A Survey of Mr Hobbes His Leviathan
by Edward, Earl of Clarendon


    I have alwaies thought it a great excess in those who take
upon them to answer other Mens Writings, to hold themselves
oblig'd to find fault with every thing that they say, and to
answer every clause, period, and proposition which he, to whom
they have made themselves an adversary, hath laid down; by which,
besides the voluminousness that it produces, which in it self is
grievous to any Reader, they cannot but be guilty of many
impertinences, and expose themselves to the just censures of
others, and to the advantage of their Antagonists; since there
are few Books which do not contain many things which are true,
and cannot, or need not be contradicted. And considering withall,
that those Books have in all times don most mischief, and
scatter'd abroad the most pernicious errors, in which the
Authors, by the Ornament of their Style, and the pleasantness of
their method, and subtlety of their Wit, have from specious
premises, drawn their unskilful and unwary Readers into
unwarrantable opinions and conclusions, being intoxicated with
terms and Allegorical expressions, which puzzel their
understandings, and lead them into perplexities, from whence they
cannot disentangle themselves; I have proposed to my self, to
make some Animadversions upon such particulars, as may in my
judgment produce much mischief in the World, in a Book of great
Name, and which is entertain'd and celebrated (at least enough)
in the World; a Book which contains in it good learning of all
kinds, politely extracted, and very wittily and cunningly
disgested, in a very commendable method, and in a vigorous and
pleasant Style: which hath prevailed over too many, to swallow
many new tenets as maximes without chewing; which manner of diet
for the indigestion Mr Hobbes himself doth much dislike. The
thorough novelty (to which the present age, if ever any, is too
much inclin'd) of the work receives great credit and authority
from the known Name of the Author, a Man of excellent parts, of
great wit, some reading, and somewhat more thinking; One who has
spent many years in foreign parts and observation, understands
the Learned as well as modern Languages, hath long had the
reputation of a great Philosopher and Mathematician, and in his
age hath had conversation with very many worthy and extraordinary
Men to which, it may be, ifhe had bin more indulgent in the more
vigorous part of his life, it might have had a greater influence
upon the temper of his mind, whereas age seldom submits to those
questions, enquiries, and contradictions, which the Laws and
liberty of conversation require: and it hath bin alwaies a
lamentation amongst Mr Hobbes his Friends, that he spent too much
time in thinking, and too little in exercising those thoughts in
the company of other Men of the same, or of as good faculties;
for want whereof his natural constitution, with age, contracted
such a morosity, that doubting and contradicting Men were never
grateful to him. In a word, Mr Hobbes is one of the most antient
acquaintance I have in the World, and of whom I have alwaies had
a great esteem, as a Man who besides his eminent parts of
Learning and knowledg, hath bin alwaies looked upon as a Man of
Probity, and a life free from scandal; and it may be there are
few Men now alive, who have bin longer known to him then I have
bin in a fair and friendly conversation and sociableness; and I
had the honor to introduce those, in whose perfections he seemed
to take much delight, and whose memory he seems most to extol,
first into his acquaintance. In all which respects, both of the
Author and the work, it cannot reasonably be imagined, that any
vanity hath transported me, who know my self so incompetent for
the full disquisition of this whole work, which contains in it
many parts of knowledg and Learning in which I am not conversant;
and also the disadvantage, that so many years have passed since
the publication of this Book, without any thing like an answer to
the most mischievous parts of it as to Civil Government; at least
I had seen none such, till after I had finished this discourse,
what was at Montpelier in the moneth of April One thousand six
hundred and seventy, where I wanted many of those Books which had
bin necessary to have bin carefully consulted and perused, if I
had propos'd to my self to have answer'd many of those Scholastic
points, which seem to me enough expos'd to just censure and
reproch, and which I did suppose some University Men would have
taken occasion from, to have vindicated those venerable Nurseries
from that vice and ignorance, his superciliousness hath thought
fit to asperse them with. I do confess since that time I have
read several answers and reflexions, made by Learned Men of both
the Universities, in English and in Latine upon his Leviathan, or
his other works published before and after; which several answers
(though they have very pregnantly discover'd many gross errors,
and grosser oversights in those parts of Science in which Mr
Hobbes would be thought to excel, which are like to put him more
out of countenance then any thing I can urge against him, by how
much he values himself more upon being thought a good
Philosopher, and a good Geometrician, then a modest Man, or a
good Christian) have not so far discouraged me, as to cause me,
either to beleive what I had thought of and prepared before, to
be the less pertinent to be communicated, or at all to inlarge,
or contract my former conceptions (though probably many things
which I offer are more vigorously urg'd, and expressed in some of
the other answers.) Notwithstanding all which, his Person is by
many received with respect, and his Books continue still to be
esteem'd, as well abroad as at home: which might very well have
prevail'd, with those before mention'd arguments, to have
diverted me from pretending to see farther into them then other
Men had don, and to discover a malignity undiscerned that should
make them odious. But then how prevalent soever these motives
were with me; when I reflected upon the most mischievous
Principles, and most destructive to the Peace both of Church and
State, which are scatter'd throughout that Book of his Leviathan,
(which I only take upon me to discover) and the unhappy
impression they have made in the minds of too many; I thought my
self the more oblig'd, and not the less competent for those
animadversions, by the part I had acted for many years in the
public administration of Justice, and in the Policy of the
Kingdom. And the leasure to which God hath condemn'd me, seems an
invitation, and obligation upon me, to give a testimony to the
World, that my duty and affection for my King and Country, is not
less then it hath ever bin, when it was better interpreted, by
giving warning to both, of the danger they are in by the
seditious Principles of this Book, that they may in time provide
for their Security by their abolishing and extirpating those, and
the like excesses. And as it could not reasonably be expected,
that such a Book would be answer'd in the time when it was
publish'd, which had bin to have disputed with a Man that
commanded thirty Legions, (for Cromwel had bin oblig'd to have
supported him, who defended his Usurpation;) so afterwards Men
thought it would be too much ill nature to call Men in question
for what they had said in ill times, and for saying which they
had a plenary Indulgence and Absolution. And I am still of
opinion, that even of those who have read his Book, and not
frequented his Company, there are many, who being delighted with
some new notions, and the pleasant and clear Style throughout the
Book, have not taken notice of those down-right Conclusions,
which overthrow or undermine all those Principles of Government,
which have preserv'd the Peace of this Kingdom through so many
ages, even from the time of its first Institution; or restor'd it
to Peace, when it had at some times bin interrupted: and much
less of those odious insinuations, and perverting some texts of
Scripture, which do dishonour, and would destroy the very Essence
of the Religion of Christ. And when I called to mind the good
acquaintance that had bin between us, and what I had said to many
who I knew had inform'd him of it, and which indeed I had sent to
himself upon the first publishing of his Leviathan, I thought my
self even bound to give him some satisfacrion why I had
entertained so evil an opinion of his Book.
    When the Prince went first to Paris from Jersey, and My Lords
Capel and Hopton stayed in Jersey together with my self, I heard
shortly after, that Mr Hobbes who was then at Paris, had Printed
his Book De Cive there. I writ to Dr Earles, who was then the
Princes Chaplain, and his Tutor, to remember me kindly to Mr
Hobbes with whom I was well acquainted, and to desire him to send
me his Book De Cive, by the same token that Sid. Godolphin (who
had bin kill'd in the late Warr) had left him a Legacy of two
hundred pounds. The Book was immediately sent to me by Mr Hobbes,
with a desire that I would tell him, whether I was sure that
there was such a Legacy, and how he might take notice of it to
receive it. I sent him word that he might depend upon it for a
truth, and that I believed that if he found some way secretly (to
the end there might be no public notice of it in regard of the
Parliament) to demand it of his Brother francis Godolphin, (who
in truth had told me of it) he would pay it. This information was
the ground of the Dedication of this Book to him, whom Mr Hobbes
had never seen.
    When I went some years after from Holland with the King
(after the Murther of his Father) to Paris, from whence I went
shortly his Majesties Ambassador into Spaine, Mr Hobbes visited
me, and told me that Mr Godolphin confessed the Legacy, and had
paid him one hundred pounds, and promised to pay the other in a
short time; for all which he thankt me, and said he owed it to
me, for he had never otherwise known of it. When I return'd from
Spaine by Paris he frequently came to me, and told me his Book
(which he would call Leviathan) was then Printing in England, and
that he receiv'd every week a Sheet to correct, of which he
shewed me one or two Sheets, and thought it would be finished
within little more then a Moneth; and shewed me the Epistle to Mr
Godolphin which he meant to set before it, and read it to me, and
concluded, that he knew when I read his Book I would not like it,
and thereupon mention'd some of his Conclusions; upon which I
asked him, why he would publish such doctrine: to which, after a
discourse between jest and earnest upon the Subject, he said, The
truth is, I have a mind to go home.
    Within a very short time after I came into flanders, which
was not much more then a Moneth from the time that Mr Hobbes had
conferred with me, Leviathan was sent to me from London; which I
read with much appetite and impatience. yet I had scarce finish'd
it, when Sr Charles Cavendish (the noble Brother of the Duke of
Newcastle who was then at Antwerp, and a Gentleman of all the
accomplishments of mind that he wanted of body, being in all
other respects a wonderful person) shewed me a Letter he had then
receiv'd from Mr Hobbes, in which he desir'd he would let him
know freely what my opinion was of his Book. Upon which I wished
he would tell him, that I could not enough wonder, that a Man,
who had so great a reverence for Civil Government, that he
resolv'd all Wisdom and Religion it self into a simple obedience
and submission to it, should publish a Book, for which, by the
constitution of any Government now establish'd in Europe, whether
Monarchical or Democratical, the Author must be punish'd in the
highest degree, and with the most severe penalties. With which
answer (which Sr Charles sent to him) he was not pleased; and
found afterwards when I return'd to the King to Paris, that I
very much censur'd his Book, which he had presented, engross'd in
Vellam in a marvellous fair hand, to the King; and likewise found
my judgment so far confirmed, that few daies before I came
thither, he was compell'd secretly to fly out of Paris, the
Justice having endeavour'd to apprehend him, and soon after
escap'd into England, where he never receiv'd any disturbance.
After the Kings return he came frequently to the Court, where he
had too many Disciples; and once visited me. I receiv'd him very
kindly, and invited him to see me often, but he heard from so
many hands that I had no good opinion of his Book, that he came
to me only that one time: and methinks I am in a degree indebted
to him, to let him know some reason why I look with so much
prejudice upon his Book, which hath gotten him so much credit and
estimation with some other men.
    I am not without some doubt, that I shall in this discourse,
which I am now ingaged in, trangress in a way I do very heartily
dislike, and frequently censure in others, which is Sharpness of
Language, and too much reproching the Person against whom I
write; which is by no means warrantable, when it can be possibly
avoided without wronging the truth in debate. yet I hope nothing
hath fallen from my Pen, which implies the least undervaluing of
Mr Hobbes his Person, or his Parts. But if he, to advance his
opinion in Policy, too imperiously reproches all men who do not
consent to his Doctrine, it can hardly be avoided, to reprehend
so great presumption, and to make his Doctrines appear as odious,
as they ought to be esteemed: and when he shakes the Principles
of Christian Religion, by his new and bold Interpretations of
Scripture, a man can hardly avoid saying, He hath no Religion, or
that He is no good Christian; and escape endeavouring to
manifest, and expose the poison that lies hid and conceled. yet I
have chosen, rather to pass by many of his enormous sayings with
light expressions, to make his Assertions ridiculous, then to
make his Person odious, for infusing such destructive Doctrine
into the minds of men, who are already too licentious in judging
the Precepts, or observing the Practice of Christianity.

 The Survey of Mr Hobbes's Introduction

    It is no wonder that Mr Hobbes runs into so many mistakes and
errors throughout his whole discourse of the nature of Government
from the nature of Mankind, when he laies so wrong a foundation
in the very entrance and Introduction of his Book, as to make a
judgment of the Passions, and Nature of all other Men by his own
observations of Himself, and believes, (Pag. 2d.) that by looking
into himself, and considering what he doth when he do's think,
opine, reason, hope, fear, &c. and upon what grounds, he shall
thereby read, and know what are the thoughts and passions of all
other men upon the like occasions. And indeed by his distinction
in the very subsequent words (Pag. 2.) between the similitude of
passions, and the similitude of the object of the passions, and
his confession, that the constitution individual and particular
education, do make so great a difference and disparity, he
reduces that general Proposition to signify so very little, that
he leaves very little to be observed, and very few Persons
competent to observe. We have too much cause to believe, that
much the major part of mankind do not think at all, are not
endued with reason enough too opine, or think of what they did
last, or what they are to do next, have no reflexion, without
which there can be no thinking to this purpose: and the number is
much greater of those who know not how to comprehend the
dissimilitude of the objects from the passions, nor enough
understand the nature of fear, as it is distinguish'd from the
object that is fear'd: so that none of these Persons (which
constitute a vast number,) are capable to make that observation,
which must produce that knowledg which may enable them to judg of
all the World. And how many there are left, who are fit from
their individual constitutions or particular educations, and not
withstanding the corruption introduced by dissembling, lying,
counterfeiting, and erroneous Doctrine, to make that judgement, I
leave to Mr Hobbes to determine. And tis probable, that those
very few may conclude, that what they do when they think, opine,
reason, hope, fear, contributes very little to their knowing what
the thoughts and passions of other men are. And they may the
rather be induced to make that conclusion, since there are so
very few who think and opine as Mr Hobbes doth, and whose hopes
and fears are like his, with reference to the objects, or the
nature it self of those passions; and that the dissimilitude is
greater between the passions themselves, then between the
objects; and that men are not more unlike each other in their
faces, or in their clothes, then in their thinking, hoping, and
fearing. Since then Mr Hobbes founds so much of his whole
Discourse upon the Verity and Evidence of this first Proposition,
that we shall very often have occasion to resort to it as we keep
him company; and since the same seems to me to be very far from
being the true Key to oPen the cipher of other mens thoughts: it
will not be amiss to examine, and insist a little longer on this
Conclusion, that we may discern whether all, or any of us are
endued with such an infallible Faculty, that we can conclude what
the thoughts and passions of other men are, by a strict
observation and consideration of our own thoughts and passions;
which would very much enable us to countermine and disappoint
each others thoughts and passions, and would be a high point of
wisdom. In the disquisition whereof, that we may not intangle the
passion and the object together, for want of skill to sever them,
it may not be amiss to suppose the same passion to be in two
several men whose passions have the same object, and then
consider whether they are like to discover each others thoughts
and passions, their hopes and their fears, by each mans looking
into himself, and considering what he do's when he thinks, hopes,
or fears. If Mr Hobbes loved, to as great a height as his passion
can rise to, the same object that is likewise loved by another,
he would hardly be able to make any judgment of the others love
by his own; but upon a mutual confession and communication, their
passions would be found not to be the same. If Mr Hobbes, and
some other man were both condemn'd to death, (which is the most
formidable thing Mr Hobbes can conceive) the other could no more
by looking into himself know Mr Hobbes's present thoughts, and
the extent of his fear, then he could, by looking in his face,
know what he hath in his Pocket. Not only the several
complexions, and constitutions of the body, the different
educations, and climates dispose the affections and passions of
men to different objects, but have a great influence upon the
passions themselves. As the fears, so the hopes of Men are as
unlike as their gate, and meen. If a Sanguine, and a Melancholic
man hope the same thing, their hopes are no more alike each
others, then their clompexions are; the hope of the one retaining
still somewhat like despair, whilst the hope of the other looks
like fruition: so little similitude there is in the passions
themselves without any relation to their objects. That a man of
great courage, and a very cowardly man have not the same
countenance, and presence of mind in an approch of danger,
proceeds not from the ones liking to be killed more then the
others, but rather from the difference of their natural Courage.
But let us suppose a man of courage, and a coward equally guilty,
or equally innocent (that there may be no difference from the
operation of conscience) to be brought to die together by a
judgment which they cannot avoid and so to be equally without
hope of life (and death in Mr Hobbes judgment is equally terrible
to all, and with equal care to be avoided, or resisted,) How
comes it to pass, that one of these undergo's death with no other
concernment then as if he were going any other Journy, and the
other with such confusion and trembling, that he is even without
life before he dies; if it were true that all Men fear alike upon
the like occasion? There will be the same uncertainty in
concluding what others do, by observing what we our selves do,
when we think, opine, or reason. How shall that man, who thinks
deliberately, opines modestly, and reasons dispassionately, and
by this excellent temper satisfies his own judgement in a
conclusion, in which at the same time he discerns others may
differ from him: I say, How shall such a man by his own way of
reasoning judg another mans, who usually thinks precipitately,
opines arrogantly, and reasons superciliously, and concludes
imperiously that man to be mistaken, who determines othewise then
he do's? To conclude, Mr Hobbes might as naturally have
introduced his unreasonable Doctrine of the similitude of the
passions, from the wisdom that he saies is acquired by the
reading of men, as from his method of reading ones self. That
saying of Nosce teipsum, in the sense of Solon who prescribed it,
was a sober truth, but was never intended as an expedient to
discover the similitude of the thoughts of other men by what he
found in himself, but as the best means to suppress and destroy
that pride and self-conceit, which might temt him to undervalue
other men, and to plant that modesty and humility in himself, as
would preserve him from such presumtion.

 The Survey of Chapters 1, 2, 3.

    Having resolved not to enter into the Lists with Mr Hobbes
upon the Signification of words, or Propriety of expressions, in
which he exercises an absolute Dictatorship; and indeed not to
enlarge upon any particular that to me seems erroneous, except it
be an Error of that kind and consequence, as carries with it, or
in it, somwhat that is hurtful to the Peace and Policy of the
Kingdom, or prejudicial to the sincerity of Religion; I should
have passed over the first, second, and third Chapters without
any Animadversion, not troubling my self whether the imagination
and memory are but one thing, which for divers considerations
hath divers names, (p. 5.) if I had not some apprehension, that
by an unnecessary reflexion upon the Scholes in the close of his
second Chapter, and finding fault with the using some words in
the sense they ought not be used, he hopes to dispose his Readers
to such a prejudice and contemt towards them, that they may more
easily undervalue them in more serious instances: the principal
foundation that he laies for the support of all his Novelties,
being to lessen and vilifie all the Principles, and all the
Persons, which he well foresees most like to be applied to the
demolishing his new Structure.
    Amongst the many excellent parts and faculties with which Mr
Hobbes is plentifully endowed, his order and method in Writing,
and his clear expressing his conceptions in weighty, proper, and
significant words, are very remarkable and commendable; and it is
some part of his Art to introduce, upon the suddain, instances
and remarques, which are the more grateful, and make the more
impression upon his Reader, by the unexpectedness of meeting them
where somewhat else is talk'd of: for thereby he prepares and
disposes the fancy to be pleased with them in a more proper and
important place. No man would have imagin'd, that in a
Philosophical Discourse of Dreams, and Fayries, and Ghosts, and
Goblins, Exorcisms, Crosses, and Holy-water, he would have taken
occasion to have reproved Job for saying, that the inspiration of
the Almighty giveth men understanding, Job. 32. 8. which can be
no good expression, if it be incongruity to say, that good
thoughts are inspired into a man by God: and 'tis pity that St
Paul did not better weigh his words, when he said, that we are
not sufficient of our selves to think any thing of our selves,
but our sufficiency is of God, 2. Cor. 3. 5. or when he said to
the Philippians, that it is God which worketh in you both to
will, and to do of his good pleasure, Phil. 2. 13. and that St.
John had not bin better advised, when he said, He that committeth
sin, is of the Devil, 1. John 3. 8. Upon any of which Texts a man
can hardly enlarge in discourse, without saying, that good
thoughts are inspir'd, or infus'd (which he thinks he hath made
the more ridiculous, by turning into other words of the like
signification) by God, and evil thoughts by the devil, which in
his understanding, are amongst the many words making nothing
understood; whereas there are few expressions in which the sense
of the speaker is better understood, or by which the sense of the
Apostles can be made more clear then by those expressions. But
this Comical mention of the power and goodness of God, and of the
Devils activity and malignity, in a place so improper and
unnatural for those reflexions, will the more incline his
Disciples to undervalue those common notions of the goodness and
assistance of God, and of the malice and vigilance of the Devil;
and by making themselves merry with that proper and devout custom
of speaking, and the natural results from thence, by degrees to
undervalue those other conceptions of Religion and Piety, which
would restrain and controul the licentious imagination of the
excellency of their own understandings; and prepare them to
believe, that all the Discourses of Sanctity, and the obligations
of Christianity, and the essentials of a Church, Faith, and
Obedience to the dictates of Gods Spirit, are but the artifice
and invention of Churchmen, to advance their own pomp and worldly
interest, and that Heaven and Hell are but words to flatter or
terrifie men; at least, that the places of either are so
situated, and have no other extent or degree of pain and
pleasure, then he hath thought fit to assign to them towards the
end of his Leviathan.
    Nor in this instance of the train of imaginations, in his
third Chapter, less wonderful. And indeed, Mr Hobbes had the more
reason for his opinion of the similitude of thoughts, and that by
looking into himself when he thinks, and upon what grounds, he
can thereby know the thoughts of other men, when he was with the
velocity of a thought, in a moment of time, able to decipher that
impertinent Question, What was the value of a Roman penny. and to
discover a succession of thoughts in the Enquirer, the last of
which determined in the resolution of delivering up the King:
which was so rare a faculty, that such a similitude of thoughts
cannot be concluded to be in other men. And since erroneous
Doctrines have so great an influence upon the minds of men, as to
corrupt the natural motives, he knows best whether he had not
before this formed his new Scheme of Loyalty, and digested all
those imaginations towards the dissolution of Allegiance, and
eluding the obligation of all Oaths; which if he had don, he had
the Key ready to decipher by, and might easily discover that
which no man in England could discover who had not the same Key.

 The Survey of Chapters 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

    We shall with less reflexion pass over his fourth Chapter of
Speech, which he saies, was the noblest and most profitable
Invention of all other, whether properly or improperly, he shall
do well to consider; together with his fifth and sixth Chapters,
which with those which precede, and two or three which follow, he
intends as a Dictionary, for the better understanding and
defining very many terms and words, which he is to make use of
throughout the rest of his Work; and which whoever can carry with
him in his memory, as he expects every man shall do, shall be
often more confounded in the understanding many parts of his
Book, then if he forgets them all. In which yet many things are
said very wittily and pleasantly; tho it may be many critical
men, whom he hath provoked, may believe many of his Expressions
to be incongruous, and his Definitions not so exact as might have
bin expected from so great an Artist; and that all those Chapters
are rather for delight, in the novelty and boldness of the
expression, then for any real information in the substantial part
of knowledg: since few men, upon the most exact reading them
over, find themselves wiser then they were before but rather
think that they better understood before what Contemt signifies,
then by being now told, (pag. 24) that it is nothing else but an
immobility or contumacy of the heart, in resisting the action of
certain things, and proceeding from that the heart is already
moved otherwise, by other more potent objects, or from want of
experience of them; or that they do better understand the nature
and original of Laughter, by being informed (pag. 27) that
suddain glory is the passion which, and is caused either by
maketh those grimaces called Laughter some suddain act of their
own that pleaseth them, or by the apprehension of some deformed
thing in another, by comparison whereof they suddainly applaud
themselves. In which kind of Illustrations those Chapters, and in
truth his whole Book abounds, and discovers a master faculty in
making easie things hard to be understood: and men will probably
with the more impatience and curiosity, tho with the less
reverence, enter upon the third part of his Book, which is to
define Christian Politics, after he hath so well defin'd and
describ'd Religion to be fear of Power invisible, feigned by the
mind, or imagined from tales publicly allowed (p. 26.) all which
I leave to his Friends of the Universities. Nor shall I spend
more time upon the seventh, eighth, and ninth Chapters, leaving
them to the Schole-men to examine, who are in his debt for much
mirth which he hath made out of them, I for my part being very
indifferent between them, as believing that the Schole-men have
contributed very little more to the advancement of any noble or
substantial part of Learning, then Mr Hobbes hath don to the
reformation or improvement of Philosophy and Policy. Yet I may
reasonably say so much on their behalf, that if Mr Hobbes may
take upon him to translate all those terms of Art (the proper
signification whereof is unanimously understood, and agreed
between all who use them, and which in truth are a cipher to
which all men of moderate Learning have the key) into the vulgar
Language by the assistance of Ryders Dictionary, he hath found a
way to render and expose the worthiest Professors of any Science,
and all Science it selfto the cheap laughter of all illiterate
men, which is contrary to Mr Hobbes's own rule and determination,
(pag. 17) where he saies, That when a man upon the hearing any
Speech, hath those thoughts which the words of that Speech, and
their connexion, were ordained and constituted to signifie, then
he is said to understand it. And surely the signification of
words and terms, is no less ordain'd and constituted by custom
and acceptation, then by Grammar and Etymologies. If it were
otherwise, Mr Hobbes himself would be as much exposed to ignorant
Auditors, when he reads a Lecture upon the Optics, or even in his
ador'd Geometry, if a pleasant Translator should render all his
terms as literally, as he hath don the Title of the sixth Chapter
of Suarez: for every Age, as new things happen, find new words in
all Languages to signifie them. The Civilians, who are amongst
the best Judges of Latine, can hardly tell how investitura came
into their Books, to signifie that which it hath ever signified
since the Quarrel begun between the Emperor and the Pope upon
that subject, which is now as well understood in Latine, as any
word in Tully. And if Bombarda had no original but from the
sound, as Petavius (a very good Grammarian, besides his other
great Learning) saies it had not, we have no reason to be
offended with the Scholemen for finding words to discover their
own Conceptions, which equally serve our own turn.

 The Survey of Chapters 10, 11, 12.

    I do acknowledg, that in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth
Chapters, many things are very well said: and tho some things as
ill, with reference to Religion, and to the Clergy, as if there
were a combination between the Priests of the Gentiles,
Aristotle, the Schole-men, and the Clergy of all Professions, to
defame, pervert, and corrupt Religion; yet he resumes that
Argument so frequently, that I shall chuse to examine the reason
and justice of all his Allegations rather in another place, then
upon either of these three Chapters; to which I shall only add,
that according to his natural delight in Novelties of all kinds,
in Religion as well as Policy, he hath supplied the Gentiles with
a new God, which was never before found in any of their
Catalogues, The God Chaos, (pag. 55.) to which he might as
warrantably have made them an additional present of his own Idol,
Confusion. And he will as hardly find a good authority for the
aspersion with which he traduces the Policy of the Roman
Common-wealth in all its greatness and lustre, (pag. 57.) That it
made no scruple of tolerating any Religion whatsoever in the City
of Rome it self, unless it had something in it that could not
consist with their civil Government. Which how untrue soever, was
a very seasonable intimation of the wisdom of Oliver's Politics,
at that time when he published his Leviathan: whereas in truth,
that great People were not more solicitous in any thing, then in
preserving the unity and integrity of their Religion from any
mixtures; and the Institution of the Office of Pontifex Maximus
was principally out of that jealousie, and that he might
carefully watch that no alteration or innovation might be made in
their Religion. And tho they had that general awe for Religion,
that they would not suffer the Gods of their Enemies, whom they
did not acknowledg for Gods, to be rudely treated and violated;
and therefore they both punished their Consul for having robb'd
the Temple of Proserpine, and caused the full damages to be
restored to the injur'd Goddess: yet they neither acknowledg'd
her Divinity, nor suffer'd her to have a Temple, or to have any
Devotion paid to her within their Dominions; nor indeed any other
God or Goddess to be ador'd, and those to whom Sacrifices were
made by the Authority of the State. Nor will Mr Hobbes be able to
name one Christian Kingdom in the World, where it is believed,
that the King hath not his Authority from Christ, unless a Bishop
Crown him; tho all Christian Kingdoms have had that reverence for
Bishops, as to assign the highest Ecclesiastical Functions to be
alwaies perform'd by them: but they well know the King to have
the same Authority in all respects before he is crown'd, as
after. And what extravagant Power soever the Court of Rome hath
in some evil Conjunctures heretofore usurp'd, and would be as
glad of the like opportunities again; yet in those Kingdoms where
that Authority is own'd and acknowledg'd, there want not those
who loudly protest against that Doctrine, That a King may be
depos'd by a Pope, or that the Clergy and Regulars shall be exemt
from the Jurisdiction of their King. And yet upon these
unwartantable suggestions, he presumes to declare, That all the
changes of Religion may be attributed to one and the same Cause,
and that is, unpleasing Priests; and those not only amongst
Papists, but even in that Church that hath presumed most of
Reformation, by which he intends the Church of England, at that
time under the most severe and barbarous Persecution; and
therefore it was the more enviously and maliciously, as well as
dis-honestly alledged.

 The Survey of Chapters 13, 14, 15, 16.

