major part or indeed any considerable part of the whole people of any nation ever assembled to any such purpose For except by some secret miraculous instinct they should all meet at one time and place what one man or company of men less than the whole people hath power to appoint either time or place of elections where all be alike free by nature and without a lawful summons it is most unjust to bind those that be absent The whole people cannot summon it self one man is sick another is lame a third is aged and a fourth is under age of discretion all these at some time or other or at some place or other might be able to meet if they might chuse their own time and place as men naturally free should In Assemblies that are by humane politique constitution the superior power that ordains such assemblies can regulate and confine them both for time place persons and other circumstances but where there is an equality by nature there can be no superior power there every Infant at the hour it is born in hath a like interest with the greatest and wisest man in the world Mankind is like the sea ever ebbing or flowing every minute one is born another dies those that are the people this minute are not the people the next minute in every instant and point of time there is a variation no one time can be indifferent for all mankind to assemble it cannot but be mischievous always at the least to all Infants and others under age of discretion not to speak of women especially Virgins who by birth have as much natural freedome as any other and therefore ought not to lose their liberty without their own consent But in part of salve this it will be said that Infants and Children may be concluded by the votes of their Parents This remedy may cure some part of the mischief but it destroys the whole cause and at last stumbles upon the true original of government For if it be allowed that the acts of Parents bind the Children then farewel the doctrine of the natural freedome of mankind where subjection of Children to Parents is natural there can be no natural freedome If any reply that not all Children shall be bound by their Parents consent but onely those that are under age It must be considered that in nature there is no nonage if a man be not born free she doth not assign him any other time when he shall attain his freedome or if she did then Children attaining that age should be discharged of their Parents contract So that in conclusion if it be imagined that the people were ever but once free from subjection by nature it will prove a meer impossibility ever lawfully to introduce any kind of government whatsoever without apparent wrong to a multitude of people It is further observable that ordinarily Children and Servants are far a greater number than Parents and Masters and for the major part of these to be able to vote and appoint what Government or Governours their Fathers and Masters shall be subject unto is most unnatural and in effect to give the Children the government over their Parents To all this it may be opposed What need dispute how a people can chuse a King since there be multitude of examples that Kings have been and are now adays chosen by their people The answer is 1. The question is not of the fact but of the right whether it have been done by a natural or by an usurped right 2. Many Kings are and have bin chosen by some small part of a people but by the the whole or major part of a Kingdom not any at all Most have been elected by the Nobility Great men and Princes of the blood as in Poland Denmarke and in Sweden not by any collective or representative body of any Nation sometimes a sactious or seditious City or a mutinous Army hath set up a King but none of all those could ever prove they had right or just title either by nature or any otherwise for such elections We may resolve upon these two propositions 1. That the people have no power or right of themselves to chuse Kings 2. If they had any such right it is not possible for them any way lawfully to exercise it You will say There must necessarily be a right in somebody to elect in case a King die without an Heir I answer No King can die without an Heir as long as there is any one man living in the world It may be the Heir may be unknown to the people but that is no fault in nature but the negligence or ignorance of those whom it concerns But if a King could die without an Heir yet the Kingly power in that case shall not escheat to the whole people but to the supream Heads and Fathers of Families not as they are the people but quatenus they are Fathers of people over whom they have a supream power devolved unto them after the death of their soveraign Ancestor and if any can have a right to chuse a King it must be these Fathers by conferring their distinct fatherly powers upon one man alone Chief fathers in Scripture are accounted as all the people as all the Children of Israel as all the Congregation as the Text plainly expounds it self 2 Chr. 1. 