consent but professed openly Eam pecuniam caeteraque omnia esse Senatus Populisque Rom. nos enim usque adeo nihil habemus proprium ut etiam vestras habitemus aedes How diametrically opposite is this to that which our State-Theologues doe now buzze into the Kings eares They instead of giving the subjects a just and compleat propriety in the King resigne the subject and all that he possesses to the meer discretion of the King instead of restraining Princes where the lawes let them loose they let loose Princes where the law restraines them But our Royalists will say this is to make the condition of a King miserable and more abject then a private mans condition For answer to this I must a little anatomize the State of a Prince For a Prince is either wise and truly understands the end of his promotion or not if he be not wise then he is like a sottish prisoner loaden and bound with golden fetters and yet is not so much perplexed with the weight as inammor'd with the price of them Then does he enter upon Empire as if he went only ad auâ—eam messem as Stratocles and Dramoclidas had use to make their boasting in merriment but these vain thoughts serve onely to expose him to the traines of Flatterers and Court-Harpyes till having impoverisht thousands to inrich some few and gained the disaffection of good men to be abused by villaines he never reads his errour till it comes presented to his eye in the black characters of ruine The same wholesome advertisement commonly which first encounters him as that hand-writing did which appear'd to Belshazzar in his drunken revells lets him understand withall that all repentance will be too late If the Prince be wise then does he sit amongst all his sumptuous dishes like Damocles owing his life perpetually to the strength of one horse haire and knowing that nothing else saves his head from the swords point then must his Diadem seem to him as contemptible or combersome as Seleucus his did who confidently affirmed that no man would stoop to take it from the ground to whom it was so perfectly knowne as it was to him And it was no wild but a very considerate interpellation of some other sad Prince who being to put on the Crowne upon his owne head amongst all the triumphant attendants of that solemnity could not but break out into this passion O thou deceitfull ornament farre more honourable then happy what man would stretch forth his hand to take thee out of the dust if he did first look into the hollow of thy circle and seriously behold the throngs of dangers and miseries that are there lodged Secondly A Prince is either good and applies himselfe to compasse the end of his inauguration or not if hee bee not good then does he under the Majesticall robes of a God act the execrable part of a Devill then does he imploy all those meanes and helps which were committed to him for saving purposes to the destruction of Gods people and to the heaping up of such vengeance to himselfe as scarce any private man hath ability to merit How happy had it bin for Tiberius for Nero and for a hundred more if they had wanted the fatall baites of royalty to deprave them or the great advantages of power to satisfie them in deeds of lust and cruelty Neroes beginning his quinquenium shewes us what his disposition was as a meer man but the latter part of his tragicall raign shewes us what the common frailty of man is being overcharged with unbounded seigniory Amongst other things which made Caius appeare a monster and not a man Suetonius in the first place reckons up his ayry titles of pious most great and most good c. his impiety made him so audacious as to prophane these sacred stiles and these sacred stiles made his impiety the more black and detestable If the Prince be good then as Sencca saies Omnium domos unius Principis vigilia desendit omnium otium illius labor omnium delitias illius industria omnium vacationem illius occupatio And in the same Chapter hee further addes Ex quo se Caesar orbiterrarum dedicavit sibi eripuit siderum modo quae irrequieta semper cursus suos explicant nunquam illi licet nec subsistere nec quicquam suum facere 'T is true of private men as Cicero rightly observes ut quisque maximè ad suum commodum refert quecunque agit ita minimè est vir bonus But this is much more true of publick persons whom God and man have by more speciall obligations confined to publick affaires only and for that purpose raised above their own former narrow orbe O that our Courtiers at Oxford would admit of such politicks and blush to publish any directly contrary then would these raging storms be soon allayed But alas amongst us when the great Counsell desires that the Kings children may not be disposed of in marriage without publick privity and consent all our peace and religion being nearly concerned therein it is answered with confidence that private men are more free then so So when the election or nomination of Judges Commanders and Counsellors of State is requested 't is answered that this is to mancipate the Crowne and to subject the King to more exactnesse in high important