and she was made to be a Meet Help to him so that he must have it in his Power to make her so Besides he is of a more Elevated and Substantial Worth and she is the weaker Vessel This Reason Tully tells us was observ'd of Old Cic. in Orat. Pro L. Muraena Mulieres omnes propter infirmitatem Concilii majores in tutorem potestate esse voluerunt The Son owes Obedience to the Father because he owes his Being to him and commonly many of the Advantages of it by his Education and because he is as much a part of him as is his best Blood as is any Member of his Body the Son being the Father's Transcript and having his Blood and Nature in him particularly the Eldest Son having his Blood and Nature first in him being the Beginning and Chief of his Strength being next to him and entring first into the Possession of his Power all the other Children are by Primitive Institution after the Father's Death subject to the Eldest Brother and consequently all of the same Blood to the Eldest of the Eldest Line of it This Title of Primogeniture to rule was anciently acknowledged by the Followers of Nature Dicaearchus particularly and Aristotle speak of the Dominion of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and say it was of Old in use in the Cities of Greece But it is declared by God himself in several places of Scripture I shall instance only in one touching the first First-born When God saw him I mean Cain discontented because he approved of Abel's Sacrifice and not of his Vnto thee shall be his Desire and thou shalt rule over him said God to him in the same Language that he used to Eve concerning Adam's Dominion over her as if he should have told him that notwithstanding the Goodness of his Brother's and the Faultiness of his own Religion he would not take from him the Right of Dominion which he had over him by Primogeniture By the Rule of what I have said Adam was Universal Monarch of the Earth and Cain should have been so after him if he survived but that he forfeited his Right of being so together with his Life by the Murder of his Brother so it fell to Seth and his Family upon which Account I put it that Cainan as the Arabian Writers say was King of all the Earth and that Abydenus and Berosus reckon Ten Kings before the Flood as there were Ten Generations from Adam to Noah However Noah was by the Flood put almost into the same Condition with Adam therefore he is by an East-Indian Sect of Philosophers called The Second Adam But it was not long before if several of the Fathers were not misinform'd he parted the Earth by Lot between his three Sons by which means the Inequality which was among all Mankind by Nature as to Government was in part broken However it is certain that a Parity of Rule among many more Persons was brought in by the Dispersion of Noah's Children at Babel of which God was the Author of that extraordinary Oeconomy But it was a Parity not of all People of the same Society but of several distinct Monarchs only When God scattered the Race of Men by the Confusion of Tongues it was not done with so much Confusion but that he took Order there should be in every seperate Parcel of them one who had a Right of Sovereignty over the rest We find in the Tenth Chapter of Genesis that God scattered them all by Families and that of every Family there was a Father or Head and consequently one that was King of it and a Founder of a Kingdom therein and that Hereditary This I could confirm of most of the Families and their Heads there mentioned by Humane Records and that as well of those that planted themselves in Northern Climates as of those that sate down in the Eastern and Southern but it is not here convenient God having thus took order that Monarchy should be according to the Law of Nature the Government of every several distinct Society of Men which he constituted at Babel and that Successively it continued in Vogue among all Nations for at least a Thousand Years after that Aristotle says That Anciently Arist l. 1. Polit. Salust in Bello Catilin Cicero de Leg. lib. 3. Just l. 1. the Cities and Nations were under the Authority of Kings The same is testified by Salust Cicero Justin out of Trogus Pompeius and others particularly of Greece where there at length sprang up so many Free Commonwealths or Aristocratical and Democratical States Dyonissius Halicarnasseus assures us Dionys Hal. l. 5. that it was Originally Governed all by Kings To come Home Tacitus hath these Words of the Britains Olim regibus parebant nunc per Principes factionibus studiis trahuntur Indeed in all Records whether of good or doubtful Credit we find no People in our Island before we find a King So little does it appear that the British Kings derived their Scepters from the Hands of the People Secondly Monarchy only was the Government that God appointed to his People Israel He from their first coming out of Egypt took the Government