But his offspring
having another way of entrance into the world, different from him,
by a natural birth, that produced them ignorant, and without the use
of reason, they were not presently under that law. For nobody can be
under a law that is not promulgated to him; and this law being
promulgated or made known by reason only, he that is not come to the
use of his reason cannot be said to be under this law; and Adam's
children being not presently as soon as born under this law of reason,
were not presently free. For law, in its true notion, is not so much
the limitation as the direction of a free and intelligent agent to his
proper interest, and prescribes no farther than is for the general
good of those under that law. Could they be happier without it, the
law, as a useless thing, would of itself vanish; and that ill deserves
the name of confinement which hedges us in only from bogs and
precipices. So that however it may be mistaken, the end of law is
not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For
in all the states of created beings, capable of laws, where there is
no law there is no freedom. For liberty is to be free from restraint
and violence from others, which cannot be where there is no law; and
is not, as we are told, "a liberty for every man to do what he lists.
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