means and motives used for to rectifie the heart CAP. XII Of the Second Part. The 28. of the Book Concerning punishments and rewards UPon obedience or disobedience follow punishments or rewards determined by Judgement which is an act of Jurisdiction and considers the Law as violated or observed And here comes in according to order that head of Jurisdiction in general which properly is handled in that part of Politicks we call Administration And he that undertakes to deliver a model of Politicks and yet saith nothing of Jurisdiction but proceeds from crimes to punishments per saltum as Mr. Hobbs doth is but a superficial Author But let us hear his definition of punishment T. H. A punishment is an evil inflicted by publick Authority on him that hath done or omitted that which is judged by the same Authority to be a transgression of the Law to the end that the will of men may be thereby better disposed to obedience This is a very imperfect definition and one reason is the Author presumes much of his own judgement and desires to be singular otherwise he had a better definition made to his hands For poena est vindicta noxae This punishment is defined in general as it includes the penalties inflicted by Parents Masters or any one who have power to command another it reacheth the punishments executed by God This definition may easily be made so as fully to express the nature of civil punishment intended by this Author But for the better understanding of the nature of punishment we must observe that it may be considered several waies 1. As determined by the Law which binds the party subject either to obedience or punishment 2. As deserved by the party offending who is bound to suffer it 3. As defined by the Judge upon judicial evidence 4. As inflicted by the Minister of execution 5. As suffered by the party condemned 6. As prevented by pardon out of meer mercy or upon satisfaction made and accepted The efficient cause of punishing in a Common-wealth is the Soveraign or higher powers bearing the Sword and as exercising Jurisdiction either by himself or his Minister For a Soveraign doth punish as a Judge The immediate and formal object of this act is noxa civilis some offence or crime judged upon evidence to be a violation of the Law The general nature of it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 retribution The thing retributed or rendred is something that brings hurt or dammage to the delinquent or party offending who as judged guilty is the proper subject of it It s called by some Malum triste proper malum turpe The proper act complete and consummate is the inflicting of this evil determined by just judgement so as that the party condemned doth actually suffer it All this for the general notion of it may be observed out of the words of the Apostle who saith That God will render to them who are contentious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath tribulation and angnish upon every soul of man that doth evil Rom. 2.8 9. For here we have the Judge the crime Judged to be so the retribution or rendering the thing or evil rendred so as to be suffered the cause why it s rendred In this respect the higher powers are said to bear the sword to take vengeance upon evil doers Rom. 13.4 The ends of punishment are many 1. Some of them are to correct and reform the party punished 2. Some for example that others may hear and fear 3. The end of all punishments in general is to vindicate the power of the Law-giver and the honour and force of the Law to manifest Justice and the hatred of evil and to procure the peace and tranquillity of the Community Before the Author proceed to draw conclusions from his definition he enquires how the Soveraign acquired the power of punishing And resolves T. H. That the-subject in the first constitution laid aside his power of self-preservation by hurting subduing killing others in his own defence and so did not give it but left it to the Soveraign G. L. This is ridiculous absurd and grounded upon his false principles For 1. The Soveraign is the Minister of God and is bound to do so that he keep within the compass of his Commission that which God would do and that is to punish evil And as all his power of making Laws Judgement Peace War c. are from God so is this amongst the rest By whom he is made a Soveraign from him he hath the sword to punish Men may give their consent that such a man or such a company of men shall raign but the power is from God not them 2. In the constitution of a supreme Governor no man can Covenant to be protected or defended in doing evil Neither can any or all higher powers in the world justly promise to protect any in evil neither hath any man any power unjustly to preserve himself For that of the Author that in the state of nature every man hath right to every thing is absolutely false and abominable When a man subjects himself unto a Soveraign ordained of God not only to protect the good but punish the evil he cannot except himself from his punitive power if he do ill because he subjects according to the just Laws of God and cannot lawfully do any other waies So that power to punish is given by God not left by man unto higher powers civil After his definition of punishment civil and determination of the means how power punitive is acquired he 1. Draws conclusions from his definition 2. Declares the several kinds of punishment 3. Distinguisheth of rewards 1. The conclusions are either good and pertinent or false or not deducible from the definition and I will not trouble the Reader with the examination of them 2. His distribution of punishments is tolerable And here we must observe 1. That punishment civil can only reach the body and this temporal life of man for the sword cannot reach the soul 2. That these punishments as well as spiritual are either of loss or pain poena damni aut sensus privative or positive The one takes away some good the other inflicts some positive evil 3. That some of them take away life either civil as banishment or natural as death and some take away such things as make life comfortable as goods such are sines and confiscations or liberty as imprisonment bondage or our honour as all ignominious penalties Those which infer some positive evil contrary to nature are all kind of tortures whatsoever which cause pain in the body of man and all these positive punishments tend to the destruction of life either in part or in whole 4. These penalties are so to be inflicted and in such a measure and proportion as that no man may gain by doing evil 5. That though an innocent person as such cannot be justly punished yet as he is made one person with
