5. God in his _natural kingdom_ hath a right to rule, and to punish those who break his laws, from his sole _irresistible power_. For all right over others is either from _nature_, or from _contract_. How the right of governing springs from _contract_, we have already showed in chap. VI. And the same right is derived from _nature_, in this very thing, that it is not by nature taken away. For when by nature all men had a right over all things, every man had a right of ruling over all as ancient as nature itself. But the reason why this was abolished among men, was no other but mutual fear, as hath been declared above in chap. II. art. 3; reason, namely, dictating that they must forego that right for the preservation of mankind; because the equality of men among themselves, according to their strength and natural powers, was necessarily accompanied with war; and with war joins the destruction of mankind. Now if any man had so far exceeded the rest in power, that all of them with joined forces could not have resisted him, there had been no cause why he should part with that right, which nature had given him. The right therefore of dominion over all the rest would have remained with him, by reason of that excess of power whereby he could have preserved both himself and them. They therefore whose power cannot be resisted, and by consequence God _Almighty_ derives his right of sovereignty from the _power_ itself. And as oft as God punisheth or slays a sinner, although he therefore punish him because he sinned, yet may we not say that he could not justly have punished or killed him although he had not sinned. Neither, if the will of God in punishing may perhaps have regard to some sin antecedent, doth it therefore follow, that the right of afflicting and killing depends not on _divine power_, but on _men’s sins_. [Sidenote: The same proved from Scripture.]