And many circumstances may serve as extenuation. A punishment is an evil inflicted by public authority on him that hath done or omitted that which is said to be by the same authority a transgression of the law, to the end that the will of men may thereby be the better disposed to obedience. Now, this right of punishment is not transferred by the subjects to the sovereign, since they cannot surrender their right of self-defence against violence. But as all before had the natural right of hurting others, that right is left by the covenant to the sovereign alone, strengthened by the resignation thereof by the rest. Punishments inflicted by man are 'corporal' or 'pecuniary,' or 'ignominy,' or 'imprisonment,' or 'exile,' or mixed of these.
Corporal are capital, with or without torment, and less than capital.
Imprisonment, when it is only for the custody of a person accused, is not punishment. Exile is not so much a punishment as a command or permission to escape punishment, except when accompanied by deprivation of goods. But when a country is conquered, that is the dissolution of the commonwealth. Of the sovereign's duties the first is to surrender none of his powers, and the second to see that they be known, to which end, and the understanding of it, the people must be rightly instructed. Subjects owe simple obedience to the sovereign in all things whatsoever, except what is contrary to the laws of God.