and them before the Lord if he had bin already King and if those Acts had bin empty Ceremonies conferring no Right at all I dare not say that a League dos imply an absolute equality between both Parties for there is a Foedus inequale wherein the weaker as Grotius says dos usually obtain protection and the stronger honour but there can be none at all unless both Parties are equally free to make it or not to make it David therefore was not King till he was elected and those Covenants made and he was made King by that Election and Covenants This is not shaken by our Author's supposition That the People would not have taken Joas Manasseh or Josiah if they had had a right of chusing a King since Solomon says Wo unto the Kingdom whose King is a Child For first they who at the first had a right of chusing whom they pleased to be King by the Covenant made with him whom they did chuse may have deprived themselves of the farther execution of it and rendred the Crown hereditary even to Children unless the Conditions were violated upon which it was granted In the second place if the infancy of a King brings Wo upon a People the Government of such a one cannot be according to the Laws of God and Nature for Governments are not instituted by either for the pleasure of a Man but for the good of Nations and their Weal not their Wo is sought by both and if Children are any where admitted to rule 't is by the particular Law of the place grounded perhaps upon an opinion that it is the best way to prevent dangerous Contests or that other ways may be found to prevent the Inconveniences that may proceed from their weakness Thirdly It cannot be concluded that they might not reject Children because they did not such matters require positive Proofs Suppositions are of no value in relation to them and the whole matter may be altered by particular Circumstances The Jews might reasonably have a great veneration for the House of David they knew what was promised to that Family and whatever respect was paid or privilege granted on that account can be of no advantage to any other in the world They might be farther induced to set up Joas in hope the defects of his Age might be supplied by the Vertue Experience and Wisdom of Jehoiada We do not know what good opinion may have bin conceived of Manasseh when he was twelve years old but much might be hoped from one that had bin virtuously educated and was probably under the care of such as had bin chosen by Hezekiah and tho the contrary did fall out the mischiefs brought upon the People by his wicked Reign proceeded not from the weakness of his childhood but from the malice of his riper years And both the Examples of Joas and Josiah prove that neither of them came in by their own right but by the choice of the People Jehoiada gathered the Levites out of all the Cities of Judah and the chief of the Fathers of Israel and they came to Jerusalem And all the Congregation made a Covenant with the King in the House of God and brought out the King's Son and put upon him the Crown and gave him the Testimony and made him King whereupon they slew Athaliah And when Ammon was stain the people of the Land slew them that had conspired against King Ammon and the people of the Land made Josiah his Son King in his stead which had been most impertinent if he was of himself King before they made him so Besides tho Infancy may be a just cause of excepting against and rejecting the next Heir to a Crown 't is not the greatest or strongest 'T is far more easy to find a Remedy against the solly of a Child if the State be well regulated than the more rooted Vices of grown men The English who willingly received Henry the sixth Edward the fifth and sixth tho Children resolutely opposed Robert the Norman And the French who willingly submitted to Charles the ninth Lewis the thirteenth and fourteenth in their Infancy rejected the lewd remainders of Meroveus his Race Charles of Lorrain with his Kindred descended from Pepin Robert Duke of Burgundy with his Descendents and Henry of Navarr till he had satisfied the Nobility and People in the point of Religion And tho I do not know that the Letter upon the words Vaeregnocujus Rex puer est recited by Lambard was written by Eleutherius Bishop of Rome yet the Authority given to it by the Saxons who made it a Law is much more to be valued than what it could receive from the Writer and whoever he was he seems rightly to have understood Solomon's meaning who did not look upon him as a Child that wanted years or was superannuated but him only who was guilty of Insolence Luxury Folly and Madness and he that said A wise Child was better than an old and foolish King could have no other meaning unless he should say it was worse to be governed by a wise Person than a Fool which may agree with the judgment of our Author but could never enter into the heart of Solomon Lastly Tho the practice of one or more Nations may indicate what Laws Covenants or Customs were in force among them yet they cannot bind others The diversity of them proceeds from the variety of mens Judgments and declares that the direction of all such Affairs depends upon their own Will according to which every People for themselves forms and measures the Magistracy and magistratical Power which as it is directed solely for the good hath its exercises and extent proportionable to the Command of those that institute it and such Ordinances being good for men God makes them his own SECT VIII There is no natural propensity in Man or Beast to Monarchy I See no reason to believe that God did approve the Government of one over many because he created but one but to the contrary in as much as he did endow him and those that came from him as well the youngest as the eldest Line with understanding to provide for themselves and by the invention of Arts and Sciences to be beneficial to each other he shewed that they ought to make use of that understanding in forming Governments according to their own convenience and such occasions as should arise as well as in other matters and it might as well be inferr'd that it is unlawful for us to build clothe arm defend or nourish our selves otherwise than as our first Parents did before or soon after the Flood as to take from us the liberty of instituting Governments that were not known to them If they did not find out all that conduces to the use of man but a Faculty as well as a Liberty was left to every one and will be to the end of the world to make use of his Wit Industry and Experience according to present Exigencies to
of France matters there are not much better managed The warlike temper of that people is so worn out by the frauds and cruelties of corrupt Officers that few men list themselves willingly to be Soldiers and when they are engaged or forced they are so little able to endure the miseries to which they are exposed that they daily run away from their Colours tho they know not whither to go and expect no mercy if they are taken The King has in vain attempted to correct this humour by the severity of martial Law but mens minds will not be forced and tho his Troops are perfectly well arm'd cloth'd and exercised they have given many testimonies of little worth When the Prince of Condé had by his own valour and the strength of the King's Guards broken the first line of the Prince of Orange's Army at the battel of Seneff and put the rest into disorder he could not make the second and third line of his own Army to advance and reinforce the first by which means he lost all the fair hopes he had conceived of an entire Victory Not long after the Marechal de Crequi was abandoned by his whole Army near Trier who ran away hardly striking a stroke and left him with sixteen horse to shift for himself When Monsieur de Turenne by the excellency of his Conduct and Valour had gain'd such a Reputation amongst the Soldiers that they thought themselves secure under him he did not suffer such disgraces but he being kill'd they return'd to the usual temper of forced and ill-used Soldiers half the Army was lost in a retreat little differing from a flight and the rest as they themselves confess saved by the bravery of two English Regiments The Prince of Condé was soon after sent to command but he could not with all his courage skill and reputation raise their fallen Spirits nor preserve his Army any other way than by lodging them in a Camp near Schlestadt so fortified by Art and Nature that it could not be forc'd To these we may add some Examples of our own In our late War the Scots Foot whether Friends or Enemies were much inferior to those of the Parliament and their Horse esteemed as nothing Yet in the year 1639 and 1640 the King's Army tho very numerous excellently armed and mounted and in appearance able to conquer many such Kingdoms as Scotland being under the conduct of Courtiers and affected as men usually are towards those that use them ill and seek to destroy them they could never resist a wretched Army commanded by Leven but were shamefully beaten at Newborn and left the Northern Counties to be ravaged by them When Van Tromp set upon Blake in Foleston-Bay the Parliament had not above thirteen Ships against threescore and not a man that had ever seen any other fight at Sea than between a Merchant ship and a Pirat to oppose the best Captain in the world attended with many others in valour and experience not much inferior to him Many other Difficulties were observ'd in the unsetled State Few Ships want of Mony several Factions and some who to advance particular Interests betray'd the Publick But such was the power of Wisdom and Integrity in those that sat at the Helm and their diligence in chusing men only for their Merit was blessed with such success that in two years our Fleets grew to be as famous as our Land Armies the Reputation and Power of our Nation rose to a greater height than when we possessed the better half of France and the Kings of France and Scotland were our Prisoners All the States Kings and Potentates of Europe most respectfully not to say submissively sought our Friendship and Rome was more afraid of Blake and his Fleet than they had bin of the great King of Sweden when he was ready to invade Italy with a hundred thousand men This was the work of those who if our Author say true thought basely of the publick Concernments and believing things might be well enough managed by others minded only their private Affairs These were the effects of the negligence and ignorance of those who being suddenly advanced to Offices were removed before they understood the Duties of them These Diseases which proceed from popular corruption and irregularity were certainly cured by the restitution of that Integrity good Order and Stability that accompany divine