chap. XI. art. 2, out of the words of Solomon. For if private men may pursue that as good and shun that as evil, which appears to them to be so, to what end serve those words of his: _Give therefore unto thy servant an understanding heart, to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and evil_? Since therefore it belongs to kings to discern between _good_ and _evil_, wicked are those, though usual, sayings, _that he only is a king who does righteously_, and _that kings must not be obeyed unless they command us just things_; and many other such like. Before there was any government, _just_ and _unjust_ had no being, their nature only being relative to some command: and every action in its own nature is indifferent; that it becomes _just_ or _unjust_, proceeds from the right of the magistrate. Legitimate kings therefore make the things they command just, by commanding them, and those which they forbid, unjust, by forbidding them. But private men, while they assume to themselves the knowledge of _good_ and _evil_, desire to be even as kings; which cannot be with the safety of the commonweal. The most ancient of all God’s commands is, (Gen. ii. 17): _Thou shalt not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil_: and the most ancient of all diabolical temptations, (Gen. iii. 5): _Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil_; and God’s expostulation with man, (verse 11): _Who told thee that thou wert naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat?_ As if he had said, how comest thou to judge that nakedness, wherein it seemed good to me to create thee, to be shameful, except thou have arrogated to thyself the knowledge of _good and evil_. [Sidenote: That subjects do sin in obeying their princes, is a seditious opinion.]