    The thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth
Chapters, will require a little more disquisition, since under
the pretence of examining, or rather (according to his
Prerogative) of determining what the natural condition of mankind
is, he takes many things for granted which are not true; as (pag.
60.) that Nature hath made all men equal in the faculties of body
and mind, and imputes that to the Nature of Man in general, which
is but the infirmity of some particular Men; and by a mist of
words, under the notion of explaning common terms (the meaning
whereof is understood by all Men, and which his explanation
leaves less intelligible then they were before) he dazles Mens
eies from discerning those Fallacies upon which he raises his
Structure, and which he reserves for his second part. And
whosoever looks narrowly to his preparatory Assertions, shall
find such contradictions, as must destroy the foundation of all
his new Doctrine in Government, of which some particulars shall
be mentioned anon. So that if his Maxims of one kind were
marshailed together, collected out of these four Chapters, and
applied to his other Maxims which are to support his whole
Leviathan, the one would be a sufficient answer to the other; and
so many inconsistencies and absurdities would appear between
them, that they could never be thought links of one chain;
whereas he desires men should believe all the Propositions in his
Book to be a chain of Consequences, without being in any degree
wary to avoid palpable contradictions, upon the presumtion of his
Readers total resignation to his judgment. If it were not so,
would any man imagine that a man of Mr Hobbes's sagacity and
provoking humor, should in his fourth Page so imperiously reproch
the Scholes for absurdity, in saying, That heavy Bodies fall
downwards out of an appetite to rest, thereby ascribing knowledg
to things inanimate; and himself should in his sixty second Page,
describing the nature of foul weather, say, That it lieth not in
a shower or two of rain, but in an inclination thereto of many
daies together: as if foul weather were not as inanimate a thing
as heavy Bodies, and inclination did not imply as much of
knowledg as appetite doth. In truth, neither the one or the other
word signifies in the before-mention'd instances, more then a
natural tendency to motion and alteration.
    When God vouchsafed to make man after his own Image, and in
his own Likeness, and took so much delight in him, as to give him
the command and dominion over all the Inhabitants of the Earth,
the Air, and the Sea, it cannot be imagin'd but that at the same
time he endued him with Reason, and all the other noble Faculties
which were necessary for the administration of that Empire, and
the preservation of the several Species which were to succeed the
Creation: and therefore to uncreate him to such a baseness and
villany in his nature, as to make Man such a Rascal, and more a
Beast in his frame and constitution then those he is appointed to
govern, is a power that God never gave to the Devil; nor hath any
body assum'd it, till Mr Hobbes took it upon him. Nor can any
thing be said more contrary to the Honor and Dignity of God
Almighty, then that he should leave his master workmanship, Man,
in a condition of War of every man against every man, in such a
condition of confusion, (pag. 64.) That every man hath a right to
every thing, even to one anothers body; inclin'd to all the
malice, force and fraud that may promote his profit or his
pleasure, and without any notions of, or instinct towards
justice, honor, or good nature, which only makes man-kind
superior to the Beasts of the Wilderness. Nor had Mr Hobbes any
other reason to degrade him to this degree of Bestiality, but
that he may be fit to wear those Chains and Fetters which he hath
provided for him. He deprives man of the greatest happiness and
glory that can be attributed to him, who devests him of that
gentleness and benevolence towards other men, by which he
delights in the good fortune and tranquillity that they enjoy,
and makes him so far prefer himself before all others, as to make
the rest a prey to advance any commodity or conveniency of his
own; which is a barbarity superior to what the most savage Beasts
are guilty of,

                                      - Quando leoni,
                 fortior eripuit vitam leo? quo nemore unquam
                 Expiravit aper majoris dentibus apri?

Man only, created in the likeness of God himself, is the only
creature in the World, that out of the malignity of his own
nature, and the base fear that is inseparable from it, is oblig'd
for his own benefit, and for the defence of his own right, to
worry and destroy all of his own kind, until they all become
yoaked by a Covenant and Contract that Mr Hobbes hath provided
for them, and which was never yet entred into by any one man, and
is in nature impossible to be entred into.
    After such positive and magisterial Assertions against the
dignity and probity of man-kind, and the honor and providence of
God Almighty, the instances and arguments given by him are very
unweighty and trivial to conclude the nature of man to be so full
of jealousie and malignity, as he would have it believed to be,
from that common practice of circumspection and providence, which
custom and discretion hath introduced into human life. For men
shut their Chests in which their mony is, as well that their
servants or children may not know what they have, as that it may
be preserved from Thieves; and they lock their doors that their
Houses may not be common; and rude armd, and in company, because
they know that there are ill men, who may be inclined to do
injuries if they find an opportunity. Nor is a wariness to
prevent the damage and injury that Thieves and Robbers may do to
any man, an argument that Mankind is in that mans opinion
inclin'd and disposed to commit those out-rages. If it be known
that there is one Thief in a City, all men have reason to shut
their doors and lock their chests; and if there be two or three
Drunkards in a Town, all men have reason to go arm'd in the
streets, to controul the violence or indignity they might receive
from them. Princes are attended by their Guards in progress, and
all their servants arm'd when they hunt, without any apprehension
of being assaulted; custom having made it so necessary, that many
men are not longer without their Swords then they are without
their Doublets, who never were jealous that any man desir'd to
hurt them. Nor will the instance he gives of the inhabitants in
America, be more to his purpose then the rest, since as far as we
have any knowledg of them, the savage People there live under a
most intire subjection and slavery to their several Princes; who
indeed for the most part live in hostility towards each other,
upon those contentions which engage all other Princes in War, and
which Mr Hobbes allows to be a just cause of War, jealousie of
each others Power to do them harm. And these are the notable
instances by which Mr Hobbes hath by his painful disquisition and
investigation, in the hidden and deep secrets of Nature,
discover'd that unworthy fear and jealousie to be inherent in
mankind, (pag. 63.). That the notions of right and wrong have no
place, but force and fraud are the two cardinal Virtues; that
there is no propriety, no dominion, no mine or thine distinct,
but only that to be every mans that he can get, and for so long
as he can keep it, and this struggle to continue, till he submits
to the servitude to which he hath design'd him for his comfort
and security.
    Mr Hobbes would do very much honour to Aristotle, and repair
much of the injury he hath don to him, if he can perswade men to
believe, (pag. 59) that the bringing in his Philosophy and
Doctrine, hath bin a cause to take away the reputation of the
Clergy, and to incline the People to the reformation of Religion;
and yet he hath more authority for that, then for most of his
Opinions, tho it may be he doth not know it. For in the year a
thousand two hundred and nine, Aristotles Metaphysics, which had
bin lately brought from Constantinople, were condemn'd, and
forbidden to be read by a Council in Paris, upon a supposition or
apprehension, that that Book had contributed very much to the new
Heretical Opinions of the Albigenses. So far the French Clergy of
that age concurred in opinion with Mr Hobbes: but we may much
more reasonably conceive, That it hath bin illiteratness, stupid
ignorance, and having never heard of Aristotle, that may at any
time have brought contemt upon the Clergy: and tho men may too
unreasonably, it may be, adhere to Aristotle in some particulars,
and so may be reasonably contradicted, yet no man of the Clergy
or Laity was ever contemned for being thought to understand
Aristotle. Indeed Mr Hobbes may easily refute Aristotle, and all
who have writ before or since him, if he be the Soveraign
Magistrate, not only to enact what Laws he pleases, and to
interpret all that were made before according to his pleasure,
and to adopt them to be the Laws of Nature, which he declares
(pag. 79) to me immutable and eternal. And we have great reason
to watch him very narrowly, when his Legislative fit is upon him,
least he cast such a net over us, knit by what he calls the Law
of Nature, or by his Definitions, that we be deprived of both the
use of our liberty, and our reason to oppose him. He is very much
offended with Aristotle, for saying in the first Book of his
Politics, That by Nature some are fit to command, and others to
serve; which he saies, (pag. 77.) is not only against reason, but
also against experience, for there are very few so foolish that
had not rather govern themselves, then be governed by others.
Which Proposition doth not contradict any thing said by
Aristotle, the Question being, Whether Nature hath made some men
worthier, not whether it hath made all others so modest as to
confess it; and would have required a more serious Disquisition,
since it is no more then is imputed to Horses, and other Beasts,
whereof men find by experience, that some by nature are fitter
for nobler uses, and others for vile, and to be only Beasts of
burden. But, indeed, he had the less need of reason to refute
him, when he had a Law at hand to controul him, which he saies,
is the Law of Nature, (pag. 77.) That every man must acknowledg
every other man for his equal by nature; which may be true as to
the essentials of human Nature, and yet there may be inequality
enough as to a capacity of Government. But whatever his opinion
is, we have Solomons judgment against him. Insipiens erit servus
sapientis, Prov. 11. 29. And many Learned Men are of opinion,
That the Gibeonites, who by the help of an impudent lie found the
means to save their lives, were a People by nature of low and
abject spirits, fit only to do the low and mean services for
which they were prepared. And some of the Fathers believe, That
when the Patriarch Jacob, in his dying Prophesie of Issachar,
declar'd Issachar is a strong ass, couching down between two
burdens. And he saw that rest was good, and the land that it was
pleasant, and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant
unto tribute, Gen. 49. 14, 15. Jacob for-saw that in that Tribe
there would be depressio intellectus, and that they would be only
fit to be servants. And 'tis very true, that Aristotle did
believe, that Divine Providence doth shew and demonstrate who are
fit and proper for low and vile offices, not only by very notable
defects in their understandings, incapable of any cultivation,
but by some eminent deformity of the body (tho that doth not
always hold) which makes them unfit to bear rule. And without
doubt, the observation of all Ages since that time hath
contributed very much to that Confusion which Mr Hobbes so much
derides, of Inequality by nature, and that Nature it self hath a
bounty which she extends to some men in a much superior degree
then she doth to others. Which is not contradicted by seeing many
great defects and indigencies of Nature in some men, wonderfully
corrected and repair'd by industry, education, and above all, by
conversation; nor by seeing some early blossoms in others, which
raise a great expectation of rare perfection, that suddainly
decay, and insensibly wither away by not being cherished and
improved by diligence, or rather by being blasted by vice or
supine laziness: those accidents may somtimes happen, do not very
often, and are necessary to awaken men out of the Lethargy of
depending wholly upon the Wealth of Natures store, without
administring any supply to it, out of their industry and
observation. And every mans experience will afford him abundance
of examples in the number of his own acquaintance, in which, of
those who have alwaies had equal advantages of Education,
Conversation, Industry, and it may be of virtuous Infinations, it
is easie to observe very different parts and faculties; some of
quick apprehension, and as steady comprehension, wit, judgment,
and such a sagacity as discerns at distance as well as at hand,
confuding from what they see will fall out, what is presently to
be don; when others born, and bred with the same care, wariness,
and attention, and with all the visible advantages and benefits
which the other enjoied, remain still of a heavier and a duller
alloy, less discerning to contrive and fore-see, less vigorous to
execute, and in a word, of a very different Classis to all
purposes; which can proceed from no other cause, but the
distinction that Nature her self made between them, in the
distribution of those Faculties to the one with a more liberal
hand then to the other.
    Did not all the World at that time, and hath it not ever
since believed, that Julius Cesar had from nature a more exalted
Spirit and Genius, then any of those who were overcome by him;
tho some of them appear'd, or were generally believ'd to be
superior in the conduct of great Affairs? There is judgment
gotten by experience very necessary, but the first attemt and
direction of the mind, the first daring proceeds purely from
Nature and its influence. When we see a Marius from a common
Soldier, baffle the Nobility of Rome, and in despight of
opposition, make himself seven times Consul: or a Dioclesian,
from a mean and low birth, and no other advantage of Education
then every other common Soldier had with him, nor countenance or
assistance from any Superior, but what his own Virtue purchased,
to raise himself to the full state and power of the greatest
Emperor, and to govern as great, or a greater part of the World,
then ever Cesar did, and after having enjoied that Empire above
eighteen years in the highest glory, to give it over, and divest
himself of it, merely for the ease and pleasure of retirement to
his private House and Garden, and to die in that repose after he
had enjoied it some years; must we believe such a Man to have no
advantages by nature, above all other men of the same time? When
Marmurius, or Vecturius (for he went by both names) one of the
thirty Tyrants, from a common Blacksmith who made arms (for the
man who killed him having bin before his servant, and wrought
under him, told him, Hic est gladius quem ipse fecisti) raised
him self, not by a suddain mutiny and insurrection, but by
passing all the degrees of a Soldier, during many years in a
regular and disciplin'd Army, to be Emperor by a common voice and
election, as a Man the fittest for the Command; is it possible
for us to believe, that this Man received no other talent from
Nature, then she afforded to every other Blacksmith. Besides many
particular Examples of this kind in every particular Kingdom, in
most of which the visible advantages of Friends, Patrons, and
other accidental Concurrences have not at all contributed to the
preferment of them before other men, the World hath yielded us an
example near our own time (for it is little more then two hundred
years since) of such a prodigious progress and success in the
power of one Man, that there is nothing of Story ancient or
modern that is parallel to it, The great Tamberlane, who (tho not
so mean a Person in his original, as he is vulgarly conceived to
have bin) was born a poor Prince over a contemn'd and barbarous
Country and People, whose manners he first cultivated by his own
native justice and goodness, and by the strength of his own
Genius, improved his own Faculties and Understanding to a
marvellous Lustre and Perfection, towards which neither his
Climate nor his conversation could contribute. Upon this stock he
rais'd and led an Army of his Subjects, into the better Dominions
of their Neighbors who contemned them. With these he fought, and
won many Battels, subdued and conquer'd many Kingdoms; and after
the total defeat of the greatest Army that was then in the World,
he took the greatest Emperor of the World Prisoner, and for the
contemt that he had shew'd towards him, treated him as his vilest
Slave. And it hath bin as notorious, that after the death of
these, and the like such extraordinary Persons, the Forces by
which they wrought those wonders, and the Counsellors and
Officers whose administration co-operated with them, suddainly
degenerated; and as if the Soul were departed from the Body,
became a Carcass without any use or beauty. And can we believe,
that those stupendous men had no talent by nature above others?
And are we bound to believe, (pag. 77.) that by the Law of Nature
every man is bound to acknowledg other for his equal by nature?
    But where are those Maxims to be found which Mr Hobbes
declares, and publishes to be the Laws of Nature, in any other
Author before him? That is only properly call'd the Law of
Nature, that is dictated to the whole Species: as, to defend a
mans self from violence, and to repel force by force; not all
that results upon prudential motives unto the mind of such as
have bin cultivated by Learning and Education, which no doubt can
compile such a Body of Laws, as would make all other useless,
except such as should provide for the execution of, and obedience
to those. For under what other notion can that reasonable
Conclusion, which is a necessary part of the Law of Nations, be
call'd the Law of Nature, which is his fifteenth Law, (pag. 78.)
That all men that mediate Peace be allowed safe conduct? And of
this kind much of the Body of his Law of Nautre is compil'd;
which I should not dislike, the Style being in some sense not
improper, but that I observe that from some of these Conclusions
which he pronounces to be (pag. 79.) immutable and eternal as the
Laws of Nature, he makes deductions and inferences to controul
Opinions he dislikes, and to obtain Concessions which are not
right, by amuzing men with his method, and confounding rather
then informing their understandings, by a chime of words in
definitions and pleasant instances, which seem not easie to be
contradicted, and yet infer much more then upon a review can be
deduc'd from them. And it is an unanswerable evidence of the
irresistible force and strength of Truth and Reason, that whil'st
men are making war against it with all their power and
stratagems, somwhat doth still start up out of the dictates and
confessions of the Adversary that determines the Controversie,
and vindicates the Truth from the malice that would oppress it.
How should it else come to pass, that Mr Hobbes, whil'st he is
demolishing the whole frame of Nature for want of order to
support it, and makes it unavoidably necessary for every man to
cut his neighbors throat, to kill him who is weaker then himself,
and to circumvent, and by any fraud destroy him who is stronger,
in all which there is no injustice, because Nature hath not
otherwise provided for every particular mans security; I say, how
comes it to pass, that at the same time when he is possessed of
this frenzy, he would in the same, and the next Chapter, set down
such a Body ofLaws prescribed by Nature it self, as are immutable
and eternal? that there appears, by his own shewing, a full
remedy against all that confusion, for avoiding whereof he hath
devis'd all that unnatural and impossible Contract and Covenant?
If the Law of the Gospel, Whatsoever you require that others
should do to you, that do ye to them, be the Law of all men, as
he saies it is (pag. 65.) that is, the Law of Nature, Natur�, �d
est jure gentium, saies Tully, it being nothing else but quod
naturalis ratio inter omnes homines constituit; If it be the Law
of Nature that every man strive to accommodate himself to the
rest, as he saies it is (pag. 76.) and that no man by deed: word,
countenance or gestures, declare hatred or contemt of another; If
all men are bound by the Law of Nature, (pag. 78.) That they that
are at controversie, submit their right to the judgment of an
arbitrator, as he saies they are: If Nature hath thus providently
provided for the Peace and Tranquillity of her Chldren, by Laws
immutable & eternal, that are written in their hearts: how come
they to fall into that condition of war, as to be every one
against every one, and to be without any other cardinal Virtues,
but of force and fraud? It is a wonderful thing, that a man
should be so sharp-sighted, as to discern mankind so well
inclosed and fortified by the wisdom of Nature, and so blind as
to think him in a more secure estate by his transferring of right
to another man, which yet he confesses is impossible intirely to
transfer; and by Covenants and Contracts of his own devising, and
which he acknowledges to be void in part, and in other parts
impossible to be perform'd.
    But I say, if in truth Nature hath dictated all those
excellent Conclusions to every man, without which they cannot be
called the Laws of Nature; and if it hath farther instituted all
those Duties which are contain'd in the Second Table, all which
he saies were the Laws of Nature: I know not what temtation or
authority he could have, to pronounce mankind to be left by
Nature in that distracted condition of war, except he prefer the
authority of Ovids Metamorphosis, of the sowing of Cadmus's
teeth, before any other Scripture, Divine or Humane. And it is as
strange, that by his Covenants and Contracts which he is so wary
in wording (as if he were the Secertary of Nature) that they may
bind that man fast enough whom he pleases to assign to those
Bonds; and as if he were the Plenipotentiary ofNature too, to
bind and to loose all he thinks fit: he hath so ill provided for
the Peace he would establish, that he hath left a door open for
all the Confusion he would avoid, when, notwithstanding that he
hath made them divest themselves of the liberty they have by
Nature, and transfer all this into the hands of a single Person,
who thereby is so absolute Soveraign, that he may take their
Lives and their Estates from them without any act of Injustice,
yet after all this transferring and devesting, every man reserves
a right (as inalienable) to defend his own life, even against the
sentence of Justice. What greater contradiction can there be to
the Peace, which he would establish upon those unreasonable
conditions, then this Liberty, which he saies can never be
abandoned, and which yet may dissolve that peace every day? and
yet he saies, (pag. 70.) This is granted to be true by all men,
in that they lead Criminals to execution and prison with armed
men, notwithstanding such Criminals have consented to the Law by
which they are condemned. Which indeed is an argument, that men
had rather escape then be hanged; but no more an argument that
they have a right to rescue themselves, then the fashion of
wearing Swords is an argument that men are afraid of having their
throats cut by the malice of their neighbors: both which are
arguments no man would urge to men, whose understandings he did
not much undervalue. But upon many of these Particulars there is
a more proper occasion hereafter for enlargement. And so we pass
through his prospect of the Laws of Nature, and many other
Definitions and Descriptions, with liberty to take review of them
upon occasion, that we may make hast to his Second Part, for,
which he thinks he hath made a good preparation to impose upon us
in this First; and he will often tell us when he should prove
what he affirms, that he hath evinc'd that Point, and made it
evident in such a Chapter in his First part, where in truth he
hath said very much, and proved very little, I shall only
conclude this, with an observation which the place seems to
require, of the defect in Mr Hobbes's Logic, which is a great
presumption, that from very true Propositions he deduces very
erroneous and absurd Conclusions. That no man hath power to
transfer the right over his own life to the disposal of another
man, is a very true Proposition, from whence he infers, that he
hath reserved the power and disposal of it to himself, and
therefore that he may defend it by force even against the
judgment of Law and Justice; whereas the natural consequence of
that Proposition is, That therefore such transferring and
covenanting ( being void) cannot provide for the peace and
security of a Commonwealth. Without doubt, no man is Dominus
vitae Suae, and therefore cannot give that to another, which he
hath not in himself. God only hath reserv'd that absolute
Dominion and Power of life and death to Himself, and by his
putting the Sword into the hand of the Supreme Magistrate, hath
qualified and enabled him to execute that Justice which is
necessary for the peace and preservation of his People, which may
seem in a manner to be provided for by Mr Hobbes Law of Nature,
if what he saies be true, (pag. 68.) That right to the end
containeth right to the means. And this sole Proposition, that
men cannot dispose of their own lives, hath bin alwaies held as a
manifest and undeniable Argument, that Soveraigns never had, nor
can have their Power from the People.

Second Part.

 The Survey of Chapters 17, 18.

    Mr Hobbes having taken upon him to imitate God, and created
Man after his own likeness, given him all the passions and
affections which he finds in himself, and no other, he prescribes
him to judg of all things and words, according to the definitions
he sets down, with the Autority of a Creator. After he hath
delighted himself in a commendable method, and very witty and
pleasant description of the nature and humor of the World, as far
as he is acquainted with it, (upon many particulars whereof,
which he calls Definitions, there will be frequent occasion of
reflexions in this discourse, without breaking the thred of it by
entring upon impertinent exceptions to matters positively averred
without any apparent reason, when it is no great matter whether
they be true or no.) He comes at last to institute such a
Common-wealth as never was in nature, or ever heard of from the
beginning of the World till this structure of his, and like a
bountifull Creator, gives the Man he hath made, the Soveraign
command and Government of it, with such an extent of power and
autority, as the Great Turk hath not yet appear'd to affect. In
which it is probable he hath follow'd his first method, and for
the Man after his own likeness hath created a Government, that he
would him self like to be trusted with, having determined
Liberty, and Propriety, and Religion to be only emty words, and
to have no other existence then in the Will and Breast of this
Soveraign Governor; and all this in order to make his People
happy, and to enjoy the blessing of Peace. And yet with all this,
his Governor would quickly find his power little enough, that is,
of little continuance, if his Government be founded upon no other
security then is provided in his institution: and the justice he
assign's will be as weak a support to his Governor, as he
supposes a Covenant would be to the peoples benefit; the
imagination whereof he conceives to be so ridiculous, that it can
only proceed from want of understanding, that Covenants being but
words and breath, have no force to oblige, contain, constrain, or
protect any man, but what they have from the Public Sword, that
is from the untied hands of his Soveraign Man: as if Justice,
which is the support of his Governor when he breaks and violates
all the Elements of Justice, because all men are in justice bound
to observe contracts, were more then a word, or a more valiant
word and stronger breath to constrain, and protect any man, when
that Sword is wrested from his Soveraign Man, or his hand is
bound by the many hands which should be govern'd by him. But the
People need not be offended with him, for giving so extravagant a
power to a Person they never intended should have such an Empire
over them: if they will have patience till he hath finished his
Scheme of Soveraignty, he will infeeble it again for them to that
degree, that no ambitious man would take it up, if he could have
it for asking. But to prosecute the argument in his own order.
    As he hath made a worse Man by much, by making him too like
himself; so he hath made a much worse Common-wealth then ever was
yet known in the World, by making it such as he would have: and
nothing can be more wonderful, then that a man of Mr Hobbes his
Sagacity, should raise so many conclusions of a very pernicious
influence upon the Peace and Government of every Kingdom and
Common-wealth in Europe, upon a mere supposition and figment of a
Commonwealth instituted by himself, and without any example. He
will not find any one Government in the world, of what kind
soever, so instituted, as he dogmatically declares all Government
to be; nor was mankind in any nation since the Creation upon such
a level, as to institute their Government by such an assembly and
election, and covenant, and consent, as he very unwarrantably
more then supposes. And it was an undertaking of the more
impertinence, since by his own rule, (pag. 95.) where there is
already erected a soveraign Power, which was then, and still is
in every Kingdom and State in Europe, and for ought we know in
the whole world, there can be no other representative of the same
People, but only to certain particular ends limited by the
Soveraign. So that he could have no other design, but to shake
what was erected, and the Government was not at that time in any
suspence but in his own Country, by the effect of an odious and
detestable Rebellion; which yet could not prevail with an
effective Army of above one hundred thousand men, with which the
Usurper had subdued three Nations, to submit to the Usurper in
such a new model, and to transfer their right by such Covenants,
as he conceives mankind to be even oblig'd to do by the Law's of
Nature; and to induce them to do which, I do heartily wish that
Mr Hobbes could truly vindicate himself from designing, when he
published his Leviathan; upon which disquisition we cannot avoid
enlarging hereafter upon further provocation.
    It had bin kindly don of Mr Hobbes, if according to his
laudable custom of illustrating his definitions by instances, as
he often doth with great pregnancy, he had to this his positive
determination added one instance of a Government so instituted.
There is no doubt there are in all Governments many things don
by, and with the consent of the People; nay all Government so
much depends upon the consent of the People, that without their
consent and submission it must be dissolved, since where no body
will obey, there can be no command, nor can one man compel a
million to do what they have no mind to do: but that any
Government was originally instituted by an assembly of men
equally free, and that they ever elected the Person who should
have the Soveraign power over them, is yet to be proved; and till
it be proved, must not be supposed, to raise new doctrines, upon
which shake all Government. How Soveraign power was originally
instituted, and how it came to condescend to put restraints upon
it self, and even to strip it self of some parts of its
Soveraignty for its own benefit and advantage, and how far it is
bound to observe the contracts and covenants it hath submitted
to, I shall deliver my opinion before this Discourse is finish'd,
and shall refer the approbation of it to Mr Hobbes, supposing he
will never think all the reason in the world to be strong enough
to prove, that what all men see is, cannot be. But by the way, he
had dealt more like the Magistrate he affects to be, if he had
founded bis Government upon his own imperious averment, and left
every man to question it that dares; then to take notice, and
foresee an objection which he saies is the strongest he can make,
and make no better an answer to it, then to answer one question
with an other. He sees men will ask (and it is not possible they
can avoid it) Where, and When such power hath by subjects bin
acknowledg'd? which he would have us believe is substantially
answered by his other question, When, or Where has there bin a
Kingdom long free from Sedition and Civil War? which might
receive a very full answer, by assigning many Governments under
which the Subjects have enjoyed very long Peace, Quiet, and
Plenty, which never was, nor ever can be enjoied one hour under
his (as shall be proved when we examine it.) But it will serve
his turn, if it hath once bin disquieted by a Sedition or Civil
War; and so all Goverment that is known and established, must be
laid aside and overthrown, to erect an other that he supposes
will cure all defects. If Mr Hobbes had thought fit to write
problematically, and to have examin'd, as many have don, the
nature of Government, and the nature of Mankind that is to be
govern'd, and from the consideration of both, had modesty
proposed such a form, as to his judgment might better provide for
the security, peace, and happiness of a People, (which is the end
of Government,) then any form that is yet practic'd and submitted
to; he might well have answered one objection of an inconvenience
in his new form, with an other of a greater inconvenience in all
other forms. But when he will introduce a Government of his own
devising, as founded and instituted already, and that not as
somewhat new, but submitted to by the Covenants, and Obligations,
and Election our selves have made, and so that we are bound by
the rules of Justice founded upon our own consent, to pretend
neither to liberty, or property, other then our Governor thinks
fit to indulge to us; he must be contented not to be beleived, or
must vouchsafe to tell us when, and where that consent of ours
was given, and we submitted to those obligations: and it will be
no kind of answer or satisfaction, to say magisterially, that if
it be not so, it should be so for our good, which we cleerly find
will turn to our irreparable damage and destruction. And it is a
very confident thing, that he should hope to support his
Soveraign right in so unlimited an extent upon the Law of Nature,
because (p. 176.) that forbids the violation of faith, without
being pressed to tell us, when, and where that faith was given,
that is so obligatory, and the violation whereof must be so
penal. But it is more prodigiously bold, to confess upon the
matter, that there hath not hitherto bin any Common-wealth, where
those rights have bin acknowledged, or challeng'd, and to
undervalue the argument, by making it as ridiculous, as if the
Savage People of America should deny there were any grounds or
principles of reason so to build, as their Architecture is not
yet arrived at: So he thinks, that tho his Savage Country-men,
and Neighbors, have yet only bin accustomed to Governments
imperfect, & apt to relapse into disorders, he hath found out
principles by industrious meditation, to make their constitution
everlasting. And truly he hath some reason to be confident of his
Principles, if tho they cannot be proved by reason, he be sure
they are Principles from autority of Scripture, as he professes
them to be, and which must be examin'd in its course. In the mean
time he may be thought to be too indulgent to his Soveraign
Governor, and very neer to contradict himself, that after he hath
made the keeping and observation of promises to be a part of the
Law of Nature, which is unalterable and eternal, and so the
ground and foundation of that obedience which the Subject must
render, how tyrannically soever exacted, yet all Covenants entred
into by the Soveraign to be void; and that to imagine that he is
or can be bound to perform any promise or covenant, proceeds only
from want of understanding. And it would be worth his pains to
consider, whether the assigning such a power to his Governor, or
the absolving him from all Covenants and promises, be a rational
way to establish such a Peace as is the end of Government: and
since he confesses the justest Government may be overthrown by
force, it ought prudenty to be considered, what is like to
prevent that force, as well as what the subject is bound to
consent to; and whether people may not be very naturally dispos'd
to use that force against him that declares himself to be
absolv'd from all Oaths, Covenants, and Promises, and whether any
obligation of reason or justice can establish the Government in
him, who founds it upon so unrighteous a determination.
    If Mr Hobbes did not affect to be of the humor of those
unreasonable Gamesters, which he saies (Pag. 19.) is intolerable
in the society of men, who will after trump is turned, use for
trump, upon every occasion, that suit whereof they have most in
their hand, whom he likens to those men who clamor and demand
right reason for Judg, yet seek no more, but that things should
be determined by no other mens reason then their own; I say, if
Mr Hobbes were not possessed by this supercilious spirit which he
condemns, since this his institution of Soveraignty is a mere
imagination, he might with as much reason, if he would have bin
pleased to have called it so, because it would have carried with
it more equality and consequently more security, have supposed a
Covenant to be on the Soveraigns part: which that he may not do,
he will not admit that they who are his Subjects make any
Covenant with their Soveraign to obey him; which if he did, he
could as well covenant again with them to govern righteously,
without making them the Judges of his justice, or himself liable
to their controul and jurisdiction. So that the Soveraign hath no
security for the obedience of his People, but the promise they
have made to each other. and consequently if they rebell against
him, he cannot complain of any injustice don to him, because they
have broke no promise they made to him. And truly, by his own
Logic, they may release to one another when they think it
convenient: whereas if the promises be mutual, I do not say
conditional, the Soveraign must not be at the mercy of his
Subjects; but as they put themselves under his power, so he
promises them not to use that power wantonly or tyrannically
(which will be a proper and significant word against all his
interpretation;) by which they have as much obligation upon him
to be just, as he hath upon them to be obedient, which is no
other, then that they swarve from justice, if they withdraw their
obedience from him. This had bin a more natural and equitable
institution, and more like to have lasted, having in it the true
essential form of contracts, in which it will never be found that
one party covenants, and the other not; which is the reason Mr
Hobbes himself gives, why no Covenant can be made with God, and
that (Pag. 89.) the pretence of Covenant with God, is so evident
a lye, even in the pretenders own consciences, that it is not
only an act of an unjust, but also of a vile and unmanly
disposition, which assertion is destructive of our Religion, and
against the express sense of Scripture.
    The impossibility alledg'd for such a Covenant, because it
could not be don before he was Soveraign, for that the Subjects
who submit to him were not yet one person, and after he is
Soveraign what he doth is void, is but a fancy of words which
have no solid signification. Nor is the instance which he gives
of the popular Government, by which he would make the imagination
of such a Covenant ridiculous, of any importance; for he saies
(Pag. 90.) No man is so dull as to say, that the People of Rome
made a Covenant with the Romans to hold the Soveraignty on such
or such conditions, which not perform'd the romans might lawfully
depose the Roman People; which is, according to his usual
practice, to put an objection into the mouth of a foolish
adversary to make his Readers merry. And yet he laies so much
weight upon it, that he saies it is only over inclination to a
popular Government, that men do not see that there is the same
reason with reference to Monarchy. And so there is, and the
reason good to either. For doth not every man know, that knows
any thing of the Government of Rome, that when the Soveraignty
was intirely vested in the Senate, and had long bin so, the
People of Rome made a great alteration in the Soveraignty by
making Tribunes (by which Machiavel saies their Government was
the more firm and secure) and afterwards by introducing other
Magistrates into the Soveraignty? Nor were the Admissions and
Covenants the Senate made in those cases ever declared void, but
observed with all punctuallity: which is argument enough, that
the Soveraign power may admit limitations without any danger to
it self or the People, which is all that is contended for.
    As there never was any such Person (Pag. 88.) of whose acts a
great multitude by mutual Covenant one with an other have made
themselves every one the author, to the end he may use the
strength and means of them all, as he shall think expedient for
their Peace, and common defence, which is the definition he gives
of his Common-wealth; So if it can be supposed, that any Nation
can concur in such a designation, and devesting themselves of al1
their right and liberty, it could only be in reason obligatory to
the present contractors, nor do's it appear to us, that their
posterity must be bound by so unthrifty a concession of their
Parents. For tho Adam by his Rebellion against God forfeited all
the privileges which his unborn posterity might have clamed if he
had preserved his innocence, and tho Parents may alienate their
Estates from their Children, and thereby leave them Beggars; yet
we have not the draught of any Contract, nor is that which Mr
Hobbes hath put himself to the trouble to prepare, valid enough
to that purpose, by which they have left impositions and
penalties upon the Persons of their posterity: nor is it probable
that they would think themselves bound to submit thereunto. And
then the Soveraign would neither find himself the more powerful,
or the more secure, for his contractors having covenanted one
with an other, and made themselves every one the author of all
his actions: and it is to be doubted, that the People would
rather look upon him as the Visier Basha instituted by their
Fathers, then as Gods Lieutenant appointed to govern them under
him.
    It is to no purpose to examine the Prerogatives he grants to
his Soveraign, because he founds them all upon a supposition of a
contract and covenant that never was in nature, nor ever can
reasonably be supposed to be; yet he confesses it to be the
generation (Pag. 87.) of the great Leviathan, and which falling
to the ground all his Prerogatives must likewise fall too; and so
much to the damage of the Soveraign power, (to which most of the
Prerogatives are due) that men will be apt to suppose, that they
proceed from a ground which is not true, and so be the more
inclined to dispute them. Whereas those Prerogatives are indeed
vested in the Soveraign by his being Soveraign, but he do's not
become Soveraign by vertue of such a contract and covenant, but
are of the essence of his Soveraignty, founded upon a better
title then such an accidental convention, and their designing a
Soveraign by their Covenants with one another, and none with or
to him, who is so absolutely to command them. And here he
supposes again, that whatsoever a Soveraign is possessed of, is
of his Soveraignty; and therefore he will by no means admit, that
he shall part with any of his power which he calls essential and
inseparable rights, and that whatever grant he makes of such
power, the same is void: and he do's believe that this Soveraign
right was at the time when he published his Book so well
understood (that is Cromwel liked his Doctrine so well) that it
would be generally acknowledged in England at the next return of
peace. yet he sees himself deceived: it hath pleased God to
restore a blessed and a general peace, and neither King nor
People believe his Doctrine to be true, or consistent with peace.
How, and why the most absolute Soveraigns may, as they find
occasion, part with, and deprive themselves of many branches of
their power, will be more at large discovered in another place:
yet we may observe in this the very complaisant humor of Mr
Hobbes, and how great a Courtier he desir'd to appear to the
Soveraign power that then govern'd, by how odious and horrible a
usurpation soever, in that he found a way to excuse and justify
what they had already don in the lessening and diminution of
their own Soveraign power, which it concern'd them to have
believ'd was very lawfully and securely don. For, they having, as
the most popular and obliging act they could perform, taken away
Wardships and Tenures, he confesses after his enumeration of
twelve Prerogatives, which he saies (Pag. 92.) are the rights
which make the essence of Soveraignty, for these, he saies, are
incommunicable, and inseparable, I say, he confesses, the Power
to coin mony, to dispose of the estates and persons of infant
heirs, and all other statute prerogatives may be transferred by
the Soveraign; whereas he might have bin informed, if he had bin
so modest as to think he had need of any information, that those
are no Statute Prerogatives, but as inherent and inseparable from
the Crown, as many of those which he declares to be of the
Essence of the Soveraignty. But both those were already entred
upon, and he was to support all their actions which were past, as
well as to provide for their future proceedings.
    If Mr Hobbes had known any thing of the constitution of the
Monarchy of England, supported by as firm principles of
Government as any Monarchy in Europe, and which enjoied a series
of as long prosperity, he could never have thought that the late
troubles there proceeded from an opinion receiv'd of the greatest
part of England, that the Power was divided between the King, and
the Lords, and the House of Commons, which was an opinion never
heard of in England till the Rebellion was begun, and against
which all the Laws of England were most cleer, and known to be
most positive. But as he cannot but acknowledg, that his own
Soveraignty is obnoxious to the Lusts, and other irregular
passions of the People; so the late execrable Rebellion proceeded
not from the defect of the Laws, nor from the defect of the just
and ample power of the King, but from the power ill men
rebelliously possessed themselves of, by which they suppressed
the strength of the Laws, and wrested the power out of the hands
of the King: against which violence his Soveraign is no otherwise
secure, then by declaring that his Subjects proceed injustly; of
which no body doubts but that all they who took up arms against
the King, were guilty in the highest degree. And there is too
much cause to fear, that the unhappy publication of this doctrine
against the Liberty and propriety of the Subject (which others
had the honor to declare before Mr Hobbes, tho they had not the
good fortune to escape punishment as he hath don, I mean Dr
Manwaring, and Dr Sibthorpe) contributed too much thereunto. For
let him take what pains he will to render those precious words
unvaluable, and of no signification; a better Philosopher then
he, and one who understood the rules of Government better, having
lived under just such a Soveraign as Mr Hobbes would set up (I
mean Seneca,) will be believed before him, who pronounces, Errat
siquis existimat tutum esse ibi Regem, ubi nihil a Rege tutum
est; Securitas securitate mutua paciscenda est. And he go's very
far himself towards the confessing this truth, when he is forced
to acknowledg, (Pag. 96.) That the riches, Power, and honor of a
Monarch, arise only from the riches, strength and reputation of
his subjects; for no King can be rich, nor glorious, nor secure,
whose subjects are either Poor or contemtible: which assertion
will never be supported, by saying, that that condition shall be
made good, and preserv'd to them by the justice and bounty of the
Soveraign. For riches, and strength, and reputation are not aery
words, without a real and substantial signification, nor do
consist so much in the present enjoying, especially if it shall
depend upon the casual pleasure of any man, as in the security
for the future, that being a mans properly, that cannot be taken
from him, but in that manner, and by those Rules, as are
generally looked upon as the fundamentals of Government. And when
he is transported by his passion and his appetite, and for making
good his institution, to cancel and tread under foot all those
known obligations, and make the precious terms of Property and
Liberty absurd and insignificant words, to be blown away by the
least breath of his monstrous Soveraign, without any violation of
justice, or doing injury to those he afflicts; I say, when he is
thus warmed by the flame of his passions, which he confesses
(Pag. 96.) alwaies dazzles, newer enlightens the understanding,
he is so puzled by his own notions, that he makes himself a way
out by distinctions of his own modelling and devising: and so he
is compell'd to acknowledg, that tho his illimited Soveraign,
whatsoever he doth, can do no injury to his subjects, nor be by
any of them accused of injustice, yet that he (p. 90.) may commit
iniquity, tho not injustice or injury in the Proper
signification, which is far more unintelligible then the
Beatifical vision, for the obscurity and absurdity whereof he is
so merry with the Schole-men.
    As Mr Hobbes his extraordinary and notorious ignorance in the
Laws and constitution of the Government of England makes him a
very incompetent Judg or informer of the cause or original of the
late woful calamities in England, of which he knows no more then
every other man of Malmesbury doth, and upon which there will be
other occasion hereafter to inlarge; so his high arrogance and
presumption that he doth understand them, makes him triumph in
the observation, and wonder that so manifest a truth should of
late be so little observed, That in a Monarchy, he that had the
Soveraignty from a descent of six hundred years, was alone called
Soveraign, had the title of Majesty from every one of his
Subjects, and was unquestionably taken by them for their King,
was notwithstanding never considered as their Representative,
that name without contradiction, passing for the title of those
men, which at his command were sent up by the People to carry
their Petitions, and give him, if he permitted it, their advice;
which he saies (Pag. 95.) may serve as an admonition for those
that are the true and absolute Representative of a People (which
he hath made his Soveraign to be) to take heed how they admit of
any other general Representative upon any occasion whatsoewer:
all which is so unskilful and illiterate a suggestion, as could
not fall into the conception of any man who is moderately versed
in the principles of Soveraignty. And if Mr Hobbes did not make w
ar against all modesty, he would rather have concluded, that the
title of the Representative of the People was not to be affected
by the King, then that for want of understanding his Majesty
should neglect to assume it, or that his faithful Counsel, and
his Learned Judges, who cannot be supposed to be ignorant of the
Regalities of the Crown, should fail to put him in mind of so
advantageous a Plea, when his fundamental rights were so foully
assaulted, and in danger. But tho the King knew too well the
original of his own power, to be contented to be thought the
Representative of the People, yet if Mr Hobbes were not strangely
unconversant with the transactions of those times, he would have
known, which few men do not know, that the King frequently, and
upon all occasions reprehended the two Houses, both for assuming
the Style and appellation of Parliament, which they were not, but
in, and by his Majesties conjuction with them, and for calling
themselves the Representative of the People, which they neither
were, or could be to any other purpose then to present their
Petitions, and humbly to offer their advice, when and in what his
Majesty required it; and this was as generally understood by men
of all conditions in England, as it was that Rebellion was
Treason. But they who were able by false pretences, and under
false protestations to raise an Army, found it no difficult
matter to perswade that Army, and those who concurred with them,
that they were not in rebellion.