affaires then common persons are in their lower interests Till Machiavells dayes such answers never durst approach the light but now Princes have learnt a new lesson now they are not to look upon the people as Gods inheritance or as the efficient and finall causes of Empire but as wretches created for servility as mutinous vassalls whose safety liberty and prosperity is by all meanes to be opposed and abhorred as that which of all things in the world is the most irreconcileably adverse to Monarchy Salust a heathen complaines of his times that instead of the ancient Roman vertues they did entertain luxury and covetousnesse publice egestatem privatim opulentiam That which he complained of as the symptome of a declining State we Christians cry up as a rare arcanum imperii to make the Court rich and keep the countrey poor as in France is held the most subtile art of establishing a Prince Trajan a Pagan was an enemy to his owne safety further then it could stand with the safety of the State as Pliny writes and would not indure that any thing should be wisht for to befall him but what might bee expedient for the publick Nay hee appeal'd to the Gods to change their favour towards him if ever hee changed his affection to the Common-wealth Yet Clergy men now in holy orders advise Princes not only to preferre themselves before the people but even to propose the peoples poverty as the best mean to their wealth and the peoples imbroyling the nearest passage to their safety Cicero out of Plato gives Princes these precepts so to provide for the peoples commodity as in all their actions to
dispatched to represse his impotent pride And in the behalf of the ten Tribes recoyling from the same pressures under his son Rehoboam a third Prophet was sent to put a hook into his nostrils Lastly though the Jewish Kings by having the Militia put into their hands more arbitrarily then the Judges had before obtained greater opportunity and not right of oppressing their subjects Yet that Militia did not consist of strangers or mercenaries or such Souldiers as had no other profession or right in the State nor were there constant Armies and Garisons kept in pay like those of the Romane Praetorians or Turkish Janizaries And hence it is that if Saul in a brutish unnaturall fury will attempt against the life of his son Jonathan or seek to compasse any other thing subversive to the State he cannot finde instruments barbarous enough amongst all his Sword-men for his black purposes but he shall presently meet with opposition and forcible resistance Thus far then we finde in the world no prints or footsteps of Tyrannie or of absolute Royalty nay nor of Royalty it self till the peoples cursed ingratitude and folly introduced it We must go beyond God and Natures Workmanship and impressions before we can discover any thing but Parentall Majestie or gentle Aristocracie or compounded or mixed Monarchie Since therefore it so fared with Gods people in point of liberty and safety out of Gods unspeakable favour under Patriarks Judges and Kings Now let us enquire how it fared with them under those forraigne Emperours by whom they were subjugated and made tributary Judea being seated neere the centre of the World became obnoxious to all the great viâ—ssitudes of change which happened to the foure vast over-ruling Monarchies The Babylonian or Assyrian first and the Persian next from the East spread victorious armes almost over all Asia After from the West successively both the Grecian and Roman made irruptions and in all these generall periods of Empire the State of the Jewes had its sense and share of the calamitie As for the two first Monarchies there is little in particular recorded and left to posteritie in Writing concerning their true formes and compositions as there can no Lawes be produced by which the Subjects had resigned all right of liberty and safety so neither can there be any produced by which they had precisely compounded for the same Some instances only we find mentioned that the lawes of the Medes and Persians were unalterable by the Prince and by this it seemes that the prime ensigne of Majestie which consists in making and abrogating of Lawes was not residing in the Emperour alone without the great Councell of his Sages For if the King could not alter Law at his own pleasure there was some other extrinsecall power circumscribed that pleasure and that power must be no other then the same which made Law for the true legislative power it selfe can never put fetters or manicles upon it selfe howsoever Aristotle fancies to himselfe a kind of Monarchie which he calls Lordly and this he placeth betwixt Royaltie and Tyrannie making it more unbounded than that of Kings but not so violent as that of Tyrants And this Dominicall rule he ascribes to the Barbarians rather than unto the Grecians and amongst Barbarians rather to those of Asia than to the Europeans Asia it seemes being more rich and fertile bred a people more esseminate and disposed to luxurie and so by consequence more ignoble and prone to servilitie Hereupon