may naturally tend to the misplacing the Legislative power in the hands of those who have a separate interest from the body of a People there can be no treating till it is demonstrably made out that such a consequence shall be absolutely impossible for if that shall be denied by those who make the proposal if it is because they cannot do it the motion at first was very unfair If they can and will not it would be yet less reasonable to expect that such partial dealers would ever give an Equivalent fit to be accepted XV. It is necessary in all dealing to be assured in the first place that the party proposing is in a condition to make good his Offer that he is neither under any former Obligations or pretended Claims which may render him uncapable of performing it else he is so far in the condition of a Minor that whatever he disposeth by sale or exchange may be afterwards resumed and the Contract becometh void being originallâ— defective for want of a sufficient legal power in him that made it In the case of a strict Settlement where the party is only Tenant for life there is no possibility of treating which one under such fetters no purchase or exchange of Lands or any thing else can be good where there is such an incapacity of making out a Title the interest vested in him being so limited that he can do little more than pronounce the words of a Contract he can by no means perform the effect of it In more publick instances the impossibility is yet more express as suppose in any Kingdom where the people have so much liberty left them as that they may make Contracts with the Crown there should be some peculiar rights claimed to be so fixed to the Royal Function that no King for the time being could have power to part with them being so fundamentally tied to the Office that they can never be separated Such Rights can upon no occasion he received in exchange for any thing the Crown may desire from the People That can never be taken in payment which cannot lawfully be given so that if they should part with that which is required upon those terms it must be a gift it cannot be a bargain There is not in the whole Dictionary a more untractable word than Inherent and less to be reconciled to the word Equivalent The party that will Contract in spight of such a Claim is content to take what is impossible to grant and if he complaineth of his Disappointment he neither can have Remedy nor deserveth it If a Right so claimed hapneth to be of so comprehensive a nature as that by a clear inference it may extend to every thing else as well as to the particular matter in question as often as the Supream Magistrate shall be so disposed there can in that case be no treating with Prerogative that swalloweth all the Right the People can pretend to and if they have no right to any thing of which they are possessed it is a Jest and not a Bargain to observe any Formality in parting with it A Claim may be so stated that by the power and advantage of interpreting it shall have such a murthering eye that if it looketh upon a Law like a Basilisk it shall strike it dead Where is the possibility of Treating where such a Right is assumed Nay let it be supposed that such a Claim is not well founded in Law and that upon a free disquisition it could not be made out yet even in this case none that are well advised will conclude a Bargain till it is fully stated and cleared or indeed so much as engage in a treaty till by way of preliminary all possibility shall be remov'd of any trouble or dispute XVI There is a collateral circumstance in making a Contract which yet deserveth to be considered as much as any thing that belongeth to it and that is the character and figure of the parties contracting if they treat onely by themselves and if by others the Qualifications of the Instruments they employ The Proposer especially must not be so low as to want credit nor so raised as to carry him above the reach of ordinary dealing In the first There is scandal in the other danger There is no Rule without some Exception but generally speaking the means should be suited to the end and since all Men who treat pretend an equal bargain it is desirable that there may be equality in the persons as well as in the thing The manner of doing things hath such an influence upon the matter that Men may guess at the end by the instruments that are used to obtain it who are a very good direction how far to rely upon or suspect the sincerity of that which is proposed An Absurdity in the way of carrying on a Treaty in any one Circumstance if it is very gross is enough to perswade a thinking Man to break off and take warning from such an ill appearance Some things are so glaring that it is impossible not to see and consequently not to suspect them as suppose in a private case there should be a Treaty of Marriage between two Honourable Families and the proposing side should think fit to send a Woman that had been Carted to perswade the young Lady to an approbation and consent the unfitness of the Messenger must naturally dispose the other party to distrust the Message and to resist the temptation of the best Match that could be offered when conveyed by that hand and ushered in by such a discouraging preliminary In a