own and will value it accordingly And he is much a better Counsellor who by his experience and observation of the nature and humor of the People who are to be govern'd and by his knowledg of the Laws and Rules by which they ought to be govern'd gives advice what ought to be don then he who from his speculative knowledg of man-kind and of the Rights of Government and of the nature of Equity and Honor attain'd with much study would erect an Engine of Government by the rules of Geometry more infallible then Experience can ever find out I am not willing now or at any time to accompany him in his sallies which he makes into the Scripture and which he alwaies handles as if his Soveraign power had not yet declared it to be the word of God and to illustrate now his Distinctions and the difference between Command and Counsel he thinks fit to fetch instances from thence Have no other Gods but me Make to thy self no graven Image c. he saies pag. 133. are commands because the reason for which we are to obey them is drawn from the will of God our King whom we are obliged to obey but these words Repent and be baptized in the name of Iesus arc Counsel because the reason why we should do so tendeth not to any benefit of God Almighty who shall be still King in what manner soever we rebel but of our selves who have no other means of avoiding the punishment hanging over us for our sins as if the latter were not drawn from the will of God as much as the former or as if the former tended more to the benefit of God then the latter An ordinary Grammarian without any insight in Geometry would have thought them equally to be commands But Mr. Hobbes will have his Readers of another talent in their understanding and another subjection to his dictates The Survey of Chapter 26. HOwever Mr. Hobbes enjoins other Judges to etract the judgments they have given when contrary to reason upon what autority or president soever they have pronounced them yet he holds himself obliged still tueâ—i opus to justify all he hath said therefore we have reason to expect that to support his own notions of Liberty and Propriety contrary to the notions of all other men he must introduce a notion of Law contrary to what the world hath ever yet had of it And it would be answer enough and it may be the fittest that can be given to this Chapter to say that he hath ere ed a Law contrary and destructive to all the Law that is acknowledg'd and establish'd in any Monarchy or Republic that is Christian and in this he hopes to secure himseâ—f by his accustomed method of definition and dâ—fiâ—es that Civil Law which is a term we do not dislike is to every Subject those Rules which the Common wealth hath commanded him by word writing or other sufficient sign of the Wâ—â—l to make use of for the distinction of right in whâ—ch he saies there is nothing that is not at first sight evident that is to say of what is contrary and what is noâ— contrary to the Rule From which definition his first deduction is that the Soveraign is the sole Legislator and that himself is not subject to Laws because he can make and repeal them which in truth is no necessary deduction from his own definition for it doth not follow from thence tho he makes them Rules only for Subjects that the Soveraign hath the sole power to repeal them but the true definition of a Law is that it is to every Subject the rule which the Common-wealth hath commanded him by word writing or other sufficient sign of the Will made and publish'd in that form and manner as is accustomed in that Common-wealth to make use of for the distinction of right that is to say of what is contrary and what is not to the Rule and from this definition no such deduction can be made since the form of making and repealing Laws is stated and agreed upon in all Common-wealths The opinions and judgments which are found in the Books of eminent Lawyers cannot be answer'd and controuled by Mr. Hobbes his wonder since the men who know least are apt to wonder most and men will with more justice wonder whence he comes by the Prerogative to controul the Laws and Government establish'd in this and that Kingdom without so much as considering what is Law here or there but by the general notions he hath of Law and what it is by his long study and much cogitation And it is a strange definition of Law to make it like his propriety to be of concernment only between Subject and Subject without any relation of security as to the Soveraign whom he exemts from any observation of them and invests with autority by repealing those which trouble him when he thinks fit to free himself from the observation thereof and by making new and consequently he saies he was free before for he is free that can be free when he will The instance he gives for his wonder and displeasure against the Books of the Eminent Lawyers is that they say that the Common Law hath no controuler but the Parliament that is that the Common Law cannot be chang'd or alter'd but by Act of Parliament which is the Municipal Law of the Kingdom Now methinks if that be the judgment of Eminent Lawyers Mr. Hobbes should be so modest as to believe it to be true till he hears others as Eminent Lawyers declare the contrary for by his instance he hath brought it now only to relate to the Law of England and then methinks he should be easily perswaded that the Eminent Lawyers of England do know best whether the Law be so or no. I do not wish that Mr. Hobbes should be convinc'd by a judgment of that Law upon himself which would be very severe if he should be accused for declaring that the King alone hath power to alter the descents and inheritances of the Kingdom and whereas the