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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88829	An examination of the political part of Mr. Hobbs his Leviathan. By George Lawson, rector of More in the county of Salop.	Lawson, George, d. 1678.	1657 (1657)	Wing L706; Thomason E1591_3; Thomason E1723_2; ESTC R208842	108,639	222

of England to be Soveraigns And 3. in that respect to have a power to raise subsidies and moneys without a Parliament And 4. hath made that a mortal disease of our State which is a great preservative of our liberty For the people alwaies bear the purse and could not by the King be charged with the least without their consent by their Representative in the Parliament This did poise and limit the regal power prevented much riot and excess in the Court made the Prince frugal and hindred unnecessary wars Yet good Princes and frugal never wanted money were freely supplyed by their subjects whilest they required in their need any thing extraordinary above the publick revenue in a right way by Parliament T. H. There is a sixth Doctrine plainly and directly against the essence of a Common-wealth and its this That the Soveraign power may be divided G. L. The supreme power as supreme must needs be one and cannot be divided For as in a Natural so in a Political body there must be of necessity one only principle of motion One supreme will directed by one judgement and strengthened with one force of the sword must command judge execute Otherwise there can be no order or regular motion Yet this supreme power may be in many persons several and distinct physically but morally reduced to one by the major part agreeing in one suffrage That some have made in this State of England three Co-ordinate powers with their several Negatives and their several distinct rights of Soveraign power can very hardly be made good by any reason as I have hinted before Yet even these do place all the jura Majestatis in all joyntly Our form of Government is confounded by the different opinions of common Lawyers Civilians and Divines who neither agree one with another nor amongst themselves It hath been declared That the fundamental Government of this Kingdom hath been by King Peers and Commons yet this can satisfie no man because there is no certainty what the power of Commons what the power of Lords what the power of the King is Neither whether the house of Commons and of Lords be two distinct houses or no Or if they be distinct wherein they are so distinct For some affirm that in Legislation they ought to be but one though in Judicial acts two Yet suppose the Lords to have the Judicial power alone nevertheless it s a question what kind of Lords and Barons these should be We read first of the forty Lords of the forty Counties in the Saxons time after the Conquest we find three sorts of Barons in the higher house and they were Feudarii rescriptitii diplomatici Barons by Tenure by Writ by Patent Lords by tenure were the first but afterwards when any were called by the Kings Writ to Parliament they by that very Writ were made Barons with suffrage amongst the former the last were Lords by Patent and such were most yea almost all our Lords in latter times And to multiply the last was a policy in the King For by that means after the supremacy of the Pope was cast off the Bishops did wholly depend upon the King and the Barons by Patent were his creatures and by them he might carry any cause or at least hinder and cross the desires of the Knights and Burgesses And herein few of our ordinary Histories can help us because they relate only unto us matter of fact how sometimes the King sometimes the Barons sometimes the Commons were ascendant and predominant as now they all seem to be descendant Yet for all this a free Parliament of just wise and good men might rectifie all this and unite the supreme power so miserably divided to the hazard of the State T. H. And as false Doctrine so also often-times the example of different Government in a neighbouring Nation disposeth men to alteration of the sorm already setled G. L. That this may be a cause of the alteration and also of ruine too it s very possible and there seems to be some colour of reason in it because we are bound to follow the best examples And this may be powerful and prevalent with such as are given to Change and affect novelty Yet with wise and understanding men its of no force because they know full well that some form of Government which may be good to one may prove not to be so to another and that changes in this kind are dangerous For to unsettle that which is firm for to introduce that whereof we have had no experience may prove the ruine of a State T. H. And as to rebellion in particular against Monarchy one of the most frequent causes is the reading of the Books of Policy and Histories of the antient Greeks and Romans c. G. L. This hath been formerly examined The reading of these Books cannot do so much hurt as this Leviathan may do For it is far more dangerous and destructive of good government then any of their Histories which can do no hurt to any but such as are ignorant and ill-disposed In those Books they may read of Kings and Emperours and of Monarchies as well as free-States and few are so void of understanding but that they well know they are bound to their own form of Government and are not to covet every model they read of Such men as he do shamefully debase free-States as forms unlawful in themselves and so flatter limited Princes as though they were absolute Lords and advance Monarchy so high as though it were the only form of Government so instituted by God and commanded that all Nations were bound unto it and whosoever doth not bow unto it is a rebel against God Yet he never instituted immediately any Common-wealth but one and that was a free-State and when a King was desired he was offended and under a regal government it came to ruine Whereas he thinks these Books do teach Regicide and killing of Kings he is much mistaken For subjects to murther their lawful Soveraigns is an horrid crime and so much the more to be detested if done under the name of Tyrannicide To plead for Tyrants really such as such is to be abhorred They pervert the very end of all government abuse their power act contrary to the Laws of God and men to the ruine of the State are enemies of mankind the chiefest agents for the Devil The Question is Whether a people having power in their hands may not restrain or remove or put to death such men as being guilty of many crimes which the Laws of God have made universally capital so that no man in the world can plead exemption Some think that they are to be left to God and subjects must seek deliverance by prayers and tears and the truth is Christians as Christians have no other remedy others conceive they may be restrained and that by force and their own subjects do it Others give this power only unto Magistrates or to such as share with

