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CHA P. XVII.
of USURPATION.

5. 197. A

S conqueft may be called a foreign ufurpation, fo ufurpation is a kind of domestic conqueft, with this difference, that an ufurper can never have right on his fide, it being no ufurpation, but where one is got into the poffeffion of what another has right to. This, fo far as it is ufurpation, is a change only of persons, but not of the forms and rules of the govern, ment: for if the ufurper extend his power beyond what of right belonged to the lawful princes, or governors of the commonwealth, it is tyranny added to ufurpation.

§. 198. In all lawful governments, the defignation of the perfons, who are to bear rule, is as natural and neceffary a part as the form of the government itself, and is that which had its eftablishment originally from the people; the anarchy being much alike, to have no form of government at all; or to agree, that it fhall be monarchical, but to appoint no way to defign the perfon that shall have the power, and be the monarch. Hence all commonwealths, with the form of government established, have rules also of appointing those who are to have any fhare in the public authority, and fettled methods of conveying the right to them:

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for the anarchy is much alike, to have no form of government at all; or to agree that it fhall be monarchical, but to appoint no way to know or defign the perfon that shall have the power, and be the monarch. Whoever gets into the exercife of any part of the power, by other ways than what the laws of the community have preferibed, hath no right to be obeyed, though the form of the commonwealth be ftill preferved; fince he is not the perfon the laws have appointed, and confequently not the perfon the people have confented to. Nor can fuch an ufurper, or any deriving from him, ever have a title, till the people are both at liberty to confent, and have actually confented to allow, and confirm in him the power he hath till then ufurped.

CHAP. XVIII.

Öƒ TYRA N N r.

§. 199. A

S ufurpation is the exercife of power, which another hath a right to fo tyranny is the exercife of power beyond right, which no body can have a right to. And this is making ufe of the power any one has in his hands, not for the good of thofe who are under it, but for his own, private separate advantage. When the governor, however intitled, makes not the law, but his will, the rule; and his commands

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mands and actions are not directed to the prefervation of the properties of his people, but the fatisfaction of his own ambition, revenge, covetoufnefs, or any other irregular paffion.

§. 200. If one can doubt this to be truth, or reafon, because it comes from the obfcure hand of a fubject, I hope the authority of a king will make it pafs with him. King James the firft, in his fpeech to the parliament, 1603, tells them thus, I will ever prefer the weal of the public, and of the whole commonwealth, in making of good laws and conftitutions, to any particular and private ends of mine; thinking ever the wealth and weal of the commonwealth to be my greatest weal and worldly felicity; a point wherein a lawful king doth directly differ from a tyrant: for I do acknowledge, that the Special and greatest point of difference that is between a rightful king and an ufurping tyrant, is this, that whereas the proud and ambitious tyrant doth think his kingdom and people are only ordained for fatisfaction of his defires and unreasonable appetites, the righteous and just king doth by the contrary acknowledge himself to be ordained for the procuring of the wealth and property of his people. And again, in his fpeech to the parliament, 1609, he hath thefe words, The king binds bimfelf by a double oath, to the obfervation of the fundamental laws of his kingdom; tacitly, as by being a king, and fo bound to protect as

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well the people, as the laws of his kingdom; and exprefly, by his oath at his coronation; fo as every just king, in a fettled kingdom, is bound to obferve that paction made to his people, by bis laws, in framing his government agreeable thereunto, according to that paction which God made with Noah after the deluge. Hereafter, feed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and fummer and winter, and day and night, Shall not ceafe while the earth remaineth. And therefore a king governing in a fettled kingdom, leaves to be a king, and degenerates into a tyrant, as foon as he leaves off to rule according to his laws. And a little after, Therefore all kings that are not tyrants, or perjured, will be glad to bound themselves within the limits of their laws; and they that perfuade them the contrary, are vipers, and pests both against them and the commonwealth. Thus that

learned king, who well understood the notion of things, makes the difference betwixt a king and a tyrant to confift only in this, that one makes the laws the bounds of his power, and the good of the public, the end of his government; the other makes all give way to his own will and appetite.

§. 201. It is a mistake, to think this fault is proper only to monarchies; other forms of government are liable to it, as well as that for wherever the power, that is put in any hands for the government of the people, and the prefervation of their properties,

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perties, is applied to other ends, and made use of to impoverish, harafs, or fubdue them to the arbitrary and irregular commands of thofe that have it; there it presently becomes tyranny, whether thofe that thus ufe it are one or many. Thus we read of the thirty tyrants at Athens, as well as one at Syracufe; and the intolerable dominion of the Decemviri at Rome was nothing better.

§. 202. Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be tranfgreffed to another's harm; and whofoever in authority exceeds the power given him by the law, and makes use of the force he has under his command, to com-. pafs that upon the fubject, which the law allows not, ceases in that to be a magistrate; and, acting without authority, may be oppofed, as any other man, who by force invades the right of another. This is acknowledged in fubordinate magiftrates. He that hath authority to feize my perfon in the ftreet, may be oppofed as a thief and a robber, if he endeavours to break into my house to execute a writ, notwithstanding that I know he has fuch a warrant, and fuch a legal authority, as will impower him to arreft me abroad. And why this should not hold in the highest, as well as in the moft inferior magiftrate, I would gladly be informed. Is it reafonable, that the eldest brother, because he has the greatest part of his father's eftate, fhould thereby

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