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CHAPTER 2:
OF MONARCHY AND HEREDITARY
SUCCESSION
Mankind being originally equals
in the order of creation, the equality could only be destroyed by some
subsequent circumstance; the distinctions of rich, and poor, may in a
great measure be accounted for, and that without having recourse to the
harsh, ill-sounding names of oppression and avarice. Oppression is often
the consequence, but seldom or never the means of riches; and though
avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally
makes him too timorous to be wealthy.
But there is another and greater
distinction for which no truly natural or religious reason can be
assigned, and that is, the distinction of men into KINGS and SUBJECTS.
Male and female are the distinctions of nature, good and bad the
distinctions of heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so
exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth
enquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery
to mankind.
In the early ages of the world,
according to the scripture chronology, there were no kings; the
consequence of which was there were no wars; it is the pride of kings
which throw mankind into confusion. Holland without a king hath enjoyed
more peace for this last century than any of the monarchial governments in
Europe. Antiquity favors the same remark; for the quiet and rural lives of
the first patriarchs hath a happy something in them, which vanishes away
when we come to the history of Jewish royalty.
Government by kings was first
introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of
Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the Devil
ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. The Heathens paid divine
honors to their deceased kings, and the Christian world hath improved on
the plan by doing the same to their living ones. How impious is the title
of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is
crumbling into dust!
As the exalting one man so
greatly above the rest cannot be justified on the equal rights of nature,
so neither can it be defended on the authority of scripture; for the will
of the Almighty, as declared by Gideon and the prophet Samuel, expressly
disapproves of government by kings. All anti-monarchial parts of scripture
have been very smoothly glossed over in monarchial governments, but they
undoubtedly merit the attention of countries which have their governments
yet to form. Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's is the
scriptural doctrine of courts, yet it is no support of monarchial
government, for the Jews at that time were without a king, and in a state
of vassalage to the Romans.
Near three thousand years passed
away from the Mosaic account of the creation, till the Jews under a
national delusion requested a king. Till then their form of government
(except in extraordinary cases, where the Almighty interposed) was a kind
of republic administered by a judge and the elders of the tribes. Kings
they had none, and it was held sinful to acknowledge any being under that
title but the Lords of Hosts. And when a man seriously reflects on the
idolatrous homage which is paid to the persons of kings he need not
wonder, that the Almighty, ever jealous of his honor, should disapprove of
a form of government which so impiously invades the prerogative of heaven.
Monarchy is ranked in scripture
as one of the sins of the Jews, for which a curse in reserve is denounced
against them. The history of that transaction is worth attending to.
The children of Israel being
oppressed by the Midianites, Gideon marched against them with a small
army, and victory, through the divine interposition, decided in his favor.
The Jews elate with success, and attributing it to the generalship of
Gideon, proposed making him a king, saying, Rule thou over us, thou and
thy son and thy son's son. Here was temptation in its fullest extent; not
a kingdom only, but an hereditary one, but Gideon in the piety of his soul
replied, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you, THE
LORD SHALL RULE OVER YOU. Words need not be more explicit; Gideon doth not
decline the honor but denieth their right to give it; neither doth be
compliment them with invented declarations of his thanks, but in the
positive stile of a prophet charges them with disaffection to their proper
sovereign, the King of Heaven.
About one hundred and thirty
years after this, they fell again into the same error. The hankering which
the Jews had for the idolatrous customs of the Heathens, is something
exceedingly unaccountable; but so it was, that laying hold of the
misconduct of Samuel's two sons, who were entrusted with some secular
concerns, they came in an abrupt and clamorous manner to Samuel, saying,
Behold thou art old and thy sons walk not in thy ways, now make us a king
to judge us like all the other nations. And here we cannot but observe
that their motives were bad, viz., that they might be like unto other
nations, i.e., the Heathen, whereas their true glory laid in being as much
unlike them as possible. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said,
give us a king to judge us; and Samuel prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord
said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they
say unto thee, for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me,
THEN I SHOULD NOT REIGN OVER THEM. According to all the works which have
done since the day; wherewith they brought them up out of Egypt, even unto
this day; wherewith they have forsaken me and served other Gods; so do
they also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto their voice, howbeit,
protest solemnly unto them and show them the manner of the king that shall
reign over them, i.e., not of any particular king, but the general manner
of the kings of the earth, whom Israel was so eagerly copying after. And
notwithstanding the great distance of time and difference of manners, the
character is still in fashion. And Samuel told all the words of the Lord
unto the people, that asked of him a king. And he said, This shall be the
manner of the king that shall reign over you; he will take your sons and
appoint them for himself for his chariots, and to be his horsemen, and
some shall run before his chariots (this description agrees with the
present mode of impressing men) and he will appoint him captains over
