same continued till our times but the whole frame was strangely altered and corrupted Many different opinions there be concerning our Government yet three amongst the rest are most remarkable For one party conceives the King to be an absolute Monarch A second determines the King Peers and Commons to be three co-ordinate powers yet so that some of them grant three Negatives some only two A third party give distinct rights unto these three yet in this they are sub-divided and they would be thought to be more rational who give the Legislative Power unto the Lords and Commons in one house the judicial to the Lords in a distinct house and the executive to the King who was therefore trusted with the Sword both of War and Justice None of these can give satisfaction There is another opinion which puts the supreme power radically in the 40. Counties to be exercised by King Peers and Commons according to certain rules which by Antiquaries in Law together with some experienced States-men of this Nation might be found out but are not The seeds of this division were sown and begun to appear before the wars and the opinion that all these were only in one man that is the King absolutely some say was the greatest cause not only of the last but also of other civil wars in former times And it hath been observed that every man liked that opinion best which was most suitable to his own interest Our several opinions in Religion have heightened our differences and hindered our settlement yet Religion is but pretended for every party aims at civil power not spiritual liberty from sin And the power to settle us thus wofully distracted is only in God and if he ever will be thus merciful unto us the way whereby he will effect it will be by giving the greatest power to men of greatest wisdom and integrity not by reducing us unto one opinion that all the powers civil must be in one as the Author doth fondly fancy Let the form be the best in the world yet without good Governors its in vain The subject of this Chapter is Majestas jura Majestatis the Rights of Soveraigns which this Author hath handled very poorly and if he had but translated that which others had more excellently written in this particular before him he might have informed us better given his Reader more satisfaction reduced them to a better method and neither have made such to be Rights which are none nor omitted those which truly are such as he hath done CAP. III. Of the Second part and the Nineteenth of the Book of the several kinds of Common-wealths by institution and of succession to the Soveraign power BY these brief contents it appears that the subject of this Chapter is the distinction of Common-wealths and Succession to the Soveraign power in a successive State In the first part he 1. Reduceth all Common-wealths to three kinds 2. Prefers Monarchy one of them before all the rest T. H. Other kind of Common-wealths besides Monarchy Democracy Aristocracy there cannot be G. L. This is conceived to be a distribution into species or kinds yet if we throughly examine it it is not so for it s but an accidential difference For it ariseth only from the distinct and different manner of disposing the supreme power in one or more In more and these are the Optimates some of the best and most eminent or in the whole Community Yet in all these the essential acts of Government and so the Soveraign power are the same in all States and they are as you heard before three Legislation Judgement and Execution for its meerly accidental to the supremacy to be disposed more or more That it must be disposed in some certain such sect is necessary and that as the Supremacy is one and indivisible so the subject must be one also and that either physically or morally The great variety of Common-wealths which is such that there be not two in the whole world in all things like ariseth not from the constitution but from the different manner of administration Though the Author denies all mixt Common-wealths yet wise and learned men which without disparagement to him may be preferred before him as in other things so in State-learning have said 1. That there is no pure Monarchy or Aristocracy or Democracy in the world 2. That not only some but all Common-wealths are in some measure mixt or tempered and allayed because they conceive it s hardly possible for any pure State to continue long Against these I find in Mr. Hobbs a verbal contradiction but no real confutation And it seems to me he never truly understood them neither hath he taken notice of the difference between Real and Personal Majesty or of the Natural or Ethical subject of Supremacy or of the exercise thereof by certain persons and the constant inherency of it in a certain subject And we know by experience that such as are only trusted with the exercise of supreme power will by little and little usurp it and in the end plead prescription So Lewis the 11. of France when he violated the Laws of the constitution removed all such as by right ought to have poysed him could boast That he had freed the Crown from Wardship And this hath been the practise of the Princes of Europe which in the end will prove their ruine as for the present it hath been their trouble There is no Common-wealth but may be reduced to one of these three in some respect yet so that Monarchies differ as much from one another as they differ from the other two Some are regal some despotical and there be several sorts of these But I do not intend at this time to contest with him about this distribution but proceed T. H. Tyrannie and Oligarchy are but different names of Monarchy and Aristocracy not different forms of Governments G. L. These names do not signifie Chimera's but real Entities and if any have abused them to signifie forms of Government let them answer for themselves I know them not they cannot be men of any note Tyrannie doth not signifie Monarchy nor Oligarchy an Aristocracy They signifie the vicious corruption of States degenerate from their original constitution and that by the wickedness of a Prince and the faction of an assembly ingrossing power and enhansing it above that which is due and just and so become a multitude of Tyrants and this hath been the cause why many Nations when they had power in their own hands have altered the form of Government been jealous of trusting one man or assembly of men long with too much power and the wisest have set their wits on the rack to find out a way how to limit and restrain the power of their Governors T. H. Subordinate Representatives are dangerous And I know not how that so manifest a truth should of late be so little observed that in a Monarchy he that had the Soveraignty from a descent
acts thereof or 2. in respect of the executive only so far as that all Commissions Judgements Executions determined by Law should run in his name as they did I remember I have read in the Mirrour something to this purpose That in the first constitution of this Government of England in the time of the Saxons the 40. Counts of the 40. Shires or Counties set up a King above them so that he had neither any one his Superiour nor his Peer Yet ex obligatione criminis by his mis-government the 40. Counts joyntly together might judge him whether in their own names or the name of the 40. Counties may be a question And in this sense I believe is to be understood that saying Rex singulis major universis minor Let these things be so or no for they are out of my sphere its certain the Kings of England had the title of Majesty yet that 's no argument at all that he was invested with the supreme and universal power 4. He was unquestionably taken by them for their King I grant he both was so taken and was so truly and indeed And when our Kings were such as were more tender of the peoples good then their own greatness and also governed by the direction of a wise and faithful Council they found them the most loving and loyal subjects of any in the world For the English alwaies desired to be governed as men not as Asses And this is the quality of all understanding people of other Nations Some are not capable either of a mild or moderate power Eminent Authors who take upon them to know Law and the power of Kings have said 1. That the King of England may be judged so Horn. 2. That he is in Law considered as Infans minorennis as a pupil alwaies in nonage and as his Courts and Officers can do nothing but in his name so he can do nothing but by their heads and hands and he cannot take away the formalities of judicial proceedings nor by all his power revoke or make null the Judgement of any Court. So several Authors 3. He hath not Regiam potestatem sed politicam â populo effluxam so Fortescue the great Chancellor 4. That he was a King by Law not above Law and could not exercise any power but according to Law 5. He was sworn corroborare leges quas vulgus eligeret where vulgus is populus and populus eligit leges and as the Law-giver so his Oath 6. No King made a Law without a Parliament nor could justly impose a Subsidy upon the people without a Parliament These two things forreign writers could observe 7. By the manner of their Coronation which was turned to a Formality he derived not his power from the first investiture as some tell us the Princes of Germany and the Kings of France do nor from his immediate predecessor but by Election and this is agreeable to Fortescue A populo effluxam 8. King Henry 8. desires by an act of Parliament to be empowered to design by will which of his children he should please for to succeed him What power either Kings or Parliaments have assumed and exercised de facto and not de jure might be observed by some men and brought into example yet to little purpose From all this every one may see what little credit is to be given to Arniseus and Besoldus and some other outlandish writers who affirm the Kings of England to be absolute Monarchs For they took their information either from partial or ignorant men or from unlearned Histories as many of our English be For few of our Historians have been either Antiquaries in Law or learned and experienced States-men such as Thucidides Xenophon Polybius Livy Tacitus Guiccardine Commeignes and such like have been These are men that could penetrate into the bowels of a State and discover the inward fabrick of the same T. H. Monarchy is the best form of Government G. L. This is the substance of the next part of this Chapter And in this particular I will not be tedious nor answer him word by word But 1. It s certain there is no absolute Monarch but one and that is the eternal glorious God 2. Monarchy well regulated may be a good Government amongst men 3. There are several kinds of Monarchies so called and some better then another 4. Monarchy may be good for some people bad for another and sometimes good for the same people sometimes not 5. To infer that Monarchy in general is the best kind of Government alwaies for all people because some kind of Monarchy is sometimes good for some kind of people is very absurd One of our learned Bishops in his answer to Bellarmine who affirmed Monarchical Government was the best and therefore the Government of the Church must be such saith that purple is the best colour yet not the best for the Cardinals face so it is in this case No man I think can demonstrate the Government of Angels to be Monarchical There may be amongst those blessed spirits primatus ordinis not jurisdictionis We do not read that God did ever immediately institute a form of Government to any people except to Israel yet that was not Monarchical And though Monarchy were supposed to be the best yet wise men having the opportunity did never institute that form of Government which in it self was best but the best the people were capable of I am no enemy to Monarchy and I desire all Christian States to be content with their present form of Government especially if they may enjoy peace and the Gospel If divine Providence bring them into such a condition as that they must or may lawfully and safely alter let them use their utmost power to make the alteration so that it may be a reformation To endeavour a change in a quiet State and that out of ambition or an humour of innovation or an high conceit of their own State-learning will much offend God and bring great misery on man Alterations in Government which though they be for the better if sudden are dangerous and should be made insensibly and by little and little yet so that if there be any thing in the former old constitution which is good it should be retained what wise Polititians have done in this kind Histories inform us as in England if the Common-Law which so many excellent Lawyers have so highly commended as next unto the eternal Law were introduced it would prove a wonderful compendium in the regulation of Justice and cut off a world of useless Statutes which are rather an impediment then a furtherance to Justice There may be many forms of Government and all good yet its certain that is the best which provides most effectually for good Officers in the administration If we may believe Contzen the Jesuite There are amongst others in the constitution of the Empire of China two excellent rules constantly put in practise The one is an Office or Colledge whose duty
