the Soveraignty by making Tribunes by which Machiavel saies their Government was the more firm and secure and afterwards by introducing other Magistrates into the Soveraignty Nor were the Admissions and Covenants the Senate made in those cases ever declared void but observed with all punctuality which is Argument enough that the Soveraign power may admit limitations without any danger to it self or the People which is all that is contended for As there never was any such Person pag. 88. of whose acts a great multitude by mutual Covenant one with another have made themselves every one the author to the end he may use the strength and means of them all as he shall think expedient for their peace and common defence which is the definition he gives of his Common-wealth So if it can be supposed that any Nation can concur in such a designation and divesting themselves of all their right and liberty it could only be in reason obligatory to the present contractors nor do's it appear to us that their posterity must be bound by so unthrifty a concession of their Parents For tho Adam by his Rebellion against God forfeited all the privileges which his unborn posterity might have claimed if he had preserved his innocence and tho Parents may alienate their Estates from their Children and thereby leave them Beggars yet we have not the draught of any Contract nor is that which Mr. Hobbes hath put himself to the trouble to prepare valid enough to that purpose by which they have left impositions and penalties upon the Persons of their posterity nor is it probable that they would think themselves bound to submit thereunto And then the Soveraign would neither find himself the more powerful or the more secure for his contâ—â—â—tors having covenanted one with another and made themselves every one the author of all his actions and it is to be doubted that the People would rather look upon him as the Vizier Basha instituted by their Fathers then as Gods Lieutenant appointed to govern them under him It is to no purpose to examine the Prerogatives he grants to his Soveraign because he founds them all upon a supposition of a Contract and Covenant that never was in nature nor ever can reasonably be supposed to be yet he confesses it to be the generation pag. 87. of the great Leviathan and which falling to the ground all his Prerogatives must likewise fall too and so much to the dammage of the Soveraign power to which most of the Prerogatives are due that men will be apt to suppose that they proceed from a ground which is not true and so be the more inclined to dispute them Whereas those Prerogatives are indeed vested in the Soveraign by his being Soveraign but he do's not become Soveraign by vertue of such a Contract and Covenant but are of the Essence of his Soveraignty founded upon a better title then such an accidental convention and their designing a Soveraign by their Covenants with one another and none with or to him who is so absolutely to command them And here he supposes again that whatsoever a Soveraign is possessed of is of his Soveraignty and therefore he will by no means admit that he shall part with any of his power which he calls essential and inseparable Rights and that whatever grant he makes of such power the same is void and he do's believe that this Soveraign right was at the time when he published his Book so well understood that is Cromwel liked his Doctrine so well that it would be generally acknowledged in England at the next return of peace Yet he sees himself deceived it hath pleased God to restore a blessed and a general peace and neither King nor People believe his Doctrine to be true or consistent with peace How and why the most absolute Soveraigns may as they find occasion part with and deprive themselves of many branches of their power will be more at large discovered in another place yet we may observe in this the very complaisant humor of Mr. Hobbes and how great a Courtier he desir'd to appear to the Soveraign power that then govern'd by how odious and horrible a usurpation soever in that he found a way to excuse and justifie what they had already don in the lessening and diminution of their own Soveraign power which it concern'd them to have believ'd was very lawfully and securely don For they having as the most popular and obliging act they could perform taken away Wardships and Tenures he confesses after his enumeration of twelve Prerogatives which he saies pag. 92. are the rights which make the essence of the Soveraignty for these he saies are incommunicable and inseparable I say he confesses the power to coin mony to dispose of the estates and persons of infant heirs and all other Statute Prerogatives may be transferred by the Soveraign whereas he might have bin informed if he had bin so modest as to think he had need of any information that those are no Statute Prerogatives but as inherent and inseparable from the Crown as many of those which he declares to be of the Essence of the Soveraignty But both those were already entred upon and he was to support all their actions which were past as well as to provide for their future proceedings If Mr. Hobbes had known any thing of the constitution of the Monarchy of England supported by as firm principles of Government as any Monarchy in Europe and which enjoied a series of as long prosperity he could never have thought that the late troubles there proceeded from an opinion receiv'd of the greatest part of England that the power was divided between the King and the Lords and the House of Commons which was an opinion never heard of in England till the Rebellion was begun and against which all the Laws of England were most clear and known to be most positive But as he cannot but acknowledg that his own Soveraignty is obnoxious to the Lusts and other irregular passions of the People so the late execrable Rebellion proceeded not from the defect of the Law nor from the defect of the just and ample power of the King but from the power ill men rebelliously possessed themselves of by which they suppressed the strength of the Laws and wrested the power out of the hands of the King against which violence his Soveraign is no otherwise secure then by declaring that his Subjects proceed unjustly of which no body doubts but that all they who took up arms against the King were guilty in the highest degree And there is too much cause to fear that the unhappy publication of this doctrine against the Liberty and propriety of the Subject which others had the honor to declare before Mr. Hobbes tho they had not the good fortune to escape punishment as he hath don I mean Dr. Manwaring and Dr. Sibthorpe contributed too much thereunto For let him take what pains he will to render those
according to his own discretion In the last place he hath very much obliged his Soveraign in telling him so plainly why he hath compared him to Leviathan because he hath raised him to the same greatness and given him the same power which Leviathan is described to have in the 41 Chapter of Iob There is nothing on Earth to be compared with him he is made so as not to be afraid be seeth every high thing to be below him and is King of all the children of pride Job 41. 33 34. And if he had provided as well to secure his high station as he hath for the abatement of the pride of the Subject whom he hath sufficiently humbled he might more glory in his work but the truth is he hath left him in so weak a posture to defend himself that he hath reason to be afraid of every man and the remedies he prescribes afterwards to keep his prodigious power from dissolution are as false and irrational as any other advice in his Institution as will appear hereafter The Survey of Chapter 29. MR. Hobbes takes so much delight in reiterating the many ill things he hath said for fear they do not make impression deep enough in the minds of men that I may be pardon'd if I repete again somtimes what hath bin formerly said as this Chapter consisting most of the same pernicious doctrines which he declar'd before tho in an other dress obliges me to make new or other reflexions upon what was I think sufficiently answer'd before and it may be repete what I have said before He is so jealous that the strength of a better composition of Soveraignty may be superior and be preferr'd before that of his institution that be devises all the way he can to render it more obnoxious to dissolution and like a Mountebank Physician accuses it of diseases which it hath not that he may apply Remedies which would be sure to bring those or worse diseases and would weaken the strongest parts and support of it under pretence of curing its defects So in the first place he finds fault pag. 167. that a man to obtain a Kingdom is sometimes content wâ—th lâ—ss power then to the peace and defence of the Common-wealth is necessarily required that is that he will observe the Laws and Customs of the Kingdom which by long experience have bin found necessary for the Peace and defence of it And to this he imputes the insolence of Thomas Beckett Arch-Bishop of Canterbury pag. 168. who was supported against Harry the Second by the Pope the Subjection of Ecclesiastics to the Common-wealth having he saies bin dispensed with by William the Conquerour at his reception when he took an Oath not to infringe the liberty of the Church And this extravagant power of the Pope he imputes to the Universities and the doctrine taught by them which reproch to the Universities being in a Paragraph of his next Chapter I chuse to join in the answer with the case of Thomas Beckett and Henry the Second Mr. Hobbes hath so great a prejudice to the reading Histories as if they were all enemies to his Government that he will not take the pains carefully to peruse those from which he expects to draw some advantage to himself presuming that men will not believe that a man who so warily weighs all he saies in the balance of reason will ever venture to alledg any matter of fact that he is not very sure of But if he had vouchsafed to look over the Records of his own Country before the time of King Henry the Eight he would have found the Universities alwaies opposed the power of the Pope and would have no dependance upon him and that the Kings alone introduc'd his autority and made it to be submitted to by their Laws Nor did the Church of England owe their large priviledges to any donation of the Popes whose jurisdiction they would never admit but to the extreme devotion and superstition of the People and the piety and bounty of the Kings which gave greater donatives and exemtions to the Church and Clergy then any other Kingdom enjoied or then the Pope gave any where Christianity in the infancy of it wrought such prodigious effects in this Island upon the barbarous affections of the Princes and People who then were the inhabitants of it that assoon as they gave any belief to the History of our Saviour they thought they could not do too much to the Persons of those who preached him and knew best what would be most acceptable to him From hence they built Churches and endow'd them liberally submitted so entirely to the Clergy whom they look'd upon as Sacred persons that they judged all differences and he was not look'd upon as a good Christian who did not entirely resign himself to their disposal they gave great exemtion to the Church and Church men and annex'd such Priviledges to both as testified the veneration they had for the Persons as well as for the Faith And when they suspected that the Licentiousness of succeeding ages might not pay the same devotion to both they did the best they could to establish it by making Laws to that purpose and obliging the several Princes to maintain and defend the rights and priviledges of the Church rights and priviledges which themselves had granted and of which the Pope knew nothing nor indeed at that time did enjoy the like himself It is true that by this means the Clergy was grown to a wonderful power over the People who look'd upon them as more then mortal men and had surely a greater autority then any Clergy in Christendom assum'd in those ages and yet it was generally greater then in other Kingdoms then it hath ever bin since Nor could it be otherwise during the Heptarchy when those little Soveraigns maintain'd their power by the autority their Clergy had with their people when they had little dependence upon the Prince But when by the courage and success of two or three couragious Princes and the distraction that had bin brought upon them by strangers the Government of the whole Island was reduced under one Soveraign the Clergy which had bin alwaies much better united then the Civil state had bin were not willing to part with any autority they had enjoied nor to be thought of less value then they had bin formerly esteemed and so grew troublesom to the Soveraign power somtimes by interrupting the progress of their Councils by delaies and somtimes by direct and positive contradictions The Princes had not the confidence then to resort to Mr. Hobbes's original institution of their right the manners of the Nation still remained fierce and barbarous and whatsoever was pliant in them was from the result of Religion which was govern'd by the Clergy They knew nothing yet of that primitive contract that introduced Soveraignty nor of that Faith that introduced subjection they thought it would not be safe for them to oppose the power of the