2. where Solomon speaks to All Israel that is to the Captains the Iudges and to every Governour the CHIEF OF THE FATHERS and so the Elders of Israel are expounded to be the chief of the Fathers of the Children of Israel 1 King 8. 1. and the 2 Chr. 5. 2. If it be objected That Kings are not now as they were at the first planting or peopling of the world the Fathers of their People or Kingdoms and that the fatherhood hath lost the right of governing An answer is That all Kings that now are or ever were are or were either Fathers of their people or the Heirs of such Fathers or Usurpers of the right of such Fathers It is a truth undeniable that there cannot be any multitude of men whatsoever either great or small though gathered together from the several corners and remotest regions of the world but that in the same multitude considered by it self there is one man amongst them that in nature hath a right to be the King of all the rest as being the next Heir to Adam and all the others subject unto him every man by nature is a King or a Subject the obedience which all Subjects yeild to Kings is but the paying of that duty which is due to the supream fatherhood Many times by the act either of an Usurper himself or of those that set him up the true Heir of a Crown is dispossessed God using the ministry of the wickedest men for the removing and setting up of Kings in such cases the Subjects obedience to the fatherly power must go along and wait upon Gods providence who only hath right to
Citizens of Rome who had been Conquerours of all Nations round about them could not endure of Warriers to become Quarriers and Day-labourers Whereas it is said that Tarquin was expelled for the Rape committed by his Son on Lucrece it is unjust to condemn the Father for the Crime of his Son it had been fit to have petitioned the Father for the Punishment of the Offender The Fact of young Tarquin cannot be excused yet without wrong to the Reputation of so chaste a Lady as Lucrece is reputed to be it may be said she had a greater Desire to be thought chaste than to be chaste she might have died untouched and unspotted in her Body if she had not been afraid to be slandered for Inchastity both Dionysius Halicarnasseus and Livie who both are her Friends so tell the Tale of her as if she had chosen rather to be a Whore than to be thought a Whore To say Truth we find no other Cause of the Expulsion of Tarquin than the Wantonness and Licentiousness of the People of Rome This is further to be considered in the Roman Government that all the time between their Kings and their Emperours there lasted a continued strife between the Nobility and Commons wherein by Degrees the Commons prevailed at last so to weaken the Authority of the Consuls and Senate that even the last sparks of Monarchy were in a manner extinguished and then instantly began the Civil War which lasted till the Regal Power was quickly brought home and setled in Monarchy So long as the Power of the Senate stood good for the Election of Consuls the Regal Power was preserved in them for the Senate had their first Institution from Monarchy It is worth the noting that in all those places that have seemed to be most popular that weak Degree of Government that hath been exercised among them hath been founded upon and been beholden unto Monarchical Principles both for the Power of assembling and manner of consulting for the entire and gross Body of any People is such an unweildy and diffused thing as is not capable of uniting or congregating or deliberating in an entire Lump but in broken Parts which at first were regulated by Monarchy Furthermore it is observable that Rome in her chief Popularity was oft beholden for her Preservation to the Monarchical Power of the Father over the Children by means of this Fatherly Power saith Bodin the Romans flourished in all Honour and Vertue and oftentimes was their Common-weal thereby delivered from most imminent Destruction when the Fathers drew out of the Consistory their Sons being Tribunes publishing Laws tending to Sedition Amongst others Cassius threw his Son headlong out of the Consistory publishing the Law Agraria for the Division of Lands in the Behoof of the People and after by his own private Judgment put him to Death the Magistrates Serjeants and People standing thereat astonied and not daring to withstand his Fatherly Authority although they would with all their Power have had that Law for Division of Lands which is sufficient Proof this Power of the Father not only to have been sacred and inviolable but also to have been lawful for him either by Right or Wrong to dispose of the Life and Death of his Children even contrary to the Will of the Magistrates and People It is generally believed that the Government of Rome after the Expulsion of Kings was popular Bodin endeavours to prove it but I am not satisfied