publick instance the suspicion arising from unfit Mediators still groweth more reasonable in proportion as the consequence is much greater of being deceived If a Jew should be employed to sollicite all sorts of Christians to unite and agree the contrariety of his profession would not allow Men to stay till they heard his Arguments they would conclude from his Religion that either the Man himself was mad or that he thought those to be so whom he had the Impudence to endeavour to perswade Or suppose an Adamite should be very sollicitous and active in all places and with all sorts of Persons to settle the Church of England in particular and a fair Liberty of Conscience for all Dissenters though nothing in the World has more to be said for it than Naked Truth yet if such a Man should run up and down without Cloaths let his Arguments be never so good or his Commission never so Authentick his Figure would be such a contradiction to his business that how serious soever that might be in it self his interposition would make a Jest of it Though it should not go so far as this yet if Men have contrarieties in their way of living not to be reconciled as if they should pretend infinite zeal for liberty and at that time be in great favour and imployed by those who will not endure it If they are affectedly singular and
still ascending towards him looks so like the best Image we can frame to our selves of God Almighty that men would have much ado not to fall down and worship him and would be much more tempted to the Sin of Idolatry than to that of Disobedience Our Trimmer is of Opinion that there must be so much Dignity inseparably annexed to the Royal Function as may be sufficient to secure it from insolence and contempt and there must be Condescensions from the Throne like kind showers from Heaven that the Prince may look so much the more like God Almighty's Deputy upon Earth for power without love hath a terrifying aspect and the Worship which is paid to it is like that which the Indians give out of fear to Wild Beasts and Devils he that fears God only because there is an Hell must wish there were no God and he who fears the King only because he can punish must wish there were no King so that without a principle of Love there can be no true Allegiance and there must remain perpetual Seeds of Resistance against a power that is built upon such an unnatural Foundation as that of fear and terrour All force is a kind of soul-Play and whosoever aims at it himself does by implication allow it to those he plays with so that there will be ever Matter prepared in the minds of People when they are provoked and the Prince to secure himself must live in the midst of his own Subjects as if he were in a Conquer'd Country raise Arms as if he were immediately to meet or resist an Invasion and all this while sleep as unquietly from the fear of the Remedies as he did before from that of the Disease it being hard for him to forget that more Princes have been destroyed by their Guards than by their People and that even at the time when the Rule was Quod Principi placuit Lex esto the Armies and Praetorian Bands which were the Instruments of that unruly Power were frequently the means made use of to destroy them who had it There will ever be this difference between God and his Vicegerenâ—s that God is still above the Instruments he uses and out of the danger of receiving hurt from them but Princes can never lodge Power in any hands which may not at some time turn it back upon them for tho' it is possible enough for a King to have power to satisfy his Ambition yet no Kingdom has Money enough to satisfie the avarice of under-Work-men who learn from that Prince who will exact more than belongs to him to expect from him much more than they deserve and growing angry upon the first disappointment they are the Devils which grow terrible to the Conjurers themselves who brought them up and can't send them down again And besides that there can be no lasting Radical Security but where the Governed are satisfied with the Governours It must be a Dominion very unpleasant to a Prince of an elevated Mind to impose an abject and sordid servility instead of receiving the willing Sacrifice of Duty and Obedience The bravest Princes in all times who were uncapable of any other kind of fear have fear'd to grieve their own People such a fear is a glory and in this sense 't is an infamy not to be a Coward So that the mistaken Heroes who are void of this generous kind of fear need no other aggravation to compleat their ill Characters When a Despotick Prince has bruised all his Subjects with a slavish Obedience all the force he can use cannot subdue his own fears Enemies of his own Creation to which he can never be reconciled it being impossible to do injustice and not to fear Revenge there is no cure for this fear but the not deserving to be hurt and therefore a Prince who does not allow his thoughts to stray beyond the Rules of Justice has always the blessing of an inward quiet and assurance as a natural effect of his good Meaning to his People and tho he will not neglect due precautions to secure himself in all Events yet he is uncapable of entertaining vain and remote suspicions of those of whom he resolves never