same continued till our times but the whole frame was strangely altered and corrupted Many different opinions there be concerning our Government yet three amongst the rest are most remarkable For one party conceives the King to be an absolute Monarch A second determines the King Peers and Commons to be three co-ordinate powers yet so that some of them grant three Negatives some only two A third party give distinct rights unto these three yet in this they are sub-divided and they would be thought to be more rational who give the Legislative Power unto the Lords and Commons in one house the judicial to the Lords in a distinct house and the executive to the King who was therefore trusted with the Sword both of War and Justice None of these can give satisfaction There is another opinion which puts the supreme power radically in the 40. Counties to be exercised by King Peers and Commons according to certain rules which by Antiquaries in Law together with some experienced States-men of this Nation might be found out but are not The seeds of this division were sown and begun to appear before the wars and the opinion that all these were only in one man that is the King absolutely some say was the greatest cause not only of the last but also of other civil wars in former times And it hath been observed that every man liked that opinion best which was most suitable to his own interest Our several opinions in Religion have heightened our differences and hindered our settlement yet Religion is but pretended for every party aims at civil power not spiritual liberty from sin And the power to settle us thus wofully distracted is only in God and if he ever will be thus merciful unto us the way whereby he will effect it will be by giving the greatest power to men of greatest wisdom and integrity not by reducing us unto one opinion that all the powers civil must be in one as the Author doth fondly fancy Let the form be the best in the world yet without good Governors its in vain The subject of this Chapter is Majestas jura Majestatis the Rights of Soveraigns which this Author hath handled very poorly and if he had but translated that which others had more excellently written in this particular before him he might have informed us better given his Reader more satisfaction reduced them to a better method and neither have made such to be Rights which are none nor omitted those which truly are such as he hath done CAP. III. Of the Second part and the Nineteenth of the Book of the several kinds of Common-wealths by institution and of succession to the Soveraign power BY these brief contents it appears that the subject of this Chapter is the distinction of Common-wealths and Succession to the Soveraign power in a successive State In the first part he 1. Reduceth all Common-wealths to three kinds 2. Prefers Monarchy one of them before all the rest T. H. Other kind of Common-wealths besides Monarchy Democracy Aristocracy there cannot be G. L. This is conceived to be a distribution into species or kinds yet if we throughly examine it it is not so for it s but an accidential difference For it ariseth only from the distinct and different manner of disposing the supreme power in one or more In more and these are the Optimates some of the best and most eminent or in the whole Community Yet in all these the essential acts of Government and so the Soveraign power are the same in all States and they are as you heard before three Legislation Judgement and Execution for its meerly accidental to the supremacy to be disposed more or more That it must be disposed in some certain such sect is necessary and that as the Supremacy is one and indivisible so the subject must be one also and that either physically or morally The great variety of Common-wealths which is such that there be not two in the whole world in all things like ariseth not from the constitution but from the different manner of administration Though the Author denies all mixt Common-wealths yet wise and learned men which without disparagement to him may be preferred before him as in other things so in State-learning have said 1. That there is no pure Monarchy or Aristocracy or Democracy in the world 2. That not only some but all Common-wealths are in some measure mixt or tempered and allayed because they conceive it s hardly possible for any pure State to continue long Against these I find in Mr. Hobbs a verbal contradiction but no real confutation And it seems to me he never truly understood them neither hath he taken notice of the difference between Real and Personal Majesty or of the Natural or Ethical subject of Supremacy or of the exercise thereof by certain persons and the constant inherency of it in a certain subject And we know by experience that such as are only trusted with the exercise of supreme power will by little and little usurp it and in the end plead prescription So Lewis the 11. of France when he violated the Laws of the constitution removed all such as by right ought to have poysed him could boast That he had freed the Crown from Wardship And this hath been the practise of the Princes of Europe which in the end will prove their ruine as for the present it hath been their trouble There is no Common-wealth but may be reduced to one of these three in some respect yet so that Monarchies differ as much from one another as they differ from the other two Some are regal some despotical and there be several sorts of these But I do not intend at this time to contest with him about this distribution but proceed T. H. Tyrannie and Oligarchy are but different names of Monarchy and Aristocracy not different forms of Governments G. L. These names do not signifie Chimera's but real Entities and if any have abused them to signifie forms of Government let them answer for themselves I know them not they cannot be men of any note Tyrannie doth not signifie Monarchy nor Oligarchy an Aristocracy They signifie the vicious corruption of States degenerate from their original constitution and that by the wickedness of a Prince and the faction of an assembly ingrossing power and enhansing it above that which is due and just and so become a multitude of Tyrants and this hath been the cause why many Nations when they had power in their own hands have altered the form of Government been jealous of trusting one man or assembly of men long with too much power and the wisest have set their wits on the rack to find out a way how to limit and restrain the power of their Governors T. H. Subordinate Representatives are dangerous And I know not how that so manifest a truth should of late be so little observed that in a Monarchy he that had the Soveraignty from a descent