setling the Common-wealth which was much out of order had chief Power and Authority for five years which expiring they refus'd to resign but held it other five enacting or reversing what laws they pleas'd and that without the consent of the Senate or People and having divided one Common-wealth into three Monarchies viz. Africk both the Sardinia's and Sicily to Octavius All Spain and Gallia Narbonensis i. e. Languedoc Daulphine and Provence to Lepidus and the rest of France of either side the Alps to Antony the defence of Rome and Italy is left to Lepidus while the other two advance against Brutus and Cassius who by a mistake having lost the day kill themselves Upon this the Conquerors return to Rome and exercising all cruelty whatever without any regard of person or condition they proscribe and banish at pleasure Lepidus gave up his Brother Lucius Paulus to gratifie Octavius Antony his Uncle L. Caesar to requite Lepidus And Octavius his friend Cicero whose advice had given him the Empire to appease inexorable Antony concerning the Philippicks And now nothing but slaughter bestrid the Streets when besides the incredible number of Roman Knights and Citizens kill'd in the broil there were no less than 130 Senators proscrib'd between them and of whom those last mentioned were three And now one would think all had been at quiet the Common-wealth as I said before being divided into three Monarchies and Antony married to the Sister of Octavius yet all would not do for Antony being gone for Egypt and Sextus Pompeius overthrown Octavius makes War on Lepidus whose softness and irresolution made him submit with the loss of his share of the Triumvirate and thence to keep a War as he had never less than reason to suspect it from home he follows Antony whose sensuality and unpursutiveness lost him the sole Empire of the World for Octavius having overcome him and Cleopatra in the Naval Battle of Actium the Morning and the Evening of the Roman State made but one day and the Sovereignty once more coming into one hand the Temple of Janus was now the third time clos'd Upon which applying himself to preserve that peace he had so happily restor'd he made severe Laws to restrain those evils a peaceable Age is but too prone to run into in due sense of which it was debated in Senate An quia condidisset imperium Romulus vocaretur sed sanctius reverentius visum est nomen Augusti And it may be observ'd that from the expulsion of the Roman Kings to the Reign of Octavius Augustus about 450 years there was seldom above 10 years without some Civil War or some Sedition whereas Augustus kept the Empire in peace for above 50 years and so it continu'd after his death till the Pretorian Bands began to chaffer for the Empire and others to comply with them gave an Empire for an Empire And now e're I close the Argument it may not be amiss to recollect what the Historians and Poets that speak of those times thought of it Neque aliud discordantis reipublicae remedium quam ut ab uno regeretur saith Tacitus Nor is Florus who wrote not long after him in any thing short of him Gratulandum tamen in tanta perturbatione est quod potissimum ad Octavium Caesarem summa rerum rediit qui sapientia sua atque solertia perculsum undique perturbatum ordinavit imperii corpus Quod ita haud dubie nunquam coire consentire potuisset nisi unius praesidis nutu quasi anima mente regeretur We have this yet in so great a confusion to be glad at that the upshot of all came back to Octavius Caesar rather than another who by his Wisdom and Policy brought the shatter'd and disorder'd body of the Empire into frame again which without dispute had never met and joyn'd together had it not been actuated by one chief Ruler as with a Soul and Intelligence And to the same purpose L. Ampelius who wrote before the division of the Empire speaking of the several turns of the state of Rome and the uncertain condition of the people Donec exortis bellis civilibus inter Caesarem Pompeium oppressa per vim libertate sub unius Caesaris potestatem redacta sunt omnia Until those Civil Wars between Caesar and Pompey began and the publick liberty over-born by violence all things were reduced under rhe obedience of one Caesar. And what the much ancienter Homer's sense of having many Lords was we have every where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nec multos regnare bonum Rex unicus esto And the reason of it is clear Nulla fides regni sociis omnisque potestas Impatiens consortis erit And so another Summo nil dulcius unum est Stare loco sociisque comes discordia regnis From all which we may gather That all Governments of what kind soever have a natural tendency to Monarchy and like Noah's Dove find no rest till they return to the same station whence they first departed It being impossible otherwise but that as Lines from the Center the farther they run the farther they must separate SECTION IV. That the Kingdom of the Jews was a Supreme Sovereign Monarchy in which their Kings had the absolute Power of Peace and War and were Supreme in Ecclesiasticis And an Answer to that Objection That God gave them a King in his wrath I Have hitherto according to my method propos'd discours'd of Monarchy in general it remains now that