 The Survey of Chapter 19.

    I shall heartily concur with Mr Hobbes in the preference of
Monarchy before all other kind of Government for the happiness of
the people, which is the end of Government: and surely the people
never enjoied (saving the delight they have in the word Equality,
which in truth signifies nothing but keeping on their hats)
Liberty or Property, or received the benefit of speedy and
impartial Justice, but under a Monarch; but I must then advise
that Monarch for his greatness and security, never so far to
lessen himself as to be considered as the peoples Representative,
which would make him a much less man then he is. His Majesty is
inherent in his office, and neither one or other is conferred
upon him by the people. Let those who are indeed the Deputies of
the people, in those occasions upon which the Law allow's them to
make Deputies, be called their Representatives which term can
have no other legitimate interpretation then the Law gives it,
which must have more autority then any Dictionary that is, or
shall be made by Mr Hobbes, whose animadversion or admonition
will never prevail with any Prince to change his Soveraign Title,
for Representative of the people; and much the less for the pains
which he hath taken (pag. 95.) to instruct men in the nature of
that Office, and how he comes to be their Representative.
    I cannot leave this Chapter without observing Mr Hobbes his
very officious care that Cromwell should not fall from his
greatness, and that his Country should remain still captive under
the Tyranny of his vile Posterity, by his so solemn Declarations,
that he who is in possession of the Soveraignty, tho by Election
(Pag. 98.) is obliged by the Law of nature to provide, by
establishing his Successor to keep those that had trusted him
with the government, from relapsing into the miserable condition
of Civil war; and consequently he was, when elected, a Soveraign
absolute. And then he declares positively, contrary to the
opinion of all the World, that (Pag. 100.) by the institution of
Monarchy, the disposing of the Successor is alwaies left to the
judgment and the will of the present possessor; and that if he
declares expresly that such a man shall be his heir either by
word or writing, then is that man immediately after the decease
of his predecessor invested in the right of being Monarch. Mr
Hobbes was too modest a man to hope that his Leviathan would have
power to perswade those of Poland to change their form of
Government; and what Denmark hath gotten by having don it since,
cannot in so short a time be determin'd; or that the Emperor
would dissolve and cancel the Golden Bull, and invest his
Posterity in the Empire in spite of the Electors; or that the
Papacy should be made Hereditary, since Cesar Borgia was so long
since dead, and he had carried that spirit with him: and
therefore I must appeal to all dispassion'd men what Mr Hobbes
could have in his purpose in the year One thousand six hundred
fifty one, when this Book was printed, but by this new Doctrine
scarcely heard of it till then, to induce Cromwell to break all
the Laws of his Country, and to perpetuate their slavery under
his Progeny, in which he follow'd his advice to the utmost of his
power, tho his Doctrine proved false and most detested. And tho
Mr Hobbes by his presence of mind, and velocity of thought, which
had inabled him to forsee the purpose of rebelling, and taking
the King Prisoner, and delivering him up, from that question
proposed to him, concerning the value of a Roman penny, might at
that time discern so little possibility of his own Soveraign's
recovery, that it might appear to him a kind of absurdity to wish
it; yet methinks his own natural fear of danger, which made him
fly out of france, as soon as his Leviathan was publish'd and
brought into that Kingdom, should have terrified him from
invading the right of all Hereditary Monarchies in the World, by
declaring, that by the Law of Nature which is immutable, it is in
the power of the present Soveraign to dispose of the succession,
and to appoint who shall succeed him in the Government; and that
the word Heir doth not of it self imply the Children or neerest
Kindred of a man, but whom soever a man shall any way declare he
would have succeed him; contrary to the known right and
establishment throught the World, and which would shake if not
dissolve the Peace of all Kingdoms. Nor is there any danger of
the dissolution of a Common-wealth by the not nominating a
Successor; since it is a known maxime in all Hereditary
Monarchies, That the King never dies, because in the minute of
the exspiration of the present, his Heir succeeds him, and is in
the instant invested in all the dignities, and preheminences of
which the other had bin possessed: and if there were no other
error or false doctrine in the Leviathan (as there are very many
of a very pernicious nature) that would be cause enough to
suppress it in all Kingdoms.

 The Survey of Chapter 20.

    It is modestly don of Mr Hobbes at last, after so many
Magisterial determinations of the institution of Soveraignty, and
the rights and autority of it, and what is not it, to confess
that all these Discourses (pag. 105.) are only what he finds by
speculation, and deduction of Soveraign Rights from the nature,
need, and designs of men in erecting of Commonwealths, and
putting themselves under Monarchs, &c. and therefore if he finds
that all his speculation is positively contradicted by constant
and uncontroverted practice, he will believe that his speculation
is not, nor ought to be of autority enough to introduce new Laws
and Rules of Government into the World. And it is high time for
the Soveraign Power to declare, That it doth not approve those
Doctrines, which may lessen the affections and tenderness of
Princes towards their Subjects, and even their reverence to God
himself, if they thought that they could change Religion, and
suppress the Scripture it self; and that their power over their
Subjects is so absolute, that they give them all that they do not
take from them; and that Property is but a word of no
signification, and lessens the duty and obedience of Subjects,
and makes them less love the constitution of the Government they
live under; which may prove so destructive to them, if they have
temtation from their passions or their appetite to exercise the
Autority they justly have. It is fit therefore that all men know,
that these are only his speculations, and not the clame of
Soveraign Power.
    It had bin to be wished, that Mr Hobbes had first taken the
pains to have inform'd himself of the power and autority
exercised by Elective Princes over their Subjects, and their
submission rendred to them by their subjects, before he had so
positively determin'd, that Elective Kings are not Soveraigns, at
least that he had given a better reason for his assertion. He
that hath supreme autority over all, and against whom there is no
Appeal, may very justly and lawfully be called a Soveraign. And
if he would enquire into the autority of the Emperor, in the
proper Dominion of the Empire, he would find that he hath as
Soveraign a power as any Prince in Christendom clames, and yet he
is Elective. And it is a more extravagant speculation to
conclude, That because the Electors have the absolute power to
chuse the Emperor, that the Soveraignty is in them before they
chuse him, and that they may keep it to themselves if they think
good, because none have a right to give that which they have no
right to possess; when it is known to all the World that the
Electors have a right to chuse the Emperor, and yet that till
they have chosen him, the Soveraignty is not in them, nor that
they can possess it themselves, and chuse whether they will give
it to another; and that when they have chosen him, he is a
Soveraign Prince, and superior to all those who have chosen him,
by all the marks of Soveraignty which are known in practice, tho
not possibly in speculation. And he knows well there is another
Soveraign Prince greater then the Emperor, and almost as great as
he would have his Soveraign to be in the extent of his power, who
is likewise Elective, and that is the Pope, and that the Conclave
cannot retain that Soveraignty to themselves, but having by their
Election conferr'd it upon him, he is thereby become as absolute
a Monarch as Mr Hobbes can wish. And truly, if he would rectifie
his speculations, that is, his conceptions and imaginations, by
examining those of other men (a fatal neglect he hath bin guilty
of throughout his whole life) he could hardly have avoided the
knowing, that on every Michaelmas day the whole common People of
London chuse the Lord Major, and yet the Office is not in them
till they do chuse him, tho his Predecessor were dead, nor can
they keep it to themselves; and so they can give that which they
cannot possess, which is diametrically contrary to his
speculation; which would likewise have bin controuled by all
Elections of the Kingdom.
    He might have saved himself much labor (since he agrees that
a Soveraign by acquisition, which is somwhat we understand, hath
the same full Soveraignty with his other by institution) if he
had spar'd all that which is mere speculation; and I will
gratifie him, not by insisting upon the Paternal Dominion,
otherwise then as it must be confessed to be the original of
Monarchy, becAuse we will do the Mother no wrong, who is so meet
a help in the generation. And before I proceed further upon this
Argument, to which I will presently return, I must lament in this
place Mr Hobbes's so positive determining a point of Justice, in
which he could have no experience, and against all the practice
of the Christian World, (pag. 104.) that he who hath Quarter
granted him in War, hath not his life given, but deferred till
farther deliberation; which Doctrine, found only as he confesses
by speculation, served to confirm that Tyrannical Power in a
Judgment they had given, when three great and noble Persons, who
were Prisoners of War, were contrary to all form and rule
condemn'd to be murder'd; which Sentence was barbarously
executed, and afterwards reiterated upon others, the rather
probably upon his speculative determination.
    And since we are now come to that Chapter of Dominion
Paternal and Despotical, in which he discourses of his Government
by acquisition, which he will have by force; or by institution,
which he calls by consent, and confesses, that the rights and
consequences of Soveraignty are the same in both; it may not (I
conceive) be unseasonable to state, and lay down that Scheme of
Government, which men reasonably believe was originally
instituted, and the progress and alterations which were
afterwards made, and all those Covenants, Promises, and
Conditions which were annexed to it, and by the observation of
which it hath alwaies acquired strength and lustre, and bin as
much impair'd, when endeavors have bin used to extend it beyond
its bounds and just limits, and to make it more absolute, then is
consistent with the Peace and Happiness of the People, which was,
and is the end of its Institution. And in the first place we must
deny, as we have hitherto don, Mr Hobbes his ground-work, upon
which, with many ill-consequences even from thence, his
foundation is supported, and that is, That War is founded in
Nature, which gives the stronger a right to whatever the weaker
is possessed of; so that there can be no peace, or security from
oppression, till such Covenants are made, as may appoint a
Soveraign to have all that power which is necessary to provide
for that peace and security; and out of, and by this Institution,
his Magistrate grows up to the greatness and size of his
Leviathan. But we say, that Peace is founded in nature; and that
when the God of nature gave his Creature, Man, the dominion over
the rest of his Creation, he gave him likewise natural strength
and power to govern the World with peace and order.. and how much
soever he lost by his own integrity, by falling from his
obedience to his Creator, and how severe a punishment soever he
under-went by that his disobedience, it do's not appear that his
dominion over Man-kind was in any degree lessened or abated. So
that we cannot but look upon him, during his life, as the sole
Monarch of the World: and that lasted so long, as we may
reasonably compute, that a very considerable part of the World,
that was peopled before the Flood, was peopled in his life, since
it lasted uPon the point of two parts of that term: so that his
Dominion was over a very numerous People. And during all that
time, we have no reason to imagine that there was any such
Instrument of Government by Covenants and Contracts, as is
contain'd in this Institution. And yet we do acknowledg, that he
was by nature fully possessed of all that plentitudo potestatis,
which doth of right belong to a Magistrate; and we may very
reasonably believe, having no color to think the contrary, that
his Son Seth, who was born a hundred and thirty years after him,
and lived above a hundred years after he was dead, govern'd his
descendants with the same absolute Dominion, which might well be
continued under his Successor to the very time of the Flood: for
we may very reasonably believe that Noah conversed with Seth,
since it is evident they lived one hundred years together in the
same Age. Nor have we the Least color to believe, that there was
either Sedition or Civil War before the Flood; their rebelLion
against God in a universal exercise of Idolatry, which implies a
general consent amongst themseLves, being in the opinion of most
Learned Men, the crying Sin that provoked God to drown the World.
    After the Flood, we cannot but think that Noah remain'd the
sole Monarch of the World during his life, according to that
model with which he had bin very well acquainted for the space of
five hundred years; and he lived Long enough after to see a very
numerous increase of his Children and Subjects; who after his
death, when the multiplication was very great, came from the East
into the Land of Shinar, the pleasant vally of Shinar, where God,
in the beginning, had plac'd the Father of Mankind, Adam; and
Learned men are of opinion, that the great and principal end of
the building of Babel, over and above the high Tower for their
fame and renown to posterity, was, that they intended it for the
Metropolis of an Universal Monarchy; so little doubt there was
yet made of an entire subjection and obedience. Sure we are, that
the Generations of Noah, when Man-kind was exceedingly increas'd,
did divide the Nations in the Earth; and Mr Mead assures us, that
the word which we translated divided signifies not a scattering,
or any thing of confusion, but a most distinct partition. So that
this great division of the Earth being perform'd in this method
and order, there is no room for the imagination and dream of such
an irregular and confus'd dispersion, that every man went whither
he listed, and setled himself where he liked best, from whence
that Institution of Government might arise which Mr Hobbes
fancies. Under this Division, we of the Western World have reason
to believe our selves of the posterity of Japheth, and that our
Progenitors did as welL know under what Government they were to
live, as what portion they were to possess: and we have that
blessing of Japheth, that God would inlarge him into the Tents of
Shem, and that Cham should be his servant, to assure and confirm
us, that the Inundation, which almost cover'd us, of the Goths
and Vandals from Scythia, and other Northern Nations (whose
original habitations we cannot to this day find) were not of the
Children of Cham, which we might otherwise have suspected.
    As Man-kind encreas'd, and the age of man grew less, so that
they did not live to see so great a Progeny issue out of their
own loins as formerly, and their subjects growing less, their
kindred also grew at so great distance, that the account of their
relations was not so easily or so carefully preserv'd; hereby
they who had the Soveraign Powers exercis'd less of the Paternal
Affection in their Government, and look'd upon those they
govern'd as their mere subjects, not as their Allies; and by
degrees, according to the custom of exorbitant Power, considering
only the extent of their own Jurisdiction, and what they might
do, they treated those who were under them not as Subjects, but
as slaves, who having no right to any thing but what they gave
them, would allow them to possess nothing but what they had no
mind to have themselves. Estates they had none that they could
call their own, because when their Soveraign call'd for them,
they were his; their persons were at his command, when he had
either occasion or appetite to use them, and their Children
inherited nothing but the subjection of their Parents: so that
they were happy or miserable, as he who had the power and command
over them exercised that power with more or less rigor or
indulgence, they submitting to both, acknowledging the dominion
to be naturally absolute, and their subjection and obedience to
be as natural. Kings had not long delighted themselves with this
exorbitant exercise of their power (for tho the power had bin
still the same, the exercise of it had bin very moderate, whil'st
there remain'd the tenderness or memory of any relation) but they
begun to discern (according to their faculties of discerning, as
their parts were better or worse) that the great strength they
seem'd to be possess'd of, must in a short time end in absolute
weakness, and the plenty they seem'd to enjoy, would become
exceeding, that no man would build a House that his want and
beggary. Children should not inherit, nor cultivate Land with
good husbandry and expence, the fruit and profit whereof might be
taken by another man; that whil'st their subjects did not enjoy
the convenience and delight of life, they could not be sure of
the affection and help of them, when they should enter into a
difference with one who is as absolute as themselves, but they
would rather chuse to be subject to him, whose Subjects liv'd
with more satisfaction under him: in a word, that whil'st they
engross'd all power, and all wealth into their own hands, they
should find none who would defend them in the possession of it;
and that there is great difference between the subjection that
love and discretion paies, and that which results only from fear
and force, and that despair puts an end to that duty, which
nature, and it may be Conscience too, would still perswade them
to pay, and to continue; and therefore that it was necessary that
the subjects should find profit and comfort in obeying, as well
as Kings pleasure in commanding. These wise and wholsom
Reflexions prevail'd with Princes for their own benefit to
restrain themselves, to make their Power less absolute, that it
might be more useful; to give their Subjects a property that
should not be invaded but in such cases, and with such and such
circumstances, and a liberty that should not be restrain'd, but
upon such terms as they could not but think reasonable. And as
they found the benefit to grow from those condescentions in the
improvement of Civility, and those additions of delight which
makes Life and Government the more pleasant, they inlarg'd the
Graces and Concessions to their Subjects, reserving all in
themselves which they did not part with by their voluntary Grants
and Promises. And if we take a view of the several Kingdoms of
the World, we shall see another manner of beauty, glory and
lustre in those Governments, where those condescentions,
concessions, and contracts have bin most or best observ'd, then
in those Dominions where the Soveraigns retain to themselves all
the Rights and Prerogatives which are invested in them by the
original nature of Government; upon which we shall inlarge
hereafter.
    This is the original and pedigree of Government, equally
different from that which the levelling fancy of some men would
reduce their Soveraign to, upon an imagination that Princes have
no autority or power but what was originally given them by the
People, and that it cannot be presumed that they would give them
so much as might be applied to their own destruction, and from
that which Mr Hobbes hath instituted, by framing formal
Instruments by which an assembly of mankind (which was never
heard of, nor can be conceiv'd practicable) hath devolv'd from
themselves into one Man of their own choice, an absolute Power by
their own consent, to exercise it in such a manner as to his
pleasure is agreeable, without the observation of the common
rules of Justice or, Sobreity. whereas it cannot be imagined
possible in nature, that ever such an assembly of men of equal
autority in themselves, will ever agree to make one Man their
Soveraign with such an absolute Jurisdiction over the rest, as
must devest them of all property as well as power for the future;
and whereas in truth all power was by God and Nature invested
into one Man, where still as much of it remains as he hath not
parted with, and shar'd with otherse for the good and benefit of
those (and the mutual security of both) for whose benefit it was
first intrusted to him; the rest, which is enough, remains still
in him, and may be applied to the preservation of the whole,
against the fancies of those who think he hath nothing but what
they have given him; and likewise against those who believe that
so much is given him, that he hath power to leave no body else
any thing to enjoy; the last of which are no less enemies to
Monarchy then the former.
    I am very unwilling to enter into the lists with Mr Hobbes
upon the interpretation of Scriptures, which he handles as
imperiously as he doth a Text of Aristotle, putting such
unnatural interpretation on the words, as hath not before fallen
into the thoughts of any other man, and drawing very unnatural
inferences from them; insomuch as no man can think he is really
in earnest, when, to prove that the Kings word is sufficient to
take any thing from any Subject when there is need, and that the
King is Judge of that need, he alledges the example of our
Saviour, who, he saies, as King of the Jews (p. 106) commanded
his Disciples to take the Asses Colt to carry him to Jerusalem,
which he saies the owner permitted, and did not as k whether his
necessity was a sufficient title, nor whether he was Judg of that
necessity, but did acquiesce in the will of the Lord: which is a
very bold and ungrave wresting of Scripture to purposes it could
not intend; since our Saviour did not profess to do one act as
King of the Jews, but declar'd that his kingdom was not of this
world. And at that time he told the Messengers who were sent for
the Ass, that if they were asked what they meant by it, they
should answer, that the Lord had need of him, upon which he knew,
and he said, that they would let him go, and upon that he
grounded their Commission. If the owner would not permit them to
take it, the Messengers had no autority to have brought them to
him. And his inference from, and the gloss he makes upon the
question that God asked of Adame (p. 106.) Hast thou eaten? hath
as little warrant from that text, as the other improper instance
of our Saviour. And sure when Mr Hobbes thought fit by this
example of our Saviour in this place to wrest all property from
the Subject, he did not intend in any other place so far to
devest him of any autority, that men were not bound to believe
any thing he said, or to do any thing he commanded, because he
had no Commission which required obedience, his Kingdom being not
yet of this world. So unwary he is in the contradicting himself;
as all men are, who first resolve what they are to prove, before
they consider what it is that is true.
    We are not obliged, nor indeed have any reason to believe,
that God was offended with the Children of Israel for desiring a
King, which was a Government himself had instituted over them,
and to which they had bin long accustomed, and had undergon much
misery, and confusion whilst there was no King in Israel; but for
their mutinous manner of asking it, and the reason they gave for
it, that they might be like other nations, which God had taken
all possible care that they should not be, and enjoined them to
learn nothing of them. And the description, which Samuel made of
the exorbitant power of Kings, which indeed the Kings of the
Nations did exercise, by whose example they desir'd to be
govern'd, was rather to terrify them from pursuing their foolish
demand, then to constitute such a Prerogative as the King should
use whom God would appoint to go in and out before them; which
methinks is very manifest, in that the worst Kings that ever
reign'd over them, never challeng'd, or assum'd those
Prerogatives. Nor did the people conceive themselves liable to
those impositions; as appears by the application they made to
Rehoboam upon the death of Solomon, that he would abate some of
that rigor his Father had exercised towards them; the rough
rejection of which, contrary to the advice of his wisest
Counsellors, cost him the greater part of his Dominions: and when
Rehoboam would by Arms have reduced them to obedience, God would
not suffer him, because he had bin in the fault himself.
    I am willing to take an occasion in this place to wish, that
no better Divines then Mr Hobbes had, from this place in Samuel,
presum'd very unwarrantably to draw inferences, to lessen the
Subjects reverence and obedience to Kings, and to raise a
prejudice and disesteem in Kings towards their Subjects, as
people whose affections and good Will are of no use to them,
since they can present nothing to them that is their own, nor
have any thing to give, but what they make take from them; which
two very different rather then contrary conclusions, too many
Divines (and some of parts) according to their several
inclinations and appetites, have presumed to wrest from that
place of Scripture; the one party of them, as is said before,
endeavouring maliciously to render Monarchy odious and
insupportable, by the unlimited affections, and humors, and
pretences, and power of a single uncontroulable person; the other
believing as unreasonably, that the dispositions, natures, and
hearts of the people, cannot be appli'd to the necessary
obedience towards their Princes, nor their reverence and duty be
so well fix'd and devoted to them, as by thinking that they have
nothing of their own, but whatsoever they enjoy they have only by
the bounty of the King, who can take it from them when he
pleases: and to this last party Mr Hobbes his speculation hath
for the present disposed him to adhere, tho in any other
particular opinion he doth not concur with any Divine of any
Church in Christendom. For the first, whoever doth well consider
the wonderful confused Government that was exercised over the
Children of Israel from the death of Joshua, when the Monarchy
was interrupted, under the Judges for the space of above three
hundred years, the barbarous negligence in the instruction of the
people in the knowledg of God, and of their duty to him, insomuch
that the very next generation after the death of Joshuah had
lost, or was without the whole History of what God had don for
them, and of what he expected from them; so unfaithful a guide,
or rembrancer is Tradition, when the Scripture it self is not to
be found: I say, whoever considers likewise the quality, and
talent, and humor of many of the very Judges who had bin over
them, as the repeted Acts of indiscretion and folly in Sampson,
which could not but make his judgment to be in the less
reverence, & the strength of his arms to be more admir'd then
that of his head; with the present state they were then in under
the Sons of Samuel, who were no better than the Sons of Ely had
bin, will not perhaps so very much blame them for desiring a
King: and tho the manner of their asking it might, as hath bin
said, offend Samuel, and in some degree displease God, yet he
might not be offended absolutely with the thing it self, since it
was no more then God himself had in a manner prescrib'd to them,
as well as foretold, without any kind of disapprobation. When
thou art come into the Land which the Lord thy God giheth thee,
&c, and shalt say, I will set a King over me, like as all the
Nations which are about me, Thou shalt in any wise set him a King
over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall chuse. Deut. 17. 14, 15,
16, 17. God was well content that they should have a King, but
reserv'd the election of him to himself: he would have no
transferring of rights, or covenanting for one another, he would
chuse his own Representative. Nor amongst all the customes of the
Nations, which he forbid them to follow, did God ever shew the
least dislike of their Government by Kings, which had bin
instituted originally by himself, and probably bin continued by
them even from the time of the institution, however their manners
were degenerated, and the knowledg of him totally forgotten. And
in what degree of grace and favor that high calling hath bin ever
since with him, appears by the mention of them throughout the
whole current of Scripture, by the Prerogatives he hath granted
to them, and by his imparting to them even his own appellation.
    They who will in the next place, deduce the extent of that
absolute and illimited power of Kings from that declaration by
Samuel, which indeed seems to leave neither Property, or Liberty
in their subjects, and could be only intended by Samuel to
terrify them from that mutinous and seditious clamor, since it
hath no foundation from any other part of Scripture, nor was ever
practic'd or exercis'd by any good King who succeeded over them,
and was blessed, and approv'd by God. And therefore when those
State Empirics, of what degree or quality soever, will take upon
them to prescribe a new diet and exercise to Soveraign Princes,
and invite them to assume new powers and prerogatives over the
people, by the Precepts, Warrants, and Prescriptions of the
Scripture, they should not presume to make the sacred writ
subject to their own private fancies. And if according to the
more authentic method of interpreting doubtful places, they had
recourse to that place, where the same matter is first handled,
they would then have found, by resorting to the before mention'd
place in Deuteronomy, another kind of Scheme for the power, and
government of Kings. There, when God intended that they should be
governed by a King whom he would himself chuse, he prescrib'd
what he should not do, and what he should do. He should not
multiply Horses to himself, &c. which only concern'd that people,
that they might have no temtation to return to Egypt, ye shall
henceforth no more return that way &c. Nor shall he multiply
Wives, &c. Tho multiplying of Wives seem'd to be permitted, yet
he was to have a care that the number of them did not turn his
heart away. Nor should he greatly multply unto himself Silver,
and Gold &c. not so affect, and set his heart upon being rich, as
to be temted to oppress his Subjects, or to injure his Neighbors;
and so far the negative directed. Then for the affirmative, That
he should write a coPy of the Law in a Book, &c. Deut. 17, 18,
19, 20. that it should be with him, and he should read therein
all the daies of his life, that he might learn to fear the Lord
his God, and to keep all the words of the Law, and these Statutes
to do them; that his heart be not lifted up, and that he turn not
aside from the Commandment to the right hand, or to the left; and
from this Text the Rabinns concluded, that he was to write a Book
of the Law for himself, and if he had none before he was King, he
was obliged assoon as he was King to have two, one whereof he was
to have alwaies with him, sive cum vadit ad praelium, sive cum
sedet in judicio, aut in mensa, &c. Those were the injunctions
which God prescrib'd to his King, and were observ'd by all those
who were bless'd and approv'd by him; for David seems by the
words of Nathan to have some particular allowance for the great
number of his Wives; and his multiplying gold, and silver, was
for the building of the Temple, and no private use of his own;
and Solomons excessive greatness, was from the immediate bounty
of God himself; but he no sooner violated those Precepts, and
exceeded that moderation that was prescrib'd to him towards his
Subjects, and with reference to the multiplying Wives, then his
heart turn'd away from God, and God turn'd away from him.
    This pleasant suggestion by which he would discountenance
that importunate and impertinent demand of an example of such a
Government as he would institute, that tho in all places of the
world men should lay the foundation of their houses in sand, it
could not thence be infer'd that so it ought to be, will never
perswade men to change a Government they have bin for many
hundred years happy under (tho with some vicissitudes of fortune)
for an imaginary Government by his Rules of Arithmetic and
Geometry, of which no Nation hath ever yet had the experiment:
and if there by any Country where is a Sand of that nature, that
hath supported the greatest edifices for hundreds of years,
against all the storms of wind, and rage of tempests, he shall be
much too nice and scrupulous a person, who will by any Rules of
Architecture forbear to build his House there, because he will
not lay his foundation upon Sand, which by experience is found to
be of equal firmness with a Rock.

