is instituted for the good of those that are under it 'T is therefore for them that he enjoys it and it can no otherwise subsist than in concurrence with that end He also yields that the safety of the People is the supreme Law The right therefore that the King has must be conformable and subordinate to it If any one therefore set up an interest in himself that is not so he breaks this supreme Law he doth not live and reign for his People but for himself and by departing from the end of his institution destroys it and if Aristotle to whom our Author seems to have a great deference deserves credit such a one ceases to be a King and becomes a Tyrant he who ought to have bin the best of men is turned into the worst and he who is recommended to us under the name of a Father becomes a publick Enemy to the People The question therefore is not what is good for the King but what is good for the People and he can have no right repugnant to them Bracton is not more gentle The King says he is obliged by his Oath to the utmost of his power to preserve the Church and the Christian World in peace to hinder rapine and all manner of iniquity to cause justice and mercy to be observed He has no power but from the Law that only is to be taken for Law quod recté fuerit definitum he is therefore to cause justice to be done according to that rule and not to pervert it for his own pleasure profit or glory He may chuse Judges also not such as will be subservient to his will but Viros sapientes timentes Deum in quibus est veritas eloquiorum qui oderunt avaritiam Which proves that Kings and their Officers do not possess their places for themselves but for the People and must be such as are fit and able to perform the duties they undertake The mischievous fury of those who assume a power above their abilities is well represented by the known fable of Phaeton they think they desire fine things for themselves when they seek their own ruin In conformity to this the same Bracton says that If any man who is unskilful assume the seat of justice he falls as from a Precipice c. and 't is the same thing as if a sword be put into the hand of a mad man which cannot but affect the King as well as those who are chosen by him If he neglect the functions of his Office he dos unjustly and becomes the Vicegerent of the Devil for he is the Minister of him whose works he dos This is Bracton's opinion but desiring to be a more gentle Interpreter of the Law I only wish that Princes would consider the end of their institution endeavour to perform it measure their own abilities content themselves with that power which the Laws allow and abhor those Wretches who by flattery and lies endeavour to work upon their frailest Passions by which means they draw upon them that hatred of the People which frequently brings them to destruction Tho Ulpian's words Princeps legibus non tenetur be granted to have bin true in fact with relation to the Roman Empire in the time when he lived yet they can conclude nothing against us The Liberty of Rome had bin overthrown long before by the power of the Sword and the Law render'd subservient to the will of the Usurpers They were not Englishmen but Romans who lost the Battels of Pharsalia and Philippi The Carcases of their Senators not ours were exposed to the Wolves and Vulturs Pompeius Scipio Lentulus Afranius Petreius Cato Cassius and Brutus were defenders of the Roman not the English Liberty and that of their Country not ours could only be lost by their defeat Those who were destroy'd by the Proscriptions left Rome not England to be enslaved If the best had gained the victory it could have bin no advantage to us and their overthrow can be no prejudice Every Nation is to take care of their own Laws and whether any one has had the Wisdom Virtue Fortune and Power to defend them or not concerns only themselves The Examples of great and good men acting freely deserve consideration but they only perish by the ill success of their designs and whatsoever is afterwards done by their subdued Posterity ought to have no other effect upon the rest of the world than to admonish them so to join in the defence of their Liberties as never to be brought under the necessity of acting by the command of one to the prejudice of themselves and their Country If the Roman greatness perswade us to put an extraordinary value upon what passed among them we ought rather to examin what they did said or thought when they enjoy'd that Liberty which was the Mother and Nurse of their Virtue than what they suffer'd or were forc'd to say when they were fallen under that Slavery which produced all manner of corruption and made them the most base and miserable People of the world For what concerns us the Actions of our Ancestors resemble those of the antient rather than the later Romans tho our Government be not the same with theirs in form yet it is in principle and if we are not degenerated we shall rather desire to imitate the Romans in the time of their virtue glory power and felicity than what they were in that of their slavery vice shame and misery In the best times when the Laws were more powerful than the commands of men fraud was accounted a crime so detestable as not to be imputed to any but Slaves and he who had sought a power above the Law under colour of interpreting it would have bin exposed to scorn or greater punishments if any can be greater than the just scorn of the best men And as neither the Romans nor any people of the world have better defended their Liberties than the English Nation when any attempt has bin made to oppress them by force they ought to be no less careful to preserve them from the more dangerous efforts of fraud and falshood Our Ancestors were certainly in a low condition in the time of William the First Many of their best men had perished in the Civil Wars or with Harold their valour was great but rough and void of skill The Normans by frequent Expeditions into France Italy and Spain had added subtilty to the boisterous violence of their native climate William had engaged his Faith but broke it and turned the power with which he was entrusted to the ruin of those that had trusted him He destroy'd many worthy men carried others into Normandy and thought himself Master of all He was crafty bold and elated with Victory but the resolution of a brave People was invincible When their Laws and Liberties were in danger they resolved to die or to defend them and made him see he could no otherwise preserve his Crown
ready to use it and their extravagances having bin often chastised by Law sufficiently proves that their power is not derived from a higher original than the Law of their own Countries If it were true that the answer sometimes given by Kings to Bills presented for their Assent did as our Author says amount to a denial it could only shew that they have a negative voice upon that which is agreed by the Parliament and is far from a power of acting by themselves being only a check upon the other parts of the Government But indeed it is no more than an elusion and he that dos by art obliquely elude confesses he has not a right absolutely to refuse 'T is natural to Kings especially to the worst to scrue up their Authority to the height and nothing can more evidently prove the defect of it than the necessity of having recourse to such pitiful evasions when they are unwilling to do that which is required But if I should grant that the words import a denial and that notwithstanding those of the Coronation Oath Quas vulgus elegerit they might deny no more could be inferred from thence than that they are entrusted with a power equal in that point to that of either House and cannot be supreme in our Author's sense unless there were in the same State at the same time three distinct supreme and absolute Powers which is absurd His cases relating to the proceedings of the Star-Chamber and Council-Table do only prove that some Kings have encroached upon the rights of the Nation and bin suffer'd till their excesses growing to be extreme they turn'd to the ruin of the Ministers that advised them and sometimes of the Kings themselves But the jurisdiction of the Council having bin regulated by the Statute of the 17 Car. 1. and the Star-Chamber more lately abolished they are nothing to our dispute Such as our Author usually impute to treason and rebellion the changes that upon such occasions have ensued but all impartial men do not only justify them but acknowledg that all the Crowns of Europe are at this day enjoy'd by no other title than such acts solemnly performed by the respective Nations who either disliking the person that pretended to the Crown tho next in blood or the government of the present possessor have thought fit to prefer another person or family They also say that as no Government can be so perfect but some defect may be originally in it or afterwards introduced none can subsist unless they be from time to time reduced to their first integrity by such an exertion of the power of those for whose sake they were instituted as may plainly shew them to be subject to no power under Heaven but may do whatever appears to be for their own good And as the safety of all Nations consists in rightly placing and measuring this power such have bin found always to prosper who have given it to those from whom usurpations were least to be feared who have bin least subject to be awed cheated or corrupted and who having the greatest interest in the Nation were most concerned to preserve its power liberty and welfare This is the greatest trust that can be reposed in men This power was by the Spartans given to the Ephori and the Senat of twenty eight in Venice to that which they call Concilio de Pregadi in Germany Spain France Sweedland Denmark Poland Hungary Bohemia Scotland England and generally all the Nations that have lived under the Gothick Polity it has bin in their General Assemblies under the names of Diets Cortez Parliaments Senats and the like But in what hands soever it is the power of making abrogating changing correcting and interpreting Laws has bin in the same Kings have bin rejected or deposed the Succession of the Crown settled regulated or changed and I defy any man to shew me one King amongst all the Nations abovementioned that has any right to the Crown he wears unless such acts are good If this power be not well placed or rightly proportioned to that which is given to other Magistrates the State must necessarily fall into great disorders or the most violent and dangerous means must be frequently used to preserve their Liberty Sparta and Venice have rarely bin put to that trouble because the Senats were so much above the Kings and Dukes in power that they could without difficulty bring them to reason The Gothick Kings in Spain never ventur'd to dispute with the Nobility and Witza and Rodrigo exposed the Kingdom as a prey to the Moors rather by weakning it through the neglect of Military discipline joined to their own ignorance and cowardice and by evil example bringing the youth to resemble them in lewdness and baseness than by establishing in themselves a power above the Law But in England our Ancestors who seem to have had some such thing in their eye as balancing the powers by a fatal mistake placed usually so much in the hands of the King that whensoever he happened to be bad his extravagances could not be repress'd without great danger And as this has in several ages cost the Nation a vast proportion of generous blood so 't is the cause of our present difficulties and threatens us with more but can never deprive us of the rights we inherit from our fathers SECT XXVIII The English Nation has always bin governed by it self or its Representatives HAVING proved that the People of England have never acknowledged any other human Law than their own and that our Parliaments having the power of making and abrogating Laws they only can interpret them and decide hard cases it plainly appears there can be no truth in our Author's assertion that the King is the Author Corrector and Moderator of both Statute and Common Law and nothing can be more frivolous than what he adds that neither of them can be a diminution of that natural power which Kings have over their People as fathers in as much as the differences between paternal and monarchical Power as he asserts it are vast and irreconcileable in principle and practice as I have proved at large in the former parts of this Work But lest we should be too proud of the honour he is pleased to do to our Parliaments by making use of their Authority he says We are first to remember that till the Conquest which name for the glory of our Nation he gives to the coming in of the Normans there could be no Parliament assembled of the General States because we cannot learn that until those days it was intirely united in one Secondly he doubts Whether the Parliament in the time of the Saxons were composed of the Nobility and Clergy or whether the Commons were also called but concludes there could be no Knights of any Shires because there were no Shires Thirdly That Henry the first caused the Commons first to assemble Knights and Burgesses of their own chusing and would make this to be an act
the Commonwealth be named wherever the Multitude or so much as the major part of it consented either by Voice or Procuration to the Election of a Prince not observing that if an Answer could not be given he did overthrow the Rights of all the Princes that are or ever have bin in the world for if the Liberty of one man cannot be limited or diminished by one or any number of men and none can give away the Right of another 't is plain that the Ambition of one man or of many a faction of Citizens or the mutiny of an Army cannot give a Right to any over the Liberties of a whole Nation Those who are so set up have their root in Violence or Fraud and are rather to be accounted Robbers and Pirats than Magistrates Leo Africanus observing in his History that since the extinction of Mahomet's Race to whom his Countrymen thought God had given the Empire of the World their Princes did not come in by the consent of those Nations which they governed says that they are esteemed Thieves and that on this account the most honourable Men among the Arabians and Moors scorn to eat drink or make Alliances with them and if the case were as general as that Author makes it no better Rule could be any where followed by honourable and worthy Men. But a good Cause must not be lost by the fault of an ill Advocate the Rights of Kings must not perish because Filmer knows not how to defend or dos maliciously betray them I have already proved that David and divers of the Judges were chosen by all Israel Jeroboam by ten Tribes all the Kings of Rome except Tarquin the Proud by the whole City I may add many Examples of the Saxons in our own Country Ina and Offa were made Kings omnium consensu These All are expressed plainly by the words Archiepiscopis Episcopis Abbatibus Senatoribus Ducibus Populo terrae Egbert and Ethelward came to the Crown by the same Authority Omnium consensu Rex creatur Ethelwolf the Monk Necessitate cogente factus est Rex consensus publicus in regem dari petiit Ethelstan tho a Bastard Electus est magno consensu Optimatum a Populo consalutatus In the like manner Edwin's Government being disliked they chose Edgar Vnanimi omnium conspiratione Edwino dejecto eligerunt Deo dictante Edgarum in Regem annuente Populo And in another place Edgarus ab omni Anglorum Populo electus est Ironside being deâ—d Canutus was received by the general consent of all Juraverunt illi quod eum regem sibi eligere vellent foedus etiam cum principibus omni populo ipse illi cum ipso percusserunt Whereupon Omnium consensu super totam Angliam Canutus coronatur Hardicanutus gaudenter ab omnibus suscipitur electus est The same Author says that Edward the Confessor Electus est in regem ab omni populo And another Omnium Electione in Edwardum concordatur Tho the name of Conqueror be odiously given to William the Norman he had the same Title to the Crown with his Predecessors In magna exultatione a Clero Populo susceptus ab omnibus Rex acclamatus I cannot recite all the Examples of this kind that the History of almost all Nations furnishes unless I should make a Volume in bulk not inferior to the Book of Martyrs But those which I have mentioned out of the Sacred Roman and English History being more than sufficient to answer our Author's Challenge I take liberty to add that tho there could not be one Example produced of a Prince or any other Magistrate chosen by the general consent of the People or by the major part of them it could be of no advantage to the Cause he has undertaken to maintain For when a People hath either indefinitely or under certain Conditions and Limitations resigned their Power into the hands of a certain number of men or agreed upon Rules according to which persons should from time to time be deputed for the management of their Affairs the Acts of those persons if their Power be without restrictions are of the same value as the Acts of the whole Nation and the assent of every individual man is comprehended in them If the Power be limited whatsoever is done according to that limitation has the same Authority If it do therefore appear as is testified by the Laws and Histories of all our Northern Nations that the power of every People is either wholly or to such a degree as is necessary for creating Kings granted to their several Gemotes Diets Cortez Assemblies of Estates Parliaments and the like all the Kings that they have any where or at any time chosen do reign by the same authority and have the same right as if every individual man of those Nations had assented to their Election But that these Gemotes Diets and other Assemblies of State have every where had such Powers and executed them by rejecting or setting up Kings and that the Kings now in being among us have received their beginning from such Acts has bin fully proved and is so plain in it self that none but those who are grosly stupid or impudent can deny it which is enough to shew that all Kings are not set up by violence deceit faction of a sew powerful men or the mutinies of Armies but from the consent of such multitudes as joining together frame Civil Societies and either in their own persons at general Assemblies or by their Delegates confer a just and legal Power upon them which our Author rejecting he dos as far as in him lies prove them all to be Usurpers and Tyrants SECT VI. They who have a right of chusing a King have the right of making a King THO the Right of Magistrates do essentially depend upon the consent of those they govern it is hardly worth our pains to examin Whether the silent acceptation of a Governor by part of the People be an argument of their concurring in the election of him or by the same reason the tacit consent of the whole Commonwealth may be maintained for when the question is concerning Right fraudulent surmises are of no value much less will it from thence follow that a Prince commanding by Succession Conquest or Usurpation may be said to be elected by the People for evident marks of dissent are often given Some declare their hatred other murmur more privately many oppose the Governour or Government and succeed according to the measure of their Strength Virtue or Furtune Many would resist but cannot and it were ridiculous to say that the Inhabitants of Greece the Kingdom of Naples or Dutchy of Tuscany do tacitly assent to the Government of the Great Turk King of Spain or Duke of Florence when nothing is more certain than that those miserable Nations abhor the Tyrannies they are under and if they were not mastered by a Power that
