or ruine it have proceeded as we have formerly proved either from the peoples neglect or rather ignorance of those Meanes and Rules that should be committed unto them both for Practice and Observation having therefore made brief Collections out of the Monuments of this kind of Learning I shall here insert them that the People of every Common-wealth which mean to preserve their Freedom may be informed how to steer their course according to such Rules as have bin put in practice heretofore by divers Nations First it hath bin a Custom not only to breed up all the young Fry in Principles of Dislike and Enmity against Kingly Government but also to cause all that were capable of swearing to enter into an Oath of Abjuration to abjure a toleration of Kings and Kingly Power in time to come Thus Brutus bound the Romans by an Oath against Kings That they should never suffer any man again to reign at Rome Thus the Hollanders preserved themselves also entering into an Oath of Abjuration not onely against King Philipâ— and his Family but all Kings for ever And Brutus to make sure work did not onely do this but divided the Royal Revenues among the People which was a good way to make them resolute to Extremity knowing That if ever any King came in play again He would take all away again by vertue of his Prerogative and Crown He brake also all the Images and Statues of the Tâ—rquint and he levell'd their houses with the ground that they might not remain as Temptations to any ambitious Spirits Suitable to this Policy was that of Henry the 8th who when he disposed of the Revenues of Abbies demolished also the Building osaying Destroy the Nests and the Rockes will ne're return again Which questionless was a most sure way both in him and Brutus to be imitated or neglected as there may be occasion But they thought in a ease of this Nature that the convenience in keeping them could not counterâ—ail the danger Secondly It hath bin usual not to suffer particular persons to Grandise or great â—n themselves more than ordinary for that by the Romans was called affectatio Regnt an aspiring to Kingship Which being observed in Mâ—lius and Manlius two noble Romans that had deserved highly of the State yet their past-merits services could not exempt them from the just anger of the People who made them Examples to Posterity Yea the Name of the latter though Livy cals him an incomparable man had he not lived in a Free-State was ever after disowned by his whole Family that famous Family of the Manlii and both the Name and Memory of Him and of his Consulship was rased out of all publike Records by Decree of the Senate The not keeping close to this Rule had of late like to have cost the Low-countries the loss of their Liberty for the Wealth of the House of Orange grown up to excess and permitting the last man to match into a Kingly Family put other thoughts and designs into his head than beseemed a member of a Free-State which had he not been prevented by the Providence of God and a dark night might in all probability have reduced them under the Yoak of Kingly Power Thirdly Especial care hath been taken non Diurnare Imperia not to permit a Continuation of Command and Authority in the hands of particular persons or families This point we have been very large in The Romans had a notable care herein till they grew corrupt Livy in his fourth Book saith Libertatis magna custodâ—a est â—si magna Imperia esse non sinas temporis modus imponatuâ— It is a grand preservative of Liberty if you do not permit great Powers and Commands to continue long and if so be you limit in point of time To this purpose they had a Law called the Emilian Law to restrain them as we find in the Ninth Book where he brings in a Noble Roman saying thus Hoc quidem Regno simile est And this indeed is like a Kingship That I alone should bear this great Office of the Censorship Triennium sex menses three years and six moneths contrary to the Emiliam Law In his third Book also he speaks of it as of a monstrous business That the Ides of May were come which was the time of their years choice and yet no new Election appointed Id-verò Regnum haud dubiè videre deploratur in perspetuum libertas It with doubt seems no other than a Kingdom and Liberty is utterly lost for ever It was Treason for any man to hold that high Office of the Dictatorship in his own hand beyond six moneths He that would see notable stuff to this purpose let him read Ciceroes Epistles to Atticus concerning Caesar The care of that people in this particular appeared also that they would not permit any man to bear the same Office twice together This was observed likewise as Aristotle tells us in all the Free-States of Greece And in Rome we find Cincinnatus one of the brave Romane Generals making a Speech unto the People to perswade them to let him lay down his Command Now the time was come though the Enemy was almost at their Gates and never more need than at that time of his valour and prudence as the people told him but no perswasion would serve the turn resign he would telling them There would be more danger to the State in prolonging his Power than from the Enemy since it might prove a President most pernicious to the Romane Freedome Such another Speech was made by M. Rutilius Censorinus to the People when they forced him to undergo the Office of Censor twice together contrary to the intent and practice of their Ancestors yet he accepted it but as Plutarch tell us upon this condition That a Law might pass against the Title in that and other Officers least it should be drawn into President in time to come Thus the People dealt also with their own Tribunes the Law being That none of them should be continued two years together So tender were the Romans in this particular as one principal Rule and Means for the preservation of their Liberty A fourth Rule not to let two of one Family to bear Offices of High Trust at one time nor to permit a Continuation of great Powers in any own Family The former usually brings on the latter And if the latter be prevented there is the less danger in the former but however both are to be avoided The reason is evident because a permission of them gives a particular Family an opportunity to bring their own private Interest into competition with that of the Publique from whence presently ensues this grand inconvenience in State the Affairs of the Commonwealth will be made subservient to the ends of a few persons no Corn shall be measured but in their bushel nor any Materials be allowed for the Publick Work unless they square well with the building of a private Interest or Family
Liberty against Rome that they endured Wars so many yeers with utmost extremity before ever they could brought to bow under the Romane Yoke This magnanimous State of Freedom was the cause also why Charthage was enabled so long not only to oppose but often to hazard the Romane Fortune and usurp the Laurel It brought Hannibal within view and the Gauls within the Walls of the City to a besieging of the Capitol to shew that their Freedom had given them the courage to rob her of her Maiden-head who afterwards became Mistriss of the whole World But what serves all this for but onely to shew That as nothing but a State of Freedom could have enabled those Nations with a Courage sufficient so long to withstand the Romane Power so Rome her self also was beholden to this State of Freedom for those Sons of Courage which brought the Necks of her Sister-States and Nations under her Girdle And it is observable also in after-times when Tyranny took place against Liberty the Romans soon lost their ancient Courage and Magnanimity first under usurping Dictators then under Emperors and in the end the Empire it self Now as on the one side we feel a loss of Courage and Magnanimity follow the loss of Freedom so on the other side the People ever grow magnanimous and couragious upon a Recovery witness at present the valiant Swisses the Hollanders and not long since our own Nation when declared a Free-State and a Re-establishment of our Freedom in the hands of the People procured though not secured what noble Designs were undertaken and prosecuted with success The Consideration whereof must needs make highly for the Honour of all Governours in Free-States who have been or shall be instrumental in redeeming and setting any People in a fulness of Freedom that is in a due and orderly succession of their supreme Assemblies The eleventh Reason is because in this Form no Determinations being carried but by consent of the People therefore they must needs remain secure out of the reach of Tyranny and free from the Arbitrary Disposition of any commanding Power In this Case as the People know what Laws they are to obey and what Penalties they are to undergo in case of Transgression so having their share and interest in the making of Laws with the Penalties annexed they become the more inexcusable if they offend and the more willingly submit unto punishment when they suffer for any offence Now the case is usually far otherwise under all standing Powers for when Government is managed in the hands of a particular Person or continued in the hands of a certain number of Great Men the People then have no Laws but what Kings and Great Men please to give Not do they know how to walk by those Laws or how to understand them because the sense is oftentimes left at uncertainty and it is reckoned a great Mystery of State in those Forms of Government That no Laws shall be of any sense or sorce but as the Great Ones please to expound them so as by this means the People many times are left as it were without Law because they bear no other construction and meaning but what sutes with particular mens Interests and Phant'sies not with Right Reason or the Publike Liberty For the proof of this under Kingly Government we might run all the world over but our own Nation affords Instances enough in the Practices of all our Kings yet this Evil never came to such a height as it did in the Raign of Henry the seventh who by usurping a Prerogative of expounding the Laws after his own pleasure made them rather Snares than Instruments of Relief like a grand Catch-pole to pill poll and geld the Purses of the People as his Son Harry did after him to deprive many Gallant Men both of their Lives and Fortunes For the Judges being reputed the Oracles of the Law and the power of creating Judges being usurp'd by Kings they had a care ever to create such as would make the Laws speak in Favour of them upon any occasion The Truth whereof hath abundantly appeared in the dayes of the late King and his Father James whose usual Language was this As long as I have power of making what Judges and Bishops I please I am sure to have no Law nor Gospel but what shall please me This very providing for this Inconvenience was the great Commendation of Lycurgus his Institution in Sparta who though he cut out the Lacedemonian Commonwealth after the Grandee fashion confirming the Supremacy within the Walls of the Senate for their King was but a Cypher yet he so ordered the matter that he took away the Grandeur that as their King was of little more value than any one of the Senators so the Senate was restrained by Laws walking in the same even pace of subjection with the People having very few Offices of Dignity or Profit allowed which might make them swell with State and Ambition but were prescribed also the same Rules of Frugality Plainness and Moderation as were the Common People by which means immoderate lusts and desires being prevented in the Great Ones they were the less inclined to Pride and Oppression and no great profit or pleasure being to be gotten by Authority very few desired it and such as were in it sate free from Envie by which means they avoided that odium and emulation which uses to rage betwixt the Great Ones and the People in that Form of Government But now the case is far otherwise in the Commonwealth of Venice where the People being excluded from all interest in Government the power of making and executing of Laws and bearing of Offices with all other Immunities lies onely in the hands of a standing Senate and their Kindred which they call the Patrocian or Noble Order Their Duke or Prince is indeed restrained and made just such another Officer as were the Lacedemonian Kings differing from the rest of the Senate onely in a Corner of his Cap besides a little outward Ceremony and Splendor but the Senators themselves have Liberty at random Arbitrarily to ramble and do what they please with the people who excepting the City it self are so extreamly oppress'd in all their Territories living by no Law but the Arbitrary Dictates of the Senate that it seems rather a Junta than a Commonwealth and the Subjects take so little content in it that seeing more to be enjoyed under the Turk they that are his Borderers take all opportunities to revolt and submit rather to the mercy of a Pagan-Tyranny Which disposition if you consider together with the little Courage in their Subjects by reason they press them so hard and how that they are forced for this cause to relie upon Forrain Mercenaries in all warlike Expeditions you might wonder how this State hath held up so long but that we know the Interest of Christendom being concerned in her Security she hath been chiefly supported by the Supplies and Arms of others
absolute necessity to the safety and well-being of a Commonwealth Therefore this Objection is of as little weight as the rest so as in any wise to diminish the Dignity and Reputation of a Free-State or Government by the People in their successive Assemblies A sixth Objection against the Form of a Free-State or Government by the People is alleadged by many to this effect That People by nature are factious inconstant and ungrateful For answer first as to the point of being Factious we have already shewn that this Government stated in a succession of its Supreme Assemblies is the onely preventive of Faction because in creating a Faction there is a necessity that those which endeavour it must have oportunity to improve their slights and projects in disgnising their Designes drawing in Instruments and Parties and in worming out Opposites the effecting of all which requires some length of time which cannot be had and consequently no Faction form'd when Government is not fixed in particular persons but managed by due succession and revolution of Authority in the hands of the People Besides it is to be considered that the People are never the first or principal in Faction they are never the authors and contrivers of it but ever the parties that are drawn into Sidings by the influence of standing Powers to serve their interests and designes Thus Sylla and Marius Pompey and Caesar continuing power in their own hands cleft the Romane Empire at several times into several Parties as afterwards it was cleft into three by the Triumvirate wherein the people had no hand being as they are alwayes purely passive and passionately divided according as they were wrought upon by the subâ—il Insinuations of the prime Engineers of each Faction Thus Italy was divided into Guelph and Gibâ—llâ—ne and France torn in two by the two Families of Orleance and Burgundi also by the Guisians and their Confederates wherein the people had no further hand than as they were acted by the perswasions and pretences of two powerful parties The case also was the same in England in times past when the Grandee-Game was in action between the two Families of Yorke and Lancaster So that it is clear enough The people in their own nature are not inclined to be Factious nor are they ever ingaged that way farther than as their Nature is abused and drawn in by powerful persons The second particular of this Objection is Inconstancy which holds true indeed in them that are debauched and in the corrupted State of a Commonwealth when degenerated from its pure Principles as we finde in that of Athens Rome Florence and others but yet in Rome you may see as pregnant instances of that peoples constancy as of any other sort