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by God and nature, or we are left according | tions did reside, and by which they were to our own understanding, to constitute exercised. The like was practised in Hunsuch as seem best to ourselves. As for de- gary, Bohemia, Sweden, Denmark, Poland; mocracy, he may say what pleases him of and if things are changed in some of these it; and I believe it can suit only with the places within few years, they must give convenience of a small town, accompanied better proofs of having gained by the change with such circumstances as are seldom than are yet seen in the world, before I found. But this no way obliges men to run think myself obliged to change my opinion. into the other extreme, inasmuch as the variety of forms between mere democracy and absolute monarchy is almost infinite; and if I should undertake to say, there never was a good government in the world that did not consist of the three simple species of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, I think I might make it good. This, at the least, is certain, that the government of the Hebrews, instituted by God, had a judge, the great sanhedrim, and general assemblies of the people. Sparta had two kings, a senate of twenty-eight chosen men, and the like assemblies; all the Dorian cities had a chief magistrate, a senate, and occasional assemblies. The Ionian, Athens, and others, had an archon, the areopagi; and all judgments concerning matters of the greatest importance, as well as the election of magistrates, were referred to the people. Rome, in the beginning, had a king and a senate, whilst the election of kings, and judgments upon appeals, remained in the people; afterwards consuls, representing kings, and vested with equal power, a more numerous senate, and more frequent meetings of the people. Venice has at this day a duke, the senate of the "pregadi," and the great assembly of the nobility, which is the whole city, the rest of the inhabitants being only "incolæ," not " cives ;" and those of the other cities or countries are their subjects, and do not participate in the government. Genoa is governed in like manner: Luca not unlike to them. Germany is at this day governed by an emperor, the princes or great lords in their several precincts, the cities by their own magistrates, and by general diets, in which the whole power of the nation resides, and where the emperor, princes, nobility, and cities have their places in person, or by their deputies. All the northern nations, which, upon the dissolution of the Roman empire, possessed the best provinces that had composed it, were under that form which is usually called the Gothic polity: they had kings, lords, commons, diets, assemblies of estates, cortez, and parliaments, in which the sovereign powers of those na

Some nations, not liking the name of king, have given such a power as kings enjoyed in other places to one or more magistrates, either limited to a certain time, or left to be perpetual, as best pleased themselves: others, approving the name, made the dignity purely elective. Some have in their elections principally regarded one family as long as it lasted others considered nothing but the fitness of the person, and reserved to themselves a liberty of taking when they pleased. Some have permitted the crown to be hereditary, as to its ordinary course; but restrained the power and instituted officers to inspect the proceedings of kings, and to take care that the laws were not violated: of this sort were the ephori of Sparta, the maires du palais, and after wards the constable of France; the justicia in Arragon; rijckshofmeister in Denmark the high-steward in England; and in all places such assemblies as are before-mentioned under several names, who had the power of the whole nation. Some have continued long and it may be always in the same form; others have changed it; some, being incensed against their kings, as the Romans, exasperated by the villanies of Tarquin, and the Tuscans by the cruelties of Mezentius, abolished the name of king: others, as Athens, Sicyon, Argos, Corinth, Thebes, and the Latins, did not stay for such extremities; but set up other governments when they thought it best for themselves, and by this conduct prevented the evils that usually fall upon nations, when their kings degenerate into tyrants, and a nation is brought to enter into a war by which all may be lost, and nothing can be gained which was not their own before. The Romans took not this salutary course; the mischief was grown up before they perceived, or set themselves against it; and when the effects of pride, avarice, cruelty, and lust, were grown to such a height that they could no longer be endured, they could not free themselves without a war: and whereas upon other occasions their victories had brought them increase of strength, territory, and glory; the only reward of their

virtue in this was, to be delivered from a plague they had unadvisedly suffered to grow up among them. I confess this was most of all to be esteemed; for if they had been overthrown, their condition under Tarquin would have been more intolerable than if they had fallen under the power of Pyrrhus or Hannibal; and all their following prosperity was the fruit of their recovered liberty: but it had been much better to have reformed the state after the death of one of their good kings, than to be brought to fight for their lives against that abominable tyrant. Our author, in pursuance of his aversion to all that is good, disapproves this; and, wanting reasons to justify his dislike, according to the custom of impostors and cheats, hath recourse to the ugly terms of a backdoor sedition," and "faction:" as if it were not as just for a people to lay aside their kings when they receive nothing but evil, and can rationally hope for no benefit by them, as for others to set them up in expectation of good from them. But if the truth be examined, nothing will be found more orderly than the changes of government, or of the persons and races of those that governed, which have been made by many nations.

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It may be said that some princes are so full of virtue and goodness, as not to desire more power than the laws allow, and are not obliged to chuse ill men, because they desire nothing but what the best are willing to do. This may be, and sometimes is: the nation is happy that has such a king: but he is hard to find, and, more than a human power is required to keep him in so good a way. The strength of his own affections will ever be against him: wives, children, and servants will always join with those enemies that arise in his own breast to pervert him if he has any weak side, any lust unsubdued, they will gain the victory. He has not searched into the nature of man, who thinks that any one can resist where he is thus on all sides assaulted: nothing but the wonderful and immediate power of God's Spirit can preserve him; and to allege it, will be nothing to the purpose, unless it can be proved, that all princes are blessed with such an assistance, or that God hath promised it to them and their successors for ever, by what means soever they came to the crowns they enjoy.

Nothing is farther from my intention than to speak irreverently of kings; and I presume no wise man will think I do so, if

I profess that, having observed, as well as I can, what history, and daily experience, teach us concerning the virtues and religions that are or have been from the beginning of the world encouraged and supported by monarchs, the methods they have followed since they have gone under the name of Christians, their moral as well as their theological graces, together with what the scriptures tell us of those who in the last days will principally support the throne of antichrist; I cannot be confident, that they are generally in an extraordinary manner preserved by the hand of God from the vices and frailties to which the rest of mankind is subject. If no man can shew that I am in this mistaken I may conclude, that as they are more than any other men in the world exposed to temptations and snares, they are more than any in danger of being corrupted, and made instruments of corrupting others, if they are no otherwise defended than the rest of men.

This being the state of the matter on both sides, we easily collect, that all gov ernments are subject to corruption and decay; but with this difference, that absolute monarchy is by principle led unto, or rooted in it; whereas mixed or popular governments are only in a possibility of falling into it: as the first cannot subsist, unless the prevailing part of the people be corrupted; the other must certainly perish, unless they be preserved in a great measure free from vices: and I doubt whether any better reason can be given, why there have been and are more monarchies than popular governments in the world, than that nations are more easily drawn into corruption than defended from it; and I think that monarchy can be said to be natural in no other sense, than that our depraved nature is most inclined to that which is worst.

To avoid unnecessary disputes, I give the name popular governments to those of Rome, Athens, Sparta, and the like, though improperly unless the same may be also given to many that are usually called monarchies, since there is nothing of violence in either; the power is conferred upon the chief magistrates of both by the free consent of a willing people, and such a part as they think fit is still retained and executed in their own assemblies; and in this sense it is that our author seems to speak against them. As to popular government in the strictest sense (that is pure democracy, where the people in

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