that he states the Question or rallies up any Arguments to make good his Opinion but rather tells us the Story as he thinks fit of this strange kind of domineering Phantom called the Fatherhood which whoever could catch presently got Empire and unlimited absolute Power He assures us how this Fatherhood began in Adam continued it's course and kept the World in order all the time of the Patriarchs till the Flood got out of the Arch with Noah and his Sons made and supported all the Kings of the Earth till the Captivity of the Israelites in Egypt and then the poor Fatherhood was under hatches till God by giving the Israelites Kings Re-established the Ancient and prime Right of the lineal Succession in paternal Government This is his business from p. 12 to 19. And then obviating an Objection and clearing a Difficulty or two with one half reason p. 23. to confirm the Natural Right of Regal Power he ends the first Chapter I hope 't is no Injury to call an half Quotation an half Reason for God says Honour thy Father and Mother but our Author contents himself with half leaves out thy Mother quite as little serviceable to his purpose but of that more in an other place 7 I do not think our Author so little skill'd in the way of Writing Discourses of this Nature nor so careless of the Point in hand that he by oversight commits the fault that he himself in his Anarchy of a mix'd Monarchy p. 239. Objects to Mr. Hunton in these words Where first I charge the A that he hath not given us any Definitionâ— or Discription of Monarchy in general for by the Rules of Method he should have first defin'd And by the like Rule of Method Sr. Rob. should have told us what his Fatherhood or Fatherly Authority is before he had told us in whom it was to be found and talked so much of it But perhaps Sr. Rob. found that this Fatherly Authority this Power of Fathers and of Kings for he makes them both the same p. 24. would make a very odd and frightful Figure and very disagreeing with what either Children imagin of their Parents or Subjects of their Kings if he should have given us the whole dâ—aught together in that Gigantic Form he had Painted it in his own Phancy and therefore like a wary Physician when he would have his Patient swallow some harsh or Corrosive Liquor he mingles it with a large quantity of that which may delute it that the scatter'd Parts may go down with less feeling and cause less Aversion 8. Let us then endeavour to find what account he gives us of this Fatherly Authority as it lies scatter'd in the several Parts of his Writings And first as it was vested in Adam he says not only Adam but the succeeding Patriarchs had by Right of Fatherhood Royal Authority over their Children p. 12. This Lordship which Adam by Command had over the whole World and by right descending from him the Patriarchs did injoy was as large and ample as the Absolute Dominion of any Monarch which hath been since the Creation p. 13. Dominion of Life and Death making War and concluding Peace p. 13. Adam and the Patriarchs had Absolute Power of Life and Death p. 35. Kings in the right of Parents succeed to the Exercise of supream jurisdiction p. 19. As Kingly Power is by the Law of God so it hath no inferior Law to Limit it Adam was Lord of all p. 40. The Father of a Family governs by no other Law then by his own will p. 78. The Superiority of Princes is above Laws p. 79. The unlimited jurisdiction of Kings is so amply described by Samuel p. 80. Kings are above the Laws p. 93. And to this purpose see a great deal more which our A delivers in Bodins's words It is certain that all Laws Priviledges and Grants of Princes have no Force but during their Life if they be not ratified by the express Consent or by sufferance of the Prince following especially Priviledges O. p. 279. The reason why Laws have been also made by Kings was this when Kings were either busied with Wars or distracted with Public Cares so that every private Man could not have Accâ—ss to their Persons to learn their Wills and Pleasure then were Laws of necessity invented that so every particular Subject might find his Princes Pleasure Decypher'd unto him in the Tables of his Laws p. 92. In a Monarchy the King must by necessity be above the Laws p. 100. A perfect Kingdom is that wherein the King Rules all things according to his own Will p. 100. Neither Common nor Statute Laws are or can be any Diminution of that General Power which Kings have over their People by right of Fatherhood p. 115. Adam was the Father King and Lord over his Family a Son a Subject and a Servant or Slave were one and the same thing at first The Father had Power to dispose or sell his Children or Servants whence we find that at the first reckoning up of Goods in Scripture the Man-servant and the Maid-servant are numbred among the Possessions and substance of the Owner as other Goods were O pref God also hath given to the Father a Right or Liberty to alien his Power over his Children to any other whence we find the Sale and Gift of Children to have been much in use in in the Beginning of the World when Men had their Servants for a Possession and an Inheritance as well as other Goods whereupon we find the Power of Castrating and making Eunâ—chsâ— much in use in Old times O. p. 155. Law is nothing else but the will of him that hath the Power of the Supream Father O. p. 223. It was Gods Ordinance that Supremacy should be unlimited in Adam and as large as all the Acts of his Will and as in him so in all others that have Supream Power O. p. 245. 9. I have been fain to trouble by Reader with these several Quotations in our A s own words that in them might be seen his own Discription of his Fatherly Authority as it lies scatter'd up and down in his Writings which he supposes was first vested in Adam and by Right belongs to all Princes ever since This Fatherly Authority then or Right of Fatherhood in our A s sence is a Divine unalterable Right of Sovereignty whereby a Father or a Prince hath an Absolute Arbitrary unlimited and unlimitable Power over the Lives Libertys and Estates of his Children or Subjects so that he may take or alienate their Estates sell castrate or use their Persons as he pleases they being all his slaves and he Lord and Proprietor of every thing and his unbounded Will their Law 10. Our A having placed such a mighty Power in Adam and upon that supposition founded all Government and all Power of Princes it is reasonable to expect that he should have proved this with Arguments clear and evident suitable to the weightiness of
the Cause That since Men had nothing else left them they might in slavery had such undeniable Proofs of its necessity that heir consciences might be convinced and oblige them to submit peaceably to that Absolute Dominion which their Governors had a Right to Exercise over them without this what good could our A do or pretend to do by erecting such an unlimited Power but flatter the Natural Vanity and Ambition of Men too apt of its self to grow and increase with the Possession of any Power And by perswading those who by the consent of their fellow Men are advanced to great but limited degrees of it that by that Part which is given them they have a Right to all that was not so and therefore may do what they please because they have Authority to do more then others and so tempt them to do what is neither for their own nor the good of those under their Care whereby great mischeifs cannot but follow 11. The Sovereignty of Adam being that on which as a sure basis our A builds his Mighty Absolute Monarchy I expected that in his Patriarcha this his main supposition would have been proved and established with all that evidence of Arguments that such a Fundamental Tenet required and that this on which the great stress of the business depends would have been made out with reasons sufficient to justifie the confidence with which it was assumed But in all that Treatise I could find very little tending that way the thing is there so taken for granted without Proof that I could scarce believe my self when upon attentive Reading that Treatise I found there so mighty a Structure rais'd upon the bare supposition of this Foundation for it is scarce credible that in a Discourse where he pretends to confute the Erroneous Principle of Mans Natural Freedom he does it by a bare supposition of Adams Authority without offering any Proof for that Authority Indeed he confidently says that Adam had Royal Authority p. 12 and 13. Absolute Lordship and Dominion of life and death p. 13. An Vniversal Monarchy p. 33. Absolute Power of life and death p. 35. He is very frequent in such Assertions but what is strange in all his whole Patriarcha I find not one pretence of a reason to Establish this his great Foundation of Government not any thing that looks like an Argument but these words To confirm this Natural Right of Regal Power we find in the Decalogue that the Law which injoyns Obedience to Kings is delivered in the Terms Honour thy Father as if all Power were Originally in the Father And why may I not add as well that in the Decalogue the Law that injoyns obedience to Queens is delivered in the Terms of Honour thy Mother as if all Power were Originally in the Mother The Argument as Sr. Rob. puts it will hold as well for one as tother but of this more in its due place 12. All that I take notice of here is that this is all our A says in this first or any of the following Chapters to prove the Absolute Power of Adam which is his great Principle and yet as if he had there settled it upon sure Demonstration he begins his 2 d. Chapter with these words by Confering these Proofs and Reasons drawn from the Authority of the Scripture Where those Proofs and Reasons for Adams Sovereignty are bateing that of Honour thy Father above mentioned I confess I cannot find unless what he says p. 11. In these words we have an evident Confession viz. of Belarmin that Creation made Man Prince of his Posterity must be taken for Proofs and Reasons drawn from Scripture or for any sort of Proofs at all though from thence by a new way of inference iâ— the words immediately following And indeed he concludes the Royal Authority of Adam sufficiently settled in him 13. If he has in that Chapter or any where in the whole Treatise given any other Proofs of Adams Royal Authority other then by often repeating it which among some Men goes for Argument I desire any body for him to shew me the Place and Page that I may be convinced of my mistake and acknowledge my oversight If no such Arguments are to be found I beseech those Men who have so much cryed up this Book to consider whether they do not give the World cause to suspect that 't is not the Force of Reason and Argument that makes them for Absolute Monarchy but some other by interest and therefore are resolved to applaud any Author that writes in Favour of this Doctrin whether he support it with reason or no. But I hope they do not expect that rational and indifferent Men should be brought over to their Opinion because this their great Dr. of it in a Discourse made on purpose to set up the Absolute Monarchical Power of Adam in opposition to the Natural Freedom of Mankind has said so little to prove it from whence it is rather naturally to be concluded that there is little to be said 14. But that I might omit no care to inform my self in our A s full Sense I consulted his Observations on Aristotle Hobs c. To see whether in disputing with others he made use of any Arguments for this his Darling Tenet of Adam's Sovereignty since in his Treatise of the Natural Power of Kings he had been so sparing of them And in his Observations on Mr. Hobs's Leviathan I think he has put in short all those Arguments for it together which in his Writings I find him any where to make use of his Words are these If God Created only Adam and of a piece of him made the Woman and if by Generation from them two as parts of them all Mankind be propagated If also God gave to Adam not only the Dominion over the Woman and the Children that should Issue from them but also over the whole Earth to subdue it and over all the Creatures on it so that as long as Adam lived no Man could claim or enjoy any thing but by Donation Assignation or Permission from him I wonder c. O. 165. Here we have the Sum of all his Arguments for Adams Sovereignty and against Natural Freedom which I find up and down in his other Treatises which are these following Gods Creation of Adam the Dominion he gave him over Eve And the Dominion he had as Father over his Children all which I shall particularly consider CHAP. III. Of Adams Title to Sovereignty by Creation 15. SIR Rob. in his Preface to his Observations on Aristotle's Politics tells us A Natural Freedom of Mankind cannot be supposed without the denial of the Creation of Adam but how Adams being Created which was nothing but his receiving a Being immediately from Omnipotency and the hand of God gave Adam a Sovereignty over any thing I cannot see nor consequently understand how a Supposition of natural Freedom is a denial of Adams Creation and would be glad any body else
due from Children and had there been any Text where the honour or obedience of Children had been directed to the Father alone 't is not likely that our A who pretends to Build all upon Scripture would have omitted it nay the Scripture makes the Authority of Father and Mother in respect of those they have begot so equal that in some places it neglects even the Priority of Order which is thought due to the Father and the Mother is put first as Lev. 19. 3. from which so constantly joyning Father and Mother together as is found quite through the Scripture we may conclude that the honour they have a Title to from their Children is one common right belonging so equally to them both that neither can claim it wholly neither can be excluded 62. One would wonder then how our A infers from the 5 th Commandment that all Power was Originally in the Father How he finds Monarchical Power of Government settled and fixed by the Commandment Honour thy Father and thy Mother If all the honour due by the Commandments be it what it will be the only right of the Father because he as our A says has the Sovereignty over the Woman as being the Nobler and Principal Agent in Generation why did God afterwards all along joyn the Mother with him to share in this honour can the Father by this Sovereignty of his discharge the Child from Paying this Honour to his Mother The Scripture gave no such License to the Jews and yet there were often Breaches wide enough betwixt Husband and Wife even to divorce and seperation and I think no Body will say a Child may withhold honour from his Mother or as the Scripture Terms it set light by her though his Father should command him to do so no more then the Mother could dispense with him for neglecting to Honour his Father whereby 't is plain that this command of God gives the Father no Sovereignty no Supremacy 63. I agree with our A that the Title to this Honour is vested in the Parents by nature and is a right which accrews to them by their having begotten their Children and God by many positive Declarations has confirm'd it to them I also allow our A s Rule that in Grants and Gifts that have their Original from God and Nature as the Power of the Father let me add and Mother for whom God hath joyned together let no Man put a sunder no inferior Power of Men can limit nor make any Law of Prescription against them O. 158. So that the Mother having by this Law of God a right to Honour from her Children which is not Subject to the Will of her Husband we see this Absolute Monarchical Power of the Father can neither be founded on it nor consist with it And he has a Power very far from Monarchical very far from that Absoluteness our A contends for when another has over his Subjects the same Power he hath and by the same Title and therefore he cannot forebear saying himself that he cannot see how any Mans Children can be free from Subjection to their Parents p. 12. which in common Speech I think signifies Mother as well as Father or if Parents here signifies only Father 't is the first time I ever yet knew it to do so and by such an use of Words one may say any thing 64. By our A s Doctrin the Father having Absolute jurisdiction over his Children has also the same over their Issue and the consequence is good were it true that the Father had such a Power and yet I ask our A whether the Grand-father by his Sovereignty could discharge the Grand-Child from Paying to his Father the honour due to him by the 5 th Commandment If the Grand-Father hath by right of Fatherhood Sole Sovereign Power in him and by Honour thy Father be commanded that Obedience which is due to the Sovereign 't is certain the Grand-Father might dispence with the Grand-Sons Honouring his Father which since 't is evident in common Sense he cannot 't is evident Honour thy Father and Mother cannot mean an Absolute Subjection to a Sovereign Power but something else The right therefore which Parents have by nature and which is confirmed to them by the 5 th Commandment cannot be that Political Dominion which our A would derive from it for that being in every civil Society Supream somewhere can discharge any Subject from any Political Obedience to any one of his fellow Subjects But what Law of the Magistrate can give a Child liberty not to Honour his Father and Mother 't is an eternal Law annex'd purely to the relation of Parents and Children and so contains nothing of the Magistrates Power in it nor is Subjected to it 65. Our A says God hath given to a Father a right or liberty to Alien his Power over his Children to any other O 155. I doubt whether he can Alien wholly the right of Honour that is due from them But be that as it will this I am sure he cannot Alien and retain the same Power if therefore the Magistrates Sovereignty be as our A would have it nothing but the Authority of a Supream Father p. 23. 't is unavoidable that if the Magistrate hath all this Paternal Right as he must have if Fatherhood be the Fountain of all Authority then the Subjects though Fathers can have no Power over their Children no right to honour from them for it cannot be all in anothers hands and a part remain with them so that according to our A s own Doctrin Honour thy Father and Mother cannot possibly be understood of Political Subjection and Obedience since the Laws both in the Old and New Testament that commanded Children to Honour and obey their Parents were given to such whose Fathers were under such Government and fellow Subjects with them in Political Societies and to have bid them Honour and obey their Parents in our A s Sense had been to bid them be Subjects to those who had no Title to it the right to Obedience from Subjects being all vested in another and instead of teaching Obedience this had been to foment Sedition by setting up Powers that were not If therefore this command Honour thy Father and Mother concern Political Dominion it directly overthrows our A s Monarchy since it being to be paid by every Child to his Father even in Society every Father must necessarily have Political Dominion and there will be as many Sovereigns as there are Fathers besides that the Mother too hath her Title which destroys the Sovereignty of one Supream Monarch But if Honour thy Father and Mother mean something distinct from Political Power as necessarily it must it is besides our A s business and serves nothing to his purpose 66. The Law that enjoyns Obedience to Kings is delivered says our A in the Terms Honour thy Father as if all Power were Originally in the Father O. 254. And that Law is also delivered say I in the
when free to put himself into Subjection to another for his own harm though where he finds a good and a wise Ruler he may not perhaps think it either necessary or useful to set precise Bounds to his Power in all things Prerogative can be nothing but the Peoples permitting their Rulers to do several things of their own free choice where the Law was silent and sometimes too against the direct Letter of the Law for the publick good and their acquiescing in it when so done For as a good Prince who is mindful of the trust put into his hands and careful of the good of his People cannot have too much Prerogative that is Power to do good So a weak and ill Prince who would claim that Power his Predecessors exercised without the direction of the Law as a Prerogative belonging to him by Right of his Office which he may exercise at his pleasure to make or promote an Interest distinct from that of the publick gives the People an occasion to claim their Right and limit that Power which whilst it was exercised for their good they were content should be tacitly allowed 165. And therefore he that will look into the History of England will find that Prerogative was always largest in the hands of our wisest and best Princes Because the People observing the whole tendency of their Actions to be the publick good or if any humane frailty or mistake for Princes are but Men made as others appear'd in some small declinations from that end yet 't was visible the main of their Conduct tended to nothing but the care of the publick The People therefore finding reason to be satisfied with these Princes whenever they acted without or contrary to the Letter of the Law acquiesced in what they did and without the least complaint let them inlarge their Prerogative as they pleased judging rightly that they did nothing herein to the prejudice of their Laws since they acted conformable to the Foundation and End of all Laws the publick good 166. Such God-like Princes indeed had some Title to Arbitrary Power by that Argument that would prove Absolute Monarchy the best Government as that which God himself governs the Universe by because such Kings partake of his Wisdom and Goodness Upon this is founded that saying That the Reigns of good Princes have been always most dangerous to the Liberties of their People For when their Successors managing the Government with different Thoughts would draw the Actions of those good Rulers into Precedent and make them the Standard of their Prerogative as if what had been done only for the good of the People was a right in them to do for the harm of the People if they so pleased It has often occasioned Contest and sometimes publick Disorders before the People could recover their original Right and get that to be declared not to be Prerogative which truly was never so since it is impossible any body in the Society should ever have a right to do the People harm though it be very possible and reasonable that the People should not go about to set any Bounds to the Prerogative of those Kings or Rulers who themselves transgressed not the Bounds of the publick good For Prerogative is nothing but the Power of doing publick good without a Rule 167. The Power of calling Parliaments in England as to precise time place and duration is certainly a Prerogative of the King but still with this trust that it shall be made use of for the good of the Nation as the exigencies of the Times and variety of Occasion shall require For it being impossible to foresee which should always be the fittest place for them to assemble in and what the best season the choice of these was left with the Executive Power as might be best subservient to the publick good and best suit the ends of Parliaments 168. The old Question will be asked in this matter of Prerogative But who shall be Judge when this Power is made a right use of I answer Between an Executive Power in being with such a Prerogative and a Legislative that depends upon his will for their convening there can be no Judge on Earth As there can be none between the Legislative and the People should either the executive or the Legislative when they have got the Power in their hands design or go about to enslave or destroy them The People have no other remedy in this as in all other cases where they have no Judge on earth but to appeal to Heaven For the Rulers in such attempts exercising a Power the people never put into their hands who can never be supposed to consent that any body should rule over them for their harm do that which they have not a right to do And where the Body of the People or any single Man are deprived of their Right or are under the Exercise of a power without right having no Appeal on earth they have a liberty to appeal to Heaven when-ever they judge the Cause of sufficient moment And therefore though the People cannot be Judge so as to have by the Constitution of that Society any Superiour power to determine and give effective Sentence in the case yet they have reserv'd that ultimate Determination to themselves which belongs to all Mankind where there lies no Appeal on Earth by a Law antecedent and paramount to all positive Laws of Men whether they have just Cause to make their Appeal to Heaven And this Judgment they cannot part with it being out of a Man's power so to submit himself to another as to give him a liberty to destroy him God and Nature never allowing a Man so to abandon himself as to neglect his own preservation And since he cannot take away his own Life neither can he give another power to take it Nor let any one think this lays a perpetual foundation for Disorder for this operates not till the Inconvenience is so great that the Majority feel it and are weary of it and find a necessity to have it amended And this the Executive Power or wise Princes never need come in the danger of And 't is the thing of all others they have most need to avoid as of all others the most perilous CHAP. XV. Of Paternal Political and Despotical Power considered together 169. THough I have had occasion to speak of these separately before yet the great mistakes of late about Government having as I suppose arisen from confounding these distinct Powers one with another it may not perhaps be amiss to consider them here together 170. First then Paternal or Parental Power is nothing but that which Parents have over their Children to govern them for the Childrens good till they come to the use of Reason or a state of Knowledge wherein they may be supposed capable to understand that Rule whether it be the Law of Nature or the municipal Law of their Countrey they are to govern themselves by Capable I