of men whatsoever for they continued constant irreconcilable Enemies to all Tyranny in general and Kingly power in particular In like manner when they had once gotten their successive Assemblies they remained so firm stiff to uphold them that the succeeding Tyrants could not in a long time nor without extraordinary cunning and caution deprive them of that onely Evidence of their Liberty Moreover it is observable of this people That in making their Elections they could never be perswaded to chuse a known Infamous Vitious or unworthy Fellow so that they seldom or never erred in the choice of their Tribunes and other Officers And as in the framing of Laws their aim was ever at the general Good it being their own Interest quatenus the people so their constancy in the conservation of those Laws was most remarkable for notwithstanding all the crafty Devices and Fetches of the Nobles the people could never be woo'd to a consent of abrogating any one Law till by the alteration of Time Affairs and other Circumstances it did plainly appear inconvenient But the case hath ever been otherwise under Kings and all standing Powers who usually ran into all the extreams of Inconstancy upon every new Project petty Humour and Occasion that seemed favourable for effecting of their by-designs And in order hereunto Stories will inform you That it hath been their Custome to shift Principles every Moon and cashier all Oaths Protestations Promises and Engagements and blot out the Memory of them with a wet Finger This was very remarkable in the late King whose inconstancy in this kinde was beyond compare who no sooner had passed any Promises made Vows and Protestations fix'd Appeals in the High Court of Heaven in the behalf of Himself and his Family but presently he forfeited all and cancell'd them by his Actions As to the third point of Ingratitude it is much charged upon this Form of Government because we read both in Athens and Rome of divers unhandsome Returns made to some worthy Persons that had done high services for those Commonwealths as Alcibiades Theâ—istocles Phocion Miltâ—ades Furius Camillus Coriolanus and both the Scipio's the cause of whose misfortunes is described by Plutarch and Livy to be their own lofty and unwary carriage Having say they by an ingrossment of power rendred themselves suspected and buthensome to the Common-wealth and thereby stirred up the peoples fear jealousie where as if they had kept themselves within the Rules of a Free-State by permitting a disceet Revolution of power in particular hands there had been no occasion of incroachment on the one part nor of fear on the other Of all the Scipio's indeed were most to be pitied because their only fault seems to be too much power and grearness which indeed is the greatest fault that Members of a Commonwealth can be guilty of if seriously considered insomuch that being grown formidable to their Fellow-Senators they were by them removed and so it appears to have been the act of the Nobles upon their own score and Interest and not of the people But as for Camillus and Coriolanus they sufficiently deserved whatsoever befel them because they made use of the power and reputation they had gotten by their former merits onely to maligne and exercise an implacable hate towards the peoples Interest Nevertheless the people restored Camillus again to his Estate and Honour after some little time of Banishment And though this accident in a Free-State hath been objected by many as a great deffect yet others again do highly commend the humour For say they it is not onely a good sign of a Commonwealths being in pure and perfect health when the people are thus active zealous and jealous in the behalf of their Liberties that will permit no such growth of power as may endanger it but it is also a convenient means to curb the Ambition of its Citizens and make them contain within due bounds when they see there is no presuming after Inlargements and Accessions of Powers and Greatness without incurring the danger and indignation of the people Thus much of the Reason why the people many times cast off persons that have done them eminent services yet on the other side they were so far from Ingratitude
of State that made Saul to spare Agag and plot the ruine of David It was Reason of State that made Jeroboam to set up Calves in Dan and Bethel It was Reason of State and a shrew'd one too when Achitophel caused Absalom to defile his Fathers Concubines in the sight of all Israel You know what end they both came to It was the same that caused Abner first to take part with the house of Saul and that caused Joab to kil him after he came to be his Rival in Fame and the Favour of David their Ends were both bloudy Hence it was that Solomon having pardoned Adonijah thought fit afterwards to put him to death upon a very slender occasion And Jehu though he had Warrant from God to destroy all the house of Ahab his Master yet because in the Execution of it he mingled Reason of State in relation to his own Interest and minded the Establishment of himself thereby more than the Command and Honour of God in the Execution of Justice therefore God cursed him for his pains threatning by the mouth of the Prophet Hosea to avenge the bloud of Ahabs family upon the house of Jehu It was Reason of State that moved Herod to endeavour the destruction of Christ as soon as he was born It was Reason of State in the Jewes lest the Romans should come and take away their Place and Nation and in Pilate lest he should be thought no friend to Caesar that made them both joyn in crucifying the Lord of Glory and incur that heavy Curse which at length fell upon the Jewish Place and Nation It is Reason of State that makes the Pope and the Cardinals stick so close one to another and binds them and the Monarchs of Christendom in one common Interest for the greatning of themselves and the inslaving of the People for which a sad destruction doth attend them It was Reason of State that destroyed so many millions of men forboth in the Holy War that so Princes might not have time to take notice of the Popes Usurpation nor the People leisure and opportunity to call their Princes to an account for their unbounded Tyranny It was Reason of State that was pleaded in behalf of Borgia to justifie all his Villanies in wading through so much bloud and mischief to a Principality in Italy but he escaped not to enjoy the fruit of all his labour It was the same Devil that made Henry the 4 of France to renounce his Religion and turn Papist to secure himself from Popish Reveng but God purâ—sht him and sent a Popish Dagger through his heart It made Richard the Third in England to butcher his own Nephew for which vengeance pursued him being at last tied a thwart a horse back naked and bloudy like a Calf of the Shambles It made Henry the 7 to extinguish the Line of Plantagâ—nâ—t and his Son after him not onely to dabble his hands in the bloud of many but to persecute the Protestants not withstanding that he fell heavy also upon the Papists It made his Daughter Mary to fill up the measure of her Fathers iniquities as they could not be expiated by the vertues of her sister and Successor whose onely faâ—â—â— was in following Reason of State so far as to serve the Interest of Monarchy above that of Religion by upholding an Order of Prelacy so that in her the direct Line of that Family ended After this it was wicked Reason of State that continued Monarchy and brought in a Scotch-man upon us This was James who was so great an Admirer of Reason of State that he adopted it for its own Darling by the name of King-craft and his Motto No Bishop no King shewed that he prefer'd Reason of State before the Interest of Religion as in other things before honesty witness among many other his quitting the Cause of God and the Patatinate to keep fair with the house of Austria for which and for the same Reason of State put in practice by his Son Charles for the ruine of Religion and Liberty by a bloudly war the whole Family hath been brought to â—ad destruction These Examples are sufficient to shew that Reason of State prefer'd before the Rule of Honesty is an Errour in Policy with a vengeance as they that will not believe shall be sure to feel iâ— since it brings unavoidable Ruine not onely to particular persons but upon whole Families and Nations A fifth Errour in Policy hath been this viz. a permitting of the Legislative and Executive Powers of a State to rest in one and the same hands and persons By the Legislative Power we understand the Power of making altering or repealing Laws which in all well-ordered Governments hath ever been lodged in a succession of the supream Councels of Assemblies of a Nation By the Executive Power we mean that Power which is derived from the other and by their Authority transfer'd into the hand or hands of one Person called a Prince or into the hands of many called States for the administration of Government in the Execution of those Laws In the keeping of these two Powers distinct flowing in distinct Channels so that they may never meet in one save upon some short extraordinary occasion consists the safety of a State The Reason is evident because if the Law-makers who ever have the Supream Power should be also the constant Administrators and Dispencers of Law and Justice then by confequence the People would be left without Remedy in case of Injustice since no Appeal can lie under Heaven against such as have the Supremacy which if once admitted were inconsistent with the very intent and natural import of true Policy which ever supposeth that men in Power may be unrighteous and therefore presuming the worst points alwayes in all determinations at the Enormities and Remedies of Government on the behalf of the People For the clearing of this it is worthy your observation that in all Kingdomes and States whatsoever where they have had any thing of Freedom among them the Legislative and Executive Powers have been managed in distinct hands That is to say the Law-makers have set down Laws as Rules of Government and then put Power into the hands of others not their own to govern by those Rules by which means the people were happy having no Governours but such as were liable to give an account of Government to the supream Councel of Law-Makers And on the other side it is no less worthy of a very serious observation That Kings and standing States never became absolute over the People till they brought both the making and execution of Lawes into their own hands and as this Usurpation of theirs took place by degrees so unlimited Arbitrary Power crept up into the Throne there to domineet o're the World and defie the Liberties of the People Cicero in his second Book de Offic. and his third de Legibus speaking of the first institution of Kings tells us how they were at
first left to govern at their own discretion without Laws Then their Wills and their Words were Law the maâ—â—ing and execution of Lawes was in one and the same hands But what was the consequence Nothing but Injustice and Injustice without Remedy till the People were taught by Necessity to ordain Lawes as Rules whereby they ought to govern Then began the meeting of the People successively in their supream Assemblies to make Laws whereby Kings in such places as continued under the Kingly Form were limited and restrained so that they could do nothing in Government but what was agreeable to Law for which they were accountable as well as other Officers were in other Forms of Government to those supream Councels and Assemblies Witness all the old stories of Athens Sparta and other Countries of Greece where you shall find that the Law-making and the Law-executing Powers were placed in distinct hands under every Form of Government For so much of Freedom they retained still under every Form till they were both swallowed up as they were several times by an absolute Domination In old Rome we find Romulus their first King cut in pieces by the Senate for taking upon him to make and execute Laws at his own pleasure And Livy tells us that the reason why they expel'd Tarquin their last King was because he took the Executive and Legislative Powers both into his own hands making himself both Legislator and Officer inconsulto 〈◊〉 without advice and in defiance of the Senate Kings being cashier'd then their Standing-Sonates came in play who making and executing Laws by Decrees of their own soongrew intolerable and put the people upon divers desperate Adventures to get the Legislative Power out of their hands and place it in their own that is in a succession of their Supream Assemblies But the Executive Power they left part in the hands of Officers of their own and part in the Senate in which State it continued some hundreds of years to the great happiness and content of all till the Senate by sleights and subtilties got both Powers into their own possession again and turned all into confusion Afterwards their Emperors though Usurpers durst not at first turn both these Powers into the Channel of their own unbounded Will but did it by degrees that they might the more infensibly deprive the people of their Liberty till at length they openly made and executed Laws at their own pleasures being both Legislators and Officers without giving 〈…〉 and so there was an end of the Roman Liberty To come nearer home let us look into the old Constitution of the Common-wealths and Kingdomes of Europe We find in the Iâ—â—lian States Venice which having the Legislative and Executive Power confined within the narrow Pale of its Nobility in the Senate is not so free as once Florence was with Siena Millan and the rest before their Dukes by arrogating both those Powers to themselves worm'd them out of their Liberty Of all those States there onely Genoa remains in a free posture by keeping the Power of Legislation onely in their supream Assemblies and leaving the Execution of Law in a titular Duke and a Councel the keeping of these Powers asunder within their proper Sphere is one principal Reason why they have been able to exclude Tyranny out of their own State while it hath run the Round in Italy What made the Grand Seignior absolute of old but his ingrossing both these Powers and of late the Kings of Spain and France In ancient time the case stood far otherwise for in Ambrosio Morales his Chronicle you will finde that in Spain the Legislative power was lodged onely in their supreme Councel and their King was no more but an elective Officer to execute such Laws as they made and in case of failing to give them an accompt and submit to their judgements which was the common practice as you may see also in Mariana It was so also in Aragon till it was united to Castile by the Mariage of Ferdimand and Isabel and then both States soon lost their liberty by the projects of Ferdimand and his successors who drew the powers of Legislation and Execution of Law within the verge and influence of the Prerogative Royall whilest these two powers were kept distinct then these States were free but the ingrossing of them in one and the same hands was the losse of their Freedom France likewise was once as free as any Nation under Heaven though the King of late hath done all and been all in all till the time of Lewis the eleventh he was no more but an Officer of State regulated by Law to see the Laws put in execution and the Legislative Power that rested in the Assembly of the 3. Estates but Lewis by snatching both these Powers into the single hands of himselfe and his successors rookt them of their Liberty which they may now recover again if they have but so much manhood as to reduce the two Powers into their ancient or into better Channels This pattern of Lewis was followed close by the late King of England who by our ancient Laws was the same here that Lewis ought to have been in France an Officer in trust to see to the execution of the Lawes but by aiming at the same ends which Lewis attained and straining by the ruine of Parliaments to reduce the Legislative Power as well as the Executive into his own hands he instead of an absolute Tyranny which might have followed his project brought a swift destruction upon himself and Family Thus you see it appears that the keeping of these two Powers distinct hath been a ground preservative of the peoples Interest whereas their uniting hath been its ruine all along in so many Ages and Nations A sixth errour in Policy observable in the practices of other times and Nations hath been a reducing transactions and in Inetrest of the Publick into the disposition and power of a few particuler persons The ill consequences where of have ever bin these that matters were not wont to be carried by fair freindly and legal debates but by Design and Surprisal not by freedom and consent of the people in their open Assemblies but according to the premeditated Resolutions and forestalments of Crafty prijectors in private Cabinets and Junto's not according to the true Interest of State but in order to the serving of mens ends not for the benefit and improvement of the people but to keep them under as ignorant of true Liberty as the Horse and Mule that they might be Bridled and Sadled Ridden under the wise pretences of being Governed and kept in Order But the Grand and worse consequences of all hath been this that such Collegues Partners and Ingrossers of Power having once brought about their ends by lying practies upon the people have ever â—aâ—n into fits of Emulation against themselves and the next design hath ever bin to rook their fellows and rid themselves of competitors so that at
