Milton now subjects the meanness and tergiversation of the presbyterians to an unsparing exposure, showing that they reversed their policy from purely selfish motives; that they were tainted at heart with the same spiritual despotism under which they had themselves suffered; and that they were seeking to profit by a political transition, in order to establish themselves in the place vacated by the frustrated faction of prelacy. He then addresses himself to the ethical part of his subject, in the following passage:-" But who in particular is a tyrant, cannot be determined in a general discourse, otherwise than by supposition; his particular charge, and the sufficient proof of it, must determine that: which I leave to magistrates, at least to the uprighter sort of them, and of the people, though in number less by many, in whom faction least hath prevailed above the law of nature and right reason, to judge as they find cause. But this I dare own as part of my faith, that if such a one there be, by whose commission whole massacres have been committed on his faithful subjects, his provinces offered to pawn or alienation, as the hire of those whom he had solicited to come in and destroy whole cities and countries; be he king, or tyrant, or emperor, the sword of justice is above him; in whose hand soever is found sufficient power to avenge the effusion and so great a deluge of innocent blood. For if all human power to execute, not accidentally, but intendedly, the wrath of God upon evil-doers, without exception, be of God; then that power, whether ordinary, or, if that fail, extraordinary, so executing that intent of God, is lawful, preachers from the pulpit.' Dr. South relates that he had it from the mouth of Axtell the regicide, that he, with many more, went into that execrable war with such a controlling horror upon their spirits from those public sermons, especially of Brooks and Calamy, that they verily believed they should have been accursed of God for ever if they had not acted their part in the dismal tragedy, and heartily done the devil's work.'-(Sermons, i. 513.) He adds, that it was the pulpit that supplied the field with swordsmen, and the parliament. house with incendiaries.''

and not to be resisted. But to unfold more at large this whole question, though with all expedient brevity, I shall here set down, from first beginning, the original of kings; how and wherefore exalted to that dignity above their brethren; and from thence shall prove, that, turning to tyranny, they may be as lawfully deposed and punished, as they were at first elected: this I shall do by authorities and reasons, not learnt in corners among schisms and heresies, as our doubling divines are ready to calumniate, but fetched out of the midst of choicest and most authentic learning, and no prohibited authors; nor many heathen, but Mosaical, Christian, orthodoxal, and, which must needs be more convincing to our adversaries, presbyterial.”*

In pursuance of this purpose, he first presents a brief but philosophical history of political constitutions, and deduces from it the following conclusions:-First, that the power of kings and magistrates is only derivative-transferred and committed to them by the people, in trust for the common good of the entire community, in whom the power yet remains fundamentally, and from whom it cannot be alienated without a violation of their natural birthright; and consequently that such titles as sovereign lord, natural lord, and the like, are "either arrogancies or flatteries." Secondly, "that to say, as is usual, the king hath as good right to his crown and dignity as any man to his inheritance, is to make the subject no better than the king's slave, his chattel, or his possession that may be bought and sold: and doubtless, if hereditary title were sufficiently inquired, the best foundation of it would be found but either in courtesy or convenience. But suppose it to be of right hereditary, what can be more just and legal, if a subject for certain crimes be to forfeit by law from himself and posterity all his inheritance to the king, than that a king, for crimes proportional, should forfeit all his title and inheritance to the people? Unless the people must be thought created all * Prose Works, vol. ii., pp. 7, 8.

for him, he not for them, and they all in one body inferior to him single; which were a kind of treason against the dignity of mankind to affirm. Thirdly, it follows, that to say kings are accountable to none but God, is the overturning of all law and government. For if they may refuse to give account, then all covenants made with them at coronation, all oaths are in vain, and mere mockeries; all laws which they swear to keep, made to no purpose: for if the king fear not God, (as how many of them do not,) we hold then our lives and estates by the tenure of his mere grace and mercy, as from a god, not a mortal magistrate; a position that none but court parasites or men besotted would maintain!"*

This position Milton fortifies by references to ancient history, both sacred and profane, and adds:- It follows, lastly, that since the king or magistrate holds his authority of the people, both originally and naturally for their good, in the first place, and not his own, then may the people, as oft as they shall judge it for the best, either choose him or reject him, retain him or depose him, though no tyrant, merely by the liberty and right of freeborn men to be governed as seems to them best." This he supports by numerous passages both from the Old and New Testaments.

