as much as to say that they were ruin'd when they fell from their own unnatural Inventions to follow the Law of God and of Nature that Luxury also through which they fell was the product of their Felicity and that the Nations that had bin subdued by them had no other way of avenging their Defeats than by alluring their Masters to their own Vices This was the Root of their Civil Wars When that proud City found no more resistance it grew wanton Saevior armis Luxuria incubuit victumque ulciscitur orbem Lucan Honest Poverty became uneasy when Honours were given to ill-gotten Riches This was so Monarchical that a People infected with such a Custom must needs fall by it They who by Vice had exhausted their Fortunes could repair them only by bringing their Country under a Government that would give impunity to Rapine and such as had not Virtues to deserve Advancement from the Senate and People would always endeavour to set up a Man that would bestow the Honours that were due to Virtue upon those who would be most abjectly subservient to his Will and Interests When mens minds are filled with this Fury they sacrifice the common Good to the advancement of their private Concernments This was the temper of Catiline expressed by Sallust Luxuria principi gravis paupertas vix à privato toleranda and this put him upon that desperate extremity to say Incendium meum ruinâ extinguam Others in the same manner being filled with the same rage he could not want Companions in his most villanous Designs 'T is not long since a Person of the highest Quality and no less famous for Learning and Wit having observed the State of England as it stood not many years ago and that to which it has bin reduc'd since the year sixty as is thought very much by the Advice and Example of France said That they now were taking a most cruel vengeance upon us for all the Overthrows received from our Ancestors by introducing their most damnable Maxims and teaching us the worst of their Vices 'T is not for me to determine whether this Judgment was rightly made or not for I intend not to speak of our Affairs but all Historians agreeing that the change of the Roman Government was wrought by such means as I have mentioned and our Author acknowledging that change to have bin their ruin as in truth it was I may justly conclude that the overthrow of that Government could not have bin a ruin to them but good for them unless it had bin good and that the Power which did ruin it and was set up in the room of it cannot have bin according to the Laws of God or Nature for they confer only that which is good and destroy nothing that is so but must have bin most contrary to that good which was overthrown by it SECT XVI The best Governments of the World have bin composed of Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy OUR Author's cavils concerning I know not what vulgar Opinions that Democracies were introduc'd to curb Tyranny deserve no answer for our question is Whether one form of Government be prescribed to us by God and Nature or we are left according to our own understanding to constitute such as seem best to our selves As for Democracy he may say what pleases him of it and I believe it can sute only with the convenience of a small Town accompanied with such Circumstances as are seldom found But this no way obliges men to run into the other extream in as much as the variety of forms between meer Democracy and Absolute Monarchy is almost infinite And if I should undertake to say there never was a good Government in the world that did not consist of the three simple Species of Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy I think I might make it good This at the least is certain that the Government of the Hebrews instituted by God had a Judg the great Sanhedrin and General Assemblies of the People Sparta had two Kings a Senate of twenty eight chosen Men and the like Assemblies All the Dorian Cities had a chief Magistrate a Senate and occasional Assemblies The Ionian Athens and others had an Archon the Areopagi and all Judgments concerning matters of the greatest importance as well as the Election of Magistrates were referr'd to the People Rome in the beginning had a King and a Senate whilst the Election of Kings and Judgments upon Appeals remained in the People afterwards Consuls representing Kings and vested with equal Power a more numerous Senate and more frequent meetings of the People Venice has at this day a Duke the Senate of the Pregadi and the Great Assembly of the Nobility which is the whole City the rest of the Inhabitants being only Incolae not Cives and those of the other Cities or Countries are their Subjects and do not participate of the Government Genoa is governed in like manner Luca not unlike to them Germany is at this day governed by an Emperor the Princes or great Lords in their several Precincts the Cities by their own Magistrates and by general Diets in which the whole power of the Nation resides and where the Emperor Princes Nobility and Cities have their places in person or by their Deputies All the Northern Nations which upon the dissolution of the Roman Empire possessed the best Provinces that had composed it were under that form which is usually called the Gothick Polity They had King Lords Commons Diets Assemblies of Estates Cortez and Parliaments in which the Sovereign Powers of those Nations did reside and by which they were exercised The like was practised in Hungary Bohemia Sweden Denmark Poland and if things are changed in some of these places within few years they must give better proofs of having gained by the change than are yet seen in the World before I think my self obliged to change my opinion Some Nations not liking the name of King have given such a power as Kings enjoy'd in other places to one or more Magistrates either limited to a certain time or left to be perpetual as best pleased themselves Others approving the name made the Dignity purely elective Some have in their Elections principally regarded one Family as long as it lasted Others consider'd nothing but the fitness of the Person and reserved to themselves a liberty of taking where they pleased Some have permitted the Crown to be hereditary as to its ordinary course but restrained the Power and instituted Officers to inspect the Proceedings of Kings and to take care that the Laws were not violated Of this sort were the Ephori of Sparta the Maires du Palais and afterwards the Constable of France the Justicia in Arragon Rijckshofmeister in Denmark the High Steward in England and in all places such Assemblies as are before-mentioned under several names who had the Power of the whole Nation Some have continued long and it may be always in the same form others have changed
Life and the Equality properly belonging to Brethren 'T is not easy to determine whether Shem or Japhet were the Elder but Ham is declared to be the younger and Noah's Blessing to Shem seems to be purely Prophetical and Spiritual of what should be accomplished in his Posterity with which Japhet should be perswaded to join If it had bin worldly the whole Earth must have bin brought under him and have for ever continued in his Race which never was accomplished otherwise than in the Spiritual Kingdom of Christ which relates not to our Author's Lord Paramount As to earthly Kings the first of them was Nimrod the sixth Son of Chush the Son of Ham Noah's younger and accursed Son This Kingdom was set up about a hundred and thirty Years after the Flood whilst Chush Ham Shem and Noah were yet living whereas if there were any thing of Truth in our Author's Proposition all Mankind must have continued under the Government of Noah whilst he lived and that Power must have bin transmitted to Shem who lived about three hundred and seventy Years after the erection of Nimrod's Kingdom and must have come to Japhet if he was the Elder but could never come to Cham who is declared to have bin certainly the Younger and condemned to be a Servant to them both much less to the younger Son of his Son whilst he and those to whom he and his Posterity were to be Subjects were still living This Rule therefore which the Partizans of Absolute Monarchy fancy to be universal and perpetual falling out in its first beginning directly contrary to what they assert and being never known to have bin recovered were enough to silence them if they had any thing of modesty or regard to Truth But the Matter may be carried farther For the Scripture doth not only testify that this Kingdom of Nimrod was an Usurpation void of all Right proceeding from the most violent and mischievous Vices but exercised with the utmost fury that the most wicked Man of the accursed Race who set himself up against God and all that is good could be capable of The progress of this Kingdom was sutable to its Institution that which was begun in wickedness was carried on with madness and produced Confusion The mighty Hunter whom the best Interpreters call a cruel Tyrant receding from the simplicity and innocence of the Patriarchs who were Husbandmen or Shepherds arrogating to himself a Dominion over Shem to whom he and his Fathers were to be Servants did thereby so peculiarly become the Heir of God's Curse that whatsoever hath bin said to this day of the Power that did most directly set it self against God and his People hath related literally to the Babel that he built or figuratively to that which resembles it in Pride Cruelty Injustice and Madness But the shameless rage of some of these Writers is such that they rather chuse to ascribe the beginning of their Idol to this odious Violence than to own it from the consent of a willing People as if they thought that as all Action must be sutable to its Principle so that which is unjust in its practice ought to scorn to be derived from that which is not detestable in its principle 'T is hardly worth our pains to examin whether the Nations that went from Babel after the confusion of Languages were more or less than seventy two for they seem not to have gone according to Families but every one to have associated himself to those that understood his Speech and the chief of the Fathers as Noah and his Sons were not there or wore subject to Nimrod each of which Points doth destroy even in the Root all pretence to Paternal Government Besides 't is evident in Scripture that Noah lived three hundred and fifty Years after the Flood Shem five hundred Abraham was born about two hundred and ninety Years after the Flood and lived one hundred seventy five Years He was therefore born under the Government of Noah and died under that of Shem He could not therefore exercise a Regal Power whilst he lived for that was in Shem So that in leaving his Country and setting up a Family for himself that never acknowledged any Superior and never pretending to reign over any other he fully shewed he thought himself free and to owe subjection to none And being as far from arrogating to himself any Power upon the Title of Paternity as from acknowledging it in any other left every one to the same liberty The punctual enumeration of the Years that the Fathers of the holy Seed lived gives us ground of making a more than probable conjecture that they of the collateral Lines were in number of days not unequal to them and if that be true Ham and Chush were alive when Nimrod set himself up to be King He must therefore have usurped this Power over his Father Grandfather and great Grandfather or which is more probable he turned into violence and oppression the Power given to him by a multitude which like a Flock without a Shepherd not knowing whom to obey set him up to be their Chief I leave to our Author the liberty of chusing which of these two doth best sute with his Paternal Monarchy but as far as I can understand the first is directly against it as well as against the Laws of God and Man the other being from the consent of the Multitude cannot be extended farther than they would have it nor turned to their prejudice without the most abominable ingratitude and treachery from whence no Right can be derived nor any justifiable Example taken Nevertheless if our Author resolve that Abraham was also a King he must presume that Shem did emancipate him before he went to seek his Fortune This was not a Kingly posture but I will not contradict him if 1 may know over whom he reigned Paternal Monarchy is exercised by the Father of the Family over his Descendants or such as had bin under the dominion of him whose Heir he is But Abraham had neither of these Those of his nearest Kindred continued in Mesopotamia as appears by what is said of Bethuel and Laban He had only Lot with him over whom he pretended no right He had no Children till he was a hundred years old that is to say he was a King without a Subject and then he had but one I have heard that Soveraigns do impatiently bear Competitors but now I find Subjection also doth admit of none Abraham's Kingdom was too great when he had two Children and to disburthen it Ishmael must be expelled soon after the birth of Isaac He observed the same method after the death of Sarah He had Children by Keturah but he gave them Gifts and sent them away leaving Isaac like a Stoical King reigning in and over himself without any other Subject till the birth of Jacob and Esau. But his Kingdom was not to be of a larger extent than that of his Father
and good or to subject the best to the rage of the worst If there be any Family therefore in the world that can by the Law of God and Nature distinct from the Ordinance of Man pretend to an hereditary Right of Dominion over any People it must be one that never did and never can produce any person that is not free from all the Infirmities and Vices that render him unable to exercise the Sovereign Power and is endowed with all the Vertues required to that end or at least a promise from God verified by experience that the next in Blood shall ever be able and fit for that work But since we do not know that any such hath yet appeared in the World we have no reason to believe that there is or ever was any such and consequently none upon whom God hath conferred the Rights that cannot be exercised without them If there was no shadow of a Paternal Right in the Institution of the Kingdoms of Saul and David there could be none in those that succeeded Rehoboam could have no other than from Solomon When he reigned over two Tribes and Jeroboam over ten 't is not possible that both of them could be the next Heir of their last common Father Jacob and 't is absurd to say that ought to be reputed which is impossible for our thoughts are ever to be guided by Truth or such an appearance of it as doth perswade or convince us The same Title of Father is yet more ridiculously or odiously applied to the succeeding Kings Baasha had no other Title to the Crown than by killing Nadab the Son of Jeroboam and destroying his Family Zimri purchased the same honour by the slaughter of Elah when he was drunk and dealing with the House of Baasha as he had done with that of Jeroboam Zimri burning himself transferred the same to Omri as a reward for bringing him to that extremity As Jehu was more fierce than these he seems to have gained a more excellent recompence than any since Jeroboam even a conditional Promise of a perpetual Kingdom but falling from these glorious Privileges purchased by his zeal in killing two wicked Kings and above one hundred of their Brethren Shallum inherited them by destroying Zachary and all that remained of his Race This in plain English is no less than to say that whosoever kills a King and invades a Crown tho the act and means of accomplishing it be never so detestable dos thereby become Father of his Country and Heir of all the divine Privileges annexed to that glorious Inheritance And tho I cannot tell whether such a Doctrine be more sottish monstrous or impious I dare affirm that if it were received no King in the World could think himself safe in his Throne for one day They are already encompassed with many dangers but lest Pride Avarice Ambition Lust Rage and all the Vices that usually reign in the hearts of worldly men should not be sufficient to invite them perpetually to disturb Mankind through the desire of gaining the Power Riches and Splendor that accompanies a Crown our Author proposes to them the most sacred Privileges as a reward of the most execrable Crimes He that was stirred up only by the violence of his own Nature thought that a Kingdom could never be bought at too dear a rate Pro Regno velim Patriam Penates conjugem flammis dare Imperia precio quolibet constant bene Senec. Theb. But if the sacred Character of God's Anointed or Vicegerent and Father of a Country were added to the other Advantages that follow the highest Fortunes the most modest and just men would be filled with fury that they might attain to them Nay it may be even the best would be the most forward in conspiring against such as reigned They who could not be tempted with external Pleasures would be most in love with divine Privileges and since they should become the sacred Ministers of God if they succeeded and Traitors or Rogues only if they miscarried their only care would be so to lay their Designs that they might be surely executed This is a Doctrine worthy of Filmer's Invention and Heylin's Approbation which being well weighed will shew to all good and just Kings how far they are obliged to those who under pretence of advancing their Authority fill the minds of men with such Notions as are so desperately pernicious to them SECT XVI The Antients chose those to be Kings who excelled in the Vertues that are most beneficial to Civil Societies IF the Israelites whose Lawgiver was God had no King in the first Institution of their Government 't is no wonder that other Nations should not think themselves obliged to set up any if they who came all of one stock and knew their Genealogies when they did institute Kings had no regard to our Author 's Chimerical right of Inheritance nor were taught by God or his Prophets to have any 't is not strange that Nations who did not know their own Original and who probably if not certainly came of several Stocks never put themselves to the trouble of seeking one who by his birth deserved to be preferred before others and if the various Changes happening in all Kingdoms whereby in process of time the Crowns were transported into divers Families to which the Right of Inheritance could not without the utmost impiety and madness be imputed such a fancy certainly could only enter into the heads of Fools and we know of none so foolish to have harbour'd it The Grecians amongst others who sollowed the Light of Reason knew no other original Title to the Government of a Nation than that Wisdom Valour and Justice which was beneficial to the People These Qualities gave beginning to those Governments which we call Heroum Regna and the veneration paid to such as enjoyed them proceeded from a grateful sense of the good received from them They were thought to be descended from the Gods who in vertue and beneficence surpassed other men The same attended their Descendents till they came to abuse their Power and by their Vices shewed themselves like to or worse than others Those Nations did not seek the most antient but the most worthy and thought such only worthy to be preferred before others who could best perform their Duty The Spartans knew that Hercules and Achilles were not their Fathers for they were a Nation before either of them were born but thinking their Children might be like to them in valour they brought them from Thebes and Epirus to be their Kings If our Author is of another opinion I desire to know whether the Heraclidae or the AEacidae were or ought to be reputed Fathers of the Lacedemonians for if the one was the other was not The same method was followed in Italy and they who esteemed themselves Aborigines Qui rupto robore nati Compositive Luto nullos habuere parentes Juven Sat. 6. could not set up one to govern them under the Title of
