transcribing his words and shewing how vilely he is abused by Filmer concluding that if he be in the right the choice and constitution of Government the making of Laws Coronation Inauguration and all that belongs to the chusing and making of Kings or other Magistrates is meerly from the People and that all Power exercised over them which is not so is Usurpation and Tyranny unless it be by an immediate Commission from God which if any man has let him give testimony of it and I will confess he comes not within the reach of our reasonings but ought to be obeyed by those to whom he is sent or over whom he is placed Nevertheless our Author is of another opinion but scorning to give us a reason he adds to Hooker's words As if these Solemnities were a kind of deed whereby the right of Dominion is given which strange untrue and unnatural Conceits are set abroad by Seedsmen of Rebellion and a little farther Unless we will openly proclaim defiance unto all Law Equity and Reason we must say for there is no remedy that in Kingdoms hereditary Birthright giveth a Right unto Soveraign Dominion c. Those Solemnities do either serve for an open testification of the Inheritor's Right or belong to the form of inducing him into the possession These are bold Censures and do not only reach Mr. Hooker whose modesty and peaceableness of spirit is no less esteemed than his Learning but the Scriptures also and the best of human Authors upon which he founded his Opinions But why should it be thought a strange untrue or unnatural Conceit to believe that when the Scriptures say Nimrod was the first that grew powerful in the Earth long before the death of his Fathers and could consequently neither have a right of Dominion over the multitude met together at Babylon nor subdue them by his own strength he was set up by their Consent or that they who made him their Governor might prescribe Rules by which he should govern Nothing seems to me less strange than that a Multitude of reasonable Creatures in the performance of Acts of the greatest importance should consider why they do them And the infinite variety which is observed in the constitution mixture and regulation of Governments dos not only shew that the several Nations of the World have considered them but clearly prove that all Nations have perpetually continued in the exercise of that Right Nothing is more natural than to follow the voice of Mankind The wisest and best have ever employed their studies in forming Kingdoms and Commonwealths or in adding to the perfections of such as were already constituted which had bin contrary to the Laws of God and Nature if a general Rule had bin set which had obliged all to be for ever subject to the Will of one and they had not bin the best but the worst of men who had departed from it Nay I may say that the Law given by God to his peculiar People and the Commands delivered by his Servants in order to it or the prosecution of it had bin contrary to his own eternal and universal Law which is impossible A Law therefore having bin given by God which had no relation to or consistency with the absolute paternal power Judges and Kings created who had no pretence to any preference before their Brethren till they were created and commanded not to raise their Hearts above them when they should be created the Wisdom and Vertue of the best men in all ages shewn in the constitution or reformation of Governments and Nations in variously framing them preserving the possession of their natural Right to be governed by none and in no other way than they should appoint The opinions of Hooker That all publick regiment of what kind soever ariseth from the deliberate advice of men seeking their own good and that all other is meer Tyranny are not untrue and unnatural conceits set abroad by the Seedsmen of Rebellion but real Truths grounded upon the Laws of God and Nature acknowledged and practised by Mankind And no Nation being justly subject to any but such as they set up nor in any other manner than according to such Laws as they ordain the right of chusing and making those that are to govern them must wholly depend upon their Will SECT VII The Laws of every Nation are the measure of Migistratical Power OUr Author lays much weight upon the word Hereditary but the question is What is inherited in an Hereditary Kingdom and how it comes to be hereditary 'T is in vain to say the Kingdom for we do not know what he means by the Kingdom 't is one thing in one place and very different in others and I think it not easy to find two in the world that in power are exactly the same If he understand all that is comprehended within the precincts over which it reaches I deny that any such is to be found in the World If he refer to what preceding Kings enjoyed no determination can be made till the first original of that Kingdom be examined that it may be known what that first King had and from whence he had it If this variety be denied I desire to know whether the Kings of Sparta and Persia had the same power over their Subjects if the same whether both were absolute or both limited if limited how came the Decrees of the Persian Kings to pass for Laws if absolute how could the Spartan Kings be subject to Fines Imprisonment or the sentence of Death and not to have power to send for their own Supper out of the Common Hall Why did Xenophon call Agesilaus a good and faithful King obedient to the Laws of his Country when upon the command of the Ephori he left the War that he had with so much glory begun in Asia if he was subject to none How came the Ephori to be established to restrain the Power of Kings if it could no way be restrained if all owed obedience to them and they to none Why did Theopompus his Wife reprove him for suffering his power to be diminished by their creation if it could not be diminished Or why did he say he had made the Power more permanent in making it less odious if it was perpetual and unalterable We may go farther and taking Xenophon and Plutarch for our guides assert that the Kings of Sparta never had the powers of War or Peace Life and Death which our Author esteems inseparable from Regality and conclude either that no King has them or that all Kings are not alike in power If they are not in all places the same Kings do not reign by an universal Law but by the particular Laws of each Country which give to every one so much power as in the opinion of the givers conduces to the end of their institution which is the publick good It may be also worth our inquiry how this inherited Power came to be hereditary We know that the
Sons of Vespasian and Constantine inherited the Roman Empire tho their Fathers had no such title but gaining the Empire by violence which Hooker says is meer Tyranny that can create no right they could devolve none to their Children The Kings of France of the three races have inherited the Crown but Meroveus Pepin and Hugh Capet could neither pretend title nor conquest or any other Right than what was conferred upon them by the Clergy Nobility and People and consequently whatsoever is inherited from them can have no other Original for that is the gift of the People which is bestowed upon the first under whom the Successors claim as if it had bin by a peculiar Act given to every one of them It will be more hard to shew how the Crown of England is become hereditary unless it be by the Will of the People for tho it were granted that some of the Saxon Kings came in by inheritance which I do not having as I think proved them to have bin absolutely elective yet William the Norman did not for he was a Bastard and could inherit nothing William Rufus and Henry did not for their elder Brother Robert by right of inheritance ought to have bin preferred before them Stephen and Henry the second did not for Maud the only Heiress of Henry the first was living when both were crowned Richard John and those who followed did not for they were Bastards born in adultery They must therefore have received their Right from the People or they could have none at all and their Successors fall under the same condition Moreover I find great variety in the deduction of this hereditary Right In Sparta there were two Kings of different Families endowed with an equal power If the Heraclidae did reign as Fathers of the People the AEacidae did not if the right was in the AEacidae the Heraclidae could have none for 't is equally impossible to have two Fathers as two thousand 'T is in vain to say that two Families joined and agreed to reign jointly for 't is evident the Spartans had Kings before the time of Hercules or Achilles who were the Fathers of the two Races If it be said that the regal power with which they were invested did entitle them to the right of Fathers it must in like manner have belonged to the Roman Consuls Military Tribunes Dictators and Pretors for they had more Power than the Spartan Kings and that glorious Nation might change their Fathers every year and multiply or diminish the number of them as they pleased If this be most ridiculous and absurd 't is certain that the Name and Office of King Consul Dictator or the like dos not confer any determined Right upon the Person that hath it Every one has a right to that which is allotted to him by the Laws of the Country by which he is created As the Persians Spartans Romans or Germans might make such Magistrates and under such names as best pleased themselves and accordingly enlarge or diminish their Power the same Right belongs to all Nations and the Rights due unto as well as the Duties incumbent upon every one are to be known only by the Laws of that place This may seem strange to those who know neither Books nor Things Histories nor Laws but is well explain'd by Grotius who denying the Soveraign Power to be annexed to any Man speaks of divers Magistrates under several names that had and others that under the same names had it not and distinguishes those who have the Summum Imperium summo modo from those who have it modo non summo and tho probably he looked upon the first sort as a thing meerly speculative if by that summo modo a right of doing what one pleases be understood yet he gives many Examples of the other and among those who had liberrimum imperium if any had it he names the Kings of the Sabeans who nevertheless were under such a condition that tho they were as Agatharchidas reports obeyed in all things whilst they continued within the Walls of their Palace might be stoned by any that met them without it He finds also another obstacle to the Absolute power Cum Rex partem habeat summi Imperii partem Senatus sive Populus which parts are proportioned according to the Laws of each Kingdom whether Hereditary or Elective both being equally regulated by them The Law that gives and measures the Power prescribes Rules how it should be transmitted In some places the supreme Magistrates are annually elected in others their Power is for life in some they are meerly elective in others hereditary under certain Rules or Limitations The antient Kingdoms and Lordships of Spain were hereditary but the Succession went ordinarily to the eldest of the reigning Family not to the nearest in Blood This was the ground of the Quarrel between Corbis the Brother and Orsua the Son of the last Prince decided by Combat before Scipio I know not whether the Goths brought that custom with them when they conquered Spain or whether they learnt it from the Inhabitants but certain it is that keeping themselves to the Families of the Balthei and Amalthei they had more regard to Age than Proximity and almost ever preferred the Brother or eldest Kinsman of the last King before his Son The like custom was in use among the Moors in Spain and Africa who according to the several Changes that happened among the Families of Almohades Almoranides and Benemerini did always take one of the reigning Blood but in the choice of him had most respect to Age and Capacity This is usually called the Law of Thanestry and as in many other places prevailed also in Ireland till that Country fell under the English Government In France and Turky the Male that is nearest in Blood succeeds and I do not know of any deviation from that Rule in France since Henry the First was preferred before Robert his elder Brother Grandchild to Hugh Capet but notwithstanding the great veneration they have for the Royal Blood they utterly exclude Females lest the Crown should fall to a Stranger or a Woman that is seldom able to govern her self should come to govern so great a People Some Nations admit Females either simply as well as Males or under a condition of not marrying out of their Country or without the consent of the Estates with an absolute exclusion of them and their Children if they do according to which Law now in force among the Swedes Charles Gustavus was chosen King upon the resignation of Queen Christina as having no Title and the Crown setled upon the Heirs of his Body to the utter exclusion of his Brother Adolphus their Mother having married a German Tho divers Nations have differently disposed their Affairs all those that are not naturally Slaves and like to Beasts have preferred their own Good before the personal Interests of him that expects the Crown so as upon no pretence
should attribute Order and Stability to it whereas Order doth principally consist in appointing to every one his right Place Office or Work and this lays the whole weight of the Government upon one Person who very often dos neither deserve nor is able to bear the least part of it Plato Aristotle Hooker and I may say in short all wise men have held that Order required that the wisest best and most valiant Men should be placed in the Offices where Wisdom Vertue and Valour are requisite If common sense did not teach us this we might learn it from the Scripture When God gave the conduct of his People to Moses Joshua Samuel and others he endowed them with all the Vertues and Graces that were required for the right performance of their Duty When the Israelites were oppressed by the Midianites Philistins and Ammonites they expected help from the most wise and valiant When Hannibal was at the Gates of Rome and had filled Italy with Fire and Blood or when the Gauls overwhelmed that Country with their multitudes and fury the Senate and People of Rome put themselves under the conduct of Camillus Manlius Fabius Scipio and the like and when they failed to chuse such as were fit for the work to be done they received such defeats as convinced them of their Error But if our Author say true Order did require that the Power of defending the Country should have bin annexed as an Inheritance to one Family or lest to him that could get it and the exercise of all Authority committed to the next in Blood tho the weakest of Women or the basest of Men. The like may be said of judging or doing of Justice and 't is absurd to pretend that either is expected from the Power not the Person of the Monarch for experience doth too well shew how much all things halt in relation to Justice or Defence when there is a defect in him that ought to judg us and to fight our Battels But of all things this ought least to be alledged by the Advocates for absolute Monarchy who deny that the Authority can be separated from the Person and lay it as a fundamental Principle that whosoever hath it may do what he pleases and be accountable to no man Our Author's next work is to shew that Stability is the effect of this good Order but he ought to have known that Stability is then only worthy of praise when it is in that which is good No man delights in sickness or pain because it is long or incurable nor in slavery and misery because it is perpetual much less will any man in his senses commend a permanency in vice and wickedness He must therefore prove that the Stability he boasts of is in things that are good or all that he says of it signifies nothing I might leave him here with as little fear that any man who shall espouse his Quarrel shall ever be able to remove this Obstacle as that he himself should rise out of his Grave and do it But I hope to prove that of all things under the Sun there is none more mutable or unstable than Absolute Monarchy which is all that I dispute against professing much veneration for that which is mixed regulated by Law and directed to the Publick Good This might be proved by many Arguments but I shall confine my self to two the one drawn from Reason the other from matters of Fact Nothing can be called stable that is not so in Principle and Practice in which respect human Nature is not well capable of Stability but the utmost deviation from it that can be imagined is when such an Error is laid for a Foundation as can never be corrected All will confess that if there be any Stability in man it must be in Wisdom and Vertue and in those Actions that are thereby directed for in weakness solly and madness there can be none The Stability therefore that we seek in relation to the exercise of Civil and Military Powers can never be found unless care be taken that such as shall exercise those Powers be endowed with the Qualities that should make them stable This is utterly repugnant to our Author's Doctrine He lays for a Foundation That the Succession goes to the next in Blood without distinction of Age Sex or personal Qualities whereas even he himself could not have the impudence to say that Children and Women where they are admitted or Fools Madmen and such as are full of all wickedness do not come to be the Heirs of reigning Families as well as of the meanest The Stability therefore that can be expected from such a Government either depends upon those who have none in themselves or is referred wholly to Chance which is directly opposite to Stability This would be the case tho it were as we say an even Wager whether the Person would be fit or unfit and that there were as many men in the world able as unable to perform the Duty of a King but Experience shewing that among many millions of men there is hardly one that possesses the Qualities required in a King 't is so many to one that he upon whom the Lot shall fall will not be the man we seek in whose Person and Government there can be such a stability as is asserted And that failing all must necessarily fail for there can be no stability in his Will Laws or Actions who has none in his Person That we may see whether this be verified by Experience we need not search into the dark relations of the Babylonian and Assyrian Monarchies Those rude Ages afford us little instruction and tho the fragments of History remaining do sufficiently show that all things there were in perpetual fluctuation by reason of the madness of their Kings and the violence of those who transported the Empire from one Place or Family to another I will not much rely upon them but slightly touching some of their Stories pass to those that are better known to us The Kings of those Ages seem to have lived rather like Beasts in a Forest than Men joined in Civil Society they followed the Example of Nimrod the mighty Hunter Force was the only Law that prevailed the stronger devoured the weaker and continued in Power till he was ejected by one of more strength or better fortune By this means the race of Ninus was destroy'd by Belochus Arbaces rent the Kingdom asunder and took Media to himself Morodach extinguished the Race of Belochus and was made King Nabuchodonosor like a Flood overwhelmed all sor a time destroy'd the Kingdoms of Jerusalem and Egypt with many others and found no obstacle till his rage and pride turned to a most bestial madness And the Assyrian Empire was wholly abolish'd at the death of his Grandchild Belshazzar and no Stability can be found in the reigns of those great Kings unless that name be given to the Pride Idolatry Cruelty and Wickedness in which they remained constant If
much as they who have a part cannot but have a right of defending that part Quia data facultate datur jus faculiatem tuendi without which it could be of no effect The particular limits of the Rights belonging to each can only be judged by the precise Letter or general Intention of the Law The Dukes of Venice have certainly a part in the Government and could not be called Magistrates if they had not They are said to be supreme all Laws and publick Acts bear their Names The Ambassador of that State speaking to Pope Paul the 5th denied that he acknowledged any other Superior than God But they are so well known to be under the Power of the Law that divers of them have bin put to death for transgressing it and a marble Gallows is seen at the foot of the stairs in St. Mark 's Palace upon which some of them and no others have bin executed But if they may be duly opposed when they commit undue Acts no man of judgment will deny that if one of them by an outragious Violence should endeavour to overthrow the Law he might by violence be suppressed and chastised Again some Magistrates are entrusted with a power of providing Ships Arms Ammunition and Victuals for War raising and disciplining Soldiers appointing Officers to command in Forts and Garisons and making Leagues with Foreign Princes and States But if one of these should imbezel sell or give to an Enemy those Ships Arms Ammunition or Provisions betray the Forts employ only or principally such men as will serve him in those wicked Actions and contrary to the trust reposed in him make such Leagues with Foreigners as tend to the advancement of his personal Interests and to the detriment of the Publick he abrogates his own Magistracy and the Right he had perishes as the Lawyers say frustratione finis He cannot be protected by the Law which he has overthrown nor obtain impunity for his Crimes from the Authority that was conferred upon him only that he might do good with it He was singulis major on account of the excellence of his Office but universis minor from the nature and end of his institution The surest way of extinguishing his Prerogative was by turning it to the hurt of those who gave it When matters are brought to this posture the Author of the mischief or the Nation must perish A Flock cannot subsist under a Shepherd that seeks its ruin nor a People under an unfaithful Magistrate Honour and Riches are justly heaped upon the heads of those who rightly perform their duty because the difficulty as well as the excellency of the work is great It requires Courage Experience Industry Fidelity and Wisdom The good Shepherd says our Saviour says down his life for his Sheep The Hireling who flies in time of danger is represented under an ill character but he that sets himself to destroy his Flock is a Wolf His Authority is incompatible with their subsistence and whoever disapproves Tumults Seditions or War by which he may be removed from it if gentler means are ineffectual subverts the Foundation of all Law exalts the fury of one man to the destruction of a Nation and giving an irresistible Power to the most abominable Iniquity exposes all that are good to be destroy'd and Virtue to be utterly extinguished Few will allow such a Preeminence to the Dukes of Venice or Genoa the Advoyers of Switzerland or the Burgomasters of Amsterdam Many will say these are Rascals if they prove false and ought rather to be hang'd than suffer'd to accomplish the Villanies they design But if this be confess'd in relation to the highest Magistrates that are among those Nations why should not the same be in all others by what name soever they are called When did God confer upon those Nations the extraordinary privilege of providing better for their own safety than others Or was the Gift universal tho the Benefit accrue only to those who have banished great Titles from among them If this be so 't is not their Felicity but their Wisdom that we ought to admire and imitate But why should any think their Ancestors had not the same care Have not they who retain'd in themselves a Power over a Magistrate of one name the like over another Is there a charm in words or any name of such efficacy that he who receives it should immediately become Master of those that created him whereas all others do remain for ever subject to them Would the Venetian Government change its nature if they should give the name of King to their Prince Are the Polanders less free since the title of King is conferr'd upon their Dukes or are the Moscovites less Slaves because their chief Magistrate has no other than that of Duke If we examine things but a little 't will appear that Magistrates have enjoy'd large Powers who never had the name of Kings and none were ever more restrained by Laws than those of Sparta Arragon the Goths in Spain Hungary Bohemia Sweden Denmark Poland and others who had that Title There is therefore no such thing as a Right universally belonging to a Name but every one enjoys that which the Laws by which he is confer upon him The Law that gives the Power regulates it and they who give no more than what they please cannot be obliged to suffer him to whom they give it to take more than they thought fit to give or to go unpunished if he do The Agreements made are always confirmed by Oath and the treachery of violating them is consequently aggravated by Perjury They are good Philosophers and able Divines who think this can create a Right to those who had none or that the Laws can be a protection to such as overthrow them and give opportunity of doing the mischiefs they design If it do not then he that was a Magistrate by such actions returns into the condition of a private man and whatever is lawful against a Thief who submits to no Law is lawful against him Men who delight in cavils may ask Who shall be the Judg of these occasions and whether I intend to give to the People the decision of their own Cause To which I answer that when the Contest is between the Magistrate and the People the party to which the determination is referred must be the Judg of his own case and the question is only Whether the Magistrate should depend upon the Judgment of the People or the People on that of the Magistrate and which is most to be suspected of injustice That is whether the people of Rome should judg Tarquin or Tarquin judg the people He that knew all good men abhorred him for the murder of his Wife Brother Father-in-law and the best of the Senate would certainly strike off the heads of the most eminent remaining Poppies and having incurr'd the general hatred of the people by the wickedness of his Government he seared revenge and endeavouring to
say Saisit le vif There can be therefore no such Law or it serves for nothing If there be Judges to interpret the Law no man is a King till judgment be given in his favour and he is not King by his own Title but by the Sentence given by them If there be none the Law is merely imaginary and every man may in his own case make it what he pleases He who has a Crown in his view and Arms in his hand wants nothing but success to make him a King and if he prosper all men are obliged to obey him 'T is a folly to say the matter is clear and needs no decision for every man knows that no Law concerning private Inheritances can be so exactly drawn but many Controversies will arise upon it that must be decided by a Power to which both Parties are subject and the disputes concerning Kingdoms are so much the more difficult because this Law is no where to be found and the more dangerous because the Competitors are for the most part more powerful Again this Law must either be general to all mankind or particular to each Nation If particular a matter of such importance requires good proof when where how and by whom it was given to every one But the Scriptures testifying to the contrary that God gave Laws to the Jews only and that no such thing as hereditary Monarchy according to proximity of Blood was prescribed by them we may safely say that God did never give any such Law to every particular nor to any Nation If he did not give it to any one he did not give it to all for every one is comprehended in all and if no one has it 't is impossible that all can have it or that it should be obligatory to all when no man knows or can tell when where and by what hand it was given nor what is the sense of it all which is evident by the various Laws and Customs of Nations in the disposal of hereditary Successions And no one of them that we know has to this day bin able to shew that the method follow'd by them is more according to nature than that of others If our Author pretend to be God's Interpreter and to give the solution of these doubts I may ask which of the five following ways are appointed by God and then we may examine Cases resulting from them 1. In France Turky and other places the Succession comes to the next Male in the streight eldest Line according to which the Son is preferr'd before the Brother of him who last enjoy'd the Crown as the present King of France before his Uncle the Duke of Orleans and the Son of the eldest before the Brothers of the eldest as in the case of Richard the second of England who was advanced preferably to all the Brothers of the black Prince his Father 2. Others keep to the Males of the reigning Family yet have more regard to the eldest Man than to the eldest Line and representation taking no place among them the eldest Man is thought to be nearest to the first King and a second Son of the person that last reigned to be nearer to him than his Grandchild by the eldest Son according to which Rule any one of the Sons of Edward the third remaining after his death should have bin preferr'd before Richard the second who was his Grandchild 3. In the two cases beforementioned no manner of regard is had to Females who being thought naturally uncapable of commanding men or performing the Functions of a Magistrate are together with their Descendents utterly excluded from the supreme as well as from the inferior Magistracies and in Turky France and other great Kingdoms have no pretence to any Title But in some places and particularly in England the advantages of Proximity belong to them as well as to Males by which means our Crown has bin transported to several Families and Nations 4. As in some places they are utterly rejected and in others received simply without any condition so those are not wanting where that of not marrying out of the Country or without the consent of the Estates is imposed of which Sweden is an Example 5. In some places Proximity of Blood is only regarded whether the Issue be legitimate or illegitimate in others Bastards are wholly excluded By this variety of Judgments made by several Nations upon this Point it may appear that tho it were agreed by all that the next in Blood ought to succeed yet such Contests would arise upon the interpretation and application of the general Rule as must necessarily be a perpetual Spring of irreconcilable and mortal Quarrels If any man say The Rule observed in England is that which God gave to Mankind I leave him first to dispute that point with the Kings of France and many others who can have no right to the Crowns they wear if it be admitted and in the next place to prove that our Ancestors had a more immediate communication with God and a more certain knowledge of his Will than others who for any thing we know may be of Authority equal to them but in the mean time we may rationally conclude that if there be such a Rule we have had no King in England for the space of almost a thousand years having not had one who did not come to the Crown by a most manifest violation of it as appears by the forecited Examples of William the first and second Henry the first Henry the second and his Children John Edward the third Henry the fourth Edward the fourth and his Children Henry the seventh and all that claim under any of them And if Possession or Success can give a right it will I think follow that Jack Straw Wat Tyler Perkin Warbeck or any other Rascal might have had it if he had bin as happy as bold in his Enterprize This is no less than to expose Crowns to the first that can seize them to destroy all Law and Rule and to render Right a slave to Fortune If this be so a late Earl of Pembroke whose understanding was not thought great judged rightly when he said his Grandfather was a wise man tho he could neither write nor read in as much as he resolved to follow the Crown tho it were upon a Coalstaff But if this be sufficient to make a wise man 't is pity the secret was no sooner discovered since many who for want of it liv'd and died in all the infamy that justly accompanies Knavery Cowardice and Folly might have gained the reputation of the most excellent Men in their several ages The bloody Factions with which all Nations subject to this sort of Monarchy have bin perpetually vexed might have bin prevented by throwing up cross or pile or by battel between the Competitors body to body as was done by Corbis and Orsua Cleorestes and Polinices Ironside and Canutus it being most unreasonable or rather impiously absurd for any to
and People came to be Master of so much of the Country as procured him the name of King of France killed his eldest Son on suspicion that he was excited against him by Brunehaud and his Second lest he should revenge the death of his Brother he married Fredegonde and was soon after kill'd by her Adulterer Landry The Kingdom continued in the same misery through the rage of the surviving Princes and found no relief tho most of them fell by the Sword and that Brunehaud who had bin a principal cause of those Tragedies was tied to the tails of four wild Horses and suffer'd a death as foul as her life These were Lions and Leopards They involved the Kingdom in desperate troubles but being men of valour and industry they kept up in some measure the Reputation and Power of the Nation and he who attain'd to the Crown defended it But they being fallen by the hands of each other the poisonous Root put forth another Plague more mortal than their Fury The vigour was spent and the Succession becoming more settled ten base and slothful Kings by the French called Les Roys faineans succeeded Some may say They who do nothing do no hurt but the rule is false in relation to Kings He that takes upon him the government of a People can do no greater evil than by doing nothing nor be guilty of a more unpardonable Crime than by Negligence Cowardice Voluptuousness and Sloth to desert his charge Virtue and Manhood perish under him good Discipline is forgotten Justice slighted the Laws perverted or rendred useless the People corrupted the publick Treasures exhausted and the Power of the Government always falling into the hands of Flatterers Whores Favorites Bawds and such base wretches as render it contemptible a way is laid open for all manner of disorders The greatest cruelty that has bin known in the world if accompanied with wit and courage never did so much hurt as this slothful bestiality or rather these slothful Beasts have ever bin most cruel The Reigns of Septimius Severus Mahomet the second or Selim the second were cruel and bloody but their fury was turned against Foreigners and some of their near Relations or against such as fell under the suspicion of making attempts against them The condition of the people was tolerable those who would be quiet might be safe the Laws kept their right course the Reputation of the Empire was maintained the Limits defended and the publick Peace preserved But when the Sword passed into the hands of lewd slothful foolish and cowardly Princes it was of no power against foreign Enemies or the disturbers of domestic Peace tho always sharp against the best of their own Subjects No man knew how to secure himself against them unless by raising civil Wars which will always be frequent when a Crown defended by a weak hand is proposed as a Prize to any that dare invade it This is a perpetual Spring of disorders and no Nation was ever quiet when the most eminent men found less danger in the most violent Attempts than in submitting patiently to the Will of a Prince that suffers his Power to be managed by vile Persons who get credit by flattering him in his Vices But this is not all such Princes naturally hate and fear those who excel them in Virtue and Reputation as much as they are inferior to them in Fortune and think their Persons cannot be secured nor their Authority enlarged except by their destruction 'T is ordinary for them inter scorta ganeas principibus viris perniciem machinare and to make Cruelty a cover to Ignorance and Cowardice Besides the Mischiefs brought upon the Publick by the loss of eminent Men who are the Pillars of every State such Reigns are always accompanied with Tumults and Civil Wars the great Men striving with no less violence who shall get the weak Prince into his power when such regard is had to succession that they think it not fit to devest him of the Title than when with less respect they contend for the Soveraignty it self And whilst this sort of Princes reigned France was not less afflicted with the Contests between Grimbauld Ebroin Grimoald and others for the Mayoralty of the Palace than they had bin before by the rage of those Princes who had contested for the Crown The Issue also was the same After many Revolutions Charles Martel gained the Power of the Kingdom which he had so bravely defended against the Saracens and having transmitted it to his Son Pepin the General Assembly of Estates with the approbation of Mankind conferred the Title also upon him This gave the Nation ease for the present but the deep-rooted Evil could not be so cured and the Kingdom that by the Wisdom Valour and Reputation of Pepin had bin preserved from civil Troubles during his life fell as deeply as ever into them so soon as he was dead His Sons Carloman and Charles divided the Dominions but in a little time each of them would have all Carloman fill'd the Kingdom with Tumult raised the Lombards and marched with a great Army against his Brother till his course was interrupted by death caused as is supposed by such helps as Princes liberally afford to their aspiring Relations Charles deprived his two Sons of their Inheritance put them in Prison and we hear no more of them His third Brother Griffon was not more quiet nor more successful and there could be no Peace in Gascony Italy or Germany till he was kill'd But all the Advantages which Charles by an extraordinary Virtue and Fortune had purchased for his Country ended with his life He left his Son Lewis the Gentle in possession of the Empire and Kingdom of France and his Grandson Bernard King of Italy But these two could not agree and Bernard falling into the hands of Lewis was deprived of his Eyes and some time after kill'd This was not enough to preserve the Peace Lothair Lewis and Pepin all three Sons to Lewis rebelled against him called a Council at Lions deposed him and divided the Empire amongst themselves After five years he escaped from the Monastery where he had bin kept renew'd the War and was again taken Prisoner by Lothair When he was dead the War broke out more fiercely than ever between his Children Lothair the Emperor assaulted Lewis King of Bavaria and Charles King of Rhetia was defeated by them and confined to a Monastery where he died New Quarrels arose between the two Brothers upon the division of the Countries taken from him and Lorrain only was left to his Son Lewis died soon after and Charles getting possession of the Empire and Kingdom ended an inglorious Reign in an unprosperous attempt to deprive Hermingrade Daughter to his Brother Lewis of the Kingdom of Arles and other places left to her by her Father Lewis his Son call'd the Stutterer reigned two years in much trouble and his only legitimate Son Charles the Simple came not to the
kill'd his Children and not long after his own Son Rhadamistus also Louis the eleventh of France James the third of Scotland Henry the seventh of England were great Masters of these Arts and those who are acquainted with History will easily judg how happy Nations would be if all Kings did in time certainly learn them Our Author as a farther testimony of his Judgment having said that Kings must needs excel others in Understanding and grounded his Doctrin upon their profound Wisdom imputes to them those base and panick fears which are inconsistent with it or any royal Virtue and to carry the point higher tells us There is no Tyrant so barbarously wicked but his own reason and sense will tell him that tho he be a God yet he must die like a Man and that there is not the meanest of his Sabjects but may find a means to revenge himself of the Injuries offer'd him and from thence concludes that there is no such Tyranny as that of a Multitude which is subject to no such fears But if there be such a thing in the World as a barbarous and wicked Tyrant he is something different from a King or the same and his Wisdom is consistent or inconsistent with Barbarity Wickedness and Tyranny If there be no difference the praises he gives and the rights he ascribes to the one belong also to the other and the excellency of Wisdom may consist with Barbarity Wickedness Tyranny and the panick fears that accompany them which hitherto have bin thought to comprehend the utmost excesses of Folly and Madness and I know no better testimony of the truth of that Opinion than that Wisdom always distinguishing good from evil and being seen only in the rectitude of that distinction in following and adhering to the good rejecting that which is evil preferring safety before danger happiness before misery and in knowing rightly how to use the means of attaining or preserving the one and preventing or avoiding the other there cannot be a more extravagant deviation from Reason than for a man who in a private condition might live safely and happily to invade a Principality or if he be a Prince who by governing with Justice and Clemency might obtain the inward satisfaction of his own Mind hope for the blessing of God upon his just and virtuous Actions acquire the love and praises of men and live in safety and happiness amongst his safe and happy Subjects to fall into that Barbarity Wickedness and Tyranny which brings upon him the displeasure of God and detestation of men and which is always attended with those base and panick fears that comprehend all that is shameful and miserable This being perceiv'd by Machiavel he could not think that any man in his senses would not rather be a Scipio than a Cesar or if he came to be a Prince would not rather chuse to imitate Agesilaus Timoleon or Dion than Nabis Phalaris or Dionysius and imputes the contrary choice to madness Nevertheless 't is too well known that many of our Author 's profound wise men in the depth of their Judgment made perfect by use and experience have fallen into it If there be a difference between this barbarous wicked Tyrant and a King we are to examine who is the Tyrant and who the King for the name conferred or assumed cannot make a King unless he be one He who is not a King can have no Title to the rights belonging to him who is truly a King so that a People who find themselves wickedly and barbarously oppressed by a Tyrant may destroy him and his Tyranny without giving offence to any King But 't is strange that Filmer should speak of the barbarity and wickedness of a Tyrant who looks upon the World to be the Patrimony of one man and for the foundation of his Doctrin afferts such a power in every one that makes himself master of any part as cannot be limited by any Law His Title is not to be questioned Usurpation and Violence confer an incontestable Right the exercise of his Power is no more to be disputed than the Acquisition his will is a Law to his Subjects and no Law can be imposed by them upon his Conduct For if these things be true I know not how any man could ever be called a Tyrant that name having never bin given to any unless for usurping a Power that did not belong to him or an unjust exercise of that which had bin conferred upon him and violating the Laws which ought to be a rule to him 'T is also hard to imagin how any man can be called barbarous and wicked if he be obliged by no Law but that of his own Pleasure for we have no other notion of wrong than that it is a breach of the Law which determines what is right If the lives and goods of Subjects depend upon the Will of the Prince and he in his profound Wisdom preserve them only to be beneficial to himself they can have no other right than what he gives and without injustice may retain when he thinks fit If there be no wrong there can be no just revenge and he that pretends to seek it is not a free man vindicating his Right but a perverse slave rising up against his Master But if there be such a thing as a barbarous and wicked Tyrant there must be a rule relating to the acquisition and exercise of the Power by which he may be distinguish'd from a just King and a Law superior to his Will by the violation of which he becomes barbarous and wicked Tho our Author so far forgets himself to confess this to be true he seeks to destroy the fruits of it by such flattery as comprehends all that is most detestable in Profaneness and Blasphemy and gives the name of Gods to the most execrable of men He may by such language deserve the name of Heylin's Disciple but will find few among the Heathens so basely servile or so boldly impious Tho Claudius Cesar was a drunken sot and transported with the extravagance of his Fortune he detested the impudence of his Predecessor Caligula who affected that Title and in his rescript to the Procurator of Judea gives it no better name than turpem Caii insaniam For this reason it was rejected by all his Pagan Successors who were not as furiously wicked as he yet Filmer has thought fit to renew it for the benefit of Mankind and the glory of the Christian Religion I know not whether these extreme and barbarous Errors of our Author are to be imputed to wickedness or madness or whether to save the pains of a distinction they may not rightly be said to be the same thing but nothing less than the excess of both could induce him to attribute any thing of good to the fears of a Tyrant since they are the chief causes of all the mischiefs he dos Tertullian says they are Metu quam furore saeviores and Tacitus speaking of a most
had a power like to that of the Sanhedrin and by them Kings were condemned to fines imprisonment banishment and death as appears by the examples of Pausanias Clonymus Leonidas Agis and others The Hebrew Discipline was the same Reges Davidicae stirpis says Maimonides judicabant judicabantur They gave testimony in judgment when they were called and testimony was given against them Whereas the Kings of Israel as the same Author says were superbi corde elati spretores legis nec judicabant nec judicabantur proud insolent and contemners of the Law who would neither judg nor submit to judgment as the Law commanded The Fruits they gathered were sutable to the Seed they had sown their Crimes were not left unpunish'd they who despised the Law were destroy'd without Law and when no ordinary course could be taken against them for their excesses they were overthrown by force and the Crown within the space of sew years transported into nine several Families with the utter extirpation of those that had possess'd it On the other hand there never was any Sedition against the Spartan Kings and after the moderate Discipline according to which they liv'd was established none of them died by the hands of their Subjects except only two who were put to death in a way of Justice the Kingdom continued in the same races till Cleomenes was defeated by Antigonus and the Government overthrown by the insolence of the Macedonians This gave occasion to those bestial Tyrants Nabis and Machanidas to set up such a Government as our Author recommends to the World which immediately brought destruction upon themselves and the whole City The Germans who pretended to be descended from the Spartans had the like Government Their Princes according to their merit had the credit of perswading not the power of commanding and the question was not what part of the Government their Kings would allow to the Nobility and People but what they would give to their Kings and 't is not much material to our present dispute whether they learnt this from some obscure knowledg of the Law which God gave to his People or whether led by the light of reason which is also from God they discovered what was altogether conformable to that Law Whoever understands the affairs of Germany knows that the present Emperors notwithstanding their haughty Title have a power limited as in the days of Tacitus If they are good and wise they may perswade but they can command no farther than the Law allows They do not admit the Princes Noblemen and Cities to the power which they all exercise in their general Diets and each of them within their own Precincts but they exercise that which has bin by publick consent bestow'd upon them All the Kingdoms peopled from the North observed the same rules In all of them the powers were divided between the Kings the Nobility Clergy and Commons and by the Decrees of Councils Diets Parliaments Cortez and Assemblies of Estates Authority and Liberty were so balanced that such Princes as assumed to themselves more than the Law did permit were severely punished and those who did by force or fraud invade Thrones were by force thrown down from them This was equally beneficial to Kings and People The Powers as Theopompus King of Sparta said were most safe when they were least envied and hated Lewis the 11th of France was one of the first that broke this Golden Chain and by more subtil Arts than had bin formerly known subverted the Laws by which the fury of those Kings had bin restrain'd and taught others to do the like tho all of them have not so well saved themselves from punishment James the third of Scotland was one of his most apt Scholars and Buchanan in his life says That he was precipitated into all manner of Infamy by men of the most abject condition that the corruption of those times and the ill Example of neighbouring Princes were considerable motives to pervert him for Edward the fourth of England Charles of Burgundy Lewis the 11th of France and John the second of Portugal had already laid the Foundations of Tyranny in those Countries and Richard the third was then most cruelly exercising the same in the Kingdom of England This could not have bin if all the Power had always bin in Kings and neither the People nor the Nobility had ever had any For no man can be said to gain that which he and his Predecessors always possessed or to take from others that which they never had nor to set up any sort of Government if it had bin always the same But the foresaid Lewis the 11th did assume to himself a Power above that of his Predecessors and Philip de Commines shews the ways by which he acquir'd it with the miserable effects of his Acquisition both to himself and to his people Modern Authors observe that the change was made by him and for that reason he is said by Mezeray and others to have brought those Kings out of Guardianship they were not therefore so till he did emancipate them Nevertheless this Emancipation had no resemblance to the unlimited Power of which our Author dreams The General Assemblies of Estates were often held long after his death and continued in the exercise of the Sovereign Power of the Nation Davila speaking of the General Assembly held at Orleans in the time of Francis the second asserts the whole Power of the Nation to have bin in them Monsieur de Thou says the same thing and adds that the King dying suddenly the Assembly continued even at the desire of the Council in the exercise of that Power till they had setled the Regency and other Affairs of the highest importance according to their own judgment Hottoman a Lawyer of that Time and Nation famous for his Learning Judgment and Integrity having diligently examin'd the antient Laws and Histories of that Kingdom distinctly proves that the French Nation never had any Kings but of their own chusing that their Kings had no Power except what was conferr'd upon them and that they had bin removed when they excessively abused or readred themselves unworthy of that Trust. This is sufficiently clear by the forecited examples of Pharamond's Grandchildren and the degenerated Races of Meroveus and Pepin of which many were deposed some of the nearest in Blood excluded and when their Vices seemed to be incorrigible they were wholly rejected All this was done by virtue of that Rule which they call the Salique Law And tho some of our Princes pretending to the Inheritance of that Crown by marrying the Heirs General denied that there was any such thing no man can say that for the space of above twelve hundred years Females or their Descendents who are by that Law excluded have ever bin thought to have any right to the Crown And no Law unless it be explicitly given by God can be of greater Authority than one which
not the least similitude of either And tho it were true that Fathers are held by no contracts which generally 't is not for when the Son is of age and dos something for the Father to which he is not obliged or gives him that which he is not bound to give suppose an Inheritance received from a Friend goods of his own acquisition or that he be emancipated all good Laws look upon those things as a valuable consideration and give the same force to contracts thereupon made as to those that pass between strangers it could have no relation to our question concerning Kings One principal reason that renders it very little necessary by the Laws of Nations to restrain the power of Parents over their Children is because 't is presumed they cannot abuse it they are thought to have a Law in their Bowels obliging them more strictly to seek their good than all those that can be laid upon them by another Power and yet if they depart from it so as inhumanly to abuse or kill their Children they are punished with as much rigour and accounted more unpardonable than other men Ignorance or wilful malice perswading our Author to pass over all this he boldly affirms That the Father of a family governs it by no other Law than his own Will and from thence infers that the condition of Kings is the same He would seem to soften the harshness of this Proposition by saying That a King is always tied by the same Law of Nature to keep this general ground that the safety of the Kingdom is his chief Law But he spoils it in the next page by asserting That it is not right for Kings to do injury but it is right that they go unpunished by the People if they do so that in this point it is all one whether Samuel describe a King or a Tyrant for patient obedience is due unto both no remedy in the Text against Tyrants but crying and praying unto God in that day In this our Author according to the custom of Theaters runs round in a Circle pretends to grant that which is true and then by a lie endeavours to destroy all again Kings by the Law of Nature are obliged to seek chiefly the good of the Kingdom but there is no remedy if they do it not which is no less than to put all upon the Conscience of those who manifestly have none But if God has appointed that all other transgressions of the Laws of Nature by which a private man receives damage should be punished in this world notwithstanding the right reserved to himself of a future punishment I desire to know why this alone by which whole Nations may be and often are destroy'd should escape the hands of Justice If he presume no Law to be necessary in this case because it cannot be thought that Kings will transgress as there was no Law in Sparta against Adultery because it was not thought possible for men educated under that discipline to be guilty of such a Crime and as divers Nations left a liberty to Fathers to dispose of their Children as they thought fit because it could not be imagined that any one would abuse that power he ought to remember that the Spartans were mistaken and for want of that Law which they esteemed useless Adulteries became as common there as in any part of the world and the other error being almost every where discovered the Laws of all civilized Nations make it capital for a man to kill his Children and give redress to Children if they suffer any other extreme injuries from their Parents as well as other persons But tho this were not so it would be nothing to our question unless it could be supposed that whoever gets the power of a Nation into his hands must be immediately filled with the same tenderness of affection to the People under him as a Father naturally has towards the Children he hath begotten He that is of this opinion may examine the lives of Herod Tiberius Caligula and some later Princes of like inclinations and conclude it to be true if he find that the whole course of their actions in relation to the People under them do well sute with the tender and sacred name of Father and altogether false if he find the contrary But as every man that considers what has bin or sees what is every day done in the world must confess that Princes or those who govern them do most frequently so utterly reject all thoughts of tenderness and piety towards the Nations under them as rather to seek what can be drawn from them than what should be done for them and sometimes become their most bitter and publick enemies 't is ridiculous to make the safety of Nations to depend upon a supposition which by daily experience we find to be false and impious to prefer the lusts of a man who violates the most sacred Laws of Nature by destroying those he is obliged to preserve before the welfare of that People for whose good he is made to be what he is if there be any thing of justice in the power he exercises Our Author foolishly thinks to cover the enormity of this nonsense by turning Salutem Populi into Salutem Regni for tho Regnum may be taken for the power of commanding in which sense the preservation of it is the usual object of the care of Princes yet it dos more rightly signify the body of that Nation which is governed by a King And therefore if the Maxim be true as he acknowledges it to be then Salus Populi est lex Suprema and the first thing we are to inquire is whether the Government of this or that man do conduce to the accomplishment of that supreme Law or not for otherwise it ought to have bin said Salus Regis est lex suprema which certainly never entred into the head of a wiser or better man than Filmer His reasons are as good as his Doctrin No Law says he can be imposed on Kings because there were Kings before any Laws were made This would not follow tho the Proposition were true for they who imposed no Laws upon the Kings they at first made from an opinion of their Virtue as in those called by the antients Heroum regna might lay restrictions upon them when they were found not to answer the expectation conceived of them or that their Successors degenerated from their Virtue Other Nations also being instructed by the ill effects of an unlimited Power given to some Kings if there was any such might wisely avoid the Rock upon which their Neighbours had split and justly moderate that Power which had bin pernicious to others However a Proposition of so great importance ought to be proved but that being hard and perhaps impossible because the original of Nations is almost wholly unknown to us and their practice seems to have bin so various that what is true in one is not so in another he is
pleased only to affirm it without giving the least shadow of a reason to perswade us to believe him This might justify me if I should reject his assertion as a thing said gratis but I may safely go a step farther and affirm That men lived under Laws before there were any Kings which cannot be denied if such a Power necessarily belongs to Kings as he ascribes to them For Nimrod who established his Kingdom in Babel is the first who by the Scripture is said to have bin a mighty one in the Earth He was therefore the first King or Kings were not mighty and he being the first King Mankind must have lived till his time without Laws or else Laws were made before Kings To say that there was then no Law is in many respects most absurd for the nature of man cannot be without it and the violences committed by ill men before the Flood could not have bin blamed if there had bin no Law for that which is not cannot be transgressed Cain could not have seared that every man who met him would slay him if there had not bin a Law to slay him that had slain another But in this case the Scripture is clear at least from the time that Noah went out of the Ark for God then gave him a Law sufficient for the state of things at that time if all violence was prohibited under the name of shedding Blood tho not under the same penalty as Murder But Penal Laws being in vain if there be none to execute them such as know God dos nothing in vain may conclude that he who gave this Law did appoint some way for its execution tho unknown to us There is therefore a Law not given by Kings but laid upon such as should be Kings as well as on any other Persons by one who is above them and perhaps I may say that this Law presseth most upon them because they who have most power do most frequently break out into acts of Violence and most of all disdain to have their will restrained and he that will exempt Kings from this Law must either find that they are excepted in the Text or that God who gave it has not a Power over them Moreover it has bin proved at the beginning of this Treatise that the first Kings were of the accursed race and reigned over the accursed Nations whilst the holy Seed had none If therefore there was no Law where there was no King the accursed Posterity of Cham had Laws when the blessed Descendents of Shem had none which is most absurd the word Outlaw or Lawless being often given to the wicked but never to the just and righteous The impious folly of such Assertions gos farther than our Author perhaps suspected for if there be no Law where there is no King the Israelites had no Law till Saul was made King and then the Law they had was from him They had no King before sor they asked one They could not have asked one of Samuel if he had bin a King He had not bin offended and God had not imputed to them the sin of rejecting him if they had asked that only which he had set over them If Samuel were not King Moses Joshua and the other Judges were not Kings for they were no more than he They had therefore no King and consequently if our Author say true no Law If they had no Law till Saul was King they never had any for he gave them none and the Prophets were to blame for denouncing judgments against them for receding from or breaking their Law if they had none He cannot say that Samuel gave them a Law for that which he wrote in a Book and laid up before the Lord was not a Law to the People but to the King If it had bin a Law to the People it must have bin made publick but as it was only to the King he laid it up before God to restify against him if he should adventure to break it Or if it was a Law to the People the matter is not mended for it was given in the time of a King by one who was not King But in truth it was the Law of the Kingdom by which he was King and had bin wholly impertinent if it was not to bind him for it was given to no other person and to no other end Our Author's Assertion upon which all his Doctrine is grounded That there is no Nation that allows Children any action or remedy for being unjustly governed is as impudently false as any other proposed by him for tho a Child will not be heard that complains of the Rod yet our own Law gives relief to Children against their Fathers as well as against other persons that do them injuries upon which we see many ill effects and I do rather relate than commend the practice In other places the Law gives relief against the extravagancies of which Fathers may be guilty in relation to their Children tho not to that excess as to bring them so near to an equality as in England They cannot imprison sell or kill their Children without exposing themselves to the same punishments with other men and if they take their Estates from them the Law is open and gives relief against them but on the other side Children are punished with Death if they strike or outragiously abuse their Parents which is not so with us Now if the Laws of Nations take such care to preserve private men from being too hardly used by their true and natural Fathers who have such a love and tenderness for them in their own Blood that the most wicked and barbarous do much more frequently commit crimes for them than against them how much more necessary is it to restrain the fury that Kings who at the best are but phantastical Fathers may exercise to the destruction of the whole People 'T is a folly to say that David and some other Kings have had or that all should have a tenderness of affection towards their People as towards their Children for besides that even the first Proposition is not acknowledged and will be hardly verified in any one instance there is a vast distance between what men ought to be and what they are Every man ought to be just true and charitable and if they were so Laws would be of no use but it were a madness to abolish them upon a supposition that they are so or to leave them to a future punishment which many do not believe or not regard I am not obliged to believe that David loved every Israelite as well as his Son Absalom but tho he had I could not from thence inser that all Kings do so unless I were sure that all of them were as wise and virtuous as he But to come more close to the matter Do we not know of many Kings who have come to their Power by the most wicked means that can enter into the heart of man even
Will and can he be offended with those who desire to live in a conformity to that Law Or could it justly be said The People had chosen that which is not good if nothing in Government be good but what they chose But as the worst men delight in the worst things and Fools are pleased with the most extreme absurdities he not only gives the highest praises to that which bears so many marks of God's hatred but after having said that Abraham Isaac Jacob and Moses were Kings he goes on and says The Israelites begged a King of Samuel which had bin impertinent if the Magistrates instituted by the Law were Kings and tho it might be a folly in them to ask what they had already it could be no sin to desire that which they enjoyed by the Ordinance of God If they were not Kings it follows that the only Government set up by God amongst men wanted the principal part even the Head and Foundation from whence all the other parts have their action and being that is God's Law is against God's Law and destroys it self But if God did neither by a general and perpetual Ordinance establish over all Nations the Monarchy which Samuel describes nor prescribe it to his own People by a particular Command it was purely the Peoples Creature the production of their own fancy conceived in wickedness and brought forth in iniquity an Idol set up by themselves to their own destruction in imitation of their accursed Neighbours and their Reward was no better than the concession of an impious Petition which is one of God's heaviest Judgments Samuel's words are acknowledged by all Interpreters who were not malicious or mad to be a disswasion from their wicked purpose not a description of what a King might justly do by virtue of his Office but what those who should be set up against God and his Law would do when they should have the power in their hands And I leave such as have the understandings of men and are not abandoned by God to judg what influence this ought to have upon other Nations either as to obligation or imitation SECT IV. No People can be obliged to suffer from their Kings what they have not a right to do OUR Author's next work is to tell us That the scope of Samuel was to teach the People a dutiful obedience to their King even in the things that they think mischievous or inconvenient For by telling them what the King would do he indeed instructs them what a Subject must suffer Yet not so that it is right for Kings to do injury but it is right for them to go unpunished by the People if they do it so that in this point it is all one whether Samuel describe a King or a Tyrant This is hard but the Conclusion is grounded upon nothing There is no relation between a Prediction that a thing shall be attempted or done to me and a Precept that I shall not defend my self or punish the person that attempts or dos it If a Prophet should say that a Thief lay in the way to kill me it might reasonably perswade me not to go or to go in such a manner as to be able to defend my self but can no way oblige me to submit to the violence that shall be offer'd or my Friends and Children not to avenge my death if I fall much less can other men be deprived of the natural right of defending themselves by my imprudence or obstinacy in not taking the warning given whereby I might have preserved my life For every man has a right of resisting some way or other that which ought not to be done to him and tho human Laws do not in all cases make men Judges and Avengers of the Injuries offer'd to them I think there is none that dos not justify the man who kills another that offers violence to him if it appear that the way prescribed by the Law for the preservation of the Innocent cannot be taken This is not only true in the case of outragious attempts to assassinate or rob upon the high way but in divers others of less moment I knew a man who being appointed to keep his Master's Park killed three men in one night that came to destroy his Deer and putting himself into the hands of the Magistrate and consessing the Fact both in matter and manner he was at the publick Assizes not only acquitted but commended for having done his duty and this in a time when 't is well known Justice was severely administred and little favour expected by him or his Master Nay all Laws must fall human Societies that subsist by them be dissolved and all innocent persons be exposed to the violence of the most wicked if men might not justly defend themselves against injustice by their own natural right when the ways prescribed by publick Authority cannot be taken Our Author may perhaps say this is true in all except the King And I desire to know why if it be true in all except the King it should not be true in relation to him Is it possible that he who is instituted for the obtaining of Justice should claim the liberty of doing Injustice as a Privilege Were it not better for a people to be without Law than that a Power should be established by Law to commit all manner of violences with impunity Did not David resist those of Saul Did he not make himself head of the Tribe of Judah when they revolted against his Son and afterwards of the ten Tribes that rejected his Posterity Did not the Israelites stone Adoram who collected the Taxes revolt from the house of David set up Jeroboam and did not the Prophet say it was from the Lord If it was from the Lord was it not good If it was good then is it not so for ever Did good proceed from one root then and from another now If God had avenged the Blood of Naboth by fire from Heaven and destroyed the House of Ahab as he did the two Captains and their men who were sent to apprehend Elijah it might be said he reserv'd that vengeance to himself but he did it by the Sword of Jehu and the Army which was the People who had set him up for an Example to others But 't is good to examine what this dutiful Obedience is that our Author mentions Men usually owe no more than they receive 'T is hard to know what the Israelites owed to Saul David Jeroboam Ahab or any other King whether good or bad till they were made Kings And the Act of the People by which so great a dignity was conferr'd seems to have laid a duty upon them who did receive more than they had to give so that something must be due from them unless it were releas'd by virtue of a Covenant or Promise made and none could accrue to them from the people afterwards unless from the merit of the person in rightly executing his Office If a Covenant
for those that persecuted them But besides that those Precepts of the most extreme lenity do ill sute with the violent practices of those who attempt to enslave Nations and who by alledging them do plainly shew either that they do not extend to all Christians or that they themselves are none whilst they act contrary to them they are to know that those Precepts were merely temporary and directed to the Persons of the Apostles who were armed only with the sword of the Spirit that the primitive Christians used Prayers and Tears only no longer than whilst they had no other arms But knowing that by listing themselves under the ensigns of Christianity they had not lost the rights belonging to all Mankind when Nations came to be converted they noway thought themselves obliged to give their Enemies a certain opportunity of destroying them when God had put means into their hands of defending themselves and proceeded so far in this way that the Christian Valour soon became no less famous and remarkable than that of the Pagans They did with the utmost vigour defend both their civil and religious Rights against all the Powers of Earth and Hell who by force and fraud endeavoured to destroy them SECT VIII Under the name of Tribute no more is understood than what the Law of each Nation gives to the supreme Magistrate for the defraying of publick Charges to which the Customs of the Romans or sufferings of the Jews have no relation IF any desire the directions of the New Testament says our Author he may find our Saviour limiting and distinguishing Royal Power by giving to Cesar those things that are Cesar ' s and to God the things that are God's But that will be of no advantage to him in this contest We do not deny to any man that which is his due but do not so well know who is Cesar nor what it is that can truly be said to be due to him I grant that when those words were spoken the power of the Romans exercised by Tiberius was then expressed by the name of Cesar which he without any Title had assumed The Jews amongst many other Nations having bin subdued submitted to it and being noway competent Judges of the rights belonging to the Senate or People of Rome were obliged to acknowledg that Power which their Masters were under They had no Commonwealth of their own nor any other Government amongst themselves that was not precarious They thought Christ was to have restored their Kingdom and by them to have reigned over the Nations but he shewed them they were to be subject to the Gentiles and that within few years their City and Temple should be destroy'd Their Commonwealth must needs expire when all that was prefigured by it was accomplished It was not for them at such a time to presume upon their abrogated Privileges nor the promises made to them which were then fulfilled Nay they had by their Sins profand themselves and given to the Gentiles a right over them which none could have had if they had continued in their obedience to the Law of God This was the foundation of the Cesars dominion over them but can have no influence upon us The first of the Cesars had not bin set up by them The series of them had not bin continued by their consent They had not interrupted the succession by placing or displacing such as they pleased They had not brought in Strangers or Bastards nor preferred the remotest in blood before the nearest They had no part in making the Laws by which they were governed nor had the Cesars sworn to them They had no Great Charter acknowledging their Liberties to be innate or inherent in them confirmed by immemorial Custom and strengthen'd by thirty acts of their own general Assemblies with the assent of the Romans The Cesar who then governed came not to the power by their consent The question Will ye have this man to reign had never bin asked but he being imposed upon them they were to submit to the Laws by which he governed their Masters This can be nothing to us whose case is in every respect most unlike to theirs We have no Dictatorian Power over us and neither we nor our Fathers have render'd or owed obedience to any human Laws but our own nor to any other Magistracy than what we have established We have a King who reigns by Law His power is from the Law that makes him King and we can know only from thence what he is to command and what we are obliged to obey We know the power of the Cesars was usurped maintained and exercised with the most detestable violence injustice and cruelty But tho it had bin established by the consent of the Romans from an opinion that it was good for them in that state of affairs it were nothing to us and we could be no more obliged to follow their example in that than to be governed by Consuls Tribuns and Decemviri or to constitute such a Government as they set up when they expelled their Kings Their Authority was as good at one time as at the other or if a difference ought to be made the preference is to be given to what they did when their manners were most pure the people most free and when virtue was most flourishing among them But if we are not obliged to set up such a Magistracy as they had 't is ridiculous to think that such an obedience is due to one who is not in being as they pay'd to him that was And if I should confess that Cesar holding the Senate and People of Rome under the power of the Sword imposed what tribute he pleased upon the Provinces and that the Jews who had no part in the Government were obliged to submit to his will our liberty of paying nothing except what the Parliament appoints and yielding obedience to no Laws but such as are made to be so by their Authority or by our own immemorial Customs could not be thereby infringed But we may justly affirm that the Tribute imposed was not as our Author infers all their Coin nor a considerable part of it nor more than what was understood to go for the defraying of the publick Charges Christ by asking whose Image and Superscription was stampt upon their Mony and thereupon commanding them to give to Cesar that which was Cesar's did not imply that all was his but that Cesar's Mony being current amongst them it was a continual and evident testimony that they acknowledged themselves to be under his jurisdiction and therefore could not refuse to pay the Tribute laid upon them by the same Authority as other Nations did It may also be observed that Christ did not so much say this to determin the questions that might arise concerning Cesar's Power for he plainly says that was not his work but to put the Pharisees to silence who tempted him According to the opinion of the Jews that the Messias would restore the
Kingdom of Israel they thought his first work would be to throw off the Roman Yoak and not believing him to be the man they would have brought him to avow the thing that they might destroy him But as that was not his business and that his time was not yet come it was not necessary to give them any other answer than such as might disappoint their purpose This shews that without detracting from the honor due to Austin Ambrose or Tertullian I may justly say that the decision of such questions as arise concerning our Government must be decided by our Laws and not by their Writings They were excellent Men but living in another time under a very different Government and applying themselves to other matters they had no knowledg at all of those that concern us They knew what Government they were under and thereupon judged what a broken and dispersed People ow'd to that which had given Law to the best part of the World before they were in being under which they had bin educated and which after a most cruel persecution was become propitious to them They knew that the Word of the Emperor was a Law to the Senate and People who were under the power of that man that could get the best Army but perhaps had never heard of such mixed Governments as ours tho about that time they began to appear in the world And it might be as reasonably concluded that there ought to be no rule in the Succession or Election of Princes because the Roman Emperors were set up by the violence of the Soldiers and for the most part by the slaughter of him who was in possession of the Power as that all other Princes must be absolute when they have it and do what they please till another more strong and more happy may by the like means wrest the same Power from them I am much mistaken if this be not true but without prejudice to our Cause we may take that which they say according to their true meaning in the utmost extent And to begin with Tertullian 'T is good to consider the subject of his Discourse and to whom he wrote The Treatise cited by our Author is the Apologetick and tends to perswade the Pagans that civil Magistrates might not intermeddle with Religion and that the Laws made by them touching those matters were of no value as relating to things of which they had no cognisance 'T is not says he length of time nor the dignity of the Legislators but equity only that can commend Laws and when any are found to be unjust they are deservedly condemned By which words he denied that the Magistratical Power which the Romans acknowledged in Cesar had any thing to do in spiritual things And little advantage can be taken by Christian Princes from what he says concerning the Roman Emperors for he expresly declares That the Cesars would have believed in Christ if they had either not bin necessary to the secular Government or that Christians might have bin Cesars This seems to have proceeded from an opinion received by Christians in the first Ages that the use of the Civil as well as the Military Sword was equally accursed That Christians were to be Sons of peace Enemies to no man and that Christ by commanding Peter to put up his Sword did for ever disarm all Christians He proceeds to say We cannot fight to defend our Goods having in our Baptism denounc'd the World and all that is in it nor to gain Honors accounting nothing more foreign to us than publick Affairs and acknowledging no other Commonwealth than that of the whole World Nor to save our lives because we account it a happiness to be killed He disswades the Pagans from executing Christians rather from charity to them in keeping them from the crime of slaughtering the Innocent than that they were unwilling to suffer and gives no other reasons of their Prayers for the Emperors than that they were commanded to love their Enemies and to pray for those who persecuted them except such as he drew from a mistake that the World was shortly to finish with the dissolution of the Empire All his Works as well those that were written before he fell into Montanism as those published afterwards are full of the like Opinions and if Filmer acknowledges them to be true he must confess That Princes are not Fathers but Enemies and not only they but all those who render themselves Ministers of the Powers they execute in taking upon them the Sword that Christ had cursed do renounce him and we may consider how to proceed with such as do so If our Author will not acknowledg this then no man was ever guilty of a more vile prevarication than he who alledges those words in favour of his Cause which have their only strength in Opinions that he thinks false and in the Authority of a man whom in that very thing he condemns and must do so or overthrow all that he endeavours to support But Tertullian's Opinions concerning these matters have no relation to our present Question The design of his Apology and the Treatise to Scapula almost upon the same subject was to show that the Civil Magistracy which he comprehends under the name of Cesar had nothing to do with matters of Religion and that as no man could be a Christian who would undertake the work of a Magistrate they who were jealous the publick Offices might be taken out of their hands had nothing to fear from Christians who resolved not to meddle with them Whereas our question is only Whether that Magistratical Power which by Law or Usurpation was then in Cesar must necessarily in all times and in all places be in one man or may be divided and balanced according to the Laws of every Country concerning which he says nothing Or whether we who do not renounce the use of the Civil or Military Sword who have a part in the Government and think it our duty to apply our selves to publick Cares should lay them aside because the antient Christians every hour expecting death did not trouble themselves with them If Ambrose after he was a Bishop employ'd the serocity of a Soldier which he still retained rather in advancing the power of the Clergy than the good of Mankind by restraining the rage of Tyrants it can be no prejudice to our Cause of which he had no cognisance He spoke of the violent and despotical Government to which he had bin a Minister before his Baptism and seems to have had no knowledg of the Gothick Polity that within a few years grew famous by the overthrow of the Roman Tyranny and delivering the world from the Yoak which it could no longer bear And if Austin might say That the Emperor is subject to no Laws because he has a Power of making Laws I may as justly say that our Kings are subject to Laws because they can make no Law and have
no Power but what is given by the Laws If this be not the case I desire to know who made the Laws to which they and their Predecessors have sworn and whether they can according to their own will abrogate those antient Laws by which they are made to be what they are and by which we enjoy what we have or whether they can make new Laws by their own Power If no man but our Author have impudence enough to assert any such thing and if all the Kings we ever had except Richard the second did renounce it we may conclude that Austin's words have no relation to our dispute and that 't were to no purpose to examine whether the Fathers mention any reservation of Power to the Laws of the Land or to the People it being as lawful for all Nations if they think fit to frame Governments different from those that were then in being as to build Bastions Halfmoons Hornworks Ravelins or Counterscarps or to make use of Muskets Cannon Mortars Carabines or Pistols which were unknown to them What Solomon says of the Hebrew Kings dos as little concern us We have already proved their Power not to have bin absolute tho greater than that which the Law allows to ours It might upon occasion be a prudent advice to private persons living under such Governments as were usual in the Eastern Countries to keep the King's Commandments and not to say What dost thou because where the Word of a King is there is Power and all that he pleaseth he will do But all these words are not his and those that are must not be taken in a general sense for tho his Son was a King yet in his words there was no power He could not do what he pleased nor hinder others from doing what they pleased He would have added weight to the Yoak that lay upon the necks of the Israelites but he could not and we do not find him to have bin master of much more than his own Tongue to speak as many foolish things as he pleased In other things whether he had to deal with his own people or with strangers he was weak and impotent and the wretches who flatter'd him in his follies could be of no help to him The like has befallen many others Those who are wise virtuous valiant just and lovers of their People have and ought to have Power but such as are lewd vicious foolish and haters of their People ought to have none and are often deprived of all This was well known to Solomon who says That a wise Child is better than an old and foolish King that will not be advised When Nabuchodonosor set himself in the place of God his Kingdom was taken from him and he was driven from the society of men to herd with beasts There was Power for a time in the word of Nero he murdered many excellent men but he was call'd to account and the World abandon'd the Monster it had too long endur'd He found none to defend him nor any better help when he desir'd to die than the hand of a Slave Besides this some Kings by their Institution have little Power some have bin deprived of what they had for abusing or rendring themselves unworthy of it and Histories afford us innumerable examples of both sorts But tho I should confess that there is always Power in the word of a King it would be nothing to us who dispute concerning Right and have no regard to that Power which is void of it A Thief or a Pyrat may have Power but that avails him not when as often befel the Cesars he meets with one who has more and is always unsafe since having no effect upon the Consciences of men every one may destroy him that can And I leave it to Kings to consider how much they stand obliged to those who placing their Rights upon the same foot expose their Persons to the same dangers But if Kings desire that in their Word there should be power let them take care that it be always accompanied with Truth and Justice Let them seek the good of their People and the hands of all good men will be with them Let them not exalt themselves insolently and every one will desire to exalt them Let them acknowledg themselves to be the Servants of the Publick and all men will be theirs Let such as are most addicted to them talk no more of Cesars nor the Tributes due to them We have nothing to do with the name of Cesar. They who at this day live under it reject the Prerogatives antiently usurped by those that had it and are govern'd by no other Laws than their own We know no Law to which we owe obedience but that of God and our selves Asiatick Slaves usually pay such Tributes as are imposed upon them and whilst braver Nations lay under the Roman Tyranny they were forced to submit to the same burdens But even those Tributes were paid for maintaining Armies Fleets and Garisons without which the poor and abject life they led could not have bin preserved We owe none but what we freely give None is or can be imposed upon us unless by our selves We measure our Grants according to our own Will or the present occasions for our own safety Our Ancestors were born free and as the best provision they could make for us they left us that Liberty intire with the best Laws they could devise to defend it 'T is no way impair'd by the Opinions of the Fathers The words of Solomon do rather confirm it The happiness of those who enjoy the like and the shameful misery they lie under who have suffer'd themselves to be forced or cheated out of it may perswade and the justice of the Cause encourage us to think nothing too dear to be hazarded in the defence of it SECT IX Our own Laws confirm to us the enjoyment of our native Rights IF that which our Author calls Divinity did reach the things in dispute between us or that the Opinions of the Fathers which he alledges related to them he might have spared the pains of examining our Laws for a municipal Sanction were of little force to confirm a perpetual and universal Law given by God to mankind and of no value against it since man cannot abrogate what God hath instituted nor one Nation free it self from a Law that is given to all But having abused the Scriptures and the Writings of the Fathers whose Opinions are to be valued only so far as they rightly interpret them he seems desirous to try whether he can as well put a false sense upon our Law and has fully compassed his design Aocording to his custom he takes pieces of passages from good Books and turns them directly against the plain meaning of the Authors expressed in the whole scope and design of their Writings To show that he intends to spare none he is not ashamed to cite Bracton who of all our antient Law-writers is
most opposite to his Maxims He lived says he in Henry the third's time since Parliaments were instituted as if there had bin a time when England had wanted them or that the establishment of our Liberty had bin made by the Normans who if we will believe our Author came in by force of Arms and oppressed us But we have already proved the Essence of Parliaments to be as antient as our Nation and that there was no time in which there were not such Councils or Assemblies of the People as had the power of the whole and made or unmade such Laws as best pleased themselves We have indeed a French word from a People that came from France but the Power was always in our selves and the Norman Kings were obliged to swear they would govern according to the Laws that had bin made by those Assemblies It imports little vvhether Bracton lived before or after they came amongst us His vvords are Omnes sub eo ipse sub nullo sed tantum sub Deo All are under him and he under none but God only If he offend since no Writ can go out against him their Remedy is by petitioning him to amend his Faults which if he will not do it is punishment enough for him to expect God as an avenger Let none presume to look into his Deeds much less to oppose him Here is a mixture of Sense and Nonsense Truth and Falshood the vvords of Bracton vvith our Author's foolish Inferences from them Bracton spoke of the politick capacity of the King vvhen no Law had forbidden him to divide it from his natural He gave the name of King to the sovereign Power of the Nation as Jacob called that of his Descendents The Scepter vvhich he said should not depart from Judah till Shiloh came tho all men know that his Race did not reign the third part of that time over his own Tribe nor full fourscore years over the whole Nation The same manner of speech is used in all parts of the world Tertullian under the name of Cesar comprehended all magistratical Power and imputed to him the Acts of which in his person he never had any knowledg The French say their King is always present sur son lit de justice in all the Sovereign Courts of the Kingdom which are not easily numbred and that Maxim could have in it neither sense nor truth if by it they meant a Man who can be but in one place at one time and is always comprehended within the Dimensions of his own Skin These things could not be unknown to Bracton the like being in use amongst us and he thought it no offence so far to follow the dictates of Reason prohibited by no Law as to make a difference between the invisible and omnipresent King who never dies and the Person that wears the Crown whom no man without the guilt of Treason may endeavour to kill since there is an Act of Parliament in the case I will not determine whether he spoke properly or no as to England but if he did not all that he said being upon a false supposition is nothing to our purpose The same Bracton says the King doth no wrong in as much as he doth nothing but by Law The Power of the King is the Power of the Law a power of right not of wrong Again If the King dos injustice he is not King In another place he has these words The King therefore ought to exercise the Power of the Law as becomes the Vicar and Minister of God upon Earth because that Power is the Power of God alone but the Power of doing wrong is the Power of the Devil and not of God And the King is his Minister whose Work he dos Whilst he dos Justice he is the Vicar of the Eternal King but if he deflect from it to act unjustly he is the Minister of the Devil He also says that the King is singulis major universis minor and that he who is in justitia exequenda omnibus major in justitia recipienda cuilibet ex plebe fit aequalis I shall not say Bracton is in the right when he speaks in this manner but 't is a strange impudence in Filmer to cite him as a Patron of the absolute Power of Kings who dos so extremely depress them But the grossest of his follies is yet more pardonable than his detestable fraud in falsifying Bracton's words and leaving out such as are not for his purpose which shew his meaning to be directly contrary to the sense put upon them That this may appear I shall set down the words as they are found in Bracton Ipse autem Rex non debet esse sub homine sed sub Deo sub Lege quia Lex facit Regem Attribuat ergo Rex Legi quod Lex attribuit ei id est dominationem potestatem Non est enim Rex ubi dominatur volunt as non Lex quod sub Lege esse debeat cum sit Dei vicarius evidenter apparet If Bracton therefore be a competent Judg the King is under the Law and he is not a King nor God's Vicegerent unless he be so and we all know how to proceed with those who being under the Law offend against it For the Law is not made in vain In this case something more is to be done than petitioning and 't is ridiculous to say that if he will not amend 't is punishment enough for him to expect God an Avenger for the same may be said of all Malefactors God can sufficiently punish Thieves and Murderers but the future Judgment of which perhaps they have no belief is not sufficient to restrain them from committing more Crimes nor to deter others from following their example God was always able to punish Murderers but yet by his Law he commands man to shed the blood of him who should shed man's blood and declares that the Land cannot be purged of the Guilt by any other means He had Judgments in store for Jeroboam Ahab and those that were like them but yet he commanded that according to that Law their Houses should be destroy'd from the earth The dogs lick'd up the blood of Ahab where they had licked that of Naboth and eat Jezebel who had contrived his murder But says our Author we must not look into his deeds much less oppose them Must not David look into Saul's deeds nor oppose them Why did he then bring together as many men as he could to oppose and make foreign Alliances against him even with the Moabites and the accursed Philistins Why did Jehu not only destroy Ahab's house but kill the King of Judah and his forty Brothers only for going to visit his Children Our Author may perhaps say because God commanded them But if God commanded them to do so he did not command them and all mankind not to do so and if he did not forbid they have nothing to restrain them from
of the Emperors in other respects excellent Men most foully polluted themselves and their Government with innocent Blood Antoninus Pius was taken in this snare and Tertullian bitterly derides Trajan for glorying in his Clemency when he had commanded Pliny who was Proconsul in Asia not to make any search for Christians but only to punish them according to Law when they should be brought before him No Municipal Law can be more firmly established by human Authority than that of the Inquisition in Spain and other places And those accursed Tribunals which have shed more Christian blood than all the Pagans that ever were in the world is commonly called The Holy Office If a Gentleman in Poland kill a Peasant he is by a Law now in use free from punishment if he lay a Ducat upon the dead Body Evenus the third King of Scotland caused a Law to pass by which the Wives and Daughters of Noblemen were exposed to his Lust and those of the Commons to the Lust of the Nobility These and an infinite number of others like to them were not right Sanctions but such as have produced unspeakable mischiefs and calamities They were not therefore Laws The name of Justice is abusively attributed to them Those that govern by them cannot be the Ministers of God and the Apostle commanding our obedience to the Minister of God for our good commands us not to be obedient to the Minister of the Devil to our hurt for we cannot serve two Masters SECT XI That which is not just is not Law and that which is not Law ought not to be obeyed OUR Author having for a long time pretended Conscience now pulls off his Mask and plainly tells us that 't is not on account of Conscience but for fear of punishment or hopes of reward that Laws are to be obeyed That familiar distinction of the Schoolmen says he whereby they subject Kings to the directive but not to the coactive Power of the Law is a confession that Kings are not bound by the positive Laws of any Nation since the compulsory Power of Laws is that which properly makes Laws to be Laws Not troubling my self with this distinction of the Schoolmen nor acknowledging any truth to be in it or that they are competent Judges of such matters I say that if it be true our Author's conclusion is altogether false for the directive Power of the Law which is certain and grounded upon the inherent good and rectitude that is in it is that alone which has a power over the Conscience whereas the coercive is merely contingent and the most just powers commanding the most just things have so often fallen under the violence of the most unjust men commanding the most execrable villanies that if they were therefore to be obeyed the Consciences of men must be regulated by the success of a Battel or Conspiracy than which nothing can be affirmed more impious and absurd By this rule David was not to be obeyed when by the wickedness of his Son he was driven from Jerusalem and deprived of all coercive Power and the conscientious obedience that had bin due to him was transfer'd to Absalom who sought his life And in St. Paul's time it was not from him who was guided only by the Spirit of God and had no manner of coercive Power that Christians were to learn their duty but from Caligula Claudius and Nero who had that Power well established by the mercenary Legions If this were so the Governments of the World might be justly called Magna Latrocinia and men laying aside all considerations of Reason or Justice ought only to follow those who can inflict the greatest Punishments or give the greatest Rewards But since the reception of such opinions would be the extirpation of all that can be called good we must look for another rule of our obedience and shall find that to be the Law which being as I said before Sanctio recta must be founded upon that eternal Principle of Reason and Truth from whence the rule of Justice which is sacred and pure ought to be deduced and not from the depraved will of man which fluctuating according to the different Interests Humors and Passions that at several times reign in several Nations one day abrogates what had bin enacted the other The Sanction therefore that deserves the name of a Law which derives not its excellency from Antiquity or from the dignity of the Legislators but from an intrinsick equity and justice ought to be made in pursuance of that universal Reason to which all Nations at all times owe an equal veneration and obedience By this we may know whether he who has the Power dos justice or not Whether he be the Minister of God to our good a protector of good and a terror to ill men or the Minister of the Devil to our hurt by encouraging all manner of evil and endeavouring by vice and corruption to make the people worse that they may be miserable and miserable that they may be worse I dare not say I shall never fear such a man if he be armed with power But I am sure I shall never esteem him to be the Minister of God and shall think I do ill if I fear him If he has therefore a coercive Power over me 't is through my weakness for he that will suffer himself to be compell'd knows not how to die If therefore he who dos not follow the directive Power of the Law be not the Minister of God he is not a King at least not such a King as the Apostle commands us to obey And if that Sanction which is not just be not a Law and can have no obligation upon us by what Power soever it be established it may well fall out that the Magistrate who will not follow the directive Power of the Law may fall under the Coercive and then the fear is turned upon him with this aggravation that it is not only actual but just This was the case of Nero the coercive Power was no longer in him but against him He that was forced to fly and to hide himself that was abandoned by all men and condemned to die according to antient Custom did as I suppose fear and was no way to be feared The like may be said of Amaziah King of Judah when he fled to Lachish of Nabuchodonosor when he was driven from the society of men and of many Emperors and Kings of the greatest Nations in the world who have bin so utterly deprived of all Power that they have bin imprisoned deposed confined to Monasteries kill'd drawn through the Streets cut in pieces thrown into Rivers and indeed suffer'd all that could be suffer'd by the vilest Slaves If any man say these things ought not to have bin done an answer may be given in a proper place though 't were enough to say that the Justice of the world is not to be overthrown by a meer Assertion without proof but
Countries they enslaved But if this be equally false sottish absurd and execrable all those Epithets belong to our Author and his Doctrine for attempting to depress all modest and regular Magistracies and endeavouring to corrupt the Scripture to patronize the greatest of Crimes No man therefore who does not delight in error can think that the Apostle designed precisely to determin such questions as might arise concerning any one mans right or in the least degree to prefer any one form of Government before another In acknowledging the Magistrate to be Man's Ordinance he declares that Man who makes him to be may make him to be what he pleaseth and tho there is found more prudence and virtue in one Nation than in another that Magistracy which is established in any one ought to be obeyed till they who made the establishment think fit to alter it All therefore whilst they continue are to be look'd upon with the same respect Every Nation acting freely has an equal right to frame their own Government and to employ such Officers as they please The Authority Right and Power of these must be regulated by the judgment right and power of those who appoint them without any relation at all to the name that is given for that is no way essential to the thing The same name is frequently given to those who differ exceedingly in right and power and the same right and power is as osten annexed to Magistracies that differ in name The same power which had bin in the Roman Kings was given to the Consuls and that which had bin legally in the Dictators for a time not exceeding six months was asterwards usurped by the Cesars and made perpetual The supreme Power which some pretend belongs to all Kings has bin and is enjoy'd in the fullest extent by such as never had the name and no Magistracy was ever more restrain'd than those that had the name of Kings in Sparta Arragon England Poland and other places They therefore that did thus institute regulate and restrain create Magistracies and give them names and powers as seemed best to them could not but have in themselves the coercive as well as the directive over them for the regulation and restriction is coercion but most of all the institution by which they could make them to be or not to be As to the exterior force 't is sometimes on the side of the Magistrate and sometimes on that of the People and as Magistrates under several names have the same work incumbent upon them and the same Power to perform it the same Duty is to be exacted from them and rendred to them which being distinctly proportion'd by the Laws of every Country I may conclude that all Magistratical Power being the Ordinance of Man in pursuance of the Ordinance of God receives its being and measure from the Legislative Power of every Nation And whether the power be placed simply in one a few or many men or in one body composed of the three simple Species whether the single Person be called King Duke Marquess Emperor Sultan Mogol or Grand Signor or the number go under the name of Senat Council Pregadi Diet Assembly of Estates and the like 't is the same thing The same obedience is equally due to all whilst according to the Precept of the Apostle they do the work of God for our good and if they depart from it no one of them has a better Title than the other to our obedience SECT XIII Laws were made to direct and instruct Magistrates and if they will not be directed to restrain them I Know not who they are that our Author introduces to say that the first invention of Laws was to bridle or moderate the overgreat Power of Kings and unless they give some better proof of their judgment in other things shall little esteem them They should have considered that there are Laws in many places where there are no Kings that there were Laws in many before there were Kings as in Israel the Law was given three hundred years before they had any but most especially that as no man can be a rightful King except by Law nor have any just Power but from the Law if that Power be found to be overgreat the Law that gave it must have bin before that which was to moderate or restrain it for that could not be moderated which was not in being Leaving therefore our Author to fight with these Adversaries if he please when he finds them I shall proceed to examin his own Positions The truth is says he the Original of Laws was for the keeping of the Multitude in order Popular Estates could not subsist at all without Laws whereas Kingdoms were govern'd many Ages without them The People of Athens as soon as they gave over Kings were forced to give power to Draco first then to Solon to make them Laws If we will believe him therefore wheresoever there is a King or a man who by having power in his hands is in the place of a King there is no need of Law He takes them all to be so wise just and good that they are Laws to themselves Leges viventes This was certainly verified by the whole succession of the Cesars the ten last Kings of Pharamond's Race all the Successors of Charles the Great and others that I am not willing to name but referring my self to History I desire all reasonable men to consider whether the piety and tender care that was natural to Caligula Nero or Domitian was such a security to the Nations that lived under them as without Law to be sufficient for their preservation for if the contrary appear to be true and that their Government was a perpetual exercise of rage malice and madness by which the worst of men were armed with power to destroy the best so that the Empire could only be saved by their destruction 't is most certain that mankind can never fall into a condition which stands more in need of Laws to protect the innocent than when such Monsters reign who endeavour their extirpation and are too well furnished with means to accomplish their detestable designs Without any prejudice therefore to the Cause that I defend I might confess that all Nations were at the first governed by Kings and that no Laws were imposed upon those Kings till they or the Successors of those who had bin advanced for their virtues by falling into Vice and Corruption did manifestly discover the inconveniences of depending upon their will Besides these there are also children women and fools that often come to the succession of Kingdoms whose weakness and ignorance stands in as great need of support and direction as the desperate fury of the others can do of restriction And if some Nations had bin so sottish not to foresee the mischief of leaving them to their will others or the same in succeeding Ages discovering them could no more be obliged to continue in so pernicious a
continue in any If the Power be not conferred upon them they have it not and if they have it not their want of leisure to do Justice cannot have bin the cause for which Laws are made and they cannot be the signification of their Will but are that to which the Prince ows Obedience as well as the meanest Subject This is that which Bracton calls esse sub lege and says that Rex in regno superiores habet Deum Legem Fortescue says The Kings of England cannot change the Laws and indeed they are so far from having any such Power that the Judges swear to have no regard to the King's Letters or Commands but if they receive any to proceed according to Law as if they had not bin And the breach of this Oath dos not only bring a blemish upon their Reputation but exposes them to capital Punishments as many of them have found 'T is not therefore the King that makes the Law but the Law that makes the King It gives the rule for Succession making Kingdoms sometimes Hereditary and sometimes Elective and more often than either simply Hereditary under condition In some places Males only are capable of inheriting in others Females are admitted Where the Monarchy is regular as in Germany England c. the Kings can neither make nor change Laws They are under the Law and the Law is not under them their Letters or Commands are not to be regarded In the administration of Justice the question is not what pleases them but what the Law declares to be right which must have its course whether the King be busy or at leisure whether he will or not The King who never dies is always present in the supreme Courts and neither knows nor regards the pleasure of the man that wears the Crown But lest he by his Riches and Power might have some influence upon judicial Proceedings the great Charter that recapitulates and acknowledges our antient inherent Liberties obliges him to swear that he will neither sell delay nor deny Justice to any man according to the Laws of the Land which were ridiculous and absurd if those Laws were only the signification of his Pleasure or any way depended upon his Will This Charter having bin confirmed by more than thirty Parliaments all succeeding Kings are under the obligation of the same Oath or must renounce the benefit they receive from our Laws which if they do they will be found to be equal to every one of us Our Author according to his custom having laid down a false proposition gos about to justify it by false examples as those of Draco Solon the Decemviri and Moses of whom no one had the Power he attributes to them and it were nothing to us if they had The Athenians and Romans as was said before were so far from resigning the absolute Power without appeal to themselves that nothing done by their Magistrates was of any force till it was enacted by the People And the power given to the Decemviri sine provocatione was only in private cases there being no superior Magistrate then in being to whom Appeals could be made They were vested with the same Power the Kings and Dictators enjoy'd from whom there lay no Appeal but to the People and always to them as appears by the case of Horatius in the time of Tullus Hostilius that of Marcus Fabius when Papirius Cursor was Dictator and of Nenius the Tribun during that of Q. Fabius Maximus all which I have cited already and reser to them There was therefore a reservation of the supreme Power in the People notwithstanding the creation of Magistrates without Appeal and as it was quietly exercised in making Strangers or whom they pleased Kings restraining the power of Dictators to six months and that of the Decemviri to two years when the last did contrary to Law endeavour by force to continue their Power the People did by force destroy it and them The case of Moses is yet more clear he was the most humble and gentle of all men he never raised his heart above his brethren and commanded Kings to live in the same modesty he never desired the People should depend upon his will In giving Laws to them he fulfill'd the will of God not his own and those Laws were not the signification of his will but of the will of God They were the production of God's Wisdom and Goodness not the invention of Man given to purify the People not to advance the glory of their Leader He was not proud and insolent nor pleas'd with that ostentation of Pomp to which fools give the name of Majesty and whoever so far exalts the power of a man to make Nations depend upon his pleasure dos not only lay a burden upon him which neither Moses nor any other could ever bear and every wise man will always abhor but with an impious fury endeavours to set up a Government contrary to the Laws of God presumes to accuse him of want of wisdom or goodness to his own People and to correct his Errors which is a work fit to be undertaken by such as our Author From hence as upon a solid foundation he proceeds and making use of King James's words infers that Kings are above the Laws because he so teaches us But he might have remembred that having affirmed the People could not judg of the disputes that might happen between them and Kings because they must not be judges in their own case 't is absurd to make a King judg of a case so nearly concerning himself in the decision of which his own Passions and Interests may probably lead him into errors And if it be pretended that I do the same in giving the judgment of those matters to the People the case is utterly different both in the nature and consequences The King's judgment is merely for himself and if that were to take place all the Passions and Vices that have most power upon men would concur to corrupt it He that is set up for the publick good can have no contest with the whole People whose good he is to procure unless he deflect from the end of his Institution and set up an interest of his own in opposition to it This is in its nature the highest of all delinquencies and if such a one may be judg of his own crimes he is not only sure to avoid punishment but to obtain all that he sought by them and the worse he is the more violent will his desires be to get all the power into his hands that he may gratify his lusts and execute his pernicious designs On the other side in a popular Assembly no man judges for himself otherwise than as his good is comprehended in that of the publick Nothing hurts him but what is prejudicial to the Commonwealth such amongst them as may have received private Injuries are so far only considered by others as their Sufferings may have influence upon the