thousands and captains over fifties, and will set them to ear his ground
and to read his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and
instruments of his chariots; and he will take your daughters to be
confectionaries and to be cooks and to be bakers (this describes the
expense and luxury as well as the oppression of kings) and he will take
your fields and your olive yards, even the best of them, and give them to
his servants; and he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your
vineyards, and give them to his officers and to his servants (by which we
see that bribery, corruption, and favoritism are the standing vices of
kings) and he will take the tenth of your men servants, and your maid
servants, and your goodliest young men and your asses, and put them to his
work; and he will take the tenth of your sheep, and ye shall be his
servants, and ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye
shall have chosen, AND THE LORD WILL NOT HEAR YOU IN THAT DAY. This
accounts for the continuation of monarchy; neither do the characters of
the few good kings which have lived since, either sanctify the title, or
blot out the sinfulness of the origin; the high encomium given of David
takes no notice of him officially as a king, but only as a man after God's
own heart. Nevertheless the People refused to obey the voice of Samuel,
and they said, Nay, but we will have a king over us, that we may be like
all the nations, and that our king may judge us, and go out before us and
fight our battles. Samuel continued to reason with them, but to no
purpose; he set before them their ingratitude, but all would not avail;
and seeing them fully bent on their folly, he cried out, I will call unto
the Lord, and he shall sent thunder and rain (which then was a punishment,
being the time of wheat harvest) that ye may perceive and see that your
wickedness is great which ye have done in the sight of the Lord, IN ASKING
YOU A KING. So Samuel called unto the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and
rain that day, and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel And
all the people said unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy
God that we die not, for WE HAVE ADDED UNTO OUR SINS THIS EVIL, TO ASK A
KING. These portions of scripture are direct and positive. They admit of
no equivocal construction. That the Almighty hath here entered his protest
against monarchial government is true, or the scripture is false. And a
man hath good reason to believe that there is as much of kingcraft, as
priestcraft in withholding the scripture from the public in Popish
countries. For monarchy in every instance is the Popery of government.
To the evil of monarchy we have
added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and
lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an
insult and an imposition on posterity. For all men being originally
equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in
perpetual preference to all others for ever, and though himself might
deserve some decent degree of honors of his contemporaries, yet his
descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them. One of the
strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is,
that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it
into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.
Secondly, as no man at first
could possess any other public honors than were bestowed upon him, so the
givers of those honors could have no power to give away the right of
posterity, and though they might say, "We choose you for our head," they
could not, without manifest injustice to their children, say, "that your
children and your children's children shall reign over ours for ever."
Because such an unwise, unjust, unnatural compact might (perhaps) in the
next succession put them under the government of a rogue or a fool. Most
wise men, in their private sentiments, have ever treated hereditary right
with contempt; yet it is one of those evils, which when once established
is not easily removed; many submit from fear, others from superstition,
and the more powerful part shares with the king the plunder of the rest.
This is supposing the present
race of kings in the world to have had an honorable origin; whereas it is
more than probable, that could we take off the dark covering of antiquity,
and trace them to their first rise, that we should find the first of them
nothing better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang, whose
savage manners of preeminence in subtlety obtained him the title of chief
among plunderers; and who by increasing in power, and extending his
depredations, overawed the quiet and defenseless to purchase their safety
by frequent contributions. Yet his electors could have no idea of giving
hereditary right to his descendants, because such a perpetual exclusion of
themselves was incompatible with the free and unrestrained principles they
professed to live by. Wherefore, hereditary succession in the early ages
of monarchy could not take place as a matter of claim, but as something
casual or complemental; but as few or no records were extant in those
days, and traditionary history stuffed with fables, it was very easy,
after the lapse of a few generations, to trump up some superstitious tale,
conveniently timed, Mahomet like, to cram hereditary right down the
throats of the vulgar. Perhaps the disorders which threatened, or seemed
to threaten on the decease of a leader and the choice of a new one (for
elections among ruffians could not be very orderly) induced many at first
to favor hereditary pretensions; by which means it happened, as it hath
happened since, that what at first was submitted to as a convenience, was
afterwards claimed as a right.
England, since the conquest, hath
known some few good monarchs, but groaned beneath a much larger number of
bad ones, yet no man in his senses can say that their claim under William
the Conqueror is a very honorable one. A French bastard landing with an
armed banditti, and establishing himself king of England against the
consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original.
It certainly hath no divinity in it. However, it is needless to spend much
time in exposing the folly of hereditary right, if there are any so weak
as to believe it, let them promiscuously worship the ass and lion, and
welcome. I shall neither copy their humility, nor disturb their devotion.