Common Law saies the Eldest shall inherit the King by his own Edict may declare and order that the younger Son shall inherit or for averring and publishing that the King by his own autority can repeal and dissolve all Laws and justly take away all they have from his Subjects I say if the judgment of Law was pronounc'd upon him for this Seditious discourse he would hardly perswade the World that he understood what the Law of England is better then the Judges who condemn'd him or that he was wary enough to set up a jus vagum and incognitum of his own to controul the establish'd Government of his own Country He saies the Soveraign is the only Legislator and I will not contradict him in that It is the Soveraign stamp and Royal consent and that alone that gives life and being and title of Laws to that which was before but counsel and advice and no
the Soveraignty by making Tribunes by which Machiavel saies their Government was the more firm and secure and afterwards by introducing other Magistrates into the Soveraignty Nor were the Admissions and Covenants the Senate made in those cases ever declared void but observed with all punctuality which is Argument enough that the Soveraign power may admit limitations without any danger to it self or the People which is all that is contended for As there never was any such Person pag. 88. of whose acts a great multitude by mutual Covenant one with another have made themselves every one the author to the end he may use the strength and means of them all as he shall think expedient for their peace and common defence which is the definition he gives of his Common-wealth So if it can be supposed that any Nation can concur in such a designation and divesting themselves of all their right and liberty it could only be in reason obligatory to the present contractors nor do's it appear to us that their posterity must be bound by so unthrifty a concession of their Parents For tho Adam by his Rebellion against God forfeited all the privileges which his unborn posterity might have claimed if he had preserved his innocence and tho Parents may alienate their Estates from their Children and thereby leave them Beggars yet we have not the draught of any Contract nor is that which Mr. Hobbes hath put himself to the trouble to prepare valid enough to that purpose by which they have left impositions and penalties upon the Persons of their posterity nor is it probable that they would think themselves bound to submit thereunto And then the Soveraign would neither find himself the more powerful or the more secure for his contâ—â—â—tors having covenanted one with another and made themselves every one the author of all his actions and it is to be doubted that the People would rather look upon him as the Vizier Basha instituted by their Fathers then as Gods Lieutenant appointed to govern them under him It is to no purpose to examine the Prerogatives he grants to his Soveraign because he founds them all upon a supposition of a Contract and Covenant that never was in nature nor ever can reasonably be supposed to be yet he confesses it to be the generation pag. 87. of the great Leviathan and which falling to the ground all his Prerogatives must likewise fall too and so much to the dammage of the Soveraign power to which most of the Prerogatives are due that men will be apt to suppose that they proceed from a ground which is not true and so be the more inclined to dispute them Whereas those Prerogatives are indeed vested in the Soveraign by his being Soveraign but he do's not become Soveraign by vertue of such a Contract and Covenant but are of the Essence of his Soveraignty founded upon a better title then such an accidental convention and their designing a Soveraign by their Covenants with one another and none with or to him who is so absolutely to command them And here he supposes again that whatsoever a Soveraign is possessed of is of his Soveraignty and therefore he will by no means admit that he shall part with any of his power which he calls essential and inseparable Rights and that whatever grant he makes of such power the same is void and he do's believe that this Soveraign right was at the time when he published his Book so well understood that is Cromwel liked his Doctrine so well that it would be generally acknowledged in England at the next return of peace Yet he sees himself deceived it hath pleased God to restore a blessed and a general peace and neither King nor People believe his Doctrine to be true or consistent with peace How and why the most absolute Soveraigns may as they find occasion part with and deprive themselves of many branches of their power will be more at large discovered in another place yet we may observe in this the very complaisant humor of Mr. Hobbes and how great a Courtier he desir'd to appear to the Soveraign power that then govern'd by how odious and horrible a usurpation soever in that he found a way to excuse and justifie what they had already don in the lessening and diminution of their own Soveraign power which it concern'd them to have believ'd was very lawfully and securely don For they having as the most popular and obliging act they could perform taken away Wardships and Tenures he confesses after his enumeration of twelve Prerogatives which he saies pag. 92. are the rights which make the essence of the Soveraignty for these he saies are incommunicable and inseparable I say he confesses the power to coin mony to dispose of the estates and persons of infant heirs and all other Statute Prerogatives may be transferred by the Soveraign whereas he might have bin informed if he had bin so modest as to think he had need of any