must perpetually spring First if there be such a Law no Human Constitution can alter it No length of time can be a defence against it All Governments that are not conformable to it are vicious and void even in their root and must be so for ever That which is originally unjust may be justly overthrown We do not know of any at least in that part of the World in which we are most concerned that is established or exercised with an absolute power as by the Authors of those opinions is esteemed inseparable from it Many as the Empire and other States are directly contrary and on that account can have no justice in them It being certain therefore that he or they who exercise those Governments have no right that there is a Man to whom it doth belong and no man knowing who he is there is no one man who has not as good a title to it as any other There is not therefore one who hath not a right as well as any to overthrow that which hath none at all He that hath no part in the Government may destroy it as well as he that has the greatest for he neither has that which God ordained he should have nor can shew a title to that which he enjoys from that original Prerogative of Birth from whence it can only be derived If it be said that some Governments are arbitrary as they ought to be and France Turky and the like be alledged as instances the matter is not mended for we do not only know when those who deserve to be regarded by us were not absolute and how they came to be so but also that those very Families which are now in possession are not of very long continuance had no more title to the original right we speak of than any other men and consequently can have none to this day And tho we cannot perhaps say that the Governments of the barbarous Eastern Nations were ever other than they are yet the known Original of them deprives them of all pretence to the Patriarchical Inheritance and they may be as justly as any other deprived of the Power to which they have no title In the second place tho all mens Genealogies were extant and fully verified and it were allowed that the Dominion of the World or every part of it did belong to the right Heir of the first Progenitor or any other to whom the first did rightly assign the parcel which is under question yet it were impossible for us to know who should be esteemed the true Heir or according to what rule he should be judged so to be for God hath not by a precise word determined it and Men cannot agree about it as appears by the various Laws and Customs of several Nations disposing severally of Hereditary Dominions 'T is a folly to say they ought to go to the next in blood for 't is not known who is that next Some give the preference to him who amongst many Competitors is the sewest degrees removed from their common Progenitor who first obtained the Crown Others look only upon the last that possessed it Some admit of representation by which means the Grandchild of a King by his eldest Son is preferred before his second Son he being said to represent his dead Father who was the eldest Others exclude these and advance the younger Son who is nearer by one degree to the common Progenitor that last enjoyed the Crown than the Grandchild According to the first rule Richard the second was advanced to the Crown of England as Son of the eldest Son of Edward the third before his Uncles who by one degree were nearer to the last Possessor And in pursuance of the second Sancho sirnamed the Brave second Son of Alphonso the Wise King of Castile was preferred before Alphonso Son of Ferdinand his elder Brother according to the Law of Thanestry which was in sorce in Spain ever since we have had any knowledg of that Country as appears by the contest between Corbis and Orsua decided by Combat before Stipio Africanus continued in full force as long as the Kingdom of the Goths lasted and was ever highly valued till the House of Austria got possession of that Country and introduced Laws and Customs formerly unknown to the Inhabitants The Histories of all Nations furnish us with innumerable Examples of both sorts and whosoever takes upon him to determine which side is in the right ought to shew by what authority he undertakes to be the Judg of Mankind and how the infinite breaches thereby made upon the rights of the governing Families shall be cured without the overthrow of those that he shall condemn and of the Nations where such Laws have bin in sorce as he dislikes and till that be done in my opinion no place will afford a better lodging for him that shall impudently assume such a Power than the new buildings in Moor-Fields 'T is no less hard to decide whether this next Heir is to be sought in the Male line only or whether Females also be admitted If we follow the first as the Law of God and Nature the title of our English Kings is wholly abolished for not one of them since Henry the 1 st has had the least pretence to an inheritance by the masculine Line and if it were necessary we have enough to say of those that were before them If it be said that the same Right belongs to Females it ought to be proved that Women are as fit as Men to perform the Office of a King that is as the Israelites said to Samuel to go in and out before us to judg us and to fight our Battels for it were an impious folly to say that God had ordained those for the Offices on which the good of Mankind so much depends who by nature are unable to perform the duties of them If on the other side the sweetness gentleness delicacy and tenderness of the Sex render them so unfit for manly exercises that they are accounted utterly repugnant to and inconsistent with that modesty which does so eminently shine in all those that are good amongst them that Law of Nature which should advance them to the Government of Men would overthrow its own work and make those to be the heads of Nations which cannot be the heads of private Families for as the Apostle says The Woman is not the head of the Man but the Man is the head of the Woman This were no less than to oblige Mankind to lay aside the name of reasonable Creature for if Reason be his Nature it cannot enjoin that which is contrary to it self if it be not the definition Homo est animal rationale is false and ought no longer to be assumed If any man think these Arguments to be mistaken or misapplied I desire him to enquire of the French Nation on what account they have always excluded Females and such as descended from them How comes the House of Bourbon to
so many of those who had enjoy'd the same honour or might aspire to it as to bring them for his pleasure to betray their Country and as no man was ever chosen who had not given great testimonies of his Vertues so no one did ever forfeit the good opinion conceived of him Vertue was then honour'd and thought so necessarily to comprehend a sincere love and fidelity to the Commonwealth that without it the most eminent qualities were reputed vile and odious and the memory of former Services could no way expiate the guilt of conspiring against it This seeming Severity was in truth the greatest Clemency for tho our Author has the impudence to say that during the Roman Liberty the best men thrived worst and the worst best he cannot alledg one example of any eminent Roman put to death except Manlius Capitolinus from the expulsion of the Tarquins to the time of the Gracchi and the Civil Wars not long after ensuing and of very few who were banished By these means Crimes were prevented and the temptations to evil being removed Treachery was destroy'd in the root and such as might be naturally ambitious were made to see there was no other way to Honour and Power than by acting virtuously But lest this should not be sufficient to restrain aspiring men what Power soever was granted to any Magistrate the Soveraignty still remained in the People and all without exception were subject to them This may seem strange to those who think the Dictators were absolute because they are said to have bin sine provocatione but that is to be only understood in relation to other Magistrates and not to the People as is clearly proved in the case of Q. Fabius whom Papirius the Dictator would have put to death Tribunos Plebis appello says Fabius Maximus his Father provoco ad Populum eumque tibi fugienti exercitus tui fugienti Senatus judicium Judicem fero qui certe unus plusquam tua dictatura potest polletque videro cessurusne sis provocationi cui Tullus Hostilius cessit And tho the People did rather interceed for Fabius than command his deliverance that modesty did evidently proceed from an opinion that Papirius was in the right and tho they desired to save Fabius who seems to have bin one of the greatest and best men that ever the City produced they would not enervate that military Discipline to which they owed not only their greatness but their subsistence most especially when their Soveraign Authority was acknowledged by all and the Dictator himself had submitted This right of Appeals to the People was the foundation of the Roman Commonwealth laid in the days of Romulus submitted to by Hostilius in the case of Horatius and never violated till the Laws and the Liberty which they supported were overthrown by the power of the Sword This is confirmed by the speech of Metellus the Tribune who in the time of the second Carthaginian War causelesly disliking the Proceedings of Q. Fabius Maximus then Dictator in a publick Assembly of the People said Quod si antiquus animus Plebi Romanae esset se audacter laturum de abrogando Q. Fabii Imperio nunc modicam rogationem promulgaturum de aequando Magistri Equitum Dictatoris jure which was done and that Action which had no precedent shews that the People needed none and that their Power being eminently above that of all Magistrates was obliged to no other rule than that of their own Will Tho I do therefore grant that a Power like to the Dictatorian limited in time circumscribed by Law and kept perpetually under the supreme Authority of the People may by vertuous and well-disciplin'd Nations upon some occasions be prudently granted to a vertuous man it can have no relation to our Author's Monarch whose Power is in himself subject to no Law perpetually exercised by himself and for his own sake whether he have any of the abilities required for the due performance of so great a work or be intirely destitute of them nothing being more unreasonable than to deduce consequences from cases which in substance and circumstances are altogether unlike but to the contrary these examples shewing that the Romans even in the time of such Magistrates as seemed to be most absolute did retain and exercise the Soveraign Power do most evidently prove that the Government was ever the same remaining in the People who without prejudice might give the Administration to one or more men as best pleased themselves and the success shews that they did it prudently SECT XIV No Sedition was hurtful to Rome till through their Prosperity some men gained a Power above the Laws LIttle pains is required to confute our Author who imputes much bloodshed to the popular Government of Rome for he cannot prove that one man was unjustly put to death or slain in any Sedition before Publius Gracchus The Foundations of the Common-wealth were then so shaken that the Laws could not be executed and whatsoever did then fall out ought to be attributed to the Monarchy for which the great men began to contend Whilst they had no other Wars than with neighbouring Nations they had a strict eye upon their Commanders and could preserve Discipline among the Soldiers but when by the excellence of their Valour and Conduct the greatest Powers of the World were subdued and for the better carrying on of foreign Wars Armies were suffered to continue in the same hands longer than the Law did direct Soldiery came to be accounted a Trade and those who had the worst designs against the Commonwealth began to favour all manner of Licentiousness and Rapine that they might gain the favour of the Legions who by that means became unruly and seditious 't was hard if not impossible to preserve a Civil equality when the Spoils of the greatest Kingdoms were brought to adorn the Houses of private men and they who had the greatest Cities and Nations to be their Dependents and Clients were apt to scorn the power of the Law This was a most dangerous Disease like those to which human Bodies are subject when they are arrived to that which Physicians call the Athletick habit proceeding from the highest perfection of Health Activity and Strength that the best Constitution by Diet and Exercise can attain Whosoever falls into them shews that he had attain'd that perfection and he who blames that which brings a State into the like condition condemns that which is most perfect among men Whilst the Romans were in the way to this no Sedition did them any hurt they were composed without Blood and those that seemed to be the most dangerous produced the best Laws But when they were arrived to that condition no Order could do them good the fatal period set to human things was come they could go no higher Summisque negatum Stare diu and all that our Author blames is not to be imputed to their Constitution but their departing from
Nature sutable to their Original all Tyrannies have had their beginnings from corruption The Histories of Greece Sicily and Italy shew that all those who made themselves Tyrants in several places did it by the help of the worst and the slaughter of the best Men could not be made subservient to their Lusts whilst they continued in their integrity so as their business was to destroy those who would not be corrupted They must therefore endeavour to maintain or increase the corruption by which they attain their greatness If they fail in this point they must fall as Tarquin Pisistratus and others have done but if they succeed so far that the vicious part do much prevail the Government is secure tho the Prince may be in danger And the same thing doth in a great measure accidentally conduce to the safety of his Person For they who for the most part are the Authors of great Revolutions not being so much led by a particular hatred to the man as by a desire to do good to the publick seldom set themselves to conspire against the Tyrant unless he be altogether detestable and intolerable if they do not hope to overthrow the Tyranny The contrary is seen in all popular and well-mixed Governments they are ever established by wise and good men and can never be upheld otherwise than by Virtue The worst men always conspiring against them they must fall if the best have not power to preserve them Wheresoever therefore a People is so governed the Magistrates will obviate afar off the introduction of Vices which tend as much to the ruin of their Persons and Government as to the preservation of the Prince and his This is evidenced by experience 'T is not easy to name a Monarch that had so many good qualities as Julius Cesar till they were extinguished by his ambition which was inconsistent with them He knew that his strength lay in the corruption of the People and that he could not accomplish his designs without increasing it He did not seek good men but such as would be for him and thought none sufficiently addicted to his Interests but such as stuck at the performance of no wickedness that he commanded he was a Souldier according to Cesar's heart who said Pectore si fratris gladium juguloque parentis Condere me jubeas gravidaeve in viscera partu Conjugis invita peragam tamen omnia dextra Lucan And lest such as were devoted to him should grow faint in Villany he industriously inflamed their fury Vult omniâ— Caesar A se saeva peti vult praemia Martis amari Ib. Having spread this Poison amongst the Souldiers his next work was by corrupting the Tribuns to turn the Power to the destruction of the People which had bin erected for their preservation and pouring the Treasures he had gained by rapine in Gaul into the bosom of Curio made him an instrument of mischief who had bin a most eminent Supporter of the Laws Tho he was thought to have affected the glory of sparing Cato and with trouble to have found that he despised life when it was to be accounted his gift yet in suspecting Brutus