Object. But David’s heart smote him when he had cut off the skirt of Saul’s garment, and he would not suffer Abishai to kill him. 14 This might be of some force, if it were pretended that every man was obliged to kill an ill king, whensoever he could do it, which I think no man ever did say; and no man having ever affirmed it, no more can be concluded than is confessed by all. But how is it possible that a man of a generous spirit, like to David, could see a great and valiant king, chosen from amongst all the tribes of Israel, anointed by the command of God and the hand of the prophet, famous for victories obtained against the enemies of Israel, and a wonderful deliverance thereby purchased to that people, cast at his feet to receive life or death from the hand of one whom he had so furiously persecuted, and from whom he least deserved, and could least expect mercy, without extraordinary commotion of mind, most especially when Abishai, who saw all that he did, and thereby ought best to have known his thoughts, expressed so great a readiness to kill him? This could not but make him reflect upon the instability of all that seemed to be most glorious in men, and shew him that if Saul, who had been named even among the prophets, and assisted in an extraordinary manner to accomplish such great things, was so abandoned and given over to fury, misery and shame; he that seemed to be most firmly established ought to take care lest he should fall.
Surely these things are neither to be thought strange in relation to Saul, who was God’s anointed, nor communicable to such as are not: Some may suppose he was king by virtue of God’s unction (tho if that were true, he had never been chosen and made king by the people) but it were madness to think he became God’s anointed by being king: for if that were so, the same right and title would belong to every king, even to those who by his command were accursed and destroyed by his servants Moses, Joshua and Samuel. The same men, at the same time, and in the same sense, would be both his anointed and accursed, loved and detested by him; and the most sacred privileges made to extend to the worst of his enemies.
Again; the war made by David was not upon the account of being king, as anointed by Samuel, but upon the common natural right of defending himself against the violence and fury of a wicked man; he trusted to the promise, that he should be king, but knew that as yet he was not so; and when Saul found he had spared his life, he said, I now know well that thou shalt surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall surely be established in thy hand; 15 not that it was already. Nay David himself was so far from taking upon him to be king, till the tribe of Judah had chosen him, that he often acknowledged Saul to be his lord. When Baanah and Rechab brought the head of Ishbosheth to him, he commanded them to be slain; Because they had killed a righteous man upon his bed, in his own house; 16 which he could not have said, if Ishbosheth had unjustly detained from him the ten tribes, and that he had a right to reign over them before they had chosen him. The word of God did not make him king, but only foretold that he should be king; and by such ways as he pleased prepared the hearts of the people to set him up; and till the time designed by God for that work was accomplished, he pretended to no other authority, than what the six hundred men who first followed him, afterwards the tribe of Judah, and at last all the rest of the people, conferred upon him.
I no way defend Absalom’s revolt; he was wicked, and acted wickedly; but after his death no man was ever blamed or questioned for siding with him: and Amasa who commanded his army, is represented in Scripture as a good man, even David saying, that Joab, by slaying Abner and Amasa, had killed two men who were better than himself; 17 which could not have been unless the people had a right of looking into matters of government, and of redressing abuses: tho being deceived by Absalom, they so far erred, as to prefer him, who was in all respects wicked, before the man, who, except in the matter of Uriah, is said to be after God’s own heart. This right was acknowledged by David himself, when he commanded Hushai to say to Absalom, I will be thy servant O king; and by Hushai in the following chapter, Nay, but whom the Lord and his people, and all the men of Israel chuse, his will I be, and with him will I abide: 18 which could have no sense in it, unless the people had a right of chusing, and that the choice in which they generally concurred, was esteemed to be from God.
But if Saul who was made king by the whole people, and anointed by the command of God, might be lawfully resisted when he departed from the law of his institution; it cannot be doubted that any other for the like reason may be resisted. If David, tho designed by God to be king, and anointed by the hand of the prophet, was not king till the people had chosen him, and he had made a covenant with them; it will, if I mistake not, be hard to find a man who can claim a right which is not originally from them. And if the people of Israel could erect and pull down, institute, abrogate, or transfer to other persons or families, kingdoms more firmly established than any we know, the same right cannot be denied to other nations.
Our author might be pardon’d if he only vented his own follies; but he aggravates his own crime, by imputing them to men of more credit; and tho I cannot look upon Sir Walter Raleigh as a very good interpreter of Scripture, he had too much understanding to say, That if practice declare the greatness of authority, even the best kings of Israel and Judah were not tied to any law, but they did whatsoever they pleased in the greatest matters; 1 for there is no sense in those words. If practice declares the greatness of authority, even the best were tied to no law, signifies nothing, for practice cannot declare the greatness of authority. Peter the Cruel of Castile, and Christian the 2d of Denmark, kill’d whom they pleas’d; but no man ever thought they had therefore a right to do so: and if there was a law, all were tied by it, and the best were less likely to break it than the worst. But if Sir Walter Raleigh’s opinion, which he calls a conjecture, be taken, there was so great a difference between the kings of Israel and Judah, that as to their general proceedings in point of power, hardly anything can be said which may rightly be applied to both; and he there endeavours to show, that the reason why the ten tribes did not return to the house of David, after the destruction of the houses of Jeroboam and Baasha, was, because they would not endure a power so absolute as that which was exercised by the house of David. 2 If he has therefore anywhere said that the kings did what they pleased, it must be in the sense that Moses Maimonides says, The kings of Israel committed many extravagancies, because they were insolent, impious, and despisers of the law. 3 But whatsoever Sir Walter Raleigh may say (for I do not remember his words, and have not leisure to seek whether any such are found in his books) ’tis most evident that they did not what they pleased. The tribes that did not submit to David, nor crown him till they thought fit, and then made a covenant with him, took care it might be observed whether he would or not. Absalom’s rebellion follow’d by almost all Israel, was a terrible check to his will. That of Sheba, the son of Bichri, was like to have been worse, if it had not been suppressed by Joab’s diligence; and David often confessed the sons of Zeruiah were too hard for him. Solomon indeed overthrowing the law given by Moses, multiplying gold and silver, wives and horses, introducing idolatry, and lifting up his heart above his brethren, did what he pleased; but Rehoboam paid for all: the ten tribes revolted from him, by reason of the heavy burdens laid upon them; stoned Adoram who was sent to levy the tributes, and set up Jeroboam, who, as Sir Walter Raleigh says in the place before cited, had no other title than the courtesy of the people, and utterly rejected the house of David. If practice therefore declares a right, the practice of the people to avenge the injuries they suffered from their kings, as soon as they found a man fit to be their leader, shews they had a right of doing it.
’Tis true, the best of the kings, with Moses, Joshua and Samuel, may in one sense be said to have done what they pleased, because they desired to do that only which was good. But this will hardly be brought to confer a right upon all kings: And I deny that even the kings of Judah did what they pleased, or that it were anything to our question if they did. Zedekiah professed to the great men (that is, to the Sanhedrin) that without them he could do nothing. 4 When Amaziah, by his folly, had brought a great slaughter upon the tribe of Judah, they conspired against him in publick council: whereupon he fled to Lachish, and they pursuing him thither, killed him, avowed the fact, and it was neither question’d, nor blamed: 5 which examples agree with the paraphrase of Josephus on Deut. 17. He shall do nothing without the consent of the Sanhedrin; and if he attempt it, they shall hinder him. 6 This was the law of God, not to be abrogated by man; a law of liberty directly opposite to the necessity of submitting to the will of a man. This was a gift bestowed by God upon his children and people; whereas slavery was a great part of the curse denounced against Ham for his wickedness, and perpetually incumbent upon his posterity. The great Sanhedrin were constituted judges, as Grotius says, most particularly of such matters as concern’d their kings; 7 and Maimonides affirms, that the kings were judged by them: The distribution of the power to the inferior Sanhedrins, in every tribe and city, with the right of calling the people together in general assemblies as often as occasion required, were the foundations of their liberty; and being added to the law of the kingdom prescribed in the 17th of Deuteronomy (if they should think fit to have a king) established the freedom of that people upon a solid foundation. And tho they in their fury did in a great measure waive the benefits God had bestowed upon them; yet there was enough left to restrain the lusts of their kings. Ahab did not treat with Naboth as with a servant, whose person and estate depended upon his will, and does not seem to have been so tender-hearted to grieve much for his refusal, if by virtue of his royal authority he could have taken away his vineyard and his life: But that failing, he had no other way of accomplishing his design, than by the fraud of his accursed wife, and the perfidious wretches she employed. And no better proof that it did fail, can reasonably be required, than that he was obliged to have recourse to such sordid, odious, and dangerous remedies: but we are furnished with one that is more unquestionable; Hast thou killed, and also taken possession? In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, shall they lick thy blood, even thine. 8 This shews that the kings were not only under a law, but under a law of equality with the rest of the people, even that of retaliation. He had raised his heart above his brethren; but God brought him down, and made him to suffer what he had done; he was in all respects wicked, but the justice of this sentence consisted in the law he had broken, which could not have been, if he had been subject to none. But as this retaliation was the sum of all the judicial law given by God to his people, the sentence pronounced against Ahab in conformity to it, and the execution committed to Jehu, shews, that the kings were no less obliged to perform the law than other men, tho they were not so easily punished for transgressing it as others were; and if many of them did escape, it perfectly agrees with what had been foretold by Samuel.
Tho no restraint had been put upon the lusts of the Hebrew kings, it could be no prejudice to any other nation. They deflected from the law of God; and rejecting him that he should reign over them no longer, they fell into that misery which could affect none but those who enjoy the same blessings, and with the same fury despise them. If their kings had more power than consisted with their welfare, they gave it, and God renounces the institution of such. 1 He gave them a law of liberty; and if they fell into the shame and misery that accompanies slavery, it was their own work. They were not obliged to have any king; and could not without a crime have any but one, who must not raise his heart above the rest of them. This was taught by Moses: And Samuel who spoke by the same spirit could not contradict him; and in telling the people what such a king as they desired would do when he should be established, he did announce to them the misery they would bring upon themselves, by chusing such a one as he had forbidden. This free monarchy, which our author thinks to be so majestically described, was not only displeasing to the prophet, but declared by God to be a rejection of him, and inconsistent with his reign over them. This might have been sufficient to divert any other people from their furious resolution; but the prophet farther enforcing his dissuasion, told them, that God (who had in all other cases been their helper) would not hear them when they should cry to him by reason of their king. This is the majestick description of that free monarchy with which our author is so much pleased: It was displeasing to the prophet, hateful to God, an aggravation of all the crimes they had committed since they came out of Egypt, and that which would bring (as it did) most certain and irreparable destruction upon themselves.
But it seems the regal majesty in that age was in its infancy, and little in comparison of that which we find described by Tacitus, Suetonius, and others in later times. He shall take your sons, says Samuel, and set them over his chariots, and your daughters to make them confectioners and cooks; 2 but the majesty of the Roman emperors was carried to a higher pitch of glory. Ahab could not, without employing treachery and fraud, get a small spot of ground for his money to make a garden of herbs: But Tiberius, Caligula and Nero killed whom they pleased, and took what they pleased of their estates. When they had satiated their cruelty and avarice by the murders and confiscations of the most eminent and best men, they commonly exposed their children to the lust of their slaves. If the power of doing evil be glorious, the utmost excess is its perfection; and ’tis pity that Samuel knew no more of the effects produced by unrestrained lust, that he might have made the description yet more majestick: and as nothing can be suffer’d by man beyond constupration, torments and death, instead of such trifles as he mention’d, he might have shew’d them the effects of fury in its greatest exaltation.
If it be good for a nation to live under such a power, why did not God of his own goodness institute it? Did his wisdom and love to his people fail? Or if he himself had not set up the best government over them, could he be displeased with them for asking it? Did he separate that nation from the rest of mankind, to make their condition worse than that of others? Or can they be said to have sinned and rejected God, when they desir’d nothing but the government, which by a perpetual ordinance he had established over all the nations of the world? Is not the law of nature a rule which he has given to things? and the law of man’s nature, which is reason, an emanation of the divine wisdom, or some footsteps of divine light remaining in us? Is it possible that this which is from God, can be contrary to his will; and can he be offended with those who desire to live in a conformity to that law? Or could it justly be said, the people had chosen that which is not good, if nothing in government be good but what they chose?
But as the worst men delight in the worst things, and fools are pleased with the most extreme absurdities, he not only gives the highest praises to that which bears so many marks of God’s hatred; but after having said that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses were kings, he goes on, and says, The Israelites begged a king of Samuel; 3 which had been impertinent, if the magistrates instituted by the law were kings: and tho it might be a folly in them to ask what they had already, it could be no sin to desire that which they enjoyed by the ordinance of God. If they were not kings, it follows that the only government set up by God amongst men wanted the principal part, even the head and foundation, from whence all the other parts have their action and being; that is, God’s law is against God’s law, and destroys itself.
But if God did neither by a general and perpetual ordinance establish over all nations the monarchy which Samuel describes, nor prescribe it to his own people by a particular command, it was purely the peoples’ creature, the production of their own fancy, conceived in wickedness, and brought forth in iniquity, an idol set up by themselves to their own destruction, in imitation of their accursed neighbours; and their reward was no better than the concession of an impious petition, which is one of God’s heaviest judgments. Samuel’s words are acknowledged by all interpreters, who were not malicious or mad, to be a dissuasion from their wicked purpose; not a description of what a king might justly do by virtue of his office, but what those who should be set up against God and his law would do when they should have the power in their hands: And I leave such as have the understandings of men, and are not abandoned by God, to judge what influence this ought to have upon other nations, either as to obligation or imitation.
Our author’s next work is to tell us, That the scope of Samuel was to teach the people a dutiful obedience to their king, even in the things that they think mischievous or inconvenient: For by telling them what the king would do, he indeed instructs them what a subject must suffer: Yet not so that it is right for kings to do injury, but it is right for them to go unpunished by the people if they do it; so that in this point it is all one whether Samuel describe a king or a tyrant. 1 This is hard, but the conclusion is grounded upon nothing. There is no relation between a prediction that a thing shall be attempted or done to me, and a precept that I shall not defend myself, or punish the person that attempts or does it. If a prophet should say that a thief lay in the way to kill me, it might reasonably persuade me not to go, or to go in such a manner as to be able to defend myself; but can no way oblige me to submit to the violence that shall be offer’d, or my friends and children not to avenge my death if I fall; much less can other men be deprived of the natural right of defending themselves by my imprudence or obstinacy in not taking the warning given, whereby I might have preserved my life. For every man has a right of resisting some way or other that which ought not to be done to him; and tho human laws do not in all cases make men judges and avengers of the injuries offer’d to them, I think there is none that does not justify the man who kills another that offers violence to him, if it appear that the way prescribed by the law for the preservation of the innocent cannot be taken. This is not only true in the case of outrageous attempts to assassinate or rob upon the highway, but in divers others of less moment. I knew a man who being appointed to keep his master’s park, killed three men in one night that came to destroy his deer; and putting himself into the hands of the magistrate, and confessing the fact both in matter and manner, he was at the publick assizes not only acquitted, but commended for having done his duty; and this in a time when ’tis well known justice was severely administered, and little favour expected by him or his master. Nay, all laws must fall, human societies that subsist by them be dissolved, and all innocent persons be exposed to the violence of the most wicked, if men might not justly defend themselves against injustice by their own natural right, when the ways prescribed by publick authority cannot be taken.
