Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	contain_v	law_n	moral_a	2,485	5	9.8922	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64092	Patriarcha non monarcha The patriarch unmonarch'd : being observations on a late treatise and divers other miscellanies, published under the name of Sir Robert Filmer, Baronet : in which the falseness of those opinions that would make monarchy Jure divino are laid open, and the true principles of government and property (especially in our kingdom) asserted / by a lover of truth and of his country.	Tyrrell, James, 1642-1718.	1681 (1681)	Wing T3591; ESTC R12162	177,016	266

granting that the force of the Government lay in ●he Curiata Comitia or better sort of Citizens yet it was still vertually in the common People who resumed ●t when they would And it was to this whole Body ●f the People that Valerius Publicola used when Con●ul to make the Lictors abase his Fasces and in that sufficiently acknowledged where the Soveraign Power ●esided I shall not trouble my self farther to defend the Mo●el of the Roman Commonwealth which I look upon ●s one of the most unequal and irregular that ever were and if it had not been for the excellent Temper admirable Discipline and exact Education of ●hat People it was impossible it could ever have lasted ●o long In which when they began to grow remiss ●hrough Riches and Luxury their Commonwealth soon fell to pieces being indeed never well compacted ●t first Much less shall I take upon me to defend a Popular Government where the mixt Multitude without any Representatives consult of Affairs or make Laws Any man that will but read Thucydides and Livy will see enough of it As for the Author's Arguments against the People● being able to agree to institute any Government a● all they are most of them but meer Wrangling and have been answered in the foregoing Observations and so need not be repeated I shall likewise pass by the Author's Directions for Obedience to Government in doubtful times since I have already taken notice of all that is considerable in it CHAP. IV. I Shall therefore in the next place look over his miscellany observations 1 Upon divers modern Authors As for Mr. Hob's Leviathan I shall leave them to decide the controversie as they please and refer it to the readers judgment who hath the better on 't For in many things I think neither of them are in the right only it is a hundred pitties Mr. Hobs did not consult the Author and take in his Patriarcal Hypothesis and then all his rights of exercising Soveraign Tyranny would have gone down well enough But for my part I neither like the foundation nor the building which Mr. Hobs hath set up and therefore shall here leave the Author to build and pull down as he pleases without my intermedling And less shall I take upon me to vindicate Milton since that were at once to defend downright Murder and Rebellion So that I shall turn over to his observations upon Grotius an Author of greater learning and better reputation than either of them Where I shall not trouble my self to defend the manifold distinctions P. 37. and contradictions of the old Civil Lawyers about the Law of Nature and the Law of Nations or whether the natural and Moral law be all one it is sufficient if Grotius's didifinition of the law of Nature be true Nor does it signifie any thing whether the word Law of nature be found in Scripture Yet I think Thomas Aquinas may well enough be defended that there is such a thing too proved from 11. Romans v. 14 15. For though he doth not say expresly that nature is a Law unto them but they are a law unto themselves yet certainly Saint Pauls meaning is to the same For if the Gentiles by nature did the things contained in the law and so were a law unto themselves I know not what else he can mean by their doing by nature the things contained in the law but their living according to the Laws of nature or right reason which all rational men are sensible of as soon as they come of an age able to exert this faculty and so becomes by nature a Law unto themselves neither can this be custom since Saint Paul says they do so by nature c. the things contained in the Law Neither do I see any Reason why Grotius is to be blamed for not taking his Hypothesis concerning the Original of Mankind of Dominion and Property out of Genesis since writing of the rights of Peace and War according to the laws of nature and the general consent of civilised Nations and not according to any revealed Will or Law of God he was not bound nay it was contrary to his purpose to make use of Scripture farther than to confirm what could be made out from natural reason alone for to have done otherwise had been to have written a treatise of cases of Conscience in Divinity and not of right and wrong by the laws of nature So that though he sometimes make use of Texts of Scripture yet it is either to strengthen those or else to answer some objections that may be drawn from thence against his conclusions And therefore he was not obliged to take notice whether God gave a begining to Mankind from one man or more at once since it might if he had pleased have been either way Nor yet did he dream of Adams Monarchy over the whole Creation before he had any Subjects to command nor of his being sole Lord Proprietor and first occupant of all the earth and of all the Creatures in it when neither he nor his Children ever knew nor made any use of the 1000. parts of them these were Notions too fine spun for a man of his solid judgment ever to light on so therefore we must be beholding to our Author and some English Divines for this admirable discovery Yet as I doubt not but if that great man were alive he could well enough defend himself by that great reason and learning he was Master of against what ever this Author or some other lesser Scriblers could reasonably object against a work of that nature yet I doubt not but most of those things the Author observes as errors may be well enough defended by one of far meaner parts and less learning than Grotius himself so that I am not convinced that he either forgets or contradicts himself as our Author will needs have him when he refers alieni abstinentia or abstaining from that which belongs to another P. 59. to consist with a sociable community of all things because says the Author where there is Community there can be neither meum nor tuum nor yet alienum and if there be no alienum there can be no alieni abstinentia and so likewise by the Law of nature men ought to stand to bargains but if all things were common by nature how could there be any bargains In answer to which it will appear that a Propriety of occupancy or the personal possession of things and applying it to the use of one or more men while they have need of it may very well consist with community and is absolutely necessary to the preservation of Mankind As for Example a Theater is in Common to all that have a right of coming thither but no man can say that one place in it is more his than anothers untill he is seated in it and then that place is so much his that whilest the Play lasts no man can without injury put him out of it so likewise supposing