2d which he swears to abolish Now what Laws are upright and what evil who shall judg but the King c. So that in effect the King doth swear to keep no Laws but such as in his judgment are upright c. And if he did strictly swear to observe all Laws he could not without Perjury give his consent to the repealing or abrogating of any Statute by Act of Parliament c. And again But let it be supposed for Truth that Kings do swear to observe all Laws of their Kingdoms yet no man can think it reason that the Kings should be more bound by their voluntary Oaths than common Persons Now if a private Person make a Contract either with Oath or without Oath he is no farther bound than the equity and justice of the Contract ties him for a man may have relief against an unreasonable and unjust Promise if either deceit or error force or fear induced him thereunto or if it be hurtful or grievous in the performance since the Law in many cases gives the King a Prerogative above common persons Lest I should be thought to insist upon small advantages I will not oblige any man to shew where Filmer found this Oath nor observe the faults committed in the Translation but notwithstanding his false representation I find enough for my purpose and intend to take it in his own words But first I shall take leave to remark that those who for private interests addict themselves to the personal service of Princes tho the ruin of their Country find it impossible to perswade Mankind that Kings may govern as they please when all men know there are Laws to direct and restrain them unless they can make men believe they have their power from a universal and superior Law or that Princes can attempt to dissolve the obligations laid upon them by the Laws which they so solemnly swear to observe without rendring themselves detestable to God and Man and subject to the revenging hands of both unless they can invalidate those Oaths Mr. Hobbes I think was the first who very ingeniously contrived a compendious way of justifying the most abominable Perjuries and all the mischiefs ensuing thereupon by pretending that as the King's Oath is made to the People the People may absolve him from the obligation and that the People having conferred upon him all the Power they had he can do all that they could he can therefore absolve himself and is actually free since he is so when he pleases This is only false in the minor for the People not having conferred upon him all but only a part of their Power that of absolving him remains in themselves otherwise they would never have obliged him to take the Oath He cannot therefore absolve himself The Pope finds a help for this and as Christ's Vicar pretends the power of Absolution to be in him and exercised it in absolving King John But our Author despairing to impose either of these upon our Age and Nation with more impudence and less wit would enervate all Coronation-Oaths by subjecting them to the discretion of the taker whereas all men have hitherto thought their force to consist in the declared sense of those who give them This doctrine is so new that it surpasses the subtilty of the Schoolmen who as an ingenious Person said of them had minced Oaths so fine that a million of them as well as Angels may stand upon the point of a needle and were never yet equalled but by the Jesuits who have overthrown them by mental reservations which is so clearly demonstrated from their books that it cannot be denied but so horrible that even those of their own Order who have the least spark of common honesty condemn the practice And one of them being a Gentleman of a good family told me he would go the next day and take all the Oaths that should be offer'd if he could satisfy his conscience in using any manner of equivocation or mental reservation or that he might put any other sense upon them than he knew to be intended by those who offer'd them And if our Author's conscience were not more corrupted than that of the Jesuit who had lived fifty years under the worst Discipline that I think ever was in the world I would ask him seriously if he truly believe that the Nobility Clergy and Commonalty of England who have bin always so zealous for their antient Laws and so resolute in defending them did mean no more by the Oaths they so solemnly imposed and upon which they laid so much weight than that the King should swear to keep them so far only as he should think fit But he swears only to observe those that are upright c. How can that be understood otherwise than that those who give the Oath do declare their Laws and Customs to be upright and good and he by taking the Oath affirms them to be so Or how can they be more precisely specified than by the ensuing Clause Granted from God by just and devout Kings by Oath especially those of the famous King Edward But says he by the same Oath Richard the 2d was bound to abolish those that were evil If any such had crept in through error or bin obtruded by malice the evil being discovered and declared by the Nobility and Commons who were concerned he was not to take advantage of them or by his refusal to evade the abolition but to join with his people in annulling them according to the general Clause of assenting to those Quas vulgus elegerit Magna Charta being only an abridgment of our antient Laws and Customs the King that swears to it swears to them all and not being admitted to be the interpreter of it or to determin what is good or evil fit to be observed or annulled in it can have no more power over the rest This having bin confirmed by more Parliaments than we have had Kings since that time the same obligation must still lie upon them all as upon John and Henry in whose time that claim of right was compiled The Act was no less solemn than important and the most dreadful curses that could be conceived in words which were denounced against such as should any way infringe it by the Clergy in Westminster-Hall in the presence and with the assent of K. Henry the 3d many of the principal Nobility and all the Estates of the Kingdom shew whether it was referred to the King's Judgment or not when 't is evident they feared the violation from no other than himself and such as he should employ I confess the Church as they then called the Clergy was fallen into such corruption that their Arms were not much to be feared by one who had his conscience clear but that could not be in the case of perjury and our Ancestors could do no better than to employ the spiritual sword reserving to themselves the use of the other in case that should be
may be alledged From which we may safely conclude that if the death of one King do really invest the next Heir with the Right and Power or that he who is so invested be subject to no Law but his own Will all matters relating to that Kingdom must have bin horribly confused during the reigns of 22 Kings of Pharamonds race they can have had no rightful King from the death of Chilperic to King John and the Succession since that time is very liable to be questioned if not utterly overthrown by the house of Austria and others who by the Counts of Hapsburg derive their Descent from Pharamond and by the house of Lorrain claiming from Charles who was excluded by Capet all which is most absurd and they who pretend it bring as much confusion into their own Laws and upon the Polity of their own Nation as shame and guilt upon the memory of their Ancestors who by the most extreme injustice have rejected their natural Lord or dispossessed those who had bin in the most solemn manner placed in the Government and to whom they had generally sworn Allegiance 3. If the next Heir be actually King seized of the power by the death of his Predecessor so that there is no intermission then all the Solemnities and religious Ceremonies used at the Coronations of their Kings with the Oaths given and taken are the most profane abuses of sacred things in contempt of God and Man that can be imagined most especially if the Act be as our Author calls it voluntary and the King receiving nothing by it be bound to keep it no longer than he pleases The Prince who is to be sworn might spare the pains of watching all night in the Church fasting praying confessing communicating and swearing that he will to the utmost of his power defend the Clergy maintain the union of the Church obviate all excess rapine extortion and iniquity take care that in all judgments Justice may be observed with Equity and Mercy c. or of invoking the assistance of the Holy Ghost for the better performance of his Oath and without ceremony tell the Nobility and People that he would do what he thought fit 'T were to as little purpose for the Archbishop of Rheims to take the trouble of saying Mass delivering to him the Crown Scepter and other ensigns of Royalty explaining what is signified by them anointing him with the Oil which they say was deliver'd by an Angel to St. Remigius blessing him and praying to God to bless him if he rightly performed his Oath to God and the People and denouncing the contrary in case of failure on his part if these things conferred nothing upon him but what he had before and were of no obligation to him Such ludifications of the most sacred things are too odious and impious to be imputed to Nations that have any virtue or profess Christianity This cannot fall upon the French and Spaniards who had certainly a great zeal to Religion whatever it was and were so eminent for moral Virtues as to be a reproach to us who live in an Age of more Knowledg But their meaning is so well declared by their most solemn Acts that none but those who are wilfully ignorant can mistake One of the Councils held at Toledo declared by the Clergy Nobility and others assisting That no man should be placed in the Royal Seat till he had sworn to preserve the Church c. Another held in the same place signified to Sisinandus who was then newly crown'd That if he or any of his Successors should contrary to their Oaths and the Laws of their Country proudly and cruelly presume to exercise Domination over them he should be excommunicated and separated from Christ and them to eternal judgment The French Laws and their best Writers asserting the same things are confirmed by perpetual practice Henry of Navarr tho certainly according to their Rules and in their esteem a most accomplish'd Prince was by two General Assemblies of the Estates held at Blois deprived of the Succession for being a Protestant and notwithstanding the greatness of his Reputation Valour Victories and Affability could never be admitted till he had made himself capable of the ceremonies of his Coronation by conforming to the Religion which by the Oath he was to defend Nay this present King tho haughty enough by nature and elevated by many successes has acknowledged as he says with joy that he can do nothing contrary to Law and calls it a happy impotence in pursuance of which he has annulled many Acts of his Father and Grandfather alienating the demeasnes of the Crown as things contrary to Law and not within their power These things being confirmed by all the good Authors of that Nation Filmer finds only the worst to be fit for his turn and neither minding Law nor History takes his Maxims from a vile flattering discourse of Bellay calculated for the personal interest of Henry the fourth then King of Navarr in which he says That the Heir apparent tho furious mad a fool vicious and in all respects abominably wicked must be admitted to the Crown But Bellay was so far from attaining the ends designed by his Book that by such Doctrines which filled all men with horror he brought great prejudice to his Master and procured little favour from Henry who desired rather to recommend himself to his People as the best man they could set up than to impose a necessity upon them of taking him if he had bin the worst But our Author not contented with what this Sycophant says in relation to such Princes as are placed in the Government by a Law establishing the Succession by inheritance with an impudence peculiar to himself asserts the same right to be in any man who by any means gets into Power and imposes the same necessity of obedience upon the Subject where there is no Law as Bellay dos by virtue of one that is established 4. In the last place As Bellay acknowledges that the right belongs to Princes only where 't is established by Law I deny that there is was or ever can be any such No People is known to have bin so mad or wicked as by their own consent for their own good and for the obtaining of Justice to give the power to Beasts under whom it could never be obtain'd or if we could believe that any had bin guilty of an act so full of folly turpitude and wickedness it could not have the force of a Law and could never be put in execution for tho the rules by which the proximity should be judged be never so precise it will still be doubted whose case sutes best with them Tho the Law in some places gives private Inheritances to the next Heir and in others makes allotments according to several proportions no one knows to whom or how far the benefit shall accrue to any man till it be adjudged by a Power to which the parties
dangerous and slavish to depend upon the will of a man which perhaps may be irregular or extravagant in one who is subject to no Law our Author very dexterously removes the scruples by telling us 1. That the Prerogative of the King to be above the Law is only for the good of them that are under the Law and to preserve their Liberties 2. That there can be no Laws without a supreme Power to command or make them In Aristocracies the Noblemen are above the Law in Democracies the People By the like reason in a Monarchy the King must of necessity be above the Law There can be no Soveraign Majesty in him that is under the Law that which gives the very being to a King is the power to give Laws Without this Power he is but an equivocal King It skills not how he comes by this Power whether by Election Donation Succession or any other means I am contented in some degree to follow our Author and to acknowledg that the King neither has nor can have any Prerogative which is not for the good of the People and the preservation of their Liberties This therefore is the foundation of Magistratical Power and the only way of discerning whether the Prerogative of making Laws of being above Laws or any other he may pretend be justly due to him or not and if it be doubted who is the fittest judg to determine that question common sense will inform us that if the Magistrate receive his Power by election or donation they who elect or give him that Power best know whether the good they sought be performed or not if by succession they who instituted the Succession if otherwise that is by fraud or violence the point is decided for he has no right at all and none can be created by those means This might be said tho all Princes were of ripe age sober wise just and good for even the best are subject to mistakes and passions and therefore unfit to be judges of their own concernments in which they may by various means be misguided but it would be extreme madness to attribute the same to Children Fools or Madmen who are not able to judg of the least things concerning themselves or others but most especially to those who coming in by usurpation declare their contempt of all human and divine Laws and are enemies to the People they oppress None therefore can be judges of such cases but the People for whom and by whom the Constitutions are made or their Representatives and Delegates to whom they give the power of doing it But nothing can be more absurd than to say that one man has an absolute power above Law to govern according to his will for the Peoples good and the preservation of their Liberty For no Liberty can subsist where there is such a Power and we have no other way of distinguishing between free Nations and such as are not so than that the free are governed by their own Laws and Magistrates according to their own mind and that the others either have willingly subjected themselves or are by force brought under the power of one or more men to be ruled according to his or their pleasure The same distinction holds in relation to particular persons He is a free man who lives as best pleases himself under Laws made by his own consent and the name of slave can belong to no man unless to him who is either born in the house of a Master bought taken subdued or willingly gives his ear to be nailed to the post and subjects himself to the will of another Thus were the Grecians said to be free in opposition to the Medes and Persians as Artabanus acknowledged in his discourse to Themistocles In the same manner the Italians Germans and Spaniards were distinguish'd from the Eastern Nations who for the most part were under the power of Tyrants Rome was said to have recovered liberty by the expulsion of the Tarquins or as Tacitus expresses it Lucius Brutus established Liberty and the Consulat together as if before that time they had never enjoyed any and Julius Cesar is said to have overthrown the liberty of that People But if Filmer deserve credit the Romans were free under Tarquin enslaved when he was driven away and his Prerogative extinguish'd that was so necessarily required for the defence of their Liberty and were never restored to it till Cesar assum'd all the Power to himself By the same rule the Switzers Grisons Venetians Hollanders and some other Nations are now Slaves and Tuscany the Kingdom of Naples the Ecclesiastical State with such as live under a more gentle Master on the other side of the Water I mean the Turk are free Nations Nay the Florentins who complain of Slavery under the House of Medices were made free by the power of a Spanish Army who set up a Prerogative in that gentle Family which for their good has destroyed all that could justly be called so in that Country and almost wholly dispeopled it I who esteem my self free because I depend upon the will of no man and hope to die in the liberty I inherit from my Ancestors am a slave and the Moors or Turks who may be beaten and kill'd whenever it pleases their insolent Masters are Free men But surely the world is not so much mistaken in the signification of words and things The weight of Chains number of Stripes hardness of labour and other effects of a Master's cruelty may make one servitude more miserable than another but he is a slave who serves the best and gentlest man in the world as well as he who serves the worst and he dos serve him if he must obey his commands and depends upon his will For this reason the Poet ingeniously flattering a good Emperor said that Liberty was not more desirable than to serve a gentle Master but still acknowledged that it was a service distinct from and contrary to Liberty and it had not bin a handsom complement unless the evil of servitude were so extreme that nothing but the virtue and goodness of the Master could any way compensate or alleviate it Now tho it should be granted that he had spoken more like to a Philosopher than a Poet that we might take his words in the strictest sense and think it possible to find such Conveniences in a subjection to the will of a good and wise Master as may balance the loss of Liberty it would be nothing to the question because that Liberty is thereby acknowledged to be destroy'd by the Prerogative which is only instituted to preserve it If it were true that no liberty were to be prefer'd before the service of a good Master it could be of no use to the perishing world which Filmer and his Disciples would by such Arguments bring into a subjection to children fools mad or vicious men These are not cases feigned upon a distant imaginary possibility but so frequently found
described to be so by the Scriptures and to give another name to those who endeavour to advance their own glory contrary to the precept of God and the interest of mankind But unless the light of reason had bin extinguished in him he might have seen that tho no Law could be made without a supreme Power that Supremacy may be in a body consisting of many men and several orders of men If it be true which perhaps may be doubted that there have bin in the world simple Monarchies Aristocracies or Democracies legally established 't is certain that the most part of the Governments of the world and I think all that are or have bin good were mixed Part of the Power has bin confer'd upon the King or the Magistrate that represented him and part upon the Senate and People as has bin proved in relation to the Governments of the Hebrews Spartans Romans Venetians Germans and all those who live under that which is usually called the Gothic Polity If the single person participating of this divided Power dislike either the Name he bears or the Authority he has he may renounce it but no reason can be from thence drawn to the prejudice of Nations who give so much as they think consistent with their own good and reserve the rest to themselves or to such other Officers as they please to establish No man will deny that several Nations have had a right of giving power to Consuls Dictators Archons Suffetes Dukes and other Magistrates in such proportions as seemed most conducing to their own good and there must be a right in every Nation of allotting to Kings so much as they please as well as to the others unless there be a charm in the word King or in the Letters that compose it But this cannot be for there is no similitude between King Rex and Bazileus they must therefore have a right of regulating the Power of Kings as well as that of Consuls or Dictators and it had not bin more ridiculous in Fabius Scipio Camillus or Cincinnatus to assert an absolute power in himself under pretence of advancing his sovereign Majesty against the Law than for any King to do the like But as all Nations give what form they please to their Government they are also judges of the name to be imposed upon each man who is to have a part in the power and 't is as lawful for us to call him King who has a limited Authority amongst us as for the Medes or Arabs to give the same name to one who is more absolute If this be not admitted we are content to speak improperly but utterly deny that when we give the name we give any thing more than we please and had rather his Majesty should change his name than to renounce our own Rights and Liberties which he is to preserve and which we have received from God and Nature But that the folly and wickedness of our Author may not be capable of any farther aggravation he says That is skills not how he come by the power Violence therefore or fraud treachery or murder are as good as Election Donation or legal Succession 'T is in vain to examine the Laws of God or Man the rights of nature whether Children do inherit the Dignities and Magistracies of their Fathers as patrimonial Lands and Goods whether regard ought to be had to the fitness of the Person whether all should go to one or be divided amongst them or by what rule we may know who is the right Heir to the Succession and consequently what we are in conscience obliged to do Our Author tells us in short it matters not how he that has the power comes by it It has bin hitherto thought that to kill a King especially a good King was a most abominable action They who did it were thought to be incited by the worst of passions that can enter into the hearts of men and the severest punishments have bin invented to deter them from such attempts or to avenge their death upon those who should accomplish it but if our Author may be credited it must be the most commendable and glorious act that can be performed by man for besides the outward advantages that men so earnestly desire he that dos it is presently invested with the Sovereign Majesty and at the same time becomes God's Vicegerent and the father of his Country possessed of that Government which in exclusion to all other forms is only favoured by the Laws of God and Nature The only inconvenience is that all depends upon success and he that is to be the Minister of God and father of his Country if he succeed is the worst of all villains if he fail and at the best may be deprived of all by the same means he employ'd to gain it Tho a Prince should have the wisdom and virtues of Moses the valour of Joshua David and the Maccabees with the gentleness and integrity of Samuel the most foolish vitious base and detestable man in the world that kills him and seizes the power becomes his Heir and father of the People that he govern'd it skills not how he did it whether in open battel or by secret treachery in the field or in the bed by poison or by the sword The vilest slave in Israel had become the Lord 's anointed if he could have kill'd David or Solomon and found villains to place him in the Throne If this be right the world has to this day lived in darkness and the actions which have bin thought to be the most detestable are the most commendable and glorious But not troubling my self at present to decide this question I leave it to Kings to consider how much they are beholden to Filmer and his disciples who set such a price upon their heads as would render it hard to preserve their Lives one day if the Doctrines were received which they endeavour to infuse into the minds of the People and concluding this point only say that we in England know no other King than he who is so by Law nor any power in that King except that which he has by Law and tho the Roman Empire was held by the power of the Sword and Ulpian a corrupt Lawyer undertakes to say that the Prince is not obliged by the Laws yet Theodosius confessed that it was the glory of a good Emperor to acknowledg himself bound by them SECT XXII The rigour of the Law is to be temper'd by men of known integrity and judgment and not by the Prince who may be ignorant or vicious OUR Author's next shift is to place the King above the Law that he may mitigate the rigour of it without which he says The case of the Subject would be desperately miserable But this cure would prove worse than the disease Such pious fathers of the People as Caligula Nero or Domitian were not like to mitigate the rigour nor such as inherit Crowns in their infancy as the present
Kings of Spain France and Sweden so well to understand the meaning of it as to decide extraordinary cases The wisdom of Nations has provided more assured helps and none could have bin so brutish and negligent of the publick Concernments to suffer the Succession to fall to women children c. if they had not reserved a power in themselves to prefer others before the nearest in blood if reason require and prescribed such rules as might preserve the publick from ruin notwithstanding their infirmities and vices These helps provided by our Laws are principally by grand and petit Juries who are not only Judges of matters of fact as whether a man be kill'd but whether he be kill'd criminally These men are upon their Oaths and may be indicted of Perjury if they prevaricate The Judges are present not only to be a check upon them but to explain such points of the Law as may seem difficult And tho these Judges may be said in some sense to be chosen by the King he is not understood to do it otherwise than by the advice of his Council who cannot perform their duty unless they propose such as in their consciences they think most worthy of the Office and most capable of performing the duty rightly nor he accomplish the Oath of his Coronation unless he admit those who upon deliberation seem to be the best The Judges being thus chosen are so far from depending upon the will of the King that they swear faithfully to serve the People as well as the King and to do justice to every man according to the Law of the Land notwithstanding any Writs Letters or Commands received from him and in default thereof they are to forfeit their bodies lands and goods as in cases of Treason These Laws have bin so often and so severely executed that it concerns all Judges well to consider them and the Cases of Tresilian Empson Dudley and others shew that neither the King 's preceding command nor subsequent pardon could preserve them from the punishment they deserved All men knew that what they did was agreeable to the King's pleasure for Tresilian advanced the Prerogative of Edward the 2d and Empson brought great Treasures into the Coffers of Henry the 7th Nevertheless they were charged with Treason for subverting the Laws of the Land and executed as Traitors Tho England ought never to forget the happy Reign of Q. Elizabeth yet it must be acknowledged that she as well as others had her failings She was full of love to the People just in her nature sincere in her intentions but could not so perfectly discover the snares that were laid for her or resist the importunity of the Persons she most trusted as not sometimes to be brought to attempt things against Law She and her Counsellors pressed the Judges very hardly to obey the Patent under her Great Seal in the case of Cavendish but they answered That both she and they had taken an Oath to keep the Law and if they should obey her commands the Law would not warrant them c. And besides the offence against God their Country and the Commonwealth they alledged the example of Empson and Dudley whereby they said they were deterred from obeying her illegal Commands They who had sworn to keep the Law notwithstanding the King's Writs knew that the Law depended not upon his will and the same Oath that obliged them not to regard any command they should receive from him shewed that they were not to expect indemnity by it and not only that the King had neither the power of making altering mitigating or interpreting the Law but that he was not at all to be heard in general or particular matters otherwise than as he speaks in the common course of Justice by the Courts legally established which say the same thing whether he be young or old ignorant or wise wicked or good and nothing dos better evidence the wisdom and care of our Ancestors in framing the Laws and Government we live under than that the People did not suffer extremities by the vices or infirmities of Kings till an Age more full of malice than those in which they lived had found tricks to pervert the rule and frustrate their honest intentions It was not safe for the Kings to violate their Oaths by an undue interposition of their Authority but the Ministers who served them in those violations have seldom escaped punishment This is to be understood when the deviations from Justice are extreme and mischievous for something must always be allow'd to human frailty The best have their defects and none could stand if a too exact scrutiny were made of all their actions Edward the third about the twentieth year of his Reign acknowledged his own in Parliament and as well for the ease of his Conscience as the satisfaction of his People promoted an Act Commanding all Judges to do Justice notwithstanding any Writs Letters or Commands from himself and forbidding those that belonged to the King Queen and Prince to intermeddle in those matters But if the best and wisest of our Princes in the strength and maturity of their years had their failings and every act proceeding from them that tended to the interruption of Justice was a failing how can it be said that the King in his personal capacity directly or indirectly may enter into the discussion of these matters much less to determine them according to his will But says our Author the Law is no better than a Tyrant general Pardons at the Coronation and in Parliament are but the bounty of the Prerogative c. There may be hard cases and citing some perverted pieces from Aristotle's Ethicks and Politicsk adds That when something falls out besides the general rule then it is fit that what the Lawmaker hath omitted or where he hath erred by speaking generally it should be corrected and supplied as if the Lawmaker were present that ordained it The Governor whether he be one man or more ought to be Lord of these things whereof it was impossible that the Law should speak exactly These things are in part true but our Author makes use of them as the Devil dos of Scripture to subvert the truth There may be something of rigour in the Law that in some cases may be mitigated and the Law it self in relation to England dos so far acknowledg it as to refer much to the consciences of Juries and those who are appointed to assist them and the most difficult Cases are referred to the Parliament as the only judges that are able to determine them Thus the Statute of the 35 Edw. 3d enumerating the crimes then declared to be Treason leaves to suture Parliaments to judg what other facts equivalent to them may deserve the same punishment and 't is a general rule in the Law which the Judges are sworn to observe that difficult Cases should be reserved till the Parliament meet who are only able to decide them and
if there be any inconvenience in this 't is because they do not meet so frequently as the Law requires or by sinister means are interrupted in their sitting But nothing can be more absurd than to say that because the King dos not call Parliaments as the Law and his Oath requires that power should accrue to him which the Law and the consent of the Nation has placed in them There is also such a thing in the Law as a general or particular Pardon and the King may in some degree be entrusted with the power of giving it especially for such crimes as merely relate to himself as every man may remit the injuries done to himself but the confession of Edward the third That the Oath of the Crown had not bin kept by reason of the grant of Pardons contrary to Statutes and a new Act made that all such Charters of Pardon from henceforth granted against the Oath of the Crown and the said Statutes should be held for none demonstrates that this power was not in himself but granted by the Nation and to be executed according to such rules as the Law prescribed and the Parliament approved Moreover there having bin many and sometimes bloody contests for the Crown upon which the Nation was almost equally divided and it being difficult for them to know or even for us who have all the parties before us to judg which was the better side it was understood that he who came to be crown'd by the consent of the People was acceptable to all and the question being determined it was no way fit that he should have a liberty to make use of the publick Authority then in his hands to revenge such personal iniuries as he had or might suppose to have received which might raise new and perhaps more dangerous troubles if the Authors of them were still kept in fear of being prosecuted and nothing could be more unreasonable than that he should emplov his power to the destruction of those who had consented to make him King This made it a matter of course for a King as soon as he was crown'd to issue out a general Pardon which was no more than to declare that being now what he was not before he had no enemy upon any former account For this reason Lewis the twelfth of France when he was incited to revenge himself against those who in the reign of his Predecessor Charles the eighth had caused him to be imprisoned with great danger of his life made this answer That the King of France did not care to revenge the injuries done to the Duke of Orleans and the last King of Sweden seemed no otherwise to remember who had opposed the Queens Abdication and his Election than by conferring honours upon them because he knew they were the best men of the Nation and such as would be his friends when they should see how he would govern in which he was not deceived But lest all those who might come to the Crown of England should not have the same prudence and generosity the Kings were obliged by a Custom of no less force than a Law immediately to put an end to all disputes and the inconveniences that might arise from them This did not proceed from the bounty of the Prerogative which I think is nonsense for tho he that enjoys the Prerogative may have bounty the Prerogative can have none but from common sense from his obligation and the care of his own safety and could have no other effect in Law than what related to his person as appears by the forementioned Statute Pardon 's granted by Act of Parliament are of another nature For as the King who has no other power than by Law can no otherwise dispense with the crimes committed against the Laws than the Law dos enable him the Parliament that has the power of making Laws may intirely abolish the crimes and unquestionably remit the punishment as they please Tho some words of Aristotle's Ethicks are without any coherence shuffled together by our Author with others taken out of his Politicks I do not much except against them No Law made by man can be perfect and there must be in every Nation a power of correcting such defects as in time may arise or be discovered This power can never be so rightly placed as in the same hand that has the right of making Laws whether in one person or in many If Filmer therefore can tell us of a place where one man woman or child however he or she be qualified has the power of making Laws I will acknowledg that not only the hard Cases but as many others as he pleases are referr'd to his or her judgment and that they may give it whether they have any understanding of what they do or not whether they be drunk or sober in their senses or stark mad But as I know no such place and should not be much concerned for the sufferings of a People that should bring such misery upon themselves as must accompany an absolute dependence upon the unruly will of such a creature I may leave him to seek it and rest in a perfect assurance that he dos not speak of England which acknowledges no other Law than its own and instead of receiving any from Kings dos to this day obey none but such as have bin made by our Ancestors or our selves and never admitted any King that did not swear to observe them And if Aristotle deserve credit the power of altering mitigating explaining or correcting the Laws of England is only in the Parliament because none but the Parliament can make them SECT XXIII Aristotle proves that no man is to be entrusted with an absolute Power by shewing that no one knows how to execute it but such a man as is not to be found OUR Author having falsly cited and perverted the sense of Aristotle now brings him in saying That a perfect Kingdom is that wherein the King rules all according to his own will But tho I have read his books of Government with some attention I can find no such thing in them unless the word which signifies mere or absolute may be justly translated into perfect which is so far from Aristotle's meaning that he distinguishes the absolute or despotical Kingdoms from the Legitimate and commending the latter gives no better name than that of barbarous to the first which he says can agree only with the nature of such Nations as are base and stupid little differing from Beasts and having no skill to govern or courage to defend themselves must resign all to the will of one that will take care of them Yet even this cannot be done unless he that should take that care be wholly exempted from the vices which oblige the others to stand in need of it for otherwise 't is no better than if a Sheep should undertake to govern Sheep or a Hog to command Swine Aristotle plainly saying That as men are by nature
retained the name of a Senate was made up chiefly of those who had bin his Ministers in bringing the most miserable slavery upon their own Country The Roman Liberty and that bravery of spirit by which it had bin maintained was not only abolished but almost forgotten All consideration of Law and Right was trampled under foot and none could dispute with him who by the power of the sword had seiz'd the Authority both of the Senate and People Nothing was so extravagant that might not be extorted by the insolent violence of a Conqueror who had thirty mercenary Legions to execute his Commands The uncorrupted part of the People that had escaped the sword of Julius had either perished with Hirtius and Pansa Brutus and Cassius or bin destroy'd by the detestable Triumvirate Those that remain'd could lose nothing by a verbal resignation of their Liberty which they had neither strength nor courage to defend The Magistracies were possess'd by the Creatures of the Tyrant and the People was composed of such as were either born under slavery and accustomed to obey or remain'd under the terror of those arms that had consumed the Assertors of their Liberty Our Author standing in need of some Roman Example was obliged to seek it in an age when the Laws were subverted Virtue extinguished Injustice placed in the Throne and such as would not be of the same spirit exposed to the utmost cruelty This was the time when the Sovereign Majesty shined in glory and they who had raised it above the Law made it also the object of their Religion by adoring the Statues of their Oppressor The corruption of this Court spread it self over the best part of the world and reduced the Empire to that irrecoverable weakness in which it languished and perish'd This is the state of things that pleases Filmer and those that are like him who for the introduction of the same among us recommend such an elevation of the Sovereign Majesty as is most contrary to the Laws of God and Men abhorred by all generous Nations and most especially by our Ancestors who thought nothing too dear to be hazarded in the defence of themselves and us from it SECT XXV The Regal Power was not the first in this Nation nor necessarily to be continued tho it had bin the first TRUTH being uniform in it self those who desire to propagate it for the good of mankind lay the foundations of their reasonings in such Principles as are either evident to common sense or easily proved but Cheats and Impostors delighting in obscurity suppose things that are dubious or false and think to build one falshood upon another and our Author can find no better way to perswade us that all our Privileges and Laws are from the King than by saying That the first power was the Kingly Power which was both in this and all other Nations in the world long before any Laws or any other kind of Government was thought of from whence we must necessarily infer that the common Law or common Customs of this Land were originally the Laws and Commands of the King But denying both these points I affirm 1. First that there was a power to make Kings before there was any King 2. Tho Kings had bin the first created Magistrates in all places as perhaps they were in some it dos not follow that they must continue for ever or that Laws are from them To the first I think no man will deny that there was a People at Babylon before Nimrod was King of that place This People had a Power for no number of men can be without it Nay this People had a power of making Nimrod King or he could never have bin King He could not be King by succession for the Scripture shews him to have bin the first He was not King by the right of Father for he was not their Father Chush Cham with his elder Brothers and Father Noah being still living and which is worst of all were not Kings for if they who lived in Nimrod's time or before him neither were Kings nor had Kings he that ought to have bin King over all by the right of nature if there had bin any such thing in nature was not King Those who immediately succeeded him and must have inherited his right if he had any did not inherit or pretend to it and therefore he that shall now claim a right from nature as Father of a People must ground it upon something more certain than Noah's right of reigning over his Children or it can have no strength in it Moreover the Nations who in and before the time of Nimrod had no Kings had Power or else they could have performed no Act nor constituted any other magistrate to this day which is absurd There was therefore a power in Nations before there were Kings or there could never have bin any and Nimrod could never have bin King if the People of Babylon had not made him King which they could not have done if they had not had a power of making him so 'T is ridiculous to say he made himself King for tho he might be strong and valiant he could not be stronger than a multitude of men That which sorces must be stronger than that which is forced and if it be true according to the antient saying that Hercules himself is not sufficient to encounter two 't is sure more impossible for one man to force a multitude for that must be stronger than he If he came in by perswasion they who were perswaded were perswaded to consent that he should be King That Consent therefore made him King But Qui dat esse dat modum esse They who made him King made him such a King as best pleased themselves He had therefore nothing but what was given his greatness and power must be from the multitude who gave it and their Laws and Liberties could not be from him but their Liberties were naturally inherent in themselves and their Laws were the product of them There was a People that made Romulus King He did not make or beget that People nor for any thing we know one man of them He could not come in by inheritance for he was a Bastard the Son of an unknown man and when he died the right that had bin conferred upon him reverted to the People who according to that right chose Numa Hostilius Martius Tarquinius Priscus and Servius all Strangers and without any other right than what was bestow'd upon them and Tarquinius Superbus who invaded the Throne without the command of the People was ejected and the Government of Kings abolisht by the same power that had created it We know not certainly by what Law Moses and the Judges created by the advice of Jethro governed the Israelites but may probably conjecture it to have bin by that Law which God had written in the hearts of mankind and the People submitted to the judgment of good and wise men tho
they were under no coercive Power but 't is certain they had a Law and a regular Magistracy under which they lived four hundred years before they had a King for Saul was the first This Law was not therefore from the King nor by the King but the King was chosen and made by the People according to the liberty they had by the Law tho they did not rightly follow the rules therein prescribed and by that means brought destruction upon themselves The Country in which we live lay long concealed under obscure barbarity and we know nothing of the first Inhabitants but what is involved in fables that leave us still in the dark Julius Cesar is the first who speaks distinctly of our affairs and gives us no reason to believe there was any Monarchy then established amongst us Cassivellaunus was occasionally chosen by the Nations that were most exposed to the violence of the Romans for the management of those wars against them By others we hear of Boadicia Arviragus Galgacus and many more set up asterwards when need required but we find no footsteps of a regular Succession either by inheritance or election And as they had then no Kings or any other general Magistrate that can be said to be equivalent to a King they might have had none at all unless they had thought fit Tacitus mentions a sort of Kings used by the Romans to keep Nations in servitude to them and tho it were true that there had bin such a man as Lucius and he one of this sort he is to be accounted only as a Roman Magistrate and signifies no more to our dispute than if he had bin called Proconsul Pretor or by any other name However there was no series of them that which was temporary and occasional depended upon the will of those who thinking there was occasion created such a Magistrate and omitted to do so when the occasion ceased or was thought to cease and might have had none at all if they had so pleased The Magistracy therefore was from them and depended upon their will We have already mentioned the Histories of the Saxons Danes and Normans from which Nations together with the Britains we are descended and finding that they were severe Assertors of their Liberties acknowledged no human Laws but their own received no Kings but such as swore to observe them and deposed those who did not well perform their Oaths and Duty 't is evident that their Kings were made by the People according to the Law and that the Law by which they became what they were could not be from themselves Our Ancestors were so fully convinced that in the creation of Kings they exercised their own right and were only to consider what was good sor themselves that without regard to the memory of those who had gone besore they were accustomed to take such as seemed most like wisely justly and gently to perform their office refused those that were suspected of pride cruelty or any other vice that might bring prejudice upon the Publick what title soever they pretended and removed such as had bin placed in the Throne if they did not answer the opinion conceived of their virtue which I take to be a manner of proceeding that agrees better with the quality of Masters making Laws and Magistrates for themselves than of Slaves receiving such as were imposed upon them 2. To the second Tho it should be granted that all Nations had at the first bin governed by Kings it were nothing to the question sor no man or number of Men was ever obliged to continue in the errors of his Predecessors The Authority of Custom as well as of Law I mean in relation to the Power that made it to be consists only in its rectitude And the same reason which may have induced one or more Nations to create Kings when they knew no other form of Government may not only induce them to set up another if that be found inconvenient to them but proves that they may as justly do so as remove a man who performs not what was expected from him If there had bin a Rule given by God and written in the minds of men by nature it must have bin from the beginning universal and perpetual or at least must have bin observed by the wisest and best instructed Nations which not being in any measure as I have proved already there can be no reason why a polite People should not relinquish the errors committed by their Ancestors in the time of their barbarism and ignorance and why they should not do it in matters of Government as well as in any other thing relating to life Men are subject to errors and 't is the work of the best and wisest to discover and amend such as their Ancestors may have committed or to add perfection to those things which by them have bin well invented This is so certain that whatsoever we enjoy beyond the misery in which our barbarous Ancestors lived is due only to the liberty of correcting what was amiss in their practice or inventing that which they did not know and I doubt whether it be more brutish to say we are obliged to continue in the Idolatry of the Druids with all the miseries and follies that accompany the most savage barbarity or to confess that tho we have a right to depart from these yet we are for ever bound to continue the Government they had established whatever inconveniences might attend it Tertullian disputing with the Pagans who objected the novelty of the Christian Religion troubled not himself with refuting that error but proving Christianity to be good and true he thought he had sufficiently proved it to be antient A wise Architect may shew his skill and deserve commendation sor building a poor house of vile materials when he can procure no better but he no way ought to hinder others from erecting more glorious Fabricks if they are furnished with the means required Besides such is the imperfection of all human Constitutions that they are subject to perpetual sluctuation which never permits them to continue long in the same condition Corruptions slide in insensibly and the best Orders are sometimes subverted by malice and violence so that he who only regards what was done in such an age often takes the corruption of the State for the institution follows the worst example thinks that to be the first that is the most antient he knows and if a brave People seeing the original defects of their Government or the corruption into which it may be fallen do either correct and reform what may be amended or abolish that which was evil in the institution or so perverted that it cannot be restor'd to integrity these men impute it to sedition and blame those actions which of all that can be performed by men are the most glorious We are not therefore so much to inquire after that which is most antient as that which is best and
SECT XXVI Tho the King may be entrusted with the power of chusing Judges yet that by which they act is from the Law I Confess that no Law can be so perfect to provide exactly for every case that may fall out so as to leave nothing to the discretion of the Judges who in some measure are to interpret them But that Laws or Customs are ever few or that the paucity is the reason that they cannot give special rules or that Judges do resort to those principles or Common Law Axioms whereupon former judgments in cases something alike have bin given by former Judges who all receive their Authority from the King in his right to give Sentence I utterly deny and affirm 1. That in many places and particularly in England the Laws are so many that the number of them has introduced an uncertainty and confusion which is both dangerous and troublesom and the infinite variety of adjudged cases thwarting and contradicting each other has render'd these difficulties inextricable Tacitus imputes a great part of the miseries suffer'd by the Romans in his time to this abuse and tells us that the Laws grew to be innumerable in the worst and most corrupt state of things and that Justice was overthrown by them By the same means in France Italy and other places where the Civil Law is rendred municipal Judgments are in a manner arbitrary and tho the intention of our Laws be just and good they are so numerous and the volumes of our Statutes with the interpretations and adjudged Cases so vast that hardly any thing is so clear and fixed but men of wit and learning may find what will serve for a pretence to justify almost any judgment they have a mind to give Whereas the Laws of Moses as to the Judicial part being short and few Judgments were easy and certain and in Switzerland Sweden and some parts of Denmark the whole volume that contains them may be read in few hours and by that means no injustice can be done which is not immediately made evident 2. Axioms are not rightly grounded upon judged Cases but Cases are to be judged according to Axioms the certain is not proved by the uncertain but the uncertain by the certain and every thing is to be esteemed uncertain till it be proved to be certain Axioms in Law are as in Mathematicks evident to common sense and nothing is to be taken for an Axiom that is not so Euclid dos not prove his Axioms by his Propositions but his Propositions which are abstruse by such Axioms as are evident to all The Axioms of our Law do not receive their Authority from Coke or Hales but Coke and Hales deserve praise for giving judgment according to such as are undeniably true 3. The Judges receive their Commissions from the King and perhaps it may be said that the Custom of naming them is grounded upon a right with which he is entrusted but their power is from the Law as that of the King also is For he who has none originally in himself can give none unless it be first conserred upon him I know not how he can well perform his Oath to govern according to Law unless he execute the power with which he is entrusted in naming those men to be Judges whom in his conscience and by the advice of his Council he thinks the best and ablest to perform that Office But both he and they are to learn their duty from that Law by which they are and which allots to every one his proper work As the Law intends that men should be made Judges for their integrity and knowledg in the Law and that it ought not to be imagined that the King will break his trust by chusing such as are not so till the violation be evident nothing is more reasonable than to intend that the Judges so qualified should instruct the King in matters of Law But that he who may be a child over aged or otherwise ignorant and uncapable should instruct the Judges is equally absurd as for a blind man to be a guide to those who have the best eyes and so abhorrent from the meaning of the Law that the Judges as I said before are sworn to do justice according to the Laws without any regard to the King's words letters or commands If they are therefore to act according to a set rule from which they may not depart what command soever they receive they do not act by a power from him but by one that is above both This is commonly confess'd and tho some Judges have bin found in several ages who in hopes of reward and preferment have made little account of their Oath yet the success that many of them have had may reasonably deter others from following their example and if there are not more instances in this kind no better reason can be given than that Nations do frequently fail by being too remiss in asserting their own rights or punishing offenders and hardly ever err on the severer side 4. Judgments are variously given in several States and Kingdoms but he who would find one where they lie in the breast of the King must go at least as far as Marocco Nay the Ambassador who was lately here from that place denied that they were absolutely in him However 't is certain that in England according to the Great Charter Judgments are passed by equals no man can be imprison'd disseiz'd of his Freehold depriv'd of Life or Limb unless by the sentence of his Peers The Kings of Judah did judg and were judged and the Judgments they gave were in and with the Sanhedrim In England the Kings do not judg but are judged and Bracton says That in receiving justice the King is equal to another man which could not be if judgments were given by him and he were exempted from the judgment of all by that Law which has put all judgments into the hands of the People This power is executed by them in grand or petty Juries and the Judges are assistants to them in explaining the difficult points of the Law in which 't is presumed they should be learned The strength of every judgment consists in the verdict of these Juries which the Judges do not give but pronounce or declare and the same Law that makes good a verdict given contrary to the advice or direction of the Judges exposes them to the utmost penalties if upon their own heads or a command from the King they should presume to give a Sentence without or contrary to a Verdict and no pretensions to a power of interpreting the Law can exempt them if they break it The power also with which the Judges are entrusted is but of a moderate extent and to be executed bona fide Prevarications are capital as they proved to Tresilian Empson Dudley and many others Nay even in special Verdicts the Judges are only assistants to the Juries who find it specially
and Life than by the performance of his Oath and accomplishing the ends of his election They neither took him to be the giver or interpreter of their Laws and would not suffer him to violate those of their Ancestors In this way they always continued and tho perhaps they might want skill to fall upon the surest and easiest means of restraining the Lusts of Princes yet they maintained their rights so well that the wisest Princes seldom invaded them and the success of those who were so foolish to attempt it was such as may justly deter others from following their unprosperous Examples We have had no King since William the First more hardy than Henry the 8th and yet he so intirely acknowledged the power of making changing and repealing Laws to be in the Parliament as never to attempt any extraordinary thing otherwise than by their Authority It was not he but the Parliament that dissolved the Abbies He did not take their Lands to himself but receiv'd what the Parliament thought fit to give him He did not reject the Supremacy of the Pope nor assume any other power in spiritual matters than the Parliament conferred upon him The intricacies of his Marriages and the legitimation of his Children was settled by the same Power At least one of his Daughters could not inherit the Crown upon any other Title they who gave him a power to dispose of the Crown by will might have given it to his Groom and he was too haughty to ask it from them if he had it in himself which he must have had if the Laws and Judicatures had bin in his hand This is farther evidenced by what passed in the Tower between Sir Thomas Moor and Rich the King's Sollicitor who asking if it would not be treason to oppose Richard Rich if the Parliament should make him King Moor said that was Casus levis for the Parliament could make and depose Kings as they thought fit and then as more conducing to his own case asked Rich if the Parliament should enact that God should not be God whether such as did not submit should be esteemed Traitors 'T is evident that a man of the acuteness and learning of Sir Tho. Moor would not have made use of such an Argument to avoid the necessity of obeying what the Parliament had ordained by shewing his Case to be of a nature far above the power of man unless it had bin confessed by all men that the Parliament could do whatsoever lay within the reach of human power This may be enough to prove that the King cannot have a power over the Law and if he has it not the power of interpreting Laws is absurdly attributed to him since it is founded upon a supposition that he can make them which is false SECT XXVII Magna Charta was not the Original but a Declaration of the English Liberties The King's Power is not restrained but created by that and other Laws and the Nation that made them can only correct the defects of them I Agree with our Author that Magna Charta was not made to restrain the absolute Authority for no such thing was in being or pretended the folly of such visions seeming to have bin reserved to compleat the misfortunes and ignominy of our age but it was to assert the native and original Liberties of our Nation by the confession of the King then being that neither he nor his Successors should any way encroach upon them and it cannot be said that the power of Kings is diminished by that or any other Law for as they are Kings only by Law the Law may confer power upon one in particular or upon him and his Successors but can take nothing from them because they have nothing except what is given to them But as that which the Law gives is given by those who make the Law they only are capable of judging whether he to whom they gave it do well or ill imploy that power and consequently are only fit to correct the defects that may be found in it Therefore tho I should confess that faults may be found in many Statutes and that the whole body of them is greatly defective it will not follow that the compendious way of referring all to the will of the King should be taken But what defects soever may be in our Law the disease is not so great to require extreme remedies and we may hope for a cheaper cure Our Law may possibly have given away too much from the People and provided only insufficient defences of our Liberties against the encroachments of bad Princes but none who are not in judgment and honesty like to our Author can propose sor a remedy to the evils that proceed from the error of giving too much the resignation of all the rest to them Whatever he says 't is evident that he knows this to be true when tho he denies that the power of Kings can be restrained by Acts of Parliament he endeavours to take advantage of such clauses as were either fraudulently inserted by the King's Officers who till the days of Henry the fifth for the most part had the penning of the publick Acts or through negligence did not fully explain the intentions of the Legislators which would be to no purpose if all were put into the hands of the King by a general Law from God that no human power could diminish or enlarge and as his last shift would obliquely put all into the power of the King by giving him a right of interpreting the Law and judging such cases as are not clearly decided which would be equally impertinent if he had openly and plainly a right of determining all things according to his will But what defects soever may be in any Statutes no great inconveniences could probably ensue if that for annual Parliaments was observed as of right it ought to be Nothing is more unlikely than that a great Assembly of eminent and chosen men should make a Law evidently destructive to their own designs and no mischief that might emerge upon the discovery of a mistake could be so extreme that the cure might not be deferr'd till the meeting of the Parliament or at least forty days in which time the King may call one if that which the Law has fixed seem to be too long If he fail of this he performs not his trust and he that would reward such a breach of it with a vast and uncontrolable power may be justly thought equal in madness to our Author who by forbidding us to examine the titles of Kings and enjoyning an intire veneration of the power by what means soever obtained encourages the worst of men to murder the best of Princes with an assurance that if they prosper they shall enjoy all the honors and advantages that this World can afford Princes are not much more beholden to him for the haughty language he puts into their mouths it having bin observed that the worst are always most
of late bin given to Monk and his honourable Dutchess New phrases have bin invented to please Princes or the sense of the old perverted as has happen'd to that of Le Roy s'avisera And that which was no more than a Liberty to consult with the Lords upon a Bill presented by the Commons is by some men now taken for a Right inherent in the King of denying such Bills as may be offer'd to him by the Lords and Commons tho the Coronation Oath oblige him to hold keep and defend the just Laws and Customs quas vulgus elegerit And if a stop be not put to this exorbitant abuse the words still remaining in Acts of Parliament which shew that their Acts are our Laws may perhaps be also abolished But tho this should come to pass by the slackness of the Lords and Commons it could neither create a new Right in the King nor diminish that of the People But it might give a better colour to those who are Enemies to their Country to render the Power of the Crown arbitrary than any thing that is yet among us SECT XXXV The Authority given by our Law to the Acts performed by a King de facto detract nothing from the peoples right of creating whom they please THEY who have more regard to the prevailing Power than to Right and lay great weight upon the Statute of Henry the seventh which authorizes the Acts of a King de facto seem not to consider that thereby they destroy all right of Inheritance that he only is King de facto who is received by the People and that this reception could neither be of any value in it self nor be made valid by a Statute unless the People and their Representatives who make the Statute had in themselves the power of receiving authorizing and creating whom they please For he is not King de facto who calls himself so as Perkin or Simnel but he who by the consent of the Nation is possess'd of the Regal Power If there were such a thing in nature as a natural Lord over every Country and that the right must go by descent it would be impossible for any other man to acquire it or for the people to confer it upon him and to give the Authority to the Acts of one who neither is nor can be a King which belongs only to him who has the right inherent in himself and inseparable from him Neither can it be denied that the same power which gives the validity to such Acts as are performed by one who is not a King that belongs to those of a true King may also make him King for the essence of a King consists in the validity of his Acts. And 't is equally absurd for one to pretend to be a King whose Acts as King are not valid as that his own can be valid if those of another are for then the same indivisible Right which our Author and those of his principles assert to be inseparable from the Person would be at the same time exercised and enjoyed by two distinct and contrary Powers Moreover it may be observed that this Statute was made after frequent and bloody Wars concerning Titles to the Crown and whether the cause were good or bad those who were overcome were not only subject to be killed in the field but afterwards to be prosecuted as Traitors under the colour of Law He who gained the Victory was always set up to be King by those of his party and he never failed to proceed against his Enemies as Rebels This introduced a horrid series of the most destructive mischiefs The fortune of War varied often and I think it may be said that there were few if any great Families in England that were not either destroy'd or at least so far shaken as to lose their Chiefs and many considerable branches of them And experience taught that instead of gaining any advantage to the Publick in point of Government he for whom they fought seldom proved better than his Enemy They saw that the like might again happen tho the title of the reigning King should be as clear as descent of blood could make it This brought things into an uneasy posture and 't is not strange that both the Nobility and Commonalty should be weary of it No Law could prevent the dangers of battel for he that had followers and would venture himself might bring them to such a decision as was only in the hand of God But thinking no more could justly be required to the full performance of their Duty to the King than to expose themselves to the hazard of battel for him and not being answerable for the success they would not have that Law which they endeavour'd to support turned to their destruction by their Enemies who might come to be the interpreters of it But as they could be exempted from this danger only by their own Laws which could authorize the Acts of a King without a Title and justify them for acting under him 't is evident that the power of the Law was in their hands and that the acts of the person who enjoyed the Crown were of no value in themselves The Law had bin impertinent if it could have bin done without Law and the Intervention of the Parliament useless if the Kings de facto could have given authority to their own Acts. But if the Parliament could make that to have the effect of Law which was not Law and exempt those that acted according to it from the penalties of the Law and give the same force to the Acts of one who is not King as of one who is they cannot but have a power of making him to be King who is not so that is to say all depends intirely upon their Authority Besides he is not King who assumes the title to himself or is set up by a corrupt party but he who according to the usages required in the case is made King If these are wanting he is neither de facto nor de jure but Tyrannus sine titulo Nevertheless this very man if he comes to be received by the People and placed in the Throne he is thereby made King de facto His Acts are valid in Law the same service is due to him as to any other they who render it are in the same manner protected by the Law that is to say he is truly King If our Author therefore do allow such to be Kings he must confess that power to be good which makes them so when they have no right in themselves If he deny it he must not only deny that there is any such thing as a King de facto which the Statute acknowledges but that we ever had any King in England for we never had any other than such as I have proved before By the same means he will so unravel all the Law that no man shall know what he has or what he ought to do or avoid and will find no
set limits to them but all reasonable men confessing that they are instituted for the good of Nations they only can deserve praise who above all things endeavour to procure it and appoint means proportioned to that end The great variety of Governments which we see in the world is nothing but the effect of this care and all Nations have bin and are more or less happy as they or their Ancestors have had vigour of Spirit integrity of Manners and wisdom to invent and establish such Orders as have better or worse provided for this common Good which was sought by all But as no rule can be so exact to make provision against all contestations and all disputes about Right do naturally end in force when Justice is denied ill men never willingly submitting to any decision that is contrary to their passions and interests the best Constitutions are of no value if there be not a power to support them This power first exerts it self in the execution of justice by the ordinary Officers But no Nation having bin so happy as not sometimes to produce such Princes as Edward and Richard the Seconds and such Ministers as Gaveston Spencer and Tresilian the ordinary Officers of Justice often want the will and always the power to restrain them So that the Rights and Liberties of a Nation must be utterly subverted and abolished if the power of the whole may not be employed to assert them or punish the violation of them But as it is the fundamental Right of every Nation to be governed by such Laws in such manner and by such persons as they think most conducing to their own good they cannot be accountable to any but themselves for what they do in that most important affair SECT XXXVII The English Government was not ill constituted the defects more lately observed proceeding from the change of manners and corruption of the times I Am not ignorant that many honest and good men acknowledging these Rights and the care of our Ancestors to preserve them think they wanted wisdom rightly to proportionate the means to the end 'T is not enough say they for the General of an Army to desire Victory he only can deserve praise who has skill industry and courage to take the best measures of obtaining it Neither is it enough for wise Legislators to preserve Liberty and to erect such a Government as may stand for a time but to set such clear Rules to those who are to put it in execution that every man may know when they transgress and appoint such means for restraining or punishing them as may be used speedily surely and effectually without danger to the Publick Sparta being thus constituted we hardly find that for more than eight hundred years any King presumed to pass the limits prescribed by the Law If any Roman Consul grew insolent he might be reduced to order without blood or danger to the Publick and no Dictator ever usurped a power over Liberty till the time of Sylla when all things in the City were so changed that the antient foundations were become too narrow In Venice the power of the Duke is so circumscribed that in 1300 years no one except Falerio and Tiepoli have dared to attempt any thing against the Laws and they were immediately suppressed with little commotion in the City On the other side our Law is so ambiguous perplext and intricate that 't is hard to know when 't is broken In all the publick contests we have had men of good judgment and integrity have follow'd both parties The means of transgressing and procuring Partizans to make good by force the most notorious violations of Liberty have bin so easy that no Prince who has endeavoured it ever failed to get great numbers of followers and to do infinite mischiefs before he could be removed The Nation has bin brought to fight against those they had made to be what they were upon the unequal terms of hazarding all against nothing If they had success they gained no more than was their own before and which the Law ought to have secured whereas 't is evident that if at any one time the contrary had happened the Nation had bin utterly enslaved and no victory was ever gained without the loss of much noble and innocent blood To this I answer that no right judgment can be given of human things without a particular regard to the time in which they passed We esteem Scipio Hannibal Pyrrhus Alexander Epaminondas and Cesar to have bin admirable Commanders in War because they had in a most eminent degree all the qualities that could make them so and knew best how to employ the Arms then in use according to the discipline of their times and yet no man doubts that if the most skilful of them could be raised from the Grave restored to the utmost vigour of mind and body set at the head of the best Armies he ever commanded and placed upon the Frontiers of France or Flanders he would not know how to advance or retreat nor by what means to take any of the places in those parts as they are now fortified and defended bnt would most certainly be beaten by any insignificant fellow with a small number of men furnished with such Arms as are now in use and following the methods now practised Nay the manner of marching encamping besieging attacking defending and fighting is so much altered within the last threescore years that no man observing the discipline that was then thought to be the best could possibly defend himself against that which has bin since found out tho the terms are still the same And if it be consider'd that political matters are subject to the same mutations as certainly they are it will be sufficient to excuse our Ancestors who suting their Government to the Ages in which they lived could neither soresee the changes that might happen in future Generations nor appoint remedies for the mischiefs they did not soresee They knew that the Kings of several Nations had bin kept within the limits of the Law by the virtue and power of a great and brave Nobility and that no other way of supporting a mix'd Monarchy had ever bin known in the world than by putting the balance into the hands of those who had the greatest interest in Nations and who by birth and estate enjoy'd greater advantages than Kings could confer upon them for rewards of betraying their Country They knew that when the Nobility was so great as not easily to be number'd the little that was left to the King's disposal was not sufficient to corrupt many and if some might fall under the temptation those who continued in their integrity would easily be able to chastise them for deserting the publick Cause and by that means deter Kings srom endeavouring to seduce them from their duty Whilst things continued in this posture Kings might safely be trusted with the advice of their Council to confer the commands of the Militia in
This is he who never dos any wrong 'T is before him we appear when we demand Justice or render an account of our actions All Juries give their verdict in his sight They are his Commands that the Judges are bound and sworn to obey when they are not at all to consider such as they receive from the person that wears the Crown 'T was for Treason against him that Tresilian and others like to him in several ages were hanged They gratified the lusts of the visible Powers but the invisible King would not be mock'd He caused Justice to be executed upon Empson and Dudley He was injured when the perjur'd wretches who gave that accursed Judgment in the case of Shipmony were suffered to escape the like punishment by means of the ensuing troubles which they had chiefly raised And I leave it to those who are concerned to consider how many in our days may expect vengeance for the like crimes I should here conclude this point if the power of granting a Noli proseq Cesset Processus and Pardons which are said to be annexed to the person of the King were not taken for a proof that all proceedings at Law depend upon his will But whoever would from hence draw a general conclusion must first prove his proposition to be universally true If it be wholly false no true deduction can be made and if it be true only in some cases 't is absurd to draw from thence a general conclusion and to erect a vast fabrick upon a narrow foundation is impossible As to the general proposition I utterly deny it The King cannot stop any Suit that I begin in my own name or invalidate any Judgment I obtain upon it He cannot release a Debt of ten shillings due to me nor a Sentence for the like sum given upon an action of Battery Assault Trespass publick Nuisance or the like He cannot pardon a man condemned upon an Appeal nor hinder the person injured from appealing His power therefore is not universal if it be not universal it cannot be inherent but conferred upon him or entrusted by a superior Power that limits it These limits are fixed by the Law the Law therefore is above him His proceedings must be regulated by the Law and not the Law by his will Besides the extent of those limits can only be known by the intention of the Law that sets them and are so visible that none but such as are wilfully blind can mistake It cannot be imagined that the Law which dos not give a power to the King of pardoning a man that breaks my hedg can intend he should have power to pardon one who kills my father breaks my house robs me of my goods abuses my children and servants wounds me and brings me in danger of my life Whatever power he has in such cases is founded upon a presumption that he who has sworn not to deny or delay justice to any man will not break his Oath to interrupt it And farther as he dos nothing but what he may rightly do cum magnatum sapientum Consilio and that 't is supposed they will never advise him to do any thing but what ought to be done in order to attain the great ends of the Law Justice and the publick safety nevertheles lest this should not be sufficient to keep things in their due order or that the King should forget his Oath not to delay or deny justice to any man his Counsellors are exposed to the severest punishments if they advise him to do any thing contrary to it and the Law upon which it is grounded So that the utmost advantage the King can pretend to in this case is no more than that of the Norman who said he had gained his cause because it depended upon a point that was to be decided by his Oath that is to say if he will betray the trust reposed in him and perjure himself he may sometimes exempt a Vilain from the punishment he deserves and take the guilt upon himself I say sometimes for appeals may be brought in some cases and the Waterman who had bin pardoned by his Majesty in the year 1680 for a murder he had committed was condemned and hanged at the Assizes upon an appeal Nay in cases of Treason which some men think relate most particularly to the person of the King he cannot always do it Gaveston the two Spencers Tresilian Empson Dudley and others have bin executed as Traitors for things done by the King's command and 't is not doubted they would have bin saved if the King's power had extended so far I might add the cases of the Earls of Strafford and Danby for tho the King signed a Warrant for the execution of the first no man doubts he would have saved him if it had bin in his power The other continues in prison notwithstanding his pardon and for any thing I know he may continue where he is or come out in a way that will not be to his satisfaction unless he be found innocent or something fall out more to his advantage than his Majesty's approbation of what he has done If therefore the King cannot interpose his authority to hinder the course of the Law in contests between privat men nor remit the debts adjudged to be due or the damages given to the persons agriev'd he can in his own person have no other power in things of this nature than in some degree to mitigate the vindictive power of the Law and this also is to be exercised no other way than as he is entrusted But if he acts even in this capacity by a delegated power and in few cases he must act according to the ends for which he is so entrusted as the same Law says Cum magnatum sapientum consilio and is not therein to pursue his own will and interests If his Oath farther oblige him not to do it and his Ministers are liable to punishment if they advise him otherwise If in matters of Appeal he have no power and if his pardons have bin of no value when contrary to his Oath he has abused that with which he is entrusted to the patronizing of crimes and exempting such delinquents from punishment as could not be pardoned without prejudice to the publick I may justly conclude that the King before whom every man is bound to appear who dos perpetually and impartially distribute Justice to the Nation is not the man or woman that wears the Crown and that he or she cannot determine those matters which by the Law are referr'd to the King Whether therefore such matters are ordinary or extraordinary the decision is and ought to be placed where there is most wisdom and stability and where passion and privat interest dos least prevail to the obstruction of Justice This is the only way to obviate that confusion and mischief which our Author thinks it would introduce In cases of the first sort this is done in England by Judges and Juries
a Proclamation for their utter extirpation and not long after being informed of the truth he gave them leave by another Proclamation to kill whom they pleased which they executed upon seventy thousand men The Books of Ezra Nehemiah and Daniel manifestly discover the like fluctuation in all the Counsels of Nabuchodonosor Cyrus Darius and Artaxerxes When good men had credit with them they favour'd the Israelites sent them back to their own Country restored the sacred Vessels that had bin taken away gave them all things necessary for the rebuilding of the City and advanced the chief of them to the highest employments But if they fell into ill hands three just men must be thrown into the burning Furnace sor refusing to worship an Idol Daniel must be cast to the Lions the holy City esteemed rebellious and those who endeavoured to rebuild it enemies to Kings Such was the state of things when their Proclamations passed for Laws and numbers of flattering slaves were ready to execute their commands without examining whether they were just or unjust good or bad The life and death of the best men together with the very being of Nations was exposed to chance and they were either preserved or destroyed according to the humor of that man who spoke last to the King or happened to have credit with him If a frantick fancy come into the head of a drunken whore Persepolis must be burnt and the hand of Alexander is ready to execute her will If a dancing wench please Herod the most venerable of all human heads must be offered in a dish for a sacrifice to the rage of her impure mother The nature of man is so frail that wheresoever the word of a single Person has had the force of a Law the innumerable extravagances and mischiefs it has produced have bin so notorious that all Nations who are not stupid slavish and brutish have always abominated it and made it their principal care to find out remedies against it by so dividing and balancing the powers of their Government that one or a few men might not be able to oppress and destroy those they ought to preserve and protect This has always bin as grateful to the best and wisest Princes as necessary to the weakest and worst as I have proved already by the examples of Theopompus Moses and many others These considerations have given beginning growth and continuance to all the mixed Governments that have bin in the world and I may justly say there never was a good one that was not mixed If other proofs of their rectitude were wanting our Author's hatred would be enough to justify them He is so bitter an enemy to mankind as to be displeased with nothing but that which tends to their good and so perverse in his judgment that we have reason to believe that to be good which he most abhors One would think he had taken the model of the Government he proposes from the monstrous Tyranny of Ceylon an Island in the East-Indies where the King knows no other Law than his own will He kills tears in pieces empales or throws to his Elephants whomsoever he pleases No man has any thing that he can call his own He seldom fails to destroy those who have bin employ'd in his domestick Service or publick Offices and few obtain the favour of being put to death and thrown to the dogs without torments His Subjects approach him no otherwise than on their knees licking the dust and dare assume to themselves no other name than that of dogs or limbs of dogs This is a true pattern of Filmer's Patriarchical Monarch His Majesty as I suppose is sufficiently exalted for he dos whatever he pleases The exercise of his power is as gentle as can reasonably be expected from one who has all by the unquestionable right of usurpation and knows the people will no longer suffer him and the Villains he hires to be the instruments of his cruelty than they can be kept in such ignorance weakness and baseness as neither to know how to provide for themselves or dare to resist him We ought to esteem our selves happy if the like could be established among us and are much obliged to our Author for so kindly proposing an expedient that might terminate all our disputes Let Proclamations obtain the power of Laws and the business is done They may be so ingeniously contrived that the antient Laws which we and our Fathers have highly valued shall be abolished or made a snare to all those that dare remember they are Englishmen and are guilty of the unpardonable crime of loving their Country or have the courage conduct and reputation requir'd to defend it This is the sum of Filmer's Philosophy and this is the Legacy he has left to testify his affection to the Nation which having for a long time lain unregarded has bin lately brought into the light again as an introduction of a Popish Successor who is to be established as we ought to believe for the security of the Protestant Religion and our English Liberties Both will undoubtedly flourish under a Prince who is made to believe the Kingdom is his Patrimony that his Will is a Law and that he has a Power which none may resist If any man doubt whether he will make a good use of it he may only examine the Histories of what others in the same circumstances have done in all places where they have had power The principles of that Religion are so full of meekness and charity the Popes have always shew'd themselves so gentle towards those who would not submit to their Authority the Jesuits who may be accounted the Soul that gives life to the whole body of that Faction are so well natur'd faithful and exact in their morals so full of innocence justice and truth that no violence is to be fear'd from such as are govern'd by them The fatherly care shew'd to the Protestants of France by the five last Kings of the House of Valois the mercy of Philip the second of Spain to his Pagan Subjects in the West-Indies and the more hated Protestants in the Netherlands the moderation of the Dukes of Savoy towards the Vaudois in the Marquisat of Saluzzo and the Vallies of Piedmont the gentleness and faith of the two Maries Queens of England and Scotland the kindness of the Papists to the Protestants of Ireland in the year 1641 with what we have reason to believe they did and do still intend if they can accomplish the ends of their Conspiracy In a word the sweetness and Apostolical meekness of the Inquisition may sufficiently convince us that nothing is to be feared where that principle reigns We may suffer the word of such a Prince to be a Law and the people to be made to believe it ought to be so when he is expected Tho we should wave the Bill of Exclusion and not only admit him to reign as other Kings have done but resign the whole power into
his hands it would neither bring inconvenience or danger on the present King He can with patience expect that nature should take her course and would neither anticipate nor secure his entrance into the possession of the power by taking one day from the life of his Brother Tho the Papists know that like a true Son of their Church he would prefer the advancement of their Religion before all other considerations and that one stab with a Dagger or a dose of Poison would put all under his feet not one man would be found among them to give it The Assassins were Mahometans not pupils of the honest Jesuits nor ever employ'd by them These things being certain all our concernments would be secure if instead of the foolish Statutes and antiquated Customs on which our Ancestors and we have hitherto doted we may be troubled with no Law but the King's will and a Proclamation may be taken for a sufficient declaration of it We shall by this means be delivered from that Liberty with a mischief in which our mistaken Nation seems so much to delight This phrase is so new and so peculiar to our Author that it deserves to be written upon his Tomb. We have heard of Tyranny with a mischief Slavery and Bondage with a mischief and they have bin denounced by God against wicked and perverse Nations as mischiefs comprehending all that is most to be abhorr'd and dreaded in the world But Filmer informs us that Liberty which all wise and good men have in all ages esteemed to be the most valuable and glorious privilege of mankind is a mischief If he deserve credit Moses Joshua Gideon Sampson and Samuel with others like them were enemies to their Country in depriving the people of the advantages they enjoy'd under the paternal care of Pharaoh Adonibezek Eglon Jabin and other Kings of the neighbouring Nations and restoring them to that Liberty with a mischief which he had promised to them The Israelites were happy under the power of Tyrants whose Proclamations were Laws and they ought to have bin thankful to God for that condition and not for the deliverances he wrought by the hands of his Servants Subjection to the will of a man is happiness Liberty is a mischief But this is so abominably wicked and detestable that it can deserve no answer SECT XLIV No People that is not free can substitute Delegates HOW full soever the Power of any person or people may be he or they are obliged to give only so much to their Delegates as seems convenient to themselves or conducing to the ends they desire to attain but the Delegate can have none except what is conferred upon him by his Principal If theresore the Knights Citizens and Burgesses sent by the People of England to serve in Parliament have a Power it must be more perfectly and fully in those that send them But as was proved in the last Section Proclamations and other significations of the King's pleasure are not Laws to us They are to be regulated by the Law not the Law by them They are to be considered only so far as they are conformable to the Law srom which they receive all the strength that is in them and can confer none upon it We know no Laws but our own Statutes and those immemorial Customs established by the consent of the Nation which may be and often are changed by us The Legislative Power therefore that is exercised by the Parliament cannot be conferred by the Writ of Summons but must be essentially and radically in the People from whom their Delegates and Representatives have all that they have But says our Author They must only chuse and trust those whom they chuse to do what they list and that is as much liberty as many of us deserve for our irregular Elections of Burgesses This is ingeniously concluded I take what Servant I please and when I have taken him I must suffer him to do what he pleases But from whence should this necessity arise Why may not I take one to be my Groom another to be my Cook and keep them both to the Offices for which I took them What Law dos herein restrain my Right And if I am free in my private capacity to regulate my particular affairs according to my own discretion and to allot to each Servant his proper work why have not I with my Associates the Freemen of England the like liberty of directing and limiting the Powers of the Servants we employ in our publick Affairs Our Author gives us reasons proportionable to his judgment This were liberty with a mischief and that of chusing only is as much as many of us deserve I have already proved that as far as our Histories reach we have had no Princes or Magistrates but such as we have made and they have had no other power than what we have conferred upon them They cannot be the judges of our merit who have no power but what we gave them thrô an opinion they did or might deserve it They may distribute in parcels to particulars that with which they are entrusted in the gross But 't is impossible that the Publick should depend absolutely upon those who are nothing above other men except what they are made to be for and by the Publick The restrictions therefore of the peoples Liberty must be from themselves or there can be none Nevertheless I believe that the Powers of every County City and Borough of England are regulated by the general Law to which they have all consented and by which they are all made Members of one political Body This obliges them to proceed with their Delegates in a manner different from that which is used in the United Netherlands or in Switserland Amongst these every Province City or Canton making a distinct body independent from any other and exercising the sovereign Power within it self looks upon the rest as Allies to whom they are bound only by such Acts as they themselves have made and when any new thing not comprehended in them happens to arise they oblige their Delegates to give them an account of it and retain the power of determining those matters in themselves 'T is not so amongst us Every County dos not make a distinct Body having in it self a sovereign Power but is a Member of that great Body which comprehends the whole Nation 'T is not therefore for Kent or Sussex Lewis or Maidstone but for the whole Nation that the Members chosen in those places are sent to serve in Parliament and tho it be fit for them as Friends and Neighbours so far as may be to hearken to the opinions of the Electors for the information of their Judgments and to the end that what they shall say may be of more weight when every one is known not to speak his own thoughts only but those of a great number of men yet they are not strictly and properly obliged to give account of their actions to any
force or fraud to usurp a Power of imposing what they pleased Others being sottish cowardly and base have so far erred in the Foundations as to give up themselves to the will of one or few men who turning all to their own profit or pleasure have bin just in nothing but in using such a people like beasts Some have placed weak defences against the lusts of those they have advanced to the highest places and given them opportunities of arrogating more power to themselves than the Law allows Where any of these errors are committed the Government may be easy for a while or at least tolerable whilst it continues uncorrupted but it cannot be lasting When the Law may be easily or safely overthrown it will be attempted Whatever virtue may be in the first Magistrates many years will not pass before they come to be corrupted and their Successors deflecting from their integrity will seize upon the ill-guarded prey They will then not only govern by will but by that irregular will which turns the Law that was made for the publick good to the privat advantage of one or few men 'T is not my intention to enumerate the several ways that have been taken to effect this or to shew what Governments have deflected from the right and how far But I think I may justly say that an Arbitrary Power was never well placed in any men and their Successors who were not obliged to obey the Laws they should make This was well understood by our Saxon Ancestors They made Laws in their Assemblies and Councils of the Nation but all those who proposed or assented to those Laws as soon as the Assembly was dissolved were comprehended under the power of them as well as other men They could do nothing to the prejudice of the Nation that would not be as hurtful to those who were present and their posterity as to those who by many accidents might be absent The Normans enter'd into and continued in the same path Our Parliaments at this day are in the same condition They may make prejudicial Wars ignominious Treaties and unjust Laws Yet when the Session is ended they must bear the burden as much as others and when they die the teeth of their Children will be set an edg with the sower Grapes they have eaten But 't is hard to delude or corrupt so many Men do not in matters of the highest importance yield to slight temptations No man serves the Devil sor nothing Small wages will not content those who expose themselves to perpetual infamy and the hatred of a Nation for betraying their Country Our Kings had not wherewithal to corrupt many till these last twenty years and the treachery of a few was not enough to pass a Law The union of many was not easily wrought and there was nothing to tempt them to endeavour it for they could make little advantage during the Session and were to be lost in the mass of the people and prejudiced by their own Laws as soon as it was ended They could not in a short time reconcile their various interests or passions so as to combine together against the publick and the former Kings never went about it We are beholden to H-de Cl-ff-rd and D-nby for all that has bin done of that kind They found a Parliament full of lewd young men chosen by a furious people in spite to the Puritans whose severity had distasted them The weakest of all Ministers had wit enough to understand that such as these might be easily deluded corrupted or bribed Some were fond of their Seats in Parliament and delighted to domineer over their Neighbours by continuing in them Others prefer'd the cajoleries of the Court before the honour of performing their duty to the Country that employ'd them Some sought to relieve their ruined Fortunes and were most forward to give the King a vast Revenue that from thence they might receive Pensions others were glad of a temporary protection against their Creditors Many knew not what they did when they annulled the Triennial Act voted the Militia to be in the King gave him the Excise Customs and Chimney-mony made the Act for Corporations by which the greatest part of the Nation was brought under the power of the worst men in it drunk or sober pass'd the five mile Act and that for Uniformity in the Church This embolden'd the Court to think of making Parliaments to be the instruments of our Slavery which had in all Ages past bin the firmest pillars of our Liberty There might have bin perhaps a possibility of preventing this pernicious mischief in the Constitution of our Government But our brave Ancestors could never think their Posterity would degenerate into such baseness to sell themselves and their Country but how great soever the danger may be 't is less than to put all into the hands of one man and his Ministers the hazard of being ruin'd by those who must perish with us is not so much to be feared as by one who may enrich and strengthen himself by our destruction 'T is better to depend upon those who are under a possibility of being again corrupted than upon one who applies himself to corrupt them because he cannot otherwise accomplish his designs It were to be wished that our security were more certain but this being under God the best Anchor we have it deserves to be preserved with all care till one of a more unquestionable strength be framed by the consent of the Nation SECT XLVI The coercive power of the Law proceeds from the Authority of Parliament HAVING proved that Proclamations are not Laws and that the Legislative Power which is arbitrary is trusted only in the hands of those who are bound to obey the Laws that are made 't is not hard to discover what it is that gives the power of Law to the Sanctions under which we live Our Author tell us that all Statutes or Laws are made properly by the King alone at the Rogation of the People as his Majesty King James of happy Memory affirms in his true Law of free Monarchy and as Hooker teaches us That Laws do not take their constraining power from the quality of such as devise them but from the power that giveth them the strength of Law But if the Rogation of the People be necessary that cannot be a Law which proceeds not from their Rogation the power therefore is not alone in the King for a most important part is confessed to be in the People And as none could be in them if our Author's Proposition or the Principles upon which it is grounded were true the acknowledgment of such a part to be in the People shews them to be false For if the King had all in himself none could participate with him if any do participate he hath not all and 't is from that Law by which they do participate that we are to know what part is left to him The preambles of most Acts of Parliaments
manifest this by the words Be it enacted by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in Parliament assembled and by Authority of the same But King James says Filmer in his Law of free Monarchy affirms the contrary and it may be so yet that is nothing to us No man doubts that he desired it might be so in England but it dos not from thence appear that it is so The Law of a free Monarchy is nothing to us for that Monarchy is not free which is regulated by a Law not to be broken without the guilt of Perjury as he himself confessed in relation to ours As to the words cited from Hooker I can find no hurt in them To draw up the form of a good Law is a matter of invention and judgment but it receives the force of a Law from the power that enacts it We have no other reason for the paiment of Excise or Customs than that the Parliament has granted those Revenues to the King to defray the publick Charges Whatever therefore King James was pleased to say in his Books or in those written for him we do not so much as know that the killing of a King is Treason or to be punished with death otherwise than as it is enacted by Parliament and it was not always so for in the time of Ethelstan the Estimates of Lives were agreed in Parliament and that of a King valued at thirty thousand Thrymsae And if that Law had not bin alter'd by the Parliament it must have bin in force at this day It had bin in vain for a King to say he would have it otherwise for he is not created to make Laws but to govern according to such as are made and sworn to assent to such as shall be proposed He who thinks the Crown not worth accepting on these conditions may refuse it The words Le Roy le veult are only a pattern of the French fashions upon which some Kings have laid great stress and would no doubt have bin glad to introduce Car tel est nostre plaisir but that may prove a difficult matter Nay in France it self where that Stile and all the ranting expressions that please the vainest of men are in mode no Edict has the power of a Law till it be registred in Parliament This is not a mere ceremony as some pretend but all that is essential to a Law Nothing has bin more common than for those Parliaments to refuse Edicts sent to them by the King When John Chastel had at the instigation of the Jesuits stabb'd Henry the fourth in the Mouth and that Order had designed or executed many other execrable crimes they were banished out of the Kingdom by an Arrest of the Parliament of Paris Some other Parliaments registred the same but those of Tholouse and Bordeaux absolutely refused and notwithstanding all that the King could do the Jesuits continued at Tournon and many other places within their Precincts till the Arrest was revoked These proceedings are so displeasing to the Court that the most violent ways have bin often used to abolish them About the year 1650 Seguier then Chancellor of France was sent with a great number of Soldiers to oblige the Parliament of Paris to pass some Edicts upon which they had hesitated but he was so far from accomplishing his design that the People rose against him and he thought himself happy that he escaped with his Life If the Parliaments do not in all parts of the Kingdom continue in the Liberty of approving or rejecting all Edicts the Law is not altered but oppressed by the violence of the Sword And the Prince of Condé who was principally employ'd to do that work may as I suppose have had leisure to reflect upon those Actions and cannot but find reason to conclude that his excellent valour and conduct was used in a most noble exploit equally beneficial to his Country and himself However those who are skilled in the Laws of that Nation do still affirm that all publick Acts which are not duly examined and registred are void in themselves and can be of no force longer than the miserable People lies under the violence of Oppression which is all that could reasonably be said if a Pirat had the same power over them But whether the French have willingly offer'd their ears to be bor'd or have bin subdued by force it concerns us not Our Liberties depend not upon their will virtue or fortune how wretched and shameful soever their Slavery may be the evil is only to themselves We are to consider no human Laws but our own and if we have the spirit of our Ancestors we shall maintain them and die as free as they left us Le Roy le veut tho written in great Letters or pronounced in the most tragical manner can signify no more than that the King in performance of his Oath dos assent to such Laws as the Lords and Commons have agreed Without prejudice to themselves and their Liberties a People may suffer the King to advise with his Council upon what they propose Two eyes see more than one and human judgment is subject to errors Tho the Parliament consist of the most eminent men of the Nation yet when they intend good they may be mistaken They may sefely put a check upon themselves that they may farther consider the most important matters and correct the errors that may have bin committed if the King's Council do discover them but he can speak only by the advice of his Council and every man of them is with his head to answer for the advices he gives If the Parliament has not bin satisfied with the reasons given against any Law that they offer'd it has frequently pass'd and if they have bin satisfied 't was not the King but they that laid it aside He that is of another opinion may try whether Le Roy le veut can give the force of a Law to any thing conceived by the King his Council or any other than the Parliament But if no wise man will affirm that he can do it or deny that by his Oath he is obliged to assent to those that come from them he can neither have the Legislative power in himself nor any other part in it than what is necessarily to be performed by him as the Law prescribes I know not what our Author means by saying Le Roy le veut is the interpretative phrase pronounced at the passing of every Act of Parliament For if there be difficulty in any of them those words do no way remove it But the following part of the paragraph better deserves to be observed It was says he the antient custom for á long time until the days of Henry the fifth for the Kings when any Bill was brought to them that had passed both Houses to take and pick out what they liked not and so much as they chose was enacted as a Law But the custom of the
excelling all others in virtue can have no other just power than what the Laws give nor any title to the privileges of the Lord 's Anointed p. 250. Sect. 2. The Kings of Israel and Judah were under a Law not safely to be transgressed p. 262. Sect. 3. Samuel did not describe to the Israelites the glory of a free Monarchy but the evils the people should suffer that he might divert them from desiring a King p. 264. Sect. 4. No People can be obliged to suffer from their Kings what they have not a right to do p. 266. Sect. 5. The mischiefs suffer'd from wicked Kings are such as render it both reasonable and just for all Nations that have Virtue and Power to exert both in repelling them p. 270. Sect. 6. 'T is not good for such Nations as will have Kings to suffer them to be glorious powerful or abounding in Riches p. 273. Sect. 7. When the Israelites asked for such a King as the Nations about them had they asked for a Tyrant tho they did not call him so p. 277. Sect. 8. Vnder the name of Tribute no more is understood than what the Law of each Nation gives to the supreme Magistrate for the defraying of publick Charges to which the customs of the Romans or sufferings of the Jews have no relation p. 283. Sect. 9. Our own Laws confirm to us the enjoyment of our native Rights p. 288. Sect. 10. The words of St. Paul enjoyning obedience to higher Powers favour all sorts of Government no less than Monarchy p. 292. Sect. 11. That which is not just is not Law and that which is not Law ought not to be obeyed p. 300. Sect. 12. The right and power of a Magistrate depends upon his institution not upon his name p. 302. Sect. 13. Laws were made to direct and instruct Magistrates and if they will not be directed to restrain them p. 305. Sect. 14. Laws are not made by Kings not because they are busied in greater matters than doing Justice but because Nations will be governed by rule and not arbitrarily p. 309. Sect. 15. A general presumption that Kings will govern well is not a sufficient security to the people p. 314. Sect. 16. The observation of the Laws of Nature is absurdly expected from Tyrants who set themselves up against all Laws and he that subjects Kings to no other Law than what is common to Tyrants destroys their being p. 317. Sect. 17. Kings cannot be the interpreters of the Oaths they take p. 322. Sect. 18. The next in blood to deceased Kings cannot generally be said to be Kings till they are crowned p. 330. Sect. 19. The greatest enemy of a just Magistrate is he who endeavours to invalidate the Contract between him and the people or to corrupt their manners p. 341. Sect. 20. Vnjust commands are not to be obey'd and no man is obliged to suffer for not obeying such as are against Law p. 345. Sect. 21. It cannot be for the good of the People that the Magistrate have a Power above the Law And he is not a Magistrate who has not his Power by Law 348. Sect. 22. The rigor of the Law is to be temper'd by men of known integrity and judgment and not by the Prince who may be ignorant or vicious p. 354. Sect. 23. Aristotle proves that no man is to be intrusted with an Absolute Power by shewing that no one knows how to execute it but such a man as is not to be found p. 358. Sect. 24. The Power of Augustus Cesar was not given but usurped p. 360. Sect. 25. The Regal Power was not the first in this Nation nor necessarily to be continued tho it had bin the first p. 361. Sect. 26. That the King may be entrusted with the power of chusing Judges yet that by which they act is from the Law p. 369. Sect. 27. Magna Charta was not the Original but a declaration of the English Liberties The King's Power is not restrained but created by that and other Laws and the Nation that made them can only correct the defects of them p. 370. Sect. 28. The English Nation has always bin governed by it self or its Representatives p. 379. Sect. 29. The King was never Master of the Soil p. 391. Sect. 30. Henry the first was King of England by as good a Title as any of his Predecessors or Successors p. 395. Sect. 31. Free Nations have a right of meeting when and where they please unless they deprive themselves of it p. 399. Sect. 32. The Powers of Kings are so various according to the Constitutions of several States that no consequence can be drawn to the prejudice or advantage of any one merely from the name p. 404. Sect. 33. The Liberty of a People is the Gift of God and Nature p. 406. Sect. 34. No veneration paid or honor confer'd upon a just and lawful Magistrate can diminish the liberty of a Nation p. 409. Sect. 35. The Authority given by our Law to the Acts performed by a King de facto detract nothing from the Peoples Right of creating whom they please p. 411. Sect. 36. The general revolt of a Nation cannot be called a Rebellion p. 413. Sect. 37. The English Government was not ill constituted the defects more lately observed proceeding from the change of manners and corruption of the times p. 418. Sect. 38. The power of calling and dissolving Parliaments is not simply in the King The variety of Customs in chusing Parliamentmen and the Errors a People may commit neither prove that Kings are or ought to be absolute p. 421. Sect. 39. Those Kings only are heads of the People who are good wise and seek to advance no Interest but that of the Publick p. 426. Sect. 40. Good Laws prescribe easy and safe Remedies against the Evils proceeding from the Vices or Infirmities of the Magistrate and when they fail they must be supplied p. 432. Sect. 41. The people for whom and by whom the Magistrate is created can only judg whether he rightly performs his Office or not p. 436. Sect. 42. The Person that wears the Crown cannot determine the Affairs which the Law refers to the King p. 440. Sect. 43. Proclamations are not Laws p. 445. Sect. 44. No People that is not free can substitute Delegates p. 450. Sect. 45. The Legislative Power is always Arbitrary and not to be trusted in the hands of any who are not bound to obey the Laws they make p. 455. Sect. 46. The coercive Power of the Law proceeds from the Authority of Parliament p. 457. ERRATA PAge 77. line 41. for Numbers read Members P. 113. l. 37. read Antiochus P. 197. l. 6. read acquired P. 229. l. 39. for nor read and. P. 269. l. 12. for for read from P. 282. l. 3. read should it P. 285. l. 42. read renounced P. 335. l. 41. for to read de P. 418. l. 20. for have read hâ—â— P. 429. l. 38. for them read him Potentiora Legiun quam hominum
