admir'd Absolute Monarchy only as an Instrument of bringing Vice Misery Devastation and Infamy upon Mankind SECT XV. The Empire of Rome perpetually decay'd when it fell into the hands of one Man IN pursuance of his Design our Author with as much Judgment as Truth denies that Rome became Mistress of the World under the Popular Government It is not so says he for Rome began her Empire under Kings and did perfect it under Emperors It did only increase under that popularity Her greatest exaltation was under Trajan and longest Peace under Augustus For the illustration of which I desire these few things may be consider'd 1. That the first Monarchy of Rome was not absolute The Kings were made by the People without regard to any Man's Title or other reason than the common Good chusing him that seemed most likely to procure it setting up at the same time a Senate consisting of a hundred of the most eminent Men among them and after the reception of the Sabins into the City adding as many more to them and committing the principal part of the Government to their care retaining the power of making those Laws to which the Kings who reigned by their Command were subject and reserving to themselves the Judgment of all great Matters upon appeal If any of their Kings deserved to be called a Monarch according to Filmer's Definition it was the last Tarquin for he alone of all their Kings reigned not jussu Populi but came in by Treachery and Murder If he had continued he had cured the People of all Vices proceeding from Wantonness but his farthest Conquest was of the small Town of Gabii ten miles distant from Rome which he effected by the fraud of his detestable Son and that being then the utmost limit of the Roman Empire must deserve to be called the World or the Empire of it was not gained by their Kings 2. The Extent of Conquests is not the only nor the chief thing that ought to be consider'd in them regard is to be had to the Means whereby they are made and the Valour or Force that was employ'd by the Enemy In these respects not only the overthrow of Carthage and the Conquests of Spain but the Victories gained against the Sabins Latins Tuscans Samnites and other valiant Nations of Italy who most obstinately defended their Liberty when the Romans had no Forces but their own shew more Virtue and deserve incomparably more Praise than the Defeats of any Nations whatsoever when they were increased in Number Riches Reputation and Power and had many other warlike People instructed in their Discipline and fighting under their Ensigns But I deny that the Romans did ever make any considerable acquisition after the loss of their Liberty They had already subdued all Italy Greece Macedon the Islands of the Mediterranean Sea Thracia Illyrium Asia the Less Pontus Armenia Syria Egypt Africa Gaul and Spain The Forces of Germany were broken a Bridg laid over the Rhine and all the Countries on this side subdued This was all that was ever gained by the Valour of their own Forces and that could bring either Honour or Profit But I know of no Conquest made after that time unless the name of Conquest be given to Caligula's Expedition when he said he had subdued the Sea in making an useless Bridg from Puteoli to Baiae or that of the other Fool who entred Rome in triumph for having gathered shells on the Sea-shore Trajan's Expedition into the East was rather a Journey than a War He rambled over the Provinces that Augustus had abandoned as not worth keeping and others that had nothing to defend them but ill-armed and unwarlike Barbarians Upon the whole matter he seems to have bin led only by Curiosity and the vanity of looking upon them as Conquests appears in their being relinquish'd as soon as gained Britain was easily taken from a naked and unskilful tho a brave People hardly kept and shamefully lost But tho the Emperors had made greater Wars than the Commonwealth vanquished Nations of more valour and skill than their Italian Neighbours the Grecians or Carthaginians subdued and slaughter'd those that in Numbers and Ferocity had exceeded the Cimbri Gauls and Teutons encountred Captains more sormidable than Pirrhus and Hannibal it might indeed increase the Glory of him that should have done it but could add nothing of Honour or Advantage to the Roman Name The Nobility was extirpated long before the People corrupted and enslaved Italy lay desolate so as a Roman was hardly to be found in a Roman Army which was generally composed of such as fighting for themselves or their Commander never thought of any thing less than the Interest of Rome And as it is impossible that what is so neglected and betray'd should be durable that Empire which was acquired by the Valour and Conduct of the bravest and best disciplin'd People of the World decay'd and perished in the hands of those Absolute Monarchs who ought to have preserved it 3. Peace is desirable by a State that is constituted for it who contenting themselves with their own Territories have no desires of enlarging them Or perhaps it might simply deserve praise if Mankind were so framed that a People intending hurt to none could preserve themselves but the World being so far of another temper that no Nation can be safe without Valour and Strength those Governments only deserve to be commended which by Discipline and Exercise increase both and the Roman above all that excelled in both Peace therefore may be good in its season and was so in Numa's Reign yet two or three such Kings would have encouraged some active Neighbours to put an end to that aspiring City before its Territory had extended beyond Fidenae But the Discipline that best agreed with the Temper and Designs of a Warlike People being renew'd by his brave Successors the Dangers were put on their Enemies and all of them the last only excepted persisting in the same way did reasonably well perform their Duty When they were removed and the Affairs of the City depended no longer upon the Temper or Capacity of one Man the ends for which the City was constituted were vigorously pursued and such Magistrates annually chosen as would not long continue in a universal Peace till they had gotten the Empire to which they aspir'd or were by ill Fortune brought to such weakness as to be no longer able to make War Both of these happened in the so much magnified Reign of Augustus He found the Empire so great that all Additions might rationally be rejected as useless or prejudicial and Italy so exhausted that Wars could only be carried on by the strength of Strangers It was time to lie still when they had no power to act and they might do it safely whilst the Reputation gained by former Victories preserved them from Foreign Invasions When Crassus Pompey and Cesar who had torn the Commonwealth into three Monarchies were kill'd and the
