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the very same libellous disguise and false representation of things and persons, blazoning out the worthiest men and the best actions under the foulest and most odious colours, and the vilest persons and the wickedest designs under the most popular and taking; one of the most pestilent ways certainly of calling good evil and evil good, that the public can suffer by. For still the prime and most effectual engine to pull down any government, is, to alienate the minds of the subjects from it; it being a never-failing observation, that when a governor comes to be generally hated, he is not many steps from being assuredly ruined: by which old, long-practised, lying, diabolical artifice, as the worst of rebels mounted heretofore into the throne of the best of princes, so no doubt they hope to do the same again; and it is not long since that they bade fair for it.

Now those artificial words, by the misapplication and management of which, these overturners of all above them have done such mighty execution, being much too many for a present rehearsal, as I formerly culled out five of the chief and most venomous, by which those wretches ruined and overthrew the ecclesiastical state amongst us, so I shall now pitch upon four of the principal, by which they did, and hope to do the same feat again upon the monarchy and civil government; it being the usual fate of that and the church, to be supported and run down by the same methods.

1st, The first is their traducing and exposing the mildest of governments and the best of monarchies by the odious name of arbitrary

power.

2dly, Their blackening and misrepresenting the ablest friends and assistants of their prince in his government, with the old infamous character of evil counsellors.

3dly, Their setting off and recommending the greatest enemies both of prince and people, under the plausible, endearing title of public spirits, patriots, and standers up for their country.

4thly, and lastly, Their couching the most malicious, selfish, and ambitious designs, under the glorious cover of zeal for liberty and property, and the rights of the subject.

These four rattling words, I say, arbitrary power, evil counsellors, public spirits, liberty, property, and the rights of the subject, with several more of the like noise and nature, used and applied by some state impostors, (as scripture was once quoted by the Devil,) are the great and powerful tools by which the faction hope to do their business upon the government once more. For since (as I observed in the first discourse upon this subject) the generality of mankind are wholly governed by words and names, having neither strength of judgment to discern, nor leisure to inquire

into the right application and drift of them ; what can be expected, if a company of bold, crafty, designing villains shall be incessantly buzzing into the rabble's ears, tyranny and arbitrary power, pensioners, and evil counsellors, on the one hand, and pointing out themselves for the only patrons of their country, the only assertors of liberty and property, and redressers of grievances on the other? I say, if the rout be still followed and plied by them with such mouth granadoes as these, can any thing be expected, but that those who look no farther than words should take such incendiaries at their word, and thereupon presently kindle and flame out, and throw the whole frame of the government into tumult and confusion?

And therefore I shall go over every one of these rabble-charming words, which carry so much wild-fire wrapt up in them, and lay open the true meaning and design of them as distinctly as in so short an exercise I can.

1. And first, let us begin with the highest and loudest, and that which leads the van in all clamours against the government, namely, that of arbitrary power, twin to that other great and noted one of popery, treated of by me heretofore; arbitrary power being of much the same import with reference to the state, that popery is with relation to the church; indeed they always go hand in hand, the cry of one still accompanying the other: and as it is hardly possible for a man to spit, but at the same time he must breathe too; so I believe hardly any foul mouth ever opened against the church, in the slander of popery, which did not likewise discharge itself against the monarchy, in the slander of arbitrary power.

But since there has been so much noise made of it, I think it may be no less than requisite for us to see and state what arbitrary power is. And in the true sense of it, it is a prince's or governor's ruling his people according to his own absolute will and pleasure, either without law or against it. Such a kind of power was that vested in the Roman emperors by the lex regia, that the sole will of the emperor should in all things obtain the force of a law. And such an one more properly is at this day the power of the grand signior, or Turkish emperor, and generally of all eastern princes. But when was such a power ever claimed by, or where does the least footstep of it appear in the very worst of our kings who have reigned since the conquest? And therefore it is strange that it | should be charged upon the very best.

