to complete what was wanting And if at any time they alleg'd that this Bounty had bin thrown away on ungrateful Persons he would answer with a smile that he saw they were mercenary and that they plainly sold their Gifts since they expected so great a return as Gratitude 8. HIS natural inclinations to study kept him from seeking after any publick Imployments But in the year 1646 attending out of curiosity the Commissioners appointed by Parlament to bring King CHARLES the First from Newcastle nearer to London he was by som of 'em nam'd to wait on his Majesty as a Person known to him before and ingag'd to no Party or Faction The King approv'd the Proposal yet our Author would never presume to com into his presence except in public till he was particularly commanded by the King and that he with THOMAS HERBERT created a Baronet after the Restoration of the Monarchy were made Grooms of the Bedchamber at Holmby together with JAMES MAXWELL and PATRICK MAULE afterwards Earl of Penmoore in Scotland which two only remain'd of his old Servants in that Station 9. HE had the good luck to grow very acceptable to the King who much convers'd with him about Books and Foren Countrys In his Sisters Papers I find it exprest that at the King's command he translated into English Dr. SANDERSONS Book concerning the Obligation of Oaths but ANTHONY WOOD says it was the King's own doing and that he shew'd it at different times to HARRINGTON HERBERT Dr. JUXON Dr. HAMMOND and Dr. SHELDON for their approbation However that be 't is certain he serv'd his Master with untainted fidelity without doing any thing inconsistent with the Liberty of his Country and that he made use of his Interest with his Friends in Parlament to have Matters accommodated for the satisfaction of all Partys During the Treaty in the I le of Wight he frequently warn'd the Divines of his acquaintance to take heed how far they prest the King to insist upon any thing which however it concern'd their Dignity was no essential point of Religion and that such matters driven too far wou'd infallibly ruin all the indeavors us'd for a Peace which Prophecy was prov'd too true by the Event His Majesty lov'd his company says ANTHONY WOOD and finding him to be an ingenious Man chose rather to converse with him than with others of his Chamber They had often discourses concerning Government but when they happen'd to talk of a Commonwealth the King seem'd not to indure it Here I know not which most to commend the King for trusting a Man of Republican Principles or HARRINGTON for owning his Principles while he serv'd a King 10. AFTER the King was remov'd out of the I le of Wight to Hurstcastle in Hampshire HARRINGTON was forcibly turn'd out of service because he vindicated som of his Majesty's Arguments against the Parlament Commissioners at Newport and thought his Concessions not so unsatisfactory as did som others As they were taking the King to Windsor he beg'd admittance to the Boot of the Coach that he might bid his Master farewel which being granted and he preparing to kneel the King took him by the hand and pull'd him in to him He was for three or four days permitted to stay but because he would not take an Oath against assisting or concealing the King's Escape he was not only discharg'd from his Office but also for som time detain'd in custody till Major General IRETON obtain'd his Liberty He afterwards found means to see the King at St. James's and accompany'd him on the Scaffold where or a little before he receiv'd a Token of his Majesty's Affection 11. AFTER the King's Death he was observ'd to keep much in his Library and more retir'd than usually which was by his Friends a long time attributed to Melancholy or Discontent At length when they weary'd him with their importunitys to change this sort of Life he thought fit to shew 'em at the same time their mistake and a Copy of his Oceana which he was privatly writing all that while telling 'em withal that ever since he began to examin things seriously he had principally addicted himself to the study of Civil Government as being of the highest importance to the Peace and Felicity of mankind and that he succeded at least to his own satisfaction being now convinc'd that no Government is of so accidental or arbitrary an Institution as people are wont to imagin there being in Societys natural causes producing their necessary effects as well as in the Earth or the Air. Hence he frequently argu'd that the Troubles of his time were not to be wholly attributed to wilfulness or faction neither to the misgovernment of the Prince nor the stubborness of the People but to a change in the Balance of Property which ever since HENRY the Seventh's time was daily falling into the Scale of the Commons from that of the King and the Lords as in his Book he evidently demonstrats and explains Not that hereby he approv'd either the Breaches which the King had made on the Laws or excus'd the Severity which som of the Subjects exercis'd on the King but to shew that as long as the Causes of these Disorders remain'd so long would the like Effects unavoidably follow while on the one hand a King would be always indeavoring to govern according to the example of his Predecessors when the best part of the National Property was in their own hands and consequently the greatest command of Mony and Men as one of a thousand pounds a Year can entertain more Servants or influence more Tenants than another that has but one hundred out of which he cannot allow one Valet and on the other hand he said the People would be sure to struggle for preserving the Property wherof they were in possession never failing to obtain more Privileges and to inlarge the Basis of their Liberty as often as they met with any success which they generally did in quarrels of this kind His chief aim therfore was to find out a method of preventing such Distempers or to apply the best Remedys when they happen'd to break out But as long as the Balance remain'd in this unequal state he affirm'd that no King whatsoever could keep himself easy let him never so much indeavor to please his People and that tho a good King might manage Affairs tolerably well during his life yet this did not prove the Government to be good since under a less prudent Prince it would fall to pieces again while the Orders of a well constituted State make wicked men virtuous and fools to act wisely 12. THAT Empire follows the Balance of Property whether lodg'd in one in a few or in many hands he was the first that ever made out and is a noble Discovery wherof the Honor solely belongs to him as much as those of the Circulation of the Blood of Printing of Guns of the Compass or of Optic Glasses to their several
Footsteps of God by the Testimony of DAVID may be seen in the deep Waters much more by the consent of the whole Bible in Land or in the foundation of Empire unless we make the Footsteps of God to be one thing and his ways another which as to Government are these Grot. ad Numb 26. 53. GOD by the Ballot of Israel more fully describ'd in the next Book divided the Land som respect had to the Princes and Patriarchs for the rest to every one his inheritance according to the number of names which were drawn out of one Urn first and the Lots of Land the measure with the goodness of the same consider'd drawn afterwards out of the other Urn to those names Wherfore God ordaining the Cause and the Cause of necessity producing the Effect God in ordaining this Balance intended Popular Government But when the People admitting of no Nay would have a King God therupon commanding SAMUEL to shew them the manner of the King SAMUEL declar'd to the People concerning the manner or policy of the King saying He will take your Fields and your Vinyards and your Oliveyards even 1 Sam. 8. the best of them and give to his Servants which kind of proceding must needs create the Balance of a Nobility over and above this he will take the tenth of your Seed and of your Vinyards and of your Sheep by way of Tax for the maintenance of his Armys and thus your Daughters shall com to be his Cooks and Confectioners and your Sons to run before his Chariot There is not from the Balance to the Superstructures a more perfect description of a Monarchy by a Nobility For the third Branch the People of Egypt in time of the Famin which was very sore com to JOSEPH saying Buy us and our Land Gen. 47. 19 20. for Bread and we and our Land will be Servants to PHARAOH And JOSEPH bought all the Land of Egypt except that of the Priests for PHARAOH So the Land became PHARAOH'S who lest the remembrance of their former Property by lively marks and continual remembrancers should stir them up as the Vandals in Africa strip'd in Grot. ad Gen. 47. like manner of their Property and yet remaining in their antient Book I Dwellings were stir'd up by their Women to Sedition remov'd the People thus sold or drave them like Cattel even from one end of the borders of Egypt to the other end therof In which you have the Balance of a sole Landlord or absolute Prince with the miserable and yet necessary consequence of an inslav'd People Now the Balance of Governments throout the Scriptures being of these kinds and no other the Balance of Oceana is exactly calculated to the most approv'd way and the clearest Footsteps of God in the whole History of the Bible and wheras the Jubile was a Law instituted for preservation of the popular Balance from alteration so is the Agrarian in Oceana BUT says the Prevaricator Hocus Pocus or in the name of Wonder how can this Agrarian be the Foundation of that Government which had subsisted more than forty five years without it For they were so long after the giving of this Law for the division of the Land before they had the Land to divide WHICH is as if one should say upon that other Law of the like date Judges and Officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates Hocus Pocus or in the name of Wonder how should the Children of Israel make them Judges and Officers in their gates before they had any gates to make them in fine sport to be play'd by an Attorny for the Clergy with Scripture where it is plain enough that the Laws of a Commonwealth were given by MOSES to an Army to be put in execution when that Army should becom a Commonwealth as happen'd under JOSHUA BUT no saying will serve his turn If this Agrarian were meant as fundamental to the Government the Provision he will have it was weak and not proper for attaining the end propos'd there being nothing in the nature of the Agrarian to hinder but that the whole Country might for the space of near fifty years that is the time between the two Jubiles have com into the hands of one man and so have destroy'd Balance Agrarian Government and all THIS they that boast of their Mathematics might have taken the pains before they had bin so confident to have demonstrated possible as how or by what means one Lot could com in fifty years to be multiply'd six hundred thousand times and that without Usury which bar the Israelits being no Merchants was thought sufficient to be given or thus to call the Prudence of God by their impracticable Phansys in question is abominable I WOULD have Divines as this Prevaricator persuades and it should seem has persuaded som of them to overthrow the Commonwealth of Israel for otherwise I will give them my word they shall never be able to touch that of Oceana which except in the hereditary Succession and Dignity of the Princes of the Tribes and the Patriarchs and that the Senat was for life differs not from the former for as to the divers working up of the Superstructures in divers Commonwealths according to the diversity of occasions it coms to no accountable difference and much I conceive of this carving or finishing in Israel which had it bin extant would perhaps have shewn a greater resemblance is lost For the Senats as to their numbers that of the 300 in Oceana considering the bulk of the People excedes not that of the Seventy in Israel the Succession and Dignity of the Princes of the Tribes and of the Patriarchs was ordain'd for the preservation of the Pedigrees which CHRIST being born are not any more to be of like consequence and that the Senators were for life deriv'd from a Chap. 11 former Custom of such a number of Elders exercising som Authority in Egypt tho not that of the Senat till it was instituted by God from the descent of the Patriarchs into that Land who being at their descent seventy Persons and governing their Familys by the right of Paternity as the People increas'd and they came to dy had their Successors appointed in such a manner that the number of Seventy in remembrance of those Patriarchs was diligently preserv'd And forasmuch as the Patriarchs governing their own Familys which at first were all in their own right were consequently for life this also pleas'd in the substitution of others These things rightly consider'd I have not vary'd from the Authority of Israel in a tittle there being neither any such necessary use of Pedigrees nor uninterrupted Succession of Elders for life in Oceana and unless a man will say That we ought to have the like Effect where there is not the like Cause which were absurd the Authority of a Commonwealth holds no otherwise than from the Cause to the Effect OCEANA I say cannot be wounded but by piercing the
in vain to put it to somthing requir'd the name of one that was in their ey particularly on whom when he mov'd not they commanded a Lictor to lay hands but the People thronging about the Party summon'd forbad the Lictor who durst not touch him at which the Hotspurs that came with the Consuls inrag'd by the affront descended from the Throne to the aid of the Lictor from whom in so doing they turn'd the indignation of the People upon themselves with such heat that the Consuls interposing thought fit by remitting the Assembly to appease the Tumult in which nevertheless there had bin nothing but noise Nor was there less in the Senat being suddenly rally'd upon this occasion where they that receiv'd the repulse with others whose heads were as addle as their own fell upon the business as if it had bin to be determin'd by clamor till the Consuls upbraiding the Senat that it differ'd not from the Marketplace reduc'd the House to Orders And the Fathers having bin consulted accordingly there were three Opinions PUBLIUS VIRGINIUS conceiv'd that the consideration to be had upon the matter in question or aid of the indebted and imprison'd People was not to be further extended than to such as had ingag'd upon the promise made by SERVILIUS TITUS LARGIUS that it was no time to think it enough if mens Merits were acknowleg'd while the whole People sunk under the weight of their debts could not emerge without som common aid which to restrain by putting som into a better condition than others would rather more inflame the Discord than extinguish it APPIUS CLAUDIUS still upon the old hant would have it that the People were rather wanton than fierce It was not oppression that necessitated but their power that invited them to these freaks the Empire of the Consuls since the appeal to the People wherby a Plebeian might ask his fellows if he were a Thief being but a mere scarecrow Go to says he let us create the Dictator from whom there is no appeal and then let me see more of this work or him that shall forbid my Lictor The advice of APPIUS was abhor'd by many and to introduce a general recision of Debts with LARGIUS was to violat all Faith That of VIRGINIUS as the most moderat would have past best but that there were privat Interests that constant bane of the Public which withstood it So they concluded with APPIUS who also had bin Dictator if the Consuls and som of the graver sort had not thought it altogether unseasonable at a time when the Volsci and the Sabins were up again to venture so far upon alienation of the People for which cause VALERIUS being descended from the PUBLICOLAS the most popular Family as also in his own person of a mild nature was rather trusted with so rigid a Magistracy Whence it happen'd that the People tho they knew well enough against whom the Dictator was created sear'd nothing from VALERIUS but upon a new promise made to the same effect with that of SERVILIUS hop'd better another time and throwing away all disputes gave their names roundly went out and to be brief came home again as victorious as in the former Action the Dictator entring the City in Triumph Nevertheless when he came to press the Senat to make good his promise and do somthing for the ease of the People they regarded him no more as to that point than they had don SERVILIUS Wherupon the Dictator in disdain to be made a stale abdicated his Magistracy and went home Here then was a victorious Army without a Captain and a Senat pulling it by the beard in their Gowns What is it if you have read the Story for there is not such another that must follow Can any man imagin that such only should be the opportunity upon which this People could run away Alas poor men the Aequi and the Volsci and the Sabins were nothing but the Fathers invincible There they sat som three hundred of them arm'd all in Robes and thundering with their Tongues without any hopes in the earth to reduce them to any tolerable conditions Wherfore not thinking it convenient to abide long so near them away marches the Army and incamps in the fields This Retreat of the People is call'd the Secession of Mount Aventin where they lodg'd very sad at their condition but not letting fall so much as a word of murmur against the Fathers The Senat by this time were great Lords had the whole City to themselves but certain Neighbors were upon the way that might com to speak with them not asking leave of the Porter Wherfore their minds became troubl'd and an Orator was posted to the People to make as good conditions with them as he could but whatever the terms were to bring them home and with all speed And here it was covenanted between the Senat and the People that these should have Magistrats of their own Election call'd the Tribuns upon which they return'd TO hold you no longer the Senat having don this upon necessity made frequent attempts to retract it again while the Tribuns on the other side to defend what they had got instituted their Tributa Comitia or Council of the People where they came in time and as Disputes increas'd to make Laws without the Authority of the Senat call'd Plebiscita Now to conclude in the point at which I drive such were the steps wherby the People of Rome came to assume Debate nor is it in Art or Nature to debar a People of the like effect where there is the like cause For ROMULUS having in the Election of his Senat squar'd out a Nobility for the support of a Throne by making that of the Patricians a distinct and hereditary Order planted the Commonwealth upon two contrary Interests or Roots which shooting forth in time produc'd two Commonwealths the one Oligarchical in the Nobility the other a mere Anarchy of the People and ever after caus'd a perpetual feud and enmity between the Senat and the People even to death THERE is not a more noble or useful question in the Politics than that which is started by MACCHIAVEL Whether means were to be found wherby the Enmity that was between the Senat and the People of Rome could have bin remov'd Nor is there any other in which we or the present occasion are so much concern'd particularly in relation to this Author forasmuch as his Judgment in the determination of the question standing our Commonwealth falls And he that will erect a Commonwealth against the Judgment of MACCHIAVEL is oblig'd to give such reasons for his enterprize as must not go a begging Wherfore to repeat the Politician very honestly but somwhat more briefly he disputes thus Macch. Disc B. 1. c. 6. THERE be two sorts of Commonwealths the one for preservation as Lacedemon and Venice the other for increase as Rome LACEDEMON being govern'd by a King and a small Senat could maintain it self a long