Monarchy The justice of the War made against Holland in the year 1665 the probity of the Gentleman who without partiality or bribery chose the most part of the Officers that carried it on the Wisdom Diligence and Valour manifested in the conduct and the Glory with which it was ended justifies all that our Author can say in its commendation If any doubt remains the subtilty of making the King of France desire that the Netherlands might be an accession to his Crown the ingenious ways taken by us to facilitate the conquest of them the Industry of our Ambassadors in diverting the Spaniards from entring into the War till it was too late to recover the Losses sustain'd the honourable Design upon the Smyrna Fleet and our frankness in taking the quarrel upon our selves together with the important Figure we now make in Europe may wholly remove it and in confirmation of our Author's Doctrine shew that Princes do better perform the Offices that require Wisdom Industry and Valour than annual Magistrates and do more seldom err in the choice of Officers than Senates and popular Assemblies SECT XXIX There is no assurance that the Distempers of a State shall be cured by the Wisdom of a Prince BVT says our Author the Virtue and Wisdom of a Prince supplies all Tho he were of a duller understanding by use and experience he must needs excel all Nature Age or Sex are as it seems nothing to the case A Child as soon as he comes to be a King has experience the head of a Fool is filled with Wisdom as soon as a Crown is set upon it and the most vicious do in a moment become virtuous This is more strange than that an Ass being train'd to a Course should outrun the best Arabian Horse or a Hare bred up in an Army become more strong and fierce than a Lion for Fortune dos not only supply all natural defects in Princes and correct their vices but gives them the benefit of use and experience when they have none Some Reasons and Examples might have bin expected to prove this extraordinary Proposition But according to his laudable custom he is pleased to trouble himself with neither and thinks that the impudence of an Assertion is sufficient to make that to pass which is repugnant to experience and common sense as may appear by the following discourse I will not insist upon terms for tho duller understanding signifies nothing in as much as no understanding is dull and a man is said to be dull only because he wants it but presuming he means little understanding I shall so
which they are condemned perpetually to the Gallies and such as are aiding to them to grievous Fines But before this be acknowledged to have any similitude or relation to our discourse concerning Kings it must be proved that the present King or those under whom he claims is or were Proprietors of all the Lands in England and granted the several parcels under the condition of suffering patiently such Inconveniences and Miseries as are above-mentioned or that they who did confer the Crown upon any of them did also give a Propriety in the Land which I do not find in any of the fifteen or sixteen Titles that have bin since the coming in of the Normans and if it was not done to the first of every one it cannot accrue to the others unless by some new act to the same purpose which will not easily be produced It will be no less difficult to prove that any thing unworthy of freemen is by any Tenures imposed in England unless it be the offering up of the Wives and Daughters of Tenants to the Lust of Abbots and Monks and they are so far from being willingly suffer'd that since the Dens and Nurseries of those Beasts were abolished no man that succeeds them has had impudence sufficient to exact the performance and tho the letter of the Law may favour them the turpitude of the thing has extinguished the usage But even the Kings of Israel and Judah who brought upon the People those evils that had bin foretold by Samuel did not think they had a right to the Powers they exercised If the Law had given a right to Ahab to take the best of their Vineyards he might without ceremony have taken that of Naboth and by the majestick power of an absolute Monarch have chastized the churlish Clown who resused to sell or change it for another but for want of it he was obliged to take a very different course If the lives of Subjects had in the like manner depended upon the will of Kings David might without scruple have killed Vriah rather than to place him in the front of the Army that he might fall by his own courage The malice and treachery of such Proceedings argues a defect of power and he that acts in such an oblique manner shews that his actions are not warranted by the Law which is boldly executed in the face of the Sun This shews the interpretation put upon the words Against thee only have I sinned by Court-flatterers to be false If he had not sinned against Bathsheba whom he corrupted Vriah whom he caused to be killed the People that he scandalized and the Law which he violated he had never endeavoured to cover his guilt by so vile a sraud And as he did not thereby fly the sight of God but of men 't is evident that he in that action feared men more than God If by the Examples of Israel and Judah we may judg whether the Inconveniences and Miseries brought upon Nations by their Kings be tolerable or intolerable it will be enough to consider the madness of Sauls cruelty towards his Subjects and the slaughter brought upon them by the hand of the Philistins on Mount Gilboa where he fell with the flower of all Israel the Civil Wars that hapned in the time of David and the Plague brought upon the People by his wickedness the heavy burdens laid upon them by Solomon and the Idolatry favour'd by him the wretched folly of Rehoboam and the defection of the ten Tribes caused by it the Idolatry established by Jeroboam and the Kings of Israel and that of many of those of Judah also the frequent Wars and unheard of Slaughters ensuing thereupon between the Tribes the daily devastations of the Country by all sorts of Strangers the murders of the Prophets the abolition of God's Worship the desolation of Towns and Provinces the Captivity of the ten Tribes carried away into unknown Countries and in the end the abolition of both Kingdoms with the captivity of the Tribe of Judah and the utter destruction of the City It cannot be said that these things were suffer'd under Kings and not from or by them for the desolation of the Cities People and Country is in many places of Scripture imputed to the Kings that taught Israel to sin as appears by what was denounced against Jeroboam Jehu Ahaz Manasseh Zedekiah and others Nay the Captivity of Babylon with the evils ensuing were first announced to Hezekiah for his vanity and Josiah by the like brought a great slaughter upon himself and people But if mischiess fell upon the People by the frailty of these who after David were the best nothing surely less than the utmost of all Miseries could be expected from such as were set to do evil and to make the Nation like to themselves in which they met with too great success If it be pretended that God's People living under an extraordinary Dispensation can be no example to us I desire other Histories may be examined for I confess I know no Nation so great happy and prosperous nor any Power so well established that two or three ill Kings immediately succeeding each other have not bin able to destroy and bring to such a condition that it appeared the Nations must perish unless the Senates Diets and other Assemblies of State had put a stop to the mischief by restraining or deposing them and tho this might be proved by innumerable Testimonies I shall content my self with that of the Roman Empire which perished by the vices corruption and baseness of their Princes the noble Kingdom of the Goths in Spain overthrown by the Tyranny of Witza and Rodrigo the present state of Spain now languishing and threatning ruin from the same causes France brought to the last degree of misery and weakness by the degenerate races of Pharamond and Charles preserved and restored by the Virtues of Pepin and Capet to which may be added those of our own Country which are so well known that I need not mention them SECT VI. 'T is not good for such Nations as will have Kings to suffer them to be glorious powerful or abounding in Riches OUR Author having hitherto spoken of all Nations as born under a necessity of being subject to Absolute Monarchy which he pretends to have bin set up by the universal and indispensible Law of God and Nature now seems to leave to their discretion whether they will have a King or not but says that those who will have a King are bound to allow him Royal maintenance by providing Revenues for the Crown since it is for the Honour Profit and Safety of the People to have their King glorious powerful and abounding in Riches If there be any thing of sense in this Clause there is nothing of truth in the foundation or principle of his whole Book For as the right and being of a Father is natural or inherent and no ways depending upon the will of the Child that of a
unless the whole body of the Nation for which they serve and who are equally concerned in their resolutions could be assembled This being impracticable the only punishment to which they are subject if they betray their trust is scorn infamy hatred and an assurance of being rejected when they shall again seek the same honor And tho this may seem a small matter to those who fear to do ill only from a sense of the pains inflicted yet it is very terrible to men of ingenuous spirits as they are supposed to be who are accounted fit to be entrusted with so great Powers But why should this be Liberty with a mischief if it were otherwise or how the liberty of particular Societies world be greater if they might do what they pleased than whilst they send others to act for them such wise men only as Filmer can tell us For as no man or number of men can give a Power which he or they have not the Achaians Etolians Latins Samnites and Tuscans who transacted all things relating to their Associations by Delegates and the Athenians Carthaginians and Romans who kept the power of the State in themselves were all equally free And in our days the United Provinces of the Netherlands the Switsers and Grisons who are of the first sort and the Venetians Genoeses and Luccheses who are of the other are so also All men that have any degree of common sense plainly see that the Liberty of those who act in their own persons and of those who send Delegates is perfectly the same and the exercise is and can only be changed by their consent But whatever the Law or Custom of England be in this point it cannot concern our question The general proposition concerning a Patriarchical Power