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.
* "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.
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