THE True Notion OF GOVERNMENT Shewing I. The Original of Government II. The several Forms of Government III. The Obligations betwixt Governours and Governed In Vindication of KINGLY-PREROGATIVE By T. L. Gent. LONDON Printed for Edward Gellibrand at the Golden-Ball in St. Panl's Church-yard 1681. The True NOTION OF Government c. The INTRODUCTION THe Discovery of our late Popish Plot hath been though in its own particular sinal and good yet not unlike some bad Physick which raises more Humours than it can carry-away and tho perhaps working off that for which it was intended yet leaves the rest in an unhappy fermentation The Common People had their easie and it may be now not altogether panick and unnecessary Fears magnified to prodigious Jealousies The Great ones seem'd to be at a stand hardly knowing which way to steer some indeed of the middle sort would pretend to be the onely Physicians for these Epidemic Maladies But the Gentlemen were somewhat too eager in their Preparations too hot and fiery and their Applications to the Feet supposing the Distemper would fly up towards the Head were hasty desperate and dangerous This temper of Body could not but make the face of things look ill to all beholders I who am but a Young man though not so very timorous of Affairs yet could not but have when every one else had some more than ordinary apprehensions The Noises were high and the Blusterings great which could not but at least seem to be the gathering of some greater Storm In the apprehensions of which I could not but judge it prudence to provide for shelter supposing the black and pregnant Clouds should pour down their Tempests in showers as great as were threatned To fly I thought mean and indeed below a Gentleman To stay at home Neuter though sometimes prudent yet would now be not onely pitiful but difficult My onely refuge then I supposed would be by adhering stoutly to one side or other in a manly resolution Which that I might do fixedly and without wavering I purposed with a sober and deliberate enquiry to look into the great Controversie and having found the justest side there to fix or fall for ever I went about it presently onely staid to follow the Philosopher's advice to his Novices of laying aside all Prejudices My circumstances are not such as that they should give me many wherefore with some ease stripping my self of all the prejudices of Opinion Perswasion and the mighty Interest I set about searching into the truth of things with some hopes of finding the inestimable Jewel My design is to know The true Notion of Government which hath of late made so great disturbances in the world which that I may do I consider these things 1. The Original of Government 2. The several Forms of Government And 3. The Obligations betwixt Governours and Governed The Original of Government FIrst for the Original of Government I shall not trouble my self or others with a Philosophical enquiry into the state of Nature whether it was Love Convenience or Fear that first brought men into Society and Communion We must raise our thoughts somewhat bigher to find out the great Truth Which if we do we shall find God himself the sole Creator as of all things else so both of Society and Government God made Man at first indeed but one who when he was but one yet received from God the best and onely manner of Civil Regiment in that Constitution and Ordinance whereby he ordained Man should propagate and multiply investing some with a natural Right and Dominion over others as the Man over the Woman and Parents over Children from whence it is ready and easie to approach to a Communion and that with a Subordination This Assertion seems to me reasonable from the necessity of the thing and the wisdom of God himself To what purpose was Man created and endowed with Principle of Self-preservation if he must always live alone whereby indeed he could not be naturally long preserved But to what purpose hath he company or is joyn'd in Society with others if without a Supream Ruler where every one must be their own Governour For by those means his Self-preservation would be as equally destroyed as if he had lived alone The continual Jars and perpetual Animosities which must necessarily arise among men of different Mindes would quickly have brought the beautiful Frame of the new-created World into a Chaos as dismal as the dark Confusion it but now came out from Wherefore the Divine Providence instill'd into man together with his Nature an Inclination to Society the onely help proper for his designed end and at the same time ordained a Supremacy and Government the onely way proper for the preservation of Society From whence it is plain to me that God himself is the prime Author of Government and sole Institutor of Governours as shall farther appear in the Forms of Government I cannot then but wonder how it comes in mens Minds to affirm that the grosser Body of the People did first of all agree upon and constitute their Ruler and from thence gather that it is in the power of the People to make and unmake Princes as they