of their Government that it was in the Senate and in Cases extraordinary in the Ephori with a right of appealing to the People Their Kings therefore could have little to do with the Sword of Justice neither the Legislative nor the Judicial Power being any ways in them The military Sword was not much more in their Power unless the excellency of their Virtues gave them the credit of perswading when the Law denied the right of commanding They were obliged to make war against those and those only who were declared Enemies by the Senate and Ephori and in the manner place and time they directed so that Agesilaus tho carrying on a glorious War in Persia no sooner received the Parchment Roll wherein he was commanded by the Ephori to come home for the defence of his own Country than he immediately returned and is on that account called by no less a man than Xenophon a good and faithful King rendring obedience to the Laws of his Country By this it appears that there are Kings who may be feared by those that do ill and not by such as do well for having no more power than what the Law gives and being obliged to execute it as the Law directs they cannot depart from the Precept of the Apostle My own actions therefore or the sense of my own guilt arising from them is to be the measure of my fear of that Magistrate who is the Minister of God and not his Power The like may be said of almost all the Nations of the world that have had any thing of Civil Order amongst them The supreme Magistrate under what name soever he was known whether King Emperor Asymnetes Suffetes Consul Dictator or Archon has usually a part assigned to him in the administration of Justice and making War but that he may know it to be assigned and not inherent and so assigned as to be employ'd for the publick good not to his own profit or pleasure it is circumscribed by such rules as he cannot safely transgress This is above all seen in the German Nations from whom we draw our Original and Government and is so well described by Tacitus in his treatise of their Customs and Manners that I shall content my self to refer to it and to what I have cited from him in the former part of this Work The Saxons coming into our Country retain'd to themselves the same rights They had no Kings but such as were set up by themselves and they abrogated their Power when they pleased Off a acknowledged that he was chosen for the fence of their Liberty not from his own merit but by their favour and in the Conventus Pananglicus at which all the chief men as well Secular as Ecclesiastical were present it was decreed by the King Archbishops Bishops Abbots Dukes and Senators that the Kings should be chosen by the Priests and by the Elders of the People In pursuance of which Egbert who had no right to the succession was made King Ethelwerd was chosen in the same manner by the consent of all Ethelwolf a Monk for want of a better was advanced to the same Honor. His Son Alfred tho crowned by the Pope and marrying without the consent of the Nobility and Kingdom against their Customs and Statutes acknowledged that he had received the Crown from the bounty of the Princes Elders and People and in his Will declared that he left the People as he had found them free as the inward thoughts of Man His Son Edward was elected to be his Successor Ethelstan tho a Bastard and without all Title was elected by the consent of the Nobility and People Eadred by the same Authority was elected and preferred before the Sons of Edmond his Predecessor Edwin tho rightly chosen was deposed for his ill life and Edgar elected King by the will of God and consent of the People But he also was deprived of the Crown for the Rape of a Nun and after seven years restored by the whole People coram omni multitudine populi Anglorum Ethelred who is said to have bin cruel in the beginning wretched in the course and infamous in the end of his Reign was deposed by the same power that had advanced him Canutus made a Contract with the Princes and the whole People and thereupon was by general consent crown'd King over all England After him Harold was chosen in the usual manner He being dead a Message was sent to Hardi Canute with an offer of the Crown which he accepted and accordingly was received Edward the Consessor was elected King with the consent of the Clergy
able than themselves to bear the weight of a Crown convinces me fully that they had so framed our Laws that even children women or ill men might either perform as much as was necessarily required of them or be brought to reason if they transgressed and arrogated to themselves more than was allow'd For 't is not to be imagined that a company of men should so far degenerate from their own Nature which is Reason to give up themselves and their Posterity with all their concernments in the world to depend upon the will of a child a woman an ill man or a fool If therefore Laws are necessary to popular States they are no less to Monarchies or rather that is not a State or Government which has them not and 't is no less impossible for any to subsist without them than for the body of a man to be and perform its functions without Nerves or Bones And if any People had ever bin so foolish to establish that which they called a Government without Laws to support and regulate it the impossibility of subsisting would evidence the madness of the Constitution and ought to deter all others from following their example 'T is no less incredible that those Nations which rejected Kings did put themselves into the Power of one man to prescribe to them such Laws as he pleased But the instances alledged by our Author are evidently false The Athenians were not without Laws when they had Kings AEgeus was subject to the Laws and did nothing of importance without the consent of the People and Theseus not being able to please them died a banished man Draco and Solon did not make but propose Laws and they were of no force till they were established by the Authority of the People The Spartans dealt in the same manner with Lycurgus he invented their Laws but the People made them and when the Assembly of all the Citizens had approved and sworn to observe them till his return from Crete he resolved rather to die in a voluntary banishment than by his return to absolve them from the Oath they had taken The Romans also had Laws during the Government of their Kings but not finding in them that Perfection they desired the Decemviri were chosen to frame others which yet were of no value till they were passed by the People in the Comitia Centuriata and being so approved they were established But this Sanction to which every man whether Magistrate or private Citizen was subject did no way bind the whole body os the People who still retained in themselves the Power os changing both the matter and the form of their Government as appears by their instituting and abrogating Kings Consuls Dictators Tribuns with consular Power and Decemviri when they thought good for the Commonwealth And if they had this Power I leave our Author to shew why the like is not in other Nations SECT XIV Laws are not made by Kings not because they are busied in greater matters than doing Justice but because Nations will be governed by Rule and not Arbitrarily OUR Author pursuing the mistakes to which he seems perpetually condemned says that when Kings were either busied in War or distracted with publick Cares so that every private man could not have access unto their Persons to learn their Wills and Pleasures then of necessity were Laws invented that so every particular Subject might find his Prince's Pleasure I have often heard that Governments were established for the obtaining of Justice and if that be true 't is hard to imagine what business a supreme Magistrate can have to divert him from accomplishing the principal end of his Institution And 't is as commonly said that this distribution of Justice to a People is a work surpassing the strength of any one man Jethro seems to have bin a wise man and 't is probable he thought Moses to be so also but he found the work of judging the People to be too heavy for him and therefore advised him to leave the judgment of Causes to others who should be chosen for that purpose which advice Moses accepted and God approved The governing power was as insupportable to him as the Judicial He desired rather to die than to bear so great a burden and God neither accusing him of sloth or impatience gave him seventy Assistants But if we may believe our Author the Powers Judicial and Legislative that of judging as well as that of governing is not too much for any man woman or child whatsoever and that he stands in no need either of God's Statutes to direct him or Man's Counsel to assist him unless it be when he is otherwise employ'd and his Will alone is sufficient for all But what if he be not busied in greater matters or distracted with publick cares is every Prince capable of this work Tho Moses had not found it too great for him or it should be granted that a man of excellent natural Endowments great Wisdom Learning Experience Industry and Integrity might perform it is it certain that all those who happen to be born in reigning Families are so If Moses had the Law of God before his eyes and could repair to God himself for the application or explanation of it have all Princes the same Assistance Do they all speak with God face to face or can they do what he did without the Assistance he had If all Kings of mature years are of that perfection are we assured that none shall die before his Heir arrive to the same Or shall he have the same ripeness of Judgment in his Infancy If a Child come to a Crown dos that immediately infuse the most admirable Endowments and Graces Have we any promise from Heaven that Women shall enjoy the same Prerogatives in those Countries where they are made capable of the Succession Or dos that Law which renders them capable defend them not only against the frailty of their own Nature but confer the most sublime virtues upon them But who knows not that no Families do more frequently produce weak or ill men than the greatest and that which is worse their greatness is a snare to them so that they who in a low condition might have passed unregarded being advanced to the highest have often appeared to be or became the worst of all Beasts and they who advance them are like to them For if the Power be in the Multitude as our Author is forced to confess otherwise the Athenians and Romans could not have given all as he says nor a part as I say to Draco Solon or the Decemviri they must be Beasts also who should have given away their Right and Liberty in hopes of receiving Justice from such as probably will neither understand nor regard it or protection from those who will not be able to help themselves and expect such Virtue Wisdom and Integrity should be and for ever remain in the Family they set up as was never known to
continue in any If the Power be not conferred upon them they have it not and if they have it not their want of leisure to do Justice cannot have bin the cause for which Laws are made and they cannot be the signification of their Will but are that to which the Prince ows Obedience as well as the meanest Subject This is that which Bracton calls esse sub lege and says that Rex in regno superiores habet Deum Legem Fortescue says The Kings of England cannot change the Laws and indeed they are so far from having any such Power that the Judges swear to have no regard to the King's Letters or Commands but if they receive any to proceed according to Law as if they had not bin And the breach of this Oath dos not only bring a blemish upon their Reputation but exposes them to capital Punishments as many of them have found 'T is not therefore the King that makes the Law but the Law that makes the King It gives the rule for Succession making Kingdoms sometimes Hereditary and sometimes Elective and more often than either simply Hereditary under condition In some places Males only are capable of inheriting in others Females are admitted Where the Monarchy is regular as in Germany England c. the Kings can neither make nor change Laws They are under the Law and the Law is not under them their Letters or Commands are not to be regarded In the administration of Justice the question is not what pleases them but what the Law declares to be right which must have its course whether the King be busy or at leisure whether he will or not The King who never dies is always present in the supreme Courts and neither knows nor regards the pleasure of the man that wears the Crown But lest he by his Riches and Power might have some influence upon judicial Proceedings the great Charter that recapitulates and acknowledges our antient inherent Liberties obliges him to swear that he will neither sell delay nor deny Justice to any man according to the Laws of the Land which were ridiculous and absurd if those Laws were only the signification of his Pleasure or any way depended upon his Will This Charter having bin confirmed by more than thirty Parliaments all succeeding Kings are under the obligation of the same Oath or must renounce the benefit they receive from our Laws which if they do they will be found to be equal to every one of us Our Author according to his custom having laid down a false proposition gos about to justify it by false examples as those of Draco Solon the Decemviri and Moses of whom no one had the Power he attributes to them and it were nothing to us if they had The Athenians and Romans as was said before were so far from resigning the absolute Power without appeal to themselves that nothing done by their Magistrates was of any force till it was enacted by the People And the power given to the Decemviri sine provocatione was only in private cases there being no superior Magistrate then in being to whom Appeals could be made They were vested with the same Power the Kings and Dictators enjoy'd from whom there lay no Appeal but to the People and always to them as appears by the case of Horatius in the time of Tullus Hostilius that of Marcus Fabius when Papirius Cursor was Dictator and of Nenius the Tribun during that of Q. Fabius Maximus all which I have cited already and reser to them There was therefore a reservation of the supreme Power in the People notwithstanding the creation of Magistrates without Appeal and as it was quietly exercised in making Strangers or whom they pleased Kings restraining the power of Dictators to six months and that of the Decemviri to two years when the last did contrary to Law endeavour by force to continue their Power the People did by force destroy it and them The case of Moses is yet more clear he was the most humble and gentle of all men he never raised his heart above his brethren and commanded Kings to live in the same modesty he never desired the People should depend upon his will In giving Laws to them he fulfill'd the will of God not his own and those Laws were not the signification of his will but of the will of God They were the production of God's Wisdom and Goodness not the invention of Man given to purify the People not to advance the glory of their Leader He was not proud and insolent nor pleas'd with that ostentation of Pomp to which fools give the name of Majesty and whoever so far exalts the power of a man to make Nations depend upon his pleasure dos not only lay a burden upon him which neither Moses nor any other could ever bear and every wise man will always abhor but with an impious fury endeavours to set up a Government contrary to the Laws of God presumes to accuse him of want of wisdom or goodness to his own People and to correct his Errors which is a work fit to be undertaken by such as our Author From hence as upon a solid foundation he proceeds and making use of King James's words infers that Kings are above the Laws because he so teaches us But he might have remembred that having affirmed the People could not judg of the disputes that might happen between them and Kings because they must not be judges in their own case 't is absurd to make a King judg of a case so nearly concerning himself in the decision of which his own Passions and Interests may probably lead him into errors And if it be pretended that I do the same in giving the judgment of those matters to the People the case is utterly different both in the nature and consequences The King's judgment is merely for himself and if that were to take place all the Passions and Vices that have most power upon men would concur to corrupt it He that is set up for the publick good can have no contest with the whole People whose good he is to procure unless he deflect from the end of his Institution and set up an interest of his own in opposition to it This is in its nature the highest of all delinquencies and if such a one may be judg of his own crimes he is not only sure to avoid punishment but to obtain all that he sought by them and the worse he is the more violent will his desires be to get all the power into his hands that he may gratify his lusts and execute his pernicious designs On the other side in a popular Assembly no man judges for himself otherwise than as his good is comprehended in that of the publick Nothing hurts him but what is prejudicial to the Commonwealth such amongst them as may have received private Injuries are so far only considered by others as their Sufferings may have influence upon the
Kings of Spain France and Sweden so well to understand the meaning of it as to decide extraordinary cases The wisdom of Nations has provided more assured helps and none could have bin so brutish and negligent of the publick Concernments to suffer the Succession to fall to women children c. if they had not reserved a power in themselves to prefer others before the nearest in blood if reason require and prescribed such rules as might preserve the publick from ruin notwithstanding their infirmities and vices These helps provided by our Laws are principally by grand and petit Juries who are not only Judges of matters of fact as whether a man be kill'd but whether he be kill'd criminally These men are upon their Oaths and may be indicted of Perjury if they prevaricate The Judges are present not only to be a check upon them but to explain such points of the Law as may seem difficult And tho these Judges may be said in some sense to be chosen by the King he is not understood to do it otherwise than by the advice of his Council who cannot perform their duty unless they propose such as in their consciences they think most worthy of the Office and most capable of performing the duty rightly nor he accomplish the Oath of his Coronation unless he admit those who upon deliberation seem to be the best The Judges being thus chosen are so far from depending upon the will of the King that they swear faithfully to serve the People as well as the King and to do justice to every man according to the Law of the Land notwithstanding any Writs Letters or Commands received from him and in default thereof they are to forfeit their bodies lands and goods as in cases of Treason These Laws have bin so often and so severely executed that it concerns all Judges well to consider them and the Cases of Tresilian Empson Dudley and others shew that neither the King 's preceding command nor subsequent pardon could preserve them from the punishment they deserved All men knew that what they did was agreeable to the King's pleasure for Tresilian advanced the Prerogative of Edward the 2d and Empson brought great Treasures into the Coffers of Henry the 7th Nevertheless they were charged with Treason for subverting the Laws of the Land and executed as Traitors Tho England ought never to forget the happy Reign of Q. Elizabeth yet it must be acknowledged that she as well as others had her failings She was full of love to the People just in her nature sincere in her intentions but could not so perfectly discover the snares that were laid for her or resist the importunity of the Persons she most trusted as not sometimes to be brought to attempt things against Law She and her Counsellors pressed the Judges very hardly to obey the Patent under her Great Seal in the case of Cavendish but they answered That both she and they had taken an Oath to keep the Law and if they should obey her commands the Law would not warrant them c. And besides the offence against God their Country and the Commonwealth they alledged the example of Empson and Dudley whereby they said they were deterred from obeying her illegal Commands They who had sworn to keep the Law notwithstanding the King's Writs knew that the Law depended not upon his will and the same Oath that obliged them not to regard any command they should receive from him shewed that they were not to expect indemnity by it and not only that the King had neither the power of making altering mitigating or interpreting the Law but that he was not at all to be heard in general or particular matters otherwise than as he speaks in the common course of Justice by the Courts legally established which say the same thing whether he be young or old ignorant or wise wicked or good and nothing dos better evidence the wisdom and care of our Ancestors in framing the Laws and Government we live under than that the People did not suffer extremities by the vices or infirmities of Kings till an Age more full of malice than those in which they lived had found tricks to pervert the rule and frustrate their honest intentions It was not safe for the Kings to violate their Oaths by an undue interposition of their Authority but the Ministers who served them in those violations have seldom escaped punishment This is to be understood when the deviations from Justice are extreme and mischievous for something must always be allow'd to human frailty The best have their defects and none could stand if a too exact scrutiny were made of all their actions Edward the third about the twentieth year of his Reign acknowledged his own in Parliament and as well for the ease of his Conscience as the satisfaction of his People promoted an Act Commanding all Judges to do Justice notwithstanding any Writs Letters or Commands from himself and forbidding those that belonged to the King Queen and Prince to intermeddle in those matters But if the best and wisest of our Princes in the strength and maturity of their years had their failings and every act proceeding from them that tended to the interruption of Justice was a failing how can it be said that the King in his personal capacity directly or indirectly may enter into the discussion of these matters much less to determine them according to his will But says our Author the Law is no better than a Tyrant general Pardons at the Coronation and in Parliament are but the bounty of the Prerogative c. There may be hard cases and citing some perverted pieces from Aristotle's Ethicks and Politicsk adds That when something falls out besides the general rule then it is fit that what the Lawmaker hath omitted or where he hath erred by speaking generally it should be corrected and supplied as if the Lawmaker were present that ordained it The Governor whether he be one man or more ought to be Lord of these things whereof it was impossible that the Law should speak exactly These things are in part true but our Author makes use of them as the Devil dos of Scripture to subvert the truth There may be something of rigour in the Law that in some cases may be mitigated and the Law it self in relation to England dos so far acknowledg it as to refer much to the consciences of Juries and those who are appointed to assist them and the most difficult Cases are referred to the Parliament as the only judges that are able to determine them Thus the Statute of the 35 Edw. 3d enumerating the crimes then declared to be Treason leaves to suture Parliaments to judg what other facts equivalent to them may deserve the same punishment and 't is a general rule in the Law which the Judges are sworn to observe that difficult Cases should be reserved till the Parliament meet who are only able to decide them and
SECT XXVI Tho the King may be entrusted with the power of chusing Judges yet that by which they act is from the Law I Confess that no Law can be so perfect to provide exactly for every case that may fall out so as to leave nothing to the discretion of the Judges who in some measure are to interpret them But that Laws or Customs are ever few or that the paucity is the reason that they cannot give special rules or that Judges do resort to those principles or Common Law Axioms whereupon former judgments in cases something alike have bin given by former Judges who all receive their Authority from the King in his right to give Sentence I utterly deny and affirm 1. That in many places and particularly in England the Laws are so many that the number of them has introduced an uncertainty and confusion which is both dangerous and troublesom and the infinite variety of adjudged cases thwarting and contradicting each other has render'd these difficulties inextricable Tacitus imputes a great part of the miseries suffer'd by the Romans in his time to this abuse and tells us that the Laws grew to be innumerable in the worst and most corrupt state of things and that Justice was overthrown by them By the same means in France Italy and other places where the Civil Law is rendred municipal Judgments are in a manner arbitrary and tho the intention of our Laws be just and good they are so numerous and the volumes of our Statutes with the interpretations and adjudged Cases so vast that hardly any thing is so clear and fixed but men of wit and learning may find what will serve for a pretence to justify almost any judgment they have a mind to give Whereas the Laws of Moses as to the Judicial part being short and few Judgments were easy and certain and in Switzerland Sweden and some parts of Denmark the whole volume that contains them may be read in few hours and by that means no injustice can be done which is not immediately made evident 2. Axioms are not rightly grounded upon judged Cases but Cases are to be judged according to Axioms the certain is not proved by the uncertain but the uncertain by the certain and every thing is to be esteemed uncertain till it be proved to be certain Axioms in Law are as in Mathematicks evident to common sense and nothing is to be taken for an Axiom that is not so Euclid dos not prove his Axioms by his Propositions but his Propositions which are abstruse by such Axioms as are evident to all The Axioms of our Law do not receive their Authority from Coke or Hales but Coke and Hales deserve praise for giving judgment according to such as are undeniably true 3. The Judges receive their Commissions from the King and perhaps it may be said that the Custom of naming them is grounded upon a right with which he is entrusted but their power is from the Law as that of the King also is For he who has none originally in himself can give none unless it be first conserred upon him I know not how he can well perform his Oath to govern according to Law unless he execute the power with which he is entrusted in naming those men to be Judges whom in his conscience and by the advice of his Council he thinks the best and ablest to perform that Office But both he and they are to learn their duty from that Law by which they are and which allots to every one his proper work As the Law intends that men should be made Judges for their integrity and knowledg in the Law and that it ought not to be imagined that the King will break his trust by chusing such as are not so till the violation be evident nothing is more reasonable than to intend that the Judges so qualified should instruct the King in matters of Law But that he who may be a child over aged or otherwise ignorant and uncapable should instruct the Judges is equally absurd as for a blind man to be a guide to those who have the best eyes and so abhorrent from the meaning of the Law that the Judges as I said before are sworn to do justice according to the Laws without any regard to the King's words letters or commands If they are therefore to act according to a set rule from which they may not depart what command soever they receive they do not act by a power from him but by one that is above both This is commonly confess'd and tho some Judges have bin found in several ages who in hopes of reward and preferment have made little account of their Oath yet the success that many of them have had may reasonably deter others from following their example and if there are not more instances in this kind no better reason can be given than that Nations do frequently fail by being too remiss in asserting their own rights or punishing offenders and hardly ever err on the severer side 4. Judgments are variously given in several States and Kingdoms but he who would find one where they lie in the breast of the King must go at least as far as Marocco Nay the Ambassador who was lately here from that place denied that they were absolutely in him However 't is certain that in England according to the Great Charter Judgments are passed by equals no man can be imprison'd disseiz'd of his Freehold depriv'd of Life or Limb unless by the sentence of his Peers The Kings of Judah did judg and were judged and the Judgments they gave were in and with the Sanhedrim In England the Kings do not judg but are judged and Bracton says That in receiving justice the King is equal to another man which could not be if judgments were given by him and he were exempted from the judgment of all by that Law which has put all judgments into the hands of the People This power is executed by them in grand or petty Juries and the Judges are assistants to them in explaining the difficult points of the Law in which 't is presumed they should be learned The strength of every judgment consists in the verdict of these Juries which the Judges do not give but pronounce or declare and the same Law that makes good a verdict given contrary to the advice or direction of the Judges exposes them to the utmost penalties if upon their own heads or a command from the King they should presume to give a Sentence without or contrary to a Verdict and no pretensions to a power of interpreting the Law can exempt them if they break it The power also with which the Judges are entrusted is but of a moderate extent and to be executed bona fide Prevarications are capital as they proved to Tresilian Empson Dudley and many others Nay even in special Verdicts the Judges are only assistants to the Juries who find it specially
and the Verdict is from them tho the Judges having heard the point argued declare the sense of the Law thereupon Wherefore if I should grant that the King might personally assist in judgments his work could only be to prevent frauds and by the advice of the Judges to see that the Laws be duly executed or perhaps to inspect their behaviour If he has more than this it must be by virtue of his politick capacity in which he is understood to be always present in the principal Courts where Justice is always done whether he who wears the Crown be young or old wise or ignorant good or bad or whether he like or dislike what is done Moreover as Governments are instituted for the obtaining of Justice and the King is in a great measure entrusted with the power of executing it 't is probable that the Law would have required his presence in the distribution if there had bin but one Court that at the same time he could be present in more than one that it were certain he would be guilty of no miscarriages that all miscarriages were to be punished in him as well as in the Judges or that it were certain he should always be a man of such wisdom industry experience and integrity as to be an assistance to and a watch over those who are appointed for the administration of Justice But there being many Courts sitting at the same time of equal Authority in several places far distant from each other impossible for the King to be present in all no manner of assurance that the same or greater miscarriages may not be committed in his presence than in his absence by himself than others no opportunity of punishing every delict in him without bringing the Nation into such disorder as may be of more prejudice to the publick than an injury done to a private man the Law which intends to obviate offences or to punish such as cannot be obviated has directed that those men should be chosen who are most knowing in it imposes an Oath upon them not to be diverted from the due course of justice by fear or favour hopes or reward particularly by any command from the King and appoints the severest punishments for them if they prove false to God and their Country If any man think that the words cited from Bracton by our Author upon the question Quis primo principaliter possit debeat judicare c. Sciendum est quod Rex non alius si solus ad haec sufficere possit cum ad hoc per virtutem Sacramenti teneatur are contrary to what I have said I desire the context may be considered that his opinion may be truly understood tho the words taken simply and nakedly may be enough for my purpose For 't is ridiculous to infer that the King has a right of doing any thing upon a supposition that 't is impossible for him to do it He therefore who says the King cannot do it says it must be done by others or not at all But having already proved that the King merely as King has none of the qualities required for judging all or any cases and that many Kings have all the desects of age and person that render men most unable and unfit to give any Sentence we may conclude without contradicting Bracton that no King as King has a power of judging because some of them are utterly unable and unfit to do it and if any one has such a power it must be confer'd upon him by those who think him able and fit to perform that work When Filmer finds such a man we must inquire into the extent of that power which is given to him but this would be nothing to his general proposition sor he himself would hardly have inferr'd that because a power of judging in some cases was conserred upon one Prince on account of his fitness and ability therefore all of them however unfit and unable have a power of deciding all cases Besides if he believe Bracton this power of judging is not inherent in the King but incumbent upon him by virtue of his Oath which our Author endeavours to enervate and annul But as that Oath is grounded upon the Law and the Law cannot presume impossibilities and absurdities it cannot intend and the Oath cannot require that a man should do that which he is unable and unfit to do Many Kings are unfit to judg causes the Law cannot therefore intend they should do it The Context also shews that this imagination of the King 's judging all causes if he could is merely Chymerical for Bracton says in the same Chapter that the power of the King is the power of the Law that is that he has no power but by the Law And the Law that aims at justice cannot make it to depend upon the uncertain humour of a Child a Woman or a foolish Man for by that means it would destroy it self The Law cannot therefore give any such power and the King cannot have it If it be said that all Kings are not so that some are of mature age wise just and good or that the question is not what is good sor the Subject but what is glorious to the King and that he must not lose his right tho the People perish I answer first that whatsoever belongs to Kings as Kings belongs to all Kings this Power of judging cannot belong to all for the Reasons above mentioned it cannot therefore belong to any as King nor without madness be granted to any till he has given testimony of such Wisdom Experience Diligence and Goodness as is required for so great a work It imports not what his Ancestors were Virtues are not entail'd and it were less improper for the Heirs of Hales and Harvey to pretend that the Clients and Patients of their Ancestors should depend upon their advice in matters of Law and Physick than for the Heirs of a great and wise Prince to pretend to Powers given on account of virtue if they have not the same talents for the performance of the works required Common sense declares that Governments are instituted and Judicatures erected for the obtaining of justice The Kings Bench was not established that the Chief Justice should have a great Office but that the oppressed should be relieved and right done The Honor and Profit he receives comes in as it were by accident as the rewards of his service if he rightly perform his duty but he may as well pretend he is there for his own sake as the King God did not set up Moses or Joshua that they might glory in having six hundred thousand men under their command but that they might lead the People into the Land they were to possess that is they were not for themselves but for the People and the glory they acquir'd was by rightly performing the end of their institution Even our Author is obliged to confess this when he says that the Kings Prerogative