He next shows that the sacred writers, in prescribing the duty of civil subordination, at the same time define the power to which such obedience is due, namely, those who are a terror only to evil-doers, and a protection and encouragement to those that do well; and adds, "If such only be mentioned here as powers to be obeyed, and our submission to them only required, then doubtless those powers that do the contrary are no powers ordained of God; and by consequence no obligation laid upon us to obey, or not to resist them. And it may be well observed, that both these apostles, whenever they give this precept, express it in terms not concrete, but abstract, as logicians are wont to * Prose Works, vol. ii., pp. 12, 13.

speak; that is, they mention the ordinance, the power, the authority, before the persons that execute it; and what that power is, lest we should be deceived, they describe exactly. So that if the power be not such, or the person execute not such power, neither the one nor the other is of God, but of the devil, and by consequence to be resisted." After fencing this position, as before, with the authority of revelation, he concludes:—“ We may from hence with more ease and force of argument determine what a tyrant is, and what the people may do against him. A tyrant, whether by wrong or by right coming to the crown, is he who, regarding neither law nor the common good, reigns only for himself and his faction: thus St. Basil, among others, defines him. And because his power is great, his will boundless and exorbitant, the fulfilling whereof is for the most part accompanied with innumerable wrongs and oppressions of the peoplemurders, massacres, rapes, adulteries, desolation, and subversion of cities and whole provinces-look how great a good and happiness a just king is, so great a mischief is a tyrant; as he the public father of his country, so this the common enemy. Against whom what the people lawfully may do, as against a common pest and destroyer of mankind, I suppose no man of clear judgment need go further to be guided than by the very principles of nature in him."*

Milton next shows that there is no such peculiarity in the relation subsisting between a monarch and his subjects, as removes it from the operation of those great moral principles which apply to all the other relations of mankind. "Who knows not," he says, "that there is a mutual bond of amity and brotherhood between man and man over all the world? neither is it the English sea that can sever us from that duty and relation: a straiter bond yet there is between fellow-subjects, neighbours, and friends. But when any of these do one to another so as hostility could do no worse, what doth the law decree less against them, than * Prose Works, vol. ii., pp. 17, 18.

open enemies and invaders ? or if the law be not present or too weak, what doth it warrant us to less than single defence or civil war? and from that time forward the law of civil defensive war differs nothing from the law of foreign hostility. Nor is it distance of place that makes enmity, but enmity that makes distance. He, therefore, that keeps peace with me, near or remote, of whatsoever nation, is to me, as far as all civil and human offices, an Englishman and a neighbour but if an Englishman, forgetting all laws, human, civil, and religious, offend against life and liberty, to him offended, and to the law in his behalf, though born in the same womb, he is no better than a Turk, a Saracen, heathen."

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This position Milton proceeds to fortify by the Old Testament examples of Ehud, Samuel, and David; and then, passing from example to precept, descends to the principles of the New Testament dispensation. He comments on the contrast established between the "princes of the Gentiles and his servants; and emphatically notices that he speaks of them as 66 they that seem to rule" (in the common version, "they which are accounted to rule"), "either slighting or accounting them no lawful rulers;" adding, “and although he himself were the meekest, and came on earth to be so, yet to a tyrant we hear him not vouchsafe an humble word; but, Tell that fox,' Luke xiii. 32. So far we ought to be from thinking that Christ and his gospel should be made a sanctuary from justice for tyrants, to whom his law before never gave such protection."

Pursuing the course of this argument, from the times of Christ through the history of nominally Christian states, he thus applies it to our own country:-" Gildas, the most ancient of all our historians, speaking of those times wherein the Roman empire decaying, quitted and relinquished what right they had by conquest to this island, and resigned it all into the people's hands, testifies that the people thus

* Prose Works, vol. ii., pp. 17, 18.