which they force the Vnderstanding by strain'd Arguments to maintain others by the habit of som Opinion so bewitch the Will into confederacy that they can never quit it even after confutation To remedy this Disorder since I had resolv'd with my self to say somthing to this Point which tho it be but as a small Wyre yet the great weight of civil Felicity lys upon it I knew no better Method than to take the Scales from the Eys of the Vnderstanding and to shew the Will how better to bring about her great Design of Good And in the prosecution of this I would not skirmish with every Argument which had bin a thing of immense slavery and not for every Ey but I chose rather to strike at the Foundations that the Vnderstanding might lose its Passion and more freely consider upon what Quicksands they lay And in this I needed not to be positive because I undertake a Task in which most Men are commonly succesful that is to support Error rather than to assert Truth Hence I consider Kingship simply not troubling my self to maintain any other Form or to consider Oaths Ends Changes of Government or the particular Necessity or Reasons of Safety they being distinct Considerations and Subjects by themselves Now if this negative Method satisfys not I see no such great cause to be discourag'd for I confess I do not perceive it so easy a thing to discover an Error and I had rather tell a Man he was out of the way than by endeavoring to bring him to the end of his Journy lead him further about And it is my opinion that as Scepticism is not only useless but dangerous if in setting our Thoughts in a posture of Defence it makes us absolutely wavering and incredulous yet had I rather be sceptical in my Opinion than maintain it upon grounds taken upon trust and not demonstrated THE Second Part is merely an instance accommodated to the Arguments of the First wherin I would not be understood to be a Writer of an Epitome for I have other Imployments for my Time and Thoughts and those nobler too but to set down a true Series by way of Example and therfore I was only to note Accesses to Government and Recesses from it with the Effects proceding from the Persons of Governors And here as I needed not much trouble Chronology So lest it might be a bare Sceleton I sprinkled som Observations that came to hand and seem to afford either Pleasure or Vse Thus much lest I might be misunderstood I thought necessary to premise THE Grounds and Reasons OF MONARCHY The First Part. I HAVE often thought it strange that among all the Governments either past or present the Monarchical should so far in Extent and Number excede the Popular as that they could never yet com into comparison I could never be persuaded but it was more happy for a People to be dispos'd of by a number of Persons jointly interested and concern'd with them than to be number'd as the Herd and Inheritance of One to whose Lust and Madness they were absolutely subject and that any Man of the weakest Reason and Generosity would not rather chuse for his Habitation that spot of Earth where there was access to Honor by Virtue and no Worth could be excluded rather than that where all Advancement should procede from the Will of one scarcely hearing and seeing with his own Organs and gain'd for the most part by means leud and indirect and all this in the end to amount to nothing else but a more splendid and dangerous Slavery To clear this Point I consider'd how inscrutably Providence carrys on the turns and stops of all Governments so that most People rather found than made them The Constitutions of Men som not fit to be Masters of their Liberty som not capable som not willing the Ambition of settled Tyrants who breaking their own Bonds have brought in violent Alterations and lastly civil Discord have either corrupted or alter'd better Settlements BUT these are Observations rather than Arguments and relate to Fact rather than Reason That which astonish'd me most was to see those of this Heroic and Learn'd Age not only not rising to Thoughts of Liberty but instead therof foolishly turning their Wits and Swords against themselves in the maintenance of them whose Slaves they are and indeed they can be no weak Causes that produce so long and settled a Distemper tho som of those I mention'd if not most of them are the true ones HE knows nothing that knows not how superstitiously the generality of Mankind is given to retain Traditions and how pertinacious they are in the maintenance of their first Prejudices insomuch that a Discovery or more refin'd Reason is as insupportable to them as the Sun is to an Ey newly brought out of Darkness Hence Opiniativeness which is commonly proportion'd to their Ignorance and a generous Obstinacy somtimes to Death and Ruin So that it is no wonder if we see many Gentlemen whose Education inabled them only to use their Senses and first Thoughts so dazled with the Splendor of a Court prepossest with the Affection of a Prince or bewitch'd with som subdolous Favor that they chuse rather any hazard than the Inchantment should be dissolv'd Others perhaps a degree above these yet in respect of som Title stuck upon the Family which has bin as fortunat a Mystery of Kingcraft as any other or in reverence to som glorious former Atchievements minding not that in all these cases the People are the only effective means and the King only imaginary think they should degenerat from Bravery in bringing on a Change Others are witheld by Sloth and Timorousness either not daring or unwilling to be happy som looking no further than their privat Welfare indifferent at the multiplication of public Evils others and these the worst of all out of a pravity of Nature sacrificing to their Ambition and Avarice and in order to that following any Power concurring with any Machinations and supporting their Authors while Princes themselves train'd up in these Arts or receiving them by Tradition know how to wind all their humors to their own advantage now foisting the Divinity of their Titles into Pulpits now amuzing the People with Pomp and Shews now diverting their hot Spirits to som unprofitable foren War making way to their accurs'd ends of Revenge or Glory with the effusion of that Blood which should be as dear to them as their own now stroking the People with som feeble but inforc'd Law for which notwithstanding they will be paid and 't is observ'd the most notorious Tyrants have taken this Course now giving up the eminentest of their Ministers which they part with as indifferently as their Robes to the Rage and Fury of the People so that they are commanded and condemn'd by the same Mouth and the credulous and ignorant believing their King divinely set over them sit still and by degrees grow into Quiet and Admiration
to support Monarchy tell us not what kind of Monarchy it is and consequently gain nothing tho we should grant them the former Proposition to be true For what dos it avail to tell me of the Title of such a Prince if I know not by what Title he holds Grant it were visible to me that such a Man was mark'd out by Providence to be my Governor yet if I cannot tell what kind of one whether absolute mixt limited merely executive or only first in order how shall I know to direct my Obedience If he be absolute my very natural Liberty is taken away from me nor do I know any Power that can make any Man such the Scripture setting just limitations and restrictions to all Governors If mixt and limited I must know the due Temper and Bounds wherby he is to rule or else he may usurp or be mistaken and I opprest or injur'd If executive the Power fundamentally resides not in him but in the Great Council or them intrusted by the People then I adore only a Shadow Now if any Prince of Europe can really clear up these Mists and shew the Lines of his Government drawn fairly and his Charter whole and authentic like that of Venice and antient Rome for my part I 'll be the first man shall swear him Allegiance and the last that will preserve him But you will find that they will tell you in general about their Office and in particular of their Claims of Succession Inheritance and Ancestors when look but three or four Storys back and you will meet either som savage unnatural Intrusion disguiz'd under som forc'd Title or chimerical Cognation or else som violent Alteration or possibly som slender Oath or Articles hardly extorted and imperfectly kept Now if any man that will but run over these Rules and apply them to any History whatever as we shall exemplify in that of Scotland upon which for the present we have pitcht and not find most Titles ambiguous the Effects of former Monarchys for where in a Catalogue of forty Kings can you almost shew me three good ones but things merely strugling to maintain their Titles and domestic Interest ruinous to the People who for the most part consider them no otherwise than as to be rescu'd from violent Confusion not as they conduce to the positive Happiness of a civil Life I say all this will be found to be true or my small Conversation in Books is extremely false And truly I conceive reading of History to be the most rational Course to set any Judgment right because it instructs by Experience and Effects and grounds the Judgment upon material Observations and not blindly gropes after Notions and Causes which to him are tantum non inscrutabile but of that anon A main Mistake under this Topic has bin an erroneous comparison and application of matters Civil and Military for Men observing that mixt Councils about Generals Plurality Equality of Commands frequent and sudden Military Alterations have brought no small Distempers and Dangers to several Governments and Attemts therefore they presently conclude that in Civils also it is the safest to continue a Command in one hand for preventing the like Disturbances But here they are deceiv'd Civil matters consist in long debate great consideration patient expectation and wary foresight which is better to be found in a number of choice experienc'd Heads than in one single Person whose Youth and Vigor of Spirit inables him rather to Action and fills him with that noble Temerity which is commonly so happy in Martial Affairs that must be guided always to improve Occasions which are seldom to be found again and which mistaken are to be scarcely amended Besides the Ferocity of daring Spirits can hardly be bounded while they stand level so that it is no wonder if they extinguish all Emulations by putting the Power into the hands of one wheras in a Commonwealth it is quite otherwise and Factions unless they be cruelly exorbitant do but poise and balance one another and many times like the discord of Humors upon the natural Body produce real good to the Government That slender conceit that Nature seems to dress out a Principality in most of her works as among Birds Bees c. is so slender indeed in regard they are no more Chiefs than what they fancy them but all their Prepotency is merely predatory or oppressive and even Lions Elephants Crocodils and Eagles have small inconsiderable Enemys of which they stand in fear and by which they are often ruin'd that the Recital confutes it and if it were so yet unless they could prove their One Man to be as much more excellent than the rest as those are and that solely too I see not what it would advantage them since to comply with the design of Nature in one they would contradict it in others where she is equally concern'd But these Philological and Rhetorical Arguments have not a little hinder'd the severer Disquisition of Reason and prepossess'd the more easy Minds with Notions so much harder to be laid aside as they are more erroneous and pleasing THESE are the fundamental Errors that have misled the Judgment now those which have misguided the Conscience have principally proceded from the Misinterpretation of Scripture and therfore seeming Sacred have bin less examin'd and doubted as carrying the most Authority Thus in the Old Testament there being such frequent mention of Kings which notwithstanding were given in Wrath they superstitiously maintain not only the necessity but even the impunity of Kings wheras we know not their Powers and Limitations and it is inconsequent to argue That because Judea was so govern'd we should follow the same Pattern when we find neither Precept Consequence nor Necessity convincing us And it is madness to think that while the Divine Spirit so freely and vehemently exclaims against the Iniquity of men God would authorize it so far as to leave it in them only unpunishable who should exterminat and reform it As for the Antiquity from ADAM it is true before his Fall his Dominion was large and wide but it was over the Beasts that after his Fall learn'd to rebel against him and oeconomically not despotically over his Wife and Children But what is this to Civil Government In the New Testament for I the briesâ—ier pass over this head in regard it has bin so copiously treated upon by those under whose Profession it falls and that it dos not immediatly conduce to my Design the principal Argument has bin the meekness of CHRIST and his compliance with Civil Powers which certainly if he had bin dispos'd to have resisted say they he could as easily have overthrown as with a few Cords whip the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple But he that was the Wisdom of his Father rather thought fit to build up his Kingdom which is not earthly nor known of earthly men in Meekness and Obedience to Civil Powers which are perpetually chang'd and hurry'd
Armys receive withal a pleasing Idea of all they have don besides and imagin their great prosperity not to have proceded from the emulation of particular Men but from the virtue of their popular form of Government not considering the frequent Seditions and Civil Wars produc'd by the imperfection of their Polity Where first the blame he lays to the Heathen Authors is in his sense laid to the Scripture and wheras he holds them to be young Men or Men of no antidot that are of like opinions it should seem that MACCHIAVEL the sole retriever of this antient Prudence is to his solid Reason a beardless Boy that has newly read LIVY And how solid his Reason is may appear where he grants the great prosperity of antient Commonwealths which is to give up the Controversy For such an effect must have som adequat cause which to evade he insinuats that it was nothing else but the emulation of particular Men as if so great an Emulation could have bin generated without as great Virtue so great Virtue without the best Education the best Education without the best Laws or the best Laws any otherwise than by the excellency of their Polity BUT if som of these Commonwealths as being less perfect in their Polity than others have bin more seditious it is not more an argument of the infirmity of this or that Commonwealth in particular than of the excellency of that kind of Polity in general which if they that have not altogether reach'd have nevertheless had greater prosperity what would befal them that should reach IN answer to which Question let me invite LEVIATHAN who of all other Governments gives the advantage to Monarchy for perfection to a better disquisition of it by these three assertions THE first That the perfection of Government lys upon such a libration in the frame of it that no Man or Men in or under it can have the interest or having the interest can have the power to disturb it with Sedition THE second That Monarchy reaching the perfection of the kind reaches not to the perfection of Government but must have som dangerous flaw in it THE third That popular Government reaching the perfection of the kind reaches the perfection of Government and has no flaw in it THE first assertion requires no proof FOR the proof of the second Monarchy as has bin shewn is of two kinds the one by Arms the other by a Nobility and there is no other kind in Art or Nature for if there have bin antiently som Governments call'd Kingdoms as one of the Goths in Spain and another of the Vandals in Africa where the King rul'd without a Nobility and by a Council of the People only it is expresly said by the Authors that mention them that the Kings were but the Captains and that the People not only gave them Laws but depos'd them as often as they pleas'd Nor is it possible in reason that it should be otherwise in like cases wherfore these were either no Monarchys or had greater slaws in them than any other BUT for a Monarchy by Arms as that of the Ture which of all models that ever were coms up to the perfection of the kind it is not in the wit or