the Moors than an old Astrologer or a Child Alphonso and Sancho being dead Alphonso El Desheredado laid claim to the Crown but it was given to Ferdinand the Fourth and Alphonso with his descendents the Dukes de Medina Celi remain excluded to this day Peter sirnamed the Cruel was twice driven out of the Kingdom and at last killed by Bertrand to Guesclin Constable of France or Henry Count of Trastamara his Bastard-Brother who was made King without any regard to the Daughters of Peter or to the House of La Cerda Henry the Fourth lest a Daughter called Joan whom he declared his Heir but the Estates gave the Kingdom to Isabel his Sister and crowned her with Ferdinand of Arragon her Husband Joan Daughter to this Ferdinand and Isabel salling mad the Estates committed the care of the Government to her Father Ferdinand and after his death to Charles her Son But the French have taught us that when a King dies his next Heir is really King before he take his Oath or be crowned From them we learn that Le mort saisit le vif And yet I know no History that proves more plainly than theirs that there neither is nor can be in any man a right to the Government of a People which dos not receive its being manner and measure from the Law of that Country which I hope to justify by four Reasons 1. When a King of Pharamond's Race died the Kingdom was divided into as many parcels as he had Sons which could not have bin if one certain Heir had bin assigned by nature for he ought to have had the whole and if the Kingdom might be divided they who inhabited the several parcels could not know to whom they owed obedience till the division was made unless he who was to be King of Paris Metz Soissons or Orleans had worn the Name of his Kingdom upon his forehead But in truth if there might be a division the Doctrine is false and there was no Lord of the whole This wound will not be healed by saying The Father appointed the division and that by the Law of nature every man may dispose of his own as he thinks fit for we shall soon prove that the Kingdom of France neither was nor is disposeable as a Patrimony or Chattel Besides if that Act of Kings had bin then grounded upon the Law of nature they might do the like at this day But the Law by which such Divisions were made having bin abrogated by the Assembly of Estates in the time of Hugh Capet and never practised since it follows that they were grounded upon a temporary Law and not upon the Law of Nature which is eternal If this were not so the pretended certainty could not be for no man could know to whom the last King had bequeathed the whole Kingdom or parcels of it till the Will were opened and that must be done before such Witnesses as may deserve credit in a matter of this importance and are able to judg whether the Bequest be rightly made for otherwise no man could know whether the Kingdom was to have one Lord or many nor who he or they were to be which intermission must necessarily subvert their Polity and this Doctrine But the truth is the most Monarchical men among them are so far from acknowledging any such right to be in the King of alienating bequeathing or dividing the Kingdom that they do not allow him the right of making a Will and that of the last King Lewis the 13th touching the Regency during the minority of his Son was of no effect 2. This matter was made more clear under the second race If a Lord had bin assigned to them by nature he must have bin of the Royal Family But Pepin had no other Title to the Crown except the merits of his Father and his own approved by the Nobility and People who made him King He had three sons the eldest was made King of Italy and dying before him lest a Son called Bernard Heir of that Kingdom The Estates of France divided what remained between Charles the Great and Carloman The last of these dying in few years left many Sons but the Nobility made Charles King of all France and he dispossessed Bernard of the Kingdom of Italy inherited from his Father so that he also was not King of the whole before the expulsion of Bernard the Son of his elder Brother nor of Aquitain which by inheritance should have belonged to the Children of his younger Brother any otherwise than by the will of the Estates Lewis the Debonair succeeded upon the same title was deposed and put into a Monastery by his three Sons Lothair Pepin and Lewis whom he had by his first Wife But tho these lest many Sons the Kingdom came to Charles the Bald. The Nobility and People disliking the eldest Son of Charles gave the Kingdom to Lewis le Begue who had a legitimate Son called Charles le Simple and two Bastards Lewis and Carloman who were made Kings Carloman had a Son called Lewis le faineant he was made King but afterwards deposed for his vicious Lise Charles le Gros succeeded him but for his ill Government was also deposed and Odo who was a stranger to the Royal Blood was made King The same Nobility that had made five Kings since Lewis le Begue now made Charles le Simple King who according to his name was entrapped at Peronne by Ralph Duke of Burgundy and forced to resign his Crown leaving only a Son called Lewis who fled into England Ralph being dead they took Lewis sirnamed Outremer and placed him in the Throne he had two Sons Lothair and Charles Lothair succeeded him and died without Issue Charles had as fair a title as could be by Birth and the Estates confessed it but their Ambassadors told him that he having by an unworthy Life render'd himself unworthy of the Crown they whose principal care was to have a good Prince at the head of them had chosen Hugh Capet and the Crown continues in his race to this day tho not altogether without interruption Robert Son to Hugh Capet succeeded him He left two Sons Robert and Henry but Henry the younger Son appearing to the Estates of the Kingdom to be more fit to reign than his elder Brother they made him King Robert and his descendents continuing Dukes of Burgundy only for about ten Generations at which time his Issue Male failing that Dutchy returned to the Crown during the Life of King John who gave it to his second Son Philip for an Apannage still depending upon the Crown The same Province of Burgundy was by the Treaty of Madrid granted to the Emperor Charles the fifth by Francis the first but the People resused to be alienated and the Estates of the Kingdom approved their refusal By the same Authority Charles the 6th was removed from the Government when he appeared to be mad and other examples of a like nature
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
Life and the Equality properly belonging to Brethren 'T is not easy to determine whether Shem or Japhet were the Elder but Ham is declared to be the younger and Noah's Blessing to Shem seems to be purely Prophetical and Spiritual of what should be accomplished in his Posterity with which Japhet should be perswaded to join If it had bin worldly the whole Earth must have bin brought under him and have for ever continued in his Race which never was accomplished otherwise than in the Spiritual Kingdom of Christ which relates not to our Author's Lord Paramount As to earthly Kings the first of them was Nimrod the sixth Son of Chush the Son of Ham Noah's younger and accursed Son This Kingdom was set up about a hundred and thirty Years after the Flood whilst Chush Ham Shem and Noah were yet living whereas if there were any thing of Truth in our Author's Proposition all Mankind must have continued under the Government of Noah whilst he lived and that Power must have bin transmitted to Shem who lived about three hundred and seventy Years after the erection of Nimrod's Kingdom and must have come to Japhet if he was the Elder but could never come to Cham who is declared to have bin certainly the Younger and condemned to be a Servant to them both much less to the younger Son of his Son whilst he and those to whom he and his Posterity were to be Subjects were still living This Rule therefore which the Partizans of Absolute Monarchy fancy to be universal and perpetual falling out in its first beginning directly contrary to what they assert and being never known to have bin recovered were enough to silence them if they had any thing of modesty or regard to Truth But the Matter may be carried farther For the Scripture doth not only testify that this Kingdom of Nimrod was an Usurpation void of all Right proceeding from the most violent and mischievous Vices but exercised with the utmost fury that the most wicked Man of the accursed Race who set himself up against God and all that is good could be capable of The progress of this Kingdom was sutable to its Institution that which was begun in wickedness was carried on with madness and produced Confusion The mighty Hunter whom the best Interpreters call a cruel Tyrant receding from the simplicity and innocence of the Patriarchs who were Husbandmen or Shepherds arrogating to himself a Dominion over Shem to whom he and his Fathers were to be Servants did thereby so peculiarly become the Heir of God's Curse that whatsoever hath bin said to this day of the Power that did most directly set it self against God and his People hath related literally to the Babel that he built or figuratively to that which resembles it in Pride Cruelty Injustice and Madness But the shameless rage of some of these Writers is such that they rather chuse to ascribe the beginning of their Idol to this odious Violence than to own it from the consent of a willing People as if they thought that as all Action must be sutable to its Principle so that which is unjust in its practice ought to scorn to be derived from that which is not detestable in its principle 'T is hardly worth our pains to examin whether the Nations that went from Babel after the confusion of Languages were more or less than seventy two for they seem not to have gone according to Families but every one to have associated himself to those that understood his Speech and the chief of the Fathers as Noah and his Sons were not there or wore subject to Nimrod each of which Points doth destroy even in the Root all pretence to Paternal Government Besides 't is evident in Scripture that Noah lived three hundred and fifty Years after the Flood Shem five hundred Abraham was born about two hundred and ninety Years after the Flood and lived one hundred seventy five Years He was therefore born under the Government of Noah and died under that of Shem He could not therefore exercise a Regal Power whilst he lived for that was in Shem So that in leaving his Country and setting up a Family for himself that never acknowledged any Superior and never pretending to reign over any other he fully shewed he thought himself free and to owe subjection to none And being as far from arrogating to himself any Power upon the Title of Paternity as from acknowledging it in any other left every one to the same liberty The punctual enumeration of the Years that the Fathers of the holy Seed lived gives us ground of making a more than probable conjecture that they of the collateral Lines were in number of days not unequal to them and if that be true Ham and Chush were alive when Nimrod set himself up to be King He must therefore have usurped this Power over his Father Grandfather and great Grandfather or which is more probable he turned into violence and oppression the Power given to him by a multitude which like a Flock without a Shepherd not knowing whom to obey set him up to be their Chief I leave to our Author the liberty of chusing which of these two doth best sute with his Paternal Monarchy but as far as I can understand the first is directly against it as well as against the Laws of God and Man the other being from the consent of the Multitude cannot be extended farther than they would have it nor turned to their prejudice without the most abominable ingratitude and treachery from whence no Right can be derived nor any justifiable Example taken Nevertheless if our Author resolve that Abraham was also a King he must presume that Shem did emancipate him before he went to seek his Fortune This was not a Kingly posture but I will not contradict him if 1 may know over whom he reigned Paternal Monarchy is exercised by the Father of the Family over his Descendants or such as had bin under the dominion of him whose Heir he is But Abraham had neither of these Those of his nearest Kindred continued in Mesopotamia as appears by what is said of Bethuel and Laban He had only Lot with him over whom he pretended no right He had no Children till he was a hundred years old that is to say he was a King without a Subject and then he had but one I have heard that Soveraigns do impatiently bear Competitors but now I find Subjection also doth admit of none Abraham's Kingdom was too great when he had two Children and to disburthen it Ishmael must be expelled soon after the birth of Isaac He observed the same method after the death of Sarah He had Children by Keturah but he gave them Gifts and sent them away leaving Isaac like a Stoical King reigning in and over himself without any other Subject till the birth of Jacob and Esau. But his Kingdom was not to be of a larger extent than that of his Father