 The Survey of Chapter 21.

    Mr Hobbes is so great an enemy to freedom, that he will not
allow Man that which God hath given him, the Freedom of his Will;
but he shall not entangle me in that Argument, which he hath
enough exercis'd himself in with a more equal Adversary, who I
think hath bin much too hard for him at his own weapon, Reason,
the Learned Bishop of Derry, who was afterwards Arch-Bishop of
Armagh, and by which he hath put him into greater choler then a
Philosopher ought to subject himself to, the terrible strokes
whereof I am not willing to undergo, and therefore shall keep my
self close to that freedom and liberty only that is due to
Subjects, and of which, his business in this Chapter, is to
deprive them totally.
    A man would have expected from Mr Hobbes's Inventory of the
several Rights and powers of his Soveraign in his eighteenth
Chapter, of which one was to prescribe Rules (pag. 91.) whereby
every man might know what goods he may enjoy, and what actions he
might do, without being molested by any of his fellow Subjects,
which he saies, Men call Propriety, that some such Rule should be
established as might secure that Propriety, how little soever:
but he hath now better explain'd himself, and finds, that Liberty
and Property are only fences against the Invasion or force of
fellow Subjects, but towards the Soveraign of no use or
signification at all. No man hath a Propriety in any thing, that
can restrain the King from taking it from him, and the liberty of
a Subject (pag. 109.) lieth only in those things, which in
regulating their actions, the SOveraign hath pretermitted, such
as is the liberty to buy and sell, and otherwise contract with
one another; to chuse their own abode, their own diet, their own
trade of life, and to institute their children as they think fit,
and the like. I wonder he did not insert the liberty to wear his
Clothes of that fashion which he likes best, which is as
important as most of his other Concessions. And yet he seems to
be jealous, that even this liberty should make men imagine, that
the Soveraign power should be in any degree limited, or that any
thing he can do to a Subject, and upon what pretence soever, may
be called injustice or injury, the contrary whereof he saies he
hath shewed already., for he takes it as granted, that all that
he hath said he hath proved: and if he hath not, he hath don it
now substantially by the example of hepthah, in causing his
daughter to be sacrific'd (of which he is not sure) and by Davids
killing Uriah, which he saies, tho it was against equity, yet it
was not an injury to Uriah, because the right was given him by
Uriah, which I dare swear Uriah never knew he had don. And by
such unnatural Arguments he would perswade men to be willing to
be undon; very like those which the Stoics as obstinately
maintain'd, That a wise man could not be injur'd, because he was
not capable nor sensible of it. But I wonder more, that he doth
not discern what every other man cannot but discern, that by his
so liberal taking away, he hath not left the Subject any thing to
enjoy even of those narrow concessions which he hath made to him.
For how can any man believe that he hath liberty to buy and sell,
when the Soveraign power can presently take away what he hath
sold, from him who hath bought it, and consequently no man can
sell or buy to any purpose? Who can say that he can chuse his own
abode, or his own trade of life, or any thing, when assoon as he
hath chosen either, he shall be requir'd to go to a place where
he hath no mind to go, and to do somwhat he would not chuse to
do? for his person is no more at his own disposal then his goods
are; so that he may as graciously retain of himself all that he
hath granted.
    Whether the Soveraign Power or the Liberty of the Subject
receive the greater injury and prejudice by this brief state and
description he makes of the no liberty, that is, the portion he
leaves to the Subject, would be a great question, if he had not
bin pleas'd himself to determine, that his Subject (for God
forbid that any other Prince should have such a Subject) is not
capable of any injury; by which the whole mischief is like to
fall upon the Soveraign. And what greater mischief and ruine can
threaten the greatest Prince, then that their Subjects should
believe, that all the liberty they have, consists only in those
things which the Soveraign hath hitherto pretermitted, that is,
which he hath not yet taken from them, but when he pleases in
regulating their actions to determine the contrary, they shall
then have neither liberty to buy or sell, nor to contract with
each other, to chuse their own abode, their own diet, their own
trade of life, or to breed their own children; and to make their
misery compleat, and their life as little their own as the rest,
that nothing the Soveraign can do to his subject, on what
pretence soever, as well in order to the taking away his Life as
his Estate, can be called injustice or injury; I say, what
greater insecurity can any Prince be in or under, then to depend
upon such Subjects? And alas! what security to himself or them
can the Sword in his hand be, if no other hand be lift up on his
behalf, or the Swords in all other hands be directed against him,
that he may not cut off their heads when he hath a mind to it?
And it is not Mr Hobbes's autority that will make it believ'd,
that he who desires more liberty, demands an exemption from all
Laws, by which all other men may be masters of their lives; and
that every Subject is author of every act the Soveraign doth,
upon the extravagant supposition of a consent that never was
given; and if it were possible to have bin given, must have bin
void at the instant it was given, by Mr Hobbes's own rules, as
shall be made out in its place. He himself confesses, (pag. 295.)
and saies it is evident to the meanest capacities, that mens
actions are deriv'd from the opinions they have of the good and
evil which from those actions redound unto themselves, and
consequently men that are once possessed of an opinion that their
obedience to the Soveraign power will be more hurtful to them
then their disobedience, will disobey the Laws, and thereby over
throw the Common-wealth, and introduce confusion and civil War,
for the avoiding whereof, all civil Government was ordained. If
this be true, (as there is no reason to believe it to be) is it
possible that any man can believe, that the People, for we speak
not of convincing the Philosophers and the Mathematicians, but of
the general affections of the People, which must dispose them to
obedience, that they can be perswaded by a long train of
Consequences, from the nature of man, and the end of Government,
and the institution thereof by Contracts and Covenants, of which
they never heard, to believe that it is best for them to continue
in the same nakedness in which they were created, for fear their
clothes may be stoln from them, and that they have parted with
their liberty to save their lives? There is no question, but of
all calamities the calamity of War is greatest, and the rage and
uncharitableness of civil War most formidable of all War. Indeed
forreign War seldom destroies a Nation, without domestic
Combinations and Conspiracies, which makes a complication with
civil War. and sure nothing can more inevitably produce that,
then an universal opinion in the People, that their Soveraign can
take from them all they have whenever he hath a mind to it, and
their lives too, without any injustice, and consequently that
their obedience to him will be more hurtful to them then their
disobedience; so well hath he provided for the security of his
Soveraign, if his doctrine were believ'd.
    Mr Hobbes is too much conversant in both those learned
Languages, to wish that the Western World were depriv'd of the
Greek and Latine Tongues, for any mischief they have don; and
upon my conscience, whatever errors may have bin brought into
Philosophy by the autority of Aristotle, no man ever grew a Rebel
by reading him; and if the greatest Monarch that hath ever bin in
the World, except the Monarch of the World, had thought his Tutor
Aristotle had bin so great an enemy to Monarchy (yet he knew he
was born and bred in a Republic) and that his Works contribute so
much to sedition, as Mr Hobbes supposes, he would not have valued
his Person so much, nor read his Works with such diligence as he
did. And if Mr Hobbes would take a view of the Insurrections, and
the civil Wars which have at any time bin stirr'd up in the
Western parts, he will not find that they have bin contriv'd or
fomented by men who had spent much time in the reading Greek and
Latin Authors, or that they have bin carried on upon the Maxims
and Principles which they found there. Jack Straw and Wat Tyler,
whose Insurrection, in respect of the numbers and the progress it
made, was as dangerous as hath happened in any Age or Climate,
had never read Aristotle or Cicero; and I believe, had Mr Hobbes
bin of this opinion when he taught Thucydides to speak English,
which Book contains more of the Science of Mutiny and Sedition,
and teaches more of that Oratory that contributes thereunto, then
all that Aristotle and Cicero have publish'd in all their
Writings, he would not have communicated such materials to his
Country-men. But if this new Philosophy, and Doctrine of Policy
and Religion should be introduc'd, taught, and believ'd, where
Aristotle and Cicero have don no harm, it would undermind
Monarchy more in two months, then those two great men have don
since their deaths; and men would reasonably wish, that the
Author of it had never bin born in the English Climate, nor bin
taught to write and read.
    It is a very hard matter for an Architect in State and
Policy, who doth despise all Precedents, and will not observe any
Rules of practice, to make such a model of Government as will be
in any degree pleasant to the Governor, or governed, or secure
for either; which Mr Hobbes finds; and tho he takes a liberty to
raise his Model upon a supposition of a very formal Contract,
that never was, or ever can be in nature, and hath the drawing
and preparing his own form of Contract, is forc'd to allow such a
latitude in obedience to his subject, as shakes the very pillars
of his Government. And therefore, tho he be contented that by the
words of his Contract, (pag. 112.) Kill me, and my fellow if you
please, the absolute power of all mens lives shall be submitted
to the disposal of the Governors will and pleasure, without being
oblig'd to observe any rules of Justice and, Equity. yet he will
not admit into his Contract the other words, (pag. 112.) I will
kill my self, or my fellow, and therefore that he is not bound by
the command of his Soveraign to execute any dangerous or
dishonorable office; but in such cases, men are not to resort so
much to the words of the submission, as to the intention: which
Distinction surely may be as applicable to all that monstrous
autority which he gives his Governor to take away the Lives and
Estates of his Subjects, without any cause or reason, upon an
imaginary Contract, which if never so real, can never be supposed
to be with the intention of the Contractor in such cases. And the
subtle Distinctions he finds out to excuse Subjects from yielding
obedience to their Soveraigns, and the Prerogative he grants to
fear, for a whole Army to run away from the Enemy without the
guilt of treachery or injustice, leaves us some hope, that he
will at last allow such a liberty to Subjects, that they may not
in an instant be swallowed up by the prodigious power which he
pleases to grant to his Soveraign. And truly, he degrades him
very dis-honorably, when he obliges him to be the Hang man
himself, of all those Malefactors, which by the Law are condemn'd
to die; for he gives every man autority, without the violation of
his duty, or swerving from the rules of Justice, absolutely to
refuse to perform that office. Nor hath he provided much better
for his security, then he hath for his honor, when he allows it
lawful for any number of men, (pag. 112) who have rebelled
against the Soveraign, or committed some capital crime, for which
every one of them expects death, then to join together, and
defend each other, because they do but defend their lives, which
the guilty man, he saies, may do as well as the innocent. And
surely, no man can legally take his life from him who may
lawfully defend it; and then the murderer, or any other person
guilty of a capital Crime, is more innocent, and in a better
condition then the Executioner of Justice, who may be justly
murdered in the just execution of his office. And it is a very
childish security that he provides for his Soveraign against this
Rebellion, and defence of themselves against the power of the
Law, (pag. 113.) that he declares it to be lawful only for the
defence of their lives, and that upon the offer of pardon for
themselves, that self-defence is unlawful: as if a body that is
lawfully drawn together, with strength enough to defend their
lives against the power of the Law, are like to disband and lay
down their Arms, without other benefit and advantage then only of
the saving of their lives. But tho he be so cruel as to devest
his Subjects of all that liberty, which the best and most
peaceable men desire to possess, yet he liberally and bountifully
confers upon them such a liberty as no honest man can pretend to,
and which is utterly inconsistent with the security of Prince and
People; which unreasonable Indulgence of his, cannot but be
thought to proceed from an unlawful affection to those who he saw
had power enough to defend the transcendent wickedness they had
committed, tho they were without an Advocate to make it lawful
for them to do so, till he took that office upon him in his
Leviathan, as is evident by the instance he gives in the next
Paragraph, that he thinks it lawful for every man to have as many
wives as he pleases, if the King will break the silence of the
Law, and declare that he may do so; which is a Prerogative he
vouchsafes to grant to the Soveraign, to balance that liberty he
gave to the Subject to defend himself and his companion against
him, and is the only power that may inable him to be too hard for
the other.
    If Mr Hobbes did not believe that the autority of his Name,
and the pleasantness of his style, would lull men asleep from
enquiring into the Logic of his Discourse, he could not but very
well discern himself, that this very liberty which he allows the
Subject to have, and which he doth without scruple enjoy, to sue
the Soveraign, and to demand the hearing of his Cause, and that
Sentence be given according to the Law, results only from that
condescention and contract which the Soveraign hath made with his
Subject, and which can as well secure many other Liberties to
them, as their power to sue the King; for there could be no Law
precedent to that resignation of themselves and all they had, at
the institution of their supreme Governor. and if there had bin,
it had bin void and invalid, it being not possible that any man
who hath right to nothing, and from whom any thing that he hath
may be taken away, can sue his Soveraign for a debt which he
might take, if it were due from any other man but can by no means
be due from him to whom all belongs, and who hath power to forbid
any Judg to proceed upon that complaint, or any other person to
presume to make that complaint, were it not for the subsequent
contract which he calls a precedent Law, by which the Soveraign
promises, and obliges himself to appoint Judges to exercise
Justice even where himself is party, and that he will be sued
before those Judges, if he doth not pay what he ow's to his
Subjects. This is the Contract which gives that capacity of
suing, and which by his own consent and condescention lessens his
Soveraignty, that his Subjects may require Justice from him. And
yet all these promises, and lessenings, he pronounces as void,
and to amount to contradictions, that must dissolve the whole
Soveraign power, and leave the people in confusion and war.
Whereas the truth is, these condescentions, and voluntary
abatements of some of that original power that was in them, have
drawn a cheerful submission, and bin attended by a ready
obedience to Soveraignty, from the time that Subjects have bin at
so great a distance from being consider'd as Children, and that
Soveraigns have bin without those natural tendernesses in the
exercise of their power, and which in the rigor of it could never
have bin supported. And where these obligations are best
observ'd, Soveraignty flourishes with the most lustre, and
security. Kings having still all the power remaining in them,
that they have not themselves parted with, and releas'd to their
Subjects, and their Subjects having no pretence to more liberty
or power then the King hath granted and given to them: and both
their happiness, and security consists in containing themselves
within their own limits, that is, Kings not to affect the
recovery of that exorbitant power, which their Ancestors wisely
parted with, as well for their own as the peoples benefit; and
Subjects to rejoice in those liberties which have bin granted to
them, and not to wish to lessen the power of the King, which is
not greater then is necessary for their own preservation. And to
such a wholsom division, and communication of power as this is,
that place of Scripture (with which Mr Hobbes is still too bold)
a Kingdom divided in it self cannot stand, cannot be appli'd.
    But that this Supreme Soveraign, whom he hath invested with
the whole property and liberty of all his Subjects, and so
invested him in it, that he hath not power to part with any of it
by promise, or donation, or release, may not be too much exalted
with his own greatness, he hath humbled him sufficiently by
giving his Subjects leave to withdraw their obedience from him
when he hath most need of their assistance, for the (pag. 114.)
obligation of Subjects to the Soveraign is understood (he saies)
to last as long, and no longer, then the Power lasts to protect
them. So that assoon as any Town, City, or Province of any
Princes Dominions, is invaded by a Forreign Enemy, or possessed
by a Rebellious Subject, that the Prince for the present cannot
suppress the power of the one, or the other, the people may
lawfully resort to those who are over theme and for their
Protection perform all the Offices and duties of good Subjects to
them, (pag. 114.) for the right men have by nature to protect
themselves when none else can protect them, can by no covenant be
relinquish'd, and the end of obedience is protection, which
wherever a man seeth it either in his own, or in an others sword,
nature applieth his obedience to it, and his endeavours to
maintain it. And truly it is no wonder if they do so, and that
Subjects take the first opportunity to free themselves from such
a Soveraign as he hath given them, and chuse a better for
themselves. Whereas the duty of Subjects is, and all good
Subjects believe they owe, another kind of duty and obedience to
their Soveraign, then to withdraw their subjection because he is
oppress'd; and will prefer poverty, and death it self, before
they will renounce their obedience to their natural Prince, or do
any thing that may advance the service of his Enemies. And since
Mr Hobbes gives so ill a testimony of his government (which, by
the severe conditions he would oblige mankind to submit to for
the support of it, ought to be firm, and not to be shaken) (pag.
114.) that it is in its own nature not only subject to violent
death by forreign war, but also from the ignorance, and passion
of men, that it hath in it from the very institution many seeds
of natural mortality by internal discord, worse then which he
cannot say of any Government, we may very reasonably prefer the
Government we have, and under which we have enjoi'd much
happiness, before his which we do not know, nor any body hath had
experience of, and which by his own confession is liable to all
the accidents of mortality which any others have bin; and reject
his that promises so ill, and exercises all the action of War in
Peace, and when War comes, is liable to all the misfortunes which
can possibly attend or invade it.
    Whether the relation of Subjects be extinguisht in all those
casese which Mr Hobbes takes upon him to prescribe, as
Imprisonment, Banishment, and the like, I leave to those who can
instruct him better in the Law of Nationse by which they must be
judged, notwithstanding all his Appeals to the Law of Nature; and
I presume if a banish'd Person (p. 114.) during which, he saies,
he is not subject, shall join in an action under a Forreign power
against his Country, wherein he shall with others be taken
prisoner, the others shall be proceeded against as Prisoners of
War, when he shall be judg'd as a Traitor and Rebel, which he
could not be, if he were not a Subject: and this not only in the
case of an hostile action, and open attemt, but of the most
secret conspiracy that comes to be discover'd. And if this be
true, we may conclude it would be very unsafe to conduct our
selves by what Mr Hobbes (p. 105.) finds by speculation, and
deduction of Soveraign rights from the nature, need, and designs
of men. Surely this woful desertion, and defection in the cases
above mention'd, which hath bin alwaies held criminal by all Law
that hath bin current in any part of the World, received so much
countenance and justification by Mr Hobbes his Book, and more by
his conversation, that Cromwel found the submission to those
principles produc'd a submission to him, and the imaginary
relation between Protection and Allegiance so positively
proclam'd by him, prevail'd for many years to extinguish all
visible fidelity to the King, whilst he perswaded many to take
the Engagement as a thing lawful, and to become Subjects to the
Usurper, as to their legitimate Soveraign; of which great service
he could not abstain from bragging in a Pamphlet he set forth in
that time, that he alonee and his doctrine, had prevail'd with
many to submit to the Government, who would otherwise have
disturb'd the public Peace, that is, to renounce their fidelity
to their true Soveraign, and to be faithful to the Usurper.
    It appears at last, why by his institution he would have the
power, and security of his Soveraign, wholy and only to depend
upon the Contracts, and Covenants which the people make one with
another, to transfer all their rights to a third person (who
shall be Soveraign) without entring into any Covenant with the
Soveraign himself, which would have devested them of that liberty
to disobey him, which they have reserv'd to themselves; or
receiving any Covenant from him, which might have obliged him to
have kept his promise to them; by which they might have had
somewhat left to them which they might have called their own,
which his institution will not bear, all such promises being
void. But if he be so tender hearted, as to think himself oblig'd
to observe all the promises, and make good all the Grants he hath
made, by which he may be disabled to provide for their safety,
which is the ground that hath made all those Grants and promises
to be void, he hath granted him power to remedy all this, by (p.
114.) directly renouncing, or transferring the Soveraignty to
another: and that he might openly, and in plain terms renounce,
or transfer it, he makes no doubt; and then he saies, if a
Monarch shall relinquish the Soveraignty both for himself, and
his heirs, his subjects return to the absolute liberty of nature.
Because tho nature may declare who are his sons, and who are the
neerest of his kin, yet it dependeth on his own will who shall be
his Heir: and if he will have no Heir, There is no Soveraignty,
or Subjection. This seems the hardest condition for the poor
Subject that he can be liable unto, that when he hath devested
himself of all the right he had, only for his Soveraigns
protection, that he may be redeem'd from the state of W ar and
confusion that nature hath left him in, and hath paid so dear for
that protection, it is left still in his Soveraigns power to
withdraw that protection from him, to renounce his subjection,
and without his consent to transfer the Soveraignty to another,
to whom he hath no mind to be subject. One might have imagin'd
that this new trick of transferring, and covenanting, had bin an
universal remedy, that being once applied would for ever prevent
the ill condition and confusion that nature had left us in, and
that such a right would have bin constituted by it, that
Soveraignty would never have fail'd to the Worlds end: and that
when the subject can never retract, or avoid the bargain he hath
made, how ill soever he likes it, or improve it by acquiring any
better conditions in it, it shall notwithstanding be in the
Soveraigns power without his consent, and it may be without his
privity, in an instant to leave him without any protection,
without any security, and as a prey to all who are to strong for
him. This indeed is the greatest Prerogative that he hath
conferr'd upon his Soveraign, when he had given him all that
belongs to his Subjects, that when he is weary of Governing, he
can destroy them, by leaving them to destroy one another. For
Kings and Princes to resign and relinquish their Crown and
Soveraignty, is no new transaction, nor it may be the better for
being old. Some have left them out of Melancholy, and devotion,
and when they have ceased to be Kings made themselves Monks, and
repented the change of their conditions afterwards. Some out of
weakness and bodily infirmities, have not bin able to sustain the
fatigue that the well exercising the Government required, and
therefore have desir'd to see those in the quiet possession of
it, to whom it would of right belong when they were dead; and the
more reasonably, if they forsaw any difficulties like to arise
about their admission in those seasons; as Charles the fifth
apprehended with reference to some of his dominions in Italy, if
his Son Philip was not in possession of them, before his Brother
ferdinando came to be Emperor. Some Princes have bin so humorous,
as upon the frowardness and refractoriness of their Subjects, and
because they could not govern in that manner they had a mind to
do, to abdicate the Government, and would have bin glad
afterwards to have resumed it. And others have bin so w anton, as
to relinquish their Crown because they did not like the Climate
in which their Dominions lay, and only that they might live in a
better Air, and enjoy the delights and pleasures of a more happy
Situation. But all these generally never attemted it, or imagin'd
they could do it, without the approbation and consent of their
Subjects, which was allwaies desir'd, and yielded to, with great
formality. And it is very strange that in those seasons of
Abdication, which supposes a suspension of Soveraignty,
especially in Elective Kingdoms, for in Hereditary the
immortality of the King, who never dies, may make a difference,
this invention of Mr Hobbes, of transferring one anothers right,
and covenanting with one another, hath never bin heard of; and
tho the Soveraignty is invested by election, the people have very
little share in that election.
    If Mr Hobbes would have exercis'd his Talent in that spacious
feild, as he might have don with more innocence, and, it may be,
more success, and have undertaken by his speculation and
deduction of Soveraign rights, from the nature, need, and designs
of men, to prove that it is not in the just power of a Monarch to
relinquish and renounce his Soveraignty, with what formality and
consent soever; nor more in the autority and power of the King to
abdicate and relinquish his Soveraignty over his people, then it
is in the autority of the people to withdraw their submission and
obedience from him; and that the practice of such renunciations,
tho never very frequent, hath bin the original and introduction
of that mischeivous doctrine sow'd amongst the people, of their
having a co-ordinate power with the Soveraign, which will be much
cherished by his new institution, since men are easily perswaded
to believe, that they can mar what they can make, and may
lawfully destroy what they create, that is, the work of their own
hands; I say, if he would have laid out his reason upon that
argument, he could have made it shine very plausibly, and might
have made many Proselytes to his opinion; since many Learned men
are so much in their judgment against that right of relinquishing
and transferring in Princes, that they believe it to be the only
cause wherein Subjects may lawfully take up defensive Arms, that
they may continue Subjects, and to preserve their Subjection and
obedience from being alien'd from him to whom it is due; and that
no consent or concurrence can more make such an alienation
lawful, then it can dissolve the bonds of Wedlock, and qualify
both parties to mnake a new choice for themselves, that may be
more grateful to them. But he thinks it to be more glory, to
discover that to be right reason, which all other men find to be
destructive to it, and (pag. 91.) that the suddain and rough
bustling in of a new truth, will raise his fame, as it hath done
that of many other Heretics before, and which he saies, doth
never break the peace, but only sometimes awake the, War; which,
to use his own commendable expression, is (pag. 8.) like handing
of things from one to onother, with wany words waking nothing
understood.

 The Survey of Chapter 22.

