Chap XII.

Of the internal causes, tending to the dissolution of any
Government.

   I. Hitherto hath been spoken by what causes, and Pacts,
Common-weals are constituted, and what the Rights of Princes are
over their subjects; Now we will briefly say somewhat concerning
the causes which dissolve them, or the reasons of seditions. Now
as in the motion of naturall bodies, three things are to be
considered, namely, internall disposition, that they be
susceptible of the motion to be produced; the externall Agent,
whereby a certain and determined motion may in act be produced;
and the action it selfe: So also in a Common-weale where the
subjects begin to raise tumults, three things present themselves
to our regard; First the Doctrines and the Passions contrary to
Peace, wherewith the mindes of men are fitted and disposed; next
their quality and condition who sollicite, assemble, and direct
them already thus disposed, to take up armes, and quit their
allegiance; Lastly, the manner how this is done, or the faction
it selfe. But one, and the first which disposeth them to
sedition, is this, That the knowledge of good and evill belongs
to each single man. In the state of nature indeed, where every
man lives by equall Right, and have not by any mutuall Pacts
submitted to the command of others, we have granted this to be
true, nay in the first Chapter, Article 9. we have demonstrated
it. But in the civil state it is false. For it was shown in chap.
6. art. 9] that the civill Lawes were the Rules of good and
evill, just and unjust, honest and dishonest; that therefore what
the Legislator commands, must be held for good, and what he
forbids for evill; and the Legislator is ever that Person who
hath the supreme power in the Commonweale, that is to say, the
Monarch in a Monarchy. We have confirmed the same truth in the
eleventh Chapter, Article 2. out of the words of Solomon; for if
private men may pursue that as good, and shun that as evill which
appears to them to be so, to what end serve those words of his?
Give therefore unto thy servant an understanding heart to judge
thy People, that I may discern between good and evill. Since
therefore it belongs to Kings to discerne betweene good and
evill, wicked are those, though usuall sayings, that he onely is
a King who does righteously, and that Kings must not be obeyed,
unlesse they command us just things, and many other such like.
Before there was any government, just and unjust had no being,
their nature onely being relative to some command, and every
action in its own nature is indifferent; that it becomes just, or
unjust, proceeds from the right of the Magistrate: Legitimate
Kings therefore make the things they command, just, by commanding
them, and those which they forbid, unjust, by forbidding them;
but private men while they assume to themselves the knowledge of
good and evill, desire to be even as Kings, which cannot be with
the safety of the Common weale. The most ancient of all Gods
commands is, Gen. 2. 15. Thou shalt not eat of the tree of
knowledge of good and evill; and the most ancient of all
diabolicall tentations, Chap. 3. vers. 5. Yee shall be as Gods,
knowing good and evill; and Gods first expostulation with man,
vers. 11. Who told thee that thou wert naked? Hast thou eaten of
the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
As if he had said, how comest thou to judge that nakedness,
wherein it seemed good to me to create thee, to be shamefull,
except thou have arrogated to thy selfe the knowledge of good and
evill?

    II. Whatsoever any man doth against his conscience is a
sinne, for he who doth so, contemns the Law. But we must
distinguish: That is my sinne indeed, which committing, I doe
beleeve to be my sinne; but what I beleeve to be another mans
sin, I may sometimes doe that without any sin of mine. For if I
be commanded to doe that which is a sin in him who commands me,
if I doe it, and he that commands me be by Right, Lord over me, I
sinne not; for if I wage warre at the Commandement of my Prince,
conceiving the warre to be unjustly undertaken, I doe not
therefore doe unjustly, but rather if I refuse to doe it,
arrogating to my selfe the knowledge of what is just and unjust,
which pertains onely to my Prince. They who observe not this
distinction, will fall into a necessity of sinning, as oft as any
thing is commanded them, which either is, or seems to be
unlawfull to them: for if they obey, they sin against their
conscience, and if they obey not, against Right. If they sin
against their conscience, they declare that they fear not the
paines of the world to come; if they sinne against Right, they
doe as much as in them lyes, abolish humane society, and the
civill life of the present world. Their opinion therefore who
teach, that subjects sinne when they obey their Princes commands,
which to them seem unjust, is both erroneous, and to be reckoned
among those which are contrary to civill obedience; and it
depends upon that originall errour which we have observed above
in the foregoing Article; for by our taking upon us to judge of
good and evill, we are the occasion, that as well our obedience,
as disobedience, becomes sin unto us.