Our author may perhaps say, this is true in all except the king: And I desire to know why, if it be true in all except the king, it should not be true in relation to him? Is it possible that he who is instituted for the obtaining of justice, should claim the liberty of doing injustice as a privilege? Were it not better for a people to be without law, than that a power should be established by law to commit all manner of violences with impunity? Did not David resist those of Saul? Did he not make himself head of the tribe of Judah, when they revolted against his son, and afterwards of the ten tribes, that rejected his posterity? Did not the Israelites stone Adoram who collected the taxes, revolt from the house of David, set up Jeroboam; and did not the prophet say it was from the Lord? If it was from the Lord, was it not good? If it was good then, is it not so forever? Did good proceed from one root then, and from another now? If God had avenged the blood of Naboth by fire from heaven, and destroyed the house of Ahab, as he did the two captains and their men who were sent to apprehend Elijah, 2 it might be said, he reserv’d that vengeance to himself; but he did it by the sword of Jehu and the army (which was the people who had set him up) for an example to others.
But ’tis good to examine what this dutiful obedience is that our author mentions. Men usually owe no more than they receive. ’Tis hard to know what the Israelites owed to Saul, David, Jeroboam, Ahab, or any other king, whether good or bad, till they were made kings: And the act of the people by which so great a dignity was conferr’d, seems to have laid a duty upon them, who did receive more than they had to give: so that something must be due from them unless it were releas’d by virtue of a covenant or promise made; and none could accrue to them from the people afterwards, unless from the merit of the person in rightly executing his office. If a covenant or promise be pretended, the nature and extent of the obligation can only be known by the contents expressed, or the true intention of it. If there be a general form of covenant set and agreed upon, to which all nations must submit, it were good to know where it may be found, and by whose authority it is established, and then we may examine the sense of it. If no such do appear, we may rationally look upon those to be impostors who should go about from thence to derive a right: And as that which does not appear, is as if it were not, we may justly conclude there is no other, or none that can have any effect, but such as have been made by particular nations with their princes; which can be of no force or obligation to others, nor to themselves, any farther than according to the true intention of those that made them. There is no such thing therefore as a dutiful obedience, or duty of being obedient, incumbent upon all nations by virtue of any covenant; nor upon any particular nation, unless it be expressed by a covenant: and whoever pretends to a right of taking our sons and daughters, lands or goods, or to go unpunished if he do, must show that these things are expressed or intended by the covenant.
But tho nations for the most part owe nothing to kings, till they are kings, and that it can hardly be conceived, that any people did ever owe so much to a man, as might not be fully repaid by the honor and advantages of such an advancement; yet ’tis possible that when they are made kings, they may by their good government lay such obligations upon their subjects, as ought to be recompensed by obedience and service. There is no mortal creature that deserves so well from mankind, as a wise, valiant, diligent and just king, who as a father cherishes his people; as a shepherd feeds, defends, and is ready to lay down his life for his flock; who is a terror to evil doers, and a praise to those that do well. This is a glorious prerogative, and he who has it is happy. But before this can be adjudged to belong to all, it must be proved that all have the virtues that deserve it; and he that exacts the dutiful obedience that arises from them, must prove that they are in him. He that does this, need not plead for impunity when he does injuries; for if he do them, he is not the man we speak of: Not being so, he can have no title to the duty by human institution or covenant; nor by divine law, since, as is already proved, God has neither established kings over all nations by precept, nor recommended them by example, in setting them over his own people. He has not therefore done it at all; there is no such thing in nature; and nations can owe nothing to kings merely as kings, but what they owe by the contract made with them.
As these contracts are made voluntarily, without any previous obligation, ’tis evident men make them in consideration of their own good; and they can be of force no longer, than he with whom they are made perform his part in procuring it; and that if he turn the power which was given to him for the publick good, to the publick inconvenience and damage, he must necessarily lose the benefit he was to receive by it. The word think is foolishly and affectedly put in by our author; for those matters are very often so evident, that even the weakest know them. No great sagacity is requir’d to understand that lewd, slothful, ignorant, false, unjust, covetous and cruel princes bring inconveniences and mischiefs upon nations, and many of them are so evidently guilty of some or all these vices, that no man can be mistaken in imputing them; and the utmost calamities may rationally be expected from them, unless a remedy be applied.
But, says he, Samuel by telling them what the king would do, instructs them what the subjects must suffer, and that ’tis right he should go unpunished: 3 But, by his favour, Samuel says no such thing; neither is it to be concluded, that because a king will do wickedly, he must be suffer’d, any more than a private man, who should take the same resolution. But he told them, that when they should cry to the Lord by reason of their king, he would not hear them. 4 This was as much as to say, their ruin was unavoidable; and that, having put the power into the hands of those, who instead of protecting would oppress them; and thereby having provoked God against them, so as he would not hearken to their cries, they could have no relief. But this was no security to the authors of their calamity. The houses of Jeroboam, Baasha and Omri, escaped not unpunished, tho the people did not thereby recover their liberty. The kings had introduced a corruption that was inconsistent with it. But they who could not settle upon a right foundation to prevent future mischiefs, could avenge such as they had suffered, upon the heads of those who had caused them, and frequently did it most severely. The like befell the Romans, when by the violence of tyranny all good order was overthrown, good discipline extinguished, and the people corrupted. Ill princes could be cut in pieces, and mischiefs might be revenged, tho not prevented. But ’tis not so everywhere, nor at all times; and nothing is more irrational, than from one or a few examples to conclude a general necessity of future events. They alter according to circumstances: and as some nations by destroying tyrants could not destroy tyranny; others in removing the tyrant, have cut up tyranny by the roots. This variety has been seen in the same nation at different times: The Romans recovered their liberty by expelling Tarquin; but remained slaves notwithstanding the slaughter of Caesar. Whilst the body of the people was uncorrupted, they cured the evil wrought by the person, in taking him away. It was no hard matter to take the regal power that by one man had been enjoy’d for life, and to place it in the hands of two annual magistrates, whilst the nobility and people were, according to the condition of that age, strong and ready to maintain it. But when the mischief had taken deeper root; when the best part of the people had perished in the civil wars; when all their eminent men had fallen in battle, or by the proscriptions; when their discipline was lost, and virtue abolished, the poor remains of the distressed people were brought under the power of a mercenary soldiery, and found no relief. When they kill’d one tyrant, they often made room for a worse: It availed them nothing to cut off a rotten branch, whilst the accursed root remained, and sent forth new sprouts of the same nature to their destruction. Other generous nations have been subdued beyond a possibility of recovery; and those that are naturally base, slide into the like misery without the impulse of an exterior power. They are slaves by nature, and have neither the understanding nor courage that is required for the constitution and management of a government within themselves. They can no more subsist without a master, than a flock without a shepherd. They have no comprehension of liberty, and can neither desire the good they do not know, nor enjoy it if it were bestowed upon them. They bear all burdens; and whatever they suffer, they have no other remedy or refuge, than in the mercy of their Lord. But such nations as are naturally strong, stout, and of good understanding, whose vigour remains unbroken, manners uncorrupted, reputation unblemished, and increasing in numbers; who neither want men to make up such armies as may defend them against foreign or domestick enemies, nor leaders to head them, do ordinarily set limits to their patience. They know how to preserve their liberty, or to vindicate the violation of it; and the more patient they have been, the more inflexible they are when they resolve to be so no longer. Those who are so foolish to put them upon such courses, do to their cost find that there is a difference between lions and asses; and he is a fool who knows not that swords were given to men, that none might be slaves, 5 but such as know not how to use them.
If our author deserve credit, we need not examine whether nations have a right of resisting, or a reasonable hope of succeeding in their endeavours to prevent or avenge the mischiefs that are feared or suffered, for ’tis not worth their pains. The inconveniences, says he, and miseries which are reckoned up by Samuel, as belonging unto kingly government, were not intolerable, but such as have been and are still born by the subjects’ free consent from their princes. Nay at this day, and in this land, many tenants by their tenures are tied unto the same subjection, even unto subordinate and inferior lords. 1 He is an excellent advocate for kingly government, that accounts inconveniences and miseries to be some of the essentials of it, which others esteem to be only incidents. Tho many princes are violent and wicked, yet some have been gentle and just: tho many have brought misery upon nations, some have been beneficial to them: and they who are esteemed most severe against monarchy, think the evils that are often suffer’d under that form of government, proceed from the corruption of it, or deviation from the principle of its institution; and that they are rather to be imputed to the vices of the person, than to the thing itself; but if our author speak truth, it is universally and eternally naught, inconvenience and misery belong to it.
He thinks to mend this by saying, they are not intolerable: but what is intolerable if inconveniences and miseries be not? For what end can he think governments to have been established, unless to prevent or remove inconveniences and miseries? or how can that be called a government which does not only permit, but cause them? What can incline nations to set up governments? Is it that they may suffer inconveniences, and be brought to misery? or if it be to enjoy happiness, how can that subsist under a government, which not by accident, deflection or corruption, but by a necessity inherent in itself, causes inconveniences and miseries? If it be pretended that no human constitution can be altogether free from inconveniences; I answer, that the best may to some degree fall into them, because they may be corrupted; but evil and misery can properly belong to none that is not evil in its own nature. If Samuel deserve credit, or may be thought to have spoken sense, he could not have enumerated the evils, which he foresaw the people should suffer from their kings, nor say, that they should cry to the Lord by reason of them, unless they were in themselves grievous, and in comparison greater than what they had suffer’d or known; since that would not have diverted them from their intention, but rather have confirmed them in it. And I leave it to our author to show, why any people should for the pleasure of one or a few men, erect or suffer that which brings more of evil with it than any others.
Moreover, there is a great difference between that which nations sometimes suffer under kings, and that which they willingly suffer; most especially if our author’s maxim be received, That all laws are the mandates of kings, and the subjects’ liberties and privileges no more than their gracious concessions; for how patient soever they are under the evils they suffer, it might reasonably be believ’d they are so because they know not how to help it: And this is certainly the case of too many places that are known to us. Whoever doubts of this, if he will not put himself to the trouble of going to Turkey or Morocco, let him pass only into Normandy, and ask the naked, barefooted and half-starved people whether they are willing to suffer the miseries under which they groan; and whether the magnificence of Versailles, and the pomp of their haughty master, do any way alleviate their calamities. If this also be a matter of too much pains, the wretches that come hither every day will inform him, that it is not by their own consent they are deprived of all honors and offices in the commonwealth, even of those, which by a corrupt custom that had gained the force of a law, they had dearly bought; prohibited to exercise any trade; exposed to the utmost effects of fraud and violence, if they refuse to adore their master’s idols. They will tell him, that ’tis not willingly they leave their lands and estates to seek a shelter in the most remote parts of the world; but because they are under a force which they are not able to resist; and because one part of the nation, which is enriched with the spoils of the other, have foolishly contributed to lay a yoke upon them which they cannot break.
To what he says concerning tenures, I answer, No man in England owes any service to his lord, unless by virtue of a contract made by himself or his predecessors, under which he holds the land granted to him on that condition by the proprietor. There may be something of hardship, but nothing of injustice. ’Tis a voluntary act in the beginning and continuance; and all men know that what is done to one who is willing is no injury. 2 He who did not like the conditions, was not obliged to take the land; and he might leave it, if afterwards he came to dislike them. If any man say, the like may be done by anyone in the kingdom, I answer, That it is not always true; the Protestants now in France cannot without extreme hazard go out of that country, tho they are contented to lose their estates. ’Tis accounted a crime, for which they are condemned perpetually to the galleys, 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 been 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 anything 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 been 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 chastised the churlish clown, who refused to sell or change it for another: but for want of it, he was obliged to take a very different course. 3 If the lives of subjects had in the like manner depended upon the will of kings, David might without scruple have killed Uriah, 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, 4 by court-flatterers, to be false. If he had not sinned against Bathsheba whom he corrupted, Uriah 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 fraud. And as he did not thereby fly the sight of God, but of men, ’tis evident that he in that action feared men more than God.
If by the examples of Israel and Judah, we may judge whether the inconveniences and miseries brought upon nations by their kings be tolerable or intolerable, it will be enough to consider the madness of Saul’s cruelty towards his subjects, and the slaughter brought upon them by the hand of the Philistines on Mount Gilboa, where he fell with the flower of all Israel; the civil wars that happened 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, Ahab, 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. 5 But if mischiefs 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 been 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 myself 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 Witiza and Rodrigo: the present state of Spain now languishing and threatening 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.
Our author having hitherto spoken of all nations, as born under a necessity of being subject to absolute monarchy, which he pretends to have been 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. 1 If there be anything 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 king is so also, if he be, and ought to enjoy the rights belonging to the father of the people: And ’tis not less ridiculous to say, those who will have a king, than it would be to say, he that will have a father; for everyone must have one whether he will or not. But if the king be a father, as our author from thence infers that all laws are from him, none can be imposed upon him; and whatsoever the subject enjoys is by his concessions: ’Tis absurd to speak of an obligation lying upon the people to allow him royal maintenance, by providing revenues, since he has all in himself, and they have nothing that is not from him, and depending upon his will. For this reason a worthy gentleman of the house of commons in the year 1640 desired that the business of the judges, who in the Star-Chamber had given for their opinion concerning ship money, That in cases of necessity the king might provide it by his own authority, and that he was judge of that necessity, might be first examined, that they might know whether they had anything to give, before they should speak of giving. And as ’tis certain, that if the sentence of those perjur’d wretches had stood, the subjects of England by consequence would have been found to have nothing to give; ’tis no less sure, that if our author’s principle concerning the paternal and absolute power of kings be true, it will by a more compendious way appear, that it is not left to the choice of any nation, whether they will have a king or not; for they must have him, and can have nothing to allow him, but must receive all from him.
But if those only who will have a king, are bound to have one, and to allow this royal maintenance, such as will not have a king, are by one and the same act delivered from the necessity of having one, and from providing maintenance for him; which utterly overthrows the magnificent fabrick of paternal monarchy; and the kings who were lately represented by our author, placed on the throne by God and nature, and endow’d with an absolute power over all, appear to be purely the creatures of the people, and to have nothing but what is received from them.
From hence it may be rationally inferred, that he who makes a thing to be, makes it to be only what he pleases. 2 This must hold in relation to kings as well as other magistrates; and as they who made consuls, dictators, and military tribunes, gave them only such power, and for such a time as best pleased themselves, ’tis impossible they should not have the same right in relation to kings, in making them what they please, as well as not to make them unless they please; except there be a charm belonging to the name, or the letters that compose it; which cannot belong to all nations, for they are different in every one according to the several languages.
But, says our author, ’tis for the honor, profit, and safety of the people that the king should be glorious, powerful, and abounding in riches. There is therefore no obligation upon them, and they are to judge whether it be so or not. The Scripture says plainly the contrary: He shall not multiply silver and gold, wives and horses: he shall not lift up his heart above his brethren. 3 He shall not therefore be glorious, powerful, or abounding in riches. Reason and experience teach us the same thing: If those nations that have been proud, luxurious and vicious, have desired by pomp and riches to foment the vices of their princes, thereby to cherish their own; such as have excelled in virtue and good discipline have abhorred it, and except the immediate exercise of their office have kept their supreme magistrates to a manner of living little different from that of private men: and it had been impossible to maintain that frugality, in which the integrity of their manners did chiefly consist, if they had set up an example directly contrary to it, in him who was to be an example to others; or to provide for their own safety, if they had overthrown that integrity of manners by which it could only be obtained and preserved. There is a necessity incumbent upon every nation that lives in the like principle, to put a stop to the entrance of those vices that arise from the superfluity of riches, by keeping their kings in that honest poverty, which is the mother and nurse of modesty, sobriety, and all manner of virtue: And no man can deny this to be well done, unless he will affirm that pride, luxury and vice is more profitable to a nation than the virtues that are upheld by frugality.