is instituted for the good of those that are under it 'T is therefore for them that he enjoys it and it can no otherwise subsist than in concurrence with that end He also yields that the safety of the People is the supreme Law The right therefore that the King has must be conformable and subordinate to it If any one therefore set up an interest in himself that is not so he breaks this supreme Law he doth not live and reign for his People but for himself and by departing from the end of his institution destroys it and if Aristotle to whom our Author seems to have a great deference deserves credit such a one ceases to be a King and becomes a Tyrant he who ought to have bin the best of men is turned into the worst and he who is recommended to us under the name of a Father becomes a publick Enemy to the People The question therefore is not what is good for the King but what is good for the People and he can have no right repugnant to them Bracton is not more gentle The King says he is obliged by his Oath to the utmost of his power to preserve the Church and the Christian World in peace to hinder rapine and all manner of iniquity to cause justice and mercy to be observed He has no power but from the Law that only is to be taken for Law quod recté fuerit definitum he is therefore to cause justice to be done according to that rule and not to pervert it for his own pleasure profit or glory He may chuse Judges also not such as will be subservient to his will but Viros sapientes timentes Deum in quibus est veritas eloquiorum qui oderunt avaritiam Which proves that Kings and their Officers do not possess their places for themselves but for the People and must be such as are fit and able to perform the duties they undertake The mischievous fury of those who assume a power above their abilities is well represented by the known fable of Phaeton they think they desire fine things for themselves when they seek their own ruin In conformity to this the same Bracton says that If any man who is unskilful assume the seat of justice he falls as from a Precipice c. and 't is the same thing as if a sword be put into the hand of a mad man which cannot but affect the King as well as those who are chosen by him If he neglect the functions of his Office he dos unjustly and becomes the Vicegerent of the Devil for he is the Minister of him whose works he dos This is Bracton's opinion but desiring to be a more gentle Interpreter of the Law I only wish that Princes would consider the end of their institution endeavour to perform it measure their own abilities content themselves with that power which the Laws allow and abhor those Wretches who by flattery and lies endeavour to work upon their frailest Passions by which means they draw upon them that hatred of the People which frequently brings them to destruction Tho Ulpian's words Princeps legibus non tenetur be granted to have bin true in fact with relation to the Roman Empire in the time when he lived yet they can conclude nothing against us The Liberty of Rome had bin overthrown long before by the power of the Sword and the Law render'd subservient to the will of the Usurpers They were not Englishmen but Romans who lost the Battels of Pharsalia and Philippi The Carcases of their Senators not ours were exposed to the Wolves and Vulturs Pompeius Scipio Lentulus Afranius Petreius Cato Cassius and Brutus were defenders of the Roman not the English Liberty and that of their Country not ours could only be lost by their defeat Those who were destroy'd by the Proscriptions left Rome not England to be enslaved If the best had gained the victory it could have bin no advantage to us and their overthrow can be no prejudice Every Nation is to take care of their own Laws and whether any one has had the Wisdom Virtue Fortune and Power to defend them or not concerns only themselves The Examples of great and good men acting freely deserve consideration but they only perish by the ill success of their designs and whatsoever is afterwards done by their subdued Posterity ought to have no other effect upon the rest of the world than to admonish them so to join in the defence of their Liberties as never to be brought under the necessity of acting by the command of one to the prejudice of themselves and their Country If the Roman greatness perswade us to put an extraordinary value upon what passed among them we ought rather to examin what they did said or thought when they enjoy'd that Liberty which was the Mother and Nurse of their Virtue than what they suffer'd or were forc'd to say when they were fallen under that Slavery which produced all manner of corruption and made them the most base and miserable People of the world For what concerns us the Actions of our Ancestors resemble those of the antient rather than the later Romans tho our Government be not the same with theirs in form yet it is in principle and if we are not degenerated we shall rather desire to imitate the Romans in the time of their virtue glory power and felicity than what they were in that of their slavery vice shame and misery In the best times when the Laws were more powerful than the commands of men fraud was accounted a crime so detestable as not to be imputed to any but Slaves and he who had sought a power above the Law under colour of interpreting it would have bin exposed to scorn or greater punishments if any can be greater than the just scorn of the best men And as neither the Romans nor any people of the world have better defended their Liberties than the English Nation when any attempt has bin made to oppress them by force they ought to be no less careful to preserve them from the more dangerous efforts of fraud and falshood Our Ancestors were certainly in a low condition in the time of William the First Many of their best men had perished in the Civil Wars or with Harold their valour was great but rough and void of skill The Normans by frequent Expeditions into France Italy and Spain had added subtilty to the boisterous violence of their native climate William had engaged his Faith but broke it and turned the power with which he was entrusted to the ruin of those that had trusted him He destroy'd many worthy men carried others into Normandy and thought himself Master of all He was crafty bold and elated with Victory but the resolution of a brave People was invincible When their Laws and Liberties were in danger they resolved to die or to defend them and made him see he could no otherwise preserve his Crown
Author presume that they will always be of profound wisdom to comprehend all of them and of perfect integrity always to act according to their understanding Which is no less than to lay the foundation of the Government upon a thing merely contingent that either never was or very often fails as is too much verified by experience and the Histories of all Nations or else to refer the decision of all to those who through the infirmities of age sex or person are often uncapable of judging the least or subject to such passions and vices as would divert them from Justice tho they did understand it both which seem to be almost equally preposterous 2. The Law must also presume that the Prince is always present in all the places where his name is used The King of France is as I have said already esteemed to be present on the seat of Justice in all the Parliaments and sovereign Courts of the Kingdom and if his corporeal Presence were by that phrase to be understood he must be in all those distinct and far distant places at the same time which absurdity can hardly be parallel'd unless by the Popish opinion of Transubstantiation But indeed they are so far from being guilty of such monstrous absurdity that he cannot in person be present at any trial and no man can be judged if he be This was plainly asserted to Lewis the 13th who would have bin at the Trial of the Duke of Candale by the President de Bellievre who told him that as he could judg no man himself so they could not judg any if he were present upon which he retired 3. The Laws of most Kingdoms giving to Kings the Confiscation of Delinquents estates if they in their own persons might give judgment upon them they would be constituted both Judges and Parties which besides the foremention'd incapacities to which Princes are as much subject as other men would tempt them by their own personal interest to subvert all manner of Justice This therefore not being the meaning of the Law we are to inquire what it is and the thing is so plain that we cannot mistake unless we do it wilfully Some name must be used in all manner of Transactions and in matters of publick concernment none can be so fit as that of the principal Magistrate Thus are Leagues made not only with Kings and Emperors but with the Dukes of Venice and Genoa the Avoyer and Senat of a Canton in Switzerland the Burgermaster of an Imperial Town in Germany and the States-General of the United Provinces But no man thinking I presume these Leagues would be of any value if they could only oblige the Persons whose names are used 't is plain that they do not stipulate only for themselves and that their stipulations would be of no value if they were merely personal And nothing can more certainly prove they are not so than that we certainly know these Dukes Avoyers and Burgermasters can do nothing of themselves The power of the States-General of the United Provinces is limited to the points mentioned in the Act of Union made at Vtrecht The Empire is not obliged by any stipulation made by the Emperor without their consent Nothing is more common than for one King making a League with another to exact a confirmation of their Agreement by the Parliaments Diets or General Estates because says Grotius a Prince dos not stipulate for himself but for the people under his Government and a King deprived of his Kingdom loses the right of sending an Ambassador The Powers of Europe shewed themselves to be of this opinion in the case of Portugal When Philip the second had gained the possession they treated with him concerning the affairs relating to that Kingdom Few regarded Don Antonio and no man considered the Dukes of Savoy Parma or Braganza who perhaps had the most plausible Titles But when his Grandson Philip the fourth had lost that Kingdom and the people had set up the Duke of Braganza they all treated with him as King And the English Court tho then in amity with Spain and not a little influenced by a Spanish faction gave example to others by treating with him and not with Spain touching matters relating to that State Nay I have bin informed by those who well understood the affairs of that time that the Lord Cottington advising the late King not to receive any persons sent from the Duke of Braganza Rebel to his Ally the King of Spain in the quality of Ambassadors the King answered that he must look upon that person to be King of Portugal who was acknowledged by the Nation And I am mistaken if his Majesty now reigning did not find all the Princes and States of the world to be of the same mind when he was out of his Kingdom and could oblige no man but himself and a few followers by any Treaty he could make For the same reason the names of Kings are used in Treaties when they are either Children or otherwise uncapable of knowing what Alliances are fit to be made or rejected and yet such Treaties do equally oblige them their successors and people as if they were of mature age and fit for government No man therefore ought to think it strange if the King's name be used in domestick affairs of which he neither ought nor can take any cognizance In these cases he is perpetually a Minor He must suffer the Law to take its due course and the Judges tho nominated by him are obliged by Oath not to have any regard to his Letters or personal Commands If a man be sued he must appear and a Deliquent is to be tried coram rege but no otherwise than secundum legem terrae according to the Law of the Land not his personal will or opinion And the judgments given must be executed whether they please him or not it being always understood that he can speak no otherwise than the Law speaks and is always present as far as the Law requires For this reason a noble Lord who was irregularly detain'd in prison in 1681 being by Habeas Corpus brought to the Bar of the King's Bench where he sued to be releas'd upon bail and an ignorant Judg telling him he must apply himself to the King he replied that he came thither for that end that the King might eat drink or sleep where he pleased but when he render'd Justice he was always in that place The King that renders Justice is indeed always there He never sleeps he is subject to no infirmity he never dies unless the Nation be extinguished or so dissipated as to have no Government No Nation that has a sovereign Power within it self dos ever want this King He was in Athens and Rome as well as at Babylon and Sufa and is as properly said to be now in Venice Switserland or Holland as in France Morocco or Turky This is he to whom we all owe a simple and unconditional obedience
wicked King says that he did Saevitiam ignaviae obtendere and we do not more certainly find that Cowards are the cruellest of men than that wickedness makes them Cowards that every man's fears bear a proportion with his guilt and with the number virtue and strength of those he has offended He who usurps a Power over all or abuses a Trust reposed in him by all in the highest measure offends all he fears and hates those he has offended and to secure himself aggravates the former Injuries When these are publick they beget a universal Hatred and every man desires to extinguish a Mischief that threatens ruin to all This will always be terrible to one that knows he has deserved it and when those he dreads are the body of the People nothing but a publick destruction can satisfy his rage and appease his fears I wish I could agree with Filmer in exempting multitudes from fears for they having seldom committed any injustice unless through fear would as far as human fragility permits be free from it Tho the Attick Ostracism was not an extreme Punishment I know nothing usually practised in any Commonwealth that did so much savour of injustice but it proceeded solely from a fear that one man tho in appearance virtuous when he came to be raised too much above his fellow Citizens might be tempted to invade the publick Liberty We do not find that the Athenians or any other free Cities ever injur'd any man unless through such a jealousy or the perjury of Witnesses by which the best Tribunals that ever were or can be establish'd in the world may be misled and no injustice could be apprehended from any if they did not fall into such fears But tho Multitudes may have fears as well as Tyrants the Causes and Effects of them are very different A People in relation to domestick Affairs can desire nothing but Liberty and neither hate or fear any but such as do or would as they suspect deprive them of that Happiness Their endeavours to secure that seldom hurt any except such as invade their Rights and if they err the mistake is for the most part discovered before it produce any mischief and the greatest that ever came that way was the death of one or a few men Their Hatred and desire of Revenge can go no farther than the sense of the Injury received or feared and is extinguished by the death or banishment of the Persons as may be gathered from the examples of the Tarquins Decemviri Cassius Melius and Manlius Capitolinus He therefore that would know whether the hatred and fear of a Tyrant or of a People produces the greater mischiefs needs only to consider whether it be better that the Tyrant destroy the People or that the People destroy the Tyrant or at the worst whether one that is suspected of affecting the Tyranny should perish or a whole People amongst whom very many are certainly innocent and experience shows that such are always first sought out to be destroy'd for being so Popular furies or fears how irregular or unjust soever they may be can extend no farther general Calamities can only be brought upon a People by those who are enemies to the whole Body which can never be the Multitude for they are that body In all other respects the fears that render a Tyrant cruel render a People gentle and cautious for every single man knowing himself to be of little power not only fears to do injustice because it may be revenged upon his Person by him or his Friends Kindred and Relations that suffers it but because it tends to the overthrow of the Government which comprehends all publick and private Concernments and which every man knows cannot subsist unless it be so easy and gentle as to be pleasing to those who are the best and have the greatest power and as the publick Considerations divert them from doing those Injuries that may bring immediate prejudice to the Publick so there are strict Laws to restrain all such as would do private Injuries If neither the People nor the Magistrates of Venice Switzerland and Holland commit such extravagances as are usual in other places it dos not perhaps proceed from the temper of those Nations different from others but from a knowledg that whosoever offers an injury to a private person or attemps a publick mischief is exposed to the impartial and inexorable Power of the Law whereas the chief work of an absolute Monarch is to place himself above the Law and thereby rendring himself the Author of all the evils that the People suffer 't is absurd to expect that he should remove them SECT XXX A Monarchy cannot be well regulated unless the Powers of the Monarch are limited by Law OUr Author's next step is not only to reject Popular Governments but all such Monarchies as are not absolute for if the King says he admits the People to be his Companions he leaves to be a King This is the language of French Lackeys Valet de Chambre's Taylors and others like them in Wisdom Learning and Policy who when they fly to England for sear of a well-deserved Gally Gibet or Wheel are ready to say Il faut que le Roy soit absolu autrement il n'est point Roy. And finding no better men to agree with Filmer in this sublime Philosophy I may be pardoned if I do not follow them till I am convinced in these ensuing points 1. It seems absurd to speak of Kings admitting the Nobility or People to part of the Government for tho there may be and are Nations without Kings yet no man can conceive a King without a People These must necessarily have all the power originally in themselves and tho Kings may and often have a power of granting Honors Immunities and Privileges to private Men or Corporations he dos it only out of the publick Stock which he is entrusted to distribute but can give nothing to the people who give to him all that he can rightly have 2. 'T is strange that he who frequently cites Aristotle and Plato should unluckily acknowledg such only to be Kings as they call Tyrants and deny the name of King to those who in their opinion are the only Kings 3. I cannot understand why the Scripture should call those Kings whose Powers were limited if they only are Kings who are absolute or why Moses did appoint that the power of Kings in Israel should be limited if they resolved to have them if that limitation destroy'd the being of a King 4. Nor lastly how he knows that in the Kingdoms which have a shew of Popularity the Power is wholly in the King The first point was proved when we examined the beginning of Monarchies and found it impossible that there could be any thing of justice in them unless they were established by the common consent of those who were to live under them or that they could make any such establishment unless the right and power
he attempt it they shall hinder him This was the Law of God not to be abrogated by man a Law of Liberty directly opposite to the necessity of submitting to the will of a man This was a Gift bestowed by God upon his Children and People whereas slavery was a great part of the Curse denounced against Cham for his wickedness and perpetually incumbent upon his Posterity The great Sanhedrin were constituted Judges as Grotius says most particularly of such matters as concern'd their Kings and Maimonides affirms that the Kings were judged by them The distribution of the power to the inferior Sanhedrins in every Tribe and City with the right of calling the People together in general Assemblies as often as occasion required were the foundations of their Liberty and being added to the Law of the Kingdom prescribed in the 17 th of Deuteronomy if they should think fit to have a King established the Freedom of that People upon a solid foundation And tho they in their fury did in a great measure wave the benefits God had bestowed upon them yet there was enough left to restrain the Lusts of their Kings Ahab did not treat with Naboth as with a Servant whose Person and Estate depended upon his Will and dos not seem to have bin so tender-hearted to grieve much for his refusal if by virtue of his royal Authority he could have taken away his Vineyard and his Life But that failing he had no other way of accomplishing his design than by the fraud of his accursed Wife and the perfidious wretches she employed And no better proof that it did fail can reasonably be required than that he was obliged to have recourse to such fordid odious and dangerous Remedies but we are furnished with one that is more unquestionable Hast thou killed and also taken possession In the place where Dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall they lick thy Blood even thine This shews that the Kings were not only under a Law but under a Law of equality with the rest of the People even that of Retaliation He had raised his heart above his Brethren but God brought him down and made him to suffer what he had done he was in all respects wicked but the justice of this sentence consisted in the Law he had broken which could not have bin if he had bin subject to none But as this Retaliation was the sum of all the Judicial Law given by God to his People the Sentence pronounced against Ahab in conformity to it and the execution committed to Jehu shews that the Kings were no less obliged to perform the Law than other men tho they were not so easily punished for transgressing it as others were and if many of them did escape it perfectly agrees with what had bin foretold by Samuel SECT III. Samuel did not describe to the Israelites the glory of a free Monarchy but the Evils the People should suffer that he might divert them from desiring a King THO no restraint had bin put upon the Lusts of the Hebrew Kings it could be no prejudice to any other Nation They deflected from the Law of God and rejecting him that he should reign over them no longer they fell into that misery which could affect none but those who enjoy the same Blessings and with the same fury despise them If their Kings had more Power than consisted with their welfare they gave it and God renounces the institution of such He gave them a Law of Liberty and if they fell into the shame and misery that accompanies slavery it was their own work They were not obliged to have any King and could not without a crime have any but one who must not raise his heart above the rest of them This was taught by Moses And Samuel who spoke by the same Spirit could not contradict him and in telling the people what such a King as they desired would do when he should be established he did announce to them the misery they would bring upon themselves by chusing such a one as he had forbidden This free Monarchy which our Author thinks to be so majestically described was not only displeasing to the Prophet but declared by God to be a rejection of him and inconsistent with his reign over them This might have bin sufficient to divert any other people from their furious resolution but the Prophet farther enforcing his disswasion told them that God who had in all other cases bin their helper would not hear them when they should cry to him by reason of their King This is the majestick description of that free Monarchy with which our Author is so much pleased It was displeasing to the Prophet hateful to God an aggravation of all the crimes they had committed since they came out of Egypt and that which would bring as it did most certain and irreparable destruction upon themselves But it seems the Regal Majesty in that Age was in its infancy and little in comparison of that which we find described by Tacitus Suetonius and others in later times He shall take your Sons says Samuel and set them over his Chariots and your Daughters to make them Confectioners and Cooks but the Majesty of the Roman Emperors was carried to a higher pitch of Glory Ahab could not without employing treachery and fraud get a small spot of ground for his mony to make a Garden of Herbs But Tiberius Caligula and Nero killed whom they pleased and took what they pleased of their Estates When they had satiated their cruelty and avarice by the murders and confications of the most eminent and best men they commonly exposed their Children to the Lust of their Slaves If the power of doing evil be glorious the utmost excess is its perfection and 't is pity that Samuel knew no more of the effects produced by unrestrained Lust that he might have made the description yet more majestick and as nothing can be suffer'd by man beyond constupration torments and death instead of such trifles as he mention'd he might have shew'd them the effects of Fury in its greatest exaltation If it be good for a Nation to live under such a Power why did not God of his own goodness institute it Did his Wisdom and Love to his People fail Or if he himself had not set up the best Government over them could he be displeased with them for asking it Did he separate that Nation from the rest of Mankind to make their condition worse than that of others Or can they be said to have sinned and rejected God when they desir'd nothing but the Government which by a perpetual Ordinance he had established over all the Nations of the World Is not the Law of Nature a Rule which he has given to things and the Law of man's Nature which is Reason an emanation of the divine Wisdom or some footsteps of divine Light remaining in us Is it possible that this which is from God can be contrary to his
to them On the other hand the poverty and simplicity of the Spartan Kings was no less safe and profitable to the People than truly glorious to them Agesilaus denied that Artaxerxes was greater than he unless he were more temperate or more valiant and he made good his words so well that without any other assistance than what his Wisdom and Valour did afford he struck such a terror into that great rich powerful and absolute Monarch that he did not think himself safe in Babylon or Ecbatane till the poor Spartan was by a Captain of as great valour and greater poverty obliged to return from Asia to the defence of his own Country This was not peculiar to the severe Laconic Discipline When the Roman Kings were expelled a few Carts were prepared to transport their goods and their Lands which were consecrated to Mars and now go under the name of Campus Martius hardly contain ten Acres of ground Nay the Kings of Israel who led such vast Armies into the field that is were followed by all the people who were able to bear Arms seem to have possessed little Ahab one of the most powerful was so fond of Naboth's Vineyard which being the Inheritance of his Fathers according to their equal division of Lands could not be above two Acres that he grew sick when it was refused But if an allowance be to be made to every King it must be either according to a universal Rule or Standard or must depend upon the Judgment of Nations If the first they who have it may do well to produce it if the other every Nation proceeding according to the measure of their own discretion is free from blame It may also be worth observation whether the Revenue given to a King be in such manner committed to his care that he is obliged to employ it for the publick Service without the power of Alienation or whether it be granted as a Propriety to be spent as he thinks fit When some of the antient Jews and Christians scrupled the paiment of Tribute to the Emperors the reasons alledged to perswade them to a compliance seem to be grounded upon a supposition of the first for said they the defence of the State lies upon them which cannot be perform'd without Armies and Garisons these cannot be maintained without pay nor mony raised to pay them without Tributes and Customs This carries a face of reason with it especially in those Countries which are perpetually or frequently subject to Invasions but this will not content our Author He speaks of employing the revenue in keeping his House and looks upon it as a propriety to be spent as he thinks convenient which is no less than to cast it into a Pit of which no man ever knew the bottom That which is given one day is squandred away the next The people is always oppress'd with Impositions to foment the Vices of the Court These daily increasing they grow insatiable and the miserable Nations are compelled to hard labour in order to satiate those Lusts that tend to their own ruin It may be consider'd that the virtuous Pagans by the light of Nature discovered the truth of this Poverty grew odious in Rome when great men by desiring Riches put a value upon them and introduced that pomp and luxury which could not be born by men of small Fortunes From thence all furies and mischiefs seem'd to break loose The base slavish and so often subdued Asia by the basest of men revenged the defeats they had received from the bravest and by infusing into them a delight in pomp and luxury in a short time rendred the strongest and bravest of Nations the weakest and basest I wish our own experience did not too plainly manifest that these Evils were never more prevalent than in our days when the luxury majestick pomp and absolute power of a neighbouring King must be supported by an abundance of Riches torn out of the bowels of his Subjects which renders them in the best Country of the World and at a time when the Crown most flourishes the poorest and most miserable of all the Nations under the Sun We too well know who are most apt to learn from them and by what means and steps they endeavour to lead us into the like misery But the Bird is safe when the Snare is discover'd and if we are not abandoned by God to destruction we shall never be brought to consent to the settling of that Pomp which is against the practice of all virtuous people and has brought all the Nations that have bin taken with it into the ruin that is intended for us S E C T. VII When the Israelites asked for such a King as the Nations about them had they asked for a Tyrant tho they did not call him so NOW that Saul was no Tyrant says our Author note that the people asked a King as all Nations had God answers and bids Samuel to hear the voice of the People in all things which they spake and appoint them a King They did not ask a Tyrant and to give them a Tyrant when they asked a King had not bin to hear their voice in all things but rather when they asked an Egg to have given them a Scorpion unless we will say that all Nations had Tyrants But before he drew such a Conclusion he should have observed that God did not give them a Scorpion when they asked an Egg but told them that was a Scorpion which they called an Egg They would have a King to judg them to go out before them and to fight their Battels but God in effect told them he would overthrow all Justice and turn the Power that was given him to the ruin of them and their Posterity But since they would have it so he commanded Samuel to hearken to their Voice and for the punishment of their sin and folly to give them such a King as they asked that is one who would turn to his own profit and their misery the Power with which he should be entrusted and this truly denominates a Tyrant Aristotle makes no other distinction between a King and a Tyrant than that the King governs for the good of the People the Tyrant for his own pleasure or profit and they who asked such a one asked a Tyrant tho they called him a King This is all could be done in their Language for as they who are skilled in the Oriental Tongues assure me there is no name for a Tyrant in any of them or any other way of expressing the thing than by circumlocution and adding proud insolent lustful cruel violent or the like Epithets to the word Lord or King They did in effect ask a Tyrant They would not have such a King as God had ordain'd but such a one as the Nations had Not that all Nations had Tyrants but those who were round about them of whom they had knowledg and which in their manner of speaking went under the name
upon him that doth evil He therefore is only the Minister of God who is not a terror to good works but to evil who executes wrath upon those that do evil and is a praise to those that do well And he who doth well ought not to be afraid of the power for he shall receive praise Now if our Author were alive tho he was a man of a hard forehead I would ask him whether in his Conscience he believed that Tiberius Caligula Claudius Nero and the rabble of succeeding Monsters were a praise to those who did well and a terror to those who did ill and not the contrary a praise to the worst and a terror to the best men of the world or for what reason Tacitus could say that virtue brought men who lived under them to certain destruction and recite so many Examples of the brave and good who were murder'd by them for being so unless they had endeavour'd to extinguish all that was good and to tear up virtue by the roots Why did he call Domitian an Enemy to virtue if he was a terror only to those that did evil If the world has hitherto bin misled in these things and given the name of Virtue to Vice and of Vice to Virtue then Germanicus Valerius Asiaticus Corbulo Helvidius Priscus Thraseas Soranus and others that resembled them who fell under the rage of those Beasts nay Paul himself and his Disciples were evil doers and Macro Narcissus Pallas Vinnius Laco and Tigellinus were virtuous and good men If this be so we are beholden to Filmer for admonishing mankind of the error in which they had so long continued If not those who persecuted and murder'd them for their Virtues were not a terror to such as did evil and a praise to those who did well The worst men had no need to fear them but the best had because they were the best All Princes therefore that have power are not to be esteemed equally the Ministers of God They that are so must receive their dignity from a title that is not common to all even from a just emploiment of their power to the incouragement of Virtue and to the discouragement of Vice He that pretends to the veneration and obedience due to the Ministers of God must by his actions manifest that he is so And tho I am unwilling to advance a proposition that may sound harshly to tender ears I am inclined to believe that the same rule which obliges us to yield obedience to the good Magistrate who is the Minister of God and assures us that in obeying him we obey God dos equally oblige us not to obey those who make themselves the Ministers of the Devil lest in obeying them we obey the Devil whose works they do That none but such as are wilfully ignorant may mistake Pauls meaning Peter who was directed by the same Spirit says distinctly Submit your selves to every Ordinance of man for the Lord's sake If therefore there be several Ordinances of men tending to the same end that is the obtaining of justice by being a terror to the evil and a praise to the good the like obedience is for conscience sake enjoined to all and upon the same condition But as no man dares to say that Athens and Persia Carthage and Egypt Switzerland and France Venice and Turky were and are under the same Government the same obedience is due to the Magistrate in every one of those places and all others on the same account whilst they continue to be the Ministers of God If our Author say that Peter cannot comprehend Kings under the name of human Ordinances since Paul says they are the Ordinance of God I may as well say that Paul cannot call that the Ordinance of God which Peter calls the ordinance of man But as it was said of Moses and Samuel that they who spoke by the same Spirit could not contradict each other Peter and Paul being full of Wisdom and Sanctity and inspir'd by the same Spirit must needs say the same thing and Grotius shews that they perfectly agree tho the one calls Kings Rulers and Governors the Ordinance of Man and the other the Ordinance of God inasmuch as God having from the beginning ordained that men should not live like Wolves in woods every man by himself but together in Civil Societies left to every one a liberty of joyning with that Society which best pleas'd him and to every Society to create such Magistrates and frame such Laws as should seem most conducing to their own good according to the measure of light and reason they might have And every Magistracy so inflituted might rightly be called the Ordinance of man who was the Instituter and the Ordinance of God according to which it was instituted because says he God approved and ratified the salutary Constitutions of Government made by men But says our Author Peter expounds his own words of the human Ordinance to be the King who is the Lex loguens but he says no such thing and I do not find that any such thought ever enter'd into the Apostle's mind The words are often found in the works of Plato and Aristotle but applied only to such a man as is a King by nature who is endow'd with all the virtues that tend to the good of human Societies in a greater measure than any or all those that compose them which Character I think will be ill applied to all Kings And that this may appear to be true I desire to know whether it would well have agreed with Nero Caligula Domitian or others like to them and if not with them then not with all but only with those who are endow'd with such Virtues But if the King be made by man he must be such as man makes him to be and if the power of a Law had bin given by any human Sanction to the word of a foolish mad or wicked man which I hardly believe it would be destroy'd by its own iniquity and turpitude and the People left under the obligation of rendring obedience to those who so use the Sword that the Nations under them may live soberly peaceably and honestly This obliges me a little to examin what is meant by the Sword The Pope says there are two Swords the one temporal the other spiritual and that both of them were given to Peter and to his Successors Others more rightly understand the two Swords to be that of War and that of Justice which according to several Constitutions of Governments have bin committed to several hands under several conditions and limitations The Sword of Justice comprehends the legislative and the executive Power the one is exercised in making Laws the other in judging Controversies according to such as are made The military Sword is used by those Magistrates who have it in making War or Peace with whom they think fit and sometimes by others who have it not in pursuing such Wars as are
