LIBERTY AND NATURE.

By ALGERNON SIDNEY.

(From "Discourses concerning Government.")

[ALGERNON SIDNEY, English patriot, born 1622, was son of Robert earl of Leicester and grandson of Henry earl of Northumberland; grandnephew of Sir Philip Sidney. Early trained in diplomacy and war by his father, and of republican principles, he became a cavalry colonel under Manchester and Cromwell in the Civil War, and held important military governorships, being at one time lieutenant-governor of the cavalry in Ireland and governor of Dublin. An Independent, he was a commissioner to try Charles I., but took no part in the trial; and of committee to regulate the succession. He was on the Council of State, and was of the Parliament ejected in 1653 by Cromwell, whose protectorate he refused to recognize. After Cromwell's death he again became a councilor and foreign ambassador. For seventeen years after the Restoration he remained abroad for safety, finally returning to the south of France and pensioned by Louis XIV. In 1677 his father died, and he obtained leave to return to England, where he engaged in politics, much suspected by the Court. He was active against the Popish Plot, and supported the interest of Monmouth against William of Orange, who was regarded then by many as a danger to English liberty. His “Discourses concerning Government" was written about 1680, maintaining the supreme authority of parliaments and the right of resistance. The Court was watching its chance to make an end of him, further incensed by his dealings with Monmouth; and on occasion of the Rye House Plot he was arrested, tried by Jeffreys and a packed jury, convicted in defiance of every principle of law, and executed December 7, 1683.]

HAVING lately seen a book entitled "Patriarcha," written by Sir Robert Filmer, concerning the universal and undistinguished right of all kings, I thought a time of leisure might be well employed in examining his doctrine, and the questions arising from it; which seem so far to concern all mankind, that, besides their influence upon our future life, they may be said to comprehend all that in this world deserves to be cared for. If he say true, there is but one government in the world that can have anything of justice in it; and those who have hitherto been constituted commonwealths, and taken much pains so to proportion the powers of several magistracies, or so to divide the powers between the magistrates and people, that a well-regulated harmony might be preserved in the whole, were the most unjust and stupid of all men. They were not builders, but overthrowers of governments. Their business was to set up aristocratical, democratical, or mixed governments, in opposition to that monarchy which by the immutable laws of God and nature it imposed upon mankind; or presumptuously to put shackles upon the monarch, who by the

same laws is to be absolute and uncontrolled. They were rebellious and disobedient sons, who rose up against their father; and not only refused to hearken to his voice, but made him bend to their will. In their opinion, such only deserved to be called good men, who endeavored to be good to mankind; or to that country to which they were more particularly related: and inasmuch as that good consists in a felicity of estate, and of person, they highly valued such as had endeavored to make men better, wiser, and happier. This they understood to be the end for which men entered into societies. And though Cicero says, that commonwealths were instituted "to obtain justice," he contradicts them not, but comprehends all in that word; because it is just that whosoever received a power, should employ it for the accomplishment of the ends for which it was given. This work could be performed only by such as excelled in virtue; but lest they should depart from it, no government was thought to be well constituted, unless "the laws prevailed above the commands of men"; and they were accounted no better than brutes who did not prefer such a condition before a subjection to the fluctuating and irregular will of

a man.

NothThey are

If we believe Sir Robert, all this is a silly mistake. ing of this kind was ever left to the choice of men. not to inquire what conduces to their own good. God and nature have put us into a way from which we are not to swerve. We are not to live to "Him," nor to ourselves, but to the master that He has set over us! One government is established over all, and no limits can be set to the power of the person that manages it. This is the "famous PREROGATIVE!" or, as another of the same stamp calls it, the "Royal Charter granted to kings by God"! They all have an equal right to it. Women and children are patriarchs! and the next in blood, without regard to age, sex, or other qualities of the mind or body, are fathers of as many nations as fall under their power! We are not to examine whether he or she be young or old, virtuous or vicious, sober-minded or stark mad; the right and power is the same in all. Whether virtue be exalted or suppressed; whether he that bears the sword be a praise to those that do well, and a terror to those that do evil; or a praise to those that do evil, and a terror to such as do well, it concerns us not! for the king must not lose his right, nor have his power diminished, on any account. I have been sometimes

inclined to wonder, how things of this nature could enter into the head of a human being; or, if no wickedness or folly be so great but some may fall into it, I could not well conceive what devil could set them on publishing it to the world. But these thoughts ceased, when I considered that a people, from all ages lovers of liberty, and desirous to maintain their rights, could never be brought to resign them, unless they were made to believe that in conscience they ought to do it; which could not be, unless they were also persuaded that there was a law set to mankind which none might transgress, and which put the examination of those matters out of their power. This is our author's work. By this it will appear whose throne he seeks to advance, and "whose servant he is," whilst he pretends to serve the king. And that it may be evident he has employed means suitable to the ends proposed for the service of his great master, I hope to show that he has not used one argument that is not false, nor cited one author whom he hath not perverted and abused. Whilst my work is so to lay open these snares that the most simple may not be taken in them, I shall not examine how Sir Robert came to think himself a man fit to undertake so great a work, as to destroy the principles, which from the beginning seem to have been common to all mankind; but, only weighing his positions and arguments will, if there be either truth or strength in them, confess the discovery comes from him that gave us least reason to expect it, and that in spite of the ancients, there is not on earth a block out of which a Mercury may not be made.

