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
Secrets relating to his person and commands which he forbids I cannot know how to obey unless I know in what and to whom Nor in what unless I know what ought to be commanded Nor what ought to be commanded unless I understand the Original Right of the Commander which is the great Arcanum Our Author finding himself involved in many difficulties proposes an Expedient as ridiculous as any thing that had gone before being nothing more than an absurd begging the main question and determining it without any shadow of proof He enjoins an active or passive obedience before he shews what should oblige or perswade us to it This indeed were a compendious way of obviating that which he calls popular Sedition and of exposing all Nations that fall under the power of Tyrants to be destroyed utterly by them Nero or Domitian would have desired no more than that those who would not execute their wicked Commands should patiently have suffered their throats to be cut by such as were less scrupulous and the World that had suffered those Monsters for some years must have continued under their Fury till all that was good and virtuous had been abolished But in those Ages and Parts of the World where there hath bin any thing of Vertue and Goodness we may observe a third fort of Men who would neither do Villanies nor suffer more than the Laws did permit or the consideration of the publick Peace did require Whilst Tyrants with their Slaves and the Instruments of their Cruelties were accounted the Dregs of Mankind and made the objects of detestation and scorn these Men who delivered their Countries from such Plagues were thought to have something of Divine in them and have bin famous above all the rest of Mankind to this day Of this sort were Pelopidas Epaminondas Thrasibulus Harmodius Aristogiton Philopemen Lucius Brutus Publius Valerius Marcus Brutus C. Cassius M. Cato with a multitude of others amongst the antient Heathens Such as were Instruments of the like Deliverances amongst the Hebrews as Moses Othniel Ehud Barac Gideon Sampson Jephtha Samuel David Jehu the Maccabees and others have from the Scriptures a certain testimony of the righteousness of their Proceedings when they neither would act what was evil nor suffer more than was reasonable But lest we should learn by their Examples and the Praises given to them our Author confines the Subject's choice to acting or suffering that is doing what is commanded or lying down to have his throat cut or to see his Family and Country made desolate This he calls giving to Cesar that which is Cesar's whereas he ought to have considered that the Question is not whether that which is Cesar's should be rendred to him for that is to be done to all Men but who is Cesar and what doth of right belong to him which he no way indicates to us so that the Question remains entire as if he had never mentioned it unless we do in a compendious way take his word for the whole SECT IV. The Rights of particular Nations cannot subsist if General Principles contrary to them are received as true NOtwithstanding this our Author if we will believe him doth not question or quarrel at the Rights or Liberties of this or any other Nation He only denies they can have any such in subjecting them necessarily and universally to the will of one Man and says not a word that is not applicable to every Nation in the World as well as to our own But as the bitterness of his malice seems to be most especially directed against England I am inclined to believe he hurts other Countries only by accident as the famous French Lady intended only to poison her Father Husband Brother and some more of her nearest Relations but rather than they should escape destroyed many other persons of Quality who at several times dined with them and if that ought to excuse her I am content he also should pass uncensured tho his Crimes are incomparably greater than those for which she was condemned or than any can be which are not of a publick extent SECT V. To depend upon the Will of a Man is Slavery THis as he thinks is farther sweetned by asserting that he doth not inquire what the rights of a People are but from whence not considering that whilst he denies they can proceed from the Laws of natural Liberty or any other root than the Grace and Bounty of the Prince he declares they can have none at all For as Liberty solely consists in an independency upon the Will of another and by the name of Slave we understand a man who can neither dispose of his Person nor Goods but enjoys all at the will of his Master there is no such thing in nature as a Slave if those men or Nations are not Slaves who have no other title to what they enjoy than the grace of the Prince which he may revoke whensoever he pleaseth But there is more than ordinary extravagance in his assertion That the greatest Liberty in the World is for a People to live under a Monarch when his whole Book is to prove That this Monarch hath his right from God and Nature is endowed with an unlimited Power of doing what he pleaseth and can be restrained by no Law If it be Liberty to live under such a Government I desire to know what is Slavery It has bin hitherto believed in the World that the Assyrians Medes Arabs Egyptians Turks and others like them lived in Slavery because their Princes were Masters of their Lives and Goods Whereas the Grecians Italians Gauls Germans Spaniards and Catthaginians as long as they had any Strength Vertue or Courage amongst them were esteemed free Nations because they abhorred such a Subjection They were and would be governed only by Laws of their own making Potentior a erant Legum quam hominum Imperia Even their Princes had the authority or credit of perswading rather than the power of commanding But all this was mistaken These men were Slaves and the Asiaticks were Freemen By the same rule the Venetians Switsers Grisons and Hollanders are not free Nations but Liberty in its perfection is enjoyed in France and Turky The intention of our Ancestors was without doubt to establish this amongst us by Magna Charta and other preceding or subsequent Laws but they ought to have added one clause That the contents of them should be in force only so long as it should please the King King Alfred upon whose Laws Magna Charta was grounded when he said the English Nation was as free as the internal thoughts of a Man did only mean that it should be so as long as it pleased their Master This it seems was the end of our Law and we who are born under it and are descended from such as have so valiantly defended their rights against the encroachments of Kings have followed after vain shadows and without the expence of Sweat Treasure or Blood might have
it never had any effect which to us is the same 'T is as ridiculous to think of retrieving that which from the beginning of the World was lost as to create that which never was But I may go farther and affirm that tho there had bin such a right in the first Fathers of Manking exercised by them and for some ages individually transmitted to their eldest Sons it must necessarily perish since the generations of men are so confused that no man knows his own original and consequently this Heir is no where to be found for 't is a folly for a man to pretend to an Inheritance who cannot prove himself to be the right Heir If this be not true I desire to know from which of Noah's Sons the Kings of England France or Spain do deduce their Original or what reason they can give why the title to Dominion which is fancied to be in Noah did rather belong to the first of their respective Races that attained to the Crowns they now enjoy than to the meanest Peasant of their Kingdoms or how that can be transmitted to them which was not in the first We know that no man can give what he hath not that if there be no giver there is no gift if there be no root there can be no branch and that the first point failing all that should be derived from it must necessarily fail Our Author who is good at resolving difficulties shews us an easy way out of this strait 'T is true says he all Kings are not natural Parents of their Subjects yet they either are or are to be reputed the next Heirs to those first Progenitors who were at first the natural Parents of the whole People and in their right succeed to the exercise of the Supreme Jurisdiction and such Heirs are not only Lords of their own Children but also of their Brethren and all those that were subject to their Father c. By this means it comes to pass that many a Child succeeding a King hath the right of a Father over many a grey-headed multitude and hath the title of Pater Patriae An Assertion comprehending so many points upon which the most important Rights of all mankind do depend might deserve some proof But he being of opinion we ought to take it upon his credit doth not vouchsafe to give us so much as the shadow of any Nevertheless being unwilling either crudely to receive or rashly to reject it I shall take the liberty of examining the Proposition and hope I may be pardoned if I dwell a little more than ordinarily upon that which is the foundation of his Work We are beholden to him for confessing modestly that all Kings are not the natural Fathers of their People and sparing us the pains of proving that the Kings of Persia who reigned from the Indies to the Hellespont did not beget all the men that lived in those Countries or that the Kings of France and Spain who began to reign before they were five years old were not the natural Fathers of the Nations under them But if all Kings are not Fathers none are as they are Kings If any one is or ever was the Rights of Paternity belong to him and to no other who is not so also This must be made evident for matters of such importance require proof and ought not to be taken upon supposition If Filmer therefore will pretend that the right of Father belongs to any one King he must prove that he is the Father of his People for otherwise it doth not appertain to him he is not the man we seek 'T is no less absurd to say he is to be reputed Heir to the first Progenitor for it must be first proved that the Nation did descend from one single Progenitor without mixture of other races that this Progenitor was the Man to whom Noah according to Filmer's whimfical division of Asia Europe and Africa among his Sons did give the Land now inhabited by that people That this Division so made was not capable of Subdivisions and that this Man is by a true and uninterrupted Succession descended from the first and eldest Line of that Progenitor and all fails if every one of these points be not made good If there never was any such man who had that Right it cannot be inherited from him If by the same rule that a parcel of the World was allotted to him that parcel might be subdivided amongst his Children as they increased the subdivisions may be infinite and the right of Dominion thereby destroyed If several Nations inhabit the same Land they owe obedience to several Fathers that which is due to their true Father cannot be rendred to him that is not so for he would by that means be deprived of the Right which is inseparably annexed to his person And lastly whatsoever the right of an Heir may be it can belong only to him that is Heir Lest any should be seduced from these plain Truths by frivolous suggestions 't is good to consider that the title of Pater Patria with which our Author would cheat us hath no relation to the matters of Right upon which we dispute 'T is a figurative speech that may have bin rightly enough applied to some excellent Princes on account of their care and love to their People resembling that of a Father to his Children and can relate to none but those who had it No man that had common sense or valued truth did ever call Phalaris Dionysius Nabis Nero or Caligula Fathers of their Countries but Monsters that to the utmost of their power endeavoured their destruction which is enough to prove that sacred Name cannot be given to all and in consequence to none but such as by their Virtue Piety and good Government do deserve it These matters will yet appear more evident if it be considered that tho Noah had reigned as a King that Zoroaster as some suppose was Ham who reigned over his Children and that thereby some Right might perhaps be derived to such as succeeded them yet this can have no influence upon such as have not the like Original and no man is to be presumed to have it till it be proved since we have proved that many had it not If Nimrod set himself up against his Grandfather and Ninus who was descended from him in the fifth generation slew him they ill deserved the name and rights of Fathers and none but those who have renounced all Humanity Virtue and common sense can give it to them or their Successors If therefore Noah and Shem had not so much as the shadow of Regal Power and the actions of Nimrod Ninus and others who were Kings in their times shew they did not reign in the right of Fathers but were set up in a direct opposition to it the titles of the first Kings were not from Paternity nor consistent with it Our Author therefore who should have proved every point doth neither prove any one nor