    III. The third seditious doctrine springs from the same root,
That Tyrannicide is lawfull; Nay, at this day it is by many
Divines, and of old it was by all the Philosophers, Plato,
Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and the rest of the
maintainers of the Greek, and Roman Anarchies, held not only
lawful, but even worthy of the greatest praise. And under the
title of Tyrants, they mean not onely Monarchs, but all those who
bear the chief rule in any Government whatsoever; for not
Pisistratus onely at Athens, but those thirty also who succeeded
him, and ruled together, were all called Tyrants. But he, whom
men require to be put to death as being a Tyrant, commands either
by Right, or without Right; if without Right, he is an enemy, and
by Right to be put to death; but then this must not be called the
killing a Tyrant, but an enemy: if by Right, then the divine
interrogation takes place, Who hath told thee that he was a
Tyrant, hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that
thou shouldest not eat? For why doest thou call him a Tyrant,
whom God hath made a King, except that thou being a private
Person, usurpest to thy self the knowledge of good and evill? But
how pernicious this opinion is to all governments, but especially
to that which is Monarchicall, we may hence discerne, namely,
that by it every King, whether good or ill, stands exposed to be
condemned by the judgement, and slain by the hand of every
murtherous villain.

    IV. The fourth adversary opinion to Civill Society, is
theirs, who hold, That they who bear Rule are Subject also to the
Civill Lawes. Which hath been sufficiently proved before not to
be true in the 6. Chap. Artic. 14. from this Argument, That a
City can neither be bound to it self, nor to any subject; not to
it selfe, because no man can be obliged except it be to another;
not to any Subject, because the single wills of the Subjects are
contained in the will of the City, insomuch, that if the City
will be free from all such obligation, the Subjects will so too;
and by consequence she is so. But that which holds true in a
City, that must be supposed to be true in a man, or an assembly
of men, who have the Supreme Authority, for they make a City,
which hath no being but by their Supreme Power. Now that this
Opinion cannot consist with the very being of Government, is
evident from hence, that by it the knowledge of what is Good and
Evill, that is to say, the definition of what is, and what is not
against the Lawes, would return to each single Person: Obedience
therefore will cease as oft as any thing seemes to be commanded
contrary to the Civill Lawes, and together with it, all coercive
jurisdiction, which cannot possibly be without the destruction of
the very essence of Government. Yet this Errour hath great props,
Aristotle, and others; who, by reason of humane infirmity,
suppose the Supreme Power to be committed with most security to
the Lawes onely; but they seem to have lookt very shallowly into
the nature of, Government, who thought that the constraining
Power, the interpretation of Lawes, and the making of Lawes, (all
which are powers necessarily belonging to Government) should be
left wholly to the Lawes themselves. Now although particular
Subjects may sometimes contend in judgement, and goe to Law with
the Supreme Magistrate, yet this is onely then, when the question
is not what the Magistrate may, but what by a certain Rule he
hath declared he would doe. As, when by any Law the Judges sit
upon the life of a Subject, the question is not whether the
Magistrate could by his absolute Right deprive him of his life;
but whether by that Law his will was that he should be deprived
of it; but his will was, he should, if he brake the Law. else,
his will was he should not: This therefore, that a Subject may
have an action of Law against his Supreme Magistrate, is not
strength of Argument sufficient to prove that he is tyed to his
own Lawes. On the contrary, it is evident, that he is not tied to
his owne Lawes, because no man is bound to himself. Lawes
therefore are set for Titius, and Caius, not for the Ruler:
however, by the ambition of Lawyers, it is so ordered, that the
Lawes, to unskilfull men seeme not to depend on the Authority of
the Magistrate, but their Prudence.

