Selected quad for the lemma: head_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
head_n	body_n	king_n	politic_a	2,735	5	10.6730	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85884	The divine right and original of the civill magistrate from God, (as it is drawn by the Apostle S. Paul in those words, Rom. 13.1. There is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God) illustrated and vindicated in a treatise (chiefly) upon that text. Wherein the procedure of political dominion from God, by his ordination; ... is endevored truly and plainly to be laid open. / Written for the service of that eminent truth, order, justice, and peace which the said text, in its genuine sense, holdeth forth, and supporteth: and for the dissolving of sundry important doubts, and mistakes about it. By Edward Gee minister of the Gospel at Eccleston in the county palatine of Lancaster.	Gee, Edward, 1613-1660.	1658 (1658)	Wing G448; Thomason E1774_1; ESTC R202104	279,674	430

this objection doth not more lie against this of their agreement of Government then against any other I say therefore a civill society having in it persons lying under all those occasions of absence or non acting and add to them one more viz. that some list not to come 't is not thereby rendred actionlesse to this or other purposes But how are the exceptions removed 3. Thus. 1. They that are absent are either incapable of giving a consent to any thing that concernes them as are infants and such as want the use of reason or they are capable 2. Of these latter some are not personally interested in passing or giving a vote in matters political but are involved as to these in their Husbands Parents Masters or Guardians others have an interest personally to concurre in them 3. Of these some may be necessarily absent as the sick lame decrepit others are away volun arily 1. For the necessarily absent This is the case ordinarily but of a few single persons in a great body upon whom nature it self laying a present impediment must needs be taken to lay a present suspense upon their interest of personal presence and consent in the publique business and rather to will the divolving of it upon the other that can meet then that they and the whole community should be suspended from attaining or effecting the dispatch of their publique necessary affaires As they to whom nature denies the use of reason so they from she withholds the opportunity of bringing it to political exercise for want of bodily integrity may be comprehended by her in the actings of others in those things that appertain to the whole community they are of 2. For the voluntarily absent if some yea many that may and should concur will not come this must not prevent the whole or the priviledge of others but rather by their default they put off their right as to the present act and invest it in the rest * Vide Grot. de Jure lib. 2. cap. 5. Sect. 20. We account and justly that a countrey-meeting a● which we choose our Parliament men to which the people therein are called though the twentieth part of them that are called do not appear 2. Suppose all present or the absence of those that are not dispensed with how can mary thous nds or some millions of peopl● so m●et in one place as to communicate their minds to one another and joyntly deliberate and come to a resolution in any thing R. 1. Common-wealths are usually very small at their beginning which is the time of setling their Government for succession 2. When they are come to growth they have another way of acting besides personal presence and cognisance viz. that of meeting and transacting their concernments in and by their Deputies or representees 3. As it is not very convenient so it is not altogether impossible for the collective body I mean those who make a collective assembly to wit grown men and Masters of families and especially so many of them as are disposed to come to meet and treat in an assembly We have divers instances for it in the nation of Israel and among the rest one that was upon occasion of the Levites Concubine mentioned in the history of the book of Judges Cap. 20 21. for the numerousness of and universal accurrence to which assembly let the Text be observed Cap. 20. v. 1 2 12. Cap. 21. v. 5 8. And the people of Rome when come to a very large and populous Common-wealth had their meetings of this nature often in campo Martio 4. And besides the Roman state found out wayes of accommodating the difficulties of so vest an assemblies treating in one by distributing themselves one way into distinct classes and centuries another way into several tribes and giving their votes in those distinct partitions * Vide Tullium de legibus lib. 3. prope finem 3. Object It 's said In case of a Common-wealths want of a supreme Magistracy Idem qui supra pag. 11 12. as when a King dies without heir the power shall not escheat to the whole people but to the supreme heads and fathers of families not as they are the people but quatenus they are Fathers of people over whom they have a Supreme power divolved unto them after the death of their Soveraign Ancestor and if any have a right to choose a King it must be these Fathers by conferring their distinct Fatherly powers upon one man alone Resp It is well he acknowledgeth thus much and we are so far agreed that in case of a Kingdoms destituteness of a head there is an escheature of the power to some and that it is to the heads and Fathers of families so as the right is in them to choose a King