the Father may alter them and the Son sell them Primogeniture being so sacred a thing that Esau was said to be a despiser of his Gen. 25. 34. birthright that he set it at a price to save his life and being due by the Law of Nature he could not transfer it to Jacob by any act of his yet was it just with God because he despised it to transfer it to Jacob. 17. The submission to the will of one Man or one Council then becomes the Cap. 5. art 7. will of them all when every one of them obliges himself by pact to one another not to resist the will of this Man or this Council to which he hath submitted himself Observ Here is nothing to pass or to be transferred from one Man to another and therefore here can be no pact and here I would fain know how to bind and to be bound can be the same thing which Mr. Hobbs here makes But every Man binds himself forsooth and therefore every Man may when he will disoblige himself for unumquodque dissolvi potest eo ligamine quo ligatum est 18. The Right of punishing is then to be understood to be given to any one Cap. 6. art 5. when every one doth covenant that he will afford no help to him who shall be punished Observ What power of life or death is here any more then if a company of Men contract one with another that they will afford Mr. Hobbs no relief if another Man will kill maim or punish Mr. Hobbs that then this Man hath a power over Mr. Hobbs his life and person and this Right forsooth he will call gladium justitiae Art 6. 19. Having made the Temporal power to have its origination from the Inventions Pacts Wills and policies of Men he makes it Judge of all Cap. 6. art 11. Doctrins and Opinions of Faith and this from convenience for saies he If one may command any thing upon pain of Temporal death and another forbids it upon penalty of eternal death it will follow not only innocent Citizens may be punished but the City it self be dissolved for no Man can serve two Masters Observ I would know how this granted could Christianity be preached when the Temporal Laws every where did forbid it Our Savior saies Whoso hateth not Father and Mother and Wife and Children and Brethren St. Luke 14. â—6 St. Math. 10. 28. and Sisters yea and his own life he cannot be my Disciple And if Temporal powers command any thing contrary to the Laws of God we ought not to feare them that can kill the Body but are not able to kill the Soul but rather to feare him who is able to destroy both Body and Soul in Hell 'T is true indeed no Man can serve two Masters who may with equall Right command the same thing but a Man may serve two Masters who do not with equal Right command the same thing as a Tenant who owes Homage to his Lord is the Lords Man of life and limb and of earthly worship and ought to be true and faithful to him saving Littleton Hom. cap. 1. the Faith he owes to his Soveraign Lord the King and so every servant ought to obey his Master in all things which do not contradict Gods nor his Country-Laws and so ought every Man to submit himself to Temporal powers in all things if they be not repugnant to Gods Laws And let any Man see whether the whole scope of this Article be not to make all Faith and Religion as well as Society a meer invention and policy of Man and humane constitution and Creature of a Creature nor is the danger he makes so much to be feared for Ecclesiastical Powers have nothing to do with Secular jurisdictions 20. There are some doctrines held he saies by which Citizens are impowered Annot. art 11. Cap. 6. to deny Obedience to the Civitas and to fight against Supreme Princes and Powers and that by Right yea it behoves them and this belongs to the power which many do attribute to the Prince of the Church of Rome in aliena Civitate and to the power also which Bishops otherwhere out of the Church of Rome ascribe to themselves Observ I do not know nor did ever hear that any Bishops out of the Church of Rome did ever ascribe to themselves this Power Nor are there any Bishops in the Western Churches of Christendom out of England Ireland Sodorensis Episcopus and the Isle of Man if those in Scotland were not which is a question and sure this Hierarchy never challenged any such Power But why does this Man take such care for peace and quiet when as by his own principles he justifies all the actions of the League in France against Henry the fourth for Henry the third never gave nor sold the French Monarchy to Henry the Cap. 9 art 13. fourth nor did the Duke of Mayne and his party upon the death of Henry the third oblige themselves by pacts one to another that the will of Henry the fourth should be the will of them all 21. It is most manifestly false and contrary to the practice of the Cap. 5. art 9. whole world where Men are not condemned to slavery that servants have Cap. 8. art 5. no property against their Masters for where servants are not slaves they may both sue or implead and be sued or impleaded nay they may sue their Masters for Debt or not performance of Covenants c. 22. Where he makes the Fathers power not to arise from Generation but Cap. 9. art 1. that Art 7. Children are subject to their Father no otherwise then Servants are subject to their Masters is so wild and groundless an opinion that it is not worth an answering 23. It is he saies a seditious opinion that Faith and Sanctity are not acquired Cap. 12. art 6. by reason and study but alwaies supernaturally infused and inspired and yet he saies Cap. 18. Art 4. prope finem There is but one way to Science i. e. by definitions but this way to Faith does hurt Observ How these two are consistible I do not understand 24. Jus is contrary to Lex Cap. 14. art 2. prope finem Observ Therefore by the 4. Axiom lib. 1. Euclid Jus naturae is contrary to Lex naturae By Art 1. cap. 4. Lex naturalis est Lex divina And therefore by Art 2. cap. 14. Lex divina is contrary to Jus divinum which is most abominable Blasphemy Nay he says * Cap. 8 ar 10. and oftentimes in hi. s Preface Jus divinum positivum is the Scripture and here Lex divina positiva to be the Scripture So that he makes contraries to signifie the same thing Observ Lex naturae cannot be contrary to Jus divinum nor different but only in this Jus divinum is an absolute right in God to will or command any thing to be a Law of Nature and
as they proceed from one thing to another and add to them in the specifications of them for Omnis additio probat minoritatem But no man who desires to be understood or who desires to understand himself will undertake such a task as Grotius here does to compile a Volume upon such contradictory equivocal and obscure Principles For Conclusio sequitur deteriorem partem And if any part of a Proposition be but probable though the Sillogism be made in the clearest Mood yet the Conclusion is no more And any man may much better thus reason then Grotius does A right-lined Figure is that which is comprehended under right lines and that which is comprehended under three right lines is a right-lined Triangle Sciendum praeterea c. It is to be further understood Right-lined Figures are not only such as are contained under right lines but may serve for many other things besides So Spherical Figures as they are now used by Astronomers the invention of man has found out but being found out these right-lined Figures may serve for them also for Spherical and right-lined Figures have many things common to them both as when they are cut transverse they are cut to right angles and in Spherical and right-lined Triangles two sides is more then the third howsoever taken and in both the sides have the same proportion one to another that their opposite angles have nor are they in any thing contrary one to another Yet if any man shall take a Spherical and right-lined Triangle for the same thing as Grotius does Jus Naturale which he makes to signifie Community and Property in the same Principle which are contrary one to another I make no doubt but he might compile as big a Volume and almost as little to be understood as this De jure Belli Pacis Well but let us see why Jus Naturale is immutable by God himself Note Grotius every where almost confounds Jus with Lex and here he takes Jus Naturale for Lex Naturae For Although says he the power of God is immense yet some things may be said to be to which it does not extend it self because those things so said are only said and have no sense which may express the thing but are repugnant to themselves So that twice Two should not make Four cannot be effected by God Observ It is true that God cannot make contradictory things and things repugnant to agree and to be the same But this is nothing to Grotius his purpose for a Similitude proves nothing nor is there any analogie between the things propounded by Grotius For though things simply necessary be If Lex lata had any obligation upon the Legislator then were the Creator obliged and subject to the creature than which there is nothing more blasphemous immutable by God yet the Law of Nature is the Law of God and therefore being a creature of God's it cannot have any obligation upon God but being the Law of God given to Mankind it is immutable by them and God might if it had pleased him have given something else for the Law of Nature to Mankind Both Grotius his Positions therefore in this Section are manifestly false absurd and blasphemous viz. That the Law of Nature is immutable by God himself And That Usus communis is Jure naturali and yet mutable by the will of Man And if I be demanded to shew an example that God is not obliged to the Law of Nature or that the Law of Nature is not immutable by God I say Jus suum cuique tribuere is from the Law of Nature yet did the Children of Israel borrow Jewels of gold of silver and raiment of the Ex. 12. 15 16. Egyptians and all such things as they required of them and spoiled them by not making restitution without any violence upon the Law of Nature because God commanded them nay they had sinned and disobeyed God if they had not done it And so by the Law of Nature every Father is obliged to preserve and nourish his children yet because when God commanded Abraham to offer up and kill his son Isaac Abraham was obedient to God and would have done it God takes it for the highest act of Abrahams faith and swears by himself That in blessing he would bless him and in Gen. 22. 17. multiplying he would multiply his seed as the stars of heaven c. Yet can no man borrow with a resolution of not-restitution nor any Father put his Son without cause to death where God does not command though all the world should command it without a violence upon the Law of Nature Nay I say the Laws of Nature being eternal there was never any time when men ought not to give every man his due and so by consequence no time when Grotius his Usus communis was since Men were born but ever since Men were in the world Dominion and Property have been Cain had his Gen. 4. 3 4. Fruit of the Tillage of the ground and Abel had his Flock and the Firstlings of his Flock neither of which could be if Grotius his Usus communis had been Object But you may say Property presupposes humane Laws which must give it and humane Laws must happen in succession of time And that therefore before these humane Laws were there could be no Property and by consequence all things were common and undivided Sol. For the satisfying of this doubt we must consider that God in the Creation only created one Man and out of him made Woman and that ever since no Man was ever made but the species of Mankind hath been continued by generation I grant that all things were common to Adam except the forbidden fruit but no Man that was ever born into the world and not a Posthumous King who was not born in subjection to humane Laws Nor did ever Adam derive this Legislative right which he had over his Wife and Children by any Pact Contract or Submission of his Wife and Children but had it from God because he was first made 1 Tim. 2. 13. It is therefore manifestly false which these men beg That by Nature all Men are equal and that the will of Man brought in Dominion Nor do these men shew out of any sacred or prophane History that ever Dominion was brought in by Man or that Men had things common and undivided among them Well but Grotius having in this Paragraph in a tedious unsignificant Lib. 1. cap. 1. para 10. thing defined the Law of Nature so as it may signifie any thing and made it the Law of God and that thing which hath quite routed this Law of God out of the world and set up another thing in stead of it to be the Law of Nature and made the Law of Nature to be immutable by God himself and yet to continue but for a certain season thinks he hath not so perspicuously done this but that a certain Image of mutation may
Fishes are animalia vivipara that is bringing forth their young ones actual living Creatures and do generate viviparorum more should in that vast body of the Ocean when as by reason of the grosseness of the Medium they cannot use their sight at any small distance to perceive when they are neer one another at the seasons of generation find one another To proceed herein were proper for Plinies natural History or Aristotles History of living Creatures All Creatures are either animalia nociva hurtful Creatures which prey upon and devoure other living Creatures or innocua which feed and eate upon such vegetives as grow and are renewed by the earth or water or sociabilia which are only Men who are better or worse then other living Creatures accidentally If they suffer themselves to be enslaved by their depraved passions and appetitions then they become worse than any hurtful Creature but if they by depressing their passions and ill affections rule their actions by reason they far transcend all other Creatures The end of Government is twofold either to preserve the governed in peace within themselves or to protect them from forraign force or power in neither of which respects is Government requisite to other Creatures besides Men For animalia nociva are solivaga and therefore no Government is required to keep them in Peace one with another whereas they do not company one with another And many other living Creatures who are not by nature hurtful do not keep in companies and therefore no Government to preserve themselves in peace is requisite to them neither It is an admirable thing to contemplate how nature has granted to these hurtful and robustious Creatures armes consentaneous to their force to protect themselves from outward force and violence of those Creatures who are enemies unto them as the Lyon his paws and tayle the Bear his paw the Fox Otter Brock c. their Teeth whereas other Creatures who are by nature denied those armes to defend themselves what a strange cunning and dexterity has nature given them in the preservation of themselves from those Creatures who are hurtful to them and prey upon them Those Creatures who live in Community one with another by desiring the same things and avoiding the same things to direct their actions to a common end that their companies are obnoxious to no seditions and therefore Government is not necessary to them neither and of them is Man usually Protector against their ravening enemies Men differ from other Creatures for they are neither Animalia solivaga not gregalia but sociabilia that is living in conversation and subordination and Man is born a living Creature apted potentially for society and alike naked and unarmed as one whom nature intended a sociable peaceful and politick Creature and to be governed rather by reason than force in all his actions and therefore has endewed him with hands and ingenuity that having by his ingenuity purchased himself necessaries he might with his hands cloathe feed and defend himself In all other Creatures the Laws of Nature that is those bounds which God by Nature has set them are securely obeyed and never transgressed by them and are only transgressed and violated by Man and therefore the Laws of Nature are not sufficient for the preservation of mankind in Peace for by reason of the discords which arise naturally in Men for Honor and preheminence Secondly the appetite of possessing all things Thirdly the desire to excell other Men in wisdome and policy and to that end are studious of novelty which causes seditions and civil warrs that they might be esteemed wiser then the men of this present Age or their predecessorsby reason of which present coersive humane Laws are necessary for preserving peace among Men that the feare of a present punishment may deter men from those things which because of their Infidelity and Atheisme they otherwise would not feare Isay this Humane Power from whence all Humane Laws are derived is from the Law of Nature and if it shall seem strange to any Man that it should be Humane and yet derived from the Law of Nature let that Man consider that only Man is a Humane Creature and does Humane and reasonable actions and yet it is from the Law of Nature that only Man is a Humane Creature and can do Humane and reasonable actions And the Fathers and Husbands power is Humane yet I think no Man before Mr. Hobbs did ever deny that they were from the Law of Nature I know in usual speech the supream power of Nations is called Politick power which is a mistaking of the cause for the effect for it is not the power which is politick in the cause but in the effect and exercise as take an instance of my meaning A Father hath divers Children of several dispositions one disposed to learning another endewed with bodily strength and averse from learning another hath not bodily strength yet a desire to learning but by reason of his gross Minerva is not probably qualified to attain to any great progress in it c. The Father breeds up his Studious Son in literature his Active Son which hath no disposition to learning he makes a Soldier or Seaman his Duller Child he binds an Apprentice to some Trade c. Though the Fathers power be Natural yet this exercise of it is Politick so though Regal Power be from the Law of Nature yet must the exercise of it be Politick And therefore Humane Laws and the exercise or Politick use of Humane Power cannot though the Power of all Kings be alike and from the Law of Nature be the same in several Nations but different according to the nature manners and dispositions of the Inhabitants And we see the same King governing in divers places by divers Laws accordingly as his Subjects are different in manners and dispositions Humane Laws therefore and the Politick use of Regal Power cannot be as the Laws of Nature are immutable and the same in all parts of the world but ought to take their origination from the nature and disposition of the Governed and are alterable as Mens vices and manners do alter The Method observed in the subsequent TREATISE and the Reason of it ALl Science all Learning and all Reasoning by the Judgment of Aristotle is begotten from pre-existing Principles which being indemonstrable in themselves do demonstrate them And since that all Society or Power and Subjection whatsoever is created by Divine or Humane Laws and since it is impossible there should be Lex Lata where there was not Jus Legislativum Superior and the cause of it In the First Book we treat of Rights Laws Virtues the Obligation of Laws and of Pacts Promises Vows Leagues and Gifts and from whom Men become obliged to them These things thus premised the Second Book treats of the Causes of all Humane Christian and Legal Society of Regal and Magistrates Power of the Three Species of Government viz. Monarchy Aristocracy and
power which is not restrained The Father hath power of life and death over his children by the Law of Nature the power is absolute But it is evident that the Law of Nature gives Fathers a power over their Children without restriction Therefore the Fathers power is absolute and by consequence he hath power of life and death over his Children See Bodin cap. 4. pag. 21. de rep where he says That the Persians the people of Higher Asia the Hebrews Romans Celtae Gaules the West Indians before the Spaniard subdued them did use this absolute power And see pag. 23 24. how he makes all the strife disorders and contentions among Brethren their Father living the wantonness luxury and riot of youth without fear of punishment the contempt and scorn of the Fathers person and power and the decay of the glory and ennobled virtue of the Romans to proceed from the taking away of the Fathers power Examples of the Fathers power of life and death are hard to find because it cannot easily be imagined a Father should give judgment upon himself his son being part of himself to cut off any part of himself which he hopes might by any means be cured Yet Quintus Fulvius did adjudge his son to death for being of Catelines Conspracie Salust de conj Cat. And see Deut. 21. 18 19 20 21. where it is most evident that the Father hath power of life and death for the People do but execute the judgment of the Father and Mother That such a son is stubborn and rebellious c. The exercise of this power is restrained generally among Christians by positive humane Laws but from what ground I cannot tell 6. The Fathers power arising from generation and the person of the The Son hath propriety against his Father Son being only generated the Fathers power can extend no further and therefore whatsoever the Son does acquire it is his own excluding his Father 7. Though the Son out of wedlock is alike subject to both parents Why out of wedlock the Fathers commands are to be preferred before the Mothers because he is alike part of both yet if the Father and Mother command contrary things whereby it becomes impossible for the Son to obey both there the command of the Father is to be preferred because of the excellencie of his sex CHAP. VII The Husbands Power 1. THe Husbands power doth not arise ex concubitu for then a man hath power over all the women which he hath or shall have known which is absurd besides one woman known by several men should be alike subject to them all which is impossible 2. The Husbands power does not arise from his Wifes being a part of his family for any part of the family may become no part of the family but the Wife can never be out of the power of her Husband therefore the Husbands power does not arise from the Wifes being a part of his family 3. The Husbands power does not arise from the Wifes submission or subjecting herself to her Husband for that is but an act of her will unumquodque dissolvi potest eo ligamine quo ligatum est and therefore by an act of her will she may when she list set herself free 4. It does not arise from the Husbands accepting of the Wifes will for that makes the Husband obedient to his Wife obedience being no other thing but the accepting the will of another which is unnatural 5. The Husbands power does arise from the law of God or Nature by From whence the Husbands power doth arise the conjunction of Man and Wife in wedlock For these two individual persons by the law of God are made one mystical person of which the Husband is head and the head is the directive and ruling part of the body therefore the Husband is the director and ruler of his Wife Object But if the Law of Nature by Marriage gives the Husband a power or right of command over the Wife why may it not be that God by the Civil pact might give a Prince or Court a right of command over those Men who made it Answ I answer That first a Similitude proves nothing Secondly The cases are nothing alike For Marriage was an institution of God in Paradise and the power of the Husband over the Wife being due by the Law of Nature hath been ever since attributed by Mankind to the Husband yet so that after the death of the Husband the Wife becomes free from such subjection until by Marriage she again subjects herself In none of these respects does this hold in the Civil pact for no such thing was ever instituted by God nor any such thing ever constituted or done by Man but only a Chimera invented by capricious men to palliate sedition Nor did ever any man become free from subjection to Supreme powers by the death of him or them to whom they made their subjection by virtue of the Civil pact Nor was it ever known in the world that Men were free before they made their Civil pact as Women are before they marry 6. God gives a power to the Husband without restriction viz. Thy The Husband hath jus vitae necis over his Wife desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee Gen. 3. 16. And therefore the Husbands power over the wife is without restriction and by consequence the Husband hath power over the life of his Wife Antiently among the Gaules this power was not restrained The Romilian Law restrained the Husbands Caesar lib. 3. de bel Gal. power to put his Wife to death for four causes only This power was used by the West-Indians before they were subdued by the Spaniard and is generally among the Idolaters and Mahumetans But the exercise of the Fathers and Husbands power of life and death over their Children and Wives is restrained not by any law of God that I know of but by the Temporal laws and yet no wrong done to the Fathers or Husbands neither For though their Children and Wives be in their power by the law of Nature yet by the law of Nature are they in the power of their Soveraign and subject unto him And though the Fathers and Husbands power be from the law of Nature yet the exercise of it is humane politick and voluntary and the exercise of all Subjects voluntary actions may be restrained and determined by him who hath the supreme power therefore the Fathers and Husbands exercising their power over their Children and Wives may be restrained by him who commands by the highest right which is the King But supposing the Husbands and Fathers power to be from the law of Nature and Regal power but a politick and invented thing and made only by the will of Man it were then a violence upon the law of Nature that any thing which hath no origination but from the inventions and wills of Men should restrain the exercise of that
all Humane Laws and their rightful Superiors There neither is nor ever was any Government in the World good or bad just or unjust that did ever permit subjects without authority from it to take up arms And by our Countrey-Laws If any man levy war to expulse strangers to deliver men out of prison or against any Statute or any other end pretending Reformation of their own head this is a levying war Nota. against the King because they take upon them the Royal Authority which is against the King Inst 3. p. 9. 10. All Stipulations Oaths Promises c. made by Subjects against All Oaths Promises c. made against Prince or Laws are void Husbands by right may command their Wives their Prince or Laws are void and not to be performed for they were Subjects and obliged to their Prince and Laws before they made such Oath Stipulation Promise c. 11. God is not onely the Author of Government and Obedience of Order and Society in Nations and Kingdoms but also in Man and Wife for being reasonable and sociable Creatures does imply a necessity of mutual commanding and obeying God first created man and by so creating him gave him the power and dominion over the woman It is therefore an act 1 Tim. 2. 13. Justice and injustice in a Wife of Justice in every Wife uprightly to fulfil the Law or Command of her Husband to the benefit of him or another he commanding nothing derogatory to the Laws of God or his Countrey and a sin of injustice in the Wife to falsifie or abuse any Law or Command of her Husband to the hurt or prejudice of her Husband or another 12. God is not less the Author of Power or Right of Command in Of Justice and injustice in Wives and Children Parents then in Husbands As therefore it is an act of Justice for Wives and Children uprightly to do any act which is commanded them by their Husbands and Parents they not commanding contrary to the Laws of God or their Countrey so it is injustice in Children as well as Wives to falsifie any Command or Law of their Parents to the hurt or prejudice of another 13. Suppose the Father and the Husband command the Wife contrary Whether the Wife ought to obey the Father or Husband things whereby it becomes impossible that the Wife should serve both Which ought she to serve I say the Husband For though the Fathers power be from God and so inseparable by any act of Man yet is not God obliged to his own Laws but may give that which he gave the Father to another And Matrimony being an Institution of God in Paradice and the Husbands power from the Law of Nature that is from God the Wife becomes subject to her Husband retaining notwithstanding her piety and observance which is always due to her Father 14. All Societies that is all companies of Men whether of Master Masters of Families by right command their Servants Cicero lib. 1. de leg and Servants of Father and Children of Husband and Wife of King and Subjects are contained in the mutual Offices of commanding and obeying It is true that Cicero says Cum dico legem à me dici nihil aliud intelligi volo quam imperium sine quo nec domus ulla nec civitas nec gens nec hominum universum genus stare nec rerum natura omnis nec ipse mundus potest Where therefore the Laws of Nature are not sufficient there must be a supply of Humane Laws Object We have shewed before that the Power or Right of Command which Kings have over their Subjects which Husbands have over their Wives which Parents have over their Children is from the Law of Nature that is from God immediately I say they command by the Law of Nature For all right of command which is not from any Humane Law is from the Law of Nature but Kings Parents and Husbands have a right of command and not from any Humane Law they have it therefore from the Law of Nature Sol. But though Masters of Families have a right of command over their Servants yet formally they do not command by the same right that Kings Fathers and Husbands do For I deny that ever any Master of a Family had his power from any Law of God I except the Israelites or Nature but that ever since there were Families the Masters or Mistresses of the Families derived and had their power or right of command over their Servants from their Countries Laws If Adams Family be objected I say that Adam commanded not as Master of a Family onely but as a Universal Monarch not onely over all the Creatures irrational that God had made but also over his Wife and Posterity as King and not as Father and Husband onely For no Father or Master of a Family can create any property in his Son or Servant nor had ever any Subject who was not an Israelite property from any Law of God or Nature But it is evident that Cain had property in the Fruit of the Gen. 4. 3 4. Ground and Abel in his Flocks they therefore derived it from Adam as King 15. Since Humane Laws are necessary for the conservation of all Of Justice and injustice in Servants Societies of Men and the Masters power not being contrary to any Law of God or Nature the Master of every Family hath right of command over his Servants by the Laws of his Countrey he commanding nothing repugnant to the Laws of God or his Country It is therefore Justice in every Servant uprightly to execute such commands of their Masters and injustice to falsifie or abuse such commands to the hurt or prejudice of another 16. Suppose the Father makes his Son a Servant for every Father hath Whether the Son ought to prefer the commands of of his Father or Master the same right over his Childes person that a King hath over his Subjects and the Father and Master command the Son contrary things Which shall the Son serve I say the Fathers power being from the Law of Nature and so inseparable by any act of Man the Son ought to serve the Father but the Father being as much in the power of his Soveraign as the Son in his Fathers the Father shall make good to the Master whatsoever he shall be damnified by such command the Laws of the Fathers Countrey obliging Subjects to perform their Contracts 17. Suppose the Master command contrary to the Laws of God or his How far the Servant owes his Master subjection Country and the Servant executes such command shall this excuse the Servant No for being a Servant does not free him from the obligation of the Laws of God or his Country as a Subject Well but if the Master commands upon corporal punishment for the Masters power obligeth to corporal punishment to do something contrary to the Laws I answer That jus vitae necis which Masters had