that accompany it whilst we live alone nor can enter into a Society without resigning it for the choice of that Society and the liberty of framing it according to our own Wills for our own good is all we seek This remains to us whilst we form Governments that we our selves are Judges how far 't is good for us to recede from our natural Liberty which is of so great importance that from thence only we can know whether we are Freemen or Slaves and the difference between the best Government and the worst doth wholly depend upon a right or wrong exercise of that Power If Men are naturally free such as have Wisdom and Understanding will always frame good Governments But if they are born under the necessity of a perpetual Slavery no Wisdom can be of use to them but all must for ever depend on the Will of their Lords how cruel mad proud or wicked soever they be SECT XI No Man comes to command many unless by Consent or by Force BUT because I cannot believe God hath created Man in such a state of Misery and Slavery as I just now mentioned by discovering the vanity of our Author 's whimsical Patriarchical Kingdom I am led to a certain conclusion That every Father of a Family is free and exempt from the domination of any other as the seventy two that went from Babel were 'T is hard to comprehend how one Man can come to be master of many equal to himself in Right unless it be by Consent or by Force If by Consent we are at an end of our Controversies Governments and the Magistrates that execute them are created by Man They who give a being to them cannot but have a right of regulating limiting and directing them as best pleaseth themselves and all our Author's Assertions concerning the absolute Power of one Man fall to the ground If by Force we are to examine how it can be possible or justifiable This subduing by Force we call Conquest but as he that forceth must be stronger than those that are forced to talk of one Man who in strength exceeds many millions of Men is to go beyond the extravagance of Fables and Romances This Wound is not cured by saying that he first conquers one and then more and with their help others for as to matter of fact the first news we hear of Nimrod is that he reigned over a great multitude and built vast Cities and we know of no Kingdom in the World that did not begin with a greater number than any one Man could possibly subdue If they who chuse one to be their Head did under his conduct subdue others they were Fellow-conquerors with him and nothing can be more brutish than to think that by their vertue and valour they had purchased perpetual Slavery to themselves and their Posterity But if it were possible it could not be justifiable and whilst our Dispute is concerning Right that which ought not to be is no more to be received than if it could not be No Right can come by conquest unless there were a Right of making that Conquest which by reason of the equality that our Author confesses to have bin amongst the Heads of Families and as I have proved goes into Infinity can never be on the Aggressor's side No man can justly impose any thing upon those who owe him nothing Our Author therefore who ascribes the enlargement of Nimrod's Kingdom to Usurpation and Tyranny might as well have acknowledged the same in the beginning as he says all other Authors have done However he ought not to have imputed to Sir Walter Raleigh an Approbation of his Right as Lord or King over his Family for he could never think him to be a Lord by the right of a Father who by that rule must have lived and died a Slave to his Fathers that overlived him Whosoever therefore like Nimrod grounds his pretensions of Right upon Usurpation and Tyranny declares himself to be like Nimrod a Usueper and a Tyrant that is an Enemy to God and Man and to have no Right at all That which was unjust in its beginning can of it self never change its nature Tempus in se saith Grotius nullam habet vim effectricem He that persists in doing Injustice aggravates it and takes upon himself all the guilt of his Predecessors But if there be a King in the World that claims a Right by Conquest and would justisy it he might do well to tell whom he conquered when with what assistance and upon what reason he undertook the War for he can ground no title upon the obscurity of an unsearchable antiquity and if he does it not he ought to be looked upon as a usurping Nimrod SECT XII The pretended paternal Right is divisible or indivisible if divisible 't is extinguished if indivisible universal THis paternal right to Regality if there be any thing in it is divisible or indivisible if indivisible as Adam hath but one Heir one man is rightly Lord of the whole World and neither Nimrod nor any of his Successors could ever have bin Kings nor the seventy two that went from Babylon Noah survived him near two hundred years Shem continued one hundred and fifty years longer The Dominion must have bin in him and by him transmitted to his Posterity for ever Those that call themselves Kings in all other Nations set themselves up against the Law of God and Nature This is the man we are to seek out that we may yield obedience to him I know not where to find him but he must be of the race of Abraham Shem was preferred before his Brethren The Inheritance that could not be divided must come to him and from him to Isaac who was the first of his descendants that outlived him 'T is pity that Jacob did not know this and that the Lord of all the Earth through ignorance of his Title should be forced to keep one of his Subjects Sheep for wages and strange that he who had wit enough to supplant his Brother did so little understand his own bargain as not to know that he had bought the perpetual Empire of the World If in conscience he could not take such a price for a dish of Pottage it must remain in Esau However our Lord Paramount must come from Isaac If the Deed of Sale made by Esau be good we must seek him amongst the Jews if he could not so easily divest himself of his Right it must remain amongst his Descendants who are Turks We need not scruple the reception of either since the late Scots Act tells us That Kings derive their Royal Power from God alone and no difference of Religion c. can divert the right of Succession But I know not what we shall do if we cannot find this man for de non apparentibus non existentibus eadem est ratio The Right must fall if there be none to inherit If we do not know who he is that hath the
orderly chosen by a willing People were the true Shepherds who came in by the gate of the Sheepfold and might justly be called the Ministers of God so long as they performed their duty in providing for the good of the Nations committed to their charge SECT XVII Good Governments admit of Changes in the Superstructures whilst the Foundations remain unchangeable IF I go a step farther and confess the Romans made some changes in the outward Form of their Government I may safely say they did well in it and prosper'd by it After the Expulsion of the Kings the Power was chiefly in the Nobility who had bin Leaders of the People but it was necessary to humble them when they began to presume too much upon the advantages of their Birth and the City could never have been great unless the Plebeians who were the Body of it and the main strength of their Armies had bin admitted to a participation of Honours This could not be done at the first They who had bin so vilely opprest by Tarquin and harass'd with making or cleansing Sinks were not then fit for Magistracies or the Command of Armies but they could not justly be excluded from them when they had men who in courage and conduct were equal to the best of the Patricians and it had bin absurd for any man to think it a disparagement to him to marry the Daughter of one whom he had obey'd as Dictator or Consul and perhaps follow'd in his Triumph Rome that was constituted for War and sought its Grandeur by that means could never have arriv'd to any considerable height if the People had not bin exercised in Arms and their Spirits raised to delight in Conquests and willing to expose themselves to the greatest fatigues and dangers to accomplish them Such men as these were not to be used like Slaves or opprest by the unmerciful hand of Usurers They who by their sweat and blood were to defend and enlarge the Territories of the State were to be convinced they fought for themselves and they had reason to demand a Magistracy of their own vested with a Power that none might offend to maintain their Rights and to protect their Families whilst they were abroad in the Armies These were the Tribunes of the People made as they called it Sacrosancti or inviolable and the creation of them was the most considerable Change that happened till the time of Marius who brought all into disorder The creation or abolition of Military Tribunes with Consular Power ought to be accounted as nothing for it imported little whether that Authority were exercised by two or by five That of the Decemviri was as little to be regarded they were intended only for a Year and tho new ones were created for another on pretence that the Laws they were to frame could not be brought to perfection in so short a time yet they were soon thrown down from the Power they usurped and endeavoured to retain contrary to Law The creation of Dictators was no novelty they were made occasionally from the beginning and never otherwise than occasionally till Julius Cesar subverted all order and invading that supreme Magistracy by force usurped the Right which belong'd to all This indeed was a mortal Change even in root and principle All other Magistrates had bin created by the People for the publick good and always were within the power of those that had created them But Cesar coming in by force sought only the satisfaction of his own raging Ambition or that of the Soldiers whom he had corrupted to destroy their Country and his Successors governing for themselves by the help of the like Raskals