the first Scripture alledged by him we read it in Exod. 20.19 To understand these words we must consider 1. That cap. 19.8 That all the people answered together and said All that the Lord hath said that will we do This was an absolute subjection of themselves to God and a promise to obey him 2. That the Lord said unto Moses Lo I come unto thee in a thick cloud that the people may hear when I speak with thee and believe thee for ever Verse 9. This was to procure authority and credit unto Moses as a Messenger between God and Israel 3. That the words of Exod. 20.19 quoted by the Author are expounded Deut. 5.27 For thus there we read Go thou near and hear all that the Lord our God shall say and speak thou unto us all that the Lord our God shall speak to thee and we will hear it and do it From all which it is apparent 1. That the people had formerly before they spake these words subjected themselves to God and he was their Soveraign not Moses 2. That they promise to obey the words of God declared by Moses not as they were the words and Laws of Moses but of God they will do them 3. That they promise to believe Moses as a Messenger between God and them not obey him as their supreme Lord. It s one thing to believe Moses as a Prophet from God and to yield him absolute obedience as a King Believe him as a Prophet they might obey him as their King they must not God was their King and Moses his Messenger and servant How grosly therefore doth he abuse the place how absurdly and falsly doth he thence infer the peoples promise of absolute obedience to Moses which was only due and promised unto God T. H. Concerning the right of Kings God himself by the mouth of Samuel saith This shall be the right of the King you will have to raign over you he shall take your sons c. 1 Sam. 8.11 12 c. G. L. 1. The translation which he confessed is allowed by his Soveraign and the Church of England is perverted For instead of This will be the manner of the King he turns it This shall be the right of the King There is a great difference between right which is alwaies just and manner or custom which is many times unjust 2. If this be a prerogative of Soveraigns then its a very great misery to be subject to a King and that in two respects 1. Because he will take away from his subjects unjustly that which justly is their own even the best things 2. Because by doing thus he will oppress them so grievously that having no remedy or redress from man they will cry unto God for deliverance from a King as a great and intolerable mischief 3. If it be the right of a King yet it is but the right of heathen Despotical Princes and not of the Kings of Israel But how can it be the right of heathen Kings seeing they had no power to oppress and do wrong 4. It could not be the right of the Kings of Israel for they were bound to act and judge according to the Laws God had made yet these acts here mentioned are directly contrary to those Laws and Rules of Regal Government delivered by God himself For he must have a copy of the Laws and read in it all his life that he may fear God keep his Laws not exalt himself above his Brethren c. Deut. 17.18 19 20. Neither did the Kings of Judah or Israel no not wicked Ahab practise or make use of this power as is evident in the case of Naboths Vineyard 5. To do according to this power pretended in this place is directly contrary to the very end of all Government civil which is to do justice and judgement to preserve to every one his own to protect the good and punish the bad How shall he punish the Oppressor when he is the great Oppressor himself How can he do justice upon thieves when he is the greatest thief in his Kingdom 6. If this should be the right of the Kings of Israel and of all Soveraigns then though the people of Israel were a free people yet if a King was once set over them they were meer slaves neither their Lands nor their goods nor their children nor their servants were their own and also by this reason there can be no subjects in any state under heaven that can have propriety or liberty but all are meer and absolute servants and slaves Kings may have potentiam but not potestatem force and fraud but no just power to oppress their subjects and do such things as are here mentioned Whereas some say That God in this place teacheth us what Kings may do and in Deut. 17.18 19 20. what they ought to do is to little purpose as being more acute then solid For id quisque potest quod jure potest And no man no not the greatest Princes in the world have any power to do that which is unjust 7. It s a question whether they had such a King as they desired For they desired a King which would offend God and oppress them but God gave them such a King as had no power to make Laws but such as were bound to Judge according to the civil or judicial Laws made by himself and even in the time of Kings he reserved the Soveraign Rights in his own hand It seems they understood not well what kind of King they had desired for to maintain the state and pomp of a great Court and an army in constant pay was a vast charge and required such a revenue as could no waies be raised without the great oppression of the people And this they did not consider neither would understand till it was too late and the yoak was upon their necks and the burden pressed them very sore When Princes are trusted with an absolute power to raise men and moneys at their will and pleasure they will not be content with the ordinary Revenue of their Crowns but what they cannot obtain justly by the Laws and the constitution of the State they will force by the sword and so the Government proves military and in the end meerly arbitrary Whereas Mr. Hobbs conceives That to go in and out before them and Judge the people contains as absolute a power of the Militia and Judicature as one man can possibly transfer unto another he is much deceived For both these may be had in a despotical or a Regal way or by Commission The first is absolute the two latter are not so The Kings of Sparta Poland Arraegon might have both these and yet be no absolute Soveraigns T. H. Solomon prayed that God would give him understanding to judge his people and discern between good and evil 1 Kings 3.8 therefore he had the Judicial and Legislative power supreme and absolute G. L. This is his meaning and thus he understands these words
few passages to manifest that he never understood what liberty is Liberty of subjects is not Natural nor Moral nor Theologicall but Political and Civil In the Civil Law and Politicks it s opposed to servitude and bondage not simply and meerly to obligation by Laws as he fancieth for thus he writes T. H. So men have also made artificial Charms called Civil Laws which they themselves by mutual Covenants have fastened at one end to the lips of the Soveraign at the other to their own ears G. L. The Authors meaning is That so far as Laws bind the subject so far they take away his liberty and men by constitution of a Soveraign over them give a power absolute to make Laws and so far as they are virtually subject to his power and actually bound by his Laws they cannot be free yet this well examined will not prove true For not any kind of Obligation takes it away for then the Laws of Nature by which a man is bound before he be subject to a civil Soveraign should deprive him of his liberty yet they leave him as free a man as any possibly in a free-State can be The Obligation of just Laws and wise Edicts do regulate liberty keep it within its proper bounds and no waies destroy it or take it away Therefore that which follows is questionable For he affirms T H. That the liberty of a subject therefore lieth only in those things which in regulating their actions the Soveraign hath pretermitted G. L. But 1. In things left indifferent because not defined by Law the subject is not only liber sed dominus and hath not only libertatem but potestatem He is not only free but Lord of those actions and hath not only liberty but also an absolute power 2. Though wise and just Laws do regulate actions yet they do not make the agent a slave or a servant For to be a slave or a servant is to be cast below the condition of a man and make him subject to some thing below himself Wisdom and Justice are above the power of the Soveraign much more above the liberty of a subject They are particles of the divine perfection and to be bound by them is not only a liberty but an honour To be free from the dominion of our own base lusts and sins and the power of Satan is true liberty divine and so not to be subject to the lusts and imperious unworthy commands of absolute Soveraigns whose wills though irrational contrary to justice must stand for Laws is civil liberty And then a man is Politically free when he is so far Master of his life goods children and that which is justly his that they cannot be taken away from him but for some crime contrary to just Laws deserving such a penalty In a word the liberty of a subject is such a state or condition as that he is neither by the Soveraign power nor any Laws bound to do any thing which a rational and just man would not willingly do though there were no Laws or Penalties Civil at all This is not to be free from Laws And I do not know who they are which he saith demands any such thing The rude and ignorant people and also all children of Belial desire to have a licence not only to do good but evil too as they please and they judge all Laws as heavy burdens and grievous yoaks If he mean that the subjects of England demanding the benefit of Magna Charta and the Petition of Right did aim at any such extravagant liberty he must needs be a slanderer of his own fellow-subjects and an enemy to the English liberty as indeed he is and that through an erroneous notion and conceit of absolute power civil The liberty of the subjects of this Nation is very great and such as if we either consider the Laws of the Constitution or Administration the ordinary and common subjects of other Nations are but slaves unto them Our Free-holders have the choice of their Knights and Burgesses for the Parliament so that neither any Laws can be made nor moneys imposed upon them without their verbal consent given by their Representatives In all causes civil criminal capital no Judgement can pass against them but by the verdict of a Jury made up of their neighbours which in it self is an excellent priviledge The Civilians say Libertas est res inestimabilis and to be redeemed at any rate much more the English liberty is to be valued and ever was by our ancestors who obtained it recovered it kept it though with the blood of many thousands But the question is whether this liberty is consistent with the Soveraigns power His opinion is T. H. That by the liberty of the subject the Soveraigns power of life and death is neither abolished nor limited G. L. It s certain that the Soveraigns power and the subjects liberty are consistent For the Soveraign may take away the life of his subject yet according to the evidence of Judgement agreeable to Law no otherwise Yet he presupposeth 1. That the King is supreme and the primary subject owner and possessor of the original power which sometimes may be yet with us its far otherwise 2. That the power of civil Soveraigns is absolute For with him T. H. Nothing the Soveraign representative can do to a subject on what pretence soever can properly be called Injustice or Injury because every subject is Author of every act the Soveraign doth so that he never wanteth right to any thing otherwise then as he himself is the subject of God and bound thereby to observe the Laws of Nature When Jephtah sacrificed his daughter and David murthered Uriah both innocent yet they did them no injustice c. G. L. Here he seems to contradict himself For he grants two things 1. That the Soveraign is subject to God 2. That in that respect he is bound to observe the Laws of nature yet he saith he can do no injustice to the subject and that he hath right to any thing yet so as he is limited by subjection to God and the Laws of Nature 1. If he be Gods subject as certainly he is it follows 1. That in that respect he is but trusted as a servant with the Administration of the power civil 2. That he is fellow-subject with his subjects 3. He may do injustice as one fellow subject may wrong another Secondly If he be bound to observe the Laws of Nature which are the Laws of God then 1. He is not absolute or solutus legibus His power is limited and bounded by these Laws 2. Then he hath no power to murther oppress and destroy his innocent subjects who are more Gods then his and only trusted by God in his hands for to be protected righted in all just causes and vindicated from all wrongs 3. No Prince or Soveraign can assume or any people give to any person or persons any the least power above or contrary unto the
another and be parts one of another I do not understand 6. A Law of Nature is only then a civil Law when it s declared to be so by the civil Soveraign yet it s a Law before 7. For the most part learned men do understand by the Laws of Nature certain divine principles imprinted upon the heart of man by the Laws of Nations more immediate by the Laws civil more remote Conclusions of constitutive Laws civil T. H. Seeing all Laws have their authority and force from the will of the Soveraign a man may wonder whence proceed such opinions as are found in the Books of Lawyers of eminence in several Common-wealths directly or by consequence making the Legislative power depend on private men or subordinate Judges as for example That the Common-Law hath no Controuler but the Parliament Item That the Common-Law hath two arms Force and Justice the one whereof is in the King the other deposited in the hands of the Parliament G. L. The former Conclusion which is the fifth in order That the Laws of Princes and Countries subdued depend upon the Soveraign conquering is true And it is wisdom in the Conquerors to grant them the Laws and Customs of God and no waies prejudicial to their power For many are willing to change their Governors yet unwilling to change their Government But as concerning the two maximes of Law I might refer him to the Learned in that profession who no doubt can make them good against any thing he hath said They seem to him to be unreasonable partly because he is ignorant of the Constitution both of this and also of other States partly because they are inconsistent with his Utopian principles For he presupposeth 1. That the King of England is an absolute Monarch 2. That the Parliament as a Parliament is meerly a subject 3. That the King hath power at will and pleasure to call Parliaments and dissolve them yet these hath he not made good neither can he 1. That our Kings are not absolute Monarchs is well known the Laws and practice have made it manifest And whatsoever ignorant persons and parasites may say yet wise men both English and Forreign States-men who have dealt with England have been assured of the contrary especially when in certain leagues they have required the consent of the Parliament Again the Kings of England never made or repealed a Law nor levied a subsidie alone themselves without a Parliament And they are sworn corroborare leges quas vulgus elegerit For let Elegerit be what tense it will vulgus which is populus non rex eligit leges and the late King in his answer to the 19. Propositions did confess that the Lords and Commons had a share in the Legislative power And it were very much to be wondered at if that King who himself alone could never make or repeal a Law nor levy or impose a subsidie nor revoke the judgement of any Court nor alter a word or clause in any Law agreed upon in Parliament should be an absolute Monarch It s far more probable he was only trusted with the force for the execution of justice according to Law and Judgement according to the second maxime And if he was no absolute Soveraign then his second supposition that the Parliament as such is only an Assembly of private men and subjects and to be considered in no other capacity is false As likewise his third That the King can call and dissolve Parliaments at will and pleasure For by the Constitution the Laws and practise he was bound to call them once a year and oftner as the necessity and exigency of affairs either of peace or war should require And in such cases to dissolve them before the ardua Regni were dispatched was both dangerous and destructive and did argue either a bad constitution or a corruption of the same T. H. Law cannot be against reason neither is it the letter but the intention