information that those are no Statute Prerogatives but as inherent and inseparable from the Crown as many of those which he declares to be of the Essence of the Soveraignty But both those were already entred upon and he was to support all their actions which were past as well as to provide for their future proceedings If Mr. Hobbes had known any thing of the constitution of the Monarchy of England supported by as firm principles of Government as any Monarchy in Europe and which enjoied a series of as long prosperity he could never have thought that the late troubles there proceeded from an opinion receiv'd of the greatest part of England that the power was divided between the King and the Lords and the House of Commons which was an opinion never heard of in England till the Rebellion was begun and against which all the Laws of England were most clear and known to be most positive But as he cannot but acknowledg that his own Soveraignty is obnoxious to the Lusts and other irregular passions of the People so the late execrable Rebellion proceeded not from the defect of the Law nor from the defect of the just and ample power of the King but from the power ill men rebelliously possessed themselves of by which they suppressed the strength of the Laws and wrested the power out of the hands of the King against which violence his Soveraign is no otherwise secure then by declaring that his Subjects proceed unjustly of which no body doubts but that all they who took up arms against the King were guilty in the highest degree And there is too much cause to fear that the unhappy publication of this doctrine against the Liberty and propriety of the Subject which others had the honor to declare before Mr. Hobbes tho they had not the good fortune to escape punishment as he hath don I mean Dr. Manwaring and Dr. Sibthorpe contributed too much thereunto For let him take what pains he will to render those
injury the contrary whereof he saies he hath shewed already for he takes it as granted that all that he hath said he had proved and if he hath not he hath don it now substantially by the example of Iepthah in causing his daughter to be sacrific'd of which he is not sure and by Davids killing Vriah which he saies tho it was against equity yet it was not an injury to Vriah because the right was given him by Vriah which I dare swear Vriah never knew he had don And by such unnatural Arguments he would perswade men to be willing to be undon very like those which the Stoics as obstinately maintain'd That a wise man could not be injur'd because he was not capable nor sensible of it But I wonder more that he doth not discern what every other man cannot but discern that by his so liberal taking away he hath not left the Subject any thing to enjoy even of those narrow concessions which he hath made to him For how can any man believe that he hath liberty to buy and sell when the Soveraign power can presently take away what he hath sold from him who hath bought it and consequently no man can sell or buy to any purpose Who can say that he can chuse his own abode or his own trade of life or any thing when assoon as he hath chosen either he shall be requir'd to go to a place where he hath no mind to go and to do somwhat he would not chuse to do for his person is no more at his own disposal then his goods are so that he may as graciously retain to himself all that he hath granted Whether the Soveraign Power or the Liberty of the Subject receive the greater injury and prejudice by this brief state and description he makes of the no liberty that is the portion he leaves to the Subject would be a great question if he had not bin pleas'd himself to determine that his Subject for God forbid that any other Prince should have such a Subject is not capable of an injury by which the whole mischief is like to fall upon the Soveraign And what greater mischief and ruine can threaten the greatest Prince then that their Subjects should believe that all the liberty they have consists only in those things which the Soveraign hath hitherto pretermitted that is which he hath not yet taken from them but when he pleases in regulating their actions to determine the contrary they shall then have neither liberty to buy or sell nor to contract with each other to chuse their own abode their own diet their own trade of life or to breed their own children and to make their misery compleat and their life as little their own as the rest that nothing the Soveraign can do to his Subject on what pretence soever as well in order to the taking away his Life as his Estate can be called injustice or injury I say what greater insecurity can any Prince be in or under then to depend upon such Subjects And alas what security to himself or them can the Sword in his hand be if no other hand be lift up on his behalf or the Swords in all other hands be directed against him that he may not cut off their heads when he hath a mind to it and it is not Mr. Hobbes's autority that will make it believ'd that he who desires more liberty demands an exemtion from all Laws by which all other men may be masters of their lives and that every Subject is author of every act the Soveraign doth upon the extravagant supposition of a consent that never was given and if it were possible to have bin given must have bin void at the instant it was given by Mr. Hobbes's own rules as shall be made out in its place He himself confesses pag. 295. and saies it is evident to the meanest capacities that mens actions are deriv'd from the opinion they have of the good and evil which from those actions redound unto themselves and consequently men that are once possessed of an opinion that