The right whereby God governs, is seated in his omnipotence.
5. God in his natural kingdom hath a right to rule, and to punish those who break his laws, from his sole irresistible power. For all right over others is either from nature, or from contract. How the right of governing springs from contract, we have already showed in chap. VI. And the same right is derived from nature, in this very thing, that it is not by nature taken away. For when by nature all men had a right over all things, every man had a right of ruling over all as ancient as nature itself. But the reason why this was abolished among men, was no other but mutual fear, as hath been declared above in chap. II. [art. 3]; reason, namely, dictating that they must forego that right for the preservation of mankind; because the equality of men among themselves, according to their strength and natural powers, was necessarily accompanied with war; and with war joins the destruction of mankind. Now if any man had so far exceeded the rest in power, that all of them with joined forces could not have resisted him, there had been no cause why he should part with that right, which nature had given him. The right therefore of dominion over all the rest would have remained with him, by reason of that excess of power whereby he could have preserved both himself and them. They therefore whose power cannot be resisted, and by consequence God Almighty derives his right of sovereignty from the power itself. And as oft as God punisheth or slays a sinner, although he therefore punish him because he sinned, yet may we not say that he could not justly have punished or killed him although he had not sinned. Neither, if the will of God in punishing may perhaps have regard to some sin antecedent, doth it therefore follow, that the right of afflicting and killing depends not on divine power, but on men’s sins.
The same proved from Scripture.
6. That question made famous by the disputations of the ancients: why evil things befal the good, and good things the evil: is the same with this of ours; by what right God dispenseth good and evil things unto men; and with its difficulty it not only staggers the faith of the vulgar concerning the divine Providence, but also philosophers, and which is more, even of holy men. Psalm lxxiii. 1, 2, 3: Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart; but as for me, my feet were almost gone, my steps had well nigh slipped. And why? I was grieved at the wicked; I do also see the ungodly in such prosperity. And how bitterly did Job expostulate with God, that being just he should yet be afflicted with so many calamities! God himself with open voice resolved this difficulty in the case of Job, and hath confirmed his right by arguments drawn not from Job’s sin, but from his own power. For Job and his friends had argued so among themselves; that they would needs make him guilty, because he was punished; and he would reprove their accusation by arguments fetched from his own innocence. But God, when he had heard both him and them, refutes his expostulation, not by condemning him of injustice or any sin, but by declaring his own power, (Job xxxviii. 4): Where wast thou (says he) when I laid the foundation of the earth, &c. And for his friends, God pronounces himself angry against them (Job. xlii. 7): Because they had not spoken of him the thing that is right, like his servant Job. Agreeable to this is that speech of our Saviour’s in the man’s case who was born blind: when his disciples asking him whether he or his parents had sinned, that he was born blind, he answered, (John ix. 3): Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be manifest in him. For though it be said, (Rom. v. 12), that death entered into the world by sin: it follows not but that God by his right might have made men subject to diseases and death, although they had never sinned; even as he hath made the other animals mortal and sickly, although they cannot sin.
The obligation of yielding obedience unto God, proceeds from human infirmity.
7. Now if God have the right of sovereignty from his power, it is manifest that the obligation of yielding him obedience lies on men by reason of their weakness.[[18]] For that obligation which rises from contract, of which we have spoken in chap. II. can have no place here; where the right of ruling, no covenant passing between, rises only from nature. But there are two species of natural obligation. One, when liberty is taken away by corporal impediments, according to which we say that heaven and earth, and all creatures, do obey the common laws of their creation. The other, when it is taken away by hope or fear, according to which the weaker, despairing of his own power to resist, cannot but yield to the stronger. From this last kind of obligation, that is to say, from fear or conscience of our own weakness in respect of the divine power, it comes to pass that we are obliged to obey God in his natural kingdom; reason dictating to all, acknowledging the divine power and providence, that there is no kicking against the pricks.
The laws of God in his natural kingdom, are those which are above set down in chaps. II. III.
8. Because the word of God, ruling by nature only, is supposed to be nothing else but right reason, and the laws of kings can be known by their word only; it is manifest that the laws of God, ruling by nature alone, are only the natural laws; namely, those which we have set down in chaps. II. and III. and deduced from the dictates of reason, humility, equity, justice, mercy; and other moral virtues befriending peace, which pertain to the discharge of the duties of men one toward the other; and those which right reason shall dictate besides, concerning the honour and worship of the Divine Majesty. We need not repeat what those natural laws or moral virtues are; but we must see what honours and what divine worship, that is to say, what sacred laws the same natural reason doth dictate.
What honour and worship are.
9. Honour to speak properly, is nothing else but an opinion of another’s power joined with goodness; and to honour a man, is the same with highly esteeming him: and so honour is not in the party honoured, but in the honourer. Now three passions do necessarily follow honour thus placed in opinion; love, which refers to goodness; hope and fear, which regard power. And from these arise all outward actions, wherewith the powerful are appeased and become propitious; and which are the effects, and therefore also the natural signs of honour itself. But the word honour is transferred also to those outward effects of honour; in which sense, we are said to honour him, of whose power we testify ourselves, either in word or deed, to have a very great respect; insomuch as honour is the same with worship. Now worship is an outward act, the sign of inward honour; and whom we endeavour by our homage to appease if they be angry, or howsoever to make them favourable to us, we are said to worship.