OF CIVIL 
 GOVERNMENT 
 
 AND 
 TOLERATION 
 
 JOHN LOCKE 
 
 CASSELL'S 
 NATIONAL 
 LIBRARY 
 
GIFT OF 
 
C ASS ELL'S NATIONAL LIBRARY 
 
 OF CIVIL GOVEfcNM : Erfr 
 AND TOLERATION 
 
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 i. Silas Marner George Eliot. 
 2. A Sentimentaljourney L. Sterne. 
 3. Richard II. Shakespeare. 
 4. Browning's Poems (Selection). 
 5. On Heroes and Hero Worship- 
 Carl vie. 
 6- A Christmas Carol and the Chimes 
 
 Charles Dickens. 
 7. -The Vicar of Wakefield--Gold- 
 
 smith. 
 
 8. Macbeth Shakespeare. 
 9. Evelyn's Diary (Reign of Charle? 
 io. Johnson's Rasselas. [II.). 
 
 it- The Four Georges W. M. 
 
 Thackeray. 
 
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 13 Tcsnyjjpn's Poems'- (Selection). 
 14 Th Merchant ofyeijice -Shake- 
 speafe. . [tion). 
 
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 lV^f; h Lady ! th . e V*^-Sir 
 
 . . 
 
 *-Em%rso*i'.s Ess^ys^-l^election). 
 ' ' 
 
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 2i. Much Ado about Nothing Shake- 
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 and " The Scho >l lor Scandal." 
 
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 26. Twelfth Night Shakespeare. 
 
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 tion). 
 
 28. Marmion Sir Walter Scott. 
 
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 30. Southey's Life of Nelson. 
 
 31. The Cricket on the Hearth 
 Charles Dickens. 
 
 32. Othello Shakespeare. 
 
 33- Steele and Addison's Sir Roger 
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 35. Carlyle on iiurns and Scott. 
 
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 38. Macaulay 's Warren Hastings. 
 
 39- As You Like It Shakespeare. 
 
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 Byron. 
 
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 43- Utopia Sir Thomas More. 
 
 44. Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare. 
 
 45- Complete Angler Isaac Walton. 
 
 46. Hakluyt's Discovery of Muscovy. 
 
 47- Carlyle's Sartor Resartus. 
 
 48. King John Shakespeare. 
 
 49- The Memorable Thoughts of 
 Socrates. 
 
 50. Burleigh, &c. Macaulay. 
 
 51. Burke's Thoughts on the Present 
 Discontents. 
 
 5 2 - Tales from the Decameron- 
 Boccaccio. 
 
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 speare. 
 
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 62. Hazlitt's Essays. 
 63. Henry VIII. Shakespeare. 
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 65. Bacon's Wisdom of the Ancients. 
 66. Prometheus Unbound Shelley 
 67. Burke's Essays on the Sublime 
 and beautiful. [speare. 
 
 68. The Comedy of Errors Sunk e- 
 69. Wordsworth's Poems (Selection;. 
 70. Milton's Earlier Poems. 
 71. Love's Labour's Lost Shakespeare. 
 72. Old Age and Friendship -Cicero. 
 73. The Sorrows of Werter-Goethe. 
 74. Coriolanus Shakespeare. 
 75. Banquet of Plato Shelley. 
 76. Battle of the Books Swift. 
 77. Clive Macaulay. 
 78. Henry IV., Part I. Shakespeare. 
 79. Henry IV., Part II. Shakespeare. 
 80. Steele's Essays and Tales. 
 8r. The Lay ot the Last Minstrel- 
 Sir Walter Scott. 
 82. Table Talk Cowper. 
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 86. Paradise Regained Milton. 
 87. Locke's Civil Government. 
 
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 COMPANY, LIMITED, London; Paris, Aw York & Melbourne 
 
Photo: Emery Walker. 
 
 JOHN LOCKE. 
 
 A ftevtke .Pointing by 7 Qrownovcr, 
 
OF CIVIL 
 GOVERNMENT 
 AND TOLERATION 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN LOCKE 
 
 With an Introduction by 
 HENRY MORLEY 
 
 CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED 
 LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK 
 AND MELBOURNE. MCMY 
 AH Rights Reserved 
 
S EDUCATION DEPT. 
 
 I 
 
 v 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 JOHN LOCKE was born at Wrington, Somersetshire, 
 on the 29th of August, 1632. He was one year 
 younger than John Dryden, and he and Dryden 
 worked for some years under the same roof when 
 they were boys at Westminster School. Locke 
 was elected to a studentship of Christ Church, 
 Oxford, at Whitsuntide, 1652, and went into resi- 
 dence, already twenty years old, in the following 
 November. At Oxford Locke was drawn to the 
 society of scholars whose chief interest was in sci- 
 entific research by the methods taught in the philo- 
 sophy of Francis Bacon. Locke himself was, like 
 Bacon, born for philosophic thought ; and, like Bacon, 
 desired to find principles that could be applied to the 
 advancement of the common good. He graduated, 
 and made physic his profession. His health was 
 always delicate his weakness of chest was ascribed 
 to asthma and he went abroad in 1664 with Sir 
 William Swan, who was sent as envoy to some 
 Gorman princes. After a year's absence ; he returned 
 to Oxford, and was there when Lord Ashley was sent 
 from London to drink mineral waters at Acton for 
 an abscess in the breast. Lord Ashley wrote to ask 
 Dr. Thomas, a physician at Oxford, to have the waters 
 
 575854 
 
6 *V- 
 
 ready against his coming there. Dr. Thomas, being 
 called away, asked his friend, Mr. Locke, to procure 
 them. He employed somebodjr who disappointed him, 
 and had to call upon Lord Ashley to make apologies. 
 Lord Ashley became fascinated by Locke's liberal 
 and thoughtful conversation, and, in 1667, asked him 
 to stay at his house in London. Shaftesbury urged 
 upon Locke not to pursue medicine as a profession, 
 beyond using his skill among his friends, but to devote 
 the powers of his mind to study of the great questions 
 in politics. Locke did so, and was often consulted by 
 a patron who was but an erratic follower of principles 
 which Locke developed and maintained throughout 
 his life with calm consistency. As one of those in- 
 cluded in the grant of Carolina, Lord Ashley employed 
 Locke to draw up a Constitution for the new Colony ; 
 he did so, and showed in it a strong regard for civil 
 and religious liberty. In 1668 Locke became one of 
 the Fellows of the Royal Society. Soon afterwards 
 he went abroad with the Earl and Countess of North- 
 umberland ; but the Earl died at Turin, in May, 1670. 
 Locke returned to England, lived again with Lord 
 Ashley, and was asked by him to undertake the educa- 
 tion of his only son. About the same time he was 
 present in Oxford at a lively discussion, where it 
 seemed to him that the differences of opinion lay 
 wholly in words. This thought first turned his mind 
 in the direction of his "Essay concerning Human 
 Understanding," a work that occupied him afterwards 
 for many years. 
 
 In November, 1672, Lord Ashley, who had become 
 Earl of Shaftesbury seven months before, became Lord 
 
Chancellor, and he made John Locke Secretary of 
 Presentations under him during his year of office. 
 In June, 1673, Shaftesbury made Locke also Secretary 
 to a Commission of the Board of Trade, which office, 
 with a salary of 500 a year, Locke held until the 
 Commission came to an end in December, 1674. 
 
 Locke had gone to Montpellier, where there was a 
 great medical school, to unite study with the necessary 
 residence in Southern Europe, where he was threatened 
 seriously with advance of consumption, and he was at 
 work there on his " Essay Concerning Human Under- 
 standing," when Shaftesbury called him back. He was 
 by Shaftesbury's side in the next months of peril from 
 the conflict with the king. After his escape from the 
 scaffold in 1682 Shaftesbury went to Holland, and died 
 there in 1683. Locke also found it necessary to leave 
 England, and settled in Amsterdam, where he 
 established a fast friendship with Philip van Liin- 
 borch, pastor of the Church of the Remonstrants, who 
 was within a year of his own age, and like himself was 
 full of a religious spirit of liberty. 
 
 At Amsterdam Locke wrote, in Latin, his " Letter 
 Concerning Toleration," as it was printed at Gouda in 
 1689. The translation of it which is given in this 
 volume was made and published at London in the same 
 year by William Popple. 
 
 In February of that year 1689 John Locke came back 
 to England, where he refused to accept from his friends 
 in office any more lucrative post than that of a Com- 
 missioner of Appeals, with 200 a year. His Letter on 
 Toleration had to be at once defended from attack. 
 Locke also wrote, within the first months of his return, 
 
8 
 
 a " Treatise of Civil Government," which destroyei 
 Sir Robert Filmer's theory of the Divine origin o: 
 absolute monarchy. As that theory has no supporte: 
 left in England, it is enough here to take Locke 5 ! 
 refutation of it for granted. But the Essay destructive 
 of a false theory of government was followed inline 
 next year by a second essay, meant to be constructive 
 of a true theory. This was, in fact, Lookers Milo' 
 sophical interpretation of the basis of the English 
 Revolution, and was published in 1690. The book has 
 been joined in this volume to " Letters Concerning 
 Toleration," that so we may have a complete view oft 
 Locke's arguments for Civil and Religious Liberty. > 
 Locke's " Essay Concerning Human Understanding ^ 
 was also first published complete in 1690, its aim bein; 
 to induce men to confine their search for truth within th 
 limits of the knowable, and save much waste of powe: 
 upon reasonings that cannot come to a conclusion. H 
 finished also in 1690, but did not publish till 1693, a 1 
 little treatise upon Education. All the rest of his 
 he gave to study of Christianity by looking only to th 
 Scriptures, and his latest writings were designed 
 show the Reasonableness of Christianity as delivered 
 in the Scriptures. He died, aged seventy-three, on the 
 28th of October, 1704. H. M. 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IT having been shown in a foregoing discourse : 
 
 1. That Adam had not, either by natural right of 
 fatherhood or by positive donation from God, any such 
 authority over his children, or dominion-ever-the world, 
 as is pretended. 
 
 2. That if he had, his heirs yet had no right to it. 
 
 3. That if his heirs had, there being no law of nature 
 nor positive law of God that determines which is the 
 right heir in all cases that may arise, the right of succes- 
 sion, and consequently of bearing rule, could 'not have 
 been certainly determined. 
 
 4. That if even that had been determined, yet the know- 
 ledge of which is the eldest line of Adam's posterity, being 
 so long since utterly lost, that in the races of mankind 
 and families of the world there remains not to one above 
 another the least pretence to be the eldest house, and to 
 have right of inheritance. 
 
 All these premises having, as I think, been clearly made 
 out, it is impossible that the rulers now on earth should 
 make any benefit, or derive any the least shadow of 
 authority from that which is held to be the foundation 
 of all power, Adam's private dominion and paternal juris- 
 diction ; so that he that will not give just occasion to 
 think that all government in the world is the product ~ 
 only of force and violence, and that men live together by 
 no other rules but that of beasts, where the strongest 
 carries it, and so lay a foundation for perpetual disorder 
 and mischief, tumult, sedition, and rebellion (things that 
 the followers of that hypothesis so loudly cry out against), 
 must of necessity find out another rise of government, 
 another original of political power, and another way of 
 designing and knowing the persons that have it, than 
 what Sir Robert Filmer hath taught us. 
 A* -87 
 
10 .* '. .' .* " 4 ti 
 
 2. To this purpose, I think it may not be amiss to set 
 down what I take to be political power ; that the power 
 
 of a magistrate over a subject may be distinguished from 
 that of a father over his children, a master over his ser- 
 vant, a husband over his wife, and a lord over his slave. 
 
 . All which distinct powers happening sometime together 
 in the same man, if he be considered under these different 
 relations, it may help us to distinguish these powers one 
 from another, and show the difference betwixt a ruler of 
 a commonwealth, a father of a family, and a captain of 
 a galley. 
 
 3. Political power, then, I take to be a right of making 
 ' laws with penalties of death, and consequently all less 
 
 penalties, for the regulating and preserving of property, 
 and of employing the force of the community in the 
 execution of such laws, and in the defence of the common- 
 wealth from foreign injury, and all this only for the 
 public good. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF THE STATE OF NATUEE. 
 
 4. To understand political power right, and derive it 
 from its original, we must consider what state all men 
 
 , are naturally in, and that is a state of perfect freedom 
 to order their actions and dispose of their possessions and 
 persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of 
 nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will 
 of any other man. 
 
 ^ A state also of equality, wherein all the power and 
 jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than 
 another ; there being nothing more evident than that 
 creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously 
 born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use 
 of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst 
 another without subordination or subjection, unless the 
 Lord and Master of them all should by any manifest 
 declaration of His will set one above another, and confer 
 on him by an evident and clear appointment an un- 
 doubted right to dominion and sovereignty. 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 11 
 
 5. This equality of men by nature the judicious Hooker 
 looks upon as so evident in itself and beyond all question, 
 that he makes it the foundation of that obligation to 
 mutual love amongst men on which he builds the duties 
 they owe one another, and from whence he derives the 
 great maxims of justice and charity. His words are : 
 
 "The like natural inducement hath brought men to 
 know that it is no less their duty to love others than 
 themselves ; for seeing those things which are equal must 
 needs all have one measure, if I cannot but wish to 
 receive good, even as much at every man's hands as any 
 man can wish unto his own soul, and how should I look 
 to have any part of my desire herein satisfied, unless my- 
 self be careful to satisfy the like desire, which is un- 
 doubtedly in other men, being of one and the same nature ? 
 To have anything offered them repugnant to this desire, 
 must needs in all respects grieve them as much as me, so 
 that, if I do harm, I must look to suffer, there being no 
 reason that others should show greater measures of love 
 to me than they have by me showed unto them. My 
 desire, therefore, to be loved of my equals in nature as 
 much as possible may be, imposeth upon me a natural 
 duty of bearing to themward fully the like affection ; 
 from which relation of equality between ourselves and 
 them that are as ourselves, what several rules and canons 
 natural reason hath drawn for direction of life no man is 
 ignorant." ;< Eccl. Pol.," li. 1. 
 
 6. But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not 
 a state of licence ; though man in that state have an uii- 
 -controllable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, 
 yet he has not liberty to destroy himself, or so much as 
 any creature in his possession, but where some nobler use 
 than its bare preservation calls for it. The state of 
 nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges 
 every one ; and reason, which is that law, teaches all man- 
 kind who will but consult it, that, being all equal and 
 independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, 
 health, liberty, or possessions. For men being all the 
 workmanship of one omnipotent and infinitely wise 
 Maker all the servants of one sovereign Master, sent 
 into the world by His order, and about His business 
 they are His property, whose workmanship they are, made 
 
li> OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 to last during His, not one another's pleasure ; and being 
 furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one com- 
 munity of nature, there cannot be supposed any such 
 subordination among us. that may authorise us to destroy 
 one another, as if we were made for one another's uses, as 
 the inferior ranks of creatures are for ours. Every one, 
 as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his 
 station wilfully, so, by the like reason, when his own 
 preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much 
 as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, 
 unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away or 
 impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the 
 life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another. 
 
 7. And that all men may be restrained from invading 
 others' rights, and from doing hurt to one another, and 
 the law of nature be observed, which willeth the peace 
 and preservation of all mankind, the execution of the 
 law of nature is in that state put into every man's hand, 
 whereby every one has a right to punish the transgressors 
 of that law to such a degree as may hinder its violation. 
 For the law of nature would, as all other laws that 
 concern men in this world, be in vain if there were 
 nobody that, in the state of nature, had a power to 
 execute that law, and thereby preserve the innocent and 
 restrain offenders. And if any one in the state of nature 
 may punish another for any evil he has done, every one 
 
 " may do so. For in that state of perfect equality, where 
 naturally there is no superiority or jurisdiction of one 
 over another, what any may do in prosecution of that 
 law, every one must needs have a right to do. 
 
 8. And thus in the state of nature one man comes by a 
 power over another ; but yet no absolute or arbitrary 
 power, to use a criminal, when he has got him in his 
 hands, according to the passionate heats or boundless 
 extravagance of his own will ; but only to retribute to 
 him so far as calm reason and conscience dictate what is 
 proportionate to his transgression, which is so much aa 
 may serve for reparation and restraint. For these two 
 are the only reasons why one man may lawfully do harm 
 to another, which is that we call punishment. In trans- 
 gressing the law of nature, the offender declares himself 
 to live by another rule than that of common reason and 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 13 
 
 equity, which is that measure .G-od has set to the actions 
 ,pf men, for their mutual security ; and so he becomes 
 dangerous to mankind, the tie which is to secure them 
 from injury and violence being slighted and broken by 
 him. Which, being a trespass against the whole species, 
 and the peace and safety of it, provided for by the law of 
 nature, every man upon this score, by the right he hath 
 to preserve mankind in general, may restrain, or, where 
 it is necessary, destroy things noxious to them, and so 
 may bring such evil on any one who hath transgressed 
 that law, as may make him repent the doing of it, and 
 thereby deter him, and by his example others, from 
 ^floing the like mischief. And in this case, and upon this 
 Aground, every man hath a right to punish the offender, 
 and be executioner of the law of nature. 
 
 9. I doubt not but this will seem a very strange 
 doctrine to some men : but before they condemn it, I 
 desire them to resolve me by what right any prince or 
 State can put to death or punish an alien, for any crime 
 he commits in their country. 'Tis certain their laws, by 
 virtue of any sanction they receive from the promulgated 
 will of the legislative, reach not a stranger : they speak 
 not to him, nor, if they did, is he bound to hearken to 
 them. The legislative authority, by which they are in 
 force over the subjects of that commonwealth, hath no 
 power over him. Those who have the supreme power of 
 making laws in England, France, or Holland, are to an 
 Indian but like the rest of the world men without 
 authority. And, therefore, if by the law of nature 
 every man hath not a power to punish offences against 
 it, as he soberly judges the case to require, I see not how 
 the magistrates of any community can punish an alien 
 of another country ; since in reference to him they can 
 have no more power than what every man naturally may 
 have over another. 
 
 10. Besides the crimes which consist in violating the 
 law, and varying from the right rule of reason, whereby 
 a man so far becomes degenerate, and declares himself to 
 quit the principles of human nature, and to be a noxious 
 creature, there is commonly injury done some person or 
 other, some other man receives damage by his transgres, 
 sion, in which case he who hath received any damage, 
 
14 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 has, besides the right of punishment common to him 
 with other men, a particular right to seek reparation 
 from him that has done it. And any other person who 
 finds it just, may also join with him that is injured, and 
 assist him in recovering from the offender so much as 
 may make satisfaction for the harm he has suffered. 
 
 11. From these two distinct rights the one of punish- 
 ing the crime, for restraint and preventing the like 
 offence, which right of punishing is in everybody ; the 
 other of taking reparation, which belongs only to the 
 injured party comes it to pass that the magistrate, who 
 by being magistrate hath the common right of punish- 
 ing put into his hands, can often, where the public good 
 demands not the execution of the law, remit the punish- 
 ment of criminal offences by his own authority, but yet 
 cannot remit the satisfaction due to any private man for 
 the damage he has received. That he who has suffered 
 the damage has a right to demand in his own name, and 
 he alone can remit. The damnified person has this 
 power of appropriating to himself the goods or service 
 Df the offender, by right of self-preservation, as every 
 man has a power to punish the crime, to prevent its 
 being committed again, by the right he has of preserving 
 all mankind, and doing all reasonable things he can in 
 order to that end. And thus it is that every man in the 
 state of nature has a power to kill a murderer, both to 
 deter others from doing the like injury, which no repara- 
 tion can compensate, by the example of the punishment 
 that attends it from everybody, and also to secure men 
 from the attempts of a' criminal who having renounced 
 reason, the common rule and measure God hath given to 
 mankind, hath by the unjust violence and slaughter he 
 hath committed upon one, declared war against all man- 
 kind, and therefore may be destroyed as a lion or a tiger, 
 one of those wild savage beasts with whom men can 
 have no society nor security. And upon this is grounded 
 that great law of nature, " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, 
 by man shall his blood be shed." And Cain was so fully 
 convinced that every one had a right to destroy such a 
 criminal, that after the murder of his brother he cries 
 out, " Every one that findeth me shall slay me ; " so plain 
 was it writ in the hearts of mankind. 
 
OF CITIL GOYEENMENT. 15 
 
 12. By the same reason may a man in the state of 
 nature punish the lesser breaches of that law. It will 
 perhaps be demanded, With death? I answer, each trans- 
 
 , gression may be punished to that degree, and with so 
 much severity, as will suffice to make it an ill bargain to 
 the offender, give him cause to repent, and terrify others 
 from doing the like. Every offence that can be com- 
 mitted in the state of nature, may in the state of nature 
 be also punished equally, and as far forth as it may, in a 
 commonwealth. For though it would be beside my 
 present purpose to enter here into the particulars of the 
 law of nature, or its measures of punishment, yet it is 
 certain there is such a law, and that, too, as intelligible 
 and plain to a rational creature and a studier of that 
 law as the positive laws of commonwealths ; nay, 
 possibly plainer, as much as reason is easier to be under- 
 stood than the fancies and intricate contrivances of men, 
 following contrary and hidden interests put into words ; 
 for so trulv are a great part of the municipal laws of 
 countries, which are only so far right as they are 
 founded on the law of nature, by which they are to be 
 regulated and interpreted. 
 
 13. To this strange doctrine viz., That in the state of 
 nature every one has the executive power of the law of 
 nature I doubt not but it will be objected that it is 
 unreasonable for men to be judges in their own cases, 
 that self-love will make men partial to themselves and 
 their friends. And on the other side, that ill-nature, 
 passion, and revenge will carry them too far in punish- 
 ing others ; and hence nothing but confusion and disorder 
 will follow ; and that therefore God hath certainly 
 appointed government to restrain the partiality and 
 violence of men. I easily grant that civil government 
 is the proper remedy for the inconveniences of the state 
 of nature, which must certainly be great where men 
 may be judges in their own case, since 'tis easy to be 
 imagined that he who was so unjust as to do his brother 
 an injury, will scarce be so just as to condemn himself 
 for it. But I shall desire those who make this objection, 
 to remember that absolute monarchs are but men, and if 
 government is to be the remedy of those evils which 
 necessarily follow from men's being judges in their own 
 
16 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 cases, and the state of nature is therefore not to be 
 endured, I desire to know what kind of government that 
 is, and how much better it is than the state of nature, 
 where one man commanding a multitude, has the liberty 
 to be judge in his own case, and may do to all his subjects 
 whatever he pleases, without the least question or control 
 of those who execute his pleasure ; and in whatsoever 
 he doth, whether led by reason, mistake, or passion, must 
 be submitted to. which men in the state of nature are 
 not bound to do one to another? And if he that judges, 
 judges amiss in his own or any other case, he is answer- 
 able for it to the rest of mankind. 
 
 14. Tis often asked as a mighty objection, Where are, 
 or ever were there, any men in such a state of nature 1 
 To which it may suffice as an answer at present : That 
 since all princes and rulers of independent governments 
 all through the world are in a state of nature, 'tis plain 
 the world never was, nor ever will be, without numbers of 
 men in that state. I have named all governors of inde- 
 pendent communities, whether they are or are not in league 
 with others. For 'tis not every compact that puts an 
 end to the state of nature between men, but only this 
 one of agreeing together mutually to enter into one com- 
 munity, and make one body politic ; other promises and 
 compacts men may make one with another, and yet still 
 be in the state of nature. The promises and bargains 
 for truck, etc., between the two men in the desert island, 
 mentioned by Grarcilasso de la Vega, in his " History of 
 Peru," or between a Swiss and an Indian, in the woods of 
 America, are binding to them, though they are perfectly 
 in a state of nature in reference to one another. For 
 truth and keeping of faith belong to men as men, and 
 not as members of society. 
 
 15. To those that say there were never any men in the 
 state of nature, I will not only oppose the authority of 
 the judicious Hooker " Eccl. Pol.," lib. i., sect. 10, where 
 he says, " The laws which have been hitherto mentioned," 
 i.e., the laws of nature. " do bind men absolutely, even as 
 they are men. although they have never any settled 
 fellowship, and never any solemn agreement amongst 
 themselves what to do or not to do ; but forasmuch as 
 we are not by ourselves sufficient to furnish ourselves 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 17 
 
 with competent store of things needful for such a life aa 
 our nature doth desire a life fit for the dignity of man 
 therefore to supply those defects and imperfections 
 which are in us, as living single and solely by ourselves, 
 we are naturally induced to seek communion and fellow- 
 ship with others ; this was the cause of men's uniting 
 themselves at first in politic societies " but I moreover 
 aifirm that all men are naturally in that state, and 
 remain so. till by their own consents they make them- 
 selves members of some politic society ; and I doubt 
 not, in the sequel of this discourse, to make it very clear. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF THE STATE OF WAE. 
 
 16. THE state of war is a state of enmity and destruc- 
 tion ; and therefore declaring by word or action, not a 
 passionate and hasty, but a sedate, settled design upon 
 another man's life, puts him in a state of war with him 
 against whom he has declared such an intention, and so 
 has exposed his life to the other's power to be taken 
 away by him, or any one that joins with him in his 
 defence and espouses his quarrel ; it being reasonable*, 
 and just I should have a right to destroy that which 
 threatens me with destruction. For by the fundamental - 
 law of nature, man being to be preserved as much as 
 possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the 
 innocent is to be preferred ; and one may destroy a man 
 who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity 
 to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a wolf 
 
 or a lion ; because such men are not under the ties of 
 the common law of reason, have no other rule but that 
 of force and violence, and so may be treated as beasts of 
 prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures that will be 
 sure to destroy him whenever he falls into their power. 
 
 _. 17. And hence it is that he who attempts to get 
 another man into his absolute power does thereby put 
 himself into a state of war with him ; it being to be 
 understood as a declaration of a design upon his life. 
 For I have reason to conclude that he who would get me 
 
18 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 into his power without my consent, would use me as he 
 pleased when he had got me there, and destroy me too, 
 when he had a fancy to it ; for nobody can desire to have 
 me in his absolute power, unless it be to compel me by 
 force to that which is against the right of my freedom, 
 i.e., make me a slave. To be free from such force is tho 
 only security of my preservation ; and reason bids me 
 look on him as an enemy to my preservation who would 
 take away that freedom which is the fence to it ; so that 
 who makes an attempt to enslave me, thereby puts him- 
 self into a state of war with me. He that in the state of 
 nature woiild take away the freedom that belongs to any 
 one in that state, must necessarily be supposed to have a 
 design to take away everything else, that freedom being 
 the foundation of all the rest ; as he that in the state of 
 society would take away the freedom belonging to those 
 of that society or commonwealth, must be supposed to 
 design to take away from them everything else, and so 
 be looked on as in a state of war. 
 
 18. This makes it lawful for a man to kill a thief who 
 has not in the least hurt <him, nor declared any design 
 upon his life, any farther than by the use of force so to 
 get him in his power as to take away his money or what 
 he pleases from him ; because using force, where he has 
 no right, to get me into his power, let his pretence be 
 what it will, I have no reason to suppose that he who 
 would take away my liberty would not, when he had me 
 in his power, take away everything else. And therefore 
 it is lawful for me to treat him as one who has put him- 
 self into a state of war with me, i.e. kill him, if I can ; 
 for to that hazard does he justly expose himself, whoever 
 introduces a state of war and is aggressor in it. 
 
 19. And here we have the plain difference between the 
 state of nature and the state of war, which however 
 some men have confounded, are as far distant as a state 
 of peace, good-will, mutual assistance and preservation, 
 and a state of enmity, malice, violence and mutual 
 destruction, are one from another. Men living together 
 according to reason, without a common superior on earth 
 with authority to judge between them, is properly the 
 state of nature. But force, or a declared design of force, 
 upon the person of another, where there is no common 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 19 
 
 superior on earth to appeal to for relief, is the state of 
 war ; and 'tis the want of such an appeal gives a man 
 the right of war even against an aggressor, though he be 
 in society and a fellow-subject. Thus a thief, whom I 
 cannot harm, but by appeal to the law, for having stolen 
 all that I am worth, I may kill, when he sets on to rob 
 me but of my horse or coat ; because the law, which was 
 made for my preservation where it cannot interpose to 
 secure my life from present force, which if lost is 
 capable of no reparation, permits me my own defence, 
 and the right of war, a liberty to kill the aggressor, 
 because the aggressor allows not time to appeal to our 
 common judge, nor the decision of the law, for remedy 
 in a case where the mischief may be irreparable. Want 
 of a common judge with authority puts all men in a 
 state of nature ; force without right, upon a man's 
 person, makes a state of war, both where is, and is not, a 
 common judge. 
 
 20. But when the actual, force is over, the state of war 
 ceases between those that are in society, and are equally 
 on both sides subjected to the fair determination of the 
 law ; because then there lies open the remedy of appeal 
 for the past injury, and to prevent future harm ; but 
 where no such appeal is, as in the state of nature, for 
 want of positive laws and judges with authority to 
 appeal to, the state of war once begun continues, with a 
 right to the innocent party to destroy the other whenever 
 he can, until the aggressor offers peace, and desires recon- 
 ciliation on such terms as may repair any wrongs he has 
 already done, and secure the innocent for the future ; 
 nay, where an appeal to the law and constituted judges 
 lies open, but the remedy is denied by a manifest per- 
 verting of justice, and a barefaced wresting of the laws 
 to protect or indemnify the violence or injuries of some 
 men, or party of men, there it is hard to imagine any- 
 thing but a state of war. For wherever violence is 
 used, and injury done, though by hands appointed to 
 administer justice, it is still violence and injury, how- 
 ever coloured with the name, pretences, or forms of law, 
 the end whereof being to protect and redress the inno- 
 cent, by an unbiassed application of it to all who arc 
 under it; wherever that is not bond fide done, war ia 
 
20 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 made upon the sufferers, who having no appeal on earth 
 to right them, they are left to the only remedy in such 
 cases an appeal to Heaven. 
 
 21. To avoid this state of war (wherein there is no 
 appeal but to Heaven, and wherein every, the least, 
 difference is apt to end, where there is no authority to 
 decide between the contenders) is one great reason of 
 men's putting themselves into society, and quitting the 
 state of nature. For where there is an authority, a 
 power on earth from which relief can be had by appeal, 
 there the continuance of the state of war is excluded, 
 and the controversy is decided by that power. Had 
 there been any such Court, any superior jurisdiction on 
 earth, to determine the right between Jephtha and the 
 Ammonites, they had never come to a state of war, but 
 we see he was forced to appeal to Heaven. " The Lord the 
 Judge," says he, " be judge this day between the children 
 of Israel and the children of Ammon " (Judges xi. 27) ; and 
 then prosecuting and relying on his appeal, he leads out 
 his army to battle. And, therefore, in such controversies, 
 where the question is put, Who shall be judge ? it cannot 
 be meant, Who shall decide the controversy ? Every one 
 knows what Jephtha here tells us, that the Lord the 
 Judge shall judge. Where there is no judge on earth, 
 the appeal lies to God in Heaven. The question, then, 
 cannot mean, Who shall judge whether another hath 
 put himself in a state of war with me, and whether I 
 may, as Jephtha did, appeal to Heaven in it ? Of that I 
 myself can only be judge in my own conscience, as I will 
 answer it at the great day, to the supreme Judge of 
 all men. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OP SLAVERY. 
 
 22. THE natural liberty of man is to be free from any 
 superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or 
 legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of 
 nature for his rule. The liberty of man in society is to 
 be under no other legislative power but that established 
 by consent in the commonwealth : nor under the dominion 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 21 
 
 of any will or restraint of any law, but what that legis- 
 lative shall enact according to the trust put in it. 
 Freedom then is not what Sir R. F. tells us, 0. A. 55. 
 " a liberty for every one to do what he lists, to live as he 
 pleases, and not to be tied by any laws." But freedom of 
 men under government is to have a standing rule to live 
 by, common to every one of that society, and made by the 
 legislative power erected in it ; a liberty to follow my 
 own will in all things, where that rule prescribes not ; 
 and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, 
 unknown, arbitrary will of another man : as freedom of 
 nature is to be under no other restraint but the law of 
 nature. 
 
 23. This freedom from absolute arbitrary power is so 
 necessary to, and closely joined with, a man's preservation, 
 that he cannot part with it but by what forfeits his 
 preservation and life together. For a man not having 
 the power of his own life cannot by compact, or his own 
 consent, enslave himself to any one, nor put himself under 
 the absolute arbitrary power of another to take away his 
 life when he pleases. Nobody can give more power than 
 he has himself ; and he that cannot take away his own life, 
 cannot give another power over it. Indeed, having by his 
 fault forfeited his own life by some act that deserves 
 death, he to whom he has forfeited it may (when he 
 has him in his power) delay to take it. For whenever he 
 finds the hardship of his slavery outweigh the value of 
 his life, 'tis in his power by resisting the will of his 
 master to draw on himself the death he desires. 
 
 24. This is the perfect condition of slavery, which is 
 nothing else but the state of war continued between a 
 lawful conqueror and a captive. For if once compact 
 enter between them, and make an agreement for a limited 
 power on the one side, and obedience on the other, the 
 state of war and slavery ceases as long as the compact 
 endures. For, as has been said, no man can by agreement 
 pass over to another that which he hath not in himself, a 
 power over his own life. 
 
 I confess we find among the Jews as well as other 
 nations that men did sell themselves ; but 'tis plain this 
 was only to drudgery, not to slavery. For it is evident 
 the person sold was not under an absolute, arbitrary. 
 
22 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 despotical power. For the master could not have power 
 to kill him, at any time, whom at a certain time he was 
 obliged to let go free out of his service ; and the master 
 of such a servant was so far from having an arbitrary 
 power over his life, that he could not at pleasure so much 
 as maim him, but the loss of an eye or tooth set him 
 free. (Exodus xxi.) 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OP PEOPEKTY. 
 
 25. WHETHER we consider natural reason, which tells us 
 that men being once born have a right to their preserva- 
 tion, and consequently to meat and drink and such other 
 things as nature affords for their subsistence ; or Kevela- 
 tion, which gives us an account of those grants God made 
 of the world to Adam, and to Noah and his sons, 'tis very 
 clear that God, as King David says, Psalm cxv. 16, " has 
 given the earth to the children of men," given it to man- 
 kind in common. But this being supposed, it seems to 
 some a very great difficulty how any one should ever come 
 to have a property in anything. I will not content myself 
 to answer that if it be difficult to make out property upon 
 a supposition that God gave the world to Adam and his 
 posterity in common, it is impossible that any man but 
 one universal monarch should have any property upon a 
 supposition that God gave the world to Adam and his 
 heirs in succession, exclusive of all the rest of his 
 posterity. But I shall endeavour to show how men might 
 come to have a property in several parts of that which 
 God gave to mankind in common, and that without any 
 express compact of all the commoners. 
 
 26. God, who hath given the world to men in common, 
 habh also given them reason to make use of it to the best 
 advantage of life and convenience. The earth and all 
 that is therein is given to men for the support and com- 
 fort of their being. ' And though all the fruits it naturally 
 produces, and beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in 
 common, as they are produced by the spontaneous hand of 
 nature ; and nobody has originally a private dominion 
 exclusive of the rest of mankind in any of them as they 
 
OF CITIL GOTBRNMENT. 23 
 
 are thus in their natural state ; yet being given for the 
 use of men, there must of necessity be a means to appro- 
 priate them some way or other before they can be of any 
 use or at all beneficial to any particular man. The fruit 
 or venison which nourishes the wild Indian, who knows no 
 enclosure, and is still a tenant in common, must be his, 
 and so his, i.e:, a part of him, that another can no longer 
 have any right to it, before it can do any good for the 
 support of his life. 
 
 27. Though the earth and all inferior creatures be 
 common to all men, yet every man has a property in his 
 own person ; this nobody has any right to but himself. 
 The labour of his body and the work of his hands we may 
 say are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes out of 
 the state that nature hath provided and left it in, he hath 
 mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that 
 is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being- 
 by him removed from the common state nature hath 
 placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to 
 it that) excludes the common right of other men. For 
 this labour being the unquestionable property of the 
 labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is 
 once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good 
 left in common for others. 
 
 28. He that is nourished by the acorns he picked up 
 under an oak, or the apples he gathered from the trees in 
 the wood, has certainly appropriated them to himself. 
 Nobody can deny but the nourishment is his . I ask, then, 
 When did they begin to be his when he digested, or when 
 he ate, or when he boiled, or when he brought them home, 
 or when he picked them up ? And 'tis plain if the first 
 gathering made them not his, nothing else could. That 
 labour put a distinction between them and common ; that 
 added something to them more than Nature, the common 
 mother of all, had done, and so they became his private 
 right. And will any one say he had no right to those 
 acorns or apples he thus appropriated, because he had 
 not the consent of all mankind to make them his ? Was 
 it a robbery thus to assume to himself what belonged to 
 all in common ? If such a consent as that was necessary, 
 man had starved, notwithstanding the plenty Glod had 
 given him. We see in commons which remain so by 
 
24 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 compact that 'tis the taking any part of what is common 
 and removing it out of the state nature leaves it in, which 
 begins the property ; without which the- common is of no 
 use. And the taking of this or that part does not depend 
 on the express consent of all the commoners. Thus the 
 grass my horse has bit, the turfs my servant has cut, and 
 the ore I have dug in any place where I have a right to 
 them in common with others, become my property with- 
 out the assignation or consent of anybody. The labour 
 that was mine removing them out of that common state 
 they were in, hath fixed my property in them. 
 
 29. By making an explicit consent of every commoner 
 necessary to any one's appropriating to himself any part 
 of what is given in common, children or servants could 
 not cut the meat which their father or master had pro- 
 vided for them in common without assigning to every 
 one his peculiar part. Though the water running in the 
 fountain be every one's, yet who can doubt but that in 
 the pitcher is his only who drew it out ? His labour hath 
 taken it out of the hands of Nature, where it was common, 
 and belonged equally to all her children, and hath 
 thereby appropriated it to himself. 
 
 30. Thus this law of reason makes the deer that 
 Indian's who hath killed it ; 'tis allowed to be his goods 
 who hath bestowed his labour upon it, though before it 
 was the common right of every one. And amongst those 
 who are counted the civilised part of mankind, who have 
 made and multiplied positive laws to determine property, 
 this original law of nature, for the beginning of property 
 in what was before common, still takes place ; and by 
 virtue thereof, what fish any one catches in the ocean, 
 that great and still remaining common of mankind, or 
 what ambergris any one takes up here, is, by the labour 
 that removes it out of that common state nature left it 
 in, made his property who takes that pains about it. 
 And even amongst us, the hare that any one is hunting is 
 thought his who pursues her during the chase. For being 
 a beast that is still looked upon as common, and no man's 
 private possession, whoever has employed so much 
 labour about any of that kind as to find and pursue her 
 has thereby removed her from the state of nature wherein 
 she was common, and hath begun a property. 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 25 
 
 31. It will perhaps be objected to this, that if gathering 
 the acorns, or other fruits of the earth, &c., makes a right 
 to them, then any one may engross as much as he will. 
 To which I answer, Not so. The same law of nature 
 that does by this means give us property, does also bound 
 that property too. " God has given us all things richly " 
 (2 Tim. vi. 12), is the voice of reason confirmed by inspira- 
 tion. But how far has He given it us ? To enjoy. As 
 much as any one can make use of to any advantage of 
 life before it spoils, so much he may by his labour fix a 
 property in ; whatever is beyond this, is more than his 
 share, and belongs to others. Nothing was made by God 
 for man to spoil or destroy. And thus considering the 
 plenty of natural provisions there was a long time in the 
 world, and the few spenders, and to how small a part of 
 that provision the industry of one man could extend 
 itself, and engross it to the prejudice of others especially 
 keeping within the bounds, set by reason, of what might 
 serve for his use there could be then little room for 
 quarrels or contentions about property so established. 
 
 32. But the chief matter of property being now not 
 the fruits of the earth, and the beasts that subsist on it, 
 but the earth itself, as that which takes in and carries 
 with it all the rest, I think it is plain that property in"^ 
 that, too, is acquired as the former. As much land as a 
 man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the 
 product of, so much is his property. He by his labour 
 does as it were enclose it from the common. Nor will it 
 invalidate his right to say, everybody else has an equal 
 title to it ; and therefore he cannot appropriate, he cannot 
 enclose, without the consent of all his fellov7-commoners, 
 all mankind. God, when He gave the world in common 
 to all mankind, commanded man also to labour, and the 
 penury of his condition required it of him. God and his 
 reason commanded him to subdue the earth, i.e., improve 
 it for the benefit of life, and therein lay out something 
 upon it that was his own, his labour. He that, in 
 obedience to this command of God, subdued, tilled, and 
 sowed any part of it, thereby annexed to it something 
 that was his property, which another had no title to, nor 
 could without injury take from him. 
 
 33. Nor was this appropriation of any parcel of land, 
 
26 OF CIVIL GOVEBNMENT. 
 
 by improving it, any prejudice to any other man, since 
 there was still enough and as good left ; and more than 
 the yet unprovided could use. So that in effect there was 
 never the less left for others because of his enclosure for 
 himself. For he that leaves as much as another can 
 make use of, does as good as take nothing at all. Nobody 
 could think himself injured by the drinking of another 
 man, though he took a good draught, who had a whole 
 river of the same water left him to quench his thirst ; 
 and the case of land and water, where there is enough of 
 both, is perfectly the same. 
 
 34. God gave the world to men in common ; but since 
 He gave it for their benefit, and the greatest conveniences 
 of life they were capable to draw from it, it cannot be 
 supposed He meant it should always remain common and 
 uncultivated. He gave it to the use of the industrious 
 and rational (and labour was to be his title to it), not 
 to the fancy or covetousness of the quarrelsome and con- 
 tentious. He that has as good left for his improvement 
 as was already taken up, needed not complain, ought not 
 to meddle with what was already improved by another's 
 labour ; if he did, it is plain he desired the benefit of 
 another's pains, which he had no right to, and not the 
 ground which God had given him in common with others 
 to labour on, and whereof there was as good left as that 
 already possessed, and more than he knew what to do 
 with, or his industry could reach to. 
 
 35. It is itrue, in land that is common in England, or 
 any other country where there is plenty of people under 
 Government, who have money and commerce, no one can 
 enclose or appropriate any part without the consent of 
 all his fellow-commoners : because this is left common 
 by compact, i.e., by the law of the land, which is not to 
 be violated. And though it be common in respect of 
 some men, it is not so to all mankind ; but is the joint 
 property of this country, or this parish. Besides, the 
 remainder, after such enclosure, would not be as good to 
 the rest of the commoners as the whole was, when they 
 could all make use of the whole ; whereas in the be- 
 ginning and first peopling of the great common of the 
 world it was quite otherwise. The law man was under 
 was rather for appropriating. God commanded, and his 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 27 
 
 wants forced him, to labour. That was his property, 
 which could not be taken from him wherever he had 
 fixed it. And hence subduing or cultivating the earth, 
 and having dominion, we see are joined together. The 
 one gave title to the other. So that God, by command- 
 ing to subdue, gave authority so far to appropriate. And 
 the condition of human life, which requires labour and 
 materials to work on, necessarily introduces private 
 possessions. 
 
 36. Nature has well set the measure of property by the 
 extent of men's labour and the conveniences of life. No 
 man's labour could subdue or appropriate all ; nor could 
 his enjoyment consume more than a small part ; so that 
 it was impossible for any man, this way, to intrench 
 upon the right of another, or acquire to himself a 
 property to the prejudice of his neighbour, who would 
 still have room for as good and as large a possession 
 (after the other had taken out his) as before it was 
 appropriated. Measure did confine every man's possession 
 to a very moderate proportion, and such as he might 
 appropriate to himself without injury to anybody, in 
 the first ages of the world, when men were more in 
 danger to be lost by wandering from their company in 
 the then vast wilderness of the earth than to be 
 straitened for want of room to plant in. And the 
 same measure may be allowed still without prejudice to 
 anybody, as full as the world seems. For supposing a 
 man or family in the state they were at first peopling of 
 the world by the children of Adam or Noah ; let him 
 plant in some inland vacant places of America, we shall 
 find that the possessions he could make himself, upon the 
 measures we have given, would not be very large, nor, 
 even to this day, prejudice the rest of mankind, or give 
 them reason to complain or think themselves injured by 
 this man's encroachment, though the race of men have 
 now spread themselves to all the corners of the world, 
 and do infinitely exceed the small number that was at the 
 beginning. Nay, the extent of ground is of so little 
 value without labour, that I have heard it affirmed that 
 in Spain itself a man may be permitted to plough, sow, 
 or reap, without being disturbed, upon land he has no 
 other title to but only his making use of it. But, on the 
 
28 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 contrary, the inhabitants think themselves beholden to 
 him who by his industry on neglected and consequently 
 waste land has increased the stock of corn which they 
 wanted. But be this as it will, which I lay no stress on, 
 this I dare boldly affirm that the same rule of propriety, 
 viz., that every man should have as much as he could 
 make use of, would hold still in the world without 
 straitening anybody, since there is land enough in 
 the world to suffice double the inhabitants had not the 
 invention of money, and the tacit agreement of men to 
 put a value on it, introduced (by consent) larger posses- 
 sions and a right to them ; which how it has done I 
 shall by-and-bye show more at large. 
 
