The obstructions and difficulties, with which the management of the publick affairs is necessarily attended, are so many and so great, that the soveraign has need of all the assistance his subjects can lend him for the removing them. Should they industriously lay unnecessary ones in his way, his designs for their safety and benefit, must in all likelyhood miscarry.
They who can be helpful no other way, have surely great reason to sollicit heaven, to guard, and guide, and assist those who are continually watching for their welfare. And since without the divine aid all human counsels and labours are vain; they who can be most serviceable to their soveraign by their wisdom, or valour, or treasure, must by no means think themselves excused from assisting him by their earnest and constant prayers. And if those, who barely omit this duty, are not to be accounted good subjects; they are certainly very bad ones, who dare to imprecate the judgments of heaven upon their governours.
Irreverent carriage to the person of the prince, and the speaking contemptuously and dishonourably of him, have a direct tendency to lessen his people's veneration for him, which is a main prop of his government. The speaking evil of princes, is commonly a prelude to some attempt against them; it being found by experience, that the way to weaken and undermine their authority, is to blast their reputation. Many perhaps, who are instrumental in spreading scandalous reports of their governours, have no such wicked intention; but if they have not, they are certainly very serviceable to those that have; nor are they to be excus'd who listen and give credit to them. Such, tho' at present they are not active in carrying on any traiterous designs, yet give grounds to hope that they may be wrought upon, and in time made fit for purposes, to which, as yet they are, strangers. When once men have cast off all inward awe of their prince, and have given entertainment to an ill opinion of him; they are then very
much exposed to the attacks of discontented and factious persons.
Before subjects credit evil reports of their prince, they ought to consider that it is the employment of many, to render him either contemptible or odious to his people: that to this end many false things are laid to his charge, his real defects and miscarriages are very much magnified; the ill success of his undertakings is charged upon his mismanagement, tho' perhaps no diligence nor vigilance, nor providence (so far as it is in man's power to provide against contingencies) was wanting on his part; and his very best designs, laid and conducted with the greatest wisdom, and perfected with all desireable success, are represented as prejudicial and pernicious to the common-weal. And they who can suffer their affections to be by those means alienated from their present soveraign, will not be long pleased with any: nor can any government be quiet, or secure, where these artifices are practised with success.
The authority of the supreme magistrate must of necessity be exercised by many subordinate officers: and to dishonour or disobey these, is, in effect, to dishonour and disobey him, by whose commission they act. And tho' it be for the interest of the publick, that they should account for wilful abuses of the power committed to them; yet all unreasonable clamours against them, are of dangerous consequence to the government, and do indeed threaten the soveraign himself, who may be mortally wounded thro' the sides of his ministers.
It has been before observed, that the laws of God, and of the land, are the measures of submission and obedience to the King. Wherefore no one ought, from what has been now said, to infer, that in limited monarchies, where part of the legislative authority is lodged in the body of the people, the subjects are obliged to obey any edicts of the prince not agreeble to the laws enacted by the whole legislature. In this case, since the power of the people is so far coordinate with
that of the prince, that without them no new laws can be enacted, nor former laws abrogated; they may justly require to be governed by the laws made with their own consent, and by no other. And should this right of the people be set aside, and no redress obtained upon their humble petitions and representations; the prince must take to himself the blame, if they have recourse to other means absolutely necessary for the preservation of their constitution. On the other hand, it is incumbent on the people to see, that their grievances are real, and not pretended; that their complaints are founded not upon meer surmises and jealouses, but upon notorious facts; and that while they are asserting their own right, they do not invade that of their soveraign, nor make any thing matter of demand, but the restoring and securing to them what is their due, by laws already established.
Moreover, since God is the supreme Monarch of the universe, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords; since
his power alone is unlimited and irresistible; and by consequence, the primary and most proper object of men's fear; it is manifest, that no human laws whatsoever, can bind men to act contrary to the divine. Nothing can be more unreasonable, than to obey God's vice-gerent in opposition to God himself, and to suffer the fear of a less power, to prevail against the fear of a greater. The text teaches us, in the first place, to fear the Lord, and then the King. Should the King command not to fear the Lord, it is better to endure all that he can inflict, than to do what he commands? We are indeed commanded[B], to render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsars; but we cannot without impiety withhold from God the things that are Gods: that we may render to Cæsar more than is his due. The Apostles, when they were reprimanded by the high-priest for not obeying the charge given them by the Sanhedrim, to teach no more in the