own and will value it accordingly And he is much a better Counsellor who by his experience and observation of the nature and humor of the People who are to be govern'd and by his knowledg of the Laws and Rules by which they ought to be govern'd gives advice what ought to be don then he who from his speculative knowledg of man-kind and of the Rights of Government and of the nature of Equity and Honor attain'd with much study would erect an Engine of Government by the rules of Geometry more infallible then Experience can ever find out I am not willing now or at any time to accompany him in his sallies which he makes into the Scripture and which he alwaies handles as if his Soveraign power had not yet declared it to be the word of God and to illustrate now his Distinctions and the difference between Command and Counsel he thinks fit to fetch instances from thence Have no other Gods but me Make to thy self no graven Image c. he saies pag. 133. are commands because the reason for which we are to obey them is drawn from the will of God our King whom we are obliged to obey but these words Repent and be baptized in the name of Iesus arc Counsel because the reason why we should do so tendeth not to any benefit of God Almighty who shall be still King in what manner soever we rebel but of our selves who have no other means of avoiding the punishment hanging over us for our sins as if the latter were not drawn from the will of God as much as the former or as if the former tended more to the benefit of God then the latter An ordinary Grammarian without any insight in Geometry would have thought them equally to be commands But Mr. Hobbes will have his Readers of another talent in their understanding and another subjection to his dictates The Survey of Chapter 26. HOwever Mr. Hobbes enjoins other Judges to etract the judgments they have given when contrary to reason upon what autority or president soever they have pronounced them yet he holds himself obliged still tueâ—i opus to justify all he hath said therefore we have reason to expect that to support his own notions of Liberty and Propriety contrary to the notions of all other men he must introduce a notion of Law contrary to what the world hath ever yet had of it And it would be answer enough and it may be the fittest that can be given to this Chapter to say that he hath ere ed a Law contrary and destructive to all the Law that is acknowledg'd and establish'd in any Monarchy or Republic that is Christian and in this he hopes to secure himseâ—f by his accustomed method of definition and dâ—fiâ—es that Civil Law which is a term we do not dislike is to every Subject those Rules which the Common wealth hath commanded him by word writing or other sufficient sign of the Wâ—â—l to make use of for the distinction of right in whâ—ch he saies there is nothing that is not at first sight evident that is to say of what is contrary and what is noâ— contrary to the Rule From which definition his first deduction is that the Soveraign is the sole Legislator and that himself is not subject to Laws because he can make and repeal them which in truth is no necessary deduction from his own definition for it doth not follow from thence tho he makes them Rules only for Subjects that the Soveraign hath the sole power to repeal them but the true definition of a Law is that it is to every Subject the rule which the Common-wealth hath commanded him by word writing or other sufficient sign of the Will made and publish'd in that form and manner as is accustomed in that Common-wealth to make use of for the distinction of right that is to say of what is contrary and what is not to the Rule and from this definition no such deduction can be made since the form of making and repealing Laws is stated and agreed upon in all Common-wealths The opinions and judgments which are found in the Books of eminent Lawyers cannot be answer'd and controuled by Mr. Hobbes his wonder since the men who know least are apt to wonder most and men will with more justice wonder whence he comes by the Prerogative to controul the Laws and Government establish'd in this and that Kingdom without so much as considering what is Law here or there but by the general notions he hath of Law and what it is by his long study and much cogitation And it is a strange definition of Law to make it like his propriety to be of concernment only between Subject and Subject without any relation of security as to the Soveraign whom he exemts from any observation of them and invests with autority by repealing those which trouble him when he thinks fit to free himself from the observation thereof and by making new and consequently he saies he was free before for he is free that can be free when he will The instance he gives for his wonder and displeasure against the Books of the Eminent Lawyers is that they say that the Common Law hath no controuler but the Parliament that is that the Common Law cannot be chang'd or alter'd but by Act of Parliament which is the Municipal Law of the Kingdom Now methinks if that be the judgment of Eminent Lawyers Mr. Hobbes should be so modest as to believe it to be true till he hears others as Eminent Lawyers declare the contrary for by his instance he hath brought it now only to relate to the Law of England and then methinks he should be easily perswaded that the Eminent Lawyers of England do know best whether the Law be so or no. I do not wish that Mr. Hobbes should be convinc'd by a judgment of that Law upon himself which would be very severe if he should be accused for declaring that the King alone hath power to alter the descents and inheritances of the Kingdom and whereas the Common Law saies the Eldest shall inherit the King by his own Edict may declare and order that the younger Son shall inherit or for averring and publishing that the King by his own autority can repeal and dissolve all Laws and justly take away all they have from his Subjects I say if the judgment of Law was pronounc'd upon him for this Seditious discourse he would hardly perswade the World that he understood what the Law of England is better then the Judges who condemn'd him or that he was wary enough to set up a jus vagum and incognitum of his own to controul the establish'd Government of his own Country He saies the Soveraign is the only Legislator and I will not contradict him in that It is the Soveraign stamp and Royal consent and that alone that gives life and being and title of Laws to that which was before but counsel and advice and no
no man will pretend to the knowledg of right and wrong without much study And if that power of interpretation of Law be vested in the Person of the Soveraign he may in a moment overthrow all the Law which is evident enough by his own instances if to use his own expressions his understanding were not dazled by the flame of his passions For to what purpose is all the distinction and division of Laws into human and divine into natural and moral into distributive and penal when they may be all vacated and made null by the word or perverted by the interpretation of the Soveraign to what purpose is a penalty of five shillings put upon such an action if the Soveraign may make him who doth that action by his interpretation or omnipotence to pay five hundred pounds Nor by his rule is his ador'd Law of Nature of any force which he saies pag. 144 is the Law of God immutable and eternal nay Heaven and Earth shall pass away but not one title of the Law of Nature shall pass for it is the eternal Law of God He I say hath as much subjected that to the arbitrary power and discretion of his Soveraign as he hath don the Liberty and property of the Subject for he saies pag. 138. the Law of Nature is a part of the Civil Law in all Common-wealths in the World and that tho it be naturally reasonable yet it is by the Soveraign powâ—r that it is Law and he saies likewise that all Laws written and unwritten and the Law of Nature it seâ—f have need of interpretation and then he makes his supreme Soveraign the only legitimate interpreter So that he hath the Law of Nature as much in his power and under his jurisdiction as any other part of the Civil Law and yet he confesses his subject is not bound to pay obedience to any thing that his Soveraign enjoins against the Law of nature In such Labyrinths men entangle themselves who obstinately engage in opinions relating to a science they do not understand nor was it possible for him to extend the Prerogative of his Soveraign to such an illimited greatness without making some invasion upon the Prerogative of God himself I believe every man who reads Mr. Hobbes observes that when he entangles himself in the Laws of England and affects to be more learned in them then the Chief Justice Cook the natural sharpness and vigor of his reason is more flat and insipid then upon other Arguments and he makes deductions which have no coherence involves himself in the terms without comprehending the matter concludes the Law saies that which it do's not say and that the Law hath made no provision in cases which are amply provided for and in a word loses himself in a mist of words that render him less intelligible then at other times Nor hath he better luck when out of Iustinians Institutions he would make a parallel between the Imperial Laws and the Laws of England and resolves that the Decrees of the Common People which were put to the question by the Tribune and had the force of Laws were like the Orders of the House of Commons in England whereas no Orders made by a House of Commons in England are of any validity or force or receive any submission longer then that House of Commons continues and if any order made by them be against any Law or Statute it is void when it is made and receives no obedience Indeed when Mr. Hobbes publish'd his Leviathan he might have said that it had the autority and power of the Emperor or of the whole People of Rome and which would have lasted till this time if he had bin believ'd and his doctrine could have bin supported by him or them for whom it was provided Probably Mr. Mobbes did take delight in being thought to confute a great Lawyer in the Common Law of England 't is certain he hath bin transported to slight usage of him by that delight or some like passion more then