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HE greatest bleffing, which can happen to mankind and empires, is to be governed by Princes, who are well inftructed in true piety, and enjoy a full capacity for the arts of government. Such a benefaction includes in it many other bleffings; for nothing more excellent than that which most perfectly refembles God; and the nobleft image of the Deity is a Prince, who is juft, moderate, chafte, holy, and who reigns only that he may make virtue flourish.

But how often do we find Princes, either not well instructed in their duties, or the first tincture of their good education foon defaced? How many have given themselves up to the pleaNUMB. LVIII. VOL. IX,

fures of power, without informing themselves of its juft bounds? Pride, the fecret venom which accompanies fovereign power, keeps them from afking counfel, and from following it. They imbibe the errors of thofe that flatter them. They become indifferent, if not enemies to truth. They accuf tom themselves to confound reason and juftice with their will. They abandon themfelves to fenfual pleasures, while the whole weight of public affairs is thrown upon others. They live and die without knowing either the origin of their power,or its lawful ufe, and the account they must render of it: and they are all their days ftrangers to their dominions and their people, whofe wants they are ignorant of, whofe

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happiness they neglect, and whofe groans they defpife.

Therefore it is of the greatest confequence to every one, who is deftined to reign, duly to comprehend, firft of all, the infinite distance between a Prince, whom God fets over a people, whom he loves, and defigns to load with bleffings; and one, to whom he only communicates authority, to be an inftrument of his difpleasure and vengeance. The one he gives in mercy; the other in his wrath. He fills one with wifdom, and the love of juftice; and the other he permits, for fecret reafons, beyond the reach of our difcovery, to follow his own blind counfels and unruly paffions. The one is a public bleffing; the other a public curfe. All the virtues and advantages of human life are the natural fruits of the former adminiftration; and all its vices and plagues are the chastisements for which the other is intended.

I will fhew thee, therefore, O Prince! who art born to govern a powerful nation, what ought to be thy fcope, in order to make thy people happy, and what are the proper means of attaining it.

The firft difpofition or quality of a Prince, is, to confider and know the origin of his authority. Submiffion to the more powerful was introduced into fociety, as neceffary for the quiet and fafety of individuals. God ratified this authority. And hence is established that general maxim, "That all power comes from God; " becaufe his providence has not only permitted the project and the inventors; but he has rendered the power of government facred, by an immediate communication of his own authority to thofe invefted with it.

Since it is certain that God is the fource of fovereign power, Princes are the minifters of God, established for this fole and effential reafon, that they may be his fervants. The King reigns that he may be the first in rendering obedience to God, and that he may make all others obey him. He go

verns in the name of God to protect virtue, and to punish vice; to render to men all the affiftance they want, and to defend them against every thing that is unjust, or capable of disturbing the public peace.

"Hear therefore, O ye Kings! what wifdom faith, (Wisd. vi. 2, &c.) and understand: Learn ye that are judges of the ends of the earth. Give ear ye that rule the people, and glory in the multitude of nations. For power is given you of the Lord, and fovereignty from the Higheft, who shall try your works, and fearch out your counfels. Because, being minifters of his kingdom, ye have not judged aright, nor kept the law, nor walked after the counfel of God. Horribly and fpeedily fhall he come upon you for a fharp judgment fhall be to them that are in high places." They ought to be juft and faithful in proportion to their power. They fhall be punished as Princes, because they were not made fuch for any other reason but to be fervants of God, with eminent power and extenfive liberty.

A Prince ought to look upon himfelf as defigned for the fervice of the State, and not as made for himself alone. It is obvious,that a Prince,being the minister of God for the public good, it is to the people he is given, to render juftice, to prevent violence, to preferve peace and equality; to defend the State from foreign enemies, and to make it internally happy. It is therefore the fame thing to be King, and to be for the good of the republic; to be for the people, and to be Sovereign. One is born for others, if he be born to command them, fince he ought not to command them but for their benefit. It is the foundation and character of the Royal State, not to be for themfelves. It is the effence of their grandeur to be confecrated to the public good. They are for all, because all is entrusted to them. They are not for themselves merely, becaufe it is impoffible to feparate them from the body, of which they are the foul and fpirit. They are so closely united with the

he republic, that one cannot diftingulin what belongs to them from what belongs to it. And one may as well fuppofe a real diftinction, in respect of interest, between the head and the other members of the body, as between a Prince and his fubjects. This is what was ftrongly reprefented to a young Prince by his preceptor Seneca: "The republic, faid he, is not for you, but, on the contrary, you are for it: and, the moment any one devotes himfelf to the fervice of the empire, he ought to forget himself." A King owes himself intirely to it: all that he is, he is for the fake of the people God hath given him the care of. If, therefore, he ever lofes fight of the only foundation and end of his authority; if he is indifferent about his people; if his attention and care are intirely turned towards other objects; if he perfuades himself that all is made for him, and that all ought to be fubfervient to his ambition, voluptuoufnefs and paffions, he deviates from his duty, debafes the image of God, fruftrates the end of his exaltation, and incurs not only the contempt of all good men, but the juft indignation of the Almighty.

