Liberalismo al estilo escocés, siglo XVII

Mi hermano, que está haciendo un doctorado relacionado con los puritanos, me ha pedido que le llevase Lex Rex en un par de semanas cuando vayamos a España. Hoy ha llegado el libro y no he podido resistir echarle un vistazo. Esto es lo que escribía Samuel Rutherford en 1644 sobre la propiedad privada y el Estado:

"And the reasons why private men are just lords and proprietors of their own goods, are,

-1. Because, by order of nature, division of goods cometh nearer to nature's law and necessity than any king or magistrate in the world; and because it is agreeable to nature that every man be warmed by his own fleece - nourished by his own meat, therefore, to conserve every man's goods to the just owner, and to preserve a community from the violence of rapine and theft, a magistrate and king was devised.

So it is clear, men are just owners of their own goods, by all good order, both of nature and time, before there be any such thing as king or magistrate.

Now, if it be good that every man enjoy his own goods, as just proprietor thereof, for his own use, before there be a king, who can be proprietor of his goods? And a king being given of God for a blessing, not for any man's hurt and loss, the king cometh in to preserve a man's goods, but not to be lord and owner thereof himself, nor to taken from any man God's right to his own goods."

(Lex, Rex, or The Law and the Prince, Question XVI, Argument 1)

Me gusta. Liberalismo siglo XVII.