and Cassius he shew'd he could not believe that virtuous men who loved their Country could be his Friends Such as carry on the like designs with less Valour Wit and Generosity of Spirit will always be more bitterly bent to destroy all that are good knowing that the deformity of their own Vices is rendred most manifest when they are compared with the good qualities of those who are most unlike them and that they can never defend themselves against the scorn and hatred they incur by their Vices unless such a number can be infected with the same and made to delight in the recompences of iniquity that foment them as may be able to keep the rest of the People in subjection The same thing happens even when the Usurpation is not so violent as that of Agathocles Dionysius or the last King of Denmark who in one day by the strength of a mercenary Souldiery overthrew all the Laws of his Country and a lawfully created Magistrate is forced to follow the same ways as soon as he begins to affect a power which the Laws do not confer upon him I wish I could say there were few of these but experience shews that such a proportion of Wisdom moderation of Spirit and Justice is requir'd in a supreme Magistrate to render him content with a limited Power as is seldom found Man is of an aspiring nature and apt to put too high a value upon himself they who are raised above their Brethren tho but a little desire to go farther and if they gain the name of King they think themselves wronged and degraded when they are not suffer'd to do what they please Sanctitas pietas fides Privata bona sunt Qua juvat reges eant In these things they never want Masters and the nearer they come to a power that is not easily restrained by Law the more passionately they desire to abolish all that opposes it and when their Hearts are filled with this fury they never fail to chuse such Ministers as will be subservient to their Will and this is so well known that those only approach them who resolve to be so Their interests as well as their inclinations incite them to diffuse their own manners as far as they can which is no less than to bring those who are under their power to all that wickedness of which the nature of man is capable and no greater testimony can be given of the efficacy of these means towards the utter corruption of Nations than the accursed effects we see of them in our own and the neighbouring Countries It may be said that some Princes are so full of Virtue and Goodness as not to desire more power than the Laws allow and are not obliged to chuse ill men because they desire nothing but what the best are willing to do This may be and sometimes is the Nation is happy that has such a King but he is hard to find and more than a human power is required to keep him in so good a way The strength of his own affections will ever be against him Wives Children and Servants will always join with those Enemies that arise in his own breast to pervert him if he has any weak side any Lust unsubdued they will gain the victory He has not search'd into the nature of man who thinks that any one can resist when he is thus on all sides assaulted Nothing but the wonderful and immediate power of God's Spirit can preserve him and to alledg it will be nothing to the purpose unless it can be proved that all Princes are blessed with such an assistance or that God hath promised it to them and their Successors for ever by what means soever they came to the Crowns they enjoy Nothing is farther from my intention than to speak irreverently of Kings and
I presume no wise man will think I do so if I profess that having observed as well as I can what History and daily Experience teach us concerning the Virtues and Religions that are or have bin from the beginning of the World encouraged and supported by Monarchs the methods they have follow'd since they have gone under the name of Christians their moral as well as their theological Graces together with what the Scriptures tell us of those who in the last days will principally support the Throne of Antichrist I cannot be confident that they are generally in an extraordinary manner preserved by the hand of God from the Vices and Frailties to which the rest of mankind is subject If no man can shew that I am in this mistaken I may conclude that as they are more than any other men in the world exposed to temptations and snares they are more than any in danger of being corrupted and made Instruments of corrupting others if they are no otherwise defended than the rest of men This being the state of the matter on both sides we may easily collect that all Governments are subject to corruption and decay but with this difference that Absolute Monarchy is by principle led unto or rooted in it whereas mixed or popular Governments are only in a possibility of falling into it As the first cannot subsist unless the prevailing part of the people be corrupted the other must certainly perish unless they be preserved in a great measure free from Vices and I doubt whether any better reason can be given why there have bin and are more Monarchies than popular Governments in the world than that Nations are more easily drawn into corruption than defended from it and I think that Monarchy can be said to be natural in no other sense than that our depraved nature is most inclined to that which is worst To avoid unnecessary Disputes I give the name of Popular Governments to those of Rome Athens Sparta and the like tho improperly unless the same may also be given to many that are usually called Monarchies since there is nothing of violence in either the Power is conferr'd upon the chief Magistrates of both by the free consent of a willing People and such a part as they think fit is still retained and executed in their own Assemblies and in this sense it is that our Author seems to speak against them As to Popular Government in the strictest sense that is pure Democracy where the People in themselves and by themselves perform all that belongs to Government I know of no such thing and if it be in the World have nothing to say for it In asserting the Liberty generally as I suppose granted by God to all mankind I neither deny that so many as think fit to enter into a Society may give so much of their Power as they please to one or more men for a time or perpetually to them and their Heirs according to such Rules as they prescribe nor approve the Disorders that must arise if they keep it intirely in their own hands And looking upon the several Governments which under different forms and names have bin regularly constituted by Nations as so many undeniable Testimonies that they thought it good for themselves and their Posterity so to do I infer that as there is no man who would not rather chuse to be governed by such as are just industrious valiant and wise than by those that are wicked slothful cowardly and foolish and to live in society with such as are qualified like those of the first sort rather than with those who will be ever ready to commit all manner of Villanies or want experience strength or courage to join in repelling the Injuries that are offer'd by others So there are none who do not according to the measure of understanding they have endeavour to set up those who seem to be best qualified and to prevent the introduction of those Vices which render the Faith of the Magistrate suspected or make him unable to perform his duty in providing for the execution of Justice and the publick defence of the State against Foreign or Domestick Enemies For as no man who is not absolutely mad will commit the care of a Flock to a Villain that has neither skill diligence nor courage to defend them or perhaps is maliciously set to destroy them rather than to a stout faithful and wise Shepherd 't is less to be imagined that any would commit the same error in relation to that Society which comprehends himself with his Children Friends and all that is dear to him The same Considerations are of equal force in relation to the Body of every Nation For since the Magistrate tho the most perfect in his kind cannot perform his duty if the people be so base vicious effeminate and cowardly as not to second his good Intentions those who expect good from him cannot desire so to corrupt their Companions that are to help him as to render it impossible for him to accomplish it Tho I believe there have bin in all Ages bad men in every Nation yet I doubt whether there was one in Rome except a Catiline or a Cesar who design'd to make themselves Tyrants that would not rather have wished the whole People as brave and virtuous as in the time of the Carthaginian Wars than vile and base as in the days of Nero and Domitian But 't is madness to think that the whole Body would not rather wish to be as it was when Virtue flourished and nothing upon earth was able to resist their power than weak miserable base slavish and trampled under foot by any that would invade them and forced as a Chattel to become a prey to those that were strongest Which is sufficient to shew that a People acting according to the liberty of their own Will never advance unworthy men unless it be by mistake nor willingly suffer the introduction of Vices Whereas the Absolute Monarch always prefers the worst of those who are addicted to him and cannot subsist unless the prevailing part of the People be base and vicious If it be said that those Governments in which the Democratical part governs most do more frequently err in the choice of men or the means of preserving that purity of Manners which is required for the well-being of a People than those wherein Aristocracy prevails I confess it and that in Rome and Athens the best and wisest men did for the most part incline to Aristocracy Xenophon Plato Aristotle Thucydides Livy Tacitus Cicero and others were of this sort But if our Author there seek Patrons for his Absolute Monarchy he will find none but Phalaris Agathocles Dionysius Catiline Cethegus Lentulus with the corrupted Crew of mercenary Rascals who did or endeavour'd to set them up These are they quibus ex honesto nulla est spes they abhor the Dominion of the Law because it curbs their Vices and make themselves subservient to
their Dominion on the Terra firma and prepared to assault the City it was under God solely preserved by the vigour and wisdom of their Nobility who tho no way educated to War unless by Sea sparing neither persons nor purses did with admirable industry and courage first recover Padoüa and then many other Cities so as at the end of that terrible War they came off without any diminution of their Territories Whereas Portugal having in our age revolted from the House of Austria no one doubts that it had bin immediately reduced if the great men of Spain had not bin pleased with such a lessening of their Master's power and resolved not to repair it by the recovery of that Kingdom or to deprive themselves of an cafy retreat when they should be oppressed by him or his Favourites The like thought was more plainly express'd by the Mareschal de Bassompierre who sceing how hardly Rochel was pressed by Lewis the 13th faid he thought they should be such fools to take it but 't is believ'd they would never have bin such fools and the treachery only of our Countrymen did enable the Cardinal Richlieu to do it as for his own glory and the advancement of the Popish Cause he really intended and nothing is to this day more common in the mouth of their wisest and best men tho Papists than the acknowledgment of their own folly in suffering that place to fall the King having by thar means gotten power to proceed against them at his pleasure The brave Monsieur de Turenne is said to have carried this to a greater height in his last Discourse to the present King of France You think said he you have Armies but you have none the one half of the Officers are the Bawdy-house Companions of Monsieur de xxx or the Creatures of his Whore Madam de xxx the other half may be men of experience and fit for their Imployments but they are such as would be pleased with nothing more than to see you lose two or three Battels that coming to stand in need of them you might cause them to be better used by your Ministers than of late they have bin It may easily be imagin'd how men in such sentiments do serve their Master and nothing is more evident than that the French in this age have had so great advantages that they might have brought Europe and perhaps Asia under their power if the interest of the Nation had bin united to that of the Government and the Strength Vigour and Bravery of the Nobility employ'd that way But since it has pleased God to suffer us to fall into a condition of being little able to help our selves and that they are in so good terms with the Turk as not to attack him 't is our happiness that they do not know their own strength or cannot without ruin to themselves turn it to our prejudice I could give yet more pregnant testimonies of the difference between men fighting for their own interests in the Offices to which they had bin advanced by the votes of numerous Assemblies and such as serve for pay and get preferments by corruption or favour if I were not unwilling to stir the spleen of some men by obliging them to reflect upon what has passed in our own Age and Country to compare the justice of our Tribunals within the time of our memory and the integrity of those who for a while manag'd the publick Treasure the Discipline Valour and Strength of our Armies and Fleets the increase of our Riches and Trade the success of our Wars in Scotland Ireland and at Sea the glory and reputation not long since gained with that condition into which we are of late fallen But I think I shall offend no wise or good man if I say that as neither the Romans nor Grecians in the time of their Liberty ever performed any actions more glorious than freeing the Country from a Civil War that had raged in every part the conquest of two such Kingdoms as Scotland and Ireland and crushing the formidable power of the Hollanders by Sea nor ever produced more examples of Valor Industry Integrity and in all respects compleat disinterested unmovable and incorruptible Virtue than were at that time seen in our Nation So neither of them upon the change of their Affairs did exceed us in weakness cowardice baseness venality lewdness and all manner of corruption We have reason therefore not only to believe that all Princes do not necessarily understand the affairs of their People or provide better for them than those who are otherwise chosen but that as there is nothing of Greatness Power Riches Strength and Happiness which we might not reasonably have hoped for if we had rightly improved the advantages we had so there is nothing of shame and misery which we may not justly fear since we have neglected them If any man think that this evil of advancing Officers for personal respects favour or corruption is not of great extent I desire him to consider that the Officers of State Courts of Justice Church Armies Fleets and Corporations are of such number and power as wholly to corrupt a Nation when they themselves are corrupted and will ever be corrupt when they attain to their Offices by corruption The good mannagement of all Affairs Civil Military and Ecclesiastical necessarily depends upon good order and discipline and 't is not in the power of common men to reform abuses patronized by those in Authority nor to prevent the mischiefs thereupon ensuing and not having power to direct publick actions to the publick good they must consequently want the industry and affection that is required to bring them to a good issue The Romans were easily beaten under the Decemviri tho immediatly before the erection and after the extinction of that Power none of their Neighbours were able to resist them The Goths who with much glory had reigned in Spain for about three hundred years had neither strength nor courage under their lewd and odious King Rodrigo and were in one day subdued with little loss of blood by the Saracens and could not in less than eight hundred years free their Country from them That brave Nation having of late fallen under as base a conduct has now as little heart or power to defend it self Court-Parasites have rendred Valour ridiculous and they who have ever shew'd themselves as much inclin'd to Arms as any people of the world do now abhor them and are sent to the Wars by force laid in Carts and bound like Calves brought to the Shambles and left to starve in Flanders as soon as they arrive It may easily be judged what service can be expected from such men tho they should happen to be well commanded but the great Officers by the corruption of the Court think only of enriching themselves and encreasing the misery of the Soldiers by their frauds both become equally useless to the State Notwithstanding the seeming prosperity