For though every statute-law is the product of the king's will, it being the royal assent that properly enacts or stamps it a law, yet our kings have consented to such a limitation of the exercise of this their power, as to the matter of all laws, that they claim not now a

power to make what laws they please; but still the matter of them, or the thing which is to receive that authorizing sanction from the royal hand, is first to be prepared and tendered to it by the choice and consent of the subjects themselves, acting by their representatives. So that as the king has always a negative upon the sanction, so the subject has still a negative upon the matter of the law.

And can there be a greater privilege enjoyed by any subjects under heaven, than to be the choosers of their own laws? Or did any of our princes, especially those of the present race, ever go about to ravish or extort it from them? And have not those laws been as free and uncontrolled in the execution, as they were benign and wholesome in the composition? And lastly, have not those laws that have made the English government so easy, so equal, and so beneficial to the subject, even to the envy of all nations round about us, been the effects and issue of that princely goodness which induced our kings to pass them into laws, and without which they could never have been laws, but, after all, would have remained an useless caput mortuum, without either life or force in them?

The truth is, we have been so governed for above these hundred years, that it is hard to decide whether the government or the governor has been the milder of the two. For as to the government itself, can any constitution in nature be imagined gentler, and farther from the least shadow of oppression, than that in which, as to all matters of right, the subject stands upon the same ground with his prince, so as to be allowed legally to contest his right with him in his own courts, they being free and open, and judges appointed to umpire the matter in contest between them, and to decide where the right lies? And can there be any thing arbitrary or tyrannical, where justice has so free and uninterrupted a course, and where the king is understood neither to do, nor so much as to command any thing, but what he does or commands by his laws, and those such as for the most part are more in favour of the subject than of the prerogative?

And if so, can we imagine that any one in his wits, who designs to fight, would first suffer, or rather cause his own hands to be tied? Yet this is not a greater absurdity, than to suppose a prince setting up for arbitrary power, just after he himself had passed those laws which make the exercise of such a power in a prince ruling by law utterly impossible. And yet this was eminently the case of the two last kings, with reference to this slander cast upon them by the republican faction, after they had passed more laws to assure the right of the subject, and to the limiting the prerogative, than all their predecessors since the conquest had done before

them. And so much was once acknowledged of King Charles I. by that very faction which ruined him, nay even while they were actually ruining him; and we know his son, in such acts of grace, rather outdid than came behind him. Indeed both of them parted with so much of their royal power and prerogative, to gratify and content their people, that many wise men have feared that the crown may have hardly enough left it in all cases to protect them. Which, should it be so, is the chief thing that looks like a grievance to the subject of any that I know; and if it be, they know whom they may thank for it, especially when those laws were made in the reign of two such princes, that though they had never been made, the very temper and disposition of the men had been a superabundant security to the subject against all their fears; princes who had nothing arbitrary or violent either in their nature or their family; princes of such an unparalleled clemency, that I dare confidently aver, that it was solely and wholly owing to their surpassing mildness, that there was so much as one wretch in all their dominions either able or willing to do them hurt.

But there cannot be a greater demonstration that there is no such thing as arbitrary power in this kingdom, than that men have been endured so commonly and so freely to charge the government with it. What a noise was there of arbitrary power in the reign of the two last kings, and scarce any at all during the usurpation of Cromwell! Of which I know no reason in the world that can be given but this: namely, that under those two princes there was no such thing, and under Cromwell there was nothing else. For where arbitrary power is really and indeed used, men feel it, but dare not complain of it, for fear their complaints should be answered, as the Egyptians answered those of the Israelites, by increasing their tasks and redoubling their burdens. And besides all this, what a hideous outcry was, not many years since, raised by an insolent, impudent company of men against arbitrary power, while they themselves were practising it upon their fellow-subjects, and that at such a rate, as none of our kings ever so much as pretended to. And yet, if ever it should so please God as to punish the nation with an arbitrary oppression for complaining of it when there was none, surely it would be much more tolerable to groan under the arbitrary will of a noble, royally descended monarch, than under the lawless will and tyranny of a pack of spiteful, mean, merciless republicans; as without question it would be a much nobler death to be torn in pieces by a lion, than to be eaten up by lice.