perpetually exposed the Empire to be ravaged by them But whatever opinion any man may have of the other Changes I dare affirm there are few or no Monarchies whose Histories are so well known to us as that of Rome which have not suffer'd Changes incomparably greater and more mischievous than those of Rome whilst it was free The Macedonian Monarchy fell into pieces immediately after the death of Alexander 'T is thought he perished by Poison His Wives Children and Mother were destroyed by his own Captains The best of those who had escaped his fury fell by the Sword of each other When the famous Argyraspides might have expected some reward of their labours and a little rest in old age they were maliciously sent into the East by Antigonus to perish by hunger and misery after he had corrupted them to betray Eumenes No better fate attended the rest all was in confusion every one follow'd whom he pleased and all of them seemed to be filled with such a rage that they never ceased from mutual slaughters till they were consumed and their Kingdoms continued in perpetual Wars against each other till they all fell under the Roman Power The fortune of Rome was the same after it became a Monarchy Treachery Murder and Fury reigned in every part there was no Law but Force he that could corrupt an Army thought he had a sufficient Title to the Empire by this means there were frequently three or four and at one time thirty several Pretenders who called themselves Emperors of which number he only reigned that had the happiness to destroy all his Competitors and he himself continued no longer than till another durst attempt the destruction of him and his Posterity In this state they remained till the wasted and bloodless Provinces were possess'd by a multitude of barbarous Nations The Kingdoms established by them enjoy'd as little Peace or Justice that of France was frequently divided into as many parts as the Kings of Meroveus or Pepin's Race had Children under the names of the Kingdoms of Paris Orleans Soissons Arles Burgundy Austrasia and others These were perpetually vexed by the unnatural fury of Brothers or nearest Relations whilst the miserable Nobility and People were obliged to fight upon their foolish Quarrels till all fell under the power of the strongest This mischief was in some measure cured by a Law made in the time of Hugh Capet that the Kingdom should no more be divided But the Appannages as they call them granted to the King's Brothers with the several Dukedoms and Earldoms erected to please them and other great Lords produced frequently almost as bad effects This is testified by the desperate and mortal Factions that went under the names of Burgundy and Orleans Armagnac and Orleans Montmorency and Guise These were followed by those of the League and the Wars of the Huguenots They were no sooner finish'd by the taking of Rochel but new ones began by the Intrigues of the Duke of Orleans Brother to Lewis the 13th and his Mother and pursued with that animosity by them that they put themselves under the protection of Spain To which may be added that the Houses of Condé Soissons Montmorency Guise Vendosme Angouleme Bouillon Rohan Longueville Rochfocault Epernon and I think I may say every one that is of great
they fear which are the principal Arguments that perswade men to expose themselves to labours or dangers 'T is a folly to say that the vigilance and wisdom of the Monarch supplies the desect of care in others for we know that no men under the Sun were ever more void of both and all manner of virtue requir'd to such a work than very many Monarchs have bin And which is yet worse the strength and happiness of the People being frequently dangerous to them they have not so much as the will to promote it nay sometimes set themselves to destroy it Antient Monarchies afford us frequent examples of this kind and if we consider those of France and Turky which seem most to flourish in our Age the People will appear to be so miserable under both that they cannot sear any change of Governor or Government and all except a few Ministers are kept so far from the knowledg of or power in the management of Affairs that if any of them should fancy a possibility of something that might befal them worse than what they suffer or hope for that which might alleviate their misery they could do nothing towards the advancement of the one or prevention of the other Tacitus observes that in his time no man was able to write what passed Inscitia Reipublicae ut alienae They neglected the publick Affairs in which they had no part In the same Age it was said that the People who whilst they fought for their own Interests had bin invincible being enslaved were grown sordid idle base running after Stage-plays and Shows so as the whole strength of the Roman Armies consisted of Strangers When their Spirits were depressed by servitude they had neither courage to defend themselves nor will to fight for their wicked Masters and least of all to increase their Power which was destructive to themselves The same thing is found in all places Tho the Turk commands many vast Provinces that naturally produce as good Soldiers as any yet his greatest strength is in Children that do not know their Fathers who not being very many in number may perish in one Battel and the Empire by that means be lost the miserable Nations that groan under That Tyranny having neither courage power nor will to defend it This was the fate of the Mamalukes They had for the space of almost two hundred years domineer'd in Egypt and a great part of Asia but the people under them being weak and disaffected they could never recover the Defeat they received from Selim near Tripoli who pursuing his Victory in a few months utterly abolished their Kingdom Notwithstanding the present pride of France the numbers and warlike Inclinations of that People the bravery of the Nobility extent of Dominion convenience of Situation and the vast Revenues of their King his greatest Advantages have bin gained by the mistaken Counsels of England the valour of our Soldiers unhappily sent to serve him and the Strangers of whom the strength of his Armies consists which is so unsteady a support that many who are well versed in Affairs of this nature incline to think he subsists rather by little Arts and corrupting Ministers in Foreign Courts than by the Power of his own Armies and that some reformation in the Counsels of his Neighbours might prove sufficient to overthrow that Greatness which is grown formidable to Europe the same misery to which he has reduced his People rendring them as unable to defend him upon any change of Fortune as to defend their own Rights against him This proceeds not from any particular defect in the French Government but that which is common to all Absolute Monarchies And no State can be said to stand upon a steady Foundation except those whose strength is in their own Soldiery and the body of their own People Such as serve for Wages often betray their Masters in distress and always want the courage and industry which is found in those who fight for their own Interests and are to have a part in the Victory The business of Mercenaries is so to perform their duty as to keep their Employments and to draw profit from them but that is not enough to support the Spirits of men in extream dangers The Shepherd who is a hireling flies when the Thief comes and this adventitious help failing all that a Prince can reasonably expect from a disaffected and oppressed People is that they should bear the Yoak patiently in the time of his Prosperity but upon the change of his Fortune they leave him to shift for himself or join with his Enemies to avenge the Injuries they had received Thus did Alphonso and Ferdinand Kings of Naples and Lodovico Sforza Duke of Milan fall in the times of Charles the Eighth and Louis the Twelfth Kings of France The two first had bin false violent and cruel nothing within their Kingdom could oppose their fury but when they were invaded by a Foreign Power they lost all as Guicciardin says without breaking one Lance and Sforza was by his own mercenary Soldiers delivered into the hands of his Enemies I think it may be hard to find Examples of such as proceeding in the same way have had better Success But if it should so fall out that a People living under an Absolute Monarchy should through custom or fear of something worse if that can be not only suffer patiently but desire to uphold the Government neither the Nobility nor Commonalty can do any thing towards it They are strangers to all publick Concernments All things are govern'd by one or a few men and others know nothing either of Action or Counsel Filmer will tell us 't is no matter the profound Wisdom of the Prince provides for all But what if this Prince be a Child a Fool a superannuated Dotard or a Madman Or if he dos not fall under any of these extremities and possesses such a proportion of Wit Industry and Courage as is ordinarily seen in men how shall he supply the Office that indeed requires profound Wisdom and an equal measure of Experience and Valour 'T is to no purpose to say a good Council may supply his defects for it dos not appear how he should come by this Council nor who should oblige him to follow their advice If he be left to his own will to do what he pleases tho good advice be given to him yet his judgment being perverted he will always incline to the worst If a necessity be imposed upon him of acting according to the advice of his Council he is not that absolute Monarch of whom we speak nor the Government Monarchical but Aristocratical These are imperfect Fig-leave coverings of Nakedness It was in vain to give good counsel to Sardanapalus and none could defend the Assyrian Empire when he lay wallowing amongst his Whores without any other thought than of his Lusts. None could preserve Rome when Domitian's chief business was to kill Flies and that of Honorius to take
