ment; nor doth he think any one regular species of government more acceptable to God than another. The three generally received in the schools have, all of them, their several perfections, and are subject to their several depravations. However, few states are ruined by any defect in their institution, but generally by the corruption of manners, against which the best institution is no longer a security, and without which a very ill one may subsist and flourish; whereof there are two pregnant instances now in Europe. The first is the aristocracy of Venice; which founded upon the wisest maxims, and digested by a great length of time, hath in our age admitted so many abuses, through the degeneracy of the nobles, that the period of its duration seems to approach.

The other is the united republic of the States-General, where a vein of temperance, industry, parsimony, and a public spirit running through the whole body of the people, hath preserved an infant commonwealth of an untimely birth and sickly constitution, for above an hundred years, through so many dangers and difficulties, as a much more healthy one could have never struggled against without those advantages.

Where security of person and property are preserved by laws, which none but the whole can repeal, there the great ends of government are provided for, whether the administration be in the hands of one or of many. Where any one person or body of men, who do not represent the whole, seize into their hands the power in the last resort, there is properly no longer a gov ernment, but what Aristotle and his followers call the abuse and corruption of one. This distinction excludes arbitrary power, in whatever numbers; which, notwithstanding all that Hobbes, Filmer, and others, have said to its advantage, I look upon as a greater evil than anarchy itself; as much as a savage is in a hap-. pier state of life, than a slave at the oar.

It is reckoned ill manners, as well as unreasonable, for men to quarrel upon difference in opinion; because that is usually supposed to be a thing which no man can help in himself. But this I do not conceive to be an universal infallible maxim, except in those cases where the question is pretty equally disputed among the learned and the wise. Where it is otherwise, a man of tolerable reason, some experience, and willing to be instructed, may apprehend he has got into a wrong opinion, though the whole course of his mind and inclination would persuade him to believe it true: he may be convinced that he is in an error, though he does not see where it lies, by the bad effects of it in the common conduct of his life, and by observing those persons, for whose wisdom and goodness he hath the greatest deference, to be of a contrary sentiment. According to Hobbes's comparison of reasoning with

casting up accounts, whoever finds a mistake in the sum total must allow himself out, though, after repeated trials, he may not see in which article he has misreckoned. I will instance in one opi nion, which I look upon every man obliged in conscience to quit, or in prudence to conceal; I mean, that whoever argues in defence of absolute power in a single person, though he offers the old plausible plea, that it is his opinion, which he cannot help, unless he be convinced, ought in all free states to be treated as the common enemy of mankind. Yet this is laid as a heavy charge upon the clergy of the two reigns before the revolution, who, under the terms of passive obedience and non-resistance, are said to have preached up the unlimited power of the prince, because they found it a doctrine that pleased the court, and made way for their preferment. And I believe, there may be truth enough in this accusation to convince us, that human frailty will too often interpose itself among persons of the holiest function. However, it may be offered in excuse for the clergy, that in the best societies there are some ill members, which a corrupted court and ministry will industriously find out and introduce. Besides, it is manifest, that the greater number of those who held and preached this doctrine, were misguided by equivocal terms, and by perfect ignorance in the principles of government, which they had not made any part of their study. The question originally put, and as I remember to have heard it disputed in public schools, was this, Whether, under any pretence whatsoever, it may be lawful to resist the supreme magistrate? which was held in the negative; and this is certainly the right opinion. But many of the clergy, and other learned men, deceived by a dubious expression, mistook the object to which passive obedience was due. By the supreme, magistrate is properly understood the legislative power, which in all governments must be absolute and unlimited. But the word magistrate seeming to denote a single person, and to express the executive power, it came to pass, that the obedience due to the legislature was for want of knowing or considering this easy distinction, misapplied to the administration. Neither is it any wonder, that the clergy or other well-meaning people should fall into this error which deceived Hobbes himself so far, as to be the foundation of all the political mistakes in his books; where he perpetually confounds the executive with the legislative power; though all well instituted states have ever placed them in different hands; as may be obvious to those, who know any thing of Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and other republics of Greece, as well as the greater ones of Carthage and Rome.

Besides, it is to be considered, that when these doctrines began to be preached among us, the kingdom had not quite worn out the memory of that horrid rebellion, under the consequences

of which it had groaned almost twenty years. And a weak prince, in conjunction with a succession of most prostitute ministers, began again to dispose the people to new attempts, which it was, no doubt, the clergy's duty to endeavour to prevent; though some of them, for want of knowledge in temporal affairs, and others, perhaps, from a worse principle, proceeded upon a topic, that, strictly followed, would inslave all mankind.

Among other theological arguments made use of in those times in praise of monarchy, and justification of absolute obedience to a prince, there seemed to be one of a singular nature. It was urged, that heaven was governed by a monarch, who had none to controul his power, but was absolutely obeyed: then it followed, that earthly governments were the more perfect, the nearer they imitated the government in heaven. All which I look upon as the strongest argument against despotic power that ever was offered; since no reason can possibly be assigned, why it is best for the world, that God Almighty hath such a power, which doth not directly prove that no mortal man should ever have the like.