the Asiaticks were ever extreamly despicable in the eyes of more magnanimous Nations especially the Greeks for adoring and postrating themselves with so much devotion before their Princes Plutarch speaking of divers unmanly slavish Customs amongst the Persians refers that Empire to the kinde of such as are absolute and equall to tyrannicall Plato calls it Despoticall and Aristotle says It was then very neer approaching to tyrannicall Institution We may well then imagine That God in bringing such a yoke upon the necks of his chosen Inheritance did it for their chastisement and out of his indignation not for their advantage and out of his wonted loving kindnesse As for the Grecian Empire we know Alexander becoming instated with successe and tainted with the luxury of Persia soon began to degenerate from the moderation of his own native Countrey and those Politicall Rudiments which his Tutour Aristotle had seasoned him withall and we read how exceeding fatall it proved he and his Empire both perhaps had been longer liv'd if he had not rendred himself odious first to Callisthenes by his insolence and to all other men afterwards for his cruelty to Callisthenes This justly administers here an occasion to us to insist a little upon great Monarchies in that Notion onely as they are great Alexander King of Persia had no more right added to be insolent than had Alexander King of Macedonia but greatnesse of Dominion did alter him for the worse and since it doth so usually other Princes we cannot but take notice how this comes to passe For either the largenesse of Dominion doth require a proportionable Prerogative and so enable Princes to do greater mischief and after by accident becomes a temptation and provocation to abuse that ability or else we must not confesse that there is any difference in this respect betwixt a large and narrow Dominion Now that there is a great difference is so clear that I will not undertake any proof of it The Scripture ever speaking of the great Monarchies of the world pensils them under the lineaments of Lions Bears Eagles c. armed for rapine with Iron-teeth Brazen-talons and sharp horns c. and the wofull experience of all Ages seconds Scripture therein testifying them to be monstrous excessives in Nature and the perpetuall plagues of mankinde Yet let not me be taxed to condemn all excessive Monarchies as utterly unlawfull for though I doubt much whether ever any one of them were at first justly purchased or after by any one man rightly administred without Tyranny yet I conceive neither of these things totally impossible and so I will passe no judgement thereupon Howsoever Nature seems to have chalked out the just dimensions of a compleat Monarchie by Mountains Seas or other lines Spain Italy France c. seems to be cut out as proportionable Paterns and few Nations have ever prospered when their pride had transported them beyond their native Barricado's Hannibal after seventeen yeers War waged with the Romanes for the Mastery of the world at last sought a Composition in humble terms from Scipio and â—lamed that dangerous fond competition which had either engaged the Carthaginians beyond the Coasts of Affrica or the Romanes beyond the Coasts of Italy But alas it is ill successe that opens the eyes of Hannibal Hanno was before held his bitter enemy and disaffected to his Countreys prosperity for seeking an honourable Peace with the Romanes and preventing the mischiefs of an over-swelling Empire Yet by the way note in the mean
all for wee doe not deny Gods hand in the crowning of Princes we know the scripture is expresse in it and wee know there is a necessity of it as there is in all other human things and yet this is al they can say for themselves All that we wonder at is that since the scripture doth every where as expresly also mention the hand of man in making and chusing of Kings and since there is no more ascribed to God for inthroning them then is for dethroning That our adversaries will take no notice at all of the one as well as of the other It is plain in Iob 12.18 that God looseth the bond of Kings and girdeth their Ioynes with a girdle and many other proofes may bee brought that God giveth and taketh away Scepters Wherefore it Jeroboam an usurper and seducer of the people doe as truly hold his Crowne from God as Rehoboam if Nebuchadnezar may as justly require subjection from the Jews under the name of Gods Vicegerents as Josiah if Cyrus be as truly invested from heaven as Judas Machabeus if Rich. the third have a person and office as sacred and inviolable by divine right as his Nephew Edward the fifth whom he treacherously murdered and if we cannot affirme that God is a more active or efficacious cause or more overaweth and wresteth inferiour agents in the one then the other it behoves us to be as cautious how we impute to God that which is mans as how we impute to man that which is Gods Kings raigne by God 't is confest but Kings there is used indefinitely for all supreame Commanders as well limited as unlimited as well those which have a greater as those which