Page:A Declaration of the People's Natural Right to a Share in the Legislature (1775) (IA declarationofpeo00shar).djvu/53

 to this island, but it is also a Natural Right, which cannot, without the most flagrant and stimulating injustice, be withdrawn from any part of the British Empire by any worldly authority whatsoever; because, “by the Natural Law, whereunto he [ALMIGHTY GOD] hath made all subject,” (says the learned Hooker,) (2) “the lawful power of making laws, to command whole politic societies of men, belongeth so properly unto the same entire societies, that for any Prince or Potentate, of what kind forever upon earth, to exercise the same of himself," [or themselves,] “and not either by express Commission immediately and personally received from God, or else by authority derived at the first from their consent upon whose persons they impose laws, it is no better than mere tyranny ! Laws they are not,