Life and the Equality properly belonging to Brethren 'T is not easy to determine whether Shem or Japhet were the Elder but Ham is declared to be the younger and Noah's Blessing to Shem seems to be purely Prophetical and Spiritual of what should be accomplished in his Posterity with which Japhet should be perswaded to join If it had bin worldly the whole Earth must have bin brought under him and have for ever continued in his Race which never was accomplished otherwise than in the Spiritual Kingdom of Christ which relates not to our Author's Lord Paramount As to earthly Kings the first of them was Nimrod the sixth Son of Chush the Son of Ham Noah's younger and accursed Son This Kingdom was set up about a hundred and thirty Years after the Flood whilst Chush Ham Shem and Noah were yet living whereas if there were any thing of Truth in our Author's Proposition all Mankind must have continued under the Government of Noah whilst he lived and that Power must have bin transmitted to Shem who lived about three hundred and seventy Years after the erection of Nimrod's Kingdom and must have come to Japhet if he was the Elder but could never come to Cham who is declared to have bin certainly the Younger and condemned to be a Servant to them both much less to the younger Son of his Son whilst he and those to whom he and his Posterity were to be Subjects were still living This Rule therefore which the Partizans of Absolute Monarchy fancy to be universal and perpetual falling out in its first beginning directly contrary to what they assert and being never known to have bin recovered were enough to silence them if they had any thing of modesty or regard to Truth But the Matter may be carried farther For the Scripture doth not only testify that this Kingdom of Nimrod was an Usurpation void of all Right proceeding from the most violent and mischievous Vices but exercised with the utmost fury that the most wicked Man of the accursed Race who set himself up against God and all that is good could be capable of The progress of this Kingdom was sutable to its Institution that which was begun in wickedness was carried on with madness and produced Confusion The mighty Hunter whom the best Interpreters call a cruel Tyrant receding from the simplicity and innocence of the Patriarchs who were Husbandmen or Shepherds arrogating to himself a Dominion over Shem to whom he and his Fathers were to be Servants did thereby so peculiarly become the Heir of God's Curse that whatsoever hath bin said to this day of the Power that did most directly set it self against God and his People hath related literally to the Babel that he built or figuratively to that which resembles it in Pride Cruelty Injustice and Madness But the shameless rage of some of these Writers is such that they rather chuse to ascribe the beginning of their Idol to this odious Violence than to own it from the consent of a willing People as if they thought that as all Action must be sutable to its Principle so that which is unjust in its practice ought to scorn to be derived from that which is not detestable in its principle 'T is hardly worth our pains to examin whether the Nations that went from Babel after the confusion of Languages were more or less than seventy two for they seem not to have gone according to Families but every one to have associated himself to those that understood his Speech and the chief of the Fathers as Noah and his Sons were not there or wore subject to Nimrod each of which Points doth destroy even in the Root all pretence to Paternal Government Besides 't is evident in Scripture that Noah lived three hundred and fifty Years after the Flood Shem five hundred Abraham was born about two hundred and ninety Years after the Flood and lived one hundred seventy five Years He was therefore born under the Government of Noah and died under that of Shem He could not therefore exercise a Regal Power whilst he lived for that was in Shem So that in leaving his Country and setting up a Family for himself that never acknowledged any Superior and never pretending to reign over any other he fully shewed he thought himself free and to owe subjection to none And being as far from arrogating to himself any Power upon the Title of Paternity as from acknowledging it in any other left every one to the same liberty The punctual enumeration of the Years that the Fathers of the holy Seed lived gives us ground of making a more than probable conjecture that they of the collateral Lines were in number of days not unequal to them and if that be true Ham and Chush were alive when Nimrod set himself up to be King He must therefore have usurped this Power over his Father Grandfather and great Grandfather or which is more probable he turned into violence and oppression the Power given to him by a multitude which like a Flock without a Shepherd not knowing whom to obey set him up to be their Chief I leave to our Author the liberty of chusing which of these two doth best sute with his Paternal Monarchy but as far as I can understand the first is directly against it as well as against the Laws of God and Man the other being from the consent of the Multitude cannot be extended farther than they would have it nor turned to their prejudice without the most abominable ingratitude and treachery from whence no Right can be derived nor any justifiable Example taken Nevertheless if our Author resolve that Abraham was also a King he must presume that Shem did emancipate him before he went to seek his Fortune This was not a Kingly posture but I will not contradict him if 1 may know over whom he reigned Paternal Monarchy is exercised by the Father of the Family over his Descendants or such as had bin under the dominion of him whose Heir he is But Abraham had neither of these Those of his nearest Kindred continued in Mesopotamia as appears by what is said of Bethuel and Laban He had only Lot with him over whom he pretended no right He had no Children till he was a hundred years old that is to say he was a King without a Subject and then he had but one I have heard that Soveraigns do impatiently bear Competitors but now I find Subjection also doth admit of none Abraham's Kingdom was too great when he had two Children and to disburthen it Ishmael must be expelled soon after the birth of Isaac He observed the same method after the death of Sarah He had Children by Keturah but he gave them Gifts and sent them away leaving Isaac like a Stoical King reigning in and over himself without any other Subject till the birth of Jacob and Esau. But his Kingdom was not to be of a larger extent than that of his Father
justly can be quiet under it If God be the Fountain of Justice Mercy and Truth and those his Servants who walk in them no exercise of Violence Fraud Cruelty Pride or Avarice is patronized by him and they who are the Authors of those Villanies cannot but be the Ministers of him who sets himself up against God because 't is impossible that Truth and Falshood Mercy and Cruelty Justice and the most violent Oppression can proceed from the same Root It was a folly and a lie in those Jews to call themselves the Children of Abraham who did not the Works of Abraham and Christ declared them to be the Children of the Devil whose Works they did which words proceeding from the Eternal Truth do as well indicate to us whose Child and Servant every man is to be accounted as to those who first heard them If our Author 's former Assertions were void of Judgment and Truth his next Clause shews a great defect in his Memory and contradicts the former The Judgments of God says he who hath Power to give and take away Kingdoms are most just yet the ministry of Men who execute God's Judgments without Commission is sinful and damnable If it be true as he says that we are to look at the Power not the Ways by which it is gained and that he who hath it whether it be by Usurpation Conquest or any other means is to be accounted as Father or right Heir to the Father of the People to which Title the most sublime and divine Privileges are annexed a man who by the most wicked and unjust Actions advances himself to the Power becomes immediately the Father of the People