must submit Contests will in the like manner arise concerning successions to Crowns how exactly soever they be disposed by Law For tho every one will say that the next ought to succeed yet no man knows who is the next which is too much verified by the bloody decisions of such disputes in many parts of the world and he that says the next in blood is actually King makes all questions thereupon arising impossible to be otherwise determined than by the Sword the pretender to the right being placed above the judgment of man and the Subjects for any thing I know obliged to believe serve and obey him if he says he has it For otherwise if either every man in particular or all together have a right of judging his title it can be of no value till it be adjudged I confess that the Law of France by the utter exclusion of Females and their descendents dos obviate many dangerous and inextricable difficulties but others remain which are sufficient to subvert all the Polity of that Kingdom if there be not a power of judging them and there can be none if it be true that Le mort saisit le vif Not to trouble my self with seigned cases that of Legitimation alone will suffice 'T is not enough to say that the Children born under marriage are to be reputed legitimate for not only several Children born of Joan Daughter to the King of Portugal Wife to Henry the Fourth of Castille during the time of their Marriage were utterly rejected as begotten in Adultery but also her Daughter Joan whom the King during his life and at the hour of his death acknowledged to have bin begotten by him and the only Title that Isabel who was married to Ferdinand of Arragon had to the Crown of Spain was derived from their rejection It would be tedious and might give offence to many great Persons if I should relate all the dubious cases that have bin or still remain in the World touching matters of this nature but the Lawyers of all Nations will testify that hardly any one point comes before them which affords a greater number of difficult Cases than that of Marriages and the Legitimation of Children upon them and Nations must be involved in the most inextricable difficulties if there be not a power somewhere to decide them which cannot be if there be no intermission and that the next in blood that is he who says he is the next be immediately invested with the right and power But surely no people has bin so careless of their most important Concernments to leave them in such uncertainty and simply to depend upon the humour of a man or the faith of women who besides their other Frailties have bin often accused of supposititious Births and mens passions are known to be so violent in relation to Women they love or hate that none can safely be trusted with those Judgments The virtue of the best would be exposed to a temptation that flesh and blood can hardly resist and such as are less perfect would follow no other rule than the blind impulse of the passion that for the present reigns in them There must therefore be a judg of such disputes as may in these cases arise in every Kingdom and tho 't is not my business to determine who is that judg in all places yet I may justly say that in England it is the Parliament If no inferiour Authority could debar Ignotus Son to the Lady Rosse born under the Protection from the inheritance of a private Family none can certainly assume a power of disposing of the Crown upon any occasion No Authority but that of the Parliament could legitimate the Children of Catherine Swinford with a proviso not to extend to the inheritance of the Crown Others might say if they were lawfully begotten they ought to inherit every thing and nothing if they were not But the Parliament knew how to limit a particular favour and prevent it from extending to a publick mischief Henry the Eighth took an expeditious way of obviating part of the Controversies that might arise from the multitude of his Wives by cutting off the heads of some as soon as he was weary of them or had a mind to take another but having bin hinder'd from dealing in the same manner with Catherine by the greatness of her birth and kindred he left such as the Parliament only could resolve And no less power would ever have thought of making Mary and Elizabeth capable of the succession when according to ordinary rules one of them must have bin a Bastard and it had bin absurd to say that both of them were immediately upon the death of their Predecessors possess'd of the Crown if an Act of Parliament had not conferred the right upon them which they could not have by birth But the Kings and Princes of England have not bin of a temper different from those of other Nations and many Examples may be brought of the like occasions of dispute happening every where and the like will probably be for ever which must necessarily introduce the most mischievous confusions and expose the Titles which as is pretended are to be esteemed most sacred to be overthrown by violence and fraud if there be not in all places a Power of deciding the controversies that arise from the uncertainty of Titles according to the respective Laws of every Nation upon which they are grounded No man can be thought to have a just Title till it be so adjudged by that power This judgment is the first step to the Throne The Oath taken by the King obliges him to observe the Laws of his Country and that concerning the succession being one of the principal he is obliged to keep that part as well as any other SECT XIX The greatest Enemy of a just Magistrate is he who endeavours to invalidate the Contract between him and the People or to corrupt their Manners 'T Is not only from Religion but from the Law of Nature that we learn the necessity of standing to the agreements we make and he who departs from the principle written in the hearts of men Pactis standum seems to degenerate into a beast Such as had virtue tho without true religion could tell us as a brave and excellent Grecian did that it was not necessary for him to live but it was necessary to preserve his Heart from deceit and his Tongue from falshood The Roman Satyrist carries the same Notion to a great height and affirms that tho the worst of Tyrants should command a man to be false and persar'd and back his injunction with the utmost of Torments he ought to prefer his integrity before his life And tho Filmer may be excused if he often mistake in matters of Theology yet his Inclinations to Rome which he prefers before Geneva might have led him to the Principles in which the honest Romans lived if he had not observed that such Principles as make men