assert that which is agreeable to divine or human Story as to matter of fact and as little conformable to common sense It does not only appear contrary to his general Proposition That all Governments have not begun with the Paternal power but we do not find that any ever did They who according to his rules should have bin Lords of the whole Earth lived and died private men whilst the wildest and most boisterous of their Children commanded the greatest part of the then inhabited World not excepting even those Countries where they spent and ended their days and instead of entring upon the Government by the right of Fathers or managing it as Fathers they did by the most outragious injustice usurp a violent Domination over their Brethren and Fathers It may easily be imagined what the Right is that could be thus acquired and transmitted to their Successors Nevertheless our Author says All Kings either are or ought to be reputed next Heirs c. But why reputed if they were not How could any of the accursed race of Ham be reputed Father of Noah or Shem to whom he was to be a Servant How could Nimrod and Ninus be reputed Fathers of Ham and of those whom they ought to have obeyed Can reason oblige me to believe that which I know to be false Can a Lie that is hateful to God and good men not only be excused but enjoyned when as he will perhaps say it is for the King's Service Can I serve two Masters or without the most unpardonable injustice repute him to be my Father who is not my Father and pay the obedience that is due to him who did beget and educate me to one from whom I never received any good If this be so absurd that no man dares affirm it in the person of any 't is as preposterous in relation to his Heirs For Nimrod the first King could be Heir to no man as King and could transmit to no man a Right which he had not If it was ridiculous and abominable to say that he was Father of Chush Ham Shem and Noah 't is as ridiculous to say he had the Right of Father if he was not their Father or that his Successors inherited it from him if he never had it If there be any way through this it must have accrued to him by the extirpation of all his Elders and their Races so as he who will assert this pretended Right to have been in the Babylonian Kings must assert that Noah Shem Japhet Ham Chush and all Nimrod's elder Brothers with all their Descendents were utterly extirpated before he began to reign and all Mankind to be descended from him This must be if Nimrod as the Scripture says was the first that became mighty in the Earth unless men might be Kings without having more Power than others for Chush Ham and Noah were his Elders and Progenitors in the direct Line and all the Sons of Shem and Japhet and their Descendents in the Collaterals were to be preferred before him and he could have no Right at all that was not directly contrary to those Principles which our Author says are grounded upon the eternal and indispensable Laws of God and Nature The like may be said of the seventy two Heads of Colonies which following as I suppose Sir Walter Raleigh he says went out to people the Earth and whom he calls Kings for according to the same Rule Noah Shem and Japhet with their Descendents could not be of the number so that neither Nimrod nor the others that established the Kingdoms of the World and from whence he thinks all the rest to be derived could have any thing of Justice in them unless it were from a Root altogether inconsistent with his Principles They are therefore false or the Establishments before mentioned could have no Right If they had none they cannot be reputed to have any for no man can think that to be true which he knows to be false having none they could transmit none to their Heirs and Successors And if we are to believe that all the Kingdoms of the Earth are established upon this Paternal Right it must be proved that all those who in birth ought to have bin preferred before Nimrod and the seventy two were extirpated or that the first and true Heir of Noah did afterwards abolish all these unjust Usurpations and making himself Master of the whole left it to his Heirs in whom it continues to this day When this is done I will acknowledg the Foundation to be well laid and admit of all that can be rightly built upon it but if this fails all fails The poison of the Root continues in the Branches If the right Heir be not in possession he is not the right who is in possession If the true Heir be known he ought to be restored to his Right If he be not known the Right must perish That cannot be said to belong to any man if no man knows to whom it belongs and can have no more effect than if it were not This conclusion will continue unmoveable tho the division into seventy two Kingdoms were allowed which cannot be without destroying the Paternal Power or subjecting it to be subdivided into as many parcels as there are men which destroys Regality for the same thing may be required in every one of the distinct Kingdoms and others derived from them We must know who was that true Heir of Noah that recovered all How when and to whom he gave the several Portions and that every one of them do continue in the possession of those who by this prerogative of birth are raised above the rest of mankind and if they are not 't is an impious folly to repute them so to the prejudice of those that are and if they do not appear to the prejudice of all mankind who being equal are thereby made subject to them For as Truth is the Rule of Justice there can be none when he is reputed superior to all who is certainly inferior to In this place two Pages are wanting in the Original Manuscript degenerated from that Reason which distinguisheth men from beasts Tho it may be fit to use some Ceremonies before a man be admitted to practise Physick or set up a Trade 't is his own skill that makes him a Doctor or an Artificer and others do but declare it An Ass will not leave his stupidity tho he be covered with Scarlet and he that is by nature a Slave will be so still tho a Crown be put upon his Head and 't is hard to imagine a more violent inversion of the Laws of God and Nature than to raise him to the Throne whom Nature intended for the Chain or to make them Slaves to Slaves whom God hath endowed with the Vertues required in Kings Nothing can be more preposterous than to impute to God the frantick Domination which is often exercised by wicked foolish and vile Persons over the wise valiant just
or Fraud Or is it possible that any one man can make himself Lord of a People or parcel of that Body to whom God had given the liberty of governing themselves by any other means than Violence or Fraud unless they did willingly submit to him If this Right be not devolved upon any one Man is not the invasion of it the most outragious Injury that can be done to all Mankind and most particularly to the Nation that is enslaved by it Or if the Justice of every Government depends necessarily upon an original Grant and a Succession certainly deduced from our first Fathers dos not he by his own Principles condemn all the Monarchies of the World as the most detestable Usurpations since not one of them that we know do any way pretend to it Or tho I who deny any Power to be just that is not founded upon consent may boldly blame Usurpation is it not an absurd and unpardonable impudence in Filmer to condemn Userpation in a People when he has declared that the Right and Power of a Father may be gained by Usurpation and that Nations in their Obedience are to regard the Power not the Means by which it was gained But not to lose more time upon a most frivolous fiction I affirm that the Liberty which we contend for is granted by God to every man in his own Person in such a manner as may be useful to him and his Posterity and as it was exercised by Noah Shem Abraham Isaac Jacob c. and their Children as has bin proved and not to the vast Body of all Mankind which never did meet together since the first Age after the Flood and never could meet to receive any benefit by it His next Question deserves scorn and hatred with all the effects of either if it proceed from malice tho perhaps he may deserve compassion if his Crime proceed from ignorance Was a general Meeting of a whole Kingdom says he ever known for the Election of a Prince But if there never was any general Meetings of whole Nations or of such as they did delegate and entrust with the Power of the whole how did any man that was elected come to have a Power over the whole Why may not a People meet to chuse a Prince as well as any other Magistrate Why might not the Athenians Romans or Carthaginians have chosen Princes as well as Archons Consuls Dictators or Suffetes if it had pleased them Who chose all the Roman Kings except Tarquin the proud if the People did not since their Histories testify that he was the first who took upon him to reign sine jussu populi Who ever heard of a King of the Goths in Spain that was not chosen by the Nobility and People Or how could they chuse him if they did not meet in their Persons or by their Deputies which is the same thing when a People has agreed it should be so How did the Kings of Sweden come by their Power unless by the like Election till the Crown was made hereditary in the time of Gustavus the First as a Reward of his Vertue and Service in delivering that Country from the Tyranny of the Danes How did Charles Gustavus come to be King unless it was by the Election of the Nobility He acknowledged by the Act of his Election and upon all occasions that he had no other right to the Crown than what they had conferred on him Did not the like Custom prevail in Hungary and Bohemia till those Countries fell under the Power of the House of Austria and in Denmark till the Year 1660 Do not the Kings of Poland derive their Authority from this popular Election which he derides Dos not the stile of the Oath of Allegiance used in the Kingdom of Arragon as it is related by Antonio Perez Secretary of State to Philip 2d shew that their Kings were of their own making Could they say We who are as good as you make you our King on condition that you keep and observe our Privileges and Liberties and if not not if he did not come in by their Election Were not the Roman Emperors in disorderly times chosen by the Souldiers and in such as were more regular by the Senate with the consent of the People Our Author may say the whole Body of these Nations did not meet at their Elections tho that is not always true for in the Infancy of Rome when the whole People dwelt within the Walls of a small City they did meet for the choice of their Kings as afterwards for the choice of other Magistrates Whilst the Goths Franks Vandals and Saxons lived within the Precincts of a Camp they frequently met for the Election of a King and raised upon a Target the Person they had chosen but finding that to be inconvenient or rather impossible when they were vastly increased in number and dispersed over all the Countries they had conquered no better way was found than to institute Gemotes Parliaments Diets Cortez Assemblies of Estates or the like to do that which formerly had bin performed by themselves and when a People is by mutual compact joined together in a civil Society there is no difference as to Right between that which is done by them all in their own Persons or by some deputed by all and acting according to the Powers received from all If our Author was ignorant of these things which are the most common in all Histories he might have spared the pains of writing upon more abstruse Points but 't is a stupendous folly in him to presume to raise Doctrines depending upon the universal Law of God and Nature without examining the only Law that ever God did in a publick manner give to Man If he had looked into it he might have learnt That all Israel was by the command of God assembled at Mispeth to chuse a King and did chuse Saul He being slain all Judah came to Hebron and made David their King after the death of Ishbosheth all the Tribes went to Hebron and anointed him King over them and he made a Covenant with them before the Lord. When Solomon was dead all Israel met together in Shechem and ten Tribes disliking the proceedings of Rehoboam rejected him and made Jeroboam their King The same People in the time of the Judges had general Assemblies as often as occasion did require to set up a Judg make War or the like and the several Tribes had their Assemblies to treat of Businesses relating to themselves The Histories of all Nations especially of those that have peopled the best parts of Europe are so full of Examples in this kind that no man can question them unless he be brutally ignorant or maliciously contentious The great matters among the Germans were transacted omnium consensu De minoribus consultant Principes de majoribus omnes The Michelgemote among the Saxons was an Assembly of the whole People The Baronagium is truly said
