Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/157

 which proved his ruin, yea, and indeed had been the everlasting ruin and destruction of him and all his, had not God been the more mercifull unto him in the promised Messiah. Gen Chap 3.

Here again the fundamental ideas—freedom of man from natural subjection, origin of government in compact, inalienable right—are all to be traced to Rutherford. But they are figures of logic to the writer of 1644, and vital facts to the writers of 1646. The form in which Lilburne states them is significant. His emphasis of the doctrine that God alone can be sovereign and rule absolutely of right, reminds us of the Independent belief that Christ alone as lawgiver for his church might impose rules on the consciences of men. Lilburne is simply transferring an ecclesiastical dogma to politics.

Furthermore, Lilburne’s political philosophy is framed for a practical purpose quite different from Rutherford’s. The purpose of Lilburne’s reasoning is the protection of the rights of the individual rather than the rights of the nation. Richard Overton is even more emphatic than Lilburne as to the rights of the individual. “To every Individuall,” says Overton, “in nature, is given an individuall property by nature, not to be invaded or usurped by any: for every one as he is himselfe, so he hath a selfe propriety, else could he not be himselfe, and on this no second may presume to deprive any of, without manifest violation and affront to the very principles of nature, and of the Rules of equity and justice between man and man; mine and thine cannot be, except this be; no man