and them before the Lord if he had bin already King and if those Acts had bin empty Ceremonies conferring no Right at all I dare not say that a League dos imply an absolute equality between both Parties for there is a Foedus inequale wherein the weaker as Grotius says dos usually obtain protection and the stronger honour but there can be none at all unless both Parties are equally free to make it or not to make it David therefore was not King till he was elected and those Covenants made and he was made King by that Election and Covenants This is not shaken by our Author's supposition That the People would not have taken Joas Manasseh or Josiah if they had had a right of chusing a King since Solomon says Wo unto the Kingdom whose King is a Child For first they who at the first had a right of chusing whom they pleased to be King by the Covenant made with him whom they did chuse may have deprived themselves of the farther execution of it and rendred the Crown hereditary even to Children unless the Conditions were violated upon which it was granted In the second place if the infancy of a King brings Wo upon a People the Government of such a one cannot be according to the Laws of God and Nature for Governments are not instituted by either for the pleasure of a Man but for the good of Nations and their Weal not their Wo is sought by both and if Children are any where admitted to rule 't is by the particular Law of the place grounded perhaps upon an opinion that it is the best way to prevent dangerous Contests or that other ways may be found to prevent the Inconveniences that may proceed from their weakness Thirdly It cannot be concluded that they might not reject Children because they did not such matters require positive Proofs Suppositions are of no value in relation to them and the whole matter may be altered by particular Circumstances The Jews might reasonably have a great veneration for the House of David they knew what was promised to that Family and whatever respect was paid or privilege granted on that account can be of no advantage to any other in the world They might be farther induced to set up Joas in hope the defects of his Age might be supplied by the Vertue Experience and Wisdom of Jehoiada We do not know what good opinion may have bin conceived of Manasseh when he was twelve years old but much might be hoped from one that had bin virtuously educated and was probably under the care of such as had bin chosen by Hezekiah and tho the contrary did fall out the mischiefs brought upon the People by his wicked Reign proceeded not from the weakness of his childhood but from the malice of his riper years And both the Examples of Joas and Josiah prove that neither of them came in by their own right but by the choice of the People Jehoiada gathered the Levites out of all the Cities of Judah and the chief of the Fathers of Israel and they came to Jerusalem And all the Congregation made a Covenant with the King in the House of God and brought out the King's Son and put upon him the Crown and gave him the Testimony and made him King whereupon they slew Athaliah And when Ammon was stain the people of the Land slew them that had conspired against King Ammon and the people of the Land made Josiah his Son King in his stead which had been most impertinent if he was of himself King before they made him so Besides tho Infancy may be a just cause of excepting against and rejecting the next Heir to a Crown 't is not the greatest or strongest 'T is far more easy to find a Remedy against the solly of a Child if the State be well regulated than the more rooted Vices of grown men The English who willingly received Henry the sixth Edward the fifth and sixth tho Children resolutely opposed Robert the Norman And the French who willingly submitted to Charles the ninth Lewis the thirteenth and fourteenth in their Infancy rejected the lewd remainders of Meroveus his Race Charles of Lorrain with his Kindred descended from Pepin Robert Duke of Burgundy with his Descendents and Henry of Navarr till he had satisfied the Nobility and People in the point of Religion And tho I do not know that the Letter upon the words Vaeregnocujus Rex puer est recited by Lambard was written by Eleutherius Bishop of Rome yet the Authority given to it by the Saxons who made it a Law is much more to be valued than what it could receive from the Writer and whoever he was he seems rightly to have understood Solomon's meaning who did not look upon him as a Child that wanted years or was superannuated but him only who was guilty of Insolence Luxury Folly and Madness and he that said A wise Child was better than an old and foolish King could have no other meaning unless he should say it was worse to be governed by a wise Person than a Fool which may agree with the judgment of our Author but could never enter into the heart of Solomon Lastly Tho the practice of one or more Nations may indicate what Laws Covenants or Customs were in force among them yet they cannot bind others The diversity of them proceeds from the variety of mens Judgments and declares that the direction of all such Affairs depends upon their own Will according to which every People for themselves forms and measures the Magistracy and magistratical Power which as it is directed solely for the good hath its exercises and extent proportionable to the Command of those that institute it and such Ordinances being good for men God makes them his own SECT VIII There is no natural propensity in Man or Beast to Monarchy I See no reason to believe that God did approve the Government of one over many because he created but one but to the contrary in as much as he did endow him and those that came from him as well the youngest as the eldest Line with understanding to provide for themselves and by the invention of Arts and Sciences to be beneficial to each other he shewed that they ought to make use of that understanding in forming Governments according to their own convenience and such occasions as should arise as well as in other matters and it might as well be inferr'd that it is unlawful for us to build clothe arm defend or nourish our selves otherwise than as our first Parents did before or soon after the Flood as to take from us the liberty of instituting Governments that were not known to them If they did not find out all that conduces to the use of man but a Faculty as well as a Liberty was left to every one and will be to the end of the world to make use of his Wit Industry and Experience according to present Exigencies to
eminency in that Kingdom with the Cities of Paris Bourdeaux and many others in the space of these last fifty years have sided with the perpetual Enemies of their own Country Again other great Alterations have happened within the same Kingdom The Races of Kings four times wholly changed Five Kings deposed in less than 150 Years after the death of Charles the Great The Offices of Maire du Palais and Constable erected and laid aside The great Dukedoms and Earldoms little inferior to Soveraign Principalities establish'd and suppress'd The decision of all Causes and the execution of the Laws placed absolutely in the hands of the Nobility their Deputies Seneschals or Vice-Seneschals and taken from them again Parliaments set up to receive Appeals from the other Courts and to judg soveraignly in all cases expresly to curb them The Power of these Parliaments after they had crushed the Nobility brought so low that within the last twenty years they are made to register and give the Power of Laws to Edicts of which the Titles only are read to them and the General Assemblies of Estates that from the time of Pepin had the Power of the Nation in their hands are now brought to nothing and almost forgotten Tho I mention these things 't is not with a design of blaming them for some of them deserve it not and it ought to be consider'd that the Wisdom of man is imperfect and unable to foresee the Effects that may proceed from an infinite variety of Accidents which according to Emergencies necessarily require new Constitutions to prevent or cure the mischiefs arising from them or to advance a good that at the first was not thought on And as the noblest work in which the Wit of man can be exercised were if it could be done to constitute a Government that should last for ever the next to that is to sute Laws to present Exigencies and so much as is in the power of man to foresee And he that should resolve to persist obstinately in the way he first entered upon or to blame those who go out of that in which their Fathers had walked when they find it necessary dos as far as in him lies render the worst of Errors perpetual Changes therefore are unavoidable and the Wit of man can go no farther than to institute such as in relation to the Forces Manners Nature Religion or Interests of a People and their Neighbours are sutable and adequate to what is seen or apprehended to be seen And he who would oblige all Nations at all times to take the same course would prove as foolish as a Physician who should apply the same Medicine to all Distempers or an Architect that would build the same kind of House for all Persons without considering their Estates Dignities the number of their Children or Servants the Time or Climate in which they live and many other Circumstances or which is if possible more sottish a General who should obstinately resolve always to make War in the same way and to draw up his Army in the same form without examining the nature number and strength of his own and his Enemies Forces or the advantages and disadvantages of the Ground But as there may be some universal Rules in Physick Architecture and Military Discipline from which men ought never to depart so there are some in Politicks also which ought always to be observed and wise Legislators adhering to them only will be ready to change all others as occasion may require in order to the publick Good This we may learn from Moses who laying the Foundation of the Law given to the Israelites in that Justice Charity and Truth which having its root in God is subject to no change left them the liberty of having Judges or no Judges Kings or no Kings or to give the Soveraign Power to High Priests or Captains as best pleased themselves and the Mischiefs they afterwards suffer'd proceeded not simply from changing but changing for the worse The like judgment may be made of the Alterations that have happen'd in other places They who aim at the publick Good and wisely institute Means proportionable and adequate to the attainment of it deserve praise and those only are to be dislik'd who either foolishly or maliciously set up a corrupt private Interest in one or a few men Whosoever therefore would judg of the Roman Changes may see that in expelling the Tarquins creating Consuls abating the violence of Usurers admitting Plebeians to marry with the Patricians rendring them capable of Magistracies deducing Colonies dividing Lands gained from their Enemies erecting Tribunes to defend the Rights of the Commons appointing the Decemviri to regulate the Law and abrogating their Power when they abused it creating Dictators and Military Tribunes with a Consular Power as occasions requir'd they acted in the face of the Sun for the good of the Publick and such Acts having always produced Effects sutable to the rectitude of their Intentions they consequently deserve praise But when another Principle began to govern all things were changed in a very different manner Evil Designs tending only to the advancement of private Interests were carried on in the dark by means as wicked as the end If Tarquin when he had a mind to be King poison'd his first Wife and his Brother contracted an incestuous Marriage with his second by the death of her first Husband murder'd her Father and the best men in Rome yet Cesar did worse He favour'd Catiline and his villanous Associates brided and corrupted Magistrates conspir'd with Crassus and Pompey continued in the Command of an Army beyond the time prescribed by Law and turned the Arms with which he had bin entrusted for the service of the Commonwealth to the destruction of it which was rightly represented by his Dream that he had constuprated his Mother In the like manner when Octavius Antonius and Lepidus divided the Empire and then quarrelled among themselves and when Galba Otho Vitellius and Vespasian set up Parties in several Provinces all was managed with Treachery Fraud and Cruelty nothing was intended but the advancement of one Man and the Recompence of the Villains that served him And when the Empire had suffered infinite Calamities by pulling down or rejecting one and setting up another it was for the most part difficult to determine who was the worst of the two or whether the prevailing side had gained or lost by their Victory The question therefore upon which a Judgment may be made to the praise or dispraise of the Roman Government before or after the loss of their Liberty ought not to be Whether either were subject to changes for neither they nor any thing under the Sun was ever exempted from them but whether the Changes that happened after the establishment of Absolute Power in the Emperors did not solely proceed from Ambition and tend to the publick Ruin whereas those Alterations related by our Author concerning Consuls Dictators Decemviri Tribuns and Laws were
honest and generous do also make them lovers of Liberty and constant in the defence of their Country which savouring too much of a Republican Spirit he prefers the morals of that City since they are become more refined by the pious and charitable Jesuits before those that were remarkable in them as long as they retained any shadow of their antient Integrity which admitted of no equivocations and detested prevarications by that means preserving innocence in the hearts of private men for their inward contentment and in civil Societies for the publick good which if once extinguish'd Mankind must necessarily fall into the condition Hobbes rightly calls Bellum omnium contra omnes wherein no man can promise to himself any other Wife Children or Goods than he can procure by his own Sword Some may perhaps think that the endeavours of our Author to introduce such accursed Principles as tend to the ruin of Mankind proceed from his ignorance But tho he appears to have had a great measure of that quality I fear the evil proceeds from a deeper root and that he attempts to promote the interests of ill Magistrates who make it their business to destroy all good principles in the People with as much industry as the good endeavour to preserve them where they are and teach them where they are wanting Reason and experience instruct us that every man acts according to the end he proposes to himself The good Magistrate seeks the good of the People committed to his care that he may perform the end of his Institution and knowing that chiefly to consist in Justice and Virtue he endeavours to plant and propagate them and by doing this he procures his own good as well as that of the Publick He knows there is no Safety where there is no Strength no Strength without Union no Union with Justice no Justice where Faith and Truth in accomplishing publick and private Contracts is wanting This he perpetually inculcates and thinks it a great part of his duty by precept and example to educate the Youth in a love of Virtue and Truth that they may be seasoned with them and filled with an abhorrence of Vice and Falshood before they attain that Age which is exposed to the most violent temptations and in which they may by their crimes bring the greatest mischiefs upon the publick He would do all this tho it were to his own prejudice But as good Actions always carry a reward with them these contribute in a high measure to his advantage By preferring the interest of the People before his own he gains their affection and all that is in their power comes with it whilst he unites them to one another he unites all to himself In leading them to virtue he increases their strength and by that means provides for his own safety glory and power On the other side such as seek different ends must take different ways When a Magistrate fancies he is not made for the People but the People for him that he dos not govern for them but for himself and that the People live only to increase his glory or furnish matter for his pleasures he dos not inquire what he may do for them but what he may draw from them By this means he sets up an interest of profit pleasure or pomp in himself repugnant to the good of the publick for which he is made to be what he is These contrary ends certainly divide the Nation into parties and whilst every one endeavours to advance that to which he is addicted occasions of hatred sor injuries every day done or thought to be done and received must necessarily arise This creates a most fierce and irreconcileable enmity because the occasions are frequent important and universal and the causes thought to be most just The People think it the greatest of all crimes to convert that power to their hurt which was instituted for their good and that the injustice is aggravated by perjury and ingratitude which comprehend all manner of ill and the Magistrate gives the name of Sedition or Rebellion to whatsoever they do for the preservation of themselves and their own Rights When mens spirits are thus prepared a small matter sets them on fire but if no accident happen to blow them into a flame the course of Justice is certainly interrupted the publick affairs are neglected and when any occasion whether foreign or domestick arises in which the Magistrate stands in need of the Peoples assistance they whose affections are alienated not only shew an unwillingness to serve him with their Persons and Estates but fear that by delivering him from his distress they strengthen their enemy and enable him to oppress them and he fancying his will to be unjustly opposed or his due more unjustly denied is filled with a dislike of what he sees and a fear of worse for the future Whilst he endeavours to ease himself of the one and to provide against the other he usually increases the evils of both and jealousies are on both sides multiplied Every man knows that the Governed are in a great measure under the power of the Governor but as no man or number of men is willingly subject to those who seek their ruin such as fall into so great a misfortune continue no longer under it than force fear or necessity may be able to oblige them But as such a necessity can hardly lie longer upon a great People than till the evil be fully discovered and comprehended and their Virtue Strength and Power be united to expel it the ill Magistrate looks upon all things that may conduce to that end as so many preparatives to his ruin and by the help of those who are of his party will endeavour to prevent that Union and diminish that Strength Virtue Power and Courage which he knows to be bent against him And as truth faithful dealing due performance of Contracts and integrity of Manners are bonds of Union and helps to good he will always by tricks artifices cavils and all means possible endeavour to establish falshood and dishonesty whilst other Emissaries and instruments of Iniquity by corrupting the Youth and seducing such as can be brought to lewdness and debauchery bring the People to such a pass that they may neither care nor dare to vindicate their Rights and that those who would do it may so far suspect each other as not to confer upon much less to join in any action tending to the publick Deliverance This distinguishes the good from the bad Magistrate the faithful from the unfaithful and those who adhere to either living in the same principle must walk in the same ways They who uphold the rightful power of a just Magistracy encourage Virtue and Justice teach men what they ought to do suffer or expect from others fix them upon principles of Honesty and generally advance every thing that tends to the increase of the valour strength greatness and happiness of the Nation creating a good
and the Verdict is from them tho the Judges having heard the point argued declare the sense of the Law thereupon Wherefore if I should grant that the King might personally assist in judgments his work could only be to prevent frauds and by the advice of the Judges to see that the Laws be duly executed or perhaps to inspect their behaviour If he has more than this it must be by virtue of his politick capacity in which he is understood to be always present in the principal Courts where Justice is always done whether he who wears the Crown be young or old wise or ignorant good or bad or whether he like or dislike what is done Moreover as Governments are instituted for the obtaining of Justice and the King is in a great measure entrusted with the power of executing it 't is probable that the Law would have required his presence in the distribution if there had bin but one Court that at the same time he could be present in more than one that it were certain he would be guilty of no miscarriages that all miscarriages were to be punished in him as well as in the Judges or that it were certain he should always be a man of such wisdom industry experience and integrity as to be an assistance to and a watch over those who are appointed for the administration of Justice But there being many Courts sitting at the same time of equal Authority in several places far distant from each other impossible for the King to be present in all no manner of assurance that the same or greater miscarriages may not be committed in his presence than in his absence by himself than others no opportunity of punishing every delict in him without bringing the Nation into such disorder as may be of more prejudice to the publick than an injury done to a private man the Law which intends to obviate offences or to punish such as cannot be obviated has directed that those men should be chosen who are most knowing in it imposes an Oath upon them not to be diverted from the due course of justice by fear or favour hopes or reward particularly by any command from the King and appoints the severest punishments for them if they prove false to God and their Country If any man think that the words cited from Bracton by our Author upon the question Quis primo principaliter possit debeat judicare c. Sciendum est quod Rex non alius si solus ad haec sufficere possit cum ad hoc per virtutem Sacramenti teneatur are contrary to what I have said I desire the context may be considered that his opinion may be truly understood tho the words taken simply and nakedly may be enough for my purpose For 't is ridiculous to infer that the King has a right of doing any thing upon a supposition that 't is impossible for him to do it He therefore who says the King cannot do it says it must be done by others or not at all But having already proved that the King merely as King has none of the qualities required for judging all or any cases and that many Kings have all the desects of age and person that render men most unable and unfit to give any Sentence we may conclude without contradicting Bracton that no King as King has a power of judging because some of them are utterly unable and unfit to do it and if any one has such a power it must be confer'd upon him by those who think him able and fit to perform that work When Filmer finds such a man we must inquire into the extent of that power which is given to him but this would be nothing to his general proposition sor he himself would hardly have inferr'd that because a power of judging in some cases was conserred upon one Prince on account of his fitness and ability therefore all of them however unfit and unable have a power of deciding all cases Besides if he believe Bracton this power of judging is not inherent in the King but incumbent upon him by virtue of his Oath which our Author endeavours to enervate and annul But as that Oath is grounded upon the Law and the Law cannot presume impossibilities and absurdities it cannot intend and the Oath cannot require that a man should do that which he is unable and unfit to do Many Kings are unfit to judg causes the Law cannot therefore intend they should do it The Context also shews that this imagination of the King 's judging all causes if he could is merely Chymerical for Bracton says in the same Chapter that the power of the King is the power of the Law that is that he has no power but by the Law And the Law that aims at justice cannot make it to depend upon the uncertain humour of a Child a Woman or a foolish Man for by that means it would destroy it self The Law cannot therefore give any such power and the King cannot have it If it be said that all Kings are not so that some are of mature age wise just and good or that the question is not what is good sor the Subject but what is glorious to the King and that he must not lose his right tho the People perish I answer first that whatsoever belongs to Kings as Kings belongs to all Kings this Power of judging cannot belong to all for the Reasons above mentioned it cannot therefore belong to any as King nor without madness be granted to any till he has given testimony of such Wisdom Experience Diligence and Goodness as is required for so great a work It imports not what his Ancestors were Virtues are not entail'd and it were less improper for the Heirs of Hales and Harvey to pretend that the Clients and Patients of their Ancestors should depend upon their advice in matters of Law and Physick than for the Heirs of a great and wise Prince to pretend to Powers given on account of virtue if they have not the same talents for the performance of the works required Common sense declares that Governments are instituted and Judicatures erected for the obtaining of justice The Kings Bench was not established that the Chief Justice should have a great Office but that the oppressed should be relieved and right done The Honor and Profit he receives comes in as it were by accident as the rewards of his service if he rightly perform his duty but he may as well pretend he is there for his own sake as the King God did not set up Moses or Joshua that they might glory in having six hundred thousand men under their command but that they might lead the People into the Land they were to possess that is they were not for themselves but for the People and the glory they acquir'd was by rightly performing the end of their institution Even our Author is obliged to confess this when he says that the Kings Prerogative