of the Macedonian Kings was small Philip confessed the People were Freemen and his Son found them to be so when his Fortune had overthrown his Vertue and he fell to hate and fear that generosity of Spirit which it creates He made his Conquests by it and lov'd it as long as he deserved to be lov'd His Successors had the same fortune When their Hearts came to be filled with Barbarick Pride and to delight only in rendring men Slaves they became weak and base and were easily overthrown by the Romans whose Vertue and Fortune did also perish with their Liberty All the Nations they had to deal with had the same fate They never conquer'd a Free People without extreme difficulty They received many great defeats and were often necessitated to fight for their Lives against the Latins Sabines Tuscans Samnites Carthaginians Spaniards and in the height of their Power found it a hard work to subdue a few poor Etolians But the greatest Kings were easily overcome When Antiochus had insolently boasted that he would cover Greece and Italy with the multitude of his Troops Quintius Flaminius ingeniously compared his Army of Persians Chaldeans Syrians Mesopotamians Cappadocians Arabians and other base Asiatic Slaves to a Supper set before him by a Grecian Friend which seeming to be of several sorts of Venison was all cut out of one Hog variously dress'd and not long after was as easily slaughter'd as the Hog had bin The greatest danger of the War with Mithridates was to avoid his Poisons and Treacheries and to follow him through the Deserts where he fled When Lucullus with less than twenty thousand men had put Tigranes with two hundred thousand to flight the Roman Souldiers who for a while had pursued the chace stood still on a sudden and fell into loud laughter at themselves for using their Arms against such wretched cowardly Slaves If this be not enough to prove the Falshood of our Author's Proposition I desire it may be consider'd whether good Order or Stability be wanting in Venice Whether Tuscany be in a better condition to defend it self since it fell under the power of the Medices or when it was full of free Cities Whether it were an easy work to conquer Switzerland Whether the Hollanders are of greater strength since the recovery of their Liberty or when they groaned under the Yoak of Spain And lastly whether the intire conquest of Scotland and Ireland the Victories obtained against the Hollanders when they were in the height of their Power and the reputation to which England did rise in less than five years after 1648. be good marks of the instability disorder and weakness of free Nations And if the contrary be true nothing can be more absurdly false than our Author's assertion SECT XII The Glory Vertue and Power of the Romans began and ended with their Liberty AMong many fine things proposed by our Author I see none more to be admired or that better declares the soundness of his Judgment than that he is only pleased with the beginning and end of the Roman Empire and says that their time of Liberty between those two extremes had nothing of good in it but that it was of short continuance whereas I dare affirm that all that was ever desirable or worthy of praise and imitation in Rome did proceed from its Liberty grow up and perish with it which I think will not be contradicted by any but those who prefer the most sordid Vices before the most eminent Vertues who believe the People to have bin more worthily employ'd by the Tarquins in cleansing Jakes and common Shores than in acquiring the Dominion of the best part of Mankind and account it better for a People to be oppressed with hard labour under a proud Master in a steril unhealthy ten-mile Territory than to command all the Countries that lie between the Euphrates and Britain Such Opinions will hardly find any better Patrons than Filmer and his Disciples nor the matters of fact as they are represented be denied by any that know the Histories of those times Many Romans may have had seeds of virtue in them whilst in the infancy of that City they lived under Kings but they brought forth little fruit Tarquin sirnamed the Proud being a Grecian by extraction had perhaps observed that the Virtue of that Nation had rendred them averse to the Divine Government he desir'd to set up and having by his well-natur'd Tullia poison'd his own Brother her Husband and his own Wife her Sister married her killed her Father and spared none that he thought able to oppose his designs to finish the work he butcher'd the Senat with such as seemed most eminent among the People and like a most pious Father endeavour'd to render the City desolate during that time they who would not be made instruments of those Villanies were obliged for their own safety to conceal their Vertues but he being removed they shined in their Glory Whilst he reign'd Brutus Valerius Horatius Herminius Larcius and Coriolanus lay hid and unregarded but when they came to fight for themselves and to imploy their Valour for the good of their Country they gave such testimonies of Bravery as have bin admired by all succeeding ages and sertled such a Discipline as produced others like to them or more excellent than they as long as their Liberty lasted In two hundred and sixty years that they remained under the Government of Kings tho all of them the last only excepted were chosen by the Senat and People and did as much to advance the publick Service as could reasonably be expected from them their Dominion hardly extended so far as from London to Hownslow But in little more than three hundred years after they recovered their Liberty they had subdued all the warlike Nations of Italy destroy'd vast Armies of the Gauls Cimbri and Germans overthrown the formidable power of Carthage conquer'd the Cisalpine and Transalpine Gauls with all the Nations of Spain notwithstanding the ferocity of the one and the more constant valour of the other and the prodigious multitudes of both They had brought all Greece into subjection and by the conquest of Macedon the Spoils of the World to adorn their City and found so little difficulty in all the Wars that happened between them and the greatest Kings after the Death of Alexander of Epirus and Pirrhus that the defeats of Siphax Perseus Antichus Prusias Tigranes Ptolomy and many others did hardly deserve to be numbred amongst their Victories It were ridiculous to impute this to chance or to think that Fortune which of all things is the most variable could for so many ages continue the same course unless supported by Virtue or to suppose that all these Monarchies which are so much extoll'd could have bin destroyed by that Commonwealth if it had wanted Strength Stability Virtue or good Order The secret Counsels of God are impenetrable but the ways by which he accomplishes his designs
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
Mother and Nurse of them Tho I should fill a Volume with examples of this kind as I might easily do such as our Author will say that in Popular Governments men look upon Mischiefs as Thunder and only wish it may not touch themselves But leaving them to the scorn and hatred they deserve by their impudence and folly I conclude this point with the answer that Trajano Boccalini puts into the mouth of Apollo to the Princes who complained that their Subjects had not that love to their Countries as had bin and was daily seen in those who lived under Commonwealths which did amount to no more than to tell them that their ill Government was the cause of that defect and that the prejudices incurr'd by Rapine Violence and fraud were to be repaired only by Liberality Justice and such a care of their Subjects that they might live happily under them SECT XXII Commonwealths seek Peace or VVar according to the Variety of their Constitutions IF I have hitherto spoken in general of popular or mixed Governments as if they were all founded on the same principle it was only because our Author without distinction has generally blamed them all and generally imputed to every one those Faults which perhaps never were in any but most certainly are directly opposite to the temper and constitution of many among them Malice and Ignorance reign so equally in him that 't is not easy to determine from which of the two this false representation proceeds But lest any man should thereby be imposed upon 't is time to observe That the Constitutions of Commonwealths have bin so various according to the different temper of Nations and Times that if some of them seem to have bin principally constituted for War others have as much delighted in Peace and many having taken the middle and as some think the best way have so moderated their love to Peace as not to suffer the Spirits of the People to fall but kept them in a perpetual readiness to make War when there was occasion and every one of those having followed several ways and ends deserve our particular consideration The Cities of Rome Sparta Thebes and all the Associations of the Etolians Achaians Sabins Latins Samnites and many others that antiently flourish'd in Greece and Italy seem to have intended nothing but the just preservation of Liberty at home and making War abroad All the Nations of Spain Germany and Gaul sought the same things Their principal work was to render their People valiant obedient to their Commanders lovers of their Country and always ready to fight for it And for this reason when the Senators of Rome had kill'd Romulus they perswaded Julius Proculus to affirm that he had seen him in a most glorious form ascending to Heaven and promising great things to the City Proinde rem militarem colant The Athenians were not less inclined to War but applied themselves to Trade as subservient to that end by increasing the number of the People and furnishing them with the means of carrying it on with more vigour and power The Phenician Cities of which Carthage was the most eminent followed the same method but knowing that Riches do not desned themselves or scorning slothfully to enjoy what was gained by Commerce they so far applied themselves to War that they grew to a Power which Rome only was able to overthrow Venice Florence Genoa Lucca and some other Cities of Italy seem chiefly to have aimed at Trade and placing the hopes of their safety in the protection of more powerful States unwillingly enter'd into Wars especially by Land and when they did they made them by mercenary Soldiers Again some of those that intended War desir'd to enlarge their Territories by conquest others only to preserve their own and to live with freedom and safety upon them Rome was of the first sort and knowing that such ends cannot be accomplished without great numbers of men they freely admitted Strangers into the City Senate and Magistracy Numa was a Sabin Tarquinius Priscus was the Son of a Grecian One hundred of those Sabins who came with Tatius were admitted into the Senate Appius Claudius of the same People came to Rome was made a Member of the Senate and created Consul They demolished several Cities and brought the Inhabitants to their own gave the right of Citizens to many others sometimes to whole Cities and Provinces and cared not how many they