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than only once preventing a present danger, he confirmed and strengthened its liberties by such excellent Laws as the TRIENNIAL Acr, and that of the 12th of his Reign, entitled an Act for the FARTHER LIMITATION of the Crown, and better securing THE RIGHTS and LIBERTIES of the Subject.

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It can be no objection against setting up such a memorial of those laws, that the first of them is repealed, and that the clause abovementioned in the other is repealed likewise'; for though in deference to the wisdom of the legislature, we suppose that the repeal was for good reasons, with regard to the time, in which they were repealed; yet we may affirm that the enacting of them, at the time they were enacted, was for good reasons too, and such as arise from a consideration of the nature of government, the principles of liberty, and precedents in free

states.

I was induced to mention these things at present, because some persons are often calling upon and defying people to instance any one article of liberty, or security for liberty, which we once had, and do not still hold and enjoy. I desire leave to ask them, whether long parliaments are the same thing as having frequent elections?—Is the circumstance of having almost two hundred members of the house of Commons vested with offices or places, under the crown, the same thing as having a law, that would have excluded all persons, who hold places, from sitting there Is an army of above 17,000 men, at the expence of 850,000l. per ann. for the service of Great Britain, the same thing as an army of 7000 men, at the expence of 350,0001. per ann. for England; and I will suppose there might be about 5000 men more for Scotland? Is the riot-act, which establishes passive-obedience and non-resistance by a law, even in cases of

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the utmost extremity, the same thing as leaving the people at liberty to redress themselves, when they are grievously oppressed, and thereby oblige the Prince, in some measure, to depend on their affections?

But to return from whence I have digressed, and pass to the next reign. In that of Queen Anne a very expensive war against France involved the nation in a heavy debt, (which I hope will be a warning to us from engaging hastily in another) and occasioned the granting several duties and taxes, which are received by the crown, and charged as funds to pay interest on several great sums, that have been borrowed. This circumstance is certainly of no advantage to the cause of liberty, as it makes the crown the immediate steward and receiver of the annual income of near fifty millions of the people's property; besides increasing its influence and weight by the vast number of officers, employed in collecting, overseeing and paying these funds and revenues. I must farther add, that there was a clause in an act of parliament repealed in this reign, which till then had been highly valued, as what would tend very much to the security of our liberties, I mean that clause of the 12th of King William above-mentioned, by virtue of which, after the decease of the Queen, no person having place could sit in the house of Commons. I mention this without any design to cast the least reflection on that excellent princess, who passed many good laws for the security of liberty, as will appear from what I am going to mention; for by the same act, in which that clause was repealed, there was another inserted, by which all persons, holding the several offices therein specified, were incapacitated from sitting in the house of Commons; as well as all persons, holding any new places, created since 1705. By the same act all persons, who, after their election into parlia

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ment, shall accept any office of profit whatsoever under the crown, (except in the army or navy) are declared incapable of sitting in the house, unless re-elected.-In consenting to these clauses, her Majesty gave us immediate possession of the benefit of them; whereas that of the 12th of King William, though it was more extensive, yet was not to take place till a time remote, and so was repealed before it came in force, In the fifth year of her reign, she passed the qualification-act, which requires that every member for a borough shall have 3001. per annum, and for a county 6001. per annum; a law, which was intended to confine the election to such persons as are independent in their circumstances; have a valuable stake in the land; and must therefore be the most strongly engaged to consult the public good, and least liable to corruption. This law has been of great service to us, and is so still; though far from being effectual, but it would be in a great measure needless, if we were once made secure against bribery at elections and corruption after elections; because the people, when left to themselves, would naturally chuse the chief and best sort of the gentry to represent them.

But I propose, as I said before, to pursue these kind of remarks no farther than those two reigns. I will only add, that if any part of these good laws, which still subsist, and were formed for the preservation of the freedom of parliaments, have not their due force, by reason of some concealed evasions, which in length of time may have been found out; what can be more reasonable than to apply an effectual remedy?

Is it not of a hundred times more consequence to prevent such eva sions than any little frauds in the customs? If the laws formerly contrived, for securing to us free parliaments and frequent elections, have been repealed; it is natural to desire that a proper opportunity may offer itself for recovering what we once enjoyed by express law, as well as by the nature of our constitution. And farther, if the public debts are such an incumbrance and embarrassment to us, that we could not engage with vigour in a war, even upon our own account, and for our own immediate interests, if occasion rcquired, or if they are so circumstanced, that they may render our liberties less secure; what can be more fit and reasonable than to make use of the means we have in our hands to lessen these debts, by ma naging the national expence with all possible frugality, and shunning all occasions of increasing them? Sure, no good ally can expect that we should act for his interest, with less caution than we use for our own; or that we should be more quick in making reprisals upon the aggressors against him, than we are upon those against ourselves!