The common notions of liberty are not from school-divines, but from

nature.

In the first lines of his book Sir Robert seems bravely to denounce war against mankind; endeavoring to overthrow the principle of liberty in which God created us, and which includes the chief felicities of this life, as well as the greatest helps to those that are the end of our hopes in the other. To this end he absurdly imputes to the school-divines that which was very innocently taken up by them as a common notion, (written in the heart of every man, and denied by none but beasts,) from whence they might prove such points as of themselves were less evident. Thus did Euclid lay down certain axioms, which none could deny that did not renounce common

sense, from whence he drew the proofs of such propositions as were less obvious to the understanding. And they may with as much reason be accused of paganism, who say, that "the whole is greater than a part that "two halves make the whole," .. or, that "a straight line is the shortest way from point to point," as to say, that they who in politics lay such foundations, as have been taken up by schoolmen as undeniable truths, do therefore follow them, or have any regard to their authority. Though the schoolmen were corrupt, they were neither stupid nor unlearned. They could not but see that which all men saw, nor lay more approved foundations, than, that "man is naturally free; that he cannot justly be deprived of that liberty without cause; and, that he doth not resign it, or any part of it, unless it be in consideration of a greater good, which he proposes to himself." But if he unjustly imputes the invention of this to school-divines, he in some measure repairs his fault in saying: "This hath been fostered by all succeeding papists for good divinity. The divines of the reformed churches have entertained it, and the common people everywhere tenderly embrace it." That is to say, all Christian divines, whether reformed or unreformed, approve it, and the people everywhere magnify it, as the height of human felicity. But Filmer, and such as are like him, being neither reformed nor unreformed Christians, can have no title to Christianity; and, inasmuch as they set themselves against that which is the height of human felicity, they declare themselves enemies to all that are concerned in it, that is, to all mankind.

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But, says he, "They do not remember that the desire of liberty was the first cause of the fall of man." And I desire it may also be remembered that the liberty here asserted is not a licentiousness of doing what is pleasing to every one against the command of God; but an exemption from all human laws, to which they have not given their assent. If he would make us believe there was anything of this in Adam's sin, he ought to have proved, that the law which he transgressed was imposed upon him by man, and consequently that there was a man to impose it; for it will easily appear that neither the reformed or unreformed divines, ever placed the felicity of man in an exemption from the laws of God, but in a most perfect conformity to them. Our Saviour taught us "not to fear such as could kill the body, but him that could kill and cast into hell." And

the apostle tells us that we should obey God rather than man. It has ever been observed, that they who most precisely adhere to the laws of God, are least solicitous concerning the commands of men, unless they are well grounded. And those who most delight in the "glorious liberty of the sons of God," do not only subject themselves to Him, but are most regular observers of the just ordinances of man, made by the consent of such as are concerned, according to the will of God.

The error of not observing this may perhaps deserve to be pardoned in a man that has read no books, as proceeding from ignorance; if such as are grossly ignorant can be excused, when they take upon them to write of such matters as require the highest knowledge. But in Sir Robert it is a rank prevarication and fraud to impute to schoolmen and Puritans that which in his first page he acknowledges to be the doctrine of all reformed and unreformed Christian churches, and that he knows to have been the principle in which the Greeks, Italians, Spaniards, Gauls, Germans, Britons, and all other generous nations ever lived, before the name of Christ was known in the world; insomuch that the base effeminate Asiatics and Africans, for being careless of their liberty, or unable to govern themselves, were by Aristotle and other wise men called "slaves by nature," and looked upon as little different from beasts.

This which has its root in common sense, not being to be overthrown by reason, he spares his pains of seeking any; but thinks it enough to render his doctrine plausible to his own party, by joining the Jesuits to Geneva, and coupling Buchanan to Doleman, as both maintaining the same doctrine; though he might as well have joined the Puritans with the Turks, because they all think that one and one makes two. But whoever marks the proceedings of Filmer and his masters, as well as his disciples, will rather believe that they have learned from Rome and the Jesuits to hate Geneva, than that Geneva and Rome can agree in anything further than as they are obliged to submit to the evidence of truth; or that Geneva and Rome can concur in any design or interest that is not common to mankind.

"These men allowed to the people a liberty of deposing their princes! This is a desperate opinion! Bellarmin and Calvin look asquint at it." But why is this a desperate opinion? If disagreements happen between king and people, why