and the Minister of God which I take to be a piece of Divinity worthy our Author and his Disciples It may be doubted what he means by a Commission from God for we know of none but what is outwardly by his Word or inwardly by his Spirit and I am apt to think that neither he nor his Abettors allowing of either as to the Point in question he doth fouly prevaricate in alledging that which he thinks cannot be of any effect If any man should say that the Word of God to Moses Joshua Ehud Gideon Samuel Jeroboam and Jehu or any others are in the like cases Rules to be observed by all because that which was from God was good that which was good is good and he that dos good is justified by it He would probably tell us that what was good in them is not good in others and that the Word of God doth justify those only to whom it is spoken That is to say No man can execute the just Judgments of God to the benefit of mankind according to the Example of those Servants of God without damnable sin unless he have a precise Word particularly directed to him for it as Moses had But if any man should pretend that such a Word was come to him he would be accounted an Enthusiast and obtain no credit So that which way soever the Clause be taken it appears to be full of Fraud confessing only in the Theory that which he thinks can never be brought into practice that his beloved Villanies may be thereby secured and that the glorious Examples of the most heroick Actions performed by the best and wisest men that ever were in the World for the benefit of mankind may never be imitated The next Clause shews that I did our Author no wrong in saying that he gave a right to Usurpation for he plainly says That whether the Prince be the supreme Father of his People or the true Heir of such a Father or whether he come to the Crown by Vsurpation or Election of the Nobles or People or by any other way whatsoever c. it is the only Right and Authority of the natural Father In the 3d Chap. Sect. 8. It skills not which way the King comes by his Power whether by Election Donation Succession or by any other means And in another place That we are to regard the Power not the Means by which it is gained To which I need say no more than that I cannot sufficiently admire the ingeniously invented Title of Father by Usurpation and confess that since there is such a thing in the World to which not only private men but whole Nations owe obedience whatsoever has been said antiently as was thought to express the highest excess of Fury and Injustice as Jus datum sceleri Jus omne in ferro est situm Jus licet in jugulos nostros sibi fecerit ense Sylla potens Mariusque ferox Cinna cruentus Caesareaeque domus series were solid Truths good Law and Divinity which did not only signify the actual exercise of the Power but induced a conscientious Obligation of obeying it The Powers so gained did carry in themselves the most sacred and inviolable Rights and the actors of the most detestable Villanies thereby became the Ministers of God and the Fathers of their subdued People Or if this be not true it cannot be denied that Filmer and his followers in the most impudent and outragious Blasphemy have surpassed all that have gone before them To confirm his Assertions he gives us a wonderful explanation of the fifth Commandment which he says enjoins Obedience to Princes under the terms of Honour thy Father and thy Mother drawing this Inference That as all Power is in the Father the Prince who hath it cannot be restrained by any Law which being grounded upon the perfect likeness between Kings and Fathers no man can deny it to be true But if Claudius was the Father of the Roman People I suppose the chast Messalina was the Mother and to be honoured by virtue of the same Commandment But then I fear that such as met her in the most obscene places were not only guilty of Adultery but of Incest The same Honour must needs belong to Nero and his vertuous Poppaea unless it were transferred to his new-made Woman Sporus or perhaps he himself was the Mother and the glorious Title of Pater Patriae belonged to the Raskal who married him as a Woman The like may be said of Agathocles Dionysius Phalaris Busiris Machanidas Peter the Cruel of Castille Christiern of Denmark the last Princes of the House of Valois in France and Philip the Second of Spain Those Actions of theirs which men have ever esteemed most detestable and the whole course of their abominable Government did not proceed from Pride Avarice Cruelty Madness and Lust but from the tender care of most pious Fathers Tacitus sadly describes the state of his Country Vrbs incendiis vastata consumptis antiquissimis delubris ipso Capitolio Civium manibus incenso pollutae Ceremoniae magna Adulteria plenum Exiliis mare infecti caedibus scopuli atrocius in Vrbe saevitum Nobilitas opes omissi vel gesti honores pro crimine ob virtutes certissimum exitium but he was to blame All this proceeded
so many of those who had enjoy'd the same honour or might aspire to it as to bring them for his pleasure to betray their Country and as no man was ever chosen who had not given great testimonies of his Vertues so no one did ever forfeit the good opinion conceived of him Vertue was then honour'd and thought so necessarily to comprehend a sincere love and fidelity to the Commonwealth that without it the most eminent qualities were reputed vile and odious and the memory of former Services could no way expiate the guilt of conspiring against it This seeming Severity was in truth the greatest Clemency for tho our Author has the impudence to say that during the Roman Liberty the best men thrived worst and the worst best he cannot alledg one example of any eminent Roman put to death except Manlius Capitolinus from the expulsion of the Tarquins to the time of the Gracchi and the Civil Wars not long after ensuing and of very few who were banished By these means Crimes were prevented and the temptations to evil being removed Treachery was destroy'd in the root and such as might be naturally ambitious were made to see there was no other way to Honour and Power than by acting virtuously But lest this should not be sufficient to restrain aspiring men what Power soever was granted to any Magistrate the Soveraignty still remained in the People and all without exception were subject to them This may seem strange to those who think the Dictators were absolute because they are said to have bin sine provocatione but that is to be only understood in relation to other Magistrates and not to the People as is clearly proved in the case of Q. Fabius whom Papirius the Dictator would have put to death Tribunos Plebis appello says Fabius Maximus his Father provoco ad Populum eumque tibi fugienti exercitus tui fugienti Senatus judicium Judicem fero qui certe unus plusquam tua dictatura potest polletque videro cessurusne sis provocationi cui Tullus Hostilius cessit And tho the People did rather interceed for Fabius than command his deliverance that modesty did evidently proceed from an opinion that Papirius was in the right and tho they desired to save Fabius who seems to have bin one of the greatest and best men that ever the City produced they would not enervate that military Discipline to which they owed not only their greatness but their subsistence most especially when their Soveraign Authority was acknowledged by all and the Dictator himself had submitted This right of Appeals to the People was the foundation of the Roman Commonwealth