§. 134. THE great end of men's entering into society being the enjoyment of
their properties in peace and safety, and the great instrument and means of
that being the laws established in that society, the first and fundamental
positive law of all commonwealths is the establishing of the legislative power,
as the first and fundamental natural law which is to govern even the
legislative. Itself is the preservation of the society and (as far as will
consist with the public good) of every person in it. This legislative is not
only the supreme power of the commonwealth, but sacred and unalterable in the
hands where the community have once placed it. Nor can any edict of anybody
else, in what form soever conceived, or by what power soever backed, have the
force and obligation of a law which has not its sanction from that legislative
which the public has chosen and appointed; for without this the law could not
have that which is absolutely necessary to its being a law, the consent of the
society, over whom nobody can have a power to make laws[1] but by their own consent and by authority received
from them; and therefore all the obedience, which by the most solemn ties any
one can be obliged to pay, ultimately terminates in this supreme power, and is
directed by those laws which it enacts. Nor can any oaths to any foreign power
whatsoever, or any domestic subordinate power, discharge any member of the
society from his obedience to the legislative, acting pursuant to their trust,
nor oblige him to any obedience contrary to the laws so enacted or farther than
they do allow, it being ridiculous to imagine one can be tied ultimately to
obey any power in the society which is not the supreme.