a Commonwealths-man as Cato but the washed Swine will return to the Mire He overthrows all by a preposterous conjunction of the rights os Kings which are just and by Law with those of Tyrants which are utterly against Law and gives the sacred and gentle name os Father to those Beasts who by their actions declare themselves enemies not only to all Law and Justice but to Mankind that cannot subsist without them This requires no other proof than to examine whether Attila or Tamerlan did well deserve to be called Fathers of the Countries they destroy'd The first of these was usually called the scourge of God and he gloried in the Name The other being reproved for the detestable cruelties he exercised made answer You speak to me as to a man I am not a man but the scourge of God and plague of Mankind This is certainly sweet and gentle Language savouring much of a fatherly tenderness There is no doubt that those who use it will provide for the safety of the Nations under them and the preservation of the Laws of Nature is rightly referred to them and 't is very probable that they who came to burn the Countries and destroy the Nations that fell under their power should make it their business to preserve them and look upon the former Governors as their Fathers whose acts they were obliged to confirm tho they seldom attained to the Dominion by any other means than the slaughter of them and their Families But if the enmity be not against the Nation and the cause of the war be only for Dominion against the ruling Person or Family as that of Baasha against the house of Jeroboam of Zimri against that of Baasha of Omri against Zimri and of Jehu against Joram the prosecution of it is a strange way of becoming the Son of the Person destroyed And Filmer alone is subtil enough to discover that Jehu by extinguishing the house of Ahab drew an obligation upon himself of looking on him as his Father and confirming his acts If this be true Moses was obliged to confirm the acts of the Kings of the Amalekites Moabites and Amorites that he destroy'd the same duty lay upon Joshua in relation to the Cananites but 't is not so easily decided to which of them he did owe that deference for the same could not be due to all and 't is hard to believe that by killing above thirty Kings he should purchase to himself so many Fathers and the like may be said of divers others Moreover there is a sort of Tyrant who has no Father as Agathocles Dionysius Cesar and generally all those who subvert the Liberties of their own Countrey And if they stood obliged to look upon the former Magistrates as their Predecessors and to confirm their Acts the first should have bin to give impunity and reward to any that would kill them it having bin a fundamental Maxim in those States That any man might kill a Tyrant This being in all respects ridiculous and absurd 't is evident that our Author who by proposing such a false security to Nations for their Liberties endeavours to betray them is not less treacherous to Kings when under a pretence of defending their rights he makes them to be the same with those of Tyrants who are known to have none and are Tyrants because they have none and gives no other hopes to Nations of being preserved by the Kings they set up for that end than what upon the same account may be expected from Tyrants whom all wise men have ever abhorr'd and affirmed to have bin produced to bring destruction upon the World and whose Lives have verifi'd the Sentence This is truly to depose and abolish Kings by abolishing that by which and for which they are so The greatness of their Power Riches State and the pleasures that accompany them cannot but create enemies Some will envy that which is accounted Happiness others may dislike the use they make of their Power some may be unjustly exasperated by the best of their Actions when they find themselves incommoded by them others may be too severe judges of slight miscarriages These things may reasonably temper the joys of those who delight most in the advantages of Crowns But the worst and most dangerous of all their enemies are these accursed Sycophants who by making those that ought to be the best of men like to the worst destroy their Being and by perswading the world they aim at the same things and are bound to no other rule than is common to all Tyrants give a fair pretence to ill men to say They are all of one kind And if this should be received for truth even they who think the miscarriages of their Governors may be easily redressed and desire no more would be the most fierce in procuring the destruction of that which is naught in Principle and cannot be corrected SECT XVII Kings cannot be the Interpreters of the Oaths they take OUR Author's Book is so full of absurdities and contradictions that it would be a rope of Sand if a continued series of frauds did not like a string of Poisons running through the whole give it some consistence with it self and shew it to be the work of one and the same hand After having endeavoured to subvert the Laws of God Nature and Nations most especially our own by abusing the Scriptures falsly alledging the Authority of many good Writers and seeking to obtrude upon Mankind a universal Law that would take from every Nation the right of constituting such Governments within themselves as seem most convenient for them and giving rules for the administration of such as they had established he gives us a full view of his Religion and Morals by destroying the force of the Oath taken by our Kings at their Coronation Others says he affirm that although Laws of themselves do not bind Kings yet the Oaths of Kings at their Coronation tie them to keep all the Laws of their Kingdoms How far this is true let us but examine the Oath of the Kings of England at their Coronation the words whereof are these Art thou pleased to cause to be administred in all thy judgments indifferent and upright Justice and to use discretion with Mercy and Verity Art thou pleased that our upright Laws and Customs be observed and dost thou promise that those shall be protected and maintained by thee c. To which the King answers in the Affirmative being first demanded by the Archbishop of Canterbury Pleaseth it you to confirm and observe the Laws and Customs of the antient times granted from God by just and devout Kings unto the English Nation by Oath unto the said People especially the Laws Liberties and Customs granted unto the Clergy and Laity by the famous King Edward From this he infers That the King is not to observe all Laws but such as are upright because he finds evil Laws mention'd in the Oath of Richard the
2d which he swears to abolish Now what Laws are upright and what evil who shall judg but the King c. So that in effect the King doth swear to keep no Laws but such as in his judgment are upright c. And if he did strictly swear to observe all Laws he could not without Perjury give his consent to the repealing or abrogating of any Statute by Act of Parliament c. And again But let it be supposed for Truth that Kings do swear to observe all Laws of their Kingdoms yet no man can think it reason that the Kings should be more bound by their voluntary Oaths than common Persons Now if a private Person make a Contract either with Oath or without Oath he is no farther bound than the equity and justice of the Contract ties him for a man may have relief against an unreasonable and unjust Promise if either deceit or error force or fear induced him thereunto or if it be hurtful or grievous in the performance since the Law in many cases gives the King a Prerogative above common persons Lest I should be thought to insist upon small advantages I will not oblige any man to shew where Filmer found this Oath nor observe the faults committed in the Translation but notwithstanding his false representation I find enough for my purpose and intend to take it in his own words But first I shall take leave to remark that those who for private interests addict themselves to the personal service of Princes tho the ruin of their Country find it impossible to perswade Mankind that Kings may govern as they please when all men know there are Laws to direct and restrain them unless they can make men believe they have their power from a universal and superior Law or that Princes can attempt to dissolve the obligations laid upon them by the Laws which they so solemnly swear to observe without rendring themselves detestable to God and Man and subject to the revenging hands of both unless they can invalidate those Oaths Mr. Hobbes I think was the first who very ingeniously contrived a compendious way of justifying the most abominable Perjuries and all the mischiefs ensuing thereupon by pretending that as the King's Oath is made to the People the People may absolve him from the obligation and that the People having conferred upon him all the Power they had he can do all that they could he can therefore absolve himself and is actually free since he is so when he pleases This is only false in the minor for the People not having conferred upon him all but only a part of their Power that of absolving him remains in themselves otherwise they would never have obliged him to take the Oath He cannot therefore absolve himself The Pope finds a help for this and as Christ's Vicar pretends the power of Absolution to be in him and exercised it in absolving King John But our Author despairing to impose either of these upon our Age and Nation with more impudence and less wit would enervate all Coronation-Oaths by subjecting them to the discretion of the taker whereas all men have hitherto thought their force to consist in the declared sense of those who give them This doctrine is so new that it surpasses the subtilty of the Schoolmen who as an ingenious Person said of them had minced Oaths so fine that a million of them as well as Angels may stand upon the point of a needle and were never yet equalled but by the Jesuits who have overthrown them by mental reservations which is so clearly demonstrated from their books that it cannot be denied but so horrible that even those of their own Order who have the least spark of common honesty condemn the practice And one of them being a Gentleman of a good family told me he would go the next day and take all the Oaths that should be offer'd if he could satisfy his conscience in using any manner of equivocation or mental reservation or that he might put any other sense upon them than he knew to be intended by those who offer'd them And if our Author's conscience were not more corrupted than that of the Jesuit who had lived fifty years under the worst Discipline that I think ever was in the world I would ask him seriously if he truly believe that the Nobility Clergy and Commonalty of England who have bin always so zealous for their antient Laws and so resolute in defending them did mean no more by the Oaths they so solemnly imposed and upon which they laid so much weight than that the King should swear to keep them so far only as he should think fit But he swears only to observe those that are upright c. How can that be understood otherwise than that those who give the Oath do declare their Laws and Customs to be upright and good and he by taking the Oath affirms them to be so Or how can they be more precisely specified than by the ensuing Clause Granted from God by just and devout Kings by Oath especially those of the famous King Edward But says he by the same Oath Richard the 2d was bound to abolish those that were evil If any such had crept in through error or bin obtruded by malice the evil being discovered and declared by the Nobility and Commons who were concerned he was not to take advantage of them or by his refusal to evade the abolition but to join with his people in annulling them according to the general Clause of assenting to those Quas vulgus elegerit Magna Charta being only an abridgment of our antient Laws and Customs the King that swears to it swears to them all and not being admitted to be the interpreter of it or to determin what is good or evil fit to be observed or annulled in it can have no more power over the rest This having bin confirmed by more Parliaments than we have had Kings since that time the same obligation must still lie upon them all as upon John and Henry in whose time that claim of right was compiled The Act was no less solemn than important and the most dreadful curses that could be conceived in words which were denounced against such as should any way infringe it by the Clergy in Westminster-Hall in the presence and with the assent of K. Henry the 3d many of the principal Nobility and all the Estates of the Kingdom shew whether it was referred to the King's Judgment or not when 't is evident they feared the violation from no other than himself and such as he should employ I confess the Church as they then called the Clergy was fallen into such corruption that their Arms were not much to be feared by one who had his conscience clear but that could not be in the case of perjury and our Ancestors could do no better than to employ the spiritual sword reserving to themselves the use of the other in case that should be
sense of the words as they are understood in our Language by those who give them and conducing to the ends for which they are given which can be no other than to defend us from all manner of arbitrary Power and to fix a rule to which we are to conform our Actions and from which according to our deserts we may expect reward or punishment And those who by prevarications cavils or equivocations endeavour to dissolve these Obligations do either maliciously betray the cause of Kings by representing them to the world as men who prefer the Satisfaction of their irregular Appetites before the performance of their duty and trample under foot the most sacred bonds of human Society or from the grossest ignorance do not see that by teaching Nations how little they can rely upon the Oaths of their Princes they instruct them as little to observe their own and that not only because men are generally inclined to follow the examples of those in power but from a most certain conclusion that he who breaks his part of a Contract cannot without the utmost impudence and folly expect the performance of the other nothing being more known amongst men than that all Contracts are of such mutual obligation that he who fails of his part discharges the other If this be so between man and man it must needs be so between one and many millions of men If he were free because he says he is every man must be free also when he pleases if a private man who receives no benefit or perhaps prejudice from a Contract be obliged to perform the conditions much more are Kings who receive the greatest advantages the world can give As they are not by themselves nor for themselves so they are not different in specie from other men they are born live and die as we all do The same Law of Truth and Justice is given to all by God and Nature and perhaps I may say the performance of it is most rigorously exacted from the greatest of men The liberty of Perjury cannot be a privilege annexed to Crowns and 't is absurd to think that the most venerable Authority that can be conferred upon a man is increased by a liberty-to commit or impunity in committing such crimes as are the greatest aggravations of infamy to the basest villains in the world SECT XVIII The next in blood to deceased Kings cannot generally be said to be Kings till they are crowned 'T IS hereupon usually objected that Kings do not come in by Contract nor by Oath but are Kings by or according to proximity of Blood before they are crowned Tho this be a bold Proposition I will not say 't is universally false 'T is possible that in some places the rule of Succession may be set down so precisely that in some cases every man may be able to see and know the sense as well as the Person designed to be the Successor but before I acknowledg it to be universally true I must desire to know what this rule of Succession is and from whence it draws its original I think I may be excused if I make these scruples because I find the thing in dispute to be variously adjudged in several places and have observed five different manners of disposing Crowns esteemed Hereditary besides an infinite number of collateral Controversies arising from them of which we have divers examples and if there be one universal rule appointed one of these only can be right and all the others must be vicious The first gives the inheritance to the eldest Male of the eldest legitimate Line as in France according to that which they call the Salique Law The second to the eldest legitimate Male of the reigning Family as antiently in Spain according to which the Brother of the deceased King has bin often if not always preferr'd before the Son if he were elder as may appear by the dispute between Corbis and Orsua cited before from Titus Livius and in the same Country during the reign of the Goths the eldest Male succeeded whether Legitimate or Illegitimate The fourth receives Females or their Descendents without any other condition distinguishing them from Males except that the younger Brother is preferr'd before the elder Sister but the daughter of the elder Brother is preferr'd before the Son of the younger The fifth gives the Inheritance to Females under a condition as in Sweden where they inherit unless they marry out of the Country without the consent of the Estates according to which rule Charles Gustavus was chosen as any Stranger might have bin tho Son to a Sister of Gustavus Adolphus who by marrying a German Prince had forfeited her right And by the same act of Estates by which her eldest Son was chosen and the Crown entailed upon the Heirs of his Body her second Son the Prince Adolphus was wholly excluded Till these questions are decided by a Judg of such an undoubted Authority that all men may safely submit 't is hard for any man who really seeks the satisfaction of his Conscience to know whether the Law of God and Nature tho he should believe there is one general Law do justify the Customs of the antient Medes and Sabeans mentioned by the Poet who admitted Females or those of France which totally exclude them as unfit to reign over men and utterly unable to perform the duty of a supreme Magistrate as we see they are every where excluded from the exercise of all other Offices in the Commonwealth If it be said that we ought to follow the Customs of our own Country I answer that those of our own Country deserve to be observed because they are of our own Country But they are no more to be called the Laws of God and Nature than those of France or Germany and tho I do not believe that any general Law is appointed I wish I were sure that our Customs in this point were not more repugnant to the light of Nature and prejudicial to our selves than those of some other Nations But if I should be so much an Englishman to think the will of God to have bin more particularly revealed to our Ancestors than to any other Nation and that all of them ought to learn from us yet it would be difficult to decide many questions that may arise For tho the Parliament in the 36th of Henry the sixth made an Act in favour of Richard Duke of York descended from a Daughter of Mortimer who married the Daughter of the Duke of Clarence elder Brother to John of Gaunt they rather asserted their own power of giving the Crown to whom they pleased than determined the question For if they had believed that the Crown had belonged to him by a general and eternal Law they must immediately have rejected Henry as a Usurper and put Richard into the possession of his Right which they did not And tho they did something like to this in the cases of Maud the Empress in relation
may be alledged From which we may safely conclude that if the death of one King do really invest the next Heir with the Right and Power or that he who is so invested be subject to no Law but his own Will all matters relating to that Kingdom must have bin horribly confused during the reigns of 22 Kings of Pharamonds race they can have had no rightful King from the death of Chilperic to King John and the Succession since that time is very liable to be questioned if not utterly overthrown by the house of Austria and others who by the Counts of Hapsburg derive their Descent from Pharamond and by the house of Lorrain claiming from Charles who was excluded by Capet all which is most absurd and they who pretend it bring as much confusion into their own Laws and upon the Polity of their own Nation as shame and guilt upon the memory of their Ancestors who by the most extreme injustice have rejected their natural Lord or dispossessed those who had bin in the most solemn manner placed in the Government and to whom they had generally sworn Allegiance 3. If the next Heir be actually King seized of the power by the death of his Predecessor so that there is no intermission then all the Solemnities and religious Ceremonies used at the Coronations of their Kings with the Oaths given and taken are the most profane abuses of sacred things in contempt of God and Man that can be imagined most especially if the Act be as our Author calls it voluntary and the King receiving nothing by it be bound to keep it no longer than he pleases The Prince who is to be sworn might spare the pains of watching all night in the Church fasting praying confessing communicating and swearing that he will to the utmost of his power defend the Clergy maintain the union of the Church obviate all excess rapine extortion and iniquity take care that in all judgments Justice may be observed with Equity and Mercy c. or of invoking the assistance of the Holy Ghost for the better performance of his Oath and without ceremony tell the Nobility and People that he would do what he thought fit 'T were to as little purpose for the Archbishop of Rheims to take the trouble of saying Mass delivering to him the Crown Scepter and other ensigns of Royalty explaining what is signified by them anointing him with the Oil which they say was deliver'd by an Angel to St. Remigius blessing him and praying to God to bless him if he rightly performed his Oath to God and the People and denouncing the contrary in case of failure on his part if these things conferred nothing upon him but what he had before and were of no obligation to him Such ludifications of the most sacred things are too odious and impious to be imputed to Nations that have any virtue or profess Christianity This cannot fall upon the French and Spaniards who had certainly a great zeal to Religion whatever it was and were so eminent for moral Virtues as to be a reproach to us who live in an Age of more Knowledg But their meaning is so well declared by their most solemn Acts that none but those who are wilfully ignorant can mistake One of the Councils held at Toledo declared by the Clergy Nobility and others assisting That no man should be placed in the Royal Seat till he had sworn to preserve the Church c. Another held in the same place signified to Sisinandus who was then newly crown'd That if he or any of his Successors should contrary to their Oaths and the Laws of their Country proudly and cruelly presume to exercise Domination over them he should be excommunicated and separated from Christ and them to eternal judgment The French Laws and their best Writers asserting the same things are confirmed by perpetual practice Henry of Navarr tho certainly according to their Rules and in their esteem a most accomplish'd Prince was by two General Assemblies of the Estates held at Blois deprived of the Succession for being a Protestant and notwithstanding the greatness of his Reputation Valour Victories and Affability could never be admitted till he had made himself capable of the ceremonies of his Coronation by conforming to the Religion which by the Oath he was to defend Nay this present King tho haughty enough by nature and elevated by many successes has acknowledged as he says with joy that he can do nothing contrary to Law and calls it a happy impotence in pursuance of which he has annulled many Acts of his Father and Grandfather alienating the demeasnes of the Crown as things contrary to Law and not within their power These things being confirmed by all the good Authors of that Nation Filmer finds only the worst to be fit for his turn and neither minding Law nor History takes his Maxims from a vile flattering discourse of Bellay calculated for the personal interest of Henry the fourth then King of Navarr in which he says That the Heir apparent tho furious mad a fool vicious and in all respects abominably wicked must be admitted to the Crown But Bellay was so far from attaining the ends designed by his Book that by such Doctrines which filled all men with horror he brought great prejudice to his Master and procured little favour from Henry who desired rather to recommend himself to his People as the best man they could set up than to impose a necessity upon them of taking him if he had bin the worst But our Author not contented with what this Sycophant says in relation to such Princes as are placed in the Government by a Law establishing the Succession by inheritance with an impudence peculiar to himself asserts the same right to be in any man who by any means gets into Power and imposes the same necessity of obedience upon the Subject where there is no Law as Bellay dos by virtue of one that is established 4. In the last place As Bellay acknowledges that the right belongs to Princes only where 't is established by Law I deny that there is was or ever can be any such No People is known to have bin so mad or wicked as by their own consent for their own good and for the obtaining of Justice to give the power to Beasts under whom it could never be obtain'd or if we could believe that any had bin guilty of an act so full of folly turpitude and wickedness it could not have the force of a Law and could never be put in execution for tho the rules by which the proximity should be judged be never so precise it will still be doubted whose case sutes best with them Tho the Law in some places gives private Inheritances to the next Heir and in others makes allotments according to several proportions no one knows to whom or how far the benefit shall accrue to any man till it be adjudged by a Power to which the parties
equal if it were possible all should be Magistrates But that being repugnant to the nature of Government he finds no other way of solving the difficulty than by obeying and commanding alternately that they may do by turns that which they cannot do all together and to which no one man has more right than another because they are all by nature equal This might be composed by a more compendious way if according to our Author's doctrine possession could give a Right But Aristotle speaking like a Philosopher and not like a publick enemy of Mankind examines what is just reasonable and beneficial to men that is what ought to be done and which being done is to be accounted just and therefore to be supported by good men But as that which is unjust in the beginning can never have the effect of justice and it being manifestly unjust for one or a few men to assume a power over those who by nature are equal to them no such power can be just or beneficial to mankind nor fit to be upheld by good men if it be unjust and prejudicial In the opinion of Aristotle this natural equality continues till virtue makes the distinction which must be either simply compleat and perfect in it self so that he who is endued with it is a God among men or relatively as far as concerns civil Society and the ends for which it is constituted that is defence and the obtaining of Justice This requires a mind unbiassed by passion full of goodness and wisdom firm against all the temptations to ill that may arise from desire or fear tending to all manner of good through a perfect knowledg and affection to it and this to such a degree that he or they have more of these virtues and excellencies than all the rest of the Society tho computed together Where such a man is found he is by nature a King and 't is best for the Nation where he is that he govern If a few men tho equal and alike among themselves have the same advantages above the rest of the People Nature for the same reason seems to establish an Aristocracy in that place and the power is more safely committed to them than left in the hands of the multitude But if this excellency of virtue do not appear in one nor in a few men the right and power is by nature equally lodged in all and to assume or appropriate that power to one or a few men is unnatural and tyrannical which in Aristotle's language comprehends all that is detestable and abominable If any man should think Aristotle a trifler for speaking of such a man as can never be found I answer that he went as far as his way could be warranted by reason or nature and was obliged to stop there by the defect of his Subject He could not say that the Government of one was simply good when he knew so many qualifications were required in the person to make it so nor that it is good for a Nation to be under the power of a fool a coward or a villain because 't is good to be under a man of admirable wisdom valour industry and goodness or that the Government of one should be continued in such as by chance succeed in a Family because it was given to the first who had all the virtues required tho all the reasons for which the power was given fail in the Successor much less could he say that any Government was good which was not good for those whose good only it was constituted to promote Moreover by shewing who only is fit to be a Monarch or may be made such without violating the Laws of Nature and Justice he shews who cannot be one and he who says that no such man is to be found as according to the opinion of Aristotle can be a Monarch dos most ridiculously alledg his Authority in favour of Monarchs or the power which some amongst us would attribute to them If any thing therefore may be concluded from his words 't is this That since no power ought to be admitted which is not just that none can be just which is not good profitable to the People and conducing to the ends for which it is constituted that no man can know how to direct the power to those ends can deserve or administer it unless he do so far excel all those that are under him in wisdom justice valour and goodness as to possess more of those virtues than all of them I say if no such man or succession of men be found no such power is to be granted to any man or succession of men But if such power be granted the Laws of nature and reason are overthrown and the ends for which Societies are constituted utterly perverted which necessarily implies an annihilation of the Grant And if a Grant so made by those who have a right of setting up a Government among themselves do perish through its own natural iniquity and perversity I leave it to any man whose understanding and manners are not so intirely corrupted as those of our Author to determine what name ought to be given to that person who not excelling all others in Civil and Moral Virtues in the proportion requir'd by Aristotle dos usurp a power over a Nation and what obedience the People owe to such a one But if his opinion deserve our regard the King by having those virtues is Omnium Optimus and the best guide to the People to lead them to happiness by the ways of virtue And he who assumes the same power without the qualifications requir'd is Tyrannus omnium pessimus leading the People to all manner of ill and in consequence to destruction SECT XXIV The power of Augustus Cesar was not given but usurped OUR Author's next instance is ingeniously taken from the Romans Who he says tho they were a People greedy of Liberty freed Augustus from the necessity of Laws If it be true as he affirms that such a Prerogative is instituted only for the preservation of Liberty they who are most greedy of it ought to be most forward in establishing that which defends it best But if the weight laid upon the words greedy of Liberty c. render his memory and judgment liable to censure the unpardonable prevarication of citing any act done by the Romans in the time of Augustus as done freely shews him to be a man of no faith Omnium jura in se traxer at says Tacitus of Augustus nothing was conferred upon him he took all to himself there could be nothing of right in that which was wholly usurped And neither the People or the Senate could do any thing freely whilst they were under the power of a mad corrupted Soldiery who first betray'd and then subdued them The greatest part of the Senate had fall'n at the battel of Pharsalia others had bin gleaned up in several places the rest destroy'd by the Proscriptions and that which then
Empire If the disputes between Durstus Evenus the third Dardannus and other Kings of Scotland with the Nobility and People might have bin determined by themselves they had escaped the punishments they suffer'd and ruined the Nation as they designed Other methods were taken they perished by their madness better Princes were brought into their plaees and their Successors were by their example admonished to avoid the ways that had proved fatal to them If Edward the second of England with Gaveston and the Spencers Richard the second with Tresilian and Vere had bin permitted to be the Judges of their own cases they who had murdered the best of the Nobility would have pursued their designs to the destruction of such as remained the enslaving of the Nation the subversion of the Constitution and the establishment of a mere Tyranny in the place of a mixed Monarchy But our Ancestors took better measures They who had felt the smart of the vices and follies of their Princes knew what remedies were most fit to be applied as well as the best time of applying them They found the effects of extreme corruption in Government to be so desperately pernicious that Nations must necessarily perish unless it be corrected and the State reduced to its first principle or altered Which being the case it was as easy for them to judg whether the Governor who had introduced that corruption should be brought to order removed if he would not be reclaimed or whether he should be suffer'd to ruin them and their posterity as it is for me to judg whether I should put away my Servant if I knew he intended to poison or murder me and had a certain facility of accomplishing his design or whether I should continue him in my service till he had performed it Nay the matter is so much the more plain on the side of the Nation as the disproportion of merit between a whole people and one or a few men entrusted with the power of governing them is greater than between a privat man and his servant This is so fully confirmed by the general consent of mankind that we know no Government that has not frequently either bin altered in form or reduced to its original purity by changing the families or persons who abused the power with which they had bin entrusted Those who have wanted wisdom and virtue rightly and seasonably to perform this have been soon destroy'd like the Goths in Spain who by omitting to curb the fury of Witza and Rodrigo in time became a prey to the Moors Their Kingdom by this means destroy'd was never restored and the remainder of that Nation joining with the Spaniards whom they had kept in subjection for three or four Ages could not in less than eight hundred years expel those enemies they might have kept out only by removing two base and vitious Kings Such Nations as have bin so corrupted that when they have applied themselves to seek remedies to the evils they suffered by wicked Magistrates could not fall upon such as were proportionable to the disease have only vented their Passions in destroying the immediate instruments of their oppression or for a while delay'd their utter ruin But the root still remaining it soon produced the same poisonous fruit and either quite destroy'd or made them languish in perpetual misery The Roman Empire was the most eminent example of the first many of the monsters that had tyrannized over them were killed but the greatest advantage gained by their death was a respit from ruin and the Government which ought to have bin established by good Laws depending only upon the virtue of one man his Life proved to be no more than a lucid interval and at his death they relapsed into the depth of Infamy and Misery and in this condition they continued till that Empire was totally subverted All the Kingdoms of the Arabians Medes Persians Moors and others of the East are of the other sort Common sense instructs them that barbarous pride cruelty and madness grown to extremity cannot be born but they have no other way than to kill the Tyrant and to do the like to his Successor if he fall into the same crimes Wanting that wisdom and valour which is requir'd for the institution of a good Government they languish in perpetual slavery and propose to themselves nothing better than to live under a gentle Master which is but a precarious lise and little to be valued by men of bravery and spirit But those Nations that are more generous who set a higher value upon Liberty and better understand the ways of preserving it think it a small matter to destroy a Tyrant unless they can also destroy the Tyranny They endeavour to do the work throughly either by changing the Government intirely or reforming it according to the first institution and making such good Laws as may preserve its integrity when reformed This has bin so frequent in all the Nations both antient and modern with whose actions we are best acquainted as appears by the foregoing examples and many others that might be alledged if the case were not clear that there is not one of them which will not furnish us with many instances and no one Magistracy now in being which dos not owe its original to some Judgment of this nature So that they must either derive their right from such actions or confess they have none at all and leave the Nations to their original liberty of setting up those Magistracies which best please themselves without any restriction or obligation to regard one person or family more than another SECT XLII The Person that wears the Crown cannot determine the Affairs which the Law refers to the King OUR Author with the rest of the vulgar seems to have bin led into gross errors by the form of Writs summoning persons to appear before the King The common stile used in the trial of Delinquents the name of the King's Witnesses given to those who accuse them the Verdicts brought in by Juries coram domino Rege and the prosecution made in the King's name seem to have caused this And they who understand not these Phrases render the Law a heap of the most gross absurdities and the King an Enemy to every one of his Subjects when he ought to be a Father to them all since without any particular consideration or examination of what any witness deposes in a Court of Justice tending to the death confiscation or other punishment of any man he is called the King's Witness whether he speak the truth or a lie and on that account favour'd 'T is not necessary to allege many instances in a case that is so plain but it may not be amiss to insert two or three of the most important reasons to prove my assertion 1. If the Law did intend that he or she who wears the Crown should in his or her person judg all causes and determine the most difficult questions it must like our