had a power like to that of the Sanhedrin and by them Kings were condemned to fines imprisonment banishment and death as appears by the examples of Pausanias Clonymus Leonidas Agis and others The Hebrew Discipline was the same Reges Davidicae stirpis says Maimonides judicabant judicabantur They gave testimony in judgment when they were called and testimony was given against them Whereas the Kings of Israel as the same Author says were superbi corde elati spretores legis nec judicabant nec judicabantur proud insolent and contemners of the Law who would neither judg nor submit to judgment as the Law commanded The Fruits they gathered were sutable to the Seed they had sown their Crimes were not left unpunish'd they who despised the Law were destroy'd without Law and when no ordinary course could be taken against them for their excesses they were overthrown by force and the Crown within the space of sew years transported into nine several Families with the utter extirpation of those that had possess'd it On the other hand there never was any Sedition against the Spartan Kings and after the moderate Discipline according to which they liv'd was established none of them died by the hands of their Subjects except only two who were put to death in a way of Justice the Kingdom continued in the same races till Cleomenes was defeated by Antigonus and the Government overthrown by the insolence of the Macedonians This gave occasion to those bestial Tyrants Nabis and Machanidas to set up such a Government as our Author recommends to the World which immediately brought destruction upon themselves and the whole City The Germans who pretended to be descended from the Spartans had the like Government Their Princes according to their merit had the credit of perswading not the power of commanding and the question was not what part of the Government their Kings would allow to the Nobility and People but what they would give to their Kings and 't is not much material to our present dispute whether they learnt this from some obscure knowledg of the Law which God gave to his People or whether led by the light of reason which is also from God they discovered what was altogether conformable to that Law Whoever understands the affairs of Germany knows that the present Emperors notwithstanding their haughty Title have a power limited as in the days of Tacitus If they are good and wise they may perswade but they can command no farther than the Law allows They do not admit the Princes Noblemen and Cities to the power which they all exercise in their general Diets and each of them within their own Precincts but they exercise that which has bin by publick consent bestow'd upon them All the Kingdoms peopled from the North observed the same rules In all of them the powers were divided between the Kings the Nobility Clergy and Commons and by the Decrees of Councils Diets Parliaments Cortez and Assemblies of Estates Authority and Liberty were so balanced that such Princes as assumed to themselves more than the Law did permit were severely punished and those who did by force or fraud invade Thrones were by force thrown down from them This was equally beneficial to Kings and People The Powers as Theopompus King of Sparta said were most safe when they were least envied and hated Lewis the 11th of France was one of the first that broke this Golden Chain and by more subtil Arts than had bin formerly known subverted the Laws by which the fury of those Kings had bin restrain'd and taught others to do the like tho all of them have not so well saved themselves from punishment James the third of Scotland was one of his most apt Scholars and Buchanan in his life says That he was precipitated into all manner of Infamy by men of the most abject condition that the corruption of those times and the ill Example of neighbouring Princes were considerable motives to pervert him for Edward the fourth of England Charles of Burgundy Lewis the 11th of France and John the second of Portugal had already laid the Foundations of Tyranny in those Countries and Richard the third was then most cruelly exercising the same in the Kingdom of England This could not have bin if all the Power had always bin in Kings and neither the People nor the Nobility had ever had any For no man can be said to gain that which he and his Predecessors always possessed or to take from others that which they never had nor to set up any sort of Government if it had bin always the same But the foresaid Lewis the 11th did assume to himself a Power above that of his Predecessors and Philip de Commines shews the ways by which he acquir'd it with the miserable effects of his Acquisition both to himself and to his people Modern Authors observe that the change was made by him and for that reason he is said by Mezeray and others to have brought those Kings out of Guardianship they were not therefore so till he did emancipate them Nevertheless this Emancipation had no resemblance to the unlimited Power of which our Author dreams The General Assemblies of Estates were often held long after his death and continued in the exercise of the Sovereign Power of the Nation Davila speaking of the General Assembly held at Orleans in the time of Francis the second asserts the whole Power of the Nation to have bin in them Monsieur de Thou says the same thing and adds that the King dying suddenly the Assembly continued even at the desire of the Council in the exercise of that Power till they had setled the Regency and other Affairs of the highest importance according to their own judgment Hottoman a Lawyer of that Time and Nation famous for his Learning Judgment and Integrity having diligently examin'd the antient Laws and Histories of that Kingdom distinctly proves that the French Nation never had any Kings but of their own chusing that their Kings had no Power except what was conferr'd upon them and that they had bin removed when they excessively abused or readred themselves unworthy of that Trust. This is sufficiently clear by the forecited examples of Pharamond's Grandchildren and the degenerated Races of Meroveus and Pepin of which many were deposed some of the nearest in Blood excluded and when their Vices seemed to be incorrigible they were wholly rejected All this was done by virtue of that Rule which they call the Salique Law And tho some of our Princes pretending to the Inheritance of that Crown by marrying the Heirs General denied that there was any such thing no man can say that for the space of above twelve hundred years Females or their Descendents who are by that Law excluded have ever bin thought to have any right to the Crown And no Law unless it be explicitly given by God can be of greater Authority than one which
to them On the other hand the poverty and simplicity of the Spartan Kings was no less safe and profitable to the People than truly glorious to them Agesilaus denied that Artaxerxes was greater than he unless he were more temperate or more valiant and he made good his words so well that without any other assistance than what his Wisdom and Valour did afford he struck such a terror into that great rich powerful and absolute Monarch that he did not think himself safe in Babylon or Ecbatane till the poor Spartan was by a Captain of as great valour and greater poverty obliged to return from Asia to the defence of his own Country This was not peculiar to the severe Laconic Discipline When the Roman Kings were expelled a few Carts were prepared to transport their goods and their Lands which were consecrated to Mars and now go under the name of Campus Martius hardly contain ten Acres of ground Nay the Kings of Israel who led such vast Armies into the field that is were followed by all the people who were able to bear Arms seem to have possessed little Ahab one of the most powerful was so fond of Naboth's Vineyard which being the Inheritance of his Fathers according to their equal division of Lands could not be above two Acres that he grew sick when it was refused But if an allowance be to be made to every King it must be either according to a universal Rule or Standard or must depend upon the Judgment of Nations If the first they who have it may do well to produce it if the other every Nation proceeding according to the measure of their own discretion is free from blame It may also be worth observation whether the Revenue given to a King be in such manner committed to his care that he is obliged to employ it for the publick Service without the power of Alienation or whether it be granted as a Propriety to be spent as he thinks fit When some of the antient Jews and Christians scrupled the paiment of Tribute to the Emperors the reasons alledged to perswade them to a compliance seem to be grounded upon a supposition of the first for said they the defence of the State lies upon them which cannot be perform'd without Armies and Garisons these cannot be maintained without pay nor mony raised to pay them without Tributes and Customs This carries a face of reason with it especially in those Countries which are perpetually or frequently subject to Invasions but this will not content our Author He speaks of employing the revenue in keeping his House and looks upon it as a propriety to be spent as he thinks convenient which is no less than to cast it into a Pit of which no man ever knew the bottom That which is given one day is squandred away the next The people is always oppress'd with Impositions to foment the Vices of the Court These daily increasing they grow insatiable and the miserable Nations are compelled to hard labour in order to satiate those Lusts that tend to their own ruin It may be consider'd that the virtuous Pagans by the light of Nature discovered the truth of this Poverty grew odious in Rome when great men by desiring Riches put a value upon them and introduced that pomp and luxury which could not be born by men of small Fortunes From thence all furies and mischiefs seem'd to break loose The base slavish and so often subdued Asia by the basest of men revenged the defeats they had received from the bravest and by infusing into them a delight in pomp and luxury in a short time rendred the strongest and bravest of Nations the weakest and basest I wish our own experience did not too plainly manifest that these Evils were never more prevalent than in our days when the luxury majestick pomp and absolute power of a neighbouring King must be supported by an abundance of Riches torn out of the bowels of his Subjects which renders them in the best Country of the World and at a time when the Crown most flourishes the poorest and most miserable of all the Nations under the Sun We too well know who are most apt to learn from them and by what means and steps they endeavour to lead us into the like misery But the Bird is safe when the Snare is discover'd and if we are not abandoned by God to destruction we shall never be brought to consent to the settling of that Pomp which is against the practice of all virtuous people and has brought all the Nations that have bin taken with it into the ruin that is intended for us S E C T. VII When the Israelites asked for such a King as the Nations about them had they asked for a Tyrant tho they did not call him so NOW that Saul was no Tyrant says our Author note that the people asked a King as all Nations had God answers and bids Samuel to hear the voice of the People in all things which they spake and appoint them a King They did not ask a Tyrant and to give them a Tyrant when they asked a King had not bin to hear their voice in all things but rather when they asked an Egg to have given them a Scorpion unless we will say that all Nations had Tyrants But before he drew such a Conclusion he should have observed that God did not give them a Scorpion when they asked an Egg but told them that was a Scorpion which they called an Egg They would have a King to judg them to go out before them and to fight their Battels but God in effect told them he would overthrow all Justice and turn the Power that was given him to the ruin of them and their Posterity But since they would have it so he commanded Samuel to hearken to their Voice and for the punishment of their sin and folly to give them such a King as they asked that is one who would turn to his own profit and their misery the Power with which he should be entrusted and this truly denominates a Tyrant Aristotle makes no other distinction between a King and a Tyrant than that the King governs for the good of the People the Tyrant for his own pleasure or profit and they who asked such a one asked a Tyrant tho they called him a King This is all could be done in their Language for as they who are skilled in the Oriental Tongues assure me there is no name for a Tyrant in any of them or any other way of expressing the thing than by circumlocution and adding proud insolent lustful cruel violent or the like Epithets to the word Lord or King They did in effect ask a Tyrant They would not have such a King as God had ordain'd but such a one as the Nations had Not that all Nations had Tyrants but those who were round about them of whom they had knowledg and which in their manner of speaking went under the name
No man has yet observed the Moderation of Gideon to have bin in Abimelech the Piety of Eli in Hophni and Phineas the Purity and Integrity of Samuel in Joel and Abiah nor the Wisdom of Solomon in Rehoboam And if there was so vast a difference between them and their Children who doubtless were instructed by those excellent men in the ways of Wisdom and Justice as well by Precept as Example were it not madness to be confident that they who have neither precept nor good example to guide them but on the contrary are educated in an utter ignorance or abhorrence of all virtue will always be just and good or to put the whole power into the hands of every man woman or child that shall be born in governing Families upon a supposition that a thing will happen which never did or that the weakest and worst will perform all that can be hoped and was seldom accomplished by the wisest and best exposing whole Nations to be destroy'd without remedy if they do it not And if this be madness in all extremity 't is to be presumed that Nations never intended any such thing unless our Author prove that all Nations have bin mad from the beginning and must always continue to be so To cure this he says They degenerate into Tyrants and if he meant as he speaks it would be enough For a King cannot degenerate into a Tyrant by departing from that Law which is only the product of his own will But if he do degenerate it must be by departing from that which dos not depend upon his will and is a rule prescribed by a power that is above him This indeed is the Doctrine of Bracton who having said that the Power of the King is the Power of the Law because the Law makes him King adds That if he do injustice he ceases to be King degenerates into a Tyrant and becomes the Vicegerent of the Devil But I hope this must be understood with temperament and a due consideration of human frailty so as to mean only those injuries that are extreme for otherwise he would terribly shake all the Crowns of the World But lest our Author should be thought once in his life to have dealt sincerely and spoken truth the next lines shew the fraud of his last Assertion by giving to the Prince a power of mitigating or interpreting the Laws that he sees to be rigorous or doubtful But as he cannot degenerate into a Tyrant by departing from the Law which proceeds from his own will so he cannot mitigate or interpret that which proceeds from a superior Power unless the right of mitigating or interpreting be conferred upon him by the same For as all wise men confess that none can abrogate but those who may institute and that all mitigation and interpretation varying from the true sense is an alteration that alteration is an abrogation for whatsoever is changed is dissolved and therefore the power of mitigating is inseparable from that of instituting This is sufficiently evidenced by Henry the Eighth's Answer to the Speech made to him by the Speaker of the House of Commons 1545 in which he tho one of the most violent Princes we ever had confesses the Parliament to be the Law-makers and that an obligation lay upon him rightly to use the power with which he was entrusted The right therefore of altering being inseparable from that of making Laws the one being in the Parliament the other must be so also Fortescue says plainly the King cannot change any Law Magna Charta casts all upon the Laws of the Land and Customs of England but to say that the King can by his will make that to be a Custom or an antient Law which is not or that not to be so which is is most absurd He must therefore take the Laws and Customs as he finds them and can neither detract from nor add any thing to them The ways are prescribed as well as the end Judgments are given by equals per Pares The Judges who may be assisting to those are sworn to proceed according to Law and not to regard the King's Letters or Commands The doubtful Cases are reserved and to be referred to the Parliament as in the Statute of 35 Edw. 3d concerning Treasons but never to the King The Law intending that these Parliaments should be annual and leaving to the King a power of calling them more often if occasion require takes away all pretence of a necessity that there should be any other power to interpret or mitigate Laws For 't is not to be imagined that there should be such a pestilent evil in any antient Law Custom or later Act of Parliament which being on the sudden discover'd may not without any great prejudice continue for forty days till a Parliament may be called whereas the force and essence of all Laws would be subverted if under colour of mitigating and interpreting the power of altering were allow'd to Kings who often want the inclination and sor the most part the capacity of doing it rightly 'T is not therefore upon the uncertain will or understanding of a Prince that the safety of a Nation ought to depend He is sometimes a child and sometimes overburden'd with years Some are weak negligent slothful foolish or vicious others who may have something of rectitude in their intentions and naturally are not uncapable of doing well are drawn out of the right way by the subtilty of ill men who gain credit with them That rule must always be uncertain and subject to be distorted which depends upon the fancy of such a man He always fluctuates and every passion that arises in his mind or is infused by others disorders him The good of a People ought to be established upon a more solid foundation For this reason the Law is established which no passion can disturb 'T is void of desire and fear lust and anger 'T is Mens sine affectu written reason retaining some measure of the Divine Perfection It dos not enjoin that which pleases a weak frail man but without any regard to persons commands that which is good and punishes evil in all whether rich or poor high or low 'T is deaf inexorable inflexible By this means every man knows when he is safe or in danger because he knows whether he has done good or evil But if all depended upon the will of a man the worst would be often the most safe and the best in the greatest hazard Slaves would be often advanced the good and the brave scorn'd and neglected The most generous Nations have above all things sought to avoid this evil and the virtue wisdom and generosity of each may be discern'd by the right fixing of the rule that must be the guide of every mans life and so constituting their Magistracy that it may be duly observed Such as have attained to this perfection have always flourished in virtue and happiness They are as Aristotle