manifest this by the words Be it enacted by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in Parliament assembled and by Authority of the same But King James says Filmer in his Law of free Monarchy affirms the contrary and it may be so yet that is nothing to us No man doubts that he desired it might be so in England but it dos not from thence appear that it is so The Law of a free Monarchy is nothing to us for that Monarchy is not free which is regulated by a Law not to be broken without the guilt of Perjury as he himself confessed in relation to ours As to the words cited from Hooker I can find no hurt in them To draw up the form of a good Law is a matter of invention and judgment but it receives the force of a Law from the power that enacts it We have no other reason for the paiment of Excise or Customs than that the Parliament has granted those Revenues to the King to defray the publick Charges Whatever therefore King James was pleased to say in his Books or in those written for him we do not so much as know that the killing of a King is Treason or to be punished with death otherwise than as it is enacted by Parliament and it was not always so for in the time of Ethelstan the Estimates of Lives were agreed in Parliament and that of a King valued at thirty thousand Thrymsae And if that Law had not bin alter'd by the Parliament it must have bin in force at this day It had bin in vain for a King to say he would have it otherwise for he is not created to make Laws but to govern according to such as are made and sworn to assent to such as shall be proposed He who thinks the Crown not worth accepting on these conditions may refuse it The words Le Roy le veult are only a pattern of the French fashions upon which some Kings have laid great stress and would no doubt have bin glad to introduce Car tel est nostre plaisir but that may prove a difficult matter Nay in France it self where that Stile and all the ranting expressions that please the vainest of men are in mode no Edict has the power of a Law till it be registred in Parliament This is not a mere ceremony as some pretend but all that is essential to a Law Nothing has bin more common than for those Parliaments to refuse Edicts sent to them by the King When John Chastel had at the instigation of the Jesuits stabb'd Henry the fourth in the Mouth and that Order had designed or executed many other execrable crimes they were banished out of the Kingdom by an Arrest of the Parliament of Paris Some other Parliaments registred the same but those of Tholouse and Bordeaux absolutely refused and notwithstanding all that the King could do the Jesuits continued at Tournon and many other places within their Precincts till the Arrest was revoked These proceedings are so displeasing to the Court that the most violent ways have bin often used to abolish them About the year 1650 Seguier then Chancellor of France was sent with a great number of Soldiers to oblige the Parliament of Paris to pass some Edicts upon which they had hesitated but he was so far from accomplishing his design that the People rose against him and he thought himself happy that he escaped with his Life If the Parliaments do not in all parts of the Kingdom continue in the Liberty of approving or rejecting all Edicts the Law is not altered but oppressed by the violence of the Sword And the Prince of Condé who was principally employ'd to do that work may as I suppose have had leisure to reflect upon those Actions and cannot but find reason to conclude that his excellent valour and conduct was used in a most noble exploit equally beneficial to his Country and himself However those who are skilled in the Laws of that Nation do still affirm that all publick Acts which are not duly examined and registred are void in themselves and can be of no force longer than the miserable People lies under the violence of Oppression which is all that could reasonably be said if a Pirat had the same power over them But whether the French have willingly offer'd their ears to be bor'd or have bin subdued by force it concerns us not Our Liberties depend not upon their will virtue or fortune how wretched and shameful soever their Slavery may be the evil is only to themselves We are to consider no human Laws but our own and if we have the spirit of our Ancestors we shall maintain them and die as free as they left us Le Roy le veut tho written in great Letters or pronounced in the most tragical manner can signify no more than that the King in performance of his Oath dos assent to such Laws as the Lords and Commons have agreed Without prejudice to themselves and their Liberties a People may suffer the King to advise with his Council upon what they propose Two eyes see more than one and human judgment is subject to errors Tho the Parliament consist of the most eminent men of the Nation yet when they intend good they may be mistaken They may