If the ministerial advocates would be thought to have any sense of Liberty or Revolution principles left unextinguished in their breasts, let them come fairly to these points, without sophistry, or prevarication; but if, instead of this, they are re solved to drudge on in their old road of calling Jacobite and Republican, they must expect to continue in the same contempt `they are at present, and only make their patrons. ridiculous, as well as themselves.

LOCKE ON GOVERNMENT. [Continued from puge 89.]

[CHAPTER VI. contains an answer to Sir R. Filmer's arguments for Adam's title to Sovereignty by Fatherhood: and CHAP. VII. to similar arguments-Of Fatherhood and Property considered together as Fountains of Sovereignty: but as the absurd opinions of Sir Robert on these points have been long exploded, and are now, indeed, forgotten, it is needless to repeat their refutation. In the following chapter they are justly ridiculed.]

CHAPTER VIII.

Of the Conveyance of Adam's Sovereign

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Monarchical Power.

78. Sir Robert, not having been very happy in any proof he brings for the Sovereignty of Adam, is not much more fortunate in conveying it to future princes, who, if his politics be true, must all derive their titles from that first monarch The ways he has assigned, as they lie scattered up and down in his writings, I will set down in his own words: in his preface he tells us, That Adam being monarch of the whole world, none of his posterity had any right to possess any thing, but by his grant or permsssion, or by succession from him. Here he makes two ways of conveyance of any thing Adam stood possessed of; and those are grants or succession. Again says, All kings either ure, or are to be reputed, the next heirs to those first progenitors, who were at first the natural parents of the whole people, p. 19. There cannot be any multitude of men whatsoever, but that in it, considered by itself, there is one man amongst them, that in nature hath a right to be the king of all the rest, as being the next heir to Adam. Observations, 253. Here in these places inheritance is the only way he allows of conveying monarchical power to princes. In other places he tells us, Observations, 155. All power on earth is either derived or usurped from the fatherly power, Observations, 158. All kings that now are, or ever were, are or were either fathers of their people, or heirs of such fathers, or usurpers of the right of such fathers, Observations, 253. And here he makes inheritance or usurpation the only ways whereby kings come by this original power: but yet he tells us, This fatherly empire, as it was

of itself hereditary, so it was alienable by patent, and seizable by an usurper, Ob servations, 190. So then here inheri❤ tance, grant, or usurpation, will convey it. And last of all, which is most admirable, he tells us, p. 100. It skills not which way kings come by their power, whether by election, donation, succession, or by any other means; for it is still the manner of the government by supreme power that makes them properly kings, and not the means of obtaining their crowns. Which I think is a full answer to all his whole hypothesis and discourse about Adam's royal authority, as the fountain from which all princes are to derive theirs and he might have spared the trouble of speaking so much as he does, up and down, of heirs and inheritance, if to make one properly a king, needs no more but governing by supreme power, and it matters not by what means he came by it.

79. By this notable way, our author may make Oliver as properly king, as any one else he could think of: and had he had the happiness to live under Massaniello's government, he could not have by his own rule have forborne to have done homage to him, with O king live for ever, since the manner of his govern ment by supreme power, made him pro perly king, who was but the day before properly a fisherman. And if Don Quixote had taught his squire to govern with supreme authority, our author no doubt could have made a most loyal® subject in Sancho Pancha's island; and he must needs have deserved some preferment in such governments, since I think he is the first politician, who, pretending to settle government upon its true basis, and to establish the thrones of lawful princes, ever told the world, that he was properly a king, whose manner of government was by supreme power, by what means soever he obtained it; which in plain English is to say, that regal and supreme power is properly and truly his, who can by any means seize upon it; and if this be to be properly a king, I wonder how he came to think of, or where he will find, an usurper.

80. This is so strange a doctrine, that the surprise of it hath made me pass by

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without their due reflection, the contradictions he runs into, by making sometimes inheritance alone, sometimes only grant or inheritance, sometimes only inheritance or usurpation, sometimes all these three, and at last election, or any other means, added to them, whereby Adam's royal authority, that is, his right to supreme rule, could be conveyed down to future kings and governors, so as to give them a title to the obedience and subjection of the people. But these contradictions lie so open, that the very reading of our author's own words will discover them to any ordinary understanding; and though what I have quoted out of him (with abundance more of the same strain and coherence which might be found in him) might well excuse me from any farther trouble in this argument, yet having proposed to myself, to examine the main parts of his doctrine, I shall a little more particularly consi-. der how inheritance, grant, usurpation, or election, can any way make out government in the world upon his principles; or derive to any one a right of empire from this regal authority of Adam, had it been never so well proved, that' he had been absolute monarch, and lord of the whole world.