honest and generous do also make them lovers of Liberty and constant in the defence of their Country which savouring too much of a Republican Spirit he prefers the morals of that City since they are become more refined by the pious and charitable Jesuits before those that were remarkable in them as long as they retained any shadow of their antient Integrity which admitted of no equivocations and detested prevarications by that means preserving innocence in the hearts of private men for their inward contentment and in civil Societies for the publick good which if once extinguish'd Mankind must necessarily fall into the condition Hobbes rightly calls Bellum omnium contra omnes wherein no man can promise to himself any other Wife Children or Goods than he can procure by his own Sword Some may perhaps think that the endeavours of our Author to introduce such accursed Principles as tend to the ruin of Mankind proceed from his ignorance But tho he appears to have had a great measure of that quality I fear the evil proceeds from a deeper root and that he attempts to promote the interests of ill Magistrates who make it their business to destroy all good principles in the People with as much industry as the good endeavour to preserve them where they are and teach them where they are wanting Reason and experience instruct us that every man acts according to the end he proposes to himself The good Magistrate seeks the good of the People committed to his care that he may perform the end of his Institution and knowing that chiefly to consist in Justice and Virtue he endeavours to plant and propagate them and by doing this he procures his own good as well as that of the Publick He knows there is no Safety where there is no Strength no Strength without Union no Union with Justice no Justice where Faith and Truth in accomplishing publick and private Contracts is wanting This he perpetually inculcates and thinks it a great part of his duty by precept and example to educate the Youth in a love of Virtue and Truth that they may be seasoned with them and filled with an abhorrence of Vice and Falshood before they attain that Age which is exposed to the most violent temptations and in which they may by their crimes bring the greatest mischiefs upon the publick He would do all this tho it were to his own prejudice But as good Actions always carry a reward with them these contribute in a high measure to his advantage By preferring the interest of the People before his own he gains their affection and all that is in their power comes with it whilst he unites them to one another he unites all to himself In leading them to virtue he increases their strength and by that means provides for his own safety glory and power On the other side such as seek different ends must take different ways When a Magistrate fancies he is not made for the People but the People for him that he dos not govern for them but for himself and that the People live only to increase his glory or furnish matter for his pleasures he dos not inquire what he may do for them but what he may draw from them By this means he sets up an interest of profit pleasure or pomp in himself repugnant to the good of the publick for which he is made to be what he is These contrary ends certainly divide the Nation into parties and whilst every one endeavours to advance that to which he is addicted occasions of hatred sor injuries every day done or thought to be done and received must necessarily arise This creates a most fierce and irreconcileable enmity because the occasions are frequent important and universal and the causes thought to be most just The People think it the greatest of all crimes to convert that power to their hurt which was instituted for their good and that the injustice is aggravated by perjury and ingratitude which comprehend all manner of ill and the Magistrate gives the name of Sedition or Rebellion to whatsoever they do for the preservation of themselves and their own Rights When mens spirits are thus prepared a small matter sets them on fire but if no accident happen to blow them into a flame the course of Justice is certainly interrupted the publick affairs are neglected and when any occasion whether foreign or domestick arises in which the Magistrate stands in need of the Peoples assistance they whose affections are alienated not only shew an unwillingness to serve him with their Persons and Estates but fear that by delivering him from his distress they strengthen their enemy and enable him to oppress them and he fancying his will to be unjustly opposed or his due more unjustly denied is filled with a dislike of what he sees and a fear of worse for the future Whilst he endeavours to ease himself of the one and to provide against the other he usually increases the evils of both and jealousies are on both sides multiplied Every man knows that the Governed are in a great measure under the power of the Governor but as no man or number of men is willingly subject to those who seek their ruin such as fall into so great a misfortune continue no longer under it than force fear or necessity may be able to oblige them But as such a necessity can hardly lie longer upon a great People than till the evil be fully discovered and comprehended and their Virtue Strength and Power be united to expel it the ill Magistrate looks upon all things that may conduce to that end as so many preparatives to his ruin and by the help of those who are of his party will endeavour to prevent that Union and diminish that Strength Virtue Power and Courage which he knows to be bent against him And as truth faithful dealing due performance of Contracts and integrity of Manners are bonds of Union and helps to good he will always by tricks artifices cavils and all means possible endeavour to establish falshood and dishonesty whilst other Emissaries and instruments of Iniquity by corrupting the Youth and seducing such as can be brought to lewdness and debauchery bring the People to such a pass that they may neither care nor dare to vindicate their Rights and that those who would do it may so far suspect each other as not to confer upon much less to join in any action tending to the publick Deliverance This distinguishes the good from the bad Magistrate the faithful from the unfaithful and those who adhere to either living in the same principle must walk in the same ways They who uphold the rightful power of a just Magistracy encourage Virtue and Justice teach men what they ought to do suffer or expect from others fix them upon principles of Honesty and generally advance every thing that tends to the increase of the valour strength greatness and happiness of the Nation creating a good
Union among them and bringing every man to an exact understanding of his own and the publick Rights On the other side he that would introduce an ill Magistrate make one evil who was good or preserve him in the exercise of injustice when he is corrupted must always open the way for him by vitiating the People corrupting their Manners destroying the validity of Oaths and Contracts teaching such evasions equivocations and frauds as are inconsistent with the thoughts that become men of virtue and courage and overthrowing the confidence they ought to have in each other make it impossible for them to unite among themselves The like Arts must be used with the Magistrate he cannot be for their turn till he is perswaded to believe he has no dependence upon and ows no duty to the People that he is of himself and not by their Institution that no man ought to inquire into nor be judg of his actions that all obedience is due to him whether he be good or bad wise or foolish a father or an enemy to his Country This being calculated for his personal interest he must pursue the same designs or his Kingdom is divided within it self and cannot subsist By this means those who flatter his humour come to be accounted his Friends and the only men that are thought worthy of great Trusts whilst such as are of another mind are exposed to all persecution These are always such as excel in Virtue Wisdom and greatness of Spirit they have Eyes and they will always see the way they go and leaving fools to be guided by implicit Faith will distinguish between good and evil and chuse that which is best they will judg of men by their actions and by them discovering whose Servant every man is know whether he is to be obeyed or not Those who are ignorant of all good careless or enemies to it take a more compendious way their slavish vitious and base natures inclining them to seek only private and present advantages they easily slide into a blind dependence upon one who has Wealth and Power and desiring only to know his will care not what injustice they do if they may be rewarded They worship what they find in the Temple tho it be the vilest of Idols and always like that best which is worst because it agrees with their inclinations and principles When a party comes to be erected upon such a foundation debauchery lewdness and dishonesty are the true badges of it Such as wear them are cherished but the principal marks of favour are reserved for those who are the most industrious in mischief either by seducing the People with the allurements of sensual Pleasures or corrupting their Understandings by false and slavish Doctrines By this means a man who calls himself a Philosopher or a Divine is often more useful than a great number of Tapsters Cooks Buffoons Players Fidlers Whores or Bawds These are the Devil's Ministers of a lower Order they seduce single Persons and such as fall into their snares are for the most part men of the simpler sort but the principal supporters of his Kingdom are they who by false Doctrines poison the springs of Religion and Virtue and by preaching or writing if their falshood and wickedness were not detected would extinguish all principles of common honesty and bring whole Nations to be best satisfied with themselves when their actions are most abominable And as the means must always be sutable to the end proposed the Governments that are to be established or supported by such ways must needs be the worst of all and comprehend all manner of evil SECT XX. Unjust Commands are not to be obey'd and no man is obliged to suffer for not obeying such as are against Law IN the next place our Author gravely proposes a question Whether it be a sin to disobey the King if he command any thing contrary to Law and as gravely determines that not only in human Laws but even in Divine a thing may be commanded contrary to Law and yet obedience to such a Command is necessary The sanctifying of the Sabbath is a divine Law yet if a Master command his Servant not to go to Church upon a Sabbath day the best Divines teach us the Servant must obey c. It is not fit to tie the Master to acquaint the Servant with his secret Counsel Tho he frequently contradicts in one line what he says in another this whole Clause is uniform and sutable to the main design of his Book He sets up the authority of Man in opposition to the command of God gives it the preference and says the best Divines instruct us so to do St. Paul then must have bin one of the worst for he knew that the Powers under which he lived had under the severest penalties forbidden the publication of the Gospel and yet he says Wo to me if I preach it not St. Peter was no better than he for he tells us That it is better to obey God than Man and they could not speak otherwise unless they had forgotten the words of their Master who told them They should not fear them that could only kill the Body but him who could kill and cast into Hell And if I must not fear him that can only kill the Body not only the reason but all excuse for obeying him is taken away To prove what he says he cites a pertinent example from St. Luke and very logically concludes that because Christ reproved the hypocrisy of the Pharisees who generally adhered to the external and circumstantial part of the Law neglecting the essential and taking upon themselves to be the interpreters of that which they did not understand the Law of God is not to be obeyed and as strongly proves that because Christ shewed them that the same Law which by their own consession permitted them to pull an Ass out of a pit on the Sabbath day could not but give a liberty of healing the sick therefore the commands of Kings are to be obeyed tho they should be contrary to human and divine Laws But if perversness had not blinded him he might have seen that this very Text is wholly against his purpose for the Magistratical Power was on the side of the Pharisees otherwise they would not have sought an occasion to ensnare him and that power having perverted the Law of God by salse glosses and a superinduction of human Traditions prohibited the most necessary acts of Charity to be done on the Sabbath day which Christ reproved and restored the sick man to his health in their sight But I could wish our Author had told us the names of those Divines who he says are the best and who pretend to teach us these fine things I know some who are thought good that are of a contrary opinion and say that God having required that day to be set apart for his Service and Worship man cannot dispense with the Obligation unless he can abrogate the
described to be so by the Scriptures and to give another name to those who endeavour to advance their own glory contrary to the precept of God and the interest of mankind But unless the light of reason had bin extinguished in him he might have seen that tho no Law could be made without a supreme Power that Supremacy may be in a body consisting of many men and several orders of men If it be true which perhaps may be doubted that there have bin in the world simple Monarchies Aristocracies or Democracies legally established 't is certain that the most part of the Governments of the world and I think all that are or have bin good were mixed Part of the Power has bin confer'd upon the King or the Magistrate that represented him and part upon the Senate and People as has bin proved in relation to the Governments of the Hebrews Spartans Romans Venetians Germans and all those who live under that which is usually called the Gothic Polity If the single person participating of this divided Power dislike either the Name he bears or the Authority he has he may renounce it but no reason can be from thence drawn to the prejudice of Nations who give so much as they think consistent with their own good and reserve the rest to themselves or to such other Officers as they please to establish No man will deny that several Nations have had a right of giving power to Consuls Dictators Archons Suffetes Dukes and other Magistrates in such proportions as seemed most conducing to their own good and there must be a right in every Nation of allotting to Kings so much as they please as well as to the others unless there be a charm in the word King or in the Letters that compose it But this cannot be for there is no similitude between King Rex and Bazileus they must therefore have a right of regulating the Power of Kings as well as that of Consuls or Dictators and it had not bin more ridiculous in Fabius Scipio Camillus or Cincinnatus to assert an absolute power in himself under pretence of advancing his sovereign Majesty against the Law than for any King to do the like But as all Nations give what form they please to their Government they are also judges of the name to be imposed upon each man who is to have a part in the power and 't is as lawful for us to call him King who has a limited Authority amongst us as for the Medes or Arabs to give the same name to one who is more absolute If this be not admitted we are content to speak improperly but utterly deny that when we give the name we give any thing more than we please and had rather his Majesty should change his name than to renounce our own Rights and Liberties which he is to preserve and which we have received from God and Nature But that the folly and wickedness of our Author may not be capable of any farther aggravation he says That is skills not how he come by the power Violence therefore or fraud treachery or murder are as good as Election Donation or legal Succession 'T is in vain to examine the Laws of God or Man the rights of nature whether Children do inherit the Dignities and Magistracies of their Fathers as patrimonial Lands and Goods whether regard ought to be had to the fitness of the Person whether all should go to one or be divided amongst them or by what rule we may know who is the right Heir to the Succession and consequently what we are in conscience obliged to do Our Author tells us in short it matters not how he that has the power comes by it It has bin hitherto thought that to kill a King especially a good King was a most abominable action They who did it were thought to be incited by the worst of passions that can enter into the hearts of men and the severest punishments have bin invented to deter them from such attempts or to avenge their death upon those who should accomplish it but if our Author may be credited it must be the most commendable and glorious act that can be performed by man for besides the outward advantages that men so earnestly desire he that dos it is presently invested with the Sovereign Majesty and at the same time becomes God's Vicegerent and the father of his Country possessed of that Government which in exclusion to all other forms is only favoured by the Laws of God and Nature The only inconvenience is that all depends upon success and he that is to be the Minister of God and father of his Country if he succeed is the worst of all villains if he fail and at the best may be deprived of all by the same means he employ'd to gain it Tho a Prince should have the wisdom and virtues of Moses the valour of Joshua David and the Maccabees with the gentleness and integrity of Samuel the most foolish vitious base and detestable man in the world that kills him and seizes the power becomes his Heir and father of the People that he govern'd it skills not how he did it whether in open battel or by secret treachery in the field or in the bed by poison or by the sword The vilest slave in Israel had become the Lord 's anointed if he could have kill'd David or Solomon and found villains to place him in the Throne If this be right the world has to this day lived in darkness and the actions which have bin thought to be the most detestable are the most commendable and glorious But not troubling my self at present to decide this question I leave it to Kings to consider how much they are beholden to Filmer and his disciples who set such a price upon their heads as would render it hard to preserve their Lives one day if the Doctrines were received which they endeavour to infuse into the minds of the People and concluding this point only say that we in England know no other King than he who is so by Law nor any power in that King except that which he has by Law and tho the Roman Empire was held by the power of the Sword and Ulpian a corrupt Lawyer undertakes to say that the Prince is not obliged by the Laws yet Theodosius confessed that it was the glory of a good Emperor to acknowledg himself bound by them SECT XXII The rigour of the Law is to be temper'd by men of known integrity and judgment and not by the Prince who may be ignorant or vicious OUR Author's next shift is to place the King above the Law that he may mitigate the rigour of it without which he says The case of the Subject would be desperately miserable But this cure would prove worse than the disease Such pious fathers of the People as Caligula Nero or Domitian were not like to mitigate the rigour nor such as inherit Crowns in their infancy as the present
