2.30. CHAP. XXX
Of the OFFICE of the Sovereign Representative
THE office of the sovereign, be it a monarch or an assembly,
consisteth in the end for which he was trusted with the sovereign
power, namely the procuration of the safety of the people, to which he
is obliged by the law of nature, and to render an account thereof to
God, the Author of that law, and to none but Him. But by safety here
is not meant a bare preservation, but also all other contentments of
life, which every man by lawful industry, without danger or hurt to
the Commonwealth, shall acquire to himself.
And this is intended should be done, not by care applied to
individuals, further than their protection from injuries when they
shall complain; but by a general providence, contained in public
instruction, both of doctrine and example; and in the making and
executing of good laws to which individual persons may apply their own
cases.
And because, if the essential rights of sovereignty (specified
before in the eighteenth Chapter) be taken away, the Commonwealth is
thereby dissolved, and every man returneth into the condition and
calamity of a war with every other man, which is the greatest evil
that can happen in this life; it is the office of the sovereign to
maintain those rights entire, and consequently against his duty,
first, to transfer to another or to lay from himself any of them.
For he that deserteth the means deserteth the ends; and he deserteth
the means that, being the sovereign, acknowledgeth himself subject
to the civil laws, and renounceth the power of supreme judicature;
or of making war or peace by his own authority; or of judging of the
necessities of the Commonwealth; or of levying money and soldiers when
and as much as in his own conscience he shall judge necessary; or of
making officers and ministers both of war and peace; or of
appointing teachers, and examining what doctrines are conformable or
contrary to the defence, peace, and good of the people. Secondly, it
is against his duty to let the people be ignorant or misinformed of
the grounds and reasons of those his essential rights, because thereby
men are easy to be seduced and drawn to resist him when the
Commonwealth shall require their use and exercise.
And the grounds of these rights have the rather need drafter need to
be diligently and truly taught, because they cannot be maintained by
any civil law or terror of legal punishment. For a civil law that
shall forbid rebellion (and such is all resistance to the essential
rights of sovereignty) is not, as a civil law, any obligation but by
virtue only of the law of nature that forbiddeth the violation of
faith; which natural obligation, if men know not, they cannot know the
right of any law the sovereign maketh. And for the punishment, they
take it but for an act of hostility; which when they think they have
strength enough, they will endeavour, by acts of hostility, to avoid.
As I have heard some say that justice is but a word, without
substance; and that whatsoever a man can by force or art acquire to
himself, not only in the condition of war, but also in a Commonwealth,
is his own, which I have already shown to be false: so there be also
that maintain that there are no grounds, nor principles of reason,
to sustain those essential rights which make sovereignty absolute. For
if there were, they would have been found out in some place or
other; whereas we see there has not hitherto been any Commonwealth
where those rights have been acknowledged, or challenged. Wherein they
argue as ill, as if the savage people of America should deny there
were any grounds or principles of reason so to build a house as to
last as long as the materials, because they never yet saw any so
well built. Time and industry produce every day new knowledge. And
as the art of well building is derived from principles of reason,
observed by industrious men that had long studied the nature of
materials, and the diverse effects of figure and proportion, long
after mankind began, though poorly, to build: so, long time after
men have begun to constitute Commonwealths, imperfect and apt to
relapse into disorder, there may principles of reason be found out, by
industrious meditation, to make their constitution, excepting by
external violence, everlasting. And such are those which I have in
this discourse set forth: which, whether they come not into the
sight of those that have power to make use of them, or be neglected by
them or not, concerneth my particular interest, at this day, very
little. But supposing that these of mine are not such principles of
reason; yet I am sure they are principles from authority of Scripture,
as I shall make it appear when I shall come to speak of the kingdom of
God, administered by Moses, over the Jews, His peculiar people by
covenant.