their obedience to the Soveraign power will be more hurtful to them then their disobedience will disobey the Laws and thereby over-throw the Common-wealth and introduce confusion and civil War for the avoiding whereof all civil Government was ordained If this be true as there is no reason to believe it to be is it possible that any man can believe that the People for we speak not of convincing the Philosophers and the Mathematicians but of the general affections of the People which must dispose them to obedience that they can be perswaded by a long train of Consesequences from the nature of man and the end of Government and the institution thereof by Contracts and Covenants of which they never heard to believe that it is best for them to continue in the same nakedness in which they were created for fear their clothes may be stoln from them and that they have parted with their liberty to save their lives There is no question but of all calamities the calamity of War is greatest and the rage and uncharitableness of civil War most formidable of all War Indeed foreign War seldom destroies a Nation without domestic Combinations and Conspiracies which makes a complication with civil War and sure nothing can more inevitably produce that then an universal opinion in the People that their Soveraign can take from them all they have whenever he hath a mind to it and their lives to without any injustice and consequently that their obedience to him will be more hurtful to them then their disobedience so well hath he provided for the security of his Soveraign if his doctrine were believ'd Mr. Hobbes is too much conversant in both those learned Languages to wish that the Western World were depriv'd of the Greek and Latine Tongues for any mischief they have don and upon my conscience what ever errors may have bin brought into Philosophy by the autority of Aristotle no man ever grew a Rebel by reading him and if the greatest Monarch that hath ever bin in the World except the Monarch of the World had thought his Tutor Aristotle had bin so great an enemy to Monarchy yet he knew he was born and bred in a Republic and that his Works contribute so much to sedition as Mr. Hobbes supposes he would not have valued his Person so much nor read his Works with such diligence as he did And if Mr. Hobbes would take a view of the Insurrections and the civil Wars which have at any time bin stirr'd up in the Western parts he will not find that they have bin contriv'd or fomented by men who had spent much time in the reading Greek and Latin Authors or that they have bin carried on upon the Maxims and Principles which they found there Iack Straw and Wat Tyler whose Insurrection in respect of the numbers and the progress it made was as dangerous as hath happened in
alone and when it is once found to be in him alone he will not be long able to defend his own Propriety or his own Soveraignty It is Machiavels exception against the entertaining of foreign Forces that they are only mercenary and therefore indifferent in their affections which party wins or loses and no doubt those Soldiers fight most resolutely who fight to defend their own And surely they who have nothing of their own to lose but their lives are as apt to throw those away where they should not as where they should be exposed and it is the usual Artifice in all Seditions for the Leaders and Promoters of them to perswade the People that the tendency and consequence of such and such actions don by the Magistrate extends to the depriving them of all their propriety the jealousie of which hurries them into all those acts of rage and despair which prove so fatal to Kingdoms And there was never yet a wise and fortunate prince who hath not enervated those Machinations by all the professions and all the vindications of that Propriety which they are so vigilant to preserve and defend And therefore it is a wonderful propesterous foundation to support a Government to declare that the Subject hath no propriety in any thing that excludes the Soveraign from a right of disposing it and it may be easily believ'd that there is not one Prince in Europe I mean that is civiliz'd for of the absolute power of the Great Turk from whence Mr. Hobbes hath borrowed his Model we shall have occasion to discourse in another place would be able to retain his Soveraignty one whole year after he should declare as Mr. Hobbes doth that his Subjects have no propriety in any thing they possess but that he may dispose of all they have For tho they do too often invade that propriety and take somwhat from them that is not their own they bear it better under the notion of oppression and rapine and as they look upon it as the effect of some powerful Subjects evil advice which will in time be discover'd and reform'd by the justice of the Prince as hath often fallen out then they would ever do under a claim of right that could justly take away all they have because it is not the Subjects but their own And if Mr. Hobbes had taken the pains and known where to have bin inform'd of the Proceedings and Transactions of Wâ—lliam the Conqueror he would have found cause to believe that that great King did ever dexterously endeavor from the time that he was assured that his Possession would not be disturb'd to divest himself of the Title of a Conqueror and made his Legal Claim to what he had got by the Will of Edward the Confessor whose Name was precious to the Nation and who was known to have a great Friendship for that Prince who had now recover'd what had bin his And he knew so well the ill consequence which must attend the very imagination that the Nation had lost its Propriety that he made hast