if there be any inconvenience in this 't is because they do not meet so frequently as the Law requires or by sinister means are interrupted in their sitting But nothing can be more absurd than to say that because the King dos not call Parliaments as the Law and his Oath requires that power should accrue to him which the Law and the consent of the Nation has placed in them There is also such a thing in the Law as a general or particular Pardon and the King may in some degree be entrusted with the power of giving it especially for such crimes as merely relate to himself as every man may remit the injuries done to himself but the confession of Edward the third That the Oath of the Crown had not bin kept by reason of the grant of Pardons contrary to Statutes and a new Act made that all such Charters of Pardon from henceforth granted against the Oath of the Crown and the said Statutes should be held for none demonstrates that this power was not in himself but granted by the Nation and to be executed according to such rules as the Law prescribed and the Parliament approved Moreover there having bin many and sometimes bloody contests for the Crown upon which the Nation was almost equally divided and it being difficult for them to know or even for us who have all the parties before us to judg which was the better side it was understood that he who came to be crown'd by the consent of the People was acceptable to all and the question being determined it was no way fit that he should have a liberty to make use of the publick Authority then in his hands to revenge such personal iniuries as he had or might suppose to have received which might raise new and perhaps more dangerous troubles if the Authors of them were still kept in fear of being prosecuted and nothing could be more unreasonable than that he should emplov his power to the destruction of those who had consented to make him King This made it a matter of course for a King as soon as he was crown'd to issue out a general Pardon which was no more than to declare that being now what he was not before he had no enemy upon any former account For this reason Lewis the twelfth of France when he was incited to revenge himself against those who in the reign of his Predecessor Charles the eighth had caused him to be imprisoned with great danger of his life made this answer That the King of France did not care to revenge the injuries done to the Duke of Orleans and the last King of Sweden seemed no otherwise to remember who had opposed the Queens Abdication and his Election than by conferring honours upon them because he knew they were the best men of the Nation and such as would be his friends when they should see how he would govern in which he was not deceived But lest all those who might come to the Crown of England should not have the same prudence and generosity the Kings were obliged by a Custom of no less force than a Law immediately to put an end to all disputes and the inconveniences that might arise from them This did not proceed from the bounty of the Prerogative which I think is nonsense for tho he that enjoys the Prerogative may have bounty the Prerogative can have none but from common sense from his obligation and the care of his own safety and could have no other effect in Law than what related to his person as appears by the forementioned Statute Pardon 's granted by Act of Parliament are of another nature For as the King who has no other power than by Law can no otherwise dispense with the crimes committed against the Laws than the Law dos enable him the Parliament that has the power of making Laws may intirely abolish the crimes and unquestionably remit the punishment as they please Tho some words of Aristotle's Ethicks are without any coherence shuffled together by our Author with others taken out of his Politicks I do not much except against them No Law made by man can be perfect and there must be in every Nation a power of correcting such defects as in time may arise or be discovered This power can never be so rightly placed as in the same hand that has the right of making Laws whether in one person or in many If Filmer therefore can tell us of a place where one man woman or child however he or she be qualified has the power of making Laws I will acknowledg that not only the hard Cases but as many others as he pleases are referr'd to his or her judgment and that they may give it whether they have any understanding of what they do or not whether they be drunk or sober in their senses or stark mad But as I know no such place and should not be much concerned for the sufferings of a People that should bring such misery upon themselves as must accompany an absolute dependence upon the unruly will of such a creature I may leave him to seek it and rest in a perfect assurance that he dos not speak of England which acknowledges no other Law than its own and instead of receiving any from Kings dos to this day obey none but such as have bin made by our Ancestors or our selves and never admitted any King that did not swear to observe them And if Aristotle deserve credit the power of altering mitigating explaining or correcting the Laws of England is only in the Parliament because none but the Parliament can make them SECT XXIII Aristotle proves that no man is to be entrusted with an absolute Power by shewing that no one knows how to execute it but such a man as is not to be found OUR Author having falsly cited and perverted the sense of Aristotle now brings him in saying That a perfect Kingdom is that wherein the King rules all according to his own will But tho I have read his books of Government with some attention I can find no such thing in them unless the word which signifies mere or absolute may be justly translated into perfect which is so far from Aristotle's meaning that he distinguishes the absolute or despotical Kingdoms from the Legitimate and commending the latter gives no better name than that of barbarous to the first which he says can agree only with the nature of such Nations as are base and stupid little differing from Beasts and having no skill to govern or courage to defend themselves must resign all to the will of one that will take care of them Yet even this cannot be done unless he that should take that care be wholly exempted from the vices which oblige the others to stand in need of it for otherwise 't is no better than if a Sheep should undertake to govern Sheep or a Hog to command Swine Aristotle plainly saying That as men are by nature
retained the name of a Senate was made up chiefly of those who had bin his Ministers in bringing the most miserable slavery upon their own Country The Roman Liberty and that bravery of spirit by which it had bin maintained was not only abolished but almost forgotten All consideration of Law and Right was trampled under foot and none could dispute with him who by the power of the sword had seiz'd the Authority both of the Senate and People Nothing was so extravagant that might not be extorted by the insolent violence of a Conqueror who had thirty mercenary Legions to execute his Commands The uncorrupted part of the People that had escaped the sword of Julius had either perished with Hirtius and Pansa Brutus and Cassius or bin destroy'd by the detestable Triumvirate Those that remain'd could lose nothing by a verbal resignation of their Liberty which they had neither strength nor courage to defend The Magistracies were possess'd by the Creatures of the Tyrant and the People was composed of such as were either born under slavery and accustomed to obey or remain'd under the terror of those arms that had consumed the Assertors of their Liberty Our Author standing in need of some Roman Example was obliged to seek it in an age when the Laws were subverted Virtue extinguished Injustice placed in the Throne and such as would not be of the same spirit exposed to the utmost cruelty This was the time when the Sovereign Majesty shined in glory and they who had raised it above the Law made it also the object of their Religion by adoring the Statues of their Oppressor The corruption of this Court spread it self over the best part of the world and reduced the Empire to that irrecoverable weakness in which it languished and perish'd This is the state of things that pleases Filmer and those that are like him who for the introduction of the same among us recommend such an elevation of the Sovereign Majesty as is most contrary to the Laws of God and Men abhorred by all generous Nations and most especially by our Ancestors who thought nothing too dear to be hazarded in the defence of themselves and us from it SECT XXV The Regal Power was not the first in this Nation nor necessarily to be continued tho it had bin the first TRUTH being uniform in it self those who desire to propagate it for the good of mankind lay the foundations of their reasonings in such Principles as are either evident to common sense or easily proved but Cheats and Impostors delighting in obscurity suppose things that are dubious or false and think to build one falshood upon another and our Author can find no better way to perswade us that all our Privileges and Laws are from the King than by saying That the first power was the Kingly Power which was both in this and all other Nations in the world long before any Laws or any other kind of Government was thought of from whence we must necessarily infer that the common Law or common Customs of this Land were originally the Laws and Commands of the King But denying both these points I affirm 1. First that there was a power to make Kings before there was any King 2. Tho Kings had bin the first created Magistrates in all places as perhaps they were in some it dos not follow that they must continue for ever or that Laws are from them To the first I think no man will deny that there was a People at Babylon before Nimrod was King of that place This People had a Power for no number of men can be without it Nay this People had a power of making Nimrod King or he could never have bin King He could not be King by succession for the Scripture shews him to have bin the first He was not King by the right of Father for he was not their Father Chush Cham with his elder Brothers and Father Noah being still living and which is worst of all were not Kings for if they who lived in Nimrod's time or before him neither were Kings nor had Kings he that ought to have bin King over all by the right of nature if there had bin any such thing in nature was not King Those who immediately succeeded him and must have inherited his right if he had any did not inherit or pretend to it and therefore he that shall now claim a right from nature as Father of a People must ground it upon something more certain than Noah's right of reigning over his Children or it can have no strength in it Moreover the Nations who in and before the time of Nimrod had no Kings had Power or else they could have performed no Act nor constituted any other magistrate to this day which is absurd There was therefore a power in Nations before there were Kings or there could never have bin any and Nimrod could never have bin King if the People of Babylon had not made him King which they could not have done if they had not had a power of making him so 'T is ridiculous to say he made himself King for tho he might be strong and valiant he could not be stronger than a multitude of men That which sorces must be stronger than that which is forced and if it be true according to the antient saying that Hercules himself is not sufficient to encounter two 't is sure more impossible for one man to force a multitude for that must be stronger than he If he came in by perswasion they who were perswaded were perswaded to consent that he should be King That Consent therefore made him King But Qui dat esse dat modum esse They who made him King made him such a King as best pleased themselves He had therefore nothing but what was given his greatness and power must be from the multitude who gave it and their Laws and Liberties could not be from him but their Liberties were naturally inherent in themselves and their Laws were the product of them There was a People that made Romulus King He did not make or beget that People nor for any thing we know one man of them He could not come in by inheritance for he was a Bastard the Son of an unknown man and when he died the right that had bin conferred upon him reverted to the People who according to that right chose Numa Hostilius Martius Tarquinius Priscus and Servius all Strangers and without any other right than what was bestow'd upon them and Tarquinius Superbus who invaded the Throne without the command of the People was ejected and the Government of Kings abolisht by the same power that had created it We know not certainly by what Law Moses and the Judges created by the advice of Jethro governed the Israelites but may probably conjecture it to have bin by that Law which God had written in the hearts of mankind and the People submitted to the judgment of good and wise men tho
and Life than by the performance of his Oath and accomplishing the ends of his election They neither took him to be the giver or interpreter of their Laws and would not suffer him to violate those of their Ancestors In this way they always continued and tho perhaps they might want skill to fall upon the surest and easiest means of restraining the Lusts of Princes yet they maintained their rights so well that the wisest Princes seldom invaded them and the success of those who were so foolish to attempt it was such as may justly deter others from following their unprosperous Examples We have had no King since William the First more hardy than Henry the 8th and yet he so intirely acknowledged the power of making changing and repealing Laws to be in the Parliament as never to attempt any extraordinary thing otherwise than by their Authority It was not he but the Parliament that dissolved the Abbies He did not take their Lands to himself but receiv'd what the Parliament thought fit to give him He did not reject the Supremacy of the Pope nor assume any other power in spiritual matters than the Parliament conferred upon him The intricacies of his Marriages and the legitimation of his Children was settled by the same Power At least one of his Daughters could not inherit the Crown upon any other Title they who gave him a power to dispose of the Crown by will might have given it to his Groom and he was too haughty to ask it from them if he had it in himself which he must have had if the Laws and Judicatures had bin in his hand This is farther evidenced by what passed in the Tower between Sir Thomas Moor and Rich the King's Sollicitor who asking if it would not be treason to oppose Richard Rich if the Parliament should make him King Moor said that was Casus levis for the Parliament could make and depose Kings as they thought fit and then as more conducing to his own case asked Rich if the Parliament should enact that God should not be God whether such as did not submit should be esteemed Traitors 'T is evident that a man of the acuteness and learning of Sir Tho. Moor would not have made use of such an Argument to avoid the necessity of obeying what the Parliament had ordained by shewing his Case to be of a nature far above the power of man unless it had bin confessed by all men that the Parliament could do whatsoever lay within the reach of human power This may be enough to prove that the King cannot have a power over the Law and if he has it not the power of interpreting Laws is absurdly attributed to him since it is founded upon a supposition that he can make them which is false SECT XXVII Magna Charta was not the Original but a Declaration of the English Liberties The King's Power is not restrained but created by that and other Laws and the Nation that made them can only correct the defects of them I Agree with our Author that Magna Charta was not made to restrain the absolute Authority for no such thing was in being or pretended the folly of such visions seeming to have bin reserved to compleat the misfortunes and ignominy of our