 37. This is certain, that in the b3ginning, before the 
 desire of having more than man needed had altered the 
 intrinsic value of things, which depends only on their 
 usefulness to the life of man ; or had agreed that a little 
 piece of yellow metal which would keep without wasting 
 or decay should be worth a great piece of flesh or a 
 whole heap of corn, though men had a right to appro- 
 priate by their labour, each one to himself, as much of 
 the things of nature as he could use, yet this could 
 not be much, nor to the prejudice of others, where the 
 same plenty was still left to those who would use the 
 same industry. To which let me add that he who appro- 
 priates land to himself by his labour does not lessen but 
 increases the common stock of mankind. For the provi- 
 sions serving to the support of human life, produced by 
 one acre of enclosed and cultivated land, are (to speak 
 much within compass) ten times more than those which are 
 yielded by an acre of land of an equal richness lying waste 
 in common. And therefore he that encloses land, and 
 has a greater plenty of the conveniences of life from ten 
 acres than he could have from a hundred left to nature, 
 may truly be said to give ninety acres to mankind. For his 
 labour now supplies him with provisions out of ten acres, 
 which were but the product of a hundred lying in 
 common. I have here rated the improved land very low 
 in making its product but as ten to one, when it is 
 much nearer a hundred to one. For I ask whether in 
 the wild woods and uncultivated wastes of America, left 
 fco na ture without any improvement, tillage, or husbandry, 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 29 
 
 a thousand acres yield the needy and wretched inhabit- 
 ants as many conveniences of life as ten acres of equal 
 fertile land do in Devonshire, where they are well culti- 
 vated 1 
 
 Before the appropriation of land, he who gathered as 
 much of the wild fruit, killed, caught, or tamed as many 
 of the beasts as he could ; he that so employed his pains 
 about any of the spontaneous products of nature as any way 
 to alter them from the state which nature put them in, by 
 placing any of his labour on them, did thereby acquire a 
 propriety in them. But if they perished in his possession 
 without their due use ; if the fruits rotted, or the venison 
 putrefied before he could spend it, he offended against 
 the common law of nature, and was liable to be punished ; 
 he invaded his neighbour's share, for he had no, right 
 further than his use called for any of them and they 
 might serve to afford him conveniences of life. 
 
 38. The same measures governed the possessions of 
 land, too. Whatsoever he tilled and reaped, laid up, and 
 made use of before it spoiled, that was his peculiar right ; 
 whatsoever he enclosed and could feed and make use of, 
 the cattle and product was also his. But if either the grass 
 of his enclosure rotted on the ground, or the fruit of his 
 planting perished without gathering and laying up, this 
 part of the earth, notwithstanding his enclosure, was 
 still to be looked on as waste, and might be the possession 
 of any other. Thus, at the beginning, Cain might take 
 as much ground as he could till and make it his own 
 land, and yet leave enough for Abel's sheep to feed on ; 
 a few acres would serve for both their possessions. But 
 as families increased, and industry enlarged their stocks, 
 their possessions enlarged with the need of them ; but 
 yet it was commonly without any fixed property to the 
 ground they made use of, till they incorporated, settled 
 themselves together, and built cities ; and then, by con- 
 sent, they came in time to set out the bounds of their 
 distinct territories, and agree on limits between them 
 and their neighbours, and, by laws within themselves, 
 settled the properties of those of the same society. For 
 we see that in that part of the world which was first 
 inhabited, and therefore like to be the best peopled, even 
 &s low down as Abraham's time they wandered with 
 
30 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 their flocks and their herds, which were their substance, 
 freely up and down ; and this Abraham did in a country 
 where he was a stranger : whence it is plain that at 
 least a great part of the land lay in common ; that the 
 inhabitants valued it not, nor claimed property in any 
 more than they made use of. But when there was not 
 room enough in the same place for their herds to feed 
 together, they by consent, as Abraham and Lot did 
 (Glen. xiii. 5), separated and enlarged their pasture 
 where it best liked them. And for the same reason 
 Esau went from his father and his brother, and planted 
 in Mount Seir (Gren. xxxvi. 6). 
 
 39. And thus, without supposing any private dominion 
 and property in Adam over all the world, exclusive of 
 all other men, which can no way be proved, nor any 
 one's property be made out from it ; but supposing the 
 world given as it was to the children of men in common, 
 we see how labour could make men distinct titles to 
 several parcels of it for their private uses, wherein there 
 could be no doubt of right, no room for quarrel. 
 
 40. Nor is it so strange, as perhaps before considera- 
 tion it may appear, that the property of labour should be 
 able to overbalance the community of land. For it is 
 labour indeed that puts the difference of value on every- 
 thing ; and let any one consider what the difference is 
 between an acre of land planted with tobacco or sugar, 
 sown with wheat or barley, and an acre of the same land 
 lying in common without any husbandry upon it, and he 
 will find that the improvement of labour makes the far 
 greater part of the value. I think it will be but a very 
 modest computation to say that of the products of the 
 earth useful to the life of man nine-tenths are the effects 
 of labour ; nay, if we will rightly estimate things as they 
 come to our use, and cast up the several expenses about 
 them what in them is purely owing to nature, and 
 what to labour we shall find that in most of them 
 ninety-nine hundredths are wholly to be put on the 
 account of labour. 
 
 41. There cannot be a clearer demonstration of any- 
 thing than several nations of the Americans are of 
 this, who are rich in land and poor in all the comforts 
 of life, whom nature having furnished as liberally as 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 31 
 
 any other people with the materials of plenty i.e., a 
 fruitful soil, apt to produce in abundance what might 
 serve for food, raiment, and delight yet, for want of 
 improving it by labour, have not one-hundredth part of 
 the conveniences we enjoy. And a king of a large and 
 fruitful territory there, feeds, lodges, and is clad worse 
 than a day-labourer in England. 
 
 42. To make this a little clearer, let us but trace some 
 of the ordinary provisions of life through their several 
 progresses before they come to our use, and see how 
 much they receive of their value from human industry. 
 Bread, wine, and cloth are things of daily use and great 
 plenty ; yet, notwithstanding, acorns, water, and leaves 
 or skins, must be our bread, drink, and clothing, did not 
 labour furnish us with these more useful commodities. 
 For whatever bread is more worth than acorns, wine 
 than water, and cloth or silk than leaves, skins, or moss, 
 that is wholly owing to labour and industry : the one 
 of these being the food and raiment which unassisted 
 nature furnishes us with,; the other, provisions which our 
 industry and pains prepare for us ; which how much 
 they exceed the other in value when any one hath com- 
 puted, he will then see how much labour makes the far 
 greatest part of the value of things we enjoy in this 
 world. And the ground that produces the materials is 
 scarce to be reckoned in as any, or at most but a very 
 small, part of it ; so little that even amongst us land 
 that is left wholly to nature, that hath no improvement 
 of pasturage, tillage, or planting, is called, as indeed it is, 
 " waste," and we shall find the benefit of it amount to 
 little more than nothing. 
 
 This shows how much numbers of men are to be pre- 
 ferred to largeness of dominions, and that the increase 
 of lands and the right employing of them is the great 
 art of government ; and that prince who shall be so wise 
 and godlike as, by established laws of liberty, to secure 
 protection and encouragement to the honest industry of 
 mankind against the oppression of power and narrowness 
 of party, will quickly be too hard for his neighbours. 
 But this by-the-bye : to return to the argument in 
 hand. 
 
 43. An acre of land that bears here twenty bushels of 
 
32 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT^ 
 
 wheat, and another in America which, with the same 
 husbandry, would do the like, are without doubt of the 
 same natural intrinsic value ; but yet the benefit man- 
 kind receives from the one in a year is worth 5, and 
 from the other possibly not worth a penny, if all the 
 profit an Indian received from it were to be valued and 
 sold here ; at least, I may truly say, not one-thousandth. 
 'Tis labour, then, which puts the greatest part of value 
 upon land, without which it would scarcely be worth any- 
 thing ; 'tis to that we owe the greatest part of all its useful 
 products, for all that the straw, bran, bread, of that acre 
 of wheat is more worth than the product of an acre of as 
 good land which lies waste, is all the effect of labour. 
 For 'tis not barely the ploughman's pains, the reaper's 
 and thresher's toil, and the baker's sweat, is to be counted 
 into the bread we eat ; the labour of those who broke 
 the oxen, who dug and wrought the iron and stones, 
 who felled and framed the timber employed about the 
 plough, mill, oven, or any other utensils, which are a 
 vast number, requisite to this corn, from its being seed to 
 be sown, to its being made bread, must all be charged on 
 the account of labour, and received as an effect of that. 
 Nature and the earth furnished only the almost worthless 
 materials as in themselves. 'Twould be a strange cata- 
 logue of things that industry provided, and made use of, 
 about every loaf of bread before it came to our use, if 
 we could trace them iron, wood, leather, bark, timber, 
 stone, bricks, coals, lime, cloth, dyeing drugs, pitch, tar, 
 masts, ropes, and all the materials made use of in the 
 ship that brought any of the commodities made use of 
 by any of the workmen to any part of the work, all 
 which it would be almost impossible at least, too long 
 to reckon up. 
 
 44. From all which it is evident that, though the things 
 of nature are given in common, yet man, by being 
 master of himself and proprietor of his own person and 
 the actions or labour of it, had still in himself the great 
 foundation of property ; and that which made up tho 
 great part of what he applied to the support or comfort 
 of his being, when invention and arts had improved the 
 conveniences of life, was perfectly his own, and did not 
 belong in common to others. 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 33 
 
 45. Thus labour, in the beginning, gave a right of 
 property, wherever any one was pleased to employ it 
 upon what was common, which remained a long while 
 the far greater part, and is yet more than mankind makes 
 use of. Men at first, for the most part, contented them- 
 selves with what unassisted nature offered to their 
 necessities ; and though afterwards, in some parts of the 
 world (where' the increase of people and stock, with the 
 use of money, had made land scarce, and so of some 
 value), the several communities settled the bounds of 
 their distinct territories, and, by laws within themselves, 
 regulated the properties of the private men of their 
 society, and so, by compact and agreement, settled the 
 property which labour and industry began and the 
 leagues that have been made between several states 
 and kingdoms, either expressly or tacitly disowning all 
 claim and right to the land in the other's possession, 
 have, by common consent, given up their pretences to 
 their natural common right, which originally they had 
 to those countries ; and so have, by positive agreement, 
 settled a property amongst themselves in distinct parts 
 and parcels of the earth yet there are still great tracts 
 of ground to be found which, the inhabitants thereof 
 not having joined with the rest of mankind in the 
 consent of the use of their common money, lie waste, 
 and are more than the people who dwell on it do or can 
 make use of, and so still lie in common ; though this 
 can scarce happen amongst that part of mankind that 
 have consented to the use of money. 
 
 46. The greatest part of things really useful to the 
 life of man, and such as the necessity of subsisting 
 made the first commoners of the world look after, as it 
 doth the Americans now, are generally things of short 
 duration, such as, if they are not consumed by use, will 
 decay and perish of themselves : gold, silver, and 
 diamonds are things that fancy or agreement have put 
 the value on more than real use and the necessary sup- 
 port of life. Now, of those good things which nature 
 hath provided in common, every one had a right, as hath 
 been said, to as much as he could use, and property in all 
 he could effect with his labour all that his industry could 
 extend to, to alter from the state nature had put it in, 
 
 B-87 
 
34 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 was his. He that gathered a hundred bushels of acorns 
 or apples had thereby a property in them ; they were his 
 goods as soon as gathered. He was only to look that he 
 used them before they spoiled, else he took more than his 
 share, and robbed others ; and, indeed, it was a foolish 
 thing, as well as dishonest, to hoard up more than he 
 could make use of. If he gave away a part to anybody 
 else, so that it perished not uselessly in his posses- 
 sion, these he also made use of ; and if he also 
 bartered away plums that would have rotted in a 
 week, for nuts that would last good for his eating a 
 whole year, he did no injury ; he wasted not the common 
 stock, destroyed no part of the portion of goods that 
 belonged to others, so long as nothing perished uselessly 
 in his hands. Again, if he would give his nuts for a 
 piece of metal, pleased with its colour, or exchange his 
 sheep for shells, or wool for a sparkling pebble or a 
 diamond, and keep those by him all his life, he invaded 
 not the right of others ; he might heap up as much of 
 these durable things as he pleased, the exceeding of the 
 bounds of his just property not lying in the largeness 
 of his possession, but the perishing of anything uselessly 
 in it. 
 
 47. And thus came in the use of money some lasting 
 thing that men might keep without spoiling, and that, 
 by mutual consent, men would take in exchange for 
 the truly useful but perishable supports of life. 
 
 48. And as different degrees of industry were apt to 
 give men possessions in different proportions, so this 
 invention of money gave them the opportunity to con- 
 tinue and enlarge them ; for supposing an island, separate 
 from all possible commerce with the rest of the world, 
 wherein there were but a hundred families but there 
 were sheep, horses, and cows, with other useful animals, 
 wholesome fruits, and land enough for corn for a hundred 
 thousand times as many, but nothing in the island, either 
 because of its commonness or perishableness, fit to supply 
 the place of money what reason could any one have 
 there to enlarge his possessions beyond the use of his 
 family and a plentiful supply to its consumption, either 
 in what their own industry produced, or they could 
 barter for like perishable useful commodities with 
 
OF CIYIL GOVERNMENT. 35 
 
 others ? Where there is not something both lasting and 
 scarce, and so valuable to be hoarded up, there men will 
 be apt to enlarge their possessions of land, were it never 
 so rich, never so free for them to take ; for I ask, what 
 would a man value ten thousand or a hundred thousand 
 acres of excellent land, ready cultivated, and well stocked 
 too with cattle, in the middle of the inland parts of 
 America, where he had no hopes of commerce with other 
 parts of the world, to draw money to him by the sale 
 of the product ? It would not be worth the enclosing, 
 and we should see him give up again to the wild com- 
 mon of nature whatever was more than would supply 
 the conveniences of life to be had there for him and his 
 family. 
 
 49. Thus in the beginning all the world was America, 
 and more so than that is now. for no such thing as 
 money was anywhere known. Find out something that 
 hath the use and value of money amongst his neighbours, 
 you shall see the same man will begin presently to 
 enlarge his possessions. 
 
 50. But since gold and silver, being little useful to the 
 life of man in proportion to food, raiment, and carriage, 
 has its value only from the consent of men, whereof 
 labour yet makes, in great part, the measure, it is plain 
 that men have agreed to a disproportionate and unequal 
 possession of the earth, they having, by a tacit and 
 voluntary consent, found out a way how a man may 
 fairly possess more land than he himself can use the 
 product of by receiving in exchange for the overplus 
 gold and silver, which may be hoarded up without injury 
 to any one, these metals not spoiling or decaying in the 
 hands of the possessor. This partage of things in an 
 inequality of private possessions men have made practic- 
 able out of the bounds of society and without compact, 
 only by putting a value on gold and silver, and tacitly 
 agreeing in the use of money ; for in Governments the 
 laws regulate the right of property, and the possession 
 of land is determined by positive constitutions. 
 
 51. And thus, I think, it is very easy to conceive with- 
 out any difficulty how labour could at first begin a title 
 of property in the common things of nature, and how 
 the spending it upon our uses bound it ; so that there 
 
36 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 could then be no reason of quarrelling about title, nor 
 any doubt about the largeness of possession it gave. 
 Right and conveniency went together ; for as a man had 
 a right to all he could employ his labour upon, so he had 
 no temptation to labour for more than he could make 
 use of. This left no room for controversy about the 
 title, nor for encroachment on the right of others ; what 
 portion a man carved to himself was easily seen, and 
 it was useless, as well as dishonest, to carve himself too 
 much, or take more than he needed. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OF PATERNAL POWER. 
 
 52. IT may perhaps be censured as an impertinent 
 criticism in a discourse of this nature to find fault with 
 words and names that have obtained in the world, 
 and yet possibly it may not be amiss to. offer new ones 
 when the old are apt to lead men into mistakes, as this of 
 paternal power probably has done, which seems so to place 
 the power of parents over their children wholly in the 
 father, as if the mother had no share in it ; whereas, if we 
 consult reason or revelation, we shall find she hath an 
 equal title. This may give one reason to ask whether 
 this might not be more properly called parental power ? 
 For whatever obligation nature and the right of genera- 
 tion lays on children, it must certainly bind them equal 
 to both the concurrent causes of it. And accordingly we 
 see the positive law of God everywhere joins them 
 together without distinction when it commands the obedi- 
 ence of children. " Honour thy father and thy mother " 
 (Exod. xx. 12) ; " Whosoever curseth his father or his 
 mother" (Lev. xx. 9); "Ye shall fear every man his 
 mother and his father " (Lev. xix. 3) ; " Children, obey 
 your parents," &c. (Eph. ix. 1), is the style of the Old and 
 New Testaments. 
 
 53. Had but this one thing been well considered, 
 without looking any deeper into the matter, it might, 
 perhaps, have kept men from running* into those gross 
 mistakes they have made about this power of parents ; 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 37 
 
 which, however it might without any great harshness 
 bear the name of absolute dominion and regal authority 
 when, under the title of paternal power, it seemed appro- 
 priated to the father, would yet have sounded but oddly, 
 and in the very name shown the absurdity, if this 
 supposed absolute power over children had been called 
 parental, and thereby have discovered that it belonged 
 to the mother too ; for it will but very ill serve the turn 
 of those men who contend so much for the absolute 
 power and authority of the fatherhood, as they call it, 
 that the mother should have any share in it. And it 
 would have but ill supported the monarchy they contend 
 for, when by the very name it appeared that that 
 fundamental authority from whence they would derive 
 their government of a single person only, was not placed 
 in one, feut two persons jointly. But to let this of names 
 pass. 
 
 54. Though I have said above (Chapter II.) that all men 
 by nature are equal, I cannot be supposed to understand all 
 sorts of equality : age or virtue may give men a just 
 precedency : excellency of parts and merit may place 
 others above the common level : birth may subject some, 
 and alliance or benefits others, to pay an observance to 
 those to whom nature, gratitude, or other respects may 
 have made it due ; and yet all this consists with the 
 equality which all men are in, in respect of jurisdiction or 
 dominion, one over another ; which was the equality I 
 there spoke of as proper to the business in hand, being 
 that equal right that every man hath to his natural 
 freedom, without being subjected to the will or authority 
 of any other man. 
 
 55. Children, I confess, are not born 'in this full state 
 of equality, though they are born to it, Their parents 
 have a sort of rule and jurisdiction over them when they 
 come into the world, and for some time after, but 'tis but 
 a temporary one. The bonds of this subjection are like 
 the swaddling clothes they are wrapped up in and 
 supported by in the weakness of their infancy : age and 
 reason, as they grow up, loosen them, till at length they 
 drop quite off, and leave a man at his own free disposal. 
 
 56. Adam was created a perfect man, his body and 
 mind in full possession of their strength and reason, and 
 
38 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 so was capable, from the first instant of his being, to 
 provide for his own support and preservation, and govern 
 his actions according to the dictates of the law of reason 
 which God had implanted in him. From him the world 
 is peopled with his descendants, who are all born infants, 
 weak and helpless, without knowledge or understanding : 
 but to supply the defects of this imperfect state till the 
 improvement of growth and age had removed them, 
 Adam and Eve, and after them all parents, were by the 
 law of nature under an obligation to preserve, nourish, 
 and educate the children they had begotten ; not as their 
 own workmanship, but the workmanship of their own 
 Maker, the Almighty, to whom they were to be accountable 
 for them. 
 
 57. The law that was to govern Adam was the same 
 that was to govern all his posterity, the law of reason. 
 But his offspring having another way of entrance into 
 the world, different from him, by a natural birth, that 
 produced them ignorant and without the use of reason, 
 they were not presently under that law ; for nobody can 
 be under a law which is not promulgated to him ; and 
 this law being promulgated or made known by reason 
 only, he that is not come to the use of his reason cannot 
 be said to be under this law ; and Adam's children being 
 not presently as soon as born under this law of reason, 
 were not presently free. For law in its true notion is 
 not so much the limitation as the direction of a free and 
 intelligent agent to his proper interest, and prescribes no 
 farther than is for the general good of those under that 
 law : could they be happier without it, the law as an 
 useless thing would of itself vanish ; and that ill deserves 
 the name of confinement which hedges us in only from 
 bogs and precipices. So that, however it may be mistaken, 
 the end of law is, not to abolish or restrain, but to 
 preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of 
 created beings capable of laws, where there is no law 
 there is no freedom. For liberty is to be free from 
 restraint and violence from others ; which cannot be 
 where there is no law : but freedom is not, as we are told, 
 a liberty for every man to do what he lists. (For who 
 could be free when every other man's humour might 
 domineer over him?) But a liberty to dispose, and 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 39 
 
 order as he lists, his person, actions, possessions, and his 
 whole property, within the allowance of those laws under 
 which he is, and therein not to be subject to the arbitrary 
 will of another, but freely follow his own. 
 
 58. The power, then, that parents have over their 
 children arises from that duty which is incumbent on 
 them, to take care of their offspring during the imperfect 
 state of childhood. To inform the mind, and govern the 
 actions of their yet ignorant nonage, till reason shall 
 take its place and ease them of that trouble, is what the 
 children want, and the parents are bound to. For God, 
 having given man an understanding to direct his actions, 
 has allowed him a freedom of will and liberty of acting 
 as properly belonging thereunto, within the bounds of 
 that law he is under. But whilst he is in an estate 
 wherein he has not understanding of his own to direct 
 his will, he is not to have any will of his own to follow. 
 He that understands for him must will for him too ; he 
 must prescribe to his will, and regulate his actions ; but 
 when he comes to the estate that made his father a 
 freeman, the son is a freeman too. 
 
 59. This holds in all the laws n man is under, whether 
 natural or civil. Is a man under the law of nature? 
 What made him free of that law ? What gave him a free 
 disposing of his property according to his own will 
 within the compass of that law ? I answer, A state of 
 maturity wherein he might be supposed capable to know 
 that law, that so he might keep his actions within the 
 bounds of it. When he has acquired that state, he is 
 presumed to know how far that law is to be his guide, 
 and how far he may make use of his freedom, and so 
 comes to have it ; till then somebody else must guide 
 him who is presumed to know how far the law allows a 
 liberty. If such a state of reason, such an age of discre- 
 tion made him free, the same shall make his son free too. 
 Is a man under the law of England ? What made him 
 free of that law 1 That is, to have the liberty to dispose 
 of his actions and possessions according to his own will, 
 within the permission of that law ? A capacity of 
 knowing that law ; which is supposed by that law at 
 the age of one-and-twenty years, and in some cases sooner. 
 Jf this made the father free, it shall make the son free 
 
40 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 too. Till then we see the law allows the son to have no 
 will, but he is to be guided by the will of his father or 
 guardian, who is to understand for him. And if the 
 father die, and fail to substitute a deputy in his trust ; if 
 he hath not provided a tutor to govern his son during his 
 minority, during his want of understanding, the law 
 takes care to do it. Some other must govern him, and be 
 a will to him, till he hath attained to a state of freedom, 
 and his understanding be fit to take the government of 
 his will. But after that the father and son are equally 
 free, as much as tutor and pupil after nonage ; equally 
 subjects of the same law together, without any dominion 
 left in the father over the life, liberty, or estate of his 
 son, whether they be only in the state and under the law 
 of nature, or under the positive laws of an established 
 government. 
 
 60. But if, through defects that may happen out of the 
 ordinary course of nature, any one comes not to such a 
 degree of reason wherein he might be supposed capable of 
 knowing the law, and so living within the rules of it, he 
 is never capable of being a freeman, he is never let loose 
 to the disposure of his own will (because he knows no 
 bounds to it, has not understanding, its proper guide) 
 but is continued under the tuition and government of 
 others all the time his own understanding is incapable 
 of that charge. And so lunatics and idiots are never set 
 free from the government of their parents: "children 
 who are not as yet come unto those years whereat they 
 may have ; and innocents which are excluded by a 
 natural defect from ever having ; thirdly, madmen, 
 which for the present cannot possibly have the use of 
 right reason to guide themselves, have for their guide the 
 reason that guideth other men which are tutors over them, 
 to seek and procure their good for them," says Hooker, 
 *' Eccl. Pol." lib. i., sect. 7. All which seems no more than 
 that duty which God and nature has laid on man, as well 
 as other creatures, to preserve their offspring till they can 
 be able to shift for themselves, and will scarce amount 
 to an instance or proof of parents' regal authority. 
 
 61. Thus we are born 'free, as we are born rational ; not 
 that we have actually the exercise of either . age that 
 brings one, brings with it the other too. And thus we 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 41 
 
 see how natural freedom and subjection to parents may 
 consist together, and are both founded on the same prin- 
 ciple. A child is free by his father's title, by his father's 
 understanding, which is to govern him till he hath it of 
 his own. The freedom of a man at years of discretion, 
 and the subjection of a child to his parents whilst yet 
 short of that age, are so consistent, and so distinguishable, 
 that the most blinded contenders for monarchy by right 
 of fatherhood cannot miss this difference ; the most obsti- 
 nate cannot but allow their consistency. For were their 
 doctrine all true, were the right heir of Adam now known , 
 and by that title settled a monarch in his throne, invested 
 with all the absolute unlimited power Sir R. F. talks 
 of ; if he should die as soon as his heir were born, must not 
 the child, notwithstanding he were never so free, never so 
 much Sovereign, be in subjection to his mother and nurse, 
 to tutors and governors, till age and education brought 
 him reason and ability to govern himself and others ? 
 The necessities of his life, the health of his body, and the 
 information of his mind would require him to be directed 
 by the will of others and not his own ; and yet will any 
 one think that this restraint and subjection were incon- 
 sistent with, or spoiled him of that liberty or sovereignty 
 he had a right to, or gave away his empire to those who 
 had the government of his nonage 1 This government 
 over him only prepared him the better and sooner for it. 
 If anybody should ask me when my son is of age to be 
 free, I shall answer, " Just when his monarch is of age to 
 govern." " But at what time," says the judicious Hooker 
 (" Eccl. Pol." lib. i., sect. 6), " a man may be said to have 
 attained so far forth the use of reason as suffice th to 
 make him capable of those laws whereby he is then 
 bound to guide his actions, this is a great deal more 
 easy for sense to discern than for any one by skill and 
 learning to determine." 
 
 62. Commonwealths themselves take notice of and 
 allow that there is a time when men are to begin to act 
 like free men, and therefore till that time require not 
 t/aths of fealty or allegiance, or other public owning of, or 
 submission to, the government of their countries. 
 
 63. The freedom, then, of man, and liberty of acting 
 according to his own will, is grounded on his having 
 
 B*37 
 
42 OF CIYIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 reason, which is able to instruct him in that law he is to 
 govern himself by, and make him know how far he is left 
 to the freedom of his own will. To turn him loose to an 
 unrestrained liberty before he has reason to guide him is 
 not the allowing him the privilege of his nature to be 
 free, but to thrust him out amongst brutes, and abandon 
 him to a state as wretched, and as much beneath that of 
 a man, as theirs. This is that which puts the authority 
 into the parents' hands to govern the minority of their 
 children. God hath made it their business to employ this 
 care on their offspring, and hath /placed in them suitable 
 inclinations of tenderness and concern to temper this 
 power, to apply it, as His wisdom designed it, to the 
 children's good, as long as they should need to be under 
 it. 
 
 64. But what reason can hence advance this care of the 
 parents due to their offspring into an absolute arbitrary 
 dominion of the father ? whose power reaches no farther 
 than by such a discipline as he finds most effectual to 
 give such strength and health to their bodies, such vigour 
 and rectitude to their minds, as may best fit his children 
 to be most useful to themselves and others ; and, if it be 
 necessary to this condition, to make them work, when they 
 are able, for their own subsistence. But in this power the 
 mother, too, has her share with the father. 
 
 65. Nay, this power so little belongs to the father by 
 any peculiar right of nature, but only as he is guardian 
 of his children, that when he quits his care of them he 
 loses his power over them, which goes along with their 
 nourishment and education, to which it is inseparably 
 annexed, and it belongs as much to the foster-father of 
 an exposed child as the natural father of another ; so 
 little power does the bare act of begetting give a man 
 over his issue, if all his care ends there, and this be all 
 the title he hath to the name and authority of a father. 
 And what will become of this paternal power in that 
 part of the world where one woman hath more than one 
 husband at a time ? Or in those parts of America where, 
 when the husband and wife part, which happens fre- 
 quently, the children are all left to the mother, follow 
 her, and are wholly under her care and provision ? If the 
 father die whilst the children are young, do they not 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 43 
 
 naturally everywhere owe the same obedience to their 
 mother during their minority as to their father were he 
 alive ? And will any one say that the mother hath a 
 legislative power over her children ? That she can make 
 standing rules, which shall be of perpetual obligation, by 
 which they ought to regulate all the concerns of their 
 property, and bound their liberty all the course of their 
 lives ? Or can she enforce the observation of them with 
 capital punishment ? For this is the proper power of the 
 magistrate, of which the father hath not so much as the 
 shadow. His command over his children is but tempor- 
 ary, and reaches not their life or property ; it is but a 
 help to the weakness and imperfection of their nonage, 
 a discipline necessary to their education ; and though a 
 father may dispose of his own possessions as he pleases 
 when his children are out of danger of perishing for 
 want,' yet his power extends not to the lives or goods, 
 which either their own industry or another's bounty has 
 made theirs ; nor to their liberty neither, when they are 
 once arrived to the enfranchisement of the years of 
 discretion. The father's empire then ceases, and he can 
 from thencef orwards no more dispose of the liberty of his 
 ;son than that of any other man ; and it must be far from 
 an absolute or perpetual jurisdiction, from which a man 
 may withdraw himself, having licence from divine 
 authority to leave father and mother and cleave to his 
 wife. 
 
 66. But though there be a time when a child comes to 
 be as free from subjection to the will and command of 
 this father, as the father himself is free from subjection 
 to the will of anybody else, and they are each under no 
 other restraint but that which is common to them both, 
 whether it be the law of nature or municipal law of their 
 country, yet this freedom exempts not a son from that 
 honour which he ought, by the law of God and nature, to 
 pay his parents. God having made the parents instru- 
 ments in His great design of continuing the race of man- 
 kind, and the occasions of life to their children, as He 
 hath laid on them an obligation to nourish, preserve, and 
 bring up their offspring, so He has laid on the children a 
 perpetual obligation of honouring their parents, which 
 containing in it an inward esteem and reverence to be 
 
44 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 shown by all outward expressions, ties up the child from 
 anything that may ever injure or affront, disturb or en- 
 danger, the happiness or life of those from whom he 
 received his ; and engages him in all actions of defence, 
 relief, assistance, and comfort of those by whose means 
 he entered into being, and has been made capable of any 
 enjoyments of life. From this obligation no state, no 
 freedom, can absolve children. But this is very far from 
 giving parents a power of command over their children, 
 or an authority to make laws and dispose as they please 
 of their lives or liberties. 'Tis one thing to owe honour 
 and respect, gratitude and assistance ; another to require 
 an absolute obedience and submission. The honour due 
 to parents, a monarch in his throne owes his mother, and 
 yet this lessens not his authority, nor subjects him to her 
 government. 
 
 67. The subjection of a minor places in the father a 
 temporary government, which terminates with the min- 
 ority of the child ; and the honour due from a child, 
 places in the parents a perpetual right to respect, rever- 
 ence, support, and compliance too, more or less, as the 
 father's care, cost, and kindness in his education has 
 been more or less. This ends not with minority, but 
 holds in all parts and conditions of a man's life. The 
 want of distinguishing these two powers, viz., that 
 which the father hath in the right of tuition during 
 minority, and the right of honour all his life, may 
 perhaps have caused a great part of the mistakes about 
 this matter. For, to speak properly of them, the first of 
 these is rather the privilege of children, and duty of 
 parents, than any prerogative of paternal power. The 
 nourishment and education of their children is a charge 
 so incumbent on parents for their children's good that 
 nothing can absolve them from taking care of it. And 
 though the power of commanding and chastising them 
 go along with it, yet God hath woven into the principles 
 of human nature such a tenderness for their offspring that 
 there is little fear that parents should use their power 
 with too much rigour ; the excess is seldom on the severe 
 side, the strong bias of nature drawing the other way. 
 And therefore God Almighty, when He would express His 
 gentle dealing with the Israelites, He tells them that 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 45 
 
 though He chastened them, He chastened them as a 
 man chastens his son (Deut. viii. 5) i.e., with tenderness 
 and affection and kept them under no severer discipline 
 than what was absolutely best for them, and had been less 
 kindness to have slackened. This is that power to which 
 children are commanded obedience, that the pains and 
 care of their parents may not be increased or ill rewarded. 
 
 G8. On the other side, honour and support, all that 
 which gratitude requires to return for the benefits 
 received by and from them, is the indispensable duty 
 of the child, and the proper privilege of the parents. 
 This is intended for the parents' advantage, as the other 
 is for the child's, though education, the parents' duty, 
 seems to have most power, because the ignorance and 
 infirmities of childhood stand in need of restraint and 
 correction, which is a visible exercise of rule, and a kind 
 of dominion. And that duty which is comprehended in 
 the word honour requires less obedience, though the 
 obligation be stronger on grown than younger children. 
 For who can think the command, " Children, obey your 
 parents," requires in a man that has children of his own 
 the same submission to his father as it does in his yet 
 young children to him, and that by this precept he were 
 bound to obey all his father's commands if, out of a 
 conceit of authority, he should have the indiscretion to 
 treat him still as a boy ? 
 
 69. The first part, then, of paternal power, or rather 
 duty, which is education, belongs so to the father that it 
 terminates at a certain season. When the business of 
 education is over, it ceases of itself, and is also alienable 
 before. For a man may put the tuition of his son in 
 other hands ; and he that has made his son an apprentice 
 to another has discharged him during that time of a 
 great part of his obedience, both to himself and to his 
 mother. But all the duty of honour, the other part, 
 remains, nevertheless, entire to them ; nothing can cancel 
 that. It is so inseparable from them both that the 
 father's authority cannot dispossess the mother of this 
 right, nor can any man discharge his son from honouring 
 her that bore him. But both these are very far from a 
 power to make laws, and enforcing them with penalties 
 that may reach estate, liberty, limbs, and life. The 
 
46 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 power of commanding ends with, nonage ; and though 
 after that, honour and respect, support and defence, and 
 whatsoever gratitude can oblige a man to, for the highest 
 benefits he is naturally capable of, be always due from a 
 son to his parents, yet all this puts no sceptre into the 
 father's hand, no sovereign power of commanding. He 
 has no dominion over his son's property or actions, nor 
 any right that his will should prescribe to his son's in all 
 things, however it may become his son in many things 
 not very inconvenient to him and his family to pay a 
 deference to it. 
 
 70. A man may owe honour and respect to an ancient 
 or wise man, defence to his child or friend, relief and 
 support to the distressed, and gratitude to a benefactor, 
 to such a degree that all he has, all he can do, cannot 
 sufficiently pay it ; but all these give no authority, no 
 right to any one of making laws over him from whom 
 they are owing. And 'tis plain all this is due not only 
 to the bare title of father, not only because, as has been 
 said, it is owing to the mother, too, but because these 
 obligations to parents, and the degrees of what is required 
 of children, may be varied by the different care and 
 kindness, trouble and expense, which are often employed 
 upon one child more than another. 
 
 71. This shows the reason how it comes to pass that 
 parents in societies, where they themselves are subjects, 
 retain a power over their children, and have as much 
 right to their subjection, as those who are in the state of 
 nature. Which could not possibly be if all political 
 power were only paternal, and that in truth they were 
 one and the same thing ; for then all paternal power 
 being in the prince, the subject could naturally have 
 none of it. But these two powers, political and paternal, 
 are so perfectly distinct and separate, are built upon so 
 different foundations, and given to so different ends, 
 that every subject that is a father has as much a paternal 
 power over his children as the prince has over his, and 
 every prince that has parents owes them as much filial 
 duty and obedience as the meanest of his subjects do to 
 theirs, and can therefore contain not any part or degree 
 of that kind of dominion which a prince or magistrate 
 has over his subject. 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 47 
 
 72. Though the obligation on the parents to bring up 
 their children, and the obligation on children to honour 
 their parents, contain all the power on the one hand, and 
 submission on the other, which are proper to this rela- 
 tion, yet there is another power ordinarily in the father, 
 whereby he has a tie on the obedience of his children ; 
 which, though it be common to him with other men, yet 
 the occasions of showing it almost constantly happening 
 to fathers in their private families, and the instances of 
 it elsewhere being rare, and less taken notice of, it passes 
 in the world for a part of paternal jurisdiction. And 
 this is the power men generally have to bestow their 
 estates on those who please them best. The possession 
 of the father being the expectation and inheritance of 
 the children, ordinarily in certain proportions, accord- 
 ing to the law and custom of each country, yet it is 
 commonly in the father's power to bestow it with a more 
 sparing or liberal hand, according as the behaviour of 
 this or that child hath comported with his will and 
 humour. 
 
 73. This is no small tie on the obedience of children. 
 And there being always annexed to the enjoyment of 
 land a submission to the government of the country of 
 which that land is a part, it has been commonly sup- 
 posed that a father could oblige his posterity to that 
 government of which he himself was a subject, and that 
 his compact held them ; whereas it, being only a 
 necessary condition annexed to the land, and the in- 
 heritance of an estate which is under that government, 
 reaches only those who will take it on that condition, 
 and so is no natural tie or engagement, but a voluntary 
 submission. For every man's children being by nature 
 as free as himself, or any of his ancestors ever^were, 
 may, whilst they are in that freedom, choose what 
 society they will join themselves to, what commonwealth 
 they will put themselves under. But if they will enjoy 
 the inheritance of their ancestors, they must take it on 
 the same terms their ancestors had it, and submit to 
 all the conditions annexed to such a possession. By this 
 power, indeed, fathers oblige their children to obedience 
 to themselves, even when they are past minority, and 
 most commonly, too, subject them to this or that political 
 
48 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 power. But neither of these by any peculiar right of 
 fatherhood, but by the reward they have in their hands 
 to enforce and recompense such a compliance ; and is 
 no more power than what a Frenchman has over an 
 Englishman, who, by the hopes of an estate he will leave 
 him, will certainly have a strong tie on his obedience. 
 And if, when it is left him, he will enjoy it, he must 
 certainly take it upon the conditions annexed to the 
 possession of land in that country where it lies, whether 
 in France or England. 
 
 74. To conclude, then : though the father's power of 
 commanding extends no farther than the minority of 
 his children, and to a degree only fit for the discipline and 
 government of that age ; and though that honour and 
 respect, and all that which the Latins called piety, which 
 they indispensably owe to their parents all their lifetime 
 and in all estates, with all that support and defence is due 
 to them, gives the father no power of governing i.e., 
 making laws and enacting penalties on his children 
 though by all this he has no dominion over the property 
 or actions of his son, yet it is obvious to conceive how easy 
 it was, in the first ages of the world, and in places still 
 where the thinness of people gives families leave to 
 separate into unpossessed quarters, and they have room 
 to remove or plant themselves in yet vacant habitations, 
 for the father of the family to become the prince of it. 
 He had been a ruler from the beginning of the infancy 
 of his children ; and since without some government it 
 would be hard for them to live together, it was likeliest 
 it should, by the express or tacit consent of the children 
 when they were grown up, be in the father, where it 
 seemed without any change barely to continue ; when 
 indeed nothing more was required to it than the per- 
 mitting the father to exercise alone in his family that 
 executive power of the law of nature which every free 
 man naturally hath, and by that permission resigning up 
 to him a monarchical power whilst they remained in it. 
 But that this was not by any paternal right, but only by 
 the consent of his children, is evident from hence that 
 nobody doubts but, if a stranger whom chance or busi- 
 ness had brought to his family, and there killed any 
 of his children, or committed any other fact, he might 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 40 
 
 condemn and put him to death, or otherwise have punished 
 him as well as any of his children, which it was impos- 
 sible he should do by virtue of any paternal authority over 
 one who was not his child, but by virtue of that executive 
 power of the law of nature which, as a man, he had a 
 right to ; and he alone could punish him in his family, 
 where the respect of his children had laid by the exercise 
 of such a power to give way to the dignity and authority 
 they were willing should remain in him above the rest of 
 his family. 
 
 75. Thus it was easy and almost natural for children 
 by a tacit and scarce avoidable consent to make way for 
 the father's authority and government. They had been 
 accustomed in their childhood to follow his direction, 
 and to refer their little differences to him; and when they 
 were men, who fitter to rule them ? Their little properties, 
 and less covetousness, seldom afforded greater contro- 
 versies ; and when they should arise, where could they have 
 a fitter umpire than he by whose care they had every one 
 been sustained and brought up, and who had a tenderness 
 for them all? 'Tis no wonder that they made no dis- 
 tinction betwixt minority and full age ; nor looked after 
 one-and-twenty or any other age that might make them 
 the free disposers of themselves and fortunes, when they 
 could have no desire to be out of their pupilage. The 
 government they had been under during it, continued 
 still to be more their protection than restraint ; and they 
 could nowhere find a greater security to their p^ace, 
 liberties, and fortunes, than in the rule of a father. 
 
 76. Thus the natural fathers of families by an insen- 
 sible change became the politic monarchs of them too ; 
 and as they chanced to live long and leave able and 
 worthy heirs for several successions or otherwise, so they 
 laid the foundations of hereditary or elective kingdoms 
 under several constitutions and manners, according as 
 chance, contrivance, or occasions happened to mould 
 them. But if princes have their titles in their father's 
 right, and it be a sufficient proof of the natural right of 
 fathers to political authority, because they commonly 
 were those in whose hands we find de facto the exercise 
 of government I say, if this argument be good, it will 
 as strongly prove that all princes nay, princes only 
 
50 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 ought to be priests, since it is as certain that in tho 
 beginning the father of the family was priest, as that 
 he was ruler in his own household. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OF POLITICAL OK CIVIL SOCIETY. 
 
 77. G-OD having made man such a creature, that in his 
 own judgment it was not good for him to be alone, put 
 him under strong obligations of necessity, convenience, 
 and inclination to drive him into society, as well as fitted 
 him with understanding and language to continue and 
 enjoy it. The first society was between man and wife, 
 which gave beginning to that between parents and child- 
 ren ; to which, in time, that between master and servant 
 came to be added ; and though all these might, and com- 
 monly did meet together, and make up but one family, 
 wherein the master or mistress of it had some sort of 
 rule proper to a family ; each of these, or all together, 
 came short of political society, as we shall see, if we 
 consider the different ends, ties, and bounds of each of 
 these. 
 
 78. Conjugal society is made by a voluntary compact 
 between man and woman, and though it consists chiefly 
 in such a communion and right in one another's bodies 
 as is necessary to its chief end, procreation, yet it draws 
 with it mutual support and assistance, and a communion 
 of interests too, as necessary not only to unite their care 
 and affection, but also necessary to their common off- 
 spring, who aave a right to be nourished and maintained 
 by them till they are able to provide for themselves. 
 
 79. For the end of conjunction between male and 
 female, being not barely procreation, but the continua- 
 tion of the species, this conjunction betwixt male and 
 female ought to last, even after procreation, so long as is 
 necessary to the nourishment and support of the young 
 ones, who are to be sustained by those that got them till 
 they be able to shift and provide for themselves. This 
 rule, which the infinite wise Maker hath set to the works 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 51 
 
 of His hands, we find the inferior creatures steadily obey. 
 In those viviparous animals which feed on grass, the 
 conjunction between male and female lasts no longer than 
 the very act of copulation, because the teat of the dam 
 being sufficient to nourish the young till it be able to 
 feed on grass, the male only begets, but concerns not 
 himself for the female or young to whose sustenance he 
 can contribute nothing. But in beasts of prey the con- 
 junction lasts longer, because the dam not being able 
 well to subsist herself and nourish her numerous off- 
 spring by her own prey alone, a more laborious as well as 
 more dangerous way of living than by feeding on grass, 
 the assistance of the male is necessary to the maintenance 
 of their common family, which, cannot subsist till they 
 are able to prey for themselves but by the joint care of 
 male and female. The same is to be observed in all birds 
 (except some domestic ones where plenty of food excuses 
 the cock from feeding and taking care of the young 
 brood), whose young needing food in the nest, the cock 
 and hen continue mates till the young are able to use 
 their wing and provide for themselves. 
 