I bring it down to some particulars I 'll begin with the Kingdom God erected among the Jews his own People and shew That the Monarchy among them was supreme and independent And here we 'l take the case as we find it in Samuel Samuel was become old and his Sons not walking in his ways had distasted the People who ask of him a King to judg them like all the Nations Samuel is displeas'd but God commands him to hearken to them howbeit to protest solemnly against them and shew them the manner of the King that was to reign over them which he accordingly does viz. He will take your sons and appoint them for himself for his chariots and to be his horsemen and some shall run before his chariots He will take your fields and your vineyards and your oliveyards even the best of them and give them to his servants c. A hard saying no doubt whether we respect their persons or their possessions and yet he calls it Jus Regis qui imperaturus est vobis thereby also implying that such was the manner of all other Nations And when he wrote it in a Book and laid it up before the Lord he calls it Legem Regni The Law of the Kingdom and yet a King they must have and had him adding to that of Samuel this other of their own desires that he might have the absolute power
again Hath shewed mercy to his Anointed To which if any man shall object that this was spoken of a good King a man after his own heart I answer That not only Josiah who also was a good King is called the Anointed of the Lord but Saul a King whom God is said to have given in his anger has this sacred Title attributed to him in eight places in the first Book of Samuel and in two other in the second And the same also we find God giving to Heathen Emperors Thus saith the Lord to his Anointed Cyrus to Cyrus whose hand I have holden to subdue Nations before him And ver 4. I have surnamed thee tho thou hast not known me Howbeit tho he knew not his Founder at first it is not long e're we find him acknowledging him Thus saith Cyrus the King All the Kingdoms of the Earth hath the Lord God of Heaven given me c. And he that gave the title of Anointed to Cyrus gave the stile of his Servant to Nebuchadnezzar who yet had sack'd Jerusalem and led the People thereof into captivity when he calls him Nebuchadnezzar the King of Babylon my Servant which also is but the same wherewith he so often favours Moses Joshua and David Neither is this truth that Kings derive their power from God less acknowledg'd by the Heathens than us Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Kings are from Jupiter saith Hesiod and elsewere you find 'em stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 born of Jove and nourish'd by Jove whereby God is made their procreant cause as well as their conservant not as deriving their pedigree from Jupiter but their Kingly honor And what the Poet ascribes to Jupiter the Apostle gives to God For saith he as certain of your own Poets have said we are also his off-spring And what other does the Psalmist's calling them Gods import than that they receive their Authority from God whose place they supply and whose person they represent Many also of the most ancient Philosophers acknowledg the Regal Office to be a Divine good and the King as it were a God among men and that God had given him dominion as we have it at large in The Power communicated by God to the Prince and the Obedience required of the Subject written by the most Reverend the late Lord Primate of all Ireland In short the Psalmist is direct in this point Thou makest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands And therefore when S. Peter calls Government an Ordinance of man it is not that it was invented by men but as proper to them and ordained of God for the good and conservation of human kind and exercised by men about the government of human Society SECTION II. That Adam held it by Divine right Cain a Monarch By the Kingdoms of the most ancient Gentiles not God's but Monarchs were denoted That the original of Power came not from the People by way of Pact or Contract The unreasonableness and ill consequence of the contrary Noah and his Sons Kings A Family an exemplary Monarchy in which the Pater-familias had power of life and death by the right of Primogeniture Examples of the exercise of it in Judah Abraham Jephthah Brutus Vpon the increase of Families they still continued under one head Esau. The four grand Monarchies Ancients and Moderns universally receiv'd it as precedent to all other Governments THat God Almighty was the first King will not be deny'd and that Adam was the next appears by his Commission as I have shewn before a large Commission and of as large extent as having made him a mighty King and universal Monarch and given him an unqestionable right to his Kingdom which was all the inferior world the Earth the Sea and all that therein were insomuch that it might not improperly be said of this matter Jupiter in coelis terras regit unus Adamus Divisum imperium cum Jove Adamus habet And now as all things were created in order and that the infant world might not sit in darkness nor their posterity want a light to guide and direct them what wonder is it that for the preservation of that order God erected a Dominion