please and being it is somewhere said Ye are'Gods they will be sure in this case to challenge the Prerogative and dispose of Crowns and Scepters set up and pull down Kings as if they were all Almighties which surely is the way not onely to confound themselves and others but to invert the whole Order of Nature which though it be as strange as unnatural yet is not more unnatural than is commonly maintain'd and practised Wherefore I shall take care so to confute it that my own Brest I wish too that of others may never harbour so foul a Monster But that we may do these pretenders to so much Right Justice let us hear their Plea and how their bold and daring Advocates can maintain their Cause They say they are made by God and Nature free-born Denizons of the World and can be subject to none without a voluntary resignation of their Freedom but which yet cannot be so resign'd but it may be revoked by them when they please All which to me seems extreamly false upon these accounts That if there be any such natural Freedom it must be either partial and but given to some or total and given to all Mankind Now which of these soever they grant it will be manifest there is no such freedom For if it be but partial it altogether destroys their Cause for whatsoever we have by Nature especially in such a case as this we have in common and without exception of the thing it self though perhaps with some difference in the Degrees and Measures so that to say there is such a partial Freedom opens a way to prove that there is no such Freedom at all But if it be granted to be Total then they take away all manner of Subjection even that of Children to Parents
the Inventor But Providence if we would know it hath better provided for our peace by constituting one particular Form of Government above the rest And if we can find any one particular Form of which he hath given any instances and intimations of his choice and nothing can be brought to maintain any of the other Forms proceeding from him in a direct special manner then may that Form of Government and that onely challenge the preheminence That Monarchy bears these Characters of its divine Instition may appear to every unprejudiced mind that considers first that the Original of Government which I hope is by this time granted to be from God was Monarchical The Paternal Regiment being so the Regal and Paternal differing only as Magis and Minus which one would suppose to be proof enough that Government in its first Origine was Monarchical but they say there is a greater difference than so betwixt them for the Paternal Regiment was purely Natural but the Regal of Civil Institution that indeed constituted by God whilst the World was scarce of People but this by consent of the People altogether the beginning of it being to be ascribed to humane reason and necessity For when Men and Impiety began to multiply Ambition and Avarice Injustice and Robbery increased together the World the soft and gentle bonds of Paternal perswasions were too weak to oblige Mankind from their inclinations to evil altogether ineffectual to restrain the habit so that to prevent the Inundation of a flowing confusion necessity taught to understand that they must by a general Obedience submit themselves to Order and Dominion supposing that a tolerable Bondage would be far better than the Licentious Disorder From this Necessity say they arose the beginning of Civil Government from which it is plain that people chose then and may do still what Government they please But surely though these Premises be seemingly true their Conclusions are drawn up false For though to speak humanely the beginning of Empire may be ascribed to Reason and Necessity yet it was God that kindled this Light in the Minds of men they saw they could not be preserved without a Ruler and Conductor God himself having by his Eternal Providence ordained Kings and that in the institution of Paternal Authority For though the Supremacy of its Jurisdiction was deminished by the overgrown Disobedience of the encreasing World yet was it not altogether abrogated for from it sprung Kingly Power and as it were from the Typical Idae of Family and oeconomical Government proceeded the Form of Kingly Regiment The one being the Father of his Family the other of his Country One the indulgent Protector of his Children the other of his Subjects they both having Monarchical Jurisdiction over both Moreover the Law of Nature having thus written in Mens Mindes and inclined them to this sort of Government onely does not a little prove the hand of God in its Institution that being always accounted as an Institution of God and Nature which all the World have without mutual Combination consented to practise which that they did is evident from all History And it is no small argument for Monarchy that at this day in the latter discoveries of Countries there should be found no other Government but Monarchical and that almost Paternal being extended to a very few persons and though there be found in these Western parts some Common wealths yet they