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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67700	A discourse of government as examined by reason, Scripture, and law of the land, or, True weights and measures between soveraignty and liberty written in the year 1678 by Sir Philip Warwick.	Warwick, Philip, Sir, 1609-1683.	1694 (1694)	Wing W991; ESTC R27062	96,486	228

Licensed Jan. 5. 1693 4. A DISCOURSE OF Government As Examined by Reason Scripture AND Law of the Land OR True Weights and Measures BETWEEN Soveraignty and Liberty Written in the Year 1678. By Sir PHILIP WARWICK Knight LONDON Printed for Samuel Lowndes over against Exeter-Exchange in the Strand 1694. THE Publisher TO THE READER AFter so many pamphlets of false and impious Politicks which have poisoned the minds of people with evil notions of government tending to the overthrow of all establisht rules and orders of justice equity and common honesty in the acknowledgment and practice of which the happiness of a nation doth consist the heat and violence of passion being now somewhat abated and persons more at leisure to attend to the sober counsels and dictates of reason it will not I hope be judged an ill grounded presumption to suppose that this discourse written with great strength of reason and argument after long and serious deliberation and a deep research into the fundamental and essential laws of humane nature and the constitution of the English government and done several years since without any prejudice or partiality or design to gratify a private passion or interest will meet with a reception and entertainment suitable to the great name of the Author and the excellency of the performance among all such as have learning and skill to judge and candor and honesty to submit to the power and convictions of truth For as to the disciples and followers of Buchanan Hobbs and Milton who have exceeded their Masters in downright impudence scurrility and lying and the new modellers of Commonwealths who under a zealous pretense of securing the rights of a fansied original contract against the encroachments of Monarchs are sowing the seeds of eternal disagreements confusions and bloody wars throughout the world for the influence of evil principles hath no bounds but like infectious air spreads every where the peaceable sober truly Christian and Church-of-England-Doctrine contained in this book being so directly contrary to their furious mad unchristian and fanatical maxims it cannot otherwise be expected but that they will soon be alarmed and betake themselves to their usual arts of slander and reviling and grow very fierce and clamorous upon it Whatever shall happen it is not out of a design to caress and flatter one Party or to provoke and exasperate another that this book is at this time published but to do service unto truth and to restore it to its native beauty by taking off those masks and disguises with which it has of late been disfigured and to settle mens minds with true notions of the original of government For discourses of this nature founded upon law and reason will hold at all times and will never be unseasonable I shall not run out into any unnecessary or excessive commendation and praise of the Author nor do I now pretend to write his just and full character it may suffice to say in short that he was a Gentleman of sincere piety of strict morals of a great and vast understanding and of a very solid judgment a true Son of the Church of England and consequently a zealous asserter and defender of the truly Christian and Apostolical doctrine of non-resistence always loyal and faithful to the King his Master in the worst of times whose fortunes he steadily followed and upon whom he had the honour to attend in several places during the course of the wars particularly at Edge-hill Oxford and at the treaty in the isle of Wight and who by his wise conduct and faithful advice and behaviour gained a good esteem in his royal judgment and yet at the same time he was a true hearted English-man a great lover of his Country and one who wished as well to the constitution and to the established religion and laws as any of those demure Pretenders who sat in the same Parliament of forty one with him and raised that rebellion against their rightful Soveraign as he openly called it in the House of Commons after the restoration when some were making excuses for it from which we are to date all the miseries and confusions which we have undergone and do still labour under A reflexion upon those sad times and the villainous principles upon which they then acted put him upon writing this compendious discourse in which he has markt out a plain and certain way to preserve and when lost by fatal miscarriages to recover our peace and happiness together with the honour the strength the riches the trade of the Nation The notions here laid down are true and just and tend to the quiet and advantage of mankind in general and have their weight and use in all Countries where the laws of natural and civil justice prevail It is an exact Scheme or Idea of government derived from its first principles in which he sets forth the necessary and essential powers of Soveraignty the virtues of a Prince the indispensable duty of Subjects the qualifications of a Counsellor of State and the method of a wise administration and conduct in all emergencies whether in relation to domestick or foreign affairs or to the various conditions and professions of men in a well constituted kingdom This great Man after his retiring into the Country where he seemed to live above the world and to be no way affected with the glittering pomp and glory of it which he with a true greatness of mind despised addicted himself to reading study and meditation and that so many serious and wise thoughts as his certainly were might not be wholly lost he put them down in writing for his own private satisfaction in a due method and order one depending upon another to give them greater strength and beauty and being very assiduous in his contemplations if not diverted by the necessary business of life by visits of friends by journies to town for two or three months in the year to attend upon a place which was his first preferment in the Court and by the exercises of an undissembled piety and devotion he had an opportunity of writing several quires of paper upon various subjects for his admirable and inquisitive genius was not confined to any one particular study and learning as Divinity Philosophy History especially that of England Practical Devotion and the like This I now publish was written in the year 1678 and designed as an appendix to his Memoires of the reign of King Charles the first of most blessed memory which hereafter may see the light when more auspicious times shall encourage and favour the publication which he being very exact and curious in his compositions did often refine upon Yet notwithstanding this care there seems to be a defect page 13 which he designed to fill up and questionless did it as I find by a reference made there to some loose paper which I could never meet with But however as it is I doubt not but that this discourse will be highly instructive and useful