Dissolution of Abbies and all were easily passed and assented to in Parliament But whatsoever the King were otherwise yet sure the Popes passion The Pope was more unjust in his censures then the King was in excluding the Papal jurisdiction against him carried them to greater extravagancies and exorbitancies then were on his part against them For suppose that the Pope had de facto the Investitures of Bishops Peter-pence Annates and First-fruits paid them and did exercise a jurisdiction over all the Church and Clergy yet no question all these things were by the grants and permission of precedent Kings and if Kings may grant and permit these things then what hinders but that they may recall them for Cujus est velle ejus est nolle Besides we have already shewed that although there were not that bitter personal spite between the Kings of England and and the Popes formerly as was between Henry 8. and Clement 7. and Paul 3. yet did many of them ascribe as little to the Pope as Henry did But for a Pope to deprive a Christian Prince of his kingdom over whom he had no manner of right his Adherents of whatsoever they possessed to command his Subjects to deny their obedience to their Soveraign and Strangers not to have any commerce in the kingdom and all to take arms against him and his followers granting them their estates and goods for a prey and their persons for slaves is so unlike to the example and precept of S. Peter whom they pretend to succeed who not only suffered death under Temporal power but inspired by God does command so expresly obedience to Kings not as subordinate to himself 1 Pet. 2. 13. but as supreme And of our Saviour himself who both suffered himself under Temporal power and paid tribute to Caesar and took not away but fulfilled the Moral Law which commands obedience to Princes and Higher powers and whose kingdom was not of this world that sure no Turk or Infidel was so much an enemy to Christians or indeed rather to mankind as to have desired it The state of the Church and of the Ecclesiastical Laws made by Edward the sixth THe time of this Kings reign being a Child and therefore woful and of his Father were perillous days The Father in his Laws scarce ever took advice but from his passion lust or avarice the Son although a Prince of infinite hope and goodness yet wanting the authority and reputation requisite in a Soveraign was either not able to restrain or else perswaded it was beneficial to give reins to a company of Sacrilegious Harpies and Courtiers to make a total prey not only upon all Colledges Free-Chappels Chantries and all their Lands except them of the Universities and some few other which by the Statute of 1 Ed. 6. cap. 14. were given to Camb. pref Eliz. Reg. Life of Ed. 6. the King upon specious pretences but the Lands of the Bishops generally became a prey unto them So much worse is it for every thing to be lawful then that any thing should be Law It was enacted That if any man spake irreverently or contemptuously An. 1. Ed. 6. c. 6. of the Sacrament of the Altar he should be imprisoned and fined at the Kings will and pleasure and that Justices of Peace might enquire of offenders Yet should not the person offending be arraigned or tryed unless the Bishop of the Diocese or his Chancellor or Deputy learned were required to be at the Quarter-Sessions to which purpose a new Writ was made Rex c. Episc L. salutem Praecipimus tibi quod tu Cancellarius tuus vel alius deputatus tuus sufficienter eruditus sitis cum Justiciariis nostris ad pacem in com nostro B. conservand assignat apud D. tali die ad sessionem nostram tunc ibidem tenend ad dand consilium advisament eisdem Justitiariis nostris ad pacem super arraiment deliberationem offendet contra Formam statuti concernend sacrosanctum Sacramentum Altaris And by this Satute it was Enacted that the Sacrament should be delivered to the people under both Kindes viz. of Bread and Wine From thenceforth no Conge deslier shall be granted nor any Election An. 1 Ed. 6. Cap. 2. shall be made of any Archbishop or Bishop by the Dean and Chapter but when any Archbishoprick or Bishoprick shall be voided the King by his Letters Patents may confer the same to any person whom he shall think meet c All summons citations and other proces Ecclesiastical shall be made in the name and with the stile of the King as in the Writs of the common Law and the test thereof shall be in the name of the Archbishop or Bishop c. All persons that have the exercise of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction shall have in their Seals of Office the Kings Arms with certain characters under them for the knowledge of their dioces but the Archbishop of Canterbury shall use his own Seal and his own name in all faculties and dispensations A man speaking against the Kings Headship of the Church shall being An. 1 Ed. 6. Cap. 12. thereof attaint or convict forfeit all his Goods and Chattels to the King and suffer imprisonment during the Kings will and pleasure for the first offence and for the second offence forfeit to the King the whole issues and profits of all his Lands and all his Goods and Chattels and suffer perpetual imprisonment and for the third offence shall be adjudged a Traytor and suffer death and forfeit all his Goods and Chattels Lands and Tenements as in cases of High Treason And it shall be deemed Treason for any by Printing Writing or Deed to affirm the King not to be Head of the Church An Act for uniformity of Service and administration of Sacraments being An. 2 3 Ed. 6 Cap. 1. before divers and different viz. of Sarum of York of Bangor and of Lincoln and divers and sundry forms and fashions were used in Cathedrals and Parish-Churches of England and Wales as well concerning Mattens or Morning Prayer and the Evening Song as also concerning the holy Communion commonly called the Mass with divers and sundry rites and ceremonies concerning the same and in the administration of the Sacraments of the Church The Statute does inflict upon every Parson Vicar or other whatsoever Minister that ought or should say or sing the said Common Prayer mentioned in the said Book Entituled the Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and other rites and ceremonies of the Church after the use of the Church of England and shall refuse it or use any other form or shall Preach Declare or speak any thing in derogation of the said Book or any thing contained therein and be thereof lawfully convict by a Jury of twelve men or by confession shall forfeit to the King for the first offence the profit of all his Spiritual benefices and promotions arising in a whole year and
a rational Ground is necessary to humane Action Observ WHat our Author means by Rationality I do not understand nor I beleeve he neither for reason must presuppose something before any mans Reason can operate and this thing granted must be superior to Reason and the Reason of the Inference Conclusion or discourse Author And page 180. our Author saies God has no irrational or dead title over his Creatures Observ True but though God has no irrational title over his Creatures yet cannot God have a rational or derived title over his Creatures For if it be rational or derived then would I know from whom is it derived If it be absolute and underived then how can it be rational or what can be the reason of it Author Well but our Author saies As he has none in himself so likewise has he not given any to those he hath put in Authority Observ And I say that if Authority be originally in God from whence it must be derived then cannot it be an artificial or invented thing by our Author or any body else And indeed I must confess to our Author that I can never hope for a rational belief of ever understanding any one Proposition in this Third Ground nor tell how to deduce one Proposition from it I shall therefore observe nothing more upon it then that this whole Chapter is a general Canting The Fourth GROUND Of the vertue of Obedience and wherein it consists Author OUt of this we may easily understand what Nature intends by the vertue of Obedience If any ingenuous man understands one Proposition out of it I will submit and what are the limits and laws of it For it is plain that the immediate end is that our works and all that concern us may be well done even to those things wherein our selves have no skill or not enough and the more remote end to be atchieved by this is that our life may be good and happy and the end of nature arrived at by us Observ Wisely spoke Lucullus It were worth an enquiring whether this be a definition notion or proposition But whether it be sence or nonsence our Author saies it is easie to be understood not what Obedience is but what the Laws and limits of it are And then takes leave both of the Laws and limits of it and saies it is plain that the immediate end is that our works all that concerns us may be well done even to those things wherein our selves have no skill or not enough and the more remote end to be atcheived by this is that our life may be good and happy and the end of Nature arived at by us So here are three ends and all plain viz. the Immediate end the more Remote end and the end of Nature but where the easie to-be-understood Laws and limits of Obedience are or which of the three ends is the plain and immediate end of it and yet we our selves to have no skill in those things it concerns is sure an easie to be understood plain and immediate end only to our Author and no rational or intellectual creature beside What would our Author have I cannot tell Now because aswell in Theologie as in Geometry Physick Philosophy and in all Arts and Sciences whatsoever there must be quaedam postulata some Axiomes and Principles given which must be so plain and perspicuous that no exception can be taken against them and these Aristotle calls Indemonstrable Propositions for if there be any so much as equivocation in any of them the Conclusions and Inferences from them must be infinitely more uncertain And because that Definitio est exclusio aequivoci before we proceed let us define what obedience is Obedience then is the conformation of ones will to the rules precepts of his superior As when a Creature conforms his will to the rules and precepts of God or when a subject conforms his will to the Law of his Soveraign or when a Son conformes his will to his Fathers Commands This is Obedience and he that does not obey sins Author Well our Author goes on and tells us The Conditions are three First That the matter of the action be such as our selves are not sufficiently skilful in and yet Ground first he says The perfection of Government is to make the obeyer understand Secondly That our Commander be a Master in that Art Observ Now how can I tell whether my Commander be skilful in what I do not understand Object Why he tells you in the precedent Ground That I must trust my Lawyer and my Physitian though I be neither Answ True but I am not bound to this Lawyer or that Physitian but in case of subjection I am bound only to my Prince Nor do I sin if I follow not the advice of either which I do in not obeying my Superior Author Thirdly That he be an Honorable person in whom we deal Observ Our Author no doubt is a wise Fellow and likely hopes that he or his Patron may be this Honorable person when this Fustian shall be acted Now here let any man see if any thing may be collected out of this mystical nonsense or what follows hereon in the two next subsequent pages whether our Author does not make Obedience to consist on the Obligors part in conformity to a delegate and subordinate power of their own making As if I give my Servant power to receive my Rents or my Bailiff power to oversee and order my grounds which my Servant and Bailiff do that then I obey my Servant and Bailiff Well therefore may our Author say that it is a fallacious principle to maintain Obedience to be a principal vertue Pag. 22. since he understands no better Why then I will tell our Author that at worst 't is better then the Sacrifice of Fools and therefore better then any thing he can say or do without it But how mean a thing soever he makes Obedience here yet he rarely keeps long in a mind to any thing for pag. 98. he says We know by consequence Ground 12. how excellent a vertue this act of Obedience is having a motive of so great a price and high elevation above other ordinary employments which reach no farther then to his private good And then most senselesly he confounds the offices of Command and Obedience and as absurdly prefers the obedience of the Commander because it is not commanded or limited before the idiotical good of the Subject observing the same method in Obedience as he does in his Laws sometimes they are the Peoples Laws which restrain their Supreme Trustee or Governor otherwhile they are the Trustees Laws who may with our Authors licence at other times do what he list Such plain certain and easie to be understood things are our Authors Laws and Obedience Observ But oh our Authors Will is such a thing as you know who rage and are most confident that by no means he will part with it 'T is all a
Ratiocination and no reason can be given of it for Mens sive Intellectus sit principiorum Scientia verò cum ratione conjuncta Dictamen therefore rectae Rationis cannot amount higher then rightly to infer or conclude from prime causes or principles and by consequence cannot be the Law of Nature or God if Mr. Hobbs cannot give something prime or superior to it from whence it may be inferred or deduced And if the Laws of Nature or God be the dictates of right Reason then are the Laws of God the Creator subject and inferior to the faculty of a creature which is not only absurd but most monstrous and blasphemous 7. But because to bind and to be bound cannot be in the same thing Cap. 2. art 5. 13. he makes obligans him who accepts the will of other men and obligatus him who does will and so forsooth is become bound by his own will Observ And had not this man more need to learn his Grammar better who makes obligans the patient and obligatus the agent then undertake to write Elements Philosophical De Cive whereas the contrary is true in both for obligans is he who doth will and obligatus is he who accepts or receives the will of another 8. The action of two men or more mutually transferring their Rights is Cap. 2. art 9. called a Contract Observ There was never I think two more gross mistakes committed in so few words For first he takes the fulfilling of a Contract for the Contract it self A Contract is the mutual stipulation of two or more that they will do or give and the mutual transferring of what is contracted for fulfills and adnulls the Contract and there have been and will be infinite Contracts where there is no transferring nay where there is a mutual transferring there can be no Contract Secondly no Contract can be of Rights but only of things in possession The act of two or more mutually transferring is the act of two or more giving not contracting In every Contract either both statim perform that which is contracted for Ibidem or one performs and the other is credited or neither perform Observ So that the Contract and the Performance are diverse things which immediately before he confounds Nor can his statim at all help him for the Contract must precede and the Performance be subsequent it matters not how much or little time for Majus minus non variant speciem Secondly If one may perform and the other be credited or neither perform then there may be Contracts where there is no mutual transferring which is absurd by his definition Where both soon after statim perform there the Contract so soon as it is performed is fulfilled or finished Observ Sure he takes great virtue to be in statim which makes a Contract and the annulling and fulfilling of a Contract to be the same thing Where one or both are credited there he cui creditur promiseth that he will afterwards perform such promise is called a Pact Observ I do wonder therefore from whence his una persona or una curia can derive their supreme power whenas nothing can pass from either or neither part by vertue of the civil pact And no doubt this Civitas will be a noble structure built upon such a foundation wherein I think no man did ever pronounce so much in so little more rashly 9. We are freed from Pacts by two things either when the Pact is performed Cap. 2. art 15. or forgiven Observ Therefore in the Civil pact if any Right passes from the Subject to the Supreme power then hath the Subject performed his pact and so becomes freed from his subjection 10. No man by his Pact is obliged to an Impossibility Cap. 2. art 14. Observ And therefore can no Supreme power be derived from the Pacts of men For where there is not Jus vitae necis there can be no Supreme power and no man hath a power over his own life and therefore no man can give it or transfer it to another 11. No man can be obliged by his Pact not to resist him who brings or intends damage to his body Art 18. Observ And therefore no penal Laws can be executed but Subjects are freed from their obedience whensoever they have so far transgressed Laws that they become liable to any corporal punishment for where men may resist there can be no subjection 12. Men must not resist where they cannot obey Princes because it is against Cap. 18. ar 13. the Civil pact Also by this article Men must suffer martyrdom rather then resist which is absurd by art 18. cap. 2. for martyrdom brings corporal punishment with it 13. An Oath adds nothing to the obligation of a Pact or Contract says Cap. 2. art 22. Tho. Hobbs Observ But if Perjury be a greater crime then single Falshood then no doubt but a man is more obliged to perform a Pact or Contract to which he hath sworne then he who hath not and a man may see many men afraid to forswear themselves who make no conscience of telling a lye And if no man be obliged by an Oath then is an Oath nothing but the taking of Gods name in vain and it had been a vain thing in Abraham to have made his eldest servant swear by the Lord God of heaven and the God of the earth that Gen. 24. 2 3. he should not take a wife to his son of the daughters of Cannaan 14. The second Law of Nature is Men must stand to their pacts Cap. 3. art 1. Observ Every Man is obliged to his promise by the Law of Nature and all Men are obliged to their pacts by the positive humane Laws of every place where they made them And to suppose that the Supreme power of any place is made from the pacts of Men and that Men are obliged to their pacts by the supreme Power of that place is absurd and Idem per Idem 15. See how learnedly he proves from Scripture the abolishing of Mens common Right to all things he cites Gen. 13. 8. And Abraham said to Lot let there be no strife I pray thee between thee and me and between my Cap. 4. art 4. Herdsmen and thy Herdsmen behold the whole Land is before thee depart from me I pray thee Observ Verse 7. is And there was a strife between the Herdsmen of Abrams cattel and the Herdsmen of Lots cattel So then before the abolishing of the common Right of all things Abram and Lot had property in their Servants and Cattel which is absurd and impossible for nothing can be common and proper 16. The succession was due to Esau by the Law of Nature being the Cap. 4. art 15. prope finem Observ eldest son of Isaac if he had not sold it or his Father otherwise appointed Yet he saies truly Cap. 3. Art 29. the Laws of Nature are immutable and here he saies
a Law not to kill one another which I no where find nor he proves nor do I see any colour of reason to believe Nor had Adam any power to restrain his Sons or give them Law as Father for if you believe him he tells you that Dominium paternum non oritur ex Cap. 9. art 1. generatione I would further be satisfied how this civil pact can give the Civitas that which none of them have viz. Property and power of life and death without which can be no Civitas or Supreme Power or any Power at all if we be Christians and believe God who says By me Kings reign and Pro. 8. 5. Princes decree justice or judgment and that All powers are of God and the Rom. 13. 1. powers that be are ordained of God If they be then Gods ordinances and ordained of him then can they not be an artifice and invention of any Man but are and ever have been whether Do or Dedi ever had been or not And let any man judge whether he does not contradict himself He Cap. 5. art 4. says That the concord and consent of the Multitude is not sufficient long to preserve Peace but that it behoveth that something more be done that they who have once consented to peace and mutual aid for the common good should not afterward when any Private good varies from the Publique again disagree be restrained by Fear And Art 5. he says Aristotle reckons among living creatures which he calls Politick not only Man but also many other as the Ant and Bee who although they be destitute of reason by which they can make covenants and submit themselves to Government yet nevertheless by consenting that is by desiring the same things and by avoiding the same things they so direct their actions to one common end that their Companies are obnoxious to no seditions Yet are not their Companies therefore Civitates nor are those Creatures to be called Politick because their Government is only consent or many wills to one object not as is necessary in a City one will Observ Now mark here he says Consent only makes no Civitas yet where he would prove the beginning of his Institutive or Politick Government from Scripture he says Tale fuit initium regni Dei c. Such was the Cap. 11. art 1. Kingdom of God over the Jews instituted by Moses If you will hear my voice c. ye shall be to me a Priestly Kingdom And all the People together answered We will do whatsoever the Lord hath spoken Observ So here let any man see this great Master of Learning and Reason make the Initium of this Institutive or Politick Civitas to be derived from the Consent of the Multitude and in the same breath before the Multitude did consent he makes God only by his servant Moses first to will and after that the People to consent You come behind and I follow after whither of us went before But suppose the beginning of this Civitas had its beginning from the Observ 2. Consent of the People yet does he contradict himself as much as before for then this Initium is the Initium caput corpus finis of it for here is nothing added to it So that either here is no Civitas and so Mr. Hobbs says not true and has taken great pains to no purpose or else this Civitas is wholly made from the Consent of the Multitude which is absurd and contrary to Art 4. 5. Cap. 5. Well let us see whether he hath better success with Art 6. then the 4. and 5. where he says Because the conspiracie of more Wills to the same end is not sufficient for the preservation and stable defence of Peace Doubtless it is not less then a Judgment upon him that he should call such a consent as he here speaks of a Conspiracie which all men take in ill sence of men consenting to do some evil act it is requisite that the will of all be one concerning those things which are necessary to peace and defence But this cannot be unless every man so subjects his will to the will of another viz. of another Man or Court that whatsoever he wills concerning those things which are necessary to the common peace be accounted the will of them all and every one of them And Art 7. he says This submission to the will of one Man or one Council then is made the will of them all when every one of them obligeth himself by pact to every one of the other not to resist the will of that Man or that Council to which he has submitted himself And this a little after he says is called Unio and this Union so made Art 9. is called Civitas or Societas civilis or Persona civilis Observ If this Unio or Civitas or Societas or Persona civilis be so necessary to all Governments and that it must and therefore may be made by mens pacts one with another I wonder why the Children of Israel should be 1 Sam. 8. 5. so zealous to have a King to judge them like all the Nations if they could by their pacts have made one without ever asking one at Gods hands Nor was there at that time or ever before any such thing as ista Curia or Democracy ever heard of For the Children of Israel desired a King to judge them like to all the Nations and at that time was Codrus King of the Athenians Smendes or Semendes King of the Sicyonians Aletes King of the Corinthians Eurysthenes King of the Lacedemonians So that in those days not among the Grecians was there ever so much as Aristocracy or Democracy heard of Nor was there ever any place in the world where there were men inhabiting without Government For that place When there was no King in Israel we shall answer afterwards Nor was there originally ever any Government but Monarchy and that never from any Pacts of men And this Government so continued everywhere until it was violated by seditious and rebellious men And whereas he makes this Civil Pact to be so necessary and antecedent to all Civil Government I would fain know of Mr. Hobbs whether Saul David Solomon Jehu Hazael Cyrus c. were not as much Kings or Civitates as he calls them as if they had all this Covenanting and making Pacts one with another That this mans will should be the will of them all Not to resist the will of David Solomon Hazael c. in those things which they deemed necessary for the peace of the Israelites Persians Syrians c. But if these were Civitates as if Mr. Hobbs be a Christian which I think may be a question he must needs confess and yet not made so by his Civil pacts nor indeed any other Then is this Unio so far from being essential or necessary to the making of a King or Civitas that as to the right of a King it is no matter whether it be made
deceive them who take not heed whenas the Law of Nature which is immutable is not changed but the thing of which the Law of Nature does work receives some mutation For example If a Creditor to whom I am obliged takes what Lowe him now I am not bound to pay not because the Law of nature leaves to command to pay what I owe but because what I did owe ceases to be And to prove this he brings Greek in Epictetus Observ It is true that universal causes in nature produce nothing but as meeting with particular material causes the law of nature therefore of it self produces nothing but as meeting with particular material causes apted and disposed for the law of nature to work upon and therefore when these particular causes cease the obligation which the law of nature creates ceases also As Thou shalt honor thy Father and Mother is the law of nature but then there must be Parents Children or the law of nature creates no obligation and therefore when the particular cause ceases the obligation of the law of nature ceases also as when Parents are dead the law of nature in that particular can have no obligation upon their Children And so in the instance which Grotius gives a Debtor is by the law of nature obliged to pay his Creditor but this Debt being paid the particular cause ceasing the obligation of the law of nature ceases also What need therefore was there of Arrianus his Greek out of Epictetus to prove a prime and necessary truth which is of more authority then forty Arrianuses and all the Greek in Epictetus Grotius and all his Authors and Poets to boot Grotius goes on So if God commands any man to be killed or to take away any thing that is anothers It is not lawful that Murder or Theft be done which terms involve vice but it is not Murder or Theft which is done by God the Author of life and all things They say Nulla similitudo quatuor pedibus currit I am sure this similitude Observ 2. runs not upon one foot for in this last the particular cause remains whereas in the former it is taken away and if the law of nature be immutable by God and Thou shalt not kill or steal be from the law of nature then it is Murder and Theft although commanded by God Thus hath Grotius instead of clearly propounding his principles and orderly reasoning from them thatched a company of equivocal and contradictory principles with Poets and Authors brought in by head and heels so as not any one proposition is clearly stated and disputed but the whole Treatise a most perplexed and unsignificant thing God conferred upon Mankind generally Jus Right immediately after Lib. 2. cap. 2. Para. 2. the Creation and again when the world was repaired after the flood over all the things of this inferior nature There were as Justin saies all things common Lib. 43. Lib. 1. Para. 16. de jure Belli c. and undivided to all Men even as one Patrimony should be to all Men. God was pleased peculiarly to give rights dare jura to one only people viz. the Hebrews Observ Which is absurd and impossible by the ninth Notion of the first Book of Euclid viz. a part equal to the whole the Hebrews not being all mankind but a part Grotius goes on Hence it came to pass that every man gathered whatsoever Lib. 2. cap. 2. Para. 2. he could snatch to their own uses and consume what could be consumed and whatsoever any man had so snatched that could no man take from him but by injury but this State could not long continue Observ How 's this This is more monstrous and absurd then the other what God gave a Right to Mankind and that so immutable that it is unalterable by God himself and yet not possible long to continue To prove this first Common Right of all things common and undivided to Mankind he refers to Gen. 1. 29. 30. And God said I have given 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Septuagint has it to you in the plural number when Adam only was created every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of the earth and every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yeelding seed to you it shall be for meat c. Now how could God speak to Adam in the plural number when Adam only was created It is said verse 27. So God created Adam in his own Image in the Image of God made he Man Male and Female created he them And therefore God speaks here to Adam and Eve Now whether God gave this Right to Adam and Eve in Community to both alike as Grotius would have it or to Eve in subordination to Adam I refer it to any Christian Man to judge Let the Woman learn in silence with all subjection c. and the 1 Tim. 2. 11. reason the Apostle giveth is Man was first made then Eve But suppose that God gave this Right not only to Adam and Eve but to all Mankind in Adam verse 13. and Eve yet by the authority of the Holy Ghost had Adam dominion over all Mankind because Adam was first made and therefore God at the Creation of Man made Government with Mankind Let us see whether Grotius has any better luck with his common and undivided Right of all things c. immediately from the time of the world repaired after the flood which to prove he refers to Gen. 9. 2. 3. And the feare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast c. every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you even as the green herb have I given you all things Observ Now then if this were not given to Noah his Wife and Noahs Children in subordination to Noah but as Grotius would have it in community to all alike then had Sem as much Right to all things as Noah Ham as Sem Japheth as Ham Sems wife was an intercommoner with Noah Ham with Japheths wife and Noahs wife with them all if this be true Mr. Hobbs makes Noahs Sons in an ill case where he saies filium in statu naturali intelligi non Annot. art 10. cap. 1. posse no Son can be understood in the state of nature and Sem Ham and Japheth are Bastards and not Noahs Sons Well if Noah and his Wife his Son and their Wives had all things in common that is every one of them get what they could snatch to their own uses and consume what might be consumed from whence did Noah snatch his Vineyard and drank the wine thereof untill he was drunken If you beleeve Grotius it was Sems Vineyard Verse 20. as much as Noahs Japheths Wives as much as Sems and Hams Wife had as much right to it as any body else Poor Noah thou hast taken great pains here to little purpose if Hugo be thy Judge Well Mr. Hobbs rather then he