of the Law-giver that is the Law And this reason is not private of subordinate Judges but of the supreme Lawgiver G. L. All this is willingly granted if he understand by Reason not the meer conceit or will of the Soveraign but that reason which is a ray of divine wisdom shining in the mind of the Law-giver regulating his judgement and expressed in the words of the Law And the sense of a Law given by a learned Judge subordinate may be very true yet not authentick because he that makes the Law can interpret Law in that manner and none else I pass by his discourse concerning promulgation and interpretation of Law as also the qualification of Judges which belongs to that Chapter of Officers formerly mentioned He might have done well to have improved these excellent Treatises of other learned Authors who have informed us both more accurately and also more particularly of these things then he himself hath done But he conceits himself as far above them as they surpass ordinary men Neither is his distribution of Laws worth the examination as being very crude and indigested as also heterogeneous I proceed therefore to his two questions concerning what assurance may be had of and obedience ought to be given unto divine positive Laws The questions are T. H. 1. How can a man without supernatural revelation be assured of the revelation received by the declarer of those Laws 2. How can he be bound to obey them The answer to the first By sanctity miracles wisdom success without particular revelation its impossible for a man to have assurance of a revelation made to another Therefore no man can infallibly know by natural reason that another hath had a supernatural revelation of Gods will but only a belief G. L. This presupposeth 1. That there is a positive Law of God 2. This positive Law is declared and witnessed to be the Law of God 3. That this testimony concerning this Law is divine and infallible 4. That it is such because it s grounded on and agreeable to an immediate revelation from God of that Law to him that doth declare it as to Moses the Prophets or Apostles For God formerly spake unto the Fathers by the Prophets in the latter times to their children by his Son first and after by his Apostles The question here is not how we shall attain a demonstrative clear or intuitive knowledge of the matter of the Law nor of the manner of the revelation but how we may be assured that the declaration or testimony of him to whom the revelation was made is divine that we may believe it as divine and from God The means whereby the divinity of the testimony was made evident at the first were extraordinary as signs wonders and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will Heb. 2.4 But after that upon these divine attestations the Gospel was generally received in all Nations and the prophesies of the Old Testament in this particular fulfilled these ceased yet one thing
the guily he may justly suffer Some are one person with the guilty by nature as children with parents some by consent as sureties with the principal guilty of non-payment or by Laws civil as the subjects with the Soveraign 6. The just execution of judgement is a means to avert Gods wrath to protect the just to preserve the State and procure Gods mercy Rewards are contrary to punishments and are due to such as are loyal and obedient subjects doing well These either are ordinary and general as protection of life liberty estate or extraordinary and more special and such as enrich or advance or give priviledges immunities and exemptions And these latter should never be disposed of but according to desert and by this means they would encourage the subject and breed gallant men Thus far his constitution of the Leviathan the great monstrous animal hath been examined and viewed and is found to consist of an absolute power and absolute slavery The head is an absolute Soveraign the body and members absolute slaves CAP. XIII Of the Second Part. And the twenty ninth of the Book Of those things which weaken and tend to the dissolution of a Common-wealth ALL bodies Politick are truly mortal as the Author saith though not so mortal as the individual persons whereof they are constituted be For by reason of succession of these singular and several persons they are of longer continuance and therefore said to be immortal the proper meaning whereof is that they are not so mortal Many States are constituted by degrees not in a moment or any short time and in the like manner they decay by little and little until they utterly vanish in a total dissolution And though both constitution and dissolution seem sometimes to be fortuitous yet they are not so for its God who in his mercy plants and builds and in his just judgement plucks up and pulls down This is the place assigned by Authors to the head of Politicks which delivers the causes of the alteration corruption and subversion of States Alterations of the forms of Government are sometimes for the better and so they are a blessing sometimes for the worse and so they are the same with corruption Corruption is from man subversion from God as the supreme and universal Judge Corruption goes before subversion follows And this corruption is from the sins and crimes of the Governors or governed or both The crimes of Governors are either Personal or Political Personal are many times the same with the offences of the people sins of them as men Political are such as make them guilty as they are Governors as ignorance imprudence negligence in justice Political and these not only in assuming and acquiring power but in the administration of the same The sins of the people as subjects are impatiency when they will not endure the severity of just Governors good Laws and impartial Judgement a desire of innovation and alteration of Government without just and necessary causes open rebellion secret treachery and conspiracy sedition and such like The sins of both which are personal are impiety against God injustice and unmercifulness towards man the abuse of peace and plenty to bravery drunkenness gluttony lewdness and such like Vices And when in these they become impudent incorrigible and universally delinquent their ruine is fatal and unavoidable the harvest is ripe and the sickle of Gods vengeance will cut them off The Apostle in his Epistle to the Romans cap. 13. gives a perfect model of the best and most lasting States 1. The higher powers must so ascend the Throne as that it may be truly said they were ordained of God and advanced not only and meerly by his permission but Commission and Command 2. They must have a sword and a sufficient coactive power 3. They must use the same according to just judgement and wholsom Laws for the protection of the good and the punishment of the bad 4. The people must be subject not only out of fear but conscience 5. They must obey their good and wholsom Laws 6. They must give them such allowance as shall be sufficient to maintain and make good their just power 7. They must love one another 8. They must not live in rioting and drunkenness chambering and wantonness nor in strife and envying In a word they must be sober in themselves just towards man devout towards God But when Prince Priest and people refuse to follow these Laws they draw Gods judgements from heaven upon the Common-wealth Idle filthy and abominable Sodom must be destroyed Gold-thirsty and blood-thirsty Babylon cannot stand Idolatrous and Apostate Israel and Judah must be wasted with sword famine pestilence their Countrey made desolate and the remnant carried captives and dispersed in remote parts and in the midst of their enemies But let us examine the causes of the weakening and dissolution of States determined by the Author T. H. The 1 is when a man to obtain a Kingdom is content sometimes with a less power then to the peace and defence of the Common-wealth is necessarily required G. L. This may prove to be a cause yet very rarely Princes and Monarchs for of them he speaks offend usually on the other hand If they can they will assume and challenge far more power then either God will or man can give them for they desire to be absolute Lords Few of them are of brave Theopompus his mind who willingly made his power less that it might be more lasting To be Dukes of Venice can in no wise satisfie their vast ambitious desires The Lacedemiun Ephori are terrible to them The Justitia Arragoniae cannot be endured Legislative and judicial Parliaments do too much restrain and limit their power 〈◊〉 with them its treason to affirm that there be any lawful means to reduce them into order when they apparently transgress the Laws of nature which are the Laws of God The people indeed must be kept in awe and order and this cannot be without power But what is here understood by power It s not potestas but potentia strength and force which may be great in a Leviathan yet without wisdom and justice can never long keep the people in subjection His examples of the Roman and Athenian free-States are not fully applyed neither do the applyed come home unto the point Rome was strong enough to subdue a great part of the world before she became imperial and Athens in that Law concerning Salamis had power enough but wanted wisdom and therefore were reformed by the wise folly of Solon That which is here spoken of the power of Kings is not to derogate the least from that power which is due unto them by the constitution of the State wherein they raign Some have more some have less Yet none should have less then is sufficient for the full discharge of their place And it is to be wished every one of them would keep the bounds determined by God and the Constitution T H.
bound to obey God more then man and as his subjection unto man is but conditional and subordinate to his subjection to God so his obedience to man is limited and only to be performed in such things as his supreme and absolute Lord doth allow him And though man may suffer for his disobedience to humane Laws yet he had better suffer a temporal then an eternal penalty and offend man rather then God Neither doth this doctrine any waies prejudice the civil power nor encourage any man to disobedience and violation of civil Laws if they be just and good as they ought to be and the subject hath not only liberty but a command to examine the Laws of his Soveraign and judge within himself and for himself whether they be not contrary to the Laws of his God T. H. The third Doctrine That faith and sanctity are not to be attained by Study and Reason but by supernatural inspiration and infusion G. L. That divine faith wherby we believe on Jesus Christ and obtain eternal life in him and that sanctity of life whereby we please God and are accepted of him are no doubt both merited by Christ and inspired and wrought in us supernaturally by the power of the Holy-Ghost And there can be no doubt of this to such as believe the Scripture to be the Word of God written wherein we read That except a man be born again of water and the spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God John 3.5 And no man can come unto me except the Father draw him cap. 6.44 And to believe that Jesus was the Son of the living God was not from flesh and blood but by revelation of his heavenly Father Christ himself teacheth us Mat. 16.17 This revelation was an inspiration or infusion except we will quarrel with words and it was not natural for then it might have been by and from flesh and blood but it was supernatural and from God revealing not only outwardly but inwardly too It is also further taught us in Scripture That no man can say that Jesus Christ is the Lord but by the Spirit 1 Cor. 12.3 Yet this faith and sanctity are so wrought in us as that ordinarily God makes use of the Scriptures taught explained applyed unto mans heart of hearing study and meditation which are acts of reason and such acts as man may naturally perform and also so neglect them as to give God just cause to deny the inspiration of his Spirit for to make the word taught heard meditated effectual upon his heart This Doctrine hath been believed and professed in the most peaceable Common-wealths of the world and did strengthen not weaken much less dissolve the same If he understand by the professors of this Doctrine the phanatick Enthusiasts of these times who pretend so much that Spirit which God never gave them and upon this pretence boast themselves to be spiritual men judging all and to be judged of none as they use to abuse the Scripture then its true that these are enemies to all Government and their Doctrine tends to the dissolution of all order Ecclesiastical and Civil and is to be rooted out of all Common-wealths T. H. A fourth opinion repugnant to the nature of a Common-wealth is this That he that hath the Soveraign power is subject to the Civil Laws G. L. There is no doubt but this is destructive of Government and contrary to the very nature and essence of a Common-wealth the essential parts whereof are imperans subditus the Soveraign and the subject take this difference away you confound all and turn the Common-wealth into a Community yet though Soveraigns are above their own Laws how otherwise could they dispense with them and repeal them wise men have given advice to Princes for to observe their own Laws and that for example unto others and good Princes have followed this advice Soveraigns are to govern by Laws not to be subject unto them or as Subjects obey them or be punished by them But what this man means by Soveraign in the hypothesis is hard to know For he presupposeth all Soveraigns absolute and all Kings of England such Soveraigns and so in general it may be granted that all Soveraigns are above the Laws civil yet the application of this rule to particular Princes of limited power may be false and no waies tolerable The question is not so much concerning the superiority of the Soveraign over the Laws but whether a Soveraign by Law for Administration who is not sole Legislator is not in divers respects inferiour to the Law or whether an an absolute Soveraign may not cease to be such and ex obligatione criminis ex superiore fieri inferior T. H. A fifth Doctrine which tendeth to the dissolution of a Common-wealth is That every man hath an absolute propriety in his goods such as excludeth the right of the Soveraign Every man hath indeed a propriety that excludes the right of the subject which is derived from the Soveraign without whose protection every man should have equal right to the same G. L. 1. If the subject have propriety as the Author grants it must needs be absolute and must needs exclude not only the right of the fellow-subject but of the Soveraign too For propriety in proper sense is an independent right of total alienation without any license of a Superiour or any other 2. This propriety is not derived from the Soveraign except he be despotical and such indeed the Author affirmeth all Soveraigns to be and in that respect the subjects can neither have propriety nor liberty therefore he contradicts himself when he saith in many places that the Soveraign is absolute and here that the subject hath propriety 3. It s to be granted that even in a free-State the subjects proprity cannot free from the publick charges for as a Member of the whole body he is bound to contribute to the maintenance of the State without the preservation whereof he cannot so well preserve his own private right 4. Propriety is by the Law of Nature and Nations at least agreeable unto both And when men agree to constitute a Common-wealth they retain their proper right which they had unto their goods before the Constitution which doth not destroy but preserve propriety if well ordered For men may advance a Soveraign without any alienation of their estates No man hath any propriety from God but so as to be bound to give unto the poor relieve the distressed and maintain the Soveraign in his just Government yet this doth not take away but prove propriety because every one gives even unto the Common-wealth that which is his own not another mans nor his Soveraigns who may justly in necessary cases for the preservation of the State impose a just rate upon the subject But if the Reader seriously consider the Authors discourse in other parts of his Book he may easily know whereat he aims For 1. He makes all Soveraigns absolute 2. The Kings