Writing having once named the Text concludes presently without any more ado that the meaning is as he would have it let the Words Rule and Subject be but found in the Text or Margent and it immediately signifies the Duty of a Subject to his Prince and the Relation is changed and though God says Husband Sr. Robt. will have it King Adam has presently Absolute Monarchial Power over Eve and not only Eve but all that should come of her though the Scripture says not a word of it nor our A a word to prove it But Adam must for all that be an Absolute Monarch and so to the end of the Chapter quite down to Ch. 1. And here I leave my Reader to consider whether my bare Saying without offering any Reasons to evince it that this Text gave not Adam that Absolute Monarchial Power our A supposes be not as sufficient to destroy that Power as his bare Assertion is to Establish it since the Text mentions neither Prince nor People speaks nothing of Absolute or Monarchial Power but the Subjection of Eve a Wife to her Husband And he that would treat our A so although he would make a short and sufficient answer to the greatest part of the Grounds he proceeds on and abundantly confute them by barely denying It being a sufficient answer to Assertions without proof to deny them without giving a Reason and therefore should I have said nothing but barely deny'd that by this Text the Supream Power was setled and founded by God himself in the Fatherhood Limited to Monarchy and that to Adams Person and Heirs all which our A notably concludes from these Words as may be seen in the same Page O. 244. and desired any sober Man to have read the Text and considered to whom and on what occasion it was spoken he would no doubt have wondered how our A found out Monarchical Absolute Power in it had he not had an exceeding good Faculty to find it himself where he could not shew it others And thus we have examined the two places of Scripture all that I remember our A brings to prove Adams Sovereignty that Supremacy which he says it was Gods Ordinance should be unlimitted in Adam and as large as all the Acts of his Will O. 254 viz. 1 Gen. 28. and 3. Gen. 16. one whereof signifies only the Subjection of the inferior Ranks of Creatures to Mankind and the other the Subjection that is due from a Wife to her Husband both far enough from that which Subjects owe the Governors of Political Societies CHAP. VI. Of Adams Title to Sovereignty by Fatherhood 50. THere is one thing more and then I think I have given you all that our A brings for proof of Adams Sovereignty and that is a Supposition of a natural Right of Dominion over his Children by being their Father and this Title of Fatherhood he is pleased with that you will find it brought in almost in every Page particularly he says not only Adam but the succeeding Patriarchs had by Right of Fatherhood Royal Authority over their Children p. 12. And in the same page This Subjection of Children being the Fountain of all Regal Authority c. This being as one would think by his so frequent mentioning it the main basis of all his Frame we may well expect clear and evident Reason for it since he lays it down as a position necessary to his purpose that every Man that is born is so far from being Free that by his very Birth he becomes a Subject of him that begets him O. 156. So that Adam being the only Man Created and all ever since being begotten no body has been born free If we ask how Adam comes by this Power over his Children he tells us here 't is by begetting them And so again O. 223. This natural Dominion of Adam says he may be proved out of Grotius himself who teacheth that generatione jus acquiritur parentibus iâ— liberos And indeed the act of begetâ—ing being that which makes a Man a Father his Right of Father over his Children can naturally arise from nothing else 51. Grotius tells us not here how far this jus in liberos this Power of Parents over their Children extends but our A always very clear in the point assures us 't is Supreme Power and like that of Absolute Monarchs over their Slaves Absolute Power of Life and Death He that should demand of him how or for what Reason it is that begetting a Child gives the Father such an Absolute Power over him will find him answer nothing we are to take his word for this as well as several other things and by that the Laws of Nature and the Constitutions of Government must stand and fall Had he been an Absolute Monarch this way of talking might have suited well enough pro ratione voluntas may there be allowed But 't is but an ill way of pleading for Absolute Monarchy and Sr. Robts bare Sayings will scarce Establish it one slaves Opinion without proof is not of weight enough to dispose of the Liberty and Fortunes of all Mankind If all Men are not as I think they are naturally equal I 'm sure all Slaves are and then I may without presumption oppose my single Opinion to his and be as confident that my Saying that begetting of Children makes them not Slaves to their Fathers sets all Mankind Free as his affirming the contrary makes them all Slaves But that this position which is the Foundation of all their Doctrin who would have Monarchy to be Iure divino may have all fair play let us hear what reasons others give for it since our A offers none 52. The Argument I have heard others make use of to prove that Fathers by begetting them come by an Absolute Power over their Children is this That Fathers have a Power over the Lives of their Children because they give them Life and Being which is the only proof it is capable of since there can be no reason why naturally one Man should have any claim or pretence of Right over that in another which was never his which he bestowed not but was received from the bounty of another 1 o. I answer that every one who gives an other any thing has not always thereby a Right to take it away again But 2 o. they who say the Father gives Life to his Children are so dazled with the thoughts of Monarchy that they do not as they ought remember God who is the Author and giver of Life 't is in him alone we live move and have our Being How can he be thought to give Life to another that knows not wherein his own Life consists Philosophers are at a loss about it after their most diligent enquiries And Anatomists after their whole Lives and Studies spent in dissections and diligent examining the Bodies of Men confess their Ignorance in the Structure and Use of Many parts of Mans Body and in that Operation wherein Life consists in the
suck the Blood as it ran from the Wounds of the dying Man They had public Shambles of Mans Flesh and their Madness herein was to that degree that they spared not their own Children which they had begot on Strangers taken in War For they made their Captives their Mistrisses and choisly nourished the Children they had by them till about thirteen Years Old they Butcher'd and Eat them and they served the Mothers after the same fashion when they grew past Child-bearing and ceased to bring them any more Roasters Garcilasso de la vega hist. des yncas de Peru l. 1. c. 12. 58. Thus far can the busie mind of Man carry him to a Brutality below the level of Beasts when he quits his reason which places him almost equal to Angels nor can it be otherwise in a Creature whose thoughts are more then the Sands and wider then the Ocean where fancy and passion must needs run him into strange courses if reason which is the only Star and Compass be not that he Steers by the imagination is always restless and suggests variety of thoughts and the will reason being laid aside is ready for every extravagant project And in this State he that goes farthest out of the way is thought fittest to lead and is sure of most followers And when Fashion hath once Established what Folly or Craft began Custom makes it Sacred and 't will be thought impudence or madness to contradict or question it He that will impartially survey the World will find so much of the Religion Government and Manners of the Nations of the World brought in and continued by these means that he will have but little Reverence for the Practices which are in Fashion amongst Men and will have reason to think that the Woods and Forests where the irrational untaught Inhabitants keep right by following nature are fitter to give us Rules then Cities and Palaces where those that call themselves civil and rational go out of their way by the Authority of Example 59. Be it then as Sr. Rob. says that Anciently it was usual for Men to sell and castrate their Children O. 155. Let it be that they expose them add to it if you please for this is still greater Power that they begat them for their Tables to fat and eat them if this proves a right to do so we may by the same Argument justifie Adultery Incest and Sodomy for there are examples of these too both Ancient and Modern Sins which I suppose have their Principal Aggravation from this that they cross the main intention of nature which willeth the increase of Mankind and the continuation of the Species in the highest perfection and the distinction of Families with the security of the Marriage Bed as necessary thereunto 60. In confirmation of this Natural Authority of the Father our A brings a Lame Proof from the positive command of God in Scripture His Words are to confirm the natural Right of Regal Power we find in the Decalogue that the Law which injoyns Obedience to Kings is delivered in the Term Honour thy Father p. 23. whereas many confefs that Government only in the Abstract is the Ordinance of God they are not able to prove any such Ordinance in the Scripture but only in the Fatherly Power and therefore we find the Commandment that injoyns Obedience to Superiors given in the Terms Honour thy Father so that not only the Power and Right of Government but the Form of the Power Governing and the Person having the Power are all the Ordinances of God The first Father had not only simply Power but Power Monarchical as he was Father immediately from God O. 254. To the same purpose the same Law is cited by our A in several other places and just after the same Fashion that is and Mother as Apocriphal Words are always left out a great Argument of our A s ingenuity and the goodness of his Cause which required in its Defender Zeal to a degree of warmth able to warp the Sacred Rule of the Word of God to make it comply with his present occasion a way of proceeding not unusual to those who imbrace not truths because Reason and Revelation offers them but espouse Tenets and Parties for ends different from Truth and then resolve at any rate to defend them And so do with the Words and Sense of Authors they would fit to their purpose just as Procustes did with his guests top or stretch them as may best fit them to the size of their Notions and they always prove like those so served deformed and useless 61. For had our A set down this command without Garbling as God gave it and joyned Mother to Father every Reader would have seen that it had made directly against him and that it was so far from Establishing the Monarchical Power of the Father that it set up the Mother equal with him and injoyn'd nothing but what was due in common to both Father and Mother for that is the constant Tenor of the Scripture Honour thy Father and thy Mother Exod. 20. He that smiteth his Father or Mother shall surely be put to death 21. 15. He that Curseth his Father or his Mother shall surely be put to death ver 17. Repeated Lev. 20.9 and by our Saviour Math. 15. 4. ye shall fear every Man his Mother and his Father Lev. 19. 3. If a Man have a Rebellious Son which will not obey the voice of his Fathâ—r or the voice of his Mother then shall his Father and his Mother lay hold on him and say this our Son is Stuborn and Rebellious he will not obey our voice Deut. 21. 18 19 20 21. Cursed be he that setteth light by his Father or his Mother 28. 16. my Son hear the instructions of thy Eather and forsake not the Law of thy Mother are the Words of Solomon a King who was not ignorant of what belonged to him as a Father or a King and yet he joyns Father and Mother together in all the Instructions he gives Children quite through his Book of Proverbs woe unto him that sayeth unto his Father what begettest thou or to the Woman what hast thou brought forth Isa. 11. v. 10. In thee have they set light by Father or Mother Ezek. 28. 2. And it shall come to pass that when any shall yet Prophesy then his Father and his Mother that begat him shall say unto him thou shalt not live and his Father and his Mother that begat him shall thrust him through when he Prophesieth Zech. 13. 3. Here not the Father only but Father and Mother joyntly had Power in this Case of Life and Death Thus ran the Law of the Old Testament and in the New they are likewise joyn'd in the Obedience of their Children Eph. 6. 1. The rule is Children obey your Parents and I do not remember that I any where read Children obey your Father and no more the Scripture joyns Mother too in that homage which is
of any Man else can be free from Subjection to their Parents whereby it appears that the Power on one side and the Subjection on the other our A here speaks of is that Natural Power and Subjection between Parents and Children for that which every Mans Children owed could be no other and that our A always affirms to be absolute and unlimited This natural Power of Parents over their Children Adam had over his Posterity says our A and this Power of Parents over their Children his Children had over theirs in his Life time says our A also so that Adam by a natural Right of Father had an absolute unlimited Power over all his Posterity and at the same time his Children had by the same Right absolute unlimited Power over theirs here then are two absolute unlimited Powers existing together which I would have any body reconcile one to another or to common Sense for the Salvo he has put in of Subordination makes it more absurd To have one Absolute Vnlimited nay Vnlimitable Power in Subordination to another is so manifest a Contradiction that nothing can be more Adam is Absolute Prince with the Vnlimited Authority of Fatherhood over all his Posterity All his Posterity are then absolutely his Subjects and as our A says his Slaves Children and Grand Children are equally in this State of Subjection and Slavery and yet says our A the Children of Adam have paternal i. e. Absolute Unlimited Power over their own Children which in plain English is they are Slaves and Absolute Princes at the same time and in the same Government and one part of the Subjects have an Absolute Unlimited Power over the other by the natural Right of Parentage 70. If any one will suppose in favour of our A that he here meant that Parents who are in Subjection themselves to the Absolute Authority of their Father have yet some Power over their Children I confess he is something nearer the truth but he will not at all hereby help our A for he no where speaking of the Paternal Power but as an Absolute Unlimited Authority cannot be suppos'd to understand any thing else here unless he himself had limited it and shewed how far it reach'd And that he means here paternal Authority in that large Extent is plain from the immediate following words This Subjection of Children being says he the Fountain of all Regal Authority p. 12. The Subjection then that in the former Line he says every Man is in to his Parents and consequently what Adam's Grand Children were in to their Parents was that which was the Fountain of all Regal Authority i. e. According to our A s Absolute Vnlimitable Authority and thus Adams â— Children had Regal Authority over their Children whilst they themselves were Subjects to their Father and Fellow Subjects with their Children But let him mean as he pleases 't is plain he allows Adams Children to have Paternal Power p. 12. as all other Fathers to have Paternal Power over their Children O. 156. From whence one of these two things will necessarily follow that either Adams Children even in his life time had and so all other Fathers have as he Phrases it p. 12. By Right of Fatherhood Royal Authority over their Children or else that Adam by Right of Fatherhood had not Royal Authority For it must be that Paternal Power does or does not give Royal Authority to them that have it If it does not then Adam could not be Sovereign by this Title nor any body else and then there is an end of all our A's Politics at once If it does give Royal Authority then every one that has Paternal Power has Royal Authority and then by our A s Patriarchal Government there will be as many Kings as there are Fathers 71. And thus what a Monarchy he hath set up let him and his Disciples consider Princes certainly will have great Reason to thank him for these new Politics which set up as many Absolute Kings in every Country as there are Fathers of Children and yet who can blame our A for it it lying unavoidably in the way of one discoursing upon our A s Principles For having placed an Absolute Power in Fathers by Right of Begetting he could not easily resolve how much of this Power belong'd to a Son over the Children he had begotten And so it fell out to be a very hard matter to give all the Power as he does to Adam and yet allow a part in his Life time to his Children when they were Parents and which he knew not well how to deny them this makes him so doubtful in his Expressions and so uncertain where to place this Absolute Natural Power which he calls Fatherhood sometimes Adam alone has it all as p. 13. O. 244 245. pref Sometimes Parents have it which word scarce signifies the Father alone p. 12 19. Sometimes Children during their Fathers life time as p. 12. Sometimes Fathers of Families as p. 78 and 79. Sometimes Fathers indefinitely O. 155. Sometimes the Heir to Adam O. 253. Sometimes the Posterity of Adam 244. 246. Sometimes prime Fathers all Sons or Grand Children of Noah O. 244. Sometimes the Eldest Parents p. 12. Sometimes all Kings p. 19. Sometimes all that have Supream Power O. 245. Sometimes Heirs to those first Progenitors who were at first the natural Parents of the whole People p. 19. Sometimes an Elective King p. 23. Sometimes those whether a few or a Multitude that govern the Commonwealth p. 23. Sometimes he that can catch it an Vsurper p. 23. O. 155. 72. Thus this new nothing that is to carry with it all Power Authority and Government This Fatherhood which is to design the Person and Establish the Throne of Monarchs whom the People are to obey may according to Sir Robt. come into any hands any how and so by his Politics give to Democracy Royal Authority and make an Usurper a lawful Prince And if it will do all these fine Feats much good do our Author and all his Followers with their omnipotent Fatherhood which can serve for nothing but to unsettle and destroy all the lawful Governments in the World and to Establish in their room Disorder Tyranny and Uâ—urpation CHAP. VII Of Fatherhood and Propriety Considered together as Fountains of Sovereignty 73. IN the foregoing Chapters we have seen what Adams Monarchy was in our A s Opinion and upon what Titles he founded it And the Foundations which he lays the chief stress on as those from which he thinks he may best derive Monarchical Power to future Princes are two viz. Fatherhood and Property and therefore the way he proposes to remove the Absurdities and Inconveniences of the Doctrine of Natural Freedom is to maintain the Natural and Private Dominion of Adam O. 222. Conformable hereunto he tells us the Grounds and Principles of Government necessarily depend upon the Original of Property O. 108. The Sâ—bjection of Children to their Parents is the Fountain of all Regal
mighty consequence upon so doubtful and obscure a place of Scripture which may be well nay better understood in a quite different Sense and so can be but an ill Proof being as doubtful as the thing to be proved by it especially when there is nothing else in Scripture or Reason to be found that favours or supports it 113. It follows p. 19. Accordingly when Iacob bought his Brothers Birth-right Isaac Blessed him thus be Lord over thy Brethren and let the Sons of thy Mother bow before thee another instance I take it brought by our A to evince Dominion due to Birth-right and an admirable one it is for it must be no ordinary way of reasoning in a Man that is pleading for the natural Power of Kings and against all compact to bring for Proof of it an example where his own account of it founds all the right upon compact and settles Empire in the Younger Brother unless buying and selling be no compact for he tells us when Iacob bought his Brothers Birth-right But passing by that let us consider the History it self with what ufe our A makes of it and we shall find these following mistakes about it 1 o. That our A reports this as if Isaac had given Iacob this Blessing immediately upon his Purchasing the Birth-right for he says when Iacob bought Isaac Blessed him which is plainly otherwise in the Scripture for it appears there was a distance of time between and if we will take the Story in the order it lies it must be no small distance All Isaacs Sojourning in Gerar and Transactions with Abimelech Gen. 26. coming between Rebeka being then Beautiful and consequently young but Isaac when he Blessed Iacob was old and decrepit And Esau also complains of Iacob Gen. 27. 36. that two times he had Supplanted him he took away my Birth-right says he and behold now he hath taken away my Blessing words that I think signifies distance of time and difference of Action 2 o. Another mistake of our A s is that he supposes Isaac gave Iacob the Blessing and bid him be Lord over his Brethren because he had the Birth right for our A brings this example to prove that he that has the Birth-right has thereby a right to be Lord over his Brethren But it is also manifest by the Text that Isaac had no consideration of Iacobs having bought the Birth right for when he Blessed him he considered him not as Iacob but took him for Esau nor did Esau understand any such connexion between Birth-right and the Blessing for he says he hath Supplanted me these two times he took away my Birth-right and behold now he hath taken away my Blessing whereas had the Blessing which was to be Lord over his Brethren belong'd to the Birth-right Esau could not have complain'd of this second as a Cheat Iacob having got nothing but what Esau had sould him when he sould him his Birth-right so that it is plain Dominion if these words signifie it was not understood to belong to the Birth-right 114. And that in those days of the Patriarchs Dominion was not understood to be the Right of the Heir but only a greater Portion of goods is plain from Gen. 21. 10. for Sarah taking Isaac to be Heir says cast out this Bond-woman and her Son for the Son of this Bond-woman shall not be Heir with my Son whereby could be meant nothing but that he should not have a pretence to an equal share of his Fathers Estate after his death but should have his Portion presently and be gone Accordingly we read Gen. 25. 5 6. That Abraham gave all that he had unto Isaac but unto the Sons of the Concubines which Abraham had Abraham gave Gifts and sent them away from Isaac his Son while he yet lived That is Abraham having given Portions to all his other Sons and sent them away that which he had reserved being the greatest part of his substance Isaac as Heir Possessed after his death but by being Heir he had no Right to be Lord over his Brethren For if he had why should Sarah desire to rob him of one of his Subjects his Slaves by desiring to have him sent away 115. Thus as under the Law the Priviledge of Birth-right was nothing but a double Portion so we see that before Moses in the Patriarchs time from whence our A pretends to take his model there was no knowledge no thought that Birth-right gave Rule or Empire Paternal or Kingly Authority to any one over his Brethren which if it be not plain enough in the Story of Isaac and Ishmael let them look into 1 Chron. 5. 12. and there he may read these words Ruben was the first Born but for as much as he desiled his Fathers Bed his Birth-right was given unto the Sons of Ioseph the Son of Israeel and the Geneology is not to be reckon'd after the Birth-right For Iudah prevailed above his Brethren and of him came the cheif Ruler but the Birth-right was Iosephs and what this Birth-right was Iacob Blessing Ioseph Gen. 58. 22. telleth us in these words Moreover I have given thee one Portion above thy Brethren which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with my Sword and with my Bow whereby it is not only plain that the Birth-right was nothing but a double Portion but the Text in Chron. is express against our A s Doctrin shews that Dominion was no part of the Birth-right for it tells us that Ioseph had the Birth-right but Iudah the Dominion But one would think our A were very fond of the very name of Birth-right when he brings this instance of Iacob and Esau to prove that Dominion belongs to the Heir over his Brethren 116. 1 o. Because it will be but an ill example to prove that Dominion by Gods Ordination belonged to the Eldest Son because Iacob the Youngest here had it let him come by it how he would For if it prove any thing it can only prove against our A that the Assignment of Dominion to the Eldest is not by Divine Institution which would then be unalterable For if by the Law of God or Nature Absolute Power and Empire belongs to the Eldest Son and his Heirs so that they are Supream Monarchs and all the rest of their Brethren Slaves our A gives us reason to doubt whether the Eldest Son has a Power to part with it to the prejudice of his Posterity since he tells us O. 158. that in Grants and Gifts that have their Original from God or nature no inferior Power of Man can limit or make any Law of Prescription against them 117. 2 o. Because this place Gen. 27. 29. brought by our A concerns not at all the Dominion of one Brother over the other nor the Subjection of Esau to Iacob for 't is plain in the History that Esau was never Subject to Iacob but lived a part in Mount Seir where he founded a distinct People and Government and was himself Prince
