But though a Church of England man thinks every species of government equally lawful, he does not think them equally expedient; or for every country indifferently.  There may be something in the climate, naturally disposing men toward one sort of obedience, as is manifest all over Asia, where we never read of any commonwealth, except some small ones on the western coasts established by the Greeks.  There may be a great deal in the situation of a country, and in the present genius of the people.  It hath been observed, that the temperate climates usually run into moderate governments, and the extremes into despotic power.  ’Tis a remark of Hobbes, that the youth of England are corrupted in their principles of government, by reading the authors of Greece and Rome who writ under commonwealths.  But it might have been more fairly offered for the honour of liberty, that while the rest of the known world was overrun with the arbitrary government of single persons; arts and sciences took their rise, and flourished only in those few small territories were the people were free.  And though learning may continue after liberty is lost, as it did in Rome, for a while, upon the foundations laid under the commonwealth, and the particular patronage of some emperors; yet it hardly ever began under a tyranny in any nation:  Because slavery is of all things the greatest clog and obstacle to speculation.  And indeed, arbitrary power is but the first natural step from anarchy or the savage life; the adjusting of power and freedom being an effect and consequence of maturer thinking:  And this is nowhere so duly regulated as in a limited monarchy:  Because I believe it may pass for a maxim in state, that the administration cannot be placed in too few hands, nor the legislature in too many.  Now in this material point, the constitution of the English government far exceeds all others at this time on the earth, to which the present establishment of the Church doth so happily agree, that I think, whoever is an enemy to either, must of necessity be so to both.

He thinks, as our monarchy is constituted, a hereditary right is much to be preferred before election.  Because the government here, especially by some late amendments, is so regularly disposed in all its parts, that it almost executes itself.  And therefore upon the death of a prince among us, the administration goes on without any rub or interruption.  For the same reasons we have little to apprehend from the weakness or fury of our monarchs, who have such wise councils to guide the first, and laws to restrain the other.  And therefore this hereditary right should be kept so sacred, as never to break the succession, unless where the preserving of it may endanger the constitution; which is not from any intrinsic merit, or unalienable right in a particular family, but to avoid the consequences that usually attend the ambition of competitors, to which elective kingdoms are exposed; and which is the only obstacle to hinder them from arriving at the