laid in the days of Romulus submitted to by Hostilius in the case of Horatius and never violated till the Laws and the Liberty which they supported were overthrown by the power of the Sword This is confirmed by the speech of Metellus the Tribune who in the time of the second Carthaginian War causelesly disliking the Proceedings of Q. Fabius Maximus then Dictator in a publick Assembly of the People said Quod si antiquus animus Plebi Romanae esset se audacter laturum de abrogando Q. Fabii Imperio nunc modicam rogationem promulgaturum de aequando Magistri Equitum Dictatoris jure which was done and that Action which had no precedent shews that the People needed none and that their Power being eminently above that of all Magistrates was obliged to no other rule than that of their own Will Tho I do therefore grant that a Power like to the Dictatorian limited in time circumscribed by Law and kept perpetually under the supreme Authority of the People may by vertuous and well-disciplin'd Nations upon some occasions be prudently granted to a vertuous man it can have no relation to our Author's Monarch whose Power is in himself subject to no Law perpetually exercised by himself and for his own sake whether he have any of the abilities required for the due performance of so great a work or be intirely destitute of them nothing being more unreasonable than to deduce consequences from cases which in substance and circumstances are altogether unlike but to the contrary these examples shewing that the Romans even in the time of such Magistrates as seemed to be most absolute did retain and exercise the Soveraign Power do most evidently prove that the Government was ever the same remaining in the People who without prejudice might give the Administration to one or more men as best pleased themselves and the success shews that they did it prudently SECT XIV No Sedition was hurtful to Rome till through their Prosperity some men gained a Power above the Laws LIttle pains is required to confute our Author who imputes much bloodshed to the popular Government of Rome for he cannot prove that one man was unjustly put to death or slain in any Sedition before Publius Gracchus The Foundations of the Common-wealth were then so shaken that the Laws could not be executed and whatsoever did then fall out ought to be attributed to the Monarchy for which the great men began to contend Whilst they had no other Wars than with neighbouring Nations they had a strict eye upon their Commanders and could preserve Discipline among the Soldiers but when by the excellence of their Valour and Conduct the greatest Powers of the World were subdued and for the better carrying on of foreign Wars Armies were suffered to continue in the same hands longer than the Law did direct Soldiery came to be accounted a Trade and those who had the worst designs against the Commonwealth began to favour all manner of Licentiousness and Rapine that they might gain the favour of the Legions who by that means became unruly and seditious 't was hard if not impossible to preserve a Civil equality when the Spoils of the greatest Kingdoms were brought to adorn the Houses of private men and they who had the greatest Cities and Nations to be their Dependents and Clients were apt to scorn the power of the Law This was a most dangerous Disease like those to which human Bodies are subject when they are arrived to that which Physicians call the Athletick habit proceeding from the highest perfection of Health Activity and Strength that the best Constitution by Diet and Exercise can attain Whosoever falls into them shews that he had attain'd that perfection and he who blames that which brings a State into the like condition condemns that which is most perfect among men Whilst the Romans were in the way to this no Sedition did them any hurt they were composed without Blood and those that seemed to be the most dangerous produced the best Laws But when they were arrived to that condition no Order could do them good the fatal period set to human things was come they could go no higher Summisque negatum Stare diu and all that our Author blames is not to be imputed to their Constitution but their departing from
far more rare less violent tending to and procuring the publick Good and therefore deserving praise The like having bin proved by the Examples of other Kingdoms and might be farther confirmed by many more which on account of brevity I omit is in my opinion sufficient to manifest that whilst the Foundation and Principle of a Government remains good the Superstructures may be changed according to occasions without any prejudice to it SECT XVIII Xenophon in blaming the Disorders of Democracies favours Aristocracies not Monarchies IN the next place our Author introduces Xenophon disallowing Popular Governments Cites Rome and Athens as places where the best Men thriv'd worst and the worst best and condemns the Romans for making it capital to pass Sentence of Death Banishment loss of Liberty or Stripes upon any Citizen of Rome But lest his Fraud in this should be detected he cites no precise Passage of any Author alledges few Examples and those mistaken never tells us what that Law was when made or where to be found whereas I hope to prove that he has upon the whole matter abominably prevaricated and advanced things that he knows to be either impertinent or false 1. To this end we are in the first place to consider whether Xenophon speaks of Popular Governments simply or comparatively if simply 't is confess'd that a pure Democracy can never be good unless for a small Town if comparatively we must examine to what he compares it We are sure it was not to Absolute Monarchy there was no such thing amongst the Greeks established by Law The little Tyrants who had enslaved their own Countries as Jason Phaereus Phalaris and the like had no pretence to it and were accounted as the worst of Beasts None but such as in all bestiality were like to them did ever speak or think well of them Xenophon's Opinion in this point may be easily found out by what pass'd between his Master Plato and the Sicilian Tyrant and the matter will not be mended by referring to his own experience He had seen the vast Monarchy of Persia torn in pieces by the fury of two Brothers and more than a million of men brought to fight upon their private quarrel Instead of that Order Stability and Strength which our Author ascribes to Absolute Monarchy as the effect of Wisdom and Justice he knew that by filling one man with pride and cruelty it brought unspeakable miseries upon all others and infected them with all the Vices that accompany Slavery Men lived like Fishes the great ones devour'd the small and as appeared by Tissaphernes Pharnabazus and others with whom he had to deal the worst and basest were made to be the greatest The Satrapes insulted over those of meaner rank with an insolence and cruelty that equal'd the depth of their servil submission to their proud Master Luxury and Avarice reigned in all many great Nations were made to live for the service of one man and to soment his Vices This produced weakness and cowardice no number of those Slaves were able to stand against a few free Grecians No man knew this better than Xenophon who after the death of Cyrus the younger and the treacherous murder of Clearchus and other Officers that commanded the Greeks who had served him made his retreat from Babylon to the Hellespont with ten thousand foot and passed over the bellies of