    V. In the fifth place, That the Supreme Authority may be
divided, is a most fatall Opinion to all Common-weales. But
diverse men divide it diverse wayes. For some divide it so as to
grant a Supremacy to the Civill Power in matters pertaining to
Peace, and the benefits of this life, but in things concerning
the salvation of the Soul they transfer it on others. Now,
because justice is of all things most necessary to Salvation, it
happens, that Subjects measuring justice, not as they ought, by
the Civill Lawes, but by the precepts and doctrines of them who,
in regard of the Magistrate, are either private mens or
strangers, through a superstitious fear dare not perform the
obedience due to their Princes, through fear falling into that
which they most feared: Now what can be more pernicious to any
state, then that men should, by the apprehension of everlasting
torments, be deterred from obeying their Princes, that is to say,
the Lawes, or from being just? There are also some who divide the
Supreme Authority so as to allow the power of War, and Peace,
unto one, (whom they call a Monarch) but the right of raising
Monies they give to some others, and not to him: But because
monies are the sinewes of War, and Peace, they who thus divide
the Authority, doe either really not divide it at all, but place
it wholly in them, in whose power the money is, but give the name
of it to another, or if they doe really divide it, they dissolve
the Government: for neither upon necessity can War be waged, nor
can the publique Peace be preserved without Money.
    VI. It is a common doctrine, That faith and holinesse are not
acquired by study, and naturall reason, but are alwayes
supernaturally infused, and inspired into men: which, if it were
true, I understand not why we should be commanded to give an
account of our faith; or why any man, who is truly a Christian,
should not be a Prophet; or lastly, why every man should not
judge what's fit for him to doe, what to avoid, rather out of his
own inspiration, then by the precepts of his Superiours, or right
Reason. A return therefore must be made to the private knowledge
of Good and Evil; which cannot be granted without the ruine of
all Governments. This Opinion hath spread it self so largely
through the whole Christian world, that the number of Apostates
from natural reason is almost become infinite. And it sprang from
sick-brained men, who having gotten good store of Holy Words by
frequent reading of the Scriptures, made such a connexion of them
usually in their preaching, that their Sermons, signifying just
nothing, yet to unlearned men seemed most divine; for he whose
non-sense appears to be a Divine speech, must necessarily seeme
to be inspired from above.

    VII. The seventh Doctrine opposite to Government, is this,
That each subject hath an absolute Dominion over the goods he is
in possession of. That is to say, such a propriety as excludes
not only the right of all the rest of his fellow-subjects to the
same goods, but also of the Magistrate himself. Which is not
true; for they who have a Lord over them, have themselves no
Lordship, as hath been proved, Chap. 8. Artic. 5. Now the
Magistrate is Lord of all his Subjects, by the constitution of
Government. Before the yoke of Civill Society was undertaken, no
man had any Proper Right; all things were common to all men. Tell
me therefore, how gottest thou this propriety but from the
Magistrate? How got the Magistrates it, but that every man
transferred his Right on him? And thou therefore hast also given
up thy Right to him; thy Dominion therefore, and Propriety, is
just so much as he will, and shall last so long as he pleases;
even as in a Family, each Son hath such proper goods, and so long
lasting, as seeme good to the Father. But the greatest part of
men who professe Civill Prudence, reason otherwise; we are equall
(say they) by nature; there is no reason why any man should by
better Right take my goods from me, then I his from him; we know
that mony sometimes is needfull for the defence and maintenance
of the publique; but let them, who require it, shew us the
present necessity, and they shall willingly receive it. They who
talk thus, know not, that what they would have, is already done
from the beginning in the very constitution of Government, and
therefore speaking as in a dissolute multitude, and yet not
fashioned Government, they destroy the frame.