with his Arguments and though it will be thought a Paradox yet I must maintain it was never truly popular First it is difficult to agree what a popular Government is Aristotle saith it is where Many or a Multitude do rule he doth not say where the People or the major part of the People or the Representors of the People govern Bodin affirms if all the People be interessed in the Government it is a Popular Estate Lib. 2. c. 1. but after in the same Chapter he resolves that it is a Popular Estate when all the People or the greater part thereof hath the Sovereignty and he puts the Case that if there be threescore thousand Citizens and forty thousand of them have the Sovereignty and twenty thousand be excluded it shall be called a popular Estate But I must tell him though fifty nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine of them govern yet it is no popular Estate for if but one man be excluded the same reason that excludes that one man may exclude many hundreds and many thousands yea and the major part it self if it be admitted that the People are or ever were free by Nature and not to be governed but by their own Consent it is most unjust to exclude any one man from his Right in Government and to suppose the People so unnatural as at the first to have all consented to give away their Right to a major part as if they had Liberty given them only to give away and not to use it themselves is not onely improbable but impossible for the whole People is a thing so uncertain and changeable that it alters every moment so that it is necessary to ask of every Infant so soon as it is born its Consent to Government if you will ever have the Consent of the whole People Moreover if the Arbitrary Tryal by a Jury of twelve men be a thing of that admirable Perfection and Justice as is commonly believed wherein the Negative Voice of every single Person is preserved so that the dissent of any of the twelve frustrates the whole Judgment How much more ought the natural freedom of each man be preserved by allowing him his Negative Voice which is but a continuing him in that estate wherein it is confessed Nature at first placed him Justice requires that no one Law should bind all except all consent to it there is nothing more violent and contrary to Nature than to allow a major part or any other greater part less than the whole to bind all the People The next difficulty to discovering what a Popular Estate is is to find out where the Supreme Power in the Roman Government rested it is Bodin's opinion that in the Roman state the Government was in the Magistrates the Authority and Counsel in the Senate but the Sovereign Power and Majesty in the People Lib. 2. c. 1. So in his first Book his Doctrine is that the ancient Romans said Imperium in Magistratibus Authoritatem in Senatu Potestatem in plebe Majestatem in Populi jure esse dicebant These four words Command Authority Power and Majesty signifie ordinarily one and the same thing to wit the Sovereignty or supreme Power I cannot find that Bodin knows how to distinguish them for they were not distinct Faculties placed in several Subjects but one and the same thing diversly qualified for Imperium Authoritas Potestas and Majestas were all originally in the Consuls although for the greater shew the Consuls would have the Opinion and Consent of
the Bodies of the Tribunes from all Arrests or other Violence they grew in time by Degrees to such Boldness that by stopping the legal Proceedings of the Consuls when they pleased to intercede they raised such an Anarchy oft times in Government that they themselves might act and take upon them what Power soever they pleased though it belonged not to them This Gallantry of the Tribunes was the Cause that the Commons of Rome who were diligent Pretenders to Liberty and the great Masters of this part of Politiques were thought the only famous Preservers and Keepers of the Liberty of Rome And to do them right it must be confessed they were the only men that truly understood the Rights of a Negative Voice if we will allow every man to be naturally free till they give their Consent to be bound we must allow every particular Person a Negative Voice so that when as all have equal Power and are as it were fellow-Magistrates or Officers each man may impeach or stop his Fellow-Officers in their Proceedings this is grounded upon the general Reason of all them which have any thing in Common where he which forbiddeth or denyeth hath most Right because his Condition in that Case is better than his which commandeth or moveth to proceed for every Law or Command is in it self an Innovation and a Diminution of some part of popular Liberty for it is no Law except it restrain Liberty he that by his negative Voice doth forbid or hinder the Proceeding of a new Law doth but preserve himself in that Condition of Liberty wherein Nature hath placed him and whereof he is in present Possession the