quitted of Kings the Power was no sooper declared to be in the People â—â—t immediately they took it and made sure of it in their own hands by the advice of Solon that excellent Law-giver for as Cicero saith There is a natural desire of Power and Sovereignty in every man so that if any have once an oportunity to seize they seldom neglect it and if they are told it is their due they venture life and all to attain it If a People once conceive they ought to be free this conception is immediately put in practice and they free themselves Their first care is to see that their Laws their Rights their Deputies their Officers and all their Dependents be setled in a state of freedom This becoms like the Apple of the eye the least grain atome or touch will grieve it it is an espoused virgin they are extreme jealous over it Thus strangely affected were the Roman people that if any one among them though ne'er so deserving were found to aspire they presently fetch'd him down as they did the gallant Maelius and Manlius yea their jealousie was so great that they observed every man's looks his very nods his garb and his gate whether he walked conversed and lived as a friend of Freedom among his neighbours The supercilious eye the lofty brow and the grand paw were accounted Monsters and no Character of Freedom so that it was the special care of the wiser Patriots to keep themselves in a demure and humble posture for the avoiding of suspicion Hence it was that Collatinus one of their Freedoms Founders and of the first Consuls living in some more State than ordinary and keeping at too great a distance from the people soon taught them to forget his former merits insomuch that they not onely turned him out of his Consulship but quite out of the City into Banishment But his Colleague Brutus and that wise Man Valerius Publicola by taking a contrary course preserved themselves and their reputation For the one sacrificed his Children those living Monuments of his House to make the vulgar amends for an injury the other courted them with the Title of Majesty laid the Fasces the Ensigns of Authority at their Feet fixt all appeals at their Tribunals and levelled the lofty Walls of his own stately House for fear they should mistake it for a Castle Thus also did Menenius Agrippa Camillus and other eminent Men in that popular State so that by these means they made themselves the Darlings of the people whilst many others of a more Grandee-humor soon lost their Interest and Reputation Thus you see that when a Peoples Right is once declared to them it is almost impossible to keep it or take it from them It is pity that the people of England being born as free as any people in the World should be of such a supple humor and inclination to bow under the ignoble pressures of an Arbitrary Tyranny and so unapt to learn what true Freedom is It is an inestimable Jewel of more worth than your Estates or your Lives it consists not in a License to do what you list but in these few particulars First in having who esome Laws sured to every Man's state and condition Secondly in a due and easie course of administration as to Law and Justice that the Remedies of Evil may be cheap and speedy Thirdly in a power of altering Government and Governours upon occasion Fourthly in an uninterrupted course of successive Parliaments or Assemblies of the People Fifthly in a free Election of Members to sit in every Parliament when Rules of Election are once established By enjoying these onely a people are said to enjoy their Rights and to be truely stated in a condition of safety and Freedom Now if Liberty is the most precious Jewel under the Sun then when it is once in possession it requires more than an ordinary art and industry to preserve it But the great question is Which is the safest way whether by committing of it into the hands of a standing Power or by placing the Guardianship in the hands of the People in a constant succession of their supreme Assemblys The best way to determine this is by observation out of Romane Stories whereby it plainly appears that people never had any real Liberty till they were possess'd of the power of calling and dissolving the Supreme Assemblies changing Governments enacting and repealing Laws together with a power of chusing and depuring whom they pleased to this work as often as they should judge expedient for their own well-being and the good of the Publike This power is said to be the first born of that Peoples Freedom and many a shrewd fit many a pang and throw the Commonwealth had before it could be brought forth in the world which Gracchus told them was a sore affliction from the gods that they should suffer so much for the ignorance or negligeÌ„ce of their Ancestors who when they drave our Kings forgat to drive out the Mysteries and inconveniences of Kingly power which were all reserved within the hands of the Senate By this means the poor people missing the first opportunity of setling their freedom soon lost it again they were told they were a Free-state and why because forsooth they had no King they had at length nevâ—r a Tarquin to trouble them but what was that to the purpose as long as they had a Caius and an Appius Claudius and the rest of that gant who infected the Senators with an humour of Kinging it from generation to generation Alas when the Romans were at this pass they were just such another Free-state as was that of Sparta in the days of yore where they had a Senate too to pull down the pride of Kings but the people were left destitute of power and means to pull down the pride of the Senate by which means indeed they became free to do what they list whilst the people were confined within straiteâ— bounds than ever Such another Free-state in these daies is that of Venice where the people are free from the Dominion of their Prince or Duke but little better than slaves under the power of their Senate but now in the Common-wealth of Athens the case was far otherwise where it was the care of Solon that famous Law-giver to place both the exercise interest of Supremacy in the hands of the people so that nothing of a publick interest could be imposed but what passed currant by vertue of their consent and Authority he instituted that famous Council called the Areopagus for the managing of State-transactions but left the power of Legislation or law-making in a successive course of the peoples Assemblies so that avoiding Kingly Tyranny on the one side and Senatical incroachments on the other he is celebrated by all Posterity as the man that hath left the onely Patern of a Free-state fit for all the world to follow It is also to be observed when Kings were driven out of
Rome though they were declared and called a Free-state et it was a long time ere they could be free indeed in regard Brutus cheated them with a meer shadow and pretence of liberty he had indeed an Ambition high enough and opportunity fairenough to have seized the Crown into his own hands but there were many considerations that deterr'd him from it for he well perceived how odious the name of King was grown Besides had he sought to Inthrone himself men would have judged it was not love to his Country made him take up Arms but desire of Dominion nor could he forget that serene privacy is to be preferr'd before Hazardous Royalty For what hope could he have to keep the Seat long who by his own example had taught the people both the Theory and practice of opposing Tyranny It was necessary therefore that he should think of some other course more plausible whereby to worke his own ends and yet preserve the love of the people who not having been used to liberty did very little understand it and therefore were the more easily gul'd out of the substance and made content with the shadow For the carrying on this Design all the projecting Grandees joyned pates together wherein as one observes Regnum quidem nomen sed non Regia potestas Româ fuit expulsa Though the Name of King were exploded with alacrity yet the Kingly power was retained with all Art and subtilty and shared under another notion among themselves who were the great ones of the City For all Authority was confin'd within the walls of a standing Senate out of which two Consuls were chosen yeerly so by turns they dub'd one another with a new kinde of Regality the people being no gainers at all by this alteration of Government save onely that like Asses they were sadled with new Paniers of Slavery But what followed The Senate having got all power into their own hands in a short time degenerated from their first Virtue and Institution to the practice of Avarice Riot and Luxury whereby the love of their Country was changed into a Study of Ambition and Faction so that they fell into divisions among themselves as well as oppressions over the people by which divisions some leading Grandees more potent than their Fellows took occasion to wipe their Noses and to assume the Power into their own hands to the number of ten persons This Form of Government was known by the Name of the Decemvirate wherein these new Usurpers joyning Forces together made themselves rich with the spoiles of the people not caring by what unlawful means they purchased either Profit or Pleasure till that growing every day more insupportable they were in the end by force cashiered of their Tyranny But what then The people being flesh'd with this Victory and calling to minde how gallantly their Ancestors had in like manner banished Kings began at last to know their own strength and stomack'd it exceedingly that themselves on whose shoulders the frame of State was supported and for whose sakes all States are founded should be so much vassalized at the will of others that they who were Lords abroad should be Slaves at home so that they resolved to be ridden no longer under fair shews of Liberty They raised a Tumult under the conduct of their Tribune Canuâ—eius nor could they by any perswasion be induced to lay down Arms till they were put in possession of their Rights and Priviledges They were made capable of Offices of the Government even to the Dictatorship had Officers of their own called Tribunes who were held sacred and inviolable as Protectors of the Commons and retained a power of meeting and acting with all Freedom in their great Assemblies Now and never till now could they be called a Free State and Commonwealth though long before declared so for the way being open to all without exception vertue learning and good Parts made as speedy a Ladder to climbe unto Honours as Nobility of Birth and a Good Man as much respected as a Great which was a rare felicity of the Times not to be expected again but upon the dawning of another golden Age. The main Observation then arising out of this Discourse is this That not onely the Name of King but the Thing King whether in the hands of one or of many was pluck'd up root and branch before ever the Romans could attain to a full Establishment in their Rights and Freedoms Now when Rome was thus declared A Free State the next work was to establish their Freedom in some sure certain way in order to this the first business they pitch'd upon was not onely to ingage the people by an Oath against the return of Tarquin's Family to the Kingdom but also against the admission of any such Officer as a King for ever because those brave men who glorified themselves in laying the foundation of a Commonwealth well knew that in a short Revolution others of a less publick Spirit would arise in their places and gape again after a Kingdom And therefore it was the special care of those worthy Patriots to imprint such Principles in mens mindes as might actuate them with an irreconcilable enmity to the former Power insomuch that the very Name of King became odious to the Roman People yea and they were so zealous herein that in process of time when Caesar took occasion by Civil Discords to assume the Soveraignty into his single Hands he durst not entertain it under the fatal Name of King but clothed himself with the more plausible stile of Emperor which nevertheless could not secure him from the fatal stab that was given him by Brutus in revenge on the behalf of the people Our Neighbours of Holland traced this example at the heels when upon recovery of their Freedom from Spain they binde themselves by * Oaths in those dayes were not like an old Almanack an Oath to abjure the Government not onely of King Philip but of all Kings for ever Kings being cashiered out of Rome then the Right of Liberty together with the Government was retained within the hands and bounds of the Patrician or Senatorian Order of Nobility the people not being admitted into any share till partly by Mutinies and partly by Importunities they compell'd the Senate to grant them an Interest in Offices of State and in the Legislative Power which were circumscribed before within the bounds of the Senate Hence arose those Officers called Tribunes and those Conventions called Assemblies of the People which were as Bridles to restrain the Power and Ambition of the Senate or Nobility Before the erection of those whilst all was in the hands of the Senate the Nation was accounted Free because not subjected to the will of any single person But afterwards they were Free indeed when no Laws could be imposed upon them without a consent first had in the Peoples Assemblies so that the Government in the end came to be setled in an equal
