would not think he was in France, nor that this doctrine was written in the year 1658, but rather in the year 1648, in some cabal of the King’s enemies. But what did put him into this fit of choler? Partly, this very thing, that he could not answer my reasons; but chiefly, that he had lost upon me so much School-learning in our controversy touching _Liberty and Necessity_: wherein he was to blame himself, for believing that the obscure and barbarous language of School-divinity, could satisfy an ingenuous reader, as well as plain and perspicuous English. Do I flatter the King? Why am I not rich? I confess his Lordship has not flattered him here. _J. D._ Something there is which he hath a confused glimmering of, as the blind man sees _men walking like trees_, which he is not able to apprehend and express clearly. We acknowledge, that though the laws or commands of a sovereign prince be erroneous, or unjust, or injurious, such as a subject cannot approve for good in themselves; yet he is bound to acquiesce, and may not oppose or resist, otherwise than by prayers and tears, and at the most by flight. We acknowledge that the civil laws have power to bind the conscience of a Christian, in themselves, but not from themselves, but from him who hath said, _Let every soul be subject to the higher powers_. Either they bind Christian subjects to do their sovereign’s commands, or to suffer for the testimony of a good conscience. We acknowledge that in doubtful cases, _semper præsumitur pro rege et lege_, the sovereign and the law are always presumed to be in the right. But in plain evident cases, which admit no doubt, it is always better to obey God than man. Blunderers, whilst they think to mend one imaginary hole, make two or three real ones. They who derive the authority of the Scriptures or God’s law from the civil laws of men, are like those who seek to underprop the heavens from falling, with a bulrush. Nay, they derive not only the authority of the Scripture, but even the law of nature itself, from the civil law. _The laws of nature_ (which need no promulgation) _in the condition of nature are not properly laws, but qualities which dispose men to peace and obedience. When a commonwealth is once settled, then are they actually laws, and not before._ God help us, into what times are we fallen, when the immutable laws of God and nature are made to depend upon the mutable laws of mortal men, just as one should go about to control the sun by the authority of the clock.