And thus much for the first groundless, senseless, and shameless calumny upon the

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government, to wit, that of arbitrary power;
a calumny which more than sufficiently con-
tradicts and confutes itself by this one irre-
fragable argument, that any subject who has
presumed to libel and reproach his prince
with it, is seen alive and well, nay, rich and
Of which sort
thriving, after he has done so.
of arguments this kingdom (it is well known)
affords no small plenty and variety.

2dly, The next word of art and malice,
by which the faction would undermine the
government, is evil counsellors. For some-
times it is not found either so safe or so ex-
pedient for popular rage and rudeness to dis-
charge itself immediately upon the person of
the king himself, and therefore they choose to
make their approaches more artificially, and
first to attack those about him. But as in a
siege the taking of the outworks is in order to
the taking of the main fort at last, so faction
never strikes at any of a prince's ministers,
but with a design that the blow should go
When the
round, and reach him in the end.
wolves intended to destroy the sheep, by way
of parley and making peace with them, it
would have been a very impudent and a
senseless thing to have told them in plain
terms that they had a design to devour them;
and therefore they made a more dexterous
and politic proposal, and promised to live
peaceably and neighbourly with them, upon
condition that they would deliver up their
dogs. So when the late rebel faction had
designed the destruction of the king and
monarchy, they were not such sots as to pro-
fess and declare so much at first; no, they
were only for removing his evil counsellors,
that is, for sucking the blood of his best
friends, and stripping him of his faithfullest
ministers, and such as were most able both to
serve and support him, and then let them
alone to make him as great and glorious, as in
the issue (you all know) they made him.

And in like manner, when the true brood and spawn of the same republican cabal was about to play the same game upon the son which their predecessors had done upon the father, this and that counsellor was to be removed from his counsels, and banished from And then, if he his royal presence for ever. would but part with his guards too, he could not with any reason have doubted of his safety, having cast himself into those hands which had brought him so many dutiful petitions. For no man questions but they (good men) would have done all they could to have secured him. Nay, I dare undertake for them, that they would not have thought any castle in the kingdom too good or strong But he should to have bestowed him in. have had all the security that Holdenby-house, or Hampton-court, or Carisbrook, or Hurst, or Windsor-castle, could have afforded him; and it were much if he could not have been

secure in all these. But yet if these could
not have made him so, they had one way
more left, which would have followed of
course, and would infallibly have done it.

Only there was indeed this difference in the proceedings of the faction formerly against the father, and lately against his son, that the faction first imprisoned the father, and then addressed to him; whereas the late managers of the same design against the son libelled him with their addresses first, hoping to be able to imprison him afterwards. And this difference, let me tell you, was very material, and (thanks be to God) produced a very different issue and success to the whole proceeding. It being no small favour of Providence to kings and princes, that their enemies had sometimes rather shew their anger than employ their wit.

But however, you see, by reflecting upon what has passed, that the clamour against evil counsellors was an old trusty tool, equally And I managed both against father and son. hope such as have eyes and ears, and common sense to judge by, do by this time sufficiently understand both the engine itself, and the persons who use to manage it; especially since they have been so extremely kind to the world, as, by printing their politics, to inform not only this, but all future ages, how honestly they designed matters, and how wisely they carried them.

Well, but if evil counsellors must needs be removed, what must be done next? Why, that is a needless question. For what should be done, but to take in those in their stead who were so earnest and active to remove them? For do you think that these patriots are so fierce and zealous against ministers of state, and other high officers, for any other reason in the world but to get into their places? Or that they pitch upon this course of crying out against others for any other end, It would but because they judge it the most likely and effectual to promote themselves? indeed be too gross, too fulsome, and too shameless a request, for any one to come to his prince, and say, Sir, I will not be quiet, unless your majesty will make me treasurer or chancellor, chief justice, or secretary of state, attorney general, or the like; and if you will not give me such or such a great office, I will never leave troubling you, never give over petitioning, addressing, and protesting, never cease crying out grievances, popery, pensioners, and evil counsellors, till the whole nation rings of it again; and therefore your majesty will do very prudently, and consult both your ease and safety, by removing such a great officer, and putting me, your worthy petitioner, into his room; and by this you will also wonderfully please and gratify your people, whom in truth I care as much for, as I do for the dirt under my shoes.