There is another reason of no less importance to those nations, who tho they think fit to have kings, yet desire to preserve their liberty, which obliges them to set limits to the glory, power and riches of their kings; and that is, that they can no otherwise be kept within the rules of the law. Men are naturally propense to corruption; and if he whose will and interest it is to corrupt them, be furnished with the means, he will never fail to do it. Power, honors, riches, and the pleasures that attend them, are the baits by which men are drawn to prefer a personal interest before the publick good; and the number of those who covet them is so great, that he who abounds in them will be able to gain so many to his service as shall be sufficient to subdue the rest. ’Tis hard to find a tyranny in the world that has not been introduced this way; for no man by his own strength could ever subdue a multitude; none could ever bring many to be subservient to his ill designs, but by the rewards they received or hoped. By this means Caesar accomplished his work, and overthrew the liberty of his country, and with it all that was then good in the world. They who were corrupted in their minds, desired to put all the power and riches into his hands, that he might distribute them to such as served him. And he who was nothing less than covetous in his own nature, desired riches, that he might gain followers; and by the plunder of Gaul he corrupted those that betray’d Rome to him. And tho I do not delight to speak of the affairs of our own time, I desire those who know the present state of France to tell me, whether it were possible for the king to keep that nation under servitude, if a vast revenue did not enable him to gain so many to his particular service as are sufficient to keep the rest in subjection: and if this be not enough, let them consider whether all the dangers that now threaten us at home, do not proceed from the madness of those who gave such a revenue, as is utterly unproportionable to the riches of the nation, unsuitable to the modest behaviour expected from our kings, and which in time will render parliaments unnecessary 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; 4 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 Ecbatana, 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 ancient Jews and Christians scrupled the payment of tribute to the emperors, the reasons alleged to persuade 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 garrisons; these cannot be maintained without pay, nor money 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 squandered 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. 5 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 borne 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 rendered 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 been taken with it into the ruin that is intended for us.
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 been 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. 1 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 judge them, to go out before them, and to fight their battles; 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: 2 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 knowledge, and which in their manner of speaking went under the name of all, were blessed with such masters. This way of expression was used by Lot’s daughters, who said, there was not a man in all the earth to come in to them; 3 because there was none in the neighborhood with whom it was thought fit they should accompany. Now, that the Eastern nations were then, and are still under the government of those which all free people call tyrants, is evident to all men. God therefore in giving them a tyrant, or rather a government that would turn into tyranny, gave them what they asked under another name; and without any blemish to the mercy promised to their fathers, suffered them to bear the penalty of their wickedness and folly in rejecting him that he should not reign over them.
But tho the name of tyrant was unknown to them, yet in Greece, from whence the word comes, it signified no more than one who governed according to his own will, distinguished from kings that governed by law; and was not taken in an ill sense, till those who had been advanced for their justice, wisdom and valour, or their descendants, were found to depart from the ends of their institution, and to turn that power to the oppression of the people, which had been given for their protection: But by these means it grew odious, and that kind of government came to be thought only tolerable by the basest of men; and those who destroy’d it, were in all places esteemed to be the best.
If monarchy had been universally evil, God had not in the 17th of Deuteronomy given leave to the Israelites to set up a king; and if that kind of king had been asked, he had not been displeased: and they could not have been said to reject God, if they had not asked that which was evil; for nothing that is good is contrary, or inconsistent with a people’s obedience to him. The monarchy they asked was displeasing to God, it was therefore evil. But a tyrant is no more than an evil or corrupted monarch: The king therefore that they demanded was a tyrant: God in granting one who would prove a tyrant, gave them what they asked; and that they might know what they did, and what he would be, he told them they rejected him, and should cry by reason of the king they desired.
This denotes him to be a tyrant: for as the government of a king ought to be gentle and easy, tending to the good of the people, resembling the tender care of a father to his family; if he who is set up to be a king, and to be like to that father, do lay a heavy yoke upon the people, and use them as slaves and not as children, he must renounce all resemblance of a father, and be accounted an enemy.
But, says our author, whereas the people’s crying argues some tyrannical oppression, we may remember that the people’s cries are not always an argument of their living under a tyrant. No man will say Solomon was a tyrant, yet all the congregation complain’d that Solomon make their yoke grievous. 4 ’Tis strange, that when children, nay when whelps cry, it should be accounted a mark that they are troubled, and that the cry of the whole people should be none: Or that the government which is erected for their ease, should not be esteemed tyrannical if it prove grievous to those it should relieve. But as I know no example of a people that did generally complain without cause, our adversaries must allege some other than that of Solomon, before I believe it of any. We are to speak reverently of him: He was excellent in wisdom; he built the Temple, and God appeared twice to him: But it must be confess’d, that during a great part of his life he acted directly contrary to the law given by God to kings, and that his ways were evil and oppressive to the people, if those of God were good. Kings were forbidden to multiply horses, wives, silver and gold: But he brought together more silver and gold, and provided more horses, wives and concubines than any man is known to have had: And tho he did not actually return to Egypt, yet he introduced their abominable idolatry, and so far raised his heart above his brethren, that he made them subservient to his pomp and glory. The people might probably be pleased with a great part of this; but when the yoke became grievous, and his foolish son would not render it more easy, they threw it off; and the thing being from the Lord, it was good, unless he be evil.
But as just governments are established for the good of the governed, and the Israelites desir’d a king, that it might be well with them, not with him, who was not yet known to them; that which exalts one to the prejudice of those that made him, must always be evil, and the people that suffers the prejudice must needs know it better than any other. He that denies this, may think the state of France might have been best known from Bulion the late treasurer, who finding Lewis the Thirteenth to be troubled at the people’s misery, told him they were too happy, since they were not reduced to eat grass. But if words are to be understood as they are ordinarily used, and we have no other than that of tyranny to express a monarchy that is either evil in the institution, or fallen into corruption, we may justly call that tyranny which the Scripture calls a grievous yoke, and which neither the old nor the new counsellors of Rehoboam could deny to be so: for tho the first advised him to promise amendment, and the others to do worse, yet all agreed that what the people said was true.
This yoke is always odious to such as are not by natural stupidity and baseness fitted for it; but those who are so, never complain. An ass will bear a multitude of blows patiently, but the least of them drives a lion into a rage. He that said, the rod is made for the back of fools, confessed that oppression will make a wise man mad. And the most unnatural of all oppressions is to use lions like asses, and to lay that yoke upon a generous nation, which only the basest can deserve; and for want of a better word we call this tyranny.
Our author is not contented to vindicate Solomon only, but extends his indulgence to Saul. His custom is to patronize all that is detestable, and no better testimony could be given of it. It is true, says he, Saul lost his kingdom, but not for being too cruel or tyrannical unto his subjects, but for being too merciful unto his enemies: 5 But he alleges no other reason, than that the slaughter of the priests is not blamed; not observing that the writers of the Scripture in relating those things that are known to be abominable by the light of nature, frequently say no more of them: And if this be not so, Lot’s drunkenness and incest, Reuben’s pollution of his father’s bed, Abimelech’s slaughter of his seventy brothers, and many of the most wicked acts that ever were committed, may pass for laudable and innocent. 6 But if Saul were not to be blamed for killing the priests, why was David blamed for the death of Uriah? 7 Why were the dogs to lick the blood of Ahab and Jezebel, if they did nothing more than kings might do without blame? Now if the slaughter of one man was so severely avenged upon the authors and their families, none but such as Filmer can think that of so many innocent men, with their wives and children, could escape unreproved or unpunished. But the whole series of the history of Saul shewing evidently that his life and reign were full of the most violent cruelty and madness, we are to seek no other reason for the ruin threatened and brought upon him and his family. And as those princes who are most barbarously savage against their own people, are usually most gentle to the enemies of their country, he could not give a more certain testimony of his hatred to those he ought to have protected, than by preserving those nations, who were their most irreconcilable enemies. This is proved by reason as well as by experience; for every man knows he cannot bear the hatred of all mankind: Such as know they have enemies abroad, endeavour to get friends at home: Those who command powerful nations, and are beloved by them, fear not to offend strangers. But if they have rendered their own people enemies to them, they cannot hope for help in a time of distress, nor so much as a place of retreat or refuge, unless from strangers, nor from them unless they deserve it, by favouring them to the prejudice of their own country. As no man can serve two masters, no man can pursue two contrary interests: Moses, Joshua, Gideon and Samuel, were severe to the Amorites, Midianites and Canaanites, but mild and gentle to the Hebrews. Saul, who was cruel to the Hebrews, spared the Amalekites, whose preservation was their destruction: and whilst he destroyed those he should have saved, and saved those that by a general and particular command of God he should have destroyed, he lost his ill-govern’d kingdom, and left an example to posterity of the end that may be expected from pride, folly and tyranny.
The matter would not be much alter’d, if I should confess, that in the time of Saul all nations were governed by tyrants (tho it is not true, for Greece did then flourish in liberty, and we have reason to believe that other nations did so also) for tho they might not think of a good government at the first, nothing can oblige men to continue under one that is bad, when they discover the evils of it, and know how to mend it. They who trusted men that appeared to have great virtues, with such a power as might easily be turned into tyranny, might justly retract, limit or abolish it, when they found it to be abused. And tho no condition had been reserved, the publick good, which is the end of all government, 8 had been sufficient to abrogate all that should tend to the contrary. As the malice of men and their inventions to do mischief increase daily, all would soon be brought under the power of the worst, if care were not taken, and opportunities embraced to find new ways of preventing it. He that should make war at this day as the best commanders did two hundred years past, would be beaten by the meanest soldier. The places then accounted impregnable are now slighted as indefensible; and if the arts of defending were not improved as well as those of assaulting, none would be able to hold out a day. Men were sent into the world rude and ignorant, and if they might not have used their natural faculties to find out that which is good for themselves, all must have been condemn’d to continue in the ignorance of our first fathers, and to make no use of their understanding to the ends for which it was given.
The bestial barbarity in which many nations, especially of Africa, America and Asia, do now live, shews what human nature is, if it be not improved by art and discipline; and if the first errors, committed through ignorance, might not be corrected, all would be obliged to continue in them, and for anything I know, we must return to the religion, manners and policy that were found in our country at Caesar’s landing. To affirm this is no less than to destroy all that is commendable in the world, and to render the understanding given to men utterly useless. But if it be lawful for us by the use of that understanding to build houses, ships and forts better than our ancestors, to make such arms as are most fit for our defence, and to invent printing, with an infinite number of other arts beneficial to mankind, why have we not the same right in matters of government, upon which all others do almost absolutely depend? If men are not obliged to live in caves and hollow trees, to eat acorns, and to go naked, why should they be forever obliged to continue under the same form of government that their ancestors happened to set up in the time of their ignorance? Or if they were not so ignorant to set up one that was not good enough for the age in which they lived, why should it not be altered, when tricks are found out to turn that to the prejudice of nations, which was erected for their good? From whence should malice and wickedness gain a privilege of putting new inventions to do mischief every day into practice? and who is it that so far protects them, as to forbid good and innocent men to find new ways also of defending themselves from it? If there be any that do this, they must be such as live in the same principle; who whilst they pretend to exercise justice, provide only for the indemnity of their own crimes, and the advancement of unjust designs. They would have a right of attacking us with all the advantages of the arms now in use, and the arts which by the practice of so many ages have been wonderfully refined, whilst we should be obliged to employ no others in our just defence, than such as were known to our naked ancestors when Caesar invaded them, or to the Indians when they fell under the dominion of the Spaniards. This would be a compendious way of placing uncontroll’d iniquity in all the kingdoms of the world, and to overthrow all that deserves the name of good by the introduction of such accursed maxims. But if no man dares to acknowledge any such, except those whose acknowledgment is a discredit, we ought not to suffer them to be obliquely obtruded upon us, nor to think that God has so far abandoned us into the hands of our enemies, as not to leave us the liberty of using the same arms in our defence as they do to offend and injure us.
We shall be told, that prayers and tears were the only arms of the first Christians, and that Christ commanded his disciples to pray for those that persecuted them: But besides that those precepts of the most extreme lenity do ill suit with the violent practices of those who attempt to enslave nations, and who by alleging them do plainly shew either that they do not extend to all Christians, or that they themselves are none whilst they act contrary to them, they are to know, that those precepts were merely temporary, and directed to the persons of the apostles, who were armed only with the sword of the spirit; that the primitive Christians used prayers and tears only no longer than whilst they had no other arms. But knowing that by lifting themselves under the ensigns of Christianity they had not lost the rights belonging to all mankind, when nations came to be converted, they noway thought themselves obliged to give their enemies a certain opportunity of destroying them, when God had put means into their hands of defending themselves; and proceeded so far in this way, that the Christian valour soon became no less famous and remarkable than that of the pagans. They did with the utmost vigour defend both their civil and religious rights against all the powers of earth and hell, who by force and fraud endeavoured to destroy them.
If any desire the directions of the New Testament, says our author, he may find our Saviour limiting and distinguishing royal power, by giving to Caesar those things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. 1 But that will be of no advantage to him in this contest. We do not deny to any man that which is his due; but do not so well know who is Caesar, nor what it is that can truly be said to be due to him. I grant that when those words were spoken, the power of the Romans exercised by Tiberius was then expressed by the name of Caesar, which he without any title had assumed. The Jews amongst many other nations having been subdued, submitted to it; and being noway competent judges of the rights belonging to the senate or people of Rome, were obliged to acknowledge that power which their masters were under. They had no commonwealth of their own, nor any other government amongst themselves, that was not precarious. They thought Christ was to have restored their kingdom, and by them to have reigned over the nations; but he shewed them they were to be subject to the Gentiles, and that within few years their city and temple should be destroy’d. Their commonwealth must needs expire when all that was prefigured by it was accomplished. It was not for them at such a time to presume upon their abrogated privileges, nor the promises made to them, which were then fulfilled. Nay, they had by their sins profaned themselves, and given to the Gentiles a right over them, which none could have had, if they had continued in their obedience to the law of God. This was the foundation of the Caesars’ dominion over them, but can have no influence upon us. The first of the Caesars had not been set up by them: The series of them had not been continued by their consent: They had not interrupted the succession by placing or displacing such as they pleased: They had not brought in strangers or bastards, nor preferred the remotest in blood before the nearest: They had no part in making the laws by which they were governed, nor had the Caesars sworn to them: They had no Great Charter, acknowledging their liberties to be innate or inherent in them, confirmed by immemorial custom, and strengthen’d by thirty acts of their own general assemblies, with the assent of the Romans: The Caesar who then governed came not to the power by their consent: The question, Will ye have this man to reign? had never been asked; but he being imposed upon them, they were to submit to the laws by which he governed their masters. This can be nothing to us, whose case is in every respect most unlike to theirs. We have no dictatorian power over us; and neither we nor our fathers have rendered or owed obedience to any human laws but our own, nor to any other magistracy than what we have established. We have a king who reigns by law. His power is from the law that makes him king: 2 and we can know only from thence what he is to command, and what we are obliged to obey. We know the power of the Caesars was usurped, maintained and exercised with the most detestable violence, injustice and cruelty. But tho it had been established by the consent of the Romans from an opinion that it was good for them in that state of affairs, it were nothing to us: and we could be no more obliged to follow their example in that than to be governed by consuls, tribunes, and decemviri, or to constitute such a government as they set up when they expelled their kings. Their authority was as good at one time as at the other; or if a difference ought to be made, the preference is to be given to what they did when their manners were most pure, the people most free, and when virtue was most flourishing among them. But if we are not obliged to set up such a magistracy as they had, ’tis ridiculous to think that such an obedience is due to one who is not in being as they pay’d to him that was. And if I should confess that Caesar holding the senate and people of Rome under the power of the sword, imposed what tribute he pleased upon the provinces; and that the Jews, who had no part in the government, were obliged to submit to his will, our liberty of paying nothing, except what the parliament appoints, and yielding obedience to no laws but such as are made to be so by their authority, or by our own immemorial customs, could not be thereby infringed. But we may justly affirm, that the tribute imposed was not, as our author infers, all their coin, 3 nor a considerable part of it, nor more than what was understood to go for the defraying of the publick charges. Christ by asking whose image and superscription was stamped upon their money, and thereupon commanding them to give to Caesar that which was Caesar’s, did not imply that all was his; but that Caesar’s money being current amongst them, it was a continual and evident testimony, that they acknowledged themselves to be under his jurisdiction, and therefore could not refuse to pay the tribute laid upon them by the same authority, as other nations did.