in Sir Robert 't is prevarication and fraud to impute to Schoolmen and Puritans that which in his first page he acknowledged to be the Doctrine of all Reformed and Unreformed Christian Churches and that he knows to have been the principle in which the Grecians Italians Spaniards Gauls Germans and Britains and all other generous Nations ever lived before the name of Christ was known in the World insomuch that the base effeminate Asiaticks and Africans for being careless of their Liberty or unable to govern themselves were by Aristotle and other wise men called Slaves by Nature and looked upon as little different from Beasts This which hath its root in common Sense not being to be overthrown by reason he spares his pains of seeking any but thinks it enough to render his Doctrine plausible to his own Party by joining the Jesuits to Geneva and coupling Buchanan to Doleman as both maintaining the same Doctrine tho he might as well have joined the Puritans with the Turks because they all think that one and one makes two But whoever marks the Proceedings of Filmer and his Masters as well as his Disciples will rather believe that they have learn'd from Rome and the Jesuits to hate Geneva than that Geneva and Rome can agree in any thing farther than as they are obliged to submit to the evidence of Truth or that Geneva and Rome can concur in any design or interest that is not common to Mankind These men allowed to the People a liberty of deposing their Princes This is a desperate Opinion Bellarmin and Calvin look asquint at it But why is this a desperate Opinion If Disagreements happen between King and People why is it a more desperate Opinion to think the King should be subject to the Censures of the People than the People subject to the Will of the King Did the People make the King or the King make the People Is the King for the People or the People for the King Did God create the Hebrews that Saul might reign over them or did they from an opinion of procuring their own good ask a King that might judg them and fight their Battels If God's interposition which shall be hereafter explained do alter the Case did the Romans make Romulus Numa Tullus Hostilius and Tarquinius Priscus Kings or did they make or beget the Romans If they were made Kings by the Romans 't is certain they that made them sought their own good in so doing and if they were made by and for the City and People I desire to know if it was not better that when their Successors departed from the end of their Institution by endeavouring to destroy it or all that was good in it they should be censured and ejected than be permitted to ruin that People for whose good they were created Was it more just that Caligula or Nero should be suffered to destroy the poor remains of the Roman Nobility and People with the Nations subject to that Empire than that the race of such Monsters should be extinguished and a great part of Mankind especially the best against whom they were most fierce preserved by their Deaths I presume our Author thought these Questions might be easily decided and that no more was required to shew the forementioned Assertions weré not at all desperate than to examine the Grounds of them but he seeks to divert us from this enquiry by proposing the dreadful consequences of subjecting Kings to the Censures of their People whereas no consequence can destroy any Truth and the worst of this is That if it were received some Princes might be restrained from doing evil or punished if they will not be restrained We are therefore only to consider whether the People Senate or any Magistracy made by and for the People have or can have such a Right for if they have whatsoever the consequences may be it must stand And as the one tends to the good of Mankind in restraining the Lusts of wicked Kings the other exposes them without remedy to the fury of the most savage of all Beasts Iam not ashamed in this to concur with Buchanan Calvin or Bellarmin and without envy leave to Filmer and his Associates the glory of maintaining the contrary But notwithstanding our Author's aversion to Truth he consesses That Hayward Blackwood Barclay and others who have bravely vindicated the Right of Kings in this point do with one consent admit as an unquestionable truth and assent unto the natural Liberty and Equality of Mankind not so much as once questioning or opposing it And indeed I believe that tho since the sin of our first Parents the Earth hath brought forth Briars and Brambles and the nature of Man hath bin fruitful only in Vice and Wickedness neither the Authors he mentions nor any others have had impudence enough to deny such evident truth as seems to be planted in the hearts of all men or to publish Doctrines so contrary to common Sense Virtue and Humanity till these times The production of Laud Manwaring Sibthorp Hobbs Filmer and Heylin seems to have been reserved as an additional Curse to compleat the shame and misery of our Age and Country Those who had Wit and Learning with something of Ingenuity and Modesty tho they believed that Nations might possibly make an ill use of their Power and were very desirous to maintain the cause of Kings as far as they could put any good colour upon it yet never denied that some had suffered justly which could not be if there were no Power of judging them nor ever asserted any thing that might arm them with an irresistible Power of doing mischief animate them to persist in the most flagitious Courses with assurance of perpetual Impunity or engage Nations in an inevitable necessity of suffering all manner of outrages They knew that the Actions of those Princes who were not altogether detestable might be defended by particular reasons drawn from them or the Laws of their Country and would neither undertake the defence of such as were abominable nor bring Princes to whom they wished well into the odious extremity of justifying themselves by Arguments that favoured Caligula and Nero as well as themselves and that must be taken for a confession that they were as bad as could be imagined since nothing could be said for them that might not as well be applied to the worst that had bin or could be But Filmer Heylin and their Associates scorning to be restrained by such considerations boldly lay the Ax to the Root of the Tree and rightly enough affirm That the whole Fabrick of that which they call Popular Sedition would fall to the ground if the Principle of natural Liberty were removed And on the other hand it must be acknowledged that the whole Fabrick of Tyranny will be much weakened if we prove That Nations have a right to make their own Laws constitute their own Magistrates and that such as are so constituted owe an account of their Actions
retain it in themselves But whether that were observed or not by Bellarmin makes nothing to our Cause which we defend and not him The next Point is subtile and he thinks thereby to have brought Bellarmin and such as agree with his Principle to a Nonplus He doubts who shall judg of the lawful Cause of changing the Government and says It is a pestilent Conclusion to place that Power in the Multitude But why should this be esteemed pestilent or to whom If the allowance of such a Power to the Senate was pestilent to Nero it was beneficial to Mankind and the denial of it which would have given to Nero an opportunity of continuing in his Villanies would have been pestilent to the best Men whom he endeavoured to destroy and to all others that received benefit from them But this Question depends upon another for if Governments are constituted for the Pleasure Greatness or Profit of one Man he must not be interrupted for the opposing of his Will is to overthrow the Institution On the other side if the Good of the governed be sought care must be taken that the End be accomplished tho it be with the prejudice of the Governor If the Power be originally in the Multitude and one or more Men to whom the exercise of it or a part of it was committed had no more than their Brethren till it was conferred on him or them it cannot be believed that rational Creatures would advance one or a few of their Equals above themselves unless in consideration of their own Good and then I find no inconvenience in leaving to them a right of judging whether this be duly performed or not We say in general He that institutes may also abrogate most especially when the Institution is not only by but for himself If the Multitude therefore do institute the Multitude may abrogate and they themselves or those who succeed in the same Right can only be fit Judges of the performance of the Ends of the Institution Our Author may perhaps say The publick Peace may be hereby disturbed but he ought to know There can be no Peace where there is no Justice nor any Justice if the Government instituted for the good of a Nation be turned to its ruin But in plain English the Inconvenience with which such as he endeavour to afright us is no more than that He or They to whom the Power is given may be restrained or chastised if they betray their Trust which I presume will displease none but such as would rather submit Rome with the best part of the World depending upon it to the Will of Caligula or Nero than Caligula or Nero to the Judgment of the Senate and People that is rather to expose many great and brave Nations to be destroyed by the rage of a savage Beast than subject that Beast to the Judgment of all or the choicest Men of them who can have no interest to pervert them or other reason to be severe to him than to prevent the Mischiefs he would commit and to save the People from ruin In the next place he recites an Argument of Bellarmin That 't is evident in Scripture God hath ordained Powers but God hath given them to no particular Person because by Nature all Men are equal therefore he hath given Power to the People or Multitude I leave him to untie that Knot if he can but as 't is usual with Impostors he goes about by Surmises to elude the Force of his Argument pretending that in some other place he had contradicted himself and acknowledged that every Man was Prince of his Posterity because that if many Men had bin created together they ought all to have bin Princes of their Posterity But 't is not necessary to argue upon Passages cited from Authors when he that cites them may be justly suspected of Fraud and neither indicates the Place nor Treatise lest it should be detected most especially when we are no way concerned in the Author's Credit I take Bellarmin's first Argument to be strong and if he in some place did contradict it the hurt is only to himself but in this Particular I should not think he did it tho I were sure our Author had faithfully repeated his words for in allowing every Man to be Prince of his Posterity he only says every Man should be chief in his own Family and have a Power over his Children which no man denies But he dos not understand Latin who thinks that the word Princeps doth in any degree signify an absolute Power or a right of transmitting it to his Heirs and Successors upon which the Doctrine of our Author wholly depends On the contrary The same Law that gave to my Father a Power over me gives me the like over my Children and if I had a thousand Brothers each of them would have the same over their Children Bellarmin's first Argument therefore being no way enervated by the alledged Passage I may justly insist upon it and add That God hath not only declared in Scripture but written on the Heart of every Man that as it is better to be clothed than to go naked to live in a House than to lie in the Fields to be defended by the united Force of a Multitude than to place the hopes of his Security solely in his own strength and to prefer the Benefits of Society before a savage and barbarous Solitude He also taught them to frame such Societies and to establish such Laws as were necessary to preserve them And we may as reasonably affirm that Mankind is for ever obliged to use no other Clothes than leather Breeches like Adam to live in hollow Trees and eat Acorns or to seek after the Model of his House for a Habitation and to use no Arms except such as were known to the Patriarchs as to think all Nations for ever obliged to be governed as they governed their Families This I take to be the genuine sense of the Scripture and the most respectful way of interpreting the Places relating to our purpose 'T is hard to imagine that God who hath left all things to our choice that are not evil in themselves should tie us up in this and utterly incredible that he should impose upon us a necessity of following his Will without declaring it to us Instead of constituting a Government over his People consisting of many Parts which we take to be a Model fit to be imitated by others he might have declared in a word That the eldest Man of the eldest Line should be King and that his Will ought to be their Law This had bin more sutable to the Goodness and Mercy of God than to leave us in a dark Labyrinth full of Precipices or rather to make the Government given to his own People a false Light to lead us to destruction This could not be avoided if there were such a thing as our Author calls a Lord Paramount over his Childrens Children to all
through the malice of Octavius or the fraud of his Wise a wet Blanket laid over his face and a few corrupted Soldiers could invest Caligula with the same A vile Rascal pulling Claudius out by the heels from behind the Hangings where he had hid himself could give it to him A dish of Mushrooms well seasoned by the infamous Strumpet his Wife and a Potion prepared for Britannicus by Locusta could transfer it to her Son who was a stranger to his Blood Galba became Heir to it by driving Nero to despair and death Two common Soldiers by exciting his Guards to kill him could give a just Title to the Empire of the World to Otho who was thought to be the worst man in it If a Company of Villains in the German Army thinking it as fit for them as others to create a Father of Mankind could confer the Dignity upon Vitellius and if Vespasian causing him to be killed and thrown into a Jakes less impure than his Life did inherit all the glorious and sacred Privileges belonging to that Title 't is in vain to inquire after any man's right to any thing If there be such a thing as Right or Wrong to be examined by men and any Rules set whereby the one may be distinguished from the other these Extravagancies can have no effect of Right Such as commit them are not to be looked upon as Fathers but as the most mortal Enemies of their respective Countries No Right is to be acknowledged in any but such as is conferred upon them by those who have the right of conferring and are concerned in the exercise of the Power upon such conditions as best please themselves No obedience can be due to him or them who have not a right of commanding This cannot reasonably be conferred upon any that are not esteemed willing and able rightly to execute it This ability to perform the highest Works that come within the reach of Men and integrity of Will not to be diverted from it by any temptation or consideration of private Advantages comprehending all that is most commendable in man we may easily see that whensoever men act according to the Law of their own Nature which is Reason they can have no other rule to direct them in advancing one above another than the opinion of a man's Vertue and Ability best to perform the Duty incumbent upon him that is by all means to procure the good of the People committed to his charge He is only fit to conduct a Ship who understands the Art of a Pilot When we are sick we seek the assistance of such as are best skill'd in Physick The Command of an Army is prudently conferred upon him that hath most Industry Skill Experience and Valour In like manner He only can according to the rules of Nature be advanced to the Dignities of the World who excels in the Vertues required for the performance of the Duties annexed to them for he only can answer the end of his Institution The Law of every instituted Power is to accomplish the end of its Institution as Creatures are to do the Will of their Creator and in deflecting from it overthrow their own being Magistrates are distinguished from other men by the Power with which the Law invests them for the publick Good He that cannot or will not procure that Good destroys his own being and becomes like to other men In matters of the greatest importance Detur digniori is the Voice of Nature all her most sacred Laws are perverted if this be not observed in the disposition of the Governments of mankind But all is neglected and violated if they are not put into the hands of such as excel in all manner of Vertues for they only are worthy of them and they only can have a right who are worthy because they only can perform the end for which they are instituted This may seem strange to those who have their heads infected with Filmer's whimseys but to others so certainly grounded upon Truth that Bartholomew de las Casas Bishop of Chiapa in a Treatise written by him and dedicated to the Emperor Charles the 5th concerning the Indies makes it the foundation of all his Discourse That notwithstanding his grant of all those Countries from the Pope and his pretentions to Conquest he could have no right over any of those Nations unless he did in the first place as the principal end regard their Good The reason says he is that regard is to be had to the principal End and Cause for which a supreme or universal Lord is set over them which is their good and profit and not that it should turn to their destruction and ruin for if that should be there is no doubt but from thence forward that Power would be tyrannical and unjust as tending more to the interest and profit of that Lord than to the publick good and profit of the Subjects which according to natural Reason and the Laws of God and Man is abhorred and deserves to be abhorred And in another place speaking of the Governors who abusing their Power brought many troubles and vexations upon the Indians he says They had rendred his Majesty's Government intolerable and his Yoak insupportable tyrannical and most justly abhorred I do not alledg this through an opinion that a Spanish Bishop is of more Authority than another man but to shew that these are common Notions agreed by all mankind and that the greatest Monarchs do neither refuse to hear them or to regulate themselves according to them till they renounce common sense and degenerate into Beasts But if that Government be unreasonable and abhorred by the Laws of God and Man which is not instituted for the good of those that live under it and an Empire grounded upon the Donation of the Pope which amongst those of the Roman Religion is of great importance and an entire conquest of the People with whom there had been no former Compact do degenerate into a most unjust and detestable Tyranny so soon as the supreme Lord begins to prefer his own interest or profit before the good of his Subjects what shall we say of those who pretend to a right of Dominion over free Nations as inseparably united to their Persons without distinction of Age or Sex or the least consideration of their Infirmities and Vices as if they were not placed in the Throne for the good of their People but to enjoy the Honours and Pleasures that attend the highest Fortune What name can be fit for those who have no other Title to the places they possess than the most unjust and violent Usurpation or being descended from those who for their Vertues were by the Peoples consent duly advanced to the exercise of a legitimate Power and having sworn to administer it according to the Conditions upon which it was given for the good of those who gave it turn all to their own Pleasure and Profit without any care of the Publick These