This is he who never dos any wrong 'T is before him we appear when we demand Justice or render an account of our actions All Juries give their verdict in his sight They are his Commands that the Judges are bound and sworn to obey when they are not at all to consider such as they receive from the person that wears the Crown 'T was for Treason against him that Tresilian and others like to him in several ages were hanged They gratified the lusts of the visible Powers but the invisible King would not be mock'd He caused Justice to be executed upon Empson and Dudley He was injured when the perjur'd wretches who gave that accursed Judgment in the case of Shipmony were suffered to escape the like punishment by means of the ensuing troubles which they had chiefly raised And I leave it to those who are concerned to consider how many in our days may expect vengeance for the like crimes I should here conclude this point if the power of granting a Noli proseq Cesset Processus and Pardons which are said to be annexed to the person of the King were not taken for a proof that all proceedings at Law depend upon his will But whoever would from hence draw a general conclusion must first prove his proposition to be universally true If it be wholly false no true deduction can be made and if it be true only in some cases 't is absurd to draw from thence a general conclusion and to erect a vast fabrick upon a narrow foundation is impossible As to the general proposition I utterly deny it The King cannot stop any Suit that I begin in my own name or invalidate any Judgment I obtain upon it He cannot release a Debt of ten shillings due to me nor a Sentence for the like sum given upon an action of Battery Assault Trespass publick Nuisance or the like He cannot pardon a man condemned upon an Appeal nor hinder the person injured from appealing His power therefore is not universal if it be not universal it cannot be inherent but conferred upon him or entrusted by a superior Power that limits it These limits are fixed by the Law the Law therefore is above him His proceedings must be regulated by the Law and not the Law by his will Besides the extent of those limits can only be known by the intention of the Law that sets them and are so visible that none but such as are wilfully blind can mistake It cannot be imagined that the Law which dos not give a power to the King of pardoning a man that breaks my hedg can intend he should have power to pardon one who kills my father breaks my house robs me of my goods abuses my children and servants wounds me and brings me in danger of my life Whatever power he has in such cases is founded upon a presumption that he who has sworn not to deny or delay justice to any man will not break his Oath to interrupt it And farther as he dos nothing but what he may rightly do cum magnatum sapientum Consilio and that 't is supposed they will never advise him to do any thing but what ought to be done in order to attain the great ends of the Law Justice and the publick safety nevertheles lest this should not be sufficient to keep things in their due order or that the King should forget his Oath not to delay or deny justice to any man his Counsellors are exposed to the severest punishments if they advise him to do any thing contrary to it and the Law upon which it is grounded So that the utmost advantage the King can pretend to in this case is no more than that of the Norman who said he had gained his cause because it depended upon a point that was to be decided by his Oath that is to say if he will betray the trust reposed in him and perjure himself he may sometimes exempt a Vilain from the punishment he deserves and take the guilt upon himself I say sometimes for appeals may be brought in some cases and the Waterman who had bin pardoned by his Majesty in the year 1680 for a murder he had committed was condemned and hanged at the Assizes upon an appeal Nay in cases of Treason which some men think relate most particularly to the person of the King he cannot always do it Gaveston the two Spencers Tresilian Empson Dudley and others have bin executed as Traitors for things done by the King's command and 't is not doubted they would have bin saved if the King's power had extended so far I might add the cases of the Earls of Strafford and Danby for tho the King signed a Warrant for the execution of the first no man doubts he would have saved him if it had bin in his power The other continues in prison notwithstanding his pardon and for any thing I know he may continue where he is or come out in a way that will not be to his satisfaction unless he be found innocent or something fall out more to his advantage than his Majesty's approbation of what he has done If therefore the King cannot interpose his authority to hinder the course of the Law in contests between privat men nor remit the debts adjudged to be due or the damages given to the persons agriev'd he can in his own person have no other power in things of this nature than in some degree to mitigate the vindictive power of the Law and this also is to be exercised no other way than as he is entrusted But if he acts even in this capacity by a delegated power and in few cases he must act according to the ends for which he is so entrusted as the same Law says Cum magnatum sapientum consilio and is not therein to pursue his own will and interests If his Oath farther oblige him not to do it and his Ministers are liable to punishment if they advise him otherwise If in matters of Appeal he have no power and if his pardons have bin of no value when contrary to his Oath he has abused that with which he is entrusted to the patronizing of crimes and exempting such delinquents from punishment as could not be pardoned without prejudice to the publick I may justly conclude that the King before whom every man is bound to appear who dos perpetually and impartially distribute Justice to the Nation is not the man or woman that wears the Crown and that he or she cannot determine those matters which by the Law are referr'd to the King Whether therefore such matters are ordinary or extraordinary the decision is and ought to be placed where there is most wisdom and stability and where passion and privat interest dos least prevail to the obstruction of Justice This is the only way to obviate that confusion and mischief which our Author thinks it would introduce In cases of the first sort this is done in England by Judges and Juries
excelling all others in virtue can have no other just power than what the Laws give nor any title to the privileges of the Lord 's Anointed p. 250. Sect. 2. The Kings of Israel and Judah were under a Law not safely to be transgressed p. 262. Sect. 3. Samuel did not describe to the Israelites the glory of a free Monarchy but the evils the people should suffer that he might divert them from desiring a King p. 264. Sect. 4. No People can be obliged to suffer from their Kings what they have not a right to do p. 266. Sect. 5. The mischiefs suffer'd from wicked Kings are such as render it both reasonable and just for all Nations that have Virtue and Power to exert both in repelling them p. 270. Sect. 6. 'T is not good for such Nations as will have Kings to suffer them to be glorious powerful or abounding in Riches p. 273. Sect. 7. When the Israelites asked for such a King as the Nations about them had they asked for a Tyrant tho they did not call him so p. 277. Sect. 8. Vnder the name of Tribute no more is understood than what the Law of each Nation gives to the supreme Magistrate for the defraying of publick Charges to which the customs of the Romans or sufferings of the Jews have no relation p. 283. Sect. 9. Our own Laws confirm to us the enjoyment of our native Rights p. 288. Sect. 10. The words of St. Paul enjoyning obedience to higher Powers favour all sorts of Government no less than Monarchy p. 292. Sect. 11. That which is not just is not Law and that which is not Law ought not to be obeyed p. 300. Sect. 12. The right and power of a Magistrate depends upon his institution not upon his name p. 302. Sect. 13. Laws were made to direct and instruct Magistrates and if they will not be directed to restrain them p. 305. Sect. 14. Laws are not made by Kings not because they are busied in greater matters than doing Justice but because Nations will be governed by rule and not arbitrarily p. 309. Sect. 15. A general presumption that Kings will govern well is not a sufficient security to the people p. 314. Sect. 16. The observation of the Laws of Nature is absurdly expected from Tyrants who set themselves up against all Laws and he that subjects Kings to no other Law than what is common to Tyrants destroys their being p. 317. Sect. 17. Kings cannot be the interpreters of the Oaths they take p. 322. Sect. 18. The next in blood to deceased Kings cannot generally be said to be Kings till they are crowned p. 330. Sect. 19. The greatest enemy of a just Magistrate is he who endeavours to invalidate the Contract between him and the people or to corrupt their manners p. 341. Sect. 20. Vnjust commands are not to be obey'd and no man is obliged to suffer for not obeying such as are against Law p. 345. Sect. 21. It cannot be for the good of the People that the Magistrate have a Power above the Law And he is not a Magistrate who has not his Power by Law 348. Sect. 22. The rigor of the Law is to be temper'd by men of known integrity and judgment and not by the Prince who may be ignorant or vicious p. 354. Sect. 23. Aristotle proves that no man is to be intrusted with an Absolute Power by shewing that no one knows how to execute it but such a man as is not to be found p. 358. Sect. 24. The Power of Augustus Cesar was not given but usurped p. 360. Sect. 25. The Regal Power was not the first in this Nation nor necessarily to be continued tho it had bin the first p. 361. Sect. 26. That the King may be entrusted with the power of chusing Judges yet that by which they act is from the Law p. 369. Sect. 27. Magna Charta was not the Original but a declaration of the English Liberties The King's Power is not restrained but created by that and other Laws and the Nation that made them can only correct the defects of them p. 370. Sect. 28. The English Nation has always bin governed by it self or its Representatives p. 379. Sect. 29. The King was never Master of the Soil p. 391. Sect. 30. Henry the first was King of England by as good a Title as any of his Predecessors or Successors p. 395. Sect. 31. Free Nations have a right of meeting when and where they please unless they deprive themselves of it p. 399. Sect. 32. The Powers of Kings are so various according to the Constitutions of several States that no consequence can be drawn to the prejudice or advantage of any one merely from the name p. 404. Sect. 33. The Liberty of a People is the Gift of God and Nature p. 406. Sect. 34. No veneration paid or honor confer'd upon a just and lawful Magistrate can diminish the liberty of a Nation p. 409. Sect. 35. The Authority given by our Law to the Acts performed by a King de facto detract nothing from the Peoples Right of creating whom they please p. 411. Sect. 36. The general revolt of a Nation cannot be called a Rebellion p. 413. Sect. 37. The English Government was not ill constituted the defects more lately observed proceeding from the change of manners and corruption of the times p. 418. Sect. 38. The power of calling and dissolving Parliaments is not simply in the King The variety of Customs in chusing Parliamentmen and the Errors a People may commit neither prove that Kings are or ought to be absolute p. 421. Sect. 39. Those Kings only are heads of the People who are good wise and seek to advance no Interest but that of the Publick p. 426. Sect. 40. Good Laws prescribe easy and safe Remedies against the Evils proceeding from the Vices or Infirmities of the Magistrate and when they fail they must be supplied p. 432. Sect. 41. The people for whom and by whom the Magistrate is created can only judg whether he rightly performs his Office or not p. 436. Sect. 42. The Person that wears the Crown cannot determine the Affairs which the Law refers to the King p. 440. Sect. 43. Proclamations are not Laws p. 445. Sect. 44. No People that is not free can substitute Delegates p. 450. Sect. 45. 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 p. 455. Sect. 46. The coercive Power of the Law proceeds from the Authority of Parliament p. 457. ERRATA PAge 77. line 41. for Numbers read Members P. 113. l. 37. read Antiochus P. 197. l. 6. read acquired P. 229. l. 39. for nor read and. P. 269. l. 12. for for read from P. 282. l. 3. read should it P. 285. l. 42. read renounced P. 335. l. 41. for to read de P. 418. l. 20. for have read hâ—â— P. 429. l. 38. for them read him Potentiora Legiun quam hominum
DISCOURSES CONCERNING GOVERNMENT BY Algernon Sidney Son to Robert Earl of Leicester and Ambassador from the Commonwealth of England to Charles Gustavus King of Sweden Published from an Original Manuscript of the Author LONDON Printed and are to be sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster MDCXCVIII THE PREFACE HOW highly the Writings of wise and good Men concerning Government have bin esteemed in all Ages the testimony of History and the preservation of so many Books composed by the Antients on that Subject do sufficiently manifest And it may be truly said that unless men have utterly abandon'd themselves to all that is detestable they have seldom attempted to detract from the worth of the Assertors of Liberty tho Ambition and other passions have influenced them to act in opposition to it When Augustus had surprised a young Roman who was related to him reading a political Discourse of Cicero he commended his judgment in that choice The History of France written by the President de Thou with a spirit of Freedom that might have bin worthy of those who had liv'd before the violation of their Liberty has bin so generally valued by men of all ranks in that Nation that'tis hard to find a Book on any important Subject which has had so many Editions And the just esteem that the Emperor Charles the fifth made of the Memoirs of Philip de Commines tho that Author has given so many instances of his detestation of Tyranny may be enough to put this matter out of dispute But if all other proof were wanting the implacable hatred and unwearied industry of the worst of men to suppress such Writings would abundantly testify their excellency That Nations should be well informed of their Rights is of the most absolute necessity because the happiness or infelicity of any People intirely depends upon the enjoyment or deprivation of Liberty which is so invincibly proved in the following Discourses that to endeavour to make it more clear would be an unpardonable presumption If any man think the publication of this Work to be unseasonable at this time he is desired to consider that as men expect good Laws only from a good Government so the Reign of a Prince whose Title is founded upon the principle of Liberty which is here defended cannot but be the most proper if not the only time to inform the People of their just Rights that from a due sense of their inestimable value they may be encouraged to assert them against the attempts of ill men in time to come 'T is not necessary to say any thing concerning the Person of the Author He was so well known in the world so universally esteemed by those who knew how to set a just value upon true Merit and will appear so admirable in the following Discourses as not to stand in need of a flattering Panegyrick But it may not be amiss to say something of the Discourses now published The Paper delivered to the Sheriffs immediately before his death informs us that he had left a Large and a Lesser Treatise written against the Principles contained in Filmer's Book and that a small part of the lesser Treatise had bin produced for evidence against him at his Trial. 'T is there also said that the lesser Treatise neither was nor probably ever should have bin finished This therefore is the Large Work mentioned in that Paper and not the Lesser upon part of which the wicked Sentence pronounc'd and executed against him was grounded It remains only to add a few words for satisfaction of the Publick that these Discourses are genuine And here I shall not need to say that they were put into the hands of a Person of eminent Quality and Integrity by the Author himself and that the Original is in the judgment of those who knew him best all written by his own hand His inimitable manner of treating this noble Subject is instead of a thousand demonstrations that the Work can belong to no other than the Great Man whose name it bears DISCOURSES CONCERNING GOVERNMENT CHAP. I. SECTION I. INTRODUCTION HAVING lately seen a Book intituled Patriarcha written by Sir Robert Filmer concerning the Universal and undistinguished Right of all Kings I thought a time of leisure might be well employed in examining his Doctrine and the Questions arising from it which seem so far to concern all Mankind that besides the influence upon our future Life they may be said to comprehend all that in this World deserves to be cared for If he say true there is but one Government in the World that can have any thing of Justice in it and those who have hitherto bin esteemed the best and wisest of Men for having constituted Commonwealths or Kingdoms and taken much pains so to proportion the Powers of several Magistracies that they might all concur in procuring the Publick Good or so to divide the Powers between the Magistrates and People that a well-regulated Harmony might be preserved in the whole were the most unjust and foolish of all Men. They were not builders but overthrowers of Governments Their business was to set up Aristocratical Democratical or mixed Governments in opposition to that Monarchy which by the immutable Laws of God and Nature is imposed upon Mankind or presumptuously to put Shackles upon the Monarch who by the same Laws is to be absolute and uncontrolled They were rebellious and disobedient Sons who rose up against their Father and not only refused to hearken to his Voice but made him bend to their Will In their opinion such only deserved to be called Good Men who endeavoured to be good to Mankind or to that Country to which they were more particularly related and in as much as that Good consists in a felicity of Estate and perfection of Person they highly valued such as had endeavoured to make Men better wiser and happier This they understood to be the end for which Men enter'd into Societies And tho Cicero says that Commonwealths were instituted for the obtaining of Justice he contradicts them not but comprehends all in that word because 't is just that whosoever receives a Power should employ it wholly for the accomplishment of the Ends for which it was given This Work could be performed only by such as excelled in Virtue but lest they should deflect from it no Government was thought to be well constituted unless the Laws prevailed above the Commands of Men and they were accounted as the worst of Beasts who did not prefer such a Condition before a subjection to the fluctuating and irregular Will of a Man If we believe Sir Robert all this is mistaken Nothing of this kind was ever left to the choice of Men. They are not to enquire what conduces to their own good God and Nature have put us into a way from which we are not to swerve We are not to live to him nor to our selves but to the Master that he hath set over us One Government
retain it in themselves But whether that were observed or not by Bellarmin makes nothing to our Cause which we defend and not him The next Point is subtile and he thinks thereby to have brought Bellarmin and such as agree with his Principle to a Nonplus He doubts who shall judg of the lawful Cause of changing the Government and says It is a pestilent Conclusion to place that Power in the Multitude But why should this be esteemed pestilent or to whom If the allowance of such a Power to the Senate was pestilent to Nero it was beneficial to Mankind and the denial of it which would have given to Nero an opportunity of continuing in his Villanies would have been pestilent to the best Men whom he endeavoured to destroy and to all others that received benefit from them But this Question depends upon another for if Governments are constituted for the Pleasure Greatness or Profit of one Man he must not be interrupted for the opposing of his Will is to overthrow the Institution On the other side if the Good of the governed be sought care must be taken that the End be accomplished tho it be with the prejudice of the Governor If the Power be originally in the Multitude and one or more Men to whom the exercise of it or a part of it was committed had no more than their Brethren till it was conferred on him or them it cannot be believed that rational Creatures would advance one or a few of their Equals above themselves unless in consideration of their own Good and then I find no inconvenience in leaving to them a right of judging whether this be duly performed or not We say in general He that institutes may also abrogate most especially when the Institution is not only by but for himself If the Multitude therefore do institute the Multitude may abrogate and they themselves or those who succeed in the same Right can only be fit Judges of the performance of the Ends of the Institution Our Author may perhaps say The publick Peace may be hereby disturbed but he ought to know There can be no Peace where there is no Justice nor any Justice if the Government instituted for the good of a Nation be turned to its ruin But in plain English the Inconvenience with which such as he endeavour to afright us is no more than that He or They to whom the Power is given may be restrained or chastised if they betray their Trust which I presume will displease none but such as would rather submit Rome with the best part of the World depending upon it to the Will of Caligula or Nero than Caligula or Nero to the Judgment of the Senate and People that is rather to expose many great and brave Nations to be destroyed by the rage of a savage Beast than subject that Beast to the Judgment of all or the choicest Men of them who can have no interest to pervert them or other reason to be severe to him than to prevent the Mischiefs he would commit and to save the People from ruin In the next place he recites an Argument of Bellarmin That 't is evident in Scripture God hath ordained Powers but God hath given them to no particular Person because by Nature all Men are equal therefore he hath given Power to the People or Multitude I leave him to untie that Knot if he can but as 't is usual with Impostors he goes about by Surmises to elude the Force of his Argument pretending that in some other place he had contradicted himself and acknowledged that every Man was Prince of his Posterity because that if many Men had bin created together they ought all to have bin Princes of their Posterity But 't is not necessary to argue upon Passages cited from Authors when he that cites them may be justly suspected of Fraud and neither indicates the Place nor Treatise lest it should be detected most especially when we are no way concerned in the Author's Credit I take Bellarmin's first Argument to be strong and if he in some place did contradict it the hurt is only to himself but in this Particular I should not think he did it tho I were sure our Author had faithfully repeated his words for in allowing every Man to be Prince of his Posterity he only says every Man should be chief in his own Family and have a Power over his Children which no man denies But he dos not understand Latin who thinks that the word Princeps doth in any degree signify an absolute Power or a right of transmitting it to his Heirs and Successors upon which the Doctrine of our Author wholly depends On the contrary The same Law that gave to my Father a Power over me gives me the like over my Children and if I had a thousand Brothers each of them would have the same over their Children Bellarmin's first Argument therefore being no way enervated by the alledged Passage I may justly insist upon it and add That God hath not only declared in Scripture but written on the Heart of every Man that as it is better to be clothed than to go naked to live in a House than to lie in the Fields to be defended by the united Force of a Multitude than to place the hopes of his Security solely in his own strength and to prefer the Benefits of Society before a savage and barbarous Solitude He also taught them to frame such Societies and to establish such Laws as were necessary to preserve them And we may as reasonably affirm that Mankind is for ever obliged to use no other Clothes than leather Breeches like Adam to live in hollow Trees and eat Acorns or to seek after the Model of his House for a Habitation and to use no Arms except such as were known to the Patriarchs as to think all Nations for ever obliged to be governed as they governed their Families This I take to be the genuine sense of the Scripture and the most respectful way of interpreting the Places relating to our purpose 'T is hard to imagine that God who hath left all things to our choice that are not evil in themselves should tie us up in this and utterly incredible that he should impose upon us a necessity of following his Will without declaring it to us Instead of constituting a Government over his People consisting of many Parts which we take to be a Model fit to be imitated by others he might have declared in a word That the eldest Man of the eldest Line should be King and that his Will ought to be their Law This had bin more sutable to the Goodness and Mercy of God than to leave us in a dark Labyrinth full of Precipices or rather to make the Government given to his own People a false Light to lead us to destruction This could not be avoided if there were such a thing as our Author calls a Lord Paramount over his Childrens Children to all
Othniel was of Judah Ehud of Benjamin Barak of Napthalim and Gideon of Manasseh The other Judges were of several Tribes and they being dead their Children lay hid amongst the common People and we hear no more of them The first King was taken out of the least Family of the least and youngest Tribe The second whilst the Children of the first King were yet alive was the youngest of eight Sons of an obscure man in the Tribe of Judah Solomon one of his youngest Sons succeeded him Ten Tribes deserted Rehoboam and by the command of God set up Jeroboam to be their King The Kingdom of Israel by the destruction of one Family passed into another That of Judah by God's peculiar promise continued in David's race till the Captivity but we know not that the eldest Son was ever preferred and have no reason to presume it David their most reverenced King left no precept for it and gave an example to the contrary he did not set up the eldest but the wisest After the Captivity they who had most wisdom or valour to defend the People were thought most fit to command and the Kingdom at the last came to the Asmonean Race whilst the posterity of David was buried in the mass of the common People and utterly deprived of all worldly Rule or Glory If the Judges had not a regal Power or the regal were only just as instituted by God and eternally annexed to Paternity all that they did was evil There could be nothing of Justice in the Powers exercised by Moses Joshua Gideon Samuel and the rest of the Judges If the power was regal and just it must have continued in the descendants of the first Saul David and Solomon could never have bin Kings The right failing in them their descendants could inherit none from them and the others after the Captivity were guilty of the like injustice Now as the Rule is not general to which there is any one just exception there is not one of these Examples that would not overthrow our Author's doctrine If one deviation from it were lawful another might be and so to infinity But the utmost degree of impudent madness to which perhaps any man in the world hath ever arrived is to assert that to be universal and perpetual which cannot be verified by any one Example to have bin in any place of the World nor justified by any precept If it be objected That all these things were done by God's immediate disposition I answer that it were an impious madness to believe that God did perpetually send his Prophets to overthrow what he had ordained from the beginning and as it were in spite to bring the minds of men into inextricable confusion and darkness and by particular commands to overthrow his universal and eternal Law But to render this point more clear I desire it may be considered That we have but three ways of distinguishing between good and evil 1. When God by his Word reveals it to us 2. When by his deeds he declareth it because that which he does is good as that which he says is true 3. By the light of Reason which is good in as much as it is from God And first It cannot be said we have an explicit word for that continuance of the power in the eldest for it appears not and having none we might conclude it to be left to our liberty For it agrees not with the goodness of God to leave us in a perpetual ignorance of his Will in a matter of so great importance nor to have suffered his own people or any other to persist without the least reproof or admonition in a perpetual opposition to it if it had displeased him To the 2d The Dispensations of his Providence which are the emanations of his Will have gone contrary to this pretended Law There can therefore be no such thing for God is constant to himself his works do not contradict his Word and both of them do equally declare to us that which is good Thirdly If there be any precept that by the light of Nature we can in matters of this kind look upon as certain 't is that the Government of a People should be given to him that can best perform the duties of it No man has it for himself or from himself but for and from those who before he had it were his Equals that he may do good to them If there were a Man who in Wisdom Valour Justice and Purity surpassed all others he might be called a King by Nature because he is best able to bear the weight of so great a charge and like a good Shepherd to lead the People to good Detur digniori is the voice of Reason and that we may be sure Detur seniori is not so Solomon tells us That a wise Child is better than an old and foolish King But if this pretended right do not belong to him that is truly the eldest nothing can be more absurd than a fantastical pretence to a right deduced from him that is not so Now lest I should be thought to follow my own inventions and call them reason or the light of God in us I desire it may be observed that God himself has ever taken this method When he raised up Moses to be the leader of his people he endowed him with the most admirable gifts of his Spirit that ever he bestowed upon a man When he chose seventy men to assist him he endowed them with the same spirit Joshua had no other title to succeed him than the like evidence of God's presence with him When the People through sin fell into misery he did not seek out their Descendants nor such as boasted in a prerogative of Birth but shewed whom he designed for their Deliverer by bestowing such gifts upon him as were required for the performance of his work and never fail'd of doing this till that miserable sinful people rejecting God and his Government desired that which was in use among their accursed Neighbours that they might be as like to them in the most shameful Slavery to Man as in the worship of Idols set up against God But if this pretended Right be grounded upon no word or work of God nor the reason of Man 't is to be accounted a meer figment that hath nothing of truth in it SECT XIV If the paternal Right had included Dominion and was to be transferred to a single Heir it must perish if he were not known and could be applied to no other person HAving shewed that the first Kings were not Fathers nor the first Fathers Kings that all the Kings of the Jews and Gentiles mentioned in Scripture came in upon titles different from and inconsistent with that of Paternity and that we are not led by the Word nor the Works of God nor the Reason of Man or Light of Nature to believe there is any such thing we may safely conclude there never was any such thing or that