again anew into what hands they please and so constitute a new Form of Government For the Form of Government depending upon the placing the Supream Power which is the Legislative it being impossible to conceive that an inferiour Power should prescribe to a Superiour or any but the Supream make Laws According as the Power of making Laws is placed such is the Form of the Commonwealth 133. By Commonwealth I must be understood all along to mean not a Democracy or any Form of Government but any Independent Community which the Latins signified by the word Civitas to which the word which best answers in our Language is Commonwealth and most properly expresses such a Society of Men which Community does not For there may be subordinate Communities in a Government and City much less and therefore to avoid ambiguity I crave leave to use the word Commonwealth in that sence in which sense I find the word used by K. Iames himself which I think to be its genuine signification which if any Body dislike I consent with him to change it for a better CHAP. XI Of the Extent of the Legislative Power 134. THE great end of Mens entering into Society being the enjoyment of their Properties in Peace and Safety and the great instrument and means of that being the Laws establish'd in that Society The first and fundamental positive Law of all Commonwealths is the establishing of the Legislative Power as the first and fundamental natural Law which is to govern even the Legislative It self is the preservation of the Society and as far as will consist with the publick good of every person in it This Legislative is not only the supream power of the Commonwealth but sacred and unalterable in the hands where the Community have once placed it nor can any Edict of any Body else in what form soever conceived or by what Power soever backed have the force and obligation of a Law which has not its Sanction from that Legislative which the publick has chosen and appointed for without this the Law could not have that which is absolutely necessary to its being a Law the consent of the Society over whom no Body can have a power to make Laws but by their own consent and by Authority received from them and therefore-all the Obedience which by the most solemn ties any one can be obliged to pay ultimately terminates in this Supream Power and is directed by those Laws which it enacts nor can any Oaths to any Foreign Power whatsoever or any Domestick subordinate Power discharge any Member of the Society from his Obedience to the Legislative acting pursuant to their trust nor oblige him to any Obedience contrary to the Laws so enacted or farther than they do allow it being ridiculous to imagine one can be tied ultimately to obey any Power in the Society which is not the Supream 135. Though the Legislative whether placed in one or more whether it be always in being or only by intervals though it be the Supream Power in every Commonwealth yet First it is not nor can possibly be absolutely Arbitrary over the Lives and Fortunes of the People For it being but the joint power of every Member of the Society given up to that person or Assembly which is Legislator it can be no more than those persons had in a state of Nature before they enter'd into Society and gave it up to the Community For no Body can transfer to another more power than he has in himself and no Body has an absolute Arbitrary Power over himself or over any other to destroy his own Life or take away the Life or Property of another A Man as has been proved cannot subject himself to the Arbitrary Power of another and having in the state of Nature no Arbitrary Power over the Life Liberty or Possession of another but only so much as the Law of Nature gave him for the preservation of himself and the rest of Mankind this is all he doth or can give up to the Commonwealth and by it to the Legislative Power so that the Legislative can have no more than this Their Power in the utmost bounds of it is limited to the publick good of the Society It is a Power that hath no other end but preservation and therefore can never have a right to destroy enslave or designedly to impoverish the Subjects the obligations of the Law of Nature cease not in Society but only in many Cases are drawn closer and have by human Laws known Penalties annexed to them to inforce their observation Thus the Law of Nature stands as an Eternal Rule to all Men Legislators as well as others The Rules that they make for other Mens actions must as well as their own and other Mens actions be conformable to the Law of Nature i. e. to the will of God of which that is a Declaration and the fundamental Law of Nature being the preservation of Mankind no humane Sanction can be good or valid against it 136. Secondly The Legislative or Supream Authority cannot assume to its self a power to Rule by extemporary Arbitrary Decrees but is bound to dispense Justice and decide the Rights of the Subject by promulgated standing Laws and known Authoris'd Judges For the Law of Nature being unwritten and so no where to be found but in the minds of Men they who through Passion or Interest shall mis-cite or misapply it cannot so easily be convinced of their mistake where there is no establish'd Judge and so it serves not as it ought to determine the Rights and fence the Properties of those that live under it especially where every one is Judge Interpreter and Executioner of it too and that in his own Case and he that has right on his side having ordinarily but his own single strength hath not force enough to defend himself from Injuries or punish Delinquents To avoid these Inconveniencies which disorder Mens Properties in the state of Nature Men unite into Societies that they may have the united strength of the whole Society to secure and defend their Properties and may have standing Rules to bound it by which every one may know what is his To this end it is that Men give up all their natural power to the Society they enter into and the Community put the Legislative Power into such hands as they think fit with this trust that they shall be govern'd by declared Laws or else their Peace Quiet and Property will still be at the same uncertainty as it was in the state of Nature 137. Absolute Arbitrary Power or Governing without setled standing Laws can neither of them consist with the ends of Society and Government which Men would not quit the freedom of the state of Nature for and tie themselves up under were it not to preserve their Lives Liberties and Fortunes and by stated Rules of Right and Property to secure their Peace and Quiet It cannot be suppos'd that they should intend had
the whole Commonwealth in making of good Laws and Constitutions to any particular and private Ends of mine Thinking ever the Wealth and Weale of the Commonwealth to be my greatest Weale and worldly Felicity a Point wherein a lawful King doth directly differ from a Tyrant For I do acknowledge that the special and greatest point of Difference that is between a rightful King and an usurping Tyrant is this That whereas the proud and ambitious Tyrant doth think his Kingdom and People are only ordained for satisfaction of his Desires and unreasonable Appetites the righteous and just King doth by the contrary acknowledge himself to be ordained for the procuring of the wealth and Property of his People And again in his Speech to the Parliament 1609 he hath these Words The KING binds himself by a double Oath to the observation of the fundamental Laws of his Kingdom Tacitly as by being a King and so bound to protect as well the People as the Laws of his Kingdom and expresly by his Oath at his Coronation so as every just King in a setled Kingdom is bound to observe that Paction made to his People by his Laws in framing his Government agreeable thereunto according to that Paction which God made with Noah after the Deluge Hereafter Seed-time and Harvest and Cold and Heat and Summer and Winter and Day and Night shall not cease while the Earth remaineth And therefore a King governing in a setled Kingdom leaves to be a King and degenerates into a Tyrant as soon as he leaves off to rule according to his Laws And a little after Therefore all Kings that are not Tyrants or perjured will be glad to bound themselves within the Limits of their Laws And they that perswade them the contrary are Vipers Pests both against them and the Commonwealth Thus that learned King who well understood the Notions of things makes the difference betwixt a King and a Tyrant to consist only in this That one makes the Laws the Bounds of his Power and the Good of the publick the End of his Government The other makes all give way to his own Will and Appetite 201. 'T is a Mistake to think this Fault is proper only to Monarchies other Forms of Government are liable to it as well as that for where-ever the Power that is put in any hands for the Government of the People and the Preservation of their Properties is applied to other ends and made use of to impoverish harass or subdue them to the Arbitrary and Irregular Commands of those that have it There it presently becomes Tyranny whether those that thus use it are one or many Thus we read of the Thirty Tyrants at Athens as well as one at Syracuse and the intolerable Dominion of the Decemviri at Rome was nothing better 202. Where-ever Law ends Tyranny begins if the Law be transgressed to another's harm And whosoever in Authority exceeds the Power given him by the Law and makes use of the Force he has under his Command to compass that upon the Subject which the Law allows not ceases in that to be a Magistrate and acting without Authority may be opposed as any other Man who by force invades the Right of another This is acknowledged in subordinate Magistrates He that hath Authority to seize my Person in the street may be opposed as a Thief and a Robber if he indeavours to break into my House to execute a Writ notwithstanding that I know he has such a Warrant and such a legal Authority as will impower him to arrest me abroad And why this should not hold in the highest as well as in the most inferiour Magistrate I would gladly be informed Is it reasonable that the eldest Brother because he has the greatest part of his Father's Estate should thereby have a Right to take away any of his younger Brothers Portions Or that a rich Man who possessed a whole Countrey should from thence have a Right to seize when he pleased the Cottage and Garden of his poor Neighbour The being rightfully possessed of great Power and Riches exceedingly beyond the greatest part of the Son of Adam is so far from being an excuse much less a reason for Rapine and Oppression which the endamaging another without Authority is that it is a great Aggravation of it For the exceeding the Bounds of Authority is no more a Right in a great than a petty Officer no more justifiable in a King than a Constable But so much the worse in him as that he has more trust put in him is supposed from the advantage of Education and Counsellours to have better Knowledge and less reason to do it having already a greater share than the rest of his Brethren 203. May the Commands then of a Prince be opposed May he be resisted as often as any one shall find himself aggrieved and but imagine he has not Right done him This will unhinge and overturn all Politiâ—s and instead of Government and Order leave nothing but Anarchy and Confusion 204. To this I answer That Force is to be opposed to nothing but to unjust and unlawful Force who ever makes any opposition in any other Case draws on himself a just Condemation both from God and Man and so no such Danger or Confusion will follow as is often suggested For 205. First As in some Countries the Person of the Prince by the Law is Sacred and so what-ever he commands or does his Person is still free from all Question or Violence not liable to Force or any judicial Censure or Condemnation But yet opposition may be made to the illegal Acts of any inferiour Officer or other commissioned by him unless he will by actually putting himself into a State of War with his People dissolve the Government and leave them to that defence which belongs to every one in the state of Nature For of such things who can tell what the end will be And a Neighbour Kingdom has shewed the World an odd Example In all other Cases the Sacredness of the Person exempts him from all Inconveniencies whereby he is secure whilst the Government stands from all violence and harm whatsoever Than which there cannot be a wiser Constitution For the harm he can do in his own Person not being likely to happen often nor to extend it self far nor being able by his single strength to subvert the Laws nor oppress the Body of the People should any Prince have so much Weakness and ill Nature as to be willing to do it The Inconveniency of some particular mischiefs that may happen sometimes when a heady Prince comes to the Throne are well recompenced by the peace of the Publick and security of the Government in the Person of the chief Magistrate thus set out of the reach of danger It being safer for the Body that some few private Men should be sometimes in danger to suffer than that the Head of the Republick should be easily and upon slight occasions exposed 206. Secondly
very difficult dear and dangerous 241. But farther this Question Who shall be Judge cannot mean that there is no Judge at all For where there is no Judicature on Earth to decide Controversies amongst Men God in Heaven is Judge He alone 't is true is Judge of the Right But every Man is Judge for himself as in all other Cases so in this whether another hath put himself into a State of War with him and whether he should appeal to the Supreme Judge as Iephtha did 242. If a Controversie arise betwixt a Prince and some of the People in a matter where the Law is silent or doubtful and the thing be of great Consequence I should think the proper Umpire in such a Case should be the Body of the People For in Cases where the Prince hath a Trust reposed in him and is dispensed from the common ordinary Rules of the Law there if any Men find themselves aggrieved and think the Prince acts contrary to or beyond that Trust who so proper to judge as the Body of the People who at first lodg'd that Trust in him how far they meant it should extend But if the Prince or who-ever they be in the Administration decline that way of Determination the Appeal then lies no where but to Heaven Force between either Persons who have no known Superiour on Earth or which permits no Appeal to a Judge on Earth being properly a State of War wherein the Appeal lies only to Heaven and in that State the injured Party must judge for himself when he will think fit to make use of that Appeal and put himself upon it 243. To conclude The Power that every individual gave the Society when he entered into it can never revert to the Individuals again as long as the Society lasts but will always remain in the Community because without this there can be no Community no Commonwealth which is contrary to the original Agreement so also when the Society hath placed the Legislative in any Assembly of Men to continue in them and their Successors with Direction and Authority for providing such Successors the Legislative can never revert to the People whilst that Government lasts Because having provided a Legislative with Power to continue for ever they have given up their Political Power to the Legislative and cannot resume it But if they have set Limits to the Duration of their Legislative and made this Supreme Power in any Person or Assembly only temporary Or else when by the Miscarriages of those in Authority it is forfeited upon the Forfeiture of their Rulers or at the Determination of the Time set it reverts to the Society and the People have a Right to act as Supreme and continue the Legislative in themselves or place it in a new Form or new hands as they think good FINIS * In Grants and Gifts that have their Origiginal from God or Nature as the Power of the Father hath no inferior Power of Man can limit nor make any Law of prescription against them O. 158. †The Scripture teaches that Supreme Power was Originally in the Father without any limitation O. 245. It is no improbable Opinion therefore which the Arch-Philosopher was of That the chief Person in every Houshold was always as it were a King so when Numbers of Housholds joyn'd themselves in civil Societies together Kings were the first kind of Governours amongst them which is also as it seemeth the reason why the name of Fathers continued still in them who of Fathers were made Rulers as also the ancient Custom of Governours to do as Melchizedec and being Kings to exercise the Office of Priests which Fathers did at the first grew perhaps by the same Occasion Howbeit this is not the only kind of Regiment that has been received in the World The Inconveniences of one kind have caused sundry other to be devised so that in a word all publique Regiment of what kind soever seemeth evidently to have risen from the deliberate Advice Consultation and Composition between Men judging it convenient and behovefull there being no impossibility in Nature considered by it self but that Man might have lived without any publique Regiment Hooker's Eccl. l. 1. §. 10. The publick Power of all Society is above every Soul contained in the same Society and the principal use of that power is to give Laws unto all that are under it which Laws in such Cases we must obey unless there be reason shew'd which may necessarily inforce that the Law of Reason or of God doth injoin the contrary Hook Eccl. Pol. 1. §. 16. To take away all such mutual Grievances Injuries and Wrongs i. e. such as attend Men in the state of Nature There was no way but only by growing into Composition and Agreement amongst themselves by ordaining some kind of Government publick and by yielding themselves subject thereunto that unto whom they granted Authority to rule and govern by them the Peace Tranquillity and happy Estate of the rest might be procured Men always knew that where Force and Injury was offered they might be Defenders of themselves they knew that however Men may seek their own Commodity yet if this were done with Injury unto others it was not to be suffered but by all Men and all good means to be withstood Finally they knew that no Man might in reason take upon him to determine his own Right and according to his own Determination proceed in maintenance thereof in as much as every man is towards himself and them whom he greatly affects partial and therefore that Strifes and Troubles would be endless except they gave their common Consent all to be ordered by some whom they should agree upon without which Consent there would â—e no reason that one man should take upon him to be Lord or Iudge over another Hooker's Eccl. Pol. l. 1. §. 10. At the first when some certain kind of Regiment was once appointed it may be that nothing was then farther thought upon for the manner of governing but all permitted unto their Wisdom and Discretion which were to Rule till by experience they found this for all parts very inconvenient so as the thing which they had devised for a Remedy did indeed but increase the Sore which it should have cured They saw that to live by one Man's Will became the cause of all Mens misery This constrained them to come unto Laws wherein all Men might see their Duty beforehand and know the Penalties of transgressing them Hooker's Eccl. Pol. l. 1. §. 10. Civil Law being the Act of the whole Body Politick doth therefore over-rule each several part of the same Body Hooker ibid. At first when some certain kind of Regiment was once approved it may be nothing was then further thought upon for the manner of governing but all permitted unto their Wisdom and Discretion which were to Rule till by experience they found this for all parts very inconvenient so as the thing which they had devised for a Remedy did indeed but increase the Sore which it should have cured They saw that to live by one Man's Will became the cause of all Mens misery This constrained them to come unto Laws wherein all Men might see their Duty beforehand and know the Penalties of transgressing them Hooker's Eccl. Pol. l. 1. §. 10. The lawful Power of making Laws to Command whole Politick Societies of Men belonging so properly unto the same intire Societies that for any Prince or Potentate of what kind soever upon Earth to exercise the same of himself and not by express Commission immediately and personally received from God or else by authority derived at the first from their consent upon whose persons they impose Laws it is no better than meer Tyranny Laws they are not therefore which publick approbation hath not made so Hooker's Eccl Pol. l. 1. §. 10. Of this point therefore we are to note that sith Men naturally have no full and perfect Power to Command whole politick multitudes of Men therefore utterly without our Consent we could in such sort be at no Mans Commandment living And to be commanded we do consent when that Society whereof we be a part hath at any time before consented without revoking the same after by the like universal agreement Laws therefore human of what kind soever are available by consent Ibid. Two Foundations there are which bear up publick Societies the one a natural inclination whereby all Men desire sociable Life and Fellowship the other an Order expresly or secretly agreed upon touching the manner of their union in living together the latter is that which we call the Law of a Commonweal the very Soul of a politick Body the parts whereof are by Law animated held together and set on work in such actions as the common good requireth Lawâ— politick ordain'd for external order and regiment amongst Men are never framed as they should be unless presuming the will of Man to be inwardly obstinate â—rebellious and averse from all obedience to the sacred Laws of his nature in a word unless presuming Man to be in regard of his depraved Mind little better than a wild Beast they do accordingly provide notwithstanding so to frame his outward actions that they be no hindrance unto the common good for which Societies are instituted Vnless they do this they are not perfect Hooker's Ec. Pol. l. 1. §. 10. Humane Laws are measures in respect of Men whose actions they must direct howbeit such measures they are as have also their higher Rules to be measured by which Rules are two the Law of God and the Law of Nature so that Laws humane must be made according to the general Laws of Nature and without contradiction to any positive Law of Scripture otherwise they are ill made Ibid. l. 3. § 9. To constrain Men to any thing inconvenient doth seem unreasonable Ibid. l. 1. §. 10.
