21. But that sin, which by the law of nature is treason, is a transgression of the natural, not the civil law. For since our obligation to civil obedience, by virtue whereof the civil laws are valid, is before all civil law, and the sin of treason is naturally nothing else but the breach of that obligation; it follows, that by the sin of treason that law is broken which preceded the civil law, to wit, the natural, which forbids us to violate covenants and betrothed faith. But if some sovereign prince should set forth a law on this manner, _thou shalt not rebel_, he would effect just nothing. For except subjects were before obliged to obedience, that is to say, not to rebel, all law is of no force. Now the obligation which obligeth to what we were before obliged to, is superfluous. [Sidenote: And therefore is punished not by the right of sovereignty, but by the right of war.] 22. Hence it follows, that _rebels_, _traitors_, and all others _convicted of treason_, are punished not by _civil_, but _natural_ right; that is to say, not as _civil subjects_, but as _enemies to the government_; not by the _right of sovereignty_ and _dominion_, but by the _right of war_. [Sidenote: Obedience not rightly distinguished into active and passive.] 23. There are some who think that those acts which are done against the law, when the punishment is determined by the law itself, are expiated, if the punished willingly undergo the punishment; and that they are not guilty before God of breaking the natural law, (although by breaking the civil laws, we break the natural too, which command us to keep the civil), who have suffered the punishment which the law required; as if by the law the fact were not prohibited, but a punishment were set instead of a price, whereby a license might be bought of doing what the law forbids. By the same reason they might infer too, that no transgression of the law were a sin; but that every man might enjoy the liberty which he hath bought by his own peril. But we must know, that the words of the law may be understood in a two-fold sense. The one as containing two parts, (as hath been declared above in art. 7), namely, that of absolutely prohibiting, as, _thou shalt not do this_; and revenging, as, _he that doth this, shall be punished_. The other, as containing a condition, for example, _thou shalt not do this thing, unless thou wilt suffer punishment_; and thus the law forbids not simply, but conditionally. If it be understood in the first sense, he that doth it sins, because he doth what the law forbids to be done; if in the second, he sins not, because he cannot be said to do what is forbidden him, that performs the condition. For in the first sense, all men are forbidden to do it; in the second, they only who keep themselves from the punishment. In the first sense, the vindicative part of the law obligeth not the guilty, but the magistrate to require punishment; in the second, he himself that owes the