by the defect of reason in that which he would contradict He saies 't is against the Law of Nature to punish the innocent that he is innocent that acquits himself judicially is acknowledg'd for innocent by the Judg and yet he saies when a man is accus'd of a Capital crime and seeing the power of the Enemy and the frequent corruption of Judges runs away for fear of the effect yet being taken and brought to Tryal maketh it appear that he was not guilty of the crime and is acquitted thereof however is condemn'd to lose his goods this he saies is a manifest condemnation of the innocent He confesses afterwards that the Law may forbid an innocent man to fly and that he may be punished for flying but he thinks it very unreasonable that flying for fear of injury should be taken for presumtion of guilt whereas it is taken only for the guilt of flying when he is declar'd innocent for the other And methinks he confesseth that a man who must know his own innocence better then any body else and knows that he must lose his Goods if he flies his trial hath no reason to complain if after he be cleer'd from the crime he be condemned to lose his goods which he knew he must lose when he fled and therefore tho he be judicially acquitted for the crime he is not innocent but as judicially condemned to lose his goods for his guilt in flying the Law and penalty of flying being known to him whether written or not written as well as the Law against the crime was To his other dictates of the Office of a Judg that he needs not be learn'd in the Laws because he shall be told by the Soveraign what judgment he shall give and of the Laws of England that the Jury is Judg of the Law as well as of the fact there needs no more be said then that he is not inform'd nor understands what he delivers and whether his notions of the divine positive Law be more agreeable to truth will be examin'd hereafter The Survey of Chapter 27. Pag. 151. THat to be delighted in the imagination of being possessed of another mans Wife or Goods is no breach of the Law that saies Thou shalt not covet That the pleasure a man may have in imagining the death of him from whose life he expects nothing but dammage and displeasure is no sin That to be pleas'd in the fiction of that which would please a man if it were real is a passion so adherent to the nature of man and every other living creature as to make it a sin were to make a sin of being a man is a Body of Mr. Hobbes's Divinity so contrary to that of our Saviour and his Apostles that I shall without any enlargement leave it to all men to consider which of them they think most fit to believe and follow Yet methinks he gives some encouragement to those who might expect Justice
precious words unvaluable and of no signification a better Philosopher then he and one who understood the rules of Government better having lived under just such a Soveraign as Mr. Hobbes would set up I mean Seneca will be believed before him who pronounces Errat siquis existimat tutum esse ibi Regem ubi nihil à Rege tutum est Securitas securitate mutua paciscenda est And he go's very far himself towards the confessing this truth when he is forced to acknowledg pag. 96. That the riches power and honor of a Monarch arise only from the riches strength and reputation of his subjects for no King can be rich nor glorious nor secure whose Subjects are either poor or contemtible which assertion will never be supported by saying that that condition shall be made good and preserv'd to them by the justice and bounty of the Soveraign For riches and strength and reputation are not aëry words without a real and substantial signification nor do consist so much in the present enjoying especially if it shall depend upon the casual pleasure of any man as in the security for the future that being a mans property that cannot be taken from him but in that manner and by those Rules as are generally looked upon as the fundamentals of Government And when he is transported by his passion and his appetite and for making good his Institution to cancel and tread under foot all those known obligations and make the precious terms of Property and Liberty absurd and insignificant words to be blown away by the least breath of his monstrous Soveraign without any violation of justice or doing injury to those he afflicts I say when he is thus warmed by the flame of his passions which he confesses pag. 96. alwaies dazles never enlightens the understanding he is so puzled by his own notions that he make himself a way out by distinctions of his own modelling and devising and so he is compell'd to acknowledg that tho his illimited Soveraign whatsoever he doth can do no injury to his Subjects nor be by any of them accused of injustice yet that he p. 90. may commit iniquity tho not injustice or injury in the proper signification which is far more intelligible then the Beatifical vision for the obscurity and absurdity whereof he is so merry with the Scholemen As Mr. Hobbes his extraordinary and notorious ignorance in the Laws and constitution of the Government of England makes him a very incompetent judg or informer of the cause or original of the late woful calamities in England of which he knows no more the every other man of Malmesbury doth and upon which there will be other occasion hereafter to inlarge so his high arrogance and presumtion that he doth understand them makes him triumph in the observation and wonder that so manifest a truth should of late be so little observed that in a Monarchy he that had the Soveraignty from a descent of six hundred years was alone called Soveraign had the title of Majesty from every one of his Subjects and was unquestionably taken by them for their King was notwithstanding never considered as their Representative that name without contradiction passing for the title of those men which at his command were sent up by the People to carry their Petitions and give him if he permitted it their advice which he saies pag. 95. may serve as an admonition for those that are the true and absolute Representative of a People which he hath made his Soveraign to be to take heed how they admit of any other general Representative upon any occasion whatsoever all which is so unskilful and illiterate a suggestion as could not fall into the conception of any man who is moderately versed in the principles of Soveraignty And if Mr. Hobbes did not make war against all modesty he would rather have concluded that the title of the Representative of the people was not to be affected by the King then that for want of understanding his Majesty should neglect to assume it or that his faithful Counsel and his Learned Judges who cannot be supposed to be ignorant of the Regalities of the Crown should fail to put him in mind of so advantageous a Plea when his fundamental rights were so foully assaulted and in danger But tho the King knew too well the original of his own power to be contented to be thought the Representative of the People yet if Mr. Hobbes were not strangely unconversant with the transactions of those times he would have known which few men do not know that the King frequently and upon all occasions reprehended the two Houses both for assuming the Style and appellation of Parliament which they were not but in and by his Majesties conjunction with them and for calling themselves the Representative of the People which they neither were or could be to any other purpose then to present their Petitions and humbly to offer their advice when and in what his Majesty required it and this was as generally understood by men of all conditions in England as it was that Rebellion was Treason But they who were able by false pretences and under false protestations to raise an Army found it no difficult matter to perswade that Army and those who concured with them that they were not in rebellion The Survey of Chapter 19. I Shall heartily concur with Mr. Hobbes in the preference of Monarchy before all other kind of Government for the happiness of the people which is the end of Government and surely the people never enjoied saving the delight they have in the word Equality which in truth signifies nothing but keeping on their hats Liberty or Property or received the benefit of speedy and impartial Justice but under a Monarch but I must then advise that Monarch for his greatness and security never so far to lessen himself as to be considered as the peoples Representative which would make him a much less man then he is His Majesty is inherent in his office and neither one or other is conferred upon him by the people Let those who are indeed the Deputies of the people in those occasions upon which the Law allows them to make Deputies be called their Representative which term can have no other legitimate interpretation then the Law gives it which must have more autority then any Dictionary that is or shall be made by Mr. Hobbes whose animadversion or admonition will never prevail with any Prince to change his Soveraign Title for Representative of the people and much the less for the pains which he hath taken pag. 95. to instruct men in the nature of that Office and how he comes to be their Representative I cannot leave this Chapter without observing Mr. Hobbes his very officious care that Cromwell should not fall from his greatness and that his Country should remain still captive under the Tyranny of his vile Posterity by his so solemn Declaration that he who is in possession
injury the contrary whereof he saies he hath shewed already for he takes it as granted that all that he hath said he had proved and if he hath not he hath don it now substantially by the example of Iepthah in causing his daughter to be sacrific'd of which he is not sure and by Davids killing Vriah which he saies tho it was against equity yet it was not an injury to Vriah because the right was given him by Vriah which I dare swear Vriah never knew he had don And by such unnatural Arguments he would perswade men to be willing to be undon very like those which the Stoics as obstinately maintain'd That a wise man could not be injur'd because he was not capable nor sensible of it But I wonder more that he doth not discern what every other man cannot but discern that by his so liberal taking away he hath not left the Subject any thing to enjoy even of those narrow concessions which he hath made to him For how can any man believe that he hath liberty to buy and sell when the Soveraign power can presently take away what he hath sold from him who hath bought it and consequently no man can sell or buy to any purpose Who can say that he can chuse his own abode or his own trade of life or any thing when assoon as he hath chosen either he shall be requir'd to go to a place where he hath no mind to go and to do somwhat he would not chuse to do for his person is no more at his own disposal then his goods are so that he may as graciously retain to himself all that he hath granted Whether the Soveraign Power or the Liberty of the Subject receive the greater injury and prejudice by this brief state and description he makes of the no liberty that is the portion he leaves to the Subject would be a great question if he had not bin pleas'd himself to determine that his Subject for God forbid that any other Prince should have such a Subject is not capable of an injury by which the whole mischief is like to fall upon the Soveraign And what greater mischief and ruine can threaten the greatest Prince then that their Subjects should believe that all the liberty they have consists only in those things which the Soveraign hath hitherto pretermitted that is which he hath not yet taken from them but when he pleases in regulating their actions to determine the contrary they shall then have neither liberty to buy or sell nor to contract with each other to chuse their own abode their own