 80. And herein I think lies the chief, if not the only 
 reason why the male and female in mankind are tied to 
 a longer conjunction than other creatures, viz., because 
 the female is capable of conceiving, and de facto is com- 
 monly with child again and brings forth, too, a new birth, 
 long before bhe former is out of dependency for support 
 on his parents' help, and able to shift for himself, and has 
 all the assistance is due to him from his parents ; whereby 
 the father, who is bound to take care of those he hath 
 begot, is under an obligation to continue in conjugal 
 society with the same woman longer than other creatures, 
 whose young being able to subsist of themselves before the 
 time of procreation returns again, the conjugal bond 
 dissolves of itself, and they are at liberty till Hymen at 
 his usual anniversary season summons them again to 
 choose new mates. Wherein one cannot but admire the 
 wisdom of the great Creator, who having given to man 
 foresight and an ability to lay up for the future as well 
 as to supply the present necessity, hath made it necessary 
 that society of man and wife should be more lasting than 
 of male and female amongst other creatures, that so 
 
52 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 their industry might be encouraged, and their interest 
 better united to make provision and lay up goods for 
 their common issue, which uncertain mixture or easy 
 and frequent solutions of conjugal society would mightily 
 disturb. 
 
 81. But though these are ties upon mankind which 
 make the conjugal bonds more firm and lasting in man 
 than the other species of animals, yet it would give one 
 reason to inquire why this compact, where procreation 
 and education are secured, and inheritance taken care for, 
 may not be made determinable, either by consent, or at a 
 certain time, or upon certain conditions, as well as any 
 other voluntary compacts, there being no necessity in the 
 nature of the thing, nor*to the ends of it, that it should 
 always be for life I mean to such as are under no 
 restraint of any positive law which ordains all such 
 contracts to be perpetual. 
 
 82. But the husband and wife, though they have but 
 one common concern, yet having different understand- 
 ings, will unavoidably sometimes have different wills 
 too ; it therefore being necessary that the last deter- 
 mination i.e., the rule should be placed somewhere, it 
 naturally falls to the man's share, as the abler and the 
 stronger. But this, reaching but to the things of their 
 common interest and property, leaves the wife in the full 
 and free possession of what by contract is her peculiar 
 right, and gives the husband no more power over her life 
 than she has over his. The power of the husband being 
 so far from that of an absolute monarch, that the wife 
 has in many cases a liberty to separate from him, where 
 natural right or their contract allows it, whether that 
 contract be made by themselves in a state of nature, or 
 by the custom or laws of the country they live in ; and 
 the children upon such separation fall to the father's or 
 mother's lot, as such contract does determine. 
 
 83. For all the ends of marriage being to be obtained 
 under politic government, as well as in the state of nature, 
 the civil magistrate doth not abridge the right or power 
 of either naturally necessary to those ends viz., procrea- 
 tion and mutual support and assistance whilst they are 
 together but only decides any controversy that may arise 
 between man and wife about them. If it were otherwise. 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 53 
 
 and that absolute sovereignty and power of life and 
 death naturally belonged to the husband, and were neces- 
 sary to the society between man and wife, there could be 
 no matrimony in any of those countries where the hus- 
 band is allowed no such absolute authority. But the ends 
 of matrimony requiring no such power in the husband, 
 the condition of conjugal society put it not in him, it 
 being not at all necessary to that state. Conjugal society 
 could subsist and attain its ends without it ; nay, com- 
 munity of goods, and the power over them, mutual 
 assistance and maintenance, and other things belonging 
 to conjugal society, might be varied and regulated by that 
 contract which unites man and wife in that society, as 
 far as may consist with procreation and the bringing up of 
 children till they could shift for themselves, nothing 
 being necessary to any society that is not necessary to 
 the ends for which it is made. 
 
 84. The society betwixt parents and children, and the 
 distinct rights and powers belonging respectively to 
 them, I have treated of so largely in the foregoing 
 chapter that I shall not here need to say anything of it ; 
 and I think it is plain that it is far different from a 
 politic society. 
 
 85. Master and servant are names as old as history, 
 but given to those of far different condition ; for a 
 freeman makes himself a servant to another by selling 
 him for a time the service he undertakes to do in ex- 
 change for wages he is to receive ; and though this 
 commonly puts him into the family of his master, and 
 under the ordinary discipline thereof, yet it gives the 
 master but a temporary power over him, and no greater 
 than what is contained in the contract between them. 
 But there is another sort of servants, which by a peculiar 
 name we call slaves, who, being captives taken in a just 
 war, are by the right of nature subjected to the absolute 
 dominion and arbitrary power of their masters. These 
 men having, as I say, forfeited their lives, and with them 
 their liberties, and lost their estates and being, in the 
 state of slavery, not capable of any property cannot in 
 that state be considered as any part of civil society, the 
 chief end whereof is the preservation of property. 
 
 8fi. Let us therefore consider a master of a family, 
 
54 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 with all these subordinate relations of wife, children, 
 servants, and slaves, united under the domestic rule of a 
 family, which, what resemblance soever it may have in 
 its order, offices, and number too, with a little common- 
 wealth, yet is very far from it both in its constitution, 
 power and end ; or, if it must be thought a monarchy, 
 and the paterfamilias the absolute monarch in it, 
 absolute monarchy will have but a very shattered and 
 short power, when 'tis plain, by what has been said 
 before, that the master of the family has a very distinct 
 and differently limited power, both as to time and extent, 
 over those several persons that are in it ; for, excepting 
 slaves (and the family is as much a family, and his power 
 as paterfamilias as great, whether there be any slaves in 
 the family or no), he has no legislative power of life 
 and death over any of them, and none, too, but what a 
 mistress of a family may have as well as he. And he 
 certainly can have no absolute power over the whole 
 family, who has but a very limited .one over every 
 individual in it. But how a family or any other society 
 of men differ from that, which is properly political 
 society, we shall best see by considering wherein political 
 society itself consists. 
 
 87. Man being born, as has been proved, with a title 
 to perfect freedom, and an uncontrolled enjoyment of all 
 the rights and privileges of the law of nature equally 
 with any other man or number of men in the world, hath 
 by nature a power not only to preserve his property 
 that is, his life, liberty, and estate against the injuries 
 and attempts of other men, but to judge of and punish 
 the breaches of that law in others as he is persuaded the 
 offence deserves, even with death itself, in crimes where 
 the heinousness of the fact in his opinion requires 
 it. But because no political society can be nor subsist 
 without having in itself the power to preserve the 
 property, and, in order thereunto, punish the offences of 
 all those of that society, there, and there only, is political 
 society, where every one of the members hath quitted 
 this natural power, resigned it up into the hands of the 
 community in all cases that exclude him not from 
 appealing for protection to the law established by it ; 
 and thus all private judgment of every particular 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 55 
 
 member being excluded, the community comes to be 
 umpire by settled standing rules, indifferent and the 
 same to all parties, and, by men having authority from 
 the community for the execution of those rules, decides 
 all the differences that may happen between any 
 members of that society concerning any matter of 
 right, and punishes those offences which any member 
 hath committed against the society with such penalties as 
 the law has established ; whereby it is easy to discern 
 who are and who are not in political society together. 
 Those who are united into one body, and have a common 
 established law and judicature to appeal to, with authority 
 to decide controversies between them and punish offenders, 
 are in civil society one with another ; but those who 
 have no such common appeal I mean on earth are 
 still in the state of nature, each being, where there is no 
 other, judge for himself and executioner, which is, as I 
 ha ve A before shown it, the perfect state of nature. 
 
 88. And thus the commonwealth comes by a power 
 to set down what punishment shall belong to the several 
 transgressions which they think worthy of it committed 
 amongst the members of that society, which is the power 
 of making laws, as well as it has the power to punish 
 any injury done unto any of its members by any one 
 that is not of it, which is the power of war and peace ; 
 and all this for the preservation of the property of all 
 the members of that society as far as is possible. But 
 though every man who has entered into civil society, 
 and is become a member of any commonwealth, has 
 thereby quitted his power to punish offences against the 
 law of nature in prosecution of his own private judg- 
 ment, yet with the judgment of offences, which he has 
 given up to the legislative in all cases where he can 
 appeal to the magistrate, he has given a right to the 
 commonwealth to employ his force for the execution 
 of the judgments of the commonwealth whenever he 
 shall be called to it ; which, indeed, are his own judg- 
 ments, they being made by himself or his representative. 
 And herein we have the original of the legislative and 
 executive power of civil society, which is to judge by 
 standing laws how far offences are to be punished 
 when committed within the commonwealth, and also to 
 
56 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 determine, by occasional judgments founded on the present 
 circumstances of the fact, how far injuries from without 
 are to be vindicated ; and in both these to employ all the 
 force of all the members when there shall be need. 
 
 89. Wherever, therefore, any number of men are so united 
 into one society, as to quit every one his executive power 
 of the law of nature, and to resign it to the public, there, 
 and there only, is a political, or civil society. And this is 
 done wherever any number of men, in the state of nature, 
 enter into society to make one people, one body politic, 
 under one supreme government, or else when any one 
 joins himself to, and incorporates with, any government 
 already made. For hereby he authorises the society, or, 
 which is all one, the legislative thereof, to make laws 
 for him, as the public good of the society shall require, 
 to the execution whereof his own assistance (as to his 
 own decrees) is due. And this puts men out of a state 
 of nature into that of a commonwealth, by setting up a 
 judge on earth with authority to determine all the con- 
 troversies and redress the injuries that may happen to 
 any member of the commonwealth ; which judge is the 
 legislative, or magistrates appointed by it. And wher- 
 ever there are any number of men, however associated, 
 that have no such decisive power to appeal to, there they 
 are still in the state of nature. 
 
 ^ 90. Hence it is evident that absolute monarchy, which 
 by some men is counted the only government in the 
 world, is indeed inconsistent with civil society, and so 
 can be no form of civil government at all. For the 
 end of civil society being to avoid and remedy those 
 inconveniences of the state of nature which necessarily 
 follow from every man's being judge in his own case, by 
 setting up a known authority to which every one of that 
 society may appeal upon any injury received or contro- 
 versy that may arise, and which every one of the society 
 ought to obey ; wherever any persons are who have not 
 such an authority to appeal to for the decision of any 
 difference between them, there those persons are still 
 in the state of nature. And so is every absolute prince, 
 in respect of those who are under his dominion. 
 
 91. For he being supposed to have all, both legislative 
 and executive power in himself alone, there is no judge 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 57 
 
 to be found ; no appeal lies open to any one who may 
 fairly and indifferently and with authority decide, and 
 from whose decision relief and redress may be expected 
 of any injury or inconvenience that may be suffered from 
 the prince, or by his order ; so that such a man, however 
 entitled Czar, or Grand Seignior, or how you please is as 
 much in the state of nature, with all under his dominion, 
 as he is with tie rest of mankind. For wherever any 
 two men are, who have no standing rule and common 
 judge to appeal to on earth for the determination of 
 controversies of right betwixt them, there they are still in 
 the state of nature, and under all the inconveniences of it, 
 with only this woful difference to the subject, or rather 
 slave, of an absolute prince : that, whereas in the ordi- 
 nary state of nature he has a liberty to judge of his 
 right, and according to the best of his power to maintain 
 it, now, whenever his property is invaded by the will 
 and order of his monarch, he has not only no appeal, as 
 those in the society ought to have, but. as if he were 
 degraded from the common state of rational creatures, is 
 denied a liberty to judge of or to defend his right ; and 
 so is exposed to all the misery and inconveniences that a 
 man can fear from one who, being in the unrestrained 
 state of nature, is yet corrupted with flattery, and armed 
 with power. 
 
 92. For he that thinks absolute power purifies men's 
 blood, and corrects the baseness of human nature, need 
 read but the history of this or any other age, to be con- 
 vinced of the contrary. He that would have been insolent 
 and injurious in the woods of America, would not 
 probably be much better in a throne ; where, perhaps, 
 learning and religion shall be found out to justify all 
 that he shall do to his subjects, and the sword presently 
 silence all those that dare question it. For what the 
 protection of absolute monarchy is, what kind of fathers 
 of their countries it makes princes to be, and to what a 
 degree of happiness and security it carries civil society, 
 where this sort of government is grown to perfection, 
 he that will look into the late relation of Ceylon may 
 
 93. In absolute monarchies, indeed, as well as other 
 governments of the world, the subjects have an appeal 
 
58 OP CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 to the law, and judges to decide any controversies and 
 restrain any violence that may happen betwixt the sub- 
 jects themselves, one amongst another. This every one 
 thinks necessary, and believes he deserves to be thought 
 a declared enemy to society and mankind who should go 
 about to take it away. But whether this be from a true 
 love of mankind and society, and such a charity as we 
 owe all one to another, there is reason to doubt. For 
 this is no more than that every man who loves his own 
 power, profit, or greatness may, and naturally must do, 
 keep those animals from hurting or destroying one 
 another who labour and drudge only for his pleasure 
 and advantage ; and so are taken care of, not out of any 
 love the master has for them, but love of himself, and 
 the profit they bring him. For if it be asked, what 
 security, what fence is there, in such a state, against the 
 violence and oppression of this absolute ruler, the very 
 question can scarce be borne. They are ready to tell you 
 that it deserves death only to ask after safety. Betwixt 
 subject and subject they will grant there must be 
 measures, laws and judges, for their mutual peace and 
 security ; but as for the ruler, he ought to be absolute, 
 and is above all such circumstances ; because he has 
 power to do more hurt and wrong, 'tis right when he 
 does it. To ask how you may be guarded from harm or 
 injury on that side where the strongest hand is to do it, 
 is presently the voice of faction and rebellion. As if 
 when men quitting the state of nature entered into 
 society, they agreed that all of them but one should be 
 under the restraint of laws, but that he should still 
 retain all the liberty of the state of nature, increased 
 with power, and made licentious by impunity. This is 
 to think that men are so foolish that they take care to 
 avoid what mischiefs may be done them by polecats or 
 foxes, but are content, nay, think it safety, to be 
 devoured by lions. 
 
 94. But, whatever flatterers may talk to amuse people's 
 understandings, /it hinders not men from feeling ; and 
 when they perceive that any man, in what station so- 
 ever, is out of the bounds of the civil society which 
 they are of, and that they have no appeal on earth 
 against any harm they may receive from him, they are 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 59 
 
 apt to think themselves in the state of nature in respect 
 of him whom they find to be so ; and to take care, as 
 soon as they can, to have that safety and security in civil 
 society for which it was first instituted, and for which 
 only they entered into it. And, therefore (though per- 
 haps at first (as shall be shown more at large hereafter 
 in the following part of this discourse), some one good 
 and excellent man, having got a pre-eminence 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 to 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 govern- 
 ment 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 be- 
 came subject, equally with other the meanest men, 
 to those laws, which he himself, as part of the legis- 
 lative, 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. No man in civil society can be ex- 
 empted from the laws of it. For if any man may do 
 what he thinks fit, and there be no appeal on earth for 
 redress or security against any harm he shall do, I ask 
 whether he be not perfectly still in the state of nature, 
 and so can be no part or member of that civil society ; 
 unless any one will say the state of nature and civil 
 society are one and the same thing, which I have never 
 yet found any one so great a patron of anarchy as to 
 affirm. 
 
GO OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OP THE BEGINNING OF POLITICAL SOCIETIES. 
 
 95. MEN being, as has been said, by nature all free, equal, 
 and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, 
 and subjected to the political power of another, without 
 his own consent. The only way whereby any one divests 
 himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of 
 civil society, is by agreeing with other men to join and 
 unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and 
 peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure enjoy- 
 ment of their properties, and a greater security against 
 any that are not of it. This any number of men may do, 
 because it injures not the freedom of the rest ; they are 
 left as they were in the liberty of the state of nature. 
 When any number of men have so consented to make one 
 community or government, they are thereby presently 
 incorporated, and make one body politic, wherein the 
 majority have a right to act and conclude the rest. 
 
 96. For when any number of men have, by the consent 
 of every individual,made a community, they have thereby 
 made that community one body, with a power to act as 
 one body, which is only by the will and determination of 
 the majority. For that which acts any community being 
 only the consent of the individuals of it, and it being 
 necessary to that which is one body to move one way, it 
 ls necessary the body should move that way whither the 
 greater force carries it, which is the consent of the 
 majority ; or else it is impossible it should act or continue 
 one body, one community, which the consent of every 
 individual that united into it agreed that it should ; and 
 so every one is bound by that consent to be concluded by 
 the majority. And therefore we see that in assemblies 
 empowered to act by positive laws, where no number is 
 set by that positive law which empowers them, the act 
 of the majority passes for the act of the whole, and of 
 course determines, as having by the law of nature and 
 reason the power of the whole. 
 
 N 97. And thus every man, by consenting with others 
 to make one body politic under one government^ puts 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 61 
 
 himself under an obligation to every one of that society, to 
 submit to the determination of the majority, and to be 
 concluded by it ; or else this original compact, whereby 
 he with others incorporates into one society, would signify 
 nothing, and be no compact, if he be left free and under 
 no other ties than he was in before in the state of nature. 
 For what appearance would there be of any compact? 
 What new engagement if he were no farther tied by any 
 decrees of the society, than he himself thought fit, and 
 did actually consent to ? This would be still as great a 
 liberty as he himself had before his compact, or any one 
 else in the state of nature hath, who may submit himself 
 and consent to any acts of it if he thinks fit. 
 
 98. For if the consent of the majority shall not in 
 reason be received as the. act of the whole and conclude 
 every individual, nothing but the consent of every 
 individual can make anything to be the act of the whole. 
 But such a consent is next to impossible ever to be had. if 
 we consider the infirmities of health and avocations of 
 business, which in a number, though much less than that 
 of a commonwealth, will necessarily keep many away 
 from the public assembly. To which if we add the variety 
 of opinions, and contrariety of interest, which unavoid- 
 ably happen in all collections of men, the coming into 
 society upon such terms would be only like Cato's coming 
 into the theatre, only to go out again. Such a constitu- 
 tion as this would make the mighty leviathan of a shorter 
 duration than the feeblest creatures, and not let it out- 
 last the day it was born in ; which cannot be supposed 
 till we can think that rational creatures should desire 
 and constitute societies only to be dissolved. For where 
 the majority cannot conclude the rest, there they cannot 
 act as one body, and consequently will be immediately 
 dissolved again. 
 
 99. Whosoever therefore out of a state of nature unite 
 into a community must be understood to give up all the 
 power necessary to the ends for which they unite into 
 society, to the majority of the community, unless they 
 expressly agreed in any number greater than the majority. 
 And this is done by barely agreeing to unite into one 
 political society, which is all the compact that is, or needs 
 be, between the individuals that enter into or make up a 
 
62 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 commonwealth. And thus that which begins and 
 actually constitutes any political society is nothing- but 
 the consent of any number of freemen capable of a 
 majority to unite and incorporate into such a society. 
 And this is that, and that only, which did or could give 
 beginning to any lawful government in the world. 
 
 100. To this I find two objections made. 
 
 First : That there are no instances to be found in story 
 of a company of men independent, and equal one amongst 
 another, that met together and in this way began and 
 set up a government. 
 
 Secondly : 'Tis impossible of right that men should do 
 so, because all men being born under government, they 
 are to submit to that, and are not at liberty to begin a 
 new one. 
 
 101. To the first there is this to answer That it is not 
 at all to be wondered that history gives us but a very 
 little account of men that lived together in the state of 
 nature. The inconveniences of that condition, and the 
 love and want of society, no sooner brought any number 
 of them together, but they presently united and incor- 
 porated if they designed to continue together. And if 
 we may not suppose men ever to have been in the state 
 of nature, because we hear not much of them in such a 
 state, we may as well suppose the armies of Salmanasser 
 or Xerxes were never children, because we hear little of 
 them till they were men, and embodied in armies. 
 Government is everywhere antecedent to records, and 
 letters seldom come in amongst a people, till a long con- 
 tinuation of civil society has, by other more necessary 
 arts, provided for their safety, ease, and plenty. And then 
 they begin to look after the history of their founders, 
 and search into their original, when they have outlived 
 the memory of it. For 'tis with commonwealths as 
 with particular persons, they are commonly ignorant of 
 their own birth and infancies. And if they know any- 
 thing of their original, they are beholden for it to the 
 accidental records that others have kept of it. And those 
 that we have of the beginning of any polities in the 
 world, excepting that of the Jews, where God Himself 
 immediately interposed, and which favours not at all 
 paternal dominion, are all either plain instances of such 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 63 
 
 a beginning as I have mentioned, or at least have mani- 
 fest footsteps of it. 
 
 102. He must show a strange inclination to deny 
 evident matter of fact when it agrees not with his 
 hypothesis, who will not allow that the beginning of 
 Rome and Venice were by the uniting together of several 
 men free and independent one of another, amongst 
 whom there was no natural superiority or subjection. 
 And if Josephus Acosta's word may be taken, he tells us 
 that in many parts of America there was no government 
 at all. " There are great and apparent conjectures," 
 says he, "that these men," speaking of those of Peru, " for 
 a long time had neither kings nor commonwealths, but 
 lived in troops, as they do this day in Florida, the 
 Cheriquanas, those of Brazil, and many other nations, 
 which have no certain kings, but as occasion is offered 
 in peace or war, they choose their captains as they please " 
 (1. i., c. 25). If it be said that every man there was born 
 subject to his father, or the head of his family, that the 
 subjection due from a child to a father took not away 
 his freedom of uniting into what political society he 
 thought fit, has been already proved. But be that as it 
 will, these men, it is evident, were actually free ; and 
 whatever superiority some politicians now would place 
 in any of them, they themselves claimed it not ; but by 
 consent were all equal, till by the same consent they 
 set rulers over themselves. So that their politic societies 
 all began from a voluntary union, and the mutual 
 agreement of men freely acting in the choice of their 
 governors and forms of government. 
 
 103. And I hope those who went away from Sparta 
 with Palantus, mentioned by Justin, 1. in., c. 4, will be 
 allowed to have been freemen, independent one of an- 
 other, and to have set up a government over themselves, 
 by their own consent. Thus I have given several 
 examples out of history of people free and in the state 
 of nature that, being met together, incorporated and 
 began a commonwealth. And if the want of such 
 instances be an argument to prove that government were 
 not nor could not be so begun, I suppose the contenders 
 to paternal empire were better let it alone than urge it 
 against natural liberty. For if they can give so many 
 
64 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 instances, out of history, of governments begun upon 
 paternal right, I think (though at best an argument 
 from what has been, to what should of right be. has no 
 great force) one might, without any great danger, yield 
 them the cause. But if I might advise them in the case, 
 they would do well not to search too much into the 
 original of governments as they have begun de facto, lest 
 they should find at the foundation of most of them 
 something very little favourable to the design they 
 promote and such a power as they contend for. 
 
 104. But to conclude, reason being plain on our side, 
 that men are naturally free, and the examples of history 
 showing that the governments of the world, that were 
 begun in peace, had their beginning laid on that founda- 
 tion, and were made by the consent of the people, there 
 can be little room for doubt, either where the right is, or 
 what has been the opinion or practice of mankind, about 
 the first erecting of governments. 
 
 105. I will not deny, that if we look back as far as 
 history will direct us, towards the original of common- 
 wealths, we shall generally find them under the govern- 
 ment and administration of one man. And I am also 
 apt to believe that where a family was numerous enough 
 to subsist by itself, and continued entire together, with- 
 out mixing with others, as it often happens where there 
 is much land and few people, the government commonly 
 began in the father. For the father having, by the law 
 of nature, the same power with every man else to punish 
 as he thought fit any offences against that law, might 
 thereby punish his transgressing children, even when 
 they were men, and out of their pupilage ; and they were 
 very likely to submit to his punishment, and all join with 
 him against the offender, in their turns, giving him 
 thereby power to execute his sentence against any trans- 
 gression, and so in effect make him the lawmaker and 
 governor over all that remained in conjunction with his 
 family. He was fittest to be trusted , paternal affection 
 secured their property and interest under his care ; and 
 the custom of obeying him in their childhood made it 
 easier to submit to him rather than to any other. If 
 therefore they must have one to rule them, as govern- 
 ment is hardly to be avoided amongst men that live 
 
OF CITIL GOVERNMENT. 65 
 
 together, who so likely to be the man as he that was 
 their common father ; unless negligence, cruelty, or any 
 other defect of mind or body, made him unfit for it ? 
 But when either the father died, and left his next heir, 
 for want of age, wisdom, courage, or any other qualities, 
 less fit for rule, or where several families met and 
 consented to continue together, there it is not to be 
 doubted but they used their natural freedom to set up 
 him whom they judged the ablest and most likely to rule 
 well over them. Conformable hereunto we find the 
 people of America, who (living out of the reach of the 
 conquering swords and spreading domination of the two 
 great empires of Peru and Mexico) enjoyed their own 
 natural freedom, though, cceteris parilus, they commonly 
 prefer the heir of their deceased king ; yet if they find 
 him weak or incapable they pass him by and set up 
 the stoutest and bravest man for their ruler. 
 
 106. Thus, though looking back as far as records give 
 us any account of peopling the world, and the history of 
 nations, we commonly find the government to be in one 
 hand ; yet it destroys not that which I affirm, viz. : that 
 the beginning of politic society depends upon the consent 
 of the individuals to join into, and make one society ; 
 who when they are thus incorporated, might set up what 
 form of government they thought fit. But this having 
 given occasion to men to mistake, and think that by 
 nature government was monarchical, and belonged to 
 the father, it may not be amiss here to consider why 
 people in the beginning generally pitched upon this 
 form, which, though perhaps the father's pre-eminence 
 might in the first institution of some commonwealths 
 give a rise to, and place in the beginning, the power in 
 one hand ; yet it is plain that the reason that continued 
 the form of government in a single person was not any 
 regard or respect to paternal authority, since all petty 
 monarchies, that is, almost all monarchies, near their 
 original, have been commonly at least upon occasion 
 elective. 
 
 107. First then, in the beginning of things, the father's 
 government of the childhood of those sprung from 
 him having accustomed them to the rule of one man, and 
 taught them that where it was exercised with care and 
 
 c 87 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 skill, with affection and love to those under it, it was 
 sufficient to procure and preserve to men all the political 
 happiness they sought for in society. It was no wonder 
 that they should pitch upon and naturally run into that 
 form of government, which from their infancy they 
 had been all accustomed to, and which, by experience, 
 they had found both easy and safe. To which, if we 
 add, that monarchy being simple and most obvious to 
 men whom neither experience had instructed in forms 
 of government, nor the ambition or insolence of empire 
 had taught to beware of the encroachments of prero- 
 gative, or the inconveniences of absolute power, which 
 monarchy in succession was apt to lay claim to, and 
 bring upon them ; it was not at all strange that they 
 should not much trouble themselves to think of methods 
 of restraining any exorbitances of those to whom they 
 had given the authority over them, and of balancing the 
 power of government, by placing several parts of it in 
 different hands. They had neither felt the oppression of 
 tyrannical dominion, nor did the fashion of the age, nor 
 their possessions or way of living (which afforded little 
 matter for covetousness or ambition), give them any 
 reason to apprehend or provide against it ; and there- 
 fore it is no wonder they put themselves into such a 
 frame of government as was not only, as I said, most 
 obvious and simple, but also best suited to their present 
 state and condition, which stood more in need of defence 
 against foreign invasions and injuries than of multi- 
 plicity of laws. The equality of a simple poor way of 
 living, confining their desires within the narrow bounds 
 of each man's small property, made few controversies, 
 and so no need of any laws to decide them or variety of 
 officers to superintend the process, or look after the 
 execution of justice, where there were but few trespasses 
 and few offenders. Since, then, those who liked one 
 another so well as to join into society, cannot but be 
 supposed to have some acquaintance and friendship 
 together, and some trust one in another, they could 
 no but have greater apprehensions of others than of 
 one of another ; and therefore their first care and 
 thought cannot out be supposed to be how to secure 
 themselves against foreign force. -It was natural for 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 67 
 
 them to put themselves tinder a frame of government 
 which might best serve to that end ; and choose the 
 wisest and bravest man to conduct them in their wars, 
 and lead them out against their enemies, and* in this 
 chiefly be their ruler. 
 
 108. Thus we see that the kings of the Indians in 
 America which is still a pattern of the first ages in Asia 
 and Europe whilst the inhabitants were too few for the 
 country, and want of people and money gave men no 
 temptation to enlarge their possessions of land, or 
 contest for wider extent of ground are little more 
 than generals of their armies ; and though they com- 
 mand absolutely in war, yet at home and in time of 
 peace they exercise very little dominion, and have but 
 a very moderate sovereignty ; the resolutions of peace 
 and war being ordinarily either in the people or in a 
 council. Though the war itself, which admits not of 
 plurality of governors, naturally devolves the command 
 into the king's sole authority. 
 
 109. And thus in Israel itself, the chief business of their 
 judges and first king seems to have been to be captains 
 of war, and leaders of their armies ; which (besides what 
 is signified by going out and in before the people, which 
 was, to march forth to war, and home again in the heads 
 of their forces) appears plainly in the story of Jephtha. 
 The Ammonites making war upon Israel, the G-ileadites 
 in fear send to Jephtha, a bastard of their family whom 
 they had cast off, and article with him, if he will assist 
 them against the Ammonites, to make him their ruler ; 
 which they do in these words : " And the people made 
 him head and captain over them" (Judges, xi. 11), which 
 was, as it seems, all one as to be judge. " And he judged 
 Israel " (Judges, xii. 7), that is, was their captain- general, 
 six years.- So when Jotham upbraids the Shechemites 
 with the obligation they had to Gideon, who had been 
 their judge and ruler, he tells them " He fought for you, 
 and adventured his life for, and delivered you out of the 
 hands of Midian" (Judges, ix. 17). Nothing mentioned 
 of him but what he did as a general ; and indeed that is 
 all is found in his history, or in any of the rest of the 
 judges. And Abimelech particularly is called king, 
 though at most he was but their general. And when. 
 
68 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 being weary of t.he ill-conduct of Samuel's sons, the 
 Children of Israel desired a king " like all the nations, to 
 judge them and to go out before them, and to fight their 
 battles "*(1 Samuel, viii. 20). G-od, granting their desire, 
 says to Samuel : " I will send thee a man, and thou shalt 
 anoint him to be captain over my people Israel, that he 
 may save my people out of the hands of the Philistines " 
 (ix. 16). As if the only business of a king had been to 
 lead out their armies, and fight in their defence ; and 
 accordingly at his inauguration pouring a vial of oil upon 
 him, declares to Saul that " the Lord had anointed him to 
 be captain over his inheritance " (x. 1). And, therefore, 
 those who, after Saul's being solemnly chosen and saluted 
 king by the tribes at Mizpah, were unwilling to have 
 him their king, make no other objection but this : " How 
 shall this man save us ? " (verse 27) as if they should 
 have said. " This man is unfit to be our king, not having 
 skill and conduct enough in war to be able to defend us." 
 And when G-od resolved to transfer the government to 
 David, it is in these words : " But now thy kingdom shall 
 not continue. The Lord hath sought him a man after 
 his own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be 
 captain over his people " (xiii. 4), as if the whole kingly 
 authority were nothing else but to be their general ; and, 
 therefore, the tribes who had stuck to Saul's family, and 
 opposed David's reign, when they came to Hebron with 
 terms of submission to him, they tell him, amongst other 
 arguments, they had to submit to him as to their king, 
 that he was, in effect, their king in Saul's time, and there- 
 fore, they had no reason but to receive him as their king 
 now. " Also," say they, " in time past, when Saul was 
 king over us, thou wast he that leadest out and broughtest 
 in Israel, and the Lord said unto thee, ' Thou shalt feed 
 my people Israel, and thou shalt be a captain over 
 Israel.' " 
 
 110. Thus, whether a family by degrees grew up into a 
 commonwealth, and the fatherly authority being con- 
 tinued on to the elder son, every one in his turn growing 
 up under it, tacitly submitted to it ; and the easiness and 
 equality of it not offending any one, every one acquiesced, 
 till time seemed to have confirmed it, and settled a right 
 of succession by prescription ; or whether several families, 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 69 
 
 or the descendants of several families, whom chance, 
 neighbourhood, or business brought together, uniting into 
 a society, the need of a general, whose conduct might 
 defend them against their enemies in war. and the great 
 confidence the innocency and sincerity of that poor but 
 virtuous age (such as are almost all those which begin 
 governments that ever come to last in the world) gave 
 men one of another, made the first beginners of common- 
 wealths generally put the rule into one man's hand, with- 
 out any other express limitation or restraint, but whab 
 the nature of the thing and the end of government 
 required. Which ever of those it was that at first put 
 the rule into the hand of a single person, certain it is 
 nobody was entrusted with it but for the public good and 
 safety, and to those ends, in the infancies of common- 
 wealths, commonly used it. And unless those who had 
 it had done so, young societies could not have subsisted. 
 Without such nursing fathers, tender and careful of the 
 public weal, all governments would have sunk under the 
 weakness and infirmities of their infancy, and the prince 
 and people had soon perished together. 
 - 111. But though the golden age ( before vain ambition, and 
 amor sceleratits liabendi, evil concupiscence had corrupted 
 men's minds into a mistake of true power and honour) 
 had more virtue, and consequently better governors, as 
 well as less vicious subjects ; and there was then no 
 stretching prerogative, on the one side, to oppress the 
 people, nor consequently, on the other, any dispute about 
 privilege, to lessen or restrain the power of the magistrate, 
 and so no contest betwixt rulers and people about gover- 
 nors or government. Yet, when ambition and luxury in 
 future ages would retain and increase the power, without 
 doing the business for which it was given, and, aided by 
 flattery, taught princes to have distinct and separate 
 interest from their people, men found it necessary to 
 examine more carefully the original and rights of govern- 
 ment, and to find out ways to restrain the exorbitances, 
 and prevent the abuses of that power which, they having 
 entrusted in another's hands only for their own good, 
 they found was made use of to hurt them. 
 112. Thus we may see how probable it is that people 
 were naturally free, and by their own consent either 
 
70 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 submitted to the government of their father, or united 
 together out of different families to make a government, 
 should generally put the rule into one man's hands, and 
 choose to be under the conduct of a single person, without 
 so much as by express conditions limiting or regulating 
 his power, which they thought safe enough in his honesty 
 and prudence, though they never dreamt of monarchy 
 being jure dimno, which we never heard of among man- 
 kind till it was revealed to us in the divinity of this last 
 age, nor ever allowed paternal power to have a right to 
 dominion, or to be the foundation of all government. 
 And thus much may suffice to show that, as far as we have 
 'any light from history, we have reason to conclude that 
 all peaceful beginnings of government have been laid in 
 the consent of the people. I say peaceful, because I shall 
 have occasion in another place to speak of conquest, which 
 some esteem a way of beginning of governments. 
 
 The other objection I find urged against the beginning 
 of polities in the way I have mentioned is this, viz. : 
 
 113. That all men being born under government, some 
 or other, it is impossible any of them should ever be free 
 and at liberty to unite together and begin a new one, or 
 ever be able to erect a lawful government. 
 
 If this argument be good, I ask, how came so many 
 lawful monarchies into the world ? For if anybody, upon 
 this supposition, can show me any one man, in any age 
 of the world, free to begin a lawful monarchy, I will be 
 bound to show him ten other free men at liberty at the 
 same time to unite and begin a new government under a 
 regal, or any other form, it being demonstrated that if 
 any one, born under the dominion of another, may be so 
 free as to have a right to command others in a new and 
 distinct empire, every one that is born under the dominion 
 of another may be so free too, and may become a ruler or 
 subject of a distinct separate government. And so by 
 this their own principle either all men, however born, are 
 free, or else there is but one lawful prince, one lawful 
 government in the world. And then they have nothing 
 to do but barely to show us which that is ; which, when 
 they have done, I doubt not but all mankind will easily 
 agree to pay obedience to him. 
 
 }H. Though it be a sufficient answer to their objection 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 71 
 
 to show that it involves them in the same difficulties that 
 it doth those they use it against, yet I shall endeavour to 
 discover the weakness of this argument a little farther. 
 
 " All men," say they, " are born under government, and 
 therefore they cannot be at liberty to begin a new one. 
 Every one is born a subject to his father, or his prince, and 
 is therefore under the perpetual tie of subjection and 
 allegiance." It is plain mankind never owned nor con- 
 sidered any such na'tural subjection that they were born 
 in, to one or to the other that tied them without their 
 own consents, to a subjection to them and their heirs. 
 
 115. For there are no examples so frequent in history, 
 both sacred and profane, as those of men withdrawing 
 themselves and their obedience from the jurisdiction they 
 were born under, and the family or community they were 
 bred up in, and setting up new governments in other 
 places ; from whence sprang all that number of petty 
 commonwealths in the beginning of ages, and which 
 always multiplied, as long as there was room enough, till 
 the stronger or more fortunate swallowed the weaker ; 
 and those great ones again breaking to pieces, dissolved 
 into lesser dominions, all which are so many testimonies 
 against paternal sovereignty, and plainly prove that it 
 was not the natural right of the father descending to his 
 heirs that made government in the beginning, since it was 
 impossible upon that ground there should have been so 
 many little kingdoms. All must have been but only one 
 universal monarchy if men had not been at liberty 
 to separate themselves from their families and the 
 government, be it what it will, that was set up in it. and 
 go and make distinct commonwealth and other govern- 
 ments as they thought fit. 
 
 116. This has been the practice of the world from its 
 first beginning to this day ; nor is it now any more 
 hindrance to the freedom of mankind that they are born 
 under constituted and ancient polities that have estab- 
 lished laws and set forms of government, than if they 
 were born in the woods amongst the unconnned in- 
 habitants that run loose in them. For those who would 
 persuade us that by being born under any government we 
 are naturally subjects to it, and have no more any title or 
 pretence to the freedom of the state of Nature, have no 
 
72 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 other reason (bating that of paternal power, which we 
 have already answered) to produce for it, but only 
 because our fathers or progenitors passed away their 
 ^ natural liberty, and thereby bound up themselves and 
 their posterity to a perpetual subjection to the govern- 
 ment which they themselves submitted to. It is true 
 that whatever engagements or promises any one has made 
 for himself, he is under the obligation of them, but 
 cannot by any compact whatsoever bind his children or 
 posterity. For his son when a man being altogether as 
 free as his father, any act of the father can no more give 
 away the liberty of the son than it can of anybody else. 
 He may indeed annex such conditions to the land he 
 enjoyed as a subject of any commonwealth as may oblige 
 his son to be of that community, if he will enjoy those 
 possessions which were his father's, because that estate 
 being his father's property he may dispose or settle it as 
 he pleases. 
 
 117. And this has generally given the occasion to 
 mistake in this matter, because commonwealths not per- 
 mitting any part of their dominions to be dismembered, 
 nor to be enjoyed by any but those of their community, 
 the son cannot ordinarily enjoy the possession of his 
 father but under the same terms his father did : by 
 becoming a member of the society ; whereby he puts him- 
 self presently under the government he finds there 
 established as much as any other subject of that common- 
 wealth. And thus the consent of freemen, born under 
 government, which only makes them members of it, 
 being given separately in their turns, as each comes to be 
 of age, and not in a multitude together. People take no 
 notice of it, and thinking it not done at all, or not neces- 
 sary, conclude they are naturally subjects as they are 
 men. 
 
 118. But it is plain governments themselves understand 
 *it otherwise ; they claim no power over the son, because 
 
 of that they had over the father ; nor look on children as 
 being their subjects by their father being so. If a 
 subject of England have a child by an English woman in 
 France, whose subject is he ? Not the King of England's, 
 for he must have leave to be admitted to the privileges 
 of it ; nor the King of France's, for how then has his 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 73 
 
 father a liberty to bring him away and breed him as he 
 pleases ? And whoever was judged as a traitor or 
 deserter, if he left or warred against a country, for being 
 barely born in it of parents that were aliens there. It is 
 plain then by the practice of governments themselves, 
 as well as by the law of right reason, that a child is 
 born a subject of no country or government. He is under 
 his father's tuition and authority till he comes to age of 
 discretion, and then he is a freeman, at liberty what 
 government he will put himself under, what body politic 
 he will unite himself to. For if an Englishman's son, 
 born in France, be at liberty, and may do so, it is evident 
 there is no tie upon him by his father being a subject of 
 this kingdom ; nor is he bound up by any compact of his 
 ancestors. And why then hath not his son by the same 
 reason, the same liberty, though he be born anywhere 
 else 1 Since the power that a father hath naturally over 
 'his children is the same wherever they be born, and the 
 ties of natural obligations are not bounded by the positive 
 limits of kingdoms and commonwealths. 
 
 119. Every man being, as has been shown, naturally free, 
 and nothing being able to put him into subjection to any 
 earthly power but only his own consent, it is to be con- 
 sidered what shall be understood to be a sufficient declara- 
 tion of a man's consent to make him subject to the law of 
 any government. There is a common distinction of an 
 express and a tacit consent, which will concern our present 
 case. Nobody doubts but an express consent of any man 
 entering into any society makes him a perfect member of 
 that society, a subject of that government. The difficulty 
 is, what ought to be looked upon as a tacit consent, and 
 how far it binds, i.e., how far any one shall be looked on 
 to have consented, and thereby submitted to any govern- 
 ment, where he has made no expressions of it at all. And 
 to this I say that every man that hath any possessions or 
 enjoyment of any part of the dominion of any govern- 
 ment doth thereby give his tacit consent, and is as far 
 forth obliged to obedience to the laws of that government 
 during such enjoyment as any one under it ; whether this 
 his possession be of land to him and his heirs for ever, or 
 a, lodging only for a week ; or whether it be barely 
 travelling freely on the highway ; and in effect it reaches 
 
74 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 as far as the very being- of any one within the territories 
 of that government. 
 
 120. To understand this the better, it is fit to consider 
 that every man when he at first incorporates himself into 
 any commonwealth, he, by his uniting himself thereunto, 
 annexed also, and submits to the community those 
 possessions which he has or shall acquire that do not 
 already belong to any other government ; for it would 
 be a direct contradiction for any one to enter into society 
 with others for the securing and regulating of property. 
 And yet to suppose his land, whose property is to be 
 regulated by the laws of the society, should be exempt 
 from the jurisdiction of that government to which he 
 himself, the proprietor of the land, is a subject ; by the 
 same act, therefore, whereby any one unites his person, 
 which was before free, to any commonwealth, by the 
 same he unites his possessions, which was before free, to 
 it also ; and they become, both of them, person and 
 possession, subject to the government and dominion of 
 that commonwealth as long as it hath a being. Whoever 
 therefore from thenceforth by inheritance, purchase, 
 permission, or otherwise, enjoys any part of the land so 
 annexed to, and under the government of that common- 
 wealth, must take it with the condition it is under, that 
 is, of submitting to the government of the common- 
 wealth under whose jurisdiction it is as far forth as any 
 subject of it. 
 
 121. But since the government has a direct jurisdiction 
 ' only over the land, and reaches the possessor of it (before 
 
 he has actually incorporated himself in the society), only 
 as he dwells upon, and enjoys that : the obligation any 
 one is under, by virtue of such enjoyment, to submit to 
 the government, begins and ends with the enjoyment ; so 
 that whenever the owner, who has given nothing but 
 such a tacit consent to the government, will by donation, 
 sale, or otherwise, quit the said possession, he is at liberty 
 to go and incorporate himself into any other common- 
 wealth, or to agree with others to begin a new one (in 
 vacuis locks') in any part of they world, they can find free 
 and unpossessed. Whereas he that has once by actual 
 agreement and any express declaration given his consent 
 to be of any commonweal is perpetually and indis- 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 75 
 
 pensably obliged to be and remain unalterably a subject 
 to it, and can never be again in the liberty of the state of 
 nature ; unless, by any calamity, the government he was 
 under comes to be dissolved, or else by some public acta 
 cuts him off from being any longer a member of it. 
 x' 122. But submitting to the laws of any country, living 
 q'uietly and enjoying privileges and protection under them 
 makes not a man a member of that society. This is only 
 a local protection and homage due to and from all those 
 who, not being in the state of war, come within the 
 territories belonging to any government to all parts 
 whereof the force of its law extends. But this no more 
 makes a man a member of that society a perpetual subject 
 of that commonwealth, than it would make a man a 
 subject to another in whose family he found it convenient 
 to abide for some time ; though whilst he continued in it 
 he were obliged to comply with the laws, and submit to 
 the government he found there. And thus we see, that 
 foreigners by living all their lives under another govern- 
 ment, and enjoying the privileges and protection of it, 
 though they are bound even in conscience to submit to its 
 administration as far forth as any denizen, yet do not 
 thereby come to be subjects or members of that common- 
 wealth. Nothing can make any man so, but his actually 
 entering into it by positive engagement, and express 
 promise and compact. This is that, which I think, con- 
 'cerning the beginning of political societies, and that 
 consent which makes any one a member of any common- 
 wealth. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 OF THE ENDS OF POLITICAL SOCIETY AND GOVEBNMENT. 
 