received so as they could engraft them upon the same interest with the old stock and season them with the same Principles Discipline and Manners On the other side the Spartans desiring only to continue free virtuous and safe in the enjoyment of their own Territory and thinking themselves strong enough to defend it framed a most severe Discipline to which few Strangers would submit They banished all those curious Arts that are useful to Trade prohibited the importation of Gold and Silver appointed the Helotes to cultivate their Lands and to exercise such Trades as are necessary to life admitted few Strangers to live amongst them made none of them free of their City and educated their Youth in such exercises only as prepared them for War I will not take upon me to judg whether this proceeded from such a moderation of Spirit as placed Felicity rather in the fulness and stability of Liberty Integrity Virtue and the enjoyment of their own than in Riches Power and Dominion over others nor which of these two different methods deserves most to be commended But certain it is that both succeeded according to the intention of the Founders Rome conquer'd the best part of the World and never wanted men to defend what was gained Sparta lived in such happiness and reputation that till it was invaded by Epaminondas an Enemies Trumpet had not bin heard by those within the Town for the space of eight hundred years and never suffer'd any great disaster till receding from their own Institutions they were brought by prosperity to affect the Principality of Greece and to undertake such Wars as could not be carried on without Mony and greater numbers of men than a small City was able to furnish by which means they were obliged to beg assistance from the Barbarians whom they scorned and hated as appears by the Stories of Callicratidas Lysander and Agesilaus and fell into such straits as were never recovered The like variety has bin observed in the Constitutions of those Northern Nations that invaded the Roman Empire for tho all of them intended War and looked upon those only to be Members of their Commonwealths who used arms to defend them yet some did immediately incorporate themselves with those of the conquer'd Countries Of this number were the Franks who presently became one Nation with the Gauls others kept themselves in a distinct body as the Saxons did from the Britains And the Goths for more than three hundred years that they reigned in Spain never contracted Marriages or otherwise mixed with
Body Mind Mony and Forces but as an ill Hare is said to make a good Dog he conquer'd the best part of Italy without breaking a Lance. Ferdinand and Alphonso of Arragon Kings of Naples had governed by Trepanners false Witnesses corrupt Judges mercenary Soldiers and other Ministers of Iniquity but these could afford no help against an Invader and neither the oppressed Nobility nor People concerning themselves in the quarrel they who had bin proud fierce and cruel against their poor Subjects never durst look an Enemy in the face and the Father dying with anguish and fear the Son shamefully fled from his ill governed Kingdom The same things are no less evident in Spain No People ever defended themselves with more Obstinacy and Valour than the Spaniards did against the Carthaginians and Romans who surpassed them in Wealth and Skill Livy calls them Gentem ad bella gerenda reparanda natam and who generally kill'd themselves when they were master'd and disarm'd Nullam sine armis vitam esse rati But tho the mixture of Roman Blood could not impair their Race and the conjunction of the Goths had improved their Force yet no more was requir'd for the overthrow of them all than the weakness and baseness of the two lewd Tyrants Witza and Rodrigo who disdained all Laws and resolved to govern according to their Lust. They who for more than two hundred years had resisted the Romans were intirely subdued by the vile half naked Moors in one slight Skirmish and do not to this day know what became of the King who brought the Destruction upon them That Kingdom after many revolutions is with many others come to the House of Austria and enjoys all the Wealth of the Indies whereupon they are thought to have affected an universal Monarchy Sed ut sunt levia Aulicorum ingenia this was grounded upon nothing except their own Vanity They had Mony and Craft but wanting that solid Virtue and Strength which makes and preserves Conquests their Kings have nothing but Milan that did not come to them by Marriage And tho they have not received any extraordinary disasters in War yet they languish and consume through the defects of their own Government and are forced to beg assistance from thier mortal and formerly despis'd Enemies These are the best hopes of defence that they have from abroad and the only Enemy an Invader ought to fear in their desolate Territories is that want and famin which testifies the good Order Strength and Stability of our Author 's divine Monarchy the profound Wisdom of their Kings in subtilly finding out so sure a way of defending the Country their paternal care in providing for the good of their Subjects and that whatsoever is defective in the Prince is assuredly supplied by the Sedulity of a good Council We have already said enough to obviate the objections that may be drawn from the prosperity of the French Monarchy The beauty of it is false and painted There is a rich and haughty King who is bless'd with such Neighbours as are not likely to disturb him and has nothing to fear from his miserable Subjects but the whole body of that State is full of boils and wounds and putrid sores There is no real strength in it The People is so unwilling to serve him that he is said to have put to death above fourscore thousand of his own Soldiers within the space of fifteen years for flying from their Colours and if he were vigorously attack'd little help could be expected from a discontented Nobility or a starving and despairing People If to diminish the force of these arguments and examples it be said that in two or three thousand years all things are changed the antient Virtue of Mankind is extinguished and the love that every one had to his Country is turned into a care of his private Interests I answer that Time changes nothing and the Changes produced in this time proceed only from the change of Governments The Nations which have bin governed arbitrarily have always suffer'd the same Plagues and bin infected with the same Vices which is as natural as for Animals ever to generate according to their kinds and Fruits to be of the same nature with the Roots and Seeds from which they come The same Order that made men valiant and industrious in the service of their Country during the first ages would have the same effect if it were now in being Men would have the same love to the publick as the Spartans and Romans had if there was the same reason for it We need no other proof of this than what we have seen in our own Country where in a few years good Discipline and a just encouragement given to those who did well produced more examples of pure compleat incorruptible and invincible Virtue than Rome or Greece could ever boast or if more be wanting they may easily be found among the Switzers Hollanders and others but 't is not necessary to light a Candle to the Sun SECT XXIV Popular Governments are less subject to Civil Disorders than Monarchies manage them more ably and more easily recover out of them 'T Is in vain to seek a Government in all points free from a possibility of Civil Wars Tumults and Seditions that is a Blessing denied to this life and reserved to compleat the Felicity of the next But if these are to be accounted the greatest evils that can fall upon a People the rectitude or defects of Governments will best appear if we examin which Species is more or less exposed to or exempted from them This may be done two ways 1. By searching into the causes from whence they may or usually do arise 2. Which kind has actually bin most frequently and dangerously disturbed by them To the first Seditions Tumults and Wars do arise from mistake or from malice from just occasions or unjust from mistake when a People thinks an evil to be done or intended which is not done nor intended or takes that to be evil which is done tho in truth it be not so Well regulated Cities may fall into these errors The Romans being jealous of their newly recover'd Liberty thought that Valerius Publicola designed to make himself King when he built a House in a place that seemed too strong and eminent for a private man The Spartans were not less suspicious of Lycurgus and a lewd young Fellow in a Sedition put out one of his eyes but no People ever continued in a more constant affection to their best deserving Citizens than both the Romans and Spartans afterwards manifested to those virtuous and wrongfully suspected men Sometimes the fact is true but otherwise understood than was intended When the Tarquins were expelled from Rome the Patricians retained to themselves the principal Magistracies but never thought of bringing back Kings or of setting up a corrupt Oligarchy among themselves as the Plebeians imagin'd And this mistake being discover'd the fury they had conceived vanished and
has bin in force for so many Ages What the beginning of it was is not known But Charles the sixth receding from this Law and thinking to dispose of the Succession otherwise than was ordained by it was esteemed mad and all his Acts rescinded And tho the Reputation Strength and Valour of the English commanded by Henry the fifth one of the bravest Princes that have ever bin in the world was terrible to the French Nation yet they opposed him to the utmost of their power rather than suffer that Law to be broken And tho our Success under his Conduct was great and admirable yet soon aster his death with the expence of much Blood and Treasure we lost all that we had on that side and suffer'd the Penalty of having unadvisedly entred into that Quarrel By virtue of the same Law the Agreement made by King John when he was Prisoner at London by which he had alienated part of that Dominion as well as that of Francis the first concluded when he was under the same Circumstances at Madrid were reputed null and upon all occasions that Nation has given sufficient testimony that the Laws by which they live are their own made by themselves and not imposed upon them And 't is as impossible for them who made and deposed Kings exalted or depressed reigning Families and prescribed Rules to the Succession to have received from their own Creatures the Power or part of the Government they had as for a man to be begotten by his own Son Nay tho their Constitutions were much changed by Lewis the 11 th yet they retained so much of their antient Liberty that in the last Age when the House of Valois was as much depraved as those of Meroveus and Pepin had bin and Henry the third by his own Lewdness Hypocrisy Cruelty and Impurity together with the baseness of his Minions and Favorites had rendred himself odious and contemptible to the Nobility and People the great Cities Parliaments the greater and in political matters the sounder part of the Nation declared him to be fallen from the Crown and pursued him to the death tho the blow was given by the hand of a base and half-distracted Monk Henry of Bourbon was without controversy the next Heir but neither the Nobility nor the People who thought themselves in the Government would admit him to the Crown till he had given them satisfaction that he would govern according to their Laws by abjuring his Religion which they judged inconsistent with them The later Commotions in Paris Bourdeaux and other places together with the Wars for Religion shew that tho the French do not complain of every Grievance and cannot always agree in the defence and vindication of their violated Liberties yet they very well understand their Rights and that as they do not live by or for the King but he reigns by and for them so their Privileges are not from him but that his Crown is from them and that according to the true Rule of their Government he can do nothing against their Laws or if he do they may oppose him The Institution of a Kingdom is the act of a free Nation and whoever denies them to be free denies that there can be any thing of right in what they set up That which was true in the beginning is so and must be so for ever This is