diet their own trade of life or to breed their own children and to make their misery compleat and their life as little their own as the rest that nothing the Soveraign can do to his Subject on what pretence soever as well in order to the taking away his Life as his Estate can be called injustice or injury I say what greater insecurity can any Prince be in or under then to depend upon such Subjects And alas what security to himself or them can the Sword in his hand be if no other hand be lift up on his behalf or the Swords in all other hands be directed against him that he may not cut off their heads when he hath a mind to it and it is not Mr. Hobbes's autority that will make it believ'd that he who desires more liberty demands an exemtion from all Laws by which all other men may be masters of their lives and that every Subject is author of every act the Soveraign doth upon the extravagant supposition of a consent that never was given and if it were possible to have bin given must have bin void at the instant it was given by Mr. Hobbes's own rules as shall be made out in its place He himself confesses pag. 295. and saies it is evident to the meanest capacities that mens actions are deriv'd from the opinion they have of the good and evil which from those actions redound unto themselves and consequently men that are once possessed of an opinion that their obedience to the Soveraign power will be more hurtful to them then their disobedience will disobey the Laws and thereby over-throw the Common-wealth and introduce confusion and civil War for the avoiding whereof all civil Government was ordained If this be true as there is no reason to believe it to be is it possible that any man can believe that the People for we speak not of convincing the Philosophers and the Mathematicians but of the general affections of the People which must dispose them to obedience that they can be perswaded by a long train of Consesequences from the nature of man and the end of Government and the institution thereof by Contracts and Covenants of which they never heard to believe that it is best for them to continue in the same nakedness in which they were created for fear their clothes may be stoln from them and that they have parted with their liberty to save their lives There is no question but of all calamities the calamity of War is greatest and the rage and uncharitableness of civil War most formidable of all War Indeed foreign War seldom destroies a Nation without domestic Combinations and Conspiracies which makes a complication with civil War and sure nothing can more inevitably produce that then an universal opinion in the People that their Soveraign can take from them all they have whenever he hath a mind to it and their lives to without any injustice and consequently that their obedience to him will be more hurtful to them then their disobedience so well hath he provided for the security of his Soveraign if his doctrine were believ'd Mr. Hobbes is too much conversant in both those learned Languages to wish that the Western World were depriv'd of the Greek and Latine Tongues for any mischief they have don and upon my conscience what ever errors may have bin brought into Philosophy by the autority of Aristotle no man ever grew a Rebel by reading him and if the greatest Monarch that hath ever bin in the World except the Monarch of the World had thought his Tutor Aristotle had bin so great an enemy to Monarchy yet he knew he was born and bred in a Republic and that his Works contribute so much to sedition as Mr. Hobbes supposes he would not have valued his Person so much nor read his Works with such diligence as he did And if Mr. Hobbes would take a view of the Insurrections and the civil Wars which have at any time bin stirr'd up in the Western parts he will not find that they have bin contriv'd or fomented by men who had spent much time in the reading Greek and Latin Authors or that they have bin carried on upon the Maxims and Principles which they found there Iack Straw and Wat Tyler whose Insurrection in respect of the numbers and the progress it made was as dangerous as hath happened in
such constitution of his can be repeal'd and made void but in the same manner and with his consent But we say that he may prescribe or consent to such a method in the form and making these Laws that being once made by him he cannot but in the same form repeal or alter them and he is oblig'd by the Law of Justice to observe and perform this contract and he cannot break it or absolve himself from the observation of it without violation of justice and any farther obligation upon him then of justice I discourse not of For the better cleering of this to that kind of reason by which Mr. Hobbes is swai'd let us suppose this Soveraignty to reside and be fix'd in an assembly of men in which kind of Government it is possible to find more marks and foot-steps of such a deputing and assigning of interests as Mr. Hobbes is full of then we can possibly imagine in the original institution of Monarchy If the Soveraign power be deputed into the hands of fifteen and any vacant place to be suppli'd by the same Autority that made choice of the first fifteen may there not at that time of the election certain Rules be prescrib'd I do not say conditions for the better exercise of that Soveraign power and by the accepting the power thus explain'd doth not the Soveraign tho there should be no Oath administred for the observation thereof which is a circumstance admitted by most Monarchs tacitly covenant that he will observe those Rules and if he do's wilfully decline those Rules doth he not break the trust reposed in him I do not say forfeit the trust as if the Soveraignty were at an end but break that trust violate that justice he should observe If the Soveraign power of fifteen should raise an imposition for the defence of the Common-wealth if they should appoint this whole imposition to be paid only by those whose names are Thomas when Thomas was before in no more prejudice with the Common-wealth then any other appellation in Baptism may not this inequality be call'd a violation of Justice and a breach of trust since it cannot be suppos'd that such an irregular autority was ever committed to any man or men by any deputation Of the Prerogative of necessity to swerve from Rules prescrib'd or to violate Laws tho sworn to shall be spoken to in its due time It needs not be suppos'd but must be confess'd that the Laws of every Country contain more in them concerning the rights of the Soveraign and the common administration of Justice to the people then can be known to and understood by the person of the Soveraign and he can as well fight all his Battels with his own hand and sword as determine all causes of right by his own tongue and understanding The consequence of any confusion which Mr. Hobbes can suppose would not be more pernicious then that which would follow the blowing away all these maxims of the Law if the Kings breath were strong enough to do it It is a maxim in the Law as is said before that the eldest Son shall inherit and that if three or four Females are heirs the inheritance shall be equally divided between them Doth Mr. Hobbes believe that the word of the King hath power to change this course and to appoint that all the Sons shall divide the Estate and the Eldest Daughter inherit alone and must not all the confusion imaginable attend such a mutation All Governments subsist and are establish'd by firmness and constancy by every mans knowing what is his right to enjoy and what is his duty to do and it is a wonderful method to make this Government more perfect and more durable by introducing such an incertainty that no man shall know what he is to do nor what he is to suffer but that he who is Soveraign to morrow may cancel and dissolve all that was don or consented to by the Soveraign who was yesterday or by himself as often as he changes his mind It is the Kings Office to cause his Laws to be executed and to compel his Subjects to yield obedience to them and in order thereunto to make choice of Learned Judges to interpret those Laws and to declare the intention of them who pag. 140 by an artificial perfection of reason gotten by long study and experience in the Law must be understood to be more competent for that determination then Mr. Hobbes can be for the alteration of Law and Government by the artificial reason he hath attain'd to by long study of Arithmetic and Geometry No Eminent Lawyer hath ever said that the two Arms of a Common-wealth are Force and Justice the first whereof is in the King the other deposited in the hands of the Parliament but all Lawyers know that they are equally deposited in the hands of the King and that all justice is administred by him and in his name and all men acknowledg that all the Laws are his Laws his consent and autority only giving the power and name of a Law what concurrence or formality soever hath contributed towards it the question only is whether he can repeal or vacate such a Law without the same concurrence and formality And methinks the instance he makes of a Princes pag. 139. subduing another people and consenting that they shall live and be govern'd according to those Laws under which they were born and by which they were formerly govern'd should manifest to him the contrary For tho it be confess'd that those old Laws become new by this consent of his the Laws of the Legislator that is of that Soveraign who indulges the use of them yet he cannot say that he can by his word vacate and repeal those Laws and his own concession without dissolving all the ligaments of Government and without the violation of faith which himself confesses to be against the Law of Nature Notwithstanding that the Law is reason and pag. 139. not the letter but that which is according to the intention of the Legislator that is of the Soveraign is the Law yet when there is any difficulty in the understanding the Law the interpretation thereof may reasonably belong to Learn'd Judges who by their education and the testimony of their known abilities before they are made Judges and by their Oaths to judg according to Right are the most competent to explain those difficulties which no Soveraign as Soveraign can be presum'd to understand or comprehend And the judgments and decisions those Judges make are the judgments of the Soveraigns who have qualified them to be Judges and who are to pronounce their sentence according to the reason of the Law not the reason of the Soveraign And therefore Mr. Hobbes would make a very ignorant Judg when he would not have him versed in the study of the Laws but only a man of good natural reason and of a right understanding of the Law of Nature and yet he saies pag. 154. that
