unalterable and eternal, the law being framed upon those rules complicated with matter, and persons, and events, is also eternal, excepting only where the matter is or can be changed. Now if the matter be in prime instances, as the conjunction of sexes, relation of parents and children, &c., the law is the same for ever; only this, if the matter, by a miracle or extraordinary act of God, be changed, by the same power the law is to be changed: but as we say rivers and seas run for ever, and yet Jordan was opened and so was the Red Sea, and the perpetual course of the sun and moon was once stopped, but it reverted when the extraordinary case was past; so it is in the law of nature, which, in the prime instances and natural matter, is as unalterable as the course of the sun and seas.

But, 2. Sometimes the matter changes alone, or is changed to our hand, as in conditional contracts, and in this case the law ceases, and the obligation goes off as to that particular.

But, 3. Sometimes the matter is changeable by the will of the interested persons, and by none else but themselves, and them who have over them the power which themselves have such as God, and under him, the supreme human power, their own princes. Now to apply this to the question of the pope's power in giving dispensations: I consider that,

1. To establish his power upon any words of Scripture, is to pretend that his power of dispensing is an act of jurisdiction and direct authority, that is, that he hath commission to do it with or without reason or cause founded in the thing itself, but only because he will; and he that does so, says he can do more than (as many of the most learned Roman doctors say) God can do; for he dispenses in the law of nature in no case, but when he changes the matter, in the prime or second instances of nature respectively, which when the pope can do, he also may pretend to a commission of being lord of nature but it is certain, that for this there are no words of Scripture. But, 2. If this power of dispensing be such as supposes the matter already changed, that is, that there is a just cause, which is, of itself, sufficient, but is not so to him who is concerned, till it be completely declared, then all the dispute will be reduced to this, whether he be the most probable doctor? for to expound when a natural

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obligation ceases, is not an act of power, but of wisdom; and that the pope is the wisest man, or the only wise man, it is also certain that there are no words of Scripture to affirm it. But besides this, in cases of this nature, there needs no dispensation; for the law ceases of itself; as in contracts made upon condition, when the condition is not performed. In human laws, where the subject is bound more by the authority than the matter of laws, the law may still be obligatory after the ceasing of the reason or matter of the law and so there may be need of dispensation: but we speak here of laws bound on us by God and nature, in which the very ceasing of the matter, of itself, dispenses with the law. But, 3. If it be yet more than this, and that in a changeable matter, I mean, in things that are not prime instances of nature, and of lasting necessity, but in human contracts, promises, laws, and vows, which depend upon the pleasure and choice of men, but yet are corroborated by the law of nature, he pretends to a power of altering the case so as to make way for dispensation; then the pretence reaches to this, that the pope must be lord of actions and fortunes, and the wills of others, and the contracts of men: that is, in effect, that no contract shall be valid, unless he please; and no man shall choose for himself; or if he does, he needs not stand to it; and no man can have a right transferred to him by a contract, but it can be rescinded against the will of the interested person; and if he can have any such power to do thus much mischief, then justice will be the most contingent thing in the world: and the question will not be a question. of theology, but of empire, and temporal regard, and therefore for this no words of Scripture can be pretended, because no words of Scripture of the New Testament ever did transfer an empire, or temporal power, to a spiritual person for a spiritual reason; so that this will be a question of war, not of peace and religion. To which I add this, by way of provision; that although supreme princes have, in some cases, power to rescind contracts of their subjects,—and parents, of their children; yet this is only, in their own. circuits, done by mutual consent, in case of public necessity or utility, of which, by reason and the laws, they are made. competent judges: which the pope also may have in his

temporal dominions as well as any other prince: but this is not dispensation, but the annulling of contracts or promises; it makes them not to be at all, not to cease after they have a being, which is the nature of dispensation, of which we now inquire. But the matter of this question, and the particular instance, as it relates to the bishop of Rome, is of another consideration.