ready to use it and their extravagances having bin often chastised by Law sufficiently proves that their power is not derived from a higher original than the Law of their own Countries If it were true that the answer sometimes given by Kings to Bills presented for their Assent did as our Author says amount to a denial it could only shew that they have a negative voice upon that which is agreed by the Parliament and is far from a power of acting by themselves being only a check upon the other parts of the Government But indeed it is no more than an elusion and he that dos by art obliquely elude confesses he has not a right absolutely to refuse 'T is natural to Kings especially to the worst to scrue up their Authority to the height and nothing can more evidently prove the defect of it than the necessity of having recourse to such pitiful evasions when they are unwilling to do that which is required But if I should grant that the words import a denial and that notwithstanding those of the Coronation Oath Quas vulgus elegerit they might deny no more could be inferred from thence than that they are entrusted with a power equal in that point to that of either House and cannot be supreme in our Author's sense unless there were in the same State at the same time three distinct supreme and absolute Powers which is absurd His cases relating to the proceedings of the Star-Chamber and Council-Table do only prove that some Kings have encroached upon the rights of the Nation and bin suffer'd till their excesses growing to be extreme they turn'd to the ruin of the Ministers that advised them and sometimes of the Kings themselves But the jurisdiction of the Council having bin regulated by the Statute of the 17 Car. 1. and the Star-Chamber more lately abolished they are nothing to our dispute Such as our Author usually impute to treason and rebellion the changes that upon such occasions have ensued but all impartial men do not only justify them but acknowledg that all the Crowns of Europe are at this day enjoy'd by no other title than such acts solemnly performed by the respective Nations who either disliking the person that pretended to the Crown tho next in blood or the government of the present possessor have thought fit to prefer another person or family They also say that as no Government can be so perfect but some defect may be originally in it or afterwards introduced none can subsist unless they be from time to time reduced to their first integrity by such an exertion of the power of those for whose sake they were instituted as may plainly shew them to be subject to no power under Heaven but may do whatever appears to be for their own good And as the safety of all Nations consists in rightly placing and measuring this power such have bin found always to prosper who have given it to those from whom usurpations were least to be feared who have bin least subject to be awed cheated or corrupted and who having the greatest interest in the Nation were most concerned to preserve its power liberty and welfare This is the greatest trust that can be reposed in men This power was by the Spartans given to the Ephori and the Senat of twenty eight in Venice to that which they call Concilio de Pregadi in Germany Spain France Sweedland Denmark Poland Hungary Bohemia Scotland England and generally all the Nations that have lived under the Gothick Polity it has bin in their General Assemblies under the names of Diets Cortez Parliaments Senats and the like But in what hands soever it is the power of making abrogating changing correcting and interpreting Laws has bin in the same Kings have bin rejected or deposed the Succession of the Crown settled regulated or changed and I defy any man to shew me one King amongst all the Nations abovementioned that has any right to the Crown he wears unless such acts are good If this power be not well placed or rightly proportioned to that which is given to other Magistrates the State must necessarily fall into great disorders or the most violent and dangerous means must be frequently used to preserve their Liberty Sparta and Venice have rarely bin put to that trouble because the Senats were so much above the Kings and Dukes in power that they could without difficulty bring them to reason The Gothick Kings in Spain never ventur'd to dispute with the Nobility and Witza and Rodrigo exposed the Kingdom as a prey to the Moors rather by weakning it through the neglect of Military discipline joined to their own ignorance and cowardice and by evil example bringing the youth to resemble them in lewdness and baseness than by establishing in themselves a power above the Law But in England our Ancestors who seem to have had some such thing in their eye as balancing the powers by a fatal mistake placed usually so much in the hands of the King that whensoever he happened to be bad his extravagances could not be repress'd without great danger And as this has in several ages cost the Nation a vast proportion of generous blood so 't is the cause of our present difficulties and threatens us with more but can never deprive us of the rights we inherit from our fathers SECT XXVIII The English Nation has always bin governed by it self or its Representatives HAVING proved that the People of England have never acknowledged any other human Law than their own and that our Parliaments having the power of making and abrogating Laws they only can interpret them and decide hard cases it plainly appears there can be no truth in our Author's assertion that the King is the Author Corrector and Moderator of both Statute and Common Law and nothing can be more frivolous than what he adds that neither of them can be a diminution of that natural power which Kings have over their People as fathers in as much as the differences between paternal and monarchical Power as he asserts it are vast and irreconcileable in principle and practice as I have proved at large in the former parts of this Work But lest we should be too proud of the honour he is pleased to do to our Parliaments by making use of their Authority he says We are first to remember that till the Conquest which name for the glory of our Nation he gives to the coming in of the Normans there could be no Parliament assembled of the General States because we cannot learn that until those days it was intirely united in one Secondly he doubts Whether the Parliament in the time of the Saxons were composed of the Nobility and Clergy or whether the Commons were also called but concludes there could be no Knights of any Shires because there were no Shires Thirdly That Henry the first caused the Commons first to assemble Knights and Burgesses of their own chusing and would make this to be an act
The two Twins could not agree Jacob was sent away by his Mother he reigned over Esau only and 't is not easy to determine who was the Heir of his worldly Kingdom for the Jacob had the birth-right we do not find he had any other Goods than what he had gotten in Laban's service If our Author say true the right of Primogeniture with the Dominion perpetually annexed by the Laws of God and Nature must go to the eldest Isaac therefore tho he had not bin deceived could not have conferred it upon the younger for Man cannot overthrow what God and Nature have instituted Jacob in the Court Language had bin a double Rebel in beguiling his Father and supplanting his Brother The blessing of being Lord over his Brethren could not have taken place Or if Isaac had Power and his Act was good the Prerogative of the elder is not rooted in the Law of God or Nature but a matter of conveniency only which may be changed at the Will of the Father whether he know what he do or not But if this Paternal Right to Dominion were of any value or Dominion over Men were a thing to be desired why did Abraham Isaac and Jacob content themselves with such a narrow Territory when after the death of their Ancestors they ought according to that rule to have bin Lords of the World All Authors conclude that Shem was the eldest by birth or preferred by the appointment of God so as the Right must have bin in him and from him transmitted to Abraham and Isaac but if they were so possessed with the contemplation of a Heavenly Kingdom as not to care for the greatest on Earth 't is strange that Esau whose modesty is not much commended should so far forget his Interest as neither to lay claim to the Empire of the World nor dispute with his Brother the possession of the Field and Cave bought by Abraham but rather to fight for a dwelling on Mount Seir that was neither possessed by nor promised to his Fathers If he was fallen from his Right Jacob might have claimed it but God was his Inheritance and being assured of his Blessing he contented himself with what he could gain by his Industry in a way that was not at all sutable to the Pomp and Majesty of a King Which way soever theresore the business be turned whether according to Isaac's Blessing Esau should serve Jacob or our Author's opinion Jacob must serve Esau neither of the two was effected in their Persons And the Kingdom of two being divided into two each of them remained Lord of himself SECT IX The Power of a Father belongs only to a Father THIS leads us to an easy determination of the Question which our Author thinks insoluble If Adam was Lord of his Children he doth not see how any can be free from the subjection of his Parents For as no good Man will ever desire to be free from the respect that is due to his Father who did beget and educate him no wise Man will ever think the like to be due to his Brother or Nephew that did neither If Esau and Jacob were equally free if Noah as our Author affirms divided Europe Asia and Africa amongst his three Sons tho he cannot prove it and if seventy two Nations under so many Heads or Kings went from Babylon to people the Earth about a hundred and thirty years after the Flood I know not why according to the same rule and proportion it may not be safely concluded that in four thousand years Kings are so multiplied as to be in number equal to the Men that are in the World that is to say they are according to the Laws of God and Nature all free and independent upon each other as Shem Ham and Japhet were And therefore tho Adam and Noah had reigned alone when there were no Men in the World except such as issued from them that is no reason why any other should reign over those that he hath not begotten As the Right of Noah was divided amongst the Children he left and when he was dead no one of them depended on the other because no one of them was Father of the other and the Right of a Father can only belong to him that is so the like must for ever attend every other Father in the World This paternal Power must necessarily accrue to every Father He is a King by the same Right as the Sons of Noah and how numerous soever Families may be upon the increase of Mankind they are all free till they agree to recede from their own Right and join together in or under one Government according to such Laws as best please themselves SECT X. Such as enter into Society must in some degree diminish their Liberty REASON leads them to this No one Man or Family is able to provide that which is requisite for their convenience or security whilst every one has an equal Right to every thing and none acknowledges a Superior to determine the Controversies that upon such occasions must continually arise and will probably be so many and great that Mankind cannot bear them Therefore tho I do not believe that Bellarmin said a Commonwealth could not exercise its Power for he could not be ignorant that Rome and Athens did exercise theirs and that all the Regular Kingdoms in the World are Commonwealths yet there is nothing of absurdity in saying That Man cannot continue in the perpetual and entire fruition of the Liberty that God hath given him The Liberty of one is thwarted by that of another and whilst they are all equal none will yield to any otherwise than by a general consent This is the ground of all just Governments for violence or fraud can create no Right and the same consent gives the Form to them all how much soever they differ from each other Some small numbers of Men living within the Precincts of one City have as it were cast into a common Stock the Right which they had of governing themselves and Children and by common Consent joining in one body exercised fuch Power over every single Person as seemed beneficial to the whole and this Men call perfect Democracy Others chose rather to be governed by a select number of such as most excelled in Wisdom and Vertue and this according to the signification of the word was called Aristocracy Or when one Man excelled all others the Government was put into his hands under the name of Monarchy But the wisest best and far the greatest part of mankind rejecting these simple Species did form Governments mixed or composed of the three as shall be proved hereafter which commonly received their respective Denomination from the part that prevailed and did deserve Praise or Blame as they were well or ill proportioned It were a folly hereupon to say that the Liberty for which we contend is of no use to us since we cannot endure the Solitude Barbarity Weakness Want Misery and Dangers
