law unto oneself

If you take away the Law, all things will fall into a Confuſion, every Man will become a law unto himſelf; which, in the depraved Condition of Human Nature, muſt needs produce many great Enormities.

[T]he law was made to oppress the colored race, so I snapped my finger at the law, an' resolved to come up with it every time I got a chance. I would be a higher law unto myself; for if a white man, when he was wronged, was justified in rightin' himself, even to the takin' of life, I, bein' no whit inferior to my white compeer, would take the law into my own hands as he had into hisn.

For when the Gentiles which haue not the Law, doe by nature the things contained in the Law: theſe hauing not the Law, are a Law vnto themſelues.