AN Examination OF THE POLITICAL Part OF Mr. Hobbs his Leviathan By GEORGE LAWSON Rector of More in the County of Salop. LONDON Printed by R. White for Francis Tyton at the three Daggers in Fleet-street near the Inner-Temple Gate Anno Dom. 165â— The Epistle to the Reader TO glorifie God and benefit man both by doing good and preventing and removing evil should be the endeavour as its the duty of every Christian in his station Upon this account I have undertaken this examination of Mr. Hobbs I was indeed at the first unwilling though sollicited to do any such thing because upon the perusal of the Political part of his Leviathan I conceived that as little good was to be expected so little harm was to be feared from that book Yet after that I understood by divers learned and judicious friends that it took much with many Gentlemen and young Students in the Universities and that it was judged to be a rational piece I wondered for though I knew the distemper of the times to be great yet by this I found it to be far greater then I formerly suspected And upon which considerations I judged it profitable and convenient if not necessary to say something to the Gentleman and did so After that I had communicated my pains unto divers worthy and learned friends they pressed me to give way to the Printing of them which I did if they after serious perusal should think them worthy the Press They were at length approved and again by some desired to be publick yet by others thought too brief and I was desired to enlarge But this I refused to do both because there is very little if any thing material at all in Mr. Hobbs his Civil and Ecclesiastical Politicks omitted by me and not examined and also because I had formerly finished a Treatise of Civil and Ecclesiastical Government which if it had not been lost by some negligence after an Imprimatur was put upon it might have prevented and made void the Political part of Mr. Hobbs and though one Copy be lost yet there is another which may become publick hereafter When thou hast read this brief Examination thou maist if judicious and impartial easily judge whether there be any thing in Mr. Hobbs which is either excellent or extraordinary and whether there be not many things inconsistent not only with the sacred Scriptures but with the rules of right reason But not willing to prepossess thee I commit thee to God and remain Thine in the Lord Geo. Lawson EA est plerumque Apologiarum aut Vanitas aut infelicitas ut injustam amoliendo Censuram justam ferant vel nova saltem Apologia indigeant Whereas in the close of the Preamble to this Examination the Learned Author upon the account of his Ministerial calling Apologizeth for his undertaking the Political part of Mr. Hobbs his Leviathan he is not so to be understood as if he looked upon Mr. Hobbs as such an Hercules as could not be conquered by less then two a States-man in the Civil and a Church-man in the Ecclesiastical Part of his beastly Politie but as intending at first the consideration of the Civil Part only This was thought meet by a Friend of the Authors to be thus communicated least the Reader should take occasion to grow more Censorious than he ought or Mr. Hobbs more Proud than he is T. G. CAP. I. Of Mr. Hobbs his Leviathan concerning the Causes Generation and Definition of a Common-wealth CIvil Government derives its Being from Heaven for it is a part of Gods Government over mankind wherein he useth the Ministery of Angels and the service of men yet so as that he reserves the supreme and universal Power in his own hands with a liberty to depose the Rulers of the World at will and pleasure and transfer the Government of one Nation to another to lay the foundation of great Empires and again to destroy them for their iniquity To think that the sole or principal Cause of the constitution of a civil State is the consent of men or that it aims at no further end then peace and plenty is too mean a conceit of so noble an effect And in this particular I cannot excuse Mr. Hobbs who in the modelling both of a Civil and also of an Ecclesiastical Common-wealth proceeds upon principles not only weak but also false and dangerous And for this reason I undertake him This should have been done by some wel-skill'd in Political Learning and not by me who do not profess it as being a Divine and one of the meanest amongst many And my intention is not to inform my Betters who know the vanity and absurdity of his discourse but to undeceive the ignorant Reader who may too easily be surprized The first Chapter of the second Part which is the seventeenth of his Book doth inform us First That the end of civil Government is Security Secondly This Security cannot be had in the State of Nature because it is the state of War nor by a weak nor a great multitude except united by one perpetual judgement Thirdly A great multitude are thus united when they conferr all their power and strength upon one man or assembly of men that may reduce all their wils by plurality of voices to one will c. From whence ariseth a Common-wealth Fourthly This Common-wealth is defined and distributed Against all this some thing may be excepted For First That the State of Nature is the State of War may be doubted if not denied For man is a rational creature and if he act according to his nature he must act rationally and though he may seek to preserve himself and that sometimes with the dammage or destruction of another yet he cannot may not do this unjustly but according to the Laws of Nature which are two The First Love thy neighbour as thy self The Second Do as thou wouldst be done unto These tend directly unto Peace not unto War which is unnatural and they may be kept by multitudes of men not united in a civil State or under a form of Government And this is evident from Divine and profane Histories For Families and Vicinities which had no dependance one upon another and also States both by confederation and without any such thing have lived peaceably together When the Apostle saith The Gentiles which have not the Law by nature do the things contaâ—â— in the Law he doth not mean by Nature a Common-wealth or form of Government civil It s true the Apostle brings in a Bill of Indictment against all mankind and accuseth them That their feet are swift to shed blood Destruction and calamity or misery are in their ways And the way of peace they have not known Rom. 3.15 16 17. Yet he understands this not of Nature but the corruption of Nature and the parties here accused are not men only as in the state of Nature but also under a Government and that not only Civil but Ecclesiastical