It may also be observed, that Christ did not so much say this to determine the questions that might arise concerning Caesar’s power; for he plainly says, that was not his work; but to put the Pharisees to silence who tempted him. According to the opinion of the Jews, that the Messiah would restore the kingdom of Israel, they thought his first work would be to throw off the Roman yoke; and not believing him to be the man, they would have brought him to avow the thing, that they might destroy him. But as that was not his business, and that his time was not yet come, it was not necessary to give them any other answer, than such as might disappoint their purpose. This shews that, without detracting from the honor due to Augustine, Ambrose or Tertullian, I may justly say, that the decision of such questions as arise concerning our government must be decided by our laws, and not by their writings. They were excellent men, but living in another time, under a very different government, and applying themselves to other matters, they had no knowledge at all of those that concern us. They knew what government they were under, and thereupon judged what a broken and dispersed people ow’d to that which had given law to the best part of the world before they were in being, under which they had been educated, and which after a most cruel persecution was become propitious to them. They knew that the word of the emperor was a law to the senate and people, who were under the power of that man that could get the best army; but perhaps had never heard of such mixed governments as ours, tho about that time they began to appear in the world. And it might be as reasonably concluded, that there ought to be no rule in the succession or election of princes, because the Roman emperors were set up by the violence of the soldiers, and for the most part by the slaughter of him who was in possession of the power, as that all other princes must be absolute when they have it, and do what they please, till another more strong and more happy, may by the like means wrest the same power from them.
I am much mistaken if this be not true; but without prejudice to our cause, we may take that which they say, according to their true meaning, in the utmost extent. And to begin with Tertullian: ’Tis good to consider the subject of his discourse, and to whom he wrote. The treatise cited by our author is the Apologetick, and tends to persuade the pagans, that civil magistrates might not intermeddle with religion; and that the laws made by them touching those matters, were of no value, as relating to things of which they had no cognizance. ’Tis not, says he, length of time, nor the dignity of the legislators, but equity only that can commend laws; and when any are found to be unjust, they are deservedly condemned. 4 By which words he denied that the magistratical power which the Romans acknowledged in Caesar, had anything to do in spiritual things. And little advantage can be taken by Christian princes from what he says concerning the Roman emperors; for he expressly declares, That the Caesars would have believed in Christ, if they had either not been necessary to the secular government, or that Christians might have been Caesars. 5 This seems to have proceeded from an opinion received by Christians in the first ages, that the use of the civil as well as the military sword was equally accursed: That Christians were to be sons of peace, enemies to no man; and that Christ by commanding Peter to put up his sword, did forever disarm all Christians. 6 He proceeds to say, We cannot fight to defend our goods, having in our Baptism renounc’d the world, and all that is in it; nor to gain honors, accounting nothing more foreign to us than publick affairs, and acknowledging no other commonwealth than that of the whole world; 7 Nor to save our lives, because we account it a happiness to be killed. He dissuades the pagans from executing Christians, rather from charity to them in keeping them from the crime of slaughtering the innocent, than that they were unwilling to suffer: and gives no other reasons of their prayers for the emperors, than that they were commanded to love their enemies, and to pray for those who persecuted them, except such as he drew from a mistake, that the world was shortly to finish with the dissolution of the empire. All his works, as well those that were written before he fell into Montanism, as those published afterwards, are full of the like opinions; and if Filmer acknowledges them to be true, he must confess, that princes are not fathers, but enemies: 8 and not only they, but all those who render themselves ministers of the powers they execute, in taking upon them the sword that Christ had cursed, do renounce him; and we may consider how to proceed with such as do so. If our author will not acknowledge this, then no man was ever guilty of a more vile prevarication than he, who alleges those words in favour of his cause, which have their only strength in opinions that he thinks false, and in the authority of a man whom in that very thing he condemns; and must do so, or overthrow all that he endeavours to support. But Tertullian’s opinions concerning these matters have no relation to our present question. The design of his apology, and the treatise to Scapula almost upon the same subject, was to show, that the civil magistracy which he comprehends under the name of Caesar, had nothing to do with matters of religion; and that, as no man could be a Christian who would undertake the work of a magistrate, they who were jealous the publick offices might be taken out of their hands, had nothing to fear from Christians who resolved not to meddle with them. Whereas our question is only, whether that magistratical power, which by law or usurpation was then in Caesar, must necessarily in all times, and in all places, be in one man, or may be divided and balanced according to the laws of every country, concerning which he says nothing: Or whether we, who do not renounce the use of the civil or military sword, who have a part in the government, and think it our duty to apply ourselves to publick cares, should lay them aside because the ancient Christians every hour expecting death, did not trouble themselves with them.
If Ambrose after he was a bishop, employ’d the ferocity of a soldier which he still retained, rather in advancing the power of the clergy, than the good of mankind by restraining the rage of tyrants, it can be no prejudice to our cause, of which he had no cognisance. He spoke of the violent and despotical government, to which he had been a minister before his baptism, and seems to have had no knowledge of the Gothick polity, that within a few years grew famous by the overthrow of the Roman tyranny, and delivering the world from the yoke which it could no longer bear. And if Augustine might say, That the emperor is subject to no laws, because he has a power of making laws, I may as justly say, that our kings are subject to laws, because they can make no law, and have no power but what is given by the laws. If this be not the case, I desire to know who made the laws, to which they and their predecessors have sworn; and whether they can according to their own will abrogate those ancient laws by which they are made to be what they are, and by which we enjoy what we have; or whether they can make new laws by their own power? If no man but our author have impudence enough to assert any such thing; and if all the kings we ever had, except Richard the second, did renounce it, we may conclude that Augustine’s words have no relation to our dispute; and that ’twere to no purpose to examine, whether the fathers mention any reservation of power to the laws of the land, or to the people, it being as lawful for all nations, if they think fit, to frame governments different from those that were then in being, as to build bastions, halfmoons, hornworks, ravelins or counterscarps, or to make use of muskets, cannon, mortars, carabines or pistols, which were unknown to them.
What Solomon says of the Hebrew kings, does as little concern us. We have already proved their power not to have been absolute, tho greater than that which the law allows to ours. It might upon occasion be a prudent advice to private persons living under such governments as were usual in the Eastern countries, to keep the king’s commandments, and not to say, What dost thou? because where the word of a king is, there is power, and all that he pleaseth he will do. 9 But all these words are not his; and those that are, must not be taken in a general sense; for tho his son was a king, yet in his words there was no power: He could not do what he pleased, nor hinder others from doing what they pleased: He would have added weight to the yoke that lay upon the necks of the Israelites, but he could not; 10 and we do not find him to have been master of much more than his own tongue, to speak as many foolish things as he pleased. In other things, whether he had to deal with his own people, or with strangers, he was weak and impotent; and the wretches who flatter’d him in his follies, could be of no help to him. The like has befallen many others: Those who are wise, virtuous, valiant, just, and lovers of their people, have and ought to have power; but such as are lewd, vicious, foolish, and haters of their people, ought to have none, and are often deprived of all. This was well known to Solomon, who says, That a wise child is better than an old and foolish king that will not be advised. 11 When Nebuchadnezzar set himself in the place of God, his kingdom was taken from him, and he was driven from the society of men to herd with beasts. 12 There was power for a time in the word of Nero: he murdered many excellent men; but he was call’d to account, and the world abandon’d the monster it had too long endur’d. He found none to defend him, nor any better help, when he desir’d to die, than the hand of a slave. Besides this, some kings by their institution have little power; some have been deprived of what they had, for abusing, or rendering themselves unworthy of it; and histories afford us innumerable examples of both sorts.
But tho I shall confess that there is always power in the word of a king, it would be nothing to us who dispute concerning right, and have no regard to that power which is void of it. A thief or a pirate may have power; but that avails him not, when, as often befell the Caesars, he meets with one who has more, and is always unsafe, since having no effect upon the consciences of men, every one may destroy him that can: And I leave it to kings to consider how much they stand obliged to those, who placing their rights upon the same foot, expose their persons to the same dangers.
But if kings desire that in their word there should be power, let them take care that it be always accompanied with truth and justice. Let them seek the good of their people, and the hands of all good men will be with them. Let them not exalt themselves insolently, and everyone will desire to exalt them. Let them acknowledge themselves to be the servants of the publick, and all men will be theirs. Let such as are most addicted to them, talk no more of Caesars, nor the tributes due to them. We have nothing to do with the name of Caesar. They who at this day live under it, reject the prerogatives anciently usurped by those that had it, and are govern’d by no other laws than their own. We know no law to which we owe obedience, but that of God, and ourselves. Asiatick slaves usually pay such tributes as are imposed upon them; and whilst braver nations lay under the Roman tyranny, they were forced to submit to the same burdens. But even those tributes were paid for maintaining armies, fleets and garrisons, without which the poor and abject life they led could not have been preserved. We owe none but what we freely give. None is or can be imposed upon us, unless by ourselves. We measure our grants according to our own will, or the present occasions, for our own safety. Our ancestors were born free, and, as the best provision they could make for us, they left us that liberty entire, with the best laws they could devise to defend it. ’Tis no way impair’d by the opinions of the fathers. The words of Solomon do rather confirm it. The happiness of those who enjoy the like, and the shameful misery they lie under, who have suffer’d themselves to be forced or cheated out of it, may persuade, and the justice of the cause encourage us to think nothing too dear to be hazarded in the defence of it.
If that which our author calls divinity did reach the things in dispute between us, or that the opinions of the fathers which he alleges, related to them, he might have spared the pains of examining our laws: for a municipal sanction were of little force to confirm a perpetual and universal law given by God to mankind, and of no value against it, since man cannot abrogate what God hath instituted, nor one nation free itself from a law that is given to all. But having abused the Scriptures, and the writings of the Fathers (whose opinions are to be valued only so far as they rightly interpret them), he seems desirous to try whether he can as well put a false sense upon our law, and has fully compassed his design. According to his custom he takes pieces of passages from good books, and turns them directly against the plain meaning of the authors, expressed in the whole scope and design of their writings. To show that he intends to spare none, he is not ashamed to cite Bracton, who of all our ancient law-writers is most opposite to his maxims. He lived, says he, in Henry the third’s time, since parliaments were instituted: 1 as if there had been a time when England had wanted them; or that the establishment of our liberty had been made by the Normans, who, if we will believe our author, came in by force of arms, and oppressed us. But we have already proved the essence of parliaments to be as ancient as our nation, and that there was no time in which there were not such councils or assemblies of the people as had the power of the whole, and made or unmade such laws as best pleased themselves. We have indeed a French word from a people that came from France, but the power was always in ourselves; and the Norman kings were obliged to swear they would govern according to the laws that had been made by those assemblies. It imports little whether Bracton lived before or after they came amongst us. His words are, Omnes sub eo, ipse sub nullo, sed tantum sub Deo; All are under him, and he under none but God only. If he offend, since no writ can go out against him, their remedy is by petitioning him to amend his faults; which if he will not do, it is punishment enough for him to expect God as an avenger. Let none presume to look into his deeds, much less to oppose him. Here is a mixture of sense and nonsense, truth and falsehood, the words of Bracton with our author’s foolish inferences from them. 2 Bracton spoke of the politick capacity of the king, when no law had forbidden him to divide it from his natural. He gave the name of king to the sovereign power of the nation, as Jacob called that of his descendants the scepter; which he said should not depart from Judah till Shiloh came, tho all men know that his race did not reign the third part of that time over his own tribe, nor full fourscore years over the whole nation. The same manner of speech is used in all parts of the world. Tertullian under the name of Caesar comprehended all magistratical power, and imputed to him the acts of which in his person he never had any knowledge. The French say, their king is always present, sur son lit de justice, 3 in all the sovereign courts of the kingdom, which are not easily numbered; and that maxim could have in it neither sense nor truth, if by it they meant a man, who can be but in one place at one time, and is always comprehended within the dimensions of his own skin. These things could not be unknown to Bracton, the like being in use amongst us; and he thought it no offence so far to follow the dictates of reason prohibited by no law, as to make a difference between the invisible and omnipresent king, who never dies, and the person that wears the crown, whom no man without the guilt of treason may endeavour to kill, since there is an act of parliament in the case. I will not determine whether he spoke properly or no as to England; but if he did not, all that he said being upon a false supposition, is nothing to our purpose. The same Bracton says, the king doth no wrong, in as much as he doth nothing but by law. The power of the king is the power of the law, a power of right not of wrong. 4 Again, If the king does injustice, he is not king. 5 In another place he has these words; The king therefore ought to exercise the power of the law, as becomes the vicar and minister of God upon earth, because that power is the power of God alone; but the power of doing wrong is the power of the Devil, and not of God. And the king is his minister whose work he does: Whilst he does justice, he is the vicar of the Eternal King; but if he deflect from it to act unjustly, he is the minister of the Devil. 6 He also says that the king is singulis major, universis minor; 7 and that he who is in justitia exequenda omnibus major, in justitia recipienda cuilibet ex plebe fit aequalis . 8 I shall not say Bracton is in the right when he speaks in this manner; but ’tis a strange impudence in Filmer to cite him as a patron of the absolute power of kings, who does so extremely depress them. But the grossest of his follies is yet more pardonable than his detestable fraud in falsifying Bracton’s words, and leaving out such as are not for his purpose, which shew his meaning to be directly contrary to the sense put upon them. That this may appear, I shall set down the words as they are found in Bracton: Ipse autem rex non debet esse sub homine, sed sub Deo, sub lege, quia lex facit regem. Attribuat ergo rex legi quod lex attribuit ei, id est dominationem potestatem: Non est enim rex ubi dominatur voluntas non lex; quod sub lege esse debeat, cum sit Dei vicarius, evidenter apparet. 9 If Bracton therefore be a competent judge, the king is under the law; and he is not a king, nor God’s vicegerent unless he be so; and we all know how to proceed with those who being under the law, offend against it. For the law is not made in vain. In this case something more is to be done than petitioning; and ’tis ridiculous to say, that if he will not amend, ’tis punishment enough for him to expect God an avenger; for the same may be said of all malefactors. God can sufficiently punish thieves and murderers: but the future judgment, of which perhaps they have no belief, is not sufficient to restrain them from committing more crimes, nor to deter others from following their example. God was always able to punish murderers, but yet by his law he commands man to shed the blood of him who should shed man’s blood; and declares that the land cannot be purged of the guilt by any other means. He had judgments in store for Jeroboam, Ahab, and those that were like them; but yet he commanded that, according to that law, their houses should be destroy’d from the earth. The dogs lick’d up the blood of Ahab, where they had licked that of Naboth, and eat Jezebel who had contrived his murder. But, says our author, we must not look into his deeds, much less oppose them. Must not David look into Saul’s deeds, nor oppose them? Why did he then bring together as many men as he could to oppose, and make foreign alliances against him, even with the Moabites and the accursed Philistines? Why did Jehu not only destroy Ahab’s house, but kill the king of Judah and his forty brothers, only for going to visit his children? 10 Our author may perhaps say, because God commanded them. But if God commanded them to do so, he did not command them and all mankind not to do so; and if he did not forbid, they have nothing to restrain them from doing the like, unless they have made municipal laws of their own to the contrary, which our author and his followers may produce when they can find them.