Secrets relating to his person and commands which he forbids I cannot know how to obey unless I know in what and to whom Nor in what unless I know what ought to be commanded Nor what ought to be commanded unless I understand the Original Right of the Commander which is the great Arcanum Our Author finding himself involved in many difficulties proposes an Expedient as ridiculous as any thing that had gone before being nothing more than an absurd begging the main question and determining it without any shadow of proof He enjoins an active or passive obedience before he shews what should oblige or perswade us to it This indeed were a compendious way of obviating that which he calls popular Sedition and of exposing all Nations that fall under the power of Tyrants to be destroyed utterly by them Nero or Domitian would have desired no more than that those who would not execute their wicked Commands should patiently have suffered their throats to be cut by such as were less scrupulous and the World that had suffered those Monsters for some years must have continued under their Fury till all that was good and virtuous had been abolished But in those Ages and Parts of the World where there hath bin any thing of Vertue and Goodness we may observe a third fort of Men who would neither do Villanies nor suffer more than the Laws did permit or the consideration of the publick Peace did require Whilst Tyrants with their Slaves and the Instruments of their Cruelties were accounted the Dregs of Mankind and made the objects of detestation and scorn these Men who delivered their Countries from such Plagues were thought to have something of Divine in them and have bin famous above all the rest of Mankind to this day Of this sort were Pelopidas Epaminondas Thrasibulus Harmodius Aristogiton Philopemen Lucius Brutus Publius Valerius Marcus Brutus C. Cassius M. Cato with a multitude of others amongst the antient Heathens Such as were Instruments of the like Deliverances amongst the Hebrews as Moses Othniel Ehud Barac Gideon Sampson Jephtha Samuel David Jehu the Maccabees and others have from the Scriptures a certain testimony of the righteousness of their Proceedings when they neither would act what was evil nor suffer more than was reasonable But lest we should learn by their Examples and the Praises given to them our Author confines the Subject's choice to acting or suffering that is doing what is commanded or lying down to have his throat cut or to see his Family and Country made desolate This he calls giving to Cesar that which is Cesar's whereas he ought to have considered that the Question is not whether that which is Cesar's should be rendred to him for that is to be done to all Men but who is Cesar and what doth of right belong to him which he no way indicates to us so that the Question remains entire as if he had never mentioned it unless we do in a compendious way take his word for the whole SECT IV. The Rights of particular Nations cannot subsist if General Principles contrary to them are received as true NOtwithstanding this our Author if we will believe him doth not question or quarrel at the Rights or Liberties of this or any other Nation He only denies they can have any such in subjecting them necessarily and universally to the will of one Man and says not a word that is not applicable to every Nation in the World as well as to our own But as the bitterness of his malice seems to be most especially directed against England I am inclined to believe he hurts other Countries only by accident as the famous French Lady intended only to poison her Father Husband Brother and some more of her nearest Relations but rather than they should escape destroyed many other persons of Quality who at several times dined with them and if that ought to excuse her I am content he also should pass uncensured tho his Crimes are incomparably greater than those for which she was condemned or than any can be which are not of a publick extent SECT V. To depend upon the Will of a Man is Slavery THis as he thinks is farther sweetned by asserting that he doth not inquire what the rights of a People are but from whence not considering that whilst he denies they can proceed from the Laws of natural Liberty or any other root than the Grace and Bounty of the Prince he declares they can have none at all For as Liberty solely consists in an independency upon the Will of another and by the name of Slave we understand a man who can neither dispose of his Person nor Goods but enjoys all at the will of his Master there is no such thing in nature as a Slave if those men or Nations are not Slaves who have no other title to what they enjoy than the grace of the Prince which he may revoke whensoever he pleaseth But there is more than ordinary extravagance in his assertion That the greatest Liberty in the World is for a People to live under a Monarch when his whole Book is to prove That this Monarch hath his right from God and Nature is endowed with an unlimited Power of doing what he pleaseth and can be restrained by no Law If it be Liberty to live under such a Government I desire to know what is Slavery It has bin hitherto believed in the World that the Assyrians Medes Arabs Egyptians Turks and others like them lived in Slavery because their Princes were Masters of their Lives and Goods Whereas the Grecians Italians Gauls Germans Spaniards and Catthaginians as long as they had any Strength Vertue or Courage amongst them were esteemed free Nations because they abhorred such a Subjection They were and would be governed only by Laws of their own making Potentior a erant Legum quam hominum Imperia Even their Princes had the authority or credit of perswading rather than the power of commanding But all this was mistaken These men were Slaves and the Asiaticks were Freemen By the same rule the Venetians Switsers Grisons and Hollanders are not free Nations but Liberty in its perfection is enjoyed in France and Turky The intention of our Ancestors was without doubt to establish this amongst us by Magna Charta and other preceding or subsequent Laws but they ought to have added one clause That the contents of them should be in force only so long as it should please the King King Alfred upon whose Laws Magna Charta was grounded when he said the English Nation was as free as the internal thoughts of a Man did only mean that it should be so as long as it pleased their Master This it seems was the end of our Law and we who are born under it and are descended from such as have so valiantly defended their rights against the encroachments of Kings have followed after vain shadows and without the expence of Sweat Treasure or Blood might have
retain it in themselves But whether that were observed or not by Bellarmin makes nothing to our Cause which we defend and not him The next Point is subtile and he thinks thereby to have brought Bellarmin and such as agree with his Principle to a Nonplus He doubts who shall judg of the lawful Cause of changing the Government and says It is a pestilent Conclusion to place that Power in the Multitude But why should this be esteemed pestilent or to whom If the allowance of such a Power to the Senate was pestilent to Nero it was beneficial to Mankind and the denial of it which would have given to Nero an opportunity of continuing in his Villanies would have been pestilent to the best Men whom he endeavoured to destroy and to all others that received benefit from them But this Question depends upon another for if Governments are constituted for the Pleasure Greatness or Profit of one Man he must not be interrupted for the opposing of his Will is to overthrow the Institution On the other side if the Good of the governed be sought care must be taken that the End be accomplished tho it be with the prejudice of the Governor If the Power be originally in the Multitude and one or more Men to whom the exercise of it or a part of it was committed had no more than their Brethren till it was conferred on him or them it cannot be believed that rational Creatures would advance one or a few of their Equals above themselves unless in consideration of their own Good and then I find no inconvenience in leaving to them a right of judging whether this be duly performed or not We say in general He that institutes may also abrogate most especially when the Institution is not only by but for himself If the Multitude therefore do institute the Multitude may abrogate and they themselves or those who succeed in the same Right can only be fit Judges of the performance of the Ends of the Institution Our Author may perhaps say The publick Peace may be hereby disturbed but he ought to know There can be no Peace where there is no Justice nor any Justice if the Government instituted for the good of a Nation be turned to its ruin But in plain English the Inconvenience with which such as he endeavour to afright us is no more than that He or They to whom the Power is given may be restrained or chastised if they betray their Trust which I presume will displease none but such as would rather submit Rome with the best part of the World depending upon it to the Will of Caligula or Nero than Caligula or Nero to the Judgment of the Senate and People that is rather to expose many great and brave Nations to be destroyed by the rage of a savage Beast than subject that Beast to the Judgment of all or the choicest Men of them who can have no interest to pervert them or other reason to be severe to him than to prevent the Mischiefs he would commit and to save the People from ruin In the next place he recites an Argument of Bellarmin That 't is evident in Scripture God hath ordained Powers but God hath given them to no particular Person because by Nature all Men are equal therefore he hath given Power to the People or Multitude I leave him to untie that Knot if he can but as 't is usual with Impostors he goes about by Surmises to elude the Force of his Argument pretending that in some other place he had contradicted himself and acknowledged that every Man was Prince of his Posterity because that if many Men had bin created together they ought all to have bin Princes of their Posterity But 't is not necessary to argue upon Passages cited from Authors when he that cites them may be justly suspected of Fraud and neither indicates the Place nor Treatise lest it should be detected most especially when we are no way concerned in the Author's Credit I take Bellarmin's first Argument to be strong and if he in some place did contradict it the hurt is only to himself but in this Particular I should not think he did it tho I were sure our Author had faithfully repeated his words for in allowing every Man to be Prince of his Posterity he only says every Man should be chief in his own Family and have a Power over his Children which no man denies But he dos not understand Latin who thinks that the word Princeps doth in any degree signify an absolute Power or a right of transmitting it to his Heirs and Successors upon which the Doctrine of our Author wholly depends On the contrary The same Law that gave to my Father a Power over me gives me the like over my Children and if I had a thousand Brothers each of them would have the same over their Children Bellarmin's first Argument therefore being no way enervated by the alledged Passage I may justly insist upon it and add That God hath not only declared in Scripture but written on the Heart of every Man that as it is better to be clothed than to go naked to live in a House than to lie in the Fields to be defended by the united Force of a Multitude than to place the hopes of his Security solely in his own strength and to prefer the Benefits of Society before a savage and barbarous Solitude He also taught them to frame such Societies and to establish such Laws as were necessary to preserve them And we may as reasonably affirm that Mankind is for ever obliged to use no other Clothes than leather Breeches like Adam to live in hollow Trees and eat Acorns or to seek after the Model of his House for a Habitation and to use no Arms except such as were known to the Patriarchs as to think all Nations for ever obliged to be governed as they governed their Families This I take to be the genuine sense of the Scripture and the most respectful way of interpreting the Places relating to our purpose 'T is hard to imagine that God who hath left all things to our choice that are not evil in themselves should tie us up in this and utterly incredible that he should impose upon us a necessity of following his Will without declaring it to us Instead of constituting a Government over his People consisting of many Parts which we take to be a Model fit to be imitated by others he might have declared in a word That the eldest Man of the eldest Line should be King and that his Will ought to be their Law This had bin more sutable to the Goodness and Mercy of God than to leave us in a dark Labyrinth full of Precipices or rather to make the Government given to his own People a false Light to lead us to destruction This could not be avoided if there were such a thing as our Author calls a Lord Paramount over his Childrens Children to all
The two Twins could not agree Jacob was sent away by his Mother he reigned over Esau only and 't is not easy to determine who was the Heir of his worldly Kingdom for the Jacob had the birth-right we do not find he had any other Goods than what he had gotten in Laban's service If our Author say true the right of Primogeniture with the Dominion perpetually annexed by the Laws of God and Nature must go to the eldest Isaac therefore tho he had not bin deceived could not have conferred it upon the younger for Man cannot overthrow what God and Nature have instituted Jacob in the Court Language had bin a double Rebel in beguiling his Father and supplanting his Brother The blessing of being Lord over his Brethren could not have taken place Or if Isaac had Power and his Act was good the Prerogative of the elder is not rooted in the Law of God or Nature but a matter of conveniency only which may be changed at the Will of the Father whether he know what he do or not But if this Paternal Right to Dominion were of any value or Dominion over Men were a thing to be desired why did Abraham Isaac and Jacob content themselves with such a narrow Territory when after the death of their Ancestors they ought according to that rule to have bin Lords of the World All Authors conclude that Shem was the eldest by birth or preferred by the appointment of God so as the Right must have bin in him and from him transmitted to Abraham and Isaac but if they were so possessed with the contemplation of a Heavenly Kingdom as not to care for the greatest on Earth 't is strange that Esau whose modesty is not much commended should so far forget his Interest as neither to lay claim to the Empire of the World nor dispute with his Brother the possession of the Field and Cave bought by Abraham but rather to fight for a dwelling on Mount Seir that was neither possessed by nor promised to his Fathers If he was fallen from his Right Jacob might have claimed it but God was his Inheritance and being assured of his Blessing he contented himself with what he could gain by his Industry in a way that was not at all sutable to the Pomp and Majesty of a King Which way soever theresore the business be turned whether according to Isaac's Blessing Esau should serve Jacob or our Author's opinion Jacob must serve Esau neither of the two was effected in their Persons And the Kingdom of two being divided into two each of them remained Lord of himself SECT IX The Power of a Father belongs only to a Father THIS leads us to an easy determination of the Question which our Author thinks insoluble If Adam was Lord of his Children he doth not see how any can be free from the subjection of his Parents For as no good Man will ever desire to be free from the respect that is due to his Father who did beget and educate him no wise Man will ever think the like to be due to his Brother or Nephew that did neither If Esau and Jacob were equally free if Noah as our Author affirms divided Europe Asia and Africa amongst his three Sons tho he cannot prove it and if seventy two Nations under so many Heads or Kings went from Babylon to people the Earth about a hundred and thirty years after the Flood I know not why according to the same rule and proportion it may not be safely concluded that in four thousand years Kings are so multiplied as to be in number equal to the Men that are in the World that is to say they are according to the Laws of God and Nature all free and independent upon each other as Shem Ham and Japhet were And therefore tho Adam and Noah had reigned alone when there were no Men in the World except such as issued from them that is no reason why any other should reign over those that he hath not begotten As the Right of Noah was divided amongst the Children he left and when he was dead no one of them depended on the other because no one of them was Father of the other and the Right of a Father can only belong to him that is so the like must for ever attend every other Father in the World This paternal Power must necessarily accrue to every Father He is a King by the same Right as the Sons of Noah and how numerous soever Families may be upon the increase of Mankind they are all free till they agree to recede from their own Right and join together in or under one Government according to such Laws as best please themselves SECT X. Such as enter into Society must in some degree diminish their Liberty REASON leads them to this No one Man or Family is able to provide that which is requisite for their convenience or security whilst every one has an equal Right to every thing and none acknowledges a Superior to determine the Controversies that upon such occasions must continually arise and will probably be so many and great that Mankind cannot bear them Therefore tho I do not believe that Bellarmin said a Commonwealth could not exercise its Power for he could not be ignorant that Rome and Athens did exercise theirs and that all the Regular Kingdoms in the World are Commonwealths yet there is nothing of absurdity in saying That Man cannot continue in the perpetual and entire fruition of the Liberty that God hath given him The Liberty of one is thwarted by that of another and whilst they are all equal none will yield to any otherwise than by a general consent This is the ground of all just Governments for violence or fraud can create no Right and the same consent gives the Form to them all how much soever they differ from each other Some small numbers of Men living within the Precincts of one City have as it were cast into a common Stock the Right which they had of governing themselves and Children and by common Consent joining in one body exercised fuch Power over every single Person as seemed beneficial to the whole and this Men call perfect Democracy Others chose rather to be governed by a select number of such as most excelled in Wisdom and Vertue and this according to the signification of the word was called Aristocracy Or when one Man excelled all others the Government was put into his hands under the name of Monarchy But the wisest best and far the greatest part of mankind rejecting these simple Species did form Governments mixed or composed of the three as shall be proved hereafter which commonly received their respective Denomination from the part that prevailed and did deserve Praise or Blame as they were well or ill proportioned It were a folly hereupon to say that the Liberty for which we contend is of no use to us since we cannot endure the Solitude Barbarity Weakness Want Misery and Dangers
must perpetually spring First if there be such a Law no Human Constitution can alter it No length of time can be a defence against it All Governments that are not conformable to it are vicious and void even in their root and must be so for ever That which is originally unjust may be justly overthrown We do not know of any at least in that part of the World in which we are most concerned that is established or exercised with an absolute power as by the Authors of those opinions is esteemed inseparable from it Many as the Empire and other States are directly contrary and on that account can have no justice in them It being certain therefore that he or they who exercise those Governments have no right that there is a Man to whom it doth belong and no man knowing who he is there is no one man who has not as good a title to it as any other There is not therefore one who hath not a right as well as any to overthrow that which hath none at all He that hath no part in the Government may destroy it as well as he that has the greatest for he neither has that which God ordained he should have nor can shew a title to that which he enjoys from that original Prerogative of Birth from whence it can only be derived If it be said that some Governments are arbitrary as they ought to be and France Turky and the like be alledged as instances the matter is not mended for we do not only know when those who deserve to be regarded by us were not absolute and how they came to be so but also that those very Families which are now in possession are not of very long continuance had no more title to the original right we speak of than any other men and consequently can have none to this day And tho we cannot perhaps say that the Governments of the barbarous Eastern Nations were ever other than they are yet the known Original of them deprives them of all pretence to the Patriarchical Inheritance and they may be as justly as any other deprived of the Power to which they have no title In the second place tho all mens Genealogies were extant and fully verified and it were allowed that the Dominion of the World or every part of it did belong to the right Heir of the first Progenitor or any other to whom the first did rightly assign the parcel which is under question yet it were impossible for us to know who should be esteemed the true Heir or according to what rule he should be judged so to be for God hath not by a precise word determined it and Men cannot agree about it as appears by the various Laws and Customs of several Nations disposing severally of Hereditary Dominions 'T is a folly to say they ought to go to the next in blood for 't is not known who is that next Some give the preference to him who amongst many Competitors is the sewest degrees removed from their common Progenitor who first obtained the Crown Others look only upon the last that possessed it Some admit of representation by which means the Grandchild of a King by his eldest Son is preferred before his second Son he being said to represent his dead Father who was the eldest Others exclude these and advance the younger Son who is nearer by one degree to the common Progenitor that last enjoyed the Crown than the Grandchild According to the first rule Richard the second was advanced to the Crown of England as Son of the eldest Son of Edward the third before his Uncles who by one degree were nearer to the last Possessor And in pursuance of the second Sancho sirnamed the Brave second Son of Alphonso the Wise King of Castile was preferred before Alphonso Son of Ferdinand his elder Brother according to the Law of Thanestry which was in sorce in Spain ever since we have had any knowledg of that Country as appears by the contest between Corbis and Orsua decided by Combat before Stipio Africanus continued in full force as long as the Kingdom of the Goths lasted and was ever highly valued till the House of Austria got possession of that Country and introduced Laws and Customs formerly unknown to the Inhabitants The Histories of all Nations furnish us with innumerable Examples of both sorts and whosoever takes upon him to determine which side is in the right ought to shew by what authority he undertakes to be the Judg of Mankind and how the infinite breaches thereby made upon the rights of the governing Families shall be cured without the overthrow of those that he shall condemn and of the Nations where such Laws have bin in sorce as he dislikes and till that be done in my opinion no place will afford a better lodging for him that shall impudently assume such a Power than the new buildings in Moor-Fields 'T is no less hard to decide whether this next Heir is to be sought in the Male line only or whether Females also be admitted If we follow the first as the Law of God and Nature the title of our English Kings is wholly abolished for not one of them since Henry the 1 st has had the least pretence to an inheritance by the masculine Line and if it were necessary we have enough to say of those that were before them If it be said that the same Right belongs to Females it ought to be proved that Women are as fit as Men to perform the Office of a King that is as the Israelites said to Samuel to go in and out before us to judg us and to fight our Battels for it were an impious folly to say that God had ordained those for the Offices on which the good of Mankind so much depends who by nature are unable to perform the duties of them If on the other side the sweetness gentleness delicacy and tenderness of the Sex render them so unfit for manly exercises that they are accounted utterly repugnant to and inconsistent with that modesty which does so eminently shine in all those that are good amongst them that Law of Nature which should advance them to the Government of Men would overthrow its own work and make those to be the heads of Nations which cannot be the heads of private Families for as the Apostle says The Woman is not the head of the Man but the Man is the head of the Woman This were no less than to oblige Mankind to lay aside the name of reasonable Creature for if Reason be his Nature it cannot enjoin that which is contrary to it self if it be not the definition Homo est animal rationale is false and ought no longer to be assumed If any man think these Arguments to be mistaken or misapplied I desire him to enquire of the French Nation on what account they have always excluded Females and such as descended from them How comes the House of Bourbon to
is much too great for them they would soon free themselves And those who are under such Governments do no more assent to them tho they may be silent than a man approves of being robbed when without saying a word he delivers his purse to a Thief that he knows to be too strong for him 'T is not therefore the bear fufferance of a Government when a disgust is declared nor a silent submission when the power of opposing is wanting that can imply an Assent or Election and create a Right but an explicit act of approbation when men have ability and courage to resist or deny Which being agreed 't is evident that our Author's distinction between eligere and instituere signifies nothing tho if the power of instituting were only left to Nations it would be sufficient for he is in vain elected who is not instituted and he that is instituted is certainly elected for his institution is an Election As the Romans who chose Romulus Numa and Hostilius to be Kings and Brutus Valerius or Lucretius to be Consuls did make them so and their Right was solely grounded upon their Election The Text brought by our Author against this doth fully prove it Him shalt thou set King over thee whom the Lord shall chuse for God did not only make the institution of a King to be purely an act of the People but left it to them to institute one or not as should best please themselves and the Words whom the Lord shall chuse can have no other signification than that the People resolving to have a King and following the Rules prescribed by his Servant Moses he would direct them in their choice which relates only to that particular People in covenant with God and immediately under his Government which no other was But this pains might have bin saved if God by a universal Law had given a rule to all The Israelites could not have bin three hundred years without a King and then left to the liberty of making one or not if he by a perpetual Law had ordained that every Nation should have one and it had bin as well impertinent as unjust to deliberate who should be King if the Dominion had by right of Inheritance belonged to one They must have submitted to him whether they would or not No care was to be taken in the election or institution of him who by his birth had a Right annexed to his person that could not be altered He could not have bin forbidden to multiply Silver or Gold who by the Law of his Creation might do what he pleased It had bin ridiculous to say he should not raise his Heart above his Brethren who had no Brethren that is no Equals but was raised above all by God who had imposed upon all others a necessity of obeying him But God who dos nothing in vain did neither constitute or elect any till they desired it nor command them to do it themselves unless it so pleased themselves nor appoint them to take him out of any one Line Every Israelite might be chosen None but Strangers were excluded and the People were left to the liberty of chusing and instituting any one of their Brethren Our Author endeavouring by Hooker's authority to establish his distinction between eligere and instituere destroys it and the paternal Right which he makes the foundation of his Doctrine Heaps of Scripture are alledged says he concerning the solemn Coronation and Inauguration of Saul David Solomon and others by Nobles Antients and People of the Commonwealth of Israel which is enough to prove that the whole work was theirs that no other had any title more than what they bestowed upon him They were set up by the Nobles Antients and People Even God did no otherwise intervene than by such a secret disposition of the Lots by his Providence as is exercised in the Government of all the things in the World and we cannot have a more certain evidence that a paternal right to Dominion is a meer Whimsy than that God did not cause the Lot to fall upon the eldest of the eldest Line of the eldest Tribe but upon Saul a young man of the youngest Tribe and afterwards tho he had designed David Solomon Jeroboam and others who had no pretence to the paternal Right to be Kings he left both the election and institution of them to the Elders and People But Hooker being well examined it will appear that his opinions were as contrary to the Doctrine of our Author as those we have mentioned out of Plato and Aristotle He plainly says It is impossible that any should have a compleat lawful power over a multitude consisting of so many Families as every politick Society doth but by consent of Men or immediate appointment from God Because not having the natural Superiority of Fathers their Power must needs be usurped and then unlawful or if lawful then either granted or consented unto by them over whom they exercise the same or else given extraordinarily by God And tho he thinks Kings to have bin the first Governors so constituted he adds That this is not the only Regiment that hath bin received in the World The inconveniences of one kind have caused sundry others to be devised So that in a word all publick Regiment of what kind soever seemeth evidently to have risen from deliberate advice consultation and composition between men judging it convenient and behoofeful And a little below Man's Nature standing therefore as it doth some kind of regiment the Law of Nature doth require yet the kinds thereof being many Nature tyeth not to any one but leaveth the choice as a thing arbitrary And again To live by one mans will became all mens misery This constrained them to come unto Laws c. But as those Laws do not only teach that which is good but enjoin it they have in them a constraining force To constrain men to any thing inconvenient seemeth unreasonable Most requisite therefore it is that to devise Laws which all men should be forced to obey none but wise men should be admitted Moreover that which we say concerning the power of Government must here be applied unto the power of making Laws whereby to govern which Power God hath over all and by the natural Law whereunto he hath made all subject the lawful power of making Laws to command whole politick Societies of men belongeth so properly unto the same intire Societies that for any Prince or Potentate of what kind soever upon Earth to exercise the same of himself and not either by express commission immediately from God or else by authority derived at the first from their consent upon whose persons they impose Laws it is no better than meer Tyranny Laws therefore they are not which publick consent hath not made so The humour of our Age considered I should not have dared to say so much but if Hooker be a man of such great authority I cannot offend in
whatever to admit of one who is evidently guilty of such Vices as are prejudicial to the State For this reason the French tho much addicted to their Kings rejected the vile remainders of Meroveus his Race and made Pepin the Son of Charles Martel King And when his Descendents sell into the like Vices they were often deposed till at last they were wholly rejected and the Crown given to Capet and to his Heirs Male as formerly Yet for all this Henry his Grandchild being esteemed more fit to govern than his elder Brother Robert was as is said before made King and that Crown still remains in his Descendents no consideration being had of the Children of Robert who continued Dukes of Burgundy during the reigns of ten Kings And in the memory of our Fathers Henry of Navarr was rejected by two Assemblies of the Estates because he differed in Religion from the Body of the Nation and could never be received as King till he had renounced his own tho he was certainly the next in Blood and that in all other respects he excelled in those Vertues which they most esteem We have already proved that our own History is full of the like Examples and might enumerate a multitude of others if it were not too tedious and as the various Rules according to which all the hereditary Crowns of the World are inherited shew that none is set by Nature but that every People proceeds according to their own Will the frequent deviations from those Rules do evidently testify that Salus Populi est Lex suprema and that no Crown is granted otherwise than in submission to it But tho there were a Rule which in no case ought to be transgressed there must be a Power of judging to whom it ought to be applied 'T is perhaps hard to conceive one more precise than that of France where the eldest Legitimate Male in the direct Line is preserred and yet that alone is not sufficient There may be Bastardy in the case Bastards may be thought legitimate and legitimate Sons Bastards The Children born of Isabel of Portugal during her Marriage with John the Third of Castile were declared Bastards and the Title of the House of Austria to that Crown depends upon that Declaration We often see that Marriages which have bin contracted and for a long time taken to be good have bin declared null and the legitimation of the present King of France is founded solely upon the abolition of the marriage of Henry the Fourth with Marguerite of Valois which for the space of twenty seven Years was thought to have bin good Whilst Spain was divided into five or six Kingdoms and the several Kings linked to each other by mutual Alliances incestuous Marriages were often contracted and upon better consideration annulled many have bin utterly void through the preingagement of one of the Parties These are not feigned Cases but such as happen frequently and the diversity of Accidents as well as the humours of Men may produce many others which would involve Nations in the most satal Disorders if every one should think himself obliged to follow such a one who pretended a Title that to him might seem plausible when another should set up one as pleasing to others and there were no Power to terminate those Disputes to which both must submit but the decision must be lest to the Sword This is that which I call the Application of the Rule when it is as plain and certain as humane Wisdom can make it but if it be lest more at large as where Females inherit the difficulties are inextricable and he that says The next Heir is really King when one is dead before he be so declared by a Power that may judg of his Title dos as far as in him lies expose Nations to be split into the most desperate Factions and every man to fight for the Title which he fancies to be good till he destroy those of the contrary Party or be destroyed by them This is the blessed way proposed by our Author to prevent Sedition But God be thanked our Ancestors found a better They did not look upon Robert the Norman as King of England after the death of his Father and when he did proudly endeavour on pretence of Inheritance to impose himself upon the Nation that thought fit to prefer his younger Brothers before him he paid the Penalty of his solly by the loss of his Eyes and Liberty The French did not think the Grandchild of Pharamond to be King after the death of his Father nor seek who was the next Heir of the Merovingian Line when Chilperic the third was dead nor regard the Title of Charles of Lorrain after the death of his Brother Lothair or of Robert of Burgundy eldest Son of King Robert but advanced Meroveus Pepin Capet and Henry the first who had no other Right than what the Nobility and People bestowed upon them And if such Acts do not destroy the Pretences of all who lay claim to Crowns by Inheritance and do not create a Right I think it will be hard to find a lawful King in the world or that there ever have bin any since the first did plainly come in like Nimrod and those who have bin every where since Histories are known to us owed their exaltation to the Consent of Nations armed or unarmed by the deposition or exclusion of the Heirs of such as had reigned before them Our Author not troubling himself with these things or any other relating to the matter in question is pleased to slight Hooker's Opinions concerning Coronation and Inauguration with the heaps of Scripture upon which he grounds them whereas those Solemnities would not only have bin foolish and impertinent but profane and impious if they were not Deeds by which the Right of Dominion is really conferred What could be more wickedly superstitious than to call all Israel together before the Lord and to cast Lots upon every Tribe Family and Person for the election of a King if it had bin known to whom the Crown did belong by a natural and unalterable Right Or if there had bin such a thing in Nature how could God have cauled that Lot to fall upon one of the youngest Tribe for ever to discountenance his own Law and divert Nations from taking any notice of it It had bin absurd for the Tribe of Judah to chuse and anoint David and for the other Tribes to follow their example after the death of Ishbosheth if he had bin King by a Right not depending on their Will David did worse in slaying the Sons of Rimmon saying they had killed a righteous Man lying upon his bed if Ishbosheth whose Head they presented had most unrighteously detained from him as long as he lived the Dominion of the ten Tribes The King Elders and People had most scornfully abused the most sacred things by using such Ceremonies in making him King and compleating their work in a Covenant made between him
were heads of Families for the Scripture only says They were Footmen that drew the Sword or rather all the men of Israel from Dan to Beersheba who were able to make War When six hundred Benjamites did only remain of the 26700 't is plain that no more were left of that Tribe their Women and Children having bin destroyed in the Cities after their defeat The next Chapter makes the matter yet more plain for when all that were at the Congregation in Mispeth were found to have sworn they would not give their Daughters to any of the Tribe of Benjamin no Israelite was free from the Oath but the men of Jabesh Gilead who had not bin at the Assembly All the rest of Israel was therefore comprehended and they continuing to govern in a popular way with absolute power sent twelve thousand of their most valiant men to destroy all the Males of Jabesh Gilead and the Women that had lain by Man reserving the Virgins for the Benjamites This is enough for my purpose for the question is not concerning the power that every Housholder in London hath over his Wife Children and Servants but whether they are all perpetually subject to one man and Family and I intend not to set up their Wives Prentices and Children against them or to diminish their Rights but to assert them as the gift of God and Nature no otherwise to be restrained than by Laws made with their consent Reason failing our Author pleases himself with terms of his own invention When the People begged a King of Samuel they were governed by a Kingly power God out of a special love and care to the house of Israel did chuse to be their King himself and did govern them at that time by his Viceroy Samuel and his Sons The behaviour of the Israelites towards Samuel has bin thought proud perverse and obstinate but the fine Court word begging was never before applied to them and their insolent fury was not only seen against Samuel but against God They have not rejected thee but they have rejected me And I think Filmer is the first who ever found that Beggars in begging did reject him of whom they begged Or if they were Beggars they were such as would not be denied for after all that Samuel had said to disswade them from their wicked design they said Nay but we will have a King But lest I should be thought too much inclined to contradict our Author I confess that once he hath happened to be in the right God out of a special love to the house of Israel chose to be their King He gave them Laws prescribed a Form of Government raised up Men in a wonderful manner to execute it filled them with his Spirit was ever present when they called upon him He gave them counsel in their doubts and assistance in all their extremities He made a Covenant with them and would be exalted by them But what is this to an earthly Monarch Who can from hence derive a Right to any one man to play the Lord over his Brethren or a reason why any Nation should set him up God is our Lord by right of creation and our only Lord because he only hath created us If any other were equal to him in Wisdom Power Goodness and Beneficence to us he might challenge the same duty from us If growing out of our selves receiving being from none depending on no providence we were offered the protection of a Wisdom subject to no error a Goodness that could never fail and a Power that nothing could resist it were reasonable for us to enter into a Covenant submit our selves to him and with all the faculties of our minds to addict our selves to his Service But what Right can from hence accrue to a mortal Creature like to one of us from whom we have received nothing and who stands in need of help as much as we Who can from hence deduce an argument to perswade us to depend upon his Wisdom who has as little as other men To submit to his Will who is subject to the same Frailties Passions and Vices with the rest of Mankind Or to expect protection and defence from him whose life depends upon as slender threds as our own and who can have no power but that which we confer upon him If this cannot be done but is of all things the most contrary to common sense no man can in himself have any right over us we are all as free as the four hundred twenty six thousand seven hundred Hebrew Kings We can naturally owe allegiance to none and I doubt whether all the lusts that have reigned amongst men since the beginning of the World have brought more guilt and misery upon them than that preposterous and impudent pretence of imitating what God had instituted When Saul set himself most violently to oppose the command of God he pretended to fulfil it When the Jews grew weary of God's Government and resolved to reject him that he should not reign over them they used some of Moses his words and asked that King of God whom they intended to set up against him But this King had not bin set up against God the People had not rejected God and sinned in asking for him if every Nation by a general Law ought to have one or by a particular Law one had bin appointed by him over them There was therefore no King amongst them nor any Law of God or Nature particular or general according to which they ought to have one SECT X. Aristotle was not simply for Monarchy or against Popular Government but approved or disapproved of either according to circumstances OUr Author well observes that Aristotle is hardly brought to give a general opinion in favour of Monarchy as if it were the best form of Government or to say true never dos it He uses much caution proposes conditions and limitations and makes no decision but according to circumstances Men of Wisdom and Learning are subject to such doubts but none ought to wonder if stupidity and ignorance defend Filmer and his Followers from them or that their hatred to the antient Vertue should give them an aversion to the Learning that was the Nurse of it Those who neither understand the several Species of Government nor the various tempers of Nations may without fear or shame give their opinions in favour of that which best pleaseth them but wise men will always proportion their praises to the merit of the subject and never commend that simply which is good only according to circumstances Aristotle highly applauds Monarchy when the Monarch has more of those Vertues that tend to the good of a Commonwealth than all they who compose it This is the King mentioned in his Ethicks and extolled in his Politicks He is above all by Nature and ought not by a municipal Law to be made equal to others in Power He ought to govern because 't is better for a People to be
governed by him than to enjoy their Liberty or rather they do enjoy their Liberty which is never more safe than when it is defended by one who is a living Law to himself and others Wheresoever such a man appears he ought to reign He bears in his Person the divine Character of a Sovereign God has raised him above all and such as will not submit to him ought to be accounted Sons of Belial brought forth and slain But he dos withal confess that if no such man be sound there is no natural King All the Prerogatives belonging to him vanish for want of one who is capable of enjoying them He lays severe Censures upon those who not being thus qualified take upon them to govern men equal to or better than themselves and judges the assumption of such Powers by persons who are not naturally adapted to the administration of them as barbarous Usurpations which no Law or Reason can justify and is not so much transported with the excellency of this true King as not to confess he ought to be limit d by Law Qui legem praeesse jubet videtur jubere praeesse Deum Leges qui autem hominem praeesse jubet adjungit bestiam libido quippe talis est atque obliquos agit etiam viros optimos qui sunt in potestate ex quo mens atque appetitus Lex est This agrees with the words of the best King that is known to have bin in the world proceeding as is most probable from a sense of the Passions that reigned in his own breast Man being in honour hath no understanding but is like to the beast that perisheth This shews that such as deny that Kings do reign by Law or that Laws may be put upon Kings do equally set themselves against the opinions of wise Men and the Word of God and our Author having found that Learning made the Grecians seditious may reasonably doubt that Religion may make others worse so as none will be fit Subjects of his applauded Government but those who have neither Religion nor Learning and that it cannot be introduced till both be extinguished Aristotle having declared his mind concerning Government in the Books expresly written on that Subject whatsoever is said by the by in his Moral Discourses must be referred to and interpreted by the other And if he said which I do not find that Monarchy is the best Form of Government and a Popular State the worst he cannot be thought to have meant otherwise than that those Nations were the most happy who had such a Man as he thinks fit to be made a Monarch and those the most unhappy who neither had such a one nor a few that any way excelled the rest but all being equally brutish must take upon them the Government they were unable to manage for he dos no where admit any other end of Just and Civil Government than the good of the governed nor any advantage due to one or a few persons unless for such Vertues as conduce to the common good of the Society And as our Author thinks Learning makes men seditious Aristotle also acknowledges that those who have Understanding and Courage which may be taken for Learning or the effect of it will never endure the Government of one or a few that do not excel them in Vertue but no where dispraises a Popular Government unless the multitude be composed of such as are barbarous stupid lewd vicious and uncapable of the Happiness for which Governments are instituted who cannot live to themselves but like a herd of Beasts must be brought under the dominion of another or who having amongst themselves such an excellent Person as is above described will not submit to him but either kill banish or bring him to be equal with others whom God had made to excel all I do not trouble my self or the Reader with citing here or there a Line out of his Books but refer my self to those who have perused his Moral and Political Writings submitting to the severest Censures if this be not the true sense of them and that Vertue alone in his opinion ought to give the preheminence And as Aristotle following the wise Men of those times shews us how far Reason improved by Meditation can advance in the knowledg and love of that which is truly good so we may in Filmer guided by Heylin see an Example of corrupted Christians extinguishing the Light of Religion by their Vices and degenerating into Beasts whilst they endeavour to support the personal Interest of some men who being raised to Dignities by the consent of Nations or by unwarrantable ways and means would cast all the Power into the hands of such as happen to be born in their Families as if Governments had not bin instituted for the common good of Nations but only to increase their Pride and foment their Vices or that the care and direction of a great People were so easy a work that every Man Woman or Child how young weak foolish or wicked soever may be worthy of it and able to manage it SECT XI Liberty produceth Vertue Order and Stability Slavery is accompanied with Vice Weakness and Misery OUR Author's judgment as well as inclinations to Vertue are manifested in the preference he gives to the manners of the Assyrians and other Eastern Nations before the Grecians and Romans Whereas the first were never remarkable for any thing but Pride Lewdness Treachery Cruelty Cowardice Madness and hatred to all that is good whilst the others excelled in Wisdom Valour and all the Vertues that deserve imitation This was so well observed by St. Augustin that he brings no stronger Argument to prove that God leaves nothing that is good in man unrewarded than that he gave the dominion of the best part of the World to the Romans who in moral Vertues excelled all other Nations And I think no Example can be alledged of a Free People that has ever bin conquer'd by an Absolute Monarch unless he did incomparably surpass them in Riches and Strength whereas many great Kings have bin overthrown by small Republicks and the success being constantly the same it cannot be attributed to Fortune but must necessarily be the production of Vertue and good Order Machiavel discoursing of these matters finds Vertue to be so essentially necessary to the establishment and preservation of Liberty that he thinks it impossible for a corrupted People to set up a good Government or for a Tyranny to be introduced if they be vertuous and makes this Conclusion That where the matter that is the body of the People is not corrupted Tumults and Disorders do no hurt and where it is corrupted good Laws do no good Which being confirmed by Reason and Experience I think no wise man has ever contradicted him But I do not more wonder that Filmer should look upon Absolute Monarchy to be the Nurse of Vertue tho we see they did never subsist together than that he
in his time and somewhat before for want of a Christian Spirit in the bitterness of his Soul says Nec unquam atrocioribus Populi Romani cladibus magisque justis indiciis probatum est non esse cure Deis securitatem nostram esse ultionem Some thought that no Punishments could be justly deserved by a People that had so much favour'd Virtue others that even the Gods they ador'd envied their Felicity and Glory but all confess'd they were fallen from the highest pitch of human Happiness into the lowest degree of Infamy and Misery And our Author being the first that ever found they had gained by the change we are to attribute the discovery of so great a Secret to the excellency of his Wisdom If suspending my Judgment in this point till it be proved by better Authority than his word I in the mean time follow the opinion of those who think Slavery doth naturally produce meanness of Spirit with its worst effect flattery which Tacitus calls foedum servitutis crimen I must believe that the impudence of carrying it to such a height as to commend nothing in the most glorious Liberty that made the most virtuous People in the world but the shortness of its continuance and to prefer the Tyranny of the basest of Men or worst of Monsters is peculiar to Filmer and that their wickedness which had never bin equalled is surpassed by him who recommends as the Ordinance of God the Principles that certainly produce them But says our Author tho Rome was for a while miraculously upheld in Glory by a greater prudence than its own yet in a short time after manifold Alterations she was ruined by her own hand But 't is absurd to say that the overthrow of a Government which had nothing of good in it can be a ruin or that the Glory in which it continued had nothing of good in it and most of all that it could be ruin'd by no hands but its own if that Glory had not bin gained and immediately or instrumentally supported by such virtue and strength as is worthily to be preferr'd before all other temporal Happiness and dos ever produce it This shews that Liars ought to have good memories But passing over such foolish Contradictions I desire to know how that prudence greater than its own which till I am better inform'd I must think to be inseparably united to Justice and Goodness came miraculously to support a Government which was not only evil in it self as contrary to the Laws of God and Nature but so perpetually bent against that Monarchy which he says is according to them as to hate all Monarchs despise all that would live under them destroy as many of them as came within their reach and make a Law by which any man was authorised to kill him who should endeavour to set up this Divine Power among them Moreover no human Prudence preserved the Roman Glory but their own the others directly set themselves to oppose it and the most eminent fell under it We know of no Prudence surpassing the human unless it be the Divine But the Divine Prudence did never miraculously exert it self except to bear witness to the Truth and to give Authority to those that announced it If therefore the glory of this Popular Government was miraculously supported by a more than human Prudence it was good in it self the Miracles done in favour of it did testify it and all that our Author says against it is false and abominable If I lay aside the word Miraculous as put in by chance 't will be hard to know how God who in the usual course of his Providence guides all things by such a gentle and undiscerned Power that they seem to go on of themselves should give such virtue to this popular Government and the Magistrates bred up under it that the greatest Monarchs of the Earth were as dust before them unless there had bin an excellency in their Discipline far surpassing that of their Enemies or how that can be called ill in its Principle and said to comprehend no good which God did so gloriously support and no man was ever able to resist This cannot be better answer'd than by our Author's Citation Suis ipsa Roma viribus ruit That City which had overthrown the greatest Powers of the World must in all appearance have lasted for ever if their Virtue and Discipline had not decay'd or their Forces bin turned against themselves If our Author therefore say true the greatest good that ever befel the Romans was the decay of their Virtue and Discipline and the turning of their own Arms against themselves was not their Ruin but their Preservation When they had brought the warlike Nations of Italy into subjection or association often repressed the fury of the Gauls Cimbri and Teutons overthrown the Wealth Power and Wit of Carthage supported by the Skill Industry and Valour of Hannibal and his brave Relations almost extirpated the valiant Spaniards who would no other way be subdued defeated Philip Perseus Antiochus Gentius Syphax and Jugurtha struck an aw into Ptolomy avoided the snares and poisons of Mithridates followed him in his Flights reveng'd his Treacheries and carried their victorious Arms beyond his conquer'd Kingdoms to the Banks of Tygris When neither the Revolt of their Italian Associates nor the Rebellion of their Slaves led by Spartacus who in skill seems to have bin equal to Hannibal and above him in Courage could put a stop to their Victories When Greece had been reduced to yield to a Virtue rather than a Power greater than their own we may well say that Government was supported by a more than human prudence which led them through Virtue to a height of Glory Power and Happiness that till that day had bin unknown to the World and could never have bin ruined if by the decay of that Virtue they had not turned their victorious Arms against themselves That City was a Giant that could die by no other hand than his own like Hercules poison'd and driven into madness after he had destroy'd Thieves Monsters and Tyrants and found nothing on the Earth able to resist him The wisest of men in antient times looking upon this as a point of more than human Perfection thought or feigned to think that he was descended from the Gods and at his death received into their number tho perhaps Filmer would prefer a weak base and effeminate Slave before him The matter will not be much different if we adhere to the foremention'd similitude of the Athletick Habit for the danger proceeds only from the perfection of it and he who dislikes it must commend that Weakness and Vice which may perish but can never be changed into any thing worse than it self as those that lie upon the ground can never fall However this Fall of the Romans which our Author speaking truth against his will calls their Ruin was into that which he recommends as the Ordinance of God Which is
as much as to say that they were ruin'd when they fell from their own unnatural Inventions to follow the Law of God and of Nature that Luxury also through which they fell was the product of their Felicity and that the Nations that had bin subdued by them had no other way of avenging their Defeats than by alluring their Masters to their own Vices This was the Root of their Civil Wars When that proud City found no more resistance it grew wanton Saevior armis Luxuria incubuit victumque ulciscitur orbem Lucan Honest Poverty became uneasy when Honours were given to ill-gotten Riches This was so Monarchical that a People infected with such a Custom must needs fall by it They who by Vice had exhausted their Fortunes could repair them only by bringing their Country under a Government that would give impunity to Rapine and such as had not Virtues to deserve Advancement from the Senate and People would always endeavour to set up a Man that would bestow the Honours that were due to Virtue upon those who would be most abjectly subservient to his Will and Interests When mens minds are filled with this Fury they sacrifice the common Good to the advancement of their private Concernments This was the temper of Catiline expressed by Sallust Luxuria principi gravis paupertas vix à privato toleranda and this put him upon that desperate extremity to say Incendium meum ruinâ extinguam Others in the same manner being filled with the same rage he could not want Companions in his most villanous Designs 'T is not long since a Person of the highest Quality and no less famous for Learning and Wit having observed the State of England as it stood not many years ago and that to which it has bin reduc'd since the year sixty as is thought very much by the Advice and Example of France said That they now were taking a most cruel vengeance upon us for all the Overthrows received from our Ancestors by introducing their most damnable Maxims and teaching us the worst of their Vices 'T is not for me to determine whether this Judgment was rightly made or not for I intend not to speak of our Affairs but all Historians agreeing that the change of the Roman Government was wrought by such means as I have mentioned and our Author acknowledging that change to have bin their ruin as in truth it was I may justly conclude that the overthrow of that Government could not have bin a ruin to them but good for them unless it had bin good and that the Power which did ruin it and was set up in the room of it cannot have bin according to the Laws of God or Nature for they confer only that which is good and destroy nothing that is so but must have bin most contrary to that good which was overthrown by it SECT XVI The best Governments of the World have bin composed of Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy OUR Author's cavils concerning I know not what vulgar Opinions that Democracies were introduc'd to curb Tyranny deserve no answer for our question is Whether one form of Government be prescribed to us by God and Nature or we are left according to our own understanding to constitute such as seem best to our selves As for Democracy he may say what pleases him of it and I believe it can sute only with the convenience of a small Town accompanied with such Circumstances as are seldom found But this no way obliges men to run into the other extream in as much as the variety of forms between meer Democracy and Absolute Monarchy is almost infinite And if I should undertake to say there never was a good Government in the world that did not consist of the three simple Species of Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy I think I might make it good This at the least is certain that the Government of the Hebrews instituted by God had a Judg the great Sanhedrin and General Assemblies of the People Sparta had two Kings a Senate of twenty eight chosen Men and the like Assemblies All the Dorian Cities had a chief Magistrate a Senate and occasional Assemblies The Ionian Athens and others had an Archon the Areopagi and all Judgments concerning matters of the greatest importance as well as the Election of Magistrates were referr'd to the People Rome in the beginning had a King and a Senate whilst the Election of Kings and Judgments upon Appeals remained in the People afterwards Consuls representing Kings and vested with equal Power a more numerous Senate and more frequent meetings of the People Venice has at this day a Duke the Senate of the Pregadi and the Great Assembly of the Nobility which is the whole City the rest of the Inhabitants being only Incolae not Cives and those of the other Cities or Countries are their Subjects and do not participate of the Government Genoa is governed in like manner Luca not unlike to them Germany is at this day governed by an Emperor the Princes or great Lords in their several Precincts the Cities by their own Magistrates and by general Diets in which the whole power of the Nation resides and where the Emperor Princes Nobility and Cities have their places in person or by their Deputies All the Northern Nations which upon the dissolution of the Roman Empire possessed the best Provinces that had composed it were under that form which is usually called the Gothick Polity They had King Lords Commons Diets Assemblies of Estates Cortez and Parliaments in which the Sovereign Powers of those Nations did reside and by which they were exercised The like was practised in Hungary Bohemia Sweden Denmark Poland and if things are changed in some of these places within few years they must give better proofs of having gained by the change than are yet seen in the World before I think my self obliged to change my opinion Some Nations not liking the name of King have given such a power as Kings enjoy'd in other places to one or more Magistrates either limited to a certain time or left to be perpetual as best pleased themselves Others approving the name made the Dignity purely elective Some have in their Elections principally regarded one Family as long as it lasted Others consider'd nothing but the fitness of the Person and reserved to themselves a liberty of taking where they pleased Some have permitted the Crown to be hereditary as to its ordinary course but restrained the Power and instituted Officers to inspect the Proceedings of Kings and to take care that the Laws were not violated Of this sort were the Ephori of Sparta the Maires du Palais and afterwards the Constable of France the Justicia in Arragon Rijckshofmeister in Denmark the High Steward in England and in all places such Assemblies as are before-mentioned under several names who had the Power of the whole Nation Some have continued long and it may be always in the same form others have changed
eminency in that Kingdom with the Cities of Paris Bourdeaux and many others in the space of these last fifty years have sided with the perpetual Enemies of their own Country Again other great Alterations have happened within the same Kingdom The Races of Kings four times wholly changed Five Kings deposed in less than 150 Years after the death of Charles the Great The Offices of Maire du Palais and Constable erected and laid aside The great Dukedoms and Earldoms little inferior to Soveraign Principalities establish'd and suppress'd The decision of all Causes and the execution of the Laws placed absolutely in the hands of the Nobility their Deputies Seneschals or Vice-Seneschals and taken from them again Parliaments set up to receive Appeals from the other Courts and to judg soveraignly in all cases expresly to curb them The Power of these Parliaments after they had crushed the Nobility brought so low that within the last twenty years they are made to register and give the Power of Laws to Edicts of which the Titles only are read to them and the General Assemblies of Estates that from the time of Pepin had the Power of the Nation in their hands are now brought to nothing and almost forgotten Tho I mention these things 't is not with a design of blaming them for some of them deserve it not and it ought to be consider'd that the Wisdom of man is imperfect and unable to foresee the Effects that may proceed from an infinite variety of Accidents which according to Emergencies necessarily require new Constitutions to prevent or cure the mischiefs arising from them or to advance a good that at the first was not thought on And as the noblest work in which the Wit of man can be exercised were if it could be done to constitute a Government that should last for ever the next to that is to sute Laws to present Exigencies and so much as is in the power of man to foresee And he that should resolve to persist obstinately in the way he first entered upon or to blame those who go out of that in which their Fathers had walked when they find it necessary dos as far as in him lies render the worst of Errors perpetual Changes therefore are unavoidable and the Wit of man can go no farther than to institute such as in relation to the Forces Manners Nature Religion or Interests of a People and their Neighbours are sutable and adequate to what is seen or apprehended to be seen And he who would oblige all Nations at all times to take the same course would prove as foolish as a Physician who should apply the same Medicine to all Distempers or an Architect that would build the same kind of House for all Persons without considering their Estates Dignities the number of their Children or Servants the Time or Climate in which they live and many other Circumstances or which is if possible more sottish a General who should obstinately resolve always to make War in the same way and to draw up his Army in the same form without examining the nature number and strength of his own and his Enemies Forces or the advantages and disadvantages of the Ground But as there may be some universal Rules in Physick Architecture and Military Discipline from which men ought never to depart so there are some in Politicks also which ought always to be observed and wise Legislators adhering to them only will be ready to change all others as occasion may require in order to the publick Good This we may learn from Moses who laying the Foundation of the Law given to the Israelites in that Justice Charity and Truth which having its root in God is subject to no change left them the liberty of having Judges or no Judges Kings or no Kings or to give the Soveraign Power to High Priests or Captains as best pleased themselves and the Mischiefs they afterwards suffer'd proceeded not simply from changing but changing for the worse The like judgment may be made of the Alterations that have happen'd in other places They who aim at the publick Good and wisely institute Means proportionable and adequate to the attainment of it deserve praise and those only are to be dislik'd who either foolishly or maliciously set up a corrupt private Interest in one or a few men Whosoever therefore would judg of the Roman Changes may see that in expelling the Tarquins creating Consuls abating the violence of Usurers admitting Plebeians to marry with the Patricians rendring them capable of Magistracies deducing Colonies dividing Lands gained from their Enemies erecting Tribunes to defend the Rights of the Commons appointing the Decemviri to regulate the Law and abrogating their Power when they abused it creating Dictators and Military Tribunes with a Consular Power as occasions requir'd they acted in the face of the Sun for the good of the Publick and such Acts having always produced Effects sutable to the rectitude of their Intentions they consequently deserve praise But when another Principle began to govern all things were changed in a very different manner Evil Designs tending only to the advancement of private Interests were carried on in the dark by means as wicked as the end If Tarquin when he had a mind to be King poison'd his first Wife and his Brother contracted an incestuous Marriage with his second by the death of her first Husband murder'd her Father and the best men in Rome yet Cesar did worse He favour'd Catiline and his villanous Associates brided and corrupted Magistrates conspir'd with Crassus and Pompey continued in the Command of an Army beyond the time prescribed by Law and turned the Arms with which he had bin entrusted for the service of the Commonwealth to the destruction of it which was rightly represented by his Dream that he had constuprated his Mother In the like manner when Octavius Antonius and Lepidus divided the Empire and then quarrelled among themselves and when Galba Otho Vitellius and Vespasian set up Parties in several Provinces all was managed with Treachery Fraud and Cruelty nothing was intended but the advancement of one Man and the Recompence of the Villains that served him And when the Empire had suffered infinite Calamities by pulling down or rejecting one and setting up another it was for the most part difficult to determine who was the worst of the two or whether the prevailing side had gained or lost by their Victory The question therefore upon which a Judgment may be made to the praise or dispraise of the Roman Government before or after the loss of their Liberty ought not to be Whether either were subject to changes for neither they nor any thing under the Sun was ever exempted from them but whether the Changes that happened after the establishment of Absolute Power in the Emperors did not solely proceed from Ambition and tend to the publick Ruin whereas those Alterations related by our Author concerning Consuls Dictators Decemviri Tribuns and Laws were
Socrates but the People who deceived by false Witnesses against whom neither the Laws of God or Man have ever prescrib'd a sufficient defence had condemned him did so much lament their Crime when the truth was discovered to them that I doubt whether a more righteous Judgment had given better testimony of their righteous Intentions But our Author's impudence appears in the highest excess in imputing the death of Phocion to the popular state of Athens Their Forces had bin broken in the Sicilian War the City taken and the principal men slain by Lysander the remains of the most worthy destroy'd by the thirty Tyrants set up by him their ill-recovered Liberty overthrown by the Macedonians and the death of Phocion compassed by Polyperchon who with Foreign Soldiers Slaves Vagabonds and Outlaws overpower'd the People The proceedings of Rome may be more compleatly justified Coriolanus was duly condemn'd he set too great a price upon his own Valour and arrogated to himself a Power in Rome which would hardly have bin indur'd in Corioli His violence and pride overbalanced his Services and he that would submit to no Law was justly driven out from the Society which could subsist only by Law Quintius was not unlike him and Manlius Capitolinus far worse than either Their Virtues were not to be consider'd when they departed from them Consideration ought to be had of human srailty and some indulgence may be extended to those who commit Errors after having done important Services but a State cannot subsist which compensating evil Actions with good gives impunity to the most dangerous Crimes in remembrance of any Services whatever He that dos well performs his duty and ought always to do so Justice and Prudence concur in this and 't is no less just than profitable that every Action be considered by it self and such a reward or punishment allotted to it as in nature and proportion it doth best deserve This as I suppose is enough for their Cases but relates not to those of Mamercus Camillus Livius Salinator and Emylius Paulus their Virtue was compleat they were wrongfully sentenc'd But the best Princes Senate or People that ever was in the world by the deceit of evil men may and have bin drawn out of the way of Justice Yet of all the States that are known to us none was ever so free from Crimes of malice and wilful injustice none was ever guilty of so few Errors as that of Rome and none did ever give better testimonies of Repentance when they were discovered than the Romans did by the Veneration they shew'd to those worthy Persons and the Honours they conferr'd upon them asterwards Mamercus was made Dictator to repair the unjust mark of Infamy laid upon him by the Censors Camillus being recall'd from his banishment often enjoyed the same honour and died the most reverenced Man that had ever bin in that City Livius Salinator was not only made Consul after he had bin fined but the People as it were to expiate the guilt of having condemn'd him suffer'd that asperity of speech and manners which might have perswaded such as had bin less confident of his Virtue and their own that he desir'd to be reveng'd tho it were with the ruin of the City They dealt in the like manner with Paulus Emylius repairing the injury of a Fine unduly impos'd Their generosity in leaving the Tribuns in the Forum with their Accusation against Scipio Africanus and following him to celebrate an annual Sacrifice in the Capitol in commemoration of his Victory against Hannibal was no less admirable than the greatness of his mind who thought his Virtue should be so well known that no account ought to be expected from him which was an Error proceeding from a noble Root but not to be born in a well-govern'd Commonwealth The Laws that aim at the publick Good make no distinction of persons and none can be exempted from the Penalties of them otherwise than by approved Innocence which cannot appear without a Trial He that will not bend his mind to them shakes off the equality of a Citizen and usurps a Power above the Law to which no man submits upon any other condition than that none should be exempted from the power of it And Scipio being the first Roman that thus disdained the Power of the Law I do not know whether the prejudice brought upon the City by so dangerous an Example did not outweight all the Services he had done Nevertheless the people contented with his retirement to his own house and afterwards convinc'd of his innocence would probably if he had not died in a few months have brought him back with the Honours that Fate reserved for his ashes I do not at present remember any other eminent men who can be said in any respect to have thrived ill whilst the People and Senat of Rome acted freely and if this be not sufficient to clear the point I desire to know the names of those worst men that thrived best If they may have bin judged to thrive who were frequently advanced to the supreme Magistracies and enjoy'd the chief Honours I find no men so eminent as Brutus Publicola Quintius Cincinnatus and Capitolinus the two Fabii sirnamed Maximi Corvinus Torquatus Camillus and the like and if these were the worst Men that Rome produced in those Ages Valour Wisdom Industry in the Service of their Country and a most intire Love to it must have bin the worst of qualities and I presume our Author may have thought them so since they were invincible obstacles to the introduction of that Divine Monarchy which Appius Claudius the Decemvir Manlius Capitolinus Spurius Cassius Sp. Melius and some others may be thought to have affected However these instances are not to be understood as they are simply in themselves but comparatively with what has happen'd in other places under absolute Monarchies for our inquiry is not after that which is perfect well knowing that no such thing is found among men but we seek that human Constitution which is attended with the least or the most pardonable inconveniences And if we find that in the space of three hundred years whilst the Senate People and legally created Magistrates governed Rome not one worthy man was put to death not above five or six condemned to Fines by the beguiled People and those injuries repair'd by the most honourable satisfaction that could be given so that Virtue continued ever flourishing the best men that could be found were put into the chief Commands and the City was filled with more excellent men than were ever known to be in any other place And on the other side if the Emperors so soon as the Government was changed made it their business to destroy the best and so far succeeded in their design that they left none and never failed to advance the worst unless it fell out as to Queen Katherine de Medicis who is said never to have done any good but by mistake and
Nature sutable to their Original all Tyrannies have had their beginnings from corruption The Histories of Greece Sicily and Italy shew that all those who made themselves Tyrants in several places did it by the help of the worst and the slaughter of the best Men could not be made subservient to their Lusts whilst they continued in their integrity so as their business was to destroy those who would not be corrupted They must therefore endeavour to maintain or increase the corruption by which they attain their greatness If they fail in this point they must fall as Tarquin Pisistratus and others have done but if they succeed so far that the vicious part do much prevail the Government is secure tho the Prince may be in danger And the same thing doth in a great measure accidentally conduce to the safety of his Person For they who for the most part are the Authors of great Revolutions not being so much led by a particular hatred to the man as by a desire to do good to the publick seldom set themselves to conspire against the Tyrant unless he be altogether detestable and intolerable if they do not hope to overthrow the Tyranny The contrary is seen in all popular and well-mixed Governments they are ever established by wise and good men and can never be upheld otherwise than by Virtue The worst men always conspiring against them they must fall if the best have not power to preserve them Wheresoever therefore a People is so governed the Magistrates will obviate afar off the introduction of Vices which tend as much to the ruin of their Persons and Government as to the preservation of the Prince and his This is evidenced by experience 'T is not easy to name a Monarch that had so many good qualities as Julius Cesar till they were extinguished by his ambition which was inconsistent with them He knew that his strength lay in the corruption of the People and that he could not accomplish his designs without increasing it He did not seek good men but such as would be for him and thought none sufficiently addicted to his Interests but such as stuck at the performance of no wickedness that he commanded he was a Souldier according to Cesar's heart who said Pectore si fratris gladium juguloque parentis Condere me jubeas gravidaeve in viscera partu Conjugis invita peragam tamen omnia dextra Lucan And lest such as were devoted to him should grow faint in Villany he industriously inflamed their fury Vult omniâ— Caesar A se saeva peti vult praemia Martis amari Ib. Having spread this Poison amongst the Souldiers his next work was by corrupting the Tribuns to turn the Power to the destruction of the People which had bin erected for their preservation and pouring the Treasures he had gained by rapine in Gaul into the bosom of Curio made him an instrument of mischief who had bin a most eminent Supporter of the Laws Tho he was thought to have affected the glory of sparing Cato and with trouble to have found that he despised life when it was to be accounted his gift yet in suspecting Brutus and Cassius he shew'd he could not believe that virtuous men who loved their Country could be his Friends Such as carry on the like designs with less Valour Wit and Generosity of Spirit will always be more bitterly bent to destroy all that are good knowing that the deformity of their own Vices is rendred most manifest when they are compared with the good qualities of those who are most unlike them and that they can never defend themselves against the scorn and hatred they incur by their Vices unless such a number can be infected with the same and made to delight in the recompences of iniquity that foment them as may be able to keep the rest of the People in subjection The same thing happens even when the Usurpation is not so violent as that of Agathocles Dionysius or the last King of Denmark who in one day by the strength of a mercenary Souldiery overthrew all the Laws of his Country and a lawfully created Magistrate is forced to follow the same ways as soon as he begins to affect a power which the Laws do not confer upon him I wish I could say there were few of these but experience shews that such a proportion of Wisdom moderation of Spirit and Justice is requir'd in a supreme Magistrate to render him content with a limited Power as is seldom found Man is of an aspiring nature and apt to put too high a value upon himself they who are raised above their Brethren tho but a little desire to go farther and if they gain the name of King they think themselves wronged and degraded when they are not suffer'd to do what they please Sanctitas pietas fides Privata bona sunt Qua juvat reges eant In these things they never want Masters and the nearer they come to a power that is not easily restrained by Law the more passionately they desire to abolish all that opposes it and when their Hearts are filled with this fury they never fail to chuse such Ministers as will be subservient to their Will and this is so well known that those only approach them who resolve to be so Their interests as well as their inclinations incite them to diffuse their own manners as far as they can which is no less than to bring those who are under their power to all that wickedness of which the nature of man is capable and no greater testimony can be given of the efficacy of these means towards the utter corruption of Nations than the accursed effects we see of them in our own and the neighbouring Countries It may be said that some Princes are so full of Virtue and Goodness as not to desire more power than the Laws allow and are not obliged to chuse ill men because they desire nothing but what the best are willing to do This may be and sometimes is the Nation is happy that has such a King but he is hard to find and more than a human power is required to keep him in so good a way The strength of his own affections will ever be against him Wives Children and Servants will always join with those Enemies that arise in his own breast to pervert him if he has any weak side any Lust unsubdued they will gain the victory He has not search'd into the nature of man who thinks that any one can resist when he is thus on all sides assaulted Nothing but the wonderful and immediate power of God's Spirit can preserve him and to alledg it will be nothing to the purpose unless it can be proved that all Princes are blessed with such an assistance or that God hath promised it to them and their Successors for ever by what means soever they came to the Crowns they enjoy Nothing is farther from my intention than to speak irreverently of Kings and
Monarchies by the violence of some Princes and the baseness folly and cowardice of others together with what they have suffer'd in contests for the several Crowns whilst men divided into divers Factions ftrive with as much vehemency to advance the Person they favour as if they or their Country were interested in the quarrel and fight as fiercely for a Master as they might reasonably do to have none I am not able to determine which of the two evils is the most mortal 'T is evident the Vices of Princes result to the damage of the People but whether Pride and Cruelty or Stupidity and Sloth be the worst I cannot tell All Monarchies are subject to be afflicted with Civil Wars but whether the most frequent and bloody do arise from the quarrels of divers Competitors for Crowns before any one gain the possession of them or afterwards through the fears of him that would keep what he has gained or the rage of those who would wrest it from him is not so easily decided But Commonwealths are less troubled with those Distempers Women Children or such as are notoriously foolish or mad are never advanced to the supreme Power Whilst the Laws and that Disciplin which nourishes Virtue is in force Men of Wisdom and Valor are never wanting and every man desires to give testimony of his Virtue when he knows 't will be rewarded with Honour and Power If unworthy persons creep into Magistracies or are by mistake any way prefer'd their Vices for the most part turn to their own hurt and the State cannot easily receive any great damage by the incapacity of one who is not to continue in Office above a year and is usually encompassed with those who having born or are aspiring to the same are by their Virtue able to supply his defects cannot hope for a reward from one unable to corrupt them and are sure of the favour of the Senate and People to support them in the defence of the publick Interest As long as this good Order continues private quarrels are suppress'd by the authority of the Magistrate or prove to be of little effect Such as arise between the Nobles and Commons frequently produce good Laws for the maintenance of Liberty as they did in Rome for above three hundred years after the expulsion of Tarquin and almost ever terminated with little or no blood Sometimes the errors of one or both parties are discovered by the discourse of a wise and good man and those who have most violently opposed one another become the best Friends every one joining to remove the evil that causes the division When the Senate and People of Rome seemed to be most furiously incensed against each other the creation of Tribuns communication of Honours and Marriages between the Patrician and Plebeian Families or the mitigation of Usury composed all and these were not only harmless things but such as gave opportunities of correcting the defects that had bin in the first Constitution of the Government without which they could never have attained to the Greatness Glory and Happiness they afterwards enjoy'd Such as had seen that People meeting in tumult running through the City crying out against the Kings Consuls Senate or Decemviri might have thought they would have filled all with blood and slaughter but no such thing hapned They desired no more than to take away the Kingdom which Tarquin had wickedly usurped and never went about so much as to punish one Minister of the mischiefs he had done or to take away his Goods till upon pretence of treating his Ambassadors by a new treachery had cast the City into greater danger than ever Tho the Decemviri had by the like Villanies equally provoked the People they were used with the like gentleness Appius Claudius and Oppius having by voluntary death substracted themselves from publick punishment their Collegues were only banished and the Magistracies of the City reduced to the former order without the effusion of more blood They who contended for their just Rights were satisfied with the recovery of them whereas such as follow the impulse of an unruly Ambition never think themselves safe till they have destroyed all that seem able to disturb them and satiated their rage with the blood of their Adversaries This makes as well as shews the difference between the Tumults of Rome or the secession of the common People to Mount Aventine and the Battels of Towton Teuxbury Eveshal Lewes Hexham Barnet St. Albans and Bosworth 'T is in vain to say these ought rather to be compared to those of Pharsalia Actium or Philippi for when the Laws of a Commonwealth are abolish'd the name also ceases Whatever is done by force or fraud to set up the Interests and Lusts of one man in opposition to the Laws of his Country is purely and absolutely Monarchical Whatsoever passed between Marius Sylla Cinna Catiline Caesar Pompey Crassus Augustus Antonius and Lepidus is to be imputed to the Contests that arise between Competitors for Monarchy as well as those that in the next age happened between Galba Otho Vitellius and Vespasian Or which is worse whereas those in Commonwealths fight for themselves when there is occasion and if they succeed enjoy the fruits of their Victory so as even those who remain of the vanquished party partake of the Liberty thereby established or the good Laws thereupon made such as follow'd the Ensigns of these men who sought to set up themselves did rather like beasts than men hazard and suffer many unspeakable evils to purchase misery to themselves and their Posterity and to make him their Master who increasing in Pride Avarice and Cruelty was to be thrown down again with as much Blood as he had bin set up These things if I mistake not being in the last degree evident I may leave to our Author all the advantages he can gain by his rhetorical Description of the Tumults of Rome when Blood was in the Market-place suckt up with Sponges and the Jakes stuffed with Carcases to which he may add the crimes of Sylla's Life and the miseries of his Death but withal I desire to know what number of Sponges were sufficient to suck up the Blood of five hundred thousand men slain in one day when the Houses of David and Jeroboam contended for the Crown of Israel or of four hundred thousand who fell in one battel between Joash and Amaziah on the same occasion what Jakes were capacious enough to contain the Carcases of those that perished in the quarrels between the Successors of Alexander the several Competitors for the Roman Empire or those which have happened in France Spain England and other places upon the like occasions If Sylla for some time acted as an absolute Monarch 't is no wonder that he died like one or that God punished him as Herod Philip the second of Spain and some others because the hand of his fellow-Citizens had unjustly spar'd him If when he was become detestable to God
against them and placed the only hopes of their safety in the publick Calamity and lawful Kings when they have fallen into the first degree of madness so as to assume a power above that which was allowed by the Law have in fury proved equal to the worst Usurpers Clonymus of Sparta was of this sort He became says Plutarch an Enemy to the City because they would not allow him the absolute Power he affected and brought Pyrrhus the fiercest of their Enemies with a mighty and excellently well disciplin'd Army to destroy them Vortigern the Britan call'd in the Saxons with the ruin of his own People who were incensed against him for his Lewdness Cruelty and Baseness King John for the like reasons offer'd the Kingdom of England to the Moors and to the Pope Peter the Cruel and other Kings of Castille brought vast Armies of Moors into Spain to the ruin of their own People who detested their Vices and would not part with their Privileges Many other examples of the like nature might be alledged and I wish our own experience did not too well prove that such designs are common Let him that doubts this examin the Causes of the Wars with Scotland in the Years 1639 1640 the slaughters of the Protestants in Ireland 1641 the whole course of Alliances and Treaties for the space of fourscore Years the friendship contracted with the French frequent Quarrels with the Dutch together with other circumstances that are already made too publick if he be not convinced by this he may soon see a man in the Throne who had rather be a Tributary to France than a lawful King of England whilst either Parliament or People shall dare to dispute his Commands insist upon their own Rights or defend a Religion inconsistent with that which he has espoused and then the truth will be so evident as to require no proof Grotius was never accused of dealing hardly with Kings or laying too much weight upon imaginary cases nevertheless amongst other reasons that in his opinion justify Subjects in taking arms against their Princes he alledges this propter immanem saevitiam and quando Rex in Populi exitium fertur in as much as it is contrary to and inconsistent with the ends for which Governments are instituted which were most impertinent if no such thing could be for that which is not can have no effect There are therefore Princes who seek the destruction of their People or none could be justly opposed on that account If King James was of another opinion I could wish the course of his Government had bin suted to it When he said that whilst he had the power of making Judges and Bishops he would make that to be Law and Gospel which best pleased him and filled those places with such as turned both according to his Will and Interests I must think that by overthrowing Justice which is the rule of civil and moral Actions and perverting the Gospel which is the light of the spiritual man he left nothing unattempted that he durst attempt by which he might bring the most extensive and universal evils upon our Nation that any can suffer This would stand good tho Princes never erred unless they were transported with some inordinate Lusts for 't is hard to find one that dos not live in the perpetual power of them They are naturally subject to the impulse of such appetites as well as others and whatever evil reigns in their nature is fomented by education 'T is the handle by which their Flatterers lead them and he that discovers to what Vice a Prince is most inclin'd is sure to govern him by rendring himself subservient In this consists the chief art of a Courtier and by this means it comes to pass that such Lusts as in private men are curbed by fear do not only rage as in a wild Beast but are perpetually inflamed by the malice of their own Servants their hatred to the Laws of God or Men that might restrain them increases in proportion with their Vices or their fears of being punished for them And when they are come to this they can set no limits to their fury and there is no extravagance into which they do not frequently fall But many of them do not expect these violent motives the perversity of their own nature carries them to the extremities of evil They hate Virtue for its own sake and virtuous men for being most unlike to themselves This Virtue is the dictate of Reason or the remains of Divine Light by which men are made beneficent and beneficial to each other Religion proceeds from the same spring and tends to the same end and the good of Mankind so intirely depends upon these two that no people ever enjoyed any thing worth desiring that was not the product of them and whatsoever any have suffer'd that deserves to be abhorr'd and feared has proceeded either from the defect of these or the wrath of God against them If any Prince therefore has bin an enemy to Virtue and Religion he must also have bin an enemy to Mankind and most especially to the People under him Whatsoever he dos against those that excel in Virtue and Religion tends to the destruction of the People who subsist by them I will not take upon me to define who they are or to tell the number of those that do this but 't is certain there have bin such and I wish I could say they were few in number or that they had liv'd only in past ages Tacitus dos not fix this upon one Prince but upon all that he writes of and to give his Readers a tast of what he was to write he says that Nobility and Honours were dangerous but that Virtue brought most certain destruction and in another place that after the slaughter of many excellent men Nero resolved to cut down Virtue it self and therefore kill'd Thraseas Patus and Bareas Soranus And whosoever examines the Christian or Ecclesiastical Histories will find those Princes to have bin no less enemies to Virtue and Religion than their Predecessors and consequently enemies to the Nations under them unless Religion and Virtue be things prejudicial or indifferent to Mankind But our Author may say these were particular cases and so was the slaughter of the Prophets and Apostles the crucifixion of Christ and all the Villanies that have ever bin committed yet they proceeded from a universal principle of hatred to all that is good exerting it self as far as it could to the ruin of mankind And nothing but the over-ruling Power of God who resolved to preserve to himself a People could set bounds to their Rage which in other respects had as full success as our Author or the Devil could have wished Dionysius his other example of Justice deserves observation More falshood lewdness treachery ingratitude cruelty baseness avarice impudence and hatred to all manner of Good was hardly ever known in a mortal Creature For this reason
of France matters there are not much better managed The warlike temper of that people is so worn out by the frauds and cruelties of corrupt Officers that few men list themselves willingly to be Soldiers and when they are engaged or forced they are so little able to endure the miseries to which they are exposed that they daily run away from their Colours tho they know not whither to go and expect no mercy if they are taken The King has in vain attempted to correct this humour by the severity of martial Law but mens minds will not be forced and tho his Troops are perfectly well arm'd cloth'd and exercised they have given many testimonies of little worth When the Prince of Condé had by his own valour and the strength of the King's Guards broken the first line of the Prince of Orange's Army at the battel of Seneff and put the rest into disorder he could not make the second and third line of his own Army to advance and reinforce the first by which means he lost all the fair hopes he had conceived of an entire Victory Not long after the Marechal de Crequi was abandoned by his whole Army near Trier who ran away hardly striking a stroke and left him with sixteen horse to shift for himself When Monsieur de Turenne by the excellency of his Conduct and Valour had gain'd such a Reputation amongst the Soldiers that they thought themselves secure under him he did not suffer such disgraces but he being kill'd they return'd to the usual temper of forced and ill-used Soldiers half the Army was lost in a retreat little differing from a flight and the rest as they themselves confess saved by the bravery of two English Regiments The Prince of Condé was soon after sent to command but he could not with all his courage skill and reputation raise their fallen Spirits nor preserve his Army any other way than by lodging them in a Camp near Schlestadt so fortified by Art and Nature that it could not be forc'd To these we may add some Examples of our own In our late War the Scots Foot whether Friends or Enemies were much inferior to those of the Parliament and their Horse esteemed as nothing Yet in the year 1639 and 1640 the King's Army tho very numerous excellently armed and mounted and in appearance able to conquer many such Kingdoms as Scotland being under the conduct of Courtiers and affected as men usually are towards those that use them ill and seek to destroy them they could never resist a wretched Army commanded by Leven but were shamefully beaten at Newborn and left the Northern Counties to be ravaged by them When Van Tromp set upon Blake in Foleston-Bay the Parliament had not above thirteen Ships against threescore and not a man that had ever seen any other fight at Sea than between a Merchant ship and a Pirat to oppose the best Captain in the world attended with many others in valour and experience not much inferior to him Many other Difficulties were observ'd in the unsetled State Few Ships want of Mony several Factions and some who to advance particular Interests betray'd the Publick But such was the power of Wisdom and Integrity in those that sat at the Helm and their diligence in chusing men only for their Merit was blessed with such success that in two years our Fleets grew to be as famous as our Land Armies the Reputation and Power of our Nation rose to a greater height than when we possessed the better half of France and the Kings of France and Scotland were our Prisoners All the States Kings and Potentates of Europe most respectfully not to say submissively sought our Friendship and Rome was more afraid of Blake and his Fleet than they had bin of the great King of Sweden when he was ready to invade Italy with a hundred thousand men This was the work of those who if our Author say true thought basely of the publick Concernments and believing things might be well enough managed by others minded only their private Affairs These were the effects of the negligence and ignorance of those who being suddenly advanced to Offices were removed before they understood the Duties of them These Diseases which proceed from popular corruption and irregularity were certainly cured by the restitution of that Integrity good Order and Stability that accompany divine Monarchy The justice of the War made against Holland in the year 1665 the probity of the Gentleman who without partiality or bribery chose the most part of the Officers that carried it on the Wisdom Diligence and Valour manifested in the conduct and the Glory with which it was ended justifies all that our Author can say in its commendation If any doubt remains the subtilty of making the King of France desire that the Netherlands might be an accession to his Crown the ingenious ways taken by us to facilitate the conquest of them the Industry of our Ambassadors in diverting the Spaniards from entring into the War till it was too late to recover the Losses sustain'd the honourable Design upon the Smyrna Fleet and our frankness in taking the quarrel upon our selves together with the important Figure we now make in Europe may wholly remove it and in confirmation of our Author's Doctrine shew that Princes do better perform the Offices that require Wisdom Industry and Valour than annual Magistrates and do more seldom err in the choice of Officers than Senates and popular Assemblies SECT XXIX There is no assurance that the Distempers of a State shall be cured by the Wisdom of a Prince BVT says our Author the Virtue and Wisdom of a Prince supplies all Tho he were of a duller understanding by use and experience he must needs excel all Nature Age or Sex are as it seems nothing to the case A Child as soon as he comes to be a King has experience the head of a Fool is filled with Wisdom as soon as a Crown is set upon it and the most vicious do in a moment become virtuous This is more strange than that an Ass being train'd to a Course should outrun the best Arabian Horse or a Hare bred up in an Army become more strong and fierce than a Lion for Fortune dos not only supply all natural defects in Princes and correct their vices but gives them the benefit of use and experience when they have none Some Reasons and Examples might have bin expected to prove this extraordinary Proposition But according to his laudable custom he is pleased to trouble himself with neither and thinks that the impudence of an Assertion is sufficient to make that to pass which is repugnant to experience and common sense as may appear by the following discourse I will not insist upon terms for tho duller understanding signifies nothing in as much as no understanding is dull and a man is said to be dull only because he wants it but presuming he means little understanding I shall so
were in them Secondly Neither Plato nor Aristotle acknowledg either reason or justice in the power os a Monarch unless he has more of the Virtues conducing to the good of the Civil Society than all those who compose it and employ them for the publick advantage and not to his own pleasure and profit as being set up by those who seek their own good for no other reason than that he should procure it To this end a Law is set as a rule to him and the best men that is such as are most like to himself made to be his Assistants because say they Lex est mens sine affectu quasi Deus whereas the best of men have their affections and passions and are subject to be misled by them Which shews that as the Monarch is not sor himself nor by himself he dos not give but receive power nor admit others to the participation of it but is by them admitted to what he has Whereupon they conclude that to prefer the absolute power of a man as in those Governments which they call Barbarorum regna before the regular Government of Kings justly exercising a power instituted by Law and directed to the publick good is to chuse rather to be subject to the lust of a Beast than to be governed by a God And because such a choice can only be made by a Beast I leave our Author to find a description of himself in their Books which he so often cites But if Aristotle deserve credit the Princes who reign for themselves and not for the People preferring their own pleasure or profit before the publick become Tyrants which in his language is Enemies to God and Man On this account Boccalini introduces the Princes of Europe raising a mutiny against him in Parnassus for giving such definitions of Tyrants as they said comprehended them all and forcing the poor Philosopher to declare by a new definition that Tyrants were certain men of antient times whose race is now extinguished But with all his Wit and Learning he could not give a reason why those who do the same things that rendred the Antient Tyrants detestable should not be so also in our days In the third place The Scriptures declare the necessity of setting bounds to those who are placed in the highest dignities Moses seems to have had as great abilities as any man that ever lived in the world but he alone was not able to bear the weight of the Government and therefore God appointed Seventy chosen men to be his assistants This was a perpetual Law to Israel and as no King was to have more power than Moses or more abilities to perform the duties of his Office none could be exempted from the necessity of wanting the like helps Our Author therefore must confess that they are Kings who have them or that Kingly Government is contrary to the Scriptures When God by Moses gave liberty to his People to make a King he did it under these conditions He must be one of their Brethren They must chuse him he must not multiply Gold Silver Wives or Horses he must not lift up his Heart above his Brethren And Josephus paraphrasing upon the place says He shall do nothing without the advice of the Sanhedrin or if he do they shall oppose him This agrees with the confession of Zedekiah to the Princes which was the Sanhedrin The King can do nothing without you and seems to have bin in pursuance of the Law of the Kingdom which was written in a Book and laid up before the Lord and could not but agree with that of Mosis unless they spake by different Spirits or that the Spirit by which they did speak was subject to error or change and the whole series of God's Law shews that the Pride Magnificence Pomp and Glory usurped by their Kings was utterly contrary to the will of God They did lift up their hearts above their Brethren which was for bidden by the Law All the Kings of Israel and most of the Kings of Jadah utterly rejected it and every one of them did very much depart from the observation of it I will not deny that the People in their institution of a King intended they should do so they had done it themselves and would have a King that might uphold them in their disobedience they were addicted to the Idolatry of their accursed Neighbours and desired that Government by which it was maintained amongst them In doing this they did not reject Samuel but they rejected God that he should not reign over them They might perhaps believe that unless their King were such as the Law did not permit he would not perform what they intended or that the name of King did not belong to him unless he had a power that the Law denied But since God and his Prophets give the name of King to the chief Magistrate endow'd with a power that was restrain'd within very narrow limits whom they might without offence set up we also may safely give the same to those of the same nature whether it please Fihner or not 4. The practice of most Nations and I may truly say of all that deserve imitation has bin as directly contrary to the absolute power of one man as their Constitutions or if the original of many Governments lie hid in the impenetrable darkness of Antiquity their progress may serve to shew the intention of the Founders Aristotle seems to think that the first Monarchs having bin chosen for their Virtue were little restrain'd in the exercise of their Power but that they or their Children falling into Corruption and Pride grew odious and that Nations did on that account either abolish their Authority or create Senates and other Magistrates who having part of the Power might keep them in order The Spartan Kings were certainly of this nature and the Persian till they conquer'd Babylon Nay I may safely say that neither the Kings which the frantick people set up in opposition to the Law of God nor those of the bordering Nations whose example they chose to follow had that absolute power which our Author attributes to all Kings as inseparable from the name Achish the Philistin lov'd and admir'd David he look'd upon him as an Angel of God and promised that he should be the keeper of his head for ever but when the Princes suspected him and said he shall not go down with us to Battel he was obliged to dismiss him This was not the language of Slaves but of those who had a great part in the Government and the Kings submission to their will shows that he was more like to the Kings of Sparta than to an absolute Monarch who dos whatever pleases him I know not whether the Spartans were descended from the Hebrews as some think but their Kings were under a regulation much like that of the 17 of Deut. tho they had two Their Senate of twenty eight and the Ephori
has bin in force for so many Ages What the beginning of it was is not known But Charles the sixth receding from this Law and thinking to dispose of the Succession otherwise than was ordained by it was esteemed mad and all his Acts rescinded And tho the Reputation Strength and Valour of the English commanded by Henry the fifth one of the bravest Princes that have ever bin in the world was terrible to the French Nation yet they opposed him to the utmost of their power rather than suffer that Law to be broken And tho our Success under his Conduct was great and admirable yet soon aster his death with the expence of much Blood and Treasure we lost all that we had on that side and suffer'd the Penalty of having unadvisedly entred into that Quarrel By virtue of the same Law the Agreement made by King John when he was Prisoner at London by which he had alienated part of that Dominion as well as that of Francis the first concluded when he was under the same Circumstances at Madrid were reputed null and upon all occasions that Nation has given sufficient testimony that the Laws by which they live are their own made by themselves and not imposed upon them And 't is as impossible for them who made and deposed Kings exalted or depressed reigning Families and prescribed Rules to the Succession to have received from their own Creatures the Power or part of the Government they had as for a man to be begotten by his own Son Nay tho their Constitutions were much changed by Lewis the 11 th yet they retained so much of their antient Liberty that in the last Age when the House of Valois was as much depraved as those of Meroveus and Pepin had bin and Henry the third by his own Lewdness Hypocrisy Cruelty and Impurity together with the baseness of his Minions and Favorites had rendred himself odious and contemptible to the Nobility and People the great Cities Parliaments the greater and in political matters the sounder part of the Nation declared him to be fallen from the Crown and pursued him to the death tho the blow was given by the hand of a base and half-distracted Monk Henry of Bourbon was without controversy the next Heir but neither the Nobility nor the People who thought themselves in the Government would admit him to the Crown till he had given them satisfaction that he would govern according to their Laws by abjuring his Religion which they judged inconsistent with them The later Commotions in Paris Bourdeaux and other places together with the Wars for Religion shew that tho the French do not complain of every Grievance and cannot always agree in the defence and vindication of their violated Liberties yet they very well understand their Rights and that as they do not live by or for the King but he reigns by and for them so their Privileges are not from him but that his Crown is from them and that according to the true Rule of their Government he can do nothing against their Laws or if he do they may oppose him The Institution of a Kingdom is the act of a free Nation and whoever denies them to be free denies that there can be any thing of right in what they set up That which was true in the beginning is so and must be so for ever This is so far acknowledged by the highest Monarchs that in a Treatise published in the year 1667 by Authority of the present King of France to justify his pretensions to some part of the Low-Countries notwithstanding all the Acts of himself and the King of Spain to extinguish them it is said That Kings are under the happy inability to do any thing against the Laws of their Country And tho perhaps he may do things contrary to Law yet he grounds his Power upon the Law and the most able and most trusted of his Ministers declare the same About the year 1660 the Count D' Aubijoux a man of eminent quality in Languedoc but averse to the Court and hated by Cardinal Mazarin had bin tried by the Parliament of Tholouse for a Duel in which a Gentleman was kill'd and it appearing to the Court then in that City that he had bin acquitted upon forged Letters of Grace false Witnesses powerful Friends and other undue means Mazarin desired to bring him to a new Trial but the Chancellor Seguier told the Queen-Mother it could not be for the Law did not permit a man once acquitted to be again question'd for the same Fact and that if the course of the Law were interrupted neither the Salique Law nor the succession of her Children or any thing else could be secure in France This is farther proved by the Histories of that Nation The Kings of Meroveus and Pepin's Races were suffer'd to divide the Kingdom amongst their Sons or as Hottoman says the Estates made the Division and allotted to each such a part as they thought fit But when this way was found to be prejudicial to the Publick an Act of State was made in the time of Hugh Capet by which it was ordain'd that for the future the Kingdom should not be dismembred which Constitution continuing in force to this day the Sons or Brothers of their Kings receive such an Apannage they call it as is bestow'd on them remaining subject to the Crown as well as other men And there has been no King of France since that time except only Charles the sixth who has not acknowledged that he cannot alienate any part of their Dominion Whoever imputes the acknowledgment of this to Kingcraft and says that they who avow this when 't is for their advantage will deny it on a different occasion is of all men their most dangerous Enemy In laying such fraud to their charge he destroys the veneration by which they subsist and teaches Subjects not to keep Faith with those who by the most malicious deceits show that they are tied by none Human Societies are maintained by mutual Contracts which are of no value if they are not observ'd Laws are made and Magistrates created to cause them to be performed in publick and private matters and to punish those who violate them But none will ever be observed if he who receives the greatest benefit by them and is set up to oversee others give the example to those who of themselves are too much inclin'd to break them The first step that Pompey made to his own ruin was by violating the Laws he himself had proposed But it would be much worse for Kings to break those that are established by the Authority of a whole People and confirmed by the succession of many Ages I am far from laying any such blemishes on them or thinking that they deserve them I must believe the French King speaks sincerely when he says he can do nothing against the Laws of his Country And that our King James did the like when he