sefely put a check upon themselves that they may farther consider the most important matters and correct the errors that may have bin committed if the King's Council do discover them but he can speak only by the advice of his Council and every man of them is with his head to answer for the advices he gives If the Parliament has not bin satisfied with the reasons given against any Law that they offer'd it has frequently pass'd and if they have bin satisfied 't was not the King but they that laid it aside He that is of another opinion may try whether Le Roy le veut can give the force of a Law to any thing conceived by the King his Council or any other than the Parliament But if no wise man will affirm that he can do it or deny that by his Oath he is obliged to assent to those that come from them he can neither have the Legislative power in himself nor any other part in it than what is necessarily to be performed by him as the Law prescribes I know not what our Author means by saying Le Roy le veut is the interpretative phrase pronounced at the passing of every Act of Parliament For if there be difficulty in any of them those words do no way remove it But the following part of the paragraph better deserves to be observed It was says he the antient custom for á long time until the days of Henry the fifth for the Kings when any Bill was brought to them that had passed both Houses to take and pick out what they liked not and so much as they chose was enacted as a Law But the custom of the
much as they who have a part cannot but have a right of defending that part Quia data facultate datur jus faculiatem tuendi without which it could be of no effect The particular limits of the Rights belonging to each can only be judged by the precise Letter or general Intention of the Law The Dukes of Venice have certainly a part in the Government and could not be called Magistrates if they had not They are said to be supreme all Laws and publick Acts bear their Names The Ambassador of that State speaking to Pope Paul the 5th denied that he acknowledged any other Superior than God But they are so well known to be under the Power of the Law that divers of them have bin put to death for transgressing it and a marble Gallows is seen at the foot of the stairs in St. Mark 's Palace upon which some of them and no others have bin executed But if they may be duly opposed when they commit undue Acts no man of judgment will deny that if one of them by an outragious Violence should endeavour to overthrow the Law he might by violence be suppressed and chastised Again some Magistrates are entrusted with a power of providing Ships Arms Ammunition and Victuals for War raising and disciplining Soldiers appointing Officers to command in Forts and Garisons and making Leagues with Foreign Princes and States But if one of these should imbezel sell or give to an Enemy those Ships Arms Ammunition or Provisions betray the Forts employ only or principally such men as will serve him in those wicked Actions and contrary to the trust reposed in him make such Leagues with Foreigners as tend to the advancement of his personal Interests and to the detriment of the Publick he abrogates his own Magistracy and the Right he had perishes as the Lawyers say frustratione finis He cannot be protected by the Law which he has overthrown nor obtain impunity for his Crimes from the Authority that was conferred upon him only that he might do good with it He was singulis major on account of the excellence of his Office but universis minor from the nature and end of his institution The surest way of extinguishing his Prerogative was by turning it to the hurt of those who gave it When matters are brought to this posture the Author of the mischief or the Nation must perish A Flock cannot subsist under a Shepherd that seeks its ruin nor a People under an unfaithful Magistrate Honour and Riches are justly heaped upon the heads of those who rightly perform their duty because the difficulty as well as the excellency of the work is great It requires Courage Experience Industry Fidelity and Wisdom The good Shepherd says our Saviour says down his life for his Sheep The Hireling who flies in time of danger is represented under an ill character but he that sets himself to destroy his Flock is a Wolf His Authority is incompatible with their subsistence and whoever disapproves Tumults Seditions or War by which he may be removed from it if gentler means are ineffectual subverts the Foundation of all Law exalts the fury of one man to the destruction of a Nation and giving an irresistible Power to the most abominable Iniquity exposes all that are good to be destroy'd and Virtue to be utterly extinguished Few will allow such a Preeminence to the Dukes of Venice or Genoa the Advoyers of Switzerland or the Burgomasters of Amsterdam Many will say these are Rascals if they prove false and ought rather to be hang'd than suffer'd to accomplish the Villanies they design But if this be confess'd in relation to the highest Magistrates that are among those Nations why should not the same be in all others by what name soever they are called When did God confer upon those Nations the extraordinary privilege of providing better for their own safety than others Or was the Gift universal tho the Benefit accrue only to those who have banished great Titles from among them If this be so 't is not their Felicity but their Wisdom that we ought to admire and imitate But why should any think their Ancestors had not the same care Have not they who retain'd in themselves a Power over a Magistrate of one name the like over another Is there a charm in words or any name of such efficacy that he who receives it should immediately become Master of those that created