Sacred Clergy with a mere secular profane force and therefore thought how they might lessen and divide their own troublesome Clergy by a conjunction with some religious and Ecclesiastical combination The Bishops of Rome of that age had a very great name and autority in France where there being many Soveraign Princes then reigning together he exercis'd a notable Jurisdiction under the Style of Vicar of Christ. The Kings in England by degrees unwarily applied themselves to this spiritual Magistrate and that he might assist them to suppress a power that was inconvenient to them at home they suffer'd him to exercise an autority that proved afterwards very mischievous to themselves and for which they had never made pretence before and which was then heartily opposed by the Universities and by the whole Clergy till it was impos'd upon them by the King So that it was not the Universities and Clergy that introduc'd the Popes autority to shâ—ke and weaken that of the King but it was the King who introduc'd that power to strengthen as he thought his own howsoever it fell out And if the precedent Kings had not call'd upon the Pope and given him autority to assist them against some of their own Bishops Alexander the Third could never have pretended to exercise so wild a jurisdiction over Henry the Second nor he ever have submitted to so infamous a subordination nor could the Pope have undertaken to assist Beckett against the King if the King had not first appeal'd to him for help against Beckett For the better manifestation of that point which Mr. Hobbes his speculation and Geometry hath not yet made an enquiry into it will not be amiss to take a short Survey of the Precedent times by which it will be evident how little influence the Popes autority had upon the Crown or Clergy or Universities of England and how little ground he hath for that fancy from whence soever he took it pag. 168. that William the Conquerour at his reception had dispens'd with the subjection of the Ecclesiastics by the Oaâ—h he took not to infringe the liberty of the Church whereas they who know any thing of that time know that the Oath he took was the same and without any alteration that all the former Kings since the Crown rested upon a single head had taken which was at his Coronation after the Bishops and the Barons had taken their Oath to be his true and faithful Subjects The Arch-Bishop who crown'd him presented that Oath to him which he was to take himself which he willingly did to defend the Holy Church of God and the Rectors of the same To govern the universal people subject to him justly To establish equal Laws and to see them justly executed Nor was he more wary in any thing then as hath bin said before that the people might imagine that he pretended any other title to the Government then by the Confessor tho it is true that he did by degrees introduce many of the Norman Customes which were found very useful or convenient and agreeable enough if not the same with what had bin formerly practis'd And the common reproch of the Laws being from time to time put into French carries no weight with it for there was before that time so rude a collection of the Laws and in Languages as foreign to that of the Nation British Saxon Danish and Latine almost as unintelligible as either of the other that if they had bin all digested into the English that was then spoken we should very little better have understood it then we do the French in which the Laws were afterwards render'd and it is no wonder since a reduction into Order was necessary that the King who was to look to the execution took care to have them in that Language which himself best understood and from whence issued no inconvenience the former remaining still in the Language in which they had bin written Before the time of William the First there was no pretence of jurisdiction from Rome over the Clergy and the Church of England tho the infant Christianity of some of the Kings and Princes had made some journies thither upon the fame of the Sanctity of many of the Bishops who had bin the most eminent Martyrs for the Christian Faith and when it may be they could with more ease and security make a journy thither then they could have don to any other Bishop of great notoriety out of their own Country for Christianity was not in those times come much neerer England then Dauphine Provence and Languedoc in France and those Provinces had left their bountiful testimonies of their devotion which grew afterwards to be exercis'd with the same piety in Pilgrimages first and then expeditions to the Holy Land without any other purpose of transferring a Superiority over the English Nation to Rome then to Ierusalem And after the arrival of Austin the Monk and his Companions who were sent by Pope Gregory and who never enjoy'd any thing in England but by the donation of the Kings the British Clergy grew so jealous of their pretences that tho the Nation was exceedingly corrupted by the person and the doctrine of Pelâ—gius which had bin spred full two hundred years before Austin came the reformation and suppression of that Heresy was much retarded by those mens extolling or mentioning the Popes autority which the Brittish Bishops were so far from acknowledging that they would neither meet with them nor submit to any thing that was propos'd by them and declar'd very much against the pride and insolence of Austin for assuming any autority and because when any of them came to him he would not so much as rise to receive them I can hardly contain my self from enlarging upon this subject at this time but that it will â—eem to many to be foreign to the argument now in debate and Mr. Hobbes hath little resignation to the autority of matter of fact by which when he is pressed he hath an answer ready that if it were so or not so it should have bin otherwise I shall therefore only restrain my discourse to the time of William the Conqueror and when I have better inform'd him of the State of the Clergy and Universities of that time I shall give him the best satisfaction I can to the instance of Thomas of Beckett in which both the Clergy and the Universities will be easily absolv'd from the guilt of adhering to the Pope When William found himself in possession of England whatever application he had formerly made to the Pope who was then in France and as some say had receiv'd from him a consecrated Banner with some other relique beside one single hair of St Peter for the better success of his expedition he was so far from discovering any notable respect towards him that he expresly forbad all his Subjects from acknowledging any man to be Pope but him whom he declar'd to be so And there was a President
Mr. Hobbes an occasion to reproch me with impertinency in this digression tho he hath given me a just provocation to it and since the Roman Writers are so solicitous in the collecting and publishing the Records of that odious Process and strangers are easily induc'd to believe that the exercise of so extravagant a jurisdiction in the Reign of so Heroical a Prince who had extended his Dominions farther by much then any of his Progenitors had don must be grounded upon some fix'd and confess'd right over the Nation and not from an original Usurpation entred upon in that time and when the Usurper was not acknowledged by so considerable a part of Christendom it may not prove ungrateful to many men to make a short view of that very time that we may see what unheard of motives could prevail with that high spirited King to submit to so unheard of Tyranny That it was not from the constitution of the Kingdom or any preadmitted power of the Pope formerly incorporated into the Laws and Customs of the Kingdom is very evident by the like having bin before attemted For tho the Clergy enjoied those great priviledges and immunities which are mention'd before whereby they had so great an influence upon the hearts of the people that the Conqueror himself had bin glad to make use of them and William the Second Henry the First and King Stephen had more need of them to uphold their Usurpation yet those priviledges how great soever depended not at all upon the Bishop of Rome nor was any rank of men more solicitous then the Clergy to keep the Pope from a pretence of power in the Kingdom And the Bishops themselves had in the beginning of that Arch-bishops contumacious and rebellious contests with the King don all they could to discountenance and oppose him and had given their consent in Parliament that for his disobedience all his goods and moveables should be at the Kings mercy and it was also enacted with their consent after the Arch-bishop had fled out of the Kingdom and was known to make some application to the Pope that if any were found carrying a Letter or Mandate from the Pope or the Arch-bishop containing any interdiction of Christianity in England he should be taken and without delay executed as a Traitor both to the King and Kingdom that whatsoever Bishop Priest or Monk should have and retain any such Letters should forfeit all their Possessions Goods and Chattels to the King and be presently banish'd the Realm with their kin that none should appeal to the Pope and many other particulars which enough declare the temper of that Catholic time and their aversion to have any dependance upon a foreign jurisdiction And after the death of Beckett and that infamous submission of the King to the Popes Sentence thereupon which yet was not so scandalous as it is vulgarly reported as if it had bin made and undergon by the King in Person when the same King desir'd to assist the Successor of that Pope Lucius the Third who was driven out of Rome and to that purpose endeavour'd to raise a collection from the Clergy which the Popes Nuntio appear'd in and hoped to advance the Clergy was so jealous of having to do with the Pope or his Ministers that they declar'd and advised the King that his Majesty would supply the Pope in such a proportion as he thought fit and that whatever they gave might be to the King himself and not to the Popes Nuntio which might be drawn into example to the detriment of the King The King himself first shewed the way to Thomas a Beckett to apply himself to the Pope till when the Arch-bishop insisted only upon his own Ecclesiastical rights and power in which he found not the concurrence of the other Bishops or Clergy and the King not being able to bear the insolence of the man and finding that he could well enough govern his other Bishops if they were not subjected to the autority and power of that perverse Arch bishop was willing to give the Pope autority to assist him and did all he could to perswade him to make the Arch-bishop of York his Legate meaning thereby to devest the other Arch-bishop of that Superiority over the Clergy that was so troublesom to him and which he exercis'd in his own right as Metropolitan But the Pope durst not gratifie the King therein knowing the spirit of Beckett and that he would contemn the Legate and knew well the Ecclesiastical superiority in that Kingdom to reside in his person as Arch-bishop of Canterbury who had bin reputed tanquam alterius Orbis Papa yet he sent to him to advise him to submit to the King whereupon the haughty Prelate then fled out of the Kingdom and was too hard for the King with the Pope who was perswaded by him to make use of this opportunity to enlarge his own power and to curb and subdue that Clergy that was indevoted to him and so by his Bull he suspended the Arch-bishop of York and the other Bishops who adher'd to the King in the execution of his commands which so much incens'd the King that he let fall those words in his passion that encouraged those rash Gentlemen to commit that assassination that produc'd so much trouble It must also be remembred that the King when he bore all this from the Pope was indeed but half a King having caused his son Henry to be crown'd King with him who thereupon gave him much trouble and join'd with the French King against him and that he had so large and great Territories in France that as the Popes power was very great there so his friendship was the more behovefull and necessary to the King Lastly and which it may be is of more weight then any thing that hath bin said in this disquisition it may seem a very natural judgment of God Almighty that the Pope should exercise that unreasonable power over a King who had given him an absurd and unlawful power over himself and for an unjust end when he obtain'd from our Country-man Pope Adrian who immediatly preceded Alexander a Dispensation not to perform the Oath which he had taken that his Brother Geoffery should enjoy the County of Anjoy according to the Will and desire of his Father and by vertue of that Dispensation which the Pope had no power to grant defrauded his Brother of his inheritance and broke his Oath to God Almighty and so was afterwards forced himself to yield to the next Pope when he assum'd a power over him in a case he had nothing to do with and where he had no mind to obey And this unadvised address of many other Princes to the Pope for Dispensations of this kind to do what the Law of God did not permit them to do hath bin a principal inlet of his Supremacy to make them accept of other Dispensations from him of which they stand not in need and to admit other his incroachments from