are found onely here and they so few that they are of no force to evalidate the Divine Institution of the other they having nothing but humane policy for their Foundation and no more of God's than of a common hand in their Institution whereby evil as well as good arises up in the World they having most commonly by Gods permission arose by way of Rebellion and Deffection from their lawful Soveraign as a punishment to their Offences and chastisement for their own Iniquities But if mens consent will not satisfie their curiosity the meer inanimate Creature will tell us that Nature instituted among them a Monarchical Power even in their Regiment For in the simple and imperfect Gorvernment which we finde among them there is a reasonable account of its being so But if we consider the State which God made more immediately his Peculiar surely the thing will be so evident that it must be granted For what was the Patriarchal Government of the Children of Israel but purely paternally Monarchical In Aegypt they were under no other Government that we read of than that of the Egyptian Kings From the time of their going out of Egypt to their more particular inauguration of their Kings though their Government hath seem'd to be only Republican yet we shall find that Moses Joshua with the Judges were all in their kind Monarchs and so in all the progress of their state we shall never finde the Civil Regiment of the Jews to be otherwise which one would suppose to be enough to recommend the Government of one above that of many As for Elective Governments and such-like we may draw a Consequence from what hath been already said But as for those Monarchies which are Mixed and Temperated it being no Contradiction to call them so much might be said But it will suffice my Enquiry to say That great is their Happiness who live under such Government But as great is their Unhappiness who not rightly understand this their good Fortune And they would in my mind do well to consider those great Priviledges they so much boast of and stand upon were at first the bountiful Donations of their Princes granted to their Subjects upon extraordinary Occasions Which though by length of Time and continued Custome are grown into Established Laws yet surely cannot pretend to that Right or Priviledge which is due to the Kingly Prerogative and Princes may be Princes without them but they can be no Governors without their Princes who may act without any bodies saying What doest Thou But The Obligations betwixt Governors and Governed Most People will be ready to say what may Princes then Reign without controul are they so Sovereign that they may do what they list without any Stop to be put to their Wills when grown Extravagant Unjust This is the great Question This is that which so much works in the heads of busie bodies and froths up in the Minds of the vain Multitude The Question is indeed great but may be answered without any great Difficulty for that there is a mutual Obligation of Obedience betwixt Soveraign and Subject is so undeniably true that Kings themselves will grant it as well as the People But that there is a vast difference betwixt the Obligations of Princes and that of the People must be granted by the People as well as Princes That the most Absolute Prince is subject to the Laws of God his own Conscience and the Rules of common Justice none will deny But that the most petty Monarch can forfeit to any of his
Subjects his Authority upon breach of those Obligations though it hath frequently been practis'd yet ought by no means to be asserted For as it doth not at all follow that because Princes are not subject to their Subjects therefore they are free from all Subjection So neither doth it by any means follow that because they are not free from all Subjection therefore they are subject to their Subjects For Princes are tied and circumscribed in the exercise of their Power by Laws yet it is not to be understood that they are so restrained by the Efficient and Compulsive part of them but by the Exemplary only For all Laws contain in them two special Causalities the one Efficient and Compulsive whereby a Civil Penalty being denounced and impending over the Head of the Infringers thereof they are liable to loss either of outward Goods or Life itself according to the Merit of the Offence The other Causality is Exemplary whereby a Form and Rule is prescribed directing those that are guided thereby to the observation of Justice and Equity as well to Publick as Private Good and to this Kings are no less bound than Subjects they ought to observe entirely and religiously these sound and profitable Laws and that upon pain of Gods Difpleasure But surely it cannot consist with the Laws of God of natural Justice or Nations to inflict Punishments on Princes Sovereign Not but that the Breach of Laws Murder unjust Spoils c. are as great or greater Crimes in them than others But because there can be no just Execution of Punishment upon them For all Penalties must be justly inflicted or else they are mere Injustice though the Persons