so far acknowledged by the highest Monarchs that in a Treatise published in the year 1667 by Authority of the present King of France to justify his pretensions to some part of the Low-Countries notwithstanding all the Acts of himself and the King of Spain to extinguish them it is said That Kings are under the happy inability to do any thing against the Laws of their Country And tho perhaps he may do things contrary to Law yet he grounds his Power upon the Law and the most able and most trusted of his Ministers declare the same About the year 1660 the Count D' Aubijoux a man of eminent quality in Languedoc but averse to the Court and hated by Cardinal Mazarin had bin tried by the Parliament of Tholouse for a Duel in which a Gentleman was kill'd and it appearing to the Court then in that City that he had bin acquitted upon forged Letters of Grace false Witnesses powerful Friends and other undue means Mazarin desired to bring him to a new Trial but the Chancellor Seguier told the Queen-Mother it could not be for the Law did not permit a man once acquitted to be again question'd for the same Fact and that if the course of the Law were interrupted neither the Salique Law nor the succession of her Children or any thing else could be secure in France This is farther proved by the Histories of that Nation The Kings of Meroveus and Pepin's Races were suffer'd to divide the Kingdom amongst their Sons or as Hottoman says the Estates made the Division and allotted to each such a part as they thought fit But when this way was found to be prejudicial to the Publick an Act of State was made in the time of Hugh Capet by which it was ordain'd that for the future the Kingdom should not be dismembred which Constitution continuing in force to this day the Sons or Brothers of their Kings receive such an Apannage they call it as is bestow'd on them remaining subject to the Crown as well as other men And there has been no King of France since that time except only Charles the sixth who has not acknowledged that he cannot alienate any part of their Dominion Whoever imputes the acknowledgment of this to Kingcraft and says that they who avow this when 't is for their advantage will deny it on a different occasion is of all men their most dangerous Enemy In laying such fraud to their charge he destroys the veneration by which they subsist and teaches Subjects not to keep Faith with those who by the most malicious deceits show that they are tied by none Human Societies are maintained by mutual Contracts which are of no value if they are not observ'd Laws are made and Magistrates created to cause them to be performed in publick and private matters and to punish those who violate them But none will ever be observed if he who receives the greatest benefit by them and is set up to oversee others give the example to those who of themselves are too much inclin'd to break them The first step that Pompey made to his own ruin was by violating the Laws he himself had proposed But it would be much worse for Kings to break those that are established by the Authority of a whole People and confirmed by the succession of many Ages I am far from laying any such blemishes on them or thinking that they deserve them I must believe the French King speaks sincerely when he says he can do nothing against the Laws of his Country And that our King James did the like when he
to King Stephen and her Son Henry the 2d and of Henry the 7th in relation to the house of York both before he had married a Daughter of it and after her death they did the contrary in the cases of William the first and second Henry the I st Stephen John Richard the 3d Henry the 7th Mary Elizabeth and others So that for any thing I can yet find 't is equally difficult to discover the true sense of the Law of Nature that should be a guide to my Conscience whether I so far submit to the Laws of my Country to think that England alone has produced men that rightly understand it or examine the Laws and Practices of other Nations Whilst this remains undecided 't is impossible for me to know to whom I owe the obedience that is exacted from me If I were a French-man I could not tell whether I ow'd allegiance to the King of Spain Duke of Lorrain Duke of Savoy or many others descended from Daughters of the house of Valois one of whom ought to inherit if the Inheritance belongs to Females or to the house of Bourbon whose only title is founded upon the exclusion of them The like Controversies will be in all places and he that would put Mankind upon such enquiries goes about to subvert all the Governments of the World and arms every man to the destruction of his neighbour We ought to be informed when this right began If we had the Genealogy of every man from Noah and the Crowns of every Nation had since his time continued in one Line we were only to inquire into how many Kingdoms he appointed the world to be divided and how well the division we see at this day agrees with the allotment made by him But Mankind having for many Ages lain under such a vast confusion that no man pretends to know his own original except some Jews and the Princes of the house of Austria we cannot so easily arrive at the end of our work and the Scriptures making no other mention of this part of the world than what may induce us to think it was given to the Sons of Japhet we have nothing that can lead us to guess how it was to be subdivided nor to whom the several parcels were given So that the difficulties are absolutely inextricable and tho it were true that some one man had a right to every parcel that is known to us it could be of no use for that Right must necessarily perish which no man can prove nor indeed claim But as all natural Rights by Inheritance must be by Descent this Descent not being proved there can be no natural Right and all Rights being either natural created or acquired this Right to Crowns not being natural must be created or acquired or none at all There being no general Law common to all Nations creating a Right to Crowns as has bin proved by the several methods used by several Nations in the disposal of them according to which all those that we know are enjoy'd we must seek the Right concerning which we dispute from the particular Constitutions of every Nation or we shall be able to find none Acquir'd Rights are obtained as men say either by fair means or by soul that is by force or by consent such as are gained by force may be recovered by force and the extent of those that are enjoy'd by consent can only be known by the reasons for which or the conditions upon which that consent was obtain'd that is to say by the Laws of every People According to these Laws it cannot be said that there is a King in every Nation before he is crown'd John Sobietski now reigning in Poland had no relation in blood to the former Kings nor any title till he was chosen The last King of Sweden acknowledged he had none but was freely elected and the Crown being conferred upon him and the Heirs of his Body if the present King dies without Issue the right of electing a Successor returns undoubtedly to the Estates of the Country The Crown of Denmark was Elective till it was made Hereditary by an Act of the General Diet held at Copenhagen in the year 1660 and 't is impossible that a Right should otherwise accrue to a younger Brother of the house of Holstein which is derived from a younger Brother of the Counts of Oldenburgh The Roman Empire having passed through the hands of many Persons of different Nations no way relating to each other in blood was by Constantine transferred to Constantinople and after many Revolutions coming to Theodosius by birth a Spaniard was divided between his two Sons Arcadius and Honorius From thence passing to such as could gain most credit with the Soldiers the Western Empire being brought almost to nothing was restored by Charles the Great of France and continuing for some time in his descendents came to the Germans who having created several Emperors of the Houses of Suevia Saxony Bavaria and others as they pleased about three hundred years past chose Rodolphus of Austria and tho since that time they have not had any Emperor who was not of that Family yet such as were chosen had nothing to recommend them but the merits of their Ancestors their own personal Virtues or such political considerations as might arise from the power of their hereditary Countries which being joined with those of the Empire might enable them to make the better defence against the Turks But in this Line also they have had little regard to inheritance according to blood for the elder branch of the Family is that which reigns in Spain and the Empire continues in the descendents of Ferdinand younger Brother to Charles the fifth tho so unfix'd even to this time that the present Emperor Leopold was in great danger of being rejected If it be said that these are Elective Kingdoms and our Author speaks of such as are hereditary I answer that if what he says be true there can be no Elective Kingdom and every Nation has a natural Lord to whom obedience is due But if some are Elective all might have bin so if they had pleased unless it can be proved that God created some under a necessity of subjection and left to others the enjoyment of their liberty If this be so the Nations that are born under that necessity may be said to have a natural Lord who has all the power in himself before he is crowned or any part conferred on him by the consent of the people but it cannot extend to others And he who pretends a right over any Nation upon that account stands obliged to shew when and how that Nation came to be discriminated by God from others and deprived of that liberty which he in goodness had granted to the rest of mankind I confess I think there is no such Right and need no better proof than the various ways of disposing Inheritances in several Countries which not being naturally or universally
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
to their Country I say that all Nations amongst whom Virtue has bin esteemed have had a great regard to them and their Posterity And tho Kings when they were made have bin intrusted by the Saxons and other Nations with a Power of ennobling those who by services render'd to their Country might deserve that Honor yet the body of the Nobility was more antient than such for it had bin equally impossible to take Kings according to Tacitus out of the Nobility if there had bin no Nobility as to take Captains for their Virtue if there had bin no Virtue and Princes could not without breach of that trust confer Honors upon those that did not deserve them which is so true that this practice was objected as the greatest crime against Vortigern the last and the worst of the British Kings and tho he might pretend according to such cavils as are usual in our time that the judgment of those matters was reserred to him yet the world judged of his Crimes and when he had render'd himself odious to God and men by them he perished in them and brought destruction upon his Country that had suffer'd them too long As among the Turks and most of the Eastern Tyrannies there is no Nobility and no man has any considerable advantage above the common People unless by the immediate favour of the Prince so in all the legal Kingdoms of the North the strength of the Government has always bin placed in the Nobility and no better defence has bin found against the encroachments of ill Kings than by setting up an Order of men who by holding large Territories and having great numbers of Tenants and Dependents might be able to restrain the exorbitances that either the Kings or the Commons might run into For this end Spain Germany France Poland Denmark Sweeden Scotland and England were almost wholly divided into Lordships under several names by which every particular Possessor owed Allegiance that is such an Obedience as the Law requires to the King and he reciprocally swore to perform that which the same Law exacted from him When these Nations were converted to the Christian Religion they had a great veneration for the Clergy and not doubting that the men whom they esteemed holy would be just thought their Liberties could not be better secured than by joining those who had the direction of their Consciences to the Noblemen who had the command of their Forces This succeeded so well in relation to the defence of the publick Rights that in all the forementioned