FIRST fra:me of goverxmext. 17 



end. For, if it does not directly remove the cause, it cruslies the effects 

 of evil, and is as such, (though a lower, yet) an emanation of the same 

 Divine Power, that is both author and object of pure religion; the dif- 

 ference lying here, that the one is more free and mental, the other more 

 corporal and compulsive in its operations: but that is only to evil doers; 

 government itself being otherwise as capable of kindness, goodness and 

 charity, as a more private society. They weakly err, that think there is 

 no other use of government, than correction, which is the coarsest part 

 of it: daily experience tells us, that the care and regulation of many other 

 affairs, more soft, and daily necessary, make up much of the greatest part 

 of government ; and which must have followed the peopling of the world, 

 had Adam never fell, and will continue among men, on earth, under the 

 highest attainments they may arrive at, by the coming of the blessed 

 Second Adaon, the Lord from heaven. Thus much of government in 

 general, as to its rise and end. 



For particular /Va?)ie5 and models, it will become me to say little; and 

 comparatively I will say nothing. My reasons are : 



First. That the age is too nice and difficult for it ; there being nothing 

 the wits of men are more busy and divided upon. It is true, they seem 

 to agree to the end, to wit, happiness; but, in the means, they differ, as 

 to divine, so to this human felicity ; and the cause is much the same, not 

 always want of light and knowledge, but want of using them rightly. 

 Men side with their passions against their reason, and their sinister inter- 

 ests have so strong a bias upon their minds, that they lean to them 

 against the good of the things they know. 



Secondly. I do not find a model in the world, that time, place, and 

 some singular emergences have not necessarily altered; nor is it easy to 

 frame a civil government, that shall serve all places alike. 



Thirdly. I know what is said by the several admirers of monarchy, 

 aristocracy and democracy, which are the rule of one, a few, and many, 

 and are the three common ideas of government, when men discourse on 

 the subject. But I chuse to solve the controversy with this small dis- 

 tinction, and it belongs to all three: Any government is free to the i^ople 

 under it (whatever be the frame) tuliere the laws rule, and the x>eople are a 

 party to those laws, and more than this is tyranny, oligarchy, or confusion. 



But, lastly, when all is said, there is hardly one frame of government 

 in the world so ill designed by its first founders, that, in good hands, 

 would not do well enough; and story tells us, the best, in ill ones, can 

 do nothing that is great or good; witness the Jeicish and Boman states. 

 Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them ; and as 

 governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined 

 too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men, than men upon 

 governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if 

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