of Nature wonld be a very faint security to Princes for the obedience of their Subjects But he chuses to appeal only to the Law of Nature which is a Text so few men have read and understand to support an imaginary Faith that was never given upon which Soveraignty was founded For which he hath another reason likewise for his Law of Nature is always at hand to serve him when no other Law will For when you tell him that the Law of Nature forbiddeth the violation of Faith and therefore that Kings and Princes are obliged to observe the Promises they make and the Oaths they take he answers you with great confidence and great cleerness that that rule is only obligatory to Subjects for that by the Law of Nature such Promises and Oaths taken by Princes are ipso facto void invalid anâ— bind not at all So that by this omnipotent Law of Nature which is indispensable and eternal the Sacred Word of a King which ought to be as fix'd and unmoveable as the center of the Earth is made as changeable as the Moon and the breach of Faith which is so odious to God and man is made lawful for Kings who are the only Persons in the World who cannot be perjur'd because the indispensable Law of Nature will not permit them to perform what they promise And now we see the reason why the Law of Nature must only be able to support that Government which no Civil Law will be able to do it remains that tho there may be a very innocent and lawful resistance of some essential Rights of the Soveraign for recovery whereof he may be put to sue at Law as hath bin said before his Soveraign by his right of Interpreting Law may as his Institutor here hath don interpret such resistance to be Treason and so confiâ—cate the Estate of the greatest Subject he hath who hath an Estate that he hath a mind to have He would be glad to find some answer to the want of President which he sees will alwaies lie in his way that there hath not bin hitherto any Common-wealth where those Rights have bin acknowledg'd or challeng'd but he hath alwaies the ill luck to leave the Objection as strong as he found it and if he could find no Artificers to assist in the erecting such a Building as may last as long as the Materials notwithstanding his skill in Architecture from the principles of Reason his long study of the nature of Materials and the divers effects of Figure and Proportion men would rather chuse to dwell in the Houses they have then to pull them down and exspect till he set up better in the place He must give a better evidence then his non-reason that his Government will be everlasting before men believe it and when his Principles from autority of Scripture come to be examin'd they will be found to have no more solidity then those which he hath produc'd from his long study and observation In the mean time he shall do well to get his Doctrine planted in those Countries and among that People who are made believe that the same Body may be in innumerable places at one and the same time where possibly things equally unreasonably may be believ'd And since men are to be taught that they ought not to be in love with any Form of Government more then with their own nor to desire change which he saies pag. 177. is like the breach of the first of Gods Commandments he hath himself raised one unanswerable Argument against the reception and doctrine of his Lâ—viathan His unskilful reproches upon the Universities are sufficiently refuted in the last Chapter A man would hardly believe that the same Person should think it to be of the office of the Soveraign to take care for the making of good Laws and should so frankly declare That no Law can be conceiv'd to be good tho it be for the benefit of the Soveraign if it be not necessary for the People for the good of the Soveraign and the People cannot be separated and yet at the same time determine that all Laws which establish any Propriety to and in the People are invalid and void and that it is an essential and inseparable Right in the Soveraign to levy as much mony at any time as he in his own conscience shall judg necessary And therefore tho I think I have in several places of this Discourse sufficiently evinc'd the unreasonableness of this Proposition and the inconsistency of the good and security of the Soveraign with such a Power I shall here enlarge upon the Disquisition thereof and of the reasons which induce him to believe that any kind of restraint of his power of raising mony by what consent of his own soever is no less then the dissolution of the Common-wealth for this power of taking every mans mony from him and his goods that will yield mony is his principal contention throughout his Book besides his liberty to lay asleep alter and repeal all Laws according to his will and pleasure The expence and charge of the preservation and maintenance of the Government being uncertain and contingent and so not to be provided for by any constant provision or revenue if by any emergent occasion upon a suddain Rebellion or foreign Invasion the Soveraign hath not power to raise what mony he thinks necessary to suppress the one and resist the other the Kingdom must be lost and if he may do it in either of those cases he may do it to prevent either and it ought to be suppos'd that he will not take more tho he may take all then is absolutely necessary for the occasion and this is the strongest case and yet is not so strong in relation to an Island as it is in relation to an In-land Kingdom he hath or can suppose for the support of this power to every part of which this answer may be applied As there is no Soveraign in Europe who pretends to this right of Soveraignty so there was never any Kingdom or considerable Country lost by want of it or preserv'd by the actual exercise of it and the Laws themselves permit and allow many things to be don when the mischief and necessity are in view which may not warrantably be don upon the pretence of preventing it The Law of necessity is pleadable in any Court and hath not only its pardon but justification as when not only a Magistrate but a private man pulls down a house or more which are next to that house which is on fire to prevent the farther mischief the Law justifies him because the necessity and benefit is as visible as the fire yet it would not be justice in the Soveraign himself to cause a mans house to be pulled down that is seven miles distant upon a fore-sight that the fire may come thither I am not averse from Mr. Hobbes's opinion that a man who is upon the point of starving and is not able
a purpose to raise more veneration towards the holy Prophets recorded in the sacred story when he took such pains to examine the Etymology of their title and appellation which he saies pag 224. sometimes signifies a foreteller of things to come and sometimes one that speaketh incoherently as men that are distracted and thence goes to their commission and qualification how they came to know the will and pleasure of God And when he hath brought their title as low as he thinks fit and their qualifications as mean he is contented that the name of a Prophet pag. 225. may be given not improperly to them that in Christian Churches have a calling to say public Praiers for the Congregation But that they may not be too much exalted with the vocation he allows prophecy to signify that which Women may do in the Church and at last is content that the Heathen Poets shall likewise be called Prophets all which he concludes from several texts of Scripture which he chuses to make use of What man of a sincere and pious heart could in order to contradict the literal sense of that expression and Argument of the Prophet David and which may well be understood literally Shall he that made the eie not see and he that made the ear not hear controul it by such an instance as would be little less then Blasphemy to repete and to which I shall only apply a sage saying of his own pag. 34. that an Anatomist or a Physician may speak or write his judgment of unclean things because it is not to please but profit but for another man to write his extravagant and pleasant fancies of the same is as if a man from being tumbled in the dirt should come and present himself before good company an animadversion he will do well to remember upon many occasions wherein he transgresses it What his design was by torturing so many Texts of Scripture to make it believ'd that the extraordinary Prophets in the old Testament took no other notice of the word of God nor had any other knowledg of it then from apparitions and dreams that is to say pag. 227. from the imagination which they had in their sleep or in an extasy may well be suspected when he contributes so little to advance the reverence that is due to Gods Word or the honour that is due to the memory of those Saints the Prophets neither the one or the other being in any degree improved to say no worse of it by the whole discourse of that his first Chapter in which he thinks he hath said enough to perswade his disciples from so many Texts of Scripture and his commentaries upon them that the Soveraign power is the Soveraign Prophet who hath under God the Autority to govern the People and that they are bound to observe for a rule pag. 232. that Doctrine which he hath commanded to be taught and thereby to examine and try the truths of those Doctrines which pretended Prophets with miracle or without shall at any time advance And it is the more observable that he gave this Soveraign power to Cromwell and annex'd to it this Soveraign Prophesy that he might establish his Throne for ever Nor could he have in all this any intention so opposite to his purposes as when he had subjected all Laws to his Sword without any violation of justice to subdue the Gospel too to the same arbitriment that he might reform the one as he had don the other And the rather because tho the Law was quiet whilst his Soveraign power proceeded according to his own institution without any controul yet the Gospel was troublesome to him by the noise of his own Clergy who had interpreted the Scripture according to his own spirit and purposes whilst the contest was with the King but now found that all his own designs and assuming the Soveraignty himself was expresly against the word of God and they found so much credit with the people that they had so long deluded that he foresaw a storm coming against him that he could hardly ride out And therefore Mr. Hobbes brought him a very seasonable relief in making a doubt when novelties were so much in request and the minds of the People so well prepar'd to hearken to what they had never before heard of whether there were any such thing as the word of God at least that that was not it which they took to be so and that if the ten Commandments were agreeable to his sense yet that they were not words spoken by him and then in bringing the autority and qualifications of the Prophets themselves so low that there was room enough left to doubt whether they were alwaies in the right From whence he might easily expose his Enemies who succeed them in the office of informing and instructing them in the Laws and good pleasures of God as men without a lawful mission and autority to pronounce those things they do And upon those weighty reasons he takes upon him to advise the People to be very circumspective pag. 230. and wary in obeying the voice of man that pretending himself to be a Prophet requires us to obey God in that way which he in Gods name tells us is the way to happiness For he in that pretends to govern them that is to say to rule and reign over them which is a thing that all men naturally desire and is therefore worthy to be suspected of Ambition and imposture and consequently ought to be examin'd and tried by every man before he yields them obedience And having thus deprav'd the rule the Word of God by which they were to walk and vilified the Preachers who are to instruct them how they may observe that Rule he hath enough amuz'd them to refer them for a complete and perfect information and satisfaction to his Soveraign power who is his Soveraign Prophet that is Cromwell himself to be told by him what they are to believe and what they are to do and to conform themselves thereunto and in his absence to what they shall be directed by those who are autoriz'd by him to inform them it being reasonably to be presum'd that they are p. 232. men to whom God hath given a part of the Spirit of their Soveraign I wish with all my heart that it were within my comprehension how Mr. Hobbes can be absolv'd from this naughty and impious discourse since he could not hope thereby to render himself gracious to any other Soveraign upon Earth since they all detest the power he would invest them with as a means to extirpate Christian Religion out of their Dominions which depends solely upon the universal veneration to the Scripture upon which if secular and politic interests did not fan a small Fire that would easily be extinguish'd into a flame there are not in sixteen hundred years many such differences grown in the interpretation thereof as must exclude any pious believer from Heaven if in his life he