have a lower stile then Kings as well usurpers and such as ascend by violent meanes and uniust titles as lawfull Princes that enter by a faire descent and election and so likewise the word by is taken indistinctly it may as well signifie that efficacy of Gods hand which is ordinary and stands with the freedome of naturall causes as that which is extraordinary and excludes any humane concurrent causality and we have given reason why it should intimate the first but there is no reason given why it should intend the second But the Royalists will now object that if power doe flow from a humane naturall principle rather then a divine and supernaturall one yet still this proves not that publick consent is that only principle Nimrod was a greater hunter of men and doubtlesse that Empire which he atcheeved was rather by force then consent and t is apparent that many other Princes have effected that by their owne toyles which they never could have done by meer merit or morall inducements 'T is not to be imagined that Nimrod or any other by meer personall puissance without the adherence of some considerable party could subject nations or lay the foundations of a spreading Empire neither was any Conquest ever yet accomplisht without some subsequent consent in the party conquered as well as precedent combination in the party conquering or concurring in the act of Conquest Normandy and England were united by armes but not meerly by armes for the acquisition of England was compast at first by the voluntary aydes of the Normans and upheld afterwards by the voluntary compliance of the English The maintaining of dominion is altogether as difficult as the purchase and commonly is of the same nature if nothing else but the sword had placed William in the Chair nothing else but the sword perpetually unsheathed could have secured him his posterity therin but it was not Normandy that was ingaged against England it was William that was ingaged against Heralt no sooner therefore was that personall dispute ended but William was as well satisfied with the translation of Heralts right as England was willing to transferre the same upon him Without some rightfull claime William had been a Robber not a Victor and without the consent of this nation either declaring or making that claime rightfull the robbery would have lasted for ever and yet no title had ever accrued thereby Wherefore if there must be a right of necessity to make a difference betwixt robbery and purchase and if that right can never bee justly determined by force without consent either precedent subsequent or both nor no Prince was ever yet found so impious or foolish as to decline the same the plea of Conquest is but a weak absurd plea for as it is well observed by a learned Gentleman Conquest may be a good meane or it may be a remote impulsive cause of royalty but an immediate formall cause it cannot be neither can Gods ordinance bee conveyed or a people in conscience ingaged by any other meanes then consent of the people either by themselves or their Ancestors Our adversaries to involve us in a base thraldome boast of three Conquests in this Iland and yet neither of them all was just or totall or meerly forcible without consent preceding or following 'T is a law amongst swordmen and it hath no other sanction Arma tenenti omnia dat qui justa negat Try us by this law and what could either the Saxon Dane or Norman pretend against this whole nation if the Crowne was unduly withheld that could beget but a particular quarrell betwixt the usurper here and him that was pretender on the otherside This was no Nationall injury and yet even no such manifest desseisin can be proved against us Besides if the whole Nation had transgressed yet the whole Nation was never wholly subdued nor scarce any part of it altered by conquest all our conquerours themselves did rather loose themselves and their customes and their Laws to us then assimilate us to themselves Anglia omnibus Regunt Nationum temporibus iisdem legibus consuetudinibus quibus nunc regitur continuò regebatur we know by what an authenticall hand this was written War-like incursions of foraine Armies prevail no more usually upon great States then the influxes of rivers do upon the ocean so farre they are from making the Maine fresher that they themselves become brackish in attempting it We see the Norman here being in the full pride of his great victory was in danger to have received a fatall check from the Inhabitants of Kent one County of this Realme had he not prudently betaken himself to a milde way of treatie and composition And if the conquered remain in such condition what justice is that which ingulphs not onely them but the conquering Nations also and their posterities in the same vassalage under one insulting Lord The natives here now are not distinguishable nor ever were in point of freedome from those which entred by force amongst them and shall we think that the same hand which wrested away our liberty in favour of one man would do it with expence of its own also To use more words in this pretence of violent acquisition were to attribute too much to it if you relye