His next work is to go back again to the tribute paid by Christ to Caesar, and judiciously to infer, that all nations must pay the same duty to their magistrates, as the Jews did to the Romans who had subdued them. Christ did not, says he, ask what the law of the land was, nor inquire whether there was a statute against it, nor whether the tribute were given by the consent of the people, but upon sight of the superscription concluded, . 11 It had been strange if Christ had inquired after their laws, statutes or consent, when he knew that their commonwealth, with all the laws by which it had subsisted, was abolished; and that Israel was become a servant to those who exercised a most violent domination over them; which being a peculiar punishment for their peculiar sins, can have no influence upon nations that are not under the same circumstances.
But of all that he says, nothing is more incomprehensible, than what he can mean by lawful kings to whom all is due that was due to the Roman usurpers. For lawful kings are kings by the law: In being kings by the law, they are such kings as the law makes them, and that law only must tell us what is due to them; or by a universal patriarchical right, to which no man can have a title, as is said before, till he prove himself to be the right heir of Noah. If neither of these are to be regarded, but that right follows possession, there is no such thing as a usurper; he who has the power has the right, as indeed Filmer says, 12 and his wisdom as well as his integrity is sufficiently declared by the assertion.
This wicked extravagancy is followed by an attempt of as singular ignorance and stupidity, to shuffle together usurpers and conquerors, as if they were the same; whereas there have been many usurpers who were not conquerors, and conquerors that deserved not the name of usurpers. No wise man ever said that Agathocles or Dionysius conquer’d Syracuse; Tarquin, Galba or Otho, Rome; Cromwell, England; or that the magi, who seiz’d the government of Persia after the death of Cambyses, conquer’d that country. When Moses and Joshua had overthrown the kingdoms of the Amorites, Moabites and Canaanites; or when David subdued the Ammonites, Edomites, and others, none, as I suppose, but such divines as Filmer, will say they usurped a dominion over them. There is such a thing amongst men as just war, or else true valour would not be a virtue but a crime; and instead of glory, the utmost infamy would always be the companion of victory. There are, says Grotius, laws of war as well as of peace. 13 He who for a just cause, and by just means, carries on a just war, has as clear a right to what is acquired as can be enjoy’d by man, but all usurpation is detestable and abominable.
Our author’s next quarrel is with St. Paul, who did not , as he says, in enjoining subjection to the higher powers, signify the laws of the land, or mean the highest powers, as well aristocratical and democratical as regal, but a monarch that carries the sword, c. 1 But what if there be no monarch in the place? or what if he do not carry the sword? Had the Apostle spoken in vain, if the liberty of the Romans had not been overthrown by the fraud and violence of Caesar? Was no obedience to be exacted whilst that people enjoy’d the benefit of their own laws, and virtue flourished under the moderate government of a legal and just magistracy, established for the common good, by the common consent of all? Had God no minister amongst them till law and justice was overthrown, the best part of the people destroy’d by the fury of a corrupt mercenary soldiery, and the world subdued under the tyranny of the worst monsters that it had ever produced? Are these the ways of establishing God’s vicegerents? and will he patronize no governors or governments but such as these? Does God uphold evil, and that only? If the world has been hitherto mistaken, in giving the name of evil to that which is good, and calling that good which is evil; I desire to know what can be call’d good amongst men, if the government of the Romans, till they entered Greece and Asia, and were corrupted by the luxury of both, do not deserve that name? or what is to be esteemed evil, if the establishment and exercise of the Caesar’s power were not so? But says he, Wilt thou not be afraid of the power? 2 And was there no power in the governments that had no monarchs? Were the Carthaginians, Romans, Grecians, Gauls, Germans and Spaniards without power? Was there no sword in that nation and their magistrates, who overthrew the kingdoms of Armenia, Egypt, Numidia, Macedon, and many others, whom none of the monarchs were able to resist? Are the Venetians, Switzers, Grisons and Hollanders now left in the same weakness, and no obedience at all due to their magistrates? If this be so, how comes it to pass that justice is so well administered amongst them? Who is it that defends the Hollanders in such a manner, that the greatest monarchs with all their swords have had no great reason to boast of any advantages gained against them? at least till we (whom they could not resist when we had no monarch, tho we have been disgracefully beaten by them since we had one) by making leagues against them, and sowing divisions amongst them, instigated and assisted the greatest power now in the world to their destruction and our own. But our author is so accustom’d to fraud, that he never cites a passage of Scripture which he does not abuse or vitiate; and that he may do the same in this place, he leaves out the following words, For there is no power but of God, that he might entitle one sort only to his protection. If therefore the people and popular magistrates of Athens; the two kings, ephori and senate of Sparta; the Sanhedrin amongst the Hebrews; the consuls, tribunes, praetors and senate of Rome; the magistrates of Holland, Switzerland and Venice, have or had power, we may conclude that they also were ordained by God; and that according to the precept of the Apostle, the same obedience for the same reason is due to them as to any monarch.
The Apostle farther explaining himself, and shewing who may be accounted a magistrate, and what the duty of such a one is, informs us when we should fear, and on what account. Rulers, says he, are not a terror to good works, but to the evil: Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same; for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil. 3 He therefore is only the minister of God, who is not a terror to good works, but to evil; who executes wrath upon those that do evil, and is a praise to those that do well. And he who doth well, ought not to be afraid of the power, for he shall receive praise. Now if our author were alive, tho he was a man of a hard forehead, I would ask him, whether in his conscience he believed, that Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, and the rabble of succeeding monsters, were a praise to those who did well, and a terror to those who did ill; and not the contrary, a praise to the worst, and a terror to the best men of the world? or for what reason Tacitus could say, that virtue brought men who lived under them to certain destruction, 4 and recite so many examples of the brave and good, who were murder’d by them for being so, unless they had endeavour’d to extinguish all that was good, and to tear up virtue by the roots? 5 Why did he call Domitian an enemy to virtue, 6 if he was a terror only to those that did evil? If the world has hitherto been misled in these things, and given the name of virtue to vice, and of vice to virtue, then Germanicus, Valerius Asiaticus, Corbulo, Helvidius Priscus, Thrasea, Soranus and others that resembled them, who fell under the rage of those beasts, nay Paul himself and his disciples were evil doers; and Macro, Narcissus, Pallas, Vinius, Laco and Tigellinus were virtuous and good men. If this be so, we are beholden to Filmer for admonishing mankind of the error in which they had so long continued. If not, those who persecuted and murder’d them for their virtues, were not a terror to such as did evil, and a praise to those who did well. The worst men had no need to fear them; but the best had, because they were the best. All princes therefore that have power are not to be esteemed equally the ministers of God. They that are so, must receive their dignity from a title that is not common to all, even from a just employment of their power to the encouragement of virtue, and to the discouragement of vice. He that pretends to the veneration and obedience due to the ministers of God, must by his actions manifest that he is so. And tho I am unwilling to advance a proposition that may sound harshly to tender ears, I am inclined to believe, that the same rule, which obliges us to yield obedience to the good magistrate who is the minister of God, and assures us that in obeying him we obey God, does equally oblige us not to obey those who make themselves the ministers of the Devil, lest in obeying them we obey the Devil, whose works they do.
That none but such as are wilfully ignorant may mistake Paul’s meaning, Peter who was directed by the same spirit, says distinctly, Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake. 7 If therefore there be several ordinances of men tending to the same end, that is, the obtaining of justice, by being a terror to the evil and a praise to the good, the like obedience is for conscience sake enjoined to all, and upon the same condition. But as no man dares to say, that Athens and Persia, Carthage and Egypt, Switzerland and France, Venice and Turkey were and are under the same government; the same obedience is due to the magistrate in every one of those places, and all others on the same account, whilst they continue to be the ministers of God.
If our author say, that Peter cannot comprehend kings under the name of human ordinances, since Paul says they are the ordinance of God, I may as well say that Paul cannot call that the ordinance of God, which Peter calls the ordinance of man. But as it was said of Moses and Samuel, that they who spoke by the same spirit could not contradict each other, Peter and Paul being full of wisdom and sanctity, and inspir’d by the same spirit, must needs say the same thing; and Grotius shews that they perfectly agree, tho the one calls kings, rulers and governors the ordinance of man, and the other the ordinance of God; inasmuch as God having from the beginning ordained that men should not live like wolves in woods, every man by himself, but together in civil societies, left to every one a liberty of joining with that society which best pleas’d him, and to every society to create such magistrates, and frame such laws as should seem most conducing to their own good, according to the measure of light and reason they might have. And every magistracy so instituted might rightly be called the ordinance of man, who was the instituter, and the ordinance of God, according to which it was instituted; because, says he, God approved and ratified the salutary constitutions of government made by men. 8
But, says our author, Peter expounds his own words of the human ordinance to be the king, who is the lex loquens; 9 but he says no such thing, and I do not find that any such thought ever enter’d into the Apostle’s mind. The words are often found in the works of Plato and Aristotle, but applied only to such a man as is a king by nature, who is endow’d with all the virtues that tend to the good of human societies in a greater measure than any or all those that compose them; which character I think, will be ill applied to all kings. And that this may appear to be true, I desire to know whether it would well have agreed with Nero, Caligula, Domitian, or others like to them; and if not with them, then not with all, but only with those who are endow’d with such virtues. But if the king be made by man, he must be such as man makes him to be; and if the power of a law had been given by any human sanction to the word of a foolish, mad or wicked man (which I hardly believe) it would be destroy’d by its own iniquity and turpitude, and the people left under the obligation of rendering obedience to those, who so use the sword that the nations under them may live soberly, peaceably and honestly.
This obliges me a little to examine what is meant by the sword. The pope says there are two swords, the one temporal, the other spiritual, and that both of them were given to Peter and to his successors. Others more rightly understand the two swords to be that of war and that of justice, which according to several constitutions of governments have been committed to several hands, under several conditions and limitations. The sword of justice comprehends the legislative and the executive power: the one is exercised in making laws, the other in judging controversies according to such as are made. The military sword is used by those magistrates who have it, in making war or peace with whom they think fit, and sometimes by others who have it not, in pursuing such wars as are resolved upon by another power. The Jewish doctors generally agree that the kings of Judah could make no law, because there was a curse denounced against those who should add to, or detract from that which God had given by the hand of Moses; that they might sit in judgment with the high priest and Sanhedrin, but could not judge by themselves unless the Sanhedrin did plainly fail of performing their duty. Upon this account Maimonides excuses David for commanding Solomon not to suffer the grey hairs of Joab to go down to the grave in peace, and Solomon for appointing him to be kill’d at the foot of the altar: 10 for he having killed Abner and Amasa, and by those actions shed the blood of war in time of peace, the Sanhedrin should have punished him; but being protected by favour or power, and even David himself fearing him, Solomon was put in mind of his duty, which he performed, tho Joab laid hold upon the horns of the altar, which by the express words of the law gave no protection to wilful murderers.
The use of the military sword amongst them was also moderated. Their kings might make war upon the seven accursed nations that they were commanded to destroy, and so might any other man; for no peace was to be made with them: but not against any other nation, without the assent of the Sanhedrin. And when Amaziah contrary to that law had foolishly made war upon Joash king of Israel, and thereby brought a great slaughter upon Judah, the princes, that is the Sanhedrin, combined against him, pursued him to Lachish, and killed him there. 11
The legislative power of Sparta was evidently in the people. The laws that go under the name of Lycurgus, were proposed by him to the general assembly of the people, and from them received their authority: 12 But the discipline they contained was of such efficacy for framing the minds of men to virtue, and by banishing silver and gold they so far banished all manner of crimes, that from the institution of those laws to the times of their corruption, which was more than eight hundred years, we hardly find that three men were put to death, of whom two were kings; so that it seems difficult to determine where the power of judging did reside, tho ’tis most probable, considering the nature of their government, that it was in the senate, and in cases extraordinary in the ephori, with a right of appealing to the people. Their kings therefore could have little to do with the sword of justice, neither the legislative nor the judicial power being any ways in them.
The military sword was not much more in their power, unless the excellency of their virtues gave them the credit of persuading, when the law denied the right of commanding. They were obliged to make war against those, and those only, who were declared enemies by the senate and ephori, and in the manner, place and time they directed: so that Agesilaus, tho carrying on a glorious war in Persia, no sooner received the parchment roll, wherein he was commanded by the ephori to come home for the defence of his own country, than he immediately returned, and is on that account called by no less a man than Xenophon, a good and faithful king rendering obedience to the laws of his country. 13
By this it appears that there are kings who may be feared by those that do ill, and not by such as do well; for having no more power than what the law gives, and being obliged to execute it as the law directs, they cannot depart from the precept of the Apostle. My own actions therefore, or the sense of my own guilt arising from them, is to be the measure of my fear of that magistrate who is the minister of God, and not his power.
The like may be said of almost all the nations of the world, that have had anything of civil order amongst them. The supreme magistrate, under what name soever he was known, whether king, emperor, asymnetes, suffetes, consul, dictator, or archon, has usually a part assigned to him in the administration of justice and making war; but that he may know it to be assigned and not inherent, and so assigned as to be employ’d for the publick good, not to his own profit or pleasure, it is circumscribed by such rules as he cannot safely transgress. This is above all seen in the German nations, from whom we draw our original and government, and is so well described by Tacitus in his treatise of their customs and manners, 14 that I shall content myself to refer to it, and to what I have cited from him in the former part of this work. The Saxons coming into our country retain’d to themselves the same rights. They had no kings but such as were set up by themselves, and they abrogated their power when they pleased. Offa acknowledged that he was chosen for the defence of their liberty, not from his own merit, but by their favour; 15 and in the Conventus Pananglicus, at which all the chief men as well secular as ecclesiastical were present, it was decreed by the king, archbishops, bishops, abbots, dukes and senators, that the kings should be chosen by the priests, and by the elders of the people. In pursuance of which, Egbert, who had no right to the succession, was made king. Ethelwerd was chosen in the same manner by the consent of all. 16 Ethelwolf a monk, for want of a better, was advanced to the same honor. His son Alfred, tho crowned by the pope, and marrying without the consent of the nobility and kingdom against their customs and statutes, 17 acknowledged that he had received the crown from the bounty of the princes, elders and people; and in his will declared, that he left the people as he had found them, free as the inward thoughts of man. His son Edward was elected to be his successor. 18 Ethelstan, tho a bastard, and without all title, was elected by the consent of the nobility and people. Eadred by the same authority was elected and preferred before the sons of Edmond his predecessor. Edwin, tho rightly chosen, was deposed for his ill life, and Edgar elected king, by the will of God, and consent of the people. 19 But he also was deprived of the crown for the rape of a nun, and after seven years restored by the whole people, coram omni multitudine populi Anglorum. 20 Ethelred who is said to have been cruel in the beginning, wretched in the course, and infamous in the end of his reign, 21 was deposed by the same power that had advanced him. Canute made a contract with the princes and the whole people, 22 and thereupon was by general consent crown’d king over all England. After him Harold was chosen in the usual manner. He being dead, a message was sent to Hardicanute with an offer of the crown, which he accepted, and accordingly was received. Edward the Confessor was elected king with the consent of the clergy and people at London; 23 and Harold excused himself for not performing his oath to William the Norman, because he said he had made it unduly and presumptuously, without consulting the nobility and people, and without their authority. 24 William was received with great joy by the clergy and people, and saluted king by all, swearing to observe the ancient good and approved laws of England: and tho he did but ill perform his oath, yet before his death he seemed to repent of the ways he had taken, and only wishing his son might be king of England, he confessed in his last will made at Caen in Normandy, that he neither found nor left the kingdom as an inheritance. 25 If he possessed no right except what was conferred upon him, no more was conferred than had been enjoy’d by the ancient kings, according to the approved laws which he swore to observe. Those laws gave no power to any, till he was elected; and that which they did then give was so limited, that the nobility and people reserved to themselves the disposition of the greatest affairs, even to the deposition and expulsion of such as should not well perform the duty of their oaths and office. And I leave it to our author to prove, how they can be said to have had the sword and the power so as to be feared, otherwise than, as the Apostle says, by those that do evil; which we acknowledge to be not only in the king, but in the lowest officer of justice in the world.