of them upon himself and they came under a Theocracy God therefore complains upon the Occasion in our Text That they had rejected him that he should not Reign over them and Samuel that they said they would have a King when the Lord their God was their King This his Regency over them he exercised by extraordinary Methods and immediate Dispensations and he made Moses Joshuah and the Judges his Vice-Roys who though none of them had the Name of King except Moses of whom it 's said he was King in Jesurun Deut. 33.5 when the Heads of the People and the Tribes of Israel were gather'd together they all exercised a Regal Authority But God did not intend that they should have no other Mode of Government he designed them in due Season such Kings as other Nations had Besides that by the Spirit of God Jacob said The Scepter shall not depart from Judah until Shiloh come And Balaam his King speaking of Israel shall be higher than Agag and his Kingdom shall be exalted and the Mother of Samuel Deut. 17. He shall give Strength unto his King and exalt the Horn of his Annointed Moses said from God When thou art come into the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee and shalt possess it and shalt dwell therein and shalt say I will set a King over me like as all the Nations that are about me thou shalt in any wise set him over thee whom the Lord thy God shall chuse one from among thy Brethren shalt thou set King over thee c. The latter part of which words may more Grammatically and properly be render'd thus Setting thou shalt set over thee a King whom the Lord thy God shall chuse one from among thy Brethren shalt thou set King over thee Or thus Thou shalt
Because it is epitomized in the following Words of Solomon He doth whatsoever pleaseth him where the word of a King is there is Power and who may say unto him what doest thou To this Question of Solomon Milton replies No private Person but the Magistrate or Senate may But I cannot but wonder that he should be such a Novice in Learning and Master in Impudence at the same time so clear is the sence of the Words by their own Light as also by what Job says Who shall say unto him what doest thou And by Nebuchadnezzar's Acknowledgment he doth according to his Will Job 9.12 and none can stay his Hand or say unto him what doest thou Dan. 5.35 Which they both spake to testify the Authority of God to be absolutely Supreme and uncontroulable So much therefore of God was in the King according to Solomon that there was no Body whoever of his People no Magistrate no Senate to whom he was bound to give an Account This Sense of Solomon we are prepar'd to believe by that Saying of his Father David to God upon the Head of his Adultery and Murther Against thee only have I sinned So he said in the High Tide of his Repentance and his Meaning is that though his Sins were such as were in others to be punished by the Judge the Judge on Earth yet as his they were to be punished only by the Judge of Heaven and Earth This is the Exposition which all the Ancient Fathers and Learned Men and some Famed Papists also give of the Words which are more than I could now half quote was that my whole Business here It is indeed sufficiently evident to them who are not blind or will not shut their Eyes that the Kings of Israel were of Right free from all Coersion both by Elders and People The Question then will be Whether other Kings had the same Prerogative And it appears they had not only by Humane Records which I must not now touch but also by what is said of the Affair of the Text and by several Instances in Scripture In the Concern of the Text we find that the People said to Samuel Make us a King to judge us like all the Nations 1 Sam 8.5 and that God commanded Samuel to hearken to their Voice in all that they had said unto him 1 Sam. 8.7 But now they were not like other Nations in their Kings if the Kings of other Nations had not such a Supreme Authority as I have shewn theirs had Of the many Instances I shall at present urge only one and it shall be of the Egyptian King Joseph was known in Egypt to be of another Country and Religion to have been bought by Potiphar in the Quality of a Slave and after he had been raised by his favor to the management of all his business to have been strongly accus'd by his Wife of attempting the Violation of their Bed and thereupon to have lain long and with much hardship in Prison Yet this Man when not above thirty years of Age upon the Interpretation of the King's Dream concerning seven Years of Plenty and as many of Scarcity successively which whether it was true or false from a good Spirit or from a Bad might then be doubted by some and upon his Counsel to him to set one over the Land to make Provision against the Famine in which he might be then suspected to have some ambitious Regards to himself did Pharaoh without advising but with some of the