have relation to the same and utterly to forget their private advantage and in the next place to extend their care to the whole body of the Common-wealth and every part of it Our Divines on the contrary think they cannot speak more like themselves then by inverting this order making the Kings profit the sole scope of his aimes and actions and the peoples either secondary thereunto or which is worse inconsistent therewithall and so farre are they from taking any consideration of the whole body that if the major part bee not condemned to slavery and poverty they conceive the weale of the whole is exposed to great hazard It is to be noted also that we Christians are not only degenerated in our politicks and become more unnaturall then Gentiles but even we also amongst Christians which have been born under regular governments doe more preposterously let loose the raines of Soveraignty then those Gentiles which knew no such regulations Seneca under the Roman Empire sayes Non licet tibi quicquam tuâ— arbitrio facere His reason is magna fortuna magna servitus In England this would now be treason if not blasphemy against God and the King we must bee so far from saying that our King though hee pretend not to an absolute prerogative is a servant that we must not say he is universis minor wee must bee so farre from denying him an arbitrary power in any thing that we must allow him an arbitrary dissent even in those things which the States of Kingdomes after mature debate propose to him Maximus the Emperour in his oration to his souldiers uses this expression Neque enim unius tantum hominis possessiâ— principatur est sed communis totius Ro populi siquidem in illâ— urbe sita est imperij fortuna nobis autem dispensatatio tantum atque administratio principatus una vobiscum demandata est Who dares now avow at Court that the whole nation of England hath a true interest and possession of this Crowne and that there is nothing therein committed to the King but the office and charge to dispense and manage the same together with the people for the peoples best advantage That which was true at Rome when there was neither religion nor perfection of policy to bridle Tyranny is now false dangerous trayterous in England amongst the most civill and knowing Christians that ever were what can be now spoken more odious in the Court of England then this undeniable truth that the King is a servant to the State and though far greater and superiour then all particulars yet to the whole collectively taken a meer officer or Minister The objections of our adversaries against this truth are especially these two First They say the end is not more honourable and valuable then the means And Secondly it cannot be so in this case because they say it is contradictory in sense and a thing impossible in nature to be both a servant and a Lord to the same State As to the first objection whereas the example of our Saviour is produced to prove that some instruments may be of more dignity then those ends for which they are ordained we answer our Saviour though hee did by his blood purchase our redemption yet was in the nature of a free and voluntary agent he was not design'd to so great a work of humiliation by any other cause then his owne eternall choice and therefore since hee receives no ordination or designation from those whom hee came to redeem nor had no necessary impulsion from the work it selfe of redemption but was meerly moved thereunto by his owne intire {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} wee say he was not our mean or instrument but his owne and whereas the example of the Angells is next alleadged we answer also that their Ministery performed unto men is rather a thing expedient then necessary and it is not their sole or chiefe Ministery neither doe they perform the same as necessarily drawne thereunto by any motive from man as being the immediate end of their Ministery but their service is injoyned immediately by God and so God not man is the true scope of their attendance Lastly whereas it is prest that the Advocate is ordained for the Client the Physitian for the Patient c. yet it is frequently seen that the Advocate is better then his Client the Physitian then his Patient c. We answer every particular Advocate or Physitian is not to be compared with every particular Client or Patient but it is true in generall that the skill and art of the Advocate and Physitian is directed in nature not so much for the benefit of him which possesses it as of him which is served by it and therefore Aristotle in the 2. Phys. cap. 1. affirmes truly that the Physitian cures himselfe by accident as the Pilot wafts himselfe by event it being impossible that he should waft others if hee were absent In all arts that which is principally intended is the common benefit of all and because the Artist himselfe is one part of the whole body consequently some part of the benefit redounds to him So after the same manner hee that sits at the helme of