only then upon this he thinks good to cast a thin shadow or mist to make it seem as if this were not the same with our tenent as it were to suborne another different way of introducing of Magistracy which in truth hath no reality in it but what is borrowed from and built upon that our position But 1. What means he by that Epithet Supreme added to the heads and fathers of families as if he meant that all heads and families are not interested in that Escheature and election but some only distinguish by that title And if this be his sense I leave him to clear first how he differenceth those he cals Supreme from other heads and Fathers 2. Why he makes such a distinction and limits the said power to some only of the Fathers under that notion of Supreme 2. When he saith The power escheates to the heads and fathers of families I ask what power the power which was before in the King viz. a politicall Supreme Regall power and how escheates or descends it upon them unitedly or conjunctly as copartners and joint heirs of that whole solid power in relation to the Community or body politick This indeed is the power of which the Question is and which wants a lineal heir or subject to bear it upon the supposed death of the King And if that descend upon them it must either be in that manner specified or else so as each person of them is the adequate possessor of the whole and solid power which I suppose will not be said If that then be his meaning lo here a Democracy yielded and set up by him who elsewhere holds there is no ground for any such or any other polarchical forme of Government and that Monarchy is the only warranted form Or In his observations on Aristotles Polit. doth be mean a private Domestical paternall power of each of those heads and Fathers not over the Common-wealth but over their families severally and respectively But for this 1. This is not the power which was in the King and now by his decease without Lineal heir can be said to Escheat or passe from him to any 2. This cannot be

Monarchy which they presuppose Adam had from God and which or any part whereof none of his posterity could have but by grant or succession from him But let this be supposed what will be gained by it to their purpose 1. Touching the universal Monarchy of Adam it will be questioned how he had or received it Whether by natural right as the Father of all or by an immediate expresse and positive grant from God 2. Besides the way of immediate and expresse grant from God which it may be supposed Adam and after him some other special persons as Moses Saul David had there must be acknowledged a mediate and ordinary way of Gods advancing of persons to authority and power which is standing general and common to all times and places And of this our controversie is I enquire therefore how this universal Monarchy of Adam passed from him unto others 1. Whether distributively and piecemeal to many that is to his sons cach a share or whole and solid to one 2. Whether it passed from him to them or any of them by his arbitrary and positive assignement or by order or law of nature as to the heir or heirs general 3. If by his voluntary assignement it passed to whom and in what proportion he pleased then the natural right of Fatherhood or Primogeniture took no place at his death carryed not the Civil power from him and so cannot challenge to convey it downwards 4. If by order or law of nature it passed from him then the question will be 1. Whether they that succeeded to him had it by right of Progenitorship that is by reason of the Fatherhood which was in them in relation to their posterity who were therefore their subjects so that upon that title every son of Adam was soveraign to the issue that came of him But then it will be said this course of deriving Supreme Magistracy could be but temporary and must needs have a stop for otherwise it would multiply Common-wealths in infinitum according to the multiplication of Fathers and confine Common-wealths to extend no further then to comprise a Father and his children which as was argued before is neither agreeable to the practise of men even from the time of Noah nor to the end of a Common-wealth which is union of a multitude of households for strength and security When therefore this course of Genarchy ceased what was the way of continuing Government 2. Or it passed from Adam by right of inherence to Adams sons as his sons and so as heirs of their Father And this is a way different from that of Progenitorship and upon this point the right of Fatherhood and that of Primogeniture are at odds and prove as to the purpose of conveying power from Adam inconsistible For if the Civil power went by Fatherhood then were all Adams sons joynt successors in it as was before said every one in relation to his posterity if it went by primogeniture but one of them could by that claim the power and this will run as upon the necessi y of having but one Monarchy over all mankind throughout all ages which was above disproved Unless we must say the first-begotten could but claim a double portion of power and then the rest of the sons had each a single part in proportion to his double But this 1. Fals again upon the absurdity even now alleadged of multiplying Common-wealths by the endlesse number of Fathers 2. Out of what or whom would you make the eldest son a double portion without depriving some other of the sons of his single part and so destroying the right of inheritance to it you could make no addition to the