himself and declar'd his Vicegerent Afterward when the world began to enlarge and men liv'd so long that they begat a numerous posterity Cain with his own Colony went into a strange Land and built a City and called the name thereof after his Sons name Enoch which double act carries the character of a Kingdom in it and that he was as well the King as Father of the Inhabitants neither do the ancientest Gentiles otherwise speak of those elder times than with a clear supposition of Monarchy Those Kingdoms of Saturn Jupiter Neptune Pluto and the like denoting as much and that under those names applied to distinct Kingdoms not Gods but the Monarchs of Land and Sea in the first times were understood And so Cicero Certum est omnes antiquas gentes regibus paruisse And with him agrees Justin Principio rerum gentiumque imperium penes Reges erat But not a word all this while do we hear of the People or that the original of Government came from them by way of pact or contract for if the power of Adam upon his Children and his Posterity and so all mankind whatever depended not on any consent of his Sons or Posterity but wholly proceeded from God and nature then certainly the Authority of Kings is both natural and immediately Divine and not of any consent or allowance of man and consequently the people had no more right to chuse their Kings than to chuse their Fathers Besides to examin it a little farther if this power of paction or contract had been in the people then it must lie in all the people as an equal common right or in some particular part if in all of them they would do well to shew how they came by it or if in any more peculiar part by what Authority were the rest excluded it being a Maxim in Law Quod nostrum est sine facto vel defectu nostro amitti vel in alium transferri non potest Whatever is mine cannot be lost or transferr'd unto another without my own act or defect Nor would it be less enquir'd who were the persons suppos'd to have made the contract or whether all without difference of Sex Age or Condition were admitted to drive the bargain and if so Wives and Children were not sui juris and consequently could not conclude others nor themselves for any longer time than during the disability Which once remov'd they were free again Or if all were admitted whether it were with an equal right to every one or with some inequality was the Servants interest if yet such a thing could be among equals equal with the Masters and if not who made the inequality or if
this be more readily effected than by examining them apart by which means and comparing one with another we shall be the less apt to mistake The common receiv'd forms of Government have been three viz. Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy If the Sovereignty be in one only Prince 't is a Monarchy If all the people be interessed therein as in one Body 't is a Democracy Republick or Popular State If but some part of the People whether excelling in Virtue Wisdom Riches Nobility c. have the Sovereign Command as in one Body and so give Laws to the rest 't is an Aristocracy Optimacy or Government of the better for t Now because as says Aristotle Degenerat regia potestas in Tyrannidem Aristocratia in Oligarchiam Respublica in Democratiam Monarchy degenerates into Tyranny Aristocracy into Oligarchy a Common-wealth into Democracy which yet Machiavel takes for the same and therefore says Democracy degenerates into Anarchy and that of course runs into Monarchy it being but natural that when the Populace have toil'd and moil'd and even giddied themselves in the wild Circle that they even sit down and rest themselves where they first sate out And here it will not be amiss to examin that sphere of Government which himself and others of that humor have made to themselves viz. That in the beginning of the world men liv'd at large as other Creatures but when they began to multiply they began also to come nearer together and then whether it were that the people as they would have it chose the strongest or that he took it by force came Monarchy into the world but afterward when by frequent Injuries and Rapines on each other men began to consider how they might keep what they had safely how unjustly soever they had gotten it then came in Laws and from them property and then not the strongest but the wisest had it and in memory of the Father's virtue his Son continu'd it and from thence came hereditary Monarchy but his Posterity forgetting that patrum virtus and living perhaps as if they thought the only character of a Prince was to exceed others in Rapine and Luxury they fell by degrees into the peoples hatred and that made the Prince afraid of them and that fear which creates an object where it cannot really find it increasing he began to study a revenge oppressing some disobliging others until at last it insensibly altered into Tyranny And from thence came conspiracies not of the poorer but the better sort whose spirits not brooking it they buzz'd notions into the peoples heads and finding them pleas'd laid hold of the opportunity and heading the Multitude both took Arms together and thence came Rebellion and having conquer'd that Government the Mobile vulgus as Virgil calls 'em ever