XLI. Thus Providence disposes, that the very same means which Machiavilian politicians apply for their exaltation, or their security, become the instruments of their destruction. Haman, is hang’d on the same gallows, which he prepared for Mordecai. Perillus, is burnt in the same brazen ox, which he fabricated to indulge the cruelty of Phalaris. Callipus, tyrant of Sicily, has his throat cut by the same knife, with which he took away the life of the generous Dion. Isaac Aaron, a Greek by nation, whose eyes were put out by order of the Emperor Emanuel Comenus, as a punishment for his evil deeds, afterwards advised the usurper Andronicus, not only to put out the eyes of his enemies, but to cut their tongues out also; because, that after being deprived of their sight, they could do mischief with their tongues. The Emperor Isaac Angelo, succeeded Andronicus, and ordered, that the tongue of the infamous counsellor who had before lost his eyes, should be cut out likewise. Perrin, Captain General of Geneva, the great persecutor of the Catholics, when in the year 1535, that republic changed their religion, caused the stone of the great altar in the Cathedral to be transported to the place of execution, that it might serve as a scaffold to dispatch delinquents on; and father Maimburgus, in his History of Calvinism, tells us, that the blood of Perrin, who was beheaded for his crimes, was the first which stained the stone. Thomas Cromwell, whom Henry the Eighth, when he erected himself into head of the English church, constituted his supreme vicar in all ecclesiastical matters, was a man extremely false, cruel, and avaricious. To furnish pretences for persecuting the ecclesiastics, that he might enrich himself with their spoils, he prevailed on Henry to make that most iniquitous law, that sentences of death, and confiscations, pronounced on people for high treason, should be good and valid, although they had not been heard in their defence; but Cromwell himself, was the first man this law was put in practice against; Henry having caused him to be beheaded, without his being heard or permitted to make any defence:
————Nec lex est æquior illa,
Ut necis artifices arte perirent sua.
XLII. Finally, and to sum up the whole, if we search history, we shall hardly find one among a thousand of those politicians, who have sought to exalt themselves by means of wicked arts and practices, that have not come to an unhappy end. Thus it has ever been till this time, and so it will ever continue to be from henceforward. What blindness then is it, to persevere in following a path, by pursuing which, you can only by a miracle of chance avoid a precipice? What can this be but delirium, the infallible symptom of the fever of ambition? which is a flame that cannot burn with violence in any man, without his being affected with a phrensy of the brain.
SECT. XIII.
XLIII. All we have said of policy, as it relates to private people, may be applied to princes, or superiors, who govern every kind of state; and with respect to these also, the division of policy into the high and the low, is apt and proper, as the first is secure, and the second hazardous in them, in the same proportion, which it is with respect to subjects or private men. Any ruler whatever, who is endued with the three virtues, of prudence, justice, and fortitude, will be a singular good politician, without ever having read any of those books, which treat of reasons of state. The true arts of governing, are, to chuse such ministers as are wise and upright, to reward merit, and to punish crimes; to watch over, and attend to the interest of the public, and to be faithful in promises. By these means, the respect, the love, and the obedience of subjects, will be much more effectually secured, than by all that compound farrago of political subtilties, called reasons of state; a mystery, deposited in the minds of privy counsellors, which, as if it was a most sacred thing, they never suffer to be totally displayed; nor ever to go forth to the public, unless covered with a thick veil; and is for the most part, no more than a ridiculous phantom, or vain idol, which under the title of a Deity, they exhibit for the adoration of the ignorant vulgar. Reason of state, is the universal agitator, or primum mobile of a kingdom, and is the reason for every thing, without being the reason of any thing. If it is asked, why was such a thing done, the answer is, for reasons of state; very well, but why was such another thing omitted to be done, why for reasons of state also. Would it not be better to say, it was done because justice required it, or because religion, clemency, or some moral virtue dictated the doing it? The reason of the directions of a minister to his inferiors, in all matters, is, that they are the King’s commands. The reason why a Prince orders any thing to be done, should be this, and this only, because the commandments and laws of God, require it; for a Prince in a more rigorous sense, is the minister of God, than his subalterns are ministers to him.
XLIV. If we are to understand, that reason of state means political prudence, why not call it by that name? because the phrase political prudence, implies or signifies a moral virtue, but the term, reason of state, we don’t know the meaning of. This expression, ragioni di stato, took its rise in Italy, but it does not seem as if they entertained a high veneration for it there, since we are told, that the holy Pontif Pius, could not bear to hear it mentioned; and was used to say, that reasons of state were the inventions of perverse men, and the very reverse of religion and the moral virtues. It was observable, that Pope Pius, in no case stood in need of these political subtilties; for without their aid, he was not only a great saint, but a distinguish’d and exemplary ruler.
XLV. It was a remark of the celebrated Bacon, that the most desirable governments which the church has in all times experienced, were under those Popes, who having passed the greatest part of their lives in monasteries, were reputed ignorant of political business; and that these made excellent Princes, and recommended themselves much more to the good opinion of posterity, by their wise regulations, than those, who had been bred in the schools, and had exercised themselves all their lives, in the management of public affairs; instancing as examples of the truth of this assertion, Pius V. and Sextus V. who both reign’d in the same age: Imò convertamus oculos ad regimen pontificium ac nominatim Pij V. vel Sixti V. nostro sæculo, qui sub initiis habiti sunt pro fraterculis rerum imperitis, inveniemusque acta paparum ejus generis magis esse solere memorabilia, quam eorum, qui in negotiis civilibus, & principum aulis enutriti ad papatum ascenderint (Lib. I. de Augment. Scient.) This testimony to the truth, is given by a Calvinist Heretic, although abstracted from his religion, he was in every sense a great, and most enlightened man, and one, who was not more remarkable for his incomparable talents, than for his candour and ingenuity.
XLVI. The reason he gives why the Popes, who before their elevation to the throne, had lived in holy retirement, excelled in the mode and goodness of their government, those, who before their rise, had always been exercised in public business, entitles him to the appellations we have just bestowed on him. He says, the want of civil instruction in those Pontiffs, was more than compensated for by their virtues; because Princes, who follow steadily, the plain and safe road of religion, justice, and the other moral virtues, readily and expertly, without the aid of studied policy, put in train, and dispatch all sorts of business that may occur to them. They are sound and robust souls, who have no more occasion for civil arts, than men who are healthy, and blessed with good constitutions have for physic. In eo tamen abundè fit compensatio, quod per tutum, planumque iter religionis, justitiæ, honestatis, virtutumque moralium, prompte, atque expedite incedant, quam viam, qui constanter tenuerint, illis alteris remediis non magis indigebunt, quam corpus sanum medicina.
XLVI. I almost blush, that a Heretic should talk in this strain, when among the Catholics, we find so many politicians who abound in very different maxims. But the case is, that the subtilties and artifices which compose what is commonly called worldly policy, are a sort of remedies, which sickly souls only, stand in need of. A vicious government, which he who has the management of turns and winds to answer his private purposes, cannot exist without the help of such medicaments, which may with as much propriety be called drugs, as those that are sold in an apothecary’s shop. But a sound understanding, endued and justly tempered with the four elemental qualities, of prudence, justice, fortitude, and sobriety, with only the assistance of these virtues, will, without the succour of other arts, and without embarrassment, surmount all the difficulties that can occur in government.