[CHAP. IX. Of Monarchy by Inheritance from Adam. CHAP. X. Of the Heir to Adam's Monarchical Power. CHAP. XI. Who is Heir, or who, by Divine Institution has a Right to be King over all men. The remark we have already made respecting some preceding chapters are equally applicable to these. To Sir Robert Filmer's main argument, That God in giving the Israelites a king, re-established the ancient and prime right of lineal succession to paternal government, Mr. Locke concludes the first part of his work as follows.]

What a lineal succession to paternal government was then established, we' have already seen. I only now consider how long this lasted, and that was to their captivity, about five hundred years: from thence to their destruction by the Romans, above six hundred and fifty years after, the ancient and prime right of lineal succession to paternal government was again lost, and they continued a people in the promised land without it. So that of one thousand seven hundred and fifty years that they were God's peculiar people, they had hereditary kingly government amongst them not one third of the time; and of that time there is

not the least footstep of one moment of paternal government, nor the re-establishment of the ancient and prime right of lineal succession to it, whether we suppose it to be derived, as from its fountain, from David, Saul, Abraham, or, which upon our author's principles, is the only true, from Adam.

OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

1. It having been shewn in the foregoing discourse,-

1. That Adam had not, either by natural right of fatherhood, or by positive donation from God, any such authority over his children, or dominion over the world, as is pretended:

2. That if he had, his heirs, yet, had no right to it:

3. That if his heirs had, their being no law of nature, nor positive law of God, that determines which is the right heir in all cases that may arise, the right of succession, and consequently of bearing rule, could not have been certainly determined:

4. That if even that had been determined, yet the knowledge of which is the eldest line of Adam's posterity, being so long since utterly lost, that in the races of mankind and families of the world, there remains not to one above another, the least pretence to be the eldest house, and to have the right of inheritance:

All these premises having, as I think, been clearly made out, it is impossible that the rulers now on earth should make any benefit, or derive any the least shadow of authority from that, which is held to be the fountain of all power, Adam's private dominion and paternal jurisdiction; so that he that will not give just occasion to think that all government in the world is the product only of force and violence, and that men live together by no other rules but that of beasts, where the strongest carries it, and so lay a foundation for perpetual disorder and mischief, tumult, sedition, and rebellion, (things that the followers of that hypothesis so loudly cry out against) must of necessity find out another rise of government, another original of political power, and another way of designing and knowing the persons that have it, than what Sir R. Filmer hath taught us.

2. To this purpose, I think it may not be amiss, to set down what I take

to be political power; that the power of a magistrate over a subject may be distinguished from that of a father over his children, a master over his servant, a husband over his wife, and a lord over his slave. All which distinct powers happening sometimes together in the same man, if he be considered under these different relations, it may help us to distinguish these powers one from another, and shew the difference betwixt a ruler of a commonwealth, a father of a family, and a captain of a galley. 3. Political power, then, I take to be a right of making laws with penalties of death, and consequently all less penal ties, for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community, in the execution of such laws, and in the defence of the commonwealth from foreign injury; and all this only for the public good.

CHAPTER II.

Of the State of Nature.

4. To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man, A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another, without subordination or subjection, unless the lord and master of them all should, by any manifest declaration of his will, set one above another, and confer on hun, by an evident and clear appointment, an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty.

5. This equality of men by nature, the judicious Hooker looks upon as so evident in itself, and beyond all question, that he makes it the foundation of that obligation to mutual love amongst men, on which he builds the duties they owe one another, and from whence he derives the great maxims of justice and charity. His words are,

The like natural inducement hath brought men to know that it is no less their duty to love others than themselves ; for seeing those things which are equal,

must, needs all have one measure; if I cannot but wish to receive good, even as much at every man's hands, as any man can wish unto his own soul, how should I look to have any part of my desire herein satisfied, unless myself be careful to satisfy the like desire, which is undoubtedly in other men, being of one and the same nature? To have any thing offered them repugnant to this desire, must needs, in ali respects grieve them as much as me; so that if I do harm¡ I must look to suffer, there being no reason that others should show greater measure of love to me, than they have by me shewed unto them: my desire, therefore, to be loved by my equals in nature, as much as possible may be, imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to them-ward fully the like affection; from which relation of equality between ourselves and them that are as ourselves, what several rules and canons natural reason hath drawn, for direction of life, no man is ignorant. Eccl. Pol. Lib. i.

6. But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence: though man in that state have an uncontroulable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession, but where some nobler use than its bare preservation calls for it. The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions: for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker; all the servants of one sovereign, master, sent into the world by his order, and about his business; they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one another's pleasure and being furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one community of nature, there cannot be supposed any such subordination among us, that may authorise us to destroy one another, as if we were made for one another's uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are for ours. Every one, as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his station wilfully, so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be

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