6. The civil law can add to the law of nature :-not only new obligations by affixing temporal penalties; but by requiring new circumstances to corroborate and consummate an action not that the civil law of a prince or republic can annul any thing which nature hath confirmed, but it can hinder it from passing into a civil and public warranty. Thus a clandestine contract is valid by the law of nature; and in the court of conscience there are witnesses, and judges, and executioners, and laws, and penalties, to exact the performance of it: but when the civil or ecclesiastic law hath commanded, that, in all contracts of marriage, there should be witnesses, it must mean, that the contract shall not be acknowledged for legitimate, unless there be; and, therefore, that the contract must be solemnly published before it be civilly firm. No civil power can so enjoin witnesses, as that, if the contract be made without witnesses, it shall not be obligatory in conscience. For this obligation is before the civil law, and is bound by that power, by which the civil power hath a being. But the civil power, which cannot annul the act of nature and conscience, can superinduce something upon it. It cannot make the contractors to go back from what they have done, but to proceed to something more, that what was firm in the inward may be confirmed in the outward court. By our laws, the clandestine contract is civilly null before publication; but in our religion, we believe it obligatory in conscience, and that it must come into publication. But, by the laws of Rome, the whole contract is nullified, and the persons disobliged, and the marriage after consummation is dissolved. This is against the law of nature, but the other is a provision for it by additional security, that is, a taking care that the contracts of nature may not be denied. For the confirmation of a natural contract nothing is necessary but a natural capacity not

hindered by the Lord of nature. Whatsoever, therefore, is superinduced upon nature, cannot disannul that to which all things competently necessary are ingredient; a condition brought in by a less power cannot invalidate that which before that condition was valid: but as civil powers derive their authority from natural laws and reason, so to these they must minister, and they may do it by addition and superfetation; but they may not violate them by irritation.

RULE XI.

That the Obligation to a natural Law does cease in any particular, is not to be presumed by every one, but is to be declared by the public Voice.

THIS depends upon the foregoing discourses, and is consequent to them. For the several dispensations in the law of nature being wrought by the change of their subjectmatter, the rule can never be changed; because that is eternal, and is abstract from matter; but the law may be dispensed with, because that is twisted with matter, which is not eternal. But then, because the several matters of law can be changed by several powers respectively, that power which alters the matter, and consequently dispenses with the law, must, by some evidence or other, make the change apparent. If God by his power alters the case, and dispenses in the law, he also is to declare it; because he must do more; for he must give expressly a leave to do proportionable actions; he having bound us to the law of nature, leaves us so till he tells us otherwise: and the same also is the case, if the matter be changed by man: for by the law of nature we being bound to obey laws and perform contracts, must remain so bound, till he that holds the other end of the string lets it go, or tells us it is untied: because he hath an interest in it, which must not depend upon the reason of another, but upon that which is common to both. For although we all agree, that every rule of nature is unalterable, and every law is to be observed, yet in every thing where a change can be pretended, every man's reason is

equal; and therefore is not to be made use of in relation to others. For we For we all agree that theft is evil; but whether this action or this detention be theft, men's reasons oftentimes cannot agree and since every man's reason hath the same power and the same privilege, no man's single reason can determine, because there is no reason why yours more than mine. But therefore it is, that there must be some common reason to declare the case, and the man to be at liberty, and the law to be loose.

This hath no other variety in it but this, that although the public voice must declare concerning those instances, that concern that matter of laws natural which is in her keeping, as God is to do in those in which only he hath immediate power, yet every private man can declare the obligation of a natural law to be loose, when he holds one end of the string. If, by a natural law, Caius be tied to do me an act of kindness and justice, it is my right; and as long as I will demand it, I hold the band of the natural law in my hand; but if I let it go, and will quit my right, the obligation is off, because the matter is subtracted. The reason of all is the same. No man is a good judge in his own case, where there is the interest of another twisted with it; and it is unequal that my reason should govern my neighbour's interest, or that his should govern mine: this would be an equal mischief, and therefore something indifferent to both must turn the balance, that there may be equal justice and equal provision. But if a man will quit his right, there is no wrong done. He can sufficiently declare his own will and the acts of kindness; and then the law that combines with the matter, takes the same lot.

RULE XII.

The Exactness of Natural Laws is capable of Interpretation, and may be allayed by Equity, Piety, and Necessity.

WHATSOEVER can be dispensed withal, is either dispensed with by an absolute power of jurisdiction, or for some cause. in the nature of the thing: and if the laws of nature can