to see and beware that Warwick's Ghost be not conjur'd up again to act a Part in some new Tragedie The Right Constitution of a Commonwealth THe Romans having justly and nobly freed themselvs from the Tyranny of Kings and being in time brought to understand that the interest of Freedom consists in a due and orderly Succession of the Supreme Assemblies they then made it their care by all good ways and means to fortifie the Commonwealth and establish it in a free enjoyment of that Interest as the onely bar to the return of Kings and their main security against the subtil mining of Kingly humours and usurpations The puâ—â—ike Rostra or Pulpits sounded out the commendations of Freedom their Augurs or Prophets found Freedom written in the entrails of Beasts and collected it from the flight of the auspicious bird the Sun-daring Eagle spreading her wings aloft over the Capitol the common people also in their common discourses breathed nothing but Freedom and used the frequent mention of it as a Charm against the return of Tyranny Nor was it without reason that this brave and active people were so studiously devoted to the preservation of their Freedom when they had once attained it considering how easie and excellent it is above all other Forms of Government if it be kept within due bounds and order It is an undeniable Rule That the People that is such as shall be successively chosen to represent the People are the best Keepers of their own Liberties and that for these following Reasons First because they never think of usurping over other mens Rights but minde which way to preserve their own Whereas the case is far otherwise among Kings and Grandees as all Nations in the world have felt to some purpose for they naturally move within the circle of domination as in their proper Centre and count it no less Security than Wisdom and Policy to brave it over the People Thus Suetonius tells us how Caesar Crassus and another Societatem iniere requid ageretur in Repub. quod displicuisset ulli e tribus Made a bargain between themselves that nothing should be done in the Common-wealth that displeased either of them three Such another Triumvirate of Grandees was that of Augustus Lepidus and Antonie who agreed to share the world between themselves and traced the same paths as the other did to the top of worldly Tyranny over the ruines of their Countries Liberties they sav'd and destroy'd depress'd and advanc'd whom they pleased with a wet Finger But whilst the Government remained untouch'd in the peoples Hands every particular man lived safe except the Ambitious and no man could be undone unless a true and satisfactory reason were rendered to the world for his destruction Secondly the People are best Keepers of their own Liberty because it is ever the Peoples care to see that Authority be so constituted that it shall be rather a burthen than benefit to those that undertake it and be qualified with such slender advantages of profit or pleasure that men shall reap little by the enjoyment The happy consequence whereof is this that none but honest generous and publick â—pirits will then desire to be in Authority and that onely for the Common good Hence it was that in the Infanâ—y of the Romane Liberty there was no canvasing of Voices but single and plain-hearted men were called intreated and in a manner forced with importunity to the Helm of Government in regard of that great trouble and pains that followed the imployment Thus Cincinnatus was fetch'd out of the Field from his Plow and placed much against his will in the sublime Dignity of Dictator so the noble Camillus and Fabius and Curius were with much adoe drawn from the recreation of Gardening to the trouble of Governing and the Consul-yeer being over they returned with much gladness again to their private employment A third Reason why the People in their Supreme Assemblies successively chosen are the best Keepers of their Liberty is because as motion in Bodies natural so succession in civil is the grand preventive of corruption The Truth of this will appear very clearly if we weigh the effects of every standing Authority from first to last in the Romane State for whilst they were governed by a continued Power in one and the same Hands the People were ever in danger of losing their Liberty sometimes in danger of being swallowed up by Kingly aspirers witness the design of Maelius Menlius and others sometimes in danger of a surprise by a Grandee Cabinet or Junta who by contracting a particular Interest distinâ—t from that which they had in common with the people so ordered the matter in time that partly by their own strength and partly by advantage of Power to gratifie and curb whom they pleased and to wind in other Councils and parties to their own they still brought the lesser into such subjection that in the end they were forced all either to yeild to the pleasure of the Grandees or be broken by them By these practices they oroduced that upstart Tyranny of the Decemviri when ten men made a shift to enslave the Senate as well as the people Lastly by continuing power too long in the hands of particular persons they were swallow'd up by two Triumvirates of Emperors by turns who never left pecking at one another till Julius and Augustus having beaten all Competitors out of the Field subjected all to the will of a single Emperour If this were so among the Romans how happy then is any Nation and how much ought they to joy in the Wisdom and Justice of their Trustees where certain Limits and Bounds are fixed to the Powers in being by a declared succession of the supreme Authoty in the hands of the People A fourth Reason is because a succession of supreme Powers doth not onely keep them from corruption but it kills that grand Cankerworm of a Commonwealth to wit Faction for as Faction is an adhering to and a promoting of an Interest that is distinct from the true and declared Interest of State so it is a matter of necessity that those that drive it on must have time to improve their slights and projects in disguising their designs drawing in Instruments and Parties and in worming out of their opposires The effecting of all this requires some length of time therefore the onely prevention is a due succession and revolution of Authority in the Hands of the People That this is most true appears not onely by Reason but by Example if we observe the several turns of Faction in the Romane Government What made their Kings so bold as to incroach and tyrannize over the People but the very same course that heightned our Kings heretofore in England to wit a continuation of Power in their own Persons and Families Then after the Romans became a Commonwealth was it not for the same Reason that the Senate fell into such heats and fits among themselves Did not Appius Claudius and
what is common to all and that always by common consent not to serve the Lusts of any but onely to supply the Necessities of their Country But when it happens that a supreme Power long continues in the Hands of any Person or Persons they by greatness of place being seated above the middle Region of the People sit secure from all windes and weathers and from those storms of violence that nip and terrifie the inferiour part of the World whereas if by a successive Revolution of Authority they came to be degraded of their Earthly Godheads and return into the same condition with other Mortals they must needs be the more sensible and tender of what shall be laid upon them The strongest Obligation that can be laid upon any Man in publick Matters is To see that he ingage in nothing but what must either offensively or beneficially reflect upon himself for as if any be never so good a Patriot yet if his power be prolonged he will finde it hard to keep Self from creeping in upon him and prompting him to some Extravagancies for his own private Benefit so on the other side if he be shortly to return to a condition common with the rest of his Brethren self-Interest bindes him to do nothing but what is Just and Equal he himself being to reap the good or evil of what is done as well as the meanest of the people This without controversie must needs be the most Noble the most Just and the most excellent way of Government in Free-States without which it is obvious to common sense no Nation can long continue in a state of Freedom as appears likewise by Example out of the Romane Story For what more noble Patriots were there ever in the World than the Romane Senators were whilst they were kept under by their Kings and felt the same Burthens of their fury as did the rest of the people but afterwards being freed from the Kingly yoke and having secured all power within the hands of themselves and their posterity they at length fell into the same Absurdities that had been before committed by their Kings so that this new yoke became more intolerable than the former Nor could the people finde any Remedy untill they procured that necessary Office of the Tribunes who being invested with a temporary Authority by the peoples Election remained the more sensible of their condition and were as Moderators between the Power of the Great Ones and the Rights of the People What more excellent Patriot could there be than Manlius till he became corrupted by Time and Power Who more Noble and Courteous and Well-affected to the common good than was Appius Claudius at first but afterwards having obtained a Continuation of the Government in his own hands he soon lost his primitive Innocency and Integrity and devoted himself to all the Practices of an Absolute Tyrant Many others might be reckon'd up And therefore hence it was That when the Senate for some Reasons though to continue Lucius Quintius in the Consulship longer than the usual time that gallant Man utterly refused it and chose rather to deny himself than that a Precedent so prejudicial to the Romane Freedom should be made for his sake by a Prerogative of Authority in his hands beyond the ordinary Custome A seventh Reason why a people qualified with a due and orderly succession of their Supreme Assemblies are the best keepers of their own Liberties is Because as in other Forms those persons onely have access to Government who are apt to serve the lust and will of the Prince or else are parties or compliers with some powerful Faction so in this Form of Government by the People the door of Dignity stands open to all without exception that ascend thither by the steps of Worth and Vertue the consideration whereof hath this noble effect in Free-States That it edges mens spirits with an active emulation and raiseth them to a lofty pitch of designe and action The truth of this is very observable in the Romane State for during the Vassalage of that People under Kings we read not of any notable Exploits but finde them confined within a narrow compass oppress'd at home and ever and anon ready to be swallowed up by their enemies After this Government of Kings was abolished you know that of Grandees in a standing Senate was next erected under which Form they made shift to enlarge their bounds a little but the most they could then do was only to secure themselves from the attempts of the banished Tarquins and those petty neighbours that envied the small increase of their Dominion But at length when the State was made free indeed and the People admitted into a share and interest in the Government as well as the Great Ones then it was and never till then that their thoughts and power began to exceed the bounds of Italy and aspire towards that prodigious Empire For while the road of Preferment lay plain to every man no publike work was done nor any Conquest made but every man thought he did and conquered all for himself as long as he remained valiant and vertuous it was not Alliance nor Friendship nor Faction nor Riches that could advance men but Knowledge Valour and vertuous Poverty was preferred above them all For the confirmation whereof we finde in the same Story how that many of their brave Patriots and Conquerors were men of the meanest Fortune and of so rare a temper of spirit that they little cared to improve them or enrich themselves by their publike employment so that when they died they were fain to be buried at the publike charge We finde Cincinnatus a man of mean fortune fetch'd from the Plough to the dignity of a Dictator for he had no more than four acres of land which he tilled with his own hands Yet so it happened that when the Roman Conful with his whole Army was in great peril being circumvented and straitned by the Equuns and the City of Rome it self in a trembling condition then with one consent they pitch'd upon Cincinnatus as the fittest man for their deliverance and he behaved himself so well with so much magnanimity integrity and wisdom that he relieved the Consul routed and utterly subdued the Enemy and gave as it were a new life to his Countries Liberties which work being over he with all willingness quitted his Authority and returned to the condition of a painful private life This Example might seem strange but that we know it was ordinary in that State till it grew corrupt again for we read also how Lucius Tarquin not of the Tyrants family a man of mean fortune yet of great worth was chosen General of the Horse and drawn to it out of the Country in which place he surpassed all the Romane youth for gallant behaviour Such another plain Country-fellow was Attilius Regulus the scourge of Carthage in his time of whom many eminent points of Bravery were recorded as were also most
of those Heroick spirits that succeeded down to the times of Lucius Paulus Emilius by whose Conquests the first charms and inchantments of Luxury were brought out of Asia to Rome and there they soon swallowed up the remainders of primitive integrity and simplicity And yet it is very observable also that so much of the ancient severity was remaining still even in the time of this Paulus the famous General that a Silver dish that was part of the Spoil being given to a son-in-law of his who had fought stoutly in that war it was thought a great reward and observed by the Historian to be the first piece of plate that ever was seen in the Family This Observation then arises from this Discourse That as Rome never thrived till it was setled in a Freedom of the People so that Freedom was preserved and that Interest best advanced when all Places of Honour and Trust were exposed to men of Merit without distinction which happiness could never be obtained until the people were instated in a capacity of preferring whom they thought worthy by a Freedom of electing men successively into their Supreme Offices and Assemblies So long as this Custome continued and Merit took place the people made shift to keep and encrease their Liberties but when it lay neglected and the stream of Preferment began to run along with the favour and pleasure of particular powerful men then Vice and Compliance making way for Advancement the people could keep their Liberties no longer but both their Liberties and themselves were made the price of every man's Ambition and Luxury The eighth Reason why the People in their Assemblies are the best Keepers of their Liberty is because it is they onely that are concerned in the point of Liberty for whereas in other Forms the main Interest and Concernment both of Kings and Grandees lies either in keeping the People in utter ignorance what Liberty is or else in allowing and pleasing them onely with the name and shadow of Liberty in stead of the substance so in Free-States the People being sensible of their past condition in former times under the Power of Great Ones and comparing it with the possibilities and enjoyments of the present become immediately instructed that their main Interest and Concernment consists in Liberty and are taught by common sense that the onely way to secure it from the reach of Great Ones is to place it in the Peoples Hands â—adorned with all the Prerogatives and Rights of Supremacy The Truth of it is the Interest of Freedom is a Virgin that every one seeks to deflower and like a Virgin it must be kept from any other Form or else so great is the Lust of mankinde after dominion there follows a rape upon the first opportunity This being considered it-will easily be granted That Liberty must needs lie more secure in the Peoples than in any others hands because they are most concerned in it and the careful eyeing of this Concernment is that which makes them both jealous and zealous so that nothing will satisfie but the keeping of a constant Guard against the Attempts and Inchroachments of any powerful or crafty Underminers Hence it is that the People having once tasted the Sweets of Freedom are so extreamly affected with it that if they discover or do but suspect the least Design to incroach upon it they count it a Crime never to be forgiven for any consideration whatsoever Thus it was in the Romane State where one gave up his Children another his Brother to death to revenge an Attempt against common Liberty divers also sacrificed their Lives to preserve it and some their best Friends to vindicate it upon bare suspicion as in the Cases of Maelius and Manlius and others after manifest violation