Robert Filmer: Subject

Robert Filmer was English writer. Explore interesting quotes on subject.

Robert Filmer: 10 quotes0 likes

“...the prince is not subject to his law, nor to the laws of his predecessors, but well to his own just and reasonable conventions.”

Source: The Power of Kings, p. 318

“To majesty or sovereignty belongeth an absolute power not subject to any law.”

Source: The Power of Kings, p. 317

“In a well-ordered state, the sovereign power must remain in one only, without communicating any part thereof unto the state (for in that case it should be a popular government and no monarchy). Wise politicians, philosophers, divines and historiographers, have highly commended a monarchy above all other commonweals. It is not to please the prince, that they hold this opinion; but for the safety and happiness of the subjects. And contrariwise, when as they shall limit and restrain the sovereign power of a monarch, to subject him to the general estates, or to the council; the sovereignty hath no firm foundation, but they frame a popular confusion, or a miserable anarchy, which is the plague of all estates and commonweals.”

Source: The Power of Kings, p. 325

“I see not then how the children of Adam, or of any man else, can be free from subjection to their parents. And this subjection of children being the fountain of all regal authority, by the ordination of God himself. From whence it follows, that civil power, not only in general is by Divine institution, but even the assigning of it specifically to the eldest parent. Which quite takes away that new and common distinction which refers only power universal and absolute to God, but power respective in regard of the special form of government to the choice of the people. Nor leaves it any place for such imaginary pactions between Kings and their people as many dream of. This lordship which Adam by creation had over the whole world, and by right descending from him the Patriarchs did enjoy, was as large and ample as the absolutest dominion of any monarch which hath been since the creation.”

Robert Filmer book Patriarcha

Source: Patriarcha, pp. 57–58