the same power and autority over their Subjects that Abraham had over his Family which we do not find to exceed the number of three hundred and eighteen men and that all Subjects are bound to obey the dictates of their Soveraigns with the same resignation and submission as the Children of Israel were oblig'd to submit to the commands of Moses however it seems to have no Logical consequence in it that because God spake only to Abraham and not to his Family therefore his Family was to receive Gods commands only from him Yet Mr. Hobbes might have remembred that God did appear likewise to Hagar one of Abrahams Family even after he had expos'd her to the unjust severity of his Wife and communicated his pleasure to her and inform'd her of many particulars which he imparted not to Abraham however I say the instance of Abraham is no Argument that all Subjects who have no supernatural Revelation to the contrary ought to obey the orders of their own Soveraigns in the external acts and profession of Religion except it were as evident that God hath spoken to those Soveraigns as it is confessed that he spake to Abraham And there was in those daies no other way for men to know the immediate pleasure of God what they were or were not to do but by his Communication to some person who had credit to be believed Whereas from the time that God hath manifested his pleasure to all men in his Scripture what will please and displease him and intrusted Princes to advance his Service and provide for his Worship according to the rules which he hath likewise prescrib'd to them he hath discontinued that immediate Communication Nor doth any Prince pretend to that conversation with God as Abraham and Moses had who did not interpret but relate and report what God would or would not have don from himself And the Salvo which he provide sâ—or the Implicite Faith which he prescribes by a mental reservation is so destructive to common honesty that it is not only unworthy of a Christian but of a moral man who desires to live with any credit amongst men which we shall be obliged to enlarge upon in another place where he more confidently calls for it and therefore shall decline it here And God be thanked no Christian Prince doth himself believe or wishes that his Subjects should believe that he is in Abrahams place to be the sole Interpreter of what God hath spoken Mr. Hobbes is so much addicted to the sole obligation of Contracts and Covenants that he will hardly allow God himself to have a title to our obedience but by virtue of some Contract on his part and Covenant on ours which that he may the better make good he assumes a Jurisdiction to himself to give what signification and interpretation he pleases to words whether they have bin generally understood to signifie so or no without which he would not have determin'd that pag. 250. Moses had no autority to command the children of Israel nor they any obligation to obey him until in the terror of the thundring and lightning and the noise of the Trumpet and the smoaking of the mountain they said unto Moses Exod. 20. 28. Speak thou with us and we will hear but let not God speak with us least we die by which he saies pag. 251. they obliged themselves to obey whatsoever he should deliver unto them for the commandment of God whereas the most that can be drawn from that engagement is that they would hear and receive what he should say Notwithstanding which it doth not appear that they paid more obedience to Moses after this profession of theirs then they had don before nor can it be imagin'd that the promise to Moses was more binding then all former obligations to God And surely he who assumes this licence of Interpreting is much to blame if he doth not make many places in Scripture to signifie what conduces to his purpose and he may from Moses having leave to go up into the Mount declare not only that the Scriptures are the Mount and therefore that the Soveraign only may interpret them but that they may not be look'd into which would increase the Prerogative and is as near the signification and intention of the Text as what he gives to it But then how Mr. Hobbes will excuse himself for violating his own Doctrine which concludes that pag. 252. no man ought in the inteâ—pretation of Scripture to proceed farther then the bounds which are set by his Soveraign I cannot imagine except he hath refuge to Cromwell whom he did then acknowledge to be his Soveraign And indeed it was of no small advantage to him that all Persons under him by what Oaths or Obligations soever they were bound to administer Justice to the people according to the known Rules of Law and equity should understand themselves to be in the same capacity that the Seventy were to Moses to whom God took of the Spirit that was upon Moses Num. 11. 25. and gave it to them the sense of which place he saies is no other pag. 252. as he hath formerly declar'd that spirit signifies mind then that God endued them with a mind conformable and subordinate to that of Moses that they might prophesy speak to the people in Gods name in such manner as to set forward such doctrine as was agreeable to Moses ' s doctrine And in truth so absolute an autority in all spiritual matters as high as it is is not more then is absolutely necessary to support his other power in the temporal He administers occasion enough in this Chapter to induce me to repete what hath already bin said upon the Covenant made by Abraham which is a principal corner stone upon which he still persists to erect his building which I shall forbear to do persuming the Reader will not forget it only I must observe the activity and restlessness of Mr. Hobbes his fancy and that as the first mention of the Covenant and Contract as to the end for which he formed it was a pure dream of his own so he adds to it and makes it larger as new matter occurs to him that requires such a supply As in the beginning of this Chapter that he might make the Soveraignty of Abraham to appear the more unquestionable he saies that pag. 249. by his Covenant he obliged himself and his seed after him to acknowledg and obey the Commands of God not only such as he could take notice of as moral Lawes by the Laws of Nature but also such as God should in special manner deliver to him by dreams and visions of which before he makes no mention tho he mention'd more then he had autority for for he saies pag. 249. that no contract could add to or strengthen the obligation by which both they and all men else were bound naturally to obey God Almighty and therefore the Covenant that Abraham made with God was to take for