all that dared to oppose him He would never have spent his life in exciting his Countrymen to attempt the Conquest of Asia nor perswaded Agesilaus to put himself at the head of the Enterprize if he had thought there was such admirable Order Stability and Strength in that Monarchy and in the Greeks nothing but giddiness of Spirit and so much Learning as made them seditious Nor could he being a wise Man and an excellent Captain have conceived such a design if he had not by experience found that Liberty inspir'd his Countrymen with such solid Virtue and produced such Stability good Order and Strength that with small numbers of them he might hope to overthrow the vain Pomp of the Barbarians and to possess himself of their Riches tho they could bring more than a hundred men to fight against one which Design being interrupted in his time by domestick Wars was soon after his death accomplished by Alexander But that Xenophon's meaning may be better understood 't is good to consider that he spoke of such Governments as were then in use among the Greeks which tho mixed yet took their denomination from the prevailing part so that the Dorians who placed the Power chiefly in the hands of a few chosen men were said to be governed Aristocratically and the Ionians giving more Power to the common People Democratically And he tho an Ionian either through friendship to Agesilaus conversation with the Spartans or for other reasons best known to himself preferr'd the Government of Sparta or some other which he thought he could frame and desir'd to introduce before that of Athens as Cimon Thucydides and many other excellent men of that City are said to have done And if I acknowledge they were in the right and that Athens was more subject to disorder and had less Stability than Sparta I think it will be of little advantage to Absolute Monarchy 2. The Athenians did banish some worthy men and put others to death but our Author like the Devil never speaking truth unless to turn it into a lie prevaricates in his report of them The temporary banishment which they called Ostracism was without hurt or dishonour never accounted as a Punishment nor intended for any other end than to put a stop to the too eminent greatness of a man that might prove dangerous to the City and some excellent Persons who fell under it were soon recalled and brought home with glory But I am not solicitous whether that reason be sufficient to justify it or not We are upon a general Thesis relating to the Laws of God and Nature and if the Athenians by a fancy of their own did make an imprudent use of their Liberty it cannot prejudice the publick Cause They who make the worst of it can only say that by such means they for a time deprived themselves of the benefits they might have received from the Virtues of some excellent men to the hurt of none but themselves and the application of it as an injustice done to Themistocles is absolutely false He was a man of great Wit Industry and Valour but of uncertain Faith too much addicted to his own Interest and held a most dangerous Correspondence with the Persians who then threatned the destruction of Greece Through envy and spite to Aristides and to increase his own Power he raised dangerous Factions in the City and being summoned to render an account of his Proceedings he declined the Judgment of his Country fled to their Enemies and justly deserved the Sentence pronounc'd against him Some among them were unjustly put to death and above all
most virtuous who desir'd that the Law might be the rule of their Actions which is most absurd The like vicious Wretches have in all times endeavour'd to put the Power into the hands of one man who might protect them in their Villanies and advance them to exorbitant Riches or undeserved Honours whilst the best men trusting in their Innocence and desiring no other Riches or Preserments than what they were by their Equals thought to deserve were contented with a due Liberty under the protection of a just Law and I must transcribe the Histories of the World or at least so much of them as concerns the Tyrannies that have bin set up or cast down if I should here insert all the proofs that might be given of it But I shall come nearer to the point which is not to compare Democracy with Monarchy but a regular mixed Government with such an Absolute Monarchy as leaves all to the will of that Man Woman or Child who happens to be born in the reigning Family how ill soever they may be qualified I desire those who are lovers of Truth to consider whether the wisest best and bravest of Men are not naturally led to be pleased with a Government that protects them from receiving wrong when they have not the least inclination to do any Whether they who desire no unjust advantage above their Brethren will not always desire that a People or Senate constituted as that of Rome from the expulsion of Tarquin to the setting up of Cesar should rather judg of their Merit than Tarquin Cesar or his Successors Or whether the lewd or corrupted Pretorian Bands with Macro Sejanus Tigellinus and the like commanding them will not ever like Brutus his Sons abhor the inexorable Power of the Laws with the necessity of living only by their innocence and favour the Interest of Princes like to those that advanced them If this be not sufficient they may be pleased a little to reflect upon the Affairs of our own Country and seriously consider whether H de Cl f d F-lm-th Arl-ng-n and D nby could have pretended to the chief places if the disposal of them had bin in a free and well-regulated Parliament Whether they did most resemble Brutus Publicola and the rest of the Valerii the Fabii Quintii Cornelii c. or Narcissus Pallas Icetus Laco Vinnius and the like Whether all men good and bad do not favour that state of things which favours them and such as they are Whether Cl-v-l-d P-rtsm-th and others of the same trade have attained to the Riches and Honours they enjoy by Services done to the Common-wealth And what places Chiffinch F x and Jenkins could probably have attained if our Affairs had been regulated as good men desire Whether the old Arts of begging stealing and bawding or the new ones of informing and trepanning thrive best under one man who may be weak or vicious and is always subject to be circumvented by Flatterers or under the severe scrutinies of a Senat or People In a word whether they who live by such Arts and know no other do not always endeavour to advance the Government under which they enjoy or may hope to obtain the highest Honours and abhor that in which they are exposed to all manner of scorn and punishment Which being determined it will easily appear why the worst men have ever bin for Absolute Monarchy and the best against it and which of the two in so doing can be said to desire an unrestrained Liberty of doing that which is evil SECT XXI Mixed and Popular Governments preserve Peace and manage VVars better than Absolute Monarchies BEing no way concerned in the defence of Democracy and having proved that Xenophon Thucydides and others of the Antients in speaking against the over great Power of the common People intended to add Reputation to the Aristocratical Party to which they were addicted and not to set up Absolute Monarchy which never fell under discourse among them but as an object of scorn and hatred evil in it self and only to be endured by base and barbarous People I may leave our Knight like Don Quixote fighting against the Phantasms of his own brain