Footnotes
[3]
. "Human laws are measures in respect of men whose
actions they must direct, howbeit such measures they are as have also their
higher rules to be measured by, which rules are two — the law of God and
the law of Nature; so that laws human must be made according to the general
laws of Nature, and without contradiction to any positive law of Scripture,
otherwise they are ill made." Hooker, Eccl. Pol. iii. 9.
"To constrain men to anything inconvenient doth seem
unreasonable." Ibid. i. 10.
[1]
. "The lawful power of making laws to command whole
politic societies of men, belonging so properly unto the same entire societies,
that for any prince or potentate, of what kind soever upon earth, to exercise
the same of himself, and not by express commission immediately and personally
received from God, or else by authority derived at the first from their
consent, upon whose persons they impose laws, it is no better than mere
tyranny. Laws they are not, therefore, which public approbation hath not made
so." Hooker, ibid. 10.
"Of this point, therefore, we are to note that such men naturally have
no full and perfect power to command whole politic multitudes of men, therefore
utterly without our consent we could in such sort be at no man's commandment
living. And to be commanded, we do consent when that society, whereof we be a
part, hath at any time before consented, without revoking the same after by the
like universal agreement.
"Laws therefore human, of what kind soever, are available by
consent." Hooker, Ibid.
[2]
. "Two foundations there are which bear up public
societies; the one a natural inclination whereby all men desire sociable life
and fellowship; the other an order, expressly or secretly agreed upon, touching
the manner of their union in living together. The latter is that which we call
the law of a commonweal, the very soul of a politic body, the parts whereof are
by law animated, held together, and set on work in such actions as the common
good requireth. Laws politic, ordained for external order and regimen amongst
men, are never framed as they should be, unless presuming the will of man to be
inwardly obstinate, rebellious, and averse from all obedience to the sacred
laws of his nature; in a word, unless presuming man to be in regard of his
depraved mind little better than a wild beast, they do accordingly provide
notwithstanding, so to frame his outward actions, that they be no hindrance
unto the common good, for which societies are instituted. Unless they do this
they are not perfect." Hooker, Eccl. Pol. i. 10.