power of Man to cure it of this dangerous flaw That the Janizarys have frequent interest and perpetual power to raise Sedition and to tear the Magistrat even the Prince himself in pieces Therfore the Monarchy of Turky is no perfect Government AND for a Monarchy by a Nobility as of late in Oceana which of all other models before the declination of it came up to the perfection in that kind it was not in the power or wit of Man to cure it of that dangerous flaw That the Nobility had frequent interest and perpetual power by their Retainers and Tenants to raise Sedition and wheras the Janizarys occasion this kind of Calamity no sooner than they make an end of it to levy a lasting War to the vast effusion of Blood and that even upon occasions wherin the People but for their dependence upon their Lords had no concernment as in the feud of the Red and White The like has bin frequent in Spain France Germany and other Monarchys of this kind wherfore Monarchy by a Nobility is no perfect Government FOR the proof of the third assertion LEVIATHAN yields it to me that there is no other Commonwealth but Monarchical or Popular wherfore if no Monarchy be a perfect Government then either there is no perfect Government or it must be popular for which kind of Constitution I have somthing more to say than LEVIATHAN has said or ever will be able to say for Monarchy As FIRST That it is the Government that was never conquer'd by any Monarch from the beginning of the World to this day for if the Commonwealths of Greece came under the yoke of the Kings of Macedon they were first broken by themselves SECONDLY That it is the Government that has frequently led mighty Monarchs in Triumph THIRDLY That it is the Government which if it has bin seditious it has not bin so from any imperfection in the kind but in the particular Constitution which wherever the like has happen'd must have bin inequal FOURTHLY That it is the Government which if it has bin any thing near equal was never seditious or let him shew me what Sedition has happen'd in Lacedemon or Venice FIFTHLY That it is the Government which attaining to perfect equality has such a libration in the frame of it that no Man living can shew which way any Man or Men in or under it can contract any such Interest or Power as should be able to disturb the Commonwealth with Sedition wherfore an equal Commonwealth is that only which is without flaw and contains in it the full perfection of Government But to return BY what has bin shewn in Reason and Experience it may appear that tho Commonwealths in general be Governments of the Senat proposing the People resolving and the Magistracy executing yet som are not so good at these Orders as others thro som impediment or defect in the frame balance or capacity of them according to which they are of divers kinds Division of Common-wealths THE first division of them is into such as are single as Israel Athens Lacedemon c. and such as are by Leagues as those of the Acheans Etolians Lyceans Switz and Hollanders THE second being MACCHIAVEL'S is into such as are for preservation as Lacedemon and Venice and such as are for increase as Athens and Rome in which I can see no more than that the former takes in no more Citizens than are necessary for defence and the latter so many as are capable of increase THE third division unseen hitherto is into equal and inequal and this is the main point especially as to domestic Peace and Tranquillity for to make a Commonwealth inequal is to divide it into partys which sets them at perpetual variance
time in that condition because the Inhabitants being few having put a bar upon the reception of Strangers and living in a strict observation of the Laws of LYCURGUS which now had got reputation and taken away all occasion of Tumults might well continue long in Tranquillity For the Laws of LYCURGUS introduc'd a greater equality in Estates and a less equality in Honors whence there was equal Poverty and the Plebeians were less ambitious because the Honors or Magistracys of the City could extend but to a few and were not communicable to the People nor did the Nobility by using them ill ever give them a desire to participat of the same This proceded from the Kings whose Principality being plac'd in the midst of the Nobility had no greater means wherby to support it self than to shield the People from all injury whence the People not fearing Empire desir'd it not And so all occasion of enmity between the Senat and the People was taken away But this Vnion happen'd especially from two causes the one that the Inhabitants of Lacedemon being few could be govern'd by the Few the other that not receiving Strangers into their Common-wealth they did not corrupt it nor increase it to such a proportion as was not governable by the Few VENICE has not divided with her Plebeians but all are call'd Gentlemen that be in administration of the Government for which Government she is more beholden to Chance than the Wisdom of her Lawmakers For many retiring to those Ilands where that City is now built from the inundations of Barbarians that overwhelm'd the Roman Empire when they were increas'd to such a number that to live together it was necessary to have Laws they ordain'd a form of Government wherby assembling often in Council upon Affairs and sinding their number sufficient for Government they put a bar upon all such as repairing afterwards to their City should becom Inhabitants excluding them from participation of Power Whence they that were included in the Administration had right and they that were excluded coming afterwards and being receiv'd upon no other conditions to be Inhabitants had no wrong and therfore had no occasion nor being never trusted with Arms any means to be tumultuous Wherfore this Commonwealth might very well maintain it self in Tranquillity THESE things consider'd it is plain that the Roman Legislators to have introduc'd a quiet State must have don one of these two things either shut out Strangers as the Lacedemonians or as the Venetians not allow'd the People to bear Arms. But they did neither By which means the People having power and increase were in perpetual tumult Nor is this to be help'd in a Commonwealth for increase seeing if Rome had cut off the occasion of her Tumults she must have cut off the means of her Increase and by consequence of her Greatness Wherfore let a Legislator consider with himself whether he would make his Commonwealth for preservation in which case she may be free from Tumults or for increase in which case she must be infested with them IF he makes her for preservation she may be quiet at home but will be in danger abroad First Because her Foundation must be narrow and therfore weak as that of Lacedemon which lay but upon 30000 Citizens or that of Venice which lys but upon 3000. Secondly Such a Commonwealth must either be in Peace or in War If she be in Peace the Few are soonest effeminated and corrupted and so obnoxious also to Faction If in War succeding ill she is an easy prey or succeding well ruin'd by increase a weight which her Foundation is not able to bear For Lacedemon when she had made her self Mistriss upon the matter of all Greece thro a slight accident the Rebellion of Thebes occasion'd by the Conspiracy of PELOPIDAS discovering this infirmity of her nature the rest of her conquer'd Citys immediatly fell off and in the turn as it were of a hand reduc'd her from the fullest tide to the lowest eb of her fortune And Venice having possest her self of a great part of Italy by her purse was no sooner in defence of it put to the trial of Arms than she lost all in one Battel WHENCE I conclude That in the Ordination of a Common-wealth a Legislator is to think upon that which is most honorable and laying aside Models for Preservation to follow the example of Rome conniving at and temporizing with the enmity between the Senat and the People as a necessary step to the Roman Greatness For that any Man should find out a balance that may take in the Conveniences and shut out the Inconveniences of both I do not think it possible These are the words of the Author tho the method be somwhat alter'd to the end that I may the better turn them to my purpose MY LORDS I do not know how you hearken to this sound but to hear the greatest Artist in the modern World giving sentence against our Commonwealth is that with which I am nearly concern'd Wherfore with all honor due to the Prince of Politicians let us examin his reasoning with the same liberty which he has asserted to be the right of a free People But we shall never com up to him except by taking the business a little lower we descend from effects to their causes The causes of Commotion in a Common-wealth are either external or internal External are from Enemys from Subjects or from Servants To dispute then what was the cause why Rome was infested by the Italian or by the Servil Wars why the Slaves took the Capitol why the Lacedemonians were near as frequently troubl'd with their Helots as Rome with all those or why Venice whose Situation is not trusted to the faith of Men has as good or better quarter with them whom she governs than Rome had with the Latins were to dispute upon external causes The question put by MACCHIAVEL is of internal causes Whether the enmity that was beeween the Senat and the People of Rome might have bin remov'd And to determin otherwise of this question than he dos I must lay down other Principles than he has don To which end I affirm that a Commonwealth internally consider'd is either equal or inequal A Commonwealth that is internally equal has no internal cause of Commotion and therfore can have no such effect but from without A Commonwealth internally inequal has no internal cause of quiet and therfore can have no such effect but by diversion TO prove my Assertions I shall at this time make use of no other than his examples Lacedemon was externally unquiet because she was externally inequal that is as to her Helots and she was internally at rest because she was equal in her self both in root and branch In the root by her Agrarian and in branch by the Senat inasmuch as no Man was therto qualify'd but by election of the People Which Institution of LYCURGUS is mention'd Arist Polit. B. 2. by ARISTOTLE
where he says that rendering his Citizens emulous not careless of that honor he assign'd to the People the election of the Senat. Wherfore MACCHIAVEL in this as in other places having his ey upon the division of Patrician and Plebeian Familys as they were in Rome has quite mistaken the Orders of this Commonwealth where there was no such thing Nor did the quiet of it derive from the Power of the Kings who were so far from shielding the People from the injury of the Nobility of which there was none in his sense but the Senat that one declar'd end of the Senat at the institution was to shield the People from the Kings who from that time had but single Votes Neither did it procede from the straitness of the Senat or their keeping the People excluded from the Government that they were quiet but from the equality of their administration seeing the Senat as is plain by the Oracle their fundamental Law had no more than the Debate and the Result of the Commonwealth belong'd to the People Wherfore when THEOPOMPUS and POLYDORUS Kings of Lacedemon would have kept the People excluded from the Government by adding to the antient Law this Clause If the determination of the People be faulty it shall be lawful for the Senat to resume the Debate the People immediatly became unquiet and resum'd that Debate which ended not till they had set up their Ephors and caus'd that Magistracy to be confirm'd by their Kings * * Nam cum primus instituisset Theopompus ut Ephori Lacedamone crearentur ita futuri regiae potestati oppositi quemadmodum Romae Tribuni plâ—bis consulati imperio sunt objecti atque illi uâ—or dixiâ—â—et id egiâ—â—â— illum ut filâ—is minorem potestatem reâ—inqueret Relinquam inquit sed diuturniorem Optimè quidem Ea enim demum tuta est potentia quae viribus suis modum imponit Theopompus igitur legitimis regnum vinculis constringendo quo longius à licentia â—etraxit hot propius ad benevolentiam civium admovit Val. Max. l. 4. c. 1. de externis §. 8. For when THEOPOMPUS first ordain'd that the Ephori or Overseers should be created at Lacedemon to be such a restraint upon the Kings there as the Tribuns were upon the Consuls at Rome the Queen complain'd to him that by this means he transmitted the Royal Authority greatly diminish'd to his Children I leave indeed less answer'd he but more lasting And this was excellently said for that Power only is safe which is limited from doing hurt THEOPOMPUS therfore by confining the Kingly Power within the bounds of the Laws did recommend it by so much to the Peoples Affection as he remov'd it from being Arbitrary By which it may appear that a Commonwealth for preservation if she coms to be inequal is as obnoxious to enmity between the Senat and the People as a Commonwealth for increase and that the Tranquillity of Lacedemon was deriv'd from no other cause than her Equality FOR Venice to say that she is quiet because she disarms her Subjects is to forget that Lacedemon disarm'd her Helots and yet could not in their regard be quiet wherfore if Venice be defended from external causes of Commotion it is first thro her Situation in which respect her Subjects have no hope and this indeed may be attributed to her fortune and secondly thro her exquisit Justice whence they have no will to invade her But this can be attributed to no other cause than her Prudence which will appear to be greater as we look nearer for the effects that procede from Fortune if there be any such thing are like their cause inconstant But there never happen'd to any other Commonwealth so undisturb'd and constant a Tranquillity and Peace in her self as is that of Venice wherfore this must procede from som other cause than Chance And we see that as she is of all others the most quiet so the most equal Commonwealth Her Body consists of one Order and her Senat is like a rolling stone as was said which never did nor while it continues upon that rotation never shall gather the moss of a divided or ambitious interest much less such a one as that which grasp'd the People of Rome in the talons of their own Eagles And if MACCHIAVEL averse from doing this Commonwealth right had consider'd her Orders as his Reader shall easily perceive he never did he must have bin so far from attributing the Prudence of them to Chance that he would have touch'd up his admirable work to that perfection which as to the civil part has no pattern in the universal World but this of Venice ROME secure by her potent and victorious Arms from all external causes of Commotion was either beholden for her Peace at home to her Enemys abroad or could never rest her head My LORDS you that are Parents of a Commonwealth and so freer Agents than such as are merely natural have a care For as no man shall shew me a Commonwealth born streight that ever became crooked so no man shall shew me a Commonwealth born crooked that ever became streight Rome was crooked in her birth or rather prodigious Her twins the Patricians and Plebeian Orders came as was shewn by the foregoing story into the World one body but two heads or rather two bellys for notwithstanding the Fable out of AESOP wherby MENENIUS AGRIPPA the Orator that was sent from the Senat to the People at Mount Aventin shew'd the Fathers to be the Belly and the People to be the Arms and the Legs which except that how slothful soever it might seem they were nourish'd not these only but the whole Body must languish and be dissolv'd it is plain that the Fathers were a distinct Belly such a one as took the meat indeed out of the Peoples mouths but abhorring the Agrarian return'd it not in the due and necessary nutrition of a Commonwealth Nevertheless as the People that live about the Cataracts of Nilus are said not to hear the noise so neither the Roman Writers nor MACCHIAVEL the most conversant with them seem among so many of the Tribunitian storms to hear their natural voice for tho they could not miss of it so far as to attribute them to the strife of the People for participation in Magistracy or in which MACCHIAVEL more particularly joins to that about the Agrarian this was to take the business short and the remedy for the disease A PEOPLE when they are reduc'd to misery and despair becom their own Politicians as certain Beasts when they are sick becom their own Physicians and are carry'd by a natural instinct to the desire of such Herbs as are their proper cure but the People for the greater part are beneath the Beasts in the use of them Thus the People of Rome tho in their misery they had recourse by instinct as it were to the two main Fundamentals of a Commonwealth participation of Magistracy and the Agrarian
