A man's 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 man's life, who would perish if such assistance were denied him. And anything by this rule that may be an occasion of working upon another's necessity to save his life or anything 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 though 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.

CHAPTER V.

Of Adam's Title to Sovereignty by the Subjection of Eve.

44. THE next place of Scripture we find our author build his monarchy of Adam on is Gen. iii. 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 supreme power is settled 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 established. If any one will but carefully read our author'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 privileges, 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 below him, and so he had accidentally a superiority over her for her greater punishment; yet he, too, had his share in the Fall as well as the sin, and was laid lower, as may be seen in the following verses; and it would be hard to imagine that God, in the same breath, should make him universal monarch over all mankind, and a day-labourer for his life. Turn him out of Paradise" to till the ground" (ver. 23), and at the same time advance him to a throne and all the privileges and ease of absolute power.

45. This was not a time when Adam could expect any favours, any grant of privileges from his offended Maker. If this be the "original grant of government," as our author tells us, and Adam was now made monarch, whatever Sir Robert would have him, it is plain God made him but a very poor monarch, such an one as our author himself would have counted it no great privilege to be. God sets him to work for his living, and seems rather to give him a spade into his hand to subdue the earth, than a sceptre to rule over its inhabitants. "In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat thy bread," says God to him (ver. 19). This was unavoidable, may it perhaps be answered, because he was yet without subjects, and had nobody to work for him; but afterwards, living as he did above 900 years, he might have people enough whom he might command to work for him. "No," says God, "not only whilst thou art without other help save thy wife, but as long as thou livest shalt thou live by thy labour." "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread, till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt

thou return" (ver. 19). It will perhaps be answered again in favour of our author, that these words are not spoken personally to Adam, but in him, as their representative to all mankind, this being a curse upon mankind because of the Fall.

46. God, I believe, speaks differently from men, because He speaks with more truth, more certainty; but when He vouchsafes to speak to men, I do not think He speaks differently from them in crossing the rules of language in use amongst them; this would not be to condescend to their capacities, when He humbles Himself to speak to them, but to lose His design in speaking what, thus spoken, they could not understand. And yet thus must we think of God, if the interpretations of Scripture necessary to maintain our author's doctrine must be received for good; for, by the ordinary rules of language, it will be very hard to understand what God says; if what He speaks here, in the singular number, to Adam, must be understood to be spoken to all mankind, and what He says in the plural number (Gen. i. 26 and 28), must be understood of Adam alone, exclusive of all others; and what He says to Noah and his sons jointly must be understood to be meant to Noah alone (Gen. ix.).

47. Further, it is to be noted, that these words here of Gen. iii. 16, which our author calls "the original grant of government," were not spoken to Adam, neither, indeed, was there any grant in them made to Adam, but a punishment laid upon Eve; and if we will take them as they were directed in particular to her, or in her, as a representative to all other women, they will at most concern the female sex only, and import no more but that subjection they should ordinarily be in to their husbands; but there is here no more law to oblige a woman to such a subjection, if the circumstances either of her condition or contract with her husband should exempt her from it, than there is that she should bring forth her children in sorrow and pain if there could be found a remedy for it, which is also a part of the same curse upon her, for the whole verse runs thus: "Unto the woman He said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule

over thee." It would, I think, have been a hard matter for anybody but our author to have found out a grant of "monarchical government to Adam in these words, which were neither spoke to nor of him; neither will any one, I suppose, by these words think the weaker sex, as by a law so subjected to the curse contained in them, that it is their duty not to endeavour to avoid it. And will any one say that Eve, or any other woman, sinned if she were brought to bed without those multiplied pains God threatens her here with, or that either of our Queens, Mary or Elizabeth, had they married any of their subjects, had been by this text put into a political subjection to him, or that he thereby should have had "monarchical rule" over her? God in this text gives not, that I see, any authority to Adam over Eve, or men over their wives, but only foretells what should be the woman's lot, how by His Providence He would order it so that she should be subject to her husband, as we see that generally the laws of mankind and customs of nations have ordered it so, and there is, I grant, a foundation in Nature for it.

48. Thus when God says of Jacob and Esau that "the elder should serve the younger" (Gen. xxv. 23), nobody supposes that God hereby made Jacob Esau's sovereign, but foretold what should de facto come to pass.

But if these words here spoke to Eve must needs be understood as a law to bind her and all other women to subjection, it can be no other subjection than what every wife owes her husband, and then if this be the "original grant of government" and the "foundation of monarchical power," there will be as many monarchs as there are husbands. If therefore these words give any power to Adam, it can be only a conjugal power, not political-the power that every husband hath to order the things of private concernment in his family, as proprietor of the goods and land there, and to have his will take place in all things of their common concernment before that of his wife; but not a political power of life and death over her, much less over anybody else.

49. This I am sure. If our author will have this text to be a "grant, the original grant of government," political government, he ought to have proved it by some better arguments

than by barely saying, that "thy desire shall be unto thy husband," was a law whereby Eve and all that should come of her were subjected to the absolute monarchical power of Adam and his heirs. "Thy desire shall be to thy husband,” is too doubtful an expression, of whose signification interpreters are not agreed, to build so confidently on, and in a matter of such moment and so great and general concernment; but our author, according to his way of 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 margin, and it immediately signifies the duty of a subject to his prince, and the relation is changed; and though God says "husband," Sir Robert will have it "king." Adam has presently "absolute monarchical 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 author 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 chap. i. 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 monarchical power" our author 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 "monarchical" power, but the subjection of Eve, a wife to her husband. And he that would treat our author 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 denied that by this text" the supreme power" was settled and founded by God himself, in the fatherhood, limited to monarchy, and that to Adam's person and heirs, all which our author 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 author found out" monarchical absolute power" in it, had he not had an exceeding good faculty to find it himself, where he could