age but it was to assert the native and original Liberties of our Nation by the confession of the King then being that neither he nor his Successors should any way encroach upon them and it cannot be said that the power of Kings is diminished by that or any other Law for as they are Kings only by Law the Law may confer power upon one in particular or upon him and his Successors but can take nothing from them because they have nothing except what is given to them But as that which the Law gives is given by those who make the Law they only are capable of judging whether he to whom they gave it do well or ill imploy that power and consequently are only fit to correct the defects that may be found in it Therefore tho I should confess that faults may be found in many Statutes and that the whole body of them is greatly defective it will not follow that the compendious way of referring all to the will of the King should be taken But what defects soever may be in our Law the disease is not so great to require extreme remedies and we may hope for a cheaper cure Our Law may possibly have given away too much from the People and provided only insufficient defences of our Liberties against the encroachments of bad Princes but none who are not in judgment and honesty like to our Author can propose sor a remedy to the evils that proceed from the error of giving too much the resignation of all the rest to them Whatever he says 't is evident that he knows this to be true when tho he denies that the power of Kings can be restrained by Acts of Parliament he endeavours to take advantage of such clauses as were either fraudulently inserted by the King's Officers who till the days of Henry the fifth for the most part had the penning of the publick Acts or through negligence did not fully explain the intentions of the Legislators which would be to no purpose if all were put into the hands of the King by a general Law from God that no human power could diminish or enlarge and as his last shift would obliquely put all into the power of the King by giving him a right of interpreting the Law and judging such cases as are not clearly decided which would be equally impertinent if he had openly and plainly a right of determining all things according to his will But what defects soever may be in any Statutes no great inconveniences could probably ensue if that for annual Parliaments was observed as of right it ought to be Nothing is more unlikely than that a great Assembly of eminent and chosen men should make a Law evidently destructive to their own designs and no mischief that might emerge upon the discovery of a mistake could be so extreme that the cure might not be deferr'd till the meeting of the Parliament or at least forty days in which time the King may call one if that which the Law has fixed seem to be too long If he fail of this he performs not his trust and he that would reward such a breach of it with a vast and uncontrolable power may be justly thought equal in madness to our Author who by forbidding us to examine the titles of Kings and enjoyning an intire veneration of the power by what means soever obtained encourages the worst of men to murder the best of Princes with an assurance that if they prosper they shall enjoy all the honors and advantages that this World can afford Princes are not much more beholden to him for the haughty language he puts into their mouths it having bin observed that the worst are always most
in his Will acknowledged his Crown from them Edgar was elected by all the People and not long after deposed by them and again restored in a General Assembly These things being sometimes said to be done by the assent of the Barons of the Kingdom Camden says That under the name of the Baronage all the Orders of the Kingdom are in a manner comprehended and it cannot be otherwise understood if we consider that those called Noblemen or the Nobility of England are often by the Historians said to be infinita multitudo an infinite multitude If any man ask how the Nobility came to be so numerous I answer That the Northern Nations who were perpetually in Arms put a high esteem upon Military Valour sought by conquest to acquire better Countries than their own valu'd themselves according to the numbers of men they could bring into the field and to distinguish them from Villains called those Noblemen who nobly defended and enlarged their Dominions by War and for a reward of their Services in the division of Lands gained by conquest they distributed to them Freeholds under the obligation of continuing the same Service to their Country This appears by the name of Knights Service a Knight being no more than a Soldier and a Knight's Fee no more than was sufficient to maintain one 'T is plain that Knighthood was always esteemed Nobility so that no man of what quality soever thought a Knight inferior to him and those of the highest birth could not act as Noblemen till they were knighted Among the Goths in Spain the cutting off the Hair which being long was the mark of Knighthood was accounted a degrading and looked upon to be so great a mark of Infamy that he who had suffer'd it could never bear any honor or office in the Commonwealth and there was no dignity so high but every Knight was capable of it There was no distinction of men above it and even to this day Baron or Varon in their Language signifies no more than Vir in Latin which is not properly given to any man unless he be free The like was in France till the coming in of the third race of Kings in which time the 12 Peers of whom 6 only were Laymen were raised to a higher dignity and the Commands annexed made hereditary but the honour of Knighthood was thereby no way diminished Tho there were Dukes Earls Marquesses and Barons in the time of Froissart yet he usually calls them Knights And Philip de Commines speaking of the most eminent men of his time calls them good wise or valiant Knights Even to this day the name of Gentleman comprehends all that is raised above the common people Henry the fourth usually called himself the first Gentleman in France and 't is an ordinary phrase among them when they speak of a Gentleman of good Birth to say Il est noble comme le Roy He is as noble as the King In their General Assembly of Estates The Chamber of the Noblesse which is one of Three is composed of the Deputies sent by the Gentry of every Province and in the inquiry made about the Year 1668 concerning Nobility no notice was taken of such as had assumed the Titles of Earl Marquess Viscount or Baron but only of those who called themselves Gentlemen and if they could prove that name to belong to them they were left to use the other Titles as they pleased When Duels were in fashion as all know they were lately no man except the Princes of the Blood and Marechals of France could with honour refuse a Challenge from any Gentleman The first because it was thought unfit that he who might be King should fight with a Subject to the danger of the Commonwealth which might by that means be deprived of its Head The others being by their Office Commanders of the Nobility and Judges of all the Controversies relating to Honour that happen amongst them cannot reasonably be brought into private Contests with any In Denmark Nobleman and Gentleman is the same thing and till the year 1660 they had the principal part of the Government in their hands When Charles Guslavus King of Sweden invaded Poland in the year 1655 't is said that there were above three hundred thousand Gentlemen in Arms to resist him This is the Nobility of that Country Kings are chosen by them Every one of them will say as in France He is noble as the King The last King was a private man among them not thought to have had more than four hundred pounds a year He who now reigns was not at all above him in birth or estate till he had raised himself by great services done for his Country in many wars and there was not one Gentleman in the Nation who might not have bin chosen as well as he if it had pleased the Assembly that did it This being the Nobility of the Northern Nations and the true Baronage of England 't is no wonder that they were called Nobiles the most eminent among them Magnates Principes Proceres and so numerous that they were esteemed to be Multitudo infinita One place was hardly able to contain them and the inconveniences of calling them all together appeared to be so great that they in time chose rather to meet by Representatives than every one in his own person The power therefore remaining in them it matters not what method they observed in the execution They who had the substance in their hands might give it what form they pleased Our Author sufficiently manifests his ignorance in saying there could be no Knights of the Shires in the time of the Saxons because there were no Shires for the very word is Saxon and we find the names of Barkshire Wiltshire Devonshire Dorsetshire and others most frequently in the writings of those times and Dukes Earls Thanes or Aldermen appointed to command the forces and look to the distribution of Justice in them Selden cites Ingulphus for saying that Alfred was the first that changed the Provinces c. into Counties but refutes him and proves that the distinction of the Land into Shires or Counties for Shire signified no more than the share or part committed to the care of the Earl or Comes was far more antient Whether the first divisions by the Saxons were greater or lesser than the Shires or Counties now are is nothing to the question they who made them to be as they were could have made them greater or lesser as they pleased And whether they did immediately or some ages after that distinction cease to come to their great Assemblies and rather chuse to send their Deputies or whether such Deputies were chosen by Counties Cities and Boroughs as in our days or in any other manner can be of no advantage or prejudice to the Cause that I maintain If the power of the Nation when it was divided into seven Kingdoms or united under one did reside in the Micklegemots
distributed into many Families of Scotland remains to this day and if proximity of blood is to be consider'd ought always to have bin preferr'd before her and her descendents unless there be a Law that gives the preference to Daughters before Sons What right soever Henry the second had it must necessarily have perished with him all his Children having bin begotten in manifest Adultery on Eleanor of Gascony during the life of Lewis King of France her first Husband and nothing could be alledged to colour the business but a dispensation from the Pope directly against the Law of God and the words of our Saviour who says That a Wife cannot be put away unless for Adultery and he that marrieth her that is put away committeth Adultery The pollution of this spring is not to be cured but tho it should pass unregarded no one part of the Succession since that time has remained intire John was preferred before Arthur his elder brother's Son Edward the third was made King by the deposition of his Father Henry the fourth by that of Richard the 2d If the house of Mortimer or York had the right Henry the 4th 5th and 6th were not Kings and all who claim under them have no title However Richard the third could have none for the Children of his elder Brother the Duke of Clarence were then living The Children of Edward the fourth may be suspected of bastardy and tho it may have bin otherwise yet that matter is not so clear as things of such importance ought to be and the consequence may reach very far But tho that scruple were removed 't is certain that Henry the 7th was not King in the right of his Wife Elizabeth for he reigned before and after her and for his other titles we may believe Philip de Commines who says He had neither cross nor pile If Henry the eighth had a right in himself or from his Mother he should have reigned immediately after her death which he never pretended nor to succeed till his Father was dead thereby acknowledging he had no right but from him unless the Parliament and People can give it The like may be said of his Children Mary could have no title if she was a Bastard begotten in Incest but if her Mother's marriage was good and she legitimate Elizabeth could have none Yet all these were lawful Kings and Queens their Acts continue in force to this day to all intents and purposes the Parliament and People made them to be so when they had no other title The Parliament and People therefore have the power of making Kings Those who are so made are not Usurpers We have had none but such for more than seven hundred years They were therefore lawful Kings or this Nation has had none in all that time and if our Author like this conclusion the account from whence it is drawn may without difficulty be carried as high as our English Histories do reach This being built upon the steddy Foundation of Law History and Reason is not to be removed by any man's opinion especially by one accompanied with such circumstances as Sir Walter Raleigh was in during the last years of his life And there is something of baseness as well as prevarication in turning the words of an eminent Person reduced to great difficulties to a sense no way agreeing with his former actions or writings and no less tending to impair his reputation than to deceive others Our Author is highly guilty of both in citing Sir Walter Raleigh to invalidate the great Charter of our Liberties as begun by Vsurpation and shewed to the world by Rebellion whereas no such thing nor any thing like it in word or principle can be found in the works that deserve to go under his name The Dialogue in question with some other small pieces published after his death deserve to be esteemed spurious Or if from a desire of life when he knew his head lay under the Ax he was brought to say things no way agreeing with what he had formerly profess'd they ought rather to be buried in oblivion than produced to blemish his memory But that the publick Cause may not suffer by his fault 't is convenient the world should be informed that tho he was a well qualified Gentleman yet his Morals were no way exact as appears by his dealings with the brave Earl of Essex And he was so well assisted in his History of the World that an ordinary man with the same helps might have perform'd the same things Neither ought it to be accounted strange if that which he writ by himself had the tincture of another spirit when he was deprived of that assistance tho his life had not depended upon the will of the Prince and he had never said That the bonds of Subjects to their Kings should always be wrought out of Iron and those of Kings to their Subjects out of Cobwebs SECT XXXI Free Nations have a right of meeting when and where they please unless they deprive themselves of it APerverted Judgment always leads men into a wrong way and perswades them to believe that those things favour their cause that utterly overthrow it For a proof of this I desire our Author's words may be consider'd In the former Parliaments says he instituted and continued since Henry the first his time is not to be found the usage of any natural Liberty of the people For all those Liberties that are claimed in Parliament are Liberties of Grace from the King and not the Liberties of Nature to the People For if the Liberty were natural it would give power unto the multitude to assemble themselves when and where they pleased to bestow the Sovereignty and by pactions to limit and direct the exercise of it And I say that Nations being naturally free may meet when and where they please may dispose of the Soveraignty and may direct or limit the exercise of it unless by their own act they have deprived themselves of that right and there could never have bin a lawful Assembly of any People in the world if they had not had that power in themselves It was proved in the preceding Section that all our Kings having no title were no more than what the Nobility and People made them to be that they could have no power but what was given to them and could confer none except what they had received If they can therefore call Parliaments the power of calling them must have bin given to them and could not be given by any who had it not in themselves The Israelites met together and chose Ehud Gideon Samson Jephtha and others to be their Leaders whom they judged fit to deliver them from their Enemies By the same right they assembled at Mispeth to make War against the Tribe of Benjamin when Justice was denied to be done against those who had villanously abused the Levites Concubine In the like manner they would have made Gideon King but