a State amongst others steers the same for his own ends but according to Plato and and Cicero both his maine aime his supreame law ought to bee salus populi it is a fit title for Princes to be called {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and wee know in a Philosophicall understanding the shepheard though by kind farre more excellent then his charge yet in quantum a shepheard considered meerly in that notion with respect to his charge is subordinate and bound to expose himselfe for his sheep It is our Saviours saying and it was crowned with our Saviours practise Bonus Pastor ponit vitam pro ovibus Besides Advocates Physitians c. as they voluntarily choose their owne professions perhaps intend their own private profit in the first place the publick in the second such is the perversenesse of humane nature but as the State designes or authorizes them that intends publick ends in the first place I passe now to the second objection which maintaines Lord and Servant to be incompatible our Tenet is that Kings may have supreame Majesty as to all individuall subjects yet acknowledge themselves subject to the whole State and to that supreame Majesty which flowes perpetually from that fountaine In briefe according to the old received maxime the greatest Monarchs in the eye of Law policy and nature may be singulis majores universis minores they may obtaine a limited Empire or sub regno graviore regnum Our adversaries though they cannot disprove yet they much disrelish this doctrine they cannot say it is impossible for all Democracies Aristocracies mixt and limited Monarchies make it visibly true nor can they say it is incommodious for there are more mixt and limited States then absolute and those which are mixt and limited
are more civill more religious more happy then those which are not These things are beyond all doubt and debate The question then is only whether absolute Princes that is such as have no persons to share in power with them nor no lawes to circumscribe their power for them be not as meer servants to the State and as much obliged in point of duty to pursue its publick interest as they are Lords over private persons and predominant over particular interests Many of the authorities before cited make good the affirmative and many more may be alleaged to the same purpose and the rule of finall causes makes it beyond all contradiction that there is a certain service annexed to the office of the most independent Potentate Nefas est sayes Alexander Severus à publico dispensatore prodigi quae Provinciales dederant He contents himselfe with the name of a publick Steward or Treasurer and confesses that hee cannot mispend the common stock intrusted with him without great sinne and injustice Maximus also as was before recited challenged no more in the Empire then a kind of Commission to dispense and administer they are his owne very words the affaires of the Empire with the State And therefore Seneca gives this admonition that the Emperour should make his account non suam esse Rempub. sed se Reipub. And this was that service the very word it selfe is servitus which Tiberius complained to be layed on his shoulders so miserable and burthenous as Sueton. writes in the life of Tiberius It was recorded in commendation also of Nasica that hee preferred his countrey before his owne family and did account no private thing his owne or worthy of his thoughts in comparison of those things which were publickly advantageous ut enim tutela sic procuratio Reipub. ad utilitatem eorum quibus commissi sunt non ad eorum quibus commissa est gerenda est here the office of a Magistrate is a procuration he is taken as a Guardian in Socage and the end of his office is the utility of those which are committed to his trust not his owne To conclude the lawes of the Empire were very full and cleer in this and many more histories might bee brought forth to give more light and strength in the case but there is no need of any If any honest Patriot neverthelesse think fitter to use the name of father then servant I shall not wholly gainsay therein My wish is that subjects may alwayes understand their right but not too rigorously insist upon it neither would I have them in private matters look too much upon their publick capacity Princes also may without indignity to themselves at some times condescend to such acknowledgements of the peoples due as is not so fit to be heard from any mouth but their owne Happy is that King which anticipates his subjects in submitting his own titles and happy are those subjects which anticipate their King in submitting their owne rights and happy are both when both thus comply at the same time Neverthelesse if it may be ever seasonable to urge a verity with strictnesse Princes are not to be called Fathers of their Subjects except taken divisim but are meer servants to the people taken collectim How erronious then are they and how opposite to the end of government which are so far from making Kings servants to the people that they make the people servants to Kings whereas the Lord