1. So far we have been speaking of the commonwealth by design in general. Now we must speak of its kinds. The differences between commonwealths are derived from the difference in the persons to whom sovereign power is committed. Sovereign power is committed either to one man or to one Assembly or council of many men. Again, an Assembly of many men is either an assembly of all the citizens (so that each of them has the right to vote and can participate in debating issues if he so wishes) or of only a part of the citizens. This is the origin of three kinds of commonwealth: The first is where sovereign power lies with an Assembly in which any citizen has the right to vote; it is called democracy. The second is where sovereign power lies with an Assembly in which not all but only a certain part have a vote; it is called aristocracy. The third is where sovereign power lies with one man; it is called monarchy. In the first, the dominant power is called the people (Δῆμος [populus]; in the second, the nobility [optimates]; in the third, the monarch [monarcha].

2. The ancient writers on Politics have introduced three other kinds of commonwealth in opposition to these: in opposition to Democracy is Anarchy, or confusion; to Aristocracy, Oligarchy, i.e. government by a few; to Monarchy, Tyranny.

[1] I promise you, Readers, all that is usually thought to encourage attentive Reading: an important and useful Subject, a correct Method in the treatment of it, a good reason and an honest purpose in the writing and good sense in the writer; and in this Preface I offer you a brief view of it all. This book sets out men's duties, first as men, then as citizens and lastly as Christians. These duties constitute the elements of the law of nature and of nations, the origin and force of justice, and the essence of the Christian Religion (so far as the limits of my design allow).

[2] The wise men of remotest antiquity believed that this kind of teaching (with the exception of anything relating to the Christian Religion) should be given to posterity only in the pretty forms of poetry or in the shadowy outlines of Allegory, as if to prevent what one might call the high and holy mystery of government from being contaminated by the debates of private men. Philosophers meanwhile were active, some in observing the motions and shapes of things to mankind's great benefit, others in contemplating the natures and causes of things, which did man no harm. In the following period Socrates is said to have been the first to fall in love with this civil science; it had not yet been conceived as a whole at the time but was, so to speak, showing a bit of itself through the clouds in the matter of civil government.

1. To this point we have been speaking of the causes of the formation of commonwealths, of the agreements on which they rest, and of the rights of sovereigns over citizens. Now we must speak briefly of the causes of the dissolution of commonwealths, or the causes of sedition. In the motion of natural bodies we have three things to consider: the internal disposition by which bodies are capable of making motion; the external Agent, by which a certain, specific motion is actually produced; and the action itself. So likewise in a commonwealth, there are three things to look at when the citizens are in an uproar: first, the doctrines and passions inimical to peace, by which the minds of individuals are given a certain disposition; second, what sort of men take people who are already disposed to rebellion and violence, and incite, assemble and direct them; and third, the means by which it is done, or faction itself. Of doctrines that dispose men to sedition, the first, without question, is: that knowledge of good and evil is a matter for individuals. We allowed that this was true in the natural state; in fact we proved it (1.9); for in a natural state, individuals live by equal right, and have not submitted by their own agreement to other men's power. But in the civil state it is false.

1. In the previous pages we have proved from reason and from the testimony of holy scripture that a state of nature, a condition, that is, of absolute liberty like that of men who are neither Sovereigns nor Subjects, is Anarchy and a state of enmity; that the precepts for avoiding such a state are the laws of nature; that a commonwealth cannot exist without sovereign power; and that the holder of sovereign power is owed simple obedience, that is, obedience in all things consistent with God's commands. Only one thing more is needed to complete our knowledge of our civil duty: we must know what the laws or commands of God are. Otherwise we cannot know whether what we are ordered to do by the authority of the civil power is against God's laws or not. And as a result, inevitably, we would either defy God's majesty by obeying the commonwealth too strictly, or slip into confrontation with the commonwealth in our anxiety not to offend God. To avoid both these rocks, we need to know the Divine laws; but as knowledge of a Kingdom's laws depends on a knowledge of the Kingdom, we must speak in what follows of the Kingdom of God.

2. At Psalm 96.1 the Psalmist says: The Lord Reigns, let the earth rejoice. Again the Psalmist says (Psalm 98.1): the Lord Reigns, though the peoples rage; he sits upon the Cherubim, though the earth be moved.

1. It has always been an acknowledged truth that all authority in secular matters derives from the authority of the holder of sovereign power, whether that be a man or a group of men. It is clear from what has just been said that in spiritual matters it depends upon the authority of a Church; it will also be clear that every Christian commonwealth is a Church endowed with this kind of authority. From which even the dullest may conclude that in a Christian commonwealth (i.e. in a commonwealth where sovereignty is held by a Christian Prince or Christian group) all power, both secular and spiritual, is united under Christ; and therefore they must be obeyed in all things. On the other hand, because one must obey God rather than man, a difficulty has arisen as to how obedience can be safely offered if an order is given to do something which christ forbids. The reason for the difficulty is that God no longer speaks to us in a living voice through christ and the Prophets, but by the holy scriptures, which are understood differently by different people. Men know very well what kings and the congregated Church command, but they do not know whether what they command is against God's orders or not. Their obedience wavers between the penalties of temporal and spiritual death; they attempt to sail between Scylla and Charybdis; and often fall foul of both.

