29. ceeding of popular, and ambitious men, is plain PART II. rebellion; and may be resembled to the effects of witchcraft. greatness of a tude of corpo Another infirmity of a commonwealth, is the im- Excessive moderate greatness of a town, when it is able to town, multifurnish out of its own circuit, the number, and ex- rations. pense of a great army: as also the great number of corporations; which are as it were many lesser commonwealths in the bowels of a greater, like worms in the entrails of a natural man. To which Liberty may be added, the liberty of disputing against ab- of disputing solute power, by pretenders to political prudence; reign power. which though bred for the most part in the lees of the people, yet animated by false doctrines, are perpetually meddling with the fundamental laws, to the molestation of the commonwealth; like the little worms, which physicians call ascarides. We may further add, the insatiable appetite, or Bovλua, of enlarging dominion; with the incurable wounds thereby many times received from the enemy; and the wens, of ununited conquests, which are many times a burthen, and with less danger lost, than kept; as also the lethargy of ease, and consumption of riot and vain expense. against sove the common Lastly, when in a war, foreign or intestine, the Dissolution of enemies get a final victory; so as, the forces of the wealth. commonwealth keeping the field no longer, there is no further protection of subjects in their loyalty; then is the commonwealth DISSOLVED, and every man at liberty to protect himself by such courses as his own discretion shall suggest unto him. For the sovereign is the public soul, giving life and motion to the commonwealth; which expiring, the members are governed by it no more, than the car VOL. III. Y 29. PART II. case of a man, by his departed, though immortal, soul. For though the right of a sovereign monarch cannot be extinguished 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 obliged, without fraudulent pretence of having submitted himself out of fear, to protect his protection as long as he is able. But when the power of an assembly is once suppressed, the right of the same perisheth utterly; because the assembly itself is extinct; and consequently, there is no possibility for the sovereignty to re-enter. The procuragood of the people. tion of the By instruction and laws. CHAPTER XXX. OF THE OFFICE OF THE SOVEREIGN THE OFFICE of the sovereign, be it a monarch or And this is intended should be done, not by care applied to individuals, further than their protection from injuries, when they shall complain; but by a general providence, contained in public instruction, both of doctrine, and example; and in the making and executing of good laws, to which individual PART II. persons may apply their own cases. 30. the duty of a And because, if the essential rights of sovreignty, Against the specified before in the eighteenth chapter, be taken sovereign to away, the commonwealth is thereby dissolved, and relinquish any essential right every man returneth into the condition, and cala- of sovereignty. mity of a war with every other man, which is the greatest evil that can happen in this life; it is the office of the sovereign, to maintain those rights entire; and consequently against his duty, first, to transfer to another, or to lay from himself any of them. For he that deserteth the means, deserteth the ends; and he deserteth the means, that being the sovereign, acknowledgeth himself subject to the civil laws; and renounceth the power of supreme judicature; or of making war, or peace by his own authority; or of judging of the necessities of the commonwealth; or of levying money and soldiers, when, and as much as in his own conscience he shall judge necessary; or of making officers, and ministers both of war and peace; or of appointing teachers, and examining what doctrines are conformable, or contrary to the defence, peace, and good of the people. Secondly, it is against his or not duty, to let the people be ignorant, or misinformed people taught of the grounds, and reasons of those his essential the grounds of rights; because thereby men are easy to be seduced, and drawn to resist him, when the commonwealth shall require their use and exercise. And the grounds of these rights, have the rather need to be diligently, and truly taught; because they cannot be maintained by any civil law, or terror of legal punishment. For a civil law, that shall forbid rebellion, (and such is all resistance to to see the them. 30. PART II. the essential rights of the sovereignty), is not, as a civil law, any obligation, but by virtue only of the law of nature, that forbiddeth the violation of faith; which natural obligation, if men know not, they cannot know the right of any law the sovereign maketh. And for the punishment, they take it but for an act of hostility; which when they think they have strength enough, they will endeavour by acts of hostility, to avoid. Objection of those that say solute reignty. sove As I have heard some say, that justice is but a there are no Word, without substance; and that whatsoever a principles of reason for ab- man can by force, or art, acquire to himself, not only in the condition of war, but also in a commonwealth, is his own, which I have already showed to be false so there be also that maintain, that there are no grounds, nor principles of reason, to sustain those essential rights, which make sovereignty absolute. For if there were, they would have been found out in some place, or other; whereas we see, there has not hitherto been any commonwealth, where those rights have been acknowledged, or challenged. Wherein they argue as ill, as if the savage people of America, should deny there were any grounds, or principles of reason, so to build a house, as to last as long as the materials, because they never yet saw any so well built. Time, and industry, produce every day new knowledge. And as the art of well building is derived from principles of reason, observed by industrious men, that had long studied the nature of materials, and the divers effects of figure, and proportion, long after mankind began, though poorly, to build: so, long time after men have begun to constitute commonwealths, imperfect, and apt to relapse into disorder, 30. there may principles of reason be found out, by PART II. industrious meditation, to make their constitution, excepting by external violence, everlasting. And such are those which I have in this discourse set forth which whether they come not into the sight of those that have power to make use of them, or be neglected by them, or not, concerneth my particular interests, at this day, very little. But supposing that these of mine are not such principles of reason; yet I am sure they are principles from authority of Scripture; as I shall make it appear, when I shall come to speak of the kingdom of God, administered by Moses, over the Jews, his peculiar people by covenant. But they say again, that though the principles be Objection from the incapacity right, yet common people are not of capacity enough of the vulgar. to be made to understand them. I should be glad, that the rich and potent subjects of a kingdom, or those that are accounted the most learned, were no less incapable than they. But all men know, that the obstructions to this kind of doctrine, proceed not so much from the difficulty of the matter, as from the interest of them that are to learn. Potent men, digest hardly any thing that setteth up a power to bridle their affections; and learned men, any thing that discovereth their errors, and thereby lesseneth their authority: whereas the common people's minds, unless they be tainted with dependance on the potent, or scribbled over with the opinions of their doctors, are like clean paper, fit to receive whatsoever by public authority shall be imprinted in them. Shall whole nations be brought to acquiesce in the great mysteries of the Christian religion, which are above reason, and millions of men |