are not at leisure for the Essays Wherfore the Essays being Degrees wherby the Youth commence for all Magistracys Offices and Honors in the Parish Hundred Tribe Senat or Prerogative Divines Physicians and Lawyers not taking these Degrees exclude themselves from all such Magistracys Offices and Honors And wheras Lawyers are likest to exact further reason for this they growing up from the most gainful Art at the Bar to those Magistracys upon the Bench which are continually appropriated to themselves and not only indow'd with the greatest Revenues but also held for life have the least reason of all the rest to pretend to any other especially in an equal Commonwealth where Accumulation of Magistracy or to take a Person ingag'd by his Profit to the Laws as they stand into the Power which is Legislative and which should keep them to what they were or ought to be were a Soloecism in Prudence It is true that the Legislative Power may have need of Advice and Assistance from the executive Magistracy or such as are learn'd inthe Law for which cause the Judges are as they have heretofore bin Assistants in the Senat. Nor however it came about can I see any reason why a Judg being but an Assistant or Lawyer should be Member of a Legislative Council I DENY not that the Roman Patricians were all Patrons and that the whole People were Clients som to one Family and som to another by which means they had their Causes pleaded and defended in som appearance gratis for the Patron took no Mony tho if he had a Daughter to marry his Clients were to pay her Portion nor was this so great a grievance But if the Client accus'd his Patron gave testimony or suffrage against him it was a crime of such a nature that any man might lawfully kill him as a Traitor and this as being the nerve of the Optimacy was a great cause of ruin to that Commonwealth for when the People would carry any thing that pleas'd not the Senat the Senators were ill provided if they could not intercede that is oppose it by their Clients with whom to vote otherwise than they pleas'd was the highest Crime The observation of this Bond till the time of the GRACCHI that is to say till it was too late or to no purpose to break it was the cause why in all the former heats and disputes that had happen'd between the Senat and the People it never came to blows which indeed was good but withal the People could have no remedy which was certainly evil Wherfore I am of opinion that a Senator ought not to be a Patron or Advocat nor a Patron or Advocat to be a Senator for if his Practice be gratis it debauches the People and if it be mercenary it debauches himself take it which way you will when he should be making of Laws he will be knitting of Nets LYCURGUS as I said by being a Traveller became a Legislator but in times when Prudence was another thing Nevertheless we may not shut out this part of Education in a Commonwealth which will be her self a Traveller for those of this make have seen the World especially because this is certain tho it be not regarded in our times when things being left to take their chance it sares with us accordingly that no man can be a Politician except he be first a Historian or a Traveller for except he can see what must be or what may be he is no Politician Now if he has no knowlege in Story he cannot tell what has bin and if he has not bin a Traveller he cannot tell what is but he that neither knows what has bin nor what is can never tell what must be or what may be Furthermore the Embassys in ordinary by our Constitution are the Prizes of young men more especially such as have bin Travellers Wherfore they of these inclinations having leave of the Censors ow them an account of their time and cannot chuse but lay it out with som ambition of Praise or Reward where both are open whence you will have eys abroad and better choice of public Ministers your Gallants shewing themselves not more to the Ladys at their Balls than to your Commonwealth at her Academy when they return from their Travels BUT this Commonwealth being constituted more especially of two Elements Arms and Councils drives by a natural instinct at Courage and Wisdom which he who has attain'd is arriv'd at the perfection of human nature It is true that these Virtues must have som natural root in him that is capable of them but this amounts not to so great a matter as som will have it For if Poverty makes an industrious a moderat Estate a temperat and a lavish Fortune a wanton man and this be the common course of things Wisdom then is rather of necessity than inclination And that an Army which was meditating upon flight has bin brought by despair to win the Field is so far from being strange that like causes will evermore produce like effects Wherfore this Commonwealth drives her Citizens like Wedges there is no way with them but thorow nor end but that Glory wherof Man is capable by Art or Nature That the Genius of the Roman Familys commonly preserv'd it self throout the line as to instance in som the MANLII were still severe the PUBLICOLAE lovers and the APPII haters of the People is attributed by MACCHIAVEL to their Education nor if Interest might add to the reason why the Genius of a Patrician was one thing and that of a Plebeian another is the like so apparent between different Nations who according to their different Educations have yet as different manners It was antiently noted and long confirm'd by the actions of the French that in their first assaults their Courage was more than that of Men and for the rest less than that of Women which nevertheless thro the amendment of their Disciplin we see now to be otherwise I will not say but that som Man or Nation upon an equal improvement of this kind may be lighter than som other but certainly Education is the scale without which no Man or Nation can truly know his or her own weight or value By our Historys we can tell when one Marpesian would have beaten ten Oceaners and when one Oceaner would have beaten ten Marpesians MARC ANTHONY was a Roman but how did that appear in the imbraces of CLEOPATRA You must have som other Education for your Youth or they like that passage will shew better in Romance than true Story THE Custom of the Commonwealth of Rome in distributing her Magistracys without respect of age happen'd to do well in CORVINUS and SCIPIO for which cause MACCHIAVEL with whom that which was don by Rome and that which is well don is for the most part all one commends this course Yet how much it did worse at other times is obvious in POMPEY and CAESAR Examples by which BOCCALINI illustrats the
Prudence of Venice in her contrary practice affirming it to have bin no small step to the ruin of the Roman Liberty that these having tasted in their Youth of the supreme Honors had no greater in their age to hope for but by perpetuating of the same in themselves which came to Blood and ended in Tyranny The opinion of VERULAMIUS is safe The Errors says he of young men are the ruin of business wheras the Errors of old men amount but to this that more might have bin don or sooner But tho their Wisdom be little their Courage is great Wherfore to com to the main Education of this Commonwealth the Militia of Oceana is the Province of Youth THE distribution of this Province by the Essays is so fully describ'd in the Order that I need repeat nothing the Order it self being but a Repetition or Copy of that Original which in antient Prudence is of all others the fairest as that from whence the Commonwealth of Rome more particularly deriv'd the Empire of the World And there is much more reason in this age when Governments are universally broken or swerv'd from their Foundations and the People groan under Tyranny that the same causes which could not be withstood when the World was full of popular Governments should have the like effects THE Causes in the Commonwealth of Rome wherof the Empire of the World was not any miraculous but a natural nay I may safely say a necessary consequence are contain'd in that part of her Disciplin which was domestic and in that which she exercis'd in her Provinces or Conquest Of the latter I shall have better occaon to speak when we com to our provincial Orbs the former divided the whole People by Tribes amounting as LIVY and CICERO shew at their full growth to thirty five and every Tribe by the Cense or Valuation of Estates into five Classes for the sixth being Proletary that is the Nursery or such as thro their poverty contributed nothing to the Commonwealth but Children was not reckon'd nor us'd in Arms. And this is the first point of the Militia in which modern Prudence is quite contrary to the antient for wheras we excusing the rich and arming the poor becom the Vassals of our Servants they by excusing the poor and arming such as were rich enough to be Freemen became Lords of the Earth The Nobility and Gentry of this Nation who understand so little what it is to be Lords of the Earth that they have not bin able to keep their own Lands will think it a strange Education for their Children to be common Soldiers and oblig'd to all the Dutys of Arms nevertheless it is not for 4 s. a week but to be capable of being the best man in the Field or in the City the latter part of which consideration makes the common Soldier herein a better man than the General of any monarchical Army And wheras it may be thought that this would drink deep of noble Blood I dare boldly say take the Roman Nobility in the heat of their fiercest Wars and you shall not find such a shambles of them as has bin made of ours by mere Luxury and Slothfulness which killing the Body kill the Soul also Animasque in vulnere ponunt Wheras common Right is that which who stands in the vindication of has us'd that Sword of Justice for which he receives the Purple of Magistracy The Glory of a man on Earth can go no higher and if he falls he rises again and coms sooner to that reward which is so much higher as Heaven is above the Earth To return to the Roman Example Every Classis was divided as has bin more than once shewn into Centurys and every Century was equally divided into Youth and Elders the Youth for foren Service and the Elders for the guard of the Territory In the first Classis were about eighteen Centurys of Horse being those which by the Institution of SERVIUS were first call'd to the Suffrage in the * * Centuriatis Centurial Assemblys But the Delectus or Levy of an Army which is the present business proceded according to POLYBIUS in this manner Upon a War decreed the Consuls elected four and twenty military Tribuns or Colonels wherof ten being such as had merited their tenth Stipend were younger Officers The Tribuns being chosen the Consuls appointed a day to the Tribes when those in them of military age were to appear at the Capitol the day being com and the Youth assembl'd accordingly the Consuls ascended their Tribunal and the younger Tribuns were straight divided into four parts after this manner four were assign'd to the first Legion a Legion at the most consisted of 6000 Foot and 300 Horse three to the second four to the third and three to the fourth The younger Tribuns being thus distributed two of the elder were assign'd to the first Legion three to the second two to the third and three to the fourth And the Officers of each Legion thus assign'd having drawn the Tribes by Lots and being seated according to their divisions at a convenient distance from each other the Tribe of the first Lot was call'd wherupon they that were of it knowing the business and being prepar'd presently bolted out four of their number in the choice wherof such care was taken that they offer'd none that was not a Citizen no Citizen that was not of the Youth no Youth that was not of som one of the five Classes nor any one of the five Classes that was not expert at his Exercises Moreover they us'd such diligence in matching them for Age and Stature that the Officers of the Legions except they happen'd to be acquainted with the Youth so bolted were forc'd to put themselves upon fortune while they of the first Legion chose one they of the second the next they of the third another and the fourth Youth fell to the last Legion and thus was the Election the Legions and the Tribes varying according to their Lots carry'd on till the Foot were complete The like course with little alteration was taken by the Horse Officers till the Horse also were complete This was call'd giving of Names which the Judg. 20. 9. Children of Israel did also by Lot and if any man refus'd to give his Name he was sold for a Slave or his Estate confiscated to the Commonwealth When * * Marcus Curius Consul cum subitum delectum edicere coactus esset juniorum nemo respondisset conjectis in sortem omnibus Polliae quae proxima exierat primum nomen urna extractum citari jussit neque eo respondente bona adolescentis hastâ subjecit Val. MARCUS CURIUS the Consul was forc'd to make a sudden Levy and none of the Youth would give in their Names all the Tribes being put to the Lot he commanded the first Name drawn out of the Vrn of the Pollian Tribe which happen'd to com first to be call'd but the Youth not answering he
The like for the Auxiliarys And this upon pain in the case of failure of what the People of Oceana to whom the Cognizance of Peculat or Crimes of this nature is properly appertaining shall adjudg or decree UPON these three last Orders the ARCHON seem'd to be haranguing at the head of his Army in this manner My Dear Lords and Excellent Patriots A GOVERNMENT of this make is a Commonwealth for Increase Of those for Preservation the Inconveniences and Frailtys have bin shewn Their Roots are narrow such as do not run have no Fibers their tops weak and dangerously expos'd to the weather except you chance to find one as Venice planted in a Flowerpot and if she grows she grows top-heavy and falls too But you cannot plant an Oak in a Flowerpot she must have Earth for her Root and Heaven for her Branches Imperium Oceano famam quae terminet astris ROME was said to be broken by her own weight but poetically For that weight by which she was pretended to be ruin'd was supported in her Emperors by a far slighter Foundation And in the common experience of good Architecture there is nothing more known than that Buildings stand the firmer and the longer for their own weight nor ever swerve thro any other internal cause than that their Materials are corruptible But the People never dy nor as a political Body are subject to any other Corruption than that which derives from their Government Unless a Man will deny the Chain of Causes in which he denys God he must also acknowlege the Chain of Effects wherfore there can be no effect in Nature that is not from the first Cause and those successive Links of the Chain without which it could not have bin Now except a Man can shew the contrary in a Commonwealth if there be no cause of Corruption in the first make of it there can never be any such Effect Let no Man's Superstitition impose Profaneness upon this Assertion for as Man is sinful but yet the Universe is perfect so may the Citizen be sinful and yet the Commonwealth be perfect And as Man seeing the World is perfect can never commit any such Sin as shall render it imperfect or bring it to a natural dissolution so the Citizen where the Common-wealth is perfect can never commit any such Crime as will render it imperfect or bring it to a natural dissolution To com to experience Venice notwithstanding we have found fom flaws in it is the only Commonwealth in the Make wherof no man can find a cause of dissolution for which reason we behold her tho she consists of men that are not without sin at this day with one thousand Years upon her back yet for any internal cause as young as fresh and free from decay or any appearance of it as she was born but whatever in nature is not sensible of decay by the course of a thousand Years is capable of the whole Age of Nature by which Calculation for any check that I am able to give my self a Commonwealth rightly order'd may for any internal causes be as immortal or longliv'd as the World But if this be true those Commonwealths that are naturally fall'n must have deriv'd their Ruin from the rise of them Israel and Athens dy'd not natural but violent deaths in which manner the World it self is to dy We are speaking of those causes of Dissolution which are natural to Government and they are but two either Contradiction or Inequality If a Commonwealth be a Contradiction she must needs destroy her self and if she be inequal it tends to strife and strife to ruin By the former of these fell Lacedemon by the latter Rome Lacedemon being made altogether for War and yet not for Increase her natural Progress became her natural Dissolution and the building of her own victorious Hand too heavy for her Foundation so that she fell indeed by her own weight But Rome perish'd thro her native Inequality which how it inveterated the Bosoms of the Senat and the People each against other and even to death has bin shewn at large LOOK well to it my Lords for if there be a contradiction or inequality in your Commonwealth it must fall but if it has neither of these it has no principle of Mortality Do not think me impudent if this be truth I should commit a gross indiscretion in concealing it Sure I am that MACCHIAVEL is for the immortality of a Commonwealth upon far weaker Principles If a Commonwealth Disc â— 3. c. 22. b. 3. c. 29. says he were so happy as to be provided often with men that when she is swerving from her Principles should reduce her to her Institution she would be immortal But a Commonwealth as we have demonstrated swerves not from her Principles but by and thro her Institution if she brought no Biass into the world with her her course for any internal Cause must be streight forward as we see is that of Venice She cannot turn to the right hand nor to the left but by som rub which is not an internal but external cause against such she can be no way fortify'd but thro her Situation as is Venice or thro her Militia as was Rome by which Examples a Commonwealth may be secure of those also Think me not vain for I cannot conceal my opinion here a Commonwealth that is rightly instituted can never swerve nor one that is not rightly instituted be secur'd from swerving by reduction to her first Principles Wherfore it is no less apparent in this place that MACCHIAVEL understood not a Commonwealth as to the whole piece than where having told you That a Tribun or any other Citizen Disc B. 1. c. 18. of Rome might propose a Law to the People and debate it with them he adds this Order was good while the People were good but when the People became evil it became most pernicious As if this Order thro which with the like the People most apparently became evil could ever have bin good or that the People or the Common-wealth could ever have becom good by being reduc'd to such Principles as were the Original of their Evil. The Disease of Rome was as has bin shewn from the native inequality of her Balance and no otherwise from the Empire of the World than as this falling into one Scale that of the Nobility an evil in such a Fabric inevitable kick'd out the People Wherfore a Man that could have made her to throw away the Empire of the World might in that have reduc'd her to her Principles and yet have bin so far from rendring her immortal that going no further he should never have cur'd her But your Commonwealth is founded upon an equal Agrarian and if the Earth be given to the Sons of men this Balance is the Balance of Justice such a one as in having due regard to the different Industry of different men yet faithfully judges the Poor And Prov. 29. 14.
