A treatise of civil policy

Assert. 1. An absolute and unlimited Monarchy is not only not¹ the best form of Government, but it is the worst, and this is against our Petty Prelate, and all Royalists. My reasons be these, 1. Because it is an unlawful Ordinance, and God never ordained it; and I cannot ascribe the superlative degree to any thing, of which I deny the positive: Absolute government in a sinful and peccable man is a wicked government, and not a power from God, for God never gave a power to sin. Plenitudo potestatis ad malum & injuriam non extenditur. Sozenus Junior cons. 65. in causa occurrenti, l. 2. Ferdinand. Loazes in suo cons. pro March. de Velez. pag. 54. n. 65. And so that learned Senator Ferdin. Vasquez. pag. 1. lib. 1. cap. 5. n. 17. 2. It was better for the State that Epaminondas could not² sleep, then that he could sleep, when the people was dancing, because, said he, I wake that you may have leave to sleep and be secure; for he was upon deep cogitations, how to do good to the Common-wealth, when the people were upon their pleasures. Because all Kings since the fall of the Father-King Adam, are inclined to sin and injustice, and so had need to be guided by a Law, even because they are Kings, so they remain men. Omnipotency in one that can sin, is a cursed power. With reason all our Divines say, the state of saving grace in the second Adam, where there is non posse deficere, they cannot fall away from God, is better then the³ state of the first Adam, where there was posse non deficere, a power not to fall away; and that our free-will is better in our country in Heaven, where we cannot sin, then in the way to our country on earth, where we have a power to sin, and so Gods people is in a better case, Hos. 2. 6, 7. Where her power to overtake her lovers is closed up with an hedge of thorns that she cannot find her paths; then the condition of Ephraim, of whom God saith, Hos. 4. 17. Ephraim is joined to Idols, let him alone. So cannot that be a good government when the supreme power is in a sinful man, as inclinable to injustice by nature as any man, and more inclinable to injustice by the condition of his place then any: and yet by office he is one that can do no injustice against his subjects; he is a King, and so may destroy Uriah, kill his subjects, but cannot sin; and this is to flattering Royalists the best government in the world.