States the Bishops Abbots c. were no less zealous or bold in defending the publick Liberty than the best and greatest of the Lords And if it were true that things being thus established the Commons did neither personally nor by their Representatives enter into the General Assemblies it could be of no advantage to Kings for such a Power as is above-mentioned is equally inconsistent with the absolute Sovereignty of Kings if placed in the Nobility and Clergy as if the Commons had a part If the King has all no other man nor number of men can have any If the Nobility and Clergy have the power the Commons may have their share also But I affirm that those whom we now call Commons have always had a part in the Government and their place in the Councils that managed it for if there was a distinction it must have bin by Patent Birth or Tenure As for Patents we know they began long after the coming of the Normans and those that now have them cannot pretend to any advantage on account of Birth or Tenure beyond many of those who have them not Nay besides the several Branches of the Families that now enjoy the most antient Honors which consequently are as noble as they and some of them of the elder Houses we know many that are now called Commoners who in antiquity and eminency are no way inferior to the chief of the titular Nobility and nothing can be more absurd than to give a prerogative of Birth to Cr-v-n T-ft-n H-ae B-nn-t Osb-rn and others before the Cliftons Hampdens Courtneys Pelhams St. Johns Baintons Wilbrahams Hungerfords and many others And if the Tenures of their Estates be consider'd they have the same and as antient as any of those who go under the names of Duke or Marquess I forbear to mention the sordid ways of attaining to Titles in our days but whoever will take the pains to examine them shall find that they rather defile than ennoble the possessors And whereas men are truly ennobled only by Virtue and respect is due to such as are descended from those who have bravely serv'd their Country because it is presumed till they shew the contrary that they will resemble their Ancestors these modern Courtiers by their Names and Titles frequently oblige us to call to mind such things as are not to be mentioned without blushing Whatever the antient Noblemen of England were we are sure they were not such as these And tho it should be confess'd that no others than Dukes Marquesses Earls Viscounts and Barons had their places in the Councils mentioned by Cesar and Tacitus or in the great Assemblies of the Saxons it could be of no advantage to such as now are called by those names They were the titles of Offices conserred upon those who did and could best conduct the people in time of War give Counsel to the King administer Justice and perform other publick duties but were never made hereditary except by abuse much less were they sold for money or given as recompences of the vilest services If the antient order be totally inverted and the ends of its institution perverted they who from thence pretend to be distinguished from other men must build their claim upon something very different from Antiquity This being sufficient if I mistake not to make it appear that the antient Councils of our Nation did not consist of such as we now call Noblemen it may be worth our pains to examine of what sort of men they did consist And tho I cannot much rely upon the credit of Camden which he has forfeited by a great number of untruths I will begin with him because he is cited by our Author If we will believe him That which the Saxons called Wittenagemot we may justly name Parliament which has the supreme and most sacred Authority of making abrogating and interpreting Laws and generally of all things relating to the safety of the Commonwealth This Wittenagemot was according to William of Malmsbury The general meeting of the Senat and People and Sir Harry Spelman calls it The General Council of the Clergy and People In the Assembly at Calcuth it was decreed by the Archbishops Bishops Abbots Dukes Senators and the People of the Land Populo terrae that the Kings should be elected by the Priests and Elders of the People By these Offa Ina and others were made Kings and Alfred
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
Constitutions than that they who made them would have it so which could not be if God and Nature had appointed one general Rule for all Nations For in that case the Kingdom of France must be elective as well as that of Poland and the Empire or the Empire and Poland hereditary as that of France Daughters must succeed in France as well as in England or be excluded in England as in France and he that would establish one as the Ordinance of God and Nature must necessarily overthrow all the rest A farther exercise of the natural Liberty of Nations is discovered in the several limitations put upon the Sovereign Power Some Kings says Grotius have the summum Imperium summo modo others modo non summo and amongst those that are under limitations the degrees as to more or less are almost infinite as I have proved already by the example of Arragon antient Germany the Saxon Kings the Normans the Kings of Castille the present Empire with divers others And I may safely say that the antient Government of France was much of the same nature to the time of Charles the 7th and Lewis the 11th but the work of emancipating themselves as they call it begun by them is now brought to perfection in a boundless elevation of the King's greatness and riches to the unspeakable misery of the people 'T were a folly to think this variety proceeds from the concessions of Kings who naturally delight in Power and hate that which crosses their will It might with more reason be imagined that the Roman Consuls who were brought up in liberty who had contracted a love to their Country and were contented to live upon an equal foot with their fellow Citizens should confine the power of their Magistracy to a year or that the Dukes of Venice should be graciously pleased to give power to the Council of Ten to punish them capitally if they transgressed the Laws than that Kings should put such Fetters upon their power which they so much abhor or that they would suffer them if they could be easily broken If any one of them should prove so moderate like Trajan to command the Prefect of the Pretorian Guard to use the Sword for him if he governed well and against him if he did not it would soon be rescinded by his Successor the Law which has no other strength than the act of one man may be annulled by another So that nothing dos more certainly prove that the Laws made in several Countries to restrain the Power of Kings and variously to dispose of the Succession are not from them than the frequent examples of their fury who have exposed themselves to the greatest dangers and brought infinite miseries upon the people through the desire of breaking them It must therefore be concluded that Nations have power of meeting together and of conferring limiting and directing the Sovereignty or all must be grounded upon most manifest Injustice and Usurpation No man can have a power over a Nation otherwise than de jure or de facto He who pretends to have a power de jure must prove that it is originally inherent in him or his predecessor from whom he inherits or that it was justly acquired by him The vanity of any pretence to an original Right appears sufficiently I hope from the proofs already given that the first Fathers of Mankind had it not or if they had no man could now inherit the same there being no man able to make good the Genealogy that should give him a right to the Succession Besides the facility we have of proving the beginnings of all the Families that reign among us makes it as absurd for any of them to pretend a perpetual right to Dominion as for any Citizen of London whose parents and birth we know to say he is the very man Noah who lived in the time of the Flood and is now four or five thousand years old If the power were conferred on him or his Predecessors 't is what we ask for the collation can be of no value unless it be made by those who had a right to do it and the original right by Descent failing no one can have any over a sree People but themselves or those to whom they have given it If acquisition be pretended 't is the same thing for there can be no right to that which is acquired unless the right of invading be proved and that being done nothing can be acquired except what belonged to the person that was invaded and that only by him who had the right of invading No man ever did or could conquer a Nation by his own strength no man therefore could ever acquire a personal right over any and if it was conferr'd upon him by those who made the conquest with him they were the People that did it He can no more be said to have the right originally in and from himself than a Magistrate of Rome or Athens immediately after his creation and having no other at the beginning he can have none to eternity for the nature of it must refer to the original and cannot be changed by time Whatsoever therefore proceeds not from the consent of the People must be de facto only that is void of all right and 't is impossible there should not be a right of destroying that which is grounded upon none and by the same rule that one man enjoys what he gained by violence another may take it from him Cyrus overthrew the Assyrians and Babylonians Alexander the Medes and Persians and if they had no right of making war upon those Nations the Nations could not but have a right of recovering all that had bin unjustly taken from them and avenging the evils they had suffered If the cause of the war was originally just and not corrupted by an intemperate use of the victory the conquer'd People was perhaps obliged to be quiet but the conquering Armies that had conferred upon their Generals what they had taken from their enemies might as justly expect an account of what they had given and that it should be imploy'd according to the intention of the givers as the People of any City might do from their regularly created Magistrates because it was as impossible for Cyrus Alexander or Cesar to gain a power over the Armies they led without their consent as for Pericles Valerius or any other disarmed Citizen to gain more power in their respective Cities than was voluntarily conferr'd upon them And I know no other difference between Kingdoms so constituted by conquering Armies and such as are established in the most orderly manner than that the first usually incline more to war and violence the latter to justice and peace But there have not bin wanting many of the first sort especially the Nations coming from the North who were no less exact in ordaining that which tended to the preservation of Liberty nor less severe in seeing it punctually performed than the
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