acknowledged himself to be the Servant of the Commonwealth and the rather because 't is true and that he is placed in the Throne to that end Nothing is more essential and fundamental in the Constitutions of Kingdoms than that Diets Parliaments and Assemblies of Estates should see this perform'd 'T is not the King that gives them a right to judg of matters of War or Peace to grant Supplies of men and mony or to deny them and to make or abrogate Laws at their pleasure All the Powers rightly belonging to Kings or to them proceed from the same root The Northern Nations seeing what mischiess were generally brought upon the Eastern by referring too much to the irregular will of a man and what those who were more generous had suffer'd when one man by the force of a corrupt mercenary Soldiery had overthrown the Laws by which they lived feared they might fall into the same misery and therefore retained the greater part of the Power to be exercised by their General Assemblies or by Delegates when they grew so numerous that they could not meet These are the Kingdoms of which Grotius speaks where the King has his part and the Senat or People their part of the Supreme Authority and where the Law prescribes such limits that if the King attempt to seize that part which is not his he may justly be opposed Which is as much as to say that the Law upholds the Power it gives and turns against those who abuse it This Doctrin may be displeasing to Court-Parasites but no less profitable to such Kings as follow better Counsels than to the Nations that live under them the Wisdom and Virtue of the best is always fortified by the concurrence of those who are placed in part of the Power they always do what they will when they will nothing but that which is good and 't is a happy impotence in those who through ignorance or malice desire to do evil not to be able to effect it The weakness of such as by defects of Nature Sex Age or Education are not able of themselves to bear the weight of a Kingdom is thereby supported and they together with the People under them preserved from ruin the furious rashness of the Insolent is restrained the extravagance of those who are naturally lews is aw'd and the bestial madness of the most violently wicked and outragious suppress'd When the Law provides for these matters and prescribes ways by which they may be accomplished every man who receives or fears an Injury seeks a remedy in a legal way and vents his Passions in such a manner as brings no prejudice to the Common-wealth If his Complaints against a King may be heard and redressed by Courts of Justice Parliaments and Diets as well as against private men he is satisfied and looks no farther for a Remedy But if Kings like those of Israel will neither judg nor be judged and there be no Power orderly to redress private or publick Injuries every man has recourse to force as if he liv'd in a Wood where there is no Law and that force is always mortal to those who provoke it No Guards can preserve a hated Prince from the vengeance of one resolute hand and they as often sall by the Swords of their own Guards as of others Wrongs will be done and when they that do them cannot or will not be judged publickly the injur'd Persons become Judges in their own case and executioners of their own sentence If this be dangerous in matters of private Concernment 't is much more so in those relating to the publick The lewd extravagancies of Edward and Richard the Seconds whilst they acknowledged the power of the Law were gently reproved and restrained with the removal of some profligate Favourites but when they would admit of no other Law than their own Will no relief could be had but by their Deposition The lawful Spartan Kings who were obedient to the Laws of their Country liv'd in safety and died with glory whereas 't was a strange thing to see a lawless Tyrant die without such infamy and misery as held a just proportion with the wickedness of his Life They did as Plutarch says of Dionysius many mischiefs and suffer'd more This is confirmed by the examples of the Kingdom of Israel and of the Empires of Rome and Greece they who would submit to no Law were destroy'd without any I know not whether they thought themselves to be Gods as our Author says they were but I am sure the most part of them died like Dogs and had the burial of Asses rather than of Men. This is the happiness to which our Author would promote them all If a King admit a People to be his companions he ceaseth to be a King and the State becomes a Democracy And a little farther If in such Assemblies the King Nobility and People have equal shares in the Soveraignty then the King hath but one voice the Nobility likewise one and the People one and then any two of these voices should have power to overrule the third Thus the Nobility and Commons should have a power to make a Law to bridle the King which was never seen in any Kingdom We have heard of Nations that admitted a man to reign over them that is made him King but of no man that made a People The Hebrews made Saul David Jeroboam and other Kings when they returned from Captivity they conferred the same Title upon the Asmonean race as a reward of their Valour and Virtue the Romans chose Romulus Numa Hostilius and others to be their Kings the Spartans instituted two one of the Heraclidae the other of the AEacidae Other Nations set up one a few or more Magistrates to govern them and all the World agrees that Qui dat esse dat modum esse He that makes him to be makes him to be what he is and nothing can be more absurd than to say that he who has nothing but what is given can have more than is given to him If Saul and Romulus had no other title to be Kings than what the People conferred upon them they could be no otherwise Kings than as pleased the People They therefore did not admit the People to be partakers of the Government but the People who had all in themselves and could not have made a King if they had not had it bestow'd upon him what they thought fit and retained the rest in themselves If this were not so then instead of saying to the multitude Will ye have this man to reign they ought to say to the man Wilt thou have this multitude to be a People And whereas the Nobles of Arragon used to say to their new made King We who are as good as you make you our King on condition you keep and maintain our Rights and Liberties and if not not he should have said to them I who am better than you make you to be a People
and will govern you as I please But I doubt whether he would have succeeded till that Kingdom was joined to others of far greater strength from whence a power might be drawn to force them out of their usual method That which has bin said of the Governments of England France and other Countries shows them to be of the same nature and if they do not deserve the name of Kingdoms and that their Princes will by our Author's Arguments be perswaded to leave them those Nations perhaps will be so humble to content themselves without that magnificent Title rather than resign their own Liberties to purchase it and if this will not please him he may seek his glorious soveraign Monarchy among the wild Arabs or in the Island of Ceylon for it will not be found among civiliz'd Nations However more ignorance cannot be express'd than by giving the name of Democracy to those Governments that are composed of the three simple species as we have proved that all the good ones have ever bin for in a strict sense it can only sute with those where the People retain to themselves the administration of the supreme Power and more largely when the popular part as in Athens greatly overbalances the other two and that the denomination is taken from the prevailing part But our Author if I mistake not is the first that ever took the antient Governments of Israel Sparta and Rome or those of England France Germany and Spain to be Democracies only because every one of them had Senats and Assemblies of the People who in their Persons or by their Deputies did join with their chief Magistrates in the exercise of the supreme Power That of Israel to the time of Saul is called by Josephus an Aristocracy The same name is given to that of Sparta by all the Greek Authors and the great contest in the Peloponnesian War was between the two kinds of Government the Cities that were governed Aristocratically or desired to be so following the Lacedemonians and such as delighted in Democracy taking part with the Athenians In like manner Rome England and France were said to be under Monarchies not that their Kings might do what they pleased but because one man had a preheminence above any other Yet if the Romans could take Romulus the Son of a man that was never known Numa a Sabin Hostilius and Aneus Martius private men and Tarquinius Priscus the Son of a banished Corinthian who had no Title to a preference before others till it was bestowed upon them 't is ridiculous to think that they who gave them what they had could not set what limits they pleased to their own gift But says our Author The Nobility will then have one Voice and the People another and they joining may overrule the third which was never seen in any Kingdom This may perhaps be a way of regulating the Monarchical Power but it is not necessary nor the only one There may be a Senate tho the People be excluded that Senate may be composed of men chosen for their Virtue as well as for the Nobility of their Birth The Government may consist of King and People without a Senate or the Senate may be composed only of the Peoples Delegates But if I should grant his assertion to be true the reasonableness of such a Constitution cannot be destroy'd by the consequences he endeavours to draw from it for he who would instruct the world in matters of State must show what is or ought to be not what he fancies may thereupon ensue Besides it dos not follow that where there are three equal Votes Laws should be always made by the plurality for the consent of all the three is in many places required and 't is certain that in England and other parts the King and one of the Estates cannot make a Law without the concurrence of the other But to please Filmer I will avow that where the Nobles and Commons have an equal Vote they may join and over-rule or limit the power of the King and I leave any reasonable man to judg whether it be more safe and fit that those two Estates comprehending the whole body of the Nation in their Persons or by Representation should have a right to over-rule or limit the power of that man woman or child who sits in the Throne or that he or she young or old wise or foolish good or bad should over-rule them and by their vices weakness folly impertinence incapacity or malice put a stop to their proceedings and whether the chief concernments of a Nation may more fasely and prudently be made to depend upon the votes of so many eminent Persons amongst whom many wise and good men will always be found if there be any in the Nation and who in all respects have the same interest with them or upon the will of one who may be and often is as vile ignorant and wretched as the meanest Slave and either has or is for the most part made to believe he has an interest so contrary to them that their suppression is his Advancement Common sense so naturally leads us to the decision of this Question that I should not think it possible for Mankind to have mistaken tho we had no examples of it in History and 't is in vain to say that all Princes are not such as I represent for if a right were annexed to the being of a Prince and that his single judgment should over-balance that of a whole Nation it must belong to him as a Prince and be enjoy'd by the worst and basest as well as by the wisest and best which would inevitably draw on the absurdities above-mention'd But that many are and have bin such no man can deny or reasonably hope that they will not often prove to be such as long as any preference is granted to those who have nothing to recommend them but the Families from whence they derive a continual succession of those who excel in virtue wisdom and experience being promised to none nor reasonably to be expected from any Such a Right therefore cannot be claimed by all and if not by all then not by any unless it proceed from a particular grant in consideration of personal Virtue Ability and Integrity which must be proved and when any one goes about to do it I will either acknowledg him to be in the right or give the reasons of my denial However this is nothing to the general Proposition nay if a man were to be found who had more of the qualities requir'd for making a right judgment in matters of the greatest importance than a whole Nation or an Assembly of the best men chosen out of it which I have never heard to have bin unless in the Persons of Moses Joshua or Samuel who had the Spirit of God for their guide it would be nothing to our purpose for even he might be biassed by his personal Interests which Governments are not established principally to
promote I may go a step farther and truly say that as such vast Powers cannot be generally granted to all who happen to succeed in any Families without evident danger of utter Destruction when they come to be executed by children women sools vicious incapable or wicked persons they can be reasonably granted to none because no man knows what any one will prove till he be tried and the importance of the Affair requires such a trial as can be made of no man till he be dead He that resists one Temptation may fall under the power of another and nothing is more common in the world than to see those men fail grosly in the last actions of their lives who had passed their former days without reproach Wise and good men will with Moses say of themselves I cannot bear the burden and every man who is concern'd for the publick Good ought to let fools know they are not fit to undergo it and by Law to restrain the fury of such as will not be guided by reason This could not be denied tho Governments were constituted for the good of the Governor 'T is good for him that the Law appoints helps for his Infirmities and restrains his Vices but all Nations ought to do it tho it were not so in as much as Kingdoms are not established for the good of one man but of the People and that King who seeks his own good before that of the People departs from the end of his Institution This is so plain that all Nations who have acted freely have some way or other endeavoured to supply the defects or restrain the vices of their supreme Magistrates and those among them deserve most praise who by appointing means adequate to so great a work have taken care that it might be easily and safely accomplished Such Nations have always flourished in Virtue Power Glory and Happiness whilst those who wanted their Wisdom have suffer'd all manner of Calamities by the weakness and injustice of their Princes or have had their hands perpetually in Blood to preserve themselves from their fury We need no better example of the first than that of the Spartans who by appointing such Limits to the power of their Kings as could hardly be transgress'd continued many Ages in great union with them and were never troubled with civil Tumults The like may be said of the Romans from the expulsion of the Tarquins till they overthrew their own Orders by continuing Marius for five years in the Consulat whereas the Laws did not permit a man to hold the same Office two years together and when that rule was broken their own Magistrates grew too strong for them and subverted the Commonwealth When this was done and the power came to be in the hands of one man all manner of evils and calamities broke in like a flood 'T is hard to judg whether the mischiefs he did or those he suffer'd were the greater he who set up himself to be Lord of the World was like to a Beast crowned for the slaughter and his greatness was the forerunner of his ruin By this means some of those who seem not to have bin naturally prone to evil were by their fears put upon such courses to preserve themselves as being rightly estimated were worse than the death they apprehended and the so much celebrated Constantine the Great died no less polluted with the Blood of his nearest Relations and Friends than Nero himself But no place can show a more lively picture of this than the Kingdoms of Granada and others possessed by the Moors in Spain where there being neither Senate nor Assemblies of the Nobility and People to restrain the violence and fury of their Kings they had no other way than to kill them when their vices became insupportable which happening for the most part they were almost all murder'd and things were brought to such extremity that no man would accept a Crown except he who had neither Birth nor Virtue to deserve it If it be said that Kings have now found out more easy ways of doing what they please and securing themselves I answer that they have not proved so to them all and it is not yet time for such as tread in the same steps to boast of their success many have fallen when they thought their designs accomplished and no man as long as he lives can reasonably assure himself the like shall not befal him But if in this corrupted Age the treachery and perjury of Princes be more common than formerly and the number of those who are brought to delight in the rewards of injustice be so increased that their parties are stronger than formerly this rather shows that the balance of Power is broken or hard to be kept up than that there ought to be none and 't is difficult for any man without the Spirit of Prophesy to tell what this will produce Whilst the antient Constitutions of our Northern Kingdoms remain'd intire such as contested with their Princes sought only to reform the Governments and by redressing what was amiss to reduce them to their first Principles but they may not perhaps be so modest when they see the very nature of their Government chang'd and the foundations overthrown I am not sure that they who were well pleased with a moderate Monarchy will submit to one that is absolute and 't is not improbable that when men see there is no Medium between Tyranny and Popularity they who would have bin contented with the reformation of their Government may proceed farther and have recourse to Force when there is no help in the Law This will be a hard work in those places where Virtue is wholly abolished but the difficulty will lie on the other side if any sparks of that remain if Vice and Corruption prevail Liberty cannot subsist but if Virtue have the advantage arbitrary Power cannot be established Those who boast of their Loyalty and think they give testimonies of it when they addict themselves to the will of one Man tho contrary to the Law from whence that quality is derived may consider that by putting their Masters upon illegal courses they certainly make them the worst of men and bring them into danger of being also the most miserable Few or no good Princes have fallen into disasters unless through an extremity of corruption introduced by the most wicked and cannot properly be called unhappy if they perished in their Innocence since the bitterness of Death is asswaged by the tears of a loving People the assurance of a glorious memory and the quiet of a well satisfied mind But of those who have abandoned themselves to all manner of Vice followed the impulse of their own fury and set themselves to destroy the best men for opposing their pernicious designs very few have died in peace Their Lives have bin miserable Death infamous and Memory detestable They therefore who place Kings within the power of the Law and the Law to
Kingdoms of the Moors and Arabians the Tyrannies of Ezzelino of Padoa those of the Visconti and Sforzeschi of Milan Castruccio Castracani of Lucca Cesar Borgia and others there was nothing of all this The Will of the Prince was a Law all Power was in him and he kept it till another stept up and took it from him by the same means that he had gain'd it This fell out so frequently that tho all the Roman Emperors endeavour'd to make their Power hereditary it hardly continued three Generations in one Line from Augustus to Augustulus unless in that of Constantine and that with extreme confusion and disorder They who had madly set up a man to be their Head and exposed so much of the world as was under their power to be destroy'd by him did by the like fury throw him down and never ceased till they had brought the Empire to utter ruin But if this paternal Soveraignty be a meer fiction that never had any effect that no Nation was ever commanded by God to make it their rule nor any reproved for the neglect of it none ever learnt it from the light of nature nor were by wise men taught to regard it The first Fathers claimed no privilege from it when every man's Genealogy was known and if there were such a thing in nature it could be of no use at this day when the several Races of men are so confused that not one in the world can prove his own Original and that the first Kingdoms whether well or ill constituted according to the Command of God or the Inventions of Men were contrary to and incompatible with it There can have bin no justice in any if such a Rule was to have bin observed the continuance of an unjust usurpation can never have created a Right but aggravated the injustice of overthrowing it No man could ever by his own strength and courage subdue a multitude nor gain any other right over them if he did than they might have to tear it from him Whoever denies Kingdoms or other Magistracies to have bin set up by men according to their own will and from an opinion of receiving benefit by them accuses all the Governments that are or ever have bin in the world of that outragious injustice in their Foundation which can never be repair'd If there be therefore or ever was any just Government amongst men it was constituted by them and whether their Proceedings were regular or violent just or unjust the Powers annexed to it were their Donation The Magistracies erected by them whether in one or more men temporary or perpetual elective or hereditary were their Creatures and receiving all from them could conser nothing upon them SECT XXXII The Contracts made between Magistrates and the Nations that created them were real solemn and obligatory OUR Author having with big words and little sense inveigh'd against Popular and Mix'd Governments proceeds as if he had proved they could not or ought not to be If it be says he unnatural for the multitude to chuse their Governors or to govern or to partake in the Government what can be thought of that damnable Conclusion which is made by too many that the multitude may correct or depose their Princes if need be Surely the unnaturalness and injustice of this Position cannot sufficiently be expressed For admit that a King make a Contract or Paction with his People originally in his Ancestors or personally at his Coronation for both these Pactions some dream of but cannot offer any proof of either yet by no Law of any Nation can a Contract be thought broken except first a lawful trial be had by the ordinary Judg of the breakers thereof or else every man may be both Party and Judg in his own case which is absurd once to be thought for then it will lie in the hands of the headless multitude when they please to cast off the Yoak of Government that God hath laid upon them and to judg and punish him by whom they should be judged and punished themselves To this I first answer briefly That if it be natural for the multitude to chuse their Governors or to govern or to participate of the Government as best pleases themselves or that there never was a Government in the World that was not so set up by them in pursuance of the power naturally inherent in themselves what can be thought of that damnable Conclusion which has bin made by Fools or Knaves That the multitude may not if need be correct or depose their own Magistrates Surely the unnaturalness and injustice of such a Position cannot be sufficiently expressed If that were admitted all the most solemn Pacts and Contracts made between Nations and their Magistrates originally or personally and confirmed by Laws and mutual Oaths would be of no value He that would break the most sacred Bonds that can be amongst men should by perjury and wickedness become Judg of his own case and by the worst of crimes procure impunity for all It would be in his power by folly wickedness and madness to destroy the multitude which he was created and sworn to preserve tho wise virtuous and just and headed by the wisest and justest of men or to lay a Yoak upon those who by the Laws of God and Nature ought to be free He might in his own case judg that Body by which he ought to be judged and who in confideration of themselves and their own good made him to be whatsoever he is more than every one of them The Governments instituted for the preservation of Nations would turn to their destruction It would be impossible to check the fury of a corrupt and perfidious Magistrate The worst of men would be raised to a height that was never deserved by the best and the assurance of indemnity would by increasing their insolence turn their other vices into madness as has bin too often seen in those who have had more power than they deserved and were more hardly brought to account for their actions than ought to have bin tho I never heard of any who had so much as our Author asserts to be in all nor that any was absolutely assured he should not be question'd for the abuse of what he had Besides if every People may govern or constitute and chuse one or more Governors they may divide the Powers between several men or ranks of men allotting to every one so much as they please or retaining so much as they think fit This has bin practised in all the Governments which under several forms have flourished in Palestine Greece Italy Germany France England and the rest of the World The Laws of every place show what the Power of the respective Magistrate is and by declaring how much is allowed to him declare vvhat is denied for he has not that vvhich he has not and is to be accounted a Magistrate vvhilst he exercises that vvhich he has If any doubts do hereupon arise I
hope to remove them proving in the first place that several Nations have plainly and explicitly made Contracts with their Magistrates 2. That they are implicit and to be understood vvhere they are not plainly expressed 3. That they are not dreams but real things and perpetually obliging 4. That Judges are in many places appointed to decide the Contests arising from the breach of these Contracts and vvhere they are not or the party offending is of such force or pride that he vvill not submit Nations have been obliged to take the extremest courses To the first I suppose it vvill not be denied that the annual Magistrates of divers Commonwealths are under some Compact and that there is a power of constraining them to perform the contents or to punish them for the violation The modest behaviour of the Roman Consuls and Dictators as long as their Laws vvere in force might not probably proceed from their good nature Tho the people had not bin as our Author says mad foolish and always desirous to chuse the vvorst men for being most like to themselves but admirably vvise and virtuous 't is not to be imagined that in the space of three or four hundred years they should never have fallen upon one vvho vvould have transgressed if he could have done it safely tho they had used the utmost caution in their choice But the power of the Consuls being only for a year that of the Dictator for six months at most and the Commission that he should take care the Commonwealth might suffer no damage show the end and condition upon which they were chosen and tho their Power is by some thought to have bin absolute yet the Consuls were frequently opposed and brought into order by the Senat Tribuns or People and sometimes the Dictator himself Camillus in his fourth Dictatorship was threatned by the Tribuns with a great Fine and by that means obliged to abdicate his Magistracy I have already mention'd Marcus Fabius Maximus who in the behalf of his Son Quintus condemned to die by Papirius the Dictator appealed to the People And when the Conduct of Fabius in the War against Hannibal was not approved Naenius the Tribune thought he made a very modest Proposition in that he did not desire his Magistracy should be abrogated but that the Master of the Horse should be made equal to him in power which was done accordingly 'T is agreed by all that the Consuls were in the place of Kings and that the Power of the Dictator was at the least equal to what theirs had bin If they therefore were under such a rule which they could not transgress or might be reduced to order if they did and forced to submit to the People as the Kings had done the Kings were also made upon the same conditions and equally obliged to perform them The Scripture is more clear in the case The Judges are said to have bin in power equal to Kings and I may perhaps acknowledg it with relation to the Deuteronomical King or such as the people might have chosen without offending God The Gileadites made a Covenant with Jephtha that he should be their Head and Captain He would not return to his Country till they had done it This was performed solemnly before the Lord in Mispeth and all Israel followed them They might therefore make a Covenant with their Kings for the difference of name dos not increase or diminish the Right Nay they were in duty obliged to do it The words of the 17th of Deuter. He shall not multiply Wives c. that his heart be not lifted up above his Brethren can have no other signification than that they should take care he did it not or as Josephus says hinder him if he attempt it for the Law was not given to the King who was not but to those who might make him if they thought fit In pursuance of this Law The rest of this Chapter is wanting in the Original Manuscript CHAP. III. SECT I. Kings not being fathers of their People nor excelling all others in Virtue can have no other just Power than what the Laws give nor any title to the privileges of the Lord 's Anointed HAVING proved that the right of Fathers is from Nature and incommunicable it must follow that every man doth perpetually owe all love respect service and obedience to him that did beget nourish and educate him and to no other under that name No man therefore can claim the right of a Father over any except one that is so no man can serve two Masters the extent and perpetuity of the Duty which every man owes to his Father renders it impossible for him to owe the same to any other This right of Father cannot be devolved to the Heir of the Father otherwise than as every Son by the Law of Nature is Heir to his Father and has the same right of commanding his Children as his Father had of commanding him when he was a Child no man can owe to his Brother that which he owed to his Father because he cannot receive that from him which he had from his Father but the utmost of all absurdities that can enter into the Heart of man is for one to exact the rights due to a Father who has no other title than force and usurpation it being no less than to say that I owe as much to one who has done me the greatest of all Injuries as to him who has conferred upon me the greatest Benefits or which is yet worse if possible that as these usurpations cannot be made but by robbing spoiling imprisoning or killing the Person in possession that Duty which by the eternal Law of Nature I owe to my Father should oblige me to pay the same veneration obedience and service to the man that has spoiled imprisoned or kill'd my Father as I owed to him or that the same Law which obliged me to obey and defend my Father because he was so should oblige me to obey and defend his enemy because he has imprison'd or kill'd him and not only to pass over the Law of God which makes me the avenger of my Father's Blood but to reward his murderer with the rights that comprehend all that is most tender and sacred in Nature and to look upon one that has done me the greatest of all injustices and injuries as upon him to whom I owe my Birth and Education This being evident to all those who have any measure of common sense I suppose it may be safely concluded that what right soever a Father may have over his Family it cannot relate to that which a King has over his People unless he like the man in the Island of Pines mention'd before be also the Father of them all That which is absolutely unlike in manner and substance institution and exercise must be unlike in all respects and the Conclusions which have their strength from Similitude and Parity can have none when there is
bin framed according to the will of those Nations and consequently how many soever they are and whatsoever the sense of any or all of them may be they can oblige no man except those or at the most the Descendents of those that made them Whoever therefore would perswade us that one or more Nations are by virtue of those Contracts bound to bear all the insolences of Tyrants is obliged to show that by those Contracts they did for ever indefinitely bind themselves so to do how great soever they might be I may justly go a step farther and affirm That if any such should appear in the world the folly and turpitude of the thing would be a sufficient evidence of the madness of those that made it and utterly destroy the contents of it but no such having bin as yet produced nor any reason given to perswade a wise man that there has ever bin any such at least among civilized Nations for whom only we are concerned it may be concluded there never was any or if there were they do not at all relate to our subject and consequently that Nations still continue in their native Liberty and are no otherwise obliged to endure the insolence of Tyrants than they or each of them may esteem them tolerable 2. To the second Tho the words of Samuel had implied a necessity incumbent upon the Hebrews to bear all the Injuries that their Kings should do to them it could no way relate to us for he dos not speak of all Kings but of such as they had asked even such as reigned over the slavish Asiaticks their Neighbours who are no less infamous in the world for their baseness and cowardice than detestable for their idolatry and vices It was not a plot or trick of Samuel to keep the Government in himself and Family Such scurrilous expressions or thoughts are fit only for Filmer Heylin and their Disciples but the Prophet being troubled at the folly and wickedness of the people who chose rather to subject themselves to the irregular Will of a Man than to be governed by God and his Law did by the immediate command of God declare to them what would be the event of their fury that since they would be like to their Neighbours in sin and folly he told them they should be like to them in shame and misery since they desired to cast off the thing that was good they should suffer evil as the product of their own Counsels and that when they should cry to the Lord from a sense of their miseries he dos not tell them as our Author falsly says they should have no other remedy against Tyrants but crying and praying but that their crys and prayers should not be heard It was just that when they had rejected God he should reject them and leave them under the weight of the calamities they had brought upon themselves In all other cases God had ever said that when his People returned to him he would hear and save them When they cried by reason of the oppressions they suffered under the Egyptians Cananites Midianites Philistins and others tho their crimes had deserved them all yet God heard and relieved them But when they meditated this final defection from his Law and rejection of his Government God seemed to change his Nature and forget to be gracious When ye shall cry to me by reason of your King I will not hear you This was the strongest dehortation from their wicked Intention that can be imagined but being not enough to reclaim them they answered Nay but we will have a King They were like to their Neighbours in folly and vice and would be like to them in Government which brought all the Calamities upon them that the others suffer'd But I know not what conclusion can be drawn from hence in favour of our Author's Doctrin unless all Nations are obliged furiously to run into the same crimes with the Israelites or to take upon themselves the same punishment tho they do not commit the same crimes If this was not a Precept to the Israelites instructing them what they should do but a denunciation of what they should suffer for the evil which they had committed the Old Testament will afford none and I hope in due time to answer such as he alledges from the New Nay we may conclude there can be none there because being dictated by the same Spirit which is always uniform and constant to it self it could not agree with the 17th of Deuteron which so extremely restrains such a King as God allowed as not to suffer him in any manner to raise his heart above his Brethren and was said in vain if at the same time it gave him a Power which might not be resisted or forbad others to resist him if he would not obey the Law 3. To the third Whatsoever was done by the Command of God against Pharaoh King of Egypt and against the Kings of the Cananites Midianites Moabites Edomites Amorites or Philistins by Moses Joshua Ehud Barak Gideon Sampson Jephtha Samuel and the rest of the Judges comes expresly under the particular Precepts and Examples promised by me to show that God had occasionally commanded and his Servants executed his Commands in resisting and destroying the Persons of Kings who were their own Kings also if possession was only to be regarded And tho this be sufficient to overthrow our Author's Doctrin That we are not to examine the Titles of Kings whether they be from usurpation or any other means but only to look upon the Power Yet they who seek Truth ought not to content themselves merely with Victory or to esteem that a Victory which is obtained by what the Schools call Argumentum ad hominem grounded upon a false Proposition and is of no force except against those who are so ill advised to advance it Therefore laying aside the advantages that may be justly taken against Filmer for the folly of asserting the same Right to be in a Usurper as in a lawful Prince and confessing that tho such as have no Title may and ought to be suppressed as Enemies and Robbers when respect and obedience is due to those who are rightly instituted I say that none can be claimed by a Prince lawfully instituted if he assume to himself a Power which is not granted to him by the Law of his Institution because as Grotius says his legal Power dos not extend so far or turn the Power that is given him to ends contrary to those for which it was given because he thereby destroys it and puts himself into the same condition as if it had never bin This is proved by the Example of Saul Tho the people sinned grievously in asking a King yet God assenting to their demand no Prince was ever more solemnly instituted than he The People chose him by Lot from amongst all the Tribes and he was placed in the Throne by the general consent of the whole Nation But he
taking upon him to be King till the Tribe of Judah had chosen him that he often acknowledged Saul to be his Lord. When Baanah and Rechab brought the head of Ishbosheth to him he commanded them to be slain Because they had killed a righteous man upon his Bed in his own House which he could not have said if Ishbosheth had unjustly detained from him the ten Tribes and that he had a right to reign over them before they had chosen him The Word of God did not make him King but only foretold that he should be King and by such ways as he pleased prepared the hearts of the People to set him up and till the time designed by God for that work was accomplished he pretended to no other Authority than what the six hundred men who first followed him afterwards the Tribe of Judah and at last all the rest of the People conferred upon him I no way defend Absalom's revolt he was wicked and acted wickedly but after his death no man was ever blamed or questioned for siding with him and Amasa who commanded his Army is represented in Scripture as a good man even David saying that Joab by slaying Abner and Amasa had killed two men who were better than himself which could not have bin unless the People had a right of looking into matters of Government and of redressing abuses tho being deceived by Absalom they so far erred as to prefer him who was in all respects wicked before the man who except in the matter of Uriah is said to be after God's own heart This right was acknowledged by David himself when he commanded Hushai to say to Absalom I will be thy Servant O King and by Hushai in the following Chapter Nay but whom the Lord and his People and all the men of Israel chuse his will I be and with him will I abide which could have no sense in it unless the People had a right of chusing and that the choice in which they generally concurred was esteemed to be from God But if Saul who was made King by the whole People and anointed by the command of God might be lawfully resisted when he departed from the Law of his Institution it cannot be doubted that any other for the like reason may be resisted If David tho designed by God to be King and anointed by the hand of the Prophet was not King till the People had chosen him and he had made a Covenant with them it will if I mistake not be hard to find a man who can claim a right which is not originally from them And if the People of Israel could erect and pull down institute abrogate or transfer to other Persons or Families Kingdoms more firmly established than any we know the same right cannot be denied to other Nations SECT II. The Kings of Israel and Judah were under a Law not safely to be transgress'd OUR Author might be pardon'd if he only vented his own follies but he aggravates his own crime by imputing them to men of more Credit and tho I cannot look upon Sir Walter Raleigh as a very good Interpreter of Scripture he had too much understanding to say That if practice declare the greatness of Authority even the best Kings of Israel and Judah were not tied to any Law but they did whatsoever they pleased in the greatest matters for there is no sense in those words If practice declares the greatness of Authority even the best were tied to no Law signifies nothing for practice cannot declare the greatness of Authority Peter the Cruel of Castille and Christiern the 2d of Denmark kill'd whom they pleas'd but no man ever thought they had therefore a right to do so and if there was a Law all were tied by it and the best were less likely to break it than the worst But if Sir Walter Raleigh's opinion which he calls a conjecture be taken there was so great a difference between the Kings of Israel and Judah that as to their general proceedings in point of Power hardly any thing can be said which may rightly be applied to both and he there endeavours to show that the reason why the ten Tribes did not return to the house of David after the destruction of the houses of Jeroboam and Baasba was because they would not endure a Power so absolute as that which was exercised by the house of David If he has therefore any where said that the Kings did what they pleased it must be in the sense that Moses Maimonides says The Kings of Israel committed many extravagancies because they were insolent impious and despisers of the Law But whatsoever Sir Walter Raleigh may say for I do not remember his words and have not leisure to seek whether any such are found in his Books 't is most evident that they did not what they pleased The Tribes that did not submit to David nor crown him till they thought fit and then made a Covenant with him took care it might be observed whether he would or not Absalom's Rebellion follow'd by almost all Israel was a terrible check to his Will That of Sheba the Son of Bichri was like to have bin worse if it had not bin suppressed by Joab's diligence and David often confessed the Sons of Zerviah were too hard for him Solomon indeed overthrowing the Law given by Moses multiplying Gold and Silver Wives and Horses introducing Idolatry and lifting up his heart above his Brethren did what he pleased but Rehoboam paid for all the ten Tribes revolted from him by reason of the heavy burdens laid upon them stoned Adoram who was sent to levy the Tributes and set up Jeroboam who as Sir Walter Raleigh says in the place before cited had no other Title than the curtesy of the People and utterly rejected the house of David If practice therefore declares a right the practice of the People to avenge the injuries they suffered from their Kings as soon as they found a man fit to be their Leader shews they had a right of doing it 'T is true the best of the Kings with Moses Joshua and Samuel may in one sense be said to have done what they pleased because they desired to do that only which was good But this will hardly be brought to confer a right upon all Kings And I deny that even the Kings of Judah did what they pleased or that it were any thing to our question if they did Zedekiah professed to the great men that is to the Sanhedrin that without them he could do nothing When Amaziah by his folly had brought a great slaughter upon the Tribe of Judah they conspired against him in publick Council whereupon he fled to Lachish and they pursuing him thither killed him avowed the Fact and it was neither question'd nor blamed which examples agree with the paraphrase of Josephus on Deut. 17. He shall do nothing without the consent of the Sanhedrin and if
he attempt it they shall hinder him This was the Law of God not to be abrogated by man a Law of Liberty directly opposite to the necessity of submitting to the will of a man This was a Gift bestowed by God upon his Children and People whereas slavery was a great part of the Curse denounced against Cham for his wickedness and perpetually incumbent upon his Posterity The great Sanhedrin were constituted Judges as Grotius says most particularly of such matters as concern'd their Kings and Maimonides affirms that the Kings were judged by them The distribution of the power to the inferior Sanhedrins in every Tribe and City with the right of calling the People together in general Assemblies as often as occasion required were the foundations of their Liberty and being added to the Law of the Kingdom prescribed in the 17 th of Deuteronomy if they should think fit to have a King established the Freedom of that People upon a solid foundation And tho they in their fury did in a great measure wave the benefits God had bestowed upon them yet there was enough left to restrain the Lusts of their Kings Ahab did not treat with Naboth as with a Servant whose Person and Estate depended upon his Will and dos not seem to have bin so tender-hearted to grieve much for his refusal if by virtue of his royal Authority he could have taken away his Vineyard and his Life But that failing he had no other way of accomplishing his design than by the fraud of his accursed Wife and the perfidious wretches she employed And no better proof that it did fail can reasonably be required than that he was obliged to have recourse to such fordid odious and dangerous Remedies but we are furnished with one that is more unquestionable Hast thou killed and also taken possession In the place where Dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall they lick thy Blood even thine This shews that the Kings were not only under a Law but under a Law of equality with the rest of the People even that of Retaliation He had raised his heart above his Brethren but God brought him down and made him to suffer what he had done he was in all respects wicked but the justice of this sentence consisted in the Law he had broken which could not have bin if he had bin subject to none But as this Retaliation was the sum of all the Judicial Law given by God to his People the Sentence pronounced against Ahab in conformity to it and the execution committed to Jehu shews that the Kings were no less obliged to perform the Law than other men tho they were not so easily punished for transgressing it as others were and if many of them did escape it perfectly agrees with what had bin foretold by Samuel SECT III. Samuel did not describe to the Israelites the glory of a free Monarchy but the Evils the People should suffer that he might divert them from desiring a King THO no restraint had bin put upon the Lusts of the Hebrew Kings it could be no prejudice to any other Nation They deflected from the Law of God and rejecting him that he should reign over them no longer they fell into that misery which could affect none but those who enjoy the same Blessings and with the same fury despise them If their Kings had more Power than consisted with their welfare they gave it and God renounces the institution of such He gave them a Law of Liberty and if they fell into the shame and misery that accompanies slavery it was their own work They were not obliged to have any King and could not without a crime have any but one who must not raise his heart above the rest of them This was taught by Moses And Samuel who spoke by the same Spirit could not contradict him and in telling the people what such a King as they desired would do when he should be established he did announce to them the misery they would bring upon themselves by chusing such a one as he had forbidden This free Monarchy which our Author thinks to be so majestically described was not only displeasing to the Prophet but declared by God to be a rejection of him and inconsistent with his reign over them This might have bin sufficient to divert any other people from their furious resolution but the Prophet farther enforcing his disswasion told them that God who had in all other cases bin their helper would not hear them when they should cry to him by reason of their King This is the majestick description of that free Monarchy with which our Author is so much pleased It was displeasing to the Prophet hateful to God an aggravation of all the crimes they had committed since they came out of Egypt and that which would bring as it did most certain and irreparable destruction upon themselves But it seems the Regal Majesty in that Age was in its infancy and little in comparison of that which we find described by Tacitus Suetonius and others in later times He shall take your Sons says Samuel and set them over his Chariots and your Daughters to make them Confectioners and Cooks but the Majesty of the Roman Emperors was carried to a higher pitch of Glory Ahab could not without employing treachery and fraud get a small spot of ground for his mony to make a Garden of Herbs But Tiberius Caligula and Nero killed whom they pleased and took what they pleased of their Estates When they had satiated their cruelty and avarice by the murders and confications of the most eminent and best men they commonly exposed their Children to the Lust of their Slaves If the power of doing evil be glorious the utmost excess is its perfection and 't is pity that Samuel knew no more of the effects produced by unrestrained Lust that he might have made the description yet more majestick and as nothing can be suffer'd by man beyond constupration torments and death instead of such trifles as he mention'd he might have shew'd them the effects of Fury in its greatest exaltation If it be good for a Nation to live under such a Power why did not God of his own goodness institute it Did his Wisdom and Love to his People fail Or if he himself had not set up the best Government over them could he be displeased with them for asking it Did he separate that Nation from the rest of Mankind to make their condition worse than that of others Or can they be said to have sinned and rejected God when they desir'd nothing but the Government which by a perpetual Ordinance he had established over all the Nations of the World Is not the Law of Nature a Rule which he has given to things and the Law of man's Nature which is Reason an emanation of the divine Wisdom or some footsteps of divine Light remaining in us Is it possible that this which is from God can be contrary to his
which they are condemned perpetually to the Gallies and such as are aiding to them to grievous Fines But before this be acknowledged to have any similitude or relation to our discourse concerning Kings it must be proved that the present King or those under whom he claims is or were Proprietors of all the Lands in England and granted the several parcels under the condition of suffering patiently such Inconveniences and Miseries as are above-mentioned or that they who did confer the Crown upon any of them did also give a Propriety in the Land which I do not find in any of the fifteen or sixteen Titles that have bin since the coming in of the Normans and if it was not done to the first of every one it cannot accrue to the others unless by some new act to the same purpose which will not easily be produced It will be no less difficult to prove that any thing unworthy of freemen is by any Tenures imposed in England unless it be the offering up of the Wives and Daughters of Tenants to the Lust of Abbots and Monks and they are so far from being willingly suffer'd that since the Dens and Nurseries of those Beasts were abolished no man that succeeds them has had impudence sufficient to exact the performance and tho the letter of the Law may favour them the turpitude of the thing has extinguished the usage But even the Kings of Israel and Judah who brought upon the People those evils that had bin foretold by Samuel did not think they had a right to the Powers they exercised If the Law had given a right to Ahab to take the best of their Vineyards he might without ceremony have taken that of Naboth and by the majestick power of an absolute Monarch have chastized the churlish Clown who resused to sell or change it for another but for want of it he was obliged to take a very different course If the lives of Subjects had in the like manner depended upon the will of Kings David might without scruple have killed Vriah rather than to place him in the front of the Army that he might fall by his own courage The malice and treachery of such Proceedings argues a defect of power and he that acts in such an oblique manner shews that his actions are not warranted by the Law which is boldly executed in the face of the Sun This shews the interpretation put upon the words Against thee only have I sinned by Court-flatterers to be false If he had not sinned against Bathsheba whom he corrupted Vriah whom he caused to be killed the People that he scandalized and the Law which he violated he had never endeavoured to cover his guilt by so vile a sraud And as he did not thereby fly the sight of God but of men 't is evident that he in that action feared men more than God If by the Examples of Israel and Judah we may judg whether the Inconveniences and Miseries brought upon Nations by their Kings be tolerable or intolerable it will be enough to consider the madness of Sauls cruelty towards his Subjects and the slaughter brought upon them by the hand of the Philistins on Mount Gilboa where he fell with the flower of all Israel the Civil Wars that hapned in the time of David and the Plague brought upon the People by his wickedness the heavy burdens laid upon them by Solomon and the Idolatry favour'd by him the wretched folly of Rehoboam and the defection of the ten Tribes caused by it the Idolatry established by Jeroboam and the Kings of Israel and that of many of those of Judah also the frequent Wars and unheard of Slaughters ensuing thereupon between the Tribes the daily devastations of the Country by all sorts of Strangers the murders of the Prophets the abolition of God's Worship the desolation of Towns and Provinces the Captivity of the ten Tribes carried away into unknown Countries and in the end the abolition of both Kingdoms with the captivity of the Tribe of Judah and the utter destruction of the City It cannot be said that these things were suffer'd under Kings and not from or by them for the desolation of the Cities People and Country is in many places of Scripture imputed to the Kings that taught Israel to sin as appears by what was denounced against Jeroboam Jehu Ahaz Manasseh Zedekiah and others Nay the Captivity of Babylon with the evils ensuing were first announced to Hezekiah for his vanity and Josiah by the like brought a great slaughter upon himself and people But if mischiess fell upon the People by the frailty of these who after David were the best nothing surely less than the utmost of all Miseries could be expected from such as were set to do evil and to make the Nation like to themselves in which they met with too great success If it be pretended that God's People living under an extraordinary Dispensation can be no example to us I desire other Histories may be examined for I confess I know no Nation so great happy and prosperous nor any Power so well established that two or three ill Kings immediately succeeding each other have not bin able to destroy and bring to such a condition that it appeared the Nations must perish unless the Senates Diets and other Assemblies of State had put a stop to the mischief by restraining or deposing them and tho this might be proved by innumerable Testimonies I shall content my self with that of the Roman Empire which perished by the vices corruption and baseness of their Princes the noble Kingdom of the Goths in Spain overthrown by the Tyranny of Witza and Rodrigo the present state of Spain now languishing and threatning ruin from the same causes France brought to the last degree of misery and weakness by the degenerate races of Pharamond and Charles preserved and restored by the Virtues of Pepin and Capet to which may be added those of our own Country which are so well known that I need not mention them SECT VI. 'T is not good for such Nations as will have Kings to suffer them to be glorious powerful or abounding in Riches OUR Author having hitherto spoken of all Nations as born under a necessity of being subject to Absolute Monarchy which he pretends to have bin set up by the universal and indispensible Law of God and Nature now seems to leave to their discretion whether they will have a King or not but says that those who will have a King are bound to allow him Royal maintenance by providing Revenues for the Crown since it is for the Honour Profit and Safety of the People to have their King glorious powerful and abounding in Riches If there be any thing of sense in this Clause there is nothing of truth in the foundation or principle of his whole Book For as the right and being of a Father is natural or inherent and no ways depending upon the will of the Child that of a
King is so also if he be and ought to enjoy the Rights belonging to the Father of the People And 't is not less ridiculous to say those who will have a King than it would be to say he that will have a Father for every one must have one whether he will or not But if the King be a Father as our Author from thence infers that all Laws are from him none can be imposed upon him and whatsoever the Subject enjoys is by his concessions 'T is absurd to speak of an Obligation lying upon the people to allow him Royal maintenance by providing Revenues since he has all in himself and they have nothing that is not from him and depending upon his Will For this reason a worthy Gentleman of the House of Commons in the year 1640. desired that the business of the Judges who in the Star-Chamber had given for their Opinion concerning Shipmony That in cases of Necessity the King might provide it by his own Authority and that he was Judg of that Necessity might be first examined that they might know whether they had any thing to give before they should speak of giving And as'tis certain that if the Sentence of those perjur'd Wretches had stood the Subjects of England by consequence would have bin found to have nothing to give 't is no less sure that if our Author's principle concerning the Paternal and Absolute Power of Kings be true it will by a more compendious way appear that it is not left to the choice of any Nation whether they will have a King or not for they must have him and can have nothing to allow him but must receive all from him But if those only who will have a King are bound to have one and to allow this Royal maintenance such as will not have a King are by one and the same act delivered from the necessity of having one and from providing Maintenance for him which utterly overthrows the magnificent Fabrick of Paternal Monarchy and the Kings who were lately represented by our Author placed on the Throne by God and Nature and endow'd with an absolute Power over all appear to be purely the Creatures of the People and to have nothing but what is received from them From hence it may be rationally inferred that he who makes a thing to be makes it to be only what he pleases This must hold in relation to Kings as well as other Magistrates and as they who made Consuls Dictators and Military Tribuns gave them only such Power and for such a time as best pleased themselves 't is impossible they should not have the same right in relation to Kings in making them what they please as well as not to make them unless they please except there be a Charm belonging to the Name or the Letters that compose it which cannot belong to all Nations for they are different in every one according to the several Languages But says our Author 't is for the Honor Profit and Safety of the People that the King should be glorious powerful and abounding in Riches There is therefore no obligation upon them and they are to judg whether it be so or not The Scripture says plainly the contrary He shall not multiply Silver and Gold Wives and Horses he shall not lift up his heart above his Brethren He shall not therefore be glorious powerful or abounding in Riches Reason and Experience teach us the same thing If those Nations that have bin proud luxurious and vicious have desired by Pomp and Riches to foment the Vices of their Princes thereby to cherish their own such as have excelled in Virtue and good Discipline have abhorred it and except the immediate exercise of their Office have kept their supreme Magistrates to a manner of living little different from that of private men and it had bin impossible to maintain that frugality in which the integrity of their manners did chiefly consist if they had set up an Example directly contrary to it in him who was to be an Example to others or to provide for their own safety if they had overthrown that integrity of manners by which it could only be obtained and preserved There is a necessity incumbent upon every Nation that lives in the like Principle to put a stop to the entrance of those Vices that arise from the superfluity of Riches by keeping their Kings in that honest Poverty which is the Mother and Nurse of Modesty Sobriety and all manner of Virtue And no man can deny this to be well done unless he will affirm that Pride Luxury and Vice is more profitable to a Nation than the Virtues that are upheld by frugality There is another reason of no less importance to those Nations who tho they think fit to have Kings yet desire to preserve their Liberty which obliges them to set limits to the Glory Power and Riches of their Kings and that is That they can no otherwise be kept within the Rules of the Law Men are naturally propense to corruption and if he whose Will and Interest it is to corrupt them be furnished with the means he will never fail to do it Power Honors Riches and the Pleasures that attend them are the baits by which men are drawn to prefer a personal Interest before the publick Good and the number of those who covet them is so great that he who abounds in them will be able to gain so many to his service as shall be sufficient to subdue the rest 'T is hard to find a Tyranny in the world that has not bin introduced this way for no man by his own strength could ever subdue a multitude none could ever bring many to be subservient to his ill designs but by the rewards they received or hoped By this means Cesar accomplished his work and overthrew the Liberty of his Country and with it all that was then good in the world They who were corrupted in their minds desired to put all the Power and Riches into his hands that he might distribute them to such as served him And he who was nothing less than covetous in his own nature desired Riches that he might gain Followers and by the plunder of Gaul he corrupted those that betray'd Rome to him And tho I do not delight to speak of the Affairs of our own time I desire those who know the present State of France to tell me whether it were possible for the King to keep that Nation under servitude if a vast Revenue did not enable him to gain so many to his particular service as are sufficient to keep the rest in subjection and if this be not enough let them consider whether all the dangers that now threaten us at home do not proceed from the madness of those who gave such a Revenue as is utterly unproportionable to the Riches of the Nation unsutable to the modest behaviour expected from our Kings and which in time will render Parliaments unnecessary
of all were blessed with such Masters This way of expression was used by Lot's Daughters who said There was not a man in all the earth to come in to them because there was none in the neighborhood with whom it was thought fit they should accompany Now that the Eastern Nations were then and are still under the Government of those which all free People call Tyrants is evident to all men God therefore in giving them a Tyrant or rather a Government that would turn into Tyranny gave them what they asked under another name and without any blemish to the Mercy promised to their Fathers suffered them to bear the penalty of their wickedness and folly in rejecting him that he should not reign over them But tho the name of Tyrant was unknown to them yet in Greece from whence the word comes it signified no more than one who governed according to his own will distinguished from Kings that governed by Law and was not taken in an ill sense till those who had bin advanced for their Justice Wisdom and Valour or their Descendents were sound to depart from the ends of their Institution and to turn that Power to the oppression of the people which had bin given for their protection But by these means it grew odious and that kind of Government came to be thought only tolerable by the basest of men and those who destroy'd it were in all places esteemed to be the best If Monarchy had bin universally evil God had not in the 17 th of Deuteronomy given leave to the Israelites to set up a King and if that kind of King had bin asked he had not bin displeased and they could not have bin said to reject God if they had not asked that which was evil for nothing that is good is contrary or inconsistent with a peoples obedience to him The Monarchy they asked was displeasing to God it was therefore evil But a Tyrant is no more than an evil or corrupted Monarch The King therefore that they demanded was a Tyrant God in granting one who would prove a Tyrant gave them what they asked and that they might know what they did and what he would be he told them they rejected him and should cry by reason of the King they desired This denotes him to be a Tyrant for as the Government of a King ought to be gentle and easy tending to the good of the people resembling the tender care of a Father to his Family if he who is set up to be a King and to be like to that Father do lay a heavy Yoak upon the people and use them as Slaves and not as Children he must renounce all resemblance of a Father and be accounted an Enemy But says our Author whereas the peoples crying argues some tyrannical oppression we may remember that the peoples Cries are not always an Argument of their living under a Tyrant No man will say Solomon was a Tyrant yet all the Congregation complain'd that Solomon made their Yoak grievous 'T is strange that when Children nay when Whelps cry it should be accounted a mark that they are troubled and that the Cry of the whole people should be none Or that the Government which is erected for their ease should not be esteemed tyrannical if it prove grievous to those it should relieve But as I know no example of a People that did generally complain without cause our Adversaries must alledg some other than that of Solomon before I believe it of any We are to speak reverently of him He was excellent in Wisdom he built the Temple and God appeared twice to him But it must be confess'd that during a great part of his life he acted directly contrary to the Law given by God to Kings and that his ways were evil and oppressive to the people if those of God were good Kings were forbidden to multiply Horses Wives Silver and Gold But he brought together more Silver and Gold and provided more Horses Wives and Concubines than any man is known to have had And tho he did not actually return to Egypt yet he introduced their abominable Idolatry and so far raised his heart above his Brethren that he made them subservient to his Pomp and Glory The People might probably be pleased with a great part of this but when the Yoak became grievous and his foolish Son would not render it more easy they threw it off and the thing being from the Lord it was good unless he be evil But as just Governments are established for the good of the governed and the Israelites desir'd a King that it might be well with them not with him who was not yet known to them that which exalts one to the prejudice of those that made him must always be evil and the People that suffers the prejudice must needs know it better than any other He that denies this may think the state of France might have bin best known from Bulion the late Treasurer who finding Lewis the Thirteenth to be troubled at the peoples misery told him they were too happy since they were not reduced to eat grass But if words are to be understood as they are ordinarily used and we have no other than that of Tyranny to express a Monarchy that is either evil in the institution or fallen into corruption we may justly call that Tyranny which the Scripture calls a grievous Yoak and which neither the old nor the new Counsellors of Rehoboam could deny to be so for tho the first advised him to promise amendment and the others to do worse yet all agreed that what the people said was true This Yoak is always odious to such as are not by natural stupidity and baseness fitted for it but those who are so never complain An Ass will bear a multitude of blows patiently but the least of them drives a Lion into rage He that said the rod is made for the back of fools confessed that oppression will make a wise man mad And the most unnatural of all oppressions is to use Lions like Asses and to lay that Yoak upon a generous Nation which only the basest can deserve and for want of a better word we call this Tyranny Our Author is not contented to vindicate Solomon only but extends his Indulgence to Saul His custom is to patronize all that is detestable and no better testimony could be given of it It is true says he Saul lost his Kingdom but not for being too cruel or tyrannical unto his Subjects but for being too merciful unto his Enemies But he alledges no other reason than that the slaughter of the Priests is not blamed not observing that the Writers of the Scripture in relating those things that are known to be abominable by the Light of Nature frequently say no more of them And if this be not so Lot's drunkenness and incest Ruben's pollution of his Father's bed Abimelec's slaughter of his seventy Brothers and many of the most wicked Acts that
doing the like unless they have made municipal Laws of their own to the contrary which our Author and his Followers may produce when they can find them His next work is to go back again to the Tribute paid by Christ to Cesar and judiciously to infer that all Nations must pay the same Duty to their Magistrates as the Jews did to the Romans who had subdued them Christ did not says he ask what the Law of the Land was nor inquire whether there was a Statute against it nor whether the Tribute were given by the consent of the People but upon sight of the superscription concluded c. It had bin strange if Christ had inquired after their Laws Statutes or Consent when he knew that their Commonwealth with all the Laws by which it had subsisted was abolished and that Israel was become a Servant to those who exercised a most violent domination over them which being a peculiar punishment for their peculiar sins can have no influence upon Nations that are not under the same circumstances But of all that he says nothing is more incomprehensible than what he can mean by lawful Kings to whom all is due that was due to the Roman Usurpers For lawful Kings are Kings by the Law In being Kings by the Law they are such Kings as the Law makes them and that Law only must tell us what is due to them or by a universal Patriarchical Right to which no man can have a title as is said before till he prove himself to be the right Heir of Noah If neither of these are to be regarded but that Right follows Possession there is no such thing as a Usurper he who has the Power has the Right as indeed Filmer says and his Wisdom as well as his Integrity is sufficiently declared by the Assertion This wicked extravagancy is followed by an attempt of as singular ignorance and stupidity to shuffle together Usurpers and Conquerors as if they were the same whereas there have bin many Usurpers who were not Conquerors and Conquerors that deserved not the name of Usurpers No wife man ever said that Agathocles or Dionysius conquer'd Syracuse Tarquin Galba or Otho Rome Cromwel England or that the Magi who seiz'd the Government of Persia after the death of Cambyses conquer'd that Country When Moses and Joshua had overthrown the Kingdoms of the Amorites Moabites and Cananites or when David subdued the Ammonites Edomites and others none as I suppose but such Divines as Filmer will say they usurped a Dominion over them There is such a thing amongst men as just War or else true Valour would not be a Virtue but a Crime and instead of glory the utmost infamy would always be the companion of Victory There are says Grotius Laws of War as well as of Peace He who for a just Cause and by just Means carries on a just War has as clear a right to what is acquired as can be enjoy'd by Man but all usurpation is detestable and abominable SECT X. The words of St. Paul enjoying obedience to higher Powers favour all sorts of Governments no less than Monarchy OUR Author's next quarrel is with St. Paul who did not as he says in enjoyning subjection to the higher Powers signify the Laws of the Land or mean the highest Powers as well Aristocratical and Democratical as Regal but a Monarch that carries the Sword c. But what if there be no Monarch in the place or what if he do not carry the Sword Had the Apostle spoken in vain if the liberty of the Romans had not bin overthrown by the fraud and violence of Cesar Was no obedience to be exacted whilst that people enjoy'd the benefit of their own Laws and Virtue flourished under the moderate Government of a legal and just Magistracy established for the common good by the common consent of all Had God no Minister amongst them till Law and Justice was overthrown the best part of the people destroy'd by the fury of a corrupt mercenary Souldiery and the world subdued under the Tyranny of the worst Monsters that it had ever produced Are these the ways of establishing God's Vicegerents and will he patronize no Governors or Governments but such as these Do's God uphold evil and that only If the world has bin hitherto mistaken in giving the name of evil to that which is good and calling that good which is evil I desire to know what can be call'd good amongst men if the Government of the Romans till they entred Greece and Asia and were corrupted by the Luxury of both do not deserve that name or what is to be esteemed evil if the establishment and exercise of the Cesars Power were not so But says he Wilt thou not be afraid of the Power And was there no Power in the Governments that had no Monarchs Were the Carthaginians Romans Grecians Gauls Germans and Spaniards without Power Was there no Sword in that Nation and their Magistrates who overthrew the Kingdoms of Armenia Egypt Numidia Macedon and many others whom none of the Monarchs were able to resist Are the Venetians Switzers Grisons and Hollanders now lest in the same weakness and no obedience at all due to their Magistrates If this be so how comes it to pass that justice is so well administred amongst them Who is it that defends the Hollanders in such a manner that the greatest Monarchs with all their Swords have had no great reason to boast of any advantages gained against them at least till we whom they could not resist when we had no Monarch tho we have bin disgracefully beaten by them since we had one by making Leagues against them and sowing divisions amongst them instigated and assisted the greatest Power now in the world to their destruction and our own But our Author is so accustom'd to fraud that he never cites a passage of Scripture which he does not abuse or vitiate and that he may do the same in this place he leaves out the following words For there is no power but of God that he might intitle one sort only to his protection If therefore the People and popular Magistrates of Athens the two Kings Ephori and Senate of Sparta the Sanhedrims amongst the Hebrews the Consuls Tribuns Pretors and Senate of Rome the Magistrates of Holland Switzerland and Venice have or had power we may conclude that they also were ordained by God and that according to the precept of the Apostle the same obedience sor the same reason is due to them as to any Monarch The Apostle farther explaining himself and shewing who may be accounted a Magistrate and what the duty of such a one is informs us when we should fear and on what account Rulers says he are not a terror to good works but to the evil Wilt thou then not be afraid of the Power do that which is good and thou shalt have praise of the same for he is the Minister of God a revenger to execute wrath
resolved upon by another Power The Jewish Doctors generally agree that the Kings of Judah could make no Law because there was a curse denounced against those who should add to or detract from that which God had given by the hand of Moses that they might sit in Judgment with the High Priest and Sanhedrin but could not judg by themselves unless the Sanhedrin did plainly fail of performing their duty Upon this account Maimonides excuses David for commanding Solomon not to suffer the grey hairs of Joab to go down to the grave in peace and Solomon for appointing him to be kill'd at the soot of the Altar for he having killed Abner and Amasa and by those actions shed the blood of war in time of peace the Sanhedrin should have punished him but being protected by favour or power and even David himself fearing him Solomon was put in mind of his duty which he performed tho Joab laid hold upon the horns of the Altar which by the express words of the Law gave no protection to wilful Murderers The use of the military Sword amongst them was also moderated Their Kings might make War upon the seven accursed Nations that they were commanded to destroy and so might any other man for no peace was to be made with them but not against any other Nation without the assent of the Sanhedrin And when Amaziah contrary to that Law had foolishly made war upon Joash King of Israel and thereby brought a great slaughter upon Judah the Princes that is the Sanhedrin combined against him pursued him to Lachish and killed him there The Legislative Power of Sparta was evidently in the People The Laws that go under the name of Lycurgus were proposed by him to the general Assembly of the People and from them received their Authority But the discipline they contained was of such efficacy for framing the minds of men to virtue and by banishing Silver and Gold they so far banished all manner of Crimes that from the institution of those Laws to the times of their Corruption which was more than eight hundred years we hardly find that three men were put to death of whom two were Kings so that it seems difficult to determine where the power of judging did reside tho 't is most probable considering the nature of their Government that it was in the Senate and in Cases extraordinary in the Ephori with a right of appealing to the People Their Kings therefore could have little to do with the Sword of Justice neither the Legislative nor the Judicial Power being any ways in them The military Sword was not much more in their Power unless the excellency of their Virtues gave them the credit of perswading when the Law denied the right of commanding They were obliged to make war against those and those only who were declared Enemies by the Senate and Ephori and in the manner place and time they directed so that Agesilaus tho carrying on a glorious War in Persia no sooner received the Parchment Roll wherein he was commanded by the Ephori to come home for the defence of his own Country than he immediately returned and is on that account called by no less a man than Xenophon a good and faithful King rendring obedience to the Laws of his Country By this it appears that there are Kings who may be feared by those that do ill and not by such as do well for having no more power than what the Law gives and being obliged to execute it as the Law directs they cannot depart from the Precept of the Apostle My own actions therefore or the sense of my own guilt arising from them is to be the measure of my fear of that Magistrate who is the Minister of God and not his Power The like may be said of almost all the Nations of the world that have had any thing of Civil Order amongst them The supreme Magistrate under what name soever he was known whether King Emperor Asymnetes Suffetes Consul Dictator or Archon has usually a part assigned to him in the administration of Justice and making War but that he may know it to be assigned and not inherent and so assigned as to be employ'd for the publick good not to his own profit or pleasure it is circumscribed by such rules as he cannot safely transgress This is above all seen in the German Nations from whom we draw our Original and Government and is so well described by Tacitus in his treatise of their Customs and Manners that I shall content my self to refer to it and to what I have cited from him in the former part of this Work The Saxons coming into our Country retain'd to themselves the same rights They had no Kings but such as were set up by themselves and they abrogated their Power when they pleased Off a acknowledged that he was chosen for the fence of their Liberty not from his own merit but by their favour and in the Conventus Pananglicus at which all the chief men as well Secular as Ecclesiastical were present it was decreed by the King Archbishops Bishops Abbots Dukes and Senators that the Kings should be chosen by the Priests and by the Elders of the People In pursuance of which Egbert who had no right to the succession was made King Ethelwerd was chosen in the same manner by the consent of all Ethelwolf a Monk for want of a better was advanced to the same Honor. His Son Alfred tho crowned by the Pope and marrying without the consent of the Nobility and Kingdom against their Customs and Statutes acknowledged that he had received the Crown from the bounty of the Princes Elders and People and in his Will declared that he left the People as he had found them free as the inward thoughts of Man His Son Edward was elected to be his Successor Ethelstan tho a Bastard and without all Title was elected by the consent of the Nobility and People Eadred by the same Authority was elected and preferred before the Sons of Edmond his Predecessor Edwin tho rightly chosen was deposed for his ill life and Edgar elected King by the will of God and consent of the People But he also was deprived of the Crown for the Rape of a Nun and after seven years restored by the whole People coram omni multitudine populi Anglorum Ethelred who is said to have bin cruel in the beginning wretched in the course and infamous in the end of his Reign was deposed by the same power that had advanced him Canutus made a Contract with the Princes and the whole People and thereupon was by general consent crown'd King over all England After him Harold was chosen in the usual manner He being dead a Message was sent to Hardi Canute with an offer of the Crown which he accepted and accordingly was received Edward the Consessor was elected King with the consent of the Clergy
and People at London and Harold excused himself for not performing his Oath to William the Norman because he said he had made it unduly and presumptuously without consulting the Nobility and People and without their Authority William was received with great joy by the Clergy and People and saluted King by all swearing to observe the antient good and approved Laws of England and tho he did but ill perform his Oath yet before his death he seemed to repent of the ways he had taken and only wishing his Son might be King of England he confessed in his last Will made at Caen in Normandy that he neither found nor left the Kingdom as an Inheritance If he possessed no right except what was conferred upon him no more was conserred than had bin enjoy'd by the antient Kings according to the approved Laws which he swore to observe Those Laws gave no power to any till he was elected and that which they did then give was so limited that the Nobility and People reserved to themselves the disposition of the greatest Affairs even to the deposition and expulsion of such as should not well perform the duty of their Oaths and Office And I leave it to our Author to prove how they can be said to have had the Sword and the Power so as to be feared otherwise than as the Apostle says by those that do evil which we acknowledg to be not only in the King but in the lowest Officer of Justice in the world If it be pretended that our later Kings are more to be seared than William the Norman or his Predecessors it must not be as has bin proved either from the general right of Kings or from the Doctrine of the Apostle but from something else that is peculiar and subsequent which I leave our Author's Disciples to prove and an answer may be found in due time But to show that our Ancestors did not mistake the words of the Apostle 't is good to consider when to whom and upon what occasion he spoke The Christian Religion was then in its infancy his discourses were addressed to the Professors of it who tho they soon grew to be considerable in number were for the most part of the meanest sort of People Servants or Inhabitants of the Cities rather than Citizens and Freemen joined in no civil Body or Society nor such as had or could have any part in the Government The occasion was to suppress the dangerous mistake of many converted Jews and others who knowing themselves to be freed from the power of Sin and the Devil presumed they were also freed from the obligation of human Laws And if this Error had not bin crop'd in the bud it would have given occasion to their Enemies who desired nothing more to destroy them all and who knowing that such Notions were stirring among them would have bin glad that they who were not easily to be discovered had by that means discovered themselves This induced a necessity of diverting a poor mean scatter'd People from such thoughts concerning the State to convince them of the Error into which they were fallen that Christians did not owe the same obedience to Civil Laws and Magistrates as other men and to keep them from drawing destruction upon themselves by such ways as not being warranted by God had no promise of his Protection St. Paul's work was to preserve the Professors of Christianity as appears by his own words I exhort that first of all Supplications Prayers Intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men for Kings and for all that are in Authority that we may live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty Put them in mind to be subject to Principalities and Powers to obey Magistrates to be ready for every good work St. Peter agrees with him fully in describing the Magistrate and his Duty shewing the reasons why obedience should be pay'd to him and teaching Christians to be humble and contented with their condition as free yet not using their Liberty for a cover to malice and not only to fear God and honor the King of which conjunction of words such as Filmer are very proud but to honor all men as is said in the same verse This was in a peculiar manner the work of that time in which those who were to preach and propagate the Gospel were not to be diverted from that Duty by entangling themselves in the care of State-affairs but it dos in some sense agree with all times for it can never be the duty of a good man to oppose such a Magistrate as is the Minister of God in the exercise of his Office nor to deny to any man that which is his due But as the Christian Law exempts no man from the Duty he ows to his Father Master or the Magistrate it dos not make him more a Slave than he was before nor deprive him of any natural or civil Right and if we are obliged to pay Tribute Honor or any other thing where it is not due it must be by some Precept very different from that which commands us to give to Cesar that which is Cesar's If he define the Magistrate to be the Minister of God doing Justice and from thence draws the Reasons he gives for rendring Obedience to him we are to inquire whose Minister he is who overthrows it and look for some other reason sor rendring obedience to him than the words of the Apostles If David who was willing to lay down his life sor the people who hated iniquity and would not suffer a liar to come into his presence was the Minister of God I desire to know whose Minister Caligula was who set up himself to be worshipped for a God and would at once have destroyed all the people that he ought to have protected Whose Minister was Nero who besides the abominable impurities of his lise and hatred to all virtue as contrary to his Person and Government set fire to the great City If it be true that contrariorum contraria est ratio these questions are easily decided and if the reasons of things are eternal the same distinction grounded upon truth will be good for ever Every Magistrate and every man by his works will for ever declare whose Minister he is in what spirit he lives and consequently what obedience is due to him according to the Precept of the Apostle If any man ask what I mean by Justice I answer That the Law of the Land as far as it is Sanctio recta jubens honesta prohibens contraria declares what it is But there have bin and are Laws that are neither just nor commendable There was a Law in Rome that no God should be worshipped vvithout the consent of the Senat Upon vvhich Tertullian says scoffingly That God shall not be God unless he please Man and by virtue of this Law the first Christians were exposed to all manner of cruelties and some
that is nothing to the present Question For if it was ill done to drive Nero to despair or to throw Vitellius into the common Shore it was not because they were the Ministers of God for their Lives were no way conformable to the character which the Apostle gives to those who deserve that Sacred Name If those only are to be feared who have the Power there was a time when they were not to be feared for they had none and if those Princes are not obliged by the Law who are not under the coercive Power it gave no exemption to those for they fell under it and as we know not what will befal others who walk in their steps till they are dead we cannot till then know whether they are free from it or not SECT XII The Right and Power of a Magistrate depends upon his Institution not upon his Name 'T IS usual with Impostors to obtrude their deceits upon men by putting false names upon things by which they may perplex mens minds and from thence deduce false Conclusions But the points above mention'd being settled it imports little whether the Governors to whom Peter enjoins obedience were only Kings and such as are employ'd by them or all such Magistrates as are the Ministers of God for he informs us of their Works that we may know them and accordingly yield obedience to them This is that therefore which distinguishes the Magistrate to whom obedience is due from him to whom none is due and not the name that he either assumes or others put upon him But if there be any virtue in the word King and that the admirable Prerogatives of which our Author dreams were annexed to that name they could not be applied to the Roman Emperors nor their substituted Officers for they had it not 'T is true Mark Anthony in a drunken fit at the celebration of the impure Lupercalia did offer a Diadem to Julius Cesar which some flatterers pressed him to accept as our great Lawyers did Cromwel but he durst not think of putting it upon his Head Caligula's affectation of that title and the ensigns of Royalty he wore were taken for the most evident marks of his madness and tho the greatest and bravest of their men had fallen by the Wars or Proscriptions tho the best part of the Senate had perished in Thessaly tho the great City was exhausted and Italy brought to desolation yet they were not reduced so low as to endure a King Piso was sufficiently addicted to Tiberius yet he could not suffer that Germanicus should be treated as the Son of a King Principis Romani non Parthorum regis filio has epulas dari And whoever understands the Latin Tongue and the History of those times will easily perceive that the word Princeps signified no more than a principal or eminent man as has bin already proved and the words of Piso could have no other meaning than that the Son of a Roman ought not to be distinguished from others as the Sons of the Parthian Kings were This is verified by his Letter to Tiberius under the name of Friend and the answer of Tiberius promising to him whatsoever one friend could do for another Here was no mention of Majesty or Soveraign Lord nor the base subscriptions of Servant Subject or Creature And I fear that as the last of those words was introduced amongst us by our Bishops the rest of them had bin also invented by such Christians as were too much addicted to the Asiatick Slavery However the name of King was never solemnly assumed by nor conferred upon those Emperors and could have conferred no right if it had They exercised as they pleased or as they durst the power that had bin gained by violence or fraud The exorbitances they committed could not have bin justified by a Title any more than those of a Pyrat who should take the same It was no otherwise given to them than by way of assimilation when they were guilty of the greatest Crimes and Tacitus describing the detestable Lust of Tiberius says Quibus adeo indomitis exarserat ut more Regio pubem ingenuam stupris pollueret nec formam tantum decora corporis sed in his modestam pueritiam in aliis majorum imagines incitamentum cupiditatis habebat He also informs us that Nero took his time to put Bareas Soranus to death who was one of the most virtuous men of that age when Tiridates King of Armenia was at Rome That he might shew the Imperial Grandeur by the slaughter of the most illustrious men which he accounted a Royal Action I leave it to the judgment of all wise men whether it be probable that the Apostles should distinguish such as these from other Magistrates and dignify those only with the Title of God's Ministers who distinguished themselves by such ways or that the succeeding Emperors should be ennobled with the same Prerogative who had no other Title to the name than by resembling those that had it in such things as these If this be too absurd and abominable to enter into the heart of a man it must be concluded that their intention was only to divert the poor People to whom they preached from involving themselves in the care of Civil matters to which they had no call And the Counsel would have bin good as things stood with them if they had bin under the power of a Pyrat or any other villain substituted by him But tho the Apostles had looked upon the Officers set over the Provinces belonging to the Roman Empire as sent by Kings I desire to know whether it can be imagined that they could think the subordinate Governors to be sent by Kings in the Countries that had no Kings or that obedience became due to the Magistrates in Greece Italy or other Provinces under the jurisdiction of Rome only after they had Emperors and that none was due to them before The Germans had then no King The brave Arminius had bin lately kill'd for aiming at a Crown When he had blemish'd all his Virtues by that attempt they forgot his former Services They never consider'd how many Roman Legions he had cut in pieces nor how many thousands of their Allies he had destroy'd His Valour was a crime deserving death when he sought to make a Prey of his Country which he had so bravely defended and to enslave those who with him had fought for the publick Liberty But if the Apostles were to be understood to give the name of God's Ministers only to Kings and those who are employ'd by them and that obedience is due to no other a domestick Tyrant had bin their greatest Benefactor He had set up the only Government that is authorized by God and to which a conscientious obedience is due Agathocles Dionysius Phalaris Phereus Pisistratus Nabis Machanidas and an infinite number of the most detestable Villains that the world has ever produced did confer the same benefits upon the
able than themselves to bear the weight of a Crown convinces me fully that they had so framed our Laws that even children women or ill men might either perform as much as was necessarily required of them or be brought to reason if they transgressed and arrogated to themselves more than was allow'd For 't is not to be imagined that a company of men should so far degenerate from their own Nature which is Reason to give up themselves and their Posterity with all their concernments in the world to depend upon the will of a child a woman an ill man or a fool If therefore Laws are necessary to popular States they are no less to Monarchies or rather that is not a State or Government which has them not and 't is no less impossible for any to subsist without them than for the body of a man to be and perform its functions without Nerves or Bones And if any People had ever bin so foolish to establish that which they called a Government without Laws to support and regulate it the impossibility of subsisting would evidence the madness of the Constitution and ought to deter all others from following their example 'T is no less incredible that those Nations which rejected Kings did put themselves into the Power of one man to prescribe to them such Laws as he pleased But the instances alledged by our Author are evidently false The Athenians were not without Laws when they had Kings AEgeus was subject to the Laws and did nothing of importance without the consent of the People and Theseus not being able to please them died a banished man Draco and Solon did not make but propose Laws and they were of no force till they were established by the Authority of the People The Spartans dealt in the same manner with Lycurgus he invented their Laws but the People made them and when the Assembly of all the Citizens had approved and sworn to observe them till his return from Crete he resolved rather to die in a voluntary banishment than by his return to absolve them from the Oath they had taken The Romans also had Laws during the Government of their Kings but not finding in them that Perfection they desired the Decemviri were chosen to frame others which yet were of no value till they were passed by the People in the Comitia Centuriata and being so approved they were established But this Sanction to which every man whether Magistrate or private Citizen was subject did no way bind the whole body os the People who still retained in themselves the Power os changing both the matter and the form of their Government as appears by their instituting and abrogating Kings Consuls Dictators Tribuns with consular Power and Decemviri when they thought good for the Commonwealth And if they had this Power I leave our Author to shew why the like is not in other Nations SECT XIV Laws are not made by Kings not because they are busied in greater matters than doing Justice but because Nations will be governed by Rule and not Arbitrarily OUR Author pursuing the mistakes to which he seems perpetually condemned says that when Kings were either busied in War or distracted with publick Cares so that every private man could not have access unto their Persons to learn their Wills and Pleasures then of necessity were Laws invented that so every particular Subject might find his Prince's Pleasure I have often heard that Governments were established for the obtaining of Justice and if that be true 't is hard to imagine what business a supreme Magistrate can have to divert him from accomplishing the principal end of his Institution And 't is as commonly said that this distribution of Justice to a People is a work surpassing the strength of any one man Jethro seems to have bin a wise man and 't is probable he thought Moses to be so also but he found the work of judging the People to be too heavy for him and therefore advised him to leave the judgment of Causes to others who should be chosen for that purpose which advice Moses accepted and God approved The governing power was as insupportable to him as the Judicial He desired rather to die than to bear so great a burden and God neither accusing him of sloth or impatience gave him seventy Assistants But if we may believe our Author the Powers Judicial and Legislative that of judging as well as that of governing is not too much for any man woman or child whatsoever and that he stands in no need either of God's Statutes to direct him or Man's Counsel to assist him unless it be when he is otherwise employ'd and his Will alone is sufficient for all But what if he be not busied in greater matters or distracted with publick cares is every Prince capable of this work Tho Moses had not found it too great for him or it should be granted that a man of excellent natural Endowments great Wisdom Learning Experience Industry and Integrity might perform it is it certain that all those who happen to be born in reigning Families are so If Moses had the Law of God before his eyes and could repair to God himself for the application or explanation of it have all Princes the same Assistance Do they all speak with God face to face or can they do what he did without the Assistance he had If all Kings of mature years are of that perfection are we assured that none shall die before his Heir arrive to the same Or shall he have the same ripeness of Judgment in his Infancy If a Child come to a Crown dos that immediately infuse the most admirable Endowments and Graces Have we any promise from Heaven that Women shall enjoy the same Prerogatives in those Countries where they are made capable of the Succession Or dos that Law which renders them capable defend them not only against the frailty of their own Nature but confer the most sublime virtues upon them But who knows not that no Families do more frequently produce weak or ill men than the greatest and that which is worse their greatness is a snare to them so that they who in a low condition might have passed unregarded being advanced to the highest have often appeared to be or became the worst of all Beasts and they who advance them are like to them For if the Power be in the Multitude as our Author is forced to confess otherwise the Athenians and Romans could not have given all as he says nor a part as I say to Draco Solon or the Decemviri they must be Beasts also who should have given away their Right and Liberty in hopes of receiving Justice from such as probably will neither understand nor regard it or protection from those who will not be able to help themselves and expect such Virtue Wisdom and Integrity should be and for ever remain in the Family they set up as was never known to
No man has yet observed the Moderation of Gideon to have bin in Abimelech the Piety of Eli in Hophni and Phineas the Purity and Integrity of Samuel in Joel and Abiah nor the Wisdom of Solomon in Rehoboam And if there was so vast a difference between them and their Children who doubtless were instructed by those excellent men in the ways of Wisdom and Justice as well by Precept as Example were it not madness to be confident that they who have neither precept nor good example to guide them but on the contrary are educated in an utter ignorance or abhorrence of all virtue will always be just and good or to put the whole power into the hands of every man woman or child that shall be born in governing Families upon a supposition that a thing will happen which never did or that the weakest and worst will perform all that can be hoped and was seldom accomplished by the wisest and best exposing whole Nations to be destroy'd without remedy if they do it not And if this be madness in all extremity 't is to be presumed that Nations never intended any such thing unless our Author prove that all Nations have bin mad from the beginning and must always continue to be so To cure this he says They degenerate into Tyrants and if he meant as he speaks it would be enough For a King cannot degenerate into a Tyrant by departing from that Law which is only the product of his own will But if he do degenerate it must be by departing from that which dos not depend upon his will and is a rule prescribed by a power that is above him This indeed is the Doctrine of Bracton who having said that the Power of the King is the Power of the Law because the Law makes him King adds That if he do injustice he ceases to be King degenerates into a Tyrant and becomes the Vicegerent of the Devil But I hope this must be understood with temperament and a due consideration of human frailty so as to mean only those injuries that are extreme for otherwise he would terribly shake all the Crowns of the World But lest our Author should be thought once in his life to have dealt sincerely and spoken truth the next lines shew the fraud of his last Assertion by giving to the Prince a power of mitigating or interpreting the Laws that he sees to be rigorous or doubtful But as he cannot degenerate into a Tyrant by departing from the Law which proceeds from his own will so he cannot mitigate or interpret that which proceeds from a superior Power unless the right of mitigating or interpreting be conferred upon him by the same For as all wise men confess that none can abrogate but those who may institute and that all mitigation and interpretation varying from the true sense is an alteration that alteration is an abrogation for whatsoever is changed is dissolved and therefore the power of mitigating is inseparable from that of instituting This is sufficiently evidenced by Henry the Eighth's Answer to the Speech made to him by the Speaker of the House of Commons 1545 in which he tho one of the most violent Princes we ever had confesses the Parliament to be the Law-makers and that an obligation lay upon him rightly to use the power with which he was entrusted The right therefore of altering being inseparable from that of making Laws the one being in the Parliament the other must be so also Fortescue says plainly the King cannot change any Law Magna Charta casts all upon the Laws of the Land and Customs of England but to say that the King can by his will make that to be a Custom or an antient Law which is not or that not to be so which is is most absurd He must therefore take the Laws and Customs as he finds them and can neither detract from nor add any thing to them The ways are prescribed as well as the end Judgments are given by equals per Pares The Judges who may be assisting to those are sworn to proceed according to Law and not to regard the King's Letters or Commands The doubtful Cases are reserved and to be referred to the Parliament as in the Statute of 35 Edw. 3d concerning Treasons but never to the King The Law intending that these Parliaments should be annual and leaving to the King a power of calling them more often if occasion require takes away all pretence of a necessity that there should be any other power to interpret or mitigate Laws For 't is not to be imagined that there should be such a pestilent evil in any antient Law Custom or later Act of Parliament which being on the sudden discover'd may not without any great prejudice continue for forty days till a Parliament may be called whereas the force and essence of all Laws would be subverted if under colour of mitigating and interpreting the power of altering were allow'd to Kings who often want the inclination and sor the most part the capacity of doing it rightly 'T is not therefore upon the uncertain will or understanding of a Prince that the safety of a Nation ought to depend He is sometimes a child and sometimes overburden'd with years Some are weak negligent slothful foolish or vicious others who may have something of rectitude in their intentions and naturally are not uncapable of doing well are drawn out of the right way by the subtilty of ill men who gain credit with them That rule must always be uncertain and subject to be distorted which depends upon the fancy of such a man He always fluctuates and every passion that arises in his mind or is infused by others disorders him The good of a People ought to be established upon a more solid foundation For this reason the Law is established which no passion can disturb 'T is void of desire and fear lust and anger 'T is Mens sine affectu written reason retaining some measure of the Divine Perfection It dos not enjoin that which pleases a weak frail man but without any regard to persons commands that which is good and punishes evil in all whether rich or poor high or low 'T is deaf inexorable inflexible By this means every man knows when he is safe or in danger because he knows whether he has done good or evil But if all depended upon the will of a man the worst would be often the most safe and the best in the greatest hazard Slaves would be often advanced the good and the brave scorn'd and neglected The most generous Nations have above all things sought to avoid this evil and the virtue wisdom and generosity of each may be discern'd by the right fixing of the rule that must be the guide of every mans life and so constituting their Magistracy that it may be duly observed Such as have attained to this perfection have always flourished in virtue and happiness They are as Aristotle
says governed by God rather than by men whilst those who subjected themselves to the will of a man were governed by a beast This being so our Author's next clause That tho a King do frame all his Actions to be according unto Law yet he is not bound thereunto but as his good will and for good example or so far forth as the general Law for the safety of the Commonwealth doth naturally bind him is wholly impertinent For if the King who governs not according to Law degenerates into a Tyrant he is obliged to frame his actions according to Law or not to be a King for a Tyrant is none but as contrary to him as the worst of men is to the best But if these obligations were untied we may easily guess what security our Author's word can be to us that the King of his own good will and for a good example will frame his actions according to the Laws when experience instructs us that notwithstanding the strictest Laws and most exquisite Constitutions that men of the best abilities in the world could ever invent to restrain the irregular appetites of those in power with the dreadful examples of vengeance taken against such as would not be restrained they have frequently broken out and the most powerful have for the most part no otherwise distinguished themselves from the rest of men than by the enormity of their vices and being the most forward in leading others to all manner of crimes by their example SECT XVI The observation of the Laws of Nature is absurdly expected from Tyrants who set themselves up against all Laws and he that subjects Kings to no other Law than what is common to Tyrants destroys their being OUR Authors last clause acknowledging Kings to be bound by a general Law to provide for the safety of the People would be sufficient for my purpose if it were sincere for municipal Laws do only shew how that should be performed and if the King by departing from that rule degenerates as he says into a Tyrant 't is easily determined what ought then to be done by the People But his whole book being a heap of contradictions and frauds we can rely upon nothing that he says And his following words which under the same Law comprehend both Kings and Tyrants shew that he intends Kings should be no otherwise obliged than Tyrants which is not at all By this means says he are all Kings even Tyrants and Conquerors bound to preserve the Lands Goods Liberties and Lives of all their Subjects not by any municipal Law of the Land so much as by the natural Law of a Father which obligeth them to ratify the Acts of their Forefathers and Predecessors in things necessary for the publick good of their Subjects If he be therefore in the right Tyrants and Conquerors are Kings and Fathers The words that have bin always thought to comprehend the most irreconcileable contrariety the one expressing the most tender love and care evidently testified by the greatest obligations conferred upon those who are under it the other the utmost of all injuries that can be offer'd to men signify the same thing There is no difference between a Magistrate who is what he is by Law and a publick Enemy who by force or fraud sets himself up against all Law And what he said before that Kings degenerated into Tyrants signifies nothing for Tyrants also are Kings His next words are no less incomprehensible for neither King nor Tyrant can be obliged to preserve the Lands Goods and Liberties of their Subjects if they have none But as Liberty consists only in being subject to no man's will and nothing denotes a Slave but a dependence upon the will of another if there be no other Law in a Kingdom than the will of a Prince there is no such thing as Liberty Property also is an appendage to Liberty and 't is as impossible for a man to have a right to Lands or Goods if he has no Liberty and enjoys his Life only at the pleasure of another as it is to enjoy either when he is deprived of them He therefore who says Kings and Tyrants are bound to preserve their Subjects Lands Liberties Goods and Lives and yet lays for a foundation that Laws are no more than the significations of their Pleasure seeks to delude the world with words which signify nothing The vanity of these whimseys will farther appear if it be considered that as Kings are Kings by Law and Tyrants are Tyrants by overthrowing the Law they are most absurdly joined together and 't is not more ridiculous to set him above the Law who is what he is by the Law than to expect the observation of the Laws that enjoin the preservation of the Lands Liberties Goods and Lives of the People from one who by fraud or violence makes himself master of all that he may be restrain'd by no Law and is what he is by subverting all Law Besides if the safety of the People be the supreme Law and this safety extend to and consist in the preservation of their Liberties Goods Lands and Lives that Law must necessarily be the root and beginning as well as the end and limit of all magistratical Power and all Laws must be subservient and subordinate to it The question will not then be what pleases the King but what is good for the People not what conduces to his profit or glory but what best secures the Liberties he is bound to preserve he dos not therefore reign for himself but for the People he is not the Master but the Servant of the Commonwealth and the utmost extent of his Prerogative is to be able to do more good than any private man If this be his work and duty 't is easily seen whether he is to judg of his own performance or they by whom and for whom he reigns and whether in order to this he be to give Laws or to receive them 'T is ordinarily said in France Il faut que chacun soit servi a sa mode Every mans business must be done according to his own mind and if this be true in particular Persons 't is more plainly so in whole Nations Many eyes see more than one the collected wisdom of a People much surpasses that of a single Person and tho he should truly seek that which is best 't is not probable he would so easily find it as the body of a Nation or the principal men chosen to represent the whole This may be said with justice of the best and wisest Princes that ever were but another Language is to be used when we speak of those who may succeed and who very often through the defects of Age Person or Sex are neither fit to judg of other mens affairs nor of their own and are so far from being capable of the highest Concernments relating to the safety of whole Nations that the most trivial cannot reasonably be referred to them There are few men
a Commonwealths-man as Cato but the washed Swine will return to the Mire He overthrows all by a preposterous conjunction of the rights os Kings which are just and by Law with those of Tyrants which are utterly against Law and gives the sacred and gentle name os Father to those Beasts who by their actions declare themselves enemies not only to all Law and Justice but to Mankind that cannot subsist without them This requires no other proof than to examine whether Attila or Tamerlan did well deserve to be called Fathers of the Countries they destroy'd The first of these was usually called the scourge of God and he gloried in the Name The other being reproved for the detestable cruelties he exercised made answer You speak to me as to a man I am not a man but the scourge of God and plague of Mankind This is certainly sweet and gentle Language savouring much of a fatherly tenderness There is no doubt that those who use it will provide for the safety of the Nations under them and the preservation of the Laws of Nature is rightly referred to them and 't is very probable that they who came to burn the Countries and destroy the Nations that fell under their power should make it their business to preserve them and look upon the former Governors as their Fathers whose acts they were obliged to confirm tho they seldom attained to the Dominion by any other means than the slaughter of them and their Families But if the enmity be not against the Nation and the cause of the war be only for Dominion against the ruling Person or Family as that of Baasha against the house of Jeroboam of Zimri against that of Baasha of Omri against Zimri and of Jehu against Joram the prosecution of it is a strange way of becoming the Son of the Person destroyed And Filmer alone is subtil enough to discover that Jehu by extinguishing the house of Ahab drew an obligation upon himself of looking on him as his Father and confirming his acts If this be true Moses was obliged to confirm the acts of the Kings of the Amalekites Moabites and Amorites that he destroy'd the same duty lay upon Joshua in relation to the Cananites but 't is not so easily decided to which of them he did owe that deference for the same could not be due to all and 't is hard to believe that by killing above thirty Kings he should purchase to himself so many Fathers and the like may be said of divers others Moreover there is a sort of Tyrant who has no Father as Agathocles Dionysius Cesar and generally all those who subvert the Liberties of their own Countrey And if they stood obliged to look upon the former Magistrates as their Predecessors and to confirm their Acts the first should have bin to give impunity and reward to any that would kill them it having bin a fundamental Maxim in those States That any man might kill a Tyrant This being in all respects ridiculous and absurd 't is evident that our Author who by proposing such a false security to Nations for their Liberties endeavours to betray them is not less treacherous to Kings when under a pretence of defending their rights he makes them to be the same with those of Tyrants who are known to have none and are Tyrants because they have none and gives no other hopes to Nations of being preserved by the Kings they set up for that end than what upon the same account may be expected from Tyrants whom all wise men have ever abhorr'd and affirmed to have bin produced to bring destruction upon the World and whose Lives have verifi'd the Sentence This is truly to depose and abolish Kings by abolishing that by which and for which they are so The greatness of their Power Riches State and the pleasures that accompany them cannot but create enemies Some will envy that which is accounted Happiness others may dislike the use they make of their Power some may be unjustly exasperated by the best of their Actions when they find themselves incommoded by them others may be too severe judges of slight miscarriages These things may reasonably temper the joys of those who delight most in the advantages of Crowns But the worst and most dangerous of all their enemies are these accursed Sycophants who by making those that ought to be the best of men like to the worst destroy their Being and by perswading the world they aim at the same things and are bound to no other rule than is common to all Tyrants give a fair pretence to ill men to say They are all of one kind And if this should be received for truth even they who think the miscarriages of their Governors may be easily redressed and desire no more would be the most fierce in procuring the destruction of that which is naught in Principle and cannot be corrected SECT XVII Kings cannot be the Interpreters of the Oaths they take OUR Author's Book is so full of absurdities and contradictions that it would be a rope of Sand if a continued series of frauds did not like a string of Poisons running through the whole give it some consistence with it self and shew it to be the work of one and the same hand After having endeavoured to subvert the Laws of God Nature and Nations most especially our own by abusing the Scriptures falsly alledging the Authority of many good Writers and seeking to obtrude upon Mankind a universal Law that would take from every Nation the right of constituting such Governments within themselves as seem most convenient for them and giving rules for the administration of such as they had established he gives us a full view of his Religion and Morals by destroying the force of the Oath taken by our Kings at their Coronation Others says he affirm that although Laws of themselves do not bind Kings yet the Oaths of Kings at their Coronation tie them to keep all the Laws of their Kingdoms How far this is true let us but examine the Oath of the Kings of England at their Coronation the words whereof are these Art thou pleased to cause to be administred in all thy judgments indifferent and upright Justice and to use discretion with Mercy and Verity Art thou pleased that our upright Laws and Customs be observed and dost thou promise that those shall be protected and maintained by thee c. To which the King answers in the Affirmative being first demanded by the Archbishop of Canterbury Pleaseth it you to confirm and observe the Laws and Customs of the antient times granted from God by just and devout Kings unto the English Nation by Oath unto the said People especially the Laws Liberties and Customs granted unto the Clergy and Laity by the famous King Edward From this he infers That the King is not to observe all Laws but such as are upright because he finds evil Laws mention'd in the Oath of Richard the