Crown till after the death of his two Bastards Lewis and Carloman Charles le Gros and Eudes Duke of Anjou Charles le Gros was deposed from the Empire and Kingdom strip'd of his goods and left to perish through poverty in an obscure Village Charles the Simple and the Nations under him thrived no better Robert Duke of Anjou raised War against him and was crown'd at Rheims but was himself slain soon after in a bloody battel near Soissons His Son-in-law Hebert Earl of Vermandois gathered up the remains of his scatter'd party got Charles into his power and called a General Assembly of Estates who deposed him and gave the Crown to Raoul Duke of Burgundy tho he was no otherwise related to the Royal Blood than by his Mother which in France is nothing at all He being dead Lewis Son to the deposed Charles was made King but his Reign was as inglorious to him as miserable to his Subjects This is the Peace which the French enjoy'd for the space of five or six Ages under their Monarchy and 't is hard to determine whether they suffer'd most by the Violence of those who possessed or the Ambition of others who aspired to the Crown and whether the fury of active or the baseness of slothful Princes was most pernicious to them But upon the whole matter through the defects of those of the latter sort they lost all that they had gained by sweat and blood under the conduct of the former Henry and Otho of Saxony by a Virtue like that of Charlemagne deprived them of the Empire and settled it in Germany leaving France only to Lewis sirnamed Outremer and his Son Lothair These seemed to be equally composed of Treachery Cruelty Ambition and Baseness They were always mutinous and always beaten Their frantick Passions put them always upon unjust Designs and were such plagues to their Subjects and Neighbours that they became equally detested and despised These things extinguished the veneration due to the memory of Pepin and Charles and obliged the whole Nation rather to seek relief from a Stranger than to be ruin'd by their worthless Descendents They had tried all ways that were in their power deposed four crowned Kings within the space of a hundred and fifty years crowned five who had no other Title than the People conferred upon them and restored the Descendents of those they had rejected but all was in vain Their Vices were incorrigible the Mischiefs produc'd by them intolerable they never ceased from murdering one another in battel or by treachery and bringing the Nation into Civil Wars upon their wicked or foolish quarrels till the whole Race was rejected and the Crown placed upon the head of Hugh Capet These mischiefs raged not in the same extremity under him and his Descendents but the abatement proceeded from a cause no way advantagious to Absolute Monarchy The French were by their Calamities taught more strictly to limit the Regal Power and by turning the Dukedoms and Earldoms into Patrimonies which had bin Offices gave an Authority to the chief of the Nobility by which that of Kings was curbed and tho by this means the Commonalty was exposed to some Pressures yet they were small in comparison of what they had suffer'd in former times When many great men had Estates of their own that did not depend upon the Will of Kings they grew to love their Country and tho they chearfully served the Crown in all cases of publick concernment they were not easily engaged in the personal quarrels of those who possessed it or had a mind to gain it To preserve themselves in this condition they were obliged to use their Vassals gently and this continuing in some measure till within the last fifty years the Monarchy was less tumultuous than when the King 's Will had bin less restrained Nevertheless they had not much reason to boast there was a Root still remaining that from time to time produced poisonous Fruit Civil Wars were frequent among them tho not carried on with such desperate madness as formerly and many of them upon the account of disputes between Competitors for the Crown All the Wars with England since Edward II. married Isabella Daughter and as he pretended Heir of Philip Le Bel were of this nature The defeats of Crecy Poitiers and Agincourt with the slaughters and devastations suffer'd from Edward III. the black Prince and Henry V. were merely upon Contests for the Crown and for want of an Interpreter of the Law of Succession who might determine the question between the Heir Male and the Heir General The Factions of Orleans and Burgundy Orleans and Armignac proceeded from the same Spring and the Murders that seem to have bin the immediate causes of those Quarrels were only the effects of the hatred growing from their competition The more odious tho less bloody Contests between Lewis the 11 th and his Father Charles the 7 th with the jealousy of the former against his Son Charles the 8 th arose from the same Principle Charles of Bourbon prepared to fill France with Fire and Blood upon the like quarrel when his designs were overthrown by his death in the assault of Rome If the Dukes of Guise had bin more fortunate they had soon turned the cause of Religion into a claim to the Crown and repair'd the Injury done as they pretended to Pepin's Race by destroying that of Capet And Henry the third thinking to prevent this by the slaughter of Henry le Balafré and his Brother the Cardinal de Guise brought ruin upon himself and cast the Kingdom into a most horrid confusion Our own Age furnishes us with more than one attempt of the same kind attended with the like success The Duke of Orleans was several times in arms against Lewis the 13 th his Brother the Queen-mother drew the Spaniards to favour him Montmorency perished in his Quarrel Fontrailles reviv'd it by a Treaty with Spain which struck at the King's head as well as the Cardinal 's and was suppress'd by the death of Cinq Mars and de Thou Those who understand the Affairs of that Kingdom make no doubt that the Count de Soissons would have set up for himself and bin follow'd by the best part of France if he had not bin kill'd in the pursuit of his Victory at the Battel of Sedan Since that time the Kingdom has suffer'd such Disturbances as show that more was intended than the removal of Mazarin And the Marechal de Turenne was often told that the check he gave to the Prince of Condé at Gien after he had defeated Hocquincourt had preserved the Crown upon the King's head And to testify the Stability good Order and domestick Peace that accompanies Absolute Monarchy we have in our own days seen the House of Bourbon often divided within it self the Duke of Orleans the Count de Soissons the Princes of Condé and Conti in war against the King the Dukes of Angoulesme Vendome Longueville the Count
de Moret and other Bastards of the Royal Family following their example the Houses of Guise D' Elbeuf Bouillon Nemours Rochefocault and almost all the most eminent in France with the Parliaments of Paris Bourdeaux and some others joining with them I might alledg many more Examples to shew that this Monarchy as well as all others has from the first establishment bin full of blood and slaughter through the violence of those who possessed the Crown and the Ambition of such as aspired to it and that the end of one Civil War has bin the beginning of another but I presume upon the whole these will be thought sufficient to prove that it never enjoyed any permanent domestick quiet The Kingdoms of Spain have bin no less disturbed by the same means but especially that of Castille where the Kings had more power than in other places To cite all the Examples were to transcribe their Histories but whoever has leisure to examine them will find that after many troubles Alphonso the II notwithstanding his glorious sirname of Wise was deposed by means of his ambitious Son Don Alonso sirnamed El Desheredado supplanted by his Uncle Don Sancho el bravo Peter the Cruel cast from the Throne and killed by his bastard Brother the Conde de Trastamara From the time of the above-named Alphonso to that of Ferdinand and Isabella containing about two hundred years so few of them passed without Civil Wars that I hardly remember two together that were free from them And whosoever pretends that of late years that Monarchy has bin more quiet must if he be ingenuous confess their Peace is rather to be imputed to the dexterity of removing such Persons as have bin most likely to raise disturbances of which number were Don John of Austria Don Carlos Son to Philip the second another of the same name Son to Philip the third and Don Balthazar Son to Philip the sourth than to the rectitude of their Constitutions He that is not convinced of these Truths by what has bin said may come nearer home and see what Mischiefs were brought upon Scotland by the Contests between Baliol and Bruce with their consequences till the Crown came to the Stuart Family the quiet Reigns and happy Deaths of the five James's together with the admirable Stability and Peace of the Government under Queen Mary and the perfect Union in which she lived with her Husband Son and People as well as the Happiness of the Nation whilst it lasted But the Miseries of England upon the like occasions surpass all William the Norman was no sooner dead but the Nation was rent in pieces by his Son Robert contesting with his Sons William and Henry for the Crown They being all dead and their Sons the like happen'd between Stephen and Maud Henry the second was made King to terminate all disputes but it proved a fruitless Expedient Such as were more scandalous and not less dangerous did soon arise between him and his Sons who besides the Evils brought upon the Nation vexed him to death by their Rebellion The Reigns of John and Henry the third were yet more tempestuous Edward the second 's lewd foolish infamous and detestable Government ended in his deposition and death to which he was brought by his Wife and Son Edward the third employ'd his own and his Subjects Valour against the French and Scots but whilst the Foundations were out of order the Nation could never receive any advantage by their Victories All was calculated for the Glory and turned to the Advantage of one man He being dead all that the English held in Scotland and in France was lost through the baseness of his Successor with more blood than it had been gained and the Civil Wars raised by his wickedness and madness ended as those of Edward the second had done The Peace of Henry the fourth's Reign was interrupted by dangerous Civil Wars and the Victory obtained at Shrewsbury had not perhaps secured him in the Throne if his death had not prevented new Troubles Henry the fifth required such reputation by his Virtue and Victories that none dared to invade the Crown during his life but immediatly after his death the Storms prepared against his Family broke out with the utmost violence His Son's weakness encouraged Richard Duke of York to set up a new Title which produced such mischiefs as hardly any people has suffer'd unless upon the like occasion For besides the slaughter of many thousands of the people and especially of those who had bin accustom'd to Arms the devastation of the best parts of the Kingdom and the loss of all that our Kings had inherited in France or gained by the blood of their Subjects fourscore Princes of the Blood as Philip de Commines calls them died in Battel or under the hand of the Hangman Many of the most noble Families were extinguished others lost their most eminent Men. Three Kings and two presumptive Heirs of