Their power in the utmost
bounds of it is limited to the public good of the society.* It is a
power that hath no other end but preservation, and therefore can never
have a right to destroy, enslave, or designedly to impoverish the
subjects; the obligations of the law of Nature cease not in society,
but only in many cases are drawn closer, and have, by human laws,
known penalties annexed to them to enforce their observation. Thus the
law of Nature stands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators as
well as others. The rules that they make for, other men's actions
must, as well as their own and other men's actions, be conformable
to the law of Nature- i.e., to the will of God, of which that is a
declaration, and the fundamental law of Nature being the
preservation of mankind, no human sanction can be good or valid
against it.
* "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.
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