deprive a creditor of the present use and possession of his property, but of his property too: and how can that man call any thing he possesses his own right and property, whilst he thus denies another his? So that by an indispensable rule of justice every debtor is obliged rather to strip himself of all, and cast himself naked on the providence of God, than, by denying his debts, or indirectly shifting the payment of them, to feather his nest with the spoils of his neighbour. When therefore by refusing to pay what we owe, we force our creditors upon costly or troublesome suits to recover their own; or by pleading protections, or sheltering ourselves in a prison, we avoid being forced to it by law; or by fraudulent breakings, we necessitate them to compound our debts, and accept a part for the whole; whichsoever of these ways we take, I say, to deprive our creditors of their rights, we are inexcusably dishonest and unrighteous. And though by these or such like knavish evasions we may force them to acquit and discharge us, yet we cannot force God, in whose book of accounts our debts are recorded, as well as in theirs; and it concerns us sadly to consider, that there is nothing can cross or cancel them there, but only a full restitution; and that if they are not cancelled there, all the tricks and evasions in the world will never be able to secure us from a dismal reckoning, and a more dismal execution.

And thus you see what those acquired rights are, which are due from man to man upon account of their civil and sacred relations.

CHAP. V.

Of justice, as it preserves the rights of men acquired by legal possession.

II. THERE are other rights acquired by legal possession. For when there was but one man, he was lord and proprietor of all this lower world; but when he had propagated a family from his loins, and that family was by degrees branched into several tribes, he sent forth these tribes under the conduct of their heads, fathers, and princes, to go and take possession of such and such portions of his earth, as their numbers, necessities, and conveniences required; which when they had done, the prince and father of each tribe divided his land among the members of it, and shared it into particular properties, proportionable to the merit or number of the particular families contained in it; and when any of these tribes became too numerous and burdensome to the land that was thus divided among them, they sent forth colonies from among themselves to take possession of the next unpeopled country bordering upon them; which when they had done, the leader of the colony divided it among his followers; and so as they increased and multiplied, they spread themselves from country to country, till they had shared the world into nations, and divided the nations into distinct and particular properties and families. And this division was the original law, by which each family claimed as its property the share that was allotted to it: and since the father of mankind was entitled by God, who is the supreme proprietor, to all this terrestrial globe, he had an undoubted right to divide it among the

several tribes that descended from him: and therefore since he empowered the heads and princes of his tribes to take possession of such and such portions, and divide it among their families; not only each particular tribe had an undoubted right to the portion allotted to it by him that was head of them all, but each particular family had an undoubted right to the share that was allotted to it by him that was the head of the tribe it belonged to. And thus you see the first division of the world among men was the great law of property; and that whatsoever men were possessed of by it, they had an undoubted right and title to; and upon this law all the meums and tuums, the particular rights and properties that are now in the world, are founded. For though in process of time not only the tribes and colonies encroached upon one another, till the stronger, by swallowing up the weaker, grew into kingdoms and empires; but even the particular families also of these tribes and colonies encroached upon each other, and either by fraud or oppression robbed their neighbours of their original share; so that those rights and properties which were made by the primitive divisions seem for the most part, if not altogether extinguished; yet it is to be considered that the laws now extant do suppose alienations of property from the first owners to have been made according to that original law of division; which law did not so unalienably entail on those tribes and families their appropriate shares, but that they might either sell or give them away, or forfeit them; and if either of these ways those shares have passed through all successive generations till now, from tribe to tribe, or family to family,

all

the present possessors are justly entitled to them by that original law of division. And that they have thus passed, all laws now extant do suppose. The law of nations supposes those countries that are held by right of conquest to have been justly forfeited to the conqueror; and that unless they are so, his con-` quest is robbery, and not right. The municipal laws of countries do suppose the estates of particular families to be held by the right of donation or purchase from the true proprietor, and that unless they are so, their first possession was a theft and not a right: and therefore neither the law of nations nor the law of countries do allow either conquerors or families to be rightful possessors of their conquests and estates, so long as there appears any just claim against them. But though the first possession should be obtained either by unjust conquest or by fraud and oppression, yet if it continue in the lineage or family of the unjust possessor till all just claim against it be extinguished, the law must suppose it to be obtained justly, because there appears no evidence to the contrary. And indeed when a dominion or an estate, which was at first unjustly obtained, hath been so long successively possessed, as that no man can produce a just claim and title to it, it must be either the present possessor's or nobody's. But then when God, who is the supreme proprietor of all, doth by his providential permission continue an ill-got possession till all lawful claim to it is worn out, he doth thereby entitle the present possessor to it, and creates it his right and property. For though God's providence can be no rule against his revealed will, nor consequently can authorize any

man to possess what another hath a just claim to, because his revealed will forbids it, yet it is to be considered, that when no man can justly claim what I possess, I wrong no man in possessing it, and consequently am in no wise forbidden it by God's revealed will: and therefore, in this case, by his providential continuance of the inheritance of it to me, he gives me free leave to possess it; and that leave is an implicit conveyance of a just right and title to it. So that legal possession, when there is no just or legal claim against it, is an undoubted right, a right founded on the free donation of God, who is the supreme proprietor of all things: and therefore justice obliges us not to rob or deprive men of what they are entitled to by law, nor to despoil any man by stealth, or strip him by violence, or defraud him by craft and cunning insinuation of any right or property to which the law entitles him; because by thus doing, we do not only wrong man of that right which by legal conveyance he derives from God, but we also wrong God himself, by presuming to alienate his bequests, and to reverse and cancel his donations. For he who by stealth, or robbery, or fraud, deprives another of his property, doth impiously invade God's right of bestowing his own where he pleases, and refuses to stand to that division and allotment which his providence hath made in his own world: he doth in effect declare in his actions that God hath nothing to do to share his world among his creatures, that he will not endure him to reign Lord and Master in his own family of beings, nor allow his providence to carve and distribute his own bread and meat among his children; but that