Reader, thou haft here the beginning and end of a difcourfe concerning government; what fate has otherwife difpofed of the papers that should have filled up the middle, and were more than all the reft, it is not worth while to tell thee. Thefe, which remain, I hope are fufficient to eftablish the throne of our great reftorer, our prefent King William; to make good his title, in the confent of the people, which being the only one of all lawful governments, he has more fully and clearly, than any prince in Chriftendom; and to justify to the world the people of England, whofe love of their juft and natural rights, with their refolution to preferve them, faved the nation when it was on the very brink of flavery and ruin. If these papers have that evidence, I flatter myself is to be found in them, there will be no great miss of those which are loft, and my reader may be fatisfied without them: for I imagine, I shall have neither the time, nor inclination to repeat my pains, and fill up the wanting part of my anfwer, by tracing Sir Robert again, through all the windings and obfcurities, which are to be met with in the feveral branches of his wonderful fyftem. The king, and body of the nation, have fince fo throughly confuted his Hypothefis, that I suppose no body hereafter will

have either the confidence to appear against our common fafety, and be again an advocate for flavery; or the weakness to be deceived with contradictions dreffed up in a popular ftile, and well-turned periods: for if any one will be at the pains, himself, in those parts, which are here untouched, to ftrip Sir Robert's difcourfes of the flourish of doubtful expreffions, and endeavour to reduce his words to direct, pofitive, intelligible propofitions, and then compare them one with another, he will quickly be satisfied, there was never fo much glib nonfenfe put together in well-founding English. If he think it not worth while to examine his works all thro', let him make an experiment in that part, where he treats of ufurpation; and let him try, whether he can, with all his skill, make Sir Robert intelligible, and consistent with himself, or common fenfe. I should not fpeak fo plainly of a gentleman, long fince past answering, had not the pulpit, of late years, publicly owned his doctrine, and made it the current divinity of the times. It is neceffary those men, who taking on them to be teachers, have fo dangerously misled others, fhould be openly fhewed of what authority this their Patriarch is, whom they have fo blindly followed, that fo they may either retract what upon fo ill grounds they have vented, and cannot be maintained; or elfe justify those principles which they preached up for gofpel; though they had no better an author

author than an English courtier: for I should not have writ againft Sir Robert, or taken the pains to fhew his mistakes, inconsistencies, and want of (what he so much boasts of, and pretends wholly to build on) scripture-proofs, were there not men amongst us, who, by crying up his books, and efpoufing his doctrine, fave me from the reproach of writing against a dead adverfary. They have been fo zealous in this point, that, if I have done him any wrong, I cannot hope they should spare me. I wish, where they have done the truth and the public wrong, they would be as ready to redress it, and allow its juft weight to this reflection, viz. that there cannot be done a greater mischief to prince and people, than the propagating wrong notions concerning government; that fo at last all times might not have reason to complain of the Drum Ecclefiaftic. If any one, concerned really for truth, undertake the confutation of my Hypothefis, I promise him either to recant my miftake, upon fair conviction; or to answer his difficulties. But he must remember two things,

First, That cavilling here and there, at fome expreffion, or little incident of my difcourse, is not an answer to my book.

Secondly, That I thall not take railing for arguments, nor think either of thefe worth my notice, though I fhall always look on myself as bound to give fatisfacton to any one, who fhall appear to be confcientiously

fcrupulous

fcrupulous in the point, and shall shew any juft grounds for his fcruples.

I have nothing more, but to advertise the reader, that Obfervations ftands for Obfervations on Hobbs, Milton, &c. and that a bare quotation of pages always means pages of his Patriarcha, Edition 1680.

OF GOVERNMENT

F

BOOK I

Chap. I. §. 1. Slavery is fo vile and miserable an eftate of man, and fo directly oppofite to the generous temper and courage of our nation; that it is hardly to be conceived, that an Englishman, much lefs a gentleman, should plead for it. And truly I should have taken Sir Robert Filmer's Patriarcha, as any other treatise, which would perfuade all men, that they are flaves, and ought to be fo, for fuch another exercife of wit, as was his who writ the encomium of Nero; rather than for a ferious difcourfe meant in earnest, had not the gravity of the title and epiftle, the picture in the front of the book, and the applause that followed it, required me to believe, that the author

B