Yet I should be glad to ask how
they suppose kings came at first? The question admits but of three
answers, viz., either by lot, by election, or by usurpation. If the first
king was taken by lot, it establishes a precedent for the next, which
excludes hereditary succession. Saul was by lot, yet the succession was
not hereditary, neither does it appear from that transaction there was any
intention it ever should. If the first king of any country was by
election, that likewise establishes a precedent for the next; for to say,
that the right of all future generations is taken away, by the act of the
first electors, in their choice not only of a king, but of a family of
kings for ever, hath no parallel in or out of scripture but the doctrine
of original sin, which supposes the free will of all men lost in Adam; and
from such comparison, and it will admit of no other, hereditary succession
can derive no glory. For as in Adam all sinned, and as in the first
electors all men obeyed; as in the one all mankind were subjected to
Satan, and in the other to Sovereignty; as our innocence was lost in the
first, and our authority in the last; and as both disable us from
reassuming some former state and privilege, it unanswerably follows that
original sin and hereditary succession are parallels. Dishonorable rank!
Inglorious connection! Yet the most subtle sophist cannot produce a juster
simile.
As to usurpation, no man will be
so hardy as to defend it; and that William the Conqueror was an usurper is
a fact not to be contradicted. The plain truth is, that the antiquity of
English monarchy will not bear looking into.
But it is not so much the
absurdity as the evil of hereditary succession which concerns mankind. Did
it ensure a race of good and wise men it would have the seal of divine
authority, but as it opens a door to the foolish, the wicked; and the
improper, it hath in it the nature of oppression. Men who look upon
themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected
from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and
the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that
they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when
they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit
of any throughout the dominions.
Another evil which attends
hereditary succession is, that the throne is subject to be possessed by a
minor at any age; all which time the regency, acting under the cover of a
king, have every opportunity and inducement to betray their trust. The
same national misfortune happens, when a king worn out with age and
infirmity, enters the last stage of human weakness. In both these cases
the public becomes a prey to every miscreant, who can tamper successfully
with the follies either of age or infancy.
The most plausible plea, which
hath ever been offered in favor of hereditary succession, is, that it
preserves a nation from civil wars; and were this true, it would be
weighty; whereas, it is the most barefaced falsity ever imposed upon
mankind. The whole history of England disowns the fact. Thirty kings and
two minors have reigned in that distracted kingdom since the conquest, in
which time there have been (including the Revolution) no less than eight
civil wars and nineteen rebellions. Wherefore instead of making for peace,
it makes against it, and destroys the very foundation it seems to stand
on.
The contest for monarchy and
succession, between the houses of York and Lancaster, laid England in a
scene of blood for many years. Twelve pitched battles, besides skirmishes
and sieges, were fought between Henry and Edward. Twice was Henry prisoner
to Edward, who in his turn was prisoner to Henry. And so uncertain is the
fate of war and the temper of a nation, when nothing but personal matters
are the ground of a quarrel, that Henry was taken in triumph from a prison
to a palace, and Edward obliged to fly from a palace to a foreign land;
yet, as sudden transitions of temper are seldom lasting, Henry in his turn
was driven from the throne, and Edward recalled to succeed him. The
parliament always following the strongest side.
This contest began in the reign
of Henry the Sixth, and was not entirely extinguished till Henry the
Seventh, in whom the families were united. Including a period of 67 years,
viz., from 1422 to 1489.
In short, monarchy and succession
have laid (not this or that kingdom only) but the world in blood and
ashes. 'Tis a form of government which the word of God bears testimony
against, and blood will attend it.
If we inquire into the business
of a king, we shall find that (in some countries they have none) and after
sauntering away their lives without pleasure to themselves or advantage to
the nation, withdraw from the scene, and leave their successors to tread
the same idle round. In absolute monarchies the whole weight of business
civil and military, lies on the king; the children of Israel in their
request for a king, urged this plea "that he may judge us, and go out
before us and fight our battles." But in countries where he is neither a
judge nor a general, as in England, a man would be puzzled to know what is
his business.
The nearer any government
approaches to a republic, the less business there is for a king. It is
somewhat difficult to find a proper name for the government of England.
Sir William Meredith calls it a republic; but in its present state it is
unworthy of the name, because the corrupt influence of the crown, by
having all the places in its disposal, hath so effectually swallowed up
the power, and eaten out the virtue of the house of commons (the
republican part in the constitution) that the government of England is
nearly as monarchical as that of France or Spain. Men fall out with names
without understanding them. For it is the republican and not the
monarchical part of the constitution of England which Englishmen glory in,
viz., the liberty of choosing a house of commons from out of their own
body- and it is easy to see that when the republican virtue fails, slavery
ensues. My is the constitution of England sickly, but because monarchy
hath poisoned the republic, the crown hath engrossed the commons?
In England a king hath little
more to do than to make war and give away places; which in plain terms, is
to impoverish the nation and set it together by the ears. A pretty
business indeed for a man to be allowed eight hundred thousand sterling a
year for, and worshipped into the bargain! Of more worth is one honest man
to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that
ever lived.
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