Courteous Reader,

I shall give thee a short narrative of some passages upon the following petitions. First concerning the Large Petition, divers printed copies thereof were sent abroad to gain subscriptions, one whereof was intercepted by an informer and so brought to the hands of Mr Glynn, Recorder of London and a member of the Commons' House, who was pleased to call it a scandalous and seditious paper. Whereupon it was referred to Colonel Leigh's committee (it being that committee appointed to receive informations against those men who preached without licence from the ordainers) to find out the authors of the said petition. Upon this a Certificate was drawn up and intended by the petitioners to have been delivered to the said committee for vindication of the said petition – as will appear by the certificate herewith printed – and notice being taken of one of the petitioners named Nicholas Tew, who read the said certificate in the Court of Requests for the concurrence of friends who had not formerly seen nor subscribed the certificate; and for his so doing he was sent for presently before the said committee; and for refusing to answer to interrogatories, was presently by them committed and still remains in prison, it being at the least three months since his first commitment.

Likewise Major Tulidah, was, upon complaint of that committee, the next day committed by the House – but since discharged upon bail – without any just cause shown for either of their commitments.

Since no man is born for himself only, but obliged by the laws of nature (which reaches all), of Christianity (which engages us as Christians), and of public society and government, to employ our endeavours for the advancement of a communitive happiness of equal concernment to others as ourselves, here have we (according to that measure of understanding God has dispensed unto us) laboured, with much weakness indeed but with integrity of heart, to produce out of the common calamities such a proportion of freedom and good to the nation as might somewhat compensate its many grievances and lasting sufferings. And although in doing thereof we have hitherto reaped only reproach and hatred for our good-will, and been fain to wrestle with the violent passions of powers and principalities, yet since it is nothing so much as our blessed Master and his followers suffered before us and but what at first we reckoned upon, we cannot be thereby any whit dismayed in the performance of our duties, supported inwardly by the innocency and evenness of our consciences.

'Tis a very great unhappiness – we well know – to be always struggling and striving in the world, and does wholly keep us from the enjoyment of those contentments our several conditions reach unto.

We are well assured ye cannot forget that the cause of our choosing you to be parliament-men was to deliver us from all kind of bondage and to preserve the commonwealth in peace and happiness. For effecting whereof we possessed you with the same power that was in ourselves to have done the same; for we might justly have done it ourselves without you if we had thought it convenient, choosing you (as persons whom we thought fitly qualified, and faithful) for avoiding some inconveniences.

But ye are to remember this was only of us but a power of trust – which is ever revocable, and cannot be otherwise – and to be employed to no other end than our own well-being. Nor did we choose you to continue our trusts longer than the known, established constitution of this commonwealth will justly permit. And that could be but for one year at the most: for by our law, a parliament is to be called once everyyear, and oftener if need be – as ye well know. We are your principals, and you our agents; it is a truth which you cannot but acknowledge.

Lamentations 2: 11–12 ‘Mine eyes do faile with tears: my bowells are troubled: my liver is powred upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the City.

They say to their mothers, where is corne and wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the City, when their soule was poured out into their mothers bosome.’

Gentlemen,

We are all of one nation and people; it is the sword only that differs. But how just a title that is over us, your own private thoughts surely are our determiners, however your actions import. For it is not imaginable – except amongst bears, wolves, and lions – that brethren of one cause, one nation and family, can without remorse and secret check of conscience impose such iron yokes of cruelty and oppression upon their fellows as by the awe and force of your sword rampant is imposed upon the people of this nation. You see it. We are at best but your hewers of wood and drawers of water. Our very persons, our lives and properties are all over-awed to the supportation only of the raging, lawless sword, drenched in the precious blood of the people.

In the 150th page of the book called An exact collection of the parliament's remonstrances, declarations, etc. (published by special order of the House of Commons, 24 March, 1642) we find there a question answered fit for all men to take notice of in these times.

The Leveller movement came together in London in 1645–6. It was the product of the civil war breakdown of authority in the English church-state. In 1642 the two houses of parliament and their king, Charles I, had gone to war against each other. Each had claimed that the other was subverting the ancient legal rights and properties of the people and the ancient, legal balance of the English constitution of king, Lords and Commons. Each had also claimed that the other was bent on the destruction of the true Protestant religion – the king (with the aid of Irish rebels and the French court) by returning it to papacy, the parliament (courting the enemy Scots) threatening its unity by encouraging a babel of separating sects. Each side had produced and printed numerous ‘remonstrances, declarations, votes, orders, ordinances, proclamations, petitions, messages and answers’ to these effects, collected and printed for parliament in an Exact collection, soon to be much used by the Levellers in their propaganda (text 1). Charles had deserted Westminster to recruit an army in the north.

God, the absolute sovereign lord and king of all things in heaven and earth, the original fountain and cause of all causes; who is circumscribed, governed, and limited by no rules, but doth all things merely and only by His sovereign will and unlimited good pleasure; who made the world and all things therein for His own glory; and who by His own will and pleasure, gave him, His mere creature, the sovereignty (under Himself) over all the rest of His creatures (Genesis i: 26, 28–9) and endued him with a rational soul, or understanding, and thereby created him after His own image (Genesis 1: 26–7; 9: 6). The first of which was Adam, a male, or man, made out of the dust or clay; out of whose side was taken a rib, which by the sovereign and absolute mighty creating power of God was made a female or woman called Eve: which two are the earthly, original fountain, as begetters and bringers-forth of all and every particular and individual man and woman that ever breathed in the world since; who are, and were by nature all equal and alike in power, dignity, authority, and majesty – none of them having (by nature) any authority, dominion or magisterial power, one over or above another.