A SUPPLY OF CONSIDERABLE THINGS, In behalf of the GOVERNMENT; Omitted in all the late ARGUINGS. Written to Sir J.A.  
SIR,  
YOU know my Thoughts well enough, about what has been lately Written, of the English Constitution of Government; but seeing I affirmed some things with short Intimations of Reasons, I own you this larger Discourse, which yet shall be bounded within the compass of a Letter. He that wrote against Plato Redivivus, gave an excellent account from Records, of the ancient Exercise of our King's Prerogative, but hath left untouched the learned part about the Opinions and Reports from Plato and Aristotle, concerning the Seat of Sovereign Power. It must be said in behalf of the Answerer, that those Considerations were of less moment; but seeing his opposite Author (would it may be) rather derive something like a Divine right from those Books than any other; you shall see how little countenance the Sovereignty of the People, or of any upper part of them, receives from these Philosophers. Plato (whom he would have alive again in him) speaks in his Politicus plain and short of Monarchy and Democracy, for a certain Reason, I will give you his Saying in his Greek, tho' that may make a Letter look like a Schoolboys Epistle, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Monarchy being joined to good written Laws is the best of all Governments, and the worst of all lawful Governments, is that of the Common People. I hope he has enough of our Plato, into whom that the Rumper were revived, would be a very good wish, but I doubt he and his Fellows will quarrel with these Academics, almost as much as they do with our University-men for spoiling their Pupils with Monarchical Principles; for Aristotle Plato's Scholar talks like his Tutor, for he in this third Book of a Commonwealth, treating of Government mixed of Aristocracy and Democracy, adds his Judgement against it; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, But it is better (says he) that a single Person who is careful should have the Government.  
I am now to observe a more considerable error of this Gentleman, who seems rather inclined to be a Deposer, than with his Great Namesake to be called a Make-King; he says that among the Jews, the Supreme Power was not in a Single Person. Where was it then, When the Lord was their King? upon which account Josephus calls their Government a Theocracy, and elsewhere the Single Judges that ruled, are styled by him Monarches; and the Institution of Kingly Government, which was not to begin among them till Almighty Power had settled 'em in the Promised Land, was from himself; so the Charge is given (Deut. 17.15.) Thou shalt in any wise set him King over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose. So that the People desiring afterwards a King, was not evil in itself, but only as to the Tumultuary and distrustful manner, when God was their King, and the Prophet his Deputy, who brought them Orders immediately from the Mouth of God: That the Supreme Power was in the King, is plain to those who know the large Prerogatives of Eastern Monarches; for like these were the Kings of Israel and Judah, the People said we will have a King over us, that we also may be like all the Nations. And God commands Samuel, Harken to their Voice, and make them a King; and the Subjection into which they entered was but like that of the Neighbouring Eastern Nations, so that what we have in the common reading, the manner of the King (1 Sam. 8.) is well rendered by the LXX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Rightful Law, a Word used by them frequently concerning the Laws of God himself. The Affinity of things now calls to thought what has been said to and fro about Patriarches, Whether Monarchy was founded in them and thence Derived. The notion has been improved into a just and regular discourse, by that Worthy Gentleman Sir Robert Filmer, to whom too we are beholden for a Book ascribed to Mr. Hales, very convincingly written, concerning the Sin against the Holy Ghost. The Argument I would add to his affirmative part of the Question, is from the general apprehension of the Jews, who in the middling Ages of the Roman Emperors had (tho' they were a Scattered People) a Monarch, under the Name of Patriarch; his Monarchy was successive in the Family of Gamaliel, of whom St. Luke speaks, He had about him a Council for Government, and Officers appointed to receive Tribute from the Jewish Nation wheresoever dispersed; a pretty full account of this we have from Epiphanius, by Birth a Jew, and the rest is supplied from the Civil Law. What that Father says of the Patriarch, is in the 30th. Heresy, to wit, of the Ebionites. About the same time St. Hierom speaks of a Patriarch as the Supreme Magistrate of the Jews, in his Commentary on Isaiah, saying, that in them was fulfilled what is Prophesied in the third Chapter, I will give Children to be their Princes, and Babes shall rule over them. I lay the more weight upon these two Witnesses, because one by Birth and Education, the other by Study and Conversation, so well understood what they said. In the Civil Law we find Theodosius the Emperor confiscating their collected Tribute, and forbidding it to be gathered hereafter, nor can it be thought that the payments were only charitable Contributions for public Pious Uses, for you may read in the same Code, that it was demanded as Crown-gold: There are two principal things understood among Learned Men and Civilians, by the aurum coronarium, either what was paid by Vanquished Nations to their Conquerors, or with reference to the Crown, to new-created Emperors, let it be one or the other, still it proves that the Jews esteemed their Patriarch to be a successive Monarch.  