Condition of him thus in Possession being the better the stronger is his Prohibition any single man hath a juster Title to his Negative Voice than any Multitude can have to their Affirmative to say the People are free and not to be governed but by their own Consent and yet to allow a major part to rule the whole is a plain Contradiction or a destruction of natural Freedom This the Commons of Rome rightly understood and therefore the transcendent Power of the Negative Voice of any one Tribune being able of it self to stay all the Proceedings not of the Consuls and Senate only and other Magistrates but also of the rest of his fellow-Tribunes made them seem the powerfullest men in all Rome and yet in Truth they had no Power or Jurisdiction at all nor were they any Magistrates nor could they lawfully call any man before them for they were not appointed for Administration of Justice but only to oppose the Violence and Abuse of Magistrates by interceeding for such as appealed being unjustly oppressed for which Purpose at first they sate only without the Door of the Senate and were not permitted to come within the Doors this Negative Power of theirs was of Force only to hinder but not to help the Proceedings in Courts of Justice to govern and not to govern the People And though they had no Power to make Laws yet they took upon them to propound Laws and flattered and humoured the Commons by the Agrarian and Frumentarian Laws by the first they divided the Common fields and conquered Lands among the Common People and by the latter they afforded them Corn at a cheaper or lower price by these means these Demagogues or Tribunes of the Commons led the Vulgar by the Noses to allow whatsoever Usurpations they pleased to make in Government The Royal Power of the Consuls was never taken away from them by any Law that I hear of but continued in them all the time of their pretended popular Government to the very last though repined at and opposed in some particulars by the Commons The No-Power or Negative Power of the Tribunes did not long give content to the Commons and therefore they desired that one of the Consuls might be chosen out of the Commonalty the eager propounding of this point for the Commons and the diligent opposing of it by the Nobility or Senate argues how much both parties regarded the Sovereign power of a Consul the Dispute lasted fourscore years within two the Tribunes pressing it upon all advantages of opportunity never gave over till they carried it by strong hand or stubbornness hindring all Elections of the Curule or greater Magistrates for five years together whereby the Nobles were forced to yield the Commons a Consul's place or else an Anarchy was ready to destroy them all and yet the Nobility had for a good while allowed the Commons Military Tribunes with Consular Power which in effect or substance was all one with having one of the Consuls a Commoner so that it was the bare Name of a Consul which the Commons so long strived for with the Nobility In this contentionsome Years Consuls were chosen some years Military Tribunes in such Confusion that the Roman Historians cannot agree among themselves what Consuls to assign or name for each Year although they have Capitoline Tables Sicilian and Greek Registers and Kalenders Fragments of Capitoline Marbles linen Books or Records to help them a good while the Commons were content with the Liberty of having one of the Consuls a Commoner but about fourscore years after they enjoyed this Privilege a Desire took them to have it enacted that a Decree of the Commons called a plebiscitum might be observed for a Law Hortensius the Dictator yielded to enact it thereby to bring back the Seditious Commons who departed to Ianiculum on the other side of Tybur because they were deeply engaged in Debt in regard of long Seditions and Dissensions The eleventh Book of Livy where this Sedition is set down is lost we have only a touch of it it in Florus his Epitome and St. Augustine mentions the Plundring of many Houses by the Commons at their departing this Sedition was above 220 years after the Expulsion of Kings in all which time the People of Rome got the Spoil of almost all Italy and the wealth of very many rich Cities and yet the Commons were in so great Penury and over whelmed with Debts that they fell to plunder the rich Houses of the Citizens which sounds not much for the Honour of a popular Government This communicating of a legislative Power to the Commons touching Power of enfranchising Allies Judgments Penal and Fines and those Ordinances that concerned the Good of the Commons called Plebiscita was a dividing of the Supreme Power and the giving a Share of it to others as well as to the Consuls and was in effect to destroy the legislative Power for to have two Supremes is to have none because the one may destroy the other and is quite contrary to the indivisible nature of Sovereignty The Truth is the Consuls having but annual Sovereignty were glad for their own Safety and Ease in Matters of great Importance and Weight to call together sometimes the Senate who were their ordinary Councel and many times the Centuries of the People who were