any of those who were overcome by him tho some of them appear'd or were generally believ'd to be superior in the conduct of great Affaiâ—s There is judgment gotten by experience very necessary but the first attemt and direction of the mind the first daring proceeds purely from Nature and its influence When we see a Marius from a common Soldier baffle the Nobility of Rome and in despight of opposition make himself seven times Consul or a Dioclesan from a mean and low birth and no other advantage of Education then every other common Soldier had with him nor countenance or assistance from any Superior but what his own Virtue purchased to raise himself to the full state and power of the greatest Emperor and to govern as great or a greater part of the World then ever Cesar did and after having enjoied that Empire above eighteen years in the highest glory to give it over and divest himself of it merely for the ease and pleasure of retirement to his private House and Garden and to die in that repose after he had enjoied it some years must we believe such a man to have no advantages by nature above all other men of the same time When Marmurius or Vecturius for he went by both names one of the thirty Tyrants from a common Black-smith who made arms for the man who killed him having bin before his servant and wrought under him told him Hic est gladius quem ipse fecisti raised himself not by a suddain mutiny and insurrection but by passing all the degrees of a Soldier during many years in a regular and disciplin'd Army to be Emperor by a common voice and election as a Man the fittest for the Command is it possible for us to believe that this Man received no other talent from Nature then she afforded to every other Blackfinith Besides many particulat Examples of this kind in every particular Kingdom in most of which the visible advantages of Friends Patrons and other accidental Concurrences have not at all contributed to the preferment of them before other men the World hath yielded us an example near our own time for it is little more then two hundred years since of such a prodigious progress and success in the power of one Man that there is nothing of Story ancient or modern that is parallel to it The great Tamberlane who tho not so mean a Person in his original as he is vulgarly conceived to have bin was born a poor Prince over a contem'd and barbarous Country and People whose manners he first cultivated by his own native justice and goodness and by the strength of his own Genius improved his own Faculties and Understanding to a marvellous Lustre and Perfection towards which neither his Climate nor his conversation could contribute Upon this stock he rais'd and led an Army of his Subjects into the better Dominions of their Neighbors who contemned them With these he fought and won many Battels subdued and conquer'd many Kingdoms and after the total defeat of the greatest Army that was then in the World he took the greatest Emperor of the World Prisoner and for the contemt that he had shew'd towards him treated him as his vilest Slave And it hath bin as notorious that after the death of these and the like such extraordinary Persons the Forces by which they wrought those wonders and the Counsellors and Officers whose administration co-operated with them suddainly degenerated and as if the Soul were departed from the Body became a Carcass without any use or beauty And can we believe that those stupendous men had no talent by nature above others And are we bound to believe pag. 77. that by the Law of Nature every man is bound to acknowledg other for his equal by nature But where are those Maxims to be found which Mr. Hobbes declares and publishes to be the Laws of Nature in any other Author before him That is only properly call'd the Law of Nature that is dictated to the whole Species as to defend a mans self from violence and to repel force by force not all that results upon prudential motives unto the mind of such as have bin cultivated by Learning and Education which no doubt can compile such a Body of Laws as would make all other useless except such as should provide for the execution of and obedience to those For under what other notion can that reasonable Conclusion which is a necessary part of the Law of Nations be call'd the Law of Nature which is his fifteenth Law pag. 78. That all men that mediate Peace be allowed safe conduct And of this kind much of the Body of his Law of Nature is compil'd which I should not dislike the Style being in some sense not improper but that I observe that from some of these Conclusions which he pronounces to be pag. 57. immutable and eternal as the Laws of Nature he makes deductions and inferences to controul Opinions he dislikes and to obtain Concessions which are not right by amuzing men with his method and confounding rather then informing their understandings by a chime of words in definitions and pleasant instances which seem not easie to be contradicted and yet infer much more then upon a review can be deduc'd from them And it is an unanswerable evidence of the irresistible force and strength of Truth and Reason that whilst men are making war against it with all their power and stratagems somwhat doth still start up out of the dictates and confessions of the Adversary that determines the Controversie and vindicates the Truth from the malice that would oppress it How should it else come to pass that Mr. Hobbes whilst he is demolishing the whole frame of Nature for want of order to support it and makes it unavoidable necessary for every man to cut his neighbors throat to kill him who is weaker then himself and to circumvent and by any fraud destroy him who is stronger in all which there is no injustice because Nature hath not otherwise provided for every particular mans security I say how comes it to pass that at the same time when he is possessed of this frenzy he should in the same and the next Chapter set down such a Body of Laws prescribed by Nature it self as are immutable aud eternal that there appears by his own shewing a full remedy against all that confusion for avoiding whereof he hath devis'd all that unnatural and impossible Contract and Covenant If the Law of the Gospel Whatsoever you require that others should do to you that do ye to them be the Law of all men as he saies it is pag. 65. that is the Law of Nature Naturâ id est jure gentium saies Tully it being nothing else but quod naturalis ratio inter omnes homines constituit If it be the Law of Nature that every man strive to accommodate himself to the rest as he saies it is pag. 76. and that no man by deed