him whereas all others do remain for ever subject to them Would the Venetian Government change its nature if they should give the name of King to their Prince Are the Polanders less free since the title of King is conferr'd upon their Dukes or are the Moscovites less Slaves because their chief Magistrate has no other than that of Duke If we examine things but a little 't will appear that Magistrates have enjoy'd large Powers who never had the name of Kings and none were ever more restrained by Laws than those of Sparta Arragon the Goths in Spain Hungary Bohemia Sweden Denmark Poland and others who had that Title There is therefore no such thing as a Right universally belonging to a Name but every one enjoys that which the Laws by which he is confer upon him The Law that gives the Power regulates it and they who give no more than what they please cannot be obliged to suffer him to whom they give it to take more than they thought fit to give or to go unpunished if he do The Agreements made are always confirmed by Oath and the treachery of violating them is consequently aggravated by Perjury They are good Philosophers and able Divines who think this can create a Right to those who had none or that the Laws can be a protection to such as overthrow them and give opportunity of doing the mischiefs they design If it do not then he that was a Magistrate by such actions returns into the condition of a private man and whatever is lawful against a Thief who submits to no Law is lawful against him Men who delight in cavils may ask Who shall be the Judg of these occasions and whether I intend to give to the People the decision of their own Cause To which I answer that when the Contest is between the Magistrate and the People the party to which the determination is referred must be the Judg of his own case and the question is only Whether the Magistrate should depend upon the Judgment of the People or the People on that of the Magistrate and which is most to be suspected of injustice That is whether the people of Rome should judg Tarquin or Tarquin judg the people He that knew all good men abhorred him for the murder of his Wife Brother Father-in-law and the best of the Senate would certainly strike off the heads of the most eminent remaining Poppies and having incurr'd the general hatred of the people by the wickedness of his Government he seared revenge and endeavouring to
destroy those he seared that is the City he might easily have accomplish'd his work if the judgment had bin referred to him If the people judg Tarquin 't is hard to imagine how they should be brought to give an unjust Sentence They loved their former Kings and hated him only for his Villanies They did not fancy but know his cruelty When the best were slain no man that any way resembled them could think himself secure Brutus did not pretend to be a Fool till by the murder of his Brother he found how dangerous a thing it was to be thought wise If the people as our Author says be always lewd foolish mad wicked and desirous to put the Power into the hands of such as are most like to themselves he and his Sons were such men as they sought and he was sure to find favourable Judges If virtuous and good no injustice was to be feared from them and he could have no other reason to decline their indgment than what was suggested by his own wickedness Caligula Nero Domitian and the like had probably the same considerations But no man of common sense ever thought that the Senate and People of Rome did not better deserve to judg whether such Monsters should reign over the best part of mankind to their destruction than they to determine whether their Crimes should be punished or not If I mention some of these known Cases every man's experience will suggest others of the like nature and whosoever condemns all Seditions Tumults and Wars raised against such Princes must say that none are wicked or seek the ruin of their people which is absurd for Caligula wish'd the People had but one Neck that he might cut it off at a blow Nero set the City on fire and we have known such as have bin worse than either of them They must either be suffer'd to continue in the free exercise of their rage that is to do all the mischief they design or must be restrain'd by a legal judicial or extrajudicial way and they who disallow the extrajudicial do as little like the judicial They will not hear of bringing a supreme Magistrate before a Tribunal when it may be done They will says our Author depose their Kings Why should they not be deposed if they become Enemies to their people and set up an interest in their own persons inconsistent with the publick good for the promoting of which they were erected If they were created by the publick consent for the publick good shall they not be removed when they prove to be of publick damage If they set up themselves may they not be thrown down Shall it be lawful for them to usurp a Power over the liberty of others and shall it not be lawful for an injur'd People to resume their own If injustice exalt it self must it be for ever established Shall great persons be rendred sacred by rapine perjury and murder Shall the crimes for which privat men do justly suffer the most grievous punishments exempt them from all who commit them in the highest excess with most power and most to the prejudice of mankind Shall the Laws that solely aim at the prevention of Crimes be made to patronize them and become snares to the innocent whom they ought to protect Has every man given up into the common store his right of avenging the Injuries he may receive that the publick Power which ought to protect or avenge him should be turned to the destruction of himself his Posterity and the Society into which they enter