since our A did not vouchsafe us the favour would make it out for him for I find no difficulty to suppose the Freedom of Mankind though I have always believed the Creation of Adam He was Created or began to exist by Gods immediate Power without the Intervention of Parents or the pre existence of any of the same Species to beget him when it pleased God he should and so did the Lyon the King of Beasts before him by the same Creating Power of God and if bare existence by that Power and in that way will give Dominion without any more adoe our A by this Argument will make the Lion have as good a Title to it as he and certainly the Ancienter No! for Adam had his Title by the appointment of God says our A in another place Then bare Creation gave him not Dominion and one might have supposed Mankind Free without denying the Creation of Adam since 't was Gods Appointment made him Monarch 16. But let us see how he puts his Creation and this Appointment together By the appointment of God says Sir Rbt. as soon as Adam was Created he was Monarch of the World though he had no Subjects for though there could not be actual Government till there were Subjects yet by the Right of Nature it was due to Adam to be Governour of his Posterity though not in act yet at least in habit Adam was a King from his Creation I wish he had told us here what he meant by Gods appointment For whatsoever Providence orders or the Law of Nature directs or positive Revelation declares may be said to be by Gods appointment but I suppose it cannot be meant here in the first Sense i. e. by providence because that would be to say no more but that as soon as Adam was Created he was de facto Monarch because by Right of Nature it was due to Adam to be Governour of his Posterity But he could not de facto be by providence Constituted the Governour of the World at a time when there was actually no Government no Subjects to be governed which our A here confesses Monarch of the World is also differently used by our Author for sometimes he means by it a Proprietor of all the World exclusive of the rest of Mankind and thus he does in the same page of his Preface before cited Adam says he being Commanded to Multiply and People the Earth and to subdue it and having Dominion given him over all Creatures was thereby the Monarch of the whole World none of his Posterity had any Right to possess any thing but by his Grant or Permission or by Succession from him 2 o Let us understand then by Monarch Proprietor of the World and by Appointment Gods actual Donation and revealed positive Grant made to Adam 1 Gen. 28. as we see Sir Robt. himself does in this parallel place and then his Argument will stand thus by the positive Grant of God As soon as Adam was Created he was Proprietor of the World because by the Right of Nature it was due to Adam to be Governour of his Posterity in which way of arguing there are two manifest Falsehoods First it is false that God made that Grant to Adam as soon as he was Created since though it stands in the Text immediately after his Creation yet it is plain it could not be spoken to Adam till after Eve was made and brought to him and how then could he be Monarch by appointment as soon as Created especially since he calls if I mistake not that which Gods says to Eve 3 Gen. 16. The original Grant of Government which not being till after the fall when Adam was somewhat at least in time and very much distant in condition from his Creation I cannot see how our A can say in this Sense that by Gods appointment as soon as Adam was Created he was Monarch of the World Secondly were it true that Gods actual Donation appointed Adam Monarch of the World as soon as he was Created yet the Reason here given for it would not prove it but it would always be a false Inference that God by a positive Donation appointed Adam Monarch of the World because by Right of Nature it was due to Adam to be Governour of his Posterity for having given him the Right of Government by Nature there was no need of a positive Donation at least it will never be a proof of such a Donation 17. On the other side the Maâ—ter will not be much mended if we understand by Gods appointment the Law of Nature though it be a pretty haâ—sh Expression for it in this place and by Monarch of the World Sovereign Ruler of Mankind for then the Sentence under consideration must run thus By the Law of Nature as soon as Adam was Created he was Governour of Mankind for by Right of Nature it was due to Adam to be Governour of his Posterity which amounts to this he was Governour by Right of Nature because he was Governour by Right of Nature But supposing we should grant that a Man is by Nature Governour of his Children Adam could not hereby be Monarch as soon as Created for this Right of Nature being founded in his being their Father how Adam could have a Natural Right to be Governour before he was a Father by which only he had that Right is methinks hard to conceive unless he will have him to be a Father before he was a Father and to have a Title before he had it 18. To this foreseen Objection our A answers very logically he was Governour in Habit and not in Act A very pretty way of being a Governour without Government a Father without Children and a King without Subjects And thus Sir Robt. was an Author before he writ his Book not in Act 't is true but in Habit for when he had once Publish'd it was due to him by the Right of Nature to be an Author as much as it was to Adam to be Governour of his Children when he had begot them And if to be such a Monarch of the World an absolute Monarch in Habit but not in Act will serve the turn I should not much envy it to any of Sir Robts Friends that he thought fit graciously to bestow it upon though even this of Act and Habit if it signified any thing but our A 's skill in destinctions be not to his purpose in this place for the question is not here about Adams actual Exercise of Government but actually having a Title to be Governour Government says our A was due to Adam by the Right of Nature what is this Right of Nature a Right Fathers have over their Children by begetting them Generatione jus acquiritur parentibus in liberos says our A out of Grotius O. 223. The right then follows the begetting as arising from it so that according to this way of reasoning or distinguishing of our A Adam as soon as he was Created had a
Title only in Habit and not in Act which in plain English is he had actually no Title at all 19. To speak less Learnedly and more Intelligibly one may say of Adam he was in a possibility of being Governour since it was possible he might beget Children and thereby acquire that Right of Nature be it what it will to govern them that accrues from thence but what Connection this has with Adams Creation to make him say that as soon as he was Created he was Monarch of the World for it may be as well said of Noah that as soon as he was born he was Monarch of the World since he was in possibility which in our A s Sense is enough to make a Monarch a Monarch in Habit to out live all Mankind but his own Posterity I say what such necessary Connection there is betwixt Adams Creation and his Right to Government so that a Natural Freedom of Mankind cannot be suppos'd without the denial of the Creation of Adam I confess for my part I do not see Nor how those words by the appointment c. O. 254. however explain'd can be put together to make any tollerable Sense at least to Establish this Position with which they end viz. Adam was a King from his Creation a King says our A not in Act but in Habit i. e. actually no King at all 20. I fear I have tired my Readers Patience by dwelling longer on this passage then the weightiness of any Argument in it seems to require but I have unavoidably been ingag'd in it by our A s way of Writing who hudling several Suppositions together and that in doubtful and general terms makes such a medly and confusion that it is impossible to shew his Mistakes without examining the several Senses wherein his Words may be taken and without seeing how in any of these various Meanings they will consist together and have any Truth in them for in this present passage before us how can any one argue against this Position of his that Adam was a King from his Creation unless one examin whether the Words from his Creation be to be taken as they may for the time of the Commencement of his Government as the foregoing words import as soon as he was Created he was Monarch or for the cause of it as he says p. 11. Creation made Man Prince of his Posterity How farther can one judge of the truth of his being thus King till one has examined whether King be to be taken as the words in the beginning of this passage would perswade on supposition of his Private Dominion which was by Gods positive Grant Monarch of the World by Appointment or King on Supposition of his Fatherly Power over his Off spring which was by Nature due by the Right of Nature whether I say King be to be taken in both or one only of these two Senses or in neither of them but only this that Creation made him Prince in a way different from both the other for though this assertion that Adam was King from his Creation be true in no Sense yet it stands here as an evident conclusion drawn from the preceding words though in truth it be but a bare assertion joyn'd to other assertions of the same kind which confidently put together in words of undetermined and dubious meaning look like a sort of arguing when there is indeed neither Proof nor Connection A way very familiar with our A of which having given the Reader a taste here I shall as much as the Argument will permit me avoid touching on hereafter and should not have done it here were it not to let the World see how Incoherences in Matter and Suppositions without Proofs put handsomly together in good Words and a plausible Stile are apt to pass for strong Reason and good Sense till they come to be look'd into with Attention CHAP. IV. Of Adams Title to Sovereignty by Donation 1 Gen. 28. 21. HAving at last got through the foregoing Passage where we have been so long detain'd not by the Force of Arguments and Opposition but the intricacy of the words and the doubtfulness of the meaning let us go on to his next Argument for Adams Sovereignty our A tells us in the words of Mr. Selden that Adam by Donation from God 1 Gen. 28. was made the General Lord of all things not without sâ—ch a private Dominion to himself as without his Grant did exclude his Children This Determination of Mr. Selden saâ—s our A is Consonant to the History of the Bible and natural reason O. 210. And in his Pref. to hiâ— Ob. on Arist. he says thus The first Government in the World was Monarchical in the Father of all flesh Adam being Commanded to Multiply and People the Earth and to Subdue it and having Dominion given him over all Creatures was thereby the Monarch of the whole World none of his Posterity had any right to Possess any thing but by his Grant or Permission or by Succession from him the Earth saith the Psalmist hath he given to the Children of Men which shew the Title comes from Fatherhood 22. Before I examin this Argument and the Text on which it is founded it is necessary to desire the Reader to observe that our A according to his usual Method begins in one Sense and concludes in another he begins here with Adams Propriety or Private Dominion by Donation and his conclusion is which shew the Title comes from Fatherhood 23. But let us see the Argument the words of the Text are these And God Blessed them and God said unto them be Fruitful and Multiply and Replenish the Earth end Subdue it and have Dominion over the Fish of the Sea and over the Fowl of the Air and over every Living thing that moveth upon the Earth 1 Gen. 28. from whence our A concludes that Adam having here Dominion given him over all Creatures was thereby the Monarch of the whole World whereby must be meant that either this Grant of God gave Adam Property or as our A calls it Private Dominion over the Earth and all inferior or irrational Creatures and so consequently that he was thereby Monarch or 2 o that it gave him Rule and Dominion over all Earthly Creatures whatsoever and thereby over his Children and so he was Monarch for as Mr. Selden has properly worded it Adam was made General Lord of all things one may very clearly understand him that he means nothing to be granted to Adam here but Property and therefore he says not one word of Adams Monarchy But our A says Adam was hereby Monarch of the World which properly speaking signifies Sovereign Ruler of all the Men in the World and so Adam by this Grant must be constituted such a Ruler If our A means otherwise he might with much clearness have said that Adam was hereby Proprietor of the whole World But he begs your Pardon in that Point clear destinct Speaking not serving every where to his
have carried his Monarchical Power one step higher and satisfied the World that Princes might have eat their Subjects too since God gave as full Power to Noah and his Heirs Cha. 9. 2. to eat every Living thing that moveth as he did to Adam to have Dominion over them the Hebrew words in both place being the same 28. David who might be supposed to understand the Donation of God in this Text and the right of Kings too as well as our A in his Comment on this place as the Learned and Judicious Ainsworth calls it in the 8 th Psalm finds here no such Charter of Monarchical Power his words are Thou hast made him i. e. Man the Son of Man a little lower then the Angels thou madest him to have Dominion over the works of thy hands thou hast put all things under his Feet all Sheep and Oxen and the Beasts of the Field and the Fowl of the Air and Fish of the Sea and whatsoever passeth through the Paths of the Sea In which words if any one can find out that there is meant any Monarchical Power of one Man over another but only the Dominion of the whole Species of Mankind over the inferior Species of Creatures he may for ought I know deserve to be one of Sr. Rob. Monarchs in habit for the rareness of the discovery And by this time I hope it is evident that he that gave Dominion over every Living thing that moveth on the Earth gave Adam no Monarchical Power over those of his own Species which will yet appear more fully in the next thing I am to shew 29. 2 o. Whatever God gave by the words of this Grant 1 Gen. 28. It was not to Adam in particular exclusive of all other Men whatever Dominion he had thereby it was not a Private Dominion but a Dominion in common with the rest of Mankind That this Donation was not made in particular to Adam appears evidently from the words of the Text it being made to more then one for it was spoken in the Plural Number God blessed them and said unto them have Dominion God says unto Adam and Eve have Dominion thereby says our A Adam was Monarch of the World but the Grant being to them i. e. spoke to Eve also as many interpreters think with reason that these words were not spoken till Adam had his Wife must not she thereby be Lady as well as he Lord of the World If it be said that Eve was subjected to Adam it seems she was not so to him as to hinder her Dominion over the Creatures or Property in them for shall we say that God ever made a joynt Grant to two and one only was to have the benefit of it 30. But perhaps 't will be said Eve was not made till afterward grant it so what advantage will our A get by it the Text will be only the more directly against him and shew that God in this Donation gave the World to Mankind in common and not to Adam in particular The word Them in the Text must include the Species of Man for 't is certain Them can by no means signify Adam alone In the 26 th Verse where God declares his intention to give this Dominion it is plain he meant that he would make a Species of Creatures that should have Dominion over the other Species of this Terrestrial Globe the words are and God said let us make Man in our Image after our Likeness and let them have Dominion over the Fish c. They then were to have Dominion Who even those who were to have the Image of God the Individuals of that Species of Man that he was going to make for that Them should signifie Adam singly exclusive of the rest that should be in the World with him is against both Scripture and all Reason And it cannot possibly be made Sense if Man in the former part of the Verse do not signifie the same with Them in the latter only Man there as is usual is taken for the Species and them the individuals of that Spceies and we have a Reason in the very Text for God makes him in his own Image after his own Likeness makes him an intellectual Creature and so capable of Dominion for wherein soever else the Image of God consisted the Intellectual Nature was certainly a part of it and belong'd to the whole Species and enabled them to have Dominion over the Inferior Creatures and therefore David says in the 8 th Psalm above cited thou hast made him little lower then the Angels thou hast made him to have Dominion 't is not of Adam King David speaks here for Verse 4. 't is plain 't is of Man and the Son of Man of the Species of Mankind 31. And that this Grant spoken to Adam was made to him and the whole Species of Man is clear from our A â—â— own Proof out of the Psalmistâ— The Earth saith the Psalmist hath he given to the Children of Men which shews the Title comes from Fatherhood these are Sir Robts words in the Preface before cited and a strange Inference it is he makes God hath given the Earth to the Children of Men ergo the Title comes from Fatherhood 'T is pitty the Propriety of the Hebrew Tongue had not used Fathers of Men instead of Children of Men to express Mankind then indeed our A might have had the Countenance of the Sound of the words to have placed the Title in the Fatherhood but to conclude that the Fatherhood had the Right to the Earth because God gave it to the Children of Men is a way of arguing peculiar to our A and a Man must have a great mind to go contrary to the Sound as well as Sense of the Words before he could light on it But the Sense is yet harder and more remote from our A s purpose for as it stands in his Preface it is to prove Adams being Monarch and his reasoning is thus God gave the Earth to the Children of Men ergo Adam was Monarch of the World I defie any Man to make a more pleasant Conclusion then this which cannot be excused from the most obvious Absurdity till it can be shewn that by Children of Men he who had no Father Adam alone is signified but whatever our A does the Scripture speaks not Nonsense 32. To maintain this Property and Private Dominion of Adam our A labours in the following page to destroy the Community granted to Noah and his Sons in that parallel place 9 Gen. 1 2 3. and he endeavours to do it two ways 1 o. Sir Robt. would perswade us against the express words of the Scripture that what was here granted to Noah was not granted to his Sons in Common with him His words are As for the general Community between Noah and his Sons which Mr. Selden will have to be granted to them 9 Gen. 2. the Text doth not warrant it what warrant our A would have when the plain
For I confess I cannot see any thing in them tending to Adams Monarchy or Private Dominion but quite the contrary And I the less deplore the dulness of my apprehension herein since I find the Apostle seems to have as little notion of any such Private Dominion of Adam as I when he says God gives us all things richly to enjoy which he could not do if it were all given away already to Monarch Adam and the Monarchs his Heirs and Successors To conclude this Text is so far from proving Adam Sole Proprietor that on the contrary it is a confirmation of the Original Community of all things amongst the Sons of Men which appearing from this Donation of â—od as well as other places of Scripture the Sovereignty of Adam built upon his Private Dominion must fall not having any Foundation to support it 41. But yet if after all any one will needs have it so that by this Donation of God Adam was made sole Proprietor of the whole Earth what will this be to his Sovereignty and how will it appear that Propriety in Land gives a Man Power over the Life of another or how will the Poffession even of the whole Earth give any one a Sovereign Arbitrary Authority over the Persons of Men The most specious thing to be said is that he that is Proprietor of the whole World may deny all the rest of Mankind Food and so at his Pleasure starve them if they will not acknowledge his Sovereignty and obey his Will If this were true it would be a good Argument to prove that there was never any such Property that God never gave any such Private Dominion since it is more reasonable to think that God who bid Mankind increase and multiply should rather himself give them all a Right to make use of the Food and Raiment and other Conveniences of Life the Materials whereof he had so plentifully provided for them then to make them depend upon the Will of a Man for their Subsistance who should have Power to destroy them all when he pleased and who being no better then other Men was in Succession likelyer by want and the dependance of a scanty Fortune to tye them to hard Service then by liberal Allowance of the Conveniences of Life promote the great Design of God Increase and Multiply he that doubts this let him look into the Absolute Monarchies of the World and see what becomes of the Conveniences of Life and the Multitudes of People 42. But we know God hath not left one Man so to the Mercy of another that he may starve him if he please God the Lord and Father of all has given no one of his Children such a Property in his peculiar Portion of the things of this World but that he has given his needy Brother a Right in the Surplussage of his Goods so that it cannot justly be denyed him when his preâ—â—ing wants call for it And therefore no Man could ever have a just Power over the Life of another by Right of Property in Land or Possessions since 't would always be a Sin in any Man of Estate to let his Brother perish for want of affording him Relief out of his Plenty For as Iustice gives every Man a Title to the product of his honest Industry and the fair Acquisitions of his Ancestors descended to him so Charity gives every Man a Title to so much out of anothers Plenty as will keep him from extream want where he has no means to subsist otherwise And a Man can no more justly make use of anothers necessity to force him to become his Vassal by withholding that Relief God requires him to afford to the wants of his Brother then he that has more strength can seize upon a weaker master him to his Obedience and with a Dagger at his Throat offer him Death or Slavery 43. Should any one make so perverse an use of Gods Blessings powred on him with a liberal Hand should any one be Cruel and Uncharitable to that extremity yet all this would not prove that Propriety in Land even in this Case gave any Authority over the Persons of Men but only that Compact might since the Authority of the Rich Proprietor and the Subjection of the Needy Beggar began not from the Possession of the Lord but the Consent of the poor Man who prefer'd being his Subject to starving And the Man he thus submits to can pretend to no more Power over him then he has consented to upon Compact upon this ground a Mans having his Stores filled in a time of Scarcity having Money in his Pocket being in a Vessel at Sea being able to Swim c. may as well be the Foundation of Rule and Dominion as being Possessor of all the Land in the World any of these being sufficient to enable me to save a Mans Life who would perish if such Assistance were denyed him And any thing by this Rule that may be an occasion of working upon anothers necessity to save his Life or any thing dear to him at the rate of his Freedom may be made a Foundation of Sovereignty as well as Property From all which it is clear that tho God should have given Adam Private Dominion yet that Private Dominion could give him no Sovereignty But we have already sufficiently proved that God gave him no Private Dominion CHAP. V. Of Adams Title to Sovereignty by the Subjection of Eve 44. THE next place of Scripture we find our A Build his Monarchy of Adam on is 3. Gen. 26. And thy desire shall be to thy Husband and he shall rule over thee Here we have says he the Original Grant of Government from whence he concludes in the following part of the Page O. 244. that the Supream Power is setled in the Fatherhood and limited to one kind of Government that is to Monarchy For let his premises be what they will this is always the conclusion let but Rule in any Text be but once named and presently Absolute Monarchy is by Divine Right Establish'd if any one will but carefully Read our A s own reasoning from these Words O. 244. and consider among other things the Line and Posterity of Adam as he there brings them in he will find some difficulty to make Sense of what he says But we will allow this at present to his peculiar way of Writing and consider the Force of the Text in hand The words are the Curse of God upon the Woman for having been the first and forwardest in the Disobedience and if we will consider the occasion of what God says here to our first Parents that he was Denouncing Judgment and declaring his Wrath against them both for their Disobedience we cannot suppose that this was the time wherein God was granting Adam Prerogatives and Priviledges investing him with Dignity and Authority Elevating him to Dominion and Monarchy For though as a helper in the Temptation as well as a Partner in the Transgression Eve was laid