cannot be proved by a single example If there be a general power every where forbidding Nations to give instructions to their Delegates they can do it no where If there be no such thing every people may do it unless they have deprived themselves of their right all being born under the same condition 'T is to no purpose to say that the Nations before mentioned had not Kings and therefore might act as they did For if the general Thesis be true they must have Kings and if it be not none are obliged to have them unless they think fit and the Kings they make are their Creatures But many of these Nations had either Kings or other Magistrates in power like to them The Provinces of the Netherlands had Dukes Earls or Marquesses Genoa and Venice have Dukes If any on account of the narrowness of their Territories have abstained from the name it dos not alter the case for our dispute is not concerning the name but the right If that one man who is in the principal Magistracy of every Nation must be reputed the Father of that people and has a Power which may not be limited by any Law it imports not what he is called But if in small Territories he may be limited by Laws he may be so also in the greatest The least of men is a man as well as a Giant And those in the West-Indies who have not above twenty or thirty Subjects able to bear Arms are Kings as well as Xerxes Every Nation may divide it self into small parcels as some have done by the same Law they have restrained or abolished their Kings joined to one another or taken their hazard of subsisting by themselves acted by delegation or retaining the Power in their own persons given finite or indefinite Powers reserved to themselves a power of punishing those who should depart from their duty or referred it to their General Assemblies And that Liberty for which we contend as the Gift of God and Nature remains equally to them all If men who delight in cavilling should say that great Kingdoms are not to be regulated by the Examples of small States I desire to know when it was that God ordained great Nations should be Slaves and deprived of all right to dispose matters relating to their Government whilst he left to such as had or should divide themselves into small parcels a right of making such Constitutions as were most convenient for them When this is resolved we ought to be informed what extent of territory is required to deserve the name of a great Kingdom Spain and France are esteemed great and yet the Deputies or Procuradores of the several parts of Castille did in the Cortez held at Madrid in the beginning of Charles the fifths reign excuse themselves from giving the supplies he desired because they had received no orders in that particular from the Towns that sent them and afterwards receiving express orders not to do it they gave his Majesty a flat denial The like was frequently done during the reigns of that great Prince and of his Son Philip the second And generally those Procuradores never granted any thing of importance to either of them without particular Orders from their Principals The same way was taken in France as long as there were any General Assemblies of Estates and if it do not still continue 't is because there are none For no man who understood the Affairs of that Kingdom did ever deny that the Deputies were obliged to follow the Orders of those who sent them And perhaps if men would examin by what means they came to be abolished they might find that the Cardinals de Richelieu and Mazarin with other Ministers who have accomplished that work were acted by some other principle than that of Justice or the establishment of the Laws of God and Nature In the General Assembly of Estates held at Blois in the time of Henry the third Bodin then Deputy for the third Estate of Vermandois by their particular Order proposed so many things as took up a great part of their time Other Deputies alledged no other reason for many things said and done by them highly contrary to the King's will than that they were commanded so to do by their superiors These General Assemblies being laid aside the same Custom is still used in the lesser Assemblies of Estates in Languedoc and Britany The Deputies cannot without the infamy of betraying their Trust and fear of punishment recede from the Orders given by their principals and yet we do not find that Liberty with a mischief is much more predominant in France than amongst us The same method is every day practised in the Diets of Germany The Princes and great Lords who have their places in their own right may do what they please but the Deputies of the Cities must follow such Orders as they receive The Histories of Denmark Sweden Poland and Bohemia testify the same thing and if this Liberty with a mischief do not still continue entire in all those places it has bin diminished by such means as sute better with the manners of Pirats than the Laws of God and Nature If England therefore do not still enjoy
to be the same in as much as it comprehended all the Freemen that is all the People for the difference between Civis and Servits is irreconcilable and no man whilst he is a Servant can be a Member of a Commonwealth for he that is not in his own power cannot have a part in the Government of others All the forementioned Northern Nations had the like customs among them The Governments they had were so instituted The utmost that any now remaining pretends to is to derive their Right from them If according to Filmer these first Assemblies could not confer it upon the first they had none Such as claim under them can inherit none from those that had none and there can be no right in all the Governments we so much venerate and nothing can tend more to their overthrow than the reception of our Author's Doctrine Tho any one Instance would be sufficient to overthrow his general negative Proposition for a Rule is not generally true if there be any just Exception against it I have alledged many and find it so easy to increase the number that there is no Nation whose Original we know out of whose Histories I will not undertake to produce the like but I have not bin solicitous precisely to distinguish which Nations have acted in their own Persons and which have made use of Delegates nor in what times they have changed from one way to the other for if any have acted by themselves the thing is possible and whatsoever is done by delegated Powers must be referred to their Principals for none can give to any a Power which they have not in themselves He is graciously pleased to confess That when men are assembled by a humane Power that Power that doth assemble them may also limit the manner of the execution of that Power c. But in Assemblies that take their Authority from the Law of Nature it is not so for what liberty or freedom is due to any man by the Law of Nature no inferior Power can alter limit or diminish No one man or multitude of men can give away the natural Right of another c. These are strong Lines and such as if there be any sense in them utterly overthrow all our Author's Doctrine for if any Assembly of men did ever take their Authority from the Law of Nature it must be of such as remaining in the intire fruition of their natural Liberty and restrained by no Contract meet together to deliberate of such matters as concern themselves and if they can be restrained by no one man or number of men they may dispose of their own Affairs as they think fit But because no one of them is obliged to enter into the Society that the rest may constitute he cannot enjoy the benefit of that Society unless he enter into it He may be gone and set up for himself or set up another with such as will agree with him But if he enter into the Society he is obliged by the Laws of it and if one of those Laws be that all things should be determined by the plurality of Voices his Assent is afterwards comprehended in all the Resolutions of that Plurality Reuben or Simeon might according to the Laws of Nature have divided themselves from their Brethren as well as Lot from Abraham or Ismael and the Sons of Keturah from Isaac but when they in hopes of having a part in the Inheritance promised to their Fathers had joined with their Brethren a few of their Descendents could not have a right by their dissent to hinder the Resolutions of the whole Body or such a part of it as by the first Agreement was to pass for an Act of the whole And the Scripture teaches us that when the Lot was fallen upon Saul they who despised him were stiled Men of Belial and the rest after his Victory over the Ammonites would have slain them if he had permitted In the like manner when a number of Men met together to build Rome any man who had disliked the design might justly have refused to join in it but when he had entred into the Society he could not by his Vote invalidate the Acts of the whole nor destroy the Rights of Romulus Numa and the others who by the Senate and People were made Kings nor those of the other Magistrates who aster their expulsion were legally created This is as much as is required to establish the natural Liberty of Mankind in its utmost extent and cannot be shaken by our Author's surmise That a Gap is thereby opened for every seditious multitude to raise a new Commonwealth For till the Commonwealth be established no multitude can be seditious because they are not subject to any humane Law and Sedition implies an unjust and disorderly opposition of that Power which is legally established which cannot be when there is none nor by him who is not a Member of the Society that makes it and when it is made such as entered into it are obliged to the Laws of it This shewing the root and foundation of Civil Powers we may judg of the use and extent of them according to the letter of the Law or the true intentional meaning of it both which declare them to be purely Human Ordinances proceeding from the will of those who seek their own good and may certainly infer that since all Multitudes are composed of such as are under some Contract or free from all no man is obliged to enter into those contracts against his own will nor obliged by any to which he dos not assent Those multitudes that enter into such Contracts and thereupon form Civil Societies act according to their own will Those that are engaged in none take their Authority from the Law of Nature their Rights cannot be limited or diminished by any one man or number of men and consequently whoever dos it or attempts the doing of it violates the most sacred Laws of God and Nature His cavils concerning Proxies and the way of using them deserve no answer as relating only to one sort of men amongst us and can have no influence upon the Laws of Nature or the proceedings of Assemblies acting according to such Rules as they set to themselves In some places they have voted all together in their own persons as in Athens In others by Tribes as in Rome Sometimes by Delegates when the number of the whole People is so great that no one place can contain them as in the Parliaments Diets General Assemblies of Estates long used in the great Kingdoms of Europe In other parts many Cities are joined together in Leagues as antiently the Achaians Etolians Samnites Tuscans and in these times the States of Holland and Cantons of Switzerland but our Author not regarding such matters in pursuance of his folly with an ignorance as admirable as his stupidity repeats his Challenge I ask says he but one Example out of the History of the whole World let