the Crown were murder'd and the Nation brought to that shameful exigence to set up a young Man to reign over them who had no better cover for his sordid extraction than a Welsh Pedigree that might shew how a Tailor was descended from Prince Arthur Cadwallader and Brutus But the wounds of the Nation were not to be healed with such a plaister He could not relie upon a Title made up of such stuff and patch'd with a Marriage to a Princess of a very questionable Birth His own meanness enclin'd him to hate the Nobility and thinking it to be as easy for them to take the Crown from him as to give it to him he industriously applied himself to glean up the remainders of the House of York from whence a Competitor might arise and by all means to crush those who were most able to oppose him This exceedingly weakned the Nobility who held the Balance between him and the Commons and was the first step towards the dissolution of our antient Government but he was so far from setling the Kingdom in peace that such Rascals as Perkin Warbeck and Simnel were able to disturb it The Reign of Henry the eighth was turbulent and bloody that of Mary furious and such as had brought us into subjection to the most powerful proud and cruel Nation at that time in the world if God had not wonderfully protected us Nay Edward the sixth and Queen Elizabeth notwithstanding the natural excellency of their Dispositions and their knowledg of the Truth in matters of Religion were forced by that which men call jealousy of State to foul their hands so often with illustrious Blood that if their Reigns deserve to be accounted amongst the most gentle of Monarchies they were more heavy than the Government of any Commonwealth in time of Peace and yet their lives were never secure against such as conspired against them upon the account of Title Having in some measure shew'd what miseries have bin usually if not perpetually brought upon Nations subject to
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
from a foreign Country was immediately made King of a fierce People that had already conquer'd many of their Neighbours and was grown too boisterous even for Romulus himself The like may be said of the first Tarquin and of Servius they were Strangers and tho Tullus Hostilius and Ancus Martius were Romans they had as little title to a Dominion over their Fellow-Citizens or means of attaining to it as if they had come from the farthest parts of the Earth This must be in all places unless one man could prove by a perfect and uninterrupted Genealogy that he is the eldest Son of the eldest Line of Noah and that Line to have continued perpetually in the Government of the World for if the Power has bin divided it may be subdivided into infinity if interrupted the chain is broken and can never be made whole But if our Author can perform this for the service of any man I willingly surrender my Arms and yield up the Cause I defend If he fail 't is ridiculous to pretend a Right that belongs to no man or to go about to retrieve a Right which for the space of four thousand years has lain dorment and much more to create that which never had a subsistence This leads us necessarily to a conclusion That all Kingdoms are at the first erected by the consent of Nations and given to whom they please or else all are set up by force or some by force and some by consent If any are set up by the consent of Nations those Kings do not confer Liberties upon those Nations but receive all from them and the general Proposition is false If our Author therefore or his Followers would confute me they must prove that all the Kingdoms of the World have their beginning from force and that Force doth always create a Right or if they recede from the general Proposition and attribute a peculiar right to one or more Princes vvho are so absolute Lords of their People that those under them have neither Liberty Privilege Property or Part in the Government but by their Concessions they must prove that those Princes did by force gain the Power they have and that their Right is derived from it This force also must have bin perpetually continued for if that force be the root of the Right that is pretended another force by the same rule may overturn extinguish or transfer it to another hand If Contracts have interven'd the force ceases and the Right that afterwards doth accrue to the persons must proceed from and be regulated according to those Contracts This may be sufficient to my purpose For as it has bin already proved that the Kingdoms of Israel Judah Rome Sparta France Spain England and all that we are concerned in or that deserve to be examples to us did arise from the Consent of the respective Nations and were frequently reduced to their first Principles when the Princes have endeavour'd to transgress the Laws of their Institution it could be nothing to us tho Attila or Tamerlan had by force gained the Dominions they possess'd But I dare go a step further and boldly assert that there never was or can be a man in the world that did or can subdue a Nation and that the right of one grounded upon force is a meer whimsey It was not Agathocles Dionysius Nabis Marius Sylla or Cesar but the mercenary Soldiers and other Villains that joined with them who subdued the Syracusans Spartans or Romans And as the work was not performed by those Tyrants alone if a right had bin gained by the violence they used it must have bin common to all those that gained it and he that commanded them could have had no more than they thought fit to confer upon him When Miltiades desired leave to wear an Olive Garland in commemoration of the Victory obtained at Marathon and Athenian did in my opinion rightly say If you alone did fight against the Persians it is just that you only should be crowned but if others did participate in the Victory they ought also to have a part in the Honour And the principal difference that I have observ'd between the most regular proceedings of the wisest Senats or Assemblies of the people in their Persons or Delegates and the fury of the most dissolute Villains has bin that the first seeking the publick good do usually set up such a Man and invest him with such Powers as seem most conducing to that Good whereas the others following the impulse of a bestial rage and aiming at nothing but the satisfaction of their own lusts always advance one from whom they expect the greatest advantages to themselves and give him such Powers as most conduce to the accomplishment of their own ends but as to the Person 't is the same thing Cesar and Nero did no more make themselves what they were than Numa and could no more confer any Right Liberty or Privilege upon the Army that gave them all they had than the most regular Magistrate can upon the Senat or People that chose them This also is common to the worst as well as the best that they who set up either do as into a publick Treasury confer upon the Person they chuse a Power of distributing to particular men or numbers of men such Honors Privileges and Advantages as they may seem according to the Principles of the Government to deserve But there is this difference that the ends of the one being good and those of the other evil the first do for the most part limit the Powers that something may remain to reward Services done to the Publick in a manner proportion'd to the merit of every one placing other Magistrates to see it really performed so as they may not by the weakness or vices of the Governor be turned to the publick detriment the others think they never give enough that the Prince having all in his power may be able to gratify their most exorbitant desires if by any ways they can get his favour and his infirmities and vices being most beneficial to them they seldom allow to any other Magistrate a power of opposing his Will or suffer those who for the publick good would assume it The World affords many examples of both sorts and every one of them have had their progress sutable to their Constitution The regular Kingdoms of England France Spain Poland Bohemia Denmark Sweden and others whether elective or hereditary have had High Stewards Constables Mayors of the Palace Rixhofmeisters Parliaments Diets Assemblies of Estates Cortez and the like by which those have bin admitted to succeed who seemed most fit for the publick Service the unworthy have bin rejected the infirmities of the weak supplied the malice of the unjust restrained and when necessity required the Crown transferr'd from one Line or Family to another But in the furious Tyrannies that have bin set up by the violence of a corrupted Soldiery as in the antient Roman Empire the
taking upon him to be King till the Tribe of Judah had chosen him that he often acknowledged Saul to be his Lord. When Baanah and Rechab brought the head of Ishbosheth to him he commanded them to be slain Because they had killed a righteous man upon his Bed in his own House which he could not have said if Ishbosheth had unjustly detained from him the ten Tribes and that he had a right to reign over them before they had chosen him The Word of God did not make him King but only foretold that he should be King and by such ways as he pleased prepared the hearts of the People to set him up and till the time designed by God for that work was accomplished he pretended to no other Authority than what the six hundred men who first followed him afterwards the Tribe of Judah and at last all the rest of the People conferred upon him I no way defend Absalom's revolt he was wicked and acted wickedly but after his death no man was ever blamed or questioned for siding with him and Amasa who commanded his Army is represented in Scripture as a good man even David saying that Joab by slaying Abner and Amasa had killed two men who were better than himself which could not have bin unless the People had a right of looking into matters of Government and of redressing abuses tho being deceived by Absalom they so far erred as to prefer him who was in all respects wicked before the man who except in the matter of Uriah is said to be after God's own heart This right was acknowledged by David himself when he commanded Hushai to say to Absalom I will be thy Servant O King and by Hushai in the following Chapter Nay but whom the Lord and his People and all the men of Israel chuse his will I be and with him will I abide which could have no sense in it unless the People had a right of chusing and that the choice in which they generally concurred was esteemed to be from God But if Saul who was made King by the whole People and anointed by the command of God might be lawfully resisted when he departed from the Law of his Institution it cannot be doubted that any other for the like reason may be resisted If David tho designed by God to be King and anointed by the hand of the Prophet was not King till the People had chosen him and he had made a Covenant with them it will if I mistake not be hard to find a man who can claim a right which is not originally from them And if the People of Israel could erect and pull down institute abrogate or transfer to other Persons or Families Kingdoms more firmly established than any we know the same right cannot be denied to other Nations SECT II. The Kings of Israel and Judah were under a Law not safely to be transgress'd OUR Author might be pardon'd if he only vented his own follies but he aggravates his own crime by imputing them to men of more Credit and tho I cannot look upon Sir Walter Raleigh as a very good Interpreter of Scripture he had too much understanding to say That if practice