without any possibility of redress Shall the Ordinance of God be rendred of no effect or the Powers he hath appointed to be set up for the distribution of Justice be made subservient to the Iusts of one or a few men and by impunity encourage them to commit all manner of crimes Is the corruption of man's Nature so little known that such as have common sense should expect Justice from those who fear no punishment if they do Injustice or that the modesty integrity and innocence which is seldom found in one man tho never so cautiously chosen should be constantly found in all those who by any means attain to Greatness and continue for ever in their Successors or that there can be any security under their Government if they have them not Surely if this were the condition of men living under Government Forests would be more sase than Cities and 't were better for every man to stand in his own defence than to enter into Societies He that lives alone might encounter such as should assault him upon equal terms and stand or fall according to the measure of his courage and strength but no valour can defend him if the malice of his Enemy be upheld by a publick Power There must therefore be a right of proceeding judicially or extrajudicially against all persons who transgress the Laws or else those Laws and the Societies that should subsist by them cannot stand and the ends for which Governments are constituted together with the Governments themselves must be overthrown Extrajudicial proceedings by Sedition Tumult or War must take place when the persons concern'd are of such power that they cannot be brought under the Judicial They who deny this deny all help against an usurping Tyrant or the perfidiousness of a lawfully created Magistrate who adds the crimes of Ingratitude and Treachery to Usurpation These of all men are the most dangerous Enemies to supreme Migistrates for as no man desires indemnity for such Crimes as are never committed he that would exempt all from punishment supposes they will be guilty of the worst and by concluding that the People will depose them if they have the power acknowledg that they pursue an Interest annexed to their Persons contrary to that of their People which they would not bear if they could deliver themselves from it This shewing all those Governments to be tyrannical lays such a burden upon those who administer them as must necessarily weigh them down to destruction If it be said that the word Sedition implies that which is evil I answer that it ought not then to be applied to those who seek nothing but that which is just and tho the ways of delivering an oppressed People from the violence of a wicked Magistrate who having armed a Crew of lewd Villains and fatted them with the Blood and Confiscations of such as were most ready to oppose him be extraordinary the inward righteousness of the Act doth fully justify the Authors He that has virtue and power to save a People can never want a right of doing it Valerius Asiaticus had no hand in the death of Caligula but when the furious Guards began tumultuously to enquire who had kill'd him he appeased them with wishing he had bin the man No wise man ever asked by what authority Thrasibulus Harmodius Aristogiton Pelopidas Epaminondas Dion Timoleon Lucius Brutus Publicola Horatius Valerius Marcus Brutus C. Cassius and the
distributed into many Families of Scotland remains to this day and if proximity of blood is to be consider'd ought always to have bin preferr'd before her and her descendents unless there be a Law that gives the preference to Daughters before Sons What right soever Henry the second had it must necessarily have perished with him all his Children having bin begotten in manifest Adultery on Eleanor of Gascony during the life of Lewis King of France her first Husband and nothing could be alledged to colour the business but a dispensation from the Pope directly against the Law of God and the words of our Saviour who says That a Wife cannot be put away unless for Adultery and he that marrieth her that is put away committeth Adultery The pollution of this spring is not to be cured but tho it should pass unregarded no one part of the Succession since that time has remained intire John was preferred before Arthur his elder brother's Son Edward the third was made King by the deposition of his Father Henry the fourth by that of Richard the 2d If the house of Mortimer or York had the right Henry the 4th 5th and 6th were not Kings and all who claim under them have no title However Richard the third could have none for the Children of his elder Brother the Duke of Clarence were then living The Children of Edward the fourth may be suspected of bastardy and tho it may have bin otherwise yet that matter is not so clear as things of such importance ought to be and the consequence may reach very far But tho that scruple were removed 't is certain that Henry the 7th was not King in the right of his Wife Elizabeth for he reigned before and after her and for his other titles we may believe Philip de Commines who says He had neither cross nor pile If Henry the eighth had a right in himself or from his Mother he should have reigned immediately after her death which he never pretended nor to succeed till his Father was dead thereby acknowledging he had no right but from him unless the Parliament and People can give it The like may be said of his Children Mary could have no title if she was a Bastard begotten in Incest but if her Mother's marriage was good and she legitimate Elizabeth could have none Yet all these were lawful Kings and Queens their Acts continue in force to this day to all intents and purposes the Parliament and People made them to be so when they had no other title The Parliament