like delivered their Countries from Tyrants Their Actions carried in themselves their own justification and their Virtues will never be forgotten whilst the names of Greece and Rome are remembred in the World If this be not enough to declare the Justice inherent in and the Glory that ought to accompany these Works the examples of Moses Aaron Othniel Ehud Barac Gideon Samuel Jephtha David Jehu Jehoiada the Maccabees and other holy men raised up by God for the deliverance of his People from their Oppressors decide the Question They are perpetually renowned for having led the People by extraordinary ways which such as our Author express under the names of Sedition Tumult and War to recover their Liberties and avenge the injuries received from foreign or domestick Tyrants The work of the Apostles was not in their time to set up or pull down any Civil State but they so behaved themselves in relation to all the Powers of the Earth that they gained the name of pestilent seditious Fellows Disturbers of the People and left it as an inheritance to those who in succeeding Ages by following their steps should deserve to be called their Successors whereby they were exposed to the hatred of corrupt Magistrates and brought under the necessity of perishing by them or defending themselves against them and he that denies them that right dos at once condemn the most glorious Actions of the wisest best and holiest men that have bin in the world together with the Laws of God and Man upon which they were founded Nevertheless there is a sort of Sedition Tumult and War proceeding from Malice which is always detestable aiming only at the satisfaction of private Lust without regard to the publick Good This cannot happen in a Popular Government unless it be amongst the Rabble or when the Body of the People is so corrupted that it cannot stand but is most frequent in and natural to absolute Monarchies When Abimelech desir'd to make himself King he raised a Tumult among the basest of the People He hired light and vain persons some Translations call them lewd Vagabonds kill'd his Brethren but perished in his design the corrupt party that favour'd him not having strength enough to subdue the other who were more sincere Sp. Melius Sp. Cassius and Manlius attempted the like in Rome they acted malitiously their pretences to procure the publick Good were false 'T is probable that some in the City were as bad as they and knew that mischief was intended but the body of the People not being corrupted they were suppressed It appear'd says Livy Nihil esse minus populare quam regnum they who had favour'd Manlius condemned him to death when it was proved that egregias alioqui virtutes fa'da regni cupidine maculasset But when the People is generally corrupted such designs seldom miscarry and the success is always the erection of a Tyranny Nothing else can please vain and profligate persons and no Tyranny was ever set up by such as were better qualified The ways of attaining it have always bin by corrupting the manners of the People bribing Soldiers entertaining mercenary Strangers opening Prisons giving Liberty to Slaves alluring indigent persons with hopes of abolishing Debts coming to a new division of Lands and the like Seditions raised by such men always tend to the ruin of popular Governments but when they happen under absolute Monarchies the hurt intended is only to the Person who being removed the Promoters of them set up another and he that is set up subsisting only by the strength of those who made him is obliged to foment the Vices that drew them to serve him tho another may perhaps make use of the same against him The consequence of this is that those who uphold Popular Governments look upon Vice and Indigence as mischiefs that naturally increase each other and equally tend to the ruin of the State When men are by Vice brought into want they are ready for mischief there is no Villany that men of profligate Lives lost Reputation and desperate Fortunes will not undertake Popular equality is an enemy to these and they who would preserve it must preserve integrity of manners Sobriety and an honest contentedness with what the Law allows On the other side the absolute Monarch who will have no other Law than his own Will desires to increase the number of those who through lewdness and beggery may incline to depend upon him tho the same temper of Mind and condition of Fortune prepare them also for such Seditions as may bring him into danger and the same corruption which led them to set him up may invite them to sell him to another that will give them better wages I do not by this conclude that all Monarchs are vitious men but that whoever will set up an absolute Power must do it by these means and that if such a Power be already established and should fall into the hands of a person who by his virtue and the gentleness of his nature should endeavour to render the Yoak so easy that a better disciplin'd People might be contented to bear it yet this method could last no longer than his life and probably would be a means to shorten it that which was at first established by evil arts always returning to the same That which was vicious in the principle can never be long upheld by Virtue and we see that the worst of the Roman Emperors were not in greater danger from such good men as remained undestroy'd than the best from the corrupt Party that would not be corrected and sought such a Master as would lay no restriction upon their Vices Those few who escaped the rage of these Villains only gave a little breathing time to the afflicted World which by their Children or Successors was again plunged into that extremity of misery from which they intended to deliver it An extraordinary Virtue was required to keep a Prince in a way contrary to the principles of his own Government which being rarely found and never continuing long in a Family or Succession of men the endeavours of the best became ineffectual and either they themselves perished in them or after their death all things returned into the old polluted Channel Tho the Power of the Hebrew Kings was not unlimited yet it exceeded the rules set by God and was sufficient to increase the number of the worst of men and to give them opportunities of raising perpetual disturbances On the King's side there were Flatterers and instruments of mischief On the other side there were indebted and discontented Persons Notwithstanding the justice of David's cause the Wisdom Valour and Piety of his person none would follow him except a few of his own Kindred who knew what God had promised to him and such as were uneasy in their worldly circumstances After the death of Saul there was a long and bloody War between Ishbosheth and David The former being killed the slightest matters were sufficient to
and People came to be Master of so much of the Country as procured him the name of King of France killed his eldest Son on suspicion that he was excited against him by Brunehaud and his Second lest he should revenge the death of his Brother he married Fredegonde and was soon after kill'd by her Adulterer Landry The Kingdom continued in the same misery through the rage of the surviving Princes and found no relief tho most of them fell by the Sword and that Brunehaud who had bin a principal cause of those Tragedies was tied to the tails of four wild Horses and suffer'd a death as foul as her life These were Lions and Leopards They involved the Kingdom in desperate troubles but being men of valour and industry they kept up in some measure the Reputation and Power of the Nation and he who attain'd to the Crown defended it But they being fallen by the hands of each other the poisonous Root put forth another Plague more mortal than their Fury The vigour was spent and the Succession becoming more settled ten base and slothful Kings by the French called Les Roys faineans succeeded Some may say They who do nothing do no hurt but the rule is false in relation to Kings He that takes upon him the government of a People can do no greater evil than by doing nothing nor be guilty of a more unpardonable Crime than by Negligence Cowardice Voluptuousness and Sloth to desert his charge Virtue and Manhood perish under him good Discipline is forgotten Justice slighted the Laws perverted or rendred useless the People corrupted the publick Treasures exhausted and the Power of the Government always falling into the hands of Flatterers Whores Favorites Bawds and such base wretches as render it contemptible a way is laid open for all manner of disorders The greatest cruelty that has bin known in the world if accompanied with wit and courage never did so much hurt as this slothful bestiality or rather these slothful Beasts have ever bin most cruel The Reigns of Septimius Severus Mahomet the second or Selim the second were cruel and bloody but their fury was turned against Foreigners and some of their near Relations or against such as fell under the suspicion of making attempts against them The condition of the people was tolerable those who would be quiet might be safe the Laws kept their right course the Reputation of the Empire was maintained the Limits defended and the publick Peace preserved But when the Sword passed into the hands of lewd slothful foolish and cowardly Princes it was of no power against foreign Enemies or the disturbers of domestic Peace tho always sharp against the best of their own Subjects No man knew how to secure himself against them unless by raising civil Wars which will always be frequent when a Crown defended by a weak hand is proposed as a Prize to any that dare invade it This is a perpetual Spring of disorders and no Nation was ever quiet when the most eminent men found less danger in the most violent Attempts than in submitting patiently to the Will of a Prince that suffers his Power to be managed by vile Persons who get credit by flattering him in his Vices But this is not all such Princes naturally hate and fear those who excel them in Virtue and Reputation as much as they are inferior to them in Fortune and think their Persons cannot be secured nor their Authority enlarged except by their destruction 'T is ordinary for them inter scorta ganeas principibus viris perniciem machinare and to make Cruelty a cover to Ignorance and Cowardice Besides the Mischiefs brought upon the Publick by the loss of eminent Men who are the Pillars of every State such Reigns are always accompanied with Tumults and Civil Wars the great Men striving with no less violence who shall get the weak Prince into his power when such regard is had to succession that they think it not fit to devest him of the Title than when with less respect they contend for the Soveraignty it self And whilst this sort of Princes reigned France was not less afflicted with the Contests between Grimbauld Ebroin Grimoald and others for the Mayoralty of the Palace than they had bin before by the rage of those Princes who had contested for the Crown The Issue also was the same After many Revolutions Charles Martel gained the Power of the Kingdom which he had so bravely defended against the Saracens and having transmitted it to his Son Pepin the General Assembly of Estates with the approbation of Mankind conferred the Title also upon him This gave the Nation ease for the present but the deep-rooted Evil could not be so cured and the Kingdom that by the Wisdom Valour and Reputation of Pepin had bin preserved from civil Troubles during his life fell as deeply as ever into them so soon as he was dead His Sons Carloman and Charles divided the Dominions but in a little time each of them would have all Carloman fill'd the Kingdom with Tumult raised the Lombards and marched with a great Army against his Brother till his course was interrupted by death caused as is supposed by such helps as Princes liberally afford to their aspiring Relations Charles deprived his two Sons of their Inheritance put them in Prison and we hear no more of them His third Brother Griffon was not more quiet nor more successful and there could be no Peace in Gascony Italy or Germany till he was kill'd But all the Advantages which Charles by an extraordinary Virtue and Fortune had purchased for his Country ended with his life He left his Son Lewis the Gentle in possession of the Empire and Kingdom of France and his Grandson Bernard King of Italy But these two could not agree and Bernard falling into the hands of Lewis was deprived of his Eyes and some time after kill'd This was not enough to preserve the Peace Lothair Lewis and Pepin all three Sons to Lewis rebelled against him called a Council at Lions deposed him and divided the Empire amongst themselves After five years he escaped from the Monastery where he had bin kept renew'd the War and was again taken Prisoner by Lothair When he was dead the War broke out more fiercely than ever between his Children Lothair the Emperor assaulted Lewis King of Bavaria and Charles King of Rhetia was defeated by them and confined to a Monastery where he died New Quarrels arose between the two Brothers upon the division of the Countries taken from him and Lorrain only was left to his Son Lewis died soon after and Charles getting possession of the Empire and Kingdom ended an inglorious Reign in an unprosperous attempt to deprive Hermingrade Daughter to his Brother Lewis of the Kingdom of Arles and other places left to her by her Father Lewis his Son call'd the Stutterer reigned two years in much trouble and his only legitimate Son Charles the Simple came not to the
Crown till after the death of his two Bastards Lewis and Carloman Charles le Gros and Eudes Duke of Anjou Charles le Gros was deposed from the Empire and Kingdom strip'd of his goods and left to perish through poverty in an obscure Village Charles the Simple and the Nations under him thrived no better Robert Duke of Anjou raised War against him and was crown'd at Rheims but was himself slain soon after in a bloody battel near Soissons His Son-in-law Hebert Earl of Vermandois gathered up the remains of his scatter'd party got Charles into his power and called a General Assembly of Estates who deposed him and gave the Crown to Raoul Duke of Burgundy tho he was no otherwise related to the Royal Blood than by his Mother which in France is nothing at all He being dead Lewis Son to the deposed Charles was made King but his Reign was as inglorious to him as miserable to his Subjects This is the Peace which the French enjoy'd for the space of five or six Ages under their Monarchy and 't is hard to determine whether they suffer'd most by the Violence of those who possessed or the Ambition of others who aspired to the Crown and whether the fury of active or the baseness of slothful Princes was most pernicious to them But upon the whole matter through the defects of those of the latter sort they lost all that they had gained by sweat and blood under the conduct of the former Henry and Otho of Saxony by a Virtue like that of Charlemagne deprived them of the Empire and settled it in Germany leaving France only to Lewis sirnamed Outremer and his Son Lothair These seemed to be equally composed of Treachery Cruelty Ambition and Baseness They were always mutinous and always beaten Their frantick Passions put them always upon unjust Designs and were such plagues to their Subjects and Neighbours that they became equally detested and despised These things extinguished the veneration due to the memory of Pepin and Charles and obliged the whole Nation rather to seek relief from a Stranger than to be ruin'd by their worthless Descendents They had tried all ways that were in their power deposed four crowned Kings within the space of a hundred and fifty years crowned five who had no other Title than the People conferred upon them and restored the Descendents of those they had rejected but all was in vain Their Vices were incorrigible the Mischiefs produc'd by them intolerable they never ceased from murdering one another in battel or by treachery and bringing the Nation into Civil Wars upon their wicked or foolish quarrels till the whole Race was rejected and the Crown placed upon the head of Hugh Capet These mischiefs raged not in the same extremity under him and his Descendents but the abatement proceeded from a cause no way advantagious to Absolute Monarchy The French were by their Calamities taught more strictly to limit the Regal Power and by turning the Dukedoms and Earldoms into Patrimonies which had bin Offices gave an Authority to the chief of the Nobility by which that of Kings was curbed and tho by this means the Commonalty was exposed to some Pressures yet they were small in comparison of what they had suffer'd in former times When many great men had Estates of their own that did not depend upon the Will of Kings they grew to love their Country and tho they chearfully served the Crown in all cases of publick concernment they were not easily engaged in the personal quarrels of those who possessed it or had a mind to gain it To preserve themselves in this condition they were obliged to use their Vassals gently and this continuing in some measure till within the last fifty years the Monarchy was less tumultuous than when the King 's Will had bin less restrained Nevertheless they had not much reason to boast there was a Root still remaining that from time to time produced poisonous Fruit Civil Wars were frequent among them tho not carried on with such desperate madness as formerly and many of them upon the account of disputes between Competitors for the Crown All the Wars with England since Edward II. married Isabella Daughter and as he pretended Heir of Philip Le Bel were of this nature The defeats of Crecy Poitiers and Agincourt with the slaughters and devastations suffer'd from Edward III. the black Prince and Henry V. were merely upon Contests for the Crown and for want of an Interpreter of the Law of Succession who might determine the question between the Heir Male and the Heir General The Factions of Orleans and Burgundy Orleans and Armignac proceeded from the same Spring and the Murders that seem to have bin the immediate causes of those Quarrels were only the effects of the hatred growing from their competition The more odious tho less bloody Contests between Lewis the 11 th and his Father Charles the 7 th with the jealousy of the former against his Son Charles the 8 th arose from the same Principle Charles of Bourbon prepared to fill France with Fire and Blood upon the like quarrel when his designs were overthrown by his death in the assault of Rome If the Dukes of Guise had bin more fortunate they had soon turned the cause of Religion into a claim to the Crown and repair'd the Injury done as they pretended to Pepin's Race by destroying that of Capet And Henry the third thinking to prevent this by the slaughter of Henry le Balafré and his Brother the Cardinal de Guise brought ruin upon himself and cast the Kingdom into a most horrid confusion Our own Age furnishes us with more than one attempt of the same kind attended with the like success The Duke of Orleans was several times in arms against Lewis the 13 th his Brother the Queen-mother drew the Spaniards to favour him Montmorency perished in his Quarrel Fontrailles reviv'd it by a Treaty with Spain which struck at the King's head as well as the Cardinal 's and was suppress'd by the death of Cinq Mars and de Thou Those who understand the Affairs of that Kingdom make no doubt that the Count de Soissons would have set up for himself and bin follow'd by the best part of France if he had not bin kill'd in the pursuit of his Victory at the Battel of Sedan Since that time the Kingdom has suffer'd such Disturbances as show that more was intended than the removal of Mazarin And the Marechal de Turenne was often told that the check he gave to the Prince of Condé at Gien after he had defeated Hocquincourt had preserved the Crown upon the King's head And to testify the Stability good Order and domestick Peace that accompanies Absolute Monarchy we have in our own days seen the House of Bourbon often divided within it self the Duke of Orleans the Count de Soissons the Princes of Condé and Conti in war against the King the Dukes of Angoulesme Vendome Longueville the Count