    I should pass over his two and twentieth Chapter of Systemes,
Subject, Political, and Private, which is a title as difficult to
be understood by a literal translation as most of those to any
Chapter in Suarez; as few Congregations, when they meet in a
Church to pay their devotions to God Almighty, do know that they
are an irregular systeme: in which, besides vulgar notions well
worded, every man will discover much of that which he calls signs
of error, and misreckoning, to which (he saies) (pag. 116.) all
mankind is too prone, and with which that Chapter abounds, and
will require no confutation, but that I find, and wonder to find
mention of Laws, and Letters Patents, Bodies Politic, and
Corporations, as necessary institutions for the carrying on and
advancement of Trade, which are so many limitations and
restraints of the Soveraign power, and so many entanglements
under Covenants and Promises, which as they are all declar'd to
be void, it is in vain to mention. I did not think Mr Hobbes had
desir'd to establish trade, or any industry for the private
accumulation of riches in his Commonwealth. For it is possible to
imagine, that any Merchant will send out Ships to Sea, or make
such a discovery of his Estate, if it may be either seized upon
before it go's out, or together with the benefit of the return
when it comes home? If trade be necessary to the good of a
Nation, it must be founded upon the known right of Propriety, not
as against other Subjects only, but against the Soveraign
himself; otherwise trade is but a trap to take the collected
wealth of particular men in a heap, and when it is brought into
less room, to have it seized on, and confiscated by the
omnipotent word of the King with less trouble, and more profit.
And if any Laws, Letters Patents, Charters, or any other
obligations or promises, can oblige the Soveraign power in these
cases which refer to trade and forreign adventures, why should
they not be equally valid for the securing all the other parts
and relations of Propriety? However, whatsoever rigor Mr Hobbes
thinks fit to exercise upon the Nobility and Gentry of the
Nation, he must give over all thoughts of trade, if he doth not
better provide to secure his Merchants both of their liberty, and
propriety.
    It is a good observation, and an argument for the preference
of Monarchy before any other form of Government, in that where
the Government is popular, and the depressing the interest and
reputation of particular Subjects is an essential policy of that
Government, yet in the managing the affairs of their Colonies and
Provinces at a distance from them, they chuse to commit the same
to a single person, as they do the Government and conduct of
their Armies, which are to defend their Government; which is a
tacite implication, if not confession, that in their own judgment
they think the Monarchical the best form of Government. But he
might have observ'd likewise, that in all those Monarchical
Commissions, at what distance soever, there are limits and bounds
set, by referring to instructions for the punctual observation
and performance of what that State or Government hath bin bound
by promise and contract to perform; which hath the same force to
evince, that the performance of promises and conditions, is very
consistent with Monarchical Government: for the hazards that may
arrive from thence may be as dangerous to that Government if it
be at a great distance, as upon any supposition whatsoever, yet
is never left to the discretion of a Governor.
    If is a wonderful latitude that Mr Hobbes leaves to all his
Subjects, and contradictory to all the moral precepts given to
the World, and to all the notions of Justice, that he who hath
his private interest depending, and to be debated and judg'd
before any Judicatory, may make as many Friends as he can amongst
those Judges, even by giving them Mony; as if, tho it be a crime
in a Judg to be corrupt, the person who corrupts him may be
innocent, because he thinks his own cause just, and desires to
buy justice for Mony which cannot be got without it; and so the
grossest and most powerful Bribery shall be introduc'd, to work
upon the weakness and poverty, and corruption of a Judg, because
the party thinks his cause to be just, and chuses rather to
depend upon the affection of his Judg whom he hath corrupted,
then upon the integrity of his cause, and the justice of the Law.
But he doth not profess to be a strict Casuist; nor can be a good
observer of the Rules of moral honesty, who believes that he may
induce another to commit a great Sin, and remain innocent
himself. Nor is he in truth a competent Judg of the most enormous
crimes, when he reckons (pag. 56.) Theft, Adultery, Sodomy, and
any other vice that may be taken for an effect of Power, or a
cause of pleasure, to be of such a Nature, as amongst men are
taken to be against Law, rather then against Honor.

 The Survey of Chapter 23.

    I should with as little trouble have passed by his twenty
third Chapter of his Public Ministers, and the fanciful Similes
contin'd therein, not thinking it of much importance what public
or private Ministers he makes for such a Soveraignty as he hath
instituted; but that I observe him in this place (as most
luxurious Fancies use to do) demolishing and pulling down, what
he had with great care and vigilance erected and establish'd as
undeniable truth before. And whereas he hath in his eighteenth
Chapter, (pag. 91) pronounced the right of Judicatory, of hearing
and deciding all Controversies which concern Law, either Civil or
Natural, or concerning fact, to be inseparably annexed to the
Soveraignty, and incapable of being aliened and transferred by
him; and afterwards declares, That the Judgments given by Judges
qualified, and commission'd by him to that purpose, are his own
proper Judgments, and to be regarded as such, which is a truth
generally confess'd; in this Chapter, against all practice and
all reason, he degrades him from at least half that Power, and
fancies a Judg to be such a party, that if the Litigant be not
pleased with the opinion of his Judg in matter of Law, or matter
of Fact, he may therefore (pag. 125.) (because they are both
subjects to the Soveraign) appeal from his Judg, and ought to be
tried before an other: for tho the Soveraign may hear and
determine the Cause himself if he please, yet if he will appoint
another to be Judg, it must be such a one as they shall both
agree upon: for as the Complainant hath already made choice of
his own Judg, so the Defendant must be allow'd to except against
such of his Judges, whose interest maketh him suspect them; which
was never heard of before this Institution, and the consequence
of it will best appear by an instance to be very ridiculous. Let
us suppose that an Information were preferr'd in the Kings Bench
(as it may well be) against Mr Hobbes, for writing and publishing
such a seditious Book against the establish'd Government of
Church and State, as his Leviathan is; because the Soveraign Judg
will not hear and determine this himself, but refers it those
Judges who are appointed and commission'd by him to examine and
punish Crimes of such a nature, would it be reasonable that Mr
Hobbes should except against his Judges, because by their knowing
the Law he may suspect them, and refuse to be tri'd before any
but those whom he shall agree upon? and (pag. 125.) can those be
the properties of just and rational Judicature? He hath
forgotten, that before he erected his Soveraignty, when there
could be no Judicature, he saies, (pag. 78.) it is of the Law of
Nature, That they who are at Controversie, submit their right to
the judgment of an Arbitrator; there indeed for want of
Judicature, there was a necessity of a mutual consent, without
which no man could take upon him to be an arbitrator. If a man
hath a Suit upon matter of Title or Interest with a Judg,
notwithstanding that he is sworn to do right, he is so far from
being bound to bring his Action before that Judg, that he may
chuse whether it shall depend in that Court of which that Judg is
a Member, tho the major part be unconcerned, but may have his
Right tried in another Court: but if he should have any part in
the choice of his own Judg, especially if he be criminal, Justice
would be well administred. Himself acknowledges, that the
judgement of such Judges, is the judgment of the Soveraign; and a
greater Person then the Soveraign hath given a fair warning to
those Judges; Take heed what ye do, for ye judg not for man, but
for the Lord, who is with you in the judgment 2. Chron. As it is
the Kings judgment, he will punish it severely if it be corrupt;
and if he cannot discover it to be corrupt, for want of
complaint, or want of evidence, God will punish it because it was
his judgment: a corrupt Judg, of all guilty persons, can never
escape punishment.
    I am very glad that Mr Hobbes is pleas'd with any part of the
administration of Justice in his own Country (which he would
hardly like if he were exposed to it:) and he might have observ'd
that great Priviledg of the Lords in England, of being tried in
all capital Crimes by their Peers, by Men of their own quality
and condition, to be a greater Priviledg then the Nobility of any
Nation in Europe enjoy. The Grandees of Spaine and the Dukes, and
Peers, and Mareschals of france, in those Transgressions undergo
the same forms of Justice, and are tried before the same Judges,
as the meanest Peasant is for the like or the same Crime: and tho
he calls it, and saies it hath bin ever acknowledg'd as a
Priviledg of Favor, yet they look upon it as a Priviledg of
Right, of which they cannot be deprived by the Word and Autority
of the King. And it may be he would be hardly able to bring this
Priviledg under his original Institution of Government; since
probably men being then all equal, they would never have
consented to such a difference, rather then equality, in the form
of Justice that was to be exercis'd towards them; and he values
it too lightly, who thinks it can be taken from them by any
Arbitrary Power.
    I cannot comprehend what Mr Hobbes's meaning is, in making an
Embassador sent from his Prince, to congratulate, or condole, or
to assist at a Solemnity, to be but a private Person, because he
saies, (pag. 126.) the business is private, and belonging to him
in his natural capacity: whereas, his being sent Embassador, and
having in the performance of his Office of congratulating or
condoling, or in his assistance at the Solemnity, the respect
shew'd to him, and the priviledg and precedence of the Person of
his Master, he cannot but be a public Person. Nor can an
Embassador come to be but a private Person any other way, then by
presuming to negotiate some unlawful thing, which he is not
warranted by his Commission to do; and even in that case he
expects to be treated as a public Person, as well by the security
that Prince gave him by his Reception, as by the autority of the
Prince who sent him, and expects to be sent to, and tried before
his own Master: which depends much upon the nature and
circumstances of the Transgression. But I wonder how Mr Hobbes
could bring the Rights and Priviledges of Embassadors under his
disquisition, since they cannot depend upon his Institution: for
they neither do nor can proceed from the Covenants, or Contracts,
or transferring of Rights between private persons; but he must
make a new Institution for Soveraigns, in which he will hardly be
able to preserve them without some Covenants, which he hitherto
so much abhors.

 The Survey of Chapter 24.

    It is the custom and delight that Mr Hobbes takes in the
frequent repeting, almost in every Chapter, the lewd principles
in his Institution, with some variety of pleasant expressions and
instances, which he would have understood to add new vigor to his
former Arguments, that obliges me by Tautologies to put the
Reader in mind of what I have said before, and to repete the same
that hath bin said; and so I must say again upon this Chapter of
the nutrition and procreation of a Common-wealth, that he hath
proposed a very ungracious method to himself in forming his
Government, by assigning a greater power and autority to his
Soveraign, then any honest Magistrate desires, or will ever
exercise, or can think himself secure in; and such a liberty and
property to the Subject, as they can take no delight in, and
consequently can never wish well to that Government, under which
they shall enjoy no more. Nor will they ever believe themselves
to be in possession of liberty or plenty,when it is in the power
of any one man to dispossess them of both, or either, at his good
will and pleasure, without any violation of any Justice that they
can resort to, or complain of. It is a very uncomfortable
Propriety that any man can have in his Lands and Goods, because
his Neighbour cannot take them from him, if his Prince can justly
take them from him, and give them to his Neighbour. Princes have
their particular Affections and Inclinations which sway them as
much as other men, and are prevail'd upon by the same strong
motives and impulsions; and if they may take away all from those
they do not like, and as much as they think fit from those they
like less, to give to those they love, and to such as they like
better, there can be no valuable propriety in any body but the
Soveraign alone: and when it is once found to be in him alone, he
will not be long able to defend his own Propriety, or his own
Soveraignty. It is Machiavels exception against the entertaining
of forreign Forces, that they are only mercenary, and therefore
indifferent in their affections which party wins or loses; and no
doubt those Soldiers fight most resolutely, who fight to defend
their own. And surely they who have nothing of their own to lose
but their lives, are as apt to throw those away where they should
not, as where they should be exposed; and it is the usual
Artifice in all Seditions, for the Leaders and Promoters of them,
to perswade the People, that the tendency and consequence of such
and such actions don by the Magistrate, extends to the depriving
them of all their propriety, the jealousie of which hurries them
into all those acts of rage and despair, which prove so fatal to
Kingdoms. And there was never yet a wise and fortunate Prince,
who hath not enervated those Machinations, by all the
professions, and all the vindications of that Propriety, which
they are so vigilant to preserve and defend. And therefore it is
a wonderful preposterous foundation to support a Government, to
declare that the Subject hath no propriety in any thing that
excludes the Soveraign from a right of disposing it; and it may
be easily believ'd, that there is not one Prince in Europe, I
mean that is civilz'd (for of the absolute power of the Great
Turk, from whence Mr Hobbes hath borrowed his Model, we shall
have occasion to discourse in another place) would be able to
retain his Soveraignty one whole year, after he should declare,
as Mr Hobbes doth, that his Subjects have no propriety in any
thing they possess, but that he may dispose of all they have. For
tho they do too often invade that propriety, and take somewhat
from them that is not their own, they bear it better under the
notion of oppression and rapine, and as they look upon it as the
effect of some powerful Subjects evil advice (which will in time
be discover'd, and reform'd by the justice of the Prince, as hath
often fallen out) then they would ever do under a claim of right,
that could justly take away all they have, because it is not the
subjects but their own. And if Mr Hobbes had taken the pains, and
known where to have bin inform'd of the Proceedings and
Transactions of William the Conqueror, he would have found cause
to believe, that that great King did very dexterously endeavor,
from the time that he was assured that his Possession would not
be disturb'd, to devest himself of the Title of a Conqueror, and
made his Legal Claim to what he had got by the Will of Edward the
Confessor, whose Name was pretious to the Nation, and who was
known to have a great Friendship for that Prince, who had now
recover'd what had bin his. And he knew so well the ill
consequence which must attend the very imagination that the
Nation had lost its Propriety, that he made hast to grant them an
assurance, that they should still enjoy all the benefits and
priviledges which were due to them by their own Laws and Customs,
by which they should be still govern'd, as they were during that
Kings whole Reign, who had enough of the unquestionable Demesnes
and Lands belonging to the Crown, of which he was then possessed
without a Rival, and belonging to those great Men who had
perish'd with their Posterity in the Battel with Harold, to
distribute to those who had born such shares, and run such
hazards in his prosperous adventure. And those Laws and Customs
which were before the Conquest, are the same which the Nation and
Kingdom have been since govern'd by to this day, with the
addition of those Statutes and Acts of Parliament, which are the
Laws of the successive Kings, with which they have gratifi'd
their Subjects, in providing such new security for them, and
advantages to the public, as upon the experience and observation
of the Ages and Times when they were made, contributed to the
honor and glory of the King, as well as the happiness of the
People; many of which are but the Copies and Transcripts of
antient Land-marks, making the Characters more plain and legible
of what had bin practic'd and understood in the preceding Ages,
and the observation whereof are of the same profit and
convenience to King and People.
    Such were the Laws in Tullies time, which Mr Hobbes
wonderfully cites, to prove that which Tully never heard of, and
which indeed is quite contrary to the end of his Discourse (pag.
127.) Is it possible that Tully could ever have said, Let the
Civil Law be once abandoned, or but negligently guarded (not to
say oppressed) and there is nothing that any man can be sure to
receive from his ancestor, or to leave to his children? and
again, take away the Civil Law, and no man knows what is his own,
and what another mans? I say, he could never have mention'd and
insisted upon this grand security of man-kind, if he had
understood the Law to be nothing but the breath of the Soveraign,
who could grant, and dissolve, or repeal this Law, with the
speaking a word that his will or fancy dictates to him. How can
any man receive from his Ancestor, or leave to his Children, if
he be not sure that his Ancestor had, and that his Children shall
have a propriety? It was the importance of, and delight in this
propriety, that produc'd that happy and beneficial agreement
between the Soveraign power and the naked Subject, which is
mention'd before; that introduc'd the beauty of Building, and the
cultivating the Earth by Art as well as Industry, by securing
men, that they and their Children should dwell in the Houses they
were at the charge to build, and that they should reap the
harvest of those Lands which they had taken the pains to sow.
Whatsoever is of Civility and good Manners, all that is of Art
and Beauty, or of real and solid Wealth in the World, is the
product of this paction, and the child of beloved Propriety; and
they who would strangle this Issue, desire to demolish all
Buildings, eradicate all Plantations, to make the Earth barren,
and man-kind to live again in Tents, and nurish his Cattle by
successive marches into those Fields where the grass grows.
Nothing but the joy in Propriety reduc'd us from this barbarity;
and nothing but security in the same, can preserve us from
returning into it again. Nor will any man receive so great
prejudice and damage by this return, as the Kings and Princes
themselves, who had a very ample recompence which they still
enjoy, by dividing their unprofitable propriety with their
Subjects, having ever since receiv'd much more profit from the
propriety in the hands of the Subjects, then they did when it was
in their own, or then they do from that which they reserv'd to
themselves; and they continue to have the more, or less upon a
true account, as this paction is the more or less exactly
observ'd and compli'd with.
    Mr Hobbes is much mistaken in his Historical conclusions, as
for the most part he uses to be, when he saies, (pag. 129) that
the Conqueror, and his successors, have alwaies laid arbitrary
Taxes on all Subjects Lands; except he calls what hath bin don by
the free consent of the Subject, which is according to the
paction, to be the arbitrary Tax of the Soveraign, because the
Law is the stamp of his own Royal Autority. And if such arbitrary
Taxes have in truth at any time bin laid upon the Subjects, he
might have observ'd (for somtimes it hath bin don) that the
Soveraign hath receiv'd much more damage then profit by it, and
the Kingdom bin in a worse state of security then it was before.
Nor can any argument be made from the glory and prosperity of
some Crowns, which have somtimes exercis'd that arbitrary Power,
and reduc'd the Rules they ought to govern by, to the standard of
their own Will; which yet they have don with such formality, as
implies the consent of their Subjects, tho they dare not but
consent. It hath bin too frequently seen too, that the hurt and
wounded patience of the People, hath, when it may be it was least
apprehended, redeem'd themselves (for laesa patientia est furor)
by as unwarrantable Rebellion from unwarrantable Oppression, or
out of contemt of their own ruin, because they have so little
comfort in their preservation, have obstinately refused to give
any assistance to their Soveraign when he hath real need of it,
because he hath wantonly extorted it from them when he had no
need. And then men pay too dear for their want of providence, and
find too late, that the neglect of Justice is an infallible
underminer, how undiscern'd soever, of that security which their
Policy would raise for themselves, in the place of that which
Wisdom and Justice had provided for them. I agree, that it being
impossible to fore-see what the expences which a Soveraign may be
put to will amount to, it is as impossible by land, or otherwise
to set aside such a proportion as is necessary; but those
extraordinary occasions must be supplied by such extraordinary
waies, and with those formalities which the Soveraign obliges
himself to observe; by observing whereof, much less inconvenience
shall befall Him or the Public, then by cancelling those Laws
which establish Propriety.
    If Mr Hobbes had not bin a professed Enemy to Greek and
Latine Sentences, as an Argument of indigestion, when they come
up again unchewed and unchanged, he might have learn'd from
Seneca, who understood, and felt the utmost extent of an absolute
Soveraignty, and had a shrewd fore-sight what the end of it would
be, how the propriety of the Subject might well consist with the
power of the Prince: Jure civili (saiest he) omnia Regis suns, &
tamen illa quorum ad Regem pertinet universa possessio, in
singulos dominos descripta sunt, & unaquaeque res habet
Possessorem suum. Itaque dare Regi, & domum, & manicipium, &
pecuniam Possumus, neo donare illi de suo dicimur. Ad Reges enim
potestas omnium pertinet, ad singulos proprietas. And that Prince
who thinks his power so great, that his Subjects have nothing to
give him, will be very unhappy if he hath ever need of their
hands, or their hearts.

 The Survey of Chapter 25.

    When Mr Hobbes hath erected such a Soveraign, and instituted
such a People, that the one may say and do whatsoever he finds
convenient for his purpose, and the other must neither say or do
any thing that may displease him; the consideration of what, and
how counsel should be given under such a Government, can require
very little deliberation. And the truth is, the discourse of this
Chapter, with the differences between Command and Counsel, is
more vulgar and pedantic then he is usually guilty of; and it is
easie to be observ'd, that in his description of the office of a
Counsellor, and of the ability of counselling, (pag. 134.) that
it proceeds from experience and long study, and that it requires
great knowledg of the disposition of man-kind, of the rights of
Government, and of the nature of Equity, Law, Justice, and Honor,
not to be attain'd without study; and of the strengths,
commodities, places both of their own Country and their
Neighbors; and also of the inclinations and designs of all
Nations that may any way annoy them: and this, he saies, is not
attained without much Experience; he makes so lively a
representation of that universal understanding, which he would be
thought to be possessed with, that he could not be without hope
that Cromwell would think him worthy to be a Counsellor, who had
given him such an earnest that he would serve him with success,
and without hesitation. yet I see no reason (if to ask Counsel of
another, is to permit him to give such Counsel as he shall think
best; and if it be the Office of a Counsellor, when an Action
comes into deliberation, to make manifest the consequence of it
in such a manner, as he that is counselled may be truly and
euidently inform'd) why he is so very angry with those two words,
exhort and dehort, as to brand those who use either, with the
style of corruption, and being brib'd by their own interest;
since it is very agreeable to the faith and integrity of a
Counsellor, to perswade him that asks his advice to do that which
he thinks best to be don, and to disswade him from doing that
which he thinks to be mischievous, which is to exhort and dehort;
and the examples of Persons, and the autority of Books, may be
pertinently applied to either: since few accidents fall out in
States and Empires, which have not in former times happened in
such conjunctures, and then if the same hath bin faithfully
represented to posterity, with all the circumstances and
successes, which is the natural end of all good Histories to
transmit, nothing can more properly be reflected on, or bring
clearer light to the present difficulties in debate, then the
memory of what was upon those occasions don fortunatly, or
unhappily left undon, which surely cannot but introduce useful
and pertinent Reflexions into the consultation. And it is not
easie to comprehend what that great ability is, which his
Counsellor is to attain to by long study, and cannot be attain'd
without, if that study be not to be conversant with Books, and if
neither the examples in, or autority of Books be in any degree to
be consider'd. Nor are such expressions which may move the
affections or passions of him who asks Counsel, or of those who
are to give it, repugnant to the office of a Counsellor, since
the end of Counsel is to lead men to chuse that which is good,
and avoid that which is worse; and he to whom the Counsel is
given, will best judg whether it tends to others ends rather then
his own, and will value it accordingly. And he is much a better
Counsellor, who by his experience and observation of the nature
and humor of the People who are to be govern'd, and by his
knowledg of the Laws and Rules by which they ought to be
govern'd, gives advice what ought to be don, then he who from his
speculative knowledg of man-kind, and of the Rights of
Government, and of the nature of Equity and Honor, attain'd with
much study, would erect an Engine of Government by the rules of
Geometry, more infallible then Experience can ever find out.
    I am not willing now, or at any time, to accompany him in his
sallies which he makes into the Scriptures, and which he alwaies
handles, as if his Soveraign-power had not yet declared it to be
the word of God; and to illustrate now his Distinctions, and the
difference between Command and Counsel, he thinks fit to fetch
instances from thence, Have no other Gods but me, Make to thy
self no graven Image, &c he saies, (pag. 133.) are commands,
because the reason for which we are to obey them, is drawn from
the will of God our King, whom we are obliged to obey: but these
words, Repent, and be baptized in the name of Jesus, are Counsel,
because the reason why we should do so, tendeth not to any
benefit of God Almighty, who shall be still King in what manner
soever we rebel, but of our selves, who have no other means of
avoiding the punishment hanging over us for our sins; as if the
latter were not drawn from the will of God as much as the former,
or as if the former tended more to the benefit of God then the
latter. An ordinary Grammarian, without any insight in Geometry,
would have thought them equally to be commands: But Mr Hobbes
will have his Readers of another talent in their understanding,
and another subjection to his dictates.

 The Survey of Chapter 26.