and saying what he pleases against such Governments as never were unless in such a place as San Marino near Sinigaglia in Italy where a hundre Clowns govern a barbarous Rock that no man invades and relates nothing to our question If his Doctrine be true the Monarchy he extols is not only to be preferred before unruly Democracy and mixed Governments but is the only one that without a gross violation of the Laws of God and Nature can be established over any Nation But having as I hope sufficiently proved that God did neither institute nor appoint any such to be instituted nor approve those that were that Nature dos not incline us to it and that the best as well as the wisest men have always abhorr'd it that it has bin agreeable only to the most stupid and base Nations and if others have submitted to it they have done so only as to the greatest of Evils brought upon them by Violence Corruption or Fraud I may now proceed to shew that the Progress of it has bin in all respects sutable to its beginning To this end 't will not be amiss to examine our Author's words Thus says he do they paint to the life this Beast with many heads Let me give the Cypher of their Form of Government as it is begot by Sedition so it is nourish'd by Crimes It can never stand without Wars either with an Enemy abroad or with Friends at home And in order to this I will not criticize upon the terms tho the Cypher of a Form and War with Friends may be justly called Nonsense but coming to his Assertions that popular or mixed Governments have their birth in Sedition and are ever afterwards vexed with Civil or Foreign Wars I take liberty to say That whereas there is no Form appointed by God or Nature those Governments only can be called Just which are established by the consent of Nations These Nations may at the first set up popular or mixed Governments and without the guilt of Sedition introduce them afterwards if that which was first established prove unprofitable or hurtful to them and those that have done so have enjoy'd more Justice in times of Peace and managed Wars when occasion requir'd with more virtue and better success than any Absolute Monarchies have done And whereas he says that in popular Governments each man hath a care of his particular and thinks basely of the common Good They look upon approaching Mischiefs as they do upon Thunder only every man wisheth it may not touch his own Person I say that men can no otherwise be engaged to take care of the Publick than by having such a part in it as Absolute Monarchy dos not allow for they can neither obtain the Good for themselves Posterity and Friends that they desire nor prevent the Mischiefs
to them On the other hand the poverty and simplicity of the Spartan Kings was no less safe and profitable to the People than truly glorious to them Agesilaus denied that Artaxerxes was greater than he unless he were more temperate or more valiant and he made good his words so well that without any other assistance than what his Wisdom and Valour did afford he struck such a terror into that great rich powerful and absolute Monarch that he did not think himself safe in Babylon or Ecbatane till the poor Spartan was by a Captain of as great valour and greater poverty obliged to return from Asia to the defence of his own Country This was not peculiar to the severe Laconic Discipline When the Roman Kings were expelled a few Carts were prepared to transport their goods and their Lands which were consecrated to Mars and now go under the name of Campus Martius hardly contain ten Acres of ground Nay the Kings of Israel who led such vast Armies into the field that is were followed by all the people who were able to bear Arms seem to have possessed little Ahab one of the most powerful was so fond of Naboth's Vineyard which being the Inheritance of his Fathers according to their equal division of Lands could not be above two Acres that he grew sick when it was refused But if an allowance be to be made to every King it must be either according to a universal Rule or Standard or must depend upon the Judgment of Nations If the first they who have it may do well to produce it if the other every Nation proceeding according to the measure of their own discretion is free from blame It may also be worth observation whether the Revenue given to a King be in such manner committed to his care that he is obliged to employ it for the publick Service without the power of Alienation or whether it be granted as a Propriety to be spent as he thinks fit When some of the antient Jews and Christians scrupled the paiment of Tribute to the Emperors the reasons alledged to perswade them to a compliance seem to be grounded upon a supposition of the first for said they the defence of the State lies upon them which cannot be perform'd without Armies and Garisons these cannot be maintained without pay nor mony raised to pay them without Tributes and Customs This carries a face of reason with it especially in those Countries which are perpetually or frequently subject to Invasions but this will not content our Author He speaks of employing the revenue in keeping his House and looks upon it as a propriety to be spent as he thinks convenient which is no less than to cast it into a Pit of which no man ever knew the bottom That which is given one day is squandred away the next The people is always oppress'd with Impositions to foment the Vices of the Court These daily increasing they grow insatiable and the miserable Nations are compelled to hard labour in order to satiate those Lusts that tend to their own ruin It may be consider'd that the virtuous Pagans by the light of Nature discovered the truth of this Poverty grew odious in Rome when great men by desiring Riches put a value upon them and introduced that pomp and luxury which could not be born by men of small Fortunes From thence all furies and mischiefs seem'd to break loose The base slavish and so often subdued Asia by the basest of men revenged the defeats they had received from the bravest and by infusing into them a delight in pomp and luxury in a short time rendred the strongest and bravest of Nations the weakest and basest I wish our own experience did not too plainly manifest that these Evils were never more prevalent than in our days when the luxury majestick pomp and absolute power of a neighbouring King must be supported by an abundance of Riches torn out of the bowels of his Subjects which renders them in the best Country of the World and at a time when the Crown most flourishes the poorest and most miserable of all the Nations under the Sun We too well know who are most apt to learn from them and by what means and steps they endeavour to lead us into the like misery But the Bird is safe when the Snare is discover'd and if we are not abandoned by God to destruction we shall never be brought to consent to the settling of that Pomp which is against the practice of all virtuous people and has brought all the Nations that have bin taken with it into the ruin that is intended for us S E C T. VII When the Israelites asked for such a King as the Nations about them had they asked for a Tyrant tho they did not call him so NOW that Saul was no Tyrant says our Author note that the people asked a King as all Nations had God answers and bids Samuel to hear the voice of the People in all things which they spake and appoint them a King They did not ask a Tyrant and to give them a Tyrant when they asked a King had not bin to hear