single share of the first born or give him dominion over more then he was superiour to by virtue of his own Fatherhood To make an end therefore with this point if the insisting on the meer natural right either of Fatherhood or Primogeniture will not beat us out a clear path for the derivation of Government from Adam or carrying it on with some justifiableness of title among men then we must return to that of voluntary agreement and grant unto which the true natural right of Fatherhood is not repugnant but may very well be reconciled yea and assistant unto the founding and continuing Civil Government Some of them that insist on the Fathers power as the only Civil Power in the world do yet place in him a right to transfer it from himself unto whom he pleaseth If this be granted then I will say the way of setling Civil authority by the agreement or consent of the governed might thus come in Suppose we Adam to have ruled as sole Monarch during his life afterward some one of his sons in succession to him or all his sons each over their own progeny as distinct societies after by the confusion of languages they being forced to sever or when those distinct races of Adam became so numerous and dispersive over many countries that they were too vast to be continued in one society they may be supposed each of them voluntarily to withdraw or part themselves into several Common-wealths and the Fathers of the families in every of these new erected Common-wealths having in them the interest of power each in relation to his children and family and agreeing together for themselves and theirs to some one as their publique civil-civil-head or King and thus cometh in Magistracy to be voluntarily constituted in that way wherein the right of Fatherhood is preserved and continued in subordination to the Civil publique power and this put in such a way as both it and politique societies of convenient amplitude might be kept up and new ones as need should require might be erected whereas by the meer right of Fatherhood holding and exercising the power it had in relation to those only who were natural children to it it could not be no not with the supplement of Primogeniture as was before shewed And with this the Assertors of the sole right of Fatherhood are driven in a sort to comply * See the Anarchy c. p. 11. 2. I come to the second way of attaining a title to Government above proposed to consideration which is that of Conquest The jus gladii as it is understood and qualified by many Grave Learned and approved Authors I shall not here call into question But that the Sword and successe of it unto victory simply and by it self whatsoever the cause or quarrel pursued by it be or taken as it may be separate from or contradictory to the choice or consent of the people can be a sufficient and justificatory title to Civil Government I cannot yield We know how Augustine August de Civ Dei lib. 4. cap. 4. hath branded this claim with the style of Magnum Latrocinium In supply of the halts and defects which at every turn are detected to occurre in the title of Fatherhood and Primogeniture an Author of that way I even now quoted

that be convenient to be amongst them that are one Common-wealth yet 1. It is not alwayes so one part of a Common-wealth sometimes lying from another beyond the Seas or beyond another or divers other Nations yea some imes one part in Europe another in East-India or America 2. How far that cohabitation must go or to what compasse to be the boundaries of a Common-wealth inclusively and extensively is not by any generall rule much lesse by any dictate of nature defined or otherwise determined then by humane choice and so it is not uniformely or by one constant proportion but variously and unequally every Common-wealth being of a different latitude of place from others and one and the same Republique often varying from it self by vicissitudinary contraction and extension 3. Naturalization or Denisonship is not tyed to habitation but ordinarily some that live among are not of and some that are of live not among this or that Nation or State 3. Not by mens appertaining or subjection to one Soveraign or Civil head For 1. A Common-wealth being ens aggregatum and the term unto which a Magistrate is immediately referred being not a multitude of persons in their individual or single beings but as aggregate and formed into one body politique the Magistrate cannot be either in nature or time before the aggregation or the republique union and relation of the people one to another as one State and therefore cannot be the procreant or efficient cause thereof 2. The same person we know may be the Civil head or Soveraign Lord of divers politique bodies they under him still remaining divers 4. It remains therefore to be done as far as my imagination reacheth only by consent and this consent to be the consent of all that are interessed in the association viz. of the parties themselves to be incorporate and of those whether superiors or people they are dissociated or severed from It is most congruous to say the distinction of politique societies or distributing one into many cometh by the same means or hath the same efficient which the first contract or entring into politique society hath but that is the voluntary accord of the associated as not only the learned agree * Boterus de Origin urbium lib. 1. cap. 1. Bodin de Repub. lib. 1. cap. 6. Althusius polit cap. 4. pag. 24. Grot. de Jure lib. 2. cap. 6. Sect. 4. Dithmars Polit. lib. 