in Israell but every one did that which was right in his owne eyes In this case of a Common-wealth there is no help but by Dictatorian power which God in the raising up of Judges did therefore indulge appointing them ordinarily but protempore or upon some not upon all Exigencies For Judges 20. the Congregation sentenceth the Tribe of Benjamin decrees and manageth the War against them without a Judge or Dictator This Anarchy with the confusion of it by want of the Senate especially when the sons of Samuel grew corrupt and imperious through the long rule of their father was the true cause why the people chose to have a King and so fell into Monarchy under which they fared worse for though there hapned to come with a great deal of cost as in the War with Saul a David to be defended yet by another War against his ambitious son and after him a Solomon in the next generation the Tribes rent in sunder and besides the execrable wickednesse of the most of their Kings the like whereunto was never known gave not over hewing one another till Israel first and then Judah fell into miserable Captivity And yet this is that Unity and Order which you celebrate and the Argument for Monarchy that must be cogent which happens because you are resolved not to 〈◊〉 see that the Unity of Government consists in such a form which no man can have the Will or having the Will can have the power to disturbe but cast all upon the unity of a Person that may doe what he list running still upon your Equivocations as if brethren could not live together in Unity unlesse reduced to the will of one brother The third Quaery Where there is or ever was a Monarchy upon a popular ballance or that proposed by the Author but those onely of the Hebrews and whether these were not the most infirme of all other The Doctor's Answer I Perceive not how it concerns any thing I said or the cause in hand as to any material point Onely it seems to suppose the Monarchy of the Hebrews to be on a popular ballance which I cannot apprehend unless because they had a kind of Agrarian their Land divided by lot which notwithstanding left place for a sufficient difference and excesse in dignity of persons bounds of Estates measure of Wealth and Riches Reply IN your Letter you say that the ballance I pretend cannot stand so steady in my Form as in a well temper'd Monarchy and yet to the Quaere where there is or ever was a Monarchy upon such a ballance You Answer that you perceive not how it concerns any thing you said or the cause in hand as to any material point as if the ballance were of slight concernment to a Government And for the Monarchy of the Hebrews you say that you cannot apprehend it to have been upon a popular ballance But the Land of Canaan as it is computed by Hecataeus Abderites in Josephus against Appion contained three Millions of Acres and they among whom it was divided as appears Numb. 1. 46. At the Cense of them taken by Moses in Mount Sanai amount unto 603550. Now if you allow them but four Acres a Man it comes unto two Millions four hundred thousand Acres and upwards by which means there could remain for Josua's lot Calebs portion with the Princes of the Tribes and the Patriarks or Princes of families but a matter of five hundred thousand Acres which holdeth not above a sixth part in the ballance with the people and yet you will not apprehend that this was a popular ballance Why then it will be in vain to shew you the certain consequence Namely that the Monarchies of the Hebrews being the onely governments of this kind that ever were erected upon a popular ballance were the most infirm and troubled of all others That the cause why the Congretion that elected the former Kings were able to reject Rehoboam was from the power of the people and the power of the people from their Popular Agrarian and that the cause why the Kings of Israel and Judah while they had not forreign Wars never gave over knocking out the Braines of the people one against another was that having no Monarchical ballance or not such an one as was sufficient whereupon safely to rest themselves in peace they were necessitated as some Kings at this day the ballance of whose Empire is broken to make themselves useful unto the people through their danger that so through the want of Order they 〈◊〉 subsist according unto the modern Maxim by confusion and war an expedient sufficiently practised to be well known The fourth Quaere Whether the Temptations of advancing did sway more with the Many in the Commonwealth than with the Few under the Monarchies of the Hebrews that is under the Kings of Judah Israel or the High Priests when they came to be Princes and whether other story be not as to this Quaere conformable unto that of Scripture The Doctor's Answer WHether greater Temptations in the Hebrew Government before or after they had Kings seems little material by comparing them to learn and as little to your purpose till what you suppose be granted viz. that the