assert that which is agreeable to divine or human Story as to matter of fact and as little conformable to common sense It does not only appear contrary to his general Proposition That all Governments have not begun with the Paternal power but we do not find that any ever did They who according to his rules should have bin Lords of the whole Earth lived and died private men whilst the wildest and most boisterous of their Children commanded the greatest part of the then inhabited World not excepting even those Countries where they spent and ended their days and instead of entring upon the Government by the right of Fathers or managing it as Fathers they did by the most outragious injustice usurp a violent Domination over their Brethren and Fathers It may easily be imagined what the Right is that could be thus acquired and transmitted to their Successors Nevertheless our Author says All Kings either are or ought to be reputed next Heirs c. But why reputed if they were not How could any of the accursed race of Ham be reputed Father of Noah or Shem to whom he was to be a Servant How could Nimrod and Ninus be reputed Fathers of Ham and of those whom they ought to have obeyed Can reason oblige me to believe that which I know to be false Can a Lie that is hateful to God and good men not only be excused but enjoyned when as he will perhaps say it is for the King's Service Can I serve two Masters or without the most unpardonable injustice repute him to be my Father who is not my Father and pay the obedience that is due to him who did beget and educate me to one from whom I never received any good If this be so absurd that no man dares affirm it in the person of any 't is as preposterous in relation to his Heirs For Nimrod the first King could be Heir to no man as King and could transmit to no man a Right which he had not If it was ridiculous and abominable to say that he was Father of Chush Ham Shem and Noah 't is as ridiculous to say he had the Right of Father if he was not their Father or that his Successors inherited it from him if he never had it If there be any way through this it must have accrued to him by the extirpation of all his Elders and their Races so as he who will assert this pretended Right to have been in the Babylonian Kings must assert that Noah Shem Japhet Ham Chush and all Nimrod's elder Brothers with all their Descendents were utterly extirpated before he began to reign and all Mankind to be descended from him This must be if Nimrod as the Scripture says was the first that became mighty in the Earth unless men might be Kings without having more Power than others for Chush Ham and Noah were his Elders and Progenitors in the direct Line and all the Sons of Shem and Japhet and their Descendents in the Collaterals were to be preferred before him and he could have no Right at all that was not directly contrary to those Principles which our Author says are grounded upon the eternal and indispensable Laws of God and Nature The like may be said of the seventy two Heads of Colonies which following as I suppose Sir Walter Raleigh he says went out to people the Earth and whom he calls Kings for according to the same Rule Noah Shem and Japhet with their Descendents could not be of the number so that neither Nimrod nor the others that established the Kingdoms of the World and from whence he thinks all the rest to be derived could have any thing of Justice in them unless it were from a Root altogether inconsistent with his Principles They are therefore false or the Establishments before mentioned could have no Right If they had none they cannot be reputed to have any for no man can think that to be true which he knows to be false having none they could transmit none to their Heirs and Successors And if we are to believe that all the Kingdoms of the Earth are established upon this Paternal Right it must be proved that all those who in birth ought to have bin preferred before Nimrod and the seventy two were extirpated or that the first and true Heir of Noah did afterwards abolish all these unjust Usurpations and making himself Master of the whole left it to his Heirs in whom it continues to this day When this is done I will acknowledg the Foundation to be well laid and admit of all that can be rightly built upon it but if this fails all fails The poison of the Root continues in the Branches If the right Heir be not in possession he is not the right who is in possession If the true Heir be known he ought to be restored to his Right If he be not known the Right must perish That cannot be said to belong to any man if no man knows to whom it belongs and can have no more effect than if it were not This conclusion will continue unmoveable tho the division into seventy two Kingdoms were allowed which cannot be without destroying the Paternal Power or subjecting it to be subdivided into as many parcels as there are men which destroys Regality for the same thing may be required in every one of the distinct Kingdoms and others derived from them We must know who was that true Heir of Noah that recovered all How when and to whom he gave the several Portions and that every one of them do continue in the possession of those who by this prerogative of birth are raised above the rest of mankind and if they are not 't is an impious folly to repute them so to the prejudice of those that are and if they do not appear to the prejudice of all mankind who being equal are thereby made subject to them For as Truth is the Rule of Justice there can be none when he is reputed superior to all who is certainly inferior to In this place two Pages are wanting in the Original Manuscript degenerated from that Reason which distinguisheth men from beasts Tho it may be fit to use some Ceremonies before a man be admitted to practise Physick or set up a Trade 't is his own skill that makes him a Doctor or an Artificer and others do but declare it An Ass will not leave his stupidity tho he be covered with Scarlet and he that is by nature a Slave will be so still tho a Crown be put upon his Head and 't is hard to imagine a more violent inversion of the Laws of God and Nature than to raise him to the Throne whom Nature intended for the Chain or to make them Slaves to Slaves whom God hath endowed with the Vertues required in Kings Nothing can be more preposterous than to impute to God the frantick Domination which is often exercised by wicked foolish and vile Persons over the wise valiant just
which a grave Author's sense is best comprehended it will appear that all his Books of Laws and of a Commonwealth are chiefly grounded upon this That Magistrates are chosen by Societies seeking their own good and that the best men ought to be chosen for the attaining of it whereas his whole design of seeking which is the best Form of Government or what Laws do most conduce to its perfection and permanency if one Rule were by nature appointed for all and none could justly transgress it if God had designed an universal Lord over the whole world or a particular one over every Nation who could be bound by no Law were utterly absurd and they who write Books concerning Political matters and take upon them to instruct Nations how to govern themselves would be found either foolishly to mispend their time or impiously to incite people to rebel against the Ordinance of God If this can justly be imputed to Plato he is not the wise Man he is supposed to have bin and can less deserve the title of Divine which our Author gives him but if he remain justly free from such Censures it must be confessed that whilst he seeks what is good for a people and to convince them by reason that it is so he takes it for granted that they have a liberty of chusing that which appears to be the best to them He first says that this Good consists in the obtaining of Justice but farther explaining himself he shews that under the name of Justice he comprehends all that tends to their perfection and felicity in as much as every People by joining in a civil Society and creating Magistrates doth seek its own good and 't is just that he or they who are created should to the utmost of their power accomplish the end of their Creation and lead the people to Justice without which there is neither perfection nor happiness That the proper act of Justice is to give to every one his due to Man that which belongs to Man and to God that which is God's But as no man can be just or desire to be so unless he know that Justice is good nor know that it is good unless he know that original Justice and Goodness through which all that is just is just and all that is good is good 't is impossible for any man to perform the part of a good Magistrate unless he have the knowledg of God or to bring a People to Justice unless he bring them to the knowledg of God who is the Root of all Justice and Goodness If Plato therefore deserve credit he only can duly perform the part of a good Magistrate whose moral Vertues are ripened and heightned by a superinduction of Divine Knowledg The misery of Man proceeds from his being separated from God This Separation is wrought by corruption his restitution therefore to Felicity and Integrity can only be brought about by his reunion to the Good from which he is fallen Plato looks upon this as the only worthy Object of Man's desire and in his Laws and Politicks he intends not to teach us how to erect Manufactures and to increase Trade or Riches but how Magistrates may be helpful to Nations in the manner before-mentioned and consequently what Men are fit to be Magistrates If our Author therefore would make use of Plato's Doctrine to his end he ought to have proved that there is a Family in every Nation to the chief of which and successively to the next in Blood God dos ever reveal and insuse such a knowledg of himself as may render him a Light to others and failing in this all that he says is to no purpose The weakness in which we are born renders us unable to attain this Good of our selves we want help in all things especially in the greatest The fierce Barbarity of a loose multitude bound by no Law and regulated by no Discipline is wholly repugnant to it Whilst every man fears his Neighbour and has no other defence than his own strength he must live in that perpetual anxiety which is equally contrary to that happiness and that sedate temper of mind which is required for the search of it The first step towards the cure of this pestilent Evil is for many to join in one body that every one may be protected by the united force of all and the various Talents that men possess may by good discipline be rendred useful to the whole as the meanest piece of wood or stone being placed by a wise Architect conduces to the beauty of the most glorious Building But every man bearing in his own breast Affections Passions and Vices that are repugnant to this end and no man owing any submission to his Neighbour none will subject the correction or restriction of themselves to another unless he also submit to the same Rule They are rough pieces of timber or stone which 't is necessary to cleave saw or cut This is the work of a skilful Builder and he only is capable of erecting a great Fabrick who is so Magistrates are Political Architects and they only can perform the Work incumbent on them who excel in Political Vertues Nature in variously framing the minds of men according to the variety of Uses in which they may be imploy'd in order to the institution and preservation of Civil Societies must be our Guide in allotting to every one his proper work And Plato observing this Variety affirms that the Laws of Nature cannot be more absurdly violated than by giving the Government of a People to such as do not excel others in those Arts and Vertues that tend to the ultimate Ends for which Governments are instituted By this means those who are Slaves by Nature or rendred so by their Vices are often set above those that God and Nature had fitted for the highest Commands and Societies which subsist only by order fall into corruption when all Order is so preposterously inverted and the most extreme Confusion introduced This is an Evil that Solomon detested Folly is set in great dignity and the Rich sit in low places I have seen Servants upon Horses and Princes walking as Servants upon the Earth They who understand Solomon's Language will easily see that the Rich and the Princes he means are such only who are rich in Vertue and Wisdom and who ought to be preferred for those Qualities And when he says a Servant that reigneth is one of the three things the Earth cannot bear he can only mean such as deserve to be Servants for when they reign they do not serve but are served by others which perfectly agrees with what we learn from Plato and plainly shews that true Philosophy is perfectly conformable with what is taught us by those who were divinely inspired Therefore tho I should allow to our Author that Aristotle in those words It seems to some not to be natural for one Man to be Lord of all the Citizens since the City
invent and practise such things as seem convenient to himself and others in matters of the least importance it were absurd to imagine that the political Science which of all others is the most abstruse and variable according to Accidents and Circumstances should have bin perfectly known to them who had no use of it and that their Descendents are obliged to add nothing to what they practised But the reason given by our Author to prove this extravagant fancy is yet more ridiculous than the thing it self God saith he shewed his opinion viz. that all should be governed by one when he endowed not only men but beasts with a natural propensity to Monarchy Neither can it be doubted but a natural propensity is referred to God who is the Author of Nature Which I suppose may appear if it be considered Nevertheless I cannot but commend him in the first place for introducing God speaking so modestly not declaring his Will but his Opinion He puts haughty and majestick Language into the mouth of Kings They command and decide as if they were subject to no Error and their Wills ought to be taken for perpetual Laws but to God he ascribes an humble delivery of his Opinion only as if he feared to be mistaken In the second place I deny that there is any such general propensity in Man or Beast or that Monarchy would thereby be justified tho it were found in them It cannot be in Beasts for they know not what Government is and being uncapable of it cannot distinguish the several sorts nor consequently incline to one more than another Salmasius his story of Bees is only fit for old Women to prate of in Chimney corners and they who represent Lions and Eagles as Kings of Birds and Beasts do it only to show that their Power is nothing but brutish Violence exercised in the destruction of all that are not able to oppose it and that hath nothing of goodness or justice in it which Similitude tho it should prove to be in all respects adequate to the matter in question could only shew that those who have no sense of Right Reason or Religion have a natural propensity to make use of their strength to the destruction of such as are weaker than they and not that any are willing to submit or not to resist it if they can which I think will be of no great advantage to Monarchy But whatever propensity may be in Beasts it cannot be attributed generally to Men for if it were they never could have deviated srom it unless they were violently put out of their natural course which in this case cannot be for there is no Power to force them But that they have most frequently deviated appears by the various Forms of Government established by them There is therefore no natural propensity to any one but they chuse that which in their judgment seems best for them Or if he would have that inconsiderate impulse by which brutish and ignorant men may be swayed when they know no better to pass for a Propensity others are no more obliged to follow it than to live upon Acrons or inhabit hollow Trees because their Fathers did it when they had no better Dwellings and found no better nourishment in the uncultivated World And he that exhibits such Examples as far as in him lies endeavours to take from us the use of Reason and extinguishing the light of it to make us live like the worst of Beasts that we may be fit Subjects to absolute Monarchy This may perhaps be our Author's intention having learnt from Aristotle that such a Government is only sutable to the nature of the most bestial men who being uncapable of governing themselves fall under the Power of such as will take the conduct of them but he ought withal to have remembred that according to Aristotle's opinion this Conductor must be in nature different from those he takes the charge of and if he be not there can be no Government nor Order by which it subsists Beasts follow Beasts and the blind lead the blind to destruction But tho I should grant this Propensity to be general it could not be imputed to God since man by Sin is fallen from the Law of his Creation The wickedness of man even in the first Ages was great in the World All the imaginations of his heart are evil and that continually All men are liars There is none that doth good no not one Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts Murders Adulteries Fornications Thefts false Testimonies c. These are the Fruits of our corrupted nature which the Apostle observing dos not only make a difference between the natural and the spiritual Man whose proceeding only can be referred to God and that only so far as he is guided by his Spirit but shews that the natural man is in a perpetual enmity against God without any possibility of being reconciled to him unless by the destruction of the old Man and the regenerating or renewing him through the Spirit of Grace There being no sootsteps of this in our Author's Book he and his Master Heylin may have differed from the Apostle referring that Propensity of Nature to God which he declares to be utter enmity against him and we may conclude that this Propensity however general it may be cannot be attributed to God as the Author of Nature since it cannot be more general than the Corruptions into which we are fallen SECT IX The Government instituted by God over the Israelites was Aristocratical NOtwithstanding all this our Author is resolved that Monarchy must be from God What form of Government says he God ordained by his Authority may be gathered by that Commonwealth which he instituted amongst the Hebrews which was not Aristocratical as Calvin saith but plainly Monarchical I may in as few words deny the Government set up by God to have bin Monarchical as he asserts it but finding such Language ordinarily to proceed from a mixture of folly impudence and pride I chuse rather to shew upon what I ground my Opinions than nakedly to deliver them most especially when by insisting upon the Government instituted by God over his People he refers us to the Scripture And I do this the more boldly since I follow Calvin's Exposition and believe that he having bin highly esteemed for his Wit Judgment and Learning by such as were endowed with the like and reverenced as a glorious Servant of God might if he were now alive comfort himself tho he had the misfortune to fall under the censures of Filmer and his followers 'T is probable he gave some Reasons for his Opinions but our Author having maliciously concealed them and I not having leasure at present to examin all his Writings to find them must content my self with such as my small understanding may suggest and such as I have found in approved Authors In the first place I may safely say he was not alone of that opinion Josephus Philo and
should attribute Order and Stability to it whereas Order doth principally consist in appointing to every one his right Place Office or Work and this lays the whole weight of the Government upon one Person who very often dos neither deserve nor is able to bear the least part of it Plato Aristotle Hooker and I may say in short all wise men have held that Order required that the wisest best and most valiant Men should be placed in the Offices where Wisdom Vertue and Valour are requisite If common sense did not teach us this we might learn it from the Scripture When God gave the conduct of his People to Moses Joshua Samuel and others he endowed them with all the Vertues and Graces that were required for the right performance of their Duty When the Israelites were oppressed by the Midianites Philistins and Ammonites they expected help from the most wise and valiant When Hannibal was at the Gates of Rome and had filled Italy with Fire and Blood or when the Gauls overwhelmed that Country with their multitudes and fury the Senate and People of Rome put themselves under the conduct of Camillus Manlius Fabius Scipio and the like and when they failed to chuse such as were fit for the work to be done they received such defeats as convinced them of their Error But if our Author say true Order did require that the Power of defending the Country should have bin annexed as an Inheritance to one Family or lest to him that could get it and the exercise of all Authority committed to the next in Blood tho the weakest of Women or the basest of Men. The like may be said of judging or doing of Justice and 't is absurd to pretend that either is expected from the Power not the Person of the Monarch for experience doth too well shew how much all things halt in relation to Justice or Defence when there is a defect in him that ought to judg us and to fight our Battels But of all things this ought least to be alledged by the Advocates for absolute Monarchy who deny that the Authority can be separated from the Person and lay it as a fundamental Principle that whosoever hath it may do what he pleases and be accountable to no man Our Author's next work is to shew that Stability is the effect of this good Order but he ought to have known that Stability is then only worthy of praise when it is in that which is good No man delights in sickness or pain because it is long or incurable nor in slavery and misery because it is perpetual much less will any man in his senses commend a permanency in vice and wickedness He must therefore prove that the Stability he boasts of is in things that are good or all that he says of it signifies nothing I might leave him here with as little fear that any man who shall espouse his Quarrel shall ever be able to remove this Obstacle as that he himself should rise out of his Grave and do it But I hope to prove that of all things under the Sun there is none more mutable or unstable than Absolute Monarchy which is all that I dispute against professing much veneration for that which is mixed regulated by Law and directed to the Publick Good This might be proved by many Arguments but I shall confine my self to two the one drawn from Reason the other from matters of Fact Nothing can be called stable that is not so in Principle and Practice in which respect human Nature is not well capable of Stability but the utmost deviation from it that can be imagined is when such an Error is laid for a Foundation as can never be corrected All will confess that if there be any Stability in man it must be in Wisdom and Vertue and in those Actions that are thereby directed for in weakness solly and madness there can be none The Stability therefore that we seek in relation to the exercise of Civil and Military Powers can never be found unless care be taken that such as shall exercise those Powers be endowed with the Qualities that should make them stable This is utterly repugnant to our Author's Doctrine He lays for a Foundation That the Succession goes to the next in Blood without distinction of Age Sex or personal Qualities whereas even he himself could not have the impudence to say that Children and Women where they are admitted or Fools Madmen and such as are full of all wickedness do not come to be the Heirs of reigning Families as well as of the meanest The Stability therefore that can be expected from such a Government either depends upon those who have none in themselves or is referred wholly to Chance which is directly opposite to Stability This would be the case tho it were as we say an even Wager whether the Person would be fit or unfit and that there were as many men in the world able as unable to perform the Duty of a King but Experience shewing that among many millions of men there is hardly one that possesses the Qualities required in a King 't is so many to one that he upon whom the Lot shall fall will not be the man we seek in whose Person and Government there can be such a stability as is asserted And that failing all must necessarily fail for there can be no stability in his Will Laws or Actions who has none in his Person That we may see whether this be verified by Experience we need not search into the dark relations of the Babylonian and Assyrian Monarchies Those rude Ages afford us little instruction and tho the fragments of History remaining do sufficiently show that all things there were in perpetual fluctuation by reason of the madness of their Kings and the violence of those who transported the Empire from one Place or Family to another I will not much rely upon them but slightly touching some of their Stories pass to those that are better known to us The Kings of those Ages seem to have lived rather like Beasts in a Forest than Men joined in Civil Society they followed the Example of Nimrod the mighty Hunter Force was the only Law that prevailed the stronger devoured the weaker and continued in Power till he was ejected by one of more strength or better fortune By this means the race of Ninus was destroy'd by Belochus Arbaces rent the Kingdom asunder and took Media to himself Morodach extinguished the Race of Belochus and was made King Nabuchodonosor like a Flood overwhelmed all sor a time destroy'd the Kingdoms of Jerusalem and Egypt with many others and found no obstacle till his rage and pride turned to a most bestial madness And the Assyrian Empire was wholly abolish'd at the death of his Grandchild Belshazzar and no Stability can be found in the reigns of those great Kings unless that name be given to the Pride Idolatry Cruelty and Wickedness in which they remained constant If
Flower of the Roman Nobility and People destroyed with them or by them When Cato's Virtue had prov'd too weak to support a falling State and Brutus with Cassius had perished in their noble Attempt to restore the Liberty When the best part of the Senat had bin exposed for a Prey to the Vulturs and Wolves of Thessaly and one hundred and thirty of those who deserved the hatred of Tyrants and had escaped the fury of War had bin destroy'd by the Proscriptions When neither Captains nor Soldiers remained in the desolate City when the Tyrant abhorr'd and fear'd all those who had either Reputation or Virtue and by the most subtil Arts endeavoured so to corrupt or break the Spirits of the remaining People that they might not think of their former Greatness or the ways of recovering it we ought not to wonder that they ceased from War But such a Peace is no more to be commended than that which Men have in the Grave as in the Epitaph of the Marquess Trivultio seen at Milan Qui nunquam quievit quiescit tace This Peace is in every Wilderness The Turks have established it in the empty Provinces of Asia and Greece Where there are no men or if those men have no Courage there can be no War Our Ancestors the Britains observed that the Peace which in that Age the Romans established in the Provinces consisted in the most wretched slavery and solitude Miserrimam servitutem pacem appellant And in another place Solitudinem faciunt pacem vocant This is the Peace the Spaniards settled in their Dominions of the West-Indies by the destruction of forty millions of Souls The Countries were very quiet when wild Beasts only were left to fight in them or a few miserable Wretches who had neither strength nor courage to resist their violence This was the Peace the Romans enjoyed under Augustus A few of those who made themselves subservient to his Pleasure and Ministers of the publick Calamities were put into a flourishing condition but the rest pined withered and never recovered If yet our Author will have us to think the Liberty and People of Rome obliged to Augustus who procured such a Peace for them he ought to remember that besides what they suffered in settling it they paid dear for it even in the future for Italy was thereby so weakned as never to recover any strength or virtue to defend it self but depending absolutely upon barbarous Nations or Armies composed of them was ravaged and torn in pieces by every Invader 4. That Peace is only to be valued which is accompanied with Justice and those Governmenrs only deserve praise who put the Power into the hands of the best Men. This was wholly wanting during the Reigns of Augustus and his Successors The worst of men gained the Soverainty by Alliance Fraud or Violence and advanced such as most resembled themselves Augustus was worse in the beginning than in the latter end of his Reign but his bloody and impure Successor grew every day more wicked as long as he lived Whilst he sat upon the Rocks at Capreae with his Chaldeans he meditated nothing but Lust or Mischief and had Sejanus and Macro always ready to execute his detestable Designs Caligula could find none equal to himself in all manner of Villanies but favour'd those most who were likest to him Claudius his stupidity drunkenness and subjection to the sury of two impudent Strumpets and manumised Slaves proved as hurtful to the Empire as the savage fury of his Predecessor Tho Nero was a Monster that the world could not bear yet the raging Soldiers kill'd Galba and gave the Empire to Otho for no other reason than that he had bin the Companion of his Debauches and of all men was thought most to resemble him With them all Evils came in like a Flood and their Successors finding none so bad as themselves but the Favourites Whores and Slaves that governed them would suffer no Vertue to grow up and filled the City with a base lewd and miserable Rabble that cared for nothing beyond Stage-plays and Bread Such a People could not be seditious but Rome had bin desolate if they had not thus filled it And tho this temper and condition of a People may please our Author yet it was an incurable Wound to the State and in consequence to the best part of the World When the City had bin burnt by the Gauls it was soon restored The Defeats of Ticinum Trebia Thrasimene and Cannae were repair'd with equal or greater Victories The War of the Allies ended in their overthrow The Fury of the Gladiators was extinguished with their Blood The Commonwealth lost Battels but was never conquer'd in any War and in the end triumphed over all that had contended with them Whilst Liberty continued it was the Nurse of Vertue and all the Losses suffered in Foreign or Civil Wars were easily recovered but when Liberty was lost Valour and Virtue was torn up by the roots and the Roman Power proceeding from it perished I have not dwelt so long upon this point to expose the solly of our Author but to show that the abovemention'd Evils did proceed from a permanent cause which will always produce the like effects and Histories testify that it has done the same in all places Carthage was rebuilt after it had bin destroy'd by Scipio and continued to be a rich City for almost a thousand years but produced no such men as Amilcar Asdrubal and Hannibal Cleomenes and Euclidas were the last that deserved to be called Spartans Athens never had an eminent Man after it felt the weight of the Macedonian Yoak and Philopemen was the last of the Achaians Tho the Commonwealths of Italy in later Ages having too much applied themselves to the acquisition of Money and wanted that greatness of Spirit which had reigned in their Ancestors yet they have not been without Valour and Virtue That of Pisa was famous for Power at Sea till the Genoeses overthrew them Florence had a brave Nobility and a stout People Arezzo Pistoia Cortona Sienna and other small Towns of Tuscany were not without strength tho for the most part unhappily exercised in the Factions of Ghibelins and Guelphs Neri and Bianchi that divided all Italy but since the introduction of Filmer's divine Absolute Monarchy all Power Virtue Reputation and Strength is utterly perished from among them and no man dares to oppose the publick Mischiess They usually decide private Quarrels by Assassination or Poison and in other respects they enjoy the happiness of that Peace which is always found within empty Walls and desolated Countries And if this be according to the Laws of God and Nature it cannot be denied that Weakness Baseness Cowardice Destruction and Desolation are so likewise These are the Blessings our well-natur'd Author would confer upon us but if they were to be esteemed so I cannot tell why those that selt them complained so much of them Tacitus reciting what passed
eminency in that Kingdom with the Cities of Paris Bourdeaux and many others in the space of these last fifty years have sided with the perpetual Enemies of their own Country Again other great Alterations have happened within the same Kingdom The Races of Kings four times wholly changed Five Kings deposed in less than 150 Years after the death of Charles the Great The Offices of Maire du Palais and Constable erected and laid aside The great Dukedoms and Earldoms little inferior to Soveraign Principalities establish'd and suppress'd The decision of all Causes and the execution of the Laws placed absolutely in the hands of the Nobility their Deputies Seneschals or Vice-Seneschals and taken from them again Parliaments set up to receive Appeals from the other Courts and to judg soveraignly in all cases expresly to curb them The Power of these Parliaments after they had crushed the Nobility brought so low that within the last twenty years they are made to register and give the Power of Laws to Edicts of which the Titles only are read to them and the General Assemblies of Estates that from the time of Pepin had the Power of the Nation in their hands are now brought to nothing and almost forgotten Tho I mention these things 't is not with a design of blaming them for some of them deserve it not and it ought to be consider'd that the Wisdom of man is imperfect and unable to foresee the Effects that may proceed from an infinite variety of Accidents which according to Emergencies necessarily require new Constitutions to prevent or cure the mischiefs arising from them or to advance a good that at the first was not thought on And as the noblest work in which the Wit of man can be exercised were if it could be done to constitute a Government that should last for ever the next to that is to sute Laws to present Exigencies and so much as is in the power of man to foresee And he that should resolve to persist obstinately in the way he first entered upon or to blame those who go out of that in which their Fathers had walked when they find it necessary dos as far as in him lies render the worst of Errors perpetual Changes therefore are unavoidable and the Wit of man can go no farther than to institute such as in relation to the Forces Manners Nature Religion or Interests of a People and their Neighbours are sutable and adequate to what is seen or apprehended to be seen And he who would oblige all Nations at all times to take the same course would prove as foolish as a Physician who should apply the same Medicine to all Distempers or an Architect that would build the same kind of House for all Persons without considering their Estates Dignities the number of their Children or Servants the Time or Climate in which they live and many other Circumstances or which is if possible more sottish a General who should obstinately resolve always to make War in the same way and to draw up his Army in the same form without examining the nature number and strength of his own and his Enemies Forces or the advantages and disadvantages of the Ground But as there may be some universal Rules in Physick Architecture and Military Discipline from which men ought never to depart so there are some in Politicks also which ought always to be observed and wise Legislators adhering to them only will be ready to change all others as occasion may require in order to the publick Good This we may learn from Moses who laying the Foundation of the Law given to the Israelites in that Justice Charity and Truth which having its root in God is subject to no change left them the liberty of having Judges or no Judges Kings or no Kings or to give the Soveraign Power to High Priests or Captains as best pleased themselves and the Mischiefs they afterwards suffer'd proceeded not simply from changing but changing for the worse The like judgment may be made of the Alterations that have happen'd in other places They who aim at the publick Good and wisely institute Means proportionable and adequate to the attainment of it deserve praise and those only are to be dislik'd who either foolishly or maliciously set up a corrupt private Interest in one or a few men Whosoever therefore would judg of the Roman Changes may see that in expelling the Tarquins creating Consuls abating the violence of Usurers admitting Plebeians to marry with the Patricians rendring them capable of Magistracies deducing Colonies dividing Lands gained from their Enemies erecting Tribunes to defend the Rights of the Commons appointing the Decemviri to regulate the Law and abrogating their Power when they abused it creating Dictators and Military Tribunes with a Consular Power as occasions requir'd they acted in the face of the Sun for the good of the Publick and such Acts having always produced Effects sutable to the rectitude of their Intentions they consequently deserve praise But when another Principle began to govern all things were changed in a very different manner Evil Designs tending only to the advancement of private Interests were carried on in the dark by means as wicked as the end If Tarquin when he had a mind to be King poison'd his first Wife and his Brother contracted an incestuous Marriage with his second by the death of her first Husband murder'd her Father and the best men in Rome yet Cesar did worse He favour'd Catiline and his villanous Associates brided and corrupted Magistrates conspir'd with Crassus and Pompey continued in the Command of an Army beyond the time prescribed by Law and turned the Arms with which he had bin entrusted for the service of the Commonwealth to the destruction of it which was rightly represented by his Dream that he had constuprated his Mother In the like manner when Octavius Antonius and Lepidus divided the Empire and then quarrelled among themselves and when Galba Otho Vitellius and Vespasian set up Parties in several Provinces all was managed with Treachery Fraud and Cruelty nothing was intended but the advancement of one Man and the Recompence of the Villains that served him And when the Empire had suffered infinite Calamities by pulling down or rejecting one and setting up another it was for the most part difficult to determine who was the worst of the two or whether the prevailing side had gained or lost by their Victory The question therefore upon which a Judgment may be made to the praise or dispraise of the Roman Government before or after the loss of their Liberty ought not to be Whether either were subject to changes for neither they nor any thing under the Sun was ever exempted from them but whether the Changes that happened after the establishment of Absolute Power in the Emperors did not solely proceed from Ambition and tend to the publick Ruin whereas those Alterations related by our Author concerning Consuls Dictators Decemviri Tribuns and Laws were