to grant them an assurance that they should still enjoy all the benefits and priviledges which were due to them by their own Laws and Customs by which they should be still govern'd as they were during that Kings whole Reign who had enough of the unquestionable Demesnes and Lands belonging to the Crown of which he was then possessed without a Rival and belonging to those great men who had perish'd with their Posterity in the Battel with Harold to distribute to those who had born such shares and run such hazards in his prosperous adventure And those Laws and Customs which were before the Conquest are the same which the Nation and Kingdom have bin since govern'd by to this day with the addition of those Statutes and Acts of Parliament which are the Laws of the successive Kings with which they have gratifi'd their Subjects in providing such new security for them and advantages to the public as upon the experience and observation of the Ages and Times when they were made contributed to the honor and glory of the King as well as the happiness of the People many of which are but the Copies and Transcripts of ancient Land-marks making the Characters more plain the legible of what had bin practic'd and understood in the preceding Ages and the observation whereof are of the same profit and convenience to King and People Such were the Laws in Tullies time which Mr. Hobbes wonderfully cites to prove that which Tully never heard of and which indeed is quite contrary to the end of his Discourse Pag. 127. Is it possible that Tully could ever have said Let the Civil Law be once abandoned or but negligently guarded not to say oppressed and there is nothing that any man can be sure to receive from his Ancestor or to leave to his Children and again take away the Civil Law and no man knows what is his own and what another mans I say he could never have mention'd and insisted upon this grand security of man-kind if he had understood the Law to be nothing but the breath of the Soveraign who could grant and dissolve or repeal this Law with the speaking a word that his will or fancy dictates to him How can any man receive from his Ancestor or leave to his Children if he ben oâ— sure that his Ancestor had and that his Children shall have a propriety It was the importance of and delight in this propriety that produc'd that happy and beneficial agreement between the Soveraign power and the naked Subject which is mention'd before that introduc'd the beauty of Building and the cultivating the Earth by Art as well as Industry by securing men that they and their Children should dwell in the Houses they were at the charge to build and that they should reap the harvest of those Lands which they had taken the pains to sow Whatsoever is of Civility and good Manners all that is of Art and Beauty or of real and solid Wealth in the World is the product of this paction and the child of beloved Propriety and they who would strangle this Issue desire to demolish all Buildings eradicate all Plantations to make the Earth barren and man-kind to live again in Tents and nurish his Cattle by successive marches into those Fields where the grass grows Nothing but the joy in Propriety reduc'd us from this barbarity and nothing but security in the same can preserve us from returning into it again Nor will any man receive so great prejudice and damage by this return as the Kings and Princes themselves who had a very ample recompence which they still enjoy by dividing their unprofitable propriety with their Subjects having ever since receiv'd much more profit from the propriety in the hands of the Subjects then they did when it was in their own or then they do from that which they reserv'd to themselves and they continue to have the more or less
Principles against Law least he be obliged to stand or fall according to the rectitude or error thereof Tho every Instance he gives of his Soveraigns absolute power makes it the more unreasonable formidable and odious yet he gives all the support to it he can devise And indeed when he hath made his Soveraigns word a full and enacted Law he hath reason to oblige his Subject to do whatsoever he commands be it right or wrong and to provide for his security when he hath don and therefore he declares pag. 157. That whosoever doth any thing that is contrary to a former Law by the command of his Soveraign he is not guilty of any crime and so cannot be punished because when the Soveraign commands any thing to be don against a former Law the command as to that particular Fact is an abrogation of the Law which would introduce a licence to commit Murder or any other crime most odious and against which Laws are chiefly provided But he hath in another place given his Subject leave to refuse the Soveraigns command when he requires him to do an act or office contrary to his honor so that tho he will not suffer the Law to restrain him from doing what the Soveraign unlawfully commands yea his honor of which he shall be Judg himself may make him refuse that command tho lawfâ—l as if the Soveraign commands him to Prison as no doubt he lawfully may for a crime that deserves death he may in Mr. Hobbes's opinion refuse to obey that command Whereas Government and Justice have not a greater security then that he that executes a verbal command of the King against a known Law shall be punished And the Case which he puts in the following Paragraph that the Kings Will being a Law if he should not obey that there would appear two contradictory Laws which would totally excuse is so contrary to the common Rule of Justice that a man is obliged to believe when the King requires any thing to be don contrary to any Law