bribing a man who supped upon the Coleworts of his own Garden He could not be gained by Gold who did not think it necessary He that could rise from the Plow to the triumphal Chariot and contentedly return thither again could not be corrupted and he that left the sense of his Poverty to his Executors who found not wherewith to bury him might leave Macedon and Greece to the pillage of his Soldiers without taking to himself any part of the Booty But when Luxury was brought into fashion and they came to be honor'd who liv'd magnificently tho they had in themselves no qualities to distinguish them from the basest of Slaves the most virtuous men were exposed to scorn if they were poor and that poverty which had bin the mother and nurse of their Virtue grew insupportable The Poet well understood what effect this change had upon the World who said Nullum crimen abest facinusque libidinis ex quo Paupertas Romana perit Juven When Riches grew to be necessary the desire of them which is the spring of all mischief follow'd They who could not obtain Honours by the noblest Actions were oblig'd to get Wealth to purchase them from Whores and Villains who exposed them to sale and when they were once entred into this track they soon learnt the Vices of those from whom they had received their Preferment and to delight in the ways that had brought them to it When they were come to this nothing could stop them All thought and remembrance of good was extinguish'd They who had bought the Commands of Armies or Provinces from Icetus or Narcissus sought only how to draw Money from them to enable them to purchase higher Dignities or gain a more assured protection from those Patrons This brought the Government of the World under a most infamous Traffick and the Treasures arising from it were for the most part dissipated by worse vices than the Rapine Violence and Fraud with which they had bin gotten The Authors of those Crimes had nothing left but their Crimes and the necessity of committing more through the indigence into which they were plung'd by the extravagance of their Expences These things are inseparable from the life of a Courtier for as servile Natures are guided rather by sense than reason such as addict themselves to the service of Courts find no other consolation in their misery than what they receive from sensual pleasures or such vanities as they put a value upon and have no other care than to get Money for their supply by begging stealing bribing and other infamous practices Their Offices are more or less esteemed according to the opportunities they afford for the exercise of these Virtues and no man seeks them for any other end than for gain nor takes any other way than that which conduces to it The usual means of attaining them are by observing the Prince's Humour flattering his Vices serving him in his Pleasures fomenting his Passions and by advancing his worst Designs to create an opinion in him that they love his Person and are entirely addicted to his Will When Valour Industry and Wisdom advanced men to Offices it was no easy matter for a man to perswade the Senate he had such Qualities as were requir'd if he had them not But when Princes seek only such as love them and will do what they command 't is easy to impose upon them and because none that are good will obey them when they command that which is not so they are always encompassed by the worst Those who follow them only for Reward are most liberal in prosessing affection to them and by that means rise to places of Authority and Power The Fountain being thus corrupted nothing that is pure can come from it These mercenary Wretches having the management of Affairs Justice and Honours are set at a price and the most lucrative Traffick in the world is thereby established Eutropius when he was a Slave used to pick Pockets and Locks but being made a Minister he sold Cities Armies and Provinces and some have undertaken to give probable reasons to believe that Pallas one of Claudius his manumised Slaves by these means brought together more Wealth in six years than all the Roman Dictators and Consuls had done from the expulsion of the Kings to their passage into Asia The rest walked in the same way used the same arts and many of them succeeded in the same manner Their Riches consisted not of Spoils taken from Enemies but were the base product of their own corruption They valued nothing but Money and those who could bribe them were sure to be advanc'd to the highest Offices and whatever they did feared no punishment Like Effects will ever proceed from the like Causes When Vanity Luxury and Prodigality are in fashion the desire of Riches must necessarily increase in proportion to them And when the Power is in the hands of base mercenary persons they will always to use the Courtiers phrase make as much profit of their places as they can Not only matters of Favour but of Justice too will be exposed to sale and no way will be open to Honours or Magistracies but by paying largely for them He that gets an Office by these means will not execute it gratis he thinks he may sell what he has bought and would not have entred by corrupt ways if he had not intended to deal corruptly Nay if a well-meaning man should suffer himself to be so far carried away by the stream of a prevailing Custom as to purchase Honours of such Villains he would be obliged to continue in the same course that he might gain Riches to procure the continuance of his Benefactors protection or to obtain the favour of such as happen to succeed them And the corruption thus beginning in the Head must necessarily diffuse it self into all the Members of the Commonwealth Or if any one which is not to be expected after having bin guilty of one Villany should resolve to commit no more it could have no other effect than to bring him to ruin and he being taken away all things would return to their former channel Besides this whosoever desires to advance himself must use such means as are sutable to the time in which he lives and the humour of the persons with whom he is to deal It had bin as absurd for any man void of merit to set himself up against Junius Brutus Cincinnatus Papirius Cursor Camillus Fabius Maximus or Scipio and by bribing the Senate and People of Rome think to be chosen Captain against the Tarquins Tuscans Latins Samnites Gauls or Carthaginians as for the most virtuous men by the most certain proofs of their Wisdom Experience Integrity and Valour to expect advancement from Caligula Claudius and Nero or the lewd Wretches that govern'd them They hated and feared all those that excelled in Virtue and setting themselves to destroy the best for being the best they placed the strength of the Government
their Dominion on the Terra firma and prepared to assault the City it was under God solely preserved by the vigour and wisdom of their Nobility who tho no way educated to War unless by Sea sparing neither persons nor purses did with admirable industry and courage first recover Padoüa and then many other Cities so as at the end of that terrible War they came off without any diminution of their Territories Whereas Portugal having in our age revolted from the House of Austria no one doubts that it had bin immediately reduced if the great men of Spain had not bin pleased with such a lessening of their Master's power and resolved not to repair it by the recovery of that Kingdom or to deprive themselves of an cafy retreat when they should be oppressed by him or his Favourites The like thought was more plainly express'd by the Mareschal de Bassompierre who sceing how hardly Rochel was pressed by Lewis the 13th faid he thought they should be such fools to take it but 't is believ'd they would never have bin such fools and the treachery only of our Countrymen did enable the Cardinal Richlieu to do it as for his own glory and the advancement of the Popish Cause he really intended and nothing is to this day more common in the mouth of their wisest and best men tho Papists than the acknowledgment of their own folly in suffering that place to fall the King having by thar means gotten power to proceed against them at his pleasure The brave Monsieur de Turenne is said to have carried this to a greater height in his last Discourse to the present King of France You think said he you have Armies but you have none the one half of the Officers are the Bawdy-house Companions of Monsieur de xxx or the Creatures of his Whore Madam de xxx the other half may be men of experience and fit for their Imployments but they are such as would be pleased with nothing more than to see you lose two or three Battels that coming to stand in need of them you might cause them to be better used by your Ministers than of late they have bin It may easily be imagin'd how men in such sentiments do serve their Master and nothing is more evident than that the French in this age have had so great advantages that they might have brought Europe and perhaps Asia under their power if the interest of the Nation had bin united to that of the Government and the Strength Vigour and Bravery of the Nobility employ'd that way But since it has pleased God to suffer us to fall into a condition of being little able to help our selves and that they are in so good terms with the Turk as not to attack him 't is our happiness that they do not know their own strength or cannot without ruin to themselves turn it to our prejudice I could give yet more pregnant testimonies of the difference between men fighting for their own interests in the Offices to which they had bin advanced by the votes of numerous Assemblies and such as serve for pay and get preferments by corruption or favour if I were not unwilling to stir the spleen of some men by obliging them to reflect upon what has passed in our own Age and Country to compare the justice of our Tribunals within the time of our memory and the integrity of those who for a while manag'd the publick Treasure the Discipline Valour and Strength of our Armies and Fleets the increase of our Riches and Trade the success of our Wars in Scotland Ireland and at Sea the glory and reputation not long since gained with that condition into which we are of late fallen But I think I shall offend no wise or good man if I say that as neither the Romans nor Grecians in the time of their Liberty ever performed any actions more glorious than freeing the Country from a Civil War that had raged in every part the conquest of two such Kingdoms as Scotland and Ireland and crushing the formidable power of the Hollanders by Sea nor ever produced more examples of Valor Industry Integrity and in all respects compleat disinterested unmovable and incorruptible Virtue than were at that time seen in our Nation So neither of them upon the change of their Affairs did exceed us in weakness cowardice baseness venality lewdness and all manner of corruption We have reason therefore not only to believe that all Princes do not necessarily understand the affairs of their People or provide better for them than those who are otherwise chosen but that as there is nothing of Greatness Power Riches Strength and Happiness which we might not reasonably have hoped for if we had rightly improved the advantages we had so there is nothing of shame and misery which we may not justly fear since we have neglected them If any man think that this evil of advancing Officers for personal respects favour or corruption is not of great extent I desire him to consider that the Officers of State Courts of Justice Church Armies Fleets and Corporations are of such number and power as wholly to corrupt a Nation when they themselves are corrupted and will ever be corrupt when they attain to their Offices by corruption The good mannagement of all Affairs Civil Military and Ecclesiastical necessarily depends upon good order and discipline and 't is not in the power of common men to reform abuses patronized by those in Authority nor to prevent the mischiefs thereupon ensuing and not having power to direct publick actions to the publick good they must consequently want the industry and affection that is required to bring them to a good issue The Romans were easily beaten under the Decemviri tho immediatly before the erection and after the extinction of that Power none of their Neighbours were able to resist them The Goths who with much glory had reigned in Spain for about three hundred years had neither strength nor courage under their lewd and odious King Rodrigo and were in one day subdued with little loss of blood by the Saracens and could not in less than eight hundred years free their Country from them That brave Nation having of late fallen under as base a conduct has now as little heart or power to defend it self Court-Parasites have rendred Valour ridiculous and they who have ever shew'd themselves as much inclin'd to Arms as any people of the world do now abhor them and are sent to the Wars by force laid in Carts and bound like Calves brought to the Shambles and left to starve in Flanders as soon as they arrive It may easily be judged what service can be expected from such men tho they should happen to be well commanded but the great Officers by the corruption of the Court think only of enriching themselves and encreasing the misery of the Soldiers by their frauds both become equally useless to the State Notwithstanding the seeming prosperity
doing the like unless they have made municipal Laws of their own to the contrary which our Author and his Followers may produce when they can find them His next work is to go back again to the Tribute paid by Christ to Cesar and judiciously to infer that all Nations must pay the same Duty to their Magistrates as the Jews did to the Romans who had subdued them Christ did not says he ask what the Law of the Land was nor inquire whether there was a Statute against it nor whether the Tribute were given by the consent of the People but upon sight of the superscription concluded c. It had bin strange if Christ had inquired after their Laws Statutes or Consent when he knew that their Commonwealth with all the Laws by which it had subsisted was abolished and that Israel was become a Servant to those who exercised a most violent domination over them which being a peculiar punishment for their peculiar sins can have no influence upon Nations that are not under the same circumstances But of all that he says nothing is more incomprehensible than what he can mean by lawful Kings to whom all is due that was due to the Roman Usurpers For lawful Kings are Kings by the Law In being Kings by the Law they are such Kings as the Law makes them and that Law only must tell us what is due to them or by a universal Patriarchical Right to which no man can have a title as is said before till he prove himself to be the right Heir of Noah If neither of these are to be regarded but that Right follows Possession there is no such thing as a Usurper he who has the Power has the Right as indeed Filmer says and his Wisdom as well as his Integrity is sufficiently declared by the Assertion This wicked extravagancy is followed by an attempt of as singular ignorance and stupidity to shuffle together Usurpers and Conquerors as if they were the same whereas there have bin many Usurpers who were not Conquerors and Conquerors that deserved not the name of Usurpers No wife man ever said that Agathocles or Dionysius conquer'd Syracuse Tarquin Galba or Otho Rome Cromwel England or that the Magi who seiz'd the Government of Persia after the death of Cambyses conquer'd that Country When Moses and Joshua had overthrown the Kingdoms of the Amorites Moabites and Cananites or when David subdued the Ammonites Edomites and others none as I suppose but such Divines as Filmer will say they usurped a Dominion over them There is such a thing amongst men as just War or else true Valour would not be a Virtue but a Crime and instead of glory the utmost infamy would always be the companion of Victory There are says Grotius Laws of War as well as of Peace He who for a just Cause and by just Means carries on a just War has as clear a right to what is acquired as can be enjoy'd by Man but all usurpation is detestable and abominable SECT X. The words of St. Paul enjoying obedience to higher Powers favour all sorts of Governments no less than Monarchy OUR Author's next quarrel is with St. Paul who did not as he says in enjoyning subjection to the higher Powers signify the Laws of the Land or mean the highest Powers as well Aristocratical and Democratical as Regal but a Monarch that carries the Sword c. But what if there be no Monarch in the place or what if he do not carry the Sword Had the Apostle spoken in vain if the liberty of the Romans had not bin overthrown by the fraud and violence of Cesar Was no obedience to be exacted whilst that people enjoy'd the benefit of their own Laws and Virtue flourished under the moderate Government of a legal and just Magistracy established for the common good by the common consent of all Had God no Minister amongst them till Law and Justice was overthrown the best part of the people destroy'd by the fury of a corrupt mercenary Souldiery and the world subdued under the Tyranny of the worst Monsters that it had ever produced Are these the ways of establishing God's Vicegerents and will he patronize no Governors or Governments but such as these Do's God uphold evil and that only If the world has bin hitherto mistaken in giving the name of evil to that which is good and calling that good which is evil I desire to know what can be call'd good amongst men if the Government of the Romans till they entred Greece and Asia and were corrupted by the Luxury of both do not deserve that name or what is to be esteemed evil if the establishment and exercise of the Cesars Power were not so But says he Wilt thou not be afraid of the Power And was there no Power in the Governments that had no Monarchs Were the Carthaginians Romans Grecians Gauls Germans and Spaniards without Power Was there no Sword in that Nation and their Magistrates who overthrew the Kingdoms of Armenia Egypt Numidia Macedon and many others whom none of the Monarchs were able to resist Are the Venetians Switzers Grisons and Hollanders now lest in the same weakness and no obedience at all due to their Magistrates If this be so how comes it to pass that justice is so well administred amongst them Who is it that defends the Hollanders in such a manner that the greatest Monarchs with all their Swords have had no great reason to boast of any advantages gained against them at least till we whom they could not resist when we had no Monarch tho we have bin disgracefully beaten by them since we had one by making Leagues against them and sowing divisions amongst them instigated and assisted the greatest Power now in the world to their destruction and our own But our Author is so accustom'd to fraud that he never cites a passage of Scripture which he does not abuse or vitiate and that he may do the same in this place he leaves out the following words For there is no power but of God that he might intitle one sort only to his protection If therefore the People and popular Magistrates of Athens the two Kings Ephori and Senate of Sparta the Sanhedrims amongst the Hebrews the Consuls Tribuns Pretors and Senate of Rome the Magistrates of Holland Switzerland and Venice have or had power we may conclude that they also were ordained by God and that according to the precept of the Apostle the same obedience sor the same reason is due to them as to any Monarch The Apostle farther explaining himself and shewing who may be accounted a Magistrate and what the duty of such a one is informs us when we should fear and on what account Rulers says he are not a terror to good works but to the evil Wilt thou then not be afraid of the Power do that which is good and thou shalt have praise of the same for he is the Minister of God a revenger to execute wrath
able than themselves to bear the weight of a Crown convinces me fully that they had so framed our Laws that even children women or ill men might either perform as much as was necessarily required of them or be brought to reason if they transgressed and arrogated to themselves more than was allow'd For 't is not to be imagined that a company of men should so far degenerate from their own Nature which is Reason to give up themselves and their Posterity with all their concernments in the world to depend upon the will of a child a woman an ill man or a fool If therefore Laws are necessary to popular States they are no less to Monarchies or rather that is not a State or Government which has them not and 't is no less impossible for any to subsist without them than for the body of a man to be and perform its functions without Nerves or Bones And if any People had ever bin so foolish to establish that which they called a Government without Laws to support and regulate it the impossibility of subsisting would evidence the madness of the Constitution and ought to deter all others from following their example 'T is no less incredible that those Nations which rejected Kings did put themselves into the Power of one man to prescribe to them such Laws as he pleased But the instances alledged by our Author are evidently false The Athenians were not without Laws when they had Kings AEgeus was subject to the Laws and did nothing of importance without the consent of the People and Theseus not being able to please them died a banished man Draco and Solon did not make but propose Laws and they were of no force till they were established by the Authority of the People The Spartans dealt in the same manner with Lycurgus he invented their Laws but the People made them and when the Assembly of all the Citizens had approved and sworn to observe them till his return from Crete he resolved rather to die in a voluntary banishment than by his return to absolve them from the Oath they had taken The Romans also had Laws during the Government of their Kings but not finding in them that Perfection they desired the Decemviri were chosen to frame others which yet were of no value till they were passed by the People in the Comitia Centuriata and being so approved they were established But this Sanction to which every man whether Magistrate or private Citizen was subject did no way bind the whole body os the People who still retained in themselves the Power os changing both the matter and the form of their Government as appears by their instituting and abrogating Kings Consuls Dictators Tribuns with consular Power and Decemviri when they thought good for the Commonwealth And if they had this Power I leave our Author to shew why the like is not in other Nations SECT XIV Laws are not made by Kings not because they are busied in greater matters than doing Justice but because Nations will be governed by Rule and not Arbitrarily OUR Author pursuing the mistakes to which he seems perpetually condemned says that when Kings were either busied in War or distracted with publick Cares so that every private man could not have access unto their Persons to learn their Wills and Pleasures then of necessity were Laws invented that so every particular Subject might find his Prince's Pleasure I have often heard that Governments were established for the obtaining of Justice and if that be true 't is hard to imagine what business a supreme Magistrate can have to divert him from accomplishing the principal end of his Institution And 't is as commonly said that this distribution of Justice to a People is a work surpassing the strength of any one man Jethro seems to have bin a wise man and 't is probable he thought Moses to be so also but he found the work of judging the People to be too heavy for him and therefore advised him to leave the judgment of Causes to others who should be chosen for that purpose which advice Moses accepted and God approved The governing power was as insupportable to him as the Judicial He desired rather to die than to bear so great a burden and God neither accusing him of sloth or impatience gave him seventy Assistants But if we may believe our Author the Powers Judicial and Legislative that of judging as well as that of governing is not too much for any man woman or child whatsoever and that he stands in no need either of God's Statutes to direct him or Man's Counsel to assist him unless it be when he is otherwise employ'd and his Will alone is sufficient for all But what if he be not busied in greater matters or distracted with publick cares is every Prince capable of this work Tho Moses had not found it too great for him or it should be granted that a man of excellent natural Endowments great Wisdom Learning Experience Industry and Integrity might perform it is it certain that all those who happen to be born in reigning Families are so If Moses had the Law of God before his eyes and could repair to God himself for the application or explanation of it have all Princes the same Assistance Do they all speak with God face to face or can they do what he did without the Assistance he had If all Kings of mature years are of that perfection are we assured that none shall die before his Heir arrive to the same Or shall he have the same ripeness of Judgment in his Infancy If a Child come to a Crown dos that immediately infuse the most admirable Endowments and Graces Have we any promise from Heaven that Women shall enjoy the same Prerogatives in those Countries where they are made capable of the Succession Or dos that Law which renders them capable defend them not only against the frailty of their own Nature but confer the most sublime virtues upon them But who knows not that no Families do more frequently produce weak or ill men than the greatest and that which is worse their greatness is a snare to them so that they who in a low condition might have passed unregarded being advanced to the highest have often appeared to be or became the worst of all Beasts and they who advance them are like to them For if the Power be in the Multitude as our Author is forced to confess otherwise the Athenians and Romans could not have given all as he says nor a part as I say to Draco Solon or the Decemviri they must be Beasts also who should have given away their Right and Liberty in hopes of receiving Justice from such as probably will neither understand nor regard it or protection from those who will not be able to help themselves and expect such Virtue Wisdom and Integrity should be and for ever remain in the Family they set up as was never known to
