Page:A Declaration of the People's Natural Right to a Share in the Legislature (1775) (IA declarationofpeo00shar).djvu/22

[ xii ] “For no man can say, sic volo, sic jubeo, so I will, and so I command; unless,

“We obey Laws, therefore” (says he,) not principally upon account of the matter of them, but upon account of the Legislators Will .”

Thus the learned Civilian seems to confider the Will and Pleasure of a Sovereign as the life and spirit of Laws; which notion is highly unreasonable in every case but one, viz. when we are speaking of the Laws of that Sovereign alone, whose Will is the fountain of Reason, and whose Pleasure (by our own natural Reason we are convinced) is infinite goodness, justice, and mercy, towards all those to whom he has signified his commands; because we cannot separate the idea of infallible Reason, Wisdom, and eternal Justice, from any command of divine authority.

And yet this application of the Baron's doctrine, even to the supreme Law, is not conformable throughout to what I