Monarchy

hoping thereby the people might forget Monarchy, and, understanding their true interest in the election of successive Parliaments, may have the government settled upon a true basis, without hazard to this glorious cause, or necessitating to keep up armies for the defence of the same.

be it therefore enacted and ordained by this present Parliament, and by authority of the same, that the office of a King in this nation shall not henceforth reside in or be exercised by any one single person;

Whereas Charles Stuart, late King of England, Ireland, and the territories and dominions thereunto belonging, hath by authority derived from Parliament been and is hereby declared to be justly condemned, adjudged to die, and put to death, for many treasons, murders, and other heinous offences committed by him, by which judgment he stood, and is hereby declared to be attainted of high treason, wher …

Of all men he is the most inconsistent;

One could describe nothing better than the rule of the one best man;

And yet an absolute ruler ought to be free of envy, having all good things;

But the greatest difference is this:

Furthermore, the former are dilatory in action, for they spend most of their time over their private concerns;

And, if there is need to speak also of things old in story, it is said that even the gods are ruled by Zeus as king.

I shall now proceed to speak about the polity which I took for my subject and about our ancestors, going back to the early times when neither the word oligarchy nor the word democracy was as yet in our speech, but when monarchies governed both the barbaric races and all the Hellenic states.

oligarchy, democracy, and monarchy, and that of the people who live under these all who are wont to place in charge of their offices and of their affairs in general those of their fellow-citizens who are most competent and who will most ably and justly direct the affairs of state—all these, I hold, will govern well, under any type of polity, both in their domestic relations and in their relations …

For they administered both the affairs of the state and their own affairs as righteously and honorably as was to be expected of men who were descended from the gods, who were the first to found a city and to make use of laws, who at all times had practised reverence in relation to the gods and justice in relation to mankind, who were neither of mixed origin nor invaders of a foreign territory but …

We agree that monarchy is one of the forms of government, do we not?

People nowadays are likely to take into consideration enforced subjection and voluntary obedience, poverty and wealth, law and lawlessness as they occur in governments, and so they divide two of the forms we mentioned, giving to the two aspects of monarchy the two names tyranny and royalty.

But I say this of necessity, when they contend that the same is Father and Son and Spirit, flattering the monarchy at the expense of the oikonomia:

For the monarchy so remains in its own condition, though the trinity be brought in, that it must even be restored to the Father by the Son, seeing that the Apostle writes of the final end:

So it is either Father or Son, and the same is not both day and night, nor the same both Father and Son, so that both should be one and each be the other — which these most empty-headed Monarchians want.

For Monarchy in every instance is the Popery of Government.

—The remains of Monarchical tyranny in the person of the King.

There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of Monarchy;