a Commonwealths-man as Cato but the washed Swine will return to the Mire He overthrows all by a preposterous conjunction of the rights os Kings which are just and by Law with those of Tyrants which are utterly against Law and gives the sacred and gentle name os Father to those Beasts who by their actions declare themselves enemies not only to all Law and Justice but to Mankind that cannot subsist without them This requires no other proof than to examine whether Attila or Tamerlan did well deserve to be called Fathers of the Countries they destroy'd The first of these was usually called the scourge of God and he gloried in the Name The other being reproved for the detestable cruelties he exercised made answer You speak to me as to a man I am not a man but the scourge of God and plague of Mankind This is certainly sweet and gentle Language savouring much of a fatherly tenderness There is no doubt that those who use it will provide for the safety of the Nations under them and the preservation of the Laws of Nature is rightly referred to them and 't is very probable that they who came to burn the Countries and destroy the Nations that fell under their power should make it their business to preserve them and look upon the former Governors as their Fathers whose acts they were obliged to confirm tho they seldom attained to the Dominion by any other means than the slaughter of them and their Families But if the enmity be not against the Nation and the cause of the war be only for Dominion against the ruling Person or Family as that of Baasha against the house of Jeroboam of Zimri against that of Baasha of Omri against Zimri and of Jehu against Joram the prosecution of it is a strange way of becoming the Son of the Person destroyed And Filmer alone is subtil enough to discover that Jehu by extinguishing the house of Ahab drew an obligation upon himself of looking on him as his Father and confirming his acts If this be true Moses was obliged to confirm the acts of the Kings of the Amalekites Moabites and Amorites that he destroy'd the same duty lay upon Joshua in relation to the Cananites but 't is not so easily decided to which of them he did owe that deference for the same could not be due to all and 't is hard to believe that by killing above thirty Kings he should purchase to himself so many Fathers and the like may be said of divers others Moreover there is a sort of Tyrant who has no Father as Agathocles Dionysius Cesar and generally all those who subvert the Liberties of their own Countrey And if they stood obliged to look upon the former Magistrates as their Predecessors and to confirm their Acts the first should have bin to give impunity and reward to any that would kill them it having bin a fundamental Maxim in those States That any man might kill a Tyrant This being in all respects ridiculous and absurd 't is evident that our Author who by proposing such a false security to Nations for their Liberties endeavours to betray them is not less treacherous to Kings when under a pretence of defending their rights he makes them to be the same with those of Tyrants who are known to have none and are Tyrants because they have none and gives no other hopes to Nations of being preserved by the Kings they set up for that end than what upon the same account may be expected from Tyrants whom all wise men have ever abhorr'd and affirmed to have bin produced to bring destruction upon the World and whose Lives have verifi'd the Sentence This is truly to depose and abolish Kings by abolishing that by which and for which they are so The greatness of their Power Riches State and the pleasures that accompany them cannot but create enemies Some will envy that which is accounted Happiness others may dislike the use they make of their Power some may be unjustly exasperated by the best of their Actions when they find themselves incommoded by them others may be too severe judges of slight miscarriages These things may reasonably temper the joys of those who delight most in the advantages of Crowns But the worst and most dangerous of all their enemies are these accursed Sycophants who by making those that ought to be the best of men like to the worst destroy their Being and by perswading the world they aim at the same things and are bound to no other rule than is common to all Tyrants give a fair pretence to ill men to say They are all of one kind And if this should be received for truth even they who think the miscarriages of their Governors may be easily redressed and desire no more would be the most fierce in procuring the destruction of that which is naught in Principle and cannot be corrected SECT XVII Kings cannot be the Interpreters of the Oaths they take OUR Author's Book is so full of absurdities and contradictions that it would be a rope of Sand if a continued series of frauds did not like a string of Poisons running through the whole give it some consistence with it self and shew it to be the work of one and the same hand After having endeavoured to subvert the Laws of God Nature and Nations most especially our own by abusing the Scriptures falsly alledging the Authority of many good Writers and seeking to obtrude upon Mankind a universal Law that would take from every Nation the right of constituting such Governments within themselves as seem most convenient for them and giving rules for the administration of such as they had established he gives us a full view of his Religion and Morals by destroying the force of the Oath taken by our Kings at their Coronation Others says he affirm that although Laws of themselves do not bind Kings yet the Oaths of Kings at their Coronation tie them to keep all the Laws of their Kingdoms How far this is true let us but examine the Oath of the Kings of England at their Coronation the words whereof are these Art thou pleased to cause to be administred in all thy judgments indifferent and upright Justice and to use discretion with Mercy and Verity Art thou pleased that our upright Laws and Customs be observed and dost thou promise that those shall be protected and maintained by thee c. To which the King answers in the Affirmative being first demanded by the Archbishop of Canterbury Pleaseth it you to confirm and observe the Laws and Customs of the antient times granted from God by just and devout Kings unto the English Nation by Oath unto the said People especially the Laws Liberties and Customs granted unto the Clergy and Laity by the famous King Edward From this he infers That the King is not to observe all Laws but such as are upright because he finds evil Laws mention'd in the Oath of Richard the
in his Will acknowledged his Crown from them Edgar was elected by all the People and not long after deposed by them and again restored in a General Assembly These things being sometimes said to be done by the assent of the Barons of the Kingdom Camden says That under the name of the Baronage all the Orders of the Kingdom are in a manner comprehended and it cannot be otherwise understood if we consider that those called Noblemen or the Nobility of England are often by the Historians said to be infinita multitudo an infinite multitude If any man ask how the Nobility came to be so numerous I answer That the Northern Nations who were perpetually in Arms put a high esteem upon Military Valour sought by conquest to acquire better Countries than their own valu'd themselves according to the numbers of men they could bring into the field and to distinguish them from Villains called those Noblemen who nobly defended and enlarged their Dominions by War and for a reward of their Services in the division of Lands gained by conquest they distributed to them Freeholds under the obligation of continuing the same Service to their Country This appears by the name of Knights Service a Knight being no more than a Soldier and a Knight's Fee no more than was sufficient to maintain one 'T is plain that Knighthood was always esteemed Nobility so that no man of what quality soever thought a Knight inferior to him and those of the highest birth could not act as Noblemen till they were knighted Among the Goths in Spain the cutting off the Hair which being long was the mark of Knighthood was accounted a degrading and looked upon to be so great a mark of Infamy that he who had suffer'd it could never bear any honor or office in the Commonwealth and there was no dignity so high but every Knight was capable of it There was no distinction of men above it and even to this day Baron or Varon in their Language signifies no more than Vir in Latin which is not properly given to any man unless he be free The like was in France till the coming in of the third race of Kings in which time the 12 Peers of whom 6 only were Laymen were raised to a higher dignity and the Commands annexed made hereditary but the honour of Knighthood was thereby no way diminished Tho there were Dukes Earls Marquesses and Barons in the time of Froissart yet he usually calls them Knights And Philip de Commines speaking of the most eminent men of his time calls them good wise or valiant Knights Even to this day the name of Gentleman comprehends all that is raised above the common people Henry the fourth usually called himself the first Gentleman in France and 't is an ordinary phrase among them when they speak of a Gentleman of good Birth to say Il est noble comme le Roy He is as noble as the King In their General Assembly of Estates The Chamber of the Noblesse which is one of Three is composed of the Deputies sent by the Gentry of every Province and in the inquiry made about the Year 1668 concerning Nobility no notice was taken of such as had assumed the Titles of Earl Marquess Viscount or Baron but only of those who called themselves Gentlemen and if they could prove that name to belong to them they were left to use the other Titles as they pleased When Duels were in fashion as all know they were lately no man except the Princes of the Blood and Marechals of France could with honour refuse a Challenge from any Gentleman The first because it was thought unfit that he who might be King should fight with a Subject to the danger of the Commonwealth which might by that means be deprived of its Head The others being by their Office Commanders of the Nobility and Judges of all the Controversies relating to Honour that happen amongst them cannot reasonably be brought into private Contests with any In Denmark Nobleman and Gentleman is the same thing and till the year 1660 they had the principal part of the Government in their hands When Charles Guslavus King of Sweden invaded Poland in the year 1655 't is said that there were above three hundred thousand Gentlemen in Arms to resist him This is the Nobility of that Country Kings are chosen by them Every one of them will say as in France He is noble as the King The last King was a private man among them not thought to have had more than four hundred pounds a year He who now reigns was not at all above him in birth or estate till he had raised himself by great services done for his Country in many wars and there was not one Gentleman in the Nation who might not have bin chosen as well as he if it had pleased the Assembly that did it This being the Nobility of the Northern Nations and the true Baronage of England 't is no wonder that they were called Nobiles the most eminent among them Magnates Principes Proceres and so numerous that they were esteemed to be Multitudo infinita One place was hardly able to contain them and the inconveniences of calling them all together appeared to be so great that they in time chose rather to meet by Representatives than every one in his own person The power therefore remaining in them it matters not what method they observed in the execution They who had the substance in their hands might give it what form they pleased Our Author sufficiently manifests his ignorance in saying there could be no Knights of the Shires in the time of the Saxons because there were no Shires for the very word is Saxon and we find the names of Barkshire Wiltshire Devonshire Dorsetshire and others most frequently in the writings of those times and Dukes Earls Thanes or Aldermen appointed to command the forces and look to the distribution of Justice in them Selden cites Ingulphus for saying that Alfred was the first that changed the Provinces c. into Counties but refutes him and proves that the distinction of the Land into Shires or Counties for Shire signified no more than the share or part committed to the care of the Earl or Comes was far more antient Whether the first divisions by the Saxons were greater or lesser than the Shires or Counties now are is nothing to the question they who made them to be as they were could have made them greater or lesser as they pleased And whether they did immediately or some ages after that distinction cease to come to their great Assemblies and rather chuse to send their Deputies or whether such Deputies were chosen by Counties Cities and Boroughs as in our days or in any other manner can be of no advantage or prejudice to the Cause that I maintain If the power of the Nation when it was divided into seven Kingdoms or united under one did reside in the Micklegemots
those that conquer'd This was not the work of two men and those who had bin free at home can never be thought to have left their own Country to fight as slaves for the glory and profit of two men in another It cannot be said that their wants compelled them for their Leaders suffer'd the same and could not be relieved but by their assistance and whether their enterprize was good or bad just or unjust it was the same to all No one man could have any right peculiar to himself unless they who gained it did confer it upon him and 't is no way probable that they who in their own Country had kept their Princes within very narrow limits as has bin proved should resign themselves and all they had as soon as they came hither But we have already shewn that they always continued most obstinate defenders of their Liberty and the Government to which they had bin accustomed that they managed it by themselves and acknowledged no other Laws than their own Nay if they had made such a resignation of their Right as was necessary to create one in their Leaders it would be enough to overthrow the proposition for 't is not then the Leader that gives to the People but the People to the Leader If the people had not a right to give what they did give none was conferred upon the receiver if they had a right he that should pretend to derive a benefit from thence must prove the grant that the nature and intention of it may appear 2. To the second If it be said that Records testify all Grants to have bin originally from the King I answer That tho it were confessed which I absolutely deny and affirm that our Rights and Liberties are innate inherent and enjoy'd time out of mind before we had Kings it could be nothing to the question which is concerning Reason and Justice and if they are wanting the defect can never be supplied by any matter of fact tho never so clearly proved Or if a Right be pretended to be grounded upon a matter of fact the thing to be proved is that the people did really confer such a right upon the first or some other Kings And if no such thing do appear the proceedings of one or more Kings as if they had it can be of no value But in the present case no such grant is pretended to have bin made either to the first or to any of the following Kings the Right they had not their Successors could not inherit and consequently cannot have it or at most no better title to it than that of Usurpation But as they who enquire for truth ought not to deny or conceal any thing I may grant that Mannors c. were enjoyed by tenure from Kings but that will no way prejudice the cause I defend nor signify more than that the Countries which the Saxons had acquired were to be divided among them and to avoid the quarrels that might arise if every man took upon him to seize what he could a certain method of making the distribution was necessarily to be fixed and it was fit that every man should have something in his own hands to justify his Title to what he possessed according to which controversies should be determined This must be testified by some body and no man could be so fit or of so much credit as he who was chief among them and this is no more than is usual in all the Societies of the World The Mayor of every Corporation the Speaker or Clerk of the House of Peers or House of Commons the first President of every Parliament or Presidial in France the Consul Burgermaster Advoyer or Bailiff in every free Town of Holland Germany or Switzerland sign the publick Acts that pass in those places The Dukes of Venice and Genoa do the like tho they have no other power than what is conferred upon them and of themselves can do little or nothing The Grants of our Kings are of the same nature tho the words mero motu nostro seem to imply the contrary sor Kings speak always in the plural number to shew that they do not act for themselves but for the Societies over which they are placed and all the veneration that is or can be given to their Acts dos not exalt them but those from whom their Authority is derived and for whom they are to execute The Tyrants of the East and other Barbarians whose power is most absolute speak in the single number as appears by the decrees of Nabuchodonosor Cyrus Darius and Abasaerus recited in Scripture with others that we hear of daily from those parts but wheresoever there is any thing of civility or regularity in Government the Prince uses the plural to shew that he acts in a publick capacity From hence says Grotius the rights of Kings to send Ambassadors make Leagues c. do arise the confederacies made by them do not terminate with their lives because they are not for themselves they speak not in their own Persons but as representing their People and ae King who is depriv'd of his Kingdom loses the right of sending Ambassadors because he can no longer speak for those who by their own consent or by a foreign force are cut off from him The question is not whether such a one be justly or unjustly deprived sor that concerns only those who do it or suffer it but whether he can oblige the People and 't is ridiculous for any Nation to treat with a man that cannot perform what shall be agreed or for him to stipulate that which can oblige and will be made good only by himself But tho much may be left to the discretion of Kings in the distribution of Lands and the like yet it no way diminishes the right of the People nor consers any upon them otherwise to dispose of what belongs to the publick than may tend to the common good and the accomplishment of those ends for which they are entrusted Nay if it were true that a conquered Country did belong to the Crown the King could not dispose of it because 't is annexed to the Office and not alienable by the Person This is not only found in regular mixed Monarchies as in Sweden where the Grants made by the last Kings have bin lately rescinded by the General Assembly of Estates as contrary to Law but even in the most absolute as in France where the present King who has stretched his power to the utmost has lately acknowledged that he cannot do it and according to the known maxim of the State that the demeasnes of the Crown which are designed for the defraying of publick Charges cannot be alienated all the Grants made within the last fifteen years have bin annulled even those who had bought Lands of the Crown have bin called to account and the Sums given being compared with the profits received and a moderate interest allowed to the purchasers so much