whole And doth the rude Plough Man or the more Ignorant Voluptuary Frame or Fashion such an admirable Engine as this is and then put Life and Sense into it can any Mansay he formed the parts that are necessary to the Life of his Child or can he suppose himself to give the Life and yet not know what Subject is fit to receive it nor what Actions or Organs are necessary for its Reception or Preservation 53. To give Life to that which has yet no being is to Frame and make a living Creature fashion the parts and mould and suit them to their uses and having proportion'd and fitted them together to put into them a living Soul He that could do this might indeed have some pretence to destroy his own Workmanship But is there any one so bold that dares thus far Arrogate to himself the Incomprehensible Works of the Almighty who alone did at first and continues still to make a live Soul he alone can breath in the Breath of Life If any one thinks himself an Artist at this let him number up the parts of his Childs Body which he hath made tell me their Uses and Operations and when the living and rational Soul began to Inhabit this curious Structure when Sense began and how this Engine he has framed Thinks and Reasons If he made it let him when it is out of order mend it at least tell wherein the defects lie shall he that made the Eye not see says the Psalmist Psalm 94. 9. See these Mens Vanities The structure of one part is sufficient to convince us of an All wise Contriver and he has so visible a claim to us as his Workmanship that one of the ordinary Apellations of God in Scripture is God our Maker and the Lord our Maker And therefore though our A for the magnifying his Fatherhood be pleased to say O. 159. That even the Power which God himself exerciseth over Mankind is by Right of Fatherhood yet this Fatherhood is such an one as utterly excludes all pretence of Title in earthly Parents for he is King because he is indeed Maker of us all which no Parents can pretend to be of their Children 54. But had Men Skill and Power to make their Children 't is not so slight a piece of Wormanship that it can be imagined they could make them without designing it what Father of a thousand when he begets a Child thinks farther then the satisfying his present Appetite God in his infinite Wisdom has put strong desires of Copulation into the Constitution of Men thereby to continue the race of Mankind which he doth most commonly without the intention and often against the Consent and Will of the Begetter And indeed those who desire and design Children are but the occasions of their being and when they design and wish to beget them do little more towards their making then Deucalion and his Wife in the Fable did towards the making of Mankind by throwing Pebles over their Heads 55. But grant that the Parents made their Children gave them Life and Being and that hence there followed an Absolute Power This would give the Father but a joynt Dominion with the Mother over them for no body can deny but that the Woman hath an equal share if not the greater as nourishing the Child a long time in her own Body out of her own substance There it is fashion'd and from her it receives the Materials and Principles of its Constitution And it is so hard to imagin the rational Soul should presently Inhabit the yet unformed Embrio as soon as the Father has done his part in the Act of Generation that if it must be supposed to derive any thing from the Parents it must certainly owe most to the Mother But be that as it will the Mother cannot be denied an equal share in begetting of the Child and so the Absolute Authority of the Father will not arise from hence our A indeed is of another mind for he says We know that God at the Creation gave the Sovereignty to the Man over the Woman as being the Nobler and Principal Agent in Generation O. 172. I remember not this in my Bible and when the place is brought where God at the Creation gave the Sovereignty to Man over the Woman and that for this Reason because he is the Nobler and Principal Agent in Generation it will be time enough to consider and answer it But it is no new thing for our A to tell us his own Phancies for certain and divine Truths though there be often a great deal of difference between his and divine Revelations for God in the Scripture says his Father and his Mother that begot him 56. They who alledge the Practice of Mankind for exposing or selling their Children as a Proof of their Power over them are with Sr. Robt. happy Arguers and cannot but recommend their Opinion by founding it on the most shameful Action and most unnatural Murder humane Nature is capable of The dens of Lions and Nurseries of Wolves know no such Cruelty as this These Savage Inhabitants of the Desart obey God and Nature in being tender and careful of their Off-spring They will Hunt Watch Fight and almost Starve for the Preservation of their Young never part with them never forsake them till they are able to shift for themselves And is it the priviledge of Man alone to act more contrary to Nature then the Wild and most Untamed Part of the Creation Doth God forbid us under the severest Penalty that of Death to take away the Life of any Man a Stranger and upon Provocation and does he permit us to destroy those he has given us the Charge and Care of and by the dictates of Nature and Reason as well as his reveal'd Command requires us to preserve He has in all the parts of the Creation taken a peculiar care to propagate and continue the several Species of Creatures and makes the Individuals act so strongly to this end that they sometimes neglect their own private good for it and seem to forget that general Rule which Nature teaches all things of self Preservation and the Preservation of their Young as the strongest Principle in them over rules the Constitution of their particular Natures Thus we see when their Young stand in need of it the timerous come Valiant the Feirce and Savage Kind and the Ravenous Tender and Liberal 57. But if the Examples of what hath been done be the Rule of what ought to be History would have furnish'd our A with instances of this Absolute Fatherly Power in its heigth and perfection and he might have shew'd us in Peru People that begot Children on purpose to Fatten and Eat them The Story is so remarkable that I cannot but set it down in the A s Words In some Provinces says he they were so liquorish after Mans Flesh that they would not have the patience to stay still the Breath was out of the Body but would
of the Posterity of Adam not descended from Cain 77. The same inconvenience he runs into about the three Sons of Noah who as he says p. 13. had the whole World divided amongst them by their Father I aâ—k then in which of the three shall we find the Establishment of Regal Power after Noahs Death If in all three as our A there seems to say Then it will follow that Regal Power is founded in Property of Land and follows Private Dominion and not in paternal Power or natural Dominion and so there is an end of paternal Power as the Fountain of Regal Authority and the so much magnified Fatherhood quite vanishes If the Regal Power descended to Shem as Eldest and Heir to his Father then Noahs Division of the World by Lot to his Sons or his 10 Years sayling about the mediterranean to appoint each Son his part which our A tells of p. 15. was labour lost his Division of the World to them was to ill or to no purpose for his Grant to Cham and Iaphet was little worth if Shem notwithstanding this Grant as soon as Noah was dead was to be Lord over them Or if this Grant of Private Dominion to them over their assigned Territories were good here were set up two distinct sorts of Power not Subordinate one to the other with all those inconveniences which he musters up against the Power of the People O. 158. and which I shall set down in his own words only changing Property for People All Power on Earth is either derived or usâ—rped from the Fatherly Power there being no other Original to be found of any Power whatsoever for if there should be granted two sorts of Power without any Subordination of one to the other they would be in perpetual strife which should be Supream for two Supreams cannot agree If the Fatherly Power be Supream then the Power grounded on Private Dominion must be subordinate and depend on it and if the Power grounded on Property be Supream then the Fatherly Power must submit to it and cannot be exercised without the Licence of the Proprietors which must quite destroy the Frame and Course of Natuâ—e This is his own arguing against two distinct Independent Powers which I have set down in his own words only putting Power rising from Property for Power of the People and when he has answered what he himself has urged here against two distinct Powers we shall be better able to see how with any tolerable Sense he can derive all Regal Authority from the natural and Private Dominion of Adam from Fatherhood and Property together which are distinct Titles that do not always meet in the same Person and 't is plain by his own Confession presently seperated as soon both as Adams and Noahs Death made way for Succession Though our A frequently in his Writings jumbles them together and omits not to make use of either where he thinks it will sound best to his purpose but the Absurdities of this will more fully appear in the next Chapter where we shall examine the ways of conveyance of the Soveriegnty of Adam to Princes that were to Reign after him CHAP. VIII Of the Conveyance of Adams Sovereign Monarchical Power 78. SR Rob. having not been very happy in any Proofs he brings for the Sovereignty of Adam is not much more fortunate in conveying it to future Princes who if his Politics be true must all derive their Titles from him The ways he has assigned as they lye scatter'd up and down in his Writings I will set down in his own Words In his Preface he tells us that Adam being Monarch of the whole World none of his Posterity had any right to possess any thing but by his Grant or Permission or by Succession from him here he makes two ways of conveyance of any thing Adam stood possessed of and those are Grant or Succession All Kings either are or are to be reputed the next Heirs to those first Proginetors who were at first the natural Parents of the whole People p. 19. There cannot be any multitude of Men whatsoever but that in it consider'd by it self there is one Man amongst them that in nature hath a right to be the King of all the rest as being the next Heir to Adam O. 253. Here in these places Inheritance is the only way he allows of conveying Monarchical Power to Princes O. 155. All Power on Earth is either derived or usurped from the Fatherly Power O. 158. All Kings that now are or ever were are or were either Fathers of their People or the Heirs of such Fathers or Usurpers of the right of such Fathers O. 253. And here he makes Inheritance or Vsurpation the only ways whereby Kings come by this Original Power But yet he tells us this Fatherly Empire as it was of its self Hereditary so it was alienable by Patent and seizable by an Vsurper O. 190. So then here Inheritance Grant or Usurpation will convey it And last of all which is most admirable he he tells us p. 100. It skils not which way Kings come by their Power whether by Election Donation Succession or by any other means for it is still the manner of the Government by Sâ—pream Power that makes them properly Kings and not the means of obtaining their Crowns which I think is a full answer to all his whole Hypothesis and Discourse about Adams Royal Authority as the Fountain from which all Princes were to derive theirs And he might have spared the trouble of speaking so much as he does up and down of Heirs and Inheritance if to make any one Properly a King needs no more but Governing by Supream Power and it matters not by what means he came by it 79. By this notable way our A may make Oliver as Properly King as any one else he could think of And had he had the Happiness to live under Massanellos Government he could not by this his own Rule have forborn to have done Homage to him with O King live for ever since the manner of his Government by Supream Power made him Properly King who was but the day before Properly a Fisher-man And if Don Quixot had taught his Squire to govern with Supream Authority our A no doubt could have made a most Loyal Subject in Sancho Pancha's Island and he must have deserved some Preferment in such Governments since I think he is the first Politician who pretending to settle Government upon its true Basis and to establish the Thrones of lawful Princes ever tould the World that he was Properly a King whose manner of Government was by Sapream Power by what means soever he obtained it which in plain English is to say that Regal and Supream Power is properly and truly his who can by any means seize upon it and if this be to be Properly a King I wonder how he came to think of or where he will find an Vsurper 80. This is so strange a Doctrin that the
the same Law either Governments in the World are not to be claim'd and held by this Title of Adams Heir and then the starting of it is to no purpose the being or not being Adams Heir signifies nothing as to the Title of Dominion Or if it really be as our A says the true Title to Government and Sovereignty the first thing to be done is to find out this true Heir of Adam seat him in his â—hrone and then all the Kings and Princes of the World come and resign up their Crowns and Scepters to him as things that belong no more to them then to any of their Subjects 105. For either this Right in nature of Adams Heir to be King over all the Race of Men for altogether they make one Multitude is a right not necessary to the making of a Lawful King and so there may be Lawful Kings without it and then Kings Titles and Power depend not on it or else all the Kings in the World but one are not Lawful Kings and so have no Right to Obedience either this Title of Heir to Adam is that whereby Kings hold their Crown and have a Right to Subjection from their Subjects and then one only can have it and the rest being Subjects can require no Obedience from other Men who are but their fellow Subjects or else it is not the Title whereby Kings Rule and have a Right to Obedience from their Subjects and then Kings are Kings without it And this Dream of the natural Sovereignty of Adams Heir is of no use to Obedience and Government For if Kings have a Right to Dominion and the Obedience of their Subjects who are not nor can possibly be Heirs to Adam what use is there of such a Title when we are obliged to obey without it If they have not we are discharged of our Obedience to them for he that has no Right to command I am under no Obligation to obâ—y and we are all free till our A or any body for him will shew us Adams right Heir If there be but onâ— Heir of Adam there can be but one Lawful King in the World and no body in conscience can be obliged to Obedience till it be resolved who that is for it may be any one who is not known to be of a Younger House and all others have equal Titles If there be more then one Heir of Adam every one is his Heir and so every one has Regal Power for if two Sons can be Heirs together then all the Sons are equally Heirs and so all are Heirs being all Sons or Sons Sons of Adam betwixt these two the Right of Heir cannot stand for by it either but one only Man or all Men are Kings and take which you please it dissolves the Bonds of Government and Obedience since if all Men are Heirs they can owe Obedience to no body if only one no body can be obliged to pay Obedience to him till he be known and his Title made out CHAP. XI Who Heir 106. THE great question which in all Ages has disturbed Mankind and brought on them the greatest part of those Mischiefs which have ruin'd Cities depopulated Countries and disordered the Peace of the World has been not whether there be Power in the World nor whence it came but who should have it The seâ—tling of this therefore being of no smaller moment then the security of Princes and the peace and welfare of their Estates and Kingdoms a writer of Politics one would think should take great care in setling this point and be very clear in it For if this remain disputable all the rest will be to very little purpose And by dressing up Power with all the Splendor and Temptation Absoluteness can add to it without shewing who has a right to have it is only to give a greater edg to Mans natural Ambition which of it self is but too apt to be intemperate and to set Men on the more eagerly to Scramble and so lay a sure and lasting Foundation of endless contention and disorder instead of that Peace and Tranquillity which is the business of Government and the end of Human Society 107. This our A is more then ordinarily obliged to do because he affirming that the Assignment of Civil Power is by Divine institution hath made the conveyance as well as the Power it self Sacred so that no Power no consideration can divert it from that Person to whom by this Divine Right it is assigned no necessity or contrivance can substitute another Person in his room For if the Assignment of Civil Power be by Divine Institution and Adams Heir he to whom it is thus Assigned as we see in the foregoing Chapter our A tells us it would be as much Sacriledge for any one to be King who was not Adams Heir as it would have been amongst the Iews for any one to have been Priest who had not been of Aarons posterity For not only the Priesthood in general being by Divine Institution but the Assignment of it to the Sole Line and Posterity of Aaron made it impossible to be injoy'd or exercised by any one but those Persons who are the Off-spring of Aaron whose succession therefore was carefully observed and by that the Persons who had a Right to the Priesthood certainly known 108. Let us see then what care our A has taken to make us know who is this Heir who by Divine Institution has a Right to be King over all Men. The first account of him we meet with is p. 12. in these words This Subjection of Children being the Fountain of all Regal Authority by the Ordination of God himself it follows that Civil Power not only in general is by Divine Institution but even the Assignment of it specifically to the Eldest Parents Matters of such consequence as this is should be in plain words as little liable as might be to Doubt or Equivocation and I think if Language be capable of expressing any thing destinctly and clearly that of Kindred and the several Degrees of nearness of Blood is one It were therefore to be wish'd that our A had used a little more intelligible expressions here that we might have better known who it is to whom the Assignment of Civil Power is made by Divine Institution or at least would have told us what he meant by Eldest Parent for I believe if Land had been Assigned or Granted to him and the Eldest Parents of his Family he would have thought it had needed an Interpreter and 't would scarce have been known to whom next it belong'd 109. In Propriety of Speech and certainly Propriety of Speech is necessary in a discourse of this nature Eldest Parents signifies either the Eldest Men and Women that have had Children or those who have longest had Issue and then our A s assertion will be that those Fathers and Mothers who have been longest in the World or longest Fruitful have by Divine Institution a Right to Civil Power If
there be any absurdity in this our A must answer for it and if hiâ— meaning be different from my explication be is to be blam'd that he would not speak it plainly This I am sure Parents cannot signify Heirs Male nor Eldâ—st Parents an Infant Child who yet may sometimes be the true Heir if there can be but one And we are hereby still as much at a loss who Civil Power belongs to notwithstanding this Assignment by Divine Institution as if there had been no such Assignment at all or our A had said nothing of it This of Eldest Parents leaving us more in the dark who by Divine Institution has a Right to Civil Power then those who never heard any thing at all of Heir or descent of which our A is so full and though the cheif matter of his Writings be to teach Obedience to those who have a Right to it which he tells us is conveyed by descent yet who those are to whom this Right by descent belongs he leaves like the Philosophers Stone in Politics out of the reach of any one to discover from his Writings 110. This obscurity cannot be imputed to want of Language in so great a Master of Stile as Sr. Robt. is when he is resolved with himself what he would say and therefore I fear finding how hard it would be to settle Rules of descent by divine Institution and how little it would be to his purpose or conduce to the clearing and establishing the Titâ—es of Princes if such Rules of descent were settled he chose rather to content himself with doubtful and general terms which might make no ill sound in Mens Ears who were willing to be pleas'd with them rather then offer any clear Rules of descent of this Fatherhood of Adam by which Mens Consciences might be satisfyed to whom it descended and know the Persons who had a Right to Regal Power and with it to their Obedience 111. How else is it possible that laying so much stress as he does upon descent and Adams Heir next Heir true Heir he should never tell us what Heir means nor the way to know who the next or true Heir is This I do not remember he does any where expresly handle but where it comes in his way very warily and doubtfully touch though it be so necessary that without it all discourses of Government and Obedience upon his Principles would be to no purpose and Fatherly Power never so well made out will be of no use to any body hence he tells us O. 244. That not only the Constitution of Power in general but the limitation of it to one kind i. e. Monarchy and the determination of it to the individual Person and Line of Adam are all three Ordinances of God neither Eve nor her Children could either limit Adams Power or joyn others with him and what was given unto Adam was given in his Person to his Posterity Here again our A informs us that the Divine Ordinance hath limited the descent of Adams Monarchical Power to whom To Adams Line and Posterity says our A a notable Limitation a Limitation to all Mankind for if our A can find any one amongst Mankind that is not of the Line and Posterity of Adam he may perhaps tell him who this next Heir of Adam is but for us I despair how this Limitation of Adams Empire to his Line and Posterity will help us to sind out one Heir This Limitation indeed of our A will save those the labour who would look for him amongst the Race of Bruits if any suâ—h there were but will very little contribute to the discovery of one next Heir amongst Men though it make a short and easy determination of the question about the descent of Adams Regal Power by telling us that the Line and Posterity of Adam is to have it that is in plain English any one may have it since there is no Person living that hath not the Title of being of the Line and Posterity of Adam and while it keeps there it keeps within our A s limitation by Gods Ordinance Indeed p. 19. he tells us that such Heirs are not only Lords of their own Children but of their Brethren whereby and by the words following which we shall consider anon he seems to insinuate that the Eldest Son is Heir but he no where that I know says it in direct words but by the instances of Cain and Iacob that there follow we may allow this to be so far his Opinion concerning Heirs that where there are diverse Children the Eldest Son has the Right to be Heir That Primogeniture cannot give any Title to Paternal Power we have already shew'd That a Father may have a natural Right to some kind of Power over his Children is easily granted but that an Elder Brother has so over his Brethren remains to be proved God or Nature has not any where that I know placed such jurisdiction in the first Born nor can Reason find any such natural Superiority amongst Brethren The Law of Moses gave a double Portion of the Goods and Possâ—ssions to the Eldest but we find not any where that naturally or by Gods Institution Superiority or Dominion belong'd to him and the instances there brought by our A are but slender Proofs of a Right to Civil Power and Dominion in the first born and do rather shew the contrary 112. His words are in the forecited place And therefore we find God told Cain of his Brother Abel His desire shall be Subject unto thee and thou shalt Rule over him To which I answer 1 o These words of God to Cain are by many Interpreters with great Reason understood in a quite different Sense then what our A uses them in 2 o Whatever was meant by them it could not be that Cain as Elder had a natural Dominion over Abel for the words are conditional If thou doest well and so personal to Cain and whatever was signified by them did depend on his Carriage and not follow his Birth-right and therefore could by no means be an Establishment of Dominion in the first born in general for before this Abel had his distinct Territories by Right of Private Dominion as our A himself confesses O. 210. which he could not have had to the prejudice of the Heirs Title if by divine Institution Cain as Heir were to inherit all his Fathers Dominion 3 o If this were intended by God as the Charter of Primogeniture and the Grant of Dominion to Elder Brothers in general as such by Right of Inheritance we might expect it should have included all his Brethren for we may well suppose Adam from whom the World was to be peopled by this time that these were grown up to be Men had more Sons then these two whereas Abel himself is not so much as named and the words in the Original can scarce with any good construction be apply'd to him 4 o It is too much to build a Doctrin of so
when I obey him to whom paternal Power gives no Right to my Obedience For he can have no Divine Right to my Obedience who cannot shew his Divine Right to the Power of ruling over me as well as that by Divine Right there is such a Power in the World 121. And hence not being able to make out any Princes Title to Government as Heir to Adam which therefore is of no use and had been better let alone he is fain to resolve all into present Possession and makes Civil Obedience as due to an Vsurper as to a lawful King and thereby the Vsurpers Title as good His words are O. 253. And they deserve to be remembred If an Vsurper dispossess the true Heir the Subjects Obedience to the Fatherly Power must go along and wait upon Gods Providence But I shall leave his Title of Usurpers to be examin'd in its due place and desire my sober Reader to consider what thanks Princes owe such Politics as this which can suppose Paternal Power i. e. a Right to Government into the hands of a Cade or a Cromwell and so all Obedience being due to paternal Power the Obedience of Subjects will be due to them by the same Right and upon as good Grounds as it is to lawful Princes and yet this as dangerous a Doctrine as it is must necessarily follow from making all Political Power to be nothing else but Adams Paternal Power by Right and Divine Institution descending from him without being able to shew to whom it descended or who is Heir to it 122. For I say to settle Government in the World and to lay Obligations to Obedience on any Mans Conscience it is as necessary supposing with our A that all Power be nothing but the being possessed of Adams Fatherhood to satisfie him who has a Right to this Power this Fatherhood when the possessor dyes without Sons to succeed immediately to it as it was to tell him that upon the death of the Father the Eldest Son had a right to it For it is still to be remembr'd that the great question is and that which our A would be thought to contend for if he did not sometimes forget it what Persons have a Right to be obeyed and not whether there be a Power in the World which is to be called Paternal without knowing in whom it resides for so it be a Power i. e. Right to govern it matters not whether it be called Paternal Regal Natural or acquired Supream Fatherhood or Supream Brotherhood provided we know who has it 123. I go on then to ask whether in the inheriting of this Paternal Power this Supream Fatherhood The Grand-Son by a Daughter hath a Right before a Nephew by a Brother whether the Grand-Son by the Eldest Son being an Infant before the Younger Son a Man and able whether the Daughter before the Uncle or any other Man descended by a Male Line whether a Grand-Son by a Younger Daughter before a Grand-Daughter by an Elder Daughter whether the Elder Son by a Concubine before a Younger Son by a Wife from whence also will arise many questions of Legitimation and what in nature is the difference betwixt a Wife and a Concubine for as to the municipal or positive Laws of Men they can signifie nothing here It may farther be asked whether the Eldest Son being a Fool shall inherit this Paternal Power before the Younger a wise Man and what Degree of Folly it must be that shall exclude him and who shall be judge of it whether the Son of a Fool excluded for his Folly before the Son of his wise Brother who Reign'd who has the Paternal Power whilst the Widdow Queen is with Child by the deceased King and no body knows whether it will be a Son or a Daughter which shall be Heir of two Male twins who by the dissection of the Mother were laid open to the World whether a Sister by the half Blood before a Brothers Daughter by the whole Blood 124. These and many more such doubts might be proposed about the Titles of Succession and the Right of Inheritance and that not as idle Speculations but such as in History we shall find have concerned the Inheritance of Crowns and Kingdoms and if ours want them we need not go farther for Famous Examples of it then the other Kingdom in this very Island which having been fully related by the ingenious and Learned Author of Patriarchanon Monarcha I need say no more of And till our A hath resolved all the doubts that may arise about the next Heir and shewed that they are plainly determin'd by the Law of nature or the revealed Law of God all his Suppositions of a Monarchical Absolute Supream Paternal Power in Adam and the descent of that Power to his Heir and so on If I say all these his suppositions were as much demonstrations as they are the contrary yet they would not be of the least use to Establish the Authority or make out the Title of any one Prince now on earth but would rather unsettle and bâ—ing all into question For let our A tell us as long as he please and let all Men believe it too that Adam had a Paternal and thereby a Monarchical Power That this the only Power in the World descended to his Heirs and that there is no other Power in the World but this yet if it be not past doubt to whom this Paternal Power descends and whose now it is no body can be under any Obligation of Obedience unless any one will say that I am bound to pay Obedience to Paternal Power in a Man who has no more Paternal Power then I my self which is all one as to say I obey a Man because he has a Right to govern and if I be asked how I know he has a Right to govern I should answer it cannot be known that he has any at all for that cannot be the reason of my Obedience which I know not to be so much less can that be a reason of my Obedience which no body at all can know 125. And therefore all this ado about Adams Fatherhood the Greatness of its Power and the necessity of its supposal helps nothing to the Establishing the Power of those that govern or determin the Obedience of Subjects who are to obey if they cannot tell whom they are to obey or it cannot be known who are to govern and who to obey And this Fatherhood this Monarchical Power of Adam descending to his Heirs would be of no more Use to the Government of Mankind then it would be to the quieting of Mens Consciencesâ— or securing their Healths if our A had assured them that Adam had a Power to forgive Sins or cure Diseases which by Divine Institution descended to his Heir whilst â—his Heir is impossible to be known And should not be do as rationally who upon this assurance of our A went and confessed his Sins and expected a good Absolution or took Physic with