If it be pretended that our later kings are more to be feared than William the Norman, or his predecessors, it must not be, as has been proved, either from the general right of kings, or from the doctrine of the Apostle, but from something else that is peculiar and subsequent, which I leave our author’s disciples to prove, and an answer may be found in due time. But to show that our ancestors did not mistake the words of the Apostle, ’tis good to consider when, to whom, and upon what occasion he spoke. The Christian religion was then in its infancy: his discourses were addressed to the professors of it, who tho they soon grew to be considerable in number, were for the most part of the meanest sort of people, servants or inhabitants of the cities, rather than citizens and freemen; joined in no civil body or society, nor such as had or could have any part in the government. The occasion was to suppress the dangerous mistake of many converted Jews and others, who knowing themselves to be freed from the power of sin and the Devil, presumed they were also freed from the obligation of human laws. And if this error had not been cropp’d in the bud, it would have given occasion to their enemies (who desired nothing more), to destroy them all; and who knowing that such notions were stirring among them, would have been glad, that they who were not easily to be discovered, had by that means discovered themselves.
This induced a necessity of diverting a poor, mean, scatter’d people from such thoughts concerning the state; to convince them of the error into which they were fallen, that Christians did not owe the same obedience to civil laws and magistrates as other men, and to keep them from drawing destruction upon themselves by such ways, as not being warranted by God, had no promise of his protection. St. Paul’s work was to preserve the professors of Christianity, as appears by his own words; I exhort, that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men: for kings, and for all that are in authority, that we may live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. 26 Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready for every good work. 27 St. Peter agrees with him fully in describing the magistrate and his duty; shewing the reasons why obedience should be pay’d to him, and teaching Christians to be humble and contented with their condition, as free, yet not using their liberty for a cover to malice; and not only to fear God and honor the king (of which conjunction of words such as Filmer are very proud) but to honor all men, as is said in the same verse. 28 This was in a peculiar manner the work of that time, in which those who were to preach and propagate the Gospel, were not to be diverted from that duty, by entangling themselves in the care of state-affairs; but it does in some sense agree with all times: for it can never be the duty of a good man to oppose such a magistrate as is the minister of God, in the exercise of his office, nor to deny to any man that which is his due.
But as the Christian law exempts no man from the duty he owes to his father, master, or the magistrate, it does not make him more a slave than he was before, nor deprive him of any natural or civil right; and if we are obliged to pay tribute, honor, or any other thing where it is not due, it must be by some precept very different from that which commands us to give to Caesar that which is Caesar’s. If he define the magistrate to be the minister of God doing justice, and from thence draws the reasons he gives for rendering obedience to him, we are to inquire whose minister he is who overthrows it, and look for some other reason for rendering obedience to him than the words of the apostles. If David, who was willing to lay down his life for the people, who hated iniquity, and would not suffer a liar to come into his presence, 29 was the minister of God, I desire to know whose minister Caligula was who set up himself to be worshipped for a god, and would at once have destroyed all the people that he ought to have protected? Whose minister was Nero, who, besides the abominable impurities of his life, and hatred to all virtue, as contrary to his person and government, set fire to the great city? If it be true, that contrariorum contraria est ratio, 30 these questions are easily decided; and if the reasons of things are eternal, the same distinction grounded upon truth will be good forever. Every magistrate, and every man by his works, will forever declare whose minister he is, in what spirit he lives, and consequently what obedience is due to him according to the precept of the Apostle. If any man ask what I mean by justice, I answer, that the law of the land, as far as it is sanctio recta, jubens honesta, prohibens contraria, 31 declares what it is. But there have been and are laws that are neither just nor commendable. There was a law in Rome, that no god should be worshipped without the consent of the senate: Upon which Tertullian says scoffingly, That God shall not be God unless he please man; 32 and by virtue of this law the first Christians were exposed to all manner of cruelties; and some of the emperors (in other respects excellent men) most foully polluted themselves and their government with innocent blood. Antoninus Pius was taken in this snare; and Tertullian bitterly derides Trajan for glorying in his clemency, when he had commanded Pliny, who was proconsul in Asia, not to make any search for Christians, but only to punish them according to law when they should be brought before him. 33 No municipal law can be more firmly established by human authority, than that of the Inquisition in Spain, and other places: And those accursed tribunals, which have shed more Christian blood than all the pagans that ever were in the world, is commonly called The Holy Office. If a gentleman in Poland kill a peasant, he is by a law now in use free from punishment, if he lay a ducat upon the dead body. Evenus the third, king of Scotland, caused a law to pass, by which the wives and daughters of noblemen were exposed to his lust, and those of the commons to the lust of the nobility. These, and an infinite number of others like to them, were not right sanctions, but such as have produced unspeakable mischiefs and calamities. They were not therefore laws: The name of justice is abusively attributed to them: Those that govern by them cannot be the ministers of God: and the Apostle commanding our obedience to the minister of God for our good, commands us not to be obedient to the minister of the Devil to our hurt; for we cannot serve two masters.
Our author having for a long time pretended conscience, now pulls off his mask, and plainly tells us, that ’tis not on account of conscience, but for fear of punishment, or hopes of reward, that laws are to be obeyed. That familiar distinction of the Schoolmen, says he, whereby they subject kings to the directive, but not to the coactive power of the law, is a confession, that kings are not bound by the positive laws of any nation, since the compulsory power of laws is that which properly makes laws to be laws. 1 Not troubling myself with this distinction of the Schoolmen, nor acknowledging any truth to be in it, or that they are competent judges of such matters, I say, that if it be true, our author’s conclusion is altogether false; for the directive power of the law, which is certain, and grounded upon the inherent good and rectitude that is in it, is that alone which has a power over the conscience, whereas the coercive is merely contingent; and the most just powers commanding the most just things, have so often fallen under the violence of the most unjust men, commanding the most execrable villainies, that if they were therefore to be obeyed, the consciences of men must be regulated by the success of a battle or conspiracy, than which nothing can be affirmed more impious and absurd. By this rule David was not to be obeyed, when by the wickedness of his son he was driven from Jerusalem, 2 and deprived of all coercive power; and the conscientious obedience that had been due to him was transferr’d to Absalom who sought his life. And in St. Paul’s time it was not from him who was guided only by the spirit of God, and had no manner of coercive power, that Christians were to learn their duty, but from Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, who had that power well established by the mercenary legions. If this were so, the governments of the world might be justly called magna latrocinia; 3 and men laying aside all considerations of reason or justice, ought only to follow those who can inflict the greatest punishments, or give the greatest rewards. But since the reception of such opinions would be the extirpation of all that can be called good, we must look for another rule of our obedience, and shall find that to be the law, which being, as I said before, sanctio recta, must be founded upon that eternal principle of reason and truth, from whence the rule of justice which is sacred and pure ought to be deduced, and not from the depraved will of man, which fluctuating according to the different interests, humors and passions that at several times reign in several nations, one day abrogates what had been enacted the other. The sanction therefore that deserves the name of a law, which derives not its excellency from antiquity, or from the dignity of the legislators, but from an intrinsick equity and justice, 4 ought to be made in pursuance of that universal reason to which all nations at all times owe an equal veneration and obedience. By this we may know whether he who has the power does justice or not: Whether he be the minister of God to our good, a protector of good, and a terror to ill men; or the minister of the Devil to our hurt, by encouraging all manner of evil, and endeavouring by vice and corruption to make the people worse, that they may be miserable, and miserable that they may be worse. I dare not say I shall never fear such a man if he be armed with power: But I am sure I shall never esteem him to be the minister of God, and shall think I do ill if I fear him. If he has therefore a coercive power over me, ’tis through my weakness; for he that will suffer himself to be compell’d, knows not how to die. 5 If therefore he who does not follow the directive power of the law, be not the minister of God, he is not a king, at least not such a king as the Apostle commands us to obey: And if that sanction which is not just be not a law, and can have no obligation upon us, by what power soever it be established, it may well fall out, that the magistrate who will not follow the directive power of the law, may fall under the coercive, and then the fear is turned upon him, with this aggravation, that it is not only actual, but just. This was the case of Nero; the coercive power was no longer in him, but against him. He that was forced to fly and to hide himself, that was abandoned by all men, and condemned to die according to ancient custom, 6 did, as I suppose, fear, and was no way to be feared. The like may be said of Amaziah king of Judah, when he fled to Lachish; 7 of Nebuchadnezzar, when he was driven from the society of men; 8 and of many emperors and kings of the greatest nations in the world, who have been so utterly deprived of all power, that they have been imprisoned, deposed, confined to monasteries, killtd, drawn through the streets, cut in pieces, thrown into rivers, and indeed suffer’d all that could be suffer’d by the vilest slaves.
If any man say these things ought not to have been done, an answer may be given in a proper place; though ’twere enough to say, that the justice of the world is not to be overthrown by a mere assertion without proof; but that is nothing to the present question: For if it was ill done to drive Nero to despair, or to throw Vitellius into the common shore, it was not because they were the ministers of God; for their lives were no way conformable to the character which the Apostle gives to those who deserve that sacred name. If those only are to be feared who have the power, there was a time when they were not to be feared, for they had none; and if those princes are not obliged by the law, who are not under the coercive power, it gave no exemption to those, for they fell under it: and as we know not what will befall others who walk in their steps, till they are dead, we cannot till then know whether they are free from it or not.
’Tis usual with impostors to obtrude their deceits upon men, by putting false names upon things, by which they may perplex men’s minds, and from thence deduce false conclusions. But the points abovemention’d being settled, it imports little whether the governors to whom Peter enjoins obedience, were only kings, and such as are employ’d by them, or all such magistrates as are the ministers of God; for he informs us of their works that we may know them, and accordingly yield obedience to them. This is that therefore which distinguishes the magistrate to whom obedience is due, from him to whom none is due, and not the name that he either assumes, or others put upon him. But if there be any virtue in the word king, and that the admirable prerogatives, of which our author dreams, were annexed to that name, they could not be applied to the Roman emperors, nor their substituted officers, for they had it not. ’Tis true, Mark Antony, in a drunken fit, at the celebration of the impure Lupercalia, did offer a diadem to Julius Caesar, which some flatterers pressed him to accept (as our great lawyers did Cromwell), but he durst not think of putting it upon his head. Caligula’s affectation of that title, and the ensigns of royalty he wore, were taken for the most evident marks of his madness: and tho the greatest and bravest of their men had fallen by the wars or proscriptions; tho the best part of the senate had perished in Thessaly; tho the great city was exhausted, and Italy brought to desolation, yet they were not reduced so low as to endure a king. Piso was sufficiently addicted to Tiberius, yet he could not suffer that Germanicus should be treated as the son of a king; Principis Romani non Parthorum regis filio has epulas dari. 1 And whoever understands the Latin tongue, and the history of those times, will easily perceive that the word princeps signified no more than a principal or eminent man, as has been already proved: and the words of Piso could have no other meaning, than that the son of a Roman ought not to be distinguished from others, as the sons of the Parthian kings were. This is verified by his letter to Tiberius, under the name of friend, and the answer of Tiberius promising to him whatsoever one friend could do for another. 2 Here was no mention of majesty or sovereign lord, nor the base subscriptions of servant, subject, or creature. And I fear, that as the last of those words was introduced amongst us by our bishops, the rest of them had been also invented by such Christians as were too much addicted to the Asiatick slavery. However, the name of king was never solemnly assumed by, nor conferred upon those emperors, and could have conferred no right, if it had. They exercised as they pleased, or as they durst, the power that had been gained by violence or fraud. The exorbitances they committed, could not have been justified by a title, any more than those of a pirate who should take the same. It was no otherwise given to them than by way of assimilation, when they were guilty of the greatest crimes: and Tacitus describing the detestable lust of Tiberius, says, Quibus adeo indomitis exarserat, ut more regio pubem ingenuam stupris pollueret; nec formam tantum decora corporis, sed in his modestam pueritiam, in aliis majorum imagines, incitamentum cupiditatis habebat. 3 He also informs us that Nero took his time to put Barea Soranus to death, who was one of the most virtuous men of that age, when Tiridates king of Armenia was at Rome; That he might shew the imperial grandeur by the slaughter of the most illustrious men, which he accounted a royal action. 4 I leave it to the judgment of all wise men, whether it be probable that the apostles should distinguish such as these from other magistrates; and dignify those only with the title of God’s ministers, who distinguished themselves by such ways; or that the succeeding emperors should be ennobled with the same prerogative, who had no other title to the name than by resembling those that had it in such things as these. If this be too absurd and abominable to enter into the heart of a man, it must be concluded, that their intention was only to divert the poor people to whom they preached, from involving themselves in the care of civil matters, to which they had no call. And the counsel would have been good (as things stood with them) if they had been under the power of a pirate, or any other villain substituted by him.
But tho the apostles had looked upon the officers set over the provinces belonging to the Roman empire, as sent by kings, I desire to know whether it can be imagined, that they could think the subordinate governors to be sent by kings, in the countries that had no kings; or that obedience became due to the magistrates in Greece, Italy, or other provinces under the jurisdiction of Rome, only after they had emperors, and that none was due to them before? The Germans had then no king: The brave Arminius had been lately kill’d for aiming at a crown. 5 When he had blemish’d all his virtues by that attempt, they forgot his former services. They never consider’d how many Roman legions he had cut in pieces, nor how many thousands of their allies he had destroy’d. His valour was a crime deserving death, when he sought to make a prey of his country, which he had so bravely defended, and to enslave those who with him had fought for the publick liberty. But if the apostles were to be understood to give the name of God’s ministers only to kings, and those who are employ’d by them, and that obedience is due to no other, a domestick tyrant had been their greatest benefactor. He had set up the only government that is authorized by God, and to which a conscientious obedience is due. Agathocles, Dionysius, Phalaris, Phaereus, Pisistratus, Nabis, Machanidas, and an infinite number of the most detestable villains that the world has ever produced, did confer the same benefits upon the countries they enslaved. But if this be equally false, sottish, absurd, and execrable, all those epithets belong to our author and his doctrine, for attempting to depress all modest and regular magistracies, and endeavouring to corrupt the Scripture to patronize the greatest of crimes. No man therefore who does not delight in error, can think that the Apostle designed precisely to determine such questions as might arise concerning any one man’s right, or in the least degree to prefer any one form of government before another. In acknowledging the magistrate to be man’s ordinance, he declares that man who makes him to be, may make him to be what he pleaseth; and tho there is found more prudence and virtue in one nation than in another, that magistracy which is established in any one ought to be obeyed, till they who made the establishment think fit to alter it. All therefore whilst they continue, are to be look’d upon with the same respect. Every nation acting freely, has an equal right to frame their own government, and to employ such officers as they please. The authority, right and power of these must be regulated by the judgment, right and power of those who appoint them, without any relation at all to the name that is given; for that is no way essential to the thing. The same name is frequently given to those, who differ exceedingly in right and power; and the same right and power is as often annexed to magistracies that differ in name. The same power which had been in the Roman kings, was given to the consuls; and that which had been legally in the dictators for a time not exceeding six months, was afterwards usurped by the Caesars, and made perpetual. The supreme power (which some pretend belongs to all kings) has been and is enjoy’d in the fullest extent by such as never had the name; and no magistracy was ever more restrain’d than those that had the name of kings in Sparta, Aragon, England, Poland and other places. They therefore that did thus institute, regulate and restrain, create magistracies, and give them names and powers as seemed best to them, could not but have in themselves the coercive as well as the directive over them: for the regulation and restriction is coercion; but most of all the institution, by which they could make them to be or not to be. As to the exterior force, ’tis sometimes on the side of the magistrate, and sometimes on that of the people; and as magistrates under several names have the same work incumbent upon them, and the same power to perform it, the same duty is to be exacted from them, and rendered to them: which being distinctly proportion’d by the laws of every country, I may conclude, that all magistratical power being the ordinance of man in pursuance of the ordinance of God, receives its being and measure from the legislative power of every nation. And whether the power be placed simply in one, a few, or many men; or in one body composed of the three simple species; whether the single person be called king, duke, marquess, emperor, sultan, mogul, or grand signor; or the number go under the name of senate, council, pregadi, diet, assembly of estates and the like, ’tis the same thing. The same obedience is equally due to all, whilst according to the precept of the Apostle, they do the work of God for our good: and if they depart from it, no one of them has a better title than the other to our obedience.