These things, I confess, are very gross and scandalous; but as gross as they are, assure yourselves, that whensoever you hear any one clamouring against evil counsellors, this is as really and truly his sense and meaning, as if he had wrote his mind upon his forehead, and used every one of the forementioned expressions to a tittle.

3dly, The third battery which the faction plants against the government is, their recommending the most mortal enemies both of prince and people under the plausible, endearing title of public spirits; that is the word, but private interest is the signification. But pray, what has any private man to do, to concern himself for the public, but in his private station? What has this extortioner or that lace-seller to do, to mistake his prince for his apprentice, and to undertake to instruct him? What has this or that joiner to do, to leave his shop, and to guard the parliament? These and the like matters belong properly to the sovereign prince, and to those whom he shall be pleased to employ under him. For surely none can be so fit to be intrusted with the public weal of the nation, as he who gives the surest pledge of his concern for it, by having the greatest interest and share in it.

And therefore he who sets up for his country against his prince, goes about to make the body thrive by the decay and ruin of the head. Assuredly no man shews his zeal and love for his country so much, as he who does all he can to enable his prince both to govern and protect it; which I am sure cannot be done either by weakening or impoverishing him, by disgracing or misrepresenting him. This indeed has been the course taken by those great factors for sedition, who have shot that odious distinction like a fiery dart at the government, of the court party, and the country party; for which the country may perhaps one day have as little cause to thank them, as they have at present to thank themselves. For I do not find that by all their noise and heat they have made themselves so considerable, as to be thought worthy to be taken off. But whether they succeed this way or no, (as it were much if the same cheat should always find the same success,) they know, however, that to be still mouthing out the interest of the country, the interest of the country, is a sort of plausible, well received cant, and a sweet morsel, which never fails to be readily swallowed by the gaping rout, who always loves those men best who abuse them most.

But for all this, I would have those statevermin know, that king and country are hardly terms of distinction, (in the forementioned kings I am sure they were not,) and much less of opposition, since no man can serve his country without assisting his king, nor love his king without being concerned for his

country. One involves the other, and both together make but one entire, single undivided interest. God has joined them together, and cursed be that man, or faction of men, which would disjoin, or put them asunder.

And therefore, friends, suffer not yourselves to be imposed upon, but rest assured that all who come to you with those glossing pretences of public spirits and zeal for their country, if they do it with the least reflection upon their prince or his government, are all that time mocking and making a prey of you; they are "smiting the shepherd," and that uses to be the way "to scatter the flock." Alas! their design is not to preserve their country, but to prefer themselves; nay, they are making all this hectoring bustle for the country only to get themselves into the court. They are holding up their heads to see what the government will bid for them; and if their pretences are found too old and stale to be marketable, or worth buying, you shall find them retreat, and sneak away with all that odium and contempt which is justly due to baffled, discovered cheats. And then the public spirit vanishes immediately, and the country, after all this high-flown zeal for it, is left to shift for itself.

For we must know, that when this public spirit is once raised, there are but two ways of laying it again, and those the very same which we use to take to rid ourselves of restless, importunate beggars; namely, either to give them what they desire, or resolutely to reject and give them nothing. Now the first of these is that which beggars and public spirits do most desire. For still you must observe, that the public spirit here spoken of has always this strange property with it, that when it is most boisterous, furious, and troublesome, it is then also most desirous to be conjured down, provided it be done skilfully and privately. For as Solomon says, (Prov. xxi. 14.) "A gift in secret pacifieth anger," and has a wonderful ascendant over all evil spirits, but over the public one especially; which though it has all the poison of the adder, yet has nothing of the deafness of it, forasmuch as it never stops its ear against the charmer, if he does but charm wisely ;" that is, if he applies the forementioned charm liberally and privately too. This being a rule always to be remembered, that the more public the spirit is, the more private must be the exorcism, for spirits being invisible things, must be dealt with after an invisible manner. So then this is one way of exorcising or conjuring down a public spirit, and recovering those that are possessed with it, which some of late years have called a taking them off. Though some governments have another way of taking such off, which they find much more effectual. For as in the case

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of beggars before hinted, so here also we must observe, that though this way of gratification, or giving, may rid the government of the importunity of the public spirit for the present, yet the same spirit will be sure to return upon it again, and perhaps with seven more in its company worse than itself, that they also may be exorcised and taken off the same way. As the very same relief which stops a beggar's mouth, and sends him away, at one time, will certainly bring him and many more with him, to the same house at auother; it being not to be imagined that such customers will forsake a door only because they use to be fed at it. And therefore governors will never find this way of laying the public spirit successful; but just like a man's drinking in a fever, which may be some refreshment at present, but an increase of torment in reversion.

