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
heightned to a belief that Government is so too that with the one they can pull down the other and Metamorphose States into what shapes they please Monarchy they hate 't is as loathsome to them as Physick-potions to Children being the strength of its Power can purge away the ill-affected humours and keep low and in subjection the unruly Heats of distempered Bloud 'T is they cry too near Arbitrariness for Free-born Subjects and can presently mount into Tyranny Wherefore upon the least commotion and disturbance which an hundred to one but themselves have made they must presently to the Royal Palace and pull down the supposed Tyrant and it may be the Palace too for being the Habitation of their King and they must immediately be platform'd into their beloved Commonwealth where every one may have at least a Finger in the Government where every one may be a Governour and yet all Subjects These things they pretend to justice by telling us that though Government in general might be instituted by Divine Authority yet the particular Sorts and Kinds were left by the All-wise Providence to the Discretion of these so very wise men But I would know of them to what mens discretion this great Prerogative was given If to all I have shewed already the great Inconveniencies of such a Proposition for all or the major part have not the Discretion or Wisdom for such a Choice and few or many chusing doth manifest Injustice to the rest All being free as well as Some But then moreover it is contrary to God's Order or Method of Creation which is first to make Particulars and from the Beings of Individuals to occasion the general nature of the thing to arise by a necessary consequence as he first made Adam and so mans Nature was made he first made Sun and Moon and upon that followed that he made great Lights and so he proceeds in his Moral and Civil Institutions For how could he according to humane Apprehensions make Government before he had constituted some Governour to administer it he must first ordain some one Government in particular before he could be said to be the Author of Government But this will not stop the Mouths of the many-headed Beast they will still be Barking and Shewing their Teeth and great willingness to Bite but if not otherwise will rail the Monarch from his Throne or Petition him and humbly desire him to lay down his Scepter to ease himself of the great trouble he takes in ruling them whereas they had rather and could do it themselves better than his most Serene Majesty What would be the dismal consequences of such wicked Opinions as these few can prognosticate but we may guess at the evils by the Intentions of this courteous and desiring Multitude which is by former Example apparent and by present Practise to be fear'd no less than the breaking the Throne in pieces and dividing to each a share and then fancying themselves to be the Saints of the Earth and so to have Authority from God to pearch upon the pieces of the divided Throne and there set with Apostolick Jurisdiction judging the Tribes of our Israel These things I do not love so much as to think of but only to root in my mind the quite contrary opinions and learn not only the unlawfulness of such intents but the absurdity of them which I shall do by a short comparison of the fundamental Justice of the several sorts of Government which have been in the world And first for the darling Whelp of the Beast Democracy which be it never so well lick'd I fear will prove but an ugly Monster It is in the proper and genuine Notion of the thing a comprehension of the people generally without exception of any but according to the assertors of it who can alter any thing as they please the meaning of it is that many of the Inferiour and Ignobler sort of people are taken into the numerous Counsel and Court of Judicature administring the Publick By this are people doubly choused first by being made believe that they have a right in the Government and then by being forced to be content to use it only figuratively and by a large Synecdock alone to have any share in what they so much pretend to which in the end will prove to be none at all and Democracy come at length to be nothing but a great contradiction But they will say for themselves it cannot be otherwise but that some must be subject that there must be some superiour Power to bring things into settlement and order All which I do readily grant and from thence gather that Democracy is in its genuine sense a thing impossible in their own ridiculous The unfortunate and fatal pretences of the Greecian and Roman people to raise themselves to have a share in the Government are manifest testimonies of the Consequences of such attempts who having no foundation of humane or divine right quickly fell Destruction and Ruine like the Dragon's Teeth which Cadmus sowed they are from their very birth at war one with another and can never agree till they have with their Bloud manur'd that Ground and are resown in those Furrows they but now came out from Neither will Aristocracy find itself to be built upon any more Right or any other sort of Commonwealth though the flourishing of some States thus governed may give a shew of more reason For either these persons thus Ruling obtain their Authority by their powerful Usurpations over the People who are by nature and ought to be continued still as free as themselves and so their Authority is uniust or else they receive it from the People delivering up their Right into their hands and constituting them their Rulers but whilst the People have as I have already shew'd no such power to give or if they had could not or ought not to part with it this their Authority must also be unjust and unnatural Neither can these Forms be to themselves safe for if the People can make they can too unmake both Government and Governours being they can recal that they do but lend upon Conditions whensoever those Conditions fail wherefore we must seek some better Government and setled upon more unalterable Foundations Which we shall find Monarchical Government to be if we rightly consider its true Constitutions That God is the Author of some particular sort of Government must be granted by them who acknowledge him to be Author of Government at all if of any that he must be the Author of a Government lawfully unalterable is plain from the end of all Government Peace and Unity for if it was left to the People to alter Government as they pleased upon Inconveniencies that might happen every Discontent would strait'be busie in inventing new Models or at least fancy one so they might be but fingering the old and State-making might turn to be a Trade among them and alter as Fashions according to the fancy of