as in the Case of Caesar Nor was it thus onely in Rome but we finde also as notable instances of revenge in the Free-People of Greece upon the same occasion But the most notable of all is that which happened in the Island of Corcyra during the war of Peloponnesus where the People having been rook'd of Liberty by the slights and power of the Grandees and afterwards by the assistance of the Free-states of Athens recovering it again took occasion thereupon to clap up all the Grandees chop'd off ten of their Heads at one time in part of satisfaction for the Injury but yet this would not serve the turn for some delay being made in executing of the rest the People grew so inraged that they ran and pull'd down the very Walls and buried them in the ruines and rubbish of the Prison We see it also in the Free-State of Florence where Cosmus the first Founder of the Tuscan-Tyranny having made shipwrack of their Liberty and seized all into his own Hands though he enslaved their Bodies yet he could not subdue their Hearts nor wear their past Liberty our of Memory for upon the first oportunity they sought revenge and a recovery forcing him to fly for the safety of his Life and though afterwards he made way for his Return and Re-establishment by Treachery yet now after so long a time the old Freedom is fresh in memory and would shew it self again upon a favourable occasion But of all Modern Instances the most strange is that of the Land of Holstein which being deprived of Liberty and about seventy yeers since made a Dutchy and an Appendix to the Crown of Denmark though the Inhabitants be but a Boorish poor silly Generation yet still they retain a sense of Indignation at the loss of their Liberty and being given to drink the usual Complement in the midst of their Cups is this Here is a health to the remembrance of our Liberty Thus you see what an impression the love of Freedom makes in the mindes of the people so that it will be easily concluded They must be the best Keepers of their own Liberties being more tender and more concerned in their security than any powerful pretenders whatsoever The ninth Reason to justifie a Free-State is because in Free-States the People are less Luxurious than Kings or Grandees use to be Now this is most certain that where Luxury takes place there is as natural a tendency to Tyranny as there is from the Cause to the Effect for you know the Nature of Luxury lies altogether in Excess It is a Universal Depravation of Manners without Reason without Moderation it is the Canine appetite of a corrupt Will and Phant'sie which nothing can satisfie but in every Action in every Imagination it flies beyond the Bounds of Honesty Just and Good into all Extremity so that it will easily be granted That Form of Government must needs be the most excellent and the Peoples Liberty most secured where Governours are least exposed to the baits and snares of Luxury The evidence of this may be made out not onely by Reason but by Examples old and new And first by Reason it is evident That the People must needs be
less luxurious than Kings or the Great Ones because they are bounded within a more lowly pitch of Desire and Imagination give them but panem tircenses Bread Sport and Ease and they are abundantly satisfied Besides the People have less means and opportunities for Luxury than those pompous standing powers whether in the hands of one or many so that were they never so much inclined to Vice or Vanity yet they are not able to run on to the same measure of Excess and Riot Secondly as it appears they are less Luxurious so for this Cause also it is cleer They that is their successive Representatives must be the best Governours not onely because the current of succession keeps them the less corrupt and presumptious but also because being the more free from luxurious Courses they are likewise free from those oppressive and injurious Practices which Kings and Grandees are most commonly led and forced unto to hold up the port and splendor of their Tyranny and to satisfie those natural appetites of Covetousness Pride Ambition and Ostentation which are the perpetual Attendants of Great Ones and Luxury Thus much for Reason Now for Example we might produce a Cloud of Instances to shew That Free-States or the People duely qualified with the Supreme Authority are less devoted to Luxury than the Grandee or Kingly Powers but we shall give you onely a few The first that comes in our way is the State of Athens which whilst it remained free in the Peoples Hands was adorned with such Governours as gave themselves up to a serious abstemious severe course of Life so that whilst Temperance and Liberty walked hand in hand they improved the points of Valour and Prudence so high that in a short time they became the onely Arbitrators of all Affairs in Greece But being at the height then after the common fate of all worldly Powers they began to decline for contrary to the Rules of a Free-State permitting some men to greaten themselves by continuing long in Power and Authority they soon lost their pure Principles of Severity and Libertie for upstarted those thirty Grandees commonly called the Tyrants who having usurped a standing Authority unto themselves presently quitted the old Discipline and Freedom gave up themselves first to Charms of Luxury and afterwards to all the practices of an absolute Tyranny Such also was the condition of that State when at another time as in the dayes of Pistratus it was usurp'd in the hands of a single Tyrant From Athens let us pass to Rome where we finde it in the dayes of Tarquin dissolved into Debauchery Upon the change of Government their manners were somewhat mended as were the Governours in the Senate but that being a standing Power soon grew corrupt and first let in Luxury then Tyranny till the people being interested in the Government established a good Discipline and Freedom both together which was upheld with all Severity till the ten Grandees came in play after whose Deposition Liberty and Sobriety began to breath again till the dayes of Sylla Marius and other Grandees that followed down to Caesar in whose time Luxury and Tyranny grew to such a height that unless it were in the Life and Conversation of Cato there was not so much as one spark that could be raked out of the ashes of the old Roman Discipline and Freedom so that of all the World onely Cato remained as a Monument of that Temperance Virtue and Freedom which flourished under the Government of the People Omitting many other Examples our Conclusion upon these Particulars shall be this That since the Grandee or Kingly Powers are ever more luxurious than the popular are or can be and since Luxury ever brings on Tyranny as the onely bane of Liberty certainly the Rights and Priviledges of the People placed and provided for in a due and orderly succession of their Supreme Assemblies must needs remain more secure in their own Hands than in any others whatsoever A tenth Reason to prove the excellency of a Free-State or Government by the People above any other Form of Government is because under this Government the People are ever indued with a more magnanimous active and noble temper of Spirit than under the Grandeur of any standing power whatsoever And this arises from that apprehension which every particular Man hath of his own immediate share in the publick Interest as well as of that security which â—he possesses in the enjoyment of his private Fortune free from the reach of any Arbitrary Power Hence it is that whensoever any good success or happiness betides the Publick every one counts iâ— his own if the Commonwealth conquer thrive in Dominion Wealth or Honour he reckons all done for himself if he sees Distributions of Honour high Offices or great Rewards to Valiant Vertuous or Learned Persons he esteems them as his own as long as he hath a door left open to succeed in the same Dignities and Enjoyments if he can attain unto the same measure of Desert This it is which makes men aspire unto great Actions when the Reward depends not upon the Will and Pleasure of particular Persons as it doth under all standing Powers but is conferred upon Men without any consideration of Birth or Fortune according to merit as it ever is and ought to be in Free-States that are rightly constituted The Truth of this will appear much more evident if ye list a little to take a view of the condition of People under various Forms of Government for the Romanes of old while under Kings as you heard before remained a very inconsiderable People either in Dominion or Reputation and could never inlarge their Command very far beyond the Walls of their City Afterwards being reduced unto that standing power of the Senate they began to thrive a little better for a little time yet all they could do was only to struggle that for a subsistence among bad Neighbours But at length when the People began to know claim and possess their Liberties in being govern'd by a sucession of their Supreme Officers and Assemblies then it was and never till then that they laid the Foundation and built the Structure of that wondrous Empire that overshadowed the whole World And truely the founding of it must needs be more wonderful and a great Argument of an extraordinary Courage and Magnanimity wherewith the People was indued in Recovery of Liberty because their first Conquests were laid in the ruine of mighty Nations and such as were every jot as free as themselves which made the difficulties-so much the more by how much the more free and consequently the more couragious they were against whom they made opposition for as in those dayes the World abounded with Free-States more than any other Form as all over Italy Gallia Spain and Africa c. so specially in Italy where the Tuscans the Samnites and other Emulators and Competitors of the Romane Freedom approved themselves magnanimous Defenders of their
Therefore our Conclusion shall be this That since Kings and all standing Powers are so inclinable to act according to their own Wills and in Interests in making expounding and executing of Laws to the prejudice of the Peoples Liberty and Security and seeing the onely way to prevent Arbitrariness is That no Laws or Dominations whatsoever should be made but by the Peoples Consent and Election therefore it must of necessity be granted that the People are the best Keepers of their own Liberties being setled in a due and orderly succession of their supreme Assemblies A twelfth Reason is because this Form is most sutable to the Nature and Reason of Mankinde for as Cicero saith Man is a noble Creature born with Affections to rule rather than obey there being in every man a natural appetite or desire of Principality And therefore the Reason why one man is content to submit to the Government of another is not because he conceives himself to have less right than another to govern but either because he findes himself less able or else because he judgeth it will be more convenient for himself and that community whereof he is a Member if he submits unto another's Government Nemini purere vult animús a naturâ bene informatus nisi c. saith the same Cicero that is to say in honest English A minde well instructed by the light of Nature will pay obedience unto none but such as command direct or govern for its good and benefit From both which passages and expressions of that Oracle of Humane wisdom these three inferences do naturally arise First that by the light of Nature people are taught to be their own Carvers and Contrivers in the framing of that Government under which they mean to live Secondly that none are to preside in Government or sit at the Helm but such as shall be judged fit and chosen by the People Thirdly that the People are the onely proper Judges of the convenience or inconvenience of a Government when it is erected and of the behaviour of Governours after they are chosen which three Deductions appear to be no more but an Explanation of this most excellent Maxime That the Original and Fountain of all just Power and Government is in the People This being so that a Free-State-Government by the People that is by their successive Representatives or supreme Assemblies duely chosen is most natural and onely sutable to the Reason of mankinde then it follows that the other forms whether it be of a standing Power in the Hands of a particular person as a King or of a set number of Great Ones as in a Senate are besides the Dictates of Nature being meer artificial devices of Great Men squared out onely to serve the Ends and Interests of Avarice Pride and Ambition of a few to a vassalizing of the Community The Truth whereof appears so much the more if we consider That a Consent and free Election of the People which is the most natural Way and Form of governing hath no real effect in the other Forms but is either supplanted by Craft and Custome or swallowed up by a pernicious pretence of Right in one or many to govern onely by vertue of an Hereditary succession Now certainly were there no other Argument to prove the excellency of Government by the People c. beyond the other Forms yet this one might suffice That in the Peoples Form men have Liberty to make use of that Reason and Understanding God hath given them in chusing of Governours and providing for their own safety in Government but in the other Forms of a standing Power all Authority being entailed to certain Persons and Families in a course of inheritance men are alwayes deprived of the use of their Reason about choice of Governours and forced to receive them blindely and at all adventure which course being so destructive to the Reason common Interest and Majesty of that Noble Creature called Man that he should not in a matter of so high consequence as Government wherein the good and safety of all is concerned have a Freedom of Choice and Judgement must needs be the most irrational and brutish Principle in the World and fit onely to be hissed out of the World together with all Forms of standing Power whether in Kings or others which have served for no other end but transform Men into Beasts and mortified mankinde with misery through all Generations The Truth of this is evident all the World over first by sad Examples of Monarchy for the Kingly form having been retained in a course of Inheritance men being forced to take what comes next for a Governour whether it be Male or Female a wise Man or a Fool Good or Bad so that the major part of Hereditary Princes have been Tyrannous and Wicked by Nature or made so by Education and Opportunity the People have been for the most part banded to and fro with their Lives and Fortunes at the Will and Pleasure of some one single unworthy Fellow who usually assumes the greater confidence in his unrighteous dealing because he knows the People are tied in that Form to him and his though he practice all the Injustice in the World This was it that brought on Tyranny in Rome first under their Kings afterwards under Emperors for it is to be observed out of the Story that all those Emperors which ruled by right of Inheritance proved most of them no better than savage Beasts and all of them Wicked except Titus 'T is true indeed That a Nation may have some respite and recruit now and then by the Vertue and Valour of a single Prince yet this is very rare and when it doth happen it usually lasts no longer than for his Life because his Son or Successor for the most part proves more weak or vitious than himself was Virtuous as you may see in the several Lists of Kings throughout Great Britain France Spain and all the World But this is not all the Inconvenience that Hereditary Princes have been and are for the most part Wicked in their own Persons for as great Inconveniences happen by their being litigious in their Titles witness the bloody disputes between the Princes of the Blood in France as also in England between the two Houses of Yorke and Lancaster to which many more might be reckoned out of all other Kingdoms which miseries the people might have avoided had they not been tied to one particular Line of Succession Therefore if any Kingly Form be tolerable it must be that which is by Election chosen by the Peoples Representatives and made an Officer of Trust by them to whom they are to be accountable And herein as Kings are onely tolerable upon this account as Elective so these Elective Kings are as intolerable upon another account because their present Greatness gives them opportunity ever to practise such flights that in a short time the Government that they received onely for their own Lives will become entailed
