Common Sense | Page 9

the high encomium given of David takes no notice of him
OFFICIALLY AS A KING, but only as a MAN after God's own heart.
NEVERTHELESS THE PEOPLE REFUSED TO OBEY THE VOICE
OF SAMUEL, AND THEY SAID, NAY, BUT WE WILL HAVE A
KING OVER US, THAT WE MAY BE LIKE ALL THE NATIONS,
AND THAT OUR KING MAY JUDGE US, AND GO OUT BEFORE
US, AND FIGHT OUR BATTLES. Samuel continued to reason with
them, but to no purpose; he set before them their ingratitude, but all
would not avail; and seeing them fully bent on their folly, he cried out,
I WILL CALL UNTO THE LORD, AND HE SHALL SEND
THUNDER AND RAIN (which then was a punishment, being in the
time of wheat harvest) THAT YE MAY PERCEIVE AND SEE THAT
YOUR WICKEDNESS IS GREAT WHICH YE HAVE DONE IN
THE SIGHT OF THE LORD, IN ASKING YOU A KING. SO
SAMUEL CALLED UNTO THE LORD, AND THE LORD SENT
THUNDER AND RAIN THAT DAY, AND ALL THE PEOPLE
GREATLY FEARED THE LORD AND SAMUEL. AND ALL THE
PEOPLE SAID UNTO SAMUEL, PRAY FOR THY SERVANTS
UNTO THE LORD THY GOD THAT WE DIE NOT, FOR WE
HAVE ADDED UNTO OUR SINS THIS EVIL, TO ASK A KING.
These portions of scripture are direct and positive. They admit of no
equivocal construction. That the Almighty hath here entered his protest
against monarchical government is true, or the scripture is false. And a
man hath good reason to believe that there is as much of king-craft, as
priest-craft, in withholding the scripture from the public in Popish
countries. For monarchy in every instance is the Popery of government.
To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession;
and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the
second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and an imposition on
posterity. For all men being originally equals, no ONE by BIRTH

could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to
all others for ever, and though himself might deserve SOME decent
degree of honors of his cotemporaries, yet his descendants might be far
too unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest NATURAL proofs
of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it,
otherwise, she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving
mankind an ASS FOR A LION.
Secondly, as no man at first could possess any other public honors than
were bestowed upon him, so the givers of those honors could have no
power to give away the right of posterity, and though they might say
"We choose you for OUR head," they could not, without manifest
injustice to their children, say "that your children and your children's
children shall reign over OURS for ever." Because such an unwise,
unjust, unnatural compact might (perhaps) in the next succession put
them under the government of a rogue or a fool. Most wise men, in
their private sentiments, have ever treated hereditary right with
contempt; yet it is one of those evils, which when once established is
not easily removed; many submit from fear, others from superstition,
and the more powerful part shares with the king the plunder of the rest.
This is supposing the present race of kings in the world to have had an
honorable origin; whereas it is more than probable, that could we take
off the dark covering of antiquity, and trace them to their first rise, that
we should find the first of them nothing better than the principal ruffian
of some restless gang, whose savage manners or pre-eminence in
subtility obtained him the title of chief among plunderers; and who by
increasing in power, and extending his depredations, over-awed the
quiet and defenceless to purchase their safety by frequent contributions.
Yet his electors could have no idea of giving hereditary right to his
descendants, because such a perpetual exclusion of themselves was
incompatible with the free and unrestrained principles they professed to
live by. Wherefore, hereditary succession in the early ages of monarchy
could not take place as a matter of claim, but as something casual or
complimental; but as few or no records were extant in those days, and
traditionary history stuffed with fables, it was very easy, after the lapse
of a few generations, to trump up some superstitious tale, conveniently

timed, Mahomet like, to cram hereditary right down the throats of the
vulgar. Perhaps the disorders which threatened, or seemed to threaten,
on the decease of a leader and the choice of a new one (for elections
among ruffians could not be very orderly) induced many at first to
favor hereditary pretensions; by which means it happened, as it hath
happened since, that