But though a church-of-England-man thinks every species of government equally lawful, he does not think them equally expedient; or for every country indifferently. There may be something in the climate, naturally disposing men towards one sort of obedience; as it is manifest all over Asia, where we never read of any commonwealth, except some small ones on the western coasts established by the Greeks. There may be a great deal in the situation of a country, and in the present genius of the people. It hath been observed, that the temperate climates usually run into moderate governments, and the extremes into despotic power. It is a remark of Hobbes, that the youth of England are corrupted in their principles of government, by reading the authors of Greece and Rome, who writ under commonwealths. But it might have been more fairly offered for the honour of liberty, that while the rest of the known world was over-run with the arbitrary government of single persons, arts and sciences took their rise, and flourished, only in those few small territories where the people were free. And though learning may continue after liberty is lost, as it did in Rome, for a while, upon the foundations laid under the commonwealth, and the particular patronage of some emperors, yet it hardly ever began under a tyranny in any nation because slavery is, of all things, the greatest clog and obstacle to speculation. And, indeed, arbitrary power is but the first natural step from anarchy, or the savage life; the adjusting power and freedom being an effect and consequence of maturer thinking: and this is no where so duly regulated as in a limited monarchy; because I believe it may pass for a maxim in state, that the administration cannot be placed in too few

kands, nor the legislature in too many. Now, in this material point the constitution of the English government far exceeds all others at this time on the earth; to which the present establishments of the church doth so happily agree, that, I think, whoever is an enemy to either, must of necessity be so to both.

pre

He thinks as our monarchy is constituted, an hereditary right is much to be preferred before election: because the government here, especially by some late amendments, is so regularly dispos ed in all its parts, that it almost executes itself; and therefore, upon the death of a prince among us, the administration goes on without any rub or interruption. For the same reasons, we have less to apprehend from the weakness or fury of our monarchs, who have such wise councils to guide the first, and laws to restrain the other. And therefore this hereditary right should be kept so sacred, as never to break the succession, unless where the serving it may endanger the constitution; which is not from any intrinsic merit or unalienable right in a particular family, but to avoid the consequences that usually attend the ambition of com. petitors, to which elective kingdoms are exposed; and which is the only obstacle to hinder them from arriving at the greatest perfection that government can possibly reach. Hence appears the absurdity of that distinction between a king de facto and one de jure, with respect to us. For every limited monarch is a king de jure; because he governs by the consent of the whole, which is authority sufficient to abolish ali precedent right. If a king come in by conquest, he is no longer a limited monarch; if he afterwards consent to limitations, he becomes immediately king de jure, for the same reason.

The great advocates for succession, who affirm it ought not to be violated upon any regard or consideration whatsoever, do insist much upon one argument, that seems to carry little weight, They would have it, that a crown is a prince's birth-right, and ought at least to be as well secured to him and his posterity, as the inheritance of any private man; in short, that he has the same title to his kingdom, which every individual has to his property. Now, the consequence of this doctrine must be, that as a man may find several ways to waste, mis-spend, or abuse his patrimony, without being answerable to the laws; so a king may in like manner do what he will with his own; that is, he may squander and misapply his revenues, and even alienate the crown, without being called to an account by his subjects. They allow such a prince to be guilty indeed of much folly and wickedness; but for these he is answerable to God, as every private man must be that is guilty of mismanagement in his own concerns. Now, the folly of this reasoning will best appear, by applying in it a parallel Should any man argue, that a physician is supposed to

case.

VOL. I.

Ff

understand his own art best; that the law protects and encour ages his profession; and therefore, although he should manifestly prescribe poison to all his patients, whereof they should immedi ately die, he cannot be justly punished, but is answerable only to God or should the same be offered in behalf of a divine, who would preach against religion and moral duties: in either of these two cases every body would find out the sophistry, and presently answer, that although common men are not exactly skilled in the composition or application of medicines, or in prescribing the limits of duty; yet the difference between poisons and remedies is easily known by their effects; and common reason soon distinguishes between virtue and vice: and it must be necessary to forbid both these the further practice of their professions, because their crimes are not purely personal to the physician or the divine, but destructive to the public. All which is infinitely stronger in respect to a prince, in whose good or ill conduct the happiness or misery of a whole nation is included: whereas it is of small consequence to the public, farther than example, how any private person manageth his property.

But granting that the right of a lineal successor to a crown were upon the same foot with property of a subject; still it may at any time be transferred by the legislative power, as other properties frequently are. The supreme power in a state can do no wrong; because whatever that doth, is the action of all; and when the lawyers apply this maxim to the king, they must understand it only in that sense, as he is administrator of the supreme power; otherwise it is not universally true, but may be controlled in several instances, easy to produce.

And these are the topics we must proceed upon to justify our exclusion of the young pretender in France; that of his suspected birth being merely popular, and therefore not made use of, as I remember, since the revolution, in any speech, vote, or proclamation, where there was occasion to mention him.

As to the abdication of King James, which the advocates on that side look upon to have been forcible and unjust, and consequently void in itself, I think a man may observe every article of the English church, without being in much pain about it. It is not unlikely, that all doors were laid open for his departure, and perhaps not without the privity of the Prince of Orange; as rea sonably concluding, that the kindom might be better settled in his absence. But to affirm he had any cause to apprehend the same treatment with his father, is an improbable scandal flung upon the nation by a few bigotted French scribblers, or the invidious assertion of a ruined party at home in the bitterness of their souls; not one material circumstance agreeing with those in 1648; and the greatest part of the nation having preserved