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Page 8
To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession;
and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves,
so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult
and an imposition on posterity. For all men being originally equals,
no ONE by BIRTH could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual
preference to all others for ever, and though himself might deserve SOME
decent degree of honours of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might
be far too unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest NATURAL proofs
of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it,
otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by
giving mankind an ASS FOR A LION.
Secondly, as no man at first could possess any other public honours
than were bestowed upon him, so the givers of those honours could have
no power to give away the right of posterity. And though they might
say, "We choose you for OUR head," they could not, without manifest
injustice to their children, say, "that your children and your
children's children shall reign over OURS for ever." Because such
an unwise, unjust, unnatural compact might (perhaps) in the next
succession put them under the government of a rogue or a fool.
Most wise men, in their private sentiments, have ever treated
hereditary right with contempt; yet it is one of those evils,
which when once established is not easily removed;
many submit from fear, others from superstition,
and the more powerful part shares with the king the plunder of the rest.
This is supposing the present race of kings in the world to have had an
honourable origin; whereas it is more than probable, that could we take
off the dark covering of antiquities, and trace them to their first rise,
that we should find the first of them nothing better than the
principal ruffian of some restless gang, whose savage manners
or preeminence in subtlety obtained the title of chief among plunderers;
and who by increasing in power, and extending his depredations,
overawed the quiet and defenseless to purchase their safety
by frequent contributions. Yet his electors could have no idea
of giving hereditary right to his descendants, because such a perpetual
exclusion of themselves was incompatible with the free and unrestrained
principles they professed to live by. Wherefore, hereditary succession
in the early ages of monarchy could not take place as a matter of claim,
but as something casual or complemental; but as few or no records were
extant in those days, and traditional history stuffed with fables,
it was very easy, after the lapse of a few generations, to trump up some
superstitious tale, conveniently timed, Mahomet like, to cram hereditary
right down the throats of the vulgar. Perhaps the disorders which threatened,
or seemed to threaten, on the decease of a leader and the choice of a new one
(for elections among ruffians could not be very orderly) induced many
at first to favour hereditary pretensions; by which means it happened, as it
hath happened since, that what at first was submitted to as a convenience,
was afterwards claimed as a right.
England, since the conquest, hath known some few good monarchs,
but groaned beneath a much larger number of bad ones; yet no man in his
senses can say that their claim under William the Conqueror is a very
honourable one. A French bastard landing with an armed banditti, and
establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives,
is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original. It certainly hath no
divinity in it. However, it is needless to spend much time in exposing
the folly of hereditary right; if there are any so weak as to believe it,
let them promiscuously worship the ass and lion, and welcome.
I shall neither copy their humility, nor disturb their devotion.
Yet I should be glad to ask how they suppose kings came at first? The
question admits but of three answers, viz. either by lot, by election,
or by usurpation. If the first king was taken by lot, it establishes a
precedent for the next, which excludes hereditary succession. Saul was
by lot, yet the succession was not hereditary, neither does it appear
from that transaction there was any intention it ever should be. If the
first king of any country was by election, that likewise establishes a
precedent for the next; for to say, that the RIGHT of all future
generations is taken away, by the act of the first electors,
in their choice not only of a king, but of a family of kings for ever,
hath no parallel in or out of scripture but the doctrine of original sin,
which supposes the free will of all men lost in Adam;
and from such comparison, and it will admit of no other,
hereditary succession can derive no glory. For as in Adam all sinned,
and as in the first electors all men obeyed; as in the one all mankind
were subjected to Satan, and in the other to Sovereignty; as our innocence
was lost in the first, and our authority in the last; and as both disable
us from reassuming some former state and privilege, it unanswerably
follows that original sin and hereditary succession are parallels.
Dishonourable rank! Inglorious connection! Yet the most subtle sophist
cannot produce a juster simile.
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