First, that the necessity of an action doth not make the law which prohibits it unjust. To let pass, that not the necessity, but the will to break the law, maketh the action unjust, because the law regardeth the will, and no other precedent causes of action; and to let pass, that no law can be possibly unjust, in as much as every man makes, by his consent, the law he is bound to keep, and which, consequently, must be just, unless a man can be unjust to himself: I say, what necessary cause soever precedes an action, yet, if the action be forbidden, he that doth it willingly, may justly be punished. For instance, suppose the law on pain of death prohibit stealing, and there be a man who by the strength of temptation is necessitated to steal, and is thereupon put to death: does not this punishment deter others from theft? Is it not a cause that others steal not? Doth it not frame and make their will to justice? To make the law is therefore to make a cause of justice, and to necessitate justice; and consequently it is no injustice to make such a law. The institution of the law is not to grieve the delinquent for that which is passed and not to be undone; but to make him and others just, that else would not be so: and respecteth not the evil act past, but the good to come. Insomuch as without this good intention of future, no past act of a delinquent could justify his killing in the sight of God. But, you will say, how is it just to kill one man to amend another, if what was done were necessary? To this I answer, that men are justly killed, not for that their actions are not necessitated, but that they are spared and preserved, because they are not noxious; for where there is no law, there no killing, nor any thing else can be unjust. And by the right of nature we destroy, without being unjust, all that is noxious, both beasts and men. And for beasts, we kill them justly, when we do it in order to our own preservation. And yet J. D. confesseth, that their actions, as being only spontaneous and not free, are all necessitated and determined to that one thing which they shall do. For men, when we make societies or commonwealths, we lay down our right to kill, excepting in certain cases, as murder, theft, or other offensive actions. So that the right which the commonwealth hath, to put a man to death for crimes, is not created by the law, but remains from the first right of nature, which every man hath to preserve himself; for the law doth not take that right away, in case of criminals, who were by law excepted. Men are not therefore put to death or punished, for that their theft proceedeth from election; but because it was noxious and contrary to men’s preservation, and the punishment conducing to the preservation of the rest: inasmuch as to punish those that do voluntary hurt, and none else, frameth and maketh men’s wills, such as men would have them. And thus it is plain, that from the necessity of a voluntary action