word countenance or gesture declare hatred or contemt of another If all men are bound by the Law of Nature pag. 78. That they that are at controversie submit their right to the judgment of an arbitrator as he saies they are If Nature hath thus providently provided for the Peace and Tranquillity of her Children by Laws immutable and eternal that are written in their hearts how come they to fall into that condition of war as to be every one against every one and to be without any other cardinal Virtues but of force and fraud It is a wonderful thing that a man should be so sharp-sighted as to discern mankind so well inclosed and fortified by the wisdom of Nature and so blind as to think him in a more secure estate by his transferring of right to another man which yet he confesses is impossible intirely to transfer and by Covenants and Contracts of his own devising and which he acknowledges to be void in part and in other parts impossibe to be perform'd But I say if in truth Nature hath dictated all those excellent Conclusions to every man without which they cannot be called the Laws of Nature and if it hath farther instituted all those duties which are contain'd in the Second Table all which he saies were the Laws of Nature I know not what temtation or autority he could have to pronounce mankind to be left by Nature in that distracted condition of war except he prefer the autority of Ovids Metamorphosis of the sowing of Cadmus's teeth before any other Scripture Divine or Humane And it is as strange that by his Covenants and Contracts which he is so wary in wording as if he were the Secretary of Nature that they may bind that man fast enough whom he pleases to assign to those Bonds and as if he were the Pleâ—potentiary of Nature too to bind and to loose all he thinks fit he hath so ill provided for the Peace he would establish that he hath left a door open for all the Confusion he would avoid when notwithstanding that he hath made them divest themselves of the liberty they have by Nature and transfer all this into the hands of a single Person who thereby is so absolute Soveraign that he may take their Lives and their Estates from them without any act of Injustice yet after all this transferring and divesting every man reserves a right as unalienable to defend his own life even against the sentence of Justice What greater contradiction can there be to the Peace which he would establish upon those unreasonable conditions then this Liberty which he saies can never be abandoned and which yet may dissolve that peace every day and yet he saies pag. 70. This is granted to be true by all men in that they lead Criminals to execution and prison with armed men notwithstanding such Criminals have consented to the Law by which they are condemned Which indeed in an Argument that men had rather escape then be hanged but no more an Argument that they have a right to rescue themselves then the fashion of wearing Sword is an argument that men are afraid of having their throats cuâ— by the malice of their neighbors both which are Arguments no man would urge to men whose understandings he did not much undervalue But upon many of these Particulars there is a more proper occasion hereafter for enlargement And so we pass through his Prospect of the Laws of Nature and many other Definitions and Descriptions with liberty to take review of them upon occasion that we may make hast to his Second Part for which he thinks he hath made a good preparation to impose upon us in this First and he will often tell us when he should prove what he affirms that he hath evinc'd that Point and made it evident in such a Chapter in his First Part where in truth he hath said very much and proved very little I shall only conclude this with an observation which the place seems to require of the defect in Mr. Hobbes's Logic which is a great presumtion that from very true Propositions he deduces very erroneous and absurd Conclusions That no man hath power to transfer the right over his own life to the disposal of another man is a very true Proposition from whence he infers that he hath reserved the power and disposal of it to himself and therefore that he may defend it by force even against the judgment of Law and Justice whereas the natural consequence of that Proposition is That therefore such transferring and covenanting being void cannot provide for the peace and security of a Common-wealth Without doubt no man is Dominus vitae suae and therefore cannot give that to another which he hath not in himself God only hath reserv'd that absolute Dominion and Power of life and death to himself and by his putting the Sword into the hand of the Supreme Magistrate hath qualified and enabled him to execute that justice which is necessary for the peace and preservation of his People which may seem in a manner to be provided for by Mr. Hobbes's Law of Nature if what he saies be true pag. 68. That right to the end containeth right to the means And this sole Proposition that men cannot dispose of their own lives hath bin alwaies held as a manifest and undeniable Argument that Soveraigns never had nor can have their Power from the People Second Part. The Survey of Chapters 17 18. MR. Hobbes having taken upon him to imitate God and created Man after his own likeness given him all the passions and affections which he finds in himself and no other he prescribes him to judg of all things and words according to the definitions he sets down with the Autority of a Creator After he hath delighted himself in a commendable method and very witty and pleasant description of the nature and humor of the World as far as he is acquainted with it upon many particulars whereof which he calls Definitions there will be frequent occasion of reflexions in this discourse without breaking the thred of it by entring upon impertinent exceptions to matters positively averred without any apparent reason when it is no great matter whether it be true or no He comes at last to institute such a Common-wealth as never was in nature or ever heard of from the beginning of the World till this structure of his and like a bountiful Creator gives the Man he hath made the Soveraign command and Government of it with such an extent of power and autority as the Great Turk hath not yet appear'd to affect In which it is probable he hath follow'd his first method and for the Man after his own likeness hath created a Government that he would himself like to be trusted with having determined Liberty and Propriety and Religion to be only emty words and to have no other existence then in the Will and Breast of his Soveraign Governor and all this in
