_Matchiavel_ Condemn’d.
No Man ever had a Worse Name in the World for a Promoter of Seditious
and Atheistical Politicks, then _Nicholas Matchiavel the Florentine_:
Insomuch, that he was Banished not only the Conversation, but the very
Libraries of all Learned Men, upon pain of being Burnt for his Pestilent
Doctrins, wherever he should be taken; and a Severe Punishment inflicted
over and above upon any Man that should presume to Comfort, Abet or
Receive him. It was his Fortune after this, to be found upon a Search,
in the Corner of a Friends Study, and to be made a prisoner; and then
in course to Undergo a Sentence according to the Decree. But all these
Formalities notwithstanding, he was yet by the Extraordinary Favour of
his Judges, upon his Humble Petition for a Hearing, admitted to his
Defence, which was to this following Effect. He made no Difficulty of
Confessing the Fact, and of Acknowledging himself the Publisher of
Pernicious and Execrable Positions; but withal, says he, no Mortal upon
the Face of the Earth, has a Greater Abhorrence for those Desperate
Maxims then my self. As to the Inventing of those Tenets, he made
Protestation, that he had no Hand in’t it all, and that the Political
Part of his Discourses, was only Copy’d out of the General Practices of
Christian Princes; and that if they pleas’d, he was ready to Instance in
the very Precedents. After this, he appeal’d to the Justice of the Bench,
whether it were not very hard to make it Mortal, for One Man to write
the Naked History of a thing done; and at the same time to allow the
very _Doing_ of it to be Praise-worthy in Another. This Plea had brought
him off, but for a fresh Accusation that was Immediately started against
him; which was, that he was taken in the Dark One Night among a Flock of
Sheep, putting _Dogs Teeth_ into their Mouths, which must inevitably be
the Ruin of the Shepherd; for it could never be Expected that the whole
Flock would ever submit to the Government of _One_, if it had either
Teeth, Wit or Horns. Upon the Proof of this Charge, he was Deliver’d up
immediately to Justice, and the Law Executed upon him.
The MORAL.
_The Secrets of Government ought not to be Touched with Unwash’d
Hands, and Expos’d to the Multitude; for upon Granting the People a
Priviledge of Debating the Prerogatives of Sovereign Power, they will
Infer Naturally enough a Right, and a Title to the Controlling and the
Over-ruling of it._