desirous of a change in hopes of battering their condition and fond of any thing but what they were last submitted to those that rais'd 'em and help'd 'em to conquer whereupon superinducing new Laws they alter'd the Government and thence came Aristocracy but as man being in honor abideth not they and such as follow'd them least minding the specious advantages they propos'd to the people e're they got them to rebel and not contented with a civil equality but blinded by ambition and taking upon them by excluding some of the best by degrees to grasp the Power into the hands of a few and those the least worthy the Government was again changed and from an Aristocracy brought to an Oligarchy so that the Multitude weary of both and ready for another change resolv'd to restore neither and concluded on a Popular State wherein every man taking upon himself to have an equal right in the Government it insensibly lost it self in the Mare mortuum of Anarchy and upon the whole matter finding that in all this rotation they had rather lighted on some new Physician than any remedy for the Disease they return'd to Monarchy and after all turns of the Compass came about and setled in the same point again And thus Pigmalion like men form an image to themselves and then fall in love with 't and tho the question be yet to be granted that the Sovereign Power was ever in the people yet it is sufficient to prove my Argument That all Governments have a natural tendency to Monarchy and the reasons are obvious For if we consider Aristocracy besides that it will be hard to determin who are the most virtuous wisest richest and most noble or what shall be the true number of the Commanders by reason of the multiplicity of the pretenders for the more generous they are the more factious will they grow their consultations be the more difficult and sooner discover'd how will it be avoided but that as in Corporations the greatest part i. e. most voices will over-rule the sounder and the better and the more men there be the less effects will there be of virtue and wisdom when the best men shall be always vanquish'd in number by the vicious and the resolutions of the lesser but sounder part overwhelm'd with the gaggles of the Factious and Ambitious They are also in a continual distrust of one another and fear of the people whom for that reason they dare neither train to Arms nor trust Weapons in their hands so that in effect they have a kind of Wolf by the ears hold him in then endanger biting let him go then are torn in pieces So then if the Tyranny of one be pernicious that of many must be much worse yet neither so dangerous as that of a multitude where no one commands and no one obeys and to ask counsel of whom as in times of old they did what other were it than to seek wisdom of a mad man with whom on all occasions instead of argument Faces saxa volant furor arma ministrat Whereas in difficulties they stagger to and fro and are in dangers confounded and therefore one would think when the Poet describ'd the Chaos of old that he carried somewhat more under it and meant the common people Rudis indigestaque moles Nec quicquam nisi pondus iners congestaque eodem Non bene junctarum discordia semina rerum Obstabatque aliis aliud Besides which the end of all good Government is to flourish in virtue justice valor honor c. but the end of a Popular State is to banish all of them as may be seen in Athens and Rome that by advancing the most unworthy men to Offices and Dignities they may make room for themselves or at least as Marius and Pompey bought get money for their Voices in which case who can blame him for selling by retail what he bought in gross more than he 'd condemn a Woman who having abandon'd her honor makes the best of her Trade In short what shall be said when in most Common-wealths of the Ancients instead of Majesty and Justice we find nothing but licentiousness and
take away either our place or Nation and much more to raise any superstructure of their own Besides the Crown of England is an ancient old Entail the Reversion in Him by whom Kings Reign and is it not reasonable that he were first consulted before it be dockt or admitting it were to be done how are we sure that he that is to come after shall always continue of the same opinion or how are we secure he shall not be worse The Spaniards have an excellent Proverb Better is the evil we know than the good we do not know Sana Corpora difficile medicationes ferunt saith Hippocrates 't is better to make alterations in sick Bodies than sound Twigs and Saplings may be easily bow'd or remov'd but old grown Trees are not so safely ventur'd on 'T is the same in State Innovations and alterations even in little things are dangerous for it seems to acquaint the people with the sweetness of a change and that there may be somewhat yet still better which like our Philosophers of the Stone they had undoubtedly hit but that something in it unluckily miscarried But may some say have not such things been done before Was not Richard Duke of York in Henry 6. 