    VIII. In the last place, it's a great hindrance to Civill
Government, especially Monarchicall, that men distinguish not
enough between a People and a Multitude. The People is somewhat
that is one, having one will, and to whom one action may be
attributed; none of these can properly be said of a Multitude.
The People rules in all Governments, for even in Monarchies the
People Commands; for the People wills by the will of one man; but
the Multitude are Citizens, that is to say, Subjects. In a
Democraty, and Aristocraty, the Citizens are the Multitude, but
the Court is the People. And in a Monarchy, the Subjects are the
Multitude, and (however it seeme a Paradox) the King is the
People. The common sort of men, and others who little consider
these truthes, do alwayes speak of a great number of men, as of
the People, that is to say, the City; they say that the City hath
rebelled against the King (which is impossible) and that the
People will, and nill, what murmuring and discontented Subjects
would have, or would not have, under pretence of the People,
stirring up the Citizens against the City, that is to say, the
Multitude against the People. And these are almost all the
Opinions wherewith Subjects being tainted doe easily Tumult. And
forasmuch as in all manner of Government Majesty is to be
preserv'd by him, or them who have the Supreme Authority, the
crimen laesae Majestatis naturally cleaves to these Opinions.

    IX. There is nothing more afflicts the mind of man then
Poverty, or the want of those things which are necessary for the
preservation of life, and honour; and though there be no man but
knowes that riches are gotten with industry, and kept by
frugality, yet all the poor commonly lay the blame on the Evill
Government, excusing their own sloth, and luxury, as if their
private goods forsooth were wasted by publique exactions; But men
must consider, that they who have no patrimony, must not onely
labour that they may live, but fight too, that they may labour.
Every one of the Jewes, who in Esdras his time built the Walls of
Jerusalem, did the work with one hand, and held the Sword in the
other. In all Government we must conceive that the hand which
holds the Sword is the King, or Supreme Councell, which is no
lesse to be sustained, and nourisht, by the Subjects care and
industry, then that wherewith each man procures himself a private
fortune; and that Customes, and Tributes, are nothing else but
their reward who watch in Armes for us, that the labours and
endeavours of single men may not be molested by the incursion of
enemies; and that their complaint, who impute their poverty to
publick Persons, is not more just, then if they should say that
they are become in want by paying of their debts: But the most
part of men consider nothing of these things, for they suffer the
same thing with them who have a disease they call an Incubus,
which springing from Gluttony, it makes men believe they are
invaded, opprest, and stifled with a great weight: Now it is a
thing manifest of it selfe, that they who seeme to themselves to
be burthened with the whole load of the Common-weal, are prone to
be Seditious; and that they are affected with change, who are
distasted at the present state of things.

    X. Another noxious disease of the mind is theirs, who having
little employment, want Honour and Dignity. All men naturally
strive for Honour, and Preferment, but chiefly they who are least
troubled with caring for necessary things. For these men are
invited by their vacancy sometimes to disputation among
themselves concerning the Common-weal, sometimes to an easie
reading of Histories, Politiques, Orations, Poems, and other
pleasant Books; and it happens, that hence they think themselves
sufficiently furnisht both with wit, and learning, to administer
matters of the greatest consequence. Now because all men are not
what they appear to themselves, and if they were, yet all (by
reason of the multitude) could not be received to publique
Offices, its necessary that many must be passed by. These
therefore conceiving themselves affronted, can desire nothing
more, partly out of envy to those who were preferred before them,
partly out of hope to overwhelm them, then ill successe to the
publique Consultations; and therefore its no marvell if with
greedy appetites they seek for occasions of innovations.

    XI. The hope of overcomming is also to be numbred among other
seditious inclinations. For let there be as many men as you wil,
infected with opinions repugnant to Peace, and civill Government;
let there be as many as there can, never so much wounded and
torne with affronts, and calumnies, by them who are in Authority;
yet if there be no hope of having the better of them, or it
appear not sufficient, there will no sedition follow; every man
will dissemble his thoughts, and rather content himself with the
present burthen, then hazard an heavier weight. There are four
things necessarily requisite to this hope: Numbers, Instruments,
mutuall trust, and Commanders. To resist publique Magistrates
without a great number, is not Sedition, but Desperation. By
Instruments of war I mean all manner of armes, munition, and
other necessary provision, without which Number can doe nothing,
nor Arms neither without mutuall trust; Nor all these without
union under some Commander, whom of their own accord, they are
content to, obey. not as being engaged by their submission to his
command (for we have already in this very Chapter, supposed these
kind of men not to understand, being obliged beyond that which
seems right and good in their own eyes) but for some opinion they
have of his vertue, or military skill, or resemblance of humours.
If these four be near at hand to men grieved with the present
state, and measuring the justice of their actions by their own
judgements, there will be nothing wanting to sedition and
confusion of the Realme, but one to stirre up and quicken them.