declare the greatness of Authority even the best Kings of Israel and Judah were not tied to any Law but they did whatsoever they pleased in the greatest matters for there is no sense in those words If practice declares the greatness of Authority even the best were tied to no Law signifies nothing for practice cannot declare the greatness of Authority Peter the Cruel of Castille and Christiern the 2d of Denmark kill'd whom they pleas'd but no man ever thought they had therefore a right to do so and if there was a Law all were tied by it and the best were less likely to break it than the worst But if Sir Walter Raleigh's opinion which he calls a conjecture be taken there was so great a difference between the Kings of Israel and Judah that as to their general proceedings in point of Power hardly any thing can be said which may rightly be applied to both and he there endeavours to show that the reason why the ten Tribes did not return to the house of David after the destruction of the houses of Jeroboam and Baasba was because they would not endure a Power so absolute as that which was exercised by the house of David If he has therefore any where said that the Kings did what they pleased it must be in the sense that Moses Maimonides says The Kings of Israel committed many extravagancies because they were insolent impious and despisers of the Law But whatsoever Sir Walter Raleigh may say for I do not remember his words and have not leisure to seek whether any such are found in his Books 't is most evident that they did not what they pleased The Tribes that did not submit to David nor crown him till they thought fit and then made a Covenant with him took care it might be observed whether he would or not Absalom's Rebellion follow'd by almost all Israel was a terrible check to his Will That of Sheba the Son of Bichri was like to have bin worse if it had not bin suppressed by Joab's diligence and David often confessed the Sons of Zerviah were too hard for him Solomon indeed overthrowing the Law given by Moses multiplying Gold and Silver Wives and Horses introducing Idolatry and lifting up his heart above his Brethren did what he pleased but Rehoboam paid for all the ten Tribes revolted from him by reason of the heavy burdens laid upon them stoned Adoram who was sent to levy the Tributes and set up Jeroboam who as Sir Walter Raleigh says in the place before cited had no other Title than the curtesy of the People and utterly rejected the house of David If practice therefore declares a right the practice of the People to avenge the injuries they suffered from their Kings as soon as they found a man fit to be their Leader shews they had a right of doing it 'T is true the best of the Kings with Moses Joshua and Samuel may in one sense be said to have done what they pleased because they desired to do that only which was good But this will hardly be brought to confer a right upon all Kings And I deny that even the Kings of Judah did what they pleased or that it were any thing to our question if they did Zedekiah professed to the great men that is to the Sanhedrin that without them he could do nothing When Amaziah by his folly had brought a great slaughter upon the Tribe of Judah they conspired against him in publick Council whereupon he fled to Lachish and they pursuing him thither killed him avowed the Fact and it was neither question'd nor blamed which examples agree with the paraphrase of Josephus on Deut. 17. He shall do nothing without the consent of the Sanhedrin and if
to King Stephen and her Son Henry the 2d and of Henry the 7th in relation to the house of York both before he had married a Daughter of it and after her death they did the contrary in the cases of William the first and second Henry the I st Stephen John Richard the 3d Henry the 7th Mary Elizabeth and others So that for any thing I can yet find 't is equally difficult to discover the true sense of the Law of Nature that should be a guide to my Conscience whether I so far submit to the Laws of my Country to think that England alone has produced men that rightly understand it or examine the Laws and Practices of other Nations Whilst this remains undecided 't is impossible for me to know to whom I owe the obedience that is exacted from me If I were a French-man I could not tell whether I ow'd allegiance to the King of Spain Duke of Lorrain Duke of Savoy or many others descended from Daughters of the house of Valois one of whom ought to inherit if the Inheritance belongs to Females or to the house of Bourbon whose only title is founded upon the exclusion of them The like Controversies will be in all places and he that would put Mankind upon such enquiries goes about to subvert all the Governments of the World and arms every man to the destruction of his neighbour We ought to be informed when this right began If we had the Genealogy of every man from Noah and the Crowns of every Nation had since his time continued in one Line we were only to inquire into how many Kingdoms he appointed the world to be divided and how well the division we see at this day agrees with the allotment made by him But Mankind having for many Ages lain under such a vast confusion that no man pretends to know his own original except some Jews and the Princes of the house of Austria we cannot so easily arrive at the end of our work and the Scriptures making no other mention of this part of the world than what may induce us to think it was given to the Sons of Japhet we have nothing that can lead us to guess how it was to be subdivided nor to whom the several parcels were given So that the difficulties are absolutely inextricable and tho it were true that some one man had a right to every parcel that is known to us it could be of no use for that Right must necessarily perish which no man can prove nor indeed claim But as all natural Rights by Inheritance must be by Descent this Descent not being proved there can be no natural Right and all Rights being either natural created or acquired this Right to Crowns not being natural must be created or acquired or none at all There being no general Law common to all Nations creating a Right to Crowns as has bin proved by the several methods used by several Nations in the disposal of them according to which all those that we know are enjoy'd we must seek the Right concerning which we dispute from the particular Constitutions of every Nation or we shall be able to find none Acquir'd Rights are obtained as men say either by fair means or by soul that is by force or by consent such as are gained by force may be recovered by force and the extent of those that are enjoy'd by consent can only be known by the reasons for which or the conditions upon which that consent was obtain'd that is to say by the Laws of every People According to these Laws it cannot be said that there is a King in every Nation before he is crown'd John Sobietski now reigning in Poland had no relation in blood to the former Kings nor any title till he was chosen The last King of Sweden acknowledged he had none but was freely elected and the Crown being conferred upon him and the Heirs of his Body if the present King dies without Issue the right of electing a Successor returns undoubtedly to the Estates of the Country The Crown of Denmark was Elective till it was made Hereditary by an Act of the General Diet held at Copenhagen in the year 1660 and 't is impossible that a Right should otherwise accrue to a younger Brother of the house of Holstein which is derived from a younger Brother of the Counts of Oldenburgh The Roman Empire having passed through the hands of many Persons of different Nations no way relating to each other in blood was by Constantine transferred to Constantinople and after many Revolutions coming to Theodosius by birth a Spaniard was divided between his two Sons Arcadius and Honorius From thence passing to such as could gain most credit with the Soldiers the Western Empire being brought almost to nothing was restored by Charles the Great of France and continuing for some time in his descendents came to the Germans who having created several Emperors of the Houses of Suevia Saxony Bavaria and others as they pleased about three hundred years past chose Rodolphus of Austria and tho since that time they have not had any Emperor who was not of that Family yet such as were chosen had nothing to recommend them but the merits of their Ancestors their own personal Virtues or such political considerations as might arise from the power of their hereditary Countries which being joined with those of the Empire might enable them to make the better defence against the Turks But in this Line also they have had little regard to inheritance according to blood for the elder branch of the Family is that which reigns in Spain and the Empire continues in the descendents of Ferdinand younger Brother to Charles the fifth tho so unfix'd even to this time that the present Emperor Leopold was in great danger of being rejected If it be said that these are Elective Kingdoms and our Author speaks of such as are hereditary I answer that if what he says be true there can be no Elective Kingdom and every Nation has a natural Lord to whom obedience is due But if some are Elective all might have bin so if they had pleased unless it can be proved that God created some under a necessity of subjection and left to others the enjoyment of their liberty If this be so the Nations that are born under that necessity may be said to have a natural Lord who has all the power in himself before he is crowned or any part conferred on him by the consent of the people but it cannot extend to others And he who pretends a right over any Nation upon that account stands obliged to shew when and how that Nation came to be discriminated by God from others and deprived of that liberty which he in goodness had granted to the rest of mankind I confess I think there is no such Right and need no better proof than the various ways of disposing Inheritances in several Countries which not being naturally or universally