and People therefore have the power of making Kings Those who are so made are not Usurpers We have had none but such for more than seven hundred years They were therefore lawful Kings or this Nation has had none in all that time and if our Author like this conclusion the account from whence it is drawn may without difficulty be carried as high as our English Histories do reach This being built upon the steddy Foundation of Law History and Reason is not to be removed by any man's opinion especially by one accompanied with such circumstances as Sir Walter Raleigh was in during the last years of his life And there is something of baseness as well as prevarication in turning the words of an eminent Person reduced to great difficulties to a sense no way agreeing with his former actions or writings and no less tending to impair his reputation than to deceive others Our Author is highly guilty of both in citing Sir Walter Raleigh to invalidate the great Charter of our Liberties as begun by Vsurpation and shewed to the world by Rebellion whereas no such thing nor any thing like it in word or principle can be found in the works that deserve to go under his name The Dialogue in question with some other small pieces published after his death deserve to be esteemed spurious Or if from a desire of life when he knew his head lay under the Ax he was brought to say things no way agreeing with what he had formerly profess'd they ought rather to be buried in oblivion than produced to blemish his memory But that the publick Cause may not suffer by his fault 't is convenient the world should be informed that tho he was a well qualified Gentleman yet his Morals were no way exact as appears by his dealings with the brave Earl of Essex And he was so well assisted in his History of the World that an ordinary man with the same helps might have perform'd the same things Neither ought it to be accounted strange if that which he writ by himself had the tincture of another spirit when he was deprived of that assistance tho his life had not depended upon the will of the Prince and he had never said That the bonds of Subjects to their Kings should always be wrought out of Iron and those of Kings to their Subjects out of Cobwebs SECT XXXI Free Nations have a right of meeting when and where they please unless they deprive themselves of it APerverted Judgment always leads men into a wrong way and perswades them to believe that those things favour their cause that utterly overthrow it For a proof of this I desire our Author's words may be consider'd In the former Parliaments says he instituted and continued since Henry the first his time is not to be found the usage of any natural Liberty of the people For all those Liberties that are claimed in Parliament are Liberties of Grace from the King and not the Liberties of Nature to the People For if the Liberty were natural it would give power unto the multitude to assemble themselves when and where they pleased to bestow the Sovereignty and by pactions to limit and direct the exercise of it And I say that Nations being naturally free may meet when and where they please may dispose of the Soveraignty and may direct or limit the exercise of it unless by their own act they have deprived themselves of that right and there could never have bin a lawful Assembly of any People in the world if they had not had that power in themselves It was proved in the preceding Section that all our Kings having no title were no more than what the Nobility and People made them to be that they could have no power but what was given to them and could confer none except what they had received If they can therefore call Parliaments the power of calling them must have bin given to them and could not be given by any who had it not in themselves The Israelites met together and chose Ehud Gideon Samson Jephtha and others to be their Leaders whom they judged fit to deliver them from their Enemies By the same right they assembled at Mispeth to make War against the Tribe of Benjamin when Justice was denied to be done against those who had villanously abused the Levites Concubine In the like manner they would have made Gideon King but
of all were blessed with such Masters This way of expression was used by Lot's Daughters who said There was not a man in all the earth to come in to them because there was none in the neighborhood with whom it was thought fit they should accompany Now that the Eastern Nations were then and are still under the Government of those which all free People call Tyrants is evident to all men God therefore in giving them a Tyrant or rather a Government that would turn into Tyranny gave them what they asked under another name and without any blemish to the Mercy promised to their Fathers suffered them to bear the penalty of their wickedness and folly in rejecting him that he should not reign over them But tho the name of Tyrant was unknown to them yet in Greece from whence the word comes it signified no more than one who governed according to his own will distinguished from Kings that governed by Law and was not taken in an ill sense till those who had bin advanced for their Justice Wisdom and Valour or their Descendents were sound to depart from the ends of their Institution and to turn that Power to the oppression of the people which had bin given for their protection But by these means it grew odious and that kind of Government came to be thought only tolerable by the basest of men and those who destroy'd it were in all places esteemed to be the best If Monarchy had bin universally evil God had not in the 17 th of Deuteronomy given leave to the Israelites to set up a King and if that kind of King had bin asked he had not bin displeased and they