Chrstianity but per accidens so far as the persons who are Christians are subject to the civil power And this care of the Magistrate may do much good not only in preventing all tumults and seditions about Religion as prejudicial to the peace of the State and suppress them but also protect the servants of Christ and promote Christianity very much And in this respect only I conceive Soveraigns to be in all Causes as well Ecclesiastical as Civil supreme Governors From the definition formerly given he concludes T. H. That because in all Common-wealths that assembly which is without warrant from the civil Soveraign is unlawful that Church also which is assembled in any Common-wealth that hath forbidden them to assemble is an unlawful assembly G. L. There is a diffecence between warrant permission and prohibition Acts 15. we read of a Church-assembly at Jerusalem yet without any warrant from the Roman Emperour and the same did debate determine engross and publish certain binding Canons yet I hope he dare not dictate it to be unlawful though it had been forbidden Permission perhaps they had warrant they had none There are actions and such as God commands and civil Governors forbid yet the prohibition of man cannot make void the command of God For we must obey God rather then man But he tells us T. H. That temporal and spiritual Government are but words brought into the world to make men see double and mistake their lawful Soveraign G. L. As Government the thing signified by the word is a real act so spiritual and temporal Government are two not words but things really different For there is a temporal Government which is not spiritual and spiritual which is not temporal And though he will not give us leave yet we will take it to distinguish between Church and State temporal and spiritual man and Christian For he knows and that certainly there be men who yet are no Christians States which are not Churches and temporal things which are not spiritual And those things which not only may be but actually are separated in existence must needs be really distinct The rule is infallible as its evident And he that will confound these may build a Babel but no orderly society And it s a fault to make that which is double to seem single as well as make that which is single appear to be double CAP. IX Of the third Part. The 40. of the Book Of the rights of the Kingdom of God in Abraham Moses the high Priests and the Kings of Judah HItherto Mr. Hobbs hath abused his Reader in the explication of certain words and terms used in Scripture and hath bewrayed his gross ignorance and abominable errours And as though he had laid a sure foundation whereon to ground his following discourse or at least made way for it he proceeds to prove out of the said holy writings of the Old Testament the absolute power of Christian Soveraigns and States both in matters of Religion and Civil Government And this is so done that there is little fear least any intelligent Reader should he deceived or perswaded by him because there is so great a distance between his premises and the conclusion that no wit of man is able to see the connexion or the illative force of them For he argues That because Abraham in his family Moses in Israel the high Priests after Moses in the times of Judges and the Kings from Saul to the captivity had the supreme power Civil and Ecclesiastical therefore all Christian Governors supreme have the same For this is the substance of this Chapter Yet 1. Abraham was but the Master of a family Moses a Mediator between Israel and God retaining the supreme power both temporal and spiritual in his own hands not only in his time but in the raign of Judges and the Kings The high Priests did only ask counsel of God by the Vrim and Thummim and declared it to the Rulers The Kings had no power Legislative at all but only executive according to the Laws of God they had no right unto the Sacerdotal power For Vzziah usurping that of offering Incense was smitten with leprosie Therefore his Assumption is notoriously false 2. Abraham Moses and some of the Kings were extraordinary Prophets and immediately inspired Such are not Christian Soveraigns Neither can they from God in difficult and perplexed cases receive counsel of God by Vrim and Thummim 3. Suppose all these had been invested with supreme power Civil and Ecclesiastical as they were not yet it doth not follow that therefore Christian Soveraigns are so His consequence therefore is no consequence but false 4. Here it s to be observed That no example can be drawn from the Government of Israel either under Moses or Judges or Kings because that Government all along was extraordinary And as no State Christian is bound to follow it so no State can parallel it And its in vain for Divines or any other writers to argue from that particular form of politie to any other in the world Some general Rules and practises therein may be made use of for the reproof or reformation of Government in other States His innovations and particular false glosses upon several texts are not worthy confutation CAP. X. Of the third part the 41 of his Book Of the office of our blessed Saviour THey who desire to obtain eternal salvation by Christ Jesus must know both who he is and what he hath both suffered and done for them Jesus Christ as Saviour and Redeemer for person is the eternal Son of God for Natures he is God and Man yet so that these two Natures remain distinct one from the other yet personally united For Office he is Prophet Priest and King and such he is made as man by Commission from his Heavenly Father He was Initiated at his Baptism after which time he began to exercise his three-fold power And 1. Of a Prophet to manifest that he was their Saviour and to perswade men to believe in him 2. He performed some acts of a King in making Laws and Officers 3. He acted as a Priest at his death by offering up himself that great sacrifice first by inffering and dying on earth secondly by entring the Holy place of Heaven and presenting himself as slain and so obtained eternal Redemption After his consecration finished upon the Resurrection he was made a compleat Priest for ever after the Order of Melchizedeck Upon his Resurrection he was more selemnly setled in his Throne as universal and eternal King And then in a more glorious manner began to act 1. As Prophet to teach not onely Jews but Gentiles and that not onely by his word but by his Spirit powred down from Heaven upon all flesh 2. As a Priest interceding by vertue of his blood 3. Of a King in all the acts of government in his Universal Kingdom By his sacrifice offered on earth and presented in Heaven he satisfied Gods justice offended by the
is a plain difference between Civil and Ecclesiastical Power between the Sword and the Keyes For what is bound by the civil Power on Earth is bound and made good on earth by an earthly Sword But what is bound on earth by the Spiritual Power is bound in heaven and made good and executed by Jesus Christ and that by a Spiritual force upon a Divine Promise Secondly this Sword must protect the good and punish the bad which implies there must be wise and just Laws 2. There must be just judgement according to these Laws For otherwise there can be no true and certain knowledge of good and bad for to put a difference between them that the one may be punished for violation the other protected for the observation of the Laws And here again we must note 1. That there is a threefold Power civil or rather three degrees of that Power The first is Legislative The second Judicial The third Executive For Legislation Judgement and Execution by the Sword are the three essential acts of supreme Power civil in the administration of a State 2. That there is no Power to punish the good and protect the bad For the Sword must execute according to Judgement and that must pass according to Laws and both Judgement and Laws must be regulated by Divine Wisdom and Justice Thirdly This Sword must be in the hands and possession of higher or supereminent Governors For a Title without the possession of a Sword can neither punish nor protect Therefore in all States of the world they who have possession of the Sword do rule let the Title be what it will neither can it be otherwise And no Prince can rule when God hath taken away his Sword It hath been declared in some measure 1. What Power in General 2. What Power civil in Particular is The third thing concerning this supremacy of Power to be examined is the original of it And the same Text of the Apostle Paul tels us that it is of God therefore in the Definition I said That the Sword was committed by God to higher Powers who become such by this Commission when God gives them possession of the Sword So that the Original of this Power is from God both in respect of the Power and the persons possessed of Power For it is he that gives Understanding Will and Power sufficient for to govern he gives Wisdom and Justice he commands all Societies that have opportunity to set up a wise and just Government for Peace and Godliness In respect of the persons he designs them either in an ordinary or extraordinary way he inclines the hearts of the people to submit and obey he prevents seditions rebellions treasons and such like acts as tend to confusion and the ruin of Common-wealths according to that of the Psalmist Thou hast delivered me from the strivings of the people Psal 18.43 And it is God that subdueth the people under me Psal 47. In this designation God sometimes useth the consent tacit or express sometimes the force and consent of Man Fourthly The Subject of this Power is either standing or movable The standing Subject by Nature is the community in whom vertually it resides and is exercised by a general representative upon extraordinary occasions or at certain determinate times And this is the best way to preserve liberty if these general Assemblies be well ordered and fit persons rightly qualified be chosen For its dangerous to trust either one man or a number of men with too much power the constant exercise of the same This supreme power reserved to the whole community to be exercised as necessity or occasion shall require might be called Realis Majestas yet every Community is neither so wise nor so happy For in most States we find only a personal Majesty or supreme Power and the same sometimes Despotical and too absolute yet in other Common-wealths the supreme Governours are limited and only trusted with the exercise of the power according to certain Rules and fundamental Laws Of this Majesty or supreme Power civil some Writers have observed that it must be not only supreme but also perpetual and above Laws soluta Logibus That it must be supreme and above all subordinate power within and independent upon all other soveraigns without its necessary It must be also perpetual and fixed that it may be distinguished from the extraordinary and temporary powers trusted in the hands of one or more upon extraordinary occasions How far it is absolute or above the Laws I shall examine hereafter After the supreme Power civil is determined and sixed in a certain Subject Subjection to it follows which is the third thing in the Definition Regimen est ordo Imperii subjectionis For in all Government some must be above and have power to command some must be below and be bound to obey And in a civil State there must be one universal supreme to which all others in the Community must subject themselves This Subjection must be rational free and orderly or else the State cannot continue long nor be well administred And wisdom must determine not only the general order of superiour and inferiour but also in particular the Community must be divided into parts with a co-ordination of equals and subordination of the unequals and of every several part unto the whole that so every one may know his place and rank that he may keep it Therefore the Apostle commands every soul Rom. 13.1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not barely to be subject any ways but in a certain order for the Community must be like an Army put in array that so the supreme Power may the better animate and order it upon which followeth a more regular motion of this great body both in the whole and every part tending the more directly to Peace Godliness and Honesty For there is a twofold end of regular civil Government The first is Peace The second is Godliness and Honesty to which Peace is subordinate For the Apostle exhorts us to pray for Kings and all that are in authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and Honesty 1 Tim. 2.1 Government is for Peace Peace for Godliness and the performance of our duty towards God and Honesty That we may live soberly and justly towards men When God doth bless a people with a setled Government and an happy peace for these are Gods blessings neither Prince nor people must forget their God or live in Luxury and deal unjustly one with another For these things offend him provoke him to anger and pull down his Judgements upon them He expects Piety and Honesty from every one even from the highest to the lowest And these earthly States are erected and subordinated to an higher end then peace and plenty here on earth they should be so ordered as to prepare men for eternity otherwise Regna are but latrocinia a den of thieves and a combination of devils Thus much I thought