and therefore did it in his own Right Who knows whether he had any Right at all heat of Passion might carry him to do that which he had no Authority to do Iudah had Dominion of Life and Death how does that appear he exercised it he pronounced Sentence of Death aâ—ainst Thamer our A thinks it very good Proof that because he did it therefore he had a Right to do-it He lay with her also By the same way of Proof he had a Right to do that too if the consequence be good from doing to a Right of doing Absalon too may be reckon'd amongst our A s Sovereigns for he pronounced such a Sentence of Death against his Brother Amnon and much upon a like occasion and had it executed too if that be sufficient to prove a Dominion of Life and Death But allowing this all to be clear Demonstration of Sovereign Power who was it that had this Lordship by Right descending to him from Adam as large and ample as the absolutest Dominion of any Monarch Judah says our A Iudah a younger Son of Iacob his Father and Elder Brethren living so that if our A s own Proof be to be taken a younger Brother may in the Life of his Father and Elder Brothers by Right of descent enjoy Adams Monarchical Power and if one so qualified may be Monarch by descent I know not why every Man may not and if Iudah his Father and Elder Brother living were one of Adams Heirs I know not who can be excluded from this Inheritance all Men by Inheritance may be Monarchs as well as Iudah 130. Touching War we see that Abraham Commanded an Army of 318. Souldiers of his own Family and Esau met his Brother Iacob with 400 Men at Armes For matter of Peace Abraham made a League with Abinéelech c. p. 13. Is it not possible for a Man to have 318. Men in his Family without being Heir to Adam A Planter in the West-Indies has more and might if he pleased who doubts Muster them up and lead them out against the Indians to seek Reparation upon any Injury received from them and all this without the Absolute Dominion of a Monarch descending to him from Adam Would it not be an admirable Argument to prove that all Power by Gods Institution descended from Adam by Inheritance and that the very Person and Power of this Planter were the Ordinance of God because he had Power in his Family over Servants born in his House and bought with his Money For this was Just Abrahams Case Those who were Rich in the Patriarchs Days as in the West-Indies now bought Men and Maid Servants and by their increase as well as purchasing of new came to have large and numerous Families which though they made use of in War or Peace can it be thought the Power they had over them was an Inheritance descended from Adam when 't was the Purchase of their Money A Mans Riding in an expedition against an Enemy his Horse bought in a Fair would be as good a Proof that the owner enjoy'd the Lordship which Adam by Command had over the whole World by Right desâ—ending to him as Abrahams leading out the Servants of his Family is that the Patriarchs enjoy'd this Lordship by descent from Adam since the Title to the Power the Master had in both Cases whether over Slaves or Horses was only from his purchase and the getting a Dominion over any thing by Bargain and Money is a new way of proving one had it by Descent and Inheritance 131. But making War and Peace are marks of Sovereignty Let it be so in Politic Societies may not therefore a Man in the West-Indies who hath with him Sons of his own Friends or Companions Souldiers under Pay or Slaves bought with Money or perhaps a Band made up of all these make War and Peace if there should be occasion and ratifie the â—rticles too with an Oath without being a Sovereign an Absolute King over those who went with him he that says he cannot must then allow many Masters of Ships many Private Planters to be Absolute Monarchs for as much as this they have done War and Peace cannot be made for Politic Societies but by the Supream Power of such Societies because War or Peace giving a different Motion to the force of such a Politic Body none can make War or Peace but that which has the direction of the force of the whole body and that in Politic Societies is only the Supream Power In voluntary Societies for the time he that has such a Power by consent may make War and Peace and so may a single Man for himself the State of War not consisting in the number of Partysans but the enmity of the Parties where they have no Superior to Appeal to 132. The actual making of War or Peace is no Proof of any other Power but only of disposing those to exercise or cease Acts of enmity for whom he makes it and this Power in many Cases any one may have without any Politic Supremacy And therefore the making of War or Peace will not prove that every one that does so is a Politic Ruler much less a King for then Commonwealths must be Kings too for they do as certainly make War and Peace as Monarchical Governments 133. But grant this a mark of Sovereignty in Abraham Is it a Proof of the descent to him of Adams Sovereignty over the whole World If it be it will surely be as good a Proof of the descent of Adams Lordship to others too And then Common-wealths as well as Abraham will be Heirs to Adam for they make War and Peace as well as he If you say that the Lordship of Adam doth not by Right descend to Common-wealths though they make War and Peace the same say I of Abraham and then there is an end of your Argument if you stand to your Argument and say those that do make War and Peace as Common-wealths do without doubt do inherit Adams Lordship there is an end of your Monarchy unless you will say that Common-wealths by descent enjoying Adams Lordship are Monarchies and that indeed would be a new way of making all the Government in the World Monarchical 134. To give our A the Honour of this new invention for I confess it is not I have first found it out by tracing his Principles and so charged it on him 't is fit my Readers know that as absur'd as it may seem he teaches it himself p. 23. where he ingeniously says In all Kingdoms and Common-wealths in the World whether the Prince be the Supream Father of the People or but the true Heir to such a Father or come to the Crown by Vsurpation or Election or whether some few or a Multitude Govern the Common-wealth yet still the Authority that is in any one or in mâ—ny or iâ— all these is the only Right and natâ—râ—l Authority of Supream Father which Right of Fatherhood he often tells us is
then ask the World being divided amongst them which of the three was Adams Heir If Adams Lordship Adams Monarchy by Right descended only to the Eldest then the other two could be but his Subjects his Slaves If by Riâ—ht it descended to all three Brothers by the same Right it will descend to all Mankind and then it will be impossible what he says p. 19. that Heirs are Lords of their Brethren should be true but all Brothers and consequently all Men will be equal and independent all Heirs to Adams Monarchy and consequently all Monarchs too one as much as another But 't will be said Noah their Father divided the World amongst them so that our A will allow more to Noah then he will to God Almighty for O. 211. he thought it hard that God himself should give the World to Noah and his Sons to the prejudice of Noah's Birth-right his words are Noah was left Sole Heir to the World why should it be thought that God would disinherit him of his Birth-right and make him of all Men in the World the only Tenant in Common with his Children and yet here he thinks it fit that Noah should disinherit Shem of his Birth-right and divide the World betwixt him and his Brethren so that this Birth-right when our A pleases must and when he pleases must not be sacred and inviolable 140. If Noah did divide the World between his Sons and his Assignment of Dominions to them were good there is an end of Divine Institution and all our A s discourse of Adams Heir with whatsoever he builds on it is quite out of doors The natural Power of Kings falls to the ground and then the form of the Power governing and the Person having that Power will be all Ordinances of Man and not of God as our A says O. 254 For if the Right of the Heir be the Ordinance of God a Divine Right no Man Father or not Father can alter it If it be not a Divine Right it is only Humane depending on the Will of Man and so where Humane Institution gives it not the first Born has no Right at all above his Brethren and Men may put Government into what hands and under what form they please 141. He goes on most of the civillest Nations of the Earth labour to fetch their Original from some of the Sons or Nephews of Noah p. 14. How many do most of the civillest Nations amount to and who are they I fear the Chineses a very great and civil People as well as several other People of the East West North and South trouble not themselves much about this matter All that believe the Bible which I believe are our A s most of the civillest Nation must necessarily derive themselves from Noah but for the rest of the World they think little of his Sons or Nephews But if the Heralds and Antiquaries of all Nations for 't is these Men generally that Labour to find out the Originals of Nations or all the Nations themselves should Labour to fetch their Original from some of the Sons or Nephews of Noah what would this be to prove that the Lordship which Adam had over the whole World by right descended to the Patriarchs who ever Nations or Races of Men labour to fetch their Original from may be concluded to be thought by them Men of renown famous to Posterity for the greatness of their Vertues and Actions but beyond these they look not nor consider who they were Heirs to but look on them as such as raised themselves by their own Vertue to a Degree that would give a Lustre to those who in future Ages could pretend to derive themselves from them But if it were Ogygis Hercules Brama Tamberlain Pharamond nay Iupiter and Saturn be Names from whence divers Races of Men both ancient and modern have labour'd to derive their Original will that prove that those Men enjoyed the Lordship of Adam by right descending to them If not this is but a Flourish of our A s to mislead his Reader that in it self signifies nothing 142. And therefore to as much purpose is what he tells us p. 15. concerning this Division of the World that some say it was by Lot and others that Noah sail'd round the Mediterranean in ten years and divided the World into Asia Africk and Europe Portions for his three Sons America then it seems was left to be his that could catch it why our A takes such pains to prove the Division of the World by Noah to his Sons and will not leave out an imagination though no better then a Dream that he can find any where to favour it is hard to guess since such a Division if it prove any thing must necessarily take away the Title of Adams Heir unless three Brothers can altogether be Heirs of Adam And therefore the following words Howsoever the manner of this Division be uncertain yet it is most certain the Division it self was by Families from Noah and his Children over which the Parents were Heads and Princes p. 15. If allow'd him to be true and of any force to prove that all the Power in the World is nothing but the Lordship of Adams descending by Right they will only prove that the Fathers of the Children are all Heirs to this Lordship of Adam for if in those days Cham and Iaphet and other Parents besides the Eldest Son were Heads and Princes over their Families and had a right to divide the Earth by Families what hinders Younger Brothers being Fathâ—rs of Families from having the same Right how Cham or Iaphet were Princes by Right descending to him notwithstanding any Title of Heir in his Eldest Brother Younger Brothers by the same Right descending to them are Princes now and so all our A s natural Power of Kings will reach no farther then their own Children and no Kingdom by this natural right can be bigger then a Family For either this Lordship of Adam over the whole World by right descends only to the Eldest Son and then there can be but one Heir as our A says p. 19. or else it by right descends to all the Sons equally and then every Father of a Family will have it as well as the three Sons of Noah take which you will it destroys the present Governments and Kingdoms that are now in the World since whoever haâ— this natural Power of a King by right descending to him must have it either as our A tells us Cain had it and be Lord over his Brethren and so be alone King of the whole World or else as he tells us here Shem Cham and Iaphet had it three Brothers and so be only Prince of his own Family and all Families independent one of another All the World must be only one Empire by the Right of the next Heir or else every Family be a distinct Government of it self by the Lordship of Adams descending to Parents of Families And to this only tends all
Dukes of Edom of Abraham and 9 Kings his Neighbours if Iacob and Esau and 31 Kings in Canaan the 72 Kings mutilated by Adonibeseck the 32 Kings that came to Benaded the 70 Kings of Greece making War at Troy were as our A contends all of them Sovereign Princes ' â—is evident that Kings derived their Power from some other Original then Fatherhood since some of these had Power over more then their own Posterity and 't is Demonstration they could not be all Heirs to Adam For I challenge any Man to make any pretence to Power by Right of Fatherhood either intelligible or possible in any one otherwise then either as Adams Heir or as Progâ—nitor over his own descendants naturally sprung from him And if our A could shew that any one of these Princes of which he gives us here so large a Catalogue had his Authority by either of these Titles I think I might yield him the Cause though 't is manifâ—st they are all impertinent and directly contrary to what he brings them to prove viz. That the Lordship which Adam had over the World by Right descended to the Patriarchs 150. Having told us p. 16. That the Patriarchal Government continued in Abraham Isaac and Jacob until the Egyptian Bondage p. 17. he tells us By manifest Footsteps we may trace this Paternal Government unto the Israelites coming into Egypt where the exercise of Supream Patriarchal Government was intermitted because they were in Subjection to a stronger Prince what these Footsteps are of paternal Government in our A Sense i. e. of Absolute Monarchical Power descending from Adam and exercised by Right of Fatherhood we have seen that is for 2290 Years no Footsteps at all since in all that time he cannot produce any one Example of any Person who Claim'd or Exercised Regal Authority by Right of Fatherhood or shew any one who being a King was Adams Heir All that his Proofs amount to is only this that there were Fathers Patriarchs and Kings in that Age of the World but that the Fathers and Patriarchs had any Asolute Arbitrary Power or by what Titles those Kings had theirs and of what extent it was the Scripture is wholly silent 't is manifest by Right of Fatherhood they neither did nor could claim any Title to Dominion and Empire 151. To say that the Exercise of Supream Patriarchal Government was intermitted because they were in Subjection to a stronger Prince proves nothing but what I before suspected viz. That Patriarchal Iurisdiction or Government was a fallacious expression and does not in our A signifie what he would yet insinuate by it Paternal and Regal Power such an Absolute Sovereignty as he supposes was in Adam 152. For how can he say that Patriarchical Iurisdiction was intermitted in Egypt where there was a King under whose Regal Government the Israelites were If Patriarchal were Absolute Monarchical Iurisdiction and if it were not but something else why does he make such a do about a Power not in question and nothing to the purpose The Exercise of Patriarchal Jurisdiction if Patriarchal be Regal was not intermitted whilst the Israelites were in Egypt 'T is true the Exercise of Regal Power was not then in the hands of any of the promised Seed of Abraham nor before neither that I know but what is that to the intermission of Regal Authority as descending from Adam unless our A will have it that this chosen Line of Abraham had the Right of Inheritance to Adams Lordship and then to what purpose are his instances of the 72 Rulers in whom the Fatherly Authority was preserved in the confusion at Babel of Esau and the 12 Dukes of Edom why are these brought as examples of the exercise of true Patriarchal Government and joyn'd with those of Abraham and Iudah If the exercise of Patriarchical Iurisdiction were intermitted in the World when ever the Posterity of of Iacob had not Supream Power I imagined Monarchical Government would have served his turn in the hands of Pharoh or any body But one cannot easily discover in all places what his discourse tends to as particularly in this place it is not obvious to guess what he drives at when he says the exercise of Supream Patriarchal Iurisdiction in Egypt or how this serves to make out the descent of Adams Lordship to the Patriarchs or any body else 153. For I thought he had been giving us out of Scripture Proofs and Examples of Monarchical Government founded on Paternal Authority descending from Adam and not an History of the Iew amongst whom yet we find no Kings till many Years after they were a People and no mention of their being Heir to Adam or Kings by Paternal Authority when they had them I expected talking so much as he does of Scripture that he would have produced thence a Series of Monarchs whose Titles were clear to Adams Fatherhood and who as Heirs to him own'd and exercised Paternal Jurisdiction over their Subjects and that this was the true Patriarchical Government whereas he neither proves that the Patriarchs were Kings nor that either Kings or Patriarchs were Heirs to Adam or so much as pretended to it And one may as well prove that the Patriarchs were all Absolute Monarchs that the Power both of Patriarchs and Kings was only Paternal and that this Power descended to them from Adam I say all these Propositions may be as well proved by a confused account of a multitude of little Kings in the West-Indies out of Ferdinando Soto or any of our late Histories of the Northern America or by our A s 70 Kings of Greece out of Homer as by any thing he brings out of Scripture in that Multitude of Kings he has reckon'd up 154. And methinks he should have let Homer and his Wars of Troy alone since his great Zeal to Truth or Monarchy carried him to such a pitch of transport against Philosophers and Poets that he tells us in his Preface that there are too many in these days who please themselves in runing after the Opinions of Philosophers and Poets to find out such an Original of Government as might promise them some Title to Liberty to the great Scandal of Christianity and bringing in of Atheism And yet these Heathen Philosophers Aristotle and Poet Homer are not rejected by our zealous Christian Politician when ever they offer any thing that seems to serve his turn But to return to his Scripture History our A farther tells us p. 18. that after the return of the Israelites out of Bondage God out of a special care of them chose Moses and Joshua Successively to Govern as Princes in the place and stead of the Sâ—pream Fathers If it be true that they returned out of Bondage it must be into a State of Freedom and must imply that both before and after this Bondage they were Free unless our A will say that changing of Masters is returning out of Bondage or that a Slave returns out of Bondage when he is
removed from one Gally to another If then they returned out of Bondage 't is plain that in those days whatever our A in his Preface says to the contrary there was difference between a Son a Subject and a Slave and that neither the Patriarchs before nor their Rulers after this Egyptian Bondage numbered their Sons or Subjects amongst their Pâ—ssessions and disposed of them with as Absolute a Dominion as they did their other Goods 155. This is evident in Iacob to whom Reuben offered his two Sons as Pledges and Iudah was at last surety for Benjamins safe return out of Egypt which all had been vain superfluous and but a sort of mockery If Iacob had had the same Power over every one of his Family as he had over his Ox or his Ass as an Owner over his Substance and the offers that Reuben or Iudah made had been such a Security for returning of Benjamin as if a Man should take two Lambs out of his Lords flock and offer one as security that he will safely restore the other 156. When they were out of this Bondage what then God out of a Special care of them the Israelites 'T is well that once in his Book he will allow God to have any care of the People for in other places he speaks of Mankind as if God had no care of any part of them but only of their Monarchs and that the rest of the People the Societies of Men were made as so many Herds of Cattle only for the Service Use and Pleasure of their Princes 157. Chose Moses and Ioshuah Successively to Govern as Princes a shreud Argument our A has found out to prove Gods care of the Fatherly Authority and Adams Heirs that here as an expression of his care of his own People he chooses those for Princes over them that had not the least pretâ—nce to either Moses of the Tribe of Levy and Ioshuah of the Tribe of Ephraim neither of which had any Title of Fatherhood But says our A they were in the place and stead of the Supream Fathers If God had any where as plainly declared his choise of such Fathers to be Rulers as he did of Moses and Ioshuah we might believe Moses and Ioshuah were in their place and stead but that being the question in debate till that be better proved Moses being chosen by God to be Ruler of his People will no more prove that Government belong'd to Adams Heir or to the Fatherhood then Gods choosing Aaron of the â—ribe of Levy to be Priest will prove that the Priesthood belonged to Adams Heir or the Prime-fathers since God could choose Aaron to be Priest and Moses Ruler in Israel though neither of those Offices were setled on Adams Heir or the Fatherhood 158. Our A goes on and after them likewise for a time he raised up Iudges to desend his People in time of peril p. 18. This proves Fatherly Authority to be the Original of Government and that it descended from Adam to his Heirs just as wâ—ll as what went before only here our A seems to confess that these Iudges who were all the Governors they then had were only Men of valour whom they made their Generals to defend them in time of peril and cannot God raise up such Men unless Fatherhood have a Title to Government 159. But says our A when God gave the Israelites Kings he re-established the ancient and prime Right of Lineal Succession to Paternal Government p. 18. 160. How did God re-establish it by a Law a positive command we find no such thing Our A means then that when God gave them a King in giving them a King he re-established the Right c. To re-establish de facto the Right of Lineal Succession to Paternal Government is to put a Man in Possession of that Government which his Fathers did enjoy and he by Lineal Succession had a Right to for first if it were another Government then what his Ancestors had it was not succeeding to an Ancient Right but beginning a new one for if a Prince should give a Man besides his Ancient Patrimony which for some Ages his Family had been dis-seized oâ— an additional Estate never before in the Possession of his Ancestors he could not be said to re-establish the Right of Lineal Succession to any more then what had been formerly enjoy'd by his Ancestors if therefore the Power the Kings of Israel had were any thing more thâ—n Isaac or Iacob hadâ— it was not the re-establishing in them the Right of Succession to a Power but giving them a new Power however you please to call it Paternal or not and whether Isaac and Iacob had the â—ame Power that the Kings of Israel had I desire any one by what has been above said to consider and I do not think they will find that either Abraham Isaac or Iacob had any Regal Power at all 161. Next there can be no Re-establishment of the Prime and Ancient Right of Lineal Succession to any thing unless he that is put in Possession of it has the right to succeed and be the true and next Heir to him he succeeds to can that be a Re-establishment which begins in a new Family or that the Re-establishment of an Ancient Right of Lienal Succession when a Crown is given to one who has no Right of Succession to it and who if the Lineal Succession had gone on had been out of all possibility of pretence to it Saul the first King God gave the Israelites was of the Tribe of Benjamin was the Ancient and Prime Right of Lineal Succession Re-established in him the next was David the Youngest Son of Iesse of the Posterity of Iudah Iacobs 3 d Son was the Ancient and Prime Right of Lineal Succession to Paternal Government Re-establish'd in him or in Solomon his Younger Son and Successor in the Throne or in Ieroboham over the ten â—ribes or in Athaliah who Reigned six Years an utter Stranger to the Royal Blood If the Ancient and Prime Right of Lineal Succession to Paternal Government were Re-establish'd in any of these or their Posterity The Ancient and Prime Right of Lineal Succession to Paternal Government belongs to Younger Brothers as well as Elder and may be Re-establish'd in any Man living for whatever Younger Brothers by Ancient and Prime Right of Lineal Succession may have as well as the Elder that every Man living may have a Right to by Lineal Succession and Sr. Robt. as well as any other And so what a brave Right of Lineal Succession to his Paternal or Regal Government our A has Re-establish'd for the securing the Rights and Inheritance of Crowns where every one may have it let the World consider 162. But says our A however p. 19. whensoever God made choice of any special Person to be King he intended that the issue also should have benefit thereof as being comprehended sufficiently in the Person of the Father although the Father was only named in the
