And therefore, though perhaps at first , (as
shall be shewed more at large hereafter in the following part of
this discourse) some one good and excellent man having got a
pre -eminency amongst the rest, had this deference paid to his
goodness and virtue, as to a kind of natural authority, that the
chief rule, with arbitration of their differences, by a tacit
consent devolved into his hands, without any other caution, but
the assurance they had of his uprightness and wisdom; yet when
time, giving authority, and (as some men would persuade us)
sacredness of customs, which the negligent, and unforeseeing
innocence of the first ages began, had brought in successors of
another stamp, the people finding their properties not secure
under the government, as then it was, (whereas government has no
other end but the preservation of * property) could never be safe
nor at rest, nor think themselves in civil society, till the
legislature was placed in collective bodies of men, call them
senate, parliament, or what you please. By which means every
single person became subject, equally with other the meanest men,
to those laws, which he himself, as part of the legislative, had
established; nor could any one, by his own authority; avoid the
force of the law, when once made; nor by any pretence of
superiority plead exemption, thereby to license his own, or the
miscarriages of any of his dependents.
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