doth not rule for the profit of his servant but by the profit of his servant compasses his own Servile power is tolerated because it tends to the safety and good of him that is subject to it but as Aristotle holds 3. Pol. c. 4. the master in protecting his servant does not look upon his servants ends herein but his own because the losse of his servant would be a losse to his family Therefore this kind of Authority is not to be indured in a State because it is incompetent with liberty provided onely for slaves and such as have no true direct interest in the State whereas finis justi imperii as Ammianus writes and as has been confirm'd by many other proofs Vtilitas obedientium aestimatur salus But you will say It is more reasonable that Subjects should remain under the condition of servants then he which has authority over those Subjects and is in place far above them I answer That end to which Princes are destin'd viz. the Common good or {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as one cals or {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as another cals it or cura salutis aliena as another cals it is so excellent and noble that without the inconvenience of servility they may be servile to it The truth is all things that are in the nature of means and instruments are then most perfect and intire when they are most fit and conducible to accomplish the end for which they are prepared So Aristot. delivers in the 5. Metaphys. and so Averroes and Thomas thereupon T is to quarrell against God and Nature to except against that true and proper end which God and Nature hath design'd to any person or thing The Greeks called excellence {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} from {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and the Romanes called it perfectio because that is perfect or consummate which approaches nearest to its end T is not onely therefore to be said that that is a perfect or intire State wherein the Governor executes all things in order to the Common good but he also is a perfect and intire Governor which bends all his actions to that purpose For if we look up to Almighty God we must needs acknowledge that he is most truly represented and personated by such a Deputy as refers all things to publick Good For God is goodnesse it self and there is nothing more essential to goodnesse then to be diffusive and God has no end of addition or profit to himself in making Heaven or Earth Angels or men Next if we look upon Nations they ever retribute most honour and repay most dutie love and gratitude to such Princes as are most free from particular aymes That Reigne which supports it self by terror is accompanied with hatred and danger but that which found it self upon love is truly majesticall safe and durable For in part the Princes happinesse is involved in his Subjects and he does more partake in their flourishing condition then they in his private advantages If Cicero can say Nistrum dicamus esse quicquid bono principi nascatur the Prince may say as truly Principis est quicquid est omnium Therefore does Aristot. 8. Ethic. c. 10. maintain that Kings do not regard their own particulars but the community of their Subjects because there is a self-sufficiencie and perfection in good Kings whilest they cannot be said to want that which their Subjects have Queen Elizab. by her publick actions doubted not to win
time Carthage is lost by an unpolitike and uncertain indifferency whilest it will neither wholly desist from attempting against forreign States nor yet wholly concur with such couragious Generals as it entrusted with those attempts Either Hanno ought to have been silenced or Hannibal recalled The Victories of Hannibal are too glorious to admit of a straitned Commission things are now come to that passe that if Hannibal be not enabled to scale the Walls of Rome Scipio is to be expected at the Gates of Carthage Great Bodies cannot be moved but with great Engines nor can extensive Monarchies be erected or conserved without extensive Prerogatives Gravity and Policie both do in this keep a just correspondency A moliminous vast Frame can by no means rise into a decent symmetricall Pile except there be an orderly proportion kept between the Basis the Conus and the Pyramis If the Basis be excessive What is it but a deformed heap If the bottom be too narrow for the Spire How unstable is the Fabrick likely to be The Egyptian Pyramids had perhaps intention to expresse Hieroglyphicall Politikes to us and to let us know that though small States may be molded almost into any form yet great Heights cannot be arrived at but by orderly graduall ascents At Athens Sparta Thebes Pella where the Precincts are narrow the Government is easie decencie requires that it be as lowly But in the magnificent Court of Persia where the Crown is more glorious the Scepter must be more ponderous where the Spire is more lofty the proportion of the Conus and Basis must answer thereto where Rule is more difficult the Ruler must be more majesticall This lets us see how inconsiderate