But they say again that though the principles be right, yet common
people are not of capacity enough to be made to understand them. I
should be glad that the rich and potent subjects of a kingdom, or
those that are accounted the most learned, were no less incapable than
they. But all men know that the obstructions to this kind of
doctrine proceed not so much from the difficulty of the matter, as
from the interest of them that are to learn. Potent men digest
hardly anything that setteth up a power to bridle their affections;
and learned men, anything that discovereth their errors, and thereby
their authority: whereas the common people's minds, unless they be
tainted with dependence on the potent, or scribbled over with the
opinions of their doctors, are like clean paper, fit to receive
whatsoever by public authority shall be imprinted in them. Shall whole
nations be brought to acquiesce in the great mysteries of Christian
religion, which are above reason; and millions of men be made
believe that the same body may be in innumerable places at one and the
same time, which is against reason; and shall not men be able, by
their teaching and preaching, protected by the law, to make that
received which is so consonant to reason that any unprejudicated man
needs no more to learn it than to hear it? I conclude therefore that
in the instruction of the people in the essential rights which are the
natural and fundamental laws of sovereignty, there is no difficulty,
whilst a sovereign has his power entire, but what proceeds from his
own fault, or the fault of those whom he trusteth in the
administration of the Commonwealth; and consequently, it is his duty
to cause them so to be instructed; and not only his duty, but his
benefit also, and security against the danger that may arrive to
himself in his natural person from rebellion.
And, to descend to particulars, the people are to be taught,
first, that they ought not to be in love with any form of government
they see in their neighbour nations, more than with their own, nor,
whatsoever present prosperity they behold in nations that are
otherwise governed than they, to desire change. For the prosperity
of a people ruled by an aristocratical or democratical assembly cometh
not from aristocracy, nor from democracy, but from the obedience and
concord of the subjects: nor do the people flourish in a monarchy
because one man has the right to rule them, but because they obey him.
Take away in any kind of state the obedience, and consequently the
concord of the people, and they shall not only not flourish, but in
short time be dissolved. And they that go about by disobedience to
do no more than reform the Commonwealth shall find they do thereby
destroy it; like the foolish daughters of Peleus, in the fable,
which desiring to renew the youth of their decrepit father, did by the
counsel of Medea cut him in pieces and boil him, together with strange
herbs, but made not of him a new man. This desire of change is like
the breach of the first of God's Commandments: for there God says,
Non habebis Deos alienos: "Thou shalt not have
the Gods of other nations"; and in another place concerning kings,
that they are gods.
Secondly, they are to be taught that they ought not to be led with
admiration of the virtue of any of their fellow subjects, how high
soever he stand, nor how conspicuously soever he shine in the
Commonwealth; nor of any assembly, except the sovereign assembly, so
as to defer to them any obedience or honour appropriate to the
sovereign only, whom, in their particular stations, they represent;
nor to receive any influence from them, but such as is conveyed by
them from the sovereign authority. For that sovereign cannot be
imagined to love his people as he ought that is not jealous of them,
but suffers them by the flattery of popular men to be seduced from
their loyalty, as they have often been, not only secretly, but openly,
so as to proclaim marriage with them in facie ecclesiae
by preachers, and by publishing the same in the open streets: which may
fitly be compared to the violation of the second of the Ten
Commandments.
Thirdly, in consequence to this, they ought to be informed how great
a fault it is to speak evil of the sovereign representative, whether
one man or an assembly of men; or to argue and dispute his power, or
any way to use his name irreverently, whereby he may be brought into
contempt with his people, and their obedience, in which the safety
of the Commonwealth consisteth, slackened. Which doctrine the third
Commandment by resemblance pointeth to.
Fourthly, seeing people cannot be taught this, nor, when it is
taught, remember it, nor after one generation past so much as know
in whom the sovereign power is placed, without setting apart from
their ordinary labour some certain times in which they may attend
those that are appointed to instruct them; it is necessary that some
such times be determined wherein they may assemble together, and,
after prayers and praises given to God, the Sovereign of sovereigns,
hear those their duties told them, and the positive laws, such as
generally concern them all, read and expounded, and be put in mind
of the authority that maketh them laws. To this end had the Jews every
seventh day a Sabbath, in which the law was read and expounded; and in
the solemnity whereof they were put in mind that their king was God;
that having created the world in six days, He rested on the seventh
day; and by their resting on it from their labour, that that God was
their king, which redeemed them from their servile and painful
labour in Egypt, and gave them a time, after they had rejoiced in God,
to take joy also in themselves, by lawful recreation. So that the
first table of the Commandments is spent all in setting down the sum
of God's absolute power; not only as God, but as King by pact, in
peculiar, of the Jews; and may therefore give light to those that have
sovereign power conferred on them by the consent of men, to see what
doctrine they ought to teach their subjects.