Right under the Will of another and is no less than Tyranny which seating it self in an unlimited uncontrollable Prerogative over others without their Consent becomes the very bane of propriety and however disquieted or in what Form soever it appears is indeed the very Interest of Monarchy Now that a Free-State or successive Government of the People c. is the onely preservative of Propriety appears by Instances all the World over yet we shall cite but a few Under Monarchs we shall finde ever That the Subjects had nothing that they could call their own neither Lives nor Fortunes nor Wives nor any thing else that the Monarch pleased to command because the poor people knew no remedy against the levelling Will of an unbounded Soveraignity as may be seen in the Records of all Nations that have stoop'd under that wretched Form whereof we have also very sad Examples in France and other Kingdoms at this very day where the People have nothing of Propriety but all depends upon the Royal Pleasure as it did of late â—ere in England Moreover it is very observable That in Kingdoms where the People have enjoyed any thing of Liberty and Propriety they have been such Kingdoms onely where the frame of Government hath been so well tempered as that the best share of it hath been retained in the Peoples Hands and by how much the greater influence the People have had therein so much the more sure and certain they have been in the enjoyment of their Propriety To pass by many other Instances consider how firm the Aragonians were in their Liberties and Properties so long as they held their hold over their Kings in their supreme Assemblies and no sooner had Philip the second deprived them of their share in the Government but themselves and their properties became a prey and have been ever since to the Will and Pleasure of their Kings The like also may be said of Erance where as long as the Peoples Interest bore sway in their supreme Assemblies they could call their Lives and Fortunes their own and no longer for all that have succeeded since Lewis the eleventh followed his levelling pattern so far that in short time they destroyed the Peoples Property and became the greatest Levellers in Christendom We were almost at the same pass here in England for as long as the Peoples Interest was preserved by frequent and successive Parliaments so long we were in some measure secure of our Properties but as Kings began to worm the People out of their share in Government by discontinuing of Parliaments So they carried on their levelling design to the destroying of our Properties and had by this means brought it so high that the Oracles of the Law and Gospel spake it out with a good levelling Grace That all was the King's and that we had nothing we might call our own Thus you see how much Levelling and little of Propriety the people hâ—â—e had certain under Monarchs and if any at all by what means and upon what terms they have had it Nor hath it been thus onely under Kings but we finde the People have ever had as little of Property secure under all other Forms of standing Powers which have produced as errant Levellers in this particular as any of the Monarchies In the Free-State of Athens as long as the People kept free indeed in an enjoyment of their successive Assemblies so long they were secure in their Properties and no longer For to say nothing of their Kings whose History is very obscure we finde after they were laid side they erected another Form of standing Power in a single Person called a Governour for Life who was also accountable for misdemeanours but yet a Tryal being made of nine of them the People saw so little security by them that they pitch'd upon another standing Form of Decimal Government and being oppress'd by them too they were cashier'd The like miseries they tasted under the standing power of Thirty which were a sort of Levellers more rank than all the rest who put to death banishâ—d pill'd and poll'd whom they pleased without Cause or Exception so that the poor people having been tormented under all the Forms of standing Power were in the end forced as their last remedy to take Sanctuary under the Form of a Free State in their successive Assemblies And though it may be objected That afterwards they fell into many divisions and miseries even in that Form yet whoever observes the Story shall finde it was not the fault of the Government but of themselves in swerving from the Rules of a Free-State by permitting the continuance of Power in particular hands who having an opportunity thereby to create Parties of their own among the People did for their own ends inveigle ingage and intangle them in popular Tumults and Divisions This was the true Reason of their Miscarriages And if ever any Government of the People did miscarry it was upon that account Thus also the Lacedemonians after they had for some yeers tryed the Government of one King then of two Kings at once of two distinct Families afterwards came in the Ephori as Supervisers of their Kings after I say they had tryed themselves through all the Forms of a standing Power and found them all to be Levellers of the Peoples Interest and Property then necessity taught them to seek shelter in a Free-State under which they lived happily till by a forementioned Error of the Athenians they were drawn into Parties by powerful Persons and so made the Instruments of Division among themselves for the bringing of new Levellers into play such as were Manchanidas and Nabis who succeeded each other in a Tyranny In old Rome after the standing Form of Kings was extinct and a new one established the people found as little of safety and property as ever for the standing Senate and the Decemviri proved as great Levellers as Kings so that they were forced to settle the Government of the People by a due and orderly succession of their supreme Assemblies Then they began again to recover their propertie in having somewhat they might call their own and they happily enjoyed it till as by the same Error of the Lacedemonians and Athenians swerving from the Rules of a Free-State lengthning of power in particular hands they were drawn and divided into Parties to serve the lusts of such powerful men as by craft became their Leaders so that by this means through their own default they were deprived of their Liberty long before the dayes of Imperial Tytanny Thus Cinna Sylla Marins and the rest of that succeeding Gang down to Caesar used the Peoples favour to obtain a continuation of power in their own hands and then having sadled the people with a new standing Form of their own they immediately rooted up the Peoples Liberty and Property by Arbitrary Sentences of death Proscriptions Fines and Confiscations which strain of levelling more intolerable than the former was maintained by the same
Arts of Devillish Policy down to Caesar who striking in a Favourite of the People and making use of their Affections to lengthen power in his own hands at length by this Errour of the people gained opportunity to introduce a new levelling Form of standing power in himself to an utter and irrecoverable ruine of the Romane Liberty and property In Florence they have been in the same case there under every Form of standing power It was so when the Great Ones ruled it was so under Goderino it was so under Savanarola the Monk When they once began to lengthen power by the peoples Favour they presently fell to levelling and domineering as did Cosmus afterwards that crafty Founder of the present Dukedom Upon the same terms the Republick of Pisa lost themselves and became the prey of several Usurpations Mantua was once a Free-City of the Empire but neglecting their successive Assemblies and permitting the Great Ones and most Wealthy to form a standing power in themselves the people were so vexed with them that one Pafferimo getting power in his own hands and then lengthening it by Artifice turn'd Leveller too subjecting all to his own will so that the poor people to rid their hands of him were forced to pitch upon another as bad and translate their power into a petty Dukedom in the hands of the Family of Gonzaga We may from hence safely conclude against all objecting Monarchs and Royalists of what name and Title soever that a Free-State or Commonwealth by the people in their successive Assemblies is so far from levelling or destroying propertie that in all ages it hath been the onely preservative of Liberty and property and the onely remedy against the Levellings and Usurpations of standing powers for it is cleer That Kings and all standing powers are the Levellers A second Objection in the Mouths of many is this That the erecting of such a Form in the Peoples hands were the ready way to cause confusion in Government when all persons without distinction are allowed a right to chuse and be chosen members of the supreme Assemblies For answer to this know we must consider a Commonwealth in a twofold condition either in its setled state when fully stablished and founded and when all men were supposed Friends to its establishment or else when it is newly founding or founded and that in the close of a civil War upon the ruine of a former Government and those that stood for it in which case it even hath a great party within it self that are enemies to its establishment As to the first to wit a Common-wealth in its setled and composed state when all men within it are presumed to be its Friends questionless a right to chuse and to be chosen is then to be allowed the people without distinction in as great a latitude as may stand with right Reason and Convenience for managing a matter of so high Consequence as their Supreme Assemblies wherein somewhat must be left to humane Prudence and therefore that latitude being to be admitted more or less according to the Nature Circumstance and Necessities of any Nation is not here to be determined But as to a Commonwealth under the second consideration when it is founding or newly founded in the close of a Civil War upon the mine of a former Government In this case I say to make no distinction betwixt men but to allow the conquered part of the people an equal right to chuse and to be chosen c. were not onely to take away all proportion in policy but the ready way to destroy the Common-wealth and by a promiscuous mixture of opposite Interests to turn all into confusion Now that the Enemies of Liberty being subdued upon the close of a Civil War are not to be allowed sharers in the Rights of the people is evident for divers Reasons not onely because such an allowance would be a means to give them opportunity to sow the seeds of new Broyls and Divisions and bring a new hazard upon the Liberties of the People which are Reasons derived from Convenience but there is a more special Argument from the equity of the thing according to the Law and Custom of Nations That such as have commenced War to serve the Lusts of Tyrants against the Peoples Interest should not be received any longer a part of the people but may be handled as slaves when subdued if their Subduers please so to use them because by their Treasons against the Majesty of the people which they ought to have maintained they have made forfeiture of all their Rights and Priviledges as Members of the People and therefore if it happens in this case at any time That any Immunities Properties or Enjoyments be indulged unto them they must not take them as their own by Right but as Boons bestowed upon them by the peoples courtesie The old Commonwealth of Greece was very severe in this particular for as they were wont to heap up all Honours they could vent upon such as did or suffered any thing for the maintenance of their Liberty so on the other side they punished the Underminers of it or those that any wayes appeared against it with utmost extremity persecuting them with For Feitures both of Life and Fortune and if they escaped with Life they usually became slaves and many times they persecuted them being dead branding their Memories with an Eternal Mark of Infamy In old Rome they dealt more mildly with the greatest part of those that had sided with the Tarquins after their Expulsion but yet they were not restored to all their former Priviledges In process of time as oft as any conspired against the Peoples Interest in their successive Assemblies after they had once gotten them themselves were banished and their Estates confiscated not excepting many of the Senators as well as others and made for ever incapable of any Trust in the Commonwealth Afterwards they took the same course with as many of Catiline's Fellow-Traytors and Conspirators as were worthy any thing and had no doubt sufficiently paid Caesar's Abettors in the same Coin but that he wore out all opposites with his prosperous Treason Thus Millain and the rest of those States when they were free as also the Swisses and Hollanders in the Infancy of the Helvetian and Belgick Freedoms who took the same course with all those uunatural Paricides and Apostates that offered first to strangle their Liberty in the Birth or afterwards in the Cradle by secret Conspiracy or open violence Nor ought this to seem strange since if a right of Conquest may be used over a Forain who onely is to be accounted a fair enemy much more against such as against the light of Nature shall engage themselves in so foul practices as tend to ruine the Liberty of their Native Country Seeing therefore that the people in their Government upon all occasions of Civil War against their Liberties have been most zealous in vindicating those Attempts upon the heads of
