Laws politic,
ordained for external order and regimen amongst men, are never
framed as they should be, unless presuming the will of man to be
inwardly obstinate, rebellious, and averse from all obedience to the
sacred laws of his nature; in a word, unless presuming man to be in
regard of his depraved mind little better than a wild beast, they do
accordingly provide notwithstanding, so to frame his outward
actions, that they be no hindrance unto the common good, for which
societies are instituted. Unless they do this they are not perfect."
Hooker, Eccl. Pol. i. 10.
136. Secondly, the legislative or supreme authority cannot assume to
itself a power to rule by extemporary arbitrary decrees, but is
bound to dispense justice and decide the rights of the subject by
promulgated standing laws,* and known authorised judges. For the law
of Nature being unwritten, and so nowhere to be found but in the minds
of men, they who, through passion or interest, shall miscite or
misapply it, cannot so easily be convinced of their mistake where
there is no established judge; and so it serves not as it aught, to
determine the rights and fence the properties of those that live under
it, especially where every one is judge, interpreter, and
executioner of it too, and that in his own case; and he that has right
on his side, having ordinarily but his own single strength, hath not
force enough to defend himself from injuries or punish delinquents.
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