any Power to disturb the Commonwealth in case they had such an Interest nor can have any such Interest in case they had such Power For example in Oceana putting the case that the Few were as powerful as it is possible they should be that is that the whole Land was fallen into five thousand hands The five thousand excluding the People could get no more Riches by it because they have the whole Land already no more Liberty by it because they were in perfect Liberty before nor any more Power by it because thro the equality of the Balance or of their Estates they can be no more by themselves than an equal Commonwealth and that they were already with the People but would be much less the Power or Commonwealth in which there be five thousand Equals being not greater but much less than the Power or Commonwealth wherin the whole People are equal because the Power or Effect of a greater People is proportionably greater than the Power or Effect of a lesser People and the Few by this means would get no more than to be the lesser People So the People being no bar to the Riches Liberty nor Power of the five thousand and the desire of Liberty Riches and Power being the only causes of Sedition there could arise no Sedition in this Commonwealth by reason of the Nobility who have no such Interest if they had the Power nor have any such Power if they had the Interest the People being equally possest of the Government of the Arms and far superior in number In sum an equal Commonwealth consists but of one hereditary Order the People which is by election divided into two Orders as the Senat and the Congregation in Lacedemon or the Senat and the Great Council in Venice for the Gentlemen of Venice as has bin often said are the People of Venice the rest are Subjects And an inequal Commonwealth consists of two Hereditary Orders as the Patricians and Plebeians in Rome wherof the former only had a hereditary Capacity of the Senat whence it coms to pass that the Senat and the People in an equal Commonwealth having but one and the same Interest never were nor can be at variance and that the Senat and the People in an inequal Commonwealth having two distinct Interests Book I never did nor can agree So an equal Commonwealth cannot be seditious and an inequal Commonwealth can be no other than seditious IF a man be resolv'd as the Considerer is to huddle these things together there is no making any thing of this kind of Policy of which therfore it will be a folly to talk For example Lacedemon is either to be consider'd as not taking in the Helots and then in her self she was an equal Commonwealth void of any Sedition or cause of it how much soever she were troubl'd with the Helots So the Objection made by him of her Troubles by the Helots is impertinently urg'd to shew that she was a seditious Commonwealth Or if he will needs have it that she took in the Helots it is undeniable that she took them in inequally and so was inequal whence the Troubles by the Helots must needs be impertinently urg'd against an equal Commonwealth AGAIN when I allege Venice from PIERO GRADENIGO that is for the space of about four hundred years from the present date at which time the Reformation yet in force began as an Example of an equal Commonwealth for him to instance in the times before when tho the Commonwealth according to the intention was as equal as now yet being not bound by sufficient Orders to give her self Security of her native Liberty her Dukes on the one side did what they pleas'd and the inrag'd People on the other side banish'd condemn'd to death or murder'd them who sees not the Imposture Indeed he blushes at it himself Wherfore my Assertion being not yet knock'd on the head he promises to kill it better first by the example of Lacedemon leaving out the Helots and next by that of Venice since the time of PIERO GRADENIGO Consid p. 60. Pausan Lacon FOR the first you must know that once upon a time there was a quarrel between CLEOMENES and DEMARATUS Kings of Lacedemon about Succession which was determin'd by the Ephori that is by a Court of Justice and not by the Sword the like happen'd Plut. Alcib in LEOTYCHIDES the known Bastard of ALCIBIADES or so confest to be by his Mother to divers of her Maids Now this is a Maxim in the Politics Where the differences of Kings can go no further than a Court of Justice there the Government is seditious Most ridiculous Is there a stronger Argument that such a Government is not seditious No matter give him room Much more fatal was the contest between CLEONYMUS and his Brother AREUS the Son of ACROTATUS by whose War ZARAX was ruin'd and PYRRHUS came into the game who besieg'd the Capital City the Reign of AGIS and CLEOMENES was so full of turbulency as would put a man out of breath to relate Fair and softly was not all this after LYSANDER and the Spoils of Athens had broken the Agrarian and so ruin'd Lacedemon I affirm there can be no Sedition in an equal Commonwealth and he to oppose me shews that there was Sedition in an inequal one whether dos this affirm his Assertion or mine BUT for better luck in Venice This City by Mr. HARRINGTON'S own confession is possest of several Advantages Yes I say that the Commonwealth of Venice thus seated is like a man in a Citadel who therby may be the safer from his Enemys but ne're a whit the safer from diseases What conclusion would you expect he should infer from hence Why among these therfore there is good cause to reckon her Immunity from Seditions Dos not our Logician repeat faithfully and Chap. 8 dispute honestly Again Sir she is like a Ship ready to be boarded by Pirats has the Turc on this Frontier the Pope on that the King of Spain on another As if this were an Argument every Government must not be void of Sedition seeing there is none except they be Ilands whose Frontiers are not bounded by the Territorys of other Princes Well but since the last Reglement in English Reformation in the time of GRADENIGO you have had three Seditions in Venice that of MARINO BOCCONI that of BAIAMONTE TIEPOLO and that of MARINO FALERIO BODIN has bin long since beaten for this like Stockfish and yet our Author will be serving it up for a Courtly dish BOCCONI would have kill'd the Duke but was hang'd before he could do it FELTON kill'd a Duke that had greater power here than the other in Venice and was hang'd afterwards therfore England was a seditious Government for this must either be undeniable for FELTON'S sake or why must the other be so for BOCCONI'S Again FALERIO and his Complices would have destroy'd the Great Council but were hang'd before they could do
it VAUX and his Accomplices would have blown up the Parlament but were hang'd before they could do it therfore England was in this relation a seditious Government else why was Venice There passes not a month but there dy Rogues at Tyburn is the Government therfore seditious or is this one regard in which it is not Where all that so invade the Government are by virtue of the same brought to that end there the Commonwealth or the Orders of it are not the cause but the cure of Sedition and so these are undeniable Arguments that Venice is not seditious where since the Reformation there has not bin a cut finger upon this score save only thro the conspiracy of BAIAMONTE which indeed came to blows Nor for this yet can Venice be call'd a seditious Common-wealth You find no man accusing Rome of Sedition in that she had a MANLIUS or a MELIUS that dangerously affected Monarchy because to these her Orders by which they suffer'd Death as soon apply'd the Remedy But Rome was a seditious Commonwealth because the perpetual feud that was between the Senat and the People sprung out of her Orders and was that to which there was no Remedy to apply England was not a seditious Government because it had a VAUX or a FELTON but because the Power antiently of the Nobility and late of the People was such by the Orders of the same as might at any time occasion Civil War Put the case a Slave or som desperat fellow has kill'd the Great Turc the Government for that cannot be said to be seditious but in this that thro the very nature of the Policy the Janizarys at any time may do as much it is undeniably seditious BAIAMONTE'S Conspiracy he will not say was of this nature It was not a Disease in the Bones of the Commonwealth but a thing that no sooner appear'd or broke out tho it be true there happen'd a little scratching first than it fell off like a Scab such an accident may besal the best Constitution and Venice never had the like but once if he could say as much of a Monarchy he gains no advantage yet let him say it and prove it I give him all I omit many Falshoods and Absurditys in the proceding of the Prevaricator as where he intimats the Power of the Dukes to have bin that wherby Venice gain'd I know not what and yet to have Book I bin that also by which FALERIO had like to have spoil'd all each of which the Duke of Venice having no power at all is known to be false Why should I stay to put you in mind that having affirm'd Venice to derive her Immunity from intestin Discord no otherwise than a Ship that is ready to be boarded by Pirats he instances in such examples to the contrary as took occasion by the hair of a soren scalp while in those of BOCCONI and TIEPOLO the Common-wealth by her Wars with the Genoeses and Ferrara was put to her plunges and in that of FALERIO reduc'd to the last extremity I shall only note that if such sudden flashes as these may com under the name of Sedition he has don a fine Office for Monarchy seeing no Senat is so much expos'd to like blows as any Prince WELL but for all this it is confest that there may be such a thing as a seditious Commonwealth in that the feud between the Senat and Consid p. 48. the People of Rome could not be cur'd What Security says he will you give us that the like may not happen in Oceana or that the whole body of the People being intrusted with giving a Vote and keeping a Sword may not by way of Counsil or Arms fall to such work as levelling the five thousand or bringing the Agrarian from two to one thousand pounds a year or less as they fancy TO which I answer by a like question What security will he give me that the People of any Commonwealth shall not cast themselves into the Sea A Prince may be mad and do so but the People are naturally incapable of such madness If men will boast of their knowlege in Principles and yet talk of nothing but effects why may not a Man fly as well as a Bird but if Causes may be regarded let him once shew how the Will seeing it is not free nor mov'd without som Object should move the People in such a manner or for what they having all the Liberty and all the Power that can be had should it strive Well that is soon don for the Land may com into the hands of five thousand and so the Booty may be great and the resistance small Good The Romans being the wisest of all People went no further towards the Remedy of their Grievances than to strive for the introduction of an Agrarian in which they fainted too even to the destruction of that Government Except these none have bin so wise and if there be any such thing familiar with the nature of the People why appear'd it but once and then vanish'd without effect why did not the People for example under the late Monarchy when the Dominion or Freehold of the Nation by greater shares was in a smaller Party and they had not only Riches but Liberty and Power too to whet them on ever so much as think of levelling three hundred Men for the Nobility and Clergy in whom was the Balance were no more If it be reply'd that the People were not arm'd by whom did the Barons make War with the Kings If they were not trusted with a Vote what was that of the House of Commons Let Dominion or Freehold stand upon what balance you will inequal or equal from the beginning of the world you shall never find a People turning Levellers And as Reason is Experience in the root so Experience is Reason in the branch which might therfore be sufficient in the case Nevertheless for clearer satisfaction in a point of such concernment I shall indeavor to dig up and discover the root of this branch or the reason of this Experience That which in Beasts is Instinct wherof they can give no account is in it self that Wisdom of God wherby he provides for them so it is with the People they are not Chap. 8 Levellers nor know they why and yet it is because to be Levellers were to destroy themselves For seeing I must repeat to repeat briefly There is no Territory of any Extent and Populousness where the Revenue of Industry is not twice as much as the dry Rent This has bin demonstrated in Oceana The Revenue of Industry is in those that work that is the People Wherfore the Revenue of the People where their Industry is not obstructed is twofold to that of the Nobility holding the whole Territory in Freehold But where their Industry is obstructed their Revenue is nothing Civil War being of all other the greatest Obstruction of Industry the People in taking Arms must venture all they
new Monarchy which is neither By observation of these three flourishes the present Chapter may be brought into some method The first blow of his Hammer or that wherby he intends the flaw or hole in Monarchy by Arms shall henceforth be mended and tite is this That the Guards of the King's Consid p. 46. Person be not increas'd beyond the necessity of security that they be not suffer'd to stagnat at Court but be by a perpetual circulation drawn out upon service and chiefly that they consist not of one intire Body united under the same Head but be divided into distinct Partys and Commands as we may see in France where tho in proportion to the extent of their Dominions the King's Guards be more numerous than those of the Roman or Turkish Emperors yet being divided into distinct Bodys of French Scots and Switzers under their several Colonels and Captains they have never bin the Authors of any the least Sedition And in Turky of late years they begin to learn the Art of poisoning the Janizarys by the Spahys and so have frequently evaded the danger of their Mutinys Which fine work at first view gos upon this false ground that the Foundation of Monarchy by Arms is laid upon the Princes Guards or the Court Militia wheras Monarchy by Arms consists in no other Balance than the Princes being sole Landlord which where imperfect as it was in that of the Roman Emperors the Empire is the most troubl'd and where perfect as in Turky the Empire is less seditious For that which he says of France it relates to Monarchy by a Nobility and therfore is not to be confounded according to his method with this but refer'd to the next branch Book I AS to Monarchy by Arms tho it be true that the balance of Dominion in any of the three kinds may be said to be natural in regard of the effect yet seeing God has given the Earth to the Sons of Men that of a sole Landlord as Turky is not so natural in the cause or foundation as the Timars and therfore requires the application of som kind of force as the Janizarys who are not the root of the Government that being planted in the Earth of the Timars or military Farms and Colonys for that the Janizarys are not the Foundation of this Empire which was founded long before is plain in that this Order was not introduc'd till AMURATH the Second but the Dragon that lys at that root and without which the Fruit would fall into the mouths of the Timariots by way of Property as when the Knights Fees granted first for life became afterwards hereditary in Oceana which would cause such a fall from Monarchy that it would becom as we have seen the rise of popular Power the Lots in case this should happen of the Timariots little differing from those divided by JOSHUA to the Children of Israel wherfore when this happens in the Turkish Monarchy it is at an end And that this dos not happen tho there be divers other concurrent Policys I would have any man shew me how it could be but for the Janizarys Otherwise it is plain that the Janizarys being a flying Army on wing at all games and upon all occasions are not so much the Guard of the Prince as of the Empire which ruin'd the Prey falls to the Timariots as those that are in possession except these be ruin'd too who being all Horse and far greater in number than the Janizarys that are Foot would in case the aw of the Prince and the Policy of the Government which holds them divided were broken be invincible by the Janizarys who nevertheless by these aids can easily contain them Whence the Sedition of the Janizarys like that of a Nobility may be dangerous to the Prince but never threatens the Throne wheras the Sedition of the Timariots like that of a People would be more against the Throne than the Prince These things consider'd and in them the Nature Constitution or Disease of Monarchy by Arms we may consult the more rationally with the Considerer upon the Applications or Remedys by him offer'd which are three FIRST That the Guards of the King's Person be not increas'd beyond the necessity of Security But of what Security that of his Person or of his Empire or of both for speaking of a Monarchy by Arms in this latter sense only it is true and if so then this singular Maxim of State Frustra fit per plura quod fieri potest per pauciora might have bin spar'd Cela s'en va sans le dire comme les heures de nostre curè SECONDLY That they be not suffer'd to stagnat at Court but be by a perpetual circulation drawn out upon service for if there be not perpetual service it should seem men might be apt to think that Government was instituted for Peace as well as War I add no more than is imply'd in his words which as to this of Turky have chanc'd well where not the Stagnation of the Janizarys only but of the Court it self which by the institution should always be in exercise of Arms is the cause of that present decay so perceivable in this Empire But the Prince sitting still or stagnating to what the Circulation of the Janizarys whose Alienation from the Government or Intelligence with the Timariots must needs be of dangerous consequence could tend should have bin thought on otherwise to expose the Empire to Chap. 9 danger for the safety of the Prince is no cure of the Government BUT his chief Remedy remains This Court Militia must not consist of one intire body united under the same head but be divided under several Colonels Captains Partys Brigades and distributed to several Quarters As if this were a cure there were any Army that could be mutinous but where he says not united under the same Head he intimats perhaps divers Generals and divers Armys now such are the Turkish Beglerbegs and the Provinces under their Governments That these therfore be kept divided so that not any two of them can lay their heads together without having them cut off nor any Son succede the Father in Government requires that there be always a sufficient force distinct from the Interest of the Timariots and Beglerbegs united and still ready upon occasion of this service and the Janizarys with the Spahys or Court-Horse being united are no more than sufficient for this service Wherfore if these also were so divided as therby to be weaken'd they could not be sufficient for this service and their division except such as might weaken them would be of no security to the Prince That the Provinces under this aw are less apt to rebel than the Court-Guards to mutiny is no wonder but the Court-Guards being cur'd by the prescription of this Physician of the possibility of Mutiny which without weakening them is impossible the Provinces if Liberty or Riches or Power be desirable would never indure the yoke