 123. IF man in the state of nature be so free, as has been 
 said, if he be absolute lord of his own person and posses- 
 sions, equal to the greatest, and subject to nobody, why 
 will he part with his freedom ? Why will he give up 
 this empire, and subject himself to the dominion and 
 control of any other powct- ? To which, it is obvious to 
 answer, that though in the state of nature he hath such 
 
76 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 a right, yet the enjoyment of it is very uncertain, and 
 constantly exposed to the invasions of others. For all 
 being kings as much as he, every man his equal, and the 
 greater part no strict observers of equity and justice, 
 the enjoyment of the property he has in this state is 
 very unsafe, very unsecure. This makes him willing to 
 quit this condition, which, however free, is full of fears 
 and continual dangers ; and it is not without reason that 
 he seeks out and is willing to join in society with others, 
 who are already united, or have a mind to unite, for the 
 mutual preservation of their lives, liberties, and estates, 
 which I call by the general name, property. 
 ^ 124. The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting 
 into commonwealths, and putting themselves under 
 government, is the preservation of their property ; to 
 which in the state of nature there are many things wanting. 
 First, There wants an established, settled, known law, 
 received and allowed by common consent to be the 
 standard of right and wrong, and the common measure 
 to decide all controversies between them. For though 
 the law of nature be plain and intelligible to all rational 
 creatures ; yet men, being biased by their interest, as 
 well as ignorant for want of study of it, are not apt to 
 allow of it as a law binding to them in the application of 
 it to their particular cases. 
 
 125. Secondly. In the state of nature there wants a 
 known and indifferent judge, with authority to determine 
 all differences according to the established law. For 
 every one in that state, being both judge and executioner 
 of the law of nature, men being partial to themselves, 
 passion and revenge is very apt to carry them too far, 
 and with too much heat in their own cases, as well as 
 negligence and unconcernedness, to make them too remiss 
 in other men's. 
 
 126. Thirdly, In the state of nature there often wants 
 power to back and support the sentence when right, and 
 to give it due execution. They who by any injustice 
 offend, will seldom fail, where they are able by force to 
 make good their injustice; such resistance many times 
 makes the punishment dangerous, and frequently destruc- 
 tive to those who attempt it. 
 
 127. Thus mankind, notwithstanding all the privileges 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 77 
 
 of the state of nature, being but in an ill condition, while 
 they remain in it, are quickly driven into society. Hence 
 it comes to pass that we seldom find any number of men 
 live any time together in this state. The inconveniences 
 that they are therein exposed to by the irregular and un- 
 certain exercise of the power every man has of punishing 
 the transgressions of others, makes them take sanctuary 
 under the established laws of government, and therein 
 seek the preservation of their property. Ifc is this 
 makes them so willingly give up every one his single 
 power of punishing, to be exercised by such alone, as 
 shall be appointed to it amongst them ; and by such 
 rules as the community, or those authorised by them to 
 that purpose, shall agree on. And in this we have the 
 original right and rise of both the legislative and execu- 
 tive power, as well as of the governments and societies 
 themselves. 
 
 . 128. For in the state of nature, to omit the liberty he 
 has of innocent delights, a man has two powers. 
 
 'The first is to do whatsoever he thinks fit for the pre- 
 servation of himself, and others within the permission of 
 the law of nature, by which law, common to them all, 
 he and all the rest of mankind are of one community, 
 mak^ up one society, distinct from all other creatures. 
 And were it not for the corruption and viciousness of 
 degenerate men there would be no need of any other, no 
 necessity that men should separate from this great and 
 natural community, and by positive agreements combine 
 into smaller and divided associations. 
 
 The other power a man has in the state of nature is the 
 power to punish the crimes committed against that law. 
 Both these he gives up when he joins in a private, if I 
 may so call it, or particular political society, and incor- 
 porates into any commonwealth separate from the rest of 
 mankind. 
 
 129. The first power, viz., of doing whatsoever he 
 thought fit for the preservation of himself and the rest 
 of mankind, he gives up to be regulated by laws made by 
 the society, so far forth as the preservation of himself 
 and the rest of that society shall require ; which laws of 
 the society in many things confine the liberty he had by 
 the law of nature. 
 
78 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT, 
 
 130. Secondly. The power of punishing he wholly gives 
 up, and engages his natural force (which he might before 
 employ in the execution of the law of nature, by his own 
 single authority as he thought fit), to assist the executive 
 power of the society, as the law thereof shall require. 
 For being now in a new state, wherein he is to enjoy 
 many conveniences, from the labour, assistance, and 
 society of others in the same community, as well as pro- 
 tection from its whole strength ; he has to part also with 
 as much as his natural liberty, in providing for himself, 
 as the good, prosperity and safety of the society shall 
 require ; which is not only necessary but just, since the 
 other members of the society do the like. 
 
 131. But though men when they enter into society give 
 up the equality, liberty and executive power they had in 
 the state of nature into the hands of the society, to be so 
 far disposed of by the legislative as the good of the 
 society shall require ; yet it being only with an intention in 
 every one the better to preserve himself, his liberty and 
 property (for no rational creature can be supposed -to 
 change - his condition with an intention to be worse), 
 the power of the society, or legislative constituted by 
 them, can never be supposed to extend farther than the 
 common good, but is obliged to secure every one's 
 property by providing against those three defects at)ove- 
 mentioned that made the state of nature so unsafe and 
 uneasy. And so whoever has the legislative or supreme 
 power of any commonwealth is bound to govern by 
 established standing laws, promulgated and known to the 
 people, and not by extemporary decrees ; by indifferent 
 and upright judges, who are to decide controversies by 
 those laws ; and to employ the force of the community 
 at home only in the execution of such laws, or abroad, to 
 prevent or redress foreign injuries, and secure the com- 
 munity from inroads and invasion. And all this to be 
 directed to no other end but the peace, safety, and public 
 good of the people. 
 
OP CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 79 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 OF THE FOEMS OF A COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 132. THE majority having, as has been shown, upon 
 men's first uniting into society, the whole power of the 
 community, naturally in them, may employ all that 
 power in making laws for the community from time to 
 time, and executing those laws by officers of their own 
 appointing : and then the form of the government is a 
 perfect democracy ; or else may put the power of making 
 laws into the hands of a few select men, and their heirs 
 or successors, and then it is an oligarchy ; or else into 
 the hands of one man and then it is a monarchy ; if to 
 him and his heirs, it is an hereditary monarchy ; if to 
 him only for life, but upon his death the power only of 
 nominating a successor to return to them, an elective 
 monarchy. And so accordingly of these, the community 
 may make compound and mixed forms of government, as 
 they think good. And if the legislative power be at first 
 given by the majority to one or more persons only for 
 their lives, or any limited time, and then the supreme 
 power to revert to them again ; when it is so reverted, 
 the community may dispose of it again anew into what 
 hands they please, and so constitute a new form of 
 government. For the form of government depending 
 upon the placing of the supreme power, which is the 
 legislative, it being impossible to conceive that an in- 
 ferior power should prescribe to a superior, or any but 
 the supreme make laws, according as the power of 
 making laws is placed, such is the form of the common- 
 wealth. 
 
 - 133. By commonwealth, I must be understood all 
 along to mean, not a democracy, or any form of govern- 
 ment, but any independent community which the Latins 
 signified by the word o wit as, to which the word which 
 best answers in our language is commonwealth, and 
 most properly expresses such a society of men, which 
 community or city in English does not, for there may be 
 subordinate communities in a government; and city 
 amongst us has a quite different notion from common- 
 wealth. And therefore to avoid ambiguity I crave leave 
 
80 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 to use the word commonwealth in that sense, in which I 
 find it used by King James the First, and I take it to be 
 its genuine signification ; which if anybody dislike, I 
 consent with him to change it for a better. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 OF THE EXTENT OF THE LEGISLATIVE POWER. 
 
 134. THE great end of men's entering- into society being 
 ' the enjoyment of their properties in peace and safety, 
 and the great instrument and means of that being the 
 laws established in that society : the first and fundamental 
 positive law of all commonwealths, is the establishing of 
 the legislative power ; as the first and fundamental 
 natural law, which is to govern even the legislative itself, 
 is the preservation of the society, and (as far as will 
 consist with the public good) of every person in it. 
 This legislative is not only the supreme power of the 
 commonwealth, but sacred and unalterable in the hands 
 where the community have once placed it ; nor can any 
 edict of anybody else, in what form soaver conceived, 
 or by what power soever backed, have the force and 
 obligation of a law, which has not its sanction from that 
 legislative which the public has chosen and appointed. 
 For without this the law could not have that, which is 
 absolutely necessary to its being a law, the consent of the 
 society over whom nobody can have a power to make 
 laws, but by their own consent, and by authority received 
 from them ; and therefore all the obedience, which by the 
 most solemn ties any one can be obliged to pay, ultimately 
 terminates in this supreme power, and is directed by 
 those laws which it enacts ; nor can any oaths to any 
 foreign power whatsoever, or any domestic subordinate 
 power discharge any member of the society from his 
 obedience to the legislative, acting pursuant to their 
 trust ; nor oblige him to any obedience contrary to the 
 laws so enacted, or farther than tney do allow ; it being 
 ridiculous to imagine one can be tied ultimately to obey 
 any power in the society which is not the supreme. 
 
 135. Though the legislative, whether placed in one or 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 81 
 
 \ 
 
 more, whether it be always in being, or only by intervals, 
 though it be the supreme power in every commonwealth, 
 
 yet, 
 
 First, It is not nor can possibly be absolutely arbitrary 
 over the lives and fortunes of the people. For it being 
 but the joint power of every member of the society given 
 up to that person, or assembly, which is legislator ; it can 
 be no more than those persons had in a state of nature 
 before they entered into society, and gave up to the 
 Community. For nobody can transfer to another more 
 power than he has in himself ; and nobody has an 
 absolute arbitrary power over himself, or over any other 
 to destroy his own life, or take away the life or property 
 of another. A man as has been proved cannot subject 
 himself to the arbitrary power of another ; and having in 
 the state of nature no arbitrary power over the life, 
 liberty, or possession of another, but only so much as the 
 law of nature gave him for the preservation of himself, 
 and the rest of mankind ; this is all he doth, or can give 
 up to the commonwealth, and by it to the legislative 
 power, so that the legislative can have no more than 
 this. Their power in the utmost bounds of it, is limited 
 to the public good of the society. It is a power that hath 
 no other end but preservation, and therefore can never 
 have a right to destroy, enslave, or designedly to im- 
 poverish the subjects. The obligations of the law of 
 nature cease not in society, but only in many cases are 
 drawn closer, and have by human laws known penalties 
 annexed to them to enforce their observation. Thus the 
 law of nature stands as an eternal rule to all men, 
 legislators as well as others. The rules that they make 
 for other men's actions must, as well as their own, and 
 other men's actions be conformable to the law of nature, 
 i.e. to the will of God, of which that is a declaration, and 
 the fundamental law of nature being the preservation of 
 mankind, no human sanction can be good or valid against 
 it. 
 
 - 136. Secondly, The legislative, or supreme authority, 
 cannot assume to itself a power to rule by extemporary 
 arbitrary decrees, but is bound to dispense justice, and 
 decide the rights of the subject by promulgated standing 
 laws, and known authorised judges. For the law of 
 
82 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 nature being unwritten, and so nowhere to be found but 
 in the minds of men, they who through passion or 
 interest shall miscite or misapply it, cannot so easily be 
 convinced of their mistake where there is no established 
 judge. And so it serves not, as it ought to determine the 
 rights, and fence the properties of those that live under 
 it, especially where every one is judge, interpreter, and 
 executioner of it too, and that in his own case ; and he 
 that has right on his side, having ordinarily 'but his own 
 single strength hath not force enough to defend himself 
 from injuries, or to punish delinquents. To avoid these 
 inconveniences, 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 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. 
 
 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. It cannot 
 be supposed that they should intend, had they a power so 
 to do, to give to any one, or more, an absolute arbitrary 
 power over their persons and estates, and put a force into 
 the magistrate's hand to execute his unlimited will 
 arbitrarily upon them. This were to put themselves into 
 a worse condition than the state of nature, wherein they 
 had a liberty to defend their right against the injuries of 
 others, and were upon equal terms of force to maintain 
 it, whether invaded by a single man or many in combina- 
 tion. Whereas, by supposing they have given up them- 
 selves to the absolute arbitrary power and will of a 
 legislator, they have disarmed themselves, and armed 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 83 
 
 him, to make prey of them when he pleases. He being 
 in a much worse condition who is exposed to the arbitrary 
 power of one man who has the command 100,000, than he 
 that is exposed to the arbitrary power of 100,000 single 
 men ; nobody being secure that his will, who hath such 
 a command, is better than that of other men, though his 
 force be 100,000 times stronger. And, therefore, what- 
 ever form the commonwealth is under, the ruling power 
 ought to govern by declared and received laws, and not 
 by extemporary dictates and undetermined resolutions. 
 For then mankind will be in a far worse condition than 
 in the state of nature, if they shall have armed one, or a 
 few men, with the joint power of a multitude to force 
 them to obey at pleasure the exorbitant and unlimited 
 decrees of their sudden thoughts, or unrestrained, and, 
 till that moment, unknown wills, without having any 
 measures set down which may guide and justify their 
 actions. For all the power the government has, being- 
 only for the good of the society, as it ought not to be 
 arbitrary and at pleasure, so it ought to be exercised by 
 established and promulgated laws ; that both the people 
 may know their duty and be safe and secure within the 
 limits of the law ; and the rulers too kept within their 
 due bounds, and not be tempted by the power they have 
 in their hands to employ it to such purposes, and by such 
 measures as they would not have known, and own not 
 willingly. 
 
 138. Thirdly, The supreme power cannot take from 
 any man any part of his property without his own con- 
 sent. For the preservation of property being the end 
 of government, and that for which men enter into 
 society, it necessarily supposes and requires that the 
 people should have property, without which they must 
 be supposed to lose that by entering into society, which 
 was the end for which they entered into it, too gross 
 an absurdity for any man to own. Men, therefore, in 
 society having property, they have such a right to the 
 goods which by the law of the community are theirs, 
 that nobody hath a right to take their substance or any 
 part of it from them, without their own consent ; with- 
 out this they have no property at all. For I have truly 
 no property in that which another can by right take 
 
84 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 from me when he pleases, against my consent. Hence it 
 is a mistake to think that the supreme or legislative 
 power of any commonwealth can do what it will, and 
 dispose of the estates of the subjects arbitrarily, or take 
 any part of them at pleasure. This is not much to be 
 feared in governments where the legislative consists 
 wholly, or in part, in assemblies which are variable, 
 whose members, upon the dissolution of the assembly, 
 are subjects under the common laws of their country, 
 equally with the rest. But in governments where the 
 legislative is in one lasting assembly, always in being, or 
 in one man, as in absolute monarchies, there is danger 
 still, that they will think themselves to have a distinct 
 interest from the rest of the community, and so will be 
 apt to increase their own riches and power by taking 
 what they think fit from the people. For a man's pro- 
 perty is not at all secure, though there be good and equit- 
 able laws to set the bounds of it between him and his 
 fellow subjects, if he who commands those subjects have 
 power to take from any private man what part he pleases 
 of his property, and use and dispose of it as he thinks good. 
 139. But government, into whatsoever hands it is put, 
 being, as I have before shown, entrusted with this con- 
 dition, and for this end, that men might have and secure 
 their properties, the prince, or senate, however it may 
 have power to make laws for the regulating of property 
 between the subjects one amongst another, yet can never 
 have a power to take to themselves the whole or any part 
 of the subject's property without their own consent. 
 For this would be in effect to leave them no property at 
 all. And to let us see that even absolute power, where 
 it is necessary, is not arbitrary by being absolute, but is 
 still limited by that reason, and confined to those ends 
 which required it in some cases to be absolute, we need 
 look no farther than the common practice of martial dis- 
 cipline. For the preservation of the army, and in it the 
 whole commonwealth, requires an absolute obedience to 
 the command of every superior officer, and it is justly 
 death to disobey or dispute the most dangerous or un- 
 reasonable of them ; but yet we see that neither the 
 sergeant, that could command a soldier to march up to 
 the mouth of a cannon, or stand in a breach, where he is 
 
OF CIVIL QOVEHNMEtfT. 85 
 
 almost sure to perish, can command that soldier to give 
 him one penny of his money ; nor the general, that can 
 condemn him to death for deserting his post, or for not 
 obeying the most desperate orders, can yet, with all his 
 absolute power of life and death, dispose of one farthing 
 of that soldier's estate, or seize one jot of his goods, 
 whom yet he can command anything, and hang for the 
 least disobedience. Because such a blind obedience is 
 necessary to that end for which the commander has his 
 power, viz., the preservation of the rest ; but the dispo- 
 sing of his goods has nothing to do with it. 
 
 140. 'Tis true governments cannot be supported with- 
 out great charge, and it is fit every one who enjoys a share 
 of the protection should pay out of his estate his propor- 
 tion for the maintenance of it. But still it must be with 
 his own consent, i.e., the consent of the majority giving 
 it either by themselves or their representatives chosen 
 by them. For if any one shall claim a power to lay and 
 levy taxes on the people, by his own authority, and with- 
 out such consent of the people, he thereby invades the 
 fundamental law of property, and subverts the end of 
 government. For what property have I in that which 
 another may by right take when he pleases to himself 1 
 ^141. FowrtMy, The legislative cannot transfer the 
 power of making laws to any other hands ; for it being 
 but a delegative power from the people, they who have 
 it cannot pass it over to others. The people alone can 
 appoint the form of the commonwealth, which is by 
 constituting the legislative, and appointing in whose 
 hands that shall be. And when the people have said we 
 will submit to rules, and be governed by laws made by 
 such men, and in such forms, nobody else can say other 
 men shall make laws for them ; nor can the people be 
 bound by any laws but such as are enacted by those 
 whom they have chosen and authorised to make laws 
 for them. The power of the legislative being derived 
 from the people by a positive voluntary grant and 
 institution, can be no other than what that positive 
 grant conveyed, which being only to make laws, and 
 not to make legislators, the legislative can have no 
 power to transfer their authority of making laws and 
 place it in other hands. 
 
86 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 J 142. These are the bounds which we trust that is put 
 in them by the society, and the law of God and Nature, 
 have set to the legislative power of every common- 
 wealth, in all forms of government. 
 
 First, They are to* govern by promulgated established 
 laws, not to be varied in particular cases, but to have 
 one rule for rich and poor, for the favourite at court and 
 the countryman at plough. 
 
 Secondly, These laws also ought to be designed for no 
 other end ultimately but the good of the people. 
 
 Thirdly, They must not raise taxes on the property of 
 the people without the consent of the people, given by 
 themselves or their deputies. And this properly concerns 
 only such governments where the legislative is always in 
 being, or at least where the people have not reserved any 
 part of the legislative to deputies, to be from time to time 
 chosen by themselves. 
 
 Fourthly, The legislative neither must nor can transfer 
 the power of making laws to anybody else, or place it 
 anywhere but where the people have. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 OF THE LEGISLATIVE, EXECUTIVE, AND FEDEEATIVE 
 POWEE OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 143. THE legislative power is that which has a right to 
 direct how the force of the commonwealth shall be em- 
 ployed for preserving the community and the members 
 of it. But because those laws which are constantly to be 
 executed, and whose force is always to continue, may be 
 made in a little time, therefore there is no need that the 
 legislative should be always in being, not having always 
 business to do ; and because it may be too great a temp- 
 tation to human frailty, apt to grasp at power for the 
 same persons, who have the power of making laws, to 
 have also in their hands the power to execute them, 
 whereby they exempt themselves from obedience to the 
 laws they make, and suit the law, both in its making and 
 execution to their own private advantage, and thereby 
 come to have a distinct interest from the rest of the 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 87 
 
 community, contrary to the end of society and govern- 
 ment. Therefore, in well ordered commonwealths, where 
 the good of the whole is so considered as it ought, the 
 legislative power is put into the hands of divers persons 
 who duly assembled, have by themselves or jointly with 
 others a power to make laws, which when they have done, 
 being separated again, they are themselves subject to 
 the laws they have made ; which is a new and near tie 
 upon them, to take care that they make them for the 
 public good. 
 
 144. But because the laws that are at once and in a 
 short time made, have a constant and lasting force and 
 need a perpetual execution or an attendance thereunto ; 
 therefore, it is necessary there should be a power always in 
 being, which should see to the execution of the laws that 
 are made and remain in force ; and thus the legislative 
 and executive power come often to be separated. 
 
 145. There is another power in every commonwealth, 
 which one may call natural, because it is that which 
 answers to the power every man naturally had before he 
 entered into society ; for though in a commonwealth the 
 members of it are distinct persons still in reference to 
 one another, and as such are governed by the laws of the 
 society, yet in reference to the rest of mankind they 
 make one body, which is, as every member of it before 
 was still in the state of nature with the rest of mankind. 
 Hence it is, that the controversies that happen between 
 any man of the society with those that are out of it are 
 managed by the public, and an injury done to a member 
 of their body engages the whole in the reparation of it. 
 So that under this consideration the whole community is 
 one body in the state of nature in respect of all other 
 states or persons out of its community. 
 
 146. This therefore contains the power of war and 
 peace, leagues and alliances, and all the transactions 
 with all persons and communities without the common- 
 wealth, and may be called federative if any one pleases. 
 So the thing be understood, I am indifferent as to the 
 name. 
 
 147. These two powers, executive and federative, though 
 they be really distinct in themselves, yet one compre- 
 hending the execution of the municipal laws of the 
 
88 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 society within itself upon all that are parts of it ; the other 
 the management of the security and interest of the public 
 without, with all those that it may receive benefit or 
 damage from, yet, they are always almost united. And 
 though this federative power in the well or ill manage- 
 ment of it be of great moment to the commonwealth, yet 
 it is much less capable to be directed by antecedent, 
 standing, positive laws than the executive ; and so must 
 necessarily be left to the prudence and wisdom of those 
 whose hands it is in to be managed for the public good. 
 For the laws that concern subjects one amongst another, 
 being to direct their actions, may well enough precede 
 them. But what is to be done in reference to foreigners, 
 depending much upon their actions and the variation of 
 designs and interests, must be left in great part to the 
 prudence of those who have this power committed to 
 bhem, to be managed by the best of their skill for the 
 advantage of the commonwealth. 
 
 148. Though, as I said, the executive and federative 
 power of every community be really distinct in them- 
 selves, yet they are hardly to be separated and placed at 
 the same time in the hands of distinct persons ; for both 
 of them requiring the force of the society for their exer- 
 cise, it is almost impracticable to place the force of the 
 commonwealth in distinct and not subordinate hands ; 
 or that the executive and federative power should be 
 placed in persons that might act separately, whereby the 
 force of the public would be under different commands, 
 which would be apt some time or other to cause disorder 
 and ruin. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 OF THE SUBORDINATION OF THE POWERS OF THE 
 COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 149. THOUGH in a constituted commonwealth, standing 
 upon its own basis, and acting according to its own 
 nature, that is, acting for the preservation of the com- 
 munity, there can be but one supreme power, which is 
 the legislative, to which all the rest are and must be 
 subordinate, yet the legislative being only a fiduciary 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 89 
 
 power to act for certain ends, there remains still in the 
 people a supreme power to remove or alter the legislative 
 when they find the legislative act contrary to the trust 
 reposed in them ; for all power given with trust for the 
 attaining an end, being limited by that end, whenever 
 that end is manifestly neglected or opposed, the trust 
 must necessarily be forfeited, and the power devolve into 
 the hands of those that g-ave it who may place it anew 
 where they shall think best for their safety and security. 
 And thus the community perpetually retains a supreme 
 power of saving themselves from the attempts and 
 designs of any body, even of their legislators whenever 
 they shall be so foolish or so wicked as to lay and carry 
 on designs against the liberties and properties of the 
 subject ; for no man or society of men, having a power 
 to deliver up their preservation, or consequently the 
 means of it to the absolute will and arbitrary dominion 
 of another, whenever any one shall go about to bring 
 them into such a slavish condition they will always have 
 a right to preserve what they have not a power to 
 part with ; and to rid themselves of those who invaae 
 this fundamental, sacred and unalterable law of self- 
 preservation for which they entered into society ; and 
 thus the community may be said in this respect to be 
 always the supreme power, but not as considered under 
 any form of government, because this power of the 
 people can never take place till the government be 
 dissolved. 
 
 150. In all cases whilst the government subsists, the 
 legislative is the supreme power ; for what can give laws 
 to another must needs be superior to him, and since the 
 legislative is no otherwise legislative of the society but 
 by the right it has to make laws for all the parts and for 
 every member of the society, prescribing rules to their 
 actions, and giving power of execution where they are 
 transgressed, the legislative must needs be the supreme, 
 and all other powers in any members or parts of the 
 society derived from and subordinate to it. 
 
 151. In some commonwealths where the legislative is 
 not always in being, and the executive is vested in a single 
 person, who has also a share in the legislative, there that 
 single person in a very tolerable sense may also be called 
 
90 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 supreme, not that he has in himself all the supreme 
 power, which is that of law-making, but because he has 
 in him the supreme execution from whom all inferior 
 magistrates derive all their several subordinate powers, 
 or at least the greatest part of them ; having also no 
 legislative superior to him, there being no law to be made 
 without his consent which cannot be expected should 
 ever subject him to the other part of the legislative, he is 
 properly enough in this sense supreme. But yet it is to 
 be observed, that though oaths of allegiance and fealty 
 are taken to him, it is not to him as supreme legislator, 
 but as supreme executor of the law, made by a joint 
 power of him with others, allegiance being nothing but 
 obedience according to law, which when he violates, he 
 has no right to obedience, nor can claim it otherwise than 
 as the public person vested with the power of the law and 
 so is to be considered as the image, phantom, or represen- 
 tative of the commonwealth, acted by the will of the 
 society, declared in its laws ; and thus he has no will, no 
 power, but that of the law. But when he quits this 
 representation; this public will, and acts by his own 
 private will, he degrades himself, and is but a single 
 private person without power, and without will, that has 
 any right to obedience ; the members owing no obedience 
 but to the public will of the society. 
 
 152. The executive power placed anywhere but in a 
 person that has also a share in the legislative, is visibly 
 subordinate and accountable to it, and may be at pleasure 
 changed and displaced ; so that it is not the supreme 
 executive power that is exempt from subordination, but 
 the supreme executive power vested in one, who having a 
 share in the legislative, has no distinct superior legislative 
 to be subordinate and accountable to, farther than he 
 himself shall join and consent ; so that he is no more 
 subordinate than he himself shall think fit, which one 
 may certainly conclude will be but very little. Of other 
 ministerial and subordinate powers in a commonwealth 
 we need not speak, they being so multiplied with infinite 
 variety, in the different customs and constitutions of 
 distinct commonwealths, that it is impossible to give a 
 particular account of them all. Only thus much, which 
 is necessary to our present purpose, we may take notice of 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 91 
 
 concerning them that they have no manner of authority 
 any of them, beyond what is by positive grant and 
 commission, delegated to them, and are all of them 
 accountable to some other power in the commonwealth. 
 
 153. It is not necessary, no nor so much as convenient, 
 that the legislative should be always in being. But 
 absolutely necessary that the executive power should, 
 because there is not always need of new laws to be made, 
 but always need of execution of the laws that are made. 
 When the legislative hath put the execution of the laws 
 they make into other hands, they have a power still to 
 resume it out of those hands when they find cause, and to 
 punish for any mal-administration against the laws. 
 The same holds also in regard of the federative power, 
 that and the executive being both ministerial and subor- 
 dinate to the legislative, which has been shown in a 
 constituted commonwealth, is the supreme. The legis- 
 lative also in this case being supposed to consist of several 
 persons (for if it be a single person, it cannot but be 
 always in being, and so will, as supreme, naturally have 
 the supreme executive power, together with the legislative), 
 may assemble and exercise their legislature at the times 
 that either their original constitution, or their own 
 adjournment appoints, or when they please ; if neither of 
 these have appointed any time, or there be no other way 
 prescribed to convoke them. For the supreme power 
 being placed in them by the people, it is always in them, 
 and they may exercise it when they please, unless by their 
 original constitution they are limited to certain seasons, 
 or by an act of their supreme power, they have adjourned 
 to a certain time ; and when that time conies they have 
 a right to assemble and act again. 
 
 154. If the legislative or any part of it be made up of 
 representatives chosen for that time by the people, which 
 afterwards return into the ordinary state of subjects, and 
 have no share in the legislature but upon a new choice, 
 this power of choosing must also be exercised by the 
 people, either at certain appointed seasons, or else when 
 they are summoned to it ; and in this latter case the 
 power of convoking the legislative is ordinarily placed 
 in the executive, and has one of these two limitations in 
 respect of time : that either the original constitution 
 
92 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 requires their assembling and acting at certain intervals, 
 and then the executive power does nothing but minis- ' 
 terially issue directions for their electing and assembling, 
 according to due forms ; or else it is left to his prudence 
 to call them by new elections when the occasions or 
 exigencies of the public require the amendment of old, 
 or making of new laws, or the redress or prevention of 
 any inconveniences that lie on, or threaten the people. 
 
 155. It may be demanded here, what if the executive 
 power being possessed of the force of the commonwealth, 
 shall make use of that force to hinder the meeting and 
 acting of the legislative, when the original constitution, 
 or the public exigencies require it? I say using force 
 upon the people without authority, and contrary to the 
 trust put in him, that does so, is a state of war with the 
 people, who have a right to reinstate their legislative in 
 the exercise of their power. For having erected a 
 legislative, with an intent they should exercise the power 
 of making laws, either at certain set times, or when there 
 is need of it, when they are hindered by any force from, 
 what is so necessary to the society, and wherein the 
 safety and preservation of the people consists, the people 
 have a right to remove it by force. In all states and 
 conditions the true remedy of force without authority is 
 to oppose force to it. The use of force without authority 
 always puts him that uses it into a state of war, as the 
 aggressor, and renders him liable to be treated accord- 
 ingly. 
 
 156. The power of assembling and dismissing the 
 legislative, placed in the executive, gives not the executive 
 a superiority over it, but is fiduciary trust placed in him, 
 for the safety of the people in a case where the un- 
 certainty and variableness of human affairs could not 
 bear a steady fixed rule. For it not being possible that 
 the first framers of the. government should, by any 
 foresight, be so much masters of future events as to be 
 able to perfix so just periods of return and duration to 
 the assemblies of the legislative in all times to come, 
 that might exactly answer all the exigencies of the 
 commonwealth, the best remedy could be found for the 
 defect was to trust this to the prudence of one who was 
 always to be present, and whose business it was to watch 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 93 
 
 over the public good. Constant frequent meetings of the 
 legislative, and long continuations of their assemblies, 
 without necessary occasion, could not but be burthen- 
 some to the people, and must necessarily in time produce 
 more dangerous inconveniences, and yet the quick turn of 
 affairs might be sometimes such as to need their present 
 help : Any delay of their convening might endanger the 
 public ; and sometimes too their 'business might be so 
 great that the limited time of their sitting might be too 
 short for their work, and rob the public of the benefit 
 which could be had only from their mature deliberation. 
 What then could be done in this case to prevent the 
 community from being exposed some time or other to 
 imminent hazard on one side or the other, by fixed 
 intervals and periods, set to the meeting and acting of 
 the legislative, but to entrust it to the prudence of some, 
 who being present, and acquainted with the state of 
 public affairs, might make use of this prerogative for the 
 public good ? And where else could this be so well placed 
 as in his hands, who was entrusted with the execution of 
 the laws for the same end 1 Thus, supposing the regula- 
 tion of times for the assembling and sitting of the 
 legislative not settled by the original constitution, it 
 naturally fell into the hands of the executive, not as an 
 arbitrary power depending on his good pleasure, but with 
 this trust always to have it exercised only for the public 
 weal, as the occurrences of times and change of affairs 
 might require. Whether settled periods of their conven- 
 ing, or a liberty left to the prince for convoking the 
 legislative, or perhaps a mixture of both, hath the least 
 inconvenience attending it, it is not my business here to 
 inquire, but only to show, that though the executive 
 power may have the prerogative of convoking and 
 dissolving such conventions of the legislative, yet it is 
 not thereby superior to it. 
 
 157. Things of this world are in so constant a flux that 
 nothing remains long in the same state. Thus people, 
 riches, trade, power, change their stations, flourishing 
 mighty cities come to ruin, and prove in time neglected, 
 desolate corners, whilst other unfrequented places grow 
 into populous countries, filled with wealth and inhabitants. 
 But things not always changing equally, and private 
 
94 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 interest often/ keeping up customs and privileges when 
 the reasons of them are ceased, it often comes to pass 
 that in governments where part of the legislative consists 
 of representatives chosen by the people, that in tract of 
 time this representation becomes very unequal and dis- 
 proportionate to the reasons it was first established upon. 
 To what gross absurdities the following of custom when 
 reason has left it may lead we may be satisfied, when we 
 see the bare name of a town, of which there remains not 
 so much as the ruins, where scarce so much housing as a 
 sheepcot, or more inhabitants than a shepherd is to be 
 found, sends as many representatives to the grand 
 assembly of law-makers as a whole county numerous in 
 people and powerful in riches. This strangers stand 
 amazed at, and every one must confess needs a remedy ; 
 though most think it hard to find one, because the 
 constitution of the legislative being the original and 
 supreme act of the society, antecedent to all positive 
 laws in it, and depending wholly on the people, no 
 inferior power can alter it. And therefore the people, 
 when the legislative is once constituted, having in such a 
 government as we have been speaking of no power to act 
 as long as the government stands, this inconvenience is 
 thought incapable of a remedy. 
 
 158. Salus populi supremo, lex is certainly so just and 
 fundamental a rule that he who sincerely follows it cannot 
 dangerously err. If therefore the executive, who has the 
 power of convoking the legislative, observing rather the 
 true proportion than fashion of representation, regulates, 
 not by old custom, but true reason, the number of 
 members in all places that have a right to be distinctly 
 represented, which no part of the people however incor- 
 porated can pretend to, but in proportion to the assistance 
 which it affords to the public, it cannot be judged to 
 have set up a new legislative, but to have restored the 
 old and true one, and to have rectified the disorders which 
 succession of time had insensibly as well as inevitably 
 introduced. For it being the interest, as well as intention 
 of the people, to have a fair and equal representative, 
 whoever brings it nearest to that is an undoubted friend 
 to and est&blisher of the government, and cannot misa 
 the consent and approbation of the community. Preroga- 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 95 
 
 tive being nothing but a power in the hands of the prince 
 to provide for the public good in such cases which, 
 depending upon unforeseen and uncertain occurrences, 
 certain and unalterable laws could not safely direct, 
 whatsoe\ er shall be done manifestly for the good of the 
 people, and the establishing the government upon its 
 true foundations is, and always will be, just prerogative. 
 The power of erecting new corporations, and therewith 
 new representatives, carries with it a supposition that in 
 time the measures of representation might vary, and 
 those places have a just right to be represented which 
 before had none ; and by the same reason those cease to 
 have a right, and be too inconsiderable for such a privilege 
 which before had it. It is not a change from the present 
 state, which perhaps corruption or decay has introduced, 
 that makes an inroad upon the government, but the 
 tendency of it to injure or oppress the people, and to set 
 up one part or party with a distinction from, and an 
 unequal subjection of the rest. Whatsoever cannot but 
 be acknowledged to be of advantage to the society and 
 people in general upon just and lasting measures, will 
 always, when done, justify itself; and whenever the 
 people shall choose their representatives upon just and 
 undeniably equal measures, suitable to the original frame 
 of the government, it cannot be doubted to be the will 
 and act of the society who ever permitted or caused them 
 so to do. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 OF PKEKOGATIVE. 
 
 159. WHEEE the legislative and executive power are in dis- 
 tinct hands (as they are in all moderated monarchies and 
 well-framed governments) there the good of the society 
 requires that several things should be left to the dis- 
 cretion of him that has the executive power. For the 
 legislators not being able to foresee and provide by laws 
 for all that may be useful to the community, the 
 executor of the laws having the power in his hands has 
 by the common law of Nature a right to make use of it 
 for the good of the society, in many cases, where the 
 
96 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 municipal law has given no direction, till the legislative 
 can conveniently be assembled to provide for it. Many 
 there are which the law can by no means provide for, and 
 those must necessarily be left to the discretion of him 
 that has the executive power in his hands to be ordered by 
 him as the public pfood and advantage shall require. 
 Nay, it is fit that the laws themselves should in some 
 cases give way to the executive power, or rather to this 
 fundamental law of Nature and government, viz., that as 
 much as may be all the members of the society are to be 
 preserved. For since many accidents may happen 
 wherein a strict and rigid observation of the laws may do 
 harm (as not to pull down an innocent man's house to 
 stop the fire when the next to it is burning), and a man 
 may come sometimes within the reach of the law, which 
 makes no distinction of persons by an action that may 
 deserve reward and pardon, it is fit the ruler should 
 have a power in many cases to mitigate the severity of 
 the law, and pardon some offenders. For the end of 
 government being the preservation of all, as much as 
 may be, even the guilty are to be spared where it can 
 prove no prejudice to the innocent. 
 
 160. This power to act according to discretion for the 
 public good, without the prescription of the law, and 
 sometimes even against it, is that which is called pre- 
 rogative. For since in some governments the law-making 
 power is not always in being, and is usually too numerous, 
 and so too slow for the dispatch requisite to execution ; 
 and because also it is impossible to foresee, and so fey laws 
 to provide for all accidents and necessities that may con- 
 cern the public, or to make such laws as will do no harm 
 if they are executed with an inflexible rigour on all 
 occasions and upon all persons that may come in their 
 way, therefore there is a latitude left to the executive 
 power to do many thinge of choice which the laws do not 
 prescribe. 
 
 161. This power whilst employed for the benefit of the 
 community, and suitably to the trust and ends of the 
 government, is undoubted prerogative, and never is 
 questioned. For the people are very seldom or never 
 scrupulous or nice on the point ; they are far from 
 examining 1 prerogative whilst it is in any tolerable 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 97 
 
 degree employed for the use it was meant, that is for the 
 good of the people, and not manifestly against it. But if 
 there comes to be a question between the executive power 
 and the people about a thing claimed as a prerogative, 
 the tendency of the exercise of such prerogative to the 
 good or hurt of the people will easily decide that question. 
 
 162. It is easy to conceive that in the infancy of 
 governments, when commonwealths differed little from 
 families in number of people, they differed from them too 
 but little in number of laws ; and the governors, being 
 as the fathers of them, watching over them for their 
 good, the government was almost all prerogative. A few 
 established laws served the turn, and the discretion and 
 care of the ruler supplied the rest. But when mistake 
 or flattery prevailed with weak princes to make use of 
 this power for private ends of their own, and not for the 
 public good, the people were fain, by express laws to get 
 prerogative determined in those points wherein they 
 found disadvantage from it, and thus declared limitations 
 of prerogative whereby the people found necessary in , 
 cases which they and their ancestors had left, in the 
 utmost latitude, to the wisdom of those princes, who made 
 no other but a right use of it, that is for the good of the 
 people. 
 
 103. And therefore they have a very wrong notion of 
 government who say that the people have encroached 
 upon the prerogative when they have got any part of 
 it to be defined by positive laws. For in so doing they 
 have not pulled from the Prince anything that of right 
 belonged to him, but only declared that that power which 
 they indefinitely left in his or his ancestor's hands to be 
 exercised for their good was not a thing which they 
 intended him when he used it otherwise. For the end 
 of government being the good of the community, what- 
 soever alterations are made in it tending to that end, 
 cannot be an encroachment upon any body, since no body 
 in government can have a right tending to any other end. 
 And those only are encroachments which prejudice or 
 hinder the public good. Those who say otherwise speak 
 as if the prince had a distinct and separate interest from 
 the good of the community, and was not made for it, the 
 root and source from which spring almost all those evils 
 D 87 
 
98 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 and disorders which happen in kingly governments. And 
 indeed if that be so, the people under his government are 
 not a society ot rational creatures entered into a com- 
 munity for their mutual good ; they are not such as have 
 set rulers over themselves to guard and promote that 
 good, but are to be looked on as a herd of inferior 
 creatures under the dominion of a master, who keeps 
 them and works them for his own pleasure or profit. If 
 men were so void of reason and brutish as to enter into 
 society on such terms, prerogative might indeed be, what 
 some men would have it, an arbitrary power to do things 
 hurtful to the people. 
 
 164. But since a rational creature cannot be supposed 
 when free to put himself into subjection to another 
 for his own harm, though where he finds a good and 
 wise ruler, he may not perhaps think it either necessary 
 or useful to set precise bounds to his power in all things) 
 prerogative can be nothing but the peoples permitting 
 their rulers to do several things of their own free 
 choice where the law was silent, and sometimes, too, 
 against the direct letter of the law, for the public good, 
 and their acquiescing in it when so done ; for as a good 
 prince, who is mindful of the trust put into his hands, and 
 careful of the good of his people, cannot have too much pre- 
 rogative, that is, power to do good, so a weak and ill prince, 
 who would claim that power which his predecessors exer- 
 cised without the direction of the law as a prerogative be- 
 longing to him by right of his office which he may exercise 
 at his pleasure, to make or promote an interest distinct 
 from that of the public, gives the people an occasion to 
 claim their right and limit that power, which, whilst it 
 was exercised for their good, they were content should 
 be tacitly allowed. 
 
 165. And, therefore, he that 'will look into the history 
 of England will find that prerogative was always largest 
 in the hands of onr wisest and best princes, because the 
 people, observing the whole tendency of their actions to 
 be the public good, contested not what was done without 
 law to that end ; or if any human frailty or mistake, 
 for princes are but men made as others, appeared in some 
 small declinations from that end, yet it was visible the 
 main of their conduct tended to nothing but the care 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 99 
 
 of the public. The people, therefore, finding 1 reason 
 to be satisfied with these princes whenever they acted 
 without or contrary to the letter of the law, acquiesced 
 in what they did, and, without the least complaint, let 
 them enlarge their prerogative as they pleased, judging 
 rightly that they did nothing herein to the prejudice of 
 their laws, since they acted conformably to the founda- 
 tion and end of all laws, the public good. 
 
 166. Such G-od-like princes, indeed, had some title 
 to arbitrary power by that argument that would prove 
 absolute monarchy the best government, as that which 
 God himself governs the universe by, because such kings 
 partake of His wisdom and goodness. Upon this is 
 founded that saying that the reigns of good princes have 
 always been most dangerous to the liberties of their 
 people ; for when their successors, managing the govern- 
 ment with different thoughts, would draw the actions of 
 those good rulers into precedent, and make them the 
 standard of their prerogative, as if what had been done 
 only for the good of the people was a right in them 
 to do for the harm of the people if they so pleased, it has 
 often occasioned contest, and sometimes public disorders, 
 before the people could recover their original right, and 
 get that to be declared not to be prerogative, which 
 truly was never so, since it is impossible that anybody 
 in the society should ever have a right to do the people 
 harm ; though it be very possible and reasonable that the 
 people should not go about to set any bounds to the 
 prerogative of those kings or rulers who themselves 
 transgressed not the bounds of the public good ; for 
 prerogative is nothing but the power of doing public 
 good without a rule. 
 
 167. The power of calling Parliaments in England, as 
 to precise time, place, and duration, is certainly a pre- 
 rogative of the king, but still with this trust, that it 
 shall be made use of for the good of the nation as the 
 exigencies of the times and variety of occasions shall 
 require ; for it being impossible to foresee which should 
 always be the fittest place for fchem to assemble in, and 
 what the best season, the choice of these was left with 
 the executive power, as might be most subservient to the 
 public good, and best suit the ends of Parliaments. 
 