Obligation one to another as Mr. Hobs's words are in his Book De Cive cap. 8. sect 3. the Scripture teacheth us otherwise that all men came by Succession and Generation from one man we must not deny the Truth of the History of the Creation IV. It is not to be thought that God would create man in a Condition worse than any Beasts as if he made men to no other End by Nature but to destroy one another a Right for the Father to destroy or eat his Children and for Children to do the like by their Parents is worse than Canibals This horrid Condition of pure Nature when Mr. Hobs was charged with his Refuge was to answer that no Son can be understood to be in this state of pure Nature which is all one with denying his own Principle for if men be not free-born it is not possible for him to assign and prove any other time for them to claim a Right of Nature to Liberty if not at their Birth V. But if it be allowed which is yet most false that a Company of men were at first without a common Power to keep them in Awe I do not see why such a Condition must be called a State of War of all men against all men indeed if such a Multitude of men should be created as the Earth could not well nourish there might be Cause for men to destroy one another rather than perish for want of Food but God was no such Niggard in the Creation and there being Plenty of Sustenance and Room for all men there is no Cause or Use of War till men be hindred in the Preservation of Life so that there is no absolute Necessity of War in the State of pure Nature it is the Right of Nature for every man to live in Peace that so he may tend the Preservation of his life which whilst he is in actual War he cannot do War of it self as it is War preserves no mans Life it only helps us to preserve and obtain the Means to live if every man tend the Right of preserving Life which may be done in Peace there is no Cause of War VI. But admit the State of Nature were the State of War let us see what Help Mr. Hobs hath for it It is a Principle of his that the Law of Nature is a Rule found out by Reason I do think it is given by God pag. 64. forbidding a man to do that which is destructive to his Life and to omit that by which he thinks it may be best preserved If the Right of Nature be a Liberty for a man to do any thing he thinks fit to preserve his Life then in the first Place Nature must teach him that Life is to be preserved and so consequently forbids to do that which may destroy or take away the means of life or to omit that by which it may be preserved and thus the Right of Nature and the Law of Nature will be all one for I think Mr. Hobs will not say the Right of Nature is a Liberty for man to destroy his own Life The Law of Nature might better have been said to consist in a Command to preserve or not to omit the Means of preserving Life than in a Prohibition to destroy or to omit it VII Another Principle I meet with pag. 65. If other men will not lay down their Right as well as he then there is no Reason for any to devest himself of his Hence it follows that if all the men in the World do not agree no Common-wealth can be established it is a thing impossible for all the men in the World every man with every man to Covenant to lay down their Right Nay it is not possible to be done in the smallest Kingdom though all men should spend their whole Lives in nothing else but in running up and down to Covenant VIII Right may be laid aside but not transfer'd for pag. 65. he that renounceth or passeth away his Right giveth not to any other man a Right which he had not before and reserves a Right in himself against all those with whom he doth not Covenant IX Pag. 87. The only way to erect a Common Power or a Commonwealth is for men to confer all their Power and Strength upon one man or one Assembly of men that may reduce all their Wills by Plurality of Voices to one Will which is to appoint one man or an Assembly of men to bear their Person to submit their Wills to his Will this is a real Unity of them all in one Person made by Covenant of every man with every man as if every man should say to every man I authorise and give up my Right of Governing my self to this man or this Assembly of men on this Condition that thou give up thy Right to him and authorise all his Actions This done the Multitude so united in one Person is called a Commonwealth To authorise and give up his Right of Governing himself to confer all his Power and Strength and to submit his Will to another is to lay down his Right of resisting for if Right of Nature be a Liberty to use Power for Preservation of Life laying down of that Power must be a Relinquishing of Power to preserve or defend