must be reduceable to some one certain principle or they are irregular or commotions If then Christian Princes have not a right of calling Assemblies but others as well as they then must it either necessarily follow that Christian Princes have not power sufficient to govern and protect their Subjects and that their Subjects motions cannot be regular and orderly but confounded and irregular and so the law of nature and the end for which God ordained Princes inverted For my part I will not dispute the Power of God in the planting of the Church either under the old or new Law how that he did dispence with the actions and motions of his People and Ministers and set Father against Son c. and that to make his Power known he would plant his Church notwithstanding all Temporal Powers whatsoever but this I do affirm that God after the deliverance of the Israelites out of Egypt did give to Moses only this right of calling Assemblies as appears clearly by Numb 10. 2. for only to him is the charge of making the Trumpets to call the congregation together It is true that vers 8. the sons of Aaron shall blow with their Trumpets but neither Aaron nor the Priests had any Power to make them but only Moses they must therefore have them from him and be his Instruments and this Power was given to Moses as the supreme Magistrate and not as High Priest for Aaron was then High Priest being before consecrated Levit. 8. Nor was this Right given personally to Moses but as a Law to last for ever If any allegation be made against Moses because he was a Priest it must cease with Ioshua and the Kings after him who were none for Ioshua by virtue of this ever lasting Law did call an Assembly of all the Tribes and therefore of Levi to Sichem and vers 28. dissolved it After him did David Joshua 24. 18. 1 Chro. 15. 4. 11. call the High Priest and other Priests not to consult of any secular affair but about the removing the Ark and afterward 1 Chron. 23. 2. he gathered together all the Lords of Israel with the Priests and Levites and as he called them together so his dismissed them 1 Chron. 16. 43. The like did Solomon when the Temple was dedicated called the Assembly 2 Chron 5. 2. dissolved it cap. 7. 10. The like did Asa when Religion was restored and a solemn Oath of association for the restoring of it Jehosophat did it when 1 Chro. 15. 2 King 10. 20. 2 Chro. 34. 29 30. 2 Chro. 29. he proclaimed a publick Fast 2 Chron. 20. 3. Jehu assembled them when a solemn Sacrifice was to be performed Joash in a case of Dilapidations Josias when the Temple was to be purified and a mass of superstition to be removed Hezekiah made a law for the Priests and all their brethren to assemble and in conformity to that law they did assemble nor was this v. 15. Assembly for any other thing then to cleanse the house of God and for the affairs of the service of God being things meerly spiritual And since that God hath promised that Kings shall be nursing fathers and Queens nursing mothers to his Church it must be meant of Christian Kings for this could not be of Josias because he was a King at the time of this prophecy or before it could not therefore be meant of him for the prophecy is de futuro Kings shall be c. Nor could it be meant of the Kings of Judah after him for they were all Idolaters and persecutors of Gods Church It was therefore meant of Christian Kings And how Kings can be Kings or Supreme powers without this right I do not understand Nor can that saying of our Saviour's causing of wars and distraction be otherwise reasonably understood but only where Kings and Supreme powers have not received the Faith And that Christian Kings did generally exercise this power after they became Christians we shall shew hereafter 10. He is a rightful Supreme Governor who is a Sword-bearer that is Who is arightful Supreme Governor whom God hath chosen to be his Minister who hath not taken the sword excited thereunto neither from any ambitious or spightful passion or affection either of himself or other men That may make and abrogate Laws determine all Controversies by himself or such Judges as he shall appoint choose Magistrates and Councellors and in whom is the power of making War and Peace Nor did God give Kings to them only over whom he did reign by Covenant but also to Heathens who had not known him as to the Persians Syrians Assyrians c. he gave Cyrus Hazael Nebuchadnezzar c. And all antique History speaks only of the Government by Kings as Justin says Principio rerum gentium nationumque imperium penes Reges erat before any other Government was usurped and made by Men. 11. He is a Tyrant who is a Sword-taker who in stead of executing Who is a Tyrant the wrath of God upon offenders against all Law kills and murders them who are not of his own faction who hath no power from God but only force from the wills of inconstant and seditious men As Hos 8. 4. says They have set up Kings but not by me they have made Princes and I knew it not Nor is it the Command of One which makes Tyranny The Grecians themselves called the Council of the Thirty after the Athenians were subdued by the Lacedemonians the Thirty Tyrants of Athens I am confident there was never any thing so wildly and variously Annot. 1. ghessed at as the manner how Dominion and Power came into the world by those men who derive all power from the People originally Bodin cap. 6. de Rep. p. 46. makes all Dominion to be gotten at first by force and pag. 46. d. he says It is very like that without greatest force and breaking down the Laws of Nature Liberty could not be taken away And many men will not distinguish between Force and Power but only in the possession And sure Athaliah was as much possessed of the Crown of Judah and as quietly as any King before or after her for six years and yet I do not find Jehojadah or the people reprehended for restoring Joash And the children of Israel did not rebel while they could quietly place 2 Chro. 13. 7. Jeroboam over them but Jeroboam was declared a Rebel after he was possessed 12. When they over whom God hath given power shall submit themselves What is a rightful Government to that power this is a rightful Government When all who owe their subjection shall accept and receive the Laws of him who by Right that is by Birth Revelation Lot First possession or just Conquest ought to command As the Children of Israel answered Joshua All that thou commandest we will do and whithersoever thou sendest we will go According as we hearkened unto Moses in all things so will we
unto thee only the Lord thy God be with thee as he was with Moses Whosoever he be that does rebel against thy commandment and will not hearken unto thy words in all that thou commandest him he shall be put to death Jos 1. 16 17 18. 13. Anarchy is like a vacuum in Nature so abhorrent that the World The state of Man out of power is Tyranny will rather return into Chaos then suffer it And therefore Cicero lib. 3. de legibus says truly Sine imperio neque domus ulla nec civitas nec gens nec hominum universum genus stare nec ipse denique mundus potest 'T is no wonder therefore if seditious men when they have put themselves out of power are glad to submit to Tyranny rather then be overwhelmed with the Chaos and confusion of Anarchy Yet it is said Judg. 17. 6. 21. 25. In those days there was no King in Annot. Israel but every man did what was right in his own eyes So it may seem that men may subsist in an Anarchy It is true indeed there was no man that was King in those days in Israel nor was there then that absolute necessity of one for God had given them Property and did govern the Israelites and they did enquire judgment of God who did answer cap. 20. 18. And men did in those dayes commerce and exchange one with another which is evident by Micha's contracting with her Levite-Priest for ten shekels of silver by the year a suit of apparel and his victual ch 17. 10. 14. Princes do transgress their power when they command any Wherein Princes do transgress their power thing contrary to what God hath commanded or derogatory to the worship and service of God when they make unjust War when they pronounce Judgment not according to the declared and known Laws but punish either by passion or to please factious men as in the Earl of Straffords Case or pass sentence against one unheard as in Cromwell Earl of Essex his Case I say not punish upon passion or to please men For as the state of Annot. affairs may be stated Princes may punish though not in a Judicial manner as when Subjects are in Arms against their Soveraign Nor do I think that any uninterested Casuist will deny that Henry the Third of France did justly put Henry Duke of Guise to death though not judicially the Duke having taken Arms against him and made him flie out of Paris fomented seditions against him and taken pensions of the King of Spain to maintain war in France and become so popular as the King had no means to proceed legally against him 15. * How careful Princes ought to be in commanding or making of Laws The perfection of Government consists first and chiefly that the Governor have a perfect and indubitable Title against which no just exception can be taken Secondly that the Governor makes it his chiefest care that the Religion or Worship and Service of God be duly administred And thirdly that he does endeavor by known and established Laws to administer Judgment and Justice indifferently to his Subjects with careful moderation of the severity of the Laws whereas men by no fault of theirs incur the severity of them And lastly by all just and due means to endeavor the preservation of his Subjects from the oppression and violence of Foreiners and to maintain Peace and Commerce with his neighboring Nations Such was our Government before our unhappy differences and such by Gods grace do I hope to see it again 16. It were a fine may-game to be a King if Kings might make their How careful Princes ought to be in commanding or making Laws Will the rule of their actions It is true indeed God hath not in all things commanded Kings what Laws they shall govern their Subjects by yet this natural law are all Princes obliged to that their Laws by which they govern do more relate to the good of their Subjects in general then their own particular interest And no question but a King commits a more grievous sin doing any unjust thing to any of his Subjects then if another had done it in regard of the relations which are between them as a Fathers doing an unjust thing to his Child is a greater sin then if another had done it by how much by the Law of Nature he ought to have done well to his Child rather then another Princes therefore by the Law of Nature in governing ought to have more respect to the general good of their Subjects then their own particular interest Yet is Magnificence a Royal virtue and therefore ought not the Revenues of the Crown to be parted with by which it should be maintained Nor would it conduce to the benefit of the Subjects in general to make the Revenues of the Crown poor Where Majesty grows contemptible the exercise of Regal power is never permanent Princes therefore ought to have a great care that by their vices prodigality of the Revenues of the Crown remiss governing or by so giving it over to others that they so much neglect it in themselves as to make themselves vile and contemptible 17. Though God hath not commanded Kings in all things what are Princes ought not to be obeyed when they command in derogation of Gods Majesty 1 Sam. 12. 14. vers 25. the Laws by which they shall govern and therefore divers Kings govern their Subjects by several Laws as their Subjects differ in nature and manners Yet hath he forbidden all Kings to make Laws derogatory to his Divine Majesty Samuel therefore threatens Saul as well as the Israelites that if he or they disobey God and do wickedly they shall perish both they and their King And it was to Saul that God said that Rebellion was as the sin of witchcraft and stubborness as the wickedness of idolatry Nor was the sin of the Israelites in committing idolatry under the Kings of Judah and Israel the less though the King commanded it Nor did God scarce 1 Sam. 15. 23. ever shew a greater miracle then in delivering the Three Children and Daniel disobeying the Kings wicked commandment Princes therefore ought not to be obeyed in commanding things derogatory to the Majesty of God 18. Nor ought Princes to be obeyed when they command any thing Or contrary to Religion contrary to Religion for The kingdom of Heaven and the righteousness thereof is first to be sought But the kingdom of Heaven is only to be sought by Faith and Religion Daniel therefore sinned not when he obeyed not Darius in praying to God Nor do all our Parliamentary Laws add any thing to the obligation of mens worship and service of God in the Unity and Form of the Church of England for men were as much obliged in Conscience before such Laws as after Not but that Kings ought to have as great or greater care of preserving unity and peace in Gods Church as in their
done in Church is against conscience no minding of what is their duty all their talk is judging their superiors and this buzzed into the heads of light and inconstant men begets all the talk of the Country and is beleeved with the same Faith they beleeve the Gospel or their Creed and if Authority shall endeavor to suppress the further growth of such seditious practice by punishing the Authors it will be deemed by the well-affected no less then an invasion upon the liberty of the subject and persecution of the Gospel 6. If Lex lata had any obligation upon the Legislator then were the Creature subject to the Creator and the Father obliged to what he commands That supream Princes are obliged by their own Laws is a seditious opinion his Son and the Master to what he bids his Servant and God to what he commands Man which is absurd nor is it less absurd that the supreme power should be obliged by the Laws given to Subjects They who assert that supream Princes are obliged by their own Laws should do well to make their Children shooes and cloathes to serve them when they are men For as mens vices and manners vary so must humane Laws But men neither consider themselves nor Princes in asserting this For Princes are in a more vile condition then the poorest man not to have the freedom of will and they themselves are left to the rigor of the Law without hope of mercy How can any man accuse Hen. 7. for his rigid exacting the penal laws when by this opinion he had not power to remit any thing of them And why do men tax H. 8. for a cruel man and a Tyrant because he put so many men to death for not acknowledging his headship of the Church the not subscribing the six Articles c. if he were obliged by his own Laws Nay they do not allow Queen Mary a power to releive any Protestant given over to the secular power by Bishop Bonner From this very opinion sprang all the miseries for these last 18 years Scots had liberty to invade us but the King was obliged by his own Laws not to relieve his oppressed and afflicted Subjects This was that which gave the Turks first entrance into Christendom for while the wrangling Grecians not content with their rightful Emperors place usurpers in their rooms who to gratifie them again and to strengthen themselves against the right heirs care not what they grant their well-affected Subjects which so weakned the power of the Grecians that contesting with their Emperors about their liberties and priviledges which their usurping Emperors had granted them and neglecting their common and at first despised enemies the Turks they were all overcome in a short time by a handful of men obedient to their Prince And what private man can assume to himself the knowledge of good and evil that is ascribe to himself a power over his Superior by judging whether he hath transgressed the Law or not And let any man shew that ever our Parliaments as they call themselves Councils of State or Safety were ever obliged by their own Laws and I will submit that rightful Princes are obliged by their own Laws 7. There is nothing more to be wished in this world then that the That supreme power may be moderated Will of them which command might be moderated and restrained to Reason as that Kings Fathers and Masters should never exact any thing of their Subjects Children and Servants but what were reasonable But it is impossible that the Supreme power can be moderated unless it be divided or subject to the Moderators It is therefore a seditious opinion That Supreme power may be moderated 8. All right that any Creature hath to any thing is either from the That any man has any thing proper against the Supreme power Law of Nature or from some Humane Law but no Subject can have Praedium directum cujus nullus author est nisi Deus Sir E. Co. Com. Lit. pag. 1. b. qui dominium non habet dominus non est And he that holds of none is Lord of all which no Subject can be It is therefore a seditious opinion That any Subject hath any thing proper against his Soveraign 9. There has not any thing for more then this last Century caused so That the people may reform where Princes will not much dissention and bloodshed among Christians to the shame of Christianity as the specious pretence of Reformation The Turk either restrained by God or not willing to be an Enemy to Mankind hath been only a spectator not actor in this Tragedy The end doth sanctifie the means was a doctrine generally received among these Reformers if the end were Reformation it was no matter by what means it was brought to pass Hence it was that every where in the Western world men disposed to sedition made Reformation their pretence No Prince must use his power to restrain them if he do Calvin gives them a lesson Abdicant se potestate terreni Comment on Dan. 6. 21. Principes dum insurgunt contra Deum immo indigni sunt qui censeantur in hominum numero potius ergo oportet conspuere in illorum capita quam illis parere ubi sic proterviunt ut velint spoliare Deum jure suo Earthly Princes do divest themselves of power when they set themselves against God yea they are not worthy to be accounted in the number of men Men ought therefore rather to spit upon their heads then obey them where they deal so saucily as if they would spoil God by their right And Luther Ab omnibus hominum legibus exempti sumus libertate nobis Christiana per Lib. de captiv Babil de baptismo baptismum donata We are freed from all Laws of Men liberty being given us by Baptism Et scio nullam rempublicam feliciter legibus administrari I know there is no Commonwealth happily governed by Laws And Turpe enim est iniquiter servile Christianum hominem qui liber est aliis Cap. de matrimonio quam coelestibus divinis subjectum esse legibus It is a filthy and unjust servile thing that a Christian man which is free should be subject to any Cap. de sacrord but Heavenly and Divine laws And whether these mens followers have not well practised their Lectures wheresoever they have been tolerated either in Germany Bohemia Austria Upper and Lower Hungaria Transilvania Sweden France England Scotland Low-Countries Geneva c. let any man who hath read the Combustions of Christendom judge and the Anabaptists and all other Sects may from their principles justifie all their actions 10. There is nothing more manifestly commanded by God in the That temporal good follows in order to spiritual Old and New Testament then obedience to Temporal Princes yet there is nothing more endeavored to the shame of Christians then by pretence of Religion to usher in Rebellion By
might not be aliened or made worse by the Possessor yet so that she left a gap open for herself and her Favorites to prey upon it which was after shut by King James and with great care secured by King Charls All this while grew up a Faction in Church and State which became the ruine of both For not only in the Church the Publique Liturgy Communion or Religion was vilified and defamed but the Governors reviled with all opprobrious names of Tyrannical Antichristian c. It is true the Majesty of the King was not so openly reviled yet was it insensibly daily undermined by them in which they were much assisted by a company of half-headed Lawyers who in all Assemblies distilled this doctrine into ignorant men That the Law was above the King and that they had Property against him in their estates and goods Whereby not only Citizens and Great places became generally inclined to this new doctrine of the Teachers and Lawyers but the Country-Gentleman thought himself independent from the King both in his life and estate the Yeoman cared not for the Gentleman and as little regarded the King so that the veneration of the Royal Name became every day more contemptible and despised all honor and reverence due to the King Church was converted unto these Patriots of their Countries Liberty and New Lights Nor could the Church relieve the Crown although the Governors were well-affected towards it being by all the Faction more hated than the King became despised until in the end the chief Governors both of Church and State not only became Victims to the rage and lust of seditious men but the Revenues of both a prey to their avarice And now what is left for this miserable Nation to expect having forfeited all Piety and Allegiance to Gods Church and his Anointed but after all this consumption of the Blood and Publique and Private Revenue of the Nation and having lost all Reputation and Commerce abroad for the future to be Turk-like governed by armed and hungry Soldiers without any probable hope of Redemption Object It may be it will be here objected That though poor and contemptible Princes be rarely long obeyed especially where their Subjects are opulent yet had the Church never so great veneration both for power and piety as when in the Primitive times it was poor whereas afterward when it became rich and mighty it did degenerate into many vices and heresies and lost much of estimation and piety which it had in its poverty Answ I grant that God did by his grace and power originally by a company of poor men and Fishermen against all the greatness of worldly power miraculously plant a Church and that those poor men sent by God were supernaturally inspired by his grace which not their poverty was the cause of their piety and sanctity and that they were so highly honored by primitive Christians yet sure when God hath supernaturally planted his Church it cannot be in reason expected he should preserve it always by miracle And sure those are very ungrateful men not to contribute ordinary means for the preservation of what God hath extraordinarily planted Nor is there any thing more vain then to imagine that men are better for being poor or that according to the ordinary course of things they will not be by men in general esteemed vile and contemptible who are so Nil habet infaelix paupertas durius in se Juveual Quâm quod ridiculos homines facit CHAP. VI. Of the Fathers power 1. UNumquodque resolvitur in id ex quo componitur Dust shall return to the Introduction earth as it was and the Spirit to God who gave it Eccle. 12. 7. It is not the good will and pleasure of the All-prepotent God that only the individuals of one age should see the greatness of his Majesty and power therefore he was pleased to create man as well as other Creatures in this inferior or be in a * If Adam had not been created in a Mortal State the Sacrament of the Tree of life had been a vain institution mortal state yet he endewed him generativa facultate that though he does dye in his person yet he should live in his posterity and as one generation passeth away so another commeth but the earth abideth for ever Eccle. 1. 4. 2. There is nothing more evident then that in perfect Creatures of The power of Parents alike over their Children which man is the most perfect that God is the prime and efficient cause or God working by naturall causes the Sun is the efficient cause and Male and Female the Instrumental Sol per hominem generat hominem See Harvey de generatione Animalium Cap. 33. Man and Woman therefore being the means whereby God does renew the species of Mankind and all Creatures having power over themselves in all things wherein they are not restrained by some natural or humane Law and every Child being alike part of either of his Parents the Power of Father and Mother is alike over their Children and so by consequence the subjection and obedience of every Child is alike due to Father and Mother And to honor thy Father and thy Mother is the First precept of the second Table of the Decalogue 3. Man and Wife being but one person and the Husband being the Why in Matrimony the power is in the Father head of the Wife and the Wife being in the power of the Husband the Husband hath the power and command as well of the Children as of the Mother yet the piety and observance of Children to their Mother is as much due as to their Father 4. Grotius cap. 5. art 2. de jure belli pacis out of Arist pol. 1. cap ult Grotius his opinion of the Fathers power eth 5. cap. 10. distinguisheth the Fathers power over Children into three times viz. 1. The time of their imperfect judgment 2. The time of their perfect judgment 3. The time when they are out of the Fathers family In the first all the actions of the Children are under the command of the Parents In the second time whenas judgment is matured by age and are of the family they are subject as part of the family In the third when he is matured by age and out of the family the Son is in all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of his own right Yet he says and truly parag 5. The Fathers power so follows the Fathers person that it can never be pulled off nor transferred to any other for the Fathers power arising from generation is due to him by the Law of Nature and so always the same if not aliened by the act of God And therefore * Confuted Quando Ubi make no alteration in the Fathers power for it is the same when the Son is an Infant and when adult when he is part of the family and when not 5. Where the Law of Nature gives a
derived from this begging the question is false Indeed Mr. Hobbs is no question a man of most exquisite parts and learning and possibly might have a peaceable intention in making the Civitas the Judge of all matters of faith as well as manners But sure many things in his generation of it can never consist as his making Jus and Lex contrary one to another his making the Legislator to depend upon the Citizen for without his consent and proper pact either express or understood the Legislative right can be conferred upon none And yet he says Wherefore doest Cap. 12. art 3. thou call him Tyrant whom God hath made King His making the Civitas to receive all power from the pacts and wills of men and making the Civitas Head of the Church and Judge of Faith makes the power of the Church and all Faith to be a thing invented and to receive their beginnings from the wills and pacts of men then which what can be more destructive to Faith and Religion But for our Author Tho. White Gent. he is not worthy the name of a learned rational nor honest man 13. Slaves are born or made so Slaves born are the children of such Slaves as were so Slaves made so happen two ways For being condemned for some crime committed against some humane Law and therefore by the Condemned persons Law condemned to it Where the Law condemns it is the will of the Supreme power which condemns and therefore not the will of the Slave that makes it so I deny therefore that where the Law does not make Slavery any man can make himself a slave to another nor can any man use another as a Slave where he is not made so by Law Or else Slaves are Prisoners taken in War There is no man will affirm Prisoners by War the taking of another man prisoner gives the taker a power over the others life for then all men falling into the hands of Thieves and Pirates the Thieves and Pirates have a power over their lives and so commit no murder in putting them to death But Slaves from being made Prisoners is when there is competition between two Supreme powers and they give their Subjects power over all their Enemies which they shall take Prisoners It is not therefore the taking of another Prisoner which gives a man power over anothers life but a precedent humane Law which gives this power over those Enemies which any Subject shall take Prisoner and sure no man was ever taken Prisoner by an act of his will It is false therefore that Bodin says That a man may make himself a Slave of his own accord lib. 1. c. 5. p. 31. de repub a man may as well offer violence or kill himself and that a man bought for a price of Thieves and Pirates is a Slave to the Buyer for he is not made so by any humane law Nor can any act of force ever give another any power nor can any continuance of time make any thing good which originally was not so and therefore if all commands were originally from force as he affirms then are no commands now any better and so no difference Pag. 46. de rep between the commands of Thieves and Pirates and of Fathers and Kings Although a man lawfully taken prisoner by another be in his power Slavery moderated so as it is in the Takers power to have taken away his life and so an act of grace in granting it yet the Law which originally gave this power may moderate it as here in England the Law hath restrained the Lord from killing or maiming his Vilain Slaves have nothing proper against their Master 14. Apprentices are when the Father or Mother do oblige a Child Apprentices for such a term to serve such a Master and this act is binding because by the Law of Nature the Father hath an absolute power over his Children But because of the impotencie of Children who cannot by reason of their youth and want of art and experience do any thing which may at first compensate their diet and clothes if the poverty or negligence of parents be such that they cannot or will not procure a Master for their Children and where Children are Orphans they may be bound and compelled to serve Apprentiships in such manner as is prescribed by the publique humane Laws of the place 15. Neither naturalis nor delegata potestas can be communicated nor What power is alienable aliened But acquisita potestas as the power of Masters over their servants and slaves may be sold aliened or otherwise given away And therefore Guardian in Chivalry may give or sell to another the Guardianship of his Ward but Guardian in Socage cannot for his is delegata potestas 16. The Master of every family deriving his power from the humane The Masters power restrained to humane laws Caveat laws of every place his power is restrained to the laws of that place therefore ought he not to command his servant any thing which is against the laws of the place When I say by humane laws such a thing is to be done or not done I always except those laws which God did give to the Israelites and peculiar only to them when he pleased immediately to reign over them which laws did supply those humane laws by which his Vicegerents do procure peace among us CHAP. IX Of Ecclesiastical power THat there is a GOD who is the Author of all good past present By the light of nature God is to be worshiped and to come and that He is to be worshiped and adored not only for the present past and future blessings in this world but also in hope of eternal happiness in the world to come is so naturally ingraffed into the minds of all men that not scarce one man compos mentis in an That there is a God and this God to be worshiped and served is innate in the minds of all men Plato Euthyphro requires as the first axiom of all virtue age did ever deny it It is no wonder therefore if men attaining to such a height of impiety as to sell their inheritance in Heaven unjustly to purchase possessions upon Earth do always make the specious pretences of Religion and Reformation as the easiest way to work upon the giddy and inconstant multitude carried hither and thither with every wind of doctrine the Exordium of all their Enterprises for Quoties vis fallere plebem Finge Deum 2. But how they should worship him aright from the imperfect use of The difficulty of pleasing God from the light of nature their reason prejudiced by their appetitions and affections is not to be imagined For to worship and serve God not according to the will and pleasure of God is superstition and not to worship God is atheism It is therefore an impossible thing without the special assistance of Gods grace that men should not fall either into superstition
or atheism 3. It being impossible that any act of mans will can please How God will be served God be it what it will for Saul intended well in sparing Agag and the best of the cattle of the Amalekites for a sacrifice to God and Uzzah in staying the Ark God therefore by the light of humane nature being to be served and yet not according to the will or fancy of any creature what then is left but that he will be served accordingly as he hath revealed himself to mankind For without faith it is impossible to please God and faith is the believing in God as he hath revealed himself to mankind conjoined with the love of it 4. In the beginning of the world God revealed himself to Adam Gods revelation to Adam that he would be served and obeyed by him in abstaining from eating of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil Gen. 2. 17. It is worth the observance that the Knowledge of good and evil is in it self a thing to be desired and endeavored so as it be done in obedience not disobedience to Gods command God therefore in punishing Adam learns all men this lesson that in all his commands he will be simply and absolutely obeyed without any disputing whether it be good or bad to obey him But Gods covenant with Adam Adam soon made void by eating the forbidden fruit God sent him forth therefore from the garden of Eden to dress the ground from whence he was taken 5. God is said to reign by covenant where he reveals himself how he God did reign by covenant with our fathers before the flood will be worshiped and served The Scriptures are silent how God did reign with our fathers before the Flood but that God did is evident for it was not Abels sacrificing to God which pleased God for Cain sacrificed as well as Abel but by faith Abel offered unto God a more acceptable sacrifice Heb. 11. 4. and the doing of any thing by faith is the doing it in conformity to Gods command as he hath supernaturally revealed himself God therefore must first command or reveal himself before Abel can do any thing by faith And Enoch walked with God and Noah was a just man and perfect in his Gen. 5. 22. Gen. 6. 9. generation and Noah walked with God Enoch's and Noah's walking with God was nothing else but walking with and doing what God had commanded And where there is no Law there can neither be Justice nor transgression Therefore could neither Noah be just nor the sons of men so malitious against God that all the imaginations of the thoughts of their hearts were only every day evil if God for Adams sin had only withheld his Gen 6. 6. grace from Mankind and not revealed himself unto them for then men had sinned of infirmity but here they sinned malitiously 6. God did establish a covenant with Noah and his sons after the flood God did reign by covenant with Noah and his posterity after the flood in this form Gen. 9. 9 10 c. Behold I even I establish my covenant with you and with your seed after you and with every living creature that is with you in fowl in cattel in every beast of the earth which is with you of all that go out of the ark whatsoever living thing of the earth it be And my eovenant I make with you that from henceforth all flesh shall not be rooted out by the waters of a flood neither shall there be a flood to destroy the earth any more And God said This is the token of my covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for ever I do set my bowe in the cloud and it shall be for a token between me and the earth c. Yet Mankind did distrust God and said Go to let us build a city and a tower whose top may Gen. 11. 4. reach unto heaven and let us make us a name lest peradventure we be scattered abroad upon the whole earth So that Wisdom says Moreover the nations in Sap. Solom 10. 5. their wicked conspiracie being confounded she found out the righteous and prescrved him blameless with God 7. Yet God was so merciful unto Mankind as not utterly to forsake Gods covenant with Abraham them but established his covenant with Abraham and his seed I will make my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations by an everlasting covenant that I may be a God unto thee thy seed after thee c. Gen. 17. 7 c. This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and thy seed after thee Every man-child among you shall be circumcised c. God did not make any new covenant with Isaac and Israel but renewed that which he had made with Abraham and by this covenant the Israelites were not to serve God as God simply but as the God which had appeared and made a covenant with Abraham Isaac and Israel Under this covenant God by Moses gave the children of Israel the Moral the Judicial and Ceremonial law and under this covenant was the Messias promised and prophesied of by all the Prophets Mr. Hobbs cap. 16. art 13. says The supreme power and also the interpretation Annot. of Scripture was in Moses while he lived and not in Aaron Nor do I gainsay it for Moses was of the Tribe of Levi as well as Aaron Besides what should hinder but that God when he pleased might give that to Moses which ever after should be inseparable from the High Priest But where he says from Num. 27 18 19 20 21. that Eleazer was not only High Priest but also had the supreme power because that when Eleazer had enquired of God Joshua and all the people should go in and out at his word It does not follow for then had neither David nor Saul c. the Soveraignty who asked counsel of God by the High Priest It is true that was Magisterial in Eleazer which was Ministerial in Aaron It is true which he says that Joshua had but part of the power which Moses had But if it Note this for Mr. Hobbs does be true which he says that both powers were in Eleazer then had Joshua none of the power which Moses had But that Joshua had all temporal power and not from Eleazer both in command of war and governing the people is manifest every where in all the book of Joshua neither had Eleazer any thing to do with the division which fell to the Israelites by lot Behold Joshua said I have divided unto you by lot those nations that remain c. which thing does belong only to the supreme Temporal power And whereas he says After the death of Joshua in the time of the Judges unto King Aâ—t 15. Saul it is manifest that the Regal right instituted by God remained with the High-Priest sure