    However Mr Hobbes enjoines other Judges to retract the
judgments they have given when contrary to reason, upon what
autority or president soever they have pronounced them, yet he
holds himself oblig'd still tueri opus, to justify all he hath
said; therefore we have reason to expect, that to support his own
notions of Liberty and Propriety, contrary to the notions of all
other men, he must introduce a notion of Law, contrary to what
the world hath ever yet had of it. And it would be answer enough,
and it may be the fittest that can be given to this Chapter, to
say, that he hath erected a Law, contrary and destructive to all
the Law, that is acknowled'g and establish'd in any Monarchy or
Republic that is Christian; and in this he hopes to secure
himself by his accustomed method of definition, and defines, that
Civil Law (which is a term we do not dislike) is to every Subject
those Rules which the Commonwealth hath commanded him by word,
writing, or other sufficient sign of the Will to make use of for
the distinction of right, in which he saies there is nothing that
is not at first sight evident, that is to say of what is
contrary, and what is not contrary to the Rule. From which
definition his first deduction is, that the Soveraign is the Sole
Legislator, and that himself is not subject to Laws, because he
can make, and repeal them: which in truth is no necessary
deduction from his own definition; for it doth not follow from
thence, tho he makes them Rules only for Subjects, that the
Soveraign hath the sole power to repeal them; but the true
definition of a Law is, that it is to every Subject the rule
which the Common-wealth hath commanded him by word, writing, or
other sufficient sign of the Will made, and publish'd in that
form and manner, as is accustomed in that Common-wealth to make
use of for the distinction of right, that is to say, of what is
contrary, and what is not to the Rule? and from this definition,
no such deduction can be made, since the form of making and
repealing Laws is stated, and agreed upon in all Common-wealths.
    The opinions and judgments which are found in the Books of
eminent Lawyers, cannot be answer'd, and controuled by Mr Hobbes
his wonder, since the men who know least are apt to wonder most;
and men will with more justice wonder, whether he comes by the
Prerogative to controul the Laws and Government establish'd in
this, and that Kingdom, without so much as considering what is
Law here or there, but by the general notions he hath of Law; and
what it is by his long study, and much cogitation. And it is a
strange definition of Law, to make it like his propriety, to be
of concernment only between Subject and Subject, without any
relation of security as to the Soveraign, whom he exempts from
any observation of them, and invests with autority by repealing
those which trouble him, when he thinks fit, to free himself from
the observation thereof, and by making new: and consequently he
saies, he was free before, for he is free that can be free when
he will. The instance he gives for his wonder, and displeasure
against the Books of the Eminent Lawyers, is, that they say, that
the Common Law hath no controuler but the Parliament, that is,
that the Common Law cannot be chang'd or alter'd but by Act of
Parliament, which is the Municipal Law of the Kingdom. Now
methinks if that be the judgment of Eminent Lawyers, Mr Hobbes
should be so modest as to believe it to be true, till he hears
others as Eminent Lawyers declare the contrary: for by his
instance, he hath brought it now only to relate to the Law of
England, and then methinks he should be easily perswaded, that
the Eminent Lawyers of England do know best whether the Law be
so, or no. I do not wish that Mr Hobbes should be convinc'd by a
judgment of that Law upon himself, which would be very severe, if
he should be accused for declaring, that the King alone hath
power to alter the descents and inheritances of the Kingdom; and
whereas the Common Law saies the Eldest shall inherit, the King
by his own Edict may declare, and order, that the younger Son
shall inherit: or for averring, and publishing, that the King by
his own autority can repeal and dissolve all Laws, and justly
take away all they have from his Subjects; I say, if the judgment
of Law was pronounc'd upon him for this Seditious Discourse, he
would hardly perswade the World, that he understood what the Law
of England is, better then the Judges who condemn'd him, or that
he was wary enough to set up a jus vagum and incognitum of his
own, to controul the estblish'd Government of his own Country. He
saies the Soveraign is the only Legislator: and I will not
contradict him in that. It is the Soveraign stamp, and Royal
consent, and that alone, that gives life, and being, and title of
Laws, to that which was before but counsel and advice: and no
such constitution of his can be repeal'd and made void, but in
the same manner, and with his consent. But we say, that he may
prescribe or consent to such a method in the form, and making
these Laws, that being once made for him, he cannot but in the
same form repeal, or alter them; and he is oblig'd by the Law of
justice to observe and perform this contract, and he cannot break
it, or absolve himself from the observation of it, without
violation of justice: and any farther obligation upon him then of
justice, I discourse not of. For the better cleering of this to
that kind of reason by which Mr Hobbes is swai'd, let us suppose
this Soveraignty to reside, and be fix'd in an assembly of men;
in which kind of Government it is possible to find more marks and
foot-steps of such a deputing, and assigning of interests, as Mr
Hobbes is full of, then we can possibly imagine in the original
institution of Monarchy. If the soveraign power be deputed into
the hands of fifteen, and any vacant place to be suppli'd by the
same Autority that made choice of the first fifteen, may there
not at that time of the election certain Rules be prescrib'd (I
do not say conditions) for the better exercise of that Soveraign
power: and by the accepting the power thus explain'd, doth not
the Soveraign, tho there should be no Oath administered for the
observation thereof, which is a circumstance admitted by most
Monarchy, tacitly covenant that he will observe those Rules? and
if he do's willfully decline those Rules, doth he not break the
trust reposed in him? I do not say forfeit the trust, as if the
Soveraignty were at an end, but break that trust, violate that
justice he should observe? If the Soveraign power of fifteen,
should raise an imposition for the defence of the Commonwealth,
if they should appoint this whole imposition to be paid only by
those whose names are Thomas (when Thomas was before in no more
prejudice with the Common-wealth, then any other appellation in
Baptism) may not this inequality be call'd a violation of
Justice, and a breach of trust, since it cannot be suppos'd that
such an irregular autority was ever committed to any man, or men
by any deputation? Of the Prerogative of necessity to swerve from
Rules prescrib'd, or to violate Laws tho sworn to, shall be
spoken to in its due time.
    It needs not be suppos'd, but must be confess'd, that the
Laws of every Country, contain more in them concerning the rights
of the Soveraign, and the common administration of Justice to the
people, then can be known to, and understood by the person of the
Soveraign, and he can as well fight all his Battels with his own
hand and sword, as determine all causes of right by his own
tongue and understanding. The consequence of any confusion which
Mr Hobbes can suppose, would not be more pernicious, then that
which would follow the blowing away all these maximes of the Law,
if the Kings breath were strong enough to do it. It is a maxime
in the Law (as is said before) that the eldest Son shall inherit,
and that if three or four Females are heirs, the inheritance
shall be equally divided between them. Doth Mr Hobbes believe
that the word of the King hath power to change this course, and
to appoint that all the Sons shall divide the Estate, and the
Eldest Daughter inherit alone? and must not all the confusion
imaginable attend such a mutation? All Governments subsist and
are establish'd by firmness and constancy, by every mans knowing
what is his right to enjoy, and what is his duty to do: and it is
a wonderful method to make this Government more perfect, and more
durable, by introducing such an incertainty, that no man shall
know what he is to do, nor what he is to suffer, but that he who
is Soveraign to morrow, may cancel, and dissolve all that was don
or consented to by the Soveraign who was yesterday, or by himself
as often as he changes his mind. It is the Kings Office to cause
his Laws to be executed, and to compel his Subjects to yield
obedience to them, and in order thereunto, to make choice of
Learn'd Judges to interpret those Lawes, and to declare the
intention of them, who (pag. 140.) by an artificial perfection of
reason gotten by long study, and experience in the Law, must be
understood to be more competent for that determination, then Mr
Hobbes can be for the alteration of Law and Government, by the
artificial reason he hath attain'd to by long study of Arithmetic
and Geometry.
    No Eminent Lawyer hath ever said that the two Arms of a
Common-wealth are Force and Justice, the first whereof is in the
King, the other deposited in the hands of the Parliament; but all
Lawyers know, that they are equally deposited in the hands of the
King, and that all justice is administred by him, and in his
name: and all men acknowledg that all the Laws are his Laws; his
consent and autority only giving the power and name of a Law,
what concurrence, or formality soever hath contributed towards
it: the question only is, whether he can repeal, or vacate such a
Law, without the same concurrence and formality. And methinks the
instance he makes of a Princes (pag. 139.) subduing an other
people, and consenting that they shall live, and be govern'd
according to those Laws under which they were born, and by which
they were formerly govern'd, should manifest to him the contrary.
For tho it be confess'd, that those old Laws become new by this
consent of his, the Laws of the Legislator, that is of that
Soveraign who indulges the use of them; yet he cannot say that he
can by his word vacate and repeal those Laws, and his own
concession, without dissolving all the ligaments of Government,
and without the violation of faith, which himself confesses to be
against the Law of Nature.
    Notwithstanding that the Law is reason, and (pag. 139.) not
the letter, but that which is according to the intention of the
Legislator (that is of the Soveraign) is the law, yet when there
is any difficulty in the understanding the Law, the
interpretation thereof may reasonably belong to Learn'd Judges,
who by their education, and the testimony of their known
abilities before they are made Judges, and by their Oaths to judg
according to Right, are the most competent to explain those
difficulties, which no Soveraign as Soveraign can be presum'd to
understand or comprehend. And the judgments and decisions those
Judges make, are the judgements of the Soveraigns, who have
qualified them to be Judges, and who are to pronounce their
sentence according to the reason of the Law, not the reason of
the Soveraign. And therefore Mr Hobbes would make a very ignorant
Judg, when he would not have him versed in the study of the Laws,
but only a man of good natural reason, and of a right
understanding of the Law of Nature; and yet he saies, (pag. 154.)
that no man will pretend to the knowledg of right and wrong
without much study. And if that power of interpretation of Law be
vested in the person of the Soveraign, he may in a moment
overthrow all the Law; which is evident enough by his own
instances, if, to use his own expressions, his understanding were
not dazled by the flame of his passions. For to what purpose is
all the distinction and division of Laws into human and divine,
into natural and moral, into distributive and penal, when they
may be all vacated, and made null by the word, or perverted by
the interpretation of the Soveraign? To what purpose is a penalty
of five shllings put upon such an action, if the Soveraign may
make him who doth that action, by his interpretation, or
omnipotence, to pay five hundred pounds? Nor by his rule, is his
ador'd Law of Nature of any force, which he saies, (pag. 144.) is
the Law of God immutable and eternal, nay Heaven and Earth shall
Pass away, but not one title of the Law of Nature shall pass, for
it is the eternal Law of God; He, I say, hath as much subjected
that to the arbitrary power and discretion of his Soveraign, as
he hath don the Liberty and property of the Subject; for he
saies, (pag. 138.) the Law of Nature is a part of the Civil Law
in all Common-wealths in the World, and that tho it be naturally
reasonable, yet it is by the Soveraign Power that it is Law, and
he saies likewise, that all Laws written, and unwritten, and the
Law of Nature it self, have need of interpretation: and then he
makes his supreme Soveraign the only legitimate interpreter. So
that he hath the Law of Nature as much in his power, as under his
jurisdiction, as any other part of the Civil Law: and yet he
confesses his subject is not bound to pay obedience to any thing
that his Soveraign enjoins against the Law of Nature. In such
Labyrinths men entangle themselves, who obstinately engage in
opinions relating to a science they do not understand; nor was it
possible for him to extend the Prerogative of his Soveraign to
such an illimited greatness, without making some invasion upon
the Prerogative of God himself. I believe every man who reads Mr
Hobbes, observes that when he entangles himself in the Laws of
England, and affects to be more learned in them then the Chief
Justice Cook, the natural sharpness and vigor of his reason is
more flat and insipid then upon other arguments, and he makes
deductions which have no coherence, involves himself in the terms
without comprehending the matter, concludes the Law saies that
which it do's not say, and that the Law hath made no provision in
cases which are amply provided for, and in a word loses himself
in a mist of words that render him less intelligible then at
other times. Nor hath he better luck, when out of Justinians
Institutions, he would make a parallel between the Imperial Laws
and the Laws of England, and resolves that the Decrees of the
Common People, which were put to the question by the Tribune, and
had the force of Laws, were like the Orders of the House of
Commons in England; whereas no Orders made by a House of Commons
in England, are of any validity or force, or receive any
submission longer then that House of Commons continues: and if
any order made by them be against any Law or Statute, it is void
when it is made, and receives no obedience. Indeed when Mr Hobbes
published his Leviathan, he might have said that it had the
autority and power of the Emperor, or of the whole People of
Rome, and which would have lasted till this time, if he had bin
believ'd, and his doctrine could have bin supported by him, or
them for whom it was provided.
    Probably Mr Hobbes did take delight in being thought to
confute a great Lawyer in the Common Law of England: tis certain
he hath bin transported to slight usage of him, by that delight
or some like passion, more then by the defect of reason in that
which he would contradict. He saies tis against the Law of Nature
to punish the innocent; that he is innocent that acquits himself
judicially, & is acknowledg'd for innocent by the Judg: and yet
he saies, when a man is accus'd of a Capital crime, and seeing
the power of the Enemy, and the frequent corruption of Judges,
runs away for fear of the effect, yet being taken and brought to
Tryal, maketh it appear that he was not guilty of the crime, and
is acquitted thereof, however is condemn'd to lose his goods,
this he saies, is a manifest condemnation of the innocent. He
confesses afterwards, that the Law may forbid an innocent man to
fly, and that he may be punished for flying; but he thinks it
very unreasonable, that flying for fear of injury, should be
taken for presumtion of guilt, whereas it is taken only for the
guilt of flying, when he is declar'd innocent for the other. And
methinks he confesseth, that a man, who must know his own
innocence better then any body else, and knows that he must lose
his Goods if he flies his trial, hath no reason to complain, if
after he be cleer'd from the crime, he be condemned to lose his
goods, which he knew he must lose when he fled; and therefore tho
he be judicially acquitted for the crime, he is not innocent, but
as judicially condemned to lose his goods for his guilt in
flying, the Law and penalty of flying being known to him, whether
written, or not written, as well as the Law against the crime
was. To his other dictates of the Office of a Judg, that he needs
not be learn'd in the Laws, because he shall be told by the
Soveraign what judgment he shall give; and of the Laws of
England, that the Jury is Judg of the Law, as well as of the
fact, there needs no more be said, then that he is not inform'd,
nor understands what he delivers, and whether his notions of the
divine positive Law be more agreeable to truth, will be examin'd
hereafter.

 The Survey of Chapter 27.

    (Pag. 151.) That to be delighted in the imagination of being
possessed of another mans Wife, or Goods, is no breach of the Law
that saies, Thou shalt not covet: that the pleasure a man may
have in imagining the death of him from whose life he expects
nothing but damage and displeasure, is no sin: That to be pleas'd
in the fiction of that which would please a man if it were real,
is a passion so adherent to the nature of man, and every other
living creature, as to make it a sin, were to make a sin of being
a man, is a Body of Mr Hobbes's Divinity, so contrary to that of
our Savior and his Apostles, that I shall without any enlargement
leave it to all men to consider, which of them they think most
fit to believe and follow. Yet methinks he gives some
encouragement to those who might expect Justice against him, by
his own judgment (pag. 152.) upon the man that comes from the
Indies hither, and perswades men here to receive a new Religion,
or teach them any thing that tends to disobedience to the Laws of
this Country: tho he be never so well perswaded of the truth of
what he teacheth, he commits a crime, and may be justly punished,
not only becames that which he would his Doctrine is false, but
because he do' not approve in another, that coming from hence
should endeavor to alter Religion there. And how far this
Declaration of his own judgment, may operate to his own
condemnation, and to the condemnation of most of his Doctrines in
his Leviathan, which are so contrary to all the Laws established
in his Country, he should have don well to have considered before
he committed the transgression; for he doth acknowledg, that in a
Common-wealth, where by the negligence or unskilfulness of
Governors & Teachers, false Doctrines are by time generally
receiv'd, the contrary truths may be generally offensive; and
prudent men are seldom guilty of doing any thing, or least when
it is in their own election to do it or not to do it, which they
foresee will be offensive to the Government, or Governors whom
they are subject to and must live under; especially when he
confesses, (pag. 91.) that tho the most sudain and rough bustling
in of a new truth that can be, do's never break the Peace, yet it
doth sometimes wake the war; and if the secure and sound sleep of
Peace be once broken, and that fierce and brutish Tyger War is
awakened, when, or how he will be lulled into a new sleep, the
wisest Magistrate cannot fore-tell, and therefore will with the
more vigilance discountenance and suppress such bustlers, who
impudently make their way with their elbows into modest company,
to dispose them to suspect, and then to censure the wisdom of
their Forefathers, for having bin swaied by their own illiterate
experiencee so as to prefer it before the cleer reason of
thinking, and Learned Men, who by cogitation have found a surer
way for their security: and there cannot be a more certain
Expedient found out for the dissolving the peace of any Nation,
how firmly soever established, then by giving leave, or
permitting men of parts and unrestrained fancy, to examine the
constitution of the Government both Ecclesiastical and Civil, and
to vent and publish what their wit and inventions may suggest to
them, upon or against the same, which would expose the gravity
and wisdom of all Government, the infallibility of Scripture, and
the Omnipotence of God himself, by their light and scurrilous
questions and instances, to the mirth and contemt of all men, who
are without an awful veneration for either; of which there needs
not be a more convincing evidence, then the presumption of Mr
Hobbes throughout his Leviathan, of which it will not be possible
not to give some in the progress we shall make.
    He is over subtle in his Distinction, that every crime is a
sin, but not every sin a crime; that from the relation of sin to
the Law, and of crime to the Civil Law, may be inferr'd, that
where the Law ceaseth, sin ceaseth, that the Civil Law ceasing,
crimes cease; and yet that violation of Covenants, Ingratitude,
Arrogance, can never cease to be sin, yet are no crimes, because
there is no place for accusation, every man being his own Judg,
and accused only by his own conscience, and cleer'd by the
uprightness of his own intention; and when his intention is
right, his fact is no sin, if otherwise, his fact is sin but not
crime: that when the Soveraign power ceaseth, that is, when the
King is so oppressed that he cannot exercise his power, crime
also ceaseth, there being no protection where there is no power,
which he is careful to repete, whether it be to the purpose, or,
as sure it is not, very pertinent in the difference between sin
and crime. And to all that huddle of words in that whole
Paragraph, I shall say no more, but that it looks like the
Discourse of some men, which himself saies (pag. 39.) may be
numbred amongst the sorts of madness, namely, when men speak such
words, as put together, have in them no signification at all, by
their non-coherence and contradiction.
    False Principles of right and wrong cannot but produce many
crimes, and the greater the presumption of those is who publish
them, the confusion that results thereby must be the greater: and
yet notwithstanding this bundle of false Principles which are
contained in this Book, the strength of the Laws, and the good
constitution of the Government, hath hitherto, for ought appears,
resisted the operation and malignity of the Institution of his
Soveraignty, with how much confidence soever offered by him, and
a true and lawful Soveraign could never be induc'd to affect that
power which Mr Hobbes so frankly assigned to the Soveraign whom
he intended to institute. And without doubt that unreasonable
Proposition, That Justice is but a vain word, can never be
established for Reason, so unanswerably as by the establishment
of his Principles, which would make all Laws Cobwebs, to be blown
away by the least breath of the Governor; nor by his
ratiocination did Marim, or Sylla, or Cesar, ever commit any
crime, since they were all Soveraigns by acquisition, and so in
his own judgment possessed of all those powers which arise from
his Institution, whereby they might do all those acts which they
did, and no man could complain of injury or injustice, every man
being the Author of whatever damage he sustain'd or complain'd
of; nor will he be able to lay any crime to any of their charges
(tho he seems to condemn them) and at the same time to support
his Institution of a Common-wealth. But it is the less wonder,
since from his own constitution, according to his first model,
and knowing from whence his own obedience proceeds, he concludes,
that of all passions, that which least inclines men to break the
Laws, is fear. He provides such tertible Laws as no body can
love, and must fear too much to be willing to be subject to them,
which want of willingness must make them glad of any alteration,
which can bring no security to the Soveraign. And I cannot enough
recommend to Mr Hobbes that he will revolve his own judgment and
determination in this Chapter, (pag. 158.) That he, whose error
proceedeth from a peremtory pursuit of his own Principles and
reasonings, is much more faulty then he whose error proceeds from
the autority of a Teacher, or an Interpreter of the Law publicly
autoriz'd; and that he that groundeth his actions on his private
judgment, ought, according to the rectitude or error thereof, to
stand or fall. And if his fear be so predominant in him, as he
conceives it to be in most men, it will dispose him first to
enquire what the opinion of the Judges is, who are the autoriz'd
Interpreters of Law, before he publishes his seditious Principles
against Law, least he be obliged to stand or fall, according to
the rectitude or error thereof. Tho every Instance he gives of
his Soveraigns absolute power, makes it the more unreasonable,
formidable, and odious, yet he gives all the support to it he can
devise. And indeed, when he hath made his Soveraigns word, a full
and enacted Law, he hath reason to oblige his Subject to do
whatsoever he commands, be it right or wrong, and to provide for
his security when he hath don; and therefore he declares, (pag.
157.) That whosoever doth any thing that is contrary to a former
Law by the command of his Soveraign, he is not guilty of any
crime, and so cannot be punished, because when the Soveraign
commands any thing to be don against a former Law, the command as
to that particular fact is an abrogation of the Law; which would
introduce a licence to commit Murder, or any other crime most
odious, and against which Laws are chiefly provided. But he hath
in another place given his Subject leave to refuse the Soveraigns
command, when he requires him to do an act or office contrary to
his honor: so that tho he will not suffer the Law to restrain him
from doing what the Soveraign unlawfully commands, yet his honor,
of which he shall be Judg himself, may make him refuse that
command tho lawful: as if the Soveraign commands him to Prison,
as no doubt he lawfully may for a crime that deserves death, he
may in Mr Hobbes opinion refuse to obey that command: whereas
Government and Justice have not a greater security, then that he
that executes a verbal command of the King against a known Law,
shall be punished. And the Case which he puts in the following
Paragraph, that the Kings Will being a Law, if he should not obey
that, there would appear two contradictory Laws, which would
totally excuse, is so contrary to the common Rule of Justice,
that a man is obliged to believe, when the King requires any
thing to be don contrary to any Law, that he did not know of that
Law, and so to forbear executing his Command. And if this were
otherwise, Kings of all men would be most miserable, and would
reverse their most serious Counsels and Deliberations, by
incogitancy, upon the suggestion and importunity of every
presumptuous Intruder. Kings themselves can never be punished or
reprehended publicly (that being a reproch not consistent with
the reverence due to Majesty) for their casual or wilful ertors
and mistakes, let the ill consequence of them be what they will;
but if they who maliciously lead, or advise, or obey them in
unjust resolutions and commands, were to have the same indemnity,
there must be a dissolution of all Kingdoms and Governments. But
as Kings must be left to God, whose Vice-gerents they are, to
judg of their breach of Trust; so they who offend against the
Law, must be left to the punishment the Law hath provided for
them, it being in the Kings power to pardon the execution of the
Sentence the Law inflicts, except in those cases where the
Offence is greater to others then to the King; as in the murder
of a Husband or a Father, the offence is greater to the Wife and
to the Son for their relation, then to the King for a Subject;
and therefore, upon an Appeal by them, the Transgressor may
suffer after the King hath pardon'd him.
    It is a great prerogative which Mr Hobbes doth in this
Chapter indulge to his fear, his precious bodily fear of corporal
hurt, that it shall not only extenuate an ill action, but totally
excuse and annihilate the worst he can commit, that, if a man by
the terror of present death be compelled to do a Fact against the
Law, he is wholly excused, because no Law can oblige a man to
abandon his own preservation: and supposing such a Law were
obligatory, yet a man would reason, (pag. 157.) If I do it not I
die presently, if I do it I die afterwards, therefore by doing it
there is time of life gain'd, Nature therefore compels him to the
fact: by which a man seems by the Law ofNature to be compell'd,
even for a short reprieve, and to live two or three daies longer,
to do the most infamous and wicked thing that is imaginable: upon
which fertile soil he doth hereafter so much enlarge, according
to his natural method, in which he usually plants a stock,
supposes a principle, the malignity whereof is not presently
discernable, in a precedent Chapter, upon which in a subsequent
one he grafts new and worse Doctrine, which he looks should grow
and prosper by such cultivation as he applies to it in Discourse;
and therefore I shall defer my Considerations to the contrary,
till I wait upon him in that enlarged disquisition.

 The Survey of Chapter 28.

    The eight and twentieth Chapter being a Discourse of
Punishments and Rewards, it was not possible for him to forget in
how weak a condition he had left his Soveraign, for want of power
to punish; since want of power to punish, and want of autority to
cause his punishment to be inflicted, is the same thing;
especially when the guilty person is not only not oblig'd to
submit to the Sentence, how just soever, but hath a right to
resist it, and to defend himself by force against the Magistrate
and the Law: and therefore he thinks it of much importance, to
enquire, by what door the right and autority of punishing in any
case came in. He is a very ill Architect, that in building a
House, makes not doors to enter into every office of it; and it
is very strange, that he should make his doors large and big
enough in his institution, to let out all the liberty and
propriety of the Subject, and the very end of his Institution
being to make a Magistrate to compel men to do their duty (for he
confesses, they were before obliged by the Law of Nature to
perform it one towards another, but that there must be a
Soveraign Sword to compel men to do that which they ought to do)
yet that he should forget to leave a door wide enough for this
compulsion to enter in at by punishment, and bringing the
Offender to Justice; since the end of making the Soveraign is
disappointed, and he cannot preserve the peace, if guilty persons
have a right to preserve themselves from the punishment he
inflicts for their guilt. It was very improvidently don, when he
had the draught of the whole Contracts and Covenants, that he
would not insert one, by which every man should transfer from
himself the right he had to defend himself against public
Justice, tho not against private violence. And surely reason and
Self-preservation, that makes a man transfer all his Estate and
Interest into the hands of the Soveraign, and to be disposed by
him, that he make be secure against the robberey and rapine of
his neighbors & companions, will as well dispose him to leave his
life to his discretion, that it may be secure from the assault of
every other man, who hath a right to take it from him. But he
thinks life too precious to part with willingly, and therefore
cares for no more then to invest his Soveraign with a just title
to punish, how unable soever he leaves him to execute it. And
truly his fancy is very extraordinary in bringing it to pass. He
will not suffer his power to punish to be grounded upon the
concession or gift of the Subjects, from which fountain all his
other extravagant powers flow, which are as unnatural for them to
give, but saies it was originally inherent in him by the right of
Nature, by which every man might subdue or kill another man, as
he thought best for his own preservation; which right still
remain'd in him, when all other men transferred all their rights
to him, because he never contracted with them to part with any
thing, and so he comes (pag. 162.) to a right to punish, which
was not given but left to him, and to him only, as entire as in
the condition of mere nature. Is not this mere fancy without any
reason? which he needed not have exercis'd to so little purpose,
to erect a lawful Power, which any man may lawfully resist and
oppose. Nor is the right much greater that is left in him, then
what, it seems, is tacitly reserv'd to every man, who
notwithstanding all transferring, hath still right to resist the
Sword of Justice in his own defence, and for ought appears, to
kill him that carries it. So that in truth, his Soveraign is
vested in no other autority, then lawfully to fight so many Duels
as the Law hath condemned men to suffer death, since he can
command none of his Subjects to execute them, and they have all
lawful power to defend their own lives. How this right and
autority of punishing came into the hands of the Soveraign, we
shall not follow his example in repeting, having before
confessed, that it neither is nor can be grounded on any
concession or gift of the Subject, but is indubitably inherent in
the office of being Soveraign, and inseparably annexed to it by
God himself.
    Corporal, or Capital punishment, Ignominy, Imprisonment, or
Exile, are not better understood then they were before his
Definitions and Descriptions which he makes of them, and in which
he doth not so much consider the nature of a Definition, as that
he may insert somwhat into it, to which he may resort to prove
somwhat, which men do not think of when they read those
Definitions: and assuming to himself to declare what will serve
his turn to be the Law of Nature, or the Law of Nations, he makes
such Inferences and Consequences, as he thinks necessary to prove
his desperate Conclusions. There cannot be a more pernicious
Doctrine, and more destructive to Peace and Justice, then that
all men who are not Subjects are enemies; & that against Enemies,
whom the Common-wealth judges capable to do them hurt, it is
lawful by the original right of Nature to make War; which would
keep up a continual War between all Princes, since they are few
who are not capable to do hurt to their Neighbors. Nor can this
mischief be prevented by any Treaty or League; for whil'st they
are capable of doing hurt, the lawfulness still remains, and
being the original right of Nature, cannot be extinguished. But
the Wisest and most Learned who have wrote of the Law of Nature
and of Nations, abominate this Proposition; and the incomparible
Grotius saies, (De Jure B. & P. lib. 2. cap. 1. part. 17.) Illud
minime ferendum est, quod quidam tradiderunt, jure gentium arma
recte sumi ad imminuendam potentiam crescentem, quae nimium aucta
nocere potest. It may be a motive when there is other just cause
in prudence towards the War, but that it gives a title in
Justice, ab omni aequitatis ratione abhorret. And he saies in
another place (cap 22. part. 5.) that it must constare, non
tantum de potentia, sed & de animo; & quidem ita constare, ut
certum id sit ea certitudine quae in morali materia locum habet.
And yet from this erroneous Proposition, and because in (pag.
165.) War the Sword judgeth not, nor doth the victor make
distinction of nocent and innocent, nor has other respect of
mercy, then as it conduceth to the good of his own People, he
makes no scruple to tell Cromwell, That as to those who
deliberately deny his Autor;ty (for the Autor;ty of the
Commonwealth established, could have no other signification) the
vengeance is lawfully extended, not only to the fathers, but also
to the third and fourth generations not yet in being, and
consequently innocent of the fact for which they are afflicted,
because they that so offend suffer not as Subjects but as
Enemies, towards whom the Victor may proceed as he thinks fit and
best for himself. After the giving which advice, it was a
marvellous confidence that introduc'd him into the Kings
presence, and encourag'd him still to expect, that his Doctrine
should be allow'd to be industriously taught and believed.
    If Mr Hobbes were condemn'd to depart out of the dominion of
the Commonwealth, as many men believe he might with great Justice
be, and so become an exil'd person, he would be a more competent
Judg to determine whether Banishment be a punishment, or rather
an escape, or a public command to avoid punishment by flight; and
he would probably then be of opinion, that the mere change of air
is a very great punishment. And if he remembers his own
Definition, (pag. 108.) That a free-man is he, that in those
things which by his strength and wit he is able to do, is not
hindred to do what he hath a will to, he would believe that the
taking that freedom from him, and the restraining that liberty,
is a very severe punishment, whether justly or unjustly
inflicted, and is in no degree mitigated by his declaring, (pag.
165.) that a banish'd man is a lawful enemy of the Commonwealth
that banished him, as being no more a member of the same, and
then he may be lawfully prosecuted as well in, and after he hath
undergon the punishment of Banishment as he was before; but the
duty that a banish'd Person still ow's to his Country, and to the
Soveraign of it, is set down before. But the truth is, he hath
very powerfully extinguish'd all those differences and
priviledges, which all Writers of the Jus gentium have carefully
preserv'd between a just and unjust War, between lawful Enemies
and the worst Rebels and Traitors, and hath put the last into a
better condition then the former, by making them liable only to
those pains and forfeitures which the Law hath literally provided
for them, and which in some cases preserves their Estates for
their Families; whereas the lawful Enemy, even after quarter
given, remains at the mercy of the Victor, who may take his life,
and inflict any other punishment upon him arbitrarily, and
according to his own discretion. In the last place, he hath very
much obliged his Soveraign, in telling him so plainly why he hath
compared him to Leviathan, because he hath raised him to the same
greatness, and given him the same power which Leviathan is
described to have in the 41 Chapter of Job, There is nothing on
earth to be compared with him, he is made so as not to be afraid,
he seeth every high thing to be below him, and is King of all the
children of pride, Job 41. 33, 34. And if he had provided as well
to secure his high station, as he hath for the abatement of the
pride of the Subject, whom he hath sufficienCy humbled, he might
more glory in his work: but the truth is, he hath left him in so
weak a posture to defend himself, that he hath reason to be
afraid of every man; and the remedies he prescribes afterwards to
keep his prodigious power from dissolution, are as false and
irrational as any other advice in his Institution, as will appear
hereafter.

 The Survey of Chapter 29.