orderly chosen by a willing People were the true Shepherds who came in by the gate of the Sheepfold and might justly be called the Ministers of God so long as they performed their duty in providing for the good of the Nations committed to their charge SECT XVII Good Governments admit of Changes in the Superstructures whilst the Foundations remain unchangeable IF I go a step farther and confess the Romans made some changes in the outward Form of their Government I may safely say they did well in it and prosper'd by it After the Expulsion of the Kings the Power was chiefly in the Nobility who had bin Leaders of the People but it was necessary to humble them when they began to presume too much upon the advantages of their Birth and the City could never have been great unless the Plebeians who were the Body of it and the main strength of their Armies had bin admitted to a participation of Honours This could not be done at the first They who had bin so vilely opprest by Tarquin and harass'd with making or cleansing Sinks were not then fit for Magistracies or the Command of Armies but they could not justly be excluded from them when they had men who in courage and conduct were equal to the best of the Patricians and it had bin absurd for any man to think it a disparagement to him to marry the Daughter of one whom he had obey'd as Dictator or Consul and perhaps follow'd in his Triumph Rome that was constituted for War and sought its Grandeur by that means could never have arriv'd to any considerable height if the People had not bin exercised in Arms and their Spirits raised to delight in Conquests and willing to expose themselves to the greatest fatigues and dangers to accomplish them Such men as these were not to be used like Slaves or opprest by the unmerciful hand of Usurers They who by their sweat and blood were to defend and enlarge the Territories of the State were to be convinced they fought for themselves and they had reason to demand a Magistracy of their own vested with a Power that none might offend to maintain their Rights and to protect their Families whilst they were abroad in the Armies These were the Tribunes of the People made as they called it Sacrosancti or inviolable and the creation of them was the most considerable Change that happened till the time of Marius who brought all into disorder The creation or abolition of Military Tribunes with Consular Power ought to be accounted as nothing for it imported little whether that Authority were exercised by two or by five That of the Decemviri was as little to be regarded they were intended only for a Year and tho new ones were created for another on pretence that the Laws they were to frame could not be brought to perfection in so short a time yet they were soon thrown down from the Power they usurped and endeavoured to retain contrary to Law The creation of Dictators was no novelty they were made occasionally from the beginning and never otherwise than occasionally till Julius Cesar subverted all order and invading that supreme Magistracy by force usurped the Right which belong'd to all This indeed was a mortal Change even in root and principle All other Magistrates had bin created by the People for the publick good and always were within the power of those that had created them But Cesar coming in by force sought only the satisfaction of his own raging Ambition or that of the Soldiers whom he had corrupted to destroy their Country and his Successors governing for themselves by the help of the like Raskals perpetually exposed the Empire to be ravaged by them But whatever opinion any man may have of the other Changes I dare affirm there are few or no Monarchies whose Histories are so well known to us as that of Rome which have not suffer'd Changes incomparably greater and more mischievous than those of Rome whilst it was free The Macedonian Monarchy fell into pieces immediately after the death of Alexander 'T is thought he perished by Poison His Wives Children and Mother were destroyed by his own Captains The best of those who had escaped his fury fell by the Sword of each other When the famous Argyraspides might have expected some reward of their labours and a little rest in old age they were maliciously sent into the East by Antigonus to perish by hunger and misery after he had corrupted them to betray Eumenes No better fate attended the rest all was in confusion every one follow'd whom he pleased and all of them seemed to be filled with such a rage that they never ceased from mutual slaughters till they were consumed and their Kingdoms continued in perpetual Wars against each other till they all fell under the Roman Power The fortune of Rome was the same after it became a Monarchy Treachery Murder and Fury reigned in every part there was no Law but Force he that could corrupt an Army thought he had a sufficient Title to the Empire by this means there were frequently three or four and at one time thirty several Pretenders who called themselves Emperors of which number he only reigned that had the happiness to destroy all his Competitors and he himself continued no longer than till another durst attempt the destruction of him and his Posterity In this state they remained till the wasted and bloodless Provinces were possess'd by a multitude of barbarous Nations The Kingdoms established by them enjoy'd as little Peace or Justice that of France was frequently divided into as many parts as the Kings of Meroveus or Pepin's Race had Children under the names of the Kingdoms of Paris Orleans Soissons Arles Burgundy Austrasia and others These were perpetually vexed by the unnatural fury of Brothers or nearest Relations whilst the miserable Nobility and People were obliged to fight upon their foolish Quarrels till all fell under the power of the strongest This mischief was in some measure cured by a Law made in the time of Hugh Capet that the Kingdom should no more be divided But the Appannages as they call them granted to the King's Brothers with the several Dukedoms and Earldoms erected to please them and other great Lords produced frequently almost as bad effects This is testified by the desperate and mortal Factions that went under the names of Burgundy and Orleans Armagnac and Orleans Montmorency and Guise These were followed by those of the League and the Wars of the Huguenots They were no sooner finish'd by the taking of Rochel but new ones began by the Intrigues of the Duke of Orleans Brother to Lewis the 13th and his Mother and pursued with that animosity by them that they put themselves under the protection of Spain To which may be added that the Houses of Condé Soissons Montmorency Guise Vendosme Angouleme Bouillon Rohan Longueville Rochfocault Epernon and I think I may say every one that is of great
was as soon composed as the rebellion of the County of Vaux against the Canton of Bern and those few of the like nature that have happened among them have had the like Success So that Thuanus in the History of his time comprehending about fifty years and relating the horrid domestick and foreign Wars that distracted Germany France Spain Italy Flanders England Scotland Poland Denmark Sweden Hungary Transilvania Muscovy Turky Africk and other places has no more to say of them than to shew what Arts had bin in vain used to disturb their so much envied quiet But if the modest temper of the People together with the Wisdom Justice and Strength of their Government could not be discomposed by the measures of Spain and France by the industry of their Ambassadors or the malicious craft of the Jesuits we may safely conclude that their State is as well setled as any thing among men can be and can hardly comprehend what is like to interrupt it As much might be said of the Cities of the Hanseatick Society if they had an entire Soveraignty in themselves But the Cities of the United Provinces in the Low Countries being every one of them Soveraign within themselves and many in number still continuing in their Union in spite of all the endeavours that have bin used to divide them give us an example of such steddiness in practice and principle as is hardly to be parallel'd in the world and that undeniably prove a temper in their Constitutions directly opposite to that which our Author imputes to all popular Governments and if the Death of Barnevelt and De Wit or the preserment of some most unlike to them be taken for a testimony that the best men thrive worst and the worst best I hope it may be consider'd that those Violences proceeded from that which is most contrary to Popularity tho I am not very willing to explain it If these matters are not clear in themselves I desire they may be compared with what has happen'd between any Princes that from the beginning of the world have bin joined in League to each other whether they were of the same or of different Nations Let an example be brought of six thirteen or more Princes or Kings who enter'd into a League and sor the space of one or more ages did neither break it nor quarrel upon the explication of it Let the States of the Switzers Grisons or Hollanders be compared with that of France when it was sometimes divided between two three or four Brothers of Meroveus or Pepin's Races with the Heptarchy of England the Kingdoms of Leon Arragon Navarr Castille and Portugal under which the Christians in Spain were divided or those of Cordoua Sevil Malaga Granada and others under the Power of the Moors and if it be not evident that the popular States have bin remarkable for Peace among themselves constancy to their Union and Fidelity to the Leagues made with their Associates whereas all the abovementioned Kingdoms and such others as are known among men to have bin joined in the like Leagues were ever infested with domestick Rebellions and Quarrels arising from the Ambition of Princes so as no Confederacy could be so cautiously made but they would find ways to elude it or so solemn and sacred but they would in far less time break through it I will confess that Kingdoms