farthest way about as I think the nearest way home Arms are of two sorts Proper or Improper that is Native or Foren PROPER and Native Arms are according to the triple nature of Government of three kinds Servants in Arms as the Helots in Lacedemon the Timariots and Janizarys in Turky Subjects in Arms as the Horse in France and the Seaguards or Forces in Venice or Citizens in Arms as those upon the Lexiarcha in Athens of the Morae in Lacedemon and the Legions in Rome IMPROPER or Foren Arms are of two sorts Auxiliarys and Mercenarys AUXILIARYS are such as are supply'd by virtue of som League as were those of the Latins and Italians to the Romans and those of the Cantons of Swiss except Zuric to the King of France or they may be such as are occasionally lent freely or let forth for Mony by one State to another the latter wherof differ not much from Mercenarys MERCENARYS are Soldiers of Fortune that have no other Trade than their Arms and let out themselves for Mony of such consisted the greatest part of the Carthaginian Strength such is the Land Force of Venice and notwithstanding the antient League of France with those Nations such at this day are the Swiss and Scotish Guards and somtimes a good part of the Foot in France MACCHIAVEL discourses upon these Particulars in his Art of War to admiration by whom I shall therfore steer WHERE the Arms in bulk are proper and consisting of Citizens they have other Trades and therfore are no Soldiers of Fortune and yet because the Commonwealth has Arms for her Trade in regard she is a Magistrat given for the good of Mankind and bears not her Sword in vain they are all educated as well in Military as Civil Disciplin taking their turns in service of either nature according to the occasion and the Orders of the Commonwealth as in Israel Athens Lacedemon and Rome which had if their Territorys permitted and somtimes as I may say whether their Territorys permitted or no as in Israel the vastest the highest temper'd and the best disciplin'd Militia that is to be found in the whole compass of Story Som Armys of Israel have consisted of three or four hundred thousand men Rome upon the rumor of a Gallic Tumult arm'd in Italy only without Plin. L. Aemilio Papo C. Atilio Regulo Coss. foren Aid seventy thousand Horse and seven hundred thousand Foot Book I things in our days when the Turk can hardly arm half so many not to be credited HENCE that a Commonwealth which had not first broken her self or bin broken by som other Commonwealth should not be found to have bin conquer'd by the Arms of any Monarch is not miraculous but a natural effect of an apparent Cause In this place or upon this Text Divines whom I would desire not to be Enemys of popular Power but to give MACCHIAVEL his due shall if they please hear him make a Arte della Guer. Proem goodly Sermon in these words If antient Commonwealths and Governments us'd Diligence in any other Order to make their People lovers of Peace faithful to their Country and to have the fear of God before their eys they doubl'd it in this of their Militia for of whom should your Country expect greater Faith than of such as have offer'd themselves to dy for her Whom should she indeavor to make greater Lovers of Peace than them who only can inslave her by force In whom should there be greater Fear of God than in such as carry their Lives in their hands This when Lawgivers and Captains rightly cinsider'd was the cause why Soldiers were esteem'd honor'd follow'd and imitated above all men in the World wheras since such Orders are broken and Custom is altogether deviated from the course of antient Prudence men are com to detest the Iniquity of the Camp and fly the Conversation of such as are in Arms as the Pestilence Where the Arms in bulk are proper but consist of Subjects they are the best next and but the best next as appears by all Examples antient and modern The Arms with which PYRRHUS Prince of Epyrus invaded the Romans were of Subjects yet that Prince tho he was not vanquish'd by the Romans confest their advantage and gave them over The Spaniard being a far more potent King than was PYRRHUS has acknowleg'd as much to the Hollanders tho a far less Commonwealth than Rome So have the Princes of Austria and of Burgundy to the Switzers That the Arms of Subjects are nevertheless as much superior to the Arms of Servants as inferior to the Arms of Citizens is as plain seeing as ALEXANDER with thirty thousand Subjects vanquish'd DARIUS having innumerable Slaves so thirty thousand Christians are at this day a match for any Army of Turks and we see Venice whose Force by Sea consists of Subjects to have made him quit that Element near as fully to her Dominion or Empire as did the Persian to Athens TO Arms that are proper but consist of Servants all the preeminence that can be given is that they are better than foren Arms a proof wherof we have in those of SELIMUS wherby he conquer'd the Mamalucs who being but a foren Force that held Egypt in subjection the Country was irrecoverably lost and for the reasons already shewn as easily kept IMPROPER Arms whether Auxiliary or Mercenary where the Force of a Prince or of a Commonwealth consists for the bulk or greater part of no other are the least effectual and the most dangerous of all For Auxiliarys or what effect has bin found of them by Princes or Commonwealths it was seen in France during the League by the Spaniard and in Holland during the Reign of Queen ELIZABETH by the English but especially in the Goths and Vandals who having bin Auxiliarys or Mercenarys rely'd upon by the later Emperors came therby to ruin the Roman Empire MERCENARYS who make their Arms their Trade must of Chap. 9 all others be the most pernicious for what can we expect less of such whose Art is not otherwise so profitable than that they should as MACCHIAVEL shews be breakers of their Faith given up to Rapin Enemys of Peace and Government TO instance in som Commonwealths that of Carthage after her first War with the Romans fell thro the Rebellion of SPENDIUS and MATHO Ringleaders of her Mercenarys into another that was far more dangerous Of such a Dilemma were the Arms of this State that if HANNIBAL had conquer'd Rome he must have bin King of Carthage and not conquering Rome Carthage was ruin'd The Commonwealth of Milan trusting her self to F. SFORZA and his Mercenarys became the Subject of her Servant and he her Duke Nor is Venice whose Land-Forces are of the same kind otherwise in safety as to these than by her Situation To give som instances of the same nature in Princes The Father of F. SFORZA being Captain of a like mercenary Army forc'd JOAN Queen of Naples whom
write and yet not omit writing on any occasion that shall be offer'd for if my Principles be overthrown which when I see I shall most ingenuously confess with thanks to the Author such an acknowlegement will ly in a little room and this failing I am deceiv'd if I shall not now be able to shew any Writer against me that his Answer is none within the compass of three or four sheets THIS also will be the fittest way for Boys-play with which I am sure enough to be entertain'd by the quibling University men I mean a certain busy Gang of 'em who having publicly vanted that they would bring 40 examples against the Balance and since laid their Caps together about it have not produc'd one These vants of theirs offering prejudice to truth and good Principles were the cause why they were indeed press'd to shew som of their skill not that they were thought fit Judges of these things but first that they had declar'd themselves so and next that they may know they are not An Answer to three Objections against Popular Government that were given me after these two Books were printed Object 1. MONARCHICAL Government is more natural because we see even in Commonwealths that they have recourse to this as Lacedemon in her Kings Rome both in her Consuls and Dictators and Venice in her Dukes Answer GOVERNMENT whether Popular or Monarchical is equally artificial wherfore to know which is more natural we must consider what piece of Art coms nearest to Nature as for example whether a Ship or a House be the more natural and then it will be easy to resolve that a Ship is the more natural at Sea and a House at Land In like manner where one man or a few men are the Landlords a Monarchy must doubtless be the more natural and where the whole People are the Landlords a Commonwealth for how can we understand that it should be natural to a People that can live of themselves to give away the means of their livelihood to one or a few men that they may serve or obey Each Government is equally artificial in effect or in it self and equally natural in the cause or the matter upon which it is founded A COMMONWEALTH consists of the Senat proposing the People resolving and the Magistracy executing so the Power of the Magistrats whether Kings as in Lacedemon Consuls as in Rome or Dukes as in Venice is but barely executive but to a Monarch belongs both the Result and Execution too wherfore that there have bin Dukes Consuls or Kings in Commonwealths which were quite of another nature is no Argument that Monarchical Government is for this cause the more natural AND if a man shall instance in a mix'd Government as King and Parlament to say that the King in this was more natural than the Parlament must be a strange Affirmation TO argue from the Roman Dictator an Imperfection which ruin'd that Commonwealth and was not to be found in any other that all Commonwealths have had the like recourse in exigences to the like remedy is quite contrary to the universal Testimony of Prudence or Story A MAN who considers that the Commonwealth of Venice has stood one thousand years which never any Monarchy did and yet shall affirm that Monarchical Government is more natural than Popular must affirm that a thing which is less natural may be more durable and permanent than a thing that is more natural WHETHER is a Government of Laws less natural than a Government of Men or is it more natural to a Prince to govern by Laws or by Will Compare the Violences and bloody Rapes perpetually made upon the Crown or Royal Dignity in the Monarchys of the Hebrews and the Romans with the State of the Government under either Commonwealth and tell me which was less violent or whether that which is more violent must therfore be more natural Object 2. THE Government of Heaven is a Monarchy so is the Government of Hell Answer IN this says MACCHIAVEL Princes lose themselves and their Empire that they neither know how to be perfectly good nor intirely wicked He might as well have said that a Prince is always subject to Error and Misgovernment because he is a Man and not a God nor a Devil A Shepherd to his Flock a Plowman to his Team is a better Nature and so not only an absolute Prince but as it were a God The Government of a better or of a superior Nature is to a worse or inferior as the Government of God The Creator is another and a better Nature than the Creature the Government in Heaven is of the Creator over his Creatures that have their whole dependence upon him and subsistence in him Where the Prince or the Few have the whole Lands there is somwhat of dependence resembling this so the Government there must of necessity be Monarchical or Aristocratical But where the People have no such dependence the causes of that Government which is in Heaven are not in Earth for neither is the Prince a distinct or better Nature than the People nor have they their subsistence by him and therfore there can be no such effect If a Man were good as God there is no question but he would be not only a Prince but a God would govern by Love and be not only obey'd but worship'd or if he were ill as the Devil and had as much power to do mischief he would be dreaded as much and so govern by Fear To which latter the Nature of man has so much nearer approaches that tho we never saw upon Earth a Monarchy like that of Heaven yet it is certain the perfection of the Turkish Policy lys in this that it coms nearest to that of Hell Object 3. GOD instituted a Monarchy namely in MELCHIZEDEC before he instituted a Commonwealth Answer IF MELCHIZEDEC was a King so was ABRAHAM too tho one that paid him Tithes or was his Subject for ABRAHAM made War or had the power of the Sword as the rest of the Fathers of Familys he fought against So if CANAAN was a Monarchy in those days it was such a one as Germany is in these where the Princes also have as much the right of the Sword as the Emperor which coms rather as has bin shewn already to a Commonwealth But whether it were a Monarchy or a Commonwealth we may see by the present state of Germany that it was of no very good Example nor was MELCHIZEDEC otherwise made a King by God than the Emperor that is as an Ordinance of Man THE ART OF LAWGIVING In Three BOOKS The First shewing the Foundations and Superstructures of all kinds of Government The Second shewing the Frames of the Commonwealths of Israel and of the Jews The Third shewing a Model fitted to the present State or Balance of this Nation The Order of the Work The First Book THE Preface considering the Principles or Nature of Family
So that this being the Militia of the Nation a few Noblemen discontented could at any time levy a great Army the effect wherof both in the Barons Wars and those of York and Lancaster had bin well known to divers Kings This state of Affairs was that which inabl'd HENRY the Seventh to make his advantage of troublesom times and the frequent unruliness of Retainers while under the pretence of curbing Riots he obtain'd the passing of such Laws as did cut off these Retainers wherby the Nobility wholly lost their Officers Then wheras the dependence of the People upon their Lords was of a strict ty or nature he found means to loosen this also by Laws which he obtain'd upon as fair a pretence even that of Population Thus Farms were so brought to a Verulam H. 7. standard that the Houses being kept up each of them did of necessity inforce a Dweller and the proportion of Land laid to each House did of necessity inforce that Dweller not to be a Begger or Cottager but a man able to keep Servants and set the Plow on going By which means a great part of the Lands of this Nation came in effect to be amortiz'd to the hold of the Yeomanry or middle People wherof consisted the main body of the Militia hereby incredibly advanc'd and which henceforth like cleaner underwood less choak'd by their staddles began to grow excedingly But the Nobility who by the former Laws had lost their Offices by this lost their Soldiery Yet remain'd to them their Estates till the same Prince introducing the Statutes for Alienations these also became loose and the Lords less taken for the reasons shewn with their Country lives where their Trains were clip'd by degrees became more resident at Court where greater pomp and expence by the Statutes of Alienations began to plume them of their Estates The Court was yet at Bridewel nor reach'd London any farther than Temple-Bar The latter growth of this City and in that the declining of the Balance to Popularity derives from the decay of the Nobility and of the Clergy In the Reign of the succeding King were Abbys than which nothing more dwarfs a People demolish'd I did not I do not attribute the effects of these things thus far to my own particular observation but always did and do attribute a sense therof to the Reign of Queen ELIZABETH and the Wisdom of her Council There is yet living Testimony that the ruin of the English Monarchy thro the causes mention'd was frequently attributed to HENRY the Seventh by Sir HENRY WOTTON which Tradition is not unlike to have descended to him from the Queen's Council But there is a difference between having the sense of a thing and making a right use of that sense Let a man read PLUTARCH in the Lives of AGIS and of the GRACCHI there can be no plainer demonstration of the Lacedemonian or Roman Balance yet read his Discourse of Government in his Morals and he has forgot it he makes no use no mention at all of any such thing Who could have bin plainer upon this point than Sir WALTER RALEIGH where to prove that the Kings of Egypt were not elective but hereditary he alleges that if the Book I Kings of Egypt had bin elective the Children of PHARAOH must have Hist of the World part 1. p. 200. bin more mighty than the King as Landlords of all Egypt and the King himself their Tenant Yet when he coms to speak of Government he has no regard to no remembrance of any such Principle In Mr. SELDEN'S Titles of Honor he has demonstrated the English Balance of the Peerage without making any application of it or indeed perceiving it there or in times when the defect of the same came to give so full a sense of it The like might be made apparent in ARISTOTLE in MACCHIAVEL in my Lord VERULAM in all in any Politician there is not one of them in whom may not be found as right a sense of this Principle as in this present Narrative or in whom may be found a righter use of it than was made by any of the Partys thus far concern'd in this story or by Queen ELIZABETH M. D. l. 1. b. 10. and her Council If a Prince says a great Author to reform a Government were oblig'd to depose himself he might in neglecting of it be capable of som excuse but reformation of Government being that with which a Principality may stand he deserves no excuse at all It is not indeed observ'd by this Author that where by reason of the declination of the Balance to Popularity the State requires Reformation in the Superstructures there the Prince cannot rightly reform unless from Soverain Power he descends to a Principality in a Commonwealth nevertheless upon the like occasions this fails not to be found so in Nature and Experience The growth of the People of England since the ruins mention'd of the Nobility and the Clergy came in the Reign of Queen ELIZABETH to more than stood with the interest or indeed the nature or possibility of a well founded or durable Monarchy as was prudently perceiv'd but withal temporiz'd by her Council who if the truth of her Government be rightly weigh'd seem rather to have put her upon the exercise of Principality in a Commonwealth than of Soverain Power in a Monarchy Certain it is that she courted not her Nobility nor gave her mind as do Monarchs seated upon the like foundation to balance her great Men or reflect upon their Power now inconsiderable but rul'd wholly with an art she had to high perfection by humoring and blessing her People For this mere shadow of a Commonwealth is she yet famous and shall ever be so tho had she introduc'd the full perfection of the Orders requisit to Popular Government her fame had bin greater First She had establish'd such a Principality to her Successors as they might have retain'd Secondly This Principality the Common-wealth The great Council of Venice has the Soverain Power and the Duke the Soverain Dignity as Rome of ROMULUS being born of such a Parent might have retain'd the Royal Dignity and Revenue to the full both improv'd and discharg'd of all Envy Thirdly It had sav'd all the Blood and Confusion which thro this neglect in her and her Successors has since insu'd Fourthly It had bequeath'd to the People a Light not so naturally by them to be discover'd which is a great pity For M. D. l. 1. c. 9. even as the Many thro the difference of opinions that must needs abound among them are not apt to introduce a Government as not understanding the good of it so the Many having by trial or experience once attain'd to this understanding agree not to quit such a Government And lastly It had plac'd this Nation in that perfect felicity which so far as concerns mere Prudence is in the power of human nature to injoy To this Queen succeded King JAMES who