From whence it follows, that the other way for the government to dispossess and cast out these public spirits is certainly the wisest and most effectual, which is, to give them nothing, but to defy their rage, and to despise their pretences, and to answer them, as a man in place and power would answer the craving and clamour of a restless beggar, with authority and correction. For if men come once to find, that nothing is to be got by being troublesome to the government, they will quickly alter their way of traffick, and come to fawn upon it, instead of barking at it; which, though it be not of much worth, I confess is yet the better worthless thing of the two. Let a governor take up such as trouble him and his people with rigour and resolution, and make them know, if he can, that he neither fears nor needs them, and I dare undertake that he shall not be long troubled with them. If a horse grows resty, headstrong, and apt to throw his rider, surely to pamper him cannot be the way to tame him; but the discipline of the whip and spur will bring him to hand much sooner and surer than the plenties of the rack and manger.

But now, after all, what is the thing which really lies under the disguise of this plausible word, public spirit? Why, if you would have the whole truth of it, name and thing together, it is faction and sedition rampant: it is a combination of some insolent, unruly minds to snatch the sceptre out of their prince's hand; it is their thrusting themselves into his peculiar business, and so, in effect, into his throne; it is their confounding the essential bounds and limits of sovereignty and subjection, and consequently a dissolution of all government. For where such upstart, aspiring mushrooms assume a right to govern, I am sure it can be no mans duty to obey.

And thus much for this sham pretence of public spirits, which has proved so trouble

some to our public peace; the fatal and malign influence of which, I think, cannot be better expressed than by telling you, that this pretence of a public spirit has been as hurtful and mischievous to government, as that of the private spirit has been to religion.

4thly, The fourth and last mighty misapplied word which I shall mention, with which the faction has of a long time been fighting against the government, is, liberty, property, and the rights of the subject. And so loud and tragical has the outcry about these been, that a man unacquainted with this sort of people could imagine no less, by what he had heard, than that almost all the houses in the nation were emptied into the gaols, and that there were scarce a foot of land in the kingdom but what was seized on by the crown. And yet, after all this noise, there is not a freer and a richer people upon the face of the earth than the English; nor were they themselves ever so free and so rich before, as they have been in the reigns of those two excellent princes whom they were perpetually baiting with complaints about their liberties and properties; princes so far from wronging the subject upon either of these accounts, that, as to the point of liberty, the crown has almost parted with its power of imprisoning the subject; and as for property, it has been so far from encroaching upon the subjects' lands, that it has very near the matter parted with all its own. But I hope by this time the crown perceives, that such sturdy beggars are not to be dealt with this way, and that it is neither wisdom, mercy, nor charity, to feed a bottomless pit.

But, to adjust the true and proper measures of liberty, there is no people so free as those who live under a just monarchy: there being no slavery in the world comparable to that of having many masters. And those state mountebanks who would persuade people that there is no such thing as freedom of the subject under a monarchy, let them go seek for it in Holland and Venice, and other republics, and there they shall find a free people indeed; that is, free to undergo any penalty which their governors shall be pleased to inflict, and free to pay any tax which they shall think fit to impose; and that without either remedy or redress, be it never so grievous. And as for any other kind of freedom, you must look for it elsewhere, if you would find it; for it is not a commodity of the growth of those countries.

And to shew farther, how falsely, how partially, and unjustly this reproach has been cast upon monarchical government, that of England especially, I have heard of a certain sort of men not far off, who, when they had tied up their prince from detaining any dangerous or seditious subject in prison, thought it yet very reasonable for themselves to im

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