Life otherwise a man relinquisheth nothing To reduce all the Wills of an Assembly by Plurality of Voices to one Will is not a proper Speech for it is not a Plurality but a Totality of Voices which makes an Assembly be of one Will otherwise it is but the one Will of a major part of the Assembly the Negative Voice of any one hinders the Being of the one Will of the Assembly there is nothing more destructive to the true Nature of a lawful Assembly than to allow a major part to prevail when the whole only hath Right For a man to give up his Right to one that never Covenants to protect is a great Folly since it is neither in Consideration of some Right reciprocally transferred to himself nor can he hope for any other Good by standing out of the way that the other may enjoy his own original Right without hinderance from him by reason of so much Diminution of Impediments pag. 66. X. The Liberty saith Mr. Hobs whereof there is so frequent and honourable Mention in the Histories and Philosophy of the ancient Greeks and Romans and in the Writings and Discourse of those that from them have received all their Learning in the Politiques is not the Liberty of particular men but the Liberty of the Commonwealth Whether a Commonwealth be Monarchical or Popular the Freedom is still the same Here I find Mr. Hobs is much mistaken for the Liberty of the Athenians and Romans was a Liberty only to be found in popular Estates and not in Monarchies This is clear by Aristotle who calls a City a Community of Freemen meaning every particular Citizen to be free Not that every particular man had
and the Law of Nations so other-whiles they make them also contrary one to the other By the Law of Nature all men are born free Iure naturali omnes liberi nascuntur But Servitude is by the Law of Nations Iure Gentium Servitus invasit saith Ulpian And the Civil Law not only makes the Law of Nature and of Nations contrary but also will have the Law of Nations contrary to it self War saith the Law was brought in by the Law of Nations Ex jure gentium introducta bella and yet the Law of Nations saith Since Nature hath made us all of one Kindred it follows it is not lawful for one man to lye in Wait for another Cùm inter nos cognitionem quandam natura constituit consequens est hominem homini insidiari nefas esse saith Florentinus Again the Civil Law teacheth that from the Law of Nature proceeds the Conjunction of man and women the Procreation and Education of Children But as for Religion to God and Obedience to Parents it makes it to be by the Law of Nations To touch now the Canon Law we may find in one place that men are governed either by the Law of Nature or by Customs Homines reguntur Naturali jure aut moribus The Law of Nations they call a Divine Law the Customs a humane Law Leges aut divinae sunt aut humanae divinae naturâ humanae moribus constant But in the next place the Canon Law makes Ius to be either Naturale aut Civile aut Gentium Though this Division agree in Terms with that of Ulpian in the Civil Law yet in the Explication of the Terms there is Diversity for what one Law makes to belong to the Law of Nature the other refers to the Law of Nations as may easily appear to him that will take the Pains to compare the Civil and Canon Law in these Points A principal Ground of these Diversities and Contrarieties of Divisions was an Error which the Heathens taught that all things at first were common and that all men were equal This Mistake was not so heinous in those Ethnick Authors of the Civil Laws who wanting the Guide of the History of Moses were fain to follow Poets and Fables for their Leaders But for Christians who have read the Scriptures to dream either of a Community of all things or an Equality of all Persons is a Fault scarce pardonable To salve these apparent Contrarieties of Community and Property or Equality and Subjection the Law of Ius Gentium was first invented when that could not satisfie to mend the matter this Ius Gentium was divided into a Natural Law of Nations and an Humane Law of Nations and the Law of Nature into a Primary and a Secondary Law of Nature Distinctions which make a great sound but edifie not at all if they come under Examination If there hath been a time when all things were common and all men equal and that it be otherwise now we must needs conclude that the Law by which all things were common and men equal was contrary to the Law by which now things are proper and men subject If we will allow Adam to have been Lord of the World and of his Children there will need no such Distinctions of the Law of Nature and of Nations For the Truth will be that whatsoever the Heathens comprehended under these two Laws is comprised in the Moral Law That the Law of Nature is one and the same with the Moral may appear by a Definition given by Grotius The Law of Nature saith he is the Dictate of Reason shewing that in every Action by the agreeing or