from the dignity of our Natures Thus far the Parents are fulfilling Gods appointments and gratifying their own Natures What from all this can give them a right over their Child All men coming into the world this way are no less free than if they had been form'd in Lucretius his Bottles and drop't out of his imaginary matrixes and we were all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aborigines In this they are onely executing the appointment of God are but his Instruments to bring us into this World and are all along rewarded and entertained and caressed by the order of Nature Adam ow'd this duty to God his Father and so ordered it was that he ow'd it to himself and to his own natural propensions pleasures and satisfactions to propagate The several succeeding generations of men as soon as they are men have as much Right to the enjoyment of themselves to the freedom of their own Will and to live by their own measures as Adam himself had Our Parents do not give us life but hand it to us from the Fountain of being the Universal Father of all things Vitai Lampada tradunt And this is allowed acknowledged by all Mankind for assoon as Children can Govern themselves we declare them free that they are sui juris they are extra familiated and become themselves Fathers and acquire to themselves The Jews who had a Kabala of the truest and most antient Theology and Morality best understood their own Laws and were furnished with the knowledg of what Power and Authority Fathers had over their Children whether by nature or by vertue of the fifth Commandment did take their Sons to be ipso jure Emancipated and suoe potestatis as soon as they were pubertatis plenoe The time of which they reckoned at the farthest when they were 13 years 3 months and one day old And therefore whereas it was one of the Laws of Moses Deut. 21. v. 18 19 20 21. That the stubborn and Rebellious Son at the Complaint and prosecution of the Father and Mother was to be judg'd to be ston'd to death They say a Son was not under this Law until he was 13 years and one day old for until that time he was not Filius proecepti not bound to any Laws As not until that time presum'd of competent discretion consideration or conscience to make him a Transgressor or Breaker of a Law But three Months after they reckoned him compleatly adult upon a general Presumption when and sooner if he were sooner adult he was free from the Power of his Father and could not incur the mentioned Law which condemns the rebellious and stubborn Son to be stoned to death Maimonides Tract Memarim But the Father who struck the Son after he was adult the Jews tell us incurred Excommunication for that he offended therein against the Law Levit. 19.14 Thou shalt not put a Stumbling-block before the Blind By which Precept they understand all things indecent and dishonest to be forbidden By which it doth appear that the Jews did not take their Children to be longer under the authority of their Fathers than until they commenced in the soonest account Men. Besides that Law of Deut. Chap. 21. seems to be onely a permission of an unnatural kind of severity to the offended Parents at whose suit onely the punishment of that Law could be inflicted such a sort of permission and liberty it was as was indulg'd to them in the matter of Divorce But that which hath imposed upon this Gentleman I believe is for that while they are to be educated Parents exercise an Authority over their Children which a sower Father may imagine to be Power This I believe gave the Gentleman his mistake because he saith a Child and a Slave doth not differ which is a shrewd indication that he was something too masterly over his Children But all equal parents know and understand that the Education of their Children is duty and care and it may not improperly be called a Sort of Generation-Work For I pray let it be considered That the foetus is not perfected assoon as it is extruded the Matrix no not until it be able to perform unassisted all the Actions of its proper life That the life of a man is a life of Reason That he cannot do the Acts of a man until he hath it in the exercise of it He is not a perfect foetus so as to be neglected by his parents as soon as he can feed himself the man after this may miscarry and after this if exposed by his parents and not continued under their care be abortivated Education is a kind of Incubation Our faculties are to be formed and drawn out into use as well as our body to be organized before we can be denominated men While this is accomplishing the parents are but executing the natural instinct of propagating their like until they have made them men they are not begotten in their own likeness They therefore with an easie propension and a natural care do apply themselves to offer things to their observation to furnish their Memories to try their judgments in little Essays to render them discoursive to draw out their faculties into use until by little and little they arrive at discretion and a power to form true judgments of what belongs to them and to govern themselves in such Affairs and businesses that are to employ them But while this is a doing they are under a Government of love and care by the Arts of Discipline to be trained up to perfection Several freakishnesses and caprices are to be cured and the strength and luxuriancies of several natural Appetites