And because the first instruction of children dependeth on the
care of their parents, it is necessary that they should be obedient to
them whilst they are under their tuition; and not only so, but that
also afterwards, as gratitude requireth, they acknowledge the
benefit of their education by external signs of honour. To which end
they are to be taught that originally the father of every man was also
his sovereign lord, with power over him of life and death; and that
the fathers of families, when by instituting a Commonwealth they
resigned that absolute power, yet it was never intended they should
lose the honour due unto them for their education. For to relinquish
such right was not necessary to the institution of sovereign power;
nor would there be any reason why any man should desire to have
children, or take the care to nourish and instruct them, if they
were afterwards to have no other benefit from them than from other
men. And this accordeth with the fifth Commandment.
Again, every sovereign ought to cause justice to be taught, which,
consisting in taking from no man what is his, is as much as to say, to
cause men to be taught not to deprive their neighbours, by violence or
fraud, of anything which by the sovereign authority is theirs. Of
things held in propriety, those that are dearest to a man are his
own life and limbs; and in the next degree, in most men, those that
concern conjugal affection; and after them riches and means of living.
Therefore the people are to be taught to abstain from violence to
one another's person by private revenges, from violation of conjugal
honour, and from forcible rapine and fraudulent surreption of one
another's goods. For which purpose also it is necessary they be
shown the evil consequences of false judgment, by corruption either of
judges or witnesses, whereby the distinction of propriety is taken
away, and justice becomes of no effect: all which things are intimated
in the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth Commandments.
Lastly, they are to be taught that not only the unjust facts, but
the designs and intentions to do them, though by accident hindered,
are injustice; which consisteth in the pravity of the will, as well as
in the irregularity of the act. And this is the intention of the tenth
Commandment, and the sum of the second table; which is reduced all
to this one commandment of mutual charity, "Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thy self"; as the sum of the first table is reduced to
"the love of God"; whom they had then newly received as their king.
As for the means and conduits by which the people may receive this
instruction, we are to search by what means so many opinions
contrary to the peace of mankind, upon weak and false principles, have
nevertheless been so deeply rooted in them. I mean those which I
have in the precedent the precedent chapter specified: as that men
shall judge of what is lawful and unlawful, not by the law itself, but
by their own consciences; that is to say, by their own private
judgements: that subjects sin in obeying the commands of the
Commonwealth, unless they themselves have first judged them to be
lawful: that their propriety in their riches is such as to exclude the
dominion which the Commonwealth hath the same: that it is lawful for
subjects to kill such as they call tyrants: that the sovereign power
may be divided, and the like; which come to be instilled into the
people by this means. They whom necessity or covetousness keepeth
attent on their trades and labour; and they, on the other side, whom
superfluity or sloth carrieth after their sensual pleasures (which two
sorts of men take up the greatest part of mankind), being diverted
from the deep meditation which the of truth, not only in the matter of
natural justice, but also of all other sciences necessarily requireth,
receive the notions of their duty chiefly from divines in the
pulpit, and partly from such of their neighbours or familiar
acquaintance as having the faculty of discoursing readily and
plausibly seem wiser and better learned in cases of law and conscience
than themselves. And the divines, and such others as make show of
learning, derive their knowledge from the universities, and from the
schools of law, or from the books which by men eminent in those
schools and universities have been published. It is therefore manifest
that the instruction of the people dependeth wholly on the right
teaching of youth in the universities. But are not, may some man
say, the universities of England learned enough already to do that? Or
is it, you will undertake to teach the universities? Hard questions.
Yet to the first, I doubt not to answer: that till towards the
latter end of Henry the Eighth, the power of the Pope was always
upheld against the power of the Commonwealth, principally by the
universities; and that the doctrines by so many preachers against
the sovereign power of the king, and by so many lawyers and others
that had their education there, is a sufficient argument that,
though the universities were not authors of those false doctrines, yet
they knew not how to plant the true. For in such a contradiction of
opinions, it is most certain that they have not been sufficiently
instructed; and it is no wonder, if they yet retain a relish of that
subtle liquor wherewith they were first seasoned against the civil
authority. But to the latter question, it is not fit nor needful for
me to say either aye or no: for any man that sees what I am doing
may easily perceive what I think.
The safety of the people requireth further, from him or them that
have the sovereign power, that justice be equally administered to
all degrees of people; that is, that as well the rich and mighty, as
poor and obscure persons, may be righted of the injuries done them; so
as the great may have no greater hope of impunity, when they do
violence, dishonour, or any injury to the meaner sort, than when one
of these does the like to one of them: for in this consisteth
equity; to which, as being a precept of the law of nature, a sovereign
is as much subject as any of the meanest of his people. All breaches
of the law are offences against the Commonwealth: but there be some
that are also against private persons. Those that concern the
Commonwealth only may without breach of equity be pardoned; for
every man may pardon what is done against himself, according to his
own discretion. But an offence against a private man cannot in
equity be pardoned without the consent of him that is injured; or
reasonable satisfaction.
