if by fuch means you will keep your place, for the doing of one will not fecure you. Now though you lose your Place by refufing to do what you think is not juft, yet you retain your Honour and Confcience, and all the odium your Enemies would cast upon you will then prove only malitious afperfions, and turn with fhame upon the head of your Accufers: And by your Integrity you will give your Family so great a Reputation, as fooner or later will turn more to the advantage of it, than the holding of your Place longer could have been.

When you are in a very high Station, be fare to behave your felf with the like familiarity to all forts of Perfons, as you did before your promotion: For by this you will not only gain the efteem of every body; But if you are difplaced, you will lofe nothing of the refpect that was paid you.

Befides this, be fure to be eafie of access to every one that has business with you, and give them all the difpatch you can: For as in common charity you are bound to do it, that no man may be tyred out in attending his juft concerns, fo it is an honeft policy to keep friends in store against an evil time; whereas they who practice the contrary, not only procure themfelves hatred whileft they are in Place, but when turned out (for fuch don't ftand long) none are so much defpifed and contemned as they.

But an Imployment at Court, I mean fuch as is purely within the Court abftracted from the Publick, is feriously to be thought on before you ingage in it: For nothing but the pure profit can incline a man of a generous and noble Spirit to accept

B 4

yet

accept of it. For though Princes fhould be examples of Piety as well as adminifters of Justice; there is fo much loofenefs and diforder in their Families, that a man who lives there must be very well fortified with Religion and Morality, or he will be in great danger of lofing his Integrity: For how often will he be neceflitated to neglect his Devotion both in publick and private, and at best hand postpone the worshipping of God to the attendance on his Prince, and ferve God only in the second place: And then it is no strange thing if the mift occafion'd by the arbitrary vapours of the Court do fo far mislead him as to fall down and worship him who is but his fellow-creature; yet great refpect is due to him, becaufe placed in fome degrees above him for his good and advantage.

Confider befides the fervile compliances to which he must fubmit, even to pretend to love the man he hates, and crouch and bend to the man that he does defpife; And as Courts are always in Factions and Parties, fo he cannot avoid falling in with fome fide; and whatever they drive at, he muft implicitely purfue it, though to the deftrution of fome Perfon who never injured him, or any other thing as bafe as that.

Add to this, how unfetled he must be, always in a hurry, and fhifting from place to place at an hours warning, and pay fuch flavish attendance as we don't expect from the meanest of our Servants: And in the mean while his Estate in the Country is left to the honesty of Servants, in which as he cannot fail to be a lofer, fo must he alfo in the intereft and affection of his Neighbours: Whereas he that lives at his own house, has daily opportu nities of doing good, and is ftill gaining upon the

good

good will and esteem of his Countrey, fo that when of them fee him, they do not fail to pay him refpect, and at the fame time with him well from

any

their heart.

Though this is not intended as a difcourfe upon the Politicks, but as fome directions in your paffage through this World; yet I conceive it not impro per to lay fomething of Government in general, and therein of a King, fince the want of a right notion herein has been the occafion that many a one of honeft intentions has gone out of the World with the character of an ill Man.

Government then in general is neceffary, as well because of Gods exprefs Command, as alfo that no Society of men can fubfift without it: And that particular form of Government is neceffary, which best suits the temper and inclination of the People, and thereby becomes to be Gods Ordinance; But no particular model of Government is fuch in it felf, fave fo far as it effects the true end of Government: For nothing can be God's Ordinance, but, what he has exprelly declared to be fuch. And if he had thought any fort of Government to have been better, or more neceffary than another, he ⚫ would not have left the World fo much in the dark in a matter of fo lugh importance; but he would either have exprefly declared it in his Writ ten Word, or difcovered it to us by the inftinct of Nature; But we cannot find any fuch thing in, Holy Writ, neither does Nature prompt it, because there are fo many feveral forts of Government in the World, no two of them agreeing in every point, but differing in fomething that is very material. And even the Jews, Gods peculiar Feople, who received their Statutes and Judgments

immediately from him, yet therein he did not prefcribe or limit them to any particular form; but what he did command were only rules in general for the executing of Judgment and Juftice amongst themselves; for we find that the form of their Government was changed no let's than five times, If not more often: 1. Under Patriarchs, 2 Under Mofes, 3. Under Judges, 4. Under the High Prieft, 5. Under Kings. So that nothing can be more clear, than that God has not appointed the World any form of Government,but left every Nation and People to chufe fuch a Model as best liked them: And I have often thought, that God Almighty did on purpose permit the Jewish conftitution to be changed fo often, to let the World understand that every form of Government was alike indifferent to him, and that if any People found theirs to be out of order, the blame rested at their doors if it was not reformed.

The true original of Government being thus difcovered, it gives us plainly to understand whence Kings receive their Fower, and what is the natural and lawful measure of their power: For if God Almighty did permit every people to model their own Government, from whence can the Kings Prerogative flow, fave out of that conftitution? Unless it be fuppofed, which is ridiculous to imagine, that Kings are fent down imme diately from Heaven with their Commission in their hands, or elfe that they beg at all their Subjects. If then their power does flow from the Conftitution, the natural extent of it does feem to be limited within the rules of doing equal right to rich and poor, to relieve the oppreffed, and to punish the guilty, unlefs it can be fuppofed that

cruelty

cruelty and oppreffion is more eligible than Juftice and Peace. And therefore it is more than to be fuppofed, that when any People conferred fo great a truft upon their King, it was with this condition, either expreffed or implied, that as much as in him lay he fhould lay out that power to the good and advantage of the People: For though feveral Kings have taken upon them to govern by their Will, and this practice has prevailed for many Succeffions and Ages, yet this cannot give them a good title to their arbitrary Rule, becaufe the body of the People have an earlier claim, and a younger title muft give place to the elder, and a title or power gained either by force or fraud can never be good, and by one of these two arbitrary Power can only be gained: For the measure of Power, which by the inftitution of the Government was affigned to the King, cannot in reafon be fuppofed to be any other, than fuch as men of found understandings and without constraint fhould judge to be most behoveful to the common good. Now if Kings may of right exercise a power beyond this, then is the condition of every Subject much worfe than the Brutés; for Brutes, though chaced from their ufual abode, yet can they in any other place find food and lodging, as well as where they ufed to frequent; and whenever they are killed or purfued, it is because they are hurtful, or that the feifing of them is useful to men: But when Subjects, by reason of the cruelty and oppreffion of an arbitrary King, are neceffitated to fly for their Lives, they are under a certainty of perifhing for want of food and lodg. ing, if not relieved by the charity of others; and their deftruction is refolved on, not that they