103 



laws; for it is the sovereign power that obliges men to obey 

 them." 1 Such laws are the rules according to which we judge 

 an action as just or unjust; nothing being reputed unjust, that 

 is not contrary to some law. In the natural state, the notions 

 of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have no common 

 power. Till rights have been transferred and covenants made, 

 there is no justice nor injustice. 



The laws of nature, although of equal extent with the civil 

 laws, are not always in writing. Yet they are all contained 

 within the one formula: " Do not that to another, which thou 

 thinkest unreasonable to be done by another to thyself." 2 

 These laws of nature are "immutable and eternal". "All 

 men agree on this, that peace is good, and therefore also the 

 way, or means of peace, which as I havel showed before, are 

 justice, gratitude, modesty, equity, mercy, and the rest of the 

 laws of nature, are good ; that is to say, moral virtues; and their 

 contrary vices evil." 3 The civil law is thus supreme within 

 the state, and the only criterion of right and wrong, or of just 

 and unjust, and is therefore immutable and eternal as the 

 'laws of nature'. "For though a wrong sentence given by 

 authority of the sovereign, if he know and allow it, in such 

 laws as are mutable, be a constitution of a new law, in cases 

 in which every little circumstance is the same; yet in laws 

 which are immutable, such as are the laws of nature, they are 

 no laws to the same or other judges, in the like cases for ever 

 after. Princes succeed one another; and one judge passeth, 

 another cometh; nay, heaven and earth shall pass; but 

 not one tittle of the law of nature shall pass; for it is the 

 eternal law of God. Therefore all the sentences of precedent 

 judges that have ever been, cannot altogether make a law- 

 contrary to natural equity. * For example, it is 

 against the law of nature, to punish the innocent. 

 I say, therefore, that there is no place in the world, where 

 this can be an interpretation of a law of nature, or be made 

 a law by the sentence of precedent judges that had done the 

 same. For he that judged it first, judged unjustly; and no 

 injustice can be a pattern of judgment to succeeding judges. 



God's laws cannot be abrogated either by man or common- 

 wealth. Whether men will or not, they must always be sub- 

 ject to the divine power. These "divine laws, or dictates of 

 natural reason concern either the natural duties of one man 

 to another" (namely, equity, justice, mercy, etc.) "or honour 



'O.C. p. 253. 

 2 O.C. p. 258. 

 3 O.C. p. 146. 

 <O;C. p. 264. 