Government before they had Kings was in your sense a Common-wealth But as for all Forms that have been popular or shall be still the Temptations are the more powerful or dangerous as to the change of Government This put them upon an inconvenience by often changing their Generals of Armies and upon often banishing them or any great Citizens when their just deserts had made them honoured and beloved and this I suppose puts you upon a necessity in one place of defending the Ostracisme as no Punishment and the People of Rome as not ingrateful in banishing Camillus Reply IF to doubt whether Israel were a Commonwealth in my sense be excusable in one that will take no notice of the Elders that stood wth Moses nor why Gideon being Judge refused nevertheless to be King yet the league that was made between Judah and Benjamin in the first and the sentence that was given by the whole Congregation with the War thereupon levied by the people onely without so much as a Judge or Dictator in the last Chapter of the book of Judges evinces my sense and that of all Reasonable Men wherefore the comparison desired by me is plainly material and your evasion a poor shift below a man of parts or well meaning For albeit Israel for the far greater time of the Commonwealth before the Kings was Anarchy the most subject State of such a Government unto confusion yet abating the conspiracy of Abimelech made King of the men of Sichem there was as I remember no disturbance from ambition nor striving to be uppermost of which after the Kings there was no end For to omit David's destroying of the house of Saul and reigning in his stead as done with good warrant you have Absolom levying War against his
unto the Doctor as followeth Sir WHereas in a Letter of yours to one of my Sisters I find your judgement given vehemently against me but meerly positive I conceive that both in the matter and manner of delivery you have given me right to desire and laid obligation upon your self to afford me your reasons which may be done if you please either by confuting my book or answering the Quaeries hereunto annexed in either of which ways or any other I am more then desirous to undertake you and that for many considerations as your abilities the safety at least on your part in the performance the importance of the argument the seasonablenesse and however it came in your mind to distrust it the welcomenesse of such discourse unto all men of ingenuity both in power and out of it or whose interest is not the meer study of Parties from which the freest since the late troubles that hath written in this nature is Sir Your humble Servant Nov. 17. 56. The Quaeries I shall interweave with the Doctor's Answer unto each of them returned unto me with this Preamble Sir I Received your Paper wherein you are pleased to propound Quaeries and say an obligation now lies upon me to render my reasons of dissenting or to answer the Interrogatories But you must give me leave to say the obligation still ariseth from my respect to my Lady and your self not from the matter or manner as you seeme to imply of the delivering my former judgement For I could not conceive that by the favour and honour my Lady did me in sending the Book I had lost my freedome and stood bound either to complye or be challenged as an Adversary to try out the difference Therefore upon the score of friendship and civility I have forced my self in the midst of many pressing occasions to give you this account of my Thoughts in order to your Quaeries The Doctor hath written heretofore upon the Politicks Then this among the occasions or subjects of writing there is none of greater moment I am a beginner in this art and have no desire to impose upon any man but if I cannot teach him to learn of him But my Senior in it contradicts me and gives me no reason Now to contradict a man and give him no reason is to give him an affront and to demand reason in such a case that is for such an affront to send such a challenge as provoketh unto no other contention then that for truth being according unto Scripture and not against Laws concerns a mans honour and right therefore it is in such a case not of curtesie but the devoir of him that gave the affront to answer which the Doctor having now done I come into the lists or to the Quaeries with his answers and my replies The first Quaery How much or in what the Author of Oceana is mistaken to think the Common-wealth of the Hebrews appliable to his purpose The Doctor's Answer I Have reason still to think and say The Government or Common-wealth as you call it of the Hebrews was of all other lesse appliable to your form which supposes a Senate debating proposing and the people resolving choosing as page 15. To which there was nothing like in that Government You find indeed princes and Heads of the Tribes and may call them a Senate and read of the Assemblies of the people but without any such power or authority Both of them receiving Laws by the hand of