THE office of the sovereign,be it a monarch or an assembly,consisteth in the end for which he was trusted with the sovereign power,namely the procuration of the safety of the people,to which he is obliged by the law of nature,and to render an account thereof to God,the Author of that law,and to none but Him.But by safety here is not meant a bare preservation,but also all other contentments of life,which every man by lawful industry,without danger or hurt to the Commonwealth,shall acquire to himself.
And this is intended should be done,not by care applied to individuals,further than their protection from injuries when they shall complain;but by a general providence,contained in public instruction,both of doctrine and example;and in the making and executing of good laws to which individual persons may apply their own cases.
And because,if the essential rights of sovereignty (specified before in the eighteenth Chapter)be taken away,the Commonwealth is thereby dissolved,and every man returneth into the condition and calamity of a war with every other man,which is the greatest evil that can happen in this life;it is the office of the sovereign to maintain those rights entire,and consequently against his duty,first,to transfer to another or to lay from himself any of them.
For he that deserteth the means deserteth the ends;and he deserteth the means that,being the sovereign,acknowledgeth himself subject to the civil laws,and renounceth the power of supreme judicature;or of making war or peace by his own authority;or of judging of the necessities of the Commonwealth;or of levying money and soldiers when and as much as in his own conscience he shall judge necessary;or of making officers and ministers both of war and peace;or of appointing teachers,and examining what doctrines are conformable or contrary to the defence,peace,and good of the people.Secondly,it is against his duty to let the people be ignorant or misinformed of the grounds and reasons of those his essential rights,because thereby men are easy to be seduced and drawn to resist him when the Commonwealth shall require their use and exercise.
And the grounds of these rights have the rather need drafter need to be diligently and truly taught,because they cannot be maintained by any civil law or terror of legal punishment.For a civil law that shall forbid rebellion (and such is all resistance to the essential rights of sovereignty)is not,as a civil law,any obligation but by virtue only of the law of nature that forbiddeth the violation of faith;which natural obligation,if men know not,they cannot know the right of any law the sovereign maketh.And for the punishment,they take it but for an act of hostility;which when they think they have strength enough,they will endeavour,by acts of hostility,to avoid.
As I have heard some say that justice is but a word,without substance;and that whatsoever a man can by force or art acquire to himself,not only in the condition of war,but also in a Commonwealth,is his own,which I have already shown to be false:so there be also that maintain that there are no grounds,nor principles of reason,to sustain those essential rights which make sovereignty absolute.For if there were,they would have been found out in some place or other;whereas we see there has not hitherto been any Commonwealth where those rights have been acknowledged,or challenged.Wherein they argue as ill,as if the savage people of America should deny there were any grounds or principles of reason so to build a house as to last as long as the materials,because they never yet saw any so well built.Time and industry produce every day new knowledge.And as the art of well building is derived from principles of reason,observed by industrious men that had long studied the nature of materials,and the diverse effects of figure and proportion,long after mankind began,though poorly,to build:so,long time after men have begun to constitute Commonwealths,imperfect and apt to relapse into disorder,there may principles of reason be found out,by industrious meditation,to make their constitution,excepting by external violence,everlasting.And such are those which I have in this discourse set forth:which,whether they come not into the sight of those that have power to make use of them,or be neglected by them or not,concerneth my particular interest,at this day,very little.But supposing that these of mine are not such principles of reason;yet I am sure they are principles from authority of Scripture,as I shall make it appear when I shall come to speak of the kingdom of God,administered by Moses,over the Jews,His peculiar people by covenant.