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therefore in fuch controverfies, where the question is put, who shall be judge? It cannot be meant, who fhall decide the controverfy; every one knows what Jephtha here tells us, that the Lord the Judge fhall judge. Where there is no judge on earth, the appeal lies to God in heaven. That 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 confcience, as I will anfwer it, at the great day, to the fupreme judge of all men.

CHA P. IV.

Of SLAVERY.

§. 22. T be free from any fuperior power HE natural liberty of man is to

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 fociety, is to be under no other legislative power, but that established, by confent, in the common-wealth; nor under the dominion of any will, or restraint of any law, but what that legislative shall enact, according to the truft put in it. Freedom, then is not what Sir Robert Filmer tells us, Obfervations, A. 55. a liberty for every one

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to do what he lifts, to live as he pleafes, 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 fociety, and made by the legislative power erected in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, where the rule prefcribes not; and not to be fubject to the inconftant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man as freedom of nature is, to be under no other reftraint but the law of nature.

§. 23. This freedom from abfolute, arbitrary power, is fo neceffary to, and closely joined with a man's prefervation, 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 confent, enflave himSelf to any one, nor put himself under the abfolute, arbitrary power of another, to take away his life, when he pleafes. No body can give more power than he has himself; and he that cannot take away his own life, cannot give another power over it. power over it. Indeed, having by his fault forfeited his own life, by fome act that deferves death; he, to whom he has forfeited it, may (when he has him in his power) delay to take it, and make use of him to his own fervice, and he does him no injury by it: for, whenever he finds the hardship of his flavery outweigh the value of his life, it is in his power, by refifting the

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will of his mafter, to draw on himself the death he defires.

§. 24. This is the perfect condition of flavery, which is nothing elfe, but the ftate 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 fide, and obedience on the other, the fate of war and flavery ceases, as long as the compact endures: for, as has been faid, no man can, by agreement, pass over to another that which he hath not in himself, a power over his own life.

I confefs, we find among the Jews, as well as other nations, that men did fell themselves; but, it is plain, this was only to drudgery, not to flavery: for, it is evident, the perfon fold was not under an abfolute, arbitrary, defpotical 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 fervice; and the mafter of fuch a fervant was fo far from having an arbitrary power over his life, that he could not, at pleasure, so much as maim him, but the lofs of an eye, or tooth, fet him free, Exod. xxi.

CHAP.

CHAP. V.

of PROPERTY.

§. 25. WHJC

Hether we confider natural reafon, which tells us, that men, being once born, have a right to their prefervation, and confequently to meat and drink, and fuch other things as nature affords for their fubfiftence or revelation, which gives us an account of those grants God made of the world to Adam, and to Noah, and his fons, it is very clear, that God, as king David says, Pfal. cxv. 16. has given the earth to the children of men; given it to mankind in common. But this being fuppofed, it seems to fome a very great difficulty, how any one fhould ever come to have a property in any thing: I will not content myself to answer, that if it be difficult to make out property, upon a fuppofition that God gave the world to Adam, and his posterity in common, it is impoffible that any man, but one univerfal monarch, fhould have any property upon a fuppofition, that God gave the world to Adam, and his heirs in fucceffion, exclufive of all the rest of his pofterity. But I fhall endeavour to fhew, how men might come to have a property in several parts of that which God gave to mankind in common, and that without any exprefs compact of all the commoners.

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§. 26.

§. 26. God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also given them reason to make use of it to the beft advantage of life, and convenience. The earth, and all that is therein, is given to men for the fupport and comfort of their being. And tho' all the fruits it naturally produces, and beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in common, as they are produced by the fpontaneous hand of nature; and no body has originally a private dominion, exclufive of the rest of mankind, in any of them, as they are thus in their natural ftate: yet being given for the use of men, there muft of neceffity be a means to appropriate them fome way or other, before they can be of any ufe, or at all beneficial to any particular man. The fruit, or venison, which nourishes the wild Indian, who knows no inclosure, and is ftill 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 him 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 perfon: this no body has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may fay, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the ftate that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it fomething

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