distributed into many Families of Scotland remains to this day and if proximity of blood is to be consider'd ought always to have bin preferr'd before her and her descendents unless there be a Law that gives the preference to Daughters before Sons What right soever Henry the second had it must necessarily have perished with him all his Children having bin begotten in manifest Adultery on Eleanor of Gascony during the life of Lewis King of France her first Husband and nothing could be alledged to colour the business but a dispensation from the Pope directly against the Law of God and the words of our Saviour who says That a Wife cannot be put away unless for Adultery and he that marrieth her that is put away committeth Adultery The pollution of this spring is not to be cured but tho it should pass unregarded no one part of the Succession since that time has remained intire John was preferred before Arthur his elder brother's Son Edward the third was made King by the deposition of his Father Henry the fourth by that of Richard the 2d If the house of Mortimer or York had the right Henry the 4th 5th and 6th were not Kings and all who claim under them have no title However Richard the third could have none for the Children of his elder Brother the Duke of Clarence were then living The Children of Edward the fourth may be suspected of bastardy and tho it may have bin otherwise yet that matter is not so clear as things of such importance ought to be and the consequence may reach very far But tho that scruple were removed 't is certain that Henry the 7th was not King in the right of his Wife Elizabeth for he reigned before and after her and for his other titles we may believe Philip de Commines who says He had neither cross nor pile If Henry the eighth had a right in himself or from his Mother he should have reigned immediately after her death which he never pretended nor to succeed till his Father was dead thereby acknowledging he had no right but from him unless the Parliament and People can give it The like may be said of his Children Mary could have no title if she was a Bastard begotten in Incest but if her Mother's marriage was good and she legitimate Elizabeth could have none Yet all these were lawful Kings and Queens their Acts continue in force to this day to all intents and purposes the Parliament and People made them to be so when they had no other title The Parliament and People therefore have the power of making Kings Those who are so made are not Usurpers We have had none but such for more than seven hundred years They were therefore lawful Kings or this Nation has had none in all that time and if our Author like this conclusion the account from whence it is drawn may without difficulty be carried as high as our English Histories do reach This being built upon the steddy Foundation of Law History and Reason is not to be removed by any man's opinion especially by one accompanied with such circumstances as Sir Walter Raleigh was in during the last years of his life And there is something of baseness as well as prevarication in turning the words of an eminent Person reduced to great difficulties to a sense no way agreeing with his former actions or writings and no less tending to impair his reputation than to deceive others Our Author is highly guilty of both in citing Sir Walter Raleigh to invalidate the great Charter of our Liberties as begun by Vsurpation and shewed to the world by Rebellion whereas no such thing nor any thing like it in word or principle can be found in the works that deserve to go under his name The Dialogue in question with some other small pieces published after his death deserve to be esteemed spurious Or if from a desire of life when he knew his head lay under the Ax he was brought to say things no way agreeing with what he had formerly profess'd they ought rather to be buried in oblivion than produced to blemish his memory But that the publick Cause may not suffer by his fault 't is convenient the world should be informed that tho he was a well qualified Gentleman yet his Morals were no way exact as appears by his dealings with the brave Earl of Essex And he was so well assisted in his History of the World that an ordinary man with the same helps might have perform'd the same things Neither ought it to be accounted strange if that which he writ by himself had the tincture of another spirit when he was deprived of that assistance tho his life had not depended upon the will of the Prince and he had never said That the bonds of Subjects to their Kings should always be wrought out of Iron and those of Kings to their Subjects out of Cobwebs SECT XXXI Free Nations have a right of meeting when and where they please unless they deprive themselves of it APerverted Judgment always leads men into a wrong way and perswades them to believe that those things favour their cause that utterly overthrow it For a proof of this I desire our Author's words may be consider'd In the former Parliaments says he instituted and continued since Henry the first his time is not to be found the usage of any natural Liberty of the people For all those Liberties that are claimed in Parliament are Liberties of Grace from the King and not the Liberties of Nature to the People For if the Liberty were natural it would give power unto the multitude to assemble themselves when and where they pleased to bestow the Sovereignty and by pactions to limit and direct the exercise of it And I say that Nations being naturally free may meet when and where they please may dispose of the Soveraignty and may direct or limit the exercise of it unless by their own act they have deprived themselves of that right and there could never have bin a lawful Assembly of any People in the world if they had not had that power in themselves It was proved in the preceding Section that all our Kings having no title were no more than what the Nobility and People made them to be that they could have no power but what was given to them and could confer none except what they had received If they can therefore call Parliaments the power of calling them must have bin given to them and could not be given by any who had it not in themselves The Israelites met together and chose Ehud Gideon Samson Jephtha and others to be their Leaders whom they judged fit to deliver them from their Enemies By the same right they assembled at Mispeth to make War against the Tribe of Benjamin when Justice was denied to be done against those who had villanously abused the Levites Concubine In the like manner they would have made Gideon King but
most regular Commonwealths that ever were in the world And it can with no more reason be pretended that the Goths received their privileges from Alan or Theodoric the Francs from Pharamond or Meroveus and the English from Ina or Ethelred than that the liberty of Athens was the gift of Themistocles or Pericles that the Empire of Rome proceeded from the liberality of Brutus or Valerius and that the Commonwealth of Venice at this day subsists by the favour of the Contarini or Moresini which must reduce us to matter of right since that of fact void of right can signify nothing SECT XXXII The powers of Kings are so various according to the Constitutions of several States that no consequence can be drawn to the prejudice or advantage of any one merely from the name IN opposition to what is above said some alledg the name of King as if there were a charm in the word and our Author seems to put more weight upon it than in the reasons he brings to support his cause But that we may see there is no efficacy in it and that it conveys no other right than what particular Nations may annex to it we are to consider 1. That the most absolute Princes that are or have bin in the world never had the name of King whereas it has bin frequently given to those whose powers have bin very much restrained The Cesars were never called Kings till the sixth age of Christianity the Califs and Soldan of Egypt and Babylon the Great Turk the Cham of Tartary or the Great Mogol never took that name or any other of the same signification The Czar of Moscovy has it not tho he is as absolute a Monarch and his People as miserable slaves as any in the world On the other side the chief Magistrates of Rome and Athens for some time those of Sparta Arragon Sweden Denmark and England who could do nothing but by Law have bin called Kings This may be enough to shew that a name being no way essential what title soever is given to the chief Magistrate he can have no other power than the Laws and Customs of his Country do give or the People confer upon him 2. The names of Magistrates are often changed tho the power continue to be the same and the powers are sometimes alter'd tho the name remain When Octavius Cesar by the force of a mad corrupted Soldiery had overthrown all Law and Right he took no other title in relation to military Affairs than that of Imperator which in the time of liberty was by the Armies often given to Pretors and Consuls In Civil matters he was as he pretended content with the power of Tribun and the like was observed in his Successor who to new invented Usurpations gave old and approved names On the other side those titles which have bin render'd odious and execrable by the violent exercise of an absolute power are sometimes made popular by moderat elimitations as in Germany where tho the Monarchy seem to be as well temper'd as any the Princes retain the same names of Imperator Cesar and Augustus as those had done who by the excess of their rage and fury had desolated and corrupted the best part of world Sometimes the name is changed tho the power in all respects continue to be the same The Lords of Castille had for many Ages no other title than that of Count and when the Nobility and People thought good they changed it to that of King without any addition to the power The Sovereign Magistrate in Poland was called Duke till within the last two hundred years when they gave the title of King to one of the Jagellan Family which title has continued to this day tho without any change in the nature of the Magistracy And I presume no wise man will think that if the Venetians should give the name of King to their Duke it could confer any other power upon him than he has already unless more should be conferr'd by the Authority of the Great Council 3. The same names which in some places denote the supreme Magistracy in others are subordinate or merely titular In England France and Spain Dukes and Earls are Subjects in Germany the Electors and Princes who are called by those names are little less than Sovereigns and the Dukes of Savoy Tuscany Moscovy and others acknowledg no Superior as well as those of Poland and Castille had none when they went under those titles The same may be said of Kings Some are subject to a foreign power as divers of them were subject to the Persian and Babylonian Monarchs who for that reason were called the Kings of Kings Some also are tributaries and when the Spaniards first landed in America the great Kings of Mexico and Peru had many others under them Threescore and ten Kings gathered up meat under the table of Adonibezek The Romans had many Kings depending upon them Herod and those of his race were of this number and the dispute between him and his Sons Aristobulus and Alexander was to be determined by them neither durst he decide the matter till it was referred to him But a right of Appeal did still remain as appears by the case of St. Paul when Agrippa was King The Kings of Mauritania from the time of Massinissa were under the like dependence Jugurtha went to Rome to justify himself for the death of Micipsa Juba was commanded by the Roman Magistrates Scipio Petreius and Afranius another Juba was made King of the same Country by Augustus and Tiridates of Armenia by Nero and infinite examples of this nature may be alledged Moreover their powers are variously regulated according to the variety of tempers in Nations and Ages Some have restrained the powers that by experience were found to be exorbitant others have dissolved the bonds that were laid upon them and Laws relating to the institution abrogation enlargement or restriction of the regal Power would be utterly insignificant if this could not be done But such Laws are of no effect in any other Country than where they are made The lives of the Spartans did not depend upon the will of Agesilaus or Leonidas because Nabuchodonosor could kill or save whom he pleased and tho the King of Marocco may stab his Subjects throw them to the Lions or hang them upon tenterhooks yet a King of Poland would probably be called to a severe account if he should unjustly kill a single man SECT XXXIII The Liberty of a People is the gift of God and Nature IF any man ask how Nations come to have the power of doing these things I answer that Liberty being only an exemption from the dominion of another the question ought not to be how a Nation can come to be free but how a man comes to have a dominion over it for till the right of Dominion be proved and justified Liberty subsists as arising from the Nature and Being of a man Tertullian speaking of the
beyond or contrary to the true meaning of it private men who swear obedience ad legem swear no obedience extra or contra Legem whatsoever they promise or swear can detract nothing from the publick Liberty which the Law principally intends to preserve Tho many of them may be obliged in their several Stations and Capacities to render peculiar services to a Prince the People continue as free as the internal thoughts of a man and cannot but have a right to preserve their Liberty or avenge the violation If matters are well examined perhaps not many Magistrates can pretend to much upon the title of merit most especially if they or their progenitors have continued long in Office The conveniences annexed to the exercise of the Sovereign power may be thought sufficient to pay such scores as they grow due even to the best and as things of that nature are handled I think it will hardly be found that all Princes can pretend to an irresistible power upon the account of beneficence to their People When the family of Medices came to be masters of Tuscany that Country was without dispute in men mony and arms one of the most flourishing Provinces in the World as appears by Macchiavel's account and the relation of what happened between Charles the eighth and the Magistrates of Florence which I have mentioned already from Guicciardin Now whoever shall consider the strength of that Country in those days together with what it might have bin in the space of a hundred and forty years in which they have had no war nor any other plague than the extortion fraud rapin and cruelty of their Princes and compare it with their present desolate wretched and contemptible condition may if he please think that much veneration is due to the Princes that govern them but will never make any man believe that their Title can be grounded upon beneficence The like may be said of the Duke of Savoy who pretending upon I know not what account that every Peasant in the Dutchy ought to pay him two Crowns every half year did in 1662 subtilly find our that in every year there were thirteen halves so that a poor man who had nothing but what he gained by hard labour was through his fatherly Care and Beneficence forced to pay six and twenty Crowns to his Royal Highness to be employ'd in his discreet and virtuous pleasures at Turin The condition of the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands and even of Spain it self when they fell to the house of Austria was of the same nature and I will confess as much as can be required if any other marks of their Government do remain than such as are manifest evidences of their Pride Avarice Luxury and Cruelty France in outward appearance makes a better show but nothing in this world is more miserable than that people under the fatherly care of their triumphant Monarch The best of their condition is like Asses and Mastiff-dogs to work and fight to be oppressed and kill'd for him and those among them who have any understanding well know that their industry courage and good success is not only unprofitable but destructive to them and that by increasing the power of their Master they add weight to their own Chains And if any Prince or succession of Princes have made a more modest use of their Power or more faithfully discharged the trust reposed in them it must be imputed peculiarly to them as a testimony of their personal Virtue and can have no effect upon others The Rights therefore of Kings are not grounded upon Conquest the Liberties of Nations do not arise from the Grants of their Princes the Oath of Allegiance binds no privat man to more than the Law directs and has no influence upon the whole Body of every Nation Many Princes are known to their Subjects only by the injuries losses and mischiefs brought upon them such as are good and just ought to be rewarded for their personal Virtue but can confer no right upon those who no way resemble them and whoever pretends to that merit must prove it by his Actions Rebellion being nothing but a renewed War can never be against a Government that was not established by War and of it self is neither good nor evil more than any other War but is just or unjust according to the cause or manner of it Besides that Rebellion which by Samuel is compar'd to Witchcraft is not of private men or a People against the Prince but of the Prince against God The Israelites are often said to have rebelled against the Law Word or Command of God but tho they frequently opposed their Kings I do not find Rebellion imputed to them on that account nor any ill character put upon such actions We are told also of some Kings who had bin subdued and afterwards rebelled against Chedorlaomer and other Kings but their cause is not blamed and we have some reason to believe it good because Abraham took part with those who had rebelled However it can be of no prejudice to the cause I defend for tho it were true that those subdued Kings could not justly rise against the person who had subdued them or that generally no King being once vanquished could have a right of Rebellion against his Conqueror it could have no relation to the actions of a people vindicating their own Laws and Liberties against a Prince who violates them for that War which never was can never be renewed And if it be true in any case that hands and swords are given to men that they only may be Slaves who have no courage it must be when Liberty is overthrown by those who of all men ought with the utmost industry and vigour to have defended it That this should be known is not only necessary for the safety of Nations but advantagious to such Kings as are wise and good They who know the frailty of human Nature will always distrust their own and desiring only to do what they ought will be glad to be restrain'd from that which they ought not to do Being taught by reason and experience that Nations delight in the Peace and Justice of a good Government they will never fear a general Insurrection whilst they take care it be rightly administred and finding themselves by this means to be safe will never be unwilling that their Children or Successors should be obliged to tread in the same steps If it be said that this may sometimes cause disorders I acknowledg it but no human condition being perfect such a one is to be chosen which carries with it the most tolerable inconveniences And it being much better that the irregularities and excesses of a Prince should be restrained or suppressed than that whole Nations should perish by them those Constitutions that make the best provision against the greatest evils are most to be commended If Governments were instituted to gratify the lusts of one man those could not be good that
set limits to them but all reasonable men confessing that they are instituted for the good of Nations they only can deserve praise who above all things endeavour to procure it and appoint means proportioned to that end The great variety of Governments which we see in the world is nothing but the effect of this care and all Nations have bin and are more or less happy as they or their Ancestors have had vigour of Spirit integrity of Manners and wisdom to invent and establish such Orders as have better or worse provided for this common Good which was sought by all But as no rule can be so exact to make provision against all contestations and all disputes about Right do naturally end in force when Justice is denied ill men never willingly submitting to any decision that is contrary to their passions and interests the best Constitutions are of no value if there be not a power to support them This power first exerts it self in the execution of justice by the ordinary Officers But no Nation having bin so happy as not sometimes to produce such Princes as Edward and Richard the Seconds and such Ministers as Gaveston Spencer and Tresilian the ordinary Officers of Justice often want the will and always the power to restrain them So that the Rights and Liberties of a Nation must be utterly subverted and abolished if the power of the whole may not be employed to assert them or punish the violation of them But as it is the fundamental Right of every Nation to be governed by such Laws in such manner and by such persons as they think most conducing to their own good they cannot be accountable to any but themselves for what they do in that most important affair SECT XXXVII The English Government was not ill constituted the defects more lately observed proceeding from the change of manners and corruption of the times I Am not ignorant that many honest and good men acknowledging these Rights and the care of our Ancestors to preserve them think they wanted wisdom rightly to proportionate the means to the end 'T is not enough say they for the General of an Army to desire Victory he only can deserve praise who has skill industry and courage to take the best measures of obtaining it Neither is it enough for wise Legislators to preserve Liberty and to erect such a Government as may stand for a time but to set such clear Rules to those who are to put it in execution that every man may know when they transgress and appoint such means for restraining or punishing them as may be used speedily surely and effectually without danger to the Publick Sparta being thus constituted we hardly find that for more than eight hundred years any King presumed to pass the limits prescribed by the Law If any Roman Consul grew insolent he might be reduced to order without blood or danger to the Publick and no Dictator ever usurped a power over Liberty till the time of Sylla when all things in the City were so changed that the antient foundations were become too narrow In Venice the power of the Duke is so circumscribed that in 1300 years no one except Falerio and Tiepoli have dared to attempt any thing against the Laws and they were immediately suppressed with little commotion in the City On the other side our Law is so ambiguous perplext and intricate that 't is hard to know when 't is broken In all the publick contests we have had men of good judgment and integrity have follow'd both parties The means of transgressing and procuring Partizans to make good by force the most notorious violations of Liberty have bin so easy that no Prince who has endeavoured it ever failed to get great numbers of followers and to do infinite mischiefs before he could be removed The Nation has bin brought to fight against those they had made to be what they were upon the unequal terms of hazarding all against nothing If they had success they gained no more than was their own before and which the Law ought to have secured whereas 't is evident that if at any one time the contrary had happened the Nation had bin utterly enslaved and no victory was ever gained without the loss of much noble and innocent blood To this I answer that no right judgment can be given of human things without a particular regard to the time in which they passed We esteem Scipio Hannibal Pyrrhus Alexander Epaminondas and Cesar to have bin admirable Commanders in War because they had in a most eminent degree all the qualities that could make them so and knew best how to employ the Arms then in use according to the discipline of their times and yet no man doubts that if the most skilful of them could be raised from the Grave restored to the utmost vigour of mind and body set at the head of the best Armies he ever commanded and placed upon the Frontiers of France or Flanders he would not know how to advance or retreat nor by what means to take any of the places in those parts as they are now fortified and defended bnt would most certainly be beaten by any insignificant fellow with a small number of men furnished with such Arms as are now in use and following the methods now practised Nay the manner of marching encamping besieging attacking defending and fighting is so much altered within the last threescore years that no man observing the discipline that was then thought to be the best could possibly defend himself against that which has bin since found out tho the terms are still the same And if it be consider'd that political matters are subject to the same mutations as certainly they are it will be sufficient to excuse our Ancestors who suting their Government to the Ages in which they lived could neither soresee the changes that might happen in future Generations nor appoint remedies for the mischiefs they did not soresee They knew that the Kings of several Nations had bin kept within the limits of the Law by the virtue and power of a great and brave Nobility and that no other way of supporting a mix'd Monarchy had ever bin known in the world than by putting the balance into the hands of those who had the greatest interest in Nations and who by birth and estate enjoy'd greater advantages than Kings could confer upon them for rewards of betraying their Country They knew that when the Nobility was so great as not easily to be number'd the little that was left to the King's disposal was not sufficient to corrupt many and if some might fall under the temptation those who continued in their integrity would easily be able to chastise them for deserting the publick Cause and by that means deter Kings srom endeavouring to seduce them from their duty Whilst things continued in this posture Kings might safely be trusted with the advice of their Council to confer the commands of the Militia in