absurd But if Solomon his offering a peace-offering for the people and his blessing the people be objected I answer it does signifie no more then a fathers blessing his children and praying to God that they may live peaceably But none of the Kings did ever offer a sin-offering or burn incense to the Lord without reprehension by God Out of this it is evident that God never forsook men before they Annot. 2 first did forsake him Adam did first eat the forbidden fruit before God drove him out of Paradise and cursed Mankind and the ground for his sake Then mankind sinned malitiously before God brought the general Cataclysme upon them and they made a wicked conspiracy before God confounded them at Babel but none were more malitiously stubborn than the Jewes who when they were enjoyned to observe the Ceremonial Law scarce ever observed it but went a whoring after the Gods of the Nations Moab Ammon Ashteroh c. yet since our Saviour hath fulfilled it never did men so superstituously observe any thing as they have done it And now Oh that I could more then powre forth all Jeremies lamentations in commiseration of thee O my Mother Church and Native Country much more deserving it then the Jewes in the Babilonish Captivity for Jeremiah foresaw their return and restitution whereas I cannot hope but that Christianity it self is in the very wayne here among us For not only Bishops and Priests are therefore hated because they are Christs Ministers and Puppets Mountebankes and Tryers set up in the place of them and not only all the carved works in the houses of God in despite of God are beaten down with Axes and Hammers and the houses themselves destroyed and made stables for horses but all the solemn days kept in commemoration and gratitude for our Saviours Nativity Passion Resurrection Ascention c. in despite of Christianity decryed as superstitious c. Sure as glorious Christian Churches as ever were in England have been in Africa c where were it not for some poore Christian slaves there is not so much as any footsteps of Christianity left The Contents of the Third Book THe First Chap. contains the causes of Subjection of Subjects to Supream Powers of Subjection of Children to Parents of Servants to Masters as also to them who have oversight over us in the Lord. The Second Chap. treats of succession of Princes in Hereditary Monarchies and discovers the fiction of the Salique Law in France and that it was a meer invention to exclude the just title of the Kings of England and has been ill observed by the French themselves when it did not conduce to their advantage The Third Chap. treats of the Municipal Laws of my dear and native Country before they became invaded and subverted by those men who in so many several shapes since 1640. have arrogated to themselves the name of Parliament THE THIRD BOOK CHAP. I. Of Subjection 1. IT is observed by a Writer that our Saviour Introduction in communicating the Cup to his Disciples as if he had foreseen that it would be detained from the Laity gave it in these words Drink ye all of it whereas in partaking of the Bread he said only take eat c. I am sure it is well worth the observation that the Holy Ghost as foreseeing the great abuses which should happen in the world by the specious pretences of Religion Conscience the Power of the People or Parliaments c. commands Subjection to Higher Powers not in certain cases but absolutely and not certain persons but every Soul is to be Subject to the Higher Rom. 13. 1. Powers 2. I say Supream or Regal Power being from God immediately by Subjection due by the Law of Nature to Soveraigns the Law of Nature it does necessarily follow that subjection of Subjects to their Soveraign is due by the Law of Nature nor can the relations be dissolved but by God himself I may I think without any affectation affirm that the Judges in Calvins case were as learned and upright as ever any before or since let us therefore see their resolutions 3. Those learned and upright Judges resolve tit Ligeance Ligeance What is Ligeance is a true and faithfull Obedience of the Subject due to his Soveraign This Ligeance and Obedience is an incident inseparable to every Subject for as soon as he is born he owes by birthright Ligeance and Obedience to his Soveraign Ligeantia est vinculum fidei quasi essentia Legis and a little after page 5. Ligeance does not begin by the Oath of the Leete For many men owe true Ligeance who were never sworn in the Leete Where note it is false if not Treasonable in Mr. Hobbs who affirms that the Knowledg Note of the Legislator does depend upon the Citizen For every man is as much a subject before he hath taken the Oath of Aligeance as after And see whatsoever is due by the constitution of man may be Pag. 25. tit 5. altered but natural Ligeance of the Subject to his Soveraign cannot be altered ergo natural Ligeance or Obedience to the Soveraign is not due by the Law or constitution of man And again whatsoever is due by the Law of Nature cannot be altered but Ligeance and Obedience of the Subject to the Soveraign is due by the Law of Nature ergo it cannot be altered Et qui abjurat regnum amittit regnum sed non regem amittit patriam sed non patrem Pag. 9. patriae 4. Ligeantia ac quisita or Denization is threefold First absolute to them Ligeantia acquisita Pag. 5. 6. and their heirs Secondly limited as when the King does grant Letters of Denization to an Alien and the Heirs Males of his body or for life The third is when the King by Conquest conquers another Kingdom or part of it the Antenati Postnati are Denizens of the Kingdom or Dominion so conquered Yet sure under correction the Postnati are not only Denizens but Natural Subjects For Power and Subjection being by the Law of Nature all men born in the Dominion of any Soveraign are his Natural Subjects and with this does Sir Ed. Coke agree If a man come into England and have issue two Sons these two Sons are Indigend Subjects born because they Com. Lit. pag. 88. are borne within the Realm that is in the Dominion of the King but if any be borne out of the Realm that is out of the Dominion of the King although of Natural Subjects to the King they are alienigena They therefore who are Postnati in the exercise of the Kings power by Conquest are his natural Subjects 5. Local Ligeance is when any Subject of France is in England or any English in France c. so long as he is in the power of the King he is de Local Ligeance tit 3. pag. 6. facto his Leigeman Therefore a Frenchman being in England joyned with divers Subjects of this
have their origination from God we Introduction have already in its proper place asserted And that these Kingdoms thus created by God have periods alterations and conversions set by him which cannot be foreseen or prevented by man is certainly as cleer and evident as the former and often owned by God himself in Sacred Writ as well over his own people as others But that therefore any man or men should therefore endeavour to make alterations in Kingdoms is like to a man who becaufe all men naturally die thinks he may kill any man and father the fact upon God And if God even over his own peculiar people did for the sins of the Kings and people especially the Israelites so often convert the line of the Kings then can it not in reason be expected in this Iron and much more sinful Age that God should every where continue a fixt and certain succession of Kings according to the ordinary course of Nature viz. Primogeniture But that therefore the Pope or any other creature may arrogate to themselves a right or power superior to the Law of Nature is no less absurd then that a Son may kill his Father because all Fathers have periods set by Nature which they cannot pass And that all Subjects do by birth owe a natural subjection to rightful Princes in whose dominion they were born which relations can never be dissolved but by God himself we have in their proper places demonstrated Yet may the exercise of this power be suspended so long as such Subjects come into the power of other Princes whether it be by conquest or otherwise and do owe them a temporary obedience so long as they continue there and their posterity born in their dominions owe such Princes a natural obedience which can never be dissolved And also that since there is no other Judge under Heaven to decide the controversie of Princes but their swords which can never be alledged by any Subjects who have Laws to decide their differences such decision is good as to the exercise of any Princes power over all them who fall under ir and all Subjects born in such exercise of power or dominion become natural Subjects to any Prince who by conquest acquires the dominion of another we have also demonstrated in its proper place Yet whether it were of old that Popes did arrogate to themselves this right of deposing Temporal Princes or debarring them of their right which about this time was frequently asserted by and practised by the Popes and which Pope Alexander was pleased to confer upon the Conqueror against all Right and Law to the manifest prejudice of Eadgar Athelin let us see the Epistle of S. Eleutherius to King Lucius as it is cited in chap. 17. of S. Edovards Laws In the year from the passion of Christ 169. or 156. our Lord Eleutherius the Pope wrote to Lucius King of Britain at the Petition of the King and Peers of the Kingdom of Britain You have required of us that the Roman Laws and of Cesar be transmitted to you which you would use in the Kingdom of Britain We can always reprove the Roman Laws and those of Cesar but not at all the Law of God For ye have by Gods mercy of late received into your Kingdom of Britain the Law and Faith of Christ you have of your self in your Kingdom sufficient Authority from whence through Gods grace by the advice of your Kingdom to make a Law and by it through Gods patience you shall rule the Kingdom of Britain And you are the Vicar of God in your Kingdom according to the Kingly Prophet The earth is the Lords and the fulness of all the world and all who inhabit therein And again according to the Kingly Prophet Thou hast loved Justice and hated iniquity and therefore thy God hath anointed thee with oyl of gladness above thy fellows And again according to the Kingly Prophet God is thy Judgement c. Therefore neither the Judgement nor Justice of Cesar for they are sons of the King Christian Nations and people of the Kingdom who live under your Protection and Peace and Reign and are according to the Gospel Even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings c. But they are Nations and your People of the Kingdom of Britain and who divided you ought to congregate recall nourish hold with your hand protect and rule into one for concord and peace and to the Faith and to the Law of Christ and his holy Church and always to defend it from evil doers and malitious men and its enemies Wo to the Kingdom whose King is a boy and whose Princes eat together in the morning I Do not call a King because of his small and tender age but because of his folly and iniquity and rage according to the Prophet King Men of blood and deceitful shall not live out half their days c. By eating we understand the Pallat by the Pallat Luxury by Luxury all things filthy and evil according to King Solomon Wisdom shall not enter into the soul of the evil doer nor shall dwell in a body subject to sins Rex dicitur à Regendo non à Regno A King thou shalt be so long as thou rulest well which thing if thou wilt not do the name of King shall not remain in thee and thou shalt lose the name of King which God forbid God Almighty grant to you so to Rule your Kingdom of Britain that you may Reign with him for ever whose Vicar you are in the Kingdom aforesaid who with the Father and Son c. Of the Right and Ecclesiastical freedom of Asylum's Cap. 1. That is to say Peace to the holy Church Of whatsoever forfeiture any one is guilty this time and he can come to the holy Church let him have peace of life and member and if any one hath set his hand against that which the Mother-Church shall require whether it be an Abby or Church of Religion let him restore that which he hath taken out and one hundred shillings for forfeiture and concerning the Mother-Parish-Church twenty shillings and concerning a Chappel ten shillings And according to the peace of the King in the Laws of the Mercians he shall make amends with En perchenâ—laâ— one hundred shillings accordingly as of Heinefare and prepensed lying in wait Of Peter-pence or Romescot Cap. 18. A Freeman who hath Field-Beasts valued at thirty pence shall pay a Peter-peny For four pence which the Lord shall give all his Borderers and his Boner and his Servants be quit A Burger who hath of his proper goods so much as shall be esteemed half a Mark let him pay a Peter-peny He who in the Law of the Danes is a Free-man and hath field-cattel which are valued worth half a Mark in silver ought to give a peny to St. Peter and for that peny shall all be quit who reside in his Demains Of them who do not pay the Roman
any other way then by the established and received Laws of the Nation where mens vices and depraved manners do not require new ones I designe no more then to demonstrate that it was not your Majesties Father's and your own adherence to the established Laws but the iniquity of the times which made him a Victim and your Sacred self an Exile Nay in reason as well as justice it had been a most imprudent thing in either of your Majesties to have given up the Laws to the arbitrary lusts of your Adversaries or any one Faction For should either of your Majesties have indifferently renounced the Laws to your Adversaries being compounded of such different and contrary humors and affections then there was no visible means under Heaven to have cemented them and by consequence your Adversaries hostility and confusion continued and your own conditions no ways bettered or secured Or should either of your Majesties have renounced the Laws to have advanced any one Faction so above the rest and all your loyal Subjects that their arbitrary wills and lusts should have been the laws of all the rest and your other Subjects also yet should you not only have failed to have contented that Faction it being the nature of Faction never to bear any grateful acknowledgment for benefits received but on the contrary always abuse them to their prejudice from whom they received them and never rest until they have made themselves all and their Benefactors nothing at all or vile and miserable but have animated all the other Factions against your Majesties and it To the fulfilling of all singular and glorious Virtues in Your Sacred person is added Your being a Christian King and a Nursing Father of the Church of Christ and as if immediately sent from Heaven to cure and repair the wounds of this most miserably distracted Church although Your Majesty is descended from innumerable Royal Ancestors who have been Nursing Fathers of Christs Church yet are you not derived from any who have had the least hand in the late Sacrilege thereof And though Sir You are and ought to be a Nursing Father of Gods Church and a Patron and Defence against her ravenous and devouring Adversaries yet none of mortal men have been more Religious Sons of the Church then Your Majesty and Your Saintlike Father How unequal and how unjust then have been the sufferings of Princes so just so religious caused by Christians Your natural Subjects and these pretending Conscience whereas no School teaches men a better lesson of obedience to Princes then the Christian faith whenas the first principle or foundation of Subjects obedience to rightful Princes is founded in the Law of Nature however popular Orators and Atheists have against all sense reason nature and all authorities of sacred and profane History resolved it into the pacts and wills of men And conscience always supposes some superior law informing men to do or not do a thing or suffer when any subordinate power commands contrary to it whereas Your persecutors pretending concience trod underfoot whatsoever might be called sacred to the attaining their seditious and sacrilegious ends That God in his providence doth often permit the good and just to suffer persecution is evidently seen in all ages and places But in reason and prudence neither Your Majesties Father's nor Your own adherence to the established Government of the Church and the Rites Liturgy and Means thereof in Your adversities when they were so zealously persecuted by its and Your adversaries could be any cause thereof Neither would the desertion of it have any ways conduced to either of Your Majesties advantage for should either of Your Majesties have renounced the Church and rites thereof so as to have been a Christian King of such Miscreants who besides that they would not be of any Christian Church or society had by undue ways devoured the patrimony of the Church yet no man in his right wits could have imagined such men would long have been governed in peace or that all other men of their factions would have been content who had not made a prey thereof and there was not sufficient to content all nor indeed any at all or that the canine appetites of those men who had devoured the lands of the Church would not also have hungred after those of the Crown Or should Your Majesty have advanced any one Faction so above the rest that it should not only have tyrannized over the rest of the Factions but also Your Majesty and the rest of Your subjects yet could it not in reason have been expected that this Faction who by all Divine and Humane laws were subject to a Government founded upon our Saviour and his Apostles and by a continued series dispersed over the face of Christianity until of late it became violated in some places of Europe by seditious and sacrilegious men should so unjustly cast off their obedience so rightfully due and yet expect that their wills and lusts should long be received for Laws by the rest of the Factions and all other of their fellow-subjects But certainly Your constant adherence to the Church did proceed from the power and grace of God in You before any prudential or moral cause Notwithstanding that your Majesty is so constant a Preserver of Christs Church and Propagator of Christian religion and that your own conscience hath been so often attempted to be violated by men of none at all indeed yet so tender is your Maiesty of other mens that you will not force the conscience of any of your subjects pretending it A strange condescension any one will judge who considers the parties granting and expecting For should your Majesty command your Subjects any thing in derogation to the Majesty of God or forbid them the worship and service of God your Subjects might then justly plead conscience because the duty and allegiance which they owe to God is in the first place to be paid by all his creatures Or should your Majesty command any thing which were immoral or unjust as that your Subjects should dishonor your Majesty or their Parents c. they might justly plead conscience because that for Subjects to honor their King and children their Parents is founded in Nature and is a Law of God engraven in the minds of all mortal men or should your Majesty have lived in the Primeve times of Christianity when men by the light of Humane Nature apprehending a Deity to be publickly Worshipped and Served yet being ignorant of the manner misplaced it in Osyris Isis Iupiter Apollo an Oak c. then to have compelled them to have Worshipped God after the manner of Christians had been unconscionable and unchristian because they paid an acknowledgement of that Worship due to God by Nature and could not by Nature apprehend this but must wait upon God until that by the ordinary means of the Church or supernaturally inspired by God they should be converted thereunto Or should your Majesty command any thing
Father was wont to say his Son commanded all Greece For the Athenians commanded the other Grecians He commanded the Athenians his Wife him and his Son commanded his Wife How much greater power had our Author in this Government than Themistocles his Child had over the Grecians For in all our Authors Government you shall find two degrees of Comparison above the superlative viz. the peoples Power over their supreme and absolute Governor and our Authors supreme supremest Power who has a Power when he will to make what he list the Peoples Laws which shall oblige and tie up their absolute Governor And when the toy takes him they shall be the Governors Laws And Ground 11. latter end No supreme Magistrate can be bound to any Laws contrary to what our Author or Governor shall call good Government And now who would think so wise a fellow as our Author who in this Government had such a monstrous and most unlimited soveraignty should by shewing his power in giving his Rational multitude liberty to dissolve it lose it all in an instant sure this Icarus if he neither drowns nor otherwise kills himself in the fall will only rise up again to hang himself Well but let us see whether upon our Authors principles this Government can be dissolved or be in the power of his People or Rational multitude All Men who have written of the Cause and Nature of things have put a difference between Natural and Voluntary or Rational causes or things Natural causes or things are those which proceed immediately from God and are above the Will or Reason of Man Voluntary causes or things are those which do not immediately proceed from God but from the Will and Reason of Man But ex Hypothesi this Government Ground 7. page 48. is connatural and Ground 8. page 50. Natural and therefore this Government is superior to the Wills or Reason of the People and cannot be by them dissolved but the resisting of it is a violence upon Nature and not only Irrational but Immoral and unjust Thus have we seen our Author make a Government and thus have wee seen our Author marre his Government Let him tell us Ground 15 â—herein consists the Liberty of the Subject Ground 16. Of the dispossession of a Supreme Governor and his Right And Ground 17. Of a Governor dispossessed only because our Author Ground 17. tells us that Pope Urban the eight was an Intelligent generous Prince and well versed in publick Government and he made a decision that after five years quiet possession of an Estate the Church was not bound to take notice whether the title were lawful or no I will tell our Author that if Pope Urban might not take notice after five years who is the lawful Governor yet Pope Pius the fourth after above twice the time declared by Pope Urban might take notice of it as you may see Hist Con. Triden 423. and 443. So then Pope Pius may do that which Pope Urban is not bound to do or say what he will for me I am content if after all this pains on my part I shall not in the Judgment of wiser and more discerning Men then my Author or self have made my self like our Author in thus far answering him to his Grounds of Obedience and Government OBSERVATIONS ON Mr. HOBBS De Cive Observ HIs first Axiome or Principle he begs both in the Preface and second Article of the first Book De Cive is That the beginning of Civil Society is from Mutual Fear Yet in his Preface and second Annotation upon this Article He fears that some men may deny it yea it is true that very many men do deny it This therefore being required for a Principle and the first Principle and by consequence not to be proved but to prove all that may be inferred from it and since that he grants that very many do deny this Principle Then by very many men must the whole body of De Cive be rejected For Contra negantes principia non est disputandum But if men will not grant this Principle in the Pref. and Annot. abovesaid he will prove it so that he will make them ashamed of it and how think you It will be somewhat odd sure to prove Principles He tells you That all Cities although they be at peace with their neighbors yet keep Garrisons and Soldiers upon their Frontiers And that when men go to sleep they shut their doors and that men taking a journey do it with a sword and that men treat usually before they fight Observ All Science all Learning and all Reasoning whatsoever by the authority of Aristotle is begotten from pre-existing Principles which prove the Science and Learning but by the judgment of Aristotle and all Philosophers and men in their wits no Science Learning or Reasoning can prove the Principles Besides it is a contradiction to say any thing is a Principle which can be proved for that which proves it is prime and a principle to it Would any man now think that these Critiques and pretended Masters of Reason had ever read one line in Logick or Aristotle who go about to prove Principles by such silly things as have scarce any verisimilitude in them Nor does he only make Fear to be the prime cause of all Humane Government and Civil Society but also chap. 16. art 1. he makes it the cause of all Religion and Worship of God Observ As if that men were not obliged to submit to higher Powers not only for wrath take it in what sense you will either fear of the wrath of the higher Powers or mutual fear of the wrath of other men but also for conscience sake And that God were not in gratitude to be worshiped and served by ingenuous men because he is good and created them intellectual and reasonable creatures but only by a servile fear of his Judgments from whence only vile and vitious men seem to but never truly serve or honor him A pretty institution of Religion and Government for the Men of Bedlam and Wives of Billingsgate He divides the whole Treatise into three titles viz. Liberty Empire and Religion Under the title of Liberty he speaks of men as they are in a state of meer Nature viz. of a state of men before they have by Pact given up their natural right to one Person or one Court or Company of men so that the will of this Man or Court shall be the will of all of them and this he calls cap. 5. art 9. Civitas or Persona civilis If Mr. Hobbs had by a state of Nature understood such a state as S. Paul Observ Rom. 2. 14. does viz. of men who have only the Law of Nature and not Gods Divine Law supernaturally revealed in the Scriptures to be their rule and guide and that men in such a state not having the Law may by Nature do the things contained in the Law for this Law is ingraven in the hearts of all men he
should have disputed without an Adversary for me But when he makes all men Jure naturali which is superior and the cause of all Laws of Nature to be equal and in a parity of condition and every man by his own natural right to have a power over every man and to kill and destroy them whensoever it seems good unto him and yet without any sin and that this State is only to be cured by the Laws of Nature of his own making although he would have them to be Divine Laws and contrary to Natural rights is such a monstrous Paradox and absurdity as I wonder any Ingenuous man should assent to it Under the title of Empire he is not less wild and extravagant in his concessions to the thing be it King or Court created by Do or Dedi and not Dabo or Faciam For he makes it not only Soveraign Judge of all Ecclesiastical as well as Civil causes but also impossible to command any thing contrary to the Law of Nature Yet he makes the Law of Nature the Law of God and this Creature of creatures to be so infallible that it is impossible to command any thing contrary to it It is not worth the examining what he would have under the title of Religion for men say the man is of none himself and complains they say he cannot walk the streets but the Boys point at him saying There goes HOBBS the Atheist It may be therefore the reason why in all his Laws of Nature he allows no place for the Worship and Service of GOD. But it is time to examine the particular Articles upon which this Body De Cive is built 1. His marginal Note upon Art 3. Cap. 1. is Homines naturâ aequales esse inter se Observ There is no one Proposition in the world more false then this nor more destructive to all faith and truth of Sacred History For whereas he says that by nature Men are equal to one another if the Scriptures be true that God made Adam an Universal Monarch as he says as well over his Cap. 10. art 3. Wife and Children as other Creatures and that since Adam God did never create any Man but the species of Mankind was continued by generation and that as he says Primogeniture is preferred by the Law of Cap. 3. art 18. Nature which Cap. 3. Art 29. is immutable then it is impossible that Cap. 4. art 15. since Adam any two Men in the world can be equal where God does not make them so Indeed if Mr. Hobbs had been an Athenian who stiled the Men of Observ 2. Attica 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men of the same Land or a Peripatetick who held that Men and the other things of the World were from Eternity as well as the World or an Egyptian who held that from the example of divers creatures generated out of the river Nile Men at first were generated from equivocal generation or that Men had sprung out of the ground fungorum more there might have been some small semblance for his opinion 2. His Argument to prove the Natural equality of all Men is Aequales sunt qui aequalia contra se invicem possunt At qui maxima possunt nimirum occidere aequalia possunt Ergo Homines natura aequales inter se His minor Proposition is no where proved and I am sure contrary Observ Gen. 9. 6. to what God says Whoso sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shed for in the image of God made he man 3. Nature hath given to every Man a Right to all things Cap. 1. art 10. Observ What thing is mine naturali jure as he says or lege naturali is mine so that it is impossible it should be aliened or made anothers by any act of my will or the will of all the men in the world For natural causes do not depend upon voluntary humane actions and therefore the natural right which Nature has given to every man remains still with every man 4. Filium in statu naturali intelligi non posse Annot. art 10. Observ And therefore from Adam to our Saviour could there be no such natural state For S. Luke cap. 3. gives a Genealogie of Adams sons and sons sons to our Saviour And since I do not think Mr. Hobbs can shew that ever there was such a state in the world 5. The state of Man in Nature is hostile And cap. 8. art 10. he says Art 12. Men in the state of Nature may kill one another so often as it seems good unto them And therefore he must invent and seek to make himself in a better condition then God hath made him and that forsooth is by seeking Art 15. cap. 1. Observ Peace which he says is the first Law of Nature Is it not strange that a thing invented and made by the wit and will of Man and that contrary to the state and condition in which God hath made Man should here prove to be a Law of Nature which is the Law of God And is not more strange that God hath made Man upright and he hath Observ 2. Eccles 7. 27. sought out many inventions and yet Man should have need of Mr. Hobbs his help to invent and make him in a better state then God hath made him or else he says his conservation cannot be long expected Art 15. Neither is it possible in such a state where all men may kill one another Observ 3. and where all things are alike and common to all men that men should make any pacts or contracts one with another For besides that where men have nothing proper there men cannot make pacts or contract for any thing also where there is no precedent humane Law obliging there cannot any man be obliged or bound to any thing by his pact or contract for to be bound is in relation and must presuppose something which does bind but if nothing binds me but my Will which is a contradiction I may unbind me when I will for my Will is free I deny that any man or any company of men can will any thing to be Observ 4. a Law to themselves For Omnis potentia activa est principium transmutandi aliud And therefore the act of no mans Will can have a power or obligation upon himself and by consequence cannot any man or company of men will or make another who shall give them Laws for Nemo potest transferre id in alium quod ipse non habet 6. Legem naturalem esse dictamen rectae Rationis Cap. 2. art 1. Observ Wold any man think that these Critiques and pretended Masters of Reason did either understand Reason or Logick If Lex naturalis be dictamen rectae Rationis I ask of Mr. Hobbs what is the reason of it If it be a prime cause or principle then by the authority of Aristotle Eth. lib. 6. cap. 3. 6. does it constitute the