lose by it and the Lord Chancellor Egerton told a Gentleman who desired relief against his own Deed upon an Allegation that he knew not what he did when he signed it that he did not sit to relieve fools But tho voluntary Promises or Oaths when to use the Lawyers language there is not a valuable consideration were of no obligation or that men brought by force fear or error into such Contracts as are grievous in the performance might be relieved this would not at all reach the cases of Princes in the Contracts made between them and their Subjects and confirmed by their Oaths there being no colour of force or fraud fear or error for them to alledg nor any thing to be pretended that can be grievous to perform otherwise than as it may be grievous to an ill man not to do the mischiefs he had conceived Nations according to their own will frame the Laws by which they resolve to be governed and if they do it not wisely the damage is only to themselves But 't is hard to find an example of any People that did by force oblige a man to take upon him the Government of them Gideon was indeed much pressed by the Israelites to be their King and the Army of Germanicus in a Mutiny more fiercely urged him to be Emperor but both desisted when their Offers were refused If our Kings have bin more modest and our Ancestors more pertinacious in compelling them to accept the Crowns they offer'd I shall upon proof of the matter change my opinion But till that do appear I may be pardoned if I think there was no such thing William the Norman was not by force brought into England but came voluntarily and desired to be King The Nobility Clergy and Commons proposed the Conditions upon which they would receive him These conditions were to govern according to their antient Laws especially those that had bin granted or rather collected in the time of the famous King Edward Here was neither force nor fraud if he had disliked the terms he might have retired as freely as he came But he did like them and tho he was not perhaps so modest to say with the brave Saxon King Offa Ad Libertatis vestrae tuitionem non meis meritis sed sola liberalitate vestra unanimiter me convocastis he accepted the Crown upon the conditions offer'd and swore upon the Evangelists to observe them Not much valuing this he pretended to govern according to his own will but finding the People would not endure it he renewed his Oath upon the same Evangelists and the Reliques of S. Alban which he needed not to have done but might have departed to his Dutchy of Normandy if he had not lik'd the conditions or thought not fit to observe them 'T is probable he examined the contents of Edward's Laws before he swore to them and could not imagine that a free Nation which never had any other Kings than such as had bin chosen by themselves for the preservation of their Liberty and from whose liberality the best of their Kings acknowledged the Crowns they wore did intend to give up their Persons Liberties and Estates to him who was a stranger most especially when they would not receive him till he had sworn to the same Laws by which the others had reigned of which one was as appears by the act of the Conventus Pananglicus that Reges à Sacerdotibus senioribus Populi eligantur The Kings should be elected by the Clergy and Elders of the People By these means he was advanced to the Crown to which he could have no title unless they had the right of conferring it upon him Here was therefore no force deceit or error and whatsoever equity there might be to relieve one that had bin forced frighted or circumvented it was nothing to this case We do not find that William the 2d or Henry were forced to be Kings no Sword was put to their Throats and for any thing we know the English Nation was not then so contemptible but men might have bin found in the world who would willingly have accepted the Crown and even their elder Brother Robert would not have refused but the Nobility and Commons trusting to their Oaths and Promises thought fit to prefer them before him and when he endeavoured to impose himself upon the Nation by force they so severely punished him that no better proof can be required to shew that they were accustomed to have no other Kings than such as they approved And this was one of the Customs that all their Kings swore to maintain it being as antient just and well approved as any other Having already proved that all the Kings we have had since that time have come in upon the same title that the Saxon Laws to which all have sworn continue to be of force amongst us and that the words pronounced four times on the four sides of the Scaffold by the Archbishop Will ye have this man to reign do testify it I may spare the pains of a repetition and justly conclude That if there was neither force nor fraud fear nor error to be pretended by the first there could be none in those that followed But the observation of this Oath may be grievous If I received money the last year upon Bond Promise or sale of a Mannor or Farm can it be thought grievous to me to be compelled to repay or to make over the Land according to my agreement Or if I did not seal the Bond till I had the money must not I perform the condition or at the least restore what I had received If it be grievous to any King to preserve the Liberties Lives and Estates of his Subjects and to govern according to their Laws let him resign the Crown and the People to whom the Oath was made will probably release him Others may possibly be found who will not think it grievous or if none will accept a Crown unless they may do what they please the People must bear the misfortune of being obliged to govern themselves or to institute some other sort of Magistracy that will be satisfied with a less exorbitant Power Perhaps they may succeed as well as some others have done who without being brought to that necessity have voluntarily cast themselves into the misery of living without the majestick splendor of a Monarch or if that fail they may as their last refuge surrender up themselves to Slavery When that is done we will acknowledg that whatsoever we have is derived from the favour of our Master But no such thing yet appearing amongst us we may be pardoned if we think we are Free-men governed by our own Laws and that no man has a power over us which is not given and regulated by them nor that any thing but a new Law made by our selves can exempt our Kings from the obligation of performing their Oaths taken to govern according to the old in the true
better or worse one than another cannot spring from any other root than the consent of the several Nations where they are in force and their opinions that such methods were best for them But if God have made a discrimination of people he that would thereupon ground a Title to the dominion of any one must prove that Nation to be under the curse of Slavery which for any thing I know was only denounced against Cham and 't is as hard to determine whether the sense of it be temporal spiritual or both as to tell preeisely what Nations by being only descended from him fall under the Penalties threatned If these therefore be either intirely false or impossible to be proved true there is no discrimination or not known to us and every People has a right of disposing of their Government as well as the Polanders Danes Swedes Germans and such as are or were under the Roman Empire And if any Nation has a natural Lord before he be admitted by their consent it must be by a peculiar act of their own as the Crown of France by an act of that Nation which they call the Salique Law is made hereditary to Males in a direct Line or the nearest to the direct and others in other places are otherwise disposed I might rest here with full assurance that no Disciple of Filmer can prove this of any people in the world nor give so much as the shadow of a reason to perswade us there is any such thing in any Nation or at least in those where we are concerned and presume little regard will be had to what he has said since he cannot prove of any that which he so boldly affirms of all But because good men ought to have no other object than Truth which in matters of this importance can never be made too evident I will venture to go farther and assert That as the various ways by which several Nations dispose of the succession to their respective Crowns shew they were subject to no other Law than their own which they might have made different by the same right they made it to be what it is even those who have the greatest veneration for the reigning Families and the highest regard for proximity of blood have always preferr'd the safety of the Commonwealth before the concernments of any Person or Family and have not only laid aside the nearest in blood when they were found to be notoriously vicious and wicked but when they have thought it more convenient to take others And to prove this I intend to make use of no other Examples than those I find in the Histories of Spain France and England Whilst the Goths governed Spain not above four persons in the space of three hundred years were the immediate successors of their Fathers but the Brother Cousin German or some other man of the Families of the Balthei or Amalthei was preferred before the Children of the deceased King and if it be said this was according to the Law of that Kingdom I answer that it was therefore in the power of that Nation to make Laws for themselves and consequently others have the same right One of their Kings called Wamba was deposed and made a Monk after he had reigned well many years but falling into a swound and his friends thinking him past recovery cut off his hair and put a Monk's Frock upon him that according to the superstition of those times he might die in it and the cutting off the hair being a most disgraceful thing amongst the Goths they would not restore him to his Authority Suintila another of their Kings being deprived of the Crown for his ill Government his Children and Brothers were excluded and Sisinandus crowned in his room This Kingdom being not long after overthrown by the Moors a new one arose from its ashes in the person of Don Pelayo first King of the Asturia's which increasing by degrees at last came to comprehend all Spain and so continues to this day But not troubling my self with all the deviations from the common rule in the collateral Lines of Navarr Arragon and Portugal I find that by fifteen several Instances in that one series of Kings in the Asturia's and Leon who afterwards came to be Kings of Castille it is fully proved that what respect soever they shew'd to the next in blood who by the Law were to succeed they preferred some other person as often as the supreme Law of taking care that the Nation might receive no detriment perswaded them to it Don Pelayo enjoy'd for his life the Kingdom conferred upon him by the Spaniards who with him retired into the Mountains to defend themselves against the Moors and was succeeded by his Son Favila But tho Favila left many Sons when he died Alphonso sirnamed the Chast was advanced to the Crown and they all laid aside Fruela Son to Alphonso the Catholick was for his cruelty deposed put to death and his Sons excluded Aurelio his Cousin German succeeded him and at his death Silo who married his Wives Sister was preferr'd before the Males of the Blood Royal. Alphonso sirnamed El Casto was first violently dispossess'd of the Crown by a Bastard of the Royal Family but he being dead the Nobility and People thinking Alphonso more fit to be a Monk than a King gave the Crown to Bermudo called El Diacono but Bermudo after several years resigning the Kingdom they conceived a better opinion of Alphonso and made him King Alphonso dying without issue Don Ramiro Son to Bermudo was preserred before the Nephews of Alphonso Don Ordonno fourth from Ramiro left four legitimate Sons but they being young the Estates laid them aside and made his Brother Fruela King Fruela had many Children but the same Estates gave the Crown to Alphonso the Fourth who was his Nephew Alphonso turning Monk recommended his Son Ordonno to the Estates of the Kingdom but they resused him and made his Brother Ramiro King Ordonno third Son to Ramiro dying left a Son called Bermudo but the Estates took his Brother Sancho and advanced him to the throne Henry the First being accidentally killed in his youth left only two Sisters Blanche married to Lewis Son to Philip August King of France and Berenguela married to Alphonso King of Leon. The Estates made Ferdinand Son of Berenguela the youngest Sister King excluding Blanche with her Husband and Children for being Strangers and Berenguela her self because they thought not fit that her Husband should have any part in the Government Alphonso El Savio seems to have bin a very good Prince but applying himself more to the study of Astrology than to affairs of Government his eldest Son Ferdinand de la Cerda dying and leaving his Sons Alphonso and Ferdinand very young the Nobility Clergy and People deposed him excluded his Grandchildren and gave the Crown to Don Sancho his younger Son sirnamed El Bravo thinking him more fit to command them against
must submit Contests will in the like manner arise concerning successions to Crowns how exactly soever they be disposed by Law For tho every one will say that the next ought to succeed yet no man knows who is the next which is too much verified by the bloody decisions of such disputes in many parts of the world and he that says the next in blood is actually King makes all questions thereupon arising impossible to be otherwise determined than by the Sword the pretender to the right being placed above the judgment of man and the Subjects for any thing I know obliged to believe serve and obey him if he says he has it For otherwise if either every man in particular or all together have a right of judging his title it can be of no value till it be adjudged I confess that the Law of France by the utter exclusion of Females and their descendents dos obviate many dangerous and inextricable difficulties but others remain which are sufficient to subvert all the Polity of that Kingdom if there be not a power of judging them and there can be none if it be true that Le mort saisit le vif Not to trouble my self with seigned cases that of Legitimation alone will suffice 'T is not enough to say that the Children born under marriage are to be reputed legitimate for not only several Children born of Joan Daughter to the King of Portugal Wife to Henry the Fourth of Castille during the time of their Marriage were utterly rejected as begotten in Adultery but also her Daughter Joan whom the King during his life and at the hour of his death acknowledged to have bin begotten by him and the only Title that Isabel who was married to Ferdinand of Arragon had to the Crown of Spain was derived from their rejection It would be tedious and might give offence to many great Persons if I should relate all the dubious cases that have bin or still remain in the World touching matters of this nature but the Lawyers of all Nations will testify that hardly any one point comes before them which affords a greater number of difficult Cases than that of Marriages and the Legitimation of Children upon them and Nations must be involved in the most inextricable difficulties if there be not a power somewhere to decide them which cannot be if there be no intermission and that the next in blood that is he who says he is the next be immediately invested with the right and power But surely no people has bin so careless of their most important Concernments to leave them in such uncertainty and simply to depend upon the humour of a man or the faith of women who besides their other Frailties have bin often accused of supposititious Births and mens passions are known to be so violent in relation to Women they love or hate that none can safely be trusted with those Judgments The virtue of the best would be exposed to a temptation that flesh and blood can hardly resist and such as are less perfect would follow no other rule than the blind impulse of the passion that for the present reigns in them There must therefore be a judg of such disputes as may in these cases arise in every Kingdom and tho 't is not my business to determine who is that judg in all places yet I may justly say that in England it is the Parliament If no inferiour Authority could debar Ignotus Son to the Lady Rosse born under the Protection from the inheritance of a private Family none can certainly assume a power of disposing of the Crown upon any occasion No Authority but that of the Parliament could legitimate the Children of Catherine Swinford with a proviso not to extend to the inheritance of the Crown Others might say if they were lawfully begotten they ought to inherit every thing and nothing if they were not But the Parliament knew how to limit a particular favour and prevent it from extending to a publick mischief Henry the Eighth took an expeditious way of obviating part of the Controversies that might arise from the multitude of his Wives by cutting off the heads of some as soon as he was weary of them or had a mind to take another but having bin hinder'd from dealing in the same manner with Catherine by the greatness of her birth and kindred he left such as the Parliament only could resolve And no less power would ever have thought of making Mary and Elizabeth capable of the succession when according to ordinary rules one of them must have bin a Bastard and it had bin absurd to say that both of them were immediately upon the death of their Predecessors possess'd of the Crown if an Act of Parliament had not conferred the right upon them which they could not have by birth But the Kings and Princes of England have not bin of a temper different from those of other Nations and many Examples may be brought of the like occasions of dispute happening every where and the like will probably be for ever which must necessarily introduce the most mischievous confusions and expose the Titles which as is pretended are to be esteemed most sacred to be overthrown by violence and fraud if there be not in all places a Power of deciding the controversies that arise from the uncertainty of Titles according to the respective Laws of every Nation upon which they are grounded No man can be thought to have a just Title till it be so adjudged by that power This judgment is the first step to the Throne The Oath taken by the King obliges him to observe the Laws of his Country and that concerning the succession being one of the principal he is obliged to keep that part as well as any other SECT XIX The greatest Enemy of a just Magistrate is he who endeavours to invalidate the Contract between him and the People or to corrupt their Manners 'T Is not only from Religion but from the Law of Nature that we learn the necessity of standing to the agreements we make and he who departs from the principle written in the hearts of men Pactis standum seems to degenerate into a beast Such as had virtue tho without true religion could tell us as a brave and excellent Grecian did that it was not necessary for him to live but it was necessary to preserve his Heart from deceit and his Tongue from falshood The Roman Satyrist carries the same Notion to a great height and affirms that tho the worst of Tyrants should command a man to be false and persar'd and back his injunction with the utmost of Torments he ought to prefer his integrity before his life And tho Filmer may be excused if he often mistake in matters of Theology yet his Inclinations to Rome which he prefers before Geneva might have led him to the Principles in which the honest Romans lived if he had not observed that such Principles as make men
Union among them and bringing every man to an exact understanding of his own and the publick Rights On the other side he that would introduce an ill Magistrate make one evil who was good or preserve him in the exercise of injustice when he is corrupted must always open the way for him by vitiating the People corrupting their Manners destroying the validity of Oaths and Contracts teaching such evasions equivocations and frauds as are inconsistent with the thoughts that become men of virtue and courage and overthrowing the confidence they ought to have in each other make it impossible for them to unite among themselves The like Arts must be used with the Magistrate he cannot be for their turn till he is perswaded to believe he has no dependence upon and ows no duty to the People that he is of himself and not by their Institution that no man ought to inquire into nor be judg of his actions that all obedience is due to him whether he be good or bad wise or foolish a father or an enemy to his Country This being calculated for his personal interest he must pursue the same designs or his Kingdom is divided within it self and cannot subsist By this means those who flatter his humour come to be accounted his Friends and the only men that are thought worthy of great Trusts whilst such as are of another mind are exposed to all persecution These are always such as excel in Virtue Wisdom and greatness of Spirit they have Eyes and they will always see the way they go and leaving fools to be guided by implicit Faith will distinguish between good and evil and chuse that which is best they will judg of men by their actions and by them discovering whose Servant every man is know whether he is to be obeyed or not Those who are ignorant of all good careless or enemies to it take a more compendious way their slavish vitious and base natures inclining them to seek only private and present advantages they easily slide into a blind dependence upon one who has Wealth and Power and desiring only to know his will care not what injustice they do if they may be rewarded They worship what they find in the Temple tho it be the vilest of Idols and always like that best which is worst because it agrees with their inclinations and principles When a party comes to be erected upon such a foundation debauchery lewdness and dishonesty are the true badges of it Such as wear them are cherished but the principal marks of favour are reserved for those who are the most industrious in mischief either by seducing the People with the allurements of sensual Pleasures or corrupting their Understandings by false and slavish Doctrines By this means a man who calls himself a Philosopher or a Divine is often more useful than a great number of Tapsters Cooks Buffoons Players Fidlers Whores or Bawds These are the Devil's Ministers of a lower Order they seduce single Persons and such as fall into their snares are for the most part men of the simpler sort but the principal supporters of his Kingdom are they who by false Doctrines poison the springs of Religion and Virtue and by preaching or writing if their falshood and wickedness were not detected would extinguish all principles of common honesty and bring whole Nations to be best satisfied with themselves when their actions are most abominable And as the means must always be sutable to the end proposed the Governments that are to be established or supported by such ways must needs be the worst of all and comprehend all manner of evil SECT XX. Unjust Commands are not to be obey'd and no man is obliged to suffer for not obeying such as are against Law IN the next place our Author gravely proposes a question Whether it be a sin to disobey the King if he command any thing contrary to Law and as gravely determines that not only in human Laws but even in Divine a thing may be commanded contrary to Law and yet obedience to such a Command is necessary The sanctifying of the Sabbath is a divine Law yet if a Master command his Servant not to go to Church upon a Sabbath day the best Divines teach us the Servant must obey c. It is not fit to tie the Master to acquaint the Servant with his secret Counsel Tho he frequently contradicts in one line what he says in another this whole Clause is uniform and sutable to the main design of his Book He sets up the authority of Man in opposition to the command of God gives it the preference and says the best Divines instruct us so to do St. Paul then must have bin one of the worst for he knew that the Powers under which he lived had under the severest penalties forbidden the publication of the Gospel and yet he says Wo to me if I preach it not St. Peter was no better than he for he tells us That it is better to obey God than Man and they could not speak otherwise unless they had forgotten the words of their Master who told them They should not fear them that could only kill the Body but him who could kill and cast into Hell And if I must not fear him that can only kill the Body not only the reason but all excuse for obeying him is taken away To prove what he says he cites a pertinent example from St. Luke and very logically concludes that because Christ reproved the hypocrisy of the Pharisees who generally adhered to the external and circumstantial part of the Law neglecting the essential and taking upon themselves to be the interpreters of that which they did not understand the Law of God is not to be obeyed and as strongly proves that because Christ shewed them that the same Law which by their own consession permitted them to pull an Ass out of a pit on the Sabbath day could not but give a liberty of healing the sick therefore the commands of Kings are to be obeyed tho they should be contrary to human and divine Laws But if perversness had not blinded him he might have seen that this very Text is wholly against his purpose for the Magistratical Power was on the side of the Pharisees otherwise they would not have sought an occasion to ensnare him and that power having perverted the Law of God by salse glosses and a superinduction of human Traditions prohibited the most necessary acts of Charity to be done on the Sabbath day which Christ reproved and restored the sick man to his health in their sight But I could wish our Author had told us the names of those Divines who he says are the best and who pretend to teach us these fine things I know some who are thought good that are of a contrary opinion and say that God having required that day to be set apart for his Service and Worship man cannot dispense with the Obligation unless he can abrogate the
Law of God Perhaps for want of other Arguments to prove the contrary I may be told that this savours too much of Puritanism and Calvinism But I shall take the reproach till some better Patrons than Laud and his creatures may be found for the other opinion By the advice and instigation of these men from about the year 1630 to 1640 sports and revelings which ended for the most part in drunkenness and lewdness were not only permitted on that day but enjoined And tho this did advance human Authority in derogation to the Divine to a degree that may please such as are of our Author's mind yet others resolving rather to obey the Laws of God than the Commands of Men could not be brought to pass the Lord's day in that manner Since that time no man except Filmer and Heylin has bin so wicked to conceive or so impudent to assert such brutal absurdities But leaving the farther consideration of the original of this abuse I desire to know whether the Authority given to Masters to command things contrary to the Law of God be peculiar in relation to the Sabbath or to a few other points or ought generally to extend to all God's Laws and whether he who may command his Servant to act contrary to the Law of God have not a right in himself of doing the same If peculiar some Authority or Precept must be produced by which it may appear that God has slighted his Ordinance concerning that day and suffer'd it to be contemned whilst he exacts obedience to all others If we have a liberty left to us of slighting others also more or less in number we ought to know how many what they are and how it comes to pass that some are of obligation and others not If the Empire of the world is not only divided between God and Cesar but every man also who can give five pounds a year to a Servant has so great a part in it that in some cases his commands are to be obeyed preferably to those of God it were fit to know the limits of each Kingdom lest we happen preposterously to obey man when we ought to obey God or God when we are to follow the commands of men If it be general the Law of God is of no effect and we may safely put an end to all thoughts and discourses of Religion the word of God is nothing to us we are not to enquire what he has commanded but what pleases our Master how insolent foolish vile or wicked soever he may be The Apostles and Prophets who died for preferring the commands of God before those of men fell like fools and perished in their sins But if every particular man that has a servant can exempt him from the commands of God he may also exempt himself and the Laws of God are at once abrogated throughout the world 'T is a folly to say there is a passive as well as an active Obedience and that he who will not do what his Master commands ought to suffer the punishment he inflicts for if the Master has a right of commanding there is a duty incumbent on the servant of obeying He that suffers for not doing that which he ought to do draws upon himself both the guilt and the punishment But no one can be obliged to suffer for that which he ought not to do because he who pretends to command has not so far an Authority However our question is whether the Servant should forbear to do that which God commands rather than whether the Master should put away or beat him if he do not for if the Servant ought to obey his Master rather than God as our Author says the best Divines assert he sins in disobeying and that guilt cannot be expiated by his suffering If it be thought I carry this point to an undue extremity the limits ought to be demonstrated by which it may appear that I exceed them tho the nature of the case cannot be altered for if the Law of God may not be abrogated by the commands of men a Servant cannot be exempted from keeping the Sabbath according to the Ordinance of God at the will of his Master But if a power be given to man at his pleasure to annul the Laws of God the Apostles ought not to have preached when they were forbidden by the Powers to which they were subject The tortures and deaths they suffer'd for not obeying that command were in their own wrong and their blood was upon their own heads His second instance concerning Wars in which he says the Subject is not to examine whether they are just or unjust but must obey is weak and frivolous and very often false whereas consequences can rightly be drawn from such things only as are certainly and universally true Tho God may be merciful to a Soldier who by the wickedness of a Magistrate whom he honestly trusts is made a Minister of injustice 't is nothing to this case For if our Author say true that the word of a King can justify him in going against the command of God he must do what is commanded tho he think it evil The Christian Soldiers under the Pagan Emperors were obliged to destroy their Brethren and the best men in the world for being so Such as now live under the Turk have the same obligation upon them of defending their Master and slaughtering those he reputes his Enemies for adhering to Christianity And the King of France may when he pleases arm one part of his Protestant Subjects to the destruction of the other which is a godly doctrine and worthy our Author's invention But if this be so I know not how the Israelites can be said to have sinned in following the examples of Jeroboam Omri Ahab or other wicked Kings they could not have sinned in obeying if it had bin a sin to disobey their commands and God would not have punished them so severely if they had not sinned 'T is impertinent to say they were obliged to serve their Kings in unjust Wars but not to serve Idols for tho God be jealous of his glory yet he forbids Rapine and Murder as well as Idolatry If there be a Law that forbids the Subject to examine the commands tending to the one it cannot but enjoin obedience to the other The same Authority which justifies Murder takes away the guilt of Idolatry and the Wretches both Judges and Witnesses who put Naboth to death could as little alledg ignorance as those that worshipped Jeroboam's Calves the same light of Nature by which they should have known that a ridiculous Image was not to be adored as God instructing them also that an innocent man ought not under pretence of Law to be murdered by perjury S E C T. XXI It cannot be for the good of the People that the Magistrate have a power above the Law and he is not a Magistrate who has not his power by Law THAT we may not be displeased or think it
amongst men that there are few examples of the contrary And as 't is folly to suppose that Princes will always be wise just and good when we know that few have bin able alone to bear the weight of a Government or to resist the temptations to ill that accompany an unlimited power it would be madness to presume they will for the future be free from infirmities and vices And if they be not the Nations under them will not be in such a condition of servitude to a good Master as the Poet compares to Liberty but in a miserable and shameful subjection to the will of those who know not how to govern themselves or to do good to others The Moses Joshua and Samuel had bin able to bear the weight of an unrestrained Power though David and Solomon had never abused that which they had what effect could this have upon a general Proposition Where are the Families that always produce such as they were When did God promise to assist all those who should attain to the Soveraign Power as he did them whom he chose for the works he designed Or what testimony can Filmer give us that he has bin present with all those who have hitherto reigned in the world But if we know that no such thing either is or has bin and can find no promise to assure us nor reason to hope that it ever will be 't is as foolish to found the hopes of preserving a People upon that which never was or is so likely to fail nay rather which in a short time most certainly will fail as to root up Vines and Figtrees in expectation of gathering grapes and figs from thistles and briars This would be no less than to extinguish the light of common sense to neglect the means that God has given us to provide for our security and to impute to him a disposition of things utterly inconsistent with his Wisdom and Goodness If he has not therefore order'd that thorns and thistles should produce figs and grapes nor that the most important works in the world which are not without the utmost difficulty if at all to be performed by the best and wisest of men should be put into the hands of the weakest most foolish and worst he cannot have ordain'd that such men women or children as happen to be born in reigning Families or get the power into their hands by fraud treachery or murder as very many have done should have a right of disposing all things according to their will And if men cannot be guilty of so great an absurdity to trust the weakest and worst with a Power which usually subverts the Wisdom and Virtue of the best or to expect such effects of Virtue and Wisdom from those who come by chance as can hardly if at all be hoped from the most excellent our Author's Proposition can neither be grounded upon the Ordinance of God nor the Institution of man Nay if any such thing had bin established by our first Parents in their simplicity the utter impossibility of attaining what they expected from it must wholly have abrogated the Establishment Or rather it had bin void from the beginning because it was not a just Sanction commanding things good and forbidding the contrary but a foolish and perverse Sanction setting up the unruly appetite of one person to the subversion of all that is good in the world by making the wisdom of the aged and experienc'd to depend upon the will of Women Children and Fools by sending the strong and the brave to seek protection from the most weak and cowardly and subjecting the most virtuous and best of men to be destroy'd by the most wicked and vicious These being the effects of that unlimited prerogative which our Author says was only instituted for the good and defence of the people it must necessarily fall to the ground unless slavery misery infamy destruction and desolation tend to the preservation of Liberty and are to be prefer'd before strength glory plenty security and happiness The state of the Roman Empire after the Usurpation of Cesar will set this matter in the clearest light but having done it already in the former parts of this work I content my self to refer to those places And tho the Calamities they suffer'd were a little allayed and moderated by the Virtues of Antoninus and M. Aurelius with one or two more yet we have no example of the continuance of them in a family nor of any Nation great or small that has bin under an absolute Power which dos not too plainly manifest that no man or succession of men is to be trusted with it But says our Author there can be no Law where there is not a supreme Power and from thence very strongly concludes it must be in the King for otherwise there can be no Sovereign Majesty in him and he is but an equivocal King This might have bin of some force if Governments were establish'd and Laws made only to advance that Sovereign Majesty but nothing at all to the purpose if as he confesses the power which the Prince has be given for the good of the People and for the defence of every private man's Life Liberty Lands and Goods for that which is instituted cannot be abrogated for want of that which was never intended in the institution If the publick Safety be provided Liberty and Propriety secured Justice administred Virtue encouraged Vice suppressed and the true interest of the Nation advanced the ends of Government are accomplished and the highest must be contented with such a proportion of Glory and Majesty as is consistent with the publick since the Magistracy is not instituted nor any person placed in it for the increase of his Majesty but for the preservation of the whole People and the defence of the Liberty Life and Estate of every private man as our Author himself is forced to acknowledg But what is this Soveraign Majesty so inseparable from Royalty that one cannot subsist without the other Caligula placed it in a power of doing what he pleased to all men Nimrod Nabuchodonosor and others with an impious and barbarous insolence boasted of the greatness of their power They thought it a glorious Privilege to kill or spare whom they pleased But such Kings as by God's permission might have bin set up over his people were to have nothing of this They were not to multiply Gold Silver Wives or Horses they were not to govern by their own will but according to the Law from which they might not recede nor raise their hearts above their brethren Here were Kings without that unlimited Power which makes up the Soveraign Majesty that Flimer affirms to be so essential to Kings that without it they are only equivocal which proving nothing but the incurable perversness of his judgment the malice of his heart or malignity of his sate always to oppose reason and truth we are to esteem those to be Kings who are
most conducing to the good ends to which it was directed As Governments were instituted for the obtaining of Justice and as our Author says the preservation of Liberty we are not to seek what Government was the first but what best provides for the obtaining of Justice and preservation of Liberty For whatsoever the Institution be and how long soever it may have lasted 't is void if it thwarts or do not provide for the ends of its establishment If such a Law or Custom therefore as is not good in it self had in the beginning prevailed in all parts of the world which in relation to absolute or any kind of Monarchy is not true it ought to be abolished and if any man should shew himself wiser than others by proposing a Law or Government more beneficial to mankind than any that had bin formerly known providing better for Justice and Liberty than all others had done he would merit the highest veneration If any man ask who shall be Judg of that rectitude or pravity which either authorises or destroys a Law I answer that as this consists not in formalities and niceties but in evident and substantial truths there is no need of any other Tribunal than that of common sense and the light of nature to determine the matter and he that travels through France Italy Turky Germany and Switzerland without consulting Bartolus or Baldus will easily understand whether the Countries that are under the Kings of France and Spain the Pope and the Great Turk or such as are under the care of a well-regulated Magistracy do best enjoy the benefits of Justice and Liberty 'T is as easily determined whether the Grecians when Athens and Thebes flourished were more free than the Medes whether Justice was better administred by Agathocles Dionysius and Phalaris than by the legal Kings and regular Magistrates of Sparta or whether more care was taken that Justice and Liberty might be preserved by Tiberius Caligula Claudius Nero and Vitellius than by the Senate and People of Rome whilst the Laws were more powerful than the commands of men The like may be said of particular Laws as those of Nabuchodonosor and Caligula for worshipping their Statues our Acts of Parliament against Hereticks and Lollards with the Statutes and Orders of the Inqusition which is called the Holy Office And if that only be a Law which is Sanctio recta jubens honesta prohibens contraria the meanest understanding if free from passion may certainly know that such as these cannot be Laws by what Authority soever they were enacted and that the use of them and others like to them ought to be abolished for their turpitude and iniquity Infinite examples of the like nature might be alledged as well concerning divine as human things And if there be any Laws which are evil there cannot be an incontestable rectitude in all and if not in all it concerns us to examine where it is to be sound Laws and Constitutions ought to be weighed and whilst all due reverence is paid to such as are good every Nation may not only retain in it self a power of changing or abolishing all such as are not so but ought to exercise that Power according to the best of their understanding and in the place of what was either at first mistaken or afterwards corrupted to constitute that which is most conducing to the establishment of Justice and Liberty But such is the condition of mankind that nothing can be so perfectly framed as not to give some testimony of human imbecility and frequently to stand in need of reparations and amendments Many things are unknown to the wisest and the best men can never wholly devest themselves of passions and affections By this means the best and wisest are sometimes led into Error and stand in need of Successors like to themselves who may find remedies for the faults they have committed and nothing can or ought to be permanent but that which is perfect No natural body was ever so well temper'd and organiz'd as not to be subject to diseases wounds or other accidents and to need medicines and other occasional helps as well as nourishment and exercise and he who under the name of Innovation would deprive Nations of the like dos as much as lies in him condemn them all to perish by the defects of their own foundations Some men observing this have proposed a necessity of reducing every State once in an age or two to the integrity of its first principle but they ought to have examined whether that principle be good or evil or so good that nothing can be added to it which none ever was and this being so those who will admit of no change would render Errors perpetual and depriving Mankind of the benefits of Wisdom Industry Experience and the right use of Reason oblige all to continue in the miserable barbarity of their Ancestors which sutes better with the name of a Wolf than that of a Man Those who are of better understanding weigh all things and often find reason to abrogate that which their fathers according to the measure of the knowledge they had or the state of things among them had rightly instituted or to restore that which they had abrogated and there can be no greater mark of a most brutish stupidity than for men to continue in an evil way because their fathers had brought them into it But if we ought not too strictly to adhere to our own Constitutions those of other Nations are less to be regarded by us for the Laws that may be good for one People are not for all and that which agrees with the manners of one Age is utterly abhorrent from those of another It were absurd to think of restoring the Laws of Lycurgus to the present inhabitants of Peloponesus who are accustomed to the most abject slavery It may easily be imagined how the Romans Sabins and Latins now under the tyranny of the Pope would relish such a discipline as flourished among them after the expulsion of the Tarquins and it had bin no less preposterous to give a liberty to the Parthians of governing themselves or for them to assume it than to impose an absolute Monarch upon the German Nation Titus Livius having observed this says that if a popular Government had bin set up in Rome immediately upon the building of the City and if that fierce people which was composed of unruly shepherds herdsmen sugitive slaves and out-law'd persons who could not suffer the Governments under which they were born had come to be incited by turbulent Orators they would have brought all into consusion whereas that boisterous humour being gradually temper'd by discipline under Romulus or taught to vent its sury against foreign enemies and soften'd by the peaceable reign of Numa a new Race grew up which being all of one blood contracted a love to their Country and became capable of Liberty which the madness of their last King and the lewdness of
his Son gave them occasion to resume If this was commendable in them it must be so in other Nations If the Germans might preserve their Liberty as well as the Parthians submit themselves to absolute Monarchy 't is as lawful for the descendents of those Germans to continue in it as for the Eastern Nations to be slaves If one Nation may justly chuse the Government that seems best to them and continue or alter it according to the changes of times and things the same right must belong to others The great variety of Laws that are or have bin in the world proceeds from this and nothing can better shew the wisdom and virtue or the vices and folly of Nations than the use they make of this right they have bin glorious or infamous powerful or despicable happy or miserable as they have well or ill executed it If it be said that the Law given by God to the Hebrews proceeding from his wisdom and goodness must needs be perfect and obligatory to all Nations I answer that there is a simple and a relative perfection the first is only in God the other in the things he has created He saw that they were good which can signify no more than that they were good in their kind and suted to the end for which he designed them For if the perfection were absolute there could be no difference between an Angel and a Worm and nothing could be subject to change or death for that is imperfection This relative perfection is seen also by his Law given to mankind in the persons of Adam and Noah It was good in the kind fit for those times but could never have bin enlarged or altered if the perfection had bin simple and no better evidence can be given to shew that it was not so than that God did asterwards give one much more full and explicit to his People This Law also was peculiarly applicable to that People and season for if it had bin otherwise the Apostles would have obliged Christians to the intire observation of it as well as to abstain from idolatry fornication and blood But if all this be not so then their judicial Law and the form of their Commonwealth must be received by all no human Law can be of any value we are all Brethren no man has a prerogative above another Lands must be equally divided amongst all Inheritances cannot be alienated for above fifty years no man can be raised above the rest unless he be called by God and enabled by his Spirit to conduct the People when this man dies he that has the same Spirit must succeed as Joshua did to Moses and his Children can have no title to his Office when such a man appears a Sanhedrim of seventy men chosen out of the whole People are to judg such causes as relate to themselves whilst those of greater extent and importance are referred to the General Assemblies Here is no mention of a King and consequently if we must take this Law for our pattern we cannot have one If the point be driven to the utmost and the precept of Deuteronomy where God permitted them to have a King if they thought fit when they came into the promised Land be understood to extend to all Nations every one of them must have the same liberty of taking their own time chusing him in their own way dividing the Kingdom having no King and setting up other Governors when they please as before the Election of Saul and after the return from the Captivity and even when they have a King he must be such a one as is describ'd in the same Chapter who no more resembles the Soveraign Majesty that our Author adores and agrees as little with his Maxims as a Tribun of the Roman People We may therefore conclude that if we are to follow the Law of Moses we must take it with all the appendages a King can be no more and no otherwise than he makes him for whatever we read of the Kings they had were extreme deviations from it No Nation can make any Law and our Lawyers burning their Books may betake themselves to the study of the Pentateuch in which tho some of them may be well versed yet probably the profit arising from thence will not be very great But if we are not obliged to live in a conformity to the Law of Moses every People may frame Laws for themselves and we cannot be denied the right that is common to all Our Laws were not sent from Heaven but made by our Ancestors according to the light they had and their present occasions We inherit the same right from them and as we may without vanity say that we know a little more than they did if we find our selves prejudic'd by any Law that they made we may repeal it The safety of the People was their supreme Law and is so to us neither can we be thought less fit to judg what conduces to that end than they were If they in any Age had bin perswaded to put themselves under the power or in our Author's phrase under the sovereign Majesty of a child a fool a mad or desperately wicked person and had annexed the right conferred upon him to such as should succeed it had not bin a just and right Sanction and having none of the qualities essentially belonging to a Law could not have the effect of a Law It cannot be for the good of a People to be governed by one who by nature ought to be governed or by age or accident is rendred unable to govern himself The publick interests and the concernments of private men in their lands goods liberties and lives for the preservation of which our Author says that regal Prerogative is only constituted cannot be preserved by one who is transported by his own passions or follies a slave to his lusts and vices or which is sometimes worse governed by the vilest of men and women who flatter him in them and push him on to do such things as even they would abhor if they were in his place The turpitude and impious madness of such an act must necessarily make it void by overthrowing the ends for which it was made since that justice which was sought cannot be obtain'd nor the evils that were fear'd prevented and they for whose good it was intended must necessarily have a right of abolishing it This might be sufficient for us tho our Ancestors had enslaved themselves But God be thanked we are not put to that trouble We have no reason to believe we are descended from such fools and beasts as would willingly cast themselves and us into such an excess of misery and shame or that they were so tame and cowardly to be subjected by force or fear We know the value they set upon their Liberties and the courage with which they defended them and we can have no better example to incourage us never to suffer them to be violated or diminished
and the Verdict is from them tho the Judges having heard the point argued declare the sense of the Law thereupon Wherefore if I should grant that the King might personally assist in judgments his work could only be to prevent frauds and by the advice of the Judges to see that the Laws be duly executed or perhaps to inspect their behaviour If he has more than this it must be by virtue of his politick capacity in which he is understood to be always present in the principal Courts where Justice is always done whether he who wears the Crown be young or old wise or ignorant good or bad or whether he like or dislike what is done Moreover as Governments are instituted for the obtaining of Justice and the King is in a great measure entrusted with the power of executing it 't is probable that the Law would have required his presence in the distribution if there had bin but one Court that at the same time he could be present in more than one that it were certain he would be guilty of no miscarriages that all miscarriages were to be punished in him as well as in the Judges or that it were certain he should always be a man of such wisdom industry experience and integrity as to be an assistance to and a watch over those who are appointed for the administration of Justice But there being many Courts sitting at the same time of equal Authority in several places far distant from each other impossible for the King to be present in all no manner of assurance that the same or greater miscarriages may not be committed in his presence than in his absence by himself than others no opportunity of punishing every delict in him without bringing the Nation into such disorder as may be of more prejudice to the publick than an injury done to a private man the Law which intends to obviate offences or to punish such as cannot be obviated has directed that those men should be chosen who are most knowing in it imposes an Oath upon them not to be diverted from the due course of justice by fear or favour hopes or reward particularly by any command from the King and appoints the severest punishments for them if they prove false to God and their Country If any man think that the words cited from Bracton by our Author upon the question Quis primo principaliter possit debeat judicare c. Sciendum est quod Rex non alius si solus ad haec sufficere possit cum ad hoc per virtutem Sacramenti teneatur are contrary to what I have said I desire the context may be considered that his opinion may be truly understood tho the words taken simply and nakedly may be enough for my purpose For 't is ridiculous to infer that the King has a right of doing any thing upon a supposition that 't is impossible for him to do it He therefore who says the King cannot do it says it must be done by others or not at all But having already proved that the King merely as King has none of the qualities required for judging all or any cases and that many Kings have all the desects of age and person that render men most unable and unfit to give any Sentence we may conclude without contradicting Bracton that no King as King has a power of judging because some of them are utterly unable and unfit to do it and if any one has such a power it must be confer'd upon him by those who think him able and fit to perform that work When Filmer finds such a man we must inquire into the extent of that power which is given to him but this would be nothing to his general proposition sor he himself would hardly have inferr'd that because a power of judging in some cases was conserred upon one Prince on account of his fitness and ability therefore all of them however unfit and unable have a power of deciding all cases Besides if he believe Bracton this power of judging is not inherent in the King but incumbent upon him by virtue of his Oath which our Author endeavours to enervate and annul But as that Oath is grounded upon the Law and the Law cannot presume impossibilities and absurdities it cannot intend and the Oath cannot require that a man should do that which he is unable and unfit to do Many Kings are unfit to judg causes the Law cannot therefore intend they should do it The Context also shews that this imagination of the King 's judging all causes if he could is merely Chymerical for Bracton says in the same Chapter that the power of the King is the power of the Law that is that he has no power but by the Law And the Law that aims at justice cannot make it to depend upon the uncertain humour of a Child a Woman or a foolish Man for by that means it would destroy it self The Law cannot therefore give any such power and the King cannot have it If it be said that all Kings are not so that some are of mature age wise just and good or that the question is not what is good sor the Subject but what is glorious to the King and that he must not lose his right tho the People perish I answer first that whatsoever belongs to Kings as Kings belongs to all Kings this Power of judging cannot belong to all for the Reasons above mentioned it cannot therefore belong to any as King nor without madness be granted to any till he has given testimony of such Wisdom Experience Diligence and Goodness as is required for so great a work It imports not what his Ancestors were Virtues are not entail'd and it were less improper for the Heirs of Hales and Harvey to pretend that the Clients and Patients of their Ancestors should depend upon their advice in matters of Law and Physick than for the Heirs of a great and wise Prince to pretend to Powers given on account of virtue if they have not the same talents for the performance of the works required Common sense declares that Governments are instituted and Judicatures erected for the obtaining of justice The Kings Bench was not established that the Chief Justice should have a great Office but that the oppressed should be relieved and right done The Honor and Profit he receives comes in as it were by accident as the rewards of his service if he rightly perform his duty but he may as well pretend he is there for his own sake as the King God did not set up Moses or Joshua that they might glory in having six hundred thousand men under their command but that they might lead the People into the Land they were to possess that is they were not for themselves but for the People and the glory they acquir'd was by rightly performing the end of their institution Even our Author is obliged to confess this when he says that the Kings Prerogative
is instituted for the good of those that are under it 'T is therefore for them that he enjoys it and it can no otherwise subsist than in concurrence with that end He also yields that the safety of the People is the supreme Law The right therefore that the King has must be conformable and subordinate to it If any one therefore set up an interest in himself that is not so he breaks this supreme Law he doth not live and reign for his People but for himself and by departing from the end of his institution destroys it and if Aristotle to whom our Author seems to have a great deference deserves credit such a one ceases to be a King and becomes a Tyrant he who ought to have bin the best of men is turned into the worst and he who is recommended to us under the name of a Father becomes a publick Enemy to the People The question therefore is not what is good for the King but what is good for the People and he can have no right repugnant to them Bracton is not more gentle The King says he is obliged by his Oath to the utmost of his power to preserve the Church and the Christian World in peace to hinder rapine and all manner of iniquity to cause justice and mercy to be observed He has no power but from the Law that only is to be taken for Law quod recté fuerit definitum he is therefore to cause justice to be done according to that rule and not to pervert it for his own pleasure profit or glory He may chuse Judges also not such as will be subservient to his will but Viros sapientes timentes Deum in quibus est veritas eloquiorum qui oderunt avaritiam Which proves that Kings and their Officers do not possess their places for themselves but for the People and must be such as are fit and able to perform the duties they undertake The mischievous fury of those who assume a power above their abilities is well represented by the known fable of Phaeton they think they desire fine things for themselves when they seek their own ruin In conformity to this the same Bracton says that If any man who is unskilful assume the seat of justice he falls as from a Precipice c. and 't is the same thing as if a sword be put into the hand of a mad man which cannot but affect the King as well as those who are chosen by him If he neglect the functions of his Office he dos unjustly and becomes the Vicegerent of the Devil for he is the Minister of him whose works he dos This is Bracton's opinion but desiring to be a more gentle Interpreter of the Law I only wish that Princes would consider the end of their institution endeavour to perform it measure their own abilities content themselves with that power which the Laws allow and abhor those Wretches who by flattery and lies endeavour to work upon their frailest Passions by which means they draw upon them that hatred of the People which frequently brings them to destruction Tho Ulpian's words Princeps legibus non tenetur be granted to have bin true in fact with relation to the Roman Empire in the time when he lived yet they can conclude nothing against us The Liberty of Rome had bin overthrown long before by the power of the Sword and the Law render'd subservient to the will of the Usurpers They were not Englishmen but Romans who lost the Battels of Pharsalia and Philippi The Carcases of their Senators not ours were exposed to the Wolves and Vulturs Pompeius Scipio Lentulus Afranius Petreius Cato Cassius and Brutus were defenders of the Roman not the English Liberty and that of their Country not ours could only be lost by their defeat Those who were destroy'd by the Proscriptions left Rome not England to be enslaved If the best had gained the victory it could have bin no advantage to us and their overthrow can be no prejudice Every Nation is to take care of their own Laws and whether any one has had the Wisdom Virtue Fortune and Power to defend them or not concerns only themselves The Examples of great and good men acting freely deserve consideration but they only perish by the ill success of their designs and whatsoever is afterwards done by their subdued Posterity ought to have no other effect upon the rest of the world than to admonish them so to join in the defence of their Liberties as never to be brought under the necessity of acting by the command of one to the prejudice of themselves and their Country If the Roman greatness perswade us to put an extraordinary value upon what passed among them we ought rather to examin what they did said or thought when they enjoy'd that Liberty which was the Mother and Nurse of their Virtue than what they suffer'd or were forc'd to say when they were fallen under that Slavery which produced all manner of corruption and made them the most base and miserable People of the world For what concerns us the Actions of our Ancestors resemble those of the antient rather than the later Romans tho our Government be not the same with theirs in form yet it is in principle and if we are not degenerated we shall rather desire to imitate the Romans in the time of their virtue glory power and felicity than what they were in that of their slavery vice shame and misery In the best times when the Laws were more powerful than the commands of men fraud was accounted a crime so detestable as not to be imputed to any but Slaves and he who had sought a power above the Law under colour of interpreting it would have bin exposed to scorn or greater punishments if any can be greater than the just scorn of the best men And as neither the Romans nor any people of the world have better defended their Liberties than the English Nation when any attempt has bin made to oppress them by force they ought to be no less careful to preserve them from the more dangerous efforts of fraud and falshood Our Ancestors were certainly in a low condition in the time of William the First Many of their best men had perished in the Civil Wars or with Harold their valour was great but rough and void of skill The Normans by frequent Expeditions into France Italy and Spain had added subtilty to the boisterous violence of their native climate William had engaged his Faith but broke it and turned the power with which he was entrusted to the ruin of those that had trusted him He destroy'd many worthy men carried others into Normandy and thought himself Master of all He was crafty bold and elated with Victory but the resolution of a brave People was invincible When their Laws and Liberties were in danger they resolved to die or to defend them and made him see he could no otherwise preserve his Crown
ready to use it and their extravagances having bin often chastised by Law sufficiently proves that their power is not derived from a higher original than the Law of their own Countries If it were true that the answer sometimes given by Kings to Bills presented for their Assent did as our Author says amount to a denial it could only shew that they have a negative voice upon that which is agreed by the Parliament and is far from a power of acting by themselves being only a check upon the other parts of the Government But indeed it is no more than an elusion and he that dos by art obliquely elude confesses he has not a right absolutely to refuse 'T is natural to Kings especially to the worst to scrue up their Authority to the height and nothing can more evidently prove the defect of it than the necessity of having recourse to such pitiful evasions when they are unwilling to do that which is required But if I should grant that the words import a denial and that notwithstanding those of the Coronation Oath Quas vulgus elegerit they might deny no more could be inferred from thence than that they are entrusted with a power equal in that point to that of either House and cannot be supreme in our Author's sense unless there were in the same State at the same time three distinct supreme and absolute Powers which is absurd His cases relating to the proceedings of the Star-Chamber and Council-Table do only prove that some Kings have encroached upon the rights of the Nation and bin suffer'd till their excesses growing to be extreme they turn'd to the ruin of the Ministers that advised them and sometimes of the Kings themselves But the jurisdiction of the Council having bin regulated by the Statute of the 17 Car. 1. and the Star-Chamber more lately abolished they are nothing to our dispute Such as our Author usually impute to treason and rebellion the changes that upon such occasions have ensued but all impartial men do not only justify them but acknowledg that all the Crowns of Europe are at this day enjoy'd by no other title than such acts solemnly performed by the respective Nations who either disliking the person that pretended to the Crown tho next in blood or the government of the present possessor have thought fit to prefer another person or family They also say that as no Government can be so perfect but some defect may be originally in it or afterwards introduced none can subsist unless they be from time to time reduced to their first integrity by such an exertion of the power of those for whose sake they were instituted as may plainly shew them to be subject to no power under Heaven but may do whatever appears to be for their own good And as the safety of all Nations consists in rightly placing and measuring this power such have bin found always to prosper who have given it to those from whom usurpations were least to be feared who have bin least subject to be awed cheated or corrupted and who having the greatest interest in the Nation were most concerned to preserve its power liberty and welfare This is the greatest trust that can be reposed in men This power was by the Spartans given to the Ephori and the Senat of twenty eight in Venice to that which they call Concilio de Pregadi in Germany Spain France Sweedland Denmark Poland Hungary Bohemia Scotland England and generally all the Nations that have lived under the Gothick Polity it has bin in their General Assemblies under the names of Diets Cortez Parliaments Senats and the like But in what hands soever it is the power of making abrogating changing correcting and interpreting Laws has bin in the same Kings have bin rejected or deposed the Succession of the Crown settled regulated or changed and I defy any man to shew me one King amongst all the Nations abovementioned that has any right to the Crown he wears unless such acts are good If this power be not well placed or rightly proportioned to that which is given to other Magistrates the State must necessarily fall into great disorders or the most violent and dangerous means must be frequently used to preserve their Liberty Sparta and Venice have rarely bin put to that trouble because the Senats were so much above the Kings and Dukes in power that they could without difficulty bring them to reason The Gothick Kings in Spain never ventur'd to dispute with the Nobility and Witza and Rodrigo exposed the Kingdom as a prey to the Moors rather by weakning it through the neglect of Military discipline joined to their own ignorance and cowardice and by evil example bringing the youth to resemble them in lewdness and baseness than by establishing in themselves a power above the Law But in England our Ancestors who seem to have had some such thing in their eye as balancing the powers by a fatal mistake placed usually so much in the hands of the King that whensoever he happened to be bad his extravagances could not be repress'd without great danger And as this has in several ages cost the Nation a vast proportion of generous blood so 't is the cause of our present difficulties and threatens us with more but can never deprive us of the rights we inherit from our fathers SECT XXVIII The English Nation has always bin governed by it self or its Representatives HAVING proved that the People of England have never acknowledged any other human Law than their own and that our Parliaments having the power of making and abrogating Laws they only can interpret them and decide hard cases it plainly appears there can be no truth in our Author's assertion that the King is the Author Corrector and Moderator of both Statute and Common Law and nothing can be more frivolous than what he adds that neither of them can be a diminution of that natural power which Kings have over their People as fathers in as much as the differences between paternal and monarchical Power as he asserts it are vast and irreconcileable in principle and practice as I have proved at large in the former parts of this Work But lest we should be too proud of the honour he is pleased to do to our Parliaments by making use of their Authority he says We are first to remember that till the Conquest which name for the glory of our Nation he gives to the coming in of the Normans there could be no Parliament assembled of the General States because we cannot learn that until those days it was intirely united in one Secondly he doubts Whether the Parliament in the time of the Saxons were composed of the Nobility and Clergy or whether the Commons were also called but concludes there could be no Knights of any Shires because there were no Shires Thirdly That Henry the first caused the Commons first to assemble Knights and Burgesses of their own chusing and would make this to be an act
person or a few were delegated by many For they who have a right inherent in themselves may resign it to others and they who can give a Power to others may exercise it themselves unless they recede from it by their own act for it is only matter of convenience of which they alone can be the Judges because 't is for themselves only that they judg If this were not so it would be very prejudicial to Kings for 't is certain that Cassivellaunus Caractatus Arviragus Galgacus Hengist Horsa and others amongst the Britans and Saxons what name soever may have bin abusively given to them were only temporary Magistrates chosen upon occasion of present Wars but we know of no time in which the Britans had not their Great Council to determine their most important Affairs and the Saxons in their own Country had their Councils where all were present and in which Tacitus assures us they dispatched their greatest business These were the same with the Micklegemots which they afterwards held here and might have bin called by the same name if Tacitus had spoken Dutch If a People therefore have not a power to create at any time a Magistracy which they had not before none could be created at all for no Magistracy is eternal And if for the validity of the Constitution it be necessary that the beginning must be unknown or that no other could have bin before it the Monarchy amongst us cannot be established upon any right for tho our Ancestors had their Councils and Magistrates as well here as in Germany they had no Monarchs This appears plainly by the testimony of Cesar and Tacitus and our later Histories show that as soon as the Saxons came into this Country they had their Micklegemots which were general Assemblies of the Noble and Free men who had in themselves the Power of the Nation and tho when they increased in numbers they erected seven Kingdoms yet every one retained the same usage within it self These Assemblies were evidently the same in power with our Parliaments and tho they differ'd in name or form it matters not for they who could act in the one could not but have a power of instituting the other that is the same people that could meet together in their own persons and according to their own pleasure order all matters relating to themselves whilst three of four Counties only were under one Government and their numbers were not so great or their habitation so far distant that they might not meet altogether without inconvenience with the same right might depute others to represent them when being joined in one no place was capable of receiving so great a multitude and that the Frontiers would have bin exposed to the danger of foreign Invasions if any such thing had bin practised But if the Authority of Parliaments for many Ages representing the whole Nation were less to be valued as our Author insinuates because they could not represent the whole when it was not joined in one body that of Kings must come to nothing for there could be no one King over all when the Nation was divided into seven distinct Governments And 't is most absurd to think that the Nation which had seven great Councils or Micklegemots at the same time they had seven Kingdoms could not as well unite the seven Councils as the seven Kingdoms into one 'T is to as little purpose to say that the Nation did not unite it self but the several parcels came to be inherited by one for that one could inherit no more from the others than what they had and the seven being only Magistrates set up by the Micklegemots c. the one must be so also And 't is neither reasonable to imagine nor possible to prove that a fierce Nation jealous of Liberty and who had obstinately defended it in Germany against all Invaders should conquer this Country to enslave themselves and purchase nothing by their valour but that servitude which they abhorred or be less free when they were united into one state than they had bin when they were divided into seven and least of all that one man could first subdue his own People and then all the rest when by endeavouring to subdue his own he had broken the trust reposed in him and lost the right conferred upon him and without them had not power to subdue any But as it is my fate almost ever to dissent from our Author I affirm that the variety of Government which is observed to have bin amongst the Saxons who in some Ages were divided in others united sometimes under Captains in other times under Kings sometimes meeting personally in the Micklegemots sometimes by their Delegates in the Wittenagemots dos evidently testify that they ordered all things according to their own pleasure which being the utmost Act of Liberty it remained inviolable under all those changes as we have already proved by the confession of Offa Ina Alfred Canutus Edward and other particular as well as universal Kings And we may be sure those of the Norman Race can have no more power since they came in by same way and swore to govern by the same Laws 2. I am no way concerned in our Author's doubt Whether Parliaments did in those days consist of Nobility and Clergy or whether the Commons were also called For if it were true as he asserts that according to the eternal Law of God and Nature there can be no Government in the World but that of an absolute Monarch whose Sovereign Majesty can be diminished by no Law or Custom there could be no Parliaments or other Magistracies that did not derive their power and being from his Will But having proved that the Saxons had their general Councils and Assemblies when they had no Kings that by them Kings were made and the greatest Affairs determined whether they had Kings or not it can be of no importance whether in one or more Ages the Commons had a part in the Government or not For the same Power that instituted a Parliament without them might when they thought fit receive them into it or rather if they who had the Government in their hands did for reasons known to themselves recede from the exercise of it they might resume it when they pleased Nevertheless it may be worth our pains to enquire what our Author means by Nobility If such as at this day by means of Patents obtained for mony or by favour without any regard to merit in the persons or their Ancestors are called Dukes Marquesses c. I give him leave to impute as late and base an Original to them as he pleases without fearing that the Rights of our Nation can thereby be impaired and am content that if the King do not think fit to support the Dignity of his own Creatures they may fall to the ground But if by Noblemen we are to understand such as have bin ennobled by the virtues of their Ancestors manifested in services done
those that conquer'd This was not the work of two men and those who had bin free at home can never be thought to have left their own Country to fight as slaves for the glory and profit of two men in another It cannot be said that their wants compelled them for their Leaders suffer'd the same and could not be relieved but by their assistance and whether their enterprize was good or bad just or unjust it was the same to all No one man could have any right peculiar to himself unless they who gained it did confer it upon him and 't is no way probable that they who in their own Country had kept their Princes within very narrow limits as has bin proved should resign themselves and all they had as soon as they came hither But we have already shewn that they always continued most obstinate defenders of their Liberty and the Government to which they had bin accustomed that they managed it by themselves and acknowledged no other Laws than their own Nay if they had made such a resignation of their Right as was necessary to create one in their Leaders it would be enough to overthrow the proposition for 't is not then the Leader that gives to the People but the People to the Leader If the people had not a right to give what they did give none was conferred upon the receiver if they had a right he that should pretend to derive a benefit from thence must prove the grant that the nature and intention of it may appear 2. To the second If it be said that Records testify all Grants to have bin originally from the King I answer That tho it were confessed which I absolutely deny and affirm that our Rights and Liberties are innate inherent and enjoy'd time out of mind before we had Kings it could be nothing to the question which is concerning Reason and Justice and if they are wanting the defect can never be supplied by any matter of fact tho never so clearly proved Or if a Right be pretended to be grounded upon a matter of fact the thing to be proved is that the people did really confer such a right upon the first or some other Kings And if no such thing do appear the proceedings of one or more Kings as if they had it can be of no value But in the present case no such grant is pretended to have bin made either to the first or to any of the following Kings the Right they had not their Successors could not inherit and consequently cannot have it or at most no better title to it than that of Usurpation But as they who enquire for truth ought not to deny or conceal any thing I may grant that Mannors c. were enjoyed by tenure from Kings but that will no way prejudice the cause I defend nor signify more than that the Countries which the Saxons had acquired were to be divided among them and to avoid the quarrels that might arise if every man took upon him to seize what he could a certain method of making the distribution was necessarily to be fixed and it was fit that every man should have something in his own hands to justify his Title to what he possessed according to which controversies should be determined This must be testified by some body and no man could be so fit or of so much credit as he who was chief among them and this is no more than is usual in all the Societies of the World The Mayor of every Corporation the Speaker or Clerk of the House of Peers or House of Commons the first President of every Parliament or Presidial in France the Consul Burgermaster Advoyer or Bailiff in every free Town of Holland Germany or Switzerland sign the publick Acts that pass in those places The Dukes of Venice and Genoa do the like tho they have no other power than what is conferred upon them and of themselves can do little or nothing The Grants of our Kings are of the same nature tho the words mero motu nostro seem to imply the contrary sor Kings speak always in the plural number to shew that they do not act for themselves but for the Societies over which they are placed and all the veneration that is or can be given to their Acts dos not exalt them but those from whom their Authority is derived and for whom they are to execute The Tyrants of the East and other Barbarians whose power is most absolute speak in the single number as appears by the decrees of Nabuchodonosor Cyrus Darius and Abasaerus recited in Scripture with others that we hear of daily from those parts but wheresoever there is any thing of civility or regularity in Government the Prince uses the plural to shew that he acts in a publick capacity From hence says Grotius the rights of Kings to send Ambassadors make Leagues c. do arise the confederacies made by them do not terminate with their lives because they are not for themselves they speak not in their own Persons but as representing their People and ae King who is depriv'd of his Kingdom loses the right of sending Ambassadors because he can no longer speak for those who by their own consent or by a foreign force are cut off from him The question is not whether such a one be justly or unjustly deprived sor that concerns only those who do it or suffer it but whether he can oblige the People and 't is ridiculous for any Nation to treat with a man that cannot perform what shall be agreed or for him to stipulate that which can oblige and will be made good only by himself But tho much may be left to the discretion of Kings in the distribution of Lands and the like yet it no way diminishes the right of the People nor consers any upon them otherwise to dispose of what belongs to the publick than may tend to the common good and the accomplishment of those ends for which they are entrusted Nay if it were true that a conquered Country did belong to the Crown the King could not dispose of it because 't is annexed to the Office and not alienable by the Person This is not only found in regular mixed Monarchies as in Sweden where the Grants made by the last Kings have bin lately rescinded by the General Assembly of Estates as contrary to Law but even in the most absolute as in France where the present King who has stretched his power to the utmost has lately acknowledged that he cannot do it and according to the known maxim of the State that the demeasnes of the Crown which are designed for the defraying of publick Charges cannot be alienated all the Grants made within the last fifteen years have bin annulled even those who had bought Lands of the Crown have bin called to account and the Sums given being compared with the profits received and a moderate interest allowed to the purchasers so much
most regular Commonwealths that ever were in the world And it can with no more reason be pretended that the Goths received their privileges from Alan or Theodoric the Francs from Pharamond or Meroveus and the English from Ina or Ethelred than that the liberty of Athens was the gift of Themistocles or Pericles that the Empire of Rome proceeded from the liberality of Brutus or Valerius and that the Commonwealth of Venice at this day subsists by the favour of the Contarini or Moresini which must reduce us to matter of right since that of fact void of right can signify nothing SECT XXXII The powers of Kings are so various according to the Constitutions of several States that no consequence can be drawn to the prejudice or advantage of any one merely from the name IN opposition to what is above said some alledg the name of King as if there were a charm in the word and our Author seems to put more weight upon it than in the reasons he brings to support his cause But that we may see there is no efficacy in it and that it conveys no other right than what particular Nations may annex to it we are to consider 1. That the most absolute Princes that are or have bin in the world never had the name of King whereas it has bin frequently given to those whose powers have bin very much restrained The Cesars were never called Kings till the sixth age of Christianity the Califs and Soldan of Egypt and Babylon the Great Turk the Cham of Tartary or the Great Mogol never took that name or any other of the same signification The Czar of Moscovy has it not tho he is as absolute a Monarch and his People as miserable slaves as any in the world On the other side the chief Magistrates of Rome and Athens for some time those of Sparta Arragon Sweden Denmark and England who could do nothing but by Law have bin called Kings This may be enough to shew that a name being no way essential what title soever is given to the chief Magistrate he can have no other power than the Laws and Customs of his Country do give or the People confer upon him 2. The names of Magistrates are often changed tho the power continue to be the same and the powers are sometimes alter'd tho the name remain When Octavius Cesar by the force of a mad corrupted Soldiery had overthrown all Law and Right he took no other title in relation to military Affairs than that of Imperator which in the time of liberty was by the Armies often given to Pretors and Consuls In Civil matters he was as he pretended content with the power of Tribun and the like was observed in his Successor who to new invented Usurpations gave old and approved names On the other side those titles which have bin render'd odious and execrable by the violent exercise of an absolute power are sometimes made popular by moderat elimitations as in Germany where tho the Monarchy seem to be as well temper'd as any the Princes retain the same names of Imperator Cesar and Augustus as those had done who by the excess of their rage and fury had desolated and corrupted the best part of world Sometimes the name is changed tho the power in all respects continue to be the same The Lords of Castille had for many Ages no other title than that of Count and when the Nobility and People thought good they changed it to that of King without any addition to the power The Sovereign Magistrate in Poland was called Duke till within the last two hundred years when they gave the title of King to one of the Jagellan Family which title has continued to this day tho without any change in the nature of the Magistracy And I presume no wise man will think that if the Venetians should give the name of King to their Duke it could confer any other power upon him than he has already unless more should be conferr'd by the Authority of the Great Council 3. The same names which in some places denote the supreme Magistracy in others are subordinate or merely titular In England France and Spain Dukes and Earls are Subjects in Germany the Electors and Princes who are called by those names are little less than Sovereigns and the Dukes of Savoy Tuscany Moscovy and others acknowledg no Superior as well as those of Poland and Castille had none when they went under those titles The same may be said of Kings Some are subject to a foreign power as divers of them were subject to the Persian and Babylonian Monarchs who for that reason were called the Kings of Kings Some also are tributaries and when the Spaniards first landed in America the great Kings of Mexico and Peru had many others under them Threescore and ten Kings gathered up meat under the table of Adonibezek The Romans had many Kings depending upon them Herod and those of his race were of this number and the dispute between him and his Sons Aristobulus and Alexander was to be determined by them neither durst he decide the matter till it was referred to him But a right of Appeal did still remain as appears by the case of St. Paul when Agrippa was King The Kings of Mauritania from the time of Massinissa were under the like dependence Jugurtha went to Rome to justify himself for the death of Micipsa Juba was commanded by the Roman Magistrates Scipio Petreius and Afranius another Juba was made King of the same Country by Augustus and Tiridates of Armenia by Nero and infinite examples of this nature may be alledged Moreover their powers are variously regulated according to the variety of tempers in Nations and Ages Some have restrained the powers that by experience were found to be exorbitant others have dissolved the bonds that were laid upon them and Laws relating to the institution abrogation enlargement or restriction of the regal Power would be utterly insignificant if this could not be done But such Laws are of no effect in any other Country than where they are made The lives of the Spartans did not depend upon the will of Agesilaus or Leonidas because Nabuchodonosor could kill or save whom he pleased and tho the King of Marocco may stab his Subjects throw them to the Lions or hang them upon tenterhooks yet a King of Poland would probably be called to a severe account if he should unjustly kill a single man SECT XXXIII The Liberty of a People is the gift of God and Nature IF any man ask how Nations come to have the power of doing these things I answer that Liberty being only an exemption from the dominion of another the question ought not to be how a Nation can come to be free but how a man comes to have a dominion over it for till the right of Dominion be proved and justified Liberty subsists as arising from the Nature and Being of a man Tertullian speaking of the
remedy for this unless he allow that Laws made without Kings are as good as those made with them which returns to my purpose for they who have the power of making Laws may by Law make a King as well as any other Magistrate And indeed the intention of this Statute could be no other than to secure mens Persons and Possessions and so far to declare the power of giving and taking away the Crown to be in the Parliament as to remove all disputes concerning titles and to make him to be a Legal King whom they acknowledge to be King SECT XXXVI The general revolt of a Nation cannot be called a Rebellion AS Impostors seldom make lies to pass in the world without putting false names upon things such as our Author endeavour to perswade the People they ought not to defend their Liberties by giving the name of Rebellion to the most just and honourable actions that have bin performed for the preservation of them and to aggravate the matter fear not to tell us that Rebellion is like the sin of Witchcraft But those who seek after truth will easily find that there can be no such thing in the world as the rebellion of a Nation against its own Magistrates and that rebellion is not always evil That this may appear it will not be amiss to consider the word as well as the thing understood by it as it is used in an evil sense The word is taken from the Latin rebellare which signifies no more than to renew a war When a Town or Province had bin subdued by the Romans and brought under their dominion if they violated their Faith after the settlement of Peace and invaded their Masters who had spared them they were said to rebel But it had bin more absurd to apply that word to the People that rose against the Decemviri Kings or other Magistrates than to the Parthians or any of those Nations who had no dependence upon them for all the circumstances that should make a Rebellion were wanting the word implying a superiority in them against whom it is as well as the breach of an establish'd Peace But tho every private man singly taken be subject to the commands of the Magistrate the whole body of the People is not so for he is by and for the People and the People is neither by nor for him The obedience due to him from private men is grounded upon and measured by the General Law and that Law regarding the welfare of the People cannot set up the interest of one or a few men against the publick The whole body therefore of a Nation cannot be tied to any other obedience than is consistent with the common good according to their own judgment and having never bin subdued or brought to terms of peace with their Magistrates they cannot be said to revolt or rebel against them to whom they owe no more than seems good to themselves and who are nothing of or by themselves more than other men Again the thing signified by rebellion is not always evil for tho every subdued Nation must acknowledg a superiority in those who have subdued them and rebellion do imply a breach of the peace yet that superiority is not infinite the peace may be broken upon just grounds and it may be neither a crime nor infamy to do it The Privernates had bin more than once subdued by the Romans and had as often rebelled Their City was at last taken by Plautius the Consul after their Leader Vitruvius and great numbers of their Senate and People had bin kill'd Being reduced to a low condition they sent Ambassadors to Rome to desire peace where when a Senator asked them what punishment they deserved one of them answered The same which they deserve who think themselves worthy of Liberty The Consul then demanded what kind of Peace might be expected from them if the punishment should be remitted The Ambassador answer'd If the terms you give be good the Peace will be observed by us faithfully and perpetually if bad it will soon be broken And tho some were offended with the ferocity of the answer yet the best part of the Senat approved it as worthy of a man and a freeman and confessing that no Man or Nation would continue under an uneasy condition longer than they were compell'd by force said They only were fit to be made Romans who thought nothing valuable but Liberty Upon which they were all made Citizens of Rome and obtained whatsoever they had desired I know not how this matter can be carried to a greater height for if it were possible that a People resisting oppression and vindicating their own Liberty could commit a crime and incur either guilt or infamy the Privernates did who had bin often subdued and often pardoned but even in the judgment of their Conquerors whom they had offended the resolution they professed of standing to no agreement imposed upon them by necessity was accounted the highest testimony of such a virtue as rendred them worthy to be admitted into a Society and equality with themselves who were the most brave and virtuous people of the world But if the patience of a conquer'd People may have limits and they who will not bear oppression from those who had spared their Lives may deserve praise and reward from their conquerors it would be madness to think that any Nation can be obliged to bear whatsoever their own Magistrates think fit to do against them This may seem strange to those who talk so much of conquests made by Kings Immunities Liberties and Privileges granted to Nations Oaths of Allegiance taken and wonderful benefits conferred upon them But having already said as much as is needful concerning Conquests and that the Magistrate who has nothing except what is given to him can only dispense out of the publick Stock such Franchises and Privileges as he has received for the reward of Services done to the Country and encouragement of Virtue I shall at present keep my self to the two last points Allegiance signifies no more as the words ad legem declare than such an obedience as the Law requires But as the Law can require nothing from the whole People who are masters of it Allegiance can only relate to particulars and not to the whole No Oath can bind any other than those who take it and that only in the true sense and meaning of it but single men only take this Oath and therefore single men are only obliged to keep it the body of a People neither dos nor can perform any such act Agreements and Contracts have bin made as the Tribe of Judah and the rest of Israel afterward made a Covenant with David upon which they made him King but no wise man can think that the Nation did thereby make themselves the Creature of their own Creature The sense also of an Oath ought to be considered No man can by an Oath be obliged to any thing
Valerius against the Decemviri and whoever should do otherwise might for sottishness be compared to the Courtiers of the two last Kings of Spain The first of these by name Philip the third being indisposed in cold weather a Braziero of Coals was brought into his Chamber and placed so near to him that he was cruelly scorched A Nobleman then present said to one who stood by him The King burns the other answered it was true but the Page whose Office it was to bring and remove the Braziero was not there and before he could be found his Majesty's Legs and Face were so burnt that it caus'd an Erysipelas of which he died Philip the fourth escaped not much better who being surprized as he was hunting by a violent storm of Rain and Hail and no man presuming to lend the King a Cloak he was so wet before the Officer could be found who carried his own that he took a cold which cast him into a dangerous Fever If Kings like the consequences of such a Regularity they may cause it to be observed in their own families but Nations looking in the first place to their own safety would be guilty of the most extreme stupidity if they should suffer themselves to be ruined for adhering to such Ceremonies This is said upon a supposition that the whole power of calling and dissolving Parliaments is by the Law placed in the King but I utterly deny that it is so and to prove it shall give the following Reasons 1. That the King can have no such Power unless it be given to him for every man is originally free and the same power that makes him King gives him all that belongs to his being King 'T is not therefore an inherent but a delegated Power and whoever receives it is accountable to those that gave it for as our Author is forced to confess they who give Authority by Commission do always retain more than they grant 2. The Law for annual Parliaments expresly declares it not to be in the King's power as to the point of their meeting nor consequently their continuance For they meet to no purpose if they may not continue to do the work for which they meet and it were absurd to give them a power of meeting if they might not continue till it be done For as Grotius says Qui dat finem dat media ad finem necessaria The only reason why Parliaments do meet is to provide for the publick good and they by Law ought to meet for that end They ought not therefore to be dissolved till it be accomplished For this reason the opinion given by Tresilian that Kings might dissolve Parliaments at their pleasure was judged to be a principal part of his Treason 3. We have already proved that Saxons Danes Normans c. who had no title to the Crown were made Kings by Micklegemots Wittenagemots and Parliaments that is either by the whole People or their Representatives Others have bin by the same Authority restrained brought to order or deposed But as it is impossible that such as were not Kings and had no title to be Kings could by virtue of a kingly Power call Parliaments when they had none and absurd to think that such as were in the Throne who had not govern'd according to Law would suffer themselves to be restrain'd imprisoned or deposed by Parliaments called and sitting by themselves and still depending upon their will to be or not to be 'T is certain that Parliaments have in themselves a Power of sitting and acting for the publick Good 2. To the second The various customs used in Elections are nothing to this question In the Counties which make up the Body of the Nation all Freeholders have their Votes these are properly Cives Members of the Commonwealth in distinction from those who are only Incolae or Inhabitants Vilains and such as being under their Parents are not yet sui juris These in the beginning of the Saxons reign in England composed the Micklegemots and when they grew to be so numerous that one place could not contain them or so far dispersed that without trouble and danger they could not leave their habitations they deputed such as should represent them When the Nation came to be more polished to inhabit Cities and Towns and to set up several Arts and Trades those who exercised them were thought to be as useful to the Commonwealth as the Freeholders in the Country and to deserve the same Privileges But it not being reasonable that every one should in this case do what he pleased it was thought fit that the King with his Council which always consisted of the Proceres and Magnates Regni should judg what numbers of men and what places deserved to be made Corporations or Bodies Politick and to enjoy those Privileges by which he did not confer upon them any thing that was his but according to the trust reposed in him did dispense out of the publick Stock parcels of what he had received from the whole Nation And whether this was to be enjoy'd by all the Inhabitants as in Westminster by the Common Hall as in London or by the Mayor Aldermen Jurats and Corporation as in other places 't is the same thing for in all these cases the King dos only distribute not give and under the same condition that he might call Parliaments that is for the publick good This indeed increases the Honor of the person intrusted and adds weight to the obligation incumbent upon him but can never change the nature of the thing so as to make that an inherent which is only a delegated Power And as Parliaments when occasion required have bin assembled have refus'd to be dissolved till their work was finished have severely punished those who went about to perswade Kings that such matters depended absolutely upon their will and made Laws to the contrary 't is not to be imagined that they would not also have interposed their Authority in matters of Charters if it had bin observed that any King had notoriously abused the trust reposed in him and turned the Power to his privat advantage with which he was entrusted for the publick good That which renders this most plain and safe is that men chosen in this manner to serve in Parliament do not act by themselves but in conjunction with others who are sent thither by prescription nor by a Power derived from Kings but from those that chuse them If it be true therefore that those who delegate Powers do always retain to themselves more than they give they who send these men do not give them an absolute power of doing whatsoever they please but retain to themselves more than they confer upon their Deputies They must therefore be accountable to their Principals contrary to what our Author asserts This continues in force tho he knows not that any Knights and Burgesses have ever bin questioned by those that sent them sor it cannot be concluded they ought not
and safe 2. That 't is good as well for the Magistrate as the People so to constitute the Government that the Remedies may be easy and safe 3. That how dangerous and difficult soever they may be through the defects of the first Constitution they must be tried To the first 'T is most evident that in well-regulated Governments these Remedies have bin found to be easy and safe The Kings of Sparta were not suffer'd in the least to deviate from the rule of the Law And Theopompus one of those Kings in whose time the Ephori were created and the regal Power much restrained doubted not to affirm that it was by that means become more lasting and more secure Pausanias had not the name of King but commanded in the War against Xerxes with more than regal Power nevertheless being grown insolent he was without any trouble to that State banished and afterwards put to death Leontidas Father of Cleomenes was in the like manner banished The second Agis was most unjustly put to death by the Ephori for he was a brave and a good Prince but there was neither danger nor difficulty in the action Many of the Roman Magistrates after the expulsion of the Kings seem to have been desirous to extend their Power beyond the bounds of the Law and perhaps some others as well as the Decemviri may have designed an absolute Tyranny but the first were restrained and the others without much difficulty suppressed Nay even the Kings were so well kept in order that no man ever pretended to the Crown unless he were chosen nor made any other use of his Power than the Law permitted except the last Tarquin who by his insolence avarice and cruelty brought ruin upon himself and his family I have already mentioned one or two Dukes of Venice who were not less ambitious but their crimes returned upon their own heads and they perished without any other danger to the State than what had passed before their Treasons were discovered Infinite examples of the like nature may be alledged and if matters have not at all times and in all places succeeded in the same manner it has bin because the same courses were not every where taken for all things do so far follow their causes that being order'd in the same manner they will always produce the same effects 2. To the second Such a regulation of the magistratical Power is not at all grievous to a good Magistrate He who never desires to do any thing but what he ought cannot desire a Power of doing what he ought not nor be troubled to find he cannot do that which he would not do if he could This inability is also advantageous to those who are evil or unwise that since they cannot govern themselves a Law may be imposed upon them lest by following their own irregular will they bring destruction upon themselves their families and people as many have done If Apollo in the Fable had not bin too indulgent to Phaeton in granting his ill-conceiv'd request the furious Youth had not brought a necessity upon Jupiter either of destroying him or suffering the world to be destroy'd by him Besides good and wise men know the weight of Sovereign Power and misdoubt their own strength Sacred and human Histories furnish us with many examples of those who have feared the lustre of a Crown Men that find in themselves no delight in doing mischief know not what thoughts may insinuate into their minds when they are raised too much above their Sphere They who were able to bear adversity have bin precipitated into ruin by prosperity When the Prophet told Hazael the Villanies he would commit he answer'd Is thy Servant a dog that I should do these things but yet he did them I know not where to find an example of a man more excellently qualified than Alexander of Macedon but he fell under the weight of his own fortune and grew to exceed those in vice whom he had conquer'd by his virtue The nature of man can hardly suffer such violent changes without being disorder'd by them and every one ought to enter into a just diffidence of himself and fear the temptations that have destroy'd so many If any man be so happily born so carefully educated so established in virtue that no storm can shake him nor any poison corrupt him yet he will consider he is mortal and knowing no more than Solomon whether his Son shall be a wise man or a fool he will always fear to take upon him a power which must prove a most pestilent evil both to the person that has it and to those that are under it as soon as it shall fall into the hands of one who either knows not how to use it or may be easily drawn to abuse it Supreme Magistrates always walk in obscure and flippery places but when they are advanced so high that no one is near enough to support direct or restrain them their fall is inevitable and mortal And those Nations that have wanted the prudence dence rightly to balance the powers of their Magistrates have bin frequently obliged to have recourse to the most violent remedies and with much difficulty danger and blood to punish the crimes which they might have prevented On the other side such as have bin more wise in the constitution of their Governments have always had regard to the frailty of human nature and the corruption reigning in the hearts of men and being less liberal of the power over their lives and liberties have reserved to themselves so much as might keep their Magistrates within the limits of the Law and oblige them to perform the ends of their institution And as the Law which denounces severe penalties for crimes is indeed merciful both to ill men who are by that means deterred from committing them and to the good who otherwise would be destroy'd so those Nations that have kept the reins in their hands have by the same act provided as well for the safety of their Princes as for their own They who know the Law is well defended seldom attempt to subvert it they are not easily tempted to run into excesses when such bounds are set as may not safely be transgressed and whilst they are by this means render'd more moderate in the exercise of their Power the people is exempted from the odious necessity of suffering all manner of indignities and miseries or by their destruction to prevent or avenge them 3. To the third If these rules have not bin well observed in the first constitution or from the changes of times corruption of manners insensible encroachments or violent usurpations of Princes have bin render'd ineffectual and the people exposed to all the calamities that may be brought upon them by the weakness vices and malice of the Prince or those who govern him I confess the remedies are more difficult and dangerous but even in those cases they must be tried Nothing can be fear'd that is worse
In the other by the Parliament which being the representative body of the People and the collected wisdom of the Nation is least subject to error most exempted from passion and most free from corruption their own good both publick and private depending upon the rectitude of their Sanctions Thev cannot do any thing that is ill without damage to themselves and their posterity which being all that can be done by human understanding our Lives Liberties and Properties are by our Laws directed to depend upon them SECT XLIII Proclamations are not Laws Our Author according to his usual method and integrity lays great weight upon Proclamations as the significations of the King's pleasure which in his opinion is our only Law But neither Law nor Reason openly directing nor by consequences insinuating that such a Power should be put into an uncertain or suspected hand we may safely deny them to be Laws or in any sense to have the effect of Laws Nay they cannot be so much as significations of his will for as he is King he can have no will but as the Law directs If he depart from the Law he is no longer King and his will is nothing to us Proclamations at most are but temporary by the advice of Council in pursuance of the Law If they be not so the Subject is no way obliged to obey them and the Counsellors are to be punished for them These Laws are either immemorial Customs or Statutes The first have their beginning and continuance from the universal consent of the Nation The latter receive their Authority and Force of Laws from Parliaments as is frequently expressed in the Preambles These are under God the best defence of our Lives Liberties and Estates they proceed not from the blind corrupt and fluctuating humor of a man but from the mature deliberation of the choicest Persons of the Nation and such as have the greatest interest in it Our Ancestors have always relied upon these Laws and 't is to be hoped we shall not be so abandoned by God so deprived of courage and common sense to suffer our selves to be cheated of the Inheritance which they have so frequently so bravely and so constantly defended Tho experience has too well taught us that Parliaments may have their failings and that the Vices which are industriously spread amongst them may be too prevalent yet they are the best helps we have and we may much more reasonably depend upon them than upon those who propagate that corruption among them for which only they can deserve to be suspected We hope they will take care of our concernments since they are as other men so soon as a Session is ended and can do nothing to our prejudice that will not equally affect them and their posterity besides the guilt of betraying their Country which can never be washed off If some should prove false to their trust 't is probable that others would continue in their integrity Or if the base arts which are usually practised by those who endeavour to delude corrupt enslave and ruin Nations should happen to prevail upon the youngest and weakest it may be reasonably hoped that the wisest will see the snares and instruct their companions to avoid them But if all things were so put into the hands of one man that his Proclamations were to be esteemed Laws the Nation would be exposed to ruin as soon as it should chance to fall into an ill hand 'T is in vain to say we have a good King who will not make an ill use of his power for even the best are subject to be deceived by flatterers and Crown'd heads are almost ever encompassed by them The principal art of a Courtier is to observe his Master's passions and to attack him on that side where he seems to be most weak It would be a strange thing to find a man impregnable in every part and if he be not 't is impossible he should resist all the attempts that are made upon him If his Judgment come to be prepossess'd he and all that depend on him are lost Contradictions tho never so just are then unsafe and no man will venture upon them but he who dares sacrifice himself for the publick good The nature of man is frail and stands in need of assistance Virtuous actions that are profitable to a Commonwealth ought to be made as far as it is possible safe easy and advantageous and 't is the utmost imprudence to tempt men to be enemies to the publick by making the most pernicious actions to be the means of obtaining honour and favour whilst no man can serve his Country but with the ruin of himself and his family However in this case the question is not concerning a person the same Counsels are to be follow'd when Moses or Samuel is in the Throne as if Caligula had invaded it Laws ought to aim at perpetuity but the Virtues of a man die with him and very often before him Those who have deserved the highest praises for wisdom and integrity have frequently left the honors they enjoyed to foolish and vicious children If virtue may in any respect be said to outlive the person it can only be when good men frame such Laws and Constitutions as by favouring it preserve themselves This has never bin done otherwise than by balancing the Powers in such a manner that the corruption which one or a few men might fall into should not be suffer'd to spread the contagion to the ruin of the whole The long continuance of Lycurgus his Laws is to be attributed to this They restrained the lusts of Kings and reduced those to order who adventured to transgress them Whereas the whole fabrick must have fallen to the ground in a short time if the first that had a fancy to be absolute had bin able to effect his design This has bin the fate of all Governments that were made to depend upon the virtue of a man which never continues long in any family and when that fails all is lost The Nations therefore that are so happy to have good Kings ought to make a right use of them by establishing the good that may outlast their lives Those of them that are good will readily join in this work and take care that their Successors may be obliged in doing the like to be equally beneficial to their own families and the people they govern If the rulers of Nations be restrained not only the people is by that means secured from the mischiefs of their vices and follies but they themselves are preserved from the greatest temptations to ill and the terrible effects of the vengeance that frequently ensues upon it An unlimited Prince might be justly compared to a weak ship exposed to a violent storm with a vast Sail and no Rudder We have an eminent example of this in the book of Esther A wicked Villain having filled the ears of a foolish King with false stories of the Jews he issues out