are to be abated and restrained and they are to be held to attention and observation and made patient of instruction Correction is to be administred to these purposes and by these measures But this duty of Correction doth not participate any thing of the Nature of Civil Government It hath nothing of the Nature of punishment exemplarity or vindicative Justice It is not for the gratifying of the Parents displeasure to secure him against wrong or injury to deter others but to amend improve and better the Child and always terminated to and directed to that end and by those measures it is tenderly and affectionately administred It will not be impertinent to observe that our Common Law had no opinion of any Soveraign Authority in a Father And also that the Statute of 25 E. 3. which declares petty Treasons as well as high Treasons doth not declare the Sons killing the Father to be Treason tho Treason it is for a Servant to kill his Master In which we have the Authority of our Parliament and of the constant opinion of our Judges That the nature and relation of a Father and a Son doth not favour any thing of Government or of a servile or Political subjection For that they have not made Parricide Treason though it is the most unnatural and most detestable Crime and a far
greater sin than that of killing a Master But further to clear the true notion of a Fathers Authority that it is duty and care not Empire and absolute will Let it be considered that God by his right of Creation hath an absolute plenary and direct dominion over us we are more his than we are our own or than any thing can be ours Yet when he was pleased of his gracious condescention to our capacity to quiet our fears of his power and to invite our love and assure our hope he did declare himself our Father thereby to assure us that he would not rule us pro imperio and according to his absolute right he had over us That stile he himself delights to use and gives us leave to call him our Father by which we all understand that he will not proceed with us according to his Right of absolute domination no not in the terms of strict Right and Political Justice But that he will consider our frame pity our infirmity correct us as his Children but not punish us with an exterminating Justice Amongst the Romans antiently no man was admitted a Judge in Criminal Causes but he that was a Father of Children that the severities of a Judge might be abated by the tenderness of a Father that he who had Children of his own might have the more pity to those of others so different is the Office of a Judge from the natural duty and tenderness of a Father It is the greatest violence that can be done to Nature to compel a Father to sit in Judgment upon his Son Next to that of obliging and compelling a man to execute himself to make it the Fathers duty to pronounce a capital Sentence upon the Son is the most unnatural thing in the World The Father and the Son in this consideration are conjunctae personae and when the Sin of the Father is visited upon the Son the Son is afflicted but the Father is punished and when the Son hath the Question the Father is taken to be confessed in tormentis silii But for a further instance to make it appear how incompetent the duty of a Magistrate is with the Nature of a Father I will observe that notwithstanding a Law was given to Adam and all his Sons to establish Judicatures according to the Tradition of the Jews as may be seen in Mr. Selden his Book de jure Gentium secundum Hebraeos which Law by the way had been supervacaneous if the Power of a Prince did belong to Adam in the right of his Paternity and a Government had been provided for them by their Birth Yet I say notwithstanding that there was such a Relaxation of Justice in the World before the Flood because it could be only administred by a Father or such who participated of the stock of love lodg'd in the common Father from whom his Children did derive their tenderness one to another as they themselves sprang from him That the World was grown so wicked within two ages as men then liv'd from the Creation that a Universal deluge was brought upon the World by the just Judgment of God for the outragious and insufferable Wickedness that had spread it self universally over mankind 8 persons only excepted The overflowing deluge of Wickedness that caus'd the deluge of waters can't be imputed to a more probable cause than to the indulgence and impunity that the observed and understood nearness of Kindred that all men stood then in to one another must naturally occasion This is a sad consequence of that natural Love in Parents towards their Children which was intended for the propagation and advancement of Mankind But since that now we are estranged one from another in remote and unknown degrees and that prejudice is over here is a Gentleman to destroy the World another wâ—… and to undo us by unreasonable and unâ—…d power which is alike apt to make 〈…〉 fit for another Universal destruction if it be not without more destroyed by it doth endeavour to turn the exercise of such power into a Right and to give it warranty from the Reason and way of our propagation and by this means to destroy us faster than we can be born and bred and impair the Generations of Mankind to render them extreamly miserable or wicked which is much worse extinguish the light of the World which is Love