Moses without any debate or contradiction And 't is in a manner confessed page 18. where you say the function of that Senate was executive only the Laws being made by God And if we look to the Institution of the seventy we find it was upon the advice of Jethro and that not to be as a Councel to Moses but as Vnder-Judges for his case in the Administration of the Laws which rather sutes with the condition of inferiour Ministers of Justice under a Monarch Gods Vice-gerent on earth as all Kings are in a more large consideration as Moses was more specially in that Theocracy Therefore I did not a little wonder at your assertions and inferences Pag. 16 17. Where you speak of their making God their King their power of rejecting and deposing him as their civil Magistrate the harshnesse of the phrase may be mollified but the thing asserted I suppose cannot be defended viz. any such power in the people to God-ward your inference also seems strange and infirm that they had power to have rejected any of those Laws What you assert in the 17. page of all the Laws given by Covenant is true in a sober sense but the inference strange that only which was resolved or chosen by the People of Israel was their Law This is so far from good Logick that it falls short of good divinity for it must suppose God and the People on equall termes at their entring that Convenant whereas God often especially in Deut. shews his right of commanding and enforces their obedience to his commands upon antecedent obligations his being the Lord their God his choosing them out of all Nations to be a peculiar People his bringing them out of the Land of Egypt Much more might be said to shew these instances of the People receiving laws from God in which they were onely passive are far from proving any power in the People as to God-ward or from concluding generally the power in the People of resolving and choosing Laws and therefore this Common-wealth of Israel not appliable to your purpose Reply IN my Book I call the Government whereupon we are disputing the Commonwealth of Israel but though I think I did not much amiss I am the first that ever called it so and you make no difficulty in your first Letter to speak after me But when I come to call it as all they doe that have written upon it then you begin to doubt and it is the Commonwealth as I call it of the Hebrews whence you will be more then suspected not to have read any of those Authors And yet how confidently is it laid to me in your first Letter that I am not a little mistaken in thinking the Israelitish Commonwealth or Government under Moses to be so appliable to my purpose as I would make it Nevertheless when you come in Answer unto this Quaere to give your Reasons you bring this for one that Page 18. I say the function of the Senate was onely executive the Laws being made by God Where First the word onely is not mine but of your imposing Secondly when you should shew that I am mistaken in thinking the Commonwealth of Israel so appliable to my purpose as I would make it you shew that I make it no more appliable to my purpose than it is Which is not fair especially when I gave you so cleer a Reason that albeit the Authority of proposing laws appertain unto every Senate as such yet the Laws of the Commonwealth of the
father Jeroboam an Arrant knave breaking the Empire of Rehoboam a hair-brain'd fool in two pieces whence the children of Judah turning Sodomites a King 14. 24. and they of Israel Idolaters You have Baasha conspiring against Nadab King of Israel murthering him destroying all the Posterity of Jeroboam and reigning in his stead Zimri Captain of the Chariots serving Asa the son with the same sauce when he was drunk killing all of his kinred that pissed againg the Wall as Baasha the father had done Nadab when may chance he was sober Omri hereupon made Captain by the people and Zimri after he had reigned seven daies burning himself The people of Israel when Zimri was burnt dividing into two parts one for Omri and the other for Tibni who is slain in the dispute whereupon Omri out-does all the Tyrants that went before him and when he has done leaves Ahab his son the heir of his Throne and virtue You have Jehu destroying the Family of Ahab giving the flesh of Jezebel unto the dogs and receiving a pretty Present from those of Samaria seventy heads of his Masters sons in Baskets To Asa and Jehoshaphat of the Kings of Judah belongeth much reverence but the wickedness of Athalia who upon the death of her son Ahaziah that shee might reign murthered all her Grand children but one stoln away which was Joash was repaid by that one in the like coin who also was slain by his servants so was his son Amastah that reigned after him and about the same time Zachariah King of Israel by Shallum who reigned in his stead and Shallum was smitten by Manahim who reigned in his stead Battail Royal in Shoo-lane Pekahah the son of Manahim was smitten by Pekah one of his Captains who reigned