upon whom they are inflicted never so much deserve them Now there is none can execute any Malefactor without Authority from the Supreme Power of the Sword and there can be butone proper subject of this Power at least in Monarchical Governments Who then can with any pretence of Justice or Legality execute any Penal Laws against his Prince Who can Authorise them for such an Attempt Or give them power even to think I wonder then at the preusmption of those who dare lift up the least of their Fingers against their Soveraign though but to the falling of one Hair from his Head But though this be so great so necessary and so convincing a Truth Yet the Multitude will find a way to slip the yoak off their own Necks and put it upon that of their Leaders they will say Princes were made for them and may too be made by them but yet they 'll bear such Reverence to their King that they 'll maintain Him and his Honours whilst he maintains them and their Priviledges but it is unreasonable to suppose they should do it any longer that they should tamely laydown their Necks and let him tread and insult over them is no Duty of Subjects In short they will be obedient to his Rule while he is so to their Humours which are very apt to rise upon the suspition of the growth of Tyranny or Alteration in Religion either of which they assert is an account warrantable enough to justifie the greatest Sedition But whether it be so or no let us examine And first for Tyranny And here first let us see supposing Tyranny to be a just Plea for Defection whether they understand it aright and do not often mistake the thing and look upon that to be Tyranny which is not so and so raise infinite Commotions upon no account at all and this we may find them very apt to do For they look upon any sort of Plenipotency or Illimited Power nay and Limited too when they have a mind to it immediately to be Tyranny affirming that it is not separable from some sorts of Government and that One Man is not capable of such a mass of Power without too near an approach to that kind Upon these slender Apprehensions they will begin to think Treasons and in little Surmises hatch Seditious Opinions in their Minds and then proceed to talk and in Scandalous supposed Politicks diffuse their Poisons till at length having warmed themselves into a Temper fit for Action they 'll not scruple to perpetrate the greatest Rebollions But that all this is extreamly Unjustifiable will appear from their Misunderstanding of Tyrannical Government and moreover that supposing this was manifest Tyranny they were yet not to be justifyed As to the first They most egregiously mistake the Notion of Tyranny by supposing it to be an inseparable concomitant of Monarchy For there is no such thing as Government in it self Tyrannical Tyranny being but the Abuse an unjust Exercise of Power to which any Power is as obnoxious as Monarchical And I cannot see why the Government of One should not be as far from it as that of Many the Laws here being commonly as kind and benigne as there or at least may be and we may find the Yoke of Obedience as heavy where Liberty is most asserted among the credulous Multitude among whom a bold Affirmation of Freedom goes for the thing it self But supposing it otherwise that Monarchy is of so near a kin to Tyranny nay and that the Prince were an apparent Tyrant the People indeed are unhappy who are under his Rule and to be pitied but no ways to be remedied by their own Force the Nature of Government forbids it and God himself has nowhere allow'd it but has always taught his Servants Obedience unto the most enormous of Princes I canthen no ways commend that so highly applauded Action of Junius Brutus with his Accomplices in Deposing Tarquinius his Lawful though Cruel Soveraign which though it lookt like Heroick and was agreeable to the discontended Humours of the People yet without doubt was unjust and wicked But much more was he to be blamed for not only Deposing the King but the Government too For the Government being abused cannot be in fault or for any Miscarriages of the Prince or any external accident lapse to any other For any Government may be so abused as is apparent in Junius himself who expelling his Prince who Reigned by lawful Power and Title Usurped a Power to which he had no Title and then proceeded to an Act of as great Tyranny as the Deposed Prince had ever done viz. The thrusting out his Equal and Colleague because possibly he might have committed an Offence not that he had And this is the Changing Kingly Government to that of Many Which however it may be Disputed seldom proves more favourable to the People than the other and surely then it is better living under One Tyrant than ten Thousand under a Wise Man that is Cruel than under the foolish and barbarous Cruelty of the Multitude The Tyrant is like a Whirlwind whose Fury may overthrow some may destroy here and there a Tree a stately Cedar or single Town but the Deposing this Tyrant and the Anarchy which follows it destroys whole Cities unpeoples and lays waste Countries makes