For can there be anything more
ridiculous than to say, I give you and yours this for ever, and that
in the surest and most solemn way of conveyance can be devised, and
yet it is to be understood that I have right, if I please, to take
it away from you again to-morrow?
195. I will not dispute now whether princes are exempt from the laws
of their country, but this I am sure, they owe subjection to the
laws of God and Nature. Nobody, no power can exempt them from the
obligations of that eternal law. Those are so great and so strong in
the case of promises, that Omnipotency itself can be tied by them.
Grants, promises, and oaths are bonds that hold the Almighty, whatever
some flatterers say to princes of the world, who, all together, with
all their people joined to them, are, in comparison of the great
God, but as a drop of the bucket, or a dust on the balance-
inconsiderable, nothing!
196. The short of the case in conquest, is this: The conqueror, if
he have a just cause, has a despotical right over the persons of all
that actually aided and concurred in the war against him, and a
right to make up his damage and cost out of their labour and
estates, so he injure not the right of any other.
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