that great Dispute is amongst Polititians about the comparisons of this and that Form of Government viz. Whether Monarchie or Democracie or Aristocracie be to be preferred amongst men For without doubt the difference is not so much to be seen in the Forms themselves as in the States which make choice of those Forms But you will say Mighty Sovereigns may be enabled as to all that is good yet restrained by Law from all that is evil or if the Law of man cannot externally yet the Law of God internally may check them in matters wicked and pernitious We answer Bounds are set by God and Nature to the greatest and most absolute Monarchs as well as to the least and most conditionate but those Bounds seem but as imaginary Lines or as meer stones not reall Trenches or Fortifications They serve onely to discover to the Subject what his Right is but they have no strength at all to protect him from wrong Those slaves that are sold and forfeited to the worst of Bondages as we have proved before have a Divine and Naturall claim to safety and freedom from abuses as other Subjects have yet want of some Politicall remedy exposeth them to miseries far worse then death and detrudes them often into a condition below beasts The same slaves also are equally intitled to their lords courtesie as the best of Subjects are there is no safety nor freedom from abuse which depends upon meer will as an Arbitrary power but the poorest slave is as capable of it as the freest Subject Nay it hath been often a glory to weak Princes to attribute that to slaves which they would not to men ingenuously born For who had Offices of great Command who had chief Honours who had the communication of secret State-affairs who had the prime sway in Court amongst the Romane Emperours but slaves infranchised What Senatour what Officer in Rome had riches equall to Narcissus or Pallas Who could more powerfully sway in the Palace or better patronize Cities and Nations than Eunuchs Grooms and Libertines If there be any difference then betwixt the most ingenuously-born subject and the lowest-purchased caitiff it is onely in this That the one hath a stronger circumvallation of humane Policy to secure him than the other and that he is not left so meerly to divine naturall and discretionary pretences as is the other But in wide expansive Seigniories no Law no Policie can sufficiently intrench or immure it self For if the Prince be bad he hath the more opportunity to do mischief if he be good he hath yet the lesse power to govern well It is almost a miracle to see a great Monarch good and if he be it is more miraculous to see him upon the receipt of Appeals and other Addresses as often as occasion shall require from remote parts to distinguish truth and falshood or to sift the Bran from the Flour so neerly as it ought to be Mark how Solomon begs wisedom of God that he may be able to go in and out before the Nation of the Jews Mark how great a Charge he makes that little inconsiderable State to be It was more than naturall that Augustus though a Pagan-Phoenix should ever know what Peace was over all his Dominions That little space of Halcyonian tranquility which the world enjoy'd during some part of his Reign is in verity more to be ascribed to the Cradle of Christ than to his Throne Change then the Scene and see how the face of things varies Assoon as Tiberius enters see how the Head of so many severall Legions of so many severall Nations of so many severall Parties in Religion and Opinion of so many severall disagreeing Magistrates and Commanders can be reduced to Order or forced to do reason by any one Faction framed out of all these More need not be said Where many States are subjugated to one Seignior War can never be absent where War is Military rule must needs predominate where Military rule is Law must needs give place to Discretion and what that bloody fatall Train is which ever attends War and a Military arbitrary Empire is sufficiently known to all What gain then is it to our Adversaries to alleadge That Alexander or any of the Eastern Emperours did what they pleased and ruled always uncontrolled This is no more but to alleadge That the Persians were first conquered by the Grecians and that after the Grecians were poised by the Persians and that the division and enmity which remained betwixt both served the Prince as a sit means to enthrall both This is no just proof in Law that the Macedonians were to undergo thraldome and servitude because they had over-run the East or that the East was to stoop to the like endurance because it could not withstand Grecia Nor if Alexander did de facto tyrannize cutting the Diamond as it were by the powder of the Diamond is this any stronger Argument for the legality of tyrannizing than dethroning or murdering of him had been for the justification of the same in his subjects A facto adjus non datur consequentia When meer force lays the foundation of Soveraignty and where meer force raises up the Structure meer force may with the same equality and reason effect the demolition of the same It is true