their voice in all things but rather when they asked an Egg to have given them a Scorpion unless we will say that all Nations had Tyrants But before he drew such a Conclusion he should have observed that God did not give them a Scorpion when they asked an Egg but told them that was a Scorpion which they called an Egg They would have a King to judg them to go out before them and to fight their Battels but God in effect told them he would overthrow all Justice and turn the Power that was given him to the ruin of them and their Posterity But since they would have it so he commanded Samuel to hearken to their Voice and for the punishment of their sin and folly to give them such a King as they asked that is one who would turn to his own profit and their misery the Power with which he should be entrusted and this truly denominates a Tyrant Aristotle makes no other distinction between a King and a Tyrant than that the King governs for the good of the People the Tyrant for his own pleasure or profit and they who asked such a one asked a Tyrant tho they called him a King This is all could be done in their Language for as they who are skilled in the Oriental Tongues assure me there is no name for a Tyrant in any of them or any other way of expressing the thing than by circumlocution and adding proud insolent lustful cruel violent or the like Epithets to the word Lord or King They did in effect ask a Tyrant They would not have such a King as God had ordain'd but such a one as the Nations had Not that all Nations had Tyrants but those who were round about them of whom they had knowledg and which in their manner of speaking went under the name
sense of the words as they are understood in our Language by those who give them and conducing to the ends for which they are given which can be no other than to defend us from all manner of arbitrary Power and to fix a rule to which we are to conform our Actions and from which according to our deserts we may expect reward or punishment And those who by prevarications cavils or equivocations endeavour to dissolve these Obligations do either maliciously betray the cause of Kings by representing them to the world as men who prefer the Satisfaction of their irregular Appetites before the performance of their duty and trample under foot the most sacred bonds of human Society or from the grossest ignorance do not see that by teaching Nations how little they can rely upon the Oaths of their Princes they instruct them as little to observe their own and that not only because men are generally inclined to follow the examples of those in power but from a most certain conclusion that he who breaks his part of a Contract cannot without the utmost impudence and folly expect the performance of the other nothing being more known amongst men than that all Contracts are of such mutual obligation that he who fails of his part discharges the other If this be so between man and man it must needs be so between one and many millions of men If he were free because he says he is every man must be free also when he pleases if a private man who receives no benefit or perhaps prejudice from a Contract be obliged to perform the conditions much more are Kings who receive the greatest advantages the world can give As they are not by themselves nor for themselves so they are not different in specie from other men they are born live and die as we all do The same Law of Truth and Justice is given to all by God and Nature and perhaps I may say the performance of it is most rigorously exacted from the greatest of men The liberty of Perjury cannot be a privilege annexed to Crowns and 't is absurd to think that the most venerable Authority that can be conferred upon a man is increased by a liberty-to commit or impunity in committing such crimes as are the greatest aggravations of infamy to the basest villains in the world SECT XVIII The next in blood to deceased Kings cannot generally be said to be Kings till they are crowned 'T IS hereupon usually objected that Kings do not come in by Contract nor by Oath but are Kings by or according to proximity of Blood before they are crowned Tho this be a bold Proposition I will not say 't is universally false 'T is possible that in some places the rule of Succession may be set down so precisely that in some cases every man may be able to see and know the sense as well as the Person designed to be the Successor but before I acknowledg it to be universally true I must desire to know what this rule of Succession is and from whence it draws its original I think I may be excused if I make these scruples because I find the thing in dispute to be variously adjudged in several places and have observed five different manners of disposing Crowns esteemed Hereditary besides an infinite number of collateral Controversies arising from them of which we have divers examples and if there be one universal rule appointed one of these only can be right and all the others must be vicious The first gives the inheritance to the eldest Male of the eldest legitimate Line as in France according to that which they call the Salique Law The second to the eldest legitimate Male of the reigning Family as antiently in Spain according to which the Brother of the deceased King has bin often if not always preferr'd before the Son if he were elder as may appear by the dispute between Corbis and Orsua cited before from Titus Livius and in the same Country during the reign of the Goths the eldest Male succeeded whether Legitimate or Illegitimate The fourth receives Females or their Descendents without any other condition distinguishing them from Males except that the younger Brother is preferr'd before the elder Sister but the daughter of the elder Brother is preferr'd before the Son of the younger The fifth gives the Inheritance to Females under a condition as in Sweden where they inherit unless they marry out of the Country without the consent of the Estates according to which rule Charles Gustavus was chosen as any Stranger might have bin tho Son to a Sister of Gustavus Adolphus who by marrying a German Prince had forfeited her right And by the same act of Estates by which her eldest Son was chosen and the Crown entailed upon the Heirs of his Body her second Son the Prince Adolphus was wholly excluded Till these questions are decided by a Judg of such an undoubted Authority that all men may safely submit 't is hard for any man who really seeks the satisfaction of his Conscience to know whether the Law of God and Nature tho he should believe there is one general Law do justify the Customs of the antient Medes and Sabeans mentioned by the Poet who admitted Females or those of France which totally exclude them as unfit to reign over men and utterly unable to perform the duty of a supreme Magistrate as we see they are every where excluded from the exercise of all other Offices in the Commonwealth If it be said that we ought to follow the Customs of our own Country I answer that those of our own Country deserve to be observed because they are of our own Country But they are no more to be called the Laws of God and Nature than those of France or Germany and tho I do not believe that any general Law is appointed I wish I were sure that our Customs in this point were not more repugnant to the light of Nature and prejudicial to our selves than those of some other Nations But if I should be so much an Englishman to think the will of God to have bin more particularly revealed to our Ancestors than to any other Nation and that all of them ought to learn from us yet it would be difficult to decide many questions that may arise For tho the Parliament in the 36th of Henry the sixth made an Act in favour of Richard Duke of York descended from a Daughter of Mortimer who married the Daughter of the Duke of Clarence elder Brother to John of Gaunt they rather asserted their own power of giving the Crown to whom they pleased than determined the question For if they had believed that the Crown had belonged to him by a general and eternal Law they must immediately have rejected Henry as a Usurper and put Richard into the possession of his Right which they did not And tho they did something like to this in the cases of Maud the Empress in relation