in his room Pekah by Hoshea who having reigned Nine years in his stead was carried by Salmanezer King of Assyria with the Ten Tribes into Captivity Will Judah take a warning Yes Hezekiah the next is a very good King but Manasseh his son like the rest a shedder of innocent blood to him succeedeth Ammon fathers own child who is slain by his servants Josiah once again is a very good King but Jehoahaz that died by the heels in Egypt deserv'd his end nor was Jehoiakim the brother of the former who became Tributary unto Pharaoh any better In whose Reign his successor Zedechia's was Judah led into Captivity by Nebuchadnezzar the common end of battail Royal where I leave any man to judge how far the unity of a person tends to the unity of Government and whether the temptations of advancing to use your Phrase were greater in the Commonwealth or in the Monarchies of the Hebrews It were easie to shew if you had not enough already that the High Priests when they came to be Princes were never a barrel better herring whereas that there is no such work in Venice Switz or Holland you both know and might if you did not wink as easily see All 's one It is for it is as you have said nay and more in all forms that have been Popular or shall be still the Temptations are more powerful and dangerous as to the change of Government this put them upon great inconveniences by often changing their Generals of Armies A pound of Clergy for which take an ounce of wisdome in this Maxim evinced by Machiavel Prolongation of Magistracy is the ruine of popular Government The not often changing their Generals or Dictators was the bane of the Common-wealths both of Rome and of Israel as by the corruption of Samuel's sons Moss that groweth not upon a roling stone is apparent And for the banishment of Great Men Name me one that since those Governments were settled hath been banished from Venice Switz or Holland The Examples in Rome are but two that can be objected by a rational man in Seven hundred years and I have answered those in my Book For the Ostracisme though I hold it a foolish Law yet where the people have not had the prudence to found their Government upon an Agrarian I shew'd you out of Reason Aristotle and experience that it is a shift they will be put to whether a punishment or not Though no man that is versed in the Greek story can hold it to have been so esteem'd The fifth Quaere Whether Men as they become richer or poorer free or servile be not of a different Genius or become new modeld and whether these things happen not as the ballance changes The Doctors Answer SVch suddain changes of the Genius and Nature of Men I leave to the Pipe of Orpheus or Ovids Metamorphosis Reply A Pretty jeer but there is one in that Book metamorphosed into the Bird that cannot see by day Now a change that happens in the Revolution of one hundred and forty years is not suddain but so long hath the Government in question been changing from Aristocratical to popular and if the Acts of popular Councils from that time have still been and be to this hour more and more popular the Genius of the people is as cleer as the day with the alteration of it in those opinions you in your first Letter are pleased to call the ignorance or wilfulnesse of these daies that since the Aristocratical ballance of the Clergy is gone shake the yoak of the Priest The Butcher sought his Knife and had it in his mouth The sixth Quaere Whether Gentlemen have been more beholding unto Divines or Men in Orders or Divines more beholding unto Gentlemen or such as have not been in Orders for the knowledge which we have of the Commonwealth of the Hebrews or who of each sort have written best upon that Subject The Doctor's Answer COmparisons being Odious I onely say Divines have cause to give learned Gentlemen their due and thanke for their labours but also cause to complain when they are too bold with holy things not onely with the Commonwealth of the Hebrews the Forme that God then appointed but also with the Government of the Christian Church the form and functions left by Christ and his Apostles according to which the Church acted three hundred years before the Civil power became Christian Reply DIvines have cause to complain when Gentlemen are too bold with holy things as with the Commonwealth of the Hebrews but if you ask who of each sort have written best upon this Subject Comparisons aae odious here you can be modest for no body hath written in this kind but Carolus Sigonius Buxtorfius Cornelius Bertramus Hugo Grotius Selden and Cunaeus all which were Gentlemen or such as were not in Orders Nor can it be gathered from any thing now extant that any Divine understood this Government But if Divines cannot deal with this Government and Gentlemen may not how should it be known or if Divines understand not this why do they meddle with others The seventh Quaere What and how many be those little things and poor mistakes which the Author below a Gentleman of his