shall have benefit even treasure in heaven if he do so Yet even this is so a counsel as it is a command For man is bound to love God more then the world and to preferr treasure in heaven before treasure on earth and this by command As it directs its counsel as it binds its command For one and the same sentence may be a command a counsel and an exhortation too yet in different respects as it binds a command as it directs a counsel as it incites an exhortation And very many exhortations include or at least presuppose a command and a counsel But I wonder why Mr. Hobbs should make these words of Peter Repent and be baptized Acts 2.38 a counsel only Are not all men especially which hear the Gospel bound to repent For doth not Saint Paul say And the time of this ignorance God winked at but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent Acts 17.30 And what will he contradict the Apostle and in express terms It seems he is but a Divine of the lowest rank as he is a States-man far under the highest form His presumption and boldness is very great but his knowledge and judgement very defective For if he had known that repentance had been a principal duty according to a principal command of the Gospel and that it was nothing else but a return to obedience after disobedience he might have corrected himself and avoided this errour 3. In the next place he undertakes to determine the qualifications of a good Counsellor of State which hath been done to his hand and far better then here we read He is a good Counsellor who gives good connsel and that is only good counsel which is a greeable to the wisdom and justice of God and tends to the publick good of the State therefore his first Condition is either imperfect or else directly false For the interest and ends of the Counsellor in his counsel to be consistent with the ends and interest of a Prince counselled is no waies absolutely good but may be very wicked and unjust The rest of the conditions prescribed by him are good yet none of the chiefest mentioned by others omitted by him 4. In the last part of this Chapter he endeavours to prove but yet upon very weak and also very false grounds That its better to hear Counsellors apart then in an Assembly What he means by these words prefixed supposing the number of them equal I know not For he argues against counsel given in Assemblies without any mention of the equality of their number Yet this is evident by this rule of God that the privy Council and Parliaments of England are made useless unprofitable at least not so good as a secret pact Juncto This is very unworthy and base and hath been the ruine of many Princes The Constitution of England required a Parliament as the great Council of the Kingdom in arduis regni negotiis and a standing Privy-Counsel as it was called in other matters of lesser moment That both these may be ill constituted abused and turned into factions there is no doubt we have had too woful experience of this Yet all these inconveniences with others mentioned by the Author may be prevented and the Counsels rectified The way to our good and the welfare of England is not to take them away and destroy them but reduce them if possibly it may be done to their prime institution Otherwise we may fear a military Government or an absolute Monarch or a Tyrannie or an Anarchy A wise council of Lords standing and the great Council of the Parliament have been the best supports under God of the peace and happiness of this Nation In this I am brief because here is little that is material and it more properly belongs to that head of Ministers of State and Officers CAP. X. Of the Second Part. The 26. of the Book Of civii Laws THE principal heads and parts of this Chapter are 1. The definition of a Law civil with certain conclusions thence deduced 2. The interpretation of Laws 3. The distribution of Laws in general In the administration of a Common-wealth once constituted the first thing is Legislation the second is the Execution In the execution 1. Officers are made 2. Jurisdiction exercised according to those Laws Therefore the proper place of treating concerning Laws civil in general is in the first part of administration which requires first that Laws be made For God himself did avouch himself to be Israels Lord and King and they avouch themselves his subjects and people and this was the constitution of that State This being done in the next place he proceedeth to make Laws And this is the order of all such as will imitate God and proceed orderly to govern a State as appears Exodus 19. and the 20. Chapters and so forward This also was Jethroes counsel unto Moses and approved of God Thou shalt teach them Ordinances and Laws and shalt shew them the way wherein they must walk and the work that they must do Moreover thou shalt provide thee of all the people able men c. and place such over them This was making of Officers after he had given them Laws and let them Judge the people This is jurisdiction Exod. 18.20 21 22. From hence it appears how preposterously this man and others are that treat 1. Of Magistrates 2. Of Laws The difference between Laws Civil in general and the Civil Law of the Roman Empire is more easily known and learned from the Civilians who have clearly delivered it then from him For Politicks speaks of Civil or Political Laws made for the Government of State more generally and if it mention any Laws of particular States they are but examples to the general rules concerning Laws But let us pass by this and proceed to his definition which is as followeth T H. Civil Law is to every subject those rules which the Common-wealth hath commanded him by word writing or other sufficient sign of the will to make use of it for the distinction of right and wrong that is of what is contrary and what is not contrary to the rule G. L. In this definition the Genus is it s a rule the efficient cause is the Common-wealth the party bound is the subject the end is the distinction of wrong which is contrary and right which is not contrary to the rule But 1. The Genus is not a rule which is an act of the understanding whereas Law is not only an act of the understanding but the will which is facultas imperans Many may give rules by their wisdom which can make no Laws by their wills 2. The efficient cause is not the Common-wealth but pars imperans the Soveraign who is but one part of it 3. The end is not only to declare a distinction between right and wrong but to bind the subject to do that which is right and to forbear that which is wrong For lex est regula