how powerful
a magick there is in a prince who shall, by a constant tenour of
humanity in government, go on daily gaining upon the affections of
his people. There is not any privilege so dear, but it may be
extorted from subjects by good usage, and by keeping them alwayes up
in their good humour. I will not say what one prince may compass
within his own time, or what a second, though surely much may be
done; but it is enough if a great and durable design be accomplish'd
in the third life; and supposing an hereditary succession of any
three taking up still where the other left, and dealing still in that
fair and tender way of management, it is impossible but that, even
without reach or intention upon the prince's part, all should fall
into his hand, and in so short a time the very memory or thoughts of
any such thing as publick liberty would, as it were by consent,
expire and be for ever extinguish'd. So that whatever the power of
the magistrate be in the institution, it is much safer for them not
to do that with the left hand which they may do with the right, nor
by an extraordinary, what they may effect by the ordinary, way of
government. A prince that goes to the top of his power is like him
that shall go to the bottom of his treasure."[178:1]

And as for the "common people" he has this to say:--

"Yet neither do they want the use of reason, and perhaps their
aggregated judgment discerns most truly the errours of government,
forasmuch as they are the first, to be sure, that smart under them.
In this only they come to be short-sighted, that though they know the
diseases, they understand not the remedies; and though good patients,
they are ill physicians. The magistrate only is authorized,
qualified, and capable to make a just and effectual Reformation, and
especially among the Ecclesiasticks. For in all experience, as far as
I can remember, they have never been forward to save the prince that
labour. If they had, there would have been no Wickliffe, no Husse, no
Luther in history. Or at least, upon so notable an emergency as the
last, the Church of Rome would then in the Council of Trent have
thought of rectifying itself in good earnest, that it might have
recover'd its ancient character; whereas it left the same divisions
much wider, and the Christian people of the world to suffer,
Protestants under Popish governor