For James Otis, the "laws of nature" were ordained by a conscious and deliberate God, and the God he referred to was, according to his pamphlet, "[t]he same omniscient, omnipotent, infinitely good and gracious Creator of the universe who has been pleased to make it necessary that what we call matter should gravitate for the celestial bodies to roll round their axes, dance their orbits, and perform their various revolutions in that beautiful order..."
Having identified the source of government, Otis declared: "Government is therefore most evidently founded on the necessities of our nature. It is by no means an arbitrary thing depending merely on compact or human will for its existence. . ." In other words, being a divine instrument designed for the "necessities of our nature," a government's policy must be consistent with its sacred origins and purpose. What is that purpose? According to Otis, "it is above all things to provide for the security, the quiet, and happy enjoyment of life, liberty, and property." Lest there be any misunderstanding as to government actions outside of these goals, Otis emphasizes his point. "There is no one act which a government can have a right to make that does not tend to the advancemewnt of the security, tranquillity, and prosperity of the people."
Otis acknowledges the fact that there have been tyrants in government who have expanded its scope beyond the limits he allows for. "But," he writes, "if every prince since Nimrod had been a tyrant, it would not prove a right to tyrannize. There can be no prescription old enough to supersede the law of nature and the grant of GOD Almighty, who has given to all men a natural right to be free...." (Nimrod was the king who, according to Scripture, rebelled against God's wish that the human race spread across the earth and instead built the Tower of Babel). Note the similarity between what Otis writes concerning the origin of human rights and what Thomas Jefferson would later immortalize in the Declaration of Independence.
Having painted the big picture of God, Government, and Man, Otis now puts it in context. "In order to form an idea of the natural rights of the colonists, I presume it will be granted that they are men, the common children of the same Creator with their brethren of Great Britain. Nature has placed all such in a state of equality and perfect freedom to act within the bounds of the laws of nature and reason without consulting the will or regarding the humor, the passions, or whims of any other man, unless they are formed into a society or body politic."
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