Nature sutable to their Original all Tyrannies have had their beginnings from corruption The Histories of Greece Sicily and Italy shew that all those who made themselves Tyrants in several places did it by the help of the worst and the slaughter of the best Men could not be made subservient to their Lusts whilst they continued in their integrity so as their business was to destroy those who would not be corrupted They must therefore endeavour to maintain or increase the corruption by which they attain their greatness If they fail in this point they must fall as Tarquin Pisistratus and others have done but if they succeed so far that the vicious part do much prevail the Government is secure tho the Prince may be in danger And the same thing doth in a great measure accidentally conduce to the safety of his Person For they who for the most part are the Authors of great Revolutions not being so much led by a particular hatred to the man as by a desire to do good to the publick seldom set themselves to conspire against the Tyrant unless he be altogether detestable and intolerable if they do not hope to overthrow the Tyranny The contrary is seen in all popular and well-mixed Governments they are ever established by wise and good men and can never be upheld otherwise than by Virtue The worst men always conspiring against them they must fall if the best have not power to preserve them Wheresoever therefore a People is so governed the Magistrates will obviate afar off the introduction of Vices which tend as much to the ruin of their Persons and Government as to the preservation of the Prince and his This is evidenced by experience 'T is not easy to name a Monarch that had so many good qualities as Julius Cesar till they were extinguished by his ambition which was inconsistent with them He knew that his strength lay in the corruption of the People and that he could not accomplish his designs without increasing it He did not seek good men but such as would be for him and thought none sufficiently addicted to his Interests but such as stuck at the performance of no wickedness that he commanded he was a Souldier according to Cesar's heart who said Pectore si fratris gladium juguloque parentis Condere me jubeas gravidaeve in viscera partu Conjugis invita peragam tamen omnia dextra Lucan And lest such as were devoted to him should grow faint in Villany he industriously inflamed their fury Vult omniâ— Caesar A se saeva peti vult praemia Martis amari Ib. Having spread this Poison amongst the Souldiers his next work was by corrupting the Tribuns to turn the Power to the destruction of the People which had bin erected for their preservation and pouring the Treasures he had gained by rapine in Gaul into the bosom of Curio made him an instrument of mischief who had bin a most eminent Supporter of the Laws Tho he was thought to have affected the glory of sparing Cato and with trouble to have found that he despised life when it was to be accounted his gift yet in suspecting Brutus and Cassius he shew'd he could not believe that virtuous men who loved their Country could be his Friends Such as carry on the like designs with less Valour Wit and Generosity of Spirit will always be more bitterly bent to destroy all that are good knowing that the deformity of their own Vices is rendred most manifest when they are compared with the good qualities of those who are most unlike them and that they can never defend themselves against the scorn and hatred they incur by their Vices unless such a number can be infected with the same and made to delight in the recompences of iniquity that foment them as may be able to keep the rest of the People in subjection The same thing happens even when the Usurpation is not so violent as that of Agathocles Dionysius or the last King of Denmark who in one day by the strength of a mercenary Souldiery overthrew all the Laws of his Country and a lawfully created Magistrate is forced to follow the same ways as soon as he begins to affect a power which the Laws do not confer upon him I wish I could say there were few of these but experience shews that such a proportion of Wisdom moderation of Spirit and Justice is requir'd in a supreme Magistrate to render him content with a limited Power as is seldom found Man is of an aspiring nature and apt to put too high a value upon himself they who are raised above their Brethren tho but a little desire to go farther and if they gain the name of King they think themselves wronged and degraded when they are not suffer'd to do what they please Sanctitas pietas fides Privata bona sunt Qua juvat reges eant In these things they never want Masters and the nearer they come to a power that is not easily restrained by Law the more passionately they desire to abolish all that opposes it and when their Hearts are filled with this fury they never fail to chuse such Ministers as will be subservient to their Will and this is so well known that those only approach them who resolve to be so Their interests as well as their inclinations incite them to diffuse their own manners as far as they can which is no less than to bring those who are under their power to all that wickedness of which the nature of man is capable and no greater testimony can be given of the efficacy of these means towards the utter corruption of Nations than the accursed effects we see of them in our own and the neighbouring Countries It may be said that some Princes are so full of Virtue and Goodness as not to desire more power than the Laws allow and are not obliged to chuse ill men because they desire nothing but what the best are willing to do This may be and sometimes is the Nation is happy that has such a King but he is hard to find and more than a human power is required to keep him in so good a way The strength of his own affections will ever be against him Wives Children and Servants will always join with those Enemies that arise in his own breast to pervert him if he has any weak side any Lust unsubdued they will gain the victory He has not search'd into the nature of man who thinks that any one can resist when he is thus on all sides assaulted Nothing but the wonderful and immediate power of God's Spirit can preserve him and to alledg it will be nothing to the purpose unless it can be proved that all Princes are blessed with such an assistance or that God hath promised it to them and their Successors for ever by what means soever they came to the Crowns they enjoy Nothing is farther from my intention than to speak irreverently of Kings and
like delivered their Countries from Tyrants Their Actions carried in themselves their own justification and their Virtues will never be forgotten whilst the names of Greece and Rome are remembred in the World If this be not enough to declare the Justice inherent in and the Glory that ought to accompany these Works the examples of Moses Aaron Othniel Ehud Barac Gideon Samuel Jephtha David Jehu Jehoiada the Maccabees and other holy men raised up by God for the deliverance of his People from their Oppressors decide the Question They are perpetually renowned for having led the People by extraordinary ways which such as our Author express under the names of Sedition Tumult and War to recover their Liberties and avenge the injuries received from foreign or domestick Tyrants The work of the Apostles was not in their time to set up or pull down any Civil State but they so behaved themselves in relation to all the Powers of the Earth that they gained the name of pestilent seditious Fellows Disturbers of the People and left it as an inheritance to those who in succeeding Ages by following their steps should deserve to be called their Successors whereby they were exposed to the hatred of corrupt Magistrates and brought under the necessity of perishing by them or defending themselves against them and he that denies them that right dos at once condemn the most glorious Actions of the wisest best and holiest men that have bin in the world together with the Laws of God and Man upon which they were founded Nevertheless there is a sort of Sedition Tumult and War proceeding from Malice which is always detestable aiming only at the satisfaction of private Lust without regard to the publick Good This cannot happen in a Popular Government unless it be amongst the Rabble or when the Body of the People is so corrupted that it cannot stand but is most frequent in and natural to absolute Monarchies When Abimelech desir'd to make himself King he raised a Tumult among the basest of the People He hired light and vain persons some Translations call them lewd Vagabonds kill'd his Brethren but perished in his design the corrupt party that favour'd him not having strength enough to subdue the other who were more sincere Sp. Melius Sp. Cassius and Manlius attempted the like in Rome they acted malitiously their pretences to procure the publick Good were false 'T is probable that some in the City were as bad as they and knew that mischief was intended but the body of the People not being corrupted they were suppressed It appear'd says Livy Nihil esse minus populare quam regnum they who had favour'd Manlius condemned him to death when it was proved that egregias alioqui virtutes fa'da regni cupidine maculasset But when the People is generally corrupted such designs seldom miscarry and the success is always the erection of a Tyranny Nothing else can please vain and profligate persons and no Tyranny was ever set up by such as were better qualified The ways of attaining it have always bin by corrupting the manners of the People bribing Soldiers entertaining mercenary Strangers opening Prisons giving Liberty to Slaves alluring indigent persons with hopes of abolishing Debts coming to a new division of Lands and the like Seditions raised by such men always tend to the ruin of popular Governments but when they happen under absolute Monarchies the hurt intended is only to the Person who being removed the Promoters of them set up another and he that is set up subsisting only by the strength of those who made him is obliged to foment the Vices that drew them to serve him tho another may perhaps make use of the same against him The consequence of this is that those who uphold Popular Governments look upon Vice and Indigence as mischiefs that naturally increase each other and equally tend to the ruin of the State When men are by Vice brought into want they are ready for mischief there is no Villany that men of profligate Lives lost Reputation and desperate Fortunes will not undertake Popular equality is an enemy to these and they who would preserve it must preserve integrity of manners Sobriety and an honest contentedness with what the Law allows On the other side the absolute Monarch who will have no other Law than his own Will desires to increase the number of those who through lewdness and beggery may incline to depend upon him tho the same temper of Mind and condition of Fortune prepare them also for such Seditions as may bring him into danger and the same corruption which led them to set him up may invite them to sell him to another that will give them better wages I do not by this conclude that all Monarchs are vitious men but that whoever will set up an absolute Power must do it by these means and that if such a Power be already established and should fall into the hands of a person who by his virtue and the gentleness of his nature should endeavour to render the Yoak so easy that a better disciplin'd People might be contented to bear it yet this method could last no longer than his life and probably would be a means to shorten it that which was at first established by evil arts always returning to the same That which was vicious in the principle can never be long upheld by Virtue and we see that the worst of the Roman Emperors were not in greater danger from such good men as remained undestroy'd than the best from the corrupt Party that would not be corrected and sought such a Master as would lay no restriction upon their Vices Those few who escaped the rage of these Villains only gave a little breathing time to the afflicted World which by their Children or Successors was again plunged into that extremity of misery from which they intended to deliver it An extraordinary Virtue was required to keep a Prince in a way contrary to the principles of his own Government which being rarely found and never continuing long in a Family or Succession of men the endeavours of the best became ineffectual and either they themselves perished in them or after their death all things returned into the old polluted Channel Tho the Power of the Hebrew Kings was not unlimited yet it exceeded the rules set by God and was sufficient to increase the number of the worst of men and to give them opportunities of raising perpetual disturbances On the King's side there were Flatterers and instruments of mischief On the other side there were indebted and discontented Persons Notwithstanding the justice of David's cause the Wisdom Valour and Piety of his person none would follow him except a few of his own Kindred who knew what God had promised to him and such as were uneasy in their worldly circumstances After the death of Saul there was a long and bloody War between Ishbosheth and David The former being killed the slightest matters were sufficient to
Physician who should boast there was not a sick person in a house committed to his care when he had poison'd all that were in it The Spaniards have established the like peace in the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily the West-Indies and other places The Turks by the same means prevent Tumults in their Dominions And they are of such efficacy in all places that Mario Chigi Brother to Porâ— Alexander the seventh by one sordid cheat upon the sale of Corn â—â— said within eight years to have destroy'd above a third part of the people in the Ecclesiastical State and that Country which was the strength of the Romans in the time of the Carthaginian Wars suffer'd more by the covetousness and fraud of that Villain than by all the defeats receiv'd from Hannibal 'T were an endless work to mention all the places where this peace able solitude has bin introduc'd by absolute Monarchy but Popular and regular Governments have always applied themselves to increase the Number Strength Power Riches and Courage of their People by providing comfortable ways of subsistence for their own Citizens inviting Strangers and filling them all with such a love to their Country that every man might look upon the publick Cause as his own and be always ready to defend it This may sometimes give occasion to Tumults and Wars as the most vigorous bodies may fall into Distempers When every one is sollicitous for the Publick there may be difference of opinion and some by mistaking the way may bring prejudice when they intend profit But unless a Tyrant do arise and destroy the Government which is the root of their felicity or they be overwhelm'd by the irresistible power of a Virtue or Fortune greater than their own they soon recover and for the most part rise up in greater Glory and Prosperity than before This was seen in the Commonwealths of Greece and Italy which for this reason were justly called Nurseries of Virtue and their Magistrates Preservers of men whereas our Author 's peace-making Monarchs can deserve no better title than that of Enemies and Destroyers of Mankind I cannot think him in earnest when he exaggerates Sylla's Cruelties as a proof that the mischiefs suffer'd under free States are more universal than under Kings and Tyrants For there never was a Tyrant in the World if he was not one tho through weariness infirmity of body fear or perhaps the horror of his own wickedness he at length resigned his Power but the evil had taken root so deep that it could not be removed There was nothing of Liberty remaining in Rome The Laws were overthrown by the violence of the Sword the remaining Contest was who should be Lord and there is no reason to believe that if Pompey had gained the Battel of Pharsalia he would have made a more modest use of his Victory than Cesar did or that Rome would have bin more happy under him than under the other His Cause was more plausible because the Senate follow'd him and Cesar was the Invader but he was no better in his person and his designs seem to have bin the same He had bin long before Suarum legum auctor eversor He gave the beginning to the first Triumvirat and 't were folly to think that he who had bin insolent when he was not come to the highest pitch of Fortune would have proved moderate if success had put all into his hands The proceedings of Marius Cinna Catiline Octavius and Antonius were all of the same nature No Laws were observ'd No publick good intended the ambition of private persons reigned and whatsoever was done by them or for their interests can no more be applied to Popular Aristocratical or mix'd Governments than the furies of Caligula and Nero. SECT XXVII The Mischiefs and Cruelties proceeding from Tyranny are greater than any that can come from Popular or mixed Governments 'T Is now time to examin the reasons of our Author 's general Maxims The Cruelties says he of a Tyrant extend ordinarily no farther than some particular men that offend him and not to the whole Kingdom It is truly said of his late Majesty King James A King can never be so notoriously vicious but he will generally favour Justice and maintain some order Even cruel Domitian Dionysius the Tyrant and many others are commended in Histories as great observers of Justice except in particular cases wherein his inordinate lusts may carry him away This may be said of Popular Governments for tho a People through error do sometimes hurt a private person and that may possibly result to the publick damage because the man that is offended or destroy'd might have bin useful to the Society they never do it otherwise than by error For having the Government in themselves whatever is prejudicial to it is so to them and if they ruin it they ruin themselves which no man ever did willingly and knowingly In absolute Monarchies the matter is quite otherwise A Prince that sets up an interest in himself becomes an Enemy to the Publick in following his own lusts he offends all except a few of his corrupt Creatures by whose help he oppresses others with a Yoak they are unwilling to bear and thereby incurs the universal hatred This hatred is always proportionable to the injuries received which being extreme that must be so too and every People being powerful in comparison to the Prince that governs he will always fear those that hate him and always hate those he fears When Luigi Farnese first Duke of Parma had by his Tyranny incensed the People of that small City their hatred was not less mortal to him than that of the whole Empire had bin to Nero and as the one burn'd Rome the other would have destroy'd Parma if he had not bin prevented The like has bin and will be every where in as much as every man endeavours to destroy those he hates and fears and the greatness of the danger often drives this fear to rage and madness For this reason Caligula wish'd but one Neck to all the People and Nero triumphed over the burning City thinking by that ruin he had prevented his own danger I know not who the good Authors are that commend Domitian for his justice but Tacitus calls him Principem virtutibus infestum and 't is hard to find out how such a man can be an observer of justice unless it be just that whoever dares to be virtuous under a vicious and base Prince should be destroy'd Another Author of the same time speaking of him dos not say he was unjust but gives us reason to think he was so unless it were just for him who had a power over the best part of the World to destroy it and that he who by his cruelty had brought it to the last gasp would have finish'd the work if his rage had not bin extinguished Many Princes not having in themselves power to destroy their People have stirred up foreign Nations
their Dominion on the Terra firma and prepared to assault the City it was under God solely preserved by the vigour and wisdom of their Nobility who tho no way educated to War unless by Sea sparing neither persons nor purses did with admirable industry and courage first recover Padoüa and then many other Cities so as at the end of that terrible War they came off without any diminution of their Territories Whereas Portugal having in our age revolted from the House of Austria no one doubts that it had bin immediately reduced if the great men of Spain had not bin pleased with such a lessening of their Master's power and resolved not to repair it by the recovery of that Kingdom or to deprive themselves of an cafy retreat when they should be oppressed by him or his Favourites The like thought was more plainly express'd by the Mareschal de Bassompierre who sceing how hardly Rochel was pressed by Lewis the 13th faid he thought they should be such fools to take it but 't is believ'd they would never have bin such fools and the treachery only of our Countrymen did enable the Cardinal Richlieu to do it as for his own glory and the advancement of the Popish Cause he really intended and nothing is to this day more common in the mouth of their wisest and best men tho Papists than the acknowledgment of their own folly in suffering that place to fall the King having by thar means gotten power to proceed against them at his pleasure The brave Monsieur de Turenne is said to have carried this to a greater height in his last Discourse to the present King of France You think said he you have Armies but you have none the one half of the Officers are the Bawdy-house Companions of Monsieur de xxx or the Creatures of his Whore Madam de xxx the other half may be men of experience and fit for their Imployments but they are such as would be pleased with nothing more than to see you lose two or three Battels that coming to stand in need of them you might cause them to be better used by your Ministers than of late they have bin It may easily be imagin'd how men in such sentiments do serve their Master and nothing is more evident than that the French in this age have had so great advantages that they might have brought Europe and perhaps Asia under their power if the interest of the Nation had bin united to that of the Government and the Strength Vigour and Bravery of the Nobility employ'd that way But since it has pleased God to suffer us to fall into a condition of being little able to help our selves and that they are in so good terms with the Turk as not to attack him 't is our happiness that they do not know their own strength or cannot without ruin to themselves turn it to our prejudice I could give yet more pregnant testimonies of the difference between men fighting for their own interests in the Offices to which they had bin advanced by the votes of numerous Assemblies and such as serve for pay and get preferments by corruption or favour if I were not unwilling to stir the spleen of some men by obliging them to reflect upon what has passed in our own Age and Country to compare the justice of our Tribunals within the time of our memory and the integrity of those who for a while manag'd the publick Treasure the Discipline Valour and Strength of our Armies and Fleets the increase of our Riches and Trade the success of our Wars in Scotland Ireland and at Sea the glory and reputation not long since gained with that condition into which we are of late fallen But I think I shall offend no wise or good man if I say that as neither the Romans nor Grecians in the time of their Liberty ever performed any actions more glorious than freeing the Country from a Civil War that had raged in every part the conquest of two such Kingdoms as Scotland and Ireland and crushing the formidable power of the Hollanders by Sea nor ever produced more examples of Valor Industry Integrity and in all respects compleat disinterested unmovable and incorruptible Virtue than were at that time seen in our Nation So neither of them upon the change of their Affairs did exceed us in weakness cowardice baseness venality lewdness and all manner of corruption We have reason therefore not only to believe that all Princes do not necessarily understand the affairs of their People or provide better for them than those who are otherwise chosen but that as there is nothing of Greatness Power Riches Strength and Happiness which we might not reasonably have hoped for if we had rightly improved the advantages we had so there is nothing of shame and misery which we may not justly fear since we have neglected them If any man think that this evil of advancing Officers for personal respects favour or corruption is not of great extent I desire him to consider that the Officers of State Courts of Justice Church Armies Fleets and Corporations are of such number and power as wholly to corrupt a Nation when they themselves are corrupted and will ever be corrupt when they attain to their Offices by corruption The good mannagement of all Affairs Civil Military and Ecclesiastical necessarily depends upon good order and discipline and 't is not in the power of common men to reform abuses patronized by those in Authority nor to prevent the mischiefs thereupon ensuing and not having power to direct publick actions to the publick good they must consequently want the industry and affection that is required to bring them to a good issue The Romans were easily beaten under the Decemviri tho immediatly before the erection and after the extinction of that Power none of their Neighbours were able to resist them The Goths who with much glory had reigned in Spain for about three hundred years had neither strength nor courage under their lewd and odious King Rodrigo and were in one day subdued with little loss of blood by the Saracens and could not in less than eight hundred years free their Country from them That brave Nation having of late fallen under as base a conduct has now as little heart or power to defend it self Court-Parasites have rendred Valour ridiculous and they who have ever shew'd themselves as much inclin'd to Arms as any people of the world do now abhor them and are sent to the Wars by force laid in Carts and bound like Calves brought to the Shambles and left to starve in Flanders as soon as they arrive It may easily be judged what service can be expected from such men tho they should happen to be well commanded but the great Officers by the corruption of the Court think only of enriching themselves and encreasing the misery of the Soldiers by their frauds both become equally useless to the State Notwithstanding the seeming prosperity
take it This defect may possibly be repair'd in time but to conclude it must be so is absurd for no one has this use and experience when he begins to reign At that time many Errors may be committed to the ruin of himself or people and many have perish'd even in their beginning Edward the fifth and sixth of England Francis the second of France and divers other Kings have died in the beginning of their youth Charles the ninth lived only to add the furies of youth to the follies of his childhood and our Henry the second Edward the second Richard the second and Henry the sixth seem to have bin little wiser in the last than in the first year of their Reign or Life The present Kings of Spain France and Sweden came to the Crowns they wear before the sixth year of their Age and if they did then surpass all annual Magistrates in Wisdom and Valour it was by a peculiar Gift of God which for any thing we know is not given to every King and it was not use and experience that made them to excel If it be pretended that this experience with the Wisdom that it gives comes in time and by degrees I may modestly ask what time is requir'd to render a Prince excellent in Wisdom who is Child or a Fool and who will give security that he shall live to that time or that the Kingdom shall not be ruin'd in the time of his folly I may also doubt how our Author who concludes that every King in time must needs become excellent in Wisdom can be reconciled to Solomon who in preferring a wise Child before an old and foolish King that will not be advised shews that an old King may be a Fool and he that will not be advised is one Some are so naturally brutish and stupid that neither education nor time will mend them 'T is probable that Solomon took what care he could to instruct his only Son Rehoboam but he was certainly a Fool at forty years of age and we have no reason to believe that he deserved a better name He seems to have bin the very Fool his Father intended who tho brayed in a mortar would never leave his folly He would not be advised tho the hand of God was against him ten Tribes revolted from him and the City and Temple was pillaged by the Egyptians Neither experience nor afflictions could mend him and he is called to this day by his own Countrymen Stultitia Gentium I might offend tender ears if I should alledg all the Examples of Princes mentioned in History or known in our own Age who have lived and died as foolish and incorrigible as he but no man I presume will be scandalized that the ten last Kings of Meroveus his Race whom the French Historians call Les Roys faineants were so far from excelling other men in understanding that they liv'd and died more like to beasts than men Nay the Wisdom and Valour of Charles Martel expired in his Grandchild Charles the Great and his Posterity grew to be so sottish that the French Nation must have perished under their conduct if the Nobility and People had not rejected them and placed the Crown upon a more deserving head This is as much as is necessary to be said to the general Proposition for it is false if it be not always true and no conclusion can be made upon it But I need not be so strict with our Author there being no one sound part in his Assertion Many Children come to be Kings when they have no experience and die or are depos'd before they can gain any Many are by nature so sottish that they can learn nothing Others falling under the power of Women or corrupt Favorites and Ministers are perswaded and seduced from the good ways to which their own natural understanding or experience might lead them the Evils drawn upon themselves or their Subjects by the Errors committed in the time of their ignorance are often grievous and sometimes irreparable tho they should be made wise by time and experience A person of royal Birth and excellent Wit was so sensible of this as to tell me That the condition of Kings was most miserable in as much as they never heard Truth till they were ruin'd by Lies and then every one was ready to tell it to them not by way of advice but reproach and rather to vent their own spite than to seek a remedy to the evils brought upon them and the people Others attain to Crowns when they are of full Age and have experience as Men tho none as Kings and therefore are apt to commit as great mistakes as Children And upon the whole matter all the Histories of the world shew that instead of this profound Judgment and incomparable Wisdom which our Author generally attributes to all Kings there is no sort of men that do more frequently and intirely want it But tho Kings were always wise by nature or made to be so by experience it would be of little advantage to Nations under them unless their Wisdom were pure perfect and accompanied with Clemency Magnanimity Justice Valour and Piety Our Author durst hardly have said that these Virtues or Graces are gained by Experience or annexed by God to any rank of Men of Families He gives them where he pleases without distinction We sometimes see those upon Thrones who by God and Nature seem to have bin designed for the most sordid Offices and those have bin known to pass their lives in meanness and poverty who had all the Qualities that could be desir'd in Princes There is likewise a kind of ability to dispatch some sort of Affairs that Princes who continue long in a Throne may to a degree acquire or increase Some men take this for Wisdom but K. James more rightly called it by the name of King-craft and as it principally consists in Dissimulation and the arts of working upon mens Passions Vanities private Interests or Vices to make them for the most part instruments of Mischief it has the advancement or security of their own Persons for object is frequently exercised with all the excesses of Pride Avarice Treachery and Cruelty and no men have bin ever found more notoriously to deflect from all that deserves praise in a Prince or a Gentleman than those that have most excelled in it Pharasmenes King of Iberia is recorded by Tacitus to have bin well vers'd in this Science His Brother Mithradates King of Armenia had married his Daughter and given his own Daughter to Rhadamistus Son of Pharasmenes He had some Contests with Mithradates but by the help of these mutual Alliances nearness of Blood the diligence of Rhadamistus and an Oath strengthen'd with all the Ceremonies that amongst those Nations were esteemed most sacred not to use Arms or Poison against him all was compos'd and by this means getting him into his power he stifled him with a great weight of clothes thrown upon him
were in them Secondly Neither Plato nor Aristotle acknowledg either reason or justice in the power os a Monarch unless he has more of the Virtues conducing to the good of the Civil Society than all those who compose it and employ them for the publick advantage and not to his own pleasure and profit as being set up by those who seek their own good for no other reason than that he should procure it To this end a Law is set as a rule to him and the best men that is such as are most like to himself made to be his Assistants because say they Lex est mens sine affectu quasi Deus whereas the best of men have their affections and passions and are subject to be misled by them Which shews that as the Monarch is not sor himself nor by himself he dos not give but receive power nor admit others to the participation of it but is by them admitted to what he has Whereupon they conclude that to prefer the absolute power of a man as in those Governments which they call Barbarorum regna before the regular Government of Kings justly exercising a power instituted by Law and directed to the publick good is to chuse rather to be subject to the lust of a Beast than to be governed by a God And because such a choice can only be made by a Beast I leave our Author to find a description of himself in their Books which he so often cites But if Aristotle deserve credit the Princes who reign for themselves and not for the People preferring their own pleasure or profit before the publick become Tyrants which in his language is Enemies to God and Man On this account Boccalini introduces the Princes of Europe raising a mutiny against him in Parnassus for giving such definitions of Tyrants as they said comprehended them all and forcing the poor Philosopher to declare by a new definition that Tyrants were certain men of antient times whose race is now extinguished But with all his Wit and Learning he could not give a reason why those who do the same things that rendred the Antient Tyrants detestable should not be so also in our days In the third place The Scriptures declare the necessity of setting bounds to those who are placed in the highest dignities Moses seems to have had as great abilities as any man that ever lived in the world but he alone was not able to bear the weight of the Government and therefore God appointed Seventy chosen men to be his assistants This was a perpetual Law to Israel and as no King was to have more power than Moses or more abilities to perform the duties of his Office none could be exempted from the necessity of wanting the like helps Our Author therefore must confess that they are Kings who have them or that Kingly Government is contrary to the Scriptures When God by Moses gave liberty to his People to make a King he did it under these conditions He must be one of their Brethren They must chuse him he must not multiply Gold Silver Wives or Horses he must not lift up his Heart above his Brethren And Josephus paraphrasing upon the place says He shall do nothing without the advice of the Sanhedrin or if he do they shall oppose him This agrees with the confession of Zedekiah to the Princes which was the Sanhedrin The King can do nothing without you and seems to have bin in pursuance of the Law of the Kingdom which was written in a Book and laid up before the Lord and could not but agree with that of Mosis unless they spake by different Spirits or that the Spirit by which they did speak was subject to error or change and the whole series of God's Law shews that the Pride Magnificence Pomp and Glory usurped by their Kings was utterly contrary to the will of God They did lift up their hearts above their Brethren which was for bidden by the Law All the Kings of Israel and most of the Kings of Jadah utterly rejected it and every one of them did very much depart from the observation of it I will not deny that the People in their institution of a King intended they should do so they had done it themselves and would have a King that might uphold them in their disobedience they were addicted to the Idolatry of their accursed Neighbours and desired that Government by which it was maintained amongst them In doing this they did not reject Samuel but they rejected God that he should not reign over them They might perhaps believe that unless their King were such as the Law did not permit he would not perform what they intended or that the name of King did not belong to him unless he had a power that the Law denied But since God and his Prophets give the name of King to the chief Magistrate endow'd with a power that was restrain'd within very narrow limits whom they might without offence set up we also may safely give the same to those of the same nature whether it please Fihner or not 4. The practice of most Nations and I may truly say of all that deserve imitation has bin as directly contrary to the absolute power of one man as their Constitutions or if the original of many Governments lie hid in the impenetrable darkness of Antiquity their progress may serve to shew the intention of the Founders Aristotle seems to think that the first Monarchs having bin chosen for their Virtue were little restrain'd in the exercise of their Power but that they or their Children falling into Corruption and Pride grew odious and that Nations did on that account either abolish their Authority or create Senates and other Magistrates who having part of the Power might keep them in order The Spartan Kings were certainly of this nature and the Persian till they conquer'd Babylon Nay I may safely say that neither the Kings which the frantick people set up in opposition to the Law of God nor those of the bordering Nations whose example they chose to follow had that absolute power which our Author attributes to all Kings as inseparable from the name Achish the Philistin lov'd and admir'd David he look'd upon him as an Angel of God and promised that he should be the keeper of his head for ever but when the Princes suspected him and said he shall not go down with us to Battel he was obliged to dismiss him This was not the language of Slaves but of those who had a great part in the Government and the Kings submission to their will shows that he was more like to the Kings of Sparta than to an absolute Monarch who dos whatever pleases him I know not whether the Spartans were descended from the Hebrews as some think but their Kings were under a regulation much like that of the 17 of Deut. tho they had two Their Senate of twenty eight and the Ephori
