§. 200. If one can doubt this to be truth or reason because it comes from the
obscure hand of a subject, I hope the authority of a king will make it pass
with him. King James, in his speech to the Parliament, 16O3, tells them thus:
"I will ever prefer the weal of the public and of the whole commonwealth,
in making of good laws and constitutions, 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 usurping tyrant is this
— that whereas the proud and ambitious tyrant doth think his kingdom and
people are only ordained for satisfaction of his desires 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 speech to the Parliament, 1609, he hath these
words:
"The king binds himself, by a double oath, to the observation of
the fundamental laws of his kingdom — tacitly, as by being a king, and so
bound to protect, as well the people as the laws of his kingdom; and expressly
by his oath at his coronation; so as every just king, in a settled kingdom, is
bound to observe that paction made to his people, by his laws, in framing his
government agreeable thereunto, according to that paction which God made with
Noah after the deluge: 'Hereafter, seed-time, and harvest, and cold, and heat,
and summer, and winter, and day, and night, shall not cease while the earth
remaineth.' And therefore a king, governing in a settled kingdom, leaves to be
a king, and degenerates into a tyrant, as soon 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 persuade them the contrary are vipers,
pests, both against them and the commonwealth."
Thus, that learned king,
who well understood the notions of things, makes the difference betwixt a king
and a tyrant to consist 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.