Hearken then with earnest attention to what is faid to a young Prince by one of the moft illuftrious fathers: "Honour your purple; acknowledge the great defign of God in your perfon: he governs by himfelf heavenly things: he divides the government of thofe on earth with you. Act therefore like him, and as in his place towards your subjects; and exhibit his conduct in yours,'

Be not deceived by worldly grandeur. A Prince is not the fource of it. It is only lent to him. Sovereignty, in its origin, appertains to God alone. He finds himfelf equally fubject to God with all the reft of mankind, though he hath an authority over others that belongs to him alone. And he confiders himself, with refpect to God, as being a King by trust and deputation, of which he exercifes the jurifdiction, till it fhall please God to

revoke his commiffion. He fupports to his fubjects the auguft character of a Sovereign, because he is invefte d with it; and he preferves the modest y of a fubject towards God, the King of Kings. He commands, and he obeys; and he does not command, but in obedience and he thoroughly comprehends that, the higher he is elevated above men, the less that elevation belongs to him, who at bottom has nothing but what is natural to all men.

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The Prince that is endowed with ' wifdom, knows that he is born with the fame weakneffes as other mortals; that in his infancy he stood in need of the fame fuccours; that he fhall have the fame common end; that Royalty hath fill left him internally the fame with those who are not Princes; and that he shall leave it, and be as those who were never invested with it; that it is, therefore, with refpect to him, an adventitious ftate; and that he would grofly deceive himfelf, if he fhould judge of himself, and of his real condition, by what is abfolutely diftinct and feparate from it.

Let therefore a Prince, whom ambition hath not wholly corrupted, feriously compare what he is internally with that borrowed power, which he can only retain a few years. Let him not confound his everlasting interest with an administration that fhall be taken from him. Let him maturely reflect upon the unhappy error of thofe who appropriate Royalty to themselves in fuch a manner, that they can never confider themselves without it; and who never call to mind, that the longeft reign, were it as extenfive as the univerfe, is but a point, in comparifon of that vaft, boundless eternity, in which all dignities ceafe, and the ufe made of them only fubfifts for ever. \

I would not hereby be fuppofed to decry all pomp and magnificence, by which Princes demand an outward refpect from the admiring multitude : with refpect to fuch it would be almost to degrade a Prince, to take from him all that pageantry that dazzles them. But he niuft not place any part of his

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happiness in a magnificence he is for bid to fet his heart upon, in which there is nothing folid, and which is only excufable on account of the weaknefs of those for whofe fake it is neceffary, and the impoffibility of maintaining the refpect due to fovereign authority without fuch methods. Amidit all fuch state and pomp, he ought to have the love of moderation, and even of fimplicity, well established in his mind. It ought to afflict him in fecret, that he may not reject and put away all that troublesome pageantry, which ever follows him, and is truly a burdensome restraint; and he ought to retrench whatever is not abfolutely requifite to the fupport of authority. Princes of folid merit know how to make up many ways what they feem to lofe, by cutting off fomething from their outward pomp and fplendor. They make themselves to be respected by their prudent conduct upon a much more fure and lafting foundation than they are by their external magnificence. The love and confidence of their people, which they know how to gain, attaches them more and more firmly to them than the vain admiration of an unneceffary grandeur.

Whoever is truly worthy of ruling a people, ought to be ashamed to owe his authority to fuch filly mean fupports; and he ought always to have that maxim, one of the greatest Emperors of Rome ever had prefent before his mind: That it is virtue and true magnanimity, and not external magnificence which gives weight and dignity to Sovereigns.

When a Prince has duly reflected upon the power he has received from God, and its confequences and badges, he ought to turn his eyes towards thofe with the government of whom God has entrusted him. A truft, which he can't discharge wifely without knowing them well and his reign will be nothing but a train of follies and blunders, if he neglects a fcience, which, properly fpeaking, is the fcience of Kings; which will teach him to employ in the government of rational a

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gents no other means but reafon and prudence; to enter into their real wants, to fatisfy their juft inclinations; to preferve whatever is good in them, and to oppose or remedy whatever is wrong or unjust among them.

One must have a very low idea of Royalty to confine it merely to power, exclufive of reason. Would we truft an imprudent man with the government of a city, with its laws, its commerce, its liberties and immunities ? What rafhness then must it be to undertake the care and government of a vaft empire, confifting of millions of men, without endeavouring to underftand thoroughly what they are, and thence to learn one's duty towards 'em?

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A good Prince ardently defires to know how men are moved, attracted, governed, filled with admiration and high efteem; that he may lay himself out to attain all thofe qualities which are able to produce fuch effects. is earneft to know what they expect of their Governor, that he may not fall fhort of their expectation. will enquire, why it is their interest to fubmit themselves to him, that he may govern and manage their interests in fuch a manner, that their fubmiffion to him may be more fecure and constant. He will carefully attend to what may offend them, or excite their diffidence, that he may diligently avoid it. He will look attentively into their defires and inclinations, that he may difcern what it is fit or unfit to grant them, left he fhould by a foolish complaifance have any hand in encouraging evils, which ought to be hindered by his firm oppofition to them. He, above all things, applies himself to know by what means men of various characters and interefts may be united in the fame way of thinking; by what methods of infinuation he may penetrate into their hearts; by what remedies he may cure their prejudices; by what degrees he may gain their confidence; and by what fymptoms it may be difcovered, whether he is malter enough to be able to establish all the good he fees neceffary; which ought to be the end of

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