and Amity and destroy the encouragement and reason of almost all relative Morality What a Saturnine Father have we got to make a golden Age who ever would have thought that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most moving kindest most tender pleasing and beneficent instinct in Nature planted by God the Father of us all for the propagating educating and improving humane Nature should ever be made use of to found a right of Tyranny and Arbitrary domination the greatest destroyer and depraver of Mankind What Monster hath this last Age produced a Christian a Father seriously endeavouring to perswade all Mankind to offer up their Children to Moloch the Saturn of the Easterlings who was but the Devil of Tyranny as the name imports This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the true Origine and Fountain of Love and Amity and the social Virtues which render men humane from whence flows all the happiness of Mankind will by this Doctrine be corrupted and rendred unsincere and self-designing For when a Father performs an Act of Generation it seems now he designs to add a slave to his Retinue and when a Child is born there is another Item added to the Inventory of his Estate If this Fountain be corrupted there can be nothing sincerely kind after it in Humane Nature The Leviathan is out-done by this Gentleman and hath not performed half so renownedly in the great Work of depraving Humane Nature as our Patriarchal Knight will do if his Admirers can bring him into vogue and esteem For the Author of the Leviathan allowed something good in Humane Nature several equal propensions which he terms her Counsels and sometimes adventures to call the Laws of Nature But he concludes they are not practicable and they are only fools who govern themselves by them But this Gentlemen will not allow Nature to be good in her first institution and designment though in this I think they are near agreeable that Mr. Hobbs made the Pourtraicture of Humane Nature in an agreeableness to his own evil Ingeny and this Knight did set himself when he made this his draught of a Father he could have no other Original but himself or the Idea of the morose and sowr Dr. P. H. his admired friend but by his Character he had at least misfigured his understanding and made it his own Nature by liking it 2ly No more of authority belong'd to Adam over his Children than does to any of his Children over his for that this Authority proceeds from Nature and Nature is alike in all men The duty of their education and the Authority over them that is competent to
that purpose is as much belonging to them and incumbent upon them as upon the Protoplast The duty is so personal consisting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it cannot be transferred or permitted absolutely to any other person by the Parents nor can any man challenge a right to it or discharge the Father from it or require the same affection submission and reverence that is due from a Child to his Father To expect relative duties without Relation is most unnatural it is as impossible as incongruous We may as well love and hate rejoyce and grieve without the proper object and incitements of those passions The fundamental Rule of all morality is that of Epictetus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say by the State and Condition in which we stand the relations and respects under which we are considered our duties are determined measured and adjusted upon which see Simplicius his Excellent Discourse wherein many things are said agreeable to our purpose This moral Aphorism is as certain as any proposition in Euclid as the Doctrine of proportional Triangles and received as such by all the Masters of Moral Philosophy There is no other foundation of our duty to God or Man or towards our selves This Rule whatever it is must declare it Whatever is measured and allowed by this Rule is commonly called which is comprehensive of all that is honest just and fit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The application of this Rule is called by St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which when a man observes he is perfectly moral A man may as well pay his debts by giving away his Money be grateful to his benefactor by being beneficent to strangers as perform that duty he owes his Father to any but he that is so It is as impossible to separate the shadow from the Substance as to make that subsist by it self which grows by resultance from the state and condition of the person or that without that state of the person from which it doth arise it should ever accrew 3ly Admitting Adam had a Soveraign Authority over all his descendents which must grow if there was any such thing from some positive institution and not from his paternity yet the natural Authority and Duty of Parents towards their Children continues entire together with Soveraign Power and is not at all abated by it and therefore cannot be the same No Soveraign Power can extort the Children from their Fathers Authority and Care This is a duty in Nature before Governments They cannot belong to the Government before they are filii praecepti and capable of the Conscience of a Law It is a duty in Parents to educate their Children and a right they have in consequence to govern them that cannot be taken from them It is the Parents duty to form their Consciences They