Servants of his Court constitute a Ruler both over his House and the whole Land Gen. 41. and he set him in such an elevated degree of Power that only in the Throne was he himself greater that the People were all to be ruled according to his Word that without him no Body was to lift up his Hand or Foot in all the Land that he had it in his Commission to bind his Princes at his Pleasure and to teach his Senators Wisdom and that he might take and lay up what and where he thought fit of the Fruits of the Land for the use and under the Hand of his Master This Pharaoh did by vertue of his Regal Crown so he declared by those Words Gen. 41.44 I am Pharaoh and without thee shall no man lift up his Hand or Foot Pharaoh being the Title of the Egyptian Kings as Kings derived to them as I could shew from the first King of Egypt Misraim the Son of Ham. And that herein he extended not his Scepter beyond its due Limits I therefore reckon First Because Joseph advises him to it with the next Breath after he had by the Spirit of God explained his Dream Secondly Because Joseph who feared God not only accepted but also exercised the Authority and that in a great Latitude Thirdly Because Joseph says That God had made him Lord and Ruler of all Egypt which he could not well have said if it had been unjust in Pharaoh to have made him so it being by his Authority that he was so made Fourthly Because David sings of this Act of Pharaoh as a just Ground and Matter of Glorifying God I shall only add to this that the Egyptians being as all Writers of them agree a most unstable envious proud Seditious furious People and novarum rerum usque ad publicas cantilenas cupientes it is not likely they would have submitted herein to Pharaoh if they had not accounted that he herein exercised a just Prerogative They indeed seem to have look'd upon their Natural Kings as having a Paternal Right of Dominion For that Apis which I interpret Father was the Name of one at least of their Primitive Kings and also Pamyles or Palmys which signifies The King the Father and that Abimeleck which signifies The Father the King and from which Pamyles and Palmys differ but with a little Change of Letters was the Common Name of the Kings of the Philistins who were Grand-Children of Misraim the first Founder of the Egyptian Kingdom Thus do we see That a King of Old was a Governour absolutely Supreme not to be violently controul'd or call'd to an Account by any of his People but to be either actively or passively obey'd 2. Let us in the next place see whether the asking of a King was not a Wickedness considering it as to the Matter of it abstractively in it self that indeed it was far from it there are these Arguments among others offer'd us by Scripture First The Condition in which God put Mankind by the Creation Flood and Dispersion at Babel implyed Monarchy their Rightful Government both for present and future Generations For Man is the Head of the Woman and she ought to be in subjection to him because she was made after him of him and for him she came not into the World until Man was inthroned in the Dominion of all Inferior Creatures she was made of his Rib and so was Bone of his Bone and Flesh of his Flesh
know that God had placed him there But they who cast off those whom God hath appointed to Rule over them do in the same act cast off God himself Num. 16.11 Num. 26.9 Corah and his Company that rose up against Moses and Aaron are therefore said to have gather'd themselves together and striven against God and that though there were of their Party Two hundred and Fifty Princes of the Assembly famous in the Congregation Men of renown Simplicius if I have not forgotten tells us of the Achorites who were swallow'd up of the Earth for denying God I cannot but think they were the Corites with the Article prefixt and said to deny God because they rebell'd against his Vicegerent and his High Priest That our Petitioners in casting off Samuel cast off God also God himself declares when he says to Samuel They have not rejected thee 1 Sam. 8 7. but they have rejected me that I should not reign over them But yet there is more than that contained in those words namely that they reprobated God in regard of his own Government over them as well as of Samuel's and dealt no better with him than with his Lord Lieutenant God had most benignly undertaken to be their King in a more than common way in a more particular manner than he was of all the world besides and it could not be thought that he had no other right of being so but what was derived from the People or was capable of losing it because he had entred into Covenant with them and in the exercise of this his Kingship he had done them so many and great acts of Grace as it is impossible to begin an estimation of and yet by this Petition they not only most impiously derogated from his Goodness Care Justice and Wisdom in his