to deserve ill It is very hard for a Prince to fear Rebellion who neither does nor intends to do any thing to provoke it therefore too great a diligence in the Governours to raise and improve dangers and fears from the People is no very good Symptom and naturally begets an inference that they have thoughts of putting their Subjects Allegiance to a Tryal and therefore not without some Reason fear before hand that the Irregularities they intend may raise Men to a Resistance Our Trimmer thinks it no advantage to a Government to endeavour the suppressing all kind of Right which may remain in the Body of the People or to employ small Authors in it whose Officiousness or want of Money may encourage them to write tho' it is not very easie to have Abilities equal to such a Subject they forget that in their too high strained Arguments for the Rights of Princes they very often plead against humane Nature which will always give a Biass to those Reasons which seem of her side it is the People that Reads those Books and it is the People that must judge of them and therefore no Maxims should be laid down for the Right of Government to which there can be any Reasonable Objection for the World has an Interest and for that Reason is more than ordinary discerning to find out the weak sides of such Arguments as are intended to do them hurt and it is a diminution to a Government to Promote or Countenance such well affected mistakes which are turned upon it with disadvantage whenever they are detected and expos'd and Naturally the too earnest Endeavours to take from Men the Right they have tempt them by the Example to Claim that which they have not In Power as in most other things the way for Princes to keep it is not to grasp more than their Arms can well hold the nice and unnecessary enquiring into these things or the Licensing some Books and suppressing some others without sufficient Reason to Justifie the doing either is so far from being an Advantage to a Government that it exposes it to the Censure of being Partial and to the suspicion of having some hidden designs to be carried on by these unusual methods When all is said there is a Natural Reason of State and undefinable thing grounded upon the Common Good of Mankind which is immortal and in all Changes and Revolutions still preserves its Original Right of saving a Nation when the Letter of the Law perhaps would destroy it and by whatsoever means it moves carrieth a Power with it that admits of no opposition being supported by Nature which inspires an immediate consent at some Critical times into every individual Member to that which visibly tendeth to preservation of the whole and this being so a Wise
protect us we take from the other the Confusion the Parity the Animosities and the License and yet reserve a due care of such a Liberty as may consist with Mens Allegiance but it being hard if not impossible to be exactly even our Government has much the stronger Biass towards Monarchy which by the general Consent and Practise of Mankind seems to have Advantage in dispute against a Common-wealth The Rule of a Common-wealth are too hard for the Bulk of Mankind to come up to that Form of Government requires such a spirit to carry it on as do's not dwell in great Numbers but is restrained to so very few especially in this Age that let the Method appear never so much reasonably in Paper they must fail in Practice which will eveâ— be suited more to Mens Nature as it is than as it should be Monarchy is lik'd by the People for the Bells and the Tinsel the outward Pomp and Gilding and there must be milk for Babes since the greatest part of Mankind are and ever will be included in that List and it is approv'd by wise and thinking Men all Circumstances and Objections impartially consider'd that it has so great an advantage above all other Forms when the Administration of that Power falls in good hands that all other Governments look out of Countenance when they are set in Competition with it Lycurgus might have sav'd himself the trouble of making Laws if either he had been Immortal or that he could have secur'd to Posterity a succeeding Race of Princes like himself his own Example was a better Law than he could with all his skill tell how to make such a Prince is a Living Law that dictates to his Subjects whose thoughts in that case never rise above their Obedience the Confidence they have in the Vertue and Knowledge of the master preventing the Scruples and Apprehensions to which Men are naturally inclin'd in relation to those that govern them such a Magistrate is the Life and Soul of Justice whereas the Law is but a Body and a dead one too without his Influence to give it warmth and vigour and by the irresistible Power of his Virtue he do's so reconcile Dominion and Allegiance that all disputes between them are silenced and subdued and indeed no Monarchy can be Perfect and Absolute without exception but where the Prince is Superior by his Vertue as well as by his Character and his Power so that to screw out Precedents and unlimited Power is a plain diminution to a Prince that Nature has made Great and who had better make himself a glorious Example to Posterity than borrow an Authority from Dark Records raised out of the