Besides, this would
theoretically exclude all human or natural activity, all human
intelligence and free-will from the state, which were to fall
into either pantheism or atheism.
VIII. The right of government to govern, or political authority,
is derived by the collective people or society, from God through
the law of nature. Rulers hold from God through the people or
nation, and the people or nation hold from God through the
natural law. How nations are founded or constituted, or a
particular people becomes a sovereign political people, invested
with the rights of society, will be considered in following
chapters. Here it suffices to say that supposing a political
people or nation, the sovereignty vests in the community, not
supernaturally, or by an external supernatural appointment, as
the clergy hold their authority, but by the natural law, or law
by which God governs the whole moral creation.
They who assert the origin of government in nature are right, so
far as they derive it from God through the law of nature, and
are wrong only when they understand by the law of nature the
physical force or forces of nature, which are not laws in the
primary and proper sense of the term. The law of nature is not
the order or rule of the divine action in nature which is
rightfully called providence, but is, as has been said, law in
its proper and primary sense, ordained by the Author of nature,
as its sovereign and supreme Lawgiver, and binds all of his
creatures who are endowed with reason and free-will, and is
called natural, because promulgated through the reason common to
all men.
Pages:
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141