had a power like to that of the Sanhedrin and by them Kings were condemned to fines imprisonment banishment and death as appears by the examples of Pausanias Clonymus Leonidas Agis and others The Hebrew Discipline was the same Reges Davidicae stirpis says Maimonides judicabant judicabantur They gave testimony in judgment when they were called and testimony was given against them Whereas the Kings of Israel as the same Author says were superbi corde elati spretores legis nec judicabant nec judicabantur proud insolent and contemners of the Law who would neither judg nor submit to judgment as the Law commanded The Fruits they gathered were sutable to the Seed they had sown their Crimes were not left unpunish'd they who despised the Law were destroy'd without Law and when no ordinary course could be taken against them for their excesses they were overthrown by force and the Crown within the space of sew years transported into nine several Families with the utter extirpation of those that had possess'd it On the other hand there never was any Sedition against the Spartan Kings and after the moderate Discipline according to which they liv'd was established none of them died by the hands of their Subjects except only two who were put to death in a way of Justice the Kingdom continued in the same races till Cleomenes was defeated by Antigonus and the Government overthrown by the insolence of the Macedonians This gave occasion to those bestial Tyrants Nabis and Machanidas to set up such a Government as our Author recommends to the World which immediately brought destruction upon themselves and the whole City The Germans who pretended to be descended from the Spartans had the like Government Their Princes according to their merit had the credit of perswading not the power of commanding and the question was not what part of the Government their Kings would allow to the Nobility and People but what they would give to their Kings and 't is not much material to our present dispute whether they learnt this from some obscure knowledg of the Law which God gave to his People or whether led by the light of reason which is also from God they discovered what was altogether conformable to that Law Whoever understands the affairs of Germany knows that the present Emperors notwithstanding their haughty Title have a power limited as in the days of Tacitus If they are good and wise they may perswade but they can command no farther than the Law allows They do not admit the Princes Noblemen and Cities to the power which they all exercise in their general Diets and each of them within their own Precincts but they exercise that which has bin by publick consent bestow'd upon them All the Kingdoms peopled from the North observed the same rules In all of them the powers were divided between the Kings the Nobility Clergy and Commons and by the Decrees of Councils Diets Parliaments Cortez and Assemblies of Estates Authority and Liberty were so balanced that such Princes as assumed to themselves more than the Law did permit were severely punished and those who did by force or fraud invade Thrones were by force thrown down from them This was equally beneficial to Kings and People The Powers as Theopompus King of Sparta said were most safe when they were least envied and hated Lewis the 11th of France was one of the first that broke this Golden Chain and by more subtil Arts than had bin formerly known subverted the Laws by which the fury of those Kings had bin restrain'd and taught others to do the like tho all of them have not so well saved themselves from punishment James the third of Scotland was one of his most apt Scholars and Buchanan in his life says That he was precipitated into all manner of Infamy by men of the most abject condition that the corruption of those times and the ill Example of neighbouring Princes were considerable motives to pervert him for Edward the fourth of England Charles of Burgundy Lewis the 11th of France and John the second of Portugal had already laid the Foundations of Tyranny in those Countries and Richard the third was then most cruelly exercising the same in the Kingdom of England This could not have bin if all the Power had always bin in Kings and neither the People nor the Nobility had ever had any For no man can be said to gain that which he and his Predecessors always possessed or to take from others that which they never had nor to set up any sort of Government if it had bin always the same But the foresaid Lewis the 11th did assume to himself a Power above that of his Predecessors and Philip de Commines shews the ways by which he acquir'd it with the miserable effects of his Acquisition both to himself and to his people Modern Authors observe that the change was made by him and for that reason he is said by Mezeray and others to have brought those Kings out of Guardianship they were not therefore so till he did emancipate them Nevertheless this Emancipation had no resemblance to the unlimited Power of which our Author dreams The General Assemblies of Estates were often held long after his death and continued in the exercise of the Sovereign Power of the Nation Davila speaking of the General Assembly held at Orleans in the time of Francis the second asserts the whole Power of the Nation to have bin in them Monsieur de Thou says the same thing and adds that the King dying suddenly the Assembly continued even at the desire of the Council in the exercise of that Power till they had setled the Regency and other Affairs of the highest importance according to their own judgment Hottoman a Lawyer of that Time and Nation famous for his Learning Judgment and Integrity having diligently examin'd the antient Laws and Histories of that Kingdom distinctly proves that the French Nation never had any Kings but of their own chusing that their Kings had no Power except what was conferr'd upon them and that they had bin removed when they excessively abused or readred themselves unworthy of that Trust. This is sufficiently clear by the forecited examples of Pharamond's Grandchildren and the degenerated Races of Meroveus and Pepin of which many were deposed some of the nearest in Blood excluded and when their Vices seemed to be incorrigible they were wholly rejected All this was done by virtue of that Rule which they call the Salique Law And tho some of our Princes pretending to the Inheritance of that Crown by marrying the Heirs General denied that there was any such thing no man can say that for the space of above twelve hundred years Females or their Descendents who are by that Law excluded have ever bin thought to have any right to the Crown And no Law unless it be explicitly given by God can be of greater Authority than one which
not the least similitude of either And tho it were true that Fathers are held by no contracts which generally 't is not for when the Son is of age and dos something for the Father to which he is not obliged or gives him that which he is not bound to give suppose an Inheritance received from a Friend goods of his own acquisition or that he be emancipated all good Laws look upon those things as a valuable consideration and give the same force to contracts thereupon made as to those that pass between strangers it could have no relation to our question concerning Kings One principal reason that renders it very little necessary by the Laws of Nations to restrain the power of Parents over their Children is because 't is presumed they cannot abuse it they are thought to have a Law in their Bowels obliging them more strictly to seek their good than all those that can be laid upon them by another Power and yet if they depart from it so as inhumanly to abuse or kill their Children they are punished with as much rigour and accounted more unpardonable than other men Ignorance or wilful malice perswading our Author to pass over all this he boldly affirms That the Father of a family governs it by no other Law than his own Will and from thence infers that the condition of Kings is the same He would seem to soften the harshness of this Proposition by saying That a King is always tied by the same Law of Nature to keep this general ground that the safety of the Kingdom is his chief Law But he spoils it in the next page by asserting That it is not right for Kings to do injury but it is right that they go unpunished by the People if they do so that in this point it is all one whether Samuel describe a King or a Tyrant for patient obedience is due unto both no remedy in the Text against Tyrants but crying and praying unto God in that day In this our Author according to the custom of Theaters runs round in a Circle pretends to grant that which is true and then by a lie endeavours to destroy all again Kings by the Law of Nature are obliged to seek chiefly the good of the Kingdom but there is no remedy if they do it not which is no less than to put all upon the Conscience of those who manifestly have none But if God has appointed that all other transgressions of the Laws of Nature by which a private man receives damage should be punished in this world notwithstanding the right reserved to himself of a future punishment I desire to know why this alone by which whole Nations may be and often are destroy'd should escape the hands of Justice If he presume no Law to be necessary in this case because it cannot be thought that Kings will transgress as there was no Law in Sparta against Adultery because it was not thought possible for men educated under that discipline to be guilty of such a Crime and as divers Nations left a liberty to Fathers to dispose of their Children as they thought fit because it could not be imagined that any one would abuse that power he ought to remember that the Spartans were mistaken and for want of that Law which they esteemed useless Adulteries became as common there as in any part of the world and the other error being almost every where discovered the Laws of all civilized Nations make it capital for a man to kill his Children and give redress to Children if they suffer any other extreme injuries from their Parents as well as other persons But tho this were not so it would be nothing to our question unless it could be supposed that whoever gets the power of a Nation into his hands must be immediately filled with the same tenderness of affection to the People under him as a Father naturally has towards the Children he hath begotten He that is of this opinion may examine the lives of Herod Tiberius Caligula and some later Princes of like inclinations and conclude it to be true if he find that the whole course of their actions in relation to the People under them do well sute with the tender and sacred name of Father and altogether false if he find the contrary But as every man that considers what has bin or sees what is every day done in the world must confess that Princes or those who govern them do most frequently so utterly reject all thoughts of tenderness and piety towards the Nations under them as rather to seek what can be drawn from them than what should be done for them and sometimes become their most bitter and publick enemies 't is ridiculous to make the safety of Nations to depend upon a supposition which by daily experience we find to be false and impious to prefer the lusts of a man who violates the most sacred Laws of Nature by destroying those he is obliged to preserve before the welfare of that People for whose good he is made to be what he is if there be any thing of justice in the power he exercises Our Author foolishly thinks to cover the enormity of this nonsense by turning Salutem Populi into Salutem Regni for tho Regnum may be taken for the power of commanding in which sense the preservation of it is the usual object of the care of Princes yet it dos more rightly signify the body of that Nation which is governed by a King And therefore if the Maxim be true as he acknowledges it to be then Salus Populi est lex Suprema and the first thing we are to inquire is whether the Government of this or that man do conduce to the accomplishment of that supreme Law or not for otherwise it ought to have bin said Salus Regis est lex suprema which certainly never entred into the head of a wiser or better man than Filmer His reasons are as good as his Doctrin No Law says he can be imposed on Kings because there were Kings before any Laws were made This would not follow tho the Proposition were true for they who imposed no Laws upon the Kings they at first made from an opinion of their Virtue as in those called by the antients Heroum regna might lay restrictions upon them when they were found not to answer the expectation conceived of them or that their Successors degenerated from their Virtue Other Nations also being instructed by the ill effects of an unlimited Power given to some Kings if there was any such might wisely avoid the Rock upon which their Neighbours had split and justly moderate that Power which had bin pernicious to others However a Proposition of so great importance ought to be proved but that being hard and perhaps impossible because the original of Nations is almost wholly unknown to us and their practice seems to have bin so various that what is true in one is not so in another he is
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
and People at London and Harold excused himself for not performing his Oath to William the Norman because he said he had made it unduly and presumptuously without consulting the Nobility and People and without their Authority William was received with great joy by the Clergy and People and saluted King by all swearing to observe the antient good and approved Laws of England and tho he did but ill perform his Oath yet before his death he seemed to repent of the ways he had taken and only wishing his Son might be King of England he confessed in his last Will made at Caen in Normandy that he neither found nor left the Kingdom as an Inheritance If he possessed no right except what was conferred upon him no more was conserred than had bin enjoy'd by the antient Kings according to the approved Laws which he swore to observe Those Laws gave no power to any till he was elected and that which they did then give was so limited that the Nobility and People reserved to themselves the disposition of the greatest Affairs even to the deposition and expulsion of such as should not well perform the duty of their Oaths and Office And I leave it to our Author to prove how they can be said to have had the Sword and the Power so as to be feared otherwise than as the Apostle says by those that do evil which we acknowledg to be not only in the King but in the lowest Officer of Justice in the world If it be pretended that our later Kings are more to be seared than William the Norman or his Predecessors it must not be as has bin proved either from the general right of Kings or from the Doctrine of the Apostle but from something else that is peculiar and subsequent which I leave our Author's Disciples to prove and an answer may be found in due time But to show that our Ancestors did not mistake the words of the Apostle 't is good to consider when to whom and upon what occasion he spoke The Christian Religion was then in its infancy his discourses were addressed to the Professors of it who tho they soon grew to be considerable in number were for the most part of the meanest sort of People Servants or Inhabitants of the Cities rather than Citizens and Freemen joined in no civil Body or Society nor such as had or could have any part in the Government The occasion was to suppress the dangerous mistake of many converted Jews and others who knowing themselves to be freed from the power of Sin and the Devil presumed they were also freed from the obligation of human Laws And if this Error had not bin crop'd in the bud it would have given occasion to their Enemies who desired nothing more to destroy them all and who knowing that such Notions were stirring among them would have bin glad that they who were not easily to be discovered had by that means discovered themselves This induced a necessity of diverting a poor mean scatter'd People from such thoughts concerning the State to convince them of the Error into which they were fallen that Christians did not owe the same obedience to Civil Laws and Magistrates as other men and to keep them from drawing destruction upon themselves by such ways as not being warranted by God had no promise of his Protection St. Paul's work was to preserve the Professors of Christianity as appears by his own words I exhort that first of all Supplications Prayers Intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men for Kings and for all that are in Authority that we may live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty Put them in mind to be subject to Principalities and Powers to obey Magistrates to be ready for every good work St. Peter agrees with him fully in describing the Magistrate and his Duty shewing the reasons why obedience should be pay'd to him and teaching Christians to be humble and contented with their condition as free yet not using their Liberty for a cover to malice and not only to fear God and honor the King of which conjunction of words such as Filmer are very proud but to honor all men as is said in the same verse This was in a peculiar manner the work of that time in which those who were to preach and propagate the Gospel were not to be diverted from that Duty by entangling themselves in the care of State-affairs but it dos in some sense agree with all times for it can never be the duty of a good man to oppose such a Magistrate as is the Minister of God in the exercise of his Office nor to deny to any man that which is his due But as the Christian Law exempts no man from the Duty he ows to his Father Master or the Magistrate it dos not make him more a Slave than he was before nor deprive him of any natural or civil Right and if we are obliged to pay Tribute Honor or any other thing where it is not due it must be by some Precept very different from that which commands us to give to Cesar that which is Cesar's If he define the Magistrate to be the Minister of God doing Justice and from thence draws the Reasons he gives for rendring Obedience to him we are to inquire whose Minister he is who overthrows it and look for some other reason sor rendring obedience to him than the words of the Apostles If David who was willing to lay down his life sor the people who hated iniquity and would not suffer a liar to come into his presence was the Minister of God I desire to know whose Minister Caligula was who set up himself to be worshipped for a God and would at once have destroyed all the people that he ought to have protected Whose Minister was Nero who besides the abominable impurities of his lise and hatred to all virtue as contrary to his Person and Government set fire to the great City If it be true that contrariorum contraria est ratio these questions are easily decided and if the reasons of things are eternal the same distinction grounded upon truth will be good for ever Every Magistrate and every man by his works will for ever declare whose Minister he is in what spirit he lives and consequently what obedience is due to him according to the Precept of the Apostle If any man ask what I mean by Justice I answer That the Law of the Land as far as it is Sanctio recta jubens honesta prohibens contraria declares what it is But there have bin and are Laws that are neither just nor commendable There was a Law in Rome that no God should be worshipped vvithout the consent of the Senat Upon vvhich Tertullian says scoffingly That God shall not be God unless he please Man and by virtue of this Law the first Christians were exposed to all manner of cruelties and some
of the Emperors in other respects excellent Men most foully polluted themselves and their Government with innocent Blood Antoninus Pius was taken in this snare and Tertullian bitterly derides Trajan for glorying in his Clemency when he had commanded Pliny who was Proconsul in Asia not to make any search for Christians but only to punish them according to Law when they should be brought before him No Municipal Law can be more firmly established by human Authority than that of the Inquisition in Spain and other places And those accursed Tribunals which have shed more Christian blood than all the Pagans that ever were in the world is commonly called The Holy Office If a Gentleman in Poland kill a Peasant he is by a Law now in use free from punishment if he lay a Ducat upon the dead Body Evenus the third King of Scotland caused a Law to pass by which the Wives and Daughters of Noblemen were exposed to his Lust and those of the Commons to the Lust of the Nobility These and an infinite number of others like to them were not right Sanctions but such as have produced unspeakable mischiefs and calamities They were not therefore Laws The name of Justice is abusively attributed to them Those that govern by them cannot be the Ministers of God and the Apostle commanding our obedience to the Minister of God for our good commands us not to be obedient to the Minister of the Devil to our hurt for we cannot serve two Masters SECT XI That which is not just is not Law and that which is not Law ought not to be obeyed OUR Author having for a long time pretended Conscience now pulls off his Mask and plainly tells us that 't is not on account of Conscience but for fear of punishment or hopes of reward that Laws are to be obeyed That familiar distinction of the Schoolmen says he whereby they subject Kings to the directive but not to the coactive Power of the Law is a confession that Kings are not bound by the positive Laws of any Nation since the compulsory Power of Laws is that which properly makes Laws to be Laws Not troubling my self with this distinction of the Schoolmen nor acknowledging any truth to be in it or that they are competent Judges of such matters I say that if it be true our Author's conclusion is altogether false for the directive Power of the Law which is certain and grounded upon the inherent good and rectitude that is in it is that alone which has a power over the Conscience whereas the coercive is merely contingent and the most just powers commanding the most just things have so often fallen under the violence of the most unjust men commanding the most execrable villanies that if they were therefore to be obeyed the Consciences of men must be regulated by the success of a Battel or Conspiracy than which nothing can be affirmed more impious and absurd By this rule David was not to be obeyed when by the wickedness of his Son he was driven from Jerusalem and deprived of all coercive Power and the conscientious obedience that had bin due to him was transfer'd to Absalom who sought his life And in St. Paul's time it was not from him who was guided only by the Spirit of God and had no manner of coercive Power that Christians were to learn their duty but from Caligula Claudius and Nero who had that Power well established by the mercenary Legions If this were so the Governments of the World might be justly called Magna Latrocinia and men laying aside all considerations of Reason or Justice ought only to follow those who can inflict the greatest Punishments or give the greatest Rewards But since the reception of such opinions would be the extirpation of all that can be called good we must look for another rule of our obedience and shall find that to be the Law which being as I said before Sanctio recta must be founded upon that eternal Principle of Reason and Truth from whence the rule of Justice which is sacred and pure ought to be deduced and not from the depraved will of man which fluctuating according to the different Interests Humors and Passions that at several times reign in several Nations one day abrogates what had bin enacted the other The Sanction therefore that deserves the name of a Law which derives not its excellency from Antiquity or from the dignity of the Legislators but from an intrinsick equity and justice ought to be made in pursuance of that universal Reason to which all Nations at all times owe an equal veneration and obedience By this we may know whether he who has the Power dos justice or not Whether he be the Minister of God to our good a protector of good and a terror to ill men or the Minister of the Devil to our hurt by encouraging all manner of evil and endeavouring by vice and corruption to make the people worse that they may be miserable and miserable that they may be worse I dare not say I shall never fear such a man if he be armed with power But I am sure I shall never esteem him to be the Minister of God and shall think I do ill if I fear him If he has therefore a coercive Power over me 't is through my weakness for he that will suffer himself to be compell'd knows not how to die If therefore he who dos not follow the directive Power of the Law be not the Minister of God he is not a King at least not such a King as the Apostle commands us to obey And if that Sanction which is not just be not a Law and can have no obligation upon us by what Power soever it be established it may well fall out that the Magistrate who will not follow the directive Power of the Law may fall under the Coercive and then the fear is turned upon him with this aggravation that it is not only actual but just This was the case of Nero the coercive Power was no longer in him but against him He that was forced to fly and to hide himself that was abandoned by all men and condemned to die according to antient Custom did as I suppose fear and was no way to be feared The like may be said of Amaziah King of Judah when he fled to Lachish of Nabuchodonosor when he was driven from the society of men and of many Emperors and Kings of the greatest Nations in the world who have bin so utterly deprived of all Power that they have bin imprisoned deposed confined to Monasteries kill'd drawn through the Streets cut in pieces thrown into Rivers and indeed suffer'd all that could be suffer'd by the vilest Slaves If any man say these things ought not to have bin done an answer may be given in a proper place though 't were enough to say that the Justice of the world is not to be overthrown by a meer Assertion without proof but
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
most conducing to the good ends to which it was directed As Governments were instituted for the obtaining of Justice and as our Author says the preservation of Liberty we are not to seek what Government was the first but what best provides for the obtaining of Justice and preservation of Liberty For whatsoever the Institution be and how long soever it may have lasted 't is void if it thwarts or do not provide for the ends of its establishment If such a Law or Custom therefore as is not good in it self had in the beginning prevailed in all parts of the world which in relation to absolute or any kind of Monarchy is not true it ought to be abolished and if any man should shew himself wiser than others by proposing a Law or Government more beneficial to mankind than any that had bin formerly known providing better for Justice and Liberty than all others had done he would merit the highest veneration If any man ask who shall be Judg of that rectitude or pravity which either authorises or destroys a Law I answer that as this consists not in formalities and niceties but in evident and substantial truths there is no need of any other Tribunal than that of common sense and the light of nature to determine the matter and he that travels through France Italy Turky Germany and Switzerland without consulting Bartolus or Baldus will easily understand whether the Countries that are under the Kings of France and Spain the Pope and the Great Turk or such as are under the care of a well-regulated Magistracy do best enjoy the benefits of Justice and Liberty 'T is as easily determined whether the Grecians when Athens and Thebes flourished were more free than the Medes whether Justice was better administred by Agathocles Dionysius and Phalaris than by the legal Kings and regular Magistrates of Sparta or whether more care was taken that Justice and Liberty might be preserved by Tiberius Caligula Claudius Nero and Vitellius than by the Senate and People of Rome whilst the Laws were more powerful than the commands of men The like may be said of particular Laws as those of Nabuchodonosor and Caligula for worshipping their Statues our Acts of Parliament against Hereticks and Lollards with the Statutes and Orders of the Inqusition which is called the Holy Office And if that only be a Law which is Sanctio recta jubens honesta prohibens contraria the meanest understanding if free from passion may certainly know that such as these cannot be Laws by what Authority soever they were enacted and that the use of them and others like to them ought to be abolished for their turpitude and iniquity Infinite examples of the like nature might be alledged as well concerning divine as human things And if there be any Laws which are evil there cannot be an incontestable rectitude in all and if not in all it concerns us to examine where it is to be sound Laws and Constitutions ought to be weighed and whilst all due reverence is paid to such as are good every Nation may not only retain in it self a power of changing or abolishing all such as are not so but ought to exercise that Power according to the best of their understanding and in the place of what was either at first mistaken or afterwards corrupted to constitute that which is most conducing to the establishment of Justice and Liberty But such is the condition of mankind that nothing can be so perfectly framed as not to give some testimony of human imbecility and frequently to stand in need of reparations and amendments Many things are unknown to the wisest and the best men can never wholly devest themselves of passions and affections By this means the best and wisest are sometimes led into Error and stand in need of Successors like to themselves who may find remedies for the faults they have committed and nothing can or ought to be permanent but that which is perfect No natural body was ever so well temper'd and organiz'd as not to be subject to diseases wounds or other accidents and to need medicines and other occasional helps as well as nourishment and exercise and he who under the name of Innovation would deprive Nations of the like dos as much as lies in him condemn them all to perish by the defects of their own foundations Some men observing this have proposed a necessity of reducing every State once in an age or two to the integrity of its first principle but they ought to have examined whether that principle be good or evil or so good that nothing can be added to it which none ever was and this being so those who will admit of no change would render Errors perpetual and depriving Mankind of the benefits of Wisdom Industry Experience and the right use of Reason oblige all to continue in the miserable barbarity of their Ancestors which sutes better with the name of a Wolf than that of a Man Those who are of better understanding weigh all things and often find reason to abrogate that which their fathers according to the measure of the knowledge they had or the state of things among them had rightly instituted or to restore that which they had abrogated and there can be no greater mark of a most brutish stupidity than for men to continue in an evil way because their fathers had brought them into it But if we ought not too strictly to adhere to our own Constitutions those of other Nations are less to be regarded by us for the Laws that may be good for one People are not for all and that which agrees with the manners of one Age is utterly abhorrent from those of another It were absurd to think of restoring the Laws of Lycurgus to the present inhabitants of Peloponesus who are accustomed to the most abject slavery It may easily be imagined how the Romans Sabins and Latins now under the tyranny of the Pope would relish such a discipline as flourished among them after the expulsion of the Tarquins and it had bin no less preposterous to give a liberty to the Parthians of governing themselves or for them to assume it than to impose an absolute Monarch upon the German Nation Titus Livius having observed this says that if a popular Government had bin set up in Rome immediately upon the building of the City and if that fierce people which was composed of unruly shepherds herdsmen sugitive slaves and out-law'd persons who could not suffer the Governments under which they were born had come to be incited by turbulent Orators they would have brought all into consusion whereas that boisterous humour being gradually temper'd by discipline under Romulus or taught to vent its sury against foreign enemies and soften'd by the peaceable reign of Numa a new Race grew up which being all of one blood contracted a love to their Country and became capable of Liberty which the madness of their last King and the lewdness of