order to make his People happy and to enjoy the blessing of Peace And yet with all this his Governor would quickly find his power little enough that is of little continuance if his Government be founded upon no other security then is provided in his Institution and the justice he assigns will be as weak a support to his Governor as he supposes a Covenant would be to the peoples benefit the imagination whereof he conceives to be so ridiculous that it can only proceed form want of understanding that Covenants being but words and breath have no force to oblige contain constrain or protect any man but what they have from the Public Sword that is from the untied hands of his Soveraign Man as if Justice which is the support of his Governor when he breaks and violates all the Elements of Justice because all men are in justice bound to observe contracts were more then a word or a more valiant word and stronger breath to constrain and protect any man when that Sword is wrested from his Soveraign Man or his hand is bound by the many hands which should be govern'd by him But the People need not be offended with him for giving so extravagant a Power to a Person they never intended should have such an Empire over them if they will have patience till he hath finished his Scheme of Soveraignty he will infeeble it again for them to that degree that no ambitious man would take it up if he could have it for asking But to prosecute the Argument in his own order As he hath made a worse man by much by making him too like himself so he hath made a much worse Common-wealth then ever yet was known in the World by making it such as he would have and nothing can be more wonderful then that a man of Mr. Hobbes his sagacity should raise so many conclusions of a very pernicious influence upon the Peace and Government of every Kingdom and Common-wealth in Europe upon a mere supposition and figment of a Common-wealth instituted by himself and without any example He will not find any one Government in the World of what kind soever so instituted as he dogmatically declares all Government to be nor was mankind in any nation since the Creation upon such a level as to institute their Government by such an assembly and election and covenant and consent as he very unwarrantably more then supposes And it was an undertaking of the more impertinence since by his own rule pag. 95. where there is already erected a Soveraign power which was then and still is in every Kingdom and State in Europe and for ought we know in the whole world there can be no other Representative of the same People but only to certain particular ends limited by the Soveraign So that he could have no other design but to shake what was erected and the Government was not at that time in any suspence but in his own Country by the effect of an odious and detestable Rebellion which yet could not prevail with an effective Army of above one hundred thousand men with which the Usurper had subdued three Nation to submit to the Usurper in such a new model and to transfer their right by such Covenants as he conceives mankind to be even oblig'd to do by the Laws of Nature and to induce them to do which I do heartily wish that Mr. Hobbes could truly vindicate himself from designing when he publish'd his Leviathan upon which disquisition we cannot avoid enlarging hereafter upon further provocation It had bin kindly don of Mr. Hobbes if according to his laudable custom of illustrating his definitions by instances as he often doth with great pregnancy he had to this his positive determination added one instance of a Government so instituted There is no doubt there are in all Governments many things don by and with the consent of the People nay all Government so much depends upon the consent of the People that without their consent and submission it must be dissolved since where no body will obey there can be no command nor can one man compel a million to to do what they have no mind to do but that any Government was originally instituted by an assembly of men equally free and that they ever elected the Person who should have the Soveraign power over them is yet to be proved and till it be proved must not be supposed to raise new doctrines upon which shake all Government How Soveraign power was originally instituted and how it came to condescend to put restraints upon it self and even to strip it self of some parts of its Soveraignty for its own benefit and advantage and how far it is bound to observe the Contracts and Covenants it hath submitted to I shall deliver my opinion before this Discourse is finish'd and shall refer the approbation of â—it to Mr. Hobbes supposing he will never think all the reason in the world to be strong enough to prove that what all men see is cannot be But by the way he had dealt more like the Magistrate he affects to be if he had founded his Government upon his own imperious averment and left every man to question it that dares then to take notice and fore-see an objection which he saies is the strongest he can make and make no better an answer to it then to answer one question with another He sees men will ask and it is not impossible they can avoid it Where and When such power hath by Subjects bin acknowledg'd which he would have us believe is substantially answered by his other Question When or Where has there bin a Kingdom long free from Sedition and Civil War which might receive a very full Answer by assigning many Governments under which the Subjects have enjoied very long Peace Quiet and Plenty which never was nor ever can be enjoied one hour under his as shall be proved when we examine it But it will serve his turn if it hath once bin disquieted by a Sedition or Civil War and so all Government that is known and established must be laid aside and overthrown to erect another that he supposes will cure all defects If Mr. Hobbes had thought fit to write problematically and to have examin'd as many have don the nature of Government and the nature of Mankind that is to be govern'd and from the consideration of both had modestly proposed such a form as to his judgment might better provide for the security peace and happiness of a People which is the end of Government then any form that is yet practic'd and submitted to he might well have answered one objection of an inconvenience in his new form with another of a greater inconvenience in all other forms But when he will introduce a Government of his own devising as founded and instituted already and that not as somewhat new but submitted to by the Covenants and Obligations aud Election our selves have made and so that