Grant This yet will not help out Succession for if as our A says the benefit of the Grant be intended to the Issue of the Grantee this will not direct the Succession since if God give any thing to a Man and his Issue in general the Claim cannot be to any one of that Issue in particular every one that is of his race will have an equal Right If it be said our A meant Heir I believe our A was as willing as any Body to have used that word if it would have served his turn but Solomon who succeded David in the Throne being no more his Heir then Ieroboam who succeeded him in the Government of the ten Tribes was his issue our A had reason to avoid saying that God intended it to the Heirs when that would not hold in a Succession which our A could not except against and so he has left his Succession as undetermin'd as if he had said nothing about it for if the Regal Power be given by God to a Man and his Issue as the Land of Canaan was to Abraham and his Seed must they not all have a Title to it all share in it And one may as well say that by Gods Grant to Abrâ—ham and his Seed the Land of Canaan was to belong only to one of his Seâ—d exclusive of all others as by Gods Grant of Doâ—inion to a Man and his Issâ—e this Dominion was to belong all to one of his Issue exclusive of all others 163. But how will our A prove that whensoever God made choice of any special Person to be a King he intended that the I suppose he means his Issue also should have benefit thereof Has he so soon forgot Moses and Ioshua whom in this very Section he says God out of a special care chose to govern as Princes and the Judges that God raised up Had not these Princes having the Authority of the Supream Fatherhood the same Power that the Kings had and being specially chosen by God himself should not their Issue have the benefit of that choice as well as David or Solomon If these had the Paternal Authority put into their hands immediately by God why had not their Issue the benâ—fit of this Grant in a Succession to this Power Or if they had it as Adams Heirs why did not their Heirs enjoy it after them by Right descending to them for they could not be Heirs to one another was the Power the same and from the same Original in Moses Ioshua and the Iudges as it was in David and the Kings and was it inheritable in one and not in the other If it was not Paternal Authority then Gods own People were govern'd by those that had not Paternal Authority and those Governours did well enough without it If it were Paternal Authority and God chose the Persons that were to exercise it our A s Rule fails that whensoever God makes choice of any Person to be Supream Ruler for I suppose the name King has no Spell in it 't is not the Title but the Power makes the difference he intends that the Issue also should have the benefit of it since from their coming out of Egypt to Davids time 400 Years the Issue was never so sufficiently comprended in the Person of the Father as that any Son after the Death of his Father succeeded to the Government amongst all those Judges that judged Israel If to avoid this it be said God always chose the Person of the Successor and so transferring the Fatherly Authority to him excluded his Issue from succeeding to it that is manifestly not so in the Story of Iephtha where he Articled with the People and they made him judge over them as is plain Iudg. 11. 164. 'T is in vain then to say that whensoever God chooses any special Person to have the exercise of Paternal Authority for if that be not to be King I desire to know the difference between a King and one having the exercise of Paternal Authority he intends the Issue also should have the benefit of it since we find the Authority the Judges had ended with them and descended not to their Issue and if the Judges had not Paternal Authority I fear it will trouble our A or any of the Friends to his Principles to tell who had then the Paternal Authority that is the Government and Supream Power amongst the Israelites and I suspect they must confess that the chosen People of God continued a People several hundreds of Years without any Knowledge or Thought of this Paternal Authority or any appearance of Monarchical Government at all 165. To be satisfied of this he need but read the Story of the Levitâ— and the War thereupon with the Benjamiâ—es in the 3. last Chap. of Iud. and when he finds that the Levite appeals to the People for Justice that it was the Tribes and the Congregation that debated resolved and directed all that was done on that occasion he must conclude either that God was not careful to preserve the Fatherly Authority amongst his own chosen People or else that the Fatherly Authority may be preserved where there is no Monarchical Government If the latter then it will follow that though Fatherly Authority be never so well proved yet it will not infer a necessity of Monarchical Government If the former it will seem very strange and improbable that God should ordain Fatherly Authority to be so Sacred amongst the Sons of Men that there could be no Power nor Government without it and yet that amongst his own People even whilst he is providing a Government for them and therein prescribes Rules to the several States and Relations of Men this Great and Fundamental one this most material and necessary of all the rest should be concealed and lye neglected for 400 Years after 166. Before I leave this I must ask how our A knows that whensoever God makes choice of any special Person to be King he intends that the Issue should have the benefit thereof does God by the Law of Nature or Revelation say so By the same Law also he must say which of his Issue must enjoy the Crown in Succession and so point out the Heir or else leave his Issue to divide or scramble for the Government both alike absurd and such as will destroy the benefit of such Grant to the Issue When any such Declaration of Gods Intention is produced it will be our Duty to believe God intends it so but till that be done our A must shew us some better Warrant before we shall be obliged to receive him as the Authentic Reveler of Gods Intentions 167. The Issue says our A is comprehended sufficiently in the Person of the Father although the Father only was named in the Grant And yet God when he gave the Land of Canaan to Abraham Gen. 13. 15. thought fit to put his Seed into the Grant too so the Priesthood was given to Aaron and his Seed And the Crown God
Father who is bound to take care for those he hath begot is under an obligation to continue in Conjugal Society with the same Woman longer than other Creatures whose Young being able to subsist of themselves before the time of Procreation returns again the Conjugal Bond dissolves of it self and they are at liberty till Hymen at his usual anniversary Season summons them again to chuse new Mates Wherein one cannot but admire the Wisdom of the great Creator who having given to Man an Ability to lay up for the future as well as supply the present necessity hath made it necessary that Society of Man and Wife should be more lasting than of Male and Female amongst other Creatures that so their Industry might be encouraged and their Interest better united to make provision and lay up Goods for their common Issue which uncertain mixture or easie and frequent solutions of Conjugal Society would mightily disturb 81. But though these are Ties upon Mankind which make the Conjugal Bonds more firm and lasting in a Man than the other species of Animals yet it would give one reason to enquire why this compact where Procreation and Education are secured and Inheritance taken care for may not be made determinable either by consent or at a certain time or upon certain conditions as well as any other voluntary compacts there being no necessity in the nature of the thing nor to the ends of it that it should always be for life I mean to such as are under no Restraint of any positive Law which ordains all such contracts to be perpetual 82. But the Husband and Wife though they have but one common Concern yet having different Understandings will unavoidably sometimes have different wills too it therefore being necessary that the last Determination i. e. the Rule should be placed somewhere it naturally falls to the Man's share as the abler and the stronger But this reaching but to the things of their common Interest and Property leaves the Wife in the full and true possession of what by contract is her peculiar Right and at least gives the Husband no more Power over her than she has over his Life The Power of the Husband being so far from that of an absolute Monarch that the Wife has in many cases a liberty to separate from him where natural Right or their Contract allows it whether that Contract be made by themselves in the state of Nature or by the Customs or Laws of the countrey they live in and the Children upon such Separation fall to the Father or Mother's Lot as such Contract does determine 83. For all the ends of Marriage being to be obtained under politick Government as well as in the state of Nature the civil Magistrate doth not abridge the Right or Power of either naturally necessary to those ends viz. Procreation and mutual Support and Assistance whilst they are together but only decides any Controversie that may arise between Man and Wife about them If it were otherwise and that absolute Soveraignty and Power of life and death naturally belong'd to the Husband and were necessary to the Society between Man and Wife there could be no Matrimony in any of these Countries where the Husband is allowed no such absolute Authority but the ends of Matrimony requiring no such Power in the Husband it was not at all necessary to it the condition of Conjugal Society put it not in him but whatsoever might consist with Procreation and Support of the Children till they could shift for themselves mutual Assistance Comfort and Maintenance might be varied and regulated by that contract which first united them in that Society nothing being necessary to any Society that is not necessary to the ends for which it is made 84. The Society betwixt Parents and Children and the distinct Rights and Powers belonging respectively to them I have treated of so largely in the foregoing Chapter that I shall not here need to say any thing of it And I think it is plain that it is far different from a politick Society 85. Master and Servant are Names as old as History but given to those of far different condition for a Free-man makes himself a Servant to another by selling him for a certain time the Service he undertakes to do in exchange for Wages he is to receive and though this commonly puts him into the Family of his Master and under the ordinary discipline thereof yet it gives the Master but a Temporary Power over him and no greater than what is contained in the Contract between them But there is another sort of Servants which by a peculiar Name we call Slaves who being Captives taken in a just War are by the Right of Nature subjected to the Absolute Dominion and Arbitrary Power of their Masters These Men having as I say forfeited their Lives and with it their Liberties and lost their Estates and being in the state of Slavery not capable of any Property cannot in that state be considered as any part of civil Society the chief end whereof is the preservation of Property 86. Let us therefore consider a Master of a Family with all these subordinate Relations of Wife Children Servants and Slaves united under the domestick rule of a Family which what resemblance soever it may have in its order offices and number too with a little Commonwealth yet is very far from it both in its constitution power and end or if it must be thought a Monarchy and the Paterfamilias the absolute Monarch in it absolute Monarchy will have but a very shattered and short Power when 't is plain by what has been said before That the Master of the Family has a very distinct and differently limited Power both as to time and extent over those several persons that are in it for excepting the Slave and the Family is as much a Family and his Power as Paterfamilias as great whether there be any Slaves in his Family or no he has no Legislative power of Life and Death over any of them and none too but what a Mistress of a Family may have as well as he And he certainly can have no absolute power over the whole Family who has but a very limited one over every individual in it But how a Family or any other Society of Men differ from that which is properly political Society we shall best see by considering wherein political Society it self consists 87. Man being born as has been proved with a title to perfect freedom and an uncontrouled enjoyment of all the Rights and Priviledges of the Law of Nature equally with any other Man or number of Men in the World hath by nature a power not only to preserve his Property that is his Life Liberty and Estate against the injuries and attempts of other men but to judge of and punish the breaches of that Law in others as he is perswaded the offence deserves even with death it self in Crimes where the heinousness of the fact
they a power so to do to give any one or more an absolute Arbitrary Power over their Persons and Estates and put a force into the Magistrates hand to execute his unlimited Will arbitrarily upon them this were to put themselves into a worse condition than the state of Nature wherein they had a Liberty to defend their Right against the Injuries of others and were upon equal terms of force to maintain it whether invaded by a single Man or many in Combination Whereas by supposing they have given up themselves to the absolute Arbitrary Power and Will of a Legislator they have disarmed themselves and armed him to make a prey of them when he pleases He being in a much worse condition that is exposed to the Arbitrary Power of one Man who has the Command of 100000. than he that is expos'd to the Arbitrary Power of 100000. single Men no Body being secure that his Will who has such a Command is better than that of other Men though his Force be 100000. times stronger And therefore whatever Form the Commonwealth is under the Ruling Power ought to govern by declared and received Laws and not by extempory dictates and undetermin'd Resolutions For then Mankind will be in a far worse condition than in the state of Nature if they shall have armed one or a few Men with the joint power of a multitude to force them to obey at pleasure the exorbitant and unlimited decrees of their sudden thoughts or unrestrain'd and till that moment unknown Wills without having any measures set down which may guide and justifie their actions For all the power the Government has being only for the good of the Society as it ought not to be Arbitrary and at Pleasure so it ought to be exercised by established and promulgated Laws that both the People may know their Duty and be safe and secure within the limits of the Law and the Rulers too kept within their due bounds and not be tempted by the power they have in their hands to imploy it to purposes and by such measures as they would not have known and own not willingly 138. Thirdly The Supream Power cannot take from any Man any part of his Property without his own consent For the preservation of Property being the end of Government and that for which Men enter into Society it necessarily supposes and requires that the People should have Property without which they must be suppos'd to lose that by entering into Society which was the end for which they entered into it Too gross an absurdity for any Man to own Men therefore in Society having Property they have such a right to the goods which by the Law of the Community are theirs that no Body hath a right to take them or any part of them from them without their own consent without this they have no Property at all For I have truly no Property in that which another can by right take from me when he pleases against my consent Hence it is a mistake to think that the Supream or Legislative Power of any Commonwealth can do what it will and dispose of the Estates of the Subject arbitrarily or take any part of them at pleasure This is not much to be fear'd in Governments where the Legislative consists wholly or in part in Assemblies which are variable whose Members upon the dissolution of the Assembly are Subjects under the common Laws of their Country equally with the rest But in Governments where the Legislative is in one lasting Assembly always in being or in one Man as in absolute Monarchies there is danger still that they will think themselves to have a distinct interest from the rest of the Community and so will be apt to increase their own Riches and Power by taking what they think fit from the People For a Mans Property is not at all secure though there be good and equitable Laws to set the bounds of it between him and his Fellow Subjects if he who commands those Subjects have power to take from any private Man what part he pleases of his Property and use and dispose of it as he thinks good 139. But Government into whosesoever hands it is put being as I have before shew'd intrusted with this condition and for this end that Men might have and secure their Properties the Prince or Senate however it may have power to make Laws for the regulating of Property between the Subjects one amongst another yet can never have a Power to take to themselves the whole or any part of the Subjects Property without their own consent For this would be in effect to leave them no Property at all And to let us see that even absolute Power where it is necessary is not arbitrary by being absolute but is still limited by that reason and confined to those ends which required it in some Cases to be absolute we need look no farther than the common practice of Martial Discipline For the preservation of the Army and in it of the whole Commonwealth requires an absolute Obedience to the Command of every superiour Officer and it is justly Death to disobey or dispute the most dangerous or unreasonable of them but yet we see that neither the Serjeant that could command a Souldier to march up to the mouth of a Cannon or stand in a Breach where he is almost sure to perish can command that Souldier to give him one penny of his money nor the General that can condemn him to Death for deserting his Post or not obeying the most desperate Orders cannot yet with all his absolute Power of Life and Death dispose of one Farthing of that Souldiers Estate or seize one jot of his Goods whom yet he can command any thing and hang for the least disobedience Because such a blind Obedience is necessary to that end for which the Commander has his Power viz. the preservation of the rest but the disposing of his goods has nothing to do with it 140. 'T is true Governments cannot be supported without great Charge and 't is fit every one who enjoys his share of the Protection should pay out of his Estate his proportion for the maintenance of it But still it must be with his own Consent i. e. the Consent of the Majority giving it either by themselves or their Representatives chosen by them for if any one shall claim a Power to lay and levy Taxes on the People by his own Authority and without such consent of the People he thereby invades the Fundamental Law of Property and subverts the end of Government For what property have I in that which another may by right take when he pleases to himself 141. Fourthly The Legislative cannot transfer the Power of making Laws to any other hands for it being but a delegated Power from the People they who have it cannot pass it over to others The People alone can appoint the Form of the Commonwealth which is by Constituting the Legislative and
appointing in whose hands that shall be And when the People have said We will submit and be govern'd by Laws made by such Men and in such Forms no Body else can say other Men shall make Laws for them nor can they be bound by any Laws but such as are Enacted by those whom they have Chosen and Authorised to make Laws for them 142. These are the Bounds which the trust that is put in them by the Society and the Law of God and Nature have set to the Legislative Power of every Commonwealth in all Forms of Government First They are to govern by promulgated establish'd Laws not to be varied in particular Cases but to have one Rule for Rich and Poor for the Favourite at Court and the Country Man at Plough Secondly These Laws also ought to be designed for no other end ultimately but the good of the People Thirdly They must not raise Taxes on the Property of the People without the Consent of the People given by themselves or their Deputies And this properly concerns only such Governments where the Legislative is always in being or at least where the People have not reserv'd any part of the Legislative to Deputies to be from time to time chosen by themselves Fourthly Legislative neither must nor can transfer the Power of making Laws to any Body else or place it any where but where the People have CHAP. XII Of the Legislative Executive and Federative Power of the Commonwealth 143. THE Legislative Power is that which has a right to direct how the Force of the Commonwealth shall be imploy'd for preserving the Community and the Members of it Because those Laws which are constantly to be Executed and whose Force is always to continue may be made in a little time therefore there is no need that the Legislative should be always in being not having always business to do And because it may be too great temptation to humane frailty apt to grasp at Power for the same Persons who have the Power of making Laws to have also in their hands the power to execute them whereby they may exempt themselves from Obedience to the Laws they make and suit the Law both in its making and execution to their own private advantage and thereby come to have a distinct interest from the rest of the Community contrary to the end of Society and Government Therefore in well order'd Common-wealths where the good of the whole is so considered as it ought the Legislative Power is put into the hands of divers Persons who duly Assembled have by themselves or jointly with others a Power to make Laws which when they have done being separated again they are themselves subject to the Laws they have made which is a new and near tie upon them to take care that they make them for the publick good 144. But because the Laws that are at once and in a short time made have a constant and lasting force and need a perpetual Execution or an attendance thereunto Therefore 't is necessary there should be a Power always in being which should see to the Execution of the Laws that are made and remain in force And thus the Legislative and Executive Power come often to be separated 145. There is another Power in every Commonwealth which one may call natural because it is that which answers to the Power every Man naturally had before he entered into Society For though in a Commonwealth the Members of it are distinct Persons still in reference to one another and as such are governed by the Laws of the Society yet in reference to the rest of Mankind they make one Body which is as every Member of it before was still in the state of Nature with the rest of Mankind so that the Controversies that happen between any Man of the Society with those that are out of it are managed by the publick and an injury done to a Member of their Body engages the whole in the reparation of it So that under this consideration the whole Community is one Body in the state of Nature in respect of all other States or Persons out of its Community 146. This therefore contains the Power of War and Peace Leagues and Alliances and all the Transactions with all Persons and Communities without the Common-wealth and may be called Federative if any one pleases So the thing be understood I am indifferent as to the name 147. These two Powers Executive and Federative though they be really distinct in themselves yet one comprehending the Execution of the Municipal Laws of the Society within its self upon all that are parts of it the other the management of the security and interest of the publick without with all those that it may receive benefit or damage from yet they are always almost united And though this Federative Power in the well or ill management of it be of great moment to the Common-wealth yet it is much less capable to be directed by antecedent standing positive Laws than the Executive and so must necessarily be left to the Prudence and Wisdom of those whose hands it is in to be managed for the publick good For the Laws that concern Subjects one amongst another being to direct their actions may well enough precede them But what is to be done in reference to Foreigners depending much upon their actions and the variation of designs and interests must be left in great part to the Prudence of those who have this Power committed to them to be managed by the best of their Skill for the advantage of the Common-wealth 148. Though as I said the Executive and Federative Power of every Community be really distinct in themselves yet they are hardly to be separated and placed at the same time in the hands of distinct Persons For both of them requiring the force of the Society for their exercise it is almost impracticable to place the Force of the Commonwealth in distinct and not subordinate hands or that the Executive and Federative Power should be placed in Persons that might act separately whereby the Force of the publick would be under different Commands which would be apt sometime or other to cause disorder and ruin CHAP. XIII Of the Subordination of the Powers of the Commonwealth 149. THough in a Constituted Commonwealth standing upon its own Basis and acting according to its own nature that is acting for the preservation of the Community there can be but one Supream Power which is the Legislative to which all the rest are and must be subordinate yet the Legislative being only a Fiduciary Power to act for certain ends there remains still in the People a Supream Power to remove or alter the Legislative when they find the Legislative act contrary to the trust reposed in them For all Power given with trust for the attaining an end being limited by that end when ever that end is manifestly neglected or opposed the trust must necessarily be forfeited and the Power
devolve into the hands of those that gave it who may place it a-new where they shall think best for their safety and security And thus the Community perpetually retains a Supream Power of saving themselves from the attempts and designs of any Body even of their Legislators whenever they shall be so foolish or so wicked as to lay and carry on designs against the Liberties and Properties of the Subject For no Man or Society of Men having a Power to deliver up their Preservation or consequently the means of it to the absolute Will and arbitrary Dominion of another when ever any one shall go about to bring them into such a Slavish Condition they will always have a right to preserve what they have not a Power to part with and to rid themselves of those who invade this Fundamental Sacred and unalterable Law of Self-Preservation for which they enter'd into Society And thus the Community may be said in this respect to be always the Supream Power but not as considered under any Form of Government because this Power of the People can never take place till the Government be dissolv'd 150. In all Cases whilst the Government subsists the Legislative is the supream Power For what can give Laws to another must needs be superiour to him and since the Legislative is no otherwise Legislative of the Society but by the right it has to make Laws for all the parts and every Member of the Society prescribing Rules to their actions and giving power of Execution where they are transgressed the Legislative must needs be the Supream and all other Powers in any Members or parts of the Society derived from and subordinate to it 151. In some Commonwealths where the Legislative is not always in being and the Executive is vested in a single Person who has also a share in the Legislative there that single Person in a very tolerable sense may also be called Supream not that he has in himself all the Supream Power which is that of Law-making but because he has in him the supream Execution from whom all inferiour Magistrates derive all their several subordinate Powers or at least the greatest part of them having also no Legislative superiour to him there being no Law to be made without his consent which cannot be expected should ever subject him to the other part of the Legislative he is properly enough in this sense Supream But yet it is to be observed that though Oaths of Allegiance and Fealty are taken to him 't is not to him as Supream Legislator but as Supream Executor of the Law made by a joint Power of him with others Allegiance being nothing but an Obedience according to Law which when he violates he has no right to Obedience nor can claim it otherwise than as the publick Person vested with the Power of the Law and so is to be consider'd as the Image Phantom or Representative of the Commonwealth acted by the will of the Society declared in its Laws and thus he has no Will no Power but that of the Law But when he quits this Representation this publick Will and acts by his own private Will he degrades himself and is but a single private Person without Power and without Will The Members owing no Obedience but to the publick Will of the Society 152. The Executive Power placed any where but in a Person that has also a share in the Legislative is visibly subordinate and accountable to it and may be at pleasure changed and displaced so that it is not the Supream Executive Power that is exempt from Subordination but the Supream Executive Power vested in one who having a share in the Legislative has no distinct superiour Legislative to be subordinate and accountable to father than he himself shall join and consent so that he is no more subordinate than he himself shall think fit which one may certainly conclude will be but very little Of other Ministerial and subordinate Powers in a Commonwealth we need not speak they being so multiply'd with infinite variety in the different Customs and Constitutions of distinct Common-wealths that it is impossible to give a particular account of them all Only thus much which is necessary to our present purpose we may take notice of concerning them that they have no manner of Authority any of them beyond what is by positive Grant and Commission delegated to them and are all of them accountable to some other Power in the Commonwealth 153. It is not necessary no nor so much as convenient that the Legislative should be always in being But absolutely necessary that the Executive Power should because there is not always need of new Laws to be made but always need of Execution of the Laws that are made When the Legislative hath put the Execution of the Laws they make into other hands they have a power still to resume it out of those hands when they find cause and to punish for any mall-administration against the Laws The same holds also in regard of the Federative Power that and the Executive being both Ministerial and subordinate to the Legislative which as has been shew'd in a Constituted Common-wealth is the Supream The Legislative also in this Case being suppos'd to consist of several Persons for if it be a single Person it cannot but be always in being and so will as Supream naturally have the Supream Executive Power together with the Legislative may assemble and exercise their Legislative at the times that either their original Constitution or their own Adjournment appoints or when they please if neither of these hath appointed any time or there be no other way prescribed to convoke them For the Supream Power being placed in them by the People 't is always in them and they may exercise it when they please unless by their original Constitution they are limited to certain Seasons or by an Act of their Supream Power they have Adjourned to a certain time and when that time comes they have a right to Assemble and act again 154. If the Legislative or any part of it be of Representatives chosen for that time by the People which afterwards return into the ordinary state of Subjects and have no share in the Legislature but upon a new choice this power of chuseing must also be exercised by the People either at certain appointed Seasons or else when they are summon'd to it and in this latter Case the power of convokeing the Legislative is ordinarily placed in the Executive and has one of these two limitations in respect of time That either the Original Constitution requires their Assembling and acting at certain intervals and then the Executive Power does nothing but Ministerially issue directions for their Electing and Assembling according to due Forms Or else it is left to his Prudence to call them by new Elections when the occasions or exigencies of the publick require the amendment of old or making of new Laws or the redress or