are appointed by God the great Ministers of his Providence and Grace to the Children That they perform this Office he hath tyed them to it by the sweetest constraints and almost violences of Nature by an irresistable love and tyes of Endearment that cannot be broken This declares their Right of Authority over their Children against any interposings of Soveraign Authority to its prejudice let or hinderance Thomas Aquinas positively determines that it is not lawful for Christian Kings to baptize the Children of the Jews against the will of their Parents for that saith he it is against the course of natural justice 4ly Thereis no footsteps in the Records of the old world to verifie this Hypothesis That such Authority was so much as pretended to used or exercised by Adam but we find instances against it in the short History before the Flood Cain received no sentence from Adam his Prince and Soveraign Judge but from God himself or rather from his Shecinah or some visible Representation of his presence Thence he obtained some degree of impunity and his life protected No mention here at all of Adam his taking the Tribunal or Cains arraignment or of any pardon or indulgence granted by King Adam Lamech that had killed a man by mischance did not alledge his case at his Father Adams Court and the matter of extenuation of the Man-killing we hear of no pardon of Course to be allowed when the circumstances of fact had been first judicially considered How could a thing of such importance be omitted in the story of the old World though so short It was of more concernment than to know that Tubal Cain was the first Smith and Jubal the first man that made a Musical instrument to know the original nature and reason of Government Besides we find all the grand-Children of Noah becoming Princes of Countries and the Sons and grand-Sons of Esau alike Dukes and Princes that is at least absolute Fathers of their own Families and ruling over such as were their slaves and dependants And the 12 Sons of Jacob are all called Patriarchs When Nimrod plaid the Tyrant we find nothing said for his justification upon any Patriarchal right But if we consult the Traditions of the Jews they will inform us of another original of Government and that is this They say that God gave several Precepts to Adam and his Sons and Noah and his Sons and one amongst the rest that they should erect Governments which his Sons could not have performed without Rebellion against their King-Father if Adam had been so as Sir Robert Filmer first dreamt Also besides that of making Governments there was a Precept given them of honouring their Parents Selden de jure Naturae secundum Hebraeos fol. 792. And therefore the Precept of honouring Parents is a distinct duty from that of obedience to Governments By this Precept they had Authority in general to establish Governments amongst themselves in the specification of which they were left to their own liberty and discretion and therefore were not obliged to any single form of Government It must be understood that the Precept which required the Sons of Adam and Noah to establish Governments required also every mans Submission to their Orders Laws and Decrees when established Lastly We will consider of the instances he gives of the Exercise of Soveraign Power by Fathers of Families which are as impertinent to his purpose as his Doctrine is groundless and precarious But they are these Abraham's War and Judahs Judgment upon Thamar As to the first of Abraham's making War We say we cannot allow that making War doth argue any Soveraign Authority It is sufficient that he who makes it is under none to make a vindicative War lawful For an injured Person may in the State of Nature vindicate wrongs by an Authority derived from God and Nature to a just satisfaction Because there is no competent Judicature to appeal to for right and redress But see how unhappy the Gentleman is This very instance of his production is clearly against him For if Soveraign Power had been Patriarchal Abraham had been guilty of Treason in making War without a Commission
from Melchizedech the King of Salem who as the Learned men conjecture was Shem his Patriarch and Chief and known by him for such But because Abraham the best man perhaps in any Age did not take a Commission from Melchizedech his Patrialchal chief and yet he was blessed by Melchizedech when here turned from the War We may conclude that neither Melchizedech nor Abraham knew of any such Patriarchal Soveraignty And also from this great Example it appears that it is lawful for him that is not a Soveraign if he be not under any to make War I will not enter into a discourse whence and how is derived the Authority of making War and capital Sentences for the same reason must warrant both which hath puzled some great Divines Dr. Hammond that great man was at a loss in this enquiry and thinks that nothing but a Divine Authority can warrant them which hath put them upon strange extravagant Hypotheses of Government and sent this Knights brains a Wool-gathering But this may satisfie any man of sence That whatever is necessary for the general happiness of Mankind and for preserving peace in the World and protecting the innocent and dis-inabling the mighty oppressors is more commendable to be done than the killing a man in his own defence is simply lawful As to his second instance of