could not have bin said to reject God if they had not asked that which was evil for nothing that is good is contrary or inconsistent with a peoples obedience to him The Monarchy they asked was displeasing to God it was therefore evil But a Tyrant is no more than an evil or corrupted Monarch The King therefore that they demanded was a Tyrant God in granting one who would prove a Tyrant gave them what they asked and that they might know what they did and what he would be he told them they rejected him and should cry by reason of the King they desired This denotes him to be a Tyrant for as the Government of a King ought to be gentle and easy tending to the good of the people resembling the tender care of a Father to his Family if he who is set up to be a King and to be like to that Father do lay a heavy Yoak upon the people and use them as Slaves and not as Children he must renounce all resemblance of a Father and be accounted an Enemy But says our Author whereas the peoples crying argues some tyrannical oppression we may remember that the peoples Cries are not always an Argument of their living under a Tyrant No man will say Solomon was a Tyrant yet all the Congregation complain'd that Solomon made their Yoak grievous 'T is strange that when Children nay when Whelps cry it should be accounted a mark that they are troubled and that the Cry of the whole people should be none Or that the Government which is erected for their ease should not be esteemed tyrannical if it prove grievous to those it should relieve But as I know no example of a People that did generally complain without cause our Adversaries must alledg some other than that of Solomon before I believe it of any We are to speak reverently of him He was excellent in Wisdom he built the Temple and God appeared twice to him But it must be confess'd that during a great part of his life he acted directly contrary to the Law given by God to Kings and that his ways were evil and oppressive to the people if those of God were good Kings were forbidden to multiply Horses Wives Silver and Gold But he brought together more Silver and Gold and provided more Horses Wives and Concubines than any man is known to have had And tho he did not actually return to Egypt yet he introduced their abominable Idolatry and so far raised his heart above his Brethren that he made them subservient to his Pomp and Glory The People might probably be pleased with a great part of this but when the Yoak became grievous and his foolish Son would not render it more easy they threw it off and the thing being from the Lord it was good unless he be evil But as just Governments are established for the good of the governed and the Israelites desir'd a King that it might be well with them not with him who was not yet known to them that which exalts one to the prejudice of those that made him must always be evil and the People that suffers the prejudice must needs know it better than any other He that denies this may think the state of France might have bin best known from Bulion the late Treasurer who finding Lewis the Thirteenth to be troubled at the peoples misery told him they were too happy since they were not reduced to eat grass But if words are to be understood as they are ordinarily used and we have no other than that of Tyranny to express a Monarchy that is either evil in the institution or fallen into corruption we may justly call that Tyranny which the Scripture calls a grievous Yoak and which neither the old nor the new Counsellors of Rehoboam could deny to be so for tho the first advised him to promise amendment and the others to do worse yet all agreed that what the people said was true This Yoak is always odious to such as are not by natural stupidity and baseness fitted for it but those who are so never complain An Ass will bear a multitude of blows patiently but the least of them drives a Lion into rage He that said the rod is made for the back of fools confessed that oppression will make a wise man mad And the most unnatural of all oppressions is to use Lions like Asses and to lay that Yoak upon a generous Nation which only the basest can deserve and for want of a better word we call this Tyranny Our Author is not contented to vindicate Solomon only but extends his Indulgence to Saul His custom is to patronize all that is detestable and no better testimony could be given of it It is true says he Saul lost his Kingdom but not for being too cruel or tyrannical unto his Subjects but for being too merciful unto his Enemies But he alledges no other reason than that the slaughter of the Priests is not blamed not observing that the Writers of the Scripture in relating those things that are known to be abominable by the Light of Nature frequently say no more of them And if this be not so Lot's drunkenness and incest Ruben's pollution of his Father's bed Abimelec's slaughter of his seventy Brothers and many of the most wicked Acts that