    Mr Hobbes takes so much delight in reiterating the many ill
things he hath said, for fear they do not make impression deep
enough in the minds of men, that I may be pardon'd if I repete
again somtimes what hath bin formerly said; as this Chapter
consisting most of the same pernicious doctrines which he
declar'd before, tho in an other dress, obliges me to make new,
or other reflexions upon what was I think sufficiently answer'd
before, and it may be repete what I have said before. He is so
jealous that the strength of a better composition of Soveraignty
may be superior, and be preferr'd before that of his institution,
that he devises all the way he can to render it more obnoxious to
dissolution, and like a Mountebank Physician accuses it of
diseases which it hath not, that he may apply Remedies which
would be sure to bring those or worse diseases, and would weaken
the strongest parts, and support of it, under the pretence of
curing its defects. So in the first place he finds fault (pag.
167.) that a man to obtain a Kingdom is sometimes content with
less Power, then to the Peace and defence of the Common-wealth is
necessarily required, that is, that he will observe the Laws and
Customs of the Kingdom, which by long experience have bin found
necessary for the Peace and defence of it. And to this he imputes
the insolence of Thomas Beckett Arch Bishop of Canterbury (page.
168.) who was supported against Harry the Second by the Pope, the
Subjection of Ecclesiastics to the Common-wealth having he saies
bin dispensed with by William the Conquerour at his reception,
when to took an oath, not to infringe the liberty of the Church.
And this extravagant power of the Pope he imputes to the
Universities and the doctrine taught by them; which reproch to
the Universities being in a Paragraph of his next Chapter, I
chuse to join in the answer with the case of Thomas Beckett and
Henry the Second.
    Mr Hobbes hath so great a prejudice to the reading Histories
(as if they were all enemies to his Government) that he will not
take the pains carefully to peruse those, from which he expects
to draw some advantage to himself; presuming that men will not
believe, that a man, who so warily weighs all he saies in the
balance of reason, will ever venture to alledg any matter of fact
that he is not very sure of. But if he had vouchsafed to look
over the Records of his own Country before the time of King Henry
the Eight, he would have found the Universities allwaies opposed
the power of the Pope, and would have no dependance upon him, and
that the Kings alone introduc'd his authority, and made it to be
submitted to by their Laws. Nor did the Church of England owe
their large priviledges to any donation of the Popes, whose
jurisdiction they would never admit, but to the extreme devotion
and superstition of the People, and the piety and bounty of the
Kings, which gave greater donatives and exemptions to the Church
and Clergy, then any other Kingdom enjoied, or then the Pope gave
any where. Christianity in the infancy of it wrought such
prodigious effects in this Island upon the barbarous affections
of the Princes and People who then were the inhabitants of it,
that assoon as they gave any belief to the History of our
Saviour, they thought they could not do too much to the Persons
ofthose who preached him, and knew best what would be most
acceptable to him. From hence they built Churches, and endow'd
them liberally, submitted so entirely to the Clergy, whom they
look'd upon as Sacred persons, that they judged all differences,
and he was not look'd upon as a good Christian who did not
entirely resign himself to their disposal: they gave great
exemtion to the Church and Church men, and annex'd such
Priviledges to both, as testified the veneration they had for the
Persons, as well as for the Faith. And when they suspected that
the Licentiousness of succeeding ages might not pay the same
devotion to both, they did the best they could to establish it,
by making Laws to that purpose, and obliging the severall Princes
to maintain and defend the rights and priviledges of the Church;
rights and priviledges which themselves had granted, and of which
the Pope knew nothing, nor indeed at the time did enjoy the like
himself. It is true, that by this means the Clergy was grown to a
wonderful power over the People, who look'd upon them as more
then mortal men, and had surely a greater autority then any
Clergy in Christendom assum'd in those ages, and yet it was
generally greater then in other Kingdoms, then it had ever bin
since. Nor could it be otherwise during the Heptarchy, when those
little Soveraigns maintain'd their power by the autority their
Clergy had with their people, when they had little dependance
upon the Prince. But when by the courage and success of two or
three couragious Princes, and the distraction that had bin
brought upon them by strangers, the Government of the whole
Island was reduced under one Soveraign, the Clergy, which had bin
alwaies much better united then the Civil state had bin, were not
willing to part with any autority they had enjoied, nor to be
thought of less value then they had bin formerly esteemed, and so
grew troublesom to the Soveraign power, somtimes by interrupting
the progress of their Councils by delaies, and somtimes by direct
and positive contradictions. The Princes had not the confidence
then to resort to Mr Hobbes original institution of their right,
the manners of the Nation still remained fierce and barbarous,
and whatsoever was pliant in them, was from the result of
Religion, which was govern'd by the Clergy. They knew nothing yet
of that primitive contract that introduced Soveraignty, nor of
that Faith that introduced subjection; they thought it would not
be safe for them to oppose the power of the Sacred Clergy, with a
mere secular, profane force, and therefore thought how they might
lessen and divide their own troublesome Clergy, by a conjunction
with some religious and Ecclesiastical combination. The Bishops
of Rome of that age had a very great name and autority in france,
where there being many Soveraign Princes then reigning together,
he exercis'd a notable Jurisdiction under the Style of Vicar of
Christ. The Kings in England by degrees unwarily applied
themselves to this Spiritual Magistrate; and that he might assist
them to suppress a power that was inconvenient to them at home,
they suffered him to exercise an autority that proved afterwards
very mischeivous to themselves, and for which they had never made
pretence before, and which was then heartily opposed by the
Universities, and by the whole Clergy, till it was impos'd upon
them by the King. So that it was not the Universities, and
Clergy, that introduc'd the Popes autority to shake and weaken
that of the King, but it was the King who introduc'd that power
to strengthen, as he thought, his own, howsoever it fell out. And
if the precedent Kings had not call'd upon the Pope, and given
him autority to assist them against some of their own Bishops,
Alexander the Third could never have pretended to exercise so
wild a jurisdiction over Henry the Second, nor he ever have
submitted to so infamous a subordination; nor could the Pope have
undertaken to assist Beckett against the King, if the King had
not first appeal'd to him for help against Beckett.
    For the better manifestation of that point, which Mr Hobbes
his speculation and Geometry hath not yet made an enquiry into,
it will not be amiss to take a short Survey of the Precedent
times, by which it will be evident how little influence the Popes
autority had upon the Crown, or Clergy, or Universities of
England; and how little ground he hath for that fancy, from
whence soever he took it, (pag. 168.) that William the Conquerour
at his reception had dispens'd with the subjection of the
Ecclesiastics by the Oath he took not to infringe the liberty of
the Church; whereas they who know any thing of that time, know
that the Oath he took was the same, and without any alteration,
that all the former Kings, since the crown rested upon a single
head, had taken, which was at his Coronation, after the Bishops
and the Barons had taken their Oaths to be his true and faithful
Subjects. The Arch Bishop, who crown'd him, presented that Oath
to him, which he was to take himself, which he willingly did, to
defend the Holy Church of God, and the Rectors of the same, To
Govern the universal people subject to him, justly, To establish
equal Laws, and to see them justly executed. Nor was he more wary
in any thing, then (as hath bin said before) that the people
might imagine, that he pretended any other title to the
Government, then by the Confessor: tho it is true, that he did by
degrees introduce many of the Norman customes which were found
very useful, or convenient, and agreeable enough, if not the
same, with what had bin formerly practis'd. And the common
reproch of the Laws being from time to time put into French,
carries no weight with it: for there was before that time so rude
a collection of the Laws, and in Languages as forreign to that of
the Nation, British, Saxon, Danish, and Latine, almost as
unintelligible as either of the other, that if they had bin all
digested into the English that was then spoken, we should very
little better have understood it, then we do the French, in which
the Laws were afterwards rendered; and it is no wonder, since a
reduction into Order was necessary, that the King who was to look
to the execution, took care to have them in that Language which
himself best understood, and from whence issued no inconvenience,
the former remaining still in the Language in which they had bin
written.
    Before the time of William the First, there was no pretence
of jurisdiction from Rome over the Clergy, and the Church of
England; for tho the infant Christianity of some of the Kings and
Princes had made some journies thither, upon the fame of the
Sanctity of many of the Bishops who had bin the most eminent
Martyrs for the Christian Faith, and when it may be they could
with more ease and security make a journy thither, then they
could have don to any other Bishop of great notoriety out of
their own Country; for Christianity was not in those times come
much neerer England then Dauphin�, Provence, and Languedoc in
France, and those Provinces had left their bountiful testimonies
of their devotion, which grew afterwards to be exercis'd with the
same piety in Pilgrimages first, and then expeditions to the Holy
Land, without any other purpose of transferring a Superiority
over the English Natione to Rome, then to Jerusalem. And after
the arrival of Austin the Monk and his Companionse who were sent
by Pope Gregory, and who never enjoy'd any thing in England but
by the donation of the Kings, the Brittish Clergy grew so jealous
of their pretences, that tho the Nation was exceedingly corrupted
by the person and the doctrine of Pelagius, which had bin spred
full two hundred years before Austin came, the reformation and
suppression of that Heresy was much retarded by those mens
extolling or mentioning the Popes autority, which the Brittish
Bishops were so far from acknowledging, that they would neither
meet with theme nor submit to any thing that was proposed by
them, and declar'd very much against the pride and insolence of
Austin, for assuming any autority, and because when any of them
came to him, he would not so much as rise to receive them. I can
hardly contain my self from enlarging upon this subject at this
time, but that it will seem to many to be forreign to the
argument now in debate, and Mr Hobbes hath little resignation to
the autority of matter of fact, by which when he is pressed, he
hath an answer ready,that if it were so, or not so, it should
have bin otherwise, I shall therefore only refrain my discourse
to the time of William the Conqueror, and when I have better
inform'd him of the State of the Clergy, and Universities of that
time, I shall give him the best satisfaction I can to the
instance of Thomas of Beckett, in which both the Clergy,and the
Universities will be easily absolv'd from the guilt of adhering
to the Pope.
    When William found himself in possession of England, whatever
application he had formerly made to the Pope (who was then in
France) and as some say had receiv'd from him a consecrated
Banner with some other relique, beside one single hair of St.
Peter, for the better success of his expedition, he was so far
from discovering any notable respect towards him, that he
expressly forbad all his Subjects from acknowledging any man to
be Pope, but him whom he declar'd to be so. And there was a
President of such a nature in his Reign by Lanfranke the Arch B.
of Canterbury, who had the greatest credit and autority with him,
as cannot be parallell'd by the like don in any other Christian
State; and impossible to be don, or permitted in any State that
was in any degree subject to the Pope, which was the Canonization
of a Saint. There being at that time very great fame of Aldelmus,
who first brought in the composition of Latine verse into England
and besides his eminent Piety, had so great a faculty in singing,
that by the music of his voice he wrought wonderful effects upon
the barbarous and savage humor of that People, insomuch as when
they were in great multitudes engaged in a rude or licentious
action, he would put himself in their way and sing, which made
them all stand still to listen, and he so captivated them by the
melody,that he diverted them from their purpose, and by degrees
got so much credit with them, that he reduc'd them to more
civility, and instructed them in the duties of Religion, into
which, tho they had bin baptiz'd, they had made little enquiry.
He lived a little before the time of Edward the Confessor, and
the general testimony of the Sanctity of his Life, and some
miracles wrought by him (which it may be were principally the
effects of his Music) being reported, and believed by Lanfrank,
Edicto sancivit, ut per totam deinde Angliam Aldelmus inter eos,
qui civibus coelestibus ascriptierant, honoraretur & coleretur,
as by the authors neerest that time is remembered, & at large
related by Harps-field in his Ecclesiastical History of England
without any disapprobation. Nor is it probable, that Lanfrank who
was an Italian, born and bred in Lombardy, and of great
reputation for learning and piety, would have assum'd that
autority, if he had believ'd that he had intrenched upon the
Province of the Bishop of Rome. The truth is, Canonizations in
that age were not the chargeable commodities they have since
grown to be, since the Pope hath engross'd the disposal of them
to himself; and it is very probable, that the Primitive Saints,
whose memories are preserv'd in the Martyrologies very
erroneously, were by the joint acknowledgment of the Church upon
the notorious sanctitiy of their lives, and of their deaths, not
by any solemn declaration of any particular autority of Rome;
otherwise we should find the Records of Old Canonization there,
as well as we do of so many new. But of so many of this Nation,
who suffer'd in the ten first persecutions under the Roman
Governors more then of any other, especially if St. Ursula, and
her Eleven thousand Virgins be reckon'd into the number, there is
no other Record but of the daies assign'd for their Festivities.
And in their whole Bullarium, which for these latter hundred
years so much abounds in Canonizations, the first that is extant
is of Uldricke Bishop of Ausburg, by John the Fifteenth Anno Nine
hundred ninety three, in a very different form, and much
different circumstances from those which are now used. Finally,
if the Popes inhibition or interposition could have bin of any
moment in that time of William the Conqueror, he would have bin
sure to have heard of it, when he seiz'd upon the Plate & Jewels
of all the Monasteries, and laid other great impositions upon the
Clergy, which they had not bin accustom'd to, and of which they
would have complain'd, if they had known whether to have
addressed their complaints.
    The two next Kings who succeeded him, and reigned long (for
Henry the First reigned no less then five and thirty years) wore
not their Crowns so fast on their heads, in respect of the juster
title in their Brother Robert, as prudently to provoke more
enemies then they had; and therefore they kept very fair quarter
with Paschal, who was Pope likewise many years, and were content
to look on unconcern'd in the fierce quarrels between the
Emperour and him, for he was very powerful in France tho not in
Italy. And Anselme the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury had great
contests with them both upon the priviledges of the Clergy, and
had fled to Paschal to engage him in his quarrel; yet the Pope
pretended to no jurisdiction in the point, but courteously
interceded so far with Henry the First on the behalf of Anselme,
that he made his peace with the King: but when he afterwards
desir'd to send a Legate into England, the King by the advice of
the Bishops, and Nobles, positively refus'd to admit him. And
whosoever takes a view of the constitution of Christendom, as far
as had reference to Europe at that time, how far the greatest
Kingdoms and Principalities, which do now controul and regulate
that ambition, were from any degree of strength and power; that
Italy was then crumbled into more distinct Governments, then it
is at present; that France, that is now intire, was then under
the command of very many Soveraign Princes, and the Crown it self
so far from any notable superiority, that the King himself was
sometimes excommunicated by his own Bishops and Clergy, without,
and against the Popes direction, and sometimes excommunicated,
and the Kingdom interdicted by the Pope, even whilst he resided
in France, and in Councils assembled by them there, as in the
Council of Clermont; that Spain, that is now under one Monarch,
was then divided into the several Kingdoms of Castile, Arragon,
Valentia, Catalonia, Navarr, and Leon, when the Moors were
possess'd of a greater part of the whole, then all the other
Christian Kings, the whole Kingdom of Granada with the greatest
part of Andoluzia, and Estremadura, and a great part of Portugal
being then under the Dominion of those Infidels; that Germany was
under as many Soveraign princes as it had names of Cities and
Provinces; and that England, which hath now Scotland and ireland
annex'd to it, was then, besides the unsettlement of the English
Provinces upon the contests in the Norman Family, without any
pretence to the Dominion of Wales, at least without any adv
antage by it: I say, whosoever considers this, will not wonder at
the starts made by many Popes in that age, into a kind of power
and autority in many Kingdoms, that they had not before, and
which was then still interrupted and contradicted; and that when
Alexander the Third came to be Pope, who reigned about twenty
years, he proceeded so imperiously with our Henry the Second upon
the death of Thomas Beckett, even in a time when there was so
great a Schism in the Church, that Victor the Fifth was chosen by
a contrary party, and by a Council called at Pavia by the
Emperour there own'd, and declar'd to be Canonically chosen, and
Alexander to be no Pope, who thereupon fled into France: so that
if our King Henry the Second had not found such a condescention
to be very suitable to his affaires both in England, and in
France, it is probable he would have declin'd so unjust and
unreasonable an imposition.
    I am afraid of giving Mr Hobbes an occasion to reproch me
with impertinency in this digression, tho he hath given me a just
provocation to it; and since the Roman Writers are so solicitous
in the collecting and publishing the Records of that odious
Process, and strangers are easily induc'd to believe, that the
exercise of so extravagant a jurisdiction in the Reign of so
Heroical a Prince, who had extended his Dominions farther by much
then any of his Progenitors had don, must be grounded upon some
fix'd and confess'd right over the Nation, and not from an
original Usurpation entred upon in that time, and when the
usurper was not acknowledged by so considerable a part of
Christendom; it may not prove ungrateful to many men, to take a
short view of that very time, that we may see what unheard of
motives could prevail with that high spirited King to submit to
so unheard of Tyranny. That it was not from the constitution of
the Kingdom, or any preadmitted power of the Pope formerly
incorporated into the Laws and customs of the Kingdom, is very
evident, by the like having bin before attemted. For tho the
Clergy enjoied those great priviledges and immunities which are
mention'd before, whereby they had so great an influence upon the
hearts of the people, that the Conquerour himself had bin glad to
make use of them, and William the Second, Henry the First, and
King Stephen had more need of them to uphold their Usurpation;
yet those priviledges how great soever, depended not at all upon
the Bishop of Rome, nor was any rank of men more solicitious then
the Clergy to keep the Pope from a pretence of power in the
Kingdom. And the Bishops themselves had in the beginning of that
Arch-Bishops contumacious and rebellious contests with the King,
don all they could to discountenance and oppose him, and had
given their consent in Parliament, that for his disobedience all
his goods and moveables should be at the Kings mercy: and it was
also enacted with their consent (after the Arch-Bishop had fled
out of the Kingdom, and was known to make some application to the
Pope) that if any were found carrying a Letter or Mandate from
the Pope or the Arch-Bishop, containing any interdiction of
Christianity in England, he should be taken, and without delay
executed as a Traitor both to the King & Kingdom; that whatsoever
Bishop, Priest, or Monk should have, and retain any such Letters,
should forfeit all their Possessions, Goods, and Chattells to the
King, and be presently banish'd the Realm with their kin; that
none should appeal to the Pope; and many other particulars, which
enough declare the temper of that Catholic time, and their
aversion to have any dependance upon a foreign jurisdiction. And
after the death of Beckett, and that infamous submission of the
King to the Popes Sentence thereupon (which yet was not so
scandalous as it is vulgarly reported, as if it had bin made and
undergon by the King in Person) when the same King desir'd to
assist the Successor of that Pope, Lucius the Third, who was
driven out of Rome, and to that purpose endeavour'd to raise a
collection from the Clergy, which the Popes Nuntio appear'd in,
and hoped to advance, the Clergy was so jealous of having to do
with the Pope, or his Ministers, that they declar'd, and advised
the King, that his Majesty would supply the Pope in such a
proportion as he thought fit, and that whatever they gave might
be to the King himself, and not to the Popes Nuntio, which might
be drawn into example to the detriment of the King.
    The King himself first shewed the way to Thomas a Beckett to
apply himself to the Pope, till when the Arch-Bishop insisted
only upon his own Ecclestical rights and power, in which he found
not the concurrence of the other Bishops or Clergy, and the King
not being able to bear the insolence of the man, and finding that
he could well enough govern his other Bishops, if they were not
subjected to the autority and power of that perverse Arch-Bishop,
was willing to give the Pope autority to assist him, and did all
he could to perswade him to make the Arch-Bishop of York his
Legate, meaning thereby to devest the other Arch-Bishop of that
Superiority over the Clergy that was so troublesom to him, and
which he exercis'd in his own right as Metropolitan. But the Pope
durst not gratify the King therein, knowing the spirit of
Beckett, and that he would contemn the Legate, and knew well the
Ecclesiastical superiority in that Kingdom to reside in his
person as Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, who, had bin reputed tanquam
alterius Orbis Papa, yet he sent to him to advise him to submit
to the King; whereupon the haughty Prelate then fled out of the
Kingdom, and was too hard for the King with the Pope, who was
perswaded by him to make use of this opportunity to enlarge his
own power, and to curb and subdue that clergy that was indevoted
to him; and so by his Bull he suspended the Archbishop of York,
and the other Bishops who adher'd to the king in the execution of
his commands; which so much incens'd the King, that he let fall
those words in his passion, that encouraged those rash Gentlemen
to commit that assassination, that produc'd so much trouble. It
must also be remembred, that the King, when he bore all this from
the Pope, was indeed but half a King, having caused his son Henry
to be crown'd King with him, who thereupon gave him much trouble,
and join'd with the French King against him: and that he had so
large and great Territories in France, that as the Popes power
was very great there, so his friendship was the more behoovfull
and necessary to the King. Lastly, and which it may be is of more
weight then any thing that hath bin said in this disquisition, it
may seem a very natural judgment of God Almighty, that the Pope
should exercise that unreasonable power over a King, who had
given him an absurd and unlawful power over himself, and for an
unjust end, when he obtain'd from our Country-Man Pope Adrian,
who immediately preceded Alexander, a Dispensation not to perform
the Oath which he had taken, that his Brother Geoffery should
enjoy the County of Anjoy according to the Will and desire of his
Father, and by vertue of that Dispensation, which the Pope had no
power to grant, defrauded his Brother of his inheritance, and
broke his Oath to God Almighty, and so was afterwards forced
himself to yield to the next Pope, when he assum'd a power over
him in a case he had nothing to do with, and where he had no mind
to obey. And this unadvised address of many other princes to the
Pope, for Dispensations of this kind to do what the Law of God
did not permit them to do, hath bin a principal inlet of his
Supremacy, to make them accept of other Dispensations from him,
of which they stand not in need, and to admit other his
incroachments from him, which have proved very mischievous to
them. Of the condition of King John we need not speak, whose
Usurpation, Murders, and absence of all virtue, made him fit to
undergo all the reproches and censures which Pope innocent the
Third exercis'd him with, when he usurped upon France with equal
Tyranny.
    The succeding Kings no sooner found it necessary to expel, or
restrain that power which the Popes had so inconveniently bin
admitted to, and which they had so mischievously improv'd, but
the Universities not only submitted to, but advanced those Acts
which tended thereunto; as appears by the Writings of Occam, and
other Learned Men in the University of Oxford, in the Reigns of
those Kings both Edward the First and Edward the Third, in which
times as much was don against the power of the Pope, as was
afterwards don by Henry the Eighth himself. And the Gallican
Church would not at this time have preserved their liberties and
priviledges to that degree, as to contemn the power of the
universal Bishop, if the University of the Sorbone had not bin
more vigilant against those incroachments then the Crown it self.
So far have the Universities bin from being the Authors, or
promoters of those false Doctrines, which he unjustly laies to
his charge. And I presume they ill be as vigilant and resolute,
to preserve the Civil Autority from being invaded and endangered,
by their receiving and subscribing to his pernicious and
destructive principles, which his modesty is induced to believe
may be planted in the minds of men, because whole Nations have
bin brought to acquiesce in the great mysteries of Christian
Religion which are above reason, and millions of men have bin
made to believe, that the same body may be in innumerable places
at one and the same time, which is against reason: and therefore
he would have the Soveraign power to make his Doctrine, so
consonant to reason, to be taught and preached. But his Doctrine
is fit only to be taught by his own Apostles, who ought to be
looked upon as Seducers, and false Prophets; and God forbid that
the Soveraign powers should contribute to the making those
principles believed, which would be in great danger to be
destroied, if it were but suspected that they affected to have
that power, which he would have to belong to them. And such
Princes who have bin willing to believe they have it, have bin
alwaies most jealous that it should be known, or thought, that
they do believe so; since they know there would be a quick
determination of their power, if all their Subjects knew, that
they believed, that all they have doth in truth belong to them,
and that they may dispose of it as they please.
    (Pag. 168.) He saies a Common-wealth hath many diseases,
which proceed from the poison of Seditious doctrines, whereof one
is, That every private man is Judg of good and evil actions,
which is a doctrine never allow'd in any Common-wealth, the Law
being the measure of all good or evil actions under every
Government; and where that Law permits a liberty to the Subject
to dispute the commands of the Soveraign, no inconvenience can
arise thereby: but if the Soveraign by his own autority shall
vacate and cancel all Laws, the Commonwealth must need be
distracted, or much weakened.
    Mr Hobbes will have too great an advantage against any
adversary, if he will not have his Government tried by any Law,
nor his Religion by any Scripture: and he could never think, that
the believing, that (pag. 168.) whatsoever a man doth against his
conscience is sin, is a Doctrine to civil Society repugnant, if
he thought any of the Apostles good Judges of Conscience, who
all, upon all occasions and in all actions, commend themselves to
every mans conscience, 2. Cor. 4. 2. as also, Our rejoicing is
this, the Testimony of our conscience 2. Cor. 1. 12. and
throughout the whole new Testament the conscience is made the
Judg of all we do. And if Mr Hobbes had not so often excepted
against Divines for being good Judges in Religion, I could tell
him of very good ones, who are of opinion, that it is a sin to do
any thing against an erroneous conscience, which is his own best
excuse, that he will not depart from his own judgment, which is
his conscience, how erroneous soever it is. But this liberty of
Conscience is restrain'd only to those Cases where the Law hath
prescribed no rule; for where the Law enjoins the duty, no
private conscience can deny obedience. In case of misperswasion,
it looks upon the action as sinful in him, and so chuses to
submit to the penalty, which is still obedience, or removes into
another Climate as more agreeable to his constitution.
    If Mr Hobbes proposes to himself to answer all extravagant
discourses or private opinions of seditious men, which have no
countenance from public Autority, he will be sure to chuse such
as he can easily confute. All sober men agree, that tho faith and
sanctity are not to be attain'd only by study and reading, yet
that study and reading are means to procure that grace from God
Almighty that is necessary thereunto. And himself confesseth,
that with all his education, discipline, correction, and other
natural waies, it is God that worketh that faith and sanctity in
those he thinks fit. So that if he did not think men the more
unlearn'd for being Divines, it is probable that there is very
little difference between what those unlearned Divines, and
himself say upon this point, saving that they may use inspiring
and infusing, which are words he cannot endure as insignificant
speech, tho few men are deceiv'd in the meaning of them.
    If all Soveraigns are subject to the Laws of Nature (as he
saies they are) because such Laws are divine, and cannot by any
man or Common-wealth be abrogated, they then are oblig'd to
observe and perform those Laws which themselves have made, and
promised to observe; for violation of faith is against the Law of
Nature by his own confession. Nor doth this obligation set any
Judg over the Soveraign, nor doth any civil Law pretend that
there is any power to punish him; it is enough, that in justice
he ought to do it, and that there is a Soveraign in Heaven above
him, tho not on Earth.
    The next indeed is a Doctrine that troubles him, and tends,
as he saies, (pag. 169.) to the dissolution of a Common-wealth,
That every private man has an absolute propriety in his goods,
such as excludes the right of the Soveraign, which if true, he
saies, (p. 170) he cannot perform the Office they have put him
into, which is to defend them both from foreign Enemies, and from
the injuries of one another, and consequently there is no longer
a Common-wealth. And I say, if it be not true, there is nothing
worth the defending from Foreign Enemies, or from one another,
and consequently it is no matter what becomes of the
Common-wealth. Can he defend them any other way, then by their
own help, with their own hands? and it is a marvellous thing that
any man can believe, that he can be as vigorously assisted by
people who have nothing to lose, as by men who defending him
defend their own Goods and Estates, which if they do not believe
their own, they will never care into what hands they fall. Nor is
the Soveraign power divided by the Soveraigns consenting that he
will not exercise such a part of it, but in such & such a manner,
and with such circumstances; for he hath not parted with any of
his Soveraignty, since no other man can exercise that which he
forbears to exercise himself; which could be don, if he had
divided it. And it is much a greater crime in those who are
totally ignorant of the laws, to endeavour by their wit and
presumtion to undermine them, then that they who are learn'd in
the study and profession of the Law, do all they can to support
that, which only supports the Government. Much less is the
Soveraign power divided by the Soveraigns own communicating part
of it to be executed in his name, to those who, by their
education and experience, are qualified to do it much better then
he himself can be presumed to be able to do; as to appoint Judges
to administer Justice to his people, upon all the pretences of
right which may arise between themselves, or between him and
them, according to the Rules of the Law which are manifest to
them, and must be unknown to him; who yet keeps the Soveraign
power in his hands to punish those deputies, if they swerve from
their duty.
    To the Mischiefs which have proceeded from the reading the
Histories of the ancient Greeks and Romans, I shall say no more
in this place, then that if Mr Hobbes hath bin alwaies of this
opinion, he was very much to blame to take the pains to translate
Thucydides into English, in which there is so much of the Policy
of the Greeks discovered, and much more of that Oratory that
disposes Men to Sedition, then in all Tullies, or Aristotles
works. But I suppose he had then, and might still have more
reason to believe, that very few who have taken delight in
reading the Books of Policy and Histories of the ancient Greeks
and Romans, have ever fallen into Rebellion; and there is much
more fear, that the reading this and other Books writ by him, and
the glosses he makes upon them in his conversation, may introduce
thoughts of Rebellion into young men, by weakning, and laughing
at all obgliations of conscience, which only can dispose men to
obedience: and by perswading Princes, that they may safely and
justly follow the extent of their own inclinations, and appetites
in the Government of their Subjects, which must tire and wear out
all Subjection, at least the cheerfulness, which is the strength
of it, by lessening the reverence to God Almighty, which is the
foundation of reverence to the King; and undervaluing all
Religion, as no otherwise known, and no otherwise constituted
then by the arbitriment of the Soveraign Prince, whom he makes a
God of Heaven, as well as upon the Earth, since he is upon the
matter, the only author of the Scripture it self; the swallowing
of all which opinions, must be the destruction of all Government,
and the ruine of all obedience.
    Tho most of his reflexions are reproches upon the Government
of his own Country, which he thinks is imperfectly instituted;
yet he cannot impute the doctrine of killing Kings, whether
Regicide or Tyrannicide, to that Government, nor the unreasonable
distinction of Spiritual and Temporal jurisdiction, to rob the
Soveraign of any part of his Supremacy, and divide one part of
his Subjects from a dependance upon his justice and autority. God
be thanked the Laws of that Kingdom admit none of that doctrine,
or such distinctions to that pernicious purpose. Nor do the
Bishops, or Clergy of that Kingdom (however they are fallen from
Mr Hobbes his grace) use any style or title, but what is given or
permitted to them by the Soveraign power. And therefore this
Controversy must be defended by those (who justly lie under the
reproch) of the Church of Rome, who, it may be, consider him the
less, because, tho they know him not to be of theirs, they think
him not to be of any Religion.
    The power of levying Mony, which depending upon any general
assembly, he saies, (pag. 172.) endangereth the common-wealth,
for want of such nurishment, as is necessary to life and motion,
shall be more properly enlarg'd upon in the next Chapter, when, I
doubt not, very wholsome remedies will be found for all those
diseases which he will suppose may proceed from thence, but tis
to be hoped none will chuse his desperate prescriptions, which
will cure the disease by killing the Patient.
    He concludes this Chapter, after all his bountiful donatives
to his Soveraign, with his old wicked doctrine, that would indeed
irreparably destroy and dissolve all Common-wealths. That when by
a powerful invasion from a foreign Enemy, or a prosperous
Rebellion by Subjects, his Soveraign is so far oppressed that he
can keep the field no longer, his Subjects owe him no farther
assistance, and may lawfully put themselves under the Conqueror,
of what condition soever; for tho, he saies, (pag. 174.) The
right of the Soveraign is not extinguished, yet the obligation of
the members is, and so the Soveraign is left to look to himself.
There are few Empires of the World, which at some time have not
bin reduc'd, by the strength and power of an outragious Enemy, to
that extremity, that their forces have not bin able to keep the
field any longer, which Mr Hobbes makes the period of their
Subjects Loyalty, and the dissolution of the Common-wealth; yet
of these at last many Princes have recover'd, and redeem'd
themselves from that period, & arrived again at their full height
and glory by the constancy and vertue of their Subjects, and
their firmly believing, that their obligations could not be
extinguish'd as long as the right of their Soveraign Monarch was
not. So that there is great reason to believe, that the old Rules
which Soveraignty alwaies prescribed to it self, are much better,
and more like to preserve it, then the new ones which he would
plant in their stead; because it is very evident, that the old
subjection is much more faithful and necessary to the support and
defence of the Soveraignty, then that new one which he is
contented with, and prescribes; which he will not only have
determin'd as to any assistance of his natural Soveraign, tho he
confesses (pag. 174.) his right remains still in him; but that he
is obliged, (so strictly obliged, that no pretence of having
submitted himself out of fear, can absolve him) to protect, and
assist the Usurper as long as he is able. So that the entire loss
of any one Battel, acording to his judgment of subjection, and
the duty of Subjects, shall, or may put an end to the Soveraignty
of any Prince in Europe. And this is one of the grounds and
principles, which he concludes to be against the express duty of
Princes, to let the people be ignorant of.
    If Mr Hobbes had a Conscience made and instructed like other
mens, and had not carefully provided, that whilst his judgment is
fix'd under Philosophical and Metaphysical notions, his
Conscience shall never be disturb'd by Religious speculations and
apprehensions; it might possibly smite him with the remembrance,
that these excellent principles were industriously insinuated,
divulged and publish'd within less then two years after Cromwels
Usurpation of the Government of the three Nations, upon the
Murder of his Soveraign; and that he then declar'd in this book
(pag. 165.) that against such Subjects who deliberately deny tha
autority of the Commonwealth, then, and so established (which God
be thanked much the major part of the three Nations then did) the
vengeance might lawfully be extended not only to the fathers, but
also to the third and fourth generation not yet in being, and
consequently innocent of the fact for which they are afflicted;
because the nature of this offence, consists in renouncing of
subjection, which is a relapse into the condition of war,
commonly called rebellion, and they that so offend, suffer not as
Subjects, but as Enemies. And truly he may very reasonably
believe, surely more then many things which he doth believe, that
the veneme of this Book wrought upon the hearts of men, to retard
the return of their Allegiance for so many years, and was the
cause of so many cruel and bloody persecutions against those, who
still retain'd their duty and Allegiance for the King. And
methinks no man should be an Enemy to the renewing war in such
cases, but he who thinks all kind of war, upon what occasion
soever, to be unlawful; which Mr Hobbes is so far from thinking,
that he is very well contented, and believes it very lawfull for
his Soveraign, in this paragraph of cruelty, to make war against
any whom he judges capable to do him hurt.

 The Survey of Chapter 30.