nature whereof is that without a Man 's own consent it cannot be taken from him 194. Their Persons are free by a native Right and their Properties be they more or less are their own and at their own dispose and not at his or else it is no Property Supposing the Conquerour gives to one Man a Thousand Acres to him and his Heirs for ever to another he lets a Thousand Acres for his Life under the Rent of 50 l. or 500 l. per An. Has not the one of these a Right to his Thousand Acres for ever and the other during his Life paying the said Rent And hath not the Tenant for Life a Property in all that he gets over and above his Rent by his Labour and Industry during the said term supposing it be double the Rent Can any one say the King or Conquerour after his Grant may by his Power of Conquerour take away all or part of the Land from the Heirs of one or from the other during his Life he paying the Rent Or can he take away from either the Goods or Money they have got upon the said Land at his pleasure If he can then all free and voluntary Contracts cease and are void in the World there needs nothing but Power enough to dissolve them at any time And all the Grants and Promises of Men in Power are but Mockery and Collusion For can there be any thing more ridiculous than to say I give you and yours this for ever and that in the surest and most solemn way of conveyance can be devised and yet it is to be understood that I have Right if I please to take it away from you again to morrow 195. I will not dispute now whether Princes are exempt from the Laws of their Countrey but this I am sure they owe subjection to the Laws of God and Nature No Body no Power can exempt them from the Obligations of that Eternal Law Those are so great and so strong in the case of Promises that Omnipotency it self can be tyed by them Grants Promises and Oaths are Bonds that hold the Almighty what-ever some Flatterres say to Princes of the World who all together with all their People joined to them are in comparison of the great God but as a Drop of the Bucket or a Dust on the Balance inconsiderable nothing 196. The short of the Case in Conquest is this The Conquerour if he have a just Cause has a Despotical Right over the Persons of all that actually aided and concurred in the War against him and a Right to make up his Damage and Cost out of their Labour and Estates so he injure not the Right of any other Over the rest of the People if there were any that consented not to the War and over the Children of the Captives themselves or the Possessions of either he has no Power and so can have by Virtue of Conquest no lawful Title himself to Dominion over them or derive it to his Posterity but is an Aggressour and puts himself in a state of War against them and has no better a Right of Principality he nor any of his Successours than Hingar or Hubba the Danes had here in England or Spartacus had he conquered Italy which is to have their Yoke cast off as soon as God shall give those under their subjection Courage and Opportunity to do it Thus notwithstanding whatever Title the Kings of Assyria had over Iudah by the Sword God assisted Hezekiah to throw off the Dominion of that conquering Empire And the Lord was with Hezekiah and he prospered wherefore he went forth and he rebelled against the King of Assyria and served him not 2 Kings XVIII vij Whence it is plain that shaking off a Power which Force and not Right hath set over any one though it hath the Name of Rebellion yet is no Offence before God but that which he allows and countenances though even Promises and Covenants when obtain'd by force have intervened For 't is very probable to any one that reads the Story of Ahaz and Hezekiah attentively that the Assyrians subdued Ahaz and deposed him and made Hezekiah King in his Father's life time and that Hezekiah by agreement had done him Homage and paid him Tribute till this time CHAP. XVII Of VSVRPATION 197. AS Conquest may be called a foreign Usurpation so Usurpation is a kind of domestick Conquest with this difference that an Usurper can never have Right on his side it being no Usurpation but where one is got into the Possession of what another has Right to This so far as it is Usurpation is a change only of Persons but not of the Forms and Rules of the Government for if the Usurper extend his Power beyond what of Right belonged to the lawful Princes or Governours of the Common-wealth 't is Tyranny added to Usurpation 198. In all lawful Governments the designation of the Persons who are to bear Rule being as natural and necessary a part as the Form of the Government it self and that which had its Establishment originally from the People The Anarchy being much alike to have no Form of Government at all or to agree that it shall be Monarchical but to appoint no way to design the Person that shall have the Power and be the Monarch All Commonwealths therefore with the Form of Government established have Rules also of appointing and conveying the Right to those who are to have any share in the publick Authority And who-ever gets into the exercise of any part of the Power by other ways than what the Laws of the Community have prescribed hath no Right to be obeyed though the Form of the Commonwealth be still preserved since he is not the Person the Laws have appointed and consequently not the Person the People have consented to Nor can such an Usurper or any deriving from him ever have a Title till the People are both at liberty to consent and have actually consented to allow and confirm in him the Power he hath till then Usurped CHAP. XVIII Of TYRANNY 199. AS Usurpation is the exercise of Power which another hath a Right to so Tyranny is the exercise of Power beyond Right which no Body can have a Right to And this is making use of the Power any one has in his hands not for the good of those who are under it but for his own private separate Advantage When the Governour however entituled makes not the Law but his Will the Rule and his Commands and Actions are not directed to the preservation of the Properties of his People but the satisfaction of his own Ambition Revenge Covetousness or any other irregular Passion 200. If one can doubt this to be Truth or Reason because it comes from the obscure hand of a Subject I hope the Authority of a King will make it pass with him King Iames in his Speech to the Parliament 1603. tells them thus I will ever prefer the Weale of the publick and of
But this Priviledge belonging only to the King's Person hinders not but they may be questioned opposed and resisted who use unjust force though they pretend a Commission from him which the Law authorizes not As is plain in the Case of him that has the King 's Writ to arrest a Man which is a full Commission from the King and yet he that has it cannot break open a Man's House to do it nor execute this Command of the King upon certain days nor in certain places though this Commission have no such exception in it but they are the Limitations of the Law which if any one transgress the King's Commission excuses him not For the King's Authority being given him only by the Law he cannot impower any one to act against the Law or justifie him by his Commission in so doing The Commission or Command of any Magistrate where he has no Authority being as void and insignificant as that of any private Man The difference between the one and the other being that the Magistrate has some Authority so far and to such ends and the private Man has none at all For 't is not the Commission but the Authority that gives the Right of acting and against the Laws there can be no Authority But notwithstanding such Resistance the King's Person and Authority are still both secured and so no danger to Governour or Government 207. Thirdly Supposing a Government wherein the Person of the chief Magistrate is not thus Sacred yet this Doctrine of the lawfulness of resisting all unlawful exercises of his Power will not upon every slight occasion indanger him or imbroil the Government For where the injured Party may be relieved and his damages repaired by Appeal to the Law there can be no pretence for Force which is only to be used where a Man is intercepted from appealing to the Law For nothing is to be accounted Hostile Force but where it leaves not the remedy of such an Appeal And 't is such Force alone that puts him that uses it into a state of War and makes it lawful to resist him A Man with a Sword in his hand demands my Purse in the High-way when perhaps I have not 12 d. in my Pocket This Man I may lawfully kill To another I deliver 100 l. to hold only whilst I alight â—hich he refuses to restore me when I am got up again but draws his Sword to defend the possession of it by force I endeavour to retake it The mischief this Man does me is a hundred or possibly a thousand times more than the other perhaps intended me whom I kill'd before he really did me any and yet I might lawfully kill the one and cannot so much as hurt the other lawfully The Reason whereof is plain because the one using force which threatned my Life I could not have time to appeal to the Law to secure it And when it was gone 't was too late to appeal The Law could not restore Life to my dead Carcass The Loss was irreparable which to prevent the Law of Nature gave me a Right to destroy him who had put himself into a state of War with me and threatned my destruction But in the other case my Life not being in danger I might have the benefit of appealing to the Law and have Reparation for my 100 l. that way 208. Fourthly But if the unlawful acts done by the Magistrate be maintained by the Power he has got and the remedy which is due by Law be by the same Power obstructed yeâ— the Right of resisting even in such manifest Acts of Tyranny will not suddenly or on slight occasions disturb the Government For if it reach no farther than some private Mens Cases though they have a right to defend themselves and to recover by force what by unlawful force is taken from them yet the Right to do so will not easily ingage them in a Contest wherein they are sure to perish It being as impossible for one or a few oppressed Men to disturb the Government where the Body of the People do not think themselves concerned in it as for a raving mad Man or heady Male content to overturn a well setled State the People being as little apt to follow the one as the other 209. But if either these illegal Acts have extended to the Majority of the People or if the Mischief and Oppression has light only on some few but in such Cases as the Precedent and Consequences seem to threaten all and they are perswaded in their Consciences that their Laws and with them their Estates Liberties and Lives are in danger and perhaps their Religion too how they will be hindred from resisting illegal Force used against them I cannot tell This is an Inconvenience I confess that attends all Governments whatsoever when the Governours have brought it to this pass to be generally suspected of their People the most dangerous state they can possibly put themselves in wherein they are the less to be pityed because it is so easie to be avoided It being as impossible for a Governour if he really means the good of his People and the preservation of them and their Laws together not to make them see and feel it as it is for the Father of a Family not to let his Children see he loves and takes care of them 210. But if all the World shall observe Pretences of one kind and Actions of another Arts used to elude the Law and the Trust of Prerogative which is an Arbitrary Power in some things left in the Prince's hand to do good not harm to the People employed contrary to the end for which it was given If the People shall find the Ministers and subordinate Magistrates chosen suitable to such ends and favoured or laid by proportionably as they promote or oppose them If they see several Experiments made of Arbitrary Power and that Religion underhand favoured though publickly proclaimed against which is readiest to introduce it and the Operators in it supported as much as may be and when that cannot be done yet approved still and liked the better and a long Train of Actings shew the Councils all tending that way how can a Man any more hinder himself from being perswaded in his own Mind which way things are going or from casting about how to save himself than he could from believing the Captain of the Ship he was in was carrying him and the rest of the Company to Algiers when he found him always stearing that Course though cross Winds Leaks in his Ship and want of Men and Provisions did often force him to turn his Course another way for some time which he steadily returned to again as soon as the Wind Weather and other Circumstances would let him CHAP. XIX Of the Dissolution of Governments 211. HE that will with any clearness speak of the Dissolution of Government ought in the first place to distinguish between the Dissolution of the Society and the Dissolution of the
contulit ac regnum quod liberum à majoribus populo traditum accepit alienae ditioni mancipavit Nam tunc quamvis forte non eâ mente id agit populo plane ut incommodet tamen quia quod praecipuum est regiae dignitatis amisit ut summus scilicet in regno secundum Deum sit solo Deo inferior atque populum etiam totum ignorantem vel invitum cujus libertatem sartam tectam conservare debuit in alterius gentis ditionem potestatem dedidit hác velut quadam regni abalienatione effecit ut nec quod ipse in regno imperium habuit râ—tineat nec in eum cui collatum voluit juris quicquam transeraâ— atque ita eo facto liberum jam suae potestatis populum relinquit cujus rei exemplum unum annales Scotici suppeditant Barclay contra Monarchom l. 3. c. 16. which may be thus Englished 237. What then Can there no Case happen wherein the people may of right and by their own Authority help themselves take Arms and set upon their King imperiously domineering over them None at all whilst he remains a King Honour the King and he that resists the Power resists the Ordinance of God are divine Oracles that will never permit it The People therefore can never come by a Power over him unless he does something that makes him cease to be a King For then he divests himself of his Crown and Dignity and returns to the state of a private Man and the People become free and superiour the Power which they had in the Interregnum before they Crown'd him King devolving to them again But there are but few miscarriages which bring the matter to this state After considering it well on all sides I can find but two Two Cases there are I say whereby a King ipso facto becomes no King and loses all Power and Regal Authority over his People which are also taken notice of by Winzerus The first is if he indeavour to overturn the Government that is if he have a purpose and design to ruin the Kingdom and Commonwealth as it is recorded of Nero that he resolved to cut off the Senate and People of Rome lay the City wast with Fire and Sword and then remove to some other place And of Caligula that he openly declar'd that he would be no longer a head to the People or Senate and that he had it in his thoughts to cut off the worthiest Men of both Ranks and then retire to Alexandria and he wisht that the People had but one Neck that he might dispatch them all at a blow Such designs as these when any King harbours in his thoughts and seriously promotes he immediately gives up all care and thought of the Commonwealth and consequently forfeits the Power of Governing his Subjects as a Master does the dominion over his Slaves whom he hath abandon'd 238. The other Case is When a King makes himself the dependent of another and subjects his Kingdom which his Ancestors left him and the People put free into his hands to the Dominion of another For however perhaps it may not be his intention to prejudice the People yet because he has hereby lost the principal part of Regal Dignity viz. to be next and immediately under God Supream in his Kingdom and also because he betray'd or forced his People whose liberty he ought to have carefully preserved into the Power and Dominion of a Foreign Nation By this as it were alienation of his Kingdom he himself loses the Power he had in it before without transferring any the least right to those on whom he would have bestowed it and so by this act sets the People free and leaves them at their own disposal One Example of this is to be found in the Scotch Annals 239. In these Cases Barclay the great Champion of Absolute Monarchy is forced to allow That a King may be resisted and ceases to be a King That is in short not to multiply Cases In whatsoever he has no Authority there he is no King and may be resisted For wheresoever the Authority ceases the King ceases too and becomes like other Men who have no Authority And these two Cases he instances in differ little from those above mention'd to be destructive to Governments only that he has omitted the Principle from which his Doctrine flows and that is The breach of trust in not preserving the Form of Government agreed on and in not intending the end of Government it self which is the publick good and preservation of Property When a King has Dethron'd himself and put himself in a state of War with his People what shall hinder them from prosecuting him who is no King as they would any other Man who has put himself into a state of War with them Barclay and those of his Opinion would do well to tell us Bilson a Bishop of our Church and a great Stickler for the Power and Prerogative of Princes does if I mistake not in his Treatise of Christian Subjection acknowledge That Princes may forfeit their Power and their title to the Obedience of their Subjects and if there needed authority in a Case where reason is so plain I could send my Reader to Bracton Fortescue and the Author of the Mirror and others Writers that cannot be suspected to be ignorant of our Government or Enemies to it But I thought Hooker alone might be enough to satisfie those Men who relying on him for their Ecclesiastical Polity are by a strange fate carried to deny those Principles upon which he builds it Whether they are herein made the Tools of Cunninger Workmen to pull down their own Fabrick they were best look This I am sure their civil Policy is so new so dangerous and so destructive to both Rulers and People that as former Ages never could bear the broaching of it so it may be hoped those to come redeem'd from the Impositions of these Egyptian Under-Taskmasters will abhor the Memory of such servile Platterers who whilst it seem'd to serve their turn resolv'd all Government into absolute Tyranny and would have all Men born to what their mean Souls fitted them Slavery 240. Here 't is like the common Question will be made who shall be Judge whether the Prince or Legislative act contrary to their Trust This perhaps ill-affected and factious Men may spread amongst the People when the Prince only makes use of his due Prerogative To this I reply The People shall be Judge for who shall be Judge whether his Trustee or Deputy acts well and according to the Trust reposed in him but he who deputes him and must by having deputed him have still a Power to discard him when he fails in his Trust If this be reasonable in particular Cases of private Men why should it be otherwise in that of the greatest moment where the Welfare of Millions is concerned and also where the evil if not prevented is greater and the Redress
Terms Honour thy Mother as if all Power were Originally in the Mother I appeal whether the Argument be not as good on one side as the other Father and Mother being joyned all along in the Old and New Testament where Honour or Obedience is injoyn'd Children again our A tell us O. 254. that this command Honour thy Father gives the right to govern and makes the Form of Government Monarchical To which I answer that if by Honour thy Father be meant Obedience to the Political Power of the Magistrate it concerns not any duty we owe to our Natural Fathers who are Subjects because they by our A s Doctrin are divested of all that Power it being placed wholly in the Prince and so being equally Subjects and Slaves with their Children can have no right by that Title to any such Honour or Obedience as contains in it Political Subjection If Honour thy Father and Mother signifies the duty we owe our Natural Parents as by our Saviours Interpretation Math. 15. 4. and all the other mention'd places 't is plain it does then it cannot concern Political Obedience but a duty that is owing to Persons who have no Title to Sovereignty nor any Political Authority as Magistrates over Subjects for the Person of a private Father and a Title to Obedience due to the Supream Magistrate are things inconsistent and therefore this command which must necessarily comprehend the Persons of our Natural Fathers must mean a duty we owe them distinct from our Obedience to the Magistrate and from which the most Absolute Power of Princes cannot absolve us what this duty is we shall in its due place examin 67. And thus we have at last got through all that in our A looks like an Argument for that Absolute unlimited Sovereginty described Sect. 8. which he supposes in Adam so that Mankind ever since have all been born slaves without any Title to Freedom But if Creation which gave nothing but a Being made not Adam Prince of his Posterity If Adam Gen. 1. 28. was not constituted Lord of Mankind nor had a Private Dominion given him exclusive of his Children but only a Right and Power over the Earth and inferiour Creatures in common with the Children of Men If also Gen. 3. 16. God gave not any Political Power to Adam over his Wife and Children but only Subjected Eve to Adam as a punishment or foretold the Subjection of the weaker Sex in the ordering the common concernments of their Families but gave not thereby to Adam as to the Husband Power of Life and Death which necessarily belongs to the Magistrate if Fathers by begetting their Children acquire no such Power over them and if the command Honour thy Father and Mother give it not but only enjoyns a duty owing to Parents equally whether Subjects or not and to the Mother as well as the Father If all this be so as I think by what has been said is very evident then Man hás a Natural Freedom notwithstanding all our A confidently says to the contrary since all that share in the same common Nature Faculties and Powers are in Nature equal and ought to partake in the same common Rights and Priviledges till the manifest appointment of God who is Lord over all Blessed for ever can be produced to shew any Particular Persons Supremacy or a Man 's own Consent Subjects him to a Superior This is so plain that our A confesses that Sr. Iohn Heyward Blacwood and Barclay the great vindicators of the Right of Kings could not deny it but admit with one consent the Natural Liberty and Equality of Mankind for a Truth unquestionable And our A hath been so far from producing any thing that may make good his great Position that Adam was Absolute Monarch and so Men are not Naturally free that even his own Proofs make against him so that to use is own way of Arguing This first erroneous Principle failing the whole Fabrick of this vast engine of Absolute Power and Tyranny drops down of it self and there needs no more to be said in answer to all that he builds upon so false and frail a Foundation 68. But to save others the pains were there any need he is not sparing himself to shew by his own contradictions the weakness of his own Doctrins Adams Absolute and Sole Dominion is that which he is every where full of and all along builds on and yet he tells us p. 12. that as Adam was Lord of his Children so his Children under him had a Command and Power over their own Children The unlimited and undivided Sovereginty of Adams Fatherhood by our A s computation stood but a little while only during the first Generation but as soon as he had Grand-Children Sr. Rob. could give but a very ill account of it Adam as Father of hiâ— Children saith he hath an Absolute Unlimited Royal Power over thâ—m and by vertue thereof over those that they begot and so to all Generations and yet his Children viz. Cain and Seth have a Paternal Power over their Children at the same time so that they are at the same time Absolute Lords and yet Subjects and Slaves Adam has all the Authority as Grand-Father of his People and they have a part as Fathers He is Absolute over them and their Posterity by having begotten them and yet they are Absolute over their Children by the same Title no says our A Adams Children under him had Power over their own Children but still with Subordination to the the first Parent A good distinction that sounds well and 't is pitty it signifies nothing nor can be reconciled with our A s Words I readily grant that supposing Adams Absolute Power over his Posterity any of his Children might have from him a delegated and so a Subordinate Power over a part or all the rest But that cannot be the Power our A speaks of here it is not a Power by Grant and Commission but the Natural Paternal Power he supposes a Father to have over his Children for 1 o he says as Adam was Lord of his Children so his Children under him had a Power over their own Children They were then Lords over their own Children after the same manner and by the same Title that Adam was i. e. by right of Generation by right of Fatherhood 2 o 't is plain he means the Natural Power of Fathers because he limits it to be only over their own Children a delegated Power has no such limitation as only over their own Children it might be over others as well as their own Children 3 o If it were a delegated Power it must appear in Scripture but there is no ground in Scripture to affirm that Adam's Children had any other Power over theirs then what they naturally had as Fathers 69. But that he means here Paternal Power and no other is past doubt from the Inference he makes in those words immediately following I see not then how the Children of Adam or