Reader, thou hast here the beginning and end of a discourse concerning
government; what fate has otherwise disposed of the papers that should have
filled up the middle, and were more than all the rest, it is not worth while to
tell thee. These, which remain, I hope are sufficient to establish the throne
of our great restorer, our present King William; to make good his title, in the
consent of the people, which being the only one of all lawful governments, he
has more fully and clearly, than any prince in Christendom; and to justify to
the world the people of England, whose love of their just and natural rights,
with their resolution to preserve them, saved the nation when it was on the
very brink of slavery 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
lost, and my reader may be satisfied 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 answer, by tracing Sir Robert again, through all the windings and
obscurities, which are to be met with in the several branches of his wonderful
system. The king, and body of the nation, have since so thoroughly confuted his
Hypothesis, that I suppose no body hereafter will have either the confidence to
appear against our common safety, and be again an advocate for slavery; or the
weakness to be deceived with contradictions dressed up in a popular stile, and
well-turned periods: for if any one will be at the pains, himself, in those
parts, which are here untouched, to strip Sir Robert’s discourses of the
flourish of doubtful expressions, and endeavour to reduce his words to direct,
positive, intelligible propositions, and then compare them one with another, he
will quickly be satisfied, there was never so much glib nonsense put together
in well-sounding 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
usurpation; and let him try, whether he can, with all his skill, make Sir
Robert intelligible, and consistent with himself, or common sense. I should not
speak so plainly of a gentleman, long since past answering, had not the pulpit,
of late years, publicly owned his doctrine, and made it the current divinity of
the times. It is necessary those men, who taking on them to be teachers, have
so dangerously misled others, should be openly shewed of what authority this
their Patriarch is, whom they have so blindly followed, that so they may either
retract what upon so ill grounds they have vented, and cannot be maintained; or
else justify those principles which they preached up for gospel; though they
had no better an author than an English courtier: for I should not have writ
against Sir Robert, or taken the pains to shew 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 espousing his doctrine, save me from the reproach of writing against a dead
adversary. They have been so 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
just 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 so at last all times might not have reason to complain of the
Drum Ecclesiastic. If any one, concerned really for truth, undertake the
confutation of my Hypothesis, I promise him either to recant my mistake, upon
fair conviction; or to answer his difficulties. But he must remember two
things.
First, That cavilling here and there, at some expression, or little incident of
my discourse, is not an answer to my book.
Secondly, That I shall not take railing for arguments, nor think either of
these worth my notice, though I shall always look on myself as bound to give
satisfaction to any one, who shall appear to be conscientiously scrupulous in
the point, and shall shew any just grounds for his scruples.
I have nothing more, but to advertise the reader, that Observations stands for
Observations on Hobbs, Milton, &c. and that a bare quotation of pages
always means pages of his Patriarcha, Edition 1680.