is that religion neglected or despised weakens all other parts of government Religio neglecta aut spreta trahit secum rempublicam for where there is but an indifferency to it or a want of devotion and inward esteem of it the soul of moral virtue is lost for men will be rather temporate for health than for the peace of society or to have a fitness by piety to have an intercourse with their God and justice will be observed rather as an outward compliance with laws than an inward esteem of such a beneficial tye in relation to society For it is the love of justice which flows from religion not the fear of its punishments that inspirits government for this values the Legislators authority and wisdom the other dreads only the Lictor's rods Secondly Government is never freely and chearfully obeyed but when it is supposed God's ordinance and that it is accounted a part of religion so to esteem it else obedience will be more precarious than the nature of it will admit The commission of goverment therefore issues out of God's Chancery and directs the Prince to direct his government to the benefit of the subject and yet when he fails therein leaves no appeal to the subject but unto his providence who prescribes to both for Nero's vices were not half so pernicious to the empire no nor to particular men as were the revolts even from that monster and from his Successors Galba Otho and Vitellius who were but pestilential breaths of the same ill vapor When conspiracy had cast out Kings the Consul's rule seemed so majestick and arbitrary that the Commonalty must needs be tempering it by Tribunitial power so as Livy observes that the cord of government was so strongly haled at each end or extremity that there was no strength left in the midst and that strife was more for the management and rule than for the safety and preservation of the State and all these revolutions because government was not supposed God's ordinance but the peoples choice Thus we see it is religion that only makes Soveraignty and liberty sociable or sets such bounds to majesty in the Prince as may advance concord among the Citizens Cast off this temper and every mistaken judgment will produce such angry humors as will neither endure the ordinary evils or sores of government nor the common remedies or salves for its cure Thirdly the highest throne though never so wise powerful or sincere depends upon Providence which can either by natural or moral causes disappoint all its best laid designs An earthquake a storm or a treachery frustrates all man can do whilst nothing can withstand heavenly benedictions and the very opinion men have that the Gods are propitious to them gives diligence and courage in all attempts These are the reasons and many more why government must be supported by religion Next we will offer a few why the religion of every Nation should be but one Religion should be but one First Religion is the highest as well as the strongest obligation upon the mind of man so as if that admit any principles of liberty or exemption from Civil authority disobedience shelters it self and replies it is fit to serve God before man and so grows incorrigible because reasonably it may justifie it self though that be an error as will be soon proved Secondly Men of a superstitious temper either infect one another or are misled by some subtil knaves who make good gain of men who are of a superstitious devotion and who make conscience of every little thing and are apt to believe vain and foolish prophesies or interpret revelations And thus says Livy in his fourth book they became a publick offence insomuch as the Aediles had in charge that no other Gods should be worshiped but those of the Romans nor after any other manner than had been usual in their native Country Indeed if it were rightly considered the religion of all Nations should be but one because all should serve but one God and he by the tradition unto the Patriarchs before the Law and by his divine prescripts under the Law and by the revelation of his will by the Messiah and his Apostles after the Mosaic-Law made his will known in all necessary natural moral and divine truths tending unto salvation whereof Kings and Priests were the guardians but not the parents for they were to deliver in matters immediately relating to salvation nothing but what they had received though in matters relating to decency and order in his service or in matters of civil concern they were authorized to give the law suitable to their own best judgments and all subordinate to them were thus to seek an unity in the faith and a common utility in the State in the band of peace Thus God is a God of order and not of confusion and if he made religion a support to government private men by framing new axioms of their own to exempt themselves from odedience or to weaken the sinews of government must not distract it For if a Soveraign may command one thing which God hath not forbidden and a high Priest another which God hath not revealed or a private person contradict both in those things which are both true and suitable to their distinct authorities then the reins or girdle of all authority divine ecclesiastical or civil is dissolved Among the Gentile world instituted religion was no disturber of government because it consisted principally in outward rites ceremonies and observances But in the Christian religion God being a jealous God of his honor and truth it hath great influence on government because the main end of it Instituted Religion was to restore natural as it was to make reconciliation and clear the intercourse betwixt the divine and the intellectual nature so it was to restore natural religion and to cleanse that polluted stream Therefore that Church which upon false glosses on instituted religion introduces corruptions in natural and weakens civil Soveraignty that it may usurp Ecclesiastical or dispences with moral duties that men may be the more observant of their ceremonial laws makes the buttress which was to support the wall thrust it down And those Princes whom God bridled by his moral law in the exercise of their Soveraignty weaken but their own Governments when they decline those laws natural religion and common justice recommended unto them as to be the basis of all their civil municipal and human laws Nor doth any spirit more weaken government by pretence of religion than those Enthusiastical persons who upon pretence of particular impulses respect neither human nor divine laws The ill influences on Government by several phanatick principles for these can fall in love with their own selves and their tribe and broach doctrines that we may say turn the world topsie turvy for one says 1. Dominion is founded in grace and thereby is all Soveraignty overthrown though the same men at the same time read that Cyrus