Hypocrites to whom alwaies our Saviour pronounceth woes We find but small consort yet between these three Our Author makes it Rational for Subjects to resist and depose Grotius seems not to think so both by the precepts of God and the practice of the Primitive Christians unless a King goes about to destroy all his Subjects Yet too he saies Gods precepts many of them though generally pronounced have a tacite exception in case of highest necessity Observ But how shall I know whether in this and therefore it is much better to obey then venture to break Gods positive command But Mr. Hobbs makes a subjection of Body and Souls absolutely where God reigns not by Covenant and there too by distinguishing between things necessary and not necessary to Salvation Since there is so much contest about the power of the People let us see what these three understand by the People Mr. Hobbs understands by Annot. art 1. cap. 6. the People the Civitas which commands wills and does by the Will of one Man or by the agreeing Wills of more Men which otherwise cannot be done in an Assembly Grotius no where that I know of defines what he means by People But our Author in the seventh Ground when there is no Government makes them a Rational Multitude and when they have made themselves a Government then forsooth to be a People Salus populi suprema lex is when the safety of the people or Subject is in danger then the supream Governor is not to take notice of any Mans particular interest whatsoever he has sworn to the contrary as when an Invasion c. is made though the King at his Coronation has sworn not to oppress nor take without their consents from any of his Subjects any thing which any of his Subjects hold of him or any of his Predecessors yet rather then an Enemy shall be relieved by any of his particular Subjects to the endangering of the rest he then may destroy it for the safety of the people is the highest Law and the end of all Government is the preservation of the Subjects in general and in such cases the lesser evil is to be chosen and no Laws but will suffer a mischief rather then undergoe an inconvenience And therefore could not the Dictator be questioned for any thing done during his Dictatorship because of the danger of the people and so the Romans alwaies understood this Maxim of Salus Populi suprema lex Let us see whether these Men leave Posterity in any better condition then they make the present Age and see how they agree about succession and whether a Kingdom may be aliened by the present King or he name his successor Here we must look upon Grotius either naturally or relatively and yet too as neither As he is naturally a Hogan Mogan he makes the King an Usufructuary only and then he saies he can alter nothing Lib. 2. cap. 6. Para. 11. at all neither in part nor in the whole And sometime like a Mercenary stipendary to Lewis the 13. against all his precedent grounds of the power of the People and of Kings having originally all their Power from the contracts and agreement of the People which yet does not cease their power he makes neither King nor People judge of succession for he saies the People have Lib. 2. cap. 7. Para. 27. transferred all jurisdiction from themselves upon the King and his family neither during that have the People any relicts of it and yet he makes it a very hard question whether the People may alter succession as to them who are not yet born and determineth it affirmatively in these words Quare si Lib. 2. cap. 4. Para. 10. populus à cujus voluntate jus regnandi proficiscitur voluntatem mutet iis qui nondum nati sunt ut quibus jus quaesitum nondum est nullam facit injuriam and the reason he gives forsooth is a very sorry one and a similitude Ejus qui nondum natus est nullum esse jus sicut nec ulla sunt accedentia rei non existentis Nay he does not stay here but goes on and saies sicut autem populus expresse mutare voluntatem potest ita tacite credi mutasse But who shall be Judge of this implicite Faith he saies not one word Because of the damnable consequents which must needs follow from this determination we will examine all the parts of it He almost every where makes a great stir with populus populus vult populus mutare potest voluntatem expresse tacite but never that I can any where find defines what the People is If he had said the People of Rome or the People of Athens or the People of Syracuse he had said something though nothing to his purpose For when a Man speaks of the People of Rome or Athens c. he speaks not formally of Men as born in the Roman or Athenian territories but as men who were civitate donati which it may be were not the tenth part of the Romans or Athenians nor were ever the Roman Athenian or Syracusan People free People jure naturali as he saies but by Civil sanction having made themselves so unjustly usurping dominion over the rest in their Tyranny and Dominions It cannot be then that Grotius means by People such People as were the Romans or Athenians If by People he means any thing in the world for above this 1700 years there have not been any such upon the face of the earth if the Inhabitants of Switzerland be not such who taking advantage from the remiss Government of Wenceslaus having beaten the Archduke Leopoldus about the year 1400 made themselves a Democracy and have almost ever since continued Mercenary Man-killers to the interests of the Pope the Kings of France and Spain Grotius then not meaning such People as were the Romans c. I cannot imagine what he should mean by People unless he means Men Women and Children of all ages and conditions all of them in a parity or equal condition abstracted from all Laws of God or Man and what a Harmony of Confessions would arise from such a rour any sober wise Man may judge Thus much for his populus Observ Well but be the People what it will a beast or no beast a thing or nothing it is from its will all right of reigning proceeds a cujus voluntate jus regnandi proficiscitur What all Right of Governing or Regal Power proceed from the People faith let Grotius or any of his followers shew ever since the beginning of the world any King made by the People and I will grant him all the rest be it what it will But see whether Grotius hath not a forked tongue or not here and in twenty places more with Notandums c. he makes all Regal Power to be from the wills of the People In his Epistle to Lewis the 13. he saies How beautiful how glorious how joyful to your Conscience will
Democracy of Sedition and the causes of it Of the Fathers Husbands Masters and Ecclesiastical Power The Third Book treats of Subjection Succession and the Municipal Laws of this Nation The Fourth Book treats of Justice Obedience Judgment and Equity The Fifth Book treats of the first Planting of Christianity under the British and Saxon Kings and of the Freedom of the British and English Churches before the Conquest and how far the Kings of England had exercised their Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and how both British and Saxon Kings had been Nursing-Fathers to the Church of Christ and how far since the Conquest the Kings of England had exercised their Jurisdiction in the Assertion of their Regal Power in defence of the Church until Henry the 8th and of the Reformation made by Hen. 8. Edw. 6. Queen Elizabeth and of the Ecclesiastical Laws made by them Queen Mary King James and King Charls A more particular Survey of the Contents of the First Book Chap. I. THe First Chapter not onely treats of those Rights which must necessarily precede all Humane and Ecclesiastical Laws but also of those Rights which are created by Humane Laws Chap. II. Treats of Divine Humane Ecclesiastical and Despotical Laws and from whence they are derived Chap. III. Shews what Virtue is and the causes of all Theological Moral Humane Prudential and Personal Virtues Chap. IV. Treats of Particular Moral Virtues and Chap. V. Proves them to be commanded by God in the old and New Testament Chap. VI. Demonstrates the Obligation of Divine and Humane Laws upon the Persons and Consciences of Men. Chap. VII Is of Promises Vows Leagues Pacts or Contracts and Gifts and from whence Men become obliged to them and does demonstrate that it is impossible that any Law or Legislative Right can arise from the Pacts or Contracts of Men which concludes the First Book DEFINITIONS JUs is a Right Due or Property in God principally and absolutely or in some Jus quid Man or Men by some Divine or Humane Law excluding all others but him or them from whom it is derived First All Right is either Jus Divinum or Naturale and this Right is The Specifications of it onely primely and absolutely in God and incommunicable to any Creature Or Secondly Jus Humanum is a Right which Men have from the Law of Nature Or Thirdly Jus Ecclesiasticum a Right by which the Tribe of Levi did under the Old Law exercise their Priestly Office and Function and a Right by which Bishops Priests and Deacons among Christians do execute their Office and Functions Or Fourthly Jus Legale a Right which all Subjects have in their Estates and Goods And this Right is either Jus Proprietatis or Jus Usufructuarium 2. Nature is either that eternal Being which ever was in God which Men What is Nature call Natura Naturans Or that first Being which is in any Creature superior to the Will of any Creature and created onely by God and this Nature Men call Natura Naturaliter the depraved sinful Nature of Man was not originally created by God but afterward made by Man 3. Jus Naturae Naturantis is that Right which must necessarily precede What is Jus Naturae Naturantis What is Jus Naturae Naturaliter and create Lex Naturae 4. Jus Naturae Naturaliter is that Right which is created by the Law of Nature but because this Right is proper to Man onely we will call this Right a Humane Right As also that Power which is created by the Law of Nature although it be Natural Naturaliter yet being proper to Man we call it Humane Power 5. A Law is the declared Will of him who by right commands forbids or What is a Law permits athing together with a penalty annext for not observance Lex dicitur à ligando quia obligat says Isidore rightly Etymologie of Lex Common Notions or Axioms 1. ALL Right which any Man or company of Men have is derived either from the Law of Nature or some Divine Positive Law declared in the Scriptures or from some Humane Law or particular Custom which is always presumed to be created or permitted by Humane Laws 2. Humane Laws and Customs refer to some particular place or Countrey as they are permitted or imposed by the supream Power of that place or Countrey viz. By them who have right to impose or permit them 3. The Laws of Nature oblige all Men of all conditions alike without exception and are eternal and immutable by Man and are and always were connatural with all Men. 4. No Being can precede or be superior to the cause of its Being 5. All Causes are superior and precede their Effects THE FIRST BOOK CHAP. I. De Juribus 1. LEx Humana lata has by the second Notion no being Jus Humanum Legislativum is not from any Humane Law but as it is caused or created by him who has the Jus Legislativum Lex Humana lata therefore cannot by the Fifth Notion create Jus Legislativum 2. If Jus Humanum Legislativum were from Jus Humanum Legislativum is not created by Divine positive institution Divine positive institution then by the Fifth Notion must the Scriptures precede all Legislative Right but this is evidently repugnant not only to the Scriptures themselves who testifie not only the Right which Fathers and Husband have over their Children and Kings over their Subjects long before God revealed them by Moses but also this Lawgiving Right is in every place of the world whether the Scriptures be received or beleeved or not It is evident therefore that this Law-giving Right is not created from Gods positive Laws in the Scriptures 3. Jus Humanum Legislativum is not by the first Proposition from Jus Humanum Legislativum is from the Law of nature immediately any Humane Law by the second Proposition Jus Humanum Legislativum is not from Divine positive Laws Therefore by the first Notion Jus Humanum Legislativum is from the Law of Nature 4. By the third Notion the Laws of Nature are and alwaies were connatural Jus Ecclesiasticum is not from the Law of nature with Men but the Right which God gave the Priests under the old Law and to Bishops Priests and Deacons under the new Law hapned long since Men were borne in the world and therefore the Ecclesiastical Right of Bishops and Priests is not from the Law of Nature 5. If Humane Laws could create the Right of Ecclesiasticks then by Nor from any humane law the 2. Notion he who may by right create Humane laws might also create this Ecclesiastical right But this is evidently false for all Kings Fathers and Husbands have a right of creating Humane laws but none have the right of creating the Ghostly right by which Ecclesiasticks exercise their function or office This right therefore is not created by any Humane law 6. By the 4. Propos Ecclesiastical right is not from the
4. All Divine Laws are created and derived from that divine and From whence all Divine Laws are derived eternal Right which was inseparably in God before any such Laws were created by him 5. Humane Laws are threefold viz. Secular Temporal or Civil such are the Laws of every Country or Gamacal viz. the Laws of the How manifold are Humane Laws Husband or Paternal viz. the Laws of Parents to their Children 6. All Humane Laws are derived from that Right or Power which From whence derived the Law of Nature creates in supream Powers Husbands and Parents 7. They are called Humane Laws because they are made by Men Why called Humane Laws who by the Law of Nature have a Right to make or create them 8. All Ecclesiastical Laws are derived from that Right or Power From whence Ecclesiastical Laws are derived which by divine positive institution our Saviour Christ left to his Church to continue untill his second coming again 9. Ecclesiastical Laws are so called because they only relate to the discipline of the Church and worship and service of God Why so called 10. Despotical Laws are derived from the Right or Power Despotical Laws from whence derived which every Master of a Family hath over his Servants which Right or Power is created by Secular or Temporal Laws of the place where the Family is 11. Two things must necessarily precede every Law or it hath no What must precede every Law Obligation viz. the Legislative Right and the Declaration of it So that Jus divinum is one thing and Lex divina another and Jus naturale is one thing and Lex naturae another And so is Jus Humanum and Lex Humana and Jus Ecclesiasticum and Lex Ecclesiastica And he that will confound these things cannot possibly ever write clearly upon the subject 12. Humane and Despotical Laws are vindicative or oblige to corporal What Laws are vindicative punishment in this world 13. Only Humane Secular Temporal or Civil Laws are distributive and create property among Men in their Estates What Laws are distributive 14. Neither Divine nor Ecclesiastical Laws are vindicative but oblige in Conscience only What Laws are neither distributive nor vindicative * How Men come to be punished Temporally for not observing Ecclesiastical Laws 15. Although Ecclesiastical Laws as we shall prove in the next chap. bind in Conscience only and therefore cannot impose any Corporal mulct or punishment yet the Secular Laws do as if a Man be excommunicated he shall have no advantage or relief in any plea by the Common Law a Lit. vil sect 201. and by the Common Statute Law whoso is adjudged an Heretick or Blasphemer shall be burnt yet neither Common Law nor Statute Law take cognisance of either Excommnication Heresy or Blasphemy before the Statute of the 2 H. 5. 7. In curia Christianitatis id est Ecclesiae in qua servantur leges Christi cum tamen in foro Regio servantur Leges mundi saies Linwood who saies moreover b Com. Stat. de circumspecte agatis That the Probate of Wills and Testaments de consuetudine Angliae not de jure communi belong to the Court-Christian But whether Linwood saies true or not Hen. 8. began by the Statute Law to encroach upon the Rights of the Church and by confounding the jurisdictions both of Church and State making himself head of both has opened such a gap to let in all Schisme and dissention that the Common-Lawyers and Statute-Laws have upon the matter devoured all Church-rites and power nor are either the Common or Statute-Laws now in much more esteem then the Ecclesiastical Nor is it less then a Divine judgment upon those men who have so extravagantly attributed both powers to be in the King Between Supreme Head and Supreme Governor I understand no difference for if the Supreme Governor hath not supreme power or right of command then necessarily must such a Governor be an Usurper or unjust Invader in words only but indeed in their practice have denied him the exercise of the one or the other power and ascribed them both to themselves and Courts subordinate to the King That these men I say should be themselves and all the Courts in as little esteem as Ecclesiastical Rites and Constitutions and the King God knows upon what account for no colour of pretence was ever yet so much as reasonably pretended violently restrained from the exercise of any either Ecclesiastical or Civil power among us Here do not I admit of Mr. Hobbs his division of Civil Laws into Sacred Annot. and Secular Did ever man before hear of Sacred Civil Laws Sacred Laws are those Civil Laws he says which belong to Religion that is Cap. 14. art 5. the Ceremonies and Service of God and are called Ecclesiastical Secular Laws are those he says which are wont to be called Civil by a general name For though Ecclesiastical Laws be made by Men and therefore not Sacred as he says yet is the power by which they are made from Divine positive institution and therefore cannot have any right or power from Civil or Secular sanctions which at highest cannot amount to more then Humane 16. A Law differs from Counsel as my Understanding differs from How a Law differs from Counsel my Will my Will is that which imperates all my actions my Understanding informs my Will whether the doing or not not doing such an act be good or bad just or unjust reasonable or unreasonable A Law is the declared will of him who by right commands Counsel the reason advice or discourse of them to whom he who by right commands refers any thing to be debated who are usually called the Council whether the willing or passing such a thing into a Law will be probably convenient or inconvenient either to him or his Subjects CHAP. III. Of Virtue 1. THat Virtue is not always placed in a mean between two extremes Introduction Virtue is not fited always in a mean between two extremes and those extremes to be Vices according to the opinion of the antient Philosophers I do subscribe to Mr. Hobbs cap. 3. art 32. de Cive And that from the reason he there gives viz. that Fortitude in a good cause is a virtue although it be in the extreme Nor does quantity in giving be it much little or indifferent make Virtue but the cause of giving To these may be added Gratitude and Patience Justice and Obedience which are not placed between any extremes But if I assent to Mr. Hobbs in this I cannot less dissent from him where cap. 3. he makes Virtues to be the Laws of Nature and cap. 2. art 1. the Law of Nature to be the Dictate of Right reason For 2. Virtue is the doing or forbearing any action as it is dictated by What is Virtue Right reason from the Law of a Superior or from some Notion known to
an Intellectual creature 3. All Virtue is either Theological Moral Humane Familistical How manifold is Virtue Personal or Prudential 4. Virtue being by the definition the Dictate of Right reason from From whence Theological virtue is derived some superior cause or notion Theological virtue is a Dictate of Right reason from some revelation of God in the Scriptures which otherwise had been impossible for any man by the light of humane nature to have attained to By Theological virtues I do not mean only those three most eminent virtues of Faith Hope and Charity but all those actions of obedience due to them who have oversight of me in the Lord as a Christian and to whom I owe my obedience not by any Law of Nature but as commanded by God in the Scriptures 5. Moral Virtues are those Dictates of Right reason which flow from What are Moral virtues and from whence derived What are Humane virtues and from whence caused What are Familistical virtues What are Personal virtues that light of Nature engraven in the minds of Men for the conservation of peace and society among Men so long as they live in this world 6. Humane Virtues are those Dictates of Right reason by which Subjects Wives and Children conform their actions to the Laws or Precepts of Supreme powers Husbands and Parents 7. Familistical Virtues are those actions of Servants done in conformity to the commands of the Masters of Families 8. Personal Virtues are those actions which are dictated to divers men from principles of innate good nature of Temperance Continency Patience Liberality and Frugality whose contrary extremes are vices and sins 9. Prudential Virtues are not dictated from any Divine or Humane What are Prudential virtues and from whence derived Laws but from some Principles known to the understanding which are more or less as men are more or less intelligible whereby some Princes govern more prudently then others and some Masters of families govern their servants more prudently then others And these Virtues have not reference only to the government of Men but to other actions as Prudence in managing of an Estate is a Virtue or in mens governing their actions so that they are esteemed and not despised by other men are Virtues yet these actions are no where commanded or forbidden by any Divine or Humane Laws These Virtues are always placed in Empire not in Obedience 10. God having made Man a rational creature and endued him with The ratio finalis of all virtues and how they differ First of Theological virtues an immortal Soul capable of eternal happiness hath revealed himself supernaturally in the Scriptures to Men as reasonable creatures so that they directing their actions conformable to his precepts therein contained might by faith or believing on him hope for eternal happiness 11. The end of all Moral Virtue is that men may preserve peace and The end of Morality society so long as they live in this world And God hath made Man a sociable creature as well as intellectual and rational and therefore hath engraven these eternal and immutable Laws of Nature in the minds of all mortal men that by conforming their actions thereunto they might preserve peace and society with men And though these of themselves are not sufficient to pully man up to eternal happiness yet let no man hope that despising these Laws of the great God of Nature upon a pretended Faith he shall ever attain it 12. But because the Law of Nature does oftentimes command in Thesi The end of humane virtue only and Humane Laws ex Hypothesi as Thou shalt not steal and shalt give every man his due is from the Law of Nature but that this thing is mine and that thing another mans is by positive Humane laws So though Moral virtues be always the same yet Humane virtues differ accordingly as Laws in divers places are different Thus it is a Moral virtue in Wives and Children to honor and obey their Husbands and Parents but as a Humane virtue the doing of such a thing may be Virtue at one time and Vice at another as it is commanded or forbidden by the Husband or Parents So that Humane virtues in Subjects Wives and Children are necessary to the conservation of society where the laws or principles of such actions are not plainly repugnant to Divine laws 13. The end of all Familistical virtue is that Servants by all just and The end of Familistical virtues lawful means intend the good of their Masters and make no dissentions or discontents in their Families 14. God having made man after his own image as well in body as in The end of Personal virtues soul for He that sheds mans blood by man shall his blood be shed for in the image of God made he man It is not therefore to be expected that any man should without sin against God abuse the highest and noblest part of Gods creation All men therefore in the first place ought by all just and lawful means to do well to themselves and not by any excess or intemperance to abuse that body which God hath made in his own image 15. Theological virtues relate to the attaining of Eternal happiness The difference between Theological Moral Humane Familistical and Personal virtues Moral Humane and Familistical to the conservation of society and peace in their several places Personal virtues to the preservation of that body which God hath entrusted every man with keeping so long as he lives We have spoken of the end and difference of Prudential virtues Parag. 9. 16. In all prudent and profitable actions Prudentis est fortunam semper Whether just and moral actions or virtues are to be enquired into by fortune as are Prudential in concilio adhibere But that man who directs his just and moral actions to Fortune or the time and tide of mens affections shall soon be accounted a Weathercock and Time-server In all prudent actions or virtues there is no other obligation or penalty more then the reward or profit of the action and loss for the folly of imprudent actions But in just and moral actions men must consider their duties not profit and are obliged to them notwithstanding temporal loss or trouble CHAP. IV. Of Particular Moral Virtues 1. SInce that the Law of Nature is That there is one God infinitely Religion is the first and chief of Moral Virtues good to be worshipped and served and that all men should in their several stations endeavor by all just and lawful means to preserve Peace and Society in this World Then is Religion or the Publick Worship and Service of a Deity the first and chief of all Moral Virtues and so conspicuous was this Virtue in all ages and places to good men by the Light of Nature onely that it was always their first care to be in a Society of Men where God however misplaced in an Oak Osiris Iris Jupiter Apollo
c. was publickly worshipped and served And men who were of no Religion were always stigmatised with the most opprobrious name of Atheists as the most vile of Men. * Flaminem assiduum Jovi Sacerdotalem creavit Liv. lib. 1. Numa Pompilius therefore in the first place took care for the institution of a Religion among the Romans and to this end he created a Priest who should daily offer Sacrifice to Jupiter And so zealous were the * Selden Annal Angl. lib. 1. c 4. Caesar de Bell. Gal. lib. 6. Gamb Brit. p. 12. Druides in the old age of our Ancestors before Christianity was planted among us in their Religion or Publick Forms of Worshipping of God that none but the Priests and Schollars might learn them nor would they commit them to Letters both because they would not have them divulged least they should grow contemptible by being exposed to the view of the rude and ignorant multitude as also that their Schollars might the better retain them in their memory * Nicias Orat. Thucid. lib. 7. Nicias as the chief Argument of his justification and hope of belief from the gods in his greatest adversity says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have worshipped the gods frequently according to Law And heretofore in the Church of England set Forms of Prayers were not onely ordained that her sons of her Religion might meet at publick times to worship and serve God but the Minister or Priest was obliged every day to offer up the publick worship and service of God whether there were any present but himself or not for all sorts of men in their several vocations and stations That as the fire upon the Altar among the Jews might never go out so among us Christians might no day pass wherein the Publick Service of God was not offered up for all sorts of men 2. That Men honor and obey their Superiors Subjects their Soveraigns Children their Parents Servants their Masters 3. That Men be not Tale-bearers or Back-biters but avoid evil communication 4. That Men do not make advantage of anothers weakness to his damage 5. That Man in all things keep his Integrity that is not to answer so Integrity to another as to deceive him by equivocation or mental reservation if it does not appear that there is evil intent in the question 6. That Men perform their promise made although it be to their hinderance Promise 7. That Men bear a grateful minde for benefits received that is that Gratitude they do not suffer him from whom they receive a benefit to be in a worse condition then he was before he conferred it And if they have not in their power wherewith to satisfie yet that they bear it so in their mindes as to be ready to satisfie to their power Some Creatures who are not endued with Reason do imitate this Virtue the Storks when their Parents are viete and broken with age do relieve them by feeding and providing for them wherefore the Greeks called the Stork 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Beneficiorum retributorem See Grotius Annotations upon his Preface De Jure Belli Pac. 8. That men do well to their Wives Children and others as by nature and affinity allied unto them 9. That men be merciful wherein men ought not so much to observe the quantum as the cause of shewing mercy or pitty 10. That in revenge men do not respect the evil past but minde the future good which may happen from the punishment 11. That they neither by deeds words or countenance use another contumeliously 12. That they be not high-minded or over-conceited of their birth person or parts 13. That they be lowly minded and modest 14. Not to accept or respect persons in judgment 15. Where no Law gives propriety there ought community to be 16. Those things which can neither be divided or used in common that the decision be by lot 17. That the first-born be preferred and the Male before the Female 18. * That no man endeavor c. For that which is any mans by Divine Institution cannot be aliened neither by his will nor the will of all the men in the world and therefore cannot Episcopacy or Priesthood after Consecration and Imposition of hands be transferred because they are by Divine Institution Yet whatsoever Bishop or Priest shall endeavor for reward or price to alien it or deny it for safety of his life may as well be esteemed a prophane person as Esau was That no man endeavor to transfer or alien by Pact or Promise that right which God by the Law of Nature or Divine Institution hath given him 19. That Protection be granted to Ambassadors and Mediators of Peace 20. That no man seek private Revenge for any supposed Injury 21. That Judgment be pronounced without hope of reward or for applause of men 22. That where Evidence of Fact does not clearly appear that they take information from Witnesses 23. That the Judge be indifferent not byassed to either party either by Natural relations or by any precedent Obligation 24. These Moral Virtues are commanded by the Moral Law and are most truly and properly so as they are revealed and declared to mankinde by God in the holy Scriptures For the Will of God commanding in the Scriptures that is in the Old and New Testament is in all things by highest right to be obeyed and followed And because God hath created man with an immortal and eternal Soul and does not will the death that is the eternal death of a sinner he offers every man grace who does not refuse it by preferring some other things to lay hold of those means which he hath revealed in them for the obtaining of his eternal happiness 25. But because a man cannot well bear all these Virtues in his minde The sum or cause of all Moral Virtues contained in the Second Table in every action which a man intends if he would know whether it be against the Law of Nature or not Let him suppose himself in place of him with whom he intends this action and if he be not willing that this thing should be done to him let him not do it to another for upon this short and easie rule Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you do ye even so unto them depends all the Law and the Prophets Matth. 7. 12. CHAP. V. Moral Virtues are commanded by God in the holy Scripture 1. THe Lord said Speak unto Aaron and unto his sons saying On this wise Religion or the worshiping of God in a Publick set form was instituted by God under the old and new Testament shall ye bless the children of Israel saying unto them The Lord bless thee and keep thee The Lord make his face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel and I will bless them Numb 6. 22