of 600. years was alone called Soveraign had the title of Majesty from every one of his subjects and was unquestionably taken by them for their King was notwithstanding never considered as their Representative that name without contradiction passing for the title of those men which at his command were sent up by the people to carry their petitions and give him if he permitted their advice G. L. This man deserves to be a perpetual slave his intention is to make men believe that the Kings of England were absolute Monarchs their subjects slaves without propriety of goods or liberty of person the Parliaments of England meerly nothing but shadows and the members thereof but so many carriers of letters and petitions between home and the Court What he means by subordinate Representatives I know not I think his intention is to oppose those who affirmed King Peers and Commons to be co-ordinate not subordinate powers and all of them joyntly to make up one supreme Subordinate Representatives or powers he may safely and must grant in all States The word Representative he either doth not understand or if he do he intolerably abuseth his unwary and unlearned Reader by that term A Representative in the Civil Law called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is one who by his presence supplies the place of another that is absent for some certain end as to act that which another should do but in his own person doth not yet with the consent of the person represented so far as that the thing is judged to be done by him And in this sense the person representing is Judged to be one with the person represented by fiction of Law And one may represent another as a Superiour who may represent another in any act so far as that other is in his power or as an inferiour by a power derived from his superiour or as an equal by consent so far as the person will undertake to act for him In all these representations the Representeé and the Representer are judged one person In a free-State a Parliament is a Representative of the whole body of the people this we call a general Representative The reason of this representation is because the whole body of a people cannot well act personally What kind of Representative the Parliament of England was is hard to know except we knew certainly the first institution which by tract of time and many abuses of that excellent Assembly is now unknown It was certainly trusted with the highest acts of Legislation Judgement Execution The whole body consisted of several orders and ranks of men as of King Peers Commons the Clergy Whether they might meddle with the constitution or no is not so clear it s conceived they could not alter it though they might declare it what it was Their power was great without all doubt yet not so great but that it was bounded and a later Parliament might alter and reform what a former had established which argues That the 40. Counties and the whole body of the people whence all Parliaments have their original and being as they are Parliaments were above them In this great assembly the Knights and Burgesses did represent the Connties and the Burroughs the Convocation the whole body of the Clergy the Peers by antient tenure their Families Vassals and Dependants But whom the King should represent is hard to determine If the Law did consider him as an infant and this according to the constitution he could represent no other person or persons And if this be so then there is plain reason why he never should have the title of Representative yet evident reason there is why the rest should be called a Representative and the people are not Representers as he fondly imagines but the persons represented It s affirmed by the Author 1. That our Government is a Monarchy 2. The King had the Soveraignty from a descent of 600. years 3. Was alone called Soveraign 4. Had the title of Majesty from every one of his Subjects 5. Was unquestionably taken by them for their King 1. Our Government is called a Monarchy is true and he himself in this Chapter confesseth that Elective limited Kings are called Monarchs and their Kingdoms Monarchies yet he saith they are not so Again Monarchy is Regal over free-men Despotical over slaves and servants not by a Legal but an Arbitrary power If he say its Regal then the King is no absolute Monarch as he would have him to be If he say its Despotical its false and we know it so to be false And the Doctrine of Dr. Sibthorp and Mannering or Martin affirming this was condemned by a whole Parliament and that by men who have been as great Zealots for the King in these civil wars as any other 2. The King of England had Soveraignty by a descent of 600. years But first what doth he mean by Soveraignty If he understand an absolute supreme power it s not true the Kings of England have no such thing It s true that many of them did challenge so much power as they could acquire and keep and as their sword was longer or shorter so their power in possession was more or less Yet by the constitution of Law and the best custom it was alwaies determined within certain bounds Secondly Whence will he commence the date of 600. years and how will he derive the Soveraignty If from the Conqueror the date of so many years is not yet expired the Succession is interrupted if not cut off by the sword upon a civil war If he derive this power from the Conqueror as Conqueror all free English men will deny it the Kings themselves durst not challenge it upon those terms and by consent they never had it Therefore the Soveraignty the time of the commencement the title it self doth vanish He saith something proves nothing that he was called Soveraign doth neither prove that he was really such nor that he was absolute and that by his own confession 3. The King had the title of Majesty from every one of his subjects The title or name doth not prove the thing for we know very well that the title is constantly given to divers Princes who have not the thing no more then our Kings had the Kingdom of France though they had the title of the Kings of France France was so civil as to grant the title and the word but never part with the thing The Dukes of Venice as Contarene tells us had insignia sed non potestatem regis Majestas is sometimes maxima dignitas and this no subject denyed to the King He had his Scepter and his Throne his Robe and Diadem but all these are far short of supreme power Majestas is Personalis aut Realis Real he had not Personal he might have Yet personal Majesty might be his either in respect of dignity as it was or in respect of power and that also two waies either in respect of the whole power and all the
wherein we may observe 1. Solomons place and duty as King of Israel and that was to judge that people 2. That this duty could not be well performed without wisdom 3. God doth give wisdom for that purpose These things are implyed 4. Solomon prases for wisdom to that end Neither from his place or prayer will it follow that he had the supreme absolute legislative power in himself alone Neither indeed had he any such thing at all for God had made the Laws both Civil and Ecclesiastical And he could neither alter or abrogate them but was bound precisely and strictly to judge according to them and neither depart unto the right hand or the left And suppose Solomon had been invested with this power doth it therefore follow that all other Kings have the like The rest which follow are not worthy any answer He instanceth 1. In Saul whom being their Lords annointed David did not slay though he was in his power And what follows hence but only thus much That no man in Davids case and of Davids conscience dare secretly put to death a King annointed by Gods special and immediate Word 2. Servants must obey their Masters and Children their Parents in all things And what is this to purpose Doth it hence follow that all Kings have absolute power what impertinent and absurd illations are these But 3. Christs Disciples must observe and do all that the Scribes and Pharisees bid them as sitting in Moses Chair From hence it cannot be concluded that they had Soveraign power civil no more then Ministers of the Gospel have it because the people must observe and do all that they bid them out of the Gospel 4. Paul chargeth Titus cap. 3.2 to warn the people of Creet that they subject themselves to Princes and to those that are in authority and obey them And his gloss is this is simple obedience What is this to absolute and supreme power By this may be as easily proved that every petty Officer hath supreme power as well as any other for an Officer must be obeyed because he is in Authority 5. Christ commands to give to Caesar the things that are Caesars and paid taxes himself All that can be inferred from hence is That tribute is to be paid to whom tribute is due and that it is due from Provinces to their supreme Governors The summ of all these places amounts to thus much in Politicks That the chief commands in war just Judgement in peace or the exercise of Jurisdiction belonged unto the Kings of Judah and tribute to the Roman Emperour How many plain and express places of Scripture might have been produced to prove that there is a Legislative Judicial Executive power in every State and that it is to be exercised by some certain persons designed for that purpose And the Author had no need to lay the weight of his praise for these things upon such places as do but tacitly and by way of intimation point at some of them But why he should falsifie the translation abuse so many texts make such woful illations from some of them and so impertinently alledge them I know no reason and it seems to me intolerable that in the last example he should make Christ Jesus the civil Soveraign of the Jews in the time of his humiliation and by vertue of that civil power to take another mans Ass as his own which he did but desire to borrow and use for a little journey with the consent of the owner That the sin of our first parents in desiring to be as Gods knowing good and evil was an ambition to become civil Soveraigns he may perswade us to believe when he can prove it T. H. pag. 106. Soveraign power ought in all Common-wealths to be absolute G. L. This I read in the margent and to his understanding its plain both from reason and Scripture that it s as great as possibly a man can be imagined to make it This is plainly ridiculous For what cannot men imagine seeing their imaginations can reach to wonders impossibilities and many things far above a civil Soveraign power And here is a sit occasion offered to examine what absolute power is and in what respect Soveraignty is absolute There is no power as there is no being absolute but that of Gods whose power is his being Civil supreme power is said to be absolute because its soluta legibus free from the Laws and not limited and obliged by them Yet the Laws from which they are free as being above them are only civil Laws made by themselves for the administration of the States where they are Soveraign For they are so strictly bound by the Law of Reason Nature God which are but all one divine Law as they have not the least power to do any thing either as private persons or publike Soveraigns against them except they will dethrone themselves provoke the wrath of God and bring his Judgements upon them They are besides subject to the Law of Nature which is above any particular Soveraign though never so great They are indeed above their own Laws and may not only alter many things in them but abrogate them Yet so as all this tends to the publick good They may act upon occasion above and besides them as the general good shall require it They are not bound unto formalities but may omit them Yet all this is but little and confined to the narrow compass of things indifferent as they are subordinate to pure morals It s true that their power is in some respect arbitrary yet if they do any thing which either in it self or in the circumstances only is unjust they offend and transgress the bounds God hath put unto their power And here we must distinguish between the Soveraign for the Constitution and the Soveraign for Administration The former hath more power then the later who only is above the Laws of administration yet both must be just for they have no power to be unjust It s certain that Princes desire to be Gods absolute independent above all Laws and to have a priviledge to do what they list and a right to do wrong and it s a dangerous thing to flatter them and make them believe their power to be greater then indeed it is for this is the very high-way unto ruine Wise men have advised all Princes to observe their own Laws made by themselves and by their example encourage their subjects to obedience And this is an effectual means to procure their safety and confirm them in their power and the love of their subjects CAP. V. Of the Second Part the one and twentieth of the Book Of the liberty of subjects THE subject of this Chapter is as in the argument the liberty of subjects which follows the power of Soveraigns in this discourse And because his method is no method but rather a confusion I do forbear to reduce the Chapter either to certain Heads or Propositions and will only observe some