100 OF CIVIL OOVEKNMENT. 
 
 168. The old question will be asked in this matter of 
 prerogative : But who shall be judge when this power is 
 made a right use of ? I answer : Between an executive 
 power in being, with such a prerogative and a legislative 
 that depends upon his will for their convening, there 
 can be no judge on earth. As there can be none between 
 the legislative and the people, should either the executive 
 or the legislative, when they have got the power in their 
 hands, design or go about to enslave or destroy them. 
 The people have no other remedy in this, as in all other 
 ca&-es where they have no judge on earth, but to appeal 
 to heaven ; for the rulers in such attempts, exercising 
 a power the people never put into their hands, who can 
 never be supposed to consent that anybody should rule 
 over them for their harm, do that which they have not a 
 right to do. And where the body of the people or any 
 single man is deprived of their right, or is under the 
 exercise of a power without right and have no appeal on 
 earth, then they have a liberty to appeal to heaven, when- 
 ever they judge the cause of sufficient moment. And, 
 therefore, though the people cannot be judge so as to 
 have by the constitution of that society any superior power, 
 to determine and give effective sentence in the case, yet 
 they have, by a law antecedent and paramount to all 
 positive laws of men, reserved that ultimate determination 
 to themselves which belongs to all mankind, where there 
 lies no appeal on earth, viz., to judge whether they have just 
 cause to make their appeal to heaven. And this judgment 
 they cannot part'wifch, it being out of man's power so to sub- 
 mit himself to another as to give him a liberty to destroy 
 him, God and Nature never allowing a man so to abandon 
 himself as to neglect his own preservation ; and, since he 
 cannot take away his own life, neither can he give 
 another power to take it. Nor let any one think this 
 lays a perpetual foundation for disorder, for this operates 
 not till the inconvenience is so great that the majority feel 
 it and are weary of it, and find it a necessity to have 
 it amended. But this the executive power or wise 
 princes never need come in the danger of, and it is the 
 thing of all others they have most need to avoid, as of 
 all others the most perilous. 
 
OF CIVIL GO^ERN&EN'T* ^ \ , 101 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 OF PATERNAL, POLITICAL, AND DESPOTICAL POWEB 
 CONSIDERED TOGETHER. 
 
 169. THOUGH I have had occasion to speak of these 
 separately before, yet the great mistakes of late about 
 government having, as I suppose, arisen from confound- 
 ing these distinct powers one with another, it may not, 
 perhaps, be amiss to consider them here together. 
 
 170. First, then, paternal or parental power is nothing 
 but that which parents have over their children, to 
 govern them for their children's good, till they come 
 to the use of reason or a state of knowledge wherein 
 they may be supposed capable to understand that rule, 
 whether it be the law of nature or the municipal law 
 of their country, they are to govern themselves by 
 capable, I say, to know it as well as several others who 
 live as freemen under that law. The affection and 
 tenderness which God hath planted in the breasts of 
 parents towards their children makes it evident that this 
 is not intended to be a severe arbitrary government, but 
 only for the help, instruction, and preservation of their 
 offspring. But, happen it as it will, there is, as I have 
 proved, no reason why it should be thought to extend to 
 life and death at any time over their children more than 
 over anybody else ; neither can there be any pretence why 
 this parental power should keep the child, when grown 
 to a man, in subjection to the will of his parents any 
 farther than the having received life and education from 
 his parents obMges him to respect, honour, gratitude, 
 assistance, and support all his life to both father and 
 mother. And thus, it is true, the paternal is a natural 
 government, but nob all extending itself to the ends and 
 jurisdictions of that which is political ; the power of the 
 father does nob reach at all to the property of the child, 
 which is only in his own disposing. 
 
 171. Secondly, Political power is that power which 
 every man having in the state of nature, has given up 
 into the hands of the society, and therein to the 
 governors whom the society have set over itself, with 
 tkis express or tacit trust that it shall be employed for 
 
102 W C.T YTL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 their good and the preservation of their property. Now 
 this power, which every man has in the state of nature, 
 and which he parts with to the society in all such cases 
 where the society can secure him, is to use such means 
 for the preserving of his own property as he thinks 
 good and nature allows him, and to punish the breach of 
 the law of nature in others so as, according to the best of 
 his reason, may most conduce to the preservation of 
 himself and the rest of mankind. So that the end and 
 measure of this power, when in every man's hands 
 in the state of nature, being the preservation of all of his 
 society that is, all mankind in general it can have no 
 other end or measure when in the hands of the magistrates 
 but to preserve the members of that society in their lives, 
 liberties, and possessions ; and so cannot be an absolute, 
 arbitrary power over their lives and fortunes, which are 
 as much as possible to be preserved, but a power to make 
 laws, and annex such penalties to them as may tend to 
 the preservation of the whole, by cutting off those parts, 
 and tho^e only, which are so corrupt that they threaten 
 the sound and healthy, without which no severity is 
 lawful. And this power has its original only from com- 
 pact and agreement, and the mutual consent of those 
 who make up the community. 
 
 172. Thirdly, Despotical power is an absolute, arbitrary 
 power one man has over another to take away his life 
 whenever he pleases. This is a power which neither 
 nature gives, for it has made no such distinction between 
 one man and another, nor compact can convey ; for man, 
 not having such an arbitrary power over his own life, 
 cannot give another man such a power over it ; but it is 
 the effect only of forfeiture, which the aggressor makes 
 of his own life, when he puts himself into the state of 
 war with another. For having quitted reason, which 
 God hath given to be the rule betwixt man and man, 
 and the common bond whereby human kind is united 
 into one fellowship and society, and having renounced 
 the way of peace which that teaches, and made use of 
 the force of war to compass his unjust ends upon another, 
 where he has no right, and so revolting from his own 
 kind to that of beasts, by making force, which is theirs, 
 to be his rule of right, he renders himself liable to be 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 103 
 
 destroyed by the injured person, and the rest of mankind 
 that will join with him in the execution of justice, as 
 any other wild beast, or noxious brute with whom man- 
 kind can have neither society nor security. And thus 
 captives, taken in a just and lawful war, and such only, 
 are subject to a despotical power, which, as it arises not 
 from compact, so neither is it capable of any, but is the 
 state of war continued. For what compact can be made 
 with a man that is not master of his own life ? What 
 condition can he perform 1 And if he be once allowed 
 to be master of his own life, the despotical, arbitrary 
 power of his master ceases. He that is master of himself 
 and his own life has a right to the means of preserving 
 it ; so that as soon as compact enters slavery ceases, and 
 he so far quits his absolute power, and puts an end to 
 the state of war, who enters into conditions with his 
 captive. 
 
 173. Nature gives the first of these, namely, paternal 
 power to parents, for the benefit of their children during 
 their minority, to supply their want of ability, and 
 understanding how to manage their property. (By pro- 
 perty I must be understood here, as in other places, to 
 mean that property which men have in their persons as 
 well as goods.) Voluntary agreements gives the second, 
 namely, political power to governors for the benefit of 
 their subjects, to secure them in the possession and use 
 of their properties. And forfeiture gives the third 
 despotical power to lords for their own benefit, over those 
 who are stripped of all property. 
 
 174. He that shall consider the distinct rise and 
 extent, and different ends of these several powers, will 
 plainly see that paternal power comes as far short of 
 that of tbe magistrate as despotical exceeds it ; and that 
 absolute dominion, however placed, is so far from being 
 one kind of civil society that it is as inconsistent with it 
 as slavery is with property. Paternal power is only 
 where minority makes the child incapable to manage his 
 property ; political where men have property in their 
 own disposal ; and despotical over such as have no 
 property at all. 
 
104 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 OF CONQUEST. 
 
 175. THOUGH governments can originally have no 
 other rise than that before-mentioned, nor polities be 
 founded on anything but the consent of the people, yet 
 such has been the disorders ambition has filled the world 
 with, that, in the noise of war, which makes so great a 
 part of the history of mankind, this consent is little 
 taken notice of ; and therefore many have mistaken the 
 force of arms for the consent of the people, and reckon 
 conquest as one of the originals of government. But 
 conquest is as far from setting up any government as 
 demolishing a house is from building a new one in the 
 place. Indeed, it often makes way for a new frame of 
 a commonwealth, by destroying the former ; but, without 
 consent of the people, can never erect a new one. 
 
 176. That the aggressor, who puts himself into the 
 state of war with another, and unjustly invades another 
 man's right, can by such an unjust war never come to 
 have a right over the conquered will be easily agreed by 
 all men, who will not think that robbers and pirates 
 have a right of empire over whomsoever they have force 
 enough to master, or that men are bound by promises 
 which unlawful force extorts from them. Should a 
 robber break into my house, and, with a dagger at my 
 throat, make me seal deeds to convey my estate to him, 
 would this give him any title ? Just such a title by his 
 sword has an unjust conqueror who forces me into sub- 
 mission. The injury and the crime is equal, whether 
 committed by the wearer of a crown or some petty 
 villain. The title of the offender and the number of his 
 followers make no difference in the offence unless it be 
 to aggravate it. The only difference is, great robbers 
 punish little ones to keep them in their obedience ; but 
 the great ones are rewarded with laurels and triumphs, 
 because they are too big for the weak hands of justice in 
 this world, and have the power in their own possession, 
 which should punish offenders. What is my remedy 
 against a robber that so broke into my house ? Appeal 
 to the law for justice. But perhaps justice is denied, or 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 105 
 
 I am crippled and cannot stir ; robbed and have not the 
 means to do it. If God has taken away all means of 
 seeking remedy, there is nothing left but patience. But 
 my son, when able, may seek the relief of the law, which 
 I am denied ; he or his son may renew his appeal, till he 
 recover his right. But the conquered, or their children, 
 have no court, no arbitrator on earth to appeal to. Then 
 they may appeal, as Jephtha did, to heaven, and repeat 
 their appeal, till they recovered the native right of their 
 ancestors, which was to have such a legislative over them 
 as the majority should approve and freely acquiesce in. If 
 it be objected this would cause endless trouble, I answer, 
 no more than justice does, where she lies open to all that 
 appeal to her. He that troubles his neighbour without a 
 cause is punished for it by the justice of the court he 
 appeals to. And he that appeals to heaven must be sure 
 he has right on his side ; and a right, too, that is worth 
 the trouble and cost of his appeal, as he will answer at a 
 tribunal that cannot be deceived, and will be sure to 
 retribute to everyone according to the mischiefs he hath 
 created to his fellow-subjects, that is, any part of man- 
 kind. From whence it is plain that he that conquers in 
 an unjust war can thereby have no title to the subjection 
 and obedience of the conquered. 
 
 177. But supposing victory favours the right side, let 
 us consider a conqueror in a lawful war, and see what 
 power he gets, and over whom. 
 
 First, It is plain he gets no power by his conquest over 
 those that conquered with him. They that fought on his 
 side cannot suffer by the conquest, but must, at least, be 
 as much free men as they were before. And most com- 
 monly they serve upon terms and on condition to share 
 with their leader, and enjoy a part of the spoil, and other 
 advantages that attend the conquering sword ; or, at 
 least, have a part of the subdued country bestowed upon 
 them. And the conquering people are not, I hope, to be 
 slaves by conquest, and wear their laurels only to show 
 they are sacrifices to their leader's triumph. They that 
 found absolute monarchy upon the title of the sword 
 make their heroes, who are the founders of such 
 monarchies, arrant " Draw-can-Sirs," and forget they had 
 any officers and soldiers that fought on their side in the 
 D* -87 
 
106 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 battles they won, or assisted them in the subduing, or 
 shared in possessing the countries they mastered. We 
 are told by some that the English monarchy is founded 
 in the Norman conquest, and that our princes have 
 thereby a title to absolute dominion ; which, if it were 
 true (as by history it appears otherwise), and that 
 William had a right to make war on this island, yet his 
 dominion by conquest could reach no farther than to the 
 Saxons and Britons that were then inhabitants of this 
 country. The Normans that came with him, and helped 
 to conquer, and all descended from them, are free men, 
 and no subjects by conquest ; let that give what dominion 
 it will. And if I, or anybody else, shall claim freedom, 
 as derived from them, it will be very hard to prove the 
 contrary. And it is plain, the law that has made no 
 distinction between the one anci the other, intends not 
 there should be any difference in their freedom or pri- 
 vileges. 
 
 178. But supposing, which seldom happens, that the 
 conquerors and conquered never incorporate into one 
 people, under the same laws and freedom. Let us see 
 next what power a lawful conqueror has over the sub- 
 dued : and that I say is purely despotical. He has an 
 absolute power over the lives of those, who by an unjust 
 war have forfeited them ; but not over the lives or 
 fortunes of those, who engaged not in the war, nor over 
 the possessions even of those who were actually engaged 
 in it. 
 
 179. Secondly, I say then the conqueror gets no power 
 but only over those who have actually assisted, concurred, 
 or consented to that unjust force, that is used against 
 him. For the people having given to their governors no 
 power to do an unjust thing, such as is to make an unjust 
 w'ar (for they never had such a power in themselves), 
 they ought not to be charged as guilty of the violence 
 and injustice that is committed in an unjust war, any 
 farther than they actually abet it ; no more than they 
 are to be thought guilty of any violence or oppression 
 their governors should use upon the people themselves, 
 or any part of their fellow subjects, they have empowered 
 them no more to one than to the other. Conquerors, it is 
 true, seldom trouble themselves to make the distinction, 
 
OF CIYIL GOVERNMENT. 107 
 
 but they willingly permit the confusion of war to sweep 
 all together ; but yet this alters not the right, for the 
 conqueror's power over the lives of the conquered, being 
 only because they have used force to do or maintain an 
 injustice, he can have that power only over those who 
 have concurred in that force, all the rest are innocent ; 
 and he has no more title over the people of that country, 
 who have done him no injury, and so have made no for- 
 feiture of their lives, than he has over any other, who 
 without any injuries or provocations, have lived upon 
 fair terms with him. 
 
 180. Thirdly i The power a conqueror gets over those he 
 overcomes in a just war, is perfectly despotical ; he has 
 an absolute power over the lives of those, who by putting 
 themselves in a state of war, have forfeited them ; but 
 he has not thereby a right and title to their possessions. 
 This I doubt not, but at first sight will seem a strange 
 doctrine, it being so quite contrary to the practice of 
 the world ; there being nothing more familiar in speak- 
 ing of the dominion of countries, than to say such a one 
 conquered it. As if conquest, without any more ado, 
 conveyed a right of possession. But when we consider, 
 that the practice of the strong and powerful, how 
 universal soever it may be, is seldom the rule of right, 
 however it be one part of the subjection of the conquered, 
 not to argue against the conditions cut out to them by 
 the conquering sword. 
 
 181. Though in all war there be usually a complication 
 of force and damage, and the aggressor seldom fails to 
 harm the estate, when he uses force against the persons 
 of those he makes war upon, yet it is the use of force 
 only that puts a man into the state of war. For whether 
 by force he begins the injury, or else having quietly, and 
 by fraud, done the injury, he refuses to make reparation, 
 and by force maintains it (which is the same thing, as at 
 first to have done it by force), it is the unjust use of 
 force that makes the war. For he that breaks open my 
 house, and violently turns me out of doors, or having 
 peaceably got in, by force keeps me out, does in effect 
 the same thing ; supposing we are in such a state, that 
 we have no common judge on earth whom I may appeal 
 to, and to whom we are both obliged to submit, for of such 
 
108 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 I am now speaking, it is the unjust use of force then, 
 that puts a man into the state of war with another, and 
 thereby he that is guilty of it makes a forfeiture of his 
 life. For quitting reason, which is the rule given 
 between man and man, and using force, the way of 
 beasts, he becomes liable to be destroyed by him he uses 
 force against, as any savage ravenous beast that is dan- 
 gerous to his being. 
 
 182. But because the miscarriages of the father are no 
 faults of the children, and they may be rational and 
 peaceable, notwithstanding the brutishness and injustice 
 of the father,- the father, by his miscarriages and 
 violence, can forfeit but his own life, but involves not 
 his children in his guilt or destruction. His goods which 
 nature that willeth the preservation of all mankind as 
 much as is possible, hath made to belong to the children 
 to keep them from perishing, do still continue to belong 
 to his children. For supposing them not to have joined 
 in the war, either through infancy, absence, or choice, 
 they have nothing to forfeit them ; nor has the conqueror 
 any right to take them away, by the bare title of having 
 subdued him that by force attempted his destruction ; 
 though perhaps he may have some right to them, to 
 repair the damages he has sustained by the war, and the 
 defence of his own right, which how far it reaches to 
 the possessions of the conquered we shall see by-and-by. 
 So that he that by conquest has a right over a man's 
 person to destroy him if he pleases, has not thereby a 
 right over his estate to possess and enjoy it. For it is 
 the brutal force the aggressor has used that gives his 
 adversary a right to take away his life, and destroy him 
 if he pleases, as a noxious creature, but it is damage sus- 
 tained that alone gives him title to another man's goods. 
 For though I may kill a thief that sets on me in the 
 highway, yet I may not (which seems less) take away 
 his money, and let him go ; this would be robbery on my 
 side. His force and the state of war he put himself in, 
 made him forfeit his life, but gave me no title to his 
 goods. The right then of conquest extends only to the 
 lives of those who joined in the war, not to their estates, 
 but only in order to make reparation for the damages 
 received, and the charges of the war, and that too 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 109 
 
 with reservation of the right of the innocent wife and 
 children. 
 
 183. Let the conqueror have as much justice on his 
 side as could be supposed, he has no right to seize more 
 than the vanquished could forfeit ; his life is at the 
 victor's mercy, and his service, and goods he may appro- 
 priate, to make himself reparation, but he cannot take 
 the goods of his wife and children ; they too had a title 
 to the goods he enjoyed, and their shares in the estate he 
 possessed. For example, I in the state of nature (and 
 all commonwealths are in the state of nature one with 
 another) have injured another man, and refusing to give 
 satisfaction, it conies to a state of war, wherein my 
 defending by force what I had gotten unjustly, makes 
 me the aggressor. I am conquered : my life, it is true, 
 as forfeit, is at mercy, but not my wife's and children's. 
 They made not the war, nor assisted in it. I could not 
 forfeit their lives, they were not mine to forfeit. My 
 wife had a share in my estate, that neither could I for- 
 feit. And my children also, being born of me, Lad a 
 right to be maintained out of my labour or substance. 
 Here then is the case : the conqueror has a title to re- 
 paration for damages received, and the children have a 
 title to their father's estate for their subsistence. For 
 as tQ the wife's share, whether her own labour, or com- 
 pact gave her a title to it, it is plain her husband could 
 not forfeit what was hers. What must be done in the 
 case ? I answer : The fundamental law of nature being, 
 that all, as much as may be, should be preserved, it 
 follows, that if there be not enough fully to satisfy both, 
 viz., for the conqueror's losses, and children's maintenance, 
 he that hath and to spare must remit something of his 
 full satisfaction, and give way to the pressing and pre- 
 ferable title of those who are in danger to perish with- 
 out it. 
 
 184. But supposing the charge and damages of the 
 war are to be made up to the conqueror to the utmost 
 farthing ; and that the children of the vanquished, 
 spoiled of all their father's goods are to be left to starve 
 and perish ; yet the satisfying of what shall, on this 
 score, be due to the conqueror, will scarce give him a 
 title to any country he shall conquer. For the damages 
 
110 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 of war can scarce amount to the value of any consider- 
 able tract of land, in any part of the world, where all 
 the land is possessed, and none lies waste. And if I have 
 not taken away the conqueror's land, which, being van- 
 quished, it is impossible I should, scarce any other spoil 
 I have done him can amount to the value of mine, sup- 
 posing it equally cultivated, and of an extent anyway 
 coming near what I had over-run of his. The destruction 
 of a year's product or two, for it seldom reaches four or 
 five, is the utmost spoil that usually can be done. For 
 as to money and such riches, and treasure taken away, 
 these are none of Nature's goods, they have but a fan- 
 tastical imaginary value : Nature has put no such upon 
 them. They are of no more account by her standard, 
 than the Wampompeke of the Americans to a European 
 prince, or the silver money of Europe would have been 
 formerly to an American. And five years' product is not 
 worth the perpetual inheritance of land, where all is pos- 
 sessed, and none remains waste, to be taken up by him 
 that is deceased ; which will be easily granted, if one do 
 but take away the imaginary value of money, the 
 disproportion being more than between five and five 
 hundred, though, at the same time, half a year's product 
 is more worth than the inheritance where, there being 
 more land than the inhabitants possess and make use of, 
 any one has liberty to make use of the waste. But there, 
 conquerors take little care to possess themselves of the 
 lands of the vanquished. No damage, therefore, that 
 men in the state of nature (as all princes and govern- 
 ments are in reference to one another) suffer from one 
 another can give a conqueror power to dispossess the 
 posterity of the vanquished, and turn them out of that 
 inheritance, which ought to be the possession of them 
 and their descendants to all generations. The conqueror, 
 indeed, will be apt to think himself master ; and it is the 
 very condition of the subdued not to be able to dispute 
 their right. But if that be all, it gives no other title 
 than what bare force gives to the stronger over the 
 weaker, and, by this reason, he that is strongest will have 
 a right to whatever he pleases to seize on. 
 
 185. Over those then that joined with him in the war, 
 and over those of the subdued country that opposed him 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT 111 
 
 not, and the posterity even of those that did, the con- 
 queror, even in a just war, hath by his conquest no right 
 of dominion ; they are free from any subjection to him, 
 and, if their former government be dissolved, they are at 
 liberty to begin and erect another to themselves. 
 
 186. The conqueror, it is true, usually, by the force he 
 has over them, compels them, with a sword at their breasts, 
 to stoop to his conditions, and submit to such a govern- 
 ment as he pleases to afford them ; but the inquiry is : 
 What right he has to do so ? If it be said they submit 
 by their own consent, then this allows their own consent 
 to be necessary to give the conqueror a title to rule over 
 them. It remains only to be considered whether promises 
 extorted by force, without right, can be thought consent, 
 and how far they bind ; to which I shall say they bind 
 not at all ; because, whatsoever another gets from me 
 by force, I still retain the right of, and he is obliged pre- 
 sently to restore. He that forces my horse from me, 
 ought presently to restore him, and I have still a right to 
 re- take him. By the same reason, he that forced a promise 
 from me ought presently to restore it, i.e., quit me of the 
 obligation of it ; or I may resume it myself, i.e., choose 
 whether I will perform it, for the law of Nature, laying 
 an obligation on me only by the rule she prescribes, 
 cannot oblige me by the violation of her rules, such as 
 the extorting anything from me by force. Nor does it at 
 all alter the case to say, " I gave my promise," no more 
 than it excuses the force, and passes the right, when I 
 put my hand in my pocket, and deliver my purse myself 
 to a thief, who demands it with a pistol at my breast. 
 
 187. From all which it follows that the government of 
 a conqueror, imposed by force on the subdued, against 
 whom he had no right of war. or who joined nob in the 
 war against him, where he had right, has no obligation 
 upon them. 
 
 188. But let us suppose that all the men of that com- 
 munity, being all members of the same body politic, may 
 be taken to have joined in that unjust war wherein they 
 are subdued, and so their lives are at the mercy of the 
 conqueror. 
 
 189. I say this concerns not their children who are in 
 their minority, for, since a father hath not in himself a 
 
112 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 power over the life and liberty of his child, no act of his 
 can possibly forfeit it. So that the children, whatever 
 may have happened to the fathers, are freemen, and the 
 absolute power of the conqueror reaches no farther than 
 the persons of the men that were subdued by him, and 
 dies with them ; and, should he govern them as slaves, 
 subjected to his absolute arbitrary power, he has no such 
 right of dominion over their children. He can have no 
 power over them but by their own consent, whatever he 
 may drive them to say or do ; and he has no lawful 
 authority, whilst force, and not choice, compels them to 
 submission. 
 
 190. Every man is born with a double right : first, a 
 right of freedom to his person, which no other man has a 
 power over, but the free disposal of it lies in himself ; 
 secondly, a right, before any other man, to inherit with 
 his brethren his father's goods. 
 
 191. By the first of these a man is naturally free from 
 subjection to any government, though he be born in a 
 place under its jurisdiction ; but if he disclaim the lawful 
 government of the country he was born in, he must also 
 quit the right that belonged to him by the laws of it 
 and the possessions there descending to him from his 
 ancestors, if it were a government made by their consent. 
 
 192. By the second, the inhabitants of any country who 
 are descended, and derive a title to their estates from 
 those who are subdued, and had a government forced 
 upon them against their free consents, retain a right to 
 the possession of their ancestors, though they consent not 
 freely to the government, whose hard conditions were by 
 force imposed on the possessors of that country. For the 
 first conqueror, never having had a title to the land of 
 that country, the people who are the descendants of, or 
 claim under those who were forced to submit to the yoke 
 of a government by constraint, have always a right to 
 shake it off, and free themselves from the usurpation or 
 tyranny which the sword hath brought in upon them, 
 till their rulers put them under such a frame of Govern- 
 ment as they willingly and of choree consent to. Who 
 doubts but the Grecian Christians (descendants of the 
 ancient possessors of that country) may justly cast off 
 the Turkish yoke, which they have so long groaned under, 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 113 
 
 whenever they have an opportunity to do it? For no 
 government can have a right *to obedience from a people 
 who have not freely consented to it ; which they can 
 never be supposed to do till either they are put in a full 
 state of liberty to choose their government and governors, 
 or at least till they have such standing laws, to which 
 they have by themselves or their representatives given 
 their free consent, and also till they are allowed their due 
 property, which is so to be proprietors of what they have, 
 that nobody can take away any part of it without their 
 own consent, without which men, under any government, 
 are not in the state of freemen, but are direct slaves under 
 the force of war. 
 
 193. But, granting that the conqueror in a just war has 
 a right to the estates as well as power over the persons of 
 the conquered which it is plain he has not nothing of 
 absolute power will follow from hence in the continu- 
 ance of the government, because the descendants of these 
 being all freemen, if he grants them estates and posses- 
 sions to inhabit his country (without which it would be 
 worth nothing), whatsoever he grants them, they have, so 
 far as it is granted, " property in " the nature whereof 
 is that without a man's own consent it cannot be taken 
 from him. 
 
 194. Their persons are free by a native right, and their 
 properties, be they more or less, are their own, and at 
 their own disposal, and not at his ; or else it is no pro- 
 perty. Supposing the conqueror gives to one man a 
 thousand acres to him and his heirs for ever, to another 
 he lets a thousand acres for his life, under the rent of 
 50 or 500 per annum, has not the one of these a right 
 to his thousand acres for ever, and the other during his 
 life, paying the said rent ? And has not the tenant for 
 life a property in all that he gets over and above his rent, 
 by his labour and industry, during the said term, sup- 
 posing it be double the rent ? Can any one say the king, 
 or conqueror, after his grant, may by his power of con- 
 queror take away all, or part of the land from the heirs 
 of one, or from the other during his life, he paying the 
 rent? Or can he take away from either the goods or 
 money they have got upon the said land, at his pleasure ? 
 If he can, then all free and voluntary contracts cease, and 
 
114 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 are void in the world. There needs nothing to dissolve 
 them at any time but power enough. And all the grants 
 and promises of men in power are but mockery and col- 
 lusion ; 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 a right, if I 
 please, to take it away from you again to-morrow ? 
 
 195. I will nob 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. No body,. 
 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 altogether, 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 con- 
 queror, 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. Over the rest of the people, if 
 there were any that consented not to the war, and over 
 the children of the captives themselves, or the possessions 
 of either, he has no power ; and so can have by virtue of 
 conquest, no lawful title himself to dominion over them, 
 or derive it to his posterity ; but is an aggressor if he 
 attempts upon their properties, and thereby puts himself 
 in a state of war against them, and has no better a right 
 of principality, he, nor any of his successors, than Hingar 
 or Hubba the Danes had here in England, or Spartacus 
 had he conquered Italy would have had ; which is to have 
 their yoke cast off as soon as God shall give those under 
 their subjection courage and opportunity to do it. Thus, 
 notwithstanding whatever title the kings of Assyria had 
 over Judah by the sword, God assisted Hezekiah to throw 
 off the dominion of that conquering empire. " And the 
 Lord was with Hezekiah, and he prospered ; wherefore he 
 
OF CIYIL GOVERNMENT. 115 
 
 went forth, and lie rebelled against the King of Assyria, 
 and served him not" (2 Kings, x viii. 7). Whence it is plain 
 that shaking off a power, which force and not right hath 
 set over any one. though it hath the name of rebellion, yet 
 is no offence before God, but is that which he allows and 
 countenances though even promises and covenants, when 
 obtained by force, have intervened. For it is very probable 
 to any one that reads the story of Ahaz and Hezekiah 
 attentively, that the Assyrians subdued Ahaz and deposed 
 him, and made ^Hezekiah king in his father's lifetime ; 
 and that Hezekiah by agreement had done him homage, 
 and paid him tribute all this time. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 OF USUEPATION. 
 
 197. As conquest may be called a foreign usurpation, so 
 usurpation is a kind of domestic conquest, with this dif- 
 ference, that a usurper can never have right on his side, 
 it being no usurpation but where one is got into the 
 possession of what another has a right to. This, so far 
 as it is usurpation, is a change only of persons, but not of 
 the forms and rules of the government ; for if the usurper 
 extend his power beyond what of right belonged to the 
 lawful princes or governors of the commonwealth, it is 
 tyranny added to usurpation. 
 
 198. In all lawful governments the designation of the 
 persons who are to bear rule, is as natural and necessary 
 a part as the form of the government itself, and is that 
 which had its establishment originally from the people ; 
 the anarchy being much alike to have no form of govern- 
 ment at all, or to agree that it should be monarchical, 
 but to appoint no way to design the person that shall 
 have the power, and be the monarch. Hence all com- 
 monwealths with the form of government established 
 have rules also of appointing those who are to have any 
 share in the public authority, and settled methods of 
 conveying the right to them. For the anarchy is much 
 alike to have no form of government at all, or to agree 
 that it shall be monarchical, but to appoint no way to 
 
116 OP CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 know or design the person that shall have the power, and 
 be the monarch. Whoever gets into the exercise of any 
 part of the power, by other ways than what the laws of 
 the community have prescribed, hath no right to be obeyed 
 though the form of the commonwealth be still preserved, 
 since he is not the person the laws have appointed, and 
 consequently not the person the people have consented to. 
 Nor can such a usurper, or any deriving from him, ever 
 have a title, till the people are both at liberty to consent, 
 and have actually consented to allow and confirm in him 
 the power he hath till then usurped. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 OF TYEANNY. 
 
 199. As usurpation is the exercise of power which another 
 has a right to, so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond 
 right, which nobody can have a right to. And this is 
 making use of the power any one has in his hands, not for 
 the good of those who are under it, but for his own private 
 separate advantage. When the governor however entitled 
 makes not the law, but his will the rule, and his com- 
 mands and actions are not directed to the preservation 
 of the properties of his people, but the satisfaction of his 
 own ambition, revenge;, covetousness, or any other irregu- 
 lar passion. 
 
 200. If one can doubt this to be truth or reason, because 
 it comes from the obscure hand of a subject, I hope the 
 authority of a king will make it pass with him. King 
 James I. in his speech to the parliament, 1603, tells them 
 thus : " I will ever prefer the weal of the public and of 
 the whole commonwealth, in making of good laws and 
 constitutions, to any particular and private ends of mine. 
 Thinking ever the wealth and weal of the commonwealth 
 to be my greatest weal and worldly felicity ; a point 
 wherein a lawful king doth directly differ from a tyrant. 
 For I do acknowledge that the special and greatest point 
 of difference, that is between a rightful king and a 
 usurping tyrant, is this : that whereas the proud and 
 ambitious tyrant doth think his kingdom and people are 
 
OP CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 117 
 
 only ordained for satisfaction of his desires and unreason- 
 able appetites ; the righteous and just king doth by the 
 contrary, acknowledge himself to be ordained for the 
 procuring of the wealth and property of his people." And 
 again, in his speech to the Parliament, 1609, he ha- 1 \ these 
 words : " the king binds himself by a double oath, to the 
 observation of the fundamental laws of his kingdom. 
 Tacitly, as by being a king, and so bound to protect as 
 well the people, as the laws of his kingdom, and expressly 
 by his oath at his coronation ; so as every just king, in 
 a settled kingdom, is bound to observe that paction made 
 to his people, by his laws in framing his government 
 agreeable thereunto, according to that paction which G-od 
 made with Noah after the deluge. Hereafter, seed-time 
 and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, 
 and day and night, shall not cease while the earth re- 
 rnaineth. And therefore a king governing in a settled 
 kingdom, leaves to be a king and degenerates into a 
 tyrant, as soon as he leaves off to rule according to his 
 laws." And a little after, " Therefore all kings that are 
 not tyrants, or perjured, will be glad to bound themselves 
 within the limits of their laws. And they that persuade 
 them the contrary, are vipers and pests, both against them 
 and the commonwealth." Thus that learned king, who 
 well understood the notions of things, makes the difference 
 betwixt a king and a tyrant to consist only in this, that 
 one makes the laws the bounds of his power, and the good 
 of the public the end of his government ; the other makes 
 all give way to his own will and appetite. 
 
 201. It is a mistake to think this fault is proper only to 
 monarchies ; other forms of government are liable to it 
 as well as that. For wherever the power, that is put in 
 any hands for the government of the people, and the 
 preservation of their properties is applied to other ends, 
 and made use of to impoverish, harass, or subdue them to 
 the arbitrary irregular commands of those that have it, 
 there it presently becomes tyranny, whether those that 
 thus use it are one or many. Thus we read of the thirty 
 tyrants at Athens, as well as one at Syracuse, and the 
 intolerable dominion of the Decemviri at Rome was no- 
 thing better. 
 
 202. Wherever law ends tyranny begins, if the law be 
 
118 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 transgressed to another's harm. And whosoever in authority 
 exceeds the power given him by the law, and makes use 
 of the force he has under his command to compass that 
 upon the subject which the law allows not ceases in that 
 fco be a magistrate ; and, acting without authority, may be 
 opposed as any other man who by force invades the right 
 of another. This is acknowledged in subordinate magis- 
 trates. He that hath authority to seize my person in the 
 street, may be opposed as a thief and a robber if he endea- 
 vours to break into my house to execute a writ, notwith- 
 standing that I know he has such a warrant and such a 
 legal authority as will empower him to arrest me abroad. 
 And why this should not hold in the highest, as well as 
 in the most inferior magistrate, I would gladly be 
 informed. Is it reasonable that the eldest brother, 
 because he has the greatest part of his father's estate, 
 should thereby have a ri^ht to take away any of his 
 younger brother's portions ? Or that a rich man, who 
 possessed a whole country, should from thence have a 
 right to seize, when he pleased, the cottage and garden of 
 his poor neighbour ? The being rightfully possessed of 
 great power and riches exceedingly beyond the greatest 
 part of the sons of Adam is so far from being an excuse, 
 much less a reason, for rapine and oppression, which the 
 endamaging one another without authority is, that it is a 
 great aggravation of it. For the exceeding the bounds of 
 authority is no more a right in a great than a petty 
 officer, no more justifiable in a king than a constable ; 
 but is so much the worse in him in that he has more 
 trust put in him, has already a much greater share than 
 the rest of his brethren, and is supposed, from the advan- 
 tages of his education, employment, and counsellors, to be 
 more knowing in the measures of right and wrong. 
 
 203. May the commands then of a prince be opposed ? 
 May he be resisted as often as any one shall find himself 
 aggrieved, and but imagine he has not a right done him ? 
 This will unhinge and overturn all polities, and, instead 
 of government and order, leave nothing but anarchy and 
 confusion. 
 
 204. To this I answer : That force is to be opposed to 
 nothing but to unjust and unlawful force ; whoever 
 makes any opposition in any other case draws on himself 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 119 
 
 a just condemnation both from God and man, and so no 
 such danger or confusion will follow, as is often sug- 
 gested. For, 
 
 205. First, As in some countries, the person of the 
 prince by law is sacred, and so whatever he commands 
 or does his person is still free from all question or violence, 
 not liable to force, or any judicial censure or condemna- 
 tion. But yet opposition may be made to the illegal acts 
 of any inferior officer, or other commissioned by him, 
 unless he will by actually putting himself into a state of 
 war with his people, dissolve the government, and leave 
 them to that defence which belongs to every one in the 
 state of Nature. For of such things who can tell what 
 the end will be ? And a neighbour kingdom has shown 
 the world an odd example. In all other cases the sacred- 
 ness of the person exempts him from all inconveniences, 
 whereby he is secure, whilst the government stands from 
 all violence and harm whatsoever, than which there 
 cannot be a wiser constitution. For the harm he can do 
 in his own person not being likely t * happen often, nor 
 to extend itself far, nor being able by his single 
 strength to subvert the laws, nor oppress the body of the 
 people, should any prince have so much weakness and ill 
 nature as to be willing to do it, the inconveniency of some 
 particular mischiefs that may happen some times when a 
 heady prince comes to the throne are well recompensed by 
 the peace of the public and security of the government 
 in the person of the chief magistrate thus set out of the 
 reach of danger ; it being safer for the body that some 
 few private men should be sometimes in danger to suffer 
 than that the head of the republic should be easily and 
 upon slight occasions exposed. 
 
 206. Secondly, But this privilege belonging only to the 
 king's person, hinders not, but they may be questioned, 
 opposed, and resisted who use unjust force, though they 
 pretend a commission from him which the law authorises 
 not. As is plain in the case of him that has the king's 
 writ to arrest a man, which is a full commission from the 
 king, and yet he that has it cannot break open a man's 
 house to do it, nor execute this command of the king 
 upon certain days, nor in certain places, though this com- 
 mission have no such exception in it, but they are the 
 
120 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 limitations of the law, which, if any one transgress, the 
 king's commission excuses him not. For the king's 
 authority being given him only by the law, he cannot 
 empower any one to act against the law, or justify him by 
 his commission in so doing. The commission or command 
 of any magistrate where he has no authority being as void 
 and insignificant as that of any private man. The 
 difference between the one and the other being that the 
 magistrate has some authority so far and to such ends, 
 and the private man has none at all. For it is not the 
 commission, but the authority, that gives the right of 
 acting, and against the laws there can be no authority ; 
 but, notwithstanding such resistance, the king's person 
 and authority are still both secured, and so no danger to 
 governor or government. 
 
 207. Thirdly, Supposing a government wherein the 
 person of the chief magistrate is not thus sacred, yet this 
 doctrine of the lawfulness of resisting all unlawful ex- 
 ercises of his power will not upon every slight occasion 
 indanger him or embroil the government. For where the 
 injured party may be relieved, and his damages repaired 
 by appeal to the law, there can be no pretence for force, 
 which is only to be used where a man is intercepted from 
 appealing to the law. For nothing is to be accounted 
 hostile force but where it leaves not the remedy of such 
 an appeal. And it is such force alone that puts him 
 that uses it into a state of war, and makes it lawful to 
 resist him. A man with a sword in his hand demands my 
 purse in the highway, when perhaps I have not 12d. 
 in my pocket ; this man I may lawfully kill. To 
 another I deliver 100 to hold only whilst I alight, 
 which he refuses to restore me when I am got up again, 
 but draws his sword to defend the possession of it by 
 force if I endeavour to retake it. The mischief this man 
 does me is a hundred, or possibly a thousand times more 
 than the other perhaps intended me (whom I killed before 
 he really did me any), and yet I might lawfully kill the 
 one, and cannot so much as hurt the other lawfully. The 
 reason whereof is plain, because the one using force, 
 which threatened my life, I could not have time to appeal 
 to the law to secure it. and when it was gone it was too 
 late to appeal. The law could not restore life to my dead 
 
OP CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 121 
 
 carcase. The loss was ^irreparable, which to prevent the 
 law of Nature gave me a right to destroy him who had 
 put himself into a state of war with me, and threatened 
 my destruction. But in the other case, my life not being 
 in danger, I may have the benefit of appealing to the law, 
 and have reparation for my 100 that way. 
 
 208. Fourthly, but if the unlawful acts done by the 
 magistrate be maintained (by the power he has got), and 
 the remedy which is due by law be by the same power 
 obstructed, yet the right of resisting, even in such 
 manifest acts of tyranny, will not suddenly or on slight 
 occasions disturb the government. For if it reach no 
 farther than some private men's cases, though they have a 
 right to defend themselves and recover by force what by 
 unlawful force is taken from them ; yet the right to do so 
 will not easily engage them in a contest wherein they are 
 sure to perish ; it being as impossible for one or a few 
 oppressed men to disturb the government, where the body 
 of the people do not think themselves concerned in it, as 
 for a raving madman or heady malcontent to overturn 
 a well-settled state, the people being as little apt to 
 follow the one as the other. 
 
 209. But if either these illegal acts have extended to the 
 majority of the people ; or if the mischief and oppression 
 has light only on some few, but in such cases as the pre- 
 cedent, and consequences seem to threaten all, and they 
 are persuaded in their consciences, and their laws, and 
 with them their estates, liberties, and lives are in danger, 
 and perhaps their religion too, how they will be hindered 
 from resisting illegal force used against them I cannot 
 tell. This is an inconvenience, I confess, that attends 
 all governments whatsoever when the governors have 
 brought it to this pass to be generally suspected of their 
 people ; the most dangerous state which they can possibly 
 put themselves in, wherein they are the less to be pitied, 
 because it is so easy to be avoided ; it being impossible for 
 a governor, if he really means the good of his people and 
 the preservation of them and their laws together, not to 
 make them see and feel it, as it is for the father of a 
 family not to let his children see he loves and takes care 
 of them. 
 
 210. But if all the world shall observe pretences of 
 
122 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 one kind and actions of another ; arts used to elude the 
 law, and trust of prerogative (which is an arbitrary 
 "* power in some things left in the prince's hand to do good, 
 not harm to the people) employed contrary to the end 
 for which it was given. If the people shall find the 
 ministers and subordinate magistrate chosen suitable to 
 such ends, and favoured or laid by proportionably as they 
 promote or oppose them. If they see several experiments 
 made of arbitrary power, and that religion underhand 
 favoured (though publicly proclaimed against) which is 
 readiest to introduce it, and the operators in it supported 
 as much as may be ; and when that cannot be done, 
 yet approved still, and liked the better. If a long train 
 of actings show the councils all tending that way, how 
 can a man any more hinder himself from being persuaded 
 in his own mind which way things are going, or from 
 casting about how to save himself, than he could from 
 believing the captain of the ship he was in was carrying 
 him and the rest of the company to Algiers when he 
 found him always steering that course, though cross 
 winds, leaks in his ship, and want of men and provisions 
 did often force him to turn his course another way for 
 some time, which he steadily returned to again as soon 
 as the wind, weather, and other circumstances would let 
 him? 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 OF THE DISSOLUTION OF GOVEKNMENT. 
 
 211. HE that will with any clearness speak of the 
 dissolution of government ought, in the first place, to 
 distinguish between the dissolution of the society and 
 the dissolution of the government. That which makes 
 the community, and brings men out of the loose state of 
 nature into one politic society, is the agreement which 
 every one has with the rest to incorporate and act as one 
 body, and so be one distinct commonwealth. The usual 
 and almost only way whereby this union is dissolved, is 
 the inroad of foreign force making a conquest upon them. 
 For in that case (not being able to maintain and sup- 
 port themselves as one entire and independent body) the 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 123 
 
 union belonging to that body which consisted therein 
 must necessarily cease, and so every one return to the 
 state he was in before, with a liberty to shift for 
 himself and provide for his own safety as he thinks 
 fit in some other society. Whenever the society is dis- 
 solved, it is certain the government of that society cannot 
 remain. Thus conquerors' swords often cut up govern- 
 ments by the roots, and mangle societies to pieces, sepa- 
 rating the subdued or scattered multitude from the pro- 
 tection of and dependence on that society which ought 
 to have preserved them from violence. The world is too 
 well instructed in, and too forward to allow of this way 
 of dissolving of, governments to need any more to be said 
 of it ; and there wants not much argument to prove that 
 where the society is dissolved, the government cannot 
 remain that being as impossible as for the frame of a 
 house to subsist when the materials of it are scattered 
 and dissipated by a whirlwind, or jumbled into a confused 
 heap by an earthquake. 
 