certain Revenue appointed for this end of which burthen if you are afterwards a weary you shall not be able to Depose him again since he obtain'd the Kingdom by your choice and consent and so cannot be taken from him So that it is plain that this place does not at all serve to Patronize evil Princes so neither that there is here any limited Power conferred by God after the manner of a constant and unalterable Precept and of which no constitutions can diminish any part since here only the necessary Charges and Burthens as well of an absolute as of a limited Royalty are described therefore it is wholly in the will of a free People whether they will have an absolute Power or will deliver it with certain Laws so that those Laws contain nothing that is wicked or which may destroy the ends of Government for although Men at the beginning did freely enter into a civil Society yet since they were before obliged to the observation of the Law of Nature they ought to Constitute such Rules of Power and civil Obedience which might be agreeable to that Law and to the lawful ends of all Common-wealths But as it may rightly be understood by what sort of Promise a Kingly Government may cease to be absolute for every promise hath not that force it is to be understood that a King upon his taking the Kingdom may oblige himself either by a General or special Promise which for the most part is confirmed by the Religion of an Oath A General Promise may be made either tacitely or expresly A tacite Promise of Governing well is understood in the very acceptance of the Kingdom although there were nothing expresly Promised yet most commonly this promise ought to be made expresly not without an Oath the solemnity of certain rights neither is it unusual that in this promise the Office of a King should be described by a Periphrasis or enumeration of the principal Parts as suppose it be that he will take care of the Publick safety that he will defend the good and punish the bad that he will Administer indifferent Justice that he will oppress no Body or the like Such Promisses do not all detract from absoluteness of his Power since the King is indeed obliged by those general Promises to govern well but what Method or what means he shall make use of for this end is left to his will and discretion but a special promise and in which both the Method and means to be used in the Administring the Government are particularly expressed seem to have a twofold Power for one only obliges the Conscience of the King but the other makes the Obedience of the Subjects depend upon its performance as upon an express condition A Promise of the first sort is thus If the King should swear for example that he will not bestow any Offices of trust on such a sort of Men that he will not grant any Priviledges to any which shall redound to the prejudice of others that he will make no new Laws or impose new Taxes or Customs or will not use Foreign Souldiers or the like Yet if there be no certain Council or Assembly Coustituted which the King should be obliged to consult whether the occasions of the Common-wealth require he should depart from those Engagements for there is still in all of them that tacite exception still understood unless the Safety of the Common-wealth the Supreme Law in all such Engagements require otherwise and which Council by its own right and not precariously can take cognizance of those affairs and without whose consent the Subjects cannot be obliged to observe the Kings commands in such matters here the Administration of the supreme Authority being restrained to certain Laws if the King shall act otherwise unless in cases of great necessity he is without doubt guilty of the breach of his Oath yet there does not therefore belong any power to the Subject to deny Obedience to the Kings commands or of making those actions void For if the King do say That the safety of the People or some remarkable advantage to the Commonwealth requires him to break his Promise as that presumption always ought to go along with the Kings actions the Subjects in this case have not any thing to reply because they have no faculty of taking Cognizance of those actions whether the necessity of the Common-wealth required them or not from which this is apparent that they do not take a sufficient caution if they will allow their King but a limited Power and yet hath not Constituted some great Council without whose consent those actions excepted cannot be exercised or unless there lie upon the King a necessity of calling the Estates whenever he deliberates upon the exercise of those Legislative Powers for that is better than if it should be necessary for the King to consult some Council consisting only of some few of his Subjects since it may easily happen that the private advantages of those few may differ from the publick good and likewise they for their own private Interest may not agree in those things which are truly beneficial for their Prince But the Authority of a King is more closly restrained if it be expresly agreed between the King and People upon the conferring the supreme power upon Him or his Ancestors that he should Administer it according to certain Fundamental Laws and concerning those matters which he hath not absolute Power to dispose of that he leave them to a great Council of the People or Nobility neither may decree any thing in those matters without their consent and if they should be done otherwise that the Subjects would not be obliged to observe his commands in such things neither yet is the Supreme Power rendred defective by such Fundamental Constitutions For all the acts of Supreme Power may be exercised in such a Kingdom as well as in an absolute one unless that in the one the King uses his own Judgment alone as decisive but in the other there is as it were a concomitant Cognizance remaining in the great Council upon which power of the Supreme Authority it does not radically but as it were conditionally depend sine qua non neither are there in such a Common-wealth two distinct wills forall things which the Common-wealth wills it wills them by the Kings will alone although it might happen form that limitation that certain conditions not being observed the King cannot legally will some things and so wills them in vain but neither does the King cease to have the supreme Power in such a Kingdom or that this Council is therefore above the King For these are no true consequences that because this Person cannot do all things according to his own humour therefore he hath not supreme Power I am not obliged to obey this Man in all things therefore I am his Superior or Equal and these are likewise very different I am bound to perform what this Man