4. The fourth opinion adversary to civil society, is their’s who hold, that they who bear rule are subject also to the civil laws. Which hath been sufficiently proved before not to be true, in chap VI. [art. 14], from this argument: that a city can neither be bound to itself, nor to any subject; not to itself, because no man can be obliged except it be to another; not to any subject, because the single wills of the subjects are contained in the will of the city; insomuch that if the city will be free from all such obligation, the subjects will so too; and by consequence she is so. But that which holds true in a city, that must be supposed to be true in a man, or an assembly of men who have the supreme authority; for they make a city, which hath no being but by their supreme power. Now that this opinion cannot consist with the very being of government, is evident from hence; that by it the knowledge of what is good and evil, that is to say, the definition of what is, and what is not against the laws, would return to each single person. Obedience therefore will cease, as oft as anything seems to be commanded contrary to the civil laws, and together with it all coercive jurisdiction; which cannot possibly be without the destruction of the very essence of government. Yet this error hath great props, Aristotle and others; who, by reason of human infirmity, suppose the supreme power to be committed with most security to the laws only. But they seem to have looked very shallowly into the nature of government, who thought that the constraining power, the interpretation of laws, and the making of laws, all which are powers necessarily belonging to government, should be left wholly to the laws themselves. Now although particular subjects may sometimes contend in judgment, and go to law with the supreme magistrate; yet this is only then, when the question is not what the magistrate may, but what by a certain rule he hath declared he would do. As, when by any law the judges sit upon the life of a subject, the question is not whether the magistrate could by his absolute right deprive him of his life; but whether by that law his will was that he should be deprived of it. But his will was, he should, if he brake the law; else his will was, he should not. This therefore, that a subject may have an action of law against his supreme magistrate, is not strength of argument sufficient to prove, that he is tied to his own laws. On the contrary, it is evident that he is not tied to his own laws; because no man is bound to himself. Laws therefore are set for Titius and Caius, not for the ruler. However, by the ambition of lawyers it is so ordered, that the laws to unskilful men seem not to depend on the authority of the magistrate, but their prudence.
That the supreme power may be divided, is a seditious opinion.
5. In the fifth place, that the supreme authority may be divided, is a most fatal opinion to all commonweals. But diverse men divide it diverse ways. For some divide it, so as to grant a supremacy to the civil power in matters pertaining to peace and the benefits of this life; but in things concerning the salvation of the soul they transfer it on others. Now, because justice is of all things most necessary to salvation, it happens that subjects measuring justice, not as they ought, by the civil laws, but by the precepts and doctrines of them who, in regard of the magistrate, are either private men or strangers, through a superstitious fear dare not perform the obedience due to their princes; through fear falling into that which they most feared. Now what can be more pernicious to any state, than that men should, by the apprehension of everlasting torments, be deterred from obeying their princes, that is to say, the laws; or from being just? There are also some, who divide the supreme authority so as to allow the power of war and peace unto one whom they call a monarch; but the right of raising money they give to some others, and not to him. But because monies are the sinews of war and peace, they who thus divide the authority, do either really not divide it at all, but place it wholly in them in whose power the money is, but give the name of it to another: or if they do really divide it, they dissolve the government. For neither upon necessity can war be waged, nor can the public peace be preserved without money.
That faith and holiness are not acquired by study and reason, but are ever supernaturally infused and inspired, is a seditious opinion.
6. It is a common doctrine, that faith and holiness are not acquired by study and natural reason, but are always supernaturally infused and inspired into men. Which, if it were true, I understand not why we should be commanded to give an account of our faith; or why any man, who is truly a Christian, should not be a prophet; or lastly, why every man should not judge what is fit for him to do, what to avoid, rather out of his own inspiration, than by the precepts of his superiors or right reason. A return therefore must be made to the private knowledge of good and evil; which cannot be granted without the ruin of all governments. This opinion hath spread itself so largely through the whole Christian world, that the number of apostates from natural reason is almost become infinite. And it sprang from sick-brained men, who having gotten good store of holy words by frequent reading of the Scriptures, made such a connexion of them usually in their preaching, that their sermons, signifying just nothing, yet to unlearned men seemed most divine. For he whose nonsense appears to be a divine speech, must necessarily seem to be inspired from above.
That single subjects have any propriety or absolute dominion over their own goods, is a seditious opinion.
7. The seventh doctrine opposite to government, is this; that each subject hath an absolute dominion over the goods he is in possession of: that is to say, such a propriety as excludes not only the right of all the rest of his fellow-subjects to the same goods, but also of the magistrate himself. Which is not true; for they who have a lord over them, have themselves no lordship, as hath been proved chap. viii. [art. 5]. Now the magistrate is lord of all his subjects, by the constitution of government. Before the yoke of civil society was undertaken, no man had any proper right; all things were common to all men. Tell me therefore, how gottest thou this propriety but from the magistrate? How got the magistrate it, but that every man transferred his right on him? And thou therefore hast also given up thy right to him. Thy dominion therefore, and propriety, is just so much as he will, and shall last so long as he pleases; even as in a family, each son hath such proper goods, and so long lasting, as seems good to the father. But the greatest part of men who profess civil prudence, reason otherwise. We are equal, say they, by nature; there is no reason why any man should by better right take my goods from me, than I his from him. We know that money sometimes is needful for the defence and maintenance of the public; but let them who require it, show us the present necessity, and they shall receive it. They who talk thus know not, that what they would have, is already done from the beginning, in the very constitution of government; and therefore speaking as in a dissolute multitude and yet not fashioned government, they destroy the frame.
Not to know the difference between a people and a multitude, prepares to sedition.
8. In the last place, it is a great hindrance to civil government, especially monarchical, that men distinguish not enough between a people and a multitude. The people is somewhat that is one, having one will, and to whom one action may be attributed; none of these can properly be said of a multitude. The people rules in all governments. For even in monarchies the people commands; for the people wills by the will of one man; but the multitude are citizens, that is to say, subjects. In a democracy and aristocracy, the citizens are the multitude, but the court is the people. And in a monarchy, the subjects are the multitude, and (however it seem a paradox) the king is the people. The common sort of men, and others who little consider these truths, do always speak of a great number of men as of the people, that is to say, the city. They say, that the city hath rebelled against the king (which is impossible), and that the people will and nill what murmuring and discontented subjects would have or would not have; under pretence of the people stirring up the citizens against the city, that is to say, the multitude against the people. And these are almost all the opinions, wherewith subjects being tainted do easily tumult. And forasmuch as in all manner of government majesty is to be preserved by him or them, who have the supreme authority; the crimen læsæ majestatis naturally cleaves to these opinions.
Too great a tax of money, though never so just and necessary, disposeth men to sedition.