 212. Besides this overturning from without, govern- 
 ments are dissolved from within. 
 
 First, When the legislative is altered. Civil society 
 being a state of peace amongst those who are of it, from 
 whom the state of war is excluded by the umpirage 
 which they have provided in their legislative for the 
 ending all differences that may arise amongst any of 
 them, it is in their legislative that the members of a com- 
 monwealth are united and combined together in one 
 coherent living body. This is the soul that gives form, 
 life, and unity to the commonwealth. From hence the 
 several members have their mutual influence, sympathy, 
 and connection. And, therefore, when the legislative is 
 broken or dissolved, dissolution and death follows. For the 
 essence and union of the society consisting in having one 
 will, the legislative, when once established by the majority, 
 has the declaring and, as it were, keeping of, that will. 
 The constitution of the legislative is the first and funda- 
 mental act of the society, whereby provision is made 
 for the continuation of their union, under the direction 
 of persons and bonds of laws made by persons autho- 
 rised thereunto by the consent and appointment of the 
 people, without which no one man or number of men 
 
124 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 amongst them can have authority of making laws that 
 shall be binding to the rest. When any one or more 
 shall take upon them to make laws, whom the people 
 have not appointed so to do, they make laws without 
 authority, which the people are not therefore bound to 
 obey ; by which means they come again to be out of 
 subjection, and may constitute to themselves a new 
 legislative, as they think best, being in full liberty to 
 resist the force of those who without authority would 
 impose anything upon them. Every one is at the dis- 
 posure of his own will when those who had by the 
 delegation of the society the declaring of the public will, 
 are excluded from it, and others usurp the place who 
 have not such authority or delegation. 
 
 213. This being usually brought about by such in the 
 commonwealth who misuse the power they have, it is 
 hard to consider it aright, and know at whose door to 
 lay it, without knowing the form of government in 
 which it happens. Let us suppose, then, the legislative 
 placed in the concurrence of three distinct persons. 
 
 1. A single hereditary person having the constant 
 supreme executive power, and with it the power of 
 convoking and dissolving the other two within certain 
 periods of time. 
 
 2. An assembly of hereditary nobility. 
 
 3. An assembly of representatives chosen pro tempore 
 by the people. Such a form of government supposed, it is 
 evident, 
 
 214. First, That when such a single person or prince 
 sets up his own arbitrary will in place of the laws which 
 are the will of the society, declared by the legislative, 
 then the legislative is changed. For that being in effect 
 the legislative whose rules and laws are put in execution 
 and required to be obeyed when other laws are set up, 
 
 I and other rules pretended and enforced, than what the 
 legislative constituted by the society have enacted, it is 
 plain that the legislative is changed. Whoever intro- 
 duces new laws, not being thereunto authorised by the 
 fundamental appointment of the society, or subverts the 
 old, disowns and overturns the power by which they 
 were made, and so sets up a new legislative. 
 
 215. Secondly, When the prince hinder? the legislative 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 125 
 
 from assembling in its due time, or from acting freely, 
 pursuant to those ends for which it was constituted, .the 
 legislative is altered. For it is not a certain number of 
 men, no, nor their meeting, unless they have also freedom 
 of debating and leisure of perfecting what is for the 
 good of the society, wherein the legislative consists. 
 When these are taken away or altered so as to deprive the 
 society of the due exercise of their power, the legisla- 
 tive is truly altered. For it is not names that constitute 
 governments, but the use and exercise of those powers 
 that were intended to accompany them ; so that he who 
 takes away the freedom, or hinders the acting of the 
 legislative in its due seasons, in effect takes away the 
 legislative, and puts an end to the government. 
 
 216. Thirdly, When, by the arbitrary power of the 
 prince, the electors or ways of elections are altered, 
 without the consent and contrary to the common 
 interest of the people, there also the legislative is altered. 
 For if others than those whom the society hath autho- 
 rised thereunto, do choose, or in another way than what 
 the society hath prescribed, those chosen are not the 
 legislative appointed by the people. 
 
 217. Fowtkly, The delivery also of the people into the 
 subjection ot foreign power, either by the prince, or by 
 the legislative, is certainly a change of the legislative, and 
 so a dissolution of the government. For the end why 
 people entered into society being to be preserved one 
 entire, free, independent society, to be governed by its 
 own laws, this is lost whenever they are given up into 
 the power of another. 
 
 218. Why in such a constitution as this the dissolu- 
 tion of the government in these cases is to be imputed to 
 the prince, is evident ; because he, having the force, 
 treasure, and offices of the state to employ, and often 
 persuading himself, or being nattered by others, that, as 
 supreme magistrate he is incapable of control, he alone 
 is in a condition to make great advances towards such 
 changes, under pretence of lawful authority, and has it 
 in his hands to terrify or suppress opposers, as factious, 
 seditious, and enemies to the government. Whereas no 
 other part of the legislative or people is capable by 
 themselves to attempt any alteration of the legislative, 
 
126 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 without open and visible rebellion, apt enough to be 
 taken notice of, which, when it prevails, produces effects 
 very little different from foreign conquest. Besides, the 
 prince in such a form of government, having the power 
 of dissolving the other parts of the legislative, and 
 thereby rendering them private persons, they can never, 
 in opposition to him, or without his concurrence, alter the 
 legislative by a law, his consent being necessary to give 
 any of their decrees that sanction. But yet so far as the 
 other parts of the Legislative any way contribute to any 
 attempt upon the government, and do either promote, or 
 not, what lies in them, hinder such designs, they are 
 guilty, and partake in this, which is certainly the greatest 
 crime men can be guilty of one towards another. 
 
 219. There is one way more whereby such a government 
 may be dissolved, and that is, when he who has the 
 supreme executive power neglects and abandons that 
 charge, so that the laws already made can no longer be 
 put in execution. This is demonstratively to reduce all 
 to anarchy, and so effectually to dissolve the government. 
 For laws not being made for themselves, but to be by 
 their execution the bonds of the society, to keep every 
 part of the body politic, in its due place and function, 
 when that totally ceases, the government visibly ceases, 
 and the people become a confused multitude without 
 order or connection. Where there is no longer the 
 administration of justice, for the securing of men's rights, 
 nor any remaining power within the community to direct 
 the force, or provide for the necessities of the public, 
 there certainly is no government left. Where the laws 
 cannot be executed, it is all one as if there were no laws ; 
 and a government without laws /is, I suppose, a mystery 
 in politics, inconceivable to human capacity, and incon- 
 sistent with human society. 
 
 220. In these and the like cases, when the government 
 is dissolved, the people are at liberty to provide for 
 themselves by erecting a new legislative, differing from 
 the other, by the change of persons, or form, or both, as 
 they shall find it most for their safety and good. For the 
 society can never, by the fault of another, lose the native 
 and original right it has to preserve itself, which can 
 only be done by a settled legislative, and a fair and 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 127 
 
 impartial execution of the laws made by it. But the state 
 of mankind is not so miserable that they are not capable 
 of using this remedy, till it be too late to look for any. 
 To tell people they may provide for themselves by erecting 
 a new legislative, when by oppression, artifice, or being 
 delivered over to a foreign power, their old one is gone, 
 is only to tell them they may expect relief when it is too 
 late, and the evil is past cure. This is in effect no more 
 than to bid them first be slaves, and then to take care of 
 their liberty ; and when their chains are on tell them 
 they may act like free men. This, if barely so, is rather 
 mockery than relief ; and men can never be secure from 
 tyranny if there be no means to escape it till they are 
 perfectly under it. And- therefore it is that they have 
 not only a right to get out of it, but to prevent it. 
 
 221. There is therefore secondly another way whereby 
 governments are dissolved, and that is when the legislative 
 or the prince, either of them, act contrary to their trust. 
 
 First, The legislative acts against the trust reposed in 
 them when they endeavour to evade the property of the 
 subject, and to make themselves or any part of the 
 community masters or arbitrary disposers of the lives, 
 liberties, or fortunes of the people. 
 
 222. The reason why men enter into society is the 
 preservation of their property ; and the end why they 
 choose and authorise a legislative is that there may be 
 laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the 
 properties of all the members of the society to limit the 
 power and moderate the dominion of every part and 
 member of the society. For since it can never be supposed 
 to be the will of the society that the legislative should 
 have a power to destroy that which every one designs 
 secure by entering into society, and for which the 
 people submitted to themselves legislators of their owr 
 making, whenever the legislators endeavour to take away 
 and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them 
 to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into 
 a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved 
 from any farther obedience, and are left to the common 
 refuge which God hath provided for all men against force 
 and violence. Whensoever, therefore, the legislative shall 
 transgress this fundamental rule of society, and either 
 
128 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 by ambition, fear, folly, or corruption, endeavour to grasp 
 themselves or put into the hands of any other an absolute 
 power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people, 
 by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people 
 had put into their hands, for quite contrary ends, and it 
 devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their 
 original liberty, and by the establishment of the new 
 legislative (such as they shall think fit) provide for their 
 own safety and security, which is the end for which they 
 are in society. What I have said here concerning the 
 legislative in general, holds true also concerning the 
 supreme executor, who having a double trust put in him, 
 both to have a part ,in the legislative and the supreme 
 execution of the law, acts against both when he goes 
 about to set up his own arbitrary will as the law of the 
 society. He acts also contrary to his trust when he either 
 employs the force, treasure, and offices of the society, to 
 corrupt the representatives, and gain them to his purposes ; 
 or openly pre-engages the electors, and prescribes to their 
 choice such whom he has by solicitations, threats, 
 promises, or otherwise won to his designs, and employs 
 them to bring in such, who have promised beforehand 
 what to vote and what to enact. Thus to regulate 
 candidates and electors, and new-model the ways of 
 election, what is it but to cut up the government by the 
 roots, and poison the very fountain of public security ? 
 For the people having reserved to themselves the choice 
 of their representatives as the fence to their properties, 
 could do it for no other end but that they might always 
 be freely chosen, and, so chosen, freely act and advise as 
 the necessity of the commonwealth and the public 
 good should upon examination and mature debate be 
 judged to require. This those who give their votes before 
 they hear the debate, and have weighed the reason on all 
 sides, are not capable of doing. To prepare such an 
 assembly as this, and endeavour to set up the declared 
 abettors of his own will for the x true representatives of 
 the people and the law-makers of the society, is certainly 
 as great a breach of trust and as perfect a declaration of 
 a design to subvert the government as is possible to be 
 met with. To which if one shall add rewards and 
 punishments visibly employed to the same end and all the 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 129 
 
 arts of perverted law made use of to take off and destroy 
 all tha.t stand in the way of such ,a design, and will not 
 comply and consent to betray the liberties of their 
 country, it will be past doubt what is doing. What 
 power they ought to have in the society who thus employ 
 it contrary to the trust that went along with it in its first 
 institution is easy to determine ; and one cannot but see 
 that he who has once attempted any such thing as this 
 cannot any longer be trusted. 
 
 223. To this perhaps it will be said that, the people 
 being ignorant and always discontented, to lay the 
 foundation of government in the unsteady opinion and 
 uncertain humour of the people is to expose it to 
 certain ruin ; and no government will be able long to 
 subsist if the people may set up a new legislative 
 whenever they take offence at the old one. To this I 
 answer : Quite the contrary. People are not so easily got 
 out of their old forms as some are apt to suggest. They 
 are hardly to be prevailed with to amend the acknow- 
 ledged faults in the frame they have been accustomed to. 
 And if there be any original defects, or adventitious ones 
 introduced by time or corruption, it is not an easy thing to 
 get them changed, even when all the world sees there is 
 an opportunity for it. This slowness and aversion in the 
 people to quit their old constitutions has, in the many 
 revolutions which have been seen in this kingdom, in this 
 and former ages still kept us to, or after some interval 
 of fruitless attempts still brought us back again to, our 
 old legislative of King, Lords, and Commons. And what- 
 ever provocations have made the crown be taken from 
 some of our princes' heads, they never carried the people 
 so far as to place it in another line. 
 
 224. But it will be said, this hypothesis lays a ferment 
 for frequent rebellion. To which I answer : 
 
 First, no more than any other hypothesis. For when 
 the people are made miserable, and find themselves 
 exposed to the ill-usage of arbitrary power, cry up their 
 governors as much as you will for sons of Jupiter, let 
 them be sacred and divine, descended, or authorised from 
 heaven, give them out for whom or what you please, the 
 game will happen. The people generally ill-treated, and 
 contrary to right, will be ready upon any occasion to ease 
 
 E 87 
 
130 OF CIYIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 themselves of a burden that sits heavy upon them. They 
 will wish and seek for the opportunity, which in the 
 change, weakness, and accidents of human affairs seldom 
 delays long to offer itself. He must have lived but a little 
 while in the world who has not seen examples of this in 
 his time, and he must have read very little who cannot 
 produce examples of it in all sorts of governments in the 
 world. 
 
 225. Secondly, I answer, such revolutions happen not 
 upon every little mismanagement in public affairs. 
 Great mistakes in the ruling 1 part, many wrong and in- 
 convenient laws, and all the slips of human frailty will 
 be borne by the people without mutiny or murmur. But 
 if a long train of abuses, prevarications and artifices, all 
 tending the same way, make the design visible to the 
 people and they cannot but feel what they lie under, and 
 see whither they are going it is not to be wondered that 
 they should then rouse themselves and endeavour to put 
 the rule into such hands which may secure to them the 
 ends for which government was at first erected, and 
 without which ancient names and specious forms are so 
 far from being better that they are much worse than the 
 state of nature or pure anarchy ; the inconveniences 
 being all as great and as near, but the remedy farther off 
 and more difficult. 
 
 226. Thirdly, I answer that this doctrine of a power 
 in the people of providing for their safety anew by a new 
 legislative when their legislators have acted contrary to 
 their trust by invading their property, is the best fence 
 against rebellion, and the probablest means to hinder it. 
 For rebellion being an opposition, not to persons, but 
 authority, which is founded only in the constitutions and 
 laws of the government, those whoever they be who by 
 force break through, and by force justify their violation 
 of them, are truly and properly rebels. For when men 
 by entering into society and civil government have 
 excluded force, and introduced laws for the preservation 
 of property, peace, and unity amongst themselves, those 
 who set up force again in opposition to the laws do 
 rebeUare that is, bring back again the state of war and 
 are properly rebels ; which they who are in power (by 
 the pretence they have to authority, the temptation of 
 
OF CIYLL GOVERNMENT. 131 
 
 force they have in their hands, and the flattery of those 
 about them) being likeliest to do, the properest way to 
 prevent the evil is to show them the danger and in- 
 justice of it who are under the greatest temptation to 
 run into it. 
 
 227. In both the fore-mentioned cases, when either the 
 legislative is changed or the legislators act contrary to 
 the end for which they were constituted, those who are 
 guilty are guilty of rebellion. For if anyone by force 
 takes away the established legislative of any society, and 
 the laws by them made pursuant to their trust, he 
 thereby takes away the umpirage which everyone had 
 consented to for a peaceable decision of all their contro- 
 versies, and a bar to the state of war amongst them. 
 They who remove or change the legislative, take away 
 this decisive power, which nobody can have but by the 
 appointment and consent of the people, and so destroy the 
 authority which the people did, and nobody else can, set 
 up ; and introducing a power which the people hath not 
 authorised, they actually introduce a state of war which 
 is that of force without authority. And thus by remov- 
 ing the legislative established by the society (in whose 
 decisions the people acquiesced and united as to that of 
 their own will), they untie the knot and expose the people 
 anew to the state of war. And if those who by force 
 take away the legislative are rebels, the legislators them- 
 selves, as has been shown, can be no less esteemed so, 
 when they who were set up for the protection and pre- 
 servation of the people, their liberties and properties, 
 shall by force invade and endeavour to take them away ; 
 and so they, putting themselves into a state of war with 
 those who made them the protectors and guardians of 
 their peace, are properly and with the greatest aggrava- 
 tion rebellantes (rebels). 
 
 228. But if they who say it lays a foundation for 
 rebellion mean that it may occasion civil wars or 
 intestine broils, to tell the people they are absolved from 
 obedience when illegal attempts are made upon their 
 liberties or properties, and may oppose the unlawful 
 violence of those who were their magistrates when they 
 invade their properties contrary to the trust put in them 
 and that therefore this doctrine is not to be allowed, 
 
132 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 being so destructive to the peace of the world : they may 
 as well say upon the same ground that honest men may 
 not oppose robbers or pirates because this may occasion 
 disorder or bloodshed. If any mischief come in such 
 cases, it is not to be charged upon him who defends his 
 own right, but on him that invades his neighbour's. If 
 the innocent honest man must quietly quit all he has for 
 peace* sake to him who will lay violent hands upon it, I 
 desire it may be considered what a kind of peace there 
 will be in the world which consists only in violence and 
 rapine, and which is to be maintained only for the benefit 
 of robbers and oppressors. Who would not think it an 
 admirable peace betwixt the mighty and the mean when 
 the lamb without resistance yielded his throat to be torn 
 by the imperious wolf ? Polyphemus's den gives us a 
 perfect pattern of such a peace and such a government, 
 wherein Ulysses and his companions had nothing to do 
 but quietly to suffer themselves to be devoured. And no 
 doubt Ulysses, who was a prudent man, preached up 
 passive obedience, and exhorted them to a quiet sub- 
 mission by representing to them of what concernment 
 peace was to mankind, and by showing the inconveni- 
 ences which might happen if they should offer to resist 
 Polyphemus, who had now the power over them. 
 
 229. The end of government is the good of mankind, 
 and which is best for mankind, that the people should 
 be always exposed to the boundless will of tyranny, or 
 that the rulers should be sometimes liable to be exposed 
 when they grow exorbitant in the use of their power, 
 and employ it for the destruction and not the preservation 
 of the properties of their people ? 
 
 230. Nor let anyone say that mischief can arise from 
 hence, as often as it shall please a busy head or turbulent 
 spirit to desire the alteration of the government. It is 
 true such men may stir whenever they please, but it will 
 be only to their own just ruin and perdition. For till the 
 mischief be grown general, and the ill-designs of the 
 rulers become visible, or their attempts sensible to the 
 greater part, the people who are more disposed to suffer 
 than right themselves by resistance are not apt to stir. 
 The examples of particular injustice or oppression of here 
 and there an unfortunate man, move them not;. But if 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 133 
 
 they universally have a persuasion grounded upon mani- 
 fest evidence that designs are carrying on against their 
 liberties, and the general course and tendency of things 
 cannot but give them strong suspicions of the evil 
 intention of their governors, who is to be blamed for it ? 
 Who can help it if they who might avoid it bring them- 
 selves into this suspicion ? Are the people to be blamed, 
 if they have the sense of rational creatures, and can think 
 of things no otherwise than as they find and feel them. 
 And is it not rather their fault who put things into such a 
 posture, that they would not have them thought to be as 
 they are ? I grant that the pride, ambition, and turbulency 
 of private men have sometimes caused great disorders in 
 commonwealths, and factions have been fatal to states 
 and kingdoms. But whether the mischief hath oftener 
 begun in the people's wantonness, and a desire to cast off 
 the lawful authority of their rulers, or in the rulers' 
 insolence, and endeavours to get and exercise an arbitrary 
 power over their people ; whether oppression or dis- 
 obedience gave the first rise to the disorder, I leave it to 
 impartial history to determine. This I am sure, whoever, 
 either ruler or subject, by force goes about to invade the 
 rights of either prince or people, and lays the foundation 
 for overturning the constitution and frame of any just 
 government, is highly guilty of the greatest crime I think 
 a man is capable of, being to answer for all those mis- 
 chiefs of blood, rapine, and desolation, which the breaking 
 to pieces of governments brings on a country. And he 
 who does it is justly to be esteemed the common enemy 
 and pest of mankind, and is to be treated accordingly. 
 
 231. That subjects or foreigners attempting by force on 
 the properties of any people may be resisted with force, 
 is agreed on all hands. But that magistrates doing the 
 same thing may be resisted, hath of late been denied. As 
 if those who had the greatest privileges and advantages 
 by the law, had thereby power to break those laws by 
 which alone they were set in a better place than their 
 brethren. Whereas their offence is thereby the greater, 
 both as being ungrateful for the greater share they have 
 by the law, and breaking also that trust which is put into 
 their hands by their brethren. 
 
 232. Whosoever uses force without right, as everyone 
 
134 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 does in society who does it without law, puts himself 
 into a state of war with those against whom he so uses it, 
 and in that state all former ties are cancelled, all other 
 rights cease, and everyone has a right to defend himself 
 and to resist the aggressor. This is so evident that 
 Barclay himself, that great assertor of the power and 
 sacredness of kings, is forced to confess that it is lawful 
 for the people in some cases to resist their king, and that 
 too in a chapter wherein he pretends to show that the 
 Divine Law shuts up the people from all manner of 
 rebellion. Whereby it is evident, even by his own doc- 
 trine, that, since they may in some cases resist, all 
 resisting of princes is not rebellion. His words are in 
 English these : 
 
 233. But if anyone should ask : Must the people, then, 
 always lay themselves open to the cruelty and rage of 
 tyranny ? Must they see their cities pillaged and laid in 
 ashes, their wives and children exposed to the tyrant's 
 lust and fury, and themselves and families reduced by their 
 king to ruin, and all the miseries of want and oppression, 
 and yet sit still ? Must men alone be debarred the 
 common privilege of opposing force with force, which 
 nature allows so freely to all other creatures for their 
 preservation from injury ? I answer : Self-defence is a 
 part of the law of nature ; nor can it be denied the com- 
 munity, even against the king himself. But to revenge 
 themselves upon him must by no means be allowed 
 them, it being not agreeable to that law. Wherefore, if 
 the king shall show a hatred, not only to some particular 
 persons, but sets himself against the body of the com- 
 monwealth, whereof he is the head, and shall, with in- 
 tolerable ill-usage, cruelly tyrannise over the whole or a 
 considerable part of the people, in this case the people have 
 a right to resist and defend themselves from injury. But 
 it must be with this caution, that they only defend them- 
 selves, but do not attack their prince. They may repair 
 the damages received, but must not, for any provocation, 
 exceed the bounds of due reverence and respect. They 
 may repulse the present attempt, but must not revenge 
 past violences. For it is natural for us to defend life 
 and limb ; but that an inferior should punish a superior, 
 is against nature. The mischief which is designed them, 
 
OP CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 135 
 
 the people may prevent before it be done ; but when it is 
 done, they must not revenge it on the king, though 
 author of the villany. This, therefore, is the privilege 
 of the people in general, above what any private person 
 hath : that particular men are allowed by our adversaries 
 themselves (Buchanan only excepted), to have no other 
 remedy but patience ; but the body of the people may, 
 with respect, resist intolerable tyranny ; for when it is 
 but moderate, they ought to endure it. 
 
 234. Thus far that great advocate of monarchical 
 power allows of resistance. 
 
 235. It is true he has annexed two limitations to it to 
 no purpose. 
 
 First, he says, it must be with reverence. 
 
 Secondly, it must be without retribution or punish- 
 ment ; and the reason he gives is, because an inferior 
 cannot punish a superior. 
 
 First. How to resist force without striking a^ain, or 
 how to strike with reverence, will need some skill to 
 make intelligible. He that shall oppose an assault only 
 with a shield to receive the blows, or in any more 
 respectful posture, without a sword in his hand, to abate 
 the confidence and force of the assailant, will quickly be 
 at an end of his resistance, and will find such a defence 
 serve only to draw on himself the worse usage. This is 
 as ridiculous a way of resisting as Juvenal thought it of 
 fighting : ubi tu pulsas, ego vapulo tanturn. And the 
 success of the combat will be unavoidably the same he 
 there describes it : 
 
 Libertas pauperis hsec est : 
 Pulsatus rogat, et pugnis concisus, adorat. 
 Ut liceat panels cum dentibus inde reverti. 
 
 This will always be the event of such an imaginary 
 resistance, where men may not strike again. He, there- 
 fore, who may resist, must be allowed to strike. And 
 then let our author or anybody else join a knock on the 
 head, or a cut on the face, with as much reverence and 
 respect as he thinks fit. He that can reconcile blows and 
 reverence may, for ought I know, deserve for his pains 
 civil, respectful cudgelling, wherever he can meet with it. 
 Secondly. As to his second, an inferior cannot punish 
 a superior. That is true, generally speaking, whilst he is 
 
136 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 his superior. But to resist force with force, being the 
 state of war that levels the parties, cancels all former 
 relation of reverence, respect, and superiority ; and 
 then the odds that remain is, that he who opposes the 
 unjust aggressor has this superiority over him that he 
 has a right, when he prevails, to punish the offender, 
 both for the breach of the peace, and all the evils that 
 followed upon it. Barclay, therefore, in another place, 
 more coherently to himself, denies it to be lawful to 
 resist a king in any case. But he there assigns two 
 cases whereby a king may un-king himself. His words 
 are in English these : 
 
 237. What, then, can there no case happen wherein the 
 people may of right and by their own authority help 
 themselves take arms and set upon their king imperiously 
 domineering over them ? None at all whilst he remains 
 a king: "Honour the king, 5 ' and " He that resists the 
 power resists the ordinance of God," are divine oracles 
 that will never permit it. The people, therefore, can 
 never come by a power over him, unless he does some- 
 thing that makes him cease to be a king ; for then he 
 divests himself of his crown and dignity, and returns to 
 the state of a private man, and the people become free 
 and superior, the power which they had in the Interregnum, 
 before they crowned him king, devolving to them again. 
 But there are but few miscarriages which bring the 
 matter to this state. After considering it well on all 
 sides, I can find but two. Two cases there are, I say. 
 whereby a king ipso facto becomes no king, and loses all 
 power and regal authority over his people, which are 
 also taken notice of by Winzerus. 
 
 The first is, if he endeavour to overturn the govern- 
 ment that is, if he have a purpose and design to ruin 
 the kingdom and commonwealth, as it is recorded of 
 Nero that he resolved to cut off the Senate and people of 
 Rome, lay the city waste with fire and sword, and then 
 remove to some other place ; and of Caligula, that he 
 openly declared that he would be no longer a head to the 
 people or Senate, and that he had it in his thoughts 
 to cut off the worthiest men of both ranks, and then 
 retire to Alexandria ; and he wished that the people had 
 but one neck that he might despatch them all at a blow 
 
Otf CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 13? 
 
 such designs as these, when any king harbours in his 
 thoughts and seriously promotes, he immediately gives 
 up all care and thought of the commonwealth, and con- 
 sequently forfeits the power of governing his subjects, 
 as a master does the dominion over his slaves whom he 
 hath abandoned. 
 
 238. The other case is, when a king makes himself 
 dependent of another, and subjects his kingdom, which 
 his ancestors left him, and the people put free into his 
 hands, to the dominion of another ; for, however perhaps 
 it may not be his intention to prejudice the people, yet, 
 because he has hereby lost the principal part of regal 
 dignity, viz., to be, next and immediately under God, 
 supreme in his kingdom, and also because he be- 
 trayed or forced his people, whose liberty he ought to 
 have carefully preserved, into the power and dominion 
 of a foreign nation, by this, as it were, alienation of 
 his kingdom, he himself loses the power he had in it 
 before, without transferring any the least right to those 
 on whom he would have bestowed it ; and so by this act 
 sets the people free, and leaves them at their own disposal. 
 One example of this is to be found in the Scotch annals. 
 
 239. In these cases Barclay, the great champion of 
 absolute monarchy, is forced to allow that a king may be 
 resisted and ceases to be a king ; that is, in short, not to 
 multiply cases, in whatsoever he has no authority, there 
 he is no king and may be resisted ; for wheresoever the 
 authority ceases, the king ceases too, and becomes like 
 other men who have no authority ; and these two cases 
 he instances in, differ little from those above-mentioned 
 to be destructive to governments, only that he has omitted 
 the principle from which his doctrine flows ; and that is 
 the breach of trust in not preserving the form of govern- 
 ment agreed on, and in not intending the end of government 
 itself, which is the public good and preservation of pro- 
 perty. When a king has dethroned himself and put him- 
 self in a state of war with his people, what shall hinder 
 them from prosecuting him who is no king, as they would 
 any other man who has put himself into a state of war 
 with them ? Barclay, and those of his opinion, would do 
 well to tell us. This farther I desire may be taken notice 
 of out of Barclay, that he says, the mischief that is 
 
 E* 87 
 
138 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 designed them, the people may prevent before it be done 
 whereby he allows resistance when tyranny is but in 
 design. Such designs as these, says he, when any king 
 harbours in his thoughts and seriously promotes, he im- 
 mediately gives up all care and thought of the common- 
 wealth ; so that, according to him, the neglect of the 
 public good is to be taken as an evidence of such design, 
 or at least for a sufficient cause of resistance. And the 
 reason of all he gives in these words, because he betrayed 
 or forced his people whose liberty he ought carefully to 
 have preserved. What he adds into the power and 
 dominion of a foreign nation signifies nothing, the 
 fault and forfeiture lying in the loss of their liberty 
 which he ought to have preserved, and not in any 
 distinction of the persons to whose dominion they were 
 subjected. The people's right is equally invaded and 
 their liberty lost whether they are made slaves to any of 
 their own or a foreign nation ; and in this lies the 
 injury, and against this only b'-- they the right of 
 defence. And there are instants to be found in all 
 countries which show that it is not the change of nations 
 in the persons of their governors, but the change of 
 government that gives the offence. Bilson, a bishop of 
 our Church, and a great stickler for the power and 
 prerogative of princes, does, if I mistake not, in his 
 treatise of "Christian Subjection," acknowledge that 
 princes may forfeit their power and their title to the 
 obedience of their subjects ; and if there needed authority 
 in a case where reason is so plain, I could send my 
 reader to Bracton, Fortescue, and the author of " The 
 Mirror," and others, writers that cannot be suspected to 
 be ignorant of our government or enemies to it. But I 
 thought Hooker alone might be enough to satisfy those 
 men who, relying on him for their ecclesiastical polity, 
 are by a strange fate carried to deny those principles 
 upon which he builds it. Whether they are herein made 
 the tools of cunninger workmen to pull down their own 
 fabric, they were best look ; this I am sure, their civil 
 policy is so new. so dangerous, and so destructive to both 
 rulers and people that, as former ages never could bear 
 the broaching of it, so, it may be hoped, those to come, 
 redeemed from the impositions of these Egyptian under- 
 
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 139 
 
 taskmasters, will abhor the memory of such servile 
 flatterers, who, whilst it seemed to serve their turn, 
 resolved all government into absolute tyranny, and 
 would have all men born to what their mean souls fitted 
 them for, slavery. 
 
 240. Here, it is likely, the common question will be 
 made : Who shall be judge whether the prince or legisla- 
 tive act contrary to their trust? This, perhaps, ill- 
 affected and factious men may spread amongst the 
 people when the prince only makes use of his due 
 prerogative. To this I reply : The people shall be judge ; 
 for who shall be judge whether the trustee or deputy 
 acts well and according to the trust reposed in him, but 
 he who deputes him, and must, by having deputed him, 
 have still the power to discard him when he fails in his 
 trust ? If this be reasonable in particular cases of private 
 men, why should it be otherwise in that of the greatest 
 moment, where the welfare of millions is concerned, and 
 also where the evil, if not prevented, is greater, and the 
 redress very difficult, dear, and dangerous 1 
 
 241. But farther, this question, who shall be judge, 
 cannot mean that there is no judge at all ; for where 
 there is no judicature on earth to decide controversies 
 amongst men, God in heaven is Judge. He alone, it is 
 true, is Judge of the right ; but every man is judge for 
 himself, as in all other cases, so in this, whether another 
 hath put himself into a state of war with him, and 
 whether he should appeal to the Supreme Judge as 
 Jephtha did. 
 
 242. If a controversy arise betwixt a prince and some 
 of the people in a matter where the law is silent or 
 doubtful, and the thing be of great consequence, I should 
 think the proper umpire in such a case should be the 
 body of the people ; for in cases where the prince hath a 
 trust reposed in him, and is dispensed from the common 
 ordinary rules of the law ; there, if any men find them- 
 selves aggrieved, and think the prince acts contrary to or 
 beyond that trust, who so proper to judge as the body of 
 the people (who at first lodged that trust in him) how 
 far they meant it should extend ? But if the prince or 
 whoever they be in the administration decline that way 
 of determination, the appeal then lies nowhere but to 
 
140 OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 heaven ; force between either persons who have no 
 known superior on earth, or which permits no appeal to 
 a judge on earth, being properly a state of war, wherein 
 the appeal lies only to heaven, and in that state the 
 injured party must judge for himself when he will 
 think fit to make use of that appeal and put himself 
 upon it. 
 
 243. To conclude, the power that every individual gave 
 the society when he entered into it, can never revert to the 
 individuals again as long as the society lasts, but will 
 always remain in the community, because without this 
 there can be no community, no commonwealth, which is 
 contrary to the original agreement ; so also when the 
 society hath placed the legislative in any assembly of 
 men to continue in them and their successors, with 
 direction and authority for providing such successors, 
 the legislative can never revert to the people whilst that 
 government lasts, because having provided a legislative 
 with power to continue for ever, they have given up their 
 political power to the legislative and cannot resume it. 
 But if they have set limits to the duration of their legis- 
 lative, and made this supreme power in any person or 
 assembly only temporary ; or else when by the miscar- 
 riages of those in authority it is forfeited ; upon the for- 
 feiture, or at the determination of the time set, it reverts 
 to the society, and the people have a right to act as 
 supreme, and continue the legislative in themselves ; or 
 erect a new form, or under the old form place it in new 
 hands as they think good. 
 
A LETTEE CONCEBNTNG 
 TOLEEATION. 
 
A LETTER CONCERNING 
 TOLERATION. 
 
 HONOURED SIR, 
 
 Since you are pleased to inquire what are my 
 thoughts about the mutual toleration of Christians in 
 their different profession of religion, I must needs answer 
 you freely, that I esteem that toleration to be the chief 
 characteristic mark of the true Church. For whatsoever 
 some people boast of the antiquity of places and names, 
 or of the pomp of their outward worship ; others, of the 
 reformation of their discipline ; all, of the orthodoxy of 
 their faith for everyone is orthodox to himself these 
 things, and all others of this nature, are much rather 
 marks of men striving for power and empire over one 
 another, than of the Church of Christ. Let anyone have 
 never so true a claim to all these things, yet if he be 
 destitute of charity, meekness, and good-will in general 
 towards all mankind, even to those that are not Chris- 
 tians, he is certainly yet short of being a true Christian 
 himself. "The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship 
 over them," said our Saviour to His disciples, "but ye 
 shall not be so." The business of true religion is quite 
 another thing. It is not instituted in order to the erect- 
 ing of an external pomp, nor to the obtaining of ecclesi- 
 astical dominion, nor to the exercising of compulsive 
 force, but to the regulating of men's lives, according to 
 the rules of virtue and piety. Whosoever will list him- 
 self under the banner of Christ, must in the first place, 
 and above all things, make war upon his own lusts and 
 vices. It is in vain for any man to usurp the name of 
 Christian, without holiness of life, purity of manners, 
 benignity and meekness of spirit. "Let everyone that 
 nameth the name of Christ, depart from iniquity." " Thou, 
 
144 A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 
 
 when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren," said 
 our Lord to Peter. It would, indeed, be very hard for 
 one that appears careless about his own salvation to 
 persuade me that he were extremely concerned for 
 mine. For it is impossible that those should sincerely 
 and heartily apply themselves to make other people 
 Christians, who have not really embraced the Christian 
 religion in their own hearts. If the Gospel and the 
 apostles may be credited, no man can be a Christian 
 without charity, and without that faith which works, not 
 by force, but by love. Now, I appeal to the consciences of 
 those that persecute, torment, destroy, and kill other 
 men upon pretence of religion, whether they do it out of 
 friendship and kindness towards them or not? And I shall 
 then indeed, and not till then, believe they do so, when 
 I shall see those fiery zealots correcting, in the same 
 manner, their friends and familiar acquaintance for the 
 manifest sins they commit against the precepts of the 
 Gospel ; when I shall see them persecute with fire and 
 sword the members of their own communion that are 
 tainted with enormous vices, and without amendment 
 are in danger of eternal perdition ; and when I shall see 
 them thus express their love and desire of the salvation 
 of their souls by the infliction of torments, and exercise 
 of all manner of cruelties. For if it be out of a principle 
 of charity, as they pretend, and love to men's souls, that 
 they deprive them of their estates, maim them with 
 corporal punishments, starve and torment them in noi- 
 some prisons, and in the end even take away their lives, 
 I say, if all this be done merely to make men Christians, 
 and procure their salvation, why then do they suffer 
 whoredom, fraud, malice, and such-like enormities, which 
 (according to the apostle) manifestly relish of heathenish 
 corruption, to predominate so much and abound amongst 
 their flocks and people ? These, and such-like things, 
 are certainly more contrary to the glory of God, to the 
 purity of the Church, and to the salvation of souls, than 
 any conscientious dissent from ecclesiastical decision, or 
 separation from public worship, whilst accompanied 
 with innocence of life. Why then does this burning 
 zeal for God, for the Church, and for the salvation of 
 souls burning I say, literally, with fire and faggot 
 
A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 145 
 
 pass by those moral vices and wickednesses, without any 
 chastisement, which are acknowledged by all men to be 
 diametrically opposite to the profession of Christianity, 
 and bend all its nerves either to the introducing of 
 ceremonies, or to the establishment of opinions, which 
 for the most part are about nice and intricate matters, 
 that exceed the capacity of ordinary understandings? 
 Which of the parties contending- about these things is in 
 the right, which of them is guilty of schism or heresy, 
 whether those that domineer or those that suffer, will 
 then at last be manifest, when the cause of their separa- 
 tion comes to be judged of. He,, certainly, that follows 
 Christ, embraces His doctrine, and bears His yoke, though 
 he forsake both father and mother, separate from the 
 public assemblies and ceremonies of his country, or 
 whomsoever or whatsoever else he relinquishes, will not 
 then be judged a heretic. 
 
 Now, though the divisions that are amongst sects 
 should be allowed to be never so obstructive of the salva- 
 tion of souls ; yet, nevertheless, adultery, fornication, 
 uncleanliness, lasciviousness, idolatry, and such - like 
 things, cannot be denied to be works of the flesh, con- 
 cerning which the apostle has expressly declared that 
 " they who do them shall not inherit the kingdom of 
 G-od." Whosoever, therefore, is sincerely solicitous about 
 the kingdom of God, and thinks it his duty to endeavour 
 the enlargement of it amongst men, ought to apply 
 himself with no less care and industry to the rooting out 
 of these immoralities than to the extirpation of sects. But 
 if anyone do otherwise, and whilst he is cruel and implac- 
 able towards those that differ from him in opinion, he 
 be indulgent to such iniquities and immoralities as are 
 unbecoming the name of a Christian, let such a one talk 
 never so much of the Church, he plainly demonstrates by 
 his actions that it is another kingdom he aims at, and not 
 the advancement of the kingdom of God. 
 
 That any man should think fit to cause another man 
 whose salvation he heartily desires to expire in tor- 
 ments, and that even in an unconverted state, would, I 
 confess, seem very strange to me, and, I think, to any 
 other also. But nobody, surely, will ever believe that 
 auch a carriage can proceed from charity, love, or good- 
 
146 A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 
 
 will. If anyone maintain that men ought to be com- 
 pelled by fire and sword to profess certain doctrines, and 
 conform to this or that exterior worship, without any 
 regard had unto their morals ; if anyone endeavour to 
 convert those that are erroneous unto the faith, by 
 forcing them to profess things that they do not believe, 
 and allowing them to practise things that the Gospel 
 does not permit, it cannot be doubted indeed but such a 
 one is desirous to have a numerous assembly joined in 
 the same profession with himself ; but that he principally 
 intends by those means to compose a truly Christian 
 Church, is altogether incredible. It is not, therefore, to 
 be wondered at if those who do not really contend for 
 the advancement of the true religion, and of the Church 
 of Christ, make use of arms that do not belong to the 
 Christian warfare. If, like the Captain of our salvation, 
 they sincerely desired the good of souls, they would tread 
 in the steps and follow the perfect example of that 
 Prince of Peace, who sent out His soldiers to the sub- 
 duing of nations, and gathering them into His Church, 
 not armed with the sword, or other instruments of force, 
 but prepared with the Gospel of peace, and with the 
 exemplary holiness of their conversation. This was His 
 method. Though if infidels were to be converted by 
 force, if those that are either blind or obstinate were to 
 be drawn off from their errors by armed soldiers, we 
 know very well that it was much more easy for Him to 
 do it with armies of heavenly legions, than for any son 
 of the Church, how potent soever, with all his dragoons. 
 
 The toleration of those that differ from others in 
 matters of religion, is so agreeable to the Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ, and to the genuine reason of mankind, that it 
 seems monstrous for men to be so blind as not to perceive 
 the necessity and advantage of it in so clear a light. 
 I will not here tax the pride and ambition of some, the 
 passion and uncharitable zeal of others. These are faults 
 from which human affairs can perhaps scarce ever be 
 perfectly freed ; but yet such as nobody will bear the 
 plain imputation of, without covering them with some 
 specious colour ; and so pretend to commendation, whilst 
 they are carried away by their own irregular passions. 
 But, however, that some may not colour their spirit of 
 
A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 147 
 
 persecution and unchristian cruelty with a pretence of 
 care of the public weal and observation of the laws ; and 
 that others, under pretence of religion, may not seek 
 impunity for their libertinism and licentiousness ; in a 
 word, that none may impose either upon himself or 
 others, by the pretences of loyalty and obedience to the 
 prince, or. of tenderness and sincerity in the worship of 
 (rod ; I esteem it above all things necessary to distinguish 
 exactly the business of civil government from that of 
 religion, and to settle the just bounds that lie between 
 the one and the other. If this be not done, there can be 
 no end put to the controversies that will be always 
 arising between those that have, or at least pretend to 
 have, on the one side, a care of the commonwealth. 
 
 The commonwealth seems to me to be a society of 
 men constituted only for the procuring, preserving, and 
 advancing their own civil interests. 
 
 Civil interests I call life, liberty, health, and indolency 
 of body ; and the possession of outward things, such as 
 money, lands, houses, furniture, and the like. 
 
 It is the duty of the civil magistrate, by the impartial 
 execution of equal laws, to secure unto all the people in 
 general, and to every one of his subjects in particular 
 the just possession of these things belonging to this life. 
 If anyone presume to violate the laws of public justice 
 and equity, established for the preservation of those 
 things, his presumption is to be checked by the fear of 
 punishment, consisting of the deprivation or diminution 
 of those civil interests, or goods, which otherwise he 
 might and ought to enjoy. But seeing no man does 
 willingly suffer himself to be punished by the deprivation 
 of any part of his goods, and much less of his liberty or 
 life, therefore is the magistrate armed with the force and 
 strength of all his subjects, in order to the punishment 
 of those that violate any other man's rights. 
 
 Now that the whole jurisdiction of the magistrate 
 reaches only to these civil concernments, and that all 
 civil power, right and dominion, is bounded and confined 
 to the only care of promoting these things ; and that it 
 neither can nor ought in any manner to be extended to 
 the salvation of souls, these following considerations 
 seem unto me abundantly to demonstrate. 
 
148 A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 
 
 First, because the care of souls is not committed to the 
 civil magistrate, any more than to other men. It is not 
 committed unto him, I say, by God ; because it appears not 
 that God has ever given any such authority to one man 
 over another, as to compel anyone to his religion. Nor 
 can any such power be vested in the magistrate by the 
 consent of the people, because no man can so far abandon 
 the care of his own salvation as blindly to leave to the 
 choice of any other, whether prince or subject, to pre- 
 scribe to him what faith or worship he shall embrace. 
 For no man can, if he would, conform his faith to the 
 dictates of another. All the life and power of true 
 religion consist in the outward and full persuasion of 
 the mind ; and faith is not faith without believing. 
 Whatever profession we make, to whatever outward 
 worship we conform, if we are not fully satisfied in our 
 own mind that the one is true, and the other well pleas- 
 ing unto God, such profession and such practice, far from 
 being any furtherance, are indeed great obstacles to our 
 salvation. For in this manner, instead of expiating 
 other sins by the exercise of religion, I say, in offering 
 thus unto God Almighty such a worship as we esteem 
 to be displeasing unto Him, we add unto the number of 
 our other sins those also of hypocrisy, and contempt of 
 His Divine Majesty. 
 
 In the second place, the care of souls cannot belong to 
 the civil magistrate, because his power consists only in 
 outward force ; but true and saving religion consists 
 in the inward persuasion of the mind, without which 
 nothing can be acceptable to God. And such is the 
 nature of the understanding, that it cannot be compelled 
 to the belief of anything by outward force. Confiscation 
 of estate, imprisonment, torments, nothing of that nature 
 can have any such efficacy as to make men change the 
 inward judgment that they have framed of things. 
 