according to his Prerogative of determining what the natural condition of mankind is he takes many things for granted which are not true as pag. 60. that Nature hath made all men equal in the faculties of body and mind and imputes that to the Nature of Man in general which is but the infirmity of some particular man and by a mist of words under the notion of explaining common terms the meaning whereof is understood by all men and which his explanation leaves less intelligible then they were before he dazles mens eies from discerning those Fallacies upon which he raises his Structure and which he reserves for his second part And whosoever looks narrowly to his preparatory Assertions shall find such contradictions as must destroy the foundation of all his new Doctrine in Government of which some particulars shall be mentioned anon So that if his Maxims of one kind were marshalled together collected out of these four Chapters and applied to his other Maxims which are to support his whole Leviathan the one would be a sufficient answer to the other and so many inconsistencies and absurdities would appear between them that they could never be thought links of one chain whereas he desires men should believe all the Propositions in his Book to be a chain of Consequences without being in any degree wary to avoid palpable contradictions upon the presumtion of his Readers total resignation to his judgment If it were not so would any man imagine that a man of Mr. Hobbes's sagacity and provoking humor should in his fourth Page so imperiously reproch the Scholes for absurdity in saying That heavy Bodies fall downwarâ—â— out of an appetite to rest thereby ascribing knowledg to things inanimate and himself should in his sixty second Page describing the nature of foul weather say That it lieth not in a shower or two of rain but in an inclination thereto of many daies together as if foul weather were not as inanimate a thing as heavy Bodies and inclination did not imply as much of knowledg as appetite doth In truth neither the one or the other word signifies in the before-mention'd instances more then a natural tendency to motion and alteration When God vouchsafed to make man after his own Image and in his own Likeness and took so much delight in him as to give him the command and dominion over all the Inhabitants of the Earth the Air and the Sea it cannot be imagin'd but that at the same time he endued him with Reason and all the other noble Faculties which were necessary for the administration of the Empire and the preservation of the several Species which were to succeed the Creation and therefore to uncreate him to such a baseness and villany in his nature as to make man such a Rascal and more a Beast in his frame and constitution then those he is appointed to govern is a power that God never gave to the Devil nor hath any body assum'd it till Mr. Hobbes took it upon him Nor can any thing be said more contrary to the Honor and Dignity of God Almighty then that he should leave his master workmanship Man in a condition of War of every man against every man in such a condition of confusion p. 64. That every man hath a right to every thing even to one anothers body inclin'd to all the malice force and fraud that may promote his profit or his pleasure and without any notions of or instinct towards justice honor or good nature which only makes man-kind superior to the beasts of the Wilderness Nor had Mr. Hobbes any other reason to degrade him to this degree of Bestiality but that he may be fit to wear those Chains and Fetters which he hath provided for him He deprives man of the greatest happiness and glory that can be attributed to him who divests him of that gentleness and benevolence towards other men by which he delights in the good fortune and tranquillity that they enjoy and makes him so far prefer himself before all others as to make the rest a prey to advance any commodity or conveniency of his own which is a barbarity superior to what the most savage Beasts are guilty of Quando leoni Fortior eripuit vitam leo quo nemore unquam Expiravit aper majoris dentibus apri Man only created in the likeness of God himself is the only creature in the World that out of the malignity of his own nature and the base fear that is inseparable from it is oblig'd for his own benefit and for the defence of his own right to worry and destroy all of his own kind until they all become yoaked by a Covenant and Contract that Mr. Hobbes hath provided for them and which was never yet entred into by any one man and is in nature impossible to be entred into After such positive and magisterial Assertions against the dignity and probity of man-kind and the honor and providence of God Almighty the instances and arguments given by him are very unweighty and trivial to conclude the nature of man to be so full of jealousie and malignity as he would have it believed to be from that common practice of circumspection and providence which custom and discretion hath introduced in human life For men shut their Chests in which their mony is as well that their servants or children may not know what they have as that it may be preserved from Thieves and they lock their doors that their Houses may not be common and ride arm'd and in company because they know that there are ill men who may be inclined to do injuries if they find an opportunity Nor is a wariness to prevent the damage and injury that Thieves and Robbers may do to any man an argument that mankind is in that mans opinion inclin'd and disposed to commit those out-rages If it be known that there is one Thief in a City all men have reason to shut their doors and lock their chests and if there be two or three Drunkards in a Town all men have reason to go arm'd in the streets to controul the violence or indignity they might receive from them Princes are attended by their Guards in progress and all their servants arm'd when they hunt without any apprehension of being assaulted custom having made it so necessary that many men are not longer without their Swords then they are without their Doublets who never were jealous that any man desir'd to hurt them Nor will the instance he gives of the Inhabitants in America be more to his purpose then the rest since as far as we have any knowledg of them the savage People there live under a most intire subjection and slavery to their several Princes who indeed for the most part live in hostility towards each other upon those contentions which engage all other Princes in War and which Mr. Hobbes allows to be a just cause of War jealousie of each others Power to do them harm And these