Another considerable thing, of which an account should deservedly be given, is about the Divine Right of Monarchy; this wants no other defence, but to be rightly understood. The Assertion has been Raillery to a sort of Wits and Half-States-men, none of whom show their knowledge of its meaning, for the Divine-Right, or Law, is either voluntary-divine, or natural-divine: The first takes its Original from the Will of God, the other has its Foundation in the necessity and inward goodness of the thing, upon which God's Will is certainly added; so that to say without any subdistinction, that Monarchy is jure divino, is no more than that it is an Institution accompanied with the Authority of God's Will, and that our Proposition is true in this large sense, appears from the 'foremention'd Words in Deuteronomy, and from that of Solomon's Proverbs, by me Kings Reign, but to resolve upon whether sort of Divine right Monarchy is founded, would be a Subtlety useless to the Affairs of the World, it being a sure rule, that whatever carries along with it the approving Will of God, can only by this plainest Declaration be taken away or altered; so that if Monarchy did not oblige under the nature of a Moral Law, but as a divine-positive one (of which number the Sacraments are) it is still unalterable by Subjects, nay, it may further be said, that a Right merely humane in its Original, conveyed over to another, is confirmed to the Possessor and his Heirs by a natural-divine Right; this is evident from the eighth Commandment, forbidding Stealth, tho' the ownership came from the act of another Man in its first Creation, yet the preservation of it is from the Law of God, and the Right is as strong in behalf of Successive Monarchy against the reseizure of the People, tho' they could fancy themselves the first Donors and Founders of it, as any Title they have to their proper Goods and Chattels; ay, but say they, the case is different, for all Government is given by the Subjects with a tacit condition, that it shall be managed to their best advantage, and upon failure it may therefore be reassumed; a tacit condition indeed, that was never heard of till the World and Government were so many thousand years old, but to give them one exception to their general rule, it will not hold good in the Government of a Family: And Lycurgus who was no Fool, wished some Common-wealth-Statists to make experiment first in their own Houses of that Popular Model which they were contriving for the Spartan Nation; how would it (think you) vex the little Western Grandee, if his Wise Son and his own Servants should attempt to Depose him from the management of his Household and Estate, by reason of his Maladministration of both, since his Head has been so full of Revenge and Association?  
Another mistake remains more pernicious to the Government than all the rest, which I have not seen fully set to rights by any who have argued for the Defendant; it is this, that the Kingship of England is Elective: There are indeed several such like Passages in our old Chronicles, written for the most part by Churchmen, who how they came to speak so I will anon afford you the grounds, but that choosing does imply a Power of refusing, is against the Principle of the Men of Malmsbury and of Geneva too; who make up the far greatest number of Adversaries to our cause; for with them Election is necessary; so that a man cannot choose, but he must choose; and if the same sort of choice, beyond which they claim none, as to the things of God will suffice them as to the King, we should soon be agreed in the present Affair. Suitable to this, the Civilians say a man chooses when he wishes, or when he is not constrained: Thus the Israelites chose a King, by desiring one before that Saul was appointed by Authority from God, and in congratulatory Joy, when he was anointed, the People shouting, God save the King, and in assisting him against those that said, shall Saul Reign over us; and this is as much as can be affirmed of any Election of our Kings in a peaceable and orderly Coronation, this will manifestly appear to you both from the common old form used in the Church of Rome, when Kings were Crowned, as likewise from a Parliament-Roll clear and full to the purpose; the old form is to be seen in the Ordo Romanus antiquus, a Book written and used above 900 Years ago, the particular Office is Entitled, The Order for Blessing of a King, when he is new raised by the Clergy and People to the Kingdom. In the fourth Prayer these Words follow, Look down upon this thy Servant, whom with suppliant Devotion we have chosen to be our King; upon these Passages at the Coronation, it was that the Church-men-Chroniclers so frequently used the Phrase of choosing a King, but if the rest of the same Office be taken along to explain these words, you will see that in our common way of speaking about choice, our Kings have no more been chosen by the Subjects, than Saul was by the Israelites; for in the first and second Prayers, it is said, that God hath exalted him to the height of the Kingdom. Among the Questions propounded by the Metropolitan one is, Wilt thou Govern and defend the Kingdom given thee of God according to the justice of thy Fathers, than the Bishop turns to the People, will you be subject to this Prince and Governor, and Establish his Kingdom with firm faithfulness and obey his Commands, according to the Apostles Words, Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers, to the King as Supreme? then follows the fourth Prayer, in which upon their promising to this demand, they are said to choose him King, for there is nothing else in this Office, in which the People bear a part, so that having laid these Proceed impartially before you, I need not industriously show that the Kingship is from God through a Succession, and that the Election of the People is no more than a good liking and Profession of their Allegiance. That his Title is from God by Succession, appears further out of the Words after Coronation, Stand and hold henceforth the place which hitherto thou hast held by Paternal Succession, bequeathed to thee upon Hereditary Right by the Authority of Almighty God. So far as to this Office, with which the Parliament-Roll wherein Richard the third is said to be chosen King, does mightily agree, he had as bad a Title as ever wanted a Parliament, or an Army to assist it, either by their interest or strength, and when his counterfeiting was laid aside, he appeared as bad as his Title, or as any Usurper, who was ever helped by either; yet the Parliament had that regard to the Rights of the Crown, that they rather choose to be his Heralds to derive the Succession, though very untowardly, down to his Person, than to be his Promoters by bestowing a Crown, like Popes, out of a Plenitude of Power; the Record is long but it's well it may so commonly be met with in Speed's Chronicle, the considerable things in the main Roll serve to explain the Election of Richard mentioned in the beginning to mean no more, than what the word signifies in the late cited Office, their Words are, We have chosen you in all that in us is. Afterwards follows a Recognition of his Right without their choice, The Right and Title which the King has to the Crown is grounded upon the Laws of God and of Nature, and also upon the ancient Laws and laudable Customs of this said Realm, they then proceed to say, why, seeing the Title is so grounded, they act any thing concerning it; the Reason given is, That the Court of Parliament is of such Authority, and the People of this Land of such a Nature and Disposition as experience teacheth, that Manifestation and Declaration of any truth or right made by a Parliament, maketh above all other things most faith and certain. I have now done what I undertook, and within the assigned Bounds remaining according to the duty of the Younger to the Elder, your most Faithful and  
May 9 82. Affectionate Servant J. A.  
FINIS.