honest and generous do also make them lovers of Liberty and constant in the defence of their Country which savouring too much of a Republican Spirit he prefers the morals of that City since they are become more refined by the pious and charitable Jesuits before those that were remarkable in them as long as they retained any shadow of their antient Integrity which admitted of no equivocations and detested prevarications by that means preserving innocence in the hearts of private men for their inward contentment and in civil Societies for the publick good which if once extinguish'd Mankind must necessarily fall into the condition Hobbes rightly calls Bellum omnium contra omnes wherein no man can promise to himself any other Wife Children or Goods than he can procure by his own Sword Some may perhaps think that the endeavours of our Author to introduce such accursed Principles as tend to the ruin of Mankind proceed from his ignorance But tho he appears to have had a great measure of that quality I fear the evil proceeds from a deeper root and that he attempts to promote the interests of ill Magistrates who make it their business to destroy all good principles in the People with as much industry as the good endeavour to preserve them where they are and teach them where they are wanting Reason and experience instruct us that every man acts according to the end he proposes to himself The good Magistrate seeks the good of the People committed to his care that he may perform the end of his Institution and knowing that chiefly to consist in Justice and Virtue he endeavours to plant and propagate them and by doing this he procures his own good as well as that of the Publick He knows there is no Safety where there is no Strength no Strength without Union no Union with Justice no Justice where Faith and Truth in accomplishing publick and private Contracts is wanting This he perpetually inculcates and thinks it a great part of his duty by precept and example to educate the Youth in a love of Virtue and Truth that they may be seasoned with them and filled with an abhorrence of Vice and Falshood before they attain that Age which is exposed to the most violent temptations and in which they may by their crimes bring the greatest mischiefs upon the publick He would do all this tho it were to his own prejudice But as good Actions always carry a reward with them these contribute in a high measure to his advantage By preferring the interest of the People before his own he gains their affection and all that is in their power comes with it whilst he unites them to one another he unites all to himself In leading them to virtue he increases their strength and by that means provides for his own safety glory and power On the other side such as seek different ends must take different ways When a Magistrate fancies he is not made for the People but the People for him that he dos not govern for them but for himself and that the People live only to increase his glory or furnish matter for his pleasures he dos not inquire what he may do for them but what he may draw from them By this means he sets up an interest of profit pleasure or pomp in himself repugnant to the good of the publick for which he is made to be what he is These contrary ends certainly divide the Nation into parties and whilst every one endeavours to advance that to which he is addicted occasions of hatred sor injuries every day done or thought to be done and received must necessarily arise This creates a most fierce and irreconcileable enmity because the occasions are frequent important and universal and the causes thought to be most just The People think it the greatest of all crimes to convert that power to their hurt which was instituted for their good and that the injustice is aggravated by perjury and ingratitude which comprehend all manner of ill and the Magistrate gives the name of Sedition or Rebellion to whatsoever they do for the preservation of themselves and their own Rights When mens spirits are thus prepared a small matter sets them on fire but if no accident happen to blow them into a flame the course of Justice is certainly interrupted the publick affairs are neglected and when any occasion whether foreign or domestick arises in which the Magistrate stands in need of the Peoples assistance they whose affections are alienated not only shew an unwillingness to serve him with their Persons and Estates but fear that by delivering him from his distress they strengthen their enemy and enable him to oppress them and he fancying his will to be unjustly opposed or his due more unjustly denied is filled with a dislike of what he sees and a fear of worse for the future Whilst he endeavours to ease himself of the one and to provide against the other he usually increases the evils of both and jealousies are on both sides multiplied Every man knows that the Governed are in a great measure under the power of the Governor but as no man or number of men is willingly subject to those who seek their ruin such as fall into so great a misfortune continue no longer under it than force fear or necessity may be able to oblige them But as such a necessity can hardly lie longer upon a great People than till the evil be fully discovered and comprehended and their Virtue Strength and Power be united to expel it the ill Magistrate looks upon all things that may conduce to that end as so many preparatives to his ruin and by the help of those who are of his party will endeavour to prevent that Union and diminish that Strength Virtue Power and Courage which he knows to be bent against him And as truth faithful dealing due performance of Contracts and integrity of Manners are bonds of Union and helps to good he will always by tricks artifices cavils and all means possible endeavour to establish falshood and dishonesty whilst other Emissaries and instruments of Iniquity by corrupting the Youth and seducing such as can be brought to lewdness and debauchery bring the People to such a pass that they may neither care nor dare to vindicate their Rights and that those who would do it may so far suspect each other as not to confer upon much less to join in any action tending to the publick Deliverance This distinguishes the good from the bad Magistrate the faithful from the unfaithful and those who adhere to either living in the same principle must walk in the same ways They who uphold the rightful power of a just Magistracy encourage Virtue and Justice teach men what they ought to do suffer or expect from others fix them upon principles of Honesty and generally advance every thing that tends to the increase of the valour strength greatness and happiness of the Nation creating a good