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
But to make way for this great Prerogative they will suppose that men once were all equally of years of Discretion and so equally free which though it be most uncertain and unreasonable to suppose yet shall for a while be supposed and the consequence too that men were once all equally free which will be assoon confuted as supposed For supposing this Liberty to be so universal and natural it must be as all other of Natures Institutions immutable and not to be changed by humane advices I would fain know then upon what Authority they disposed of this Freedom to any other Who gave them leave to make such a breach of the Law of Nature as this must be that is to part with their Birth-right which God hath given them together with their Lives And surely it can be no less a crime to embezle this than to dispose of ones Life or ruine one part at ones own pleasure But they have an Answer ready that they do not absolutely part with this their so natural Right but commit onely the Administration of such Power as is radically in them to others it being neither convenient or possible but that it should be so But yet they retain to themselves so much of this Right as upon the Male-administration of the Power so delegated they may revoke the Delegation and take all the Power into their own hands again but what is this but most notoriously to traduce the Divine Providence and to make the all-wise God act below the Principles of humane Wisdom For would any man constitute such a Law which it is impossible to keep but must necessarily be broke assoon as made Shall then Wisdom it self commit such a gross errour as to make such a Sanction to such ends and purposes which it can never attain Such an one is Supream Power naturally placed in the People which according to them is so placed by God but yet must immediately be delivered over by them to a more capable Subject Wherefore to reconcile the egregious absurdity of altering what God hath ordained and the necessity of having power otherwise posited than in the People it must be granted that there never was any such power in the People at all but that they have it derived to them from another Power originally And this may serve to confute the right of Revocation for if they have no power to transfer they have none to take away For who can justly take away what he hath no power to give Thus absurd are these mens Opinions Thus absurd must be their consequent Actions But being they are the fond Sentiments of many and darling crimes are hardly left I shall farther represent the thing in all its colours and shew it is not only absurd but sacrilegious and ridiculous impossible to be done and most pernicious to the right governing of Kingdoms if attempted That it is Sacrilegious is evident from what hath been already said That God himself is the sole Constitutor of Government and Governours For can the People challenge that to be their right which is God's peculiar without an act of the greatest impiety and what can it be better than Sacriledge at the the creation of Princes to mutilate that power which God hath given to supream Rulers to pare and pill the Supremacy like unjust Guardians by Conditions of their own making as if they were not Kings or not to be so till they had moulded them into Majesty and breath'd into them the Spirit of Ruling whereas all the people can then pretend to it under God to apply the person to the place of Governing Surely then it cannot be but hugely ridiculous for them to pretend to any thing else for it is a sober and sound Maxime That no one can create a greater than himself But they will reply That though one cannot yet many may which I will grant where their Supposition is true but that many in such cases as these have more power than one I wholly deny it being ridiculous to suppose that those whose only place it is to serve should more than command it being a very true saying That it is more to make a King than to be one But they would take off all this by supposing a total failure in the Succession which they enforce by an illustrating Similitude That as the Lord of a Mannor re-assuming the Estate of a Tenant whose legal Heirs are unknown to him doth argue that the Estate first of all proceeded from him for the right of a People to constitute a Prince over them upon a total cessation of lawful pretenders doth imply an original Right in the People of founding their Rulers but this surely infers no such thing for it is not Choice but Power that makes Princes which Power must be receiv'd from God the onely Author of it who being to answer their Similitude the true and proper Lord of the Mannor this Dominion is devolv'd on him and therefore the Prophets in case of failure in Succession receiv'd from him altogether whom they should anoint and the People at best are but God's Stewards in admitting a new Administrator of Kingly Power But the ridiculousness of this Opinion will farther appear if we consider the impossibility of its performance for how is it possible for the infinite variety of Humours and Minds of the Multitude to agree in an unanimous consent in choice of a Ruler Nor indeed did they ever agree in the election of any one Government or Governour Now they are for a Parliament and that must be a long one Then for an Army and that must be a great one and then again for a Parliament but that a Rump one And then forsooth they must have some Godly man to reign over them till at last wearied with their excentrical and irregular choices they begin to move in their own Sphear regularly and turn to the good the only way which they but now pull'd down but God hath set up for ever By this we may see what Experience hath shewed to all how pernicious these Opinions of the peoples having a right to Constitute their Ruler are to all Civil Governments For where it is once infused into peoples minds and how many are to infuse how many ready to imbibe the poisonous infusion that Power is radically and revokably in them there can never be any Peace or Unity nothing but Tumult and Confusion This Opinion is like Pandora's Box full of all manner of Evils which being opened disperses its Contagions to all Conditions of men The Church is afflicted and her Priests slain The Supream Power driven from his Throne and the Bloud of his Nobles and it may be his own mixed with common Dust The Laws are ashamed the Judges decreeing Judgment according to Avarice and Fear The whole Government perverted and confounded and the Kingdom overthrown and ruin'd Of the Forms of Civil Government THese great imaginations of the People that Governours are so much at their dispose are