The inequality of subjects proceedeth from the acts of sovereign
power, and therefore has no more place in the presence of the
sovereign; that is to say, in a court of justice, than the
inequality between kings and their subjects in the presence of the
King of kings. The honour of great persons is to be valued for their
beneficence, and the aids they give to men of inferior rank, or not at
all. And the violences, oppressions, and injuries they do are not
extenuated, but aggravated, by the greatness of their persons, because
they have least need to commit them. The consequences of this
partiality towards the great proceed in this manner. Impunity maketh
insolence; insolence, hatred; and hatred, an endeavour to pull down
all oppressing and contumelious greatness, though with the ruin of the
Commonwealth.
To equal justice appertaineth also the equal imposition of taxes;
the equality whereof dependeth not on the equality of riches, but on
the equality of the debt that every man oweth to the Commonwealth
for his defence. It is not enough for a man to labour for the
maintenance of his life; but also to fight, if need be, for the
securing of his labour. They must either do as the Jews did after
their return from captivity, in re-edifying the Temple, build with one
hand and hold the sword in the other, or else they must hire others to
fight for them. For the impositions that are laid on the people by the
sovereign power are nothing else but the wages due to them that hold
the public sword to defend private men in the exercise of several
trades and callings. Seeing then the benefit that every one
receiveth thereby is the enjoyment of life, which is equally dear to
poor and rich, the debt which a poor man oweth them that defend his
life is the same which a rich man oweth for the defence of his; saving
that the rich, who have the service of the poor, may be debtors not
only for their own persons, but for many more. Which considered, the
equality of imposition consisteth rather in the equality of that which
is consumed, than of the riches of the persons that consume the
same. For what reason is there that he which laboureth much and,
sparing the fruits of his labour, consumeth little should be more
charged than he that, living idly, getteth little and spendeth all
he gets; seeing the one hath no more protection from the
Commonwealth than the other? But when the impositions are laid upon
those things which men consume, every man payeth equally for what he
useth; nor is the Commonwealth defrauded by the luxurious waste of
private men.
And whereas many men, by accident inevitable, become unable to
maintain themselves by their labour, they ought not to be left to
the charity of private persons, but to be provided for, as far forth
as the necessities of nature require, by the laws of the Commonwealth.
For as it is uncharitableness in any man to neglect the impotent; so
it is in the sovereign of a Commonwealth, to expose them to the hazard
of such uncertain charity.
But for such as have strong bodies the case is otherwise; they are
to be forced to work; and to avoid the excuse of not finding
employment, there ought to be such laws as may encourage all manner of
arts; as navigation, agriculture, fishing, and all manner of
manufacture that requires labour. The multitude of poor and yet strong
people still increasing, they are to be transplanted into countries
not sufficiently inhabited; where nevertheless they are not to
exterminate those they find there; but constrain them to inhabit
closer together, and not range a great deal of ground to snatch what
they find, but to court each little plot with art and labour, to
give them their sustenance in due season. And when all the world is
overcharged with inhabitants, then the last remedy of all is war,
which provideth for every man, by victory or death.
To the care of the sovereign belongeth the making of good laws.
But what is a good law? By a good law, I mean not a just law: for no
law can be unjust. The law is made by the sovereign power, and all
that is done by such power is warranted and owned by every one of
the people; and that which every man will have so, no man can say is
unjust. It is in the laws of a Commonwealth, as in the laws of gaming:
whatsoever the gamesters all agree on is injustice to none of them.
A good law is that which is needful, for the good of the people, and
withal perspicuous.
For the use of laws (which are but rules authorized) is not to
bind the people from all voluntary actions, but to direct and keep
them in such a motion as not to hurt themselves by their own impetuous
desires, rashness, or indiscretion; as hedges are set, not to stop
travellers, but to keep them in the way. And therefore a law that is
not needful, having not the true end of a law, is not good. A law
may be conceived to be good when it is for the benefit of the
sovereign, though it be not necessary for the people, but it is not
so. For the good of the sovereign and people cannot be separated. It
is a weak sovereign that has weak subjects; and a weak people whose
sovereign wanteth power to rule them at his will. Unnecessary laws are
not good laws, but traps for money which, where the right of sovereign
power is acknowledged, are superfluous; and where it is not
acknowledged, insufficient to defend the people.