Judah his Sentence pronounced upon his Daughter-in-Law Thamar which the Knight would have an exercise of Patriarchal Soveraign Authority we say how could Judah do this by a Patriarchal Power when Jacob his Father was then alive and for all that appears Judah his Son was not extrafamiliated Besides which is very unlucky Thamar was then none of his Family or of the Subjects of his Domestick Empire for his Son her Husband being dead she was free from the Law of her Husband and ceased to be a Subject of his Paternal Kingdom But Mr. Selden under the Authority of some Rabbins which he cites in his excellent Book before mentioned fol. 807. saith That Judah might have the Office of a Prince or Magistrate in a district in that Country and by that Authority might judg her according to the Laws of that Country But what the Law was and the Nature and Reason of her Offence by which it became Capital is not understood as he tells us in the place before-cited I shall not trouble the Reader with unfolding the matter But why doth he trouble himself to make Kings Fathers of their Countries Some cannot be so and some have no mind to be so and yet they ought to be Kings And some that have not been Kings have been so and so styled as the great M. Tully for defeating the Catiline-Conspiracy was by decree of the Senate called Pater Patriae Those are with reason truly called Patres Patriae which either relieve their Country from miserable pressures which is the civil death of a Nation and for this reason our King hath the honour of being called Pater Patriae and we hope that he will wear that honourable Title upon a second deliverance of us from a most deplorable condition Or else such are called Patres Patriae who bring the Nation to an exalted state of happiness so much beyond their old state of things that they seem to give the Nation a new civil Life Being and Birth For his etymological argument from the notation of the Word it is too putid to be insisted upon though not more ridiculous than his Hypothesis But for that the reduction of our duty to our King to the fifth Commandment may seem to give some advantage to this Hypothesis with Fathers who know no bounds of their power over their Children It must be obsered that the Decalogue is not a compleat Rule of Morality The Decalogue comprised the Principal Laws of that Common-wealth which God their Law-giver by a most Solemn Act of his Legislation did more awfully oblige them to observe God that time was their King Rebellion was as Idolatry and the sin of Witchcraft and the Defection of one of their Cities to Idolatry was punished as a revolt and Rebellion Deut. 13. v. 15. He had provided for his Honour and Worship and their Allegiance in the first Table and did design by the fifth Commandment to lay the Foundation of all positive morality by providing for a Reciprocation of kindnesses by enjoyning the gratitude and fitting returns of Children to their Parents and by putting Children under obligations to be taught and instructed by their Parents But our duty to Governors is more duly referred to all the other Commandments because Government secures the observation of those Laws to us by which we enjoy our selves and ours freed from the Volations of Lust Appetite Fraud and Violence We do not honour our King by relief in his fortune which is commanded to be done by our Parents in the precept of honouring them our subsidies and Aids are not to that purpose but contributions to the charges of the Government they are the just price of our immunity and protection from fraud and violence for which cause pay we tribute But whatsoever he be that hath more respect for this Knights Works than I have may find him more gently treated by a very worthy Gentleman in a very candid and judicious Book called Patriarcha non Monarcha But what is the meaning of these flattering Books they cannot but be nauseous to His Majesty who is a very wise Prince and knows how sensless such Books are and besides they make the People afraid and the Nation unquiet from the apprehensions they give that the Government will be changed Notwithstanding the King hath given such solemn assurance to the Nation by his late Declaration That we shall have frequent Parliaments and that he will govern by Law They would have had a better market for the Divinity they bestow upon Princes with Alexander after he had lost his Vertue and with those vile Emperours whose Names are Regum opprobria for such the flatterers of ancient times Deifyed those who had ceas'd to be men they made Gods and when they had left nothing about them that was tolerable they magnified their power which was already most intolerable If the Kings hereafter would but read the History of Kings under that conclusion that a wise observer of Humane Events made after a long observation and experience and would make Experiments of the truth of it in their own reading Kings would be glorious and the Nations they govern happy and full of peace They would find therein so many effectual Documents to fear God and regard men and govern them righteously It is this Si Vitam spectes hominum si denique Mores Artem vim fraudem cunct a putes agere Si propius spectes fortuna est arbitra Rerùm Nescis quid dicis sed tamen esse putas At penit us si introspicias ultima primis Connectas solus rector in orbe Deus Alciat People can be no happier than Government