's time declar'd by Parliament incapable of Succession Nay after he had been declared Heir apparent and was not Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth the same I grant it but 't is ill arguing à facto ad jus That because such things have been done that therefore they may be done again Examples must be judged by Laws and not Laws by Examples We have in our own times seen A King murder'd by his own Subjects and that too under the specious pretences of Religion and Law Monarchy abolish'd Allegiance made Rebellion and Iniquity establish'd by a Law And is this an Argument think ye that the same things may be yet practis'd To give it a more particular answer They were declar'd incapable of Succession 't is true but not upon any account of Religion but interest as the affairs of those times then stood but yet 't is as true that Edw. 4. Son of Richard Duke of York recover'd the Crown notwithstanding the said Declaration the only cause of the War between the Houses of York and Lancaster proceeding from the Right of one and the Possession of the other In like manner Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth were both declar'd by Parliament not inheritable and excluded from all Claim or Demand to the Crown and yet they both successively Reigned notwithstanding the said Temporary Disability which it seems the accession of the Crown purg'd as well as it has been said of an Attainder and yet their different Persuasions diametrically opposite to each other No man yet ever chang'd his condition but in hopes of bettering it Hath a Nation chang'd their gods which yet are no Gods saith Jeremiah upbraiding the ingratitude of the Jews And therefore a wise man begins from the end and first considers whether that be adequate to the hazard he runs Touching the security of Religion I have already spoken and next to the glory of God on High the chiefest end of Man is peace on earth The end of War is Triumph and the end of Triumph Peace The clashing of the Steel and Flint wears out one another and brings forth nothing but Fire whereas Peace is the Balm that heals the Wounds and the Cement that fills up the Breaches of War How careful then ought we be to avoid even the beginnings of strife which Solomon aptly calls the letting out of waters and will of themselves quickly wear the breach wider Upon which it properly follows that we weigh the advantages we have by continuing as we are and the disadvantages or inconveniencies that have follow'd such Exclusions As to the former 1. The continuance of a Succession in one descent and according to proximity of Blood is a bar to Pretenders and the ordinary occasions of Mutiny Competition and Invasion are thereby taken off And to this purpose Tacitus Minoris discriminis est Principem nasci quam sumi It is less hazard to have a Prince born to hand than to be forc'd to seek one because Subjects more naturally submit to an undoubted unquestionable Title and Enemies will not be so ready to be fishing in clear water A third never attempts the bone till two are quarreling 2. We secure our selves against those disorders which such a breach opens an infallible entrance into and gives Ambition and Insolence the reins at large which seldom stop but multiply themselves and the whole State into confusion when after all the best seldom carries the day but the violent takes it by force Of which we need no further for instance than the ancient Brahon Tanistry before Hen. 2. his Conquest of Ireland 3. It takes away the danger of having a new Family to provide for Time was the Empire could have spread her wings but now she has past so many hands and been so deplum'd upon every change that she has almost lost all her best Feathers and kept little to her self but the despair of getting them back again 4. It avoids the indignity of a repulse Was ever Prince yet content to see another sit on his Throne Or did ever men reckon the Sun the less that it had suffer'd an Eclipse No mankind naturally pities any thing in distress and passionately croud to the recovering beams In short we picture Time drawing Truth out of a Pit and seldom find Majesty so sunk under water but some or other have been ever buoying it up again 5. There is a present Union and Amity between these Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland and who knows whether they may be of the same Opinion As to Ireland it has been determin'd where it shall be bound by an Act of Parliament made in England howbeit there is a Gulph between us But as to Scotland the Question was never yet put not that I speak as if the Kingdom of Scotland which never did should now begin to give England Law No nor will I believe it ever thought however were we at odds Fas est ab hoste doceri Which was the better Son he that said he would not go but went or he that said he would go but went not They have Recogniz'd and Declar'd That the Kings of that Realm deriving their Royal Power from God alone do succeed thereto according to the proximity of Blood And that no difference in Religion nor any Law nor Act of Parliament made or to be made can alter or divert the right of Succession and Lineal Descent of that Crown to the nearest and lawful Heir according to the degrees aforesaid And that by Writing Speaking or any other way to endeavour the Alteration Diversion Suspension or debarring the same by any Subjects of that Kingdom shall be High Treason So now if it