To
avoid these inconveniencies which disorder men's properties in the
state of Nature, men unite into societies that they may have the
united strength of the whole society to secure and defend their
properties, and may have standing rules to bound it by which every one
may know what is his. To this end it is that men give up all their
natural power to the society they enter into, and the community put
the legislative power into such hands as they think fit, with this
trust, that they shall be governed by declared laws, or else their
peace, quiet, and property will still be at the same uncertainty as it
was in the state of Nature.
* "Human laws are measures in respect of men whose actions they must
direct, howbeit such measures they are as have also their higher rules
to be measured by, which rules are two- the law of God and the law
of Nature; so that laws human must be made according to the general
laws of Nature, and without contradiction to any positive law of
Scripture, otherwise they are ill made." Hooker, Eccl. Pol. iii. 9.
"To constrain men to anything inconvenient doth seem
unreasonable." Ibid. i. 10.
137. Absolute arbitrary power, or governing without settled standing
laws, can neither of them consist with the ends of society and
government, which men would not quit the freedom of the state of
Nature for, and tie themselves up under, were it not to preserve their
lives, liberties, and fortunes, and by stated rules of right and
property to secure their peace and quiet.
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