 It may indeed be alleged that the magistrate may make 
 use of arguments, and thereby draw the heterodox into the 
 way of truth, and procure their salvation. I grant it ; 
 but this is common to him with other men. In teaching, 
 instructing, and redressing the erroneous by reason, he 
 may certainly do what becomes any good man to do. 
 Magistracy does not oblige him to put off either humanity 
 
A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 149 
 
 or Christianity ; but it is one thing to persuade, another 
 to command ; one thing to press with arguments, another 
 with penalties. This civil power alone has a right to do ; 
 to the other goodwill is authority enough. Every man 
 has commission to admonish, exhort, convince another of 
 error, and, by reasoning, to draw him into truth ; but to 
 give laws, receive obedience, and compel with the sword, 
 belongs to none but the magistrate. And upon this 
 ground, I affirm that the magistrate's power extends 
 not to the establishing of any articles of faith, or forms 
 of worship, by the force of his laws. For laws are of no 
 force at all without penalties, and penalties in this case 
 are absolutely impertinent, because they are not proper 
 to convince the mind. Neither the profession of any 
 articles of faith, nor the conformity to any outward form 
 of worship (as has been already said), can be available to 
 the salvation of souls, unless the truth of the one, and the 
 acceptableness of the other unto God, be thoroughly be- 
 lieved by those that so profess and practise. But penal- 
 ties are no way capable to produce such belief. It is 
 only light and evidence that can work a change in men's 
 opinions ; which light can in no manner proceed from 
 corporal sufferings, or any other outward penalties. 
 
 In the third place, the care of the salvation of men's 
 souls cannot belong to the magistrate ; because, though 
 the rigour of laws and the force of penalties were capable 
 to convince and change men's minds, yet would not that 
 help at all to the salvation of their souls. For there 
 being but one truth, one way to heaven, what hope is 
 there that more men would be led into it if they had no 
 rule but the religion of the court, and were put under the 
 necessity to quit the light of their own reason, and oppose 
 the dictates of their own consciences, and blindly to resign 
 themselves up to the will of their governors, and to the 
 religion which either ignorance, ambition, or superstition 
 had chanced to establish in the countries where they were 
 born ? In the variety and contradiction of opinions in 
 religion, wherein the princes of the world are as much 
 divided as in their secular interests, the narrow way would 
 be much straitened ; one country alone would be in the 
 right, and all the rest of the world put under an obliga- 
 tion :f following their princes in the ways that lead to 
 
150 A LETTER- CONCERNING TOLERATION. 
 
 destruction ; and that which heightens the absurdity, and 
 very ill suits the notion of a Deity, men would owe their 
 eternal happiness or misery to the places of their nativity. 
 
 These considerations, to omit many others that might 
 have been urged to the same purpose, seem unto me suffi- 
 cient to conclude that all the power of civil government 
 relates only to men's civil interests, is confined to the 
 care of the things of this world, and hath nothing to do 
 with the world to come. 
 
 Let us now consider what a church is. A church, then, 
 I take to be a voluntary society of men, joining them- 
 selves together of their own accord in order to the public 
 worshipping of G-od in such manner as they judge accept- 
 able to Him, and effectual to the salvation of their souls. 
 
 I say it is a free and voluntary society. Nobody is 
 born a member of any church ; otherwise the religion of 
 parents would descend unto children by the same right 
 of inheritance as their temporal estates, and everyone 
 would hold his faith by the same tenure he does his 
 lands, than which nothing can be imagined more absurd. 
 Thus, therefore, that matter stands. No man by nature 
 is bound unto any particular church or sect, but every- 
 one joins himself voluntarily to that society in which he 
 believes he has found that profession and worship which 
 is truly acceptable to G-od. The hope of salvation, as it 
 was the only cause of his entrance into that communion, 
 so it can be the only reason of his stay there. For if 
 afterwards he discover anything either erroneous in the 
 doctrine or incongruous in the worship of that society to 
 which he has joined himself, why should it not be as free 
 for him to go out as it was to enter ? No member of a 
 religious society can be tied with any other bonds but 
 what proceed from the certain expectation of eternal life. 
 A church, then, is a society of members voluntarily 
 uniting to that end. 
 
 It follows now that we consider what is the power of 
 this church, and unto what laws it is subject. 
 
 Forasmuch as no society, how free soever, or upon 
 whatsoever slight occasion instituted, whether of philoso- 
 phers for learning, of merchants for commerce, or of men 
 of leisure for mutual conversation and discourse, no 
 church or company, I say, can in the least subsist and 
 
A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 151 
 
 hold tog-ether, but will presently dissolve and break in 
 pieces, unless it be regulated by some laws, and the 
 members all consent to observe some order. Place and 
 time of meeting must be agreed on ; rules for admitting 
 and excluding members must be established ; distinction 
 of officers, and putting things into a regular course, and 
 such-like, cannot be omitted. But since the joining to- 
 gether of several members into this church-society, as 
 has already been demonstrated, is absolutely free and 
 spontaneous, it necessarily follows that the right of 
 making its laws can belong to none but the society itself ; 
 or, at least (which is the same thing), to those whom the 
 society by common consent has authorised thereunto. 
 
 Some, perhaps, may object that no such society can be 
 said to be a true church unless it have in it a bishop or 
 presbyter, with ruling authority derived from the very 
 apostles, and continued down to the present times by an 
 uninterrupted succession. 
 
 To these I answer : In the first place, let them show me 
 the edict by which Christ has imposed that law upon His 
 Church. And let not any man think me impertinent, if 
 in a thing of this consequence I require that the terms of 
 that edict be very express and positive ; for the promise 
 He has made us, that wheresoever two or three are 
 gathered together in His name, He will be in the midst 
 of them, seems to imply the contrary. Whether such an 
 assembly want anything necessary to a true church, pray 
 do you consider. Certain I am that nothing can be there 
 wanting unto the salvation of souls, which is sufficient to 
 our purpose. 
 
 Next, pray observe how great have always been the di- 
 visions amongst even those who lay so much stress upon 
 the Divine institution and continued succession of a 
 certain order of rulers in the Church. Now, their very 
 dissension unavoidably puts us upon a necessity of de- 
 liberating, and, consequently, allows a liberty of choosing 
 that which upon consideration we prefer. 
 
 And, in the last place, I consent that these men have a 
 ruler in their church, established by such a long series 
 of succession as they judge necessary, provided I may have 
 liberty at the same time to join myself to that society 
 in which I am persuaded those things are to be found 
 
152 A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 
 
 which are necessary to the salvation of my soul. In this 
 manner ecclesiastical liberty will be preserved on all 
 sides, and no man will have a legislator imposed upon 
 him but whom himself has chosen. 
 
 But since men are so solicitous about the true church, 
 I would only ask them here, by the way, if it be not 
 more agreeable to the Church of Christ to make the 
 conditions of her communion consist in such things, and 
 such thing's only, as the Holy Spirit has in the Holy 
 Scriptures declared, in express words, to be necessary to 
 salvation ; I ask, I say, whether this be not more agree- 
 able to the Church of Christ than for men to impose 
 their own inventions and interpretations upon others 
 as if they were of Divine authority, and to establish by 
 ecclesiastical laws, as absolutely necessary to the profes- 
 sion of Christianity, such things as the Holy Scriptures 
 do either not mention, or at least not expressly command ? 
 Whosoever requires those things in order to ecclesiastical 
 communion, which Christ does not require in order to life 
 eternal, he may, perhaps, indeed constitute a society ac- 
 commodated to his own opinion and his own advantage ; 
 but how that can be called the Church of Christ which 
 is established upon laws that are not His, and which 
 excludes such persons from its communion as He will 
 one day receive into the Kingdom of Heaven, I under- 
 stand not. But this being not a proper place to inquire 
 into the marks of the true church, I will only mind 
 those that contend so earnestly for the decrees of their 
 own society, and that cry out continually, The Church ! 
 the Church ! with as much noise, and perhaps upon the 
 same principle, as the Ephesian silversmiths did for their 
 Diana ; this, I say, I desire to mind them of, that the 
 Gospel frequently declares that the true disciples of 
 Christ must suffer persecution ; but that the Church 
 of Christ should persecute others, and force others by 
 fire and sword to embrace her faith and doctrine, I 
 could never yet find in any of the books of the New 
 Testament. 
 
 The end of a religious society (as has already been 
 said) is the public worship of God, and. by means there- 
 of, the acquisition of eternal life. All discipline ought 
 therefore to tend to that end, and all ecclesiastical laws 
 
A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 153 
 
 to be thereunto confined. Nothing- ought nor can be 
 transacted in this society relating to the, possession of 
 civil and wordly goods. No force is here to be made 
 use of upon any occasion whatsoever. Force belongs 
 wholly to the civil magistrate, and the possession of 
 all outward goods is subject to his jurisdiction. 
 
 But, it may be asked, by what means then shall ecclesias- 
 tical laws be established, if they must be thus destitute of 
 all compulsive power ? I answer : They must be established 
 by means suitable to the nature of such things, whereof 
 the external profession and observation if not proceed- 
 ing from a thorough conviction and approbation of the 
 mind is altogether useless and unprofitable. The arms\ 
 by which the members of this society are to be kept ] - 
 within their duty are exhortations, admonitions, and/ 
 advices. If by these means the offenders will not be 
 reclaimed, and the erroneous convinced, there remains 
 nothing further to be done but that such stubborn and 
 obstinate persons, who give no ground to hope for their 
 reformation, should be cast out and separated from the 
 society. This is the last and utmost force of ecclesias- 
 tical authority. No other punishment can thereby be 
 inflicted than that, the relation ceasing between the 
 body and the member which is cut off. The person so 
 condemned ceases to be a part of the church. 
 
 These things being thus determined, let us inquire, in 
 the next place : How far the duty of toleration extends, 
 and what is required from everyone by it ? 
 
 And, first, I hold that no church is bound, by the 
 duty of toleration, to retain any such person in her 
 bosom as, after admonition, continues obstinately to 
 offend against the laws of the society. For these being 
 the condition of communion and the bond of the society, 
 if the breach of them were permitted without any anim- 
 adversion the society would immediately be thereby 
 dissolved. But, nevertheless, in all such cases care is to 
 be taken that the sentence of excommunication, and 
 the execution thereof, carry with it no rough usage of 
 word or action whereby the ejected person may in any 
 wise be damnified in body or estate. For all force (as 
 has often been said) belongs only to the magistrate, nor 
 ought any private persons at any time to use force, unless 
 
I 
 
 154 A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 
 
 it be in self-defence against unjust violence. Ex- 
 communication neither does, nor can, deprive the ex- 
 communicated person of any of those civil goods that he 
 formerly possessed. All those things belonged to the 
 civil government, and are under the magistrate's protec- 
 tion. The whole force of excommunication consists only 
 in this : that the resolution of the society in that respect 
 being declared, the union that was between the body and. 
 some member comes thereby to be dissolved ; and that 
 relation ceasing, the participation of some certain things 
 which the society communicated to its members, and 
 unto which no man has any civil right, comes also to 
 cease. For there is no civil injury done unto the ex- 
 communicated person by the church minister's refusing 
 him that bread and wine, in the celebration of the Lord's 
 Supper, which was not bought with his but other men's 
 money. 
 
 Secondly, no private person has any right in any 
 manner to prejudice another person in his civil enjoy- 
 ments because he is of another church or religion. All 
 the rights and franchises that belong to him as a man, or 
 as a denizen, are inviolably to be preserved to him. 
 These are not the business of religion. No violence nor 
 injury is to be offered him, whether he be Christian 
 or Pagan. Nay, we must not content ourselves with 
 the narrow measures of bare justice ; charity, bounty, 
 and liberality must be added to it. This the Gospel 
 enjoins, this reason directs, and this that natural fellow- 
 ship we are born into requires of us. If any man err 
 from the right way, it is his own misfortune, no injury 
 to thee ; nor therefore art thou to punish him in the 
 things of this life because thou supposest he will be 
 miserable in that which is to come. 
 
 What I say concerning the mutual toleration of private 
 persons differing from one another in religion, I understand 
 also of particular churches which stand, as it were, in the 
 same relation to each other as private persons among 
 themselves : nor has any one of them any manner of 
 jurisdiction over any other ; no, not even when the civil 
 magistrate (as it sometimes happens) comes to be of this 
 or the other communion. For the civil government can 
 give no new right to the church, nor the church, to 
 
A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 155 
 
 the civil government. So that whether the magistrate 
 join himself to any church, or separate from it, the 
 church remains always as it was before a free and 
 voluntary society. It neither requires the power of the 
 sword by the magistrate's coming to it, nor does it lose 
 the right of instruction and excommunication by his 
 going from it. This is the fundamental and immutable 
 right of a spontaneous society that it has power to 
 remove any of its members that transgress the rules of 
 its institution ; but it cannot, by the accession of any 
 new members, acquire any right of jurisdiction over those 
 that are not joined with it. And therefore peace, equity, 
 and friendship are always mutually to be observed by 
 particular churches, in the same manner as by private 
 persons, without any pretence of superiority or jurisdic- 
 tion over one another. 
 
 That the thing may be made clearer by an example, 
 let us suppose two churches the one of Arminians, the 
 other of Calvinists residing in the city of Constanti- 
 nople. Will anyone say that either of these churches 
 has right to deprive the members of the other of their 
 estates and liberty (as we see practised elsewhere), be- 
 cause of their differing from it in some doctrines and 
 ceremonies, whilst the Turks in the meanwhile silently 
 stand by, and laugh to see with what inhuman cruelty 
 Christians thus rage against Christians ? But if one of 
 these churches hath this power of treating the other ill, 
 I ask which of them it is to whom that power belongs, 
 and by what right ? It will be answered, undoubtedly, 
 that it is the orthodox church which has the right of 
 authority over the erroneous or heretical. This is, in 
 great and specious words, to say just nothing at all. 
 For every church is orthodox to itself ; to others, 
 erroneous or heretical. For whatsoever any church 
 believes, it believes to be true ; and the contrary unto 
 those things, it pronounces to be error. So that the 
 controversy between these churches about the truth of 
 their doctrines, and the purity of their worship, is on 
 both sides equal ; nor is there any judge, either at 
 Constantinople or elsewhere upon earth, by whose 
 sentence it can be determined. The decision of that 
 question belongs to the Supreme Judge of all men, to 
 
156 A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION 
 
 whom also alone belongs the punishment of the erroneous. 
 In the meanwhile, let those men consider how heinously 
 they sin, who, adding- injustice, if not to their error, yet 
 certainly to their pride, do rashly and arrogantly take 
 upon them to misuse the servants of another master, who 
 are not at all accountable to them. 
 
 Nay, further : if it could be manifest which of these 
 two dissenting churches were in the right, there would 
 not accrue thereby unto the orthodox any right of 
 destroying the other. The churches have neither any 
 jurisdiction in worldly matters, nor are fire and sword 
 any proper instruments wherewith to convince men's 
 minds of error, and inform them of the truth. Let us 
 suppose, nevertheless, that the civil magistrate inclined 
 to favour one of them, and to put his sword into their 
 hands, that (by his consent) they might chastise the 
 dissenters as they pleased. Will any man say that any 
 right can be derived unto a Christian church over its 
 brethren from a Turkish emperor ? An infidel, who has 
 himself no authority to punish Christians for the articles 
 of their faith, cannot confer such an authority upon any 
 society of Christians, nor give unto them a right which 
 he has not himself. This would be the case at Constanti- 
 nople ; and the reason of the thing is the same in any 
 Christian kingdom. The civil power is the same in 
 every place. Nor can that power, in the hands of a Chris- 
 tian prince, confer any greater authority upon the Church 
 than in the hands of a heathen ; which is to say, just 
 none at all. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is worthy to be observed and lamented 
 that the most violent of these defenders of the truth, the 
 opposers of errors, the exclaimers against schism do hardly 
 ever let loose this their zeal for Grod, with which they are 
 so warmed and inflamed, unless where they have the civil 
 magistrate on their side. But so soon as ever court favour 
 has given them the better end of the staff, and they begin 
 to feel themselves the stronger, then presently peace and 
 charity are to be laid aside. Otherwise they are re- 
 ligiously to be observed. Where they have not the power 
 to carry on persecution and to become masters, there they 
 desire to live upon fair terms, and preach up toleration. 
 When they are not strengthened with the civil power, 
 
A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 157 
 
 then they can bear most patiently and unmovedly the 
 contagion of idolatry, superstition, and heresy in their 
 neighbourhood ; of which on other occasions the interest 
 of religion makes them to be extremely apprehensive. 
 They do not f orwardly attack those errors which are in 
 fashion at court or are countenanced by the government. 
 Here they can be content to spare their arguments ; which 
 yet (with their leave) is the only right method of propa- 
 gating truth, which has no such way of prevailing as 
 when strong arguments and good reason are joined with 
 the softness of civility and good usage. 
 
 Nobody, therefore, in fine, neither single persons nor 
 churches, nay, nor even commonwealths, have any just 
 title to invade the civil rights and worldly goods of each 
 other upon pretence of religion. Those that are of another 
 opinion would do well to consider with themselves how 
 pernicious a seed of discord and war, how powerful a 
 provocation to endless hatreds, rapines, and slaughters 
 they thereby furnish unto mankind. No peace and 
 security, no, not so much as common friendship, can ever 
 be established or preserved amongst men so long as this 
 opinion prevails, that dominion is founded in grace and 
 that religion is to be propagated by force of arms. 
 
 In the third place, let us see what the duty of tolera- 
 tion requires from those who are distinguished from the 
 rest of mankind (from the laity, as they please to call us) 
 by some ecclesiastical character and office ; whether they 
 be bishops, priests, presbyters, ministers, or however else 
 dignified or distinguished. It is not my business to in- 
 quire here into the original of the power or dignity of the 
 clergy. This only I say, that whencesoever their autho- 
 rity be sprung, since it is ecclesiastical, it ought to be 
 confined within the bounds of the Church, nor can it in 
 any manner be extended to civil affairs, because the 
 Church itself is a thing absolutely separate and distinct 
 from the commonwealth. The boundaries on both sides 
 are fixed and immovable. He jumbles heaven and earth 
 together, the things most remote and opposite, who mixes 
 these two societies, which are in their original end, busi- 
 ness, and in everything perfectly distinct and infinitely 
 different from each other. No man, therefore, with what- 
 soever ecclesiastical office he be dignified, can deprive 
 
158 A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 
 
 another man that is not of his church and faith either of 
 liberty or of any part of his worldly goods upon the ac- 
 count of that difference between them in religion. For 
 whatsoever is not lawful to the whole Church cannot by 
 any ecclesiastical right become lawful to any of its 
 members. 
 
 But this is not all. It is not enough that ecclesiastical 
 men abstain from violence and rapine and all manner of 
 persecution. He that pretends to be a successor of the 
 apostles, and takes upon him the office of teaching, is 
 obliged also to admonish his hearers of the duties of peace 
 and goodwill towards all men, as well towards the erro- 
 neous as the orthodox ; towards those that differ from 
 them in faith and worship as well as towards those that 
 agree with them therein. And he ought industriously to 
 exhort all men, whether private persons or magistrates 
 (if any such there be in /his church), to charity, meek- 
 ness, and toleration, and diligently endeavour to ally and 
 temper all that heat and unreasonable averseness of 
 mind which either any man's fiery zeal for his own sect 
 or the craft of others has kindled against dissenters. I 
 will not undertake to represent how happy and how great 
 would be the fruit, both in Church and State, if the 
 pulpits everywhere sounded with this doctrine of peace 
 and toleration, lest I should seem to reflect too severely 
 upon those men whose dignity I desire not to detract 
 from, nor would have it diminished either by others or 
 themselves. But this I say, that thus it ought to be. 
 And if anyone that professes himself to be a minister of 
 the Word of God, a preacher of the gospel of peace, teach 
 otherwise, he either understands not or neglects the busi- 
 ness of his calling, and shall one day give account thereof 
 unto the Prince of Peace. If Christians are to be ad- 
 monished that they abstain from all manner of revenge, 
 even after repeated provocations and multiplied injuries, 
 how much more ought they who suffer nothing, who have 
 had no harm done them, forbear violence and abstain from 
 all manner of ill-usage towards those from whom they 
 have received none ! This caution and temper they ought 
 certainly to use towards those who mind only their own 
 business, and are solicitous for nothing but that (what- 
 ever men think of them) they may worship God in that 
 
A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 159 
 
 manner which they are persuaded is acceptable to Him, 
 and in which they have the strongest hopes of eternal 
 salvation. lu private domestic affairs, in the manage- 
 ment of estates, in the conservation of bodily health, every 
 man may consider what tsuits his own convenience, and 
 follow what course he likes best. No man complains of 
 the ill-management of his neighbour's affairs. No man^^^ 
 is angry with another for an error committed in sowing 
 his land or in marrying his daughter. Nobody corrects a 
 spendthrift for consuming his substance in taverns. Let 
 any man pull down, or build, or make whatsoever ex- 
 penses he pleases, nobody murmurs, nobody controls him ; 
 he has his liberty. But if any man do not frequent the 
 church, if he do not there conform his behaviour exactly 
 to the accustomed ceremonies, or if he brings not his 
 children to be initiated in the sacred mysteries of this or 
 the other congregation, this immediately causes an uproar. 
 The neighbourhood is filled with noise and clamour. 
 Everyone is ready to be the avenger of so great a crime, 
 and the zealots hardly have the patience to refrain from 
 violence and rapine so long till the cause be heard, and 
 the poor man be, according to form, condemned to the 
 loss of liberty, goods, or life. Oh, that our ecclesiastical 
 orators of every sect would apply themselves with all the 
 strength of arguments that they are able to the confound- 
 ing of men's errors ! But let them spare their persons. 
 Let them not supply their want of reasons with the in- 
 vstruments of force, which belong to another jurisdiction, 
 and do ill become a Churchman's hands. Let them not 
 call in the magistrate's authority to the aid of their elo- 
 quence or learning, lest perhaps, .whilst they pretend 
 only love for the truth, this their intemperate zeal, breath- 
 ing nothing but fire and sword, betray their ambition and 
 show that what they desire is temporal dominion. For it 
 will be very difficult to persuade men of sense that he " 
 who with dry eyes and satisfaction of mind can deliver 
 his brother to the executioner to be burnt alive, does sin- 
 cerely and heartily concern himself to save that brother 
 from the flames of hell in the world to come. 
 
 In the last place, let us now consider what is the magis- 
 trate's duty in the business of toleration, which certainly 
 is very considerable. 
 
160 A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 
 
 We have already proved that the care of souls does not 
 belong to the magistrate. Not a magisterial care, I mean 
 (if I may so call it), which consists in prescribing 1 by 
 laws and compelling 1 by punishments. But a charitable 
 care, which consists in teaching 1 , admonishing, and per- 
 suading, cannot be denied unto any man. The care, there- 
 fore, of every man's soul belongs unto himself, and is to 
 be left unto himself. But what if he neglect the care of 
 his soul 1 I answer : What if he neglect the care of his 
 health or of his estate, which things are nearlier related 
 to the government of the magistrate than the other / 
 Will the magistrate provide by an express law that such 
 a one shall not become poor or sick ? Laws provide, as 
 much as is possible, that the goods and health of subjects 
 be not injured by the fraud and violence of others ; they 
 do not guard them from the negligence or ill-husbandry 
 of the possessors themselves. No man can be forced to be 
 rich or healthful whether he will or not. Nay, God Him- 
 self will not save men against their wills. Let us sup- 
 pose, however, that some prince were desirous to force 
 his subjects to accumulate riches, or to preserve the health 
 and strength of their bodies. Shall it be provided 
 by law that they must consult none but Roman phy- 
 sicians, and shall everyone be bound to live accord- 
 ing to their prescriptions ? What, shall no potion, 
 no broth, be taken, but what is prepared either in the 
 Vatican, suppose, or in a Geneva shop ? Or, to make 
 these subjects rich, shall they all be obliged by law to 
 become merchants or musicians ? Or, shall everyone 
 turn victualler, or smith, because there are some that 
 maintain their families plentifully and grow rich in 
 those professions? But, it may be said, there are a 
 thousand ways to wealth, but one only way to 
 heaven. It is well said, indeed, especially by those that 
 plead for compelling men into this or the other way. 
 For if there were several ways that led thither, there 
 would not be so much as a pretence left for compulsion. 
 But now if I be marching on with my utmost vigour in 
 that way which, according to the sacred geography, leads 
 straight to Jerusalem, why am I beaten and ill-used by 
 others because, perhaps, I wear not buskins; because 
 my hair is not of the right cut ; because, perhaps, I 
 
A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 161 
 
 have not been dipped in the right fashion ; because I 
 eat flesh upon the road, or some other food which agrees 
 with my stomach ; because I avoid certain bye- ways, 
 which seem unto me to lead into briars and precipices ; 
 because, amongst the 'several paths that are in the same 
 road, I choose that to walk in which seems to be the 
 straightest and cleanest ; because I avoid to keep com- 
 pany with some travellers that are less grave, and others 
 that are more sour than they ought to be ; or, in fine, 
 because I follow a guide that either is, or is not, clothed 
 in white, or crowned with a mitre? Certainly, if we 
 consider right, we shall find that, for the most part, they 
 are such frivolous things as these that (without any 
 prejudice to religion or the salvation of souls, if not 
 accompanied with superstition or hypocrisy) might either 
 be observed or omitted. I say, they are such-like things 
 as these which breed implacable enmities amongst 
 Christian brethren, who are all agreed in the substantial 
 and truly fundamental part of religion. 
 
 But let us grant unto these zealots, who condemn all 
 things that are not of their mode, that from these circum- 
 stances are different ends. What shall we conclude from 
 thence ? There is only one of these which is the true 
 way to eternal happiness : but in this great variety of 
 ways that men follow, it is still doubted which is the 
 right one. Now, neither the care of the commonwealth, 
 nor the right enacting of laws, does discover this way 
 that leads to heaven more certainly to the magistrate 
 than every private man's search and study discovers it 
 unto himself. I have a weak body, sunk under a 
 languishing disease, for which (I suppose) there is one 
 only remedy, but that unknown. Does it therefore 
 belong unto the magistrate to prescribe me a remedy, 
 because there is but one, and because it is unknown ? 
 Because there is but one way for me to escape death, will 
 it therefore be safe for me to do whatsoever the magistrate 
 ordains? Those things that every man ought sincerely 
 to inquire into himself, and by meditation, study, search, 
 and his own endeavours, attain the knowledge of, cannot 
 be looked upon as the peculiar possession of any sort of 
 men. Princes, indeed, are born superior unto other men 
 in power, but in nature equal. Neither the right nor the 
 
 F 87 
 
162 A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 
 
 art of ruling does necessarily carry along 1 with, it the 
 certain knowledge of other things, and least of all of true 
 religion. For if it were so, how could it come to pass 
 that the lords of the earth should differ so vastly as they 
 do in religious matters ? But let us \ grant that it is 
 probable the way to eternal life may be better known by a 
 prince than by his subjects, or at least that in this incerti- 
 tude of things the safest and most commodious way for 
 private persons is to follow his dictates. You will say, 
 what then ? If he should bid you follow merchandise 
 for your livelihood, would you decline that course for 
 fear it should not succeed ? I answer : I would turn 
 merchant upon the prince's command, because in case I 
 should have ill-success in trade, he is abundantly able to 
 make up my loss some other way. If it be true, as he 
 pretends, that he desires I should thrive and grow rich, 
 he can set me up again when unsuccessful voyages have 
 broken me. But this is not the case in the things that 
 regard the life to come ; if there I take a wrong course, 
 if in that respect I am once undone, it is not in the 
 magistrate's power to repair my loss, to ease my suffering, 
 nor to restore me in any measure, much less entirely to a 
 good estate. What security can be given for the Kingdom 
 of Heaven ? 
 
 Perhaps some will say that they do not suppose this 
 infallible judgment, that all men are bound to follow the 
 affairs of religion, to be in the civil magistrate, but in the 
 Church. What the Church has determined, that the civil 
 magistrate orders to be observed ; and he provides by his 
 authority that nobody shall either act or believe in the 
 business of religion otherwise /than the Church teaches. 
 So that the judgment of those things is in the Church ; 
 the magistrate himself yields obedience thereunto, and 
 requires the like obedience from others. I answer : Who 
 sees not how frequently the name of the Church, which 
 was venerable in the time of the apostles, has been made 
 use of to throw dust in the people's eyes, in the following 
 ages ? But, however, in the present case iti helps us not. 
 The one only narrow way which .leads to heaven is not 
 better known to the magistrate than to private persons, 
 and therefore I cannot safely take him for my guide, who 
 may probably be as ignorant of the way as myself, and 
 
A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 163 
 
 who certainly is less concerned for my salvation than I 
 myself am. Amongst so many kings of the Jews, how 
 many of them were there whom any Israelite, thus blindly 
 following, had not fallen into idolatry, and thereby into 
 destruction ? Yet nevertheless, you bid me be of good 
 courage, and tell me that all is now safe and secure, 
 because the magistrate does not now en join the observance 
 of his own decrees in matters of religion, but only the 
 decrees of the Church. Of what Church, I beseech you ? 
 of that, certainly, which likes him best. As if he that 
 compels me by laws and penalties to enter into this or the 
 other Church, did not interpose his own judgment in the 
 matter. What difference is there whether he lead me 
 himself, or deliver me over to be led by others ? I depend 
 both ways upon his will, and it is he that determines both 
 ways of my eternal state. Would an Israelite, that had 
 worshipped Baal upon the command of his king, have 
 been in any better condition, because somebody had told 
 him that the king ordered nothing in religion upon his 
 own head, nor commanded anything to be done by his 
 subjects in divine worship but what was approved by 
 the counsel of priests, and declared to be of divine right 
 by the doctors of their Church ? If the religion of any 
 Church become therefore true and saving, because the 
 head of that sect, the prelates and priests, and those of 
 that tribe, do all of them, with all their might, extol and 
 praise it, what religion can ever be accounted erroneous, 
 false, and destructive 1 I am doubtful concerning the : 
 doctrine of the Socinians, I am suspicious of the way of 
 worship practised by the Papists; jor Lutherans ; will (it 
 be ever a jot safer for me to join either to the one or to 
 the other of those Churches, upon the magistrate's com- 
 mand, because he commands nothing in religion but by 
 the authority and counsel of the doctors of that Church ? 
 But, to speak the truth, we must acknowledge that the 
 Church (if a convention of clergymen, making canons," 
 must be called by that name) is for the most part more 
 apt to be influenced by the Court than the Court by the 
 Church. How the Church was under the vicissitude of 
 orthodox and Arian emperors is very well known. Or 
 if those things be too remote, our modern English history 
 affords us fresh examqles in the reigns of Henry VIII., 
 
164 A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 
 
 Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, how easily and smoothly 
 the clergy changed their decrees, their articles of faith, 
 their form of worship, everything according to the 
 inclination of those kings and queens. Yet were those 
 kings and queens of such different minds in point of 
 religion, and enjoined thereupon such different things, that 
 no man in his wits (I had almost said none but an atheist) 
 will presume to say that any sincere and upright wor- 
 shipper of God could, with a safe conscience, obey their 
 several decrees. To conclude, it is the same thing 
 whether a king that prescribes laws to another man's 
 religion, pretend to do it by his own judgment, or by the 
 ecclesiastical authority and advice of others. The 
 decisions of churchmen, whose differences and disputes 
 are sufficiently known, cannot be any sounder or safer 
 than his ; nor can all their suffrages joined together add 
 a new strength to the civil power. Though this also 
 must be taken notice of that princes seldom have regard 
 to the suffrages of ecclesiastics that are not favourers of 
 their own faith and way of worship. 
 
 But, after all. the principal consideration, and which 
 absolutely determines this controversy, is this : Although 
 the magistrate's opinion in religion be sound, and the way 
 that he appoints be truly Evangelical, yet, if I be not 
 thoroughly persuaded thereof in my own mind, there will 
 be no safety for me in following it. No way whatsoever 
 chat I shall walk in against the dictates of my conscience 
 will ever bring me to the mansions of the blessed. I 
 may grow rich by an art that I take not delight in, I 
 may be cured of some diseases by remedies that I have 
 not faith in ; but I cannot be saved by a religion that I 
 distrust, and by a worship that I abhor. It is in vain for 
 an unbeliever to take up the outward show of another 
 man's profession. Faith only, and inward sincerity, are 
 the things that procure acceptance with God. The most 
 likely and most approved remedy can have no effect upon 
 the patient if his stomach reject it as soon as taken ; and 
 you will in vain cram a medicine down a sick man's throat, 
 which his particular constitution will be sure to turn into 
 poison. In a word, whatsoever may be doubtful in 
 religion, yet this at least is certain, that no religion 
 which I believe not to be true can be either true or 
 
A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 165 
 
 profitable unto me. In vain, therefore, do princes com- 
 pel their subjects to come into their Church communion, 
 under pretence of saving- their souls. If they believe, 
 they will come of their own accord ; if they believe not, 
 their coming will nothing avail them. How great soever, 
 in fine, may be the pretence of good-will and charity, and 
 concern for the salvation of men's souls, men cannot be 
 forced to be saved whether they will or no. And there- 
 fore, when all is done, they must be left to their own 
 consciences, 
 
 Having thus at length freed men from all dominion 
 over one another in matters of religion, let us now con- v 
 sider what they have to do. All men know and acknow- 
 ledge that God ought to be publicly worshipped ; why 
 otherwise do they compel one another unto the public 
 assemblies ? Men, therefore, constituted in this liberty are 
 to enter into some religious society, that they meet 
 together, not only for mutual edification, but to own to 
 the world that they worship G-od, and offer unto His 
 Divine Majesty such service as they themselves are not 
 ashamed of, and such as they think not unworthy of Him, 
 nor unacceptable to Him ; and finally, that by the purity 
 of doctrine, holiness of life, and decent form of worship, 
 they may draw others unto the love of the true religion, 
 and perform such other things in religion as cannot be 
 done by each private man apart. 
 
 These religious societies I call Churches ; and these, I 
 say, the magistrate ought to tolerate, for the business of 
 these assemblies of the people is nothing but what is 
 lawful for every man in particular to take care of I 
 mean the salvation of their souls ; nor in this case is there 
 any difference between the National Church and other 
 separated congregations. 
 
 But as in every Church there are two things especially 
 to be considered the outward form and rites of worship, 
 and the doctrines and articles of faith these things 
 must be handled each distinctly, that so the whole matter 
 jof toleration may the more clearly be understood. 
 
 Concerning outward worship, I say, in the first place, 
 that the magistrate has no power to enforce by law, either 
 in his own Church, or much less in another, the use of 
 any rites or ceremonies whatsoever in the worship of God. 
 
166 A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 
 
 And this, not only because these Churches are free 
 societies, but because whatsoever is practised in the wor- 
 ship of God is only so far justifiable as it is believed by 
 those that practise it to be acceptable unto Him. What- 
 soever is not done with that assurance of faith is neither 
 well in itself, nor can it be acceptable to G-od. To impose 
 such things, therefore, upon any people, contrary to their 
 own judgment, is in effect to command them to offend 
 G-od, which, considering 1 that the end of all religion is to 
 please Him, and that liberty is essentially necessary to 
 that end, appears to be absurd beyond expression. 
 
 But perhaps it may be concluded from hence that I 
 deny unto the magistrate all manner of power about in- 
 different things, which, if it be not granted, the whole 
 subject-matter of law-making is taken away. No, I 
 readily grant that indifferent things, and perhaps none 
 but such, are subjected to the legislative power. But it 
 does not therefore follow that the magistrate may ordain 
 whatsoever he pleases concerning anything that is in- 
 different. The public good is the rule and measure of all 
 law-making. If a thing be not useful to the common- 
 wealth, though it be never so indifferent, it may not pre- 
 sently be established by law. 
 
 And farther, things never so indifferent in their own 
 nature, when they are brought into the Church and wor- 
 ship of God, are removed out of the reach of the magis- 
 trate's jurisdiction, because in that use they have no 
 connection at all with civil affairs. The only business of 
 the Church is the salvation of souls, and it no way 
 concerns the commonwealth, or any member of it, that 
 this or the other ceremony be there made use of. Neither 
 the use nor the omission of any ceremonies in those 
 religious assemblies does either advantage or prejudice 
 the life, liberty, or estate of any man. For example, let 
 it be granted that the washing of an infant with 
 water is in itself an indifferent thing, let it be 
 granted also that the magistrate understand such 
 washing to be profitable to the curing or preventing of 
 any disease the children are subject unto, and esteem the" 
 matter weighty enough to be taken care of by a law. In 
 that case he may order it to be done. But will any one 
 therefore say that a magistrate has the same right to 
 
A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 167 
 
 ordain by law that all children shall be baptised by priests 
 in the sacred font in order to the purification of their 
 souls 1 The extreme difference of these two cases is visible 
 to every one at first sight. Or let us apply the last case to 
 the child of a Jew, and the thing- speaks itself. For what 
 hinders but a Christian magistrate may have subjects that 
 are Jews ? Now, if we acknowledge that such an injury 
 may not be done unto a Jew as to compel him, against 
 his own opinion, to practise in his religion a thing that 
 is in its nature indifferent, how can we maintain that 
 anything of this kind may be done to a Christian ? 
 
 Again, things in their own nature indifferent cannot, 
 by any human authority, be made any part of the worship 
 of God for this very reason : because they are indifferent. 
 For, since indifferent things are not capable, by any virtue 
 of their own, to propitiate the Deity, no human power or 
 authority can confer on them so much dignity and excel- 
 lency as to enable them to do it. In the common affairs 
 of life that use of indifferent things which God has not 
 forbidden is free and lawful, and therefore in those things 
 human authority has place. But it is not so in matters 
 of religion. Things indifferent are not otherwise lawful 
 in the worship of G-od than as they are instituted by God 
 Himself, and as He, by some positive command, has ordained 
 them to be made a part of that worship which He will 
 vouchsafe to accept at the hands of poor sinful men. Nor, 
 when an incensed Deity shall ask us, " Who has required 
 these, or such-like things at your hands?" will it be 
 enough to answer Him that the magistrate commanded 
 them. If civil jurisdiction extend thus far, what might 
 not lawfully be introduced into religion ? What hodge- 
 podge of ceremonies, what superstitious inventions, built 
 upon the magistrate's authority, might not (against con- 
 science) be imposed upon the worshippers of God ? For 
 the greatest part of these ceremonies and superstitions 
 consists in the religious use of such things as are in their 
 own nature indifferent ; nor are they sinful upon any 
 other account than because God is not the author of them. 
 The sprinkling of water, and the use of bread and wine, 
 are both in their own nature and in the ordinary occa- 
 sions of life altogether indifferent. Will any man there- 
 fore say that these things could have been introduced 
 
168 A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 
 
 into religion, and made a part of divine worship, if not 
 by divine institution ? If any human authority or civil 
 power could have done this, why might it not also enjoin 
 the eating of fish and drinking of ale in the holy banquet 
 as a part of divine worship ? Why did not the sprinkling of 
 blood of beasts in churches, and expiations by water and fire, 
 and abundance more of this kind '/ But these things, how 
 indifferent soever they be in common uses, when they 
 come to be annexed unto divine worship, without divine 
 authority, they are as abominable to God as the sacrifice 
 of a dog. And why is a dog so abominable ? What dif- 
 ference is there between a dog and a goat, in respect of 
 the divine nature, equally and infinitely distant from all 
 affinity with matter, unless it be that G-od required the 
 use of one in His worship, and not of the other ? We see. 
 therefore, that indifferent things, how much soever they 
 be under the power of the civil magistrate, yet cannot, 
 upon that pretence, be introduced into religion, and im- 
 posed upon religious assemblies, because, in the worship 
 of God, they wholly cease to be indifferent. He that 
 worships God does it with design to please Him and pro- 
 cure His favour. But that cannot be done by him who, 
 upon the command of another, offers unto God that which 
 he knows will be displeasing to Him, because not com- 
 manded by Himself. This is not to please God, or appease 
 his wrath, but willingly and knowingly to provoke Him 
 by a manifest contempt, which is a thing absolutely 
 repugnant to the nature and end of worship. 
 
 But it will be here asked : " If nothing belonging to 
 divine worship be left to human discretion, how is it 
 then that Churches themselves have the power of ordering 
 anything about the time and place of worship, and the 
 like ? To this I answer, that in religious worship we must 
 distinguish between what is part of the worship itself 
 and what is but a circumstance. That is a part of the 
 worship which is believed to be appointed by God, and to 
 be well-pleasing to Him, and therefore that is necessary. 
 Circumstances are such things which, though in general 
 they cannot be separated from worship, yet the particular 
 instances or modifications of them are not determined, 
 and therefore they are indifferent. Of this sort are the 
 time and place of worship, habit and posture of him that 
 
A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 169 
 
 worships. These are circumstances, and perfectly in* 
 different, where God has not given any express command 
 about them. For example : amongst the Jews the time 
 and place of their worship, and the habits of those that 
 officiated in it, were not mere circumstances, but a part 
 of the worship itself, in which if anything- were defec- 
 tive, or different from the institution, they could not hope 
 that it would be accepted by G-od. But these, to Christians 
 under the, liberty of the Gospel, are mere circumstances of 
 worship, which the prudence of every Church may bring 
 into such use as shall be judged most subservient to the 
 end of order, decency, and edification. But, even under 
 the Gospel, those who believe the first or the seventh day 
 to be set apart by God, and consecrated still to His 
 worship, to them that portion of time is not a simple cir- 
 cumstance, but a real part of Divine worship, which can 
 neither be changed nor neglected. 
 
 In the next place : As the magistrate has no power to 
 impose by his laws the use of any rites and ceremonies in 
 any Church, so neither has he any power to forbid the use 
 of such rites and ceremonies as are already received, 
 approved, and practised by any Church ; because, if he 
 did so, he would destroy the Church itself : the end of 
 whose institution is only to worship God with freedom 
 after his own manner. 
 
 You will say, by this rule, if some congregations should 
 have a mind to sacrifice infants, or (as the primitive 
 Christians were falsely accused) lustfully pollute them- 
 selves in promiscuous uncleanness, or practise any other 
 such heinous enormities, is the magistrate obliged to 
 tolerate them, because they are committed in a religious 
 assembly ? I answer, No. These things are not lawful 
 in the ordinary course of life, nor in any private house ; 
 and therefore neither are they so in the worship of God, 
 or in any religious meeting. But, indeed, if any people con- 
 gregated upon account of religion should be desirous to 
 sacrifice a calf, I deny that that ought to be prohibited by 
 a law. Meliboeus, whose calf it is, may lawfully kill his 
 calf at home, and burn any part of it that he thinks fit. 
 For no injury is thereby done to any one, no prejudice to 
 another man's goods. And for the same reason he may 
 kill his calf also in a religious meeting. Whether the 
 
 F* 87 
 
170 A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 
 
 doing so be well-pleasing to G-od or no, it is their part ' to 
 consider that do it. The part of the magistrate is only 
 to take care that the commonwealth receive no prejudice, 
 and that there be no injury done to any man, either in 
 life or estate, and thus what may be spent on a feast may 
 be spent on a sacrifice. But if peradventure such were 
 the state of thing's that the interest of the commonwealth 
 required all slaughter of beasts should be forborne for 
 some while, in order to the increasing of the stock of 
 cattle that had been destroyed by some extraordinary 
 murrain, who sees not that the magistrate, in such a case, 
 may forbid all his subjects to kill any calves for any use 
 whatsoever ? Only it is to be observed that, in this case, 
 the law is not made about a religious, but a political 
 matter ; nor is the sacrifice, but the slaughter of calves, 
 thereby prohibited. 
 
 By this we see what difference there is between the 
 Church and the Commonwealth. Whatsoever is lawful in 
 the Commonwealth cannot be prohibited by the magis- 
 trate in the Church. Whatsoever is permitted unto any 
 of his subjects for their ordinary use, neither can nor 
 ought to be forbidden by him to any sect of people for 
 their religious uses. If any man may lawfully take 
 bread or wine, either sitting or kneeling in his own house, 
 the law ought not to abridge him of the same liberty in 
 his religious worship ; though in the Church the use of 
 bread and wine be very different, and be there applied to 
 the mysteries of faith and rites of Divine worship. But 
 those things that are prejudicial to the commonweal of a 
 people in their ordinary use, and are therefore forbidden 
 by laws, those things ought not to be permitted to 
 Churches in their sacred rites. Only the magistrate ought 
 always to be very careful that he do not misuse his 
 authority to the oppression of any Church, under pretence 
 of public good. 
 