under standing Powers of Great ones who make it their grand Engine to remove or ruine all persons that stand in the way of them and their designes And for this purpose it hath ever been their common custom to have Instruments ready at hand as we see in all the Stories of Kings and Grandees from time to time yea and by Aristotle himself together with the whole train of Commentators it is particularly mark'd out inter flagitia Dominationis to be one of the peculiar enormities that attend the Lordly interest of Dominion The Romane State after it grew corrupt is a sufficient Instance where we finde that not onely the ten Grandees but all that succeeded them in that domineering humour over the People ever kept a Retinue well stock'd with Calumniators and Informers such as we call Knights of the Post to snap those that in any wise appeared for the Peoples Liberties This was their constant trade as it was afterwards also of their Emperours But all the while that the People kept their power entire in the Supreme Assemblies we read not of its being brought into any constant practice Sometimes indeed those great Commanders that had done them many eminent Services were by reason of some after-actions called to an account and having by an ingroâ—ment of Power render'd themselves suspected and burthensome to the Commonwealth were commanded to retire as were both the Scipio's And in the Stories of the Athenian Commonwealth we finde that by their lofty and unwary carriage they stirr'd up the Peoples fear and jealousie so far as to question and send divers of them into Bâ—â—ishment notwithstanding all their former merits as we read of Alcibtades Themistocles and others whereas if the Rules of a Free-State had been punctually observed by preserving a discreet revolution of Powers and an equability or moderate state of particular persons there had been no occasion of Incroachment on the one part or of Fear on the other not could the prying Royalist have had the least pretence or shadow of Invective against the Peoples Government in this particular Thus much of Calumniation which is less frequent under the Peoples Form than any other Now as to the point of Accusing or liberty of Accusation by the People before their Supreme Assemblies it is a thing so essentially necessary for the preservation of a Commonwealth that there is no possibility of having persons kept accountable without it and by consequence no security of Life and Estate Liberty and Property And of what excellent use this is for the publike benefit of any State appears in these two particulars First it is apparent that the reason wherefore Kings and all other standing Powers have presumed to abuse the People is because their continuation of Authority having been a means to state them in a condition of Impunity the People either durst not or could not assume a liberty of Accusation and so have linger'd without remedy whilst Great Men have proceeded without control to an Augmentation of their misery whereas if a just Liberty of Accusation be kept in ure and Great Persons by this means lie liable to questioning the Commonwealth must needs be the more secure because none then will dare to intrench or attempt ought against their Liberty and in case any do they may with much ease be suppress'd All which amounts in effect to a full confirmation of this most excellent Maxime recorded in Policie Maximè interest Repub. Libertatis ut liberè possis â—vem aliquem accusare It most highly concerns the Freedom of a Commonwealth that the People have liberty of accusing any persons whatsoever Secondly it appears this Liberty is most necessary because as it hath been the onely Remedy against the Injustice of great and powerful persons so it hath been the onely means to extinguish those Emulations Jealousies and Suspicions which usually abound with fury in mens mindes when they see such persons seated so far above that they are not able to reach them or bring them as it becomes all earthly Powers to an account of their actions of which Liberty when the People have seen themselves deprived in time past it is sad to consider how they have flown out into such absurd and extraordinary courses in hope of Remedy as have caused not onely Distraction but many times utter Ruine to the Publike Most of those Tumults in old Rome were occasioned for want of this liberty in ordinary as those that happened under the Decemviri so that the People not having freedom to accuse and question their Justice were enflamed to commit sudden Outrages to be revenged upon them But when they had once obtained power to accuse or question any man by assistance of their Tribunes then we meet with none of those heats and fits among them but they referr'd themselves over with much content to the ordinary course of proceeding A pregnant Instance whereof we have in the Case of Coriolanus who having done some injury to the people they finding him befriended and upheld by the Great ones resolved to be revenged upon him with their own hands and had torn him in pieces as he came out of the Senate but that the Tribunes immediately step'd in and not onely promis'd but appointed them a day of Hearing against him and so all was calm again and quiet whereas if this ordinary course of Remedy in calling him to account had not been allow'd and he been destroy'd in a Mutiny a world of sad Consequences must have befallen the Commonwealth by reason of those Enormities and Revenges that would have risen upon the ruine of so considerable a person In the Stories of Florence also we read of one Valesius who greatning himself into little less than the posture of a Prince in that Republike he so confirm'd himself that the people not being able to regulate his extravagancies by any ordinary proceedings they betook themselves to that unhappie remedy of Arms and it cost the best blood and lives in that State before they could bring him down involving them in a world of Miseries which might have been avoided had they taken care to preserve their old Liberty of Accusation and Queâ—â—ion and being able to take a course with him in an ordinary way of progress Thus also in the same State Soderino a man of the same size interest and humour when the People saw that they had lost their Liberty in being unable to question him ran like mad-men upon a Remedy as bad as the Disease and called in the Spaniard to suppress him so that turned almost to the ruine of the State which might have been prevented could they have repress'd him by the ordinary way of Accusation and Question From these Premises then let us conclude That seeing the crooked way of Calumniation is less used under the Peoples Form of Government than any other and since the retaining of a Regular course for admitting and deciding of all Complaints and Controversies by way of Accusation is of
that they have alwayes been excessive in their Rewards and Honours to such men as deserved any way of the Publike whilst they conformed themselves to Rules and kept in a posture suiting to Liberty Witness their Consecration of Statues Incense Sacrifices and Crowns of Laurel inrolling such men in the number of their Deities Therefore the crime of Ingratitude cannot in any peculiar manner be fastned upon the People but if we consult the Stories of all standing Powers we may produce innumerable testimonies of their Ingratitude toward such as have done them the greatest service ill recompence being a Mystery of State practised by all Kings and Grandees who as Tacitus tells us ever count themselves disobliged by the bravest actions of their subjects Upon this account Alexander hated Antipater and Parmenio and put the later to death Thus the Emperour Vespasian cashiered and ruined the meritorious Antonies Thus also was Alphonsus Atbuquerque served by his Master the King of Portugal and Consalvus the Great by Ferdinand of Aragon as was also that Stanley of the House of Derby who set the Crown upon King Hâ—nry the seventh's head Thus Sylla the Romane Grandee destroyed his choicest Instruments that help'd him into the Saddle as Augustus served his friend Cicero and exposed him to the malice and murther of Anthonie Innumerable are the Examples of this kinde which evidence that such unworthy dealings are the effect of all standing Powers and therefore more properly to be objected against them than against the Government of the People Thus having answered all or the main Objections brought by the adversaries of a Free-State before we proceed to the Errours of Government and Rules of Policie it will not be amiss but very convenient to say something of that which indeed is the very Foundation of all the rest to wit That the Original of all Just Power and Government is in the PEOPLE The Original of all Just Power is in the People THose Men that deny this Position are fain to run up as high as Noah and Adam to gain a pretence for their Opinion alledging That the primitive or first Governments of the World were not instituted by the consent and election of those that were governed but by an absolute Authority invested in the persons governing Thus thâ—â— say our first Parent ruled by a 〈◊〉 Power and Authority in himself onely as did also the Patriarchs before and after the Flood too for some time becoming Princes by vertue of a paternal right over all the Families of their own Generation and Extraction so that the Fathers by reason of their extraordinary long Lives and the multiplicity of Wives happened to be Lords of Kingdoms or Principalities of their own begetting And so some deriving the Pedigree or Government of this Paternal Right of Soveraignty would by all means conclude That the Original of Government neither was nor ought to be in the People For answer to this consider That Magistracy or Government is to be considered as Natural or as Political Naturally he was a true publick Magistrate or Father of his Country who in those Patriarchal times ruled over his own Children and their Descendants This Form of Government was only temporary and took an end not long after the Flood when Nimrod changed it and by force combining 〈◊〉 of distinct Families into one Bod◠〈◊〉 subjecting them to his own Regiment did by an Arbitrary Power seated in his own Will and Sword constrain them to submit unto what Laws and Conditions himself pleased to impose on them Thus the Paternal Form became changed into a Tyrannical Neither of these had I confess their Original in or from the People nor hath either of them any relation to that Government which we intend in our Position But secondly There is a Government Political not grounded in Nature nor upon Paternal Right by Natural Generation but founded upon the free Election Consent or mutual Compact of men entring into a form of civil society This is the Government we now speak of it having been in request in most ages and still is whereas the other was long since out of date being used onely in the first age of the World as proper onely for that time So that to prevent all Objections of this nature when we speak here of Government we mean onely the Political which is by Consent or Compact whose original we shall prove to be in the people As for the Government of the Israelites first under Moses then Joshua and the Judges The Scripture plainly shews that they were extraordiâ—nary Governours being of God's immediate institution who raised them up by his Spirit and imposed them upon that people whose peculiar happiness it was in cases of this nature to have so infallible and sure a direction so that their Government was a Theocracie as some have called it having God himself for its onely Original and therefore no wonder we have in that time Nation so few visible foot-steps of the peoples Election or of an institution by Compact But yet we finde after the Judges when this people rejected this more immediate way of Government by God as the Lord told Samuel They have not rejected thee but me and de-desired a Government after the manner of other Nations then God seems to forbear the use of his Prerogative and leave them to an exercise of their own natural Rights and Liberties to make choice of a new Government and Governour by suffrage and compact The Government they aimed at was Kingly God himself was displeased at it and so was Samuel too who in hope to continue the old Form and to fright them from the new tells them what Monsters in Government Kings would prove by assuming unto themselves an Arbitrary Power not that a King might lawfully and by right do what Samuel describes but onely to shew how far Kings would presume to abuse their power which no doubt Samuel foresaw not onely by Reason but by the Spirit of Prophecie Nevertheless the people would have a King say they Nay but there shall be a King over us whereupon saith God to Samuel Hearken to their voice Where we plainly see first God gives them leave to use their own natural Rights in making choice of their own Form of Government but then indeed for the choice of their Governor there was one thing extraordinary in that God appointed them one he vouchsafing still in an extraordinary and immediate manner to be their Director and Protector but yet though God was pleased to nominate the person he left the confirmation and ratification of the Kingship unto the people to shew that naturally the right of all was in them however the exercise of it were superseded at that time by his Divine pleasure as to the point of nomination for that the people might understand it was their Right Samuel calls them all to Mizpeh as if the matter were all to be done anew on their part and there by lot they at length made choice
hath said My Kingdome is not of this World it is not from hence c. And therefore that hand which hitherto hath presumed in most Nations to erect a Power called Ecclesiastick in equipage with the Civil to bear â—way and bind mens Consciences to retain Notions ordained for Orthodox upon civill penalties under colour of prudence good order discipline preventing of Heresie advancing of Christs Kingdome and to this end hath twisted the Spiritual Power as they call it with the Worldly and secular interest of State This I say hath been the very right hand of Antichrist opposing Christ in his way Whose Kingdom Government Governours Officers and Rulers Laws Ordinances and Statutes being not of this World I mean jure humano depend not upon the helps and devices of Worldly wisdome Upon this score and pretence the Infant Mystery of Iniquity began to work in the very Cradle of Christianity Afterwards it grew up by the indulgence of Constantine and other Christian Emperours whom though God used in many good things for the suppression of gross Heathen Idolatry yet by Gods permission they were carryed away and their eyes so far dazled through the glorious pretences of the Prelates and Bishops that they could not see the old Serpent in a new Form wrapt up in a Mystery for Satan had a new Game now to play which he managed thus First he led a great part of the World away with dangerous Errours thereby to find an occasion for the Prelates to carry on the mystery of their Profession and so under pretence of suppressing those dangerous errors they easily scrued themselves into the Civil Power and for continuing of it the surer in their own hands they made bold to baptize whole Nations with the name of Christian that they might under the same pretence gain a share of Power and Authority with the Magistrate in every Nation which they soon effected The Infant-being thus nurst grew up in a short time to a perfect man the man of sin if the Pope be the man which is yet controverted by some for the Prelates having gotten the power in their hands began then to quarrel who should be the greatest among them At length he of Rome bore away the Bell and so the next step was that from National Churches they proceed to 〈◊〉 a Mother-Church of all Nations A fair progress and pitch indeed from a small beginning and now being up they defied all with Bell Book and Candle excommunicating and deposing Kings and Emperours and binding mens Consciences still under the first specious pretence of suppressing Heresie to believe onely in their Arbitrary Dictates Traditions and Errours which are the greatest Blasphemies Errours and Heresies that ever were in the World Now they were up see what a do there was to get any part of them down again What a Quarter and Commotion there was in Germany when Luther first brake the Ice And the like here in England when our first Reformers began their Work These men in part did well but having banished the Popes actual Tyranny they left the Seed and Principle of it still behind which was a State Ecclesiastical united with the Civil for the Bishops twisted their own interest again with that of the Crown upon a Protestant Accompt and by vertue of that persecuted those they called Puritans for not being as Orthodox they said as themselves To conclude if it be considered that most of the Civil Wars and Broiles throughout Europe have been occasioned by permitting the settlement of Clergy-Interest with the Secular in National Formes and Churches it will doubt els be understood that the Division of a State into Ecclesiasticall and Civil must needs be one of the main Errors in Christian Policy A second Error which we shall note and which is very frequent under all Formes of Government is this that care hath not been taken at all times and upon all occasions of Alteration to prevent the passage of Tyranny out of one Form into another in all the Nations of the World for it is most clear by observing the Affairs and Actions of past-Ages and Nations that the interest of absolute Monarchy and its Inconveniencies have been visible and fatal under the other Forms where they have not been prevented and given us an undeniable proof of this Maxime by Experience in all Times That the Interest of Monarchy may reside in the hands of many as well as of a single person The Interest of absolute Monarchy we conceive to be an unlimited uncontrolable unaccountable