Laws of Nature These Laws are the moral precepts of eternal justice and equity from which all civil Laws have their rise and are either conclusions drawn from them or certain rules tending to the better observation of them Which things well considered do make it very evident how little the power of civil Lords and Princes must needs be In some few indifferent things they may be absolute have arbitrary power and be in some respect above those constitutive Laws which they themselves enact His instance in Jephtah gives them power above and contrary to the Laws of God and Nature Yet who will grant him that Jephtah sacrificed his daughter The text will not evince it for it only saith that whatsoever cometh forth of my doors to meet me c. shall be the Lords or I will offer it up for a burnt-offering Judges 11.31 For the particle 〈◊〉 Vau turned by some copulatively for and is here as in many other places dis-junctive and signifies or Again if Jephtah did sacrifice her he sinned not only against the Law of Nature but also the written Law of Moses For God gave no command permission or toleration to any that we read of but only to Abraham to sacrifice with humane blood and that Commandment was but to try him for he would not suffer him to put him to death Besides God threatens ruine and destruction to such as did offer their children to Moloch and shed their blood And their sin was not only because they offered them to Idols and Devils but also because they shed innocent blood without any warrant or Commission from God the only supreme and absolute Lord of life Further how could the vow of man which was but a voluntary Obligation be above the Law of God and make that lawful which by a Superiour Law was unlawful I verily believe she was devoted only not sacrificed But suppose he did sacrifice her to God to whom he had vowed her yet he did not this as a Soveraign of her life but as a subject to God The example of David murthering Vriah can much less prove the absolute power of Soveraigns to take away the lives of their innocent subjects For David had no such power for 1. He was no absolute Prince but limited both by the written Laws of God and also the Natural 2. Neither he nor any other can have any such power because man cannot God doth not give any such power 3. David did not only iniquity but injustice to Vriah 1. As his fellow-subject in respect of God 2. As his own subject whom he was bound as innocent to protect not to destroy 4. His proof out of Psal 51.4 Against thee only is invalid For 1. Though it be so translated by some and so understood by Ambrose and others who follow him yet neither that translation nor the interpretation thereon can be evinced either out of the Original or the Septuagint or the vulgar or Junius or Vatablus 2. Genebrard Vatablus Junius Ainsworth and others understand it that God only was privy to and knew of this sin and the words following And done this evil in thy sight seem to confirm this sense 5. Yet suppose it should be turned against thee only yet others interpret onely to be principally as supreme Law-giver and Judge not only to me but all others who only hast the Original power of punishing and pardoning not only me but others and that not only temporally but spiritually and eternally Yet the exposition of Ambrose is taken up because Princes desire it to be so absolute and both Divines and other men are very ready to slatter such as are in present possession of power But to make the point more evident let me digress a little and search out the reason and cause of the power of life and death as in the hands of civil Soveraigns To this end observe That no man hath absolute power of his own life as he hath of his goods Man may have the use and possession but not the propriety and dominion of it Therefore it s granted on all hands that though a mans life be said to be his own yet he may not be felo de se and kill himself he is not Master of his life so far as to have any power or liberty to do any such thing It s true that God who is Lord of life and death gives liberty to man in some cases to hazard in some he commands to lay down his life He may hazard it in a just war and defence of his own Countrey and also of himself against an unjust invader He must lay down his life and God commands it for the testimony of Christ in which case he that loseth it shall find it From all this it follows that no people can by making a Soveraign give any absolute power of life and death unto him For nothing can give that which it hath not neither can they make themselves Authors of the unjust acts of their Soveraign much less of his murthers and taking away the lives of their innocent subjects Id enim quisque potest quod jure potest If thus it be then they must have power to take away life from God who alone hath power of life and this power he only gives in case the subject be guilty of such crimes as by his Laws are capital T. H. pag. 110. in the margent The liberty which writers praise is the liberty of Soveraigns not of private men G. L. By writers he means the Roman and Greek Historians and Philosophers who wrote so much of liberty amongst the rest especially Aristotle and Cicero By this it seems he never understood these Authors though he accuse others of ignorance The liberty which the English have challenged and obtained with so much expence of blood is not the power of Kings much less of absolute Soveraigns as he would make the world believe but that which is due unto us by the constitution of the State Magna Charta the Laws and the Petition of Right It s but the liberty of subjects not Soveraigns when he hath said all he can we are not willing to be slaves or subject our selves to Kings as absolute Lords Neither are we willing that either flattering Divines Court-Parasites or Unjust Ministers of State should wind up the pretended prerogative so high as to subject our lives and estates and also our Religion to the arbitrary absolute and unreasonable will of one man whom they did desire to advance so much for their own interest There is a difference between the subjects liberty whereby in many things he may command himself and supreme power which commands others under their Supremacy By liberty Aristotle Cicero meant such a priviledge as every subject might have in a free-State not that Soveraignty which belonged to the whole and universal body over several persons where it is to be noted that one and the same person who is a subject and at the best but a Magistrate
the eighth right of majesty he did affirm Yet he distinguisheth of the Soveraigns demand as twofold either by vertue of a Law or by force if he demand or take away any thing by power or pretence thereof there lyeth in that case no action of Law because the subject is made Author of the Soveraigns acts and therefore the suit against him is against the Plantiff himself being his subject If this answer be good then the Soveraign may do what he can and will not what he ought he may rule according to his strength and power and not according to Justice he may borrow and promise to repay take away and engage to restore and yet do no such thing but violate his promise and engagement contrary to the very Law of Nature He hath a liberty to be unjust and wicked and that more then any of his subjects as he hath greater power I leave him to be a subject of such a Soveraign and wish all good men a better The true reason why a Soveraign may be sued is 1. Because in the institution of a Soveraign especially of administration the subjects may reserve the propriety of their goods which may be done without any diminution of a lawful supreme power and in this case when a Soveraign takes away or detains that which is his subjects and an action is brought against him the subject is not his subject nor he his Soveraign in that respect Both of them in this particular are but private persons and he that is subject to him as he is just in his Government questions him as he is unjust in his actions Again propriety belongs unto the Law of nature which is above civil power But he proceeds T. H. If a Monarch or Soveraign Assembly grant a liberty to all or any of his subjects which grant standing he is disabled to provide for their safety the grant is void unless he directly renounce or transfer his Soveraignty to another G. L. By this we easily understand to what purpose the Treaty in the Isle of Wight with the King was For though the Parliament had voted his concessions to be satisfactory in some respect that of Bishops and he was ready to close with them yet in the judgement of this man and all that party adhering to the King the Parliament was accounted no Parliament the King an absolute Monarch and the Concessions ipso facto void and for this reason because the King had disabled himself by granting the Militia to protect his subjects And the issue of this Treaty to be expected was this so far as the King had obtained liberty and opportunity he would declare his Concessions void and unreasonable and so possess himself of the Militia and proceed against the Treators as Rebels and Enemies for so they were accounted Yet this was not a meer grant of liberty but of power which in the Treaty is presupposed to be his though confined and a prisoner and vanquished in a civil war But if we will speak properly the grant of liberty may be such as it may amount to an exemption from a sufficient degree of subjection but it doth not transfer the Soveraign power to another And this must needs be granted that to pass away any of the greater rights is to dethrone In the conclusion of this Cap. we are informed when the obligation of the subject to the Soveraign doth cease and it is then when his power to protect doth cease And there is great reason for it For whatsoever his title may be and how unjustly soever it may be taken away and howsoever his subjects may stand well affected towards him yet seeing there can be no protection from wrong within nor from invasion of enemies without nor administration of Justice without which any people returns unto the confusion of Anarchy except there be actual possession of power therefore Obligation for the present must cease or at least be suspended There be many waies whereby a Soveraign may cease to be a Soveraign as by conquest death resignation cession c. and when the Soveraign ceaseth to be such the Obligation must needs determine as to such a particular Governor And here I might take occasion to treat of subalternate Governments and fiduciary Princes who are Soveraigns in respect of their subjects yet acknowledge a superiour from whom they hold their territory But seeing he is silent I will be so too CAP. VI. Of the Second Part and the two and twentieth of the Book Of Systems subject Political and Private I Pass by his divisions and subdivisions of Systems as being well known to such as are acquainted either with Politicks or Civil Law For the subject of Jurisprudentia civilis being communio or communitas hominum wherein the Lawyers out of their institutions observe persons things and actions both private and publick that they may the better find out the several rights determined by Law They distinguish personam in singularem conjunctam Persona conjuncta consists of several persons distinct Physically yet made one by consent and association Politically And these Systems and Societies may be considered as parts of the Community which is the immediate subject of a Common-wealth and a civil Government Some of these are natural as a Family some are voluntary and by institution In a Common-wealth once constituted all these are subject to the supreme power and their actions are so far warrantable as they derive their power from the Soveraign and are agreeable to the Laws Some of these are made by division co-ordination and subordination as Provinces Counties Hundreds Allotments Town-ships Parishes Some of them are Ecclesiastical some Civil Some are made by Charter and Patent and have their special priviledges and immunnities and have their Statutes and power to make Orders and By-Laws within themselves and some have jurisdiction within their liberties Some are more noble as Colledges and Universities and Schools and all such as are Nurseries of Law and Learning some less noble as Corporations with their several Companies and Officers The end of the institution of these is either for the better and more easie Government of the whole Community or for the better education of the subjects in learning or trades or for the maintenance or enriching or adorning of the State And it concerns the supreme Governors of a State to have a special care of these Societies to order regulate and reform them as they shall see occasion or need For the good of the Common-wealth doth much depend upon the regulation and wise ordering of them CAP. VII Of the Second Part. Of the Book 23. Of the publick Ministers of the Soveraign power MY intention in the examination of the Author is to manifest 1. That where he hath done ill none hath done worse And 2. where he hath done well many before him have done better This latter is my work in this part of his Book as also in other passages of his discourse The subject of this
of England to be Soveraigns And 3. in that respect to have a power to raise subsidies and moneys without a Parliament And 4. hath made that a mortal disease of our State which is a great preservative of our liberty For the people alwaies bear the purse and could not by the King be charged with the least without their consent by their Representative in the Parliament This did poise and limit the regal power prevented much riot and excess in the Court made the Prince frugal and hindred unnecessary wars Yet good Princes and frugal never wanted money were freely supplyed by their subjects whilest they required in their need any thing extraordinary above the publick revenue in a right way by Parliament T. H. There is a sixth Doctrine plainly and directly against the essence of a Common-wealth and its this That the Soveraign power may be divided G. L. The supreme power as supreme must needs be one and cannot be divided For as in a Natural so in a Political body there must be of necessity one only principle of motion One supreme will directed by one judgement and strengthened with one force of the sword must command judge execute Otherwise there can be no order or regular motion Yet this supreme power may be in many persons several and distinct physically but morally reduced to one by the major part agreeing in one suffrage That some have made in this State of England three Co-ordinate powers with their several Negatives and their several distinct rights of Soveraign power can very hardly be made good by any reason as I have hinted before Yet even these do place all the jura Majestatis in all joyntly Our form of Government is confounded by the different opinions of common Lawyers Civilians and Divines who neither agree one with another nor amongst themselves It hath been declared That the fundamental Government of this Kingdom hath been by King Peers and Commons yet this can satisfie no man because there is no certainty what the power of Commons what the power of Lords what the power of the King is Neither whether the house of Commons and of Lords be two distinct houses or no Or if they be distinct wherein they are so distinct For some affirm that in Legislation they ought to be but one though in Judicial acts two Yet suppose the Lords to have the Judicial power alone nevertheless it s a question what kind of Lords and Barons these should be We read first of the forty Lords of the forty Counties in the Saxons time after the Conquest we find three sorts of Barons in the higher house and they were Feudarii rescriptitii diplomatici Barons by Tenure by Writ by Patent Lords by tenure were the first but afterwards when any were called by the Kings Writ to Parliament they by that very Writ were made Barons with suffrage amongst the former the last were Lords by Patent and such were most yea almost all our Lords in latter times And to multiply the last was a policy in the King For by that means after the supremacy of the Pope was cast off the Bishops did wholly depend upon the King and the Barons by Patent were his creatures and by them he might carry any cause or at least hinder and cross the desires of the Knights and Burgesses And herein few of our ordinary Histories can help us because they relate only unto us matter of fact how sometimes the King sometimes the Barons sometimes the Commons were ascendant and predominant as now they all seem to be descendant Yet for all this a free Parliament of just wise and good men might rectifie all this and unite the supreme power so