unless the whole body of the Nation for which they serve and who are equally concerned in their resolutions could be assembled This being impracticable the only punishment to which they are subject if they betray their trust is scorn infamy hatred and an assurance of being rejected when they shall again seek the same honor And tho this may seem a small matter to those who fear to do ill only from a sense of the pains inflicted yet it is very terrible to men of ingenuous spirits as they are supposed to be who are accounted fit to be entrusted with so great Powers But why should this be Liberty with a mischief if it were otherwise or how the liberty of particular Societies world be greater if they might do what they pleased than whilst they send others to act for them such wise men only as Filmer can tell us For as no man or number of men can give a Power which he or they have not the Achaians Etolians Latins Samnites and Tuscans who transacted all things relating to their Associations by Delegates and the Athenians Carthaginians and Romans who kept the power of the State in themselves were all equally free And in our days the United Provinces of the Netherlands the Switsers and Grisons who are of the first sort and the Venetians Genoeses and Luccheses who are of the other are so also All men that have any degree of common sense plainly see that the Liberty of those who act in their own persons and of those who send Delegates is perfectly the same and the exercise is and can only be changed by their consent But whatever the Law or Custom of England be in this point it cannot concern our question The general proposition concerning a Patriarchical Power cannot be proved by a single example If there be a general power every where forbidding Nations to give instructions to their Delegates they can do it no where If there be no such thing every people may do it unless they have deprived themselves of their right all being born under the same condition 'T is to no purpose to say that the Nations before mentioned had not Kings and therefore might act as they did For if the general Thesis be true they must have Kings and if it be not none are obliged to have them unless they think fit and the Kings they make are their Creatures But many of these Nations had either Kings or other Magistrates in power like to them The Provinces of the Netherlands had Dukes Earls or Marquesses Genoa and Venice have Dukes If any on account of the narrowness of their Territories have abstained from the name it dos not alter the case for our dispute is not concerning the name but the right If that one man who is in the principal Magistracy of every Nation must be reputed the Father of that people and has a Power which may not be limited by any Law it imports not what he is called But if in small Territories he may be limited by Laws he may be so also in the greatest The least of men is a man as well as a Giant And those in the West-Indies who have not above twenty or thirty Subjects able to bear Arms are Kings as well as Xerxes Every Nation may divide it self into small parcels as some have done by the same Law they have restrained or abolished their Kings joined to one another or taken their hazard of subsisting by themselves acted by delegation or retaining the Power in their own persons given finite or indefinite Powers reserved to themselves a power of punishing those who should depart from their duty or referred it to their General Assemblies And that Liberty for which we contend as the Gift of God and Nature remains equally to them all If men who delight in cavilling should say that great Kingdoms are not to be regulated by the Examples of small States I desire to know when it was that God ordained great Nations should be Slaves and deprived of all right to dispose matters relating to their Government whilst he left to such as had or should divide themselves into small parcels a right of making such Constitutions as were most convenient for them When this is resolved we ought to be informed what extent of territory is required to deserve the name of a great Kingdom Spain and France are esteemed great and yet the Deputies or Procuradores of the several parts of Castille did in the Cortez held at Madrid in the beginning of Charles the fifths reign excuse themselves from giving the supplies he desired because they had received no orders in that particular from the Towns that sent them and afterwards receiving express orders not to do it they gave his Majesty a flat denial The like was frequently done during the reigns of that great Prince and of his Son Philip the second And generally those Procuradores never granted any thing of importance to either of them without particular Orders from their Principals The same way was taken in France as long as there were any General Assemblies of Estates and if it do not still continue 't is because there are none For no man who understood the Affairs of that Kingdom did ever deny that the Deputies were obliged to follow the Orders of those who sent them And perhaps if men would examin by what means they came to be abolished they might find that the Cardinals de Richelieu and Mazarin with other Ministers who have accomplished that work were acted by some other principle than that of Justice or the establishment of the Laws of God and Nature In the General Assembly of Estates held at Blois in the time of Henry the third Bodin then Deputy for the third Estate of Vermandois by their particular Order proposed so many things as took up a great part of their time Other Deputies alledged no other reason for many things said and done by them highly contrary to the King's will than that they were commanded so to do by their superiors These General Assemblies being laid aside the same Custom is still used in the lesser Assemblies of Estates in Languedoc and Britany The Deputies cannot without the infamy of betraying their Trust and fear of punishment recede from the Orders given by their principals and yet we do not find that Liberty with a mischief is much more predominant in France than amongst us The same method is every day practised in the Diets of Germany The Princes and great Lords who have their places in their own right may do what they please but the Deputies of the Cities must follow such Orders as they receive The Histories of Denmark Sweden Poland and Bohemia testify the same thing and if this Liberty with a mischief do not still continue entire in all those places it has bin diminished by such means as sute better with the manners of Pirats than the Laws of God and Nature If England therefore do not still enjoy
of Parliament and to pick out what might serve her turn but frequently passed forty or fifty in a Session without reading one of them She knew that she did not reign for her self but for her People that what was good for them was either good for her or that her good ought not to come into competition with that of the whole Nation and that she was by Oath obliged to pass such Laws as were presented to her on their behalf This not only shews that there is no such thing as a Legislative Power placed in Kings by the Laws of God and Nature but that Nations have it in themselves It was not by Law nor by Right but by Usurpation Fraud and Perjury that some Kings took upon them to pick what they pleased out of the publick Acts. Henry the fifth did not grant us the right of making our own Laws but with his approbation we abolished a detestable abuse that might have proved fatal to us And if we examine our History we shall find that every good and generous Prince has sought to establish our Liberties as much as the most base and wicked to infringe them THE END THE TABLE CHAP. I. SEction 1. The Introduction Page 1. Sect. 2. The common notions of Liberty are not from School-Divines but from Nature p. 5. Sect. 3. Implicit Faith belongs to Fools and Truth is comprehended by examining Principles p. 8. Sect. 4. The Rights of particular Nations cannot subsist if general Principles contrary to them are received as true p. 11. Sect. 5. To depend upon the will of a man is slavery p. 12. Sect. 6. God leaves to man the choice of forms in Government and those who constitute one form may abrogate it p. 14. Sect. 7. Abraham and the Patriarchs were not Kings p. 17. Sect. 8. Nimrod was the first King during the life of Chusn Cham Shem and Noah p. 19. Sect. 9. The Power of a Father belongs only to a Father p. 22. Sect. 10. Such as enter into Society must in some degree diminish their Liberty p. 23. Sect. 11. No man comes to command many unless by consent or by force p. 24. Sect. 12. The pretended paternal Right is divisible or indivisible if divisible 't is extinguished if indivisible universal p. 25. Sect. 13. There was no shadow of a paternal Kingdom amongst the Hebrews nor precept for it p. 27. Sect. 14. If the paternal Right had included Dominion and was to be transferr'd to a single Heir it must perish if he were not known and could be applied to no other person p. 30. Sect. 16. The Antients chose those to be Kings who excell'd in the Virtues that are most beneficial to Civil Societies p. 36. Sect. 17. God having given the Government of the World to no one man nor declared how it should be divided left it to the will of man p. 41. Sect. 18. If a right of Dominion were esteemed hereditary according to the Law of Nature a multitude of destructive and inextricable Controversies would thereupon arise p. 45. Sect. 19. Kings cannot confer the Right of Father upon Princes nor Princes upon Kings p. 48. Sect. 20. All just Magistratical Power is from the People p. 54. CHAP. II. SECT 1. That 't is natural for Nations to govern or to chuse Governors and that Virtue only gives a natural preference of one man above another or reason why one should be chosen rather than another p. 59. Sect. 2. Every man that hath Children hath the right of a Father and is capable of preferment in a Society composed of many p. 67. Sect. 3. Government is not instituted for the good of the Governor but of the Governed and Power is not an advantage but a burden p. 70. Sect. 4. The paternal Right devolves to and is inherited by all the Children p. 71. Sect. 5. Free men join together and frame greater or lesser Societies and give such forms to them as best pleases themselves p. 75. Sect. 6. They who have a right of chusing a King have the right of making a King p. 83. Sect. 7. The Laws of every Nation are the measure of magistratical Power p. 87. Sect. 8. There is no natural propensity in man or beast to Monarchy p. 94. Sect. 9. The Government instituted by God over the Israelites was Aristocratical p. 96. Sect. 10. Aristotle was not simply for Monarchy or against Popular Government but approved or disapproved of either according to circumstances p. 102. Sect. 11. Liberty produceth Virtue Order and Stability Slavery is accompanied with Vice Weakness and Misery p. 104. Sect. 12. The Glory Virtue and Power of the Romans began and ended with their Liberty p. 112. Sect. 13. There is no disorder or prejudice in changing the name or number of Magistrates whilst the root and principle of their Power continues intire p. 117. Sect. 14. No Sedition was hurtful to Rome till through their prosperity some men gained a Power above the Laws p. 120. Sect. 15. The Empire of Rome perpetually decay'd when it fell into the hands of one man p. 123. Sect. 16. The best Governments of the World have bin composed of Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy p. 130. Sect. 17. Good Governments admit of changes in the Superstructures whilst the Foundations remain unchangeable p. 134. Sect. 18. Xenophon in blaming the disorders of Democracies favours Aristocracies not Monarchies p. 138. Sect. 19. That corruption and venality which is natural to Courts is seldom found in Popular Governments p. 145. Sect. 20. Man's natural love to Liberty is temper'd by Reason which originally is his nature p. 151. Sect. 21. Mixed and Popular Governments preserve Peace and manage Wars better than Absolute Monarchies p. 154. Sect. 22. Commonwealths seek Peace or War according to the variety of their Constitutions p. 159. Sect. 23. That is the best Government which provides best for War p. 165. Sect. 24. Popular Governments are less subject to Civil disorders than Monarchies manage them more ably and more easily recover out of them p. 172. Sect. 25. Courts are more subject to venality and corruption than Popular Governments p. 200. Sect. 26. Civil Tumults and Wars are not the greatest evils that befal Nations p. 206. Sect. 27. The mischiefs and cruelties proceeding from Tyranny are greater than any that can come from popular or mixed Governments p. 210. Sect. 28. Men living under popular or mixed Governments are more careful of the publick Good than in Absolute Monarchies p. 215. Sect. 29. There is no assurance that the distempers of a State shall be cured by the wisdom of a Prince p. 223. Sect. 30. A Monarchy cannot be well regulated unless the Powers of the Monarch are limited by Law p. 229. Sect. 31. The Liberties of Nations are from God and Nature not from Kings p. 242. Sect. 32. The Contracts made between Magistrates and the Nations that created them were real solemn and obligatory p. 247. CHAP. III. SECT 1. Kings not being Fathers of their People nor
is established over all and no Limits can be set to the Power of the Person that manages it This is the Prerogative or as another Author of the same stamp calls it The Royal Charter granted to Kings by God They all have an equal right to it Women and Children are Patriarchs and the next in Blood without any regard to Age Sex or other Qualities of the Mind or Body are Fathers of as many Nations as fall under their power We are not to examine whether he or she be young or old virtuous or vicious sober minded or stark mad the Right and Power is the same in all Whether Virtue be exalted or suppressed whether he that bears the Sword be a Praise to those that do well and a Terror to those that do evil or a Praise to those that do evil and a Terror to such as do well it concerns us not for the King must not lose his Right nor have his Power diminished on any account I have bin sometimes apt to wonder how things of this nature could enter into the head of any Man Or if no wickedness or folly be so great but some may fall into it I could not well conceive why they should publish it to the World But these thoughts ceased when I considered that a People from all Ages in love with Liberty and desirous to maintain their own Privileges could never be brought to resign them unless they were made to believe that in Conscience they ought to do it which could not be unless they were also perswaded to believe that there was a Law set to all Mankind which none might transgress and which put the examination of all those Matters out of their power This is our Author's Work By this it will appear whose Throne he seeks to advance and whose Servant he is whilst he pretends to serve the King And that it may be evident he hath made use of Means sutable to the Ends proposed for the Service of his great Master I hope to shew that he hath not used one Argument that is not false nor cited one Author whom he hath not perverted and abused Whilst my work is so to lay open these Snares that the most simple may not be taken in them I shall not examin how Sir Robert came to think himself a Man fit to undertake so great a work as to destroy the principles which from the beginning seem to have bin common to all Mankind but only weighing the Positions and Arguments that he alledgeth will if there be either truth or strength in them confess the discovery comes from him that gave us least reason to expect it and that in spight of the Antients there is not in the world a piece of Wood out of which a Mercury may not be made SECT II. The common Notions of Liberty are not from School Divines but from Nature IN the first lines of his Book he seems to denounce War against Mankind endeavouring to overthrow the principle of Liberty in which God created us and which includes the chief advantages of the life we enjoy as well as the greatest helps towards the felicity that is the end of our hopes in the other To this end he absurdly imputes to the School Divines that which was taken up by them as a common notion written in the heart of every Man denied by none but such as were degenerated into Beasts from whence they might prove such Points as of themselves were less evident Thus did Euclid lay down certain Axioms which none could deny that did not renounce common Sense from whence he drew the proofs of such Propositions as were less obvious to the Understanding and they may with as much reason be accused of Paganism who say that the whole is greater than a part that two halfs make the whole or that a streight Line is the shortest way from Point to Point as to say that they who in Politicks lay such Foundations as have been taken up by Schoolmen and others as undeniable Truths do therefore follow them or have any regard to their Authority Tho the Schoolmen were corrupt they were neither stupid nor unlearned They could not but see that which all men saw nor lay more approved Foundations than That Man is naturally free That he cannot justly be deprived of that Liberty without cause and that he doth not resign it or any part of it unless it be in consideration of a greater good which he proposes to himself But if he doth unjustly impute the invention of this to School Divines he in some measure repairs his Fault in saying This hath been fostered by all succeeding Papists for good Divinity The Divines of the Reformed Churches have entertained it and the Common People every where tenderly embrace it That is to say all Christian Divines whether Reformed or Unreformed do approve it and the People every where magnify it as the height of human felicity But Filmer and such as are like to him being neither Reformed nor Unreformed Christians nor of the People can have no title to Christianity and in as much as they set themselves against that which is the height of human Felicity they declare themselves Enemies to all that are concern'd in it that is to all Mankind But says he They do not remember that the desire of Liberty was the first cause of the fall of Man and I desire it may not be forgotten that the Liberty asserted is not a Licentiousness of doing what is pleasing to every one against the command of God but an exemption from all human Laws to which they have not given their assent If he would make us believe there was any thing of this in Adam's Sin he ought to have proved that the Law which he transgressed was imposed upon him by Man and consequently that there was a Man to impose it for it will easily appear that neither the Reformed or Unreformed Divines nor the People following them do place the felicity of Man in an exemption from the Laws of God but in a most perfect conformity to them Our Saviour taught us not to fear such as could kill the Body but him that could kill and cast into Hell And the Apostle tells us that we should obey God rather than Man It hath bin ever hereupon observed that they who most precisely adhere to the Laws of God are least sollicitous concerning the commands of men unless they are well grounded and those who most delight in the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God do not only subject themselves to him but are most regular observers of the just Ordinances of Man made by the consent of such as are concerned according to the Will of God The error of not observing this may perhaps deserve to be pardoned in a Man that had read no Books as proceeding from ignorance if such as are grosly ignorant can be excused when they take upon them to write of such matters as require the highest knowledg But
secured their beloved Liberty by casting all into the King's hands We owe the discovery of these Secrets to our Author who after having so gravely declared them thinks no offence ought to be taken at the freedom he assumes of examining things relating to the Liberty of Mankind because he hath the right which is common to all But he ought to have considered that in asserting that right to himself he allows it to all Mankind And as the temporal good of all men consists in the preservation of it he declares himself to be a mortal Enemy to those who endeavour to destroy it If he were alive this would deserve to be answered with Stones rather than Words He that oppugns the publick Liberty overthrows his own and is guilty of the most brutish of all Follies whilst he arrogates to himself that which he denies to all men I cannot but commend his Modesty and Care not to detract from the worth of learned men but it seems they were all subject to error except himself who is rendred infallible through Pride Ignorance and Impudence But if Hooker and Aristotle were wrong in their Fundamentals concerning natural Liberty how could they be in the right when they built upon it Or if they did mistake how can they deserve to be cited or rather why is such care taken to pervert their sense It seems our Author is by their errors brought to the knowledge of the Truth Men have heard of a Dwarf standing upon the Shoulders of a Giant who saw farther than the Giant but now that the Dwarf standing on the ground sees that which the Giant did overlook we must learn from him If there be sense in this the Giant must be blind or have such eyes only as are of no use to him He minded only the things that were far from him These great and learned men mistook the very principle and foundation of all their Doctrine If we will believe our Author this misfortune befel them because they too much trusted to the Schoolmen He names Aristotle and I presume intends to comprehend Plato Plutarch Thucydides Xenophon Polybius and all the antient Grecians Italians and others who asserted the natural freedom of Mankind only in imitation of the Schoolmen to advance the power of the Pope and would have compassed their design if Filmer and his Associates had not opposed them These men had taught us to make the unnatural distinction between Royalist and Patriot and kept us from seeing That the relation between King and People is so great that their well being is reciprocal If this be true how came Tarquin to think it good for him to continue King at Rome when the People would turn him out or the People to think it good for them to turn him out when he desired to continue in Why did the Syracusians destroy the Tyranny of Dionysius which he was not willing to leave till he was pulled out by the heels How could Nero think of burning Rome Or why did Caligula wish the People had but one Neck that he might strike it off at one blow if their Welfare was thus reciprocal 'T is not enough to say These were wicked or mad men for other Princes may be so also and there may be the same reason of differing from them For if the proposition be not universally true 't is not to be received as true in relation to any till it be particularly proved and then 't is not to be imputed to the quality of Prince but to the personal vertue of the Man I do not find any great matters in the passages taken out of Bellarmin which our Author says comprehend the strength of all that ever he had heard read or seen produced for the natural Liberty of the Subject but he not mentioning where they are to be found I do not think my self obliged to examin all his Works to see whether they are rightly cited or not however there is certainly nothing new in them We see the same as to the substance in those who wrote many Ages before him as well as in many that have lived since his time who neither minded him nor what he had written I dare not take upon me to give an account of his Works having read few of them but as he seems to have laid the foundation of his Discourses in such common Notions as were assented to by all Mankind those who follow the same method have no more regard to Jesuitism and Popery tho he was a Jesuit and a Cardinal than they who agree with Faber and other Jesuits in the principles of Geometry which no sober Man did ever deny SECT VI. God leaves to Man the choice of Forms in Government and those who constitute one Form may abrogate it BUT Sir Robert desires to make Observations on Bellarmin's words before he examines or refutes them and indeed it were not possible to make such stuff of his Doctrin as he dos if he had examined or did understand it First he very wittily concludes That if by the Law of God the Power be immediately in the People God is the Author of a Democracy And why not as well as of a Tyranny Is there any thing in it repugnant to the being of God Is there more reason to impute to God Caligula's Monarchy than the Democracy of Athens Or is it more for the Glory of God to assert his Presence with the Ottoman or French Monarchs than with the popular Governments of the Switsers and Grisons Is Pride Malice Luxury and Violence so sutable to his Being that they who exercise them are to be reputed his Ministers And is Modesty Humility Equality and Justice so contrary to his Nature that they who live in them should be thought his Enemies Is there any absurdity in saying that since God in Goodness and Mercy to Mankind hath with an equal hand given to all the benefit of Liberty with some measure of understanding how to employ it 't is lawful for any Nation as occasion shall require to give the exercise of that Power to one or more Men under certain Limitations or Conditions or to retain it in themselves if they thought it good for them If this may be done we are at end of all Controversies concerning one Form of Government established by God to which all Mankind must submit and we may safely conclude that having given to all Men in some degree a capacity of judging what is good for themselves he hath granted to all likewise a liberty of inventing such Forms as please them best without favouring one more than another His second Observation is grounded upon a Falsity in matter of Fact Bellarmin dos not say that Democracy is an Ordinance of God more than any other Government nor that the People have no Power to make use of their Right but that they do that is to say ordinarily transmit the exercise of it to one or more And 't is certain they do sometimes especially in small Cities
that accompany it whilst we live alone nor can enter into a Society without resigning it for the choice of that Society and the liberty of framing it according to our own Wills for our own good is all we seek This remains to us whilst we form Governments that we our selves are Judges how far 't is good for us to recede from our natural Liberty which is of so great importance that from thence only we can know whether we are Freemen or Slaves and the difference between the best Government and the worst doth wholly depend upon a right or wrong exercise of that Power If Men are naturally free such as have Wisdom and Understanding will always frame good Governments But if they are born under the necessity of a perpetual Slavery no Wisdom can be of use to them but all must for ever depend on the Will of their Lords how cruel mad proud or wicked soever they be SECT XI No Man comes to command many unless by Consent or by Force BUT because I cannot believe God hath created Man in such a state of Misery and Slavery as I just now mentioned by discovering the vanity of our Author 's whimsical Patriarchical Kingdom I am led to a certain conclusion That every Father of a Family is free and exempt from the domination of any other as the seventy two that went from Babel were 'T is hard to comprehend how one Man can come to be master of many equal to himself in Right unless it be by Consent or by Force If by Consent we are at an end of our Controversies Governments and the Magistrates that execute them are created by Man They who give a being to them cannot but have a right of regulating limiting and directing them as best pleaseth themselves and all our Author's Assertions concerning the absolute Power of one Man fall to the ground If by Force we are to examine how it can be possible or justifiable This subduing by Force we call Conquest but as he that forceth must be stronger than those that are forced to talk of one Man who in strength exceeds many millions of Men is to go beyond the extravagance of Fables and Romances This Wound is not cured by saying that he first conquers one and then more and with their help others for as to matter of fact the first news we hear of Nimrod is that he reigned over a great multitude and built vast Cities and we know of no Kingdom in the World that did not begin with a greater number than any one Man could possibly subdue If they who chuse one to be their Head did under his conduct subdue others they were Fellow-conquerors with him and nothing can be more brutish than to think that by their vertue and valour they had purchased perpetual Slavery to themselves and their Posterity But if it were possible it could not be justifiable and whilst our Dispute is concerning Right that which ought not to be is no more to be received than if it could not be No Right can come by conquest unless there were a Right of making that Conquest which by reason of the equality that our Author confesses to have bin amongst the Heads of Families and as I have proved goes into Infinity can never be on the Aggressor's side No man can justly impose any thing upon those who owe him nothing Our Author therefore who ascribes the enlargement of Nimrod's Kingdom to Usurpation and Tyranny might as well have acknowledged the same in the beginning as he says all other Authors have done However he ought not to have imputed to Sir Walter Raleigh an Approbation of his Right as Lord or King over his Family for he could never think him to be a Lord by the right of a Father who by that rule must have lived and died a Slave to his Fathers that overlived him Whosoever therefore like Nimrod grounds his pretensions of Right upon Usurpation and Tyranny declares himself to be like Nimrod a Usueper and a Tyrant that is an Enemy to God and Man and to have no Right at all That which was unjust in its beginning can of it self never change its nature Tempus in se saith Grotius nullam habet vim effectricem He that persists in doing Injustice aggravates it and takes upon himself all the guilt of his Predecessors But if there be a King in the World that claims a Right by Conquest and would justisy it he might do well to tell whom he conquered when with what assistance and upon what reason he undertook the War for he can ground no title upon the obscurity of an unsearchable antiquity and if he does it not he ought to be looked upon as a usurping Nimrod SECT XII The pretended paternal Right is divisible or indivisible if divisible 't is extinguished if indivisible universal THis paternal right to Regality if there be any thing in it is divisible or indivisible if indivisible as Adam hath but one Heir one man is rightly Lord of the whole World and neither Nimrod nor any of his Successors could ever have bin Kings nor the seventy two that went from Babylon Noah survived him near two hundred years Shem continued one hundred and fifty years longer The Dominion must have bin in him and by him transmitted to his Posterity for ever Those that call themselves Kings in all other Nations set themselves up against the Law of God and Nature This is the man we are to seek out that we may yield obedience to him I know not where to find him but he must be of the race of Abraham Shem was preferred before his Brethren The Inheritance that could not be divided must come to him and from him to Isaac who was the first of his descendants that outlived him 'T is pity that Jacob did not know this and that the Lord of all the Earth through ignorance of his Title should be forced to keep one of his Subjects Sheep for wages and strange that he who had wit enough to supplant his Brother did so little understand his own bargain as not to know that he had bought the perpetual Empire of the World If in conscience he could not take such a price for a dish of Pottage it must remain in Esau However our Lord Paramount must come from Isaac If the Deed of Sale made by Esau be good we must seek him amongst the Jews if he could not so easily divest himself of his Right it must remain amongst his Descendants who are Turks We need not scruple the reception of either since the late Scots Act tells us That Kings derive their Royal Power from God alone and no difference of Religion c. can divert the right of Succession But I know not what we shall do if we cannot find this man for de non apparentibus non existentibus eadem est ratio The Right must fall if there be none to inherit If we do not know who he is that hath the
Right we do not know who is near to him All Mankind must inherit the Right to which every one hath an equal title and that which is Dominion if in one when 't is equally divided among all men is that universal Liberty which I assert Wherefore I leave it to the choice of such as have inherited our Author's opinions to produce this Jew or Turk that ought to be Lord of the whole Earth or to prove a better title in some other person and to perswade all the Princes and Nations of the World to submit If this be not done it must be confessed this Paternal Right is a meer whimsical Fiction and that no man by birth hath a Right above another or can have any unless by the concession of those who are concerned If this right to an universal Empire be divisible Noah did actually divide it among his three Sons Seventy and two absolute Monarchs did at once arise out of the Multitude that had assembled at Babel Noah nor his Sons nor any of the holy Seed nor probably any elder than Nimrod having bin there many other Monarchs must necessarily have arisen from them Abraham as our Author says was a King Lot must have bin so also for they were equals his Sons Ammon and Moab had no dependance upon the descendents of Abraham Ismael and Esau set up for themselves and great Nations came of them Abraham's Sons by Keturah did so also that is to say every one as soon as he came to be of age to provide for himself did so without retaining any dependence upon the Stock from whence he came Those of that Stock or the head of it pretended to no Right over those who went from them Nay nearness in Blood was so little regarded that tho Lot was Abraham's Brother's Son Eliezer his Servant had bin his Heir if he had died childless The like continued amongst Jacob's Sons no Jurisdiction was given to one above the rest an equal division of Land was made amongst them Their Judges and Magistrates were of several Tribes and Families without any other preference of one before another than what did arise from the advantages God had given to any particular person This I take to be a proof of the utmost extent and certainty that the equality amongst Mankind was then perfect He therefore that will deny it to be so now ought to prove that neither the Prophets Patriarchs or any other men did ever understand or regard the Law delivered by God and Nature to Mankind or that having bin common and free at the first and so continued for many hundreds of years after the Flood it was afterwards abolished and a new one introduced He that asserts this must prove it but till it does appear to us when where how and by whom this was done we may safely believe there is no such thing and that no man is or can be a Lord amongst us till we make him so and that by nature we are all Brethren Our Author by endeavouring farther to illustrate the Patriarchical Power destroys it and cannot deny to any man the Right which he acknowledges to have bin in Ismael and Esau. But if every man hath a Right of setting up for himself with his Family or before he has any he cannot but have a right of joining with others if he pleases As his joining or not joining with others and the choice of those others depends upon his own will he cannot but have a right of judging upon what conditions 't is good for him to enter into such a Society as must necessarily hinder him from exercising the right which he has originally in himself But as it cannot be imagined that men should generally put such Fetters upon themselves unless it were in expectation of a greater good that was thereby to accrue to them no more can be required to prove that they do voluntarily enter into these Societies institute them for their own good and prescribe such rules and forms to them as best please themselves without giving account to any But if every man be free till he enter into such a Society as he chuseth for his own good and those Societies may regulate themselves as they think fit no more can be required to prove the natural equality in which all men are born and continue till they resign it as into a common stock in such measure as they think fit for the constituting of Societies for their own good which I assert and our Author denies SECT XIII There was no shadow of a paternal Kingdom amongst the Hebrews nor precept for it OUr Author is so modest to confess that Jacob's Kingdom consisting of seventy two persons was swallowed up by the power of the greater Monarch Pharaoh But if this was an Act of Tyranny 't is strange that the sacred and eternal Right grounded upon the immutable Laws of God and Nature should not be restored to God's chosen People when he delivered them from that Tyranny Why was not Jacob's Monarchy conferred upon his right Heir How came the People to neglect a point of such importance Or if they did forget it why did not Moses put them in mind of it Why did not Jacob declare to whom it did belong Or if he is understood to have declared it in saying the Scepter should not depart from Judah why was it not delivered into his hands or into his Heirs If he was hard to be found in a people of one kindred but four degrees removed from Jacob their head who were exact in observing Genealogies how can we hope to find him after so many thousand years when we do not so much as know from whom we are derived Or rather how comes that Right which is eternal and universal to have bin nipp'd in the bud and so abolished before it could take any effect in the World as never to have bin heard of amongst the Gentiles nor the People of God either before or after the Captivity from the death of Jacob to this day This I assert and I give up the Cause if I do not prove it To this end I begin with Moses and Aaron the first Rulers of the People who were neither of the eldest Tribe according to birth nor the disposition of Jacob if he did or could give it to any nor were they of the eldest line of their own Tribe and even between them the Superiority was given to Moses who was the younger as 't is said I have made thee a God to Pharaoh and Aaron thy Brother shall be thy Prophet If Moses was a King as our Author says but I deny and shall hereafter prove the matter is worse He must have bin an Usurper of a most unjust Dominion over his Brethren and this Patriarchical power which by the Law of God was to be perpetually fixed in his Descendents perished with him and his Sons continued in an obscure rank amongst the Levites Joshua of the Tribe of Ephraim succeeded him
and good or to subject the best to the rage of the worst If there be any Family therefore in the world that can by the Law of God and Nature distinct from the Ordinance of Man pretend to an hereditary Right of Dominion over any People it must be one that never did and never can produce any person that is not free from all the Infirmities and Vices that render him unable to exercise the Sovereign Power and is endowed with all the Vertues required to that end or at least a promise from God verified by experience that the next in Blood shall ever be able and fit for that work But since we do not know that any such hath yet appeared in the World we have no reason to believe that there is or ever was any such and consequently none upon whom God hath conferred the Rights that cannot be exercised without them If there was no shadow of a Paternal Right in the Institution of the Kingdoms of Saul and David there could be none in those that succeeded Rehoboam could have no other than from Solomon When he reigned over two Tribes and Jeroboam over ten 't is not possible that both of them could be the next Heir of their last common Father Jacob and 't is absurd to say that ought to be reputed which is impossible for our thoughts are ever to be guided by Truth or such an appearance of it as doth perswade or convince us The same Title of Father is yet more ridiculously or odiously applied to the succeeding Kings Baasha had no other Title to the Crown than by killing Nadab the Son of Jeroboam and destroying his Family Zimri purchased the same honour by the slaughter of Elah when he was drunk and dealing with the House of Baasha as he had done with that of Jeroboam Zimri burning himself transferred the same to Omri as a reward for bringing him to that extremity As Jehu was more fierce than these he seems to have gained a more excellent recompence than any since Jeroboam even a conditional Promise of a perpetual Kingdom but falling from these glorious Privileges purchased by his zeal in killing two wicked Kings and above one hundred of their Brethren Shallum inherited them by destroying Zachary and all that remained of his Race This in plain English is no less than to say that whosoever kills a King and invades a Crown tho the act and means of accomplishing it be never so detestable dos thereby become Father of his Country and Heir of all the divine Privileges annexed to that glorious Inheritance And tho I cannot tell whether such a Doctrine be more sottish monstrous or impious I dare affirm that if it were received no King in the World could think himself safe in his Throne for one day They are already encompassed with many dangers but lest Pride Avarice Ambition Lust Rage and all the Vices that usually reign in the hearts of worldly men should not be sufficient to invite them perpetually to disturb Mankind through the desire of gaining the Power Riches and Splendor that accompanies a Crown our Author proposes to them the most sacred Privileges as a reward of the most execrable Crimes He that was stirred up only by the violence of his own Nature thought that a Kingdom could never be bought at too dear a rate Pro Regno velim Patriam Penates conjugem flammis dare Imperia precio quolibet constant bene Senec. Theb. But if the sacred Character of God's Anointed or Vicegerent and Father of a Country were added to the other Advantages that follow the highest Fortunes the most modest and just men would be filled with fury that they might attain to them Nay it may be even the best would be the most forward in conspiring against such as reigned They who could not be tempted with external Pleasures would be most in love with divine Privileges and since they should become the sacred Ministers of God if they succeeded and Traitors or Rogues only if they miscarried their only care would be so to lay their Designs that they might be surely executed This is a Doctrine worthy of Filmer's Invention and Heylin's Approbation which being well weighed will shew to all good and just Kings how far they are obliged to those who under pretence of advancing their Authority fill the minds of men with such Notions as are so desperately pernicious to them SECT XVI The Antients chose those to be Kings who excelled in the Vertues that are most beneficial to Civil Societies IF the Israelites whose Lawgiver was God had no King in the first Institution of their Government 't is no wonder that other Nations should not think themselves obliged to set up any if they who came all of one stock and knew their Genealogies when they did institute Kings had no regard to our Author 's Chimerical right of Inheritance nor were taught by God or his Prophets to have any 't is not strange that Nations who did not know their own Original and who probably if not certainly came of several Stocks never put themselves to the trouble of seeking one who by his birth deserved to be preferred before others and if the various Changes happening in all Kingdoms whereby in process of time the Crowns were transported into divers Families to which the Right of Inheritance could not without the utmost impiety and madness be imputed such a fancy certainly could only enter into the heads of Fools and we know of none so foolish to have harbour'd it The Grecians amongst others who sollowed the Light of Reason knew no other original Title to the Government of a Nation than that Wisdom Valour and Justice which was beneficial to the People These Qualities gave beginning to those Governments which we call Heroum Regna and the veneration paid to such as enjoyed them proceeded from a grateful sense of the good received from them They were thought to be descended from the Gods who in vertue and beneficence surpassed other men The same attended their Descendents till they came to abuse their Power and by their Vices shewed themselves like to or worse than others Those Nations did not seek the most antient but the most worthy and thought such only worthy to be preferred before others who could best perform their Duty The Spartans knew that Hercules and Achilles were not their Fathers for they were a Nation before either of them were born but thinking their Children might be like to them in valour they brought them from Thebes and Epirus to be their Kings If our Author is of another opinion I desire to know whether the Heraclidae or the AEacidae were or ought to be reputed Fathers of the Lacedemonians for if the one was the other was not The same method was followed in Italy and they who esteemed themselves Aborigines Qui rupto robore nati Compositive Luto nullos habuere parentes Juven Sat. 6. could not set up one to govern them under the Title of
through the malice of Octavius or the fraud of his Wise a wet Blanket laid over his face and a few corrupted Soldiers could invest Caligula with the same A vile Rascal pulling Claudius out by the heels from behind the Hangings where he had hid himself could give it to him A dish of Mushrooms well seasoned by the infamous Strumpet his Wife and a Potion prepared for Britannicus by Locusta could transfer it to her Son who was a stranger to his Blood Galba became Heir to it by driving Nero to despair and death Two common Soldiers by exciting his Guards to kill him could give a just Title to the Empire of the World to Otho who was thought to be the worst man in it If a Company of Villains in the German Army thinking it as fit for them as others to create a Father of Mankind could confer the Dignity upon Vitellius and if Vespasian causing him to be killed and thrown into a Jakes less impure than his Life did inherit all the glorious and sacred Privileges belonging to that Title 't is in vain to inquire after any man's right to any thing If there be such a thing as Right or Wrong to be examined by men and any Rules set whereby the one may be distinguished from the other these Extravagancies can have no effect of Right Such as commit them are not to be looked upon as Fathers but as the most mortal Enemies of their respective Countries No Right is to be acknowledged in any but such as is conferred upon them by those who have the right of conferring and are concerned in the exercise of the Power upon such conditions as best please themselves No obedience can be due to him or them who have not a right of commanding This cannot reasonably be conferred upon any that are not esteemed willing and able rightly to execute it This ability to perform the highest Works that come within the reach of Men and integrity of Will not to be diverted from it by any temptation or consideration of private Advantages comprehending all that is most commendable in man we may easily see that whensoever men act according to the Law of their own Nature which is Reason they can have no other rule to direct them in advancing one above another than the opinion of a man's Vertue and Ability best to perform the Duty incumbent upon him that is by all means to procure the good of the People committed to his charge He is only fit to conduct a Ship who understands the Art of a Pilot When we are sick we seek the assistance of such as are best skill'd in Physick The Command of an Army is prudently conferred upon him that hath most Industry Skill Experience and Valour In like manner He only can according to the rules of Nature be advanced to the Dignities of the World who excels in the Vertues required for the performance of the Duties annexed to them for he only can answer the end of his Institution The Law of every instituted Power is to accomplish the end of its Institution as Creatures are to do the Will of their Creator and in deflecting from it overthrow their own being Magistrates are distinguished from other men by the Power with which the Law invests them for the publick Good He that cannot or will not procure that Good destroys his own being and becomes like to other men In matters of the greatest importance Detur digniori is the Voice of Nature all her most sacred Laws are perverted if this be not observed in the disposition of the Governments of mankind But all is neglected and violated if they are not put into the hands of such as excel in all manner of Vertues for they only are worthy of them and they only can have a right who are worthy because they only can perform the end for which they are instituted This may seem strange to those who have their heads infected with Filmer's whimseys but to others so certainly grounded upon Truth that Bartholomew de las Casas Bishop of Chiapa in a Treatise written by him and dedicated to the Emperor Charles the 5th concerning the Indies makes it the foundation of all his Discourse That notwithstanding his grant of all those Countries from the Pope and his pretentions to Conquest he could have no right over any of those Nations unless he did in the first place as the principal end regard their Good The reason says he is that regard is to be had to the principal End and Cause for which a supreme or universal Lord is set over them which is their good and profit and not that it should turn to their destruction and ruin for if that should be there is no doubt but from thence forward that Power would be tyrannical and unjust as tending more to the interest and profit of that Lord than to the publick good and profit of the Subjects which according to natural Reason and the Laws of God and Man is abhorred and deserves to be abhorred And in another place speaking of the Governors who abusing their Power brought many troubles and vexations upon the Indians he says They had rendred his Majesty's Government intolerable and his Yoak insupportable tyrannical and most justly abhorred I do not alledg this through an opinion that a Spanish Bishop is of more Authority than another man but to shew that these are common Notions agreed by all mankind and that the greatest Monarchs do neither refuse to hear them or to regulate themselves according to them till they renounce common sense and degenerate into Beasts But if that Government be unreasonable and abhorred by the Laws of God and Man which is not instituted for the good of those that live under it and an Empire grounded upon the Donation of the Pope which amongst those of the Roman Religion is of great importance and an entire conquest of the People with whom there had been no former Compact do degenerate into a most unjust and detestable Tyranny so soon as the supreme Lord begins to prefer his own interest or profit before the good of his Subjects what shall we say of those who pretend to a right of Dominion over free Nations as inseparably united to their Persons without distinction of Age or Sex or the least consideration of their Infirmities and Vices as if they were not placed in the Throne for the good of their People but to enjoy the Honours and Pleasures that attend the highest Fortune What name can be fit for those who have no other Title to the places they possess than the most unjust and violent Usurpation or being descended from those who for their Vertues were by the Peoples consent duly advanced to the exercise of a legitimate Power and having sworn to administer it according to the Conditions upon which it was given for the good of those who gave it turn all to their own Pleasure and Profit without any care of the Publick These
justly can be quiet under it If God be the Fountain of Justice Mercy and Truth and those his Servants who walk in them no exercise of Violence Fraud Cruelty Pride or Avarice is patronized by him and they who are the Authors of those Villanies cannot but be the Ministers of him who sets himself up against God because 't is impossible that Truth and Falshood Mercy and Cruelty Justice and the most violent Oppression can proceed from the same Root It was a folly and a lie in those Jews to call themselves the Children of Abraham who did not the Works of Abraham and Christ declared them to be the Children of the Devil whose Works they did which words proceeding from the Eternal Truth do as well indicate to us whose Child and Servant every man is to be accounted as to those who first heard them If our Author 's former Assertions were void of Judgment and Truth his next Clause shews a great defect in his Memory and contradicts the former The Judgments of God says he who hath Power to give and take away Kingdoms are most just yet the ministry of Men who execute God's Judgments without Commission is sinful and damnable If it be true as he says that we are to look at the Power not the Ways by which it is gained and that he who hath it whether it be by Usurpation Conquest or any other means is to be accounted as Father or right Heir to the Father of the People to which Title the most sublime and divine Privileges are annexed a man who by the most wicked and unjust Actions advances himself to the Power becomes immediately the Father of the People and the Minister of God which I take to be a piece of Divinity worthy our Author and his Disciples It may be doubted what he means by a Commission from God for we know of none but what is outwardly by his Word or inwardly by his Spirit and I am apt to think that neither he nor his Abettors allowing of either as to the Point in question he doth fouly prevaricate in alledging that which he thinks cannot be of any effect If any man should say that the Word of God to Moses Joshua Ehud Gideon Samuel Jeroboam and Jehu or any others are in the like cases Rules to be observed by all because that which was from God was good that which was good is good and he that dos good is justified by it He would probably tell us that what was good in them is not good in others and that the Word of God doth justify those only to whom it is spoken That is to say No man can execute the just Judgments of God to the benefit of mankind according to the Example of those Servants of God without damnable sin unless he have a precise Word particularly directed to him for it as Moses had But if any man should pretend that such a Word was come to him he would be accounted an Enthusiast and obtain no credit So that which way soever the Clause be taken it appears to be full of Fraud confessing only in the Theory that which he thinks can never be brought into practice that his beloved Villanies may be thereby secured and that the glorious Examples of the most heroick Actions performed by the best and wisest men that ever were in the World for the benefit of mankind may never be imitated The next Clause shews that I did our Author no wrong in saying that he gave a right to Usurpation for he plainly says That whether the Prince be the supreme Father of his People or the true Heir of such a Father or whether he come to the Crown by Vsurpation or Election of the Nobles or People or by any other way whatsoever c. it is the only Right and Authority of the natural Father In the 3d Chap. Sect. 8. It skills not which way the King comes by his Power whether by Election Donation Succession or by any other means And in another place That we are to regard the Power not the Means by which it is gained To which I need say no more than that I cannot sufficiently admire the ingeniously invented Title of Father by Usurpation and confess that since there is such a thing in the World to which not only private men but whole Nations owe obedience whatsoever has been said antiently as was thought to express the highest excess of Fury and Injustice as Jus datum sceleri Jus omne in ferro est situm Jus licet in jugulos nostros sibi fecerit ense Sylla potens Mariusque ferox Cinna cruentus Caesareaeque domus series were solid Truths good Law and Divinity which did not only signify the actual exercise of the Power but induced a conscientious Obligation of obeying it The Powers so gained did carry in themselves the most sacred and inviolable Rights and the actors of the most detestable Villanies thereby became the Ministers of God and the Fathers of their subdued People Or if this be not true it cannot be denied that Filmer and his followers in the most impudent and outragious Blasphemy have surpassed all that have gone before them To confirm his Assertions he gives us a wonderful explanation of the fifth Commandment which he says enjoins Obedience to Princes under the terms of Honour thy Father and thy Mother drawing this Inference That as all Power is in the Father the Prince who hath it cannot be restrained by any Law which being grounded upon the perfect likeness between Kings and Fathers no man can deny it to be true But if Claudius was the Father of the Roman People I suppose the chast Messalina was the Mother and to be honoured by virtue of the same Commandment But then I fear that such as met her in the most obscene places were not only guilty of Adultery but of Incest The same Honour must needs belong to Nero and his vertuous Poppaea unless it were transferred to his new-made Woman Sporus or perhaps he himself was the Mother and the glorious Title of Pater Patriae belonged to the Raskal who married him as a Woman The like may be said of Agathocles Dionysius Phalaris Busiris Machanidas Peter the Cruel of Castille Christiern of Denmark the last Princes of the House of Valois in France and Philip the Second of Spain Those Actions of theirs which men have ever esteemed most detestable and the whole course of their abominable Government did not proceed from Pride Avarice Cruelty Madness and Lust but from the tender care of most pious Fathers Tacitus sadly describes the state of his Country Vrbs incendiis vastata consumptis antiquissimis delubris ipso Capitolio Civium manibus incenso pollutae Ceremoniae magna Adulteria plenum Exiliis mare infecti caedibus scopuli atrocius in Vrbe saevitum Nobilitas opes omissi vel gesti honores pro crimine ob virtutes certissimum exitium but he was to blame All this proceeded
consists of Equals did speak the opinion of others rather than his own and should confess that he and his Master Plato did acknowledg a natural inequality among men it would be nothing to his purpose for the Inequality and the rational Superiority due to some or to one by reason of that Inequality did not proceed from Blood or Extraction and had nothing Patriarchical in it but consisted solely in the Vertues of the Persons by which they were rendred more able than others to perform their Duty for the good of the Society Therefore if these Authors are to be trusted whatsoever place a Man is advanced to in a City 't is not for his own sake but for that of the City and we are not to ask who was his Father but what are his Vertues in relation to it This induces a necessity of distinguishing between a simple and a relative Inequality for if it were possible for a man to have great Vertues and yet no way beneficial to the Society of which he is or to have some one Vice that renders them useless he could have no pretence to a Magistratical Power more than any other They who are equally free may equally enjoy their freedom but the Powers that can only be executed by such as are endowed with great Wisdom Justice and Valour can belong to none nor be rightly conferred upon any except such as excel in those Vertues And if no such can be found all are equally by turns to participate of the Honours annexed to Magistracy and Law which is said to be written Reason cannot justly exalt those whom Nature which is Reason hath depressed nor depress those whom Nature hath exalted It cannot make Kings Slaves nor Slaves Kings without introducing that Evil which if we believe Solomon and the Spirit by which he spoke the Earth cannot bear This may discover what Lawgivers deserve to be reputed wise or just and what Decrees or Sanctions ought to be reputed Laws Aristotle proceeding by this Rule rather tells us who is naturally a King than where we should find him and after having given the highest Praises to this true natural King and his Government he sticks not to declare that of one man in Vertue equal or inferior to others to be a meer Tyranny even the worst of all as it is the corruption of the best or as our Author calls it the most divine and such as can be fit only for those barbarous and stupid Nations which tho bearing the shape of Men are little different from Beasts Whoever therefore will from Aristotle's words infer that Nature has designed one Man or succession of Men to be Lords of every Country must shew that Man to be endowed with all the Vertues that render him fit for so great an Office which he dos not bear for his own Pleasure Glory or Profit but for the good of those that are under him and if that be not done he must look after other Patrons than Aristotle for his opinion Plato dos more explicitly say that the Civil or Politick Man the Shepherd Father or King of a People is the same designed for the same Work enabled to perform it by the excellency of the same Vertues and made perfect by the infusion of the divine Wisdom This is Plato's Monarch and I confess that wheresoever he dos appear in the World he ought to be accounted as sent from God for the good of that People His Government is the best that can be set up among men and if assurance can be given that his Children Heirs or Successors shall for ever be equal to him in the above-mentioned Vertues it were a folly and a sin to bring him under the government of any other or to an equality with them since God had made him to excel them all and 't is better for them to be ruled by him than to follow their own judgment This is that which gives him the preference He is wise through the knowledg of the Truth and thereby becomes good happy pure beautiful and perfect The divine Light shining forth in him is a guide to others and he is a fit Leader of a People to the good that he enjoys If this can be expressed by words in fashion this is his Prerogative this is the Royal Charter given to him by God and to him only who is so adapted for the performance of his Office He that should pretend to the same Privileges without the same Abilities to perform the Works for which they are granted would exceed the folly of a Child that takes upon him a burden which can only be born by a Giant or the madness of one who presumes to give Physick and understands not the Art of a Physician thereby drawing guilt upon himself and death upon his Patient It were as vain to expect that a Child should carry the Giant 's burden and that an ignorant man should give wholsom Physick as that one who lives void of all knowledg of Good should conduct men to it Whensoever therefore such a Man as is above-described dos not appear Nature and Reason instruct us to seek him or them who are most like to him and to lay such burdens upon them as are proportionable to their strength which is as much as to say to prefer every man according to his merit and assign to every one such Works as he seems able to accomplish But that Plato and Aristotle may neither be thought unreasonably addicted to Monarchy nor wholly rejecting it to have talked in vain of a Monarch that is not to be found 't is good to consider that this is not a fiction Moses Joshua Samuel and others were such as they define and were made to be such by that communion with God which Plato requires And he in all his Writings intending the institution of such a Discipline as should render men happy wise and good could take no better way to bring his Countrymen to it than by shewing them that Wisdom Vertue and Purity only could make a natural difference among men 'T is not my work to justify these Opinions of Plato and his Scholar Aristotle They were men and tho wise and learned subject to error If they erred in these Points it hurts not me nor the Cause I maintain since I make no other use of their Books than to shew the impudence and prevarication of those who gather small scraps out of good Books to justify their Assertions concerning such Kings as are known amongst us which being examined are found to be wholly against them and if they were followed would destroy their Persons and Power But our Author's intention being only to cavil or to cheat such as are not versed in the Writings of the Antients or at least to cause those who do not make Truth their Guide to waver and fluctuate in their Discourses he dos in one page say That without doubt Moses his History of the Creation guided these Philosophers in finding out this
The Paternal Right devolves to and is inherited by all the Children THO the perversity of our Author's Judgment and Nature may have driven him into the most gross Errors 't is not amiss to observe that many of those delivered by him proceed from his ignorance of the most important Differences between Father and Lord King and Tyrant which are so evident and irreconcilable that one would have thought no man could be so stupid as not to see it impossible for one and the same man at the same time to be Father and Master King and Tyrant over the same Persons But lest he should think me too scrupulous or too strict in inquiring after Truth I intend for the present to wave that inquiry and to seek what was good for Adam or Noah What we have reason to believe they desired to transmit to their Posterity and to take it for a perpetual Law in its utmost extent which I think will be of no advantage to our Author for this Authority which was universal during their lives must necessarily after their decease be divided as an Inheritance into as many parcels as they had Children The Apostle says If Children then Heirs Heirs of God and joint Heirs with Christ which alluding to the Laws and Customs of Nations could have bin of no force unless it had bin true and known to be so But if Children are Heirs or joint Heirs whatsoever Authority Adam or Noah had is inherited by every man in the world and that title of Heir which our Author so much magnifies as if it were annexed to one single person vanishes into nothing or else the words of the Apostle could have neither strength nor truth in them but would be built upon a false Foundation which may perhaps agree with our Author's Divinity Yet if the Apostle had not declared himself so fully in this Point we might easily have seen that Adam and Noah did leave their Children in that equality for Fathers are ever understood to embrace all their Children with equal Affection till the discovery of personal Vertues or Vices make a difference But the personal Vertues that give a reasonable preference of one before another or make him more fit to govern than the others cannot appear before he is nor can be annexed to any one Line Therefore the Father cannot be thought to have given to one Man or his Descendents the Government of his Brethren and their Descendents Besides tho the Law of England may make one man to be sole Heir of his Father yet the Laws of God and Nature do not so All the Children of Noah were his Heirs The Land promised to Abraham Isaac and Jacob was equally divided among their Children If the Children of Joseph made two Tribes it was not as the first born but by the Will of Jacob who adopted Ephraim and Manasseh and they thereby became his Sons and obtained an Inheritance equal to that of the other Tribes The Law allowed a double Portion to the first-begotten but this made a difference between Brothers only in proportion whereas that between Lord and Servant is in specie not in degree And if our Author's Opinion might take place instead of such a division of the common Inheritance between Brothers as was made between the Children of Jacob all must continue for ever Slaves to one Lord which would establish a difference in specie between Brethren which Nature abhors If Nature dos not make one man Lord over his Brethren he can never come to be their Lord unless they make him so or he subdue them If he subdue them it is an act of Violence contrary to Right which may consequently be recovered If they make him Lord 't is for their own sakes not for his and he must seek their good not his own lest as Aristotle says he degenerate from a King into a Tyrant He therefore who would perswade us that the Dominion over every Nation dos naturally belong to one Man Woman or Child at a venture or to the Heir whatsoever he or she be as to Age Sex or other Qualifications must prove it good for all Nations to be under them But as Reason is our Nature that can never be natural to us that is not rational Reason gives Paria paribus equal Power to those who have equal Abilities and Merit It allots to every one the part he is most fit to perform and this fitness must be equally lasting with the Law that allots it But as it can never be good for great Nations having men amongst them of Vertue Experience Wisdom and Goodness to be governed by Children Fools or vicious and wicked Persons and we neither find that the Vertues required in such as deserve to govern them did ever continue in any race of men nor have reason to believe they ever will it can never be reasonable to annex the Dominion of a Nation to any one Line We may take this upon Solomon's word Wo to thee O Land when thy King is a Child and thy Princes eat in the morning And I wish the experience of all Ages did not make this Truth too evident to us This therefore can never be the Work much less the Law of Nature and if there be any such thing in the world as the Dominion over a Nation inseparably united to a Man and his Family it can have no other Root than a civil or municipal Law which is not the subject of our Discourse Moreover every Father's Right must cease when he ceases to be or be transmitted to those who being also Fathers have the same Title to it And tho the contrary method of annexing the whole Inheritance to one Person or exposing all his Brethren to be destroyed by his rage if they will not submit may conduce to the enlargement of a proud and violent Empire as in Turky where he that gains the Power usually begins his Reign with the slaughter of his Brothers and Nephews yet it can never agree with the piety gentleness and wisdom of the Patriarchs or the Laws of God and Nature These things being agreed we need not trouble our selves with the Limits or Definition of a Family and as little with the Titles given to the Head of it 'T is all one to us whether it be confined to one Roof and Fire or extended farther and none but such as are strangers to the practice of mankind can think that titles of Civility have a power to create a right of Dominion Every man in Latin is called Dominus unless such as are of the vilest condition or in a great subjection to those who speak to them and yet the word strictly taken relates only to Servus for a Man is Lord only of his Servant or Slave The Italians are not less liberal of the Titles of Signore and Padrone and the Spaniards of Sennor but he would be ridiculous in those Countries who thereupon should arrogate to himself a right of Dominion over those who
are so civil The vanity of our Age seems to carry this Point a little higher especially among the French who put a great weight upon the word Prince but they cannot change the true signification of it and even in their sense Prince du Sang signifies no more than a chief Man of the Royal Blood to whom they pay much respect because he may come to the Crown as they at Rome do to Cardinals who have the Power of chusing Popes and out of whose number for some Ages they have bin chosen In this sense did Scevola when he was apprehended by Porsenna say Trecenti conjuravimus Romanae juvcntutis Principes which was never otherwise understood than of such young Citizens as were remarkable amongst their Companions And nothing can be more absurd than to think if the name of Prince had carried an absolute and despotical Power with it that it could belong to three hundred in a City that possessed no more than a ten miles Territory or that it could have been given to them whilst they were young and the most part of their Fathers as is most probable still living I should like our Author run round in a Circle if I should refute what he says of a Regal Power in our first Parents or shew that the Regal where it is is not absolute as often as he dos assert it But having already proved that Adam Noah Abraham Isaac Jacob c. enjoyed no such Power transmitted to every one of their Sons that which they had and they became Fathers of many great Nations who always continued independent on each other I leave to our Author to prove when and by what Law the Right of subdividing the Paternal Power was stopped and how any one or more of their Descendants came to have that Power over their Brethren which none of their immediate Children had over theirs His question to Suarez how and when Sons become free savours more of Jesuitical Sophistry than any thing said by the Jesuit but the Solution is easy for if he mean the respect veneration and kindness proceeding from gratitude it ceases only with the Life of the Father to whom it is due and the memory of it must last as long as that of the Son and if they had bin possessed of such an absolute Power as he fancies it must have ceased with the reasons upon which it was grounded First Because the Power of which a Father would probably have made a wise and gentle use could not be rightly trusted in the hands of one who is not a Father and that which tended only to the preservation of all the Children could not be turned to the increase of the Pride Luxury and Violence of one to the oppression of others who are equally Heirs In the second place Societies cannot be instituted unless the Heads of the Families that are to compose them resign so much of their Right as seems convenient into the publick Stock to which every one becomes subject But that the same Power should at the same time continue in the true Father and the figurative Father the Magistrate and that the Children should owe intire Obedience to the Commands of both which may often cross each other is absurd Thirdly It ceases when it cannot be executed as when men live to see four or five Generations as many do at this day because the Son cannot tell whether he should obey his Father Grandfather or Great-Grandsather and cannot be equally subject to them all most especially when they live in divers places and set up Families of their own as the Sons of the Patriarchs did which being observed I know no place where this Paternal Power could have any effect unless in the fabulous Island of Pines and even there it must have ceased when he died who by the Inventor of the story is said to have seen above ten thousand Persons issued of his body And if it be said that Noah Shem Abraham c. consented that their Children should go where they thought fit and provide for themselves I answer that the like has bin done in all Ages and must be done for ever 'T is the Voice of Nature obeyed not only by mankind but by all living Creatures and there is none so stupid as not to understand it A Hen leaves her Chickens when they can seek their own nourishment A Cow looks after her Calf no longer than till it is able to feed A Lion gives over hunting for his Whelps when they are able to seek their own Prey and have strength enough to provide what is sufficient for themselves And the contrary would be an insupportable burden to all living Creatures but especially to men for the good order that the rational Nature delights in would be overthrown and Civil Societies by which it is best preserved would never be established We are not concerned to examine Whether the Political and Oeconomical Powers be intirely the same or in what they differ for that absolute Power which he contends for is purely despotical different from both or rather inconsistent with either as to the same Subject and that which the Patriarchs exercised having bin equally inherited by their Children and consequently by every one of their Posterity 't is as much as is required for my purpose of proving the natural universal Liberty of Mankind and I am no way concerned in the Question Whether the first Parents of Mankind had a Power of Life and Death over their Children or not SECT V. Freemen join together and frame greater or lesser Societies and give such Forms to them as best please themselves THIS being established I shall leave Filmer to fight against Suarez or Bellarmin or to turn one of them against the other without any concernment in the Combat or the success of it But since he thereupon raises a Question Whether the supreme Power be so in the People that there is but one and the same Power in all the People of the World so that no Power can be granted unless all Men upon the Earth meet and agree to chuse a Governor I think it deserves to be answered and might do it by proposing a Question to him Whether in his opinion the Empire of the whole World doth by the Laws of God and Nature belong to one Man and who that Man is Or how it came so to be divided as we have ever known it to have bin without such an injury to the Universal Monarch as can never be repaired But intending to proceed more candidly and not to trouble my self with Bellarmin or Suarez I say that they who place the Power in a Multitude understand a Multitude composed of Freemen who think it for their convenience to join together and to establish such Laws and Rules as they oblige themselves to observe which Multitude whether it be great or small has the same Right because ten men are as free as ten millions of men and tho it may be more prudent
in some cases to join with the greater than the smaller number because there is more strength it is not so always But however every man must therein be his own judg since if he mistake the hurt is only to himself and the ten may as justly resolve to live together frame a Civil Society and oblige themselves to Laws as the greatest number of men that ever met together in the world Thus we find that a few men assembling together upon the Banks of the Tiber resolved to build a City and set up a Government among themselves And the Multitude that met at Babylon when their design of building a Tower that should reach up to Heaven failed and their Language was confounded divided themselves as our Author says into seventy two parcels and by the same Right might have divided into more as their Descendents did into almost an infinite number before the death of their common Father Noah But we cannot find a more perfect Picture of Freemen living according to their own Will than in Abraham and Lot they went together into Canaan continued together as long as was convenient for them and parted when their Substance did so increase that they became troublesom to each other In the like manner Ismael Isaac and Abraham's six Sons by Keturah might have continued together and made one Nation Isaac and Esau Moab and Ammon might have done so too or all of them that came of the same Stock might have united together but they did not and their Descendents by the same rule might have subdivided perpetually if they had thought it expedient for themselves and if the Sons of Jacob did not do the like 't is probable they were kept together by the hope of an Inheritance promised to them by God in which we find no shadow of a despotical Dominion affected by one as Father or Heir to the first Father or reputed to be the Heir but all continued in that fraternal equality which according to Abraham's words to Lot they ought to do There was no Lord Slave or Vassal no strife was to be among them They were Brethren they might live together or separate as they found it convenient for themselves By the same Law that Abraham and Lot Moab and Ammon Ismael Isaac and the Sons of Keturah Jacob Esau and their Descendents did divide and set up several Governments every one of their Children might have done the like and the same Right remained to their Issue till they had by agreement engaged themselves to each other But if they had no dependence upon each other and might live together in that fraternal equality which was between Abraham and Lot or separate and continue in that separation or reunite they could not but have a right of framing such conditions of their reunion as best pleased themselves By this means every number of men agreeing together and framing a Society became a compleat Body having all Power in themselves over themselves subject to no other human Law than their own All those that compose the Society being equally free to enter into it or not no man could have any Prerogative above others unless it were granted by the consent of the whole and nothing obliging them to enter into this Society but the consideration of their own Good that Good or the opinion of it must have been the Rule Motive and End of all that they did ordain 'T is lawful therefore for any such Bodies to set up one or a few men to govern them or to retain the Power in themselves and he or they who are set up having no other Power but what is so conferred upon them by that Multitude whether great or small are truly by them made what they are and by the Law of their own Creation are to exercise those Powers according to the proportion and to the ends for which they were given These Rights in several Nations and Ages have bin variously executed in the establishment of Monarchies Aristocracies Democracies or mixed Governmeuts according to the variety of Circumstances and the Governments have bin good or evil according to the rectitude or pravity of their Institution and the vertue and wisdom or the folly and vices of those to whom the Power was committed but the end which was ever proposed being the good of the Publick they only performed their duty who procured it according to the Laws of the Society which were equally valid as to their own Magistrates whether they were few or many This might suffice to answer our Author's Question but he endeavours further to perplex it by a fiction of his own brain That God gave this Power to the whole Multitude met and not to every particular Assembly of Men And expects a proof That the whole Multitude met and divided this Power which God gave them in gross by breaking it into parcels and by appointing a distinct Power to each Commonwealth He also fathers it upon the Assertors of Liberty and dos not see as he says how there can be an Election of a Magistrate by any Common-wealth that is not an Vsurpation upon the Privilege of the whole World unless all Mankind had met together and divided the Power into parcels which God had given them in gross But besore I put my self to the trouble of answering that which is but an Appendix to a whimsy of his own I may justly ask What hurt he finds in Usurpation who asserts that the same Obedience is due to all Monarchs whether they come in by Inheritance Election or Usurpation If Usurpation can give a Right to a Monarch why dos it not confer the same upon a People Or rather if God did in gross confer such a Right upon all Mankind and they neither did nor can meet together by consent to dispose of it for the good of the whole why should not those who can and do consent to meet together agree upon that which seems most expedient to them for the Government of themselves Did God create Man under the necessity of wanting Government and all the good that proceeds from it because at the first all did not and afterwards all could not meet to agree upon Rules Or did he ever declare that unless they should use the first opportunity of dividing themselves into such parcels as were to remain unalterable the right of reigning over every one shall fall to the first Villain that should dare to attempt it It is not more consonant to the Wisdom and Goodness of God to leave to every Nation a liberty of repairing the Mischiefs fallen upon them through the omission of their first Parents by setting up Governments among themselves than to lay them under a necessity of submitting to any that should insolently aspire to a Domination over them Is it not more just and reasonable to believe that the universal Right not being executed devolves upon particular Nations as numbers of the great Body than that it should become the reward of Violence
to be the same in as much as it comprehended all the Freemen that is all the People for the difference between Civis and Servits is irreconcilable and no man whilst he is a Servant can be a Member of a Commonwealth for he that is not in his own power cannot have a part in the Government of others All the forementioned Northern Nations had the like customs among them The Governments they had were so instituted The utmost that any now remaining pretends to is to derive their Right from them If according to Filmer these first Assemblies could not confer it upon the first they had none Such as claim under them can inherit none from those that had none and there can be no right in all the Governments we so much venerate and nothing can tend more to their overthrow than the reception of our Author's Doctrine Tho any one Instance would be sufficient to overthrow his general negative Proposition for a Rule is not generally true if there be any just Exception against it I have alledged many and find it so easy to increase the number that there is no Nation whose Original we know out of whose Histories I will not undertake to produce the like but I have not bin solicitous precisely to distinguish which Nations have acted in their own Persons and which have made use of Delegates nor in what times they have changed from one way to the other for if any have acted by themselves the thing is possible and whatsoever is done by delegated Powers must be referred to their Principals for none can give to any a Power which they have not in themselves He is graciously pleased to confess That when men are assembled by a humane Power that Power that doth assemble them may also limit the manner of the execution of that Power c. But in Assemblies that take their Authority from the Law of Nature it is not so for what liberty or freedom is due to any man by the Law of Nature no inferior Power can alter limit or diminish No one man or multitude of men can give away the natural Right of another c. These are strong Lines and such as if there be any sense in them utterly overthrow all our Author's Doctrine for if any Assembly of men did ever take their Authority from the Law of Nature it must be of such as remaining in the intire fruition of their natural Liberty and restrained by no Contract meet together to deliberate of such matters as concern themselves and if they can be restrained by no one man or number of men they may dispose of their own Affairs as they think fit But because no one of them is obliged to enter into the Society that the rest may constitute he cannot enjoy the benefit of that Society unless he enter into it He may be gone and set up for himself or set up another with such as will agree with him But if he enter into the Society he is obliged by the Laws of it and if one of those Laws be that all things should be determined by the plurality of Voices his Assent is afterwards comprehended in all the Resolutions of that Plurality Reuben or Simeon might according to the Laws of Nature have divided themselves from their Brethren as well as Lot from Abraham or Ismael and the Sons of Keturah from Isaac but when they in hopes of having a part in the Inheritance promised to their Fathers had joined with their Brethren a few of their Descendents could not have a right by their dissent to hinder the Resolutions of the whole Body or such a part of it as by the first Agreement was to pass for an Act of the whole And the Scripture teaches us that when the Lot was fallen upon Saul they who despised him were stiled Men of Belial and the rest after his Victory over the Ammonites would have slain them if he had permitted In the like manner when a number of Men met together to build Rome any man who had disliked the design might justly have refused to join in it but when he had entred into the Society he could not by his Vote invalidate the Acts of the whole nor destroy the Rights of Romulus Numa and the others who by the Senate and People were made Kings nor those of the other Magistrates who aster their expulsion were legally created This is as much as is required to establish the natural Liberty of Mankind in its utmost extent and cannot be shaken by our Author's surmise That a Gap is thereby opened for every seditious multitude to raise a new Commonwealth For till the Commonwealth be established no multitude can be seditious because they are not subject to any humane Law and Sedition implies an unjust and disorderly opposition of that Power which is legally established which cannot be when there is none nor by him who is not a Member of the Society that makes it and when it is made such as entered into it are obliged to the Laws of it This shewing the root and foundation of Civil Powers we may judg of the use and extent of them according to the letter of the Law or the true intentional meaning of it both which declare them to be purely Human Ordinances proceeding from the will of those who seek their own good and may certainly infer that since all Multitudes are composed of such as are under some Contract or free from all no man is obliged to enter into those contracts against his own will nor obliged by any to which he dos not assent Those multitudes that enter into such Contracts and thereupon form Civil Societies act according to their own will Those that are engaged in none take their Authority from the Law of Nature their Rights cannot be limited or diminished by any one man or number of men and consequently whoever dos it or attempts the doing of it violates the most sacred Laws of God and Nature His cavils concerning Proxies and the way of using them deserve no answer as relating only to one sort of men amongst us and can have no influence upon the Laws of Nature or the proceedings of Assemblies acting according to such Rules as they set to themselves In some places they have voted all together in their own persons as in Athens In others by Tribes as in Rome Sometimes by Delegates when the number of the whole People is so great that no one place can contain them as in the Parliaments Diets General Assemblies of Estates long used in the great Kingdoms of Europe In other parts many Cities are joined together in Leagues as antiently the Achaians Etolians Samnites Tuscans and in these times the States of Holland and Cantons of Switzerland but our Author not regarding such matters in pursuance of his folly with an ignorance as admirable as his stupidity repeats his Challenge I ask says he but one Example out of the History of the whole World let
the Commonwealth be named wherever the Multitude or so much as the major part of it consented either by Voice or Procuration to the Election of a Prince not observing that if an Answer could not be given he did overthrow the Rights of all the Princes that are or ever have bin in the world for if the Liberty of one man cannot be limited or diminished by one or any number of men and none can give away the Right of another 't is plain that the Ambition of one man or of many a faction of Citizens or the mutiny of an Army cannot give a Right to any over the Liberties of a whole Nation Those who are so set up have their root in Violence or Fraud and are rather to be accounted Robbers and Pirats than Magistrates Leo Africanus observing in his History that since the extinction of Mahomet's Race to whom his Countrymen thought God had given the Empire of the World their Princes did not come in by the consent of those Nations which they governed says that they are esteemed Thieves and that on this account the most honourable Men among the Arabians and Moors scorn to eat drink or make Alliances with them and if the case were as general as that Author makes it no better Rule could be any where followed by honourable and worthy Men. But a good Cause must not be lost by the fault of an ill Advocate the Rights of Kings must not perish because Filmer knows not how to defend or dos maliciously betray them I have already proved that David and divers of the Judges were chosen by all Israel Jeroboam by ten Tribes all the Kings of Rome except Tarquin the Proud by the whole City I may add many Examples of the Saxons in our own Country Ina and Offa were made Kings omnium consensu These All are expressed plainly by the words Archiepiscopis Episcopis Abbatibus Senatoribus Ducibus Populo terrae Egbert and Ethelward came to the Crown by the same Authority Omnium consensu Rex creatur Ethelwolf the Monk Necessitate cogente factus est Rex consensus publicus in regem dari petiit Ethelstan tho a Bastard Electus est magno consensu Optimatum a Populo consalutatus In the like manner Edwin's Government being disliked they chose Edgar Vnanimi omnium conspiratione Edwino dejecto eligerunt Deo dictante Edgarum in Regem annuente Populo And in another place Edgarus ab omni Anglorum Populo electus est Ironside being deâ—d Canutus was received by the general consent of all Juraverunt illi quod eum regem sibi eligere vellent foedus etiam cum principibus omni populo ipse illi cum ipso percusserunt Whereupon Omnium consensu super totam Angliam Canutus coronatur Hardicanutus gaudenter ab omnibus suscipitur electus est The same Author says that Edward the Confessor Electus est in regem ab omni populo And another Omnium Electione in Edwardum concordatur Tho the name of Conqueror be odiously given to William the Norman he had the same Title to the Crown with his Predecessors In magna exultatione a Clero Populo susceptus ab omnibus Rex acclamatus I cannot recite all the Examples of this kind that the History of almost all Nations furnishes unless I should make a Volume in bulk not inferior to the Book of Martyrs But those which I have mentioned out of the Sacred Roman and English History being more than sufficient to answer our Author's Challenge I take liberty to add that tho there could not be one Example produced of a Prince or any other Magistrate chosen by the general consent of the People or by the major part of them it could be of no advantage to the Cause he has undertaken to maintain For when a People hath either indefinitely or under certain Conditions and Limitations resigned their Power into the hands of a certain number of men or agreed upon Rules according to which persons should from time to time be deputed for the management of their Affairs the Acts of those persons if their Power be without restrictions are of the same value as the Acts of the whole Nation and the assent of every individual man is comprehended in them If the Power be limited whatsoever is done according to that limitation has the same Authority If it do therefore appear as is testified by the Laws and Histories of all our Northern Nations that the power of every People is either wholly or to such a degree as is necessary for creating Kings granted to their several Gemotes Diets Cortez Assemblies of Estates Parliaments and the like all the Kings that they have any where or at any time chosen do reign by the same authority and have the same right as if every individual man of those Nations had assented to their Election But that these Gemotes Diets and other Assemblies of State have every where had such Powers and executed them by rejecting or setting up Kings and that the Kings now in being among us have received their beginning from such Acts has bin fully proved and is so plain in it self that none but those who are grosly stupid or impudent can deny it which is enough to shew that all Kings are not set up by violence deceit faction of a sew powerful men or the mutinies of Armies but from the consent of such multitudes as joining together frame Civil Societies and either in their own persons at general Assemblies or by their Delegates confer a just and legal Power upon them which our Author rejecting he dos as far as in him lies prove them all to be Usurpers and Tyrants SECT VI. They who have a right of chusing a King have the right of making a King THO the Right of Magistrates do essentially depend upon the consent of those they govern it is hardly worth our pains to examin Whether the silent acceptation of a Governor by part of the People be an argument of their concurring in the election of him or by the same reason the tacit consent of the whole Commonwealth may be maintained for when the question is concerning Right fraudulent surmises are of no value much less will it from thence follow that a Prince commanding by Succession Conquest or Usurpation may be said to be elected by the People for evident marks of dissent are often given Some declare their hatred other murmur more privately many oppose the Governour or Government and succeed according to the measure of their Strength Virtue or Furtune Many would resist but cannot and it were ridiculous to say that the Inhabitants of Greece the Kingdom of Naples or Dutchy of Tuscany do tacitly assent to the Government of the Great Turk King of Spain or Duke of Florence when nothing is more certain than that those miserable Nations abhor the Tyrannies they are under and if they were not mastered by a Power that
and them before the Lord if he had bin already King and if those Acts had bin empty Ceremonies conferring no Right at all I dare not say that a League dos imply an absolute equality between both Parties for there is a Foedus inequale wherein the weaker as Grotius says dos usually obtain protection and the stronger honour but there can be none at all unless both Parties are equally free to make it or not to make it David therefore was not King till he was elected and those Covenants made and he was made King by that Election and Covenants This is not shaken by our Author's supposition That the People would not have taken Joas Manasseh or Josiah if they had had a right of chusing a King since Solomon says Wo unto the Kingdom whose King is a Child For first they who at the first had a right of chusing whom they pleased to be King by the Covenant made with him whom they did chuse may have deprived themselves of the farther execution of it and rendred the Crown hereditary even to Children unless the Conditions were violated upon which it was granted In the second place if the infancy of a King brings Wo upon a People the Government of such a one cannot be according to the Laws of God and Nature for Governments are not instituted by either for the pleasure of a Man but for the good of Nations and their Weal not their Wo is sought by both and if Children are any where admitted to rule 't is by the particular Law of the place grounded perhaps upon an opinion that it is the best way to prevent dangerous Contests or that other ways may be found to prevent the Inconveniences that may proceed from their weakness Thirdly It cannot be concluded that they might not reject Children because they did not such matters require positive Proofs Suppositions are of no value in relation to them and the whole matter may be altered by particular Circumstances The Jews might reasonably have a great veneration for the House of David they knew what was promised to that Family and whatever respect was paid or privilege granted on that account can be of no advantage to any other in the world They might be farther induced to set up Joas in hope the defects of his Age might be supplied by the Vertue Experience and Wisdom of Jehoiada We do not know what good opinion may have bin conceived of Manasseh when he was twelve years old but much might be hoped from one that had bin virtuously educated and was probably under the care of such as had bin chosen by Hezekiah and tho the contrary did fall out the mischiefs brought upon the People by his wicked Reign proceeded not from the weakness of his childhood but from the malice of his riper years And both the Examples of Joas and Josiah prove that neither of them came in by their own right but by the choice of the People Jehoiada gathered the Levites out of all the Cities of Judah and the chief of the Fathers of Israel and they came to Jerusalem And all the Congregation made a Covenant with the King in the House of God and brought out the King's Son and put upon him the Crown and gave him the Testimony and made him King whereupon they slew Athaliah And when Ammon was stain the people of the Land slew them that had conspired against King Ammon and the people of the Land made Josiah his Son King in his stead which had been most impertinent if he was of himself King before they made him so Besides tho Infancy may be a just cause of excepting against and rejecting the next Heir to a Crown 't is not the greatest or strongest 'T is far more easy to find a Remedy against the solly of a Child if the State be well regulated than the more rooted Vices of grown men The English who willingly received Henry the sixth Edward the fifth and sixth tho Children resolutely opposed Robert the Norman And the French who willingly submitted to Charles the ninth Lewis the thirteenth and fourteenth in their Infancy rejected the lewd remainders of Meroveus his Race Charles of Lorrain with his Kindred descended from Pepin Robert Duke of Burgundy with his Descendents and Henry of Navarr till he had satisfied the Nobility and People in the point of Religion And tho I do not know that the Letter upon the words Vaeregnocujus Rex puer est recited by Lambard was written by Eleutherius Bishop of Rome yet the Authority given to it by the Saxons who made it a Law is much more to be valued than what it could receive from the Writer and whoever he was he seems rightly to have understood Solomon's meaning who did not look upon him as a Child that wanted years or was superannuated but him only who was guilty of Insolence Luxury Folly and Madness and he that said A wise Child was better than an old and foolish King could have no other meaning unless he should say it was worse to be governed by a wise Person than a Fool which may agree with the judgment of our Author but could never enter into the heart of Solomon Lastly Tho the practice of one or more Nations may indicate what Laws Covenants or Customs were in force among them yet they cannot bind others The diversity of them proceeds from the variety of mens Judgments and declares that the direction of all such Affairs depends upon their own Will according to which every People for themselves forms and measures the Magistracy and magistratical Power which as it is directed solely for the good hath its exercises and extent proportionable to the Command of those that institute it and such Ordinances being good for men God makes them his own SECT VIII There is no natural propensity in Man or Beast to Monarchy I See no reason to believe that God did approve the Government of one over many because he created but one but to the contrary in as much as he did endow him and those that came from him as well the youngest as the eldest Line with understanding to provide for themselves and by the invention of Arts and Sciences to be beneficial to each other he shewed that they ought to make use of that understanding in forming Governments according to their own convenience and such occasions as should arise as well as in other matters and it might as well be inferr'd that it is unlawful for us to build clothe arm defend or nourish our selves otherwise than as our first Parents did before or soon after the Flood as to take from us the liberty of instituting Governments that were not known to them If they did not find out all that conduces to the use of man but a Faculty as well as a Liberty was left to every one and will be to the end of the world to make use of his Wit Industry and Experience according to present Exigencies to
invent and practise such things as seem convenient to himself and others in matters of the least importance it were absurd to imagine that the political Science which of all others is the most abstruse and variable according to Accidents and Circumstances should have bin perfectly known to them who had no use of it and that their Descendents are obliged to add nothing to what they practised But the reason given by our Author to prove this extravagant fancy is yet more ridiculous than the thing it self God saith he shewed his opinion viz. that all should be governed by one when he endowed not only men but beasts with a natural propensity to Monarchy Neither can it be doubted but a natural propensity is referred to God who is the Author of Nature Which I suppose may appear if it be considered Nevertheless I cannot but commend him in the first place for introducing God speaking so modestly not declaring his Will but his Opinion He puts haughty and majestick Language into the mouth of Kings They command and decide as if they were subject to no Error and their Wills ought to be taken for perpetual Laws but to God he ascribes an humble delivery of his Opinion only as if he feared to be mistaken In the second place I deny that there is any such general propensity in Man or Beast or that Monarchy would thereby be justified tho it were found in them It cannot be in Beasts for they know not what Government is and being uncapable of it cannot distinguish the several sorts nor consequently incline to one more than another Salmasius his story of Bees is only fit for old Women to prate of in Chimney corners and they who represent Lions and Eagles as Kings of Birds and Beasts do it only to show that their Power is nothing but brutish Violence exercised in the destruction of all that are not able to oppose it and that hath nothing of goodness or justice in it which Similitude tho it should prove to be in all respects adequate to the matter in question could only shew that those who have no sense of Right Reason or Religion have a natural propensity to make use of their strength to the destruction of such as are weaker than they and not that any are willing to submit or not to resist it if they can which I think will be of no great advantage to Monarchy But whatever propensity may be in Beasts it cannot be attributed generally to Men for if it were they never could have deviated srom it unless they were violently put out of their natural course which in this case cannot be for there is no Power to force them But that they have most frequently deviated appears by the various Forms of Government established by them There is therefore no natural propensity to any one but they chuse that which in their judgment seems best for them Or if he would have that inconsiderate impulse by which brutish and ignorant men may be swayed when they know no better to pass for a Propensity others are no more obliged to follow it than to live upon Acrons or inhabit hollow Trees because their Fathers did it when they had no better Dwellings and found no better nourishment in the uncultivated World And he that exhibits such Examples as far as in him lies endeavours to take from us the use of Reason and extinguishing the light of it to make us live like the worst of Beasts that we may be fit Subjects to absolute Monarchy This may perhaps be our Author's intention having learnt from Aristotle that such a Government is only sutable to the nature of the most bestial men who being uncapable of governing themselves fall under the Power of such as will take the conduct of them but he ought withal to have remembred that according to Aristotle's opinion this Conductor must be in nature different from those he takes the charge of and if he be not there can be no Government nor Order by which it subsists Beasts follow Beasts and the blind lead the blind to destruction But tho I should grant this Propensity to be general it could not be imputed to God since man by Sin is fallen from the Law of his Creation The wickedness of man even in the first Ages was great in the World All the imaginations of his heart are evil and that continually All men are liars There is none that doth good no not one Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts Murders Adulteries Fornications Thefts false Testimonies c. These are the Fruits of our corrupted nature which the Apostle observing dos not only make a difference between the natural and the spiritual Man whose proceeding only can be referred to God and that only so far as he is guided by his Spirit but shews that the natural man is in a perpetual enmity against God without any possibility of being reconciled to him unless by the destruction of the old Man and the regenerating or renewing him through the Spirit of Grace There being no sootsteps of this in our Author's Book he and his Master Heylin may have differed from the Apostle referring that Propensity of Nature to God which he declares to be utter enmity against him and we may conclude that this Propensity however general it may be cannot be attributed to God as the Author of Nature since it cannot be more general than the Corruptions into which we are fallen SECT IX The Government instituted by God over the Israelites was Aristocratical NOtwithstanding all this our Author is resolved that Monarchy must be from God What form of Government says he God ordained by his Authority may be gathered by that Commonwealth which he instituted amongst the Hebrews which was not Aristocratical as Calvin saith but plainly Monarchical I may in as few words deny the Government set up by God to have bin Monarchical as he asserts it but finding such Language ordinarily to proceed from a mixture of folly impudence and pride I chuse rather to shew upon what I ground my Opinions than nakedly to deliver them most especially when by insisting upon the Government instituted by God over his People he refers us to the Scripture And I do this the more boldly since I follow Calvin's Exposition and believe that he having bin highly esteemed for his Wit Judgment and Learning by such as were endowed with the like and reverenced as a glorious Servant of God might if he were now alive comfort himself tho he had the misfortune to fall under the censures of Filmer and his followers 'T is probable he gave some Reasons for his Opinions but our Author having maliciously concealed them and I not having leasure at present to examin all his Writings to find them must content my self with such as my small understanding may suggest and such as I have found in approved Authors In the first place I may safely say he was not alone of that opinion Josephus Philo and
Moses Maimonides with all the best of the Jewish and Christian Authors had long before delivered the same Josephus says that Saul's first Sin by which he fell was that he took away the Aristocracy which he could not do if it had never bin established Philo imputes the institution of Kingly Government as it was in Israel neither to God nor his Word but to the fury of the sinful People Abarbenel says it proceeded from their delight in the Idolatry to which their Neighbours were addicted and which could be upheld only by a Government in practice and principle contrary to that which God had instituted Maimonides frequently says the same thing grounded upon the words of Hosea I gave them Kings in my Wrath and whosoever will call that a divine Institution may give the same name to Plagues or Famines and induce a necessity incumbent upon all men to go and search the one where they may find it and to leave their Lands for ever uncultivated that they may be sure of the other which being too bestial to be asserted by a man I may safely say the Hebrew Kings were not instituted by God but given as a punishment of their Sin who despised the Government that he had instituted and the above-mentioned Authors agree in the same thing calling the Peoples desire to have a King furious mad wicked and proceeding from their love to the Idolatry of their Neighbours which was suted to their Government both which were inconsistent with what God had established over his own People But waving the opinions of men 't is good to see what we can learn from the Scripture and enquire if there be any Precept there expresly commanding them to make a King or any Example that they did so whilst they continued obedient to the Word of God or any thing from whence we may reasonably inser they ought to have done it all which if I mistake not will be found directly contrary The only Precept that we find in the Law concerning Kings is that of Deuteron 17. already mentioned and that is not a Command to the People to make but Instructions what manner of King they should make if they desired to have one There was therefore none at all Examples do as little favour our Author's Assertions Moses Joshua and the other Judges had not the name or power of Kings They were not of the Tribe to which the Scepter was promised They did not transmit the Power they had to their Children which in our Adversary's opinion is a Right inseparable from Kings and their Power was not continued by any kind of Succession but created occasionally as need required according to the Vertues discovered in those who were raised by God to deliver the Nation in the time of their distress which being done their Children lay hid among the rest of the People Thus were Ehud Gideon Jephtha and others set up Whosoever will give battel say the Princes and People of Gilead to the Children of Ammon shall be head over the Inheritance of Gilead and finding Jephtha to be such a man as they sought they made him their Chief and all Israel followed them When Othniel had shew'd his Valour in taking Kyriath Sepher and delivering his Brethren from Cushan-Rishathaim he was made Judg When Ehud had killed Eglon when Shamgar and Samson had destroyed great numbers of the Philistins and when Gideon had defeated the Midianites they were fit to be advanced above their Brethren These Dignities were not inherent in their Persons or Families but conferred upon them nor conferred that they might be exalted in Riches and Glory but that they might be Ministers of Good to the People This may justify Plato's opinion that if one man be found incomparably to excel all others in the Vertues that are beneficial to Civil Societies he ought to be advanced above all but I think it will be hard from thence to deduce an Argument in favour of such a Monarchy as is necessarily to descend to the next in Blood whether Man Woman or Child without any consideration of Vertue Age Sex or Ability and that failing it can be of no use to our Author But whatever the dignity of a Hebrew Judg was and howsoever he was raised to that Office it certainly differ'd from that of a King Gideon could not have refused to be a King when the People would have made him so if he had bin a King already or that God from the beginning had appointed that they should have one The Elders and People could not have asked a King of Samuel if he had bin King and he could not without impiety have bin displeased with them for asking for such a one as God had appointed neither would God have said to him They have not rejected thee but they have rejected me that I should not reign over them if he had ordained what they desired They did not indeed reject God with their Mouths They pretended to use the liberty he had given them to make a King but would have such a one as he had forbidden They drew near to him with their Lips but their Hearts were far from him and he seeing their Hypocrisy severely chastised them in granting their ill conceived request and foretold the miseries that should thereupon befal them from which he would not deliver them tho they should cry to him by reason of what they suffered from their King He was their Creature and the mischiefs thereby brought upon them were the fruits of their own labour This is that which our Author calls God's institution of Kings but the Prophet explains the matter much better I gave them Kings in my anger and took them away in my wrath in destroying them God brought desolation upon the people that had sinned in asking for them and following their example in all kind of Wickedness This is all our Author has to boast of but God who acknowledges those works only to be his own which proceed from his goodness and mercy to his People disowns this Israel hath cast off the thing that is good even the Government that he had established the Enemy shall pursue him They have set up Kings but not by me and Princes but I know them not As if he sought to justify the severity of his Judgments brought upon them by the wickedness of their Kings that they not he had ordained Having seen what Government God did not ordain it may be seasonable to examine the nature of the Government which he did ordain and we shall easily find that it consisted of three parts besides the Magistrates of the several Tribes and Cities They had a chief Magistrate who was called Judg or Captain as Joshua Gideon and others a Council of seventy chosen men and the General Assemblies of the People The first was meerly occasional like to the Dictators of Rome and as the Romans in times of danger frequently chose such a Man as was