1. pag. 20. but plain reason dictates It is a common principle which not only Scripture and humane Authors tell but our own experience suggests to us That man is a sociable creature fitted for and affected to mutual converse and is by his natural instinct and bent led to seek acquaintance cohabitation and communion with his kinde To this we may add his necessity in mans vitiated state of distributive Justice and defence against occurrent injuries † Dum enim haec amittere timent tenent in his utendis quendum modam aptum vinculo civitatis qualis ex hujusmodi hominibus constitui potest August de liber Arbitr lib. 1. cap. 15. By these two inducements men were betimes and still are moved to close together in large and populous societies and then to erect Government for the upholding of them in union order equity and safety And beginning first with the aggregation of one politique body when that by multiplication of mankind was grown over numerous and unwieldy to its self and its superiors if no distemper could have arisen to have made a violent breach no such immediate and miraculous hand of God should have interposed as was that of the confusion of tongues yet meer populousness and distance of habitation thence ensuing would have perswaded to a partition into more Common-wealths It is very probable that the division of the earth made in the dayes of Peleg * Gen. 10.25 was a distribution and alotment thereof unto several Nations and Kingdoms into which mankinde were then severed and that the first partition of Common-wealths at least after the floud was then made and that it was occasioned by the confusion of Languages at Babel for immediately before that it is said the people were one Occasioned I say for that occasion did but prepare men for that reduction into divers communities in that it did dissolve their union and parcel and disperse them abroad upon the face of the earth by making them uncapable of conversing together and some of the Hebrew Doctors say it did set them at oddes and embroyled them in fight and bloud-shed Vide Cartwright in Gen. 11.7 but it did not mould of incorporate the several parties so divided asunded into several communities no that was the effect of some other cause and what should that be but the joynt will and conspiration of the severally languaged and severed parties each among and for themselves immediately acted and therefore we read both of the sons of Japhet and of all the sons of Noah that they were divided by families tongues and lands into distinct nations * Gen. 10.5 31 32. But though that were the occasion of the division then made yet many after divisions in every age almost there have been of nations into new Common-wealths as also unitings of more Republiques into one of which divisions though confusion and discord not of tongues but of minds even as a modern Author would have that at Babel to have been no more † Tho Anglus Instit peripat Append. cap. 19. Sect. 5 6. hath been as oft as any other thing the occasion yet such discord could be but the introduction unto not the former or founder of new Common-wealths the associating of them could only be accomplished by the will and consent of the incorporated As for the distinction of property in Lands and other possibles which must needs accompany this partition of Common-wealths when the first divisions after the flood or any since were made whereby the prrties distributed left unto those they parted from the Countrey wherein they were and entred into void regions there could be no entrenchment upon the common right of mankinde by such entry there being a sufficient consent given to it by all others in that the places were left and exposed empty in regard both of occupation and claim The first property whether National or personal unto Land or goods accruing if not by an Expresse declared consent and agreement of the first multitude in whom a common-right promiscuously or indiscriminately resided yet doubless by their reall accord signified by their act of cession permission or giving way unto the seisure and enjoyment of the first occupant Vide Grotium de Jure Belli lib. 2. cap. 2. Sect. 3. 2. This doubt being passed the next is Common-wealths being distinguished how come these each to set up their Supreme Rulers In this matter 1. It is Objected That either it must be done by a universal consent even to a man nemine contradicente The same Author and

said to come anew to them then but must be acknowledged to have been in them whilest they had their King to remain in them after they have chosen another in his place 3 Where 's he seems as if he would explain how there comes in this sense a supremeness into those persons viz. They have a Supreme Power divolved unto them after the death of their Soveraign Still it remains that he tell us what was above asked viz. what that power is whether Political or Oeconomical and how the power of either of those sorts can accrue De novo to them by such death Indeed that domestical power which was in each of them before in relation to his particular and private family they being left destitute of a Superior or Political head hath another habitude then it had before being become negatively Supreme that is it hath none actually above it but it is the same power still or if we shall say the power of the Pater familias in this vacancy may be put forth unto some acts in relation to the persons in his house which he might not exercise while the Common-wealth had a Magistrate I shall