have sometimes bin as free from civil disturbances and that Leagues made between several Princes have bin as constantly and religiously observed as by Commonwealths But if no such thing do appear in the world and no man who is not impudent or ignorant dare pretend it I may justly conclude that tho every Commonwealth hath its Action sutable to its Constitution and that many associated together are not so free from disturbances as those that wholly depend upon the Authority of a Mother City yet we know of none that have not bin and are more regular and quiet than any Principalities and as to Foreign Wars they seek or avoid them according to their various Constitutions SECT XXIII That is the best Government which best provides for War OUR Author having huddled up all popular and mixed Governments into one has in some measure forced me to explain the various Constitutions and Principles upon which they are grounded but as the wisdom of a Father is seen not only in providing Bread for his Family or encreasing his Patrimonial Estate but in making all possible provision for the security of it so that Government is evidently the best which not relying upon what it dos at first enjoy seeks to increase the number strength and riches of the People and by the best Discipline to bring the Power so improved into such order as may be of most use to the Publick This comprehends all things conducing to the administration of Justice the preservation of domestick Peace and the increase of Commerce that the People being pleased with their present condition may be filled with love to their Country encouraged to fight boldly for the publick Cause which is their own and as men do willingly join with that which prospers that Strangers may be invited to fix their Habitations in such a City and to espouse the principles that reign in it This is necessary for several reasons but I shall principally insist upon one which is that all things in their beginning are weak The Whelp of a Lion newly born has neither strength nor fierceness He that builds a City and dos not intend it should increase commits as great an absurdity as if he should desire his Child might ever continue under the same weakness in which he is born If it do not grow it must pine and perish for in this world nothing is permanent that which dos not grow better will grow worse This increase also is useless or perhaps hurtful if it be not in Strength as well as in Riches or Number for every one is apt to seize upon ill guarded Treasures and the terror that the City of London was possessed with when a few Dutch Ships came to Chatham shews that no numbers of men tho naturally valiant are able to defend themselves unless they be well arm'd disciplin'd and conducted Their multitude brings consusion their Wealth when 't is like to be made a prey increases the fears of the owners and they who if they were brought into good order might conquer a great part of the World being destitute of it durst not think of defending themselves If it be said that the wise Father mention'd by me endeavours to secure his Patrimony by Law not by Force I answer that all defence terminates in force and if a private man dos not prepare to defend his Estate with his own Force 't is because he lives under the protection of the Law and expects the force of the Magistrate should be a security to him but Kingdoms and Commonwealths acknowledging no Superior except God alone can reasonably hope to be protected
by him only and by him if with industry and courage they make use of the means he has given them for their own defence God helps those who help themselves and men are by several reasons suppose to prevent the increase of a suspected Power induced to succour an industrious and brave People But such as neglect the means of their own preservation are ever left to perish with shame Men cannot rely upon any League The State that is defended by one Potentat against another becomes a Slave to their Protector Mercenary Souldiers always want Fidelity or Courage and most commonly both If they are not corrupted or beaten by the Invader they make a prey of their Masters These are the followers of Camps who have neither faith nor piety but prefer Gain before Right They who expose their Blood to sale look where they can make the best bargain and never fail of pretences for following their interests Moreover private Families may by several arts increase their Wealth as they increase in number but when a People multiplies as they will always do in a good Climat under a good Government such an enlargement of Territory as is necessary for their subsistence can be acquired only by War This was known to the Northern Nations that invaded the Roman Empire but for want of such Constitutions as might best improve their Strength and Valour the numbers they sent out when they were overburden'd provided well for themselves but were of no use to the Countries they left and whilst those Goths Vandals Franks and Normans enjoyed the most opulent and delicious Provinces of the World their Fathers languished obscurely in their frozen Climats For the like reasons or through the same defect the Switzers are obliged to serve other Princes and often to imploy that valour in advancing the power of their Neighbours which might be used to increase their own Genoua Lucca Geneva and other small Commonwealths having no Wars are not able to nourish the men they breed but sending many of their Children to seek their Fortunes abroad scarce a third part of those that are born among them die in those Cities and if they did not take this course they would have no better than the Nations inhabiting near the River Niger who sell their Children as the increase of their Flocks This dos not less concern Monarchies than Commonwealths nor the absolute less than the mixed All of them have bin prosperous or miserable glorious or contemptible as they were better or worse arm'd disciplin'd or conducted The Assyrian Valour was irresistible under Nabuchodonozor but was brought to nothing under his base and luxurious Grandson Belsbazzar The Persians who under Cyrus conquer'd Asia were like Swine exposed to slaughter when their Discipline failed and they were commanded by his proud cruel and cowardly Successors The Macedonian Army overthrown by Paulus Emilius was not less in number than that with which Alexander gained the Empire of the East and perhaps had not bin inferior in Valour if it had bin as well commanded Many poor and almost unknown Nations have bin carried to such a height of Glory by the Bravery of their Princes that I might incline to think their Government as fit as any other for disciplining a People to War if their Virtues continued in their Families or could be transmitted to their Successors The impossibility of this is a breach never to be repaired and no account is to be made of the good that is always uncertain and seldom enjoy'd This disease is not only in absolute Monarchies but in those also where any regard is had to Succession of Blood tho under the strictest limitations The fruit of all the Victories gained by Edward the first and third or Henry the fifth of England perished by the baseness of their Successors the glory of our Arms was turned into shame and we by the loss of Treasure Blood and Territory suffer'd the punishment of their Vices The effects of these changes are not always equally violent but they are frequent and must fall out as often as occasion is presented It was not possible for Lewis the 13th of France to pursue the great designs of Henry the Fourth Christina of Sweden could not supply the place of her brave Father nor the present King in his infancy accomplish what the great Charles Gustavus had nobly undertaken and no remedy can be found for this mortal infirmity unless the power be put into the hands of those who are able to execute it and not left to the blindness of fortune When the Regal power is committed to an annual or otherwise chosen Magistracy the Virtues of excellent men are of use but all dos not depend upon their persons One man finishes what another had begun and when many are by practice rendred able to perform the same things the loss of one is easily supplied by the election of another When good Principles are planted they do not die with the person that introduced them and good Constitutions remain tho the Authors of them perish Rome did not fall back into slavery when Brutus was killed who had led them to recover their Liberty Others like to him pursued the same ends and notwithstanding the loss of so many great Commanders consumed in their almost continual Wars they never wanted such as were fit to execute whatever they could design A well-governed State is as fruitful to all good purposes as the seven-headed Serpent is said to have bin in evil when one head is cut off many rise up in the place of it Good Order being once established makes good men and as long as it lasts such as are fit for the greatest imployments will never be wanting By this means the Romans could not be surprised No King or Captain ever invaded them who did not find many excellent Commanders to oppose him whereas they themselves found it easy to overthrow Kingdoms tho they had bin established by the bravest Princes through the baseness of their Successors But if our Author say true 't is of no advantage to a popular State to have excellent men and therefore he imposes a necessity upon every People to chuse the worst men for being the worst and most like to themselves lest that if virtuous and good men should come into power they should be excluded for being vicious and wicked c. Wise men would seize upon the State and take it from the People For the understanding of these words 't is good to consider whether they are to be taken simply as usually applied to the Devil and some of his instruments or relatively as to the thing in question If simply it must be concluded that Valerius Brutus Cincinnatus Capitolinus Mamercus Paulus Emilius Nasica and others like to them were not only the worst men of the City but that they were so often advanced to the supreme Magistracies because they were so if in the other sense relating to Magistracy and the command of Armies