his hands it would neither bring inconvenience or danger on the present King He can with patience expect that nature should take her course and would neither anticipate nor secure his entrance into the possession of the power by taking one day from the life of his Brother Tho the Papists know that like a true Son of their Church he would prefer the advancement of their Religion before all other considerations and that one stab with a Dagger or a dose of Poison would put all under his feet not one man would be found among them to give it The Assassins were Mahometans not pupils of the honest Jesuits nor ever employ'd by them These things being certain all our concernments would be secure if instead of the foolish Statutes and antiquated Customs on which our Ancestors and we have hitherto doted we may be troubled with no Law but the King's will and a Proclamation may be taken for a sufficient declaration of it We shall by this means be delivered from that Liberty with a mischief in which our mistaken Nation seems so much to delight This phrase is so new and so peculiar to our Author that it deserves to be written upon his Tomb. We have heard of Tyranny with a mischief Slavery and Bondage with a mischief and they have bin denounced by God against wicked and perverse Nations as mischiefs comprehending all that is most to be abhorr'd and dreaded in the world But Filmer informs us that Liberty which all wise and good men have in all ages esteemed to be the most valuable and glorious privilege of mankind is a mischief If he deserve credit Moses Joshua Gideon Sampson and Samuel with others like them were enemies to their Country in depriving the people of the advantages they enjoy'd under the paternal care of Pharaoh Adonibezek Eglon Jabin and other Kings of the neighbouring Nations and restoring them to that Liberty with a mischief which he had promised to them The Israelites were happy under the power of Tyrants whose Proclamations were Laws and they ought to have bin thankful to God for that condition and not for the deliverances he wrought by the hands of his Servants Subjection to the will of a man is happiness Liberty is a mischief But this is so abominably wicked and detestable that it can deserve no answer SECT XLIV No People that is not free can substitute Delegates HOW full soever the Power of any person or people may be he or they are obliged to give only so much to their Delegates as seems convenient to themselves or conducing to the ends they desire to attain but the Delegate can have none except what is conferred upon him by his Principal If theresore the Knights Citizens and Burgesses sent by the People of England to serve in Parliament have a Power it must be more perfectly and fully in those that send them But as was proved in the last Section Proclamations and other significations of the King's pleasure are not Laws to us They are to be regulated by the Law not the Law by them They are to be considered only so far as they are conformable to the Law srom which they receive all the strength that is in them and can confer none upon it We know no Laws but our own Statutes and those immemorial Customs established by the consent of the Nation which may be and often are changed by us The Legislative Power therefore that is exercised by the Parliament cannot be conferred by the Writ of Summons but must be essentially and radically in the People from whom their Delegates and Representatives have all that they have But says our Author They must only chuse and trust those whom they chuse to do what they list and that is as much liberty as many of us deserve for our irregular Elections of Burgesses This is ingeniously concluded I take what Servant I please and when I have taken him I must suffer him to do what he pleases But from whence should this necessity arise Why may not I take one to be my Groom another to be my Cook and keep them both to the Offices for which I took them What Law dos herein restrain my Right And if I am free in my private capacity to regulate my particular affairs according to my own discretion and to allot to each Servant his proper work why have not I with my Associates the Freemen of England the like liberty of directing and limiting the Powers of the Servants we employ in our publick Affairs Our Author gives us reasons proportionable to his judgment This were liberty with a mischief and that of chusing only is as much as many of us deserve I have already proved that as far as our Histories reach we have had no Princes or Magistrates but such as we have made and they have had no other power than what we have conferred upon them They cannot be the judges of our merit who have no power but what we gave them thrô an opinion they did or might deserve it They may distribute in parcels to particulars that with which they are entrusted in the gross But 't is impossible that the Publick should depend absolutely upon those who are nothing above other men except what they are made to be for and by the Publick The restrictions therefore of the peoples Liberty must be from themselves or there can be none Nevertheless I believe that the Powers of every County City and Borough of England are regulated by the general Law to which they have all consented and by which they are all made Members of one political Body This obliges them to proceed with their Delegates in a manner different from that which is used in the United Netherlands or in Switserland Amongst these every Province City or Canton making a distinct body independent from any other and exercising the sovereign Power within it self looks upon the rest as Allies to whom they are bound only by such Acts as they themselves have made and when any new thing not comprehended in them happens to arise they oblige their Delegates to give them an account of it and retain the power of determining those matters in themselves 'T is not so amongst us Every County dos not make a distinct Body having in it self a sovereign Power but is a Member of that great Body which comprehends the whole Nation 'T is not therefore for Kent or Sussex Lewis or Maidstone but for the whole Nation that the Members chosen in those places are sent to serve in Parliament and tho it be fit for them as Friends and Neighbours so far as may be to hearken to the opinions of the Electors for the information of their Judgments and to the end that what they shall say may be of more weight when every one is known not to speak his own thoughts only but those of a great number of men yet they are not strictly and properly obliged to give account of their actions to any
force or fraud to usurp a Power of imposing what they pleased Others being sottish cowardly and base have so far erred in the Foundations as to give up themselves to the will of one or few men who turning all to their own profit or pleasure have bin just in nothing but in using such a people like beasts Some have placed weak defences against the lusts of those they have advanced to the highest places and given them opportunities of arrogating more power to themselves than the Law allows Where any of these errors are committed the Government may be easy for a while or at least tolerable whilst it continues uncorrupted but it cannot be lasting When the Law may be easily or safely overthrown it will be attempted Whatever virtue may be in the first Magistrates many years will not pass before they come to be corrupted and their Successors deflecting from their integrity will seize upon the ill-guarded prey They will then not only govern by will but by that irregular will which turns the Law that was made for the publick good to the privat advantage of one or few men 'T is not my intention to enumerate the several ways that have been taken to effect this or to shew what Governments have deflected from the right and how far But I think I may justly say that an Arbitrary Power was never well placed in any men and their Successors who were not obliged to obey the Laws they should make This was well understood by our Saxon Ancestors They made Laws in their Assemblies and Councils of the Nation but all those who proposed or assented to those Laws as soon as the Assembly was dissolved were comprehended under the power of them as well as other men They could do nothing to the prejudice of the Nation that would not be as hurtful to those who were present and their posterity as to those who by many accidents might be absent The Normans enter'd into and continued in the same path Our Parliaments at this day are in the same condition They may make prejudicial Wars ignominious Treaties and unjust Laws Yet when the Session is ended they must bear the burden as much as others and when they die the teeth of their Children will be set an edg with the sower Grapes they have eaten But 't is hard to delude or corrupt so many Men do not in matters of the highest importance yield to slight temptations No man serves the Devil sor nothing Small wages will not content those who expose themselves to perpetual infamy and the hatred of a Nation for betraying their Country Our Kings had not wherewithal to corrupt many till these last twenty years and the treachery of a few was not enough to pass a Law The union of many was not easily wrought and there was nothing to tempt them to endeavour it for they could make little advantage during the Session and were to be lost in the mass of the people and prejudiced by their own Laws as soon as it was ended They could not in a short time reconcile their various interests or passions so as to combine together against the publick and the former Kings never went about it We are beholden to H-de Cl-ff-rd and D-nby for all that has bin done of that kind They found a Parliament full of lewd young men chosen by a furious people in spite to the Puritans whose severity had distasted them The weakest of all Ministers had wit enough to understand that such as these might be easily deluded corrupted or bribed Some were fond of their Seats in Parliament and delighted to domineer over their Neighbours by continuing in them Others prefer'd the cajoleries of the Court before the honour of performing their duty to the Country that employ'd them Some sought to relieve their ruined Fortunes and were most forward to give the King a vast Revenue that from thence they might receive Pensions others were glad of a temporary protection against their Creditors Many knew not what they did when they annulled the Triennial Act voted the Militia to be in the King gave him the Excise Customs and Chimney-mony made the Act for Corporations by which the greatest part of the Nation was brought under the power of the worst men in it drunk or sober pass'd the five mile Act and that for Uniformity in the Church This embolden'd the Court to think of making Parliaments to be the instruments of our Slavery which had in all Ages past bin the firmest pillars of our Liberty There might have bin perhaps a possibility of preventing this pernicious mischief in the Constitution of our Government But our brave Ancestors could never think their Posterity would degenerate into such baseness to sell themselves and their Country but how great soever the danger may be 't is less than to put all into the hands of one man and his Ministers the hazard of being ruin'd by those who must perish with us is not so much to be feared as by one who may enrich and strengthen himself by our destruction 'T is better to depend upon those who are under a possibility of being again corrupted than upon one who applies himself to corrupt them because he cannot otherwise accomplish his designs It were to be wished that our security were more certain but this being under God the best Anchor we have it deserves to be preserved with all care till one of a more unquestionable strength be framed by the consent of the Nation SECT XLVI The coercive power of the Law proceeds from the Authority of Parliament HAVING proved that Proclamations are not Laws and that the Legislative Power which is arbitrary is trusted only in the hands of those who are bound to obey the Laws that are made 't is not hard to discover what it is that gives the power of Law to the Sanctions under which we live Our Author tell us that all Statutes or Laws are made properly by the King alone at the Rogation of the People as his Majesty King James of happy Memory affirms in his true Law of free Monarchy and as Hooker teaches us That Laws do not take their constraining power from the quality of such as devise them but from the power that giveth them the strength of Law But if the Rogation of the People be necessary that cannot be a Law which proceeds not from their Rogation the power therefore is not alone in the King for a most important part is confessed to be in the People And as none could be in them if our Author's Proposition or the Principles upon which it is grounded were true the acknowledgment of such a part to be in the People shews them to be false For if the King had all in himself none could participate with him if any do participate he hath not all and 't is from that Law by which they do participate that we are to know what part is left to him The preambles of most Acts of Parliaments
