from each other any of these rights or dues, which the nature of our relation calls for, we make an injurious inroad 'upon the most sacred rights and enclosures of nature. Lastly, as we are rational creatures united to one another by natural society, we owe love and peace, truth and credit, protection and participation of profit to one another. Whilst therefore we hate and malign, and vex and disturb each other; whilst we lie and equivocate, and violate our promises and oaths; whilst we refuse to defend each other's lives, estates, and reputation; and usurp all the profits of our exchange and intercourse, not allowing those whom we deal with a sufficient share to subsist and live by; we trample upon all the natural rights of human society, and demean ourselves as open enemies and outlaws to mankind. Wherefore, in the name of God, if in this degenerate age, whereinto we are fallen, Christianity hath quite lost its just power and dominion over us; let us be honest heathens at least, though we resolve to be no longer Christians: if we will needs be deaf to the voice of our revealed religion, yet for shame let us attend to the voice of our nature, and not leap down at once from the perfection of Christians into the wretched condition of beasts and devils. Oh! for the love of God and the honour of those noble natures he hath given us, stop as men at least, though you are fallen from Christianity; and do not, by your cruelty and inhumanity, frauds and calumnies, oppressions, lies, and shameless perjuries, at the least approach towards that at which humanity starts with horror and amazement; do not defame and scandalize your natures, and render yourselves a shame and reproach to the name of men, by these your outrageous invasions of the common rights of human nature. CHAP. IV. Of justice, as it preserves the acquired rights of men; and particularly those which arise from sacred and civil relations. I PROCEED now to the second sort of human rights, which justice between man and man relates to, viz. such as are not natural to them either as rational creatures, or as dwelling in mortal bodies, or as joined to one another by natural relations, or as naturally united in society; but are acquired subsequently to the rights of nature, by that mutual intercourse which passes between men in their society with one another: which rights, though they are not natural, but accidental, are yet founded on the rights of nature, and therefore ought to be preserved as sacredly and as inviolably as these: for whatsoever rights men do acquire in the performance of the common rights of nature, are equivalent with them, as being founded on the same reasons. Now all those rights which are not natural, are acquired one of these ways: either, first, by sacred and civil relations; or, secondly, by legal possession; or, thirdly, by personal accomplishments; or, fourthly, by outward rank and quality; or, fifthly, by bargaining and compact. I. There are some rights acquired by sacred and civil relations; and of these there are several sorts. First, There is the relation of sovereign and subject. Secondly, of subordinate magistrates to the sove reign and people. Thirdly, Of pastors and people. Eighthly, Of benefactor and receiver. Ninthly, There is the relation of debtor and creditor. Of the proper rights of each of which relations I shall give as brief an account as I can. 1. There is the relation of sovereign and subject; which is the highest and most sacred of all those relations that are not natural. For God being the supreme Lord and Sovereign of the world, all lawful power and authority must be derived from him: for as in particular kingdoms the king is the fountain of authority, from whence executive power descends upon subordinate magistrates; so in the universal monarchy of the world, God is the fountain of all power and dominion, from whom all authority and right of government descends upon princes and governors; and whosoever exercises dominion in the world without divine authority, is an usurper in the kingdom of God. But then the derivation of this authority from him is either immediate or mediate; those who are supreme under him derive their authority immediately from him, and are the channels by whose mediation he derives authority to their subordinate magistrates; so that the subordinate magistrates of particular kingdoms derive their authority from God by the hands of their kings, but the kings themselves derive theirs from God's own hands immediately: and whatever the particular form of any government be, whether it be monarchy or polyarchy, that which is supreme in it under God must be immediately from him. So far from true is that modern maxim of some Jesuited politicians, viz. that civil government is the people's creature; which by necessary consequence excludes God from being the supreme governor of the world: for if he be absolutely supreme, there is none can be supreme immediately under him, but by an authority derived immediately from him. So that the relation of sovereign hath this right unalienably appendant to it, to be accountable to none but God; from whom alone it holds its authority, and to whom alone it is subjected. And therefore for subjects to call their sovereign to account, is both to arraign God's authority and to invade his peculiar; to set ourselves down in his throne, and summon his authority before us, and require it to submit its awful head to our doom and sentence; which is as high and impious an injustice as can be offered either to God or man, and (till popery, that fardle of religious impostures, set treason and rebellion abroach) as abhorrent to all Christian principles and practices as hell is to heaven, or darkness to light. But then, since sovereigns are God's vicegerents, and do reign by his authority, they have also an inseparable right to be obeyed in all things, wherein they do not interfere with the commands of God; for in obeying them we obey God, who commands by their mouths, and wills by their laws and edicts: and as he who refuses to obey the viceroy's command, doth in so doing disobey the king himself, unless he commands the contrary; so he who disobeys his sovereign, who is God's viceroy, doth in so doing disobey God, un 4 less it be where God hath countermanded him. So that while he commands only lawful things, he hath an undoubted right to be obeyed; because his commands are stamped with divine authority, and are thereby rendered sacred and inviolable. Again; since sovereigns are the supreme representatives of God's power and majesty upon earth, as being his immediate substitutes; they have also an unalienable right to be honoured and reverenced by their subjects, because they bear God's character, and do shine with the rays of his majesty; before which every creature in heaven and earth ought to bow and lie prostrate: and therefore for subjects to contemn and vilify their sovereigns, to expose their faults, and uncover their nakedness, and lampoon and libel their persons and actions, is an affront to God's own majesty, and an unjust and impious profanation of that divine character they bear about them. Once more; since sovereigns are substituted by God for the common good, to protect the innocent, and avenge the injured, and guard the rights of their people against foreign and intestine fraud and violence; they must hereupon have an undoubted right to be aided and assisted by their subjects; because without their aid it will be impossible for them to accomplish the ends of their sovereignty. And therefore for subjects to refuse to aid their sovereign with their purses or persons, when legally required, or by any indirect means to withdraw themselves from his assistance, whenever his necessities call for it, is to detain from him a just right that is owing to his character and relation. And as these rights are all implied in the relation of a sovereign, so are there others implied in the relation of |