To avoid these inconveniences, which
disorder men's propperties 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 which 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's Eccl. Pol. l. iii. sect. 9.
To constrain men to any thing inconvenient cloth seem
unreasonable. Ibid. l. i. sect. 10.)
Sec. 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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