upon the Kingdom of God so often us'd in Scripture as if thereby is properly and only meant the Commonwealth of the Iews pag. 218 instituted by the consent of those who were to be Subject thereunto for their civil Government and regulating their behaviour towards God their King whom they rejected and depos'd when they demanded a King from Samuel and to confirm this by so many glosses upon several Texts of Scripture is worthy only of the confidence of the Author of the Leviathan But he will make all this good when he comes to Mount Sinai where he saies this Covenant was renewed There indeed after all their murmurings for Bread and for Flesh and for Water that they might not imagine that all the Promises which God had made to their Fore-fathers gave them a Title to the continuance of their Protection and Blessing in spight of all their back-sliding and Rebellion and as a Preface to his Ten Commandments and the Law which he then publish'd to them God commanded Moses to put them in mind of the great Deliverances he had wrought for them to tell them that if they would obey his voice indeed and keep his Covenant then they should be a peculiar Treasure unto him above all people and they should be unto him a Kingdom of Priests an holy Nation the natural signification whereof according to all Interpreters is that he would in a more peculiar maner make himself known to them by giving them Laws whereby they might know how to please him and assigning them a Priesthood to offer such Sacrifices for them to him as would be acceptable And their answering together All that the Lord hath spoken we will do and what they said afterwards to Moses in the fright and consternation they were in upon the Thunder and Lightning from the Mount Speak thou to us and we will hear but let not God speak with us least we die contained no more upon the matter then the same professions which they had often made before upon their recollection after their several loud transgression God was not from that time more gracious to them or reckoned them more his own chosen people then before when he fed them with Manna and Quailes nor did they think that they had entred into a new and stricter obligation to him as appears by their making the Golden calf and worshipping it so soon after even before God had finish'd his speaking to them So that the Contract on their behalf whereby God himself was more their King then he had bin formerly or they more the Kingdom of God then they were before is drawn up only by Mr. Hobbes above three thousand years after the transaction The Survey of Chapter 37. I should make no reflexion upon the thirty seventh Chapter of Miracles and their use tho it may be some men may imagine that he hath a mind to lessen the faith of the greatest Miracles which have bin wrought if to express the humility of his resignation to his Soveraign he did not make him the sole Judg of all Miracles which shall be wrought within his Dominions and in this extasie of his Allegiance in spight of all the Demonstrations he hath made in his Kingdom of Darkness the fourth part of his Institâ—tes of the absurdity contradiction and impossibility in the Roman Doctrine of the Sacrament he very frankly bestows upon the King the sole power of determining the Point of Transubstantiation which if he concludes in the Affirmative no Subject must presume to contradict it By which he hath made the Pope and the Roman Church amends for the many merry reproches he hath cast upon them in allowing it to be good Divinity in all those Dominions where the Soveraign is Popish and of which no private reason or conscience but the public reason the reason of the King is Judg. And tho he preserves to himself and other private men the prerogative of believing or not believing in his heart because thought is free yet that must not be discover'd because he makes it the obligation of Subjects not only to do but to say all that their Soveraign commands them to say or do by which he introduces such a licence of dissimulation and hypocrisie as is odious in the civil actions of our life but most detestable in the eies and judgment of God and Man in all acts which concern Religion and the Worship of his Divine Majesty And it is very reasonably to be doubted that this loose determination in matters of Faith by a man who is thought to have digged very deep in all the Mines of Natural Reason hath contributed very much to that uncontroulable spirit which by the extravagance of fancy invention and imagination hath made such confusion both in the speculation and practice of Religion in this distracted Kingdom and by his making that which God hath manifestly commanded liable to be controul'd or to receive autority from the pleasure of the King that both God and the King are less reverenced and their Precepts less regarded then they have us'd to be in this Nation That he may the better draw himself out of those intricacies into which he is involved by this unnecessary discourse of Miracles he resorts to his Soveraign power in his definitions and tho he had before confess'd pag. 197. That the works of the Egyptian Sorcerers tho noâ— so great as those of Moses were yet great Miracles now he defines a Miracle pag. 235. to be the work of God besides his operation by the way of Nature ordain'd in the Creation don for the making manifest to his Elect the mission of an extraordinary Minister for their salvation which definition of his own and his own alone is all his proof he makes pag. 235. that the Devil or an Angel or other created spiriâ— cannot do a Miracle which as the Soveraign of Logic too he makes good by as strange an Argument It must be by virtue of some natural Science or by Incantation if it be by their own power independent there is some power that proceedeth not from God which all men deny and if they do it by power given them then is the work not from the immediate hand of God but natural and consequently no Miracle which is agreeable to his Definition But if it be by the permission of God why is it natural and therefore no Miracle Hath not God frequently permitted the Devil to do Miracles and if his Providence did not restrain him he would work Miracles enough to do more mischief And if the Devil turn'd himself into the Serpent or taught the Serpent so to speak like an Orator for the seduction and cozenage of poor Eve neither was natural and cannot be look'd upon as less then a Miracle which hath furnish'd a Modern fanciful Divine with an excuse for Eves being deluded that not imagining a Serpent could speak and having never heard of the Devil she concluded it to be an Angel whom she knew God
the commandment of God that which in the name of God was commanded him in a dream or vision and to deliver it to his Family and cause them to observe the same Yet notwithstanding this great addition tho Abraham and all the Soveraigns who succeeded him were qualified to govern and prescribe to their Subjects what Religion they should be of and to tell them what is the word of God and to punish all those who should countenance any doctrine which he should forbid from which he concludes that pag. 250 as none but Abraham in his family so none but the Soveraign in a Christian Common-wealth can take notice what is or what is not the word of God Yet I say neither that nor the renewing the same Covenant with Isaac and afterwards with Jacob he saies now did make that people the peculiar People of God but dates that Privilege which before he dated from the Covenant with Abraham to begin only from the renewing it by Moses at the mount Sinai by which he corrects his former fancy by a new one as extravagant upon the peoples contract in those words which he had mention'd before without that observation and gloss that he makes upon it nor did God at that time promise more to them by Moses then he had before as expresly promis'd to Abraham Isaac and Iacob This shall suffice to what he hath so often urg'd or shall hereafter infer from the Covenant with Abraham and by Moses and of the peculiar dominion over that People by vertue of that Contract Nor will I hereafter enlarge any more upon their pretended rejection of God when they desir'd a King which he now confirm's by a new piece of History or a new Commentary upon the Text by his Soveraign power of interpreting for he saies pag. 254. that when they said to Samuel make us a King to judg us like all the Nations they signified that they would no more be govern'd by the commands that should be laid upon them by the Priest in the name of God and consequently in deposing the High Priest of Roial autority they deposed that peculiar Government of God pag. 255. And yet he confesses in the very next page that when they had demanded a King after the manner of the Nations they had no design to depart from the worship of God their King but despairing of the justice of the Sons of Samuel they would have a King to Iudg them in civil actions but not that they would allow their King to change the Religion which was recommended to them by Moses By which he hath again cancell'd and demolish't all that power and jurisdiction which he would derive to all Soveraigns from that submission and contract which he saies they made at Mount Sinai for he confesses that they had no intention that the King should have autority to alter their Religion and then it passed not by that contract And thus when his unruly invention suggests to him an addition to the Text or an unwarrantable interpretation of it it alwaies involves him in new perplexities and leaves him as far from attaining his end as when he began It is upon his usual presumtion that from the 17. Chapter of Numbers he concludes that after Moses his death the supreme power of making war and peace and the Supreme power of judicature belonged also to the High Priest and thus Ioshuah was only General of the Army whereas no more was said in that place to Eleazar then had bin before said to Aaron his Father to perform the Priestly Office nor doth it ever appear that Eleazar offered to assume the Soveraignty in either of the cases but was as much under Ioshuah as Aaron had ever bin under Moses God appear'd unto Ioshuah upon the decease of Moses and deputed him to exercise the same charge that Moses had don As I was with Moses so will I be with thee This Book of the Law shall not depart out of thy mouth that thou maiest observe to do all that is written therein Then Ioshuah commanded the Officers of the People Josh. 1 2. 