not dispute that but only say though the Oeconomicall power be somewhat larger in actu exercito when unsubordinate to a Political Soveraign then it is being subordinate yet it is within the compasse of Oeconomical still and the same it was in actu signato And that which he cals a Power divolved upon the head of the family by the Soveraigns death is but the drawing forth into act of that which was in him before but was suspended by the politicall relation and subjection That which then can be said to Escheat to the heads of families by such death of their King is a power to dispose of themselves in subjection to another and of their votes for the election of him to be their Soveraign together if you will with a larger compass for the exercise of their paternal power in their families during their want of Magistracy 3. Whereas he saith This power accrues to the heads and fathers of families not as they are the people but quatenus they are Fathers of people 1. They are not Fathers neither is any one of them a Father of a people that is a Common-wealth or body politique but they are Fathers only of their respective families and of the persons therein respectively what power therefore is in them as in that relation can be but Domestical and that which is in every Father 2. What if those persons where no Fathers but were single and unsociate as to such a relation that is what if they were not over any other or if they had no families or children sprung from or belonging to them would not then the said power in the said case Eschear or belong to them If he say no I demand his reason if he say it would then he must say it doth not Escheate to them as they are Fathers of people but as persons and people of that Common-wealth 3. Men that are Fathers of families cannot as such be in a capacity of choosing a King over them they must besides that relation be moreover united and confederate in one Common-wealth or else they cannot put forth that act of election Persons that are either non cives or extraneae civitatis have nothing to do in it Whereby it is very manifest the reason why men have that power of Election of a Magistracy to this or that Common-wealth is not because they are Fathers but because they are Denisons or freemen of that Common-wealth and not comprehended or represented by any Domestical Superior but immediately concerned to act for themselves in the common interests of the people of that Common-wealth 4. Where he saith The Power shall not escheat to the whole people but to the Supreme heads and Fathers of families I say in that it escheats to them who are every one a part in his own family the Supreme head or Father that is having none in this case above him in the Civil State and to such as being without Domestical head are capable of heading a family whom I think he will not exclude it escheates to the whole people for who are the whole people to this effect but they that are Masters of families with them who are Masters of themselves As was before shewed in answer to the second Objection and the latter branch of it and they choosing the whole people choose their Soveraign they being all the people either personally or representatively 5. In that he sayes These Fathers choose a King by conferring their distinct fatherly power upon one This is quite mistaken for 1. They do not put off or part with their Fatherly powers but retain each their own still when they have chosen their King 2. The power which upon their election passeth into the hands of the Elected King is more then all their Fatherly powers laid together that is a Supreme Political Civil or Common-wealth power which is a power of a higher Sphere and differs not only in measure but toto genere or in kinde from that of the Fathers and unto which the paternall still continuing in the Masters of families is subordinate 6. Lastly As this Author cannot exempt these his words if they must bear any sound sense from a confession of that which he contends against both in this Treatise against Mr. Hunton and in his other of Observations upon Aristotles Politicks viz. the rise of Government from the peoples consent so can he not excuse himself think from down right self-contradiction in some other particulars As 1. How will his arguing against the peoples capacity to choose their Soveraign by this Argument That no man hath power to take away his own life and therefore the people cannot confer this power upon another consist with the right of the Fathers of families to choose their King whereas the power to take away their lives is a part of the power to which they choose him 2. How will this Escheature of the power to the heads of families and their right thereby to choose their King stand with what he saith presently after viz. That all Kings are either Fathers of the people or heirs of such Fathers or usurpers of the right of such Fathers And that when the true heir of a crown is dispossessed by a usurper the subjects obedience of the Fatherly power must go along and wait upon Gods Providence who only hath right to give and take away Kingdoms and thereby to adopt subjects to the obedience of another fatherly power For if the power in defect of a right heir escheat to the Fathers of families then it passeth not to an usurper and if those have a right to choose their King he that is chosen by them hath the right to be their King and not the Usurper neither can the subjects be adopted to the obedience of another fatherly power supposed to be in him