we examine things more distinctly we shall find that all things varied according to the humour of the Prince Whilst Pharaoh lived who had received such signal Services from Joseph the Israelites were well used but when another rose up who knew him not they were persecuted with all the extremities of injustice and cruelty till the furious King persisting in his design of exterminating them brought destruction upon himself and the Nation Where the like Power hath prevailed it has ever produced the like effects When some great men of Persia had perswaded Darius that it was a fine thing to command that no man for the space of thirty days should make any Petition to God or Man but to the King only Daniel the most wise and holy Man then in the world must be thrown to the Lions When God had miraculously saved him the same Sentence was passed against the Princes of the Nation When Haman had filled Ahasuerus his ears with Lies all the Jews were appointed to be slain and when the fraud of that Villain was detected leave was given them with the like precipitancy to kill whom they pleased When the Israelites came to have Kings they were made subject to the same Storms and always with their Blood suffer'd the Penalty of their Prince's madness When one kind of fury possessed Saul he slew the Priests persecuted David and would have killed his brave Son Jonathan When he sell under another he took upon him to do the Priest's Office pretended to understand the Word of God better than Samuel and spared those that God had commanded him to destroy Upon another whimsey he killed the Gibeonites and never rested from finding new Inventions to vex the People till he had brought many thousands of them to perish with himself and his Sons on Mount Gilboa We do not find any King in Wisdom Valour and Holiness equal to David and yet he falling under the temptations that attend the greatest Fortunes brought Civil Wars and a Plague upon the Nation When Solomon's heart was drawn away by strange Women he filled the Land with Idols and oppressed the People with intolerable Tributes Rehoboam's Folly made that Rent in the Kingdom which could never be made up Under his Successors the people served God Baal or Ashtaroth as best pleased him who had the Power and no other marks of Stability can be alledged to have bin in that Kingdom than the constancy of their Kings in the practice of Idolatry their cruelty to the Prophets hatred to the Jews and civil Wars producing such Slaughters as are reported in few other Stories The Kingdom was in the space of about two hundred years possessed by nine several Families not one of them getting possession otherwise than by the slaughter of his Predecessor and the extinction of his Race and ended in the Bondage of the ten Tribes which continues to this day He that desires farther proofs of this Point may seek them in the Histories of Alexander of Macedon and his Successors He seems to have bin endow'd with all the Vertues that Nature improved by Discipline did ever attain so that he is believed to be the Man meant by Aristotle who on account of the excellency of his Vertues was by Nature framed for a King and Plutarch ascribes his Conquests rather to those than to his Fortune But even that Vertue was overthrown by the Successes that accompanied it He burnt the most magnificent Palace of the world in a frolick to please a mad drunken Whore Upon the most frivolous suggestions of Eunuchs and Rascals he kill'd the best and bravest of his Friends and his Valour which had no equal not subsisting without his other Vertues perished when he became lewd proud cruel and superstitious so as it may be truly said he died a Coward His Successors did not differ from him When they had killed his Mother Wise and Children they exercised their fury against one another and tearing the Kingdom to pieces the Survivors left the Sword as an Inheritance to their Families who perished by it or under the weight of the Roman Chains When the Romans had lost that Liberty which had bin the Nurse of their Vertue and gained the Empire in lieu of it they attained to our Author 's applauded Stability Julius being slain in the Senate the first Question was whether it could be restored or not And that being decided by the Battel of Philippi the Conquerors set themselves to destroy all the eminent men in the City as the best means to establish the Monarchy Augustus gained it by the death of Antonius and the corruption of the Souldiers and he dying naturally or by the fraud of his Wife the Empire was transferred to her Son Tiberius under whom the miserable People suffer'd the worst effects of the most impure Lust and inhuman Cruelty He being stifled the Government went on with much uniformity and stability Caligula Claudius Nero Galba Otho Vitellius regularly and constantly did all the mischief they could and were not more like to each other in the Villanies they committed than in the Deaths they suffered Vespasian's more gentle Reign did no way compensate the Blood he spilt to attain the Empire And the Benefits received from Titus his short-liv'd Vertue were infinitely overbalanced by the detestable Vices of his Brother Domitian who turned all things into the old Channel of Cruelty Lust Rapine and Perfidiousness His slaughter gave a little breath to the gasping perishing World and men might be vertuous under the Government of Nerva Trajan Antoninus Aurelius and a few more tho even in their time Religion was always dangerous But when the Power sell into the hands of Commodus Heliogabalus Caracalla and others of that sort nothing was sase but obscurity or the utmost excesses of lewdness and baseness However whilst the Will of the Governor passed for a Law and the Power did usually sall into the hands of such as were most bold and violent the utmost security that any man could have for his Person or Estate depended upon his temper and Princes themselves whether good or bad had no longer Leases of their lives than the furious and corrupted Soldiers would give them and the Empire of the World was changeable according to the Success of a Battel Matters were not much mended when the Emperors became Christians Some favour'd those who were called Orthodox and gave great Revenues to corrupt the Clergy Others supported Arianism and persecuted the Orthodox with as much asperity as the Pagans had done Some revolted and shewed themselves more fierce against the professors of Christianity than they that had never had any knowledg of it The World was torn in pieces amongst them and osten suffered as great miseries by their sloth ignorance and cowardice as by their fury and madness till the Empire was totally dissolved and lost That which under the weakness and irregularity of a popular Government had conquer'd all from the Euphrates to Britain and
so many of those who had enjoy'd the same honour or might aspire to it as to bring them for his pleasure to betray their Country and as no man was ever chosen who had not given great testimonies of his Vertues so no one did ever forfeit the good opinion conceived of him Vertue was then honour'd and thought so necessarily to comprehend a sincere love and fidelity to the Commonwealth that without it the most eminent qualities were reputed vile and odious and the memory of former Services could no way expiate the guilt of conspiring against it This seeming Severity was in truth the greatest Clemency for tho our Author has the impudence to say that during the Roman Liberty the best men thrived worst and the worst best he cannot alledg one example of any eminent Roman put to death except Manlius Capitolinus from the expulsion of the Tarquins to the time of the Gracchi and the Civil Wars not long after ensuing and of very few who were banished By these means Crimes were prevented and the temptations to evil being removed Treachery was destroy'd in the root and such as might be naturally ambitious were made to see there was no other way to Honour and Power than by acting virtuously But lest this should not be sufficient to restrain aspiring men what Power soever was granted to any Magistrate the Soveraignty still remained in the People and all without exception were subject to them This may seem strange to those who think the Dictators were absolute because they are said to have bin sine provocatione but that is to be only understood in relation to other Magistrates and not to the People as is clearly proved in the case of Q. Fabius whom Papirius the Dictator would have put to death Tribunos Plebis appello says Fabius Maximus his Father provoco ad Populum eumque tibi fugienti exercitus tui fugienti Senatus judicium Judicem fero qui certe unus plusquam tua dictatura potest polletque videro cessurusne sis provocationi cui Tullus Hostilius cessit And tho the People did rather interceed for Fabius than command his deliverance that modesty did evidently proceed from an opinion that Papirius was in the right and tho they desired to save Fabius who seems to have bin one of the greatest and best men that ever the City produced they would not enervate that military Discipline to which they owed not only their greatness but their subsistence most especially when their Soveraign Authority was acknowledged by all and the Dictator himself had submitted This right of Appeals to the People was the foundation of the Roman Commonwealth laid in the days of Romulus submitted to by Hostilius in the case of Horatius and never violated till the Laws and the Liberty which they supported were overthrown by the power of the Sword This is confirmed by the speech of Metellus the Tribune who in the time of the second Carthaginian War causelesly disliking the Proceedings of Q. Fabius Maximus then Dictator in a publick Assembly of the People said Quod si antiquus animus Plebi Romanae esset se audacter laturum de abrogando Q. Fabii Imperio nunc modicam rogationem promulgaturum de aequando Magistri Equitum Dictatoris jure which was done and that Action which had no precedent shews that the People needed none and that their Power being eminently above that of all Magistrates was obliged to no other rule than that of their own Will Tho I do therefore grant that a Power like to the Dictatorian limited in time circumscribed by Law and kept perpetually under the supreme Authority of the People may by vertuous and well-disciplin'd Nations upon some occasions be prudently granted to a vertuous man it can have no relation to our Author's Monarch whose Power is in himself subject to no Law perpetually exercised by himself and for his own sake whether he have any of the abilities required for the due performance of so great a work or be intirely destitute of them nothing being more unreasonable than to deduce consequences from cases which in substance and circumstances are altogether unlike but to the contrary these examples shewing that the Romans even in the time of such Magistrates as seemed to be most absolute did retain and exercise the Soveraign Power do most evidently prove that the Government was ever the same remaining in the People who without prejudice might give the Administration to one or more men as best pleased themselves and the success shews that they did it prudently SECT XIV No Sedition was hurtful to Rome till through their Prosperity some men gained a Power above the Laws LIttle pains is required to confute our Author who imputes much bloodshed to the popular Government of Rome for he cannot prove that one man was unjustly put to death or slain in any Sedition before Publius Gracchus The Foundations of the Common-wealth were then so shaken that the Laws could not be executed and whatsoever did then fall out ought to be attributed to the Monarchy for which the great men began to contend Whilst they had no other Wars than with neighbouring Nations they had a strict eye upon their Commanders and could preserve Discipline among the Soldiers but when by the excellence of their Valour and Conduct the greatest Powers of the World were subdued and for the better carrying on of foreign Wars Armies were suffered to continue in the same hands longer than the Law did direct Soldiery came to be accounted a Trade and those who had the worst designs against the Commonwealth began to favour all manner of Licentiousness and Rapine that they might gain the favour of the Legions who by that means became unruly and seditious 't was hard if not impossible to preserve a Civil equality when the Spoils of the greatest Kingdoms were brought to adorn the Houses of private men and they who had the greatest Cities and Nations to be their Dependents and Clients were apt to scorn the power of the Law This was a most dangerous Disease like those to which human Bodies are subject when they are arrived to that which Physicians call the Athletick habit proceeding from the highest perfection of Health Activity and Strength that the best Constitution by Diet and Exercise can attain Whosoever falls into them shews that he had attain'd that perfection and he who blames that which brings a State into the like condition condemns that which is most perfect among men Whilst the Romans were in the way to this no Sedition did them any hurt they were composed without Blood and those that seemed to be the most dangerous produced the best Laws But when they were arrived to that condition no Order could do them good the fatal period set to human things was come they could go no higher Summisque negatum Stare diu and all that our Author blames is not to be imputed to their Constitution but their departing from
orderly chosen by a willing People were the true Shepherds who came in by the gate of the Sheepfold and might justly be called the Ministers of God so long as they performed their duty in providing for the good of the Nations committed to their charge SECT XVII Good Governments admit of Changes in the Superstructures whilst the Foundations remain unchangeable IF I go a step farther and confess the Romans made some changes in the outward Form of their Government I may safely say they did well in it and prosper'd by it After the Expulsion of the Kings the Power was chiefly in the Nobility who had bin Leaders of the People but it was necessary to humble them when they began to presume too much upon the advantages of their Birth and the City could never have been great unless the Plebeians who were the Body of it and the main strength of their Armies had bin admitted to a participation of Honours This could not be done at the first They who had bin so vilely opprest by Tarquin and harass'd with making or cleansing Sinks were not then fit for Magistracies or the Command of Armies but they could not justly be excluded from them when they had men who in courage and conduct were equal to the best of the Patricians and it had bin absurd for any man to think it a disparagement to him to marry the Daughter of one whom he had obey'd as Dictator or Consul and perhaps follow'd in his Triumph Rome that was constituted for War and sought its Grandeur by that means could never have arriv'd to any considerable height if the People had not bin exercised in Arms and their Spirits raised to delight in Conquests and willing to expose themselves to the greatest fatigues and dangers to accomplish them Such men as these were not to be used like Slaves or opprest by the unmerciful hand of Usurers They who by their sweat and blood were to defend and enlarge the Territories of the State were to be convinced they fought for themselves and they had reason to demand a Magistracy of their own vested with a Power that none might offend to maintain their Rights and to protect their Families whilst they were abroad in the Armies These were the Tribunes of the People made as they called it Sacrosancti or inviolable and the creation of them was the most considerable Change that happened till the time of Marius who brought all into disorder The creation or abolition of Military Tribunes with Consular Power ought to be accounted as nothing for it imported little whether that Authority were exercised by two or by five That of the Decemviri was as little to be regarded they were intended only for a Year and tho new ones were created for another on pretence that the Laws they were to frame could not be brought to perfection in so short a time yet they were soon thrown down from the Power they usurped and endeavoured to retain contrary to Law The creation of Dictators was no novelty they were made occasionally from the beginning and never otherwise than occasionally till Julius Cesar subverted all order and invading that supreme Magistracy by force usurped the Right which belong'd to all This indeed was a mortal Change even in root and principle All other Magistrates had bin created by the People for the publick good and always were within the power of those that had created them But Cesar coming in by force sought only the satisfaction of his own raging Ambition or that of the Soldiers whom he had corrupted to destroy their Country and his Successors governing for themselves by the help of the like Raskals perpetually exposed the Empire to be ravaged by them But whatever opinion any man may have of the other Changes I dare affirm there are few or no Monarchies whose Histories are so well known to us as that of Rome which have not suffer'd Changes incomparably greater and more mischievous than those of Rome whilst it was free The Macedonian Monarchy fell into pieces immediately after the death of Alexander 'T is thought he perished by Poison His Wives Children and Mother were destroyed by his own Captains The best of those who had escaped his fury fell by the Sword of each other When the famous Argyraspides might have expected some reward of their labours and a little rest in old age they were maliciously sent into the East by Antigonus to perish by hunger and misery after he had corrupted them to betray Eumenes No better fate attended the rest all was in confusion every one follow'd whom he pleased and all of them seemed to be filled with such a rage that they never ceased from mutual slaughters till they were consumed and their Kingdoms continued in perpetual Wars against each other till they all fell under the Roman Power The fortune of Rome was the same after it became a Monarchy Treachery Murder and Fury reigned in every part there was no Law but Force he that could corrupt an Army thought he had a sufficient Title to the Empire by this means there were frequently three or four and at one time thirty several Pretenders who called themselves Emperors of which number he only reigned that had the happiness to destroy all his Competitors and he himself continued no longer than till another durst attempt the destruction of him and his Posterity In this state they remained till the wasted and bloodless Provinces were possess'd by a multitude of barbarous Nations The Kingdoms established by them enjoy'd as little Peace or Justice that of France was frequently divided into as many parts as the Kings of Meroveus or Pepin's Race had Children under the names of the Kingdoms of Paris Orleans Soissons Arles Burgundy Austrasia and others These were perpetually vexed by the unnatural fury of Brothers or nearest Relations whilst the miserable Nobility and People were obliged to fight upon their foolish Quarrels till all fell under the power of the strongest This mischief was in some measure cured by a Law made in the time of Hugh Capet that the Kingdom should no more be divided But the Appannages as they call them granted to the King's Brothers with the several Dukedoms and Earldoms erected to please them and other great Lords produced frequently almost as bad effects This is testified by the desperate and mortal Factions that went under the names of Burgundy and Orleans Armagnac and Orleans Montmorency and Guise These were followed by those of the League and the Wars of the Huguenots They were no sooner finish'd by the taking of Rochel but new ones began by the Intrigues of the Duke of Orleans Brother to Lewis the 13th and his Mother and pursued with that animosity by them that they put themselves under the protection of Spain To which may be added that the Houses of Condé Soissons Montmorency Guise Vendosme Angouleme Bouillon Rohan Longueville Rochfocault Epernon and I think I may say every one that is of great
some few may have proved better than was intended it will appear that our Author's Assertions are in the utmost degree false Of this we need no better witness than Tacitus The Civil Wars and the Proscriptions upon which he touches are justly to be attributed to that Monarchy which was then setting up the only question being who should be the Monarch when the Liberty was already overthrown And if any eminent men escaped it was much against the will of those who had usurped the power He acknowledges his Histories to be a continued relation of the slaughter of the most illustrious Persons and that in the times of which he writes Virtue was attended with certain destruction After the death of Germanicus and his eldest Children Valerius Asiaticus Seneca Corbulo and an infinite number more who were thought most to resemble them found this to be true at the expence of their lives Nero in pursuance of the same tyrannical design murder'd Helvidius and Thraseas that he might tear up Virtue by the roots Domitian spared none willingly that had either Virtue or Reputation and tho Trajan with perhaps some other might grow up under him in the remote Provinces yet no good man could escape who came under his eye and was so eminent as to be observed by him Whilst these who were thought to be the best men that appear'd in the Roman Empire did thrive in this manner Sejanus Macro Narcissus Pallas Tigillinus Icetus Vinnius Laco and others like to them had the power of the Empire in their hands Therefore unless Mankind has bin mistaken to this day and that these who have hitherto bin accounted the worst of Villains were indeed the best men in the world and that those destroy'd by them who are thought to have bin the best were truly the worst it cannot be denied that the best men during the Liberty of Rome thrived best that good men suffer'd no indignity unless by some fraud imposed upon the well-meaning People and that so soon as the Liberty was subverted the worst men thrived best The best men were exposed to so many Calamities and Snares that it was thought a matter of great wonder to see a virtuous man die in his bed and if the account were well made I think it might appear that every one of the Emperors before Titus shed more noble and innocent Blood than Rome and all the Commonwealths in the world have done whilst they had the free enjoyment of their own Liberty But if any man in favour of our Author seek to diminish this vast disproportion between the two differing sorts of Government and impute the disorders that happen'd in the time of the Gracchi and others whilst Rome was strugling for her Liberty to the Government of a Commonwealth he will find them no more to be compar'd with those that fell out afterwards than the railings of a turbulent Tribune against the Senate to the Villanies and Cruelties that corrupted and dispeopled the Provinces from Babylon to Scotland And whereas the State never fail'd to recover from any disorders as long as the Root of Liberty remain'd untouch'd and became more powerful and glorious than ever even after the Wars of Marius and Sylla when that was destroy'd the City fell into a languishing condition and grew weaker and weaker till that and the whole Empire was ruin'd by the Barbarians 3. Our Author to shew that his memory is as good as his judgment having represented Rome in the times of Liberty as a publick Slaughter-house soon after blames the clemency of their Laws whereas 't is impossible that the same City could at the same time be guilty of those contrary extremities and no less certain that it was perfectly free from them both His assertion seems to be grounded upon Cesar's Speech related by Salust in favour of Lentulus and Cethegus Companions of Catiline but tho he there endeavoured to put the best colour he could upon their cause it signified only thus much that a Roman Citizen could not be put to death without being heard in publick which Law will displease none that in understanding and integrity may not be compared to Filmer and his Followers 'T is a folly to extend it farther for 't is easily proved that there was always a power of putting Citizens to death and that it was exercised when occasion required The Laws were the same in the time of the Kings and when that Office was executed by Consuls excepting such changes as are already mention'd The Lex perduellionis cited by Livy in the case of Horatius who had kill'd his Sister continued in force from the foundation to the end of that Government the condemnation was to death the words of the Sentence these Caput obnubito infelici arbore reste suspendito verberato intra Pomaerium vel extra Pomaerium He was tried by this Law upon an appeal made to the People by his Father and absolved admiratione magis virtutis quam jure causae which could not have bin if by the Law no Citizen might be put to death The Sons of Brutus were condemn'd to death in publick and executed with the Aquilii and Vitellii their Companions in the same Conspiracy Manlius Capitolinus was put to death by the vote of the People Titus Manlius by the command of his Father Torquatus for fighting without order Two Legions were decimated by Appius Claudius Spurius Melius refusing to appear before the Dictator was killed by Servilius Ahala General of the Horse and pronounced jure caesum Quintus Fabius was by Papirius the Dictator condemn'd to die and could not have bin saved but by the intercession and authority of the People If this be not so I desire to be informed what the Senate meant by condemning Nero to be put to death more majorum if more majorum no Citizen might be put to death Why the Consuls Dictators Military Tribuns Decemviri caused Rods and Axes to be carried beforethem as well within as without the City if no use was to be made of them Were they only vain Badges of a Power never to be executed or upon whom was the Supreme Power signified by them to be exercised within and without the City if the Citizens were not subject to it 'T is strange that a man who had ever read a Book of matters relating to the Affairs of Rome should fancy these things or hope to impose them upon the World if he knew them to be foolish false and absurd But of all the marks of a most supine stupidity that can be given by a man I know no one equal to this of our Author who in the same Clause wherein he says no Citizen could be put to death or banished adds that the Magistrates were upon pain of death forbidden to do it for if a Magistrate might be put to death for banishing a Citizen or causing him to be executed a Citizen might be put to death for the Magistrates were not Strangers but Citizens
the Lusts of a man who may nourish them Similitude of Interests Manners and Designs is a link of Union between them Both are Enemies to popular and mixed Government and those Governments are Enemies to them and by preserving Virtue and Integrity oppose both knowing that if they do not they and their Governments must certainly perish SECT XX. Man's natural love to Liberty is temper'd by Reason which originally is his Nature THAT our Author's Book may appear to be a heap of Incongruities and Contradictions 't is not amiss to add to what has already bin observed that having asserted Absolute Monarchy to be the only natural Government he now says that the Nature of all People is to desire Liberty without restraint But if Monarchy be that Power which above all restrains Liberty and subjects all to the Will of one this is as much as to say that all People naturally desire that which is against Nature and by a wonderful excess of extravagance and folly to assert contrary Propositions that on both sides are equally absurd and false For as we have already proved that no Government is imposed upon men by God or Nature 't is no less evident that Man being a rational Creature nothing can be universally natural to him that is not rational But this Liberty without restraint being inconsistent with any Government and the Good which man naturally desires for himself Children and Friends we find no place in the world where the Inhabitants do not enter into some kind of Society or Government to restrain it and to say that all men desire Liberty without restraint and yet that all do restrain it is ridiculous The truth is man is hereunto led by Reason which is his Nature Every one sees they cannot well live asunder nor many together without some Rule to which all must submit This submission is a restraint of Liberty but could be of no effect as to the Good intended unless it were general nor general unless it were natural When all are born to the same freedom some will not resign that which is their own unless others do the like This general consent of all to resign such a part of their Liberty as seems to be for the good of all is the voice of Nature and the act of Men according to natural Reason seeking their own Good And if all go not in the same way according to the same form 't is an evident testimony that no one is directed by Nature but as a few or many may join together and frame smaller or greater Societies so those Societies may institute such an order or form of Government as best pleases themselves and if the ends of Government are obtained they all equally follow the voice of Nature in constituting them Again if man were by nature so tenacious of his Liberty without restraint he must be rationally so The creation of Absolute Monarchies which entirely extinguishes it must necessarily be most contrary to it tho the people were willing for they thereby abjure their own Nature The usurpation of them can be no less than the most abominable and outragious violation of the Laws of Nature that can he imagined The Laws of God must be in the like measure broken and of all Governments Democracy in which every man's Liberty is least restrained because every man hath an equal part would certainly prove to be the most just rational and natural whereas our Author represents it as a perpetual spring of disorder confusion and vice This consequence would be unavoidable if he said true but it being my fate often to differ from him I hope to be excused if I do so in this also and affirm that nothing but the plain and certain dictates of Reason can be generally applicable to all men as the Law of their Nature and they who according to the best of their understanding provide for the good of themselves and their Posterity do all equally observe it He that enquires more exactly into the matter may find that Reason enjoins every man not to arrogate to himself more than he allows to others nor to retain that Liberty which will prove hurtful to him or to expect that others will suffer themselves to be restrain'd whilst he to their prejudice remains in the exercise of that freedom which Nature allows He who would be exempted from this common Rule must shew for what Reason he should be raised above his Brethren and if he do it not he is an enemy to them This is not Popularity but Tyranny and Tyrants are said exuisse hominem to throw off the Nature of men because they do unjustly and unreasonably assume to themselves that which agrees not with the frailty of human Nature and set up an Interest in themselves contrary to that of their Equals which they ought to defend as their own Such as favour them are like to them and we know of no Tyranny that was not set up by the worst nor of any that have bin destroy'd unless by the best of men The several Tyrannies of Syracuse were introduced by Agathocles Dionysius Hieronymus Hippocrates Epicides and others by the help of lewd dissolute mercenary Villains and overthrown by Timoleon Dion Theodorus and others whose Virtues will be remembred in all ages These and others like to them never sought Liberty without restraint but such as was restrained by Laws tending to the publick Good that all might concur in promoting it and the unruly desires of those who affected Power and Honours which they did not deserve might be repressed The like was seen in Rome When Brutus Valeriu's and other virtuous Citizens had thrown out the lewd Tarquins they trusted to their own innocence and reputation and thinking them safe under the protection of the Law contented themselves with such Honours as their Countrymen thought they deserved This would not satisfy the dissolute crew that us'd to be companions to the Tarquins Sodales adolescentium Tarquiniorum assueti more Regio vivere eam tum aequato jure omnium licentiam quaerentes libertatem aliorum in suam vertisse servitutem conquerebantur Regem hominem esse à ◠quo impetres ubi jus ubi injuria opus sit Esse gratiae locum esse beneficio irasci ignoscere posse Leges rem surdam esse inexorabilem salubriorem inopi quam potenti nihil laxamenti nec veniae habere si modum excesseris periculosum esse in tot humanis erroribus sola innocentia vivere I cannot say that either of these sought a Liberty without restraint for the virtuous were willing to be restrained by the Law and the vicious to submit to the Will of a man to gain impunity in offending But if our Author say true the licentious fury of these lewd young men who endeavour'd to subvert the Constitution of their Country to procure the impunity of their own Crimes would have bin more natural that is more reasonable than the orderly proceedings of the
most virtuous who desir'd that the Law might be the rule of their Actions which is most absurd The like vicious Wretches have in all times endeavour'd to put the Power into the hands of one man who might protect them in their Villanies and advance them to exorbitant Riches or undeserved Honours whilst the best men trusting in their Innocence and desiring no other Riches or Preserments than what they were by their Equals thought to deserve were contented with a due Liberty under the protection of a just Law and I must transcribe the Histories of the World or at least so much of them as concerns the Tyrannies that have bin set up or cast down if I should here insert all the proofs that might be given of it But I shall come nearer to the point which is not to compare Democracy with Monarchy but a regular mixed Government with such an Absolute Monarchy as leaves all to the will of that Man Woman or Child who happens to be born in the reigning Family how ill soever they may be qualified I desire those who are lovers of Truth to consider whether the wisest best and bravest of Men are not naturally led to be pleased with a Government that protects them from receiving wrong when they have not the least inclination to do any Whether they who desire no unjust advantage above their Brethren will not always desire that a People or Senate constituted as that of Rome from the expulsion of Tarquin to the setting up of Cesar should rather judg of their Merit than Tarquin Cesar or his Successors Or whether the lewd or corrupted Pretorian Bands with Macro Sejanus Tigellinus and the like commanding them will not ever like Brutus his Sons abhor the inexorable Power of the Laws with the necessity of living only by their innocence and favour the Interest of Princes like to those that advanced them If this be not sufficient they may be pleased a little to reflect upon the Affairs of our own Country and seriously consider whether H de Cl f d F-lm-th Arl-ng-n and D nby could have pretended to the chief places if the disposal of them had bin in a free and well-regulated Parliament Whether they did most resemble Brutus Publicola and the rest of the Valerii the Fabii Quintii Cornelii c. or Narcissus Pallas Icetus Laco Vinnius and the like Whether all men good and bad do not favour that state of things which favours them and such as they are Whether Cl-v-l-d P-rtsm-th and others of the same trade have attained to the Riches and Honours they enjoy by Services done to the Common-wealth And what places Chiffinch F x and Jenkins could probably have attained if our Affairs had been regulated as good men desire Whether the old Arts of begging stealing and bawding or the new ones of informing and trepanning thrive best under one man who may be weak or vicious and is always subject to be circumvented by Flatterers or under the severe scrutinies of a Senat or People In a word whether they who live by such Arts and know no other do not always endeavour to advance the Government under which they enjoy or may hope to obtain the highest Honours and abhor that in which they are exposed to all manner of scorn and punishment Which being determined it will easily appear why the worst men have ever bin for Absolute Monarchy and the best against it and which of the two in so doing can be said to desire an unrestrained Liberty of doing that which is evil SECT XXI Mixed and Popular Governments preserve Peace and manage VVars better than Absolute Monarchies BEing no way concerned in the defence of Democracy and having proved that Xenophon Thucydides and others of the Antients in speaking against the over great Power of the common People intended to add Reputation to the Aristocratical Party to which they were addicted and not to set up Absolute Monarchy which never fell under discourse among them but as an object of scorn and hatred evil in it self and only to be endured by base and barbarous People I may leave our Knight like Don Quixote fighting against the Phantasms of his own brain and saying what he pleases against such Governments as never were unless in such a place as San Marino near Sinigaglia in Italy where a hundre Clowns govern a barbarous Rock that no man invades and relates nothing to our question If his Doctrine be true the Monarchy he extols is not only to be preferred before unruly Democracy and mixed Governments but is the only one that without a gross violation of the Laws of God and Nature can be established over any Nation But having as I hope sufficiently proved that God did neither institute nor appoint any such to be instituted nor approve those that were that Nature dos not incline us to it and that the best as well as the wisest men have always abhorr'd it that it has bin agreeable only to the most stupid and base Nations and if others have submitted to it they have done so only as to the greatest of Evils brought upon them by Violence Corruption or Fraud I may now proceed to shew that the Progress of it has bin in all respects sutable to its beginning To this end 't will not be amiss to examine our Author's words Thus says he do they paint to the life this Beast with many heads Let me give the Cypher of their Form of Government as it is begot by Sedition so it is nourish'd by Crimes It can never stand without Wars either with an Enemy abroad or with Friends at home And in order to this I will not criticize upon the terms tho the Cypher of a Form and War with Friends may be justly called Nonsense but coming to his Assertions that popular or mixed Governments have their birth in Sedition and are ever afterwards vexed with Civil or Foreign Wars I take liberty to say That whereas there is no Form appointed by God or Nature those Governments only can be called Just which are established by the consent of Nations These Nations may at the first set up popular or mixed Governments and without the guilt of Sedition introduce them afterwards if that which was first established prove unprofitable or hurtful to them and those that have done so have enjoy'd more Justice in times of Peace and managed Wars when occasion requir'd with more virtue and better success than any Absolute Monarchies have done And whereas he says that in popular Governments each man hath a care of his particular and thinks basely of the common Good They look upon approaching Mischiefs as they do upon Thunder only every man wisheth it may not touch his own Person I say that men can no otherwise be engaged to take care of the Publick than by having such a part in it as Absolute Monarchy dos not allow for they can neither obtain the Good for themselves Posterity and Friends that they desire nor prevent the Mischiefs
they who seemed to intend nothing less than the extirpation of all the Patrician Families grew quiet Menenius Agrippa appeased one of the most violent Seditions that ever happened amongst them till civil Interests were pursued by armed Troops with a Fable of the several parts of the Body that murmur'd against the Belly and the most dangerous of all was composed by creating Tribuns to protect them Some of the Patrician young men had favour'd the Decemviri and others being unwilling to appear against them the People believed they had all conspired with those new Tyrants but Valerius and Horatius putting themselves at the head of those who sought their destruction they perceived their Error and looked upon the Patricians as the best defenders of their Liberties Et inde says Livy auram Libertatis captare unde servitutem timuissent Democratical Governments are most liable to these mistakes In Aristocracies they are seldom seen and we hear of none in Sparta after the establishment of the Laws by Lycurgus but Absolute Monarchies seem to be totally exempted from them The mischiefs design'd are often dissembled or denied till they are past all possibililty of being cured by any other way than Force and such as are by necessity driven to use that remedy know they must perfect their work or perish He that draws his Sword against the Prince say the French ought to throw away the Scabbard for tho the design be never so just yet the Authors are sure to be ruin'd if it miscarry Peace is seldom made and never kept unless the Subject retain such a Power in his hands as may oblige the Prince to stand to what is agreed and in time some trick is found to deprive them of that benefit Seditions proceeding from malice are seldom or never seen in popular Governments for they are hurtful to the People and none have ever willingly and knowingly hurt themselves There may be and often is malice in those who excite them but the people is ever deceiv'd and whatsoever is thereupon done ought to be imputed to error as I said before If this be discovered in time it usually turns to the destruction of the Contriver as in the cases of Manlius Capitolinus Spurius Melius and Sp. Cassius if not for the most part it produces a Tyranny as in those of Agathocles Dionysius Pisistratus and Cesar But in Absolute Monarchies almost all the Troubles that arise proceed from malice they cannot be reformed the extinction of them is exceeding difficult if they have continued long enough to corrupt the people and those who appear against them seek only to set up themselves or their Friends Thus we see that in the Civil Wars of the East the question was whether Artaxerxes or Cyrus Phraartes or Bardanes should reign over the Persians and Parthians The people suffer'd equally from both whilst the Contests lasted and the decision left them under the power of a proud and cruel Master The like is seen in all places After the death of Brutus and Cassius no War was ever undertaken in the Roman Empire upon a better account than one man's private concernments The Provinces suffer'd under all and he whom they had assisted to overthrow one wicked Tyrant very often proved worse than his Predecessor And the only ground of all the Dissensions with which France was vexed under the Princes of Meroveus and Pepin's Races were which of them should reign the people remaining miserable under them all The case is not much different in mixed Monarchies Some Wars may be undertaken upon a just and publick account but the pretences are commonly false a lasting Reformation is hardly introduced an intire Change often disliked And tho such Kingdoms are frequently and terribly distracted as appears by the beforemention'd Examples of England Spain c. the Quarrels are for the most part begun upon personal Titles as between Henry the First and Robert Stephen and Maud or the Houses of Lancaster and York and the people who get nothing by the Victory which way soever it fall and might therefore prudently leave the Competitors to decide their own Quarrels like Theorestes and Polinices with their own Swords become cruelly engaged in them It may seem strange to some that I mention Seditions Tumults and Wars upon just occasions but I can find no reason to retract the term God intending that men should live justly with one another dos certainly intend that he or they who do no wrong should suffer none and the Law that forbids Injuries were of no use if no Penalty might be inflicted on those that will not obey it If Injustice therefore be evil and Injuries forbidden they are also to be punished and the Law instituted for their prevention must necessarily intend the avenging of such as cannot be prevented The work of the Magistracy is to execute this Law the Sword of Justice is put into their hands to restrain the fury of those within the Society who will not be a Law to themselves and the Sword of War to protect the people against the violence of Foreigners This is without exception and would be in vain if it were not But the Magistrate who is to protect the people from Injury may and is often known not to have done it he sometimes renders his Office useless by neglecting to do Justice sometimes mischievous by overthrowing it This strikes at the root of God's general Ordinance That there should be Laws and the particular Ordinances of all Societies that appoint such as seem best to them The Magistrate therefore is comprehended under both and subject to both as well as private men The ways of preventing or punishing Injuries are Judicial or Extrajudicial Judicial proceedings are of force against those who submit or may be brought to trial but are of no effect against those who resist and are of such power that they cannot be constrained It were absurd to cite a man to appear before a Tribunal who can aw the Judges or has Armies to defend him and impious to think that he who has added treachery to his other Crimes andu surped a Power above the Law should be protected by the enormity of his wickedness Legal proceedings therefore are to be used when the Delinquent submits to the Law and all are just when he will not be kept in order by the legal The word Sedition is generally applied to all numerous Assemblies without or against the Authority of the Magistrate or of those who assume that Power Athaliah and Jezabel were more ready to cry out Treason than David and examples of that sort are so frequent that I need not alledg them Tumult is from the disorderly manner of those Assemblies where things can seldom be done regularly and War is that Decertatio per vim or trial by force to which men come when other ways are ineffectual If the Laws of God and Men are therefore of no effect when the Magistracy is left at liberty to break them and if the Lusts
of those who are too strong for the Tribunals of Justice cannot be otherwise restrained than by Sedition Tumults and War those Seditions Tumults and Wars are justified by the Laws of God and Man I will not take upon me to enumerate all the cases in which this may be done but content my self with three which have most frequently given occasion for proceedings of this kind The first is When one or more men take upon them the Power and Name of a Magistracy to which they are not justly called The second When one or more being justly called continue in their Magistracy longer than the Laws by which they are called do prescribe And the third When he or they who are rightly called do assume a Power tho within the time prescribed that the Law dos not give or turn that which the Law dos give to an end different and contrary to that which is intended by it For the first Filmer forbids us to examine Titles he tells us we must submit to the Power whether acquired by Usurpation or otherwise not observing the mischievous Absurdity of rewarding the most detestable Villanies with the highest Honours and rendring the veneration due to the supreme Magistrate as Father of the People to one who has no other advantage above his Brethren than what he has gained by injuriously dispossessing or murdering him that was so Hobbs fearing the advantages that may be taken from such desperate nonsense or not thinking it necessary to his end to carry the matter so far has no regard at all to him who comes in without Title or Consent and denying him to be either King or Tyrant gives him no other name than Hostis Latro and allows all things to be lawful against him that may be done to a publick Enemy or Pyrat which is as much as to say any man may destroy him how he can Whatever he may be guilty of in other respects he dos in this follow the voice of Mankind and the dictates of common sense for no man can make himself a Magistrate for himself and no man can have the right of a Magistrate who is not a Magistrate If he be justly accounted an Enemy to all who injures all he above all must be the publick Enemy of a Nation who by usurping a power over them dos the greatest and most publick injury that a People can suffer For which reason by an established Law among the most virtuous Nations every man might kill a Tyrant and no Names are recorded in History with more honour than of those who did it These are by other Authors called Tyranni sine titulo and that name is given to all those who obtain the supreme Power by illegal and unjust means The Laws which they overthrow can give them no protection and every man is a Souldier against him who is a publick Enemy The same rule holds tho they are more in number as the Magi who usurped the Dominion of Persia after the death of Cambyses the thirty Tyrants at Athens overthrown by Thrasibulus those of Thebes slain by Pelopidas the Decemviri of Rome and others for tho the multitude of Offenders may sometimes procure impunity yet that act which is wicked in one must be so in ten or twenty and whatsoever is lawful against one Usurper is so against them all 2. If those who were rightly created continue beyond the time limited by the Law 't is the same thing That which is expir'd is as if it had never bin He that was created Consul for a year or Dictator for six months was after that a private man and if he had continued in the exercise of his Magistracy had bin subject to the same punishment as if he had usurped it at the first This was known to Epaminondas who finding that his Enterprize against Sparta could not be accomplished within the time for which he was made Boeotarches rather chose to trust his Countrymen with his life than to desist and was saved merely through an admiration of his Virtue assurance of his good Intentions and the glory of the Action The Roman Decemviri tho duly elected were proceeded against as private men usurping the Magistracy when they continued beyond their time Other Magistrates had ceased there was none that could regularly call the Senate or People to an Assembly but when their ambition was manifest and the people exasperated by the death of Virginia they laid aside all ceremonies The Senate and People met and exercising their Authority in the same manner as if they had bin regularly called by the Magistrate appointed to that end they abrogated the Power of the Decemviri proceeded against them as Enemies and Tyrants and by that means preserved themselves ' from utter ruin 3. The same course is justly used against a legal Magistrate who takes upon him tho within the time prescribed by the Law to exercise a Power which the Law dos not give for in that respect he is a private man Quia as Grotius says eatenus non habet imperium and may be restrain'd as well as any other because he is not set up to do what he lists but what the Law appoints for the good of the People and as he has no other Power than what the Law allows so the same Law limits and directs the exercise of that which he has This Right naturally belonging to Nations is no way impair'd by the name of Supreme given to their Magistrates for it signifies no more than that they do act soveraignly in the matters committed to their charge Thus are the Parliaments of France called Cours Souveraines for they judg of Life and Death determine Controversies concerning Estates and there is no appeal from their Decrees but no man ever thought that it was therefore lawful for them to do what they pleased or that they might not be opposed if they should attempt to do that which they ought not And tho the Roman Dictators and Consuls were supreme Magistrates they were subject to the People and might be punished as well as others if they transgressed the Law Thuanus carries the word so far that when Barlotta Giustiniano and others who were but Colonels were sent as Commanders in chief of three or four thousand men upon an Enterprize he always says Summum Imperium ei delatum Grotius explains this point by distinguishing those who have the summum Imperium summo modo from those who have it modo non summo I know not where to find an Example of this Soveraign Power enjoy'd without restriction under a better title than Occupation which relates not to our purpose who seek only that which is legal and just Therefore laying aside that point for the present we may follow Grotius in examining the Right of those who are certainly limited Ubi partem Imperii habet Rex partem Senatus sive Populus in which case he says Regi in partem non suam involanti vis just a opponi potest in as
destroy those he seared that is the City he might easily have accomplish'd his work if the judgment had bin referred to him If the people judg Tarquin 't is hard to imagine how they should be brought to give an unjust Sentence They loved their former Kings and hated him only for his Villanies They did not fancy but know his cruelty When the best were slain no man that any way resembled them could think himself secure Brutus did not pretend to be a Fool till by the murder of his Brother he found how dangerous a thing it was to be thought wise If the people as our Author says be always lewd foolish mad wicked and desirous to put the Power into the hands of such as are most like to themselves he and his Sons were such men as they sought and he was sure to find favourable Judges If virtuous and good no injustice was to be feared from them and he could have no other reason to decline their indgment than what was suggested by his own wickedness Caligula Nero Domitian and the like had probably the same considerations But no man of common sense ever thought that the Senate and People of Rome did not better deserve to judg whether such Monsters should reign over the best part of mankind to their destruction than they to determine whether their Crimes should be punished or not If I mention some of these known Cases every man's experience will suggest others of the like nature and whosoever condemns all Seditions Tumults and Wars raised against such Princes must say that none are wicked or seek the ruin of their people which is absurd for Caligula wish'd the People had but one Neck that he might cut it off at a blow Nero set the City on fire and we have known such as have bin worse than either of them They must either be suffer'd to continue in the free exercise of their rage that is to do all the mischief they design or must be restrain'd by a legal judicial or extrajudicial way and they who disallow the extrajudicial do as little like the judicial They will not hear of bringing a supreme Magistrate before a Tribunal when it may be done They will says our Author depose their Kings Why should they not be deposed if they become Enemies to their people and set up an interest in their own persons inconsistent with the publick good for the promoting of which they were erected If they were created by the publick consent for the publick good shall they not be removed when they prove to be of publick damage If they set up themselves may they not be thrown down Shall it be lawful for them to usurp a Power over the liberty of others and shall it not be lawful for an injur'd People to resume their own If injustice exalt it self must it be for ever established Shall great persons be rendred sacred by rapine perjury and murder Shall the crimes for which privat men do justly suffer the most grievous punishments exempt them from all who commit them in the highest excess with most power and most to the prejudice of mankind Shall the Laws that solely aim at the prevention of Crimes be made to patronize them and become snares to the innocent whom they ought to protect Has every man given up into the common store his right of avenging the Injuries he may receive that the publick Power which ought to protect or avenge him should be turned to the destruction of himself his Posterity and the Society into which they enter without any possibility of redress Shall the Ordinance of God be rendred of no effect or the Powers he hath appointed to be set up for the distribution of Justice be made subservient to the Iusts of one or a few men and by impunity encourage them to commit all manner of crimes Is the corruption of man's Nature so little known that such as have common sense should expect Justice from those who fear no punishment if they do Injustice or that the modesty integrity and innocence which is seldom found in one man tho never so cautiously chosen should be constantly found in all those who by any means attain to Greatness and continue for ever in their Successors or that there can be any security under their Government if they have them not Surely if this were the condition of men living under Government Forests would be more sase than Cities and 't were better for every man to stand in his own defence than to enter into Societies He that lives alone might encounter such as should assault him upon equal terms and stand or fall according to the measure of his courage and strength but no valour can defend him if the malice of his Enemy be upheld by a publick Power There must therefore be a right of proceeding judicially or extrajudicially against all persons who transgress the Laws or else those Laws and the Societies that should subsist by them cannot stand and the ends for which Governments are constituted together with the Governments themselves must be overthrown Extrajudicial proceedings by Sedition Tumult or War must take place when the persons concern'd are of such power that they cannot be brought under the Judicial They who deny this deny all help against an usurping Tyrant or the perfidiousness of a lawfully created Magistrate who adds the crimes of Ingratitude and Treachery to Usurpation These of all men are the most dangerous Enemies to supreme Migistrates for as no man desires indemnity for such Crimes as are never committed he that would exempt all from punishment supposes they will be guilty of the worst and by concluding that the People will depose them if they have the power acknowledg that they pursue an Interest annexed to their Persons contrary to that of their People which they would not bear if they could deliver themselves from it This shewing all those Governments to be tyrannical lays such a burden upon those who administer them as must necessarily weigh them down to destruction If it be said that the word Sedition implies that which is evil I answer that it ought not then to be applied to those who seek nothing but that which is just and tho the ways of delivering an oppressed People from the violence of a wicked Magistrate who having armed a Crew of lewd Villains and fatted them with the Blood and Confiscations of such as were most ready to oppose him be extraordinary the inward righteousness of the Act doth fully justify the Authors He that has virtue and power to save a People can never want a right of doing it Valerius Asiaticus had no hand in the death of Caligula but when the furious Guards began tumultuously to enquire who had kill'd him he appeased them with wishing he had bin the man No wise man ever asked by what authority Thrasibulus Harmodius Aristogiton Pelopidas Epaminondas Dion Timoleon Lucius Brutus Publicola Horatius Valerius Marcus Brutus C. Cassius and the
any regard to the publick good distributed them to his Children according to their number or his passion These either destroy'd one another or sell under the Sword of a third who had the fortune of their Father the greatest part most commonly falling to the share of the worst If at any time the contrary happened the Government of the best was but a lucid interval Well-wishing men grew more extremely to abhor the darkness that follow'd when they were gone The best of them could do no more than suspend mischief for a while but could not correct the corrupt principle of their Government and some of them were destroyed as soon as they were thought to intend it And others who finished their days in peace left the Empire to such persons of their relations as were most unlike to them Domitian came in as Brother to Titus Commodus and Heliogabalus were recommended by the memory of those Virtues that had bin found in Antoninus and Aurelius Honorius and Arcadius who by their baseness brought utter ruin upon the Western and Eastern Empires were the Sons of the brave Theodosius They who could keep their hands free from Blood and their Hearts from Malice Covetousness and Pride could not transmit their Virtues to their Successors nor correct the perverseness that lay at the root and foundation of their Government The whole mass of Blood was vitiated the Body was but one vast Sore which no hand but that of the Almighty could heal and he who from an abhorrence of iniquity had declared he would not hear the cries of his own people when they had chosen the thing that was not good would not shew mercy to Strangers who had done the same thing I have insisted upon the Hebrew Macedonian and Roman Histories because they are the most eminent and best known to us We are in the dark concerning the Babylonian Assyrian Chaldean Bactrian and Egyptian Monarchies We know little more of them than the Scripture occasionally relates concerning their barbarous cruelty bestial pride and extravagant folly Others have bin like to them and I know not where to find a peaceable Monarchy unless it be in Peru where the Ynca Garcilasso de la Vega says that a Man and a Woman Children of the Sun and the Moon appearing amongst a barbarous people living without any Religion or Law established a Government amongst them which continued in much Peace and Justice for twelve Generations But this seeming to be as fabulous as their Birth we may pass it over and fix upon those that are better known of which there is not one that has not suffer'd more dangerous and mischievous Seditions than all the popular Governments that have bin in the World And the condition of those Kingdoms which are not absolute and yet give a preference to Birth without consideration of Merit or Virtue is not much better This is proved by the Reasons of those Seditions and Tumults as well as from the Fact it self The Reasons do arise from the violence of the Passions that incite men to them and the intricacy of the Questions concerning Succession Every man has Passions few know how to moderate and no one can wholly extinguish them As they are various in their Nature so they are governed by various Objects and men usually follow that which is predominant in them whether it proceed from Anger or Desire and whether it terminate in Ambition Covetousness Lust or any other more or less blamable Appetite Every manner of life furnishes something that in some measure may foment these but a Crown comprehends all that can be grateful to the most violent and vicious He who is covetous has vast Revenues besides what he may get by fraud and rapine to satisfy his Appetite If he be given to Sensuality the variety of pleasures and the facility of accomplishing whatever he desires tends farther to inflame that Passion Such as are ambitious are incited by the greatness of their Power to attempt great matters and the most sottish or lazy may discharge themselves of Cares and hope that others will be easily hired to take the burden of Business upon them whilst they lie at ease They who naturally incline to pride and cruelty are more violently tempted to usurp Dominion and the wicked advices of Flatterers always concurring with their Passions incite them to exercise the Power they have gotten with the utmost rigor to satiate their own rage and to secure themselves against the effects of the publick hatred which they know they have deserved If there be as our Author says no other rule than Force and Success and that he must be taken for the Father of a People who is in possession of a Power over them whoever has the one may put the other to a trial Nay even those who have regard to Justice will seldom want Reasons to perswade them that it is on their side Something may be amiss in the State Injuries may be done to themselves and their Friends Such Honours may be denied as they think they deserve or others of less Merit as they suppose may be preferred before them Men do so rarely make a right estimate of their own Merits that those who mean well may be often deceived and if nothing but Success be requir'd to make a Monarch they may think it just to attempt whatever they can hope to accomplish This was the case of Julius Cesar he thought all things lawful when the Consulat which he supposed he had deserved was denied Viribus utendum est quas fecimus arma tenenti Omnia dat qui just a negat Lucan These Enterprizes seem to belong to men of great Spirits but there are none so base not to be capable of undertaking and as things may stand of bringing them to perfection History represents no man under a more contemprible character of sottish Laziness Cowardice and Drunkenness than Vitellius no one more impure and sordid than Galba Otho was advanced for being in his manners like to Nero Vespasian was scorned for his Avarice till the Power fell into such hands as made the world believe none could be unworthy of the Empire and in the following Ages the worst men by the worst means most frequently obtained it These Wounds are not cured by saying that the Law of God and Nature prevents this mischief by annexing the Succession of Crowns to proximity of Blood for mankind had not bin continually afflicted with them if there had bin such a Law or that they could have bin prevented by it and tho there were such a Law yet more Questions would arise about that Proximity than any wise man would dare to determine The Law can be of no effect unless there be a Power to decide the Contests arising upon it But the fundamental Maxim of the great Monarchies is that there can be no Interregnum The Heir of the Crown is in possession as soon as he who did injoy it is dead Le Mort as the French
Crown till after the death of his two Bastards Lewis and Carloman Charles le Gros and Eudes Duke of Anjou Charles le Gros was deposed from the Empire and Kingdom strip'd of his goods and left to perish through poverty in an obscure Village Charles the Simple and the Nations under him thrived no better Robert Duke of Anjou raised War against him and was crown'd at Rheims but was himself slain soon after in a bloody battel near Soissons His son-in-Son-in-law Hebert Earl of Vermandois gathered up the remains of his scatter'd party got Charles into his power and called a General Assembly of Estates who deposed him and gave the Crown to Raoul Duke of Burgundy tho he was no otherwise related to the Royal Blood than by his Mother which in France is nothing at all He being dead Lewis Son to the deposed Charles was made King but his Reign was as inglorious to him as miserable to his Subjects This is the Peace which the French enjoy'd for the space of five or six Ages under their Monarchy and 't is hard to determine whether they suffer'd most by the Violence of those who possessed or the Ambition of others who aspired to the Crown and whether the fury of active or the baseness of slothful Princes was most pernicious to them But upon the whole matter through the defects of those of the latter sort they lost all that they had gained by sweat and blood under the conduct of the former Henry and Otho of Saxony by a Virtue like that of Charlemagne deprived them of the Empire and settled it in Germany leaving France only to Lewis sirnamed Outremer and his Son Lothair These seemed to be equally composed of Treachery Cruelty Ambition and Baseness They were always mutinous and always beaten Their frantick Passions put them always upon unjust Designs and were such plagues to their Subjects and Neighbours that they became equally detested and despised These things extinguished the veneration due to the memory of Pepin and Charles and obliged the whole Nation rather to seek relief from a Stranger than to be ruin'd by their worthless Descendents They had tried all ways that were in their power deposed four crowned Kings within the space of a hundred and fifty years crowned five who had no other Title than the People conferred upon them and restored the Descendents of those they had rejected but all was in vain Their Vices were incorrigible the Mischiefs produc'd by them intolerable they never ceased from murdering one another in battel or by treachery and bringing the Nation into Civil Wars upon their wicked or foolish quarrels till the whole Race was rejected and the Crown placed upon the head of Hugh Capet These mischiefs raged not in the same extremity under him and his Descendents but the abatement proceeded from a cause no way advantagious to Absolute Monarchy The French were by their Calamities taught more strictly to limit the Regal Power and by turning the Dukedoms and Earldoms into Patrimonies which had bin Offices gave an Authority to the chief of the Nobility by which that of Kings was curbed and tho by this means the Commonalty was exposed to some Pressures yet they were small in comparison of what they had suffer'd in former times When many great men had Estates of their own that did not depend upon the Will of Kings they grew to love their Country and tho they chearfully served the Crown in all cases of publick concernment they were not easily engaged in the personal quarrels of those who possessed it or had a mind to gain it To preserve themselves in this condition they were obliged to use their Vassals gently and this continuing in some measure till within the last fifty years the Monarchy was less tumultuous than when the King 's Will had bin less restrained Nevertheless they had not much reason to boast there was a Root still remaining that from time to time produced poisonous Fruit Civil Wars were frequent among them tho not carried on with such desperate madness as formerly and many of them upon the account of disputes between Competitors for the Crown All the Wars with England since Edward II. married Isabella Daughter and as he pretended Heir of Philip Le Bel were of this nature The defeats of Crecy Poitiers and Agincourt with the slaughters and devastations suffer'd from Edward III. the black Prince and Henry V. were merely upon Contests for the Crown and for want of an Interpreter of the Law of Succession who might determine the question between the Heir Male and the Heir General The Factions of Orleans and Burgundy Orleans and Armignac proceeded from the same Spring and the Murders that seem to have bin the immediate causes of those Quarrels were only the effects of the hatred growing from their competition The more odious tho less bloody Contests between Lewis the 11 th and his Father Charles the 7 th with the jealousy of the former against his Son Charles the 8 th arose from the same Principle Charles of Bourbon prepared to fill France with Fire and Blood upon the like quarrel when his designs were overthrown by his death in the assault of Rome If the Dukes of Guise had bin more fortunate they had soon turned the cause of Religion into a claim to the Crown and repair'd the Injury done as they pretended to Pepin's Race by destroying that of Capet And Henry the third thinking to prevent this by the slaughter of Henry le Balafré and his Brother the Cardinal de Guise brought ruin upon himself and cast the Kingdom into a most horrid confusion Our own Age furnishes us with more than one attempt of the same kind attended with the like success The Duke of Orleans was several times in arms against Lewis the 13 th his Brother the Queen-mother drew the Spaniards to favour him Montmorency perished in his Quarrel Fontrailles reviv'd it by a Treaty with Spain which struck at the King's head as well as the Cardinal 's and was suppress'd by the death of Cinq Mars and de Thou Those who understand the Affairs of that Kingdom make no doubt that the Count de Soissons would have set up for himself and bin follow'd by the best part of France if he had not bin kill'd in the pursuit of his Victory at the Battel of Sedan Since that time the Kingdom has suffer'd such Disturbances as show that more was intended than the removal of Mazarin And the Marechal de Turenne was often told that the check he gave to the Prince of Condé at Gien after he had defeated Hocquincourt had preserved the Crown upon the King's head And to testify the Stability good Order and domestick Peace that accompanies Absolute Monarchy we have in our own days seen the House of Bourbon often divided within it self the Duke of Orleans the Count de Soissons the Princes of Condé and Conti in war against the King the Dukes of Angoulesme Vendome Longueville the Count
and Man he became also miserable his example ought to deter others from the Crimes that are avenged by a Power which none can escape and to encourage those who defend or endeavour to recover their violated Liberties to act vigorously in a Cause that God dos evidently patronize SECT XXV Courts are more subject to Venality and Corruption than Popular Governments THO Court-flatterers impute many evils to Popular Governments they no way deserve I could not think any so impudent as to lay Corruption and Venality to their charge till I found it in our Author They might in my opinion have taken those faults upon themselves since they certainly abound most where Bawds Whores Buffoons Players Slaves and other base people who are naturally mercenary are most prevalent And whosoever would know whether this dos more frequently befal Commonwealths than Monarchies especially if they are absolute need only to inquire whether the Cornelii Junii Fabii Valerii Quintii Curii Fabritii and others who most prevailed in Rome after the expulsion of the Kings or Sejanus Macro Narcissus Pallas Icetus Tigellinus Vinnius Laco Agrippina Messalina Lollia Poppaea and the like were most subject to those base Vices Whether it were more easy to corrupt one or two of those Villains and Strumpets or the Senats and People of Rome Carthage Athens and Sparta and whether that sort of Rabble had more power over the Princes they served than such as most resembled them had whilst the Popular Government continued 'T is in vain to say those Princes were wicked and vile for many others are so likewise and when the Power is in the hands of one man there can be no assurance he will not be like them Nay when the Power is so placed ill men will always find opportunities of compassing their desires Bonus cautus optimus Imperator venditur said Dioclesian and tho he was no unwise man yet that which principally induced him to renounce the Empire was the impossibility he sound of defending himself against those that were in credit with him who daily betray'd and sold him They see with the eyes of other men and cannot resist the frauds that are perpetually put upon them Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius seem to have bin the best and wisest of all the Roman Emperors but the two Faustina's had such an ascendent over them as was most shameful to their persons and mischievous to the Empire and the best men in it Such as these may gain too much upon the affections of one man in the best regulated Government but that could be of no great danger to the Publick when many others equal or not much inferior to him in authority are ready to oppose whatever he should endeavour to promote by their impulse but there is no remedy when all depends upon the Will of a single person who is governed by them There was more of acuteness and jest than of truth in that saying of Themistocles That his little boy had more power than any man in Greece for he governed his Mother she him he Athens and Athens Greece For he himself was found to have little power when for private passions and concernments he departed from the interest of the Publick and the like has bin found in all places that have bin governed in the like manner Again Corruption will always reign most where those who have the power do most favour it where the rewards of such Crimes are greatest easiest and most valued and where the punishment of them is least feared 1. For the first we have already proved that Liberty cannot be preserved if the manners of the People are corrupted nor absolute Monarchy introduced where they are sincere which is sufficient to shew that those who manage free Governments ought always to the utmost of their power to oppose Corruption because otherwise both they and their Government must inevitably perish and that on the other hand the absolute Monarch must endeavour to introduce it because he cannot subsist without it 'T is also so natural for all such Monarchs to place men in power who pretend to love their persons and will depend upon their pleasure that possibly 't would be hard to find one in the world who has not made it the rule of his Government And this is not only the way to corruption but the most dangerous of all For tho a good man may love a good Monarch he will obey him only when he commands that which is just and no one can engage himself blindly to do whatever he is commanded without renouncing all Virtue and Religion because he knows not whether that which shall be commanded is consistent with either or directly contrary to the Laws of God and Man But if such a Monarch be evil and his Actions such as they are too often found to be whoever bears an affection to him and seconds his designs declares himself an Enemy to all that is good and the advancement of such men to power dos not only introduce foment and increase Corruption but fortifies it in such a manner that without an intire renovation of that State it cannot be removed Ill men may possibly creep into any Government but when the worst are plac'd nearest to the Throne and raised to Honors for being so they will with that force endeavour to draw all men to a conformity of Spirit with themselves that it can no otherwise be prevented than by destroying them and the Principle in which they live 2. To the second Man naturally follows that which is good or seems to him to be so Hence it is that in well-govern'd States where a value is put upon Virtue and no one honoured unless for such Qualities as are beneficial to the Publick men are from the tenderest years brought up in a belief that nothing in this world deserves to be sought after but such Honors as are acquired by virtuous Actions By this means Virtue it self becomes popular as in Sparta Rome and other places where Riches which with the Vanity that follows them and the Honors men give to them are the root of all evil were either totally banished or little regarded When no other advantage attended the greatest Riches than the opportunity of living more sumptuously or deliciously men of great Spirits slighted them When Aristippus told Cleanthes that if he would go to Court and flatter the Tyrant he need not seek his Supper under a hedg the Philosopher answer'd that he who could content himself with such a Supper need not go to Court or flatter the Tyrant Epaminondas Aristides Phocion and even the Lacedemonian Kings found no inconvenience in Poverty whilst their Virtue was honour'd and the richest Princes in the world feared their Valour and Power It was not difficult for Curius Fabricius Quintius Cincinnatus or Paulus Emilius to content themselves with the narrowest Fortune when it was no obstacle to them in the pursuit of those Honours which their Virtues deserved 'T was in vain to think of
wicked King says that he did Saevitiam ignaviae obtendere and we do not more certainly find that Cowards are the cruellest of men than that wickedness makes them Cowards that every man's fears bear a proportion with his guilt and with the number virtue and strength of those he has offended He who usurps a Power over all or abuses a Trust reposed in him by all in the highest measure offends all he fears and hates those he has offended and to secure himself aggravates the former Injuries When these are publick they beget a universal Hatred and every man desires to extinguish a Mischief that threatens ruin to all This will always be terrible to one that knows he has deserved it and when those he dreads are the body of the People nothing but a publick destruction can satisfy his rage and appease his fears I wish I could agree with Filmer in exempting multitudes from fears for they having seldom committed any injustice unless through fear would as far as human fragility permits be free from it Tho the Attick Ostracism was not an extreme Punishment I know nothing usually practised in any Commonwealth that did so much savour of injustice but it proceeded solely from a fear that one man tho in appearance virtuous when he came to be raised too much above his fellow Citizens might be tempted to invade the publick Liberty We do not find that the Athenians or any other free Cities ever injur'd any man unless through such a jealousy or the perjury of Witnesses by which the best Tribunals that ever were or can be establish'd in the world may be misled and no injustice could be apprehended from any if they did not fall into such fears But tho Multitudes may have fears as well as Tyrants the Causes and Effects of them are very different A People in relation to domestick Affairs can desire nothing but Liberty and neither hate or fear any but such as do or would as they suspect deprive them of that Happiness Their endeavours to secure that seldom hurt any except such as invade their Rights and if they err the mistake is for the most part discovered before it produce any mischief and the greatest that ever came that way was the death of one or a few men Their Hatred and desire of Revenge can go no farther than the sense of the Injury received or feared and is extinguished by the death or banishment of the Persons as may be gathered from the examples of the Tarquins Decemviri Cassius Melius and Manlius Capitolinus He therefore that would know whether the hatred and fear of a Tyrant or of a People produces the greater mischiefs needs only to consider whether it be better that the Tyrant destroy the People or that the People destroy the Tyrant or at the worst whether one that is suspected of affecting the Tyranny should perish or a whole People amongst whom very many are certainly innocent and experience shows that such are always first sought out to be destroy'd for being so Popular furies or fears how irregular or unjust soever they may be can extend no farther general Calamities can only be brought upon a People by those who are enemies to the whole Body which can never be the Multitude for they are that body In all other respects the fears that render a Tyrant cruel render a People gentle and cautious for every single man knowing himself to be of little power not only fears to do injustice because it may be revenged upon his Person by him or his Friends Kindred and Relations that suffers it but because it tends to the overthrow of the Government which comprehends all publick and private Concernments and which every man knows cannot subsist unless it be so easy and gentle as to be pleasing to those who are the best and have the greatest power and as the publick Considerations divert them from doing those Injuries that may bring immediate prejudice to the Publick so there are strict Laws to restrain all such as would do private Injuries If neither the People nor the Magistrates of Venice Switzerland and Holland commit such extravagances as are usual in other places it dos not perhaps proceed from the temper of those Nations different from others but from a knowledg that whosoever offers an injury to a private person or attemps a publick mischief is exposed to the impartial and inexorable Power of the Law whereas the chief work of an absolute Monarch is to place himself above the Law and thereby rendring himself the Author of all the evils that the People suffer 't is absurd to expect that he should remove them SECT XXX A Monarchy cannot be well regulated unless the Powers of the Monarch are limited by Law OUr Author's next step is not only to reject Popular Governments but all such Monarchies as are not absolute for if the King says he admits the People to be his Companions he leaves to be a King This is the language of French Lackeys Valet de Chambre's Taylors and others like them in Wisdom Learning and Policy who when they fly to England for sear of a well-deserved Gally Gibet or Wheel are ready to say Il faut que le Roy soit absolu autrement il n'est point Roy. And finding no better men to agree with Filmer in this sublime Philosophy I may be pardoned if I do not follow them till I am convinced in these ensuing points 1. It seems absurd to speak of Kings admitting the Nobility or People to part of the Government for tho there may be and are Nations without Kings yet no man can conceive a King without a People These must necessarily have all the power originally in themselves and tho Kings may and often have a power of granting Honors Immunities and Privileges to private Men or Corporations he dos it only out of the publick Stock which he is entrusted to distribute but can give nothing to the people who give to him all that he can rightly have 2. 'T is strange that he who frequently cites Aristotle and Plato should unluckily acknowledg such only to be Kings as they call Tyrants and deny the name of King to those who in their opinion are the only Kings 3. I cannot understand why the Scripture should call those Kings whose Powers were limited if they only are Kings who are absolute or why Moses did appoint that the power of Kings in Israel should be limited if they resolved to have them if that limitation destroy'd the being of a King 4. Nor lastly how he knows that in the Kingdoms which have a shew of Popularity the Power is wholly in the King The first point was proved when we examined the beginning of Monarchies and found it impossible that there could be any thing of justice in them unless they were established by the common consent of those who were to live under them or that they could make any such establishment unless the right and power
by nature and have neither the understanding nor courage that is required for the constitution and management of a Government within themselves They can no more subsist without a Master than a flock without a Shepherd They have no comprehension of Liberty and can neither desire the good they do not know nor enjoy it if it were bestowed upon them They bear all burdens and whatever they suffer they have no other remedy or refuge than in the Mercy of their Lord. But such Nations as are naturally strong stout and of good understanding whose vigour remains unbroken manners uncorrupted reputation unblemished and increasing in numbers who neither want men to make up such Armies as may defend them against foreign or domestick Enemies nor Leaders to head them do ordinarily set limits to their patience They know how to preserve their Liberty or to vindicate the violation of it and the more patient they have bin the more inflexible they are when they resolve to be so no longer Those who are so foolish to put them upon such courses do to their cost find that there is a difference between Lions and Asses and he is a fool who knows not that Swords were given to men that none might be Slaves but such as know not how to use them SECT V. The Mischiefs suffer'd from wicked Kings are such as render it both reasonable and just for all Nations that have Virtue and Power to exert both in repelling them IF our Author deserve credit we need not examin whether Nations have a right of resisting or a reasonable hope of succeeding in their endeavours to prevent or avenge the Mischiefs that are feared or suffered for 't is not worth their pains The Inconveniences says he and Miseries which are reckoned up by Samuel as belonging unto Kingly Government were not intolerable but such as have bin and are still born by the Subjects free consent from their Princes Nay at this day and in this Land many Tenants by their Tenures are tied unto the same subjection even unto subordinate and inferior Lords He is an excellent Advocate for Kingly Government that accounts Inconveniences and Miseries to be some of the essentials of it which others esteem to be only incidents Tho many Princes are violent and wicked yet some have bin gentle and just tho many have brought misery upon Nations some have bin beneficial to them and they who are esteemd most severe against Monarchy think the evils that are often suffer'd under that form of Government proceed from the corruption of it or deviation from the principle of its institution and that they are rather to be imputed to the vices of the Person than to the thing it self but if our Author speak truth it is universally and eternally naught inconvenience and misery belong to it He thinks to mend this by saying they are not intolerable but what is intolerable if Inconveniences and Miseries be not For what end can he think Governments to have bin established unless to prevent or remove Inconveniences and Miseries or how can that be called a Government which does not only permit but cause them What can incline Nations to set up Governments Is it that they may suffer Inconveniences and be brought to misery or if it be to enjoy happiness how can that subsist under a Government which not by accident deflection or corruption but by a necessity inherent in it self causes Inconveniences and Miseries If it be pretended that no human Constitution can be altogether free from Inconveniences I answer that the best may to some degree fall into them because they may be corrupted but evil and misery can properly belong to none that is not evil in its own nature If Samuel deserve credit or may be thought to have spoken sense he could not have enumerated the evils which he foresaw the people should suffer from their Kings nor say that they should cry to the Lord by reason of them unless they were in themselves grievous and in comparison greater than what they had suffer'd or known since that would not have diverted them from their intention but rather have confirmed them in it And I leave it to our Author to show why any People should for the pleasure of one or a few men erect or suffer that which brings more of evil with it than any others Moreover there is a great difference between that which Nations sometimes suffer under Kings and that which they willingly suffer most especially if our Author's Maxim be received That all Laws are the Mandates of Kings and the Subjects Liberties and Privileges no more than their gracious Concessions for how patient soever they are under the Evils they suffer it might reasonably be believ'd they are so because they know not how to help it And this is certainly the case of too many places that are known to us Whoever doubts of this if he will not put himself to the trouble of going to Turkey or Morocco let him pass only into Normandy and ask the naked barefooted and half-starved people whether they are willing to suffer the Miseries under which they groan and whether the magnificence of Versailles and the pomp of their haughty Master do any way alleviate their Calamities If this also be a matter of too much pains the Wretches that come hither every day will inform him that it is not by their own consent they are deprived of all Honors and Offices in the Commonwealth even of those which by a corrupt Custom that had gained the force of a Law they had dearly bought prohibited to exercise any trade exposed to the utmost effects of fraud and violence if they refuse to adore their Master's Idols They will tell him that 't is not willingly they leave their Lands and Estates to seek a shelter in the most remote parts of the World but because they are under a force which they are not able to resist and because one part of the Nation which is enriched with the Spoils of the other have foolishly contributed to lay a Yoak upon them which they cannot break To what he says concerning Tenures I answer No man in England ows any service to his Lord unless by virtue of a Contract made by himself or his Predecessors under which he holds the Land granted to him on that condition by the Proprietor There may be something of hardship but nothing of Injustice 'T is a voluntary act in the beginning and continuance and all men know that what is done to one who is willing is no injury He who did not like the Conditions was not obliged to take the Land and he might leave it if afterwards he came to dislike them If any man say the like may be done by any one in the Kingdom I answer That it is not always true the Protestants now in France cannot without extreme hazard go out of that Country tho they are contented to lose their Estates 'T is accounted a Crime for
upon him that doth evil He therefore is only the Minister of God who is not a terror to good works but to evil who executes wrath upon those that do evil and is a praise to those that do well And he who doth well ought not to be afraid of the power for he shall receive praise Now if our Author were alive tho he was a man of a hard forehead I would ask him whether in his Conscience he believed that Tiberius Caligula Claudius Nero and the rabble of succeeding Monsters were a praise to those who did well and a terror to those who did ill and not the contrary a praise to the worst and a terror to the best men of the world or for what reason Tacitus could say that virtue brought men who lived under them to certain destruction and recite so many Examples of the brave and good who were murder'd by them for being so unless they had endeavour'd to extinguish all that was good and to tear up virtue by the roots Why did he call Domitian an Enemy to virtue if he was a terror only to those that did evil If the world has hitherto bin misled in these things and given the name of Virtue to Vice and of Vice to Virtue then Germanicus Valerius Asiaticus Corbulo Helvidius Priscus Thraseas Soranus and others that resembled them who fell under the rage of those Beasts nay Paul himself and his Disciples were evil doers and Macro Narcissus Pallas Vinnius Laco and Tigellinus were virtuous and good men If this be so we are beholden to Filmer for admonishing mankind of the error in which they had so long continued If not those who persecuted and murder'd them for their Virtues were not a terror to such as did evil and a praise to those who did well The worst men had no need to fear them but the best had because they were the best All Princes therefore that have power are not to be esteemed equally the Ministers of God They that are so must receive their dignity from a title that is not common to all even from a just emploiment of their power to the incouragement of Virtue and to the discouragement of Vice He that pretends to the veneration and obedience due to the Ministers of God must by his actions manifest that he is so And tho I am unwilling to advance a proposition that may sound harshly to tender ears I am inclined to believe that the same rule which obliges us to yield obedience to the good Magistrate who is the Minister of God and assures us that in obeying him we obey God dos equally oblige us not to obey those who make themselves the Ministers of the Devil lest in obeying them we obey the Devil whose works they do That none but such as are wilfully ignorant may mistake Pauls meaning Peter who was directed by the same Spirit says distinctly Submit your selves to every Ordinance of man for the Lord's sake If therefore there be several Ordinances of men tending to the same end that is the obtaining of justice by being a terror to the evil and a praise to the good the like obedience is for conscience sake enjoined to all and upon the same condition But as no man dares to say that Athens and Persia Carthage and Egypt Switzerland and France Venice and Turky were and are under the same Government the same obedience is due to the Magistrate in every one of those places and all others on the same account whilst they continue to be the Ministers of God If our Author say that Peter cannot comprehend Kings under the name of human Ordinances since Paul says they are the Ordinance of God I may as well say that Paul cannot call that the Ordinance of God which Peter calls the ordinance of man But as it was said of Moses and Samuel that they who spoke by the same Spirit could not contradict each other Peter and Paul being full of Wisdom and Sanctity and inspir'd by the same Spirit must needs say the same thing and Grotius shews that they perfectly agree tho the one calls Kings Rulers and Governors the Ordinance of Man and the other the Ordinance of God inasmuch as God having from the beginning ordained that men should not live like Wolves in woods every man by himself but together in Civil Societies left to every one a liberty of joyning with that Society which best pleas'd him and to every Society to create such Magistrates and frame such Laws as should seem most conducing to their own good according to the measure of light and reason they might have And every Magistracy so inflituted might rightly be called the Ordinance of man who was the Instituter and the Ordinance of God according to which it was instituted because says he God approved and ratified the salutary Constitutions of Government made by men But says our Author Peter expounds his own words of the human Ordinance to be the King who is the Lex loguens but he says no such thing and I do not find that any such thought ever enter'd into the Apostle's mind The words are often found in the works of Plato and Aristotle but applied only to such a man as is a King by nature who is endow'd with all the virtues that tend to the good of human Societies in a greater measure than any or all those that compose them which Character I think will be ill applied to all Kings And that this may appear to be true I desire to know whether it would well have agreed with Nero Caligula Domitian or others like to them and if not with them then not with all but only with those who are endow'd with such Virtues But if the King be made by man he must be such as man makes him to be and if the power of a Law had bin given by any human Sanction to the word of a foolish mad or wicked man which I hardly believe it would be destroy'd by its own iniquity and turpitude and the People left under the obligation of rendring obedience to those who so use the Sword that the Nations under them may live soberly peaceably and honestly This obliges me a little to examin what is meant by the Sword The Pope says there are two Swords the one temporal the other spiritual and that both of them were given to Peter and to his Successors Others more rightly understand the two Swords to be that of War and that of Justice which according to several Constitutions of Governments have bin committed to several hands under several conditions and limitations The Sword of Justice comprehends the legislative and the executive Power the one is exercised in making Laws the other in judging Controversies according to such as are made The military Sword is used by those Magistrates who have it in making War or Peace with whom they think fit and sometimes by others who have it not in pursuing such Wars as are
folly than we are to live in that wretched Barbarity in which the Romans found our Ancestors when they first entred this Island If any man say that Filmer dos not speak of Monsters nor of Children Women or Fools but of wise just and good Princes I answer that if there be a right inherent in Kings as Kings of doing what they please and in those who are next in blood to succeed them and inherit the same it must belong to all Kings and such as upon title of blood would be Kings And as there is no family that may not and dos not often produce such as I mentioned it must also be acknowledged in them and that power which is left to the wife just and good upon a supposition that they will not make an ill use of it must be devolved to those who will not or cannot make a good one but will either maliciously turn it to the destruction of those they ought to protect or through weakness suffer it to fall into the hands of those that govern them who are found by experience to be for the most part the worst of all most apt to use the basest arts and to flatter the humors and foment the vices that are most prevalent in weak and vicious Princes Germanicus Corbulo Valerius Asiaticus Thraseas Soranus Helvidius Priscus Julius Agricola and other excellent men lived in the times of Tiberius Caligula Claudius and Nero but the power was put into the hands of Sejanus Macro Tigellinus and other Villains like to them and I wish there were not too many modern examples to shew that weak and vicious Princes will never chuse such as shall preserve Nations from the mischiefs that would ensue upon their own incapacity or malice but that they must be imposed upon them by some other power or Nations be ruined for want of them This imposition must be by Law or by Force But as Laws are made to keep things in good order without the necessity of having recourse to force it would be a dangerous extravagance to arm that Prince with force which probably in a short time must be opposed by force and those who have bin guilty of this error as the Kingdoms of the East and the antient Roman Empire where no provision was made by Law against ill-governing Princes have found no other remedy than to kill them when by extreme sufferings they were driven beyond patience and this fell out so often that few of their Princes were observed to die by a common death But since the Empire was transmitted to Germany and the Emperors restrain'd by Laws that Nation has never bin brought to the odious extremities of suffering all manner of Indignities or revenging them upon the heads of Princes And if the Pope had not disturb'd them upon the account of Religion nor driven their Princes to disturb others they might have passed many ages without any civil Dissension and all their Emperors might have lived happily and died peaceably as most of them have done This might be sufficient to my purpose for if all Princes without distinction whether good or bad wise or foolish young or old sober or mad cannot be intrusted with an unlimited power and if the power they have ought to be limited by Law that Nations may not with danger to themselves as well as to the Prince have recourse to the last remedy this Law must be given to all and the good can be no otherwise distinguished from the bad and the wise from the foolish than by the observation or violation of it But I may justly go a step farther and affirm that this Law which by restraining the Lusts of the vicious and foolish frequently preserves them from the destruction they would bring upon themselves or people and sometimes upon both is an assistance and direction to the wisest and best so that they also as well as the Nations under them are gainers by it This will appear strange only to those who know not how difficult and insupportable the Government of great Nations is and how unable the best man is to bear it And if it surpass the strength of the best it may easily be determined how ordinary men will behave themselves under it or what use the worst will make of it I know there have bin wise and good Kings but they had not an absolute Power nor would have accepted it tho it had bin offer'd much less can I believe that any of them would have transmitted such a power to their posterity when none of them could know any more than Solomon whether his Son would be a wise man or a fool But if the best might have desired and had bin able to bear it tho Moses by his own confession was not that could be no reason why it should be given to the worst and weakest or those who probably will be so Since the assurance that it will not be abused during the life of one man is nothing to the constitution of a State which aims at perpetuity And no man knowing what men will be especially if they come to the power by succession which may properly enough be called by chance 't is reasonably to be feared they will be bad and consequently necessary so to limit their power that if they prove to be so the Commonwealth may not be destroy'd which they were instituted to preserve The Law provides for this in leaving to the King a full and ample power of doing as much good as his heart can wish and in restraining his power so that if he should depart from the duty of his Office the Nation may not perish This is a help to those who are wise and good by directing them what they are to do more certainly than any one mans personal judgment can do and no prejudice at all since no such man did ever complain he was not suffer'd to do the evil which he would abhor if it were in his power and is a most necessary curb to the sury of bad Princes preventing them from bringing destruction upon the people Men are so subject to vices and passions that they stand in need of some restraint in every condition but most especially when they are in power The rage of a private man may be pernicious to one or a few of his Neighbours but the fury of an unlimited Prince would drive whole Nations into ruin And those very men who have lived modestly when they had little power have often proved the most savage of all Monsters when they thought nothing able to resist their rage 'T is said of Caligula that no man ever knew a better Servant nor a worse Master The want of restraint made him a Beast who might have continued to be a Man And tho I cannot say that our Law necessarily admits the next in Blood to the Succession for the contrary is proved yet the facility of our Ancestors in receiving children women or such men as were not more
publick if they be few and the matters not great others will not suffer their quiet to be disturbed by them if they are many and grievous the Tyranny thereby appears to be so cruel that the Nation cannot subsist unless it be corrected or suppress'd Corruption of Judgment proceeds from private Passions which in these cases never govern and tho a zeal for the publick good may possibly be misguided yet till it Le so it can never be capable of excess The last Tarquin and his lewd Son exercised their Fury and Lust in the murders of the best men in Rome and the rape of Lucretia Appius Claudius was filled with the like madness Caligula and Nero were so well established in the power of committing the worst of Villanies that we do not hear of any man that offer'd to defend himself or woman that presumed to refuse them If they had bin judges in these cases the utmost of all Villanies and Mischiefs had bin established by Law but as long as the judgment of these matters was in the People no private or corrupt Passion could take place Lucius Brutus Valerius Horatius and Virginius with the People that followed them did not by the expulsion of the Kings or the suppression of the Decemviri assume to themselves a power of committing Rapes and Murders nor any advantages beyond what their equals might think they deserved by their virtues and services to the Commonwealth nor had they more credit than others for any other reason than that they shewed themselves most forward in procuring the publick Good and by their Valour and Conduct best able to promote it Whatsoever happen'd after the overthrow of their Liberty belongs not to my Subject for there was nothing of popularity in the judgments that were made One Tyrant destroy'd another the same Passions and Vices for the most part reigned in both The last was often as bad as his Predecessor whom he had overthrown and one was sometimes approved by the People for no other reason than that it was thought impossible for him to be worse than he who was in possession of the Power But if one instance can be of force amongst an infinite number of various Accidents the words of Valerius Asiaticus who by wishing he had bin the man that had kill'd Caligula did in a moment pacify the fury of the Soldiers who were looking for those that had done it shew that as long as men retain any thing of that Reason which is truly their Nature they never fail of judging rightly of Virtue and Vice whereas violent and ill Princes have always done the contrary and even the best do often deflect from the rules of Justice as appears not only by the examples of Edward the first and third who were brought to confess it but even those of David and Solomon Moreover to shew that the decision of these Controversies cannot belong to any King but to the People we are only to consider that as Kings and all other Magistrates whether supreme or subordinate are constituted only for the good of the People the People only can be fit to judg whether the end be accomplished A Physician dos not exercise his Art for himself but for his Patients and when I am or think I shall be sick I send for him of whom I have the best opinion that he may help me to recover or preserve my health but I lay him aside it I find him to be negligent ignorant or unfaithful and it would be ridiculous for him to say I make my self judg in my own case for I only or such as I shall consult am fit to be the judg of it He may be treacherous and through corruption or malice endeavour to poison me or have other defects that render him unfit to be trusted but I cannot by any corrupt passion be led wilfully to do him injustice and if I mistake 't is only to my own hurt The like may be said of Lawyers Stewards Pilots and generally of all that do not act for themselves but for those who employ them And if a Company going to the Indies should find that their Pilot was mad drunk or treacherous they whose lives and goods are concerned can only be fit to judg whether he ought to be trusted or not since he cannot have a right to destroy those he was chosen to preserve and they cannot be thought to judg perversly because they have nothing to lead them but an opinion of truth and cannot err but to their own prejudice In the like manner not only Solon and Draco but Romulus Numa Hostilius the Consuls Dictators and Decemviri were not distinguished from others that it might be well with them Sed ut bonum faelix faustumque sit Populo Romano but that the prosperity and happiness of the People might be procured which being the thing always intended it were absurd to refer the judgment of the performance to him who is suspected of a design to overthrow it and whose passions interests and vices if he has any lead him that way If King James said any thing contrary to this he might be answered with some of his own words I was says he sworn to maintain the Laws of the Land and therefore had bin perjured if I had broken them It may also be presumed he had not forgotten what his Master Buchanan had taught in the Books he wrote chiefly for his Instruction that the violation of the Laws of Scotland could not have bin so fatal to most of his Predecessors Kings of that Country nor as he himself had made them to his Mother if Kings as Kings were above them SECT XV. A general presumption that Kings will govern well is not a sufficient security to the People BUT says our Author yet will they rule their Subjects by the Law and a King governing in a settled Kingdom leaves to be a King and degenerates into a Tyrant so soon as he ceases to rule according unto his Laws Yet where he sees them rigorous or doubtful he may mitigate or interpret This is therefore an effect of their goodness they are above Laws but will rule by Law we have Filmers's word for it But I know not how Nations can be assured their Princes will always be so good Goodness is always accompanied with Wisdom and I do not find those admirable qualities to be generally inherent or entail'd upon supreme Magistrates They do not seem to be all alike and we have not hitherto found them all to live in the same Spirit and Principle I can see no resemblance between Moses and Caligula Joshua and Claudius Gideon and Nero Samson and Vitellius Samuel and Otho David and Domitian nor indeed between the best of these and their own Children If the Sons of Moses and Joshua had bin like to them in wisdom valour and integrity 't is probable they had bin chosen to succeed them if they were not the like is less to be presumed of others
except such as are like Filmer who by bidding defiance to the Laws of God and Man seems to declare war against both whom I would not trust to determine whether a People that can never fall into Nonage or Dotage and can never fail of having men of Wisdom and Virtue amongst them be not more fit to judg in their own Persons or by Representatives what conduces to their own good than one who at a venture may be born in a certain Family and who besides his own Infirmities Passions Vices or Interests is continually surrounded by such as endeavour to divert him from the ways of Truth and Justice And if no reasonable man dare prefer the latter before the former we must rely upon the Laws made by our Forefathers and interpreted by the Nation and not upon the will of a man 'T is in vain to say that a wise and good Council may supply the defects or correct the Vices of a young foolish or ill disposed King For Filmer denies that a King whatever he be without exception for he attributes profound wisdom to all is obliged to follow the advice of his Council and even he would hardly have had the impudence to say That good Counsel given to a foolish or wicked Prince were of any value unless he were obliged to follow it This Council must be chosen by him or imposed upon him if it be imposed upon him it must be by a power that is above him which he says cannot be If chosen by him who is weak foolish or wicked it can never be good because such virtue and wisdom is requir'd to discern and chuse a few good and wise men from a multitude of foolish and bad as he has not And it will generally fall out that he will take for his Counsellors rather those he believes to be addicted to his Person or Interests than such as are fitly qualified to perform the duty of their places But if he should by chance or contrary to his intentions make choice of some good and wise men the matter would not be much mended for they will certainly differ in opinion from the worst And tho the Prince should intend well of which there is no assurance nor any reason to put so great a power into his hands if there be none 't is almost impossible for him to avoid the snares that will be laid ro seduce him I know not how to put a better face upon this matter for if I examine rather what is probable than possible foolish or ill Princes will never chuse such as are wise and good but favouring those who are most like to themselves will prefer such as second their vices humours and personal Interests and by so doing will rather fortify and rivet the evils that are brought upon the Nation through their defects than cure them This was evident in Rehoboam he had good Counsel but he would not hearken to it We know too many of the same sort and tho it were not impossible as Macchiavelli says it is for a weak Prince to receive any benefit from a good Council we may certainly conclude that a People can never expect any good from a Council chosen by one who is weak or vicious If a Council be imposed upon him and he be obliged to follow their advice it must be imposed by a Power that is above him his Will therefore is not a Law but must be regulated by the Law the Monarchy is not above the Law and if we will believe our Author 't is no Monarchy because the Monarch has not his will and perhaps he says true For if that be not an Aristocracy where those that are or are reputed to be the best do govern then that is certainly a mixed State in which the will of one man dos not prevail But if Princes are not obliged by the Law all that is founded upon that supposition falls to the ground They will always sollow their own humours or the suggestions of those who second them Tiberius hearkned to none but Chaldeans or the ministers of his impurities and cruelties Claudius was governed by Slaves and the profligate Strumpets his Wives There were many wise and good men in the Senate during the reigns of Caligula Nero and Domitian but instead of following their Counsel they endeavour'd to destroy them all lest they should head the People against them and such Princes as resemble them will always follow the like courses If I often repeat these hateful names 't is not for want of sresher examples of the same nature but I chuse such as Mankind has universally condemn'd against whom I can have no other cause of hatred than what is common to all those who have any love to virtue and which can have no other relation to the Controversies of later Ages than what may flow from the similitude of their causes rather than such as are too well known to us and which every man according to the measure of his experience may call to mind in reading these I may also add that as nothing is to be received as a general Maxim which is not generally true I need no more to overthrow such as Filmer proposes than to prove how frequently they have bin found false and what desperate mischiefs have bin brought upon the World as often as they have bin practised and excessive Powers put into the hands of such as had neither inclination nor ability to make a good use of them 1. But if the safety of Nations be the end for which Governments are instituted such as take upon them to govern by what Title soever are by the Law of Nature bound to procure it and in order to this to preserve the Lives Lands Liberties and Goods of every one of their Subjects and he that upon any title whatsoever pretends assumes or exercises a power of disposing of them according to his will violates the Laws of Nature in the highest degree 2. If all Princes are obliged by the Law of Nature to preserve the Lands Goods Lives and Liberties of their Subjects those Subjects have by the Law of Nature a right to their Liberties Lands Goods c. and cannot depend upon the will of any man for that dependence destroys Liberty c. 3. Ill men will not and weak men cannot provide for the safety of the People nay the work is of such extreme difficulty that the greatest and wisest men that have bin in the world are not able by themselves to perform it and the assistance of Counsel is of no use unless Princes are obliged to follow it There must be therefore a power in every State to restrain the ill and to instruct weak Princes by obliging them to follow the Counsels given else the ends of Government cannot be accomplished nor the rights of Nations preserved All this being no more than is said by our Author or necessarily to be deduced from his Propositions one would think he were become as good