station of Power and Authority in the hands of a particular person who governs onely according to the Dictates of his own Will and Pleasure And though it hath often bin disguised by Sophisters in Policy so as it hath lost its own name by shifting Formes yet really and effectually the thing in it self hath bin discovered under the artificial covers of every Form in the various Revolutions of Government So that nothing more concerns a People established in a state of Freedom than to be instructed in things of this Nature that the means of its preservation being understood and the subtil sleight of old Projectors brought into open view they may become the more zealous to promote the one and prevent the other if any old game should happen to be plaid over anew by any succeeding Generation It is very observable in Athens that when they had laid aside their King the Kingly power was retained still in all the after-turns of Government for their Decimal Governours and their Thirty commonly called the Tyrants were but a multiplied Monarchy the Monarchal Interest being held up as high as ever in keeping the exercise of the Supremacy out of the peoples hands and seating themselves in an unaccountable state of Power and Authority which was somewhat a worse condition than the people were in before for their Kings had Supervisors and there were also Senatick Assemblies that did restrain and correct them but the new Governors having none ran into all the heats and fits and wild extravagancies of an unbounded Prerogative by which means Necessity and Extremity opening the peoples Eyes they at length saw all the Inconveniencies of Kingship wrapt up in new Forms and rather increased than diminished so that as the onely Remedy they dislodged the Power out of those hands putting it into their own and placing it in a constant orderly Revolution of persons Elective by the Community And now being at this fair pass one would have thought there was no shelter for a Monarchal Interest under a popular Form too But alass they found the contrary for the people not keeping a strict Watch over themselves according to the Rules of a Free State but being won by specious pretences and deluded by created Necessities to intrust the management of Affairs into some particular hands such an occasion was given thereby to those men to frame parties of their own that by this means they in a short time became able to
stand upon their own legs and do what they list without the peoples consent and in the end not onely discontinued but utterly extirpated their successive Assemblies In Rome also the Case was the same under every Alteration and all occasioned by the crafty contrivances of Grandising Parties and the peoples own facility and negligence in suffering themselves to be deluded for with the Tarquin's as it is observed by Livy and others onely the name King was expelled but not the thing the Power Interest of Kingship was still retained in the Senate and ingrossed by the Consuls For besides the Rape of Lucrece among the other faults objected against Tarquin this was most considerable That he had acted all things after his own head and discontinued Consultations with the Senate which was the very height of Arbitrary Power But yet as soon as the Senate was in the saddle they forgat what was charged by themselves upon Tarquin and ran into the same Errour by establishing an Arbitrary Hereditary unaccountable Power in themselves and their Posterity not admitting the people whose interest and liberty they had pleaded into any share in Consultation or Government as they ought to have done by a present erecting of their successive Assemblies so that you seethe same Kingly Interest which was in one before resided then in the hands of many Nor is it my Observation onely but pointed out by Livy in his second Book as in many other places Cum à Patribus non Consules sed Carnifices c. When saith he the Senators strove to create not Consuls but Executioners and Tormentors to vex tear the people c. And in another place of the same Book Consules immoderat â infinitaque potestate omnes metus legum c. The Consuls having an immoderate and unlimited Power turned the terror of Laws and punishments onely upon the people themselves in the mean while being accountable to none but to themselves and their Confederates in the Senate Then the Consular Government being cashiered came on the Decemviri Cum Consulari Imperio ac Regio sine provocatione saith my Author being invested with a Consular and Kingly Power without appeal to any other And in his third Book he saith Decem Regum species erat it was a Form of ten Kings the miseries of the people being increased ten times more then they were under Kings and Consuls For remedy therefore the ten were cashiered also and Consuls being restored it was thought fit for the bridling of their Power to revive also the Dictatorship which was a Temporary Kingship used onely now and then upon occasion of Necessity and also those Deputies of the people called Tribunes which one would have thought had bin sufficient Bars against Monarchick Interest especially being assisted by the peoples successive Assemblies But yet for all this the people were cheated through their own neglect and bestowing too much confidence and trust upon such as they thought their friends For when they swerved from the Rules of a Free-State by lengthning the Dictatorship in any hand then Monarchick-Interest stept in there as it did under Sylla Caesar and others long before it returned to a declared Monarchal Form and when they lengthned Commands in their Armies then it crept in there as it did under the afore-named persons as well as Marius Cinna and others also and even Pompey himself not forgetting also the pranks of the two Triumvirales who all made a shift under every Form being sometimes called Consuls sometimes Dictators and sometimes Tribunes of the people to out-act all the Flagitions Enormities of an absolute Monarchy It is also evident in the Story of Florence that that Common-wealth even when it seemed most free could never quite shake off the Interest of Monarchy for it was ever the business of one Upstart or other either in the Senate or among the People to make way to their own ambitious Ends and hoist themselves into a Kingly posture through the Peoples favour as we may see in the Actions of Savanarola the Monk Soderino and the Medices whose Family did as we see at this day fix it self at length in the State of an absolute Monarchy under the Title of a Dukedome Nor can it be forgotten how much of Monarchy of late crept into the United Provinces Now the use that is to be made of this Discourse is this that since it is clear the Interest of Monarchy may reside in a Consul as well as in a King in a Dictator as well as in a Consul in the hands of many as well as of a single person and that its Custom hath bin to lurk under every Form in the various turnes of Government therefore as it concerns every people in a State of Freedome to keep close to the Rules of a Free-State for the turning out of Monarchy whether simple or compound both name and thing in one or many by which means onely they will be inabled to avoid this second Error in Policy so they ought ever to have a Reverent and Noble respect of such Founders of Free-States and Common-wealths as shall block up the way against Monarchick Tyranny by declaring for the Liberty of the People as it consists in a due and orderly succession of Authority in their supream Assemblies A third Errour in Policy which ought especially notice to be taken of and prevented in a Free-State hath bin a keeping of the people ignorantâ— of those ways and means that are essentially necessary for the preservation of their Liberty for implicite Faith and blind Obedience hath hitherto passed currant and been equally pressed and practised by Grandees both Spirituall and Temporal upon the People so that they have in all Nations shared the Authority between them And though many quarrels have â—iâ—en in times past between Kings and their Clergy touching their several Jurisdictions yet the mysteries of Domination have been still kept under lock and key so that their Prerogative remained entire ever above the reach and knowledge of the People by which means Monarchs and other standing Powers have seen their own Interest provided for as well as in the Popes in this mysterious Maxime Ignorance is the Mother of Devotion But these things ought not to be so among a people that have declared themselves a Free-State For they should not onely know what Freedome is and have it repreâ—ented in all its lively and lovely Features that they may grow zealous and jealous over it but that it may be a Zeal according to knowledge and good purpose it is without all question most necessary that they be made acquainted and throughly instructed in the Meanes and Rules of its preservation against the Adulterous Wiles and Rapes of any projecting Sophisters that may arise hereafter And doubtless this endeavour of mine in laying down the Rules of preserving a Free-State will appear so much the more necessary if we consider that all the Inconveniencies that in Times have happened under this Form to imbroyl
length they have been their own executioners and ruined one another And had it been only the destruction of themselves the matter were not considerable but the people having by this means been torn with Civill dissentions and the miseries of War by being drawn into Parties according to their severall humors and affections the usuall event ever was that in the end they have been seized as the prey of some single Tyrant An example of this there was in the State of Athens under the Government of those thirty men who usurped the power into their own hands and were afterwards called the thirty Tyrants for their odious behaviour for Xenophon tells us that they drew the determinations of all things into their own Closets but seemed to manage them calculis suffragiis Plebis by the Votes of the people which they had brought to their own devotion in the Assembly to countenance their proceedings And their custom was if any sort of men complained and murmured at their doings or appeared for the Publique immediately to snap them off by the losse of life or fortune under a pretence of being seditions and turbulent fellows against the peace of their Tyranny These Juncto-men had not been many moneths in possession but they began to quarrel with one another and the reason why the game went not on against one another was because the people took it out of their hands and diverted the course of their spleen against each other into a care of mutuall defence they being assaulted on every side by popular arme and clamors for the recovery of liberty So you see the event of these thirty mens combination was no lesse then a civill War and it ended in their banishment But as great a mischief followed for a new Junto of ten men got into their places whose Government proving little lesse odious than the 〈◊〉 gave an occasion to new changes which never left shifting till at last they fell into a single Tyranny And the wilder sort of people having by a sad experience felt the fruits of their own error in following the lusts and parties of particular powerful persons grew wise and combining with the honester sort they all as one man set their shoulders to the work and restored the primitive Majesty and Authority of their supreme Assemblies Herodotus in his second Book tells us that Monarchy being abolished in Egypt after the death of King Setho and a Declaration published for the freedom of the people immediately the Administration of all Affaires was ingross't in the hands of twelve Grandees who having made themselves secure against the people in a few years fell to quarrelling with one another as the manner is about their share in the Government This drew the people into severall parties and so a civill Warre ensued wherein Psummeticus one of the twelve having slain all his Partners left the people in the lurch and instead of a free State seated himself in the possession of a single Tyranny But of all old instances the most famous are the two Triumvirates that were in Rome The first was that of Pompâ—y Caesar and Crassus who having drawn the affairs of the Empire and the whole World into their own particular hands acting and determining all in a private â— unto of their own without the advice or consent of the Senate and people unless it were now and then to make stalking horses of them for the more clearly conveyance of some unpleasing design These men having made an agreement among themselves that nothing should be done in the Common-wealth but what pleased their own humor it was not long ere the spirit of Ambition set them flying at the faces of one another and drew the whole World upon the Stage to act that bloody Tragedy whose Caâ—astrophe was the death of Pompey and the Dominion of Caesar The second Trimuvirate was erected after the fatall stab given to Caesar in the Senate between Octavius afterwards Emperor by the name of Augustus Lopidus and Antony these having drawn all Affairs into their own hands and shared the World between them presently fell abandying against one another Augustus picking a quarrell with Lepidus gave him a lift out of his Authority and confined him to a close imprisonment in the City This being done first he had the more hope and opportunity next for the outing of Anthony he picks a quarrel with him too begins a new civill Warre wherein Rome and a great part of the World was engaged to serve his ambition and things being brought to the decision of a Battell and the ruine of Anthony he afterwards seated and secured himself in the injoyment of a single Tyranny Omitting many other instances here in England it is worthy observation that in the great contest between Henry the third and the Barons about the liberties of themselves and the people the King being forced at length to yield the Lords instead of freeing the Nation indeed ingrossed all power into their own hands under the name of the Twenty-foure Conservators of the Kingdom and behaved themselves like totidem Tyranny so many Tyrants acting all in their own Names and in 〈◊〉 of their own wholly neglecting or else over-ruling Parliaments But then not agreeing among themselves there were three or four of them defeated the other twenty and drew the intire management of Affairs into their own hands viz. the Earles of Leicester Gloucester Hereford and Spencer yet it continued so not long for Leicester getting all into his own power fell at enmity with Gloucester and was defeated by him At length Leicester putting his Fortune to a Battel was slain and the King thereupon getting all power back again took advantage of that opportunity for the greatning of himself and Prerogative And so you see All that the people got by the effusion of their bloud and loss of their peace was That instead of one Tyrant they had Twenty Four and then Four and after them a single Usurper which was Monfort Earl of Leicester and he being gone they were forced to serve their old Tyrant Henry the Third again who by this means became the more secure and firm in his Tyranny wherein if they had dealt like men of honour and made the Nation as free as they pretended not ingrossing all into their own private hands but instating the liberty of England Paramount above the regall prerogative in a due and constant course of successive Parliaments without which liberty is but a meere name and shadow then all the succeeding inconveniences had been surely prevented the bloody bickering afterwards might have been avoided their own persons and honors preserved Kings either cashiered or regulated as they ought to have been and the whole Nation freed from those after-gripes and paâ—gs inflicted by that Henry and his corrupt Line of successors The World affords many instances of this kinde but these are sufficient to manifest the fatall consequences that have happened in permitting publick 〈◊〉 and interests to be ingrossed