_P._ A pleader commonly thinks he ought to say all he can for the benefit of his client, and therefore has need of a faculty to wrest the sense of words from their true meaning, and the faculty of _rhetoric_ to seduce the jury, and sometimes the judge also, and many other arts which I neither have, nor intend to study. _L._ But let the judge, how good soever he thinks his reasoning, take heed that he depart not too much from the letter of the statute: for it is not without danger. _P._ He may without danger recede from the letter, if he do not from the meaning and sense of the law; which may be by a learned man, (such as judges commonly are,) easily found out by the preamble, the time when it was made, and the incommodities for which it was made. But I pray tell me, to what end were statute laws ordained, seeing the law of reason ought to be applied to every controversy that can arise. _L._ You are not ignorant of the force of an irregular appetite to riches, to power, and to sensual pleasures, how it masters the strongest reason, and is the root of disobedience, slaughter, fraud, hypocrisy, and all manner of evil habits; and that the laws of man, though they can punish the fruits of them, which are evil actions, yet they cannot pluck up the roots that are in the heart. How can a man be indicted of avarice, envy, hypocrisy, or other vicious habit, till it be declared by some action which a witness may take notice of? The root remaining, new fruit will come forth, till you be weary of punishing, and at last destroy all power that shall oppose it. _P._ What hope then is there of a constant peace in any nation, or between one nation and another? _L._ You are not to expect such a peace between two nations; because there is no common power in this world to punish their injustice. Mutual fear may keep them quiet for a time; but upon every visible advantage they will invade one another; and the most visible advantage is then, when the one nation is obedient to their king, and the other not. But peace at home may then be expected durable, when the common people shall be made to see the benefit they shall receive by their obedience and adhesion to their own sovereign, and the harm they must suffer by taking part with them, who by promises of reformation, or change of government, deceive them. And this is properly to be done by divines, and from arguments not only from reason, but also from the Holy Scripture. _P._ This that you say is true, but not very much to that I aim at by your conversation, which is to inform myself concerning the laws of England. Therefore I ask you again, what is the end of statute-laws? [Sidenote: Of sovereign power.] _L._ I say then that the scope of all human law is peace, and justice in every nation amongst themselves, and defence against foreign enemies. _P._ But what is justice? _L._ Justice is giving to every man his own.