oeconomy of them as if he was unmindful and negligent of the Publick weal and understood not how to manage it without their advice but went about most execrably to put him out of his Throne So we may partly see by the foremention'd place 1 Sam. 8.7 but more by what is said 1 Sam. 12. where Samuel having reasoned to them of the Righteousnesses and benefits which God had performed to them adjoyns Verse the 12. And when he saw that Nahash the King of the Children of Ammon came against you ye said unto me Nay but a King shall reign over us when the Lord your God was your King 5. These words offer to us a fifth Particular of their wickedness viz. That notwithstanding the many Deliverances which they had received from God and several of them by the hand of Samuel out of fears of a Neighbour Prince they most vilifyingly discarded the Conduct of them both for another refuge 6. They herein went upon the track of their former Rebellious Defections Practises of Rebellion as soon as of any other Sin nurse themselves into dispositions dispositions into habits and the fire of these though it ought to be with all possible care extinguisht seldom wholly is but though it may be for a while cover'd cooled or pent up commonly glows under its own ashes and erelong revives and breaks out again into a more furious and ravaging flame To have and to do as they list is so connatural to Mankind by degeneracy that they hate nothing more than to be under restraint though by God himself A just Subjection therefore they name Slavery and the drawing back from it they ascribe to generosity of Spirit And if any other Nation I was going to say except our own was guilty of this refractory and perfidious humour of revolting this of the Jews was So that rather than endure that yoke of Government which God put upon them they would have one of their own putting on though more strict and severe According to the habitualness hereof to them did they behave themselves in the present affair not considering that such Precedents were so far from deserving to be made leading rules much more from having any Plea to be lookt upon as Laws that they could no way be expiated but by declaring their hearty repentance and abhorrence of them According to all the works says God to Samuel 1 Sam. 8.8 which they have done since the day that I brought them out of Egypt even unto this day wherewith they have forsaken me and served other Gods so do they also to thee Their revolting from their Prince was Sister to their defection from God Theodorick had in his Court a Minister whom he very much loved He thinking to please his Prince left the Doctrine of Christ's eternal consubstantial Deity and protested himself of the Arrian Opinion wherewith he knew him infected but his Master hearing of it caused his Head to be stricken off saying That he who had not kept his Faith with God would never be loyal to a Mortal Man 7. But seventhly Our Petitioners were not herein like themselves only but also were carried to it by a fond Zeal of being like the Neighbour States without considering whether it was good or bad which they had a passion to be like them in They who devote themselves to write after the Copy of another man's manners at all adventure without an eye to its goodness and far more likely to do what is evil than what is good and if they happen to do what is good they do it not well because they do it not out of a study of goodness have furtendred their reason and their duty to the Copy and act not the Man but the Ape Farther He that will blindly follow the blind may possibly make a few fair and advantageous steps but shall nevertheless be reckoned a Fool or Madman because it is meerly by chance not any good-cunning that he does so and because he throws himself into a most certain danger of falling into the Ditch The States whom our Elders studied to be like were not only blind but also of such wicked and pernicious manners especially in things pertaining to God as should have made them wary of being like them in any thing much more should have kept them from making it their business to be like them And they must necessarily be esteemed to do wickedly who though they do what is in its self good do it not upon that account but out of a precipitate imitation of wicked Men. 8. They took a Pretext for doing it from faults of Publick importance committed by some great Officers of the Government Samuel having made his two Sons the Assistants of his Age in the Judicature of the Nation 1 Sam. 8.3 they turned aside after lucre took bribes and perverted judgment and for this reason their excellent Father must be deposed God himself revolted from and another mode of Government brought in A piece of wickedness certainly weighed against which that of Samuel's Sons will not stir the ballance Must the Sun be tumbled from his Saphire Throne lose his golden Crown of Rays and Empire