The perspicuity consisteth not so much in the words of the law
itself, as in a declaration of the causes and motives for which it was
made. That is it that shows us the meaning of the legislator; and
the meaning of the legislator known, the law is more easily understood
by few than many words. For all words are subject to ambiguity; and
therefore multiplication of words in the body of the law is
multiplication of ambiguity: besides it seems to imply, by too much
diligence, that whosoever can evade the words is without the compass
of the law. And this is a cause of many unnecessary processes. For
when I consider how short were the laws of ancient times, and how they
grew by degrees still longer, methinks I see a contention between
the penners and pleaders of the law; the former seeking to
circumscribe the latter, and the latter to evade their
circumscriptions; and that the pleaders have got the victory. It
belongeth therefore to the office of a legislator (such as is in all
Commonwealths the supreme representative, be it one man or an
assembly) to make the reason perspicuous why the law was made, and the
body of the law itself as short, but in as proper and significant
terms, as may be.
It belongeth also to the office of the sovereign to make a right
application of punishments and rewards. And seeing the end of
punishing is not revenge and discharge of choler, but correction
either of the offender or of others by his example, the severest
punishments are to be inflicted for those crimes that are of most
danger to the public; such as are those which proceed from malice to
the government established; those that spring from contempt of
justice; those that provoke indignation in the multitude; and those
which, unpunished, seem authorized, as when they are committed by
sons, servants, or favourites of men in authority: for indignation
carrieth men, not only against the actors and authors of injustice,
but against all power that is likely to protect them; as in the case
of Tarquin, when for the insolent act of one of his sons he was driven
out of Rome, and the monarchy itself dissolved. But crimes of
infirmity; such as are those which proceed from great provocation,
from great fear, great need, or from ignorance whether the fact be a
great crime or not, there is place many times for lenity, without
prejudice to the Commonwealth; and lenity, when there is such place
for it, is required by the law of nature. The punishment of the
leaders and teachers in a commotion; not the poor seduced people, when
they are punished, can profit the Commonwealth by their example. To be
severe to people is to punish ignorance which may in great part be
imputed to the sovereign, whose fault it was they were no better
instructed.
In like manner it belongeth to the office and duty of the
sovereign to apply his rewards always so as there may arise from
them benefit to the Commonwealth: wherein consisteth their use and
end; and is then done when they that have well served the Commonwealth
are, with as little expense of the common treasury as is possible,
so well recompensed as others thereby may be encouraged, both to serve
the same as faithfully as they can, and to study the arts by which
they may be enabled to do it better. To buy with money or
preferment, from a popular ambitious subject to be quiet and desist
from making ill impressions in the minds of the people, has nothing of
the nature of reward (which is ordained not for disservice, but for
service past); nor a sign of gratitude, but of fear; nor does it
tend to the benefit, but to the damage of the public. It is a
contention with ambition, that of Hercules with the monster Hydra,
which, having many heads, for every one that was vanquished there grew
up three. For in like manner, when the stubbornness of one popular man
is overcome with reward, there arise many more by the example, that do
the same mischief in hope of like benefit: and as all sorts of
manufacture, so also malice increaseth by being vendible. And though
sometimes a civil war may be deferred by such ways as that, yet the
danger grows still the greater, and the public ruin more assured. It
is therefore against the duty of the sovereign, to whom the public
safety is committed, to reward those that aspire to greatness by
disturbing the peace of their country, and not rather to oppose the
beginnings of such men with a little danger, than after a longer
time with greater.