the Soveraignty by making Tribunes by which Machiavel saies their Government was the more firm and secure and afterwards by introducing other Magistrates into the Soveraignty Nor were the Admissions and Covenants the Senate made in those cases ever declared void but observed with all punctuality which is Argument enough that the Soveraign power may admit limitations without any danger to it self or the People which is all that is contended for As there never was any such Person pag. 88. of whose acts a great multitude by mutual Covenant one with another have made themselves every one the author to the end he may use the strength and means of them all as he shall think expedient for their peace and common defence which is the definition he gives of his Common-wealth So if it can be supposed that any Nation can concur in such a designation and divesting themselves of all their right and liberty it could only be in reason obligatory to the present contractors nor do's it appear to us that their posterity must be bound by so unthrifty a concession of their Parents For tho Adam by his Rebellion against God forfeited all the privileges which his unborn posterity might have claimed if he had preserved his innocence and tho Parents may alienate their Estates from their Children and thereby leave them Beggars yet we have not the draught of any Contract nor is that which Mr. Hobbes hath put himself to the trouble to prepare valid enough to that purpose by which they have left impositions and penalties upon the Persons of their posterity nor is it probable that they would think themselves bound to submit thereunto And then the Soveraign would neither find himself the more powerful or the more secure for his contâ—â—â—tors having covenanted one with another and made themselves every one the author of all his actions and it is to be doubted that the People would rather look upon him as the Vizier Basha instituted by their Fathers then as Gods Lieutenant appointed to govern them under him It is to no purpose to examine the Prerogatives he grants to his Soveraign because he founds them all upon a supposition of a Contract and Covenant that never was in nature nor ever can reasonably be supposed to be yet he confesses it to be the generation pag. 87. of the great Leviathan and which falling to the ground all his Prerogatives must likewise fall too and so much to the dammage of the Soveraign power to which most of the Prerogatives are due that men will be apt to suppose that they proceed from a ground which is not true and so be the more inclined to dispute them Whereas those Prerogatives are indeed vested in the Soveraign by his being Soveraign but he do's not become Soveraign by vertue of such a Contract and Covenant but are of the Essence of his Soveraignty founded upon a better title then such an accidental convention and their designing a Soveraign by their Covenants with one another and none with or to him who is so absolutely to command them And here he supposes again that whatsoever a Soveraign is possessed of is of his Soveraignty and therefore he will by no means admit that he shall part with any of his power which he calls essential and inseparable Rights and that whatever grant he makes of such power the same is void and he do's believe that this Soveraign right was at the time when he published his Book so well understood that is Cromwel liked his Doctrine so well that it would be generally acknowledged in England at the next return of peace Yet he sees himself deceived it hath pleased God to restore a blessed and a general peace and neither King nor People believe his Doctrine to be true or consistent with peace How and why the most absolute Soveraigns may as they find occasion part with and deprive themselves of many branches of their power will be more at large discovered in another place yet we may observe in this the very complaisant humor of Mr. Hobbes and how great a Courtier he desir'd to appear to the Soveraign power that then govern'd by how odious and horrible a usurpation soever in that he found a way to excuse and justifie what they had already don in the lessening and diminution of their own Soveraign power which it concern'd them to have believ'd was very lawfully and securely don For they having as the most popular and obliging act they could perform taken away Wardships and Tenures he confesses after his enumeration of twelve Prerogatives which he saies pag. 92. are the rights which make the essence of the Soveraignty for these he saies are incommunicable and inseparable I say he confesses the power to coin mony to dispose of the estates and persons of infant heirs and all other Statute Prerogatives may be transferred by the Soveraign whereas he might have bin informed if he had bin so modest as to think he had need of any information that those are no Statute Prerogatives but as inherent and inseparable from the Crown as many of those which he declares to be of the Essence of the Soveraignty But both those were already entred upon and he was to support all their actions which were past as well as to provide for their future proceedings If Mr. Hobbes had known any thing of the constitution of the Monarchy of England supported by as firm principles of Government as any Monarchy in Europe and which enjoied a series of as long prosperity he could never have thought that the late troubles there proceeded from an opinion receiv'd of the greatest part of England that the power was divided between the King and the Lords and the House of Commons which was an opinion never heard of in England till the Rebellion was begun and against which all the Laws of England were most clear and known to be most positive But as he cannot but acknowledg that his own Soveraignty is obnoxious to the Lusts and other irregular passions of the People so the late execrable Rebellion proceeded not from the defect of the Law nor from the defect of the just and ample power of the King but from the power ill men rebelliously possessed themselves of by which they suppressed the strength of the Laws and wrested the power out of the hands of the King against which violence his Soveraign is no otherwise secure then by declaring that his Subjects proceed unjustly of which no body doubts but that all they who took up arms against the King were guilty in the highest degree And there is too much cause to fear that the unhappy publication of this doctrine against the Liberty and propriety of the Subject which others had the honor to declare before Mr. Hobbes tho they had not the good fortune to escape punishment as he hath don I mean Dr. Manwaring and Dr. Sibthorpe contributed too much thereunto For let him take what pains he will to render those