and safe 2. That 't is good as well for the Magistrate as the People so to constitute the Government that the Remedies may be easy and safe 3. That how dangerous and difficult soever they may be through the defects of the first Constitution they must be tried To the first 'T is most evident that in well-regulated Governments these Remedies have bin found to be easy and safe The Kings of Sparta were not suffer'd in the least to deviate from the rule of the Law And Theopompus one of those Kings in whose time the Ephori were created and the regal Power much restrained doubted not to affirm that it was by that means become more lasting and more secure Pausanias had not the name of King but commanded in the War against Xerxes with more than regal Power nevertheless being grown insolent he was without any trouble to that State banished and afterwards put to death Leontidas Father of Cleomenes was in the like manner banished The second Agis was most unjustly put to death by the Ephori for he was a brave and a good Prince but there was neither danger nor difficulty in the action Many of the Roman Magistrates after the expulsion of the Kings seem to have been desirous to extend their Power beyond the bounds of the Law and perhaps some others as well as the Decemviri may have designed an absolute Tyranny but the first were restrained and the others without much difficulty suppressed Nay even the Kings were so well kept in order that no man ever pretended to the Crown unless he were chosen nor made any other use of his Power than the Law permitted except the last Tarquin who by his insolence avarice and cruelty brought ruin upon himself and his family I have already mentioned one or two Dukes of Venice who were not less ambitious but their crimes returned upon their own heads and they perished without any other danger to the State than what had passed before their Treasons were discovered Infinite examples of the like nature may be alledged and if matters have not at all times and in all places succeeded in the same manner it has bin because the same courses were not every where taken for all things do so far follow their causes that being order'd in the same manner they will always produce the same effects 2. To the second Such a regulation of the magistratical Power is not at all grievous to a good Magistrate He who never desires to do any thing but what he ought cannot desire a Power of doing what he ought not nor be troubled to find he cannot do that which he would not do if he could This inability is also advantageous to those who are evil or unwise that since they cannot govern themselves a Law may be imposed upon them lest by following their own irregular will they bring destruction upon themselves their families and people as many have done If Apollo in the Fable had not bin too indulgent to Phaeton in granting his ill-conceiv'd request the furious Youth had not brought a necessity upon Jupiter either of destroying him or suffering the world to be destroy'd by him Besides good and wise men know the weight of Sovereign Power and misdoubt their own strength Sacred and human Histories furnish us with many examples of those who have feared the lustre of a Crown Men that find in themselves no delight in doing mischief know not what thoughts may insinuate into their minds when they are raised too much above their Sphere They who were able to bear adversity have bin precipitated into ruin by prosperity When the Prophet told Hazael the Villanies he would commit he answer'd Is thy Servant a dog that I should do these things but yet he did them I know not where to find an example of a man more excellently qualified than Alexander of Macedon but he fell under the weight of his own fortune and grew to exceed those in vice whom he had conquer'd by his virtue The nature of man can hardly suffer such violent changes without being disorder'd by them and every one ought to enter into a just diffidence of himself and fear the temptations that have destroy'd so many If any man be so happily born so carefully educated so established in virtue that no storm can shake him nor any poison corrupt him yet he will consider he is mortal and knowing no more than Solomon whether his Son shall be a wise man or a fool he will always fear to take upon him a power which must prove a most pestilent evil both to the person that has it and to those that are under it as soon as it shall fall into the hands of one who either knows not how to use it or may be easily drawn to abuse it Supreme Magistrates always walk in obscure and flippery places but when they are advanced so high that no one is near enough to support direct or restrain them their fall is inevitable and mortal And those Nations that have wanted the prudence dence rightly to balance the powers of their Magistrates have bin frequently obliged to have recourse to the most violent remedies and with much difficulty danger and blood to punish the crimes which they might have prevented On the other side such as have bin more wise in the constitution of their Governments have always had regard to the frailty of human nature and the corruption reigning in the hearts of men and being less liberal of the power over their lives and liberties have reserved to themselves so much as might keep their Magistrates within the limits of the Law and oblige them to perform the ends of their institution And as the Law which denounces severe penalties for crimes is indeed merciful both to ill men who are by that means deterred from committing them and to the good who otherwise would be destroy'd so those Nations that have kept the reins in their hands have by the same act provided as well for the safety of their Princes as for their own They who know the Law is well defended seldom attempt to subvert it they are not easily tempted to run into excesses when such bounds are set as may not safely be transgressed and whilst they are by this means render'd more moderate in the exercise of their Power the people is exempted from the odious necessity of suffering all manner of indignities and miseries or by their destruction to prevent or avenge them 3. To the third If these rules have not bin well observed in the first constitution or from the changes of times corruption of manners insensible encroachments or violent usurpations of Princes have bin render'd ineffectual and the people exposed to all the calamities that may be brought upon them by the weakness vices and malice of the Prince or those who govern him I confess the remedies are more difficult and dangerous but even in those cases they must be tried Nothing can be fear'd that is worse
This is he who never dos any wrong 'T is before him we appear when we demand Justice or render an account of our actions All Juries give their verdict in his sight They are his Commands that the Judges are bound and sworn to obey when they are not at all to consider such as they receive from the person that wears the Crown 'T was for Treason against him that Tresilian and others like to him in several ages were hanged They gratified the lusts of the visible Powers but the invisible King would not be mock'd He caused Justice to be executed upon Empson and Dudley He was injured when the perjur'd wretches who gave that accursed Judgment in the case of Shipmony were suffered to escape the like punishment by means of the ensuing troubles which they had chiefly raised And I leave it to those who are concerned to consider how many in our days may expect vengeance for the like crimes I should here conclude this point if the power of granting a Noli proseq Cesset Processus and Pardons which are said to be annexed to the person of the King were not taken for a proof that all proceedings at Law depend upon his will But whoever would from hence draw a general conclusion must first prove his proposition to be universally true If it be wholly false no true deduction can be made and if it be true only in some cases 't is absurd to draw from thence a general conclusion and to erect a vast fabrick upon a narrow foundation is impossible As to the general proposition I utterly deny it The King cannot stop any Suit that I begin in my own name or invalidate any Judgment I obtain upon it He cannot release a Debt of ten shillings due to me nor a Sentence for the like sum given upon an action of Battery Assault Trespass publick Nuisance or the like He cannot pardon a man condemned upon an Appeal nor hinder the person injured from appealing His power therefore is not universal if it be not universal it cannot be inherent but conferred upon him or entrusted by a superior Power that limits it These limits are fixed by the Law the Law therefore is above him His proceedings must be regulated by the Law and not the Law by his will Besides the extent of those limits can only be known by the intention of the Law that sets them and are so visible that none but such as are wilfully blind can mistake It cannot be imagined that the Law which dos not give a power to the King of pardoning a man that breaks my hedg can intend he should have power to pardon one who kills my father breaks my house robs me of my goods abuses my children and servants wounds me and brings me in danger of my life Whatever power he has in such cases is founded upon a presumption that he who has sworn not to deny or delay justice to any man will not break his Oath to interrupt it And farther as he dos nothing but what he may rightly do cum magnatum sapientum Consilio and that 't is supposed they will never advise him to do any thing but what ought to be done in order to attain the great ends of the Law Justice and the publick safety nevertheles lest this should not be sufficient to keep things in their due order or that the King should forget his Oath not to delay or deny justice to any man his Counsellors are exposed to the severest punishments if they advise him to do any thing contrary to it and the Law upon which it is grounded So that the utmost advantage the King can pretend to in this case is no more than that of the Norman who said he had gained his cause because it depended upon a point that was to be decided by his Oath that is to say if he will betray the trust reposed in him and perjure himself he may sometimes exempt a Vilain from the punishment he deserves and take the guilt upon himself I say sometimes for appeals may be brought in some cases and the Waterman who had bin pardoned by his Majesty in the year 1680 for a murder he had committed was condemned and hanged at the Assizes upon an appeal Nay in cases of Treason which some men think relate most particularly to the person of the King he cannot always do it Gaveston the two Spencers Tresilian Empson Dudley and others have bin executed as Traitors for things done by the King's command and 't is not doubted they would have bin saved if the King's power had extended so far I might add the cases of the Earls of Strafford and Danby for tho the King signed a Warrant for the execution of the first no man doubts he would have saved him if it had bin in his power The other continues in prison notwithstanding his pardon and for any thing I know he may continue where he is or come out in a way that will not be to his satisfaction unless he be found innocent or something fall out more to his advantage than his Majesty's approbation of what he has done If therefore the King cannot interpose his authority to hinder the course of the Law in contests between privat men nor remit the debts adjudged to be due or the damages given to the persons agriev'd he can in his own person have no other power in things of this nature than in some degree to mitigate the vindictive power of the Law and this also is to be exercised no other way than as he is entrusted But if he acts even in this capacity by a delegated power and in few cases he must act according to the ends for which he is so entrusted as the same Law says Cum magnatum sapientum consilio and is not therein to pursue his own will and interests If his Oath farther oblige him not to do it and his Ministers are liable to punishment if they advise him otherwise If in matters of Appeal he have no power and if his pardons have bin of no value when contrary to his Oath he has abused that with which he is entrusted to the patronizing of crimes and exempting such delinquents from punishment as could not be pardoned without prejudice to the publick I may justly conclude that the King before whom every man is bound to appear who dos perpetually and impartially distribute Justice to the Nation is not the man or woman that wears the Crown and that he or she cannot determine those matters which by the Law are referr'd to the King Whether therefore such matters are ordinary or extraordinary the decision is and ought to be placed where there is most wisdom and stability and where passion and privat interest dos least prevail to the obstruction of Justice This is the only way to obviate that confusion and mischief which our Author thinks it would introduce In cases of the first sort this is done in England by Judges and Juries
or Wittenagemots if these consisted of the Nobility and People who were sometimes so numerous that no one place could well contain them and if the preference given to the chief among them was on account of the Offices they executed either in relation to war or justice which no man can deny I have as much as serves for my purpose 'T is indifferent to me whether they were called Earls Dukes Aldermen Herotoghs or Thanes for 't is certain that the titular Nobility now in mode amongst us has no resemblance to this antient Nobility of England The novelty therefore is on the other side and that of the worst sort because by giving the name of Noblemen which antiently belonged to such as had the greatest interests in Nations and were the supporters of their Liberty to Court-creatures who often have none and either acquire their Honours by mony or are preferr'd for servile and sometimes impure services render'd to the person that reigns or else for mischiefs done to their Country the Constitution has bin wholly inverted and the trust reposed in the Kings who in some measure had the disposal of Offices and Honours misemploy'd This is farther aggravated by appropriating the name of Noblemen solely to them whereas the Nation having bin antiently divided only into Freemen or Noblemen who were the same and Villains the first were as Tacitus says of their Ancestors the Germans exempted from burdens and contributions and reserved like arms for the uses of war whilst the others were little better than slaves appointed to cultivate the Lands or to other servile Offices And I leave any reasonable man to judg whether the latter condition be that of those we now call Commoners Nevertheless he that will believe the title of Noblemen still to belong to those only who are so by Patent may guess how well our wars would be managed if they were left solely to such as are so by that title If this be approved his Majesty may do well with his hundred and fifty Noblemen eminent in valour and military experience as they are known to be to make such wars as may fall upon him and leave the despised Commons under the name of Villains to provide for themselves if the success do not answer his expectations But if the Commons are as free as the Nobles many of them in birth equal to the Patentees in Estate superior to most of them and that it is not only expected they should assist him in wars with their Persons and Purses but acknowledged by all that the strength and virtue of the Nation is in them it must be confess'd that they are true Noblemen of England and that all the privileges antiently enjoy'd by such must necessarily belong to them since they perform the Offices to which they were annexed This shews how the Nobility were justly said to be almost infinite in number so that no one place was able to contain them The Saxon Armies that came over into this Country to a wholsom and generative climat might well increase in four or five ages to those vast numbers as the Francks Goths and others had done in Spain France Italy and other parts and when they were grown so numerous they found themselves necessarily obliged to put the power into the hands of Representatives chosen by themselves which they had before exercised in their own persons But these two ways differing rather in form than essentially the one tending to Democracy the other to Aristocracy they are equally opposite to the absolute dominion of one man reigning for himself and governing the Nation as his Patrimony and equally assert the rights of the People to put the Government into such a form as best pleases themselves This was sutable to what they had practised in their own Country De minoribus consultant Principes de majoribus omnes Nay even these smaller matters cannot be said properly to relate to the King for he is but one and the word Principes is in the plural number and can only signify such principal men as the same Author says were chosen by the General Assemblies to do justice c. and to each of them one hundred Comites joined not only to give advice but authority to their actions The word Omnes spoken by a Roman must likewise be understood as it was used by them and imports all the Citizens or such as made up the body of the Commonwealth If he had spoken of Rome or Athens whilst they remained free he must have used the same word because all those of whom the City consisted had votes how great soever the number of slaves or strangers might have bin The Spartans are rightly said to have gained lost and recovered the Lordship or Principality of Greece They were all Lords in relation to their Helots and so were the Dorians in relation to that sort of men which under several names they kept as the Saxons did their Villians for the performance of the Offices which they thought too mean for those who were ennobled by Liberty and the use of Arms by which the Commonwealth was defended and enlarged Tho the Romans scorned to give the title of Lord to those who had usurped a power over their Lives and Fortunes yet every one of them was a Lord in relation to his own Servants and altogether are often called Lords of the world the like is seen almost every where The Government of Venice having continued for many ages in the same Families has ennobled them all No phrase is more common in Switzerland than the Lords of Bern or the Lords of Zurich and other places tho perhaps there is not a man amongst them who pretends to be a Gentleman according to the modern sense put upon that word The States of the United Provinces are called High and Mighty Lords and the same title is given to each of them in particular Nay the word Heer which signifies Lord both in high and low Dutch is as common as Monsieur in France Signor in Italy or Sennor in Spain and is given to every one who is not of a sordid condition but especially to Soldiers and tho a common Soldier be now a much meaner thing than it was antiently no man speaking to a company of Soldiers in Italian uses any other stile than Signori Soldati and the like is done in other Languages 'T is not therefore to be thought strange if the Saxons who in their own Country had scorned any other employment than that of the Sword should think themselves farther ennobled when by their Arms they had acquired a great and rich Country and driven out or subdued the former inhabitants They might well distinguish themselves from the Villains they brought with them or the Britans they had enslaved They might well be called Magnates Proceres regni Nobiles Angliae Nobilitas Barones and the Assemblies of them justly called Concilium Regni Generale Vniversitas totius Angliae Nobilium Vniversitas Baronagii