 It may be said, what if a Church be idolatrous, is that 
 also to be tolerated by the magistrate ? I answer, what 
 power can be given to the magistrate for the suppression 
 of an idolatrous Church, which may not in time and 
 place be made use of to the ruin of an orthodox one ? 
 For it must be remembered that the civil power is the 
 same everywhere and the religion of every prince is 
 
A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 171 
 
 orthodox to himself. If, therefore, such a power be 
 granted unto the civil magistrate in spirituals, as that at 
 Geneva, for example, he may extirpate, by violence and 
 blood, the religion which is there reputed idolatrous, by 
 the same rule another magistrate, in some neighbouring 
 country, may oppress the reformed religion, and, in India, 
 the Christian. The civil power can either change every- 
 thing in religion, according to the prince's pleasure, or it 
 can change nothing. If it be once permitted to intro- 
 duce anything into religion, by the means of laws and 
 penalties, there can be no bounds put to it ; but it will 
 in the same manner be lawful to alter everything, accord- 
 ing to that rule of truth which the magistrate has 
 framed unto himself. No man whatsoever ought there- 
 fore to be deprived of his terrestrial enjoyments upon 
 account of his religion. Not even Americans, subjected 
 unto a Christian prince, are to be punished either in body 
 or goods for not embracing our faith and worship. If 
 they are persuaded that they please od in observing the 
 rites of their own country, and that they should obtain 
 happiness by that means, they are to be left unto God and 
 themselves. Let us trace this matter to the bottom. 
 Thus it is : an inconsiderable and weak number of Chris- 
 tians, destitute of everything, arrive in a Pagan country ; 
 these foreigners beseech the inhabitants, by the bowels of 
 humanity, that they would succour them with the neces- 
 saries of life ; those necessaries are given them, habita- 
 tions are granted, and they all join together, and grow up 
 into one body of people. The Christian religion by this 
 means takes root in that country, and spreads itself, but 
 does not suddenly grow the strongest. "While things are 
 in this condition peace, friendship, faith, and equal 
 justice are preserved amongst them. At length the 
 magistrate becomes a Christian, and by that means their 
 party becomes the most powerful. Then immediately all 
 compacts are to be broken, all civil rights to be violated, 
 that idolatry may be extirpated ; and unless these inno- 
 cent Pagans, strict observers of the rules of equity and 
 the law of Nature, and no ways offending against the 
 laws of the society, I say, unless they will forsake their 
 ancient religion, and embrace a new and strange one, 
 they are to be turned out of the lands and possessions of 
 
172 A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 
 
 their forefathers, and perhaps deprived of life itself. 
 Then, at last, it appears what zeal for the Church, joined 
 with the desire of dominion, is capable to produce, and 
 how easily the pretence of religion, and of the care 
 of souls, serves for a cloak to covetousness, rapine, and 
 ambition. 
 
 Now whosoever maintains that idolatry is to be rooted 
 out of any place by laws, punishments, fire, and sword, 
 may apply this story to himself. For the reason of the 
 thing is equal, both in America and Europe. And neither 
 Pagans there, nor any dissenting Christians here, can, 
 with any right, be deprived of their worldly goods by the 
 predominating faction of a court-church ; nor are any 
 civil rights to be either changed or violated upon the 
 account of religion in one place more than another. 
 
 But idolatry, some say, is a sin, and therefore not to be 
 tolerated. If they said it were therefore to be avoided, 
 the inference were good. But it does not follow, that 
 because it is a sin it ought therefore to be punished by 
 the magistrate. For it does not belong unto the magis- 
 trate to make use of his sword in punishing everything, 
 indifferently, that he takes to be a sin against G-od. 
 Covetousness, uncharitableness, idleness, and many other 
 things are sins, by the consent of men, which }^et no man 
 ever said were to be punished by the magistrate. The 
 reason is, because they are not prejudicial to other men's 
 rights, nor do they break the public peace of societies. 
 Nay, even the sins of lying and perjury are nowhere 
 punishable by laws ; unless, in certain cases, in which 
 the real turpitude of the thing and the oft'ence against 
 God are not considered, but only the injury done unto 
 men's neighbours and to the commonwealth. And what 
 if in another country, to a Mahometan or a Pagan prince, 
 the Christian religion seem false and offensive to God ; 
 may not the Christians for the same reason, and af tsr the 
 same manner, be extirpated there ? 
 
 But it may be urged farther, that, by the law of Moses, 
 idolaters were to be rooted out. True, indeed, by the 
 law of Moses ; but that is not obligatory to us Christians. 
 Nobody pretends that everything generally enjoined by 
 the law of Moses ought to be practised by Christians ; 
 but there is nothing more frivolous than that common 
 
A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 173 
 
 distinction of moral, judicial, and ceremonial law. which 
 men ordinarily make use of, For no positive law whatso- 
 ever can oblige any people but those to whom it is given. 
 "Hear, O Israel," sufficiently restrains the obligations of 
 the law of Moses only to that people. And this con- 
 sideration alone is answer enough unto those that urge 
 the authority of the law of Moses for the inflicting of 
 capital punishments upon idolaters. But, however, I 
 will examine this argument a little more particularly. 
 
 The case of idolaters, in respect of the Jewish common- 
 wealth, falls under a double consideration. The first is 
 of those who, being initiated in *the Mosaical rites, and 
 made citizens c that commonwealth, did afterwards 
 apostatise from the worship of the G-od of Israel. These 
 were proceeded against as traitors and rebels, guilty of 
 no less than high treason. For the commonwealth of 
 the Jews, different in that from all others, was an 
 absolute theocracy ; nor was there, or could there be, any 
 difference between that commonwealth and the Church. 
 The laws established there concerning the worship of 
 One Invisible Deity were the civil laws of that people, 
 and a part of their political government, in which God 
 Himself was the legislator. Now, if any one can shew 
 me where there is a commonwealth at this time, con- 
 stituted upon that foundation, I will acknowledge that 
 the ecclesiastical laws do there unavoidably become a 
 part of the civil, and that the subjects of that govern- 
 ment both may, and ought to be kept in strict conformity 
 with that Church by the civil power. But there is abso- 
 lutely no such thing under the Gospel as a Christian 
 commonwealth. There are, indeed, many cities and 
 kingdoms that have embraced the faith of Christ, but 
 they have retained their ancient form of government, 
 with which the law of Christ hath not at all meddled. 
 He, indeed, hath taught men how, by faith and good 
 works, that they may obtain eternal life ; but He insti- 
 tuted no commonwealth. He prescribed unto His 
 followers no new and peculiar form of government, nor 
 put He the sword into any magistrate's hand, with com- 
 mission to make use of it in forcing men to forsake their 
 former religion and receive His. 
 
 Secondly, foreigners, and such as were strangers to the 
 
174 A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 
 
 commonwealth, of Israel, were not compelled by force to 
 observe the rites of the Mosaical law ; but, on the 
 contrary, in the very same place where it is ordered that 
 an Israelite that was an idolater should be put to death, 
 there it is provided that strangers should not be vexed 
 nor oppressed. I confess that the seven nations that 
 possessed the land which was promised to the Israelites 
 were utterly to be cut off ; but this was not singly because 
 they were idolaters. For if that had been the reason, 
 why were the Moabites and other nations to be spared ? 
 No : the reason is this. God being in a peculiar manner 
 the King of the Jews, He could not suffer the adoration 
 of any other deity (which was properly an act of high 
 treason against Himself) in the land of Canaan, which 
 was His kingdom. For such a manifest revolt could no 
 ways consist with His dominion, which was perfectly 
 political in that country. All idolatry was therefore to 
 be rooted out of the bounds of His kingdom, because it 
 was an acknowledgment of another god, that is to say, 
 another king, against the laws of Empire. The inhabit- 
 ants were also to be driven out, that the entire possession 
 of the land might be given to the Israelites. And for 
 the like reason the Emims and the Horims were driven 
 out of their countries by the children of Esau and Lot ; 
 and their lands, upon the same grounds, given by God to 
 the invaders. But, though all idolatry was thus rooted 
 out of the land of Canaan, yet every idolater was not 
 brought to execution. The whole 'family of Rahab, the 
 whole nation of the Gibeonites, articled with Joshua, and 
 were allowed by treaty ; and there were many captives 
 amongst the Jews who were idolaters. David and 
 Solomon subdued many countries without the confines of 
 the Land of Promise, and carried their conquests as far 
 as Euphrates. Amongst so many captives taken of many 
 nations reduced under their obedience, we find not one 
 man forced into the Jewish religion and the worship of 
 the true God, and punished for idolatry, though all of 
 them were certainly guilty of it. If any one indeed, 
 becoming a proselyte, desired to be made a denizen of 
 their commonwealth, he was obliged to submit to their 
 laws ; that is, to embrace their religion. But this he did 
 willingly, on his own accord, not by constraint. He did not 
 
A. LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 175 
 
 unwillingly submit, to show his obedience, but he sought 
 and solicited for it as a privilege. And, as soon as he was 
 admitted, he became subject to the laws of the common- 
 wealth, by which all idolatry was forbidden within the 
 borders of the land of Canaan. But that law (as I have 
 said) did not reach to any of those regions, however 
 subjected to the Jews, that were situated without those 
 bounds. 
 
 Thus far concerning outward worship. Let us now 
 consider articles of faith. 
 
 The articles of religion are some of them practical and 
 some speculative. Now, though both sorts consist in the 
 knowledge of truth, yet these terminate simply in the 
 understanding, those influence the will and manners. 
 Speculative opinions, therefore, and articles of faith (as 
 they are called) which are required only to be believed, 
 cannot be imposed on any Church by the law of the land. 
 For it is absurd that things should be enjoined by laws 
 which are not in men's power to perform. And to believe 
 this or that to be true, does not depend upon our will. 
 But ,of this enough has been said already. But (will 
 some say) let men at least profess that they believe. A 
 sweet religion, indeed, that obliges men to dissemble and 
 tell lies, both to G-od and man, for the salvation of their 
 souls ! If the magistrate thinks to save men thus, he 
 seems to understand little in the way of salvation. And 
 if he does it not in order to save them, why is he so 
 solicitous about the articles of faith as to enact them by 
 a law. 
 
 Farther, the magistrate ought not to forbid the 
 preaching or professing of any speculative opinions of 
 any Church, because they have no manner of relation to 
 the civil rights of the subjects. If a Roman Catholic 
 believe that to be really the body of Christ which 
 another man calls bread, he does no injury thereby to 
 his neighbour. If a Jew do not believe the New Testa- 
 ment to be the Word of Grod. he does not thereby alter 
 anything in men's civil rights. If a heathen doubt of 
 both Testaments, he is not therefore to be punished as a 
 pernicious citizen. The power of the magistrate and the 
 estates of the people may be equally secure whether any 
 man believe these things or no. I readily grant that 
 
176 A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 
 
 these opinions are false and absurd. But the business of 
 laws is not to provide for the truth of opinions, but for 
 the safety and security of the commonwealth, and of 
 every particular man's goods and person. And so it 
 ought to be. For the truth certainly would do well 
 enough if she were once left to shift for herself. She 
 seldom has received, and I fear never will receive, much 
 assistance from the power of great men, to whom she is 
 but rarely known, and more rarely welcome. She is not 
 taught by laws, nor has she any need of force to procure 
 her entrance into the minds of men. Errors indeed pre- 
 vail by the assistance of foreign and borrowed succours. 
 But if Truth makes not her way into the understanding 
 by her own light, she will be but the weaker for any 
 borrowed force violence can add to her. Thus much for 
 speculative opinions. Let us now proceed to practical ones. 
 
 A good life, in which consists not the least part of 
 religion and true piety, concerns also the civil govern- 
 ment ; and in it lies the safety both of men's souls and 
 of the commonwealth. Moral actions belong therefore 
 to the jurisdiction both of the outward and inward 
 court ; both of the civil and domestic governor ; I mean 
 both of the magistrate and conscience. Here, therefore, 
 is great danger, lest one of these jurisdictions intrench 
 upon the other, and discord arise between the keeper of 
 the public peace and the overseers of souls. But if what 
 has been already said concerning the limits of both these 
 governments be rightly considered, it will easily remove 
 all difficulty in this matter. 
 
 Every man has an immortal soul, capable of eternal hap- 
 piness or misery ; whose happiness depending upon his 
 believing and doing those things in this lite which are 
 necessary to the obtaining of God's favour, and are pre- 
 scribed by God to that end. It follows from thence, first, 
 that the observance of these things is the highest 
 obligation that lies upon mankind, and that our utmost 
 care, application, and diligence ought to be exercised in 
 the search and performance of them ; because there is 
 nothing in this world that is of any consideration in 
 comparison with eternity. Secondly, that seeing one man 
 does not violate the ri^htof another by his erroneous opin- 
 ions and undue manner of worship, nor is his perdition 
 
A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 177 
 
 any prejudice to another man's affairs, therefore the care 
 of each man's salvation belongs only to himself. But I 
 would not have this understood as if I meant hereby to 
 condemn all charitable admonitions, and affectionate 
 endeavours to reduce men from errors, which are indeed 
 the greatest duties of a Christian. Any one may employ 
 as many exhortations and arguments as he pleases, to- 
 wards the promoting of another man's salvation. But 
 all force and compulsion are to be forborne. Nothing is to 
 be done imperiously. Nobody is obliged in that matter 
 to yield obedience unto the admonitions or injunctions 
 of another, farther than he himself is persuaded. Every 
 man in that has the supreme and absolute authority of 
 judging for himself. And the reason is because nobody 
 else is concerned in it, nor can receive any prejudice from 
 his conduct therein. 
 
 But besides their souls, which are immortal, men have 
 also their temporal lives here upon earth ; the state 
 whereof being frail and fleeting, and the duration uncer- 
 tain, they have need of several outward conveniences to 
 the support thereof , which are to be procured or preserved 
 by pains and industry. For those things that are necessary 
 to the comfortable support of our lives are not the 
 spontaneous products of nature, nor do offer themselves 
 fit and prepared for our use. This part therefore draws 
 on another care, and necessarily gives another employ- 
 ment. But the pravity of mankind being such that they 
 had rather injuriously prey upon the fruits of other men's 
 labours than take pains to provide for themselves, the 
 necessity of preserving men in the possession of what 
 honest industry has already acquired, and also of pre- 
 serving their liberty and strength, whereby they may 
 acquire what they farther want, obliges men to enter 
 into society with one another, that by mutual assistance 
 and joint force they may secure unto each other 
 their properties, in the things that contribute to the 
 comfort and happiness of this life, leaving in the mean- 
 while to every man the care of his own eternal happiness, 
 the attainment whereof can neither be facilitated by 
 another man's industry, nor can the loss of it turn to 
 another man's prejudice, nor the hope of it be forced 
 from him by any external violence. But, forasmuch as men 
 
178 A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 
 
 thus entering 1 into societies, grounded upon their mutual 
 compacts of assistance for the defence of their temporal 
 goods, may, nevertheless, be deprived of them, either by 
 the rapine and fraud of their fellow citizens, or by the 
 hostile violence of foreigners, the remedy of this evil 
 consists in arms, riches, and multitude of citizens ; the 
 remedy of the other in laws ; and the care of all thing's 
 relating- both to one and the other is committed by the 
 society to the civil magistrate. This is the original, this 
 is the use, and these are the bounds of the legislative 
 (which is the supreme) power in every commonwealth. 
 I mean, that provision may be made for the security of 
 each man's private possessions ; for the peace, riches, and 
 public commodities of the whole people ; and, as much 
 as possible, for the increase of their inward strength 
 against foreign invasions. 
 
 These things being thus explained, it is easy to under- 
 stand to what end the legislative power ought to be 
 directed, and by what measures regulated ; and that is 
 the temporal good and outward prosperity of the society ; 
 which is the sole reason of men entering into society, and 
 the only thing they seek and aim at in it. And it is also 
 evident what liberty remains to men in reference to their 
 eternal salvation, and that is, that every one should do 
 what he in his conscience is persuaded to be acceptable 
 to the Almighty, on whose good pleasure and acceptance 
 depends their eternal happiness. For obedience is due, 
 in the first place, to Grod, and afterwards to the laws. 
 
 But some may ask, What if the magistrate should 
 enjoin anything by his authority that appears unlawful 
 to the conscience of a private person ? I answer, that if 
 government be faithfully administered, and the counsels 
 of the magistrates be indeed directed to the public good, 
 this will seldom happen. But if, perhaps, it do so fall 
 out, I say, that such a private person is to abstain from 
 the action that he judges unlawful, and he is to undergo 
 the punishment which it is not unlawful for him to 
 bear. For the private judgment of any person concerning 
 a law enacted in political matters, for the public good, 
 does not take away the obligation of that law, nor deserve 
 a dispensation. But if the law indeed be concerning 
 things that lie not within the verge of the magistrate's 
 
A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 179 
 
 authority (as for example, that the people, or any party 
 amongst them, should be compelled to embrace a strange 
 religion, and join in the worship and ceremonies of another 
 Church), men are not in these cases obliged by that law, 
 against their consciences. For the political society is 
 instituted for no other end, but only to secure every man's 
 possession of the things of this life. The care of each 
 man's soul, and of the things of heaven, which neither 
 does belong to the commonwealth nor can be subjected 
 to it, is left entirely to every man's self. Thus the safe- 
 guard of men's lives, and of the things that belong unto 
 this life, is the business of the commonwealth ; and the 
 preserving of those things unto their owners is the duty 
 of the magistrate. And therefore the magistrate cannot 
 take away these worldly things from this man or party, 
 and give them to that ; nor change propriety amongst 
 fellow subjects (no not even by a law), for a cause that 
 has no relation to the end of civil government, I mean 
 for their religion, which whether it be true or false does 
 no prejudice to the worldly concerns of their fellow 
 subjects, which are the things that only belong unto the 
 care of the commonwealth. 
 
 But what if the magistrate believe such a law as this 
 to be for the public good ? I answer : as the private 
 judgment of any particular person, if erroneous, does not 
 exempt him from the obligation of law, so the private 
 judgment (as I may call it) of the magistrate does not 
 give him any new right of imposing laws upon his 
 subjects, which neither was in the constitution of the 
 government granted him, nor ever was in the power of 
 the people to grant, much less if he make it his 
 business to enrich and advance his followers and fellow- 
 sectaries with the spoils of others. But what if the 
 magistrate believe that he has a right to make such laws, 
 and that they are for the public good? and his subjects, 
 believe the contrary ? Who shall be judge between them ? \ 
 I answer, G-od alone. For there is no judge upon earth \ 
 between the supreme magistrate and the people. God, / 
 I say, is the only Judge in this case, who will retribute / 
 unto every one at the last day according to his deserts ; 
 that is, according to his sincerity and uprightness in 
 endeavouring to promote piety, and the public weal and 
 
180 A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 
 
 peace of mankind. But what shall be done in the mean- 
 while ? I answer : The principal and chief care of 
 every one ought to be of his own soul first, and, in the 
 next place, of the public peace ; though yet there are 
 very few will think it is peace there, where they see all 
 laid waste. There are two sorts of contests amongst men, 
 the one managed by law, the other by force ; and these 
 are of that nature that where the one ends, the other 
 always begins. But it is not my business to inquire into 
 the power of the magistrate in the different constitutions 
 of nations. I only know what usually happens where 
 controversies arise without a judge to determine them. 
 You will say, then, the magistrate being the stronger 
 will have his will, and carry his point. Without doubt ; 
 but the question is not here concerning the doubtfulness 
 of the event, but the rule of right. 
 
 But to come to particulars. I say,- first, no opinions 
 contrary to human society, or to those moral rules which 
 are necessary to the preservation of civil society, are to 
 be tolerated by the magistrate. But of these, indeed, 
 examples in any Church are rare. For no sect can easily 
 arrive to such a degree of madness as that it should 
 think fit to teach, for doctrines of religion, such things 
 as manifestly undermine the foundations of society, and 
 are, therefore, condemned by the judgment of all man- 
 kind ; because their own interest, peace, reputation, 
 everything would be thereby endangered. 
 
 Another more secret evil, but more dangerous to the 
 commonwealth, is when men arrogate to themselves, and 
 to those of their own sect, some peculiar prerogative 
 covered over with a specious show of deceitful words, 
 but in effect opposite to the civil right of the community. 
 For example : we cannot find any sect that teaches, 
 expressly and openly, that men are not obliged to keep 
 their promise ; that princes may be dethroned by those 
 that differ from them in religion ; or that the dominion 
 of all things belongs only to themselves. For these 
 things, proposed thus nakedly and plainly, would soon 
 draw on them the eye and hand of the magistrate, and 
 awaken all the care of the commonwealth to a watchful- 
 ness against the spreading of so dangerous an evil. But, 
 nevertheless, we find thoso that say the same things 
 
A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 181 
 
 in other words. What else do they mean, who teach that 
 faith is not to be kept with heretics? Their meaning, 
 forsooth, is that the privilege of breaking faith belongs 
 unto themselves ; for they declare all that are not of their 
 communion to be heretics, or at least may declare them 
 so whensoever they think fit. What can be the meaning 
 of their asserting that kings excommunicated forfeit their 
 crowns and kingdoms ? It is evident that they thereby 
 arrogate unto themselves the power of deposing kings, 
 because they challenge the power of excommunication, as 
 the peculiar right of their hierarchy. That dominion is 
 founded in grace is also an assertion by which those that 
 maintain it do plainly lay claim to the possession of all 
 things. For they are not so wanting to themselves as 
 not to believe, or at least as not to profess themselves to be 
 the truly pious and faithful. These therefore, and the like, 
 who attribute unto the faithful, religious, and orthodox, 
 that is, in plain terms, unto themselves, any peculiar 
 privilege or power above other mortals, in civil concern- 
 ments ; or who upon pretence of religion do challenge any 
 manner of authority over such as are not associated with 
 them in their ecclesiastical communion, I say these have 
 no right to be tolerated by the magistrate ; as neither 
 those that will not own and teach the duty of tolerating all 
 men in matters of mere religion. For what do all these 
 and the like doctrines signify, but that they may, and are 
 ready upon any occasion to seize the Government, and 
 possess themselves of . the estates and fortunes of their 
 fellow subjects ; and that they only ask leave to be 
 tolerated by the magistrate so long until they find them- 
 selves strong enough to effect it. 
 
 Again : That Church can have no right to be tolerated 
 by the magistrate which is constituted upon such a bottom 
 that all those who enter into it do thereby ipso facto 
 deliver themselves Up to the protection and service of 
 another prince. For by this means the magistrate would 
 give way to the settling of a foreign jurisdiction in his 
 own country, and suffer his own people to be listed, as it 
 were, for soldiers against his own Government. Nor 
 does the frivolous and fallacious distinction between the 
 Court and the Church afford any remedy to this incon- 
 venience ; especially when both the one and the other are 
 
182 A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 
 
 equally subject to the absolute authority of the same 
 person, who has not only power to persuade the members 
 of his Church to whatsoever he lists, either as purely 
 religious, or in order thereunto, but can also enjoin it 
 them on pain of eternal fire. It is ridiculous for any one 
 to profess himself to be a Mahometan only in his 
 religion, but in everything- else a faithful subject to a 
 Christian magistrate, whilst at the same time he acknow- 
 ledges himself bound to yield blind obedience to the 
 Mufti of Constantinople, who himself is entirely obedient 
 to the Ottoman Emperor, and frames the feigned oracles of 
 that religion according- to his pleasure. But this 
 Mahometan living amongst Christians would yet more 
 apparently renounce their government if he acknow- 
 ledged the same person to be head of his Church who is 
 the supreme magistrate in the state. 
 
 Lastly, those are not at all to be tolerated who deny 
 the being of a God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, 
 which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold 
 upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but 
 even in thought, dissolves all ; besides also, those that by 
 their atheism undermine and destroy all religion, can 
 have no pretence of religion whereupon to challenge the 
 privilege of a toleration. As for other practical opinions, 
 though not absolutely free from all error, if they do not 
 tend to establish domination over others, or civil im- 
 punity to the Church in which they are taught, there can 
 be no reason why they should not be tolerated. 
 
 It remains that I say something concerning those 
 assemblies which being vulgarly called, and perhaps 
 having sometimes been conventicles and nurseries of 
 factions and seditions, are thought to afford the strongest 
 matter of objection against this doctrine of toleration. 
 But this has not happened by anything peculiar unto the 
 genius of such assemblies, but by the unhappy circum- 
 stances of an oppressed or ill-settled liberty. These 
 accusations would soon cease if the law of toleration were 
 once so settled that all Churches were obliged to lay down 
 toleration as the foundation of their own liberty, and 
 teach that liberty of conscience is every man's natural 
 right, equally belonging to dissenters as to themselves ; 
 and that nobody ought to be compelled in matters of 
 
A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 183 
 
 religion either by law or force. The establishment of this 
 one thing would take away all ground of complaints and 
 tumults upon account of conscience ; and these causes of 
 discontents and animosities being once removed, there 
 would remain nothing in these assemblies that were not 
 more peaceable and less apt to produce disturbance of 
 state than in any other meetings whatsoever. But let us 
 examine particularly the heads of these accusations. 
 
 You will say that assemblies and meetings endanger 
 the public peace, and threaten the commonwealth. I 
 answer, if this be so, why are there daily such numerous 
 meetings in markets and Courts of Judicature? Why 
 are crowds upon the Exchange, and a concourse of people 
 in cities suffered? You will reply, those are civil 
 assemblies, but these we object against are ecclesiastical. 
 I answer, it is a likely thing indeed, that such assemblies 
 as are altogether remote from civil affairs should be most 
 apt to embroil them. Oh, but civil assemblies are com- 
 posed of men that differ from one another in matters of 
 religion, but these ecclesiastical meetings are of persons 
 that are all of one opinion. As if an agreement in matters 
 of religion were in effect a conspiracy, against the common- 
 wealth; or as if men would not be so much the more 
 warmly unanimous in religion the less liberty they had of 
 assembling. But ^it will be urged still, that civil assem- 
 blies are open and free for any one to enter into, where- 
 as religious conventicles are more private, and thereby 
 give opportunity to clandestine machinations. I answer, 
 that this is not strictly true, for many civil assemblies are 
 not open to everyone. And if some religious meetings be 
 private, who are they (I beseech you) that are to be blamed 
 for it, those that desire, or those that forbid their being 
 public ? Again, you will say that religious communion 
 does exceedingly unite men's minds and affections to 
 one another, and is therefore the more dangerous. But 
 if this be so, why is not the magistrate afraid of his own 
 Church ; and why does he not forbid their assemblies as 
 things dangerous to his Government? You will say 
 because he himself is a part, and even the head of them. 
 As if he were not also a part of the commonwealth, and 
 the head of the whole people, 
 
 Let us therefore deal plainly. The magistrate is afraid 
 
184 A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 
 
 of other Churches, but not of his own ; because he is kind 
 and favourable to the one, but severe and cruel to the 
 other. These he treats like children, and indulges them 
 even to wantonness. Those he uses as slaves, and how 
 blamelessly soever they demean themselves, recompenses 
 them no otherwise than by galleys, prisons, confiscations, 
 and death. These he cherishes and defends ; those he con- 
 tinually scourges and oppresses. Let him turn the tables. 
 Or let those dissenters enjoy but the same privileges in 
 civils as his other subjects, and he will quickly find that 
 these religious meetings will be no longer dangerous. 
 For if men enter into seditious conspiracies, it is not 
 religion inspires them to it in their meetings, but their 
 sufferings and oppressions that make them willing to ease 
 themselves. Just and moderate governments are every- 
 where quiet, everywhere safe ; but oppression raises fer- 
 ments and makes men struggle to cast off an uneasy and 
 tyrannical yoke. I know that seditions are very frequently 
 raised upon pretence of religion, but it is as true that for 
 religion subjects are frequently ill treated, and live miser- 
 ably. Believe me, the stirs that are made proceed not 
 from any peculiar temper of this or that Church or 
 religious society, but from the common disposition of all 
 mankind, who when they groan under any heavy burthen 
 endeavour naturally to shake off the yoke that galls their 
 necks. Suppose this business of religion were let alone, 
 and that there were some other distinction made between 
 men and men upon account of their different com- 
 plexions, shapes, and features, so that those who have 
 black hair (for example) or grey eyes should not enjoy 
 the same privileges as other citizens ; that they should 
 not be permitted either to buy or sell, or live by their 
 callings ; that parents should not have the government 
 and education of their own children ; that all should either 
 be excluded from the benefit of the laws, or meet with 
 partial judges ; can it be doubted but these persons, thus 
 distinguished from others by the colour of their hair and 
 eyes, and united together by one common persecution, 
 v/ould be as dangerous to the magistrate as any others 
 that had associated themselves merely upon the account 
 of religion ? Some enter into company for trade and 
 profit, others for want of business have their clubs for 
 
A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 185 
 
 claret. Neighbourhood joins some, and religion others. 
 But there is one only thing which gathers people into 
 seditious commotions, and that is oppression. 
 
 You will say, What, will you have people 'to meet at 
 divine service against the magistrate's will,? I answer, 
 Why, I pray, against his will ? Is it not both lawful and 
 necessary that they should meet ? Against his will, do you 
 say ? That is what I complain of : that is the very root 
 of all the mischief. Why are assemblies less suff erable in 
 a church than in a theatre or market ? Those that meet 
 there are not either more vicious or more turbulent 
 than those that meet elsewhere. The business in that is 
 that they are ill used, and therefore they are not to 
 be suffered. Take away the partiality that is used to- 
 wards them in matters of common right ; change the 
 laws, take away the penalties unto which they are 
 subjected, and all things will immediately become safe 
 and peaceable ; nay, those that are averse to the religion 
 of the magistrate will think themselves so much the 
 more bound to maintain the peace of the commonwealth 
 as their condition is better in that place than elsewhere ; 
 and all the several separate congregations, like so many 
 guardians of the public peace, will watch one another, 
 that nothing may be innovated or changed in the form of 
 the government, because they can hope for nothing 
 better than what they already enjoy that is, an equal 
 condition with their fellow-subjects under a just and 
 moderate government. Now if that Church which agrees 
 in religion with the prince be esteemed the chief support 
 of any civil government, and that for no other reason (as 
 has already been shown) than because the prince is kind 
 and the laws are favourable to it, how much greater will 
 be the security of government where all good subjects, of 
 whatsoever Church they be, without any distinction upon 
 account of religion, enjoying the same favour of the 
 prince and the same benefit of the laws, shall become 
 the common support and guard of it, and where none 
 will have any occasion to fear the severity of the laws but 
 those that do injuries to their neighbours and offend 
 against the civil peace ? 
 
 That we may draw towards a conclusion. The sum of 
 all we drive at is that every man may enjoy the same 
 
186 A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 
 
 rights that are granted to others. Is it permitted to 
 worship God in the Roman manner ? Let it be permitted 
 to do it in the Geneva form also. Is it permitted to 
 speak Latin in the market-place ? Let those that have a 
 mind to it be permitted to do it also in the Church. Is it 
 lawful for any man in his own house to kneel, stand, sit. 
 or use any other posture ; and to clothe himself in white 
 or black, in short or in long garments ? Let it not be 
 made unlawful to eat bread, drink wine, or wash with 
 water in the church. In a word, whatsoever things are 
 left free by law in the common occasions of life, let them 
 remain free unto every Church in divine worship. Let no 
 man's life, or body, or house, or estate, suffer any manner 
 of prejudice upon these accounts. Can you allow of the 
 Presbyterian discipline ? Why should not the Episcopal 
 also have what they like? Ecclesiastical authority, 
 whether ifc be administered by the hands of a single person 
 or many, is everywhere the same ; and neither has any 
 jurisdiction in things civil, nor any manner of power of 
 compulsion, nor anything at all to do with riches and 
 revenues. 
 
 Ecclesiastical assemblies and sermons are justified by 
 daily experience and public allowance. These are allowed 
 to people of some one persuasion, why not to all ? If 
 anything pass in a religious meeting seditiously and 
 contrary to the pnblic peace, it is to be punished in the 
 same manner, and no otherwise than as if it had happened 
 in a fair or market. These meetings ought not to be 
 sanctuaries for factious and flagitious fellows. Nor ought 
 it to be less lawful for men to meet in churches than in 
 halls ; nor are one part of the subjects to be esteemed 
 more blamable for their meeting together than others. 
 Every one is to be accountable for his own actions, and no 
 man is to be laid under a suspicion or odium for the fault 
 of another. Those that are seditious, murderers, thieves, 
 robbers, adulterers, slanderers, &c., of whatsoever Church, 
 whether national or not, ought to be punished and 
 suppressed. But those whose doctrine is peaceable, and 
 whose manners are pure and blameless, ought to be upon 
 equal terms with their fellow-subjects. Thus if solemn 
 assemblies, observations of festivals, public worship be 
 permitted to any one sort of professors, all these things 
 
A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 187 
 
 ought to be permitted to the Presbyterians, Independents, 
 Anabaptists, Armenians, Quakers, and others, with the 
 same liberty. Nay, if we may openly speak the truth, 
 and as becomes one man to another, neither Pagan nor 
 Mahometan, nor Jew, ought to be excluded from the civil 
 rights of the commonwealth because of his religion. The 
 Gospel commands no such thing. The Church which 
 " judgeth not those that are without" (1 Cor. v. 12, 13) 
 wants it not. And the commonwealth, which embraces 
 indifferently all men that are honest, peaceable, and 
 industrious, requires it not. Shall we suffer a Pagan to 
 deal and trade with us, and shall we not suffer him to 
 pray unto and worship God ? If we allow the Jews to 
 have private houses and dwellings amongst us, why should 
 we not allow them to have synagogues? Is their 
 doctrine more false, their worship more abominable, or is 
 the civil peace more endangered by their meeting in 
 public than in their private houses ? But if these things 
 may be granted to Jews and Pagans, surely the condition 
 of any Christians ought not to be worse than theirs in a 
 Christian commonwealth. 
 
 You will say, perhaps, Yes, it ought to be ; because they 
 are more inclinable to factions, tumults, and civil wars. 
 I answer, Is this the fault of the Christian religion ? If 
 it be so, truly the Christian religion is the worst of all 
 religions, and ought neither to be embraced by any 
 particular person, nor tolerated by any commonwealth. 
 For if this be the genius, this the nature of the Christian 
 religion, to be turbulent, and destructive to the civil peace, 
 that Church itself which the magistrate indulges will not 
 always be innocent. But far be it from us to say any such 
 thing of that religion which carries the greatest opposi- 
 tion to covetousness, ambition, discord, contention, and all 
 manner of inordinate desires ; and is the most modest and 
 peaceable religion that ever was. We must therefore seek 
 another cause of those evils that are charged upon religion. 
 And if we consider right, we shall find it to consist wholly 
 in the subject that I am treating of. It is not the diversity 
 of opinions (which cannot be avoided), but the refusal of 
 toleration to those that are of different opinions (which 
 might have been granted), that has produced all the bustles 
 and wars that have been in the Christian world upon 
 
188 A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 
 
 account of religion. The heads and leaders of the Church, 
 moved by avarice and insatiable desire of dominion, 
 making- use of the immoderate ambition of magistrates 
 and the credulous superstition of the giddy multitude, 
 have incensed and animated them against those that dissent 
 from themselves, by preaching- unto them, contrary to 
 the laws of the G-ospel and to the precepts of charity, 
 that schismatics and heretics are to be outed of their 
 possessions and destroyed. And thus have they mixed 
 together and confounded two things that are in them- 
 selves most different, the Church and the commonwealth. 
 Now as it is very difficult for men patiently to suffer 
 themselves to be stripped of the goods which they have got 
 by their honest industry, and, contrary to all the laws of 
 equity, both human and divine, to be delivered up for 
 a prey to other men's violence and rapine ; especially 
 when they are otherwise altogether blameless ; and that 
 the occasion for which they are thus treated does not at 
 all belong to the jurisdiction of the magistrate, but 
 entirely to the conscience of every particular man, for 
 the conduct of which he is accountable to God only ; 
 what else can be expected but that these men, growing 
 weary of the evils under which they labour, should in 
 the end think it lawful for them to resist force with 
 force, and to defend their natural rights (which are not 
 forfeitable upon account of religion) with arms as well 
 as they can ? That this has been hitherto the ordinary 
 course of things is abundantly evident in history, and 
 that it will continue to be so hereafter is but too apparent 
 in reason. It cannot, indeed, be otherwise so long as the 
 principle of persecution for religion shall prevail, as it 
 has done hitherto, with magistrate and people, and so 
 long as those that ought to be the preachers of peace and 
 concord shall continue with all their art and strength 
 to excite men to arms and sound the trumpet of war. 
 But that magistrates should thus suffer these incendiaries 
 and disturbers of the public peace might justly be won- 
 dered at if it did not appear that they have been invited 
 by them unto a participation of the spoil, and have 
 therefore thought fit to make use of their covetousness 
 and pride as means whereby to increase their own power. 
 For who does not see that these good men are indeed 
 
A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 189 
 
 more ministers of the government than ministers of the 
 Gospel, and that by flattering the ambition and favouring 
 the dominion of princes and men in authority, they 
 endeavour with all their might to promote that tyranny 
 in the commonwealth which otherwise they should not 
 be able to establish in the Church ? This is the unhappy 
 agreement that we see between the Church and State. 
 Whereas if each of them would contain itself within its 
 own bounds the one attending to the worldly welfare of 
 the commonwealth, the other to the salvation of souls it 
 is impossible that any discord should ever have happened 
 between them. Sed pudet licec opprobria, $c. God 
 Almighty grant, I beseech Him, that the gospel of peace 
 may at length be preached, and* that civil magistrates, 
 growing more careful to conform their own consciences 
 to the law of God and less solicitous about the binding 
 of other men's consciences by human laws, may, like 
 fathers of their country, direct all their counsels and 
 endeavours to promote universally the civil welfare of 
 all their children, except only of such as are arrogant, 
 ungovernable, and injurious to their brethren ; and that 
 all ecclesiastical men, who boast themselves to be the 
 successors of the Apostles, walking peaceably and 
 modestly in the Apostles' steps, without intermeddling 
 with State affairs, may apply themselves wholly to pro- 
 mote the salvation of souls. FAEEWELL. 
 
 PERHAPS it may not be amiss to add a few things con- 
 cerning heresy and schism. - A Turk is not, nor can be, 
 either heretic or schismatic to a Christian ; and if any 
 man fall off from the Christian faith to Mahometism, he 
 does not thereby become a heretic or schismatic, but an 
 apostate and an infidel. This nobody doubts of; and 
 by this it appears that men of different religions cannot 
 be heretics or schismatics to one another. 
 
 We are to inquire therefore what men are of the same 
 religion. Concerning which it is manifest that those 
 who have one and the same rule of faith and worship 
 are of the same religion ; and those who have not the 
 same rule of faith and worship are of different religions. 
 For since all things that belong unto that religion are 
 
190 A LETTER .CONCERNING TOLERATION. 
 
 contained in that rule, it follows necessarily that those 
 who agree in one rule are of one and the same religion, 
 and vice versa. Thus Turks and Christians are of dif- 
 ferent religions, because these take the Holy Scriptures 
 to be the rule of their religion, and those the Alcoran. 
 And for the same reason there may be different religions 
 also even amongst Christians. The Papists and Lutherans, 
 though both of them profess faith in Christ, and are 
 therefore called Christians, yet are not both of the same 
 religion, because these acknowledge nothing but the 
 Holy Scriptures to be the rule and foundation of their 
 religion, those take in also traditions and the decrees of 
 Popes, and of these together make the rule of their 
 religion ; and thus the Christians of St. John (as they 
 are called) and the Christians of Geneva are of different 
 religions, because these also take only the Scriptures, 
 and those I know not what traditions, for the rule of 
 their religion. 
 
 This being settled, it follows, first, that heresy is a 
 separation made in ecclesiastical communion between men 
 of the same religion for some opinions no way contained 
 in the rule itself ; and, secondly, that amongst those who 
 acknowledge nothing but the Holy Scriptures to be their 
 rule of faith, heresy is a separation made in their Christian 
 communion for opinions not contained in the express 
 words of Scripture. Now this separation may be made in 
 a twofold manner : 
 
 1. When the greater part, or by the magistrate's 
 patronage the stronger part, of the Church separates 
 itself from others by excluding them out of her com- 
 munion because they will not profess their belief of 
 certain opinions which are not the express words of the 
 Scripture. For it is not the paucity of those that are 
 separated, nor the authority of the magistrate, that can 
 make any man guilty of heresy, but he only is a heretic 
 who divides the Church into parts, introduces names and 
 marks of distinction, and voluntarily makes a separation 
 because of such opinions. 
 
 2. When any one separates himself from the communion 
 of a Church because that Church does not publicly pro- 
 fess some certain opinions which the Holy Scriptures do 
 not expressly teach. 
 
 
A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 191 
 
 Both these are heretics because they err in funda- 
 mentals, and they err obstinately against knowledge ;, 
 for when they have determined the Holy Scriptures to 
 be the only foundation of faith, they nevertheless lay 
 down certain propositions as fundamental which are not 
 in the Scripture, and because others will not acknowledge 
 these additional opinions of theirs, nor build upon them 
 as if they were necessary and fundamental, they there- 
 fore make a separation in the Church, either by with- 
 drawing themselves from others, or expelling the others 
 from them. Nor does it signify anything for them 
 to say that their confessions and symbols are agreeable 
 to Scripture and to the analogy of faith ; for if they be 
 conceived in the express words of Scripture, there can 
 be no question about them, because those things are 
 acknowledged by all Christians to be of divine inspira- 
 tion, and therefore fundamental. But if they say that 
 the articles which they required to be professed are con- 
 sequences deduced from the Scripture, it is undoubtedly 
 well done of them who believe and profess such things 
 as seem unto them so agreeable to the rule of faith. But 
 it would be very ill done to obtrude those things uponX 
 others unto whom they do not seem to be the indubitable 
 doctrines of the Scripture ; and to make a separation for 
 such things as these, which neither are nor can be 
 fundamental, is to become heretics ; for I do not think 
 there is any man arrived to that degree of madness as 
 that he dare give out his consequences and interpretations 
 of Scripture as divine inspirations, and compare the 
 articles of faith that he has framed according to his own 
 fancy with the authority of Scripture. I know there are 
 some propositions so evidently agreeable to Scripture 
 that nobody can deny them to be drawn from thence, but 
 about those, therefore, there can be no difference. This 
 only I say that however clearly we may think this or 
 the other doctrine to be deduced from Scripture, we 
 ought not therefore to impose it upon others as a 
 necessary article of faith because we believe it to be 
 agreeable to the rule of faith, unless we would be con- 
 tent also that other doctrines should be imposed upon us 
 in the same manner, and that we should be compelled to 
 receive and profess all the different and contradictory 
 
192 
 
 A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION. 
 
 opinions of Lutherans, Calvinists, Remonstrants, Ana- 
 baptists, and other sects, which the contrivers of symbols, 
 systems, and confessions are accustomed to deliver to 
 their followers as genuine and necessary deductions from 
 the Holy Scripture. I cannot but wonder at the ex- 
 travagant arrogance of those men who think that they 
 themselves can explain things necessary to salvation 
 more clearly than the Holy Ghost, the eternal and 
 infinite wisdom of God. 
 
 Thus much concerning heresy, which word in common 
 use is applied only to the doctrinal part of religion. 
 Let us now consider schism, which is a crime near akin 
 to it ; for both these words seem unto me to signify an 
 ill - grounded separation in ecclesiastical communion 
 made about things not necessary. But since use, which is 
 the supreme law in matter of language, has determined 
 that heresy relates to errors in faith, and schism to those 
 in worship or discipline, we must consider them under 
 that distinction. 
 
 Schism, then, for the same reasons that have already 
 been alleged, is nothing else but a separation made in the 
 communion of the Church upon account of something 
 in divine worship or ecclesiastical discipline that is not 
 any necessary part of it. Now, nothing in worship or 
 discipline can be necessary to Christian communion but 
 what Christ our legislator, or the Apostles by inspiration 
 of the Holy Spirit, have commanded in express words. 
 
 In a word, he that denies not anything that the Holy 
 Scriptures teach in express words, nor makes a separation 
 upon occasion of anything that is not manifestly con- 
 tained in the sacred text however he may be nicknamed 
 by any sect of Christians, and declared by some or all of 
 them to be utterly void of true Christianity yet in 
 deed and in truth this man cannot be either a heretic or 
 schismatic. 
 
 These things might have been explained more largely 
 and more advantageously, but it is enough to have hinted 
 at them thus briefly to a person of your parts. 
 
 Printed by Cassell & Comiuny, Limited, La Belle Sauvage, London, B.C. 
 
575854 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 

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