a People that they should overcom the like difficultys by reason wherof the wisest Nations finding themselves under the necessity of a change or of a new Government induc'd by such offers as promis'd fair or against which they could find no exceptions have usually acted as men do by new Clothes that is put them on that if they be not exactly fit at first they may either fit themselves to the body in wearing or therby more plainly shew wherin they can be mended even by such as would otherwise prove but bad workmen Nor has any such offer bin thought to have more Presumtion much less Treason in it than if one conscious of his skill in Architecture should offer himself to the Prince or State to build a more convenient Parlament house England is now in such a condition that he who may be truly said to give her Law shall never govern her and he who will govern her shall never give her Law Yet som will have it that to assert Popular Power is to sow the seed of Civil War and object against a Commonwealth as not to be introduc'd but by Arms which by the undeniable testimony of later Experience is of all other Objections the most extravagant for if the good old Cause against the desire even of the Army and of all men well affected to their Country could be trod under foot without blood what more certain demonstration can there be that let the deliberations upon or changes of Government be of what kind soever which shall please a Parlament there is no appearance that they can occasion any Civil War Streams that are stop'd may urge their Banks but the course of England into a Commonwealth is both certain and natural The ways of Nature require Peace The ways of Peace require Obedience to the Laws Laws in England cannot be made but by Parlaments Parlaments in England are com to be mere popular Assemblys The Laws made by popular Assemblys tho for a time they may be aw'd or deceiv'd in the end must be popular Laws and the sum of popular Laws must amount to a Commonwealth The whole doubt or hazard of this Consequence remains upon one question Whether a single Council consisting but of four hundred indu'd both with Debate and Result the Keys of whose Doors are in the hands of ambitious men in the croud and confusion of whose Election the People are as careless as tumultuous and easy thro the want of good Orders to be deluded while the Clergy declar'd and inveterat Enemys of popular Power are laying about and sweating in the throng as if it were in the Vinyard upon whose Benches Lawyers being feather'd and arm'd like sharp and sudden Arrows with a privat interest pointblank against the Public may and frequently do swarm can indeed be call'd a popular Council This I confess may set the whole state of Liberty upon the cast of a Dy yet questionless it is more than odds on the behalf of a Commonwealth when a Government labors in frequent or long struggles not thro any certain biass of Genius or Nature that can be in such a Council but thro the impotence of such Conclusions as may go awry and the external force or state of Property now fully introduc'd whence such a Council may wander but never find any rest or settlement except only in that natural and proper Form of Government which is to be erected upon a mere Popular Foundation All other ways of proceding must be void as inevitably guilty of contradiction in the Superstructures to the Foundation which have amounted and may amount to the discouragement of honest men but with no other success than to imbroil or retard Business England being not capable of any other permanent Form than that only of a Common-wealth tho her supreme Council be so constituted that it may be Monarchically inclin'd This contradiction in the Frame is the frequent occasion of contradictory Expostulations and Questions How say they should we have a Commonwealth Which way is it possible that it should com in And how say I can we fail of a Commonwealth What possibility is there we should miss of it IF a man replys he answers thus No Army ever set up a Common-wealth To the contrary I instance the Army of Israel under MOSES that of Athens about the time of ALCIBIADES that of Rome upon the expulsion of the TARQUINS those of Switzerland and Holland But say they other Armys have not set up Commonwealths True indeed divers other Armys have not set up Commonwealths yet is not that any Argument why our Armys should not For in all Armys that have not set up Commonwealths either the Officers have had no Fortunes or Estates at all but immediatly dependent upon the mere Will of the Prince as the Turkish Armys and all those of the Eastern Countrys or the Officers have bin a Nobility commanding their own Tenants Certain it is That either of these Armys can set up nothing but Monarchy But our Officers hold not Estates of Noblemen able upon their own Lands to levy Regiments in which case they would take home their People to plow or make Hay nor are they yet so put to it for their Livelihood as to depend wholly upon a Prince in which case they would fall on robbing the People but have good honest Popular Estates to them and their Heirs for never Now an Army where the Estates of the Officers were of this kind in no reason can in no experience ever did set up Monarchy Ay but say they for all that their Pay to them is more considerable than their Estates But so much more must they be for a Commonwealth because the Parlament must pay and they have found by experience that the Pay of a Parlament is far better than that of a Prince But the four hundred being Monarchically inclin'd or running upon the Interest of those irreconcilable Enemys of Popular Power Divines and Lawyers will rather pay an Army for commanding or for supporting of a Prince than for obeying Which may be true as was acknowleg'd before in the way but in the end or at the long run for the reasons mention'd must be of no effect THESE Arguments are from the Cause now for an Argument to Sense and from the Effect If our Armys would raise Mony of themselves or which is all one would make a King why have they not made a King in so many Years Why did they not make one yesterday Why do they not to day Nay why have they ever bin why do they still continue to be of all others in this point the most averse and refractory BVT if the case be so with us that Nature runs wholly to a Common-wealth and we have no such Force as can withstand Nature why may we not as well have golden Dreams of what this Commonwealth may be as of the Indys of Flanders or of the Sound The Frame of a Commonwealth may be dreamt on or propos'd two
highest Mystery of Popular Government and indeed the supreme Law wherin is contain'd not only the Liberty but the Safety of the People FOR the remainder of the Civil part of this Model which is now but small it is farther propos'd Rule for Vacations THAT every Magistracy Office or Election throout this whole Commonwealth whether annual or triennial be understood of consequeuce to injoin an interval or vacation equal to the term of the same That the Magistracy of a Knight and of a Burgess be in this relation understood as one and the same and that this Order regard only such Elections as are National or Domestic and not such as are Provincial or Foren Exception from the Rule THAT for an exception from this Rule where there is but one Elder of the Horse in one and the same Parish that Elder be eligible in the same without interval and where there be above four Elders of the Horse in one and the same Parish there be not above half nor under two of them eligible at the same Election OTHERWISE the People beyond all manner of doubt would elect so many of the better sort at the very first that there would not be of the Foot or of the meaner sort enough to supply the due number of the Popular Assembly or Prerogative Tribe and the better sort being excluded subsequent Elections by their intervals there would not be wherwithal to furnish the Senat the Horse of the Prerogative Tribe and the rest of the Magistracys each of which Obstructions is prevented by this Exception Where by the way if in all experience such has bin the constant temper of the People and can indeed be reasonably no other it is apparent what cause there can be of doubt who in a Commonwealth of this nature must have the leading Yet is no man excluded from any Preferment only Industry which ought naturally to be the first step is first injoin'd by this Policy but rewarded amply seeing he who has made himself worth one hundred Pounds a year has made himself capable of all Preferments and Honors in this Government Where a man from the lowest state may not rise to the due pitch of his unquestionable Merit the Commonwealth is not equal yet neither can the People under the Limitations propos'd make choice as som object of any other than Book III the better sort nor have they at any time bin so inclining to do where they have not bin under such Limitations Be it spoken not to the disparagement of any man but on the contrary to their praise whose Merit has made them great the People of England have not gon so low in the election of a House of Commons as som Prince has don in the election of a House of Lords To weigh Election by a Prince with Election by a People set the Nobility of Athens and Rome by the Nobility of the old Monarchy and a House of Commons freely chosen by the Nobility of the new There remains but the Quorum for which it is propos'd The Quorum THAT throout all the Assemblys and Councils of this Commonwealth the Quorum consist of one half in the time of Health and of one third part in a time of Sickness being so declar'd by the Senat. HOW the City Government without any diminution of their Privileges and with an improvement of their Policy may be made to fall in with these Orders has * In Oceana elswhere bin shewn in part and may be consider'd farther at leisure Otherwise the whole Commonwealth so far as it is merely Civil is in this part accomplish'd Now as of necessity there must be a natural Man or a Man indu'd with a natural Body before there can be a spiritual Man or a Man capable of Divine Contemplation so a Government must have a Civil before it can have a Religious part And if a man furnisht only with natural parts can never be so stupid as not to make som Reflections upon Religion much less a Commonwealth which necessitats the Religious part of this Model CHAP. II. Containing the Religious Part of this Model propos'd practicably THERE is nothing more certain or demonstrable to common Sense than that the far greater part of Mankind in matters of Religion give themselves up to the public Leading Now a National Religion rightly establish'd or not coercive is not any public driving but only the public leading If the Public in this case may not lead such as desire to be led by the Public and yet a Party may lead such as desire to be led by a Party where would be the Liberty of Conscience as to the State Which certainly in a well order'd Commonwealth being the public Reason must be the public Conscience Nay where would be the Liberty of Conscience in respect of any Party which should so procede as to shew that without taking their Liberty of Conscience from others they cannot have it themselves If the Public refusing Liberty of Conscience to a Party would be the cause of Tumult how much more a Party refusing it to the Public And how in case of such a Tumult should a Party defend their Liberty of Conscience or indeed their Throats from the whole or a far greater Party without keeping down or tyrannizing over the whole or a far greater Party by force of Arms These things being rightly consider'd it is no wonder that Men living like men have not bin yet found without a Government or that any Government has not bin yet found without a National Religion that is som orderly and known way of public Chap. 2 leading in divine things or in the Worship of God A NATIONAL Religion being thus prov'd necessary it remains that I prove what is necessary to the same that is as it concerns the State or in relation to the Duty of the Magistrat CERTAIN it is that Religion has not seen corruption but by one of these three causes som Interest therwith incorporated som ignorance of the truth of it or by som complication of both Nor was ever Religion left wholly to the management of a Clergy that escap'd these Causes or their most pernicious Effects as may be perceiv'd in Rome which has brought Ignorance to be the Mother of Devotion and indeed Interest to be the Father of Religion Now the Clergy not failing in this case to be dangerous what recourse but to the Magistrat for safety specially seeing these Causes that is Interest and Ignorance the one proceding from evil Laws the other from the want of good Education are not in the right or power of a Clergy but only of the Civil Magistracy Or if so it be that Magistrats are oblig'd in duty to be nursing Fathers and nursing Mothers to the Church Isa 49. 23. how shall a State in the sight of God be excusable that takes no heed or care lest Religion suffer by Causes the prevention or remedy wherof is in them only To these therfore it
and giving a brief Answer to Mr. WREN'S last Book intitl'd Monarchy asserted against Mr. HARRINGTON'S Oceana That a Commonwealth not rightly order'd is less seditious than the best of Monarchys FOR a Nation to be still upon the cast of a Dy to be ever in Sect. 1 trepidation as to the main chance of Government is a dreadful state of things Such indeed with us has bin the Constitution of our late Governments of which therfore not any can be call'd a Common-wealth Yet has the like state of things in favor of Monarchs and thro the industry of the Clergy bin for many Ages that wherof Commonwealths unheard are still accus'd and condemn'd For proof in this case the Tribunitian Storms of the Roman People are thought abundantly sufficient But these having bin without Blood if with our Affairs they hold any parallel are not to be compar'd with the Barons Wars those of York and Lancaster or the like but with the Contests or Strivings of our Parlaments with their Kings while such Disputes came not to Arms. Or if the Roman Fields from the time of the GRACCHI grew bloody we have known a matter of a dozen years in which ours might have compar'd with them The Seditions under the Commonwealth of Rome to those under the Empire hold such a proportion as the Seditions under the Commonwealth of Israel to See Book 2. chap. 4. those under their Kings I am contented at this time for discourse sake that the Seditions of Venice should pass as they are computed by Mr. WREN Let those also which have happen'd in the Common-wealths of the Switzers and of the United Provinces by the skill of som Man who may be thought more impartial than my self be rightly enumerated and added This being don let the Seditious that have happen'd in the Monarchys of England France and Spain be as impartially sum'd up and I may venture to promise you That you shall not find the sum of the Seditions which have happen'd in those three Commonwealths to balance the foot of the account with those Seditions which have happen'd in any one of those Monarchys nor are we without sufficient inducement to believe that the whole account in this particular of those Commonwealths which have bin in the World can com any whit nearer to that of the Monarchys But this being so be it also suppos'd tho not granted that a Commonwealth is a seditious Government yet must it be the least seditious Government The Republic of Corinth never 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lib. 4. suffer'd but that one Sedition which is describ'd by Xenophon and this too from an external cause Sect. 2 BUT I am the more confirm'd by the Assaults of Mr. WREN That Mr. Wren's Opposition of Pâ—pular Pâ—â—deâ—â—e amounts to a Consumatiâ—n of it to have no less than demonstrated in the propos'd Model that a Commonwealth rightly order'd is altogether incapable of Sedition and so consequently of Dissolution that is from any internal cause To render his Confutation intire and the truth of this Assertion the more conspicuous I shall first insert those Rules or Maxims wherby a Model of a Commonwealth may be exactly prov'd or examin'd and then shew how they totally enervat and overturn those Arguments elaborated by Mr. WREN towards the examination and confutation of the Model propos'd How a Model of Popular Government may be try'd or examin'd THE Maxims or Rules wherby a well order'd Model of Popular Government may be most exactly prov'd or examin'd are specially two 1. IT must be wholly void of any Contradiction or Inequality 2. IT must be such in which no number of Men having the Interest can have the Power or Strength and no number of Men having the Power or Strength can have the Interest to invade or disturb the Government IT is not in the power of Nature that there should be an effect where there is not the cause of that effect and in a Frame of Government that is exactly according to the foregoing Maxims there can be no cause of Sedition or Dissolution A Model of Government therfore that will hold examination by these Maxims must without ostentation or with Mr. WREN'S patience be perfect NOW let us observe how he bestirs himself to examin and confute this Model As to contradiction he dos not so much as pretend that there is any Guile in it yet will not allow it to have any truth W. p. 78. For says he as in a Fiction the several Members may be so contriv'd as not to give one another the ly but be all contain'd within the limits of Verisimilitude and yet the whole remain without the least syllable of Truth so in a Model of Government To which I answer that there being a truth of Nature and a truth of Fact this way of Mr. WREN'S disputing is mere equivocation For the Model is not propos'd to shew the truth of Fact or that there has bin any such exactly in practice but to shew the truth of Nature or that such a Model is practicable wherfore he needed not to have alleg'd that it has not the truth of Fact which we all know but was to shew where it fails of such a truth in Nature as can any way render it impracticable But instead of this he is gon to the Moon and will read us a Lecture in Politics by the Planets or the various Hypotheses of Celestial Motions Ibid. which may be excogitated including no absurdity in themselves and yet perhaps not any one of them prove to be the true method of Nature But may a man therfore argue in this manner It is very hard to know certainly which are the Highways of the Planets therfore there can be no certain knowlege which are the Highways to London Let us e'en say Because the Rotation of the World may as well go upon the Heavens as upon the Earth therfore a man may as well go upon his Head as upon his Heels and a Commonwealth as well stand upon a Milkwoman's Pattins as upon the strongest Interest or the Interest of the strongest W. p. 179. So much for Contradiction Now for Inequality says Mr. WREN Tho it should be allow'd Mr. HARRINGTON that his Commonwealth has none in it yet would it fail of attaining the perfection of Government seeing there is an inequality in the Nature of man which is not rectify'd by the Model of his Commonwealth As if the equality of a Government was pretended to be such as should make a crooked man straight a wicked man good or a passionat man a Philosopher and it were not perfect in being sufficient to prevent any influence that Wickedness or Passion in a man or men may have upon the Government But for farther discovery of these Inequalitys in the Nature of man that are not rectify'd by the Model Mr. WREN sends us to his eight and ninth Chapters where he produces them in such order as I shall observe in