that he did not know of that Law and so to forbear executing his Command And if this were otherwise Kings of all men would be most miserable and would reverse their most serious Counsels and Deliberations by incogitancy upon the suggestion and importunity of every presumtuous Intruder Kings themselves can never be punished or reprehended publicly that being a reproch not consistent with the reverence due to Majesty for their casual or wilful errors and mistakes let the ill consequence of them be what they will but if they who maliciously lead or advise or obey them in unjust resolutions and commands were to have the same indemnity there must be a dissolution of all Kingdoms and Governments But as Kings must be left to God whose Vice-gerents they are to judg of their breach of Trust so they who offend against the Law must be left to the punishment the Law hath provided for them it being in the Kings power to pardon the execution of the Sentence the Law inflicts except in those cases where the Offence is greater to others then to the King as in the murder of a Husband or a Father the offence is greater to the Wife and to the Son for their relation then to the King for a Subject and therefore upon an Appeal by them the Transgressor may suffer after the King hath pardon'd him It is a great prerogative which Mr. Hobbes doth in this Chapter indulge to his fear his precious bodily fear of corporal hurt that it shall not only extenuate an ill action but totally excuse and annihilate the worst he can commit that if a man by the terror of present death be compelled to do a Fact against the Law he is wholly excused because no Law can oblige a man to abandon his own preservation and supposing such a Law were obligatory yet a man would reason pag. 157. If I do it not I die presently if I do it I die afterwards therefore by doing it there is time of life gain'd Nature therefore compels him to the Fact by which a man seems by the Law of Nature to be compell'd even for a short reprieve and to live two or three daies longer to do the most infamous and wicked thing that is imaginable upon which fertile soil he doth hereafter so much enlarge according to his natural method in which he usually plants a stock supposes a principle the malignity whereof is not presently discernable in a precedent Chapter upon which in a subsequent one he grafts new and worse Doctrine which he looks should grow and prosper by such cultivation as he applies to it in Discourse and therefore I shall defer my Considerations to the contrary till I wait upon him in that enlarged disquisition The Survey of Chapter 28. THe eight and twentieth Chapter being a Discourse of Punishments and Rewards it was not possible for him to forget in how weak a condition he had left his Soveraign for want of power to punish since want of power to punish and want of autority to cause his punishment to be inflicted is the same thing especially when the guilty person is not only not oblig'd to submit to the Sentence how just soever but hath a right to resist it and to defend himself by force against the Magistrate and the Law and therefore he thinks it of much importance to enquire by what door the right and autority of punishing in any case came in He is a very ill Architect that in building a House makes not doors to enter into every office of it and it is very strange that he should make his doors large and big enough in his institution to let out all the liberty and propriety of the Subject and the very end of his Institution being to make a Magistrate to compel men to their duty for he confesses they were before obliged by the Law of Nature to perform it one towards another but that there must be a Soveraign Sword to compel men to do that which they ought to do yet that he should forget to leave a door wide enough for this compulsion to enter in at by punishment and bringing the Offender to Justice since the end of making the Soveraign is disappointed and he cannot preserve the peace if guilty persons have a right to preserve themselves from the punishment he inflicts for their guilt It was very improvidently don when he had the draught of the whole Contracts and Covenants that he would not insert one by which every man should transfer from himself the right he had to defend himself against public Justice tho not against private violence And surely reason and Self-preservation that makes a man transfer all his Estate and Interest into the hands of the Soveraign and to be disposed by him that he may be secure against the robbery and rapine of his neighbors companions will as well dispose him to leave his life to his discretion that it may be
scandaliz'd that such monstrous and seditious Discourses have so long escaped a judicial Examination and Punishment must know that Mr. Hobbes his Leviathan was printed and publish'd in the highest time of Cromwell's wicked Usurpation for the vindication and perpetuating whereof it was contriv'd and design'd and when all Legal power was suppress'd and upon his Majesties blessed return that merciful and wholsom Act of Oblivion which pardon'd all Treasons and Murders Sacriledg Robbery Heresies and Blasphemies as well with reâ—erence to their Writings as their Persons and other Actions did likewise wipe out the memory of the Enormities of Mr. Hobbes and his Leviathan And this hath bin the only reason why the last hath bin no more enquired into then the former it having bin thought best that the impious Doctrines of what kind soever which the license of those times produc'd should rather expire by neglect and the repentance of the Authors then that they should be brought upon the Stage again by a solemn