    XII. Salust his Character of Catiline, (then whom there never
was a greater Artist in raising seditions) is this, That he had
great eloquence, and little wisdome. he separates wisdome from
eloquence, attributing this as necessary to a man born for
commotions, adjudging that as an instructresse of Peace, and
quietnesse. Now, eloquence is twofold. The one is an elegant, and
cleare expression of the conceptions of the mind, and riseth
partly from the contemplation of the things themselves, partly
from an understanding of words taken in their own proper, and
definite signification; the other is a commotion of the Passions
of the minde (such as are hope, fear, anger, pitty) and derives
from a metaphoricall use of words fitted to the Passions: That
forms a speech from true Principles, this from opinions already
received, what nature soever they are of. The art of that is
Logick, of this Rhetorick; the end of that is truth, of this
victory. Each hath its use, that in deliberations, this in
exhortations; for that is never disjoyned from wisdome, but this
almost ever. But that this kind of powerfull eloquence, separated
from the true knowledge of things, that is to say, from wisdome,
is the true character of them who sollicite, and stirre up the
people to innovations, may easily be gathered out of the work it
selfe which they have to doe; for they could not poyson the
people with those absurd opinions contrary to Peace and civill
society, unlesse they held them themselves, which sure is an
ignorance greater then can well befall any wise man. For he that
knows not whence the Lawes derive their power, which are the
Rules of just and unjust, honest and dishonest, good and evill;
what makes and preserves Peace among men, what destroyes it; what
is his, and what anothers; Lastly, what he would have done to
himselfe (that he may doe the like to others) is surely to be
accounted but meanly wise. But that they can turn their Auditors
out of fools into madmen; that they can make things to them who
are ill-affected seem worse, to them who are well-affected seem
evil; that they can enlarge their hopes, lessen their dangers
beyond reason: this they have from that sort of eloquence, not
which explains things as they are, but from that other, which by
moving their mindes, makes all things to appear to bee such as
they in their mindes prepared before, had already conceived them.

    XIII. Many men who are themselves very well affected to
civill society, doe through want of knowledge, cooperate to the
disposing of subjects mindes to sedition, whilst they teach young
men a doctrine conformable to the said opinions in their
Schooles, and all the people in their Pulpits. Now they who
desire to bring this disposition into Act, place their whole
endeavour in this, First, that they may joyn the ill affected
together into faction and conspiracy; next, that themselves may
have the greatest stroke in the faction: They gather them into
faction, while they make themselves the relators, and
interpretors of the counsels and actions of single men, and
nominate the Persons and Places, to assemble and deliberate of
such things whereby the present government may be reformed,
according as it shall seem best to their interests. Now to the
end that they themselves may have the chief rule in the faction,
The faction must be kept in a faction, that is to say, they must
have their secret meetings apart with a few, where they may order
what shall afterward be propounded in a general meeting, and by
whom, and on what subject, and in what order each of them shall
speak, and how they may draw the powerfullest, and most popular
men of the faction to their side: And thus when they have gotten
a faction big enough, in which they may rule by their eloquence,
they move it to take upon it the managing of affaires; and thus
they sometimes oppresse the Commonwealth, namely where there is
no other faction to oppose them, but for the most part they rend
it, and introduce a civill warre. For folly and eloquence
concurre in the subversion of government in the same manner (as
the fable hath it) as heretofore the daughters of Pelias King of
Thessaly, conspired with Medea against their father; They going
to restore the decrepit old man to his youth again, by the
counsell of Medea, they cut him into peeces, and set him in the
fire to boyle, in vain expecting when he would live again; So the
common people through their folly (like the daughters of Pelias)
desiring to renew the ancient government, being drawne away by
the eloquence of ambitious men, as it were by the witchcraft of
Medea, divided into faction, they consume it rather by those
flames, then they reforme it.

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