the state of Nature, where every man is his own judge, possessing
the absolute right to lay down laws for himself, to interpret them
as he pleases, or to abrogate them if he thinks it convenient,
it is not conceivable that stratagem should be evil.

[Endnote 27] (1) "Every member of it may, if he will, be free."
(2) Whatever be the social state a man finds; himself in, he may
be free.  (3) For certainly a man is free, in so far as he is led
by reason.  (4) Now reason (though Hobbes thinks otherwise) is
always on the side of peace, which cannot be attained unless the
(5) Therefore the more he is free, the more constantly will he
respect the laws of his country, and obey the commands of the
sovereign power to which he is subject.

[Endnote 28] (1) "No one knows by nature that he owes any
obedience to God."  (2) When Paul says that men have in
themselves no refuge, he speaks as a man: for in the ninth
chapter of the same epistle he expressly teaches that God has
mercy on whom He will, and that men are without excuse, only
because they are in God's power like clay in the hands of a
potter, who out of the same lump makes vessels, some for honour
and some for dishonour, not because they have been forewarned.
(3) As regards the Divine natural law whereof the chief
commandment is, as we have said, to love God, I have called
it a law in the same sense, as philosophers style laws those
general rules of nature, according to which everything happens.
(4) For the love of God is not a state of obedience: it is a
virtue which necessarily exists in a man who knows God rightly.
(5) Obedience has regard to the will of a ruler, not to necessity
and truth.  (6) Now as we are ignorant of the nature of God's
will, and on the other hand know that everything happens solely
by God's power, we cannot, except through revelation, know
whether God wishes in any way to be honoured as a sovereign.
    (7) Again; we have shown that the Divine rights appear to us in
the light of rights or commands, only so long as we are ignorant
of their cause: as soon as their cause is known, they cease to
be rights, and we embrace them no longer as rights but as eternal
truths; in other words, obedience passes into love of God, which
emanates from true knowledge as necessarily as light emanates
from the sun. (8) Reason then leads us to love God, but cannot
lead us to obey Him; for we cannot embrace the commands of God
as Divine, while we are in ignorance of their cause, neither
can we rationally conceive God as a sovereign laying down laws
as a sovereign. 

CHAPTER XVII.
[Endnote 29] (1) "If men could lose their natural rights so as to
be absolutely unable for the future to oppose the will of the
sovereign"  (2) Two common soldiers undertook to change the Roman
dominion, and did change it. (Tacitus, Hist. i:7.) 

[Endnote 30] (1) See Numbers xi. 28. In this passage it is written
that two men prophesied in the camp, and that Joshua wished to 
punish them.  (2) This he would not have done, if it had been
lawful for anyone to deliver the Divine oracles to the people
without the consent of Moses.  (3) But Moses thought good to pardon
the two men, and rebuked Joshua for exhorting him to use his royal
prerogative, at a time when he was so weary of reigning, that he
preferred death to holding undivided sway (Numb. xi:14).  (4) For he
made answer to Joshua, "Enviest thou for my sake? (5) Would God that
all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put
His spirit upon them." (6) That is to say, would God that the right
of taking counsel of God were general, and the power were in the
hands of the people.  (7) Thus Joshua was not mistaken as to the
right, but only as to the time for using it, for which he was
rebuked by Moses, in the same way as Abishai was rebuked by David
for counselling that Shimei, who had undoubtedly been guilty of
treason, should be put to death.  (8) See 2 Sam. xix:22, 23.

[Endnote 31] (1) See Numbers xxvii:21.  (2) The translators of the
Bible have rendered incorrectly verses 19 and 23 of this chapter.
(3) The passage does not mean that Moses gave precepts or advice
to Joshua, but that he made or established him chief of the Hebrews.
(4) The phrase is very frequent in Scripture (see Exodus, xviii:23;
1 Sam. xiii:15; Joshua i:9; 1 Sam. xxv:80).

[Endnote 32] (1) "There was no judge over each of the captains save
God."  (2) The Rabbis and some Christians equally foolish pretend
that the Sanhedrin, called "the great" was instituted by Moses.
(3) As a matter of fact, Moses chose seventy colleagues to assist
him in governing, because he was not able to bear alone the burden
of the whole people; but he never passed any law for forming a
college of seventy members; on the contrary he ordered every tribe
to appoint for itself, in the cities which God had given it, judges
to settle disputes according to the laws which he himself had laid
down.  (4) In cases where the opinions of the judges differed as to
the interpretation of these laws, Moses bade them take counsel of
the High Priest (who was the chief interpreter of the law), or of
the chief judge, to whom they were then subordinate (who had the
right of consulting the High Priest), and to decide the dispute in
accordance with the answer obtained. (5) If any subordinate judge
should assert, that he was not bound by the decision of the High
Priest, received either directly or through the chief of his state,
such an one was to be put to death (Deut. xvii:9) by the chief judge,
whoever he might be, to whom he was a subordinate.  (6) This chief
judge would either be Joshua, the supreme captain of the whole people,
or one of the tribal chiefs who had been entrusted, after the
division of the tribes, with the right of consulting the high priest
concerning the affairs of his tribe, of deciding on peace or war, of
fortifying towns, of appointing inferior judges, &c.  (7) Or, again,