and public condemnation which might kindle some parts of the old Spirit with the vanity of contradiction which would otherwise in a short time be extinguish'd and it is only in Mr. Hobbes his own power to reverse the security that Act hath given him by repeting his former Errors by making what was his Off-spring in Tyrannical Times when there was no King in Israel his more deliberate and legitimate Issue and Productions in a time when a lawful Government flourishes which cannot connive at such bold Transgressors and Transgressions and he will then find that it hath fallen into the hands of a Soveraign that hath consider'd it very well not by allowing the public teaching it but by a declared detestation and final snppression of it and enjoining the Author a public recantation We shall conclude here our disquisition of his Policy and Government of his Commonwealth with the recollecting and stating the excellent Maximes and Principles upon which his Government is founded and supported that when they appear naked and uninvolv'd in his magisterial Discourses men may judg of the liberty and security they should enjoy if Mr. Hobbes Doctrine were inculcated into the minds of men by their Education and the Industry of those Masters under whom they are to be bred as he thinks it necessary it should be which Principles are in these very terms declared by him 1. That the Kings word is sufficient to take any thing from any Subject when there is need and that the King is Iudg of that need pag. 106. cap. 20. part 2. 2. The Liberty of a subject lieth only in those things which in regulating their actions the Soveraign hath pretermitted such as is the liberty to buy and sell and otherwise to contract with one another to chuse their own abode their own diet their own trade of life and institute their children as they themselves think fit and the like pag. 109. cap. 21. par 2. 3. Nothing the Soveraign can do to a subject on what pretence soever can properly be called injustice or injury pag. 109. 4. When a Soveraign Prince putteth to death an innocent subject tho the action be against the Law of Nature as being contrary to Equity yet it is not an injury to the subject but to God pag. 109. 5. No man hath liberty to resist the word of the Soveraign but in case a great many men together have already resisted the Soveraign power unjustly or committed some capital crime for which every one of them expecteth death they have liberty to join together and to assist and defend one another pag. 112. 6. If a Soveraign demand or take any thing by pretence of his power there lieth in that case no action at Law pag. 112. 7. If a subject be taken prisoner in War or his person or his means of life be within the guards of the Enemy and hath his life and corporal liberty given him on condition to be subject to the Victor he hath liberty to accept the condition and having accepted it is the subject of him that took him pag. 114. 8. If the Soveraign banish the subject during the banishment he is no subject pag. 114. 6. The obligation of subjects to the Soveraign is as long and no longer then the power lasteth by which he is able to protect them pag. 124. 10. Whatever Promises or Covenants the Soveraign makes are void pag. 89. 11. He whose private interest is to be judged in an assembly may make as many friends as he can and tho he hires such friends with mony yet it is not injustice pag. 122. cap. 22. part 2. 12. The propriety which a subject hath in his Lands consisteth in a right to exclude all other subjects from the use of them and not to exclude their Soveraign pag. 128. cap. 24. part 2. 13. When the Soveraign commandeth a man to do that which is against Law the doing of it is totally excus'd when the Soveraign commandeth any thing to be don against Law the command as to that particular fact is an abrogation of the Law pag. 157. cap. 27. part 2. 14. Tho the right of a Soveraign Monarch cannot be extinguish'd by the act of another yet the obligation of the members may for he that wants protection may seek it any where and when he hath it is oblig'd without fraudulent pretence of having submitted himself out of fear to protect his Protector as long as he is able pag. 174. cap. 29. part 2. If upon the short reflexions we have made upon these several Doctrines as they lie scattered over his Book and involv'd in other Discourses which with the novelty administers some pleasure to the unwary Reader the contagion thereof be not enough discover'd and the ill consequence and ruine that must attend Kings and Princes who affect such a Government as well as the misery insupportable to Subjects who are compelled to submit to it it may be the view of the naked Propositions by themselves without any other clothing or disguise of words may better serve to make them oqious to King and People and that the first will easily discern to how high a pinnacle of power soever he would carry him he leaves him upon such a Precipice from whence the least blast of Invasion from a Neighbor or from Rebellion by his Subjects may throw him headlong to irrecoverable ruine and the other will as much abhor an Allegiance of that temper that by any misfortune of their Prince they may be absolv'd from and cease to be Subjects when their Soveraign hath most need of their obedience And surely if these Articles of Mr. Hobbes's Creed be the product of right Reason and the effects of Christian Obligations the great Turk may be look'd upon as the best Philosopher and all his Subjects as the best Christians The Third Part. The Survey of Chapters 32 33 34. AS we had no reason to expect a rational discourse of civil Government and Policy when the opinion and