I know not who they are that our author introduces to say, that the first invention of laws was to bridle or moderate the overgreat power of kings; 1 and unless they give some better proof of their judgment in other things, shall little esteem them. They should have considered, that there are laws in many places where there are no kings; that there were laws in many before there were kings, as in Israel the law was given three hundred years before they had any; but most especially, that as no man can be a rightful king except by law, nor have any just power but from the law, if that power be found to be overgreat, the law that gave it must have been before that which was to moderate or restrain it; for that could not be moderated which was not in being. Leaving therefore our author to fight with these adversaries if he please when he finds them, I shall proceed to examine his own positions. The truth is, says he, the original of laws was for the keeping of the multitude in order. Popular estates could not subsist at all without laws, whereas kingdoms were govern’d many ages without them. The people of Athens as soon as they gave over kings, were forced to give power to Draco first, then to Solon to make them laws. If we will believe him therefore, wheresoever there is a king, or a man who by having power in his hands, is in the place of a king, there is no need of law. He takes them all to be so wise, just, and good, that they are laws to themselves, leges viventes. 2 This was certainly verified by the whole succession of the Caesars, the ten last kings of Pharamond’s race, all the successors of Charles the Great, and others that I am not willing to name; but referring myself to history, I desire all reasonable men to consider, whether the piety and tender care that was natural to Caligula, Nero or Domitian, was such a security to the nations that lived under them, as without law to be sufficient for their preservation: for if the contrary appear to be true, and that their government was a perpetual exercise of rage, malice and madness, by which the worst of men were armed with power to destroy the best, so that the empire could only be saved by their destruction, ’tis most certain, that mankind can never fall into a condition which stands more in need of laws to protect the innocent, than when such monsters reign who endeavour their extirpation, and are too well furnished with means to accomplish their detestable designs. Without any prejudice therefore to the cause that I defend, I might confess that all nations were at the first governed by kings, and that no laws were imposed upon those kings, till they, or the successors of those who had been advanced for their virtues, by falling into vice and corruption, did manifestly discover the inconveniences of depending upon their will. Besides these, there are also children, women and fools, that often come to the succession of kingdoms, whose weakness and ignorance stands in as great need of support and direction, as the desperate fury of the others can do of restriction. And if some nations had been so sottish, not to foresee the mischief of leaving them to their will, others, or the same in succeeding ages discovering them, could no more be obliged to continue in so pernicious a folly, than we are to live in that wretched barbarity in which the Romans found our ancestors, when they first entered this island.
If any man say, that Filmer does not speak of monsters, nor of children, women or fools, but of wise, just and good princes; I answer, that if there be a right inherent in kings, as kings, of doing what they please; and in those who are next in blood, to succeed them and inherit the same, it must belong to all kings, and such as upon title of blood would be kings. And as there is no family that may not, and does not often produce such as I mentioned, it must also be acknowledged in them; and that power which is left to the wise, just and good, upon a supposition that they will not make an ill use of it, must be devolved to those who will not or cannot make a good one; but will either maliciously turn it to the destruction of those they ought to protect, or through weakness suffer it to fall into the hands of those that govern them, who are found by experience to be for the most part the worst of all, most apt to use the basest arts, and to flatter the humors, and foment the vices that are most prevalent in weak and vicious princes. Germanicus, Corbulo, Valerius Asiaticus, Thrasea, Soranus, Helvidius Priscus, Julius Agricola, and other excellent men lived in the times of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero; but the power was put into the hands of Sejanus, Macro, Tigellinus, and other villains like to them: and I wish there were not too many modern examples to shew that weak and vicious princes will never chuse such as shall preserve nations from the mischiefs that would ensue upon their own incapacity or malice; but that they must be imposed upon them by some other power, or nations be ruined for want of them. This imposition must be by law or by force. But as laws are made to keep things in good order without the necessity of having recourse to force, it would be a dangerous extravagance to arm that prince with force, which probably in a short time must be opposed by force; and those who have been guilty of this error, as the kingdoms of the East, and the ancient Roman empire, where no provision was made by law against ill-governing princes, have found no other remedy than to kill them, when by extreme sufferings they were driven beyond patience: and this fell out so often, that few of their princes were observed to die by a common death. But since the empire was transmitted to Germany, and the emperors restrain’d by laws, that nation has never been brought to the odious extremities of suffering all manner of indignities, or revenging them upon the heads of princes. And if the pope had not disturb’d them upon the account of religion, nor driven their princes to disturb others, they might have passed many ages without any civil dissension, and all their emperors might have lived happily, and died peaceably, as most of them have done.
This might be sufficient to my purpose: for if all princes without distinction, whether good or bad, wise or foolish, young or old, sober or mad, cannot be entrusted with an unlimited power; and if the power they have, ought to be limited by law, that nations may not, with danger to themselves as well as to the prince, have recourse to the last remedy, this law must be given to all, and the good can be no otherwise distinguished from the bad, and the wise from the foolish, than by the observation or violation of it. But I may justly go a step farther, and affirm, that this law which by restraining the lusts of the vicious and foolish, frequently preserves them from the destruction they would bring upon themselves or people, and sometimes upon both, is an assistance and direction to the wisest and best; so that they also as well as the nations under them are gainers by it. This will appear strange only to those who know not how difficult and insupportable the government of great nations is, 3 and how unable the best man is to bear it. And if it surpass the strength of the best, it may easily be determined how ordinary men will behave themselves under it, or what use the worst will make of it. I know there have been wise and good kings; but they had not an absolute power, nor would have accepted it, tho it had been offer’d: much less can I believe that any of them would have transmitted such a power to their posterity, when none of them could know any more than Solomon, whether his son would be a wise man or a fool. But if the best might have desired, and had been able to bear it (tho Moses by his own confession was not) that could be no reason why it should be given to the worst and weakest, or those who probably will be so. Since the assurance that it will not be abused during the life of one man, is nothing to the constitution of a state which aims at perpetuity. And no man knowing what men will be, especially if they come to the power by succession, which may properly enough be called by chance, ’tis reasonably to be feared they will be bad, and consequently necessary so to limit their power, that if they prove to be so, the commonwealth may not be destroy’d, which they were instituted to preserve. The law provides for this in leaving to the king a full and ample power of doing as much good as his heart can wish, and in restraining his power so, that if he should depart from the duty of his office, the nation may not perish. This is a help to those who are wise and good, by directing them what they are to do, more certainly than any one man’s personal judgment can do; and no prejudice at all, since no such man did ever complain he was not suffer’d to do the evil which he would abhor if it were in his power; and is a most necessary curb to the fury of bad princes, preventing them from bringing destruction upon the people. Men are so subject to vices and passions, that they stand in need of some restraint in every condition; but most especially when they are in power. The rage of a private man may be pernicious to one or a few of his neighbours; but the fury of an unlimited prince would drive whole nations into ruin: And those very men who have lived modestly when they had little power have often proved the most savage of all monsters, when they thought nothing able to resist their rage. ’Tis said of Caligula, that no man ever knew a better servant, nor a worse master. 4 The want of restraint made him a beast, who might have continued to be a man. And tho I cannot say, that our law necessarily admits the next in blood to the succession (for the contrary is proved) yet the facility of our ancestors, in receiving children, women, or such men as were not more able than themselves to bear the weight of a crown, convinces me fully, that they had so framed our laws, that even children, women, or ill men, might either perform as much as was necessarily required of them, or be brought to reason if they transgressed, and arrogated to themselves more than was allow’d. For ’tis not to be imagined, that a company of men should so far degenerate from their own nature, which is reason, to give up themselves and their posterity, with all their concernments in the world, to depend upon the will of a child, a woman, an ill man, or a fool.
If therefore laws are necessary to popular states, they are no less to monarchies; or rather, that is not a state or government which has them not: and ’tis no less impossible for any to subsist without them, than for the body of a man to be, and perform its functions without nerves or bones. And if any people had ever been so foolish to establish that which they called a government, without laws to support and regulate it, the impossibility of subsisting would evidence the madness of the constitution, and ought to deter all others from following their example.
’Tis no less incredible, that those nations which rejected kings, did put themselves into the power of one man, to prescribe to them such laws as he pleased. But the instances alleged by our author are evidently false. The Athenians were not without laws when they had kings: Aegeus was subject to the laws, and did nothing of importance without the consent of the people; and Theseus not being able to please them, died a banished man: Draco and Solon did not make, but propose laws, and they were of no force till they were established by the authority of the people. 5 The Spartans dealt in the same manner with Lycurgus; he invented their laws, but the people made them: and when the assembly of all the citizens had approved and sworn to observe them till his return from Crete, he resolved rather to die in a voluntary banishment, than by his return to absolve them from the oath they had taken. 6 The Romans also had laws during the government of their kings; but not finding in them that perfection they desired, the decemviri were chosen to frame others, which yet were of no value till they were passed by the people in the comitia centuriata; 7 and being so approved, they were established. But this sanction, to which every man, whether magistrate or private citizen, was subject, did no way bind the whole body of the people, who still retained in themselves the power of changing both the matter and the form of their government, as appears by their instituting and abrogating kings, consuls, dictators, tribunes with consular power, and decemviri, when they thought good for the commonwealth. And if they had this power, I leave our author to shew, why the like is not in other nations.
Our author pursuing the mistakes to which he seems perpetually condemned, says, that when kings were either busied in war, or distracted with publick cares, so that every private man could not have access unto their persons, to learn their wills and pleasures, then of necessity were laws invented, that so every particular subject might find his prince’s pleasure. 1 I have often heard that governments were established for the obtaining of justice; and if that be true, ’tis hard to imagine what business a supreme magistrate can have to divert him from accomplishing the principal end of his institution. And ’tis as commonly said, that this distribution of justice to a people, is a work surpassing the strength of any one man. Jethro seems to have been a wise man, and ’tis probable he thought Moses to be so also; but he found the work of judging the people to be too heavy for him, and therefore advised him to leave the judgment of causes to others who should be chosen for that purpose; which advice Moses accepted, and God approved. 2 The governing power was as insupportable to him as the judicial. He desired rather to die than to bear so great a burden; and God neither accusing him of sloth or impatience, gave him seventy assistants. But if we may believe our author, the powers judicial and legislative, that of judging as well as that of governing, is not too much for any man, woman, or child whatsoever: and that he stands in no need, either of God’s statutes to direct him, or man’s counsel to assist him, unless it be when he is otherwise employ’d; and his will alone is sufficient for all. But what if he be not busied in greater matters, or distracted with publick cares; is every prince capable of this work? Tho Moses had not found it too great for him, or it should be granted that a man of excellent natural endowments, great wisdom, learning, experience, industry, and integrity might perform it, is it certain that all those who happen to be born in reigning families are so? If Moses had the law of God before his eyes, and could repair to God himself for the application or explanation of it; have all princes the same assistance? Do they all speak with God face to face, or can they do what he did, without the assistance he had? If all kings of mature years are of that perfection, are we assured that none shall die before his heir arrive to the same? Or shall he have the same ripeness of judgment in his infancy? If a child come to a crown, does that immediately infuse the most admirable endowments and graces? Have we any promise from heaven, that women shall enjoy the same prerogatives in those countries where they are made capable of the succession? Or does that law which renders them capable, defend them, not only against the frailty of their own nature, but confer the most sublime virtues upon them? But who knows not, that no families do more frequently produce weak or ill men, than the greatest? and that which is worse, their greatness is a snare to them; so that they who in a low condition might have passed unregarded, being advanced to the highest, have often appeared to be, or became the worst of all beasts; and they who advance them are like to them: For if the power be in the multitude, as our author is forced to confess (otherwise the Athenians and Romans could not have given all, as he says, nor a part, as I say, to Draco, Solon, or the decemviri) they must be beasts also, who should have given away their right and liberty, in hopes of receiving justice from such as probably will neither understand nor regard it, or protection from those who will not be able to help themselves, and expect such virtue, wisdom, and integrity should be, and forever remain in the family they set up as was never known to continue in any. If the power be not conferred upon them, they have it not; and if they have it not, their want of leisure to do justice, cannot have been the cause for which laws are made; and they cannot be the signification of their will, but are that to which the prince owes obedience, as well as the meanest subject. This is that which Bracton calls esse sub lege, 3 and says, that rex in regno superiores habet Deum legem. 4 Fortescue says, The kings of England cannot change the laws: 5 and indeed, they are so far from having any such power, that the judges swear to have no regard to the king’s letters or commands, but if they receive any, to proceed according to law, as if they had not been. And the breach of his oath does not only bring a blemish upon their reputation, but exposes them to capital punishments, as many of them have found. ’Tis not therefore the king that makes the law, but the law that makes the king. It gives the rule for succession, making kingdoms sometimes hereditary, and sometimes elective, and (more often than either simply) hereditary under condition. In some places males only are capable of inheriting, in others females are admitted. Where the monarchy is regular, as in Germany, England, c. the kings can neither make nor change laws: They are under the law, and the law is not under them; their letters or commands are not to be regarded: In the administration of justice, the question is not what pleases them, but what the law declares to be right, which must have its course, whether the king be busy or at leisure, whether he will or not. The king who never dies, is always present in the supreme courts, and neither knows nor regards the pleasure of the man that wears the crown. But lest he by his riches and power might have some influence upon judicial proceedings, the Great Charter that recapitulates and acknowledges our ancient inherent liberties, obliges him to swear, that he will neither sell, delay, nor deny justice to any man, according to the laws of the land: 6 which were ridiculous and absurd, if those laws were only the signification of his pleasure, or any way depended upon his will. This charter having been confirmed by more than thirty parliaments, all succeeding kings are under the obligation of the same oath, or must renounce the benefit they receive from our laws, which if they do, they will be found to be equal to every one of us.
Our author, according to his custom, having laid down a false proposition, goes about to justify it by false examples, as those of Draco, Solon, the decemviri, and Moses, of whom no one had the power he attributes to them, and it were nothing to us if they had. The Athenians and Romans, as was said before, were so far from resigning the absolute power without appeal to themselves, that nothing done by their magistrates was of any force, till it was enacted by the people. And the power given to the decemviri, sine provocatione, 7 was only in private cases, there being no superior magistrate then in being, to whom appeals could be made. They were vested with the same power the kings and dictators enjoy’d, from whom there lay no appeal, but to the people, and always to them; as appears by the case of Horatius in the time of Tullus Hostilius, 8 that of Marcus Fabius when Papirius Cursor was dictator, 9 and of Nenius the tribune during that of Q. Fabius Maximus, 10 all which I have cited already, and refer to them. There was therefore a reservation of the supreme power in the people, notwithstanding the creation of magistrates without appeal; and as it was quietly exercised in making strangers, or whom they pleased kings, restraining the power of dictators to six months, and that of the decemviri to two years; when the last did, contrary to law, endeavour by force to continue their power, the people did by force destroy it and them.