ever were committed may pass for laudable and innocent But if Saul were not to be blamed for killing the Priests why was David blamed for the death of Uriah Why were the Dogs to lick the blood of Ahab and Jezebel if they did nothing more than Kings might do without blame Now if the slaughter of one man was so severely avenged upon the Authors and their Families none but such as Filmer can think that of so many innocent men with their Wives and Children could escape unreproved or unpunished But the whole series of the History of Saul shewing evidently that his Life and Reign were full of the most violent cruelty and madness we are to seek no other reason for the ruin threatned and brought upon him and his Family And as those Princes who are most barbarously savage against their own people are usually most gentle to the Enemies of their Country he could not give a more certain testimony of his hatred to those he ought to have protected than by preserving those Nations who were their most irreconcileable Enemies This is proved by reason as well as by experience for every man knows he cannot bear the hatred of all mankind Such as know they have Enemies abroad endeavour to get Friends at home Those who command powerful Nations and are beloved by them fear not to offend Strangers But if they have rendred their own people Enemies to them they cannot hope for help in a time of distress nor so much as a place of retreat or refuge unless from strangers nor from them unless they deserve it by favouring them to the prejudice of their own Country As no man can serve two Masters no man can pursue two contrary Interests Moses Joshua Gideon and Samuel were severe to the Amorites Midianites and Cananites but mild and gentle to the Hebrews Saul who was cruel to the Hebrews spared the Amalekites whose preservation was their destruction and whilst he destroyed those he should have saved and saved those that by a general and particular command of God he should have destroyed he lost his ill-govern'd Kingdom and left an example to posterity of the end that may be expected from pride folly and tyranny The matter would not be much alter'd if I should confess that in the time of Saul all Nations were governed by Tyrants tho it is not true for Greece did then flourish in Liberty and we have reason to believe that other Nations did so also for tho they might not think of a good Government at the first nothing can oblige men to continue under one that is bad when they discover the evils of it and know how to mend it They who trusted men that appeared to have great Virtues with such a power as might easily be turned into Tyranny might justly retract limit or abolish it when they found it to be abused And tho no condition had bin reserved the publick Good which is the end of all Government had bin sufficient to abrogate all that should tend to the contrary As the malice of Men and their Inventions to do mischief increase daily all would soon be brought under the power of the worst if care were not taken and opportunities embraced to find new ways of preventing it He that should make War at this day as the best Commanders did two hundred years past would be beaten by the meanest Souldier The Places then accounted impregnable are now slighted as indefensible and if the Arts of defending were not improved as well as those of affaulting none would be able to hold out a day Men were sent into the World rude and ignorant and if they might not have used their natural Faculties to find out that which is good for themselves all must have bin condemn'd to continue in the ignorance of our first Fathers and to make no use of their understanding to the ends for which it was given The bestial Barbarity in which many Nations especially of Africa America and Asia do now live shews what human Nature is if it be not improved by art and discipline and if the first errors committed through ignorance might not be corrected all would be obliged to continue in them and for any thing I know we must return to the Religion Manners and Policy that were found in our Country at Cesar's landing To affirm this is no less than to destroy all that is commendable in the world and to render the understanding given to men utterly useless But if it be lawful for us by the use of that understanding to build Houses Ships and Forts better than our Ancestors to make such Arms as are most fit for our defence and to invent Printing with an infinite number of other Arts beneficial to mankind why have we not the same right in matters of Government upon which all others do almost absolutely depend If men are not obliged to live in Caves and hollow Trees to eat Acorns and to go naked why should they be for ever obliged to continue under the same form of Government that their Ancestors happened to set up in the time of their ignorance Or if they were not so ignorant to set up one that was not good enough for the age in which they lived why it should not be altered when tricks are found out to turn that to the prejudice of Nations which was erected for their good From whence should malice and wickedness gain a privilege of putting new Inventions to do mischief every day into practice and who is it that so far protects them as to forbid good and innocent men to find new ways also of defending themselves from it If there be any that do this they must be such as live in the same principle who whilst they pretend to exercise Justice provide only for the indemnity of their own Crimes and the advancement of unjust designs They would have a right of attacking us with all the advantages of the Arms now in use and the Arts which by the practice of so many ages have bin wonderfully refined whilst we should be obliged to employ no others in our just defence than such as were known to our naked Ancestors when Cesar invaded them or to the Indians when they fell under the dominion of the Spaniards This would be a compendious way of placing uncontrol'd Iniquity in all the Kingdoms of the World and to overthrow all that deserves the name of Good by the introduction of such accursed Maxims But if no man dares to acknowledg any such except those whose acknowledgment is a discredit we ought not to suffer them to be obliquely obtruded upon us nor to think that God has so far abandoned us into the hands of our Enemies as not to leave us the liberty of using the same Arms in our defence as they do to offend and injure us We shall be told that Prayers and Tears were the only Arms of the first Christians and that Christ commanded his Disciples to pray