accounted Abrahams faith St. James 2. 23. That he would have offered up Isaac though by the law of nature Abraham should have preserved his sonne and so God ceased the motion of the Sun and Moon upon Joshua's prayer Jos 10. 12. And caused the same to go retrogade ten degrees upon the prayer of Hezekias and Isaiah 2 Kings 20. 11. It is true that nothing less then that power which made a Law can alter it the Laws therefore of God whether positive or natural have an eternal and immutable obligation upon all the men in the world but whatsoever power may make a Law that power may alter it Divine Laws therefore whether positive or natural cannot have any obligation upon God but he may alter them when he pleases CHAP. VI. The Obligation of Divine and Humane Laws upon the Consciences and Persons of Men. 1. COnscience comes of con and scio to know together with reason Conscience or some law Conscientia est animi quaedam ratio lex quâ de recte factis secus admonemur Conscience is a certain reason or law of the Mind whereby we are well or ill advised of our deeds The laws therefore of Man may not only be violated by doing contrary to them but by consenting to them As he which does contrary to that he thinks though the doing of the thing be just yet 't is unjustly done by him for whatsoever is not of faith is sin Rom. 14. 23. 2. The affirmative precepts of God they do semper obligare yet they The obligation of the laws of God do not oblige ad semper As when he commands us to pray continually it is not to be expected a man should be always in the act of prayer but so to live as he does nothing which may indispose him from praying But Gods negative precepts do not only always oblige but oblige ad semper too for there is no time at all wherein it is lawful for a man to kill to steal to commit adultery c. Deut. 5. 17 18 19 20 21. negative in all instances 3. Ecclesiastical laws do oblige in Conscience If thy brother shall neglect Ecclesiastical laws oblige in conscience to hear thee tell it to the Church but if he neglect to hear the Church let him be to thee as a heathen man or Publican Mat. 18. 17. And the Scribes and Pharises sit in Moses chair all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe and do but do not after their works for they say and do not Mat. 23. 2 3. If then by the law of our Saviour the Jews were to observe and do whatsoever the Scribes and Pharises commanded them because they sate in Moses seat sure with as much or much more reason ought Christians to observe and do whatsoever the Church which our Saviour Christ himself hath planted doth command them 4. My kingdom is not of this world Joh. 18. 36. God sent not his Son In conscience only into the world to judge the world but that by him he might save the world Joh. 3. 17. And O man who has made me a Judge or divider amongst you If then our Saviours kingdom were not of this world if God sent not his Son to judge the world and if our Saviour were not a Judge among men then cannot the Church of Christ have any power from Christ in the kingdoms of the world nor to judge the world nor to be a Judge or divider among men 5. Ecclesiastical laws according to the usage and custom of England To what things Ecclesiastical laws have reference relate to Blasphemy Apostacie from Christianity Heresies Schisms Holy Orders Admissions Institution of Clerks Celebration of Divine Service Rights of Matrimony Divorces general Bastardy Subtraction and Right of Tythes Oblations Obventions Dilapidations Excommunication Reparation of Churches Probate of Testaments Administrations and Accounts upon the same Simony Incests Fornications Adulteries Sollicitation of Chastity Pensions Procurations Appeals in Ecclesiastical cases Commutation of Penance which are determined by Ecclesiastical Judges 6. So that there is a mixt Conusance in the Ecclesiastical Judicature All things determinable by Ecclesiastical Judges are not meerly spiritual viz. of things meerly Spiritual by which they are impowered to judge and take conusance of and that by no humane power but only as they are impowered and sent by our Saviour and are only his Ministers viz. the taking conusance of Blasphemy Excommunication Heresie Holy Orders Celebration of Divine Service c. And this Ghostly power the Church and Ecclesiastical persons had before ever Temporal powers received the Gospel of Christ or were converted to Christianity And also after it pleased God that Nations and Kingdoms were converted to Christianity and that Kings did become nursing fathers and Queens nursing mothers Isa 49. 23. to Gods Church then did Kings cherish and defend Gods Church and endued it with many Priviledges and Immunities which ere while was persecuted by them or other Powers but yet could not these Immunities or Priviledges divest them of that Ghostly power which our Saviour by divine institution gave his Church It is true no question but that originally not only all Bishopricks and their bounds and the division of all Parishes and the conusance the Church hath of Tythes of Probate of Wills of granting of Letters of Administration and Accounts upon the same the right of Institution and Induction and the erection of all Ecclesiastical Courts c. were all originally of the Kings foundation and donation and that to him only by all divine and humane laws belongs the care and preservation of all his Subjects none excepted in all causes And therefore not only all those things which relate to the extern peace and quiet of the Church although exercised by Ecclesiastical persons but all those priviledges and immunities which the Church or Churchmen have in a Church planted which the Primitive Christians and Apostles had not in the persecution of the Church when planting are originally Grants of Kings and Supreme Powers and so Temporal or Secular Laws but in regard they accidentally have reference to the Church and are exercised by Ecclesiastical persons they are not improperly called the Kings Ecclesiastical Laws And sure either ignorance of this or faction hath made men run into two contrary extremes one That Kings have no right to their Crowns but in ordine ad bonum spirituale and so cannot be Kings or That all power and jurisdiction in all causes is from the King and so cannot there be any such thing as Christian faith Religion or any Ghostly power left by our Saviour with his Church to continue to the end of the world which every Christian man de fide ought to believe and submit to before any Temporal Law or Power in the world Object But beeause Ecclesiastical laws have not infallibility affixed to them if they command any thing repugnant to Divine laws do they then oblige Answer No for God
est animal rationale that to command and to obey is natural And to this does the highest Philosopher give testimony Imperare parere non solum ex numero rerum Pol. lib. 1. cap. necessariarum sunt verumetiam ex utilium statim ab ortu primo nonnulla inter se distiterint alia ut parerent imperio alia ut imperarent And the highest of Roman Orators and Lawyers Cicero who says Sine imperio neque Lib. 1. de legibus domus ulla neque civitas nec hominum universum genus stare nec ipse denique mundus potest Besides we see in all seditious men and assertors of Liberty who will not be subject to rightful Governors that none of them could ever yet attain to make men any where in a parity of condition but by a propense natural disposition when they have cast off the obedience due to others they fall to command and obey among themselves But this not having any foundation but from themselves Men being naturally ambitious of commanding and impatient of subjection it is Gods judgment upon them that they rarely continue long in peace but are obnoxious to continual seditions and confusions 3. All powers being from God and Gods ordinance mediately or immediately To command and to obey is Gods ordinance and from the law of nature Rom. 13. and Power being in relation must refer to something which is subject to it Power therefore and Subjection are the ordinance of God But by the antecedent proposition the offices of commanding and obeying viz. of Power and Subjection are natural To command therefore and to obey is Gods natural ordinance or from the Law of Nature If then to command and obey be no humane artifice or invention but natural Annot. and Gods ordinance then is it most sensless for men to beg it for a principle That all men are by nature in a parity and free condition and that the will of man brought in the Powers and obedience due to them in use now in the world against Gods ordinance and that freedom wherein by nature originally all men were 4. If to command and obey as Supreme powers and Subjects had been To command and obey as Supreme powers and Subjects is no humane artifice or invention an humane artifice or invention then was there a time when men lived out of the offices of commanding and obeying as Supreme powers and Subjects and were introduced by men But there was never any such time recorded in sacred or prophane history or that they were invented or introduced by men To command therefore and obey as Supreme powers and Subjects is no humane artifice or invention It is the silliest thing in the world for men to dream of a Golden age in which Annot. all things were alike and common to all men and that men lived promiscuously in a parity or equal condition and never tell when that time was or who lived therein And to say that thâ—â— Dominion and Subjection now in use Mans will brought in and yet never tâ—â— who any where in the world did ever introduce it And sure if this commanding and obeying were brought in by the wills of men against that natural right and law wherein God hath made man it could not possibly continue at all times and in all places of the world but that somewhere men would return to their own natural liberty 5. a To command and to obey as Supreme powers and Subjects is natural If all things be either artificial or natural and the offices of commanding and obeying as Supreme powers and Subjects be not artificial then these offices of commanding and obeying as Supreme powers and Subjects are natural 6. b To command obey as Supreme powers and Subjects is Gods ordinance and due from the law of nature That Supreme power is Gods ordinance and that Subjects must needs be therefore subject to it the Apostle says expresly Rom. 13. But by the precedent proposition they are natural They are therefore Gods natural ordinance or due from the Law of Nature 7. c To command obey as Husband and Wife is natu-ral This Aristotle in chap. 5. lib. 1. Pol. proves Besides these offices not being topical but universal no where created by any humane Law and due as well where Gods revealed ordinance in the Scriptures is not received as where it is they are natural or due by the law of Nature To command and obey as Parents and Children is from the Law of Nature 8. The mutual offices of commanding and obeying as Parents and Children not being from any Humane law but being due in all places as well where Gods revelation of himself is received as where not are natural or due from the law of Nature 9. God having created Man not only different from other creatures of How many ways the offices of commanding and obeying are caused from the Law of Nature this orb as intellectual and rational but also as sociable viz. living in conversation and subordination for extra societatem vivere neminem He hath given by the law of Nature to some the power or right of commanding and others he hath subjected to such powers But he hath created these powers divers ways viz. either upon supposition of some mutual act of the parties commanding and obeying or upon supposition of some act of the parties commanding or without supposition of any act of either the parties commanding or obeying First I say the Law of Nature creates these offices of commanding and obeying upon supposition of some act of the parties commanding and obeying As Matrimony is the mutual act of the Husband and Wife I A. B. take thee D. E. to be my wedded wife and I D. E. take thee A. B. to be my wedded Husband by this act of the Husband and Wife God by the Law of Nature gives the Husband a power or right of command over the Wife and subjects the Wife to the Husband Or Secondly upon supposition of some act of the parties commanding As the Parents power arising from generation the Parents must be supposed to generate before they can have a power or right of command Or Thirdly upon supposition of no act either of the parties commanding or obeying as in all rightful Hereditary Monarchies these offices are as much due from the Law of Nature before any act of the parties commanding and obeying as after 10. Gods Ordinance to Man being either that Law or Ordinance All commanding and obeying which God hath ordained is not from the Law of Nature which he has ordinarily engraven in the hearts of Men or his gracious goodness extraordinarily revealed in the Scriptures and Gods revelation of himself by Moses and Prophets by our Saviour the Apostles and Evangelists was extraordinarily and supernaturally given to them by Gods especial grace nor could Men by any natural means attain to the belief of it All offices therefore of power and
subjection to them which are created by Gods will so revealed are not created by the Law of nature 11. All offices which are created by Divine Law whether by the Law All offices of commanding and obeying are not Gods ordinance immediately of Nature or by divine positive institution being from higher then humane causes are indelible and cannot be aliened transferred or communicated by any humane act for ejus est nolle cujus est velle and therefore cannot the power and obedience of Parents and Children of Husband and Wife of King and Subjects be aliened dissolved communicated or transferred but the offices of Masters and Servants of Magistrates and those subject to them are alienable communicable and transferrable and sometime are and sometime are not they are not therefore from any immediate ordinance of God either positive or natural But the offices of commanding and obeying as Masters and Servants and Magistrates and those subject to them are but temporary and determinable by the laws of him that made them therefore not Gods ordinance 12. Humane laws create Magistrates power two ways Immediately How many ways power and subjection happens by humane laws to Magistrates and those subject to them as when Supreme powers which are the fountain from whence all Temporal laws are derived constitute any Magistrate giving him jurisdiction over the inhabitants of any place or when the Laws or Higher powers enable such men to nominate their Magistrate there the Nominators are the instruments by which the Law does transfer this Magisterial power 13. The mutual offices of power and subjection between Masters and How many ways humane laws create the power and subjection of Masters and Servants Servants happen two ways either created by the contract or pact of the Master and Servant and we have before shewed that all pacts and contracts receive their obligation from Humane laws as the means by which Humane laws do create these offices or else without any pact or contract of the parties commanding and obeying as in the cases of Slavery where prisoners are taken in war or men condemned thereunto for some offence or of Apprentiship where children are bound for such a term by the Laws of their Country or Parents And I do grant Mr. Hobbs Grotius and White that this power and subjection Humana voluntas introduxit but not the parties obeying as they most senslesly feign but the Supreme powers or the parties commanding And where they are not so created all men are originally free I do much wonder at those men who make all Supreme or Regal power to have Annot. its origination from the consent and aggregation of many families For they not only confound the Masters power with the Fathers which in the nature and cause we have already shewed and shall more fully hereafter in their proper Chapters shew but also make the Masters power to be from the Law of God and Regal power to be a Humane institution whereas the contrary is true in both And what it is should move men to imagine that after Adam's and Noah's posterity dilated themselves into many families that they should give Adam and Noah more power then God gave them I am sure no such thing or the least probability thereof appears in Scripture or that after Adam's and Noah's deaths their Posterities became free and independent from all Government which was no body can tell when brought in by the Pacts of Men or by consent and submission of Families to it 14. That power or right of command which God jure divino hath as All power and subjection from what causes solely and absolutely over all his creatures as the Creator first and efficient Cause of them and therefore by highest right all obedience is chiefly due to them before any creature in all things Or else power and subjection are caused from the Laws of Nature or from the Law of God revealed in the Scriptures or from Humane positive Laws All Society which is not contained in these causes is Tyranny in the party commanding nor is any obligation in Conscience to such Commands from the party commanded Having thus far treated of the Causes of Power and Subjection conjunctly we shall hereafter in their several Chapters treat of them severally and more at large And we insist more largely hereon in regard these Powers and Subjections are either so confounded in their Causes by other men or such wild things begged for Principles that so far as I understand no ingenuous man should grant CHAP. II. Of Regal and Magistrates power 1. THere is no question but one of Mans chiefest happinesses in this Introduction life consists in the contemplation of God in his works to contemplate the Heavens and the Earth the workmanship of his hands and the admirable order and motion of them all being by him so made and created Nor is God less seen in the generation and birth of Man and other creatures then in the creation of the Universe And as admirable is the preservation of every Man as his generation For abstracting from the internal cause Spiritus intus alit totamque infusa per artus Virg. Aen. 6. prop. fin Mens agitat molem How God does renew and preserve every Man and every part of Man by a perpetual motion viz. the Systole and Diastole of the Blood If a Man considers his outward preservation not only from the violence of other creatures who are of much more force then himself but also from the force and violence of his own kind for were he not restrained Homo homini lupus And what are the People in general but a sudden rash and furious Beast carried hither and thither upon every wild fancy raging to have this thing done and presently lamenting because it is done He must needs As the Athenians did in their sentence on Socrates and the Captains at the Fight at Arginusae confess there is no power under heaven which can restrain the raging of the sea and the madness of the people The Psalmist therefore Psal 77. when he calls to mind the works of God and his wonders of old Thou thundrest from heaven thou shakest the earth thou dividest the sea and at last as the greatest wonder of all he says Thou leadest thy people like sheep by the hands of Moses and Aaron It is not therefore from any pacts and inventions of Man that he may hope for any security but by submitting himself to what God hath ordained for his preservation 2. Upon a survey taken in Scripture how often Christi Domini are Regal power cannot be created by the People used they are found to be thirty three two of which are spoken of the Patriarchs one of our Saviour and all the rest of Kings only Once of our Saviour Luk. 2. 26. twice of the Patriarchs Psal 105. 15. and 1 Chro. 16. 22. all the rest to Kings only and expresly And though others were anointed yet none
Monarchy Aristocracy Democracy I answer that God hath made Man upright but he hath sought out many inventions Therefore let Aristocracies Democracies answer for themselves anciently there was no Government in the world but Monarchy nor does God ever command obedience to others and the very Athenians for above 800 years could find a Government under Kings hereditarily before any footsteps of Aristocracy or Democracy was ever heard of in the world nor did they ever transgress the bounds of Europe unless in the Carthaginian State and when the Magi usurped in Persia It was Pride in the Romans and Grecians who not only esteemed all the world barbarous besides themselves and all Kings to be of the kinde of ravenous beasts but were the first inventers of these Aristocracies and Democracies and made all Power in Government to be Artificial and Political not only in the exercise which is true but also in the cause This Jus Politicum was of a more large extent with the Grecians then the Jus Civile was with the Romans For the Grecians esteemed that to be Jus Politicum which is common to all Men conjoyned with any society the Romans called that Jus Civile which is proper to any City So to buy and sell was by the Grecians called Politick the Romans called not those things Civil unless to sell by such a measure and at such a time the Romans called the Cloaks and other habits of vestments used by themselves and other people civil But let any Man judge whether these Men Mr. Hobbs White and Grotius being Christians and two of them very learned Men do reasonably not only to reject all precepts and examples of Sacred writ and all Testimonies of the consent of the present World and Testimonies of all most antient Histories from the examples of those most unreasonable Men besides the case between them is as unlike as can be For though they agree that this Jus Politicum or Civile is so as well in the cause as exercise and all power to be originally with the people yet by the people did neither Romans nor Grecians understand a company of Men in a rout or promiscuous parity but they who were Civitate donati nor did ever the People of Athens or Rome acquire their Dominion from the people subject to them by do or dedi and not dabo or faciam as these men feign all power to be originally deduced but by rapine extorting it from their rightful Kings in whom it undubitably was If it be questioned how originally this power came into the world if not Annot 3 by the Pacts of Men or consent of Families I answer Rem teneo modum nescio for the manner of it how it came originally I am not bound to give an account where the Scriptures and most antient Historians do not confirm it it is enough that I having proved it to be natural and Gods Ordinance it was never otherwise especially having the practice of the present world and the Records of all prophane and sacred History 14. It is true indeed that the Humane Laws and the exercise of Regal Not only Kings but Kingdoms have their being from God and by the Law of Natore Power is Politick Voluntary and Artificial but that these Laws are received and exercised in those places where they ought to be which makes Kingdoms is expresly said by the Prophet Dan. cap. 4. in three places The most Highest ruleth in the kingdoms of men and giveth it to whom it pleaseth him ver 7. And it was Nebuchad-nezzars punishment for his pride that he should have his dwelling with the beasts of the field untill he knew that the most Highest ruleth in the kingdoms of Men and giveth it to whomsoever he will ver 25 and 32. So that it is evident not only Kings but Kingdoms not only their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their Right but also Government is from God immediately and that this is a Declaration of the Law of Nature not only long before God by the Prophet Daniel speaks this were Kingdoms upon the earth but also no Kingdom or King which at the time that this was spoken that did receive or believe Gods Revelation of himself in the Scriptures Kingdoms therefore or the exercise of Regal Power is Gods Ordinance as well where the Scriptures are received as not and due by the Law of Nature and by consequence the obstinate resistance of Kings in their Government by their subjects is a violence upon the Law of Nature 15. Sir Francis Bacon in his life of Henry 7. relates that Perkin Warbeck How many waies Regality comes to pass by the often affirming himself to be Richard Duke of York second son of Ed. 4. did at last believe himself to be so indeed The violent and frequent usurpations of usurpers in this Island and some other Northern and European Region hath invested such a habit in Men that renouncing reason as well as all faith and belief of God in the Scriptures they with much confidence affirm nothing but possession or possession and submission of Subjects to be requisite with Kings Both which do no more make a rightful King then a Mans Deseisin Abetting or Intruding into the signiory of another and the Tenants attorning to him does make him rightful Lord of the Mannor But neither humane Laws nor Man nor any thing under Heaven can endue any Creature with a power over anothers life and fortune who is of the same kind with himself and without which there can be no supreme power and by consequence no society among Men. There are but four waies by which Regality can happen First When it is immediately and expresly given by God as it was to Saul David Solomon Hazael Cyrus c. Or Secondly derived from him who had Regality truly vested in him but this derivation must not be from the Election Adoption or the will of him who was invested with the Regal Power which at highest cannot amount higher then a humane Law which by the 3 para of this chap. cannot create Regal Power It must therefore be derived by Primegeniture which is derived from a higher cause then humane Laws for jura sanguinis nullo jure civili dirimi possint Or Thirdly by Lot which we have shewed to be by the Law of Nature Or Lastly Jure Primi Occupantis if its Occupant be capable thereof for Man being a sociable creature by Nature and society according to Aristotle being contained in many divided parts therefore in the society of Men there must be unum quid quod imparet alterum Lib. 1. cap. 5. Pol. quod pareat But whether Aristocracy and Democracy be unum quid that may jure imperare to me is a question neither of them being any Institution of God or from the Law of Nature but brought in by unjust usurpation and violence and against the universal consent and practice of the world for above Three
least Liberty and that which in other men is termed Anger in them is called Pride and Tyranny Besides in private men it is enough that they themselves do well but Princes must have a care that neither they nor their Ministers do ill 6. Tibi soli peccavi says the Psalmist Psal 50. Humane Laws are the The Supreme power is not obliged by his own Laws organs or instruments of the Power that governeth they cannot therefore extend themselves to bind him from whom they are derived for Omnis potentia activa est principium transmutandi aliud Besides the Prince may free other men from the obligation of the Laws and therefore much more himself And if Supreme Princes were obliged by their own Laws then were Humane Laws as well as the Laws of Nature eternal and immutable which is absurd nor could Humane Laws protect Subjects when any thing happens which comes to pass every day that was not foreseen at the making of the Laws Humane Laws are made to oblige and preserve the governed necessitate coactionis but they cannot have any obligation upon Lawgiver who is the Supreme power unless a man will grant that an Effect may be prime and superior to the Cause Nor were ever other Governments subject to their own Laws No man hath any thing proper against the Supreme power 7. No Subject hath any Property except Ecclesiasticks but by the Laws of his Country But by the precedent Proposition no Supreme Prince can be obliged by his own Laws and therefore no Subject can have property against him If any Subject had property against the Supreme power then could not the Supreme power impose a Forfeiture of Goods in case of Praemunire Attaint Conviction of Treason or Felony But the Consequence is false and therefore the Antecedent is false That any man hath any property against the Supreme power Besides there could no Fine nor Fine and Recovery be levied or suffered if he in Reversion or Remainder had property against the Supreme power Nor could an Act of Parliament enable Tenant for life to make sale of his Estate It is remarkable that the Children of Israel should not be content to Annot. have God to reign over them immediately who did himself give them Laws being enquired of by the High-Priest Samuel might well say therefore unto them Ye shall cry in that day because of your King which not ye shall choose but which ye shall have chosen you and the Lord shall not hear you in that day 1 Sam. 8. 18. For Gods ways and actions are always perfect whereas by the reason of humane frailty the best mans actions are subject to imperfections But if it seems grievous to any man that he holds his goods at the will of another let him consider that God since Adam did never give any Nation but only the Children of Israel Property but always used the mediation of his Vicegerents And since Property must be derived from some Humane act for the Law of Nature gives none but to Supreme Princes and therefore the possessions of Kings are called Sacra patrimonia because Kings have no Superior but God Almighty Proedium Domini Regis est directum dominium cujus nullus Author est nisi Deus How Sir Ed. Co. Com. on Lit. p. 1. 6. much better is it for Subjects to hold of one Man then of many For nothing can be objected against one but will have more force against many And let any man shew me in these last five hundred years any Subjects estate taken from him without due and legal proceeding by the act of any of the Kings of England and I will shew him five hundred who not being liable to any punishment by Law have been ruined themselves and their families in seven years and that for observing the Laws and against the will of the King Obj. But many Actions have been brought against the King which if no Annot. 2. man hath Property against him may seem inconsistent Answ But the question here is not what the King may do but what he hath done Not what the King may declare Law but what he hath already declared Law 8. Majesty is from the Law of Nature immediately but the power Power of Magistrates from him of Magistrates is not so but mediately that is from him who hath the Supreme power Magistracie is the instrument or organ by which Majesty is conveyed to every place whither its own power is extended And as Majesty is restrained to the Laws of Nature and is accountable to God for all the omissions and transgressions of them so Magistrates are restrained to Humane Laws and ought to give an account of their actions to him that hath the Supreme power And as no man can offer violence or contempt to Humane Majesty but it is a contempt and violence to the Majesty of Heaven so no man can offer violence to or contemn Magistrates but it is done to Humane Majesty from whence their authority is derived Wherefore Subjects must submit to Governors who are sent by Kings 1 Pet. 2. 14. By this Proposition it is evident that although Supreme power cannot Annot. be divided yet the exercise of it may For where a King is an Enfant he cannot exercise his power who can neither act any thing nor expres what he would have done nay it is impossible for the best and wisest King that ever was to exercise his power every where for one body can be but in one place at once though the power thereof may be diffused every where as the light and influence of the Sun is diffused every where although the body of it can be but in one place And the exercise of power by Magistrates is like Gods governing the world by natural causes who being the first Mover of all things produceth natural effects by the order of second causes Jethro his counsel to Moses therefore is to be taken Thou wilt surely weare away both thou and this people that is with thee for this thing is too heavy for thee thou art not able to perform it thy self alone Exod. 18. 18. 9. Quando lex aliquid alicui concedit concedere videtur id sine quo res The Right of calling Assemblies belongs to Christian Kings ipsa esse non potest where any Law Divine or Humane does give any thing it gives all the means by which this otherwise could not be had And that God by the Law of Nature has given Kings a power to protect their Subjects we have sufficiently demonstrated but it is impossible Princes should protect and govern their Subjects if they might not rule their actions Now all actions and motions are either regular or irregular All regular motions and actions may be reduced to one certain beginning where the beginning is not one and certain there they may be called commotions or confusions rather then motions or regular actions But all Assemblies are motions and therefore they