disagreeing of it with natural Reason there is a moral Honesty or Dishonesty and consequently that such an Action is commanded or forbidden by God the Author of Nature I cannot tell how Grotius would otherwise have defined the Moral Law And the Canon Law grants as much teaching that the Law of Nature is contained in the Law and the Gospel Whatsoever ye will that men do c. Mat. 7. The Term of Ius Naturae is not originally to be found in Scripture for though T. Aquinas takes upon him to prove out of the 2. to the Romans that there is a Ius Naturae yet St. Paul doth not use those express Terms his words are The Gentiles which have not the Law do by Nature the things contained in the Law these having not the Law are a Law unto themselves He doth not say Nature is a Law unto them but they are a Law unto themselves As for that which they call the Law of Nations it is not a Law distinct much less opposite to the Law of Nature but it is a small Branch or Parcel of that great Law for it is nothing but the Law of Nature or the moral Law between Nations The same Commandment that forbids one Private man to rob another or one Corporation to hurt another Corporation obliges also one King not to rob another King and one Commonwealth not to spoil another the same Law that enjoyns Charity to all men even to Enemies binds Princes and States to shew Charity to one another as well as private Persons And as the Common or Civil Laws of each Kingdom which are made against Treason Theft Murder Adultery or the like are all and every one of them grounded upon some particular Commandment of the moral Law so all the Laws of Nations must be subordinate and reducible to the moral Law The Law of Nature or the moral Law is like the main Ocean which though it be one entire Body yet several Parts of it have distinct Names according to the diversity of the Coasts on which they border So it comes to pass that the Law of Nations which is but a part of the Law of Nature may be sub-divided almost in infinitum according to the Variety of the Persons or Matters about which it is conversant The Law of Nature or the divine Law is general and doth only comprehend some Principles of Morality notoriously known of themselves or at the most is extended to those things which by necessary and evident Inference are consequent to those Principles Besides these many other things are necessary to the well-governing of a Common-wealth and therefore it was necessary that by Humane Reason something more in particular should be determined concerning those things which could not be defined by Natural Reason alone hence it is that Humane Laws be necessary as Comments upon the Text of the Moral Law and of this Judgment is Aquinas who teacheth that necessitas legis humanae manat ex eo quod Lex naturalis vel Divina generalis est solum complectitur quaedam principia morum per se nota ad summum extenditur ad ea quae necessaria evidenti elatione ex illis principiis consequuntur praeter illa verò multa alia sunt necessaria in republica ad ejus rectam Gubernationem ideo necessarium fuit ut
forgot himself and reckons up a fifth kind of Monarchy which is saith he When one alone hath Supream power of all the rest for as there is a domestical Kingdom of one house so the Kingdom of a City or of one or many Nations is a Family These are all the sorts of Monarchy that Aristotle hath found out and he hath strained hard to make them so many first for his Lacedemonian King himself confesseth that he was but a kind of Military Commander in War and so in effect no more a King than all Generals of Armies And yet this No-king of his was not limited by any Law nor mixed with any companions of his Government when he was in the Wars out of the Confines of Lacedemon he was as Aristotle stiles him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of full and absolute command no Law no companion to govern his Army but his own will Next for Aristotles Aesymnetical King it appears he was out of date in Aristotles time for he saith he was amongst the antient Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristotle might well have spared the naming him if he had not wanted other sorts for the honour of his own Nation for he that but now told us the Barbarians were of a more servile nature than the Grecians comes here and tells us that these old Greek Kings were Elective Tyrants The Barbarians did but suffer Tyrants in shew but the old Grecians chose Tyrants indeed which then must we think were the greater slaves the Greeks or the Barbarians Now if these sorts of Kings were Tyrants we cannot suppose they were limited either by Law or joyned with companions Indeed Arist. saith some of these Tyrants were limited to certain times and actions for they had not all their power for term of life nor could meddle but in certain businesses yet during the time they were Tyrants and in the actions whereto they were limited they had absolute