miserably divided to the hazard of the State T. H. And as false Doctrine so also often-times the example of different Government in a neighbouring Nation disposeth men to alteration of the sorm already setled G. L. That this may be a cause of the alteration and also of ruine too it s very possible and there seems to be some colour of reason in it because we are bound to follow the best examples And this may be powerful and prevalent with such as are given to Change and affect novelty Yet with wise and understanding men its of no force because they know full well that some form of Government which may be good to one may prove not to be so to another and that changes in this kind are dangerous For to unsettle that which is firm for to introduce that whereof we have had no experience may prove the ruine of a State T. H. And as to rebellion in particular against Monarchy one of the most frequent causes is the reading of the Books of Policy and Histories of the antient Greeks and Romans c. G. L. This hath been formerly examined The reading of these Books cannot do so much hurt as this Leviathan may do For it is far more dangerous and destructive of good government then any of their Histories which can do no hurt to any but such as are ignorant and ill-disposed In those Books they may read of Kings and Emperours and of Monarchies as well as free-States and few are so void of understanding but that they well know they are bound to their own form of Government and are not to covet every model they read of Such men as he do shamefully debase free-States as forms unlawful in themselves and so flatter limited Princes as though they were absolute Lords and advance Monarchy so high as though it were the only form of Government so instituted by God and commanded that all Nations were bound unto it and whosoever doth not bow unto it is a rebel against God Yet he never instituted immediately any Common-wealth but one and that was a free-State and when a King was desired he was offended and under a regal government it came to ruine Whereas he thinks these Books do teach Regicide and killing of Kings he is much mistaken For subjects to murther their lawful Soveraigns is an horrid crime and so much the more to be detested if done under the name of Tyrannicide To plead for Tyrants really such as such is to be abhorred They pervert the very end of all government abuse their power act contrary to the Laws of God and men to the ruine of the State are enemies of mankind the chiefest agents for the Devil The Question is Whether a people having power in their hands may not restrain or remove or put to death such men as being guilty of many crimes which the Laws of God have made universally capital so that no man in the world can plead exemption Some think that they are to be left to God and subjects must seek deliverance by prayers and tears and the truth is Christians as Christians have no other remedy others conceive they may be restrained and that by force and their own subjects do it Others give this power only unto Magistrates or to such as share with
them in the supreme power Others are of a mind that seeing they cease to be Kings or Soveraigns they may be lawfully tryed and put to death as well as private men and that without any ordinary jurisdiction Others determine this to be lawful in such States as that of Lacedemon in Grece and Arragon in Spain What the Doctrine of the Church of Rome is cannot be unknown For the Pope doth arrogate an universal Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction whereby he may excommunicate any Christian King that shall not obey his Canons and Edicts and upon this sentence once given he may depose him free his subjects from their allegiance and command them as Catholicks to rise in rebellion against him some of them have taught that its a meritorious art to poyson stab or any other way murther Kings for the promotion of the Catholick cause This question after the terms thereof clearly explicated is of very great moment and let men advise well how they do determine either in their own judgement privately or before others T. H. There be Doctors that think there may be more sorts that is more Soveraigns then one in a Common-wealth and set up a Supremacy against the Soveraignty Canons against Laws and a Ghostly Authority against the Civil c. G. L. There cannot be any Soveraign but one in one and the same Common-wealth and to set up Supremacy against Soveraignty Canons against Laws Ghostly authority against Civil must needs be a cause of division confusion dissolution Yet this will not prove any inconsistency of an Ecclesiastical independent power with the Civil Soveraignty in one and the same Community And the distinction of the power of the keyes given by Christ unto the Church and the power of the sword trusted in the hands of the higher powers civil is real and signifies some things truly different one from another though he either cannot or will not understand it With Mr. Hobbs indeed this distinction can signisie nothing because he hath given unto the civil Soveraign an infallible judgement and an absolute power in all causes Ecclesiastical and Spiritual His discourse may be good against those Ecclesiastical persons who have usurped civil power otherwise it s impertinent and irrational And he must know that it is alike difficult to prove That the State hath the power of the keyes as for to evince that the Church hath the power the sword It s as great an offence for the State to encroach upon the Church as for the Church to encroach upon the State The Bishops of Rome have been highly guilty of the one and many protestant Princes and States of the other And though men will not see it yet its clear enough that one and the same Community is capable both of a Civil and Ecclesiastical Government at one and the same time and that the Church and State are two distinct Common-wealths the one spiritual and the other temporal though they consist of the same persons And these persons as Christians considered in a spiritual capacity make up the Community and Common-wealth Christian which is the Church as they are men having temporal estates bodily life and liberty they are members of the civil Community and Common-wealth The Power Form of Government Administration Laws Jurisdiction Officers of the Church are distinct and different from those of the State The sentence of the Church is Let him be an Heathen or a Publican and the execution is expected from heaven according to the promise Whatsoever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and this sentence doth take away some spiritual but no temporal or civil right of the person judged though the judgement be passed and made valid both in foro interiore exteriore The sentence of the civil State is Let him be fined imprisoned stigmatized banished put to death and it s executed by the sword The several members of a Church National and the whole Church joyntly is subject to the civil power and the civil Soveraign if a Christian is subject to the Church because as a Christian he is subject to Christ and bonnd by his Laws And as a civil Soveraign he is bound to protect the Church and he may by civil Laws ratifie the Ecclesiastical Canons and then they bind not only under a spiritual but a civil penalty too If Church-assemblies give cause of jealousie to the Civil powers they may regulate them and order their proceedings if they offend they may punish them Their persons lives estates are under the sword and if this be taken from them because they will not obey them to disobey Christ they ought to suffer it patiently for Christs sake In this case the Church may pray and weep resist and rebel they may not for Christians as Christians have no power of the sword against any man not their own members much less against the civil Soveraign whom if they resist they must do it under another notion or else they transgress and can have no excuse And here it is to be observed 1. That Christ gathered Disciples instituted Church-discipline made Laws and the Apostles executed them in making Officers Acts cap. 1. 16. made Laws cap. 15. passed sentence and executed the same 1 Cor. 5. and all this without any Commission from any civil Soveraign Therefore it s not true which some learned Divines have affirmed That the State and Church are one body endued with two powers or faculties for they are two distinct bodies Politick It s true that if as some conceive there were no power but coactive of the sword then they must needs be one body But there is another power as you heard before 2. If a King become Christian by this he acquires no power not the least more then he had before and if he be Heathen or Mahometan and all his subjects become Christian he loseth not one jot of his former civil power which they are bound to submit unto by the very Laws of Christianity If he command any thing contrary to the Laws of Christ they may and must disobey but deny his power they may not they must not In this case a Christian may be perplexed between the Devil and a Goaler as some of Scotland were said to be when if they obeyed the Parliament and joyned with Duke Hamilton to invade England the Kirk excommunicate them and deliver them up to Satan if they obeyed the Church prohibiting them they were cast in prison by the State The cause of this perplexity is not from this that the Church and State are two distinct Common-wealths but because the commands of the one or both may be unjust T. H. Some make the power of levying money depend upon a general assembly of conduct and command upon one man of making Laws upon the accidental consent of three Such government is no government but a division of the Common-wealth into three independent factions c. G. L. Here again he hath made the Parliament which is the
bulwark of and best remedy for to preserve our liberty a disease and hath turned the King Peers and Commons into three independent factions and this Government he saith some call a mixt Monarchy Whether there can be a mixt State is a question in Politicks yet if we understand what mixture is and could determine whether this mixture be in the supreme power as fixed in the Constitution or exercised in the Administration we might more easily satisfie our selves But this hath not been exactly done For its probable that in the exercise of the supreme power in the three acts of Legislation Judgement Execution there might be a mixture and these brought to a just and regular temperament But a mixt Monarchy in proper sense there cannot be Yet a limited and well-poised Monarch there may be To place the power Legislative which includes all the rest in three co-ordinate parties granting to every one of them severally a negative to me seems irrational for it may easily turn them who should be one into three factions as here it is affirmed at least it will retard all businesses which for for dispatch require secrecy and expedition But to place the universal power originally in the general assembly without any negative the judicial in the Lords and the executive in the King seems to be far more agreeable to the rules of reason This some think was our untient Constitution and the same excellent Difficulty of raising moneys necessary for the defence and preservation of the State monopolies popularity in a subject are diseases which much weaken a State there is no doubt of this That one City should in gross the wealth and strength of a Nation and be so rich and populous as to be able to set forth a potent Army and maintain it may be judged very dangerous to a Common-wealth as Mr. Hobbs informs us By this City in particular he means London which as some tell us furnished the Parliament with men and moneys whereby the King was vanquished and over-thrown Yet they seldom did assist the Parliament but upon high terms and advantagious to themselves in so much as their Petitions were Commands unto the Parliament which did depend more upon the City then the City upon them by which means they might in time engross the whole power and so rule the Nation Yet an army of their own did break their strength and reduce them unto their own terms and its clear that City depends much upon the River both for fuel merchandize and provision and by a wise provident counsel may be easily kept in order And this might the more easily be done because the Citizens have so many several interests and the same inconsistent amongst themselves as that they can hardly be united After all these diseases from within which weaken and may dissolve a Government he informs of a destructive cause and that is a forreign or intestine war wherein the enemy obtains a final victory so that the Soveraign cannot protect his subjects in their loyalty This indeed may cut off a line change the Governors and alter the form of Government Yet in all this the Community may continue and never be like a subject matter without any form but the Government may be the same and the Governors only altered nay the Constitution may stand firm and the Administration only varied or if the the form be changed yet the privation of the former is an introduction of the latter Here it s confessed that when the power of protection faileth in the Soveraign obligation in the subject is taken away But he starts a question though with him no question whether the right of a Soveraign Monarch can be extinguished by the act of another He saith it cannot Yet experience tells us it may For a conquered Monarch fallen into the power of another ceaseth to be a Soveraign and this is by the act of another And again if God by another take away his sword though his person escape and be at liberty he hath but the name and not the thing or real title If his subjects freed from obligation because he can give no protection do submit themselves unto another his right is lost If his life be taken away and his line cut off all right is extinct and in all these cases by the act of another yet he thinks that if the power of an assembly be suppressed their right is extinct The assembly in an Aristocracy or Democracy for such he means may be extraordinary or ordinary and the same the immediate subject of the supreme power or only trusted for a time with the administration and exercise thereof and the power of an assembly may be suppressed for a time and so only suspended the assembly remaining still Except he let us know what kind of assembly he understands and what kind of suppression of power he means he doth nothing An assembly whose power depends upon a certain place time number may lose their right if once they be scattered or defective in that circumstance CAP. XIV Of the 2. part the 30. of the book Of the Office of the Soveraign Representative IT s very expedient for those whom it concerns to know what Majesty is and what be the several rights thereof as also that in every State it be fixed in a certain subject person or persons that every one may know whom to obey and subject himself unto yet the principal thing is for Soveraigns to exercise their power in the administration of the Common-wealth according to the rules of Wisdom and Justice without which the best constitution in the world is in vain It might be worth the while to examine what the Author hath delivered concerning the office of a Soveraign Representative if he had informed us in this point of any thing formerly unknown or more excellent then we read in other Writers But he is so far from having done any such thing that he comes much short of others The duties of all Civil Governors are most exactly taught in the Scriptures which if this man had followed he might have given Princes far more and more excellent instructions In this Chapter we find little but what we heard before for it consists chiefly in the repetition of his former rules and his method is not exact He presumes much of his own knowledge above others and conceits he hath given us a better model of Government then ever any had before and so much he admires his own rules that he thinks them worthy to be taught in the Universities and taictly decries all former Politicks and undertakes to prove his dictates out of Scripture which he can never do Many of his Rules I confess are good but most of them are such as are very ordinary and commonly known But in those points wherein he is singular he can hardly be excused from error His first and chiefest care after the good of the people is to preserve the absolute power of Rulers which he asserts to