Temporal Dominions and therefore may punish disturbers of the peace of the Church as well as the State Yet when the Temporal Magistrate shall arrogate to himself a power which our Saviour only left to his Church and make all Ecclesiastical rights and constitutions depending and subordinate to the Civil whereby the Enemies of our Church have taxed our Religion not for Christian but Parliamentary no doubt but it is a crying sin and I wish there had never been any such thing among us 19. And as God is to be obeyed before men in all things which concern Or the Laws of Nature Faith and Religion so in the observance of the Laws of Nature is God to be obeyed before men As if a King commands me to dishonor my parents this can be but a Humane law but to honor my parents is a law which God hath written in my heart and therefore ought to be preferred If a King commands his Subjects to dishonor him or to deny obedience to him this is but a Humane law whereas by the law of Nature I ought to honor and obey my King I therefore ought not to obey such a law Amurath the Second of that name King of the Turks upon a Vow resigned his Kingdom to his son Mahomet yet upon the League made by Uladislaus King of Pole and Hungary with other Christian Princes against him he resumed his Regal authority and so kept it until his death And so might Charls the Fifth if he had pleased nor was Philip any other then an Instrument of his Fathers during his Fathers life The King makes a Law giving the succession of the Crown from the right Heir This ought not to be received for Princes inherit by a higher Law then Humane 20. The King commands a Judge to pervert Judgment the Judge Or to pervert Judgment ought to give true Judgment for all Humane Laws in peaceable times ought to be â priori and proclaimed that all men after such a time should observe them This verbal command of the King wanting this formality and it being impossible for the Judge to observe both these commands he ought notwithstanding this verbal command to give Judgment according to Law The King when there is no necessity or publick danger commands me Quaere who am no publick Executioner without any Judicial sentence to put a man to death for which he can make no compensation As Davids commanding Joab to murder Uriah although we find David only reprehended and punished therefore yet sure if Joab had not fulfilled Davids wicked command he had not sinned But you may object Who shall judge whether this thing commanded be repugnant to Gods Majesty Mans faith Religion or the Law of Nature the King or the Subject I say though the Subject hath not an equal right of judging with the King whether this thing should be a Law or not yet every Subject hath a Conscience as well as the King which must dictate Whether Kings divest themselves of Regality by commanding what they ought not to him whether he ought to do or not to do such a thing 21. But if the King commands things contrary to Gods Majesty and Divine Laws ought he not to be obeyed in those things which do not contradict them It is so mad and wild an objection as it is scarce worth an answering unless a man will affirm that my doing of an act which I ought not to have done does divest me of Humane nature or that a Fathers or Masters commanding his Son or Servant what he ought not doth annihilate the relations of Father and Son Master and Servant or that Humane acts may dissolve Humane relations A Prince therefore ought to be obeyed in those things which he ought to command as Prince although he command such things as he ought not 22. It may be it will be objected That Temporal punishments being Though inflicting punishment for not observance the usual concomitants for not observing Humane Laws a good and conscientious man may be punished for what he ought not to have done I say his case is the same with his Lords and Saviours and all those blessed and glorious primitive Christians and Martyrs who suffered for the testimony of a good conscience Nor hath God made Heaven so easie a prize that it should be always won easily and delicately but many times by suffering and martyrdom 23. It is the most usual thing with seditious men before they enter Whether Princes ought to be resisted where they are not to be obeyed into open sedition to prepare mens mindes with certain Cases wherein Princes commanding things derogatory to Gods Honor or the Subjects Liberty that then in the preservation of themselves and Gods honor they ought to defend themselves from the raging Tyrannie of Princes and to be sure that whatsoever they command these good men will judge contrary to Gods Honor and the Liberty of the Subject It is worth the while if a mans patience will give him leave to look back upon the thing calling it self Parliament how after they had made the King grant whatsoever they could think might be beneficial to the Subjects though I might be sworne they never intended as plainly appeared afterward the good benefit or liberty of the Subject what pious ways they invented to make themselves great and so good a Prince nothing and odious to his Subjects As the demanding of six men holding intelligence with his Subjects who had been in open hostility and rebellion against him an affront not to be endured by any King to an ordinary and Legal Trial this was not only denied but Voted a Breach of the Priviledge of Parliament whenas the Priviledge of Parliament extends not to so much as breach of the Peace much less to Treason They pretend though most falsly that in case of extreme danger and necessity the Militia is in the Parliament meaning themselves excluding the King And then create Dangers and write Letters how great Fleets of Danes Swedes Hollanders c. were seen at Sea It must be from Westminster then for there were the Letters written and the Fleets never since heard of Then permit if not command the most insufferable affronts and indignities that ever were offered to Majesty yet if the King but offers to increase his Guard this is Voted no less then a raising of War against his Parliament and Subjects whilst all the while against the Lex consuetudo Parliamenti Inst par 4. 14. without any cause moving them they maintain an illegal Rout of men for their Guard and go armed themselves Nay what needs a man instance particulars All the Kings commands in prosecution of the Laws were Voted breaches of the Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberties of the Subject We will therefore shew that this Assertion is not only contrary to all Faith in both Testaments but also destructive to all Humane Society 24. There is no man sure will deny but
Realm in Treason against the King and Queen and the indictment concluded contra ligeantiae suae debitum For he owed the King a Local Obedience but if he have issue here that issue is a Natural born Subject and it is not caelum nec solum neither clymate nor soyle but Ligeantia which makes a natural Subject and therefore if Enemies possess any fort c. the issue borne there is no Subject of the Kings by as much reason those Subjects borne after Conquest by any King of England are his Natural Subjects 6. Legal Ligeance is when at suit of the King the Subject takes the Oath of Ligeance to the King which is You shall sweare that from this day â—igeantia Leâ—â—â—â—s tit 4. â—â—g 6. 7. forward you shall be true and faithful to our Soveraign the Lord King Charles his Heirs and truth and faith shall beare of life and member and Terrene honor and you shall neither know nor heare of any ill or damage intended unto him that you shall not defend so help you Almighty God The substance and effect hereof is due by the Law of Nature ex institutione natura the form and addition of the Oath is ex previsione hominis In this Oath five things are observed 1. For the time it is indefinite and without limit from this day forward Five observable things in the Oath of Ligeance 2. Two excellent things are required that is to be true and faithful 3. To whom To our Soveraign Lord the King and his heirs 4. In what manner And faith and troth shall bear c. of life and member that is until the letting out of the last drop of our dearest blood 5. Where and in what places ought these things to be done In all places whatsoever for You shall neither know nor hear of any ill or damage c. that you shall not defend c. So as Natural Ligeance is not circumscribed within any place 7. Subjection as well as Regality being by the Law of Nature Quae The consequent upon Subjects endeavoring to dissolve their subjection Deus conjunxit nemo separet And let no man or men ever think to mend what God hath made For besides the innocent blood which will be shed besides the rapine plunder sacrilegious profaning of all sacred things in the mending if God in his judgments doth permit seditious men to prosper in their wickedness so as they suppose they have attained their Ends yet their Ends never end in peace among themselves For abstracting from the general fear common to them all of the right Heirs recovering his right it cannot be expected that all Competitors will be pleased some will think others too great none will think themselves great enough They themselves have made a president to evade all subjection and obedience to Laws and Government by pretending Liberty and Reformation So that after so much bloodshed what can be expected but the shedding of more without ever hoping to have an end Well therefore says Sir Edward Coke Inst 3. p. 36. Peruse over all our Books Records and Histories and you shall find a principle in Law a rule in Reason and a trial in Experience That Treason does ever produce fatal and final destruction to the Offender and never attaineth to the desired end two incidents inseparable thereunto And therefore let all men abandon it as the most poisonous bait of the Devil of Hell and follow the precept of holy Scripture Fear God honor the King and meddle not with the seditious But it may be objected That though Subjects Allegiance be natural Object 1 or due by the Law of Nature yet since there cannot be any visible power under Heaven which can judge between an Usurper and rightful Prince what rule have Subjects to direct them to whom they owe their subjection or obedience Sol. It is true there is no visible Power under Heaven which can judge between an Usurper and rightful Prince but the Consciences of men Yet being natural a man may as well ask how a man shall know whether every Being be of less excellency then the Cause of its being or that things equal to a third are equal to one another I am confident that where the confusion was not made by Popular rage and usurpation since the begining of the world God did scarce ever leave men so destitute but they were morally certain to whom they did owe their Topical and Natural obedience But if Regal power be the Ordinance of God and Primogeniture be Object 2 preferred by the Law of Nature then can there be but one rightful King in all the world and he the first-born from Adam which no man can believe Answ I answer That though Primogeniture be preferred by the Law of Nature and immutable by the will of Man yet is not God subject thereunto but before the Flood he rejected Cain though the first-born of Adam and made him a Vagabond and none of the Patriarchs So in the first age after the Flood God subjected Canaan although the son of Ham Japhets elder brother to Japhet And so did God prefer Jacob before Esau and Gen. 9. 27. Ephraim before Manasses and Solomon before Adonijah Yet where and when God did not reveal himself to Man otherwise was ever Primogeniture preferred Nor can it in reason be expected that God should be so cruel a Taskmaster to require subjection upon penalty of Damnation if it were not evident to whom this subjection were due It is sufficient that Subjects pay their obedience to him against whose title no just or superior title can be taken Yet is not this subjection always to be understood of active subjection For no man is bound Government being intended for mans preservation not destruction actually so to submit to rightful Governors that he be morally certain of destruction therefore Yet ought every man rather to suffer death then actually to renounce or resist rightful Governors to whom by the Law of Nature they owe obedience Quaere 8. But suppose there be such a succession from an Usurper that not only the Heir to the Usurper but all men in his Government were born Subjects to him and his Ancestors from whom he is descended as in the time of Henry 6. when all men were born either in subjection to him his Father or Grandfather who had no colour or title to the Crown whether in such case may Subjects so born assist such a Prince against the right Heir I say I pray God avert the like from ever being again in the English Nation 'T is true the right Heir hath a just title of war against such a Prince but whether Subjects so born their being so born being no act of their will but was caused by a higher cause viz. the will of God may actually assist him to whom they were so born in subjection against him who hath the superior title I leave to God and mens consciences 9. But this Quaere can only
have reference to Subjects who are born Diversity in Hereditary Monarchies for in Aristocracies and Democracies there neither is or ever was any original right or power in them but their Conventions do necessarily depend upon an antecedent act of them or the major part of them to meet at a certain time and place Where therefore such Assemblies are dissolved sine die they are totally dissolved however this dissolution happens nor does any man owe them obedience any longer but his or their title who next possesseth is good enough against them and all others who cannot make a superior or more just claim Nor can this have any reference to men born in Elective Monarchies for the Election depending upon the wills of men viz. the Electors who originally had no right of Election any Possession brought in against such Election by the will of man is title equivalent to it nor do Subjects in conscience owe obedience but to him who is possest or can make a superior claim by a true descent from him against whom no just title can be taken 10. Bodin in his Republique makes a Quaere Whether it were better Wherein consists the liberty of the Subject for Subjects ro be governed by few Laws with a reservation in the breast of the Judge or some special Court to redress extraordinary abuses which cannot be comprehended in the Laws or so to multiply Laws that no man should be punished where he could evade the Laws And determines for the former and the reason he gives is That Laws be they never so many are finite but mens actions are infinite and therefore though never so many Laws be made yet may men find evasions out of them to abuse and wrong other men whereby this multiplicity of Laws will rather ensnare other men than avoid the end for which they were intended It is a folly much incident to Englishmen that they place not only Freedom in serving many Masters but Liberty in many Laws Let any man take a survey of the Statute-Laws and Ordinances made since Henry the Eighth his dissolution of Monasteries to this year 1660. and see if they be not four times more than all the Acts made before only to the liberty of the Lawyers Fees for the ensnaring of the Subjects it being no doubt the greatest liberty of the Subject to be governed by few Laws and these the same in all places if it were possible 11. The power of Parents being from the law of nature Childrens Of subjection of children to parents subjection to them is due from the law of nature Solon having written the Athenian laws being asked why he did decree no punishment upon him who should kill his Parent answered There was no man so detestable as to think to do such an act He therefore did wisely not to make any law against that which was never heard of lest by doing so he should not so much forbid as admonish Children to it And what a curse did Canaan contract upon himself for but discovering his Fathers nakedness Gen. 9. 25. And no question Gods blessings and cursings are never more efficaciously pronounced than out of the mouths of Parents And To honor thy father and mother is the first Precept to which there is a promise of reward annexed viz. That thy days may be long in the land c. 12. Although the power of Masters over their Servants be created by Of servants to their masters positive humane laws and therefore subjection of Servants to their Masters is caused by humane laws Yet does not this exclude the obedience and subjection which is due from Servants to their Masters by the law of nature and Divine positive laws but Divine laws do include the subjection due from Servants to their Masters in thesi or general and the laws of every Country ex hypothesi or particular As Thou shalt not steal is from the law of Nature but that the doing of such a thing is Theft depends upon the particular laws or usages of every Nation And no question but Servants generally when the Apostles wrote were no other than Slaves over whom their Masters had not only absolute dominion of whatsoever was theirs but also power of life and death and that by no consent or submission of theirs And if such Servants ought to count their Masters worthy of all honor how 1 Tim. 6. 1. much more ought Servants to thank God and willingly to serve and honor such Masters who not only command over them not against their consents but also command such things as they may easily perform 13. Although this subjection be last in expression yet it is first in Of subjection to Ecclesiastical powers intention For if this subjection or obedience had not been due before any obedience to Temporal commands how could the Primitive Christians have met in dens and caves in daily Prayers and Breaking of bread whenas Temporal powers did not only not permit but forbid it Nor did God ever shew such terrible vengeance upon any disobedience and presumption as he did upon Corah Dathan and Abiram Num. 16. and their Competitors although their pretences were very fair forsooth That all the multitude were holy every one among them and the Lord was among them and Moses and Aaron did lift up themselves against the congregation of the Lord They though none of the tribe of Levi nor separated persons could offer sacrifice and burn incense to the Lord as well as Aaron or any Priest And no doubt but spiritual crimes are in their kind much worse and displeasing to God than carnal whatsoever offenders do pretend And let us see what manner of men these pretended Reformers are which teach otherwise and consent not to the wholsom words even to the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the doctrine which is according to godliness They are proud knowing nothing but doting about questions and strife of words 1 Tim. 6. 3 4 5. from whence cometh envy strife railings evil surmisings perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth supposing that gain is godliness from such withdraw thy self O my soul enter not into their secrets 14. In all Humane Society or Society which is created by the law of Diversity Nature viz. of Supreme Powers and Subjects of Husband and Wife of Parents and Children the relations are indissolvible only by God in those individual persons in whom the offices are nor can they be aliened transferred either by any act of themselves or any power else All Society created by Humane laws or Legal Society is alienable not only by the act of God and by the Laws which created it for Unumquodque dissolvi potest eo ligamine quo ligatum est But also by the act of the Master and Servant for Omnis consensus tollit errorem Christian Society does differ from either Humane or Legal for though the cause of Christian power be by Divine positive
saies ver 8 9. 10. If a man dye and have no Son then shall the inheritance pass to the daughter and if he have no daughter then shall the inheritance go to his brethren and if he have no brethren then ye shall give the inheritance unto his fathers brethren c. And that inheriting by the daughter when there is no Son in Britain consonant to the Law of God is as old as any record we can find when Voadicea led the Britans against the Romans it was alwaies a thing observed among them Neque enim sexum in imperiis discernunt Tacit. Lip in vita Agric. 457. Wherein Regality differs in descent from Estates by Civil Laws 9. Although Gynaecocraty be neither against the divine Law of God or Nature yet it is only to be understood that in regality the female shall inherit when she is the eldest sister and lineally descended from the Ancestor which has no Heir male of his body lawfully begotten For in Regality possessio fratris non facit sororem esse haeredem But if a King or Queen by inheritance have issue by several venters or extractions and by the latter a Son who does inherit who dyes without issue yet shall the Heir male descended from the Father although but of half blood to him inherit before his sister and the elder sister descended from the Father shall inherit before his sister although she be of whole blood to him from the reason aforesaid and therefore Queen Mary and Eliz. although but of half blood to Ed. the 6. did inherit before the Queen of Scots or the issue of the Queen Dowager of France by the Duke of Suffolk Charles Brandon although they were of whole blood to him and thus much does Sir Ed. Coke testifie Com. Lit. cap. 1. Sect. 8. p. 15. 10 Before we examine the authority and observance of the Salique Law First Charge let us see the heinous charge which Monsieur Bodin brings against Gynaecocatry Bodins charge and incommodities against Gynaecocatry cap. 5. lib. 6. pag. 738. de rep He says Gynaecocraty is inimicitious to the laws of Nature which gives prudence strength magnanimity of mind force to command to Men takes them away from Women Answ A fine general charge this If I can form an argument out of it this is it All Government wherein prudence strength magnanimity c. do not command is inimicitious to the Laws of Nature But in Gynaecocraty neither prudence c. do command Therefore Gynaecocraty is inimicitious to the Laws of Nature Now the Major proposition requiring strength prudence and magnanimity in command the Conclusion will be as strong against all Government as Gynaecocraty for he hath not defined what strength prudence c. is nor who shall be Judge what it is and so any man who will but deny that there is strength prudence c. in the Governor may by the Laws of Nature not obey nay it is against the Laws of Nature to obey But in what case are all Pupil Kings Sure the man intended to make good Pepins and Hugh Capets Titles from this Proposition against Childerick and Charls of Lorrain But that which is most monstrous and impious is that it is inimicitious to the Laws of Nature for any Child to obey and honor his Mother because she hath not prudence magnanimity and force of command The Law of God not only took from Women the Government of Common-wealths Second charge but also of Families whenas he deservedly subjected them to the command of their Husbands The argument out of this is Whom God hath subjected to the command of their Husbands cannot by the Law of God command in Families But God hath subjected Women to the command of their Husbands Therefore by the Law of God Women cannot command in Families Answ Yes such Women as never were married nor subject to their Husbands may granting the Major proposition But I deny the Major proposition for sure it is no where against the Law of God for a Widow to govern her Family As often as God testifies that he will take terrible vengeance against the enemies Third charge of his Name he threatens them to be subject to commands and laws of Women for this he cites Isa 8. although I cannot find any such thing there as if that were the utmost of evils and extremity of calamities Answ That this is false is evident by Gods miraculous delivery of the children of Israel by the leading and command of Deborah Besides how can God command Women to command and give Laws if it be against the Law of Nature Which is all one to say God does command against the Law of Nature that is his own Law The Roman Laws did seclude Women from all Civil offices and Publique Fourth charge employments Answ But though the Roman Laws did forbid it yet if the Laws of France did not allow it how came Blanch the wife of Lewis the Eighth Katherine de Medici wife of Henry the Second and Mary de Medici wife of Henry the Fourth and Anne the Mother of the present King to manage the Regencie of France as imperiously during the minority of their Sons as if they had been absolute Princes That in Gynarchy the Wife is not subject but superior to her Husband Fifth charge Answ So heavy bodies will against their nature ascend to supply a Vacuity Answ His sixth charge is an Invective against Vasti Joan of Naples called the Sixth charge Wolf Athaliah Cleopatra Zenobia Hirene As indeed telling of stories is usually the greatest part of his reasoning and that he will do so amply that Scaliger justly reprehends him with making not writing Histories Now if I should fall into the commendation of Ruth Hester Judith Deborah c. I am quit with him It is true indeed that 't is a great blessing to any Nation that God gives them a Masculine Heir endued with all those qualities he speaks of But when God doth give a Child which he pronounceth a woe to that Nation Eccles 10. 16. or a Female Subjects must be content and submit themselves to Gods pleasure For in going about to alter what God hath done they will make themselves in a much more woful condition Nor could that be a judgment of God upon a Nation to give Fools and Children or Women for Heirs if Subjects at pleasure might alter them and set up others in their stead 11. The Salique Law took its name either from the Country Salia The etymologie of the Salique Law or the River Sal or from contraction of Si aliqua so often mentioned in the Law 12. There are three things observable in the Salique Law the authority A short view of the authority and observance of the Salique Law of it the eternity of it and the reason of it For the authority of it it was made by the Lord knows whom for the eternity of it it shall end the Lord knows when
men and all the Commonalty assembled in Parliament Statutes made at Westminster were enacted by the King his Prelates An. 4. Ed. 3. Earls Barons and other of the same Parliament at the request of the Commons Statutes made at Westminster The King by the assent of the Prelates An. 5. Ed. 3. Earls Barons and other great men of the Realm at the request of his people granted and established c. Statutes made at York were enacted by the King in Parliament upon An. 9. Ed. 3. the Petition of the Knights Citizens and Burgesses Statute of Money made at York was enacted by the King with the An. 9. Ed. 3. assent of the Prelates Earls and Barons and the Commons not so much as named Statutes made at Westminster were made and established by the King An. 10. Ed. 3. with the assent of the Prelates Earls Barons and other Nobles of this Realm and at the request of the Knights and Commons Statutes of Purveyors made at Westminster were enacted by the King An. 10. Ed. 3. with the assent of the Prelates Earls Barons and also at the request of the Knights of the Shires and the Commons by their petitions put in the said Parliament Statutes made at Westminster were to the honor of God and of Holy An. 14 Ed. 3. Church by the assent of the Prelates Earls Barons and other assembled at Parliament And see almost all the Acts of Parliament in Ed. 3. his time after in Rich. 2. Hen. 4. Hen. 5. Hen. 6. Ed. 4. Rich. 3. the King always made the Law and the Lords Spiritual and Temporal did assent at the instance request or petition of the Commons or by the King with the assent of the Lords and Commons which was not or but rarely used unless in Rich. 2. his time In Hen. 7. his time the Commons got to have their assent as well as the Lords in passing Laws And this manner of passing Laws continued generally until Edward the Sixth's time where they were sometime made by the King with the assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in Parliament and sometime by the Parliament But the form of enacting Laws by the King and the Lords Spiritual Temporal and Commons assembled in Parliament was seldom or never used before Queen Maries time So that it is as clear as the Sun at noon-day That a King of England Sessions of Parliaments do not derogate from Regal Power by the ancient usages of this Nation is as free and absolute in the Session of Parliament as out And the Act of a King in Parliament is the free and voluntary Act of an absolute Monarch for the Act of the King in Parliament passed by the assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and at the Petition of the Commons is not less the act of the King because it is so passed unless a man will deny that my Will being a faculty of my Soul cannot imperate an act if it takes information from my Understanding or Reason Reason and Understanding being in proportion to the Will as Counsel is to a Law King Charles of Sacred memory commends to his Son the then Prince of Wales in his last Letter and Admonition to him though for his own particular he had little Reason God knows so to do the frequent use of Parliaments as the best means by which Laws may be received of the Subjects and diffused to all parts of the Nation and to hold a right understanding between the King and his Subjects But as nullum medicamentum est idem omnibus nay the same Medicine at one time may kill the same person which at another time may cure him And that thing which at one time may be a very probable reason of an action at another time may be none at all or quite contrary to Reason So in Reasons of State that may be a very probable reason at one time which may be none at all or perhaps destructive at another time As Henry the Third had great Reason of State to form a House of Commons and endue it with large priviledges to secure himself against a stubborn and rebellious Nobility But King Charles had not the same Reason of State to indulge the House of Commons contriving the destruction of himself the Church and Nobility Laws and Liberties of this Nation Edward the First had great Reason of State to call a Parliament and to pass the Act De Tallagio non concedendo for otherwise as the state of affairs then stood he could neither get money to assist his Friend and Ally the Earl of Flanders nor relieve his distressed Subjects in Aquitaine oppressed by the French King which Sir Edward Coke in his Comment upon this Statute observes but King Charles had not the same Reason of State to call the Parliament in 1640. who instead of assisting their natural Sovereign against a Rebellious Rabble of Mungrel Hebrides and Lysisks give them Three hundred thousand pounds to be exported out of the Kingdom for their Brotherly assistance Edward the First had great Reason of State to pass the Statute of Mortmaine when as men were so superstitiously given that no man thought he could merit Heaven if he gave nothing to the Church whereby such large Revenues accrued to the Church that the third part of the Revenues of the Nation was in Church-mens hands who pretending exemption from the Temporal Power if some remedy were not taken the King would probably be left destitute of means to protect himself and his Subjects yet is there not now that Reason of State when in a Sacrilegious age all the Patrimony of the Church goes to wrack and ruine and men of Badges of Sacriledge make marks of Saintship It were endless to enumerate how Reasons of State vary with the times It must suffice that there be means always in the Supream Power to remedy and cure the maladies and mischiefs of State as they arise and represent themselves Yet it is a remarkable thing That they who oblige Kings and Supream Powers to their own Laws will never be obliged by either their own or any Laws of God if ever the Supremacy comes to be vested in them and let any man shew me in Five hundred years one time wherein the Kings of England did alter the Laws out of Parliament and I will shew him an hundred times in seven years where men arrogating to themselves the name of Parliament have altered the Laws without the King They who oblige Supream Powers to Humane Laws the Conditions must oblige God too to such things as is contained in those Laws and Conditions or else it is impossible for Powers to protect their Subjects But Corruptio optimi est pessima there were never so vile things done as have been by Parliaments or by men calling themselves so Sir Edward Inst 4. page 37 38. Coke being always mightily in love with Parliaments gives instances but in two viz. Thomas Cromwel Earl of