power to do what they list according to their own will or else they could not have been said to be Tyrants As for Aristotles Heroick King he gives the like note upon him that he did upon the Aesymnet that he was in old time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Heroick times The thing that made these Heroical Kingdoms differ from other sorts of Kingdoms was only the means by which the first Kings obtained their Kingdoms and not the manner of Government for in that they were as absolute as other Kings were without either limitation by Law or mixture of companions Lastly as for Arist. Barbarick sort of Kings since he reckoned all the world Barbarians except the Grecians his Barbarick King must extend to all other sorts of Kings in the world besides those of Greece and so may go under Aristotles fifth sort of Kings which in general comprehends all other sorts and is no special form of Monarchy Thus upon a true accompt it is evident that the five several sorts of Kings mentioned by Aristotle are at the most but different and accidental means of the first obtaining or holding of Monarchies and not real or essential differences of the manner of Government which was always absolute without either limitation or mixture I may be thought perhaps to mistake or wrong Aristotle in questioning his diversities of Kings but it seems Aristotle himself was partly of the same mind for in the very next Chapter when he had better considered of the point he confessed that to speak the truth there were almost but two sorts of Monarchies worth the considering that is his first or Laconique sort and his fifth or last sort where one alone hath Supream power over all the rest thus he hath brought his five sorts to two Now for the first of these two his Lacedemonian King he hath confessed before that he was no more than a Generalissimo of an Army and so upon the matter no King at all and then there remains onely his last sort of Kings where one alone hath the Supream power And this in substance is the final resolution of Aristotle himself for in his sixteenth Chapter where he delivers his last thoughts touching the kinds of Monarchy he first dischargeth his Laconick King from being any sort of Monarchy and then gives us two exact rules about Monarchy and both these are pointblank against limited and mixed Monarchy therefore I shall propose them to be considered of as concluding all Monarchy to be absolute and Arbitrary 1. The one Rule is that he that is said to be a King according to Law is no sort of Government or Kingdom at all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. The second rule is that a true King is he that ruleth all according to his own will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This latter frees a Monarch from the mixture of partners or sharers in Government as the former rule doth from limitation by Laws Thus in brief I have traced Aristotle in his crabbed and broken passages touching diversities of Kings where he first finds but four sorts and then he stumbles upon a fifth and in the next Chapter contents himself onely with two sorts of Kings but in the Chapter following concludes with one which is the true perfect Monarch who rules all by his own will in all this we find nothing for a regulated or mixed Monarchy but against it Moreover whereas the Author of the Treatise of Monarchy affirms it as a prime principle That all Monarchies except that of the Iews depend upon humane designment when the consent of a society of men and a fundamental contract of a Nation by original or radical constitution confers power He must know that Arist. searching into the original of Government shews himself in this point a better Divine than our Author and as if he had studied the Book of Genesis teacheth That Monarchies fetch their Pedigree from the right of Fathers and not from the gift or contract of people his words may thus be Englished At the first Cities were Governed by Kings and so even to this day are Nations also for such as were under Kingly Government did come together for every House is governed by a King who is the eldest and so also Colonies are governed for kindred sake And immediately before he tells us That the first society made of many Houses is a Village which naturally seems to be a Colony of a House which some call foster-brethren or Children and Childrens Children So in conclusion we have gained Aristotles judgment in three main and essential points 1. A King according to Law makes no kind of Government 2. A King must rule according to his own will 3. The Original of Kings is from the right of Fatherhood What Aristotles judgment was two thousand years since is agreeable to the Doctrine of the great modern Politician Bodin Hear him touching limited Monarchy Unto Majesty or Soveraignty saith he belongeth an absolute power not subject to any Law Chief power given unto a Prince with condition is not properly