be their due and lest they should lose any of them he renews his Catalogue of them again These must be taught the people that they may know themselves to be absolute slaves And Princes must take heed of tranferring any of their Soveraign Rights unto another But this was needless for they have a desire of power before they do obtain it and after they are once possessed of it they not only keep that which is due but also usurp far more then either God or man hath given them Kings who are but trusted with a limited power endeavour to make themselves absolute Lords and Despotical Soveraigns must be petty Dieties The best Princes had always a greater care to exercise their power well then to enlarge it And by their Wisdom and Justice have governed more happily then any of these absolute Soveraigns who desire rather to be great then good and themselves more honourable then the people happy The Errours of this Author vented in this part as that Soveraign power Civil is absolute A civil Law against Rebellion is no Obligation A good Law is not a just Law because no Law can be unjust All his Rules of Government may be proved out of Scripture and other such like I will not here examine because some of them are ridiculous some of them have been formerly answered and his proof of these in his next part shall be discussed CAP. XV. Of the 2. part the 31. of the Book Of the Kingdom of God by nature THis Chapter is the conclusion of the second part the Leviathan and makes way for the third following The principal subject hereof is the Laws of nature as distinct to laws supernatural For he truly and wisely makes God the King and Law-giver both in the Kingdom of God by nature and above nature That God is the universal King by nature he seems to prove out of the Scripture T. H. God is King let the earth rejoyce saith the Psalmist Psal 96.1 And again God is King though the nations be angry and he that sitteth upon the Cherubins though the earth be moved Psal 98.1 Whether men will or not they must be subject always to the Divine Power G. L. In the Allegation of these two places he seems to follow the vulgar Latine and the Septuagint both for the number of the Psalms and the Translation For with us they are the words of the first verses of the 97. and 99. Psalms and are turned in another manner The translations though seemingly different may agree in the substance And it s agreed on all hands that the Psalmist speaks of the Kingdom of God yet seeing there is a kingdom of God as Creator and a kingdom of God as Redeemer it may be a question whether his kingdom in general be here meant or one of the former particular kingdoms Both ancient and Modern Divines for the most part understand both the Psalms of the kingdom of Christ and which is more the Apostle Heb. 1.6 so expounds the former Psalm which agrees with Psal 2. which speaks to the same purpose and undoubtedly intends the Kingdom of Christ The Kingdom and Government of God is most properly so called in respect of Angels and men as onely capable of Laws Punishments and Rewards no rational man will deny yet he by his wisdom doth direct and order all creatures T. H. God declareth his Laws three ways By natural reason Revelation and Prophecy From the difference of the natural and Prophetick Word of God there may be attributed to God a two-fold Kingdom Natural and Prophetick c. G. L. In the rest of this Chapter we may observe three things 1. The manner how God declares his Laws 2. The distinction of his Kingdom 3. The ground of his Dominion 1. God doth manifest himself both to Angels and men two wayes by his Works and his Word By his works in the Creation and Providence By his word immediately by Revelation mediately by Prophesie In the latter he maketh use of man to speak to man the same thing he hath spoken to man by Revelation and the word of prophesie to man is the word of Revelation from God and the matter of both is the same The word of Creation and Providence is received by natural reason the word of Revelation seems to be apprehended by reason supernaturally elevated and illuminated The Kingdom of God is natural or supernatural according to the natural or supernatural Laws The first Kingdom by the rules and dictates of natural reason directs man unto a temporal peace and prosperity on Earth The second by the Laws of Revelation orders him to a supernatural and eternal peace and felicity to be enjoyed fully in Heaven For the former end all civil Policies were instituted For the second the polity spiritual of the Church The declaration of the Laws of Gods Kingdom by nature were universally always declared even to all nations the Laws of his supernatural Kingdom were revealed universally at the first in the times of Adam and after in the dayes of Noah But after a general Apostacy Israel was trusted with the Oracles of life untill the exhibition of the Messias and after his Resurrection the Apostles received a Commission to teach all Nations and make these Laws known more generally So that this Author doth bewray his ignorance in divinity and pretending to the knowledge of the Scripture he little understands them and much abuseth those heavenly Writings For the Kingdom of God by Prophesie was in all times and confined in a more special manner for a time unto the people of Israel for a special reason And at the first election of them after their deliverance from the Egyptial bondage he immediately instituted not onely their spiritual but their civil Government In which respect their civil government might be called in a peculiar manner the Kingdom and Common-wealth of God and so the government of no Nation in the world could be accounted T. H. The right of Gods soveraignty is not derived from Creation but from his irresistible Power G. L. This is his great ignorance to think that Gods Soveraignty should be derived from the executive power of force and strength of his Godhead For Dominion in general is twofold Possessionis ant regiminis of possession or government That of possession we call propriety in which respect God is absolute Lord of all his creatures because he createth and preserveth them so that their very being is more his then theirs But his soveraign power over man ariseth not onely from propriety in general but from Gods propriety in him as a rational intellectual creature ordinable to an higher end then the inanimate and irrational creature is capable of For God created and preserved him a rational creature and both as a creature and as rational he is wholly his As he is rational he is capable of Laws Rewards Punishments and hath a power to become Gods subject by voluntary submission and donation of himself and also
sin of man and merited for himself eternal power and glory and for us eternal life and all effectual means for the certain attainment thereof All the rest of his acts performed by him as King Priest and Prophet tended unto the application of his sacrifice that we by faith might be partakers of the benefit thereof This is the sum of that Doctrine of Redemption delivered clearly and more fully in several places of the Scripture especially of the New Testament Yet this Innovatour hath obscured the same several ways and determines the Kingdom of Christ to begin when the world doth end because Christ said to Pilate My Kingdom is not of this world Joh. 18.36 From whence he concludes T. H. That the Kingdom of Christ is not to begin before the general Resurrection G. L. This is a gross mistake and mis-interpretation of a place which is clear in it self For by his gloss he makes the Scripture to contradict it self Christ was then Candidatus imperii and was King when he gave this answer unto Pilate yet he began to reign and exercise his Royal power more eminently when he was set at the Right hand of the Father yet his Kingdom was not of this world that is not civil but spiritual and as Austin upon the place It was Hic non hinc in the world not of the world in the world yet not worldly but divine and far more excellent then the Kingdoms of the world This is the genuine sense of the words That Christ doth reign now and hath reigned since his ascension and sitting at the right hand of God is evident Before his Ascension he lets his Apostles know that all power in heaven and earth was given him and according unto and by vertue of that power he gave Commission to his Apostles to teach and baptize and perswade men to the obedience of his commands Mat. 28.18 19 20. He that hath an universal power in heaven and earth who makes officers and gives them power who makes Laws Institutes Sacraments and sends down the Holy Ghost must needs reign and his Kingdom is begun already We read that Christ must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet and the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death And when all things shall be subdued unto him then shall also the Son of man be subject unto him that put all things under him that God may be all in all 1 Cor. 15.25 26 28. Where first from Psal 110.1 The Apostle tels us That Christs Kingdom did Commence at the time of Christs sitting at the right hand of God 2. That with him to sit at the right hand of God is to reign 3. That he must reign by Word Sacraments Spirit Ministry till all enemies whereof death is the last be destroyed 4. That when death is destroyed he shall deliver up his Commission and kingdom in respect of this administration by Ordinances 5. That at the Resurrection this manner of reign shall end when Mr. Hobbs saith it shall begin 6. That then God shall be all in all that is reign perfectly in his Saints without any enemy without opposition without Ordinances and more immediately Before that time indeed he will not proceed to the final and universal sentence and execution of the same Yet there are many acts of government besides judgement and many acts of judgement be sides those of the general Assizes and last Sessions To make Laws reduce men to subjection appoint Officers pass sentence and execute the same in the very souls of men are acts of one that reigns as likewise to subdue enemies Sin Satan and the world to protect the Church And in this manner Christ hath reigned since his Ascension And many Millions do adore him subject themselves unto him and obey him to this day Yet with this man Christ doth not yet reign Let him read Psalm 2. throughout It began to be fulfilled upon his Resurrection and Ascension as appears out of the Acts of the Apostles and their Epistles And if he or any other shall deny the present reign of Christ they must expect with his Iron Scepter to be dasht in pieces like a Potters Vessel CAP XI Of the third Part the 42. of the Book Of Ecclesiastical Power AFter he had enthroned Civil Soveraigns cap. 40. Dethroned Christ in the former Chapter In this he takes away all power from the Church and invests the Christian civil powers with it And herein it may be a question whether his ignorance or presumption is the greater for he is highly guilty of both He that will determine the controversie concerning the power of the Church must distinguist the universal power of God the spiritual power of Christ incarnate and exalted to the Throne of glory and the power deligated from Christ unto the Church universal here on earth as subject unto Christ as Lord and Monarch and also that which every particular Independent association of Christians is trusted withal for to preserve the Society and the Ordinances of God from profanation This he hath not done and therefore little or rather nothing can be expected from him This last power of particular Churches is called the power of the keys in foro exteriori in the particular government of their several combinations for there is no supreme universal Independent judicatory on earth to which all Churches in the world are bound to appeal in this outward visible administration General Counsels can be no such thing Neither was there ever any Oecumenical Synod in proper sense since the Gospel was preached to all Nations This power of outward Discipline is challenged by the Pope by the Clergy by the people Christian and by the States civil and Soveraigns of the world And in this last party is the Author deeply engaged but upon what reason I know not except he intends to side with the strongest for such are they which bear the sword The power of ordaining Ministers preaching the Word administring the Sacraments was in the universal Church since the time of the Apostles And in every particular Church reduced to a form of outward discipline there is a power of making Canons of jurisdiction of making Officers so far as shall conduce unto the better ordination of Ministers the preservation of the purity of Doctrine and the right administration of the Sacraments least they be profaned and Christ offended by the admission of ignorant scandalous and unworthy persons There is a power also of disposing and dispensing of those goods which are given to the Church for the maintenance of Christian Religion Civil Christian States may and ought to make civil Laws to confirm the just Canons and jurisdictions of the Church And those Laws may be a fence unto it against these who shall oppose or persecute Yet when all this is done those Laws are but Civil though the object of them be Ecclesiastical matters This might suffice for to confute and make void the main body and break in pieces