Sec. 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, Judg.  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.  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 
conscience, as I will answer it, at the great day, to the supreme 
judge of all men.

                          CHAP.  IV.

                          Of SLAVERY.

     Sec. 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 any will, or restraint of 
any law, but what that legislative shall enact, according to the 
trust put in it.  Freedom then is not what Sir Robert Filmer 
tells us, Observations, 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 the 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.

     Sec. 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.  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.  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, and make use 
of him to his own service, and he does him no injury by it: for, 
whenever he finds the hardship of his slavery outweigh the value 
of his life, it is in his power, by resisting the will of his 
master, to draw on himself the death he desires.

     Sec. 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, it is plain, this was only to 
drudgery, not to slavery: for, it is evident, the person sold 
was not under an absolute, arbitrary, 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, 
Exod. xxi.

                        CHAP.  V.

                      Of PROPERTY.

     Sec. 25.  Whether we consider natural reason, which tells 
us, that men, being once born, have a right to their 
preservation, and consequently to meat and drink, and such other 
things as nature affords for their subsistence: or revelation, 
which gives us an account of those grants God made of the world 
to Adam, and to Noah, and his sons, it is very clear, that 
God, as king David says, Psal. cxv.  16.  has given the 
earth to the children of men; given it to mankind 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 any thing: I 
will not content myself to answer, that if it be difficult to