P

The productions of Laud, Manwaring, Sibthorp, Hobbs, Filmer, and Heylin, seem to have been reserved as an additional curse to complete the shame and misery of our age and country. Those who had wit and learning, with something of ingenuity and modesty, though they believed that nations might possibly make an ill use of their power, and were very desirous to maintain the cause of kings, as far as they could put any good colour upon it; yet never denied, that some had suffered justly (which could not be, if there were no power of judging them); nor ever asserted any thing that might arm them with an irresistible power of doing mischief; animate them to persist in the most flagitious courses, with assurance of perpetual impunity, or engage nations in an inevitable necessity of suffering all manner of outrages. They knew, that the actions of those princes, who were not altogether detestable, might be defended by particular reasons drawn from them, or the laws of their country; and would neither undertake the defence of such as were abominable, nor bring princes, to whom they wished well, into the odious extremity of justifying themselves by arguments that favoured Caligula and Nero, as well as themselves, and that must be taken for a confession, that they were as bad as could be imagined; since nothing could be said for them that might not as well be applied to the worst that had been or could be. But Filmer, Heylin, and their associates, scorning to be restrained by such considerations, boldly lay the ax to the root of the tree, and rightly enough affirm, "that the whole fabric of that which they call popular sedition

would fall to the ground, if the principle of natural liberty were removed." And on the other hand, it must be acknowledged, that the whole fabric of tyr anny will be much weakened, if we prove, that nations have a right to make their own laws, constitute their own magistrates; and that such as are so constituted owe an account of their actions to those by whom, and for whom, they are appointed.

SECTION II.

IMPLICIT FAITH BELONGS TO FOOLS; AND TRUTH IS COMPREHENDED BY EXAMINING

PRINCIPLES.

WHILST Filmer's business is to overthrow liberty and truth, he in one passage modestly professeth "not to meddle with mysteries of state," or "arcana imperii." He renounces those inquiries thro' an implicit faith which never entered into the head of any but fools, and such as through a carelessness of the point in question, acted as if they were so. This is the foundation of the Papal power; and it can stand no longer than those that compose the Romish church can be persuaded to submit their consciences to the word of the priests, and esteem themselves discharged from the necessity of searching the scriptures in order to know whether the things that are

told them are true or false. This may shew whether our author or those of Geneva do best agree with the Roman doctrine: but his instance is yet more sottish than his profession. "An implicit faith," says he, "is given to the meanest artificer." I wonder by whom! Who will wear a shoe that hurts him, because the shoe-maker tells him it is well made? Or who will live in a house that yields no defence against the extremities of weather, because the mason or carpenter assures him it is a very good house? Such as have reason, understanding or common sense, will, and ought to make use of it in those things that concern themselves and their posterity, and suspect the words of such as are interested in deceiving or persuading them not to see with their own eyes, that they may be more easily deceived. (This rule obliges us so far to search into matters of state, as to examine the original principles of government in general, and of our own in particular. We cannot distinguish truth from falsehood, right from wrong, or know what obedience we owe to the magistrate, or what we may justly expect from him, unless we know what he is, why he is, and by whom he is made to be what he is. These perhaps may be called "mysteries of state," and some would persuade us they are to be esteemed "arcana;" but whosoever confesses himself to be ignorant of them, must acknowledge that he is incapable of giving any judgment upon things relating to the superstructure; and in so doing evidently shews to others, that they ought not at all to hearken to what he says,

His argument to prove this is more admirable. "If an implicit faith," says he, "is given to the meanest artificer in his craft, much more to a prince in the profound secrets of government." But where is the consequence? If I trust to the judgment of an artificer, or one of a more ingenious profession, it is not because he is of it, but because I am persuaded he does well understand it, and that he will be faithful to me in things relating to his art. I do not send for Lower or Micklethwait when I am sick, nor ask the advice of Mainard or Jones in a suit of law, be cause the first are physicians, and the other lawyers: but because I think them wise, learned, diligent, and faithful, there being a multitude of others who go under the same name, whose opinion I would never ask. Therefore if any conclusion can be drawn from thence in favour of princes, it must be of such as have all the qualities of ability and integrity, that should create this confidence in me; or it must be proved that all princes, inasmuch as they are princes, have such qualities. No general conclusion can be drawn from the first case, because it must depend upon the circumstances, which ought to be particu larly proved; and if the other be asserted, I desire to know whether Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Vitellius, Domitian, Commodus, Heliogabalus, and others not unlike to them, had those admirable endowments, upon which an implicit faith ought to have been grounded; how they came by them; and whether we have any promise from God, that all princes should forever excel in those virtues, or whether we by experience find that they do so. If they are or

have been wanting in any, the whole falls to the ground; for no man enjoys as a prince that which is not common to all princes; and if every prince have not wisdom to understand these profound secrets, integrity to direct him according to what he knows to be good, and a sufficient measure of industry and valour to protect me, he is not the artificer to whom the implicit faith is due. His eyes are as subject to dazzle as my own. But it is a shame to insist on such a point as this. We see princes of all sorts; they are born as other men the vilest flatterer dares not deny, that they are wise or foolish, good or bad, valiant or cowardly, like other men: and the crown doth neither bestow extraordinary qualities, ripen such as are found in princes sooner than in the mean、 est, nor preserve them from the decays of age, sickness, or other accidents, to which all men are subject and if the greatest king in the world fall into them, he is as incapable of that mysterious knowledge, and his judgment is as little to be relied on, as that of the poorest peasant.

This matter is not mended by sending us to seek those virtues in the ministers which are wanting in the prince. The ill effects of Rehoboam's folly could not be corrected by the wisdom of Solomon's counsellors: he rejected them; and such as are like to him will always do the same thing. Nero advised with none but musicians, players, chariot drivers, or the abominable ministers of his pleasures and cruelties. Arcadius' senate was chiefly composed of buffoons and cooks, influenced by an old rascally