5 8 10. The people made another covenant with Ioshuah All that thou commandest us we will do and whither soever thou sendest us we will go As we hearkned unto Moses in all things so will we hearken unto thee Whosoever doth rebel against thy Commandment and will not hearken to thy words in all that thou commandest him shall be put to death ver 16 17 18. And the Lord said unto Joshuah this day will I magnify thee in the sight of all Israel as I was with Moses so will I be with thee And thou shalt command the Priests c. Josh. 3. 7 8. All the orders and commands to the Priests were given by Ioshuah Joshua built an Altar to the Lord God of Israel in Mount Ebal He wrote upon the stones a copy of the Law He read all the Law the cursings and the blessings c. Josh. 8. 30 32 34. Ioshuah divided the Land and when any doubtful cause did arise they repair'd to him for judgment And when the two Tribes and the half returned to the other side of Iordan where Moses had assign'd their portions it was Ioshuah who blessed them and sent them away There is no mention of any Soveraignty of Eleazar What the jurisdiction of the High-Priest was and whether the Office was limited or any way suspended during the time of the Judges is not otherwise pertinent to this discourse then as it contradicts Mr. Hobbes in which where it is not necessary I take no delight and therefore shall not enlarge upon those particulars The Survey of Chapter 41. MR. Hobbes hath committed so many errors in the institution and view which he hath made of all Offices hitherto that there was reason to believe he would have the same presumtion if he came to handle the Office of our Saviour himself and I think he hath made it good when he allows no other autority or power to our Saviour even when he comes in the glory of his Father with his Angels to reward every man according to his works Matâ—h 16. 27. then pag. 260. as Vice-gerent of God his Father in the same manner that Moses was in the Wilderness and as the High Priests were before the Reign of Saul and as the Kings were after it which is degrading him below the model of Socinus and in no degree equal to the description of his Power in Scripture yet large enough if the end of his coming was no other then he assigns and the Office he is to manage no greater then he seems to describe p. 264. the giving immortality in the Kingdom of the Son of man which is to be exercis'd by our Saviour upon Earth in his human nature which seems to be much inferior to that inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that fadeth not away which St. Peter assures us is reserved in Heaven for us 1 Pet. 1. 4. And how his
swallow his choicest Doctrine at one morsel and is in truth a sly address to Cromwell that being then out of the Kingdom and so being neither conquered nor his Subject he might by his return submit to his Government and be bound to obey it which being uncompelled by any necessity or want but having as much to sustain him abroad as he had to live upon at home could not proceed from a sincere heart and uncorrupted This Review and Conclusion he made short enough to hope the Cromwell himself might read it where he should not only receive the pawn of his new Subjects Allegiance by his declaring his own obligation and obedience but by publishing such Doctrine as being diligently infused by such a Master in the mystery of Government might secure the People of the Kingdom over whom he had no right to command to acquiesce and submit to his Brutal Power And in order to that he takes upon him very positively to declare which no man had ever presumed to do before the precise time when Subjects become obliged to submit to the Conqueror and saies pag. 390. that time is as to an ordinary Subject when the means of his life is within the guards and garrisons of the enemy and for him who hath nearer obligations he hath liberty to submit to his new Master when his old one can give him protection no longer And he is very careful that it may be the more taken notice of to insert in another Letter his Maxime pag. 390. that every man is bound by nature as much as in him lies to protect in War the autority by which he is himself protected in time of Peace All which he saies appears by consequence from those Laws which he hath mentioned throughout his Book pag. 390. yet that the times require to have it inculcated and remembred which shall not oblige me to recapitulate what hath bin said before upon the Propositions And he is so fearful that Cromwell was not solicitous enough for his own security that he tells him in his Review which he had not before said in his Book pag. 392. that Conquerors must require not only a submission of mens actions to them for the future but also an approbation of all their actions past Which advice he followed as far as he could till he found it too unreasonable to impose even upon those who had concurred with him in most of the mischief that he had don And least he should be too scrupulous and modest in using the power he had and too apt to be amused with reproches he saies pag. 392. the toleration of a professed hatred of Tyranny is a toleration of hatred to Commonwealth in general to the extravagancy of which Assertion enough hath bin said before These are the choice Flowers he hath bound up together in his Review least the odor of them might lose some of its fragrancy in the bigness of the Book And having with great tenderness provided that no man should think it lawful to kill him and insinuated as much and with as much virulency as he could a prejudice to the Roial party he gives his own testimony of his whole Doctrine and saies pag. 394. the Principles of it are true and proper and the ratiocination solid and therefore concludes that it might be profitably printed and more profitably taught in the Vniversities c. and other Licence then his own it never had to be printed But Mr. Hobbes knows well that a mans testimony in his own behalf is not valid and if mine could carry any autority with it I would make no scruple to declare that I never read any Book that contains in it so much Sedition Treason and Impiety as this Leviathan and therefore that it is very unfit to be read taught or sold as dissolving all the ligaments of Government and undermining all principles of Religion I do not with that the Author should be ordered to recant because he would be too ready to do it upon his declared Salvo nor do I wish he should undergo any other punishment then by knowing that his Book is condemned by the Soveraign Autority to be publickly burn'd which by his own judgment will restrain him from publishing his pernicious Doctrine in his Discourses which have don more mischief then his Book And I would be very willing to preserve the just testimony which he gives to the memory of Sidny Godolphin who deserved all the Eulogy that he gives him and whose untimely loss in the beginning of the War was too lively an instance of the inequality of the contention when such inestimable Treasure was ventur'd against dirty people of no name and whose irreparable loss was lamented by all men living who pretended to Virtue how much divided soever in the prosecution of that quarrel But I find my self temted to add that of all men living there were no two more unlike then Mr. Godoâ—phin and Mr. Hobbes in the modesty of nature or integrity of manners and therefore it will be too reasonably suspected that the freshness of the Legacy rather put him in mind of that Noble Gentleman to mention him in the fag-end of his Book very unproperly and in a huddle of many unjustifiable and wicked particulars when he had more seasonable occasion to have remembred him in many parts of his Book However I cannot forbear to put him in mind that I gave him for an expiation of my own defects and any trespasses which I may have since committed against him the Friendship of that great Person and first informed him of that Legacy which had not otherwise bin paid before the printing his Review And for my own part I shall conclude as I begun with the profession of so much esteem of his parts and reverence for his very vigorous age which in and for it self is venerable that in order to his conversion to be a good Subject and a good Christian I could be well content that as he seems to wish in his Commentary upon the Fourth Commandment pag. 178. as the Iews had every seventh day in which the Law was read and expounded so he thinks it necessary that some such times be determined wherein the people may assemble together and after Praiers and Praises given to God the Soveraign of Soveraigns hear those their duties told them which are prescribed in this his Leviathan and the positive Laws such as generally concern them all read and expounded and be put in mind of the autority that maketh them Laws so I say I should not be displeased if himself were allowed to make choice of his own Sabbaths to read his Lectures in both Universities and if he desired it afterwards in the City upon those Theses which for his ease are faithfully collected in this answer out of his Book And if this exercise doth not cure him I could wish that the same application and remedy might be tried by which the Emperor Alexander Severus cured the censoriousness and ambition of Ovinius Camillus who was as old and loved his ease as well as Mr. Hobbes yet being not satisfied with the present conduct of affairs and from thence became very popular he had a purpose to make himself Emperor Of which Severus being inform'd and having receiv'd and examin'd the full truth of it he sent for him and gave him thanks as Aelius Spartianus tells us Quod curam Reipub. quae recusantibus bonis imponeretur sponte reciperet and thereupon took him full of fear and terrified with the Conscience of his own guilt with him to the Senate participem Imperii appellavit in Palatium recepit Ornament is Imperialibus melioribus quam ipse utebatur affecit Afterwards when there was occasion of an Expedition against the Barbarians he offered him vel ipsum si vellet ire vel ut secum proficisceretur which he chusing and Severus himself walking still on foot with his Colleague who had accompanied him for many daies with intolerable fatigue the Emperor caused a horse to be brought to him upon which having rode some daies as much tired as before carpento imposuit The conclusion was he was so weary and ready to die under the command that abdicavit Imperium and Severus after he had commended him to the Soldiers tutum ad villas suas ire praecepit in quibus diu vixit I should be very glad that Mr. Hobbes might have a place in Parliament and sit in Counsel and be present in Courts of Justice and other Tribunals whereby it is probable he would find that his solitary cogitation how deep soever and his too peremtory adhering to some Philosophical Notions and even Rules of Geometry had misled him in the investigation of Policy and would rather retire to his quiet quarter in the Peak without envy of those whom he left in emploiment then keep them longer company in so toilsom uneasie and ungrateful Transactions And possibly this might and I doubt only could prevail upon him to make such recollection and acknowledgment of all the falshood profaneness impiety and blasphemy in his Book as may remove all those rubs and disturbances which he may justly apprehend as well in the way to his last Journy as at the end of it if he be not terrified with that disinal Pronunciation If we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledg of the truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries FINIS