    Mr Hobbes having invested his Soveraign with so absolute
Power and Omnipotence, we have reason to expect that in this
Chapter of his Office, he will enjoin him to use all the autority
he hath given him; and he gives him fair warning, that if any of
the essential Rights of Soveraignty, specified in his eighteenth
chapter (which, in a word, is to do any thing he hath a mind to
do, and take any thing he likes from any of his Subjects) be
taken away, the Common-wealth is dissolv'd: and therefore that it
is his office to preserve those Rights entire, and against his
duty to transfer any of them from himself. And least he should
forget the Rights and Power he hath bestowed upon him, he
recollects them all in three or four lines, amongst which he puts
him in mind, that he hath power to leavy mony, when, and as much
as in his own conscience he shall judg necessary: and then tells
him, that it is against his duty to let the People be ignorant,
or mis-informed of the grounds and reasons of those his essential
Rights, that is, that he is oblig'd to make his Leviathan
Canonical Scripture, there being no other Book ever yet printed,
that can inform them of those rights, & the grounds and reason of
them. And how worthy they are to receive that countenance and
autority, will best appear by a farther examination of the
Particulars; and yet a man might have reasonably expected from
the first Paragraph of this Chapter another kind of tenderness,
indeed as great as he can wish, of the good and welfare of the
Subject, when he declares, (pag. 175.) That the office of the
Monarch consists in the end for which he was trusted with the
Soveraign Power, namely, the procuration of the safety of the
People, to which he is obliged by the Law of Nature, and to
render an account thereof to God the Author of that Law. But by
safety, he saies, is not meant a bare preservation, but also all
other contentments of life, which every man by lawful industry,
without danger or hurt to the Commonwealth, can acquire to
himself. Who can expect a more blessed condition? Who can desire
a more gracious Soveraign? No man would have thought this
specious Building should have its Foundation, after the manner of
the foolish Indians, upon sand, that, assoon as you come to rest
upon it, molders away to nothing; that this safety, safety
improv'd with all the other contentments of life, should consist
in nothing else, but in a mans being instructued and prepared to
know,that he hath nothing of his own,and that when he hath by his
lawful industry acquired to himself all the contentments of life
which he can set his heart upone one touch of his Soveraigns
hande one breath of his mouth, can take all this from him without
doing him any injury. This is the Doctrine to be propagated, and
which he is confident will easily be received and consented to,
since if it were not according the principles of Reason, he is
sure it is a principle from autority of Scripture, and will be so
acknowledgede if the peoples minds be not tainted with dependance
upon the Potent, or scribled over with the opinions of their
Doctors.
    One of the reasons which he gives, why his grounds of the
rights of his Soveraign should be diligently and truly taught, is
a very good reason to believe, that the grounds are not goode
because he confesses, (pag. 175.) that they cannot be maintain'd
by any Civil Law, or terror of legal punishment. And as few men
agree with Mr Hobbes in the essential Rights of Soveraignty, so
none allows, nor doth he agree with himself, that all resistance
to the rights of the Soveraignty, be they never so essential, is
Rebellion. He allows it to be a priviledg of the Subject that he
may sue the King, so there is no doubt but that the Soveraign may
sue the Subject, who may as lawfully defend as sue, and every
such defence is a resistance to the Soveraign right of demanding,
and yet I suppose Mr Hobbes will not say it is Rebellion. He that
doth positively refuse to pay mony to the King, which he doth
justly owe to him, and which he shall be compell'd to pay, doth
resist an essential Right of the King, yet is not guilty of
Rebellion, which is constituted in having a force to support his
resistance, and a purpose to apply it that way. And as the Law of
Nature is not so easily taught, because not so easily understood
as the Civil Law,so I cannot comprehend, why Mr Hobbes should
imagine the Soveraign power to be more secure by the Law of
Nature, then by the Civil Law, when he confesses, That the Law of
Nature is made Law, only by being made part of the Civil Law; and
if the Civil Law did not provide a restraint from the violation
of Faith, by the terror of the punishment that must attend it,
the obligation from the Law of Nature would be a very faint
security to Princes for the obedience of their Subjects. But he
chuses to appeal only to the Law of Nature, which is a Text so
few men have read and understand, to support an imaginary Faith
that was never givene upon which Soveraignty was founded. For
which he hath another reason likewise; for his Law of Nature is
always at hand to serve him, when no other Law will. For when you
tell him that the Law of Nature forbiddeth the violation of
Faith, and therefore that Kings and Princes are obliged to
observe the Promises they make, and the Oaths they take; he
answers you with great confidence, & great cleerness, that that
rule is only obligatory to Subjects, for that by the Law of
Nature, such Promises and Oaths taken by Princese are ipso facto
void, invalide and bind not at all. So that by this omnipotent
Law of Nature, which is indispensable and eternal, the Sacred
Word of a King, which ought to be as fixed and unmoveable as the
center of the Earth, is made is changeable as the Moon; and the
breach of Faith, which is so odious to God and man, is made
lawful for Kings, who are the only Persons in the World who
cannot be perjured, because the indispensable Law of Nature will
not permit them to perform what they promise. And now we see the
reason why the Law of Nature must only be able to support that
Government, which no Civil Law will be able to do: it remainse
that tho there may be a very innocent and lawful resistance of
some essential Rights of the Soveraigne for recovery whereof he
may be put to sue at Law, as hath bin said before, his Soveraign
by his right of Interpreting Law, may,as his Institutor here hath
don, interpret such resistance to be Treason, and so confiscate
the Estate of the greatest Subject he hath, who hath an Estate
that he hath a mind to have.
    He would be glad to find some answer to the want of
President, which he sees will alwaies lie in his way, that there
hath not bin hitherto any Common-wealth where those Rights have
bin acknowledg'd or challeng'd: but he hath alwaies the ill luck
to leave the Objection as strong as he found it; and if he could
find no Artificers to assist in the erecting such a Building as
may last as long as the Materials, notwithstanding his skill in
Architecture from the principles of Reason, his long study of the
nature of Materials, and the divers effects of Figure and
Proportion, men would rather chuse to dwell in the Houses they
have, then to pull them downe and exspect till he set up better
in the place. He must give a better evidence then his nonreason,
that his Government will be everlasting, before men believe it;
and when his Principles from autority of Scripture come to be
examin'd, they will be found to have no more solidity, then those
which he hath produc'd from his long study and observation. In
the mean time he shall do well to get his Doctrine planted in
those Countries, and among that People who are made believe, that
the same Body may be in innumerable places at one and the same
time, where possibly things equally unreasonable may be believ'd.
And since men are to be taught, that they ought not to be in love
with any Form of Government more then with their own, nor to
desire change, which he saies, (pag. 177.) is like the breach of
the first of Gods Commandments, he hath himself raised one
unanswerable Argument against the reception and doctrine of his
Leviathan. His unskilful reproches upon the Universities are
sufficiently refuted in the last Chapter.
    A man would hardy believe, that the same Person should think
it to be of the office of the Soveraign to take care for the
making of good Laws, and should so frankly declare, That no Law
can be conceiv'd to be good, tho it be for the benefit of the
Soveraign, if it be not necessary for the People, for the good of
the Soveraign and the People cannot be separated; and yet at the
same time determine, that all Laws which establish any Propriety
to and in the People, are invalid and void, and that it is an
essential and inseparable Right in the Soveraign, to levy as much
mony at any time, as he in his own conscience shall judg
necessary. And therefore, tho I think I have in several places of
this Discourse sufficiently evinc'd the unreasonableness of this
Proposition, and the inconsistency of the good and security of
the Soveraign with such a Power, I shall here enlarge upon the
Disquisition thereof, and of the reasons which induce him to
believe, that any kind of restraint of his power of raising mony,
by what consent of his own soever, is no less then the
dissolution of the Common-wealth: for his power of taking every
mans mony from him, and his goods that will yield mony, is his
principal contention throughout his Book, besides his liberty to
lay asleep, alter, and repeal all Laws according to his will and
pleasure. The expence and charge of the preservation and
maintenance of the Government being uncertain and contingent, and
so not to be provided for by any constant provision or revenue,
if by any emergent occasion, upon a suddain Rebellion or foreign
Invasion, the Soveraign hath not power to raise what mony he
thinks necessary to suppress the one and resist the other, the
Kingdom must be lost; and if he may do it in either of those
cases, he may do it to prevent either; and it ought to be
suppos'd that he will not take more, tho he may take all, then is
absolutely necessary for the occasion: and this is the strongest
case (and yet is not so strong in relation to an Island, as it is
in relation to an In-land Kingdom) he hath, or can suppose, for
the support of this power, to every part of which this answer may
be applied.
    As there is no Soveraign in Europe who pretends to this right
of Soveraignty, so there was never any Kingdom, or considerable
Country lost by want of it, or preserv'd by the acutal exercise
of it: and the Laws themselves permit, and allow many things to
be don, when the mischief and necessity are in view, which may
not warrantably be don upon the pretence of preventing it. The
Law of necessity is pleadable in any Court, and hath not only its
pardon but justification; as when, not only a Magistrate, but a
private man pulls down a house or more, which are next to that
house which is on fire, to prevent the farther mischief, the Law
justifies him, because the necessity and benefit is as visible as
the fire; yet it would not be justice in the Soveraign himself,
to cause a mans house to be pulled down that is seven miles
distant, upon a fore-sight that the fire may come thither. I am
not averse from Mr Hobbes's opinion, that a man who is upon the
point of starving, and is not able to buy meat, may take as much
of the meat he first sees, as will serve for that meal; and this
not only by the Law of Nature, but for ought I know, without
punishment by any Municipal Law, which seldom cancels the
unquestionable Law of Nature: but this necessity will not
justifie him in the stealing or taking by force an Ox from any
man to prevent starving for a month together, how poor soever the
man is, or to rob a Poulterersshop, that he may have a second
course. Necessity is not a word unknown, or unconsider'd by the
Law. No Subject, who will obey the Law, and submit to that power
and autority which he confesses to be unquestionable in the King,
can run into Rebellion; and if he doth, all other Subjects are
bound by the Laws to assist, to suppress it in that manner, and
with that force, and under such conduct and command as the
Soveraign directs. If this Rebellion prospers, iet the Soveraigns
right be what Mr Hobbes assigns him, to levy mony, he will never
be able to levy it in the Rebels Quarters; and if they extend
their Quarters far, they share the Soveraignty with him; for he
appoints those who live in those Quarters, and enjoy protection,
to assist and defend their Protectors. The case is the same in an
actual Invasion, where the Invaders right grows at least as fast
as the Rebels; and the power of the Soveraign, be it never so
cheerfully submitted to, can levy mony only where he is obeied,
and upon those whose hands must fight for him, or give him other
assistance; and then the quesiton is, Whether he be not like to
be stronger by accepting what they are willing to give, then by
letting them know that they have nothing to give, because all
they have is his. And yet in both these cases of an actual
Rebellion, or actual Invasion, if the King takes any mans mony
that he finds (and if he cannot find it, his right to take it
will do him little good) not as his own, but as that mans, to be
laid out for his own and public defence, and to be repaid by the
public, which ought not to be defended at the charge of any
private man, there will be little complaint of the violation of
the Law, and the right of Property will be still unshaken. But
all these mischiefs are to be prevented by the Soveraigns
sagacity and foresight; and if he may not levy what mony he
pleases, and thinks requisite to make preparations to disappoint
all such designs of both kinds, it will be too late indeed to do
it after, and the Common-wealth cannot but suffer by the defect
of power.
    If the mischief be only in apprehension, there is time to
raise mony in that way which is provided, and agreed upon for
those extraordinary occasions, by asking their consent, who can
without any complaint or murmur that can prove inconvenient, give
present directions for the paiment thereof. But what if they
refuse to give; must the Common-wealth perish, and every man in
it, whose defence the Soveraign hath undertaken, and is bound to.
If the Soveraign hath taken all they have before, as he may when
he will, they may have nothing left to be taken in those
necessary seasons, and then what will his obligation to defend
them do good? and how are they like to assist him, when they have
nothing to defend but his power to make them miserable? It is not
good to suspect, that Princes will extend their power, how
absolute soever it is, to undo their Subjects wantonly and
unnecessarily; nor is it reasonable to imagine, that Subjects who
enjoy Peace and Plenty, will obstinately refuse to contribute
towards their own preservation, when both are in danger. But
since it is necessary to suppose a case that never yet fell out,
to introduce a Government that was never before thought of, let
us admit that it is possible, that such an obstinate Spirit may
rule in that Assembly which have the power to raise mony, that
they may peremtorily refuse to give any, and by the want thereof
the Commonwealth is really like to be dissolv'd; I say, admit
this, (tho the same kind of obstinacy, that is, an obstinacy as
natural as this, to perform no function they ought to do, will,
and must dissolve the Soveraignty of his own institution) the
question shall be, Whether this very disease be worthy of such a
cure? whether the confess'd possibility of such a danger be fit
to be secur'd and prevented by such a remedy? and I think most
wise and dispassioned men will believe, that the perpetual
inquietude and vexation, that must attend men who are in daily
fear to have all they have taken from them, and believe that they
have nothing their own to leave to their Children and Family, is
too disproportion'd a provision to prevent a mischief that is
possible to fall out; and that the hazard of that is more
reasonably to be submitted to, then the danger of a more probable
revolution from the other distemper. And when he hath heightened
the danger his Soveraignty may be in, by all the desperate
imaginations his melancholy or fancy can suggest to him, he will
find, that no defect of power can ever make a Prince so weak, so
impotent, and so completely miserable, as his being Soveraign
over such subjects as having nothing to give, because they have
nothing that is their own; nor will the conscience of their
Soveraign, that he will not do all he may, bring any substantial
Cordial to them: but as he saies, that his Soveraign may command
any thing to be don against Law, because his command amounts to a
repeal of that Law, for he that can make himself free, is free;
so they will think, that he that can be undon at the pleasure of
another man, is undon already, and that every day is but the Eve
of his destruction, and therefore will think of all ways to
prevent it; and he knows the effect of fear too well, to think
that a man who is in a continual fright can be fix'd in a firm
obedience.
    His Commentary upon the ten Commandments, which in his
judgment comprehends and exacts all his Injunctions contain'd in
his Leviathan, and his other Theological Speculations, I refer to
the consideration and examination of his Friends the Divines, who
no doubt will be well pleased to find him a better Casuist, now
he comes to revolve the tenth Commandment in this his thirtieth
Chapter, then he was in his twenty seventh Chapter, in his gloss
upon the same Text; for there he determines clearly, (pag. 151.)
that to be delighted in the imagination only of being possessed
of an other mans goods, or wife, without intention to take them
from him by force or fraud, is no breach of this Law, Thou shalt
not covet: nor the pleasure a man hath in imagining the death of
a man, from whose life he expects nothing but damage and
displeasure, any sin. The business he then had, was to find
excuses and extenuations for sins; but now having occasion better
to consider that Commandement, of which he stood in need, he
finds, that the very intention to do an unjust act, tho hinder'd,
is injustice, which consisteth in the pravity of the Will, as
well as in the irregularity of the act; as if in the former case,
all that delight in the imagination of being possessed of another
mans Wife, or the pleasure one has in thinking of the death of a
man he doth not love, could be without any pravity of the Will.
'Tis true, a purpose and intendment may be more criminal then a
mere complacency; but we know more or less do not change the
Species of things. And for the best way of inculcating all his
useful Doctrines, and setting aside certain daies to infuse
(which upon so good an occasion will not offend his severe ear)
the same into the hearts of the People, which he conceives to be
a duty enjoin'd by the fourth Commandment, I shall defer my
opinion till the end of the next Chapter, when upon the view of
all his Doctrines by retail, we may better consult upon the
method of spreading them abroad. In the mean time he must not
take it ill, that I observe his extreme malignity to the
Nobility, by whose bread he hath bin alwaies sustain'd, who must
not expect any part, at least any precedence in his Institution;
that in this his deep meditation upon the ten Commandments, and
in a conjuncture when the Levellers were at highest, and the
reduction of all degrees to one and the same was resolv'd upon,
and begun, and exercis'd towards the whole Nobility with all the
instances of contemt and scorn, he chose to publish his judgment;
as if the safety of the People requir'd an equality of Persons,
and that (pag 180.) the honor of great Persons is to be valued
for their beneficence, and the aids they give to men of inferior
rank, or not at all; and that the consequence of partiality
towards the great, raised hatred, and an endeavor in the People
to pull down all oppressing and contumelious greatness; language
lent to, or borrowed from the Agitators of that time.
    He seems to think the making of good Laws to be incumbent on
the Soveraign as his duty, and of much importance to his
Government; but he saies then, (pag. 181.) that by a good Law, he
doth not mean a just Law, for that no Law can be unjust, because
it is made by the Soveraign Power. And in truth, if the use of
Laws is not to restrain men from doing amiss, and to instruct and
dispose them to do well, and to secure them when they do so, they
are of no use at all, and it is no matter if there be any Laws or
no. For, to make use of his own illustration, (pag. 182.) Hedges
are set to stop Travellers, and to keep them in the way that is
allow'd and prescrib'd, and for hindering them to chuse a way for
themselves, tho a better and nearer way; and Laws are made to
guide, and govern, and punish men who presume to decline that
rule, and to chuse another to walk by, that is more agreable to
their own appetite or convenience. He renews his trouble to find
fit Counsellors for his Soveraign, which he hath so much
consider'd before, and finds the office to be as hard as the
Etymology (of which let the Grammarians and he agree) and saies
plainly, (pag. 184.) that the Politics is a harder study, then
the study of Geometry: and probably he believes that he can set
down as firm Rules in the one, as there are in the other. (pag.
184) Good counsel, he saies, comes not by lot or inheritance, and
therefore there is no more reason to expect good advice from the
rich or the noble, in the matter of state, then in delineating
the dimensions of a fortress; and is very solicitous, like a
faithful Leveller, that no man may have priviledges of that kind
by his birth or descent, or have farther honor then adhereth
naturally to his abilities; whereas in all well instituted
Governments, as well among the Ancient as the Modern, the Heirs
and Descendants from worthy and eminent Parents, if they do not
degenerate from their vertue, have bin alwaies allow'd a
preference, and kind of title to emploiments and offices of honor
and trust, which he thinks (pag. 184.) inconsistent with the
Soveraign power, tho they must he confer'd by him: and the
Pedegree of those pretences from the Germans, is one of those
dreams which he falls into, when he invades the quarters of
History to make good his assertions.
    Lastly, since he reckons the sending out Colonies, and
erecting Plantations, the encouraging all manner of Arts, as
Navigation, Agriculture, Fishing, and all manner of Manufactures,
to be of the Policy and Office of a Soveraign, it will not be in
his power to deny, that his Soveraign is obliged to perform all
those promises, and to make good all those concessions and
priviledges which he hath made and granted, to those who have bin
thereby induc'd to expose their Fortunes and their industry to
those Adventures, as hath bin formerly enlarg'd upon in the case
of Merchants and Corporations, and which is directly contrary to
his Conclusions and Determinations. And I cannot but here observe
the great vigilance and caution which Mr Hobbes (who hath an
excellent faculty of employing very soft words, for the bringing
the most hard and cruel things to pass) uses out of his
abstracted love of justice, towards the regulating and well
ordering his poor and strong people, whom he transplants into
other Countries for the ease of his own; whom he will by no means
suffer to exterminate those they find there, but only to
constrain them to inhabit closer together, and not to range a
great deal of ground; that is in more significant words, which
the tenderness of his nature would not give him leave to utter,
and take from them the abundance they possess, and reduce them to
such an assignation, that they may be compell'd, if they will not
be perswaded, (pag. 181.) to court each little plot with art and
labor to give them their sustenance in due season. And if all
this good Husbandry will not serve the turn, but that they are
still overcharg'd with Inhabitants, he hath out of his deep
meditation prescrib'd them a sure remedy for that too, (pag. 181)
War, which he saies will provide for every man by victory, or
death; that is, they must cut the thoats of all men who are
troublesom to them, which without doubt must be the natural and
final period of all his Prescriptions in Policy and Government.

 The Survey of Chapter 31.

    After he hath form'd such a Kingdom for man, as is agreeable
to his good will and pleasure, he concludes this second part of
his Discourse, by assigning the one and thirtieth Chapter to the
consideration of the Kingdom of God by nature, concerning which,
he enlargeth himself with less reservation in the third part of
his Discourse which immediatly follows, and therefore I shall
make no reflexions upon what he saies concerning it, till we come
thither: nor upon his Worship and Attributes which he assigns to
God, or rather what are not Attributes to him; in which, under
pretence of explaining or defining, he makes many things harder
then they were before. As all men who know what the meaning of
knowledg and understanding is, know it less after they are told,
that it is (pag. 190.) nothing else but a tumult in the mind
raised by external things, that press the organical parts of mans
body. And I must confess, he hath throughout this whole Chapter
with wonderful art, by making use of the very many easie, proper,
and very significant words, made a shift to compound the whole so
involv'd and intricate, that there is scarce a chapter in his
Book, the sense whereof the Reader can with more difficulty carry
about him, and observe the several fallacies and contradictions
in it. Of which kind of obscurity Mr Hobbes makes as much use, as
of his brightest elucidations, and having the Soveraign power
over all definitions: which he uses not (as is don in Geometry,
which he saies, is the only science it hath pleased God hitherto
to bestow upon man kind) as preliminaries or postulata, by which
men may know the setled signification of words, but reserves the
prerogative to himself, to give new Definitions as often as he
hath occasion to use the same terms, that when it conduces to his
purpose, he may inform his Reader, or else perplex him. And
therefore he doth not think himself safe in the former plain
Definition which he gives of understanding, (pag. 17.) that it is
nothing else but conception caused by speech; by which, speech
being peculiar to man, understanding must be peculiar to him
also: but now being in his one and thirtieth Chapter, and to
deprive God of understanding, that Definition will not serve his
turn, since it cannot be doubted that God doth hear all we say;
and therefore we are to be amuzed by being told, (pag. 190.) that
understanding is nothing else but a tumult of the mind, raised by
external things, that press the organical parts of mans body: So
that there being no such thing in God, and it depending on
natural causes, cannot be attributed to him. And now he is as
safe as ever he was, and let him that finds no tumult in his
mind, that presses the organical parts of his body, get knowledg
and understanding as he can.
    I am not willing, under pretence of adjourning some
reflexions, which would be natural enough upon this Chapter, to a
more seasonable occasion, for enlargment upon the third part of
his discourse, to be thought purposely to pretermit some of his
Expressions in this Chapter, which seem to have somewhat of Piety
and of Godliness in them, and to raise hope that his purposess
are yet better then they appear'd to be. After all that
illimitted power he hath granted to his Soveraign, and all that
unrestrain'd obedience which he exacts from his Subject, he doth
in the first Paragraph of this Chapter frankly acknowledg, (pag.
186.) that the Subjects owe simple obedience to their Soveraigne
only in those things wherein their obedience is not repugannt to
the Law of God, and is very solicitous so to instruct his
Subject, that for want of entire knowledg of his duty to both
Laws, he may neither by too much civil obedience offend the
Divine Majesty, or through fear of offending God, transgress the
Commandments of the Commonwealth; a circumspection worthy the
best Christian, and is enough to destroy many of the Prerogatives
which he hath given to his Soveraign, and to cancel many of the
Obligations he hath impos'd upon his Subject. But if the Reader
will suspend his judgment till he hath read a few leaves more, he
will find, that Mr Hobbes hath bin wary enough to do himself no
harm by his specious Divinity, but hath a salvo to set all
streight again; for he makes no scruple of determining, (pag.
199.) That the Books of the holy Scripture, which only contain
the Laws of God, are only Canonical, when they are established
for such by the Soveraign power. So that when he hath suspended
obedience to the Soveraign in those things wherein their
obedience is repugant to the Law of God, it is meant only till
the Soveraign declares that it is not repugnant to the Law of
God; with other excellent Doctrine, the examination whereof we
must not anticipate before its time; and shall only wonder at his
devout provision, (pag. 191.) that Praiers and Thanksgiving to
God, be the best and most signficiant of honor. And whereas most
pious men are of opinion, that those Devotions being the most
sincere, and addressed to none but to God himself, who at the
same time sees the integrity of the heart, ought to be without
the least affectation of Word, or elegance of Expression; he will
have them (pag. 192.) made in words and phrases, not sudden and
plebeian, but beautiful and well composede for else we do not God
so much honor as we may; and therefore he saies, Though the
Heathen did absurdly to worship Images for Gods, yet their doing
it in verse and with music, both of voice and instrument, was
reasonable.
    I cannot omit the observation of his very confident avoiding
that place in the Scripture, (pag. 193.) It is better to obey God
then man, which he could not but find did press him very hard,
and was worthy of a better answer, then that it hath place in the
Kingdom of God by pact, and not by nature; which if it be an
answer, hath not that perspicuity in it, which good Geometricians
require; and the answer stands much more in need of a Commentary,
then the Text, which he will supply us with in the next Edition.
However, let it be as it will, he hath, he saies, (pag. 193.)
recovered some hope, that at one time or other this writing of
his may fall into the hands of a Soveraign who will consider it
himself, (he acknowledged at that time no Soveraign but Cromwell)
and without the help of any interessed or envious Interpreter,
and by the exericse of entire Soveraignty in protecting the
public teaching it, convert the truth of speculation into the
utility of practice.
    It is one of the unhappy effects, which a too gracious and
merciful Indulgence ever produces in corrupt and proud natures,
that they believe that whatsoever is tolerated in them, is
justified and commended; and because Mr Hobbes hath not receiv'd
any such brand which the Authors of such Doctrine have bin
usually mark'd with, nor hath seen his Book burn'd by the hand
ofthe Hang-man, as many more innocent Books have bin, he is
exalted to a hope, that the supreme Magistrate will at some time
so far exercise his Soveraignty, as to protect the public
teaching his Principles, and convert the truth of his Speculation
into the utility of practice. But he might remember, and all
those who are scandalized, that such monstrous and seditious
Discourses have so long escaped a judicial Examination and
Punishment, must know, that Mr Hobbes his Leviathan was printed &
publish'd in the highest time of Cromwell's wicked Usurpation;
for the vindication and perpetuating whereof, it was contriv'd
and design'd, and when all Legal power was suppress'd; and upon
his Majesties blessed return, that merciful and wholsom Act of
Oblivion, which pardon'd all Treasons and Murders, Sacriledg,
Robbery, Heresies and Blasphemies, as well with reference to
their Writings as their Persons, and other Actions, did likewise
wipe out the memory of the Enormities of Mr Hobbes and his
Leviathan. And this hath bin the only reason, why the last hath
bin no more enquired into then the former, it having bin thought
best, that the impious Doctrines of what kind soever, which the
license of those times produc'd, should rather expire by neglect,
and the repentance of the Authors, then that they should be
brought upon the stage again by a solemn and public condemnation,
which might kindle some parts of the old Spirit with the vanity
of contradiction, which would otherwise, in a short time, be
extinguish'd: and it is only in Mr Hobbes his own power to
reverse the security that Act hath given him, by repeting his
former Errors, by making what was his Off-spring in Tyrannical
Times, when there was no King in Israel, his more deliberate and
legitimate Issue and Productions, in a time when a lawful
Government flourishes, which cannot connive at such bold
Transgressors and Transgressions; and he will then find, that it
hath fallen into the hands of a Soverign that hath consider'd it
very well, not by allowing the public teaching it, but by a
declared detestation and final suppression of it, and enjoining
the Author a public recantation.
    We shall conclude here our disquisition of his Policy and
Government of his Commonwealth, with the recollecting and stating
the excellent Maximes and Principles upon which his Government is
founded and supported, that when they appear naked, and
uninvolv'd in his magisterial Discourses, men may judg of the
liberty and security they should enjoy, if Mr Hobbes Doctrine
were inculcated into the minds of men by their Education, and the
Industry of those Masters under whom they are to be bred, as he
thinks it ncessary it should be; which Principles are in these
very terms declared by him.

    1. That the Kings word is sufficient to take any thing from
any Subject then there is need, and that the King is Judg of that
need. pag. 106. cap. 20. part. 2.

    2. The Liberty of a subject lieth only in those things, which
in regulating their actions, the Soveraign hath pretermitted,
such as is the liberty to buy and sell, and otherwise to contract
with one another., to chuse their own abode, their own diet,
their own trade of life, and institute their children as they
themselves think fit, and the like. Pag. 109. cap. 21. par. 2.

    3. Nothing the Soveraign can do to a subject, on what
pretence soever, can properly be called injustice or injury. pag.
109.

    4. When a Soveraign Prince putteth to death an innocent
subject, tho the action be against the Law of Nature, as being
contrary to Equity, yet it is not an injury to the subject, but
to God. pag. 109.

    5. No man hath liberty to resist the word of the Soveraign;
but in case a great many men together, have already resisted the
soveraign power unjustly, or committed some capital crime, for
which every one of them expecteth death, they have liberty to
join together, and to assist and defend one another Pag. 112.

    6. If a Soveraign demand, or take any thing by pretence of
his power, there lieth in that case no action at Law. pag. 112.

    7. If a subject be taken Prisoner in war, or his person, or
his means of life be within the guards of the Enemy, and hath his
life and corporal liberty given him, on condition to be subject
to the Victor, he hath liberty to accept the condition, and
having accepted it, is the subject of him that took him. pag.
114.

    8. If the Soveraign banish the subject, during the banishment
he is no subject. pag. 114.

    9. The obligation of subjects to the Soveraign, is as long,
and no longer then the power lasteth, by which he is able to
protect them. pag. 124.

    10. What ever Promises or Covenants the Soveraign makes, are
void. pag. 89.

    11. He whose private interest is to be judg'd in an assembly,
may make as many friends as he can; and tho he hires such friends
with mony, yet it is not injustice. pag. 122. cap. 22. part. 2.

    12. The propriety which a subject hath in his Lands,
consisteth in a right to exclude all other subjects from the use
of them, and not to exclude their Soveraign. pag. 128. cap. 24.
part. 2.

    13. When the soveraign commandeth a man to do that which is
against Law, the doing of it is totally excus'd; when the
soveraign commandeth anything to be don against Law, the command
as to that particular fact is an abrogation of the Law. pag. 157.
cap. 27. part. 2.

    14. Tho the right of a Soveraign Monarch cannot be
extinguish'd by the act of another, yet the obligation of the
members may; for he that wants protection, may seek it any where,
and when he hath it, is oblig'd (without fraudulent pretence of
having submitt'd himself out of fear) to protect his Protector as
long as he is able. pag. 174. cap. 29. part. 2.

    If upon the short reflexions we have made upon these several
Doctrines, as they lie scatter'd over his Book, and involv'd in
other Discourses, which with the novelty administers some
pleasure to the unwary Reader, the contagion thereof be not
enough discover'd, and the ill consequence and ruine that must
attend Kings and Princes who affect such a Government, as well as
the misery insupportable to Subjects, who are compell'd to submit
to it; it may be, the view of the naked Propositions by
themselves, without any other clothing or disguise of words, may
better serve to make them odious to King and People; and that the
first will easily discern, to how high a pinacle of power soever
he would carry him, he leaves him upon such a Precipice, from
whence the least blast of Invasion from a Neighbor, or from
Rebellion by his Subjects, may throw him headlong to
irrecoverable ruine: and the other will as much ahhor an
Allegiance of that temper, that by any misfortune of their Prince
they may be absolv'd from, and cease to be Subjects, when their
Soveraign hath most need of their obedience. And surely if these
Articles of Mr Hobbes's Creed be the product of right Reason, and
the effects of Christian Obligations, the Great Turk may be
look'd upon as the best Philosopher, and all his Subjects as the
best Christians.