conceptions and imaginations by examining those of other men a fatal neglect he hath bin guilty of throughout his whole life he could hardly have avoided the knowing that on every Michaelmas day the whole common People of London chuse the Lord Major and yet the Office is not in them till they do chuse him tho his Predecessor were dead nor can they keep it to themselves and so they can give that which they cannot possess which is diametrically contrary to his speculation which would likewise have bin controuled by all Elections of the Kingdom He might have saved himself much labor since he agrees that a Soveraign by acquisition which is somwhat we understand hath the same full Soveraignty with his other by institution if he had spar'd all that which is mere speculation and I will gratifie him by not insisting upon the Pâ—ternal Dominion otherwise then as it must be confessed to be the original of Monarchy because we will do the Mother no wrong who is so meet a help in the generation And before I proceed further upon this Argument to which I will presently return I must lament in this place Mr. 〈◊〉 so positive determining a point of Justice in which he could have no experience and against all thâ— practice of the Christian World pag. â—04 that he who hath Quâ—rter granted 〈…〉 his life given but deferred till farther deliberation which Doctrine found only as he confesses by speculation served to confirm that Tyrannical Power in a Judgment they had given when three great and noble Persons who were Prisoners of War were contrary to all form and rule condemn'd to be murder'd which Sentence was barbarously executed and afterwards reiterated upon others the rather probably upon his speculative determination And since we are now come to the Chapter of Dominion Paternal and Despotical in which he discourses of his Government by acquisition which he will have by force or by institution which he calls by consent and confesses that the rights and consequences of Soveraignty are the same in both it may not I conceive be unseasonable to state and lay down that Scheme of Government which men reasonably believe was originally instituted and the progress and alterations which were afterwards made and all those Covenants Promises and Conditions which were annexed to it and by the observation of which it hath alwaies acquired strength and lustre and bin as much impair'd when endeavors have bin used to extend it beyond its bounds and just limits and to make it more absolute then is consistent with the Peace and Happiness of the People which was and is the end of its Institution And in the first place we must deny as we have hitherto don Mr. Hobbes his ground work upon which with many ill consequences even from thence his foundation is supported aad that is that War is founded in Nature which gives the stronger a right to whatever the weaker is possessed of so that there can be no peace or security from oppression till such Covenants are made as may appoint a Soveraign to have all that power which is necessary to provide for that peace and security and out of and by this Institution his Magistrate grows up to the greatness and size of his Leviathan But we say that peace is founded in nature and that when the God of nature gave his Creature Man the dominion over the rest of his Creation he gave him likewise natural strength and power to govern the World with peace and order and how much soever he lost by his own integrity by falling from his obedience to his Creator and how severe a punishment soever he under-went by that his disobedience it do's not appear that his dominion over Man-kind was in any degree lessened or abated So that we cannot but look upon him during his life as the sole Monarch of the World and that lasted so long as we may reasonably compute that a very considerable part of the World that was peopled before the Flood was peopled in his life since it lasted upon the point of two parts of that term so that his Dominion was over a very numerous People And during all that time we have no reason to imagine that there was any such Instrument of Government by Covenants and Contracts as is contain'd in this Institution And yet we do acknowledg that he was by nature fully possessed of all that plenitudo potestatis which doth of right belong to a Magistrate and we may very reasonably believe having no color to think the contrary that his Son Seth who was born a hundred and thirty years after him and lived above a hundred years after he was dead govern'd his descendants with the same absolute Dominion which might well be continued under his Successor to the very time of the Flood for we may very reasonably believe that Noah conversed with Seth since it is evident they lived one hundred years together in the same Age. Nor have we the least color to believe that there was either Sâ—dition or Civil War before the Flood their rebellion against God in a universal exercise of Idolatry which implies a general conseâ—â—â— amongst themselves being in the opinion of most Learned men the crying Sin that provoked God to drown the World After the Flood we cannot but think that Noah remain'd the sole Monarch of the World during his life according to that model with which he had bin very well acquainted for the space of five hundred years and he lived long enough after to see a very numerous increase of his Children and Subjects who after his death when the multiplication was very great came from the East into the Land of Shinar the pleasant vâ—â—ly of Shinar where God in the beginning had plac'd the Father of man-kind Adam and Learned men are of opinion that the great and principal end of the building of Babel over and above the high Tower for their fame and renown to posterity was that they intended it for the Metropolis of an Universal Monarchy so little doubt there was yet made of an entire subjection and obedience Sure we are that the Generations of Noah when man-kind was exceedingly increas'd did divide the Nations in the Earth and Mr. Mâ—ad assâ—res us that the word which we translate divided signifies not a scattering or any thing of confusion but a most distinct partition So that this great division of the Earth being perform'd in this method and order there is no room for the imagination and dream of such an irregular and confus'd dispersion that every man went whither he listed and setled himself where he liked best from whence that Institution of Government might arise which Mr. Hobbes fancies Under this Division we of the Western World have reason to believe our selves of the posterity of Iapheth and that our Progenitors did as well know under what Government they were to live as what portion they were to possess and we have that blessing of Iapheth