their Dominion on the Terra firma and prepared to assault the City it was under God solely preserved by the vigour and wisdom of their Nobility who tho no way educated to War unless by Sea sparing neither persons nor purses did with admirable industry and courage first recover Padoüa and then many other Cities so as at the end of that terrible War they came off without any diminution of their Territories Whereas Portugal having in our age revolted from the House of Austria no one doubts that it had bin immediately reduced if the great men of Spain had not bin pleased with such a lessening of their Master's power and resolved not to repair it by the recovery of that Kingdom or to deprive themselves of an cafy retreat when they should be oppressed by him or his Favourites The like thought was more plainly express'd by the Mareschal de Bassompierre who sceing how hardly Rochel was pressed by Lewis the 13th faid he thought they should be such fools to take it but 't is believ'd they would never have bin such fools and the treachery only of our Countrymen did enable the Cardinal Richlieu to do it as for his own glory and the advancement of the Popish Cause he really intended and nothing is to this day more common in the mouth of their wisest and best men tho Papists than the acknowledgment of their own folly in suffering that place to fall the King having by thar means gotten power to proceed against them at his pleasure The brave Monsieur de Turenne is said to have carried this to a greater height in his last Discourse to the present King of France You think said he you have Armies but you have none the one half of the Officers are the Bawdy-house Companions of Monsieur de xxx or the Creatures of his Whore Madam de xxx the other half may be men of experience and fit for their Imployments but they are such as would be pleased with nothing more than to see you lose two or three Battels that coming to stand in need of them you might cause them to be better used by your Ministers than of late they have bin It may easily be imagin'd how men in such sentiments do serve their Master and nothing is more evident than that the French in this age have had so great advantages that they might have brought Europe and perhaps Asia under their power if the interest of the Nation had bin united to that of the Government and the Strength Vigour and Bravery of the Nobility employ'd that way But since it has pleased God to suffer us to fall into a condition of being little able to help our selves and that they are in so good terms with the Turk as not to attack him 't is our happiness that they do not know their own strength or cannot without ruin to themselves turn it to our prejudice I could give yet more pregnant testimonies of the difference between men fighting for their own interests in the Offices to which they had bin advanced by the votes of numerous Assemblies and such as serve for pay and get preferments by corruption or favour if I were not unwilling to stir the spleen of some men by obliging them to reflect upon what has passed in our own Age and Country to compare the justice of our Tribunals within the time of our memory and the integrity of those who for a while manag'd the publick Treasure the Discipline Valour and Strength of our Armies and Fleets the increase of our Riches and Trade the success of our Wars in Scotland Ireland and at Sea the glory and reputation not long since gained with that condition into which we are of late fallen But I think I shall offend no wise or good man if I say that as neither the Romans nor Grecians in the time of their Liberty ever performed any actions more glorious than freeing the Country from a Civil War that had raged in every part the conquest of two such Kingdoms as Scotland and Ireland and crushing the formidable power of the Hollanders by Sea nor ever produced more examples of Valor Industry Integrity and in all respects compleat disinterested unmovable and incorruptible Virtue than were at that time seen in our Nation So neither of them upon the change of their Affairs did exceed us in weakness cowardice baseness venality lewdness and all manner of corruption We have reason therefore not only to believe that all Princes do not necessarily understand the affairs of their People or provide better for them than those who are otherwise chosen but that as there is nothing of Greatness Power Riches Strength and Happiness which we might not reasonably have hoped for if we had rightly improved the advantages we had so there is nothing of shame and misery which we may not justly fear since we have neglected them If any man think that this evil of advancing Officers for personal respects favour or corruption is not of great extent I desire him to consider that the Officers of State Courts of Justice Church Armies Fleets and Corporations are of such number and power as wholly to corrupt a Nation when they themselves are corrupted and will ever be corrupt when they attain to their Offices by corruption The good mannagement of all Affairs Civil Military and Ecclesiastical necessarily depends upon good order and discipline and 't is not in the power of common men to reform abuses patronized by those in Authority nor to prevent the mischiefs thereupon ensuing and not having power to direct publick actions to the publick good they must consequently want the industry and affection that is required to bring them to a good issue The Romans were easily beaten under the Decemviri tho immediatly before the erection and after the extinction of that Power none of their Neighbours were able to resist them The Goths who with much glory had reigned in Spain for about three hundred years had neither strength nor courage under their lewd and odious King Rodrigo and were in one day subdued with little loss of blood by the Saracens and could not in less than eight hundred years free their Country from them That brave Nation having of late fallen under as base a conduct has now as little heart or power to defend it self Court-Parasites have rendred Valour ridiculous and they who have ever shew'd themselves as much inclin'd to Arms as any people of the world do now abhor them and are sent to the Wars by force laid in Carts and bound like Calves brought to the Shambles and left to starve in Flanders as soon as they arrive It may easily be judged what service can be expected from such men tho they should happen to be well commanded but the great Officers by the corruption of the Court think only of enriching themselves and encreasing the misery of the Soldiers by their frauds both become equally useless to the State Notwithstanding the seeming prosperity
except such as are like Filmer who by bidding defiance to the Laws of God and Man seems to declare war against both whom I would not trust to determine whether a People that can never fall into Nonage or Dotage and can never fail of having men of Wisdom and Virtue amongst them be not more fit to judg in their own Persons or by Representatives what conduces to their own good than one who at a venture may be born in a certain Family and who besides his own Infirmities Passions Vices or Interests is continually surrounded by such as endeavour to divert him from the ways of Truth and Justice And if no reasonable man dare prefer the latter before the former we must rely upon the Laws made by our Forefathers and interpreted by the Nation and not upon the will of a man 'T is in vain to say that a wise and good Council may supply the defects or correct the Vices of a young foolish or ill disposed King For Filmer denies that a King whatever he be without exception for he attributes profound wisdom to all is obliged to follow the advice of his Council and even he would hardly have had the impudence to say That good Counsel given to a foolish or wicked Prince were of any value unless he were obliged to follow it This Council must be chosen by him or imposed upon him if it be imposed upon him it must be by a power that is above him which he says cannot be If chosen by him who is weak foolish or wicked it can never be good because such virtue and wisdom is requir'd to discern and chuse a few good and wise men from a multitude of foolish and bad as he has not And it will generally fall out that he will take for his Counsellors rather those he believes to be addicted to his Person or Interests than such as are fitly qualified to perform the duty of their places But if he should by chance or contrary to his intentions make choice of some good and wise men the matter would not be much mended for they will certainly differ in opinion from the worst And tho the Prince should intend well of which there is no assurance nor any reason to put so great a power into his hands if there be none 't is almost impossible for him to avoid the snares that will be laid ro seduce him I know not how to put a better face upon this matter for if I examine rather what is probable than possible foolish or ill Princes will never chuse such as are wise and good but favouring those who are most like to themselves will prefer such as second their vices humours and personal Interests and by so doing will rather fortify and rivet the evils that are brought upon the Nation through their defects than cure them This was evident in Rehoboam he had good Counsel but he would not hearken to it We know too many of the same sort and tho it were not impossible as Macchiavelli says it is for a weak Prince to receive any benefit from a good Council we may certainly conclude that a People can never expect any good from a Council chosen by one who is weak or vicious If a Council be imposed upon him and he be obliged to follow their advice it must be imposed by a Power that is above him his Will therefore is not a Law but must be regulated by the Law the Monarchy is not above the Law and if we will believe our Author 't is no Monarchy because the Monarch has not his will and perhaps he says true For if that be not an Aristocracy where those that are or are reputed to be the best do govern then that is certainly a mixed State in which the will of one man dos not prevail But if Princes are not obliged by the Law all that is founded upon that supposition falls to the ground They will always sollow their own humours or the suggestions of those who second them Tiberius hearkned to none but Chaldeans or the ministers of his impurities and cruelties Claudius was governed by Slaves and the profligate Strumpets his Wives There were many wise and good men in the Senate during the reigns of Caligula Nero and Domitian but instead of following their Counsel they endeavour'd to destroy them all lest they should head the People against them and such Princes as resemble them will always follow the like courses If I often repeat these hateful names 't is not for want of sresher examples of the same nature but I chuse such as Mankind has universally condemn'd against whom I can have no other cause of hatred than what is common to all those who have any love to virtue and which can have no other relation to the Controversies of later Ages than what may flow from the similitude of their causes rather than such as are too well known to us and which every man according to the measure of his experience may call to mind in