most regular Commonwealths that ever were in the world And it can with no more reason be pretended that the Goths received their privileges from Alan or Theodoric the Francs from Pharamond or Meroveus and the English from Ina or Ethelred than that the liberty of Athens was the gift of Themistocles or Pericles that the Empire of Rome proceeded from the liberality of Brutus or Valerius and that the Commonwealth of Venice at this day subsists by the favour of the Contarini or Moresini which must reduce us to matter of right since that of fact void of right can signify nothing SECT XXXII The powers of Kings are so various according to the Constitutions of several States that no consequence can be drawn to the prejudice or advantage of any one merely from the name IN opposition to what is above said some alledg the name of King as if there were a charm in the word and our Author seems to put more weight upon it than in the reasons he brings to support his cause But that we may see there is no efficacy in it and that it conveys no other right than what particular Nations may annex to it we are to consider 1. That the most absolute Princes that are or have bin in the world never had the name of King whereas it has bin frequently given to those whose powers have bin very much restrained The Cesars were never called Kings till the sixth age of Christianity the Califs and Soldan of Egypt and Babylon the Great Turk the Cham of Tartary or the Great Mogol never took that name or any other of the same signification The Czar of Moscovy has it not tho he is as absolute a Monarch and his People as miserable slaves as any in the world On the other side the chief Magistrates of Rome and Athens for some time those of Sparta Arragon Sweden Denmark and England who could do nothing but by Law have bin called Kings This may be enough to shew that a name being no way essential what title soever is given to the chief Magistrate he can have no other power than the Laws and Customs of his Country do give or the People confer upon him 2. The names of Magistrates are often changed tho the power continue to be the same and the powers are sometimes alter'd tho the name remain When Octavius Cesar by the force of a mad corrupted Soldiery had overthrown all Law and Right he took no other title in relation to military Affairs than that of Imperator which in the time of liberty was by the Armies often given to Pretors and Consuls In Civil matters he was as he pretended content with the power of Tribun and the like was observed in his Successor who to new invented Usurpations gave old and approved names On the other side those titles which have bin render'd odious and execrable by the violent exercise of an absolute power are sometimes made popular by moderat elimitations as in Germany where tho the Monarchy seem to be as well temper'd as any the Princes retain the same names of Imperator Cesar and Augustus as those had done who by the excess of their rage and fury had desolated and corrupted the best part of world Sometimes the name is changed tho the power in all respects continue to be the same The Lords of Castille had for many Ages no other title than that of Count and when the Nobility and People thought good they changed it to that of King without any addition to the power The Sovereign Magistrate in Poland was called Duke till within the last two hundred years when they gave the title of King to one of the Jagellan Family which title has continued to this day tho without any change in the nature of the Magistracy And I presume no wise man will think that if the Venetians should give the name of King to their Duke it could confer any other power upon him than he has already unless more should be conferr'd by the Authority of the Great Council 3. The same names which in some places denote the supreme Magistracy in others are subordinate or merely titular In England France and Spain Dukes and Earls are Subjects in Germany the Electors and Princes who are called by those names are little less than Sovereigns and the Dukes of Savoy Tuscany Moscovy and others acknowledg no Superior as well as those of Poland and Castille had none when they went under those titles The same may be said of Kings Some are subject to a foreign power as divers of them were subject to the Persian and Babylonian Monarchs who for that reason were called the Kings of Kings Some also are tributaries and when the Spaniards first landed in America the great Kings of Mexico and Peru had many others under them Threescore and ten Kings gathered up meat under the table of Adonibezek The Romans had many Kings depending upon them Herod and those of his race were of this number and the dispute between him and his Sons Aristobulus and Alexander was to be determined by them neither durst he decide the matter till it was referred to him But a right of Appeal did still remain as appears by the case of St. Paul when Agrippa was King The Kings of Mauritania from the time of Massinissa were under the like dependence Jugurtha went to Rome to justify himself for the death of Micipsa Juba was commanded by the Roman Magistrates Scipio Petreius and Afranius another Juba was made King of the same Country by Augustus and Tiridates of Armenia by Nero and infinite examples of this nature may be alledged Moreover their powers are variously regulated according to the variety of tempers in Nations and Ages Some have restrained the powers that by experience were found to be exorbitant others have dissolved the bonds that were laid upon them and Laws relating to the institution abrogation enlargement or restriction of the regal Power would be utterly insignificant if this could not be done But such Laws are of no effect in any other Country than where they are made The lives of the Spartans did not depend upon the will of Agesilaus or Leonidas because Nabuchodonosor could kill or save whom he pleased and tho the King of Marocco may stab his Subjects throw them to the Lions or hang them upon tenterhooks yet a King of Poland would probably be called to a severe account if he should unjustly kill a single man SECT XXXIII The Liberty of a People is the gift of God and Nature IF any man ask how Nations come to have the power of doing these things I answer that Liberty being only an exemption from the dominion of another the question ought not to be how a Nation can come to be free but how a man comes to have a dominion over it for till the right of Dominion be proved and justified Liberty subsists as arising from the Nature and Being of a man Tertullian speaking of the
a matter of convenience but not of necessity Many Nations have had none and if the expression be so far stretched as to make it extend to the annual or temporary Magistrates set up by the Athenians Carthaginians Romans and other antient Commonwealths or to those at this day in Venice Holland Switserland and other places it must be consess'd that the people who made deposed abrogated or abolished both the Magistrates and Magistracies had the power of framing directing and removing their Heads which our Author will say is most absurd Yet they did it without any prejudice to themselves and very often much to their advantage In mentioning these vast and essential differences between the natural and political Head I no way intend to exclude others that may be of equal weight but as all figurative expressions have their strength only from similitude there can be little or none in this which differs in so many important points and can therefore be of no effect However Right proceeds from identity and not from similitude The right of a man over me is by being my Father and not by being like my Father If I had a Brother so perfectly resembling me as to deceive our Parents which has sometimes happened to Twins it could give him no right to any thing that is mine If the power therefore of correcting the parties peccant which our Author attributes to Kings be grounded upon the name of Head and a resemblance between the Heads of the body politick and body natural if this resemblance be found to be exceedingly imperfect uncertain or perhaps no way relating to the matter in question or tho it did and were absolutely perfect could confer no right the allegation of it is impertinent and absurd This being cleared 't is time to examine what the Office of the Head is in a natural Body that we may learn from thence why that name is sometimes given to those who are eminent in political Bodies and to whom it dos belong Some men account the Head to be so absolutely the seat of all the Senses as to derive even that of feeling which is exercised in every part from the brain but I think 't is not doubted that all the rest have both their seat and function in the Head and whatsoever is useful or hurtful to a man is by them represented to the understanding as Aristotle says Nihil est in intellectu quod non sit prius in sensu This is properly the part of every Magistrate He is the Sentinel of the Publick and is to represent what he discovers beneficial or hurtful to the Society which office belongs not only to the supreme but proportionably to the subordinate In this sense were the chief men among the Israelites called Heads of their Fathers house choice and mighty men of valour chief of the Princes And in the following Chapter mention is made of nine hundred and fifty Benjamites chief men in the house of their Fathers These men exercised a charitable care over such as were inferior to them in power and valour without any shadow of sovereignty or possiblity that there could be so many Sovereigns and such as were under their care are said to be their Brethren which is not a word of majesty and domination but of dearness and equality The name therefore of Head may be given to a Sovereign but it implies nothing of sovereignty and must be exercised with charity which always terminates in the good of others The Head cannot correct or chastise the proper work of that part is only to indicate and he who takes upon him to do more is not the Head A natural body is homogeneous and cannot subsist if it be not so We cannot take one part of a Horse another of a Bear and put upon them the head of a Lion for it would be a Monster that would have neither action nor life The Head must be of the same nature with the other members or it cannot subsist But the Lord or Master differs in specie from his Servants and Slaves he is not therefore properly their Head Besides the Head cannot have a subsistence without the Body nor any interest contrary to that of the Body and 't is impossible for any thing to be good for the Head that is hurtful to the Body A Prince therefore or Magistrate who sets up an interest in himself distinct from or repugnant to that of the people renounces the title or quality of their Head Indeed Moses was the Head of the Israelites for when God threatned to destroy that people and promised to make them a great Nation he waved the particular advantages offer'd to himself interceded for them and procured their pardon Yet he was not able to bear the weight of the Government alone but desired that some might be appointed to assist him Gideon was the Head of the same people but he would not reign himself nor suffer his Sons to reign over them Samuel was also their Head he took nothing from any man defrauded none took bribes from no man oppressed none God and the people were his witnesses He blamed them for their Rebellion against God in asking a King but was no way concerned for himself or his family David likewise had a right to that Title for he desired that God would spare the people and turn the effect of his anger against himself and the house of his Father But Rehoboam was not their Head for tho he acknowledged that his Father had laid a heavy yoke upon them yet he told them he would add to the weight and that if his Father had chastised them with Whips he would chastise them with Scorpions The Head is no burden to the Body and can lay none upon it the Head cannot chastise any member and he who dos so be it more or less cannot be the Head Jeroboam was not the Head of the revolting Tribes for the Head takes care of the Members and to provide for the safety of the whole But he through fear that the people going to Jerusalem to worship should return to the house of David by setting up Idols to secure his own interests drew guilt and destruction upon them Tho it should be granted that Augustus by a gentle use of his power had in a manner expiated the detestable Villanies committed in the acquisition and had truly deserved to be called the Head of the Romans yet that title could no way belong to Caligula Claudius Nero or Vitellius who neither had the qualities requir'd in the Head nor the understanding or will to perform the office Nay if I should carry the matter farther and acknowledg that Brutus Cincinnatus Fabius Camillus and others who in the time of their annual or shorter Magistracies had by their vigilance virtue and care to preserve the City in safety and to provide for the publick good performed the office of the Head and might deserve the name I might justly deny it to the greatest
This is he who never dos any wrong 'T is before him we appear when we demand Justice or render an account of our actions All Juries give their verdict in his sight They are his Commands that the Judges are bound and sworn to obey when they are not at all to consider such as they receive from the person that wears the Crown 'T was for Treason against him that Tresilian and others like to him in several ages were hanged They gratified the lusts of the visible Powers but the invisible King would not be mock'd He caused Justice to be executed upon Empson and Dudley He was injured when the perjur'd wretches who gave that accursed Judgment in the case of Shipmony were suffered to escape the like punishment by means of the ensuing troubles which they had chiefly raised And I leave it to those who are concerned to consider how many in our days may expect vengeance for the like crimes I should here conclude this point if the power of granting a Noli proseq Cesset Processus and Pardons which are said to be annexed to the person of the King were not taken for a proof that all proceedings at Law depend upon his will But whoever would from hence draw a general conclusion must first prove his proposition to be universally true If it be wholly false no true deduction can be made and if it be true only in some cases 't is absurd to draw from thence a general conclusion and to erect a vast fabrick upon a narrow foundation is impossible As to the general proposition I utterly deny it The King cannot stop any Suit that I begin in my own name or invalidate any Judgment I obtain upon it He cannot release a Debt of ten shillings due to me nor a Sentence for the like sum given upon an action of Battery Assault Trespass publick Nuisance or the like He cannot pardon a man condemned upon an Appeal nor hinder the person injured from appealing His power therefore is not universal if it be not universal it cannot be inherent but conferred upon him or entrusted by a superior Power that limits it These limits are fixed by the Law the Law therefore is above him His proceedings must be regulated by the Law and not the Law by his will Besides the extent of those limits can only be known by the intention of the Law that sets them and are so visible that none but such as are wilfully blind can mistake It cannot be imagined that the Law which dos not give a power to the King of pardoning a man that breaks my hedg can intend he should have power to pardon one who kills my father breaks my house robs me of my goods abuses my children and servants wounds me and brings me in danger of my life Whatever power he has in such cases is founded upon a presumption that he who has sworn not to deny or delay justice to any man will not break his Oath to interrupt it And farther as he dos nothing but what he may rightly do cum magnatum sapientum Consilio and that 't is supposed they will never advise him to do any thing but what ought to be done in order to attain the great ends of the Law Justice and the publick safety nevertheles lest this should not be sufficient to keep things in their due order or that the King should forget his Oath not to delay or deny justice to any man his Counsellors are exposed to the severest punishments if they advise him to do any thing contrary to it and the Law upon which it is grounded So that the utmost advantage the King can pretend to in this case is no more than that of the Norman who said he had gained his cause because it depended upon a point that was to be decided by his Oath that is to say if he will betray the trust reposed in him and perjure himself he may sometimes exempt a Vilain from the punishment he deserves and take the guilt upon himself I say sometimes for appeals may be brought in some cases and the Waterman who had bin pardoned by his Majesty in the year 1680 for a murder he had committed was condemned and hanged at the Assizes upon an appeal Nay in cases of Treason which some men think relate most particularly to the person of the King he cannot always do it Gaveston the two Spencers Tresilian Empson Dudley and others have bin executed as Traitors for things done by the King's command and 't is not doubted they would have bin saved if the King's power had extended so far I might add the cases of the Earls of Strafford and Danby for tho the King signed a Warrant for the execution of the first no man doubts he would have saved him if it had bin in his power The other continues in prison notwithstanding his pardon and for any thing I know he may continue where he is or come out in a way that will not be to his satisfaction unless he be found innocent or something fall out more to his advantage than his Majesty's approbation of what he has done If therefore the King cannot interpose his authority to hinder the course of the Law in contests between privat men nor remit the debts adjudged to be due or the damages given to the persons agriev'd he can in his own person have no other power in things of this nature than in some degree to mitigate the vindictive power of the Law and this also is to be exercised no other way than as he is entrusted But if he acts even in this capacity by a delegated power and in few cases he must act according to the ends for which he is so entrusted as the same Law says Cum magnatum sapientum consilio and is not therein to pursue his own will and interests If his Oath farther oblige him not to do it and his Ministers are liable to punishment if they advise him otherwise If in matters of Appeal he have no power and if his pardons have bin of no value when contrary to his Oath he has abused that with which he is entrusted to the patronizing of crimes and exempting such delinquents from punishment as could not be pardoned without prejudice to the publick I may justly conclude that the King before whom every man is bound to appear who dos perpetually and impartially distribute Justice to the Nation is not the man or woman that wears the Crown and that he or she cannot determine those matters which by the Law are referr'd to the King Whether therefore such matters are ordinary or extraordinary the decision is and ought to be placed where there is most wisdom and stability and where passion and privat interest dos least prevail to the obstruction of Justice This is the only way to obviate that confusion and mischief which our Author thinks it would introduce In cases of the first sort this is done in England by Judges and Juries