in the family for protection, became their subjects, and submitted themselves to the laws of the family. And all this is consonant, not only to the law of nature, but also to the practice of mankind set forth in history, sacred and profane. _L._ Do you think it lawful for a lord, that is the sovereign ruler of his family, to make war upon another like sovereign lord, and dispossess him of his lands? _P._ It is lawful or not lawful, according to the intention of him that does it. For, first, being a sovereign ruler, he is not subject to any law of man; and as to the law of God, where the intention is justifiable, the action is so also. The intention may be lawful in divers cases by the right of nature; one of those cases is, when he is constrained to it by the necessity of subsisting. So the children of Israel, besides that their leaders, Moses and Joshua, had an immediate command from God to dispossess the Canaanites, had also a just pretence to do what they did, from the right of nature which they had to preserve their lives, being unable otherwise to subsist. And as their preservation, so also is their security a just pretence of invading those whom they have just cause to fear, unless sufficient caution be given to take away their fear: which caution, for anything I can yet conceive, is utterly impossible. Necessity and security are the principal justifications before God, of beginning war. Injuries received justify a war defensive; but for reparable injuries, if reparation be tendered, all invasion upon that title is iniquity. If you need examples, either from Scripture or other history, concerning this right of nature in making war, you are able enough of your own reading to find them out at your leisure. _L._ Whereas you say, that the lands so won by the sovereign lord of a family, are his in propriety, you deny, methinks, all property to the subjects, how much soever any of them have contributed to the victory.