Emperors says Ab eo Imperium à quo spiritus and we taking man in his first condition may justly say ab eo Libert as a quo Spiritus for no man can owe more than he has received The Creature having nothing and being nothing but what the Creator makes him must owe all to him and nothing to any one from whom he has received nothing Man therefore must be naturally free unless he be created by another power than we have yet heard of The obedience due to Parents arises from hence in that they are the instruments of our Generation and we are instructed by the light of reason that we ought to make great returns to those from whom under God we have received all When they die we are their Heirs we enjoy the same rights and devolve the same to our Posterity God only who confers this right upon us can deprive us of it and we can no way understand that he dos so unless he had so declared by express Revelation or had set some distinguishing marks of Dominion and Subjection upon men and as an ingenious Person not long since said caused some to be born with Crowns upon their heads and all others with Saddles upon their backs This Liberty therefore must continue till it be either forfeited or willingly resigned The forfeiture is hardly comprehensible in a multitude that is not entred into any Society for as they are all equal and equals can have no right over each other no man can forfeit any thing to one who can justly demand nothing unless it may be by a personal injury which is nothing to this case because where there is no Society one man is not bound by the actions of another All cannot join in the same Act because they are joined in none or if they should no man could recover much less transmit the forfeiture and not being transmitted it perishes as if it had never bin and no man can claim any thing from it 'T will be no less difficult to bring resignation to be subservient to our Author's purpose for men could not resign their Liberty unless they naturally had it in themselves Resignation is a publick declaration of their assent to be governed by the person to whom they resign that is they do by that Act constitute him to be their Governor This necessarily puts us upon the inquiry why they do resign how they will be governed and proves the Governor to be their creature and the right of disposing the Government must be in them or they who receive it can have none This is so evident to common sense that it were impertinent to ask who made Carthage Athens Rome or Venice to be free Cities Their Charters were not from men but from God and Nature When a number of Phenicians had found a Port on the Coast of Africa they might perhaps agree with the Inhabitants for a parcel of Ground but they brought their Liberty with them When a company of Latins Sabins and Tuscans met together upon the banks of the Tiber and chose rather to build a City for themselves than to live in such as were adjacent they carried their Liberty in their own breasts and had Hands and Swords to defend it This was their Charter and Romulus could confer no more upon them than Dido upon the Carthaginians When a multitude of barbarous Nations infested Italy and no protection could be expected from the corrupted and perishing Empire such as agreed to seek a place of refuge in the scatter'd Islands of the Adriatick Gulf had no need of any mans Authority to ratify the institution of their Government They who were the formal part of the City and had built the material could not but have a right of governing it as they pleased since if they did amiss the hurt was only to themselves 'T is probable enough that some of the Roman Emperors as Lords of the Soil might have pretended to a Dominion over them if there had bin any colour for it but nothing of that kind appearing in thirteen hundred years we are not like to hear of any such cavils 'T is agreed by mankind that subjection and protection are relative and that he who cannot protect those that are under him in vain pretends to a Dominion over them The only ends for which Governments are constituted and obedience render'd to them are the obtaining of justice and protection and they who cannot provide for both give the People a right of taking such ways as best please themselves in order to their own safety The matter is yet more clear in relation to those who never were in any Society as at the beginning or renovation of the world after the Flood or who upon the dissolution of the Societies to which they did once belong or by some other accident have bin obliged to seek new habitations Such were those who went from Babylon upon the confusion of Tongues those who escaped from Troy when it was burnt by the Grecians almost all the Nations of Europe with many of Asia and Africa upon the dissolution of the Roman Empire To which may be added a multitude of Northern Nations who when they had increased to such numbers that their Countries could no longer nourish them or because they wanted skill to improve their Lands were sent out to provide for themselves and having done so did erect many Kingdoms and States either by themselves or in union and coalition with the antient inhabitants 'T is in vain to say that wheresoever they came the Land did belong to some body and that they who came to dwell there must be subject to the Laws of those who were Lords of the Soil for that is not always true in fact Some come into desert Countries that have no Lord others into such as are thinly peopled by men who knowing not how to improve their Land do either grant part of it upon easy terms to the new comers or grow into a union with them in the enjoyment of the whole and Histories furnish us with infinite examples of this nature If we will look into our own original without troubling our selves with the senseless stories of Samothes the Son of Japhet and his Magicians or the Giants begotten by Spirits upon the thirty Daughters of Danaus sent from Phenicia in a Boat without Sail Oars or Rudder we shall find that when the Romans abandoned this Island the Inhabitants were left to a full liberty of providing for themselves and whether we deduce our original from them or the Saxons or from both our Ancestors were perfectly free and the Normans having inherited the same right when they came to be one Nation with the former we cannot but continue so still unless we have enslaved our selves Nothing is more contrary to reason than to imagine this When the fierce barbarity of the Saxons came to be sostned by a more gentle Climat the Arts and Religion they learnt taught them to reform their
turning his lawful Power into Tyranny disobeying the word of the Prophet slaying the Priests sparing the Amalekites and oppressing the Innocent overthrew his own Right and God declared the Kingdom which had bin given him under a conditional promise of perpetuity to be intirely abrogated This did not only give a right to the whole people of opposing him but to every particular man and upon this account David did not only fly from his fury but resisted it He made himself head of all the discontented persons that would follow him he had at first four and afterwards six hundred men he kept these in Arms against Saul and lived upon the Country and resolved to destroy Nabal with all his House only for refusing to send Provisions for his men Finding himself weak and unsafe he went to Achish the Philistin and offer'd his service even against Israel This was never reputed a sin in David or in those that follow'd him by any except the wicked Court-flatterer Doeg the Edomite and the drunken fool Nabal who is said to have bin a man of Belial If it be objected That this was rather a Flight than a War in as much as he neither killed Saul nor his men or that he made war as a King anointed by Samuel I answer that he who had six hundred men and entertain'd as many as came to him sufficiently shewed his intention rather to resist than to fly And no other reason can be given why he did not farther pursue that intention than that he had no greater power and he who arms six hundred men against his Prince when he can have no more can no more be said to obey patiently than if he had so many hundreds of thousands This holds tho he kill no man for that is not the War but the manner of making it and 't were as absurd to say David made no War because he killed no men as that Charles the eighth made no War in Italy because Guicciardin says he conquer'd Naples without breaking a Lance. But as David's strength increased he grew to be less sparing of Blood Those who say Kings never die but that the right is immediatly transfer'd to the next Heirs cannot deny that Ishbosheth inherited the right of Saul and that David had no other right of making war against him than against Saul unless it were conferred upon him by the Tribe of Judah that made him King If this be true it must be confessed that not only a whole People but a part of them may at their own pleasure abrogate a Kingdom tho never so well established by common consent for none was ever more solemnly instituted than that of Saul and few Subjects have more strongly obliged themselves to be obedient If it be not true the example of Nabal is to be follow'd and David tho guided by the Spirit of God deserves to be condemned as a fellow that rose up against his Master If to elude this it be said That God instituted and abrogated Saul's Kingdom and that David to whom the right was transmitted might therefore proceed against him and his Heirs as privat men I answer that if the obedience due to Saul proceeded from God's Institution it can extend to none but those who are so peculiarly instituted and anointed by his Command and the hand of his Prophet which will be of little advantage to the Kings that can give no testimony of such an Institution or Unction and an indisputable right will remain to every Nation of abrogating the Kingdoms which are instituted by and for themselves But as David did resist the Authority of Saul and Ishbosbeth without assuming the Power of a King tho designed by God and anointed by the Prophet till he was made King of Judah by that Tribe or arrogating to himself a Power over the other Tribes till he was made King by them and had enter'd into a Covenant with them 't is much more certain that the Persons and Authority of ill Kings who have no title to the Privileges due to Saul by virtue of his institution may be justly resisted which is as much as is necessary to my purpose Object But David's Heart smote him when he had cut off the skirt of Saul's Garment and he would not suffer Abishai to kill him This might be of some force if it were pretended that every man was obliged to kill an ill King whensoever he could do it which I think no man ever did say and no man having ever affirmed it no more can be concluded than is confessed by all But how is it possible that a man of a generous Spirit like to David could see a great and valiant King chosen from amongst all the Tribes of Israel anointed by the command of God and the hand of the Prophet famous for victories obtained against the enemies of Israel and a wonderful deliverance thereby purchased to that People cast at his feet to receive Life or Death from the hand of one whom he had so furiously persecuted and from whom he least deserved and could least expect mercy without extraordinary commotion of mind most especially when Abishai who saw all that he did and thereby ought best to have known his thoughts expressed so great a readiness to kill him This could not but make him reflect upon the instability of all that seemed to be most glorious in men and shew him that if Saul who had bin named even among the Prophets and assisted in an extraordinary manner to accomplish such great things was so abandoned and given over to fury misery and shame he that seemed to be most firmly established ought to take care lest he should fall Surely these things are neither to be thought strange in relation to Saul who was God's Anointed nor communicable to such as are not Some may suppose he was King by virtue of God's unction tho if that were true he had never bin chosen and made King by the People but it were madness to think he became God's Anointed by being King for if that were so the same Right and Title would belong to every King even to those who by his command were accursed and destroyed by his Servants Moses Joshua and Samuel The same men at the same time and in the same sense would be both his anointed and accursed loved and detested by him and the most sacred Privileges made to extend to the worst of his enemies Again the War made by David was not upon the account of being King as anointed by Samuel but upon the common natural right of defending himself against the violence and fury of a wicked man he trusted to the promise that he should be King but knew that as yet he was not so and when Saul found he had spared his Life he said I now know well that thou shalt surely be King and that the Kingdom of Israel shall surely be established in thy hand not that it was already Nay David himself was so far from