The case of Moses is yet more clear: he was the most humble and gentle of all men: he never raised his heart above his brethren, and commanded kings to live in the same modesty: he never desired the people should depend upon his will: In giving laws to them he fulfill’d the will of God, not his own; and those laws were not the signification of his will, but of the will of God. They were the production of God’s wisdom and goodness, not the invention of man; given to purify the people, not to advance the glory of their leader. He was not proud and insolent, nor pleas’d with that ostentation of pomp, to which fools give the name of majesty; and whoever so far exalts the power of a man, to make nations depend upon his pleasure, does not only lay a burden upon him, which neither Moses, nor any other could ever bear, and every wise man will always abhor; but with an impious fury, endeavours to set up a government contrary to the laws of God, presumes to accuse him of want of wisdom, or goodness to his own people, and to correct his errors, which is a work fit to be undertaken by such as our author.
From hence, as upon a solid foundation, he proceeds, and making use of King James’s words, infers, that kings are above the laws, because he so teaches us. 11 But he might have remembered, that having affirmed the people could not judge of the disputes that might happen between them and kings, because they must not be judges in their own case, ’tis absurd to make a king judge of a case so nearly concerning himself, in the decision of which his own passions and interests may probably lead him into errors. And if it be pretended that I do the same, in giving the judgment of those matters to the people, the case is utterly different, both in the nature and consequences. The king’s judgment is merely for himself; and if that were to take place, all the passions and vices that have most power upon men, would concur to corrupt it. He that is set up for the publick good, can have no contest with the whole people whose good he is to procure, unless he deflect from the end of his institution, and set up an interest of his own in opposition to it. This is in its nature the highest of all delinquencies; and if such a one may be judge of his own crimes, he is not only sure to avoid punishment, but to obtain all that he sought by them; and the worse he is, the more violent will his desires be, to get all the power into his hands, that he may gratify his lusts, and execute his pernicious designs. On the other side, in a popular assembly, no man judges for himself, otherwise than as his good is comprehended in that of the publick: Nothing hurts him, but what is prejudicial to the commonwealth: such amongst them as may have received private injuries, are so far only considered by others, as their sufferings may have influence upon the publick; if they be few, and the matters not great, others will not suffer their quiet to be disturbed by them; if they are many and grievous, the tyranny thereby appears to be so cruel, that the nation cannot subsist, unless it be corrected or suppress’d. Corruption of judgment proceeds from private passions, which in these cases never govern: and tho a zeal for the publick good may possibly be misguided, yet till it be so, it can never be capable of excess. The last Tarquin, and his lewd son, exercised their fury and lust in the murders of the best men in Rome, and the rape of Lucretia. Appius Claudius was filled with the like madness. Caligula and Nero were so well established in the power of committing the worst of villainies, that we do not hear of any man that offer’d to defend himself, or woman that presumed to refuse them. If they had been judges in these cases, the utmost of all villainies and mischiefs had been established by law: but as long as the judgment of these matters was in the people, no private or corrupt passion could take place. Lucius Brutus, Valerius, Horatius and Virginius, with the people that followed them, did not by the expulsion of the kings, or the suppression of the decemviri, assume to themselves a power of committing rapes and murders, nor any advantages beyond what their equals might think they deserved by their virtues, and services to the commonwealth; nor had they more credit than others for any other reason, than that they shewed themselves most forward in procuring the publick good, and by their valour and conduct best able to promote it.
Whatsoever happen’d after the overthrow of their liberty, belongs not to my subject, for there was nothing of popularity in the judgments that were made. One tyrant destroy’d another; the same passions and vices for the most part reigned in both: The last was often as bad as his predecessor whom he had overthrown; and one was sometimes approved by the people for no other reason, than that it was thought impossible for him to be worse than he who was in possession of the power. But if one instance can be of force amongst an infinite number of various accidents, the words of Valerius Asiaticus, who by wishing he had been the man that had kill’d Caligula, did in a moment pacify the fury of the soldiers who were looking for those that had done it, shew, that as long as men retain anything of that reason which is truly their nature, they never fail of judging rightly of virtue and vice; whereas violent and ill princes have always done the contrary, and even the best do often deflect from the rules of justice, as appears not only by the examples of Edward the first and third, who were brought to confess it, but even those of David and Solomon.
Moreover to shew that the decision of these controversies cannot belong to any king, but to the people, we are only to consider, that as kings and all other magistrates, whether supreme or subordinate, are constituted only for the good of the people, the people only can be fit to judge whether the end be accomplished. A physician does not exercise his art for himself, but for his patients; and when I am, or think I shall be sick, I send for him of whom I have the best opinion, that he may help me to recover, or preserve my health; but I lay him aside if I find him to be negligent, ignorant, or unfaithful; and it would be ridiculous for him to say, I make myself judge in my own case, for I only, or such as I shall consult, am fit to be the judge of it. He may be treacherous, and through corruption or malice endeavour to poison me, or have other defects that render him unfit to be trusted: but I cannot by any corrupt passion be led wilfully to do him injustice, and if I mistake, ’tis only to my own hurt. The like may be said of lawyers, stewards, pilots, and generally of all that do not act for themselves, but for those who employ them. And if a company going to the Indies, should find that their pilot was mad, drunk, or treacherous, they whose lives and goods are concerned, can only be fit to judge, whether he ought to be trusted or not, since he cannot have a right to destroy those he was chosen to preserve; and they cannot be thought to judge perversely, because they have nothing to lead them but an opinion of truth, and cannot err but to their own prejudice. In the like manner, not only Solon and Draco, but Romulus, Numa, Hostilius, the consuls, dictators, and decemviri, were not distinguished from others, that it might be well with them, sed ut bonum, faelix, faustumque sit populo Romano, 12 but that the prosperity and happiness of the people might be procured; which being the thing always intended, it were absurd to refer the judgment of the performance to him who is suspected of a design to overthrow it, and whose passions, interests, and vices, if he has any, lead him that way. If King James said anything contrary to this, he might be answered with some of his own words; I was, says he, sworn to maintain the laws of the land, and therefore had been perjured if I had broken them. 13 It may also be presumed, he had not forgotten what his master Buchanan had taught in the books he wrote chiefly for his instruction, that the violation of the laws of Scotland could not have been so fatal to most of his predecessors, kings of that country (nor as he himself had made them to his mother) if kings as kings were above them. 14
But says our author, yet will they rule their subjects by the law; and a king governing in a settled kingdom, leaves to be a king, and degenerates into a tyrant, so soon as he ceases to rule according unto his laws: Yet where he sees them rigorous or doubtful, he may mitigate or interpret. 1 This is therefore an effect of their goodness; they are above laws, but will rule by law, we have Filmer’s word for it. But I know not how nations can be assured their princes will always be so good: Goodness is always accompanied with wisdom, and I do not find those admirable qualities to be generally inherent or entail’d upon supreme magistrates. They do not seem to be all alike, and we have not hitherto found them all to live in the same spirit and principle. I can see no resemblance between Moses and Caligula, Joshua and Claudius, Gideon and Nero, Samson and Vitellius, Samuel and Otho, David and Domitian; nor indeed between the best of these and their own children. If the sons of Moses and Joshua had been like to them in wisdom, valour and integrity, ’tis probable they had been chosen to succeed them; if they were not, the like is less to be presumed of others. No man has yet observed the moderation of Gideon to have been in Abimelech; the piety of Eli in Hophni and Phineas; the purity and integrity of Samuel in Joel and Abiah, nor the wisdom of Solomon in Rehoboam. And if there was so vast a difference between them and their children, who doubtless were instructed by those excellent men in the ways of wisdom and justice, as well by precept as example, were it not madness to be confident, that they who have neither precept nor good example to guide them, but on the contrary are educated in an utter ignorance or abhorrence of all virtue, will always be just and good; or to put the whole power into the hands of every man, woman, or child that shall be born in governing families upon a supposition, that a thing will happen, which never did; or that the weakest and worst will perform all that can be hoped, and was seldom accomplished by the wisest and best, exposing whole nations to be destroy’d without remedy, if they do it not? And if this be madness in all extremity, ’tis to be presumed that nations never intended any such thing, unless our author prove that all nations have been mad from the beginning, and must always continue to be so. To cure this, he says, They degenerate into tyrants; and if he meant as he speaks, it would be enough. For a king cannot degenerate into a tyrant by departing from that law, which is only the product of his own will. But if he do degenerate, it must be by departing from that which does not depend upon his will, and is a rule prescribed by a power that is above him. This indeed is the doctrine of Bracton, who having said that the power of the king is the power of the law, because the law makes him king, adds, That if he do injustice, he ceases to be king, degenerates into a tyrant, and becomes the vicegerent of the Devil. 2 But I hope this must be understood with temperament, and a due consideration of human frailty, so as to mean only those injuries that are extreme; for otherwise he would terribly shake all the crowns of the world.
But lest our author should be thought once in his life to have dealt sincerely, and spoken truth, the next lines shew the fraud of his last assertion, by giving to the prince a power of mitigating or interpreting the laws that he sees to be rigorous or doubtful. But as he cannot degenerate into a tyrant by departing from the law which proceeds from his own will, so he cannot mitigate or interpret that which proceeds from a superior power, unless the right of mitigating or interpreting be conferred upon him by the same. For as all wise men confess that none can abrogate but those who may institute, 3 and that all mitigation and interpretation varying from the true sense is an alteration, that alteration is an abrogation; for whatsoever is changed is dissolved, 4 and therefore the power of mitigating is inseparable from that of instituting. This is sufficiently evidenced by Henry the Eighth’s answer to the speech made to him by the speaker of the House of Commons 1545, in which he, tho one of the most violent princes we ever had, confesses the parliament to be the law-makers, and that an obligation lay upon him rightly to use the power with which he was entrusted. The right therefore of altering being inseparable from that of making laws, the one being in the parliament, the other must be so also. Fortescue says plainly, the king cannot change any law: Magna Charta casts all upon the laws of the land and customs of England: 5 but to say that the king can by his will make that to be a custom, or an ancient law, which is not, or that not to be so which is, is most absurd. He must therefore take the laws and customs as he finds them, and can neither detract from, nor add anything to them. The ways are prescribed as well as the end. Judgments are given by equals, per pares . The judges who may be assisting to those, are sworn to proceed according to law, and not to regard the king’s letters or commands. The doubtful cases are reserved, and to be referred to the parliament, as in the statute of 35 Edw. 3d concerning treasons, but never to the king. 6 The law intending that these parliaments should be annual, and leaving to the king a power of calling them more often, if occasion require, takes away all pretence of a necessity that there should be any other power to interpret or mitigate laws. For ’tis not to be imagined that there should be such a pestilent evil in any ancient law, custom, or later act of parliament, which being on the sudden discover’d, may not without any great prejudice continue for forty days, till a parliament may be called; whereas the force and essence of all laws would be subverted, if under colour of mitigating and interpreting, the power of altering were allow’d to kings, who often want the inclination, and for the most part the capacity of doing it rightly. ’Tis not therefore upon the uncertain will or understanding of a prince, that the safety of a nation ought to depend. He is sometimes a child, and sometimes overburden’d with years. Some are weak, negligent, slothful, foolish or vicious: others, who may have something of rectitude in their intentions, and naturally are not incapable of doing well, are drawn out of the right way by the subtlety of ill men who gain credit with them. That rule must always be uncertain, and subject to be distorted, which depends upon the fancy of such a man. He always fluctuates, and every passion that arises in his mind, or is infused by others, disorders him. The good of a people ought to be established upon a more solid foundation. For this reason the law is established, which no passion can disturb. ’Tis void of desire and fear, lust and anger. ’Tis mens sine affectu, 7 written reason, retaining some measure of the divine perfection. It does not enjoin that which pleases a weak, frail man, but without any regard to persons commands that which is good, and punishes evil in all, whether rich or poor, high or low. ’Tis deaf, inexorable, inflexible.
By this means every man knows when he is safe or in danger, because he knows whether he has done good or evil. But if all depended upon the will of a man, the worst would be often the most safe, and the best in the greatest hazard: Slaves would be often advanced, the good and the brave scorn’d and neglected. The most generous nations have above all things sought to avoid this evil: and the virtue, wisdom and generosity of each may be discern’d by the right fixing of the rule that must be the guide of every man’s life, and so constituting their magistracy that it may be duly observed. Such as have attained to this perfection, have always flourished in virtue and happiness: They are, as Aristotle says, governed by God, rather than by men, whilst those who subjected themselves to the will of a man were governed by a beast.
This being so, our author’s next clause, that tho a king do frame all his actions to be according unto law, yet he is not bound thereunto, but as his good will, and for good example, or so far forth as the general law for the safety of the commonwealth doth naturally bind him, 8 is wholly impertinent. For if the king who governs not according to law, degenerates into a tyrant, he is obliged to frame his actions according to law, or not to be a king; for a tyrant is none, but as contrary to him, as the worst of men is to the best. But if these obligations were untied, we may easily guess what security our author’s word can be to us, that the king of his own good will, and for a good example, will frame his actions according to the laws; when experience instructs us, that notwithstanding the strictest laws, and most exquisite constitutions, that men of the best abilities in the world could ever invent to restrain the irregular appetites of those in power, with the dreadful examples of vengeance taken against such as would not be restrained, they have frequently broken out; and the most powerful have for the most part no otherwise distinguished themselves from the rest of men, than by the enormity of their vices, and being the most forward in leading others to all manner of crimes by their example.
Our author’s last clause acknowledging kings to be bound by a general law to provide for the safety of the people, would be sufficient for my purpose if it were sincere; for municipal laws do only shew how that should be performed: and if the king by departing from that rule degenerates, as he says, into a tyrant, ’tis easily determined what ought then to be done by the people. But his whole book being a heap of contradictions and frauds, we can rely upon nothing that he says: And his following words, which under the same law comprehend both kings and tyrants, shew that he intends kings should be no otherwise obliged than tyrants, which is, not at all. By this means, says he, are all kings, even tyrants and conquerors, bound to preserve the lands, goods, liberties and lives of all their subjects, not by any municipal law of the land, so much as by the natural law of a father, which obligeth them to ratify the acts of their forefathers and predecessors in things necessary for the publick good of their subjects. 1 If he be therefore in the right, tyrants and conquerers are kings and fathers. The words that have been always thought to comprehend the most irreconcileable contrariety, the one expressing the most tender love and care, evidently testified by the greatest obligations conferred upon those who are under it; the other the utmost of all injuries that can be offer’d to men, signify the same thing: There is no difference between a magistrate who is what he is by law, and a publick enemy, who by force or fraud sets himself up against all law: And what he said before, that kings degenerated into tyrants, signifies nothing, for tyrants also are kings.
His next words are no less incomprehensible; for neither king nor tyrant can be obliged to preserve the lands, goods and liberties of their subjects if they have none. But as liberty consists only in being subject to no man’s will, and nothing denotes a slave but a dependence upon the will of another; if there be no other law in a kingdom than the will of a prince, there is no such thing as liberty. Property also is an appendage to liberty; and ’tis as impossible for a man to have a right to lands or goods, if he has no liberty, and enjoys his life only at the pleasure of another, as it is to enjoy either when he is deprived of them. He therefore who says kings and tyrants are bound to preserve their subjects’ lands, liberties, goods and lives, and yet lays for a foundation, that laws are no more than the significations of their pleasure, seeks to delude the world with words which signify nothing.