CHAPTER XII.
OF THE INTERNAL CAUSES TENDING TO THE DISSOLUTION
OF ANY GOVERNMENT.
[1.] That the judging of good and evil belongs to private persons is a seditious opinion. [2.] That subjects do sin by obeying their princes is a seditious opinion. [3.] That tyrannicide is lawful is a seditious opinion. [4.] That those who have the supreme power are subject to the civil laws is a seditious opinion. [5.] That the supreme power may be divided is a seditious opinion. [6.] That faith and sanctity are not acquired by study and reason, but always supernaturally infused and inspired, is a seditious opinion. [7.] That each subject hath a propriety or absolute dominion of his own goods is a seditious opinion. [8.] Not to understand the difference between the people and the multitude, prepares toward sedition. [9.] Too great a tax of money, though never so just and necessary, prepares toward sedition. [10.] Ambition disposeth us to sedition. [11.] So doth the hope of success. [12.] Eloquence alone without wisdom, is the only faculty needful to raise seditions. [13.] How the folly of the common people, and the elocution of ambitious men, concur to the destruction of a common-weal.
That the judgment of good and evil belongs to private persons, is a seditious opinion.
1. Hitherto hath been spoken, by what causes and pacts commonweals 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 natural bodies three things are to be considered, namely, internal disposition, that they be susceptible of the motion to be produced; the external agent, whereby a certain and determined motion may in act be produced; and the action itself: so also in a commonweal 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 minds of men are fitted and disposed; next, their quality and condition who solicit, assemble, and direct them, already thus disposed, to take up arms and quit their allegiance; lastly, the manner how this is done, or the faction itself. But one and the first which disposeth them to sedition, is this, that the knowledge of good and evil belongs to each single man. In the state of nature indeed, where every man lives by equal right, and has not by any mutual pacts submitted to the command of others, we have granted this to be true; nay, proved it in chap. I. [art. 9]. But in the civil state it is false. For it was shown (chap. VI. [art. 9]) that the civil laws were the rules of good and evil, just and unjust, honest and dishonest; that therefore what the legislator commands, must be held for good, and what he forbids for evil. And the legislator is ever that person who hath the supreme power in the commonweal, that is to say, the monarch in a monarchy. We have confirmed the same truth in chap. XI. [art. 2], out of the words of Solomon. For if private men may pursue that as good and shun that as evil, 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 evil? Since therefore it belongs to kings to discern between good and evil, wicked are those, though usual, sayings, that he only is a king who does righteously, and that kings must not be obeyed unless they command us just things; and many other such like. Before there was any government, just and unjust had no being, their nature only 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 evil, desire to be even as kings; which cannot be with the safety of the commonweal. The most ancient of all God’s commands is, (Gen. ii. 17): Thou shalt not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil: and the most ancient of all diabolical temptations, (Gen. iii. 5): Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil; and God’s expostulation with man, (verse 11): Who told thee that thou wert naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst 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 shameful, except thou have arrogated to thyself the knowledge of good and evil.
That subjects do sin in obeying their princes, is a seditious opinion.
2. Whatsoever any man doth against his conscience, is a sin; for he who doth so, contemns the law. But we must distinguish. That is my sin indeed, which committing I do believe to be my sin; but what I believe to be another man’s sin, I may sometimes do that without any sin of mine. For if I be commanded to do that which is a sin in him who commands me, if I do it, and he that commands me be by right lord over me, I sin not. For if I wage war at the commandment of my prince, conceiving the war to be unjustly undertaken, I do not therefore do unjustly; but rather if I refuse to do it, arrogating to myself the knowledge of what is just and unjust, which pertains only to my prince. They who observe not this distinction, will fall into a necessity of sinning, as oft as anything is commanded them which either is, or seems to be unlawful 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 pains of the world to come; if they sin against right, they do, as much as in them lies, abolish human society and the civil life of the present world. Their opinion therefore who teach, that subjects sin when they obey their prince’s commands which to them seem unjust, is both erroneous, and to be reckoned among those which are contrary to civil obedience; and it depends upon that original error which we have observed above, in the foregoing article. For by our taking upon us to judge of good and evil, we are the occasion that as well our obedience, as disobedience, becomes sin unto us.
That tyrannicide is lawful, is a seditious opinion.
3. The third seditious doctrine springs from the same root, that tyrannicide is lawful; 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 only monarchs, but all those who bear the chief rule in any government whatsoever; for not Pisistratus only 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 shouldst not eat? For why dost thou call him a tyrant, whom God hath made a king, except that thou, being a private person, usurpest to thyself the knowledge of good and evil? But how pernicious this opinion is to all governments, but especially to that which is monarchical, we may hence discern; namely, that by it every king, whether good or ill, stands exposed to be condemned by the judgment, and slain by the hand of every murderous villain.
That even they who have the supreme power are subject to the civil laws, is a seditious opinion.