reading these I may also add that as nothing is to be received as a general Maxim which is not generally true I need no more to overthrow such as Filmer proposes than to prove how frequently they have bin found false and what desperate mischiefs have bin brought upon the World as often as they have bin practised and excessive Powers put into the hands of such as had neither inclination nor ability to make a good use of them 1. But if the safety of Nations be the end for which Governments are instituted such as take upon them to govern by what Title soever are by the Law of Nature bound to procure it and in order to this to preserve the Lives Lands Liberties and Goods of every one of their Subjects and he that upon any title whatsoever pretends assumes or exercises a power of disposing of them according to his will violates the Laws of Nature in the highest degree 2. If all Princes are obliged by the Law of Nature to preserve the Lands Goods Lives and Liberties of their Subjects those Subjects have by the Law of Nature a right to their Liberties Lands Goods c. and cannot depend upon the will of any man for that dependence destroys Liberty c. 3. Ill men will not and weak men cannot provide for the safety of the People nay the work is of such extreme difficulty that the greatest and wisest men that have bin in the world are not able by themselves to perform it and the assistance of Counsel is of no use unless Princes are obliged to follow it There must be therefore a power in every State to restrain the ill and to instruct weak Princes by obliging them to follow the Counsels given else the ends of Government cannot be accomplished nor the rights of Nations preserved All this being no more than is said by our Author or necessarily to be deduced from his Propositions one would think he were become as good
SECT XXVI Tho the King may be entrusted with the power of chusing Judges yet that by which they act is from the Law I Confess that no Law can be so perfect to provide exactly for every case that may fall out so as to leave nothing to the discretion of the Judges who in some measure are to interpret them But that Laws or Customs are ever few or that the paucity is the reason that they cannot give special rules or that Judges do resort to those principles or Common Law Axioms whereupon former judgments in cases something alike have bin given by former Judges who all receive their Authority from the King in his right to give Sentence I utterly deny and affirm 1. That in many places and particularly in England the Laws are so many that the number of them has introduced an uncertainty and confusion which is both dangerous and troublesom and the infinite variety of adjudged cases thwarting and contradicting each other has render'd these difficulties inextricable Tacitus imputes a great part of the miseries suffer'd by the Romans in his time to this abuse and tells us that the Laws grew to be innumerable in the worst and most corrupt state of things and that Justice was overthrown by them By the same means in France Italy and other places where the Civil Law is rendred municipal Judgments are in a manner arbitrary and tho the intention of our Laws be just and good they are so numerous and the volumes of our Statutes with the interpretations and adjudged Cases so vast that hardly any thing is so clear and fixed but men of wit and learning may find what will serve for a pretence to justify almost any judgment they have a mind to give Whereas the Laws of Moses as to the Judicial part being short and few Judgments were easy and certain and in Switzerland Sweden and some parts of Denmark the whole volume that contains them may be read in few hours and by that means no injustice can be done which is not immediately made evident 2. Axioms are not rightly grounded upon judged Cases but Cases are to be judged according to Axioms the certain is not proved by the uncertain but the uncertain by the certain and every thing is to be esteemed uncertain till it be proved to be certain Axioms in Law are as in Mathematicks evident to common sense and nothing is to be taken for an Axiom that is not so Euclid dos not prove his Axioms by his Propositions but his Propositions which are abstruse by such Axioms as are evident to all The Axioms of our Law do not receive their Authority from Coke or Hales but Coke and Hales deserve praise for giving judgment according to such as are undeniably true 3. The Judges receive their Commissions from the King and perhaps it may be said that the Custom of naming them is grounded upon a right with which he is entrusted but their power is from the Law as that of the King also is For he who has none originally in himself can give none unless it be first conserred upon him I know not how he can well perform his Oath to govern according to Law unless he execute the power with which he is entrusted in naming those men to be Judges whom in his conscience and by the advice of his Council he thinks the best and ablest to perform that Office But both he and they are to learn their duty from that Law by which they are and which allots to every one his proper work As the Law intends that men should be made Judges for their integrity and knowledg in the Law and that it ought not to be imagined that the King will break his trust by chusing such as are not so till the violation be evident nothing is more reasonable than to intend that the Judges so qualified should instruct the King in matters of Law But that he who may be a child over aged or otherwise ignorant and uncapable should instruct the Judges is equally absurd as for a blind man to be a guide to those who have the best eyes and so abhorrent from the meaning of the Law that the Judges as I said before are sworn to do justice according to the Laws without any regard to the King's words letters or commands If they are therefore to act according to a set rule from which they may not depart what command soever they receive they do not act by a power from him but by one that is above both This is commonly confess'd and tho some Judges have bin found in several ages who in hopes of reward and preferment have made little account of their Oath yet the success that many of them have had may reasonably deter others from following their example and if there are not more instances in this kind no better reason can be given than that Nations do frequently fail by being too remiss in asserting their own rights or punishing offenders and hardly ever err on the severer side 4. Judgments are variously given in several States and Kingdoms but he who would find one where they lie in the breast of the King must go at least as far as Marocco Nay the Ambassador who was lately here from that place denied that they were absolutely in him However 't is certain that in England according to the Great Charter Judgments are passed by equals no man can be imprison'd disseiz'd of his Freehold depriv'd of Life or Limb unless by the sentence of his Peers The Kings of Judah did judg and were judged and the Judgments they gave were in and with the Sanhedrim In England the Kings do not judg but are judged and Bracton says That in receiving justice the King is equal to another man which could not be if judgments were given by him and he were exempted from the judgment of all by that Law which has put all judgments into the hands of the People This power is executed by them in grand or petty Juries and the Judges are assistants to them in explaining the difficult points of the Law in which 't is presumed they should be learned The strength of every judgment consists in the verdict of these Juries which the Judges do not give but pronounce or declare and the same Law that makes good a verdict given contrary to the advice or direction of the Judges exposes them to the utmost penalties if upon their own heads or a command from the King they should presume to give a Sentence without or contrary to a Verdict and no pretensions to a power of interpreting the Law can exempt them if they break it The power also with which the Judges are entrusted is but of a moderate extent and to be executed bona fide Prevarications are capital as they proved to Tresilian Empson Dudley and many others Nay even in special Verdicts the Judges are only assistants to the Juries who find it specially
or Wittenagemots if these consisted of the Nobility and People who were sometimes so numerous that no one place could well contain them and if the preference given to the chief among them was on account of the Offices they executed either in relation to war or justice which no man can deny I have as much as serves for my purpose 'T is indifferent to me whether they were called Earls Dukes Aldermen Herotoghs or Thanes for 't is certain that the titular Nobility now in mode amongst us has no resemblance to this antient Nobility of England The novelty therefore is on the other side and that of the worst sort because by giving the name of Noblemen which antiently belonged to such as had the greatest interests in Nations and were the supporters of their Liberty to Court-creatures who often have none and either acquire their Honours by mony or are preferr'd for servile and sometimes impure services render'd to the person that reigns or else for mischiefs done to their Country the Constitution has bin wholly inverted and the trust reposed in the Kings who in some measure had the disposal of Offices and Honours misemploy'd This is farther aggravated by appropriating the name of Noblemen solely to them whereas the Nation having bin antiently divided only into Freemen or Noblemen who were the same and Villains the first were as Tacitus says of their Ancestors the Germans exempted from burdens and contributions and reserved like arms for the uses of war whilst the others were little better than slaves appointed to cultivate the Lands or to other servile Offices And I leave any reasonable man to judg whether the latter condition be that of those we now call Commoners Nevertheless he that will believe the title of Noblemen still to belong to those only who are so by Patent may guess how well our wars would be managed if they were left solely to such as are so by that title If this be approved his Majesty may do well with his hundred and fifty Noblemen eminent in valour and military experience as they are known to be to make such wars as may fall upon him and leave the despised Commons under the name of Villains to provide for themselves if the success do not answer his expectations But if the Commons are as free as the Nobles many of them in birth equal to the Patentees in Estate superior to most of them and that it is not only expected they should assist him in wars with their Persons and Purses but