Justice even where himself is party and that he will be sued before those Judges if he doth not pay what he ow's to his Subjects This is the Contract which gives that capacity of suing and which by his own consent and condescention lessens his Soveraignty that his Subjects may require Justice from him And yet all these promises and lessenings he pronounces as void and to amount to contradictions that must dissolve the whole Soveraign power and leave the people in confusion and war Whereas the truth is these condescentions and voluntary abatements of some of that original power that was in them have drawn a cheerful submission and bin attended by a ready obedience to Soveraignty from the time that Subjects have bin at so great a distance from being consider'd as Children and that Soveraigns have bin without those natural tendernesses in the exercise of their power and which in the rigor of it could never have bin supported And where these obligations are best observ'd Soveraignty flourishes with the most lustre and security Kings having still all the power remaining in them that they have not themselves parted with and releas'd to their Subjects and theiâ— Subjects having no pretence to more liberty or power then the King hath granted and given to them and both their happiness and security consists in containing themselves within their own limits that is King not to affect the recovery of that exorbitant power which their Ancestors wisely parted with as well for their own as the peoples benefit and Subjects to rejoice in those liberties which have bin granted to them and not to wish to lessen the power of the King which is not greater then is necessary for their own perservation And to such a wholsom division and communication of power as this is that place of Scripture with which Mr. Hobbes is still too bold a Kingdom dâ—vided in it self cannot stand cannot be applied But that this Supreme Soveraign whom he hath invested with the whole property and liberty of all his Subjects and so invested him in it that he hath not power to part with any of it by promise or donation or release may not be too much exalted with his own greatness he hath humbled him sufficiently by giving his Subjects leave to withdraw their obedience from him when he hath most need of their assistance for the pag. 114. obligation of Subjects to the Soveraign is understood he saies to last as long and no longer then the power lasts to protect them So that assoon as any Town City or Province of any Princes Dominions is invaded by a Foreign Enemy or possessed by a Rebellious Subject that the Prince for the present cannot suppress the Power of the one or the other the people may lawfully resort to those who are over them and for their Protection perform all the Offices and duties of good Subjects to them pag 114. For the right men have by nature to protect themselves when none else can protect them can by no covenant be relinquish'd and the end of obedience is protection which wherever a man seeth it either in his own or in an others sword nature applieth his obedience to it and his endeavours to maintain it And truly it is no wonder if they do so and that Subjects take the first opportunity to free themselves from such a Soveraign as he hath given them and chuse a better for themselves Whereas the duty of Subjects is and all good Subjects believe they owe another kind of duty and obedience to their Soveraign then to withdraw their subjection because he is oppress'd and will prefer poverty and death it self before they will renounce their obedience to their natural Prince or do any thing that may advance the service of his Enemies And since Mr. Hobbes gives so ill a testimony of his Government which by the severe conditions he would oblige mankind to submit to for the support of it ought to be firm and not to be shaken pag. 114. that it is in its own nature not only subject to violent death by foreign war but also from the ignorance and passion of men that it hath in it from the very institution many seeds of natural mortality by intestine discord worse then which he cannot say of any Government we may very reasonably prefer the Government we have and under which we have enjoi'd much happiness before his which we do not know nor any body hath had experience of and which by his own confession is liable to all the accidents of mortality which any others have bin and reject his that promises so ill and exercises all the action of War in Peace and when War comes is liable to all the misfortunes which can possibly attend or invade it Whether the relation of Subjects be extinguisht in all those cases which Mr. Hobbes takes upon him to prescribe as Imprisonment Banishment and the like I leave to those who can instruct him better in the Law of Nations by which they must be judged notwithstanding all his Appeals to the Law of Nature and I presume if a banish'd Person p. 114 during which he saies he is not subject shall join in an action under a Foreign power against his Country wherein he shall with others be taken prisoner the others shall be proceeded against as Prisoners of War when he shall be judg'd as a Traitor and Rebel which he could not be if he were not a Subject and this not only in the case of an hostile action and open attemt but of the most secret conspiracy that comes to be discover'd And if this be true we may conclude it would be very unsafe to conduct our selves by what Mr. Hobbes p. 105. finds by speculation and deduction of Soveraign rights from the nature need and designs of men Surely this woful desertion and defection in the cases above mention'd which hath bin alwaies held criminal by all Law that hath bin current in any part of the World receiv'd so much countenance and justifications by Mr. Hobbes his Book and more by his conversation that Cromwel found the submission to those principles produc'd a submission to him and the imaginary relation between Protection and Allegiance so positively proclam'd by him prevail'd for many years to extinguish all visible fidelity to the King whilst he perswaded many to take the Engagement as a thing lawful and to become Subjects to the Usurper as to their legitimate Soveraign of which great service he could not abstain from bragging in a Pamphlet set forth in that time that he alone and his doctrine had prevail'd with many to submit to the Government who would otherwise have disturb'd the public Peace that is to renounce their fidelity to their true Soveraign and to be faithful to the Usurper It appears at last why by his institution he would have the power and security of his Soveraign wholly and only to depend upon the Contracts and Covenants which the people make one with