Grave which besides their Non-usage have always in them matter of Controversie and Debate and it may be affirmed that the instances are very rare of Princes having the worst in the dispute with their People if they were Eminent for Justice in time of Peace or Conduct in time of War such advantage the Crown giveth to those who adorn it by their own Personal Vertues But since for the greater Honour of Good and wise Princes and the better to set off their Character by the Comparison Heaven has decreed there must be a mixture and that such as are perverse and insufficient or at least both are perhaps to have their equal turns in the Government of the World and besides that the Will of Man is so various and so unbounded a thing and so fatal too when joined with Power misapply'd it is no wonder if those who are to be govern'd are unwilling to have so dangerous as well as so uncertain a Standard of their Obedience There must be therefore Rules and Laws for want of which or at least the Observation of them it was as Capital for a Man to say that Nero did not play well upon the Lute as to commit Treason or Blaspheme the Gods And even Vespasian himself had like to have lost his Life for sleeping whilst he should have attended and admir'd that Emperours Impertinence upon the Stage There is a wantonness in great Power that Men are generally too apt to be corrupted with and for that Reason a wise Prince to prevent the temptation arising from common frailty would choose to Govern by Rules for his own Sake as well as for his Peoples since it only secures him from Errors and does not lessen the real Authority that a good Magistrate would care to be possess'd of for if the Will of a Prince is contrary either to Reason it self or to the universal Opinion of his Subjects the Law by a kind restraint rescues him from a disease that would undo him if his will on the other side is reasonable or well directed that Will immediately becomes a Law and he is arbitrary by an easie and natural Consequence without taking pains or overturning the World for it If Princes consider Laws as things impos'd on them they have the appearance of Fetters of Iron but to such as would make them their choice as well as their practice they are Chains of Gold and in that respect are Ornaments as in others they are a defence to them and by a Comparison not improper for God's Vicegerents upon Earth as our Maker never Commands our obedience to any thing that as reasonable Creatures we ought not to make our own Election so a good and wise Governour tho' all Laws were abolish'd would by the voluntary direction of his own Reason do without restraint the very same things that they would have enjoyned Our Trimmer thinks that the King and Kingdom ought to be one Creature not to be separated in their Political Capacity and when either of them undertake to act a part it is like the crawling of Worms after they are cut in pieces which cannot be a lasting motion the whole Creature not stirring at a time If the Body has a dead Palsie the Head cannot make it move and God hath not yet delegated such a healing power to Princes as that they can in a moment say to a Languishing People oppress'd and in despair take up your Beds and walk The Figure of a King is so comprehensive and exalted a thing that it is a kind of degrading him to lodge that power separately in his own Natural Person which can never be safely or naturally great but where the People are so united to him as to be Flesh of his Flesh and Bone of his Bone for when he is reduc'd to the single definition of a man he sinks into so low a Character that it is a temptation upon Mens Allegiance and an impairing that veneration which is necessary to preserve their Duty to him whereas a Prince who is so joined to his people that they seem to be his Limbs rather than his Subjects Cloathed with Mercy and Justice rightly apply'd in their several places his Throne supported by Love as well as by Power and the warm wishes of his devoted Subjects like never-failing Incense
Supreme Power being instituted to promote the safety and benefit and to prevent the prejudice and danger which may fall upon those who live under the protection of it the consequence of such an Oath would be that all Men who are so trusted shall take God to witness that such a Law once made being judged at the time to be advantageous for the publick though afterwards by the vicissitude of times or the variety of accidents or interests it should plainly appear to them to be destructive they will suffer it to have its course and will never repeal it Secondly If there could in any Nation be found a set of Men who having a part in the Supreme legislative Power should as much as in them lieth betray their Country by such a criminal engagement so directly opposite to the nature of their Power and to the Trust reposed in them If these Men have their power only for life when they are dead such an Oath can operate no farther and tho that would be too long a Lease for the life of such a Monster as an Oath so composed yet it must then certainly give up the Ghost It could bind none but the first makers of it another generation would never be tied up by it Thirdly In those Countries where the Supreme Assemblies