acknowledged by all that the strength and virtue of the Nation is in them it must be confess'd that they are true Noblemen of England and that all the privileges antiently enjoy'd by such must necessarily belong to them since they perform the Offices to which they were annexed This shews how the Nobility were justly said to be almost infinite in number so that no one place was able to contain them The Saxon Armies that came over into this Country to a wholsom and generative climat might well increase in four or five ages to those vast numbers as the Francks Goths and others had done in Spain France Italy and other parts and when they were grown so numerous they found themselves necessarily obliged to put the power into the hands of Representatives chosen by themselves which they had before exercised in their own persons But these two ways differing rather in form than essentially the one tending to Democracy the other to Aristocracy they are equally opposite to the absolute dominion of one man reigning for himself and governing the Nation as his Patrimony and equally assert the rights of the People to put the Government into such a form as best pleases themselves This was sutable to what they had practised in their own Country De minoribus consultant Principes de majoribus omnes Nay even these smaller matters cannot be said properly to relate to the King for he is but one and the word Principes is in the plural number and can only signify such principal men as the same Author says were chosen by the General Assemblies to do justice c. and to each of them one hundred Comites joined not only to give advice but authority to their actions The word Omnes spoken by a Roman must likewise be understood as it was used by them and imports all the Citizens or such as made up the body of the Commonwealth If he had spoken of Rome or Athens whilst they remained free he must have used the same word because all those of whom the City consisted had votes how great soever the number of slaves or strangers might have bin The Spartans are rightly said to have gained lost and recovered the Lordship or Principality of Greece They were all Lords in relation to their Helots and so were the Dorians in relation to that sort of men which under several names they kept as the Saxons did their Villians for the performance of the Offices which they thought too mean for those who were ennobled by Liberty and the use of Arms by which the Commonwealth was defended and enlarged Tho the Romans scorned to give the title of Lord to those who had usurped a power over their Lives and Fortunes yet every one of them was a Lord in relation to his own Servants and altogether are often called Lords of the world the like is seen almost every where The Government of Venice having continued for many ages in the same Families has ennobled them all No phrase is more common in Switzerland than the Lords of Bern or the Lords of Zurich and other places tho perhaps there is not a man amongst them who pretends to be a Gentleman according to the modern sense put upon that word The States of the United Provinces are called High and Mighty Lords and the same title is given to each of them in particular Nay the word Heer which signifies Lord both in high and low Dutch is as common as Monsieur in France Signor in Italy or Sennor in Spain and is given to every one who is not of a sordid condition but especially to Soldiers and tho a common Soldier be now a much meaner thing than it was antiently no man speaking to a company of Soldiers in Italian uses any other stile than Signori Soldati and the like is done in other Languages 'T is not therefore to be thought strange if the Saxons who in their own Country had scorned any other employment than that of the Sword should think themselves farther ennobled when by their Arms they had acquired a great and rich Country and driven out or subdued the former inhabitants They might well distinguish themselves from the Villains they brought with them or the Britans they had enslaved They might well be called Magnates Proceres regni Nobiles Angliae Nobilitas Barones and the Assemblies of them justly called Concilium Regni Generale Vniversitas totius Angliae Nobilium Vniversitas Baronagii
than what is suffer'd or must in a short time fall upon those who are in this condition They who are already fallen into all that is odious shameful and miserable cannot justly fear When things are brought to such a pass the boldest counsels are the most safe and if they must perish who lie still and they can but perish who are most active the choice is easily made Let the danger be never so great there is a possibility of safety whilst men have life hands arms and courage to use them but that people must certainly perish who tamely suffer themselves to be oppress'd either by the injustice cruelty and malice of an ill Magistrate or by those who prevail upon the vices and infirmities of weak Princes 'T is in vain to say that this may give occasion to men of raising tumults or civil war for tho these are evils yet they are not the greatest of evils Civil War in Macchiavels account is a Disease but Tyranny is the death of a State Gentle ways are first to be used and 't is best if the work can be done by them but it must not be left undone if they fail 'T is good to use supplications advices and remonstrances but those who have no regard to justice and will not hearken to counsel must be constrained 'T is folly to deal otherwise with a man who will not be guided by reason and a Magistrate who despises the Law or rather to think him a man who rejects the essential principle of a man or to account him a Magistrate who overthrows the Law by which he is a Magistrate This is the last result but those Nations must come to it which cannot otherwise be preserved Nero's madness was not to be cured nor the mischievous effects of it any otherwise to be suppressed than by his death He who had spared such a Monster when it was in his power to remove him had brought destruction upon the whole Empire and by a foolish clemency made himself the Author of his future villanics This would have bin yet more clear if the world had then bin in such a temper as to be capable of an intire liberty But the antient foundations had bin overthrown and nothing better could be built upon the new than something that might in part resist that torrent of iniquity which had overflow'd the best part of the world and give mankind a little time to breath under a less barbarous Master Yet all the best men did join in the work that was then to be done tho they knew it would prove but imperfect The sacred History is not without examples of this kind When Ahab had subverted the Law set up false Witnesses and corrupt Judges to destroy the innocent killed the Prophets and established Idolatry his house must then be cut off and his blood be lickt up by dogs When matters are brought to this pass the decision is easy The question is only whether the punishment of crimes shall fall upon one or a few persons who are guilty of them or upon a whole Nation that is innocent If the Father may not die for the Son nor the Son for the Father but every one must bear the penalty of his own crimes it would be most absurd to punish the people for the guilt of Princes When the Earl of Morton was sent Ambassador to Queen Elizabeth by the Estates of Scotland to justify their proceedings against Mary their Queen whom they had obliged to renounce the Government he alledged amongst other things the murder of her Husband plainly proved against her asserted the antient right and custom of that Kingdom of examining the actions of their Kings by which means he said many had bin punished with death imprisonment and exile confirmed their actions by the examples of other Nations and upon the whole matter concluded that if she was still permitted to live it was not on account of her innocence or any exemption from the penalties of the Law but from the mercy and clemency of the people who contenting themselves with a resignation of her right and power to her Son had spared her This discourse which is set down at large by the Historian cited on the margin being of such strength in it self as never to have bin any otherwise answered than by railing and no way disapproved by Queen Elizabeth or her Council to whom it was made either upon a general account of the pretensions of Princes to be exempted from the penalties of the Law or any pretext that they had particularly misapplied them in relation to their Queen I may justly say that when Nations fall under such Princes as are either utterly uncapable of making a right use of their power or do maliciously abuse that Authority with which they are entrusted those Nations stand obliged by the duty they owe to themselves and their posterity to use the best of their endeavours to remove the evil whatever danger or difficulties they may meet with in the performance Pontius the Samnite said as truly as bravely to his Countrymen That those Arms were just and pious that were necessary and necessary when there was no hope of safety by any other way This is the voice of mankind and is dislik'd only by those Princes who fear the deserved punishments may fall upon them or by their Servants and Flatterers who being for the most part the Authors of their crimes think they shall be involved in their ruin SECT XLI The People for whom and by whom the Magistrate is created can only judg whether he rightly perform his Office or not T IS commonly said that no man ought to be the Judg of his own case and our Author lays much weight upon it as a fundamental maxim tho according to his ordinary inconstancy he overthrows it in the case of Kings where it ought to take place if in any for it often falls out that no men are less capable of forming a right judgment than they Their passions and interests are most powerful to disturb or pervert them No men are so liable to be diverted from justice by the flatteries of corrupt Servants They never act as Kings except for those by whom and for whom they are created and acting for others the account of their actions cannot depend upon their own will Nevertheless I am not afraid to say that naturally and properly a man is the judg of his own concernments No one is or can be deprived of this privilege unless by his own consent and for the good of that Society into which he enters This Right therefore must necessarily belong to every man in all cases except only such as relate to the good of the Community for whose sake he has devested himself of it If I find my self afflicted with hunger thirst weariness cold heat or sickness 't is a folly to tell me I ought not to seek meat drink rest shelter refreshment or physick because I must