not able now to serve when mens iniquitie is so hardly restrained within any tolerable bounds: in like manner the nationall lawes of mutuall commerce betweene societies of that former and better qualitie might have bene other then now, when nations are so prone to offer violence iniurie and wrong. Hereupon hath growne in everie of these three kindes that distinction between Primarie & Secundarie lawes; the one groũded upon sincere, the other built upon depraved nature. Primarie lawes of nations are such as concerne embassage, such as belong to the courteous entertaynment of forreiners and strangers, such as serve for commodious trafique & the like. Secundarie lawes in the same kinde are such as this present unquiet world is most familiarly acquainted with, I meane lawes of armes, which yet are much better known then kept. But what matter the lawe of nations doth containe I omit to search. The strength and vertue of that law is such that no particular nation can lawfulle preiudice the same by any their several laws & ordinances, more then a man by his private resolutions the law of the whole common welth or state wherin he liveth. For as civill law being the act of a whole body politique doth therfore overrule each severall part of the same bodie: so there is no reason that any one common welth of it self should to the preiudice of another annihilate that whereupon the whole world hath agreed.'[1]
- ↑ Of the Lawes of Ecclestasticall Politie, bk. i. 10, pp. 74 and 76–7 of the first edition, which has been followed in the extract given.