to their Country I say that all Nations amongst whom Virtue has bin esteemed have had a great regard to them and their Posterity And tho Kings when they were made have bin intrusted by the Saxons and other Nations with a Power of ennobling those who by services render'd to their Country might deserve that Honor yet the body of the Nobility was more antient than such for it had bin equally impossible to take Kings according to Tacitus out of the Nobility if there had bin no Nobility as to take Captains for their Virtue if there had bin no Virtue and Princes could not without breach of that trust confer Honors upon those that did not deserve them which is so true that this practice was objected as the greatest crime against Vortigern the last and the worst of the British Kings and tho he might pretend according to such cavils as are usual in our time that the judgment of those matters was reserred to him yet the world judged of his Crimes and when he had render'd himself odious to God and men by them he perished in them and brought destruction upon his Country that had suffer'd them too long As among the Turks and most of the Eastern Tyrannies there is no Nobility and no man has any considerable advantage above the common People unless by the immediate favour of the Prince so in all the legal Kingdoms of the North the strength of the Government has always bin placed in the Nobility and no better defence has bin found against the encroachments of ill Kings than by setting up an Order of men who by holding large Territories and having great numbers of Tenants and Dependents might be able to restrain the exorbitances that either the Kings or the Commons might run into For this end Spain Germany France Poland Denmark Sweeden Scotland and England were almost wholly divided into Lordships under several names by which every particular Possessor owed Allegiance that is such an Obedience as the Law requires to the King and he reciprocally swore to perform that which the same Law exacted from him When these Nations were converted to the Christian Religion they had a great veneration for the Clergy and not doubting that the men whom they esteemed holy would be just thought their Liberties could not be better secured than by joining those who had the direction of their Consciences to the Noblemen who had the command of their Forces This succeeded so well in relation to the defence of the publick Rights that in all the forementioned States the Bishops Abbots c. were no less zealous or bold in defending the publick Liberty than the best and greatest of the Lords And if it were true that things being thus established the Commons did neither personally nor by their Representatives enter into the General Assemblies it could be of no advantage to Kings for such a Power as is above-mentioned is equally inconsistent with the absolute Sovereignty of Kings if placed in the Nobility and Clergy as if the Commons had a part If the King has all no other man nor number of men can have any If the Nobility and Clergy have the power the Commons may have their share also But I affirm that those whom we now call Commons have always had a part in the Government and their place in the Councils that managed it for if there was a distinction it must have bin by Patent Birth or Tenure As for Patents we know they began long after the coming of the Normans and those that now have them cannot pretend to any advantage on account of Birth or Tenure beyond many of those who have them not Nay besides the several Branches of the Families that now enjoy the most antient Honors which consequently are as noble as they and some of them of the elder Houses we know many that are now called Commoners who in antiquity and eminency are no way inferior to the chief of the titular Nobility and nothing can be more absurd than to give a prerogative of Birth to Cr-v-n T-ft-n H-ae B-nn-t Osb-rn and others before the Cliftons Hampdens Courtneys Pelhams St. Johns Baintons Wilbrahams Hungerfords and many others And if the Tenures of their Estates be consider'd they have the same and as antient as any of those who go under the names of Duke or Marquess I forbear to mention the sordid ways of attaining to Titles in our days but whoever will take the pains to examine them shall find that they rather defile than ennoble the possessors And whereas men are truly ennobled only by Virtue and respect is due to such as are descended from those who have bravely serv'd their Country because it is presumed till they shew the contrary that they will resemble their Ancestors these modern Courtiers by their Names and Titles frequently oblige us to call to mind such things as are not to be mentioned without blushing Whatever the antient Noblemen of England were we are sure they were not such as these And tho it should be confess'd that no others than Dukes Marquesses Earls Viscounts and Barons had their places in the Councils mentioned by Cesar and Tacitus or in the great Assemblies of the Saxons it could be of no advantage to such as now are called by those names They were the titles of Offices conserred upon those who did and could best conduct the people in time of War give Counsel to the King administer Justice and perform other publick duties but were never made hereditary except by abuse much less were they sold for money or given as recompences of the vilest services If the antient order be totally inverted and the ends of its institution perverted they who from thence pretend to be distinguished from other men must build their claim upon something very different from Antiquity This being sufficient if I mistake not to make it appear that the antient Councils of our Nation did not consist of such as we now call Noblemen it may be worth our pains to examine of what sort of men they did consist And tho I cannot much rely upon the credit of Camden which he has forfeited by a great number of untruths I will begin with him because he is cited by our Author If we will believe him That which the Saxons called Wittenagemot we may justly name Parliament which has the supreme and most sacred Authority of making abrogating and interpreting Laws and generally of all things relating to the safety of the Commonwealth This Wittenagemot was according to William of Malmsbury The general meeting of the Senat and People and Sir Harry Spelman calls it The General Council of the Clergy and People In the Assembly at Calcuth it was decreed by the Archbishops Bishops Abbots Dukes Senators and the People of the Land Populo terrae that the Kings should be elected by the Priests and Elders of the People By these Offa Ina and others were made Kings and Alfred
or Wittenagemots if these consisted of the Nobility and People who were sometimes so numerous that no one place could well contain them and if the preference given to the chief among them was on account of the Offices they executed either in relation to war or justice which no man can deny I have as much as serves for my purpose 'T is indifferent to me whether they were called Earls Dukes Aldermen Herotoghs or Thanes for 't is certain that the titular Nobility now in mode amongst us has no resemblance to this antient Nobility of England The novelty therefore is on the other side and that of the worst sort because by giving the name of Noblemen which antiently belonged to such as had the greatest interests in Nations and were the supporters of their Liberty to Court-creatures who often have none and either acquire their Honours by mony or are preferr'd for servile and sometimes impure services render'd to the person that reigns or else for mischiefs done to their Country the Constitution has bin wholly inverted and the trust reposed in the Kings who in some measure had the disposal of Offices and Honours misemploy'd This is farther aggravated by appropriating the name of Noblemen solely to them whereas the Nation having bin antiently divided only into Freemen or Noblemen who were the same and Villains the first were as Tacitus says of their Ancestors the Germans exempted from burdens and contributions and reserved like arms for the uses of war whilst the others were little better than slaves appointed to cultivate the Lands or to other servile Offices And I leave any reasonable man to judg whether the latter condition be that of those we now call Commoners Nevertheless he that will believe the title of Noblemen still to belong to those only who are so by Patent may guess how well our wars would be managed if they were left solely to such as are so by that title If this be approved his Majesty may do well with his hundred and fifty Noblemen eminent in valour and military experience as they are known to be to make such wars as may fall upon him and leave the despised Commons under the name of Villains to provide for themselves if the success do not answer his expectations But if the Commons are as free as the Nobles many of them in birth equal to the Patentees in Estate superior to most of them and that it is not only expected they should assist him in wars with their Persons and Purses but acknowledged by all that the strength and virtue of the Nation is in them it must be confess'd that they are true Noblemen of England and that all the privileges antiently enjoy'd by such must necessarily belong to them since they perform the Offices to which they were annexed This shews how the Nobility were justly said to be almost infinite in number so that no one place was able to contain them The Saxon Armies that came over into this Country to a wholsom and generative climat might well increase in four or five ages to those vast numbers as the Francks Goths and others had done in Spain France Italy and other parts and when they were grown so numerous they found themselves necessarily obliged to put the power into the hands of Representatives chosen by themselves which they had before exercised in their own persons But these two ways differing rather in form than essentially the one tending to Democracy the other to Aristocracy they are equally opposite to the absolute dominion of one man reigning for himself and governing the Nation as his Patrimony and equally assert the rights of the People to put the Government into such a form as best pleases themselves This was sutable to what they had practised in their own Country De minoribus consultant Principes de majoribus omnes Nay even these smaller matters cannot be said properly to relate to the King for he is but one and the word Principes is in the plural number and can only signify such principal men as the same Author says were chosen by the General Assemblies to do justice c. and to each of them one hundred Comites joined not only to give advice but authority to their actions The word Omnes spoken by a Roman must likewise be understood as it was used by them and imports all the Citizens or such as made up the body of the Commonwealth If he had spoken of Rome or Athens whilst they remained free he must have used the same word because all those of whom the City consisted had votes how great soever the number of slaves or strangers might have bin The Spartans are rightly said to have gained lost and recovered the Lordship or Principality of Greece They were all Lords in relation to their Helots and so were the Dorians in relation to that sort of men which under several names they kept as the Saxons did their Villians for the performance of the Offices which they thought too mean for those who were ennobled by Liberty and the use of Arms by which the Commonwealth was defended and enlarged Tho the Romans scorned to give the title of Lord to those who had usurped a power over their Lives and Fortunes yet every one of them was a Lord in relation to his own Servants and altogether are often called Lords of the world the like is seen almost every where The Government of Venice having continued for many ages in the same Families has ennobled them all No phrase is more common in Switzerland than the Lords of Bern or the Lords of Zurich and other places tho perhaps there is not a man amongst them who pretends to be a Gentleman according to the modern sense put upon that word The States of the United Provinces are called High and Mighty Lords and the same title is given to each of them in particular Nay the word Heer which signifies Lord both in high and low Dutch is as common as Monsieur in France Signor in Italy or Sennor in Spain and is given to every one who is not of a sordid condition but especially to Soldiers and tho a common Soldier be now a much meaner thing than it was antiently no man speaking to a company of Soldiers in Italian uses any other stile than Signori Soldati and the like is done in other Languages 'T is not therefore to be thought strange if the Saxons who in their own Country had scorned any other employment than that of the Sword should think themselves farther ennobled when by their Arms they had acquired a great and rich Country and driven out or subdued the former inhabitants They might well distinguish themselves from the Villains they brought with them or the Britans they had enslaved They might well be called Magnates Proceres regni Nobiles Angliae Nobilitas Barones and the Assemblies of them justly called Concilium Regni Generale Vniversitas totius Angliae Nobilium Vniversitas Baronagii
those that conquer'd This was not the work of two men and those who had bin free at home can never be thought to have left their own Country to fight as slaves for the glory and profit of two men in another It cannot be said that their wants compelled them for their Leaders suffer'd the same and could not be relieved but by their assistance and whether their enterprize was good or bad just or unjust it was the same to all No one man could have any right peculiar to himself unless they who gained it did confer it upon him and 't is no way probable that they who in their own Country had kept their Princes within very narrow limits as has bin proved should resign themselves and all they had as soon as they came hither But we have already shewn that they always continued most obstinate defenders of their Liberty and the Government to which they had bin accustomed that they managed it by themselves and acknowledged no other Laws than their own Nay if they had made such a resignation of their Right as was necessary to create one in their Leaders it would be enough to overthrow the proposition for 't is not then the Leader that gives to the People but the People to the Leader If the people had not a right to give what they did give none was conferred upon the receiver if they had a right he that should pretend to derive a benefit from thence must prove the grant that the nature and intention of it may appear 2. To the second If it be said that Records testify all Grants to have bin originally from the King I answer That tho it were confessed which I absolutely deny and affirm that our Rights and Liberties are innate inherent and enjoy'd time out of mind before we had Kings it could be nothing to the question which is concerning Reason and Justice and if they are wanting the defect can never be supplied by any matter of fact tho never so clearly proved Or if a Right be pretended to be grounded upon a matter of fact the thing to be proved is that the people did really confer such a right upon the first or some other Kings And if no such thing do appear the proceedings of one or more Kings as if they had it can be of no value But in the present case no such grant is pretended to have bin made either to the first or to any of the following Kings the Right they had not their Successors could not inherit and consequently cannot have it or at most no better title to it than that of Usurpation But as they who enquire for truth ought not to deny or conceal any thing I may grant that Mannors c. were enjoyed by tenure from Kings but that will no way prejudice the cause I defend nor signify more than that the Countries which the Saxons had acquired were to be divided among them and to avoid the quarrels that might arise if every man took upon him to seize what he could a certain method of making the distribution was necessarily to be fixed and it was fit that every man should have something in his own hands to justify his Title to what he possessed according to which controversies should be determined This must be testified by some body and no man could be so fit or of so much credit as he who was chief among them and this is no more than is usual in all the Societies of the World The Mayor of every Corporation the Speaker or Clerk of the House of Peers or House of Commons the first President of every Parliament or Presidial in France the Consul Burgermaster Advoyer or Bailiff in every free Town of Holland Germany or Switzerland sign the publick Acts that pass in those places The Dukes of Venice and Genoa do the like tho they have no other power than what is conferred upon them and of themselves can do little or nothing The Grants of our Kings are of the same nature tho the words mero motu nostro seem to imply the contrary sor Kings speak always in the plural number to shew that they do not act for themselves but for the Societies over which they are placed and all the veneration that is or can be given to their Acts dos not exalt them but those from whom their Authority is derived and for whom they are to execute The Tyrants of the East and other Barbarians whose power is most absolute speak in the single number as appears by the decrees of Nabuchodonosor Cyrus Darius and Abasaerus recited in Scripture with others that we hear of daily from those parts but wheresoever there is any thing of civility or regularity in Government the Prince uses the plural to shew that he acts in a publick capacity From hence says Grotius the rights of Kings to send Ambassadors make Leagues c. do arise the confederacies made by them do not terminate with their lives because they are not for themselves they speak not in their own Persons but as representing their People and ae King who is depriv'd of his Kingdom loses the right of sending Ambassadors because he can no longer speak for those who by their own consent or by a foreign force are cut off from him The question is not whether such a one be justly or unjustly deprived sor that concerns only those who do it or suffer it but whether he can oblige the People and 't is ridiculous for any Nation to treat with a man that cannot perform what shall be agreed or for him to stipulate that which can oblige and will be made good only by himself But tho much may be left to the discretion of Kings in the distribution of Lands and the like yet it no way diminishes the right of the People nor consers any upon them otherwise to dispose of what belongs to the publick than may tend to the common good and the accomplishment of those ends for which they are entrusted Nay if it were true that a conquered Country did belong to the Crown the King could not dispose of it because 't is annexed to the Office and not alienable by the Person This is not only found in regular mixed Monarchies as in Sweden where the Grants made by the last Kings have bin lately rescinded by the General Assembly of Estates as contrary to Law but even in the most absolute as in France where the present King who has stretched his power to the utmost has lately acknowledged that he cannot do it and according to the known maxim of the State that the demeasnes of the Crown which are designed for the defraying of publick Charges cannot be alienated all the Grants made within the last fifteen years have bin annulled even those who had bought Lands of the Crown have bin called to account and the Sums given being compared with the profits received and a moderate interest allowed to the purchasers so much
set limits to them but all reasonable men confessing that they are instituted for the good of Nations they only can deserve praise who above all things endeavour to procure it and appoint means proportioned to that end The great variety of Governments which we see in the world is nothing but the effect of this care and all Nations have bin and are more or less happy as they or their Ancestors have had vigour of Spirit integrity of Manners and wisdom to invent and establish such Orders as have better or worse provided for this common Good which was sought by all But as no rule can be so exact to make provision against all contestations and all disputes about Right do naturally end in force when Justice is denied ill men never willingly submitting to any decision that is contrary to their passions and interests the best Constitutions are of no value if there be not a power to support them This power first exerts it self in the execution of justice by the ordinary Officers But no Nation having bin so happy as not sometimes to produce such Princes as Edward and Richard the Seconds and such Ministers as Gaveston Spencer and Tresilian the ordinary Officers of Justice often want the will and always the power to restrain them So that the Rights and Liberties of a Nation must be utterly subverted and abolished if the power of the whole may not be employed to assert them or punish the violation of them But as it is the fundamental Right of every Nation to be governed by such Laws in such manner and by such persons as they think most conducing to their own good they cannot be accountable to any but themselves for what they do in that most important affair SECT XXXVII The English Government was not ill constituted the defects more lately observed proceeding from the change of manners and corruption of the times I Am not ignorant that many honest and good men acknowledging these Rights and the care of our Ancestors to preserve them think they wanted wisdom rightly to proportionate the means to the end 'T is not enough say they for the General of an Army to desire Victory he only can deserve praise who has skill industry and courage to take the best measures of obtaining it Neither is it enough for wise Legislators to preserve Liberty and to erect such a Government as may stand for a time but to set such clear Rules to those who are to put it in execution that every man may know when they transgress and appoint such means for restraining or punishing them as may be used speedily surely and effectually without danger to the Publick Sparta being thus constituted we hardly find that for more than eight hundred years any King presumed to pass the limits prescribed by the Law If any Roman Consul grew insolent he might be reduced to order without blood or danger to the Publick and no Dictator ever usurped a power over Liberty till the time of Sylla when all things in the City were so changed that the antient foundations were become too narrow In Venice the power of the Duke is so circumscribed that in 1300 years no one except Falerio and Tiepoli have dared to attempt any thing against the Laws and they were immediately suppressed with little commotion in the City On the other side our Law is so ambiguous perplext and intricate that 't is hard to know when 't is broken In all the publick contests we have had men of good judgment and integrity have follow'd both parties The means of transgressing and procuring Partizans to make good by force the most notorious violations of Liberty have bin so easy that no Prince who has endeavoured it ever failed to get great numbers of followers and to do infinite mischiefs before he could be removed The Nation has bin brought to fight against those they had made to be what they were upon the unequal terms of hazarding all against nothing If they had success they gained no more than was their own before and which the Law ought to have secured whereas 't is evident that if at any one time the contrary had happened the Nation had bin utterly enslaved and no victory was ever gained without the loss of much noble and innocent blood To this I answer that no right judgment can be given of human things without a particular regard to the time in which they passed We esteem Scipio Hannibal Pyrrhus Alexander Epaminondas and Cesar to have bin admirable Commanders in War because they had in a most eminent degree all the qualities that could make them so and knew best how to employ the Arms then in use according to the discipline of their times and yet no man doubts that if the most skilful of them could be raised from the Grave restored to the utmost vigour of mind and body set at the head of the best Armies he ever commanded and placed upon the Frontiers of France or Flanders he would not know how to advance or retreat nor by what means to take any of the places in those parts as they are now fortified and defended bnt would most certainly be beaten by any insignificant fellow with a small number of men furnished with such Arms as are now in use and following the methods now practised Nay the manner of marching encamping besieging attacking defending and fighting is so much altered within the last threescore years that no man observing the discipline that was then thought to be the best could possibly defend himself against that which has bin since found out tho the terms are still the same And if it be consider'd that political matters are subject to the same mutations as certainly they are it will be sufficient to excuse our Ancestors who suting their Government to the Ages in which they lived could neither soresee the changes that might happen in future Generations nor appoint remedies for the mischiefs they did not soresee They knew that the Kings of several Nations had bin kept within the limits of the Law by the virtue and power of a great and brave Nobility and that no other way of supporting a mix'd Monarchy had ever bin known in the world than by putting the balance into the hands of those who had the greatest interest in Nations and who by birth and estate enjoy'd greater advantages than Kings could confer upon them for rewards of betraying their Country They knew that when the Nobility was so great as not easily to be number'd the little that was left to the King's disposal was not sufficient to corrupt many and if some might fall under the temptation those who continued in their integrity would easily be able to chastise them for deserting the publick Cause and by that means deter Kings srom endeavouring to seduce them from their duty Whilst things continued in this posture Kings might safely be trusted with the advice of their Council to confer the commands of the Militia in
or may not be question'd because none have bin questioned But in truth they are frequently questioned The people do perpetually judg of the behaviour of their Deputies Whensoever any of them has the misfortune not to satisfy the major part of those that chose him he is sure to be rejected with disgrace the next time he shalldesire to be chosen This is not only a sufficient punishment for such faults as he who is but one of five hundred may probably commit but as much as the greatest and freest people of the world did ever inflict upon their Commanders that brought the greatest losses upon them Appius Claudius Pomponius and Terentius Varro survived the greatest defeats that ever the Romans suffer'd and tho they had caused them by their folly and perversness were never punished Yet I thing no man doubts that the Romans had as much right over their own Officers as the Athenians and Carthaginians who frequently put them to death They thought the mind of a Commander would be too much distracted if at the same time he should stand in fear both of the Enemy and his own Countrymen And as they always endeavoured to chuse the best men they would lay no other necessity upon them of performing their duty than what was suggested by their own virtue and love to their Country 'T is not therefore to be thought strange if the people of England have follow'd the most generous and most prosperous Examples Besides if any thing has bin defective in their usual proceedings with their Delegats the inconvenience has bin repaired by the modesty of the best and wisest of them that were chosen Many in all Ages and sometimes the whole body of the Commons have refused to give their opinion in some cases till they had consulted with those that sent them The Houses have bin often adjourned to give them time to do it and if this were done more frequently or that the Towns Cities and Counties had on some occasions given instructions to their Deputies matters would probably have gone better in Parliament than they have often done 3. The question is not whether the Parliament be impeccable or infallible but whether an Assembly of Nobility with a House of Commons composed of those who are best esteemed by their Neighbors in all the Towns and Counties of England are more or less subject to error or corruption than such a man woman or child as happens to be next in blood to the last King Many men do usually see more than one and if we may believe the wisest King In the multitude of Counsellors there is safety Such as are of mature Age good Experience and approved reputation for Virtue and Wisdom will probably judg better than children or fools Men are thought to be more fit for War than women and those who are bred up in Discipline to understand it better than those who never knew any thing of it If some Counties or Cities fail to chuse such men as are eminently capable all will hardly be so mistaken as to chuse those who have no more of Wisdom or Virtue than is usually intail'd upon Families But Filmer at a venture admires the profound Wisdom of the King tho besides such as we have known Histories give us too many proofs that all those who have bin possessed of Crowns have not excelled that way He speaks of Kings in general and makes no difference between Solomon and his foolish Son He distinguishes not our Edward the first from Edward the second Edward the third from Richard the second or Henry the fifth from Henry the sixth And because all of them were Kings all of them if he deserves credit must needs have bin endow'd with profound Wisdom David was wise as an Angel of God therefore the present Kings of France Spain and Sweden must have bin so also when they were but five years old Joan of Castille could not be mad nor the two Joans of Naples infamous Strumpets or else all his Arguments fall to the ground For the Solomon's Wisdom surpassed that of all the people yet men could not rely equally upon that of Rehoboam unless it had bin equal And if they are all equal in Wisdom when they come to be equally Kings Perses of Macedon was as great a Captain as Philip or Alexander Commodus and Heliogabalus were as wise and virtuous as Marcus Aurelius and Antoninus Pius Nay Christina of Sweden in her infancy was as fit to command an Army as her valiant Father If this be most absurd and false there can be neither reason nor sense in proposing as our Author dos that the Power should be in the King because the Parliament is not infallible It is says he for the Head to correct and not to expect the consent of the Members or Parties peccant to be Judges in their own cases nor is it needful to confine the King c. Besides that this is directly contrary to his own fundamental Maxim that no man mnst be the Judg of his own case in as much as this would put the Power into the King's hands to decide the Controversies between himself and the people in which his own Passions privat Interest and the corrupt Counsels of ill Ministers will always lead him out of the way of Justice the inconveniences that may arise from a possibility that the Parliament or People is not infallible will be turned to the most certain and destructive mischiefs as must have fallen out in Spain if upon a supposition that the Estates of Castille might err the correction of such Errors had bin lest to the profound Wisdom and exquisit Judgment of Joan their Queen and Head who was stark mad And the like may be said of many other Princes who through natural or accidental infirmities want of age or dotage have bin utterly unable to judg of any thing The matter will not be much mended tho I pass from Ideots and Lunaticks to such as know well enough how to clothe and feed themselves and to perform the ordinary functions of life and yet have bin as uncapable of giving a right judgment concerning the weighty matters of Government as the weakest of Children or the most furious of Madmen Good manners forbid me to enumerate the examples of this kind which Europe has produced even in this Age But I should commit a greater fault if I did in silence pass over the extravagances of those who being most weak in judgment and irregular in their appetites have bin most impatient of any restraint upon their will The brave Gustavus Adolphus and his Nephew Carolus Gustavus who was not inferior to him in Valour Wisdom and love to his people were content with the Power that the Laws of their Country gave to them But Frederick the fourth of Denmark never rested till he had overthrown the Liberty of that Nation Casimir by attempting the like in Poland lost almost half of that Kingdom and flying from the other left all to
than what is suffer'd or must in a short time fall upon those who are in this condition They who are already fallen into all that is odious shameful and miserable cannot justly fear When things are brought to such a pass the boldest counsels are the most safe and if they must perish who lie still and they can but perish who are most active the choice is easily made Let the danger be never so great there is a possibility of safety whilst men have life hands arms and courage to use them but that people must certainly perish who tamely suffer themselves to be oppress'd either by the injustice cruelty and malice of an ill Magistrate or by those who prevail upon the vices and infirmities of weak Princes 'T is in vain to say that this may give occasion to men of raising tumults or civil war for tho these are evils yet they are not the greatest of evils Civil War in Macchiavels account is a Disease but Tyranny is the death of a State Gentle ways are first to be used and 't is best if the work can be done by them but it must not be left undone if they fail 'T is good to use supplications advices and remonstrances but those who have no regard to justice and will not hearken to counsel must be constrained 'T is folly to deal otherwise with a man who will not be guided by reason and a Magistrate who despises the Law or rather to think him a man who rejects the essential principle of a man or to account him a Magistrate who overthrows the Law by which he is a Magistrate This is the last result but those Nations must come to it which cannot otherwise be preserved Nero's madness was not to be cured nor the mischievous effects of it any otherwise to be suppressed than by his death He who had spared such a Monster when it was in his power to remove him had brought destruction upon the whole Empire and by a foolish clemency made himself the Author of his future villanics This would have bin yet more clear if the world had then bin in such a temper as to be capable of an intire liberty But the antient foundations had bin overthrown and nothing better could be built upon the new than something that might in part resist that torrent of iniquity which had overflow'd the best part of the world and give mankind a little time to breath under a less barbarous Master Yet all the best men did join in the work that was then to be done tho they knew it would prove but imperfect The sacred History is not without examples of this kind When Ahab had subverted the Law set up false Witnesses and corrupt Judges to destroy the innocent killed the Prophets and established Idolatry his house must then be cut off and his blood be lickt up by dogs When matters are brought to this pass the decision is easy The question is only whether the punishment of crimes shall fall upon one or a few persons who are guilty of them or upon a whole Nation that is innocent If the Father may not die for the Son nor the Son for the Father but every one must bear the penalty of his own crimes it would be most absurd to punish the people for the guilt of Princes When the Earl of Morton was sent Ambassador to Queen Elizabeth by the Estates of Scotland to justify their proceedings against Mary their Queen whom they had obliged to renounce the Government he alledged amongst other things the murder of her Husband plainly proved against her asserted the antient right and custom of that Kingdom of examining the actions of their Kings by which means he said many had bin punished with death imprisonment and exile confirmed their actions by the examples of other Nations and upon the whole matter concluded that if she was still permitted to live it was not on account of her innocence or any exemption from the penalties of the Law but from the mercy and clemency of the people who contenting themselves with a resignation of her right and power to her Son had spared her This discourse which is set down at large by the Historian cited on the margin being of such strength in it self as never to have bin any otherwise answered than by railing and no way disapproved by Queen Elizabeth or her Council to whom it was made either upon a general account of the pretensions of Princes to be exempted from the penalties of the Law or any pretext that they had particularly misapplied them in relation to their Queen I may justly say that when Nations fall under such Princes as are either utterly uncapable of making a right use of their power or do maliciously abuse that Authority with which they are entrusted those Nations stand obliged by the duty they owe to themselves and their posterity to use the best of their endeavours to remove the evil whatever danger or difficulties they may meet with in the performance Pontius the Samnite said as truly as bravely to his Countrymen That those Arms were just and pious that were necessary and necessary when there was no hope of safety by any other way This is the voice of mankind and is dislik'd only by those Princes who fear the deserved punishments may fall upon them or by their Servants and Flatterers who being for the most part the Authors of their crimes think they shall be involved in their ruin SECT XLI The People for whom and by whom the Magistrate is created can only judg whether he rightly perform his Office or not T IS commonly said that no man ought to be the Judg of his own case and our Author lays much weight upon it as a fundamental maxim tho according to his ordinary inconstancy he overthrows it in the case of Kings where it ought to take place if in any for it often falls out that no men are less capable of forming a right judgment than they Their passions and interests are most powerful to disturb or pervert them No men are so liable to be diverted from justice by the flatteries of corrupt Servants They never act as Kings except for those by whom and for whom they are created and acting for others the account of their actions cannot depend upon their own will Nevertheless I am not afraid to say that naturally and properly a man is the judg of his own concernments No one is or can be deprived of this privilege unless by his own consent and for the good of that Society into which he enters This Right therefore must necessarily belong to every man in all cases except only such as relate to the good of the Community for whose sake he has devested himself of it If I find my self afflicted with hunger thirst weariness cold heat or sickness 't is a folly to tell me I ought not to seek meat drink rest shelter refreshment or physick because I must