interest to break but to preserve the Orders which therfore no other can have the power or strength to break or som other breaking must but lose that which they pretend to gain to wit the Right which in this case must still fall to the Might devolving upon the People That Mr. WREN will needs fancy the Tribes or Citys in Oceana as those in W. p. 87. the united Provinces or the Cantons of Switzerland to be distinct Soveraintys concerns not me seeing the form of Oceana is far otherwise nor indeed him seeing neither do the Citys in Holland nor the Cantons in Switzerland go about to dissolve their Commonwealths or Leagues The Champion having thus fail'd at the head is contented to play low Tho there be care taken says he that at the Assembly of the Hundred W. p. 181. and the Tribe such and such Magistrats should be elected out of the Horse there is no necessary provision there should be any Horse there out of which to elect And where can they be then if not in som Parish He might better have said that at the Parish there was no care taken that the People should not elect too many of the Horse which being indeed the defect of the former is in this Edition rectify'd His last See Proposition 44. W. p. 183. exception is against the place where I say that They who take upon them the profession of Theology Physic or Law are not at leisure for the Essays wherby the Youth commence for all Magistracys and Honors in the Commonwealth To which reason he offers not so much as any Answer nor pretends any other Argument against it than that this excludes Divines Lawyers and Physicians from those Honors to which their Parish Clerks their Scriveners and their Apothecarys nay Farriers and Coblers may attain And what can I help that if it ought nevertheless so to be for a reason which he cannot answer Nay if so it be in common practice where the reason is nothing near so strong seeing a Parish Clerk a Scrivener an Apothecary nay a Cobler or a Farrier is not uncapable of being of the Common Council nor yet of being an Alderman or Lord Mayor of London which nevertheless that a Divine a Lawyer or a Physician should be were absurd to think Divines have a Plow from which they ought not to look back they have above a tenth of the Territory with which they ought to be contented and more than all Civil Interest contracted by a Clergy corrupts Religion For Lawyers their Practice and Magistracys are not only the most gainful but for life and in a Common-wealth neither is accumulation of Magistracy just or equal nor the confounding of Executive and Legislative Magistracy safe Will Mr. WREN believe one of our own Lawyers and one of the learnedst of them upon this point It is the Lord VERULAM They says he Verulam de Aug. Scien lib. 8. cap. 3. who have written de legibus of Lawmaking have handl'd this Argument as Philosophers or as Lawyers Philosophers speak higher than will fall into the capacity of practice to which may be refer'd PLATO'S Commonwealth Sir THOMAS MORE' 's Vtopia with his own Atlantis and Lawyers being obnoxious and addicted each to the Laws of their particular Country have no freedom nor sincerity of Judgment but plead as it were in bonds Certainly the cognizance of these things is most properly pertaining to political Persons who best know what stands with human Society what with the safety of the People what with natural Equity with antient Prudence and with the different Constitution of Common-wealths These therfore by the Principles and Precepts of natural Equity and good Policy may and ought to determin of Laws For Physicians who as such have in the management of State Affairs no prejudice if you open them the door they will not at all or very rarely com in wherby it appears First that such a bar may in som cases be no violation of Liberty and secondly that the Divines who for better causes might be as well satisfy'd and for more unanswerable Reasons ought to forbear yet are impatient and give a full testimony that their meaning is not good THUS is the Commonwealth by Mr. WREN oppos'd by him asserted There remains no more to the full confutation of his Book than to shew how the Monarchy by him asserted is by him destroy'd This is to be don by the examination of his ninth Chapter which is the next of those to which he refer'd us Sect. 3 THE opposition made by Mr. WREN to a Commonwealth That Mr. Wren's Assertion of Monarchy amounts to the Subversion of it and his pretended asserting of Monarchy run altogether upon Mr. HOBS'S Principles and in his very words but for want of understanding much enervated so that Mr. WREN'S whole â—eat of Arms coms but to have given me a weaker Adversary for a stronger In Soverainty says he the diffus'd strength of the Multitude is united W. p. 97. in one person which in a Monarchy is a natural person in a State an artificial one procreated by the majority of Votes This then is the grand W. p. 99. security of all Soverains whether single Persons or Assemblys that the united Forces of their Subjects with which they are invested is sufficient to suppress the beginnings of Seditions Who reads Mr. HOBS if this be news But what provision is made by either of these Authors that the Forces of the Subject must needs be united Is Union in Forces or in Government an Effect wherof there is no Cause Or to what cause are we to attribute this certain Union and grand Security Why let W. p. 103. there be such a Nobility as may be a Monarch's Guard against the People And lest a Monarch stand in need of another Guard against this Nobility let none of these excel the resâ— of his Order in power or dignity Which Effects or Ends thuâ— commanded â—ouchsafe not to acquaint us with Ibid. their ways Yâ—s let the Nobility hâ—â—e no right to assemble themselves for electing a Succâ—ssor to the Monarchy or for making of War or Peace or for nominating the great Ministers of State or for performing any other Act which by the nature of it is inseparable from the Soverain Power But why then must such a Nobility be a guard against the People and not rather a guard for the People seeing both their Interests and Sufferings at this rate are the same and include those very causes for which in the Barons War the Nobility became Incendiarys and Leaders of the People of England against their Kings and so those wherby their Captain came to excel the rest of his order in power or dignity But for this W. p. 105. the Prince is to be provided by having always in pay a sufficient Militia and som places of strength where a few may be secure against a number For places of Strength Citadels or Castles
the Minister of State takes his pastime 16. THE Complaint that the Wisdom of all these latter times in Princes Affairs consists rather in fine deliverys and shiftings of Dangers or Mischiefs when they are near than in solid and grounded courses to keep them off is a Complaint in the Streets of Aristocratical Monarchy and not to be remedy'd because the Nobility being not broken Chap. X the King is in danger and the Nobility being broken the Monarchy is ruin'd 17. AN Absurdity in the form of the Government as that in a Monarchy there may be two Monarchs shoots out into a mischief in the Administration or som wickedness in the Reason of State as in ROMULUS'S killing of REMUS and the monstrous Associations of the Roman Emperors 18. USURPATION of Government is a Surfeit that converts the best Arts into the worst Nemo unquam imperium flagitio acquisitum bonis artibus exercuit 19. AS in the privation of Virtue and in Beggery men are Sharks or Robbers and the reason of their way of living is quite contrary to those of Thrift so in the privation of Government as in Anarchy Oligarchy or Tyranny that which is Reason of State with them is directly opposit to that which is truly so whence are all those black Maxims set down by som Politicians particularly MACCHIAVEL in his Prince and which are condemn'd to the fire even by them who if they liv'd otherwise might blow their fingers 20. WHERE the Government from a true Foundation rises up into proper Superstructures or Form the Reason of State is right and streight but give our Politician peace when you please if your House stands awry your Props do not stand upright 21. TAKE a Jugler and commend his Tricks never so much yet if in so doing you shew his Tricks you spoil him which has bin and is to be confess'd of MACCHIAVEL 22. CORRUPTION in Government is to be read and consider'd in MACCHIAVEL as Diseases in a man's Body are to be read and consider'd in HIPPOCRATES 23. NEITHER HIPPOCRATES nor MACCHIAVEL introduc'd Diseases into man's Body nor Corruption into Government which were before their times and seeing they do but discover them it must be confest that so much as they have don tends not to the increase but the cure of them which is the truth of these two Authors POLITICAL APHORISMS Obsequium amicos veritas odium parit Terent. 1. THE Errors and Sufferings of the People are from their Governors 2. WHEN the Foundation of a Government coms to be chang'd and the Governors change not the Superstructures accordingly the People becom miserable 3. THE Monarchy of England was not a Government by Arms but a Government by Laws tho imperfect or ineffectual Laws 4. THE later Governments in England since the death of the King have bin Governments by Arms. 5. THE People cannot see but they can feel 6. THE People having felt the difference between a Government by Laws and a Government by Arms will always desire the Government by Laws and abhor that of Arms. 7. WHERE the Spirit of the People is impatient of a Government by Arms and desirous of a Government by Laws there the spirit of the People is not unfit to be trusted with their Liberty 8. THE spirit of the People of England not trusted with their Liberty drives at the restitution of Monarchy by Blood and Violence 9. THE Spirit of the People of England trusted with their Liberty if the Form be sufficient can never set up a King and if the Form be insufficient as a Parlament with a Council in the intervals or two Assemblys coordinat will set up a King without Blood or Violence 10. TO light upon a good Man may be in Chance but to be sure of an Assembly of good Men is not in Prudence 11. WHERE the Security is no more than personal there may be a good Monarch but can be no good Commonwealth 12. THE necessary Action or Use of each thing is from the nature of the Form 13. WHERE the Security is in the Persons the Government makes good men evil where the Security is in the Form the Government makes evil men good 14. ASSEMBLYS legitimatly elected by the People are that only Party which can govern without an Army 15. NOT the Party which cannot govern without an Army but the Party which can govern without an Army is the refin'd Party as to this intent and purpose truly refin'd that is by Popular Election according to the Precept of MOSES and the Rule of Scripture Take ye wise men and understanding and known among your Tribes and I will make them Rulers over you 16. THE People are deceiv'd by Names but not by Things 17. WHERE there is a well order'd Commonwealth the People are generally satisfy'd 18. WHERE the People are generally dissatisfy'd there is no Commonwealth 19. THE Partys in England declaring for a Commonwealth hold every one of them somthing that is inconsistent with a Common-wealth 20. TO hold that the Government may be manag'd by a few or by a Party is inconsistent with a Commonwealth except in a Situation like that of Venice 21. TO hold that there can be any National Religion or Ministry without public Indowment and Inspection of the Magistracy or any Government without a National Religion or Ministry is inconsistent with a Commonwealth 22. TO hold that there may be Liberty and not Liberty of Conscience is inconsistent with a Commonwealth that has the Liberty of her own Conscience or that is not Popish 23. WHERE Civil Liberty is intire it includes Liberty of Conscience 24. WHERE Liberty of Conscience is intire it includes Civil Liberty 25. EITHER Liberty of Conscience can have no security at all or under Popular Government it must have the greatest security 26. TO hold that a Government may be introduc'd by a little at once is to wave Prudence and commit things to Chance 27. TO hold that the Wisdom of God in the formation of a House or of a Government gos not universally upon natural Principles is inconsistent with Scripture 28. TO hold that the Wisdom of Man in the formation of a House or of a Government may go upon supernatural Principles is inconsistent with a Commonwealth and as if one should say God ordain'd the Temple therfore it was not built by Masons he ordain'd the Snuffers therfore they were not made by a Smith 29. TO hold that Hirelings as they are term'd by som or an indow'd Ministry ought to be remov'd out of the Church is inconsistent with a Commonwealth 30. NATURE is of GOD. 31. SOM part in every Religion is natural 32. A UNIVERSAL Effect demonstrats a universal Cause 33. A UNIVERSAL Cause is not so much natural as it is Nature it self 34. EVERY man either to his terror or consolation has som sense of Religion 35. MAN may rather be defin'd a religious than a rational Creature in regard that in other Creatures there may be somthing of Reason but there
out to debate or examination that a man having the mind to weigh discourse upon or object against this Model may do it in the parts with the greatest convenience ANY examination of or objection against the whole or any part in print or in writing the Author holds himself bound to acknowlege or answer But as to mere discourse upon matters of this compass it is usually narrow besides that in writing a man must put himself upon better aim than he can be oblig'd to take in discourse ANY one objection lying in writing against any one Order in this part of the Model after such manner as to shew that the Part or Order so invaded ought to be expung'd alter'd or amended unless it may be expung'd alter'd or amended accordingly destroys the whole AND any one or more Objections so lying against any one or more of these Orders or Propositions that therby they may be expung'd alter'd or amended must in the whole or in part make a better Model IN this case therfore or in case no Objection lys the use of these Propositions will be such as therby any Man or any Assembly of men considering or debating upon them in order may find or make a true Model of a well order'd Commonwealth AND that an Assembly can never make or frame a Model of any Government otherwise than in som such manner is provable first by a demonstration from the effect and secondly by a demonstration from the cause THE demonstration from the Effect is that an Assembly no otherwise frames a Law or Order than by having it first pen'd by som one man and then judging upon it and the Model of a Commonwealth must consist of many Laws or Orders THE demonstration from the Cause is that wheras Reason consists of two parts the one Invention and the other Judgment a Man may be as far beyond any Assembly for Invention as any Assembly can be beyond a Man for Judgment or which is more that the formation of a Model of Government requires a strong faculty of Invention and that an Assembly is naturally void of all manner of Invention Nov. 13. 1658. THE Ways and Means Wherby an Equal and Lasting COMMONWEALTH May be suddenly introduc'd and perfectly founded with the free Consent and actual Confirmation of the Whole People of England Scire tuum nihil est nisi te scire hoc sciat alter Pers A WORD fitly spoken is like Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver THE Desire of the People of England now runs strongly to have a Free Parlament LET there be a free Parlament TO the end that the People may be most equally represented or that the Parlament may be Freest LET there be a new Division of England and Wales with as much equality as may stand with convenience into fifty Shires LET every Shire elect annually two Knights to be of one House and seven Deputys to be of another House of Parlament for the term of three years For the first year only let the Deputys in each Division be elected triple that is seven for the term of one year seven for the term of two years and seven for the term of three years The like for the Knights save only that the present Parlament remain that is let two Knights in each Division be elected the first year only for the term of one year two other Knights at the same time for the term of two years and let the present Parlament be the triennial part of the Knights House for the first Election THE House of Knights and the House of Deputys being assembl'd let the House of Knights debate and propose LET what is propos'd by the House of Knights be promulgated for the space of six weeks PROMULGATION being thus made let the House of Deputys meet and give their Result upon the Proposition LET what was thus propos'd by the Senat or House of Knights and resolv'd by the People or House of Deputys be the Law IN this Constitution these Councils must of necessity contain the Wisdom and the Interest of the Nation IN this method Debate must of necessity be mature IF it be according to the Wisdom and the Interest of the Nation upon mature debate that there be a King let there be a King IF it be according to the Wisdom and the Interest of the Nation upon mature debate that there be a Commonwealth two Assemblys in this Order are actually a Commonwealth and so far a well order'd Commonwealth that they are capacitated and inclin'd to reach to themselves whatever furniture shall be further necessary in more particular Orders which also is at hand TILL this or the like be don the Line of the late King and the People must be fellowsufferers in which case the impatience of the People must be for the restitution of that Line at all adventures BUT this or the like being once don immediatly the Line of the late King and the People becom Rivals in which case they will never restore Monarchy WILL never may som say But if the Senat and the Popular Assembly be both Royalists they both will and can restore Monarchy THO both Royalists they neither will nor can for let them that look no further than home or self say what they will to affirm that a Senat and a Popular Assembly thus constituted can procreat Monarchy is to affirm that a Horse and a Mare can generat a Cat that Wheat being rightly sown may com up Pease or that a River in its natural channel may run upwards IN the present case of England Commonwealthsmen may fail thro want of Art but Royalists must fail thro want of Matter the former may miss thro impotence the latter must thro impossibility Or where the State is purely popular that is not overbalanc'd by a Lord or Lords let there be one Example or one Reason given that there is was or ever can be Monarchy There will be this when all fails for the aftergame tho the work should fall as is like enough into the hands of Royalists CERTAIN it is that where any privat Citizen or Freeman might not som way or other propose there never was a well order'd Commonwealth UPON this incouragement I offer'd this Paper to good hands but it was according to custom thrown after me SO it went in the Protector 's time in every Revolution since La fortuna accieca gli animi de gli huomini but that is Atheism that 's MACCHIAVEL WELL but now says the Protectorian Family O that we had set up the equal Commonwealth So say broken Parlaments and Statesmen so say the sadly mistaken Sectarys so say the cashier'd Officers so says he that would have no nay but Oligarchy was a good word and so will more say after these except they learn to say after another Aut reges non exigendi fuerunt aut plebi re non verbo danda libertas either the Kings ought not to have bin driven out or the People to