that is nothing to the present Question For if it was ill done to drive Nero to despair or to throw Vitellius into the common Shore it was not because they were the Ministers of God for their Lives were no way conformable to the character which the Apostle gives to those who deserve that Sacred Name If those only are to be feared who have the Power there was a time when they were not to be feared for they had none and if those Princes are not obliged by the Law who are not under the coercive Power it gave no exemption to those for they fell under it and as we know not what will befal others who walk in their steps till they are dead we cannot till then know whether they are free from it or not SECT XII The Right and Power of a Magistrate depends upon his Institution not upon his Name 'T IS usual with Impostors to obtrude their deceits upon men by putting false names upon things by which they may perplex mens minds and from thence deduce false Conclusions But the points above mention'd being settled it imports little whether the Governors to whom Peter enjoins obedience were only Kings and such as are employ'd by them or all such Magistrates as are the Ministers of God for he informs us of their Works that we may know them and accordingly yield obedience to them This is that therefore which distinguishes the Magistrate to whom obedience is due from him to whom none is due and not the name that he either assumes or others put upon him But if there be any virtue in the word King and that the admirable Prerogatives of which our Author dreams were annexed to that name they could not be applied to the Roman Emperors nor their substituted Officers for they had it not 'T is true Mark Anthony in a drunken fit at the celebration of the impure Lupercalia did offer a Diadem to Julius Cesar which some flatterers pressed him to accept as our great Lawyers did Cromwel but he durst not think of putting it upon his Head Caligula's affectation of that title and the ensigns of Royalty he wore were taken for the most evident marks of his madness and tho the greatest and bravest of their men had fallen by the Wars or Proscriptions tho the best part of the Senate had perished in Thessaly tho the great City was exhausted and Italy brought to desolation yet they were not reduced so low as to endure a King Piso was sufficiently addicted to Tiberius yet he could not suffer that Germanicus should be treated as the Son of a King Principis Romani non Parthorum regis filio has epulas dari And whoever understands the Latin Tongue and the History of those times will easily perceive that the word Princeps signified no more than a principal or eminent man as has bin already proved and the words of Piso could have no other meaning than that the Son of a Roman ought not to be distinguished from others as the Sons of the Parthian Kings were This is verified by his Letter to Tiberius under the name of Friend and the answer of Tiberius promising to him whatsoever one friend could do for another Here was no mention of Majesty or Soveraign Lord nor the base subscriptions of Servant Subject or Creature And I fear that as the last of those words was introduced amongst us by our Bishops the rest of them had bin also invented by such Christians as were too much addicted to the Asiatick Slavery However the name of King was never solemnly assumed by nor conferred upon those Emperors and could have conferred no right if it had They exercised as they pleased or as they durst the power that had bin gained by violence or fraud The exorbitances they committed could not have bin justified by a Title any more than those of a Pyrat who should take the same It was no otherwise given to them than by way of assimilation when they were guilty of the greatest Crimes and Tacitus describing the detestable Lust of Tiberius says Quibus adeo indomitis exarserat ut more Regio pubem ingenuam stupris pollueret nec formam tantum decora corporis sed in his modestam pueritiam in aliis majorum imagines incitamentum cupiditatis habebat He also informs us that Nero took his time to put Bareas Soranus to death who was one of the most virtuous men of that age when Tiridates King of Armenia was at Rome That he might shew the Imperial Grandeur by the slaughter of the most illustrious men which he accounted a Royal Action I leave it to the judgment of all wise men whether it be probable that the Apostles should distinguish such as these from other Magistrates and dignify those only with the Title of God's Ministers who distinguished themselves by such ways or that the succeeding Emperors should be ennobled with the same Prerogative who had no other Title to the name than by resembling those that had it in such things as these If this be too absurd and abominable to enter into the heart of a man it must be concluded that their intention was only to divert the poor People to whom they preached from involving themselves in the care of Civil matters to which they had no call And the Counsel would have bin good as things stood with them if they had bin under the power of a Pyrat or any other villain substituted by him But tho the Apostles had looked upon the Officers set over the Provinces belonging to the Roman Empire as sent by Kings I desire to know whether it can be imagined that they could think the subordinate Governors to be sent by Kings in the Countries that had no Kings or that obedience became due to the Magistrates in Greece Italy or other Provinces under the jurisdiction of Rome only after they had Emperors and that none was due to them before The Germans had then no King The brave Arminius had bin lately kill'd for aiming at a Crown When he had blemish'd all his Virtues by that attempt they forgot his former Services They never consider'd how many Roman Legions he had cut in pieces nor how many thousands of their Allies he had destroy'd His Valour was a crime deserving death when he sought to make a Prey of his Country which he had so bravely defended and to enslave those who with him had fought for the publick Liberty But if the Apostles were to be understood to give the name of God's Ministers only to Kings and those who are employ'd by them and that obedience is due to no other a domestick Tyrant had bin their greatest Benefactor He had set up the only Government that is authorized by God and to which a conscientious obedience is due Agathocles Dionysius Phalaris Phereus Pisistratus Nabis Machanidas and an infinite number of the most detestable Villains that the world has ever produced did confer the same benefits upon the
Countries they enslaved But if this be equally false sottish absurd and execrable all those Epithets belong to our Author and his Doctrine for attempting to depress all modest and regular Magistracies and endeavouring to corrupt the Scripture to patronize the greatest of Crimes No man therefore who does not delight in error can think that the Apostle designed precisely to determin such questions as might arise concerning any one mans right or in the least degree to prefer any one form of Government before another In acknowledging the Magistrate to be Man's Ordinance he declares that Man who makes him to be may make him to be what he pleaseth and tho there is found more prudence and virtue in one Nation than in another that Magistracy which is established in any one ought to be obeyed till they who made the establishment think fit to alter it All therefore whilst they continue are to be look'd upon with the same respect Every Nation acting freely has an equal right to frame their own Government and to employ such Officers as they please The Authority Right and Power of these must be regulated by the judgment right and power of those who appoint them without any relation at all to the name that is given for that is no way essential to the thing The same name is frequently given to those who differ exceedingly in right and power and the same right and power is as osten annexed to Magistracies that differ in name The same power which had bin in the Roman Kings was given to the Consuls and that which had bin legally in the Dictators for a time not exceeding six months was asterwards usurped by the Cesars and made perpetual The supreme Power which some pretend belongs to all Kings has bin and is enjoy'd in the fullest extent by such as never had the name and no Magistracy was ever more restrain'd than those that had the name of Kings in Sparta Arragon England Poland and other places They therefore that did thus institute regulate and restrain create Magistracies and give them names and powers as seemed best to them could not but have in themselves the coercive as well as the directive over them for the regulation and restriction is coercion but most of all the institution by which they could make them to be or not to be As to the exterior force 't is sometimes on the side of the Magistrate and sometimes on that of the People and as Magistrates under several names have the same work incumbent upon them and the same Power to perform it the same Duty is to be exacted from them and rendred to them which being distinctly proportion'd by the Laws of every Country I may conclude that all Magistratical Power being the Ordinance of Man in pursuance of the Ordinance of God receives its being and measure from the Legislative Power of every Nation And whether the power be placed simply in one a few or many men or in one body composed of the three simple Species whether the single Person be called King Duke Marquess Emperor Sultan Mogol or Grand Signor or the number go under the name of Senat Council Pregadi Diet Assembly of Estates and the like 't is the same thing The same obedience is equally due to all whilst according to the Precept of the Apostle they do the work of God for our good and if they depart from it no one of them has a better Title than the other to our obedience SECT XIII Laws were made to direct and instruct Magistrates and if they will not be directed to restrain them I Know not who they are that our Author introduces to say that the first invention of Laws was to bridle or moderate the overgreat Power of Kings and unless they give some better proof of their judgment in other things shall little esteem them They should have considered that there are Laws in many places where there are no Kings that there were Laws in many before there were Kings as in Israel the Law was given three hundred years before they had any but most especially that as no man can be a rightful King except by Law nor have any just Power but from the Law if that Power be found to be overgreat the Law that gave it must have bin before that which was to moderate or restrain it for that could not be moderated which was not in being Leaving therefore our Author to fight with these Adversaries if he please when he finds them I shall proceed to examin his own Positions The truth is says he the Original of Laws was for the keeping of the Multitude in order Popular Estates could not subsist at all without Laws whereas Kingdoms were govern'd many Ages without them The People of Athens as soon as they gave over Kings were forced to give power to Draco first then to Solon to make them Laws If we will believe him therefore wheresoever there is a King or a man who by having power in his hands is in the place of a King there is no need of Law He takes them all to be so wise just and good that they are Laws to themselves Leges viventes This was certainly verified by the whole succession of the Cesars the ten last Kings of Pharamond's Race all the Successors of Charles the Great and others that I am not willing to name but referring my self to History I desire all reasonable men to consider whether the piety and tender care that was natural to Caligula Nero or Domitian was such a security to the Nations that lived under them as without Law to be sufficient for their preservation for if the contrary appear to be true and that their Government was a perpetual exercise of rage malice and madness by which the worst of men were armed with power to destroy the best so that the Empire could only be saved by their destruction 't is most certain that mankind can never fall into a condition which stands more in need of Laws to protect the innocent than when such Monsters reign who endeavour their extirpation and are too well furnished with means to accomplish their detestable designs Without any prejudice therefore to the Cause that I defend I might confess that all Nations were at the first governed by Kings and that no Laws were imposed upon those Kings till they or the Successors of those who had bin advanced for their virtues by falling into Vice and Corruption did manifestly discover the inconveniences of depending upon their will Besides these there are also children women and fools that often come to the succession of Kingdoms whose weakness and ignorance stands in as great need of support and direction as the desperate fury of the others can do of restriction And if some Nations had bin so sottish not to foresee the mischief of leaving them to their will others or the same in succeeding Ages discovering them could no more be obliged to continue in so pernicious a