sense of the words as they are understood in our Language by those who give them and conducing to the ends for which they are given which can be no other than to defend us from all manner of arbitrary Power and to fix a rule to which we are to conform our Actions and from which according to our deserts we may expect reward or punishment And those who by prevarications cavils or equivocations endeavour to dissolve these Obligations do either maliciously betray the cause of Kings by representing them to the world as men who prefer the Satisfaction of their irregular Appetites before the performance of their duty and trample under foot the most sacred bonds of human Society or from the grossest ignorance do not see that by teaching Nations how little they can rely upon the Oaths of their Princes they instruct them as little to observe their own and that not only because men are generally inclined to follow the examples of those in power but from a most certain conclusion that he who breaks his part of a Contract cannot without the utmost impudence and folly expect the performance of the other nothing being more known amongst men than that all Contracts are of such mutual obligation that he who fails of his part discharges the other If this be so between man and man it must needs be so between one and many millions of men If he were free because he says he is every man must be free also when he pleases if a private man who receives no benefit or perhaps prejudice from a Contract be obliged to perform the conditions much more are Kings who receive the greatest advantages the world can give As they are not by themselves nor for themselves so they are not different in specie from other men they are born live and die as we all do The same Law of Truth and Justice is given to all by God and Nature and perhaps I may say the performance of it is most rigorously exacted from the greatest of men The liberty of Perjury cannot be a privilege annexed to Crowns and 't is absurd to think that the most venerable Authority that can be conferred upon a man is increased by a liberty-to commit or impunity in committing such crimes as are the greatest aggravations of infamy to the basest villains in the world SECT XVIII The next in blood to deceased Kings cannot generally be said to be Kings till they are crowned 'T IS hereupon usually objected that Kings do not come in by Contract nor by Oath but are Kings by or according to proximity of Blood before they are crowned Tho this be a bold Proposition I will not say 't is universally false 'T is possible that in some places the rule of Succession may be set down so precisely that in some cases every man may be able to see and know the sense as well as the Person designed to be the Successor but before I acknowledg it to be universally true I must desire to know what this rule of Succession is and from whence it draws its original I think I may be excused if I make these scruples because I find the thing in dispute to be variously adjudged in several places and have observed five different manners of disposing Crowns esteemed Hereditary besides an infinite number of collateral Controversies arising from them of which we have divers examples and if there be one universal rule appointed one of these only can be right and all the others must be vicious The first gives the inheritance to the eldest Male of the eldest legitimate Line as in France according to that which they call the Salique Law The second to the eldest legitimate Male of the reigning Family as antiently in Spain according to which the Brother of the deceased King has bin often if not always preferr'd before the Son if he were elder as may appear by the dispute between Corbis and Orsua cited before from Titus Livius and in the same Country during the reign of the Goths the eldest Male succeeded whether Legitimate or Illegitimate The fourth receives Females or their Descendents without any other condition distinguishing them from Males except that the younger Brother is preferr'd before the elder Sister but the daughter of the elder Brother is preferr'd before the Son of the younger The fifth gives the Inheritance to Females under a condition as in Sweden where they inherit unless they marry out of the Country without the consent of the Estates according to which rule Charles Gustavus was chosen as any Stranger might have bin tho Son to a Sister of Gustavus Adolphus who by marrying a German Prince had forfeited her right And by the same act of Estates by which her eldest Son was chosen and the Crown entailed upon the Heirs of his Body her second Son the Prince Adolphus was wholly excluded Till these questions are decided by a Judg of such an undoubted Authority that all men may safely submit 't is hard for any man who really seeks the satisfaction of his Conscience to know whether the Law of God and Nature tho he should believe there is one general Law do justify the Customs of the antient Medes and Sabeans mentioned by the Poet who admitted Females or those of France which totally exclude them as unfit to reign over men and utterly unable to perform the duty of a supreme Magistrate as we see they are every where excluded from the exercise of all other Offices in the Commonwealth If it be said that we ought to follow the Customs of our own Country I answer that those of our own Country deserve to be observed because they are of our own Country But they are no more to be called the Laws of God and Nature than those of France or Germany and tho I do not believe that any general Law is appointed I wish I were sure that our Customs in this point were not more repugnant to the light of Nature and prejudicial to our selves than those of some other Nations But if I should be so much an Englishman to think the will of God to have bin more particularly revealed to our Ancestors than to any other Nation and that all of them ought to learn from us yet it would be difficult to decide many questions that may arise For tho the Parliament in the 36th of Henry the sixth made an Act in favour of Richard Duke of York descended from a Daughter of Mortimer who married the Daughter of the Duke of Clarence elder Brother to John of Gaunt they rather asserted their own power of giving the Crown to whom they pleased than determined the question For if they had believed that the Crown had belonged to him by a general and eternal Law they must immediately have rejected Henry as a Usurper and put Richard into the possession of his Right which they did not And tho they did something like to this in the cases of Maud the Empress in relation
the Moors than an old Astrologer or a Child Alphonso and Sancho being dead Alphonso El Desheredado laid claim to the Crown but it was given to Ferdinand the Fourth and Alphonso with his descendents the Dukes de Medina Celi remain excluded to this day Peter sirnamed the Cruel was twice driven out of the Kingdom and at last killed by Bertrand to Guesclin Constable of France or Henry Count of Trastamara his Bastard-Brother who was made King without any regard to the Daughters of Peter or to the House of La Cerda Henry the Fourth lest a Daughter called Joan whom he declared his Heir but the Estates gave the Kingdom to Isabel his Sister and crowned her with Ferdinand of Arragon her Husband Joan Daughter to this Ferdinand and Isabel salling mad the Estates committed the care of the Government to her Father Ferdinand and after his death to Charles her Son But the French have taught us that when a King dies his next Heir is really King before he take his Oath or be crowned From them we learn that Le mort saisit le vif And yet I know no History that proves more plainly than theirs that there neither is nor can be in any man a right to the Government of a People which dos not receive its being manner and measure from the Law of that Country which I hope to justify by four Reasons 1. When a King of Pharamond's Race died the Kingdom was divided into as many parcels as he had Sons which could not have bin if one certain Heir had bin assigned by nature for he ought to have had the whole and if the Kingdom might be divided they who inhabited the several parcels could not know to whom they owed obedience till the division was made unless he who was to be King of Paris Metz Soissons or Orleans had worn the Name of his Kingdom upon his forehead But in truth if there might be a division the Doctrine is false and there was no Lord of the whole This wound will not be healed by saying The Father appointed the division and that by the Law of nature every man may dispose of his own as he thinks fit for we shall soon prove that the Kingdom of France neither was nor is disposeable as a Patrimony or Chattel Besides if that Act of Kings had bin then grounded upon the Law of nature they might do the like at this day But the Law by which such Divisions were made having bin abrogated by the Assembly of Estates in the time of Hugh Capet and never practised since it follows that they were grounded upon a temporary Law and not upon the Law of Nature which is eternal If this were not so the pretended certainty could not be for no man could know to whom the last King had bequeathed the whole Kingdom or parcels of it till the Will were opened and that must be done before such Witnesses as may deserve credit in a matter of this importance and are able to judg whether the Bequest be rightly made for otherwise no man could know whether the Kingdom was to have one Lord or many nor who he or they were to be which intermission must necessarily subvert their Polity and this Doctrine But the truth is the most Monarchical men among them are so far from acknowledging any such right to be in the King of alienating bequeathing or dividing the Kingdom that they do not allow him the right of making a Will and that of the last King Lewis the 13th touching the Regency during the minority of his Son was of no effect 2. This matter was made more clear under the second race If a Lord had bin assigned to them by nature he must have bin of the Royal Family But Pepin had no other Title to the Crown except the merits of his Father and his own approved by the Nobility and People who made him King He had three sons the eldest was made King of Italy and dying before him lest a Son called Bernard Heir of that Kingdom The Estates of France divided what remained between Charles the Great and Carloman The last of these dying in few years left many Sons but the Nobility made Charles King of all France and he dispossessed Bernard of the Kingdom of Italy inherited from his Father so that he also was not King of the whole before the expulsion of Bernard the Son of his elder Brother nor of Aquitain which by inheritance should have belonged to the Children of his younger Brother any otherwise than by the will of the Estates Lewis the Debonair succeeded upon the same title was deposed and put into a Monastery by his three Sons Lothair Pepin and Lewis whom he had by his first Wife But tho these lest many Sons the Kingdom came to Charles the Bald. The Nobility and People disliking the eldest Son of Charles gave the Kingdom to Lewis le Begue who had a legitimate Son called Charles le Simple and two Bastards Lewis and Carloman who were made Kings Carloman had a Son called Lewis le faineant he was made King but afterwards deposed for his vicious Lise Charles le Gros succeeded him but for his ill Government was also deposed and Odo who was a stranger to the Royal Blood was made King The same Nobility that had made five Kings since Lewis le Begue now made Charles le Simple King who according to his name was entrapped at Peronne by Ralph Duke of Burgundy and forced to resign his Crown leaving only a Son called Lewis who fled into England Ralph being dead they took Lewis sirnamed Outremer and placed him in the Throne he had two Sons Lothair and Charles Lothair succeeded him and died without Issue Charles had as fair a title as could be by Birth and the Estates confessed it but their Ambassadors told him that he having by an unworthy Life render'd himself unworthy of the Crown they whose principal care was to have a good Prince at the head of them had chosen Hugh Capet and the Crown continues in his race to this day tho not altogether without interruption Robert Son to Hugh Capet succeeded him He left two Sons Robert and Henry but Henry the younger Son appearing to the Estates of the Kingdom to be more fit to reign than his elder Brother they made him King Robert and his descendents continuing Dukes of Burgundy only for about ten Generations at which time his Issue Male failing that Dutchy returned to the Crown during the Life of King John who gave it to his second Son Philip for an Apannage still depending upon the Crown The same Province of Burgundy was by the Treaty of Madrid granted to the Emperor Charles the fifth by Francis the first but the People resused to be alienated and the Estates of the Kingdom approved their refusal By the same Authority Charles the 6th was removed from the Government when he appeared to be mad and other examples of a like nature
equal if it were possible all should be Magistrates But that being repugnant to the nature of Government he finds no other way of solving the difficulty than by obeying and commanding alternately that they may do by turns that which they cannot do all together and to which no one man has more right than another because they are all by nature equal This might be composed by a more compendious way if according to our Author's doctrine possession could give a Right But Aristotle speaking like a Philosopher and not like a publick enemy of Mankind examines what is just reasonable and beneficial to men that is what ought to be done and which being done is to be accounted just and therefore to be supported by good men But as that which is unjust in the beginning can never have the effect of justice and it being manifestly unjust for one or a few men to assume a power over those who by nature are equal to them no such power can be just or beneficial to mankind nor fit to be upheld by good men if it be unjust and prejudicial In the opinion of Aristotle this natural equality continues till virtue makes the distinction which must be either simply compleat and perfect in it self so that he who is endued with it is a God among men or relatively as far as concerns civil Society and the ends for which it is constituted that is defence and the obtaining of Justice This requires a mind unbiassed by passion full of goodness and wisdom firm against all the temptations to ill that may arise from desire or fear tending to all manner of good through a perfect knowledg and affection to it and this to such a degree that he or they have more of these virtues and excellencies than all the rest of the Society tho computed together Where such a man is found he is by nature a King and 't is best for the Nation where he is that he govern If a few men tho equal and alike among themselves have the same advantages above the rest of the People Nature for the same reason seems to establish an Aristocracy in that place and the power is more safely committed to them than left in the hands of the multitude But if this excellency of virtue do not appear in one nor in a few men the right and power is by nature equally lodged in all and to assume or appropriate that power to one or a few men is unnatural and tyrannical which in Aristotle's language comprehends all that is detestable and abominable If any man should think Aristotle a trifler for speaking of such a man as can never be found I answer that he went as far as his way could be warranted by reason or nature and was obliged to stop there by the defect of his Subject He could not say that the Government of one was simply good when he knew so many qualifications were required in the person to make it so nor that it is good for a Nation to be under the power of a fool a coward or a villain because 't is good to be under a man of admirable wisdom valour industry and goodness or that the Government of one should be continued in such as by chance succeed in a Family because it was given to the first who had all the virtues required tho all the reasons for which the power was given fail in the Successor much less could he say that any Government was good which was not good for those whose good only it was constituted to promote Moreover by shewing who only is fit to be a Monarch or may be made such without violating the Laws of Nature and Justice he shews who cannot be one and he who says that no such man is to be found as according to the opinion of Aristotle can be a Monarch dos most ridiculously alledg his Authority in favour of Monarchs or the power which some amongst us would attribute to them If any thing therefore may be concluded from his words 't is this That since no power ought to be admitted which is not just that none can be just which is not good profitable to the People and conducing to the ends for which it is constituted that no man can know how to direct the power to those ends can deserve or administer it unless he do so far excel all those that are under him in wisdom justice valour and goodness as to possess more of those virtues than all of them I say if no such man or succession of men be found no such power is to be granted to any man or succession of men But if such power be granted the Laws of nature and reason are overthrown and the ends for which Societies are constituted utterly perverted which necessarily implies an annihilation of the Grant And if a Grant so made by those who have a right of setting up a Government among themselves do perish through its own natural iniquity and perversity I leave it to any man whose understanding and manners are not so intirely corrupted as those of our Author to determine what name ought to be given to that person who not excelling all others in Civil and Moral Virtues in the proportion requir'd by Aristotle dos usurp a power over a Nation and what obedience the People owe to such a one But if his opinion deserve our regard the King by having those virtues is Omnium Optimus and the best guide to the People to lead them to happiness by the ways of virtue And he who assumes the same power without the qualifications requir'd is Tyrannus omnium pessimus leading the People to all manner of ill and in consequence to destruction SECT XXIV The power of Augustus Cesar was not given but usurped OUR Author's next instance is ingeniously taken from the Romans Who he says tho they were a People greedy of Liberty freed Augustus from the necessity of Laws If it be true as he affirms that such a Prerogative is instituted only for the preservation of Liberty they who are most greedy of it ought to be most forward in establishing that which defends it best But if the weight laid upon the words greedy of Liberty c. render his memory and judgment liable to censure the unpardonable prevarication of citing any act done by the Romans in the time of Augustus as done freely shews him to be a man of no faith Omnium jura in se traxer at says Tacitus of Augustus nothing was conferred upon him he took all to himself there could be nothing of right in that which was wholly usurped And neither the People or the Senate could do any thing freely whilst they were under the power of a mad corrupted Soldiery who first betray'd and then subdued them The greatest part of the Senate had fall'n at the battel of Pharsalia others had bin gleaned up in several places the rest destroy'd by the Proscriptions and that which then
of grace and favour from that King but adds that it had bin more for the honour of Parliaments if a King whose title to the Crown had bin better had bin the Author of the form of it In answer to the first I do not think my self obliged to insist upon the name or form of the Parliament for the Authority of a Magistracy proceeds not from the number of years that it has continued but the rectitude of the institution and the Authority of those that instituted it The power of Saul David and Jeroboam was the same with that which belonged to the last Kings of Israel and Judah The Authority of the Roman Consuls Dictators Pretors and Tribuns was the same as soon as it was established was as legal and just as that of the Kings of Denmark which is said to have continued above three thousand years For as time can make nothing lawful or just that is not so of it self tho men are unwilling to change that which has pleased their Ancestors unless they discover great inconveniences in it that which a People dos rightly establish for their own good is of as much force the first day as continuance can ever give to it and therefore in matters of the greatest importance wise and good men do not so much inquire what has bin as what is good and ought to be for that which of it self is evil by continuance is made worse and upon the first opportunity is justly to be abolished But if that Liberty in which God created man can receive any strength from continuance and the rights of Englishmen can be render'd more unquestionable by prescription I say that the Nations whose rights we inherit have ever enjoy'd the Liberties we claim and always exercised them in governing themselves popularly or by such Representatives as have bin instituted by themselves from the time they were first known in the world The Britans and Saxons lay so long hid in the obscurity that accompanies barbarism that 't is in vain to seek what was done by either in any writers more antient than Cesar and Tacitus The first describes the Britans to have bin a fierce People zealous for Liberty and so obstinately valiant in the defence of it that tho they wanted skill and were overpower'd by the Romans their Country could no otherwise be subdued than by the slaughter of all the inhabitants that were able to bear arms He calls them a free People in as much as they were not like the Gauls governed by Laws made by the great men but by the People In his time they chose Cassivellaunus and afterwards Caractatus Arviragus Galgacus and others to command them in their wars but they retain'd the Government in themselves That no force might be put upon them they met arm'd in their general Assemblies and tho the smaller matters were left to the determination of the chief men chosen by themselves for that purpose they reserved the most important amongst which the chusing of those men was one to themselves When the Romans had brought them low they set up certain Kings to govern such as were within their Territories but those who defended themselves by the natural strength of their situation or retired into the North or the Islands were still governed by their own Customs and were never acquainted with domestick or foreign slavery The Saxons from whom we chiesly derive our Original and Manners were no less lovers of Liberty and better understood the ways of defending it They were certainly the most powerful and valiant people of Germany and what the Germans performed under Ariovistus Arminius and Maroboduus shews both their force and their temper If ever fear enter'd into the heart os Cesar it seems to have bin when he was to deal with Ariovistus The advantages that the brave Germanicus obtained against Arminius were at least thought equal to the greatest victories that had bin gain'd by any Roman Captain because these Nations fought not for riches or any instruments of Luxury and Pleasure which they despised but for Liberty This was the principle in which they lived as appears by their words and actions so that Arminius when his brother Flavius who served the Romans boasted of the increase of his pay and the marks of honour he had received in scorn call'd them the rewards of the vilest servitude but when he himself endeavour'd to usurp a power over the liberty of his Country which he had so bravely defended he was killed by those he would have oppress'd Tacitus farther describing the nature of the Germans shews that the Romans had run greater hazards from them than from the Samnites Carthaginians and Parthians and attributes their bravery to the Liberty they enjoyed for they are says he neither exhausted by Tributes nor vexed by Publicans and lest this Liberty should be violated the chief men consult about things of lesser moment but the most important matters are determined by all Whoever would know the opinion of that wise Author concerning the German Liberty may read his excellent Treatise concerning their Manners and Customs but I presume this may be enough to prove that they lived free under such Magistrates as they chose regulated by such Laws as they made and retained the principal powers of the Government in their general or particular Councils Their Kings and Princes had no other power than was conferred upon them by these Assemblies who having all in themselves could receive nothing from them who had nothing to give 'T is as easily proved that the Saxons or Angli from whom we descend were eminent among those whose power virtue and love to Liberty the abovementioned Historian so highly extols in as much as besides what he says in general of the Saxons he names the Angli describes their habitation near the Elb and their religious worship of the Goddess Erthum or the Earth celebrated in an Island lying in the mouth of that River thought to be Heyligland in resemblance of which a small one lying over against Berwick is called Holy Island If they were free in their own Country they must be so when they came hither The manner of their coming shews they were more likely to impose than submit to slavery and if they had not the name of Parliament it was because they did not speak French or not being yet joined with the Normans they had not thought fit to put their Affairs into that method but having the root of Power and Liberty in themselves they could not but have a right of establishing the one in such a form as best pleased them for the preservation of the other This being as I suppose undeniable it imports not whether the Assemblies in which the supreme Power of each Nation did reside were frequent or rare composed of many or few persons sitting altogether in one place or in more what name they had or whether every free man did meet and vote in his own
to their Country I say that all Nations amongst whom Virtue has bin esteemed have had a great regard to them and their Posterity And tho Kings when they were made have bin intrusted by the Saxons and other Nations with a Power of ennobling those who by services render'd to their Country might deserve that Honor yet the body of the Nobility was more antient than such for it had bin equally impossible to take Kings according to Tacitus out of the Nobility if there had bin no Nobility as to take Captains for their Virtue if there had bin no Virtue and Princes could not without breach of that trust confer Honors upon those that did not deserve them which is so true that this practice was objected as the greatest crime against Vortigern the last and the worst of the British Kings and tho he might pretend according to such cavils as are usual in our time that the judgment of those matters was reserred to him yet the world judged of his Crimes and when he had render'd himself odious to God and men by them he perished in them and brought destruction upon his Country that had suffer'd them too long As among the Turks and most of the Eastern Tyrannies there is no Nobility and no man has any considerable advantage above the common People unless by the immediate favour of the Prince so in all the legal Kingdoms of the North the strength of the Government has always bin placed in the Nobility and no better defence has bin found against the encroachments of ill Kings than by setting up an Order of men who by holding large Territories and having great numbers of Tenants and Dependents might be able to restrain the exorbitances that either the Kings or the Commons might run into For this end Spain Germany France Poland Denmark Sweeden Scotland and England were almost wholly divided into Lordships under several names by which every particular Possessor owed Allegiance that is such an Obedience as the Law requires to the King and he reciprocally swore to perform that which the same Law exacted from him When these Nations were converted to the Christian Religion they had a great veneration for the Clergy and not doubting that the men whom they esteemed holy would be just thought their Liberties could not be better secured than by joining those who had the direction of their Consciences to the Noblemen who had the command of their Forces This succeeded so well in relation to the defence of the publick Rights that in all the forementioned States the Bishops Abbots c. were no less zealous or bold in defending the publick Liberty than the best and greatest of the Lords And if it were true that things being thus established the Commons did neither personally nor by their Representatives enter into the General Assemblies it could be of no advantage to Kings for such a Power as is above-mentioned is equally inconsistent with the absolute Sovereignty of Kings if placed in the Nobility and Clergy as if the Commons had a part If the King has all no other man nor number of men can have any If the Nobility and Clergy have the power the Commons may have their share also But I affirm that those whom we now call Commons have always had a part in the Government and their place in the Councils that managed it for if there was a distinction it must have bin by Patent Birth or Tenure As for Patents we know they began long after the coming of the Normans and those that now have them cannot pretend to any advantage on account of Birth or Tenure beyond many of those who have them not Nay besides the several Branches of the Families that now enjoy the most antient Honors which consequently are as noble as they and some of them of the elder Houses we know many that are now called Commoners who in antiquity and eminency are no way inferior to the chief of the titular Nobility and nothing can be more absurd than to give a prerogative of Birth to Cr-v-n T-ft-n H-ae B-nn-t Osb-rn and others before the Cliftons Hampdens Courtneys Pelhams St. Johns Baintons Wilbrahams Hungerfords and many others And if the Tenures of their Estates be consider'd they have the same and as antient as any of those who go under the names of Duke or Marquess I forbear to mention the sordid ways of attaining to Titles in our days but whoever will take the pains to examine them shall find that they rather defile than ennoble the possessors And whereas men are truly ennobled only by Virtue and respect is due to such as are descended from those who have bravely serv'd their Country because it is presumed till they shew the contrary that they will resemble their Ancestors these modern Courtiers by their Names and Titles frequently oblige us to call to mind such things as are not to be mentioned without blushing Whatever the antient Noblemen of England were we are sure they were not such as these And tho it should be confess'd that no others than Dukes Marquesses Earls Viscounts and Barons had their places in the Councils mentioned by Cesar and Tacitus or in the great Assemblies of the Saxons it could be of no advantage to such as now are called by those names They were the titles of Offices conserred upon those who did and could best conduct the people in time of War give Counsel to the King administer Justice and perform other publick duties but were never made hereditary except by abuse much less were they sold for money or given as recompences of the vilest services If the antient order be totally inverted and the ends of its institution perverted they who from thence pretend to be distinguished from other men must build their claim upon something very different from Antiquity This being sufficient if I mistake not to make it appear that the antient Councils of our Nation did not consist of such as we now call Noblemen it may be worth our pains to examine of what sort of men they did consist And tho I cannot much rely upon the credit of Camden which he has forfeited by a great number of untruths I will begin with him because he is cited by our Author If we will believe him That which the Saxons called Wittenagemot we may justly name Parliament which has the supreme and most sacred Authority of making abrogating and interpreting Laws and generally of all things relating to the safety of the Commonwealth This Wittenagemot was according to William of Malmsbury The general meeting of the Senat and People and Sir Harry Spelman calls it The General Council of the Clergy and People In the Assembly at Calcuth it was decreed by the Archbishops Bishops Abbots Dukes Senators and the People of the Land Populo terrae that the Kings should be elected by the Priests and Elders of the People By these Offa Ina and others were made Kings and Alfred
distributed into many Families of Scotland remains to this day and if proximity of blood is to be consider'd ought always to have bin preferr'd before her and her descendents unless there be a Law that gives the preference to Daughters before Sons What right soever Henry the second had it must necessarily have perished with him all his Children having bin begotten in manifest Adultery on Eleanor of Gascony during the life of Lewis King of France her first Husband and nothing could be alledged to colour the business but a dispensation from the Pope directly against the Law of God and the words of our Saviour who says That a Wife cannot be put away unless for Adultery and he that marrieth her that is put away committeth Adultery The pollution of this spring is not to be cured but tho it should pass unregarded no one part of the Succession since that time has remained intire John was preferred before Arthur his elder brother's Son Edward the third was made King by the deposition of his Father Henry the fourth by that of Richard the 2d If the house of Mortimer or York had the right Henry the 4th 5th and 6th were not Kings and all who claim under them have no title However Richard the third could have none for the Children of his elder Brother the Duke of Clarence were then living The Children of Edward the fourth may be suspected of bastardy and tho it may have bin otherwise yet that matter is not so clear as things of such importance ought to be and the consequence may reach very far But tho that scruple were removed 't is certain that Henry the 7th was not King in the right of his Wife Elizabeth for he reigned before and after her and for his other titles we may believe Philip de Commines who says He had neither cross nor pile If Henry the eighth had a right in himself or from his Mother he should have reigned immediately after her death which he never pretended nor to succeed till his Father was dead thereby acknowledging he had no right but from him unless the Parliament and People can give it The like may be said of his Children Mary could have no title if she was a Bastard begotten in Incest but if her Mother's marriage was good and she legitimate Elizabeth could have none Yet all these were lawful Kings and Queens their Acts continue in force to this day to all intents and purposes the Parliament and People made them to be so when they had no other title The Parliament and People therefore have the power of making Kings Those who are so made are not Usurpers We have had none but such for more than seven hundred years They were therefore lawful Kings or this Nation has had none in all that time and if our Author like this conclusion the account from whence it is drawn may without difficulty be carried as high as our English Histories do reach This being built upon the steddy Foundation of Law History and Reason is not to be removed by any man's opinion especially by one accompanied with such circumstances as Sir Walter Raleigh was in during the last years of his life And there is something of baseness as well as prevarication in turning the words of an eminent Person reduced to great difficulties to a sense no way agreeing with his former actions or writings and no less tending to impair his reputation than to deceive others Our Author is highly guilty of both in citing Sir Walter Raleigh to invalidate the great Charter of our Liberties as begun by Vsurpation and shewed to the world by Rebellion whereas no such thing nor any thing like it in word or principle can be found in the works that deserve to go under his name The Dialogue in question with some other small pieces published after his death deserve to be esteemed spurious Or if from a desire of life when he knew his head lay under the Ax he was brought to say things no way agreeing with what he had formerly profess'd they ought rather to be buried in oblivion than produced to blemish his memory But that the publick Cause may not suffer by his fault 't is convenient the world should be informed that tho he was a well qualified Gentleman yet his Morals were no way exact as appears by his dealings with the brave Earl of Essex And he was so well assisted in his History of the World that an ordinary man with the same helps might have perform'd the same things Neither ought it to be accounted strange if that which he writ by himself had the tincture of another spirit when he was deprived of that assistance tho his life had not depended upon the will of the Prince and he had never said That the bonds of Subjects to their Kings should always be wrought out of Iron and those of Kings to their Subjects out of Cobwebs SECT XXXI Free Nations have a right of meeting when and where they please unless they deprive themselves of it APerverted Judgment always leads men into a wrong way and perswades them to believe that those things favour their cause that utterly overthrow it For a proof of this I desire our Author's words may be consider'd In the former Parliaments says he instituted and continued since Henry the first his time is not to be found the usage of any natural Liberty of the people For all those Liberties that are claimed in Parliament are Liberties of Grace from the King and not the Liberties of Nature to the People For if the Liberty were natural it would give power unto the multitude to assemble themselves when and where they pleased to bestow the Sovereignty and by pactions to limit and direct the exercise of it And I say that Nations being naturally free may meet when and where they please may dispose of the Soveraignty and may direct or limit the exercise of it unless by their own act they have deprived themselves of that right and there could never have bin a lawful Assembly of any People in the world if they had not had that power in themselves It was proved in the preceding Section that all our Kings having no title were no more than what the Nobility and People made them to be that they could have no power but what was given to them and could confer none except what they had received If they can therefore call Parliaments the power of calling them must have bin given to them and could not be given by any who had it not in themselves The Israelites met together and chose Ehud Gideon Samson Jephtha and others to be their Leaders whom they judged fit to deliver them from their Enemies By the same right they assembled at Mispeth to make War against the Tribe of Benjamin when Justice was denied to be done against those who had villanously abused the Levites Concubine In the like manner they would have made Gideon King but
Constitutions than that they who made them would have it so which could not be if God and Nature had appointed one general Rule for all Nations For in that case the Kingdom of France must be elective as well as that of Poland and the Empire or the Empire and Poland hereditary as that of France Daughters must succeed in France as well as in England or be excluded in England as in France and he that would establish one as the Ordinance of God and Nature must necessarily overthrow all the rest A farther exercise of the natural Liberty of Nations is discovered in the several limitations put upon the Sovereign Power Some Kings says Grotius have the summum Imperium summo modo others modo non summo and amongst those that are under limitations the degrees as to more or less are almost infinite as I have proved already by the example of Arragon antient Germany the Saxon Kings the Normans the Kings of Castille the present Empire with divers others And I may safely say that the antient Government of France was much of the same nature to the time of Charles the 7th and Lewis the 11th but the work of emancipating themselves as they call it begun by them is now brought to perfection in a boundless elevation of the King's greatness and riches to the unspeakable misery of the people 'T were a folly to think this variety proceeds from the concessions of Kings who naturally delight in Power and hate that which crosses their will It might with more reason be imagined that the Roman Consuls who were brought up in liberty who had contracted a love to their Country and were contented to live upon an equal foot with their fellow Citizens should confine the power of their Magistracy to a year or that the Dukes of Venice should be graciously pleased to give power to the Council of Ten to punish them capitally if they transgressed the Laws than that Kings should put such Fetters upon their power which they so much abhor or that they would suffer them if they could be easily broken If any one of them should prove so moderate like Trajan to command the Prefect of the Pretorian Guard to use the Sword for him if he governed well and against him if he did not it would soon be rescinded by his Successor the Law which has no other strength than the act of one man may be annulled by another So that nothing dos more certainly prove that the Laws made in several Countries to restrain the Power of Kings and variously to dispose of the Succession are not from them than the frequent examples of their fury who have exposed themselves to the greatest dangers and brought infinite miseries upon the people through the desire of breaking them It must therefore be concluded that Nations have power of meeting together and of conferring limiting and directing the Sovereignty or all must be grounded upon most manifest Injustice and Usurpation No man can have a power over a Nation otherwise than de jure or de facto He who pretends to have a power de jure must prove that it is originally inherent in him or his predecessor from whom he inherits or that it was justly acquired by him The vanity of any pretence to an original Right appears sufficiently I hope from the proofs already given that the first Fathers of Mankind had it not or if they had no man could now inherit the same there being no man able to make good the Genealogy that should give him a right to the Succession Besides the facility we have of proving the beginnings of all the Families that reign among us makes it as absurd for any of them to pretend a perpetual right to Dominion as for any Citizen of London whose parents and birth we know to say he is the very man Noah who lived in the time of the Flood and is now four or five thousand years old If the power were conferred on him or his Predecessors 't is what we ask for the collation can be of no value unless it be made by those who had a right to do it and the original right by Descent failing no one can have any over a sree People but themselves or those to whom they have given it If acquisition be pretended 't is the same thing for there can be no right to that which is acquired unless the right of invading be proved and that being done nothing can be acquired except what belonged to the person that was invaded and that only by him who had the right of invading No man ever did or could conquer a Nation by his own strength no man therefore could ever acquire a personal right over any and if it was conferr'd upon him by those who made the conquest with him they were the People that did it He can no more be said to have the right originally in and from himself than a Magistrate of Rome or Athens immediately after his creation and having no other at the beginning he can have none to eternity for the nature of it must refer to the original and cannot be changed by time Whatsoever therefore proceeds not from the consent of the People must be de facto only that is void of all right and 't is impossible there should not be a right of destroying that which is grounded upon none and by the same rule that one man enjoys what he gained by violence another may take it from him Cyrus overthrew the Assyrians and Babylonians Alexander the Medes and Persians and if they had no right of making war upon those Nations the Nations could not but have a right of recovering all that had bin unjustly taken from them and avenging the evils they had suffered If the cause of the war was originally just and not corrupted by an intemperate use of the victory the conquer'd People was perhaps obliged to be quiet but the conquering Armies that had conferred upon their Generals what they had taken from their enemies might as justly expect an account of what they had given and that it should be imploy'd according to the intention of the givers as the People of any City might do from their regularly created Magistrates because it was as impossible for Cyrus Alexander or Cesar to gain a power over the Armies they led without their consent as for Pericles Valerius or any other disarmed Citizen to gain more power in their respective Cities than was voluntarily conferr'd upon them And I know no other difference between Kingdoms so constituted by conquering Armies and such as are established in the most orderly manner than that the first usually incline more to war and violence the latter to justice and peace But there have not bin wanting many of the first sort especially the Nations coming from the North who were no less exact in ordaining that which tended to the preservation of Liberty nor less severe in seeing it punctually performed than the
beyond or contrary to the true meaning of it private men who swear obedience ad legem swear no obedience extra or contra Legem whatsoever they promise or swear can detract nothing from the publick Liberty which the Law principally intends to preserve Tho many of them may be obliged in their several Stations and Capacities to render peculiar services to a Prince the People continue as free as the internal thoughts of a man and cannot but have a right to preserve their Liberty or avenge the violation If matters are well examined perhaps not many Magistrates can pretend to much upon the title of merit most especially if they or their progenitors have continued long in Office The conveniences annexed to the exercise of the Sovereign power may be thought sufficient to pay such scores as they grow due even to the best and as things of that nature are handled I think it will hardly be found that all Princes can pretend to an irresistible power upon the account of beneficence to their People When the family of Medices came to be masters of Tuscany that Country was without dispute in men mony and arms one of the most flourishing Provinces in the World as appears by Macchiavel's account and the relation of what happened between Charles the eighth and the Magistrates of Florence which I have mentioned already from Guicciardin Now whoever shall consider the strength of that Country in those days together with what it might have bin in the space of a hundred and forty years in which they have had no war nor any other plague than the extortion fraud rapin and cruelty of their Princes and compare it with their present desolate wretched and contemptible condition may if he please think that much veneration is due to the Princes that govern them but will never make any man believe that their Title can be grounded upon beneficence The like may be said of the Duke of Savoy who pretending upon I know not what account that every Peasant in the Dutchy ought to pay him two Crowns every half year did in 1662 subtilly find our that in every year there were thirteen halves so that a poor man who had nothing but what he gained by hard labour was through his fatherly Care and Beneficence forced to pay six and twenty Crowns to his Royal Highness to be employ'd in his discreet and virtuous pleasures at Turin The condition of the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands and even of Spain it self when they fell to the house of Austria was of the same nature and I will confess as much as can be required if any other marks of their Government do remain than such as are manifest evidences of their Pride Avarice Luxury and Cruelty France in outward appearance makes a better show but nothing in this world is more miserable than that people under the fatherly care of their triumphant Monarch The best of their condition is like Asses and Mastiff-dogs to work and fight to be oppressed and kill'd for him and those among them who have any understanding well know that their industry courage and good success is not only unprofitable but destructive to them and that by increasing the power of their Master they add weight to their own Chains And if any Prince or succession of Princes have made a more modest use of their Power or more faithfully discharged the trust reposed in them it must be imputed peculiarly to them as a testimony of their personal Virtue and can have no effect upon others The Rights therefore of Kings are not grounded upon Conquest the Liberties of Nations do not arise from the Grants of their Princes the Oath of Allegiance binds no privat man to more than the Law directs and has no influence upon the whole Body of every Nation Many Princes are known to their Subjects only by the injuries losses and mischiefs brought upon them such as are good and just ought to be rewarded for their personal Virtue but can confer no right upon those who no way resemble them and whoever pretends to that merit must prove it by his Actions Rebellion being nothing but a renewed War can never be against a Government that was not established by War and of it self is neither good nor evil more than any other War but is just or unjust according to the cause or manner of it Besides that Rebellion which by Samuel is compar'd to Witchcraft is not of private men or a People against the Prince but of the Prince against God The Israelites are often said to have rebelled against the Law Word or Command of God but tho they frequently opposed their Kings I do not find Rebellion imputed to them on that account nor any ill character put upon such actions We are told also of some Kings who had bin subdued and afterwards rebelled against Chedorlaomer and other Kings but their cause is not blamed and we have some reason to believe it good because Abraham took part with those who had rebelled However it can be of no prejudice to the cause I defend for tho it were true that those subdued Kings could not justly rise against the person who had subdued them or that generally no King being once vanquished could have a right of Rebellion against his Conqueror it could have no relation to the actions of a people vindicating their own Laws and Liberties against a Prince who violates them for that War which never was can never be renewed And if it be true in any case that hands and swords are given to men that they only may be Slaves who have no courage it must be when Liberty is overthrown by those who of all men ought with the utmost industry and vigour to have defended it That this should be known is not only necessary for the safety of Nations but advantagious to such Kings as are wise and good They who know the frailty of human Nature will always distrust their own and desiring only to do what they ought will be glad to be restrain'd from that which they ought not to do Being taught by reason and experience that Nations delight in the Peace and Justice of a good Government they will never fear a general Insurrection whilst they take care it be rightly administred and finding themselves by this means to be safe will never be unwilling that their Children or Successors should be obliged to tread in the same steps If it be said that this may sometimes cause disorders I acknowledg it but no human condition being perfect such a one is to be chosen which carries with it the most tolerable inconveniences And it being much better that the irregularities and excesses of a Prince should be restrained or suppressed than that whole Nations should perish by them those Constitutions that make the best provision against the greatest evils are most to be commended If Governments were instituted to gratify the lusts of one man those could not be good that
Towns and Provinces upon the most eminent men in them And whilst those Kings were exercised in almost perpetual Wars and placed their glory in the greatness of the actions they atchieved by the power and valour of their people it was their interest always to chuse such as seemed best to deserve that honour It was not to be imagined that through the weakness of some and malice of others those dignities should by degrees be turned into empty titles and become the rewards of the greatest crimes and the vilest services or that the noblest of their Descendents for want of them should be brought under the name of Commoners and deprived of all privileges except such as were common to them with their Grooms Such a stupendous change being in process of time insensibly introduced the foundations of that Government which they had established were removed and the superstructure overthrown The balance by which it subsisted was broken and 't is as impossible to restore it as for most of those who at this day go under the name of Noblemen to perform the duties required from the antient Nobility of England And tho there were a charm in the name and those who have it should be immediately filled with a spirit like to that which animated our Ancestors and endeavour to deserve the Honors they possess by such Services to the Country as they ought to have perform'd before they had them they would not be able to accomplish it They have neither the interest nor the estates required for so great a work Those who have estates at a rack Rent have no dependents Their Tenants when they have paid what is agreed owe them nothing and knowing they shall be turn'd out of their Tenements as soon as any other will give a little more they look upon their Lords as men who receive more from them than they confer upon them This dependence being lost the Lords have only more mony to spend or lay up than others but no command of men and can therefore neither protect the weak nor curb the insolent By this means all things have bin brought into the hands of the King and the Commoners and there is nothing left to cement them and to maintain the union The perpetual jarrings we hear every day the division of the Nation into such factions as threaten us with ruin and all the disorders that we see or fear are the effects of this rupture These things are not to be imputed to our original Constitutions but to those who have subverted them And if they who by corrupting changing enervating and annihilating the Nobility which was the principal support of the antient regular Monarchy have driven those who are truly Noblemen into the same interest and name with the Commons and by that means increased a party which never was and I think never can be united to the Court they are to answer for the Consequences and if they perish their destruction is from themselves The inconveniences therefore proceed not from the institution but from the innovation The Law was plain but it has bin industriously rendred perplex They who were to have upheld it are overthrown That which might have bin easily performed when the people was armed and had a great strong virtuous and powerful Nobility to lead them is made difficult now they are disarmed and that Nobility abolished Our Ancestors may evidently appear not only to have intended well but to have taken a right course to accomplish what they intended This had effect as long as the cause continued and the only fault that can be ascribed to that which they established is that it has not proved to be perpetual which is no more than may be justly said of the best human Constitutions that ever have bin in the world If we will be just to our Ancestors it will become us in our time rather to pursue what we know they intended and by new Constitutions to repair the breaches made upon the old than to accuse them of the defects that will for ever attend the Actions of men Taking our Affairs at the worst we shall soon find that if we have the same spirit they had we may easily restore our Nation to its antient liberty dignity and happiness and if we do not the fault is owing to our selves and not to any want of virtue and wisdom in them SECT XXXVIII The Power of calling and dissolving Parliaments is not simply in the King The variety of Customs in chusing Parliament men and the Errors a people may commit neither prove that Kings are or ought to be Absolute THE original of magistratical Power the intention of our Ancestors in its creation and the ways prescribed for the direction and limitation of it may I presume sufficiently appear by what has bin said But because our Author taking hold of every twig pretends that Kings may call and dissolve Parliaments at their pleasure and from thence infers the Power to be wholly in them alledges the various customs in several parts of this Nation used in the elections of Parliament men to proceed from the King's will and because a people may commit Errors thinks all Power ought to be put into the hands of the King I answer 1. That the Power of calling and dissolving Parliaments is not simply in Kings They may call Parliaments if there be occasion at times when the Law dos not exact it they are placed as Sentinels and ought vigilantly to observe the motions of the Enemy and give notice of his approach But if the Sentinel fall asleep neglect his duty or maliciously endeavour to betray the City those who are concern'd may make use of all other means to know their danger and to preserve themselves The ignorance incapacity negligence or luxury of a King is a great calamity to a Nation and his malice is worse but not an irreparable ruin Remedies may be and often have bin found against the worst of their Vices The last French Kings of the Races of Meroveus and Pepin brought many mischiefs upon the Kingdom but the destruction was prevented Edward and Richard the Seconds of England were not unlike them and we know by what means the Nation was preserved The question was not who had the Right or who ought to call Parliaments but how the Commonwealth might be saved from ruin The Consuls or other chief Magistrates in Rome had certainly a right of assembling and dismissing the Senat But when Hannibal was at the Gates or any other imminent danger threatned them with destruction if that Magistrate had bin drunk mad or gained by the Enemy no wise man can think that Formalities were to have bin observed In such cases every man is a Magistrate and he who best knows the danger and the means of preventing it has a right of calling the Senat or People to an Assembly The people would and certainly ought to follow him as they did Brutus and Valerius against Tarquin or Horatius and
be ravaged by Swedes Tartars and Cosacks The present Emperor who passed his time in setting Songs in Musick with a wretched Italian Eunuch when he ought to have bin at the head of a brave Army raised to oppose the Turks in the year 1664 and which under good conduct might have overthrown the Ottoman Empire as soon as he was delivered from the fear of that Enemy fell upon his own Subjects with such cruelty that they are now sorced to fly to the Turks for protection the Protestants especially who find their condition more tolerable under those professed Enemies to Christianity than to be exposed to the pride avarice perfidiousness and violence of the Jesuits by whom he is governed And the qualities of the King of Portugal are so well known together with the condition to which he would have brought his Kingdom if he had not bin sent to the Tercera's that I need not speak particularly of him If Kings therefore by virtue of their office are constituted Judges over the body of their people because the People or Parliaments representing them are not insallible those Kings who are children fools disabled by age or madmen are so also women have the same right where they are admitted to the succession those men who tho of ripe age and not superannuated nor directly fools or madmen yet absolutely uncapable of judging important Affairs or by their passions interests vices or malice and wickedness of their Ministers Servants and Favorites are set to oppress and ruin the people enjoy the same privilege than which nothing can be imagined more absurd and abominable nor more directly tending to the corruption and destruction of the Nations under them for whose good and safety our Author confesses they have their power SECT XXXIX Those Kings only are heads of the People who are good wise and seek to advance no Interest but that of the Publick THE worst of men seldom arrive to such a degree of impudence as plainly to propose the most mischievous follies and enormities They who are enemies to Virtue and fear not God are afraid of men and dare not offer such things as the world will not bear lest by that means they should overthrow their own designs All poison must be disguised and no man can be perswaded to eat Arsenic unless it be cover'd with something that appears to be harmless Creusa would have abhorr'd Medea's present if the pestilent venom had not bin hidden by the exterior lustre of Gold and Gems The Garment that destroy'd Hercules appear'd beautiful and Eve had neither eaten of the forbidden Tree nor given the Fruit to her Husband if it had not seemed to be good and pleasant and she had not bin induced to believe that by eating it they should both be as Gods The Servants of the Devil have always followed the same method their malice is carried on by fraud and they have seldom destroy'd any but such as they had first deceived Truth can never conduce to mischief and is best discovered by plain words but nothing is more usual with ill men than to cover their mischievous designs with figurative phrases It would be too ridiculous to say in plain terms that all Kings without distinction are better able to judg of all matters than any or all their people they must therefore be called the Head that thereby they may be invested with all the preeminences which in a natural body belong to that part and men must be made to believe the analogy between the natural and political body to be perfect But the matter must be better examined before this mortal poison seem fit to be swallowed The word Head is figuratively used both in Scripture and prosane Authors in several senses in relation to places or persons and always implies something of real or seeming preeminence in point of honor or jurisdiction Thus Damascus is said to be the head of Syria Samaria of Ephraiam and Ephraim of the ten Tribes that is Ephraim was the chief Tribe Samaria was the chief City of Ephraim and Damascus of Syria tho it be certain that Ephraim had no jurisdiction over the other Tribes nor Samaria over the other Cities of Ephraim but every one according to the Law had an equal power within it self or the Territories belonging to it and no privileges were granted to one above another except to Jerusalem in the matter of Religion because the Temple was placed there The words also Head Prince principal Man or Captain seem to be equivocal and in this sense the same men are called Heads of the Tribes Princes in the houses of their Fathers and 't is said that two hundred Heads of the Tribe of Reuben were carried away captive by Tiglath Pilezer and proportionably in the other Tribes which were a strange thing if the word did imply that supreme absolute and infinite Power that our Author attributes to it and no man of less understanding than he can comprehend how there should be two hundred or more sovereign unlimited Powers in one Tribe most especially when 't is certain that one series of Kings had for many Ages reigned over that Tribe and nine more and that every one of those Tribes as well as the particular Cities even from their first entrance into the promised Land had a full jurisdiction within it self When the Gileadites came to Jephtha he suspected them and asked whether indeed they intended to make him their Head they answered if he would lead them against the Ammonites he should be their Head In the like sense when Jul. Caesar in despair would have killed himself one of his Soldiers disswaded him from that design by telling him That the safety of so many Nations that had made him their Head depending upon his life it would be cruelty in him to take such a resolution But for all that when this Head was taken off the Body did still subsist upon which I observe many fundamental differences between the relation of this figurative Head even when the word is rightly applied and that of the natural Head to their respective Bodies The figurative Heads may be many the natural but one The people makes or creates the figurative Head the natural is from it self or connate with the Body The natural Body cannot change or subsist without the natural Head but a people may change and subsist very well without the artificial Nay if it had bin true that the world had chosen Cesar as it was not for he was chosen only by a sactious mercenary Army and the soundest part so far opposed that Election that they brought him to think of killing himself there could have bin no truth in this flattering assertion That the safety of the whole depended upon his life for the world could not only subsist without him but without any such Head as it had done before he by the help of his corrupted Soldiery had usurped the Power which also shews that a civil Head may be
Princes that have bin in the world who having their power for life and leaving it to descend to their children have wanted the Virtues requir'd for the performance of their duty And I should less fear to be guilty of an absurdity in saying that a Nation might every year change its Head than that he can be the Head who cares not for the Members nor understands the things that conduce to their good most especially if he set up an Interest in himself against them It cannot be said that these are imaginary cases and that no Prince dos these things for the proof is too easy and the examples too numerous Caligula could not have wished the Romans but one Head that he might cut it off at once if he had bin that Head and had advanced no Interest contrary to that of the Members Nero had not burn'd the City of Rome if his concernments had bin inseparably united to those of the people He who caused above three hundred thousand of his innocent unarmed Subjects to be murder'd and fill'd his whole Kingdom with fire and blood did set up a personal Interest repugnant to that of the Nation and no better testimony can be requir'd to shew that he did so than a Letter written by his Son to take off the penalty due to one of the chief Ministers of those cruelties for this reason that what he had done was by the command and for the service of his Royal Father King John did not pursue the advantage of his people when he endeavoured to subject them to the Pope or the Moors And whatever Prince seeks assistance from foreign Powers or makes Leagues with any stranger or enemy for his own advantage against his people however secret the Treaty may be declares himself not to be the Head but an enemy to them The Head cannot stand in need of an exterior help against the Body nor subsist when divided from it He therefore that courts such an assistance divides himself from the Body and if he do subsist it must be by a life he has in himself distinct from that of the Body which the Head cannot have But besides these enormities that testify the most wicked rage and fury in the highest degree there is another practice which no man that knows the world can deny to be common with Princes and incompatible with the nature of a Head The Head cannot desire to draw all the nourishment of the Body to it self nor more than a due proportion If the rest of the parts are sick weak or cold the Head suffers equally with them and if they perish must perish also Let this be compared with the actions of many Princes we know and we shall soon see which of them are Heads of their people If the Gold brought from the Indies has bin equally distributed by the Kings of Spain to the body of that Nation I consent they may be called the Heads If the Kings of France assume no more of the Riches of that great Kingdom than their due proportion let them also wear that honourable name But if the naked backs and empty bellies of their miserable Subjects evince the contrary it can by no means belong to them If those great Nations wast and languish if nothing be so common in the best Provinces belonging to them as misery famine and all the effects of the most outragious oppression whilst their Princes and Favorites possess such treasures as the most wanton prodigality cannot exhaust if that which is gained by the sweat of so many millions of men be torn out of the mouths of their starving Wives and Children to foment the vices of those luxurious Courts or reward the Ministers of their lusts the nourishment is not distributed equally to all the parts of the body the oeconomy of the whole is overthrown and they who do these things cannot be the Heads nor parts of the Body but something distinct from and repugnant to it 'T is not therefore he who is found in or advanced to the place of the Head who is truly the Head 'T is not he who ought but he who dos perform the office of the Head that deserves the name and privileges belonging to the Head If our Another theresore will perswade us that any King is Head of his People he must do it by Arguments peculiarly relating to him since those in general are found to be false If he say that the King as King may direct or correct the people and that the power of determining all controversies must be referred to him because they may be mistaken he must show that the King is infallible for unless he do so the wound is not cured This also must be by some other way than by saying he is their Head for such Powers belong not to the office of the Head and we see that all Kings do not deserve that name Many of them want both understanding and will to perform the functions of the Head and many act directly contrary in the whole course of their Government If any therefore among them have merited the glorious name of Heads of Nations it must have bin by their personal Virtues by a vigilant care of the good of their People by an inseparable conjunction of interests with them by an ardent love to every member of the Society by a moderation of spirit affecting no undue Superiority or assuming any singular advantage which they are not willing to communicate to every part of the political body He who finds this merit in himself will scorn all the advantages that can be drawn from misapplied names He that knows such honor to be peculiarly due to him for being the best of Kings will never glory in that which may be common to him with the worst Nay whoever pretends by such general discourses as these of our Author to advance the particular Interests of any one King dos either know he is of no merit and that nothing can be said for him which will not as well agree with the worst of men or cares not what he says so he may do mischief and is well enough contented that he who is set up by such Maxims as a publick plague may fall in the ruin he brings upon the people SECT XL. Good Laws prescribe easy and safe Remedies against the Evils proceeding from the vices or infirmities of the Magistrate and when they fail they must be supplied THOSE who desire to advance the power of the Magistrate above the Law would perswade us that the difficulties and dangers of inquiring into his actions or opposing his will when employ'd in violence and injustice are so great that the remedy is always worse than the disease and that 't is better to suffer all the evils that may proceed from his infirmities and vices than to hazard the consequences of displeasing him But on the contrary I think and hope to prove 1. That in well-constituted Governments the remedies against ill Magistrates are easy
than what is suffer'd or must in a short time fall upon those who are in this condition They who are already fallen into all that is odious shameful and miserable cannot justly fear When things are brought to such a pass the boldest counsels are the most safe and if they must perish who lie still and they can but perish who are most active the choice is easily made Let the danger be never so great there is a possibility of safety whilst men have life hands arms and courage to use them but that people must certainly perish who tamely suffer themselves to be oppress'd either by the injustice cruelty and malice of an ill Magistrate or by those who prevail upon the vices and infirmities of weak Princes 'T is in vain to say that this may give occasion to men of raising tumults or civil war for tho these are evils yet they are not the greatest of evils Civil War in Macchiavels account is a Disease but Tyranny is the death of a State Gentle ways are first to be used and 't is best if the work can be done by them but it must not be left undone if they fail 'T is good to use supplications advices and remonstrances but those who have no regard to justice and will not hearken to counsel must be constrained 'T is folly to deal otherwise with a man who will not be guided by reason and a Magistrate who despises the Law or rather to think him a man who rejects the essential principle of a man or to account him a Magistrate who overthrows the Law by which he is a Magistrate This is the last result but those Nations must come to it which cannot otherwise be preserved Nero's madness was not to be cured nor the mischievous effects of it any otherwise to be suppressed than by his death He who had spared such a Monster when it was in his power to remove him had brought destruction upon the whole Empire and by a foolish clemency made himself the Author of his future villanics This would have bin yet more clear if the world had then bin in such a temper as to be capable of an intire liberty But the antient foundations had bin overthrown and nothing better could be built upon the new than something that might in part resist that torrent of iniquity which had overflow'd the best part of the world and give mankind a little time to breath under a less barbarous Master Yet all the best men did join in the work that was then to be done tho they knew it would prove but imperfect The sacred History is not without examples of this kind When Ahab had subverted the Law set up false Witnesses and corrupt Judges to destroy the innocent killed the Prophets and established Idolatry his house must then be cut off and his blood be lickt up by dogs When matters are brought to this pass the decision is easy The question is only whether the punishment of crimes shall fall upon one or a few persons who are guilty of them or upon a whole Nation that is innocent If the Father may not die for the Son nor the Son for the Father but every one must bear the penalty of his own crimes it would be most absurd to punish the people for the guilt of Princes When the Earl of Morton was sent Ambassador to Queen Elizabeth by the Estates of Scotland to justify their proceedings against Mary their Queen whom they had obliged to renounce the Government he alledged amongst other things the murder of her Husband plainly proved against her asserted the antient right and custom of that Kingdom of examining the actions of their Kings by which means he said many had bin punished with death imprisonment and exile confirmed their actions by the examples of other Nations and upon the whole matter concluded that if she was still permitted to live it was not on account of her innocence or any exemption from the penalties of the Law but from the mercy and clemency of the people who contenting themselves with a resignation of her right and power to her Son had spared her This discourse which is set down at large by the Historian cited on the margin being of such strength in it self as never to have bin any otherwise answered than by railing and no way disapproved by Queen Elizabeth or her Council to whom it was made either upon a general account of the pretensions of Princes to be exempted from the penalties of the Law or any pretext that they had particularly misapplied them in relation to their Queen I may justly say that when Nations fall under such Princes as are either utterly uncapable of making a right use of their power or do maliciously abuse that Authority with which they are entrusted those Nations stand obliged by the duty they owe to themselves and their posterity to use the best of their endeavours to remove the evil whatever danger or difficulties they may meet with in the performance Pontius the Samnite said as truly as bravely to his Countrymen That those Arms were just and pious that were necessary and necessary when there was no hope of safety by any other way This is the voice of mankind and is dislik'd only by those Princes who fear the deserved punishments may fall upon them or by their Servants and Flatterers who being for the most part the Authors of their crimes think they shall be involved in their ruin SECT XLI The People for whom and by whom the Magistrate is created can only judg whether he rightly perform his Office or not T IS commonly said that no man ought to be the Judg of his own case and our Author lays much weight upon it as a fundamental maxim tho according to his ordinary inconstancy he overthrows it in the case of Kings where it ought to take place if in any for it often falls out that no men are less capable of forming a right judgment than they Their passions and interests are most powerful to disturb or pervert them No men are so liable to be diverted from justice by the flatteries of corrupt Servants They never act as Kings except for those by whom and for whom they are created and acting for others the account of their actions cannot depend upon their own will Nevertheless I am not afraid to say that naturally and properly a man is the judg of his own concernments No one is or can be deprived of this privilege unless by his own consent and for the good of that Society into which he enters This Right therefore must necessarily belong to every man in all cases except only such as relate to the good of the Community for whose sake he has devested himself of it If I find my self afflicted with hunger thirst weariness cold heat or sickness 't is a folly to tell me I ought not to seek meat drink rest shelter refreshment or physick because I must
not be the judg of my own case The like may be said in relation to my house land or estate I may do what I please with them if I bring no damage upon others But I must not set fire to my house by which my neighbour's house may be burnt I may not erect Forts upon my own Lands or deliver them to a foreign Enemy who may by that means infest my Country I may not cut the banks of the Sea or those of a River lest my neighbour's ground be overflown because the Society into which I am incorporated would by such means receive prejudice My Land is not simply my own but upon condition that I shall not thereby bring damage upon the Publick by which I am protected in the peaceable enjoyment and innocent use of what I possess But this Society leaves me a liberty to take Servants and put them away at my pleasure No man is to direct me of what quality or number they shall be or can tell me whether I am well or ill served by them Nay the State takes no other cognizance of what passes between me and them than to oblige me to perform the contracts I make and not to do that to them which the Law forbids that is to say the Power to which I have submitted my self exercises that jurisdiction over me which was established by my consent and under which I enjoy all the benefits of life which are of more advantage to me than my liberty could have bin if I had retained it wholly in my self The nature also and measure of this submission must be determined by the reasons that induced me to it The Society in which I live cannot subsist unless by rule the equality in which men are born is so perfect that no man will suffer his natural liberty to be abridged except others do the like I cannot reasonably expect to be defended from wrong unless I oblige my self to do none or to suffer the punishment prescribed by the Law if I perform not my engagement But without prejudice to the Society into which I enter I may and do retain to my self the liberty of doing what I please in all things relating peculiarly to my self or in which I am to seek my own convenience Now if a privat man is not subject to the judgment of any other than those to whom he submits himself for his own safety and convenience and notwithstanding that submission still retains to himself the right of ordering according to his own will all things merely relating to himself and of doing what he pleases in that which he dos for his own sake the same right must more certainly belong to whole Nations When a controversy happens between Caius and Seius in a matter of right neither of them may determin the cause but it must be referred to a Judg superior to both not because 't is not fit that a man should be judg of his own case but because they have both an equal right and neither of them ows any subjection to the other But if there be a contest between me and my Servant concerning my service I only am to decide it He must serve me in my own way or be gone if I think fit tho he serve me never so well and I do him no wrong in putting him away if either I intend to keep no servant or find that another will please me better I cannot therefore stand in need of a Judg unless the contest be with one who lives upon an equal foot with me No man can be my Judg unless he be my Superior and he cannot be my Superior who is not so by my consent nor to any other purpose than I consent to This cannot be the case of a Nation which can have no equal within it self Controversies may arise with other Nations the decision of which may be left to Judges chosen by mutual agreement but this relates not to our question A Nation and most especially one that is powerful cannot recede from its own right as a privat man from the knowledge of his own weakness and inability to defend himself must come under the protection of a greater Power than his own The strength of a Nation is not in the Magistrate but the strength of the Magistrate is in the Nation The wisdom industry and valour of a Prince may add to the glory and greatness of a Nation but the foundation and substance will always be in it self If the Magistrate and People were upon equal terms as Caius and Seius receiving equal and mutual advantages from each other no man could be judg of their differences but such as they should set up for that end This has bin done by many Nations The antient Germans referred the decision of the most difficult matters to their Priests the Gauls and Britans to the Druides the Mahometans for some ages to the Califs of Babylon the Saxons in England when they had embraced the Christian Religion to their Clergy Whilst all Europe lay under the Popish Superstition the decision of such matters was frequently assumed by the Pope men often submitted to his judgment and the Princes that resisted were for the most part excommunicated deposed and destroyed All this was done for the same reasons These men were accounted holy and inspired and the sentence pronounced by them was usually reverenced as the judgment of God who was thought to direct them and all those who refused to submit were esteemed execrable But no man or number of men as I think at the institution of a Magistrate did ever say If any difference happen between you or your Successors and us it shall be determined by your self or by them whether they be men women children mad foolish or vicious Nay if any such thing had bin the folly turpitude and madness of such a sanction or stipulation must necessarily have destroy'd it But if no such thing was ever known or could have no effect if it had bin in any place 't is most absurd to impose it upon all The people therefore cannot be deprived of their natural rights upon a frivolous pretence to that which never was and never can be They who create Magistracies and give to them such name form and power as they think fit do only know whether the end for which they were created be performed or not They who give a being to the power which had none can only judg whether it be employ'd to their welfare or turned to their ruin They do not set up one or a few men that they and their posterity may live in splendor and greatness but that Justice may be administred Virtue established and provision made for the publick safety No wise man will think this can be done if those who set themselves to overthrow the Law are to be their own Judges If Caligula Nero Vitellius Domitian or Heliogabalus had bin subject to no other judgment they would have compleated the destruction of the
Empire If the disputes between Durstus Evenus the third Dardannus and other Kings of Scotland with the Nobility and People might have bin determined by themselves they had escaped the punishments they suffer'd and ruined the Nation as they designed Other methods were taken they perished by their madness better Princes were brought into their plaees and their Successors were by their example admonished to avoid the ways that had proved fatal to them If Edward the second of England with Gaveston and the Spencers Richard the second with Tresilian and Vere had bin permitted to be the Judges of their own cases they who had murdered the best of the Nobility would have pursued their designs to the destruction of such as remained the enslaving of the Nation the subversion of the Constitution and the establishment of a mere Tyranny in the place of a mixed Monarchy But our Ancestors took better measures They who had felt the smart of the vices and follies of their Princes knew what remedies were most fit to be applied as well as the best time of applying them They found the effects of extreme corruption in Government to be so desperately pernicious that Nations must necessarily perish unless it be corrected and the State reduced to its first principle or altered Which being the case it was as easy for them to judg whether the Governor who had introduced that corruption should be brought to order removed if he would not be reclaimed or whether he should be suffer'd to ruin them and their posterity as it is for me to judg whether I should put away my Servant if I knew he intended to poison or murder me and had a certain facility of accomplishing his design or whether I should continue him in my service till he had performed it Nay the matter is so much the more plain on the side of the Nation as the disproportion of merit between a whole people and one or a few men entrusted with the power of governing them is greater than between a privat man and his servant This is so fully confirmed by the general consent of mankind that we know no Government that has not frequently either bin altered in form or reduced to its original purity by changing the families or persons who abused the power with which they had bin entrusted Those who have wanted wisdom and virtue rightly and seasonably to perform this have been soon destroy'd like the Goths in Spain who by omitting to curb the fury of Witza and Rodrigo in time became a prey to the Moors Their Kingdom by this means destroy'd was never restored and the remainder of that Nation joining with the Spaniards whom they had kept in subjection for three or four Ages could not in less than eight hundred years expel those enemies they might have kept out only by removing two base and vitious Kings Such Nations as have bin so corrupted that when they have applied themselves to seek remedies to the evils they suffered by wicked Magistrates could not fall upon such as were proportionable to the disease have only vented their Passions in destroying the immediate instruments of their oppression or for a while delay'd their utter ruin But the root still remaining it soon produced the same poisonous fruit and either quite destroy'd or made them languish in perpetual misery The Roman Empire was the most eminent example of the first many of the monsters that had tyrannized over them were killed but the greatest advantage gained by their death was a respit from ruin and the Government which ought to have bin established by good Laws depending only upon the virtue of one man his Life proved to be no more than a lucid interval and at his death they relapsed into the depth of Infamy and Misery and in this condition they continued till that Empire was totally subverted All the Kingdoms of the Arabians Medes Persians Moors and others of the East are of the other sort Common sense instructs them that barbarous pride cruelty and madness grown to extremity cannot be born but they have no other way than to kill the Tyrant and to do the like to his Successor if he fall into the same crimes Wanting that wisdom and valour which is requir'd for the institution of a good Government they languish in perpetual slavery and propose to themselves nothing better than to live under a gentle Master which is but a precarious lise and little to be valued by men of bravery and spirit But those Nations that are more generous who set a higher value upon Liberty and better understand the ways of preserving it think it a small matter to destroy a Tyrant unless they can also destroy the Tyranny They endeavour to do the work throughly either by changing the Government intirely or reforming it according to the first institution and making such good Laws as may preserve its integrity when reformed This has bin so frequent in all the Nations both antient and modern with whose actions we are best acquainted as appears by the foregoing examples and many others that might be alledged if the case were not clear that there is not one of them which will not furnish us with many instances and no one Magistracy now in being which dos not owe its original to some Judgment of this nature So that they must either derive their right from such actions or confess they have none at all and leave the Nations to their original liberty of setting up those Magistracies which best please themselves without any restriction or obligation to regard one person or family more than another SECT XLII The Person that wears the Crown cannot determine the Affairs which the Law refers to the King OUR Author with the rest of the vulgar seems to have bin led into gross errors by the form of Writs summoning persons to appear before the King The common stile used in the trial of Delinquents the name of the King's Witnesses given to those who accuse them the Verdicts brought in by Juries coram domino Rege and the prosecution made in the King's name seem to have caused this And they who understand not these Phrases render the Law a heap of the most gross absurdities and the King an Enemy to every one of his Subjects when he ought to be a Father to them all since without any particular consideration or examination of what any witness deposes in a Court of Justice tending to the death confiscation or other punishment of any man he is called the King's Witness whether he speak the truth or a lie and on that account favour'd 'T is not necessary to allege many instances in a case that is so plain but it may not be amiss to insert two or three of the most important reasons to prove my assertion 1. If the Law did intend that he or she who wears the Crown should in his or her person judg all causes and determine the most difficult questions it must like our
Author presume that they will always be of profound wisdom to comprehend all of them and of perfect integrity always to act according to their understanding Which is no less than to lay the foundation of the Government upon a thing merely contingent that either never was or very often fails as is too much verified by experience and the Histories of all Nations or else to refer the decision of all to those who through the infirmities of age sex or person are often uncapable of judging the least or subject to such passions and vices as would divert them from Justice tho they did understand it both which seem to be almost equally preposterous 2. The Law must also presume that the Prince is always present in all the places where his name is used The King of France is as I have said already esteemed to be present on the seat of Justice in all the Parliaments and sovereign Courts of the Kingdom and if his corporeal Presence were by that phrase to be understood he must be in all those distinct and far distant places at the same time which absurdity can hardly be parallel'd unless by the Popish opinion of Transubstantiation But indeed they are so far from being guilty of such monstrous absurdity that he cannot in person be present at any trial and no man can be judged if he be This was plainly asserted to Lewis the 13th who would have bin at the Trial of the Duke of Candale by the President de Bellievre who told him that as he could judg no man himself so they could not judg any if he were present upon which he retired 3. The Laws of most Kingdoms giving to Kings the Confiscation of Delinquents estates if they in their own persons might give judgment upon them they would be constituted both Judges and Parties which besides the foremention'd incapacities to which Princes are as much subject as other men would tempt them by their own personal interest to subvert all manner of Justice This therefore not being the meaning of the Law we are to inquire what it is and the thing is so plain that we cannot mistake unless we do it wilfully Some name must be used in all manner of Transactions and in matters of publick concernment none can be so fit as that of the principal Magistrate Thus are Leagues made not only with Kings and Emperors but with the Dukes of Venice and Genoa the Avoyer and Senat of a Canton in Switzerland the Burgermaster of an Imperial Town in Germany and the States-General of the United Provinces But no man thinking I presume these Leagues would be of any value if they could only oblige the Persons whose names are used 't is plain that they do not stipulate only for themselves and that their stipulations would be of no value if they were merely personal And nothing can more certainly prove they are not so than that we certainly know these Dukes Avoyers and Burgermasters can do nothing of themselves The power of the States-General of the United Provinces is limited to the points mentioned in the Act of Union made at Vtrecht The Empire is not obliged by any stipulation made by the Emperor without their consent Nothing is more common than for one King making a League with another to exact a confirmation of their Agreement by the Parliaments Diets or General Estates because says Grotius a Prince dos not stipulate for himself but for the people under his Government and a King deprived of his Kingdom loses the right of sending an Ambassador The Powers of Europe shewed themselves to be of this opinion in the case of Portugal When Philip the second had gained the possession they treated with him concerning the affairs relating to that Kingdom Few regarded Don Antonio and no man considered the Dukes of Savoy Parma or Braganza who perhaps had the most plausible Titles But when his Grandson Philip the fourth had lost that Kingdom and the people had set up the Duke of Braganza they all treated with him as King And the English Court tho then in amity with Spain and not a little influenced by a Spanish faction gave example to others by treating with him and not with Spain touching matters relating to that State Nay I have bin informed by those who well understood the affairs of that time that the Lord Cottington advising the late King not to receive any persons sent from the Duke of Braganza Rebel to his Ally the King of Spain in the quality of Ambassadors the King answered that he must look upon that person to be King of Portugal who was acknowledged by the Nation And I am mistaken if his Majesty now reigning did not find all the Princes and States of the world to be of the same mind when he was out of his Kingdom and could oblige no man but himself and a few followers by any Treaty he could make For the same reason the names of Kings are used in Treaties when they are either Children or otherwise uncapable of knowing what Alliances are fit to be made or rejected and yet such Treaties do equally oblige them their successors and people as if they were of mature age and fit for government No man therefore ought to think it strange if the King's name be used in domestick affairs of which he neither ought nor can take any cognizance In these cases he is perpetually a Minor He must suffer the Law to take its due course and the Judges tho nominated by him are obliged by Oath not to have any regard to his Letters or personal Commands If a man be sued he must appear and a Deliquent is to be tried coram rege but no otherwise than secundum legem terrae according to the Law of the Land not his personal will or opinion And the judgments given must be executed whether they please him or not it being always understood that he can speak no otherwise than the Law speaks and is always present as far as the Law requires For this reason a noble Lord who was irregularly detain'd in prison in 1681 being by Habeas Corpus brought to the Bar of the King's Bench where he sued to be releas'd upon bail and an ignorant Judg telling him he must apply himself to the King he replied that he came thither for that end that the King might eat drink or sleep where he pleased but when he render'd Justice he was always in that place The King that renders Justice is indeed always there He never sleeps he is subject to no infirmity he never dies unless the Nation be extinguished or so dissipated as to have no Government No Nation that has a sovereign Power within it self dos ever want this King He was in Athens and Rome as well as at Babylon and Sufa and is as properly said to be now in Venice Switserland or Holland as in France Morocco or Turky This is he to whom we all owe a simple and unconditional obedience
the same we must have bin deprived of it either by such unjustifiable means or by our own consent But thanks be to God we know no People who have a better right to Liberty or have better defended it than our own Nation And if we do not degenerate from the Virtue of our Ancestors we may hope to transmit it intire to our Posterity We always may and often do give Instructions to our Delegates but the less we fetter them the more we manifest our own Rights for those who have only a limited Power must limit that which they give but he that can give an unlimited Power must necessarily have it in himself The great Treasurer Burleigh said the Parliament could do any thing but turn a Man into a Woman Sir Thomas Moor when Rich Sollicitor to K. Henry the 8 th asked him if the Parliament might not make R. Rich King said that was casus levis taking it for granted that they might make or unmake whom they pleased The first part of this which includes the other is asserted by the Statute of the 13th of Q. Elizabeth denouncing the most grievous punishments against all such as should dare to contradict it But if it be in the Parliament it must be in those who give to Parliament-men the powers by which they act for before they are chosen they have none and can never have any if those that send them had it not in themselves They cannot receive it from the Magistrate for that power which he has is derived from the same spring The power of making and unmaking him cannot be from himself for he that is not can do nothing and when he is made can have no other power than is conferred upon him by those that make him He who departs from his duty desires to avoid the punishment the power therefore of punishing him is not from himself It cannot be from the House of Peers as it is constituted for they act for themselves and are chosen by Kings and 't is absurd to think that Kings who generally abhor all restriction of their Power should give that to others by which they might be unmade If one or more Princes relying upon their own Virtue and Resolutions to do good had given such a Power against themselves as Trajan did when he commanded the Prefect to use the Sword for him if he governed well and against him if he governed ill it would soon have bin rescinded by their Successors If our Edward the first had made such a Law his lewd Son would have abolished it before he would have suffered himself to be imprisoned and deposed by it He would never have acknowledged his unworthiness to reign if he had bin tied to no other Law than his own will for he could not transgress that nor have owned the mercy of the Parliament in sparing his Life if they had acted only by a power which he had conferred upon them This Power must therefore be in those who act by a delegated Power and none can give it to their Delegates but they who have it in themselves The most certain testimony that can be given of their unlimited power is that they rely upon the wisdom and fidelity of their Deputies so as to lay no restrictions upon them they may do what they please if they take care ne quid detrimenti Respublica accipiat that the Commonwealth receive no detriment This is a Commission fit to be granted by wise and good men to those they chuse through an opinion that they are so also and that they cannot bring any prejudice upon the Nation that will not fall upon themselves and their posterity This is also fit to be received by those who seeking nothing but that which is just in it self and profitable to their Country cannot foresee what will be proposed when they are altogether much less resolve how to vote till they hear the reasons on both sides The Electors must necessarily be in the same ignorance and the Law which should oblige them to give particular orders to their Knights and Burgesses in relation to every vote would make the decision of the most important Affairs to depend upon the judgment of those who know nothing of the matters in question and by that means cast the Nation into the utmost danger of the most inextricable confusion This can never be the intention of that Law which is Sanctio recta and seeks only the good of those that live under it The foresight therefore of such a mischief can never impair the Liberties of the Nation but establish them SECT XLV The Legislative Power is always Arbitrary and not to be trusted in the hands of any who are not bound to obey the Laws they make IF it be objected that I am a defender of Arbitrary Powers I confess I cannot comprehend how any Society can be established or subsist without them for the establishment of Government is an arbitrary Act wholly depending upon the will of men The particular Forms and Constitutions the whole Series of the Magistracy together with the measure of Power given to every one and the rules by which they are to exercise their charge are so also Magna Charta which comprehends our antient Laws and all the subsequent Statutes were not sent from Heaven but made according to the will of men If no men could have a power of making Laws none could ever have bin made for all that are or have bin in the world except those given by God to the Israelites were made by them that is they have exercised an Arbitrary Power in making that to be Law which was not or annulling that which was The various Laws and Governments that are or have bin in several ages and places are the product of various opinions in those who had the power of making them This must necessarily be unless a general rule be set to all for the judgments of men will vary if they are left to their liberty and the variety that is found among them shews they are subject to no rule but that of their own reason by which they see what is fit to be embraced or avoided according to the several circumstances under which they live The Authority that judges of these circumstances is arbitrary and the Legislators shew themselves to be more or less wise and good as they do rightly or not rightly exercise this Power The difference therefore between good and ill Governments is not that those of one sort have an Arbitrary Power which the others have not for they all have it but that those which are well constituted place this Power so as it may be beneficial to the people and set such rules as are hardly to be transgressed whilst those of the other sort fail in one or both these points Some also through want of courage fortune or strength may have bin oppressed by the violence of Strangers or suffer'd a corrupt Party to rise up within themselves and by
latter Kings hath bin so gracious as to allow always of the intire Bill as it passed both Houses He judiciously observes when our Kings began to be gracious and we to be free That King excepting the persecution for Religion in his time which is rather to be imputed to the ignorance of that age than to any evil in his own nature governed well and as all Princes who have bin virtuous and brave have always desired to preserve their Subjects Liberty which they knew to be the mother and nurse of their Valour fitting them for great and generous Enterprizes his care was to please them and to raise their Spirits But about the same time those detestable Arts by which the mixed Monarchies in this part of the world have bin every where terribly shaken and in many places totally overthrown began to be practised Charles the seventh of France under pretence of carrying on a War against him and his Son took upon him to raise Mony by his own Authority and we know how well that method has bin pursued The mischievous sagacity of his Son Lewis the 11th which is now called King-Craft was wholly exerted in the subversion of the Laws of France and the Nobility that supported them His Successors except only Lewis the 12th followed his example and in other Nations Ferdinand of Arragon James the third of Scotland and Henry the seventh of England were thought to imitate him the most Tho we have little reason to commend all the Princes that preceded Henry the fifth yet I am inclined to date the general impairing of our Government from the death of that King and his valiant Brothers His weak Son became a prey to a furious French woman who brought the Maxims of her own Country into ours and advanced the worst of villains to govern according to them These measures were pursued by Edward the fourth whose wants contracted by prodigality and debauchery were to be supplied by fraud and rapine The ambition cruelty and persidiousness of Richard the third the covetousness and malicious subtilty of Henry the seventh the violent lust rage and pride of Henry the 8th and the bigotted fury of Queen Mary instigated by the craft and malice of Spain perswaded me to believe that the English Liberty did not receive birth or growth from the favour and goodness of their gracious Princes But it seems all this is mistaken Henry the sixth was wise valiant and no way guided by his Wife Edward the sourth continent sober and contented with what the Nation gave him Richard the third mild gentle and faithful Henry the 7th sincere and satisfied with his own Henry the 8th humble temperate and just and Queen Mary a friend to our Country and Religion No less praises sure can be due to those who were so gracious to recede from their own right of picking what they pleased out of our Laws and to leave them intirely to us as they passed both Houses We are beholden to our Author for the discovery of these mysteries but tho he seems to have taken an Oath like that of the Gypsies when they enter into that virtuous Society never to speak one word of truth he is not so subtle in concealing his Lies All Kings were trusted with the publication of the Laws but all Kings did not falsify them Such as were not wicked and vicious or so weak as to be made subservient to the malice of their Ministers and Flatterers could never be drawn into the guilt of so infamous a cheat directly contrary to the Oath of their Coronation They swear to pass such Laws as the People chuse but if we will believe our Author they might have pick'd out whatever they pleased and falsly imposed upon the Nation as a Law made by the Lords and Commons that which they had modelled according to their own will and made to be different from or contrary to the intention of the Parliament The King's part in this fraud of which he boasts was little more than might have bin done by the Speaker or his Clerks They might have falfified an Act as well as the King tho they could not so well preserve themselves from punishment 'T is no wonder if for a while no stop was put to such an abominable Custom 'T was hard to think a King would be guilty of a fraud that were infamous in a Slave But that proved to be a small security when the worst of Slaves came to govern them Nevertheless 't is probable they proceeded cautioufly the first alterations were perhaps innocent or it may be for the best But when they had once found out the way they stuck at nothing that seemed for their purpose This was like the plague of Leprosy that could not be cured the house infected was to be demolished the poisonous plant must be torn up by the root the trust that had bin broken was to be abolished they who had perverted or frustrated the Law were no longer to be suffered to make the least alteration and that brave Prince readily joined with his People to extinguish the mischievous abuse that had bin introduced by some of his worthless Predecessors The worst and basest of them had continual disputes with their Parliaments and thought that whatever they could detract from the Liberty of the Nation would serve to advance their Prerogative They delighted in frauds and would have no other Ministers but such as would be the instruments of them Since their Word could not be made to pass for a Law they endeavoured to impose their own or their Servants inventions as Acts of Parliaments upon the deluded people and to make the best of them subservient to their corrupt Ends and pernicious Counsels This if it had continued might have overthrown all our Rights and deprived us of all that men can call good in the world But the Providence of God furnished our Ancestors with an opportunity of providing against so great so universal a mischief They had a wise and valiant Prince who scorned to encroach upon the Liberties of his Subjects and abhorred the detestable Arts by which they had bin impair'd He esteemed their courage strength and love to be his greatest advantage riches and glory He aimed at the conquest of France which was only to be effected by the bravery of a free and well-satisfied People Slaves will always be cowards and enemies to their Master By bringing his Subjects into that condition he must infallibly have ruined his own designs and made them unfit to fight either for him or themselves He desired not only that his People should be free during his time but that his Successors should not be able by oblique and fraudulent ways to enslave them If it be a reproach to us that Women have reigned over us 't is much more to the Princes that succeeded our Henry that none of them did so much imitate him in his Government as Queen Elizabeth She did not go about to mangle Acts
be a guide to Kings equally provide for the good of King and People Whereas they who admit of no participants in power and acknowledg no rule but their own Will set up an interest in themselves against that of their People lose their affections which is their most important Treasure and incur their hatred from whence results their greatest danger SECT XXXI The Liberties of Nations are from God and Nature not from Kings WHatsoever is usually said in opposition to this seems to proceed from a groundless conceit that the Liberties enjoy'd by Nations arise from the Concessions of Princes This point has bin already treated but being the foundation of the Doctrine I oppose it may not be amiss farther to examin how it can be possible for one man born under the same condition with the rest of Mankind to have a Right in himself that is not common to all others till it be by them or a certain number of them conferred upon him or how he can without the utmost absurdity be said to grant Liberties and Privileges to them who made him to be what he is If I had to do with a man that sought after Truth I should think he had bin led into this extravagant opinion by the terms ordinarily used in Patents and Charters granted to particular men and not distinguishing between the Proprietor and the Dispenser might think Kings had given as their own that which they only distribute out of the publick Treasury and could have had nothing to distribute by parcels if it had not bin given to them in gross by the Publick But I need not use our Author so gently The perversity of his judgment and obstinate hatred to Truth is sufficient to draw him into the most absurd errors without any other inducement and it were not charity but folly to think he could have attributed in general to all Princes without any regard to the ways by which they attain to their Power such an authority as never justly belonged to any This will be evident to all those who consider that no man can confer upon others that which he has not in himself If he be originally no more than they he cannot grant to them or any of them more than they to him In the 7th 8th 9th and subsequent Sections of the first Chapter it has bin proved that there is no resemblance between the paternal Right and the absolute Power which he asserts in Kings that the right of a Father whatever it be is only over his Children that this right is equally inherited by them all when he dies that every one cannot inherit Dominion for the right of one would be inconsistent with that of all others that the right which is common to all is that which we call Liberty or exemption from Dominion that the first Fathers of Mankind after the Flood had not the exercise of Regal Power and whatsoever they had was equally devolved to every one of their Sons as appears by the examples of Noah Shem Abraham Isaac Jacob and their Children that the erection of Nimrod's Kingdom was directly contrary to and inconsistent with the paternal right if there was any regality in it that the other Kingdoms of that time were of the same nature that Nimrod not exceeding the age of threescore years when he built Babel could not be the Father of those that assisted him in that attempt that if the seventy two Kings who as our Author says went from Babylon upon the confusion of Languages were not the Sons of Nimrod he could not govern them by the right of a Father if they were they must have bin very young and could not have Children of their own to people the Kingdoms they set up that whose Children soever they were who out of a part of Mankind did within a hundred and thirty two years after the Flood divide into so many Kingdoms they shewed that others in process of time might subdivide into as many as they pleased and Kingdoms multiplying in the space of four thousand years since the 72 in the same proportion they did in one hundred and thirty two years into seventy two there would now be as many Kings in the World as there are men that is no man could be subject to another that this equality of Right and exemption from the domination of any other is called Liberty that he who enjoys it cannot be deprived of it unless by his own consent or by force that no one man can force a Multitude or if he did it could confer no right upon him that a multitude consenting to be governed by one man doth confer upon him the power of governing them the powers therefore that he has are from them and they who have all in themselves can receive nothing from him who has no more than every one of them till they do invest him with it This is proved by sacred and prophane Histories The Hebrews in the creation of Judges Kings or other Magistrates had no regard to Paternity or to any who by extraction could in the least pretend to the right of Fathers God did never direct them to do it nor reprove them for neglecting it If they would chuse a King he commanded them to take one of their Brethren not one who called himself their Father When they did resolve to have one he commanded them to chuse him by lot and caused the Lot to fall upon a young man of the youngest Tribe David and the other Kings of Israel or Judah had no more to say for themselves in that point than Saul All the Kings of that Nation before and after the Captivity ordinarily or extraordinarily set up justly or unjustly were raised without any regard to any prerogative they could claim or arrogate to themselves on that account All that they had therefore was from their elevation and their elevation from those that elevated them 'T was impossible for them to confer any thing upon those from whom they received all they had or for the People to give power to Kings if they had not had it in themselves which Power universally residing in every one is that which we call Liberty The method of other Nations was much like to this They placed those in the Throne who seemed best to deserve so great an honour and most able to bear so great a burden The Kingdoms of the Heroes were nothing else but the Government of those who were most beneficent to the Nations amongst whom they lived and whose Virtues were thought fit to be raised above the ordinary level of the World Tho perhaps there was not any one Athenian or Roman equal to Theseus or Romulus in courage and strength yet they were not able to subdue many or if any man should be so vain to think that each of them did at first subdue one man then two and so proceeding by degrees conquered a whole People he cannot without madness ascribe the same to Numa who being sent for