Page:A Declaration of the People's Natural Right to a Share in the Legislature (1775) (IA declarationofpeo00shar).djvu/23

 understand in this place of the Baron's idea of Law, for he assigns no other cause why obedience is paid to it, but the power of the Exactor;" whereas God's Laws have many other apparent causes of obligation, of which I have already mentioned the due sense we naturally entertain of the infinite Wisdom and Truth (as well as the Power) of the Divine Author, who is so far from being an Exactor of Laws, that the revelation of his will for the good government of mankind has generally been addressed to the Senses and Reason of Men, that their Covenant with God might be founded on free Consent, the highest and most obligatory Cause of Obedience.

Now, as the Laws of God are thus tendered to us under the equitable form of a reciprocal Covenant, thereby binding even himself (the supreme Lord and Creator of all things) to us, his poor mortal subjects, under conditional Promises which cannot fail on his part! how much more ought all mere worldly Governors to be restrained and limited by equitable Covenants of mutual obligation between them and their Subjects, since their equality in nature gives