therefore in all men and therefore in all sorts of men As if any man promises another that he will do or give him such a thing although it be to his hinderance he wilfully breaks his promise I say this is a sin of injustice in the promiser for he abuses and falsifies the Law of Nature which obliges every man to the performance of his promise to his hinderance to whom he made his promise And though this be the Law of Nature which does onely oblige in Conscience yet is such a promiser an unjust man nor does he deserve to be trusted as a friend or honest man But this must always be understood of private men and they not pre-engaged Annot. before for the first promise is to be performed Neither must the performance of a private mans promise be to the hurt or damage of another man for by the Law of Nature he was obliged to hurt no man and to give to every man his due before he made such promise A publick person promises to another to do or give him such a thing which will be prejudicial to his trust I say he ought not to perform it for he was obliged to perform his trust before he made such promise What then does preengagement the not injuring of another or publick employment free men and let them loose from all Law of God and Nature I answer nothing less for they sin not less then private freemen in not performing their promise but commit a greater sin in breaking their first promise and betraying their publick trust c. then if they should perform their promise So that in promising they sin but in the performance they commit a greater sin 5. A King promiseth he will not hurt any of his Subjects in their persons How Kings promises are to be interpreted and performed or estates without due Process and after judgment given according to the known Laws He being a King was obliged as King to do to the best of his power all things in order to the good and preservation of his subjects in general and therefore is obliged to this latter promise onely as it is consistent with his former He ought onely to protect his subjects in particular as it does relate to the good and benefit of his subjects in general I say therefore notwithstanding any such subsequent promise is not any King obliged to it but may in case of publick necessity govern by Martial Law and destroy any particular Subjects estate rather then enemies or seditious men should make advantage thereof to the endangering of the publick Nor is this any new thing but always was in all species of Governments since the World began nor does any King sin in making such promise for he may justly do it and thereby secure the mindes of his Subjects who would otherwise be in a continual diffidence nor does he sin in not performing this promise when it becomes inconsistble with the publick good for no King can possibly foresee all the publick necessities and dangers which may happen 6. No mans being greater or lesser does free him from his duty which Injustice in Princes he owes to the Laws of God all men being alike as compared to God Kings therefore being so are not disobliged to the Laws of God and Nature It was therefore a sin of injustice in Ahab to take the possession of Naboth's Vineyard the property and inheritance of the Israelites being given by God and unalienable by the Children of Israel I say this was a sin of injustice in Ahab for his being a King did not free him from Gods Laws but did without any publick necessity abuse the power and command which God had given him as King to the damage and hurt of Naboth and his posterity Davids putting Uriah to death and Ahabs consenting to Naboth's death although after his death were sins of injustice for they were entrusted by God to be Kings for the good of their Subjects Whereas they did abuse and falsifie their trust to the highest wrong of others whom they ought to have protected Princes are Gods Ministers for their Subjects good 7. Man being a reasonable and sociable Creature which being inconsistible Rom 13. 4. Kings by right command next after God with community and parity and mankinde being onely conservable in Society that is in the mutual commanding and obeying of different parties And as God by highest right ought in all things to be obeyed so Kings ought to be obeyed next after God in all things For every Soul ought to be subject to the higher powers for there are no powers but of God and the powers that be are ordained of God And through me Kings reign Rom. 13. 1. Prov. 8. 15. and Princes make just Laws All things therefore which Princes command where God hath not left necessary Laws for the good and governing of their Subjects which he was onely pleased to do to his peculiar people the Israelites are therefore just because they command them they commanding nothing repugnant to the Laws of God 8. A Prince commands a Judge to execute the known Laws uprightly Injustice in Subjects he becomes corrupt and sells or otherwise purloyns judgment I say this is a sin of injustice in the Judge for he abuses the command of his Prince who by right might command him to the damage of another against whom false judgment is given It is an act of injustice in all Subjects in general to abuse the trust committed to them by their Soveraigns for he by right may command and entrust them nor can they abuse their trust but it must be to the damage of the Prince or some other But besides express Obedience of Subjects to their Soveraigns when they are particularly entrusted by them there is a general and implied Obedience which Subjects ow to their Soveraigns and the Laws of their Countrey as Subjects whether they be employed in any place of trust or not For subjection being in the predicament of Relation does imply a right of command and no man can be subject where there is nothing to which he is subject It is therefore a sin of injustice in any Subject to pretend or abuse any of his Countries Laws to the hurt or damage of another 9. Since therefore Kings by highest right next after God may command Highest injustice in Subjects then by consequence is that the highest sin of injustice next after Luciferian pride of Creatures making themselves equal or superior to their Creator for Subjects to tread under foot all Sacred and Civil Laws to make themselves superior to their Soveraigns to whom by all Divine and Humane Laws they ow their obedience to the ruine and destruction of so many thousands of innocent men women and children and families of all sorts which must necessarily come to pass in the attaining their ends And that Subjects do abuse all Humane Laws in pretending them to the advancing of themselves above
her but if he will do none of these let him set her free without price If a man slea another willingly he shall be slain himself but if a man slea another not lurking or lying in wait or unwillingly or of necessity so as he were given into his hand by God let him flee to Sanctuary and save his life and forfeit nothing If a man of ambition and guile slea his neighbor let him be taken from mine altar and be put to death If a man slea his father or mother he shall be put to death If a man forestall a Freeman and he sell him to another man he shall be put to death If a man revile his father or mother he shall be put to death If a man slea another with a stone or with his fist and yet he can go with a staff get him a Physitian and let him do his work while he is impotent If a man willingly slea his Note slea is to strike as well as kill servant or his handmaid so as he doth not die in a day but live two or three nights although he be guilty let him be free because they were his goods but if he die the same day let him be guilty If a man by contention hurt a wife with child let him repair the damage that shall be adjudged if she die he shall be put to death If a man put out anothers eye let him lose his eye tooth for tooth hand for hand foot for foot burning for burning wound with wound skar with skar If a man strike his servant or handmaid so as he loses an eye let him be free therefore or if he strike out a tooth let him be free If an oxe gore any man or woman so as he die let him be stoned and eat his flesh and let the master of the oxe be guiltless if in two or three days he did not know that the oxe gored a man if he knew it and yet would keep him and the oxe afterward kill a man or woman let the oxe be stoned and the master either put to death or pay that price which shall be imposed upon him for the life be it son or daughter the law is the same if he be a servant or handmaid which is gored to death let the oxe be stoned and thirty shillings be paid to the master If a man dig a pit and shall leave it uncovered he shall pay the value of any beast that falls into it and dies If the oxe of one gores the oxe of another so as he dies let the live oxe be sold and his price and the flesh of the dead one be given to the Lord if after the oxe wound another and he die let him sell the oxe and give the price and the flesh of the oxe that is killed to the Lord thereof If the master knew the oxe had gored another and would not take warning nor sell him he shall give two and four sheep for one if he hath not wherewith to pay let him be sold for theft If a Thief break a mans house in the night and there be slain he shall not be guilty of manslaughter but if it be after sunrise he shall be guilty of manslaughter if ready to be killed he were not necessitated If a man shall put fire into standing corn and burn it the author shall give the value of the damage If a man trust another with goods to keep and he privily steal them let him repay double but if it be not found that he which was intrusted used no deceit let him be excused If the thing intrusted were a living creature if he can bring witness that it was taken away by enemies or that it is dead he shall not repay but if he cannot bring witness nor free himself from guilt let him swear he is not guilty If a man corrupt a virgin unbetrothed and slept with her let him be fined and take her to wife but if her father will not so bestow her let him pay her portion after the value of virgins portion Women Fortune-tellers Charmers and Soothsayers suffer not to live He that hath had any thing to do with a beast shall be put to death He that offers sacrifice to any other Gods shall suffer death A stranger or inhabitant thou shalt not hurt for thou wert a stranger in the land of Egypt A widow or orphan do not oppress nor vex if you shall oppress and they complain I will hear their prayrs and slea you with my sword your wives shall be widows children orphans If thou lend money to thy acquaintance be not a gainer from him nor exact usury of him If thou take the garment of one for a pledg who hath only that for a covering restore it before the sun set but if he complain to me I will hear him for my mercy Do not speak evil of the Lord nor curse him who is the Prince of the people Pay thy Tithes and thy first born and first-fruits give to God Do not taste the flesh torne from beasts but cast it to the dogs Do not trust to a deceitful mans word nor hearken to it as to obey it nor favor him in judgment nor esteem his witness but as a tale Do not follow the ill counsel of the people nor in controversie of right incline to the opinion of the multitude nor do thou hold any thing common with wrong If thou shalt find any fourfooted beast of thine adversary straying out of the way reclaim him Judge rightly do not judge otherwise to the poor and adversary then to the rich and friend Do not tell a Lye Do not slea the innocent and just Do not take a gift for it oftentimes blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the speech of the prudent Do no injury to the stranger nor inhabitant Do not take the names of other Gods in swearing nor have them in thy mouth These are those Laws which the Almighty God himself did give to Moses and commanded him to keep and also the onely begotten Son of God when he came into the World openly taught That he did not come down to destroy the Law but to fulfil it with gentleness and goodness for he delivered the rule of true Piety After that they nailed him to the Cross before that his Apostles were together nor were scattered for preaching the Gospel converted many Nations and sent Apostles and Interpreters of the Scripture to Antioch Syria and Cilicia to learn Christs Law and what should then befal them should by a Messenger be sent back to them in writing This is that Epistle which the Apostles sent to all the people of Antioch Syria and Cilicia which were converted from the bondage of the Gentiles to Christ The Apostles and Elder Brethren wish health to you Assoon as we heard that certain men which went from us had troubled you with words and commanded some things which they had not in command from us and had made
28. H. 8. 7. for the establishment of the succession of the Imperiall Crown of this Realm that concerneth a Prohibition to marry within the Degrees expressed in the said Act. Stat. 31 H. 8. 9. authorising the King to make Bishops by his Letters Patents Stat. 32 H. 8. 38. concerning precontracts of Marriages and touching degrees of consanguinity Stat. 35 H. 8. 3. for ratification of the Kings Stile The corporall oath made in the Stat. of 35 H. 8. 1. that every Subject of this Realm should be bound to take against the power authority and jurisdiction of the See of Rome Stat. 37 H. 8. 17. That the Doctors of the Civill Law which were married might exercise Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction So much of that Statute of the first Ed. 6. 1. as contains certain Provisions Pains Penalties and Forfeitures for and against such as should by open preachings expresse words sayings writing printing overt-deed or act affirme or set forth That the King of this Realm for the time being is not or ought not to be the supreme head in earth of the Churches of England and Ireland nor of any of them or that the Bishop of Rome or any other person or persons other than the K. of England for the time being is or ought to be supreme head of the same Churches or any of them as in the said Act more at large may appear It is enacted that these clauses and other of the foresaid Act concerning the Supremacy and all and every branch article words and sentence in the same sounding or tending to the Derogation of the supremacy of the Popes Holiness or the See of Rome and all pains penalties and forfeitures made against them that should by any means set forth or extol the said Supremacy should from thenceforth be utterly void It did moreover generally repeal all clauses sentences and articles of every other Statute made since the 20 H. 8. against the supreme authority of the Popes Holiness or See Apostolick of Rome The Lords Spirituall and Temporall and Commons professing themselves reduced and received by their Majesties intercession to the unity of Christs Church and obedience of the Apostolick See of Rome and the Pope governing the same did make humble suite to their Majesties to be Intercessors that by authority of the Popes Holiness and by the ministration of Cardinall Poole by dispensation tolleration or permission respectively as the case shall require be abolished these Articles following and generally all others when any occasion shall so require may be provided for and confirmed 1. That all Bishopricks Cathedrall Churches Hospitalls Colledges Schooles and other such foundations now continuing made by authority of Parl. or otherwise established according to the order of the Lawes of this Realm since the Schisme may be confirmed and continue for ever 2. That Marriages made infragradus Prohibitos consanguinitatis affinitatis cognationis spiritualis or what might be made void propter impedimentum Publicae honestatis justitiae or for any cause prohibited by the Canons only may be confirmed and children born of those Marriages declared legitimate so as those Marriages were made according to the Lawes of the Realm for the time being and be not directly against the Lawes of God nor in such case as the See Apostolick hath not used to dispence withall 3. That institution of Benefices and other promotions Ecclesiasticall and dispensations made according to the form of the Act of Parliament may likewise be confirmed 4. That all Judiciall Processes made before any Ordinaries of this Realm or before any Delegates upon any Appeals according to the order of the Lawes of this Realm may likewise be ratified and confirmed 5. That the Lands and Goods of Bishopricks Monasteries Chanteries c. dispersed abroad to sundry persons by gift exchange purchase c. according to the Lawes of the Land for the time being shall so continue It was enacted that the title of supreme head of the Church never was nor could be attributed to by any King or Governor It was enacted that all Bulls Dispensations and Priviledges obtained before the 20 year of H. 8. or any time since of the See of Rome and not containing matter prejudiciall to the Imperiall Crown or Lawes of this Realm should be put in execution This Statute did restore the Pope and Apostolick See together with the Jurisdiction the Bishops had in the Realm to all the Authority they had before the 20 of H. 8. It is a very remarkable thing that this Statute does affirme that nothing done or moved in this Statute should be prejudicall to the Liberties of the Crown before the 20 of H. 8. and that the Statute of 24 H. 8. 12. and the Statute of 25 H. 8. cap. 20. which takes away all Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction from the Pope and vests it in the King should be but declaratory of the ancient and common Law of this Land See Coke de jure Regis Ecclesiastico 28. a. b. 31. one of these must necessarily be false Thus did Queen Mary restore by Parl all the Papall Jurisdiction which Description of Queen Mary was exercised before the 20 of Henry the 8. and would have restored all the Abbey and Chantery Lands taken away by her Father and Brother had it been in her power but many alienations descents and purchases having been made of them she was not able to performe it being a Princess no doubt wondrous free from sacriledge zealous and constant in her Religion mercifull when her Religion was not concerned and just Her mercy appears in her not only pardoning all the Councell who had subscribed to her disinheriting but it was thought she would not have taken away the life of the Lady Jane although guilty of so high a crime as having actually invaded the Crown if the Duke of Suffolk her Father formerly pardoned by the Queens meer grace had not most unjustly and unthankfully excited her Subjects against her which together with Wiats Rebellion for her own security did necessitate her for her own security to execute her Her justice appears in this the Lord Sturton having been at variance with one Hargill and his Son Gentlemen knocked the poor Gentlemen on the head and after cut their throats and buried their bodies in a Pit 15. foot deep hoping this villainy would never come to light or if it did he assured himself of the Queens favour being zealously addicted to the Popish Religion which did him not good for the Queen abhorred and rejected all mention of Pardon for him only he had this grace that the other Murderers were hanged in a hempen but he in a silken halter Ecclesiasticall Lawes made in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth IT is declared that in the Reign of H. 8. divers good Lawes and Statutes Anno 1. Eliz. cap. 1. were made as well for the utter extinguishing of all usurped and forrein Powers and Authorities of this Realm and other her dominions and Countries as also for the restoring and
seized into the Kings hands for his Recusancy or any part thereof Every covicted Popish Recusant not married in some open Church or Chappel or otherwise then according to the Church of England by a Minister lawfully authorized shall be disabled to have any estate of Freehold by Curtesie of England And every woman being a popish Recusant convict which shall be married in other form then as aforesaid shall be disabled not only to claim any Dower or Joynture but also the Widowes Estate and Frankbanck in any customary Lands whereof her Husband died seized and likewise from having part of her husbands goods by virtue of any custome of any County City or Place And if a man be married contrary to the true intent of this Statute to a woman who hath no Lands or Tenements whereby he may become Tenant by Curtesie he shall forfeit 100 l. to be paid as aforesaid Every Popish Recusant which shall have a child born and shall not within a moneth after cause it to be baptized by a lawfull Minister according to the Lawes of the Realm in some usuall place of Baptisme or if by infirmity the child cannot be brought to such place then to be baptized by some Minister within the moneth if he beliving by the space of a moneth or if he be dead then Mother of such Child shall for every such offence forfeit one hundred pound one third part to the King the other to the Informer who will sue for it the other third part to the poor of the said Parish to be recovered in any of the Kings Courts wherein no Essoine c. shall be allowed If any Popish Recusant not being excommunicated shall be buried in any place other then the Church or Church-yard or not according to the Ecclesiasticall Lawes of the Realm That the Executors or Administrators of every such person so buried knowing the same or the party that so burieth him shall forfeit twenty pounds to be paid as aforesaid If the children of any of the Subjects within this Realm the said children not being Souldiers Mariners Merchants or their Apprentices or Factors shall be sent or goe beyond seas without licence of the King or six of the Privy Councell whereof the principall Secretary to be one under their hands and seals that very such child shall take no benefit by any gift conveyance descent devise or otherwise untill he being above the age of eighteen years take the oath mentioned in an Act made that Session intituled An Act for the better discovery and repressing Popish Recusants c. before some Justice of Peace of the County where such Parents of such Children as shall be sent did or shall inhabit In the mean time the next of kin who is no popish Recusant shall enjoy all the said Lands c. untill the person so sent shal conforme himself and take the said oath receive the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and then he who hath received any profit as aforesaid shall restore the goods or value to him who shall so conform himself He that shall so send his child beyond seas shall forfeit one hundred pounds to be recovered as aforesaid No convict popish Recusant shall present to a Benefice with Cure Prebend or grant an Advowson or collate or nominate to any Free-school or Donative whatsoever The Chancellor and Scholars of the University of Oxford when any such become void shall have the nomination presentation collation and Donation of any such Benefice Prebend or Ecclesiasticall Living School Hospitall and Donative in the Counties of Oxford Kent Middlesex Sussex Surrey Hampshire Barkshire Buckinghamshire Gloucestershire Worcestershire Staffordshire Warwickshire Wiltshire Somersetshire Devonshire Cornwall Dorcetshire Herefordshire Northamptonshire Pembrokeshire Carmarthenshire Brecknock-shire Monmothshire Cardiganshire Montgomeryshire and the City of London so long as the Patron shall remain a Recusant convict The Chancellor Scholars of the University of Cambridge shall have presentation c. to all such Benefices aforesaid being in the Counties of Essex Hertfordshire Bedfordshire Cambridgshire Huntingtonshire Suffolk Northfolk Lincolnshire Rutlandshire Leicestershire Derbishire Notinghamshire Shropshire Cheshire Lancashire Yorkshire the County of Durham Northumberland Cumberland Westmorland Radnorshire Denbyshire Flintshire Carnarvonshire Angleseyshire Merionethshire Glamorganshire so long as the Patron shall continue a Recusant convict If the Chancellor and Shollars of either University shall nominate or present Quaere who shal have the next presentation nomination to any such Benefice c. any person who hath any other Benefice with cure of souls every such nomination and presentation shall be void A convicted Recusant shall neither be Executor or Administrator nor Gaurdian in Chivalry or Socage The next of kin of the children of Recusants convict to whom the Estate cannot descend who shall usually resort to Divine Service according to the Lawes and receive the Sacrament shall have the Guard and education of the children and of the Lands and Tenements holden in Knights-service untill the full age of 21 years and of the Lands in Socage as Guardian in Socage and of Customary Lands by copy of Court Roll so long as the custome shall permit the same and in every of the said places shall yeeld an account of the profits to the Ward All Grants of Wards either of the King or any other to any Popish Recusant shall be void No person shall bring from beyond Sea print sell or buy any Popish Primers Ladies Psalters Manuels Rosaries popish Catechisms Missals Breviaries Portals Legends and lives of Saints containing superstitious matter upon penalty of fourty shillings to be forfeited as aforesaid viz. one third part to the King an other to the Informer who will sue the other to the poor of the Parish where such book shall be found Justices of peace in their Limits Mayors Bayliffs chief Officers in Corporations may search the hous of every popish Recusant convict the hous and lodging of every person whose wife is a popish Recusant convict for popish books and Relicks of Popery And if any Altar Pix Beads Pictures or such like popish Reliques or any popish books shall be found as in the opinion of such Officers shall be thought unmeet for such Recusants they shall presently be defaced and burnt if meet to be burnt All Armour Gunpowder and Munition whatsoever any popish Recusant convict hath or shall have in his own house or in the hands of others shall be taken from them by warrant of four Justices of peace at their Generall or Quarter-sessions other then such necessary weapons as the four Justices shall think meet for defence of the said Recusants in defence of their houses and the said Armour and Munition so taken shall be kept at the costs of the said Recusants in such places as the four Justices shall appoint If any such Recusant which hath such armour c. or any person who hath any such armour c. for the use of such Recusant shall refuse to declare unto the
power which God hath given Fathers and Husbands by the law of Nature 7. The Husband being the head of the Wife she is in all respects of law The Wife has nothing proper against her Husband deemed civiliter mortua nor can take or purchase any thing during the coverture but whatsoever is given to the Wife is ex facto the Husbands Yet Marriage being a Sacrament by the institution of our Saviour and Ephes 5. 25 32. a Mystery of Christ and his Church and so the cognisance thereof due to the Ecclesiastical power the Church upon the penalty of Ecclesiastical censure may compell the Husband to allow his Wife Alimony if without sufficient cause he shall refuse to cohabit with her 8. If Poligamy had not been lawful before our Saviour Christs time Poligamy was lawful before our Saviour then had our Saviour been illegitimate being descended of Bathsheba when David had many other wives Nor can the argument drawn from the necessity of propagating Mankind take place when David reigned for there never was in so small a Continent so great a number of people as the Israelites were when David reigned as appears by the Number which Joab took and for which David was punished with so great a pestilence If it were before the divine law of our Saviour lawful every where for Annot. Men to have many Wives I do wonder why Mr. Hobbs cap. 17. art 8. de Cive says That our Saviour made no laws but the institution of the Sacraments which are Baptism and the Eucharist And if Matrimony be a Civil institution as he affirms then Poligamy is lawful for all Christians who are in subjection to the Turks c. where by the Temporal laws it is permitted and the Kingdom of Congo rejected Christianity for no other reason but because they were not allowed plurality of wives which Mr. Hobbs could easily have dispenced with I do challenge Mr. Hobbs to shew any one instance where ever in the Christian world before all things ran riot here in England since 1642. the Temporal power took cognisance of Marriage 9. Matrimony is the act of two free persons viz. neither precontracted What Matrimony is nor married nor within the degrees prohibited by God Levit. 18. of different sexes capable of performing the end of marriage mutually taking one another for Husband and Wife I N. take thee D. to be my wedded Wife I D. take thee N. to be my wedded Husband But this must be done publiquely and Banns of both parts publiquely pronounced three Holidays or a Licence procured from the Ordinary for dispensation with all the rites and solemnities injoined by the Church or else the Church takes no cognisance of it 10. Where the Matrimony is subsequent to the allegation there the Whether Matrimony be dissolvible Vinculum is dissoluble As if one man marries another mans Wife or a Husband his Wife living marries another or if the parties contracting or marrying be within the degrees forbidden by God or if either party were Lev 18. precontracted or frigid these necessarily preceding the Matrimony do dissolve the bond But where the matter or allegation is subsequent to the Matrimony there the bond of Matrimony cannot be dissolved but only a Divorce upon just cause is grantable to separate the Complainant à mensa à thoro The reason why in this latter case the Matrimony cannot be dissolved is because Marriage being an institution of God it is in the cause superior to any Humane law or act and so by consequence cannot by them be dissolved And indeed in proper speaking where the Matrimony is subsequent it is rather not done then dissolvible the persons marrying being personae incapaces for such an action 11. The Holy Ghost Ephes 5. 25 c. shews the duty of Husbands The duty of Fathers and Husbands And Cato though no lover of women did think it sacrilege in the Husband to strike his wife Plut. vita Caton cens No question the right and careful education of Children is the onely means by which Parents may hope to have any comfort of them here or hereafter for Train a child in the way when he is young and he will not depart from it when he is old says the Preacher Nor can Parents expect to have their Children virtuous if they be vitious themselves for with what face can any Father condemn his Child for any thing which he allows in himself Besides there is nothing ill which naturally Youth doth not more suddenly apprehend then Men therefore Maxima debetur puero reverentia si quid Juveval Turpe paras And ill habits are soon gotten by Children if they be not carefully observed and restrained and hardly if possibly left when they are Men. CHAP. VIII Of Domestical power 1. THere are three sorts of Families either by Affinity or Alliance How many sorts of Families there be or by Consanguinity or a Legal or Houshold-Family Of such a Family and of its Cause and Jurisdiction we shall in this ensuing Chapter treat 2. A Family is not the cohabitation of divers persons in one house A legal family is not the cohabitation of divers persons in the same house for then Inmates and Travellers c. were subject to the power of the Master and Host Besides subjection cannot be where it depends upon the will of the Subject when he will he may choose whether he will obey But it is evident that Inmates and Travellers may when they will cease their subjection by leaving of the house 3. A Family is contained in the mutual offices of commanding and What a legal family is obeying of several persons under one head in the same house And the same head may be of divers Families as when a Master keeps servants in two or more different houses 4. A Family may consist of Paterfamilias who is Father and Husband Of what persons a family in the largest sense is compounded and the head or commanding part of the family of Wife Children and Servants who are the obeying part of the family or of the Mistress of the family who commands and of Children and Servants who obey 5. But because a Family may consist where as parts of the Family In the more proper sense there is neither Father nor Mother Husband nor Wife nor Children A Family is properly where several Servants obey the same Master or Mistress in the same house 6. Servants are twofold either voluntarily serving with their consent Of Servants first given such as are those servants who for such wages serve their Masters for such a terme or where they serve whether they give consent or not as where men are slaves or apprentices The power which the head of the family has over his Servants is called potestas herilis or despotica the Masters or Mistresses power We speak first of Masters power over Servants serving for wages 7. It is impossible that any