are not constant standing Courts but called together upon occasions and Composed of such as the People chuse for that time only with a Trust and Character that remaineth no longer with them than till that Assembly is regularly dissolved such an Oath taken by the Members of a Senate Diet or other Assembly to chosen can have very little effect because at the next meeting there may be quite another set of Men who will be under no Obligation of that kind The eternity intended to that Law by those that made it will be cut off by new Men who shall succeed them in their power if they have a differing Taste or another Interest XXI To put it yet farther Suppose a Clause in such a Law that it shall be criminal in the last degree for any Man chosen in a subsequent Assembly to propose the repealing of it and since nothing can be Enacted which is not first proposed by this means it seemeth as if a Law might be Created which should never die But let this be Examined First such a clause would be so destructive to the being of such a Constitution as that it would be as reasonable to say that a King had right to give or sell his Kingdom to a foreign Prince as that any number of Men who are entrusted with the Supreme Power or any part of it should have a right to impose such Shackles upon the Liberty of those who are to succeed them in the same Trust The ground of that Trust is that every Man who is chosen into such an Assembly is to do all that in him lieth for the good of those who chose him The English of such a Clause would be that he is not to do his best for those that chose him because though he should be convinc'd that it might be very fatal to continue that Law and therefore very necessary to repeal it yet he must not repeal it because it is made a Crime and attended with a Penalty But secondly to shew the emptiness as well as injustice of such a Clause it is clear that although such an Invasion of Right should be imposed it will never be obeyed There will only be Deformity in the Monster it will neither sting nor bite Such Law-givers would only have the honour of attempting a contradiction which can never have any success for as such a Law in it self would be a Madness so the Penalty would be a Jest which may be thus made out XXII A Law that carrieth in it self Reason enough to support it is so far from wanting the protection of such a Clause or from needing to take such an extraordinary receipt for long Life that the admitting it must certainly be the likeliest and the shortest way to destroy it such a Clause in a Law must imply an opinion that the greatest part of mankind is against it since it is impossible such an exorbitance should be done for its own sake the end of it must be to force Men by a Penalty to that which they could not be perswaded to whilst their Reason is left at liberty This Position being granted which I think can hardly be denied put the case that a Law should be made with this imaginary Clause of Immortality after which another Assembly is chosen and if the majority of the Electors shall be against this Law the greater part of the Elected must be so too if the choice is fair and regular which must be presumed since the supposition of the contrary is not to come within this Argument When these Men shall meet the Majority will be visible beforehand of those who are against such a Law so that there will be no hazard to any single Man in proposing the Repeal of it when he cannot be punished but by the Majority and he hath such a kind of assurance as cometh near a Demonstration that the greater Number will be of his mind and consequently that for their own sakes they will secure him from any danger For these Reasons where-ever in order to the making a Bargain a Proposition is advanc'd to make a new Law which is to â—ye up those who neither can nor will be bound by it it may be a good Jest but it will never be a good Equivalent XXIII In the last place let it be examined how far a Promise ought to be taken far a Security in a Bargain There is great Variety of Methods for the Security of those that deal according to their Dispositions and Interests some are binding others inducing circumstances and are to be so distinguished First Ready Payment is without exception so of that there can be no dispute in default of that the good Opinion Men may have of one another is a great ingredient to supply the want of immediate Performances Where the Trust is grounded upon Inclination only the Generosity is not always return'd but where it springeth from a long Experience it is a better foundation and yet that is not always secure In ordinary dealing one Promise may be an Equivalent to another but it is not so for a thing actually granted or conveyed especially if the thing required in exchange for it is of great value either in it self or in its consequences A bare Promise as a single Security in such a case is not an equal proposal if it is offered by way of addition it generally giveth cause to doubt the Title is crazy where so slender a thing is brought in to be a supplement XXIV The Earnest of making good a Promise must be such a behaviour preceding as may encourage the party to whom it is made to depend upon it Where instead of that there hath been