Another business of the sovereign is to choose good counsellors; I
mean such whose advice he is to take in the government of the
Commonwealth. For this word counsel (consilium,
corrupted from considium) is of a large
signification, and comprehendeth all assemblies of men that sit together,
not only to deliberate what is to be done hereafter, but also to judge
of facts past, and of law for the present. I take it here in the first
sense only: and in this sense, there is no choice of counsel, neither in
a democracy nor aristocracy; because the persons counselling are members
of the person counselled. The choice of counsellors therefore is proper
to monarchy, in which the sovereign that endeavoureth not to make choice
of those that in every kind are the most able, dischargeth not his office
as he ought to do. The most able counsellors are they that have least hope
of benefit by giving evil counsel, and most knowledge of those
things that conduce to the peace and defence of the Commonwealth. It
is a hard matter to know who expecteth benefit from public troubles;
but the signs that guide to a just suspicion is the soothing of the
people in their unreasonable or irremediable grievances by men whose
estates are not sufficient to discharge their accustomed expenses, and
may easily be observed by any one whom it concerns to know it. But
to know who has most knowledge of the public affairs is yet harder;
and they that know them need them a great deal the less. For to know
who knows the rules almost of any art is a great degree of the
knowledge of the same art, because no man can be assured of the
truth of another's rules but he that is first taught to understand
them. But the best signs of knowledge of any art are much conversing
in it and constant good effects of it. Good counsel comes not by
lot, nor by inheritance; and therefore there is no more reason to
expect good advice from the rich or noble in matter of state, than
in delineating the dimensions of a fortress; unless we shall think
there needs no method in the study of the politics, as there does in
the study of geometry, but only to be lookers on; which is not so. For
the politics is the harder study of the two. Whereas in these parts of
Europe it hath been taken for a right of certain persons to have place
in the highest council of state by inheritance, it derived from the
conquests of the ancient Germans; wherein many absolute lords, joining
together to conquer other nations, would not enter into the
confederacy without such privileges as might be marks of difference,
in time following, between their posterity and the posterity of
their subjects; which privileges being inconsistent with the sovereign
power, by the favour of the sovereign they may seem to keep; but
contending for them as their right, they must needs by degrees let
them go, and have at last no further honour than adhereth naturally to
their abilities.
And how able soever be the counsellors in any affair, the benefit of
their counsel is greater when they give every one his advice, and
the reasons of it apart, than when they do it in an assembly by way of
orations; and when they have premeditated, than when they speak on the
sudden; both because they have more time to survey the consequences of
action, and are less subject to be carried away to contradiction
through envy, emulation, or other passions arising from the difference
of opinion.
The best counsel, in those things that concern not other nations,
but only the ease and benefit the subjects may enjoy, by laws that
look only inward, is to be taken from the general informations and
complaints of the people of each province, who are best acquainted
with their own wants, and ought therefore, when they demand nothing in
derogation of the essential rights of sovereignty, to be diligently
taken notice of. For without those essential rights, as I have often
before said, the Commonwealth cannot at all subsist.
A commander of an army in chief, if he be not popular, shall not
be beloved, nor feared as he ought to be by his army, and consequently
cannot perform that office with good success. He must therefore be
industrious, valiant, affable, liberal and fortunate, that he may gain
an opinion both of sufficiency and of loving his soldiers. This is
popularity, and breeds in the soldiers both desire and courage to
recommend themselves to his favour; and protects the severity of the
general, in punishing, when need is, the mutinous or negligent
soldiers. But this love of soldiers, if caution be not given of the
commander's fidelity, is a dangerous thing to sovereign power;
especially when it is in the hands of an assembly not popular. It
belongeth therefore to the safety of the people, both that they be
good conductors and faithful subjects, to whom the sovereign commits
his armies.
But when the sovereign himself is popular; that is, reverenced and
beloved of his people, there is no danger at all from the popularity
of a subject. For soldiers are never so generally unjust as to side
with their captain, though they love him, against their sovereign,
when they love not only his person, but also his cause. And
therefore those who by violence have at any time suppressed the
power of their lawful sovereign, before they could settle themselves
in his place, have been always put to the trouble of contriving
their titles to save the people from the shame of receiving them. To
have a known right to sovereign power is so popular a quality as he
that has it needs no more, for his own part, to turn the hearts of his
subjects to him, but that they see him able absolutely to govern his
own family: nor, on the part of his enemies, but a disbanding of their
armies. For the greatest and most active part of mankind has never
hitherto been well contented with the present.
Concerning the offices of one sovereign to another, which are
comprehended in that law which is commonly called the law of
nations, I need not say anything in this place, because the law of
nations and the law of nature is the same thing. And every sovereign
hath the same right in procuring the safety of his people, that any
particular man can have in procuring the safety of his own body. And
the same law that dictateth to men that have no civil government
what they ought to do, and what to avoid in regard of one another,
dictateth the same to Commonwealths; that is, to the consciences of
sovereign princes and sovereign assemblies; there being no court of
natural justice, but in the conscience only, where not man, but God
reigneth; whose laws, such of them as oblige all mankind, in respect
of God, as he is the Author of nature, are natural; and in respect
of the same God, as he is King of kings, are laws. But of the
kingdom of God, as King of kings, and as King also of a peculiar
people, I shall speak in the rest of this discourse.